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This page is for discussion of the proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland/CatNavProposal

Initial discussion

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  • I find this an excellent piece of work for which BHG is to be heartily congratulated. The feature which quietly places either Republic or Northern at the top, according to the current category, is particularly neat.
I'd definitely go with full names rather than than abbreviations. Non-Irish people will generally be unfamiliar with the county names, let alone abbreviations, and mouseover isn't an option for most mobile devices. – Fayenatic London 20:01, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that BHG has done a great job on this, and I too liked the way that ROI or NI is on top depending on the cat. I would go for the "BHG preference": include all 32 counties, split into North & Republic, plus the new counties by default, with all the specified exceptions. I don't find the full county name unduly bulky, and I didn't like the version with abbreviations at all. I got stuck on the first one, CW (I guess there aren't many Carlow-registered cars in my neck of the woods), and in the example it was greyed out so mouseover wasn't even possible. Scolaire (talk) 09:32, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow. Hats off to BHG for the work done on this! I too would go with the BHG preference: include all 32 counties, split into North & Republic, plus the new counties by default, with all the specified exceptions. Definitely in favour of full names, not abbreviations; abbreviations might work for Irish readers but will flummox anyone else. Definitely include the "new" counties. Question: Could GAA mode cater for London and New York? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 12:21, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • (moved from WT:IE) Hi BHG, that's a very comprehensive proposal. My preference is for the Default version, e.g. all 32 counties, split into North & Republic, plus the new counties, as in Category:Islands of County Fermanagh. I don't like the abbreviations at all, I can't process them, when I see 'TE', I don't think Tyrone, I think what is that? Also, I feel strongly that the 'new' counties must be included. I like the no redlinks design principle. Spleodrach (talk) 14:11, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Fayenatic london, Scolaire, Bastun, and Spleodrach: Many thanks for the prompt feedback, and your kind words. I'll refrain from drawing more conclusions on the specifics until more editors have commented.
    I initially posted a note about this only to WT:IE, but since there seems to be interest in including Norniron, I have also posted[1] a note at WT:NIR.
    Bastun's point about GAA counties is a good one. Since the GAA list is separate, it would in theory be easy to add London and New York, and in principle it sounds like a good idea which I'd be v happy to implement.
    However I have some technical concerns, and I'll post about those in a separate section below. I will also notify WT:GAA. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:21, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • As usual BHG's work is quality but this one excels. Without a doubt the default with all the nuts and bolts is the one to choose. As others have stated, they don't like the abbreviations much, well neither do I and non-Irish editors or readers will certainly be confused. When would you expect to implement this? It looks like quite a lot of work, so well done and thanks. ww2censor (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Many thanks for the praise, @Ww2censor. V kind of you.
I'll add a new section below about implementation timelines. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:05, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see much in the proposal that I could approve. I dislike the abbreviation option: few outside Ireland would have a notion what they meant. Even in Ireland , DLR would cause a lot of head scratching. I prefer the partitioned list (ROI & NI) over the ROI alone & NI alone lists. I like the greying instead on the redlining. I fail to see the need to include the GAA. It's a private club not a state-approved unit of local government. And f you're going to have GAA counties, then why has London GAA and New York GAA been excluded? How a private club wishes to organise itself is its own business, so its "county" definitions are perfectly valid, no matter how potty. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:41, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • The London and New York question was raised by Bastun, above, and BHG has said she will address it. If you're going to tackle county categories, then there's no reason not to have a version for the GAA. Scolaire (talk) 14:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I can only second others, this is an amazing piece of work, which solves one of those problems you feel sub-consciously, but had no idea could be resolved so neatly. Indeed, I suspect few users manage comfortable cross-navigation, which takes away some of the otherwise great value of the robust county structure. On the questions, I'd definitely go with full names, the abbreviations are not known like those of US states, and many of even residents will struggle. And yes, the full county list - both County Dublin and the four elements of the Region have their purposes. So basically, the "default package." Thanks! SeoR (talk) 12:12, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment[2] by @Sarah777 moved from the Options section on the proposal page
Not sure if this is the correct place to post? I think I understand what you are proposing, after some study - you've put a lot of thought and work into this.
I support your preferences as per above Sarah777 (talk) 13:35, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Summing up the initial discussion

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This discussion has now been open for 7 days, so I think it is now time to weigh consensus and move on. I suggest that this discussion has reached the following WP:Consensus:

  1. Navigation for GAA counties will dealt with by a wholly separate template, whose design is not fully resolved (see below #Proposal:_Split_out_the_GAA)
  2. the abbreviations are unhelpful, and should not be used
  3. the preferred option is the #BHG preference set out in the proposal, with examples at #Examples: Default version, i.e.:
    • include all 32 counties
    • include the new counties (Fingal, South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown)
    • split the displayed list into North & Republic, with the first set listed being the set which includes the county of the current page
    • on each page, the full set of relevant counties will be displayed, but titles of non-existent categories will be displayed as unlinked grey text

However, we have had no response from Northern Ireland editors. The note which I posted[3] at WT:NIR has produced zero response either here or at WT:NIR. Also no response to my post at WT:IECOLL.

I see no reason to expect that waiting any longer will produce a response. So I propose to implement the consensus on a trial basis of five sets of categories, with each page displaying for 2 weeks a note below the navbox which explains that this is a trial, and links to the template's talk page for any feedback. The template will be set to stop displaying the note after 2 weeks. (By "sets of categories" I mean that e.g. the 35 cat pages in Category:Counties of Northern Ireland+Category:Counties of the Republic of Ireland is one set; the 35 cat pages in Category:People by county in Northern Ireland+Category:People by county in the Republic of Ireland is another set)

@Fayenatic london, Scolaire, Bastun, Spleodrach, Ww2censor, SeoR, and Sarah777::

  • Do agree with my assessment of the consensus?
  • Do you agree with my proposal to begin implementing this on a trial basis?

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:35, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oops — I forgot to ping @Laurel Lodged. Sorry. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:17, 21 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the ping. I have been on site even if making few edits but have not noticed this discussion until I got the recent pings. I'll need a day to have a look over the discussion as I have no time tonight. Mabuska (talk) 21:26, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will point one minor quibble that doesn't really affect this discussion anyways. Wicklow wasn't the last to be created. Londonderry was created only a matter of years afterwards and Tipperary was only made a single what we would now call traditional county in 1715. Mabuska (talk) 21:37, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks to those who have responded. All but the editors who posted in the discussion above have responded, except @Spleodrach. That is 7 out of 8, all of whom have supported my proposal of proceeding to a trial implementation, which I think is a consensus to do so.

The late but v welcome arrival of @Mabuska (thanks to Scolaire) slightly complicates things, because I don't want to pre-empt Mabuska's substantive assessment. However, I think that it would still be helpful for Mabuska to see a "live" version of what the rest of us have agreed for the trial.

So I will go ahead with the trial as proposed, without prejudice to withdrawing or changing it as a result of further discussion. The good news is that the discussion above agreed on something very close to what I had originally suggested, so the coding has been easy, and I can proceed now. Details below at #Trial implementation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:30, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Addition to initial discussion

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As I have only come across this it would be silly for my response to it to be in the summing up sub-section. From what I have seen so far I:

  • Agree that we should not use abbreviations.
  • Agree that the NI and RoI counties should be split from each other. Anything other than that is an instant object to the whole thing as it would fly in the face of the real-world. But it's a non-issue as everyone agrees with the split :-)
  • In regards to pre-Partition categories, I understand and agree with BHG's viewpoint on it.

Overall I don't see anything agreed to that I object too. Though I will reserve the right to raise something I may have missed after implementation. So on that basis it is a yes and yes' from me.

I also wonder can we create similar navboxes for specifics, for example look at [4] and [5]. As we can see the first link has the nice lovely new navbox for the counties, but look at the way the constituencies are listed... simply terrible. As we are trying to improve Wikipedia and make readers lives easier, it would be great to have the constituencies listed in a similar way to the counties when you click on one of them. Whilst it would be possible to make the code of this navbox much more complicated and do what I'm suggesting, a separate one would be better and simpler. Mabuska (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Mabuska: many thanks for taking the time to study this, which you evidently did v carefully. Good idea to make a new subsection, and thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed explanation of your assessment.
I am glad that you support the include-all-counties-but-list-NI-and-RoI-separately approach. I too would have seen a bare list of all 32 counties as denying reality, and am pleased that we can all agree on a solution which explicitly presents that reality, but allows wider navigation.
I'm glad too that we share a similar logic on the pre-Partition categories.
And you are absolutely right to see how implementation works out. With over 2,000 categories, it is inevitable that some unforeseen issues will crop up. I'm sure that if we talk them through when they arise, we will find solutions.
Now, to the pre-1801 MPs categories. A bit off-topic, but since you raised it here ...
The list of constituencies is not intended to be a navbox. It's a list whose purpose is to explain the scope of the categories. The constituencies themselves are all interlinked by navboxes which I made a few years ago (e.g. {{County Armagh constituencies}}), so it's one click to any constituency of any era in the same county, and 2 clicks to any any constituency of any era elsewhere in Ireland.
However, the constituencies are not categories, so a constituency navbox wouldn't make such sense on the category page. I agree that the current presentation is a bit crude, but I couldn't think of a better way of presenting it. I initially had a vertical bulleted list (see e.g. here), but that wasted valuable vertical space (see e.g. research by usablity guru Jakob Nielsen on how readers don't like scrolling down), so I wrapped] it in a hlist[6] to reduce its height.
Maybe there's a better way of saying "categ based on these constituencies", but it shouldn't look like a navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:09, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to pre-partition @BrownHairedGirl: I should clarify further as I don't think I responded fully enough on it.
In regards to pre-Union, aka pre-1801, the all-Ireland no distinction between NI and ROI makes sense as Ireland was a separate jurisdiction to Great Britain. Between 1801 and 1921 however they where part of the same. As such should we not help tie or connect the Irish counties and such to their counterparts in GB somehow via the navbox or simply leave it to categories at the bottom? 1921 and afterwards is not such an issue as we are stating NI and RoI (even though RoI is anachronistic for part of that period). Mabuska (talk) 11:38, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting question, @Mabuska. It seems to me that it raises both philosophical and practical issues.
The philosophical point is whether that is needed. I'm inclined to say no, because the UK has never been a unitary state. Not wholly federal either, but instead a series of asymmetries in a "country of countries". As a result, many topics within the UK can reasonably be be viewed either in a UK-wide-context or by focusing on one constituent country. So I don't see a problem with a navbox which focuses on one country of the UK, provided that it links to similar navboxes for other parts of the UK if they exist. (Big if).
On a more practical level, including all the counties of England, Scotland and Wales would make a huge and cumbersome navbox. So I think that is more better to cross-link navboxes where equivalents exist for England, Scotland and Wales.
However, that brings me back to the point I made in the proposal at #Irish Counties: England, Scotland and Wales lack Ireland's consistent historical geography. So I suspect it's unlikely that anyone would try to construct a smilar by-county multi-purpose category navbox for those countries. The shifting boundaries mean that it would be a nightmare to design and to apply.
So in practice I v much doubt that there will ever be navboxes like this for other parts of the UK. Hence nothing to link to, so we just have to rely on navigation via the parent categories.
That raises an issue of scope: what all-Ireland by-county category sets apply wholly or predominantly to the period 1801—1922 when all of Ireland was part of the UK?
I have not completed my examination of the subcats of Category:Counties of Ireland, but so far the only category fully meeting that description is:
I also found here 3 near misses:
So unless I find more, the only category which is definitely relevant to this point is Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Irish constituencies (1801–1922) by county. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There does indeed seem to be a few inconsistencies and issues with those cats you mention, which need looked at, though they are outside the scope of this discussion. Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Irish constituencies (1801–1922) by county is the only one that actually applies to the period in question, the rest existed before and after the union of Ireland with Great Britain. If, as you say and is most likely, no similar navboxes are created for GB then parent categories would probably be the best way of dealing with the issue. We can always create a new parent category or two such as Category:Counties of the United Kingdom (1801-1922) and if we want Category:Counties of the kingdom of Ireland (1542-1801), which could be children of Category:Counties of Ireland? Mabuska (talk) 14:08, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Implementation timelines

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@Ww2censor asked above When would you expect to implement this?

Once everything is agreed, I guess the schedule would be something like:
  1. 2 to 5 days for me to make any coding changes needed, and triple-check them. (Mostly cooling-off time for me to sleep on any changes and revisit them with a fresh eye)
  2. 1—3 days for me to document it all.
  3. A few days for others to review the documentation
  4. a day or 2 for me to build a list of categories
  5. a few days for others to to review the list
  6. One day for do a big AWB run applying the template(s).
So maybe 10 or 20 days in all for implementation, assuming I am free to do en.wp work.
However, I am v serious about importance of a broad consensus before implementing something this big. So I think this initial responses phase should be open for at least 7 days to give ppl a chance to review and comment, maybe longer. (If you or other editors know of more editors who might want to express a view, please invite them).
Thereafter it depends on whether the current unanimity is sustained. If there are divergent views, we will need to discuss them to see if there is a way of resolving them, and how long that could take is anyone's guess. There may be a need to have a few further rounds of discussion, and/or to code new variants. If issues cannot be easily resolved, we may even need an RFC.
As I noted in the proposal (at #Northern Ireland) I am particularly concerned that we have a north-south consensus on how (if at all) to link across the border, and so far we have not heard from any editors from Northern Ireland.
So let's see how it goes. It will take as long as it needs; there is no WP:DEADLINE, and I really do want to ensure that if any of this is implemented, it does not trigger an OMG-what-is-this-horror-that-BHG-has-created drama. Thanks to Gnevin's inspired idea a decade ago of setting up WP:IECOLL to resolve points of disagreement, we have largely avoided major disputes between editors on difft sides of the border. Let's be careful to maintain that harmony. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:41, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GAA counties

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In their initial comments above, both @Bastun and @Laurel Lodged recommended including London GAA and New York GAA in the set of GAA counties. This would be easily done, and in principle it seems like a why-on-earth-not issue.

However, London and New York are not the only GAA counties outside Ireland. Gaelic Athletic Association county#Gaelic Athletic Association 'counties' overseas lists several other counties, tho it's unclear whether that list is complete.

That para is sourced to http://www.gaa.ie/about-the-gaa/gaa-overseas/ , which no longer exists on the GAA website. The current page http://www.gaa.ie/the-gaa/provinces-counties-clubs/ doesn't even mention overseas GAA: it's just the 32 counties.

Nor does http://www.gaa.ie/the-gaa/administration/ mention overseas. I eventually found http://www.gaa.ie/my-gaa/world-gaa/, but it doesn't directly list counties. The subpage http://www.gaa.ie/my-gaa/world-gaa/our-clubs/britain/ does list the 7 British GAA counties (Scotland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire and London). However, the other subpages are less clear

However, the archived version of http://www.gaa.ie/about-the-gaa/gaa-overseas/ (see here) links to an archived copy of the 2014 GAA Overseas Booklet, which does list all the overseas GAA counties. But it's 4 years old, and doesn't seem to be mentioned on the current GAA website

So I am unsure what to do here. I see several possibilities, including:

  1. Just run with the 32 GAA counties in Ireland
  2. Add just London and New York, even tho that is an incomplete set
  3. wait for someone to build a complete and fully sourced list of Overseas GAA counties, and use it as the basis for expanding the GAACatNav template whenever it is ready

I will ask for input from WT:GAA. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:34, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need only ask two questions: (1) what GAA counties have articles on Wikipedia? and (2) what counties compete in the League and Championship? I see Warwickshire and Lancashire in Template:GAA National Leagues. There's also Category:British GAA and Category:Gaelic games governing bodies in the United States, but I would be inclined to restrict it to teams that compete in the major competitions. A navigation template that includes Asia, Australasia, Middle East etc. would soon cease to be useful as a navigation template, I think. Scolaire (talk) 19:39, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Scolaire: I think the relevant questions are a bit different:
  1. What overseas GAA bodies are counties?
  2. Do they have an eponymous category? this is about categories, not articles
  3. Does that have eponymous category have a set of subcategories organised as per the subcats of an Irish Category:FooCounty GAA? if not, then they will be a sea of grey on the links from subcats of other counties
I have posted[7] at WT:GAA, so hopefully we will get some answers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:56, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

1 What overseas GAA bodies are counties?

All the geographic overseas bodies are "counties" from the GAA point of view except for

2 Do they have an eponymous category?

Some do , most of the minor one's don't Category:Gaelic_games_by_country

3 Does that have eponymous category have a set of subcategories organised as per the subcats of an Irish

Outside Ireland, Britian ,Australia and the US . No Gnevin (talk) 09:28, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to have opened a minor can of worms - apologies. I'm not really a follower of GAA so to be honest I'm not familiar at all with their setup outside the hurling and football league and championship, and I'm aware of London and New York playing in those. I don't know that the other overseas "counties" would warrant inclusion in a template designed specifically for Irish counties, but if it's possible to kill two birds with one stone then why not go for it. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Bastun: no need all to apologise. It is a good suggestion, and I had considered raising it in the proposal ... but I was already alarmed at the length of that page, and did not want to make it any bigger.
Rewiewing this v helpful discussion (and esp @Gnevin}}'s expert clarification),I reckon that I was probably overthinking it, and that Bastun & LL's initial suggestion of just adding London and New York is the best route to follow, 'cos:
  1. Yes, there are other Overseas GAA counties, but since they do not participate in the main Irish competitions their links to the Irish GAA counties are weaker
  2. Since many of the other Overseas GAA counties do not have the same set of subcats, including them would in most cases just add a pointless set of grey links to the navbox
@Bastun, Laurel Lodged, Scolaire, and Gnevin: How does that sound to you? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's sensible, Lancashire GAA (NHL Div. 3B) doesn't have its own cat, and Category:Warwickshire GAA (2018 NHL Div. 3A champions) doesn't have subcats, so that only leaves London and New York. Scolaire (talk) 17:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes , perfect. No need to over complicate this for what essentially will be a wall of grey links Gnevin (talk) 12:38, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Leave it out Rodney is my advice. Stay focused on the main task. Work on counties not pseudo counties. The organisational structures of a private association are as irrelevant to sub-national structures as they are potty. Laurel Lodged (talk) 08:06, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Split out the GAA

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We seem to have a broad agreement to include London & New York, except for @Laurel Lodged's objection that we are straying too far.

It seems to me that the way to resolve this is to split the GAA from the rest, and make it wholly separate. Yes, the GAA counties are based on the local gov counties, but:

  • the GAA county categories do not use the word county (with a few exceptions which should be fixed)
  • they use Derry instead of Londonderry
  • they include "counties" outside Ireland

A wholly separate module and template simplifies the code, and allows the template to reflect the GAA structures and terminology. It also addresses LL's objection by keeping it all clear of local gov counties. I hope that will make everybody happy.

So as a test, I have made GAA-only code in Module:Sandbox/BrownHairedGirl/GAAByCountyCatNav01, and a wrapper template: {{User:BrownHairedGirl/GAACatNavBeta}}

I tested on 8 categories, and then self-reverted, so these are links to old version of the pages.

@Bastun, Laurel Lodged, Scolaire, and Gnevin:: what do you think of this? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:41, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Foo GAA County Boards fails for several reasons.
  1. Players are associated with the the county or the county team not the County board
  2. Some clubs may be affiliated with a Camogie or Ladies board not the County board
  3. The Roscommon CB doesn't play matches so Roscommon_County board_matches makes no sense
If anything Foo Gaelic Games would make the most sense Gnevin (talk) 15:36, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Works for me (as would Foo GAA County Boards) but probably easier to maintain if separated out. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 10:48, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm guessing that the user will not see any difference between one template giving different displays and two templates giving different displays, so since you've created this one you may as well use it. And if it's going to be separate, there's no need to add "County Boards". I'd like to say, though, that although I agree with separating the 26 and the 6 in the main template, I don't like the separation of the 32 and the 2 in this one. It looks skewed, as if it's waiting for half a dozen more entries to be added. I'd prefer a single 34-"county" list. Those looking for London or New York will find them easily; those who don't expect to find them there can click the link (if it's blue), and then go to the associated article. Scolaire (talk) 11:25, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I like it , I was actually going to suggest a separate template but didn't want to create extra work for you Gnevin (talk) 15:36, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that there are 3 options in play here:

  1. my idea of a split list labelled "Irish GAA Counties" and "Overseas GAA Counties"
  2. LL's preference for (I think) a split list labelled "Irish GAA County Boards" and "Overseas GAA County Boards"
  3. Scolaire's preference for a single, undivided list

My own principle is to remember all times that these are signposts. They are not explanations, and not declarations of status. As such there should be the bare minimum of words which allows the reader to identify the path they want to follow.

A road sign does not say "Kilkenny, former city", or "Kilkenny, former parliamentary borough", or "Kilkenny, medieval town with many old buildings". It just says "Kilkenny". Less is more.

So if we don't actually need to separate out the Overseas counties, I'd say don't do it, 'cos it means we can use many fewer words. But I can easily code for any of those options (or others), and just need to know where the consensus is.

Can we try to wrap this up? It'd be great to have a consensus, so that we can move on to implementing this GAA navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:41, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As long as the navbox maintains the "Irish GAA counties" to distinguish that it is referring to the county system and names used by the GAA in regards to Londonderry then no issues. I also see no problem with having a split list. That way you have the "home counties" so to speak and then the others. Mabuska (talk) 16:33, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The sparsity of replies to my post a week ago leaves me unclear what to do here.
I am inclined to follow Mabuska's comment (as the only one to reply), and start a trial implementation on that basis, which I will change if there is a consensus to do otherwise. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:21, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't post because it seemed redundant to say "Scolaire supports Scolaire's preference", but I'll say so now. You appeared to support my preference when you said "if we don't actually need to separate out the Overseas counties, I'd say don't do it." Mabuska didn't say he opposed a single list, only that he "didn't see a problem" with a split list.
I'd say the lack of a response means there is a consensus for you to go ahead and do it whatever way you want, so that's what you should do. Scolaire (talk) 07:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Second the above. I suspect the silence was implied endorsement, and at least some of us just did not want to artificially extend the discussion. Next time, will write explicitly. SeoR (talk) 08:34, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong position on this topic, so my silence means I'm basically ambivalent and will agree with whatever BHG feels works best. ww2censor (talk) 09:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks folks.
I'll was gonna toss a coin, but I'm feeling lazy, so I'll just with the version I already coded, which is a split list with headings "Irish GAA Counties" and "Overseas GAA Counties". As ever consensus can change (or in this case may actually form!), so it can be changed if needed.
I will make a list now of categories on which it will go. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:57, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Firstly I want to say great work BHG, I know this must of taken ages to develop! I'm wondering does anyone else feel the grayed out links are sometimes misleading. For example Offaly is unlikely to ever need an Islands of Offaly category Gnevin (talk) 09:15, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly a hatnote or footnote of explanation would be useful. ww2censor (talk) 12:45, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno... extreme weather events are on the increase... ;-) BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 15:52, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnevin and Ww2censor: There is basically a design choice between:

  1. listing the complete set of counties, with some visual distintion between categories which exist and those which don't exist
  2. only listing the counties for which a category exists

The convention for such category navboxes is #1: list the complete set. This can be seen e.g. in hundreds of thousands of categories by year, by decade, and by century, e.g. Category:1885 in Afghanistan. I think it's much clearer than having no entry for the non-existent categories. so I adopted it as Design principle No. 2

The non-existent categories used to be redlinked in the year/decade/century category navboxes, but in discussion with @Fayenatic london, we reckoned that was a breach of WP:REDNOT, which says "Do not create red links to articles that are not likely to be created and retained in Wikipedia".

So I created {{LinkCatIfExists2}}, which greys out non-existent categories in those navboxes. It is now used on over 200,000 pages, and as far as I know there haven't been any expressions of concern.

It would be easy to add a note at the bottom of the navbox saying something like "Note: an entry in grey indicates that no such category exists for that county".

However, I dislike that idea:

  • a navbox like this is a form of signpost, and the "less is more" principle applies. The more text accompanying the key words, the harder it is to focos on the words which matter
  • I don't think it is needed, because the principle of greying out unavailable options is well-established in computing interfaces: see greying out. Even if readers are unfamiliar with greying in the year/decade/century category navboxes, they will have encountered the technique in all sorts of software.

If there is a consensus to add a note about the greying out, then of course I will implement it. But as above, I think it's not needed and on balance would do more harm than good. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:34, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would not be in favour of adding a note. I felt the greying out was intuitive, and not at all misleading (in the way that red links might be). A note would only add clutter, and spoil what is currently a very stylish template. Scolaire (talk) 17:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree; I think most users will get the point. There is much to be said for keeping both note text, and redlinks, down. SeoR (talk) 21:06, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that I thought the grey items are confusing. I understood that the category doesn't exist at this time for example 2022 in Ireland. My question is do we care about categories that will never exist for example Mountains of Kildare. If we are happy to display both potential future and will never ever exist items then that's OK.
All the above this all seems well though out, and as you say it's in widespread uses so this is probably a non issue Gnevin (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnevin: what alternative would you propose? If we want to make editorial judgements on whether a category A) could never exist (e.g. Mountains of Kildare) or B) might exist if we wrote more articles (e.g. Category:Museums in County Carlow) ... then this whole proposal is redundant and should be closed.
This is all about having a consistent list of all counties, processed automatically. If the list is to be selective, then each set needs a hand-rolled navbox. We'd have to manually make Template:IrishMountains by CountyCatNav etc. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:07, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I know zilch about coding, so could I ask you how the greying works? If Category:Museums in County Carlow were to be created, would Carlow automatically turn blue in the template, or would we have to send a request for the template to be modified? Scolaire (talk) 11:38, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Scolaire: as @Gnevin says, it would automatically turn blue.
Everything is all decided automatically by the module's code, solely on the basis of the whether the category page currently exists. It is updated each time the page is purged.
If the category exists, the module makes a link. If not, the title is displayed unlinked in grey.
So if a greyed category is created, the greyed text will be replaced with a navigable link.
Similarly, if a linked category is deleted, then the navigable link will be replaced with greyed text.
Here is a v simplified pseudo-code summary of how it is all done (Lines begining with "//" are explanatory comments):
ListOfAllCounties = 'Carlow', 'Cavan', 'Clare', 'Cork', etc

PageName = getTheNameOfThePageTheTemplateIsUsedOn
check PageName against each CountyName in ListOfAllCounties
if PageName does not include a CountyName then quit
split PageName into Prefix, county and Suffix
// e.g. "County Mayo-related lists": Prefix="", Suffix="-related lists"
// or  "Education in County Galway": Prefix="Education in ", Suffix=""

for each ListedCounty in ListOfAllCounties do
    // this indented block is repeated for each value of ListedCounty
    thisCategory = Prefix + ListedCounty + Suffix
    // e.g. "Education in" + "County Louth" + "" --> "Education in County Louth"
    if thisCategory exists then
        make a link to thisCategory
    else
        display greyed thisCategory
    endif
done
hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:01, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I do actually understand that :-) I figured that would be the case, but I just thought I'd check. Scolaire (talk) 17:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Great. Better all round to clarify that everyone understands how it works, or we could end up talking at cross-purposes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:38, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Trial implementation

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Shortcut

As discussed above at #Summing up the initial discussion, there is a consensus to proceed to a trial implementation of this navbox: {{AllIrelandByCountyCatNav}}.

(For anyone new to this discussion, {{AllIrelandByCountyCatNav}} can be applied without any parameters to almost any by-county category in the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. It creates links to similarly-named categories in every other county, greying out the names of counties for which no such category exists. Full details of how and why are at WP:IECATNAVP and the discussions above).

For this test, {{AllIrelandByCountyCatNav}} has been deployed to 150 pages in the following five sets of categories:

  1. Counties: Category:County Antrim etc to Category:County Wicklow
  2. People: Category:People from County Antrim etc to Category:People from County Wicklow
  3. Geography: Category:Geography of County Antrim etc to Category:Geography of County Wicklow
  4. Islands: Category:Islands of County Antrim etc to Category:Islands of County Wexford *
  5. Rugby union clubs: Category:Rugby union clubs in County Antrim etc to Category:Rugby union clubs in County Wexford *
  • The last two have been chosen because there is not a category for every county, so they illustrate the use of greyed text for non-existent categories

The template includes a brief notice that this is a trial, with a link to this section for feedback: WT:IECATNAVP#Trial. The trial notice will automatically expire in 15 days (i.e. on 8 May 2018), unless there is consensus to do otherwise.

Known bug: the navbox is supposed to allow other boxes (e.g. portals, commons links) to float to the right. However, the trial notice has partially broken this, so that on pages using {{GeoGroup}}, the GeoGroup box is pushed downwards (see e.g. here). This issue will be resolved when the trial is finished. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:48, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks already found it useful as I noticed we didn't have Category:Rugby union clubs in County Londonderry but we have City of Derry R.F.C. Gnevin (talk) 09:22, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rollout

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The trial period has ended without any objections so I will now proceed to deploy {{AllIrelandByCountyCatNav}} on the hundreds of other by-county categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

King's and Queen's County

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@BrownHairedGirl: would it be straightforward for you to amend {{PrePartitionIrelandByCountyCatNav}} if Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_May_16#Category:Members_of_the_Parliament_of_Ireland_(pre-1801)_for_County_Laois_constituencies is approved? – Fayenatic London 15:42, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@BrownHairedGirl: There seem to be only four sets of categories currently using that PrePartition template, and all four sets have had the County Laois and County Offaly categories renamed to Queen's County and King's County respectively. These four pairs were giving errors, populating Category:PrePartitionIrelandByCountyCatNav on invalid category.

I had a go at amending the module for the list of 32 counties, and seem to have got it working, thanks to your parameter useCountyWord. The word County is now displayed in the nav box, making the list verbose, but I don't see an easy way around that as it now occurs as the first or second word in the county name.

Please check it over when you are back. – Fayenatic London 22:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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