Template talk:LDSInfobox

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Contents 1 From Discussion on Joseph Smith, Jr 2 Subtemplates 3 Request for Comments 4 President of the Church 5 Border

[edit] From Discussion on Joseph Smith, Jr

I have been working with friends at Infobox pope to get a standard Infobox proposed for religious leaders. I have implemented it on this page for everyone to take a look. To edit the infobox go here: Template:Infobox prophet or comment at the talk page. I am implmenting on Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young since there is lots of activity on JS right now. Trödel|talk 02:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Is this supposed to be specific to Mormonism? Cookiecaper 13:51, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes. The infobox for religious leaders is a proposed standardization (with some fighting about styles, etc) for all religious leaders. Individual Infoboxes would probably need to be created for different denominations - like Mormonism could have all prophets automatically include information about call to the 12, etc. I am trying to figure out a way to include information about callings in the 70, presideing bishopric, etc for those cases where it needs to be. The nice thing is the format that goes on the article page - just the name, facts, and image - no formatting codes. Trödel|talk 15:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it'd be better to move it to Template:Infobox LDSGA or Template:Infobox General Authority or something like that. Can you clarify what prophetic calling is supposed to be? As you see, I changed it from the date the Church was organized to the window of the First Vision. I believe that's correct as the time Smith received his "prophetic calling". It'd probably be smarter to change that to Title or Position or something and just keep the dates ordained, as that's really all we know for most of the people this will be applied to. There are many non-GA prophets (namely anyone with a testimony of Christ or any other knowledge acquired via the Holy Ghost) and many GA's were prophets before they were called to their position. But I like the box overall. Good job.Cookiecaper 17:39, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good points - I am not sure how to handle Joseph Smith because he is different than his successors since he was establishin the structure and it came in pieces - not all at once. I will move the page but am trying to think of a good name - and still figuring out if I can use one box for all General Authorities similar to the way that Infobox pope uses the Infobox pope/dead subpage for including death information only for those that are actually dead. JS may just not fit into a template - I am thinking that a subpage might work better for him - since that would hide the ugly table formatting codes from being on this page but allow specialized customization for him.

I am trying to think of some short words (since it needs to be concise on the infobox) like "Called to Twelve" for the "Call as Presiding High Priest". Assension would be the easy word to use but it is not in the lexicon or usage of LDS. Maybe "Sustained President", or "Became President" or something of that nature. Any thoughts - we should probably move this discussion to the Template talk:Infobox prophet since we are getting a little of topic hear (copying) Trödel|talk 18:16, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subtemplates

After much trial and error I have found that using Subtemplates won't work for Prophet/Apostle in one Infobox because of two many conditions.

So I am creating two templates LDSInfobox and LDSInfobox apostle - and maybe later LDSInfobox seventy

Among the things I can't get right are the inclusion/noninclusion of an extra line and listing the died information twice.

Good work, keep it up. The light blue color is slightly annoying. Are we going to keep or replace the succession boxes? Jgardner 21:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

I lightened the color quite a bit - it will now show white on computers that have 256 colors but it should be less "blue" and more subtle. See if you like that color.

Thinking about this, I think it would be best to keep the succession information separate from the info box. We should only list when they were called to what, etc... in the info box. Jgardner 22:30, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

I guess that the succession information could stay in the bottom succession boxes - the pope pages all have both - so I guess that is a precedent. I liked the idea of having all their apostle/prophet/president of the twelve information in one box. - easy to access and easy to navigate. Trödel|talk 00:12, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about a compromise? Let's list preceding and succeeding presidents (of the church) but not for apostles (or presidents of the 12). We can leave the succession boxes on the bottom. I think this would present the most valuable information in the box, but leave the less interesting order intact at the bottom. Jgardner 06:56, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comments

Some of you may have noticed that I have started putting this box on some of the Prophets/Presidents of the Church. I propose that this be a supplement, rather than a replacement for the succession boxes at the bottom of the articles. Because of this I think that the Quorum of Twelve information in this Infobox be the person whom they replaced in the Quorum and the person who replaced them. (instead of the prior, next as in the series box for Quorum of Twelve). Although it is duplicative I think the President of the Church should still list the predecessor and successor as well as the date of ordination.

I am not planning on adding a section for President of the Twelve - leaving this for the succession boxes only.

I have also created Template:LDSInfobox apostle that would be the same as this box but with out the President (obviously).

Please comment. If the proposal above is accetpable - please indicate. Thx in adv. Trödel|talk 02:40, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Alternative Succession: We could also include who ordained whom.

	President of the Church
	Ordained	March 12, 1995
	By	Thomas S. Monson
	Predecessor	Howard W. Hunter
	Successor	incumbant
	Quorum of Twelve
	Ordained	October, 1961
	By	David O. McKay (presumably)
	Replacing	J. Reuben Clark

Trödel|talk 05:01, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

In many cases, it isn't clear who replaces whom in the quorum. (For instance, if a president dies, and a new presidency is formed calling one of the twelve as a counselor, then is the new apostle called to replace the dead president or the new counselor in the presidency? I've written that they replace the passing prophet; others are explicit that they replace the new counselor.) It's also mostly irrelevant. The only reason why seniority and order of ordination (or readmittance, in the case of a few early apostles) is important is for the pres. of the quorum, and later pres of the church.

Because of these issues (who replaces whom, and whether to use that or order) I have removed apostle mention from the template - it varies from the series boxes and could be confusing and it was an issue I never got around to resolving). Trödel|talk 19:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As far as who performs the ordination, that's not entirely important either. Only that it was performed, and the date of the performance are really important facts.

I propose that we keep both who they replace and who ordains them in the text and not in any special boxes anywhere.

Jgardner 06:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree it is hard to determine and there are some conflicting statements given in General Conference. However, we can be consistent here, and since when the Prophet dies the counselors return to the Quorum, I have used death or excommunication as the cause of a vacancy only.

One reason I have suggested the "replaced by" part is that it is interesting which prophet called which later prophet, similar to the current discussion of the Cardinalate appointments by Pope John Paul II. For instance, Lee, Kimball, and Benson where called to the twelve by George Albert Smith. The first prophet not called to be an apostle by Joseph Smith is Lorenzo Snow. The turnover in the twelve and the connection between early churhc leaders to now has become much more obvious to me as a result of looking into this - and the continuity of the leadership is interesting from both a what stays the same and what changes aspect. Trödel|talk 12:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] President of the Church

continued from Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr.

Somebody placed the JS portrait into a box that includes the title President of the Church. This seems a bit ambiguous in the context of a world encyclopedia. Is there a way this can be clarified? Tom Haws 14:50, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I did this - I created the Template:LDSInfobox to put together the vital info (birth/death) succession information into a single box. However because JS was the restorer he was not first called as an apostle like subsequent presidents, so there is a similarly styled box for Joseph Smith at Joseph Smith, Jr./Infobox. As I was trying to come up with concise titles I choose President of the Church as the best one line only description I could think of. Since we should make this change for all the Presidents - this discussion should probably continue on the template talk page - I will update the JS infobox with whatever consensus arrives at. Trödel|talk 16:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Sigh, a solution is not easy. Would any of these work? Also, is it possible that this Infobox project was conceived in a POV manner, but can be salvaged to abide by NPOV prnciples?

• LDS President (my favorite)
• LDS Church President (Gives impression of meaning the LDS Church rather than an LDS Church)
• Mormon Prophet (I don't like this one)

I changed to LDS Church President as I like that one best of the others - since no on really comments here on anything I am just going to make the change and monitor the Mormon Prophet pages to see if anyone comments :) Trödel|talk 22:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Good for you. I am afraid it has POV implications, but I am not going to oppose it alone.  :-) After all, I may be a looney case. Tom Haws

I don't like the phrase "called as prophet". If this is a section about LDS Church president, then it should say something like "presidency began" or "term of office", similar to the template of either Catholic Pope of US President. For a non-Mormon, President doesn't immediately imply Prophet. "called" is a somewhat mysterious term to a non-Mormon. Nereocystis 07:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Presidency began could be ambiguous as well since both Brigham and WW could be considered as having their presidency begin at the time of the death of the prior prophet since they were then presiding over the church as President of the Twelve. "Ordained" may be better and it is the event than begins service as president of the First Presidency. Perhaps we could link Ordination to the appropriate article. The Pope pages use papacy - which I immediately lookedup in March when the pope was sick and I began reading about the Catholic transition process and borrowed the idea for the infobox. Although most members of the LDS Church would consider it to be Calling as Prophet began - because the term prophet has other meanings and the Church itself avoids the term for whatever reason I did as well. Since Ordained is already on this box - I'll check the JS and GBH specialized boxes to make sure they are consistent. Trodel 13:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

PS The JS box was inconsistent - just an oversight on my part - I made it ordained - as it is on the template. But is kind of problematic with JS - ordained to what and when :). as First Elder, as Co-president, I am using the date from the President of the Church (Mormonism) page which is the date the church was official organized. Trodel 13:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Ordained is still a little mysterious, at least for non-LDS. Does ordain mean the first day of office. Possibly, but it's hard to tell for sure without looking further. How about term of office (see Bill Clinton as an example, or presidency began and presidency ended (see Pope John Paul II). Add the ordination dates, if you wish, but make the beginning and ending dates crystal clear. Nereocystis 16:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think we could link to ordained rather than change the wording as this is not a "term of office" in the political sense. I personally don't like presidency began and ended, but am open to comments/consensus if others agree with the suggestion above. If there are no comments for a few days I will probably move this discussion over to the LDS movement Wikiproject. Trodel 14:59, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

This infobox seems to be nothing but trouble on the Joseph Smith article. An anon just made a change there in the date, and that highlights what I believe are going to be continual problems using the infobox for JS unless you can get the fit better with the subject. I'm not a huge fan of the infobox due to the ambiguity regarding JS's role and relation to successors. But Trodel or somebody else who is a big proponent of the infobox idea needs to wrestle with this matter and come up with a satisfactory answer. The problem of the day is that from the outside perspective, JS wasn't ordained or appointed anymore than was Jesus Christ. Rather, he is seen as the Founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. As such he stands alone. You wouldn't put Mohammed, Siddartha Gautama, or Jesus in an infobox with a line of popes or successors, would you? Likewise, I just don't think it makes sense to put Joseph Smith in with the LDS Church presidents. You need to find a better way. Tom Haws 18:53, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

This was resolved - see Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr./Archive_5#President Titles and Dates

[edit] Border

Can someone put a border around this infobox so it doesn't look like it has been chopped in half? I tried to steal it from {{infobox_lake}} (which I consider one of the best looking templates around), but I couldn't figure out how to do it. --Lethargy 18:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)