User talk:The Duke of Waltham/Archive 1

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This is the first archive of The Duke of Waltham's talk page. Its content (apart from the first message, which is irrelevant) is a long series of discussions between the Duke and Whaleyland concerning succession boxes. The initial subject was the draft of the new version of SBS's Documentation page, and eventually included succession-box templates, content, and style, as well as general issues of WikiProject Succession Box Standardization. The conversation was discontinued after a brief follow-up in the WikiProject's talk page. This archive covers all discussions beginning from 13 March to 26 June 2007.

All archiving here took place on 27 June 2007.

H. Cartwright

Signpost spamlist

Sorry about that. Your name was next to mine when I was erasing my own name. I must have accidentally deleted yours as well. --Thelb⁴ 19:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. You should be more careful, though; that could have been any proper article. Waltham 17:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

s-start/doc

You are certainly an illusion of grandeur. I went through your proposed edit (which I looked at when you first completed but did not have time to edit). I added a section for s-cite and s-fam, as well as s-hno. I also did a lot of random editing of stuff, including a little rearrangement. You should probably do a history check of it using cur from your last edit. Overall, I like it and I think it will work. It still is not as simple as anyone wishes, but at least it is clearer and up to date. I think we may want to just remove s-ptd altogether, though. It is really rather a useless duplicate of s-tul. Why I created two different ones for that, I never know. Also, s-line technically is NOT one of my pages, but keep it on the list because I want to try to make it compatible with the rest, although I am not sure why. I guess I am just an editing freak. If I messed up anything you really liked on the proposed template, just tell me and change it back. We can discuss anything that could go either way. Thanks for all the help! Oh, and I like WP:SBS for the mini, it is waaaaaaay better than the long version.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 07:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the changes are good and justified. I am happy that the final result works; I have treated it more like a tutorial rather than a documentation page. I might add a summary of sorts at the end, something like a general format, but I am not really sure about it. I will also see what I can do about the s-ptd; the preferred solution is to remove it and add a paragraph to the s-tul about its use.

Your only edits that I disapprove of are the ones that have brought the page's English to your side of the Atlantic. Basically, I don't mind that much, but you've got to change it all if you want some consistency.

Would you prefer that we should finalise my subpage version and then do the substitution or vice versa? I am mostly eager to move on something else; you know my views: we need to reform the project and solve any possible internal issues and problems so that we might move on unimpeded with the project's aims.

On another note, I will take your answer as far as the proposed shortcut is concerned as permission to activate said shortcut.

I'm finally feeling optimistic about something. ;) Waltham, The Duke of 18:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and do the swap. I don't actually know what came over me when I did that one linguistic swap. I actually generally prefer the British spelling of things. Perhaps my spell-checker was just bothering me and I appeased it. But since that is how the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, please, change it back to the East Atlantic form to remain consistent. I don't know about adding anything else at the bottom to finalize the page, but if you find anything that you think is important, by all means add it.

On another note, I saw a chat that you were having with another user about Template:Succession box. If you are working on a very simple (1-to-1) succession box, that format is what a lot of people prefer. I made mine for the more advanced. But the funny thing is, the internals of nearly all the succession boxes I have found I have replaced with my basic templates. Thus, if anything major ever changes, it will change all the succession boxes across Wikipedia, regardless of what the outword-looking succession box may be. Therefore, Template:Succession box is fine to use for simple boxes, as are numerous others. It would be far too difficult to change around all of them to match the one system, and then go through the deletion forums to get rid of all of them.

I'm glad you have perfected the project's page. I hope everything continues to go well. Have a happy Easter; I am sure I will hear from you again soon.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yes, you will. (A belated "Happy Easter to you too", by the way.) I have created the shortcut and "done the swap", as you say it. I've also solved the problem with the s-ptd: I have put both the titular rulers and the pretenders under the s-tul heading and deleted all mention of s-ptd. I think I will start looking for s-ptd templates and substituting them with s-tul. You should also mention this at the Project talk page, so that people stop using it. Also, I've noticed there are some other templates that can substitute s-ttl, mainly templates about cabinets. Shouldn't there be at least a mention of those? Waltham, The Duke of 14:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

After all, it seems that s-ptd was already taken care of. I've noticed that Template:S-ptd redirects to Template:S-tul. This will ensure that nobody will use s-ptd in new tables, but what about the old ones? Do we need to substitute s-tul for s-ptd on sight?

I also have several other questions about the project.

1. What is the policy on dual or other joined titles—what about cases of personal union? For example, should the English crown be joined with the Irish crown in succession boxes? (These titles might have not been always held together, but after 1542 and until the Act of Union 1800 the English (and then British) and Irish crowns were almost constantly in personal union.)
2. What is the exact policy on dates and years? Should there or should there not be blank spaces between the years and the dash, and how should the dash be written?
3. I totally agree with the creation of a header for cultural offices, by the way; I was about to ask for a Northern Ireland Assembly header, but you have already taken care of that. I would like to ask, though, what the correct header is for Masters of the Livery Companies of London.
4. I couldn't help noticing that WikiProject Peerage has very clear guidelines on titles, including succession boxes. Have we adopted these guidelines, or is it still a matter of debate? What is the norm in our project?
5. Is there a policy on consorts? I totally disagree with the inclusion of rulers' wives in succession boxes (example in Project talk page), as they are largely insignificant; shouldn't there by a guideline limiting the use of the template to regents?
6. Finally, I would like to start reforming (or at least completing and bringing up to date) the /Guidelines page; I am running out of free days and I have the second part of my exams waiting for me after this weekend. Please help me with ideas, advise, guidelines and information as far as this page is concerned. The rejuvenation effort must not stop.

Please answer as soon as possible. Waltham, The Duke of 07:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm really sorry, your grace; it has been a very busy two weeks and I have hardly been checking my own Wiki stuff much less anything else. I am still really busy for the new two weeks but I can take a few minutes right now to answer your questions. Firstly, I knew that s-ptd had been merged with s-tul but I think it would be a good move for the entire group to replace the old pages and then propose a deletion for s-ptd entirely. Now, onto your points:

1. We once had a policy that truly merged titles can be so in the same s-ttl. I believe this still remains. Thus if legally the monarch is in charge of both countries and they are under the same code of laws, then the titles can be merged. Ireland and Scotland were both joined to England legally with the Act of Union (I believe) thus they can be in the same s-ttl. However, before that time, Scotland should be listed separately. This applies across the board to all titles.
2. We use n-dashes and you can either use the code for it or the actual –. We did decide some time ago to leave a space on each side of it just for aesthetic value. Regarding complete dates v. years, years generally work fine unless you plan to replace all the dates for all the titles with full dates that are sourceable.
3. I don't really know where the Livery Companies fit. If you feel there is no category for them, feel free to create a new one. Try to find a new color, though, because the colors we have are already repeating.
4. We had some people from that group bring in some of their guidelines. I haven't really looked at their site for a while and I will try when I have more time. What I know is that we currently follow their standards for titles. I will get back to you on their succession box standards.
5. Some members of this group and others have decided that succession boxes for consorts should be included. I also disagree since they are hardly successive. They should never be included on the monarch's page since there is no place for them to even fit. Consorts may have their s-hou and s-fam information, since that in itself is not a succession list. But unless they are rulers in their own right, I see no need for them to have succession boxes. Consorts should not be on title lists under the regent field unless they also served as a regent.
6. I agree but I also have little time as my final assessments are occurring over the next three weeks. I will look it over soon and see what I can propose. Keep up the good work on it because I really do want this page to be cleaned up and in line with the better of the WikiProjects.

Sorry for the delay but keep up the good work. Thanks for all your help and I hope I can help you more as soon as finals are over.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for answering. I do apologise for my impatience, but I need information to work on and it is a pity to let valuable time go wasted. In any case, I shall work steadily, if slowly, on what data I have.

By the way, have you heard about the crazy sysop? I could not stop laughing when I read about that in the Signpost :). Waltham, The Duke of 22:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't read the Signpost. It is sometimes amusing but I don't subscribe and generally don't check up on it.

Well, you can at least look at the titles; all going-ons in Wikipedia are in there. You know, information...?

Regarding your guidelines page, I think it is very thorough but maybe too complex for people who want some simple guidelines on a few pages such as someone who wants to add an unlisted baronet or something. I'm not saying that it needs to be dumbed down, but maybe some more explanations are in order. Overall, though, very good.

Indeed, I should give more instructions, like, for instance, how to tell what peerage or baronetage a title belongs to. That had completely escaped my mind. And, of course, I should add some further general information. I will look into it.

Still, I need some help with s-off; when you see a question mark somewhere it means I am not sure about something. We need to better describe the types of offices assigned to s-off, among other things (like s-culture, for which I am not inspired enough to write my own description). And I will certainly need some help with the U.S. Congress standards.

Now that I think of it, shouldn't it read "United States House of Representatives"? Congress is the whole bicameral body, and it was a correct header before the "Senate" one came out, but I think it no longer is. Also, since this is the English Wikipedia and is thus important to the Americans, a set of parameters for each state's Congress might actually be a good idea.

I am glad that the s-reg function is being used so much these days. When I created it I thought of it more as just a little helpful header device. Shows how much I know. lol.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 02:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What a genius, really. I am awed.

Quick question: are there any other header parameters I should know of? I cannot start looking around all Template pages.

Anyway, I think I will leave this in my realm for a couple of weeks; it should be in good shape around May 20-25. If only other members of the project would contribute...

After that, I intend to refresh the main page, and then start advertising the Project on the map, which will bring new contributors; at the same time we can start working on the /Offices subpage.

By the way, what about the bot idea? There are too many s-ptd's to remove (or, rather, change) by hand, and I believe that the sooner we get rid of this template altogether the better.

Before I forget, please answer that message in the Project's talk page, I just can't watch it staying there unanswered. And it's a good question, too. I would have taken that myself, but it's a tough one.

Oh, and how are the finals going? *draws deep breath* Waltham, The Duke of 09:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

My finals ended up a lot easier than I thought, but I have been student teaching a high school, working, and still had a few class sessions to go to. Needless to say, it has been busy. Anyway, I don't think there are any more headers other than those listed. If they are, don't worry about; we will deal with them if we find any but I think people have been building off the premade ones or adding them to the master list (or asking one of us to make one). I think refreshing the main page is a good idea and advertising, especially around the other project pages, is really important and something I never really had the courage to do. It is such a tough line between advertising and spamming. Regarding a bot, I think it would be a great idea. What would even be better would be a bot that could add succession lists to pages, but that seems hopeful. I am not a bot-guy, though, so you may have to get a hold of someone else for that project. But I agree that s-ptd needs to go post haste.

I think I replied to the post you left on the project page. Check back in the history of THIS talk page and see if something was deleted when you replied to my last message because when I checked my history update, I think you accidentally deleted a chunk of my message.

Thanks for all the work. If you have any interest in the Settlers of Catan board game, I have just made a new wiki for that game at http://www.editthis.info/World_of_Catan. But only if you are interested in the game. Cheers!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 22:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You dare accuse me of deleting messages?! Well, I can do that if I want to, so you are partly right. :) However, your message has not been tampered with, just broken down to sections. The history page can be misleading sometimes. In any case, I was referring to the post at the very bottom of the Project talk page, which is still unanswered. It is an interesting issue to tackle, as it has not come up in any of the talk pages from what I know.

Spamming? No, no, I intend to do some selective advertising. Most importantly, I want to include the project to the great project list and shortcut lists, establish a connection with the WikiProject Council, and tell those (thinks of a kind, not-too-insulting expression) retarded idiots at the WikiProject Peerage to use our templates instead of the "succession box" ones. But in order to do all these, we need to bring the /Guidelines and the main page to at least their standards. Our project should be as much presentable as helpful and easy to navigate.

As far as the bot is concerned, I am not a "bot guy" either. There are a good many things I have never done in Wikipedia, however, and there is a first time for everything. I will research which bot is the most suitable when I find time and contact its manager.

And one question: when did you change the s-hou template? Unless I am mistaken, the bold and italicised name of the article at the top is a recent feature. Waltham, The Duke of 11:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I never changed the s-hou template. Another user did and updated the internals with all sorts of switches and #ifs that I really am glad he or she did. That template has been having a bunch of problems with living and unknown people. I am not sure how I feel about the article title at the top of the template, but it seems to work and it is an easy thing to remove if we all decide otherwise.

I replied to the post on the project talk page (I think it was the one you referred to) but I didn't really know an absolute answer to it. It is honestly a tough question that many people struggle with (such as when my church gets an interim pastor for a year, does he still count as our churches pastor in record books?). Anyway, I am working on way too many projects off wikipedia right now and am trying to finish a few so can get back to working here. Ugg...at least my student teaching is almost done. I am so sick of inner city kids who don't care about history!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Page Proposals

Like you, I have been extremely busy lately (as you can see from the time it has taken me to respond to your last message). Apart from my studies, I have way too many hobbies, interests, and obligations that take up all my available time, leading me to neglect some of them, sleep less, and spend long periods of time dreaming a world where the day would last 36 hours instead of 24.

History is one of those interests I have neglected, but that still does not mean that I have forgotten everything I knew; on the contrary, I believe I have a rather good understanding of history regardless of time or place, and I am particularly interested in European history. It is my firm belief that everyone should know at least the basic history of their nation, as well as have a general idea of world history; the understanding of history prevents us from repeating the mistakes of the past and reveals to us both the way in which our world has been shaped and the possibilities that are open to us. But I am digressing.

I am of two minds as far as the article title at the top of the s-hou template is concerned. On one hand I believe it is better to include in the succession box the name of the person that all the following information concerns, especially since the box is at the article's bottom, at the very furthest from the article's title. On the other hand, though, the title of the article is not always the best form of the subject's name that might be placed in a succession box. I also resent the fact that the links in s-hou are automatic; words like "living" or "unknown" are also linked, rather awkwardly in my opinion.

A number of members voted some time ago to remove the auto-links on the s-hou header but apparently they have migrated back. They are redundant and should be removed. Those dates, above all others, should already be present somewhere in the article. The names are also a problem because the auto link implies something about the person, which is not always true, such as "Holy Roman Emperor" is better than "King of Spain." Unfortunately, it is not something that can be easily corrected without first removing the entire feature.

We could subject these issues to the commonality of the Project, but its talk page seems to be rather deserted lately. I mean, it looks like nobody is reading anything in there, answering to posts or reacting in any way. The /Guidelines working version has not been edited by anyone, or even commented on, and we two are the only ones making posts or answering them. Do we really need to start sending messages to everyone's talk page at every instance?

I'd hope we wouldn't but I think everyone is just sick of guidelines or at least trying to figure them out. I want the project to succeed but many of the old members don't seem to be talking much anymore. Sad times, really.

By the way, I have made a request for bot assistance at the relevant page; I am pending a response right now. As it is a simple substitution for a bot and a fully justified action (control over there is particularly stringent), I do not believe there will be any problem. It just needs some persuasion...

Also, the post I was referring to was indeed the one you have now answered to. Tough one, eh? I am unsure of a specific policy; I think it should depend on the type of the office in question. In any case, it should be discussed with the rest of the Project's members (if they are to be found anywhere...).

Definitely.

Finally, I noticed yesterday that a new template, s-usurp has been added to the honoured family of our Project. A fine idea; it is a mode of title transfer that had not been covered by the previous templates, and a pretty interesting one as well. After a little tweaking from my side (for one thing, you had forgotten an equal sign at the end of the new template's entry's heading) it has been completely integrated into the page.

I actually didn't create the "s-usurp" template but I am glad that it has been made. If I had made it, it would have been named Template:s-urp or something like that. I am a minimalist and have tried to stick to three letter extensions. I also, hopefully, would have tested it completely before releasing it. That isn't always the case and often others improve on my models immensely, but I try.

I had not researched it, to be honest; I had just assumed it was you who had created it. Although the longer template name did strike me as curious when I saw it.

Now, seeing that you have little time to answer the various questions scattered around my page, I will gather them here in the hope that you might answer them satisfactorily enough to help me fill in those blanks in the /Guidelines subpage.

I will try my best, but this will probably progress in chunks. I now have more time but unfortunately, my girlfriend is sick of me always being on the computer and she actively tries to get me off of it. I also have been very painfully trying to triple boot my MacBook so it can run Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Ubuntu Linux.

• What is the policy on years? Should they be linked in all occasions, or only the special case of links to elections in s-par ought to be applied?

The main project page is rather clear on this one. I find it better to move all these guidelines to the /Guidelines page and leave the ones in the main page minimal and succinct.

• What are the general guidelines on names?

I know that for non-peerage names, the pattern has been to simply list the person's first (and last if not regnal) name and their ordinal number. In the case that something was inherited from another family or by another family, people also often put a dynastic name, although this is not always followed, especially in countries that have many dynasties. An example may be for Henry VII of England: "Preceded by: "Richard III of York." Thus it states that he was preceded by a different dynasty. Regarding more common posts, the pattern is usually to just list the first and last name(s) (if multiple predecessors or successors, one name to a line with no commas).

• Should the predecessors/successors (if they are peers) be mentioned with the title they held when they passed down/took over an office, the title they are most well-known with, or their highest title?

I'd say that peers should be listed with the title they held when they passed down or took office, even if they became king. Perhaps if they did become king, that could be mentioned in small lettering and in parentheses on the line below it like: "(later King of England)" or "(formerly Duke of Lancaster)." This one has been fought over, however, so don't take my word for it.

• Similarly, is a baronetage always mentioned or is it only included if the subject was already a baronet at the time their office (i.e. the one tracked by the succession box) changed hands?

Any peerage title is ONLY mentioned if the individual either was preceded by someone or succeeded by someone, thus making them a hereditary baronet. If the title has has been used before or used again, then you can use the Template:s-vac to establish the last or next barer of the title.

You have misunderstood me. I was referring to baronets being predecessors or successors to any titles, not baronetcy succession boxes. I have come across names written as "John Smith, Bt" and I am at a loss as to the guideline for the inclusion of the post-nominals for baronets.

I really don't have a clue, then. Baronets are a weird peerage title, I find. I am pretty sure it goes under the same rules as titles like knights (i.e. Henry Tudor, KG). But I probably am not the best person to ask for this one.

• Similar to the information about the various British Isles parliaments, there should be information about the United States Congress. Currently, there is none. Also, what about the headers?

I've tried a few times to establish good United States Congress succession lists, but to no avail. Most of the people in this group are interested in British peerage and have no care for the Americans (not that I have a lot of respect for my own country right now). I believe that s-par does allow for US Congress and other headers apply to the U.S. as well, but when I get a chance, I will look into that matter more fully. I am sure many Americans will not be too privy on using s-par for their "Parliament."

I see. Isn't there a prototype you approve of anywhere in Wikipedia, though?

I had a really nice prototype with some random senators and representatives, but they got overruled by some other person who liked their way better. The same thing happened with the British titles. I originally had "Member of Parliament" on the top line with "____ county" on the bottom, but people seemed to prefer to just call them "Member for _____" which makes readers have to assume that they are British Parliamentarians.

• Which offices exactly are political? Can we include appointed heads of government in the list? How do we classify elected monarchs (like that of Malaysia)?

Political offices can be anything, really, that is directly related to government functions. It really can't be exact. I'd definitely say that appointed heads of state fit as political, as do elected monarchs. They all have successors, or we assume, and they have power. If it is a first-generation dictatorship, then their succession list should have the last head of state in the list.

I was just unsure of whether we should use the s-reg template or the s-off for elected monarchs.

That is a tough question but if they are elected and not from dynasties, then I think they can be placed under s-off. S-reg is more for regnal titles that are inherited or earned by another regnal person.

• Which offices may be either political or honorary? There is no information in the page right now.

Political offices can be anything that is actively involved with the government. Honorary titles are those that are granted to individuals, or passed down to individuals, for services to the state, or for various functions ore rewards, but bare no actual duties with it (waving hands and running charities aside).

Funnily enough, heads of state almost always belong to this category and yet they are the ones that cannot possibly be included here.

Well yes, but that is probably getting to subjective, which is the eighth deadly sin here. Here's an example of what I mean: Hindenburg, President of Germany would still be an official title because it was granted him for an official position. Someone who is granted the keys to a city, that is definitely honorary.

• Can we include chief judges/justices in legal offices? If yes, which ones?

Chief Judges and Justices definitely fit in as legal offices, but if there are no switches for it, we may want to add a switch for "Judicial Offices."

A switch? Oh, you are referring to what I know as "a parameter". So, you are thinking of something along the lines of "Judicial offices of England and Wales", "Judicial offices of Scotland", "Judicial offices of Northern Ireland", "Judicial offices of the United States", etc.?

Exactly. The same thing we have for s-reg. Something that if a person types a country code (as outlined on the page) then the judiciary for that country comes up in the header.

• Further information is needed for categories like police, academic, and cultural offices.

I agree, but those issues seem to come up randomly when people request them or when someone on the team runs across a succession template that looks naked or funky.

Maybe, but police appointments should be standardised, at least as long as high-ranking offices are concerned.

I guess. Police appointments don't seem like such a big thing in the U.S. If you really want to, I guess we can work something out for police appointments. But give me some clues as to what you mean or want.

• Do you agree with the phrasing I have used in the heraldic offices category?

Give me a link to what you are talking about here. I am not sure if I follow you.

Are you kidding me? I thought you knew about the working version of the /Guidelines subpage here.

• The Other offices part is rather old; it should be reviewed and more offices added to it. What criteria are used to classify offices here?

Other offices is a placeholder for when something doesn't fit and nobody wants to make a category to place it. I created it simply for that purpose and I have not considered it again since. If you feel it is outdated or needs improvement, just tell me what you want and I will work on it.

• I know that titles of nobility are classed in descending order of importance; how, however, are they distributed through the peerages? That is, the titles are placed in this order within each peerage (e.g. of England, of the UK etc.) or they are all ordered together regardless of peerage? Each seems strange, as the first choice would mean that a dukedom might be followed by a barony followed by an earldom, while the second might create the need to use a header more than once.

You forget that there is a switch in the s-reg header that can call UK, English, Scottish, or Irish peerages. If it is pre-UK time period, then they all should get their own headers in descending order. If it is after the UK was made, then they should be mixed (because they are all technically in the same peerage family). Either way, they should always be in descending order of rank, unless a title was earned after another, in which case it goes in order of titles awarded. (The exception is titles such as Prince of Wales or Prince of Asturias, where the title is passed down for heirs, but those also fit under the honorary category since they are not often directly succeeded by a successor and they have no inherit power).

I have not forgotten about the switch; on the contrary, that is exactly what I was referring to: if a person has a title of the English peerage, one of the British peerage, and one of the UK peerage, what order are they put in? Especially if, for example, the English title is a viscountcy, the British a marquessate, and the UK title an earldom.

And I ask again: you place the headers (Peerage of England, Peerage of the United Kingdom, etc.) chronologically and the titles within them in decreasing order of importance, you place them all in ascending chronological order, or you mix them up under the latest header and then in decreasing order of importance? Your explanation confuses me, I must admit.

Okay, I see your point now and I know that some people fall under that category. Let's make a hypothetical person, Harold. This is what his chart should look like:

As you can see, when the two countries were separate, the highest title came first, that of Earl (over Baron), and once the two merged, the higher title still stands, but the title of Baron was promoted to Duke during the second switch, and thus it now tops the Earl of Scone, which remained the same. Thus, first comes chronology (the order in which the title was earned), and then comes rank (which title earned at the same time is higher). Hopefully, though, not too many people need a peerage chart like this because frankly, it sucks to make (check out the internals). I hope that helps a little.

• How are baronetages ordered? I do not even know whether one may have only one or more than one baronetages.

If they are peerage baronets then they fit under the same order as everything else. If they are not successive, then they do not fit in as a succession box (unless the title has gone extinct before or is resumed at a later point).

No, no, I meant "in the case of multiple baronetcies, what order are they place in?". And I am not even sure whether one can hold multiple baronetcies.

Well one can certainly hold multiple kingdoms, dukedoms, etc., so I assume they can hold multiple baronetages. In that case, order them first in the order they were earned, and if there are still ties, probably alphabetical would be best.

• How does one find which peerage/baronetage a title belongs to? I know one can look at the relevant article, but this specific piece of information is not always clearly stated, and there might also be some lists that you know of (and I do not).

I generally just look at the Wikipedia page if there is one. I'd say look in Burke's peerage if you have access to it but otherwise, I don't deal directly with peerages, I deal more with dynasties and marriages personally. Maybe contact Leo www.genealogics.org, he knows quite a bit and could probably ask if you have questions.

I suppose Leo can be helpful if I ask him for something, but what about all the users that may need instructions? I have found some lists of peerages, and I just wanted to know if you could tell me which ones are preferable for the use of regular contributors.

I don't know. Most of the people who make the nobility pages have their own sources. I generally don't make them and definitely do not know who has a comprehensive listing of all the British peerage, past and present. I wish there were something so comprehensive.

• How do we order awards, sporting positions, and records? I assume in ascending chronological order, but I just want to be sure.

Yes, always in the order earned unless it is something that for some reason must go first.

Like?

I was struggling with that one too. If one comes to me, I'll list it. I think I was thinking Nobel Peace Prize, but that should still go in ascending order.

For many of these fifteen points there might be unwritten guidelines but, apart from the fact that I do not know them, it would be much better to be certain and specific about our policies.

I would really prefer not to push you so much, but we have lost enough time already and I would like to get over with this page; as I have told you, the main page needs a renovation afterwards, and then we will start looking at the tricky /Offices subpage. For the latter, we will definitely need some help, as all offices tracked by succession boxes should be listed there (and not only the political offices of the British Isles, or even those of some European countries).

That will be a HUGE endeavor to list ALL the offices and everything that is being tracked in succession boxes. But it probably should be done. A catalog is always good and also gives members easier access to fixing troubled titles and finding gaps.

I am waiting your response to this overly long message (hopefully one of comparable length). Waltham, The Duke of 09:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: the bot issue has been taken care of, and all s-ptd's have been substituted with s-tul. We can ask for the former's deletion whenever you give the signal. Waltham, The Duke of 10:08, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

YAY! If you get a chance, propose a deletion and give me the link and I will give my vote and reasons. I created it so I should have the biggest say over if it stays or goes.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 14:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Deleted talk page

You must have wanted me to notice this conversation very badly; there is no other way to explain why you have deleted everything else in this page! I have had to resurrect it from the history (reverting the page would wipe out your last answer).

In any case, this broken up conversation has started becoming chaotic, so I will move the latest answers here.

Ahem.

• About baronets:

I am not sure, but from what I've read, I think one cannot hold more than one baronetcies. In any case, a baronetcy is not in the peerage, it is below it (but above knights).

• About the US Congress:

These things really should be decided by consensus, even though it might be hard sometimes. I think your way sounds better; one must be British to understand the box.

• About the multiple peerages order:

It looks good. I suppose all this is only necessary for peers with many titles, having lived around the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is another idea from WP:PEER, however: use a simple "Titles of nobility" header and put all the titles in descending order of seniority under that.

Maybe we need to talk this with them at some point.

• Police appointments may include:
  • The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (in Greater London)
  • Various Chief Constables around the United Kingdom (debatable, as these not always have their own articles)
  • Various Chiefs of Police around the United States, especially in large urban centres
  • I am not certain about calling the Director of the FBI a police appointment, as the nature of the FBI is dual. I would rather say it is a political position.
• About awards:

I get it; if we find an exception, we will discuss about it. Too insignificant in our priority list to devise guidelines for so soon.

• About the s-ptd template: I have nominated it for deletion. As nobody is visiting the Project's talk page any more, I will post a notice to all members' talk pages.

Waltham, The Duke of 13:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the deletion. My account auto-logged out for some reason and I had to log back in with a copy then just paste. I guess I missed my mark. I didn't mean anything by it, honestly.

• I think you are right about baronets. I think you can only have one and they are generally not inherited nor are they peerage, so they should never really be an issue.
• I understand the box, but I liked the other way because I wanted to implement a House of Lords option too, wherein the Lords would be in a subline just as the counties for House of Commons members. The United States Congress is a little easier because we just call them Senators (for the Senate) and Representatives (for the House of Representatives). But we do need to make sure it is clear it is the federal Senate and House, not the individual state ones, and I will try to find some time tomorrow to look into fixing that issue further so we can get something to vote on for guidelines.
• Titles of Nobility is what I had originally. And then someone got the bright idea to subdivide the entire category with switches that allowed an infinite number of peerages. While initially it seemed like a good idea, I rather liked the old way now.
• Maybe we should make a header for simply Public Office, wherein all city officials may fit such as police and fire chiefs. Each country has different names for police, and even in the US and Britain we have sheriffs as well, which fit slightly under a different header.
• I voted on the issue already and hopefully it will be deleted shortly (yay!).

Thanks for all the duke, Your Grace. I hope that I can help more soon. I am still working on projects all over the place, but I am now seeing light at the end of this uber long tunnel. Cheers!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 07:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The deletion is forgiven. I was just joking about the "intent". You may not know that, but I am very fond of sarcasm.

• Baronetcies are inherited, just not in the same manner as normal peerages. One has to petition the Crown (through the Home Secretary) to inherit the baronetcy, but only heirs can do that, so it is succession in essence, even if not technically. That information I have found in the baronets section of the British honours system article, which is more helpful than the Baronet article itself at the moment.
• I am not sure I understand the "House of Lords" reference; seats in the House of Lords do not have anything to do with geographical areas or political constituencies, and even the Lords Spiritual are there by virtue of their seniority and not because they represent their dioceses. Maybe a hereditary peer's succession box could write under their peerage that they were also in the Lords, but even that I do not really believe is fit for a succession box.
• As far as the various Congresses in the United States are concerned, I think it is more a matter of headers. Switches would be really useful here, and the abbreviations for states are already there. For example, s-par|us-ny could refer to the New York Legislature; s-par|us-pa could refer to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. No further division between the two houses of each legislature is necessary in my opinion; we should only separate the two Chambers of the federal Congress because of their greater size and importance. The first thing that should be fixed, however, is the present s-par|us header (see below).
• Do you seriously propose that we abolish the various switches about the peerages and return to the earlier, simpler model? That is a question, I know that is not what you have said. It surely is an option, though not one I support; I do not believe the problems are insurmountable.
• Public Offices? I have scruples; the terminology is vague and I cannot think of a good way of separating these from government offices, as structures are overlapping within countries and wildly differing around the world. We need to keep it in mind, but this proposal has some distance to cover in my opinion.
• The voting is going on well; I am certain that we will soon bid goodbye to that haunted template! I have sent notices to all the members' talk pages, and I have included a request for more input in the project, a greater presence in the talk page, and some help with the /Guidelines subpage. Apparently, some reaction has been brought about; it seems to me that they had all just forgotten about us. We are not the only busy people around, you know. In any case, Wjhonson has done some changes in the working version and some comments in its talk page; also, there has been an intervention about the s-par|us header, which reads "Congress of the United States of America" instead of "United States House of Representatives" (I also believe "United States Senate" is more common and even more official than "Senate of the United States of America", let alone shorter). I will not hide you that I like telling people "I told you so". Anyway, it seems that there are templates about succession in the Congress that ours could substitute in the future; that is, if we get to know how our templates are going to look like. :)

Oh, and I like being thanked and all, but I had never expected this... Obviously, the inactivity of the other members makes my contributions look much more important. In any case, it is the first time I do some serious and systematic work for Wikipedia and I enjoy it immensely. If only I could give more time to this...

Waltham, The Duke of 09:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: what about renaming s-culture from "Cultural offices" to "Cultural and educational offices"? It will cover much more offices (perhaps justifying its own existence this way) and will claim a large share of the offices currently categorised under s-other, like your examples "Leader of the Inner London Educational Authority" and "President of the National Union of Students".

Question: is it not possible to rename the templates with long names (e.g. s-usurp to s-urp)? I agree that there should be some standardisation there as well; I even intend to leave some guidelines for the creation of new templates in the new version of the project I envision. I am not very well educated in such technical matters, but my scarce knowledge tells me we only need a redirect.

Similarly, what about the s-house template? You have said that it would be difficult to change (at least as far as the mention of the article name at the top is concerned)—why exactly is that so? Can you not just revert it to a previous version? (If you have kept no archives, you can always look up the template's history.) Please elaborate on this. Waltham, The Duke of 18:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply: Sorry, you are correct in half, but I also just got a new job and I have yet to settle in. But yes, my girlfriend is generally taking up my free time, which is not much. Nevertheless, I have been reading most of your posts, just have not really had time to reply in full. But now I will try...

• If one can inherit baronetcies, then it deserves a succession box, however if it is not considered a part of the peerage, then it should probably get an honorary title status.
• I was thinking that House of Lords members still serve in some manner of a seat, although definitely not a seat related to a district or county (often despite their titles). What I really wanted to say is what you guessed – that Members of the House of Lords should have some note in their succession boxes saying as much, but only if they are hereditary members.
• I like your header idea, although I really think that something needs to differentiate between multiple houses in multiple house states (such as my state of California). Some states such as Virginia have only one, so they do not need that obviously. Specifics is something important on Wikipedia, and I think that designating people's houses of government are important.
• I never meant to suggest such an abolishment. I think switches are good, if not annoying at times.
• I was just suggesting something. I am not sure what a good term would be but I agree something should be done for people that do not fit in other categories. Every succession title in Wikipedia should be able to fit somewhere.
• Yay, no more s-ptd! That is all. Once we figure out how the US Congress template should look, give me the templates and I will replace them with out internals. Most people won't even know something changed.
• You deserve the thanks more than I do. I may have made the series, but I have failed to keep up the project or the templates to par. I feel half shamed for this, but I also know that I am a busy person and 'tis life.  ::sigh::
• Changing s-culture to include educational offices is a great idea. Merging anything at this point is probably good because our templates are flying like hotcakes and I am not sure if I wanted it to be so complex. I guess we still are shortening the overall supply of templates for succession lists, but my series has sure created a lot of headers.
• Templates with longer names I suggest we move to shorter name versions. Last week I added two to the official list on the instructions page: s-usurp and s-right. They should probably be s-urp and s-rht or something similar. I am okay with having header templates be longer, but the official series titles should all be three, I think, just for convenience sake. Deleting old templates is preferable, but such a pain, but we can do that too if we must. Creating an instruction page for adding new headers is good too, but I am not sure if I want to make that power so easy to hand out to everyone.
• No, it would be really easy to change that feature. Other features that have been added to the template would be hard to change. They are secret switches that even I do not completely understand. It is for if you don't know some dates for a person. But it is possible to remove the page header and I can do that if you think it is a good idea. I rather think it is, although I also wouldn't mind making an option of typing a custom name (especially for long pages).

I think I answered everything as well as possible. Keep the chain going. I will try to respond sooner next time. Cheers!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 07:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Jobs — Oh, to Dream!

First of all, congratulations on your new job. I believe you are a school teacher, so I guess you must have been transferred to another school. You know, this makes me think: do you have any idea how many thousands of people would love to work in Wikipedia full-time?

In any case, I know I am making myself pressing, but you must admit I have no other choice if I want to avoid letting this project come to a grinding halt. I cannot do everything myself, because I do not have the necessary knowledge, time, and resources. Time is something you do not have either, I understand that, but you have knowledge that I need. And once we finish with this stage of development, we will also be able to draw more resources—which is why I am in such a hurry. I have already planned the publicity campaign, but I cannot initiate it unless we have an acceptable guidelines page. (The one thing I have done was to include SBS in the list of WikiProject shortcuts, as well as to add a brief description of the project to SBS's entry in the WikiProject Council directory.)

This whole scenario reminds me of a TV series, set in an office: you get to be the founder/president that is always away for golfing, fishing etc. and I take the part of the neurotic manager that cannot stand the sound of telephones. We are not exact parallels, of course, but it is fun to think of the situation like that. Basically, I like drawing such parallels; my whole life could be a comedy for all I know. :)

On to our business now:

• Who is the one forgetting things now? There is a perfectly well-suited group of parameters (uk-bt, ie-bt, gb-bt, en-bt, sct-bt) creating Baronetage headers. Baronetcies are honours of their own, distinct from the Peerage; if you are to call baronetcies honorary titles, so should you do with peerage titles. When I asked you about baronets, I only wanted to know about the number one could hold and the order of the various titles if one could hold many; it seems that you don't know for sure. Maybe I should have contacted WikiProject Baronets from the beginning. I have no idea why I haven't done so; perhaps because said project looks completely disorganised. Anyway, I will ask them.
• I would like to propose the particulars for the Lords label: we write in small type at the bottom of the title field for the specific title for which the seat is held (usually but not always the highest title a person holds) something like "House of Lords 1925-1964". I think we should include the years the subject was a Lord, because most of them did not claim their seat as soon as they inherited their title, and the current Lords have to be elected to their seats. We should include the note for Lords Spiritual as well, with an exception: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester should not have it, as they are always in the Lords (while the other 21 bishops are not).
• Why not build on the current model then? s-par|us-ca for the Lower House and s-par|sen-ca for the Upper House. That is, if we decide to ignore the problem of nomenclature. Else, we might use a more neutral phrasing, something along the lines of s-par|lwr-ca and s-par|upr-ca for the Lower and Upper House respectively. (I disagree with the code for the federal Congress as is; sen is way too general and there are other senates that might want to use it. On the other hand, us is only suitable for the whole Congress in the same sense as its header reads "Congress", something that should change as now there is a header for each house.)

By the way, one of the first things you should do in your free time is to change s-par|us to "United States House of Representatives" and s-par|sen to "United States Senate", a change which I have justified in a previous post. I believe it is something that should be done now, because even though the rest of our project's templates might not be always used in succession boxes, the headers are.

• Well, the Congress template will have to wait until the publicity campaign I was talking about; we need some input here. The problem is, the current template is automated and people only need to insert the names and years; is it possible that they will not want to lose that convenience?
• As far as your guilts are concerned, I refer you to the TV series parallel above. The president in question felt very proud of the fortune he had created and now felt he had every right to enjoy it (making outrageous demands in the process).
• Oh, yes, lots of them. There is a newly surfaced dilemma, though: should we merge educational with "academic" instead? I am still in favour of merging with "cultural", but the dilemma is there.
• I prefer the shorter versions. The old ones can be deleted (now that I know the process); if I cannot convince them (i.e. the Bot Requests staff) then we can employ other means. I am against the instruction page, as officially sanctioning massive template creation (and I mean massive; there are way too many bored userbox manufacturers out there) will create the ultimate chaos; on a side note, it will be too short a page to even have the right to exist. Instead, we will just hang a sign in our project that says "If you want to create a template, discuss it in the talk page first". Actually, I have done that already; I have a draft (almost completed page, actually) for the main project page, and it is waiting for the /Guidelines to be done to take its place in my SBS subpage.

Proposals: Convert s-usurper to s-urp, s-awards to s-awa, s-herald to s-her, s-legal to s-leg, s-media to s-med, s-culture to s-cul, s-sports to s-spo, s-record to s-rec, and s-other to s-otr. Most of these are the only reasonable solutions anyway, but I would just like to have my say in this (and make a useful list of the long-named templates).

By the way, this is the first time I have ever read about a s-right template. I need to look into this. You, on the other hand, will be surprise to hear about the s-roy one (thankfully it is a three-letter one). I have already contacted its creator to ask for clarifications and inform him of the existence of SBS. You can find the template in boxes of British monarchs.

• Initially I thought myself that we should type a name of our preference. However, I have thought it over and decided that this would produce two inconsistencies: i) there would have to be guidelines for that name too (too much trouble) and there would always be the danger of having a wrong name for monarchs with many titles/crowns; ii) succession boxes with s-hou or s-hno would be the only ones to have the subject's name in them, something which would split succession boxes into two groups.

Besides, succession boxes have traditionally never included the subject's name.

• Finally, there is the Police Appointments issue and Public Offices proposal that you have not given an answer about (Ha!).

I was glad to hear from you. All this time I have been improving the proposed version; it has almost reached a level of completion suitable for posting. The only large gaps are the U.S. Congress policies, the peerage header guidelines, and some details about baronets, political-honorary offices, and distinctions. I also need approval for several other policies that I have mostly written based on the information you have given me (please read the page when you can, it has changed somewhat lately, and I need confirmation on several pieces of text followed by question marks or enclosed in square brackets.). Finally, I need to fill in the rest of the categories in the order of headers.

Hold on, Mr Whaley, this page is almost finished. Waltham, The Duke of 12:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually I am currently working at an Apple, Inc licensed retail and repair store in San Diego. However, if Wikipedia ever had any openings for paid positions, I would jump on that job like a lion on a gazelle. I know that the project is in peril constantly and we both want everything to be done with it, but life always loves getting in the way. Regardless, here I am offering my CEO-friendly advice and counsel.

1. I think anything concerning baronets should be based on the baronet wikiproject. Frankly, I just don't know enough about them and I don't like being too presumptuous regarding them. I also didn't know that there were already baronet parameters on s-reg for them, but knowing there are makes me feel a little better.
2. I will add a House of Lords #if to allow for the lords title on any s-ttl, although I will probably have to propose it first since I believe that page is currently locked. All it will be is if you type "lords" and "lordyears" it will allow you to enter both those parameters. They will appear in small font beneath the dates they held the title.
3. I will also change the headers for the senate and house switches to better fit society. However I do not really like using us-state for the states' lower houses because they are not all called the same thing but us doesn't really seem a good contrast to sen-state. Maybe we should still figure something out for this. I believe most bilateral states have an assembly, but not all do.
4. No one would ever know I changed the congress template. All I would change are internals. Check Template:succession box and see the source to see what I mean.
5. Well, education and academic seem very similar so maybe we can merge both of those into the larger merged title.
6. I like all of your shortened suggestions. Let's do it! I will vote as soon as the orders are up. I am aware that some people have been creating unnecessary s-templates without discussing it with me or the project, but that is the "magic" of WIkipedia...mass mayhem without direction. I will check out s-roy. It is not the first time that template has existed.
7. I agree. The name should be removed outright and I will do so as soon as I finish this post.
8. I thought I replied or resolved the police problem but I guess I haven't. I am still not sure what to do about it, that must be why I keep avoiding it. Propose something that sounds good for this, I will accept it and make the header. That works for me. lol.

Yay! That is all I can say about that last part. Almost over is very good.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This is madness! My head is going to implode! We need to start co-operating with the other projects before they ruin everything we have achieved because of mere lack of organisation, but this cannot happen effectively until we start working properly!

Remember s-roy? I have concluded my discourse with DBD, the man who has created Template:S-roy. Obviously, he has meant it to be a header for various titles connected to royal families. As it covers a hole in our template system I have only now discovered, I propose that we should adopt it. I have already made the changes to the proposed /Guidelines page to accommodate it. Note that another user added to the template in question parameters (and many of them) for a wide variety of royal families, just a few days ago (and right after the first time I spotted the template, something which confused me momentarily); before that there were no parameters at all.

(By the way, I have no earthly idea what exactly you were referring to when you mentioned a certain s-right template, but it does not exist. Obviously, you have meant it to be a mere example, but I am sure you could have found a real template to mention; there are several of them. You could have saved me from a lot of trouble. Well, fifteen seconds, anyway.)

And then I start realising that the user called Louis88 has done much more than add a few parameters. He has been changing templates, sometimes their colours, sometimes other things. He even has created a userbox saying "This user likes creating and elaborating succession boxes". Obviously, we must approach such users and inform them of our existence (which seems to pass more or less unnoticed in Wikipedia). I believe they will be interested in helping us, and not only make themselves an asset to our cause, but also remove one of our greatest concerns. They are acting in good faith, but sometimes they can be the cause of serious headaches.

Therefore, I propose an emergency measure: make the great change. In other words, I suggest that we should post the current version of /Guidelines as that can be found in User:The Duke of Waltham/SBS. The gaps in our policies can be demarkated and discussions for their correction be scheduled. The publicity campaign will be delayed, of course, for as long as it takes us to be ready. However, we need to have a detailed and comprehensible set of guidelines in place to convince the various lone gunmen out there to join us or at least conform to our standards and inform us of at least their most radical actions. If we leave such users unsupervised, they will eventually create a mayhem. And it will be our fault; they are acting in good faith, and we are supposed to be helping them do that constructively.

I am extremely sorry to say that I have started losing my patience with this chaos (and my exams are not exactly doing wonders for my nerves). Especially when answers like the last one you have given me about baronets suggest that you still haven't read the draft version (link above), something which has been the basis of all of my efforts for the last month. I realise it is a long page, but we cannot proceed with the guidelines if half of them are still in the first reading phase. Do the changes about the headers and the shorter template names, and then deal with this ASAP, as you say in the US. In the meanwhile, I will try and contact Louis88 and even tell him to look at the draft version instead of the proper one, in case he is not impressed. We need to at least slow him down for the moment.

Now, having addressed this, I will answer your previous message point-by-point:

1. We are almost there as far as baronets are concerned; we need almost nothing more than their styles in succession boxes. I suggest that we contact them officially right after we switch the /Guidelines page. As I have told you, this is going to take us some of your time but after that storm there is going to be a relative calmness.
2. I am not familiar with the terminology; "#if" means nothing to me. May I respectfully guess that it is going to be an optional pair of fields much like the regents' one? I think that would work fine, although I must remind you again that only hereditary Peers and Bishops of the Church of England should have it. If it is not a restriction that can be placed technically, it should be strictly enforced by our guidelines ("strictly" and "guidelines" produce an excellent oxymoron, by the way).
3. The federal congress header issue is an easy one: "United States House of Representatives" for the Lower House and "United States Senate" for the Upper House. For the other headers, I believe the official titles are the best, something along the lines of California State Assembly for the Californian Lower House and California Senate for the Upper House, Maine House of Representatives and Maine Senate for the two houses of the Maine Legislature, and so on. It is simple, official, and it cannot become any shorter. In my opinion, it's a no-brainer. (The full list may be found at List of U.S. state legislatures.)
   Unless, of course, you want a more massive solution. I am a little perfectionist, however, and I prefer individualised solutions. At least that is all you are going to hear from me. Still, if you have a clear idea about a uniform format I would like to comment on it, of course. I do believe it is difficult to create a uniform header since every header will have to include the state's name anyway. (If you can create an automatic header, of course, it would be most efficient for the Senates.)
   Now, about the trickier issue of the parameters. Elaborating on a suggestion made by myself in my previous message, I have the following to propose: use the two-letter abbreviations of the states (and us for the federal congress) in conjunction with upr for the upper houses and lwr for the lower houses. Example: s-par|us-lwr for the U.S. House of Representatives, s-par|co-upr for the Colorado Senate, and so on. The words "upr" and "lwr" is accurate and descriptive (as they are indeed upper and lower houses), and at the same time are independent of each individual state legislature's nomenclature. In addition, the whole system (area-house) is relatively short and easy to understand, and it can be used for many countries and sub-national entities. Finally, it removes all ambiguity (and solves once and for all the current problem with the generic us on one hand and the unfairly restricted to the U.S. Senate sen on the other). So, what do you think?
   (PS: if you feel there will be a problem with the lack of abbreviations for sub-national entities of many countries, it is possible to include us in the U.S. states' abbreviations in a way and do the same for the other countries—I haven't thought much about it, to be frank.)
4. About the U.S. Congress: What you say only means one thing: a template different from s-ttl is going to be prepared. What I had in mind was the regular s-ttl, probably because that is what we use for the House of Commons. Still, you should not only change the internals but also the name (the current is laughing at our standards).
5. I agree with the great merger, and I believe the best header for the new template is "Cultural and educational offices"; anything larger is out of the question, and "Academic" fits both the "cultural" and the "educational" part, I believe. I also propose s-edu as a name for the new template.
6. We need to vote for the renaming? Oh, boy. As far as the s-roy is concerned, I have answered above; I think we should keep it (this time, apparently—how many versions of it have existed before?).
7. Good work with the s-hou. Now, I have noticed s-hno is protected, and I find it very strange that s-hou is not. In any case, it should be. (That, and all the other s-templates ;))
8. With all this workload, I think I will avoid the police problem as well. It is just too low in the priority list right now. Let's leave it for later.

Now that we have finished with today's session, will you be a lad and reach for my heart pills? They must be somewhere in the bathroom cabinet. Waltham, The Duke of 12:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sick of the crap and am just going in and fixing things (finally). I also had a really slow day at work today and had some free time. You will be happy to hear that I still have not read the guidelines proposed page, but I will check it out after I write this and then fix some stuff on it. Here is what I have been working on:

1. I proposed on Template_talk:s-start that we add the House of Lords option to s-ttl. That is still pending currently.
2. I replaced the US House of Representatives with us-lwr and the senate with us-upr. I also added the option for any state OR territorial house in the United States, 110 in total, I believe. It took quite a bit of time but you can check it out at Template:s-par. The list is all inclusive.
3. I merged s-culture and s-aca into Template:s-edu. The two others have redirects currently. That way we can take our time deleting the templates. However, they should be removed from the guidelines page.
4. I went to Template:USRepSuccessionBox and Template:U.S. Senator Box; both templates are actually running under s-bef, s-ttl, and s-aft...they just have some special parameters for users so that the templates are more specific. Personally, I am fine as long as all the succession templates have the same internals as the project's. If you were referring to some other templates, please give me some links.
5. There has been one s-roy before when I was first creating the succession box. Originally that was going to be s-ttl until I decided the template should be more universal. Unfortunately, I had already created s-roy as a test and continued to use it until I finished the project.
6. I left a message at Template:s-hno to unprotect so I can sync it with Template:s-hou. I will follow up with a message to s-hou to lock that, once everything there is finalized.

I hope that speeds things along a bit. I am glad to have them done.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

More Completions

I got the Template:s-hno synced mostly with Template:s-hou now, although I couldn't make it a redirect due to a problem I caused...dumb me. The template only requires option 1 to be filled (which is fine) but the cadet branch is option 2. On s-hou that is option 6, which means they don't sync completely. Ugg. But at least I got them running from the same template.

I still have to see the guidelines page. I ran out of time with all the updates. Give me a little more time and I will check out the rest. Oh, and a suggestion for the police, etc, problem...Civil Offices. That could cover fire officials and hospital officials, too. Tell me what you think!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 02:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I will look through the guidelines page again tomorrow and add edits where I can. Overall, though, it looks good. I think inner-page links may be helpful, though. I will add those tomorrow if work is slow.–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 03:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

So, Great Khan (if you desire to be styled in a specific fashion, please let me know; you are aware of how I am supposed to be styled). I see we are at last on the final approach; templates are being improved constantly and policies are finalised. By July, I believe this WikiProject will be fully operational.

The draft version (a much better expression than the "proposed version" I have been using) has a few holes, but seems to have few other problems. As you can verify from the page's history, I have been updating it almost daily, patching holes, adding examples, and improving the phrasing of guidelines. After your approval of the material within square brackets or followed by question marks, I think we can post it (and keep working on it afterwards).

By the way, I have noticed that you have already done so for the header order part. It seems to be in order, although I believe we should include more header categories. For example, we could add s-gov and s-ppo separately in the list, find a place for s-bus and s-med together, another place for s-leg and s-ecc and so on. The list is a good start, but it is not inclusive enough to help the contributors with all these headers (if we are aiming at consistency in this respect).

And something about the links: I have already scheduled some intra-page links from general policies to specialised sections. When you say inner-page links, however, you confuse me. Maybe you meant "inter-page"? In this case you will have to elaborate because I fail to follow you.

Now, let us move on with our daily business:

1. It seems that the Lords option has been accepted and enacted, although I have no idea how to use it. I need you to give me the relevant information so that I can add it to the /Guidelines draft.
2. I am sure it has taken quite some time, the effort, however, is laudable. Well done. I have tried out several of the templates and they all look fine. Well, all except one: the s-par|us-upr, which wouldn't show up. I had a look at the Template:S-par page (an impressive list) and for the first time I checked out the internals of parameters (for a strange reason, every time I say internals in this context it brings "intestines" to my mind). Obviously, you had forgotten a plus sign. A trivial mistake, but what it can do! In any case, I have found the page simple enough to trust myself to edit it, and have rectified the mistake. I have also seized the opportunity to change the header names of the two houses of the federal Congress (with your permission, I would like to believe, as we have talked about this extensively). I hope I have done everything correctly; a quick test shows me that I have.
3. And they will be removed. Yesterday I did a reread the Project's talk pages, you know, and saw that there used to be a widespread epidemic of polyepikephalophobia (fear of too many headers). I believe the amalgamation will appease all these consciences.
   It is funny, though, now that I come to think of it, that the former battlefield called Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization is now the very personification of tranquillity. I can almost hear the birds chirping.
   I should remind you, by the way, that for every template change we make we should also update the (already public, as you well know) Template:S-start/doc page. Maybe we can wait for a few days, in order to address these more pressing concerns and finalise the alterations in the templates, but we must not delay it too long.
   And something else before I forget: there is no consistency between header titles as far as capitalisation is concerned. Should only the first word of a header have a capitalised first letter or all the nouns?
4. I was indeed referring to those templates. They look fine if you compare them with others our sorry eyes have seen, and we can take them off our list for the time being, but there are issues general compatibility, as well as special cases like that of new district creation or of a vacancy (check out this example) that must be solved some time in the future; our template system is obviously more efficient in such cases (hell, it has been designed for things like that!). Besides, their titles are abhorrently long and complicated.
5. This s-roy is completely different (if only because it is a header) and I believe we could make good use of it. So, are you in favour of the adoption and integration? The only reason I have not yet added it to the S-start/doc page is because I wouldn't want to do it without authorisation. You are still the boss, you know. :-)
6. As I have told you, I know next to nothing about these technical matters; it looks like you are on a good road, though. When you manage the change, please give me information on how the new template works (for the /Guidelines) and authorisation to request the removal of s-hno by bot, in preparation to its eventual deletion.
7. Civil offices (s-civ) as a header for police, fire, and hospital offices? It sounds good, embracing a specific category of three types of offices (none of which has many posts to be followed by succession boxes—especially the hospital offices, of which only major hospital managers seem to be eligible). I am still not sure about the title; it looks good for the fire and hospital parts, but I suddenly hate it when I think that it includes police offices as well. But I cannot think of any better title, so...

I think we have covered everything. I am going for the regular update of /Guidelines now.

I need to start thinking about archiving my talk page, by the way. Waltham, The Duke of 12:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

List of new corrections:

1. Changed Template:s-usurp to Template:s-urp. Deletion of the former can now be made.
2. Changed internals of Template:s-urp to allow it to act as a s-bef OR s-aft template, like Template:s-vac. Also added "refrom" and "reby" which result in "Reclaimed from" and "Reclaimed by" fields. See Eldacar of Gondor and Castamir the Usurper for examples (what can I say, Castamir was the only person using the template so far and it works!).
3. Added Template:s-civ. Despite the still somewhat abiguity of the title, it is the most related I could think of and police generally do fit into the form of civics, and by that I mean local, city (or country) officials.
4. I propse that all titles, since they are titles, should have all nouns capitalized to look more formal. Lower case titles I never liked that much. But we can still discuss.
5. Replaced internals of Template:s-pol to be that of Template:s-civ. Added switch feature allowing for Police Appointments, Fire Appointments, and Medical Appointments within s-civ template. Request more merges if other appointment templates already exist. We still need to switch the internals of the 25-odd pages that currently use s-pol so we can delete the template.
6. Include Template:s-roy into the series. It qualifies for the series under all the correct parameters and fills a void we have for royal titles. Originally I would place those under regnal titles, but I think this parameter works better. We may need to change Template:s-reg so that the switch does not produce "Regnal titles."
7. Thanks for fixing s-par|us-upr, I never had a chance to check any of them.
8. I will work on template rules for some of the new templates and send a copy to you and one to the relavent template pages. I rather like being able to go to a template and seeing its instructions there.
9. Using the "lords" option in s-ttl is the same as using "regent." The keywords are "lords" and "lordyears." The only difference is (after it is included and fixed due to an error I made), the "Member of the House of Lords" field is mandatorily added when a editor adds "|lords|"

That is all for now. Tomorrow is my long day and I will attempt to clean up the guidelines page then.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 01:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

My exams have finally caught up with me, so I may be less accessible these days. I can write messages, something I do from home, but I cannot do much on-the-spot editing. I am afraid, thus, that I can only handle public relations and leave the main bulk of technical work and editing to you.

1. You say that deletion of s-usurp may proceed, so I trust it is not currently used in any succession boxes. I shall put the template up for deletion, as well as notify the template's creator for the name change personally.
2. Ah, testing a new template in a fictional character's succession box—that's the Wikipedia way to do things! In any case, the template works perfectly; it is also nice to see the predecessor-successor symmetry (I still remember the arguments about the "constituency created"-"constituency abolished" pair of s-par). I shall update the S-start/doc page.
3. Well, one must accept the lesser of two (or more) evils, I suppose.
4. Of course we can discuss. The header is not as much a title as it is a characterisation of the titles in the succession boxes that follow; I would say it qualifies more as a category name. I believe they should be written like sentences (just think of that: doesn't Political offices look much better in a header than Political Offices?).
5. The consolidation of templates is always a good thing, especially in related headers, although the ease with which a template's parameters can be edited may turn out to be a double-edged sword (that is, unless the template is protected). Also, the fact that we have a parameter "med" solves the problem of having a template with the same name as another (s-med, for media.)
6. The guidelines draft has already been adjusted to accommodate s-roy; I will now take care of the S-start/doc page. Actually, there are several things that need to be fixed in that page.
7. What was that about the "Regnal titles" header? It is indeed a word I am not very familiar with, and I am sure there are better ones to substitute it, but you must have something in mind. My preference is "Royal titles", but there might be a confusion with the "Royalty" header. (There is also "Regal titles", but something tells me this is not exactly appropriate.)
8. When you say "template rules" you mean rules on how to use or on how to edit templates? (Or both?)
9. After all, it may be a good idea to add the Lords tag; that would show (in occasions) which of a person's peerages grants them the right to sit in the House of Lords.
   Am I right to believe that all the regents tag and lords tag are incompatible with each other? It would be plausible, and it would cause no problems either; there are no regents in peerages and dioceses.
   Another question: Is the lordyears optional? I believe it should not.
   Anyway, this makes for yet another update for the S-start/doc page. I should also make a mention in the Parliamentary offices section of the guidelines draft.
   You have not answered this, though: do you agree that the seven people always entitled to a seat in the House of Lords by virtue of their title (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, the Lord Great Chamberlain, and the Earl Marshal) should not have that label added to their succession boxes, the seat in the Lords being virtually part of their title?

So, I will do the edits in the two pages and propose the s-usurp for deletion (when I have time), and then I am supposed to start studying. Well, we will see about that.

Unicorn, I hate life. Waltham, The Duke of 06:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Lords template not working

Well, that, and I needed another header to split the conversation with. Waltham, The Duke of 07:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Is too! I just changed it without telling you (see below)
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 07:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I know the feeling. I hate finals. Ugg. I actually did a few more things to the guidelines page and created a new template.

• I never had time to update this page with the additions. I added a new header: Template:s-rel for religious titles and included switches for the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churchs as well as switches for Islam, Shia-Islam, and Sunni-Islam. Check out Abu Bakr for an example of this template.
• I had to test and rerelease the lords option. This time all you do is type "lords" and enter the years. The phrase: "Member of the House of Lords" appears naturally before the years. I wanted to do something else, but it didn't work.
• Since I had Template:s-ttl open anyway, I tried adding parameters to merge the USRepSuccessionBox and U.S. Senator Box but neither worked. I think they will have to stay independent for now.
• I am not sure about permanent seats. While they are always seated, I think it still may be helpful for researchers (once Wikipedia is finally validated as a proper source) to jog their memory, especially if they are unfamiliar with British titles and governance.
• The lords tag should be perfectly compatible with regents. I don't see why it wouldn't be.
• Thinking back on it, perhaps keeping the titles as sentences is more proper. Re:newspaper headlines.
• To replace regnal titles (the source of "s-reg"), we could use "Noble titles" since that implies a separation from the regnal class, or royalty. We used to have s-nob, but it sounded awkward and was too seldom used.

Okay, got to go. Good luck on finals!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 07:51, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

How dare you change things without telling me?! Thankfully, the change was a good thing; I mean, why have an extra piece of code when it would be so ridiculous to have the lords label without years? Minimalism is a good thing here.

Let us move on to the daily business:

1. So, I suppose we need to start preparing the deletion of s-ecc as well? I will replace it in the guidelines draft, anyway. I like the colour, by the way.
2. I have checked it and it works; I will update (again) the Template:S-start/doc page.
3. The United Settlements of America get to keep their boxes, for the time being. However, should we make mention of them in our guidelines page? I suppose we should, as the templates are somewhat compatible and we have no alternative at the moment. I have a question, though: what templates are we going to use on state and territorial legislatures? The USRepSuccessionBox and U.S. Senator Box are only suitable for the federal Congress.
4. I think you are right about the permanent seats; in addition, the situation with the seats was not always like that, and since this is a label and not a second title in the succession box, we may make an exception from the "concurrent titles" guideline (a seat in the Lords is not honorary, after all).
5. Indeed, there is no reason why they should not be compatible. Technically, that is, because there is absolutely no reason to place those two in the same succession box. I have explained this to you, I believe—you cannot hold a seat in the Lords with another person!
6. So, first letter capital. I have enough time today to start the deletion discussion for s-usurp, but not for the headers as well. I will do that another day.
   Now that I mention it, explain me this, please: How is it that the person who has created the template is not in the template's history? The only two edits there are your redirect and my deletion notice! I like a good detective story, but this is just ridiculous.
   In any case, you can comment on the deletion here; I believe I do not need to post a link to you again.
7. You say s-nob is awkward? I would say it is snobbish. :-)
   In any case, this header will only appear for monarchs, so "Noble titles" is not suitable anyway. As neither Wiktionary nor my spell-checker know what "regnal" means, I think we should indeed rename it. "Regal titles" is a good alternative in my opinion, at least until we find a more proper substitute ("Monarchical titles" seems a little awkward to me, even though accurate); there is no real rush. Your thoughts?

Other issues:

1. Do you know anything about making links to article sections easier? I just wish there was a better way to do that than type the entire section heading. I have found nothing myself, and so I have had to remove pipes from headers because they ruin piped links to sections.
2. What guidelines should we have about the inclusion of headers in small succession boxes containing offices of the same type? I know we have headers to separate offices by type (and so this is outside their definition), but we already have templates like s-reg and s-par that we cannot omit, so there is a precedent.
3. I could not help noticing that you have added a "Local assembly" header to s-par (when I first saw the la parameter I thought of the London Assembly. It has not left me entirely satisfied; I find it a little too general. Would you care to explain your thinking (we need a guideline on that too, obviously)?
4. How is the s-hou-s-hno consolidation coming up? Any progress? I have removed the other mentions of s-hno in Template:S-start/doc and only left its main section.
   On a side note, as far as said page is concerned, you must have noticed that I only leave links to templates in the initial list and nowhere else in the page (I italicise template names instead). That is so because I believe that a) going to the template's page will not help in any way those trying to figure out how to use templates from the S-start/doc page, and b) edits to templates should be few and careful, and linking to template pages makes massive edits (or worse, vandalism) much easier. Just so you would know. We can discuss this little quirk of mine, of course, even though it is somewhat irrelevant with what we are working on at the moment.
5. Another style issue: don't you think it is possible for contributors to be confused a little with the state abbreviations? I am referring to the s-par template, of course. The thing is, most of them are identical with the official postal abbreviations, and people might be "tricked" into thinking that we are using those, thus inserting the wrong parameters into the template without looking at the list. Only few abbreviations are different, and I have no problem with them whatsoever, but the change might just make things a little bit easier for contributors. What do you think?
6. And I still don't know what you meant by "template rules".

So, I will leave you to answer this block of text and I will momentarily turn my back to the solitary confinement of my room in order to join my family; it is lunchtime here. Waltham, The Duke of 10:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have fixed the headers. I also have something to show you: if thou desire to learn how to change a succession box into a joke, I suggest that you should look at the second box of the s-urp section of Template:S-start/doc. Waltham, The Duke of 14:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I see that you have added a gb parameter to Template:s-roy. Reasonable, one would say, but there is already a uk parameter there, which produces the exact same result: British royalty. I call that redundant; other people might use more unflattering words. Please choose which one we should delete. Waltham, The Duke of 14:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I propose that we your next reply be brief, not because I don't like talking to you, but because we should get a very simple list of what needs to be finished so I can truly see how close we are to finishing. Perhaps a completion list and a to-do list. I will start. I see the end almost here, so we should get as much done as possible. I am now full time at my new job so will have more time to work.

• Template:s-ecc: I created Template:s-rel to broaden the title to include all religions. For s-ecc, we need a bot to covert all the instances of "s-ecc" to "s-rel|" which will make them all generic. At a later point in time we may add more specific titles (i.e., "Church of England titles").
• Template:USRepSuccessionBox and Template:U.S. Senator Box: I can further edit Template:s-ttl to make them nearly identical to the current legislature boxes, but replacing the old ones may be a bit harder. I propose that we do not advertise them and I will try to update the s-ttl a bit more to work the same way.
• Regnal: adj. of a reign or monarch. It is a simple word to refer to monarchial titles and their reigns, and therefore the perfect word we could use. But I think the new Template:s-roy is a lot better since it allows for multiple royal titles. "Regnal titles" should be replaced with "Titles of nobility." However why do we have a Template:s-nob? What does this do that Template:s-reg doesn't? It seems to just be splitting the two for no apparent reasons. Any titles of nobility for Britain would be a part of the British or English Peerage, am I right? I think we should either merge s-nob and s-reg, then delete s-reg, or stop the use of s-nob before it goes out of control.
• The only way I know of making in-page links is listing the entire section header after a #. I wish it were easier.
• If a there is a succession list with titles of the same type, then the lists should just go beneath the single title. We don't need a title for every line of the lists.
• On that note, I propose that we make a rule that each line of a succession list may only have one title line. I just cleaned up Juan Carlos I of Spain because of two cases of multiple titles, including one that implied a title in pretence is a French title, which can never be the case since it is only in pretence.
• I actually tried to use only official state postal abbreviations for those lists so if one of them is wrong, it should be changed. Either change the incorrect ones or point them out to me and I will fix them.
• I will make some template rules on a page to show you. Give me some time, though.
• I like the "King of the World" title. Definitely a pretence, maybe not a usurper, though.
  –Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 18:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Check out Template:s-fam for an example of a template with an instructions page.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I have created a page for following updates and such for all s- templates. It is a simple link from my page but with it, I think we can better monitor what changes are being made. Most of the links I derived from Category:Succession templates page although I am sure some escaped me. Also, I merged Template:s-cite and Template:s-ref, choosing the latter as the better option, partially because that title falls into the three character standard. I've begun adding instructions to some pages and simple source in most pages. I also want to propose some further merges but I will mention those later.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines nearing completion

At least we hope they are. I shall break my post up in order to maintain some order here, the first list including "Things to do" (matters of high priority), the second "Completed tasks" (matters in no need of an answer, unless there is a new problem or idea pertaining to them), the third "Miscellaneous questions and style issues" (matters of lower priority), and the fourth "Other notes" (matters almost irrelevant). Things are just not as simple as we should wish them to be.

Class A list:

• Template:s-ecc: I shall propose the s-ecc for conversion to s-rel| as soon as you clear two issues:
  • Why does s-ecc not work?
  • It seems that you have not yet created the general s-rel| for the substitution to be valid.
• I will trust you on this and retain "Regnal". However, I am somewhat confused by the situation you describe. My views are:
  • Keep regnal titles separate from other titles in royal families, as there is a vast difference in importance if not anything else.
  • Keep the templates consolidated: retain s-reg and its parameters and save ourselves all the trouble of changing to s-nob (which does sound funny—a template called "snob"?!).

Therefore, I suggest that we should do nothing else than remove s-nob from circulation altogether.

• I believe you have missed my point on headers entirely. What I meant to say is: when you only have a couple of succession boxes for a non-royal (thus not eligible for s-hou), all of which are of the same type, should we follow current practice and not include a header at all in most occasions (see Pope John Paul II for an example) or should we always include headers in our succession boxes?
  Note that headers have been initially created to separate different succession boxes, so electing the latter option would expand our guidelines on headers.
• I am citing lack of time as a reason for my inability to do the abbreviation changes myself, so I am afraid you will have to do it. The full list may be found at United States postal abbreviations. Please change both the s-par template page and the guidelines draft.
• I request authorisation to propose the conversion of s-cite to s-ref, that of s-pol to s-civ|pol, and those of s-aca and s-culture to s-edu.

Class B list:

• Point taken (as far as U.S. legislature boxes are concerned): I shall leave the notice in the /Guidelines draft as is.
• I have removed all pipes from header titles in the Guidelines draft, so all intra-page links should work now (i.e. as soon as the switch is done).
• Nice work, Mr Whaley, instructions in template pages are no doubt very useful. Be careful not to allow any discrepancies between the individual template pages and the centralised Guidelines page, though.

Class C list:

• The article title feature has returned to s-hou? How on earth has that happened?
• The cleanup page will help with the template system improvement effort, I believe.
  • For one thing, it will help us keep track of new templates. Templates like s-weather, s-ach, s-court, s-suc, and s-lead are all new to me.
    • One of them s-suc should be deleted, I believe, as the Line of Succession to the British throne is now under s-roy.
    • Another completely useless, in my opinion, template is s-lead. It makes little sense and it does not fit in our template system.
    • On the other hand, I like the s-court template; I had been thinking of the possibility of a separate header for Royal Household appointments. I request your authorisation to include it in the Guidelines draft and the S-start/doc header list.
  • By the way, s-urp is a predecessor/successor option, not a title one. You might want to change that.
  • The conversion of s-cite to s-ref is all right because it is a simple renaming (simple for a bot, that is), but more complex and potentially controversial changes should be discussed first.

Class D list:

• I had been thinking about adding a shortcut to the Project's talk page, but I was unsure. I suppose that dilemma no longer applies; we have a shortcut now (WT:SBS).
• The "King of the World" title was the idea of the person who first created the s-usurp template, and I have only expanded on the concept. I would direct your attention to the last usurper, Leonardo (and the year, 1912).

Sorry for not being able to curtail the size of my posts, but at least you get a feeling of priorities here. At least I hope you do. Waltham, The Duke of 12:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Update:

• Class A:
  • In my hurry to receive an answer about my headers question I failed to fully grasp the meaning of your own proposal when I posted my last message. Yes, I agree that headers should always be alone. Actually, I find it quite stupid to start combining headers as if we were using the Dewey Decimal System. The Wikitables will look overloaded and give the impression of missing boxes. I have written the guideline and put it in the draft page, and I would like you to answer my own question now.
• Class B:
  • I have changed the wrong state abbreviations myself, after all. In the draft page, that is; BrownHairedGirl has locked Template:S-par and so I have had to ask her to do the changes there.
• Class C:
  • I would like to remind you of two questions you have not yet answered:
    • Please explain to me the concept behind the la parameter of s-par (reading "Local assembly").
    • Which parameter should we remove from Template:S-roy—gb or uk? One of them two is inescapably redundant, as they both produce the same header, "British royalty".
• Class D:
  • Should we move this conversation to the WikiProject's talk page after all? I have yet to see the response from the WikiNation that would justify such an action, although being bossed around by an administrator may qualify as good enough a reason. ;-)

The truth is out there, Mr Whaley. Can you bring it to me? Waltham, The Duke of 10:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

EMERGENCY BOT NEEDED! Your excellence, can you contact a bot to replace all instances of {{s-gov}} into {{s-gov|}} adding the pipe option? An admin overrode my edits to s-gov because the pipe was missing, thereby screwing up titles on pages, and then she locked the template. Unfortunately, by doing that she also killed six redirects I had created and nulled an option I had included on the page. Please, post as soon as you get this and have contacted your bot friend. Thanks!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 05:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, this looks rather like forum-shopping :(. KuatofKDY's edits broke a high-use template, and the proposed work-around is a kludge which should not be necessary to make the template work. I have therefore opposed the bot request, and reverted the redirects. It's a great pity that KuatofKD/WhaleyLand did not have the courtesy to reply to my concerns rather than ploughing on regardless. I have asked KuatofKD/WhaleyLand to seek consensus before implementing these changes, preferably at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization#s-gov_broken. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Having just read more of the preceding discussion, I am surprised to see Whaley requesting "authorisation" here of changes not proposed at the project page, particularly when some of the changes appear to involve the same problem of requiring a pipe. Changes to high-use templates such as these should be discussed in a public place, rather than on user talk pages ... and broken changes should simply be reverted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Accepting Ms BrownHairedGirl's request for a more public conversation, I shall answer in the WikiProject's talk page. Waltham, The Duke of 15:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Whaleyland Replies

I am combining the two lists and will reply to everything, even if it is now being discussed on WT:SBS. I am, however, merging the two lists. Class A list:

• We need to implement that new code that doesn't require the pipe into s-reg to make it work perfectly with s-ecc and allow the latter's replacement.
• We need to keep s-reg until we can replace it entirely with s-nob or remove s-nob. The royalty factor of the template has already been replaced with s-roy. I agree, snob needs to be removed and taken off all lists. I will begin the work of replacing the internals on the linked pages.
• I think most suc boxes should have a header if they can have one, even titles like pope which could use the Catholic leader header available in s-rel. I think it would make headers a lot more important and provide people with a little more knowledge.
• I would edit the s-par but it is locked right now. I swear I kept with the real abbreviations everywhere. I will have to check sometime when I have more time.
• By all means request s-cite to s-ref and s-pol to s-civ|pol. I think the recent debate over s-aca, s-culture, and s-edu are rather disputed right now.
• Thank you for updating the guidelines, I will check them out shortly.

Class B list:

• Yay for intrapage links!
• I will probably create and take the same instructions from the instructions page to make the individual instructions on pages.

Class C list:

• I discussed the name option in s-hou with User:Fabartus, the user who added the option, and for the time being I agreed to reinclude it with the new option that the name can be changed with the parameter "name=". I see some potential for trouble with this addition but it may be helpful, especially for those really long pages.
• I want to add to the cleanup page all pages that have already been deleted, all proposed additions, and all proposed deletions and merges. The templates listed also should be part of the category, succession lists (or whatever it is named).
• I still say s-lead itself is worthless, although the concepts contained within it may be important.
• Include s-court. It should be included, although I still don't like the name.
• I fixed s-urp for you. It is in the top now and s-usurp is in the pending deletion/merge section
• S-cite to s-ref seemed somewhat of a natural choice. I was also dumb when I made it because I didn't realize s-ref could just be placed within s-cite, or better yet, they could be switched.
• I never added the la option for s-par. I have no idea why there is a Local Assembly option. It sounds rather odd.
• I think gb should be removed from s-roy because uk is a more common abbreviation for Britain.

Class D list:

• Okay, now I get what you mean. Poor Leo...he died so...quaintly? The only remaining question is, why didn't he stay dead?
• I think moving all future conversations to WT:SBS is a good idea, even with an administrator watching every move. Unfortunately, the admin is just doing her job, even if it seems to get in the way of all our conversations. At least it will all be on the same forum.

Follow up Proposal: Do you think all the talk pages for the s- series boxes should redirect to the WP:SBS talk page? Is that even allowed. It would make discussions about changing succession boxes easier and allow people to interact with the group more efficiently.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 22:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
BTW, sorry about not cluing you into stuff, I guess I was overstressed. I think everything is going well now. Keep on editing!

TfD nomination of Template:S-suc

Template:S-suc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 06:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

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The continuation of the above discussion may be found in the talk page archives of WikiProject Succession Box Standardization