Forum:CT:Succession boxes in Battle/War infoboxes

Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:Succession boxes in Battle/War infoboxes


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The result of the debate was Battle boxes updated, campaign boxes in use. —Silly Dan (talk) 23:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


Right now, Template:Battle, Template:War, and Template:Triple battle infobox all have fields near the top for the previous and next battle or war. I'm not so sure we should include these fields, for the following reasons:

  1. Many battles are difficult to place in an exact chronological sequence. When writing the Raid on Fara's Belt article, for example, the only clues I had were that the battle took place after the B-wing was invented, but before Jan Dodonna was captured. This narrowed down the year, but 0 ABY was a busy year, so it wasn't clear to me when to place it.
  2. Even the battles which could be placed in sequence might not be well connected: if we had two battles which had sequential, canonical dates attached, but which occured on opposite ends of the galaxy, wouldn't putting them in succession imply a causal connection which isn't really there?

Over on Wikipedia's battle articles (such as Battle of Vimy Ridge), they don't do this. Instead, they have Wikipedia:Template:Infobox Military Conflict, the equivalent of our battle template, and a multitude of templates like Wikipedia:Template:Campaignbox Western Front (World War I), which give a sequential list of all the major battles in a particular war or campaign. If we used a similar two-infobox system, we could take "battle before" and "battle after" out of the battle template, and add templates like Template:Thrawn campaign infobox or Template:Operation Skyhook infobox.

The main problem is that we have nearly 500 pages linking to the battle template, so even if the community thinks this is a good idea, it would be a lot of work. —Silly Dan (talk) 03:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both of your points. The two box system sounds like a fine solution, though you are right about it involving some major work. RMF 04:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • You've got my vote. Thats a great idea...--Sentry 04:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
    • So it means having a separate template for every single military conflict in the galaxy? I don't like this idea. - Sikon [Talk] 07:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I just say that if we don't know when a battle took place, leave those areas blank. Most battles don't even have enough information for boxes, anyways. Kuralyov 07:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
      • We wouldn't have a new template for every conflict and campaign, just the ones where a group of major battles can be put into a reasonable sequence, allowing us to put a battle in context with other battles in a major campaign or war. —Silly Dan (talk) 23:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Reading your proposal, Silly Dan, I think I like it. I was all for the sequential fields on the top, but now seeing your points on the problem with that, I stand corrected. As for the main problem that you addressed...what you say is true — it would be a lot of work, but hey, if we managed to replace the old character infoboxes with the current ones we have now for most likely more than 500 pages, then we can tackle this assignment, no problemo! ;) Anyway, I also agree having a campaign box for every major war, but not every conflict and campaign. I would like to see some sort of sequential box in conflict/campaign articles where we are completely sure that that is the correct chronological order, however. —Mirlen 05:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, here's what a campaign infobox would more-or-less look like: Thrawn campaign

Further campaign infoboxes could easily be made using Template:Campaign. People better at wiki markup than I would have to help me set it up so that it integrates well with battle templates (i.e. stays on the right side of the page, under the battle infobox.) —Silly Dan (talk) 13:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Empire Reborn campaign infobox RMF has been fixing up exactly the issues mentioned above. The boxes have been integrated into the Empire Reborn campaign articles. I think it look great! --Eyrezer 11:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Campaign box location

Eyrezer and I have been discussing potential locations for this template – the way it is configured now, the 'box goes above the infobox (see any of the above battles for an example). Putting it underneath the main infobox (like is done on Wikipedia) often interferes with images already in the article (especially when there are 3 images and very little text). A final option is to put the boxes at the bottom of pages, similar to some of our other navigational templates like {{k1char}} and {{Galactic Empire walkers}}. Thoughts? RMF 02:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Having these infoboxes also raises the question of whether the previous/next fields should stay in the main battle box. Its not a collapsable field at the mo, so I can't see what it would look like with out it. --Eyrezer 23:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
    • I just made it collapsible.--Sentry 23:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, I'm working on it anyway. The wikitable syntax screws everything up... I might just rewrite the template in xhtml.--Sentry 23:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
        • Alright. Now the next and prev fields are collapsible for the Battle box at least.--Sentry 01:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
          • Thanks Sentry. Compare Artus Prime with Bespin. I think I prefer without the previous/next fields. May be different for larger conflicts if not all the battles are listed. Thoughts? --Eyrezer 03:37, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Much as I would prefer to have them all align nicely on the right, I think we may have to start putting them on the bottom, like a typical succession box. I tried putting Template:Outer Rim Sieges infobox on Battle of Boz Pity, and there was no way to put it in without messing up the images. This would only get worse for articles like Battle of Yavin, which could get Template:Operation Skyhook campaign infobox, Template:Skirmishes of Yavin IV campaign infobox, and even a "Major battles in the Galactic Civil War" infobox. —Silly Dan (talk) 01:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
    • On a similar note, I just realized that I introduced a bug with my new war/duel/battle/mission infoboxes that does not allow the new campaign boxes to be placed above them without causing massive distortion. I just have to add "clear:right;" into the template code. I'll fix them all in a moment...--Sentry [Talk] 01:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
      • There tis fixed. Sorry bout that... Now for wars that have few battles, we can simply collapse the succession boxes in the main template and add a campain box in their place. I plan to make the 'Major battles' cell of the war template collapsible as well, simply because numerous minor wars don't have any notable battles. --Sentry [Talk] 02:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
        • And for wars that have many many battles, most of which are only vaguely placed into the timeline, we can collapse the succession boxes in the battle template whenever we don't know what came before or next. Excellent! —Silly Dan (talk) 02:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
          • Thanks for fixing the bug. Now that we have the option of placing them above or below the main box, should we reach some consensus on where it should be? If the previous/next are to be collapsed, I think at the top is better. --Eyrezer 02:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
            • For battles, missions, and duels, I think they should go above the main template since they look better there. For wars, now that I think about it, I'm not sure that campaign templates should be used at all. For instance, the Jedi Civil War article has a campaign template within it filled with battles, but since those battles were already present within the 'Major battles' section of the war template, why do we need to list them again? For the time being, I collapsed the 'Major battles' cell and left the campaign template in place, but I think it would be better to get rid of the campaign template and only use it within battle articles...--Sentry [Talk] 03:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
              • What do you think about my (possibly crazy) suggestion of applying more than one campaign box to some battle articles? —Silly Dan (talk) 00:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
                • Hmmm... that is a tough one. The real estate at the top of the page does tend to get crowded rather quickly, especially in minor battle articles. I think adding more than one campaign box to the top of the page would undoubtedly be a useful navigational aid, but it would be somewhat distracting. In cases such as the Battle of Yavin, which you mentioned above, we might have to consider creating a container template which will allow us to put a series of campaign boxes neatly in a center-aligned, transparent box at the bottom of the page...--Sentry [Talk] 02:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Changes

I noticed that the succession box has been changed so that within the box, the current page is not bolded. Was this done on purpose? I definitely liked it the other way better. (I'm aware it was probably because it linked back to the same page but it looked better). --Eyrezer 06:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

  • It was a rendering problem – an artifact of the reduction in font size that I implemeted in the campaign box in order to make the box match the other templates. I returned the font size to its earlier setting, so it should be fixed now. That is, except for Opera users. The text isn't bolded in that browser for some reason...--Sentry [Talk] 07:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.