Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 7

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Overlink

This template has the habit of linking common terms and expressions given certain common parameters, such as President, Prime Minister, Monarch and Governor contrary to WP:OVERLINK. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 20:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• Here's the diff. Changes demonstrated on testcases page. The changes only made a difference on the Tanganyika infobox. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 15:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple dates of start and end

Since there are former countries that existed multiple times, like Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1923 – 1940; 1956 – 1991) or Chechen-Inguish ASSR (1936 – 1944; 1957 – 1990), the template doesn't work in those. Can anyone find a solution? --Pudeo' 04:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I found a cheap solution just by adding the former date next to the earlier with <br/>1956–1991. But that won't fix the flag succession problem. --Pudeo' 04:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Status text box controversies: proposal for RfC on whether to keep or remove the status text

The status text box has become a subject of controversy at Talk:East Germany by a number of users, including me. The status text is typically used to say that a certain state or territory was a client state, protectorate, or vassal state of another - while including such material in the article is acceptable, the inclusion of this in the status text box has caused serious problems.

• Number (1): the status text box assumes that the categorization of such states and territories is simple, when it is very complex in international relations;
• Number (2): the status text box is too small to allow for explanation of the status, and implies that the status is a completely accepted fact, when it may not be - or as indicated in Number (1), it may be more complex than that.
• Number (3): in addition to it assuming simplicity of international relations and it being too small to allow for explanation, it is a potentially unnecessary repetition of a statement that could be made in the intro with additional statements as evidence for it.

I could probably identify more problems if I thought more about it, but these are the three major problems with the status text. I support the removal of the status text box from the infobox. However I support having an RfC on the matter, I would appreciate it if an administrator could be brought in to organize and draft an appropriate RfC that asks whether users "support" or "oppose" a proposition to remove the status text box for the reasons given above in my statement and other reasons that other users may provide.--R-41 (talk) 02:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

In some cases it is useful, which is why it is an optional field. Empires and confederations break apart, colonies gain independence, mandates end, etc. One would expect editors to have sufficient competance not to misuse the field. TFD (talk) 05:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm basically in agreement with R-41. I'm more pessimistic than TFD about the competence of editors. It's just too tempting for a single editor to use the field to state as bald fact an assertion which should be qualified with details (and can be in the body of the article). This can lead to complicated, ugly disputes as at Talk:East Germany. My belief is that the infobox should be used for clear, basic facts like the area, population or dates of a country. Dingo1729 (talk) 18:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• On consideration I think the real problem here is that the parameter is called "status" even though it's only meant to be used for colonies. The parameter should be renamed "imperial-state-type". This would ensure against possible misuse. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 16:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

  It looks like there's a variety of views about this, but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus. I'll deactivate {{editprotected}} for now. Tra (Talk) 02:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Number of entries

Is this limited? I entered more than 9 leaders in Kingdom of Pontus but it is only recognising the first 9 --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request: Commonwealths as a form of Republic

The term Commonwealth is (as its article explains) often used to describe a kind of republic, but in contexts where the use of the word "Republic" in the government_type field would be inaccurate and controversial (such as The Protectorate).

As such, after line 182:

  |Republic|Federal Republic|Federal republic=[[Republic]]
 {{#if:{{{_noautocat|<noinclude>yes</noinclude>}}}|| [[Category:Former republics|{{{common_name}}}, {{{year_start}}}]]}}

, in the {{#if:{{{government_type|}}}|{{#switch:{{ucfirst:{{{government_type}}}}} section, please add a new line reading:

  |Commonwealth|[[Commonwealth]]=[[Commonwealth]]
 {{#if:{{{_noautocat|<noinclude>yes</noinclude>}}}|| [[Category:Former republics|{{{common_name}}}, {{{year_start}}}]]}}

(I've wrapped both instances of this text for legibility, there should be a single space, rather than a line break in the middle.) This will enable the text Commonwealth to be displayed in these instances, but for the article to be added to the category Category:Former republics and not to Category:Former country articles requiring maintenance. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so sure... looking at that article, a commonwealth isn't always a type of republic so I'm not getting why you would want to categorise them like that. What about having a separate category for commonwealths, or renaming the category to clarify that it covers both types? Tra (Talk) 07:47, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparent formatting problem with caption

See the results of this edit. It seems to me that the caption should be left justified, not centered. I'm not a CSS jock, though, and I'm on the road without my O'Reilly books and without the time to track down info on how to fix this online. Could someone please take a look at it? Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:11, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

This template is incorrectly translating English colonies = British colonies

I am a bit horrified to find that Wikipedia is claiming Roanoke Colony to have been a "British colony" (sic). This is complete pants, as any reliable est ref will tell you. I have just discovered that it is this template causing the cock-up. It is translating Empire=England into British colony instead of English colony. The actual article text correctly pipes to the correct article:

• English colonial empire

Please rectify this fault, as WP:VERIFY is an official policy here at Wikipedia. --Mais oui! (talk) 17:02, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I also note that it is incorrectly adding Category:Former British colonies instead of the correct Category:Former English colonies.--Mais oui! (talk) 17:04, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done I have, I believe, made the change the behavior when the "empire" parameter is "England". These changes seemed straightforward and appear to produce the correct results at Roanoke Colony, let's see if they cock anything else up.  ;-) If there are other problems, feel free to revert me (if you can), make another request, and/or ask me directly. --joe decker^{talk to me} 22:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Readability, why not <OL><LI>...</LI></OL>?

Using hyphens to bullet events ("- {{{") makes for poor readability because wrapped text extends all the way to the left of the respective column, obscuring and overpowering the bullet. Is there some reason that unordered (or ordered) lists aren't used for mark-up? Or at least a proper bullet character to stand out more? VєсrumЬа ►TALK 17:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Remove categorisation?

WP:TEMPLATECAT recommends against using templates to categorise articles. The current situation makes it difficult for editors to properly manually categorise articles. Shouldn't this feature be removed (after direct substitution of the categories in each article)? --Paul_012 (talk) 08:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes please remove. There are often categories generated by it (Former something) that are not correct. Imperium Romanum Sacrum (talk) 01:36, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I am also troubled by the opaque manner in which categories are added using this infobox. __meco (talk) 09:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem

There is problem with this template on this page: Government of National Salvation. I try to fix problem, but one aggressive editor revert my changes all time: [1]. Problem is that if life span is described in infobox then infobox include this page into categories “States and territories established in 1941” and “States and territories disestablished in 1944”. This page speak about government and not about state or territory. Is there a way to remove this page from wrong categories without remove of life span from infobox? How this problem can be fixed? Nemambrata (talk) 15:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

I'm currently working with the article Roman Empire, on which this template appears. I'd like to make two minor suggestions aimed at improving reader-friendliness.

• To mark items in a list that may contain date ranges with an en-dash, the use of the hyphen - instead of a bullet · is visually confusing. I wonder whether editors would consider using the bullet instead?
• The sections would be less confusing if they employed parallelism of construction: that is, some two-column sections have the dates on the right, and some have the dates on the left. At Roman Empire, I find this very confusing both to read and to attempt to edit.

I'm not at all adept with template syntax, so I would rather not attempt these changes in such a widely used box, both because it might require consensus and because I don't want to screw it up. Thank you for your consideration. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Life span?

Life span? should be removed as an unfixable parameter.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 15:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes it should. And what about this page - Government of National Salvation. that infobox is there, but that article was not country and infobox place it in categories for former countries. is there some better infobox for former government? Nemambrata (talk) 12:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Multiple flags

Many countries changed their flags over time, so having just one parameter is quite restrictive. Template:Infobox country can handle more than one flag, even though it deals with a present entity. Is there a simple way to alter the code here to get multiple flags? If not, perhaps the coding from Infobox country can just be copied over to replace the Flag/CoA code here. Seems to produce the same result. CMD (talk) 04:31, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I've added this functionality to the sandbox code, see the example of New Caledonia's infobox using it here. Here's a diff of the changes I've made. The testcases all seem to be working. TDL (talk) 09:11, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

 Question: Updating from the sandbox would introduce a few unrelated changes - see this diff. Is this intentional? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 10:14, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Marking request as answered for now. Please reactivate the template when you respond. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 11:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

No, those are just a consequence of the sandbox not being synced before I made my edits. I've updated the sandbox so it can just be copy and pasted over to the main template now. TDL (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done Ok, I've updated the template now. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 02:54, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I've updated the documentation and test cases accordingly. TDL (talk) 03:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

There were also some countries that have used different emblems. Could anyone add Image_coat2 for this? thanks. Dirrival (talk) 07:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Dutch East Indies

Some arcane bug in template language is making this template malfunction when called in page Dutch East Indies: it makes a line "[[Category:Former colonies|Dutch East Indies, Dutch Empire]]" appear before the infobox. The result seems to depend on the contents of the parameter "empire". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:12, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

 [2] Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:40, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Version with linewrap handling

Hello. I noticed this template didn't have the same sort of linewrap handling for data following dashes (years or event names) as Infobox country, so I've tried to incorporate it in the version of the template here. If its accepted, I'll revist those pages I've seen with this template where manual attempts have been made to handle linewrapping (e.g. "<br/>{{nbsp|3}}") and amend accordingly. 213.246.114.240 (talk) 19:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I've just discovered the "Edit protected" template [...]

To make the edit, the code in this section (everything before the "Hello. I noticed this template..." message) should replace the code the template apart from the final three lines, which should be:

|}<noinclude>

{{documentation}}
</noinclude>

Hope that makes sense. 213.246.114.240 (talk) 18:22, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done I've updated the template. This looks like a big improvement - thank you for your work! I've also removed the template text from your comment above, as it clutters up the page when people are looking at the wikitext. For next time, you can put code like this in the template sandbox, and check out the changes on the test cases page. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 10:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for making the edit and for pointing out the sandbox and test-cases page – I'll look for those if/when I next feel the urge to update a template. I'll now start amending those places where I've seen this template's linewrapping being handled manually. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 18:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

---

I've just found an instance uncovering an error in the template: Tuvan People's Republic (see the "Government" area). Hopefully, this is now fixed in the version in the template sandbox. (As well as the Tuvan People's Republic example, the examples on the test-cases page seem okay.) Apologies for the mistake. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 18:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, the three instances of "colspan=2" in the protected Template:Infobox former country/autocat each need to be replaced with "colspan=3" if this subtemplate(?) is to work correctly. Alternatively, they could be removed and the start of the line " | {{ns0|{{Infobox former country/autocat [etc] " near the very end of the code for Infobox former country changed to " |{{!}}colspan="3"{{!}} {{ns0|{{Infobox former country/autocat [etc] ". This should achieve the same result while making it easier to amend the colspan in future. Sorry not to notice before. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 23:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I've put the infobox from Tuvan People's Republic onto the test cases page, and everything looks to be working. I can't update it right now though as I am using my alternative (non-admin) account. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{(have a chat)} 02:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping me updated. I've since found a couple more similar misfires, so, once the corrected version is in place, there'll be a better test to check all is in order. The version in the sandbox remains intact (I added the pointer "Scroll down for this template's documentation.") 213.246.91.158 (talk) 04:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done. I've updated the main template from the sandbox version. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 09:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

p.s. Don't forget to update the documentation if there's anything new to add there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 09:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. I've just looked at Tuvan People's Republic and the other misfires I found and all now seems to be okay. Hopefully, there are no more gremlins waiting to emerge. Nothing's changed as regards what the template can show or how to use it, so I'll leave the documentation as is. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 17:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

---

I spoke too soon, I'm afraid – I'd overlooked fixing the problem with another of the possible entries in the template's "Government" area (the "deputy" parameters). Now fixed in the sandbox version. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I've also just added parameters to handle lettered footnotes (footnote_a, footnote_b, ...footnote_h) to the sandbox version and tested it successfully with examples such as used in Bophuthatswana. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 04:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done Ok, I've updated the main template. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 04:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again. I've just updated the documentation and will now start checking/updating those pages I know will be affected. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 06:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

---

Sorry to disturb again – and the following is subtle but can be noticeable – but I've just left a version in the sandbox (with summary "caption padding") where use of the lettered footnotes doesn't slightly increase the gap between the dashes and subsequent data. As the summary suggests, it also includes a little padding to stop any caption used with the image_map option from touching the sides of the template. If this sandbox version becomes current, I think all should be well. 213.246.91.158 (talk) 02:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 10:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! 213.246.91.158 (talk) 15:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Centuries

From looking at a few examples, it seems as though if a country was established or disestablished in a particular century, but a more precise year is unknown, the century is entered into the year_start or year_end field. This adds it to the correct category; however, the lifespan at the top is formatted incorrectly. It appears as, for example, "5th century–6th century", which looks bad and doesn't comply with MOS:DATE. It should be "5th century – 6th century" with a non-breaking space before the en-dash. If you added a new parameter for centuries (in addition to the current date and year ones), it could solve this problem. Rather than having to enter "5th century" into the year parameter, one could just enter "5" into the century parameter. Although, you'd also need some capability of specifying BCE if necessary. I don't know how the template works, but these extra parameters could simplify the automatic categories as well. McLerristarr | Mclay1 07:44, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Multiple start and end dates

Infobox example

Prince-Bishopric of Liège Principauté de Liége (fr) Prinsbisdom Luik (nl) Fürstbistum Lüttich (de) Principåté d' Lidje (wa) 980–1789, 1791-1792, 1793-1795 Flag Coat of arms The Prince-Bishopric of Liège around 1350. Status Ecclesiastic state of the Holy Roman Empire Capital Liège Common languages French, Dutch, German, Walloon Religion Roman Catholicism Government Principality Prince-Bishop   • 340s–384 Saint Servatius (first bishop, at Maastricht) • approximately 670-700 Saint Lambert (at Maastricht) • 972–1008 Notger (first prince-bishop) • 1792–94 François-Antoine-Marie de Méan (last) Historical era Middle Ages • Creation of diocese 340s • Secular powers obtained 980 • Purchased Lordship     of Bouillon 1096 • Annexed Cty Loon 1366 • Acquired Cty Horne 1568 • Liège Revolution 1789–91 • Annexed by France 1789, 1791-1792, 1793-1795 • Concordat accepts dissolution of Bishopric 10 September 1801 Succeeded by French First Republic Today part of Belgium France Germany Netherlands

Hello, I've been trying to sort out the article for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège which ended in 1789, was reestablished in 1791, annexed by the French in 1792, lost and restablished in 1793 and finally annexed again in 1795. Unfortunately this is causing some problems with the template (end event). Could there be an end_date 2 (etc) like there is in the French language one? --Brigade Piron (talk) 16:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

• Hello, Brigade Piron – I have little experience with this template, but, if you look at where it's transcluded in other articles here on Holy Roman Empire states, I think you may find the solution (or a solution, at least). Good luck, CsDix (talk) 17:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Great! It turned out that |life_span was what I needed... ---Brigade Piron (talk) 19:52, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

CfD

This CfD recommended that the disestablishment categories for the 970s all be Category:States and territories disestablished in the 970s and not individual years. Could someone implement this? — Train2104 (talk • contribs) 22:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

native_name breaks {{efn}}

All {{efn}} tags on the same line as "native_name =" will show nothing in their hover boxes. The only workaround is to put a carriage return between the equal sign and affected content — as all text on a following lines loses the parameter's styling. I have not observed this behaviour in other parameters (such as life_span).

I am trying to solve this, but I have little experience with wiki-language used to create templates. Any ideas?
—Sowlos 09:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No; I was wrong. The workaround is actually preceding the content with an efn containing a named <ref> already declared further down the page.
—Sowlos 09:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No Demonym parameter, please add.

There appears to be no "Demonym" parameter on this template. May somebody be as so kind as to add it? Thanks! Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 12:40, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Changes needed asap

Please can someone who understands this template adjust it to merge the below categories before someone who doesn't tries? Thanks in advance. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I've thrown something together at User:Danlaycock/sandbox to replace the code currently at {{Infobox former country/autocat}}. You can see it in action at {{Infobox former country/testcases}}. It automagically detects the most precise category currently in existence. So, if the user enters year_start=321 BC, it first looks to place the article in Category:States and territories established in 321 BC. If that does not exist, it looks for Category:States and territories established in the 320s BC. And if that doesn't exit, it uses Category:States and territories established in the 4th century BC. Once this code goes live, you should be able to just delete the cats, and the template will figure where to re-cat the articles. If there are no objections, I'll copy the new code over so we can make it go live. TDL (talk) 04:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Logical solution. The long term risk is that someone can create the problem in the future by simply adding the categories. Not sure that is a reason not to implement your change. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:53, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Then deletion of recreated material would take care of that poblem. Best to go ahead with this change. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I've copied the update over, so you should be able to go ahead and delete the cats now. However, you might have to purge the individual pages to get them to rebuild and re-cat. TDL (talk) 07:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)