Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Completed proposals

This is the repository of all past proposals submitted to the editing body of the project for discussion and voting. Proposals are archived separately from the rest of the talk page's discussions because of the greater attention they have received, as well as due to the usefulness of the existence of a distinct page where one may trace the history of the project's actions and find out why certain ideas have been accepted or discarded.

Proposals are archived in three sections, depending on their outcome. The most recent ones are placed at the top of their respective sections, with the closing date given in the heading within parentheses.

Approved proposals

(2008-01-26) Proposal: Adoption of banner for succession templates' talk pages

I have created a banner to be installed in all succession templates' talk pages, in order to encourage editors to leave their messages in this page instead of the individual talk pages (which are not much watched), and even suggest to them the option of actively participating in SBS. I believe that these talk pages ought to exist (as opposed to being simple redirects to Template talk:S-start), so that "editprotected" tags and other important messages may be left in the appropriate pages. The template in question I have entitled Template:SBS template and here is how it looks like (now):

I am in no doubt that the banner can be improved in many different ways, so ideas are, of course, most welcome. I am not certain about whether I want to have a vote on the template right now; I should rather gather opinions first, test the waters. There are, after all, several different models for such templates, and perhaps the will of the project will be to adopt a version different from this one. Waltham, The Duke of 17:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Update: Now that I think of it, it might be better if the members voted on the principle here, and then the template tweaking process can commence. Waltham, The Duke of 10:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Support, better documents what we're trying to do. The format can always be tweeked as needed. Mikebar (talk) 07:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support, per reasoning above. Waltham, The Duke of
• Support: I agree (and may be back as soon as Michaelmas is over).
  –Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 18:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not sure what you mean here. Michaelmas was eleven weeks ago. Maybe you wanted to say "Yule"? Waltham, The Duke of 00:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support: Centralized discussion is good, and more participants here wouldn't hurt either. Choess (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - based on all the above. John Carter (talk) 21:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support per Waltham and Choess. Alkari (?), 25 January 2008, 03:18 UTC

I think I have left this here long enough. I declare this proposal officially (and unanimously) approved; SBS now has a banner. Well, almost. While the principle has been approved, there is still the precise form of the banner to be taken care of. Shall we trim it down a little? Change the image? Please comment. Waltham, The Duke of 11:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I see that there is an organisational problem here. I shall create a new section about the format of the banner, and archive this separately, together with the other proposals. After all, the principle has been approved. Waltham, The Duke of 17:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

(Official archiving note) The proposal has been approved (6-0-0), and I have subsequently started a discussion for the final form of the banner. This poll was terminated at 11:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC) and transferred from the main talk page at 14:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC). Thank you all for your participation. Waltham, The Duke of

(2008-01-26) Motion: Closure of proposals

This is purely a matter of process. I think that a guideline ought to exist for proposals, in order to prevent arbitrarily early closures.

I hereby propose that all proposals are left in this page for at least ten (10) days before being closed. I also propose that the quorum for votes is five (5), meaning that a proposal cannot be considered to have either passed or failed with less than five members voting. Proposals that are left for too long (a few months, perhaps) without satisfying this limit will fail automatically, and will have to be re-submitted if there is still interest.

As we are a small project, I do not yet feel that it is necessary to set a specific percentage of approval votes that will need to be exceeded for a proposal to pass. But I shall not object if one is suggested.

It is not that I like increasing bureaucracy; I just wish to make official a practice that will confirm the validity of our polls. Waltham, The Duke of 10:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• Support, per reasoning above. Waltham, The Duke of
• Support, consistent with many projects Mikebar (talk) 05:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support: I always considered this a de facto rule so I guess it makes since to make it an official talk page guideline (can we put it at the top of the page?!). I approve wholeheartedly.
  –Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 18:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I have prepared the intro exactly in order to accommodate the new guideline, should it be approved. I am referring to the second-to-last paragraph. I hope you agree with what it says; the guideline is meant to be added to that paragraph as an extension. Waltham, The Duke of 16:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I don't want to layer too much process on here, but this makes these votes a bit less of an exercise in futility. Choess (talk) 16:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support - with the provision that polls be kept open for longer if there are significant legal or other holidays falling within the period of discussion. If the polls were to close on the third day of a rare four-day weekend, for instance, there is a very good chance that there would be few if any votes tallied. John Carter (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh, certainly, this is the minimum time period during which a poll shall be left open, designed to prevent polls from closing super-quickly. The other end is left completely open (as you can see for yourself by looking at the top of the page: the proposal about the colours of headers has been sitting there since July... Waltham, The Duke of 22:02, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support per Waltham and Choess. Alkari (?), 25 January 2008, 03:18 UTC

The motion has been unanimously approved (6-0-0), and the intro of the main talk page has subsequently been amended by myself in order to show the consensus. This poll was terminated at 11:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC) and transferred from the aforementioned talk page at 23:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC). Thank you all for voting. Waltham, The Duke of

(2007-12-16) Proposal: Expanded numeral disambiguation criteria

My bill for the expansion of the disambiguation criteria for peers and baronets has passed through the Lords (as you can see here), and now I am submitting it here. What I am proposing is the following: that we should not disambiguate solely between different peers with the same titles that are the predecessor and successor respectively to the same title, but that we disambiguate between all such peers in any given succession box. The same should apply to baronets with the same names and numerals.

In the following example, the first box follows the guidelines as they currently stand, while the second box conforms to the guidelines as amended per my proposal.

You can see how awkward the first box looks, with the same title being repeated for the successors but actually referring to different people; editors might even want to try to join them before they see the different links (if they see them). All in all, I believe this small change will make succession boxes clearer and minimise confusion. Waltham, The Duke of 16:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• Obviously, I support the amendment. Does anyone else? Waltham, The Duke of
• Support; this should help reduce confusion. Alkari (?) 6 December 2007 01:34 UTC
• Support -- seems to make sense. Guroadrunner (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support per my comments elsewhere. Choess (talk) 03:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support, it just makes sense. Mikebar (talk) 07:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support: I entirely support. I never liked having ambiguous titles as successors.
  –Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 18:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The proposal has been approved (6-0-0), and the guidelines have subsequently been amended by myself in order to conform with this proposal's provisions. This poll was terminated at 00:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC) and transferred from the main talk page at 22:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC). Thank you all for voting. Waltham, The Duke of

(2007-11-05) Proposal: Removal of dates in parliament headers

About a month ago, the brunette administrator added disambiguation dates to the headers for the Parliaments of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. As a result, their current appearance is the following:

I do not like this. For various reasons:

1. The names of the parliaments are enough to help anyone distinguish them—England is a different thing from Great Britain which is different from the United Kingdom. Most people either know this or can easily surmise it without disambiguation dates, and if not they can always click on the header itself and have a look for the article of the respective parliament.
2. Even those people who cannot understand the distinction will notice the dates of the various MPs' terms' dates, which will, of course, be within the limits of the time periods in which the corresponding parliaments existed. It is not easy to persuade one that the Parliament of England is a modern body if one can only see MPs from the seventeenth century and earlier.
3. In addition, it is not the purpose of succession box headers to give any more information but what is necessary for the reader to understand what office is tracked here; the dates seem to be more helpful to the contributors than to the readers, and I believe this is wrong. Contributors can look at the template's page and at our guidelines page if there is something they do not understand.
4. Besides, the dates in headers go against standardisation and make the headers look different from all the other headers. Furthermore, the text within the headers is supposed to resemble a simple heading (which is precisely why we only capitalise the first letter of the first word and no other in most headers); dates do not help in this respect. On top of that, the dates make the header text longer than it should (which could cause a feeling of cramming) and the fact that only half of the header is linked creates an unpleasant lack of symmetry in the colour of the lettering.
5. And even if we accept that disambiguation dates are useful, they might work against the purpose of their creation: instead of seeing that a parliament existed for the years given, a person completely unacquainted with British history and politics might think that the years are disambiguating between parliaments with the same name. I know this is a little far-fetched, but it is not that hard to imagine someone seeing the header "Parliament of Great Britain (1707–1800)" and wondering what happened between that and the next "Parliament of Great Britain"...

I have attempted to contact BrownHairedGirl twice about this issue, but have received no answer due to her prolonged absense. I have thus decided to bring this matter to the attention of the project. Waltham, The Duke of 10:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

So. Should dates be removed from the English and British parliament headers?

• I support the removal. Waltham
• Support: I never liked them much. –Whaleyland
• Support the removal - dates are unnecessary due to unique names - particularly as they are wiki-linked. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 08:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Alkari (?) 22:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support They seem to be superfluous, particularly in the presence of the linked names. Choess 00:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The proposal to remove dates from the British parliaments' headers has been approved and an administrator has been notified of the approved proposal and implemented the change. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.
Waltham, The Duke of 12:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(2007-07-30) Proposal: Color change for Template:s-dip

Alright, this is the last of three proposals to change some of the header colors. The following is the original color for s-dip and my proposal for a different color, keeping it within the same pink lines:

And for the proposal:

You may either vote on this or propose an alternative to the color I choose. I picked a lighter one to appease the brightness censors.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 20:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve – Whaleyland

This is good Atropos 00:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be a little brighter...this color is hard to see. It's better than the original overly bright color, but not by much. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 16:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve. Alkari (?) 23:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What about this one? It's a little darker than the alternative, but retains the tincture.

Approve - Waltham

Approve --Tim4christ17 ^talk 08:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve. Alkari (?) 20:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the best one. Atropos 05:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Support: This one definitely fits the best.—Whaleyland

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The proposal to change the color of the header Template:s-dip to FACEFF has been approved and an admin has been notified of the approved proposal. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.

(2007-07-24) Proposal: Template:s-par remove the parameter la (Local assembly) from the parameter list

Do you think we should remove the la parameter? We do not really need it; it is too general, and our parliamentary headers are normally very specific (not to mention the usually low importance of local assemblies).

Approve – Waltham, The Duke of 14:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve – la is just a parameter waiting to have problems.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve per Waltham and Whaleyland; furthermore, LA is the ISO 3166 code for Laos and thus shouldn't be used for "local assembly". Alkari (?) 23:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I've put an edit request to delete this parameter has per the reasons Alkari noted. Despite the discussion, I believe this problem overpowers anything else. I will also remove the headers for any page currently using the la parameter so they will not end up with blank headers.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The proposal to remove the parameter la from Template:s-par passed and has been enacted. All instances of that parameter have been removed or redirected. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(2007-07-23) Proposal: Template:s-pol merged into Template:s-civ

As police appointments are relatively few, and probably too few to warrant their own template, Whaleyland and myself have decided that it is better to substitute it with s-civ ("Civic offices"), a template with parameters for police, fire, and medical appointments. As these three categories of offices are related to each other and none of them is large enough to warrant its own header, we believe the change is a sound one.

However, in order to convert all instances of s-pol to s-civ|pol there is no other way than to do it by hand or by bot – redirects will not work for specific parameters. A clear consensus is necessary for the task request to be accepted in Bot Requests, however, so I would like to hear your opinion. Waltham, The Duke of 12:15, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I myself support the conversion. Waltham, The Duke of

Support: After adding in a #default parameter, I believe this will be a good replacement for a small title.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions )

Support; this change seems logical and sensible. Alkari (?) 21:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Support - makes sense. Any idea how many of them there are, though? If there aren't too many I could do a run with AWB. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 11:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment: There are 114 pages that would need to be changed.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 19:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll put AWB on it right away. It seems pretty clear that we've got consensus for the change. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 16:06, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done  :)
Note that the actual merger/redirect of {{s-pol}} will still have to be completed and any relevant documentation changed. But the transclusions have been changed to {{s-civ|pol}} --Tim4christ17 ^talk 03:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The proposal to move all instances of Template:s-pol to Template:s-civ using the |pol parameter has been approved. All transclusions have been redirected to the appropriate template and a deletion request is pending for the removal of s-pol. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

(2007-07-16) Proposal: Template:s-par change upr and lwr to sen and hs for United States headers

Since few, if any, people are using the new s-par parameters yet for US states and territories, we may want to work out a solution to that discussion now, before reversion becomes impossible. Currently, it would take virtually no work to replace all the instances of upr and lwr in s-par to sen and hs. Three clicks in MS Word find and replace, and then just repaste it to the page (pending admin approval). But if we are going to change it, we need to do so soon. I somewhat agree with Tim4Christ17, although I do always like the transnationalness of this project (despite the abundance of Britishness about it, lol).

Proposal: Template:s-par change of US state and territorial legislatures from upr and lwr to sen and hs. Vote!

Approve
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 06:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Weak approval—I grudgingly accept the confusion that upr and lwr may create in the United States. However, these may work better for Westminster system and European parliaments. Waltham, The Duke of 16:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Approve - clarity is paramount. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 19:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• Seeing no further comment, I've put an editprotected request at {{s-par}} --Tim4christ17 ^talk 10:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Seeing an apparent objection from Waltham here, let's revisit this.
Proposal: Template:s-par change as above, specifying that legislatures that are "assemblies" rather than "houses" or "senates" use the "asy" parameter. Same logic as above - reduce confusion while enhancing accuracy and retaining standardization. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 20:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve --Tim4christ17 ^talk 20:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove – it will not retain standardisation to use an asy parameter for the no more than six lower houses that are called "Assembly"; on the contrary, it will make the scheme more confused and look like there are more than two types of houses in bicameral legislatures, which is even more confusing. Waltham, The Duke of 14:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove – Using hs is much better than asy as per Waltham.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal Approved: The initial proposal to replace all cases of upr and lwr to sen and hs within United States legislative headers passed and was implemented. The discussion for this proposal has been moved here for archive purposes. Thank you to everyone who voted.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 23:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

(2007-07-12) Proposal: Additional Parameter in Template:s-bef and Template:s-aft

Proposal: As per a request I received some weeks ago from the individual responsible for all the double headers and screwy succession boxes throughout the French pages, I promised I would propose this revision to s-bef and s-aft. This small edit would allow title changes to be added in a preset format within the s-bef and s-aft templates as in the example below:

to

The later case uses an optional parameter, "as", added in after the name of the predecessor or successor thus allowing one to place title changes without having to resort to breaking up the template's code flow internally (adding lots of breaks and style additions and subtractions).

Give me your votes!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 17:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• Approve: I think this will standardize change of title fields across wikipages more smoothly than the current format.–Whaleyland
• Strong approve; this should greatly aid consistency and ease of use. Alkari (?) 22:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
• Approve: I like efforts to replace that sort of bodged-in text with parameters. Choess 17:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
• Strongly approve: this will better "enforce" the guidelines for name changes and will make it easier for new editors to create succession boxes with the correct format for content (and will help to completely eliminate those odd cases of double successor cells). Waltham, The Duke of 09:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support: Excellent idea. Get more info into less screen space without hardcoded hacks and kludges. — MrDolomite • Talk 11:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal APPROVED: This discussion has been closed and the proposal has passed with a unanimous vote from the current active members. I have notified the administrators of the passed proposal and am currently pending the replacement of the current source code with the new code.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Rejected proposals

(2007-07-11) Proposal: Wider succession boxes

A proposal has been forwarded by User:Fabartus to expand the size of succession boxes from the current standard, which is based on a 30-40-30 percentage rate with no relevance to the actual page width to a mandatory 100 percent width, that would appear in most cases as a full page span consistent with that of Navigation templates that often follow a succession box. The following are examples of that template in action routed through a test template found at User:KuatofKDY/Template:s-start.

Original {{s-start}} (simple)

Proposed {{s-start}} (simple)

Preceded by Athelstan

King of England 939–946

Succeeded by Edred

Original {{s-start}} (standard)

Proposed {{s-start}} (standard)

Hirohito Imperial House of Japan Born: April 29 1901 Died: January 7 1989
Regnal titles
Preceded by Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito)	Emperor of Japan December 25, 1926 – January 7, 1989	Succeeded by Akihito present emperor

Original {{s-start}} (advanced, with Navigation box)

Proposed {{s-start}} (advanced, with Navigation box)

Henry VIII of England House of Tudor Born: June 28 1491 Died: January 28 1547
Regnal titles
Preceded by Henry VII	King of England April 22 1509 – January 28 1547	Succeeded by Edward VI
	Lord of Ireland 1509 – 1541	Declared king by an act of the Irish Parliament
Vacant Title last held by Edward Bruce	King of Ireland 1541 – 1547	Succeeded by Edward VI
Peerage of England
New title	Duke of York 1494 – 1509	Merged in crown
Preceded by Arthur	Prince of Wales 1502–1509	Vacant Title next held by Edward VI
Political offices
Preceded by Sir William Scott	Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 1493 – 1509	Succeeded by Sir Edward Poyning

If approved, this template change will be implemented into Template:s-start and effect all templates that currently use {{s-start}}, {{start}}, or {{start box}}. Let the voting begin! (A copy of this proposal is also located at Template_talk:s-start.
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 08:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve! – This change will make the template more consistent across Wikipedia articles and allow for some more space to write before a break is required in a succession box template.

Strong approval – This change will:

• Make succession boxes more consistent
• Utilise the space now lost at both sides of succession boxes
• Reduce the impression of crammed succession boxes
• Make large successions shorter

And can someone please fix this page? It is ridiculously wide. Waltham, The Duke of 11:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove. I don't find the proposed change very aesthetically pleasing, and I don't see that it would provide any great benefit. Since the boxes automatically expand to fit their contents, the only space being "lost" is that which wouldn't be used anyway. Likewise, the boxes already make themselves as wide (horizontally) as necessary, and therefore as short (vertically) as possible, so this change wouldn't make long successions shorter than they already are. Alkari (?) 22:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, they are as wide as is necessary for the words to fit inside, and therefore some of the cells will look crammed by definition. However, a little more space would make them look brighter and better in appearance. Waltham, The Duke of 13:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove. As Alkari stated, there's no "lost" space. Additionally, it's useful to have succession boxes with a different width than other templates, to make it easier to scroll to - or past - a succession box when looking for information. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 23:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

How does a narrower template make scrolling easier? And if you are referring to distinguishing them by appearance, I would say succession boxes have a distinctive enough look. Waltham, The Duke of 13:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't bother me either way, but when the move from the "rail line" to the "s-rail" template was mention, one of the reasons the UK railways WikiProject said no (the Americans and the tube embraced it) was some editors didn't like that look. Thus the change risks ruffling feathers on a global scale without achieving any greater usability. Pickle 14:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove for the reasons articulated by Alkari and Tim4christ17. Mackensen (talk) 12:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve! – This change will make the template more consistent across Wikipedia articles and allow for some more space to write before a break is required in a succession box template.

Strong approval – I have already stated the reasons for my support in this section of this very page. Waltham, The Duke of 11:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Approve. This seems like a good idea. john k 18:16, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Disapprove. I don't find the proposed change very aesthetically pleasing, and I don't see that it would provide any great benefit. Alkari (?) 22:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

VOTING CLOSED: Proposal NOT Approved: I have closed voting on this proposal and labeled it as a failed proposal. While it seems some members wanted the more consistent look of this template change proposal, it seems others have noted that the change may damage other templates that WP:SBS does not monitor. On those grounds, I have closed this debate. The discussion has been archived at Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Failed proposals where it will remain indefinitely. Thank you to everyone who voted and keep at it!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 21:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)