Template talk:Infobox Australian place/Archive 4

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Infoboxes to be replaced by this template

All manual (non-template) infoboxes

Safe to ignore these - I am working on all of these as part of a renewal project for Central Coast, Lake Macquarie and Newcastle articles and have actually produced the above infoboxes with a database I made last year, but just finding the time to get to them. If anyone wants to beat me to it and whack on a few infoboxes yourself, drop me an email and I can return-mail you the straight-text infoboxes/geocoords. Orderinchaos 14:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

All done! :) Orderinchaos 23:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Lake Macquarie infobox

Suburbs of Lake Macquarie, such as Buttaba, New South Wales have a different infobox. Is this a concern?--Grahamec 01:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a concern and is an example of "manual" infoboxes being used in some Australian place articles. As per the to-do list, all manual infoboxes, such as the one you have found, should be converted to this template. There is a list of articles with manual infoboxes above on this talk page. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 02:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Having just spent some time cleaning up some incorrect attempts to replace manual templates with this one, I'd just like to point out that, in the case of suburbs of Lake Macquarie, city = Lake Macquarie, logo = Lake-logo.jpg and links to surrounding suburbs need to be in the [[Suburb, New South Wales|Suburb]] format (otherwise we end up with adjacent suburbs such as Cardiff). Also, I'd strongly urge that the link to the template page be included in the edit summary. I reverted 2 edits where a user had relabelled Lake Macquarie suburbs as being in Sydney before going to that user's contributions wondering how many pages they had mis-edited. I only found this talk page because it was in their edit summary. If I hadn't found this talk page, I would quite likely have reverted about 7 conversions of manual templates to this one, thinking that someone had no idea what they were doing. --Athol Mullen 14:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• To be fair, I don't think many people understand the distinction outside NSW, which is probably how it came about. Orderinchaos 15:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A problem with Victoria

When someone uses this template with "state=Victoria", the template links to the Victoria disambiguation page rather than Victoria (Australia). I'm not a member of WikiProject Australia, so I don't feel it's my place to edit the template, since it might accidentally disrupt quite a few Australian articles — but I wanted to point it out. --Wayne Miller 15:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be "state=vic", the template does actually convert that to the correct format. If they type in "Victoria" it treats it as an unrecognised piece of text and tries to automatically link it. Thanks for bringing it up. Orderinchaos 16:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the info. I'm fixing links to Victoria as part of WikiProject Disambiguation, and I expect I'll run into quite a few of these. I'll fix any I see. Thanks again. --Wayne Miller 20:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

No worries :) Good luck with that - if you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask (there's a lot of non-standard stuff out there :|) Orderinchaos 00:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I've encountered a similar problem at Bronte, New South Wales with links to the Waverley disambiguation page which I think should point to either Waverley Municipal Council or Waverley, New South Wales. Please can someone help? CarolGray 17:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the links at Bronte. These links should be just entered in full, rather than leaving it to the template to make them links. JPD (talk) 18:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. CarolGray 19:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

% Australian born

Hi all, I notice that Municipality of Strathfield used to have the percentage of Australian born residences in it's infobox. This is now missing. It's a useful metric, could we get this included into this infobox? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The austborn field was debated during the development of this box and the result was to remove it. [1] has some info on the discusion. --TheJosh 02:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It is a useful metric but as with most, it probably belongs in the prose under a Demographics section (where significant minorities and other useful information can also be raised). Orderinchaos 05:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, but why is that? I can't see any justification for this... - Ta bu shi da yu 09:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

One major concern was the size and readability of the infobox - the LGA version of it is already quite large (indeed, larger than a screen on 1280x960 with most implementations) and indeed larger than many of the articles that support it. Orderinchaos 09:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

counties

Could we have counties as an optional field with a link back to Cadastral divisions of Australia? Perhaps also the parish of the county, or hundred for SA. These were widely used in the nineteenth century and are still on land titles & geneology records --Astrokey44 01:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Cadastral units such as counties are so rarely used or referred to these days I can't see much relevance to articles on existing place names. They have some historical context which, when details are known, could just as easily be referred to in the text. —Moondyne 03:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit of a weird one - in WA those counties were not used even in the 19th century. Instead we have (regions?) of some form like Swan, Cockburn Sound, Canning, Avon, Ninghan, Roe, Murray, Wellington, Sussex and Nelson to name a few - some do coincide with counties but most don't. Orderinchaos 03:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Its interesting that Peel County for example is way out in the eastern wheatbelt (Image:Western Australia cadastral divisions.png). PSL thanks for the excellent cartography work by User:Astrokey44. —Moondyne 03:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep and Marmion if you see it anywhere in GGs is not the coastal suburb but some place off in the desert somewhere. And agreed re Astrokey - very nice work on those! Orderinchaos 03:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

dont thank me, thank the National Library for putting thousands of old maps online :) I still think given that wikipedia includes history, that the counties would be important, probably not so much for WA where they dont cover the whole state, but in the eastern states for instance they are on all the towns for Vic, NSW and Tas at the 1911 Britannica, see "WAGGA-WAGGA, a town of Wynyard county". --Astrokey44 13:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this is a useful parameter, remembering that the infobox is intended to summarise the most important facts of an article. --cj | talk 02:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Well they are used on property titles --Astrokey44 02:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The usage of counties in property titles from 1933 hardly constitutes them being an important fact. By including such parameters we are adding bloat which was the main thing we tried to avoid when we initially put this template together. The same goes for parishes and hundreds. I am not suggesting that these points are not interesting, I just feel they should be included in prose only. I suggest the fields should be removed. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 10:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Parishes and counties are used on all property titles in NSW, Vic, Qld and Tas from 1788 up to today, I believe. The Geographical Names Board of New South Wales thinks they're important to include in their city/town information. --Astrokey44 11:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they are still used, and it's great that Wikipedia has coverage on them. However, I do think that putting them in the infobox overstates their importance. JPD (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Their historic importance, and continued use makes them at least as important as the state electoral divisions. They would be useful in, say real estate, if someone looked up a suburb in Sydney and wanted to know which parish it is included in. this is just one link I found: Auburn council's faq includes the parish and county --Astrokey44 08:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

From my perspective - choose - either in the info box or in the prose - whatever the majority decide but don't just drop this great work. Counties and parishes are still used in property and industrial legal documents and they represent both a current and a historical fact which is most definitely encyclopedic.--VS ^talk 06:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of a county, parish or hundred being used in this way in Australia. It is certainly trivial. Maybe there should just be one section for subdivisions, and format it similar to the "Government" section of the box in Australia (in that the Queen, GG and PM are listed in separate rows, but its only a single section of the infobox? -- Chuq 07:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think they should definatley be included. They are an important historical record and as stated above, The Geographical Names Board considers them useful enough to include in their descriptions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.148.5.118 (talk • contribs)

Compromise proposal

• Can I ask that everyone have a quick look at Albury, New South Wales as it is a good example of where most of the possible items in an Info Box have been populated - including the county of Goulburn. To my mind this does not bloat the article space or the box - and it does link quickly and systematically to important data that both reflects historical and current facts. The alternate is indiscriminate inclusion as prose somewhere in an article. However that said, there is an inherent problem with Parishes because the fact is that many towns and cities can have one, two or more parishes within their boundary. I therefore propose a comprise - I suggest that Cities/Towns/Locations (other than suburbs) should be able to include only the County information in the info box whilst Suburbs should be able to include only the Parish information. This will mean that there is only one extra line in each Info Box. Could you please indicate your support or dissent to this suggestion please. Whilst it may be obvious - so as to declare my hand I Support the inclusion of information in this way. --VS ^talk 10:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's consistently done that way (and assuming it's agreed they're kept), then we only need one field which we can call "county" in the script, but would display as "Parish" for suburbs and "County" for all others. We already do this for LGA as the ACT does not have LGAs, but districts, and we found a way to accommodate them. Orderinchaos 10:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I can think of a couple exceptions where you might want to have both (a suburb for a town in more than one county, a small location not part of a larger town/city that fits entirely inside a parish), but with these you could include the extra info in the text of the article. --Astrokey44 11:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Support: Whilst I still feel that these divisions are not notable enough to be included (even though they may be historically important), there is enough space to accomodate it as per VirtualSteve. Another point is that we could also use this infobox for county articles by adding county as a type parameter, similar to how town and lga are defined for example. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 11:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose How often are counties of reasonable significance? Keep it simple, put it in prose. --TheJosh 11:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral I am neither for them nor against them - I think they could be valuable in some cases but the main argument against them is keeping the infobox as simple as possible. Orderinchaos 13:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support as per Astrokey and VirtualSteve --Golden Wattle ^talk 19:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral they are not vital statistics. May have a "subdivisons" section like the "Government" section in the infobox at Australia, with "Federal division", "state division", "county" etc. listed where the Queen, PM and GG are listed in the Australia infobox. ie. in a single row, in a slightly smaller font, and slightly indented. -- Chuq 02:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose KISS.--cj | talk 02:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support, another interesting/useful tidbit of information, and it doesn't seem to clutter the article up at all. Lankiveil 11:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC).
• Comment It has been suggested that these are important as electorates and that sort of thing. I would say they are slightly less important, but not hugely. When the infobox already includes detail to the levels of electorates, the additional county/parish does not look particularly out of place, but when it doesn't (e.g. Sydney) it gives the impression that counties are much more important than they are. JPD (talk) 13:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't think they are terribly important (even though I deal with property titles at work). If they are notable, include them in the prose. They don't bear much relevance today, so I oppose including them at all. If people want to include them, this proposal would be the way to go. Iorek85 10:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

town - distance/direction

Gladstone
Location	211 km (131 mi) north of Adelaide 38 km (24 mi) east of Port Pirie 29 km (18 mi) from Jamestown

Is it possible to display a direction properly with the distance#/location# parameters? Using near-dd seems overkill for country towns, but putting distances without a direction doesn't provide the full info either. See for example the box on Gladstone, South Australia which currently renders as:

• 211 km from north of Adelaide
• 38 km from east of Port Pirie

by putting the distance as part of the location# --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, I think (and yes, the only country thing we use near-dd for in country areas is LGAs which clearly border other LGAs). From a readability point of view, best way to do would be to have a dir# and if it is filled out it reads (dir# of), if it's not it reads (from). From other coding in the script that would be doable (I'd prefer to see it as a single letter so as not to spill it vertically) What do others think? Orderinchaos 05:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have coded the dir variable into the template. See the example in the infobox shown in this section above. For the Jamestown example no "dir3" value has been entered, and therefore direction shows as "from". The dir variable is free text so more precise directions such as NE or SSW can be entered as well. ◄§ĉҺɑʀκs► 07:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Spurious links being created

Some recent changes to this template apparently are creating spurious links in the MediaWiki link database, which among other things are polluting WP:DPM. For example, any use of the template with the parameter "city=Perth" is showing up as a link to the disambiguation page Perth, even though it appears that some effort has been made to avoid this and to route links to the correct page Perth, Western Australia. See, for example, Hamersley, Western Australia—there is no visible link to Perth on this page, but it still ends up listed on Special:Whatlinkshere/Perth, along with dozens of other W.A. locality articles. A similar problem seems to exist with articles about ACT localities, which all create links to the disambiguation page Act, even though there is no visible link to Act on the pages. It would be appreciated if someone who is sufficiently familiar with the esoteric template techniques being used here could correct these problems. --Russ (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I've replied on the user's talk page - I think this may be a MediaWiki bug, and have seen a specific instance of it elsewhere. Orderinchaos 13:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Time zones

For the vast majority of cities, towns and suburbs, the time zone can be automatically calculated from the state variable. Would it be possible to automatically display the timezone, but ONLY in cases where "timezone" and "timezone-dst" are left blank - to allow for places such as Broken Hill, New South Wales and Eucla, Western Australia to "override" these defaults if needed? -- Chuq 00:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

State and Federal electorates

Hi, a suggestion/question.

I have noticed that all federal electorate articles are titled "Division of .."" and state electorate articles are titled "Electoral district of ...", seemingly without exception. When filling out the electorate sections of the info box, I add [[Division of Indi|Indi]] to get Indi to appear. Would it be possible (or desirable) to code the box so that I could simply type Indi and have Indi appear in the box with a link to the article? Cheers--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea actually. The only problem is all the ones we already have with the other form. Some of the problems we have are essentially to do with legacy stuff which predated the script and could probably do with being smartened up. Orderinchaos 11:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Could it be set up so that infoboxes can be made on the state and federal electorate articles themselves? --Astrokey44 10:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

An infobox for electorates is a great idea. Not sure whether it could be included in this template as per town, suburb and LGA or would need a new template. I would suggest a new one as the fields likely to be included in an electorate info box would not have a large overlap with the others.--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's an attempt: Template:Infobox Australian Electoral, which I have tried out with Electoral district of Albury. Feel free to change it if there are better fields or anything. --Astrokey44 01:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Followed this one up btw - NT is an exception as theirs are "Electoral division of...". Doesn't mean it can't be done, but is a consideration. Orderinchaos 02:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That Electoral box (Template:Infobox Australian Electoral) is real good. it should be merged into this box with a different type code. it seems to have a fair number of similar fields. TheJosh 12:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

New changes

I had to revert back to Scharks's last version as a number of key features had somehow gotten broken (most notably, suburb direction boxes had ceased to display). Please be careful to test any changes prior to making them "live" as this template appears on several thousand pages. Orderinchaos 14:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

sorry my fault, I was trying to make a new navigation box. It appeared to work, but I should have checked its effect on other suburbs etc. I have now made it separately cause i didnt want to cause any more disruption --Astrokey44 11:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Kiwi version?

The NZeders are considering adopting a version of this template for their articles at Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board#Infoboxes for NZ towns and cities etc. At present, Kiwi place articles use a convuluted table code far worse than that which we eradicated. Would the collaborators here be interested in helping develop a Kiwi version, if they decide it's the type they want?--cj | talk 02:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help where required. ◄scharks► 10:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Same. :) They seem a pretty good bunch over there. Orderinchaos 10:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Please remove the automatic establishment date categorisation

The automatic establishment date categorisation puts the establishment date first in the list of categories at the bottom of the page, which is not appropriate. The defining category should come first, ie category:Towns in Western Australia or whatever. RegRCN 08:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know there isn't any specific order or priority in which categories are displayed, or in which they should be listed. -- Chuq (talk) 12:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The order comes from the order they appear in the code. Establishment date has now been moved to the bottom. - 52 Pickup 13:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Northern Territory towns

This may be nitpicking but we probably should get it right. When placing the template on Northern Territory towns and adding the Territory electorate, it appears on the page with "State District" not "Territory District". See Adelaide River, Northern Territory for an example. Can this be fixed or do we need to live with it. Of course, the Territory could get its act together and apply for statehood and save us the trouble. :-) --Mattinbgn/ ^talk 01:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That's something we're going to need to address. Also, for some reason whoever created all the NT political articles named them "Electoral *division* of"... More fun. Orderinchaos 03:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That appears to be what they're called. [2] --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that's fine then. Will just have to keep that in mind when doing NT articles. The other matter is a simple one I can fix when I have time - as the ACT doesn't use them at all, we can just do an if for NT. Orderinchaos 07:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Tasmania also needs to be special-cased as they also use electoral divisions, not districts. See Template:Tasmanian electorates for links. Even worse - thay have electoral divisions for the house of assembly (which appear to be coincident with the federal electoral divisions, and have the same names), and different electoral divisions for the legislative council. --Scott Davis ^Talk 03:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. While we haven't hard coded it into the template, it may well happen in the future so it's good to have it here so that any developers know (also useful for the rest of us who might be doing Tasmanian articles at some point). Orderinchaos 03:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Flag/Coat of arms

City of Melbourne
Flag of City of Melbourne Flag

Could we have space for flags and coat of arms for the capital cities? similar to how it is done on Template:Australia state or territory --Astrokey44 10:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

No, because Australian city articles cover metropolitan areas which do not have flags or coats of arms (these belong to local government areas).--cj | talk 11:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't it be used there with a note that it technically belongs to the LGA. Its just that that would look great on Melbourne --Astrokey44 11:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It might do, but to do so would be being inaccurate for the sake of decoration, which would be a Bad Thing.--cj | talk 11:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

But surely they are meant to represent the whole city, otherwise why dont any of the other LGA's have coats of arms? --Astrokey44 11:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC) oh.. never mind i see they do.. perhaps this field could be for the lgas then --Astrokey44 11:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO this would be a great use of the Logo field in the City article. Is the Logo field enabled for that type of article? (This would mean not having to add a field.) Alternatively, just use it in the Image field for the LGA. Orderinchaos 11:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

They can have both a logo and a coat of arms such as with City of Mandurah [3]. Perhaps the coat of arms/flag images could be half the size as on some other infoboxes. Heres an example using Template:Infobox Settlement --Astrokey44 14:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess we could allow for more than one in the infobox, but in general I don't see why we need to have anything more than whichever is most used out of the coat of arms and logo. Very few councils have flags that are widely used. Please note again that the City of Melbourne flag and arms definitely don't belong on the Melbourne page - as metropolises such as Sydney and Melbourne are not represented by any legal entities, the only flags designed for them are unofficial. JPD (talk) 15:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Information in capital infoboxes

Astrokey44 has expanded information (climate, LGAs, electorates, postcodes, etc) included in the infoboxes for the capital city articles which is indicated by the fields table to be valid only for towns and suburbs. Is the table incorrect or should the changes be reverted?--cj | talk 13:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to include the climate information. The postcode ranges, however, are fairly pointless, especially as the ones used usually cover the whole of the state. I am undecided on the other fields, tending in general against inclusion, but would tend more towards inclusion in cases where a specific XXX in Capital city article/list exists. JPD (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Have removed the postcodes, but thought the capital city infoboxes could use expanding as they have less information than some of the boxes for towns and suburbs, and also compared with other major world cities. Maybe there are other fields which could be used? see also an anon comment. --Astrokey44 01:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

My personal feeling - we're trying to avoid creating new fields, but if we can find good uses for the existing ones in new ways, I'm not really concerned as long as we don't end up with 2-screen infoboxes. I agree the postcode ranges add little in this case, but the climate is actually useful (although noting that most of the cities have a climatic range - eg I live in Perth but use the Swanbourne metrics as they're closer to my area, while others might use Jandakot or Perth Airport depending on where they are). (Re the anon, one improvement IMO, and I know a couple of others agree, is shrinking the font to 90%. We couldn't get consensus on it last time, though.) Orderinchaos 05:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Australian Station?

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Adelaide#Station Infoboxes that participants here may be interested in, with a suggestion to develop a standard infobox along the lines of this and {{Infobox Australian Road}} for railway stations.--cj | talk 15:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

distances

It should be noted whether the distances used are road or air as they can be quite different. [4] says the road distance from Melbourne to Perth is 3456km, while [5] gives the air distance as 2733km --Astrokey44 02:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

We've traditionally used road distances, although air distances can be noted in the article, or in cases of islands where there clearly is no road distance. I used the official estimates by Tourism Australia on the Perth article - it's really crazy that no two sites actually agree on the distances between our major cities, and there's actually quite a variance. We hit this problem with the Port Lincoln article a while ago. Orderinchaos 08:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Establishment Dates

It seems to have become common practice to put each place in an Establishment Category eg. Category:1991 Establishments. Would it be possible for this to be done automatically or will it just be left manual? Todd661 10:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, I just realised it was already done Todd661 10:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah those categories didn't exist as far as Australian articles were concerned prior to the creation of this template. Nice bit of coding indeed :) Orderinchaos 05:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Now that the Category:Settlements by year of establishment category structure has (mainly) be created, would it be possible to recode this template to put Australian places into the appropriate settlements established in year x category? I know that there are a several 20th century categories that still need to be created and I would be happy to to this once they have some articles.Greenshed 22:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Done - tested on Beverley, Western Australia (which uses fixed year), Harvey, Western Australia (which uses a decade) and Hamilton Hill, Western Australia (where est has not been filled in). Orderinchaos 02:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Something I just noticed about this field. At the moment, the Sydney entry has | est = [[Australia Day|January 26]], [[1788]]. This is a nice way to present the date, but then the categorisation doesn't work since it is only looking for a year. Perhaps the heading in the infobox should specify that this field is for year of establishment instead of simply "Established". Or something else needs to be done. I don't know. - 52 Pickup 09:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Local Government Area categories

Three issues with Local Goverment Areas and categories

1. Local government areas often have names like City of Kingston. This then appears under "C" in the category rather than "K". Is there another way to fix this without manually adding the category?
2. The infobox also does not recognise any nested categories. Foe example, City of Kingston is included in Category:Local Government Areas of Melbourne, a sub category of Category:Local Government Areas of Victoria. The info box doesn't pick this up and includes this again in the parent category. Is there an easy way to fix this?
3. With the likely amalgamations in Queensland, can the infobox have a section for date abolished and then allocate to a new category Former Local Government Areas of X, or should we just remove the infobox? Cheers, Mattinbgn/ ^talk 00:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

1. With LGAs I'm almost tempted to remove the categorisation section from the template as it creates its own issues. There isn't an easy way to disambiguate the post "of" part, esp as not all councils do it that way.

2. 1. may address this. (I'd also note that technically there are no "LGAs of Melbourne", they all pertain to the state - but that's just my pedantic side shining through)

3. See City of Geraldton, Town of Albany etc for what we've done with the WA ones. I've just vertical-barred the thing to start X, but if we do this at a national level, a new category such as you have outlined may be useful (and would also allow me to create more historic WA ones - there is scope to create old VIC ones too for pre-1994 if we can find an RS for them)

Sorry if the brevity of my answers is interpreted as curtness - all very good questions, I'm just overdue with several assignments atm :P Orderinchaos 06:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I would suggest removing the auto categorisation from all uses of the template. I know there is a similar issue with Riverina towns appearing in Category:Towns in the Riverina as well as the parent category Category:Towns in New South Wales. Combine this with the alphabetical sorting it may be easier to manually add the category. The (former) in the infobox is a good idea, but it means that Category:Local Government Areas of Western Australia contains more than just the existing LGAs at present. Once again this could be fixed if the autocategorisation was removed from the template. Good luck with the assignments.:-) -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 01:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I would support removing the auto categorisation. As for Orderinchaos' pedantry, perhaps "LGAs in Melbourne" would be a better name? JPD (talk) 09:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Note that the WA ones actually use an override for the categorisation. I've removed cats of LGAs from the template. Orderinchaos 20:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Region

I think we need another type for region. Adelaide Hills would be a region, as would Yorke Peninsula.

• Support as per above.
• Temporary oppose - Nice idea, but a clear list of regions for the whole country is first needed - after that, it would then be possible to see if it is worth doing. Two SA regions is not enough reason to go ahead with this. - 52 Pickup 14:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
• (removed my somewhat confused vote) WA has clearly defined regions for the entire state outside Perth metro. But in states like NSW where there is some disagreement, doesn't seem much point in using it. Orderinchaos 14:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think the suggestion is to add another type to this infobox, so that the articles about regions could use it. Given the official WA regions and otehr examples that exist, this might be worthwhile. JPD (talk) 15:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, getting you now. I think I was having a blond moment. :| Orderinchaos 16:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support only in cases where clearly defined regions exist and have gazetted boundaries, as is the case in WA. Orderinchaos 16:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose on the face of it, a good idea. But it means enlarging an already large infobox (IMV) for trivial gain. Support, --cj | talk 00:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - It seems to me that adding regions will be a recipe for edit-warring as editors disagree about what constitutes a region. The eastern Riverina, western South West slopes has already seen some of this with navboxes and categories. It may be better to leave reference to regions in the body of the article where borderline or ambiguous cases can be fleshed out in full. We also need to be aware of the need to avoid original research if we distribute towns to regions.-- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • This has not about allocating towns to regions in a town infobox - that can already be done, in cases where it is appropriate. It is about using a version of this infobox on the articles about regions that already exist. The question is really only, as cj said, whether it is worth the gain. (I presume he refers to the increased length of code in the template, as we are not talking about a change to existing visible infoboxes.) Not that many of the fields will be relevant to regions, especially those that aren't well defined. JPD (talk) 10:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Ohhhh, so it is. Ignore the above. I am all for infoboxes in articles and would support one for regions but what fields would be included? -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 10:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear me, I had my own blonde moment – the intent of the proposal went straight over my head. I'm fine with region type.--cj | talk 16:16, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Bit worrying that *three* of us managed to mis-comprehend the proposal as it stood :P Orderinchaos 01:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

So for which states would this be used? It is fine insisting that the field only be used if official regions are already stated, but you can't stop users from placing their idea of a region where it officially isn't true (as would be the case for NSW, for example) - unless you set the template options to not enable this field for certain states. Therefore, as i said above, a clear list should be laid out for all acceptable values. - 52 Pickup 11:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Does this make 4 people who have misunderstood? We're not talking about a field (that already exists, and hasn't caused too many problems - even if people did misuse it, it would be no harder to deal with than vandalism), but a type. In other words, we're talking about using this template to put infoboxes on things like Yorke Peninsula. JPD (talk) 11:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No. I meant what is going to stop people using this for things like Southern Highlands, New South Wales? This is not an official region, its area is uncertain, has AFAIK no central administration, so what useful information would the infobox display? If used incorrectly, this could lead to unnecessary template creep. - 52 Pickup 11:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Is "template" creep a big problem? Provided the template is well designed and contains useful, reliably sourced information, why is it a problem if it is used on Southern Highlands, New South Wales? The Riverina is not an official region, its area is also uncertain, and has no central administration but surely enough information in that article can be found to fill a well designed infobox to succintly summarise some key facts and points. I'm not convinced this template can be stretched far enough to encompass regions but I support the idea of a regional template with the content to be included the same as any other article through citing reliable sources and consensus.-- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 11:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. The fact that Southern Highlands is not an officially defined region does not mean it cannot have an infobox. It is possibly (probably) true that there will not be enough information to make an infobox worthwhile in at least some cases, but that is a stylistic decision to be made by the editors of that article, not something that needs a rule handed down here. The real question is, as Mattinbgn says, should a region box use this template. JPD (talk) 12:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(reset) If a region has no clearly-definable area, then it also has no clearly-definable population - so there goes 2 useful bits of information that cannot be used. What does that leave? Postcodes? Electorates? At the worst you have nothing but a map, the region's name and the state that it is in (and state is sometimes redundant since that is in the article title anyway). If an infobox has no info, then it is simply a box. The only useful thing that you could safely add would be something like "major cities", but that means creating a new field. It's a nice idea, but it will not work for every region. And some people object strongly to the introduction of templates that do not significantly add to the article. For clear official regions, I have no objections at all. - 52 Pickup 12:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

What states apart from WA have legislatively defined regions that the ABS generally respects? Orderinchaos 13:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In SA we have areas that when you enter there are great big signs with the name and a pretty picture. The areas I can think of are the metro area (counts as Adelaide), Adelaide Hills, Yorke Peninsula, Eyre Peninsula, Fleurieu Peninsula, the Riverland, the Barossa and the Outback (other states too). Seems clear enough to me. When i made this proposal, I thought of the variation looking a bit like the city one and a bit like the lga one. --TheJosh 12:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See Template:South_Australia --TheJosh 01:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

There are other areas considered regions also not listed there, eg Murrylands, Murray Mallee, Copper Coast etc. --cj | talk 02:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

In Queensland the State Government Office of Economic and Statistical Research recognises official Regions of Queensland, also recognised by the ABS. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 12:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

SA has ABS regions. Also, for testing (so we can get a feel of it) I have added a temp box to this article: Adelaide Hills --TheJosh 08:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The NSW DLG has this regions list where the regions are simply agglomerations of LGAs (hmm, how many TLAs can you fit into one sentence?). I'm not sure how official this is or if can be used here, though. - 52 Pickup 19:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Due to no opposition to Adelaide Hills, I have added region to the template, although it is not documented anywhere but here (not on blank page or doc page yet). I will add full support for it (write in documentation, perhaps autocats) in a week or so if there are no objections.

I have added full support for the region type --TheJosh 03:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Location map Australia

I've just made a pushpin map for Australian locations. So if you give the co-ordinates, a location map will be generated, so separate static images for each location are not needed. For example:

class=notpageimage| Sydney: using co-ordinates on article...

...and the static image.

The parameters are probably not yet spot-on, so if you want to tweak them, go to {{Location map Australia}}. Once this is running properly, it could possibly be then used for the infobox, if no other image is given. - 52 Pickup 11:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought the box already had push-pin support. --TheJosh 11:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Sort of. Currently you need to enter loc-x and loc-y, the co-ordinates on this grid. Since these values relate only to that image, the editor must manually determine the values - and most editors can't be bothered to do that. If the above location map is used, all you need to enter are the actual geographical co-ordinates, and the template figures out for you where the spot should be placed on the map. Most articles contain geographical co-ordinates already, so if that data (and the coord template, like many other geographical infoboxes) were to be incorporated into the template, then all maps would be made automatically without the messing around with loc-x and loc-y.

While on the subject of co-ordinates, it says on the template page here that when entering co-ordinates, it should not be overly precise. I'd like to bring to everyone's attention that articles which contain geographical co-ordinates in the title bar now appear on Google Earth. And looking at the location of the markers for some places in Google Earth (particularly smaller locations), the accuracy needs some improving. - 52 Pickup 07:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Ive noticed this, on Google Earth Lake Burley Griffin still points a spot not in the lake, although the coordinates on the article have now been fixed. The location map is a good idea, but it might be better to use maps for individual states which would show greater detail, see here These also may need the parameters adjusting --Astrokey44 01:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia data in Google Earth is apparently refreshed every 1-3 months. Nice idea with the separate states. If the separate states are used, would it be possible to set different widths for different states? If they are all at the same width, then some of the vertical maps (eg. ACT) become rather big. - 52 Pickup 16:43, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

You are supposed to be able to with the "width=" field, however in previewing using this there seems to be some trouble with the alignment --Astrokey44 11:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Reducing (standardising) text size

I was going to raise a comment about the text size in this Infobox and suggest a slight reduction, but noticed in the archives that this has already been proposed in December last year. While the response appears to mostly be supportive, there obviously was no final consensus nor change as a consequence. Therefore I guess I am re-raising this proposal with my support, for two reasons:

1. It appears that most/all Infoboxes use a reduced font size (90%), and this would make Australian Place consistent; and
2. Having a reduced text size (not forgetting line-height) would reduce the length of a 'healthy' Infobox which can sometimes be as long or even longer than the place's article!

Can we get a final consensus on this and have it implemented?  SEO⁷⁵ 05:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support for the reasons given above, and for the reasons I gave in December. - 52 Pickup 06:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  • comment the above vote should also count for four support that were raised in december, and one oppose --TheJosh 12:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I wasn't involved in the original discussion, but I note that the only oppose at the time was a claim that the fonts were smaller on Linux. As someone who runs linux (twin 19" monitors running at 1600x1200 each), I don't have any problem with the font sizes in wikipedia. If the fonts are too small, I'd consider that to be a browser configuration issue, which isn't our problem.  :-) --Athol Mullen 08:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional Support on the condition the 90% is somehow applied to the entire box style attribute, or somehow avoiding having style="font-size: 90%" on every table cell. And the font size issue is only a problem if the size is specified in points (pt) instead of pixels, percents or a constant.
  • comment - reducing the font size can be done in a number of ways. The quick way is to simply place a <div style="font-size: 90%"> around the entire table code, but this does not take care of line height (although maybe that could also be placed in this div code). Perhaps the better way to do it, even though it would take a bit of work, is to implement style="infobox geography". Also, the html code used here should probably be wikified. - 52 Pickup 09:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  • comment - even easier is to put that style on the table itself, thus the first line would become {| class="infobox vcard" cellpadding="4" style="width: 280px; font-size: 90%;" User_talk:TheJosh/IAP is an example --TheJosh 12:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
  • but that doesn't address the other raised point: line height. For that, reducing the cellpadding would be a good start. If "infobox geography" is used, it already has a lot of these settings as default, plus it has extra spacing features that can be summoned using class="mergedtoprow/mergedrow/mergedbottomrow" for a given line. For examples of its use, see {{Infobox City}} (eg. New York City) or {{Infobox German Location}} (eg. Munich). Alternatively, if you look at {{Infobox Indian Jurisdiction}} (eg. Mumbai), you can see another way of doing it. - 52 Pickup 12:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
    • comment i have updated User_talk:TheJosh/IAP to use the geography class but i don't like it. i think the top looks good, but i dont like the borders on the table cells and the border around min/max/rainfall is odd. --TheJosh 00:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I agree with TheJosh here. It looks bad.--cj | talk 00:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
        • I wonder if we have enough firepower for a new class to be defined... --TheJosh 00:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
        • CJ, your an admin are you not? If i work out some styles, (not now but in a few hours perhaps), could you put them into Wikipedia:Common.css ???—The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheJosh (talk • contribs) 10:34, 16 August 2007.
          • Sure. And if not I, then Orderinchaos and JPD also tend to help out with this template.--cj | talk 01:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
            • Good idea - I forgot that you can't specify the border colouring for infobox geography. - 52 Pickup 07:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support a drop in font size, agree that a solution needs to be found if implemented which does not clutter the code. Orderinchaos 00:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• comment I have once again updated User_talk:TheJosh/IAP. You will need the provided CSS to see it in its pure glory. I didn't know what to call the class, so for now its iap. --TheJosh 02:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we finally get some action on this please? --TheJosh 04:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking much the same. I've found a format that will work with the standard geography class (demonstrated at User_talk:Orderinchaos/IAP), but it's a matter of tweaking it to get it right. One thing that has come up is the logical ordering/related grouping of fields, anyone have any suggestions re this? Orderinchaos 04:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Can everyone who is interested in this box please leave a comment on User_talk:Orderinchaos/IAP related to the new design. --TheJosh 11:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The following is an archived discussion from User talk:Orderinchaos/IAP.

Sorry Orderinchaos, I don't like it. I don't like the division halfway down, and the sub-boxes need tweaking. --TheJosh 05:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really a problem (the division was put in more to show it could be done, more than anything else). With the subboxes I'm assuming you mean the text size needs to be raised back to about what it was in the initial template? Orderinchaos 06:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I tend to usually dislike the "make the font smaller" brigade, but this looks good (compared to the one presently on Hamersley, Western Australia). The only thing I'd change is to remove the two horizontal lines in the surrounding suburbs box. I like the smaller overall size, especially since the [Edit] buttons often get bunched up around large infoboxes on articles with a short lead and first section. I like the horizontal rule before the government representations. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

PS I also like that the property value field doesn't wrap to a second line on my screen, whihc looks really ugly in the original. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I like it better now without the weird borders on the sub-boxes, except there is a border through the weather box. --TheJosh 01:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have made a few changed to padding around the sub-boxes and the photo, looks a bit tidier now. I still don't like the horiz line down the middle, I don't see the point and it is confusing. --TheJosh 09:46, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

New look applied, taken from User:Orderinchaos/IAP --TheJosh 12:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to say I don't like the new look of the infobox. I only discovered it when I went to edit a page I'd been watching and things didn't look right. Specific crticisms are:

• Not enough line spacing - Characters like "g" and "y" run into the line below. eg the "y" in Raymond runs into the "N" in New in the example on User:AussieLegend/Project 01. It makes the box look cluttered, especially if you're using any superscripted characters in the infobox.

Has been fixed for the title/state, I don't see the problems for any other fields. --TheJosh 03:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That's much better. I'm not sure if you've done anything else but whatvere it was or wasn't, the effect has been to fix the problems I saw including the issue with superscripted text. Thanks. --AussieLegend 06:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Some characters are far too small. I'm using a 17" 5:4 aspect ratio LCD monitor running at its native resolution of 1280x1024, which is the "standard" for non-widescreen monitors. The characters in the "dist#" and "location#" fields are just under 2mm high which is about 82% of what they were in the old version. That's simply too small for a lot of people to read without difficulty.

This issue is also fixed. Now all we need to do is convince monitor manufacturers to produce 1024 x 768 monitors again but I don't think that's something Wikipedia can achieve.:( --AussieLegend 06:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

My measurements show that the new version of the infobox is roughly 82% of the previous one. I can certainly see the merit in reducing the size of the infobox but I think 90% is more reasonable. 82% is going a bit too far. --AussieLegend 17:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Lack of consultation with other users and general ugliness of new template

Can you please put proposals like this on the Australian notice board or something? I had no idea what you were doing - and to be honest, the new box looks positively awful. The old text size was fine and there was nothing wrong with it, but yet again we have another example of people changing things that don't need changing. Please change it back. JRG 23:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You also might like to know that the neighbouring suburbs don't always display properly in the reduced text size, particularly where there is more than one suburb in a particular direction. You will need to fix this up. JRG 23:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

There was plenty of consultation, look at all the discussion above. --TheJosh 02:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you link to an example of such a suburb box? (For the record, it did need changing, as some infoboxes - especially properly filled out ones for local government areas - were going well over one screen even on my monitor, and I'm well aware many still use 1024x768 or even 800x600 to view Wikipedia.) Orderinchaos 04:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with JRG, in that I prefer the old look much more and could not see a lot wrong with it. I have been following the conversation here and at OIC's page and I am aware that I seem to be in the minority with that view. The new look is OK when an image is included in the infobox, but there is no image the text in the box looks crowded into a tiny space and the box looks much too big in comparison to the tiny font. Some tests of the new look on articles without an image such as Sandstone, Western Australia may help. None of the above is in any way meant to denigrate the work of the developers of the infobox, who have put a lot of effort into the project. -- Mattinbgn\ ^talk 03:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

There's been consensus for months to change it, but the question is *how*. Ideally I'd have liked to see an intermediate size between the two, but this is the same size that is used at Infobox City (eg Alexandria, Virginia), Infobox UK place (eg Aberdare) and a number of others. If someone can think of a way or find a CSS class which allows a compromise between the two sizes, I think we would all be willing to consider it. Orderinchaos 04:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I know there has been consensus, just not from me :-) (and I had my chance to speak up, so I am not complaining). I don't know the first thing about infobox creation so I am not much help there either. I don't mind the infobox on articles such as Hammersley, Western Australia but when there is no image in the box, not so much. Just my (lack of) aesthetic sense I guess. Cheers, Mattinbgn\ ^talk 04:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really - I do somewhat agree with you. The ideal would be somewhere in between what we had and what we have, in my opinion - we're basically using what other countries have agreed to now, and are debating whether that can be improved upon (I think it can). One possibility is that we can move towards establishing CSS classes appropriate to our needs. I'm not an expert on making those, unfortunately. I have, however, increased the size of the distances in distance tables, and Josh fixed the problem I couldn't get around in the header where the two rows appeared to be running into each other. Orderinchaos 04:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

And those changes have already made a big difference with the box at Sandstone looking much better. Thanks, Mattinbgn\ ^talk 04:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it looks great and as said above, follows the style in other geo-infoboxes. Good work guys. Now if you could just get rid of those loc-x and loc-y fields and feed latitude/longitude into a pushpin map I'd be even happier. —Moondyne 04:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Mosman Park, Western Australia and Eastwood, New South Wales are two examples where the text looks cluttered because of multiple suburbs. This was fine under the old box - the small text makes it impossible to do. And to TheJosh, I don't care if there was consensus or not, I'm asking that decisions like this which affect a great deal of Australian articles be at least publicised on an Australia-wide basis. The correct place to do that is at AWNB, not just here. Thanks. JRG 06:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

And for the record, I think the text size in an intermediate scale in Infobox city looks good. JRG 06:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I've found similar issues as JRG regarding surrounding suburbs. eg Anna Bay, New South Wales. There were even a couple of articles such as Nelson Bay, New South Wales where single suburb names touch the edges of the infobox. The problem was that the size of the nested table had been set to 100%. This was the same setting as the old template but it wasn't an issue when font sizes were smaller. I've changed it to 95% which appears to have corrected the problem.

I'm on the fence with the new template. I think the older one looked better but the font sizes and line spacings meant that some infoboxes were much too large for their associated articles. It was especially noticeable on some of the pages that I edit such as Salamander Bay, New South Wales. As it stands now I think the new template is an impovement even though I'd like to see slightly better line spacings an a bit less bolding. Even with the line spacing fixed from what it was there is still a problem with superscripted characters, such as used by citations, in that when superscript is used the main text appears to be slightly below the level of the line heading. It's not an issue with larger line spacing but becomes noticieable with the smaller spacing. That said, it is possible to get around by moving citations into the main body of text. The bolding makes the box look clutterd but I can live with that. --AussieLegend 09:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Just for test's sake User:Orderinchaos/IAP shows what it would look like without bolding ... I personally think it looks better with bolding but that some fields don't need to be. What are others' thoughts? Orderinchaos 10:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it looks quite as cluttered without the bolding, especially where there is no image, climate information or neighbouring suburbs. Where those sections are included, I don't see a huge difference. -- Mattinbgn\ ^talk 11:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I've tried and failed to add more space between lines - anyone got any idea how to do this? Not much - about 2-3px would be fine - but would space it out a little more nicely. Orderinchaos 12:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yay! The line-height idea worked. If people think the amount of spacing is now too much, the number on the first line (1.5) is all that need be altered (1 is basically what it was before). Thanks to SEO75 for giving me the idea. Orderinchaos 01:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The aesthetic is much improved by that change.--cj | talk 01:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed - it was my biggest problem with the original Infobox Settlement, but anything I tried seemed to add lines between the fields. Orderinchaos 05:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Good one. Much better now. JRG 02:09, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Footnotes

Could we please have a small footnote field in the box so that references can be provided for things like climate statistics? These cannot be put properly in line because of the unit conversion. :: maelgwn - talk 22:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose The box is only meant to be a summary of info in the article, therefore everything in the box should be mirrored in the article as well. Therefore you should put the reference in the prose itself. --TheJosh 09:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with TheJosh on this one - normally when I do them I just put an external link at the bottom to the relevant BOM page. Orderinchaos 10:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah so do I but it would be easier with a footnote, cos it would slide in easily with other footnotes. :: maelgwn - talk 10:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

A footnote in the box will make the box even bigger and more cluttered than it already is --TheJosh 11:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to come in late to this conversation, but couldn't we add a field for the BOM URL such as this one for Collie, Western Australia and have the link appear elegantly below the climate data. I would think a general principle should be to have a reference to the source material as close as possible to the relevant claim. We should be making it easy for readers to find the supporting information and avoid having them searching around the article to find the link to the supporting data unless it absolutely can't be avoided. I understand the point raised by The Josh, but in some cases it is easier to clearly state the climate information in the info box rather than write in prose that can sometimes be muddy and unclear. (especially when I am writing :-)) Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 01:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Changed template

I must say that i like the newest version. As it makes the articles less infobox focussed. However I am not a fan of the way the surrounding suburbs is organised. The box within the box doesn't do it for me. Is there a reason it is set up that way? Also a person above said that there was not much notice of the change. Possibly there could be a link to the talk page from the actual template...many templates do this. .....Todd^#661 09:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey everyone. Have to say I'm glad to see the template progressing and not looking the behemoth it was before. I was going to play around with my own version/copy of the template like Orderinchaos has to offer as a suggestion to further improve its appearance while a mumber of people are chipping-in and offering suggestions, but the complexity of it sort of overwhelmed me (I don't have a lot of experience with templates on here yet) and I think it might be best if I offer suggestions this way. Here are a few things I'd like to offer:

1. Firstly, there seems to be something amiss in the url area, as can be seen at the moment in Margate, Queensland.
2. Add more padding, if possible, to the top and bottom of the individual table rows. I know in my original re-raising of this change I mentioned line-height, however the Infobox looks cramped as it is now, and more space needs to be added to avoid it looking that way.
3. Right-align the field names so they abut their respective responses, especially for very short field names such as "LGA:" – see Template:Infobox Company to see how this has been used before.
4. Does the field name background need to be a shade of blue? This makes it look like both columns are not related, or are separate.
5. The "box within the box" (above) might not be such a visual problem if the border line above it is removed; a line above a bordered table looks a little cluttered.

I hope these suggestions work to further improve the appearance of this template; as I said I was going to experiment with my own version then offer it to show what I am trying to suggest, but... My background involves information presentation such as this, so feel free to ask me anything if I can help further. :)  SEO⁷⁵ 23:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Fixed 1 - but as it's not an LGA some of those fields were incorrect, so I fixed it to the suburb standard - however these changes will definitely benefit LGAs. (Looking at the last revision before I did so, though, will show how it works now with the URL field)
• 2 is a problem I've been trying and failing to fix for a few days :)
• 3 and 4 - will see what others think, as this was part of the original design.
• 5 - Agreed. Orderinchaos 01:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I like the suggestion to align the field names as per Template:Infobox Company. It makes the infobox look less messy. I note that template also doesn't suffer the problem we're getting here in relation to alignment of the field heading and data when the data stretches over two lines or when citations are used within the infobox.

Something else I'd like to see is provision for multiple electorates in the same way that there is provison for multiple distances and LGAs. Otherwise it's getting along nicely. --AussieLegend 04:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

What we've been doing with electorates is separating them with commas, in much the same way as IAP's predecessors did. I do recall the possibility of separate fields being discussed, I think it came down to the already large and complex nature of the template and not wanting to make it worse. I'll await TheJosh's comment on that one. Orderinchaos 05:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

KISS, that's always been my motto for this template. The more fields, the more that can go wrong, and the more someone can screw it up. The other side of things is that if we have multiple electorates, then we can have a cute list. The problem of course is then we need both state and federal, so that adds another 8 fields to the template! That's another 8 fields that can be screwed up, and that's 2 smart list switchers that can be screwed up. --TheJosh 12:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, this is weird. I responded to this last night and I'm sure I pressed save. Oh well, here's the abbreviated version.....

The template is well beyond KISS now. There's plenty to stuff up already and adding something as minor as a few extra fields based on already used and tested code isn't going to hurt. We don't need to add 8 fields, only six at most (fedgov2,3&4 and stategov2,3&4). We may not even need that many. One would probably suffice but to take the effort out of it for anyone I've added 3 extra fields in my template at User:AussieLegend/Project 02 with examples at User:AussieLegend/Project 01. Bells and whistles would be nice but we don't really need them. And since other changes are being made, why not this one? --AussieLegend 10:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It just seems logical to me that if we're already doing it with LGAs then it should be done with electorates as well. OTOH if we're not going to do it with electorates, why do it with LGAs? I can understand not wanting the added complexity of the template but I think it's already so complex that the minor changes required aren't going to make it worse and the benefit of standardising data entry outweighs the disadvantages. You can see how what I'm proposing looks at User:AussieLegend/Project 01. The left box is using the standard template. The centre is with my changes incorporated. The right box uses a template with my changes incorporated but with the data entered as it is now. Ignore the lines around the population data. That was introduced as a result of putting everything in a table and I haven't bothered working out why. --AussieLegend 06:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree, add (copying existing clever listing code of course) --TheJosh 02:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That's cool, and the table issue isn't a problem - if we do go ahead with it, not only could we reuse the LGA code but we could make it smart and eliminate the need for people to disambiguate the link themselves. i.e. it would add Electoral district of for all states/territories except TAS/NT which use Electoral division, and add Division of for all federal. I've got no personal objection to doing this, was just trying to remember what reason the previous debate gave for not going with it. Orderinchaos 07:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change for fedgov

Anyone opposed to me changing this so that when someone enters "Bradfield" for example it produces Bradfield? The only problem I can foresee is if a user enters it manually, but I think we have coding elsewhere to cope with that eventuality (basically an ifexist then do this else do this), which I'd test before incorporation if the proposal is accepted, and could AWB the existing ones across to just the division name.

State gov are more complex - many articles don't exist so an ifexist test would fail, furthermore there is the complication of electorates with state name in brackets afterwards, and the NT/TAS use of "Electoral division of". It's a case of, may complicate the code for little extra benefit. Orderinchaos 09:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

If it improves the template I see no reason to oppose. --AussieLegend 09:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Do an IFEXIST on "Division of {{{value}}}" and if that exists, use [[Division of {{{value}}}|{{{value}}}]]. If the IFEXIST fails, use an autolink. Thus: {{ifexist|[[Division of {{{fedgov}}}|{{{fedgov}}}]]|{{autolink|{{{fedgov}}}}}}} --TheJosh 11:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Bug report

Special:Whatlinkshere/Nsw is being filled by our infobox. I can see what is going on - the link (but not one that is visible - see Ebor, New South Wales) is being transmitted as nsw which is from our state field - but why, and where? I've had a quick look and can't see it at all. Orderinchaos 03:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed problem with all states. I think its a MediaWiki bug, where the what-links-here determination code is not ParserFunctions aware. This means, its using the default and adding an autolink of "vic". Of course because its not ParserFunctions aware, the if is being ignored and that's becoming "vicvic", and thus the what-links-here for vic. I dunno, but just one possible reason. --TheJosh 22:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems quite likely. It's very confusing as there is definitely not any point anywhere in that space which, if hovered over, links to "vic" or "nsw". Is there somewhere the Mediawiki people can be made aware of this (or are they already?) Orderinchaos 04:33, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla --TheJosh 05:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

See the result of a subst: of the template in the Ebor, New South Wales article. I think that in the code {{ #switch: {{{state|}}} | sa = [[South Australia]] | vic = [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] | nsw = [[New South Wales]] | qld = [[Queensland]] | nt = [[Northern Territory]] | wa = [[Western Australia]] | act = [[Australian Capital Territory]] | tas = [[Tasmania]] | {{AutoLink|{{{state|}}}}} at the beginning of the template, the {{AutoLink|{{{state|}} should go away. Comte0 20:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

No that's user error; you can't substitute conditional templates - and you shouldn't substitute IAP anyway. TheJosh 23:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes

Some unilateral changes were made this morning which seem to have broken numerous instances of the template - a whole heap of fields were renamed, and I don't actually see the benefits of doing so. I have reverted the changes and hope those who wish to see them made can provide a rationale and reach consensus here. Orderinchaos 03:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to provide more precise names for parameter names and to give some fields their own footnote fields. The FORMATNUM: broke some infoboxes because they must have included additional information (like a refs) and not just numbers; hence the reason for the footnote fields. Adding the footnote fields won't hurt anything and will help clean up pages like Brisbane. —MJCdetroit 03:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

(The problem you describe is a known MediaWiki problem, essentially it can't manage ref tags too well - others know/understand that one better than I do though so if they want to clarify my explanation they can do so.) Footnote fields should be fine, but renaming existing fields should be avoided at all costs as literally thousands of infoboxes use the names. Also I'm concerned that we've been trying to keep the number of fields for new information down (see above discussion for instance re KISS). The situation re metro/city applies *only* to one city - all other cities in Australia see the metro as being the city, and it's always been my opinion that those sort of single-case situations should be managed in the text. Orderinchaos 03:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Funnily enough, not more than around a hour before these changes were made I suggested a footnote field for the climate data here. I was thinking of something that looked a little like: "Source:BOM" sitting directly under the climate table in the same size font. Is this do-able (or desirable)? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 05:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I think so - it would stop silliness like data from a station 25km away being used, so would be an improvement on what we have. Orderinchaos 05:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason for the category is to look for ref tags within the density and elevation fields AND figure out how many have the ref tags within the fields AND whether it is going to be worth placing those refs in their own independent fields as they should be. Therefore please don't revert this, I'll delete the category when done. —MJCdetroit 03:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a job for TheJoshBot. Please remember that this template is used by ~ 4,500 articles...TheJosh 04:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

4,500 isn't a problem; {{Infobox CityIT}} had over 6,600. I am going to add reference fields for area, elevation, population, and population density. I will also delete the category that I inserted. —MJCdetroit 02:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool - thanks for that. As long as the existing infoboxes continue to work with the existing fields, my main concerns are allayed :) Orderinchaos 05:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've installed 'footnotes' fields for the parameters mentioned above. I would have inserted a "climate footnotes", as suggested by Mattinbgn, but I was unsure about where to put it and have it look nice. There are three values which all appear to come from the same source (BOM). Therefore, I'll leave that up to Mattinbgn. Now that there are separate ref fields, I will temporarily place the formatnum template back into the code. Then over the weekend, my bot will go through all transcluded pages and places the numeric values into a raw format (i.e. 1000 not 1,000). When that is done, I will replace the formatnum: with either an #expr: or a conversion template to finish rendering imperial units. I will update the info page to explain the footnote fields as well. —MJCdetroit 15:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It would probably better for "pop_density_footnotes" to be renamed "density_footnotes" since the related field is "density" rather than "pop_density". I've also noticed a veryical alignment issue with the field names if you try to put text, rather than a citation in either of the population related footnotes. See User:AussieLegend/Project 01. This doesn't happen in the other fields. I realise the purpose of these new fields are for citations but it was just something I thought I noticed after trying to use a short descriptor rather than add several citations. --AussieLegend 16:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I think there are two problems in the population section: 1). Pop and density should have been placed in their own rows and not in one row with an #if: to provide a <br> where needed 2). the alignment should go to the top not the bottom. I placed a test infobox on your "project 01" page. Play with that and let me know if that is cool. —MJCdetroit 17:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. --AussieLegend 08:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

KISS

Hey everyone, just a quick reminder to keep it simple please. Every time I look at this template, its another feature here, another feature there. Just my 2 cents. --TheJosh 13:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the nature of life is that people will always try to "improve" things. Remember, Windows used to be able to run in 640k of RAM from a single floppy disk. --AussieLegend 15:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

True. Needs change and things develop. However that being said, it's at a point where any addition or major change should still go through here as a proposal, and subjected to scrutiny. It should be noted that this isn't the killer it sounds like - note how many proposals have actually been accepted here.

My comments more generally - It's unfortunate in a way that so few of the team who developed it are still around to comment on changes, that's one reason I am always keen to hear TheJosh's ideas on proposals (quite apart from his technical skills/understanding which is well beyond mine) - those who remember the early days of this template's development about a year ago will note it was a near-unique situation where a whole bunch of people from a wide range of backgrounds on Wikipedia who had totally different views of the end product were able to come to a set of compromises in the interests of rectifying a ridiculous situation where 20+ incompatible templates and hundreds of manual infoboxes pervaded the Australian scene. Thus I often find myself defending decisions I actually opposed at the time, because I can understand the viewpoint of those who came to them as expressed at that time. I have likewise seen other projects fall victim to plagues of well-meaning but disorganised ideas which have taken the entire point of the original enterprise away - two of the biggest advantages of IAP in my view are its simplicity of deployment and its flexibility for a number of situations. Orderinchaos 11:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, some of the biggest sentences I have ever seen! You make good points. --TheJosh 04:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Unclickable links in Queensland LGA boxes

I'm not sure if this is just me or not, but I have noticed that in some Queensland LGA infoboxes, some of the links at the bottom of infobox are unable to be clicked on. This applied to wikilinks and external links. Two boxes where I have noticed the problem are Gatton Shire Council and Esk Shire Council. Any ideas? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 22:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Not just you - I had noticed it with some northern SEQ council articles (Caboolture/Caloundra if I recall). Honestly beats me - I can't think what it would be. (For others - the links below a certain point are there but cannot be clicked on) Orderinchaos 03:48, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I even tried recoding the Esk infobox from the blank, with the same result. So odd! BTW it works in IE6 (I normally use Mozilla) Orderinchaos 04:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I use IE7 and just tried Gatton Shire Council and Esk Shire Council and couldn't find anything wrong. Using Firefox, nothing below "Region: South East Queensland" would work on Esk Shire Council. Gatton Shire Council was far worse with nothing except "Queensland" working. --AussieLegend 04:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem turned out to be one with Template:LGAs SEQ. I saw some work AussieLegend was doing and he got the infobox to work with its original fields by itself. No idea what the exact problem was but I've standardised it to Navbox and all seems to work well. Orderinchaos 05:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for the quick response and pleased to see it fixed. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 23:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Undocumented fields in the template

While trying to fix the above problem I noticed that an undocumented field existed in the template. The field is called "imagesize" and affects the width of the generic image of the locality. I've documented it now but I have to wonder how many other undocumented fields there are. --AussieLegend 05:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a related one, logosize. It was put in to give us some flexibility where the defaults make a particular implementation look ridiculous. Orderinchaos 06:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've documented that one too. --AussieLegend 06:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Remembering of course that these fields should be used as rarely as possible of course. Also, there is one field that should not be documented, _noautocat. That's to prevent cats on example pages. --TheJosh 09:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the imagesize and logosize are strictly optional as the template autosizes to what normally works out to a reasonable screen area. It's only in cases (~2%) where it gets it wrong where we have to intervene, and that's what the fields are for. Orderinchaos 09:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Aboriginal place name/local people

Hi all,

I realise there's a worry about function creep on this template... Nevertheless I'd like to ask your opinion on placing a field dedicated to acknowledging the local Aboriginal place name/local people of any given article. Many might see this as being overly politically correct but it is standard practice in Australia to do so in some form or another (see first enumerated guideline), it counters systemic bias and provides useful and relevant information.

Just a thought. Witty Lama 15:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• support according to above. <-- added by TheJosh for clarity
• oppose While articles should make mention of the origin of the place name, be it Aboriginal or otherwise, this is best done in the body of the article rather than the infobox. Quite often, there is a dispute, or at least multiple theories, about the origin of a name and having one included in an infobox artificially promotes that version as the preferred one. As a general point, there is plenty of information that belongs in a comprehensive article on a locality; not all of this can be included in the infobox and some of this is better expressed as prose. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 20:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
• oppose Agreed with Matt. It's not here as it is in some places that such names are in standard usage. Due to the Aboriginals' own seasonal behaviour, they tended to assign a name to a broad district or area, which more often than not became the name white people used anyway (if you go into the lower southwest of WA past Busselton for instance I think there's only about 10 names of English origin!). I can't speak for other cities specifically but I've trawled through many Perth planning documents where even at times when Aboriginals themselves weren't regarded terribly highly, their name for an area as recorded by explorers and others were given precedence over other alternatives. The only exception to this is lakes and plains and points/capes where there is often an English/French name and an Aboriginal name but neither of these use Infobox Australian Place. Orderinchaos 21:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
• oppose I agree, should be in prose --TheJosh 00:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
• oppose I agree with all the reasons above. I supect that the amount of use such a field would receive would be very small anyway and it's hard to justify including any field that won't receive much use. I think a lot more is gained by including the Aboriginal name, and perhaps an explanation of the name's origin, in the prose. --AussieLegend 01:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that when I originally wrote this I had NOT proposed it as something to vote on, as an official proposal, and I certainly did not write "support" to my own idea. I was re-formatted by TheJosh after the fact. I resent having my signature used for something I didn't write [6]. Just thought I'd make that clear. Best wishes to all, Witty Lama 11:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Title?

Does the title really need to be shown? It's redundant, and just makes the infobox bigger and bloatier. See Point Lonsdale, Victoria - the title is already in big letters at the top of the page, and in the opening sentence. The bar with "Point Lonsdale Victoria" doesn't seem to add anything at all. Stevage 04:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It borrows heavily from other infoboxes such as Infobox Settlement and so on, see for example Newtownards or Astoria, Oregon where the same thing occurs. Admittedly I think ours looks nicer than theirs. Orderinchaos 08:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The title also sometimes contains an alternate or more common spelling. --TheJosh 20:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Minor change

Updated it - the convert templates actually go through about 11 rounds of calculations each, which is fine for a single use but was slowing IAP quite a bit and was bulking up the code. I substed it multiple times, removing optional variables along the way, and have replaced most instances of convert with the end result. As the display is exactly the same, few will notice. Orderinchaos 05:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I also changed {{PD km2 to mi2}} to a hard coded line. This should help if you were seeing a slowing. The "PD" template is much bigger than {{convert}}. —MJCdetroit (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that :) Yeah, the two things that slow things up a lot on Wiki seem to be multiple calculations/nested substs (mainly because there does seem to be a statutory length of time such page accesses take), or very large substs (for bandwidth reasons). Orderinchaos 05:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)