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- Background
- For a long time, I've been wanting to make it easier for readers to "click-through" lines of succession of rulers. Wikipedia has "succession boxes". It also puts this information in the infoboxes. (The former is like what we do on our year pages; the latter is like what we do on our magazine issue pages.)
I would like us to start doing something like one or both of these things here for Toril's rulers. - Example
- This page is an example of both.
Someone in the past directly copied over Wikipedia's {{Succession box}} template, but it is not used on very many pages here. I also present an example of a {{Ruler}} template for a ruler-specific infobox with a succession subsection. - Question #1
- A) Do you like the idea of succession boxes? or B) succession subsections within infoboxes? or C) both? or D) neither?
- Question #2
- If you answered yes to #1B or #1C, do you like the idea of having a {{Ruler}} template that is a pass-through to our {{Person}} infobox?
- Quesiont #3
- If you answered yes to #2, do you like the idea of unique colors for ruler infoboxes? If so, what sort of colors?
- Quesiont #4
- If you answered yes to #2, do you like the idea of the official noble title being a part of the infobox title? Do you like the use of small-caps?
1B — yes
2 — yes
3 — yes, but others would be better at finding nice colors than me, I think
4 — yes and yes
However, while I don't like succession boxes, I like the idea of navigation boxes for dynasty members, with the names listed in order and the range of the dynasty's collective range. For example:
1A: My feeling is that a navigation template is the most suitable place for a line-of-succession, i.e., something for clicking through articles of a kind in series. Get to the bottom, click to the next.
I'm not a fan of a new or expanded infobox, as it could make our existing infoboxes even more complex and lengthy. I also like a consistent style. A Ruler box might not fit some NPCs, like kings-for-a-day and brief tyrants. Furthermore, a regular succession box could be applied to other roles: high priests, royal mages, leaders of organisations, and other special posts for which we might have sufficient lore to make good use of such boxes. "Ruler" wouldn't fit them.
In response to BatCat's points:
- I've started making nav. boxes for the dynasties that I've been working on. (See {{Shoon Imperium}}, {{Rhindaun Dynasty}}, {{Lions' Dynasty}}, etc.) I've noticed, however, that Artemaz dug up the old {{Succession box}} and was using it on some of his recent articles about rulers. I do think we should stick with one or the other. It looks like we have 2 votes for using nav. boxes (From me and from BatCat). If we get consensus on this, I think we should delete {{Succession box}}.
- A pass-through infobox would not make things more complicated to the average user as far as use of the parent infobox, because the fields specific to {{Ruler}} would not be displayed under "Usage" for {{Person}}.
- "A Ruler box might not fit some NPCs,…" — That's ok. I'm confused why you present this as a problem.
- "[A] regular succession box could be applied to other roles…." — Very true, but the "Succession" sub-section would be present in {{Person}}, so it could be repurposed for such things very easily.
I should note that most rulers on Wikipedia have both succession or nav. boxes and an area for succession in their infoboxes. I personally like both. The nav. boxes show you the entire dynasty at a glance. The infoboxes are more focused on the immediate relationship of the person in question. Anyhow, I was hopin other folk might weigh in.
I'm not sure we should treat rulers any differently than non-rulers. They are all NPCs and few of them were rulers their whole lifespan. If a king abdicates because he wants to join an adventuring company and marry who he pleases, why should his infobox proclaim him King of Fubar? It was just one stage in his life. Sure, he gets the navigation template as part of the succession order, but why fancy colors and a title that he didn't keep? Are we going to do the same for archmages? lich kings? clan leaders? merchant tycoons? crime lords? pontiffs? They all "rule" something in some way, so where do you draw the line? I'm content with having an NPC's full name in the infobox header, and filling out the titles parameter as needed.
Are we all agreed that we can remove the old {{Succession box}}s from our wiki?
I still would argue for adding a succession section to the infoboxes. I reiterate that this is what Wikipedia does. I think there are good reasons for this:
- A nav. box is really good at showing you the big picture of the whole dynasty at once. You don't, however, see the context. If the ruler is the first or last of the dynasty, for example, you do not see who came before or after, respectively. If it was dynasty change, it is important to see that, and it is helpful to see that in a very quick and concise format.
- You have no sense of timing from a nav. box. In a nav. box, a king who ruled for just nine months is no different than one who ruled for 90 years. I think infoboxes enforce consistency in articles. Every article about a ruler should include when that ruler began and ended his or her reign, and who came before and after. If this is a simple field in the infobox, that information is right there in a consistent spot every time. I think putting that information right in the infobox is much superior to a succession box, which is hiding at the end of the article.
In any case, shall I start removing all the succession boxes and replacing them with nav. boxes?
@Movie: The list of rulers in the {{Location}} template is great, but it serves a different purpose. It also cannot be exhaustive. It would be absurd to list all the rulers of Tethyr for example; the infobox would scroll well beyond most articles. It takes two pages to do that, as there are multiple dynasties. I am talking about knowing how, for example, Amahl Shoon III relates to those before and after him. That information belongs on his page, and from there, I should be able to quickly link to Nishan, the Tethyrian king before him, Akkabar, the Calishite caleph before him, and Shoon I the emperor after him, and I should be able to see that he is the 1st of 14 in a dynasty with links to all those pages. That information would not all belong on either the Tethyr or Calimshan page.
I also don't see the issue you see regarding rulers vs. other NPCs. In real world history, that one is a king or president is generally the most important thing remembered about that person. However, that issue is the one I feel least strongly about. In that case, all the information is already there in the titles section—you are correct about that. In the case of coronation dates and before- and after-ness, I think we are missing information from the boxes that should be there. (And yes, if we have a succession of lich kings, by all means, we should use the proposed fields for that. Why not?)
I'm not too keen on the idea of a pass-through template. I think illustrative examples on how to use {{Person}} would be better. There are no fields in Person that we wouldn't want in Ruler, so it would not simplify anything for the user, but it's acceptable to present a stripped-down version of the template for specific use cases. We're not going to have much info on members of a dynasty except for the most famous.
If you are adamant about changing the colors and fonts for these "special" NPCs, and there is consensus, then we can add a variant parameter to the template and, optionally, use a pass-through template to ensure it gets the correct value (see what happens when you use "Plant" instead of "plant", for example). For purposes of discussion, what sort of changes to the infobox would be appropriate for both crime lords and kings? Some ideas:
- Putting the person's title in the name box (proposed by Lhynard)
- Using a different style font, like Small Caps for the title (proposed by Lhynard)
- Changing the colors. Possibilities include the border color, a background color, the background colors of the subtitles, etc. (proposed by Lhynard)
- Adding a small image of a crown next to the name (proposed by Moviesign)
- Giving the Succession section a more prominent position in the hierarchy of the infobox (proposed by Moviesign)
Oh, and I had another thought. We could add some smarts to the new navbox so it presented the predecessor and successor in a similar fashion to the old {{Succession box}}, keeping the current order but making it easier to click on the next or prior person. I'll have to experiment a bit.
I have no strong feelings one way or the other on succession information in the Person infoboxes, but I agree with Moviesign on using consistent infoboxes. Some characters go through so many phases of life that limiting the box to any one seems inappropriate.
To see how things work, take a look at Shoon I or Zaranda Star.
Obviously, we can change things around. For example, I'm guessing you both would agree that start_of_reign might be a better field name than coronation?
I won't mess with the infobox further until we've discussed it more.
As for {{Succession box}}, I'm going to start replacing them. I'm going to hit the Obarskyrs last, because there are tons of them, and I don't want to overwhelm the wanted articles page with more links.
Movie, I like your list of ideas above. I like your idea 4. I'm ok with idea 5 also.