Template talk:Infobox Military Conflict

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Contents

[edit] Commander field?

I will again protest that the commander field makes little sense for wars. The combatants field is often complicated, too. Who is to decide which countries are important enough to be included? And what of countries that switch sides? john k 02:02, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well for now this is just simple copy and paste from battlebox. As I told User:Piotrus yesterday this template now needs changing to be less battle-like and more war-like. I suggest changing commanders, to notable commanders or removing this section. Regarding countries that switch sides: such cases should be entered in both sides of the box (with appropriate dates inserted in parenthesis). Przepla 11:20, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think number of soldiers on each side should be avoided - obviously, the number of soldiers changes throughout a war, and there's no good way to determine at what point we're talking about. john k 14:55, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Something similar was discussed at Talk:Military history of the United States a while back and the format is used on American Civil War. Geoff/Gsl 21:47, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable infobox

I strongly oppose the systematic application of this kind of infobox to articles about any kind of war. Historical events are not suitable for systemtic classification of this kind since the events surrounding wars, like with all history, are inherently non-specific and hard to classify as is done with species of animals, languages or geographical locations. Particularly civil wars and low-level guerilla conflicts are very inappropriate subject to apply this to, since they often feature shifting alliances and very complex sequences of events. In Algerian Civil War the warbox completely obscures the far more relevant Algerian history template.

And, frankly, this infobox really doesn't look good. It's very bulky and disruptive when places next to any section that isn't a mile long.

Peter Isotalo 10:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Size matters

One of the objections above, I believe, is that the "warbox" is too large. For those who use the warbox, do you like a wide or a narrow box? Some other infoboxes on Wikipedia are set at 20ems, with a 200px image, or something like that. I like that narrower look, although it does tend to crowd the information in the warbox. (95% font size would help.) If we want the narrower look, we'd need to change the campaignbox so that it doesn't widen the warbox, and change the image width instructions to 200px or thereabouts. What say you? (If any of this makes sense, that is.) --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think 200px might be too small, particularly if the commander or country names are long. It's definitely something to consider, though.
Since very few people watch the template page, you might want to pose the same question on the project talk page, where it will probably generate more discussion. —Kirill Lokshin 15:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Required vs. optional fields

In its present form, it appears that every single field in this box is optional. This seems odd considering that certain fields seem quite important. Here is my take on this, please comment.

  • Required: conflict, date, place, combatant1, combatant2, casualties1, casualties2, result
  • Optional: the rest

I've been "challenged" to re-make this template without using the {{qif}} evil meta-template. I can do this, but wanted to get input on the above question first. -- Netoholic @ 15:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Ah, you're taking me up on that, then? It's a bit more complex than what you have, since not all uses have two distinct sides. Thus, we have
  • Required: conflict, date, place, result
  • Optional: everything else
See War of the League of Cambrai for an example of what we'd like to be able to do; if you can make that work, we'll get rid of the evil meta-templates (as a bonus, the same probably applies to all the other infoboxes, leaving you only with the book reference thing to deal with). —Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Amen to making the "casualties" field optional. In the conflicts I do most of my work in, casualty figures are variable at best, fictional at worst. In those cases I could put "unknown" or "see text" in the warbox, but an optional field is even better IMO. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Not to rain on anybody's parade, but the rewrite only works in monobook and derived skins. See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_of_the_League_of_Cambrai&useskin=standard or http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_of_the_League_of_Cambrai&useskin=cologneblue. —Cryptic (talk) 04:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Bleh! Is there any easy way to add the hiddenStructure class for those skins? I'm somewhat wary of going back to logic templates unless we get a clear answer on the whole WP:AUM discussion. —Kirill Lokshin 04:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I tried adding

.hiddenStructure {
   display: none;
}

to my own standard.css, and it fixes the problem. I assume that adding the same code to MediaWiki:Common.css will resolve it across all skins, but is there any reason why doing so would cause some problems I'm not aware of? —Kirill Lokshin 18:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I've decided to be bold and add hiddenStructure to Common.css. The examples above seem to work fine now. —Kirill Lokshin 00:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New fields

casus belli, territory changes: It is almost never possible to describe these items briefly, especially territory changes. Also, formal casus belli is almost never "true" one. And the "de-facto" one is a hornet's nest of POVs. IMO they are redundant here. The infobox is already huge. mikka (t) 21:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Those fields are completely optional (but see the discussion just above for some technical issues). They're useful on a lot of 18th-century wars and such, but you should be able to omit them entirely in places where they're not appropriate. —Kirill Lokshin 21:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Location field

For historical battles, do we use the name of the place used at the time of the battle or do we use the name of the place as it is known today? deadkid_dk 05:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The general convention is to use the modern name, or at least to give some indication of modern location (e.g. "Place X, near modern Town Y, Country Z"). —Kirill Lokshin 05:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section headers

Something's wrong with the infobox and section headers running aside it; it can be clearly seen on the Battle of Milvian Bridge article: the edit links for the sections accumulate in the text of the last section running aside, immediately below the end of the box.

I've tried a dozen variations on the sandbox page using float and clear but couldn't get it right. Someone please take a look. --Filipvr 11:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a known issue with the way MediaWiki handles stacked floats, so it's not limited to this template. Not much we can really do to avoid it, in my opinion. —Kirill Lokshin 14:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
So it is actually due to the Infobox and Campaignbox combination; I've been mucking around the sandbox again and if I add campaign info at the bottom of the infobox, section runins work fine. I wonder if it'd be better to add another section at the bottom of the template (with another qif test) to include campaign info. And perhaps move the "part of" bit there too, or remove it altogether since it is sort of becoming duplicate information. --Filipvr 12:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
We used to do that with the old battlebox model. It's not really a good idea now, since many battles have multiple campaignboxes, and some articles have campaignboxes positioned elsewhere in the text. —Kirill Lokshin 14:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
On another note, if it's really bothering you for a specific article, you can fix it by moving the campaignbox below the affected header. —Kirill Lokshin 14:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove casus belli?

Since nobody actually seems to be using the "Casus belli" field, would there be any objections to removing it from the template? Kirill Lokshin 14:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Since nobody seems to care, I've gone ahead and removed it; please let me know if that broke anything major. Kirill Lokshin 12:45, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
It seems that your change made some editors quite unhappy. Could you please restore it if there's not too much trouble. ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that people are trying to cram a paragraph of text in there is part of the motivation for removing it, though. Couldn't that just as easily be discussed in the article itself? We can add it back if it's really needed, but I would think leaving it out might be better in the long term. Kirill Lokshin 09:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I think that a lot of captions are about the same length. I think the casus belli is a good addition, and a lot of times it could be just be a sentence of something that helps sum up the conflict.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Most casus belli are "disputed" and require a lengthy discourse to fully explain. Which would make it unsuitable for infoboxes. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 07:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that's quite true, and a valid concern. Kirill Lokshin 14:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
For what I am interested in (primarily World War II), it is quite unnecessary. I suspect that in many cases though it will not be easy to nail down the Casus Belli into a short enough statement. My €0.02 Andreas 16:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree, in fact probably in most cases it will not be particularly appropriate. However, in cases where it is (I can think of a lot of European war of the 17-19 centuries) it will add signifigantly to the article without damaging any articles where it is not present.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I guess the question is whether the cases where this is beneficial outnumber the cases where editors who don't understand what a casus belli is will put inappropriate material into that parameter. There's a certain tendency for unused fields to become used, even when they were originally omitted because there's nothing useful to put there. Kirill Lokshin 02:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Why don't we include a message properly explaining it, also I think enough people understand it to revert any improperly used instances.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
We did have an explanation, as I recall; maybe some more direct wording would be appropriate? Something like "Do not use this field for the underlying causes of a war, or where the casus belli is disputed and requires a lengthy explanation" could work? Kirill Lokshin 03:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
That would probably be sufficient, but maybe we could also direct the person to the Casus belli article to allow them to get a grasp of the meaning.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Very well, I've added back the field and put a note about proper usage in the instructions; we can always remove it if it becomes a serious problem again. Please do try to use it sparingly, though, and only for those wars where it makes sense ;-) Kirill Lokshin 04:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, I will choose well where I actually use it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:52, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] partof

I added:

or for large wars, the theatre and war eg "Eastern Front, World War II", or "Peninsular War, Napoleonic Wars".

Because there was an edit to the article Prague Offensive today replacing "Soviet-German War, World War II" with "World War II". I think in such a large war partof should be by campaign/theatre as well as War, and "Soviet-German War" is an acceptable alternative for Eastern Front, or Great Patriotic War to describe the largest theatre of the Second World War. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, although I think "Eastern Front (World War II)" would be better than "Eastern Front, World War II". Kirill Lokshin 23:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I prefer that we agree on a standard, maybe a vote?

[edit] Casualties

Is there a way to optionally merge the two cells "casualties1" and "casualties2"? In some military conflict articles, the number of casualties of each side is unknown, and an estimate is given about the total number, especially with civil war articles where civilian deaths is the greatest (see Algerian Civil War). If it's not possible, could you create a variant of the infobox? CG 15:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Easy enough; I've added a "casualties3" field that will allow the field to stretch across both columns. Be sure to clear the two other casualty fields if you use it, though; otherwise, it won't display. Kirill Lokshin 15:52, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I tried to make the text in this field centered (to be clear that this number is for the two sides), but it didn't work. Could you do it? Thank you. CG 16:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Done. Does that help? Kirill Lokshin 16:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for your fast response. CG 17:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation of dagger/cross symbol

Although I guessed what the † symbol meant when I saw it in one of these infoboxes in an article, I think an explanation should be given in the infobox itself for readers who may be confused by it. - dcljr (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

A valid point, but I'm not sure where we could insert an explanation without breaking the aesthetics in horrible ways. And would we want it to always be shown, even if the symbol isn't used, or just turned on (possibly by an extra parameter)? Kirill Lokshin 22:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of Combatants 1 and 2?

I've never had the occasion to use one of these templates, but I'm curious: is there some guideline on which combatant is #1 and which is #2? Melchoir 00:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it's completely arbitrary. Personally, I can't see why it would ever really matter which one was listed on which side; and trying something simple like "attacker listed first" would just lead to endless edit-warring in cases where the historical circumstances were unusual or unclear. Kirill Lokshin 00:17, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
This is true. Melchoir 00:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, the good guys should be listed first, and the bad guys second. That shouldn't be a problem, right? --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 03:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Would it shock you terribly to know that your idea is basically how these are used for fictional battles? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, well, I guess I'm onto something then! --K

[edit] Third casualty figure

Have run into a sit in Iraq War where the civ casualties don't really clearly belong in either column - one proposal was to have them in a cell which ran across the width of both cols (like the notes cell) in order to not attribute these civs as 'belonging' to one side or the other, or automatically assume that all were killed by the coalition. I tried using the notes field, but typeface is tiny & I am totally inept at editing this stuff. Any help/guidance would be appreciated.Bridesmill 15:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a casualties3 field that was introduced just recently for that purpose, but it's currently disabled if the other casualty fields are filled in. If you want, I can turn that off and allow it to be included in all cases. Kirill Lokshin 16:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that would be useful, esp in cases where there is a third group of cas/victim (like currently in Iraq) which cannot be put in either column without raising some POV hackles, or which is victims of both sides. Thanks muchly.Bridesmill 16:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Done. We may still need to play with the formatting a bit; I'm not sure how neat it'll look with all three fields set. Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Works for me - trying it at Iraq War. 'perhaps' a line across the top but maybe I'm getting pedantic . Thanks again.Bridesmill 16:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I thought of doing that, but that would be the same formatting as the notes field, which might make it more confusing. Maybe different styles of lines (single/double, normal/bold) would be worth trying? Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Good point - only thing I could think of would be to have 'notes' on a blue background, or have all of the lines thicker so that the lines internal to a subject (Cas, combattants, etc) could be thin. (If I'm making any sense ;-))Bridesmill 16:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I've made the internal lines dotted and added one above the joint casualties field; does that seem to work? Kirill Lokshin 17:27, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks good - I'm sure somebody won't like it, but works fine for me; not sure how else this prob could be solved. Well done!Bridesmill 17:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alignment

The alignment in some of these table cells is inconsistent. See e.g. Swiss peasant war of 1653: there is a clear offset between the baselines of "Location:" and the text to the right. Could someone fix this, please? Lupo 11:32, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Very strange. I can't see any offset, and, looking at the markup, can't imagine any reason for one to appear. A screenshot might help with this. Kirill Lokshin 12:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed you're right. When I log out and load the page, the baseline offset disappears. Must be a problem with my own CSS, then. Sorry for the bother. Lupo 14:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, ok, that explains it. Maybe you're overriding some of the .infobox classes? Kirill Lokshin 14:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
No, but I had a typo in the line height specification for <th>. It's old stuff from the early days of monobook, probably not even needed anymore, but I'm too lazy to take it out. Fixed the typo, and now it looks fine. Lupo 14:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The use of flag icons is not recommended?

I'm curious as to why this is so. The use of images to spruce up articles when possible seems to be otherwise universally encouraged on the wikipedia. Militia or batallion coats-of-arms and national flags are among the most accessible fair-use images for most military conflicts. What is the origin of the recommendation? -- Kendrick7 18:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

A number of reasons, actually, that have come up over the lifetime of the template:
  • The extra images will usually increase the size of an already-long infobox (often significantly so), driving it further into the text of the article. This becomes especially obvious when the infobox is followed by one or more campaignboxes. If the flags are made smaller so as to avoid this problem, they become unrecognizable.
  • The images usually don't align properly with the text, leading to a cluttered and uneven appearance.
  • The box appears incomplete if some listed parties have flags but others don't; but this is often the case, as many participants may not have usable flags.
  • The flags are often ahistorical (which is, admittedly, more a concern with how some people select them than with their use in general).
  • Many flag images, particularly historical ones, are not available under a free license; their use as icons in infoboxes is considered "decorative" and forbidden by the fair use criteria.
(Which is not to say that the flags are forbidden, of course, but merely "not recommended". Past experience suggests that it's generally a good idea to avoid them unless you really need them and know what you're doing in regard to their layout within the box.) Kirill Lokshin 18:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I like the flag icons--I agree with Kendrick they do spruce up the info-box. But I guess they do tend to make an info-box even longer. I actually thought the style was to include them, guess I should stop adding them to all the info-boxes I edit. Although if the conflict just involves 2 states/2 flags it might be nice to allow flags on those infobxes. Just a thought. Publicus 19:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

If they are included, it's best to keep them to a fairly small size, so the box length issue doesn't become too problematic. Kirill Lokshin 20:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties box only for figures?

I have a doubt on the casualty section. Is it only for concrete figures - no matter how diverse the different estimates - or can it include vague statements about casualties that doesn't specify a particular figure?

I think we should just stick to numbers to avoid bloating up the infobox any further and include relevant statements in a casualty or relevant section in the article. --Idleguy 08:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

It can be either, as appropriate in the particular article. While concrete figures are given most of the time, there are other ways to describe casualties, particularly for battles where limited information is available (e.g. "Almost all killed" and so forth). The infobox is supposed to be a summary of the article, so there's no real reason to omit things from it merely because a neat number isn't available. Kirill Lokshin 12:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I would like to propose one small change: replace the current title with |+ Infobox Military Conflict. This is by far the more common way of creating titles for infoboxes, and it cleans up the code a little bit. Ingoolemo talk 03:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Meh. I don't really like the floating-outside-the-box formatting, and I don't think it's popular among other project members either (note that all the other military infoboxes use the same markup. Given that this template tends to have one or more campaignboxes following it, I think a fully bordered layout provides a much cleaner design, since the stacked boxes actually look like a continous block. Kirill Lokshin 11:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Casus belli and WWII

This field is giving us headaches over at World War II. Casus belli is almost by definition POV, because it can be something untrue, like the Gleiwitz incident. I'd like a way to put "Invasion of Poland" in the infobox, but to be fair we can't really say that the Invasion of Poland was a casus belli for Germany, the US, or the USSR. See where I'm heading? My hope is that this discussion area will be a less heated, more academic place where we can talk about it without the pressure of coming to a solution. Perhaps a field labelled "Cause" should be added? Haber 03:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

For all but the most trivial conflicts, the actual "cause" of the war needs a section (or even an article in its own right), not a two-line infobox field; so that's not going to work. As far as the WWII issue, though: have you considered simply not using the casus field? It's unused on most wars, and was really added more for the benefit of the more formalized diplomacy surrounding 18th century warfare than for general use in all cases. Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. It looks like it might stay off WWII. Haber 22:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Refugees

I encountered recent news articles on the millions of Iraqis displaced by the current war[1] and thought these should be used to update the Iraq War article. I thought these figures should be added to the concise information box on the right - your template - since the number of refugees is one of the objective measurements that can be made of the scope of a conflict. Unfortunately, the templating system does not readily allow this information from being added there. This needs to be remedied. Mike Serfas 22:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Meh. If the editors of an article want to put the number in the infobox (I suspect they won't—it's not a particularly useful statistic when compared to the numbers of dead or wounded), they can just use one of the (many) existing casualty field configurations for it. As a standalone field, it would be fairly useless, though, as it's only the handful of most recent wars for which meaningful statistics on this topic are available; older conflicts are considered well-documented if there's a ballpark estimate of the fatalities! Kirill Lokshin 23:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
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