Template talk:Infobox officeholder

Ordinal numbering

Hello everyone,

after a lengthy and not so successfull discussion with Mewulwe on his talk page and here I believe that the policy regarding the |order= parameter should be changed. To be more precise, official governmental documents should also count as a source in my opinion even if there isn't an established use in the country in question. The fundamental meaning of an encyclopedia is that it serves as a source of valid information and not conventional information. Mewulwe argues that such information is subjective and that it's prone to uncertainties in the future (e.g. non-consecutive terms). I don't believe that such information is subjective if a source to the official government webpage with the disputed ordinal numberings is provided. Even if a case with a non-consecutive term should happen I believe that this question will trigger a nationwide interest on this topic which would yield an answer fast. After reading the discussion which altered this policy to its current form I noticed that the discussion failed to take the basic meaning of an encyclopedia into consideration. Regards CroGamer 1 (talk) 09:32, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

The government webpage doesn't even explicitly number all prime ministers, only the last few (the others must be inferred). It primarily numbers the governments; that numbering is clear enough and could be used on that basis. Since there is currently no evidence of a nationwide interest in numbering the prime ministers, there probably won't be one in the case of a non-consecutive prime minister either and the government webpage might in that case not assign a number at all, in which case there would be no basis for an infobox numbering either, and then you'd have to remove the earlier numbers too. So don't start until the numbering becomes a well-established practice going beyond a single government webpage. Mewulwe (talk) 10:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

We are not discussing our particular case now Mewulwe. I just wanted to post an example. We will continue to discuss our case once this is cleared. CroGamer 1 (talk) 11:01, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@CroGamer 1: I advise you to make a request for comments. MrClog (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the input @MrClog:. I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia so it will take a little while until I get familiarised. I pinged {{rfc|policy|pol}} at the top of the first comment. CroGamer 1 (talk) 22:51, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

The current from doesn't match the policy on RfCs. I'll therefore set up a new RfC and delete this one. MrClog (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC regarding ordinal numbering

The current policy regarding ordinal numbering is that an infobox should only mention someone is the nth President, Prime-Minister, senator, etc. if this is well established practice in the country the person holds office in. Recently, CroGamer 1 has called for this policy to change. The problem lies in the fact that ordinal numbering is subjective; if someone is elected non-consecutively, how does the numbering works? What about a temporarily acting officeholder? At the same time, knowing that someone was the "11th President of X" can be useful to know. If there is a well established usage in the relevant country, we should still follow that. If this isn't the case, should we continue our policy of not mentioning it, or should we have a wiki-wide policy for all these countries in which we establish how to number? 23:09, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

It appears the current policy makes the most sense in regards to the infobox. Wikipedia should not be in the business of creating numbering systems where one is not in standard usage in the country it is referring to. Should one become common in usage, then it should be added to the infobox. --Tchouppy (talk) 13:57, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

As stated in the discussion above this one, I firmly believe that the basic purpose of an encyclopedia is that it servers as a source of valid information and not information which has established use. An encyclopedia wouldn't make sense if it contains information that everybody already knows. CroGamer 1 (talk) 18:20, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Should this even count as a consensus since I see editors viewing the discussion but no one is opposing it? CroGamer 1 (talk) 21:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

As I understood it, the debate wasn't about introducing original numbering systems but "established use" vs "well established use" and what kinds of sources we'd allow. Some editors seem to support the former approach, some the latter (and a few are fine with us ordering them ourselves). For example, this page listing successive Croatian governments was cited since it describes the relevant Prime Minister as the "eleventh".

I think "established use" could be defined as

1. any government source
2. a government source with the explicit purpose of listing officeholders in order (e.g.)
3. or just any reliable list

The best argument I could think of in favour of being more lenient is that ordinal numbering can be useful in establishing a timeline for readers looking at multiple articles at once. Ultimately I'm not sure, but in any case I think our policy at least needs the caveat that you shouldn't enforce it in a way that leaves articles on holders of the same office inconsistent (per GoodDay in 2017). If someone adds a number to the latest officeholder, for example, you should be willing to go through the officeholders in the same series and remove their numbers first before reverting. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Continue the current policy. It isn't wikipedia's job to decide numbering. Numbering should only ever be used if it is the well-established practice among reliable sources. We don't need a new policy on how to number, we've already got one. DrKay (talk) 15:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree DrKay that it isn't our business to make the numbers up. I'm just discussing whether should very reliable source(s) count even if there isn't evidence of established use (and I still don't see the point why they shouldn't). ReconditeRodent, you got the discussion right and I completely agree with your viewpoint. The term "established use" should be slightly updated. CroGamer 1 (talk) 18:13, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Like anything else, we know something is "valid information" when multiple, independent, WP:RSs agree on it. The existing policy makes sense. The alternative is often seen in articles on central Asian topics, which sometimes have numbered lists, sometimes using # markup, when such numbering has no meaning (e.g., alphabetical listings of people, places) and no verified usage by outside sources, not to mention being easily corrupted when editors add or remove items. Implying an order to such lists is not only WP:OR, but wrong. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that we can't add info if we have a single "unoriginal" source (e.g. a news media webpage). If the "original" source (government in this case) does provide the information that should mean something. The original source should have the final word in my opinion. CroGamer 1 (talk) 11:45, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I've just re-noticed and re-read this. There's a related thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists#Numbering of officeholders, posted by Verbcatcher (talk · contribs), to which I replied that we've had something like this before, see Talk:Paul Ryan#RFC: Ordinal numbers. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:29, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that the final word in these kind of disputes should have the institution in question if it offers the info. CroGamer 1 (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Off-topic: religion parameter

(split from the previous discussion for clarity)

And... one key information would be religion! I really do not understand how, for instance, alma mater can be considered more relevant than religion. I know this is not the matter of this specific discussion, but it is an issue that is always in my mind. --Checco (talk) 22:12, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't have much experience in the religion "department" so I can't comment. Obviously, there exists a reason to why it was removed. CroGamer 1 (talk) 09:40, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

See this April 2016 RFC. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

It was a bad decision and bad decisions can be reverted.

As I said, religion is quite an important information, arguably more than alma mater or signature. --Checco (talk) 17:20, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

If you think it was a bad decision that should be reverted, start a new discussion over at VPP to get consensus to do so. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:43, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 April 2019

Could someone please add the parameters:

• |speaker= for a Speaker or any other type of legislative presiding officer; could be used on Lindsay Hoyle, Steny Hoyer and Kevin McCarthy for example.
• |chair= for the chair of a party or any other organization. (Is already listed on the template's documentation page but doesn't work)
• |secretary= for the heads of the United States federal executive departments; could be used on articles of Deputy Secretaries, Under Secretaries and the heads of a department's sub-organizations.
• |affiliation= for an MP's affiliation with a parliamentary group – although |parliamentarygroup= already exists, this one is way more succinct.

Regards Colonestarrice (talk) 12:22, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. This seems like a set of additions that should be discussed, with examples provided for the documentation, and with test cases on the testcases page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:39, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

It looks like |speaker= is already supported. See Frederick H. Gillett. To see other uses, you can peruse the Template Data monthly report. |secretary= is already in use at, for example, Tony Blinken, a deputy secretary, where it appears to denote the secretary under whom the person served (if the parameter worked). |affiliation= would probably be used to note someone's party affiliation. Given that there are more than 23,000 pages in Category:Pages using infobox officeholder with unknown parameters, I am wary of adding parameters without a discussion, since the existing template usage is so muddled. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Suggested addition: Media Releases

At the moment, Template:Infobox officeholder has only one field for Website. I'm thinking that for many politicians, there could usefully be a second field for the specific page under their website where they put their Media Releases/Press Releases. Alternatively, we could add Website2. Thoughts? Ben Aveling 14:09, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I think this would in most cases be more spam than beneficial. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Twitter in Infobox

I do not think we need the Twitter parameter from wikidata in the infobox mainly because it’s just more clutter, but also per WP:ELNO. We don’t usually list social media (at least for American politicians) unless they don’t have an official website (with the exception of Trump). If we do list them, they belong in the External links section, not the infobox. Corky 08:49, 23 April 2019 (UTC)