Template talk:Postal history by country

message: I'd like to see an article on each and every one of the 600 or 700 or so entities soon enough. When this template grows it will be split A-M M-Z  ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Expecting you" Contribs 10:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, I hate these kinds of templates - having to split by letters just shows how poor a solution they are compared to categories. But people seem to like them for some reason, so shrug. Stan 13:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree with Stan as this may potentially become excessively large.  I think templates like this are fine for subjects by year and for very small groupings.  But, keeping an open mind, it'll be interesting to see if and how it develops.  --GeorgeWilliams 08:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Way too ambitious IMHO. Categories would seem like the way to go because potentially the template will be so large it might take up more than a page to itself. It will definitely take up more than a screen-full when open. Besides it looks like Sir Blofeld is not a Philately project member and we could really use philatelic writers rather than template builders at this time because there are only 2 or 3 active editors doing any real work for philately. ww2censor 11:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one seems to have any strong view one way or another on this template, so I suppose it will stay. I have retitled the template from "Postal history by country and state" to "Postage stamps and postal history by country and state" as this seems all inclusive for the topic. ww2censor 22:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

text: And I just found something that really is wrong where this template screws up the "What links here" section of each page's toolbox.  As well as valid links you get a list of every country in the template and that makes it difficult to spot the valid links.  No good at all.  --Saipan Sam 05:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Saipan Sam, I think it would be better to explain what is wrong rather than start deleting content from the template and also removing it from country stamp pages. Maybe someone can fix it but I actually don't understand your problem with the template and you have not indicated any pages where the problem is visible. Please explain before doing any more modifications. While the wiki suggest that you be bold, template editing is a serious matter that can affect many pages, not like a simple edit to one page. Cheers ww2censor 04:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Good to see you still have your eyes open BlackJack. I'm not sure I agree with deleting it yet, but could be persuaded. The advantage is that visitors can immediately see what other articles there are and link directly from there, while going to the category pages and then finding another stamp page involves much more clicking around. I think I see what you mean that the "what links here" show every article included in this template. I think that is quite an easy fix, but will ask someone how to deal with that. I think it means modifying the template to use "noinclude" or "nowiki" tags to avoid the issue. Let me see if I can find an answer. Hope you are well and not playing too much cricket what with all the rain in the UK. Cheers ww2censor 14:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits moved from WikiProject

message: I must say that I very much against adding redlinks to potential article in templates when there seems to be no real possibility of the article being added anytime soon. If the template is to be useful and functional then country links should only be added when they actually have an article, preferably more than a stub. I would be in favour of removing all the redlinks, or at least making them invisible. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 03:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the redlinks should be removed if possible. Thanks. HG | Talk 21:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Remove the redlinks 

message: No one got back with additional suggestions or help, so here is the replacement divided by continents with some subgroups I think are appropriate. I still cannot figure out how to limit the subgroup title box from extending to the right way beyond the actual subgroup title text. Any one who know, please fix it. Hope you approve as it is much tidier and easy to find places. ww2censor (talk) 22:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to admit that your hard work has produced a template far superior to the one used to date. However, I cant help but wander if there will be a similar problem a bit down the line when a whole load of new articles are created that warrant inclusion.StephP (talk) 10:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, but at least now it will not just be a big alphabetical list of territories. Let's just take life as it comes; we will deal with it when it happens, but this is never likely to get as big as :Template:Protected Areas of California! Cheers ww2censor (talk) 15:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Replacement navbox

message: A fr.user (:fr:User:Ducloy) created templates for British and French related postal histories : :fr:Modèle:Palette Histoire postale de l'Empire britannique and :fr:Modèle:Palette Histoire philatélique et postale de l'Empire colonial français. It may be interesting for readers to have both the complete template (with all countries) and a more precise one inside a postal colonial empire.
Perhaps, the full complete one can be duplicated with a complete one for today (listing only nowadays postal administrations). Sebjarod (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Idea from fr.users 

message: I have expanded the navbox title to include the term administration. ww2censor (talk) 14:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Navbox title

message: мм.. что то я не могу найти его в шаблоне, может кто поможет найти?=)--Фрашкард (talk) 18:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the English wiki, so please write in English. ww2censor (talk) 00:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

text: The page was deleted. See the deletion log here. Regards, — Tirk·ﬂ “…” 09:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Вижу что статья удалена. но почему страны нет в шаблоне? Там ведь указаны страны статьи о которых тоже отсутствуют, а Азербайджана нет. К сожалению по английски написать всё это вряд ли смогу =(--Фрашкард (talk) 16:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Azerbaijan 

message: Helpful? For whom? Babies? The map in a navigation template is pointless not to mention taking up more space in an already bloated infobox. It was I who created this template as Dr. Blofeld and it certainly was not me who inserted this silly colorful childish looking world map. I would recommend splitting the template by continent and red linking the missing articles so soon enough we have all of the 700 odd stap entities linked?    Himalayan 10:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Regional is cool, and since multiple nav templates are all the rage, it also opens up to do Commonwealth, "Portuguese area", and other groupings that stampistas are known to favor. The map has always mystified me.  On redlinks, I think people tend to frown on redlinks in templates, they're a temptation to vandalism.  One could finesse by making a stub-creation push... Stan (talk) 13:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately some people are stupid and their geographical knowledge is poor, hence the map was inserted but if there is consensus against then let it go. As for the regional templates being the rage does nto make them good or convenient for this project. I am strongly against them for philately because it will be necessary to put all five, or maybe six or seven, templates into every country article taking up more space, otherwise you will be marginalising readers. I see no advantage to this idea at all. I, for one, know that philatelists have varied and wide ranging interests and if you only put one regional template into an article, there is then no convenient way to navigate to countries of your interest. For example, if we only put the Europe template into Ireland, how am I going to easily get to Mexico and then India without knowing, and then having to type, the name of that article instead of clicking on a link in a world template. A single world template does the job very well and is well divided up by regions making multiple templates redundant unless all are inserted in every article, besides which it seems like a lot of extra work when modifications to one template affects every article immediately. Think about it more carefully before inflicting this on readers and should be discussed with a broader group then at the template talk level as rather few people watch this page. ww2censor (talk) 13:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks for inviting me to contribute.  I think splitting a large template is a good idea and seems to be common practice elsewhere.  Having the sister templates in a line at the bottom is a quick way of navigating to a country in another template.  It's fine.  ----Jack | talk page 17:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Map