Template talk:Infobox settlement/Archive 20

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Unnecessary links

Is there any benefit to the template making wikilinks to sub-headings like Population, Elevation, Area? They're just ordinary dictionary words. Can the automatic linking be removed from the code? Colonies Chris (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

It can, if there's consensus to do so. I'm indifferent, myself. --Stepheng3 (talk) 23:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Since there has been no opposition to this, could someone remove the wikilinks to Population, Population density, Area, Elevation, Square kilometre, Square mile, Rural area, Urban area? Colonies Chris (talk) 11:09, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

No opposition to those above, but please leave demonym and time zone wikilinked so those who are unfamiliar can learn more. - Ruodyssey (talk) 07:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested parameters

population_rural

Can you add a |population_rural = underneath |population_urban = in infobox settlement? Especially for municipalities often both figures are available. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:42, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

This seems uncontroversial, so I have added population_rural, area_rural_km2, area_rural_sq_mi, population_density_rural_km2, and population_density_rural_sq_mi. All of these are the exact analogues of the urban parameters. Let me know if there is a problem. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:07, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

French

I've also proposed to merge Template:Infobox department of France. I reqeust the following parameters are added to facilitate a direct merge. Not that by having parameters such as prefecture, arrondissements and communes this can also be used for many of the African regnioal articles and you enter in number of communes etc.

• Department number:
• Region:
• Prefecture:
• Subprefectures:
• Arrondissements:
• Cantons:
• Communes:

Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It might be better to make the French template call this one. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:10, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It's not just France though. Such parameters are needed for many of African countries like Guinea, Niger, Mali and Senegal etc. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:15, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I would think that Region and Prefecture could be handled by the standard subdivision fields. Subprefectures, Arrondissements, Cantons, and Communes could be handled by "parts_type", "p1", "p2", ... Department number could be handled by a blank field. This is how it is done in other localities (e.g., South Africa for the Municipality number). Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:10, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

bug in area_total_dunams

Due to a bug in the {{Infobox settlement}}, the area_total_dunams= option is broken -- see the new testcase. I've coded a simple fix in the sandbox. If there are no objections, this fix should go live in a few days. --Stepheng3 (talk) 22:15, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:04, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Spork. --Stepheng3 (talk) 03:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Dutch town locator maps

Apologies if this is the wrong venue to raise this. I stumbled across Template:Dutch town locator maps which seems to be used in Dutch town articles for locator maps which seems redundant to infobox settlement. I've left a message on the template talk page and left a message on the templates primary editor but I thought I'd raise this here as editors here may have some interest. For the sake of keeping discussions in one place, can any discussion be placed at Template talk:Dutch town locator maps. Thanks. -- Whpq (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. For example, like this. I will follow up on the other talk page. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

transliteration versus transcription

Does anyone know why the translit_lang* parameters produce labels that refer to "transcription(s)" (converting sounds to text) rather than transliterations (converting a text to a different writing system)? Surely these fields were intended for transliterations, not transcriptions. --Stepheng3 (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

skyline image caption not appearing

Hi, Can anyone tell me why the image caption ("Leeds Town Hall") isn't appearing in the infobox in Leeds? I may be overlooking something obvious, but ... PamD (talk) 19:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The parameter name was garbled. I've fixed it for you. --Stepheng3 (talk) 19:25, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that! PamD (talk) 21:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

linking bug

there seems to be some sort of linking bug in the template, where the data field for city area is linked to Km m². (see here Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the area_magnitude field causes the linking. I fixed it here, by blanking the field. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:58, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Disestablishment

I think it would be good to add disestablished_title and disestablished_date (not necessarily named thus) to the template. This would allow us to use the infobox for abandoned settlements, former research stations in the Arctic, etc, as the termination data cannot be input into the infobox at the moment, and that data is important for articles covering such sites. — Algkalv (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support. It would be much better than creating a new seperate infobox. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 18:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. There is already an extinct_title and extinct_date parameter. You can also do this using one of the established_title and established_date parameters already in the infobox. See Omemee, North Dakota. I agree that having a more descriptive parameter would be helpful, but the code currently does provide a work around.DCmacnut<> 19:09, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support -- sounds like a good idea to me. There are several abandoned settlements to which I'd like to add an infobox. Omnedon (talk) 00:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Fork

I'm unsure why we need Template:Infobox settlement/ukr. If we do have such a thing, it would make sense to have it call the parent template, rather than duplicating code. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Some code in Template:Infobox settlement very hard. I do not understand using Template:Geobox coor. For example, parameter coordinates_format = dms do not work in article Old revision of Khoruzhivka (Khoruzhivka) one time.

You want, that all articles about Ukrainian settlements contains the same code?

| native_name_lang        = uk
| pushpin_map             = Ukraine
| latNS  = N
| longEW = E
| coordinates_display     = inline,title
| subdivision_type        = Country
| subdivision_name        = Ukraine
| subdivision_type1       = Oblast (province)
| subdivision_type2       = Raion (district)
| established_title       = Established
| population_density_km2  = auto
| timezone                = EET
| utc_offset              = +2
| timezone_DST            = EEST
| utc_offset_DST          = +3
| postal_code_type        = Postal code
| area_code_type          = Area code(s)

--Амба (talk) 01:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

My primary objection was the way in which it was being done, not necessarily in the concept itself. The creation of a logical set of subtemplates which contain the essential details for each country could be useful. However, it's much better if those regionalized templates call the parent template to make sure that the formatting stays in sync. For example see links to {{Uses Infobox settlement}}. The idea is to make such templates a frontend to the main template, so the formatting and parameter names stay as uniform as possible. Also, I don't think there is a need for two pushpin maps. One locator map for the province or district, and one pushpin map for the location within the province or district is enough. With that said, I am only asking for some level of discussion before this is deployed widely. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

For example, this seems much less complicated, and reduces duplication of code. Not that I necessarily think either version is necessary, but using the parent template as a backend seems much cleaner. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

• Thank for work and help.--Амба (talk) 23:35, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Parameters related to names

After "other name" we could do with "former name" and "named for" (the latter so that, for instance, Telford can link to Thomas Telford and Battle, East Sussex to Battle of Hastings). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

We already have named_for=. For an example of how former names might be handled, take a look at {{Infobox Russian inhabited locality}}. --Stepheng3 (talk) 15:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how I missed named_for=; but thank you. The Russian box has a plethora of alternative name fields, but I don't see how that's better than a simple former_name. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

bug?

Resolved

 – Redrose64 (talk) 22:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The article Gorgan is producing errors from its call on this template. I don't understand it, but I think that it must be as a result of a bug or incompatible change here. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Not a bug; vandalism. Have reverted to previous version. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Big coordinates

I'm sure the coordinates used to be displayed in smaller type (like the map captions and so on) - they seem to have grown. Was this a deliberate change, or did it happen by accident at some point?--Kotniski (talk) 14:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. What has changed is that the blue globe, which used to be absent, is now present, which has pushed the coordinates over a little. The blue globe change did not happen here, but at one of the subtemplates buried deep inside {{coord}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the blue globe icon () is ordinarily displayed by JavaScript running as part of the user interface. If the size of the displayed icon has changed, or if it's being displayed now when it wasn't before, that suggests to me that your UI has changed. --Stepheng3 (talk) 22:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Excess caps

Seems like "Urban Density", "Metro Density", etc. should have a lower case 'd', i.e. "Urban density", since those aren't proper nouns. 76.121.3.85 (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. --Stepheng3 (talk) 05:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Image sizes and use of "px"

Is this any reason why using "px" on the pushpin_mapsize generates an expression error while not using a "px" on the shield, flag, and skyline seems to blow them up to huge proportions? - Ruodyssey (talk) 07:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The value passed in |pushpin_mapsize= (and |pushpin_mapsize1=) is passed to {{location map}} via the latter's |width= parameter, which expects a bare integer: the documentation for that template states "Do not use px. Using width=200px will cause the map to stretch across page.".

However, |imagesize=, |flag_size=, |seal_size=, |shield_size=, |blank_emblem_size=, |mapsize= and |mapsize1= are all used to construct an image specifier directly (something like [[File:Example.jpg|{{{imagesize}}}|none|alt=|Skyline of someplace]]) where the presence of "px" is required (unless special values like "frameless" are used, see Wikipedia:Extended image syntax).

Curiously |dot_mapsize= may be specified either with or without the "px"; I think that the template code for the seven which require "px" may be similarly modified so that the "px" is optional, although that might break the interpretation of "frameless" etc. To allow "px" to be optional for |pushpin_mapsize= and |pushpin_mapsize1= doesn't just need a mod to {{location map}} - it also requires similar mods to some of its subtemplates - and it has simply hundreds of those. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:17, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Yikes. I guess the best thing to do might be to leave comments in the syntax so users know when to use it and when not to. - Ruodyssey (talk) 03:57, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Each of the ten fields mentioned above now has a note in the documentation as to whether "px" is required, optional or forbidden. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Help

I've had some trouble with maps not displaying a location marker from coordinate data. The latest case is San Felipe, Yaracuy. Am I doing something wrong? Rd232 ^talk 12:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

In the case of San Filipe, the longitude was specified as east when it should have been west. However, though the marker now appears, it is not in the right location, so the issue may be with the locator map template. I'll check it out. Omnedon (talk) 13:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the coordinates for San Filipe were incorrect; I've fixed that. Does it look right now? Omnedon (talk) 14:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! I was taking data from eswiki and got confused between German Ost (east) and Spanish Oeste (west), and read the Spanish abbreviation O as meaning "east"... Rd232 ^talk 15:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Extend demographics?_title? to 6

Could someone please extend demographics?_title? up to 6. 5 is not enough.

thanks.Sumbuddi (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you explain where this is needed? My initial thought is that not everything needs to be in the infobox, but I could be wrong. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 07:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I used it here: Sei_Bingai Sumbuddi (talk) 16:47, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

In that particular case, it would seem better to create a section in the article discussing the demographics. Right now the infobox is longer than the article. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 06:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Error in table rows?

Hi all. If you see MediaWiki:Common.css (specifically infobox.geography classes) you'll see that mergedrow, mergedbottomrow and mergedtoprow classes apply to td and th tags. This template use that class for tr tags. Is there any reason for that? or it it an error? --Bachinchi (talk) 23:36, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the issue. There is actually a larger problem, in that the entire mergedrow logic requires determining who is the last one in the section. Cleaning this up is one of the things on my list, but I just haven't had the time lately. If you want to take a stab at it, please feel free to go ahead, and put your proposed changed version in the sandbox. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Possible solutions:

adding tr to the classes.

Move every class="merged.." from tr tags to th tags (td too?)

--Bachinchi (talk) 07:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

So, how could we fix it? --Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 15:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Extra incorporation date rows needed

Please see this edit to Quesnel, British Columbia. I've added the founding date, plus three successive incorporation dates (Village, 1928, Town, 1958, City, 1981) but the fourth name/date row won't display.....I can think of other places that will need multiple rows like this; can someone please tweak the code. I'll leave the info as-is on the Quesnel page, hoping that the "Incorporated (city)" field will display once those tweaks are made.Skookum1 (talk) 20:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, the field which is labelled "Metro" is unsuitable for hundreds of places like this....bit of an urban conceit, I'd say. Quesnel's own site uses the common BC term "service area", which includes outlying communities like Nazko, Hixon, Cottonwood, Wells, Alexandria, Red Bluff, Dragon Lake etc but "Metro" or "metropolitan region" is just not the term to use. Can the name of that field be made adjustable. It's just too WEIRD to refer to places like Quesnel as having a "Metro".....a trendy catch-phrase, yes, and common enough in reference ot urban agglomerations of major cities; but totally unsuitable, like I said, to hundreds (upon hundreds) of places where this infobox is used.Skookum1 (talk) 20:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The template has quite a lot of fields already. I'll see about adding a fourth date. To specify the population of a "service area" I recommend using:

| population_blank1_title = Service area
| population_blank1       = 234,567

--Stepheng3 (talk) 22:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

As for the incorporation dates, it turns out there is already a fourth parameter for that purpose. The parameter numbering goes as follows:

1. | established_date =
2. | established_date1 =
3. | established_date2 =
4. | established_date3 =

--Stepheng3 (talk) 22:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Oddity

I had a dig into this template in search of a missing parameter check (it seems to be testing for the existence of "Flag of" in some cases - see what links here). However, something more devious is going on with the detection of empty official_name parameters. To whit:

<!-- This tests for [[Flag of]] ... -->
{{Infobox settlement
| name                    = Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)
| official_name           =
| image_flag              = Flag of Azad Kashmir.svg
}}

<!-- .. but this doesn't! -->
{{Infobox settlement
| name                    = Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)
| image_flag              = Flag of Azad Kashmir.svg
}}

To be honest I find poking myself in the eye with a pencil more fun than debugging template code. Do we have any experts on hand willing to investigate? - TB (talk) 13:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I will have a look. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe this is now fixed, or least it is in a position where it could be fixed. I created a subtemplate Template:Infobox settlement/link, which handles the linking logic. Note that there were actually even more of these. Here is the (most likely) complete list: [1], [2], [3], and [4]. With this change, these counts should drop to zero as soon as the server caching catches up. As always, let me know and revert if I introduced a new bug. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yikes, that truly was a hideous bug - I'm now doubly glad that I passed the buck. I shall go weld some bits of cutlery together in your honour right now, PlastikSpork. - TB (talk) 09:02, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Inset Maps

The request has been made at the FAC for Thistle, Utah to support inset maps (i.e. show a national map with the state/province/district/etc. highlighted in the corner of push pin map. The purpose would be to aid those who do not recognize the region being depicted. One suggestion was to follow template Template:Infobox Indian jurisdiction or similar. Thoughts? 16:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

My own opinion: I like the idea, however I don't think I would make it automatic, as in the Indian jurisdiction template, but rather an option. Dave (talk) 17:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be a useful feature to add to {{Location map}} as well? Basically you could have some logic to make sure the inset doesn't overlap with the pin. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:30, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like nobody is opposed to this. I have some experience with template coding, but not enough to do this dry, I'd need to sandbox this. FYI to Plasticspork, how the Indian jurisdiction template does via a case statement that keys off the entry into the jurisdiction field. What I had in mind is to have the inset map default to off, default to upper left corner if turned on and the position is not defined for that jurisdiction in the code. Please advise if you see any concerns. Dave (talk) 19:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

OK Finally got around to looking at this. This template uses template:Location map to place the map. As such, it looks like the easiest way to implement inset maps is to modify the location map template first, then add the additional parameters to this on to be passed down. As such, I'll move this discussion to the talk page for template:Location map. Dave (talk) 16:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Great. I fear I will be the one who is asked to implement it :), but we shall see, perhaps I will get some help. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

both pushpins in one map?

I can't get the pushpins to work properly for Meyerton. What am I doing wrong? --Slashme (talk) 10:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure that place is within the limits of the map? It looks like it is considered to be outside of the "greater region". I will have a closer look. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Official name

The "Official name" field is being discussed at WT:MOS#City names and WT:MOS#Geobox|Settlement, name field. Some believe that the "Official name" field should be removed, because "City of Xville" means the city government of Xville, not Xville itself. Art LaPella (talk) 21:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, so I've read the archived pages on this topic and I'm still horribly confused, maybe this is an issue different in the USA and the UK and Canada? It seems to me that this "official name" lingo results in ALL cities listing their name as "City of Xville", that is ridiculous!! I'm siding with the Occam's razor side of this issue, "too many names is not appropriate". Cities generally have but one name, unless there is a nickname. It seems to be that all cities use "City of" on their letter head, but that's not implying that "City of" is part of the city's name!!!! Oh dear, this is really ridiculous. The only reason letterheads use "City of" is to create a literary context for the written form, in Canada anyway. Our cities nomenclatures DO NOT include "City of".

Also, regarding official languages of cities... Take an example of a city that is officially bilingual (French/English), then the English language article uses the English name and the French language article uses the French name... or so it used to be. Am I to understand that because of the language slots in the infobox we have to double up on languages within the infobox??? Since Canada is officially bilingual, that means all boxes need to have double terminology?????? It's all too much redundant information for my liking. The point is the matter is the same for a country or a province or a city. My country is Canada, the name of the government is "Government of Canada", my province is Ontario and the government's name is "Government of Ontario", the name of my city is Guelph it's government's name is "City of Guelph". Now unless we're going to follow this silly identifier rule for all levels of government, using the identifier only at the municipal level is completely nonsensical. There is a difference between the government's nomenclature, and the location name per se. If it applies to cities then it must apply to provinces/states and countries as well.--Tallard (talk) 11:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to propose a change to the template that would satisfy linguists, proofreaders, grammar books, MoS and I think everyone. The line for "Official name" should be changed to "Name of Governing body". This should apply to infoboxes for ALL levels of government.--Tallard (talk) 04:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Another unnecessary link

Following on from the delinking changes made back in June, can the automatic wikilinking of sub-heading 'Area' also be removed please? Colonies Chris (talk) 14:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

More tweaks of this template text are required

{{editprotect}}

• Could someone point me to why "Country" needs to be linked to "List of sovereign states"? I mean, who wants to go to such a list when reading an article about Little Rock?

subdivision_type = Country

• In the "Example", isn't it time we complied with what MOS and MOSNUM direct us to do: use a proper minus sign, not a typewriter-era hyphen? So, not "-4" and "-5", but "−4" and "−5". The mathematicians go crazy if it's not done, I believe. I'm sick of correcting this in articles. :-)

• Towards the top, could we be kinder to newbies WRT conversions? Not the cryptic

"Metric", but perhaps something like:

"Metric or "US customary" followed by "(metric conversion)"—See WP:MOSNUM#Which_units_to_use for which way to do it.-->

Tony (talk) 08:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

These all sound reasonable. But please leave the suggestion for a while before adding {{editprotected}} to allow time for others to comment. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot the order in which to do this. Sure, let's see what others think. Tony (talk) 12:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

So can we have minus signs in the example, please? The MoS guideline has insisted on this for years. On a low-res screen, a hyphen can look like a fly-spec. It's not professional typography. And a final call for anyone who objects to removing what looks to be an entirely unnecessary link to the list of sovereign states? Tony (talk) 06:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Template discussion for handling coordinates_region

There is a discussion at WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 February 6#Template:ISO 3166 name DE-HB that is relevant here. In a nutshell, the discussion is about a (mostly currently unused) template system that could replace some (not all) of the functionality of {{CountryAbbr}} as used in templates like this. On the other hand, we now have the coordinates_region parameter, which obviates the need for either of these methods. Additional feedback is welcome; the original TfD discussion attracted only three editors. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

We still need additional comments on this issue. The templates under discussion would potentially be used by this infobox, so the impact of their deletion or their retention and deployment is of importance here. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Elevation: two values

Hi, I've replaced the information that the city Ljubljana is 298 m above the sea level with two values in the article: the elevation of its centroid (295 m) and the elevation of the city centre (298 m).[5][6] Can someone please assist me in the formatting of the infobox so that both values appear? Thanks. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 13:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You have a few options here. (1) List the elevations in |elevation_m= and in |elevation_ft=, otherwise the box will try to autoconvert it (2) List one or the other and use |elevation_footnotes= to denote which measurement is being used, and indicate that the elevation may vary depending on the location, (3) Use |elevation_min_m= and |elevation_max_m= to provide the highest and lowest elevation. I prefer either the second or third option. There is no need to put every single piece of information in the infobox. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Unnecessary links - unfinished business

The removal of the automatic wikilinking of various subheadings was agreed with the delinking changes made back in June, but two of the subheadings listed there, 'Density' and 'Elevation', are still linked. Can they also be unlinked please?Colonies Chris (talk) 09:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Plus my requests two threads above? I don't mean to frighten the horses in the street, but surely these are no longer controversial ...? Tony (talk) 10:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

So what are the changes? Delink density and elevation and what else? Sorry if I seem a bit dense, but I work best with very specific instructions :) As far as I could tell, some of these changes were for the doc page, which is not protected. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:02, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the 'country' links and changed the hyphens to minus signs in the doc. However there are two link removals still to do in the template: [[Population density|Density]] --> Density and [[Elevation]] --> Elevation. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks, Plastikspork. Tony (talk) 04:49, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Problems with Libya map

I don't know (or particularly care) who last edited this template or why, but it's currently broken. Take a look at Tripoli, Libya, for example. Could someone with admin tools, and hopefully a little knowledge of this template, please roll it back to an earlier version so that there are no "Expression error" issues and the like? Thank you.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Someone screwed up Template:Location map Libya. I restored it and it fixed the problem. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 00:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. I hate those kinds of problems. Is it the infobox? Is it the image(s)? wtf? :) Anyway, I appreciate the assist.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Yet more unnecessary links

Sub-headings Nickname, Anthem, Motto are common, widely understood terms. Can the automatic linking be removed from the template code, per WP:OVERLINK? Colonies Chris (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought we'd solved all of this overlinking, a relic from the early days of wikis. Could this be attended to? Generally, I have to say from quite some gnoming experience in settlement articles, that the overlinking of common terms is a significant problem. Tony (talk) 12:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Infobox (template) size

Hi! Can anyone here tell me how to downsize the size of infobox? Infobox like the one in Shenyang is too big and nonuniform. I want to downsize that into the size of the one in Shanghai. Any suggestions? --LLTimes (talk) 00:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe you are talking about the width? If so, I have made some minor format changes. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

OMG thank you so much and yes I was talking about the width :3, I'll try to replicate your edits on other big ass infobox (width wise). Thx! --LLTimes (talk) 01:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the two major things to look for are (1) the URL and (2) any {{nowrap}} or &nbsp; which may be keeping fields from wrapping. Basically look for the widest line, and see if it can be modified to wrap. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thx :D but I got a bit problem fixing Guangzhou's width =.=~". Can you see what you can do? :P --LLTimes (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I had a look and the area numbers were over-accurate resulting in wider infobox. Always look at the widest line and see if you can get it thinner. --Muhandes (talk) 15:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You can get it to be even thinner if you specify the density values manually rather than "auto". As the population isn't accurate, I don't see a reason why the density should be. --Muhandes (talk) 18:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Dated maintenance category issue

There is a recurring issue with this infobox, wherein transcluding a dated maintenance template (e.g. {{Citation needed|date=March 2011}}) after certain parameters in the infobox causes the dated maintenance category to be generated with a malformed year (e.g. Category:Articles with unsourced statements from March 2,011). See the article Mombasa for an example.

The problem is not specific to just one maintenance template, and can be triggered by multiple parameters. I have not checked each one, but I have confirmed that the following parameters are affected by the problem: "area_total_km2", "area_land_km2", "area_water_km2", "population_urban", "population_total" and "population_density_km2".

Does anyone know what may be causing the issue? Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is most likely that this template uses {{formatnum: }} to format population, area, density, and elevation numbers. I suppose one fix would be to use {{formatnum: |R}} within {{citation needed}}. The only problem would be if there are any instances when a comma should be in the date field. Would that work? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Basically change the |date = {{{date|}}} to | date = {{formatnum:{{{date|}}}|R}} in {{citation needed}}, would probably fix it. Or more aggressive would be to put this in {{fix}}. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

So, then, would the issue be present in any infobox which uses {{formatnum: }} to format one or more numerical parameter values? If that is the case, and given that {{citation needed}} is not the only dated inline template which could appear in infoboxes, then probably a change to {{Fix}} would be best. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Should work to add the reverse formating to {{fix}}. It shouldn't change dates without commas, and would remove commas from dates with them. Since we are just using Month Year, without the day, it should be fine. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I added an editprotected request at Template talk:Fix/Archive 1#Dated categories and formatnum. Thank you for your help! -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I've done some testing and I don't think Plastikspork's suggestion is going to work. The problem is that the formatnum in the infobox template is parsed later than anything in {{fix}}, so you will get the comma no matter what happens in {{fix}}. For example, subsituting the formatnum in the following

{{subst:formatnum:{{citation needed|date=August 2009}}}}

produces

{{citation needed|date=August 2,009}}

I can't actually think of any way around this, short of removing the formatnum from the infobox template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

See T23054. A workaround would be to add extra parameters "area_total_km2_ref", "area_land_km2_ref", and so on to the infobox to hold the ref tag or template. Anomie⚔ 15:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

There is already |area_footnotes=, where is where the references are supposed to go. I don't exactly get why {{formatnum:{{citation needed|date=August 2009}} }} adds a comma, but {{formatnum:{{citation needed|date=August 2,009}}|R}} doesn't remove it. I will have to read the bug report. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The {{formatnum:{{citation needed|date=August 2,009}}|R}} does remove the comma but the formatnum in the infobox runs after that and puts the comma back in again! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems, then, that until the bug is fixed, the only solutions are fixing the issue highlighted by an inline template, thereby permitting removal of the template, or moving the inline template to a "note" or footnote" field (such as |population_footnotes) that does not use {{formatnum: }}. I have implemented the latter solution for all articles, except 1995 Rugby World Cup, which were in a malformed Articles containing unsourced statements from MONTH YEAR category, from January 2009 to the present. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:39, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Exponent for square kilometers

The current code to show square kilometers is "km²". It should be "km²". Square mile is "sq mi", which is inconsistent, though it is a common form.  Randall Bart   Talk  21:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The WP:MOS for numbers has a section on this. In particular, see the last part of the section Wikipedia:Units#Unit_symbols. So, in short, the preferred typography is to use sup. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional feature proposal

If the lat/lon coordinates are missing this template should add the article to a maintenance category. Something like Category:Settlements missing geocoding should work. Right now, the behavior is to fail rather ungracefully (red parse error message). I'll code up my exact proposed change below. -- Selket ^Talk 17:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

At the end of the template, right after footnotes add:

{{#if{{{latd|}}}||[[Category:Settlements missing geocoding]]}}

That should do it. -- Selket ^Talk 17:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually the problem is more complicated than that. Can someone please take a look at the last example on Template:Infobox settlement/testcases that I just added? -- Selket ^Talk 17:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe you are asking for better error handling when the coordinates are missing, but the map is specified. We could make it simply omit the map in this case, but before doing that, you should check over at Location map. I believe Droll is working on something in that template, which may solve the problem here as well. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:48, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Shared settlements

Need option for a divided city, i.e. Nicosia, so that each sides seal can be shown clearly. Chesdovi (talk) 16:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Create a single image file, showing both seals? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Motto Vs. Slogan

After a question was raised on another talk page, I wondered what the most proper usage for the parameter "motto" was, and I found the documentation and archives were not clear on the issue. Is this intended only for official (usually Latin) mottos or is it more for commercial slogans, which may be set by a chamber of commerce? I have seen it used as either on different articles, and I did not come away with a clear sense of which it should be used for. Also, given that some settlements have both an official slogan and an official motto, how should one handle that situation? Should the infobox be updated to include a new "slogan" parameter? –Sparkgap (talk) 00:26, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Motto in English

Could some one add and/or make function "| mottoeng =" in the same way that it already functions in Template:Infobox university {{Infobox university}}? It is much more elegant. Peter Horn User talk 23:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

population_demonym

In the line

| population_demonym      = <!-- demonym, ie. Liverpudlian for someone from Liverpool -->

the "ie." should be changed to "e.g." Mild Bill Hiccup (talk) 02:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Done.—Stepheng3 (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Migration of dedicated city boxes for specific countries into this template is a step in the wrong direction

I think the migration into this template should be stopped. Maybe it can be used as an engine, like Template:Citation/core, but using this within articles is actually a sub-optimal idea. I'll just copy the reasoning of an actual tfd entry to explain.

I think the migration to {{infobox settlement}} is the wrong way because data in the infoboxes is getting more and more complex and does need more and more user interaction. Actually we could delete {{infobox settlement}} as well and start to programm each articles infobox from scratch. See and compare a typical U.S. settlement infobox in an article in the English Wikipedia (it has 3000 or more byte) with de:Vorlage:Infobox Ort in den Vereinigten Staaten, which has basically the same info and is capable to categorize these articles as well, given that the cat exists. Well the German WP's infobox has typically about 700 to 900 characters. {{infobox settlement}} is a monster which should be abandonded. It isn't unser friendly and most of all it's nearly impossible to use it without knowing how a specific country is organized in municipalities, provinces and the like. And the worse the overall data quality in infoboxes gets. Not to mention the bulk of empty parameters which are copied into articles wether they are useful or not. The more {{infobox settlement}} is used the lesser the overall quality of data gets. In Template:Infobox Palestinian Authority municipality you just have to fill in what's there. With {{infobox settlement}} you need to think out which type of subnational entities should used in the infobox, you need to name them and you need to properly link them. For the average Wikipedian, {{infobox settlement}} is just a disaster. Sorry, that template is kind of Wikipedia of 2003.

I also was wondering for some time why the English Wikipedia does not use the more clever approach of putting population numbers in dedicated tables, such as this one which allows to update population numbers of a larger area on one single page and prevents that hundreds of articles have to be edited one for one individually but is transcluded directly by the infobox and as well by templates which allow the use of these numbers inline (f.ex. de:Vorlage:EWZ). Once the metadata page is actualized all referring articles are up to date, no bots no AWB, just sitting and waiting for the queue. ;-) Now I see it clear – with {{Infobox settlement}} such an approach isn't possible. I also fear if that solution with converting all infoboxes into {{Infobox settlement}} continues, many other language versions will have much harder work to translate articles in their respective Wikipedias. For instance, Template:Infobox UK place only needs to be copied into the German Wikipedia, change the title of the template into Ort im Vereinigten Königreich, remove the comma in the population numbers, modify some of the linked entities (due to different naming conventions) and, voilà, that's it. It's not difficult to forecast that once this standardizing is reaching the United Kingdom, transferring articles from the English Wikipedia into the German Wikipedia will slow down, perhaps stop totally. (In fact I am struggling for several months – it's a stupid work, can do just one in a while – to convert the Ort in England infobox into the Gemeinde im Vereinigten Königreich one, since for the remaining articles their counterparts in EN do use {{Infobox settlement}}.) That's another reason why I think that this approch here isn't helpful. Bad idea. --Matthiasb (talk) 06:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

tl;dr - how does the use of wrapper-templates fail to address the issues which you believe exist? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think this template is useful as an "engine" but not as an template which can be used directly in an article. An individual template which pre-sets the necessary parameters makes more sense. I am not aware wether categorizing articles by infobox is depreciated in the English Wikipedia or not. It was in the German WP formerly deprciated but that stance changed because of the many counties in eastern Germany got merged during the last years. It also prooved useful in those countries in which the category system isn't yet fully developped because of actually #ifexist allows to sort them automatically into lower category levels after they were created and until them into the higher levels.

I think the automatization should be put to a maximum. F. ex. when using the german US settlement infobox a user does not need to know that Lousina does not have counties but parishs, and which list of something article is the right one to linkt to because the template links that articles automatically. The user even does not need to verify wether Washington County needs not be disambiguated or not (that was a big problem due to our silly naming conventions (using parenthesis and using them only in cases when disambiguation is really needed). Even when used for Puerte Rico, it does not show Bundesstaat: (state) but Außengebiet (outlying area) (example). And in that sense the Canada settlements infobox has almost completely the same architecture but deals with the specific situation in Kanada, e.g. provinces vs. territories. So far I failed to implement this for south american countries, which I liked to put together in one infobox but the problem was there that in some countries regions are part of the provinces and in some other countries it is the other way around.

So I hope my small insights over the horiozon are or were helpful in one way or the other. What you're doing here is up to the users here and not to a ranting foreign language wikipedian. ;-) --Matthiasb (talk) 10:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you've answered my question. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:42, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Who says that infobox settlement can't call a metadata template and transclude the population figures? Template:Infobox Province TR does and it's a wrapper for Infobox Settlement. And about your argument that this infobox makes it harder (or even impossible) to convert a template from a wiki to another: it's just the opposite. If a guy from the German wikipedia wants to use an infobox from the English wiki he will have to create a wrapper template only once, for infobox settlement, but when one of us wants to convert a template from the german wiki, he'll have to create a new wrapper for each one of the thousands of different templates they use, all with the same parameters, just with a different name or moved a couple of cells from the other one. --Nero the second (talk) 10:09, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Lightmouse, 3 October 2011

This template links common units: square mile and square km. This is contrary to Wikipedia:Link#What_generally_should_not_be_linked. Please make the following changes:

• [[square mile|sq mi]] to sq mi
• [[Square kilometre|km²]] to km²

Please edit both instances of each. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Lightmouse (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha (talk) 22:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 23:22, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

Something that's bugged me for a while this infobox uses hyphens when it should use en dashes. To use London as an example:

Area
 - London

should really be (per MOS:DASH):

Area
 – London

I have made the changes to Template:Infobox settlement/sandbox (diff). The results can be seen at Template:Infobox settlement/testcases, which also shows that I haven't broken the template or anything like that. I request that an admin paste the code currently in the sandbox into the live template. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 05:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done, message my talk page if anything comes up. Blurpeace 22:53, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Jenks24 (talk) 03:18, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

• I know formatting such as this is purely aesthetic and therefore totally personal, but the endash is ugly and too big because it is often pushes longer words (like "municipality") to the next line, creating an empty line with an endash and then the info on the next line. This makes for an ugly, unreadable infobox. Why not use a small bullet instead? -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 14:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Could you give an example of this? For the record, I would be fine with using a small bullet, it's just the hyphen that I find ugly. Jenks24 (talk) 14:42, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Example: Los Baños, Laguna (I suppose the problem is dependent on the browser). Anyway, what about • ? It is small, modest, and gives a more clean, professional look. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 17:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
      • Thanks, I see the problem as well. I'd be perfectly happy with using • instead. Jenks24 (talk) 13:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

P199: could you please make the necessary changes to Template:Infobox settlement/sandbox and reactivate the request? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:56, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Sandbox has been updated as requested. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 19:09, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm very sorry. It turns out that the sandbox was not synchronised with the live template so I am not able to deploy the sandbox code. Would you mind making the changes again (now that I have synchronised)? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

• Sandbox has been updated again as requested. -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 01:09, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

   deployed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

  • Thanks! -- P 1 9 9 • TALK 23:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Use hyphen or minus sign in utc_offset1 etc.?

The template's example shows "utc_offset = -5". That's a hyphen before the "5". Shouldn't it be a minus sign ("−5")? Would changing an actual parameter in an article to use the minus sign mess anything up? Chris the speller ^yack 16:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

no, it shouldn't mess anything up, just change the link to another valid redirect. I changed the example and the box in the Detroit article. Frietjes (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Chris the speller ^yack 18:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

mottoeng

| mottoeng = The motto in English if the original motto is in another language

I tried to insert this in Victoria, British Columbia But | mottoeng = "Forever free" did/does not take (appear)!!! Why??? Peter Horn User talk 17:27, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

City of Victoria
City
Motto:  Semper Liber (Latin)

it looks like there is a mismatch between the documentation and the template. looking at the code, there is only "motto". looking at the documentation there is "motto", "mottoeng", and "motto in English". something needs to be updated. Frietjes (talk) 18:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Resize request

I think the size of the font for other_name should be smaller than for official_name, like it happens for Geobox template - let's compare Dunajská Streda (where geobox is used) with Miercurea-Ciuc (where infobox is used). The official name should be more highlighted than the other names Chahalera (talk) 08:16, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Frietjes (talk) 16:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I would actually support this request too. I saw this edit [7] and I "investigated" how are alternative names presented on Wiki and by it, other names should be a bit smaller, something like on Dunajská Streda example. Adrian (talk) 12:34, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that Slovakia-related article use "Geobox" rather than "Infobox settlement" to correct this problem. Adrian (talk) 12:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

There are more users that support this change, so I made an edit request. The requested edit is this: [8] and the updated version is Template talk:Infobox settlement/sandbox. The proposed format can be seen here Can an admin please make the edit for us? SSzatmari (talk) 10:02, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Declining. One of the key reasons that the infobox templates use CSS classes to define their attributes now is so that font metrics can be handled through the site's stylesheets rather than through per-template hacks. This should be re-proposed at MediaWiki talk:Common.css as the following rule:

table.infobox.geography .nickname { font-size: 80% }

No changes would then be required for this template. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:24, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your adivce. However I'd like to request the creation of a new class for the other_name field, because I don't like to affect for example the native name [9] SSzatmari (talk) 15:48, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe this discussion is now taking place at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Font size for other name, so I am disabling this request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The conclusion of the discussion MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Font size for other name was that it is better to set the font here, so I am making again the edit request.

The desired version of the template is: Template:Infobox settlement/sandbox and the effect can be seen at Template:Infobox settlement/testcases#Test case 1. The dimension is similar with the one from the geobox template: Template:Geobox/sample SSzatmari (talk) 10:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Later edit I'd also like to ask for an additional change: [10] that would make the native name in Italics. The final version is: Template:Infobox settlement/sandbox SSzatmari (talk) 06:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Italics in native names

I'd also like to ask for an additional change: [11] that would make the native name in Italics. The final version is: Template:Infobox settlement/sandbox SSzatmari (talk) 06:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Please revert the italicisation of native names as done in this edit. Per the manual of style for Chinese, italicising Chinese characters is strongly discouraged because it makes them more difficult to read. See Guangzhou as an example. GotR ^Talk 04:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Better would be to only italicise if the |native-name_lang= is not zh (or other applicable values). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Or ja for that matter. However, I don't know how much of a mess this would be to alter the code of the template as you suggest nor whether italicising Latin alphabet native names is really necessary. GotR ^Talk 15:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The italicization is cause problems to the CJK characters is there anyway to an additional set for native scripts or revert the italicization. — ASDFGH =] ^talk? 00:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted the italics for now. Please continue to discuss other options and request another change if necessary. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:39, 3 January 2012 (UTC)