Template talk:Infobox legislature

Optional fields

Could the 'houses', 'leader2_type', 'leader2', and 'election2' fields be optional? These don't apply to unicameral legislatures (e.g. Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg). Bastin 11:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. —Nightstallion 13:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

What about...

...the electoral systems used to elect the houses? 68.39.174.238 12:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Electoral system?

Why not add it to the template? --PaxEquilibrium 11:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure, why not? —Nightstallion 13:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, let's. --Prevalis 17:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Difference between leader and speaker

We should probably have a separate listing for leader of the chamber and the speaker. In some houses, like the US House of Representatives, it's the same person. In others, like the British House of Commons, the speaker is a politically neutral member and both he and the leader of the house are worthy of mention. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Image Resolution

Edited the code a little bit so that image resolution can be selected by the user.Sumanch (talk) 07:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate usage of "election3"

"election3" is used in two ways: (Check an example in UK House of Commons.)

• For "Last elections" date
• With "leader3_type"/"leader3"/"party3"

This may be an error while expanding "leader#" to 3, 4, 5. Removing "leader3_type/leader3/party3/election3" line may be a feasible solution. Jisok (talk) 07:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

new works

1. no more duplicate for 'election3'

2. new structure of the infobox

a. separate fields for bicameral assemblies

b. headers for the group information

c. colors for the header text and backgropund

3. some new parameters:

a. separate election date for the two chambers

b. more leaders (up to 6 - six)

c. committees of the houses

d. separate voting systems for the two houses

any new suggestions?

--ES Vic (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Colors

For colors, it says to use the "dominant color of the house". What is this and how do we find it? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:35, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at the debating chamber (well, its picture), then look at the color of the carpet, benches, or wallpaper. Use your discretion; sometimes a specific color is associated with a specific house (for instance, the British House of Lords is popularly associated with red benches and the British House of Commons is associated with green benches), but other times no such connection exists. Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to argue that we should be allowed to use the color of the party in charge of said legislature.--Jack Cox (talk) 19:03, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Foundation

How about adding a "Founded" option? i'm not sure where it would fit best though. --Pollodiablowiki (talk) 00:26, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

• I've actually been thinking about that, too. I think a new "History" section would be best, with the following fields:
  1. "Established." Indicates the date the legislature was formally/legally created. Generally before the first elections were called. For instance, the United States Congress was established on 21 June 1788, when New Hampshire's ratification of the United States Constitution provided the ninth state necessary for it to come into effect.
  2. "First meeting." Indicates the earliest date when the new legislature is first considered to have met. This could be a conventional date; extending our example, the 1st United States Congress is considered to have "first met" on 4 March 1789 when George Washington was sworn in as President and the work of the US federal government formally began. However, neither house started doing business until April on account of the absence of a quorum, so perhaps it might be better to make this the date that the legislature achieves a quorum to do business, formally opens, and begins the work of legislation. Lockesdonkey (talk) 05:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
• "Established" sounds good. A history section would probably take other options like "restored" or "formation of current assembly" since some legislatures lie dormant during periods of war, dictatorships, union with other countries etc. --Pollodiablowiki (talk) 11:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Next election

There is a field for last election. Could we also have one for the next election? --Apoc2400 (talk) 20:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Reform of Infobox, Proposals

If we are you use this as the universal legislature box then I would like a few changes to be implemented, I would like to add term limits (if applicable) to the box, I'd like to add the Authority said Legislature is listed under in the respective Constitution, I'd like to add Salary as well as who has control over re-districting. Basically I'd like to have everything that's included on Template:Chambers infobox added over here if that would help.--Jack Cox (talk) 19:02, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Comma

There's a superfluous comma between leaders and parties:

Barack Obama, (D)

The parentheses can be removed, like this:

Barack Obama, D

but this isn't the standard style. The infobox should be changed to use parentheses. —Designate (talk) 16:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I see. I will wait a bit to check for objections, and if not, feel free to make a formal {{edit request}}. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:55, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Frequency of elections

Could you/we include a field for frequency of elections to each chamber? This would have to work both for those that hold at a fixed time (e.g. US House of Representatives), and those which allow a maximum time between elections being called, or allow early elections to be called (e.g. National Assembly of France), though maybe you don't want to include too much info. I guess you'd also have to allow for legislatures like United States Senate where only a part of members are up for election at each occasion. Do people think it's feasible to include this in a simple form? --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:05, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

It already has |term_length=, would this be in addition to it? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:44, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Is there any way to show when a legislature has elections more frequently than the term length of any one seat, like in the US Senate? —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Geographical context

There seems nowhere in the infobox to give a context for sub-national legislature - where can we show that Leeds City Council is in England, or the UK? PamD 21:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

"Members" vs. "Seats"

Shoud the field "membres" be renamed to "seats"? --ES Vic (talk) 20:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Potentially. Is there a reason to prefer "seats" to "members"? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Generally, the number of seats equals the number of members. but if members resign, or die, their seats become vacant until a by-election is held. This changes the number of members of one house, but not the number of available seats. --ES Vic (talk) 13:22, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

It also might avoid some confusion in legislatures that only use the word "members" for the lower house. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:31, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

This makes sense. Let's wait a day or two and if no one objects, someone (I'll try to remember) can go ahead and make the change. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, this is  Done. Either |members= or |seats= will work, to avoid breaking existing uses, but the template will now display "Seats." --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:10, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I made some improvements to your edit to achieve what I think you were trying to achieve. Frietjes (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not quite it. I was trying to replace "members" with "seats", not create two options. The fancy code was just to avoid needing to do a bot run. Though, perhaps I should have used nested if tags.... Re-changed the template – and it works! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

no need to nest the #if functions, just use a pipe. Frietjes (talk) 16:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

@Philosopher and Frietjes: How do I indicate legislatures that permanently have a different number of members and seats? For example, the National Assembly of Ecuador has 137 seats, but 274 members. Members are classified as either "principal" (meaning they have a seat) or "alternate". Kaldari (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Kaldari, we could make changes so that one could include both, or you could do something similar to what is done in United States House of Representatives (i.e., be more verbose to clarify). Frietjes (talk) 17:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I suppose I'll just add a note to clarify. Probably not worth making it more complicated for everyone else. Kaldari (talk) 17:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Help: Logo and seal not showing up at same time.

When both a logo and seal are added to the infobox, it appears that they don't show up together. See the infobox of United States House of Representatives. Please help, thank you. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:25, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The syntax had been changed to logo instead of logo_pic. I will update the template. Thanks! Plastikspork (talk) 23:36, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch for the assist, much appreciated. Cheers! Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 06:43, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Color parameters

Can we get rid of the background_color and text_color parameters? I have rarely seen these applied appropriately. Unlike political parties, legislatures don't typically have an official color. Checking the code, it looks like Category:Infobox legislature with background color is nearly empty. If we do keep this, we should probably change it to border colors (like {{infobox political party}}), since we are otherwise inviting contrast issues. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:06, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

completely agree. I vote for removing it and slightly lightening the default background (or changing the default background to horizontal rules). Frietjes (talk) 15:50, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. When would they be "applied appropriately"? Legislatures don't have offical colours, but there are very often obvious main colours. I don't see why this wouldn't be good enough. Political party colours can be as "official" or "customary" as those of legislatures. It improves familiarity to readers by using the colours that the institution uses. If there isn't one then we simply use the default. Or would we rather have everyhting in boring grey? SPQRobin (talk) 00:28, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, they are almost never applied appropriately, and inventing a color is WP:OR. There is a virtual rainbow of colors in these articles, with all the coloring for the individual political parties. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Did you read what I wrote? I didn't understand what you meant by "applying appropratiately", and we are not inventing colours: legislatures and political parties both don't have "official" colours but colours that are commonly associated with them. That isn't inventing a colour, that is using what the legislature or party itself uses. SPQRobin (talk) 00:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

if there are no official colours, then we should not be adding colours to the infobox. if there are official colours, we should add a |colours= parameter, where the colours can be added with a source. this is how it works for political parties. I will switch to border colors for now, since that much appears to be less controversial. Frietjes (talk) 18:24, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The new border format looks good. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I did read what you wrote. You said that "Legislatures don't have offical colours", and without a source, the "very often obvious main colours" are WP:OR. I agree with Frietjes that a 'color' field with a citation would be useful here, if there are official colors. But, since there aren't official colors, no need for that either. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Do political parties have official colours? To me it appears they are sometimes or often just associated with parties in the same way they can be associated with legislatures. I looked up the statutes of a few parties and I didn't find anything on colour. Are there political parties with a source for their colour? But in fact, I don't see why we have to use "official" colours. There are many, many infoboxes on Wikipedia that just use a colour. The Simpsons use yellow because it is obviously linked to it, but it isn't "official". I think in any topic that has a commonly associated colour, we should use it, to increase familiarity to readers. SPQRobin (talk) 22:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

yes, many political parties do have official and unofficial colours. if you would like to have the colouring removed from {{infobox political party}}, feel free to start a thread at template talk:infobox political party. and, let me know when The Simpsons becomes a legislature, until then that would be off topic. Frietjes (talk) 16:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

My aim is not to have colours removed from political party infoboxes, to the contrary. I still do not have any proof what makes certain party colours "official" rather than just being associated with it. What makes Open Vld have blue and N-VA black? Should we remove the red of the Republican Party just because it's commonly used and not "official"? Sometimes different colours are used for the same party anyway. The Simpsons is indeed off-topic, but I do not see a difference in the requirements and decision for adding or removing an infobox colour: why would a legislature need an "official" colour? SPQRobin (talk) 11:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

see WP:OR. Frietjes (talk) 14:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

This doesn't answer my questions at all. (1) WP:OR is about content; it doesn't say, neither explicitly nor implicitly, that mere colours need sources. (2) Even if it would, then political party infobox colours need to be removed. Again, the Simpsons comparison is still relevant as it is "unsourced" too. (3) Even if it would, some or many parliaments do have coloured logos (just like political parties do) to qualify as non-OR.
It is silly that we are discussing about colours, but my questions/arguments have never been really answered. SPQRobin (talk) 10:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Wording for bicameral houses

Instead of "<House1> Political groups" which becomes (for example) "Senate Political groups", the capitalization is bad. Can this be changed to "Political groups in the <House1>" which becames "Political groups in the Senate"? Also applicable in cases such as "<House1> Last election" which becomes "Last election in the <House1>". –HTD 10:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2014

What should the proper case and wording be for since YYYY style dates? Technical 13 (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
– in this particular instance below, i.e. meant to be read as a continuation of the line above (someone's name)? 213.246.85.251 (talk) 23:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Please replace the six instances of

<br>Since

in this template with

<br>since

as the capital-S indicates, incorrectly, the start of a new sentence.

Thank you, 213.246.85.251 (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer here. I don't see clear guidance in MOS:INFOBOX. These aren't sentences, and de facto convention may be to start each line in an infobox with a capital letter. Don't have a strong opinion on this particular case. Suggest holding the request open for a while to see if a consensus develops. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:11, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that "since" is the right word here to begin with per WP:DATERANGE and I've deactivated the edit request and started an RfC to get some clarification from the MOS: community. Technical 13 (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

---

I'd also like to add the following to the above, regarding some formatting just before the "Since..." entries:

Please replace the instances of

... {{#if:{{{party[N]|}}}|, {{{party[N]|}}}}} ...

i.e. where a political party's abbreviation/name follows a person's link (and where "[N]" is a number), with

... {{#if:{{{party[N]|}}} |({{{party[N]|}}}) }} ...

i.e. placing the abbreviation/name in parenthesis rather than after a comma, as the latter suggests a post-nominal.

Thank you, 213.246.85.251 (talk) 11:30, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

• The lowercase 's' is definitely preferable, as the phrase "since..." is really a continuation of the line above, and does not start a new thought. (Also, I don't see where WP:DATERANGE says not to begin with "since.") As for the party abbreviation, I understand it now displays with both a comma and in parentheses at the same time [e.g. "Joe Biden, (D)"]? If that is the case, I don't know if it is correct (but having the parentheses makes it clear that it isn't a post-nominalism). 71.178.51.111 (talk) 09:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Voting system / Electoral system

There is a clear difference between the way a legislative body is (s)elected and the way it votes. For instance, the members of the Council of the European Union are appointed by the member-state governments they represent; they vote by qualified majority. These are both important and relevant facts; however, the way that the infobox is set up at the moment has resulted in the Council's voting system being displayed (misleadingly) under the sub-heading "Elections". Would it be possible to alter the infobox in such a way as to have fields for both Electoral system (under "Elections") and Voting system (elsewhere, optional)? -- Picapica (talk) 06:38, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Problem with this infobox

...at Curia Regis. See the line height bit? --Dweller (talk) 16:07, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that {{longitem}} was used here assuming that the for each "leader" parameter, there'd be both a "leaderN" and "leaderN_type", which was not the case for leader2 at Curia Regis. I fixed the template so that the line-height CSS will always be passed as CSS, and not as the text to be used. Not sure if we really need the line-height:1.3em though, since the default in {{longitem}} is line-height:1.2em. They were added to this template in this edit. Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

House type broken

This infobox always displays {{1}} as House type regardless of what's put in house_type. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 00:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 14:12, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The change I did along with fixing the error in the section above caused it. ColonialGrid did some changes, ultimately reverting my edits. I put those back (because obviously the line-height error was showing again), without the change that caused the house_type; so all should be fine now. SPQRobin (talk) 20:35, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2015

There is an error in the #if statement for the committees element. The result is that, in the case of uses for unicameral legislatures, the variable markup (i.e. {{{house1}}}) is displayed. See: Legislative_Council_of_Brunei and New_York_City_Council

Change

| label28     = {{#if:{{{house1}}}|{{{house1}}} committees|Committees}}

to

| label28     = {{#if:{{{house1|}}}|{{{house1}}} committees|Committees}}

Jcwayne (talk) 20:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you. Alakzi (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Add 'quorum'

I propose adding the parameter 'quorum', which would represent the quorum for the specified legislature. It should probably be displayed in the 'Structure' section. An example of its use would be for Oregon State Senate, which has 30 seats and requires a quorum of 20 for voting (see quorum at oregonlaws.org). This was inspired by the current events of that senate (see Why Oregon Republicans Vanished Over a Climate Change Vote at The New York Times for details). Mindmatrix 19:40, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Gender ratio

Thoughts on adding a parameter (perhaps a composition bar?) to illustrate male/female % representation?--Goldsztajn (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Leadership and Structure. Current vs general

Looking at how this template is used, I think it has a non-ideal wandering back and forth from covering the legislature generally (timelessly) and covering the current legislature. Specifically, the template section headings “Leadership” and “Structure” are actually the “Current Leadership” and the “Current Structure”. Structure refers to the composition by party. I could insert “Current”, but I think it would be better to remove the content on the current leadership and structure, and instead link to the list of legislatures. I note that these often exist, but not always. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:15, 3 December 2022 (UTC)