Template talk:Military ranks by country

Improvements/Standardization of Military rank templates

@Cdjp1 and Garuda28: So I was thinking of ways to improve the templates since there is still some differences between some of them. Since there isn't really a centralized discussion for this anywhere, I thought this might be the best place. And you two seem to be some of the only other editors whom are not totally indifferent to this ;)

This is more or less the current layout, but I think there are some issues.

Equivalent NATO code	OF
Country branch [V•T•E]
	English title Original title

1. For non NATO countries, should it be written as "Approximate"? Seeing as it is might not be 100% accurate. This does however, create "problems" on the Euro pages, where it is 50/50; so half is not in any way "Approximate".
2. Should references be listed directly below "Country branch"? This is already used on Comparative officer ranks of World War II. It would prevent the "unreferenced" tags on comparative pages and have references at hand, rather than having to go to the country specific page to verify the information.
3. Should we include English titles? If yes, then I think direct translations are more desirable to give an accurate understanding of the structure. But this might also lead to some confusion. MOS:FOREIGN states foreign terms should be used sparingly. However, removing the native titles would be even more confusing and give undue weight to the translator and might led to the ranks being very US/UK centric in their structure, as previously seen on e.g. Iran templates
4. If we keep the English titles, should we have them above or below the original?
   1. Should the titles be separated by a new line?
   2. Should the original be in parenthesis? MOS:LANG is unclear on this.
5. What should we do with countries which have multiple official foreign language titles? Such as Finland.
6. Should titles be written as "1st sergeant" or "First sergeant"?

With these changes:

Approximate NATO code	OF	Alternatively	Alternatively
Country branch [1] [V•T•E]
	English title	Original title	English title
	(Original title)	(English title)	Original title

Let me know what you think. Skjoldbro (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Well I normally just follow whatever you decide to do when I make changes to them.

# I can see the benefit in using "approximate" over equivalent, but do not have a strong opinion in changing or keeping. The issue with the European page, would be similar to the Commonwealth page wouldn't it?

# For where we create the templates, yes I would support having the reference in the template, where you suggested, so that wherever it is posted we have at least the minimal reference for the ranks.

# We definitely need the "native" language titles for the ranks, including English could be useful for those who or not multilingual, and I would suggest should definitely be included in cases where the native title is not in a latin based script. I would suggest using direct translation over "equivalent translation" as was previously used in some templates. The question is then, in my opinion, would transliteration be an idea to add for those using non-latin based scripts, and how could that be added without cluttering up the template.

# I would use Original title <line break> (English title)

# For multiple languages, I would say a case by case basis. So for Belgium I would probably have the French and Dutch for the template, leaving the German for the article, whilst for Finland only using Finnish in the template, but then including the Swedish as part of the article on the Finnish ranks.

--Cdjp1 (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

1. Unless NATO has a document giving an equivalent for any given rank, then it's Original Research to even mention NATO rank codes.
2. Anytime NATO rank codes are mentioned, there should be a footnote explaining what they mean
3. English language translations go after native language on next line, in brackets
4. There should be a language wrapper round the native language text {{lang}} for the purposes of accessiblity
5. Content should be sourced
6. Where a country has more than one official language, you should give all the languages equal weight, but only where the rank is given officially in all of them.
7. On ordinals, follow the native style.

GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:34, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2023

 group12 = Post-Yougoslavia states
| list12  = {{navbox|child
  | listclass = hlist
  | list1  = 

212.7.145.180 (talk) 14:31, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Liu1126 (talk) 15:00, 7 December 2023 (UTC)