Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 4

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Some help please?

I'd like to use Template: Infobox Former Country in the New Hebrides article, but it doesn't work quite right because it doesn't allow for a territory being a colony of two countries rather than one. How can I solve this problem? Can anyone help me? Btn551 (talk) 03:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The New Hebrides was a condominium shared between Britain and France. Condominiums are presently classified as "Special territory". For an example of a condominium with an infobox see Moresnet. Categories for Former British and French colonies can be added separately. -- Domino theory (talk) 11:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Top level domain and other codes

It seems that this template lacks former ISO country code, top level internet domain code (TLD), telephone calling code and maybe others. Do you think that these codes should be in the infobox or in the article text? --pabouk (talk) 09:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Since only a small number of former countries would have this information, the template does indeed not have this information, and there are currently no plans to add them. At the moment, it has been standard to place these as footnotes within the infobox (e.g. see Soviet Union). - 52 Pickup (deal) 10:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

New parameters align Firefox/MSIE boxstyle and titlestyle

08-April-2008: To allow customization of the title-bar and the infobox background, I have added 2 new parameters inside the style="xxx" properties lists. The style can be changed either for the whole infobox or also for the title/name area:

• the whole infobox uses style="... {{{boxstyle|}}}" and
• the title/name section uses style="... {{{titlestyle|}}}"

For example, using titlestyle=background:lightgray will set the background color behind the name data. Also, using boxstyle=left-margin:1px will re-align the infobox for similarity in both browsers Firefox and MS Internet Explorer (MSIE). Maintaining similar formatting between Firefox and MSIE is all very complicated, so adjusting the style properties helps: view the article "Kingdom of Gwynedd" in both browsers to note the shift of the infobox. Adjusting the infobox style in other browsers might help maintain similarity in those browsers as well. Only 2 lines inside the template were changed (just below "Infobox proper begins") to implement the new parameters. I tested the changes in my user space before copying into the live template. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Customisation of infobox colours was discussed long ago and rejected. Infoboxes are aimed towards standardisation of articles, not individual decoration. {{Infobox Country}} does not have such a feature, so neither should this template. Give people the option to change colours and that opens up a whole new mess of problems with the template's usage (and abuse). And the purple and green currently used for the Gwynedd article is, well, awful. It is true that there is a shift in part of the infobox when using IE, and I have not yet been able to come up with a lasting solution, but allowing individual customisation does not appear to be the answer, and is likely to create more problems than it solves.

Fixing drift: yes please. Further customisation: absolutely not. - 52 Pickup (deal) 06:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The purple and green for the Kingdom of Gwynedd has been changed to purple and metalic gold. Also, the Principality of Wales displays green and metalic gold, while the kingdom of Powys. The kingdom of Deheubarth may most likely be blue and gold. o be truthful, the idea that editors should not be entrusted to edit a country box is shortsighted. Adding color to the info box allows for standardized information to be given while also stimulating the eye with well constructed colorful borders and titles. Why else was it allowed that templates for Islands may allow this? It distinguishes the info box.♦Drachenfyre♦·Talk 03:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Not short-sighted, just experience. And there's a difference between stimulating the eye and distracting the reader from the article text, which is always more important than any infobox. Well-constructed borders and titles are great, but with this change, they are not well-constructed and look rather amateurish. Perhaps there is a way to improve the appearance, but this isn't it. A similar discussion is taking place over at Template talk:Infobox Country#Wales country specific infobox so, to prevent duplication, I suggest that discussion should continue there. 52 Pickup (deal) 07:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Just raising my objection over the use of colours in this infobox. I would urge a revert whilst we discuss per WP:BRD. --Jza84 |  Talk  13:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

{{Infobox Country}} was reverted. Hence, so should this box. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 20:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Portuguese Timor

There are some issues explained on the talk page. A user is hoping to modify the template because (as I understand it, I'm not involved) it does not have enough parameters to show how Portuguese Timor was not a formal colony during part of its occupation. I'm sure he/she can explain it better for you, but I told the user I would ask. Thanks! SGGH ^speak! 21:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Image map caption

Hello, is there a way to increase the size of the text contained in the "image_map_caption". The legend at Moresnet is currently practically unreadable. Cheers, Str1977 ^(talk) 13:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I used a couple <Big> </Big> tags and rigged it to work. Hope that helps. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 04:08, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Thanks. Str1977 ^(talk) 23:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Before-after doesn't work

The before-after of ALL former countries - if there are more than one of either -- do not show up. Clicking on the arrow does nothing but add "#before-after" to the URL. This seems to be a problem only on those infoboxes with more than four successors or predecessors. Rcduggan (talk) 21:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I also am experiencing the same problem, if there are multiple successors or predacessors, nothing appears when clicking the arrow.--R-41 (talk) 22:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

From digging through the code, it looks like the template was designed to only display 4 before/afters. If 5 or more were entered, the template would insert an arrow down and try to redirect the reader to a section called "before-after". Problem was if that section didn't exist, nothing would happen. It is up to an editor to create that section in the article and somehow place information with that section; the infobox will not do that automatically. I thought that no one would name a section with a lowercase letter so I changed the code to "Before-after" (it can be reverted if needed). Please, see Kingdom of Italy. It's the best that I could come up with and it took a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. Good Luck. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 04:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The arrow thing used to work perfectly. Someone changed the coding or something because now the before-and-after section is a disaster and just plain irritating. Could someone PLEASE revert the coding to the latest time when the before-and-after sections worked.--R-41 (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Reverted —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 00:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

It still isn't working, I guess either it's going to have to be reverted farther back in time.--R-41 (talk) 23:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

There haven't been any changes in the history that would seem to cause any problems. Try doing a "forced reload" to clear your cache by holding down shift and clicking reload and repeat a couple of times. That may help. Also, where is the problem occurring? —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 02:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Extra }}??

I'm not sure but there may be an extra set of close curly brackets here:

    |Afroeurasia= ... [[Category:Former monarchies}}|{{{common_name}}}, {{{year_start}}}]]

at [[Category:Former monarchies>>>}}<<<

Aflin (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Former countries of Indonesia

Could someone add this, please :

|Indonesia = {{#if:{{{_noautocat|<noinclude>yes</noinclude>}}}||[[Category:Former countries in Indonesia history|{{{common_name}}}, {{{year_start}}}]]}}

aday^(talk) 18:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

You should bring this up at the Indonesia project - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indonesia --Merbabu (talk) 00:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Bug in calling code

The code dealing with calling codes in this template is buggy.

{{#if:{{{calling_code|}}} |<!--then:
     -->
          {{!}} '''[[List of country calling codes|Calling code]]'''
          <td>[[+{{{calling_code}}}]]}}
             {{#ifexist:{{{calling_code_note|}}} |<!--then:
          <td>   {{{calling_code_note}}}
}}

The problems are:

• the second then comment is not closed i.e. needs --> before the second td (or just delete the comment)
• the ifexist call lacks closing braces i.e. needs }} after {{{calling_code_note}}}

This is quite a big problem because it breaks the template for any countries with > 5 predecessor/successor states. Could an admin administer the fix? Revised code:

{{#if:{{{calling_code|}}} |<!--then:
     -->
          {{!}} '''[[List of country calling codes|Calling code]]'''
          <td>[[+{{{calling_code}}}]]}}
             {{#ifexist:{{{calling_code_note|}}} |<!--then:-->
          <td>   {{{calling_code_note}}} }}
}}

Foobaa (talk) 05:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Done You've also got a brace imbalance, as shown by the two extra braces floating over the top of the template, that you might want to track down. Happy‑melon 09:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Revision 2

{{editprotected}} OK this was slightly wrong: it should be

{{#if:{{{calling_code|}}} |<!--then:
     -->
          {{!}} '''[[List of country calling codes|Calling code]]'''
          <td>[[+{{{calling_code}}}]]
             {{#ifexist:{{{calling_code_note|}}} |<!--then:-->
          <td>   {{{calling_code_note}}} }}
}}

i.e. delete the two braces after [[+{{{calling_code}}}]]. I have to say that the more I look at this code the less sense it makes — why use ifexist here? And I don't think that the td there is a good idea. Anyway, this will fix the floating braces. Foobaa (talk) 16:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done PeterSymonds (talk) 20:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

stray mark

Can someone remove the stray }} on the top of the form please. – Kaihsu (talk) 13:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The inclusions are so baroque that it is nearly impossible to debug. – Kaihsu (talk) 13:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Too brackets are visible in Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. There's a post on extra brackets above. But removing those after former monarchies doesn't remove them. Cenarium ^Talk 13:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems to have been sorted. Cheers. – Kaihsu (talk) 09:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Merger with Infobox Former Subdivision?

Could someone merge {{Infobox Former Subdivision}} into this infobox? They are practically identical save for the status line and few automatically generated categories. This infobox seems to be well-maintained while subdivision box not so much. There could be a parameter like "type=country/subdivision" that would decide the different treatment of the few items. Any takers? (I am no good at this super-complicated coding). Renata (talk) 04:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Charter/Constitution/Foundational document?

This template is being used by League of Nations, and I thought it might be nice to include the Covenant of the League of Nations in the infobox.

Could we include fields like:
constitution type = Charter
constitution name = Covenant of the League of Nations

Thanks, TheMightyQuill (talk) 16:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Code Line : 597

I think there is a quotation mark missing and double styling in this code:

{{{!}} width=100% style="text-align:center; margin:0 auto; style="border:0;"

I thought we should delete second "style=""

Mmehdi.g (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Broken flag link

Please help Could someone take a look at All-Palestine Government and fix the flag link either in the article or this template? It presently links to the dab Flag of Palestine. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

This is in fact still true. It does still link to the same title but this has been worked-around by making that title redirect to the intended article. Still sounds like the tail wagging the dog, and it won't always be feasible, so we should add some way to over-ride the default target of the "Flag" link. — CharlotteWebb 16:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Please replace a PNG with an SVG

{{editprotected}} Please replace all instances of Image:Blank.png with Image:3by2white.svg. Thanks in advance. It Is Me Here (talk) 17:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Replace a blank PNG with a blank SVG that renders as a blank PNG? Um why? This seems like a pointless exercise. Dragons flight (talk) 19:03, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just thought that converting to SVG should be done wherever possible, and as it won't do any harm here, it should be done. It Is Me Here (talk) 07:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Converting to SVG is contigent on the SVG being superior to the PNG. They are indistiguishable, both in appearance and in usability, so there is no point. Dragons flight (talk) 07:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, OK, I'll wait for a third person to comment; if it's a no, then it's a no. Also, I added {{editprotected}} now; I'd forgotten to do so earlier. It Is Me Here (talk) 09:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not going to be upset if this is changed. It's just that I think it is a silly thing to spend one's time doing. Dragons flight (talk) 10:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to decline this. In this case, SVG is not superior. --- RockMFR 17:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Typo

{{editprotected}} Just a small error:

{{#if:{{{p14|}}} | {{!}}style="border:0; padding:0; vertical-align:middle;"{{!}} {{#if:{{{flag_p14|}}}|[[Image:{{{flag_p14}}}|20px|border]]|{{#if:{{{image_p14|}}}|{{{image_p14}}}|[[Image:Blank.png|20px|border]]}}}} {{!}}style="border:0; padding:0; vertical-align:middle; text-align:left;"{{!}} [[{{{p12}}}]]}} {{!}}-

the p12 on the last line should read p14

CS⁴⁶ 23:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. Good catch! --Elonka 01:28, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Fix broken table structure

{{editprotected}}

The map2 row is colspanned 3, instead of 2. Since the infobox is now protected and I can't edit it any more, could someone fix this, please? — OwenBlacker | Discussion 19:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Done - Rjd0060 (talk) 15:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

UNLINKDATES

The instructions for date_start and date_end say: "These dates are automatically wikilinked so it does not matter it you say "10 April" of "April 10" – your personal “Date and Time” preferences will display the date the way you want to see it." So the infobox at Kingdom of Iceland, for instance, has wikilinked start and end dates. Doesn't that conflict with WP:UNLINKDATES? Art LaPella (talk) 18:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:UNLINKDATES is still under discussion. I'd suggest no change should be made until a final decision has been arrived at. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

In any case, the date_start, date_end, year_start and year_end parameters should be replaced by start and end (or era_start and era_end) parameters. Thus the formatting, U.S. or International, linked or unlinked, could be decided in articles using the template, instead of in the template. The way the template works now, it inserts a comma between the date and the year, regardless of format. LarRan (talk) 08:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Irony

{{editprotected}} Please unprotect this template or remove the blatantly misleading "constant development" banner. Or, if you want to make a serious change, see line 171 and 185:  –  should be changed to: – because the n-ndash should not be spaced when used with years only, only with more specific dates (see WP:YEAR, WP:ENDASH). — CharlotteWebb 19:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

If I do get anyone's attention, could they also address the backlog of unresolved issues above:

• #transcluding categorization is evil
• #Broken flag link
• #Please replace a PNG with an SVG
• #Code Line : 597

Thanks, I guess. — CharlotteWebb 19:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Of the "backlog of unresolved issues", only one is still valid — #Code Line : 597. The category transclusion is up for discussion (personally, I would strongly support the status quo, as otherwise Former Countries are going to be very inconsistently categorised), the broken flag link has been resolved by a change to the page Flag of Palestine and the issue #Please replace a PNG with an SVG has been rejected (and rightly so, imho; whilst SVG use should be encouraged over PNG, a blank SVG, which is converted to a blank PNG by Mediawiki, is not an intrinsic improvement and is not worth doing, imho).

That said, I strongly support this template no longer being protected; I disagree with the rationale for having protected it in the first place, particularly as someone who had made a fair few edits to it in the past. If it needs casual protection, I would support semi-protection. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Disabled request. tl;dr. Seriously. I'd be happy to unprotect this template and let you all edit it, except it actually is heavily transcluded, so that's not really an option. Throw some content in the Template:Infobox Former Country/sandbox and I'll happily sync the page. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

"Too long, didn't read"?! Then why didn't you just leave it for someone else to do? It wasn't even all that long!

I'll summarise for you, then:

1. Several issues mentioned by CharlotteWebb are controversial or have already been done.
2. One issue is still outstanding and is uncontroversial — #Code Line : 597. Any chance you could do that one, please?

I absolutely have to disagree on it "not really [being] an option" to unprotect a heavily-transcluded template. Wikipedia has been getting increasingly paranoid about all sorts of things of late, and semi-protected isn't necessarily a bad state for a relatively high-use template, if there are people watching it. Though that's another issue for another time. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 08:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could, like, enable the stable versions extension and worry a bit less about who might vandalize what at any given time. — CharlotteWebb 16:53, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

 Not done #Code Line : 597 appears to have been already fixed. There is no consensus for other changes. Ruslik (talk) 13:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Infobox width - German Empire

How can you change the width of the Infobox so that the countries which preceded / succeeded are not squashed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazzyjones45 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Problems with ref tag

I've got a "ref" tag within the stat_pop1 attribute, but am getting some gibberish in the output. Please see the Democratic Republic of Armenia article's infobox. Any help is appreciated. Thank you. Serouj (talk) 23:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Certain fields (like that one) must have RAW NUMBERS only because they are capable of doing calculations. For example, with that field, "stat_pop1", if the area was entered, the population density could be calculated as it is with this example: Czechoslovakia. Good Luck. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 15:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Start/end year

Is it possible to make the start/end year optional? In the case of Mongol Empire for example, there is significant disagreement about its end year, and possible candidates include 1260, 1271, 1294, 1368, 1370 and 1635. I'm aware that the start/end years are automatically used to assign this entity to establishment/disestablishment categories, but in such case there is no real consensus on when it was disestablished. Thanks.--Choulin (talk) 23:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, assigning categories as a side effect of an infobox template is a patently bad idea. Besides breaking the search function, the above example and the Roman Empire demonstrate the reasons quite clearly. Please remove the auto-categorisation and assign categories to the articles manually, as it is done pretty much everywhere else. --Latebird (talk) 01:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The automatic categorisation seems to work well in most cases, though. Would an extra parameter to omit the category in the minority of cases where it is incorrect or unwanted be a good alternative? Coyets (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Only if your idea of "working quite well" is compatible with breaking the search function. While I admit that the possibility is tempting, it has strong undesirable side effects. Don't get fooled just because most people simply won't notice what's missing. --Latebird (talk) 21:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Century establishment categories

Alot of the articles with this template tend to have redlinked century establishment categories. Please fix this by editing the template to "century establishments" (like Category:4th century establishments) rather than "Century establishments" (like Category:4th Century establishments). --Toussaint (talk) 04:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

In the template, the year_start is used as a display and to place the article in the category year_start establishments. However, if only the century of the start or establishment is known, as for instance in the article Lavo kingdom, the year_start is entered as 7th century, which is used as a display in the infobox to produce 7th century – 1388, but places the article in the category 7th century establishments, whereas the correct category should be Category:7th-century establishments, hyphenated because 7th-century is being used as an adjective. Obviously, year_start should not be changed to 7th-century in the article, because the display in the infobox would then be wrong. So this template should be changed so that, when a century rather than a year is entered in year_start, the hyphen should be added automatically to the category. Another example is Rouran, in which year_start has incorrectly been entered as '4th Century' rather than '4th century'. If this were to be corrected, the article would be placed in the Category:4th century establishments, whereas the correct category would be Category:4th-century establishments with a hyphen. My knowledge of template syntax is insufficient to be able to make the change myself. Coyets (talk) 09:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC) Apart from that, I am not an administrator, and therefore would not be allowed to replace the space before 'century' with a hyphen when automatically categorising, even if I knew how to do it. Coyets (talk) 07:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

largest cities

is it possible to add a box for the largest cities with population to the template? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizso (talk • contribs) 21:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposing microformats upgrade

These changes ought to be have no visible or impact on the article's wikipedia behavior. What does change is their behavior in browsers that recognize the Microformat information that would be exposed by your infobox if these innocuous alterations are made. To see this new behavior, install Firefox's free Operator toolbar, and visit page Gojoseon a google map icon should be activated on your toolbar. This will take you to the capital of this Former country. Information on the beginning and end of the country are also exposed to internet applications. To see this, select on Options->data formats, and check the debug mode checkbox. In the article, you can select toolbar Events.Gojoseon.Debug. This will display the date exposed (actually, these are BC dates, although the display doesn't indicate this fact on this screen).

The changes may be seen by doing a diff (show changes) from User:J_JMesserly/Infobox_test and what is now the current version of the template. The only changes are the addition of "vcard vevent" to the infobox class, and "fn org summary" to the class of the cell that mentions the topic of the infobox. These table classes are recognized by add ons like Operator. Embedded templates like {{start-date}} and {{address}} expose time and place information. Microformats functionality like the find using Google/Yahoo/Mapquest button will be native in most major browsers (Both Firefox and IE have announced this). This part of an effort to prepare WP for supporting this functionality in advance of this mainstream support for these sorts of features. Thanks. -J JMesserly (talk) 23:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia already has - and has had for almost two years - microformat support, as you know, and as outlined at the microformats project. Most suitable infoboxes (although not yet this one) emit hCard microformats. Please try to collaborate with those of us already working on microformats. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Please show that there is some harm by the changes I have suggested. I can show benefits as I have at the the admin incidents board. Please do not damage the demo example of these changes at Gojoseon so that infobox authors may evaluate the merits of my proposal. If they don't want to make the upgrade, then of course there is no reason to keep my edits. Fair enough? -J JMesserly (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The harm is in the emission of inaccurate, bogus, metadata. In this case, the lifespan of a country is not a single event. Its creation is one event, its ending another. The former is already catered for in the hCard microformat; the latter will be by the pending addition of a "death-date" property to the parent vCard specification. If you wish to make a demonstration of your proposals, please do so in a sandbox. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

You have not demonstrated harm. What concretely does the user see, or cannot do because of this harm you assert? If it is some unfelt harm, why can the resolution of this harm not be deferred until such time as it does exhibit real harm? -J JMesserly (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

These issues are addressed above; and in our discussions elsewhere. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

{undent)Perhaps you misunderstood. Concretely, can you explain what harm is done to an article with the proposed change? What is the user of wikipedia not able to to that they could do before? How does this "damage" affect the user of wikipedia? I'm sorry, but if you cannot demonstrate harm, then there is no valid objection. -J JMesserly (talk) 07:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

These issues are addressed above; and in our discussions elsewhere. I am not prepared to allow you to tie up my time by demanding that I answer substantively the same questions in different fora. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Pigs on the wing has refused to make any link to any page that demonstrates damage that anyone can perceive. For this reason, I recommend the proposal go forward. It may reverted or reconsidered at such time that parties have sufficient time to demonstrate the harms they allege are present. -J JMesserly (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)