Template talk:Ahnentafel

Thanks

@Frietjes: Good job with this template. A suggestion: would it be possible to tighten it up a little bit liker the previous template, in order for it to better suit general screen resolution limitations? See for instance Conrad III of Germany. Unfortunately, the previous ahnentafel designs worked well even on telephone devices, whereas the new one don't. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, are you asking about the line-height? Frietjes (talk) 13:31, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems as though the entries now are thicker, making a 5 generational ahnentafel extending beyond the vertical limits of typical screen resolutions. Chicbyaccident (talk) 13:53, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, do you see where you removed the 'line-height' in this edit? I can make the default something with less vertical spacing, but if the reason why the old version was using less vertical space was because someone set the line-height to be narrow. if I recall, the default is around 160%, so 110% is much less. Frietjes (talk) 14:05, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

160%	130%	110%
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Sorry, that is beyond my competence. But yes, please revert to more narrow spacing in general template that is called for from all individual articles, including that of Conrad III of Germany. Chicbyaccident (talk) 14:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I changed the default to line-height to 130% and the default font-size to 88%. Frietjes (talk) 15:01, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Unfortunately, it still looks like articles applying this template has another look than the what ahnentafel compact 5 used to have, which was better suited for general screen resolution limitations. The former, more tighter rows I suppose were more suitable. Furthermore, there seems to be other incorrections of black lines over some of the updated ahnentafels that I don't understand. Chicbyaccident (talk) 07:03, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Chicbyaccident, you should provide an actual example since I can't understand what you are saying. also, ping only works if add ~~~~ at the exact same time. you can't go back and add a ping and have it work. Frietjes (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I put the old compact5 code in sandbox2 and added a comparison in the testcases Frietjes (talk) 17:44, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Alright, please check it in mobile devices and you should see the incorrect rendering of the tables. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

by the way, for that particular example, them HTML output for the new template is 1250 characters (20k) vs. 3778 characters (52k) for the old template. so, the new template generates about 1/3 the html code, which should be much better for mobile viewers. Frietjes (talk) 11:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Qazi Mohamed Shamsuddin

Since the recent change the template is causing a at Qazi Mohamed Shamsuddin. I assume it’s a problem with the template or module as the article has not changed, but that error does not give any clues what the problem is.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The error has now been fixed by removing some data from the template in the article. It still might be worth looking at though, to see if it can generate a more useful error when unsupported data is provided to it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I will put an upper limit on the number of levels. Frietjes (talk) 13:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Making this work on mobile view

after some testing, it looks like even the old non-Lua versions of this template had problems with rendering correctly on mobile devices. I am hoping that some mobile-browser css experts can help come up with a solution. here is the basic output in (wikitable format) for a two level diagram.

				2
	1
				3

as far as I can tell, it looks fine on all desktop browsers that I tried, and even looks fine through the mobile interface on a desktop browser. however, on the Chrome browser on Android, it looks bad, with dangling edges, etc. I did some experimentation where I split the multi-row/multi-column spanning padding and branch cells, and that fixes the problem. however, it dramatically increases the size of the HTML for diagrams with more than 2 levels. does anyone know of a better way to fix the rendering on mobile devices (e.g., Chrome on Android)? @RexxS, Redrose64, Chicbyaccident, TheDJ, and Great Brightstar: or someone else? I can post screen shots if that's helpful, but you should be able to see the problem on a mobile device. Frietjes (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

				2
	1
				3

of course, the moment that I post something, I stumble on a possible solution (sorry for the unnecessary ping). it looks like using 'border-collapse:separate; border-spacing:0;' works (now added to the main module). Chicbyaccident can you tell me if this fixed the problem? and/or if there are still issues on any other devices? Frietjes (talk) 22:21, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Good! I don't see any table issues anymore. Thanks. Now I only wonder whether the row height is optimal as opposed to the seeimingly tighter row heght in the previous template, wasn't it? Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

on my browser, Template:Ahnentafel/testcases#Old_templates shows that the row height is tighter on the current version vs. the old version in sandbox2. Frietjes (talk) 22:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Great. Another remark, though: please consider making the tables consquently a little bit longer horizontally. See for instance Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia. Chicbyaccident (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

when uncollapsed, the table adjusts to fill the width of the page. can't really make it any wider than the page. Frietjes (talk) 22:54, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Needs a way to set the title

Currently, this template automatically sets the title as "Ancestors of {PAGENAME}" but that leaves no way for us to insert citations into the title, which is useful when one or two sources cover every person in the tree (instead of adding individual citations to each person). Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 16:28, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Howcheng, use |ref= for a reference at the end of the title and |title= to completely override the default title. Frietjes (talk) 19:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

How did I miss that in the documentation? Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 03:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

While at it, what about implementing the design and look of the title (header) in accordance with that of Template:S-anc? This way a natural space for notes and references would be part of the template, while also harmonising its header and frame with the look of succession boxes. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

it's not a succession box, and there is already a place for notes, see |headnotes= and |footnotes= and |ref=. Frietjes (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

It isn't, but if so the look of it would be harmonised with those, which arguably look better than this ahnentafel in its current state, isn't it? Chicbyaccident (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

bug

This template seems to leave }}</noinclude> in the result, which looks strange. I don't know where it comes from, though. Gah4 (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

There also seems to be a duplication issue, where the ancestry table is repeated twice. See Mary Tudor, Queen of France for example. Ruby2010 (talk) 03:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

It was caused by a test edit by an IP editor. I have reverted it so hopefully fixed it, though pages may need purging.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 03:21, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Issue

Moved from Module talk:Ahnentafel

 – {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:26, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

There seems to be an issue with the ahnentafel template, but I can't tell whether the issue originates here or not. The current issue is that the genealogy table is repeated twice, and has }} in between the two repeats... Hires an editor (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Hires an editor, can you link to an example with the problem? Frietjes (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Hires an editor, never mind, it looks like it was caused by this edit which was reverted. Frietjes (talk) 14:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

put this as top line of the code

{{ahnentafel top|width=100%}} 68.40.122.133 (talk) 20:35, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

where? Frietjes (talk) 14:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

just above

{{ahnentafel |collapsible=yes because it confines the width of the unopened header, making it easier to navigate68.40.122.133 (talk) 03:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Support 100 % as default width, if nothing else is stated. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:48, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

you can set |width=100% to override the default min-width when collapsed. if you check Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley (which you were editing) you will see that when you uncollapse it, the table expands to the space required. Frietjes (talk) 11:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Footnotes

If the parameter "footnotes" "Adds optional text below the chart (most useful in collapsible mode)" then it would be useful. However it does not do so in the article James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick It adds footnotes to the {{reflist}} if one exists. This is a bad idea as the format of the footnote may not match that of the format used in the rest of the article. This is a specific problem when an Ahnentafel template is used in other templates as may be done with category:Family templates or some of the sub categories.

Also as in the case of James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick it may encourage editors to lump all the sources used to build the tree under one parameter instead of adding the appropriate source to the relevant leaf. I think to stop this type of lumping of sources more documentation needs to be added discouraging it.

-- PBS (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

agree that "footnotes" are not the same as references in this situation. I have fixed James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick. Frietjes (talk) 16:07, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Idea: Lua module with Wikidata

Recently, I have been adding references to ancestry tables across many articles. When I finish for one person, I can copy-paste most of it to their siblings, and I can use most of it for the parents' articles. In the course of doing so, I was trying to think of a way to make this more efficient. The traditional way would be to make a template that could transcluded for all siblings with the same parents, but this is kind of unwieldy because each template would only be used by a small number of people, plus it doesn't solve the problem of when part of a tree is used in a different article. It then occurred to me that we have these relationships in Wikidata, so the best solution would probably be to have code that generates the tables in the articles. That way you could just do something like {{#invoke:Ahnentafel|generate}} in the article, and we could put the references in Wikidata. Does this sound like something worth pursuing? Although I'm a software developer, I've never done work in Lua, but I'm willing to tackle it if no one else wants to do it. —howcheng {chat} 20:04, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Upon closer inspection, I guess we are already using Lua to do the rendering, so we could extend the module to grab the data. Then make a template like {{ahnentafal-auto}} that will invoke the auto-generated version. —howcheng {chat} 20:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

In the sandbox, I moved the rendering code into its own function and created a new function sample that manually sets the people, which seems to work fine (see Template:Ahnentafel/testcases#Sample), so theoretically this should be doable, assuming we can get all this info from Wikidata. —howcheng {chat} 20:47, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

the hard part isn't the rendering. the hard part is recursively traversing the wikidata without causing unnecessary load on the servers, or introducing errors. this is going to be especially problematic when the wikidata is incomplete, or ambiguous. Frietjes (talk) 23:00, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Howcheng: Some automatic Wikidata-referring templates of this kind could perhaps be implemented in the future, for encyclopedically relevant entries. Possibly ultimately including a fairly grand family tree on Wikidata in equivalence with Wikitree, Geni.com etc., but naturally with larger concern for personal integrity as well as encyclopedical relevance. Why not take some early steps on investigating the matter? Feel free to ping Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy to get the attention of more concerned users. See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genealogy#Wikidata_equivalent. Chicbyaccident (talk) 10:07, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Makes sense. My company actually does something similar in that we run a daily job to regenerate the org chart (who reports to whom) and store that in a database table. @Chicbyaccident: Good idea, but I'm not interested in leading such an effort, as I'm not particularly interested in genealogy itself. My interest was mainly in doing the references to improve the articles and possibly doing some of the coding (just so I could learn Lua). As the idea is already out there, I'll leave it to others. —howcheng {chat} 16:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Noresize class for mobile

Moved from Module talk:Ahenntafel

 – {{3x|p}}ery (talk)`

@Frietjes: this template breaks the viewport in mobile severely impacting reading experience. I noticed while looking at the Charles I of Austria page.

Can we make the containing div scrollable? I think adding a noresize class to the containing element should suffice.

I attempted to fix in the template level on my mobile phone but I couldn't work it out. Jdlrobson (talk) 14:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson where does the noresize class go? in the outer collapsible table, or in the inner content table? I added the class to the inner table, but I don't know if that helped. Frietjes (talk) 14:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Entire table should be wrapped in a div e.g.

<div class="noresize">{table}</div>

Jdlrobson (talk) 14:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Jdlrobson, okay, I added the div. did that fix it? Frietjes (talk) 14:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

sure did!! So fast! Thank you :) Jdlrobson (talk) 14:28, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Transforming into the standardised navbox look

@SMcCandlish: inter alia: This template retains an exceptionate style in its collapsible heading frame for no obvious reason. Other than the graphical style aspect, this can bring about problems as seen for example in Template:Muhammad's ancestors2. I see two solutions to this problem: 1) Transform the code and graphical style it into the standard look of Template:Navbox. 2) Let go of the collapsible heading althogheter. As for my two cents, I advocate the solution n:o 1. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:23, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Depends. If this is meant to be a navigation tool, then option one, but update the doc to require that it be used as a navbox, at page-bottom, not in mid-article (navboxes never, ever go there). However, it appears to be intended to be informative article content, and it is rarely if ever at the bottom of the page as a navbox. In that case, eliminate the collapsing option, per MOS:DONTHIDE. We also need to remove that from track list templates, and several other things. A collapse option can be present, it just cannot auto-collapse in article prose, just be a manual collapse widget. Auto-collapsing is a both an accessibility problem and a usability one (can't be uncollapsed in a screen reader, nor in various mobile browsers). We permit it in navboxes and perhaps infoboxes, but not in the actual article body.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:02, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

To change the default behaviour from collapsed to not collapsed wrong. It has for many years been collapsed as a compromise, because many editors do not consider these boxes to be suitable for Wikipedia articles. If the default behaviour is to be changed then there needs to be an RfC to agree it. -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 August 2018

Please set the default width for this template at 100%. AlbanGeller (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template.

I can't see anywhere that you've recently used or discussed this template, even less anywhere that you've used the |width=100% option for {{Ahnentafel}}. Cabayi (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cabayi: I edited the article for William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland yesterday which uses the said template. I really don't see why the width shouldn't be set to 100%, I'm editing on a tablet and the template is so disproportionately wide that it zooms the entire page out of focus. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@AlbanGeller: Have you contemplated the proposal in the section just above this one as a solution (it does implicate 100 % width)? Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Chicbyaccident: I agree with your proposal. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

If you do, please state so right under the proposal. Hopefully we can get a consensus for that. Chicbyaccident (talk) 20:34, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

If the width is set to 100% this can cause formatting problems with images, leaving large areas of white spacing. I suggest that the default is set to what is was in the old templates (what ever that was). -- PBS (talk) 13:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

agreed. the default width for the module is the same as the default width for the old template. Frietjes (talk) 14:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 September 2018

Please set the default width for this template at 70%. On tablet screens, the current width stretches the page, causing the entire page to shrink slightly, please see screenshot for example. AlbanGeller (talk) 20:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

The problem seems to be the use of em for min-width. Using percent widths as I did in the sandbox seems to fix the issue but could have other side effects depending on the screen - ping Frietjes for their thoughts Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:01, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

percentage-based min-widths are bad on narrow screens as well. I have reduced the default value for the min-width, but I am open to exploring other options (e.g., scrollbars). Frietjes (talk) 13:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Standard for formating of boxes starting with "1.", "2.", etc.?

Some articles has the template rendering simply "Earl X" in every box, whereas other say "4. Count Y". There seem to be some inconsistency. Should a standard (with or without) be determined and introduced into the documentation for this template? PPEMES (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Ancestry of 5 generations "overdetailed"?

Surtsicna insisted that 5 generations is overdetailed for a person like Valdemar IV of Denmark. The users insists that a "standard" was never agreed upon. I am surprised to learn that. Ahnentafel article seems to indicate 5 generations has been standard since the beginning, before Wikipedia came around. There seems to be 1,000s of articles applying the 5 generation standard where ancestry template is deemed relevant. Feel free to chime in, though. PPEMES (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I would love to be pointed to a discussion that concluded with the agreement that articles about a certain group of people should feature a 5-generation ahnentafel. That there are thousands of articles with the 5-generation chart is the bold copy-paste work of a handful of people who did not obtain a prior consensus. Surtsicna (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

(New addition) The article Ahnentafel does not say that 5 generations is the standard. If it did, I'd put a {{cn}} next to the statement. Surtsicna (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, doesn't the first ahnentafel imaged in the article come with 5 generations? See also this. Doesn't it seem like WP:BURDEN is on you should you wish to promote something else than 5 as a a priori standard?

"One possible explanation is that the example given in the documentation is the five generational one." So the reason why most articles use the 5-generation one is that someone, likely arbitrarily, decided to use a 5-generation example in the template documentation. And as WP:BURDEN says, the burden "lies with the editor who adds or restores material", not on the editor who removes it. If you can demonstrate that a historian or biographer of Valdemar IV shows a genealogy chart with the names of his great-great-grandparents or even mentions his relationship to them in the text, then surely they should stay. If not, they are irrelevant and we are threading dangerously close to original research. These charts are an egregious violation of our verifiability policy anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 10:38, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Is the general tendence of presentation totally irrelevant for the reflections of facts available in individual biographical articles? Meaning, at least in the year 2015, that 7976 applied 5 generations, whereas 97 used 4 generations and 51 used 6 generations? PPEMES (talk) 10:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Is the 5th generation really useful in understanding the subject, or is it just gratuitous, included either just to satisfy someone's curiosity (usually the editor's) or out of a misplaced desire for uniformity? I would argue that for each additional generation the utility of the information is exponentially lessened, and that we rarely find any connection only in the fifth generation that illuminates the actions, alliances, motivations, etc. of the article subject, and as such it is simply gratuitous genealogy for genealogy sake - WP:NOTGENEALOGY, (and that including a 6th generation is unjustifiable in every possible circumstance). Even when there is a specific relationship that is relevant in the fifth generation, such as the derivation of a title, it is almost always better addressed textually than by showing 15 incidental people just to include one of importance.

There is a precedent for such ahnentafeln in encyclopedias - I remember an early 20th century one that included similar charts, but only for a very small number of extremely-prominent monarchs (just three or four among all the English/British rulers). While I can accept that WP:NOTPAPER might allow more liberal use, editorial discretion is still required: it doesn't justify incorporating these charts for every person who ever held any title, their wives, siblings, and even children who died in infancy - what possible actions and motivations are we trying to contextualize. And that doesn't even touch on the WP:OR and WP:V concerns (I don't want to think about all the times I have had to go through dozens of pages to purge all the charts of a single bogus relationship, and the more generations are included, the more pages have the information). No, I am of the 'less is better' school regarding these charts and think Surtsicna's change is an improvement. (I also agree with that editor's removal of ahnentafeln in which nothing but the male-line and their wives were known - all context we might learn from such a chart can be better stated in one sentence.) Agricolae (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

In principle, I am all for detailed ahnentafels for people where ancestry is a significant aspect of their biography. However, the degree of detail should be endogenous to the individual, at least to a degree. That is, if there is no reliable source about an individual that discusses the individual's second great grandparent, it is a bit of a stretch to include that information in an article about the individual. That is, evidence of the relevance of a detailed ahnentafel and WP:V concerns should/could be satisfied simultaneously. Similarly, using multiple entries in a directory or encyclopedia to create the Ahnentafel would be OR. On the other hand, for a King of Denmark from the 14th century, I am sure that 4 or 5 generations of genealogy could be found in a source somewhere. However, going beyond 5 or 6 generations is likely unnecessary even if a reliable source exists that presents the information. I would note, however, that the most important question is what defines a reliable source for the relevance of an extended ahnentafel - genealogical almanacs (Burke's, for instance) may not be very reliable, nor would they be good indications that a large ahnentafel is relevent. Smmurphy^(Talk) 18:45, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

There seems now to have been an individual enterprise of priorly undiscussed mass changes from former consensus of 5 generations. PPEMES (talk) 10:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

You have not yet pointed to the discussion that led to such consensus, so it is reasonable to conclude that such consensus has never existed. Surtsicna (talk) 11:50, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Right. 7,000+ articles means nothing at all? PPEMES (talk) 13:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

They mean that someone made a priorly undiscussed mass change without consensus. Surtsicna (talk) 13:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

That applies to thousands of articles - for years. That pretty much brings us to "Wikipedia - a priorly undiscussed mass change without consensus", is it? PPEMES (talk) 14:28, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think someone made a mass change - somebody did it on a few pages, and various other people used some combination of, 'if we can, we should' and 'if he has it, she should have it too' and similar to have these 5-gen trees spread like a cancer (example, a few years back I had to take one off a page for an actor). This does not represent a tacit consensus, just mission creep. Agricolae (talk) 17:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

5 generations was the original scope of the original creator of the ahnentafel for centuries, as seen in the ahnentafel article. This standard has also been reflected on Wikipedia since its beginning. Now, after centuries of use preceding Wikipedia, and years of rendering here, you claim that there was never a consensus to keep this on Wikipedia. And so now you delete information on thousands of pages, calling it a "cancer". I'm not sure this is helpful to the readers. Just for starters, now the ahentafel of Hugh Capet doesn't graphically render what substantial part of the text of the particle talks about. PPEMES (talk) 12:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The original creator did display 5 generations, but his choice for whatever he was doing in the 16th century is not really a useful indication of what is the best way to satisfy the mandates of Wikipedia. We have a policy for what genealogy is to be included - that necessary to assist in understanding the subject (not just for its own sake, because we can). Rarely if ever does the identity of a great-great-grandmother contribute sufficiently to this understanding to merit its inclusion along with the names of every other person in this generation. That is not to say that there is can never be an informative relationship in the fifth generation of a chart, but this is by far the exception, and the usefulness of one specific relationship does not mandate including everyone in that extra generation on that page, let alone on every page where the template is used. It is not the case that more information, no matter how trivial, equates with a better page. (As to Hugh Capet, the change was made over 4 years ago, explicitly because the extra generation was "unsourced, [containing] several errors and speculation" - sounds like an action entirely consistent with VP:V. Equally important, the actual individuals in the 5th generation are not named at all in the text - not a one of them - so it is hard to see how their inclusion would address your complaint that the chart doesn't represent the text. While I agree that the chart doesn't represent the text very well, I see that as an argument to replace it with one that is more bespoke to the purpose rather than to keep adding generations until we get to Charlemagne, the only named ancestor outside of the generation span in the 4-generation chart.) Agricolae (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

OK. Seems rather like a WP:IDONTLIKEIT conflict of subject interpretations - yours and mine - of what readers can be estimated to find helpful. Third part opinions would be welcome. PPEMES (talk) 16:01, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Four people have taken part in this discussion so it's a bit late to seek a third opinion. Surtsicna (talk) 16:42, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Until someone can explain based on policy why it is important to tell the reader that Constanza Manuel was great-great-granddaughter of Sibylle d'Anduze, a connection that cannot even be arrived at without WP:SYNTH, I will continue to view this as violating WP:NOTGENEALOGY (and SYNTH) - policy, not the frivolous IDONTLIKEIT you would like to portray it as. And the exception proves the rule: if there are any cases where it is not appropriate, then all cases should be evaluated by their merit and not just include this because 'a lot of pages have a 5-generation ahnentafel'. Agricolae (talk) 18:14, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I prefer a case-by-case basis for a question like this, but I think a general principle certainly exists that would cover a 14th century European Queen Consort. That is, if the question is, is 5 generations of ancestry of Constanza Manuel (or Valdemar IV of Denmark) fit to include in an encyclopedia, I would say yes. It is trivial to find a genealogy with Ferdinand I of Portugal as the root in reliable histories going back 6+ generations. I agree that there may not be a single page of a single book or scholarly article that includes Manuel and the matrilinial line of Manuel's father, and if there were an active discussion on Manuel's page with an aim to bring the article to A-class, I would defer to those in that discussion. But Manuel's family tree is fundamental to her encyclopedic value, the synthesis required is not more than the synthesis required to write an article about her, and 5 generations seems perfectly reasonable. So in principle, I support a family tree of 5 generations for Manuel's page. If it were removed, of course I wouldn't notice. But I wouldn't see mass deletion of these things without a discussion to be within the spirit of building an encyclopedia, either. Smmurphy^(Talk) 18:48, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Smmurphy here - with the addition that I could imagine probably lists of people qualifying in the same way as the couple above mentioned examples. As for mass edits, these are already caried out, and it would be hard to see all instances. I have seen some examples, though, without revering or discussion any singular case, but have reacted still. If we took the reasoning of Surtsicna on the money, I fail to see why we should have two generations presented in some ancestry chart, let alone any ahnentafels whatsoever. Then only parents should suffice to talk about in article texts, effecticely ruling any need of some redundant ahnentafels. PPEMES (talk) 19:20, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

This seems to be presented as if it were an argumentum ad absurdum, but I actually agree with it in principle. There are cases where a tree is entirely unnecessary, such as with a princess who died in childhood, yet many of these have a full five generations to contextualize their infancy - I deleted one some time back that was for a child who only lived for hours, but for some reason the reader nonetheless needed to be told the identity of his father's mother's mother's father to place his tragic life in appropriate context. In many cases, naming the parents does indeed provide all the context that is necessary, and only occasionally does anyone beyond the grandparents prove necessary. How often does ODNB name all great-grandparents? Never. In a few specific circumstances they will briefly account for one specific great-grandparent when the there is an inheritance critical for context, but that hardly makes everyone in that generation relevant. I can't think of any instance where they name an ancestor in the fifth generation. Yes, NOTPAPER, but just because we can doesn't mean we should (WP:PROPORTION). Agricolae (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Constanza Manuel's family tree is indeed fundamental to her encyclopedic value, but not up to her great-great-grandparents. Her descent from the kings of Castile is relevant, and we only need 4 generations to show that. Her descent from Charles I or Charles II of Naples, on the other hand, is far from fundamental. Why should a general principle involve an ahnentafel anyway? They are not standard in biographies. Biographies include genealogical charts that show the subject's relation to relevant individuals, normally those mentioned in the text. Since an aunt or a cousin is more likely to be relevant than a great-great-grandparent, Template:Tree chart is much more deserving of being part of a general principle. In your previous comment you said: If there is no reliable source about an individual that discusses the individual's second great grandparent, it is a bit of a stretch to include that information in an article about the individual. I concur with that entirely, and I dare say that generally there are no quality sources discussing an individual's mother's father's father's mother, so ahnentafeln consisting of five generations should not really be a general principle. Surtsicna (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with Smmurphy at all. It is not non-trivial to find a WP:RS account of Ferdinand I of Portugal that traces 6 generations in every line, and in terms of encyclopedic value the relevant relationships for Constanza are that she was daughter of Juan Manuel and descended via infante Manuel from her first husband's great-grandfather (providing the pretext for their divorce), and that her mother was daughter of the King of Aragon, pretty much just what is laid out in the text. All the rest is just decoration. There is not a single iota of informative context to be derived from the fact that her great-great-grandmother was Sibylle d'Anduze. That "If it were removed, of course I wouldn't notice" pretty much summarizes my argument in a nutshell - if it was necessary for encyclopedic context (WP:NOTGENEALOGY) its removal would be noticable. Agricolae (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, the first 5-generation ahnentafel appears to have been published by Michaël Eytzinger in Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium in 1590. As PPEMES pointed out above, this is explained in the introduction to the Wikipedia article on Ahnentafels. This method of presenting genealogy appears to have been standard since then. That's why so many articles on royal and noble subjects in Wikipedia use that genealogical numbering system.

Since that format is clear and presented in a drop-down menu, so that only interested readers even end up seeing these charts, it seems to me that it's a very good idea to retain that system in articles where editors have found and provided sourcing about genealogical material. We should retain this system because that's how genealogy has commonly been presented in published sources for 430 years. Flyte35 (talk) 04:04, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Flyte35: I'm sorry, this has already been mass changed. If you inquire, they will say that this has never been standard in nor outside Wikipedia, that none cares or wants it on Wikipedia anyway, and that in any case it is not relevant, at least not generally, to the scope of biographical articles on Wikipedia. PPEMES (talk) 11:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That's why we're discussing it here, to try to come to a consensus to determine whether it's inappropriate to provide ancestry of 5 generations in genealogical charts. The fact that some editors are being WP:BOLD and editing charts is, I assume, the reason for this discussion. The goal is to reach WP:CONSENSUS so we don't have to keep having this discussion on individual articles. Flyte35 (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not 16th century Austria. Ahnentafeln are not "standard since then". They are very uncommon in biographies and you will not find a 5-generation ahnentafel in virtually any biography. It is not true that genealogy has been presented in published sources using ahnentafeln "for 430 years". If you had ever read a biography of a royal person, the kind on which our featured article are based, you would know that genealogy is not presented in 5-generation ahnentafeln but much more commonly in charts that include uncles, aunts, cousins, and other people who actually had an impact on the subject's life. Surtsicna (talk) 09:49, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

This method of presenting genealogy appears to be standard among genealogists. This is about whether or not to change the the Ahnentafel template. The idea of presenting ancestry and relatives some other way to reflect whatever you may have been reading in contemporary trade biographies is outside the scope of this discussion. Again, since the format is clear and presented in a drop-down menu, so that only interested readers even end up seeing these charts, it's a very good idea to retain that system. We should retain this system because that's how genealogy has commonly been presented for more than 400 years.Flyte35 (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The numbered ancestor table is common among genealogists and has been used for centuries, true, but that it should be 5 generations is not so limited. One American journal has been publishing an ahnentafel in serialized form for decades and they are well over a dozen generations back by now. The only thing special about 5 generations is that (and this is likely behind its popularity) it represents about the number of people who can be put in tree form on a printed page with bmd data and titles, without it been too compacted for easy reading. Wikipedia is not constrained by the size of the printed page, but it is constrained by what content is appropriate - editorial decisions on Wikipedia are not subject to the practices or whims of specialist communities. For biographical entries, Wikipedia aims at mirroring the coverage in scholarly biographical encyclopedic works of a general nature, not the distorted perspective people with an interest in one specific aspect of biography (e.g. genealogy, military, political or religious history, etc.) might apply. A 'genealogists do it this way' argument really carries little weight: Wikipedia is WP:NOTGENEALOGY - a specific policy limits the degree to which genealogical information is to be included in articles, and a 5-generation chart is inconsistent with this policy in most instances. Agricolae (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think WP:NOTGENEALOGY, really applies here. That's a guideline about how family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic. Clearly many of editors here believe the standard chart is entirely appropriate. It's the sort of thing that might guide an editor against, say, including 4 paragraphs in Barack Obama's article explaining how he's related to David Cameron. It's not rule against including genealogy altogether. Flyte35 (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

It is exactly what should be applied here. You are drawing a distinction without a difference. The fifth generation almost always consists of family history information that does not help in the least in understanding the subject of the article. You learn nothing useful whatsoever about Constanza Manuel by being told that her father's mother's mother's mother was some obscure woman with the name Sibylle d'Anduze - though the relationship you mention is equally trivial, at least David Cameron is himself a notable individual. Agricolae (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Nevertheless, WP:NOTGENEALOGY doesn't prohibit including genealogy altogether, nor does it indicate the number of generations that should be included in a genealogical chart.Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, may I suggest another perspective on this? Please be reminded that we have plenty of footer templates around various articles. These contain links of which some may be more indirect than others, but they are there often more in order to assist navigation rather than by implication of immediately relevance in article text or sections. The way I interpretate it, the ahnentafels are present quite often for considerably comparable reasons. That is, link-navigation help in a graphical overview format, rather than necessarly strictly implying for the reader any significance per se of included links/topics. For an indication of this dimension of the issue, few ahnentafels exist containing no links at all. I would suppose for part said reaons. That is why I was surprised to this new proposed policy of disclosing these templates. There are other topics in certain footer templates that some may consider even more digressing in this and that biographical article, should we apply these changed policy proposals more extensively, isn't it? I'm not sure how that would be helpful for the readers, though, if we would apply that rigidly. What I'm trying to say is that this might not so much a discussion about whether something is trivial, but also or at least combined with to what extent a navigations template might help readers simply navigate in fashions that certainly does exist across Wikipedia. This includes surfing freely through history - including perhaps sometimes in genealogical routes, notwithstanding eventual positions on the importance of such navigation by us Wikipedia users. PPEMES (talk) 00:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

That is it exactly. There's a template for US Second Ladies and Treasurers of the United States. I doubt anyone would argue it was terribly significant part of Lynn Cheney's life that her husband's predecessor's wife was Tipper Gore or that it was at all important to William Alexander Julian's life that Georgia Neese Clark moved into his office after died. Templates like ahnentafels are here in part because they provide useful navigation for Wikipedia users. Flyte35 (talk) 01:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

While I see where you are going, it strikes me as significant overkill to formulaically show 31 individuals, some of them completely unlinked (often completely unreferenced, and in some cases completely fictitious), just to cater to the rare person who feels the need to jump back four generations in one fell swoop without having to click through pages of intervening generations - it's not like we don't name their parents in both the text and the increasingly-ubiquitous infoboxes. They entail too much downside for minimal upside, in my mind, if all they are is a navigation aid. Agricolae (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It goes without saying the material should be referenced and reflect real people. Since the charts are presented in a dropdown menu that no one sees if he's not interested in the material I don't think there's really much downside at all. Flyte35 (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It certainly doesn't go without saying, if actual practice is any indication. The overwhelming majority of these are entirely unreferenced, and that is the downside - they are conveying novel factual information, not just handy navigation links, and that information seems to be treated by actual editors as if it was completely divorced from the strictures of WP:V. Hiding it not only hides it from the disinterested, it also hides it from those who might see that it is wrong. A template with too many generations simply invites this kind of behavior. Genealogical hobbyists see a chart with empty fields, they feel an irresistible pressure fill it in, independent of policies like WP:V and WP:NOR, and the more generations are included, the more fields there are to be filled, the more opportunity there is to add unverifiable or controversial material. When I ended up having to spend time I didn't really have just to write an entire detailed Wikipedia page on someone that arguably isn't really notable just to get people to stop repeatedly putting the same disputed information back into a set of these charts, that told me everything I need to know about their upside vs downside. Agricolae (talk) 02:42, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not a downside to Ahnentafels; that's Wikipedia itself. Literally all of the encyclopedia is something to which hobbyists feel an irresistible pressure to contribute independent of policies. All templates contain fields to be filled, with opportunities to add unverifiable material. The fact that a structural entity like an Ahnentafel encourages contribution from users is not something to avoid in an encyclopedia whose purpose is to "benefit readers by acting as a... comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge."Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

It is a downside of Wikipedia itself, a downside that is at least attempted to be mitigated by policies like WP:NOT and WP:SYNTH, policies that the use of this template encourages the violation of. It can indeed be a problem with other templates, including infoboxes and even succession boxes in some instances. That is why infoboxes, for example, are reviewed and fields that are inherently problematic, that represent trivia or encourage original research more often than not, are routinely reviewed and sometimes removed (as was the Religion: field for non-religious historical figures) to minimize this downside. A template that actively encourages violation of the very policies enacted specifically to temper such editorial excesses is absolutely 'something to avoid', with each generation added to this template more egregious invitation. Agricolae (talk) 11:17, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The question under discussion here is whether or not the Ahnentafel template is too detailed. If you believe the template itself should be removed there's a procedure to go about that.Flyte35 (talk) 03:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear. When I said every additional generation makes the situation worse, that was meant to imply that if the template is to be retained, then the fewer generations that violate content policy by being superfluous genealogy, the better. Agricolae (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Let me add that if these are to be viewed as nothing but navigation boxes, then they should be treated as such - placed at the bottom of the page among the other navigation and succession boxes, and not be presented in an Ancestry section in the body of the article. That the template is universally placed in the body, often with a section heading, tells me they are being used as content and will be viewed that way by readers. Were there an agreement that this template is nothing but a glorified navigation aid, then this should be explicit, with both the template documentation stating it is to be placed with the navboxes (after the citations and bibliography) and not in the body, and with a visible line at the top of ahnentafel stating that all information it contains is intended solely for navigation purposes and should not be interpreted as verifiable article content. Agricolae (talk) 03:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

No one said that they are nothing but navigation boxes, but it does seem reasonable to place them at the bottom of the page among the other boxes, if that solution seems reasonable to other editors. That really might be a good way to fix this problem here and get out of the WP:IDONTLIKEIT conflict of interpretations here. Flyte35 (talk) 01:43, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

So this is a Schrodinger's Template: both a Navigation box when it otherwise be subject to the content restrictions like V and NOTGENEALOGY, and yet not just a Navigation box when subjected to NAVBOX - and you can't tell whether it is a Navigation box or not until you try to apply a policy, then it becomes whatever in needs to for that policy not to apply. (Oh, and IDONTLIKEIT doesn't really apply when the argument has been 'I don't like it violating this specific policy'.) Agricolae (talk) 04:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

So, place the Ahnentafels at the bottom of the page among the other navigation and succession boxes? That solution seems reasonable to me.Flyte35 (talk) 05:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Agricolae has just explained to you that it is not a solution. How does that solve the problem of verifiability and pertinence? Surtsicna (talk) 10:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

That was the idea Agricolae proposed. The question under discussion is whether the Ahnentafel template is overdetailed. What would you prefer, Surtsicna? Flyte35 (talk) 02:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Not my proposal. My proposal was explicitly conditional, that if it is nothing but a navbox, it should be treated as a navbox (and implicitly, subject to the policies on navboxes). You responded that no one said it was nothing but a navbox. That negates my conditional and hence the consequences of it - if it isn't a navbox (which turns out to have been a red herring), it is content, subject to the content policies, wherein every generation not needed to understand the subject is superfluous (i.e. what Surtsucna has referred to in edit summaries as "overdetailed"). Agricolae (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

And if these ahnentafeln were meant to function as navboxes, then WP:NAVBOX would apply and the only people mentioned in them would be the people with a biography on Wikipedia. None of us here honestly see this template as a navbox, as even those supporting such interpretation argue that people such as Johann Friedrich Waldau should be mentioned in the ahnentafel of Crown Princess Victoria. Furthermore, treating Template:Ahnentafel as a navbox would effectively absolve it of WP:V, which is unacceptable. Surtsicna (talk) 10:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

It is over-detailed and there's no agreed standard for how many generations should be included. Celia Homeford (talk) 13:59, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The standard is the template we're discussing here. The discussion is about whether 5 generations is too detailed. How many generations do you think is the appropriate level of detail? Flyte35 (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

This is begging the larger question - not what the right number of generations is in a standardized systematic ancestor spew, but whether we shouldn't instead be showing a person's relationships that are relevant to their inheritance, actions and immediate context, whether they be aunts, cousins, step-fathers, etc., that actually may help the reader understand their interactions, as opposed to giving some arbitrary number of generations of direct ancestors because . . . well, just because! Our decisions regarding what genealogy to show should be dictated by the content of each page, not a by some uniform template. Agricolae (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd still say we could use a RFC on this discussion. It regards a substantial amount of articles information that have been around for a substantial amount of time. PPEMES (talk) 11:14, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

That is a great idea, yes.Flyte35 (talk) 03:01, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

What would this RFC be about anyway? Whether we should make this template the standard in all royals-related biographies? Or whether it should contain a set number of generations? I cannot imagine an RFC that could enforce the use of any template across thousands of articles. Not even infoboxes are a given. Surtsicna (talk) 07:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

That depends on how user:PPEMES sets up the RFC. This is exactly the sort of ambiguity we've been wrestling with here. Flyte35 (talk) 02:30, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It doesn't really. No RFC could force or prohibit the use of a template across thousands of articles. Surtsicna (talk) 05:53, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Things as there were until just recently may have been nuts. But can you at least agree that the reforms you brought unto Wikipedia have meant a significant change in a short time? As such, would a "Request for comments" really hurt awfully? PPEMES (talk) 19:56, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

It would not hurt. It would just be a waste of time. What could it achieve? No template has ever been mandated on any page and no template should ever be regarded as a sacred cow. Content that fails basic policies such as WP:V and WP:OR must be eligible for removal and the rest must be open for individual discussion, don't you think? Surtsicna (talk) 20:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Presumably the RFC PPEMES is proposing creating would be aiming to establish whether it's appropriate to include the template in articles, so that we could get out of this WP:IDONTLIKEIT morass. No one is proposing mandating anything. Flyte35 (talk) 01:35, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting that this template should never be included in articles, so I again do not understand what the proposal is about or what it could accomplish. If anybody thought this template inappropriate to include in articles, I assume it would be nominated for deletion. Surtsicna (talk) 14:11, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact I would be happy to delegate this to Flyte35, if you don't mind? PPEMES (talk) 06:49, 28 May 2019 (UTC)