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Is there? or Should there be?

Is there a page that explains how to properly use the parameters like there are for other templates? for example Template:Citation

It seems that this template has examples on how is used, but not a how to use it list. Like for example:

  • "death date: Use with Template:Death date and age"
  • "spouse: name of spouse. list multiple spouses from first to last include (marriage date-dissolved or present)"
  • "name: use most common use name of individual"
  • religion: religious denomination as opposed to just religion (Roman Catholic v. Christian)
  • alongside: for those serving in a plural position: i.e. triumvirate

and so forth, that way infoboxes would remain more uniform, and have less discrepancies (some with "Barack Hussein Obama Jr" and others with just "Bill Clinton") or having spouses being listed from most recent to less, and vice versa. Or having occupations/profession separated with comas instead of < / br>, i know i have committed every mistake in every field, and after the 20th time of using the field i realized "oh i guess its like this now!". I dont know just saying...or asking? mijotoba (talk) 06:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Why fully protected?

This talk page has accumulated several open requests, such as the one by Rrius. I am afraid that the fact that (a) this template is fully protected and (b) reasonable requests don't get resolved frustrates good editors. The history doesn't seem to show any disrupting edits prior to the protection. Given that the very first thing we write about ourselves on the home page is "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.", we need a good reason when we make exceptions. — Sebastian 17:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be compliant with Wikipedia's protection policy (see WP:PPINDEF and Wikipedia:High-risk templates). As this template is transcluded on over 22,000 pages, a single vandal edit or poorly thought out edit will cause 44,000 page updates on the server (22,000 to make the edit and 22,000 to repair it).
In the case of the "open requests", the {{editprotected}} template has not been invoked or otherwise the cases would have been either accepted or rejected. What we have on this page is a lot of "should we"/"could we" discussions where there seems to be no definitive answer as to what needs editing. If the template was unprotected we would likely see editors jumping in to test their ideas causing thousands of page edits across the live environment.
If editors want to edit a template of this scale they should run a test of their new code in a sandbox and then request a protected edit. Even admins (who can edit a protected page) should run tests on their code when implementing changes on this scale. Road Wizard (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Well said. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes, you have a point there. I mostly wrote this because of the "-elect" v. "-designate" proposal above, which seems like a sensible, easy fix. Can we implement that? (If not, please reply there.)
As for the testing, I only partly agree with you. While I certainly believe in the importance of testing, testing complex templates is prohibitively hard. Copying it to a "sandbox" page is a hack; it's nowhere near a professional sandbox because it behaves differently if the template uses advanced features. I tried it a couple of years ago, and while I don't remember the details, I remember that it was so much hassle to adjust name space differences that I decided that it's just as well to rely on the preview function and then take the plunge. Of course I then right away check if it displays correctly in an appropriate number of articles. I've done my share of template edits this way (including high-risk templates such as {{Sisterlinks}}), and I've heard no complaints. — Sebastian 20:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
It isn't that hard to set up a sandbox environment in user space (even for templates that invoke code from several sub-pages) and there is always the option of creating a temporary Template:Infobox Officeholder/Sandbox page if you are worried about namespace problems. Also, I would suggest that the harder it is to set up a proper sandbox environment for a template, the more likely it is that you are dealing with a complex template and the more likely it is that you could break something by accident. Quite simply if you don't know enough about the template code to set up a realistic test environment, how can you be sure that you know enough about the code to be able to edit it safely?
The {{Sisterlinks}} template is a weak example for your argument. It is a relatively short template and has a tiny fraction of the complexity of Template:Infobox Officeholder.
For the elect vs designate issue, the editor has not made a request for a protected edit. If they know what they want to change they should propose it, wait for objections and if none are received (or the objections are dealt with) they should add the editprotect template. I don't use those fields so I can't sensibly make a comment, however if you support the idea and know what needs to be changed, you are free to make the protected edit request yourself. Road Wizard (talk) 20:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Succeeding is misleading

Entries in this template which refer to other persons have the syntax "tag - name", where tag refers to that other person. Example: If the box in article "Madeleine Albright" contains the entry "President - Bill Clinton", it means that Clinton was the president presiding over Mrs Albright. True to this syntax, "Succeeded by - Colin Powell" means that Mr Powell succeeded her. This is so obvious thay it may seem strange that I am writing this here. However, this is not carried through in the case of future officeholders. In the article Susan Rice, we have "Succeeding - Zalmay Khalilzad", which should accordingly mean that Mr Khalilzad is (or will be) succeeding her, which is really misleading. Why can't we just leave that at "Preceeded by", as would be the case if Mrs Rice were already in office? I know, it may sound a little awkward, but that's not worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater. (If there really has to be different wording, maybe "current officeholder" could work. That would be ideal in 99% of all cases, but it would need special handling in situations where the office is currently vacant.) — Sebastian 17:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the wording as succeeding is the correct tense and I can't see the confusion you suggest. To me it reads quite clearly that Susan Rice is succeeding Zalmay Khalilzad. Certainly I would consider "Preceeded by" a worse choice as the tense is completely wrong. However, my primary focus is UK politics where there isn't normally a hand over period between posts (e.g. the individual is either Prime Minister or not Prime Minister - we have no "Prime Minister-elect"), so I am not overly affected by the wording. You might want to get some input from some editors of US articles as the field seems to be geared towards them in the main. Road Wizard (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Road Wizard. (And I am a U.S. editor). Succeeding is correct because it indicates that Mrs. Rice will be succeeding Mr.(?) Khalilzad. And while I agree with the tense issue that Road Wizard brought up, a more important consideration is that saying "preceded by" would introduce a serious ambiguity in the case of "-elect" and possibly other people. For instance, consider the case of President Jimmy Carter when he was president-elect; if it said "preceeded by", there would be ambiguity as to whether Ford as previous president or Nixon as previous president-elect belonged in the field. The current wording conveys the meaning appropriately while avoiding the grammar problem and the ambiguity. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
We could use will succeed. Current officeholder would work, and we'd simply say 'vacant' if that were the case. Or, we can leave it as is. I doubt anyone's being confused. Flatterworld (talk) 05:25, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

please change ja interwiki

change to ja:Template:政治家.--CLOMEDAU (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Long time problem

{{editprotected}} There has been a problem since the conversion from the politician/judge/senator etc. infoboxes to the big huge "Officeholder" regarding the "appointed/r" field. Here you can see that the appointed doesn't show up for the second office, though it would for the first, while this shows how a change in the entry allows for the info to show up, as it does in the current version of the article. I would prefer not having to make a change in about 100 articles that I made, let alone how many others were made by others (note the syntax for the judge entry still shows appointer). Aboutmovies (talk) 07:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

First Lady (US) is not an office

Should we not differentiate between Office (i.e. elected) and anything/someone else. The First Lady (now Laura Bush) is not elected, and holds not office. Period. -DePiep (talk) 00:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussed extensively in the past, see the archives. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:59, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This template creates incorrect automatic links. Take a look at George W. P. Hunt. He was the United States Minister to Siam. He was a minister, not an ambassador, and when he was minister, the country was named Siam. Yet if the the ambassador parameters are filled out, a link to United States Ambassador to Siam is created, which is not correct. The link should read “United States Minister to Siam” but the piped link should go to United States Ambassador to Thailand, which is correct. •Life of Riley (talk) 05:19, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

  • In these cases, I suggest using the office field instead of the Ambassador field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • In any case he was not an ambassador, so the ambassador template should not be used. If he had been an ambassador instead of just a minister, and there is a distinction in the titles, and if the link United States Ambassador to Siam was not linked to anything, you could just redirect it to the United States Ambassador to Thailand by going to the page and inserting the wiki markup #REDIRECT [[]] to send that link to the correct page, hence keeping the right title in the infobox and linking it to the correct page as well. mijotoba (talk) 15:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Awards limited to military service

The way this template is currently implemented, filling in "awards" automatically establishes the existence of a "Military service" subsection and lists the award there. Since awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom can be given to those who never served in the military, the linkage between the two is inappropriate, and possibly a vestige of the infobox merge that led to a shared {{infobox Officeholder}}. The workaround that I used for Ryan Crocker was to make use of blank1/data1. I would think that non-military awards are common enough that a more standardized approach should be available. 66.167.48.198 (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC).

Image size parameter

I have scoured the template page and I cannot see an image-size parameter anywhere. Can it be added please? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Jeez how the heck did I miss that? Thanks. BTW the close code tag is


</code>



 not
<code/>



... – ukexpat (talk) 21:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Senior/Junior U.S. Senators


 Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress § Biography infoboxes, of current Senators


Perhaps I'm worrying too much. But is it possible, that having the current Senators listed as Senior Senator of... & Junior Senator of... might be mis-leading? Might give the false impression to less familiar readers, that (for example) in California, Feinstein has more Senatorial authority then Boxer (which she doesn't)? GoodDay (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)



  • Maybe we should make a "re-link", e. g.:


[[Seniority in the United States Senate|Senior]] [[United States Senate|Senator]] from [[Vermont]].



 I think the note of who is the senior and junior senator is needed. Cassandro (talk) 18:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)



I'm not sure I agree with all this, but I do ask that if the sr/jr be dropped that the infobox parameter be changed to United States Senator rather than Senator. Qqqqqq (talk) 22:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)



  • I agree with it. A distinction between a State and a US Senator is needed. Cassandro (talk) 22:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    • Agree with United States Senator. I'm gonna need help with this tommorrow, as 100 articles is alot to change, one-by-one. Also we need more imput on this, as we're but a small number. GoodDay (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
    • 

  • I just changed the meta-template code at {{Infobox Officeholder/Office}}, which is used by {{Infobox Officeholder}} to eliminate the Sr/Jr distinction in every U.S. Senator's infobox.  Turns out that the parameter "jr/sr" is only used by U.S. Senators' infoboxes.  Tell me if you see any errors!!—Markles 22:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

    • They're gradually changing. GoodDay (talk) 23:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
      • 

    • So what if the Senior Senator resigns or dies the Junior automatically become the Senior Senator. Take note Seniority matters in the Senate plus we call our senators as the "Senior Senator from so and so" or the "Junior Senator from so and so" Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 13:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

      • You're right that seniority does matter; but the title "Senior Senator" or "Junior Senator" has less importance.  That's why it's out of the infobox.  It can remain in the general article, because it's a nice rhetorical writing device, but it should come out of the infobox -- that's all.  Plus, think of the infoboxes for Senators who were once junior and then became senior — how should they have been listed in the infobox?  It's just too confusing to put in an infobox which is intended to be a simple, accurate and concise go-to resource. —Markles 14:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
    • 

  • I'm disgusted that this has been removed, Current Senators should have the Senior or Junior tag attached. If they aren't serving the tag is gone, why is this so hard?--Jack Cox (talk) 19:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

    • "Disgusted"?  It's "so hard" because some Senators serve first as Junior and then as Senior.  Which should be used?  WP is a historical document, not a current guide to Congress.  There is no harm applied by removing it just from the infobox.  —Markles 20:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
      • 

    • Joe Biden had been in the Senate almost two decades and had risen to become chair of the important and prestigious Senate Judiciary Committee and had presided over the two most contentious Supreme Court hearings in history (Bork and Thomas) and after all that ... he was still the junior senator from Delaware.  It just doesn't mean that much.  Wasted Time R (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

      Same is true for John Kerry. Tvoz/talk 19:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


I'm glad the "Junior/Senior" thing is gone. It created confusion, including as to what "preceding" meant. A reader could have interpreted it to mean the predecessor in the seat or as junior senator. It also didn't actually say that the person was a US Senator. 

Now that it's gone, should we rename the parameter so it doesn't cause confusion? There have already been edits, including my own, trying to "fix" the fact that "Junior Senator" and "Senior Senator" aren't displaying. -Rrius (talk) 08:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)



I was thinking the same thing, perhaps to us_senate to match state_senate elsewhere. However, that means every senator infobox will then break and would need to be fixed. Apparently, jr/sr paramater is the only paramter used for U.S. Senators. With Markles' edit, any text can be put in that paramater, and it will display properly as United States Senator. It just needs to be populated with something. The code may need a larger rewrite rather than the stop-gap measure currently in place.DCmacnut<> 14:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm putting this hidden text in the field as I come across them:


 jr/sr= Senior <!-- won't display, but needs to be here for now: see [[Template talk: Infobox Officeholder]] -->



  Hope you come up with a fix so we can reduce edits and reverts on this . Tvoz/talk 19:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I hear the opinions but my colleagues in my workplace cannot determine of which senator is senior and the junior. Could you please put them back.. I BEG YOU. Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 11:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)



It's in the beginnig of every article of sitting senators, it is not fully eliminated (just from the infoboxes), so your colleagues can find it. Cassandro (talk) 12:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


Compromise From This Coming Up Again


Perhaps putting whether the Senator is Junior or Senior in the lede can solve the problem here. Spinach Monster (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)



I agree, I call for a compromise on the current and former senators so this can be done. Rizalninoynapoleon (talk) 10:24, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


footnote line spacing


The spacing between the lines of small print for the footnotes seems excessive (for example see Josiah Quincy, Jr.).  I suggest it be adjusted by a style setting of "line-height: 1.4em".  I wrote a template in Wikisource, s:Template:Font-size-x, for this situation, but it is practically as easy to use the style parameter. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)



Use of endash in 'In office' range of dates


{{editprotected}}
From my reading of Endash#Ranges_of_values, I don't think there should be a space between the en dash and the years on either side of the en dash.  The link provided shows a closed en dash being used when the en dash is surrounded by years (e.g., "President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)"), but not when its surrounded by words (e.g., "June – July 1967").  It may be difficult (and unappreciated) to correct that, but I just thought I'd point this stylistic issue out. For an example of how this problem looks, see the infobox at Norman Birkett: "1941 – 1950" should be "1941–1950". Emw2012 (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)



I agree; the spacing between the dashes should be removed. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

 Note: You are right about the fact there should not be a spaced ndash. However, the parameter does not distinguish whether the "termend" fields contains a full date or just the year. Therefore spaces it spaces the field like a full date, so endterm=1 January 2000 would give "31 December 1899 – 1 January 2000", and endterm=2000 "31 December 1899 – 2000. To make it function differently would require some more complicated switch codings within the template. If you can find a workable solution please feel free to request its implementation, but for now I'm removing the editprotected as there isn't specific details of how this fix can be made. Best wishes, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 22:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


Microformat upgrade request- no visual impact to template


{{editprotected}}



  • Visual impact: None
    • 

  • What it does: This change allows wikipedia to emit event microformat metadata, as do other infoboxes  such as these.  The change should have no visual impact and introduces non functional classes to elements of the table.  These classes are recognized by external microformat parsers to retrieve information in the cells.


  • Requested changes:


  1. class="infobox vcard" → class="infobox vcard vevent"
    2. 

  2. |colspan="2" class="fn" → |colspan="2" class="fn summary"


  • Background:  This allows events of the individuals life to be represented such as the span of their life, from birth to death date.  Currently the template supports hCard format which does not describe events.  Further information on what this does and how to see some of the benefits may be found here.


Thanks -J JMesserly (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)



 Done - JPG-GR (talk) 05:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much -J JMesserly (talk) 21:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


The hCard microformat - which was already in this template - adequately represents birth dates. The change does not allow "events of the individuals life to be represented", as claimed above, but represents the whole life as a single event. People's lives are not single events; and so this edit is unnecessary and harmful. Please reverse it; as has recently been done to {{Infobox Person}} and other biographical infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

 Done —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 08:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


Positions with multiple occupants


Occasionally, political positions have more than one occupant at a time, for example a multiple-member electoral district which has two or more representatives at once. I've implemented a workaround for the time being — see Darlene Marzari for an example — but would like to ask for input on whether an edit field specifically for "coincumbent" should be added to this template. Bearcat (talk) 00:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC)



The |alongside= field should serve this purpose, no? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, never mind. Different question, then: could somebody update the template documentation? Because the way the documentation is written right now, the only place the existence of "alongside=" is even listed at all is under the section documenting features unique to the US_Senator version of this template. US Senators, for what it's worth, are a similar but not entirely identical situation to what I'm talking about, because the situation I encountered wasn't one where the officeholders are distinguished as "junior" vs. "senior". The field works for the purpose at hand, so thanks, but it could still be documented better than it is. Bearcat (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added it to the general section of the documentation.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Molto grazie. Bearcat (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


Net Worth


Can we have "Net worth" added. I can find stuff about Occupation and profession but nothing about worth. Thanks Chendy (talk) 18:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)



U.S. Representative-elect


{{editprotected}}
For U.S. Representatives-elect, the "succeeding" parameter currently renders as, for example, "U.S. Representative from Illinois's 5th". Sitting Representatives are treated differently, "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 6th district". I see two alternatives: change the first to be exactly the same as the second except to add "-elect" after "Member". Statutes do refer to them as Members-elect, so that wouldn't be weird. The other alternative is to use "United States Representative [or United States Representative-elect] from Illinois's 6th district". Of course "United States" could continue to be shortened to "U.S." if the former is too long. -Rrius (talk) 05:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)



Let me simplify.

  1. I propose that the standard text for U.S. Representatives be, "U.S. Representative from Illinois's 6th district". This means a change to the beginning of the text, which is currently "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from..."
    2. 

  2. I propose that the text for U.S. Representatives in conjunction with the "succeeding" parameter be, "U.S. Representative-elect from Illinois's 6th district". This means linking "U.S. Representative" and adding the word "district" to the end.


-Rrius (talk) 03:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Would you mind creating a sandbox copy with your proposed changes? Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I have created the asked for template with the requested edits. You can see the edits in use here. Copy and paste from the sandbox to this template {{Infobox Officeholder/Office}}. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay thanks,  Done. Please let me know if it is not behaving as expected. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


The above edit had an unintended consequence. It made state upper and lower houses display differently. upper houses display as "Member of the Illinois Senate from...", but lower houses display as Illinois State Representative from...". In most states, sandwiching "State" in there does not reflect the actual name of the office anyway. Ultimately, the answer is probably to decouple state lower houses from the U.S. House (why are they together now?). A temporary fix can be found in my sandbox. -Rrius (talk) 02:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)










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