Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Archive 1

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For current issues regarding the WikiProject Countries, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries.

Where is the list of participants? Sign me up! --mav

Obviously I'm in as well ;) -Scipius
  • Somehow I seem to have fallen into it as well. :) -- April

Headers

There's discussion on Wikipedia talk:Status of the porting of U.S. Dept of State info about how to desubpage the country entries, or whether to do so; if you're still interested in getting this off the ground you should go vote about what to do.  :-) --KQ

Jeronimo, why did you change the previously established layout for the headers? Using the === unnecessarily separates the title from the "main article: xxx" sub-header. Given that you had the HTML right there on the page I don't think there was a chance people would find it too difficult. -Scipius

Scipius, the main reason that I did this (maveric149 did the same for his chemical elements template) was that it was not Wiki mark-up. The current trend is to change all formatting to wiki layout; even for tables (that is being discussed on the mailing-list). Reasons are that people unfamiliar with HTML may be scared to edit such articles and (which is my personal reason) that I would prefer not to put in displaying elements in the text - that is the task of the stylesheets. In this way, we define a heading as a heading, and not a part of text as boldface size x. But of course you're free to use that format everywhere... Jeronimo 12:18 Aug 3, 2002 (PDT)
I see. I asked because I had already inadvertently changed the Netherlands Antilles headers over. Why is this the "current trend" though? Was this discussed somewhere? It does make the page look slightly more disorganised at the moment, but since "font size" doesn't seem to work properly anyway (see the Europe article, the note numbers should be -1, but aren't), I'll think I'll wait until all is sorted out. -Scipius
< sup > tags work well for footnotes. e.g. 1 --KQ
I disagree (they create whitespace in between the entries, at least on my browser (Moz1)), but it does make the point about them being notes clearer. Let's leave it this way until font size works again. -Scipius
I think the trend is such for several reasons, but mainly to make things easier, both for us and for new editors. I had a short "discussion" with maveric on this about this (I think it's on my talk page), and I think he had one prior to that (I reacted on his changes to the headings).


Anyway, I haven't bothered to change the headings in the already existing pages yet, if only because it _does_ look nicer. But I think the WikiProject countries should focus more on how the content should be, and less on details of layout (although a uniform layout would be best, of course). Jeronimo
I've read it, thanks. You're certainly right in that there are still plenty of countries left to do first ;). -Scipius

Scipius I think we are all on the same page here in not liking the extra whitespace that the wiki headings put in by default. Instead of trying to circumvent this through HTML tricks that will turn away the HTML-phobic (which is the majority of the web) why not make a feature request to change the behavior of heading parsing? You could ask for a more WYSIWYG heading that would only have the trailing space if there is an extra space after the heading. It is counter-intuitive the way it is now;

<br> === Heading ===<br> Test, blah, blah, blah...

Should render as;

Heading

Test, blah, blah, blah...

With that blasted trailing whitespace! Please copy any of the above in your feature request and also include that the current behavior is leading you and many others to use HTML instead of wiki. I think the elements articles are not as nice looking as they were before but a wikipedia article that is only editable by a small group of people is not a wikipedia article. --mav

Vertical spacing after a header tag is normal in HTML. If you want it to look different and you don't want to abuse the system by not using header tags for headers (in the output from wikicode, that is), what you actually want is to have the stylesheet changed and thus the spacing reduced. --Brion VIBBER
This is what all the fuss is about: < font size="+1 > Heading < /font >< br > vs. === Heading === --mav
Right. The former is doubly wrong (1: hard to edit/read source; 2: doesn't produce proper header tag for metaprocessing -- autoindexing, tables of contents, section numbering, summarization, proper emphasis for text or speech browsers, etc) while the latter is easy to read, easy to use, and produced correct and usable code, but some people don't think it looks nice using the default style. Ergo, fix the style. --Brion VIBBER
Brion is right here; I'm not sure however it's possible to use an HTML heading without hte whitespace. Jeronimo
Oh ye of little faith. :) Here's an example: media:temp-stylesheet-demo.html --Brion VIBBER
Cool. What might the syntax be? I do hate having the extra space but I am a bit cautious about changing all current heading behavior. --mav
Simple addition to the stylesheet: h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,h7,h8 { margin-bottom: 0; } If you don't include a blank line between the header and the following text, no <p> tag is inserted, so the text immediately abuts the header. If you do include a blank line, a <p> is inserted, which has its own top-margin (normally absorbed by the existence of the header's bottom-margin) and you get the space. Intuitive, no? --Brion VIBBER
So how do we get it to look like in that example? Has this been implemented yet? It's funny and maybe I'm an exception, but I knew next to nothing about HTML before I came to Wikipedia. I've found it relatively straightforward to use once all the options are known (e.g. see the population pyramid table in Netherlands). I don't know anything about how to edit stylesheets, but I assume there will be tutorials for that. -Scipius


No < p > after a < / h* > is badly-formed HTML -- the markup parser should force one. Use H*+P in CSS to set top margin of Ps following H* to zero. -- Tarquin
Bad HTML to be sure, but that's what the parser does currently produce. Your suggestion is a good one, however! --Brion VIBBER

I just added a feature request for this. Please add any comments to it you see fit (on my browser you have to scroll down to get to the text -- for some reason having HTML in the title field messed up that page). -mav

I'm not sure if my comment is posting of sourceforge: This is needless complication. A heading should be a heading, no more. users who want to *see* headings differently should be given a different CSS stylesheet which displays them differently (and, yes, HTML in the title breaks that page - 2 out of 3 browsers I have tried to load it with fail on it completely -- Tarquin

I submitted another feature request this time without the HTML in the summary field. The above link has been updated. I'm not sure if you are for or against killing the trailing whitespace... --mav

I don't mind how the headers look. But asking for new markup for this is mixing content with formatting. Trailing space or lack of should be implemented through CSS not through markup -- Tarquin

Whose asking for new markup? I want the behavior of the current markup changed to be more intuitive and flexible. I have no idea what you are talking about with the CSS statement. --mav

"I would like to see a more WYSIWYG wiki heading that would only have the trailing space if there is an extra space after the heading." <-- you seem to be asking for two different class of headings - those with space after and those without. What is this for? Is it to make some level 2 headings more important that other level 2 headings? Is it so some writers can have space after headings if they wish while others can have them without space? -- Tarquin

As the one who came up with the HTML style header for the WikiProject, I can say that it was to achieve a clear notion of the section text being just a summary of the main topic articles that are linked to just under the header. Anyway, it works now as described above and I quite like it. -Scipius





Table issues

The "side table" contains incorrect HTML syntax, as kindly pointed out by Fred Bauder on my talk page. LDC corrected it at China/Temp, and I saw W3's validator didn't like the other formatted pages. This should be fixed, but it is bedtime for me now. Jeronimo 14:29 Aug 4, 2002 (PDT)

I fixed all tables in WikiProject pages (and the template, of course). Jeronimo

Floating a table of this size makes some part of the main text hard to read at any browser width. -- Tarquin

I agree that the table is way too fat -- fatter even then the elements table. But I don't agree this effects all browser widths; on my home screen it looks fine (17 inch at 1200 pixels wide). But since 50+ % of the web uses the default MS Windows resolution of 800 by 600 I think this is a serious problem. The images have been the worst offenders here and need to be much smaller. Some additional wordsmithing should also be done to thin the table. It took me well over a month to develop the original elements table at Beryllium with the help nearly a dozen people. This table seems to have been rushed out the door and now issues are surfacing. --mav

Although I agree that the table could be smaller, but I checked some tables in Windows at 1024 x 768 (my usual) and 800 x 600, and it looks fine to me on both sizes. The table is maybe half the content part of the page, but that actually makes the text easier to read (newspaper effect). But, I'll keep an eye out for making the tables smaller if possible. Jeronimo 23:37 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)


I think the simplest thing would be to unfloat the table so there is no text squeezed down the side of it -- Tarquin
Let's not unfloat it, that makes it look hideous at larger resolutions and wouldn't be much prettier at smaller ones, except 640x480 or something like that. I also disagree the table is too wide per se. It wasn't necessarily rushed out, we already slimmed the original down. Yes, it can perhaps be trimmed further, but the problem is partly that not all tables will be the same width, as countries will require different lengths of information to be added to their individual tables. Let's see how it can be further narrowed.
On the general page width, I think we shouldn't always cater to the lowest common denominator. Sure, maybe now lots of people still use that resolution (though I'm not sure), but this will change over the coming years. With Wikipedia being a long-term project that's still pretty much unknown to the general public at large, I think we can afford to write to at least 800x600 or even better 1024x768. As pointed out, it doesn't look all that bad at 800x600, a further trick would be to use only small paragraphs in the text next to the table/map, so that when viewed at a smaller res, it won't be too much of a textblock. -Scipius

I'm not saying we should cater to people who have screens set at 640x480, but to the majority of the web that have screens set at 800x600. At that res the Netherlands table, for example, takes up well over half of the content area of the article. And this is with a maximized browser window without any browser sidebar. If the table were an image, this width would violate our Wikipedia:image use policy. I will work on an alternate table that will only take up half of the content area on 800x600 screens. Here is a link to a screenshot of the Netherlands table. This image is 395 pixels wide and was taken one for one from a screen shoot of the Netherlands article. --mav


this is not only about low-res screens. This is about good layout and good typography. My desktop is 1152x900, but there is no way I can read all of that page comfortably without resizing my browser window: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TenWordLine -- either the text alongside the table is too narrow, or the text above & below is far too wide. I suggest either unfloating the table or putting it on a seperate page, eg "Netherlands Factsheet" -- Tarquin


As an example, I reduced the width of the United States table by well over 100 pixels. Now the table is just over 250 pixels wide. Unlike images I think these tables could be up to 300 pixels wide because tables are not as distracting to me as images so the extra width isn't as important. We should still shoot for 250 though. Notice I placed the official name above the table where the useless "facts" statement was (this was needed for width issues). For non-Enlish speaking nations we can simply have he official local long form in grey right under the English long form. There is no need for an explanatory cell for these things. --mav

Looks neat, maveric, it's better now even on my high res screen. Countries with multiple names (up to 3 local names in BEL, LUX) may give problems though. Jeronimo 23:25 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)
Thank you! Yeah those will be problematic but we can take these things one step at a time and there is no rule that each table has to be a carbon copy with different info. We can make tweaks here and there for each country in order to get everything to work right. --mav
The United States table is indeed not ideal for testing things out, since it misses several fields. I'm not too excited about the resulting extra whitespace, but I think the slimming down looks OK otherwise. However, I don't think tables need to be in the 200s, 300px (that's still less than half the screen on 800x600) seems like a good goal to reach for, with a margin of, say, some 20, 30px at the very most? We can even edit in the width in the template table and play with it if necessary. I've edited the table at France for a European example at now 315px. -Scipius
I've further edited the Netherlands table, now at 285px. That's possibly as small as it should get and has led me to believe we should indeed shoot for around 300px as the goal rather than 250px. -Scipius

I've changed the table template to the one used at Netherlands right now (slightly different from the one at United States). The table is much smaller this way. Jeronimo

Rankings

Now that we have the space, it might be neat to have area and population world rankings. Here is an example from outdated off-the-top-of-my-head data for the US; 

Area    |Ranked 3rd 
Land    |9,166,600 km²         
Water   |206,010 km²

and 

Population |Ranked 7th
Total      |281,421,906
Density    |31/km²

I say we get rid of the ugliness the mile figures introduced, make an article named square kilometer and provide conversion factors there. This is what I have planned to do all along for the elements tables (since I use SI units almost exclusively in order to reduce table size). It would also be neat to link the actual numbers to the corresponding orders of magnitude article. That way there will be two ways people can relate the area figures. --mav

Amen! Even we merkins are taught metric in school; we can call up the conversion factors and calc.exe if we need to. --Brion VIBBER
Yes, kill the darn miles! Though after a trip to America, I'm glad that I am NOT the one that has to do the conversions :-)
As for the rankings, we should also provide a ranking article then (or at least mention a source for this) since I don't think it's in the CIA factbook (or is it?). Also, I think the total area should be mentioned somewhere, so either


Area    |Ranked 3rd 
Total   |9,372,610 km²
Land    |9,166,600 km²         
Water   |206,010 km²

or 

Area    |Ranked 3rd 
Total   |9,372,610 km²
Water   |206,010 km²
would be my suggestion. Jeronimo
An almanac article with a list of rankings would be most cool. Great idea! Either of your total area modifications work for me. Vertical space is cheap but my only concern with having four entries is that the numbers begin to jumble together. But that may just be my math dyslexia. --mav

Yes, I think Total and Water only will be enough (my preference). Maybe "of which water" would be clearer, although "Total" does suggest it includes everything.

Found some possible data sources:

The CIA book also has the land/water/total figures neatly together. Anybody looking for something to do ;-) ? Jeronimo 00:54 Aug 7, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks for the links - I'll look at them later. How about this; 



Area                |Ranked 3rd 
Total               |9,372,610 km²
Water (% of total)  |206,010 km² (2.2)

I tried this with a preview of the US article and it did not add any extra width. --mav

Better idea; only mention the percent of water (a calculation already has to be made for the land figure. 


Area                |Ranked 3rd 
Total               |9,372,610 km²
Percent water       |2.2%

--mav


Yes, the latter proposal gives a better impression of the amount of water. Note that for some countries listed at the CIA, the water area is zero. This may be true for some of the small 1 sq km islands, but not for countries as Afghanistan or Algeria, no matter how dry the land may be. So we should include "unknown" there. Jeronimo
Unkown is a bit ambiguous. How about simply "none" or "none significant" or something like that? --mav

I found a link with the population ranking data already in it. I will make an Almanac article with the data and then look for a similar ranking list for area and maybe population density. --mav

http://futuresedge.org/World_Population_Issues/2001_population_ranking.html
I like the idea of rankings, but one problem will be that adding up-to-date stats could mean countries would have data from different years. How would this affect the rankings? Should we just use whatever year is available for a country in the ranking or only use figures from one fixed year available for all? Also, I've indented the text a little in the Netherlands table, shall we add all this to the template table already or wait some more? -Scipius

Misc. talk

I have introduced a proposal for a WikiProject protected areas. When you have the time could you guys have a look at it? I?m especially interested in what you think about the "Protected areas in [country name]" articles (see paragraph "Formatting of level 2 articles"), since there are points of contact with the country articles. Thanks! ? Guy

I listed a contact for this on your talk page. --mav

On the dafult table i dont particualry like the term "capital city" i much just prefer capital: - fonzy

I tend to agree -- the spelling and context is more than enough for a native English speaker to know what the term means. Let's hear from some non-native speakers before we change the template though. --mav


I noticed that a number of prominent UK cities do not yet have entries (e.g. Newcastle upon Tyne) and I thought I would create a page listing Cities of the United Kingdom, but then I thought, perhaps this list should be included in the page on the UK, however I note that it doesn?t form part of the template. Where should a list of cities go? What do people think? Mintguy

Hi Mintguy, I think a list of the cities of a country would probably be too large for the country article, but you could place a link to a new article called "Cities of the UK" or something similar in the section on administrative divisions (counties). Note that City listing (which is a bad name, btw) already lists a number of cities in the UK. Jeronimo 09:07 Aug 9, 2002 (PDT)

i think religion should be added to the table. - fonzy


Religion is something that should be treated in the "Demography of" section, since most countries do not have an official religion. Even if they do, it's often not enough to just say "Islam", you'll probably want to say Shiite or Sunna Muslim, percentages, etc. Moreover, in my country (Netherlands), many people may have had a religious upbriging, but they're not really practising their religion. What to call them? Therefore, it's going to far for a field in the table IMO. I've been thinking that the same might be true for the language field. Jeronimo

What i mean is the main religion/sect of the country and mabey rename offical lanugae to main language.

Also i have tried something on the uk/temp, south africa/temp and china/temp page (at the top) look and see well listen and tell me what you think.

You mean the audio clips pronouncing the name of the country in English? I'm sorry, it's a interesting idea, but I don't see any need for them. Anyone who comes here already speaks English, and thus would have a reasonable grasp on how to pronounce the country's name anyway. It would be more worthwile to have the local pronounciation, but that would be a lot more difficult of course (native speakers would ideally be required). -Scipius

well how many people do you know that could pronouce "the socialist people's libyan arab jamahaira (spelt wrong i know). - fonzy

It's not that difficult IMHO, and since the complete official name is hardly ever used in conversation there won't be too many people wondering just how to pronounce the name. -Scipius

-fine i won't bother suggesting anything again.s orry its not just you its just gernally everytime i suggest something someone says sorry nto a good idea dont like it, etc. - fonzy.

I understand the frustration, it has happened to all of us ;). It's just in the nature of Wikipedia that not all ideas will be as warmly welcomed as others, as you're dealing with a wide variety of people here. And you know what they say about opinions... ;) Look at it from a generalised viewpoint: would you be willing to add the names for all countries? Should we also include semi-independent countries or even national subdivisions? Why would countries of the world articles deserve such a treatment, but not others? Wouldn't it be handy to have the pronounciation of the person's name in all the biographies we have here? It could work, but do we really need it? Mind you, just because I don't think there's a need, doesn't mean others wouldn't agree with you. -Scipius

Politics and government are not synonymous concepts, nor should be treated as such. I'm breaking up at least the US. Also, I think "demographics" is a more standard usage than "demography", which is generally reserved for the study of population characteristics/statistics, not the information itself. (E.g. on google "demographics" is an order more common than "demography".) --The Cunctator

Government and politcs are indeed not synonymous, but they are strongly related. "Politics" here refers only to the section dealing with all political aspects of the country in question, and government fits perfectly into it. We could give every single aspect of a country it's own heading, but that's not the purpose of the main page, which should be mostly just a summary of the main topic articles, presenting the main facts and info, and a repository of links to smaller subjects on that country.
I've restored the article according to the template, this includes the change to "demographics", which would break up consistency with "geography" and "economy". Also restored the headers, which you had made into a single bold header containing the link to the section article. Let's discuss that here, since this would have to be part of the template. -Scipius


As a native English speaker, I've got to pull weight and say that "demography" is just a totally non-standard term, and you shouldn't go by visual consistency with other words. We need to go by consistency of meaning. By that logic, it should be "Policy" and not "Politics". Changing back... --The Cunctator
Well, "policy" has a distinctly different meaning, so wouldn't be possible. Could you please discuss this sort of thing here, since such a change needs to be part of the template? This also goes for your header idea. We can leave the US page as it is now as an example of it, but I will restore the established headers should no-one else be in favour of it. Maybe another Anglophone can chime in on the demographics issue, and should we perhaps vote on what the headers should look like? -Scipius

Hey Cunctator, these names were decided upon after some debate and voting at Wikipedia talk:Status of the porting of U.S. Dept of State info, including several native English speakers. I'd appreciate if you not just start moving this stuff around without discussion. Jeronimo

Now you're also changing the way headers are done in the template (at United States). I'm not saying it's wrong, but please discuss it here first, you're not the only person working with this template, and it has not just been designed or so. Jeronimo

I think we should have one alast redesign of the table and then STICK WITH THAT and dont change it, change it again (if needs be) after the work has been done. (meaning after all 192 independent + oher automous depent countries have ben done) - fonzy


I suggest that the template have separate rows for 'head of state' and 'head of government', rather than the current 'monarch/president' (after all, many countries have neither of those). --Matthew Woodcraft

One step ahead of you. See Netherlands. We simply add another row when needed. --mav

But this is bad, because now the headings column unnecessarily has different entries for different countries. Better to put the role ('Queen', 'Prime minister' &c) on the right-hand side, where varying data belongs. --Matthew Woodcraft

Why does the heading column need to always be a carbon copy? There is no consistant definition for either head of state or head of governement. These things have wildly different meanings in different countries and having the extra wording all on the right will make the table fatter than it needs to be. One thing to say in the Monarch, Prime Minister or President article for the individual nation is the role they play in the government of the country. --mav

Question: what about countries/states that no longer exist as such? I feel the urge to add a flag and stat table to Soviet Union (using stats as of December 24, 1991 or earlier, presumably)... Of course, this could quickly go overboard; I dunno if Roman Empire or Carthage needs one. --Brion 11:58 Aug 12, 2002 (PDT)

Go for it! but also you should add the idividual falgs and stats on all the ex soviet states - fonzy

I think it would be acceptable to have a "light format" for extinct countries, since we may also want have a facts table for East Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc. Some of the features would not be useful anymore, but we may still want list a flag, a coat of arms, etc. We could work out the details first, or you can have try at the Soviet Union and we can comment on it :-) Jeronimo

BTW you may know thi may not official local name of USSR:Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotcijalisticka Respupublik - fonzy

Regarding the currencies, most entries list something like "US Dollar" or "Guatamaltec Quetzal". That does not really add information, just the name of the currency will do in my opinion, UNLESS a foreign currency is used (so the US Virgin Islands should list United States dollar). It saves table space. Jeronimo

Howzabout [[United States dollar|Dollar]] etc? --Brion

Yes, exactly what I meant. Jeronimo

As stated before Cunctator if you want to tweak the template significantly put it to a vote. Please stop trying to force everyone to do things your way. --mav

The template seems to be in error. Here's this from dictionary.com:

demography n. The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.
demographics n. (used with a plural verb) The characteristics of human populations and population segments, especially when used to identify consumer markets: The demographics of the Southwest indicate a growing population of older consumers.

I vote we quit using "Demography of" and swith to "Demographics of," since it's the correct usage, and that we correct links accordingly. Of course I'd be happy to help. --KQ

Vote:

"demography of x":
"demographics of x": --KQ, mav, Slrubenstein, fonzy, Jeronimo (if it's correct, it's correct, and no vote should be needed), Scipius (indeed, Jeronimo).

Now that everything's been moved to "Demographics of X", should we start deleting the "Demography of X" articles? The "X/People" articles can be edited to point to "Demographics of X", and this way we remove the double-redirect problem. -- April

The "demography" name hasn't been used for very long so deleting these pages shouldn't break any external links. However, it will be much easier to just fix the /People redirects (which have been around long enough to be indexed by the whole planet a few times and need to be kept). --mav
  • (Copied from User talk:-- April because relevant here): KQ did the bulk of the demography -> demographics work; I stand in awe of his patience. I've gone through and changed all links to "People of X" to "Demographics of X", then deleted the "People of X" pages. Going to do the same with "Demography of X." That'll leave us with "X/People", hopefully properly redirected, and "Demographics of X". The former should serve for any old links to those pages, the latter for the new "permanent" pages. And, I hope, it'll reduce the confusion, clutter, and double-redirects. -- April

"Politics of X" vs. "Government of X"

  • OK, Demography titles are removed, and I'm working to see that links are all updated and redirects pointing to the proper places. Should the next step be to move "Government of X" to "Politics of X" unless, of course, both articles exist already? If so, should "Government of X" pages then be deleted once all the links and redirects are updated? -- April
The Cunctator has already objected to this. See discussion above. I personally think he is technically correct in some sense but his point of distinguishing the two is not really needed. I along with most other participants here, feel that "politics" is more inclusive word than government. But I don't have strong feelings on this. --mav
Hmmmm. My objection to "Demography" is that the word refers to an academic discipline, not the object of study. It is true that at some Universities there are "Government" departments, but the word still refers to an object of study. So personally, I have no objection to keeping "Government." Also, to add to mav's point, "politics" is much more inclusive -- but this can be a reason for change, or a reason for not changing. If the section in the article simply describes the organs of state and the basis of their legitimacy, I think "Government" would be more precise -- to change it to "politics" would be to suggest that the article is providing more information than it does. I suppose it could also be taken as an invitation to others to add more information. That would be a good thing, and then "politics" would be most appropriate. But I am concerned that a heading "Politics" followed by a description of the government is a little misleading... Slrubenstein
Perhaps then we could physically divide the info as Cunctator has already done for the United States. This would be more work however and the result for most countries will be two very short articles where one decent article used to be. --mav
Looking at the defintions on dictionary.com, it asserts that government and politics are essentially equivalent terms, where politics is either the "science of government" (which is not what we want: "Science of government of the United States") or the "methods or tactics of managing a government" ("Methods and tactics of government of the United States" is what is in the "Politics of the United States" entry"). I'd argue that "government" is a better primary article for our use here, in the same way that we have "Economy of X" and not "Economic policy of X" or "Economic situation of X". Also, I think it's better to have the template emerge from the editing of the articles than to be imposed top-down. More specificly, it's good to impose the template top-down, but people editing the individual countries should be able to override the template. No need to ram square pegs into round holes. --The Cunctator
Well, "politics" is not essentially equivalent to "government," no matter what some dictionary (or some theorists, like Aristotle) say -- there is a lot of great research about "politics" outside of "government" -- whether concerning new social movements, or gender relations, or labor history. The question is, should this stuff be in a "country" article? If the country is "USA" or another country from which some contributors come (e.g. the Netherlands) some of this research is discussed in other articles. But for many countries a lot of this research simply has not been covered yet. I hope it will be covered, and I do think that the country articles are a good place to cover it. Until it is covered, though, I think a heading of "Government" communicates more precisely what readers can expect, Slrubenstein
I agree. --The Cunctator
I disagree. "Government" simply does not cover the whole range of political activity in a country. The idea is to have one section dealing with all of it, not to have all sorts of sections in the main article. Government is also a term that can be interpreted to refer to only the public officials currently in office, like a cabinet. "Politics" seems to me to have the proper unambiguity required for this topic article. -Scipius

About the subsections

In United States, I've been going and changing

History

Main article: History of the United States

to

History of the United States

etc.

There are problems with both implementations, but instead of arguing about that I'll propose an alternative.

I propose that within the main country article the subsections be limited to 1 paragraph only (within reasonable judgment). That paragraph should be essentially the same as the first paragraph of the entry on that topic, which follows good Wikipedia form of having the first paragraph be able to stand alone as an overview of the subject. That way it will be obvious that what's included in the country article (e.g. United States) isn't meant to be comprehensive. It will also, equally importantly, eliminate article drift and duplication between the country and the topic articles...right now the History section in United States has gotten huge.

(I still think the linked headings are much better. A general rule of thumb for me is that italicized meta information is a sign of an imperfect article/interface, since meta-information is only necessary where what it refers to is unclear), and certainly not something that should be institutionalized in a template. --The Cunctator

I agree with Cunc that when there exists a more detailed article, the summary in the main article should be brief. I also agree that the italicized links look awkward. But the linked headings are also not very user-friendly. I like plain old run-in explanatory English prose wherever possible, so I would suggest something like this:

History

The United States was formed in 1776 when 13 colonies of Britain on the east coast declared their independence and became the first states. The country expanded toward the west of the continent mostly during the 1800s.

For a more detailed history, see History of the United States.

I think 1 paragraph is WAY to short for most of the subtopic to even be covered in some depth. We want the people that read this page to get an idea of the topic they're looking at, so there should be some content. Only one paragraph (and what's one paragraph, I can delete all whitespace in the current USA short history text and have one paragraph) would be even worse than just putting : America is a country. We have a link for "history", "economy", etc. Jeronimo
Yes - one paragraph is useless. There is currently more history in the definition paragraph than that. The current history (which was the CIA introduction) is short enough and may be too short as is. --mav

more on Politics of X vs Government of X

Since KQ and I are more or less methodically moving the Factbook titles out of their subpage structure, this is now becoming an important question. We definitely don't want to move everything twice, as with demography -> demographics. I therefore suggest a vote for various possibilities. -- April

vote

  • move X/Government to Politics of X
    • I vote for this - with Government as a sub-heading, perhaps. We don't have enough text (for most countries) to justify two pages. -- April, mav ("government of..." can be spun off in the future if and when needed (as with the United States), --KQ I agree with 'predecesors' and vote for this option --Youandme (since "politics" includes grassroots and counterculture efforts towards social change ["The often internally conflicting interrelationships among people in a society"], and "government" does not), Scipius
  • move X/Government to Government of X
  • move X/Government to Government of X and retain Politics of X for non-Factbook political information.

I'm cool with either the first or second option, as long as we pick one. -- Jeronimo

I vote for the first, but I would also like to discuss how the United States article is currently divided in Government and Politics. I don't really see a need for it. The governmental information will of course be the bulk of the Politics section, but why take it out of it? It also depends on exactly what scope you consider the word "government" to have, but I would suggest keeping the governmental info in the Politics section, which should be the primary article on all political activity in a country, and you can't really do that without its government I would think. -Scipius

When do the polls close on this? --KQ
As it appears to be unanimous I open a call for an end to the election. Do you second? --mav
I was expecting to hear more from The Cunctator about it, but I guess he's not following this or he's rested his case--I don't know. --KQ
Either way I am calling an end to elections in 24 hours. --mav 18:46 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)

Hey guys . . . I've cleaned up the main law article to the point where I think it makes sense to incorporate links to the law of specific countries in the countries template. I've only created two such articles so far, Law of the United States and Law of the United Kingdom, but I modified the United States and United Kingdom articles to conform to this scheme.--NetEsq

I'm probably getting ahead of the game here, but how do people want to organize the Politics of X articles? I note that some have the State Dept info first, some the CIA Factbook stuff; and wikitext has been interspersed into various parts. To start things off, I'd suggest:

  • Codes and symbols
  • Government type and procedures
  • Political parties
  • Major political issues

or something along those lines. -- April 00:35 Sep 7, 2002 (UCT)

Sounds good to me. Thanks for picking up this issue before it becomes as much of a task as desubpaging all the countries was.  :-) --KQ 04:06 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)
  • On a related note, do we really need the sections "Diplomatic missions from/to the US"? This being an international cyclopedia 'n' all. -- April
    • I think those can go. It might not hurt to cite each country's UN mission, though. Or not, whatever. --Brion
Those can go, IMO. We've got enough U.S.-centrism already, I think. (I quit adding specific pages on U.S./other country relations for the same reason--not having easy access to public domain info on e.g. Swaziland/Myanmar relations). --KQ

Hello, those of you who are knowledgeable about these things: we're moving the last of the country subpages to mainspace pages (as you probably know), and there are two questions that should be answered before continuing. One of them is at Talk:Seychelles and the other is at Talk:Yugoslavia. Thanks. --KQ

Applicability

After putting all countries to be done at the new status page, I wonder about the to which articles the template should be applied. Clearly, all independent countries. But the rest?

My solution is to apply the country template to dependent areas, but not (directly) to autonomous areas. Dependent areas are usually not part of the main country, and have a clearly different history, geography, culture, etc. Their page should be little different from a country's page, except maybe for the notice of independence. Autonomous areas are usually part of a bigger country, with which they share much of its history. Also, characteristics are usually typical to that country, and cannot be generally applied. Therefore, I think it would be more useful to make a separate template for such articles. These can of course be heavily based on this template, but it should be different. An example is found at North Brabant, which is a province (not autonomous). The "Look&Feel" is clearly similar to that of the country pages, but it is adapted to the topic. There are of course some border cases, but I think we can decide upon those (f.e. the Channel Islands and Man, which are geographically close to the UK, but have different status) In concreto, that means the Estonian SSR (a bad name in the first place) should have an adapted template, and it should be clearly marked as SSR - the same holds for the Wales article in development.

As for former nations, I suggest we limit the applications to country from the 19th century on. Countries as we know them now really came into existence in that period and later. On the other , I think this might be something to decide per case, as I think it would be equally useful to have a quick overview of the history, economy, culture etc. of the Roman or Incan empire - why not use the template then?

The nations with questionable status pose a more difficult problem, especially with respect to NPOV. Are we neutral if we put the flag of Chechnya here? Similar problems arise for Taiwan and Yugoslavia (the US doesn't recognise either, for example). What about the problematic topic of Palestine?

Those are my considerations, but I'd like to hear some comments. Jeronimo 08:36 Oct 15, 2002 (UTC)

I think the Estonian SSR/temp template at the moment is fine, its also a good name, as its teh right name. Also i may suggest that a midi tune is added for the anthems of the countries. - miky

Yes, Estonian SSR is the correct short name. I also thnk midis of the anthems are a good idea. - fonzy

I'll give my view on the matter:
  • Non-recognised countries. In principal these should be added, but the danger lies in what we consider to be actual countries and what not. Taiwan is obviously one. Chechnya is much more difficult, as it is not commonly considered to be truly independent and I would leave it out for the moment. How about Somaliland or even Sealand?
  • Dependent areas. Most of these are already considered to be worthy of the template, if only in that most are considered separate entities in geographical lists and articles and such (like the Factbook). We have all the data, so we might as well add the template.
  • Autonomous areas. I think the British examples you gave can be considered exceptions to a degree and a template should be possible, with some adaptations to make clear these aren't wholly independent nations. The Soviet republics belong to the final category.
  • Former nations. Here I am very much against adding the template outright, in particular the table. We will never be able to keep this consistent. The Soviet Union looks like a good attempt, but how far can we go? Does anyone have statistical data on the individual republics or other former nations? Who should be considered the monarch/president? What other countries/states should we add? Shall we extend this to each and every county/duchy/principality in the Holy Roman Empire (which likely enjoyed far more autonomy than the SSRs ever did)?
I think the table should not be used for former nations, which will also make it immediately clear that these entities no longer exist and are different from our templated articles. As for the sections, we can add those when the need arises. Given that in the template the section & header is meant to be a summary of the main topic-article, we should only make it a full section with its own article when we have enough information, which is unlikely to happen very soon for many extinct states. Until then we shouldn't try to force the template on the article as it will only leave an unfinished impression. Flags and coats of arms can easily be added without a table. Scipius 18:36 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

Just wanted to give you folks a link to an alternate way to do the countries table that we may get some good ideas from. It is from EL. [1] --mav

Another syggestion why not have a section with thumbnails of pictrues of that country, most online and cd-rom encyclopedias do. - fonzy

Standards for my idea: Pictures of the country(picture type)

types:

  • People
  • Buildings
  • Places
  • Animals

RE:midi anthems

Has anyone got a electronic keyobaord they could get a music sheet and then play it and upload it to wikipedia. I found an anthem on the net thanx to www.musicrobot.com. I added it to Germany

International Calling Codes

Hope nobody minds me putting the calling code on the bottom of the table in all country articles which follow this template. Someone beat me to putting it on this template!! If someons has serious objections, I suppose I might be able to go back and reverse the process, but I've already finished (I think). - User:Mark Ryan

I think that the calling codes are an even more useful piece of information than the internet TLD. Thanks for doing this, Mark. I am fully in favor of adding it to the template. If *one* someone has any serious objection, please let us discuss it here, otherwise, I would suggest that you just go ahead and add it to the template. olivier 02:58 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)
Just so long as the table does not get too cluttered. But that does not seem to be the case here. This is also useful information. This could be quite the reference tool for people who need to figure out the codes. -- Ram-Man
It seems usable enough to me as well. However, Ram-Man is right, we can't add to many things. There are more codes unique to each countries, but we don't have to include them all. If you're worried about adding a new element to the table you should ideally propose it here before you start adding it. -Scipius 20:19 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)
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