Template talk:Infobox religious group

Ill-suited

This template seems ill-suited for its purpose. Many modern religions are quite international in language and scope. If this were applied to Christianity, for example, I think it would convey almost no useful information whatsoever. It might be nice to create a template like this, but the language and country categories are not usually useful. Perhaps replace with the country of religion's founding. Cool Hand Luke 05:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Colors

Oh sweet Mary mother of Jesus, the colors of this infobox are absolutely, positively horrible! I'm definitely going to change them, any objections? --ざくら木 14:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Please do!--Doron 20:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually I like the current colors a lot. Maybe we should have a vote on the matter? Thanks --Lanternix 01:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

A voting? Well, Wikipedia is not a democracy... IMO the current colors really don't work, at all. The colors of the first version were better. --ざくら木 13:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

So you're suggesting disregarding other people's opinions, imposing your own? --Lanternix 17:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No no, we should discuss this. --ざくら木 18:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree - the colours are just too bright. It needs to be changed. → AA ^{(talk • contribs)} — 14:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Current consensus seems to be in favour of a change. → AA ^{(talk • contribs)} — 14:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I can't object of most of you guys are in favor of a change then. What colors do you propose? --Lanternix 00:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

How about the current one? → AA ^(talk) — 08:41, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

• Not a big fan of the current one, but I'll wait and see what others think. --Lanternix 14:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems that no one complained about the version as of 20 July 2007, but (see comment in Talk:Mennonite), people don't like the revert from a couple of days ago. (The contrast also is poor, detracting from readability) Tedickey (talk) 23:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Before changing it back to how it used to be originally, take a sensus and ask people to:

• 1. Vote on the current colors
• 2. Suggest new colors if they don't like the current one

--Lanternix (talk) 01:42, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Every editor that's touched this other than Lanternix has changed it back to correspond with the style guidelines. Looks like Lanternix is ignoring consensus. Tedickey (talk) 11:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not true, people were changing it for problems in the coding etc. And consensus is only decided once people actually gather and vote! --Lanternix (talk) 12:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Point to a specific diff in the history that you're citing. Tedickey (talk) 12:54, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

5 different changes for more than one month (June 14th to July 20th) by 3 different users, and none of them said they didn't like the colors. All 5 changes were concerned with changes to the code. --Lanternix (talk) 13:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Some of those commented in this section, pointing out that your color choice is unacceptable. Tedickey (talk) 15:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

And others didn't. And those who did, did not change the colors to begin with! --Lanternix (talk) 16:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Founder

Anyone agree that "founder" or "founded by" should be added? Funkynusayri 12:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• Can you give examples? Like Christianity founded by Jesus and Islam founded by Muhammad? --Lanternix 14:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, like that. Maybe the country where it was founded too. Funkynusayri 14:53, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I added it. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 01:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Put this on religion pages?

Should we put this template on pages like Christians, Christianity, Muslims, Islam, Buddhism, etc? Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 01:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Such articles usually have their own templates. FunkMonk (talk) 01:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Aren't "Muslims" and "Christians" "religious groups"?

Horrible colour scheme

I wrote on Talk:Mennonite: "Wow, now that is a gaudy infobox. Couldn't miss it if you gouged your eyes out. Why such a bright neon box, and on this of all articles? Were the regular plain modest boxes considered too fitting for this article subject? And it really is an awful colour combo besides." I thought that I should probably put it here, too, where the people actually in charge of maintaining this hideous colour scheme could see my comment. (And again I'll note that the colour scheme is incredibly unprofessional.) Thanks. 74.137.111.179 (talk) 23:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Ownership dispute

Revision history shows that Lanternix is exercising WP:OWN ownership over this template despite consensus that the colors are unsuitable. Tedickey (talk) 10:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Consensus?! --Lanternix (talk) 01:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

• It appears that Lanternix is trying to make the template for religious groups in general match the colours used on the Copts template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Copts FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Lovely logic. Wouldn't be either to make the colors of the template:Copts match that of template:religios group?! --Lanternix (talk) 16:12, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
    • So why exactly would you want to use the colour of a generic infobox on a template about a specific group? Logic choice would be to use colours representative of that group. And looking at the Coptic coat of arms[1], they roughly seem to be. FunkMonk (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

What seems to be what exactly? I don't know about other groups, but Copts don't have such a thing as "representative colors". The current colors seem nice, that's why I picked them in both cases - seperatley. Like I repetedly said before, if there is concensus to change the current colors, I will respect that. But I absolutely hate the previous very much ugly combination of dark blue and light green. Someone has to come up with a better color scheme than that, if most people don't like the current version. --Lanternix (talk) 16:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

IMO good colors would be dark purple (CC3399), and some sandy color, such as FFF8C6. Here's my suggestion. --ざくら木 17:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

That's more readable (perhaps a slightly darker purple would give better contrast) Tedickey (talk) 17:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

To look at it objectively, one might look at the report here, which is one of the tools mentioned in Wikipedia:Colours#Using_colours_in_articles. The current header is unreadable, and the other text is marginal. Tedickey (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Here are some more suggestions from me: [2] and [3]. --Lanternix (talk) 05:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The accesskeys tool shows problems with all of the selections, but some are worse. Here is a summary (run the tool to see the full report). The numbers are the difference in brightness for the header and content, respectively. The guideline suggests 500 as a goal.

• [4] 453/408
• [5] 497/306
• [6] 302/408
• [7] 401 (content is good)
• [8] 249 (content is good)

Tedickey (talk) 12:06, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

• • 7 is easy on the eyes. FunkMonk (talk) 14:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed (the tool appears to be only measuring brightness and difference in brightness between text/background, but also some color combinations may be easier to read for various users). Tedickey (talk) 14:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Another, more serious problem, it appears that within some of the recent edits here, some coding has been screwed up so that if another template is put under the religious group template in an article, the text is moved down, see examples here Druze and here Alawites. FunkMonk (talk) 15:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This is completely ridiculous. What's wrong with using a greyscale instead of all kinds of crazy colours? It's a proved fact that black and white provide the highest contrast, not any combination of colours, and the colour scheme in this template should reflect that fact. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 16:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Color Scheme & Font Size

Lately, there have been very frequent changes to this infobox color scheme. Current version is my suggestion. I feel it looks, sorry to use the word, less CLOWNISH than this last version. If everybody likes it then we can sort out the remaining small tune-ups to font size and colors. Hamza ^{[ talk ]} 22:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it looks less clownish than the previous one. --Ⲗⲁⲛⲧⲉⲣⲛⲓⲝ^[talk] 22:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I will humbly recommend to use light colors so that the template really looks like a part of encylopedia. Unmatching colors are eye sores. Template should look light both to eyes and to article. Darker colors make it look hippy. --Hamza ^{[ talk ]} 22:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The version by Thumperward was acceptable to me. For resolving disputes, I'd go back to the contrast measurements to get numbers Tedickey (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Tedickey, What do you think of this version? You want to go back to that version for the sake of resolving disputes or do you think that was a better version? --Hamza ^{[ talk ]} 07:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The same reference (for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Religious_group) gives a fail (it's slow to run, but seems to still work). The relevant numbers are brightness 109 and difference 301 Tedickey (talk) 08:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The same tool for the previous consensus version is better, but now giving a warning. The relevant numbers are brightness 130, difference 390 Tedickey (talk) 09:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

However, the tool gives the same results for the version that Thumperward used Tedickey (talk) 09:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry to say but i lost you somewhere in the middle. What tool? what numbers? How and why is it necessary to judge in on that tool? Pardon me for being a novice to programming and scripting. But can you explain it in little detail. May be by taking four to five lines. Hamza ^{[ talk ]} 10:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The tool which I referred to in the previous discussion here measures the contrast for the colors in parts of the template. Brightness and contrast are the main features that it reports regarding accessibility. (I didn't look, but suspect that Thumperward's edit left the older colors still in the template, but unused, which would account for the identical numbers). Tedickey (talk) 10:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining this. Now i realize its importance. I'll give a few suggestions in coming days. Expecting to see your feedback on them. And i hope we can discuss this problem out rather than futile edit wars. Thanks again. Hamza ^{[ talk ]} 11:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Current edit makes that still fail: brightness 107, difference 326 Tedickey (talk) 10:04, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. A preference for a greyscale layout has been given multiple times now - a "compromise" which just picks a different set of arbitrary distracting shades is unacceptable. If Lanternix (talk · contribs) thinks greyscale is so "aweful" he can return here to explain why on this talk page rather than engaging in edit wars. Until then, there is no need to appease tendicious editing (which I note that said user has been blocked for within the last month). The use of arbitrary colour bands on infobox templates is in decline and has been for some time now; Tedickey's technical arguments are salient. Regardless, the current version of the codebase is a significant regression from the improvements on 18 August (even if colour bands are re-adopted, that's what we should be working from) - I've set up a sandbox and test cases for comparison until this is resolved. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

As there has been no further discussion, I've reinstated the updated version. The arguments in favour of colour bands are no reason to keep the ancient, crufty codebase; if it is genuinely desired to have colour bands then they can easily be added to the new codebase. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

As a further update, I reimplemented the whole thing as an {{infobox}} and added back the previous header colour as an olive branch. If there are any problems with the new code then please let me know. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

List adherent populations also by percentage?

How about the ability to note countries that have a high percentage of adherents of the religion in question? (As examples):

• Various S. Pacific island countries have substantial Mormon populations (topped out by Tonga, at 32%), yet, listed by largest number of Mormons outside the US, Mexico has a half million - to - one million LDS out of a population in Mexico in general of more than 100 million.
• India has 160 M. Muslims (Indonesia, 203 M.; China, 22 M.)--but, listing countries according to highest percentage of adherents would result in Saudi Arabia (total population only about 25 M.) being first, followed by various other countries in the Mid-East.

--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 10:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

That would skew the numbers, and may be misleading. A percentage of the total estimated adherents might be better (though counts tend to be overestimated). TEDickey (talk) 20:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the infoboxes of articles about religious groups

Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the infoboxes of articles about religious groups (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 13) could be applicable here too. --AntanO 10:59, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to limit the scope of the languages parameter

The languages parameter of this template is getting a bit out of hand on a number of pages. Aside from being a magnet for POV-pushing based on the languages people think should be included, it is often also becoming a mess of WP:OR and a location for novel information not actually present on the page, per MOS:INFOBOX. While this is a logical parameter for more cohesive ethnolinguistic groups, which often have fairly limited numbers of shared languages, religious groups frequently span huge regions or the globe, so you end up with simple lists of languages. Often these lists simply mirror the demographics already laid out immediately above in the infobox. A good example is Muslims, where there is Urdu, Indonesian, Bengali, reflecting the populations in Pakistan, Indonesia and Bengal, India. An more drastic situation is present at Hindus, where under a "predominant languages" subhead about fifty examples are rattled off, somewhat exemplifying the Pandora's Box nature of this kind of infobox addition. I propose limiting this parameter, as a matter of course, to the sacred or liturgical languages of these groups, or, alternatively, to do away with it altogether, as the sacred or liturgical language of a religion will already be mentioned on its main page. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:21, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Came here from your message at t/p WP:RELI.

Largely agree with your contentions, one way could be to manage long lists with collapse templates, but over all, I would prefer to go with ".. to do away with it altogether, as the sacred or liturgical language of a religion will already be mentioned on its main page. .."

On general side note:

While dealing with the articles of religious communities, let us remain cautious of the fact that lived / practiced religion by communities can be different than theological religion to which they belong to and may have locally developed tangential corpus in local languages. Hence, as stated by op, can be logical parameter for more cohesive ethnolinguistic groups. Also some sects and subsects of the religions may have corpus in languages other than supposedly main sacred language.

Bookku (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Many FA articles that are highly developed simply omit spam lists of this nature due to accessibility concerns as lists are not collapsed in mobile versions eg. Canada and Japan. Moxy- 15:09, 13 August 2023 (UTC)