Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Archive 1

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This is the first archive of the main talk page of WikiProject Succession Box Standardization. It contains all messages from 12 April 2006 to 19 December 2006.

"Mostly"

I have a few comments about the goals listed for this WikiProject. Treating the bulleted points in "Scope and Goals" as if they were numbers:

1. Agree
2. Agree
3. Agree
4. Agree, if possible (many full dates, or even exact years, are lost to history).
5. Agree
6. Is a table of succession boxes really the best place to put this?
7. Personally, I would prefer to see regnal and noble titles come first, because that is how people are normally known, although in some cases I can see how this would create problems (like Harold Macmillan who was presumably much better known for being Prime Minister than Earl of Stockton!).
8. Expand how?

And for "Still to Work Out":

1. I don't know what the problem is; I try to avoid doing too much with those articles because of the confusion. Maybe that is the problem?
2. For an example of my solution to at least a few cases, see Erik Axelsson (Tott). This might not be the same issue as with the example on the WikiProject page, though.
3. I agree, and suggest incorporating Template talk:PeerNavbox, etc. in subpages for archival purposes.

Ardric47 22:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

A couple of points. I'd like to hear more about eliminating the two-by-two, etc., succession boxes, and why this is desirable - I don't have a strong opinion in favor of them, but I'd like to know why they're being frowned upon. Secondly, I'm not sure about full dates, but if everyone else thinks they should go there, I'm willing to defer. I think it unnecessarily clutters up the infobox. Thirdly, I think the separation by types has a serious problem. Regnal titles are very different from noble titles. It seems to me that regnal titles, like King of England or Duke of Brunswick, ought clearly to go first. Merely noble titles, like Marquess of Lansdowne or Duke of Medina Sidonia, should go after political titles. When someone was King of England, and previously held a peerage, the two should not go in the same box. I feel fairly strongly about this.

In terms of the title change issue, my feeling is that a) the title in the middle box should be the title held by that person, not a generic title; b) the predecessors and successors lifted should be the de facto predecessors and successors, not de jure possessors of the same title. When such people held a different specific title, that title should be indicated in parentheses below the name in the succession box. Thus:

Also, what is the "assembly/parliament/congress district problem"? john k 15:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

At present, the s-reg template will accept a parameter to change the wording, so {{s-reg}} can be used over sovereign titles and {{s-reg|uk}}, for instance, over peerages during the appropriate time period. The problem with the districts is that, in the case of the U.S. Congress, for instance, we either have to have an s-par heading for each chamber, or we need to be able to link both the chamber and the district in the title. 141.158.225.22 00:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Next time I work on the templates, I will work on creating parameters for title changes in the before and after boxes. It won't be very difficult and will help in standardizing these matters. To help with the nobility v. regnal title dispute, I have created Template:s-nob for nobles covering the same peerages as the s-reg and s-hon. Hopefully this fixes some of the dispute.
–Whaleyland 17:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

more questions

I'm sorry, I still don't understand the district problem per the US Congress. Perhaps I'm just managing it inappropriately. Please advise where the problem is in the example below:

I like the idea of full dates, when known, and am hoping the new template will end the unattractive wrapping experience before. However, I would ask this project to better define the limits to these boxes, both 1) in terms of quantity, the kinds of offices/roles appropriate for use, and 2) for content, the information listed in the box. IMO these are wonderfully useful navigation tools when used for major offices/roles and kept simple and straightforword, but become a monstrosity when there are too many or include too much information.

This project page would also benefit from more examples of the standards being proposed. I cannot figure out what the Template:S-off is designed to accomplish. I'm glad to see this project set up and look forward to working with the group. stilltim 10:58, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This is slightly off-topic, but one thing I would change in your above example is that your dates should be wikilinked. According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting, dates containing both the month and day of month should be wikilinked so that date preferences can work. (I would love it if this clumsy mechanism could be fixed and we could use, say, “{{#date|year=2006|month=4|day_of_month=18}}” to define an date subject to date preferences.)

— DLJessup (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Here is a full use of the s-ttl with districts function as well as the s-par and s-off template. I used your example to do it the best justice:

Any more concerns over this chart please note on this forum. I will be checking it regularly. I agree that some more standard charts should be displayed on the main page and I will begin work on them.
–Whaleyland 17:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. Regretably, at first look, I find it hard to see where this presentation is much of an improvement. Perhaps it takes some getting used to; I will try. The banners seem unneeded, and some of the terminology is not quite right. Congress is rarely referred to as an assembly (although it is), and using "representative" with senators is confusing. The district information seems too minimized and inflexible. For now I will use the s-start template, but avoid the others until they seem more helpful. In any case, I would appreciate clear direction regarding wikifying the dates. Yes, per Jessup or no, per the project guidelines. Either is fine with me. stilltim 23:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

An issue from this - in Britain, political offices (executive branch appointments) are distinct from parliamentary seats, which are not government appointments and which can and are held concurrently with ministerial positions. In the US, this really isn't true. I don't see a good reason to separate out Carper's Congressional positions from his executive positions - they are all elected offices, and even appointed offices are going to be distinct enough that I think I'd prefer a chronological survey of someone's career to an artificial break based on legislative vs. executive positions. john k 19:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The US has some concurrent positions such as Speaker of the House and Party Whips and Leaders but overall they are separate completely. If you feel that they should be combined, do so. You could also change the heading for British Parliament to something more like Parliamentary Positions. That may work. I am mostly off Wikipedia for the next few weeks as I prepare to take finals and graduate.
–Whaleyland 00:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Dates in succession tables

One of the goals listed is:

• Unwikify dates listed redundantly in succession boxes. We do not need these dates wikied as they should already be wikied elsewhere in the article.

This may be badly phrased. I have no problem with unwikilinking years without month and day, but full dates are supposed to be wikilinked so that date preferences can work. (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting for more on this issue.)

Another listed goal is:

• Add full dates (DAY MONTH YEAR format) for reigns of all succession box holders.

First of all, a general rule of thumb for Wikipedia is that regional variances such as spelling and date format should follow the standards of the nation of the subject. For example, you might write about the “color” of George W. Bush's hair in an article on Bush, but about the “colour” of Tony Blair's hair in an article on Blair. Thus DAY MONTH YEAR format should be used for the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, while MONTH DAY, YEAR format should be used for the United States and Canada.

Secondly, full dates for political offices have some complications. One issue is the question of what constitutes the beginning of a political officer's term in office. For example, let's take a United States judge. There are at least three dates that could plausibly be used as the start of the term of office: the day on which the judge is confirmed by the Senate, the day on which the commission is issued (and if you think that the commission is a mere formality, talk to William Marbury), or the day on which the judge takes his or her oath of office. The confirmation date is by far the easiest to find, but it's also the least plausible of the three dates.

Another issue can be illustrated by the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Every other year, at noon on January 3, the office becomes vacant as one Congress expires. But a new one can't be elected until the new House meets. This means that, if you go by year, Tip O'Neill's term as Speaker can be given as: 1977–1987, while, if you go by full date, you get the following term:

January 4, 1977–January 3, 1979;

January 15, 1979–January 3, 1981;

January 5, 1981–January 3, 1987

(The reason for the continuity in the third line is that in 1983 and 1985, the House convened and elected a new Speaker on January 3.) Now I happen to think that this is the correct way to go about it, but I've gotten a lot of pushback over the vacancy breaks, and project members need to be aware of this issue going in.

— DLJessup (talk) 14:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Unlike DLJessup, I do have a problem with unlinking years, at least in one case. Linking [[1950]] seems to me to be rather pointless, and I'd be delighted to see that go ... but there is a case for different sort of link there. In succession boxes for MPs, there has ben a practice for some time of wikilinking the dates for a parliamentary seat, as in this example from Bill Pitt:

{{start box}}
{{s-par|uk}}
{{succession box
  | title  = [[Member of Parliament]] for [[Croydon North West (UK Parliament constituency)|Croydon North West]]
  | years  = [[Croydon North West by-election, 1981|1981]]–[[United Kingdom general election, 1983|1983]]
  | before = [[Robert Taylor (UK politician)|Robert Taylor]]
  | after  = [[Humfrey Malins]]
}}
{{end box}}

... which produces:

This seems to me to be a useful way of providing a link to relevant navgational information. Please can this practice be exempted from the deprecation? Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl 02:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

En-dashes

I just noticed the following addition to the scopes and goals:

• Replace Unicode en-dash (–) with character entity (–) for database streamlining. (The database does not like the use of the Unicode en-dash for some reason, or so I have been told.) Also, implementing spaces between the dates and the en-dash seems reasonable for better appearance.

The claim that the database doesn't like the Unicode en-dash seems fishy to me. First of all, I can't see how the database would not like one particular Unicode character without having the same issue with all of them (or at least, all of the ones that are encoded with the same number of bytes in UTF-8). Moreover, the people running the MediaWiki software have been encouraging people to replace named character entities with Unicode; there's at least one bot running (User:Curpsbot-unicodify) whose mission is to move from entities to Unicode. Several searches for any discussion of such a problem on Wikipedia have revealed nothing. I think somebody's pulling your leg, Whaleyland.

What I can see is somebody being opposed to the Unicode en-dash on the grounds that it's hard to distinguish from a hyphen or a Unicode em-dash in the fixed-width font used in the edit box. (Note that this is emphatically not my view, but it's one that I can see a reasonable person holding.)

— DLJessup (talk) 23:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

A more detailed proposal (UK only)

It seems clear that we're going to have somewhat different usage rules for the UK, the Continent, and the US, at least. With that in mind, here's a detailed proposal for what goes where, UK-only. Comments are solicited on the wording of the headers, scope of contents, etc., etc.

Usage for the United Kingdom and predecessor states (including Ireland to 1922)
Succession boxes should be arranged in the following order and under the following headings:

1. s-reg, no switch (see 5)
2. s-off (presently reads: "Political Offices"). This should be placed over all succession boxes containing a position appointed by the Crown which either has substantial associated duties at the time it was held by the person in question or in which the appointee changes with each elective ministry.
3. s-hon (presently reads: "Honorary Titles"). This should be placed over all succession boxes containing a position appointed by the Crown which does not meet the criteria above.
4. s-par (presently reads: "Parliament of Kingdom" or equivalent when properly invoked and links to that article). This should be placed over all succession boxes for a seat in the lower house (House of Commons) of the Parliament of the United Kingdom or its national predecessors. Holders of seats in different parliaments (e.g., the English Parliament and Irish Parliament) should have multiple headings, one for each national parliament. Several stylistic issues remain to be settled: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies/Style#Succession boxes. My current usage, for constituencies with multiple representatives, has been to format "before" and "after" as before=[[MP1]]<br/>[[MP2]] and to indicate concurrent members with years=date1–date2<br/><small>MP3 date1–date3, MP4 date3–date2</small> and so forth.
5. s-reg (presently reads "Regnal Titles" invoked without switch, "Titles of Nobility<br/>Peerage of Kingdom invoked with switch for country). For sovereign titles (King of England, King of Scots, Lord of Aquitaine), the header should be used without the switch and appear at the top of the box (see 1). For titles in the Peerage, the guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Peerage should be used to select those that will appear, and each title should appear under the heading of the appropriate peerage. This needs to be expanded to include switches for the Baronetages of England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and Nova Scotia.

To be resolved: titles relating to the leadership of a political party, such as Leader of the House of Lords, Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Cabinet Minister, etc. These should perhaps be granted a place in the succession scheme, under a fifth header. Also, where should "Speaker of the House of Commons" appear?

Cruft: Chancellorships and provostships of universities, honorary colonelcies of regiments (perhaps classifiable as s-hon), position in the order of precedence, position in the succession to the UK throne, seats in the Académie française, and so forth. Should probably appear in a single group of succession boxes, but separate from those under headings.

Choess 04:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Now people have begun to use these headings, a natural pattern of usage is emerging:

titles relating to the leadership of a political party, such as Leader of the House of Lords, Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Cabinet Minister, etc.

I would say those are policital offices...

where should "Speaker of the House of Commons" appear?

Should definitely be under Parliament of the United Kingdom, as parliament is independent of the government

Chancellorships and provostships of universities

People have been putting those under "honorary titles", along with presidencies of learned societies, etc. There is now s-mil for military titles. That just leaves order of precedence. I'm not sure quite what to class that as. Maybe we should have a "Miscellaneous" heading, or simply a blank band of colour to separate titles that don't fit into any category. It does look much neater to have them all in one block so that the widths are the same: see this page where the precedence is separate to see what I mean... JRawle (Talk) 22:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't give the order-of-precedence-boxes a header. They're no offices, titles, whatever, but only informations. The boxes will be removed from the articles, if the persons where the boxes are part of die. The same applies to the boxes for the succession of the British thron. The one header, I think we need is "s-jud" for judiciary offices like attorney-generals, justice of eyre oder solicitor-generals. Phoe 22:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The following comments reproduced from my talk page:

... also needed for "Commercial ventures" (eg Chairman Arsenal Football Club) etc - Kittybrewster 23:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Would {{S-other}}, which I created, be any help here? --BrownHairedGirl 12:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

We decided a while ago that [order of precedence succession boxes] weren't really appropriate and should be removed, so just deleting them would seem to be the best idea. Proteus (Talk) 11:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Do we also need one for ecclesiastical or religious offices (s-rel)? JRawle (Talk) 12:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I created

{{start box}}
{{s-jud}} 
{{s-ecc}}
{{succession box 
  | title = first test
  | years = second test
  | before = third test
  | after = last test
}}
{{end box}}

feel free to change the colors and headlines. I've chosen s-ecc instead of s-rel to avoid errors with s-reg. Phoe 13:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure "ecclesiastical" covers religions other than Christianity. What would be a better generic term? "Religious offices" doesn't sound right either. JRawle (Talk) 13:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe "Religious Titles" or "Religious Posts" ? Phoe 12:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

"Religious Posts" sounds better to me. "Religious Titles" (such as sainthood, papal knights) are not usually hereditary, and hence don't need a succession box, and "posts" at least hints at the distinction. --BrownHairedGirl 14:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've changed it. Phoe 11:48, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please explain how to determine if a post should fall under the s-gov or s-off template. E.g. most Governor-General posts are categorised as Political Offices (Charles Monck, 4th Viscount Monck), whilst a few are categorised as Government Offices (e.g. James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin). Some clarification would be appreciated. Stephennt 15:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Succession box template still active

While I haven't worked with any succession boxes myself, I noticed that one of this project's goals is to phase out the succession box template; it looks like Template_talk:Succession_box is still pretty active, though. Why hasn't anyone mentioned this project over there? Also, in editing the Guide to layout (see User:RockOfVictory/Appendices order draft), I noticed that Wikipedia:Navigational templates#General navigation templates refers to the use of Template:Succession box and makes no mention of this project or Template:Start. Does someone more knowledgable about this topic want to update this section of Navigational templates? --J. J. 14:24, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It's a little confusing, but the second item actually refers to removing the old, completely non-templated tables. Template:Succession box is, at present, based on the s-bef, s-ttl, s-aft templates, and as it's a very convenient shorthand, it's not going away. 14:49, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Templates for deletion

Several succession templates have been/are being listed at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Ardric47 00:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I am in favour of deleting them. The more succession templates floating around, the less standardization there will be and that is all I want, a standard format to follow for succession tables.
–Whaleyland 01:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Right, I am also. I wasn't very clear, but I was trying to solicit delete votes (or, to be fair, keep) with my initial comment. Ardric47 02:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Positioning in relation to other page-bottom templates

Should succession boxes typically go above or below other templates? Example: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle ~ Booya ^Bazooka 19:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Category for headings?

Shouldn't the headings that "Separate types of offices held" be listed in a category somewhere, so that it's easy to see what's available? There are ones not on this project page (I've seen one for military offices, for example). Could they be listed in Category:Succession templates, or is a separate category appropriate? JRawle (Talk) 23:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

s-reg, s-hon and s-nob

I am currently engaged in a bit of a tidyup of succession boxes for UK & GB MPs, applying {{s-par|uk}} etc to them. I have been using the s-hon template for UK peerages, but I see that the description is remarkably similar to that of Template:s-reg. Apart from s-reg being vertically more compact, can anyone explain the difference between them in intended usage between the two templates?

And can anyone suggest which is the appropriate one to use for a baronetcy?

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl 00:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

s-hon isn't really for peerages; in fact, I've removed them from the template now. s-nob is now a redirect to s-reg, which includes peerages. JRawle (Talk) 21:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Coloured headings

Please see User talk:Phoe#Templates and User talk:Ed_g2s#S-off and S-Par for a discussion of whether the headings should be coloured. JRawle (Talk) 15:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Archivist's note: These discussions have been archived, so they are now located at User:Phoe/Archive/August 2006#Templates and User talk:Ed g2s/Archive13#S-off and S-Par respectively. Waltham, The Duke of 16:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The colours seem fairly abitrary, and the text on its own is more that sufficient for explaining the group. Without even starting on accessibility issues, this creates some pretty ugly multicoloured tables. ed g2s • talk 00:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I've used all existing skins and the colors don't change. The colors are for dividing the groups to get a better outline. If they have got all the same color, this will be difficult, especially in cases with many succession boxes. If you delete the colors because they were ugly, you'll have to delete the same on many navigation and info boxes, that use the same colors, too. Phoe 09:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

1. Ed, I have reverted your most recent changes, pending discussion. I suggest that with templates as widely used as these boxes, some sort of consensus is appropriate before such a change.
2. I take your implicit point about the dangers of overriding the stylesheet: it's an important one. Yes, these colours could break on a skin which was itself heavily-coloured, and accessibility does need to be assessed, but WP:MOS#Color_coding does not forbid such colouring: it merely warns against doing it clumsily. I suggest that we should be discussing how to do this better, rather than just removing the colours.
3. The colours are indeed somewhat arbitrary, and I can see a good case for reviewing them. But whether or not those particular colours are ideal, they are very useful, and I thought I'd explain why.
   1. To my mind, one of the major reasons for having succession boxes is that they allow the reader to navigate between articles by following a succession path.
   2. the headings don't just exlain the group: they visually separate the groups, and visually identify them.
   3. In the nature of things, many of the people who have held high office have also held a lot of other offices. Not many are as bad as Winston_Churchill#Political_Offices, with 24 succession boxes, but there are plenty with ten or more, and breaking them up with headings makes navigation a lot easier.
   4. I don't think there is any disagrement about the usefulness of the headings, but when speed-reading, the colour makes it much easier to jump to the heading you want. (It's much quicker to identify a splash of colour than to read through blocks of text)
4. Given the stylesheet-based reasons why colouring the header background may be deprecated, is there room for a compromise? Instead of coloring all of the background, how about a blob of colour at one side of the heading, or both? --BrownHairedGirl 10:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

   This seems reasonable (number 4). ed g2s • talk 13:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Ed, would you feel up to making an example template? Or is that an unreasonable request, given that it was my idea? --BrownHairedGirl 15:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

If coloured backgrounds are retained, I think it should also specify the text colour. In principle, someone could be using a skin where the text colour was the same as one of the backgrounds. JRawle (Talk) 13:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Succession box for dates.

Is there a succession box for dates? That would be very helpful for navigating pages which contain date-sensitive information. --Cheers, Folajimi (leave a note) 12:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

a few questions

You've all done a brilliant job with handling the different succession boxes. Succession boxes are very important for improving navigation: as a major part of WikiProject Former Countries we've developed infoboxes with a built-in succession feature to make it possible to navigate between different incarnations of a nation or province (eg. German Empire, or Province of Brandenburg). At the moment, I am working on former German states and adding succession boxes to heads of state/government as I go. While doing this, I've come up with a few questions about succession boxes:

• The Dutch succession boxes for politicians include a link to the relevant cabinet that they served in (eg. nl:Otto von Bismarck). It looks a little messy there, but it is still an interesting idea. Any thoughts on how this could be improved?
• What should you do when the title changes during one person's time? For example Frederick II of Prussia was first King in Prussia, then became King of Prussia. Should each title just be placed on two lines as it is currently done, or could it be possible to break the title box into 2 adjacent boxes? The creation of an extra column like this is probably not that easy to implement, but it would be handy sometimes.
• Should the years inside succession boxes be wikilinked? - 52 Pickup 18:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you can find answers on Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Guidelines. ~~ Phoe _talk 00:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC) ~~

I had already looked there (and a couple of other places) and nowhere really answered these questions - except for the date-wikilinking question (that was on this project page, can't believe i missed it)

Another question that I forgot to ask yesterday was this: What should you do when a number of different titles are held concurrently by the same person? It says on this project page that "Honorary titles held concurrent with other titles (ie Duke of Cornwall for Prince of Wales) are not neccessary to list.", but this doesn't exactly cover what I mean. For example, for a few generations, the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Prussia were the same person. The two titles were never merged, they cover different territory, and they were never split up later on upon inheritance. So which is the better way to display this situation? Like this?

or like this?

I would probably prefer the 2nd one since it is more compact, but I might be in the minority. - 52 Pickup 09:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• I think in such a case I would prefer the first solution. To this time Germany was splitted in many little parts, every of them with his own rights and national boundaries, almost similar to the countries we know today. So the Duke of Prussia hadn't the same status as in example the Duke of Hamilton, it was instead a more ruling "postition". In my opinion this makes it worth to have a own succession box for the dukedom, even if the holder is the same person as the Elector of Brandenburg. Furthermore the second solution can be missleading, since somebody can think that the two titles are one.
• We had decided not to link years as such, since they are ordinary already in the text and furthermore it would make the boxes - how you has said - messy (an exception are the parliament succession boxes, because these links lead to the results of the general elections).
• Perhaps you can add the links to the cabinet in the same way, as we have done it with the territorial designation in the boxes on Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. Another solution could be to link the years to the respective year's cabinet (like it is done on the mentioned parliament succession box).
• For the change of titles there are examples, you can see on George V of the United Kingdom or Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. ~~ Phoe _talk 13:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC) ~~

This is a good question, and I'm not sure how to answer it. Note though that Frederick William was not only Duke of Prussia and Elector/Margrave of Brandenburg. He was also at various points Duke of Cleves, Further Pomerania, and Magdeburg, Prince of Brandenburg (i.e., Prince of the former Bishopric of Brandenburg), Halberstadt, Havelberg, Kammin, Minden, and Count of Mark and Ravensburg. All of these titles pertained to rule to different, distinct territories. To take another example, what about Philip II of Spain. We call him "King of Spain," but that title didn't exist. He was King of Castile and León (and Galicia, Toledo, Granada, Seville, the Canary Islands, the Indies, the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, etc.), King of Aragon, King of Valencia, King of Majorca, Count of Barcelona/Prince of Catalonia, King of both Sicilies, i.e., of Naples and Sicily (and of Jerusalem), King of Sardinia (and Corsica), King of Portugal (and the Algarves), titular Duke of Burgundy, with all the real titles that that entails (Duke of Brabant, Luxembourg, Limburg, and Gelders, Count of Burgundy, Flanders, Hainault, Namur, Artois, Holland, Zeeland, Charolais, Lord of Utrecht, Frisia, Groningen, Overyssel, and Mechelen), and Duke of Milan. All of these titles have histories of their own, and most have separate destinies, as well (except Castile, Aragon, Valencia, Barcelona/Catalonia, and Majorca, which of course form the present day Kingdom of Spain). How can succession boxes ever hope to deal with the complexity. I think that the best thing to do in such cases is that, if a title is submerged in another, don't have a succession box. Of Philip II's titles, only Portugal deserves a box of its own, since he inherited it from someone different, and several decades later, than his other titles (which, admittedly, he received over a long period of time - he became Duke of Milan in 1540, King of Naples in 1554, and got the rest of the titles variously in 1555-1556). For Philip III, I'd suggest just having "King of Spain" - Portugal was no more distinct a part of the Spanish monarchy in his time than any other part. Philip IV should separate Portugal out again, because it rebelled and declared independence during his reign. Similarly, William II of the Netherlands shouldn't have separate boxes for being King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg - that should only come from his son, in whom they separate. But this might not work - not having a box for "King of Scotland" for Charles I, for instance, might prove controversial. It's a tough problem, because I'm not sure there's a consistent answer to be had. john k 18:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

That's sort of what I had in mind. At present I am going through the succession boxes for the Hohenzollern family, and these exact problems are coming up. At the moment, I would say that the titles of Brandenburg and Prussia are important enough to list separately - with the Brandenburg title disappearing after 1806 (since after the fall of the HRE, the Brandenburg title loses its major significance) and the Prussian ducal title elevated to that of King after 1701. For the other titles (Cleves, Pomerania, etc.) I am inclined to add them to the succession boxes only for the person who inherited or disinherited them. For example John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg was the one who inherited Kleves, Mark and Ravensberg for Brandenburg - so I have included these titles only in his succession box but not those of his successors. To put it in for all of his successors is perhaps the historically correct thing to do but, as you say, this would lead to very big and unwieldly boxes.

Perhaps a rethink of the s-ttl field is needed. For cases like this where a number of titles are bundled together, perhaps a pop-out might work? Something similar to the hide feature that is used by navbars. That way, all of the right information can be stored without unnecesarily bloating the succession box. - 52 Pickup 09:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a thought. In terms of the Brandenburg and Prussia titles, I would personally prefer to just include "Duke of Prussia" on Johann Sigismund - so that Georg Wilhelm and Friedrich Wilhelm only have boxes for "Elector of Brandenburg." Then to include both "Elector of Brandenburg" and "King in Prussia" (or "King of Prussia," if we don't feel like being pedantic - "König in Preußen" is an entirely German usage - they were always called "Kings of Prussia" in English) from Friedrich III/I, and then only "King of Prussia" (or "in Prussia," if we must) for the later rulers. I think "King of Prussia" and "German Emperor" remained sufficiently distinct to warrant two boxes for Friedrich III and Wilhelm II. But I can see the argument for including Duke of Prussia 1618-1701 and Elector of Brandenburg 1701-1806. But these guys are relatively easy. The question of what's to be done about, say, Carlos II of Spain. He inherited from his father Castile, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Milan, Brabant, Flanders, Hainaut, Namur, (Upper) Gelderland, Luxembourg, Limburg, Mechelen, and the County of Burgundy. Of these, all were inherited by his grand-nephew Philip V save the Franche Comté, which was annexed by France in 1678. How precisely is this to be dealt with? Why should the lands of the Aragonese crown be included as "Spain," but not the Italian kingdoms? I would suggest that we use simply "Duke of Burgundy" for the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs' Netherlandish territories, as this was the principal title in use. Since the Duchy of Burgundy had been lost before the Habsburgs ever ruled the Netherlands, that means it's a relatively neutral term that doesn't favor any individual province. But I'm still not sure on how to do it. john k 14:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

For Brandenburg and Prussia, I still think they should be separated, at least until 1660 - after which Prussia was no longer a vassal of Poland. For the inclusion of more titles, I have made a modified version of s-ttl that might address this problem - to make discussion a bit clearer, I'll start a new section below to discuss this. - 52 Pickup 10:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

S-med

I have created a header for succession boxes concerning posts in the area of media including TV, radio, magazines and newspapers.

Any objections or improvements? ~~ Phoe _talk 00:45, 1 November 2006 (UTC) ~~

Well done Phoe: in principle, I think it's very useful. Earlier this year, I created succession boxes for the editors of some of the major British newspapers, and have also edited boxes for ITV chairman etc. So ar so good.
My one concern is that it might encourage a proliferation for succession boxes for marginally notable positions, such as hosts of trivial chat shows on obscure cable TV channels, which doesn't seem to me to be a great idea. However, I doubt that's an argument against having the box available for appropriate uses. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 10:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

You are right, it can encourage the proliferation for succession boxes for marginally notable positions, but it isn't said, that it must. If we are honest, the same can happen with {{s-ecc}} , {{s-off}} or {{s-other}}, therefore we must just pay attention and intervene if necessary. Phoe 11:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right: the potential for abuse does not negate the appropriate uses. Another thought, though: is it appropriate to use "med" as the name? I'm just thinking that if there were grounds for a medical heading, there would a clash, and it might be better to call this one {{s-media}} instead. Just a thought, because I'm not sure that I can see a useful case for a medical heading. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 12:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I had thought about this, too, but I don't remember to have seen a medicine box ever (additionally I can't imagine that someboy will create someone someday). However I have no problem with s-media, since the version with the full word can be identified better (to which "genre" it belongs). I will change it. Phoe 13:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

S-gov

I have created a header for non-political government offices, which seemed severely lacking. This would cover civil servants, civilian intelligence officers, non-political officers of Parliaments (such as the Clerk of the Parliaments, Black Rod) etc. There are a huge number of non-political government positions which don't really fit into any other category.

Any comments or suggestions (grey seemed rather appropriate!)? -- Necrothesp 17:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. And yes, grey is very appropriate. - 52 Pickup 10:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

S-ttl plus some new features

I have made an extended version of s-ttl here. It includes 2 new parameters:

1. cabinet - to allow political office titles to link to cabinet details (if available)

eg. John Moore (Australian politician) -- |cabinet=[[Second Howard Ministry|Howard 2]]

2. full_title - this is an attempt to include all minor titles without cluttering up the display. A pop-out bar hides the minor titles

eg. George William, Elector of Brandenburg -- |full_title=[[Margrave of Brandenburg]]<br>[[Duke of Cleves]]<br>[[Count of Mark]]<br>[[Count of Ravensburg]]

At the moment, this extra box must be placed at the bottom of the title box - otherwise you get unwanted extra linebreaks. The heading "Full title" should probably be changed to "Other titles" or something like that - but it needs to be short, otherwise it runs into the show/hide link. The colour of the bar can probably also be modified.

Comments? Sugestions? - 52 Pickup 10:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Nifty. What's to be done about non-regnal titles? Georg Wilhelm's full title included such titles over places he didn't actually control as Duke of Jülich, Berg, Stettin, Pomerania, the Kashubs, and the Wends; Burgrave of Nuremberg; and Prince of Rügen. He also held the non-immediate titles of Duke of Silesia-Crossen and Duke of Silesia-Jägerndorf, which he held as a vassal of the King of Bohemia. I think the latter could be dealt with by inclusion, but I'm less sure of the others. But still, very neat. john k 12:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

How about something like this? This time with the extra box for Prussia (should vassalage be stated or not?) and a new title for the pop-box.

At the moment, this new pop-box is placed within the first one, but that could be changed. I know that Georg Wilhelm had more than just the three titles - i'm still pretty new to Wikipedia and I'm adding the titles as I find them. For the non-immediate titles, it might be best to place them in a different box, maybe under a new banner. Either that, or another pop-box can be added. - 52 Pickup 14:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I was bringing up the issue of other titles, but not necessarily in order to suggest they have to be included. In fact, I'm not sure if the pop-up box for non-regnal titles is a good idea. These titles were held, I think, by every male dynast of the House of Brandenburg. I think an issue is that with this kind of titulary positions don't necessarily translate into titles, and that the common titles we use for a lot of rulers aren't reflected in their formal titulary at all. The "Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach" is a made up term - he was simply a Margrave of Brandenburg, and had no specific titles relating to Ansbach. In the 18th century, all the members of the Ernestine Wettin dynasties held exactly the same titles - Duke of Saxony, Angaria, and Westphalia; LAndgrave of Thuringia; Margrave of Meissen. There's no such thing as an "Elector of Saxony" - there was the Duke of Saxony who was a Prince-Elector. There's not even any title related to "Hanover" under the Holy Roman Emperor. There's the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who is a Prince-Elector, and is called "Elector of Hanover." It's all very complicated. I'd suggest sticking with only representing titles that are tied to actual territories or estates in the Holy Roman Empire. I'd suggest that we restrict ourselves to titles that confer a) membership in the Imperial College of Electors; b) membership in the Imperial College of Princes, c) membership in one of the Imperial Benches of Counts (Wetterau, Swabia, Franconia, Westphalia) or Prelates (Rhine, Swabia); or d) membership in an Imperial Circle Estate. There's very useful, detailed (although occasionally inaccurate) information on the various states of the Holy Roman Empire and its organization here. Information on specific styles over time can be found here. I believe the two sites are by the same individual. so, at any rate, I'd try to stick with the main positions rather than worrying about formal titles, per se.

Another question - anyway we can hide minor acquisitions in the same way, so that a position in which someone succeeded a different person from the main person they inherited from is hidden as well? For instance, on Georg Wilhelm's son, could the box for "Duke of Magdeburg" be hidden, even though he didn't inherit that title from his father? john k 15:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem, the non_titles field can be dropped. As for hiding the positions that were not inherited by his father, that would be a lot more difficult to do. And personally, I wouldn't like to do that - it would not make it very easy for anyone who wants to trace these lesser titles. I think that the inheritance of these titles should be clearly stated only for the first one who inherits the title, but it can then be hidden among the titles that are inherited by this person's heir. For example, Georg Wilhelm's titles of Cleves, Mark and Ravensburg are hidden in this example, while the entry for his predecessor John Sigismund shows the inheritance of these titles. Your other comments regarding which titles should be considered and which should not be, we should probably discuss that further over at the HRE project - 52 Pickup 09:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

So what was the final decision about these features? Include the other_titles field (not the lesser_titles) and maybe the cabinet field too? I don't have access to edit the template myself - 52 Pickup 12:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem with s-mil and s-vac

I may just be something I'm doing wrong, but when I use s-mil and s-vac together I get the following:

My current work-around is to use s-mil and s-bef as follows:

Any ideas? Greenshed 17:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I took so long to get around to this. Use this syntax:

I should link the instructions page more prominently at the project. Choess 23:21, 19 December 2006 (UTC)