User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Sydney

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Above: using a slightly-modified version of Infobox City.
Below: using my test version of IAP

Sydney New South Wales,  Australia
The Sydney Opera House on Sydney Harbour
Location of Sydney within Australia
Coordinates: 33°52′06″S, 151°12′31″E
Country	Australia
State	New South Wales
LGA	38 Local Government Areas
Founded	1788
Area
- City	12,144.6 km²
Elevation	3 m  (10 ft)
Population
- City (June 2005)	4,254,900
- Density	345.7/km²
Time zone	AEST (UTC+10)
- Summer (DST)	AEDT (UTC+11)
Post code	2000
Area code(s)	02
38 Local Government Areas
Website: www.sydney.com.au

[edit] Comments

Dont like the lines. Fields tkae up a lot of space when editing page (although some of the fields simply exist to allow for generic-ness). I like the 2 image thing (you can use a photo and a locator map side by side in WP:IAP). I like the '38 lgas' at bottom. Some of these features (ie co-ords) we decided not to have in IAP though. Overall, not bad, although I dont know how it would work with the larger profile of IAP. --TheJosh 12:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The lines could be better used. If horizontal lines are used at all, I prefer to have them not span the full table. (as done for the Former Country infobox: eg. Kingdom of Prussia or this test infobox for the former NSW colony). But the separate images for photo and locator is a very good idea. The country/state section still looks (imho) better at the top as is done in IAP. As far as I know, the city infobox is still under development, so perhaps some of the features of IAP can be useful here too. Since IAP covers more than just cities, I don't think that IAP is under any major threat of being replaced by this template - but a more global-minded approach to the design and application of IAP can't hurt. - 52 Pickup 12:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

personally i dont like maps, they dont show you the town like a good photo. Currently we can do locators (although that feature is not complete yet...) I think that not going global has advantages, for example, this box needs fields like

|subdivision_type       = Country
|subdivision_name       = [[Australia]]
|subdivision_type1      = State
|subdivision_name1      = [[New South Wales]]

Messy having to put in each infobox things like types. Also, being AU specific, we can do cool things with states (postcode link, lga link -> state versions, full state name, auto-categories, etc) these kind of things are not possible is your scope is too broad. --TheJosh 10:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

When I mean "global", I am meaning more like "improving readability for non-Australian readers". IAP has many excellent AU-specific features, and it should stay that way.
The subdivision fields that you listed are natually not needed for IAP (country is obvious and State is already covered). Along the lines of improving readability for foreign readers, did you consider explicitly stating for cities in the infobox that it is an Australian location? By this, I mean that suburbs give display levels of subdivision at the top (city and state), but cities and towns say only the state. We all know that Victoria is an Australian state, but not everybody does. If a map of Australia is not given (locator maps are something of a necessary evil), this should perhaps be specified (see my rough test infobox at the bottom).
Another global concern that some might bring up in the future is the absence of Imperial units. Just as a warning, there are some who are very intent on having both scales present in infoboxes. My test infobox below has Imperial units, automatically calculated in the manner previously discussed. - 52 Pickup 10:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Some things we already calculate (see temp/rainfall), although that requires users dont put in commas, or you screw it up i think. Sadly, many users put commas in. --TheJosh 02:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Can see some huge arguments about the LGAs thing at the bottom. There's been a running argument in the Brisbane talk pages all week on the very subject of what constitutes a metro area, and it's clear at least there that there's no agreement. Also we discussed the telephone code issue during the development of IAP and it was rejected. Orderinchaos78 14:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The LGAs as a footnote was just something I saw on another page somewhere. I have just added my test version of IAP at the bottom. As for area codes, I can understand that they are not so important for Australian entries since that is done at a state level. That's fine. But we must also keep in mind the readability of the infobox to non-Australian readers. I'm not sugesting that IAP should become just a copy of Infobox City. No way. Actually, I'm working on getting some features of IAP used over there. I think we should just look at the extra features that Infobox City has and just pick out the bits that are useful/relevant. - 52 Pickup 15:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I dislike the use of both a picture and map; crowding the infobox for seemingly decorative purposes doesn't strike me as reason enough to include photographs. I think maps are probably more useful than photographs, as photographs cannot only wholly depict a location, whereas a map can at least show a reader its bounds. The present locator maps are perhaps deficient to this task, but maps such as those used for Canberra suburbs (see here) or for some LGAs (see here and here) are very good.--cj | talk 15:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a clear difference of opinion here: map, photo or both. I believe that using both works well, especially if the article is full enough (eg. New York City). To me, the best way to shrink infobox size is to reduce fonts and padding - 52 Pickup 17:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved the LGA to the subdivision 2 fields to give a different view instead of in the footnotes section at the bottom. As for some of the difference of opinion on the map, photo, or both, we made most of the fields in the Infobox City optional so that differences of opinion (such as this) could be settled by the editors of the individual city articles. Better to include at the template level and then exclude at the article level. —MJCdetroit 19:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)