User talk:Mindmatrix/Parliament Infobox

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I think this should have at least as much information as there is on the List of Canadian federal parliaments. In that mind, I suggest the following amendments: --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 14:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

  1. A box to show the opening and closing of the parliament; these are not the same as the opening and closing of the first and last sessions for some of the older parliaments.
  2. Somewhere to say whether it was a majority or minority parliament.
  3. A link to the ministry associated with the government (ie, the 28th Canadian Ministry).
  4. A mention of which party is the official opposition.
  5. A box to say what other parties have official status (and maybe even the leaders of those parties).
  6. Change the word "members" to "House seats", since Senators are technically "members of parliament", putting the 39th up to about 400.

[edit] Style, and additional features

I'd group all the sessions into one section, as is done for area and population measures in Template:Infobox Settlement (see Toronto for an example). Also, we should link the following:

  • List of House members of the Xth Parliament of Canada, in which X=39 for the current government; conditional evaluation to create 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. would be necessary (this is easy to do with ParserFunctions)
  • List of senators in the Xth Parliament of Canada, as above
  • links to Cabinet/Ministry, per Arctic.gnome (eg - 28th Canadian Ministry), though this can get messy (for example, the 37th parliament had two ministries, the 26th and 27th, whereas the 26th ministry existed for the 35th, 36th and part of 37th parliament)
  • perhaps a link to seat alignment image, such as Image:39th Can Parl.png (though I'm hesistant to put two images in one infobox)
  • perhaps the speaker of the senate
  • I'd also like to see the form of government (majority, minority, coalition majority etc.), and perhaps a seat count for all parties (in the same style as I described for sessions)

I'll add others when I think of them. Mindmatrix —Preceding comment was added at 15:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Comments:
  • It's a flexible and negotiable point as to whether the primary infobox image should be the Prime Minister, a seat arrangement graphic or something else entirely — it doesn't necessarily have to be the image that I've included in this sample box (or its equivalent), if we feel that something else would be more important or valuable.
  • Seat counts can vary greatly during the life of a Parliament. If we include those in the infobox, would we do seat count at election, at dissolution, or both?
The box's appearance should also be gussied up by somebody who knows a lot more about how to make attractive infoboxes than I do. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearcat (talk • contribs) 16:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Regarding seat counts, for an active parliament I would include the election count and current count (current meaning the date when an editor last bothered to change the value). For dissolved parliaments, I would include election and dissolution counts. Mindmatrix 00:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Works for me. Bearcat 02:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complexity

A few issues that make this a rather complex template:

What's the best way to display this? I think under the ministry section, I'd list the PM. Opposition is harder, because opposition leaders don't necessarily change with ministries, or may change mid-ministry, so I think these should be left in their own section. This leaves the question: who should be listed as PM - the incoming PM, or the one that closed parliament? The 13th, 15th and 37th parliaments cause quite a few problems. Mindmatrix 02:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)