Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes

Infobox: mayorships and city councilmemberships

Jeff Hewitt
Member of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors from the 5th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 8, 2019
Preceded by	Marion Ashley
Member of the Libertarian National Committee from the 4th region
Incumbent
Assumed office April 2, 2016
Preceded by	Daniel Wiener
Mayor of Calimesa
In office December 11, 2015 – December 20, 2018
Preceded by	Joyce McIntire
Succeeded by	Bill Davis
Member of the Calimesa City Council
In office December 7, 2010 – December 20, 2018

Hello again, seeking more guidance here. Obviously, policies are not all-encompassing, but hoping to get some clarification here. Essentially, looking at the infobox for Jeff Hewitt (politician). Long ago, I read some discussion somewhere that indicated that not all offices are needed for infoboxes, but can't find a policy on that. Is there one? Second, I read some discussion long ago indicating that mayorships (and don't even have to ask about municipal councilmemberships/commissioners) of cities that aren't large at all shouldn't be included in the infobox. Maybe I'm totally in the wrong, but seeking clarification.

To the right is the infobox for Hewitt (note: I scrubbed the personal details for brevity), and I recently removed the mayorship and councilmember offices from the infobox. The creator of the article said that they were verifiable offices and should be included. We had a less than constructive discussion on the talk page and nothing was resolved. Hoping to get some clarification. My rationale for removing the offices (from the infobox only) is that the city of Calimesa barely has 10,000 residents, and therefore a the mayorship (and councilmembership) of the town shouldn't be included in the infobox. Obviously not advocating for the inclusion/exclusion of mayorships unilaterally. Obviously, depending on the municipality (the population, it's notability, etc.) sometimes including those offices in the infobox are appropriate, but I don't think they are here. The offices alone are not notable, but Hewitt obviously is not just some former mayor and he is notable given his other positions.

I am only speaking to the offices pertaining to the city of Calimesa, not the Libertarian Party of the Riverside County offices. Appreciate the input in advance, thanks! --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 02:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Nearly half the article is dedicated to his time on the Calimesa City Council, for which there was national media coverage because of some of the extreme and unusual actions he took. Putting those offices in the infobox therefore serves to summarize that part of the article, per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. There is no rule that minor local offices cannot be put in this template. That is purely a fabrication. I addressed your points on article talk—you are absolutely incorrect about notability. It literally says in the nutshell summary of WP:N: The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. This is something that a LOT of inexperienced editors try to claim about notability, and it is plain wrong. Maybe I'm totally in the wrong... yes, you are. Don't claim your position is supported by consensus if you're unable/unwilling to provide a link to the relevant discussion. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 04:39, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

For the last time, I am not saying in any way, shape or form, that there is nothing wrong with the notability of the subject of the article, but this is now your fifth time saying that now. And for some reason you have decided to sanction me, which is flat out absurd. Sometimes there aren't actual policies or guidelines that govern what we are discussing, as the above section outlines. I have been civil and forthright, but for some reason you still sanction me. I never claimed that my position was supported by consensus. It's not purely fabrication. You do not WP:OWN the article you created. You have refused to address literally anything in the discussion. Please allow other individuals to comment here. Thanks. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 13:48, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

You continue to mention notability, so I will continue to address it. Notability only has to do with whether we have an article or not. There are no other aspects to it. So the only recourse regarding a notability concern is deletion. And you have not been sanctioned. That is false—you were given a standard DS notice. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 19:25, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

If this were a person who held a federal position, or was governor, lieutenant governor? I'd limit the rest of his state level positions shown, to his mayorship. However, seeing as the highest office he's held was 'mayor', then the lower positions should be added. GoodDay (talk) 21:02, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough, but his highest office held is not mayor. A county office held is higher than a city office held. One could argue (Tartan probably) that being a member of the Libertarian National Committee is his highest held office held. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 21:34, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Um, actually, that's not the case in most states, and certainly not in California. Counties have very little say about what goes on in cities and mayors (and city councils) are not "below" county supervisors. EEng 22:54, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, as a general rule, when one is elected by a larger electorate, the office is deemed "higher." Especially when we're talking about a mayorship of a city that has 10k people vs a (portion of a) county seat of a county that has 2.2 million people. There is a huge difference there. It's pretty standard for counties to have a larger electorate than a city, but not always.--PerpetuityGrat (talk) 23:25, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

They're all under the positions of governor, lieutenant governor, state senator, state assemblyman. So, no reason to exclude. GoodDay (talk) 22:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I guess I missed it, is there a policy that I can refer to for future use? Much appreciated! --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 23:25, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Don't know if there is a guideline. I just follow the Biden precedent. GoodDay (talk) 23:35, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Bolding in non-lead infoboxes

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Bolding in non-lead infoboxes. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:25, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Infobox plurality discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § System for handling possibly plural infobox parameters. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:40, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

INFONAT

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I've noticed a bunch of basketball BLPs that omit country of birth for US subjects and retain the nationality parameter. I've tried looking, but I can't find any guideline or consensus for this. Does anybody know if there's something that I'm missing? Cheers. – ².O.^Boxing 13:51, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

As is not that uncommon with some projects, there are editors who have established what they believe is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS for doing it differently. This is against project consensus and makes the infobox less concise than if the country were listed with the rest of the birth place. You can see the history of Ruth Davis (basketball) for an example. I believe this could certainly be challenged per WP:CONLEVEL. MB 14:27, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the talk page of WP:Basketball, Thrakkx raised the issue here last month. However, it appears that some project members are requiring a community consensus to override their local consensus of ignoring the community consensus. After reading CONLEVEL (new one for me, thanks), it looks like they've got the process a tad bit backwards. – ².O.^Boxing 16:15, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

In the discussion Squared.Circle.Boxing linked, besides the fact that I was unnecessarily aggressive, the members of the sports WikiProjects believe that they are interpreting INFONAT correctly because, since the birth country is not listed, the nationality can be listed. The "guideline" they use is a loose set of conclusions by various editors, for example here. Thrakkx (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Speaking as the author of MOS:INFONAT, it was written broadly in consideration of the common/typical biography that has a parameter for birth_place (where the country of birth is specified because it is part of the birth place). The nationality parameter is reserved for special cases such as a person changing and/or having dual nationalities. Looking at {{infobox basketball biography}}, it is implemented exactly that way. Not putting the birth country in the birth_place field as an excuse to use nationality certainly goes against the intent of the MOS here. This practice is also potentially confusing. If the infobox says a person is from some city/province and then lists a nationality, is that the birth country or a different country (we can't expect readers to know the country of every city/state/province in the world). In practice, I see that many articles using this template do list the birth county in birth_place for lesser-known places (e.g. Klavs Cavars, Vidas Ginevičius, Toms Leimanis, while commonly omitting it for U.S. and Canadian players. Articles should not use the infobox differently like this. MB 22:39, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

@MB Calling it an excuse is ignoring the history. The guideline change was contrary to WP:PROPOSAL:

Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.

Before the MOS change, we had projects that did not duplicate the country when it was consistent with the listed nationality. However, after the MOS change, we now have editors that blindly add country to the birthplace of "non-compliant" ibxs, sometimes while leaving the nationality in place, causing real redundancy. See this recent edit at Kareem Abdul Jabbar. —Bagumba (talk) 02:49, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Bagumba, what guideline change was contrary to WP:PROPOSAL? If you mean the addition of MOS:INFONAT to MOS:INFOBOX, there was a well-attended RFC on that. Also, as I said above, using nationality (which by implication is the person's current nationality) without stating the country of birth is less precise because the reader may not know in which country the birth place is located. Stating the place of birth, with the country, and using nationality only when needed is more succinct. It usually takes up less space as well, especially when US or UK are used. As far as the redundancy in KAJ, that is just wrong - it clearly doesn't follow MOS:INFONAT either and the redundant nationality should be removed. MB 04:26, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Certain projects already listed nationality and didn't repeat an obvious country in birthplace. So requiring country would not reflect an existing overall standard practice. I'm aware there was an RfC. I commented there. The close did not mandate placing country in birthplace if it wasn't there:

Consensus has been determined that |nationality= or |citizenship= should not be used when the country would match that found in |birthplace= (Option 1).

With that background, please explain what "excuse" you were referring to?—Bagumba (talk) 06:51, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Some projects use their preference not to include country of birth in |birth_place= for Americans as an excuse to justify continuing to include nationality despite INFONAT. As noted, that presents a CONLEVEL problem. (And as noted, the cited edit to Jabbar is not consistent with INFONAT anyways). Nikkimaria (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. Keeping the status quo and doing nothing is not an "excuse". That's why WP:PROPOSAL suggests reflecting existing practices, and not changing guidelines to expect someone else to implement massive overhauls. But here we are.—Bagumba (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Editor's have been willing to give the time and effort to make the changes, but they're being reverted and told that their interpretation of INFONAT is incorrect. Hence being here. – ².O.^Boxing 19:26, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. If individuals don't want to make this minor change themselves, no one will force them to. But actively reverting is not "doing nothing". The problem here isn't WP:PROPOSAL, it's the belief that what "certain projects" do is equivalent to "existing overall standard practice". Nikkimaria (talk) 01:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Bagumba: please, don't try to claim that "keeping the status quo" and "doing nothing" are the same. You and others at WikiProject Basketball argue vehemently against any interpretation of INFONAT when it doesn't agree with your own. You systematically revert good faith edits that attempt to align infoboxes with the policy that is available for all to see and is interpreted in the same way, except for WikiProject Basketball. I think this quote from my discussion sums up the behavior of the project members: I don't care what INFONAT says – if you can't establish consensus here, I won't be aligning. Thrakkx (talk) 00:06, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

You systematically revert good faith edits...: Per WP:NPA:

Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence, usually in the form of diffs and links.

Feel free to take your concerns to an appropriate noticeboard. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 00:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Since you asked: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. These edits encompass the previous 3 years, many on the same articles. You have regularly enforced your interpretation of INFONAT. I'm not looking to punish you on some noticeboard; I'm asking you to stop reverting editors who are aligning infoboxes with established guidelines and practices that (we've already discussed) supersede your local project's consensus. Thrakkx (talk) 17:18, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I took offense to your use of systematically. As part of BRD, any of us can revert for a good faith reason. In your case, this discussion did not lead to consensus of your interpretation of INFONAT. This current thread, initiated by Squared.Circle.Boxing, does. Apologies if your choice of systematically was not intended to be nefarious, but the timing was odd days after this thread seemed settled and inactive. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Could someone please link the guideline that requires country to follow City, State (or City, Province)? It seems assumed that this is spelled out in WP:INFONAT, but it is not. Rikster2 (talk) 01:55, 14 April 2022 (UTC)\

It's not spelled out because guidelines are written to minimize excess wording. I'll spell it out here. The |birth_place= field is assumed to mean the entire birthplace because that is what it is called and how it is used in virtually all infoboxes. It is not called |birth_place_without_county= or |partial_birthplace=. The common understanding of what birthplace means, along with the rest of the language in INFONAT should make it clear that |nationality= should not be used unless the nationality differs from the country of birth, as specified with birthplace. Actually, that quote does pretty much spell out that the country belongs in |birthplace=. Please stop trying to exploit a perceived loophole and accept project level consensus. The argument that if the country isn't already in the birthplace, it shouldn't be moved there and nationality can still be used is specious wikilawyering. MB 03:28, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It doesn't need spelling out. The RfC dealt with removing a redundant parameter in the infobox. The consensus was clear: if the nationality is same as the place of birth, the nationality parameter is redundant. Solution? Considering there isn't a conflicting guideline that recommends omitting country of birth in favour of nationality, then we include the country of birth and remove the nationality. Simple really. – ².O.^Boxing 03:31, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

This edit is just ridiculous and perfectly demonstrates the flawed logic used. You're expecting people to deduce that he was born in America because it says he's American? You do realise there's a fairly well known country called Georgia, right? I think enough is enough. Anybody reverting these edits under the assumption that a community consensus is required to override their local consensus of ignoring the community consensus needs to read CONLEVEL, and drop this particular stick. – ².O.^Boxing 04:28, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Could somebody please link the consensus discussion that led to current WP:INFONAT? And, no, MB, you giving your interpretation of something not spelled out in the guideline does not substitute for a guideline giving clear direction. If country is REQUIRED per a guideline (which is how many are editing pages) then the guideline should be explicit about that. The name field doesn't say |shortened_name= or |name_without_middle_name= or |common_name= either, smart guy (I owuld have said "smart ass," but we are being WP:CIVIL, here, right)? Rikster2 (talk) 13:02, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

INFONAT says the country of birth, as specified with birthplace. That says the country is to be specified in birthplace. For your interpretation to be accurate, it would have to read the country of birth, IF specified with birthplace. The discussion was already linked above by Bagumba. MB 13:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Could you please link the guideline that recommends removing country of birth and including nationality? If not, then there's not much else to say. I'm also reverting this, again, for reasons already stated. Was very clearly labelled American before folks started removing nationality and replacing with country in the birthplace field is not an adequate reason to go against INFONAT, nor is it an adequate reason to leave it looking like the subject was a Georgian-born American. – ².O.^Boxing 14:22, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Why should we be assuming that the player's nationality is the same as their country of birth? Imagine if Steve Nash's birthplace in his infobox was listed as only "Johannesburg, Gauteng". Does that mean the reader is expected to look at the Canadian nationality marker in Nash's infobox and assume that Gauteng is a Canadian province? There's nothing wrong with listing the country of birth in a player's infobox, because their country of birth may not always match their nationality.Canuck^{89 (Converse with me)} 07:59, April 17, 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.