Forum:SH:The 'de facto' field in the government template

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. JocastaBot (talk) 04:27, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

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A while ago, I updated the Template:Government page to have a list of the field names and an explanation of what belongs in them, similar to the Template:Individual ship page. While doing so, I hit the roadblock of not having a clear idea what the 'de facto leader' field was for.

Currently, it's being used inconsistently in several ways:

1. Repeat of head of government or head of state title ("|headofstate=" and "|headofgov=" fields)
2. Specific individuals whose positions are head of state or government (this is the overwhelming majority of uses)
3. Specific individuals where the head of state/government fields are empty
4. Specific individuals who do not hold a title

None of these adhere to the definitions of 'de facto':

Cambridge Dictionary

existing in fact, although perhaps not intended, legal, or accepted:

• The city is rapidly becoming the de facto centre of the financial world.
• He's her de facto husband though they're not actually married.
• English is de facto the common language of much of the world today.
• If it is on British soil then it is de facto British.

Grammarist

In Latin de facto means according to fact, and this is roughly what it means in English. It’s defined as in reality or fact, but its de facto definition is closer to serving a function or filling a role without being officially assigned to that function or role. For example, a de facto leader of a group is someone who has not been officially designated leader yet functions in that role. De facto is sometimes contrasted with de jure, which means according to law or officially.

This is a list of all the pages using the template and parameter from Pages using defacto field of Template:Government (This is outdated by about six months but I think it still gives a good idea of the situation):

To improve the use of the template, we should standardize use of this field or remove it from the template completely. I am in favor of removing it, considering the fact that if its use adheres to the dictionary definition, then that's listing individuals in the infobox which could be problematic for large organizations such as the Galactic Republic. If we keep it and restrict it only to people who held power without a title or legal process, it makes more sense to move it to the historical section. For governments that only ever have one known leader, I don't think that strictly needs to be in the infobox -- it can go in the introduction/body and be just as prominent.

Does anyone have additional thoughts for consideration prior to taking this to the Consensus Track for voting?

Dropbearemma ^(she/her) 11:14, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• Good work presenting this! I completely agree that we should not waste infobox space on listing specific individuals who led an organization (it kinda goes against the spirit, if not the letter, of our rule prohibiting listing members in general), and same goes for listing individuals who were de facto (but not de jure) leaders. All of it can just be neatly covered in the body of the article. Imperators II^(Talk) 11:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
• 100% agree with Imp, great work with this! Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 11:36, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
• Yeah, as you say, it's redundant to the various other leader fields we've got and serves little purpose of its own, so we can do without it. OOM 224 17:17, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
• Agree with everyone above. Wok142 (talk) 21:15, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
• I don't agree with not listing specific individuals who led an organization or removing the de facto field because there's some organizations that use it, and because infoboxes should mention major individuals (for example, the Kilji Illumine's infobox should mention Jixtus as the de facto leader) I accept not listing individuals in language infoboxes (Kilji language, for example), but I don't think removing individuals from organization infoboxes is necessary (Crofyp's task force, Kilji Illumine). Every major individual should be listed in the infobox. Samonic 21:47, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Let me point you once again to the Layout Guide: "Infoboxes may not contain any field listing individual examples of an article subject, such as members of a species or organization." - at the end of the day, it comes down to as simple as that. Imperators II^(Talk) 22:05, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
    • Further, listing one leader, with the absence of knowing other leaders throughout the organization's history, can mislead readers into thinking that individual was the leader for the organization's entire existence. Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 14:20, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
      • I never meant to mention only one. I meant to mention the only one we know of, e. g. Nakirre, Nuso Esva, Estosh, who would be mentioned in the Kilji Illumine, Nuso Esva's realm, and the Geroon Remnant's respectively. I also know it's in the LG, which I follow, but I don't agree with. Samonic ^(Talk) 15:21, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Agree with removing the field entirely. Asithol (talk) 20:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)