Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 25

Archive 20 Archive 23 Archive 24 Archive 25

Monarch/Monarchs/Monarch(s)

The field "Monarch" assumes only one. Yet Premiership of Liz Truss overlapped two monarchs. Should the field be "Monarch(s)"? (I first posted the question here, but was advised to post here) CT55555 (talk) 23:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

While I have added in a {{detect singular}} call in this template, {{infobox incumbency}} doesn't actually use the |monarch= parameter in this template. So while it's worth asking here for an update, your original location is the primary place to update the original template. Primefac (talk) 07:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Increase limit from 16 offices/suboffices

This is posing a problem on formatting the infobox for Shimon Peres. It limits the number of ministerial posts one can add as sub-offices, and also currently gives no room to add his leadership of the Labor Party as an office without omitting another position. SecretName101 (talk) 18:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Also poses a similar problem of Yitzhak Rabin. Would need 17 offices/suboffice template spaces to add his two stints as Labor Party leader to the infobox without eliminating other offices and sub offices. SecretName101 (talk) 18:19, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Reminder not to add successor until actual succession, per RFC

The RfC Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_175#RfC:_Interim_use_of_successor_in_Infobox_officeholder decided that the consensus about the |successor= parameter is to wait until the successor takes office. Eccekevin (talk) 22:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Kiwidurbin: I recommend you read @Eccekevin:'s link to the aforementioned RFC decision.
Yup, I have to reinforce that result every time the US has elections. GoodDay (talk) 07:11, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
It's like Whac-A-Mole. Eccekevin (talk) 22:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes & it's continuing. Will likely continue, right up until the elected officials assume office. Even the notes get ignored. GoodDay (talk) 02:56, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Therequiembellishere:, just to refresh your memory. We no longer show the successors-to-be, in the infoboxes, per the RFC result @Eccekevin: links to above. If you wish this changed? You'll have to open up a new discussion on that topic. PS - I had to undo your changes on the governors & lieutenant governors bios. I hope you didn't make those changes to other incumbent office holder infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I believe @Corkythehornetfan: had to undo two of your changes, as well. GoodDay (talk) 23:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It's a blatantly stupid RFC decided by a extraordinarily tiny number of editors against a core common good function of readers who come to the site expecting to gain the knowledge of who won what race, affecting a vast number of articles after over a decade of standard practice based on the unfounded belief that readers are too stupid to understand the word "elect" next to their name means they haven't taken office yet despite all other clear indication (up to and including the word "elect") tell them otherwise. The "we" you all so imperiously profess to speak on behalf of is the 3-5 of you ferreting away against a bevy of people, anonymous and otherwise, who think this information is worth including. It doesn't make sense, and showing the elected successor doesn't do any harm at all (by giving people non-trivial information they otherwise wouldn't have and need to go through a series of unnecessary further clicks, it is a benefit) beyond your imaginary conceptions of "consistency". Therequiembellishere (talk) 23:58, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
If you want to know who won an election, wouldn't you look for an article on the actual election? The simple fact is that until the succession actually occurs there is no successor. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:05, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd forgotten this ridiculous debate even started based on cloying election deniers refusing to accept Trump's defeat. God. Just a totally distasteful process based more of bowing to actually stupid readers with a bad faith agenda over normal people who just want to see who won. Therequiembellishere (talk) 00:01, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
"every time the US has elections." It's been two years, mate. This is the first midterm. Therequiembellishere (talk) 00:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
If you don't like the results of the RFC-in-question (which you're making quite clear that you don't), then open up a new RFC. PS - How could you not have noticed the notes in the infoboxes, before making your changes? Those weren't there for decorations. GoodDay (talk) 00:05, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Your little notes aren't the Word of God, and the RFC process is painfully bad. I find WP:COMMONSENSE to be a far better metric to assess hounding other people's editing than wading through the cabal's overly bureaucratic mess, which you all seem to have time for. Therequiembellishere (talk) 00:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Don't like the RFC result? Open up a 'new' RFC, then. If you do the latter? it would be more productive, then throwing a temper tantrum. GoodDay (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
It think what would be the most productive use of people's time would be to edit the articles with the information we have, rather than finding joy in policing other people based on imaginary rules. I'm trying to bring the pages up to a higher and cleaner standard of code for the smoothest transition. Going through and hiding all of them because you want to stalk my edits is your business. Therequiembellishere (talk) 00:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
Don't like the RFC result? then open up another one. Furthermore, I too frequent the US election pages. So, it's obvious that sooner or later, if anybody goes against said-RFC result? I (and others) will notice it & undo the (we presume) mistake. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

This isn’t even about election denialism. The parameter says “succeeded by” using the past tense, so it is nonsensical to use for an even that hasn’t happened. The designated successor could never take office. I proposed a “successor_elect” parameter (the mirrors the “succeeding” parameter) but that’s hasn’t been instituted yet. I’m still im favor of it. Eccekevin (talk) 22:46, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 November 2022

Change description: Use plural "governors general" for multiple governor generals

Change:

| label5 = {{#if:{{{governor_general|}}}|Governor General|Governor-General}}

to

| label5 = {{#if:{{{governor_general|}}}|Governor{{#if:{{detect singular|{{{governor_general}}}}}||s}} General|Governor{{#if:{{detect singular|{{{governor-general}}}}}||s}}-General}}

Sandbox diff: [1]

I tested this by previewing a transcluding of Template:Infobox officeholder/sandbox (which transcludes Template:Infobox officeholder/office/sandbox) on pages with Template:Infobox officeholder that have either one or multiple governors general and confirmed the desired behaviour.

--Frogging101 (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 20:45, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

How to get a "First Vice President" infobox parameter instead of "Vice President"?

Hey all. Reposting from here.

I'm editing the page for Siad Barre and I'm trying to override the name of the "Vice President" parameter in his infobox to "First Vice President". This is because during Barre's dictatorship, the vice presidency was multiple positions: First Vice President, Second Vice President, and occasionally Third Vice President.

This is also true of current-day Peru. The Vice Presidency of Peru is two positions, the First Vice President and the Second Vice President. However, in infoboxes both are listed under the "Vice President" parameter with no distinction. For example, in Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the First Vice President Martín Vizcarra and the Second Vice President Mercedes Aráoz are listed like that; someone could easily think one served as vice president after the other left office or something.

Alternatively, can we add First Vice President, Second Vice President, and (maybe) Third Vice President to Template:Infobox officeholder?

Holidayruin (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Add "General Secretary" and "Party Secretary" for Communist Politicians

For pages of politicians in communist country, the addition of two fields -- "General Secretary" and "Party Secretary" -- would help out a ton in the addition of relevant information to infoboxes. "General Secretary" would be above "Party Secretary" because the former is the leader of the entire party, while the latter would normally be a lower-level official heading a local party branch.

Please see Chen Xi for an example. Currently, you have to add "General Secretary" as a default field using blankname/namedata. This creates the problem where the general secretary is positioned below "Deputy," which doesn't make sense because the general secretary is the head of the party. Would also appreciate suggestions on how to move "General Secretary" above "Deputy", which would be an alternative fix.

Do they have to be initial-capped? Tony (talk) 10:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
My understanding is that they should be initial-capped since they're not generic, but in reference to particular offices –  e.g., the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, or the Party Secretary of Jiangsu province. A similar case is the office "Prime Minister," which is capitalized in most infoboxes I've seen. Cnpolitics (talk) 06:14, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
The Head Cleaner, then. What about city Cleaner? Tony (talk) 09:42, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
  Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. Izno (talk) 07:41, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
Agree with this suggestion. Alternatively, making a new Template:Infobox officeholder for Communist politicians. Holidayruin (talk) 14:52, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Request: First Vice President and Second Vice President parameters

I strongly believe that we need new parameters to accommodate nations that have multiple vice presidential positions, such as the nation of Peru that has the First Vice President and the Second Vice President. A cursory list at List of current vice presidents and designated acting presidents shows that ~10 modern countries use this system. These include Costa Rica, Honduras, and Zimbabwe. There are also nations that have used this system in the past but have since stopped, such as during the 1970s-80s Somali dictatorship.

Why can we not just group these under the "vicepresident" parameter? Well, for one, to just be accurate to the political system the nation chose to adopt. In that nation, the position is known as "First Vice President" or "Second Vice President", not just "Vice President". But also, line of succession really matters in a presidential/constitutional crisis, and it is important to state who is in what position during these times. This recent political crisis in Peru has shown the need for the "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" parameters. What just occurred was that President Pedro Castillo was ousted after he attempted to overtake power from the legislature. So, the First Vice President Dina Boluarte has just acceded to the presidency after Castillo was removed by Congress. There is also no Second Vice President at the moment, because Pedro Castillo chose Vladimir Cerrón as his Second Vice President running mate in the 2021 Peruvian general election but Cerrón was removed from the ticket during the election cycle due to criminal convictions on corruption. Due to the nature of the First Vice President and the Second Vice President positions, these cannot be reappointed until the 2026 Peruvian general election. This means that both the First Vice Presidency and the Second Vice Presidency are vacant, and upon a (honestly more-likely-than-should-be) removal of President Boluarte, a Vice President is not next in the line of succession but the President of Congress, the head of the legislature. This is integrally important to the whole conflict going on in Peru at the moment.

A similar scenario to the one described above has already happened before in Peru. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was elected president in 2016 with running mates First Vice President Martín Vizcarra and Second Vice President Mercedes Aráoz. Kuczynski resigned in 2018 due to scandal, and First Vice President Vizcarra became president, leaving the First Vice Presidency vacant. Then Second Vice President Aráoz resigned in May 2020 due to constitutional crisis, leaving the Second Vice Presidency vacant. Now-President Vizcarra was then ousted by Congress in November 2020, and since both the First and Second Vice Presidencies were vacant, President of Congress Manuel Merino became president. Then President Merino resigned after his tenure became untenable, and member of Congress Francisco Sagasti was elected President of Congress so that he could become President of Peru.

That's a complicated story, but let me tell you how ridiculously complicated this shit was to understand when the infobox poorly squeezed this info in the "vicepresident" parameter. I was the one who added the custom "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" parameters after learning about this stuff myself through further research, using the "blankname" and "namedata" custom parameters. Again, Peru is not the only country with this system. And it is just respectful to these countries that use their unique system to correctly name how their system names their leaders. Right now we are just squeezing everything into "vicepresident" because that's how the most powerful nations and most other nations with a presidential system do their politics, but not every nation does it this way and that should be respected.

I don't think we'll need more than "firstvicepresident", "secondvicepresident", and maybe "thirdvicepresident". There are nations such as South Sudan that go up to Fifth Vice President, but the line of succession is probably(?) not going to reach that far down in any case.

Holidayruin (talk) 05:22, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

If I knew how to update the parameters? I would. GoodDay (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
To editor Holidayruin: without judging whether or not this edit request is an improvement, when it comes to a "high-risk" template that is transcluded to more than 200,000 other pages, you will need to garner a consensus of editors. Please open a new section here and start a discussion. A new edit request may be opened when there is agreement among editors for the proposed changes. You can advertise the discussion in a neutral manner on the talk pages of the two WikiProjects bannered at the top of this page, and anywhere else you would deem to be appropriate. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 10:55, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is unnecessary. It should be accommodated within the existing vice president field, which is done just fine already. Adding more fields will just unnecessarily lengthen the infobox. This is so much nicer than what you're suggesting. 25stargeneral (talk) 04:43, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I considered the style that you suggested while thinking about this info. The issue with your suggestion is that someone unfamiliar with the "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" might see this and get confused. It can look like it means "this person served first" and "this second person served afterwards". Calling the parameter "First Vice President" instead of "Vice President" is also just respectful to the nation. But to prevent infobox bloat perhaps just the "First Vice President" parameter could be mentioned in most cases where there was no crisis and line of succession was not invoked. Holidayruin (talk) 20:37, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC: First Vice President and Second Vice President parameters

Hello all! This is regarding the proposed addition of "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" parameters. This is to build consensus one way or the other. I am making a new section here on the request of Paine Ellsworth.

Please read the previous section before commenting!

I also previously began discussion on the section before that one, as well as on the WikiProject Politics Talk page and the WikiProject Peru Talk page. I have posted invitations to join the discussion on WikiProject Politics and WikiProject Infoboxes.

@GoodDay: and @25stargeneral: Please contribute your opinions in this section! Holidayruin (talk) 20:34, 13 December 2022 (UTC) Also @LordSidiousOfPeru: please contribute your opinion, considering your edit here. Holidayruin (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

  • Support as the proposer. Distinct "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" parameters are necessary to clarifies the line of succession as opposed to a bare "Vice President" parameter. Furthermore, mentioning two separate "First Vice President" and "Second Vice President" parameters gives respect to the nation's political system, which does in fact call them "First Vice President" instead of "Vice President". Holidayruin (talk) 20:34, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Support - as some countries have two separate ranking offices of vice presidents. GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose as unnecessary. See this test case. Use the existing |subterm= and |suboffice= parameters (and |subterm2=, etc.) to make as many custom offices as you need. It appears that this template's documentation needs to be improved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
For the record, this is similar to the currently implemented solution, which is making custom parameters through |1blankname= and |1namedata=. Holidayruin (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the existing solution Jonesey95 has identified. Number 57 09:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Ministers

does the minister parameter mean that is the cabinet minister they work under (i.e. for a vice minister or an undersecretary name the minister in charge of that ministry/department) TheHaloVeteran2 (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Personal details section

Why oh why must this section be placed below everything else? The extra scrolling is utterly infuriating when a reader may just want bio information and not their accolades, especially in the case of high-profile politicians. Sportspersons' and actors' infoboxes always have bio stats at the top—why is this different? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 5 January 2023

Description of suggested change: I would propose the addition of a EP group field. This differs from Other affiliation and Parliamentary group because it is specific to the circumstances of the European parliament, and so benefits from the speficiation and direct wikilink. It would also be used extensively, with over 700 MEPs at a given time.

Diff: Proposed change to source. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 14:29, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

  Done * Pppery * it has begun... 17:20, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
@Pppery: This is creating some issues, as the template now has two label/data 12s, which is causing error messages to appear on articles using the infobox. Number 57 17:27, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
  Reverted * Pppery * it has begun... 17:28, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 8 January 2023 (alias)

Description of suggested change: I would propose the addition of alias to this infobox, such as in [2]. George Santos is an officeholder but has used several aliases. There are multiple examples of other officeholders who use other names.Samp4ngeles (talk) 17:15, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

David Zuckerman's infobox

I'm having a little trouble over at the David Zuckerman page. Zuckerman previously served as the 82nd lieutenant governor of Vermont, from 2017 to 2021 & is 'now' serving as the 84th lieutenant governor of Vermont, since 2023. Some newbies, keep trying to put the whole info together as 82nd and 84th lieutenant governor of Vermont. But, doing so while he's serving as the 84th lieutenant governor, makes the infobox look as though it's saying he's concurrently serving as the 82nd & 84th lieutenant governor. IMHO, it would best to 'wait' until Zuckerman leaves office, before putting 82nd & 84th together. It works for Grover Cleveland (22nd & 24th President of the United States), but that's because Cleveland isn't an incumbent 'anymore'. GoodDay (talk) 05:47, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:David Zuckerman (politician) is the right place to start this discussion. If there is something that you are unable to do with the infobox, come back here and explain the issue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:55, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Trying to get regular editors interested in Zuckerman's page, isn't easy. GoodDay (talk) 16:01, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Requesting input

Would appreciate input at this discussion, concerning the former & current Lieutenant Governor of Vermont. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

How to handle officeholder disputes?

Dinorah Figuera and Jorge Rodríguez both currently claim to be the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela. They each have a |status= of "Incumbent (contested)", but the details of the dispute are added to the end of the |term_start= field, e.g. "5 January 2023<br>Disputed with [[Jorge Rodríguez (Venezuelan politician)|Jorge Rodríguez]]". Is there a better place for that? Oravrattas (talk) 05:43, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, even the numbering is confusing. Who's really the 11th & 12th National Assembly presidents? GoodDay (talk) 05:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
For now I've switched to a blankname parameter of 'disputed with' on Dinorah Figuera. Unless anyone has any comments or suggestions, I'll do likewise to the related ones as well. --Oravrattas (talk) 06:00, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC: guidelines on Swiss federal councilors infoboxes

This RfC is about infoboxes for Swiss federal councilors (or Swiss politicians in general) and conforming to MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Should we adopt the following set of guidelines (fuse the rows for president, vice president, and heads of federal departments with the row for federal councilor; and include relevant rows for the federal legislature) for these infoboxes? 13:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  1. Remove row for 'Vice President of Switzerland'
  2. Remove row for 'President of Switzerland' and move it to the |president= parameter of the 'Federal councilor' row
  3. Remove rows for heads of federal departments and move them to the |suboffice= parameter of the 'Federal councilor' row
  4. Include rows for 'Member of the Council of States' and 'Member of the National Council' (where presidencies of the council may be included in the |president parameter)
  5. Include rows for cantonal offices with the same guidelines as the ones for federal offices
  6. Include communal offices if the infobox is not already too long
  7. Include party leadership when relevant

Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 13:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Rationale

  • These guidelines comply with MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE (unlike the current situation) as they make infoboxes shorter (20 lines over 4 rows instead of 37 lines over 7 rows currently), have more important information (contains 3~4 distinct offices instead of 2, when removing redundant information), and are more readable.
  1. a. 'Vice President of Switzerland' is not a real office, it's called 'Vice President of the Federal Council', so this is factually wrong and should at the very least be corrected; b. The VP has no power, it's just the deputy to the president of the Federal Council, which is not relevant for such an infobox; c. It has no article on Wikipedia, only being mentioned in a single paragraph on President of the Swiss Confederation; d. It is a rotating office where the custom is that the VP each year is president next year, meaning there is a lot of redundant information (look at Alain Berset, where the row takes eleven lines which are a near duplicate of the president row).
  2. a. The Presidency of the Swiss Confederation is a ceremonial title with the only role being to preside the federal council, which is not very relevant; b. The office is rotating between the members each year, with nowadays perfectly predictable rules (the member who has served the longest since their last presidency if they held one before become president), which is rather redundant: it takes eleven lines on Alain Berset's article to say… not much really (especially that he held it twice); c. Yes, it is relevant enough to be included. But does it deserve its own row? It can be included as the |president= parameter in the federal councilor row (since the president has to be a member of the Federal Council), which would include all the relevant information in a single line (the year they served in).
  3. a. Only federal councilors can be the head of a federal department (equiv. ministry or cabinet department), so including them as separate rows is completely redundant; b. They are notable and relevant, but not enough for their own row, so they can be included within the |suboffice= parameter as a 'Department' row (with the years, see Ueli Maurer's article who held two different departments).
  4. It is relevant, as membership of national legislative chambers and highlighting the path of the politician are notable enough for infoboxes.
  5. Same as above (see the infoboxes on Alain Berset's article).
  6. Same as above
  7. Same as above (see the infoboxes on Ueli Maurer's and Albert Rösti's articles)

Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 13:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Survey

Discussion

  • Pinging @Khronicle I, Therequiembellishere, Snickers2686, and เต่าไม่บิน:, who have in the past reverted changes following these guidelines while refusing to discuss it in wikiproject talk page. Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 13:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    @Ngagnebin and Gust Justice: Feel free to reply to my rebuttals if you have any other counter-arguments. Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 10:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Julio974fr, have you advertised this RFC anywhere? Why is this Switzerland-specific RFC on the page for this general-purpose infobox template instead of somewhere more relevant where people who know about the Swiss government might be available to help you? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Apologies if it wasn't the right place to start this, I thought it was adapted since it is the relevant template. This RfC has been advertised over on the talk pages for the Wikiprojects Switzerland, Politics, and Elections & Referendums, as well as Alain Berset's article where the infobox was contentious. Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 17:44, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I support the proposal in part.
  1. Support The position as Vice President of Switzerland clearly isn't particularly relevant and removing it would make the infoboxes easier to read without removing too much information.
  2. Oppose The position as President of Switzerland is considered a prestigious position. While it does take up space in an infobox, I think keeping it would make it easier to read and find the information compared to moving it to the president parameter of the federal councillor position. Not everyone reading an article while be familiar with the Swiss political system to know that the presidency rotates the way it does.
  3. Support Makes the infobox much easier to read.
  4. Support Is in line with what is done for members of legislatures of other countries. I would have the presidency of the body as a separate line.
  5. Support
  6. Support I would include it in most cases, provided it can be verified that the person actually held the office.
  7. Support Is in line with what is the standard for most infoboxes.
I would argue that, though the position as president may be prestigious at a given time, it isn't in general. Of the 23 federal councilors in the past 35 years, the only two that have not held the office of presidency were the only two in over a century to fail re-election (a rarity) after a single term, and 11 of them (half!) have held the office twice. Furthermore, being president implies being federal councilor, which adds redundancy. Can it really be considered prestigious (and notable) enough to be worth this redundancy? Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 18:08, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  1. Strongly Oppose The VP is also elected by Parliament and not just «nominated» randomly. S/he «is required to step in and take on all the presidial duties when the president is unable to. The Federal Council may also assign the vice president presidential powers.» (source). Tbf, that is really not being «unsignificant». In the same way, if we merge the Head of Department information, it would be like having an Infobox for Gabriel Attal in France for example with removing each entry for Minister of Public Action and Accounts, Government Spokesperson, Secretary of State to the Minister of National Education and Youth, and having just:
Government:
  • Public Action and Accounts (Year-Year)
  • Gov Spokesperson (Year-Year)
  • SoS Minister of National Education and Youth (Year-Year)
Again, what you don't do for other countries, let's not do it for Switzerland. The fact there is an election by Great Electors (MPs) each year is still something Furthermore, the example for Alain Berset is OK because he only occupied the same office as Minister of Home Affairs since he's been elected at the Federal Council but you will then have various troubles with other people having occupied two or more offices during their time of being Federal Councillor and the sample / simple example with Alain Berset is the easiest and could easily support the move whereas with some other politicians, we will have troubles and the Infobox will be even less readable than it is today. I'm writing here has I've been writing many articles on Swiss politics on Wikipedia (mainly in French) and I am contributing to Swiss politics articles very often, also in English. With the move, we will also loose the information, in the Infobox of who they've been replacing. We will only have who they replaced in the Federal Council but not who they replaced at the Head of Department. I'm totally for having the clearer information as possible but we also need to have the most info available, reducing or withdrawing information in an Infobox is a step backward to my opinion. And as we don't do it for France, then let's not do it for Switzerland. Ngagnebin (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is all a question of notability and of how much redundancy we can bloat the infobox with. 1. Yes the VP is the eventual replacement of the president, but the president is already a rather ceremonial office, so how often does the VP even get to exerce these few powers? 2. About your argument for several heads of departments being held, I already gave an example with Ueli Maurer's infobox which does contains two federal departments, it's not any less readable than usual infoboxes. 3. In France each ministry is a separate office, while in Switzerland ministries are equivalent to each other and are implied by the fact the person is a federal councilor (you're comparing it to if we had to put "member of the government" as a separate row in France which we don't, the situation is not the same at all). 4. Withdrawing important information from the infobox is a bummer but I highly invite you to read MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE: information has to be contained in the article anyway (for instance predecessor and successor to departments wouldn't be lost). 5. If you think losing information is a problem, I think you'd at least agree with proposed guidelines 4–7 which propose to solve that. Julio974 (Talk-Contribs) 09:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
  1. Comment What I question about this standard and it's current implementation with some articles is why the president and vice president parameters have numerical years in them. I was under the impression that those parameters had to include the actual name/article of that officeholder, whomever that was. For someone who may not be familiar with the subject to look at the infobox and see Vice president 2023 seems very strange to me. Snickers2686 (talk) 01:26, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

U.S. House of Representatives State name display

It seems that when the "state" parameter is used in the infobox now, the infobox only displays the text "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives" (see Bill Nelson, Nancy Pelosi, etc. for examples) where it used to display "Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from [state]". Is there a way to fix this, especially since the state name is included for U.S. Senators? -- Politicsfan4 (talk) 04:52, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Replace "In office" by "Term in office"

The term "in office", displayed in bold directly above the dates that an office holder served, is confusing. When taking a quick glance at the info box, some people just see the bold words, and understand that the person is currently in office. That's not the intended meaning, though. I propose two alternatives to resolve any potential ambiguity:

  • We could use the wording "Term in office" or similar, instead.
  • The lines for "In office" and "Assumed office" could be dropped entirely as proposed here, here and here in the archives. The words "in office" currently serve as a section title when a person held the same office more than once. Hence, if we drop that line, we should make the dates themselves bold. There has been opposition to dropping "In office" but I'd like to bring forward the argument that with the high use of mobile browsers and apps, every line saved is valuable. I think the implication that the dates refer to the time in office is sufficiently clear. What else should they refer to? And if anything is unclear, an explanation needs to be in the article text anyways.

@Kevinkor2, Lincolnite, Peterkingiron, Justmeherenow, Designate, and Shatter Resistance: I'd like to discuss the wording "In office" on the office holder template again. You've participated many years ago - see the links above.

Joe vom Titan (talk) 09:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

"In office" suffices, the dates make it clear if they're the incumbent or not. Indeed, the word "Incumbent" is shown right above "In office" bit, to clarify it. GoodDay (talk) 13:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
Concur with User:GoodDay. I am not familiar with the debate over this terminology in the infobox in the past and I don't have the time to scroll back through a wall of text right now to find it. But my immediate concern with "term in office" is that it doesn't apply very well to people serving as "acting" officeholders. Very often, they are serving out pieces of someone else's term, but it's not their "term in office". --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:27, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

How to Find??

Identify political leader pages lacking the Infobox officeholder template, along with a user-friendly filter for sorting them by election or state. I have work on Tamil Nadu state & 2021 Assembly Election. Thanks in advance -IJohnKennady (talk) 08:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@IJohnKennady: Hello, this is probably not the best place to ask this type of question. You could ask at the Village Pump where you may get more response. Keith D (talk) 12:49, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank You..- IJohnKennady (talk) 03:36, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Lack of "jr/sr" value causes the infobox title to disappear

If you compare these two versions of "William B. Umstead", the only difference is the existence of a "jr/sr" attribute and value, yet the one without it doesn't actually show the box that says "United States Senator from North Carolina". Initially I thought it might have been because it was "infobox officeholder" instead of "infobox senator", but that doesn't seem to make any difference. It seems like there's something wrong with the template. — wfaulk (talk) 21:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that is true. Whoever disabled the "senior" or "junior" display did not take the time to create a different parameter alias with a better name. In lieu of that, I have clarified the documentation. Setting |jr/sr= to any value will display the "United States Senator from" header. If this parameter is missing or empty, "United States Senator from" will not be displayed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:06, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Has the "nationality" parameter disappeared?

Has the "nationality" parameter disappeared? I have always found this useful for UK biographies, where nationality and citizenship don't necessarily match up. E.g. the first minister of Scotland has UK citizenship but a Scottish nationality. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 10:55, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

It's in the documentation. Do a find for the word "nationality" and you should find five instances. Is something working differently from how the documentation explains it? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
Sorry I don't think I explained myself well. I was editing Simon Byrne (police officer) and the nationality parameter wouldn't appear int he info box. I have done the word search you suggested and have just seen the note nationality is not displayed if the corresponding country is mentioned in birth_place. This makes things awkward with the specific sensitivities of the UK and Ireland (and specifically Northern Ireland). In this example, his nationality is "British" rather than "English" but this won't show because birth place states England. I see his predecessor George Hamilton (Northern Ireland police officer) does have visible |nationality=, showing British with a NI birth place. Is there a list of cosponsoring birth places/nationalities I can view? Thank you, Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 12:06, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
Here's what the code looks like:
| label10 = Nationality
| data10 = {{#switch:{{Delink|{{{nationality|}}}}}
| {{#ifeq:{{Country2nationality|{{Find country|{{Delink|{{{birth_place|}}}}}}}}}|{{Delink|{{{nationality|}}}}}|{{Delink|{{{nationality|}}}}}}} =
| {{#ifeq:{{Find country|{{{birth_place|}}}}}|England|British}} =
| #default = {{{nationality|}}} }}
What this says to me is: if the country in |nationality= matches the country in |birth_place=, as determined by {{Find country}}, then display nothing in nationality. Also, if the |birth_place= contains "England" and the |nationality= is "British", display nothing. Otherwise, display |nationality=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:25, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Include locations an officeholder was primarily raised in in addition to birthplace?

Often, this information is much more relevant to an officeholder/who they are than where they were born. Some prominent examples would be John McCain and Ted Cruz. Info like this is almost always included in the text of the article however I believe it important enough to be in the infobox as well. WWWHHHHYYYYYY (talk) 12:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

That's the |home_town= parameter, which was deprecated and removed from almost all person-related infoboxes in 2020. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:44, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Query on historical use of majority parameter

Query arising from Ruth George: is the "majority" parameter intended to record historical majorities achieved by the individuals throughout their careers, or just the majority of the latest incumbent? I've always assumed the former, but User:Telfordbuck removed the value from this ex-MP as "she is no longer an MP and therefore does not have a majority". Dave.Dunford (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see why this is even a parameter in the first place. — Kawnhr (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Successors to be, in predecessors infoboxes

Seems we went through this 12 months ago. Anyways, an RFC in Nov/Dec 2020 resulted in a consensus to 'not' show the successor in their predecessor's infobox, until they've taken office. @Eccekevin: & @Therequiembellishere:, I recall, you both were involved last time (Nov 2022), discussing if that RFC result should continue to be applied or not. I've noticed a reluctance 'again' by an editor, not to apply it on some American political bios' infoboxes. So... Shall we require a new RFC on this matter? GoodDay (talk) 16:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Requesting input as well from @Beeblebrox:, the RFC closer. GoodDay (talk) 16:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Requesting input from @Khajidha:, who was also involved in the Nov 2022 discussion. GoodDay (talk) 17:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

If the supposed successor has not taken office, then no succession has taken place and nothing should be added to the infobox. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:48, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't understand. Looks like a settled issue to me, and you haven't given any reason to revisit it that I can see. There is no need to "refresh" a community consensus every few years, for no reason other than the passage of time. ―Mandruss  18:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Therequiembellishere seems to be continuing to refuse to implement the RFC results, again. They're aware of the consensus, so why do they resist it? GoodDay (talk) 18:06, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Then you have a behavior issue, and this is not the place for that. Put a note on their user talk page linking to the RfC. If they still refuse to respect consensus, take it to ANI. ―Mandruss  18:20, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I've thought about it. But, there's a lot of diffs to show, in the last few days, concerning mayoral elections ([3] - just an example) & other offices. I've yet to check over all the bios of lame duck New Jersey, Virginia, Louisiana & Kentucky legislative members. GoodDay (talk) 18:26, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the commenters above that the next step, after reverting relevant edits, should be a notification on the editor's talk page. RFCs are assumed to be the consensus until they are reversed or otherwise changed. There is no need to post here before communicating directly with the editor who is making the erroneous edits. Remember to AGF in any such notification. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: I've contacted the editor-in-question before & was usually ignored. I really don't want to go the ANI rout, so perhaps I should just step back & allow others to decide if, a) they want to 'fix' or 'revert' the editor-in-question's changes, or b) if something else needs to be done. GoodDay (talk) 19:26, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
OK. I looked for the word "successor" on the editor's talk page and did not find it, so I assumed that nobody had reminded them about the RFC recently. The most recent talk page message I found with your name on the edit was this one from two years ago, which didn't have a link to the RFC or a link to an example diff that was undesirable. When you are asking an editor to stop doing something, it is helpful to link to an example diff and to the RFC, guideline, policy, or other consensus that their edit has contradicted. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: They are aware of the issue, as they took part in both the (Nov/Dec 2020) RFC & also the follow up discussion (mentioned above) in November 2022. Also, I've already pinged them to 'this' discussion. But just to be absolutely certain? I've just contacted them. GoodDay (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
Good choice. I'm trying to help you here. Some people don't look at their notifications. Other people, including myself, do not have a good memory for all of the discussions they were involved in. A current talk page message from you about this issue would show, if a dispute did escalate, that you were taking reasonable good-faith steps to communicate directly with an editor whose edits you object to. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
As I said. Going forward, I believe I'll leave it to others, as to how to handle the situation. It becomes tiresome, having to go through this with the same editor, every US election cycle, post-RFC. GoodDay (talk) 19:52, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't have a dog in this fight, as all I did was close the previous discussion. So, in that capacity, I have gone ahead and left a more detailed message on Therequiembellishere's talk page [4] and I believe that is where further discussion should take place, and if that doesn't prove fruitful. I agree with Mandruss that it can escalate to ANI as a behavioral issue. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:09, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 14 November 2023

Description of suggested change: Delink the 'Deputy' parameter.

Diff:

[[Deputy]]
+
Deputy

GuardianH (talk) 20:11, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

  Not done I think the link is useful - it doesn't link to Deputy as this request suggests, but instead to the specific office the deputy held. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 18 November 2023

Description of suggested change: Assumed Office for incumbent term –> In Office for incumbent term

I have just noticed a change where the date that an incumbent assumed office is now marked with a "– present" label, so that it now reads "Assumed office: 2023 – present" as opposed to "Assumed office: 2023". I am wondering if it might make more sense to change the "assumed office" text to "in office" if this the new standard, to match how things are currently worded for tenures which have already concluded. To me at least, assuming office is something that someone does once when they enter the office; I wouldn't necessarily use it to refer to their entire tenure. I don't think it makes as much sense to say that someone assumed office throughout an entire tenure, and having a "– present" seems to take that longer view of making it a record of their entire tenure, as opposed to simply referring to the date they were sworn in.

To put it another way, if the template is referring to Joe Biden having been President of the United States since January 20, 2021, as opposed to simply marking the day he became president, I think it makes more sense to say he has been in office from January 20, 2021 to the present, versus saying he's been assuming the office from January 20, 2021 to the present. He assumed the office once, when he was inaugurated, and he's been in office since.--Sunshineisles2 (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Using Assumed office for incumbents in their infoboxes, is best. GoodDay (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Why? And if so, then wouldn't it be a question of whether the "– present" is actually necessary at all? If someone is listed as having assumed an office on a particular date, and is otherwise labeled as the incumbent, it naturally stands to reason they still hold the office at the present moment. My suggestion is that if we are labeling incumbent officeholders with a "– present", then it does not follow grammatically to say they "assumed" the office every day throughout their tenure, especially in comparison to saying they have been "in" office since then.Sunshineisles2 (talk) 21:19, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
It's good to know (in the infobox) what date, they assumed office. GoodDay (talk) 21:30, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not asking to take away those dates. I'm simply suggesting that the recent change creates a slightly awkward wording if we read this as one sentence. Even if this change were to be adopted, an incumbent would still be labeled as an incumbent in the infobox, and it would still have the date they began their term. Sunshineisles2 (talk) 21:32, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I see no problem with the status quo. GoodDay (talk) 21:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I suppose my request could have alternately been one to revert to the status quo of yesterday and before, of an unadorned "assumed office" and a date, before the "– present" was added. But I am wary of reactions or requests to totally undo a change to a template immediately, as they're usually reactions from familiarity rather than a measured difference in quality. I think either standard would be fine, but it feels like the current iteration is slightly awkward between the two formats. Sunshineisles2 (talk) 21:56, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Sunshineisles2. "In office: 2023 – present" or "Assumed office: 2023" makes sense, "Assumed office: 2023 – present" does not. The status quo until today was "Assumed office: 2023", and I see no reason to have changed it, especially without discussion. Davey2116 (talk) 23:00, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you as well. I would think the word "incumbent" would signify they're presently in office, so I don't understand why – present is now necessary. I'm curious to know where the discussion and consensus to go ahead with this change took place, I assumed it would be on this talk page but I don't see it (yet) Snickers2686 (talk) 02:25, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. The new style looks terrible. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

I would recommend visual examples (ie. infoboxes) be shown 'here', to clarify to others what the status quo is & what's being proposed. GoodDay (talk) 23:27, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I have reverted the recent edits to Template:Infobox officeholder/office that introduced the "to present" text, in the spirit of WP:BRD, since they have been contested by many people. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:43, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Edit request #2: Personal details section on top

I enquired about this earlier in the year but got no response. Again I would like to ask for this section to be placed on top of everything else. It currently requires needless scrolling just to see how old an officeholder is, or where they're from. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 01:26, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

If an article is using this template, typically the offices are the most important detail. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Then I highly disagree. This template should be in line with Infobox person or the multitude of sportspeople infoboxes, where achievements (comparable in this instance to offices held) are placed below personal details. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 01:48, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation notice

Don't know what happened, but the DPL bot is flagging many articles linking to the Deputy disambiguation page, and Special:WhatLinksHere/Deputy also shows those articles with the linking. From what I can tell, what the articles have in common is this infobox, but I don't see any specific linking to the disambiguation page. Natg 19 (talk) 21:48, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Probably related to these edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Education & alma mater

Template:Infobox person states that |alma mater= "is a more concise alternative to (not addition to)" |education=. Does that apply to this infobox too? Khiikiat (talk) 12:55, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Guidelines for birth_place about adding "(present-day ...)"

Does/should this {{Infobox person}} guideline for |birth_place= also apply here in {{Infobox officeholder}}?

birth_place "What the place may correspond to on a modern map is a matter for an article's main text."

Normally when I have reason to edit a biography and I see something like this for birth place I would remove the parenthetical.

Born Pultipalli, Chittoor district, Madras State, India (present-day Andhra Pradesh)

But in this specific example, the article is using {{Infobox officeholder}}, not {{Infobox person}}.

I think we should be using the {{Infobox person}} guidelines for parameters that are shared between it and other infoboxes for persons like {{Infobox officeholder}}. If there are any reasons not to follow a specific guideline or if there are additional guidelines that go beyond what {{Infobox person}} advises, then that could be noted in the documentation for {{Infobox officeholder}}. The post above about |alma_mater= and |education= seems to be arguing along the same lines. What do others think?  — Archer (t·c) 08:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I would always avoid "(present-day Footown/Fooland)" or "(now Footown/Fooland)" in the infobox and the guidance at Infobox person seems sensible (and I would support its duplication here). Number 57 10:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Agree. Vacant0 (talk) 11:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 January 2024 (Governor-General nowrap display)

governor-general parameter with a hyphen should preferably display using the Nowrap template, using {{nowrap|Governor-General}} and {{nowrap|Governors-General}}.

This should not apply to the equivalent governor_general using a space for the title.

Mr. Lechkar (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

  Done ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 20:28, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion regarding the placement of "Sir"

There is a discussion regarding the placement of "Sir" here in case anyone is interested. Cheers, --Omnipaedista (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)