Usage

; Archives
	March 2005 – May 2006; June 2006 – July 2006; ; ;

from San Jose, California--Note Pipe characters are in front of the line of cell data, instead of at the end of the line, which makes it easier to include both sq km and sq mi for area cells (as well as simplifying the spacing):

<!-- Infobox begins -->{{Infobox City
|official_name          = City of San José
|native_name            = 
|nickname               = Capital of Silicon Valley
|motto                  = 
|image_skyline          = SJPan.jpg
|imagesize              = 
|image_caption          = 
|image_flag             = Us-ca-sj.gif
|image_seal             = Sj city seal.jpg
|image_shield           = 
|image_map              = SanJoseMapWithLAFCOandCityLabelsandCA.png
|mapsize                = 
|map_caption            = Location of San Jose within [[Santa Clara County, California]].
|subdivision_type       = [[Countries of the world|Country]]
|subdivision_name       = [[United States of America]]
|subdivision_type1      = [[Political divisions of the United States|State]]
|subdivision_name1      = [[California]]
|subdivision_type2      = [[List of counties in California|County]]
|subdivision_name2      = [[Santa Clara County, California|Santa Clara]]
|government_type        = [[Council-manager government|Council-Manager]]
|leader_title           = [[Mayor]]
|leader_name            = [[Ron Gonzales]]
|leader_title1          = [[City manager]]
|leader_name1           = [[Les White]]
|leader_title2          =
|leader_name2           =
|leader_title3          =
|leader_name3           = 
|established_title      = [[Settled]]
|established_date       = [[1770]]
|established_title2     = [[Municipal corporation|Incorporated]]
|established_date2      = [[March 27]], [[1850]]
|established_title3     = 
|established_date3      = 
|area_magnitude         = 1 E8
|area_total             = 461.5
|TotalArea_sq_mi        = 178.2
|area_land              = 452.9
|LandArea_sq_mi         = 174.9
|area_water             = 8.6
|WaterArea_sq_mi        = 3.3
|area_water_percent     = 
|area_urban             = 673.68<ref>[http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/ua2k.txt US Census Bureau Lists of Urbanized Areas]</ref>
|UrbanArea_sq_mi        = 260.11
|area_metro             =
|MetroArea_sq_mi        =
|population_as_of       = 2006
|population_note        = 
|population_total       = 953,679 (city proper)<ref>[http://www.sanjoseca.gov/planning/data/population/ City of San Jose Planning:Maps/Data]</ref>
|population_density     = 1,976.1
|population_density_mi2 = 5,118.1
|population_metro       = 1,741,431<ref>[http://www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metropop/table01.csv US Census Bureau Popultion Estimates for Metropolitan Statistical Areas]</ref>
|population_density_metro_km2 =
|population_density_metro_mi2 =
|population_urban       = 1,611,000
|timezone               = [[Pacific Time Zone|PST]]
|utc_offset             = -8
|timezone_DST           = PDT
|utc_offset_DST         = -7 
|latd                   = 37 
|latm                   = 18 
|lats                   = 15 
|latNS                  = N 
|longd                  = 121 
|longm                  = 52 
|longs                  = 22 
|longEW                 = W 
|elevation              = 26
|elevation_ft           = 85
|postal_code_type       = ZIP codes
|postal_code            = 95110–95139
|website                = [http://www.sanjoseca.gov www.sanjoseca.gov]
|footnotes              = 
}} <!-- Infobox ends -->

List of articles using this template

Discussion

Established Title/Date

How are the "established_title2", "established_date2" etc fields supposed to be used? Could someone give an example? -- SatyrTN 16:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They could be used for places where there is a "Founded" date as well as an "Incorporated" date (like at Albany, New York). This could already be done using " " tags, however, so I'm not sure if this makes the template any better. --MattWright (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It makes it better by fixing the way in which a screen reader (something a blind person would use) interpets the rows. My understanding is that a screen reader will not correctly read the order of the rows when using the " " tags. Doing the separate fields method would correct this and not affect the way in which you or I see the infobox. See Accessibility issues above. --MJCdetroit 17:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me -- it also ensures that the fields line up properly in some situations. --MattWright (talk) 17:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha - Thanks! SatyrTN

Yes, I added these for when I redid the Westfield, MA infobox. I found that the date that it was incorporated a town and the date it was settled was just as important as the city's incorporation. And its extra syntax that doesn't hurt to be there. I think it could be helpful to other articles as well, which is why I didn't use the   tags. → JARED ^(t) 02:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Postal code?

There should be a postal code section on these things. Most international cities have postal codes, like the US has zip codes, right? --Goatrider 08:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The MA town box has an option for zip code(s) and area code(s). I think they should be included on this page. Maybe someone could copy the code. Or I will eventually. → JARED ^(t) 14:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone copied it. But the section doesn't show up on the saved page. VolatileChemical 14:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I did it, but I don't know how to fix it. → JARED ^(t) 14:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose this. Large cities in the US have way too many postal codes to list easily in an infobox. howch e ng {chat} 17:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about telephone exchange and area code(s) as well? Daniel Case 16:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Howcheng —although, not strongly. This could work for small towns, but it could be a mess for larger cities. For large cities, the only way this could work (and be bearable) is if there was a link to a list of postal codes (or area codes) in the field entry. I did something similar to this for MPs and MLAs in the infobox for Toronto —it really uncluttered the infobox. Which leads us to the questions: Will this clutter up infoboxes? Should we put it in as optional and let the page editors decide? Is this really needed? —MJCdetroit 18:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's up to anyone. I just did it because it wasn't there. It's a good addition for small cities like the one I originally tried it for, but it doesn't work for some reason and I'm not good with ParserFunctions. → JARED ^(t) 19:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to oppose this as well. Look at how many postal codes there are or Phoenix, Arizona or New York City. I don't think I want those in the infobox,... It probably really doesn't need to be in an encyclopedia, either (though there's already a wiki page for zip codes in NYC). But the info is more for something like an almanac or city guide than an encyclopedia. Area codes would fit in the infobox better, but again, just because we can, does that mean we should ... area codes probably don't go in an encyclopedia either. Dr. Cash 22:04, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that postal code is unnecessary on city pages. --23:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I seen that someone did add postal codes to the template. I entered them in when I edited Waterloo, Ontario. They showed up under "Motto" and above the map image. It looked very out of place. So I switch the postal fields location to near the bottom of template; where it looks better. However, I am still not crazy about this field, but we'll see how it goes. MJCdetroit 12:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the problem. Smaller cities have only one code, and for larger (let's take your example of Phoenix, Arizona) it's enough to write "85001-85099". There isn't even a problem when there are some of these numbers aren't used. Look at Dresden (the city with the lowest postal codes in Germany), the range is 01001-01326, but that doesn't mean that all 326 codes are or have to be in use. People aren't that dumb to write down every single code (at least I hope so). --32X 16:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why are the postal codes in bold? I don't think we have any other value fields in bold, only the labels. Kaldari 18:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weird bug

There a weird bug with this template on the Nashville, Tennessee article. Somehow the population and coordinate values are interfering with each other. As long as there is a reference cited for the population, it adds "[1])" to the beginning of the coordinates. Any idea what's going on here? Kaldari 02:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Parameters, the "type:" parameter for the coor* templates should be, for example, type:city(population). This template passes the value of the population_total parameter to one of the coor templates, and if a reference is included it apparently confuses the coor template. I can't think of a reasonable way to strip a reference from the population_total parameter in "template language". Assuming no one else can either, then we either need to make the coor* templates do it or add yet another parameter for the reference so we can make the coor template happy. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't the population be cited within the article instead of infobox? Normally it is mentioned in both places. --MattWright (talk) 18:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'll just remove the extra citations for now, although I suspect others may run into this problem at some point. Kaldari 07:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like Louisville, Kentucky is also experiencing this bug. Kaldari 22:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to go ahead and remove the population parameter from what gets passed to the coordinate template. The population parameter is completely optional for the coordinate template and isn't actually used for anything currently (as far as I can tell). Ostensibly, the logic behind passing the population to the coor template is that at some point in the future Wikipedia may support some type of automated mapping system and the population would help determine the appropriate scale for the map. When and if such a feature is actually implemented in the future, we can certainly re-examine the issue. (Perhaps we could figure out a way to get the coor template to strip out citations from the population). Right now, however, I don't see any good reason why we need to pass the population, especially if it is going to cause rendering bugs in our template. Kaldari 22:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To recap what Kaldari did (from a non-programmer POV). Basically the information for population is still there but you have broken any "link" between the population total and the coordinates. The problem being when there is a footnote superscript at the end of the population total (like in the two examples above), it gets carried over to the coordinates and would look something like this: [1]36°10′00″N, 86°47′00″W. Breaking that "link" would remove the [1] from the front of the coordinates. This fixes the bug and makes the infobox visually better in those cases. Visually better —I'll agree to that. —MJCdetroit 12:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fix I would prefer is: 1) Remove citations from infobox and place them in the article where the population figures are mentioned or 2) Create a new field in infobox called population_ref (or something) that can be used for the reference and placed properly. That would allow the coordinate population link to still work. --MattWright (talk) 22:16, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Side note / Just in case: If you folks here would want to go with 2), I think I could help converting the calls with my bot power. (This is not a voice for any particular solution – I'm not an expert on this template here). --Ligulem 22:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 requires that every editor of city articles be educated about not using citations in the Infobox, and it adds another layer of instruction to an already complex template. Option 2 seems like extra work for no (or virtually no benefit). What's wrong with the current solution (i.e. not passing the population)? We already pass "city" as the coordinate type. Passing the population is just an extra nicety. I don't know of any mapping system that actually uses the population figure, much less one that is hooked up to the coor template. Is there any reason it would benefit anyone to pass the population? Kaldari 22:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't argue this too much, because it isn't that important to me, but the information can be useful to external services, such as geonames.org. If you go to [1] and click on the Wikipedia link on that page, you can see it will popup city names, along with their population, which I think it is gathering from the coor template, although I am not 100% sure on that. I was the one that initially added the population to the city() type on this template, and prior to that, many cities on geonames did not have populations noted. --MattWright (talk) 23:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geonames doesn't seem to be using Wikipedia's populations. Even if they were, it would be just as easy for them to scrape the populations from the population field as it would be to scrape it from the coordinate URL. Scrapers don't factor into this problem. The only case in which it would actually make a difference is if both the Map Sources Wiki and one of the mapping systems linked from the Map Sources Wiki utilized the population (since the parameter could theoretically be passed to them from the Wikipedia article). That would work like so: Click on the coordinates in the Wikipedia article to go to the Map Sources Wiki; the population gets passed in the query string and then dynamically tacked on to the URLs for the various mapping systems; click on a mapping system in the Map Sources Wiki; the population gets passed again in the query string and parsed by the mapping service. Right now, though, it doesn't even look like the Map Sources Wiki parses out the population (only the type). So it really doesn't matter to anything currently whether we include the population or not. Kaldari 01:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New look, again

Per the thread slightly above, #New look, more similar to template:Infobox Country, I've created a new version much more similar to template:Infobox Country and template:Infobox U.S. state, please see user:Rick Block/Template:Infobox City. Enough time has passed that the new style in MediaWiki:Common.css should be available to all users. Are there any serious objections to changing to this new style? Note that once all three of these templates use class="infobox geography", their style can be changed in unison by updating this css class. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that look should be sync'd with state and country infoboxes. --MattWright (talk) 03:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I still like the grey bars on the current version (Location, etc), but I'll live without 'em :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ranally city ratings

Would there be interest in adding the Ranally city ratings (a measure of the economic importance of the city) to the infobox, perhaps under a new heading "Economic characteristics"? Bellczar 01:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since the template is used by cities all over the world, that might not be usefull... SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't really see it as being useful information. It's an arbitrary ranking system by one company. --MattWright (talk) 02:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must disagree that it's arbitrary. It's based on hard data such as retail sales, newspaper circulation, etc. What other single measure is there that can inform one whether Santa Paula, California, for example, is more important in the national economy than Jamestown, New York? Population alone can't do it. Using population as the only guide, someone would conclude that Jacksonville, Florida and Mesa, Arizona are more important than Miami and Minneapolis. And that wouldn't be correct.Bellczar 19:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By arbitrary, I mean that they have set the "formula" for what they think is important. All of the hard data you mention is good information to include in an encyclopedia article on each city. But what makes Rand McNally's classification more important than other classifications or more useful than the raw data? --MattWright (talk) 20:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What other classification is there that conveys as much information about the economic importance of a place (in both its local and the national economy) in a single measure? Obviously, the Ranally rating would not supplant any raw data in Wikipedia. Ranally data are frequently cited by the Federal Reserve banks in evaluating community economies. The Ranally city rating system (RCRS) is designed to reflect an inherent hierarchy in the national economy, not to impose one of its own. The data that RM consider are judged (for example) to make Cleveland more important nationally than Cincinnati, so that Cleveland is 1-AA and Cinti is 1-A. And so forth.

It is really a very elegant system. The country consists of 487 markets (basic trading areas) and each of them is centered on an A-rated city. The numeric rating and the number of letters (1-A, 3-AA, etc.) indicates its importance in the national economy. Other large cities in each market area are rated B or C, and important suburbs are rated S. I have seen many market areas as defined by large companies for their geographic hierarchy, and they often closely correspond to the market areas of the RCRS. I think it would be useful to have pages with lists of 1-AA, 2-AA, etc., cities and links to those pages from the individual city pages. I have noticed that the business and economics area is not as developed in Wikipedia as some others (e.g., pop culture). The RCRS might be a tool in getting Wikipedians to think of cities as not onlyt venues for culture but also their place in their local and the national economy. Just my 2c. Obviously I don't have the time to implement my idea (i.e., an edit to 1492 separate city entries) even if there were a consensus for it. Bellczar 04:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there was just a little more information on it or it was more notable, I might agree with you. I tried googling for it and there just doesn't seem to be any information anywhere, and the article on Wikipedia is fairly recent, having been created by you. Are these ratings public information or is it something that is normally paid for? Where do you get the complete listing, etc.? There are no external links in the article either. --MattWright (talk) 06:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They are available in the Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide, published and updated annually, which is available at larger libraries. Bellczar 02:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Elevation

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the highest and lowest point in the infobox instead? A single elevation value seems ambiguous -- is it the mean value (and how is the mean calculated) or is it the elevation at the centroid of the city or some other thing? A city doesn't typically have a single elevation. --Polaron | Talk 16:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is often an official elevation, recognized by the city (such as Denver). Otherwise, the Infobox can already accomodate a range (as seen at Los Angeles). --MattWright (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I think a range might be a good option, especially for cities that have large extremes. --Polaron | Talk 17:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is data to support a range that would be great. However, for American cities, I found my elevation infomation from the USGS which only gives one value in feet and metres. For San Jose, the elevation was reported by the USGS as "Elevation(ft/m):85/26". This data is referenced in the San Jose reference section. MJCdetroit 18:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FallingRain.com shows elevations for almost any location in the world.--enano ^(Talk) 20:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New look

I've changed the template to use class="infobox geography" per the discussion slightly above. I'm adding a new section here if anyone wants to complain about this. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good except that the city picture is off-center and all of the labels are in bold except for "Summer" (time zone). Kaldari 05:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reversion of m

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
bobblewik 21:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another Leader?

Wasn't the decision above to not add more leader names and titles? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we've agreed to not add city council members. I've started going through the cities using this template, elinimating "virtual rows" (entries within one row of the table that look like multiple rows by including s). The point of doing this is so these tables can be more easily understood by (usually blind) people using screen readers. This generally means using the additional subdivision_type/subdivision_name parameters and I ran into Berkeley, California that lists both a mayor and a city manager. Two (or three, or four) pairs of leader title/name parameters seem not too outrageous to me. I should have brought it up here first. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a subpage to help coordinate this activity, see Template talk:Infobox City/links. I think it would be good to do with a bot, but there are enough irregularities that I'm not sure it's entirely possible. I did something similar for the 200 (or so) references to template:infobox country a while ago which took a few days. There are slightly more than 2000 references to this template, so it will take a good bit longer to finish this if I'm the only one working on it (and a bot is not used). If anyone would like to help or has suggestions for a bot-based approach, please speak up. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added 2 more pairs of leader title/name parameters. The addition of these to pairs will greatly help get rid of the s in Canadian cities which all include the city's MPs and MLA's. For an example see Toronto. MJCdetroit 17:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More leader params

Moved here from: Template talk:Infobox City/Template parameter changes bot

I think the leader_title3/leader_name3, etc should be revisted because of the way that some of the Canadian cities are currently set up. I know the city council members did not go over well but if we limit to 4 fields that should cover it pretty well. If there are large numbers of leaders (such as MPs) then leader name3 can be a link to a list of names. That way we would not have to use the to break up fields for things such as MPs and MLAs. Check out Toronto to see an example. —MJCdetroit 14:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any thoughts on my proposal above of adding 2 more leader fields above to tie up any lose strings, especially for Canadian cities. I think that this would really help and unlike the city council additions there would only be 2 additional fields not 12. I think that the city council additions were like dropping a Mac truck into the infobox; this is not so blunt. Thoughts? —MJCdetroit 12:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. In the "great BR purging" that's going on, there are at least a dozen or so cities where more leader params would be useful. In some cases, city council members are listed but as long as it's a single HTML row (labeled, for example, "city council") with multiple lines of "value" (yes, with embedded BRs) it's OK from an accessibility viewpoint. As MJC says, there are a bunch of Canadian cities that list mayor, MP, MLA, etc. as well. And there's one "city" (fictional, no less) that lists mayor, vice-mayor, and sheriff. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Compare these versions of Toronto to see how much of an improvement these changes and this infobox makes.

—MJCdetroit 18:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template parameter changes bot

→ moved to Template talk:Infobox City/Template parameter changes bot --Ligulem 10:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Handling city names in other languages

Now that Infobox City is sufficiently generic, I'm seeing it used for many cities outside of the English-speaking world. One difficulty that arises from this is deciding what to enter as the official_name. Most of these cities seem to be opting for a dual name approach, but there is little consistancy. Here are a few examples:

official_name = آمل <br /> Amol
official_name = Zaysan (Зайсан)
official_name = Beijing - 北京
official_name = Tokyo <br> (東京都)

It looks like we need to add an optional parameter for native_name or something similar so that there will be some consistancy in how these are handled. Kaldari 23:07, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I propose adding a native_name field. Any opinions on the best way to format it in the template? Kaldari 19:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How this is handled in template:Japanese prefecture is with two params, one in Japanese (with a transliteration), formatted as follows:

'''{{{Name}}} Prefecture ({{{JapaneseName}}})'''

What this does is put the English name and parenthesized Japanese name on the same line (if they both fit), but if the English name is too long for this, it splits the two and puts the Japanese name underneath (with both centered). See, for example, Aichi Prefecture vs. Yamaguchi Prefecture. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a native_name parameter on an experimental basis. It follows the formatting suggested by Rick Block and is an optional parameter. For examples of it in use, see Amol or Zaysan (town). If anyone notices any problems with it, let me know. Kaldari 23:23, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question: What if the 'official name' has more than one word? For example most of the Canadian cities follow the format: city of Toronto, Ontario or (if in Quebec) Ville de Montréal, Québec. If I switch over the Montreal infobox to this template will all of the English name and all of the French name be on separate 'lines'? I haven't try it yet but is a concern that I thought might be worth mentioning. MJCdetroit 17:02, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried and it doesn't work well. It breaks the box to the right and everything is on one line. —MJCdetroit 17:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This may be because the table width is specified in ems not pixels. The Japanese prefecture template does not have this problem, and I think the only difference that's relevant is that it specifies a width in pixels. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you show me an example that you tried so that I can take a look at what happens? Send a link to the test revision if possible. Kaldari 19:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've figured out what the problem is: I was using a non-breaking space to keep the space character at the beginning of the optional native_name from being striped as whitespace within the if statement. Problem is, the line won't break on a non-breaking space! Duh. So is there a character besides a non-breaking space that will act as a space character but not be stripped out as whitespace? Kaldari 00:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe something at Space character, such as &ensp; or &emsp; --MattWright (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my sandbox, the only way that I was able to get both long names above and below each other was to use   between the words and at the end of the English name I placed a regular space followed by a  . This "forced" them to be above and below each other. Visually it looks ok, but I am wondering if my rigging would have accessibility issues. See my example:

|official_name = City of Montreal, Quebec  

|native_name = Ville de Montréal, Québec

—MJCdetroit 01:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it to   (ASCII code for a normal space), which seems to work. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, Rick's placement of the 'normal space' fixed it. No need to force/rig anything. I think Montreal will be getting a new infobox soon. —MJCdetroit 01:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indenting

I liked the indenting for subdivision_type1 and subdivision_type2! Anyone else? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A quick shot: I don't care. But during my recent serial edits I noticed some rare problems with wrapped lines. I saw several cases where an entry was wrapped to a second line (without a BR) and that second line was not indented, but the first one was (although I'm not sure why this happended, but I assume these problems went away with Kaldari's edit). If you guys want it intented, I would propose that you look for ways to make not only the first line indented, because longer entries can wrap around to multiple lines. I digged into my contribs looking for an example but gave up seraching after 20 minutes. But I'm pretty sure I saw some yesterday during my botting. Apologies if I might have overlooked something. Maybe some sandbox testing would be helpful (I'm too lazy right now ;-). --Ligulem 09:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I found an example: Klawock, Alaska. --Ligulem 09:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I could reproduce the aforementionend problem in my sandbox. See User talk:Ligulem/work/sandbox2. See the string "Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan", which is wrapped to a second line (not caused by a BR). --Ligulem 09:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried fixing this using margin-left rather than text-indent and it didn't seem to work (not sure why). And, in case anyone is confused, this example wraps in monobook but not classic skin. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly prefer "no indent" for the value (rightmost column). Having some of these indented and some not is fairly classic "bad visual design". Most of the other indented labels (on the left) are dashed as well. I don't care as much about the label indenting, but if they're going to be indented they should probably be dashed. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I really don't think the indenting is necessary and it looks cleaner without it. The thing I hated the most about the old design was that there was crazy indenting all over the place and it made the table look really messy. If most people prefer the indenting, however, I would agree that it should at least be consistant and use the dash. Kaldari 18:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- - I didn't realize the value column was indented - that certainly shouldn't be. Especially since I don't think any other values are indented. But I'm in favor of indenting the label column - with dashes, since that's the way the others are. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Titling

In order to stop the city name becoming hidden/overlapped by the box when the text wraps (i.e. for longer city names), I have moved the city name to within the border of the box. We had a similar problem with the United Kingdom infobox and this seemed to be the simplest solution (as per Template:Infobox Country). IMHO, it looks better this way too, but that is not really the issue! DJR (T) 16:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Font in motto

This was moved here from the Detroit talk page. 13:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

—Font on Detroit InfoBox—

Who changed the font of Detroit's city motto in the Detroit infobox? It's very distracting. Can someone change it to something smaller and less assumming like it used to be? It doesn't fit the page one bit. --Criticalthinker 07:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like forcing the entire motto to be in italics and quotes is problematic on that article (aside from the font issue). They include a note in their motto field, which shouldn't be in italics and quotes. Isn't using both italics and quotes redundant anyway? Kaldari 19:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seal and flag, how about city arms?

I'm currently working on a swedish city and will soon start with some other swedish cities. Now the problem is that swedish cities doesn't have seals or flags, most have city arms (stadsvapen in swedish), for example; Stockholm and Gothenburg. Now since these "shields" have a long history and is being used today in many culural things for the their citys, I feel that it's important that they can be used in the infobox but not under seal or flag. --Krm500 10:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please, could someone help me? I don't want too mess up the template and that's why I'm asking here. I want too write an article on these sheilds and that's why it's important too get it right in the template.

I tried the other night but couldn't get it to work correctly. I have asked for help on this. —MJCdetroit 01:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what is requested. Are you looking for an optional "shield" parameter (with image) that takes the place in the infobox of, say, the seal? It would be possible to set it up so that at most two of flag, seal, or shield would fit (and if anyone provided all three the infobox would be half again wider). I've added an "image_shield" parameter to Template:Infobox City/Test that works this way. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well the thing is that I don't know of any Swedish or Scandinavian city that have an official seal. Most of them have city arms, a sort of coats of arms. And it would be nice if I could be able to have the text city arms under the image instead of "Seal".--Krm500 00:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at Template:Infobox City/Test and let me know what you think (the one on the right is the "test" version). The text currently says "Coat of arms". We could make this "City arms", and even make it flexible (with yet another parameter) if this might be called something else somewhere else. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at it and I have looked at the Coat of arms article here on Wikipedia. It looks good, the term "City arms" is probably a translation from swedish so the text should probably say coat of arms. --Krm500 15:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When will I be able to insert the coat of arms in the infobox? --Krm500 19:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just updated the template. The coat of arms parameter is called "image_shield". -- Rick Block (talk) 01:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for all the help! --Krm500 08:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Form of government

Is there an easy way to indicate the type of municipal government? I think this is useful to include for the New England and New Jersey municipalities. --Polaron | Talk 19:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could put in under one of the leader_title & leader_name fields, e.g. |leader_title = gov type AND |leader_name= Your town City Council

Do yo have a city that you were thinking of doing this to? MJCdetroit 20:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing in particular at the moment. But, for example, New Jersey municipalities have several forms of government. This is also true for Connecticut and Massachusetts where you could say that there is a full spectrum of government forms ranging from an open town meeting to a strong mayor-council. I think this was one of the reasons why {{Infobox Town MA}} exists. --Polaron | Talk 20:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look here: North Brunswick Township, New Jersey. Is this what you were thinking? MJCdetroit 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That looks great - thanks. I'll probably start putting infoboxes for the cities/towns of Connecticut over the next couple of weeks. --Polaron | Talk 21:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should add a new (optional) parameter for this rather than overloading one of the leader ones, just so it's more obvious what's going on. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I inserted a new optional parameter called government_type (for lack of a better term) at Template:Infobox City/Test, what do you think about? If it is likable we can insert it here or we can tweak it a little. —MJCdetroit 00:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. I tweaked it so the government type is completely independent of the leader fields. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've included this in the template and updated the empty syntax. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For example, in Canada, MPs and MPPs

Would it be possible to add to the template a link to the MPs and MPPs instead of having to find a list somewhere else on the page like in Toronto? Also, for smaller cities, could we make an option to have the MPs/MPPs on the template? Wikada - ^{Talk Contributions} 23:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Link to the MP and MPPs was removed from the infobox for some reason. It was there October 5th? The infobox for Toronto look like this:

|leader_title3= Legislature
|leader_name3= MPs, MPPs, and Senators.

I'll put it back in today. —MJCdetroit 14:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In response to MJCdetroit, I have outlined my reasoning for removal on my talk page. In short, after a little searching I found no other city with this template that includes such a link. I removed that link to maintain consistency with the other articles, and also because I honestly don't see the usefulness of such information in the infobox. MPs and MPPs are not "leaders" or governmental bodies of the city, so the "leader" attribute seems inappropriate. I will appologize if there was a prior consensus on this issue that I am not aware of. KeL 04:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

St. John's, Ottawa , Windsor, Ontario, North Bay, Ontario —just to name a few have them listed. All Canadian cities that used the old template had them listed. Like Thunder Bay, Ontario which still uses the old template. It's more or less a compromise/hold over from that template. MJCdetroit 04:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing this out as I was not aware of those examples before. I agree the links should be left there for the time being as a compromise. Personally I think the links should never have been there in the first place, so I want to respectfully say it here: MPs, MPPs and Senators are not part of the city government and it makes no sense to include them in the city infobox. I think Canadian cities should have their infoboxes like the American ones. As more and more cities have their infoboxes converted, I hope there will be a consensus to remove those links, for the sake of relevence and consistency. KeL 05:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some issues

First off, the field "shield" should be called "coat of arms" or "coa", as a shield is only part of the coat of arms
Secondly, the link (for coat of arms or seal) needs to link to Coat of arms of ARTICLE NAME or Seal of ARTICLE NAME not Coat of arms of OFFICIAL NAME or Seal of OFFICIAL NAME, as articles of that type are generally not named with the official name (for instance, it's Coat of arms of Toronto, not Coat of arms of City of Toronto (and a redirect is not an acceptable solution)
Thirdly, there needs to be an option for LOGO, as several city articles do not have their flags, but instead their official city logos instead (which are not seals or coats of arms)
Finally, how are we coming on the area code field?

--_└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 14:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. - Could someone unbold the postal code section (the actual codes, not the description), since they're out of place bolded

Postal code is unbolded and added an area code field. See Montreal for an example. —MJCdetroit 04:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another issue

I don't like how when you have just one population figure, it shows up as City: xxx,xxx. No kidding it's the population of the city? I'd assume that most articles will only have one population (no "metro" or "urban" populations), so perhaps something can be done about this. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 17:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have another issue; Why isn't there a density for urban area? Cities in Sweden are municipalities, so the city area is the whole municipalitie area. The thing is that the city (municipality) that I'm working on right now is 450 km², but the urban area is of the "acctual city" (not political area so to speak) is only 199 km² and with a larger population since the urban are stretches over three diffrent municipalities. The dencity for the urban area reflects better of how people live them the dencity for the municipality.

Since there's both dencity for city and metro area, why not for urban area? --Krm500 13:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]