Template talk:Countrybox

education?--BobSpring is sprung! 19:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add it. As long as we don't end up with too many values, like the huge info boxes on WP's country pages, we're OK.  I'm wondering whether the GDP figures should be taken out & replaced with some kind of poverty index.  The HDI sort-of covers it.  Eventually, I want to set up a red-amber-green colour indicator against each value, which would generate the RGB colour automatically based on the parameter, so that it's easy to see at a glance what the country's biggest problems are (statistically).  This will take some time to work out, which I can't really give right now, but will be easier to do for the indexes which go on a 0-to-10 scale, a decimal or a percentage, rather than broad-ranging stats like population & GDP.  19:37, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought it might be interesting to contrast religiosity to education and corruption. Any bets on whether the correlation would be positive or negative?--BobSpring is sprung! 19:43, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Are we adding this to stuff, or is it not ready yet. Robothead.svg iron, yet caring fist 11:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As it has been several months, looks like no-one minds. Will start adding it tomorrow. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 04:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Could use a spruce-up, though. 04:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In what way? ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 04:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Current version:

Proposed version: 

New version looks better to me. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 22:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss titles.
I am prepared, over the course of a few days, to fill in all of the country boxes, for each country, with the appropriate information and reference it properly. However, I think we should discuss what should (and should not) be included in the box. For example, I'm very much against the Corruption Perceptions Index, as it's the most subjective of measures... basically going around asking people how corrupt they feel their country is. 16:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And perhaps the Democracy Index should be done differently... we should have a "Government" section, which might say, "Parliamentary Republic. Bicameral. DI:8.1" where the DI is linked to a page about DI (which again, I'd be happy to do.) 16:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The names of the parameters themselves are crap - you can't understand what they mean only by looking at the code.--ZooGuard (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Dalek, do what you feel is best. WP:WP:BEBOLD. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 16:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ty. Or "Ty ty," if you will... :P. After that, we can look at one for regions within nations, for the States of America, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, etc. 16:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be nice. I have recently given up on achieving more than a three person agreement on anything around here without it descending into pointless debate and silliness. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 16:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think add things like type of govt, majority religion. Also, don't HRW and AI have indexes where they rank countries? -- PsyGremlin  16:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the Democracy Index may also be too flawed to use, if I'm honest. It gives a good overall view, but nobody knows who the 'experts' that answer the 60 questions about a country are, and so the 0.02 difference between the USA and UK is pretty meaningless. It also seems a little biased about different political systems, as the highest ranking 16 nationals all use a Parliamentary System and every single Semi-Presidential System is ranked as a, "flawed democracy" or lower. The top five all have unicameral systems. Plus, using arbitrarily selected numbers to make up the classifications is a bit poor. A 0.6% difference between Iraq and Madagascar makes Iraq not an authoritarian regime, but makes Madagascar one, and a 0.8% difference makes between the lowest ranking, "Full Democracy" and the highest ranking "Flawed Democracy," without giving any reason why achieving an "8" on their scale makes a state a full democracy. I'll have a proper think on how I think we should do it all, do it, and then people can argue about it and change it if they want. 19:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yarr the mechanical man be saying true. We needs to be decided what parameters we be needin. I be suggestin form of goverment, population, primary religion, development index, and GDP, GDP percapita. Yarr ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 19:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I would still like to do what I said last year: code the template so that the numbers given for development index, democracy index, etc. show in varying shades of red, amber & green, depending on how good or bad the figure is. See my comment above.  I have been meaning to do this for ages, but right now I can't give it any time as I'm preparing for a trip abroad, but I should be able to do it in a month or so.  If people want to start putting the template on pages as it is, that's fine as long as the relevant data is captured, as I can make changes to template itself later.  For this to work, the template should include mostly figures within a fixed scale (%, 0-10 0.0-1.0) like the various indexes are.  Inevitably these indexes are slightly arbitrary, but I think they give a pretty concise snapshot of a country's level of development, democracy, education, corruption, etc.   20:05, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yarr, we be gettin roun to puttin this here template on the pages. Ye do what ye likes, colors be pretty yarrr. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 20:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The only downside is updating. Perhaps add a parameter "Last updated: yy/mm/dd"? We are ok at updating things like elections and dead people and stuff, but do we have the wiki-moles we need to keep the stats on these updated annually/whenever they change? 06:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * yes. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 12:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, this needs updating a spectacular once/year. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 14:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, each one, and every year. One person saying they will do it does not convince me, many people come and go, and we all forget our chores from time to time.  04:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Add it to the to do list or something, perhaps. It's not a huge amount of work, split among a few people. And, since the task is simply grabbing Wikipedia statistics and things like that, I could easily have a bot do all or most of it. 06:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ...aaaand 2½ years later, the people who said they'd keep this updated are all gone. Sophie  Wilder silverbrain.png 21:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Questions
Why the dot in the Corruption Index when none is used in the official index? And why is the GDP listed under "Demographics"? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 22:44, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * *cough* 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * *cough* *hack* *splatter* 141.134.75.236 (talk) 13:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * First question: people inserting the argument with a dot; the error isn't in the template. 13:35, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know it's not an inherent part of the template. So I guess the first question is directed to the now-inactive users that started and perpetuated the practice across the wiki. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 13:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess I'll have to get out my mass minor editing hat later... maybe... 104.5.9.13 (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Or just delete the thing. What purpose does it serve since this isn't an encyclopedia? Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 19:09, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The corruption, democracy and religiosity indexes certainly seem missional, though. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:15, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You could write them into the article, which would flesh them out more than a number would. Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 21:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Bicycle lady has a point... 104.5.9.13 (talk) 15:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Is adding "The Democracy Index of this country is X. The Corruption Index of this country is X." as plain text really that superior to having it in a template at the side? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:51, 19 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Does it have to collapse?
Do the sections have to be collapsed by default? I find it rather annoying, and AFAIK no other template does that with basic info (neither does Wikipedia). It's not even that long... Carpetsmoker (talk) 04:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Blue did the collapsing bit a long while ago, so even if we asked she likely doesn't remember. --"Paravant" Talk & Contribs 05:15, 8 October 2015 (UTC)