Template talk:Infobox Australian place

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Keep this box as simple as possible.

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Make sure you remember that this box is used on more than 12,900 pages, of 7 different types.[1] Whatever you do needs to be applicable to a good number of those pages.

Discussion/Community

Its very important to discuss everything that's going to change. And before you suggest something, look in the archives, it may have been suggested before.

Why is there no addition for flags or shields?

Almost all major cities in Australia have both a flag and a shield, most of which are available in the Wikimedia commons for use. Why does this infobox omit these when the infoboxes for places in many other western countries have it? Could these parameters be added? Qwexcxewq (talk) 00:17, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

In brief, because there is almost zero use for it in Australia. The issue has been discussed before (in 2007 and in 2014), and the places where it might be used are pretty much limited to the capital cities - which generally have a separate article on their Coat of Arms anyway. In local government articles, use |logo=. Innesw (talk) 02:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Module (Lua) version of the template

There is now a Lua version of the template. The Module (lua) code is at Module:Sandbox/Innesw/Infobox Australian place, the template to call to test the module is {{Sandbox/Innesw/Infobox Australian place|<infobox parameters>}}.

Such a significant proposed change to a protected template obviously needs not only thorough testing of the output, but a careful independent review of the code. Therefore I don't think the template sandbox is the right place to put this yet.

Please test it for all possibilities, and put comments and (especially negative) test results either here or on the module talk page.

There are some changes in the lua version's output:

Old Behaviour	New Behaviour
for a non-numeric value for |pop= a population density calculation was attempted, and produced an error	a non-numeric |pop= value means a population density is not calculated (and therefore not shown)
some tracking categories were output in all namespaces, ie: where |pop= is given but no |pop_year= or |pop_footnotes= |pop2= is given but no |pop2_year= or |pop2_footnotes= |pop is non-numeric (which causes density errors)	except in article namespace, output of all categories is suppressed (all the 'automatic' categories, and all the tracking categories)
there is a colon at the end of the heading for the 'Places Near' sub-table	colon not output

I have tested the output of each of the individual cases on the testcases page (a process which fixed some issues) and I believe the module now produces the same visual results in all these cases (except for the above changes).

There are a considerable number of calls to expand other templates (lframe:expandTemplate{...}), a number I would like to reduce if module equivalents exist. Suggestions welcome.

I would hope that transferring the template code to lua will make changes to the template easier - just by getting away from the obtuse syntax of templates. Innesw (talk) 09:40, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

You should bring this to the attention of readers at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian places, Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:Australian Wikipedians' notice board. BTW, the template to test the LUA code is {{Sandbox/Innesw/Infobox Australian place}} (that didn't come across in your message). Template:Sandbox/Innesw/Infobox Australian place/testcases seems to be missing so far. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I was intending to work my way up the hierarchy with announcements, seeing what responses there were as I went. I can copy Template:Infobox Australian place/testcases if you think that's the best way to go, but I have checked all the cases that are there. I'm not sure what the method would be for wider testing, if that's reckoned necessary. Innesw (talk) 22:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

You asked for thorough testing, and that needs testcases. The current Template:Infobox Australian place/testcases is already very extensive, so a new one seems to be called for. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Michael has asked for more testcases to add to what he says is the 'already very extensive' set in Template:Infobox Australian place/testcases. I admit I was remiss in asking vaguely for 'more testing' without an obvious pathway to achieving that. Somebody help me with some technical details please: if I just change Template:Infobox Australian place/sandbox to contain
{{#invoke:Sandbox/Innesw/Infobox Australian place|main}}<noinclude>{{Documentation}}</noinclude>,
will that enable anybody to check the existing testcases? If so (but some further testing is reckoned necessary), or if not, what do I need to do as well / instead? Innesw (talk) 22:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

There is now a testcases page for the module. It is based on the testcases for the original template, though expanded to include all parameters dealt with by the template (except some deprecated ones).

I will soon elevate notices about the existence of the module and its testcases to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian places, Wikipedia talk:Australian Wikipedians' notice board and Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board. Innesw (talk) 11:42, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Accepted value: "township"

The present accepted values – city, town, lga – don't cover Australia's many smaller places with higher population than a locality. I recommend including "township" in the accepted values.

Two random examples are William Creek -- permanent population <20 but a significant settlement nevertheless -- and Wanbi, South Australia, with a similar population, described as "a town and locality" when it is neither, really. They are both townships. Comments? SCHolar44 (talk) 13:13, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the township as, at least in WA, it doesn't seem to be an official description for a bounded location. I do however agree that another description below town is needed. Currently, "| type = town" will automatically place the article in the relevant town category, e.g. William Creek in Category:Towns in South Australia, which seems wrong for a lot of really small places as they just don't qualify as towns. Locality doesn't even exist as an option right now. Something below town would be useful! Calistemon (talk) 12:10, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Town means a population centre, they can be small or large in terms of population, or even be ghost towns so we don't really need a distinction between a city, a town, a township, villages, hamlets etc. Certainly QLD has dropped all of those distinctions. We have the population field to show the size of a town in that regard. A locality has a boundary while a town has a centre point, or it's not an either-or. Indeed it is very common for a placename to be both a small rural town that sits within a locality of the same name. Suburbs are localities (being bounded) but the term suburb tends to used when they are in an urban area, but are otherwise interchangeable. What is wrong with the "type" is the inability to reflect that the topic of the article is both a population centre (town) and locality/suburb. One of the things to be aware of that if that if we change the "type" values, any tools that use that field need to rewritten, so it's not something to do lightly. Kerry (talk) 12:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)