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IMOS COUNTIES cleanup

Input sought on a possible big cleanup of a widespread minor issue: breaches of MOS:IMOS COUNTIES.

For the last ~7 weeks, I have been working intensively on categorising Irish biographical articles. So far, I have made tens of thousands of edits in that ongoing task. (That's by way of background. If anyone wants to discuss that work, I'd be very happy to do so, but please start a separate thread).

Along the way, I have been mildly irritated to find that a significant minority of those pages use the abbreviated form of the word "County", e.g. "Co. Offaly" instead of "County Offaly". Sometimes it's unlinked, but more often it's linked, usually in the piped form e.g. [[County Antrim|Co. Antrim]], or sometimes using a redirect such as [[Co. Kildare]].

This is deprecated by MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, for good reason. It is unclear to many readers, and the abbreviation saves only 3 chararacters in the rendered text. The loss of clarity hugely outweighs the tiny gain. And when the piped form is used, it adds unhelpful verbosity to the wikitext: [[County Fermanagh|Co. Fermanagh]] adds 14 chararacters to display Co. Fermanagh instead of the clearer County Fermanagh.

(Please note that I do not mean any reproach to the editors who added these abbreviations. I AGF that they were unaware of MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, and I can see that in many cases the sources use the abbreviated form).

After a few manual fixes (e.g. [1]) I eventually thought that manual cleanup woukd be tediously slow, but maybe I could tackle this at scale using WP:AWB. Some tests showed that my regex was basically sound, at least in simple cases such as this one which I actually saved.[2]

So I made some lists using WP:Petscan: All articles tagged with {{WikiProject Ireland}}, {{WikiProject Northern Ireland}}, {{WikiProject Gaelic games}}; all articles which link to any of the 32 traditional counties, whether as "County Foo", "Co. Foo" or "Co Foo"; all categories for Irish people by place or by ocupation.

That gave me a list of 94,695 unique article titles. For technical reasons, I used a crude filter as a first pass. That left me with a list of 6,111 articles which use "Co. Foo" or "Co Foo" somewhere in the wikitext.

This 6.5% hit rate is a lot higher than I had expected. (I had reassured myself that I had probably been encontering unrepresentative clusters, so I hoped for <1% in a wider trawl).

However, it includes a lot of false positives, e.g. where the "Co. Foo" abbreviation is used

  1. in quoted text, whether an inline quote or a blockquote or a quote in a ref, or
  2. inside <ref> .. </ref> tags, usually as the title of the cited work, or
  3. in one of the appendices, e.g. a list of works, or of sources

Types 2 and 3 are easy to code for. My next rounds of filtering will skip them, and hopefully make a big reduction in the numbers. (I don't yet have an estimate of how big).

The quotes are hard to reliably detect in software, so I will just have to watch for them as I review each edit.

The feedback I am looking for is where my approach is sound. There may be concerns in principle, and if so, I'd like to hear them. But my main uncertainty is whether I am right in my selection of which uses of the "Co. Foo" abbreviation to replace. My overall principle is that MOS:IMOS COUNTIES should be applied only to the text originated by Wikpedia editors, whether that's in body text or an infobox. How does that sound? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some examples:

Article Issue Proposed action
1521 in Ireland "Co. Dublin" in two inline refs No change
Greyhound (1747 ship) "Co. Sligo" in title of external link No change
1539 in Ireland, and
Young Social Innovators		 multiple "Co. Foo" in bodytext "Co. Foo" → "County Foo"
A42 road (Northern Ireland) "Co. Antrim" in image caption "Co. Antrim" → "County Antrim"
A. Martin Freeman [[Co. Cork]] linked in bodytext [[Co. Cork]] → [[County Cork]]
Storm Eva [[County Mayo|Co. Mayo]] pipe-linked in bodytext [[County Mayo|Co. Mayo]] → [[County Mayo]]
Young Farmers' Clubs of Ulster multiple, linked "Co. Foo" in table headers "Co. Foo" → "County Foo"

Hope this clarifies what I intend. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:31, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea it was quite this bad. As the original proposer of what eventually became MOS:IMOS COUNTIES I do clean them up when I come across them, and I agree with your proposal. Basically anything that isn't a direct quote (titles of referenced articles would be a direct quote) should be cleaned up to state County rather than "Co." or "co". Canterbury Tail talk 21:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware who had proposed MOS:IMOS COUNTIES, @Canterbury Tail, but thanks for initiating it. It was a useful addition.
Until a few weeks ago, I too had no idea that it was this bad, and even i didn't get the full picture until i did my scan, tho i stress that my initial tally is definitely an overestimate. The final number of pages to be cleaned up will definitely be lower, but I dunno whether it will be 20% of that 6,111, or 80%. I will post updated numbers when I have them.
Your phrase anything that isn't a direct quote is a good summary of my understanding of the suitable scope of cleanup. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for proposing this, I completely support the idea and the above table and scope looks good. I fixed (what's now) a small number of these myself a couple of months ago, cases where a redirect of the form "Co. Foo" was being used. A look at "What links here" for any of those redirects already gives many results. Then there's the unlinked usage.
The only other case I can think of right now might be of the form e.g. "Cos. Wicklow and Wexford", but I doubt there are many of those compared with the singular usage. And after cleanup, I wonder if the "Co. Foo" redirects might be better deleted, as someone entering new content, with linked "Co. Foo", could just see the resulting blue link as "valid". Declangi (talk) 05:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Declangi
My regex includes unlinked usages, so they will fixed in my edits.
BHG's regex
\bco(\. *| +)\s*(Antrim|Armagh|Carlow|Cavan|Clare|Cork|Derry|Donegal|Down|Dublin|Fermanagh|Galway|Kerry|Kildare|Kilkenny|Laois|Leitrim|Limerick|Londonderry|Longford|Louth|Mayo|Meath|Monaghan|Offaly|Roscommon|Sligo|Tipperary|Tyrone|Waterford|Westmeath|Wexford|Wicklow)\b
I see where you are coming from with respect to the redirects, but actually they are a help to cleanp, because they are so easily detected.
A WP:Petscan search for links to those redirects was a crucial part of my list-making: https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=25362499 finds 532 such links. I hope that my edits will reduce the tally to zero, but it may be worth re-running that search periodically find any more links to the redirects. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Intention to proceed. It is now almost five days since I posted this proposal, and both the responses support both the principle and the approach. (Thanks, @Canterbury Tail and Declangi.)
So I intended late today to proceed to start making the edits, unless there is an objection before then.
My second pass through the list skipped pages where the "Co. Foo" is inside <ref> ... </ref> tags, leaving me with 2,559 articles (down from 6,111 articles on the first pass).
My third pass will also automatically skip articles where "Co. Foo" is in the appendices (sources, lists of works, discographies, etc)
My fourth pass, in which I will actually do the edits, will include me manually checking each edit to enure that I skip quoted text, and skip any other valid uses which my regexes have not caught. I will of course take care, but being human I may make some errors in the course of what will probably be more than 1,000 edits, maybe more than 2,000. Please feel free to promptly revert any errors. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:40, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My third pass removed from my list any articles where "Co. Foo" is written only in one of the article's standard appendices (i.e. MOS:FOOTERS). That left a new tally of 2,260 articles, which a bit higher than my guess of ~1,500.
I will now proceed to apply the changes to those 2,260 articles, skipping articles where the "Co. Foo" is only in a quote. I have set AWB to use an edit summary which links both to IMOS and to this discussion: see e.g. this first trial edit[5], which uses my standard edit summary for this run: MOS:IMOS COUNTIES fixes, per discussion at WT:IRELAND#IMOS COUNTIES cleanup. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Progress on IMOS COUNTIES cleanup

I have now processed the first 102 articles on my list of 2,260. As usual with a big task like this, most of the cases are straightforward, but there are unforeseen issues which it might be useful to note. Of those 102 articles, I did "Co. Foo" → "County Foo" edits on 93 of them, (see the contribs list)

Issues:

  1. A big majority of cases were straightforward, e.g. [6], [7]
  2. In several cases, the "Co. Foo" was part of an image filename. I spotted most of these and skipped them, but failed to spot two which I corrected ([8], [9]), and two more ([10], [11]) which was kindly reverted promptly by @KylieTastic. Thanks, KylieTastic; I will take more care to identify those.
  3. there were a lot of case where my edit showed underlinking (e.g. [12], [13], [14]). In my experience of targeted jobs like this, I have found that it is much safer to stay focused on the narrow task in hand, and not go down the rabbit hole of fixing other the other issues on a page ... so I leave the underlinking to someone else.
  4. [15] was to infobox which lists birth_place = [[Rathmullan]], [[County Donegal]], [[Ireland]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|UK]]. Technically correct, 'cos in 1831 Ireland was indeed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; but it feels a bit OTT to me. Does IMOS say anything on this?
  5. [16] left us with [[County Waterford]] and on 24 April 2020 at Club Ceol Aislann in [[Kilcar|Cill Chartha]], [[County Donegal|Co. Dún na nGall]], 'cos my AWB job isn't set op to handle Irish-language county names. Apart from the disparity of one county name being in English and the other in Irish. I thought that in the English-language Wikipedia we use the the English-language county names. What does IMOS say?
  6. Some weird piped links, e.g. [17]: [[Donaghmore Ashbourne GAA|County Meath]]. Whaaaaaat?
  7. I skipped 1890 Home Nations Championship and 1890 Home Nations Championship, both of which mention Queen's Co. Cork. I dunno what that means.
    Does it refer to "Queen's County" (now County Laois), which is nowhere near Cork?
    Or is it a weird way of saying "Queenstown" (now Cobh), in County Cork?
    Or a club called "Queen's", somewhere in County Cork? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:24, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl: FYI:
4. Per MOS:IMOS BIOPLACE, people born anywhere in Ireland before 1922 should just have "Ireland", and it should not be linked. I've fixed that.
5. IMOS has nothing to say specifically about in-article links to Irish names, but I can't see any good reason for using Irish names here. I've changed it to just "Kilcar, County Donegal".
6. Donaghmore/Ashbourne was the venue for the final. Other venues in the table had venues pipelinked to counties, but without the word "County". I've removed the word "County" from Meath as well.
7. University College Cork R.F.C. was originally called "Queen’s College Cork". It is called "Queen's, County Cork" to distinguish it from Queen's, Belfast. I have fixed that in both the 1890 and 1891 article.
Scolaire (talk) 15:30, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, bless you, @Scolaire. That's all very helpful.
Somehow I never considered the possibility of of "Queen’s College Cork" being abbreviated as "Queen’s Co. Cork". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:35, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Slight tangent: linking to disambiguated town names

This is somewhat related, but not a direct violation of WP:IMOS. I can't offhand think of an example, but I'm fairly sure I saw one when I was adding census links, and do see from time to time, that a town name with a county for disambiguation in the article title ends up not having the county separately linked. e.g. [[Ballina, County Mayo]] instead of [[Ballina, County Mayo|Ballina]], [[County Mayo]]. Perhaps not relevant to this discussion, but something one thought leads to another! Iveagh Gardens (talk) 20:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Iveagh Gardens: I think that there is a good case for the single link format (e.g. [[Ballina, County Mayo]] ):
  1. simpler markup
  2. the reader gets only one link, which is the most directly relevant.
By contrast, [[Ballina, County Mayo|Ballina]], [[County Mayo]] feels in most cases like overlinking.
However, I deplore omission of the county, as in [[Ballina, County Mayo|Ballina]], Ireland. iif it's appropriate to include the country name, then the county should not be removed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:47, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, we don't always need separate links! This is a case where the natural disambiguation is serving a dual function. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 15:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMOS COUNTIES cleanup finished

This morning, I finally finished this job. I estimate that I did MOS:IMOS COUNTIES fixes to about 1,900 pages.

The precise tally is hard to track, because: a) some pages were fixed by browser edits, rather than using AWB; and b) about 25–35 edits were reverted as false positives, where I erroneously changed the usage in a quote or in the name of an image file. Many thanks to the editors who spotted my errors, and kindly reverted them.

Along the way, I probably wrongly skipped a few pages which should have been fixed, but I am confident that such errors were also in the 1–2% range.

Anyway, the result is a big dent in the number of pages with "Co. Foo" or "Co Foo" displayed anywhere other than in quotes or appendices (refs, works, sources etc). I hope that this will also help to avoid future editors using the abbreviation after seeing it used in elsewhere on Wikipedia, and thinking that it is OK.

This also marks the last non-trivial task on Wikipedia which I undertake as I semi-retire from Wikipedia after 17 years. Many thanks to all the woderful Irish editors with whom I have enjoyed collaborating over the years. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TD and MEP articles and the 's-par' template

Prompted by the discussion above on organisation of constituency articles, can we also look at the {{s-par|ie/oi}} template used in articles for TDs or people who were TDs. (ACtually, this also applies to MEPs and councillors!)

We have multi-seat constituencies, yet many politicians' biographical articles, using the parliamentary succession template, suggest that Bob replaced Alice, as if there was only one seat up for grabs, or that Ted inherited the Whatever Party seat from Alice. Technically, this might be the case where there was a by-election (especially given the feudal nature of Irish politics!), but it is the exception rather than the rule.

Usually, there are three, four or five TDs, who either get re-elected or who are replaced, individually. It is not correct to do as we're doing on - for example - the Michael Healy-Rae, Dermot Ahern, Catherine Murphy (politician) or Simon Coveney articles (where there wasn't a by-election). We should instead be doing what's on the articles for, e.g., Eamon Ryan, Jim O'Callaghan or Eoghan Murphy articles.

I am not in any way well versed in template creation or editing. Would this be best achieved by amending the s-par template? Or coming up with an entirely new template, for Irish Dáil, European and council elections? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 14:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bastun, I agree that it is wrong to use the templates to pretend that there was an office of "FooParty TD for Somewhere". Sadly, there's a lot of articles using that, so thank you for challenging it.
However, existing templates can be used for multi-seat constituencies, as was the norm for county seats pre-1885. I applied it to most of the Dublin South-East TDs, which you found and linked above. See also e.g. Eoin Ryan Jnr#External_links.
I didn't perevere beyond Dublin South-East, 'cos it's slow work and I had other things to be doing.
But since then i have occasionally pondered wheter there is an easier way, and the idea I keep coming back to is to take the existing table of the TDs from the constituency article, and make it into an auto-collapsing template. Quick, easy, and much more informative than the succession box. The templates which make those tables were built by me donkeys years ago, and all the constituencies have an uptodate list: see e.g. Dublin South-East (Dáil constituency)#TDs.
I'll rustle up a example to show what I mean. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Demo done. See {{Dublin South-East TDs}}, and see it in use on Alexis FitzGerald Jnr.
    Note that it is still a quick-and-dirty demo; the formatting is a bit wonky 'cos I haven't entirely figured out how make this table fit elganty into {{Navbox}}. But if the idea gains approval, the presentation can be polished.
    @Bastun: what do you think? -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I strongly agree that there's an issue here, for all the reasons stated by Bastun above. It's one I've edited somewhat in some articles (at least the suggestion that there's such as an office as Party TD for Constituency), only as I've been editing other matters, to alter office of Party TD for Constituency to TD for Constituency<br/>(Party), e.g. here for Helen Keogh. However, even that is unsatisfactory, as they're not one-for-one in multi-seat constituencies
    I'd favour the approach we currently have in Eoin Ryan, referred to by BHG, of an expanded succession box. As referred to, it's what we use for pre-1922 constituencies, so there's a nice chain in format there going back historically. I also think that rather than duplicating the TD list from the constituency pages, thereby adding links to all TDs for a given constituency, those which are most relevant are those who were there before, during and after a given TD's time in the Dáil. Maintaining the succession box format also have advantages of general consistency with the tables readers are accustomed to see at the end of a page.
    As BHG mentions, any of these are slow work, and we have only so many things to be doing at a time, but I'd be happy to assist with these. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:24, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, it's painful, tedious work, and the results (for me, at least) never look well. I've edited individual boxes when I've across them (but only sometimes), and I see a good number of current TDs don't have any box at all. BHG, that template you've done up looks quite well. I don't know if there's an appetite to change "faulty" templates in the short term, but if we can use something like BHG's template from the next general election, that'd be good progress. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 16:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The advantage to the templates is that they're easy to add, and we could add them to each biographical article more quickly than editing succession boxes. That said, my preference from a visual point of view would still for the extended succession box . Iveagh Gardens (talk) 16:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a strong preference for either. BHG template looks a bit ropey at the moment, but maybe they can improve its display, and it could work, and it would be alot less editing. From a pedantic point of view, it should be an extended succession box with all before, during and after TDs. That as has been mentioned it alot of tedious work. I was amused by Bastun's comment that "a good number of current TDs don't have any box at all". This is because I was the one adding them to TDs articles for years. Then a few years ago, there was a debate about moving from 1-to-1 succession to multiple succession. I stopped adding them until the debate ended but there was no conclusive outcome that I recall, so I never added anymore of them. If ye decide to go for the extended display, then I regret to inform you all that I will not be helping out to edit them, as this is way too tedious for me! Michael McDowell (politician) is a good example of the amount of work needed when a TD loses/regains their seat multiple times. Also McDowell table is incomplete as it should contain the years of service for all before, during and after TDs. Spleodrach (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this may be another discussion where @Iveagh Gardens and I enjoy amicably disagreeing
Making the template {{Dublin South-East TDs}} was quick and easy. Once the formatting issues are resolved, I could make the rest of the set within an hour, and apply the templates within a few more hours, using WP:AWB. All done by bedtime.
By contrast, making succession boxes for multi-seat constituencies is a glacially slow task. I have done thousands over the years, and have a few tricks up my sleeve, but even so it's not uncommon to find that it takes 10 minutes per article. For someone who has represented mutiple multi-seaters, 20 minutes person is not enough.
And the worst I was doing were 4-seaters. Try making the succession box for Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll (MCOD), the 1923–1933 TD for the 9-seater Dublin City North (DCiN). That box would have to link MCOD to 17 other TDs, listing years for each TD, and dealing with fact that some servd for non-consecutive terms ... which is a huge clerical task.
Much as I like succession boxes, MCOD's box would be unwieldy. And it would take several full days just to do the boxes for those 18 DCiN TDs, some of whom may also have held other seats. I eventually decided that was not how I wanted to spend my life, and in the 7 years since I did DSE boxes, few other editors have taken up the task. I empathise with @Spleodrach leaving it be.
Unless IG devotes the rest of this year to full time box-making, it's gonna be decades before the job is complete. And while I am sure that IG would do the job very well, I would be sad to see so much of IG's time devoted to this minor task, when I know that there is a long list of much more important tasks which are unlikely to be tackled with 100% accuracy by anyone without IG's rare talents.
Templates like {{Dublin South-East TDs}} can give us an imperfect remedy within days, without prejudice to any better soution. I think I should be able to implement it so that the constituency article and the navbox use a common template, which would mean that after each election, only one template needs to be updated.
So ... @Bastun, Iveagh Gardens, and Spleodrach: what say you? Should I work on resolving the formatting issues with {{Dublin South-East TDs}}, with a view to then creating the rest of the set when we are happy with the layout? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi BHG, yes I think you should work on the template formatting issues, then we can see what it looks like properly. This would be the best solution as I think nobody (including you and I as stated) will take up the arduous task of editing the succession boxes. Spleodrach (talk) 17:56, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, since at least one other editor think's it's worth trying, I will give it a go.
I think that the fixes should be simple, once I can figure out how to do them, which may be slow. I will report back when there is progress. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the conversation, where I think all of us have in some way tried to do remedy this through the succession box formula and got so far given the limited hours in any day, I'm going to revise my earlier resistance to the link with the table. I shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and actually achievable, so count me in support of it! I'll assist as time allows. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 20:32, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Iveagh Gardens. shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good sounds like a wise summary.
So far I am quite pleased with how this is coming together. I think that I may have found a few pieces of template and transclusion magic which will allow the navboxes to grab the live TD table directly from the constituency article, and reformat it for the navbox.
If this works, then once the framework is in place, the implematation will be very simple and easy to maintain. But, big "if". Fingers crossed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Design of sample TD list template

A neat solution for TD navboxes

After a lot of jigglig around (and temporarily breaking some constituency articles along the way), I seem to have got an elgant solution to the creation of navboxes for TDs of each consituency. More elegant than I thought possible.

My stretch goals were:

  1. No modifications to the constituency articles
  2. The navbox should use the TD table from the constituency article, and tweak its format:
    • strip out the refs
    • omit the table header
  3. There should be a easy-to-use, simple meta-template to create each navbox
    • Ideally, the meta-template should need no parameters.

I think I have succeeded: the {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}} meets all but one of those stretch goals. (It needs one parameter: the name of the constituency).

Here's how it works:

For any given article Foo (Dáil constituency), create a page named Template:Foo (Dáil constituency)/TDs. The contents of that page should be simply {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox|Foo}}

I have made one for Kildare South (Dáil constituency): see {{Kildare South (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}, whose content is {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox|Kildare South (Dáil constituency)}}

Here's its output:

It needs polishing: documentation, better error messages, and categorisation. But those are the easy bit. If y'all like the functionality I'll start polishing.

@Bastun, Iveagh Gardens, and Spleodrach:: how does this look to you? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Nice going, @BrownHairedGirl: - that looks great! Clear and informative. I'll have a look later on at creating some templates for use on pages that have none and see how easy or hard it is. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 10:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Bastun.
To make it even simpler, I have just tweaked it so that it works with {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox|{{Subst:BASEPAGENAME}}}}
That way each it's exactly the same thing to paste into any new navbox. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it's not working for me. I've made {{Dublin Bay North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}, which looks fine, but when I paste that template or {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox|{{Subst:BASEPAGENAME}}}} into Denise Mitchell, I get errors, as you can see here. What am I doing wrong? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 20:53, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah @Bastun, I am very sorry. You were of course doing nothing wrong. It was entirely my fault: I had screwed up my final implementation of the intensive error-checking. Now fixed.[18]
{{Dublin Bay North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} now works as intended, both when viewing the template page and when transcluded into Denise Mitchell.
Sorry again for messing you around. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very impressed with the coding! It might be the weekend before I can get a chance to properly experiment with this, and to be honest a few weeks before I can do so more extensively, but this is quite neat! Iveagh Gardens (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ack, not a problem at all! Working fine for me now, too. Just done Dublin Bay North. Will work away on this over the next while. Thanks for your work on this, BHG - it's a very simple and easy to use solution, so much quicker than my previous efforts, which involved manually adding two to four additional TDs to both 'preceded by' and 'succeeded by' elements of the old template. Very much appreciated! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:12, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, @Bastun. I am glad you find it useful: that simple-and-easy thing was just what I was aiming for, and I am very pleased how well it is working out. I too have that succession box t-shirt, and it was no fun.
DBN is one of the simpler cases that I have identified for these navboxes, but of the hard ones I tried, I am pleased that only the super-wide {{Dublin City North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} still has me foxed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TD navboxes: getting there

After a day spent polishing {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}, I think that is now nearly ready for use, but would of course welcome criticisms and/or suggestions.

I have added intensive error-checking (with a tracking category), full documentation, and polished the output. To reduce clutter, the navbox now strips out the table headers, they key of parties, and all refs. The result is a much more compact navbox.

The navboxes created so far are:

... and three more to test edge cases

{{Kerry (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} is an interesting case because it has had three incarnations, and I was concerned that it might become very bulky. However, after stripping layers of fluff, it is now not bad. I struggled with how to remove the level 3 headers which sat between the tables (and added annoying edit links), but a question at Module talk:String#How_to_do_string.replace_of_level3_headers_in_transcluded_wikitext brought prompt help from @Pppery and Trappist the monk: many thanks to both for guiding me to this fix.

{{Wexford (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} is the longest single table we will find on any constituency. It covers 32 general elections and 3 by-elections, making a total of 35 rows. I think it has turned out quite well: it takes up almost two screnfuls on my full-HD laptop display, but that's unavoidable.

The 9-seat {{Dublin City North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} is problematic: on my laptop, using the new Vector 2022 skin with its reduced idth for the article, the navbox is far too wide. As of now, I think it would be disruptive to any article (see my test on Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll). I need to figure out how to constrain its width.

And that's it for now. That width issue on Dublin City North is the only remaining item on my to-do list.

If @Bastun, Iveagh Gardens, and Spleodrach still have any patience left to do more testing, I'd welcome more feedback, esp on unusual cases. No hurry; I won't take this any further until the weekend.

@Iveagh Gardens: You may have a particular interest in item 3 of Template:Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox#Assumptions about the one-to-one relationship between the name of a constituency and the name of the correspondig Wikipdia article, as wdiscuused above at #Organisation_of_constituencies. It's an unavoidable constraint of this automated approach to building the navboxes, but I don't want you think that I was trying to slip that past you.

Thanks again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PS {{Dublin City North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} threw up an issue which I had foreseen earlier when writing the documentation, in Template:Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox#Assumptions item 2.
{{Dublin City North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} initially made an empty navbox. It turned out that the article Dublin City North (Dáil constituency) did not have a level 2 header named "TDs" , so {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}. In this edit[19], I changed the level 2 header from "TDs 1923–1937" to "TDs", and all was well.
I guess that DCiN will not be the only constituency article where this issues arises. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
First off, a serious hats off to your work, and admiration for your skill in coding, something that requires incredible patience! As far as I can see, the templates don't seem to be working, essentially showing up as empty except for a link back to the constituency itself.
Without having tried it at all, I had wondered how it might approach situations where there was more than one incarnation of the same constituency (or same constituency name). There's a small assist possible where a constituency was absent for one election only, such as Laois–Offaly (Dáil constituency), by listing it within the same table, but having a single empty row for the 2016 election.
Would a possible solution be to have two templates in use: a default one, where there's a single table, and Template:Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox2, with additional parameters to specify the subsection, e.g. TDs 1923–1937 and TDs since 2016. Arguably, they are such different sets of TDs as to not being closely related as articles. There's also the instance of Dublin South-West (Dáil constituency) where the two incarnations refer to different areas entirely (city vs county).
I don't want to suggest another rabbit hole though! I appreciate the amount of work that goes into any of these changes. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 05:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Iveagh Gardens: sorry, something very subtle broke and I can't find what. All I know is that the final step of transcluding the "TDs" section is not happening: it just displays a link to the article. Damn.
I need sleep now, so I am sorry, but the templates will have to remain broken until I get back to the after a sleep. Then I will also reply properly to the rest of your comments. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Templates are working again. I seem to have encountered an undocumented bug (or maybe "feature"!) in section transclusion, but once I disabled testing whether the section transclusion worked, then it worked. Hey-ho.
Now, bed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I created one at Template:Dublin Ballyfermot (Dáil constituency)/TDs and added it to its 3 members. It is one of those one-off 1977 Dublin constituencies. It was simple to create and use. Well done to BHG, on the complex work in order to make the template work seamlessly. Spleodrach (talk) 16:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, @Spleodrach! It was a lot of work, but I think that on the simple cases like your {{Dublin Ballyfermot (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} and my {{Kildare South (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}, it is working well and easily.
On the more complex cases, I think we have some hard choices to make about how to live with the limitations of navboxes built with {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}, or to reject it because of those limitations. See my replies below to Iveagh Gardens. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also Iveagh Garden's comments still need to be addressed; namely constituencies with multiple incarnations, and Dublin South-West which moved to an entirely different area. Spleodrach (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Spleodrach: thanks for drawing my attention to Dublin South-West (Dáil constituency) (DSW), which is a rare example of a constituency whose two inacarnations are in wholly different areas. AFAICFS, there is no overlap at all, and the two are possibly not even adjacent: 1948–1977 DSW was within the city boudaries, but post-1981 DSW has been in the outer reaches of the county.
My long reply below to Iveagh Gardens also applies here. In summary, "TD for Foo constituency" is a job title which applies in many cases to a constituency whose boundaries have varied hugely over time. DSW may be the most extreme example, but there are other examples such as 1977-81 Sligo–Leitrim, one of the many cases where a radical boundary shift was not preceded by a gap.
Maybe DSW is not suitable for a single navbox, but before deciding on his extreme case, I think we should consider the wider picture. If we get too purist here, then neither succession boxes nor navboxes are really usable for TDs in most of the post-1961 unstable constituencies. Does that help readers? Wouldn't it better to consider how best to explain to readers that post-1961 Irish constituencies change at nearly every election, sometimes radically, making the concept of succession inherently fuzzy?
An idea: Could the DSW issue be resolved by adding a short note to top of the section Dublin South-West (Dáil constituency)#TDs_since_1981, saying somthing like "Note that the boundaries of DSW from 1981 nwards share no common territory with the pre-1977 boudaries". That would add clarity to the article, and the note would be transcluded into the navbox. So we could use a {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}-based navbox, with that warning in it. I will rustle up a demnostration. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Spleodrach: I made this edit[20] to ad the note to Dublin South-West (Dáil constituency), and the created I {{Dublin South-West (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}.
The note automatically appears in the navbox.
(This is of course just a demonstration. I won't deploy the navbox unless there is a consensus that it is a good enough solution.)
@Bastun and Iveagh Gardens: what do you two think of this hack? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, @Iveagh Gardens, I now I can write a proper reply.
First, many thanks for your kind words about my template-making. Much appreciated. This {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}} has required me to learn new skills, which I have enjoyed.
As to constituencies with two or more distinct periods of existence, it seems to me to be unwise to introduce arbitrary and/or subjective assessments as a basis for treating some iterruptions differently from others. That seems to me to be a recipe for uresolvable disputes, as editors debate whether to assess by the number of years or the number of elections, and debate how many years or how many elections. That seems to me to be both a bad use of editor's time, and unsolvable debates unlikely to help maintain a colaborative atmosphere.
Instead, I think to avoid unncessary headaches we should treat all gaps in the same way. The current system of using level 3 subheads to separate different periods is as used e.g. in UK constituency articles. It is helpful for navigation, because the subheads appear in the Table of contents (see e.g. Kerry (Dáil constituency)#TDs). Merging the tables would lose that important navigational aid, and I see little gain. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:49, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On to constituencies with big gaps, again in reply to @Iveagh Gardens. (I am making this a separate post to facilitate threaded discussion.)
Take e.g. Kerry (Dáil constituency)#TDs with its subsections TDs 1923–1937 and TDs since 2016 where IG writes Arguably, they are such different sets of TDs as to not being closely related as articles.
Again, I think that this would introduce avoidable issues of subjective and/or abitrary criteria, as we debate how big a gap requires a separation. It also seems to me to oversimplify the question of commonality, by overlooking the many major changes in constituencies even without a gap. Taking Sligo–Leitrim again, the 1977–1981 boundaries omitted nearly all of County Leitrim, which is arguably as radical a distinction as a long interlude.
The constituency articles' "TDs" sections list the people who share one common atribute: that they were elected to Dáil Éireann for a constituency of the same name: e.g. Bernard Maguire, Ray MacSharry, James Gallagher and Frank Feighan all the held the office of "TD for Sligo–Leitrim". But the nature of "Sligo–Leitrim" varied radically across the careers of those four TDs: different boundaries, difft numbers of seats in the consituency. However, the biggest difference in boundaries is not bewteen Sligo–Leitrim's 2002–2007 bounadries and those of its 2016 re-creation; those two sets of boundaries had much more in common with each other than either did with the Tullymandered 1977–1981 boundaries.
Splitting navboxes on the basis of an interlude seems to me to risk undue weight to one aspect of difference. I don't see any major difference between early and current Sligo–Leitrim which doesn't also apply to a constituency whose existence was unbroken, e.g. Wicklow (Dáil constituency), which since its 1923 creation has often not been contiguous with County Wicklow.
There is of course a usablility case for splitting larger navboxes, to keep them on one screen. But doing so raises a few problems for readers: even if we indicate that the consituency had other periods of existence and provide links to the other relevant navboxes, it rarely provides good usability. See e.g. 1983 Bermondsey by-election#External_links, where there is a navbox for Westminster by-elections in that 1979‐1983 Parliament. it includes link the next and previous navboxes, but following those links take the reader not to another article, but to a template page which is wrapped in tech info designed for editors: see e.g. Template:By-elections to the 49th UK Parliament, where the reader is faced with stuff aabout "Initial visibility", to which they should never be exposed (unless they decide to take up editing).
That huge set of many hundreds of UK by-elections had to be split, and with available wiki-technology, the current setup is probably the least-worst way of doing it without huge programming effort. But I would be wary of emulating it, unless we really have to.
On a technical level, implementing the split would be very difficult within the framework of these automated navboxes. It would take a lot of work to implement, and it would be fragile: e.g. if Kerry (Dáil constituency) is split at the next general election, the current sub-section Kerry (Dáil constituency)#TDs_since_2016 should be renamed to "TDs 2016‐2025". That would break the metatemplate's recognition of the section not only in the post-2016-Kerry-navbox, but also the links to it from the other-period-Kerry-navboxes. I doodled how to do it, and concuded that it would be a nightmare to code for.
I would agree that the technology tail shouldn't wag the editorial dog; we should prioritise what's best for readers rather than for template-makers. But I am not persuaded that separate navboxes would be a clear gain for readers, and also I think that making separate templates within this framework would be hard to achieve and appalling to mainatain. So it seeems to me that the editorial choices need to be made between the techically viable options, which as I see it are:
  1. Live with concerns about multiple episodes in one article, as an imperfection outweighed by convenience
  2. Treat the flaws as too great, and dont use {{Constituency TDs navbox}} on some aticles
  3. Dump the whole {{Constituency TDs navbox}} scheme entirely 'cos it doesn't work in all cases.
My strong pref is for option 1, with option 2 as a fallback. But I don't see other options. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestion about separate navigational boxes wasn't as such because of the great difference between them, although the significant gap in the case of Kerry was more the extreme case. I was thinking of them as substitutes for the succession boxes, where for a given TD, we list who was there before and after. However, maybe I'm thinking about this project the wrong way; they're not mere substitutes for what's there are present, but a collapsible link to all who shared such an office.
Now that you present it as such, I could also imagine it breaking if there were a change in the future, and you or one of us happened not to be editing at that time. Or depending on when someone made the change, or if they made a formatting change. It shouldn't be that fragile! So 1 seems good, with an awareness that there may be some articles out there that don't fit the model. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 04:52, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, @Iveagh Gardens. There are mnay difft ways of looking at this. I used to have a strong pref for successsion boxes over navboxes 'cos of the reasons you assert: they focus on the immediate links. It took me a while to get head around the relative merits and demerits of the two modes.
There is some fragility inherent in the basic logic of {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}; if some changes the "TDs" heading to anything else, the navbox dies. But I think that's not too hard to maintain, and I am workin on how to track it. Other changes may uglify the navbox, but won't break it, and the 14-year stability of the {{Irish TD table begin}} series is a good omen.
Let's keep looking out for problem areas. I'll try to fix anything I can (e.g. I have a nearly-done remedy for the 9-seaters at Template:Dublin City North (Dáil constituency)/TDs/sandbox2, but if we find unresolvable issues, we should document them. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have an imperfect understanding of the issues related to the succession/navbox issue, but what BHG has come up with seems - in the vast majority of cases - to be a simple and elegant solution; it provides more information for the reader (if they want it) and (in the majority of cases) makes it easier for editors to deploy and maintain. Yes, there are exceptions. We can cope with the odd exception, even (shudder) using the current succession boxes if necessary. My preference, therefore, is for option 1 above. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Bastun. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:32, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Documentation. Every navbox built using {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}} now has automatic documentation explaining its use and how it is made, and how to break it — or preferably not break it.
This is provided by Template:Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox/shared doc, which adjusts itself to each navbox. See it in use on e.g. {{Dublin Bay North (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rollout of TD navboxes

With the major technical glitches in {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}} resolved, rollout has been proceeding fast. Of the 1,344 articles on TDs, over 400 now have a navbox built with {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}}, and that doesn't include {{Dublin University (constituency)/TDs}} + {{National University of Ireland (constituency)/TDs}}, which I had to build using slightly different means 'cos their different name format is incompatible with the metatemplate.

Use of the navboxes built with {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox}} is tracked at:

I see that Bastun has been hard at work today, and Spleodrach has been prolific. Iveagh Gardens is busy off-wiki, but I have using AWB to chomp through some constituencies. At this high rate of productivity, we might get the whole job done within a week. Great work!

I have a few questions on followup issues, which I will post as separate comments, to facilitate any threaded discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Should we just keep on rolling out the navboxes until finished? Or should we pause a bit to see if there are any concerns?
    I am inclined to think that have considered a lot of issues already, and that we can put the brakes on sharply if needed, so no need for a pause. But I am open to other thoughts. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What about succession boxes?
    At some point when the navboxes have settled in, we should have a wider discussion about where this leaves the succession boxes. I see several options, and the only thing I would be strongly opposed to is removing the succession boxes for the single-seat First Dáil, where there is no navbox alternative. Also, per WP:CLS, multiple modes can co-exist. But we probably need to make some choices on the malformed succession boxes which prompted both this thread and the ugly 2016 TFD.
    Maybe leave this one for a few weeks until more people have seen how the full set of navboxes is working out? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:21, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are there any remaining technical glitches with the navboxes?
    As the template coder, I am probably too close to them to spot everything. Feedback/criticism welcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi BHG (talk · contribs), I noticed a technical glitch. It has to do with the 9 seater Dublin County navbox. It wraps when used ordinarily but when used in Navboxes template like in Liam Cosgrave, it does NOT wrap. Spleodrach (talk) 23:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Damn. I just checked, and can replicate the problem. Thanks for spotting it, @Spleodrach.
I don't see any need for {{Navboxes}} to be imposing nowrap. I will report this tomorrow at Template talk:Navboxes. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:18, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Spleodrach: see Template talk:Navboxes#Why_impose_nowrap?. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:50, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Now fixed, in this edit[22] by @PrimeHunter, who explained[23] their remedy at Template talk:Navboxes#Why_impose_nowrap?
Thanks again to PrimeHunter for another prompt fix, and to @Spleodrach for spotting the problem. I will now cleanup the cases where Spleodrach or I worked around the glitch by putting the "Foo (Dáil constituency)/TDs" navbox outside {{Navboxes}}. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I used AWB to scan a few hundred articles, and found 5 articles where the constituency navbox was outside a set of political navboxes wrapped in {{navboxes}}. I made five edits to put the constituency navboxes inside {{navboxes}}: Seán Lemass[24], Michael Hayes (politician)[25], Séamus Brennan[26], Pádraig Faulkner[27], Dermot Ahern[28]
Note that I also found a few examples where a TD had also been a successful sportsperson, with multiple sporting navboxes inside a sports-only , and a few political navboxes outside it. That seemed to me to be a helpful distinction, so I didn't alter those cases.
In fact the distinction seemed to be such a good idea that I split[29] Jack Lynch's forest of navboxes into two groups: "Jack Lynch political navigational boxes" and "Jack Lynch sports navigational boxes". BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:07, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So, nesting the constituency navbox inside a "'person' navigation boxes", as, for example, at Frank Aiken? I presume yes? I'm working away slowly on adding the template, and removing the s-par template where it's been incomplete. I see others are removing it in all cases for the constituency and leaving any offices held, I'll start doing that too. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 13:29, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bastun: yes, it was about nesting the constituency navbox inside a "'person's navigation boxes".
However, it applied only to a small number of unusually wide navigation boxes. Frank Aiken has only one constituency navbox: Louth (Dáil constituency)/TDs, which is not wide. And as above, the issue has now been resolved.
As to the s-par template, see my comment above under the bullet point "What about succession boxes". I think that there are several possible options, and that we should discuss them before any systematic removal. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note I'm going to be very busy today through Wednesday (and probably still doing catch-up until Friday) so won't have too much time to devote to Wiki until then. Just wondering, what's the most efficient way of doing this? Like, is the best way to start with a constituency template, open the links, and go through one-by-one; or is there a category or list I could be using, creating templates as I come across one that hasn't yet been made? (Once the template is made, it's really quick to apply to everyone in a constituency, I am in awe of the speed difference between this method and writing an s-par template 'manually'!) BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 12:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Bastun, it's great that you want to keep on working at it, but with the current rate of progress we may be nearly done by Friday! Over 900 of the ~1344 TD biogs already have one or more of these navboxes (see the tracking at Category:Articles using a navbox created with Template:Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox). But checks for completeness will still be very valuable.
I think that the most efficient way of doing this depends mostly on what tools and modes of working you are comfortable with, so my suggestions may or may not help anyone else. But here they are, FWIW.
For "bigger" constituencies (i.e those with more than about 7 TDs), I use AWB to make a list of TDs for that constituency, and add the navboxes. This involves a few tricks, so I won't explain unless you are already fairly proficient with AWB.
For other cases, I do much as you describe: start with a constituency article, open the links, and go through one-by-one. I try to stick to each constituency until I am sure that I have done all its TDs.
Spleodrach has been highly productive in adding these navboxes, so whatever approach Spleodrach is taking, it clearly works well for them. They may have some suggestions to add.
A significant number of TDs were elected for more than one constituency. In those cases, I have settled on this approach:
  1. add all the relevant constituency navboxes to the TD article's wikitext
  2. preview my edit, to check that this TD is actually listed in each of the navboxes I added
  3. if a navbox appears as a redlink, ctl-click on the redlink to open it in a new browser tab. Create the new navbox by adding {{Constituency Teachtaí Dála navbox|{{Subst:BASEPAGENAME}}}}, and save.
    I keep that tab open, so that it becomes the next constituency on my to-do list
  4. switch back to the tab where I was editing, preview again.
  5. When all is OK, then save
Note that nearly all possible navboxes in this series now been created, so there are only a few left to create.
Also, I encountered a few articles where the infobox (and maybe even the body text) mentioned only one of multiple constituencies which elected them. So I fixed them (see e.g. Celia Lynch diff and Anthony Millar diff). I also spotted that the table of TDs in Donegal East (Dáil constituency)#TDs was wrong, so I fixed that too.[32] Whether you want do to any of these related fixes is of course up to you.
Hope this helps. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TD navboxes: nearly done

My checklist at User:BrownHairedGirl/Dáil constituency navboxes shows that all the navboxes now exist.

All TDs from the Second Dáil onwards should have at least one of these navboxes. I have done two WP:Petscan searches to check whether that is so. Note that the searches cannot tell whether a TD has the full set of navboxes needed if the were elected for more than one constituency.

  1. https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=25393942 finds TDs with no constituency navbox (currently 122)
  2. https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?psid=25393216 finds TDs with at least one constituency navbox (currently 1209)

Opening those links, will give the current live lists and tallies, subject to some technical tag which can vary from milliseconds to hours. In the last few days, the lag has been almost zero, but that cannot be relied on.

These two totals add up to 1,331. But my other searches suggest that the total should add up to 1,343 or 1,344. Some day I will try to figure out why there is a mismatch. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wow! Huge thanks to BHG, Spleodrach and anyone else who's been adding the templates. I got a tiny few done over the last couple of days and went through Wexford and Wicklow at lunchtime today trying to find any who needed one, and failed :-) That was some amount of work. Special thanks to BHG for all the work on the navbox template, despite, er, distractions! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 14:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, @Bastun! All contribs have helped, and you checks were a valuable part of the team effort.
    And the fun of our team-work here in finding a solution and implementing it has boosted my morale when dealing with those, err, distractions. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:20, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh not at all! That was in part how we got into that recent discussion, so it is partly assumed. It was more a reminder for the purposes of clarity for all editors at this stage in the discussion as to what does and doesn’t count as a completed succession box. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 08:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TD navboxes: a final polish

I have done some final polishing to the TD navboxes.

Part of it was removing excess whitespace, which is a bit finnicky to achieve, but reduces visual bulk.

The more significant part was tweaking the {{Irish TD table begin}} series of templates so that when used in a navbox they link only to the TDs and to successor constituencies. This is per the principle that a navbox is a tool for navigation, not for explanation. So, like a road sign: it should point only to the primary relevant destinations, and not to places which are unrelated to the immediate navigational choice. For navigation, less is more.

So in these navboxes, there is now no link to the elections, to the nth Dáil, or to the political parties. But those items are all still linked in the constituency articles.

Or rather, that's how it should be. @Spleodrach: has just posted to my talk abut a related glitch (probs with the suprression of refs in navboxes), which I will try to resolve. But @Bastun and Iveagh Gardens:, please also gimme a poke if you spot any issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Will do, thanks! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 18:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

TD succession boxes: is this where we got to?

This thread started with @Bastun's observations about the lack of progress on making complete succession boxes. We solved the navigation problems by creating and deploying navboxes. However, many succession boxes remain.

I think that this where we got to:

  1. Keep succession boxes for Members of the First Dáil. These are nearly all single-seat constituencies, where complete succession boxes are easily made, and we don't have navboxes.
  2. For the multi-seat constituencies from 1921 onwards, keep any completed succession boxes. Per WP:CLS, succession boxes and navboxes both have their strengths and weaknesses, and can coexist. So if they have been fully built, don't remove them.
  3. For the multi-seat constituencies from 1921 onwards, remove any incomplete succession boxes. They mislead readers, and it is unlikely that they will be finished.

@Bastun, Iveagh Gardens, and Spleodrach:: how does this sound to you? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:46, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BHG, yes, all of the above work for me. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 09:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with 1 and 3. The two 2-seat constituencies in the First Dáil (Cork City and Dublin University) are ones that can more easily be managed, just as 2-seat constituencies in the earlier Ireland at Westminster, and Irish House of Commons. I’d cautiously agree with 2. Succession boxes can serve a function in addition to the new templates, but we should watch out for continued use of the term “Party TD for Foo Constituency” where it exists. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 22:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Iveagh Gardens: I agree entirely about the inappropriateness of “Party TD for Foo Constituency”. My suggestion assumes that a "completed" succession box lists all predecessors and successors and those who served with that TD, and that any “Party TD for Foo Constituency” would have been removed when the box was expanded.
Sorry for not making my assumptions explicit. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:14, 12 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Categorising survivors of industrial schools

Today I found myself at the article Michael O'Brien (Fianna Fáil politician), whilst populating Category:Fianna Fáil local councillors.

O'Brien was a Mayor of Clonmel in the 1990s, but he is notable almost entirely for his work as an advocate for survivors of the industrial schools. His own account on Questions and Answers of his abuse at St Joseph's Industrial School, Clonmel (aka Ferryhouse) made him a household name.

However, he is not in any categories relating either to his campaigning or to his own experiences. We may have some categories for O'Brien's activism, but what his time in the industrial school? It's clearly a WP:DEFINING attribute, so we should categorise by that attribute; but Category:Industrial schools in the Republic of Ireland has no subcats. The conventional title for people-by-school categories is "People educated at", but that word "educated" feels deeply misleading for institutions which were called "schools" but were in the theory of their creators youth detention centers for children who had usually committed no offence (other than being poor and/or having lost a parent) and in practice these places were centres of rape and brutality.

So ... any thoughts on a neutral title for a category for survivors of an Industrial school (Ireland)?

My best idea so far is to use the word "detained", which seems to be a neutral description of why children were in industrial schools. That would give us Category:People detained at industrial schools in the Republic of Ireland, with subcats for individual schools where the number allow: e.g. Category:People detained at St Joseph's Industrial School, Clonmel.

How does that sound? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Detained" seems appropriate, and was a term sometimes used for such places in both the UK and Ireland. SeoR (talk) 00:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with "Detained". Spleodrach (talk) 15:26, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Spleodrach and SeoR: I have created[33] Category:People detained at industrial schools in the Republic of Ireland, and found 12 articles to populate it. (Live count: 12)

So far, I have not found enough enough articles to justify creating any subcats. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:33, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing RfC: Choosing the infobox photo for "Sinéad O'Connor"

In the wake of O'Connor's death, a discussion is underway in the talk page as to the photo that should be used for her article! They are:

  • Option 1
    Option 1
  • Option 2
    Option 2

Please vote here!

Holidayruin (talk) 02:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Credibility bot

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 17:32, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Effin

Hello, anybody hanging around willing to "dig" in Tim Hannan, using the pseudonym Rambling Thady? Since only people with an article should be mentionned, and looking for some information on Tim Hannan, I came across : ...and at school he'd tell us the stories he had heard the night before from Jim Connolly ; one of these was the story of Seadna in English... Thank you so much for your time. Lotje (talk) 05:57, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Naming municipal elections

There's an inconsistency in how articles for certain municipal elections are named, e.g. 1920 Dublin Corporation election but 1999 Dublin City Council election, both elected under the same Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. I've started a discussion at Talk:1960 Cork City Council election. Although I proposed moving article titles to Year City Corporation election, my only strong view is that they should be consistent, and I could be persuaded that a consistency of City Council or Borough Council may be preferable. Iveagh Gardens (talk) 06:49, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Noel Kelly single-purpose account

Is User:Sarahallen2156 a single-purpose account dedicated to airbrushing Noel Kelly's links to the RTÉ payment scandal? Contribs suggests this. They're not doing anything else...

Don't know how this is normally dealt with - if blocked will they come back with a different name? Should someone watch Noel Kelly for anything like this in future? --Rydíaz (talk) 23:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Noel Kelly (agent) is a redirect to RTÉ secret payment scandal#Grant Thornton report, "Talent" and Noel Kelly. Whether it is worthy of inclusion in the Noel Kelly disambiguation page is a matter of opinion. The only edits to that page recently is you adding the "agent" article and Sarahallen2156 removing it again – her only two edits ever. You, Rydíaz, have made no attempt to discuss the question on the talk page, which is how content disputes are supposed to be dealt with. Neither of you have used edit summaries, so there is no reason to believe her purpose is "airbrushing" rather than just thinking the addition is pointless. There is no question of her being blocked, and there is no good reason for anybody other than yourself to watch the page. Scolaire (talk) 12:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Let’s assume good faith all round. I have offered the new user a normal welcome. Meantime, best would be for Noel Kelly or NK Management to get an article or articles; they’re certainly notable enough. SeoR (talk) 12:48, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's anything else to write. Doesn't look like he's known for anything else apart from this scandal. Don't see much on him that's from earlier than this year. --Rydíaz (talk) 00:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There’s more; NK flies low but the agent / agency acts for many key talents. Recent coverage would enable. SeoR (talk) 07:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you think it's becoming a whitewashing SPA, feel free to ping me and I'll look into it more and take action if needed. Right now it's an uncertain, but we'll see where the account goes. Canterbury Tail talk 14:21, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I took the advice and watched it. The response to the welcome was a third edit. It's the same again, and no reply on the talk page. I asked what she's doing. Don't think I'll get a reply either. But could be a fourth edit? This is over several weeks - her only interest here is that edit. --Rydíaz (talk) 00:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not great; you were right to post a query. SeoR (talk) 07:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rydíaz there's still nothing on the article talk page. You need to open a discussion there with something like "I believe the redirect page {{noredirect|Noel Kelly (agent)}} should be added here because..." (the "noredirect" is necessary because otherwise users will be brought to the payments scandal and wonder what they're doing there). If Noel Kelly had an article, it would clearly belong there; as it stands, it's still only a matter of opinion. You need to get a consensus to add it. Constantly restoring it without consensus is edit-warring. --Scolaire (talk) 08:39, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Donegal

Your input would be welcomed regarding the pronunciation of Donegal (town) which was recently changed: Talk:Donegal (town)#Pronounciation. --AFBorchert (talk) 12:06, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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