Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Archive 3

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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.

This is the third archive of the main talk page of WikiProject Succession Box Standardization. It contains all messages from 21 June 2007 to 12 July 2007.

Contents 1 s-gov broken 1.1 Templates requiring a null parameter 1.2 Merged templates 1.3 Cleanup List 1.4 Template:s-start change proposal 2 Redundant "Royalty" headers 3 General discussion from User talk:The Duke of Waltham 4 Order of headers 5 Proposal: Template:s-par change upr and lwr to sen and hs for United States headers 6 Proposal: Wider succession boxes 7 I am expanding the baronets section in the /Guidelines draft...

s-gov broken

User:KuatofKDY has merged several templates into {{s-gov}}. I first noticed this when I found that {{s-gov}} was broken (it displays no text without a parameter), and then found out about the merger when I checked. Per my message at User talk:KuatofKDY#s-gov_broken, I am reversing these mergers, not just to allow restoration of working versions, but because of the semantic problems of involved in having various types of offices labelled as sub-categories of "govt offices". This is patently wrong for political party offices, which would now be created by {{s-gov|par}}, and is also misleading for other offices.

Please may I ask that there be much wider discussion before such radical changes are made to such widely-used templates? Apart from the fact that server load issues involved in these changes are high, errors such as this one affect an awful lot of pages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have now protected the templates involved as high risk templates. If there is a consensus for these mergers (and I hope there isn't), then before an admin implements the changes, please can there be very thorough checks to ensure that they actually work as intended. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have asked at Wikipedia:Bot requests#s-gov_replacement that KuatofKDY's proposed addition of a pipe to all uses of {{s-gov}} not be implemented, because a template should not require an empty parameter in order to work. If the templates are to be merged, there should be a discussion first, and everything thoroughly tested before roll-out. Maybe KuatofKDY (talk · contribs) would like to start by explaining the reasoning behind the changes? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, BrownHairedGirl. I would like to apologise, first of all, for any confusion that might have arised from the fact that the latest changes in succession templates have only been discussed in my talk page. Although counter-intuitive, this practice is excusable by two very simple reasons:

1. This very WikiProject's abandonment by most of its prior contributors for various reasons. Apart from a very small break (induced by myself), the only active members of SBS have been Mr Whaley and myself. This can be easily ascertained by a quick scanning of the WikiProject's various pages' histories. Conversations in this talk page had almost started producing an echo.
2. The conversation in my own talk page has begun as a discussion of the draft version of Template:S-start/doc that I was at the time hosting in one of my subpages (the current version of said page is more or less the one finalised in my user space). Afterwards, it was the turn of the /Guidelines subpage of the WikiProject to undergo the radical expansion and update process, and so the conversation has continued in that direction. Slowly, it became a place to talk about other SBS-related matters as well and, in combination with the first reason I have given you, it fully justifies (at least in my opinion) the present situation.

Now, to the subject at hand. If you would care to read the various talk pages of SBS you would notice that there has been a widespread concern for the massive creation of templates that would overly complicate the template system and confuse more inexperienced users. In that spirit, Mr Whaley and myself have been working lately towards improving the system and ridding Wikipedia of unnecessary templates. We would be both glad to accept more input, either in the form of opinions and ideas or even active edits, but almost nobody has yet assisted, despite the messages I have sent to all "members" of SBS.

In any case, I would like to believe that our work so far has been successful and to the interest of Wikipedia and its users. Seeing that we are nearing the end of the longest period of reformation so far, we have both been growing excited over the last couple of weeks, and perhaps Mr Whaley has been finally carried away by his own inspiration. That is the only thing I can say, as he has not made any mention of reforming the s-gov template. I am sorry to say that being busy does not improve communication in any way, and, as you can see, there is no other person to check our edits.

We have almost finished with the /Guidelines draft, and after posting this (and making a few further changes to the WikiProject's pages), we will have managed to transform SBS into a respectable and functional WikiProject. Then, we shall be able to "advertise" ourselves and thus attract more contributors. Until then, however, we are profoundly understaffed. I hope that you understand our predicament, and that you can act on this knowledge to help us. Ideas are more than welcome. Waltham, The Duke of 16:21, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

PS: I hope Whaleyland will forgive me for putting my post before his own after this edit conflict, but I believe this is its correct place, as it is directly answering BrownHairedGirl's posts and Whaleyland's post is calling for a general discussion (which should immediately follow said post).

Reply to User:BrownHairedGirl for the public forum:

It is unfortunate that I must say this, but almost all the title templates in the s- box series have an empty parameter. I tried quite a while ago to fix that problem but it was to no avail. The problem arises from the fact that almost all the title templates have multiple parameters. An excellent example of this is Template:s-par. Basically the situation with the empty parameter can be resolved by actually choosing a parameter from the list. In the case of Template:s-gov (before it was reverted), an empty parameter results in the original title: Government offices. It was agreed between User:The Duke of Waltham and me that this template implied "appointed" governmental offices as opposed to "elected" (s-par and s-off), "inherited" (s-roy), or "granted" (s-reg. s-her). Following that mindset, I merged together Template:s-court, Template:s-legal, Template:s-mil, Template:s-dip, or Template:s-lead to form one template. You were correct about Template:s-ppo (political parties) not really falling under the same parameters and I concede that needs a separate template currently and have moved it back into the Finalized Titles list on User:KuatofKDY/Cleanup List (a tracking page I made to work with the various templates in the series).

Now the main problem you have with merging these templates is the fact that Template:s-gov will require a pipe now to work. However this is already the standard in virtually all other title pages, without my intervention. It was my design to actually require ALL the title templates to be changed to this format in order to keep consistency AND promote the use of more specific titles in succession boxes as opposed to the usual generic titles (that derive from the empty parameters. I am fully willing to work with a bot to replace all the templates with the pipe version, but ultimately I am trying for a consolidation of title templates (as the list shows, there are a lot, many repetitive or unneccessary) and consistency across the series. I will repost this in WT:SBS to see if anyone else is active currently in the talk forum, but I believe most of them will agree with me, especially since so many templates already require empty parameters.

Members, please reply to this post and lets get a concensus. I want this massive organization and standardization effort to finally end. It is nearly there but I think merging a few templates into s-gov will help the problem resolve sooner and make the titles more in line with their original designs. Members, give me your replies!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 16:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the terse-ness, I apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed and the first thing I saw was three hours of edits being reverted left and right. My rage is subsiding and I am in a more consiliatory mood. I sent a request to User:Fabartus, a friend of the project who knows how to edit the internals of these templates better than I do, and requested a solution to the empty parameter pipe problem, if there is one. Hopefully if this problem is fixed, we can go ahead with the merges and such without hurting the already established pages using the templates. I never intended this to go out of hand, but after inventorying all the templates here, I realized the need to consolidate before more templates were made. When a third of the edits were reverted, my fight or flight reflex was triggered. Sorry about that. Let's work this all out. I updated the previously mentioned page with s for switch and p for protected tags to make it easier to see which pages we can immediately work with and which require permission. It also helps to show which essential templates need some protection. As soon as this debate is over, I propose protecting all pages that ultimately fall in the Finalized Titles list. Any further edits will need to be proposed on the talk page and added by admin. This will protect them from template vandals. Also, some of the colors may need to be updated, some are clashing, it seems. Let's keep working on this until it works itself out!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 18:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Thanks to both of you for your replies, but there is an awful lot to reply to here, and it would be better if some of these things were separated. So I'll create separate headings below to try to keep the discussion more manageable. I'll say her, though, that I do commend you both on your efforts to standardise and rationalise the templates: I have a number of concerns about how it is being done, but I think that the principle of trying to organise these things more coherently is a very sound one: I'm just unhappy with some of the details. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Templates requiring a null parameter

{{s-gov|}} etc

I have no probs with {{s-par}} not working without a parameter, because it is meaningless without a parameter ... but it's not a good situation for s-gov, which is widely used without a parameter, and where the intention is that it should continue to be widely used in that way. It's non-intuitive for editors to encounter a template which requires an empty parameter, and if {{s-gov}} doesn't work on its own, then many editors will simply give up in frustration. If the merger is the way to go, then it should be done only if this null parameter problem can be overcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to help from User:Fabartus, I have corrected the null parameter problem and regardless of our discussion, I would like to enact this fix. It would place a |#default={{{1|Enter default title here}}} on the first line of the optional list, thereby overriding the need for the null parameter and making pages with no selected parameters work with simply the template page name. I think we can all agree this would be a good fix. The tested template is located here and an example of it working can be found here (ignore the name). I hope this may fix at least some of our problems! (Oh, and sorry about the s-par one, I forgot we had already worked around that one's problems.)
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

well done getting a fix, but are there any cases where it is useful, other than for {{s-par}}, where it would be handy to have an eror msg along the lines of "this template requires a parameter: see Template:s-par"? For example, s-pol is not very clear (s-police would be better, to reduce confusion with politics), but s-civ|pol is deeply opaque. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Although slightly humerous, I was thinking s-cop may be a good one for police. Three letters and we all know what a cop is. Regarding other templates, I think all of them, even s-par, should have a default, if nothing else to allow users to edit pages while they are awaiting an admin to approve an addition. An interesting thing I just discovered, too. This new default option allows people to type their own titles if the title will only be used on a few pages. See here again and look at the bottom. I forgot to test that final parameter and it came out with a slightly cool result. Tell me what you think and if this is a plausible solution. Thanks!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I do like s-cop, but I think we'd get in trouble for using something so slangy :) S-police is more neutral.

I was interested in the idea of a user-defined parameter, and tested it out with something silly {{User:KuatofKDY/Template test page 2|electric hamsters}} ... and then realised that my test showed the problem with it, because it effectively allows any template to be used for anything, e.g. {{s-par|President of the Kirkaldy Rotary club}}. If we allow freeform parameters, we kiss goodbye to standardisation :( Pity, because it looked great at first glance, but if we allow that, we might just as well ditch all the templates in favour of a single {{s--succession-box-header|insert here whatever heading takes your fancy}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. It is such a good idea, but it may just have too many open windows. I will ask Fabartus tomorrow if he knows of a fix for that problem.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 01:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have got a fix, which I have just taken the liberty of applying to User:KuatofKDY/Template test page 2. Very simple, and if the template is passed an unrecognised parameter, it will just display the default. (Sorry if I was out of order editing your test page, pls revert it if you like). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what "fixes" and "overrides" you template experts are talking about, so I would appreciate an explanation. From what little I gather, I can tell you that:

• I agree that having a template that does not work without parameters display an error message when a parameter is not used is a good idea. But still, adding clear instructions to each template's page will reduce the necessity of such a (difficult?) change.
• Police appointments are not many, and I believe they do not "deserve" their own header. S-civ|pol may be "opaque" as you say, but editors are not supposed to be making guesses when including templates in succession boxes. I still believe s-civ can work well as is, and clear instructions in the template's page and in this WikiProject's /Guidelines page will help a person see why such a template is used and make sure they will not forget it. It cannot be hard.

Merging everything is bad, but it does not mean that all merging is bad. Waltham, The Duke of 11:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The fixes and overrides were a problem presented by the new update. It allowed people to make their own titles without ever using a template, really. Thus people could create titles entirely out of hand. The fix makes it so the default ALWAYS shows up if something other than a known parameter is typed after a pipe ( | ). As soon as I get access to pages again or I can work out instructions for all the pages, I will do so. But I don't want to work on the page instructions until we have finalized all/any merges, deletions, and additions.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Fine, I will leave you to it. Just answer me one thing: the fact that adding no pipe at all makes the header not appear will not change by these edits, right?

And I didn't say you should post the instructions now, I only said that there should be no problem since the instructions are eventually going to find their way to their respective pages. Waltham, The Duke of 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Merged templates

I am also concerned about so many different headers being merged into the one base, when the base is already in use; military offices, for example, are not always directly govt appointments, and although the legal offices which you identified may be govt appointments, not all legal offices are. Make {{s-legal}} into sub-type of {{s-gov}} implies that it is part of a subset of government offices, many of which are conceptually quite different.

Additionally, merging the templates reduces clarity: "s-legal" is clear in its meaning, but "s-gov|leg" isn't. In some cases, the three-letter names work well, but these ones often don't. Some of the other renamings seem perverse: s-culture makes sense for cultural offices, but s-edu for cultural offices is deeply opaque.

Finally, there is another benefit of keeping the templates separate: whatlinkshere can be used to tell which template is being used where, but whatlinkshere doesn't consider parameters, so the distinction is lost if the templates are merged. If the aim is to standardise code, that could be done by having each of the templates as a paraameterised call to another template, but keeping the redirect as the advertised access point. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I've actually considered your suggestion already, especially since right now there are a number of templates under redirects. Using a main page for outward appearance while keeping the internal parameters linked is a commonly used format with this succession box series, mostly because so many OTHER succession boxes are actually using our parameters. So on those grounds, I agree that that may be an option.

Regarding Template:s-legal, I did jump slightly to a conclusion, but only because everything currently in the category is governmental positions and appointments, something that DOES fit into the definition of s-gov that we have inferred. However, I was toying around with the idea of creating a Template:s-jud for Judicial offices, that could include things like s-legal as a less government centered template.

I also agree that s-legal is much clearer than s-gov|leg, especially considering that legislative titles WOULD DEFINITELY fit under s-gov. I thought I made the parameter now legal within s-gov, but maybe not. Regardless, the reason for the "rule of three" was originally created to make templates very brief. I figured an s- followed by three letters would be about as condensed as a title could be without becoming impossible to interpret. I agree that some are harder to figure out than others, but I still think the rule should stand. If the word we are trying to use doesn't work, then perhaps we should find another word that would work.

Don't blame me for Template:s-edu, though, that was User:The Duke of Waltham's idea. I was thinking Template:s-cul or something similar would be better, but since we were considering merging education first, that is what stuck. I actually would be fine reconsidering that one, I never liked the conclusion much myself. It simply sounded good in talk but not in print.

Thanks for the help!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I'm sorry if I have come across as a bit growly, but I hope I'm not appearing to blame anybody! We got off to a bit of a bad start, but hopefully that's behind us. :)

A few quick points:

1. We used to have an s-jud. However, it was deleted in favour of an inclusive s-legal: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Guidelines#S-jud. I don't see any gain in reinstating the split.
2. I can't see how any merger of education and culture is going to be as clear for both as the separate templates.
3. Not sure what you mean by legislative titles, unless as a synonym for s-par
4. I don't object to the "rule of three" where it is clear and unambigious, but where it impedes clarity, it's not an important enough principle to override clarity.

Hope that helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh no...not another discusssion chain of doom. Sorry, The Duke and I have been chatting for the past two months in endless discussions about far too many things. About your comments, let me reply...

• I forgot about s-jud. For a long time, I actually stayed out of the title discussions and disputes. I was busy in school back then and didn't join into them until I realized that a number of them were unnecessary or out of control. Unfortunately, I don't really see how s-legal is any better than s-jud in regards to describing positions.
• I think that two separate templates may be better for education (academics) and culture. Culture, I think, may need some subdividing due to the various titles that may end up in this category (movies and such). I can't really think of a reason to have any subdivisions for education, though.
• Legislative titles are titles from within a legislature like Party Whip, House Majority Leader, Speaker of the House; basically titles that are appointed by a legislature instead of an executive or the people.
• Perhaps I agree with you on the "rule of three" but I think we should always try to discuss three letter name options before we resort to the full word. For example, I think s-cul works fine for culture and s-edu for education.

Thanks for the feedback. I hope some more members start jumping in. They are so lazy these days.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick replies.

• on S-jud did you read the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Guidelines#S-jud? The issue then was whereas "legal" was all-inclusive, "jud" or "judicial" could not include the likes of the attorney general.
• On education and culture, I think we agree; but I wonder if there is a British/Ameriacn usage split in the choice between "educational" and "academic"? (I note than whereas American Universities have internet domain names such of the form university.edu, in the UK they are of the form university.ac.uk)
• Ok, I get your meaning of legislative titles ... but again, that's an American usage which jars a bit in the UK. Unfortunately I can't find a form of words to bridge the transatlantic gap, so maybe we should seek outside opinion? It maybe that we will have to have dift forms of wording for difft countries (the UK is a particularly difficult area in this respect, because the govt whips are not called whips, instead using functionally obsolete titles government such as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (for the chief whip) or ceremonial royal titles Treasurer of the Household (govt deputy chief whip). Those are actually covered very well by s-off, but we could probably do with a heading for the Speaker of the British House of Commons and her deputy.
• I'm not persuaded by s-cul. If I didn't know what it meant, I'd be looking at it blankly for ages.

Hope that helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I am here now, you can stop talking about me behind my back. :D

On to my points now:

• I want you to know that the first time I have ever heard about the Great S-Gov Merger was when I read BrownHairedGirl's post. I would have opposed it, and I really mean it, had Mr Whaley over there made any mention of it. I felt a little betrayed at the time, I can say. I am perfectly fine with s-legal (apart from the name, as I still believe s-leg is better), and I do not consider military offices or court appointments as part of the government, given that the Head of State is almost always the Commander-in-Chief (or whatever other title may be used) of the armed forces; when we have to do with monarchies, that would be the Monarch, who also makes court appointments. The Monarch (or Head of State, to be more general) is not the government.
• As you can see in this very page, someone has asked for a "Cultural offices" header without specifying much what exactly they intended it to be for. I mean, sure, a header for cultural offices is a good idea, the concept seems right, but what offices exactly are we going to use it for? I could only think of museum curators, famous theatre managers and other similar positions, and so I found it a fine idea to combine this with another underpopulated (in terms of different kinds of offices) header, s-aca. In addition, I found at the time that there were a few examples of education-related offices cited as examples under s-other and I thought (in the general spirit of consolidation) that we could put everything under the same all-embracing title.
  I see now that cultural and academic offices are quite distinct (I have never thought of films, for one thing, and that is a whole world), but we need to write a list of where we can use these headers before we split them again (I suppose we will give the custody of educational offices to the "academic" header). We cannot overpopulate the project with headers that will not be used in more than fifty articles each.
• Whips and House Leaders are party offices, they have nothing to do with the people! They should all go under s-ppo. House Speakers and Presidents, of course, are political offices and should go under s-off. That is, unless a new header is created for parliamentary offices—I remind you that s-par is only used for parliamentary seats (as it should be, in my opinion).
• I do share your concern about s-cul, BrownHairedGirl, I really do. "'Cul'? Hmmm... What is that? Perhaps it means 'Culinary offices'? Maybe something to do with Jamie Oliver?"
  Actually, I believe we should not be too stringent about three-letter templates, but when we decide to use more letters (something we should do sparingly), I think we should restrict ourselves to four or five letters maximum.

I think my points summarise the conversation and offer some ideas. Let us discuss those for the time being; very general and very open discussions like this are very nice, I am sure, but we are going to miss next Monday's lunch if we keep on this way. Waltham, The Duke of 12:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the betrayals Waltham, it was not intended. You were busy so I felt that the changes were implied. I guess not ALL of them were implied, just a few of them. Either way, I see that it gives us all a great opportunity to fix some serious problems we never really thought about before.

• I agree that we need a new name and new separation for cultural and educational offices, and then propose the removals of a number of old titles. We also should try to get rid of s-other as it is a RATHER vague name that seems to have no reason. If a title doesn't fall under a catagory, is it necessary? I want some more examples. Currently, less than 40 pages use this template. Just checking Jimmy Carter (one of the linked pages), his nobelorate status is on other titles, something that is already covered with Template:s-awards.
• I never really thought of whips and majority leaders as party leaders, but I guess they are. In that case, s-lead is still worthless, but should be replaced with s-ppo.
• Okay, okay, s-culinaryartsandstudies is not quite a good title. How about s-cultivatethefields or s-culminatetheceremony? No, didn't think so. Maybe s-soc for society? Hmm...This is a hard one.

Why are things always harder than they appear?! Alright, keep on discussing. We will make progress some day.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The only thing to be happy about, I suppose, is that every difficulty reveals a solution. And I posted almost daily, so I really do not think there was such a lack of contact. In any case, let us just leave this behind, shall we?

• I am against deleting s-other. The fact that it is not much used is not exactly a strong argument, given that there are a lot of templates not used just because people do not know about them. On the contrary, s-other is the necessary placeholder for titles for which no header has been created (or no header should be created). Unless you are implying that we are going to be able to predict and prepare ourselves for all possible header needs. As far as Jimmy Carter's article is concerned, our own Guidelines say that this should be the only Nobel prize not to go under s-awards. You tell me why this is happening, because it is beyond me.
  If you have any specific ideas for the splitting of s-edu, I am eager to hear them.
• Whips and majority leaders are not party leaders, but their posts are party positions. And I did not say s-lead should be replaced by s-ppo; on the contrary, most succession boxes currently under s-lead are those of chairmen for Senate or House Committees. These offices may be thought of as political, although I am not sure. They are certainly not party offices, though.

And these are not the only issues to be addressed; we might have lots of things to discuss here, sure, but you should not forget to answer the questions I have asked you at my talk page. Waltham, The Duke of 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup List

For those interested in the templates currently being worked on in this series, see User:KuatofKDY/Cleanup List. This is a page I've created to track the histories of all the templates used in this series, as well as some others (mostly for the deletion field). I have the current Template:s-gov proposed merge in its own category with all the templates I wish to merge into it. Thank you all!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 17:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that most of the mergers look to me like a bad idea :( I would prefer to see parameters reserved for the likes of {{s-roy}} and {{s-par}}, where the parameters specify particular countries. I have reverted the redirect of s-lead; it's a badly-named template, but its usage for US Congress positions is definitely not governmental (the executive and legislative branches being separated in the US, unlike the UK).

Per my comments above about the rule of three, s-her sees a big step backwards from s-herald; and s-med is much less clear than s-media (at first glance, I would expect s-med to mean medical) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I too agree that parameters should mostly (but not exclusively) be used for regional specialising of headers. I also agree that the distinction between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government should not be undone in succession box headers, which is why I object to actions like merging s-legal to s-gov.

However, I find it somewhat strange that we should have a header for "leaders". The title "Leadership positions" is too general, in my opinion, and is not compatible with our template system (referring, of course, to our proper template system, merging proposals aside). We could change its use, but we most certainly cannot allow it to be used as it is used now. (Mind you, I am not proposing its merger into s-gov but its deletion altogether. See below for the reasons.)

From a quick check, I have seen that only thirteen articles currently use this template. In most of these it is used for Congress committees, but there are also two Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate, a President of the United States Confederation Congress, and two even more irrelevant positions: a President of the International Crisis Group and a President of the British Racing Drivers' Club!

For one thing, I believe presidents of the Senate (pro tempore or not) qualify as political offices and should go under s-off. I am not sure about the committee leadership—our guidelines suggest that political offices of parliament should likewise go under s-off, but I cannot say with any certainty whether committee leaderships are or are not political offices. Maybe we should create a separate header for Parliamentary offices (distinct, of course, from s-par which is only used for parliamentary seats).

The BRDC presidency goes, of course, under "Sporting positions" (s-sports), as in Jackie Stewart's article. I have no idea what we should do about the International Crisis Group presidency, and it seems that no other president has a succession box for this position. I really hate myself for doing this but maybe a header for charities would be the ticket.

By the way, I fell on Chris Patten's article during this search and found a succession box with a flag inside. Should I remove it? Furthermore, should we write a guideline forbidding the inclusion of images in succession boxes? Honestly, I had never imagined we might have to do that. I just... hadn't.

As far as the three-letter rule is concerned, I too have my reservations, but not many of them. I mean, how are people supposed to use the succession box templates without knowing what they are first? They cannot just start guessing what the letters might stand for, can they? In addition, they are supposed to preview their edits before they save them, or at least look at the result of their edits before moving on to another page. Finally, medical posts are too few to warrant their own template, and that is exactly why we have merged them with police and fire appointments to s-civ. Waltham, The Duke of 11:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Two things I noted from this post. Firstly, the charity organization I believe would fall under Template:s-bus, which I think is for business not for bus (I didn't create this one nor have I really checked it out). I think non-profits would fit as businesses as would CEO positions, etc. Secondly, I agree that no succession box should have an image in it. Someone a while back started adding them to all the Portuguese and Spanish royalty and I had to request him to stop as well as revert many of his edits (I don't think I actually finished that project). The images looked bulky, especially with the fact that the succession boxes don't technically have a white background as most of the images do, rather they have an off white background. The images looked awful and had no real standardization.

We've already begun discussing the rule of three, but I think Waltham is right that is should usually be followed and only in special cases should it be allowed to have larger names. I also support medical, fire, and police remaining in s-civ because the number of titles that fit in those catagories are just too few. Cheers!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 22:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe a more suitable header embracing positions in both charities and for-profit businesses, and all companies in general, would be "Corporate positions" or something similar.

I will write a guideline against images, as succession boxes are obviously not the right place to put pictures in. By the way, I have just went back to the Chris Patten article to see how the succession box is now. Following all of our guidelines on parliament boxes, on headers and their order, and on year formatting, I have substituted the whole box. Opinions?

Applying the three-letter rule to template-creation is something that will remain between us few anyway, since I find it completely irresponsible to write instructions on how to create templates. Massive template production is one of the greatest dangers SBS could ever face. Waltham, The Duke of 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:s-start change proposal

Yes, the core of all things vital to this series has had a requested change by User:Fabartus. He requested that the templates span more width to provide them more room to look fat and short instead of thin and tall. I rather agree in some cases, especially for templates such as Winston Churchill, one of the largest templates on wikipedia, but I am not sure if it works for all of them. I asked him how this could be done and he told me and a demo of it can now be found here with some examples. I am not promoting this change, just proposing it for him for all members to see. Tell me what you think and if it should be a go. Thanks!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 06:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
P.S. On a side note, I am going away this weekend and will not have another chance to edit a page until Tuesday next week. I can edit tomorrow, though, hence why I am proposing this now.

I have always disliked the varying width of succession boxes, although I did not know that could be changed. Obviously, I am not the person to say what can be changed and what not. :-)

So, my official response is I am strongly in favour of the reformed template, for the following reasons:

1. It will allow for greater standardisation between succession boxes, as far as format and appearance are concerned.
2. It will reduce the impression of "crammed" succession boxes in many occasions.
3. It will utilise the space that is lost at both sides of succession boxes and provide a uniform and more presentable template covering the whole width of the page.
4. It will allow for shorter succession boxes in numerous occasions, as succession boxes containing multiple lines of text may now reduce the number of those lines.

I believe we have a consensus now—and this is not entirely a joke... Waltham, The Duke of 10:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine to me! Not sure that it will always be better, but it will be better in some cases. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, if you want to try the new template on Template:s-start, here is the code:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em auto; font-size:95%;width:{{{infoboxmargin|88%}}};{{#if:{{{noclear|}}}||clear:both;}}"

I belive it will work just fine. It passed the length tests on that one page. If you want more votes, that's cool too. I just wanted to post the code. Just be sure to place this before the "noinclude" in the template so everything else works fine. Cheers!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 20:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have started growing impatient, Mr Whaley. When exactly is the new (wider) version of s-start going to be activated? I have been under the impression that there was an agreement on the change. Waltham, The Duke of 18:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Redundant "Royalty" headers

Louis88 has been adding royalty headers to the succession boxes of many royals, immediately after the s-hou template and right before the next header, without putting any succession boxes under the royaty header. That creates double headers, which is both redundant and makes it look as if someone has forgotten a box. I have sent a message to Louis88 and removed some of the headers but I may need some help.

I have also noticed some peculiarities in a few of the succession boxes I have encountered. The title of nobility of Louis-Philippe of France comes before his regnal title because of chronological order and/or his being already well-known with that title before acceeding to the French throne.

In Napoleon III's succession box, on the other hand, I have spotted an obscure s-pvc template (also created by Louis88). The template's page proves my plastic-related hypothesis wrong and says that it is meant for pretence vacancies.

Whaleyland, we need to post the /Guidelines page fast; right now we hardly have any guidelines and people will keep creating more templates without telling anyone. Waltham, The Duke of 13:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the need for the guidelines page immediately. If it slows down at my work more, I will check out some of the remaining problems. One new things to add besides no double title headers is no double successions. I think that if someone is succeeded by two different people for two different titles that split, that is alright, but this new user is splitting succession boxes because the title went vacant AND a revolution happened. I belive that is why we have the "reason" parameter in s-vac. We need to figure something out about that. I just spent the past hour replacing all instances of Template:s-npr and Template:s-pvc and so those can be proposed for deletion. What I don't get, though, is why she made those templates when the look identical to Template:s-vac and Template:s-new. Literally, identical. Hmm. Alright, back to other things. I will work on the guidelines page some so we can get it released.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 20:30, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just run out of time. I will do the nominations and guideline change when I find, well, more time. You answer my questions in my talk page first and then do anything else. Please. Waltham, The Duke of 20:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: I have nominated the two templates for deletion, as well as notified their creator. The guideline you propose is very reasonable, but somewhat hard to stipulate. I am trying to find ideas as to how to phrase it and where to put it in our guidelines.

On another note, I have added a guideline in our draft /Guidelines page barring the use of images in succession boxes. I have also done some other improvements and minor changes.

I also have a question: are we supposed to add the prefixes "Sir", "Dame", and "Lady" for knights and knights' wives (apart from the already agreed upon "Sir" for baronets and "Dame" for baronetesses)? Also, are we supposed to use "Lord" for younger sons of Dukes and Marquesses and "Lady" for daughters of Dukes, Marquesses, and Earls? I am not sure about the latter, as it would mean we would have to add styles to a far greater category of people than that which we have initially had in mind, but I believe it ought to be discussed. Waltham, The Duke of 23:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

What a world! Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was featured on the Main Page today and its succession page had a "three to one" succession box! Well, let us just say this is not the case any more. It is quite a thrill to be editing a Today's Featured article (and somewhat annoying as well, given all the edit conflicts). I have a question, though: has the "Regnal titles" header been ditched in favour of the various s-roy headers? I know consorts are not entitled to "Regnal titles" headers (or to the s-hou template), but it is an important question, I believe. I have seen many things change lately, and there is no sign of documentation for them.

By the way, the French kings' succession boxes seem to have made a full circle of edits and returned to their prior state of double headers. Grrrrr... Waltham, The Duke of 14:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• I will go to the deletion page and vote for the deletions.
• I will check the guidelines page and your talk page to make sure everything sounds well with everything.
• I don't believe we are suppose to put titles on anyone other than those who hold the title officially. Knights and Dames should be labeled with their titles if they are the holders of that title, but sons and daughters and spouses should not, otherwise there may just be noble craziness all over Wikipedia.
• I have slowly tried to replace all instances of those strange succession boxes but it is not easy to do them all and it is a bit hard for bots to do it.
• I have been choosing s-roy over s-reg lately just because it seems to work better for cases of royalty. Consorts are not subject to s-reg, but are to s-roy since they are married royalty. They are allowed to have s-hou as well as anyone with a noble ancestry may. Even Winston Churchill can, I'd say, since he is descended from the Spencer family.
• I've noticed and now hate whoever is editing the French pages. I have fixed a few of them but most seem to be double heading in the worst kind of way.

Alright, I think that is all you asked me on this talk page. Anyone hear from the admin lately? She seems to have disappeared.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with what you say about titles, since we don't want to add social titles in succession boxes (social titles are titles not legally recognised as part of a name, like "Lady" for the daughters of Marquesses). This may need some discussion though. Following your proposal means that we would have to eliminate examples like John Russell being referred in most succession boxes as "The Lord John Russell", being the third son of the Duke of Bedford.
• Adding s-hou to nobles is a big step and I think we may need consensus for that. I believe we should have the S-start/doc page say that we only add it to royals for the time being and when we go public submit the issue for discussion.
  And yes, you have been choosing s-roy over s-reg lately, but this is not a bloody guideline! Nobody has agreed to do this! I mean, the whole situation with succession boxes is growing increasingly paranoid, do you have to create more things to upset my mental balance? I implore you, do not take too many initiatives or we could as well each grab a limb of this project and start pulling.
• I am answering about Louis88 in my talk page.
• BrownHairedGirl has certainly not disappeared from Wikipedia—you have but to look at her Contributions page to ascertain that. However, she seems to have forgotten about us. The problem is, we need her opinion now (groans) or else we might find out two weeks later that we need to perform massive reverts due to various reasons. Like it or not, she is right about some things. Well, I will do the little that I can: send her a reminder. I was going to write to her anyway; she has changed the British parliament headers.

I am starting a new section below to move here the discussion from my talk page (which, I believe, is high time that I should archive) Waltham, The Duke of 15:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

As regards courtesy titles, this is my understanding (which may be limited) of policy (which is a bit of a patchwork of compromises).

1. We don't include prenominal forms of address ("The Honourable", "The Right Honourable", "His Grace", etc.) in articles or in succession boxes.
2. Persons styled "Lord" (as younger sons of dukes and marquesses) do receive that style in succession boxes, because it is integral to the name: e.g., the Hon. John Smith is still Mr. Smith, but Lord John Smith is Lord John.
3. We don't have succession boxes for courtesy titles since they are not really held by the person so styled (e.g., Jago Eliot, Lord Eliot has no succession box for Baron Eliot), with the exception of those courtesy peers who have come to substantively hold the title by writ of acceleration. However, courtesy peers who were, for instance, Members of Parliament are referred to by their courtesy title (without definite article) in succession boxes. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh is a good example; he would be "Viscount Castlereagh" in the boxes until 1821, after which he would be "The Marquess of Londonderry".
4. I don't know whether it's appropriate to use "The" for courtesy lords, e.g., "The Lord John Manners" vs "Lord John Manners". I've been doing the latter, but without any particular foundation.

In general, I think this strikes a reasonable balance between referring to people by their proper styles and avoiding the prenominal clutter of "Hon.", "Rt. Hon.", etc. Choess 20:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not good at looking for external sources, so I will just have to trust this article in saying the following (I cannot be certain, of course, that it is absolutely and entirely correct, but I have a feeling that it is):

1. If we do not include prenominal forms of address in succession boxes, we should not include "Lord" for peers' sons and "Lady" for peers' daughters either, as these belong to the exact same category (unless they are categorised by length, which is not excused even when we talk about succession boxes).
2. According to the same article, "Lord" is as legally valid a title as "The Honourable"—that is, not at all. Look at this section for details.
3. Our policy is indeed to style people with the titles they had at the time of the office's transfer to the next holder. And this should apply not only to peers but to baronets and knights as well; a man should not by styled "Sir" in a succession box before inheriting the baronetcy.
4. There are two forms of address including the word "Lord": Name Surname, Lord X, Name Surname, Lord X of Y, The Lord X, and The Lord X of Y all refer to barons; "Lord Name Surname" refers to a duke's or marquess's younger son (courtesy title). More or less the same rules apply to "Lady" as well, although "Baroness" is mostly used for peeresses by right, as opposed to "Lady" for wives of barons. I cannot say there is a general rule for courtesy peers, as "The" is an integral part of "The Honourable".

I am inclined to agree that this arrangement does strike a reasonable balance between referring to people by their proper styles and avoiding the prenominal clutter of "Hon.", "Rt. Hon.", etc., as long as it is done correctly. If we aim for consistency, we will have to remove courtesy "Lord" and "Lady" styles from all children of peers; if we retain them it will look like we are keeping them because they are of higher rank than the "Honourables". And despite appearances (being a Duke and all), I am not a snob. Waltham, The Duke of 22:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Much as I dislike that wretched quote of Emerson's about consistency, I think this may be the time to apply it. As I said above, it's not uncommon to hear an "Hon." referred to without that prefix, but it's very unusual to hear a courtesy Lord or Peer referred to without that title. Furthermore, as aforesaid, the latter use the courtesy title as an integral part of the name (unlike the "Hon."); see for instance Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Other non-royal titles, item 6. I think being consistent with our own conventions for article names and our current practice is better than a somewhat strained legal consistency here. Choess 23:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I have made a humiliating mistake in my above post in saying that courtesy titles for younger sons of peers are not entitled to the "The" prefix—courtesy barons are the only ones with the style "Lord" not entitled to "The" before it. Unfortunately, I was under the impression that I remembered well the forms of address when I wrote the above message while I had in fact forgotten some things. The Forms of address in the United Kingdom article is correct, and it agrees with the naming conventions entirely; the mistake was entirely my own.

In any case, the situation remains that "The Honourable" is a prefix belonging to the exact same category as "Lord" or "Lady" for sons of peers, and to no other; you have to include both "The Hon." and "Lord" & "Lady" in succession boxes, or none. You only see "Lord" and "Lady" being mentioned in the Naming Conventions page, but it says clearly that these are mentioned as examples. They are not the only ones. Waltham, The Duke of 11:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm strongly with Choess here. To take a concrete example, Lord John Russell is always "Lord John Russell", and to call him "John Russell" would imply that he was "Mr. Russell," when in fact he was "Lord John". The same thing goes for knighthoods. "The Right Honourable," and so forth, are entirely unnecessary, as they don't effect the way the person is named in any way. But the prenominal "Lord," "Sir," "Lady," and "Dame" do, and should be used. I also agree with Choess in preferring "Lord John Manners" to "The Lord John Manners" - the use of the definite article provides no useful information. john k 21:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Information? Styles are not supposed to convey any information other than the fact that the person to whose name they are affixed is a nobleman (and maybe saying what kind of nobleman they are as well). Honestly, I have no idea why you are so desperate in retrieving the space those four characters seem to be occupying so arrogantly. In any case, as I am not 100% sure whether the inclusion of "The" is correct or not, I shall not persist on this any further. But I can assure you that you will find it both in Forms of address in the United Kingdom and in many succession boxes.

It just seems entirely unnecessary to include "the". It provides no information, leads to piping, I don't see how I can possibly be described as "desperate" on this issue. I merely stated that I agreed with Choess that I prefer not to use it. I am certainly not asserting that it is incorrect, just that it is pretentious and unnecessary. john k 01:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

However, I am pretty certain that you are indeed confusing two things: the usage of styles like "The Right/Most Honourable" with the purpose of the style "The Honourable", and the usage of "Lord" for barons with the usage of "Lord" for courtesy peers. For your interest, there is absolutely no difference between "The Honourable" and "Lord"/"Lady" as far as their purpose, appropriateness and usage is concerned when we are addressing children of peers. If you read Courtesy title you realise that they are both social titles not legally recognised, which means that Lord John Russell's legal name was indeed Mr John Russell as much as a hypothetical The Honourable John Russell's name would be Mr John Russell. It is a different thing to say "he was known by that name" than to say "that was his real name".

My point is, if we deserve the word "Standardization" in our project's name, we should aim for standardisation, consistency, and uniformity, which means that we cannot treat similar styles differently just because one of them reminds us of something else or is just longer. Please read Forms of address in the United Kingdom and Courtesy title and you will see for yourselves what the situation really is like. We are creating succession boxes here; we are supposed to be documenting real titles. Lack of consistency is a problem we are here to correct, not to aggravate. Waltham, The Duke of 23:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no context in which Lord John Russell would have been referred to as "Mr. John Russell" (except before 1802). The Right Honourable Tony Blair, on the other hand, is very frequently referred to as "Mr. Blair." Younger sons of dukes and marquesses are universally referred to in this manner, and this is generally done in normal reference works. Also note that wikipedia article titles include the prefix, while they, of course, do not include "the right honourable" or "the honourable." (C.f. Lord George Hamilton, Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord William Bentinck). And succession boxes are supposed to detail what the person is referred to as, not to "document real titles." Beyond that, your preferred means would suggest that we refer to "Robert Stewart" and "Frederick North" and "Spencer Cavendish," seeing as Viscount Castlereagh, Lord North, and Marquess of Hartington were not "real titles" held by them. We've never treated "Lord Firstname" and "Lady Firstname" as being equivalent to "The Honourable" or "The Right Honourable," and don't treat them as comparable in any other context. Why should we do so in the context of succession boxes? There are dozens of succession boxes that already use "Lord Firstname Lastname", and none that include "the Honourable" and "the Right Honourable". And, of course, while the people who are called "The Honourable" are different from those who are "Right Honourable," the two styles are pretty clearly directly analogous to one another in usage. "Lord Firstname" is used for similar people to those who get "the Honourable" (children of peers), but it is a different kind of title, and is used in different ways. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the Columbia Encyclopedia all use "Lord Firstname Lastname" in article titles. So do wikipedia's naming conventions on the subject (see #6), which have been worked out over several years and constitute an official policy. I don't see why we should exclude information which is a) correct for the time under discussion; and b) at least theoretically included in the article title (assuming the person did not, like Lord John Russell or Lord Robert Cecil, receive a peerage of their own at some later point). john k 01:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I have never said that courtesy titles for eldest sons should be removed, neither that we should refer to everybody by their legal name. I've only said that we should use one mode for all daughters and younger sons of peers, either with the prefixes or without them. I find no reason to discriminate between children of Marquesses and children of Viscounts, that's all.

I am not particularly familiar with the naming conventions (and I have never had to become), so I believe you will understand that I did have a point. Conventions and policies are, of course, an important argument, but I was beginning almost from scratch here.

Anyway, you win. I will update the /Guidelines draft to include reference to "Lord" and "Lady" styles. Well, maybe tomorrow; it is five in the morning here. I need sleep... Waltham, The Duke of 02:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

We differentiate between them because they are differentiated between. Children of marquesses are referred to as "Lord Firstname," or "Lady Firstname," while children of Viscounts are referred to as "Mr. Lastname" or "Miss Lastname." Most confusingly, sons of earls are "Mr. Lastname," but daughters are "Lady Firstname." That the younger son of an earl is, in the most formal sense, "The Honourable Firstname Lastname," is really no more relevant to succession boxes than the fact that privy councillors are right honourable. That the younger son of a marquess is "Lord Firstname Lastname," on the other hand, is significant, and the "Lord" is generally considered a part of their name (or, at least, it was until fairly recently). There's no particular sense to any of this, but this has been how these things have generally worked, and I see no particular reason to deviate from this in succession boxes. In any event, I'm glad you're willing to agree. Given the number of succession boxes that already use the "Lord Firstname Lastname," format, I think it's the wise decision, even disregarding the substantive arguments in its favor (which I, of course, find compelling in themselves). john k 07:19, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

You know, I updated the /Guidelines draft yesterday, adding a section about Lords and Ladies. It has taken me so long to find a succession box example of such a Lord without a "the" in front of it that I am having second thoughts about its omission. I mean, its majority in succession boxes is overwhelming, and if we go on with it we will have to do a great many edits. Maybe we should discuss it with WikiProject Peerage first? I would just feel more comfortable if I had their assurance as well, under the circumstances.

Just the definite article, Mr Kenney, not the Honourables, I promise. Waltham, The Duke of 06:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't especially care about it, but it seems entirely unnecessary to me, and somewhat pretentious. Is there any particular argument in its favor besides "this is how other infoboxes are done"? john k 15:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

But it's not actually true that they all have the "the". There's St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton, George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, Gathorne Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook, William Edward Forster, Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, William Vernon Harcourt (politician), William Gladstone... john k 15:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that all succession boxes were done this way; I said most. Apart from some exceptions, the format used in succession boxes is "The Lord" and "The Lady". My argument is that this format could not have been spread completely haphazardly, and the members of WikiProject Peerage are supposed to be working on such issues. If they have anything to do with promoting a specific format for the particular category of succession boxes, that would mean that this is not an issue that is being discussed for the first time. It might be worth asking them for their opinion, and I would like to do that on behalf of this project, but I need SBS's approval to proceed. Waltham, The Duke of 13:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As both a longtime member of WP:PEER and, if you will check the history, one of the people who actually added some of these succession boxes that include "the Lord X", I will say that, if there has been discussion of this, it has never been done in a particularly comprehensive way, and that, as far as I'm aware, things really have been done in a fairly haphazard way. Presumably, a lot of it is based on modeling - one sees existing infoboxes that are done a certain way, and one imitates that form for constistency. Therefore, whoever started doing it first holds an advantage in the way it ends up looking throughout wikipedia. There is no particular reason to assume that this was adopted for any particular reason. john k 13:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Fine, objection dropped.

Now, would you be kind enough to read and reply to the other conversations/messages in this page, please? Someone has to do it, and not all of these issues are trivial. Waltham, The Duke of 14:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm happy to try to get more input on the "The Lord Firstname" vs. "Lord Firstname" dispute. I was just trying to point out that the issue hasn't been settled yet. In terms of other issues, I'm not terribly concerned about the header boxes - I don't have strong opinions either way, and assume it will ultimately be settled in a satisfactory manner. I'll look it all over again, but I don't think I really have very strong feelings about most of it. john k 15:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

General discussion from User talk:The Duke of Waltham

For almost three months, Whaleyland and myself have been discussing several things pertaining to this WikiProject; quite literally, all the action had moved from here into my talk page (other members of SBS being away).

The discussion has now been archived (see link at the header) and is supposed to continue here, so that more people can comment.

We have started writing our posts more like checklists rather than anything else; we have split them into four lists, to be exact, so that we could immediately see what is more important, what is less important, and what is almost completely insignificant. "Class A" stands for important tasks of high priority, "Class B" stands for already completed tasks that only need an answer in case of mistakes or new ideas, "Class C" stands for issues of lower priority, and "Class D" stands for miscellaneous and/or rather irrelevant matters.

Here follows (in italics) Whaleyland's last message in my talk page:

I am combining the two lists and will reply to everything, even if it is now being discussed on WT:SBS. I am, however, merging the two lists.

Class A list:

• We need to implement that new code that doesn't require the pipe into s-reg to make it work perfectly with s-ecc and allow the latter's replacement.
• We need to keep s-reg until we can replace it entirely with s-nob or remove s-nob. The royalty factor of the template has already been replaced with s-roy. I agree, snob needs to be removed and taken off all lists. I will begin the work of replacing the internals on the linked pages.
• I think most suc boxes should have a header if they can have one, even titles like pope which could use the Catholic leader header available in s-rel. I think it would make headers a lot more important and provide people with a little more knowledge.
• I would edit the s-par but it is locked right now. I swear I kept with the real abbreviations everywhere. I will have to check sometime when I have more time.
• By all means request s-cite to s-ref and s-pol to s-civ|pol. I think the recent debate over s-aca, s-culture, and s-edu are rather disputed right now.
• Thank you for updating the guidelines, I will check them out shortly.

Class B list:

• Yay for intrapage links!
• I will probably create and take the same instructions from the instructions page to make the individual instructions on pages.

Class C list:

• I discussed the name option in s-hou with User:Fabartus, the user who added the option, and for the time being I agreed to reinclude it with the new option that the name can be changed with the parameter "name=". I see some potential for trouble with this addition but it may be helpful, especially for those really long pages.
• I want to add to the cleanup page all pages that have already been deleted, all proposed additions, and all proposed deletions and merges. The templates listed also should be part of the category, succession lists (or whatever it is named).
• I still say s-lead itself is worthless, although the concepts contained within it may be important.
• Include s-court. It should be included, although I still don't like the name.
• I fixed s-urp for you. It is in the top now and s-usurp is in the pending deletion/merge section
• S-cite to s-ref seemed somewhat of a natural choice. I was also dumb when I made it because I didn't realize s-ref could just be placed within s-cite, or better yet, they could be switched.
• I never added the la option for s-par. I have no idea why there is a Local Assembly option. It sounds rather odd.
• I think gb should be removed from s-roy because uk is a more common abbreviation for Britain.

Class D list:

• Okay, now I get what you mean. Poor Leo...he died so...quaintly? The only remaining question is, why didn't he stay dead?
• I think moving all future conversations to WT:SBS is a good idea, even with an administrator watching every move. Unfortunately, the admin is just doing her job, even if it seems to get in the way of all our conversations. At least it will all be on the same forum.

Follow up Proposal: Do you think all the talk pages for the s- series boxes should redirect to the WP:SBS talk page? Is that even allowed. It would make discussions about changing succession boxes easier and allow people to interact with the group more efficiently.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 22:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
BTW, sorry about not cluing you into stuff, I guess I was overstressed. I think everything is going well now. Keep on editing!

And now I shall answer the above (and add some more). Publicly, BrownHairedGirl.

Class A list:

• I know nothing about these technical issues, but I bet there are people that do. Although rather uncontroversial anyway, is this action agreeable with all?
• What are we supposed to do with s-reg|? We are supposed to use it for regnal titles, but I now see it has started being replaced by the various s-roy headers. Shouldn't this be discussed here first?
• I too believe s-nob should be removed; all of its functions are covered by s-reg. If nobody disagrees here, I will ask in a few days that all nobs should be converted to regs by bot, in preparation for the eventual deletion of s-nob.

Agree – Whaleyland

• I couldn't agree more that all succession boxes should be placed under headers, even if they only have one line. Should this become a guideline? Opinions, people, opinions!

Yes, I think it should be in the guidelines. – Whaleyland

• My suggestion for the s-aca, s-culture, s-edu template group is the following:

Class B list:

• I have requested the two template substitutions. I am expecting a reply soon.
• S-court has been included in Template:S-start/doc and in the draft /Guidelines page. Also, s-edu has been removed from both pages and s-aca and s-culture have been reinstated. I propose that s-edu should be deleted and all educational offices be transferred to s-aca in some way.

Agree – Whaleyland

Class C list:

• Do what you can to improve s-hou and we will work on the name guidelines when you are done; for the time being, I only need to know when s-hno will be redundant (its functions having been transferred to s-hou) so that I can remove it from Template:S-start/doc and propose its substitution in the bot requests.

Deleted, and all instances have been removed, or at least I believe they have. – Whaleyland

• I believe we should remove the "Offices that are either political or honorary" section from the draft /Guidelines page. Its usefulness is dubious and I can find nothing but some filler text to put in it.

Removed: I added a note in the honorary field that states if a title's status is dubious, it should be placed under the s-gov (or appropriate) header and not s-hon. – Whaleyland

• I have written a guideline in Template:S-start/doc for the weird succession boxes with double successors in vacancies etc. etc. It could be better written, though. It's a tough one, you know.

We need to put a guideline or something in for this issue. It makes the templates look crowded and neglects the options found within s-vac. We do not need to state that a dynasty has never been restored. – Whaleyland

• Nope, s-urp is still listed as an alternative to s-ttl, while it is really a predecessor/successor box. S-usurp has finally been deleted, by the way.

Fixed – Whaleyland

• "Local Assembly" sounds too general, and local assemblies are rather insignificant. If it cannot be removed, can it at least be converted to "London Assembly"? ;)

Agree to remove – Whaleyland

• There is some kind of problem with the s-bus header in the header section of Template:S-start/doc. There is no problem in the business headers in other pages. Can you please have a look?

Fixed – It has a "protected" open end that needs to be closed. I put a |- to fix it for now. – Whaleyland

• I have removed gb from the /Guidelines draft, but how am I going to find templates using this parameter? If it is to be removed (something which I cannot do myself anyway, since s-par is protected), how do we make sure no templates are broken?

We can't. that was one of the problems that the admin presented the last time she was seen on the talk page. She wants us to stop using parameters, which doesn't really make sense. I'd suggest googling the full {{s-par|gb}} and see what comes up. –Whaleyland

On second thought, why do we need to remove the "gb" parameter? It was a different parliament from the other ones so why shouldn't it get its own listing. On another note, searching for {{s-par|gb}} in the search box will list all the people currently listed with that parameter. –Whaleyland

• Slip of the pen there, Mr Whaley, and I apologise for the mistake. If you see the prior posts you shall remember we were talking about s-roy (and not about s-par), and {{s-roy|gb}} creates the exact same header as {{s-roy|uk}}, i.e. British royalty.
• It would be great if we could find articles with specific parameters in their succession box templates so easily, but I do not believe this will work after all. I have tried searching the full code and... Well, nothing. It mostly returns results for "gb", and including the code in double quotation marks does not seem to make things much better.
• Update: After about the eightieth page of the search, one only finds articles with 9% relevance, including people with templates s-par|gb, s-roy|gb, s-reg|gb, etc. Awkward but it is something... Right? Waltham, The Duke of

Class D list:

• Leo is alive? Maybe the waters of the Northern Atlantic aren't really so cold? Or he was secretly wearing a diver's suit underneath his clothes?

Nothing's impossible for Leo...he is after all Leonardo Romeo Jack Irish Immigrant Three Face King Louis XIV DiCaprio! – Whaleyland

• Well, now it is here. Don't you just feel better?

Woot! – Whaleyland

I am still feeling stressed, but for other reasons. My finals could as well never have happened. At least it was not a complete disaster. Anyway, I am sitting for my last exam tomorrow and it is an easy one (for me, at least). After that I am returning home; I will have more time to spend on SBS then but my desktop is old and my Internet connection there slow, so it is a double-edged sword—I will edit less but at least I will be accessible daily.

I will answer to more issues when I have time. Waltham, The Duke of 00:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

In my hurry, I forgot to sign my message yesterday, in addition to leaving my last Class A point incomplete. Now that I think of it, "incomplete" is a wrong choice of word, as I haven't even started with the suggestion (although I then saw that I had more or less described it in a Class B point). Furthermore, by the time I logged out I hadn't done all the edits I'd said that I'd done. Multitasking under pressure is obviously not one of my many talents. In any case, I have done all these things now and I can move on with the rest of my suggestions and my answers to your posts.

Class A list:

• So, my suggestion on s-edu is to delete the template (it has not been used anywhere yet), and transfer all education-and-academia-related offices to s-aca, which may be renamed "Academic and educational titles" ("Academic/Educational titles" might be more suitable but I don't like the visual impact of the slash) to reflect both the usage chasm between the two sides of the Atlantic and the broadened content of the header.

Agree: I think this will fix the issue with the academics half of things. And in the U.S., we know what academics is, we just prefer education. Maybe it is because we care less about reading and more about learning how to do things...I like reading, though. – Whaleyland

• On your proposal about template talk pages, Whaleyland: I like it very much, but I am uncertain about whether we can do such a thing. (I suppose BrownHairedGirl or another administrator can answer more positively.) If it turns out we really cannot do it, our best alternative is to add a noticeable notice (no pun intended) in every template page saying that one can go to our project's main page for more information about our template system and succession boxes in general. We could even use a template to create such a message box. Then, we can add another notice in the all of the templates' talk pages saying that all succession templates have been created and are regulated by SBS, directing them to our talk page. We can put the notice in the main pages anyway; the problem is the talk pages. There I would prefer the redirects, but it might just not be allowed.

Do you know where we could go to see what we can and can't do? I looked around a little but there doesn't seem to be much. If nothing else, we could make a category like "Pages managed by WP:SBS" or something, and put that link on all the template and talk pages. I think that'd be legal. – Whaleyland

Indeed. That seems to be by far the best solution; centralised discussion is favoured by Wikipedia, and the category should clear things up. I concur. Waltham, The Duke of

• The parameters of s-par are all in order now, BrownHairedGirl has taken care of that. There is, however, one person who feels that the parameters should have hs and sen (for "House" and "Senate") instead of lwr and upr, as the former are more easily understandable (especially by Americans) and not so confusing (he has even invoked the Manual of Style). I have to grant him that, but I was intending to use a format suitable for most countries in order to achieve greater standardisation. So, should the parameters change or remain as they are? I remind you that the decision must be taken promptly, before the headers start appearing in the main namespace.

Discussion forwarded below. – Whaleyland

• The order of headers is still incomplete; if we want it to be clear, we ought to include all headers, even if we put them in groups (in order to allow for some flexibility). I also object to a couple of details in that order. My proposal for the new order of headers may be found in the section below this one.

Discussion forwarded below. – Whaleyland

Class C

• Have we suddenly decided that we will not link years (except in s-par boxes)? If that is the case, I have to update the /Guidelines draft. I was aware that this was somebody's opinion, but I had no reason to take it too seriously. In any case, I do agree with it, though this change of policy could be a fait accompli from the look of things.

I think this decision was made some time ago to not link years. I don't think it changes a whole lot, but looking around at pages lately, I've noticed a lack of wikilinks. The concept behind no links always went: "The page should already have all the links within the text." – Whaleyland

• I have visited your sandbox, Whaleyland. The s-chi is an interesting template, and marriage and issue information is certainly useful. However, I do have two things to suggest:
  • The header should change from "Marriages and Issue" to "Marriages and issue", per our guideline on newspaper-header-style titles.
  • As these boxes are relatively irrelevant from the whole succession box concept, and are often very large, I believe the best thing would be to have it hidden by default. That is, if someone wants to see the spouses and progeny of the succession box's subject, they will have to click on the "show" button on the header's right-hand side. That way we can save some space and make the box look more, well, succession-box-like.
    Now that I think of it, I have heard people say that the s-fam template is likewise unfit for succession boxes. Maybe a hide/show option would be useful for that one as well.

Agree: If you check out my sandbox right now, I am constructing a hideable template that can expand and compact. It may be possible to use it for other templates in the future, but right now I am still trying to fix its current problems, which are many. s-chi and s-mar are both causing significant obstacles because of all the optional parameters. FrankB is helping me out a bit on it, although at the moment I am shelving the project for a later day. – Whaleyland

• I have started planning a section in the /Guidelines draft for orders of precedence. Though an important category with distinct conventions (like lack of years and inclusion of all formal styles), it is currently not in the page, mostly due to its being a controversial category (its legitimacy for being in succession boxes being occasionally contested) and not fitting well with the existing structure of the page. I will update the page when I have finished the section privately.

Sounds good, I think that orders of precedent, in a sense, gives feasibility to including pages for these random royals, half of whom deserve no page if it weren't for their line in a succession. I still support the inclusion of these people and their boxes as I think they are interesting tidbits, if nothing else. – Whaleyland

They are certainly more important than mere "trivia". Waltham, The Duke of

Class D

• I have many ideas about pages of this project and succession box formats. These will have to wait until we are done with the current stage of SBS's re-organisation, but I am naming them here nonetheless, thinking that knowing there are some ideas about these matters will remove some of your concerns:
  • I have an idea about U.S. Congress succession boxes, but I am not sure when to post it. I think I will wait until we go public, so that it can be discussed by a greater number of editors.

Agree and it sounds good. I had a proposal for Congress too once, but I never followed through. I want to get that template series merged, though, because currently they are one of the few that does not fit. – Whaleyland

• • I also have an idea on how the /Offices page can be changed to allow for easier editing by all users. Our ultimate purpose is to include all offices tracked by succession boxes, so adding or changing information ought to pose no difficulties to any contributors; the opposite would mean disaster, considering the huge number of offices. Any discussion for the reformation of that page should take place in its talk page and not here; we have enough things to clutter this forum without /Offices concerns.

Agree: We need to start a list (or import one) of all monarchial titles. I think listing all the various kings and such will make things a little clearer in what each succession box should have and where it should (re-)direct. – Whaleyland

• • When we go public, it might be a good idea to also ask for the renewal of this project's older members' memberships. I have seen it done in a couple of WikiProjects and it can help us remove from the main page contributors who have left SBS, or, worse, Wikipedia itself. Unless someone wants to keep the list intact for... historical purposes, I see no reason to leave these names here as funerary memorials of their Wikipedia career.
    If things go well, by the way, the main page and the talk page will also have changed by then. I have quite a few ideas for them as well...

Sounds good. I have been trying to get back into page editing and I even found some old HTML pages to convert. I also may try cleaning up some more off-brand succession boxes to match out internal parameters. – Whaleyland

And this is the end of my ultra-long post. I am afraid these lengthy discussions are essential; much like legislation, guidelines are created by dialogue. Please, do not be discouraged.

Although we do need more input... Waltham, The Duke of 18:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Order of headers

There are a couple of points in the current draft guideline for the order of headers (see here):

• It is incomplete; if all headers were included, more order and greater standardisation could happen, and, if the order is a good one, the succession boxes could end up looking better, being more informative, and helping users find the headers they are looking for more easily in large succession boxes, as they will know where to find them.
• Parliament seats are not necessarily more important than government offices; should I do the comparison between the office of Governor-General of Canada and one of the hundreds of seats in the Canadian Parliament?
• Why should titles of nobility rank so high since they entail no power and are little more than honours? Besides, they are very different from the rest of the offices (being hereditary, having different naming conventions for predecessors and successors, etc.)

Thus, I wish to propose the following order of headers:

• Regnal titles, political offices and religious titles may each come first, depending on their relative importance, prominence, and influence. Regnal titles and political offices are usually incompatible, but if both are present priority should probably be given to regnal titles. Religious titles only come first if they are significant enough (the absence of the other two is also a contributor), as in the case of Popes and Patriarchs.
• Royalty headers should follow regnal titles and government offices should follow political offices; as s-reg and s-off are usually incompatible, s-roy and s-gov tend to follow the same path. However, if all of these are present, then royal titles should have precedence over government offices, and possibly over political offices.
• Parliamentary seats (s-par) should always come after regnal and royal titles and political and government offices (unless the government offices are rather unimportant), and before all other titles.
• If there are party political offices, they should follow parliamentary seats; if there are not parliamentary seats, they should follow the other governmental titles (political, government). Court titles, however, should have precedence over s-ppo, not only because they are direct appointments to the Household of the Monarch (and Head of State), as opposed to a mere political party, but also because some of them are often connected to Parliament.
• Diplomatic posts (s-dip), as directly connected to the Head of State (or, sometimes, to the government) and being of high importance, should be placed here, following, however, the previous titles because their duties are away from their countries. Legal posts (s-legal) may follow them or precede them, according to importance. These are the last offices of this list directly connected to the central government (apart from those in the military, which is, however, rather removed from the public eye)
• Religious titles (s-rel) are important and broad in their scope enough to rank above other, more local or specialised categories. Religious offices of exceptional importance, of course, should take up the first place (or one of the first places).
• Military offices (s-mil) and civil offices (s-civ) offer more specialised services than the spiritual guidance of religion (as they cater for the people's defence, safety, and health) and should thus come here. Though usually incompatible with each other, if they are both found in a succession box s-mil should precede s-civ (being more closely connected to the central government and their duties being nationwide as opposed to local).
• Academic offices (s-aca), cultural offices (s-culture), and heraldic offices (s-herald) are offices limited in their scope and should be the last public offices to be mentioned.
• Offices in the private sector should follow all public offices; due to the importance of media, media offices (s-media) should come before other business positions (s-bus).
• Other offices (s-other) is a residual category that should rank below substantial offices under proper headers (but above honorary titles, as these offices are still substantial). However, if it is decided that no offices whatsoever of the private sector should be classified as "other offices", it should precede s-media and s-bus.
• Honorary titles (s-hon) should rank below all other substantial offices.
• Titles of nobility and baronetcies (s-reg) are hereditary honours (the only hereditary honours, actually); their place after honorary titles seems fitting enough, and, as titles of nobility have no power associated with them (even their often substantial power in the Mediaeval era was not always formally but de facto derived from them), they should come after substantial titles.
• Orders of precedence (s-prec) should be just above Titles in pretence (s-pre) as precedence generally has a more formal official presence than a pretentious title. Titles in pretence should be the last offices/titles to be mentioned, following all of the real ones. Besides, most of the titles or offices above these can be in pretence, but none of those below can.
• Achievements should come last: awards (s-awards), sporting positions (s-sports), and records (s-record). I believe records should be placed last, but awards might follow sporting positions if these have to do with important positions like President of the IOC, as opposed to medalists or championship holders.

I still don't know where to put the order of precedence. I am sure it should be placed in one of the last slots, and maybe the very bottom of the box is indeed the most suitable position; another solution is to put it below titles of nobility.

I added it to the pretender line because it seems to fit there the best. It isn't a pretence, but it is nothing better really and half the time, the person is wishing they held a higher title. The only reason it should go above pretence is because pretence almost always has no power while a precedence at least means you get to be in line first.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 06:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Waltham, The Duke of 16:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

This order, as one may see, is a little British-centred; different conventions may have to be found for Continental Europe (if only because noblemen often exercised more power there than their British counterparts ever had).

This order is intended as a guideline; the relative placing of offices within the categories I have split them into is more flexible, and exceptional cases should always be modified to showcase the most important titles in a person's career first.

So...? What do you think? I will give you some time to take this in, but I am expecting thorough answers afterwards. Waltham, The Duke of 18:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it, but it is very confusing, especially for the guidelines page. I have been trying to make the guidelines page more concise and organized, yet I think these guidelines may throw a rookie to the street. I like the order and reasons, though, we just need a better wording for it all.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 06:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I will certainly change the wording; this is only the proposal, with explanations for the honourable members of this WikiProject to understand and ultimately endorse it. Of course it is confusing to newbies. I just wanted to know whether you folks support it. Waltham, The Duke of 16:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Surely a peerage title, which encompassed until 1999 the right to sit in the House of Lords for the remainder of one's natural life, rather do have some "power" associated with them. Before 1911, they had as much power associated with them as a seat in parliament, surely? And I don't think order of precedence should be a succession box at all. john k 21:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with John k that the peerage should be higher, especially since other countries definitely did have more powerful peerages during the middle ages and early modern periods. Regarding orders of precedence, I agree that they are completely worthless and can go on forever, however some users have spent a lot of time and effort completing those lists and I doubt we could ever actually remove them all, even if we reached a consensus.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

They should, if they must be there (and they really oughtn't to be), be in a separate box from the succession boxes, as they aren't succession boxes at all. In terms of peers, I have no particular feeling about where the box should go - I don't mind it going at the bottom. But I don't see why they should go at the bottom because of some supposed lack of importance. john k 01:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

• Point one: place of titles of nobility.

I thought more of a separation between offices and hereditary titles rather than an absolute order of importance. That is exactly why I have placed them after all offices. If you see the /Guidelines draft you will see we have divided headers into offices, hereditary titles, and distinctions. Besides, this is a working version of the order of headers; nobody's said this would have to fit all eras and all countries. As I have already mentioned, this is indeed guilty of being somewhat British-centred. But it is intended to be flexible, not rigid, so...

• Point two: orders of precedence.

True, orders of precedence do not fit our strictest definitions of succession boxes. But on the other hand, nor do families and marriages. In addition, the closest thing we have to orders of precedence is lines of succession, and nobody has mentioned they should be deleted.

All I am saying is, orders of precedence are loose succession chains, are of a certain importance (even ceremonial; let us not forget that these were more important in the past like many other things), are informational (matters of protocol are closely connected to precedence), and they are of interest to the reader (I find them fascinating myself, and they are an intriguing chain of links to follow). Plus, they are the only succession boxes that give the full styles of people (and not only peers), so in a way they complement the system. If you remember, one of the purposes of succession boxes is to summarise a person's career and titles.

And I utterly reject the possibility of a separate box, even with (and especially before) the wider template is enacted. A unified box is both the best thing in terms of appearance and it is more manageable; moreover, order of precedence succession boxes follows the same format as all other succession boxes anyway. I see no reason to separate them.

Waltham, The Duke of 02:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I will now mention that the lines of succession boxes ought to be deleted as well. john k 18:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, dear. Waltham, The Duke of 21:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Template:s-par change upr and lwr to sen and hs for United States headers

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The initial proposal to replace all cases of upr and lwr to sen and hs within United States legislative headers passed and was implemented. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Wider succession boxes

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal NOT Approved: I have closed voting on this proposal and labeled it as a failed proposal. While it seems some members wanted the more consistent look of this template change proposal, it seems others have noted that the change may damage other templates that WP:SBS does not monitor. On those grounds, I have closed this debate. The discussion has been archived at Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Failed proposals where it will remain indefinitely. Thank you to everyone who voted and keep at it!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I am expanding the baronets section in the /Guidelines draft...

...and I have a few questions about style issues mostly pertaining to them.

• Should we allow prefixes like "Sir", "Dame", "Lady", and "Lord" in succession boxes for peerages and baronetcies or not? It goes without saying that the Marquess of Winchester's successor should not be "The Marquess of Winchester", but what about secondary courtesy titles, baronetcies (for peerage boxes only), and knighthoods?

My impression is that all of them are excluded, and my opinion is that all of them should be excluded, but I would just like to clear this point.

• Is it a convention endorsed by this project to treat identically named baronets in the same way we treat peers with the same title? That is, if a person is preceded by, say, Sir John Smith, Bt, and is succeeded by another Sir John Smith, Bt, are we to add numerals? For this example, it would look like this:

Political offices
Preceded by Sir John Smith, 2nd baronet	Secretary of State for Succession Box Standardisation 1985 – 1997	Succeeded by Sir John Smith, 3rd baronet

Or is there another method of disambiguation? The above example reflects the guidelines stated in WikiProject Peerage, so some thought must have gone into it.

• What do you fellows think of the example of Denis Thatcher, namely the inclusion in the s-new field of the monarch who has created a new title? Maybe we should adopt it for peers and baronets? Maybe we should adopt it for baronets alone? Maybe not at all? Whatever it be, you cannot say that it is not an interesting alternative to the simple "New creation".

By the way, that "Sir" in Mark Thatcher's name seems to be completely wrong, since it is the baronetage that entitles him to that prefix. (Check for knighthood) The title field also seems to be erroneously formatted; see next point.

• How should we write the title in baronetcy boxes? There are two ways to do that, from what I have seen.
  • One of them is "Baronet for [area]", linking the word "Baronet" to the article for the baronetcy in question.
  • The other is "Baronet", and in a different line "(for [area])", again linking the word "Baronet" to the particular baronetcy article.

Is there any doubt as to which we should prefer? (WikiProject Peerage is suggesting the second one, and it seems more reasonable too, given that the proper title is just "Baronet".) Is there an alternative? Or should we just delete all succession boxes for baronetcies?

Waltham, The Duke of 07:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I think your example for John Smith is the right way to go. I'm not sure what you mean abot "for area". I generally think the "baronet" should be avoided, except in situations where it's necessary for disambiguation. john k 15:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I was talking about a different situation there. Just tell me which of the following you prefer.

This is the format supported by WikiProject Peerage...

Preceded by George Bracewell Smith

Baronet (of Keighley) 1976 – 1983

Succeeded by Charles Bracewell-Smith

and this is the alternative format:

Preceded by George Bracewell Smith

Baronet of Keighley 1976 – 1983

Succeeded by Charles Bracewell-Smith

I support the first format; the title is just "Baronet", while the rest is a territorial designation: complementary (and, in cases of multiple creations, disambiguation) information which should be less prominent. (The designation might also be italicised for aesthetic reasons?)

And please answer the rest of the questions as well. I do need some input. Waltham, The Duke of 17:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm largely indifferent. The first is fine. john k 17:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

As per Waltham's request, I am giving in my input. Overall I think that the format should be that of the dominant style of Britain, which in this case should be the first option, I believe, since Baronets are titles in themselves, with a location only as a courtesy addition. Therefore I think we should go with option 1 as listed above, within the guidelines draft.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 17:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I am also in favor of the first alternative. I definitely don't think that all baronetcy succession boxes should be deleted, and I don't think that "Sir" or "Dame" should be used. I also feel that "nth baronet" ought to be used only where disambiguation is necessary between two people with the same name. I don't think that including the monarch who created the title is necessary or particularly useful, but I might be convinced otherwise. Alkari (?) 22:27, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve of the first alternative. It's been our custom in both baronetage and peerage succession boxes to use only the first and last names, with no "Lord", "Sir", "Dame", courtesy titles, etc. I don't think numerals are necessary; those should be reserved for offices. Since baronetcies and peerages are held for life, it's obvious that the person preceding the subject is not the same as the one succeeding. I prefer the second style for the territorial designation, which really isn't an official part of the title, as I understand it. Choess 13:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input. I believe we have settled the following:

• Succession boxes for baronetcies and peerages should only give the name of the predecessors and successors and not any titles, prefixes, or post-nominals.
• The first option should be preferred for the title field of baronetcy succession boxes. Choess says she prefers the second style, but she justifies her preference in such a way that makes me think she might have made a mistake in her post; please correct me if I am wrong, Choess.

The following remain to be decided:

• Should we always include the post-nominals "Bt" and "Btss" when reference to Baronets/Baronetesses is made in succession boxes or the prefixes "Sir"/"Dame" suffice? I believe we should only include the post-nominals if we need them for disambiguation purposes, and Mr Kenney seems to agree with this approach.
• Should we adopt the numeral disambiguation method for baronets in non-baronetcy succession boxes? John Kenney and Alkari support it, while Choess seems to be against, although I do not understand why (it goes without saying that the numerals will not be used in baronetcy succession boxes); I myself believe it would be as useful as it is with peers, knowing that the same baronet may precede and succeed a person in an office almost as easily as two different baronets with the same name can. And we all know how often the same Christian name is (or at least has been) used for two, three, or even four baronets in a row.
• Should we make the creations of baronetcies a little more interesting and informative by adopting the following format in the predecessor field?

New title Granted by Queen Elizabeth II

Baronet (of Scotney) 1991 – 2003

Succeeded by Mark Thatcher

I've found this example in the article of Denis Thatcher and I quite like the idea; it gives a sense of the person's place in history by mentioning the monarch, and it underlines a possible link to the monarch in case the baronetcy was a reward for services to the Crown. It might be suitable for peerage boxes as well, although I highly doubt it.

Opinions are always welcome, of course. By the way, I was joking about the deletion of baronetcy boxes. Waltham, The Duke of 08:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

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.