Template talk:Infobox country/Archive 15

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Archive 15

Provide CO2 Emissions

Dear maintainers, I am writing to request that the country infobox be enhanced with CO2 data from e.g. our world in data) since that would help contribute to a better understanding of the impact of different countries on our environment.

• https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions#per-capita-co2-emissions
• https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions#annual-co2-emissions
• https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions#annual-change-in-co2-emissions

Stoffl32 (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose....as this is not something that's covered in the average country article. Moxy- 19:37, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't the average country article then cover CO2 emissions as well, similar to GDP or Gini? Stoffl32 (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

This could be done by adding a sentence or 2 in the proper section in the body of the article [1] Moxy- 21:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

The average country article could and certainly should mention this. I don't really see why the infobox shouldn't give it too, as a simple numerical fact.

Note, also, that we have a page List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions, which is now desperately in need of updating. Furius (talk) 22:39, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Few if any external reliable sources include this as a basic fact about any country. CMD (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Few, if any, give the HDI, either: CIA, Britannica (despite giving many facts that we do not, like life expectancy at birth).

I don't actually think WP:RS covers what we should include in an infobox; it only requires that there be RS for the data in the infobox (which Stoffl32 has provided). Furius (talk) 07:42, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

If not RS, what would you use to assess WP:DUE inclusion? CMD (talk) 07:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

another resource, which definitely can be seen as reliable: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2022?vis=tot#emissions_table 212.186.229.30 (talk) 13:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Currently updating the article based on the latest EDGAR report. Stoffl32 (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

regarding what Furious said about the List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions page. Stoffl32 (talk) 21:52, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Adding a singular language parameter

Nearly every country has a range of classifications used for their languages: "official language", "national language", "regional language", etc... When a country only has one language though, the default parameter "Official languages" must be used according to the "languages_type" docs. This poses several issues: one being that it is grammatically incorrect to have "Official languages" refer to one language. It should be "Official language" instead. Another issue is that it creates unnecessary edit wars for one side trying to correct the grammar and the other side trying to stick to the infobox parameter docs.

I propose that a new parameter of "language_type" be created to ensure the grammar is correct for the label when referring to only one language. It should allow the label "Official language" to be used instead of "Official languages" when there is only one language stated. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 06:23, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

This absolutely does not need to be an RFC, so I have removed the header from the discussion. There are a ton of folks who watch this page that can comment on your suggestion. Primefac (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to put it back and request that you stop editing other people's comments without their permission WP:TPO. The reason stated is also strange considering there are plenty of RFC's on this talk page, with one currently at the top. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 22:37, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

However, this was my first RfC request so maybe I'm not understanding why it doesn't need to be an RfC. Is it only because there are many people who can comment? I want to hear uninvolved people's opinions on this since it seems to be an issue that has been around for a long time with no update. There is another discussion about this here, I believe you were involved with this as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_country/Archive_13#official_language_%28singular%29 Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 23:15, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

This seems totally unobjectionable to me. Furius (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The suggestion is well intended but pointless. There are two main problems with any mention of a country's languages in wiki articles, and yours isn't one of them. First, the meaning of words such as national, and in particular 'official', are open to different interpretations: second, the actual speakers of a language is also not clear, with the term 'speakers' not being specifically defined - does it mean mother tongue from birth, learned for a year in school, or what? I agree the infobox parameter could be improved. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 02:33, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

You may have points with the two problems you mentioned, but I don't think they have anything to do with the discussion here as this is solely about allowing a parameter that already exists to be updated with an additional parameter that allows the correct grammar. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 02:55, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Roger 8 Roger's comments are well intended but pointless. Neither of these issues should be solved by the infobox or, really, by Wikipedia, which can only follow what the sources say. Furius (talk) 07:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Adding pie charts to ethnicities and religions

I was doing some experimenting with putting pie charts in the ethnicity and religion fields of the infobox of different countries. Looks pretty cool and definitely helps with readability. The documentation says only lists and breakdowns are to be used. Is there any reason why pie charts shouldn't be used? Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 05:28, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

They are pointless. Words usually help with readability, not charts. Good faith assumed, but looking cool is not the intent of the infobox. Statistical data is best avoided if possible because it is usually primary, relying on the reader to interpret it. That problem is accentuated in the infobox where nothing but basic figures are given. The charts might look cool but hang them on the wall, don't clutter up an article with unnecessary charts, especially when a few numbers and words convey the same information. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Being pointless is not really an argument. This is the third time I've seen this opinion from your account. I'm trying to see the good faith in this but it's hard not to notice that conversations shutdown afterwards, nothing changes, and the status quo remains. Perhaps RfC's are needed to really get outside opinions here? Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 06:46, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

While you were replying I was busy reverting some of your recent changes elsewhere. You seem to be a busy editor, building up a healthy stack of warnings on your talk page. Next is a block, but I'm sure you know that already. Why not put your undoubted English skills to a more productive use? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:59, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a totally inappropriate comment. You've confused two different editors here. Furius (talk) 07:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, I can see all of my edits and none were changed by Roger 8 Roger so I think they are talkign about someone else. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 07:29, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

My concerns with pie charts would be about:

(1) space - national infoboxen are already quite large and a set of readable pie charts would extend that length, with knock-on effects for the formatting of the rest of the page.

(2) situations where the numbers don't sum to 100, which is common with ethnicity and not impossible with religion.

The claim that infoboxen can't include statistical data because it is primary is utter nonsense: (a) they already do and this proposal is just about a different way of displaying it. (b) there are plenty of secondary sources for national statistics. Furius (talk) 07:11, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the space issue was one of the things I ran into when experimenting but not for the reason you stated. The vertical aspect of the infobox wouldn't change much, if at all, since the information is just replaced with the pie chart. The horizontal aspect of the infobox does change though, but can be altered by changing the radius of the pie chart to 50 or so.

The other point you mentioned about the numbers not summing to 100 would be taken care of with the "Other" value of the pie chart. It adds up the remaining balance of what isn't mentioned automatically.

I've made a temporary edit to the Palau page and reverted it afterwards so you can see what the pie chart looks like in the infobox here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palau&diff=1149280670&oldid=1147883825&diffmode=source Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 07:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The infobox sections under discussion have been contentious enough as is in many situations. Taking that information from text form to image form further creates an impression of certainty which may not be appropriate, especially for such complex topics. CMD (talk) 07:33, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That's a good point, I didn't really consider that it was a contentious topic. I just assumed all the numbers there were based on some source. However, if the information is not actually true or not backed up with a source, then should the information be there to begin with?

Perhaps having an "Other" section in a pie chart might actually help in seeing the disparities that might be missing, rather than create more. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 07:40, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

APOLOGY See above. user:Wjejdc3345 was the intended victim of my scorn. And user:Furius was right, I had confused two editors so to user:Wkpdsrnm2023. I am very sorry. I have no idea how that happened but I should have checked better before firing a broadside like that. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

No worries, I figured you were talking about someone else, but I'm still kinda pressed a little bit about you calling the suggestions pointless. I'm not trying to bring up pointless topics for no reason. I'm designing an app right that uses information from Wikipedia and I can envision how the UI can be improved a bit with little updates. I'm not trying to bring up pointless topics for no reason, I'm just suggesting them and seeing why there might be reasons for not doing them. I'd appreciate it if you brought up some points like Furius or CMD have, but please stop calling my ideas pointless. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 10:13, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of the infobox is to give a very basic summary of key undisputed facts. Any statistics are open to interpretation so they are not ideal, but we often have nothing else. I agree with CMD whom I think is saying that using charts simply adds another layer of potential dispute. I also think charts add nothing except give an excuse to play around with colours and shapes. Consider the way flags are often inappropriately used in infoboxes - same problem. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, I didn't realize how what seems like straightforward information can actually be disputed and contentious for lots of people. But at the same time I don't think that is reason enough not to make changes. If the disputes come, then we deal with them at that point and make things better in the process. But to not do something either in fear of potential disputes or due to not wanting to deal with the issues that might arise is how things stagnate.

Don't discount colors and shapes either. One of the many reasons people use Wikipedia is to learn things and many people are visual learners. Pie charts are a great way to bring together lots of percentage points for people that don't like numbers. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 10:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks all. Having an "other" category doesn't solve the issue with numbers not summing to 100, because people might belong to more than one religion or ethnicity, in which case the total sums to more than a hundred.

Additionally, if the pie chart replaces the statistics, rather than supplementing them, there is a potential accessibility issue, depending on whether a screen reader can still read the information to blind users. Furius (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3

Why is there no option for ISO 3166-1 alpha-3? The three-letter code is used in many human-facing applications. Not having that option to display the alpha-3 code causes issues with disambiguation pages for the three-letter initialisms where there are instructions in MOS:DABMENTION and MOS:DABACRO that an entry should not be added if the linked article does not support the purported usage. A workaround is to link to the respective ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 list page that mentions the code, but this seems less helpful than linking directly to the country's article. older ≠ wiser 18:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Where should (first) and (last) be placed?

This is a bit weird but many articles like Weimar Republic, German Empire, French Fourth Republic, Russian Empire, Kingdom of England and others have (first) and (last) beside the term period of the leaders but in articles like Delhi Sultanate, Safavid Iran, Bengal Sultanate, Maratha Confederacy, Gujarat Sultanate and others have (first) and (last) beside the leaders' names itself. Where should it be placed really? PadFoot2008 (talk) 15:56, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Religion

Many countries have a Religion in xxx article associated with them. It would be useful to have the word "Religion" in the infobox link to the appropriate Religion in xxx article. This would be analogous to the way the "Government" heading links to the appropriate Politics of xxx article. Greenshed (talk) 22:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Image parameter

This template needs image and caption parameters. There are after all, countries small enough to photograph. (In case you're curious, I was hoping to add an image to the infobox for Principality of Islandia.) Nosferattus (talk) 00:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: Adding such parameters would sadly see them being (ab)used in all occurrences, much like the current website parameter is. In the end, this infobox has a specific purpose, and it wasn't created for micronations. CMD (talk) 01:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Should Leader Title be in English or Local Language

In the title_leader parameter, some articles (like Spain and Germany) use the English translation of the leader title (i.e. Monarch and President) instead of the local official version (i.e. Rey/Reina or Bundespräsident), while a few articles (like Brunei and Qatar) use the local 'official' version itself for the title_leader parameter (i.e. Sultan and Emir).

So what's the convention? Is it supposed to be that all articles use the English translation of the title except for countries with Islamic/Arabic titles like Sultan and Emir? If there doesn't exist a convention, shouldn't we create one already? PadFoot2008 (talk) 05:20, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

There's not an explicit convention, but generally I'd say it makes sense to follow what most English sources use. CMD (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me, but shouldn't an explicit convention regarding this exist—to avoid disputes? We can create one now after discussion..? PadFoot2008 (talk) 18:41, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I suppose "English" could be added to the leader field documentation, if needed. You could also invoke the spirit of WP:USEENGLISH. CMD (talk) 01:28, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Just follow whatever the article name for the position is. COMMONNAME takes care of this fine. 25stargeneral (talk) 01:35, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

An English language article uses English. There is no confusion. What English word to use is common usage as determined by what is used in RSSs. Words like Emir are English words, of foreign language origin. Sometimes there might be a foreign language word that has not fully assimilated into English, but it is still classed as within the English language, such as Rey, because it is used in English texts. Each situation has to be judged on its own merits, there is no one-size-fits-all. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

In English, my whole life, we have spoken of the King of Spain, the Queen of Romania, the Prime Minister of Israel, the King of Jordan, the King of Saudi Arabia, the Prince of Monaco, the Emperor of Japan, the Tsar of Russia, the Sultan of Brunei, the Shah of Iran, the Kaiser and Chancellor of Germany, the Emir of Dubai, and various Maharajas in India. These are the respective terms we use in English. Wikipedia is following the convention "use what people use in English". "Sultan" and "Emir" aren't "local 'official' versions", they're English words, the terms we use for those roles in those countries. I don't know why we don't speak of the King of Russia but we do speak of the King of Saudi Arabia. We just do. And, as can be seen, Islam and Arabic don't come into it. Largoplazo (talk) 10:18, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

All right, I understand now. I will keep this in mind, next time onwards while editing and thanks a lot to all. Except, there's just one thing. Maharajas, Maharajadhirajas, Rajas and whatever the other million titles exist don't seem to be used commonly in English sources. Most English sources use Kings, Emperors and Princes. The problem is that India doesn't have one or two single titles for the term King, it has a million different titles from various languages in different regions, Sanskrit, Persian, Hindustani, Bengali, Telugu, etc. That's why I started this discussion, first of all. I think for these million different titles of Indian origin, their English counterparts (King, High King, Prince and Emperor) ought to be used. PadFoot2008 (talk) 11:07, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

As with the examples given by Largoplazo, if most English sources use a particular term, that is likely the one to use. If they tend to use a different term, for whatever reason, that would be the one to use. CMD (talk) 14:44, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

All right, thanks. PadFoot2008 (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I thought that in general any title should be translated to English whenever possible. I asked ChatGPT because I'm too lazy to look it up myself but it told me:

1.) Translate the title: Foreign leader titles, such as President, Prime Minister, King, Queen, etc., are typically translated into English. For example, "President Emmanuel Macron," "Prime Minister Angela Merkel," "King Felipe VI," and "Queen Elizabeth II."

2.) Retain native titles in quotation marks: If the title is well-known or widely recognized in its original form, you may choose to retain the native title and put it in quotation marks. For example, "The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei," "The Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso."

3.) Use English equivalents when available: Some titles might not have direct English equivalents. In such cases, use the most appropriate English term that conveys the same meaning and function. For example, "Chancellor" for "Bundeskanzler" in German, or "Sultan" for "Sultan" in Arabic.

4.) Be consistent: Whatever approach you choose, maintain consistency throughout your writing.

Now whether or not you think ChatGPT is reliable or not, I think that this is pretty sound advice nonetheless and I would say the same thing given its inputs. Wkpdsrnm2023 (talk) 10:11, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

3rd flag

Is it possible to add a 3rd flag parameter? ImStevan (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Seriously? I know there are a few weird places that have two flags, but as far as I am aware no one has three. Primefac (talk) 07:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

S22

Ottoman Empire is tryna call this template (or one of its wrappers) with the unsupported |s22=. I'm not a subject matter expert and have no idea if it can drop one or some of its successor state parameters. It displays the first 21. I was just gnoming there on unrelated business and am wondering if support for the highly enumerated |s22= could be added to the template. Folly Mox (talk) 14:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

sigh... a list that long in an infobox like this is almost useless. Should we have it? Probably not, but I will add it in for now. Primefac (talk) 15:02, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Second COA

Would it perhaps be a good idea to have a field for a second coat of arms/emblem for situations where the second flag parameter is also being used?

To give an example of the articles of former colonies: Often the flag and symbols of the colonising nation are official alongside the colony-specific ones. It stands to reason then, in my view; that having the flag and coa of both the imperial nation, as well as the colony in the infobox, would be valuable addition which is not currently possible. LegerityFortis (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

We have other_symbol parameter. Moxy- 23:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

"Legislature" and "Highest organ of state power"

Hi

Communist states do not have legislatures, but highest organs of state power. While Western sources often superficially call them legislatures, the constitutions of these states do not. For instance, the Chinese, Soviet and Yugoslav constitutions do not use the term "legislature" at all. The Chinese refer to the National People's Congress as the "highest state organ of power", the Soviet the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union as the "highest body of state authority", and the Yugoslavs the Assembly as the "supreme organ of power". Per the principle of unified power, all other state organs are organs of the highest organ of state power. That is, the executive branch is an organ of the highest organ of state power, the judiciary is an organ of the highest organ of state power el cetra el cetra. These are not legislatures at least in the liberal sense. More importantly, these states consider them to be something other than legislatures.

What do I want? You have a field called "Legislature". Keep that and add another field called "highest organ of state power", which can be used for the communist state articles. I want these changes to be added to the former country infobox and the ordinary country infobox. --TheUzbek (talk) 11:31, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

My parents are still my parents even if they've always called themselves my progenitors.

A legislature is a body (or organ) where laws are made. It's irrelevant what term a particular jurisdiction uses for it. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, that is what a liberal legislature is limited to. However, the powers of the National People's Congress, according to Chinese legal scholar Zhou Fang, "are boundless, its authority extends to the entire territory of the country, and, if necessary, it can intervene in any matter which it finds it requisite to do so."

Do you get the difference now? TheUzbek (talk) 11:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I would also add this: Chinese legal scholars Xu Chongde and Niu Wenzhan, "[t]he other central State organs are created by the NPC and execute the laws and resolutions made by the NPC."

In a liberal democracy, the legislature is the legislature, and the government is the government. In China, the government and the legislature are the same; the National People's Congress is both (they are both organs of it)! TheUzbek (talk) 11:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding Democracy index in infobox

I see that is important to add The Economist Democracy Index to be added. Like how GDP, Gini and HDI shown, Democracy index may be also added to indicate democracy in infobox. May shown as “Democracy Index” in first row, the score (including rank and democratic condition [“Full Democracy”, “Flawed Democracy”, “Hybrid regime” and “Authoritarian” depending on score], year and red/green arrow triangles if democracy changed from previous year. When on previous year remained unchanged it may show blue “hyphen” (similar to HDI, Gini and GDP). If triangle shows to top and is green, it shows more democratic from previous year, and if triangle is red and to bottom, it is goes to autoritarian. Democracy index row may be added to all language editions of Wikipedia.

83.139.28.234 (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Not seeing a rationale why this index in particular is important to add - there are many that exist. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Like how GDP, and HDI is imporatant row in Wikipedia country infoboxes, Democracy index is also important, and should be added to infoboxes. 217.76.14.162 (talk) 17:15, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, there are many indices out there - why do you feel this one in particular is of equal importance to GDP? Nikkimaria (talk) 06:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

The “equal” hyphen-line in GDP and HDI means unchanged from last year. 83.139.28.225 (talk) 10:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Just want to throw in my two cents, but I've also thought about the benefits of adding in some sort of index to the country infobox based on either the V-Dem or EIU indexes.

Currently, on pages for countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Togo and ecetera, we see the government type listed as a "semi-presidential (or whatever the official government type is)" followed by "under an authoritarian dictatorship" or just "dictatorship" or "authoritarian state" or something like this thereafter. However, other authoritarian countries such as Haiti, Azerbaijan, Palestine, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, the UAE, and Zimbabwe don't have this identifier. Other socialist authoritarian countries such as China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam simply state they are a "Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist republic, but lack the whole "under an authoritarian dictatorship/state" identifier that most other non-Communist authoritarian countries get labeled with.

As far as I can tell there is no reason a country does/does not have the whole "authoritarian" label thrown on at the end. This also brings up an obvious point of concern when authoritarian countries such as Iraq are mentioned as merely a "Federal parliamentary republic," which is also exactly the same as Germany and Austria! Or how Algeria is mentioned as merely a "unitary semi-presidential republic," which is also what France is listed as despite being much more democratic than Algeria.

Rather than having to put "under an authoritarian dictatorship" or such statement in the infobox, it would probably be beneficial to the reader to include one or more democracy indexes to better state the differences between de jure and de facto forms of government. This also might help talk pages with the unending claims of "X country is/isn't a democracy!"

Of course, I also understand the counter-point that the indexes themselves can't be trusted or are biased. However, reliable sources, which Wikipedia itself is based on, generally are in agreement with whether or not a government is authoritarian whether they come from an index or not, so the inclusion of an index would most likely restate what would have already been added in with users putting "under an authoritarian dictatorship" in the first place. BootsED (talk) 06:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Template-protected edit request on 11 February 2024

For the part "ISO 3166 code", I would like to see both the 2-letter and 3-letter codes to be included. Using Pakistan as the example, currently it says: "ISO 3166 code PK", but I would like if it said "ISO 3166 code PK, PAK, 586" since all are valid in ISO 3166.

Currently the 2-letter links to ISO 3166-2:XX for that country. I don't know if the other two could link to something. Since the template automatically supplies with the 2-letter code, it can also supply the other two codes automatically as well. When {{{iso3166code}}} is manually supplied, the other codes could be supplied through {{{iso3166code3}}} and {{{iso3166numeric}}}.

[REDACTED BROKEN CODE]

Here is a code I've tested and it should work. The checks for code-3 and numeric includes checks if numeric isn't 000, because the module considers the ISO 3166-2:GB codes for some regions of UK to have alpha-3 codes, when no sources say otherwise. If the module could blank out those entries (as I've requested), then this code could be written more elegantly. But the current method should still work for now. Pon Pon the bon bon (talk) 10:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Please make your changes to Template:Infobox country/sandbox and add a test to Template:Infobox country/testcases — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:33, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying me about those pages. I updated the /sandbox and did notice some errors, so very good that I did that. Particularly regions without a numeric code still gave a comma, and an error in artgument {{{iso3166numeric}}}. Now ISO 3166 doesn't show up for these non-existing countries: Template:Infobox_country/testcases. Then there's a second page Template:Infobox_country/testcases2 testing ISO for "Bosnia" and it shows up in the intended format. I also tested on Template:Infobox_country/testcases3 to ensure it works as intended for actual articles, and it does.

I hope it's okay I removed the previous code. Here's the new and fixed code:

| label127= [[ISO 3166|ISO 3166 code]]
| data127= {{#switch:{{{iso3166code|}}}
     |omit = <!--(do nothing)-->
     | = <!--if iso3166code is not supplied:
          -->{{#if:{{{common_name|}}}
              | {{#if:{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | [[ISO 3166-2:{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}}}|{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}}}]]
                }}<!--
                -->{{#ifeq:{{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}|000||{{#if:{{ISO 3166 code-3|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | , {{ISO 3166 code-3|{{{common_name}}}}}
                }}}}<!--
                -->{{#ifeq:{{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}|000||{{#if:{{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | , {{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}}}
                }}}}
             }}
     |#default = [[ISO 3166-2:{{uc:{{{iso3166code}}}}}|{{uc:{{{iso3166code}}}}}]]<!--
          -->{{#if:{{{iso3166code3|}}}|, {{uc:{{{iso3166code3}}}}}}}<!--
          -->{{#if:{{{iso3166numeric|}}}|, {{{iso3166numeric}}}}}
    }}

Pon Pon the bon bon (talk) 10:22, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

addendum: with the modified Module:ISO 3166/data/National, the code can be simplified as the following. Previous code left in, just in case.

| label127= [[ISO 3166|ISO 3166 code]]
| data127= {{#switch:{{{iso3166code|}}}
     |omit = <!--(do nothing)-->
     | = <!--if iso3166code is not supplied:
          -->{{#if:{{{common_name|}}}
              | {{#if:{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | [[ISO 3166-2:{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}}}|{{ISO 3166 code|{{{common_name}}}}}]]
                }}<!--
                -->{{#if:{{ISO 3166 code-3|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | , {{ISO 3166 code-3|{{{common_name}}}
                }}}}<!--
                -->{{#if:{{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}|nocat=true}}
                 | , {{ISO 3166 numeric|{{{common_name}}}
                }}}}
             }}
     |#default = [[ISO 3166-2:{{uc:{{{iso3166code}}}}}|{{uc:{{{iso3166code}}}}}]]<!--
          -->{{#if:{{{iso3166code3|}}}|, {{uc:{{{iso3166code3}}}}}}}<!--
          -->{{#if:{{{iso3166numeric|}}}|, {{{iso3166numeric}}}}}
    }}

Pon Pon the bon bon (talk) 23:35, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 2 March 2024

Other rank fields are automatically shown in brackets except for HDI rank. Might this be changed for consistency please? Dgp4004 (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done. SilverLocust 💬 07:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Consistency of years and references

I've noticed that the layout of year and reference fields is quite inconsistent. I wonder if it's worth giving some thought to how they might be displayed in a more consistent way which would make it easier to read.

For some fields, both year and reference are on the left (ethnic groups, religion).

For some fields, year is on the left and the reference is on the right (HDI, Gini).

For some fields, both year and reference are on the right (GDP).

For some fields, the year is on the left and there isn't a reference field—it's up to editors whether they put it on the left or the right (population).

My own thoughts are that ethnic groups and religion have it right—the year and reference look most elegant and readable on the left. I think that the settlement infobox handles refs and headings quite well as here: Tameside. Dgp4004 (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Which list to use for population_census_rank

population_census_rank currently uses List of countries and dependencies by population for the ranking, but the problem with this list is that it's very inconsistent in the sourcing and years of population values. Some entries use census data, others use estimates or projections, and they often come from different years, which might make the rankings inaccurate. Furthermore, a case could be made that this is a instance of WP:OR, since it's similar to the situation at Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 64#RfC on clarification of WP:CALC for costliest tornadoes.

I propose that we switch over to using List of countries by population (United Nations) instead, since the data and rankings comes from a centralised source and it compares countries based on estimates from the same years. Of course, this isn't going to be a "census_rank" anymore, but since many entires in the currently used List of countries and dependencies by population aren't based on census data anyway, there's no loss in that regard. Liu1126 (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 11 April 2024

Hello, I've noticed that the "Ethnic groups" field in the Infobox of the Namibia page might be better represented as "Nationality". The Namibian government does not record ethnicity or racial statistics, and I believe "Nationality" would be a more accurate representation of the population. This change would align the Namibia page with other country pages like France, which uses the "Nationality" field. I would appreciate if an administrator or template editor could make this change. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnfesDino (talk • contribs) 13:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: This edit would need to be made to Namibia, not Template:Infobox country. According to that page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself, however I would highly recommend discussing this on Talk:Namibia first as ethnicity and nationality are potentially controvertial topics. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

ISO 3166

I think the should list all of the ISO 3166-1 codes in the infobox, in addition to the alpha-2 code (e.g. IR for Iran).

ISO 3166-1 codes

Type of code	Example (Iran)	Example (Algeria)
Alpha-2	IR	DZ
Alpha-3	IRN	DZA
Numeric	364	012

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:09, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Not seeing any reason to include that level of detail. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings. It appeals to the data nerd in me. But the value of the alpha-2 codes is that they're familiar due to their use for top-level domains. Where are the alpha-3 codes used, that the general reader would likely encounter them? I momentarily answered my own question with "the Olympics", but realized that these aren't the codes they use. That might make them more confusing than useful, as when a spectator who's seen DEU here expects Germany to be coded as DEU in competition and doesn't know what GER is. Would they be as useful as international vehicle registration codes? Largoplazo (talk) 12:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

adding Indicators

Hello, I was thinking of adding additional indicators to the infobox (from UN bodies) such as the happiness report and etc. Do you agree? 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 06:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I think that only GDP and HDI data doesn’t cover everything, I was thinking of adding maybe another indicators from the UN reports 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 06:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria do you agree? 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 14:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Which specific additional indicators do you want to add and why do you believe these to be significant? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria

I base my opinion on several articles published on the subject that claim that the HDI and GDP data are not enough to see the full picture of a certain country. I thought to add the happiness report which includes data on per capita income , education and life expectancy. In addition, it measures also other things that aren’t measured in HDI and GDP such as the difference between generations.

Harvard business school :[2]

IMF:IMF

other sources:

Articel

articel 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:B45F:F2DC:BCAD:3D16 (talk) 02:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I fully agree that HDI and GDP don't give a full picture of a country. But no indicator will, and particularly not a composite indicator. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria

First of all, you are right.

But in my opinion we can add the index (which is established by the UN and is considered the most accurate).

And beyond that, many researchers believe that the index is better than HDI or GDP. It also includes GDP data, life expectancy eduction and more...

In the French Wikipedia, for example, there are other indicators besides HDI and GDP. And I think nothing bad could come from adding another indicator that adds more information and light on the country. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:B45F:F2DC:BCAD:3D16 (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

There is certainly potential harm from overloading the template with information that is not meaningful to most readers - it's meant to be limited to key facts at a glance. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria

True, but even so there is not much data,

in the French Wikipedia there are several more indicators regarding a certain country which gives more information .

I think that, after all in light of the above, it might be profitable to add, and after all we want to give the reader some comprehensive information about a particular country. (What the HDI and GDP do not fully show).

maybe we can get another opinion from other editors. Also, the UN doesn't publish many indexes about a particular country's economic/development.

147.235.216.48 (talk) 03:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@BootsED, Phoenix7777 what do you think? Do you agree with my statement? 2A01:73C0:86E:6120:6CC9:C45B:1530:8814 (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

To be honest I had not considered the happiness index to be added to the infobox before you mentioned this. I think it is certainly worth looking into. However, I would state I believe a democracy index would be more important to add to the infobox before consideration of a happiness index owing to the many reasons I have previously given in an earlier post I made on this page. BootsED (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@BootsED

Hello, as I said many researchers claim that HDI and GDP do not give a complete picture.Harvard[3] In addition, many researchers believe that the happiness index is a better index ,because it includes additional data as well as life expectancy, GDP per capita education and corruption.Columbia university

IMF

As I have already said, in my opinion, adding another index can only broaden the reader's point of view ( the French Wikipedia, for example, added more indicators besides GDP and HDI).

Regarding the democracy index, I have an opinion on the subject, but I know it is not published by the UN, unlike the happiness index, which is published by the UN like the HDI.

Can you please read the articles that I added and express your opinion.World economic forum

thank you. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:655A:291F:C391:6239 (talk) 23:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I would support removing these parameters. Moxy🍁 23:36, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@BootsED what is your opinion? 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:C8D9:98C3:D3E8:CE70 (talk) 02:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it is worth looking into. Again, I think an democracy index would be more prudent to add before a happiness index, but I would wait for more consensus before making any changes. BootsED (talk) 02:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Alright , @ TylerBurden @ Juustila @Dönde94 what is your opinion? 37.142.165.10 (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Whatever. Juustila (talk) 06:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

@BootsED I don’t think there is an objection of adding it, at the end it’s UN’s index that covers more than just HDI and GDP. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:1B8:4B89:89C3:8025 (talk) 01:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

@BootsED should we put it to a vote? 147.235.215.100 (talk) 06:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

should info box of country include information regarding if goverment is authoritarian

There is a discussion in the article about China, that should be general and actually in this talk page. The question is regarding what information should be included in the info box of a country. And more specifically should the infobox include information if a goverment is authoritarian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:China#RfC I suggest to move the discussion and the vote/consensus to this page as is should be a general question that related to all pages about countries and their infobox 85.65.237.103 (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

We should simply follow the sources..... This may or may not include political systems..... sometimes they'll use more accurate terms. I've always thought we should have a different parameter for political system versus government.Moxy🍁 13:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy, it is a request for comment. I want to know the community opinion about this subject. Do they think that such information should be included in the info box or not. 85.65.237.103 (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

This is not a request for comment. It is a note about a related RFC. We should have a normal discussion here about anything more general, and if no consensus comes out of it, then the wider community can be asked via RFC. Primefac (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

ok, let see if there is a consensus here and if not lets go to wider community. I didn't know about this rules, so thanks. 85.65.237.103 (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

No, no one has agreed to move here. What you are doing is called WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Remsense诉 16:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

If we are to have this discussion on the template talk page, we should have it more generally (rather than in the context of the label "authoritarian" specifically). I think the government field in each instance should be direct, concrete, and non-contentious. It should describe the forms or structures of government. Labels or characterizations should be left to the body of the article, where they can be sourced, attributed as necessary, and presented according to their due weight. The government field in the infobox should address issues like whether a government is a unitary or federal system, how the executive power is held, how many legislative houses, and so forth. For example, the USA infobox is good: "Federal presidential republic." JArthur1984 (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

In other words, I do oppose including "authoritarian" in infoboxes, but for grounds not limited to that specific characterization. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I previously suggested putting in a Democracy Index within infoboxes to partially solve these issues. BootsED (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

It would not solve the fundamental problem whatsoever. That is to say, while the index is in a very shallow sense a "quantification" of what is generally a very qualitative and non-parameterizable concept, it only does so by averaging the views of experts' responses to a poll—e.g. the same process we are already capable of doing. Just because it's a layer of abstraction doesn't mean it makes something that shouldn't be presented in an infobox magically presentable or more useful. Remsense诉 20:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this would be a useful addition to the userbox. My favorite measure of democracy is the V-Dem Democracy Indices - as far as Ican tell, they appear to be much more thorough than rivals such as Freedom in the World. I support adding the V-Dem index. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

How does it do anything other than aggregate poll results? How is that actually quantitative? Including it in an infobox as a number would be outright disinformation. Remsense诉 04:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't aggregate poll results at all. As per the wikipedia article linked above, "each indicator is coded independently by at least five country experts". This isn't some public opinion poll, it's academic research produced by political science experts.

Calling it "disinformation" is outrageously hyperbolic. It's the same type of metric as HDI, which is already included.

Note that many of these things have already been discussed under "Adding Democracy Index in infobox". 20WattSphere (talk) 06:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

It aggregates the results of experts polled, does it not? It's not measuring and normalizing anything actually quantifiable like HDI does. It's not the same type of figure, so yes listing it alongside other concrete figures and pretending like it belongs constitutes disinformation in my view. Remsense诉 06:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree it is far more subjective than something like HDI. I also don't see the value of a democracy index in the infobox, we should not presuppose the ideal of a state is to achieve perfect democracy. On the wider topic of the thread I feel similarly, I am not a fan of drifting from a strict constitutional/structural political framework in the infobox. This has however been a long-disputed topic with local consensuses sometimes differing, and in general is part of the difficulty of fitting complicated topics into infoboxes. CMD (talk) 07:11, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think including this information "presupposes" any agenda. It is simply information.

My feeling is that including a simple number would be much more efficient than a debatable and complex assessment by individual Wikipedians, in order to convey the type of information we want to provide people. 20WattSphere (talk) 09:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Nonsense on its face; presentation always matters and there's no such thing as "just information", that's what WP:NPOV is about. And yes, the information is anonymous area experts being asked "on a scale of one to five, how unencumbered was this election". It's not quantitative information, even though they've squeezed it into such a presentation. It's not a useless figure, but it is disinformation in an infobox as such because it's totally unclear to the reader that it's not actually measuring anything unlike any number it is displayed next to. Please address the core point. Remsense诉 16:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your view and @Remsense's view. Earlier in the thread noted my view of a structural government framework (citing the USA article's "federal presidential republic") as a very good model that I would like to see repeated.

Following the same logic, I would not support including any sort of political index in the infobox, whether one of the two "democracy indices" mentioned here or some other kind of political index. This is the sort of thing that belongs in article bodies, in my view.

I am a proponent of keeping the infobox focused, and suggest avoiding trying to distill political characterizations into a handful of adjectives, or the faux-objectivity of a numerical ranking from thinktanks or advocacy groups. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Where are you getting the idea that the results are aggregated in some way?

HDI is fairly objective, but the choice of the particular indicators is subjective. You could argue for all sorts of things to be included, but the designers of HDI chose the indicators they chose. It is precisely the same with the V-Dem index. 20WattSphere (talk) 07:45, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Sure. but at least it's theoretically possible for "average life expectancy" to be empirically measured. Plus, HDI has maybe a couple dozen numbers that go into it in a way that's not totally obscure to the average reader, whereas V-Dem has hundreds of poll questions asked of anonymous area experts. Remsense诉 16:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Thinking of proposing new parameter for political system..... as seen over at China we have a whole bunch of editors not familiar with the decades long talks on other pages. Moxy🍁 22:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I think renaming it to something like "structure of government" may solve a lot of these problems. Remsense诉 23:14, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

As I noted in a separate discussion on this page, you have to be fairly bright (at very least, you need to understand integrals) to understand how Gini coefficient is calculated. But I think many readers find it useful regardless. I'm sure GDP is similar, all people need to know is high number = good.

If your objection is more that it relies on qualitative data, well, that's what we currently have with non-expert assessments like "Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party Socialist State". At least an index is produced by a large team of academic experts. 20WattSphere (talk) 22:57, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Sure. I think both "qualitative" and "abstruse in derivation" means "no good for infobox", but I am aware how other parameters may be one or the other to some degree. Remsense诉 23:01, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I can see the argument that both those factors are not ideal for top-level information about countries. But there is another factor which I think should also be prioritised, and that is importance. Democracy is one of the most important factors about a country, in politics, business, sociology and many other fields of work and study. If readers can't easily see a country's democracy index, I don't know that we can say they're getting a comprehensive overview. 20WattSphere (talk) 13:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Descriptions of related aspects of a country's government are usually very important, and should generally be present in the lead, and maybe even having its own well-developed section in the body. I also think this kind of information is deeply important, which is why I want to treat it with the nuance it deserves, in prose. I don't want it to be misrepresented through a presentation dressing it up like an empirical statistic like GDP, life expectancy or surface area. Infoboxes are only good at presenting certain kinds of information. The lead in general is supposed to be a summary of the most important aspects of an article's topic, and an infobox is designed for at-a-glance data that don't require much context or nuance to understand. That is why this figure does not belong anywhere near the infobox: it is qualitative at its core, and also abstruse. It is disinformation as such. Remsense诉 14:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I respect your opinion, but it is still absurd to call it "disinformation" to say that agency X gave something a rating of Y. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to act as if I used whatever term you would prefer that ultimately means the same thing, then. Remsense诉 02:32, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

My comment was about your meaning, not word choice. 20WattSphere (talk) 03:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

In that case, I would not understand what it means to respect my opinion and simultaneously find it absurd, but I genuinely appreciate it regardless. Remsense诉 03:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Derivation/split proposal: Infobox political period

While I think this template is fine in its expressed use cases, it's also often used for periods of military occupation, e.g. Soviet occupation of Manchuria, for which I feel it is inadequate for the purpose. My best attempt to create a scope for a new infobox type that was neither too bloated nor too specific to use was "political period", basically. Much demographic information we're used to reflexively having like |language= could be deemphasized, and additional parameters could be available like |occupied_by=—the edit wars this will specifically cause are worth bearing for a coherent presentation, I think. Remsense诉 06:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

This infobox is designed to represent a geopolitical entity, and its fields are tailored with that scope. (The current spin-off to international organization is done by switching quite a few fields out, but there are enough shared fields that it is workable.) It is not appropriate or that useful for a period of time, and its use in Soviet occupation of Manchuria seems an example of misuse. It can be used for an occupying body, eg. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, but the historical period article Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945) does not use it. I can't think of any infobox template that is used for historical periods, they usually have sidebars linking to other periods of history instead. CMD (talk) 04:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

IME there are quite a few historical-period articles using this template, although I would agree it's not well suited to that. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:50, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you feel a new template would be worthwhile, or would it cause undue complication or bloat? Remsense诉 05:00, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

If there was a new template, it should have a very different feel to reduce confusion. An experience I remembered prompted by Nikkimaria's comment, Green Ukraine used to use Infobox country in its lead, and this raised questions about the topic of the article despite the text being quite clear. (I moved the infobox down to an article section.) CMD (talk) 06:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I could not agree more. I think I'll try experimenting with a design. Remsense诉 06:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Date standard

AFAICR, there used to be national preferred a date format included in Template_talk:Infobox_country in the past (i.e. dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd. In any event, I feel that this would be a valuable addition to the infobox.
Enquire (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Unsure as to what value that adds. It's not something we're likely to discuss in the article so it doesn't belong in the infobox unless it meets some kind of specific exception. Plus some countries, such as Canada, don't have a single preferred one and happily intermix multiple formats. And ultimately I don't see how it helps a reader understand the country. Canterbury Tail talk 01:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

CO2 emissions per capita

I made a proposal to include greenhouse gas emissions in the infobox (see thread above). Users were not convinced, and I'm happy to accept that.

Instead, I'd like to suggest CO2 emissions per capita. I think this is preferable because it is adjusted for population size, making it more relevant to understanding a country's economy. Using CO2 only is also more clear and understandable than GHGs.

By way of explanation, I think it would be valued by:

• Students of energy, since emissions are mainly produced through energy consumption (link)
• Students of politics and international relations, since climate change is an increasingly important issue in international relations
• Students of development, since more developed countries have higher emissions per capita (link)
• Students of economics, since emissions are correlated with GDP (link)

If Wikipedians like the idea but disagree with the particular metric, I think the above readers would also be very interested in carbon intensity, which is total kilograms of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP (link)

Keen to hear your thoughts. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Earier, I disagreed with the idea altogether. The reasons I stated weren't particular to the metric you'd chosen. Largoplazo (talk) 09:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Would you care to elaborate? I did respond to a number of your points above. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

And you didn't change my mind about any of them, so my points remain as already stated. Largoplazo (talk) 12:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

For other editors' benefit, these were that:

• It is not a basic fact about the condition and nature of the country (my reply: it is a similar fact to GDP etc. in that it's a metric which provides an overall measure of a country's energy use, industry and economy)
• Infobox fields are not for consciousness-raising regarding social issues (my reply: I'm suggesting this because I think many readers would be interested, not to advocate for any political idea)

20WattSphere (talk) 08:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I supports your suggestion and think it is a good idea. ArmorredKnight (talk) 10:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?

Enquire (talk) 21:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Greenhouse gas emissions

I am proposing to add greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the country infobox.

GHGs include any gases which contribute to climate change. Different gases affect our climate in different ways, the most impactful GHGs being carbon dioxide and methane. Although different gases contribute differently, conversion factors known as global warming potential can be used to sum their contributions, and express the total in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). This allows for an objective measure of countries' contributions to climate change.

Our World in Data provides a complete list of national emissions in CO2e here

I believe readers would value this information in the infobox, given the increasing impact of climate, international agreements (most importantly the Paris Agreement), and the geopolitical significance of GHG emissions.

I am interested to know what you think. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

It's an important statistic, but with regard to inclusion in the infobox, is it more significant than any of zillions of other statistics, such as live births per thousand, life expectancy at birth, literacy rates, homicide rates, density of airborne particulates, percentage completing various levels of education, cars per million people, poverty rates, percentage of population incarcerated, opiate death rates, arable land, access to fresh water, etc.? I suppose all of these can be included, but infoboxes probably shouldn't extend indefinitely. Largoplazo (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Statistics can be interpreted in many ways and in my opinion the more complex they are the more ways there are to create confusion. How many people actually understand what greenhouse emissions are, how the statistics are created and what they mean? Using them would, I think, result in their misuse to make political points. That is less of a problem with vert simple statistics such as population per sq km. Also, agree with Largoplazo, what makes greenhouse emissions so special? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Largoplazo and Roger 8 Roger - thanks for your replies! I'll respond to all the above points here:

• On importance: I agree that not everything can be included in an infobox. To be overly inclusive here would defeat the purpose. To provide a quick, simple summary of facts, there needs to be some threshold of importance to be considered for inclusion. My view (which is shared by many around the world) is that climate change is one of the most important problems the planet is facing. There are countless examples of how climate change is impacting people's lives now, and how it will impact them into the future. To provide one example, to illustrate the scale of this issue - Indonesia's capital city Jakarta needs to be moved because of climate change. So I don't believe climate change can be left off the list of important statistics. I would even suggest some facts in the current infobox are perhaps not as important as this one... but I won't give an example since I don't want to pick on any of them!
• On complexity: I believe the metric is quite easy to understand. It's a simple measure - it's merely the total amount of emissions produced within a particular country each year. It's a much simpler concept than GDP, for example, which is included in the infobox (let alone Gini coefficient, which even economists struggle to understand). So I don't believe this is too complex a statistic to be useful to readers, and should not be ruled out of the infobox.
• On politicization: my feeling is that anything and everything can be used to feed into political arguments. Climate change is no different. However, the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform and educate people, and this process is a necessary and beneficial part of the political process. I feel we should not be afraid of our work being used in political debate - rather, I would be afraid of our work not being used in political debate.

Let me know what you think.

20WattSphere (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Though I mentioned poverty indexes and suggested that they'd be extraneous, I do see that the GINI and HDI parameters are present. Even so, I can make the case that like every other parameter in the infobox, they tell us something basic about the condition and nature of the country: What are its capital, currency, form of government? Is it large or small? Who populates it? What religions do they practice? Are they (this is where GDP, GINI, and HDI come in) economically developed, and are the people rich or poor? None of these gives me a sense that they were included for the purpose of raising anybody's consciousness about some issue. None of them amounts to "Look at what this country is doing to the planet". In contrast, greenhouse gas emission isn't really a basic national characteristic, and your stated reason for your proposal was consciousness-raising regarding an agenda (albeit one on which I'm in agreement). Largoplazo (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

This is something that generally not covered in these topics. Moxy🍁 15:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I think GHG emissions is quite a basic question about countries (similar to HDI and Gini). To be clear - I am not proposing this out of advocacy. I am proposing this because I think it's an important fact about countries (and companies actually, but that's another story).

Every time I read about a country, I wish their annual emissions were in the infobox. Some examples of the value it would provide include:

• GHG emissions relates to the question of "are they rich or poor", since many highly-developed countries consume a lot of fossil fuels. Does the country import or produce fuels, or do they struggle to obtain energy?
• It also provides a measure of what countries' economies are like. Are they a manufacturing country, do they make steel or other commodities, or does their economy mainly provide services? Do they drive cars, or ride bikes and trains.
• It indicates whether they are likely to struggle to meet the Paris Agreement or other international obligations.

20WattSphere (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions, I don't think these points make a lot of sense. The raw numbers correlate primarily with population, and the per-capita numbers are a mixed bag - they don't correlate well to either level of development or level of manufacturing. As for the third point, understanding that requires a level of context that would not be available simply by presenting a number. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Good point about population size - I think per-capita emissions would be a much better choice. That's also quite readily available.

Per capita emissions seems to vaguely correlate with HDI - but there's a lot of variation, which is a large part of why I'm interested in including it. If it was perfectly correlated with HDI, for example, then it wouldn't be worth including, since HDI would be readily convertible to emissions intensity. So I think it's a different enough metric, and an important enough metric, to include. 20WattSphere (talk) 07:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I strongly support adding emissions per capita and global rank (lowest to highest) in brackets. Potentially this stat is of greater educational value (or of more interest) than many stats already included. The consensus of the scientific community is that unabated GHG emissions and subsequent Climate Change will very likely result in unrivalled environmental, economic and geopolitical upheaval ("Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability". Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

The other somewhat unique aspect of this stat (if provided with a rank) is that it provides a measure of a country’s “outward” performance. Eg, what is this country doing for the global community, rather than what it is going for its own community (GDP per Capita, Gini, HDI). The Good Country Index does this more holistically and robustly but emissions per capita is a start.

In response to others comments.

I don’t think it’s complicated, particularly if rank is added. Read the article on Gini (already included) if you want complexity.

Regarding the statement that data should not be added as a means to advocate change, I agree with the statement but dies it really applies here? Emissions per capita data has very high educational value. How that is used to advocate is unpredictable, there’s no guarantee it will be a useful tool for advocating for emissions reductions (it may actually be used by diplomats of comparably low emitting countries to argue against emissions reductions!). It’s just interesting data, and in of itself doesn’t advocate for anything.

Regarding the risk of cluttering the country info box, this is valid. Priority must be given on merit, to matters of most importance. Being such a threat to the environment, economy and geopolitics, climate change information and data regarding emissions should potentially take priority over some existing stats. Certainly I think its addition is justified, if the infobox becomes unruly lowest priority should be cut. RichoWildman (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

---

I am strongly in favour of including CO₂ emmissions since Climate Change is probably the most critical risk issue facing not only mankind, but also the entire planetary ecosystem. We are already at the threshold of +1.5°C warming - beyond which the planet is at risk of crossing one, or more, "tipping points" which risk pushing the climatic system into uncharted territory, with the potential to lead to profound global climatic sytem shifts. For example:

1. There is growing concern that the Gulf Stream may collapse within a couple a decades, well before the end of this century. If this happens, that could, paradoxically, (notwithstanding an increasing average global temperature) lead to a dramatic plunge in temperature in Western Europe.
2. In the Arctic there is a progressive depletion of sea ice to such an extent that the long-sought Northwest Passage is becoming a viable route for commercial shipping. As the white ice is replaced by the dark sea, Earth's albedo (reflectiveness) is increasing - not only in the north polar waters, but also on the landmass of Greenland - generating a positive feedback loop - accelerating the rate of Climate Change.
3. Antarctica, previously thought to be largely immune to the ravages of climate change, is now found by researchers to also be under great risk of contributing significantly to global sea level rise. Unlike sea ice at the north pole - which has little impact on global sea level - land-based glaciers at the south pole have the potential to dramatically impact global sea-level rise. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. Already, just one land-based glacier (Thwaites), roughly the size of Florida, responsible for 4% of sea level rise in the recent past, holds the potential to raise sea-lvel by 0.6 m (2 feet). To put this in perspective, if all of Antarctica were to melt (no one is predicting this in this century) that could potentially translate into a sea-level increase of something well-over 60 m (200 ft) - but, if that happened, the increase would be far more since other glaciers around the world including, most notably, Greenland would mean that sea level rise would be far greater. I have seen estimates that suggest that if all the ice on Earth melted, sea level would rise by over 90 metres (300 ft). Of course, if that happened, the oceans would expand in surface area and all of the world's coastal cities - as well as many inland cities - would dissapear beneath the waves.

References
In short, climate change presents an existential risk to life on Earth, with the potential to render economics as we know it largely irrelevant. As such, it would be irresponsible not to include CO₂ emmissions in Template:Infobox_country. To omit climate change indicators only plays into the narrative of denialists.

Besides, we can't control what we don't measure. While there is, to some degree If Wikipedia took a lead in condensing the disparate sources of data into, maybe the following:

• Gross national CO₂ emissions
• Per Capita CO₂ emissions
  • CO₂
  • Methane
  • etc.

This would really help to ensure that these key indicators are being measured and tracked.

There are, actually a number of sources for reliable data, including:

• Our World in Data's CO₂ emissions
• The IEA's annual CO₂ Emissions: CO₂ Emissions in 2023
• United Nations Environment Programme's annual Emissions Gap Reports: Emissions Gap Report 2023
• The IMF's Climate Change Indicators Dashboard.
  

Enquire (talk) 22:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this comment, and appreciate the list of sources. Also keen for a breakdown by gas, and per capita. I agree, this is an extremely significant and measurable part of civilisation, and is fundamental to understanding countries. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?

Enquire (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of infoboxes isn't to highlight issues critical to mankind. They aren't a WP:SOAPBOX, and all the reasons I'm seeing here for including this information there screams "SOAPBOX". Largoplazo (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You could make an identical argument for excluding any other indicator. Take GDP for example - is Wikipedia advocating for countries to emphasize their consideration of GDP? You could make that argument, but I would argue GDP is just an important number to understand what's going on at a macro level in a country. Just like GHG emissions. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to add - virtually every large company now reports publicly on their GHG emissions. Are they advocating for policy change? No, they are responding to investors' demand for information on an objectively important metric. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The investors are demanding policy change. Largoplazo (talk) 03:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You're telling me shareholders of fossil fuel companies want policy changes that would financially harm themselves? I don't see any evidence of that. Yet, fossil fuel companies all report their emissions, because it's a useful metric for investors to understand their operations. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You're telling me that they want those figures for funsies? Largoplazo (talk) 09:50, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Of course not. They want those figures so they can better assess risk (including policy risk). This is so they can do their job better, by more accurately valuing company stocks. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

So investing in a company with a low greenhouse gas output carries less risk? In other words, lower outpupt would be financially beneficial to investors—not harmful? Largoplazo (talk) 12:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a company with lower GHG output carries less risk (all else being equal). Whether this is beneficial for you depends on whether you're trying to buy or sell the stock. GHG output reporting allows transparency and better financial decisionmaking (and prevents investors having to put resources into estimating it). Some reading: [4] [5]

20WattSphere (talk) 22:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking at all the reasons being given here for why a greenhouse gas indicator should be included and they're all advocacy-related. Largoplazo (talk) 03:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Providing information is not the same thing as advocacy. If it was, most of Wikipedia should be deleted. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Every argument being given here is couched in advocacy, so please stop turning around and responding to me, when I note this, that it's all just in the spirit of neutrally providing information, just because. Largoplazo (talk) 09:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously many people here want climate change to be solved, so you could argue these arguments are couched in advocacy. But in my view (and I would argue that WP:SOAPBOX supports this) that doesn't mean WP should choose not to convey information when there is demand for it - even if the demand is due to a political* viewpoint. Nobody's asking for infoboxes to take a position on climate change, just to say where emissions are coming from.

*Saying that climate mitigation is political is also kind of a stretch - we have international agreements on this. Unless you live outside the United Nations, your government agrees that climate change should be mitigated too. 20WattSphere (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

References

Sovereignty

Can the parameters for |sovereignty_type= and |sovereignty_note= be expanded so that multiple ones can be added to a certain country's infobox?

For example, I should be able to add the different periods when a country was a vassal of various different empires at various points in its history. That would require the addition of a |sovereignty_date= parameter for these too. Antiquistik (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

It's meant to be for the current status, with the established dates able to handle the date or dates that sovereignty changed leading to the current status. This assumes of course that it is a political entity passing between different sovereigns or similar, the infobox format doesn't map well onto more abstract notions. CMD (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Sovereignty as we know it today is a reasonably modern concept (began approximately in the 17th century). I think to use the term for periods before then would be anachronistic. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

In this case, could new parameters be created which would indicate whether an ancient or mediaeval state was a vassal or dependency of another state and the periods during which their vassaldom or dependency lasted? Antiquistik (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 July 2024

I'd like to please request for the {{subst:tfm|type=infobox}} tag to be added so I can nominate this template for merging with {{Infobox settlement}}. PK2 (talk; contributions) 07:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: PK2, please file the nomination first, then I will add it. Primefac (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I've just filed the nomination now. I've also included {{Infobox political division}} in this request as well. PK2 (talk; contributions) 09:36, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 12:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding a Democracy Index

Bringing this up once again as it seems this topic keeps occurring on many talk pages for countries such as China and Russia where people keep discussing whether or not to put "under an authoritarian dictatorship" or similar language under the Government section in the infobox. My understanding is that this section should be reserved for the form of government, rather than the character of the government. Thus, the Government section should simply list what the country officially is, while a separate section below it should list what the country actually is. Two indices for consideration would be the V-Dem Democracy Index and The Economist Democracy Index owing to their wide use among scholars and academic research journals. BootsED (talk) 01:04, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think adding indices (no matter which ones) would stop people from discussing that. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with international rankings is that there are so many to choose from.

Including Gini isn't too controversial because it has a simple definition and few degrees of freedom. Including the Human Development Index isn't too controversial because it's published by the United Nations and consists of simple measures of things (health, education, income) seen as good across ideologies.

Measuring "democracy" or "freedom" or "equality" requires a lot more judgment calls. I think that makes it less appropriate for inclusion in country infoboxes. Jruderman (talk) 07:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a very good point and quite true. My counter-argument is that such judgement calls are already being made on numerous country pages, and that if such calls are to be made they should ideally be made based on highly-cited academic measures of "democracy" that follow Wikipedia policy on reliable and academic sources rather than news articles. I agree, adding indices would not stop people from discussing this topic, but it would help provide context for the discussion. BootsED (talk) 01:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Everything you say is true. It's just... outsourcing our judgment calls exclusively to the Economist Intelligence Unit, across all country pages at once, doesn't seem like the Wikipedia thing to do. Jruderman (talk) 02:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Would the conclusions of editors be different than the conclusions of the EIU or V-Dem indices? And if not, why not use these highly-cited and reputable sources by academia instead of lower-quality sources and news reports? Wikipedia itself is based on reliable sources, not the opinions of editors. So the use of the EIU or other indices would still follow Wikipedia’s policies on RS. BootsED (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Using indices in article prose is one thing. Using them in the infobox is a statement that they are a key fact to understand a country. This is also without considering potential neutrality concerns in promoting particular viewpoints about what makes a good government, which is what both V-DEM and the EIU seek to do. CMD (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

That’s fair. However, I would argue that how democratic versus authoritarian a country is remains a key fact to understand a country. North Korea is officially a democracy, but not having a statement in the infobox somewhere stating how it is authoritarian would be misleading. There’s nothing to do with neutrality or a value judgement there. This proposal merely formalizes what is already a consensus on many pages such as the former, to include a statement such as “under an authoritarian dictatorship” or thereof in the infobox, not only in the article body. BootsED (talk) 17:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

None of this matters if it can't actually be represented as a straightforward numerical figure without further context. Which it cannot. Remsense诉 17:39, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

It can be represented this way. Both the V-Dem and EIU provide numerical listings of countries’ score, and further group those scores under a descriptive title. For instance, the EIU lists scores between 8.00 and 10.00 as “Full democracies” or between 4.00 and 5.99 as “Hybrid regimes.” This can easily be quantified and linked to the Wikipedia page on the topic. A similar system also exists for the V-Dem index. BootsED (talk) 17:51, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to read my argument about why this would be immensely inappropriate earlier on this page. Remsense诉 17:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I do not get from the infobox of North Korea that it is a liberal democracy in the way "democracy" is often understood by casual English readers. (The body does unhelpfully state "the elections have been described by outside observers as similar to elections in the Soviet Union" without explaining what that means, and does not note the "single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition" until the end of a very long paragraph.) I would also not feel the absence of a statement on some axis of liberal democracy to totalitarian dictatorship would imply by default one or the other. CMD (talk) 01:26, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Changes to formatting of info in this template

Recently some changes to formatting were added- looking at the INDIA page there are changes such as President and whatever other data having bullet points, as well as Dominion/Republic in the Independence subsection being in their own rows in a table. The Population title is centred, but the GDP sections wouldn't fall under this Population section but it looks like it does too.

I don't know when these were added as I'm pretty sure that formatting changes are added elsewhere, but they look the data look clumpy in my opinion. I think that the format changes should be reverted, but what do you think? — Karnataka 07:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Gini colors and accessibility

I have two concerns with how this template uses color in the Gini section. I've added a new set of testcases so y'all can try out my changes in the sandbox or experiment with alternatives. Once there's consensus for how to address these MOS:COLOR accessibility issues, I'll make a formal edit request.

Over-reliance on color (red vs green)

High Kingdom
Gini	90.0 very high inequality

Lowivia
Gini	15.0 low inequality

Using the distinction between red and green as the sole hint that "high is bad" is... not great. Even readers with full color vision are going to miss this sometimes. Few will click through to Gini coefficient, then resume reading the infobox understanding that Gini measures inequality and high means unequal.

The solution I'm trying is to use more descriptive category names, e.g. "high" becomes "high inequality". The category name is already on its own line, so there is enough space.

Gini may be an imperfect measure of inequality, but as long as we're including it and expressing its valence in colors, we might as well explain what it's trying to measure.

Low contrast (orange)

Mediumland
Gini	35.0 medium inequality

Orange on white-ish is hard to read due to low contrast.

So, what color could be used to indicate a neutral sentiment?

• Darker orange – reads as brown to me, losing the "okayish" connotation that yellow/orange have when near green and red
• Azure – fits with the change-indicator color scheme ( ), but looks more like a link than a sentiment
• Gray (AA) – fits with the other change-indicator color scheme ( ), used for the population row
• Darker gray (AAA) – not distinct enough from black to indicate anything
• No color – normal text, close to black

I'm trying the gray, even though we usually aim for AAA-level contrast in templates. Jruderman (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request: Gini text and color changes for accessibility

Looks like my section on Gini colors and accessibility didn't get a lot of discussion, so I'm going ahead with a formal edit request.

Please apply my changes in the sandbox (without the other sandbox differences before my changes). That is, change the orange to the shade of grey I chose, and add the word "inequality" to each descriptor.

You can apply similar changes to the "development index" row too (keeping in mind that higher is good for this one). Or we can leave that for later; IMO gini is more confusing and more important.

Thanks, Jruderman (talk) 15:08, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I have synchronised the sandbox and reapplied your changes. Please confirm these are ready to go — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Sandbox diff and testcases both look good. Thanks! Jruderman (talk) 21:34, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:48, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Param flag_border, subtemplate /imagetable, and template styles

People's Democratic Republic of Algeria الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية (Arabic)
Flag Emblem
ISO 3166 code	DZ

Hi, Izno, thanks for this edit adding template styles. I have a question about how the code continues to use inline style, in particular in subtemplate {{Infobox country/imagetable}}.

This arose because I was having trouble separating out the edges of the flag image against the Infobox background at Algeria, because the flag is half white, and the Infobox bg color is #f8f9fa, near enough to white that I can't easily distinguish it (even with the faint border) especially if my laptop screen isn't perfectly oriented, as it tends to wash out faint colors.

I started to look at the code to see if I could add user-configurable flag border style, so I could darken it a bit more at Algeria, and at other country articles whose flags have some white near an edge. I discovered param |flag_border= in the code, but it's just a yes-no param, and ends up as a param to Module:InfoboxImage, and it's surrounded by a lot of squirrely code that was way more than I felt like dealing with:

Excerpt of Infobox country code snippet for param 'image1', using /imagetable:

| image1 = {{#if:{{{image_coat|}}}{{{image_symbol|}}}{{{image_flag|}}}{{{image_flag2|}}} |{{infobox country/imagetable |image1a = {{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage|suppressplaceholder={{main other||no}}|image={{{image_flag|}}}|sizedefault=125px|size={{{flag_width|{{{flag_size|}}}}}}|maxsize=250|border={{yesno |{{{flag_border|}}}|yes=yes|blank=yes}}|alt={{{alt_flag|{{{flag_alt|}}}}}}|title=Flag of {{{common_name|{{{name|{{{linking_name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}}}} |image1b = {{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage|suppressplaceholder={{main other||no}}|image={{{image_flag2|}}}|sizedefault=125px|size={{{flag_width|}}}|maxsize=250|border={{yesno |{{{flag2_border|}}}|yes=yes|blank=yes}}|alt={{{alt_flag2|{{{flag_alt2|}}}}}}}} |caption1= {{#ifexist:{{if empty |{{{flag_type_article|}}} |{{{flag|}}} | {{if empty |{{{flag_type|}}} |Flag}} of {{if empty |{{{linking_name|}}} |{{{common_name|}}} |{{{name|}}} |{{PAGENAME}} }} }} |[[{{if empty |{{{flag_type_article|}}} |{{{flag|}}} |{{if empty |{{{flag_type|}}} |Flag}} of {{if empty |{{{linking_name|}}} |{{{common_name|}}} |{{{name|}}} |{{PAGENAME}} }} }}|{{if empty |{{{flag_caption|}}} |{{{flag_type|}}} |Flag}}]] |{{if empty |{{{flag_caption|}}} |{{{flag_type|}}} |Flag}} }} |image2 = {{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage|suppressplaceholder={{main other||no}}|image={{if empty|{{{image_coat|}}}|{{{image_symbol|}}}}} |size={{{symbol_width|{{{coa_size|}}}}}}|sizedefault=85px|alt={{#if:{{{image_coat|}}}|{{{alt_coat|{{{coat_alt|}}}}}}|{{{alt_symbol|}}}}}|title={{{symbol_type|Coat of arms}}} of {{{common_name|{{{name|{{{linking_name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}}}} |caption2= {{#ifexist:{{if empty |{{{symbol_type_article|}}} |{{{symbol|}}} |{{if empty |{{{symbol_type|}}} |Coat of arms}} of {{if empty |{{{linking_name|}}} |{{{common_name|}}} |{{{name|}}} |{{PAGENAME}} }} }} |[[{{if empty |{{{symbol_type_article|}}} |{{{symbol|}}} |{{if empty |{{{symbol_type|}}} |Coat of arms}} of {{if empty |{{{linking_name|}}} |{{{common_name|}}} |{{{name|}}} |{{PAGENAME}} }} }} | {{if empty |{{{symbol_type|}}} |Coat of arms}}]] |{{if empty |{{{symbol_type|}}} |Coat of arms}} }} }} }} For clarity, a copy of the invocation of the InfoboxImage module (3rd line above) with newlines added looks like this: #invoke: InfoboxImage pretty-printed {{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage |suppressplaceholder={{main other||no}} |image={{{image_flag|}}} |sizedefault=125px |size={{{flag_width|{{{flag_size|}}}}}} |maxsize=250 |border={{yesno |{{{flag_border|}}}|yes=yes|blank=yes}} |alt={{{alt_flag|{{{flag_alt|}}}}}} |title=Flag of {{{common_name|{{{name|{{{linking_name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}}}}}} }}

so I just dropped the whole idea of adding configurable flag border style, and I'm okay with that.

But I noticed that the code transcludes {{infobox country/imagetable}}, and that's where you come in (if you're willing) because that entire subtemplate is pure in-line style that probably should be using classes in the /styles page instead. If you decide to take that on, and you happen to see some kind of easy win for flag_border being more than just a yesno so I could style it, that would be nice, too, but not a must-have, so please don't lose any sleep over it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I was having trouble separating out the edges of the flag image against the Infobox background at Algeria, because the flag is half white, and the Infobox bg color is #f8f9fa I agree, that's pretty rough (and I'd guess most white flags suffer this issue in light mode). I think this would be pretty easy to fix if you marked up the container for the flag with a class, added a one liner to override

@media screen { .mw-image-border .mw-file-element { border: 1px solid #eaecf0; }}

and then added some sort of boolean parameter to turn that class on. The issue you would run into (if you consider it one) is that you would want one such parameter per image...

As for the matter of the subpage, yeah, one could add those to that styles page without too much thought. It's used on most of the pages the root template is used on, so you're probably not spending too much budget of a sort on it without good cause. Try syncing (decide if it's worth syncing) + modifying the /imagetable sandbox and a templatestyles sandbox and I can check your work. Izno (talk) 16:32, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; am considering all this and looking into understanding the code better. (Also, I added a rump version of the Algeria Infobox showing the flag in context; also added a pretty-printed sub-snippet to the collapsed portion.) Mathglot (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Please specify the border-width as "thin" instead of "1px". I've found that pixel widths can become uneven or even disappear when using the zoom feature of desktop web browsers. Jruderman (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

The keywords can likewise render inconsistently between browsers (we've found this to be true for the font-size keywords, to say nothing of font-weight: bold). Someone always pays a price. Izno (talk) 21:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll take inconsistency between browsers over inconsistency between left/right/top/bottom :) — Jruderman (talk) 21:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I haven't finished my analysis yet, but I'm not sure any of these suggestions are going to work. All of them end up with a [[File:Flag of Algeria.svg|125px|border|Flag of Algeria]] (either with, or without the 'border' param, depending on the presence/absence of |flag_border= in the infobox), and that syntax does not allow any value for border. The generated html will have a <td> with class="infobox-image", and under that three nested div's, and a <span class="mw-image-border" typeof="mw:File"> in the |flag_border=yes case, and I don't see a way around this without altering the syntax of File. Unless maybe a local Template style could override the value of class mw-image-border, but even then, I don't see how it could attach border style to the image; perhaps with a before:: element, but not sure if that would work. Here's a snippet of the generated Html:

Generated Html for the flag in the Infobox_country

Html snippet from Infobox_country from the Algeria article; newlines and indentation added for clarity: <tr><td colspan="2" class="infobox-image"> <div class="noresize" style="display:table; width:100%;"> <div style="display:table-cell; vertical-align:middle; padding-left:5px;"> <div style="padding-bottom:3px;"> <span class="mw-image-border" typeof="mw:File"> <a href="/wiki/File:Flag_of_Algeria.svg" class="mw-file-description" title="Flag of Algeria"> <img alt="Flag of Algeria" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Flag_of_Algeria.svg/125px-Flag_of_Algeria.svg.png" decoding="async" width="125" height="83" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Flag_of_Algeria.svg/188px-Flag_of_Algeria.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Flag_of_Algeria.svg/250px-Flag_of_Algeria.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="600" /> </a> </span> </div> <div> <a href="/wiki/Flag_of_Algeria" title="Flag of Algeria">Flag</a> </div> </div> Note: 'emblem' is the next td cell (also an image) which is why there is a colspan="2 above, and then the end of the tr row.

The only place I could find class mw-image-border was MediaWiki:Gadget-NewImageThumb.css, but that doesn't seem like where it's getting it from. More later. Mathglot (talk) 22:25, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Templates can add scoped CSS, right? So we should be able to keep the nice syntax. Jruderman (talk) 23:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah try “Wikipedia:TemplateStyles” Jruderman (talk) 23:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

This template has one (more style here) and that's been discussed above. I think we are circling back to Izno's original suggestion, and that is the first approach to try. Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)