Template talk:Infobox officeholder

Education & alma mater

Template:Infobox person states that |alma mater= "is a more concise alternative to (not addition to)" |education=. Does that apply to this infobox too? Khiikiat (talk) 12:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Guidelines for birth_place about adding "(present-day ...)"

Does/should this {{Infobox person}} guideline for |birth_place= also apply here in {{Infobox officeholder}}?

birth_place "What the place may correspond to on a modern map is a matter for an article's main text."

Normally when I have reason to edit a biography and I see something like this for birth place I would remove the parenthetical.

Born Pultipalli, Chittoor district, Madras State, India (present-day Andhra Pradesh)

But in this specific example, the article is using {{Infobox officeholder}}, not {{Infobox person}}.

I think we should be using the {{Infobox person}} guidelines for parameters that are shared between it and other infoboxes for persons like {{Infobox officeholder}}. If there are any reasons not to follow a specific guideline or if there are additional guidelines that go beyond what {{Infobox person}} advises, then that could be noted in the documentation for {{Infobox officeholder}}. The post above about |alma_mater= and |education= seems to be arguing along the same lines. What do others think?  — Archer (t·c) 08:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I would always avoid "(present-day Footown/Fooland)" or "(now Footown/Fooland)" in the infobox and the guidance at Infobox person seems sensible (and I would support its duplication here). Number 57 10:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree. Vacant0 (talk) 11:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 January 2024 (Governor-General nowrap display)

governor-general parameter with a hyphen should preferably display using the Nowrap template, using {{nowrap|Governor-General}} and {{nowrap|Governors-General}}.

This should not apply to the equivalent governor_general using a space for the title.

Mr. Lechkar (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 20:28, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion regarding the placement of "Sir"

There is a discussion regarding the placement of "Sir" here in case anyone is interested. Cheers, --Omnipaedista (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Complexity makes bug-fixing prohibitive

After finding a "bug" in the infobox for an Australian senator (where it linked to a like-named electorate in the UK), it turned out the page's infobox had parliament=Australian but constituent_MP1=Wentworth.

It turns out that in that case, this infobox strips the link and then assumes it's a UK electorate. I've been trying to figure out how this happens.

I've been deciphering both this infobox and its child Template:Infobox_officeholder/office, and after a large headache, well, I think I've identified the source of the weirdness, in the latter template.

The heading11 parameter is specified (hopefully clarified by my insertion of spaces and line breaks) as:

header11 = {{#if: {{{constituency_AM|}}}{{{constituency_MP|}}} | {{#switch: {{{parliament|}}} | Australian = Member of the <span style="display: inline-block;">[[Australian House of Representatives|Australian Parliament]]</span> | European = [[Member of the European Parliament]] | Scottish = [[Member of the Scottish Parliament]] | Sri Lanka|Sri Lankan = [[Member of Parliament (Sri Lanka)|Member of Parliament]] | United Kingdom|UK = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] | #default = {{#if: {{{constituency_AM|}}} | {{#if: {{{assembly|}}} | Member of the <span style="display: inline-block;">[[{{{assembly}}} Assembly]]</span> | Assembly Member }} | Member of {{#if: {{{parliament|}}} | the <span style="display: inline-block;">[[{{{parliament}}} Parliament]]</span> | Parliament }} }} }} <br />for {{#ifeq:{{Title disambig text|{{{constituency_MP|}}}}}|UK Parliament constituency | {{{constituency_MP|}}} | {{#if: {{#switch: {{{parliament|}}} |United Kingdom|UK | = {{Linkless exists|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency_MP|}}}}} (UK Parliament constituency)}} }} | {{#if:{{Constlk|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency_MP|}}}}}}} | {{Constlk|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency_MP|}}}}}}} | {{{constituency_{{#if:{{{constituency_AM|}}}|AM|MP}}}}} }} | {{{constituency_{{#if:{{{constituency_AM|}}}|AM|MP}}}}} }} }} {{#if: {{{prior_term|}}} | <div style="font-weight:normal;">{{{prior_term}}}</div> }} }}

This is problematic, because it places some of the UK-specific logic after outside the {{#switch:{{{parliament}}}|...}}, while at the same time effectively making the UK the default.

I suggest this section should look more like this:

header11 = {{Infobox_officeholder/description
 | parliament = {{{parliament|{{{assembly|}}}}}}
 | constituency = {{{constituency|{{{riding|}}}}}}
 | ap_label = {{#if:{{{assembly|}}}|Assembly|Parliament}}
}}

And a new Template:Infobox_officeholder/description would look something like this:

{{#switch:{{{parliament|default}}|
  | Australian = Member of the [[Australian House of Representatives|Australian Parliament]]
    <br />for {{{constituency}}}
  | European = [[Member of the European Parliament]]
    '''Bold'''for {{{constituency}}}
  | Scottish = [[Member of the Scottish Parliament]]
    '''Bold'''for {{{constituency}}}
  | Sri Lanka|Sri Lankan = [[Member of Parliament (Sri Lanka)|Member of Parliament]]
    '''Bold'''for {{{constituency}}}
  | United Kingdom|UK| =
    [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]]
    '''Bold'''for
     {{#ifeq:
         {{Title disambig text|{{{constituency_MP|}}}}}
       | UK Parliament constituency
       | {{{constituency_MP|}}}
       | {{#if:
           {{Linkless exists|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency|}}}}} (UK Parliament constituency)}}
            | {{#if:{{Constlk|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency|}}}}}}}
                  | {{Constlk|{{#invoke:delink|delink|{{{constituency|}}}}}}}
                  | {{{constituency}}}
              }}
            | {{{constituency}}}
          }}
      }}
  | #default =
    {{#if:
        {{{parliament|}}}
      | Member of the <span style="display: inline-block;">[[{{{parliament}}} {{ap_label}}]]</span>
      |
        {{#switch:
            {{{ap_label|Parliament}}}
          | Assembly = Assembly Member
          | Parliament = Member of  Parliament
        }}
    }}
    <br />for {{{constituency}}}
  }}
}}

(Note that I say something like, because this still doesn't disambiguate between countries.)

---

By now I'm starting to think that a wholesale overall might be called for. It took a long time to dissect this code, not least because the lack of unfolded lines (in part because adjacency is required in some places, but mostly just by habit).

Firstly, there are small details, for example numerous instances of structures like

{{#if:{{{state_house|}}}|{{{state_house}}}|United States}}

where I wonder why it doesn't simply have

{{{state_house|United States}}}

instead?

Secondly, the bulk of the code seems to be handling country-specific special cases, such as

{{#if:{{{majority_leader|}}}{{{minority_floor_leader|}}}{{{minority_leader|}}}{{{majority_floor_leader|}}}||{{#if:{{{jr/sr|}}}|[[United States Senate|United States Senator{{#if:{{{succeeding|}}}{{{assuming|}}}|-elect}}]]<br />from {{{state}}}}}}}

or

[[Speaker of the {{{state_assembly|}}} {{#ifeq:{{{state_assembly|}}}|Nevada||{{#ifeq:{{{state_assembly|}}}|New Jersey|General|State}}}} Assembly]]

In the latter case I'm left wondering why that's not handled either by a subsidiary template, or indeed by not handling them here, and simply following the existing page redirections (from Nevada State Assembly to Nevada Assembly and from New Jersey State Assembly to New Jersey General Assembly respectively)? (This piece of magic is questionable anyway; for example, Massachusetts is not a State but rather a Commonwealth, and the formal title of its legislative body is the Massachusetts General Court.)

But more generally, having only a single template to deal with any kind of office seems like madness; surely it would be more maintainable to have specific templates for each kind of assembly (and possibly for each role)? Then Template:Infobox_officeholder/office could comprise (mostly) {{#switch:{{{parliament}}}|...}} and each region's template would only need to deal with its own idiosyncrasies.

Underneath those I would have another template that does formatting, given a fully standardized set of parameters.

Having mutually exclusive parameters constituency_AM and constituency_PM is a further complication. It would make more sense for these to be consolidated into constituency (which is already largely done) and add ap_label = Assembly or ap_label = Parliament (or in specialisations as ap_label = State Assembly or ap_label = Federal House of Representatives.

Adding country = and state = parameters would also simplify logic elsewhere. Martin Kealey (talk) 07:57, 14 February 2024 (UTC) Martin Kealey (talk) 07:57, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the easiest first step is to just remove the extra | after UK so it is no longer the default. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Martin, thanks for bringing this issue to light. It should be fixed now, please see Special:Diff/1208231176 for the correction to the code and the relevant testcase for comparison with the previous code. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 20:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Template-protected edit request on 1 March 2024

Please delete the 'majority = vote' parameter from the Members of Parliament infobox. Those infoboxes are about the office being held, not the election. Having how much votes they last won the seat by, listed below the date they took their seat. Just doesn't look right. GoodDay (talk) 06:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:TPECON, removal of a parameter from a template-protected template should not be done without a strong consensus. I would tend to oppose removing it (e.g., for British MPs, where a politician's "majority" is used to mean "vote lead" even when it's a plurarily; see the second sense at Wikt:majority and the Cambridge Dictionary). It seems to have been added by @Philip Stevens in 2006 to Template:Infobox Politician, which was one of the templates merged into this one in 2007. I would be open to supporting a change to something clearer like "Last vote lead". SilverLocust 💬 07:59, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

• I support the removal as per GoodDay's reasoning. Also, with a general election in the UK this year, all of the information currently in this field for UK MPs is about to go out of date. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:52, 1 March 2024 (UTC)