Template talk:InfoBoxFactions

The problem that I see with this template is that so many of these things change. For instance, to apply this to Federated Suns would be impossible given fields like "ruler," "tech level," (which is going to be difficult no matter what as that is relative), "military strength," and even "enemies" and "allies" can change. Many factions have even changed their capitals. And please, please don't say that "current" information should be used, as what is current in the storyline to one person is the future or past to another. What I mean by that is that some people never ventured past the 4th War, some are caught up in the CBT storyline as CGL puts it out, and others were keeping up with the Dark Age novels. This is a debate we've had before, and I don't want it rehashed. --Scaletail 19:33, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

I see where you are coming from. Incidentially I put up a similar argument about mercenaries (see Talk:Wolf's Dragoons) where the ultimate decision was to add individual infoboxes for every notable time period. In this case it would probably be in order to enter entries for several time periods in a given box. Regarding factions, I'd say a good share of the information on the template does not change. "Ruler" could be the House/Family instead of an individual (i.e. Davion, Centrella, Grimm, Avellar). In some cases where things are more complicated, you could subsitute "Elected leader", for example. A list of leaders belongs in the article.

On the template at hand, first off excellent job ROM! I would exclude "description", "status", "enemies" and "allies" from the template as these issues cannot be covered in brief and should be done in the article proper. Frabby 01:17, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

I think it needs to be greatly truncated. Most of the fields like "literacy rate" should be excluded. Reduce it to "ruling family," "capital world," "cultural influences" (as languages is basically redundant with that field), and "leader title" should be enough for people who want info at a glance. My compliments also go out, as I know this took a long time to make. I might also include a space for a map, either of the nation or its place in the Human Sphere or both. --Scaletail 17:39, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Moved

Trying to kickstart this template into existence and action, I was bold and modified the InfoBoxMercUnit and moved this Template to the better (imho) name of InfoBoxFactions. I seem to have made an error somewhere down the line though as the /doc thing does not show up? If someone with better understanding of this could look over what I have done please... Frabby 11:19, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

I like this much better. Great job! I have some suggestions that are minor, for the most part. "Time period" could perhaps be renamed "Founding Year," otherwise we could end up with a variety of ways describing the same thing. "Classification" is good, but maybe the options could just be "Inner Sphere," "Clan," or "Periphery?" The one section I don't like is "Controlled Systems" for the same reason I didn't like most of the previous categories: this varies wildly between time periods, with a few exceptions. Perhaps "Secret Service" could be renamed "Intelligence Agency(ies)" as this seems more appropriate. The others seem fine as is. Thanks for taking the initiative and doing this! --Scaletail 17:03, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

I agree that "Time Period" is an awkward term but "Founding Year" does not work - quite a lot of states ceased to exist (Terran Hegemony, Star League, Oberon Confederation). Some even appeared and disappeared several times (i.e. Sarna Supremacy). I would want to state the time period(s) in which they existed, but lack a really good catchword.

As for "Controlled Systems", I am in two minds about this. For a start, it would have to be an approximation - nobody can say for sure how many worlds a given faction encompasses at a given time as there are plenty of dubious names already now and additional worlds could always be retconned in. But it does give an impression of the overall size and power of a given faction (in most cases at least - ComStar may be a bit off...). I toyed with the idea to have several templates for prominent time periods that would give different sizes; if that was to be done then the Current Ruler should be added to the Infobox. But I wanted to keep it short so this is probably better left to the article, especially its history section. Frabby 19:07, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

Crest

I did not realize this when using the Template for the first time because there is no Oberon Confederation Crest in the database (yet), so I saw it only today when doing the FedSuns: I have been unable to include the Crest picture in the Infobox. Maybe I am just stupid, but I simply failed to figure it out. Maybe the template is faulty. Help appreciated (Scaletail?). Frabby 06:24, 18 May 2008 (CDT)