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Other Political Parties

I would just like to suggest that we place a field for "other political parties" as there are many politicians who have been known to hold membership of several political parties and often their roles in these political parties were notable. (I'm not saying people holding memberships on one level of government, but on multiple levels, for example "Mr. X is the member of the A national party, and yet he is a member of C subnational party at the same time. He has been head of government under C and is a prominent high ranking member of A.)  Avec nat...Wikipédia Prends Des Forces.  08:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Strongly support this. I'd actually go so far as to propose making party one of the fields tied to office (as with predecessor, successor, etc.). That way, in the case of Jean Charest (to take one example), we could note that he was Member of Parliament for Sherbrooke as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and later became Premier of Quebec as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party (his affiliation with the P.C.s isn't mentioned at all in the current infobox, even though he led the party at one point). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I have not strong objections, if there is a use for such a field for some elected officials. But what would a comparable example be in the United States? We do not have subnational parties per se. Some state branches of the major political parties like the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party are separate from the Democratic Party in name only, and therefore are not "subnational." The only time I think you'd use this if an elected official changed political parties while in office, and even then you could make that notation without a separate field. Just my thoughts.Dcmacnut (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This change would be useful (from my perspective) less for politicians who changed parties while in office, and more for those who held different offices under different party labels. While I don't know American politics all that well, here's a hypothetical: Michael Bloomberg is Republican Mayor of New York; if he made a successful third party run for President of the United States, there'd need to be some place to put this other party as it applied to the other position. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
{{editprotected}}
Does anybody have the technical expertise to make such a change? There seems to be consensus for it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 Not done - what do you actually want changing? You will need to provide the current and the replacement line of code. Neil ☎ 11:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I was afraid that might be the case. Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise to make that change. I'll keep looking for someone who does. Sarcasticidealist 12:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think a special field is really necessary — for Canadian politicians whose party affiliation has changed over time, I just list the two or three parties in the political party field. Easy solution. Bearcat 18:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is when you use the "election candidate" field, all the political parties are listed in that "election candidate/officeholder field" so for instance John was a provincial minister of whatever under the NDP and yet he's a federal liberal candidate, the "Office/title" should be "Liberal candidate for MPP for X" but instead, it appears as "NDP Liberal Candidate..." nat.utoronto 04:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
So, um, still nobody with both the desire and the know-how to make this change? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I do...I just wanted to get consensus first. nat.utoronto 23:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'd say you have some reasonable approximation thereof. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Name to use in name field

(This potentially goes beyond just office holders, but as all the cases I've seen are British politicians I'll start here.)

Is there any clarity as to which name should be use in the "name" field? There have been various changes back and forth on a lot of British politicians who gained titles (either through conferment or inheritance) either during their active career or in retirement. For example should the info box for Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1957-1963, say "The Rt Hon Harold Macmillan" (as he was from 1942-1984) or "The Earl of Stockton" (the title he was conferred in 1984)? What about a living retired PM - should John Major have "Sir" in the infobox when this is also an honour he's received in retirement? Timrollpickering (talk) 10:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The rule here should be common sense. The name field of an infobox is there to provide the most rapidly recognizable name for a person. Following the precedent of WP:NAME, we should use what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, perhaps with a little embellishment (like post-nominals or "The Rt Hon") since no-one has to link to or type in the infobox name. But the idea that the first thing a reader ought to see on the "Harold Macmillan" page is "The Earl of Stockton" is bewildering. If we were really to hold to the principle that high titles would supersede low ones in an article, we would have to move Benjamin Disraeli to Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beconsfield. I'm not at all averse to including knighthoods or post-nominals (They don't erase the person's widely-known name), or even some peerages (it would be unreasonable to call the Earl of Derby anything else), but using a retirement peerage in place of a common name in the infobox seems silly. -- The_socialist talk? 22:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The articles aren't just about their time as Prime Minister, it's about their whole lives. Everyone knows Thatcher as Baroness Thatcher, so she's defo in. Macmillan actively used Stockton himself, when he (finally!) received his Earldom. I think the infobox should reflect their highest style, which are legally held titles. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 22:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
That seems a sensible approach to me given that infoboxes are cosmetic additions of summary info. which should therefore aim for maximum clarity. I move that "The Rt Hon Harold Macmillan" is more recognisable. -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 12:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
But factually and stylistically inaccurate. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, if correct styles were our first priority, we'd have to fit "The Right Honourable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, Lady of the Garter, Order of Merit, Fellow of the Royal Society" into an infobox. There are other places in an article to give a correct, complete list of honours; something as brief and pedestrian as an infobox should stick to common names.-- The_socialist talk? 17:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
No we wouldn't, Mr. Socialist. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
The "name field" should show "The Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, FRS" - Kittybrewster ☎ 10:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
"The Rt Hon"? That's an abbreviation. And (I'll admit I missed this in my first posting) Baroness Thatcher of where? I understand the argument from precision, but infoboxes were never so precise. Trying to make them precise would invariably end in a mess of formal titles. I don't want to delete the styles of Prime Ministers out of egalitarian fervor (far from it), I just think it is obfuscatory to make "The Right Honourable The Earl of Stockton" the first thing you see when you look up Harold Macmillan. Why not use common names when there are other places to put complete styles? -- The_socialist talk? 08:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree with The Socialist. G-Man ? 02:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
As do I. The name displayed should be the easiest to recognize. The full name, including titles, should be in the Introduction to that person's article. See the Alexander Siddig article for an example. Imagine his full name in the Infobox. --SMP0328. (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

The recent redirect of {{Infobox CanadianMP}} to this one is causing some minor difficulties on Canadian articles at present, as some of the text entry fields in that box had slightly different titles. Could somebody please edit this template to include "riding" as a possible alternative term for "constituency"? Thanks. Bearcat 10:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You guys are going to make me do an AWB run on the individual articles to change the field from riding to constituency, aren't you? If that's not necessary, then could I get an actual response here? Bearcat (talk) 22:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
There's a {{{riding}}} parameter in the current code. What's the issue? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
My mistake. It seems when Random removed the HTML comments, he also removed some parameters. I will fix the issue right now. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

What information to include, Part II

The addition of monarch at Australian PM infoboxes, is being contested. GoodDay (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Current office holders

I've noticed that lately, Xth is being removed from current office holder(s) infoboxes (see Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy for example). Where was the consensus to do this? GoodDay (talk) 18:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you've done it, since one could argue (for example) Putin isn't the 2nd President of the Russian Federation, as there's yet a 3rd. I just thought you should've gotten consensus first (at least bring up the idea, before implementing). PS- I hope you don't do the same to the George W. Bush article. GoodDay (talk) 23:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well reading your reasoning on User talk:Jajhill, numbering isn't restrict to the United States or other republics, several kingdoms and realms use them. Take Canada for instance. The standard used by most historians and political scientists is we number each prime minister by their first term in office, unlike the United States and its presidents. That is why Stephan Harper is 22nd Prime Minister of Canada and not the 27th Prime Minister. nat.utoronto 23:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the rule should be that office holders should only be numbered if it's conventional to do it for the country in question and there is a clearly agreed numbering convention that covers issues like consecutive periods in office, non-consecutive ones and so forth. Note that this is handled very differently across different countries - Australia where Robert Menzies was just the "12th" PM despite having two non-consecutive periods in office (as did some of his predecessors), Pakistan where Benazir Bhutto was the 12th and 16th (and possibly a further number in the future) despite being in similar circumstances; and Japan where Junichiro Koizumi was the "87th, 88th & 89th" (and no, that's not a typo).
In my experience the problems on the UK pages stem from new (and usually anonymous) users who don't realise that numbering ministers simply isn't a UK convention and who try to number when a lot of the questions (particularly over multiple terms but also whether or not nominal interim office holders - this is more for other ministers than the PM - "count", along with whether or not the numbering "resets") don't have definitive answers. Generally when talking about a past minister one would say when they held office, not some random number that is meaningless without a list. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct, you only edited Xth out of British PMs. GoodDay (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

After having gotten over my forgetfulness, I've returned. IMHO, the numbering should remain on the incumbent officer holders. But it's not something I'd argue over, I'll go along with the majority. GoodDay (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Successor section

{{editprotected}} I'd recommend removal of the 'successor section' from the infoboxes of current officer holders. GoodDay (talk) 21:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The current holder of a political office can be reelected or reappointed (law permitting), but he can not succeed himself. Having a successor section in the Infoboxes of current office holders in superfluous. Some such Infoboxes don't have such an Infobox section, but many do. --SMP0328. (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This code will stop people from putting Incumbent into the successor field. I'm reluctant to prevent anything going in the field if the term is ongoing as I'm sure there are times when you'd want to do so and it would be appropriate. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Keep in mind that with some such positions, such as President of the United States, it's known who will succeed him at the job before his term is over. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This edit would NOT prevent the addition of a name, just the word 'Incumbent'. Please read my previous comment. --Philip Stevens (talk) 13:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Phil, when I click onto the link in your last post it does not give me any code. Maybe you can fix the link or post the code on my talk page. --SMP0328. (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Click on 'edit this page' and you'll find the code. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
It looks like the code provided also removes the (s) from some of the titles. Is that intentional? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 Not done as the successor field will remain hidden if the field has not been filled in. In other words, remove whatever name or word is in the field if it is present in an incumbent officeholder's infobox. nat.utoronto 20:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
NO, NO, NO!!!! This is NOT the case! Only if the word 'Incumbent' is put in the successor field will the it be hidden. Look here to see an example. To answer CBM, the code will remove the '(s)' as on some pages it goes to the next line causing unsightly whitespaces. I don't think the (s) increase the understanding of the infobox at all, and I can't see anyone objecting to it. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Since Nat has expressed disagreement with the change, I'm not going to make it right now. Please work out what the best solution is. The (s) thing is not worth changing if it only is for line break reasons; if things are that close, all it will take is a slightly bigger font and the same break will appear. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
From what I can tell, if: | successor = incumbent or | successor = ''Incumbent'' , this code will be entirely ineffective. Seems like a silly change to make to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The code now allows for Incumbent Incumbent Incumbent incumbent incumbent incumbent incumbent. Also, Nat's point is mute as the Successor doesn't disappear if it is present in an incumbent officeholder's infobox. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I support the code and change put forth by Phil. It covers most of the variations people have used for "incumbent." However, I just went and manually removed "Incumbent" from all of the current U.S. Senator infoboxes, and found dozens of other alternatives spellings. Most were "Incumbent (20XX)" displaying the expiration of their current term. Others had the field wikilinked. The code would get too complex to include all of these variations, so I suggest implementing it as recommended above.
As far as why the change is necessary, there are far too many infoboxes for out there for incumbent politicians to remove the word manually. The code change proposed will allow a wiki-wide change to all affected articles. Any stray "incumbents" not caught by the code can removed manually when they are seen. Even with this change, I recommend all editors remove "incumbent" from the infobox if they see it while making other edits to articles.Dcmacnut (talk) 14:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
It would be very simple for a bot to go through and remove the word incumbent from the infoboxes. Two people (MZMcBride and nat.utoronto) seem to be saying they don't agree with the change. If the box doesn't appear in an incumbent officeholder's box anyway, then why is a change needed to remove it? Please stop reinsterting the editprotected tag until all of this is resolved. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Looking at it again, it seems to me that it would be more robust to test whether the term_end date is defined and has passed, rather than trying to match the text of the successor field. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
With the greatest of respect to other editors, nat.utoronto didn't understand the edit (thinking it had something to do with the term_end which it doesn't). I've allowed for MZMcBride's comment. I think it would be very difficult to adjust the term_end as it controls the Incumbent banner. --Philip Stevens (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm suggesting that we reuse the term_end parameter a second time. We can convert the current time and the term_end to seconds since the epoch, and use #ifexpr: to compare them. Then we would only display the "successor" banner if term_end was defined and in the past. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I wouldn't say that I object to the proposed changes, my comment was simply that there are quite a few variants of "incumbent" that could be / probably are being used that would not be covered by the code. The number of different ways the field could include the word incumbent makes it kind of silly to do this could change, when italics with a hyperlink would defeat it. I'm pretty much apathetic on the whole issue, though I will say that a bot could be controversial see that this page is used on my high profile pages, and some editors may want to keep "incumbent" in the successor parameter. If the decision ends up that we use the #switch / #ifeq magic, please use #uc: or #lc: to reduce the code size. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Alma mater

Could we have "Education" instead of "Alma mater"? I just had to look it up to see what it meant, and I don't think I'm the only one who would need to. Even if it's only a minority of the English-speaking world that don't know what "alma mater" means, it's surely a much larger minority than those who don't know what "education" means. (Chorleypie (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC))

How about replacing "Alma mater" with "Education/Alma Mater" or "Alma Mater/Education"? That would make that section of the Infobox clearer, while also not causing some people to think that section has been replaced. --SMP0328. (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps just add a new field, 'Education', and people can pick between the two. --Philip Stevens (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What would be the difference between an "Education" section and an "Alma Mater" section? I didn't see one; that's why I suggested using the names together. --SMP0328. (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking that one could be used for British pages and anther for US pages. But now I've re-read the first comment I see that this is not the problem.
I think the addition of a hyperlink might be the best option, so anyone who doesn't know the meaning of the phrase need only click to find the meaning. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there's any need for a change. Wikipedia isn't for the lowest common denominator, and this term is used in other templates (Template:Infobox scientist) and many categories (Category:Alumni by university or college). If we change the term here, we'd have to do it in all those places as well. --Hera1187 (talk) 23:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Herall87. This isn't Simple English Wikipedia, and I think we can assume pretty widespread familiarly with terms like "alma mater", especially given the lack of any synonyms. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to have a hypertext in the title of a section of an Infobox? That way, in an Infobox, "Alma mater" could link to "Alma mater". That would help anyone who didn't understand "Alma mater", while not affecting the text of any Infobox. --SMP0328. (talk) 23:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd have no objection to a hyperlink, all I'd say is anyone who knows the meaning of 'Alumni' (a widely used term) would realise the meaning of 'alma mater'. --Hera1187 (talk) 07:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for quick replies all. Hera1187, I knew what 'alumni' meant but I didn't know what 'alma mater' meant. And I've got a degree. I've just asked my wife, who's a surgeon, and she was the same. Even if it's something like 60% of the UK population that do know what 'alma mater' means, I do think Wikipedia is for more people than this. I guess the problem could be that people listing all schools - is an alma mater always a university or could it be a college or a school? If we can't agree on replacing 'alma mater' with 'education', then I do like the hypertext solution. (Chorleypie (talk) 11:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC))
Alma mater only means university in British English, but can mean both high school and university in American English. This doesn't matter, there are many words used on Wikipedia that mean one thing on a page for UK topics and something else for US pages. For example, saloon on 2007 London car bombs is a type of car, saloon on Shot glass is a type of bar. --Philip Stevens (talk) 11:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Spouse and Domestic partner

 Done An admin, please add the following above or below the spouse code and add to documentation under Template:Infobox Officeholder/doc#Personal data:

{{#if:{{{partner|}}}|
! Domestic partner
{{!}} {{{partner}}}
{{!}}-
}}

Thanks. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 21:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is the full code including the changes for the pervious discussions above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 22:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

alongside

Could we create an "alongside" field for the general infobox officeholder template of the sort that currently exists for U.S. senators? They're not the only elected officials in the world who represent multi-member constituencies, you know. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Hmm - I was evidently misdiagnosing the problem. I think perhaps my actual problem is that it's not one of the fields that can be duplicated (i.e. no alongside2, alongside3, etc.). Is that correct? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Steve, as far as I can see everything seems to be working just fine. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for writing the code. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Net worth

{{editprotected}}

Can an admin, please add the following above or below the profession or occupation code and add to documentation under Template:Infobox Officeholder/doc#Personal data.

{{#if:{{{net worth|}}}|
! Net Worth
{{!}} {{{net worth}}}
{{!}}-
}}

thanks Astuishin (talk) 07:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Other leaders in business as well as celebrities have a "net worth" code, it seems that political leaders should as well. Thanks. Astuishin (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 Done. Happy‑melon 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
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