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The proposal has been unanimously approved with six supporting votes (or seven, if one counts the nominator), and was thus terminated at 16:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC). It has now been transferred to the closed proposals page for archiving purposes. Waltham, The Duke of 23:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

So. The adoption of a banner for the talk pages of succession templates has been approved in a poll (see above). However, we also need to decide on the specifications. How exactly do we want it to be? The current format follows; I have entered it manually because if I transclude the template and later we do change it the discussion will make no sense. Please do not tamper with it; leave your comments below the code. (Latter instruction misleading; Carter took it literally) Waltham, The Duke of 20:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This template is within the scope of the Succession Box Standardization WikiProject, a collaborative effort to bring all succession boxes across Wikipedia up to a specific set of standards. If there is something you would like to discuss about this template, it is strongly suggested that you do so in the project's talk page. If you would like to participate in SBS, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

For one thing, I consider the possibility of creating a category with our "adopted" templates. I also suggest that we should consider creating a logo for our project; if anyone out there likes designing things like this and has a lot of time in their hands, this is your chance. I have a tentative proposal here, but I am not entirely sure that I feel like using it. However, it could work as a basis for better designs. Waltham, The Duke of 17:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No objections to the template, although I might add a category to it. It'd probably help to add a "recent changes" function to keep track of any unknown changes to it, and that'd probably be best done by monitoring a specific category. John Carter (talk) 18:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

A little more detail, please, for those of us who are not as educated as you are in these technical matters. What exactly would that do? Is it like watchlisting the entire category? It does sound as a good idea to me, at least, because I currently am watching all the "s-" succession templates and their documentation pages, but this is not something editors with already long watchlists can do. And we really need to keep an eye on these templates. Waltham, The Duke of 16:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That's basically it, yes. Quite a few projects have a little template on their pages which allows them to hit a link and see all the recent changes in the pages being watched. John Carter (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I see. In my opinion, this is an excellent idea; many editors tend to want to apply their little ideas on templates, usually in good faith, I know, but that would wreak a lot of havoc if most templates were not protected (and many still aren't). Besides, we have the talk pages to watch as well. Waltham, The Duke of 20:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Mr Carter did place, a few days ago, such a template in the main page, watching the Templates page; now you can all see how it works. I think that this will work even better if we go forward with the banner-generated category, so that only changes to the templates tagged by SBS will be visible; different pages could be created for the SBS project pages and for the rest of the succession templates. Clarity is an advantage, in my opinion.

Any other ideas? Objections? I want to make sure that this banner will have the project's consensus in this form. Waltham, The Duke of 22:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I see no feedback... Perhaps greater exposure will bring in some ideas. I have placed the template in Template talk:S-start and shall start adding it to other templates' talk pages, including those which redirect to S-start. It is best to have an individual talk page for each template, to expedite edit requests and allow for comments to be in context; the banner urges users to leave most messages here. On another note, I have moved the template to {{SBS banner}}, which seems more intuitive. Waltham, The Duke of 06:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Finished. :) Foofighter20x (talk) 04:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Also... General rule-of-thumb I've been using for boxes I've been doing... Tell me if I'm wrong. Basically, I group all the offices into their correct category, and then order them by the dates of the earliest position held in that category... Hope that's okay... Also, with link farms, I've been tidying up by following this order: Senate, Senate offices (e.g. Pro tem), House, House offices (e.g. Speaker), President, Vice President, Secretary of ___, Other executive branch offices, Chief Justice, Governor, etc... For the Justices, I then put the USSC composition while they were on the court last...??? Foofighter20x (talk) 04:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I am really sorry for failing to reply more quickly, but we are all quite busy here. First of all, some clarity, please. When you say "US Supreme court is done", which boxes do you mean that you have edited? As far as the order is concerned (I suppose you are referring to succession boxes—we do not use the term "link farm" for them), there are full guidelines on the order of the lines in WP:SBSGUIDE. If you are referring to something else, please say so. Waltham, The Duke of 18:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

A little housekeeping-related idea. The shortcut for the main page is WP:SBS, and for the talk page it is WT:SBS; the subpages, however, are more complicated.

At the moment, we only have one shortcut for a subpage, namely that for the Guidelines page, and, although WP:SBSGUIDE is certainly much shorter than Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Guidelines (eleven characters as opposed to sixty-three), it still has its shortcomings. I suggest that we use another, shorter shortcut, in addition to the existing one (a replacement is out of the question).

I propose WP:SBS/G (8 characters), which, at least for those who are into things, will be even more convenient. Obviously, I didn't know about this little slash trick when the current shortcut was created, so I'm making up for it now, and it can be expanded to cover all of our subpages (or at least those important enough to have their own shortcuts). Think of it: WP:SBS/O, WP:SBS/T, and WP:SBS/D (for /Offices, /Templates, and the Documentation page, namely Template:S-start) make up for a coherent and intuitive system.

How do you feel about it? Do you have another idea that you prefer? Please state your opinion. Waltham, The Duke of 17:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Support – For the reasons outlined above by... well, me. Waltham, The Duke of 17:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Support; this makes a great deal of sense. Alkari (?), 23 February 2008, 01:46 UTC

Support - reasonable proposal. John Carter (talk) 16:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else who would care to comment? Waltham, The Duke of 16:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm no a member, but that seems just fine, I don't see why you couldn't be bold and just create it. Circeus (talk) 22:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I wanted to take a break from reverting to committee mode whenever the quorum was not met, but this happens for a great part of the year, so being bold would probably be more productive, at least where there is no opposition.

All right, then... I claim my right to boldness.

I declare this discussion closed and its associated proposal approved without quorum due to extraordinary circumstances (i.e. The Snowball Clause). I shall proceed with the creation of the shortcuts presently. Waltham, The Duke of 23:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Hiyas,

I've been using succession boxes for product lines, such as the Canon EOS series of cameras. For the first model in a line, I'm currently using {{s-new|first}}, as at Canon EOS D30, which is ok but not terribly specific.

Over at Template talk:s-new, I proposed (requested) that a "product" option be offered, with next "New Product Line", and Waltham suggested it be discussed over here.

What do y'all think? (About this proposal specifically and using succession boxes or similar templates for product lines?)

Nbarth (email) (talk) 16:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

No objections to the idea in principle. A few questions come to mind though. First among these is just how many products would be potentially related to this template. I doubt that we are likely to have articles on all the various Barbie models, for instance, but if they did exist would they be included as well? The same might apply to, well, substantially altered automobiles which retain the same name, reformulated cereals (Lucky Charms with the new marshmallow added), and any number of other products as well. John Carter (talk) 16:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I did suggest it, and I thank you for following my advice, Nbarth. I share Mr Carter's views on the issue: I don't mind the parameter, but I do have doubts on the practicality of creating succession chains for products. We haven't really discussed this before; it looks to me like opening a whole new can of worms here... Waltham, The Duke of 13:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Walthan on the basic element (not sure of the necessity for product "succession"), bit this also seems definitely redundant with {{Canon DSLR cameras}} with has for its header "Canon EOS Digital SLR Timeline". Circeus (talk) 22:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

There are several work-arounds for succession boxes. I think we need to start gathering information on which exactly these are... Waltham, The Duke of 00:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Would some kind soul please sort out these boxes as (1) it needs doing, and (2) it'd be a useful example (for me). Thanks. Sardanaphalus (talk) 07:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Done. For detailed instructions on how to use the succession templates, please see the Documentation page; for style and headers, see our guidelines. Read these and you will be able to deal with the boxes on your own (it's always better); if you have any questions or observations to make, we're still here for you. Waltham, The Duke of 11:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointers and speedy work! Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Can someone please read my post on Template_talk:S-rel#Color. Grk1011 (talk) 01:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Surely one can imagine why editors like taking some time off, but this is ridiculous. It's been four weeks now that every activity here has just frozen. I suppose that I shouldn't be asking for much if I requested some effort to get us out of the standstill, should I? There are all sorts of things waiting to be discussed, and we're just being rude to them. Waltham, The Duke of 08:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Spring Break time, many people traveling. Mikebar (talk) 08:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hm. I suppose that this is enough to justify the situation. Still, we need to get back on-line; in three days it will be the first Sunday after Catholic Easter, and there will be no excuses from that day on. Waltham, The Duke of 11:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Having just rejoined this group after a long absence, I'm now going on a semibreak. Bad timing perhaps, but there you go. I think you'll find that my excuse (as given on my talk page) is sufficient. Still, I'll be around, just not as active as per usual. 52 Pickup (deal) 14:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I could take the Standard Calm Approach ("You shall die!"), but I have decided to take the Extremely Serene Approach: we are happy to have one more contributor, so whenever you are available this is a gain for us. You need not worry about participation. (You can leave that to me...) Waltham, The Duke of 22:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Dates aren't wikilinked (via #ifexist) in {{s-hou}}, meaning user preferences don't take effect on date formatting. I'm sure they used to be wikilinked; is there a reason they're not any more or am I just remembering it wrong? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 23:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

We have decided that Wiki-linking dates in succession boxes clutters the boxes too much with links, so we have mostly stopped the practice; exceptions include linking years in parliamentary boxes to elections, years in awards to the respective ceremonies, etc. As far as dates are concerned, the format used in the subject's country is used. Waltham, The Duke of 09:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

But is it? For example, see Hirohito. There, the US format is currently used: month-day-year. The correct Japanese format is year-month-day. 52 Pickup (deal) 14:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This hadn't really occurred to me until now... I (still) have no earthly idea on how to deal with this complication. Some thought (and discussion) will certainly need to go into this... Waltham, The Duke of 08:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that no matter what method we agree upon here, editors with no idea how these templates should be used will change the dates to their personally-preferred format anyway. To prevent this once we've come up with a clear idea of what to do, we should probably seek out articles on key personalities in various regions and make the necessary changes there; and hope that the responsible authors can then spread the correct practices to other articles.
For the Hirohito example, I believe we should reword the instructions to indicate that swapping the year and date fields is valid (YMD is a common format in Asia). At the moment, the template does not perform any calculation work, so this can be done without immediate disruption. - 52 Pickup (deal) 09:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

My gut feel is still that we should follow MOS:DATE and just ignore that it puts lots of links in. We could come up with CSS to mask the links, if people would prefer? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 14:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I tend to think that this is an alternative everyone would have preferred, if I may speak so; personally, I had never thought it possible to hide the links, which saddened me, because it would solve most problems. Waltham, The Duke of 03:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Would it a solution worth now following, if the current solution isn't uniformly implemented? I'm happy to write the CSS to provide to people who are bothered by it (we can even make the links appear black and not underlined, so the dates are visible without appearing to be links, as well) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:14, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it like that... If there were an acceptable solution perhaps it would be easier to spread. Right now, links are discouraged by our guidelines, so if we do decide to use links again the extra work will be proportional to the success of this project. (I have no idea whether I should feel happy or sad about this...) Waltham, The Duke of 23:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the bottom of William II, German Emperor. No problem with the succession box on its own, but what should be done with the multitude of other boxes there? 52 Pickup (deal) 14:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of them, aren't there? My guess, at this point, would be to do nothing, unless you're one of the parties involved in the page already. However, if the article were submitted for some sort of peer review, I'm virtually certain that the reviewers would comment on the number of boxes. If it were to be possible to adjust one box to include the functionality of all of them, (he, he, right ;) ), that might be acceptable, but, until then, I don't see any pressing need for the removal of the redundancies. John Carter (talk) 14:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm in now way involved with this article, but the number/placement of boxes just jumped out at me. But this seems to be a symptomatic problem when it comes to royalty articles. 52 Pickup (deal) 15:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The shape of those boxes is simply unsuitable for the bottom of articles. I don't know about the system followed for German royalty (I only know about British monarchs, each of whom has a simple box naming them), but it certainly needs to be changed. I suppose that this would be better discussed at Wikipedia talk:Navigational templates or whatever venue is the most suitable; we only deal with succession boxes here (or at least try to). All we know is that succession boxes come before these navigational templates, so we can't really make a decision here about anything. Waltham, The Duke of 21:49, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the German Emperors, Holy Roman Emperors, etc, should all be in one box with a switch used to display the relevant section on each page. The rest should be collapsed. In my opinion, the pretender template at the very bottom is not needed. Only more complex cases like that of France should have them. Charles 22:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

At the moment I don't think there really is any system in place for German royalty. I've dabbled a little bit in some of the German royalty articles (eg. Frederick II of Prussia), but not yet with the Emperors, so I was planning on trying to come up with a suitable standard here. After looking at some other articles, there are 3 strongly overlapping templates, two of which are used in this particular article. In an attempt to sort this out, I've started a discussion over at Template talk:Holy Roman Emperors if anyone is interested. 52 Pickup (deal) 09:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

(please click to read)

It's a bad year, isn't it? First the spaghetti harvest fails, and then His Grace makes us all remove our succession boxes :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Dire news indeed, Your Grace. - 52 Pickup (deal) 09:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess that just leaves an uprising against him as our last option. Lemme get my pitchfork. The rest of you grab whatever you can to help in storming the castle. John Carter (talk) 13:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The peasants are revolting... --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, dear. I wish I had been better at moat dredging. Gwguffey (talk) 13:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(eyes the mob nervously from the battlements) It's not that good to be the Duke... Where are those bloody mercenaries when I need them? Waltham, The Duke of 14:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(suddenly attentive at the talk of mercenaries, who work for money): Uh, how much are we talking here? John Carter (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Two hundred sovereigns for your services for a year, Mr Carter. I shan't be needing you all the time, and the price of gold has risen exponentially lately. I'll pay for your arms and uniform as well.

Tempting, isn't it? Waltham, The Duke of 15:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really used to, well, uniforms, lately. Been dressing like this [1] a lot lately. Is that OK? I'm the one with the sword. John Carter (talk) 15:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Will do. As of this moment, you are in my employment. Now arrest these ridiculous people with the torches. Arrest Tony as well; he is clearly an agent of the enemy. Here are the keys to the dungeon; I am counting on you to make good use of them, Mr Carter. Waltham, The Duke of 16:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• His Grace has my full support. TONY (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I say this with much heartache and much acceptance to the fact that Waltham indeed has a point. The project is a bust. It was begun with good motives, continued through many traumas, and in the end, did not succeed. I regret that I must agree that this project is over, at least to the degree to which it has thus far been promulgated. It is not that succession boxes are not helpful, it is just that there are easier ways to present the data than we currently use.

Ultimately, I believe that the project is not quite dead yet, just the current goals and arbitration is far overboard. Our group has become what became of Star Wars Customizable Card Game: it started with a relatively simple idea, but continued to grow into a beast before anyone was able to control it. We tried, but in the end we just became another bureaucratic cog in the Wikipedia wheel.

That being said, I urge everyone NOT to simply start deleting succession boxes. That will just result in broken succession boxes all over Wikipedia. Instead, begin to replace them with equivalents. Create pull down lists such as those for the Kings of England, Template:English Monarchs. Also, use infoboxes such as Template:Infobox British Royalty that already have succession boxes incorporated. Expand these kind of boxes to be used on other pages such as nobles and whatnot. The pull down succession lists are just as functional as succession boxes, they just don't have the dates and the obnoxious color schemes. In other words, don't give up succession lists, just maybe we should depart from the boxes we all spent so much time establishing.

We did well, everyone, creating boxes on so many pages and resolving many problems I didn't even know existed. However, there comes a point when certain boxes just become more of a pain than anything else. Incorporate information not found in a page elsewhere into the main text, make sure some succession list can be found somewhere for the titles, but then remove the box and move to the next one. Don't give up on successions, but the boxes may be due for a removal, as Waltham has proposed.

Thank you for the two years of support. They have been hard, long, but productive, and I don't think by closing down this project we are giving up what we came together to build, we are just going in a new direction that will look and feel better for Wikipedia and the future of the organization. Thank you for everything, I will continue to monitor the boards in these next weeks to see where we want to go next. Adieu.
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 00:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Umm, Whaley, did you see the date on which His Grace posted his message? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I know I shouldn't be happy about this, but having fooled someone could be considered a success. My only one, I suppose, as relatively few people pay much attention to these things in Real Life after a certain age.

As far as the Great Khan's response is concerned, I daresay that he has been away from the project for too long and is not fully informed of the current situation. True, there are some participation problems in the project. However, the concept of succession boxes is a successful one, worthy of further development and refinement. And it's popular: according to the latest statistics, {{s-ttl}} is the 56th most-used template in the whole of Wikipedia with 92,553 links, {{s-bef}} is 59th with 92,029 links, and {{s-aft}} naturally takes up the next (60th) slot with 89,784 links. In other words, SBS's templates are used in at least 93,000 articles, by the most conservative estimates. Furthermore, our guidelines are in a mostly good shape, improving with every successive discussion held on this page, and there is virtually no objection to the existence of succession boxes on pages, with only some minor points raised. Succession boxes are far from dead, Darius, and this project shall also remain alive, at least for as long as I can make sure of it personally.

I am sorry to see the upheaval my hastily drafted little practical joke has created, although, as I have already mentioned, I also felt a little glee, which would be hypocritical of me not to confess. After all, it was an opportunity to lure you here, after all this time. The same goes for BrownHairedGirl, actually, who I had no idea that watched this page. Now that she is here, I hope that she shall stay a little longer so that we can discuss a few matters which have been on hold for far too long. I have attempted to contact her in the past several times but couldn't get through, her talk page being something of a dump (no offence).

Now, until Whaleyland takes all this in, I think it will be more prudent of me to stay locked up in my castle, where I'll be safe. I'll have Carter in the room as well, just in case. Waltham, The Duke of 03:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Darius peeks around the corner looking for a peanut gallery. Blast, there it is! He's been caught. Ah, but 'twas the joke on him or the joke on them? The world may never know.

Well...okay, I guess they can. I was quite aware of the date, thank you (see Gmail's joke and Google's jokes), and have been attempting to keep up with the forums as well, despite my lack of contributing to them. I was merely taking Waltham's joke one step further, perhaps too far as some seem concerned. I find myself personally at war with Infobox editors to such a large degree that I cannot possibly avoid a chance to think they earned some cession from our group. While they can be handy, does anyone really want to see something as nasty as the pile-up at the bottom of Napoleon I of France? While we too have our own rather large boxes (see Winston Churchill) at least we did our spring cleaning at made them look proper. I believe Winston would be proud while Napoleon would go REVOLUTION to his page.

Hmm, revolution sounds good...or sieging...I like sieging. Waltham's in his castle, eh? Anyone up for a good old fashioned siege? I heard the crocodiles in his moat are really just stuffed animals he won at Circus Circus. Strange, I just thought of Waltham as Saruman with Carter as Gríma Wormtongue as they realize their little fight with Rohirrim was ended in defeat. Hehehe...

Right, I've got to go prepare the catapults, siege towers, ballistas, rabid cats. Hope no one else took me too seriously. I do come off that way sometimes but I don't mean it; at least not usually. Cheers!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 06:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(shouts from tower) Hold your horses, o Great Khan, we could perhaps negotiate. Your point about Napoleon's article is valid, after all, and Churchill could as well do with some kind of collapsible box, like the solution applied on Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (with some tweaking, though). I also admit that I have not been completely abreast of developments in the world of succession boxes and navigation templates, too absorbed in style issues; I have just realised that Time Persons of the Year have splintered off into a navigation template of their own, solving a great problem we had (we had no idea how to categorise them, as this is not a title). Perhaps some kind of alliance with the userbox-makers would be beneficial (we don't need them take all our good titles, after all, hehe).

All that said, don't you dare insult my moat again; Gwguffey will be outraged, and we don't want that.

In any case, stay right where you are and I'll be down in a jiffy. (whispers) Cartwright— sorry, Carter, get my crossbow, quickly.

(frowns) Where is Cartwright? Waltham, The Duke of 15:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(coming from behind him) Got it right here. (holding it horizontally, pointing forward) Um, we were still negotiating the contract as I recall. I think an extra stipend would be reasonable, under the circumstances. One other point, while I've got your attention like this. I get the impression that most of our boxes will relate directly to articles related to the Biography project. That group is actively considering breaking down some of its subject projects into even smaller fiefdoms, to keep them from getting too large to be easily controllable. If and when I and some of my allies finish the extant project directory, we're intending on trying to integrate some of the smaller descendant projects in, which would reduce the number of succession boxes each group deals with and maybe a bit more closely focus attention on them. Now, about that money... ;) John Carter (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The good news Your Grace's stalling diplomacy has allowed the moat widening to be completed at a most opportune time. The decoys worked a brilliantly.

The bad news: The contractors won't be here to finish extending the Bridge to Nowhere drawbridge until Friday.

Your Grace's humble moat dredger, Gwguffey (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Good news overall, Gwguffey; I don't mind staying inside for a couple of days. Our "guests" are not to be released before Friday, anyway (and until they swear an oath of loyalty to me). You may go now.

Mr Carter, your demands are fairly just, and I believe a bonus of two sovereigns is in order for your trouble. Now sign the bleeding contract and I wish to hear nothing further about any pecuniary demands henceforward.

Our boxes are indeed mostly used in biographical articles, therefore the news you bring are of great interest. As you are involved in WikiProjects as few others are, I trust that you shall monitor the situation and report back on any significant changes. Co-operation between different projects can be very beneficial in many different ways.

I think we are done for today. Please go and make sure our "guests" are comfortable in their cells. I should like to have some privacy while I am planning SBS's next moves... Waltham, The Duke of 22:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

In response to my random post two days ago, I have reconciled and added a new link on the WikiProject nav bar at the top of the page which links to a growing list of Succession navigation bars that sit at the bottom of many of the pages we edit. I didn't put that much effort into finding a lot of bars for the page, so if anyone wants to add some, that would be great. Mind you, though, this is only for succession-related navbars, nothing else. I am doing it somewhat so I can figure out just what succession lists still do not have navbars so we can create new ones for those pages. Cheers!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 01:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

{{Succession box}}, while not exactly part of the WP:SBS suite, is a very simple and widely-used template. For these reasons, I do not believe it should be eliminated, but there are times when I have replaced its usage with SBS templates to improve appearance. The most common case is for incumbents. For example, e.g. Mike Rann

Preceded by Rob Kerin

Premier of South Australia 2002 – present

Succeeded by Incumbent

The "Succeeded by: incumbent" part irks me somewhat, so I have modified a few articles to remove the call to {{Succession box}} and insert a call to {{s-inc}}. But it is clear that this is not at all an elegant solution and hardly a long-lasting one. Then I realised that if we modify {{Succession box}} itself, it is possible for this template to check for instances where "after=incumbent" and make the necessary change automatically. Here again, using my test version (with no other changes):

User:52 Pickup/Drafts/SSB

Not only is it relatively easy to make this modification to the template, but it is also rather easy to make other changes (e.g. "before=New title" --> {{s-new}}, "after=Abolished" --> {{s-non|reason={{{after}}}}}, etc.) without damaging the template's functionality.

Since this template is fully-protected, I did not want to go ahead and make such a change without discussion. So if there are any objections, I will not make the change. If you think that this is a good idea, then we should also work out what other modifications can be made to this template and its cousins (two to one, etc.) in order to allow usage of these simpler templates while creating a seamless difference between them and the SBS templates. 52 Pickup (deal) 07:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess my timing is a little off, but meet Template:Incumbent succession box. Choess (talk) 12:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Didn't know about that one. The problem is that many people who should use it don't seem to know about it either. That is why I'm interested in modifying the more commonly-used templates to eliminate the guesswork. - 52 Pickup (deal) 12:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like {{succession box}}, partly because people seem to find it simpler without it necessarily being so. It just uses parameters instead of separate templates, and it prevents people from finding out about the much more flexible S-start templates. Not to mention the army of succession-box-type templates we've had to delete, which were used for all sorts of line configurations. Call me narrow-minded if you like, but I think {{succession box}} ought to be replaced entirely. I find its active maintaining rather pointless at any rate; statistics indicate that the S-start templates are already used significantly more. Waltham, The Duke of 03:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

But you do realise that {{succession box}} is currently used on over 50,000 pages? I don't know exactly how many since I got fed up after going through 100 clicks of the "what links here" list. Replacing its usage manually is an act in futility. The only way you can remove it is to pass a TfD, which is very unlikely to succeed, given how widely it is used. In such a TfD you could request that the template be subst'ed. Since it does not contain any parser functions, subst'ing is no problem. Of course, you can try subst'ing any instances you see without calling for its deletion, but that will still take a long time to get done. The changes that I have proposed here would add parser functions and thus make subst'ing impossible (or at least very messy), and for that reason I will not go ahead with these changes at this point. 52 Pickup (deal) 14:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they are many, and yes, they cannot be easily replaced. We need an organised attempt here. If people could be persuaded to consider the S-start templates an official replacement for {{succession box}}, then we'd have a much greater resource to draw upon for the templates' replacement. They are already much better documented, they are used in almost twice as many boxes, and have several notable advantages that just need to be properly explained to people. Personally, I do replace the templates whenever I find them; it might not be much, but it is something, especially since I always explain that in the edit summary and include a link, thus advertising our templates.

PS: I have taken the liberty to correct the dashes and capitalisation in the example; they bothered me too much as they were. Waltham, The Duke of 16:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Can a robot be used to convert succession box to s-box syntax? Mikebar (talk) 08:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Although it is not as easy as it sounds (it is surprising in how many ways this template can be used, as far as syntax errors and the order of parameters is concerned), I find it plausible. However, we cannot do this without some kind of approval by the community; we are talking about thousands of articles here. One must tread very carefully. Waltham, The Duke of 11:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I know I'm joining this discussion a bit late, but I only just noticed this discussion and wanted to plead with your grace to show for clemency to {{succession box}}, and to spare it from execution.

Yes, there are some situations where the {{s-start}} templates are better, but for simple cases {{succession box}} does the job just as well, and I use it a lot because it's easy to remember. I know that this irks His Grace, but the prob with s-bef etc is that I can't remember all the permutations, so I have to look it up, which takes time I'd rather devote to other things. For cases where the effect is the same, I think it's best to apply the KISS principle, because if succession boxes become too time-consuming to apply I just don't bother . This is particularly important for the many squillions editors who, like me, just humble and ignorant peasants.

I have no objection to {{succession box}} being replaced with {{s-bef}} etc in those cases where it adds something, such as when there was no successor ... but where it's doing the job satisfactorily , can't we just leave it be? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand the desire for simplicity, but I really believe that {{s-start}} is as simple as {{succession box}}, and this is why:

The latter is one template comprising four parameters, and the former is three templates comprising, in total, four parameters. All that changes is the number of templates (in other words, the number of curly brackets). The permutations (I assume you are referring to the various extra parameters) only concern additional information; one does not need to add these in order to produce a functional box—they are added benefits of the {{s-start}} system. And when it comes to replacement templates (like {{s-new}} instead of {{s-bef}} and {{s-inc}} instead of {{s-aft}}), well, these are the cases in which {{succession box}} is inadequate anyway.

PS: This is besides the point, but there is a quick index for all the templates and their parameters (excluding headers): our cheatsheet. Waltham, The Duke of 17:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I know about the cheatsheet, and appreciate all the painstaking work involved in making it so clear (well done!), but the things is that with {{succession box}}, I don't need a cheatsheet: the params title/year/before/after, which I can use in that order (which is how it seems logical to me), so it's easy.

The other permutations are indeed needed in certain situations, in which case I open up the cheatsheet to figure out which ones I need. But if the situation is simple and the end result would be the same as with {{succession box}}, the I'll take the easy route. It's great to have the more sophisticated option there when needed, but that seems to be no reason to prevent use of the simple route when it does the job. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, what can I say? I still find the difference in complexity incredibly small. Compare this...

{{start box}}
{{succession box|
 before=[[William Deane|Sir William Deane]]|
 title=[[Governor-General of Australia]]|
 years=2001 – 2003|
 after=[[Michael Jeffery]]
}}
{{end box}}

...to this:

{{s-start}}
{{s-bef|before=[[William Deane|Sir William Deane]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Governor-General of Australia]]|years=2001 – 2003}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Michael Jeffery]]}}
{{end}}

The parameters are identical; all the one will need to remember is the names of the templates (and there are just three of them). This is a relatively small change that we could afford while enjoying the other, subsidiary benefits that a substitution would provide us with. I am not going to push it if there is further opposition, but I am a little disappointed.

Note: As far as the order is concerned, believe me: I have encountered all possible combinations. There no standard whatsoever. And I think it would be considered logical and intuitive enough to give the parameters in the order the resulting fields are encountered in the box. Waltham, The Duke of 12:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that the order required by {{s-bef}} etc is logical, but the thing is that a post-years-before-after order is also logical, and other editors find difft orders logical. That's the advantage of a multi-parameter template: it allows an editor to enter the data in whatever order appears logical to them, and still produces the correct output. This flexibility of input seems to me to be A Good Thing^TM, because it increases the chances of an accurate result, and thereby makes it more likely that the box will be created.

If there a gain to be made by replacing {{succession box}}, then the inconvenience would be justified, but in simple cases of one title with a clear predecessor and successor, I don't see the gain. And I do see a possibility of a real loss, which is that some editors may not bother to create a box at all if it becomes harder (and I have encountered such cases). A clumsy box is surely better than no box?

What I do agree about, though, is that there are many many cases where I and others have used {{succession box}} in situations where the more sophisticated templates produce much better and more logical output, avoiding such horrors as "Succeeded by: (constituency abolished"). Could we perhaps compromise on trying to identify and replace those usages, and ideally get to the point where a bot could identify and list such inappropriate usages of {{succession box}}, even if it can't actually fix them by itself?

If we could get to the point where {{succession box}} is actually used only for the simple cases where it produces accurate output, and the other uses have been converted to the more sophisticated and flexible solutions, then it seems to me that we'd have a win-win situation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

All right, I'll concede this to you, although I fear that for as long as {{succession box}} exists it will be used for more things than simple succession lines. Can we at least make sure that the supremacy of the {{s-start}} series is recognised for all but the simplest types of succession boxes? There is currently no documentation at all on the template's main page, and the documentation on the talk page, in place since Anno Domini MMIV, is incomplete and outdated. SBS's guidelines should also be followed in those boxes, so a link to them should be prominent.

So, usage. Ahem: "The succession box template ought to be used only for the simplest succession lines. These are single succession lines showing nothing more than a succession of three people holding exactly the same title. For succession lines sharing cells with other lines, for new or expired titles, for incumbencies or vacancies, for titular rulers or pretenders, for titles which change their name before or after the subject, and for lines requiring other additional information, the specialised templates of the s-start series should be used instead of succession box." Not too complex I hope? Waltham, The Duke of 20:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The idea is great, and the form of words is perfect. Be bold, your grace! Raise the portcullis and set to edit :)

Actually, I wouldn't mind the text being a a little stronger and deprecating the succession box template, saying that the other sort are preferred. (Discouarge use strongly, but stop short of preventing it). And perhaps add a link to the cheatsheet, for the further assistance of such peasants as me? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

←Time flies, doesn't it? Twenty-four days have elapsed (co-incidentally, my favourite number), and only now I am answering. I was determined to do it after finishing with the documentation, so that I could have something impressive to present. My progress has been slower than anticipated, due to various distractions, but I am now in the pleasant position to smugly announce that all headers, in addition to {{succession box}}, now have documentation pages, informative and fully standardised. We can now expect more traffic to the {{s-start}} suite of templates and, perhaps, the SBS pages; hopefully, we shall also see fewer cases of template misuse. Waltham, The Duke of 09:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

A long time ago, I proposed the addition of a "cabinet" field to s-ttl (thread here) after seeing its use on other language wikis. Here it is again, presenting John Moore (Australian politician) using my test version with cabinet=[[Second Howard Ministry|Howard 2]]

Preceded by Ian McLachlan User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Template:s-ttl

Succeeded by Peter Reith

There was no decision regarding its inclusion, probably because I also discussed some other possible features in the same thread which then went on to dominate discussion (although I'd be interested in revisiting some of those issues too if anyone else is). So what do others think about this cabinet option? 52 Pickup (deal) 14:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I am interested, but a couple of issues must be clarified first. What if a minister serves in two consecutive cabinets? Waltham, The Duke of 15:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Personal 2 cents is it detracts from the subject. That and the proliferation of "cabinet boxes" at the bottom of articles means you'd have redundant info in the article. Mikebar (talk) 08:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the ubiquitous nav-boxes. We really need to get organised around here... Waltham, The Duke of 12:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, good point about the navbars. The other-language wikis where I saw this feature did not have so many navboxes as here. So I guess it should be one or the other.

To answer the question about multiple cabinets, I would probably say something like cabinet=Bloggs [[First Bloggs Ministry|1]], [[Second Bloggs Ministry|2]], [[Third Bloggs Ministry|3]] 52 Pickup (deal) 12:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to have discovered the SBS project in the course of finding new, succinct templates in place of the older, table-based format. But now that I know that there are a bunch of people working hard on succession-related problems, I've got a question to lay at your feet.

Succession boxes are used to keep track of who gets elected to the various seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. These seats represent numbered districts in each state. Here's the problem: Now and then, the districts get renumbered. For example, Patrick J. Hillings succeeded Senator-elect Richard M. Nixon to represent California's 12th congressional district (CA-12) in 1951. But when Hillings ran for reelection in 1952, the district was renumbered as CA-25. At the same time, the district previously known as CA-9 was renumbered as CA-12. While it would be partially correct to say that Allan O. Hunter succeeded Hillings in representing CA-12 (as the succession box on the Hunter article does), it's also misleading since Hunter and Hillings both continued to serve the same districts, however renumbered.

Is there a convention in place to handle such cases? I tried experimenting with the {{s-vac}} and {{s-new}} templates on the Patrick J. Hillings article. I also tried adding some additional parameters to a customized version of those templates in my my sandbox. Your feedback is appreciated! -- Shunpiker (talk) 03:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well... Working hard is an overstatement in my opinion; we do need helping hands here. :-) In any case, the problem in question is known but I daresay has yet to be tackled due to the complexity of the area of congressional districts. In any case, I think most people will agree that the chain of succession for an area must remain intact, and that it is the name (or, rather, number) that should change.

My proposal makes use of the "as" parameter, which is intended for changing titles:

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Richard M. Nixon	Member from California's 12th congressional district 1951 – 1953	Succeeded by Himself as Member from California's 25th congressional district (renumbered)
Preceded by Himself as Member from California's 12th congressional district (renumbered)	Member from California's 25th congressional district 1953 – 1959	Succeeded by George A. Kasem

(see the code in the edit window)

The box is comparatively concise, and retains the specific chain of succession. I am only unsure about the links; the articles for the districts do not mention the changes in numbering, so I cannot decide between plain links and links to the last incarnation of the specific (geographically) district. While the former might be inaccurate, the latter might be confusing and requires a great maintenance effort. I shall leave this to you.

Your sandbox experiment is interesting in that it tries to give the reader the ability to go both directions (either follow the geographical district or the numeral one). However, I do not know to what extent this is actually desirable, and if the new parameter and greater size and complexity of the box bear more weight as disadvantages than this additional information. This will need discussion and thought... Waltham, The Duke of 13:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well? Any comments at all? Waltham, The Duke of 01:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A few thoughts :)

In principle, I always like extra navigational options, and the "as" parameter seems simple enough in principle. However, I share His Grace's concerns about accuracy, because in the example illustrated I doubt that a redistricting often lends itself to such a neat a mapping of one district to another. I also fear that a parameter named "as" could be used for all sorts of unintended purposes, which would clutter the boxes

• as=a reward for his support for the King
• as=an attempt to balster left-wing support for the govt
• as=his last military posting
• as=a result of the Uzbek-Faroese Frienship Traety of 1801

Surely the succession boxes should indicate succession, which seems moot in these cases? Boxes can't convey everything, and doesn't this sort of detail belong in the article itself? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"doesn't this sort of detail belong in the article itself?" Actually, it's not often found there, but rather in the articles about ridings. Given that "as" is explicitly given for use of different titles, I don't see where the problem is. I've used similar tricks in several articles where ridings where merged or split today just today: Pierre Joseph Arthur Cardin, Christophe-Alphonse Geoffrion and Raymond Préfontaine — Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs) 22:27, 17 May 2008

Indeed, I'd say that the relevant section of the documentation is clear enough in this respect. The examples cited by Circeus constitute perfectly legitimate usage of the parameter.

On another note... Uzbek-Faroese? Really? :-D Waltham, The Duke of 23:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm actually having second thoughts and am sort-of split between using {{s-new|district|reason= From part of Foobar}} and {{s-bef|before=John Doe|as= Representant for Foobar}}... Oh well. These things are almost impossible to apply regularly on a large scale anyway ^___^ Circeus (talk) 01:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Which is why we should discuss these things here and make guidelines about them to be used as references for the editors of succession boxes around the globe. :-) If one thinks of it, it is actually quite daunting how many things we have to standardise; I intend to post an extended checklist somewhere one of these days. What you say is related to one simple question: should we treat congressional districts as long, unbroken chains, or should we break them at re-numberings? Waltham, The Duke of 07:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts, before determining consensus for any specific guidance regarding U.S. Congressional redistricting, some input should be solicited from participants of Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress. The topic has come up there previously (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress#Redistricting and succession). As for specifics, I suggest that the district number should be treated as unbroken (which is how it is represented at Congressional sources), but that there may need to be something to indicate redistricting and that should be standardized. For one approach involving notes, see Dale E. Kildee. There are some other examples around, but at the moment, I'm not able to find them. older ≠ wiser 12:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree with discussing this with the appropriate WikiProject. Co-operation between projects should be encouraged. As far as the Kildee example is concerned, notes can be useful, but the box is still unwieldy. (And the proper template should be used for the notes anyway. Now that I think of it, wouldn't it be great if these reference-style links could be used in the text and lead to the relevant line at the end of the box (template {{s-ref}})?) Perhaps a hybrid could be worked out, still using the "as" parameters but also giving more details through notes. Waltham, The Duke of 02:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a feature request for the AutoWikiBrowser tool being discussed at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests#wikify dates that needs to be looked at. If this became part of the general fixes automatically applied, would this run counter to SBS Guide Years and Dates vii d-f? --Gwguffey (talk) 14:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

As, for the time being, we do not want links, it would. Thank you for the notice, Gwguffey; I have left a note there asking for the exemption of succession boxes (at least until we solve the problem with visible links). Waltham, The Duke of 01:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I went looking for a general box that would give the formatting seen in Sheridan State Scenic Corridor. I gave up and just used table code. Is this best or is there a good general template that simply centers the cells? --NE2 05:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Although it is not a complete solution, perhaps something like this using {{s-non}} and {{s-ttl}} would work:

Historic Columbia River Highway
Ruckel Creek Bridge MP 42.7	Sheridan State Park MP 44	Cascade Locks MP 45-46

Compared to:

Historic Columbia River Highway
Ruckel Creek Bridge MP 42.7	Sheridan State Park MP 44	Cascade Locks MP 45-46

from the aforementioned site.

We would probably want to create something that allowed for lower-cased successors and predecessors and for a standardized header, but for the moment, this may be a solution.
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 19:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What should be made of positions in major scientific societies such as the Linnean Society or Zoological Society? I've switched one or two of those from {{s-other}} to {{s-aca}} because these are typically considered as highly-regarded positions for academics, but I'm not too clear, and I really don't think {{s-culture}} works. Circeus (talk) 22:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

One of our newest headers, {{s-npo}}, was created for the various non-profit organisations, including labour unions and scouting organisations. Nobody seems to have thought about learned societies and the sort, but this header seems to fit.

{{s-aca}} should only be used for universities or equivalent institutions; {{s-culture}} is more relevant to museums and academies (they seem to have a more well-defined scope). Waltham, The Duke of 02:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Alright. I added a parameter to {{s-npo}} (pro, "Professional and academic associations") because "Non-profit organization" just doesn't cut it. Circeus (talk) 20:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I keep an eye on that one and your addition looks fine. ----— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

As long as SBS is notified, it is perfectly fine to add a parameter to a header when warranted; we want our system to be as effective as possible. "Professional and academic associations" sounds fine. Waltham, The Duke of 23:02, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to propose that "New Office" is available with the s-new template. I'm currently working on listing ministers who have served as Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. During the 1960's this office was merged into other departments on a regular basis, from Commonwealth Relations, to Commonwealth Affairs, and finally to Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Using s-new|institution doesn't seem right for the new holders of these offices.

Thanks Stephennt (talk) 07:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, New institution was one of my ideas; I didn't want to create New college, New university, and who knows what else. Needless to say, it's been a failure. It might be better to replace it.

About New office, though... Isn't New title suitable enough for ministers? I am concerned that New office will be so heavily used that there will be serious inconsistencies between the usage of the default New title and the parameter-generated New office, which is pretty much what we are trying to avoid here. The boundaries seem vague enough. Believe me, I've thought about this several times; New office sounds like a very obvious parameter. I'd have created it a year ago if it weren't for this problem.

All that said, I should really like to hear what the other members think. Waltham, The Duke of 08:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The end of a sequence is extremely flexible, as we use s-non, where any reason can be given. Perhaps we should have an s-new equivalent; we have s-new|reason at the moment, but something like s-new|name=New office would allow the same flexibility. Stephennt (talk) 09:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It is the other way round: we allow this flexibility in {{s-non}} because it is particularly tricky to find suitable tags for the end of titles. The varieties here are endless. On the other hand, the birth of titles is rather easy to describe. For more information, there is the "reason" field. I repeat: we are aiming for consistency here. (I know our project's full title is long and we rarely ever use it, but standardisation is in there. Promise. :-D). Seriously, are there any problems with the current configuration? If yes, they should be dealt with, but what you propose sounds more like a stylistic preference, and an entirely different Book of Statutes applies there, so to speak. Waltham, The Duke of 10:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree we're aiming for consistency, but there should also be consistency between the end of a lineage and the beginning of a replacement too. E.g. if I end the Commonwealth Relations line with "Office abolished", I should be able to have "New office" at the beginning of Commonwealth Affairs.

However the discussion of complete flexibility in s-new is well beyond the scope of just s-new|office, so I'll stick to arguing for that. Given that s-off = Political Offices, I think there should be a new office feature for it... Cheers Stephennt (talk) 10:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As a complete aside, any idea why the s-off box on page Frederick Peel is so big? Stephennt (talk) 10:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you accept bribes? I've copy-edited the article and its box; the problem with the header was the extra line. All these empty lines in the box aren't really necessary, and on some occasions, as you can see, even cause problems. Apart from that, I linked the years to their corresponding elections, added the second MP for Leominster, switched the political offices and parliamentary seats, corrected the spacing of the dashes, linked H. Roberts, joined two neighbouring cells bearing the same name, and removed the "institution" parameter. I am not saying you should have done all that, but it is interesting in an educational sense; check our guidelines for more information on that. By the way, I am horrified to discover my completely unintended usage of the "institution" parameter in this context. This is all my fault, I'm afraid. Please remove them from wherever you find them used in this way, and tell me if I have to do some of this work as well. I'll see what else I can do for damage control...

As far as the "office" parameter, you might be right, after all... But I am still not sure. I'd like to see some input from other editors first. Waltham, The Duke of 11:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for tidying up the box; I'll try to fix more up in future, but it's a painful task to go through the entire list of people who've served in the offices of people I'm trying to fix :-)
Would be great to get more feedback from others on this, thanks. Stephennt (talk) 17:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Personally, when in doubt, I use the handy "First". Besides, half the time, someone did the job previously, but as part of something else, under a different name: e.g. when the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada became the Canadian House of Commons, ridings were the same, so Joseph-Goderic Blanchet was not elected to a "new district", he was preceded by himself as MLA in a different body. This is what is happening here. The Legislative assembly of Quebec, however (and technically the office/title of speaker of it), was a New institution (although not a new district IMHO, as they were originally the same at provincial level). Overall, I think "first", "institution", and clever use of "as" in s-bef/aft cover most cases just fine. Circeus (talk) 22:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I quite like the idea of using the s-bef|as option in this case; I'll see if I can make that work (ie if all the predecessors match the successors). I sitll do think there's a case for having a new-office option though - as s-gov, s-off, etc all refer to offices I think it makes sense; given that the point of the new succ boxes is to standardise and categorise things, there's no point trying to make something fit into a category where it doesn't really belong. Stephennt (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What header are those? They seem to get filled as s-pol s-off, because "political offices" seems appropriate by name, but the guideline specify this is for elected government officials. s-par also feels a appropriate (as it is in parliament), but is not either. And s-ppo seems fairly silly (While there is overlap with party leader, there are large differences too). Circeus (talk) 03:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, {{s-off}} (I suppose that's the one you are referring to) is meant for political positions in general, not necessarily in government, and is the only suitable one for Leader of the opposition. You keep bringing up problems, and you should keep on doing that; the guidelines are in serious need of revision. I'll try to get that done over the following long weekend.

As far as {{s-par}} is concerned, it should only be used for parliamentary seats; the various associated offices come under {{s-off}} if political and {{s-gov}} if non-political; the situation is a little more complex with the whips, who also accept {{s-ppo}}... That's a tricky one. I can't explain more now; in the last 38 hours, I have slept two. After a long sleep, however, I'll come back to you with examples—I just thought you'd want a basic answer first. Waltham, The Duke of 03:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was referring to s-off >__>. Thanks for clarifying that. Circeus (talk) 04:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops, left you last in my checklist, I'm afraid. Anyway, here it goes...

As far as {{s-off}} is concerned, a general definition like the one given in the template's page is probably the most accurate. For more details, one goes to the guidelines page, only that more details means more chances of error, especially in a page which is rarely maintained. I agree that the introduction to that section should be revised; however, if you look at the list, it is fairly complete (especially after the recent addition of mayors, for which I thank you). Leader of the Opposition is, I suppose, a position which had not occurred to me separately from the rest of the posts listed there. I shall attempt to compensate in the following days.

I have also mentioned whips... Although I have not yet proposed anything regarding this, and there are no "official" guidelines, I follow my principle on multi-layering. In the United States House of Representatives, there are Majority and Minority Whips, which are offices in the Congress and thus come under {{s-off}}. At the same time there exist succession lines for the Republican and the Democratic whips (under {{s-ppo}}). Although these are overlapping—a whip being, e.g. in the majority and the Democratic Party—if a whip is in office while the majority shifts, then the political succession line breaks and another starts, while the party succession line continues. I cannot find a good example at the moment, but be patient... Any questions so far? Waltham, The Duke of 09:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd put both whips strictly in {{s-ppo}} (since he electorate does not have much to do with it, and the electorate hardly cares anyway), but so far so good. Circeus (talk) 12:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't always have to do with that; Whips influence politics, and in ways the electorate often does not understand. And using {{s-off}} for all political parliamentary offices ensures desirable consistency. Waltham, The Duke of 18:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I should like to introduce before the honourable members an idea of Gwguffey regarding a new type of succession template. This template, User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue, has been designed in order to deal with the problem of great repetition often found in succession boxes for stadiums and other sports venues which have been used multiple times for the same events (see Louisiana Superdome for an example). The difference from the current system is that all rows for a particular event will be compressed into one, with the succession lines separated from each other with breaking lines, saving space. For an example of the template's usage, please see User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue/test.

I believe I have said enough for an introduction; I shall leave the editor himself to further analyse his idea, as well as answer any questions which might come. Waltham, The Duke of 04:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm personally interested in multiple parameters in general, which I think could apply in a number of places, and could do just as well, if not better than merged cells. It would certainly be far more elegant than the ugly set of succession box templates, and more intuitive than the cell merging system. Circeus (talk) 12:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

My apologies for the delay in writing this after the Duke's introduction. The Superdome article now uses my proposed box temporarily.

In the course of editing articles related to venues (stadiums, arenas, facilities) I would like to provide guidance to editors in dealing with succession of events similar to Super Bowls — ones that have rotating homes and have been hosts of events multiple times, though not consecutively. So, I built the template to allow for this situation of succession boxes to be "compressed" into one template usage for each event for multiple years and do to so in a way that keeps horizontal alignment of before/years/after sequences regardless of the length of the text used in any of the three cells in a row.

Currently, editors not involved with SBS work are doing the following (except for ones that I have already visited) for this type of event:

Preceded by Rose Bowl	Host of Super Bowl XII 1978	Succeeded by Orange Bowl
Preceded by Rose Bowl	Host of Super Bowl XV 1981	Succeeded by Pontiac Silverdome
Preceded by Stanford Stadium	Host of Super Bowl XX 1986	Succeeded by Rose Bowl
Preceded by Joe Robbie Stadium	Host of Super Bowl XXIV 1990	Succeeded by Tampa Stadium
Preceded by Sun Devil Stadium	Host of Super Bowl XXXI 1997	Succeeded by Qualcomm Stadium
Preceded by Raymond James Stadium	Host of Super Bowl XXXVI 2002	Succeeded by Qualcomm Stadium

...or are trying to place all of the entries into a single succession box by forcing line breaks, but the information does not align correctly horizontally unless everything fits on exactly one line per entry (including the event title) to arrive at the following:

Preceded by Rose Bowl Rose Bowl Stanford Stadium Joe Robbie Stadium Sun Devil Stadium Raymond James Stadium

Host of the Super Bowl XII 1978 XV 1981 XX 1986 XXIV 1990 XXXI 1997 XXXVI 2002

Succeeded by Orange Bowl Pontiac Silverdome Rose Bowl Tampa Stadium Qualcomm Stadium Qualcomm Stadium

So, I propose compressing into this:

User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue

--Gwguffey (talk) 17:49, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think it would be great for any other complicated situation (with removal of the "host of" part). Of course, it runs into the issue of possibly needing to account for the various alternatives to s-aft and s-bef (inc, non, new, possibly vac). Maybe just having one "New=" and "Last=" with another param. for notes could cover all of those? Anyway, here's an example for a title:

Preceded by Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau	Rector of Université Laval 1860-1866	Succeeded by Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau
Preceded by Thomas-Étienne Hamel	Rector of Université Laval 1880-1883	Succeeded by Thomas-Étienne Hamel
	Rector of Université Laval 1886-1887	Succeeded by Benjamin Pâquet

to:

User:Gwguffey/Succession Box Venue

Generally, though, there are already several succession box variants (e.g. {{U.S. Secretary box}}), so having one for these would probably be just fine. Circeus (talk) 19:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the hardcoded "Host of" from the box. It would be no problem to rename any aspect of the box or parameters to be more generalized. --Gwguffey (talk) 03:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that I want to see the template used too widely; the last example displays redundancy in the predecessor's name, obscures the common origin of the last two titles—better seen in the "proper" box—and does not take into account intervening titles (e.g. between the first and second title), which could lead to ruining the chronological or other order with the proposed template, as the intervening title would have to be placed out of order. I was willing to ignore that for sports venues, but for me it becomes an deal-breaker when offices are concerned. Waltham, The Duke of 04:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Given the Duke's objections to utilization beyond the issue it was specifically designed to address, I will, with the utmost respect to Circeus, like to steer the conversation back towards the originally proposed usage. With that said, I am (and will be) happy to be accommodating in any way that would be of benefit to the project. Are there modifications or features that aid in its venue usage? --Gwguffey (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I'll leave you to your discussions. Circeus (talk) 20:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to clarify a difference in purpose between this usage and successions for individuals that is raised in the Duke's response to Circeus above. As opposed to the convention with individuals where the successions are placed in a pure chronology, for venues, the current (though unformalized) convention is to place the successions in the following order:

• Current tenants
  • Teams
  • Non-rotating events (like current American college bowl games)
• Prior tenants
  • Teams that moved to new homes or disbanded
  • Non-rotating events (such as former homes of American college bowl games)
• Rotating sports events in order of first usage (Super Bowls, NCAA final four's)
• Non-sports rotating events (Republican National Convention)

So the successions are compressed into a grouping by event, thus in the example above all of the Super Bowls are grouped together rather than separated by the events that came between. The redundancies seen in the predecessor or successor's columns would be appropriate for this type of grouping as it is not an overarching chronology — it is a sequence for the specific event. However, eliminating the redundancy of the title listing is desirable for this type of grouping (hence the term "compression"), but would not be for individuals. --Gwguffey (talk) 20:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I disagree partly with Waltham, but I'll leave you two to discuss the details of the implementation as it applies to sports venue. I can only hold this many arguments at the same time. Circeus (talk) 21:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't start more, then. :-D

All this time I haven't been contributing much here (and still haven't reviewed the guidelines as promised) because I am involved in too many discussions, polls, arguments, and so on. I don't want to, but so many of them keep drifting away from my preferences; what am I supposed to do? </confession> Waltham, The Duke of 21:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I know myself. I'm flighty, with a moving target as to what I want to actually do on wiki. As such, I am a terrible project member (I've edited and taken mild interest in enough areas to qualify for dozens of projects), and I tend to wander away after sparking revival or new discussion. Circeus (talk) 22:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I could tell as much from your user page. My problem is not as much that of fickleness as it is one of over-extension; my interests are way too wide for me to cover them, and I spread my time and resources thin. Not to mention the associated neglect of Real Life...

(moment of reflection)

Anyway, I think we are straying off-topic here. (My talk page is always available, though. :-)) Waltham, The Duke of 23:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

• I added a "line" parameter to {{s-other}} for lines of succession. Otherwise it's just silly (though it probably won't be used much, I suppose it's more practical to have it.)

• What is the better header for non-ceremonial Lord-Lieutenants? I just switched a bunch of 19th century ones from {{s-other}} to {{s-hon}}, but I strongly suspect that I am incorrect.

• Isn't it time we find a better way to deal with multiple seat constituencies? There has to be a more elegant way to do it, especially where more than one person has to be fit in "alongside", and how come there is no provision in {{s-bef}} or {{s-aft}} to deal with those? See George Pratt, 2nd Marquess Camden for an example where this would be useful (I did not have the courage to convert the first two {{succession box}}).

Circeus (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's take them in order, shall we?

1. • I see that you mean the lines of succession for non-royal titles... However—and I am based on the American order here, but that could apply on other countries as well—isn't that, at least in the first few positions (which are the ones that matter anyway), the same thing as the order of precedence? That would create redundancy.
   • In any case, your idea has given me an idea, which would probably silence the objections about listing lines of succession under headers for specific national royalties. Why not simply create a "Line of succession" parameter in {{s-roy}} and split the lines of succession from other royal titles but still place them right below? Successors to thrones are always royal anyway, but there will be no specific countries. It's so simple that I marvel at my not thinking of it earlier.
2. • As far as Lord Lieutenants are concerned, we have a practice to consider their offices political before the Interregnum and ceremonial afterwards. It is a rough break, and there are certainly exceptions, but all such breaks are.
3. • Ah, my beloved Dunwich... I have always found that story extremely funny. (As an aside, the standard way to end such a succession line is Constituency abolished, although I'd keep the link.) I agree that the current way of handling such constituencies is inadequate, and that a parameter should be used; one of my principles, and I know people who agree with me on this, is to use as little HTML and wiki-code in the boxes as possible, leaving the editors to just deal with parameters—easy to enter, easy to take in information, easy to remove.
   • However, I am not satisfied by the visual outcome of the "alongside" parameter in this case, which should probably be used without any dates, when we clearly need them in succession boxes for Parliament seats. I rejected this solution in my mind a long time ago, actually. What might work better, and not upset the appearance of the boxes (which I believe is good enough, considering that a simple "Member of Parliament for Dunwich" might erroneously imply the existence of a sole MP), is to introduce a new parameter doing exactly what we see in boxes: small lettering and a change of lines. We could have different parameters for years, and have the final "and" added automatically or not, but that would depend on what level of complexity would be deemed acceptable by the honourable editors.
   • For the record, I am a proponent of using just Member for Dunwich and link the entire phrase to the constituency; the link is not much needed, especially considering its repetition in boxes, and one could click on the header for a link to the Parliament anyway. But I'm not going to make this an issue here.
4. • And something extra: long frustrated with the huge, and continuously growing, table in Template:S-par, I've sorted it by country and put headings in it. Please tell me what you think.

Ah, and please comment on a few of the threads above, if you find the time; they've been sitting so long without any comments. I should suggest #Proposal: Guideline encouraging universal linking of predecessors and successors, #Discussion: Format of SBS banner, #Shortcut format for SBS pages, #Proposal for s-new.7Coffice, and perhaps #Proposal: "product" parameter for s-new template. (Another idea occurs to me now... Urgent matters box. Get some business going around here.) Waltham, The Duke of 21:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll see about commenting other threads.

1. Honestly, I have no idea what you are saying, so I,ll just nod and leave you to do whatever you want. (I am not that familiar with the background of these templates, much less succession lines. I just like to use them—and most modular system in WP, they fascinate me.)
2. Alright. Thanks.
3. • I'm very much with you on the wikicode/html in parameters issue.
   • Personally, I think "with" would do just as well even if it means using the same words for regents and co-elects. I can't believe it could be that much confusing. As for parameter, you could take "regents" param as defaults for "with" sothat if "alongside" is used, it defaults to the current setting, otherwise the general "with X (year)" is used? This adds a minimum of new parameters, and I don't think many boxes use more than one regent (or regents at all) anyway.
   • Normally I unlink those (and multiple people, as I did in both rector examples above, which are from Michel-Édouard Méthot). I'm split as to whether use the full title, the abbreviation, or just "member", though. Generally, I keep to the lengthy title if only because that's currently the prevalent use overall.
4. Couldn't just colored table cells (rather than headers) be used? It bloats the ToC in an unseemly way to me (although using a limited ToC is an obvious option).

Circeus (talk) 21:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

• No feelings of hostility whatsoever, but why did you create that header if you are not so familiar with the templates? I support being bold, but sometimes asking first can save one some extra work (I've learnt that the hard way). I have a love–hate relationship with redundancy, you know, and I've seen too many templates created out of pure ignorance trying to cover a non-existent gap, so forgive me if I ever go over the top regarding this subject.
• The "regent" parameters... Why did I dismiss those? Ah, yes, because there can only be up to three. Why cannot there be more, I have always wondered; perhaps it is a relic of older coding practices which can now be safely superseded (or perhaps I am being too optimistic). If we can get the available slots to six or eight, then I could move to have the MPs transferred there. Otherwise, we should end up with more inconsistency (although awkward in syntax, the current format is enjoying a comfortable reign over our UK-Parliament boxes).
• I am not very fond of abbreviations, and I'd say that a simple MP would not be very popular if unlinked (which is the intention). On the other hand, Canadian boxes use MLA for provincial assemblies, but these are separately linked and their full titles are too long anyway. I've broached this to BrownHairedGirld once, and she seemed to be positive to using Member (I hope I am not misinterpreting anything); the negotiations were abruptly broken, however. I'll try to bring it up again (if she isn't watching this discussion already).
• If I just wanted heading font I'd have used tags that don't make them linked from the ToC. It was my intent to have it done this way, because the table is very large and people generally hate scrolling. Why do you object to a large ToC? (It can be minimised, anyway...) Waltham, The Duke of 23:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if they meet the criteria for speedy or not, but wanted to let the group know that the following have been nominated. At first look, I would say their functionality could be combined in some way, just not sure what would work best.

• {{Namesake box}}
• {{S-namedfor}}
• {{S-namesakes}}
• {{S-namesake}}

— MrDolomite • Talk 14:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I put those up for deletion three days ago. The author agrees that they should be deleted. They constitute a succession in absolutely no way and I recommended to the author to make navboxes if he wanted to go through with the original intent of them, which was to show cities/towns with the same names. These should have been immediately deleted except an overzealous admin decided that I needed to post them with the 7-day wait speedy delete.
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 18:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a heads up, three templates are up for deletion (I approve all three deletions, but another project nominated them all). They can be found at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Pope_before_376, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Pope, and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Papal conclaves. Cheers!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 02:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

"another project"? You flatter me! Bazj (talk) 09:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Watch out... WikiProject Bazj is active and merciless. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 16:35, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

And today, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:VeniceDogeSuccession joins the club. Bazj (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

...and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Roman Emperor. Just noticed - Popes, Doges, and now Roman Emperors - the Italian theme is unintentional. Honest. Bazj (talk) 22:17, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I got dinged when I tried to speedy delete this (of course the other two templates are now gone without hassle). So vote now! Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2008_August_29 for the removal of Template:s-nob, the snobbiest template we never meant to create!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 08:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Please vote on {{PAHouseSuccession box}} and {{PASenateSuccession box}} at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 August 29#PA Succession. Thanks. Bazj (talk) 11:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the use of the {{C.S. Senator box}} succession box, there's not actually much succession going on. (Plenty of secession, but very little succession.) Are succession boxes appropriate? The navbox {{CSSenators}} seems to cover the info adequately. Your thoughts please. Bazj (talk) 09:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC) I've already made the mistake of tidying the succession boxes on Brigham Young. I don't want the wrath of the Mormons AND the South. :-)

I think (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that we do typically use succession boxes in cases where there could have been succession, regardless of whether there actually was any (e.g. a peerage which became extinct on the death of its first holder). We don't use them where there was not and could not have been succession (e.g. a life peerage). This leads me to believe that Confederate senators should have succession boxes. However, given the small number of C.S. senators, I also think that we don't need a specialized template for them. Alkari (?), 2 September 2008, 21:57 UTC

I've submitted a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 22#WikiProject Succession Box Standardization to do the template changes listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization/Templates#Pending Final Bot/Editor Conversion. Once the bare calls to these templates have been converted it'll be much easier to spot the parameterised uses that need to be converted.

{{s-ecc}} -> {{s-rel}}
{{s-ecc | }} -> {{s-rel}}
{{s-awards}} -> {{s-ach | aw}}

(Got no answer from User:NolBot to my earlier request). Bazj (talk) 09:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to User:AmeIiorate's bot-work all the uses of s-ecc have now been coverted to s-rel. S-ecc is now unused and up for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 September 4#Template:S-ecc. Vote early, vote often. Bazj (talk) 20:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:PeerNavbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Bazj (talk) 14:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Succession box three to one has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Bazj (talk) 09:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Succession box one to one has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Bazj (talk) 11:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Succession box one to three has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Bazj (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)