Template talk:Prefectures of French departments

Hmm, exactly what I was trying to avoid: a massive eyesore of a template that doesn't help you find anything. Which would you rather see at the bottom of a page:

or

? Perhaps you could at least divide the départements up by région, and bold the préfectures de régions ? Stevage 10:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The first template which I have replaced by the latter has no raison d'être and is inconsistent with any administrative procedures. If préfectures are to be templated, they all need to present togather. Sorting them in régions is absurd since all départements are sorted in alphanumerical order and not in régions. I will nontheless talk to ThePROMENADER and ask him if the template which is of a relative large size can be kept in closed condition by default.
Sorting département préfectures in a région shell is purely an individual scheme. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 10:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"since all départements are sorted in alphanumerical order and not in régions" - sorted by whom, and in what circumstances? Are you talking about a convention amongst French people, an official administrative procedure on the part of the French government, or what? At the end of the day, our primary goal should be to facilitate organisation and navigation for Wikipedia users. Also, what do you mean by "an individual scheme"? Exprime-toi en français si tu préfères...Stevage 11:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Départements are sported by number, are they not. That is what is refer to as alphanumerical. There are 95 metropolitan département + 4 overseas départements, numbered 97.1 to 4. That is how they are sorted. It would be inappropriate to sort them otherwise. You may consult Départements of France in this respect. Templating département préfectures, which is national scheme (commenced at the Revolution when the département replaced provinces), in a single région by région template is highly inapprorpaite since it blocks out all other, say 90ish préfectures. the latter of both navigational templates presented above is the most logical and approrpiate considering the official sorting of départements in France, both by people and officially, look at a car license plate (until the new one comes into action that is). By having a single and simple template such as this one, directly inspired from Template:Préfectures of régions of France, facilitates as you say navigation between articles of a similar topic: préfectures. It also sorts them coherently, regardless of each other's PoV. An individual scheme is a decision made by an individual to implement a system which does not obey: naming conventions, logic or official classification. I do not think for example that speaking in French on the English Wikipedia is appropriate and is rather rude to other users who might not understand us. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 12:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Stevage that the new template created by Captain scarlet is way too large, and absolutely unnecessary. One template per region as Stevage did makes more sense. Captain scarlet argues that all 100 départements of France are always listed together in alphabetic order and never listed by région. This is not true. You can see on the INSEE websites that they list the départemetns by régions: [1]. I'm in favour of reverting to Stevage's regional templates. Hardouin 18:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind, guys, I'll stay out of this one because I know little on the subject. That aside, I did find Hardouin's objection to the dispersion of large templates a bit amusing : ) Anyhow, the whole reason for my transforming the templates into collapsable versions was precisely so we wouldn't have to remove any from any pages because of their accumulated number/size. As far as I know, they are closed by default - I have yet to learn the intricacies (javascript) of this too - this I must examine closer. I still have the code, so should you need the same for anything else, just let me know. thepromenader 19:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your behaviour Hardouin is tiresome and utterly boring. If a thorough and complete template isn'"t of your liking, I don't know what is. You object whatever decisons are made so there is little to do to please you. There is absolutely no sence in sorting préfectures of départements in régions, none other than you like it that way I'm afraid. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 19:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some reasons to group by region rather than lumping them all together:

It keeps the template smaller (regardless of whether it can be collapsed, smaller is more practical)
It associates departments with closely related departments. Isère is more closely related to Rhône than it is to Calvados.
It makes it easier to find a specific city/département. It's next to impossible to find anything in a mass of 90 cities and départements.
It uses a natural hierarchy. Départements *do* belong to régions. French administrative divisions form a strict, multi-layered hierarchy. There's nothing remotely artificial about reproducing that here.

Why the accusations of bad faith? Stevage 12:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No offence, but none of the points you etirate make much sence. Régions have no relevance or importance in general as people live in a département, not a région. Régions form a mere supplemental level of administration that deals with nothing more than deciding where roundabouts go. Looks like personal preferences than impartial judgement.

Bad faith... Mmmmh, I've had dealings with him. Had I put your template everywhere, he would have created the one I did just to have an opposite opinion; six months of hitting a concrete wall has its tolls on someone's opinion on someone else. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 22:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had to at least look. Would this help discussion any - http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_l_interieur/les_prefectures/organisation ? Hoping not to complicate things, but here it states quite clearly that, although each région has its own préfecture, there is no heirarchy between these and département prefectures, meaning all département préfectures are at the same indiscriminate administrative level. So one could say that splitting things up would be a matter of convenience more than anything. thepromenader 21:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also had a look at the source code for the collapsing boxes - hats off to the coders. The boxes default to 'closed' if there is more than one of its type used on a page. thepromenader 21:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]