Talk:Czechoslovak government-in-exile

Role of infobox

Yopie just reverted my edit the article to reinstate the infobox with the comment "It was government in exile, with citizens and army, so they used state symbols etc" and I thought it would be worth taking this to talk for further discussion.

Now, my argument is fairly brief - a government is not a country, so an old government (even a government in exile) is not a "former country" (see Template:Infobox Former Country, the template in question). I also think that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes makes a very good case for the fact that an infobox is unnecessary. Currently, the infobox basically mirrors that in the Czechoslovakia article, and therefore does not achieve objective #1 in the MOS: "summariz[ing] key features of the page's subject". In fact, the infobox is currently misleading (if not WP:POV) because it intimates that the government in exile actually controlled territory in Czechoslovakia and exaggerates its legitimacy as the literal continuation of the pre-invasion country.

Ultimately, pages do not need infoboxes. These should be added only if they help our readers and I really don't believe that they do in this case.—Brigade Piron (talk) 15:30, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

While I am not that interested in this infobox, did you bother to read the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries? Among its task forces is listed: "Extraordinary governments (A task force to handle issues regarding provisional governments, governments-in-exile, etc.)" If this is actually a government-in-exile it falls within the scope.

By the way, the Project does not only cover "countries", but various political entities that no longer exist, including former country subdivisions, provinces, colonies, etc. The perspective is on history, not the exact definition of country. Dimadick (talk) 11:59, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

The self-declared scope of WikiProject Former Countries is irrelevant. The point is that a government is not a country - that is why the Template:Infobox Former Country actually has a perimeter for "government"! The infobox itself describes its function as "provid[ing] comparative information for countries which no longer exist" (my emphasis)...—Brigade Piron (talk) 13:25, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Articles relating governments-in-exile have always used the former country infobox, especially if they were recognized as the legitimate government of a sovereign nation by other countries. The governments-in-exile of axis-occupied countries in World War II were recognized as the legitimate governments of the occupied territories. They were considered sovereign entities. Furthermore, the scope of WikiProject Former Countries is not irrelevant to this article. As Dimadick explained, entities such as this one are within its scope. Anasaitis (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikiproject Former countries is irrelevant because wikiprojects are just groups of editors - they do not represent policies and do not own content that just happens to use the same words as their topic. There is no formal connection between the scope of WP:Former Countries and the applicability of Infobox:Former Countries.

You're absolutely right that governments in exile in London were recognised as legitimate governments of the countries they represented. They were not recognised as states in their own right. That is what this template is for! The idea that the Czech government in exile had a capital, flag or currency, for example, is ludicrous. —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:58, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Brigade asked me to comment.

The state in question is the First Czechoslovak Republic and it has an article and infobox over there. This article is about the (self-declared, but int'lly recognised) gov't in exile of that republic. The point of the infobox is to help the reader. I don't see how this does. London may have been the gov't's seat, but it was never its capital. Likewise, the constitution of 1920 belongs to the First Republic. Likewise, the map depicts Subcarpathian Ruthenia as part of the Ukraine, but it was not ceded by Czechoslovakia until its gov't was no longer in exile (29 June 1945) and the gov't actually tried to govern it in 1944. Srnec (talk) 23:20, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

The infobox clearly differentiates between the capital and the "capital-in-exile", and I have removed the misleading map and the reference to the Constitution of 1920. Capital-in-exile clearly indicates that Paris and London were the seats of the government in exile, and not the official capital. Furthermore, the idea that the government in exile had a flag is not, as Brigade Piron says, "ludicrous". Governments-in-Exile use the flags of the those states over which they are recognized as or claim to be the legitimate government. The infobox lists no currency for this government-in-exile, so that complaint is irrelevant. The infobox is not trying to state that government-in-exiles are "'states' in their own right". It is merely acknowledging that this was recognized as the legitimate continuation of occupied Czechoslovakia. Anasaitis (talk) 22:46, 21 October 2016 (UTC)