Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Templates

message: On behalf of the WPFC, I would like to recommend a section for predecessor countries to be added to the Template:Infobox country/doc. The purpose of this section would be purely for navigational purposes, and should function similar to the "|p1 =" field on the Template:Infobox former country. An example of this functionality is best seen on Empire of Brazil, which directs the reader to the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves as its predecessor. Please let me know whether you will take this into consideration. Thank you,Xuxalliope (talk) 12:34, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Former countries 

message: Hi I've recently been doing some work on updating the 'Health in X' articles for various countries around the world, and updating their associated templates. I'd like to add 'Health' as one of the standard high-level sections for each country - in my experience this already exists for most countries, but there are still a few where basic health statistics or description of the health system does not exist. Would you be ok if I made some proposed revisions to the templates to include 'Health in X' - see :Category:Health_by_country --Karl.brown (talk) 22:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: In my experience health is often included under the general demographics header. I find it hard to imagine that it would have enough important information to make its own section in every country article. Some statistics are important yes, but I find health sections often degenerate into a list of hospitals and rankings, rather than forming encyclopaedic prose. CMD (talk) 09:37, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, sometimes it's under demographics, sometimes it's a separate section, sometimes it's called healthcare, sometimes it's called 'health and education' - I would argue that have a consistent section would help, so people can always know that the high-level description of a country's health can be found - key health indicators, links to health-specific page(s). I'm still not sure why it is sometimes blended with education, which doesn't have that much to do with health... Whether this is under demographics or not is not a big deal, but I think making it consistent would be useful. --Karl.brown (talk) 14:26, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been included under education for years in some articles, probably because both are about social development. I would expect that readers looking for health information would go to "Health in X" articles, which should probably be the main focus of development. THe link should be in the article somewhere though. CMD (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I agree; the reason I brought this suggestion up is, I've been reviewing these, and in several cases there was a 'Health in X' but no link or section or mention of health anywhere from the main country article - I've been trying to fix this. In other cases, there are countries (like Tunisia) where there isn't a 'Health in X' and not even a 'Health' section in the main country article. My thought is, we should start small, with a small section on Health - then if it gets big enough, it can be pulled out into its own article (and in about 75% of countries, the Health in X article already exists). At least if we suggest 'Health' as a section in the template, people who are revising country articles will be inspired to try to find/research info about health, which already exists in voluminous quantities for any country in the world. --Karl.brown (talk) 15:07, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd venture to say we have a large number of, well, really bad country articles (and I don't think it's much of a venture). I still don't think that most countries should have a health section, as I doubt it's especially important vis a vis other aspects of the country. However, you're right we should suggest they do try to include health somehow. Why not include under the Demographics header "Include basic information on population, languages spoken, ethnicities, religions, health and healthcare, and education, along with other notable points of information"? That should inspire some research. We could also put a link Health in _ in the suggested See Also so editors working on countries can identify it as something they should have a whole article on. CMD (talk) 17:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add health to the default 

message: I would like to suggest to have in the template a section heading called "infrastructure". Here we could put information and a link to transportation (which currently appears in the template under "See also"??) but also information and links to water supply and sanitation. Here we could suggest to people (I mean other editors) that they could draw on the information provided for many countries by this project which has created standardised pages for water supply and sanitation in many countries (or see the list here). However, that information should be double checked and only be seen as a starting point as it might in some cases be outdated. It is a good starting point though, and anyone who knows that country or the water sector in that country could probably quite easily add some useful content based on that. See also [here] on the talk page of User:Moxy . Another option could be to place a sub-heading unter the existing title of "Economy", but I am not sure if that would be better? - What do other people think, is "infrastructure" sufficiently important to show up somehow at the table of contents level? I think it would be as it affects many other aspects of the country. EvMsmile (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no problem with a sentence or 2 linking  the main sanitation article added to country articles in the appropriate section. Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries suggest that to be under the "Economy" sections. I would say a whole sub-section (as in 2 or 3 paragraphs) is a bit much for  an overview country article. Simply not that important to warrant a subsection in parent  article of this nature.  -- Moxy (talk) 05:29, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good to see your reply here, Moxy. I think this is the best place where we should discuss this (and possibly also on the talk pages of affected articles). I was actually surprised that nobody else has commented so far after I made the post a week ago. I thought there would be many, many members to this important WikiProject on Country pages. I am not sure that "infracstructure" fits so well under "economy", at least not in the case of developing countries. If you look at many country pages, they actually already have a sub-section on infrastructure. So I may not be the only one who'd find such a subsection important. It can include transport, water supply and sanitation (and anything else? Communications?). Of course one could argue that infrastructure should be a level 3 heading under ecnomoy but then this should be reflected in the template, too (and changed in those articles that currently have a separate infrastructure section?). I am keen to hear opinions of many different people on that who have been involved with this WikiProject. - Also the suggestion that had been made about health above was a good one, I think, and has not fully been resolved in my opinion. EvMsmile (talk) 09:01, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  P.S. The template currently suggests to put under See also:
* Communications in _
* Transportation in _
In my opinion one could easily build a case for rather moving these into a new section called "infrastructure". I looked for your statement that "Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries suggest that to be under the "Economy" sections" but couldn't find it listed like that in the template description? Where must I look? EvMsmile (talk) 09:05, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

text: Less then 30 people watching this page (perhaps a WP:RfC). As for an "infrastructure section" this may be ok in smaller countries.  This is because  infrastructure in a big country varies  wildly....like weather of a large country.  Also municipalities or states are unusually responsible for these things (municipalities do there best to comply with federal statutes).  This water info would be great to add to big cities articles or to country article where water quality is actually  a concern. For me water and sanitation  is like weather best to discuss at the local level (where it is dealt with).  All that said an"infrastructure section" talking about  national highway systems, national rail lines or national oil/gas pipe lines and the like would be good to add to large country articles.--Moxy (talk) 18:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh yes, great idea about WP:RfC. Could you please do this? I have never done it before, I guess I could try but I am not sure which "topic area" to pick? I think these country articles are really very important, particularly those dealing with "lesser known" countries, which I guess is mainly the developing countries. I am not sure if I agree with you that infrastructure in a big country varies that much - I mean the responsibilities for the infrastructure are usually quite clear. The variation is more between urban and rural areas and here the disparities are greater in developing countries. Also what is your definition of a "big" country? Big in area or big in population? Is Germany a big country with 80 million people? Yes, there'd be variation from one state of Germany to another but not that much as it would fall under a unified policy system. You would not expect the highway or sewage infrasctructure to be so different from one part of the country to another. Same with the US or Canada - except for very remote, sparsely settled areas. - I think it gets most interesting for developing countries where infrastructure can indeed vary enormously from one part of the country to another and that's exactly what the articles on "water supply and sanitation in country X" describe and therefore I think they are worth linking to from a section about infrastructure on the main article page. - Why do you think national highway systems, rail lines or oil/gas pipe lines are more important than saying something about the water supply and sewer infrastructure in that country which would also be governed by a national level ministry to some extent? I think it's all equally important and should be captured in a section on all of the major infrastructure. EvMsmile (talk) 01:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  By the way, I think I have found an acceptable solution e.g. for the article on China where I have now named it as "other infrastructure". At least the other editors seem to be OK with it so far. Perhaps a good compromise and something that can be progressively built on, as more editors find time to flesh out that section. EvMsmile (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Add infrastructure to the template