Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 9

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Archive 5 ← Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9

s1 not displaying the right=pointing arrow properly

At West_Jersey, the s1 tag does not display the right-pointing arrow properly. I do not think it is a problem with the page. Could it be a problem with the template code?68.32.154.213 (talk) 11:57, 22 May 2015 (UTC) I had a hyperlink for the s1 tag which caused the problem; solved.68.32.154.213 (talk) 12:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 25 May 2015

Please expand (add on) parameters below "leader9" and "year_leader9" to cover up to leader39. We need it for the Afrikaans article Heilige Romeinse Ryk currently listing 34 leaders, but not showing up because of the limited template.

Thank you, Aliwal2012 (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

These parameters are meant for listing the first, last, and other historically significant leaders in-between; not every single one of them. Alakzi (talk) 13:03, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, noted. Aliwal2012 (talk) 13:38, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

More than 9 rulers

How to add 10th, 11th and so on leaders? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 18:46, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

RfC announce: Religion in infoboxes

There is an RfC at Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Religion in infoboxes concerning what What should be allowed in the religion entry in infoboxes. Please join the discussion and help us to arrive at a consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Problem with the second flag

Seeing the two flags together here, thought to be a unified. I do not think I'm the only. --IM-yb (talk) 01:48, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

The solution in that case is to simply remove both. First, all the information about flags is completely unsourced in that article. Second, if the info could be sourced, the design is so simple that it's basically not worth illustrating. Simply stating in text, "this state used a plain red flag up to year soandso, and a plain green flag afterwards" would be perfectly adequate. Our readers aren't stupid, they can figure out what a plain green flag might look like without being shown. (BTW, if you're going to try to source this, please don't use "Flags of the World" or similar mirror sites on the web; they are not reliable sources for that sort of thing.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:20, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

@Fut.Perf., I refer the fact because it is not compatible the second flag with frame information. Readers do not have to face in the context of information, all the former flags of the country or any secondary flags of the country in the infobox. About the unsourced flags, the issue is not related to the discussion here. You can report the issue about unsourced flags here. The country flags should be presented in a separate section within the article or in a separate article. Not in the infobox. Infobox is not a full list about all things. --IM-yb (talk) 17:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

edit request

Can we add a parameter for "demonym" to this template? Thanks. - theWOLFchild 08:45, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree, might be a useful idea for some cases. To make this a concrete edit request, we'd need first to figure out where it should be though and how it should be formatted. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
To editors Thewolfchild and Future Perfect at Sunrise: I checked the history and did not find where the demonym parameter has been removed; however, some usages already have that parameter, such as Czechoslovakia, so...  Done. Happy New Year! Paine  16:56, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Problem when no flag

When a former country has no flag and is listed at the top then all that is shown is a blank box and an arrow. This is not very informative. In a couple of articles I;ve seen a slow edit war where there is an attempt to put in a name and where an ip is just deleting it without saying anything, Kingdom of Ireland, and one which really shows up the blank boxes Lordship of Ireland. I think the idea of putting in a name is a good one but doesn't look exactly kosher Wikipedia to me. Any suggestions of could the template be modified to do something better? Dmcq (talk) 10:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely agree this is a serious problem. I tried to start a discussion about it some time ago (at Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 8#Deprecate easter-egg links in successor/predecessor timeline?), but unfortunately there wasn't much of a response. I'd very much welcome fresh ideas how to solve it. My suggestion would be to just get rid of that timeline-like "preceded by"/"followed by" icon section and have a properly labelled textual list somewhere else in the box instead. The whole idea of having an section of information in the box that consists entirely of symbolic icons and no textual support at all was just an extremely bad design idea from the very start, even independently of the aggravating factor that many (most?) entities that tend to turn up in that section don't have readily recognizable visual icons. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree also. If there are more than 4 predecessors or successors, it shows up at the bottom of the infobox with text and icons (see Kingdom of England for example). Maybe we could just make that the default behaviour and remove the top section? The lower section could then possibly be moved further up the infobox? I added "Gaelic Ireland" to the info box at those articles but I admit there isn't really room for text alongside the date, although it is much more helpful than a blank box. Rob984 (talk) 17:13, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
If there is no fix for the blank image at the top then I support putting it all at the bottom. That bit of the template just doesn't work at all satisfactorily at the moment. Dmcq (talk) 14:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Needs century categories per CfD

The consensus at this CfD three years ago was to move categories like Category:States and territories disestablished in 651 to the equivalent century category but looking at that category it seems to have been inadvertently populated by an editor working on the Sassanids using this template and {{Infobox former subdivision}}. I'm no guru at template code, but would it be possible to get end-years to automagically convert to centuries?Le Deluge (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Founder parameter

What do you think about adding a parameter for person(s) who founded the country?

Daylen (talk) 16:33, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 June 2016

An extra vertical bar is at the start of the link to the coat of arms. The bug is hardly noticeable because it appears only when both:

  1. the {{{image_coat}}} is provided but the {{{image_flag}}} is missing
  2. the page "Coat of arms of the {{{common_name}}}" exists but the page "Coat of arms of {{{common_name}}}" does not exist yet (not even a redirect page)

I made up a demonstration at Template:Infobox_former_country/testcases#Washington_family. Quest for Truth (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Good catch. synced. Not making a dummy edit, but I meant "link scope" in my edit summary :) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 18:49, 4 June 2016 (UTC) 18:51, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

2 category links become plain text when missing common_name

When {{{common_name}}} is missing, apart from the warning message, the establishment and disestablishment categories will become plain text and appear below the warning message. I believe it has to do with the {{Infobox former country/autocat}}, which is not protected. So I tried to a few times but no luck. It is difficult to experiment with it because the effect only applies to the main namespace. --Quest for Truth (talk) 02:34, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

@Quest for Truth: I mirrored the autocat template at {{Infobox former country/autocat/sandbox}}, and let the sandbox call the autocat sandbox for testing purposes. Feel free to try your theory out. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:59, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 Done it should be noted that a line break is necessary between each "block" (a "block" is from the comment of "Start ..." to "End ..."), otherwise it would break the format when more than one warning message are displayed. --Quest for Truth (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

New values for status added

In {{Infobox former country/autocat}}, I have added two new values for {{{status}}}:

  1. Nomadic empire
  2. Ancient Chinese state

Can admin please add the code to make it appear as a wikilink? Also I noted the "if" checking of {{{status_text}}} can be simplified by putting it before the "switch" checking of {{{status}}}, since {{{status_text}}} is supposed to override. Lastly I noted that the word "Values" is misspelled as "Vales" in a comment. I have made all the required changes at the sandbox. The differences can be seen at "Mongol Empire" & "Cai (state)" in Template:Infobox former country/testcases. --Quest for Truth (talk) 23:31, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

@Quest for Truth: Special:Diff/723710407/724063977 looks okay. It's this next diff in the sandbox that changes two cases for |status=, namely when it's "Colony" and "Exile". Correct me if I'm wrong, but these two cases currently do not let |status_text= override at all, whereas the change you make lets |status_text= take precedence. Are you sure this is meant as part of the change? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 23:50, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
See Special:Permalink/724072566#UK status text test for what I mean. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 23:57, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
I see what you mean. I firmly believe {{{status_text}}} is meant to be free text (can be a combination of plain text and links) to be put near the top of the infobox, in case a simple phrase such as "British empire" is oversimplified and need more elaborate explanation. The fact that {{{status}}} is also used as a keyword for categorization purpose means the choices of wording are limited. The "switch" mechanism for {{{status}}} allow it to fall back to display {{{status}}} directly, but in that case it is considered "requiring maintenance" due to invalid status. Even though I have just gone through a handful of pages that |status=Colony and |status=Exile, I found that they don't have value for {{{status_text}}}. In contrast, a large number of articles belong to these categories are added manually, with |status= a lengthy text that should go to |status_text=. --Quest for Truth (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Makes sense for parameter behavior consistency I suppose. The fact that it falls back on |status_text= or |status= is still meaningful with how the template is generally used, so I think your change isn't exactly breaking per se. I still want to do a semi-automated check over the transclusions just to be responsible. Thanks for your patience. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 15:53, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Not done for now: It looks like we're waiting on Andy to have a looksee. Reactivate this request in a day or three if he doesn't get back to you. Izno (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
@Quest for Truth: I inspected about 400 transclusions of the ~3000. Of these, 79 used |status_text=, and among these, ~10 had |status=Colony and |status_text=:
In most instances, the overriding |status_text= is innocuous, or potentially not confirming to the standard. See also, Portuguese Mozambique, which contains a comment about the weird behavior of |status=Colony. If your change goes in, it will affect the pages above, as well as ~70 pages or so, I'd guess. These are estimates I'm making without making a tracking category, which would give a definitive answer. Let me know your thoughts, and please {{ping}} now, since the request is now closed by Izno and not as visible. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 18:21, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
@Quest for Truth: I've answered part of this edit request, the part that adds the 2 cases, which I believe not to be controversial or disputed. Special:Diff/724208491 — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 20:21, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
@Andy M. Wang: Thanks for all your works! I was busy with my real life so I couldn't come back until now. The example of Portuguese Mozambique shows that there is a need to change the behavior. If |status_text= takes precedence, the appearance of the infobox will not change, see Template:Infobox former country/testcases#Portuguese Mozambique. Once the template is changed, editors will be able to change with current |status= to |status_text=, and set |status=Colony. If we have to check out all of the would-be-affected pages, perhaps adding a tracking category is a good idea. --Quest for Truth (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

@Quest for Truth: I made the category and added the tracking code. Items in the category will slowly populate. The sandbox currently stands ready for a future sync. So now the question is what to do about the articles. I'd like to leave this up to you for now, but if I have time, I may make adjustments so that a future sync will not cause display changes. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 22:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Done. Synced. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:30, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposal: arms_xn parameters

Would it be possible to add arms_xn parameters for use with the predecessor/successor states (where xn represents p1, p2, … s1, s2 etc)?

Currently we have two options for predecessor/successor states:

  • flag_xn is the "default" option and pre-formats the image to 30px wide and adds a border to it (by default, can be turned off using border_xn = no). It also makes the image into a link pointing to the state in question. When a sufficient number of predecessors/successors are listed the image/link is moved down to the bottom of the infobox and scaled to 20px wide.
  • image_xn is the other option, and allows the image to be manually formatted. This is useful when some specific formatting is required, but is far more cumbersome to use than flag_xn and also does not scale when moved to the bottom of the infobox (since the scaling is done manually). Unfortunately it is the only practical way to add coats of arms, since most should not be bordered and should not be the same width as flags. (The documentation suggests 20px be used.)

I propose that an additional arms_xn parameter be added to each predecessor/successor which more appropriately scales the image (although the current documentation suggests 20px, I favour x30px instead, i.e. 30px tall; I'm not dead set on this however), while taking into account where it is being displayed, and does not add a border. This would allow arms to be displayed more uniformly and would mean that they didn't have to be coded manually every time. It would also prevent possible errors which come about as a result of manual coding (the most common of which seems to be omission of the link= parameter).

Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 23:10, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 July 2016

I have noticed, that there is a small error in the template: if status is League of Nations Mandate (or similar) it says "Trust territory of empire", but there are too many spaces between "trust territory" and "of".

JPGoelz (talk) 21:49, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Done — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 22:02, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Use of continent for world-spanning empires

Spanish Empire uses this template, and currently has a warning about lack of the continent parameter. The documentation says to list them all in alphabetical order (I can only assume this means separating with commas, in this case "Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America"), but this gives another warning that the value "does not comply". Looking at the source it seems that only single names are supported, meaning the documentation is incorrect. No single continent name would be enough for the Spanish Empire, which touched every continent. I'm not convinced "Category:Former countries in Oceania" for example would be appropriate, but neither would "Category:Former countries in Europe" since European Spain was really only a small part of the empire. Could the parameter just be omitted and warnings explicitly suppressed? Hairy Dude (talk) 00:01, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I don't think this template should be generating content categories like that in any case, because a subcategory may well be more appropriate. For example Seljuk Empire is in Category:Seljuk Empire, a subcategory of Category:Former countries in the Middle East. Hairy Dude (talk) 12:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

native_name

Can native_name be substituted to add a Contemporary historical name. This has to do with an argument I had at the Qarakhanid page, a Qarluq Turkic people living in Central Asia, their language is long gone and obscure so we will never know what the native name, but can we use a Contemporary historical name that historians living at that time use, this mainly being Persian and Arabic name, both having the same meaning which is "The Khans", this name is more likely used with their diplomatic ties with various Islamic Empire near them. I have noticed that in the Tang Empire article, they use modern Chinese name with modern script instead of the Middle Chinese. Any advice here is welcome Alexis Ivanov (talk) 02:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Czechoslovak government-in-exile

There is a discussion on whether this infobox should be used for governments, rather than countries, at talk:Czechoslovak government-in-exile#Role of infobox. Comments welcome! —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Predecessor/successor treatment: a concrete proposal

old format new default format
Wessex
Westseaxna rīce (Old English)
519–10th century
Wyvern of Wessex
Wyvern
CapitalWinchester
(after 9th century)
GovernmentAbsolute monarchy
History 
5th–6th century
519
10th century
1066–1088
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Sussex
Essex
Kent
Dumnonia
Mercia
East Anglia
Five Boroughs
Northumbria
Kingdom of England
Today part of
Wessex
Westseaxna rīce (Old English)
519–10th century
Wyvern of Wessex
Wyvern
CapitalWinchester
(after 9th century)
GovernmentAbsolute monarchy
History 
5th–6th century
519
10th century
1066–1088
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Sussex
Essex
Kent
Dumnonia
Mercia
East Anglia
Five Boroughs
Northumbria
Kingdom of England
Today part of

It's been repeatedly discussed here that the current treatment of "predecessor" and "successor" states, by image-only flag icons near the top of the infobox, is unsatisfactory (most recently here and here). To briefly restate the reasons:

  • Many (or most) pre-modern states had no clearly defined visual symbol such as a flag or coat of arms.
  • Even if they did, most of them are not widely known and recognizable to the reader.
  • Substitute symbols (such as coins) chosen by editors as a makeshift solution are too small to be discernible.
  • In the absence of an icon file, the template currently forces the display of a completely enigmatic white rectangle
  • Even where suitable icons do exist, image-only "easter egg links" without textual support are a poor design choice as a matter of principle, especially for accessibility reasons.

Since a rough consensus for a change seemed to be apparent the last time round but nobody has come forward with a solution, I'm going to be bold and implement the following (cf. sandbox edit [1]):

  • By default, all predecessor/successor lists will be shown as textual lists at the bottom of the box (as it is currently done only for lists longer than 5)
  • If editors wish to retain the old flag-only format on a particular article, they can revert to it by setting a new parameter "successorflags=yes".

Personally, I'd advise against the latter solution in all but a few cases, as there are very few country flags (even of modern states) that an average reader can be relied upon to recognize without a written caption. I'd also recommend that once this change has been achieved, editors should weed out most of the non-flag substitute icons they have been using on various articles, such as coin or map images, as they will no longer be needed (otherwise they will continue to be displayed, next to the textual list).

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this is an improvement at all. I found this discussion because I saw that the template on multiple articles was changed. Please revert your bold edit - I can't do it since I'm not an admin. StAnselm (talk) 01:24, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I do. A number of editors supported this proposal in past discussions, so the change largely reflects the consensus. Rob984 (talk) 10:01, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Do you have an alternative solutions to the issue? We had been using workarounds including text and other symbols when a flag or coat of arms wasn't available. Now this change had been implemented, many of those workarounds have already been removed. So reverting will result in a lot of blank flag icons as well. You can still re-add the icons at the top on a case-by-case basis. Rob984 (talk) 10:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
No, it doesn't reflect the consensus at all - there had barely been any discussion. There are still hundreds, if not thousands, or articles that need to be "fixed". Why has the default been changed, when it was working perfectly well in the majority of articles? Why not have the option to move the predecessors/successors to the bottom if blank flag icons are a problem? StAnselm (talk) 00:26, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, but did they really "work perfectly" in the majority of cases? As I argued above, they never did, because the blank icons were by far not the only serious problem. Every flag icon is a problem if it's not accompanied by descriptive text. It's for very good reasons that the MOS strongly warns not to use them. Bare flag icons are inaccessible to visually impaired users with screenreaders; they are mostly useless in printout on paper (especially in monochrome print), and of course even for the average reader on normal displays they will be unfamiliar and thus useless in a very large number of cases. I'm afraid each of these three issues is serious enough that a return to the old state is simply not an option at this point. What exactly did you mean by "fixing" above? Reverting to the old format? I'm afraid that wouldn't be fixing them; it would be breaking them again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:07, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
On the whole, this change is not an improvement. Even if it did make an improvement as to icons/images (I take no stance on this as I really don't care), it created a bigger problem, which is that the predecessors/successors are no longer at the top of the infobox. Like StAnselm, I found this discussion because I saw--to my dismay--that the template on multiple articles had been changed, and specifically changed in a manner that destroyed previous functionality. Before this change was implemented, it was easy to click from article to article, going back or forward in time through several different iterations of a country, because the links to the predecessors/successors were conveniently at the top of the infobox. This is no longer possible. If I'm at the top of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for example, looking at the dates of its existence ("1801–1922"), and want to go back in time to the predecessor(s), they are nowhere to be found by "1801". In fact, the dates and the predecessors/successors are nowhere near each other at all. I can't even see them at the same time. Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland are buried about 10 sections further down within the infobox. So I scroll down, take some time to find the predecessor/successor entries, click on Kingdom of Great Britain--and then if I want to go back further, I get to go through the whole process again. What formerly was a quick "click-click-click" to go from United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Kingdom of Great Britain to Kingdom of England to Wessex is now a much more involved process. Even if there were previous discussions as to the icon/image issue, I don't think any argument can be made that consensus was achieved on the idea of removing all mention of predecessors/successors from the top of the infobox. I do not have a solution to the icon/image issue and I'm not proposing one. I think this change should be reverted because a small improvement (if indeed it is one) is not worth a bigger loss. I would revert it myself, but I do not have the ability to do so. Jdaloner (talk) 21:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
And this is the problem - it is a change that has been without a proper consensus, and cannot be reverted by non-admins. @Future Perfect at Sunrise: I think this is an abuse of admin privileges - you have used your administrator abilities to gain the upper hand in a discussion. Once again, please revert your "bold" move and start an RfC or something. StAnselm (talk) 21:29, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Re. Jdaloner: if your problem is with the fact that the list is now at the bottom at the box and requires a bit more scrolling to get to it, I have no problem in principle with moving it further up again. But I refuse to accept that the inconvenience of scrolling is a "big loss" that could somehow outweigh what you have called a "small gain", when that "small gain" is all the difference between something that had zero information value for many (or most) readers, to something that is at least readable. Also please keep in mind that this is an info box, not a navigation box – its value must primarily be judged on how well it presents readable information locally, not on how easy it makes navigation to some set of other articles (that's what we have navboxes for). Third, if you don't care about the icon issue – then your stance is a problem. You should care whether this box is useful to other readers, because it's our shared responsibility to make our pages accessible to everybody, not just useful for our personal reading habits. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but not caring about whether these entries are accessible to blind people or people who wish to read an article on paper is simply irresponsible.
As for reverting, I did use Templateeditor access (not admin access) to make what I considered to be an uncontroversial improvement. I would normally revert when met with reasoned objections as a matter of courtesy, but in this case I'm afraid I feel strongly that the previous state is simply unacceptable as a matter of principle, so I won't. (I'll also note that Jdaloner is the first editor in almost three weeks who has raised a reasoned objection to the edit, beyond simply saying "I don't like it", so there wasn't really any content dispute up to this moment). If you can find some other admin or user with templateeditor rights who thinks this change should be reverted, I won't stand in their way and we'll then have an RfC or something about it, but I am personally not going to be making this edit that I feel would mean going back to an utterly broken and harmful state. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:09, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
There is no way in the world any reasonable editor could consider this an "uncontroversial" change. It clearly comes under the heading Changes that should be made ONLY after substantial discussion in WP:TPE: "Changes that significantly affect a template or module's visual appearance to the reader." There clearly was no substantial discussion prior to this (through no fault of yours, however - but you should have started an RfC or something) and so you have clearly misused your Templateeditor access. Again, WP:TPE says The normal BOLD, revert, discuss cycle does not apply because those without this right are unable to perform the "revert" step. You described your edit as "bold" which kind of gives away that you knew you were misusing it. I wonder if you've really read the guidelines at all. So I realise you may have a conscience-based reason for not reverting, but I do intend to report you for misuse of tools. StAnselm (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Have fun doing that – you could have made a more useful contribution to the issue if you had instead finally offered a reason why you prefer the old format. This is now the fourth contribution of yours to this discussion where you have avoided doing that. You could also be making a more constructive contribution by simply asking other admins if they would like to make this revert for you, instead of throwing accusations around. Just saying. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:50, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I think the procedural issue should be resolved before we move onto the substantial issue (which I think should be done via RfC). When you suggest asking an admin to revert, do you envisage this happening at WP:ANI, or some other forum? StAnselm (talk) 06:57, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
WP:AN would be an option, but Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes or something of the sort should also get you a fair range of competent template editors. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:56, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Deprecated params

I noticed that |country= and |latd= |latm= |latNS= |longd= |longm= |longEW= are deprecated. What should they be replaced with?--Auric talk 18:11, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't know anything about these being deprecated; as far as I'm aware they are widely used and recommended for use in the documentation. Where did you see them described as deprecated? Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:28, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Use of the "country" parameter will give you an error message if you open visual editor.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 14:50, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Ah, now I see something; somebody recently added [2] some code for checking parameter use. It looks as if they simply forgot to include the parameters you listed above, probably just a mistake. @Jonesey95: could you confirm if that was intentional? Otherwise I'll go and add them in there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:04, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
I use a script to create that section of code for infoboxes. The script scans the template's code for variables that are in use. The script did not find, and I do not see in a manual perusal, the variables country= |latd= |latm= |latNS= |longd= |longm= |longEW= in use in this template. Do they actually work? Are they called in some way that I am not seeing? Can you show me an article that is using them? I am asking not to be confrontational, but because I honestly don't see how those variables are currently functioning in this infobox. Thanks.
P.S. I do see those parameters in the documentation, but the function of |country= seems to have been replaced by |today=, and the lat/long parameters do not appear to display in the infobox – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
For a very old discussion of the lat/long parameters, see Archive 5 of this talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the lat/long parameters were removed from the template in 2007 and have not been in the template since then. As such, I believe that they should be considered "unknown parameters" and should be removed from the list of valid parameters.
The |country= parameter was present in the template until January 2011, when it was moved to a subtemplate, but the value of |country= was no longer being passed to that subtemplate. The country parameter was removed from that subtemplate in June 2016 by Quest for Truth. I believe that |country= should also be considered an "unknown parameter" and should be removed from the list of valid parameters.
I will be happy to clean up the documentation as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Wow, thanks a lot for doing all this research. I was trying to get to the bottom of it yesterday but couldn't locate the edits in question. It's a pity the people who made them back then didn't update the documentation. As far as I can see, the "country"-related categories (like Category:former countries in Chinese history) have all been re-populated manually in the meantime, so the "country" parameter is now definitely superfluous. Actually, while we're at it, it seems that this technique of populating content categories through infobox templates is against a MOS recommendation anyway, so we might consider whether the remaining "region" and "continent" categorizations (like Category:Former countries in Africa) should be moved out of the template too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:06, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

There is also a typo. |coa_size= should be |coat_size=.--Auric talk 22:59, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

|coa_size= is the parameter used in the infobox's code. I suspect that a clever person decided that "coa" would be a clear and unconfusing short way to represent "coat of arms". I believe that most infoboxes do not allow editors to specify image sizes. I would recommend setting the image size at a fixed value. It looks like the default is 85px. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
I can imagine a size parameter making sense here, e.g. in cases where the flag and/or CoA image have uncommon height/width ratios. In such cases one of them might look out of proportion at a given fixed width. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:18, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

PAGENAMEBASE

This seems to be the only infobox not using this parameter. When will it start using this param? -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 17:38, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Pardon my ignorance, but what would it be using it for? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:56, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Name -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 19:06, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific than this if you want others to understand what you're driving at. What is this parameter, what would this template be using it for, and why would that be better than the way it is done now? Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
It seems unnecessary to me: there’s nothing broken here for it to fix, and it would likely just end up requiring lots of fixes for the exceptions to it.
For what it does, it‘s used in e.g. {{Infobox Artwork}} where it get the infobox name and sets the title to italic based on it, not italicising any bracketed disambiguating part of the title. But artworks are normally italicised, former countries are not; it would not add anything useful to this infobox.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:13, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
It does not italicize but fetches the page name and add it to infobox in case name parameter is not filled in. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 21:21, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Edit request

Could we please have a new parameter added to this template? I would like the ability to give the label "Capital" a wikilink. That is, if the parameter is specified, the label "Capital" is turned into a wikilink and points to a given article. Case in point is the article Colony of New Zealand, where the label should point to Capital of New Zealand. At this point, the category Capitals by country has 13 entries, so this could be useful for a number of articles. There's no hurry with this, and if the pending merge with 'Infobox country' should go ahead first, that's fine. Schwede66 07:35, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

What to do about the automatic cats?

Since there is now an initiative to merge this template with others, I'll re-state what I said in the TfD discussion: we should use this opportunity to get rid of the baroque and overblown automatic categorization functionality currently implemented by the template. All these categorizations run counter to WP:TEMPLATECAT, which says that only maintenance cats but not content cats ought to be added through templates. They should therefore be converted into standard, manual category entries.

One reason for this is that many of these articles are main articles of their own topic categories (e.g. Byzantine Empire as head of Category:Byzantine Empire). In all such cases, cats such as "former monarchies in..." ought to be placed on the category page, not on the article page, to avoid redundant categorization in supercats and subcats. Also, the current categorization scheme is producing a huge number of errors. The template currently checks for several dozens of error conditions regarding invalid, missing or inconsistent parameter settings. Almost all of these are related to the categorization scheme. Problematic articles are put into Category:Former country articles requiring maintenance. This maintenance category currently contains 1,912 pages – out of 3,083 pages that use the infobox. In other words, editors have failed to get the input for the categorization right in almost two thirds of all cases. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:38, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the content categories should be removed. --Izno (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Font size in caption

The code for the |image_map= parameter includes a style declaration font-size:95%; and within the scope of that the |image_map_caption= is given the style declaration font-size:90%;. Now, 90% of 95% is 85.5%, so the font size of this caption should be just within the guideline given by MOS:ACCESS#Text, i.e. 85%. However, the infobox has class="infobox geography vcard vevent" and of these, the infobox geography classes together set font-size: 90%;, giving 76.95% which is unacceptable. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Redrose64, I would say go ahead and fix it. Frietjes (talk) 22:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
OK,  Done with this edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:00, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Area formatting

When an area for a country is provided (stat_area1, stat_area2 etc), this template currently displays square kilometres as km² (using a "superscript 2" character). This is counter to the Manual of Style which mandates that <sup>2</sup> be used instead of the specific character (see MOS:UNITSYMBOLS). This problem is not present in {{Infobox country}}, which uses the {{convinfobox}} template. Presumably once the two are merged this won't be an issue, but in the meantime I propose that either the ² is explicitly replaced with <sup>2</sup> or {{convinfobox}} is used instead. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 16:06, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Done I switched the template over to {{convinfobox}} for the stat_area and population density sections Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:21, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Flag / coat of arms image table

I have ported the image table from template:Infobox country to this template. I expect some minor spacing, fontsize changes, but otherwise, I do not expect any major differences. please let me know if you see a problem. I kept the old version in the sandbox for now for comparison in the testcases. Frietjes (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

"Today part of" for empires spanning lots of modern countries

The |today= parameter is useful for former countries that ruled part of the territory of a modern country, but becomes less useful as the number of countries spanned increases, and is quite misleading for empires that covered many small parts of modern countries, particularly when the degree of control over those areas is unclear. The worst examples are empires that once controlled a bit of what is now Russia. (See recent discussions at Talk:Ottoman Empire and Talk:Roman Empire.) So I propose that the documentation should deprecate the use of |today= in favour of a map in such cases. Kanguole 18:37, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Good point, I quite agree. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:07, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. I would also like to raise the related issue of using maps either with or without present-day borders. I can see pros and cons with both. Thoughts? TompaDompa (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree that there needs to be some kind of documentation, as the template currently does not explain how the parameter is to be used. No matter what the consensus, that needs to be taken care of. Now, some ideas that should be considered:
1. I don't think the parameter should be entirely deprecated, because unless the map is labeled with the present-day names of countries, the "today part of" list and the map would not be the same thing. And "today part of" is not an adequate substitute for a map in cases where a map is unavailable.
2. There's nothing that says that a parameter must be used. There can be a consensus on pages such as the Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire that the list is contentious or proves unhelpful, and that doesn't mean that we need to mention something particular in the infobox about it.
3. Something else that should be considered is that, to a certain extent, we can't help it if readers confuse or misread things - if they think that Russia is only Moscow and Siberia, and not also the Kuban and Azov, we're not responsible for that. This is actually something where the map can work in tandem with the "today part of" parameter - a reader may see Russia listed and think, "what, Russia, how come?", and then see on the map how Russia is included. This would probably only work if there were borders given in the map, but it is something to consider. But including these countries could also be helpful. More to the point, though, are there documented cases where we've received feedback that including, for example, Russia, in the "today part of" parameter was actually misleading, or is this just a hypothetical proposition?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:34, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm not proposing that the parameter should be entirely deprecated, just for empires spanning many modern countries.
Identifying modern countries that overlap with a former country is not an end in itself. The important thing is to give the reader a quick sense of where the country was. If it was within the territory of some modern country, then saying that helps the reader locate it. But when it spanned small parts of many countries, such a list becomes misleading.
As for including Russia being confusing, it was mentioned at Talk:Ottoman Empire and Talk:Roman Empire. At Tang dynasty it is a continual cause of revert-warring, along with other modern countries like Kazakhstan and Pakistan. That touches on the related issue that the degree of control of these areas is often uncertain or disputed, whereas infoboxes are supposed to be for clear factual information. Thus, for example, someone has put Russia in the infobox of Ming dynasty reflecting highly questionable claims to control over part of the Amur region. Kanguole 12:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
Another issue with having such a list for empires spanning a large number of modern countries is that of exhaustiveness. On the one hand, omitting a country (which can easily happen due to a simple oversight, and I would guess it frequently does) implies that none of its current territory was ever under the empire's control. On the other hand, including a country whose current territory was only fractionally and/or briefly under the empire's control makes it look as significant as countries whose entire current territory was under the empire's control for all of its duration, because inclusion is a binary parameter – a counnry is either on the list or not (this can be ameliorated by adding explanatory notes to each entry, but at that point just writing it in prose is a much better way of doing it). Either option puts it at odds with the WP:Editing policy, which states that "on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content". TompaDompa (talk) 22:22, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Misuse of a parameter is not problem with the parameter, but with that user's edits. The first example you gave is not a policy violation, it's just an omission. There's lots of incomplete content, that's just the nature of Wikipedia. But the latter concern is something that should be addressed in the template documentation. There's also consensus that can be reached on a particular former country article as to how to handle the parameter, or even do without it.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:35, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I may not have made myself entirely clear. The point of my first example was that accidental omissions come off as intentional (because the list is presumably intended to be exhaustive, or else there's no point to it), and that that problem gets worse as the list gets longer. I didn't mean that omissions would be a policy violation by themselves, but that a list with omissions would be misleading – meaning that according to the policy, not using a list at all would be preferable (which of course does not preclude presenting the information using a map or prose). TompaDompa (talk) 16:16, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Moreover, your two concerns are connected: aiming for completeness leads to adding entries that are contentious and/or misleading. Kanguole 16:31, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I agree with removing it. One example which has led to a few back and forth reverts is Republic of China (1912–49) which includes not only the major states that it broke up into, China, Taiwan and Mongolia, but seemingly every border adjustment and unresolved border dispute. Having them listed together is just confusing; anyone reading them can search the article for how they split off from the Republic of China in vain, as there is no mention of them. Only China, Taiwan and Mongolia are mentioned.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 16:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

So, here's the next question: How many countries is "lots of countries?" If this is going to become an across-the-board consensus, we need to settle how many countries are to be listed in the "today part of" parameter before we decide that there are too many.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:59, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I can think of a couple of infoboxes where more than three is the tipping point - the number of countries using military equipment and the like. Feels a good starting point, anyway.Le Deluge (talk) 05:02, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Three sounds good to me. TompaDompa (talk) 18:56, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

So, do we want to put in some documentation that "today_part_of" is recommended only if there are fewer than five or four entries?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

There seems to be agreement about that, yes. TompaDompa (talk) 14:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I went ahead an implemented that. Thanks for affirming my bold edit.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:58, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
That's better than before, and specifying a number gives an easy criterion to apply, but I think it is too simple. Other problematic situations include where an overlap is a small part of a modern country, or the extent of the territory and/or the degree of control are vague or disputed. In such cases fewer modern countries might still be problematic.
Also, the short phrasing It is recommended that this parameter be limited to three or four entries could be interpreted as saying that if the ancient territory overlaps with more than four modern countries one should select three or four of them, which would be invidious.
Finally, I think the frequent edit wars over these lists are exacerbated by the flag icons, and my reading of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG is that they should be avoided in this parameter, as the connection to the modern country is indirect. Kanguole 02:38, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

RfC about the phrasing in the documentation

Should the phrasing in the documentation be changed? TompaDompa (talk) 17:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


The current phrasing, Present-day countries that overlap with the territorial extent of the former country. It is recommended that this parameter be avoided if there are more than four such countries., has proved problematic. It has been argued that it's only a recommendation, and as such removal needs to be discussed and consensus reached ahead of time in each separate case. I suggest we change the second sentence to "Do not use this parameter if there are more than four such countries."

Pinging users involved in the discussion above, users involved elsewhere: @Kanguole, Future Perfect at Sunrise, 3family6, JohnBlackburne, Le Deluge, Panam2014, EdJohnston, Yintan, Vanjagenije, and Lucius Tiberius: what do you think? TompaDompa (talk) 15:39, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Sounds good to me. Recommendations will often cause wikilawyering. Yintan  15:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree. As noted above, I would also argue for a prohibition on flags, which I think are contrary to MOS:FLAG, and do seem to raise the stakes. Kanguole 15:52, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
  • For the moment, it is only a recommendation. So if you want to apply it on a large scale, you need a "WP: RfC" and a decision making. --Panam2014 (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Done. TompaDompa (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Drop altogether The whole recommendation is useless and this is also shown by the very qualifier it imposes, an entirely arbitrary qualifier. Why 4 adjacent and not 5 or 3? Or 7? Dismiss the recommendation altogether. -The Gnome (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Original better - documentation should provide explanation and/or direction, which the first one does at "Present-day countries that overlap with the territorial extent of the former country". Just having a 'do not use if there are more than four' which does not make clear what counts towards the parameter is not as useful. Markbassett (talk) 20:49, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • @The Gnome and Markbassett: the recommendation should be abolished or rewrited. --Panam2014 (talk) 18:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Go with the edit suggested by 3family6 In my view, 3family6 is taking a logical, well-thought-out approach to the issue. ... Edit 15:58, 23 December 2016 ... There is no perfect solution but User:3family6 has provided the most suitable compromise, IMHO. Peter K Burian (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Which edit is this? The current parameter phrasing?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:12, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

"Symbol" not currently functional

As far as I can tell the symbol parameter is currently non-functional. The documentation states that it is used to specify the "link target under symbol image" (i.e. the link to the article about the emblem or coat of arms) but it does not. In fact, from what I can tell, the symbol parameter doesn't appear anywhere in the template's code. The documentation also states that if the parameter is not used then it will link to Coat of arms of {{{common_name}}}, which also does not seem to work.

For now I have found a workaround, which is use symbol_type_article instead, which despite the Warning: Page using Template:Infobox former country with unknown parameter "symbol_type_article" (this message is shown only in preview). message generated while editing, does seem to work. (Presumably the "valid parameters" are specifically defined somewhere and symbol_type_article isn't on the list; I'm not sure how that works.)

As far as I can tell it was broken in this edit back in July, presumably as part of the (seemingly never-ending) merger with {{Infobox Country}}. (EDIT: I just noticed that @Frietjes: mentioned doing this above, and to alert them of any problems. Well, I found one.) I do not know whether the new parameter name (symbol_type_article) is important for the merger or not.

Could somebody please fix this so that the template either recognises the old parameter name as an alias (if that's possible) and doesn't bring up the error message, or change the parameter name back to symbol? If not could the documentation (and error message) at least be updated to reflect the current parameter name?

Thanks, Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 04:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Looking into it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
@Alphathon:  Done, by fixing |symbol_type_article= to stop throwing an error, and by updating the /doc page to correctly identify the parameter as having that name. I did not implement |symbol= as an alias, because it's terribly ambiguous, and it would unnecessarily complicate the code. There are numerous places where {{{symbol_type_article|}}} or {{{symbol_type_article}}} would have to be changed to {{{symbol_type_article|}}}{{{symbol|}}} or {{{symbol_type_article|{{{symbol}}}}}}, respectively, and all it would do is waste parser time for no benefit. If anything, |symbol= would probably be expected to be an alias for |image_symbol=.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. That being the case would it be possible to set up a bot or something to change all the instances of symbol = to symbol_type_article = then? This template is used on a lot of pages (3226 according to tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount) and to change all the instances of symbol = manually would be a nightmare. Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ (talk) 16:21, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
@Alphathon: I don't see why not. The venue for requesting that is Wikipedia:Bot requests. There's already at least one bot that goes around fixing deprecated or broken template parameters, so this would be a simple addition to it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:08, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Kingdom of Jerusalem

In Kingdom of Jerusalem, this template generates links to Coat of arms of Jerusalem, which is a DAB page; and to Flag of Jerusalem, which is the wrong article. Both links should be to Jerusalem cross. Narky Blert (talk) 15:28, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Narky Blert should be fixed. Frietjes (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
@Frietjes: It is. That was quick! Narky Blert (talk) 16:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Request: Parameter for second coat of arms image

May somebody add a second coat of arms parameter, like is done for the flag? – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 23:23, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I am confused about the proposed merger with Infobox Country

I encountered a page using this template with some unknown parameters, which I think are in Infobox Country.

The template page states it is being merged with Infobox Country.

But there are many parameters of this template which are not in Infobox Country.

So what is actually going on?

Rich Rostrom (Talk) 20:48, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Not a lot. Many supported the merge in principal but had no understanding of the complexity of the underlying syntax. The behaviour of these two infoboxes is very different. For example, parameters with the same name are displayed completely differently. Basically, there will need to be a former_country=yes parameter that changes the whole behaviour of the merged infobox. It's not impossible by any means, but the underlying syntax will be way too complicated and difficult to maintain. In my view it's not worth doing, nor is it helpful. Instead, we should migrate this infobox to {{Infobox}} and possibly modulate components which can be shared between this infobox and {{infobox country}}, for example as has been done with {{infobox country/imagetable}}.
Rob984 (talk) 23:02, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that does seem to be the sensible course of action.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  07:11, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello, what is the status of this merge? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 02:56, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Category:Former countries in Europe

Articles using this template seem to be put into Category:Former countries in Europe which is very large, and is marked for diffusion. If this forced categorisation could be removed it might be possible to do some diffusion. Rathfelder (talk) 21:04, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Flag link doesn't work

Hi,

If I understand correctly, the "flag" parameter specifies the link target for an article about the flag.

At People's Republic of the Congo the "flag" parameter appears to specified correctly, but the link doesn't actually appear. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:12, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

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