Template talk:Infobox fraternity

Merged?

For quite a few of the inactive fraternities, it would be appropriate to have a "Merged Into", especially if it was a clean addition like Phi Kappa into Phi Kappa Theta or Pi Lambda Sigma into Theta Phi Alpha. I'd suggest merged_into and merged_date so

merged_into=[[Theta Phi Alpha]] merged_date={{dts|1952|8|1}}

would come up as

Merged Theta Phi Alpha on September 1, 1952

or something similar (maybe don't combine the lines?) Naraht (talk) 14:17, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be much more useful to have a freeform "fate" field, as Infobox company does, which could be used to indicate a merger, denationalization (e.g. Delta Kappa), or dissolution among other fates.-- choster (talk) 21:06, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm good with fate, allow for Iota Alpha Pi to be described more cleanly.Naraht (talk) 16:01, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Any one object to fate?Naraht (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The Delta Kappa example is useful, to consider options. I have been working on a number of infobox updates; some would indeed have an obvious need for a "fate" param at times. But for many, the three 'free' fields have worked well. An example is the infobox for Lambda Omega. I inset the secondary target (using free1) for a later merger, and by happenstance these fields all tend toward the bottom of the infobox. By placing the date in parentheses it looks pretty clean. In addition to a known merger partner I've used words like "scattered" after the label "Merged into?" I've landed on what appears to be a solution for all these, then another twist appears. The outcomes of all these groups are each a little dissimilar. I've used these "merged with" free labels several dozen times, but look forward to hearing other ideas.

Sigma Mu Sigma is another wonky one, where the normal rules don't fit. Take a look to see how I handled it there, and let me know if you've an alternate idea. Jax MN (talk) 01:36, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Restart

Yes, I see that there are a lot of possible fates. I still like having fate = ... but, to keep the flexibility, I think that it should go in the "natural" place, last, which is just before the free & free label entries (and after everything non-free).Naraht (talk) 22:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

OK. Let's flip this around, does anyone have a *problem* with Fate being added just before the free/free_labels. If no one comments by the end of February, I'll be Bold and add it. For complicated ones, we can either use Fate with the "Free"s or just leave as "Free"s.Naraht (talk) 20:09, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I wish I could think of a short word between "fate" and "outcome" in its emotional weight. Fate certainly works, but it's got that "drumbeat of doom" vibe. Jax MN (talk) 20:27, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. And fate doesn't really seem the right emotion for the equal mergers of healthy-ish groups into a new name like

• Omicron Nu and Kappa Omicron Phi into Kappa Omicron Nu
• Phi Kappa and Theta Kappa Phi into Phi Kappa Theta

Outcome does seem more neutral, but I agree it doesn't quite fit either.Naraht (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Remove/Keep Mission and Vision?

Mean as custard has in the last 24 hours deleted either Mission or Vision or both from the infobox template of three Fraternities (Alpha Zeta (professional)‎, Sigma Xi, and Alpha Kappa Psi). IMO, there are really two choices,

1. Revert the changes and keep Mission and Vision in the templates
2. Remove Mission and Vision as parameters.

The *Essay* Wikipedia:Avoid mission statements is probably useful. It is an essay and as such not official, but it does represent a fairly well organized set of arguments. I'd like to keep the discussion here, but will mention it over at the Wikiproject, just in case someone there *doesn't* have the template in their watchlist. (I'm not intending to indicate that Mean as custard has done wrong, but merely that I'm fine with jumping to Discuss rather than throwing in the Revert step. :) ) Naraht (talk) 15:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Mission and vision statements are only valid if they are sufficiently unusual and encapsulate the organisation's function and aims in a way that cannot be better explained in any other form, or if they have been the subject of considerable third-party comment and so become notable in themselves. Virtually all of the time they are merely puffery and removing them improves the article. . . Mean as custard (talk) 15:57, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I strongly support removing these parameters. It may sometimes be appropriate in the prose of an article but this information has no place in an infobox, a table that is intended to present readers with a concise, high-level overview of the subject of an article. ElKevbo (talk) 21:27, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I sympathize somewhat. Dumb, wordy or ponderous mission or vision statements don't add much value for me, here nor in corporate management. Yet to label them such, these are all subjective opinions, except that one might quantify a number of words beyond which a statement ought to be considered 'wordy'. Sometimes groups appear to get excitable about formation steps, and go overboard, manufacturing a Mission, Vision statement, Pillars, Motto, yada-yada just because others have them. Perhaps it is easier to do this versus the hard work of recruitment and team-building.

Clearly, some mission and vision statements ARE instructive, pithy, and of significant importance to defining the nature of a group. Where then do we draw the line? Just having these parameters available will prompt many groups to fill them, sometimes extending an infobox for fifteen or twenty lines of text. To deny some is to allow a subjective judgement.

Maybe we set a Project standard to allow one such statement: Pick it, whether motto, pillars, mission statement or vision statement. Interested readers can always follow the link trail back to the GLO's own website, to read the detail. Jax MN (talk) 16:49, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Motto (and pillars) seems to fall into a different category to me from Mission/Vision Statements, whether or not they should. A 150 year old fraternity/sorority likely will have created a motto *at* the time of founding or soon after and changing that motto might require votes of multiple conventions due to a meaning explained in the ritual. A Mission Statement is likely to be something created by an employee of the National Office and simply need approval by the National Board.Naraht (talk) 17:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

This is a great discussion. I agree motto/pillars are different and do belong in the infobox, while mission statement should go. For one thing, the motto is usually short and can reasonably fit into an infobox slot, while a mission statement can take up an inch or more of vertical space. Some mission statements are several sentences or a short paragraph. They are just too long for the infobox. Another difference: mottos are often found in a secondary source such as Baird's, while mission statements almost exclusively come from the group's website or other publication. When included in the article, the mission statement rarely had a sourcee. We could remove them on that basis, without even getting into their generic/puffery nature. Rublamb (talk) 22:12, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

If the Mission/Vision Statements are the topic of news, then they belong in prose.Naraht (talk) 17:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you, on including these when they are a topic of news. I also agree with ElKevbo on the matter of making infoboxes tight and summarial. This leads back to it being a subjective matter, resistive of making a hard-and-fast policy. Some years ago I had an exchange with MeanAsCustard, where I pushed back on what I thought was too-aggressive removal of text from GLO articles. I don't want to wholesale delete *all* these mission and vision statements (etc.), but I am sympathetic to the removal of unnecessary, non-encyclopedic text. This is a useful discussion, as we mull this over. Jax MN (talk) 18:29, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Jax MN I would have no problem with doing this in a manner that would allow you to see all of the deleted fields and determining which ones would make sense to add as prose. Naraht (talk) 16:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Rublamb I understand a rule saying that Mission/Vision statements have to come from third party sources, but frankly that would almost always be equivalent to "if a third party has a reason to repeat it, it probably belongs in the text with the reason that they did so"

Restatement

This is *only* a proposal to remove the vision and mission fields. *No* change to motto or pillar fields.Naraht (talk) 16:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Not properly handling status

Primefac - Adelphian Society has had a Status added that isn't Active, but still shows up in the website missing cat.Naraht (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed. Primefac (talk) 15:11, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Re: the status param, I do not see it expressed among the other parameters of the template found on the Template:Infobox fraternity article, which is the template I'd always used when writing GLO articles. Is this an omission? I've not spent much time looking into the metastructure of where template markup language is derived. Jax MN (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I never update /doc pages, usually because I'm doing a flyby TPER request and don't know how folks want to display the param. This time I just sort of forgot, mainly because of that habit. Primefac (talk) 11:13, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Handling suffixes.

Moved from WP:FRAT

Primefac For both the status and the affiliation, right now the infobox does something based on the value of the field. For status it determines whether it goes into the category indicating a need for websites, for Affiliation, whether the value should be wikilinked. However in both places, for quite valid reasons, it makes sense to have a suffix, either a date of merger/going defunct and for Affiliation, the addition of the word former. Can these be changed so that the action only evaluates the first part of the string (string of alphas (UC or lc)) to do this. So for example, since "affiliation = NIC" generates "Affiliation [[Northamerican Interfraternity Conference|NIC]]" that it could also have "affiliation = NIC (former)" generate "Affiliation [[Northamerican Interfraternity Conference|NIC]] former"? (and status = Defunct *and* status = Defunct (1876) both cause it to not look for a website?) Naraht (talk) 14:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I would rather have multiple parameters with individual values than have to split out one parameter to do multiple things. If we want to indicate when a GLO went defunct, then we should have a parameter for that. If we want previous affiliations in addition to current affiliations, we should have a separate parameter for that. Primefac (talk) 15:12, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

OK based on this, it sounds like the following should be added.

• former_affiliation
• former_affiliation2
• merge_date
• merge_target (what it merged into, better term?)
• defunct_date

Naraht (talk) 01:44, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Level or Environment Parameter???

Moved from WP:FRAT

I'm looking at all of the entries in type and was thinking of a separate parameter indicating where members could be taken from, but I'm not quite sure what would be the best name.

• High School
• Undergraduate
• Graduate
• Community

there could be multiple here, Alpha Phi Omega for example, allows both Undergraduate and Graduate students. Naraht (talk) 09:57, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Is this a useful thing to have in the infobox? Genuinely curious, but it seems like an exception rather than a rule that a GLO would take folks other than uni students (and for the record, I don't necessarily think the UG/Graduate distinction to be particularly useful). Primefac (talk) 15:15, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

There are at least 16 groups (not counting redirects) using this that are for High School students (and in some cases two year colleges) in Category:High school honor societies and at least the same number of Graduate only (between Law School and Medical School fraternities (exclusing pre-med and pre-law)).Naraht (talk) 18:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)