Template talk:Infobox officeholder

Guidelines for when to include each parameter

Some guidelines as to when to use each parameter might be helpful. There is currently a disagreement (Talk:Julia Gillard#Inclusion of monarch and governor-general in infobox) about whether the monarch and governor-general should be included in {{infobox prime minister}}.

Order of offices held

Would it not make sense for committee chairmanships and party leadership positions (etc) to be placed above the office of senator? In order to hold these positions of leadership or seniority they must by definition be a senator, and the very fact that they are leadership positions elevates the holder above simply being a senator. An interesting comparison would be British Members of Parliament, whose leadership and cabinet posts are placed above their constituency details. JamKaftan (talk) 04:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

My first thought was that a quick look at several articles (John Glenn, Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, Jim Inhofe, and Harry Reid) suggests that the office is generally placed first when the politician is just a committee chairman and last if the politician is also a floor leader or officer of the body. Harry Reid did not quite fit this pattern, as his status as Senator came after "Senate Majority Leader", but before "Senate Minority Leader". Oddly, Jim Inhofe places the committee chairmanship below all other offices.

A second look through them revealed another pattern of most recent (or current) offices being listed first, regardless of which office it was. John Glenn, Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, fit this pattern. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi do not fit this pattern. Again, Jim Inhofe is an outlier.

Based on these, I think that if we standardized this with the order of "officer of chamber", "floor leader", "member of chamber", "committee chairmanship", (assuming for argument that all are current positions), that would make the most sense. I would think that later positions should come before prior positions such that "member of chamber" would be before "officer of chamber" if the individual served as a member of the chamber after he concluded his service as an officer of the chamber. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Template when politician leaves political office

Should the template be used for a position for a retired politician who has left politics, such as CEO of a Chamber of Commerce Trey Grayson or President of a think tank Jim DeMint? I'm not asking about keeping it for the political positions, just asking about the non-politics position. Kaltenmeyer (talk) 21:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

IMHO - no. Mention of offices held is not precluded by using the general infobox, but this particular infobox is best suited for current officeholders. I do not know if others agree with me on this. Collect (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

It certainly shouldn't be necessary to swap a template just because someone leaves/ retires from a position (or dies); we spend a lot of time merging "Infobox X" and "Infobox former X" pairs, for that reason. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:10, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree with Andy's comment. If the template works for those other positions, there's no need to change templates. If the template is completely different, such as {{Infobox NFL player}}, it may be appropriate to have both in the article or try to include the major information from both in the generic {{Infobox person}}. Note, however, that while having both {{Infobox officeholder}} and {{Infobox astronaut}} works for John Glenn, it may not be practical to do this with shorter articles. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Infobox attachments

Actually, this gave me an interesting idea. If the infoboxes were designed to be modular such that the generic information went into {{Infobox person}} and the more specific infoboxes only dealt with the specific information, it would be possible to easily patch two infoboxes together (saving space over using two infoboxes). Thus, a person who was a politician and an NFL player could just patch one infobox module below another without having the duplicate "born in", etc. personal information. Does anyone know if this has been proposed or tried before? – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is done in a number of cases; for example {{Infobox musical artist}} as a module of Infobox person. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Nowrap birth/death fields

Can we get nowrap tags around the birth_date and death_date fields of the personal info section of the infobox? Recently I've found the birth/death date and age templates to be introducing linebreaks for the (age xx)/(aged xx) parts of the template when used for longer months, which I find makes the infobox look more cluttered in appearance. Thanks. Connormah (talk) 00:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Religion, denomination, affiliation

I again want to lift the issue brougt up here: Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 2#Religion and here: Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 18. The problem is that the word religion is used to denote denomination. "Surely, someone who is a Methodist is first and foremost an adherent of the Christian religion." The suggested solutions so far are:

• Change "religion" to "religious affiliation".
• Keep "religion", add "denomination".

Any more alternatives? Which is better? Who can fix this? --St.nerol (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC Congressmen's tenures in infobox

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is in favour, but the group expressing opinion is small given the breadth of scope and the arguments against are rather strong, so it is hard to call this anything other than a vote in favour rather than an actual consensus. I advise against wholesale implementation of any decision and instead advocate a limited trial with examples proposed by opposers to see just how workable it is or is not in practice, with real-world examples. My suggestion is to choose a single area (State or County or whatever works, try the box on everyone and see if it throws up examples of Stupid. As I say, the number of votes is insufficient to call this a proper consensus given the number of article affected, but I doubt that extending it would achieve a meaningful change in this. Suck it and see. Guy (Help!) 23:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

---

• Those who voted, opined, commented, or otherwise took part, at Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 18#RfC on successor/predecessor where a district is not reasonably viewed as the same after redistricting, have been notified.
• Those who voted, opined, commented, or otherwise took part, at Template talk:Succession box#RfC, have been notified.
• WikiProjects United States, New York and U.S. Congress have been notified.

At a previous discussion at Template talk:Infobox_officeholder/Archive 18#RfC on successor/predecessor where a district is not reasonably viewed as the same after redistricting consensus was established to substitute the word "redistricted" at the predecessor and/or successor parameters in the case of redistricting under the there described circumstances. Although this was not widely implemented, only a micro-fraction of articles were adequated to this new usage, it led to a controversy because the usage in infoboxes subsequently seemed to be out of step with the usage in succession boxes. This was discussed at Template talk:Succession box#RfC without conclusion to date. I have given the whole matter a bit of thought and would like to say the following:

• Infoboxes are supposed to tell about the history of the subject of the article, in this case, the life of politician.
• Succession boxes are supposed to tell you about the history of the office.

This shows clearly that both the content and the format of these boxes may very well be quite different, since they serve different purposes. However, some people will always claim that the content should be the same everywhere, which then leads to edit-wars which will flare up again and again and are difficult to resolve. On the other side, in my opinion, to split up the tenures of the congressman (caused by redistricting/renumbering) is out of scope in an infobox. The district number has, under any circumstances, no biographical value at all, and as User:Collect correctly stated, is not used in Congress itself. The district number has encyclopedical value, and serves to compile and maintain complete lists. They are also used to legally describe the district at the election, and serve in the case of sitting congressmen to find info on their current district, by reading articles like New York's 13th congressional district. At these articles a map and info on the present characteristics of the district can be found.

Considering the above, I propose the following:

1. In the infobox of a US representative, the tenure should not be split if the person has been continuously sitting in Congress, disregarding the redistricted numbers. The predecessor and/or successor should show the actual previous or next officeholder, if the subject defeated/was defeated by the other person, or succeeded/was succeeded without redistricting. In all other cases, the parameter should be omitted. If the representative is still sitting, "currently representing the Xth District" should be added.
2. Succession boxes shall be used as they are, showing the predecessor and the successor according to the pertaining list of the district as numbered.

See the following examples:

• 
  Infobox usage under the current consensus
• 
  Infobox usage under the previous consensus
• 
  Proposed future usage in the infobox
• 
  Succession boxes remain as they are

The combination of the info as stated in the proposed new infobox combined with the succession box make two things clear: The representative, Rangel in this example, has been sitting continuously for more than 40 years in Congress, and thus neither did lose an election nor was preceded or succeeded in Congress by anybody except back in 1971 by Powell. The representative's district was apportioned different areas necessarily including his residence, and was numbered differently, usually every 10 years, and for encyclopedic reference a link is given to the list which shows the history of the district as numbered as well as those representatives who used that numbers during their elections before and after the subject of the article. Please comment. Kraxler (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support as proposer. Kraxler (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no single "office" to have continuity with. The old and new districts have no relationship to one another, except that they got sequentially assigned the same number. If we rework the succession boxes to be "The district which represents City X, or neighborhood X" that would have some sort of continues life across redistricting, but also introduces OR and objectivity issues. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support as a practical and reasonable compromise. What an interesting proposal. I like the distinction between biographical and encyclopedical values, and think they are the key reason behind some edit wars. It's a pedantic distinction that a Congressman served in district A then district B when it was in many cases the same district. But being pedantic is what encyclopedias are all about. I'm of the mind that we ought to list each and every little distinction, but then it seems like overkill. —GoldRingChip 15:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Noting that some states have, indeed, even used letters for some congressional seats. Noting that the purpose of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia of useful information for readers. Readers are not well-served by "pedantry for the sake of pedantry" - a student who tells his teacher "but Wikipedia says George Gnarph succeeded our current congressman, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" would likely get an "F." Putting it another way:

Where an article is biographical in nature, making claims which do not serve that biographical purpose are not especially useful to anyone at all. Collect (talk) 16:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You mean to add 8 times "redistricted" in an infobox is "useful information"? Kraxler (talk) 17:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Also remember that to my statement "Charles Rangel succeeded Michael Grimm as a man who was elected in a district with the official number 13." your top choice for ArbCom at the last election answered: "I won't dispute the factual accuracy of such a statement." And he is quite right there. So could we drop that, and look at the real issue? Please read again my proposal and then comment on the merits. Please do not just oppose for opposing's sake. In determining consensus such votes are disregarded anyway. Kraxler (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The famed "you are in a helicopter" sign in the Microsoft anecdote was "factually correct" and totally useless[1] etc. . By the way, one should note that I asked and graded seven questions - using one answer as the only one which counts is silly. Collect (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is caused by trying to build a table of unrelated entities. Pretending they are the same entity is factually incorrect. Saying redistrited is a reasonable solution to that problem. Also would be breaking the infobox into separate sections (or entire boxes) after each redistricting, which would allow us to tell the user about the coverage of the district after each redistricting. See a similar problem (and solution) in titles of nobility such as Earl_of_Clanbrassil Where there are multiple people who have held the title but did not in fact "succeed" each other in any way. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

RE Gaijin42 - The people listed at New York's 13th congressional district are not "unrelated entities", on the contrary, they are all people who have something in common: They were elected in District 13. Certainly, the area of the district shifted, possibly every 10 years, but the district number is the only thing that identifies the district, both legally and when referred to in the media/sources. Wikipedia, like any other encyclopedia, is a reference work that should give info and clarify doubts of those who read the name or the district number elsewhere. Imagine you research the history of your hometown, and read: "Mr. X represented this area (then the 13th District) in Congress from Year Y to Year Z". You would consult Wikipedia, typing in the name of the Congressman, and wouldn't get any answer because of an omitted/additional middle name/initial. Then you wouyld try the district by number, there you see the name as used here, and go to the article. There you see that the Congressman served a long time, with differently shaped district maps and numbers. In the infobox you see the total tenure, as biographically relevant. At the bottom, in the succession box you would see what numbers his district had at different times, and clicking on the link, you would get info on the district at that time. That's one thing that the succession nav box at the bottom is for. It also serves for cross-referencing, and is used by editors to compile, maintain and improve complete lists. User:Wasted Time R questions "Ask the[ readers] if they ever follow the 'succeeded' and 'preceded' links at the bottom." Well, I guess most of the readers don't, which directly contradicts the concerns of User:Collect and User:Binksternet, but page patrollers, Wiki gnomes, and historian-editors (like myself) do certainly. I follow the predecessor/successor sequences of different offices many times, to get facts and dates checked, comparing with the sources. – Concerning the problem similar to the several new creations of titles like Earl of Clanbrassil, see for example New York's 17th congressional district. The district was eliminated in 1809 and recreated in 1813. Thus at William Stephens Smith who sat in Congress from 1813 to 1815, no predecessor is listed, it says instead "district restored" in the succession box. Kraxler (talk) 15:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support I believe the proposers arguments have been both informative and persuasive, he has evidently researched into this issue and I think adding the word 'redistricted' numerous times is not helpful to anyone, especially when Charles Rangel does now represent the 13th congressional district in New York. SleepCovo (talk) 18:43, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support future use in infoboxes like File:Infobox example 3.jpg, unless the person actually moved and represented a substantially different geographical area. Support similar use in succession boxes, or elimination of the succession box for this use as redundant. Strongly oppose succession boxes on biographies based on the notion that "Succession boxes are supposed to tell you about the history of the office." Fine, then put them on articles about the office, e.g. "Preceded by Schoharie – Succeeded by Harlem" LOL, but don't put them on biographies of the officeholders. Once the office's 10-year term expires, it could be reelected to represent the same geographical area, or it could be replaced by an entirely different location, in which case the number needs disambiguation: District 13 (Schoharie) or District 13 (Harlem). Wbm1058 (talk) 19:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. The topic is an person (bio). The person has been holding the office of congress for decades (like Rangel). IF the topic were an office, as in "NY 6th Congressional District", that is another matter and might show different people (and, Lord knows, different boundaries) for that same period. District Number might be relevant if the officeholder moved to another state and won a " time-consecutive" seat, or moved a "long" (subjective) distance from his/her prior district. So there could be apparent exceptions. Student7 (talk) 01:36, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support I definitely like the much shorter top infobox entry being proposed. I don't think the succession boxes at bottom provide any value to the reader in cases like these, but I'm pretty sure few readers even know they exist, so it doesn't matter. (Next time you're talking with regular folks who use Wikipedia, ask them if they ever click 'show' on the blue striped things at the bottom of an article. Ask them if they ever follow the 'succeeded' and 'preceded' links at the bottom. Ask them if they know what 'Categories' are on Wikipedia. In my experience, regular folks aren't aware of any of these.) Wasted Time R (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Your evaluation of reader behavior is probably quite right. Please see my answer to Gaijin42 above. However, User:Collect wants to make us believe that the average reader looks at the infobox at the top and sees that Rangel has been sitting in Congress for more than 40 years and is still incumbent, but instantly forgets about it. The reader then proceeds to read the text and reads that Rangel has been sitting in Congress for more than 40 years, and is still incumbent, but instantly forgets about it, and disregards it. He then scrolls down to the bottom to the succession box section, sees by following the boxes that there are sequential tenures with different district numbers, and sees that Rangel is still incumbent. From this box finally he draws the conclusion that, although still incumbent he was "succeeded in Congress" (meaning he left office to make space for somebody else), but would never think that somebody else got apportioned Rangel's old district numbber, and thus somebody "succeeded to that numbered district" (meaning Rangel is still sitting, elected in a differently numbered district). This all while re-apportionment and gerrymander are extrememly well known subjects in the United States, there being elections every two years, and at the time of re-apportionment the subject regularly makes the headlines of the mainstream press. At the end of this whole reading and thinking process the reader then proceeds to school (of all places!, Collect's average reader is a literate student, not an illiterate drop-out) and proclaims in front of a teacher: "Wikipedia says George Gnarph succeeded our current congressman, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia!" Are Wikipedia readers really like that? Kraxler (talk) 15:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. The fatal problem with this idea is that any succession box in a biography must be about the person who holds office, not about a voting district with an arbitrary number assigned to it. It would be nonsensical to say, for instance, that California's Barbara Lee was succeeded in office by another politician when in fact she continues to hold her office—her district was changed from number 9 to number 13, with some adjustment to the borders, but both versions contain the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, her core constituency. There is no magic dust to sprinkle on the bottom section of a biography to make it ignore the biographical subject and instead represent a numbered congressional district. The place to tell the reader about succession in a numbered congressional district is in the article about that district. For instance, it is certainly appropriate to tell the reader about the sequence of office holders at the article called California's 9th congressional district, which will naturally be expected to tell the reader about the contextual changes, that the area covered by district 9 shifted in totality in 2013. Without the very critical context the raw succession information becomes ridiculous and contradictory. The succession box is a simplistic tool and cannot be expected to provide the necessary context achieved with prose, which is why we should not introduce contradictory nonsense as would be the case if we implemented Kraxler's idea. Binksternet (talk) 05:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Please see my answers to Gaijin42 and Wated Time R above. Kraxler (talk) 15:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Your talk of thinking, literate readers being able to figure it out for themselves is a smoke screen for the ridiculous idea that two identical succession boxes can say different things depending on where they are in the biography. We should never make the reader puzzle out what the information is saying. If the information is that complicated, we should use prose to describe the complexity. The convenience of simplistic succession boxes can only take us so far; once the situation becomes complicated and puzzling, we must use prose to describe it. And of course the numbered district's own article will always show the numerical succession, irrelevant though it may be to the biography. Binksternet (talk) 16:04, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support for the reasons listed. Infoboxes are not database queries and we don't need to return huge volumes of perfectly normalized data just to be precise. Infoboxes are a summary of the most important facts about a person. Readers don't need to see "redistricted" over and over in an infobox; that information can appear in the article on the districts themselves. It's not biographical at all. It would never appear in a real biography.

  The proposed solution brings the infobox back to its original purpose, summarizing information that appears in the article. Even if you want to include each district separately, there's no reason to include predecessors/successors for every one. Who needs that? It's not in the article. The only use for predecessor/successor on redistricting is for navigational purposes, and infoboxes aren't there for navigation. It's inconceivable that more than a dozen readers are relying on the infobox to be a quick navigation between districts. I doubt even five people do it in a given year. And if we stop doing it, those five people are clever enough to find another solution that doesn't take up half of the article. This proposal is exactly how we should do it. (As a further compromise, we could have one new field that says "Previous districts: 3rd, 4th, 8th".) —Designate (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Also, I agree with Wasted Time R that the succession boxes really provide no value, but since nobody knows they exist I'm willing to ignore them. —Designate (talk) 16:36, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support This is a lot better than the "redistricted" nonsense that is suddenly being forced upon us. It is ridiculous how the so called "consensus" happened in the first place when not a single person complained about the original format all these years before. My only concerns about this are how will this format look on a past representative's page and will it be implemented on every representatives page? There doesn't need to be more inconsistency with the formats. TL565 (talk) 23:23, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support for offices where the district number is not used in the chamber, as apparently with the US House. However, the number should continue to be used in the infobox where the district number is used in the chamber, especially where there is a requirement that the official live within the district, as the decision whether or not to move to retain office is properly biographical. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:40, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - it's unnecessarily confusing otherwise. — kikichugirl ^speak up! 04:51, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Summoned here by RfC bot. I think that the infobox under the previous consensus is preferable. Just saying "redistricted" is uninformative. The proposed infobox doesn't provide enough information. I think that our readers can cope with the more detailed infobox. Coretheapple (talk) 23:37, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

One thing to consider here is that on the mobile interface (at least on my iPhone), you have to scroll through the entire infobox before you can even get to the lead of an article. That argues for making infoboxes more succinct and omitting unnecessary details such as every district an officeholder has represented. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:21, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Many people remain on a committee but not through holding a single office. There is a problem to solve here, but I'm not convinced that they way described here will be the correct approach. The issue here is how to indicate that a person has continued to be a member of committee over a period of time (that extends beyond their tenure or incumbency in a particular representative role). For example in Scotland this affects many MSPs because of the type of electoral system involved. MSPs can be in the Scottish Parliament either by being chosen to represent a specific constituency or through being selected from a regional list. Drchriswilliams (talk) 00:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The scope of this RfC is limited to usage in case of numbered districts. As mentioned in the title, this involves US congressmen, but similarly may be used for state legislators in the US when district numbers are used (for example New York State Senate since 1823, New York State Assembly since 1966). Legislators elected in districts described by place names, as British, German or French constituencies, have a different usage, and will keep it, both in infoboxes and succession boxes. The difference is that the numbers are chosen randomly (sometimes loosely following a pattern, like the sequence going South-North-West in New York) without reference to the area. Besides, in the US usually every ten years there is re-apportionment and/or re-districting, while in the UK the same constituencies remained without much change for centuries. Kraxler (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Re: British Rotten and pocket boroughs - they ended in 1867. I suspect the same is true of most countries with general suffrage. Collect (talk) 16:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Are we discussing the officeholder template or the Congressman template? It isn't straightforward to find the guidance on the multiple terms:Template:Infobox_officeholder/example#Multiple_terms I was thinking more of the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales which use Additional Member Systems. This means that it a number of persons return as representatives in successive parliaments but in a different position and representing a different population. This is because as well as first past the post system for constituencies, candidates can also be selected from a regional list. The currently convention is to use the "office" field to list the constituency in free text (after code to specify a line break). I guess I have some concern that this doesn't always lead to information being presented in a clear and understandable way to people who aren't familiar with the way the elections are run. Drchriswilliams (talk) 18:35, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

We are discussing usage for US congressmen. AFAIK there is no special template for them, they use the "officeholder" template.clarified, see below As already said, constituencies other than numbered districts are not within the scope of this proposal. Kraxler (talk) 11:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Are there around 3500 Wikipedia articles that are using the "congressman" template? Drchriswilliams (talk) 11:47, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Congressman is a redirect to Template:Infobox officeholder. That's why we discuss it here. To clarify it further, we should agree then that the proposed usage is for "Infobox Congressman" only, and that congressmen who use a different infobox should get this one, if necessary. Kraxler (talk) 12:10, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Seems that on top of general problems that infoboxes need to cope with, redistricting causes additional headaches for the congressman template. I'm now happy to acknowledge that this RfC is a practical attempt to filter out the less useful information for the "Infobox Congressman" template. Moved to support. Drchriswilliams (talk) 12:48, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Maybe this can't be solved in just one way to suit everyone. How about a permanent footnote that goes with the template to the article which reads, "Every state with more than one Congressional District is required to redistrict every ten years, with the new census. Therefore District boundaries and numbers may not match with any prior decade." ? Student7 (talk) 21:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

That sounds awkward and seems to be out of scope for infoboxes. Per WP:Infobox they are supposed to give a "quick and convenient summary of the key facts about a subject, in a consistent format and layout". The purpose of an infobox is "to summarize key facts that appear in the article. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose." Footnotes and references should generally be avoided in infoboxes. Kraxler (talk) 11:43, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Procedural oppose. This RfC is invalid, as it was not framed as "a brief, neutral statement of the issue", as per WP:RFC. VanIsaac_WS^cont 01:11, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. We are trying to solve a problem here. If you have a better/different proposal or solution, please feel free to tell us about it. Kraxler (talk) 12:10, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support. The proposed future usage in the info box conveys a succinct representation of the Representative’s career to date, and serves as an improvement to the current consensus info box. The succession boxes are a handy explanation of how one could research information based on district data. Nothing is lost when the two are paired on an article page. The attempt at combining the two functions as at the present info box is both redundant and hard to read for the general reader. --- Part of the narrative of every political career affected by redistricting should include how the Representative appealed to the voters of redistricted constituencies, and whether they were successful or failed among the new set of voters. In articles where redistricting is a feature, a footnote at the district number in the proposed info box could direct the reader to the succession box which lists all the district numbers in the chronological sequence of the Representative's career. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support, in almost all cases. Redistricting, at least every 10 years (usually twice every 10 years in California, as the first redistricting is overturned by referendum) is common to all congressional districts and most legislative districts of all sorts in the US. Sometimes, "redistricting" consists mostly of renumbering, in which cases the succession box at the foot of the article could be modified as is suggested for the infobox succession box, but, in most cases, it's arbitrary. (The question of where "redistricted" should link is another one, not discussed here.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support This is a practical and thoughtful solution. Agree with Arthur Rubin. That's definitely been the experience in California. SW3 5DL (talk) 19:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Compromise

Here is a suggestion, why not have an infobox that allows for the current proposed format to be the primary format that shows, and allow for there to be a collapsed list of what district(s), the elected Congressperson has represented? This way it appears less cluttered, but gives the option of a reader to quickly see the Congressperson's seat history, without having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the article to see the succession box.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I like the RCLC compromise, if the collapsed label is readily found and understood, it should not be cryptic. This may require a header which is clear and fairly long. "Districts the Member has represented" or some such, presented in a bar as wide as the Infobox directly underneath. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's a little out of scope for an infobox, please see my comment after Student7's contribution above. I'm not sure that a collapsible table has been added anywhere in an infobox yet. Besides, most of the controversy stems from the notion that the congressman has represented the same district (actually an area that was partially static, always including his residence, but being possibly gerrymandered around otherwise) while the occasional renumbering would have been biographically irrelevant (that the numbers are encyclopedically important has been pointed out above, also). Kraxler (talk) 13:58, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Just because it had not yet been done before, doesn't mean it cannot be tried. Also there are known cases of individuals moving, in order to remain in favorably mapped districts, thus in some cases making which district is being represented important.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

An example of an infobox with a collapsible section is Template:Infobox sportsperson which can accommodate the Template:Infobox medal templates. Drchriswilliams (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

RE RightCowLeftCoast - "Just because it had not yet been done before, doesn't mean it cannot be tried." I agree, but I think we should take one step at a time. "Also there are known cases of individuals moving, in order to remain in favorably mapped districts, thus in some cases making which district is being represented important." That must necessarily be explained in the text.

RE Drchriswilliams Thanks for the info. Kraxler (talk) 17:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Embeddable

How do we make this template embeddable within another? I can do that for templates based on {{Infobox}}, but this one isn't. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sadly, I have no idea. Perhaps WP:VPT should be pinged re: this request? – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 134#Embedding Infobox officeholder. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

No suggestions except rewriting the template.  :( – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

misleading heading

As used, for example, on Charmaine White Face, the |awards= parameter appears below a "Military service" heading. Can we change this, or add a "non military award" parameter? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

That would be nice - it's also pretty weird o see Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize listed under the "Military service" heading. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, I've moved it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Conventional wisdom would be to move |awards= and create a new parameter for military awards, as that seems to be more specific, but, by far, the greatest use of it is for military awards because of where it was previously placed. (See Douglas Wilder, John McCain, William K. Suter, just to name a few.) Seeing that it would affect potentially thousands of biographical articles, I propose reverting the change and creating a new parameter for non-military awards. ("Honors," maybe?) Rockhead126 (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: @Rockhead126: I agree that military awards should remain under the appropriate section. I don't know which is more common, but suspect that Rockhead126 is correct about it being the military awards. If that is the case, the change should probably (sadly) be reverted until the awards can be split. Ultimately, I'd like to see |awards= and |civilian_awards= as the parameter aliases for non-military awards and |mawards= and |military_awards= as the parameter aliases for military awards. Before any of this is done, though, would anyone be opposed to creating a tracking category to see how often the current |awards= is used? Splitting these could be a smallish-manageable job or it could be a very big one. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. I'm just going off of what I've seen. Happy to help split either way. Rockhead126 (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

In that case, if there are no objections, but I'll be adding a tracking category to that parameter soon (but not today - time constraints). I'm not sure how long it takes for those to populate, so I'll probably let it sit for a few days. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:19, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I've created the tracking category at Category:Wikipedia pages using the awards parameter of Infobox officeholder. Waiting for it to populate... – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It has 1,106 entries. WHat now? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, Rockhead126: Sorry, I've been busy. I believe that ~1,100 is a quite manageable number, so we should proceed. I would therefore like to create the parameters/aliases (and document them) as I proposed above. I may or may not do that tonight. Once that is done, we can update/adjust the articles accordingly. The articles from the category (as it stands now) are listed at Template:Infobox officeholder/Awards. Just strike them if/as you check and update them. I'll plan to do at least a handful every time I get on Wikipedia, so they'll be gone before too long. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm not sure we need aliases for newly-created parameters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Update: I haven't forgotten about this, but probably won't get this coded for a few more days. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 05:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done No aliases created, just |awards= and |mawards=. I've also updated the list at Template:Infobox officeholder/Awards and started the replacement. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Italics with native_name

seems after this change we will need to add instructions about how to turn off the italics for languages where italics are not appropriate. Frietjes (talk) 17:53, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Frietjes. @Pigsonthewing: Could you please undo this undiscussed change? It's making a mess on hundreds, if not thousands of articles with Chinese, Japanese, and other non-Latin names which should not be italicized. What's the point of italicizing native personal names anyway? The field is only needed for names that are not written in the Latin alphabet, for which the value of italicizing is dubious at best. -Zanhe (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

You contradict yourself. Frietjes is discussing a change to the documentation, which anyone (including you or they) can make. The point of italicising the name is that without such, names and native names run on with no delineation. Your claim that "the field is only needed for names that are not written in the Latin alphabet" is false. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't doubt that italicizing native names for languages based on Latin script is preferable, but I am not sure about the wisdom of such a change for non-Latin script based articles. Like Zanhe has already pointed out the change has led to a massive problem at Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, and perhaps Cyrillic articles whose scripts display very poorly in italic form, or whose scripts were never meant to be italicized at all in daily native usage. I think this is a big red flag that requires for the change to be undone completely or a bot to be programmed to fix all the resulting problems that it has caused. Thanks. Colipon+(Talk) 20:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

You're right that Frietjes was only talking about documentation, but that does not change the fact that the edit was made without discussion and without consideration to the numerous articles it affects. I only have a few dozen affected articles on my watch list, but I already noticed that Colipon, LlywelynII, and myself have been scrambling to fix the problem caused. The native name field has been fine without automatic italicization for years, what made you think it necessary to change it all of a sudden? -Zanhe (talk) 21:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

actually, I was referring to the fact that the change made it basically impossible to turn off the italics. note that {{infobox airport}} deals with this issue by having more than one |nativename= (none of which are currently italicised by default, but that was the original intent). luckily, this change was reverted so there is no longer an issue. Frietjes (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Nope. I'm sure your intentions were honorable but, if this is something recent and affecting many foreign-language pages, you guys need to undo the change pending your creation of a bot to repair the damage you're causing, rather than expecting WP:CHINA and the rest to clean up for you. Alternatively, leave the functionality but make it an opt-in feature. — LlywelynII 03:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 January 2015

Please revert this edit, which was made without discussion and has forced the italicization of non-Latin names that should not be italicized per MOS, affecting countless pages. It should to be reverted per this discussion above. Zanhe (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

As can be seen above, there is already an ongoing discussion, with a variety of solutions offered. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Please don't remove a request to undo your edit, as you're not an uninvolved party. I've reinstated the edit request. As can be seen above, there is consensus that your undiscussed edit needs to be reverted, until other proposed solutions (none of which is trivial) are actually implemented. -Zanhe (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Done I have been party to discussions elsewhere where it was agreed that italicisation by default was a Bad Thing when non-Latin/Greek/Cyrillic scripts might be used. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Then what is your proposed solution for the problem I describe above? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It's perfectly legitimate for an "involved party" to remove such a request, in such circumstances. That template is only for use when consensus has already been reached, as its documentation explains. No such consensus has been reached. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Everyone who has expressed an opinion so far, except yourself, agrees that your edit should be reverted. If that's not consensus, I don't know what is. Besides, as the person who made the recent change without discussion which causes widespread problems, the onus is on you to show there is consensus not to revert it. -Zanhe (talk) 07:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

No, they did not; as you yourself noted. In fact, the only person unambiguously to do so was yourself. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Please stop playing word games, that's just childish. Basically Colipon, LlywelynII, Redrose64, and myself all agreed your edit should be reverted. You're the only one who disagrees. -Zanhe (talk) 07:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Redrose64 only posted after your edit request. Colipon offered the alternative "or a bot to be programmed". LlywelynII said "Alternatively, leave the functionality but make it an opt-in feature". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:10, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should italicize the |native_name unless |native_name_lang gives a non latin-script language. That is easily doable without bots or workarounds. --PanchoS (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned discussions above at 00:18, 18 January 2015; these include Template talk:Infobox book/Archive 7#Request for modification and Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 11#non-italic titles but there were others. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

So you did - and the request to which I referred was psosted before that; at 20:21, 17 January 2015 Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Still an issue

We still have the issue that names and native names are not delineated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Combination of different types of infoboxes possible?

Is there any way to combine the Infobox officeholder with that of Christian leader? An example where this could be appropriate are the bishops of Urgell, who are ex officio Co-Princes of Andorra. Gugganij (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

One infobox can be embedded within another, provided both are configured for this, See above for a request for such changes to this template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Occupation vs profession

What is meant to be the distinction between these two parameters? Is there a point to having both? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Not really -- though "profession" implies some skill level other than just holding a hourly job. "Ditch digging" is an "occupation" but not a "profession" I surmise. But heck - the distinction between "alma mater" specifically excluding degrees and "education" including degrees was discussed! <g> Personally, I would cut the laundry list down substantially. Collect (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

native_name placement and size

I really think that native_name should (a) be positioned before, rather than after, the honorary suffix, and (b) be smaller than the English name by default (i.e. mirroring the use of <br /><small>...</small> in the name parameter, which still seems preferred in actual usage to native_name). (a) seems preferable both aesthetically, since it avoids the two larger chunks of text being awkwardly broken up by the smaller titles, and because it positions the native name next to the English name, allowing for easier comparison; (b) is admittedly a purely aesthetic choice. I've looked through the discussion page archives and the choice to put it where it is now doesn't seem to have been properly discussed, so some input on this would be good. --Nizolan (talk) 04:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The parameter should not be before the honorary suffix. You wouldn't (I hope!) put anything before "OBE" in "Sir Jim Brown OBE", nor before "PhD" in "Jane Smith, PhD". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:46, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I definitely agree with Andy here. Inserting the native name before the suffix would be quite odd. I'm not sure that making the text quite as small as suggested would be a good idea, though I wouldn't object to it being a little bit smaller than the English name. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure it's as odd as it might sound at first—if Vlad had a doctorate I would think Vladimir Putin (Владимир Путин), PhD makes more sense than Vladimir Putin, PhD (Владимир Путин). To me it's the current position that looks odd: see Giorgos Stathakis for an example. I'll defer to consensus though in any case, it might well just be me who finds it annoying. I still think having it be a bit smaller is a good idea; compare the Stathakis article and Vladimir Putin. —Nizolan ^(talk) 07:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

known_for

I have added |known_for=, for people who are better known for an activity other than their occupation or profession, for example Native American leaders, since I have made {{Infobox Native American leader}} a wrapper for this template, and the parameter is used there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Mother tongue

I have added |mother_tongue= to {{infobox Native American leader}}, which is a wrapper for this template (it uses |blank1=/|data1=). It may be worth adding it to this, the parent template, for people whose mother tongue is not immediately discernible from their nationality. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Infobox version

I started a version based on {{infobox}}, now in the sandbox. it still requires more extensive testing, but should be ready soon. Frietjes (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Frietjes I support this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Support. This will allow us to resolve the issue of embedding, described above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That's great news! – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

now nearly done, but I still need to exercise a few more of the important parameter permutations. you can see the initial results in the testcases, testcases2, testcases3, ... Frietjes (talk) 19:57, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Should I hold off on making the parameter changes discussed at #misleading heading , above, until you've finished? – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Philosopher, if you feel comfortable making the change to the current template, then go for it. I can always merge your changes with the sandbox (or you can try to do that as well :) ). Frietjes (talk) 00:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Code variation

In Template:Infobox officeholder/Personal data, I noticed an odd discrepancy. To take two examples, we have some parameters that are formatted like this:

{{#if:{{{religion|}}}|
! style="text-align:left;" {{!}} Religion
{{!}} {{{religion}}}
}}
|-

While others are formatted like this:

{{#if:{{{commands|}}}|
! style="text-align:left;" {{!}} Commands
{{!}} {{#if:1| {{{commands}}} }}
}}
|-

The latter one has {{#if:1| {{{parameter}}} }} while the former just has {{{parameter}}}. Both appear to work the same way. Is the extra code around the latter example necessary for some purpose or is it redundant? – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:15, 24 February 2015 (UTC)