Template talk:Infobox Officeholder/Archive 2

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Take out In office

{{editprotected}} Take out In office (for former office holders) and Assumed office (for incumbents). Unnecessary since following dates (eg 1990--2006 for former holder, 2006--present for incumbent) supply context.

Unnecessary since following dates supply context. --Justmeherenow (talk) 18:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

N Not done Please establish consensus for this change. Happy‑melon 19:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit requested -- governor, lieutenant governor

Would it be possible to include the following in this template?

{{edit protected}}

{{#if:{{{lieutenantgov|}}} |<!--then:--> 
! Lieutenant governor(s)
{{!}} {{{lieutenantgov}}}
{{!-}}
}}

and

{{#if:{{{governor|}}} |<!--then:--> 
! Governor(s)
{{!}} {{{governor}}}
{{!-}}
}}

(and so on for each level of office).

My rationale is that the current Template:Infobox Governor is inadequate & limited for any governor who has held any office other than governor or lieutenant governor. As it is, this template is the most flexible & inclusive of the various officeholder templates available; it's fairly easy even to include Senator & House information, whether at Congressional or state legislative level, without any further changes to the template. Miscellaneous items like "languages spoken" (as requested by the last person) or official website, etc. can always be placed in the footnotes field. Thus, it makes it possible to have a complete infobox history of significant political offices (at least for U.S. political offices) without having to futz around -- something not possible with the existing Governor, Senator, etc. templates.

BTW, I noticed that the template as it exists already has a line for "Lieutenant(s)", but that fact is not reflected in the documentation above.

Thanks for your consideration. --Yksin 03:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I think it would be best to make Template:Infobox Governor a redirect to here, like what happened to Infobox Vice President and Infobox Prime Minister. Here is the code that would need to be pasted into this template for it to work. You can see the code working on the talk page.--Philip Stevens 09:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems odd to add 'lieutenantgov' when there's already 'lieutenant'. I think merging the templates and setting up a redirect is the better option. Hera1187 11:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to disable the editprotected tag. If consensus for some particular solution develops, please feel free to add another one. CMummert · talk 12:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Unlimited offices

{{editprotected}} I'd like to propose quite a big change to this template. My change, as demonstrated in my sandbox, allows for unlimited, easy to add, public offices. This is achieved through cascading sub templates.

Listing many offices could take some space. So I'm currently also working on the possibility, of dynamically toggling the offices that are less important to show by default (by using some kind of show/hide button).

  • If this was implemented, all of the pages currently linked to this template wouldn't work as there isn't an order field in your sandbox. This template allows for up to four public offices and if any more are needed then Template:Infobox Officeholder 2 is used. As stated above this code would allow for an office field and an order field. Philip Stevens 11:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, there's no special need to call it "office", I can change it to "order" if that's the problem. But still, indeed many pages probably won't work properly, because they need to input the sub template. Is it ok if I'll make the changes on Template:Infobox Officeholder 2? I'll make the necessary modifications to its linked pages too. Geva Zeichner 11:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
This is not the sort of thing that an editprotected request is for. You will need to write the new code yourself and find consensus for it. Only use editprotected at the very end to have an admin copy the code into this template. CMummert · talk 12:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Presidents who were also governors

{{editprotected}}

I'd like to propose some additions to this template. I have created a page with the proposed changes here, look at the talk page to see all the fields in use. These are not major changes to the template.

As a previous discussion pointed out, there are some issues with putting this template on pages for Presidents who also served as governors. These edits should clear this up as they allow for an office field and will add a link to the lieutenant field when the office field is in use.

Could an administrator please copy the code from here into the template. Thank you. --Philip Stevens 06:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  • As I said before, this seems sensible. Hera1187 10:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Y Done. --ais523 12:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

hCard microformat

Per WP:UF, please add hCard microformat mark-up (two HTML classes, "vcard" and "fn"), thus:

  • class="infobox" => class="infobox vcard"
  • |colspan="2" style="text-align: center; font-size:140%;"| '''{{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''
=>
|colspan="2" style="text-align: center; font-size:140%;" class="fn"| '''{{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''

and add to the documentation:

==Microformat==
{{UF-hcard-person}}

Thank you.. Andy Mabbett 20:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Y Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Andy Mabbett 22:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Making compatible with {{Infobox Politician}}

If Ségolène Royal became President of France, or Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, I think there would be a few problems converting the template from {{Infobox Politician}} to {{Infobox Officeholder}}; i.e. one or two fields would no longer work. Could any changes be made to prevent this? Hera1187 08:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

  • There wouldn't be an issue would with Brown because this template is already used on his page, but there is a problem with Royal and many others, including who ever wins the next US presidential election. So I have written a code that will allow for the easy transfer of one template to another. Here is the code. Look at the talk page to see it in use. --Philip Stevens 15:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
How many templates could be merged together? Instead of doing this one at a time, wouldn't it be better to figure out which ones could be merged (i.e., Template:Infobox Congressman, Template:Infobox Senator, Template:Infobox Governor-Elect, etc.) and then merge them all at once into one single template? That way, hundreds of pages wouldn't be affected every time this code is updated. I've begun a list below of templates that could possibly be merged into this one. Please add to it. Cheers. --MZMcBride 17:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Mergeable?

    • All of the above are compatible with the code I have written. --Philip Stevens 18:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I expanded the list above. Also, {{esoteric}} has been changed to {{intricate}} and using the Template doc pattern would probably be a good idea as well. --MZMcBride 19:46, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • WOW! What a piece of coding, I've thought about merging the all templates for politicians but I don't know enough about Java script. From what I can see, the code suggested would work for all the above with the exception of Template:Infobox Officeholder 2 and Template:Infobox US Ambassador, but if that can be sorted I'd suggest and support an edit request. Hera1187 05:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
This code now works with all the templates stated above. See it working here. There is some repetition in the template and I invite anyone, who thinks they can, to clean it up. Also, if anyone can see where the code wouldn't/doesn't work, this would be appreciated. I'll leave this open for a week or so and if no problems are found, I'll request and edit. --Philip Stevens 11:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
I've written a usage key for the proposed code. --Philip Stevens 14:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
It would be good if, for example, "The Rt Hon Tony Blair MP" could be made up of three fields: honorary-prefix, name and honorary-suffix. These could then be marked up with the corresponding hCard fields, and would allow the name to be parasble separately from the honorifics. (Existing uses would be backwards-compatible; with the values still being part of "name".)) Andy Mabbett 14:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to change the code to include this, I'm not that confident using hCard. --Philip Stevens 15:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, I've had a go - please check! Andy Mabbett 18:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm seeing the suffix (Blair) but not the prefix (Disraeli, Blair). I can't see why not. Andy Mabbett 19:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
It's working now. --Philip Stevens 19:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Does anyone have a bot that could do some updating top pages using these template? Andy Mabbett 20:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Chairman positions?

Can this infobox be modified to include committee chair positions and ranking member positions? (relevant to US Senators and Representatives) -Pete 06:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

  • It can be done already, see the code bellow. --Philip Stevens 09:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
| name =[[Rt Hon]] James Arbuthnot, MP
| order=[[Defence Select Committee|Chairman of the Defence Select Committee]]
| term_start=[[July 13]] [[2005]]
| term_end=
    • great, thanks for the explanation! -Pete 01:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Fix needed

In this box on the Umaru Yar'Adua page, it says "Assumed office: May 2007." Obviously this should say "To assume office" or something similar, showing that he has not yet assumed office. Thus, we need this template to have an alternative line for "Assumed office" or "To assume office." Can this be added by whoever it is created or maintains this template, please? Thank you, Badagnani 09:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Making Mergeable

Y Done Change made. CMummert · talk 13:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

{{|editprotected}} Following the discussion above, could an administrator please copy the code from this page into the template.

These edits will NOT change how the infobox looks or works but will allow for the merging of other infoboxes for political offices into this one template. This would standardize the political templates and mean that upgrades and additions need only be applied to one template.--Philip Stevens 05:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

In addition, could we switch to Template doc pattern, please? Cheers. --MZMcBride 07:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I've created Template:Infobox Officeholder/doc in which I've placed a usage key for the new code, along with the categories and the interwikis. --Philip Stevens 08:21, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I made a minor change to the documentation under "US Congressman." The US federal legislature is "Congress" but states have "legislatures" or "assemblies." Looks good otherwise, and a problem I saw with "order2" not displaying properly for presidents who were also governors seems to have been corrected.

One other question I have is with this new code is how to list US Representatives who served non-consecutive terms in office or served in different congressional districts? An example would be Charlie Norwood who served in Georgia's 10th Congressional District, then the 9th District, and back to the 10th during his career. Ciro Rodriguez served in Texas' 28th District before currently serving in the 23rd District. Is it simply a matter of adding additional "orders" until finished? The documentation isn't clear.Dcmacnut 21:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

  • See the top of this page for congressmen who served in different congressional districts. Look lower down the page (at Barry Goldwater) to see how to show non-consecutive terms in the same seat. I've changed the /doc page to show how to do this. --Philip Stevens 06:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I've been looking through the change requested (which is to replace this page with User:Philip Stevens/Template:Infobox Officeholder). It looks good technically, but I've noticed a number of formatting changes (which are presumably inevitable when merging two templates with different formats), especially to the default size of the image. So I'll leave this request open for a while: does anyone have any objections to the merge, or to the formatting change that goes with it? --ais523 08:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
      • On the talk page, there are examples of the code in use and the pictures are all working fine. --Philip Stevens 15:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I have no problems with merging. Surely if there is an issue, it should be discussed on the talk pages of the infoboxes that would be redirected here. I can't see a problem with the image size either as the defaults are very similar. I think, as I’ve said above, having one infobox for all politicians will help standardize Wikipedia and can only be a good thing and I completely support it. Hera1187 20:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the non-consecutive/different district formula. However, the infobox you created for Ciro Rodriguez needs a slight change. He served from the 118th District in the Texas House of Representatives, not the US House of Representatives. Changing "state4" in the infobox to "state_house3" or "state_house4" causes it to display incorrectly. Is there an easier way I'm missing? A lot of U.S. Congressmen formerly served in their respective state legislatures. Other than that everything looks good to me.Dcmacnut 21:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Sorry, that was my fault, I should have looked more carefully at his page. I fixed the problem by adding one word (state4 >> state_house4). --Philip Stevens 06:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've noticed that some states (California, New Jersey, Wisconsin, New York and Nevada) have assemblies and not Houses of Representatives, so I've added a new field to allow for this. --Philip Stevens 11:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I have another comment or suggestion. When creating one template it's hard to accommodate every permutation. Nebraska's legislature has no House and no Senate. It is merely referred to as the Nebraska Legislature or the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature. All members of the legislatures are referred to as state senators, but they also have a Speaker. The same is true for the Legislature of the U.S. Virgin Islands (Senators/Senate President) and Guam (Senators/Speaker). It's not currently an issue, since there are no infoboxes created for any of the members from these legislatures, but if one intended purpose of creating a super-template is to create infoboxes for most legislator articles, is another parser function needed to handle "unicameral" legislatures? There are likely other examples of unicameral legislatures outside of the United States as well. Just food for thought from a political science Yank.Dcmacnut 19:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've added a field for legislatures. --Philip Stevens 20:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Some issues following merge

{{editprotected}}

  • For the vast majority of pages the newly designed template does well. However, there are some issues which are understandable given the extent of the changes but nevertheless need to be sorted.
    1. On the Alex Salmond page, it says "Member of the Scottish Parliament", where as on the Ian Paisley page it just says "Assembly Member", shouldn't it be "Northern Ireland Assembly Member"?
    2. Also, can {{Infobox Congressional Candidate}} and {{Infobox Politician (general)}} be merged into this template, they are the only political people infoboxs left?
    3. Another thing, I've been looking through the pages that are linked to {{Infobox State Representative}} and on the Fabian Núñez page it says California twice in the same heading, I'm not American but is this correct, it looks clumsy?
    4. Finally, is the name of this template, Officeholder, the most appropriate name for this template after the merges? I am aware of my own history in the nameing of this template but I feel now that a more appropriate name considering the pages this template is now linked to is "Infobox Politician".

Please don't take the above as criticism, I am very impressed with the work that's been done, but these problems need to be addressed. Hera1187 06:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I have fixed the code for the first three points, see here. I wouldn't support a move to Infobox Politician as the history for that page would be lost. Before I put the fixed code up for an edit request, can anyone else see any other problems that may have occurred after merging? --Philip Stevens 16:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Following the above discussion, could an administrator please copy the code from here into the template. Thank you. --Philip Stevens 05:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    Done. CMummert · talk 15:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Senator and Representative

I'm attempted to improve Benjamin F. Shively. I put in the Infobox Office holder. I was able to put in his Senate information just fine. However, when I follow the sparse instructions on this infobox to "If Senator served as Congressman add:" it doesn't work. I get some dates but no line above them that I can add the words, "U.S. Representative". Instead it just adds dates under the Senate dates so it looks like he was Senator twice. If I'm just doing something wrong, can someone please point me at an example? Also, the instructions on how to add the Congressman info might need to be made clearer to help others like me in the future. Fanra 05:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I added the info, I hope it's right. --Philip Stevens 06:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks a lot. The info you added was right. I did add some more because while you added his first term as Representative, he actually was elected again after he left office two years later for three more terms. I'm not exactly sure what you did to get it to work but I can copy it now as needed. Thanks again. Fanra 14:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Judge

It looks like someone must have done some changes, as the "appointer" field no longer works. Is there a reason for this? Aboutmovies 08:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

  • The changes proposed above should fix this.--Philip Stevens 12:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Having trouble

I tried to use this template at Kevin Mannix, but it wouldn't work right. Can somebody help me figure it out? I stashed my "draft" version on the talk page. -Pete 00:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The state_senate parameter contained an open wiki-link, which broke the template. I fixed the problem and added the infobox to the article. Cheers. --MZMcBride 01:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Marvelous- thanks!! -Pete 21:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
still need further help though - many of the fields are not showing up in the box, and the grammar is all wonky due to the lack of a district number. Can you take another look? -Pete 21:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite instructions

Given the above discussions, do the instructions for this template need to be rewritten or made clear? Perhaps add examples of the template in use. Hera1187 05:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Very minor error

{{editprotected}} There is a very minor error in the code that I should have spotted before. If you look at Nicolas Sarkozy you'll see that Succeeding appears twice, this should not happen. Here is the code to fix it. --Philip Stevens 13:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

done. CMummert · talk 21:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional problems

{{editprotected}} I'm attempting to update several infoboxes, examples are here. I've noticed that for Governor Mike Rounds, there is an error in attempting to add his prior term as a state senator and state senate majority leader. The dates of his service as senator and majority leader display properly, but the heading indicating he was majority leader does not. Also, I'm updating Senator Johnson's infobox to include his U.S. House and South Dakota legislative service. The "preceeded" information is not displaying properly. Could someone take a look at my examples to see if it is something I'm doing wrong or if there is a problem with the code?Dcmacnut 16:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've also noticed problems using the "state_legislature" option under Infobox State Representative (i.e. for the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature). It erroneously addes a "member of the U.S. House of Representatives" header immediately after "member of the Nebraska Legislature" as seen in this example for Mike Flood, current Speaker of the Legislature. Could someone please make the appropriate fix? Also, since these unicameral members are referred to as "state senator", I think it would be more appropriate to have the "state_legislature" template listed under Infobox State Senator instead.Dcmacnut 22:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I’ve noticed a new addition needed. Maryland, Viriginia, and West Virginia all have a House of Delegates rather than a House of Representatives or Assembly. Is there room for a new field for “state_delegate”? Also, we address some of the leadership offices under “State Senator,” but some positions are not included are are also used by other legislative bodies. Do we need to add the following fields for completeness?

  • Majority/Minority Leader of the House (U.S. Congress and State House/Assembly/Legislature/Delegates)
  • President of the Senate (State Senator – in 25 U.S. states, this post is filled by an elected state senator, and not the Lieutenant Governor)
  • Speaker Pro Tempore (State Representative)
  • President Pro Tempore (Senator and State Senator)
  • Speaker of the Senate (Only used by Tennessee, so this probably could be displayed using a generic “office” field)
  • Vice President of the Senate (Only used by Wyoming and Puerto Rico. Again, probably could use a generic “office” field to display the information

These are just a few added thoughts of mine. When you deal with 50 different state governments and 6 territorial governments in the U.S., it is hard to standardize a template when each legislature has its own exceptions to the rule.Dcmacnut 13:41, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Y Done --MZMcBride 05:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Nationality or citizenship?

This template uses the highly ambiguous word "nationality", an attribute of a nation; however, in practice, it is often being used to denote citizenship rather than nationality. If we aim to be a proper encyclopedia we must avoid sloppy, ambiguous and POV terms. If we mean "citizenship" then we must use the word "citizenship". --Mais oui! 17:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

add "Governor-General"

{{edit protected}} There is a field for the "Monarch", however for countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc, there also should be fields for "Governor-General". Could that please be added as an option. When added, it should be directly below the "Monarch" field. Brian | (Talk) 06:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 16:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Philip Stevens & MZMcBride Brian | (Talk) 22:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Good addition to the template, however there was already a field for "Governor General" (without the hyphen -) that covers the same offices. There are more than 50 articles, such as John Kerr associated with {{Infobox Governor General}}. Governor-General (with the hyphen) is the correct spelling, but there are only two articles, such as Michael Jeffery associated with {{Infobox Governor-General}}. We should strive to correct all Governor-General infoboxes to ensure they include the hyphen where appropriate.Dcmacnut 13:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The point of this addition was for use on on the infoboxes, for example Prime Ministers. If you look at Tony Blair the Monarch is listed, (in other countries the President is listed) thus for the Commonwealth Realms their Governor-General, by default should be listed imo. Canada is the only place that spells it with out the hyphen -. I suggest we correct all of the ones except the Canada ones, keep there local spelling. Brian | (Talk) 19:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know that about Canadian spelling. Thanks. I agree with including governors-general in commonwealth country infoboxes.Dcmacnut 00:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Ambassador issue

How can I get Kingdom of Hawaii to work with the ambassador template, see James McBride (politician) for how it currently is working. Thanks. Aboutmovies 02:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Aboutmovies 07:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Fix needed for Iowa Senate

{{editprotected}} This template needs to be made so that when set for the Iowa Senate, it will display "Member of the Iowa Senate from the nth district", rather than what it currently displays ("Member of the Iowa State Senate from the nth district"). The link also needs to be changed so that it links to the Iowa Senate rather than to the non-existent Iowa State Senate. Thanks --Tim4christ17 talk 22:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Here is the code to fix the problem. I've also added some updates and allowed for two more offices. --Philip Stevens 10:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    • New code installed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Constituency problems

{{editprotected}}

The constituency field does not seem to be working on many articles look at Tony Blair only the Incumbent banner is showing. --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 01:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-numerical districts

Is there a way we can change the way districts show? The current way is wonderful for someone from a numbered district, however, some people (such as Jack Kibbie) have apparently served in a non-numbered district. In this case, his infobox should read "Member of the Iowa House of Representatives from Palo Alto County". The closest we can come to that with the current code is "Member of the Iowa House of Representatives from the Palo Alto County District". --Tim4christ17 talk 11:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Code

What is the original code/source for this template? Nat Tang ta | co | em 21:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Code for Latin Version

I need a copy of the current code so that I may adapt it for the Latin version of this encyclopedia, which is woefully lacking with regards to infoboxes in general. I in no way wish to commit vandalism and I hope that someone can email me this code at: andy85719@gmail.com. It would be most appreciated. Andy85719 22:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Here is the code. I should point out that the code is very complex due to the fact that it was designed to replace several templates that all worked slightly differently. --Philip Stevens 11:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit Requested: "Occupation" >> "Career"

This change was (sort of) originally suggested by Faithlessthewonderboy here.

{{editprotected}}

I request that "Occupation" be changed to "Career" or something similar. Many of the Officeholder pages describe individuals who are exclusively office holders by occupation. "Occupation" in these cases has been (for most presidents, at least) interpreted broadly by the editing community to mean "occupation prior to office." This is misleading to readers, since absent qualifications "Occupation" is taken to imply present position. "Career" escapes the issue, since it doesn't have the same present focus. --XDanielx 06:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with that proposal for federal office holders, however many state legislators (which are covered by the same templates) only serve part-time, so "occupation" is the more appropriate term to use for them. They still work at their "day jobs" while serving part of the year as legislators. "Career" doesn't quite capture the fact that they are still employeed in their regular profession. I would recommend leaving "Occupation" as an option for state legislators and adding "Profession" for federal office holders. Many directories list "previous profession" to idenfity past employment, rather than "Career." Dcmacnut 15:25, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
This template is incredibly visible, so I've disabled the editprotected request while discussion continues. When there's a consensus, or if further comments indicate ambivalence to the change, please feel free to re-enable the editprotected request. Cheers. --MZMcBride 13:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks MZMcBride. I didn't forget about this request, I just don't have a strong opinion. I loosely agree with Dcmacnut; although I think "career" would be reasonably fitting for a part-time office holder I suppose "occupation" is slightly more specific (though it still leaves the question of part-time vs. full-time ambiguous, but what they hay). Dcmacnut's proposal of keeping "Occupation" intact would probably be a good idea for easing the transition as well, as removing "Occupation" would result in a temporary data loss that might go unnoticed on some pages. So I suppose I am in favor of keeping "Occupation" and adding "Career" in addition to it. "Profession" would be fine too; I'd prefer "Career" because I think it has a slightly strong implication of pre-office work rather than current work. (I must emphasize "slight implication"; I realize that neither "career" nor "profession" strictly mandates a certain relative time period.) But given the obvious similarity, I really don't have a strong preference between the two. --xDanielxTalk 06:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Re-enabling editprotected template since discussion is likely ended, but issue remains unresolved. — xDanielx T/C 18:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I haven't commented in a while because I thought the issue had gone away. There is now a "Profession" field in the personal data, which can be used when "Occupation" isn't appropriate. Career is too general, and is not accurate enough for part-time officeholders. It is generally understood by readers that an officeholder's current "job" is that of an officeholder/politician/senator/congressman/etc, so any mention of a profession or occupation would then be viewed as what that person "does" when he or she is not in office. Rather than replacing "Occupation" with "Career", how about creating a separate "Career" field, so editors have the option of using the term that best fits the situation, rather than making a single that could potentially affect hundreds of infoboxes?Dcmacnut 19:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Hm, sounds good to me. I'll re-disable the immediate edit request in case discussion develops further, but if an admin stumbles across this feel free to be bold exercise discretion. I guess I agree with Dcmacnut about creating a separate field, but again, no strong opinion from me. — xDanielx T/C 00:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Parameters for dead people

{{editprotected}} The templates {{Infobox person}} and {{Infobox actor}} now have parameters for restingplace and restingplacecoordinates (see Marylin Monroe for an example using both). I think we should add them to this template. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 22:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

{{#if:{{{restingplace|}}}|<!--then:-->
! Resting place
{{!}} {{{restingplace}}}<br />{{#if:{{{restingplacecoordinates|}}}|{{{restingplacecoordinates}}}}}
{{!-}}
}}

Above is the code to be placed under the 'date of death' field. --Philip Stevens 17:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

done. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

How about diplomatic Ministers?

{{editprotected}} Can a change be made to the code that will allow for a proper title for a diplomatic Minister? Jacob B. Blair actually served as U.S. Minister (rather than Ambassador) to Costa Rica. Preferably the link could be [[United States Ambassador to Costa Rica|United States Minister to Costa Rica]]. Thanks — Bellhalla 23:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that, but the code needs to be written and tested before an admin can come and copy it in. If you need help with the code, you can see if someone else responds here, or go to Wikipedia:Requested templates. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would contact Philip Stevens (talk · contribs). He's the main maintainer of this template (and he does a great job : - ) ). --MZMcBride 00:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Here is the code to allow for this. Once implemented, changed the field name from ambassador_from to minister_from for the field to work. --Philip Stevens 12:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 23:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Hiding placeholder images with CSS

I plan to add span tags around the image like on User:Patrick/Infobox Officeholder‎, see Wikipedia_talk:Fromowner#Hiding_placeholder_images_with_CSS.--Patrick 01:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Addition of Spoken Languages Field

{{editprotected}} Could a field for "languages spoken" (or some variation thereof) please be added? Or, alternatively, another easy way to work in a link to the page Linguistic capabilities of modern world leaders, it's been tagged as an orphan for quite awhile... Thanks! Moogle10000 01:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This isn't quite ready for an editprotected request. This has been brought up before and will require discussion before being implemented. Cheers. --MZMcBride 01:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding premier

{{editprotected}} Could someone add Premier as one of the alternatives to Prime Minister? I myself could technically change it, but I'm afraid I might screw up the code somewhere. nat Alo! Salut! Sunt eu, un haiduc?!?! 16:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Drop a note on User talk:Philip Stevens and ask him nicely to write the code. --MZMcBride 01:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Here is the code. --Philip Stevens 05:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 06:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

'Religion'

What would an atheist have for this field, assuming his atheism were notable? 'Atheism'? Can't, it's not a religion. 'None'? Better, but ignores the diversity across nonbelievers (similar to replacing all instances of 'Catholic' with 'Theist'). The field needs to be renamed. 'Religious beliefs' is more inclusive, but excludes weak atheism. How about 'Religious stance'? It's a little long, but I can't think of anything shorter that has an appropriate meaning. Ilkali 12:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

  • You're taking this too literally. The fields in the infobox are supposed to be short, not fully descriptive. It would be fine to put down "atheist" in the religion box, just like how it would be OK to list someone as "Catholic" even if their "true" belief is "...well, I'm Catholic, but I only go to church on Easter, etc...." If a person's religion is relevant and needs a detailed explanation, put it in the body of the article. --M@rēino 14:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

"font-size:small;" on honorifics

{{editprotected}}

The Rt Hon. John Gummer MP
Current code
The Rt Hon. John Gummer MP
(with "font-size:90%;")
The Rt Hon. John Gummer MP
(with "font-size:80%;")
The Rt Hon. John Gummer MP
Proposed "font-size:small;"

I suggest adding "font-size:small;" for the display of honoric-prefix and honoric-suffix. I find the current display a bit overwhelming, see comparison at right. (It's hardcoded with the current HTML so as to stay relevant even if the template changes.)

The demonstrated code change would be straigthforward, to replace:

<span class="honorific-prefix">
 [...]
<span class="honorific-suffix">

with:

<span class="honorific-prefix" style="font-size:small;">
 [...]
<span class="honorific-suffix" style="font-size:small;">

— Komusou talk @ 09:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Pascal.Tesson 22:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Lieutenant Governors

Could someone please add a section for lieutenant governors, which are necessary for the infoboxes on the articles about present and previous premiers of the Canadian provinces. Thanks. --G2bambino 23:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done --nat Alo! Salut! Sunt eu, un haiduc?!?! 00:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Cheers. --G2bambino 00:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Infobox CanadianMP}}

{{editprotected}} This code will allow for {{Infobox CanadianMP}} to be redirected here. --Philip Stevens 18:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I made the change here and redirected the other template. I made a cursory check nothing was broken. The instructions here still need to be updated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

What information to include

I note that on most articles on prime ministers, the infobox includes the head of state (monarchical or presidential) whom the prime minister ministered. However, one editor is vehemently opposed to including this information on articles on Canadian prime ministers; his only argument against is that the head of state is "unimportant," though no reasoning as to why this is so. A discussion was opened at Talk:Stephen Harper on the matter, in which only three people participated; two were in support of including the information, one was opposed. After more than one week no other input was offered; however, the same opposing editor still insists the information not be included and has continued to edit war over the matter.

I am under the impression that there are "monarch" and "president" sections in this template specifically for mention of the monarch or president on a given minister's infobox. Is this indeed the case? And, further, is there some guideline which sets down that these persons should be mentioned in an infobox for a prime minister/chancellor? --G2bambino 00:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I think the person who appoints the officeholder is of importance and should be included in the infobox. This happens with all UK and US cabinet officials (example David Milliband, Condoleezza Rice) and all UK Prime Ministers (example Winston Churchill). I see no reason why it should be any different for Canadian PMs. --Hera1187 13:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Cheers, Hera. ---- G2bambino (talk) 17:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
The only slight problem is who exactly appoints them. Technically for a UK Cabinet Minister it's the monarch, but in practice it's the PM - hence Hilary Benn's boxes list Brown and Blair, but not Elizabeth II. Who is heading the government that the minister is a member of is something different from who is appointing the head of government. -- Timrollpickering (talk) 17:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
It's wrong, then, to claim the PM appoined another cabinet minister. The PM may advice the monarch on whom to appoint, and the monarchy may not ever question this, but it's still clearly the monarch who appoints his or her ministers. ---- G2bambino (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Viceprimeminister parameter

When the office parameter value is wikilinked, the viceprimeminister parameter cannot be used. – Ilse@ 20:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Try using the order field instead of the office field. --Philip Stevens 17:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Children

Should there be a spot to include the names of the person's children? Morhange (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Usefulness/uselessness of Religion field

I think the religion field should be removed from here. As I experienced in a few articles about Italian politicians, this field has been used and (more often) abused by wise editors, with no source at all. In addition, I think the infobox should cover solely those information which are strictly relevant to the subject's political office (and surely religion is not one of these). Thoughts? --Angelo (talk) 15:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

  • This issue was discussed extensively earlier this year, and no consensus was reached. Generally, a lot of editors support leaving the religion parameter in place, since many official bios and other listings of elected officials include their religion or denomination. Many candidates also highlight their religion during their campaigns and political life. One could say that if religion is not "relevant to the subject's political office," the same could be said for spouse, children, education, and profession, which are also personal data included in many boxes.
  • If editors are using the religion parameter to conduct edit wars or to defame a particular candidate, that information can and should be deleted. WP:BLP requires verifiable, reliable sources for information regarding living persons, so if someone is adding false or misleading religion data in an officeholders infobox, it should be deleted immediately.Dcmacnut (talk) 17:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Dcmacnut (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As I've said elsewhere, for those politicians and others who have made their religious beliefs an important part of their lives, the addition of the "religion" field is appropriate. For example, George Bush, Tony Blair and current Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd are all people who have made their religious beliefs very public and well-known. For these people, the addition of religion is appropriate. For someone where it is not widely known or publicised, then it's not appropriate. Simple. I think the WikiSecularists are quite wrong on this. JRG (talk) 10:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JRG. Where relevance and context are satisfied, the inclusion is appropriate. --Brendan [ contribs ] 15:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Other Political Parties

I would just like to suggest that we place a field for "other political parties" as there are many politicians who have been known to hold membership of several political parties and often their roles in these political parties were notable. (I'm not saying people holding memberships on one level of government, but on multiple levels, for example "Mr. X is the member of the A national party, and yet he is a member of C subnational party at the same time. He has been head of government under C and is a prominent high ranking member of A.)  Avec nat...Wikipédia Prends Des Forces.  08:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Strongly support this. I'd actually go so far as to propose making party one of the fields tied to office (as with predecessor, successor, etc.). That way, in the case of Jean Charest (to take one example), we could note that he was Member of Parliament for Sherbrooke as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, and later became Premier of Quebec as a member of the Quebec Liberal Party (his affiliation with the P.C.s isn't mentioned at all in the current infobox, even though he led the party at one point). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I have not strong objections, if there is a use for such a field for some elected officials. But what would a comparable example be in the United States? We do not have subnational parties per se. Some state branches of the major political parties like the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party are separate from the Democratic Party in name only, and therefore are not "subnational." The only time I think you'd use this if an elected official changed political parties while in office, and even then you could make that notation without a separate field. Just my thoughts.Dcmacnut (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This change would be useful (from my perspective) less for politicians who changed parties while in office, and more for those who held different offices under different party labels. While I don't know American politics all that well, here's a hypothetical: Michael Bloomberg is Republican Mayor of New York; if he made a successful third party run for President of the United States, there'd need to be some place to put this other party as it applied to the other position. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
{{editprotected}}
Does anybody have the technical expertise to make such a change? There seems to be consensus for it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
N Not done - what do you actually want changing? You will need to provide the current and the replacement line of code. Neil ☎ 11:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I was afraid that might be the case. Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise to make that change. I'll keep looking for someone who does. Sarcasticidealist 12:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think a special field is really necessary — for Canadian politicians whose party affiliation has changed over time, I just list the two or three parties in the political party field. Easy solution. Bearcat 18:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is when you use the "election candidate" field, all the political parties are listed in that "election candidate/officeholder field" so for instance John was a provincial minister of whatever under the NDP and yet he's a federal liberal candidate, the "Office/title" should be "Liberal candidate for MPP for X" but instead, it appears as "NDP Liberal Candidate..." nat.utoronto 04:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
So, um, still nobody with both the desire and the know-how to make this change? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I do...I just wanted to get consensus first. nat.utoronto 23:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'd say you have some reasonable approximation thereof. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Name to use in name field

(This potentially goes beyond just office holders, but as all the cases I've seen are British politicians I'll start here.)

Is there any clarity as to which name should be use in the "name" field? There have been various changes back and forth on a lot of British politicians who gained titles (either through conferment or inheritance) either during their active career or in retirement. For example should the info box for Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1957-1963, say "The Rt Hon Harold Macmillan" (as he was from 1942-1984) or "The Earl of Stockton" (the title he was conferred in 1984)? What about a living retired PM - should John Major have "Sir" in the infobox when this is also an honour he's received in retirement? Timrollpickering (talk) 10:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The rule here should be common sense. The name field of an infobox is there to provide the most rapidly recognizable name for a person. Following the precedent of WP:NAME, we should use what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, perhaps with a little embellishment (like post-nominals or "The Rt Hon") since no-one has to link to or type in the infobox name. But the idea that the first thing a reader ought to see on the "Harold Macmillan" page is "The Earl of Stockton" is bewildering. If we were really to hold to the principle that high titles would supersede low ones in an article, we would have to move Benjamin Disraeli to Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beconsfield. I'm not at all averse to including knighthoods or post-nominals (They don't erase the person's widely-known name), or even some peerages (it would be unreasonable to call the Earl of Derby anything else), but using a retirement peerage in place of a common name in the infobox seems silly. -- The_socialist talk? 22:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
The articles aren't just about their time as Prime Minister, it's about their whole lives. Everyone knows Thatcher as Baroness Thatcher, so she's defo in. Macmillan actively used Stockton himself, when he (finally!) received his Earldom. I think the infobox should reflect their highest style, which are legally held titles. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 22:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
That seems a sensible approach to me given that infoboxes are cosmetic additions of summary info. which should therefore aim for maximum clarity. I move that "The Rt Hon Harold Macmillan" is more recognisable. -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 12:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
But factually and stylistically inaccurate. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 16:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, if correct styles were our first priority, we'd have to fit "The Right Honourable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, Lady of the Garter, Order of Merit, Fellow of the Royal Society" into an infobox. There are other places in an article to give a correct, complete list of honours; something as brief and pedestrian as an infobox should stick to common names.-- The_socialist talk? 17:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
No we wouldn't, Mr. Socialist. --Counter-revolutionary (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
The "name field" should show "The Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, FRS" - Kittybrewster ☎ 10:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
"The Rt Hon"? That's an abbreviation. And (I'll admit I missed this in my first posting) Baroness Thatcher of where? I understand the argument from precision, but infoboxes were never so precise. Trying to make them precise would invariably end in a mess of formal titles. I don't want to delete the styles of Prime Ministers out of egalitarian fervor (far from it), I just think it is obfuscatory to make "The Right Honourable The Earl of Stockton" the first thing you see when you look up Harold Macmillan. Why not use common names when there are other places to put complete styles? -- The_socialist talk? 08:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree with The Socialist. G-Man ? 02:53, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
As do I. The name displayed should be the easiest to recognize. The full name, including titles, should be in the Introduction to that person's article. See the Alexander Siddig article for an example. Imagine his full name in the Infobox. --SMP0328. (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirects

The recent redirect of {{Infobox CanadianMP}} to this one is causing some minor difficulties on Canadian articles at present, as some of the text entry fields in that box had slightly different titles. Could somebody please edit this template to include "riding" as a possible alternative term for "constituency"? Thanks. Bearcat 10:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You guys are going to make me do an AWB run on the individual articles to change the field from riding to constituency, aren't you? If that's not necessary, then could I get an actual response here? Bearcat (talk) 22:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
There's a {{{riding}}} parameter in the current code. What's the issue? --MZMcBride (talk) 02:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
My mistake. It seems when Random removed the HTML comments, he also removed some parameters. I will fix the issue right now. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

What information to include, Part II

The addition of monarch at Australian PM infoboxes, is being contested. GoodDay (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Current office holders

I've noticed that lately, Xth is being removed from current office holder(s) infoboxes (see Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy for example). Where was the consensus to do this? GoodDay (talk) 18:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  • There isn't any. I removed numbering from UK Prime Ministers' pages for the reasons stated here, but I see no reason to remove numbering from French or Russian Presidents. --Philip Stevens (talk) 23:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you've done it, since one could argue (for example) Putin isn't the 2nd President of the Russian Federation, as there's yet a 3rd. I just thought you should've gotten consensus first (at least bring up the idea, before implementing). PS- I hope you don't do the same to the George W. Bush article. GoodDay (talk) 23:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well reading your reasoning on User talk:Jajhill, numbering isn't restrict to the United States or other republics, several kingdoms and realms use them. Take Canada for instance. The standard used by most historians and political scientists is we number each prime minister by their first term in office, unlike the United States and its presidents. That is why Stephan Harper is 22nd Prime Minister of Canada and not the 27th Prime Minister. nat.utoronto 23:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the rule should be that office holders should only be numbered if it's conventional to do it for the country in question and there is a clearly agreed numbering convention that covers issues like consecutive periods in office, non-consecutive ones and so forth. Note that this is handled very differently across different countries - Australia where Robert Menzies was just the "12th" PM despite having two non-consecutive periods in office (as did some of his predecessors), Pakistan where Benazir Bhutto was the 12th and 16th (and possibly a further number in the future) despite being in similar circumstances; and Japan where Junichiro Koizumi was the "87th, 88th & 89th" (and no, that's not a typo).
In my experience the problems on the UK pages stem from new (and usually anonymous) users who don't realise that numbering ministers simply isn't a UK convention and who try to number when a lot of the questions (particularly over multiple terms but also whether or not nominal interim office holders - this is more for other ministers than the PM - "count", along with whether or not the numbering "resets") don't have definitive answers. Generally when talking about a past minister one would say when they held office, not some random number that is meaningless without a list. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd just like to point out that I only removed numbering from UK Prime Ministers, NOT from Putin or Sarkozy. --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct, you only edited Xth out of British PMs. GoodDay (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

After having gotten over my forgetfulness, I've returned. IMHO, the numbering should remain on the incumbent officer holders. But it's not something I'd argue over, I'll go along with the majority. GoodDay (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Successor section

{{editprotected}} I'd recommend removal of the 'successor section' from the infoboxes of current officer holders. GoodDay (talk) 21:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The current holder of a political office can be reelected or reappointed (law permitting), but he can not succeed himself. Having a successor section in the Infoboxes of current office holders in superfluous. Some such Infoboxes don't have such an Infobox section, but many do. --SMP0328. (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This code will stop people from putting Incumbent into the successor field. I'm reluctant to prevent anything going in the field if the term is ongoing as I'm sure there are times when you'd want to do so and it would be appropriate. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Keep in mind that with some such positions, such as President of the United States, it's known who will succeed him at the job before his term is over. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This edit would NOT prevent the addition of a name, just the word 'Incumbent'. Please read my previous comment. --Philip Stevens (talk) 13:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Phil, when I click onto the link in your last post it does not give me any code. Maybe you can fix the link or post the code on my talk page. --SMP0328. (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Click on 'edit this page' and you'll find the code. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
It looks like the code provided also removes the (s) from some of the titles. Is that intentional? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
N Not done as the successor field will remain hidden if the field has not been filled in. In other words, remove whatever name or word is in the field if it is present in an incumbent officeholder's infobox. nat.utoronto 20:45, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
NO, NO, NO!!!! This is NOT the case! Only if the word 'Incumbent' is put in the successor field will the it be hidden. Look here to see an example. To answer CBM, the code will remove the '(s)' as on some pages it goes to the next line causing unsightly whitespaces. I don't think the (s) increase the understanding of the infobox at all, and I can't see anyone objecting to it. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Since Nat has expressed disagreement with the change, I'm not going to make it right now. Please work out what the best solution is. The (s) thing is not worth changing if it only is for line break reasons; if things are that close, all it will take is a slightly bigger font and the same break will appear. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
From what I can tell, if: | successor = incumbent or | successor = ''Incumbent'' , this code will be entirely ineffective. Seems like a silly change to make to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The code now allows for Incumbent Incumbent Incumbent incumbent incumbent incumbent incumbent. Also, Nat's point is mute as the Successor doesn't disappear if it is present in an incumbent officeholder's infobox. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I support the code and change put forth by Phil. It covers most of the variations people have used for "incumbent." However, I just went and manually removed "Incumbent" from all of the current U.S. Senator infoboxes, and found dozens of other alternatives spellings. Most were "Incumbent (20XX)" displaying the expiration of their current term. Others had the field wikilinked. The code would get too complex to include all of these variations, so I suggest implementing it as recommended above.
As far as why the change is necessary, there are far too many infoboxes for out there for incumbent politicians to remove the word manually. The code change proposed will allow a wiki-wide change to all affected articles. Any stray "incumbents" not caught by the code can removed manually when they are seen. Even with this change, I recommend all editors remove "incumbent" from the infobox if they see it while making other edits to articles.Dcmacnut (talk) 14:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
It would be very simple for a bot to go through and remove the word incumbent from the infoboxes. Two people (MZMcBride and nat.utoronto) seem to be saying they don't agree with the change. If the box doesn't appear in an incumbent officeholder's box anyway, then why is a change needed to remove it? Please stop reinsterting the editprotected tag until all of this is resolved. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Looking at it again, it seems to me that it would be more robust to test whether the term_end date is defined and has passed, rather than trying to match the text of the successor field. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
With the greatest of respect to other editors, nat.utoronto didn't understand the edit (thinking it had something to do with the term_end which it doesn't). I've allowed for MZMcBride's comment. I think it would be very difficult to adjust the term_end as it controls the Incumbent banner. --Philip Stevens (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm suggesting that we reuse the term_end parameter a second time. We can convert the current time and the term_end to seconds since the epoch, and use #ifexpr: to compare them. Then we would only display the "successor" banner if term_end was defined and in the past. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I wouldn't say that I object to the proposed changes, my comment was simply that there are quite a few variants of "incumbent" that could be / probably are being used that would not be covered by the code. The number of different ways the field could include the word incumbent makes it kind of silly to do this could change, when italics with a hyperlink would defeat it. I'm pretty much apathetic on the whole issue, though I will say that a bot could be controversial see that this page is used on my high profile pages, and some editors may want to keep "incumbent" in the successor parameter. If the decision ends up that we use the #switch / #ifeq magic, please use #uc: or #lc: to reduce the code size. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I can't see a problem with this, and I don't think anyone else here has given a sensible reason not to do this. --Hera1187 (talk) 06:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Alma mater

Could we have "Education" instead of "Alma mater"? I just had to look it up to see what it meant, and I don't think I'm the only one who would need to. Even if it's only a minority of the English-speaking world that don't know what "alma mater" means, it's surely a much larger minority than those who don't know what "education" means. (Chorleypie (talk) 18:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC))

How about replacing "Alma mater" with "Education/Alma Mater" or "Alma Mater/Education"? That would make that section of the Infobox clearer, while also not causing some people to think that section has been replaced. --SMP0328. (talk) 21:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps just add a new field, 'Education', and people can pick between the two. --Philip Stevens (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What would be the difference between an "Education" section and an "Alma Mater" section? I didn't see one; that's why I suggested using the names together. --SMP0328. (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking that one could be used for British pages and anther for US pages. But now I've re-read the first comment I see that this is not the problem.
I think the addition of a hyperlink might be the best option, so anyone who doesn't know the meaning of the phrase need only click to find the meaning. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there's any need for a change. Wikipedia isn't for the lowest common denominator, and this term is used in other templates (Template:Infobox scientist) and many categories (Category:Alumni by university or college). If we change the term here, we'd have to do it in all those places as well. --Hera1187 (talk) 23:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Herall87. This isn't Simple English Wikipedia, and I think we can assume pretty widespread familiarly with terms like "alma mater", especially given the lack of any synonyms. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to have a hypertext in the title of a section of an Infobox? That way, in an Infobox, "Alma mater" could link to "Alma mater". That would help anyone who didn't understand "Alma mater", while not affecting the text of any Infobox. --SMP0328. (talk) 23:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd have no objection to a hyperlink, all I'd say is anyone who knows the meaning of 'Alumni' (a widely used term) would realise the meaning of 'alma mater'. --Hera1187 (talk) 07:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for quick replies all. Hera1187, I knew what 'alumni' meant but I didn't know what 'alma mater' meant. And I've got a degree. I've just asked my wife, who's a surgeon, and she was the same. Even if it's something like 60% of the UK population that do know what 'alma mater' means, I do think Wikipedia is for more people than this. I guess the problem could be that people listing all schools - is an alma mater always a university or could it be a college or a school? If we can't agree on replacing 'alma mater' with 'education', then I do like the hypertext solution. (Chorleypie (talk) 11:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC))
Alma mater only means university in British English, but can mean both high school and university in American English. This doesn't matter, there are many words used on Wikipedia that mean one thing on a page for UK topics and something else for US pages. For example, saloon on 2007 London car bombs is a type of car, saloon on Shot glass is a type of bar. --Philip Stevens (talk) 11:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Spouse and Domestic partner

Y Done An admin, please add the following above or below the spouse code and add to documentation under Template:Infobox Officeholder/doc#Personal data:

{{#if:{{{partner|}}}|
! Domestic partner
{{!}} {{{partner}}}
{{!}}-
}}

Thanks. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 21:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is the full code including the changes for the pervious discussions above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 22:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

alongside

Could we create an "alongside" field for the general infobox officeholder template of the sort that currently exists for U.S. senators? They're not the only elected officials in the world who represent multi-member constituencies, you know. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Hmm - I was evidently misdiagnosing the problem. I think perhaps my actual problem is that it's not one of the fields that can be duplicated (i.e. no alongside2, alongside3, etc.). Is that correct? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 06:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I've fixed the code and added it to the edit request above. Though I don't know when the template will be updated, the editprotect tag has been there for some days. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm an admin, but as you've likely gathered I'm not really very proficient with this sort of thing. With the code you've devised, is this a simple copy-paste thing? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Replacing all current text? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, that's right. If you look at the page, it's just a copy of the infobox with the add-ons requested above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I believe I've made the changes. Please let me know if I broke anything. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Steve, as far as I can see everything seems to be working just fine. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for writing the code. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Net worth

{{editprotected}}

Can an admin, please add the following above or below the profession or occupation code and add to documentation under Template:Infobox Officeholder/doc#Personal data.

{{#if:{{{net worth|}}}|
! Net Worth
{{!}} {{{net worth}}}
{{!}}-
}}

thanks Astuishin (talk) 07:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Other leaders in business as well as celebrities have a "net worth" code, it seems that political leaders should as well. Thanks. Astuishin (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done. Happy‑melon 11:58, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

What information to include, part III

A debate over the inclusion of the monarch in the infoboxes of Canadian prime ministers, as is done at msny PM articles, has re-emerged at Talk:Stephen Harper#Re-open discussion: Infobox -- include GG and monarch?. Opinions on the matter are welcome, if not necessary! --G2bambino (talk) 03:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Irish prime minister Taoiseach

{{editprotected}}

A user has requested that the word for Irish prime minister ("Taoiseach" according to the user) be included as an option instead of "Prime minister". I've made a copy of this template, Template:Infobox Officeholder1, which implements this change, and it's being used in article Mary McAleese. If others agree to it, I would like this template to be modified in that way so that Template:Infobox Officeholder1 can be deleted as an almost-identical copy of this one. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

  • I've added the fields for other terms to {{Infobox Officeholder1}}. I'd ask an admin to copy and paste the code from there to {{Infobox Officeholder}}. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm in agreement. If we've got German chancellors? we can certainly have Irish taoiseach. GoodDay (talk) 16:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I've added a chancellor field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done. Happy‑melon 11:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Please put doun this language ka:თარგი:ლიდერი —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.117.43.111 (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

HTML/CSS error

{{editprotected}}

At the bottom of this template is the line: |colspan="2" style="border-top:1px solid; right; font-size:90%;" this should be |colspan="2" style="border-top:1px solid right; font-size:90%;" So the ; after solid needs to be removed. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Happy‑melon 12:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Governor infobox

{{editprotected}} I would like to suggest that it would be helpful if we add a Vice-Governor section to the Governor infobox since in some countries, like the Philippines, use Vice-Governor instead of Lieutenant Governor pikdig (talk) 15:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added a copy of the code with the vicegovernor field to my sandbox page. --Philip Stevens (talk) 14:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Happy‑melon 15:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Military service

Perhaps a section can be created in this infobox for an officeholder's military service (since historically so many have had some), using the fields from the Military Person infobox. -- Zsero (talk) 22:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at that template. All the military-specific ones from that template, i.e. branch, serviceyears, rank, unit, commands, battles, awards, and I suppose we may as well throw in allegiance for those office-holders who've been mercenaries or have served in some other country's armed forces (e.g. pre-independence). -- Zsero (talk) 15:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I've put up a test of how it might work here. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Looks good. (Except that "allegiance" is unnecessary, since he served in the US Navy. That field is used for mercenaries and such, where it's not obvious what country they were fighting for.) -- Zsero (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

When the fields from Template:Infobox Military Person were added here, the "nickname=" field was omitted. This is rather widely used in military biographies and becomes lost when the templates are merged. Can someone add it, please? Thanks, Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

infobox on prominent people in the making of the US?

Should there be an infobox for, say, signers of the the Declaration of Independence? Or any such related group of people who maybe didn't hold office but should be considered separately? Just wondering :) Mathwhiz 29 (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix needed with space character

{{editprotect}} The nonbreaking space in "Lieutenant Governor" causes a link to be made that includes the nonbreaking space...see for example David Tod. I don't know anything about parser functions, but perhaps changing

{{#if:{{{lieutenant|}}}|
! {{#if:{{{office|}}}|[[Lieutenant {{{office}}}|Lieutenant]]|Lieutenant}}
{{!}} {{{lieutenant}}}
{{!}}-
}}

to

{{#if:{{{lieutenant|}}}|
! {{#if:{{{office|}}}|[[Lieutenant {{{office}}}|Lieutenant {{{office}}}]]|Lieutenant}}
{{!}} {{{lieutenant}}}
{{!}}-
}}

would work? Ardric47 (talk) 06:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Y Done. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Senator Info Box

If the field for Junior or Senior senator is labeled Shadow Senator as it is with Jesse Jackson instead of directing to the article on Shadow congressperson it directs to an article on the US Senate which makes no mention of what a Shadow Senator is. This needs to be corrected and I'm not sure how to do it. -Vcelloho (talk) 16:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It can be corrected by not using the senator fields altogether, just as you wouldn't use infobox president for someone who had been president of their class or synagogue. Those are for real office-holders, not make-believe positions. -- Zsero (talk) 17:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The office of Shadow Congressperson is a real position created in the event that DC's right to votes in congress is recognized. Although their office is not recognized by the Federal government it is recognized by Washington DC. They may not have an official claim as senators however they have played an important role in Washington DC's struggle for full representation in Congress. For this reason I believe that the senator info box is applicable to this situation. -Vcelloho (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
If D.C. were ever granted the right to elect senators, it would have to do so then. The play-senators would not simply be seated. In the meantime, this is not a real office, and its "holder" doesn't do anything. It doesn't matter that the D.C. city council "recognises" them, the D.C. council has no authority to "recognise" people as United States Senators, any more than it can "recognise" people as English Dukes or Japanese Dieticians (pun intended, because this whole subject is a joke). I can also appoint "senators" with as much authority as D.C., and the Senate will ignore them just as it does D.C.'s. As the Jewish mother said to her son, "Hymie, by me you're a captain, but by the captains are you a captain?". -- Zsero (talk) 21:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
These "shadow" Senators and Representatives are elected officials of D.C., but their sole function is to campaign for D.C. becoming the State of New Columbia. They are in no way a member of the Congress (as opposed to Eleanor Holmes Norton). So I would vote in favor of the Senator Infobox not being used in articles for D.C.'s "Shadow Senators." --SMP0328. (talk) 01:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Officials of D.C.? They don't claim to be that, do they, so how can we claim it in their names? They don't play any role in the government of D.C. (Then again, nor do New York City's Borough presidents, who seem to do nothing all day but grandstand and position themselves for their next campaign for real office. Or maybe that's just Marty Markowitz; I have no idea what any of the other four BPs do with their time, one never hears of them; maybe they hold down real jobs, because their official roles can't be keeping them very busy.) Still, that is a creative way to look at them.
Eleanor Holmes Norton is indeed different. She may not be a real congresscritter, but the Congress officially agrees to go along with the pretense that she is, kinda sorta; by the captains she's a captain, and that has to be good enough for us. -- Zsero (talk) 01:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
D.C. considers them to be "elected officials" of its government. [1] -- --SMP0328. (talk)
OK, that's the word from the Horse's Mouth. Maybe I should campaign for NYC to include an Official Clown among its elected officials. Then again, we've got Marty. -- Zsero (talk) 01:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Isn't that the Public Advocate? --SMP0328. (talk) 02:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
She at least seems to have something to occupy her time with. Besides, she has the job of waiting for the mayor to walk under a bus, same as the Vice President, and that alone's enough to count her as a jen-you-wine Elected Official of the City of New York. Everything else she does is just makework while she waits for that day (again, just like the VP). -- Zsero (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
At least the Vice President can become the President. The Public Advocate only becomes Acting Mayor pending a special election. As for this discussion, how about adding a section about these "Shadow Senators" to the U.S. Senate article? --SMP0328. (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
We've just established that they're not senators, they're elected officials of the DC gov't. So they belong on the DC gov't article, not the Senate. -- Zsero (talk) 02:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I have added a footnote to the United States Senate article clarifying that D.C.'s "Shadow Senators" are not member of the Senate. --SMP0328. (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, you could just use the office field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Common name or full name used in infobox

I came across this at the Barack Obama article in which the infobox lists his name as his common name "Barack Obama" rather than his full name "Barack Hussein Obama, Jr." After looking at several other articles (e.g. Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Calvin Coolidge to name a few) it came across as the infoboxes using the full name. However when I attempted to make the change I was reverted twice with people stating the infobox contains only the common name. I tried to find a style guide statement about which is to be used but came up short, with the only thing coming close being the John McCain example infobox using his full name while also discovering some articles do use the common name rather than full name (e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lyndon B. Johnson).

Is there an official style on which is meant to be used? –– Lid(Talk) 08:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is not an official style guide for this and it is applied differently across different projects within Wikipedia. Celebrities (George Clooney, Sandra Bullock) always use the common name, not the full name. Historical figures (Napoléon Bonaparte, Sigmund Freud) usually use the common name (the more well known the person, the more likely the common name will be used). It is applied inconsistently within politics, but the infobox usually contains the common name (of course, there are many exceptions as other crap exists.) The consensus for articles dealing with the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election was to use the common name in the infobox. This has been applied across the board since there were a dozen candidates until now where the field has winnowed to just three.
The funny thing is, nobody is clamoring to add Hillary Clinton or John McCain's middle name to their articles and we've never had to attach a note to those infoboxes. But the Barack Obama article is often faced with people who want to remind everyone as many times as possible that his given middle name is "Hussein" which is the reason for the note in that article.--Loonymonkey (talk) 16:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Which is odder considering Template:Infobox Officeholder/example#US Senator uses McCain as the example listing his full name. –– Lid(Talk) 22:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
So is there still nothing on the murkiness of which is to be used? –– Lid(Talk) 11:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

TD

{{editprotected}} Would it be possible to add Teachta Dála along with AM MP MLA ect, thanks --Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 01:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Happy‑melon 11:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

First Lady

I'd like to suggest that the template for First Ladies of the United States be changed to eliminate the term "office." The first lady is not really an office; it's an honorary title. The use of the word "office" may indicate to some that these ladies held an "official" office for the United States. In the past, this distinction wouldn't have mattered, but with a former first lady running for president and in a close race where experience in office has been become a factor, Wikipedia should strive to maintain accurate facts. Kittybork (talk) 04:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

  • You can already change office to title, if you think that would be better. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem

{{editprotected}} If you have a look at some of the UK prime ministers Tony Blair, John Major their post is in the order field rather than the offices one it changed it around on Thatchers article but the formatting in the deputy field shows as [[Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Deputy]] --Barryob (Contribs) (Talk) 23:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is the code to fix the problem. It also fixes some issues mentioned above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Y Done I have no idea what the problem was, or how your modification fixed it, but it doesn't seem to have broken anything so I'll trust that you know what you're doing :D Happy‑melon 11:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Alma Mater

What counts as the alma mater? Please post your thoughts at Template talk:Infobox Person#Alma Mater. Thanks --Tim4christ17 talk 22:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Image size

If you look at the recent history of Marianne Thieme, you can see the width= and heigth= parameters do not seem to work, the image is displayed in its original size, messing up the whole template. Removing these parameters, and adding "|250px" to the image= parameter fixed it. Comparing with other pages where this template is used, they never use the width and heigth param, so maybe this is the first time someone bumps into this bug, if it is a bug. Maybe one of the more script-savvy editors can fix this permanently? Regards, Mhaesen (talk) 07:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ambassador field; do we need the flags?

{{editprotected}} Per some of the arguments at WP:MOSFLAG, I notice that the template uses the modern version of the flags of countries from and to in this field. As this is often leading to an anachronistic result (the flag of the United States has undergone 15 revisions, for example), and is seemingly always redundant in the sense of not adding any information to articles, do you think it would be possible to manage without the flags at all? --John (talk) 04:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

As nobody has stated any reason to keep these, in ordinary circumstances I would be bold and remove them myself. As I lack the technical expertise to do this without breaking the whole template, can somebody who know how to please do it for me? Thanks. --John (talk) 19:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Here is the code to remove the flags. Copy it into {{Infobox Officeholder/Office}}, it also puts the Monarch and GG fields above the Prime Minister field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Y Done --CapitalR (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

opponent

Within {{Infobox Officeholder}} at Jack Kemp, when I added "|opponent = Bill Clinton/Al Gore", it invalidated the following two lines: |predecessor = Dan Quayle |successor = Dick Cheney

How can I get all three lines to show.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 21:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

  • The Candidate/Nominee section is only to be used for current or ongoing elections, not previous ones, see Talk:John McCain/archive5#Expanded infobox. --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I see the lack of consensus. I also consider Kemp a person whose most important position is controversial. Some would say it was his highest elected position, Congressman. Others would say it was his cabinet appointment, Secretary. I contest that in his case, Vice Presidential nominee is his most important position. Nonetheless, since there is no consensus, I would like help using the template. I also think Mondale, Kerry, Dole, etc should have such sections, but none of them served in Presidential cabinets as their final position. Thus, they don't have Kemp's dilemna.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 12:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Also, I interpret much of the discussion to say that candidates should not use the box especially if they have withdrawn, but that whether nominees may is an unresolved debate. In the case of Kemp after having read 368 Time magazine articles, 130 New York Times articles, and an assortment of other references, I percieve VP nominee to be much more important in describing him than Secretary.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 12:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Error in template - successor7

{{editprotected}} There is an error in this template around successor7. See Brian Cowen for an example.
|{{#if:{{{{{#if:{{{successor7|}}}|successor|succeeded}}7|}}} | ! Succeeded by {{!}} {{{{{#if:{{{successor2|}}}|successor|succeeded}}7|}}} }}

Possibly {{{{{#if:{{{successor2|}}}|successor|succeeded}}7|}}} should read {{{{{#if:{{{successor7|}}}|successor|succeeded}}7|}}}

Snappy56 (talk) 05:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that, here is the code to fix it and the topic above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done As above, I have no idea what the "topic above" was, but I trust you know what you're doing. I notice that this template is getting unbelievably large - perhaps breaking it into a number of sub-templates which are conditionally included would be a good idea, as this would reduce the load-times of most of the articles it's used in. Happy‑melon 14:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Committee assignments

{{editprotected}} It seems to me that it would be extremely useful to be able to list Committee assignments for legislators, since these are crucial factors in determining the issues that they focus their time and energy on, and what areas of expertise they develop. I was surprised to find that there wasn't a line for this parameter. Cgingold (talk) 13:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

  • What sort of thing did you have in mind? --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Just a place to list the names of the committees within the infobox, probably under the heading "Legislative committees". Cgingold (talk) 09:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
What else needs to be done to move this process forward? Cgingold (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Here is the code to do this. --Philip Stevens (talk) 12:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done what happened to |portfolio2=?? Happy‑melon 13:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, you can now use |committees= for the requested field. I'm not sure what happened to |portfolio2= - I don't think that field was in use, but I'm thinking about spliting up the template, so can I put it back as and when I do that. --Philip Stevens (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Request: Add Arabic interwiki

Good day. This is a request to include the Arabic interwiki.

[[ar:قالب:معلومات رئيس]]

That's all. Thanks. - Omar 180 (talk) 11:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Sub-templates

{{editprotect}} Following User:Happy-melon's suggestion above, I've created two sub-templates ({{Infobox Officeholder/Office}} and {{Infobox Officeholder/Personal data}}) that will greatly reduce the size and load time of the Infobox. Here is the new code for the template, and you can see it in use here. --Philip Stevens (talk) 11:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Y Done That's a massive improvement. I've also protected the two subpages. Happy‑melon 21:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Birthname

Have no idea whether this has been mentioned before or not, but could a birth name be added for those whose names are different to those at birth, ie through marriage or if they have changed their name via depot (sp?) Mangwanani (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Listing "birthname" is probably more appropriate in the text of the article, if the name change is significant. Some female politicians already use birth name even after (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Hillary Rodham Clinton) or sought elected office after marriage (Nancy Pelosi, Mary Bono), and are better known by their married name. Do you have specific examples where you think it is needed? I don't have a strong objection to add it, I just don't see an urgent need for it at this time. The template is getting rather bloated as is.Dcmacnut (talk)
how bout when the birthname is the long version of its more known name? In the case of many Spanish politicians, their birth or legal name has like 6 names or more (ie Tomás de Herrera=Tomás José Ramón del Carmen de Herrera y Pérez Dávila, those names are usually used in legal or historical texts, and therefore could be confused with someone else if not provided. mijotoba (talk) 14:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Problems on Joe Lieberman

{{editprotected}} The infobox in Joe Lieberman is messed up. When ever you try and put his electoral history into the box, it puts all his party affiliations in instead. I think this is because the candidate field runs off the party field. Is there a way of stopping this? --Hera1187 (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Happy‑melon 14:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


Website

{{editprotected}} One of the changes since March 2nd removed the website option. Considering it is still listed as an option in the Personal data section, this must have been a mistake... can somebody please put the website option back?--Dr who1975 (talk) 20:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Sorry, my fault. Thank you for spotting the error.
| website= {{{website|}}}

To fix the problem add this code above the nickname field on {{Infobox Officeholder}}. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Should use caption instead of special top row

Abraham Lincoln
Infobox Officeholder/Archive 2
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin (1861 – 1865)
Andrew Johnson (1865)
Preceded by James Buchanan
Succeeded by Andrew Johnson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Illinois's 7th district
Preceded by John Henry
Succeeded by Thomas L. Harris
Nationality American
Political party Whig (1832-1854), Republican (1854-1864), National Union (1864-1865)
Spouse Mary Todd Lincoln
Children Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Lincoln, Willie Lincoln, Tad Lincoln
Occupation Lawyer
Religion attended Christian churches, but never joined any church
Signature Infobox Officeholder/Archive 2's signature

MediaWiki pipe syntax has a convenient facility allowing for captions, allowing us to title tables. Like so:

Fibonacci numbers
Zero One
One One
Two Two
Three Three
Four Five

This comes from

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Fibonacci numbers
|-
|Zero||One
|-
|One||One
|-
|Two||Two
|-
|Three||Three
|-
|Four||Five
|}

I would suggest that the name field of this infobox bet moved from a row to the caption. I know the fibonacci numbers don't look that good, but it works better with this infobox.

Karl Dickman talk 04:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally more and more infoboxes have been moving away from using <caption> as it isn't very well supported in certain browsers. See Template talk:Infobox Book for more. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

THE PICTURE!!!

Quick problem, quick answer: because editors have been playing with this, major and embarrassing errors have occurred in many articles. Take a look at Horace Sebastiani and tell me how I'm supposed to fix that problem with a template protection and no way to reduce the size. It's the indifference of all these edit wars that decreases wikipedia's credibility, not only with the public, but with many editors who actually want to do something constructive. Dahn (talk) 01:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  • The field width determines the width of the template, not the image. To change the image size, use the field imagesize. --Philip Stevens (talk) 05:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    I don't find that answer satisfactory, I'm afraid. I edited the image months ago, and the specifications applied to the picture (or, at least, the picture changed size if that section was modified). Editors here went and changed all related infoboxes, and did not check to see what consequences that had for articles such as the aforementioned. I cannot and will not be expected to hunt down any such anomaly, and I hope the "change the image" and "use" are addressed to a generic "you", not to me in particular. Why? Well, the same problem was present with the article Charles-Frédéric Reinhard. Is it acceptable to leave any number of articles in that state?
    Now, here's my suggestion (for this and any other such case in the future). When you make such changes, if possible, make sure that the new versions do not recognize the superfluous old script at all, and that they therefore cannot modify the picture (or whichever such detail). It's either that or the person who modifies goes and checks every article - because other editors are here to create content, not to troubleshoot creativity. Oh, wait, there is a third path: don't make such changes - instead of "fixing" competing infoboxes by merging them, create a new one, update it in every article where an old one is used, then delete and salt the old versions. Dahn (talk) 05:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    Btw, uniting the infoboxes was a great idea. It's just that it was not carried out properly. Dahn (talk) 05:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    • The change to the imagesize field, that created the problem to which you referred, did not occur because of the infobox merge. It was changed some months after. --Philip Stevens (talk) 15:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Took me a while to figure it out after discovering the problem elsewhere - the width and height (which is for the image btw - the code places them as alternatives to imagesize if imagesize is not provided) parameters had ceased to work entirely. The reason for the problem is most likely recent changes made to the MediaWiki interface (code which worked prior to last month doesn't now, there's been a number of issues like this elsewhere). As a result in some cases images were taking up 2/3 of the screen. Even changing "width" to "imagesize" in the article had no effect as the "imagesize" parameter in this template does not automatically insert px. I've basically made a substitution which makes the width the imagesize and ignores the height so that most images should work with it. If anyone can think of a cure for the original problem that accommodates height, I'm quite open to it. Orderinchaos 00:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Tánaiste requested

I'd like to request that Tánaiste be included in the template. The Tánaiste is the Deputy Prime Minister in Ireland, it is an Irish language word but is used in both the Irish and English languages, Deputy Prime Minister is never used. Currently for Taoiseach infoboxes, Deputy is used (See Brian Cowen) but it would be better and more accurate if Tánaiste were displayed. Please note the diacritic - á. Thanks. Snappy56 (talk) 06:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Request

Please can somebody revert Orderinchaos's removal of the height data, this is essential and its removal has effected numerous articles in a bad way. I requested on his talk that he undo this but he seems to be on a Wikibreak. Thanks. - Gennarous (talk) 16:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Email addresses

Many office holders provide official email addresses so that citizens can communicate with them. The infobox template already has a field for their official website, which is usually where they make their contact details available (see for example Tony Egginton). Could the template be extended to add a field for this piece of public information, to help keep people in better contact with their representatives? 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC) (posted by Special:Contributions/80.175.122.69)

Wikipedia is a highly visible site, and publicly posting email addresses like that, even official ones, could cause them to get flooded with useless spam. I'd highly discourage this. Hersfold (t/a/c) 22:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
What is the threat model we are trying to defend against here? If we are trying to stop an automated email address harvester, then keeping an address off Wikipedia does not make the address significantly harder to find. If we are trying to stop someone casually viewing the article and thinking "I know, I'll send this office holder a useless message." then I think there is a better chance that someone will say "I know, I'll send this office holder a message about an important local issue." 18:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.175.122.69 (talk)

Alongside field

Currently this field is automatically wikilinked. Would there be objections to dewikilinking this? My reasons are that I would like, for politicians who served alongside different colleagues at different points (all while holding the same office) to be able to have the field read something like "John Doe (1980-1984), Jane Roe (1984-1988)". Right now, that's not possible, since a pair of right brackets will appear at the end of whatever's in the field. We could have a bot go insert wikilinks in the articles that currently make use of the field. Thoughts/objections? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 05:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Templates Gone Wild!

This has probably been discussed somewhere before, but the way this template is being used is overkill. I know that's heresy on Wikipedia, where people enjoy making templates more than writing articles. ;-) I like making them too.

Take a typical example: John Major. This infobox shows us that he was Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, etc., tells us the dates, and tells us who his predecessors and successors were. He's held enough offices that the template runs down several screen pages. About the only thing we don't learn from the infobox is his shoe size.

Near the bottom of the article, we get much of the same office holding information in a different form, via the succession boxes. I guess this is just in case you've forgotten who was Prime Minister before and after him, although you've been told in the infobox and in the text. But if you still forget, just below that we get another set of navigation templates, showing us all the Prime Ministers and Foreign secretaries, etc.

Overkill? I'd say so. Personally, I'd leave out all of the predecessors and successors from this template, since that information clutters the top of the article and is available in multiple forms below.

Now, do I think there's the slightest chance the trend towards massive and redundant templatization can ever be stopped? No, of course not. But someone ought to point out the silliness now and then, and it's my turn today. As you were. —Kevin Myers 05:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I go the opposite route, and omit the succession boxes, putting everything in the info box. I agree that doing it all is silly, though. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Biographical data move

The biographical data should be at the top, before the titles held. It currently looks unprofessional as there is no clear headline before the biographical info. ☆ CieloEstrellado 22:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)