Template talk:Infobox faction

Looks good so far, but definately could be improved. First off, certain fields like base and image should be optional. Often, the central base for a faction is the name of the faction, making this field redundant. Also, an image isn't always readily available, so making this field optional would be nice too. Speaking of image, what's with the strict requirements? Copying the code from {{Npcbox}} should fix both these problems... --Mikaka 08:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge with factionbox

In an attempt to make it more consistent, this template is now merged with factionbox. Write here if you find any errors because of this change. g0urra[T҂C] 11:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Request

My last edit was trying to add some "formerly" content to the box options. MgTG sayid that I break something... Can someone redo and fix it, please? Gabrirt (talk) 04:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Membership

Supposedly, population was about the numbers of the faction and also there are many articles that use "membership" to list the faction within. What is the difference between popolation and membership? If there is no difference, I propose to change membership to list the factions within. If there is some, please, create at up to affiliation something called "|members" (Faction members or simply Members) to solve the problem.Gabrirt (talk) 03:39, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Population is for factions and zones. Membership is for organizations. It's clearly marked in the documentation. And those numbers were from the RPG, as we're no longer using the RPG info in infoboxes those parameters should not be used at all, unless it can be cited from in-game sources, novels, offical site, etc. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 03:45, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Basically what is the difference of factions and organizations? An Organization is some kind of 'official' faction? Also as I stated, if you will not change membership to list the factions, create "|members" to list the factions as I stated above without confuse with "|affiliation".Gabrirt (talk · contributions) 04:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

A faction is like Bilgewater Cartel, and organization is like the Defias or Church of the Holy Light. Doesn't matter, I added your sub-group parameter, now please stop using |membership. Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 05:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Request2

It is possible to add goverment to the infobox? --Ryon21 (talk) 20:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Unnecessary things?

The "Membership" and "Sub-groups" lines are currently being used for the same thing so can the first be eliminated? Also, since the "Aligment" line is a RPG thing, and since WoW has "shades of Morally Grayness", can we get that out too? With this we have space to add other things like an "fgoverment" line for example. The "Source" line gone would make the template less crowed and because it is mostly not used anymore since we already have the Patch changes. --Ryon21 (talk) 10:53, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

As long as a bot is used to track all pages with "Membership" and "Sub-groups", in order to make sure they can be properly merged, okay Xporc (talk) 12:25, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

With the recent inclusion of the type= parameter, the tabard= parameter will now no longer display due to the {{Infobox}} restrictions. It is best to review the current set of parameters and strip the ones that are not really needed (or combine some that makes sense to be together) else this would need to be converted to a Non-infobox. IMO, would prefer to avoid the latter. — SurafbrovWarcraft Wiki administrator T / C 20:49, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

We should merge the "membership" and "sub-group" fields with a bot. Also, why the difference between "major settlements" and "bases of operation"? I'm not sure there's a point in keeping "Type" and "Government" separated, one has to go. "Languages" and "Alignement" I wouldn't mind seeing deleted. Xporc (talk) 13:07, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I always saw Major settlements as secondary cities like Stratholme for Lordaeron, while base of operations are simply that, military or expedition camps like Valiance Keep for Stormwind. A merge with type and government, and membership and sub-group could work just fine. Languages might not be necessary but I can see why some people would want to keep it. Alignment can surely be deleted. --Ryon21 (talk) 13:26, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

I noticed that Nazjatar Empire's infobox had the type parameter but nothing was showing since it was absent here. But yeah, the government parameter could include the same thing as type, I guess. I'm also in favor of getting rid of the alignment parameter (since we don't work with alignment chart / terms since Warcraft's come from RPG). Also what is the membership parameter about? If it is for numbers, Blizzard don't provide those nor it is possible to know that from the game, so that can go as well. --Mordecay (talk) 14:21, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Re: "Government"

My thoughts: I think the category should stay, but I think parameters should exist for consistency among the various cities, as we've been discussing on the discord about what word is the correct descriptor for things. In general my thoughts are:

• We shouldn't be limited by whether or not Blizzard has explicitly described x or y government as x or y word (e.g. Darnassus and the Exodar being "Theocracies")
• Using fancy terminology is fine if accurate; we shouldn't speculate whether or not there's a political theory nerd in the Story Team (e.g. the use of "in absentia" to describe Turalyon on Stormwind City is fine)
• The language used should be justified on the talk page with sources and interpretation of those sources
• Should use words that are actual political/government systems (e.g. Chiefdom is a real thing, so Thunder Bluff and etc are fine, "Council" is not)

I think it should stay because it's cool, part of the RP world-building, and it's fun to think about. Removing it entirely seems a bit lazy. I just think we need consistency across the board, and must be included (because otherwise, the only cities without it will be probably only Horde cities, which is a Bad Look imo, and also don't think it's really necessary). So far we reached a consensus on Silvermoon City and Suramar City, so went ahead and changed those, but we still need to decide on Orgrimmar. IMO: the Horde Council is most accurately a Federation as it is a standing body of various Heads of State or their representatives ruling over the city, which is the capital of the Faction, and Rokhan could probably be listed as Chief in absentia parallel to Turalyon. User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 22:56, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I feel like we should kill this field entirely. There are a couple of solid instances where it could be used, but beyond that it's really nothing more than an educated guess, at best. For a lot of nations it's really just largely speculation. Take Silvermoon and Suramar, for instance. We know who leads them (Lor'themar and Thalyssra, respectively), but beyond that we have no idea what style of government they have. Are they oligarchies? Do we call them monarchies even though neither of them has taken a royal title? Are they absolute rulers, or do they have a parliament or other such secondary body they need to work with/answer to (such as the Convocation of Silvermoon)? Are they even intended to rule for life, or could they have fixed terms? Be subject to election? Be subject to removal? Or what about the vulpera; do they even HAVE a government, or do they just sorta generally follow Kiro? And that's to say nothing of how much discussion we had on Discord over whether the Horde Council means that they're a Confederacy or a Federation.

When it comes right down to it, there is no way we can rightfully fill this field without delving into fanon, even in the cases where things seem clear (for instance, what kind of monarchy Stormwind is depends heavily on how much power the House of Nobles actually has and how they're appointed). The information we do have, that seems much more directly relevant, is simply what position their leader holds... And that's effectively already in the infobox. Even the example given for using "in absentia" for Stormind is a description of their leader's status, not their form of government. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 23:06, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Don't think having intricate specific details are necessary tbh? Like whether or not they're a Parliamentary Monarchy or Absolutist Monarchy, they're still a Monarchy; a "Regent Lord" is a Regent, i.e. Regency, which is a system of government. Oligarchy would be if say, the Throne of Stormwind were entirely abolished and the House of Nobles held all political power. Vulpera are stated in the short story to have Elders who lead the caravan and their culture, so would be a Chiefdom. User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 23:43, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

All of which really only describe how their leader is chosen, and not the style of government. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 23:54, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

No. A monarchy is a form of government, like republic, chiefdom, federation, or otherwise.User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 23:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Leaving that aside, what would you even call Suramar? We have literally no information about its government besides that Thalyssra is in charge of it. What about Gnomeregan? The mechagnomes named Mekkatorque "King of the Gnomes," so does that mean they're suddenly a monarchy now? Or is it still just a title? You say we shouldn't speculate about political theory, but deciding what type of government each nation has is explicitly that. I think your point of "it's fun to think about" is true, and probably more true than you realize in that that's all we're doing - having fun thinking about it. But that is not a reason to put something so speculative in the infobox. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 00:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Leaving it aside because it's a form of Government sure. If he's being called King of the Gnomes, and we know High Tinker is an elected position, then it's an Electoral Monarchy. Which historically are things that exist. It's not that big of a deal? We settled on Monarchy de facto because Thalyssra is described as the singular ruler of Suramar after he revolution to replace Elisande who was called a queen. Again not seeing the complexity this all pretty straightforward. It just required like 10 minutes of conversation and reviewing 3 wiki pages at most. User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 00:33, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, we "settled on monarchy de facto." That's a fantastic solution that is in no way entirely speculative. Definitely a great standard for an infobox. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 00:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

i also think this field should be nixed. it's essentially us trying to slap a label on each faction for, imo, little to no benefit. i tend to prefer the "lead a horse" approach: laying out all the canon information we have, and allowing readers to interpret for themselves. coming up with our own descriptors for each faction is an attempt to make the proverbial horse drink. Eithris (talk) 03:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Well what about a new section on each city page (or race page?) "Political System", after "Culture". Compiling each race's lore on their government as presented in-game. Just don't think axing it completely is all that necessary, especially since it's been there for two years to no fanfare and this all came about cuz I pointed out Orgrimmar no longer has a Chief formally and thus isn't a Chiefdom lol User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 04:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

eh, that’s often how it goes. things that went unnoticed can suddenly seem out of place when you (general you) take a closer look, and an in-depth discussion like this definitely invites a closer look. the lack of fanfare before doesn’t mean we all had seen it and consciously said “yeah that deserves to be there,” and now suddenly we’ve changed our minds. in my case, i honestly just never read that far down on faction infoboxes bc all the info i’m interested in is at the top. Eithris (talk) 13:24, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Eithris and DTZ. The other infobox fields and the existing lead and culture sections should provide enough information to readers as-is. Keeping an infobox line (or for that matter, adding a "Political system" section) that's going to consist of fan interpretation and guesswork most of the time doesn't really provide much benefit. Especially if we have to resort to complicated real-world terms that a lot of readers won't understand and Blizzard themselves have never used in order to accurately define the cases where we do have enough information. -- DeludedTroll (talk • contribs) 08:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I do not understand there this idea of "Complicated Terms" is coming from. It's just Federation, Monarchy, Chiefdom, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Regency, Theocracy. These are simple political terms we learn about in High School/Secondary School/equivalent history.User:Baalqliphoth(talk) 09:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed with Eithris and the others, If Blizzard / Warcraft doesn't offer the specific terms, then we don't need to include them either. If there are some details on politics in the game and literature, yeah, let's include them in the Culture section. Mordecay (talk) 09:59, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't mind keeping it where we have an official source for the type, but if it's all or nothing, I'd rather see it gone than resorting to fanmade descriptions in the infobox. Sure, words may well exists for how the various government systems in wow appear. For some it may be straightforward. For others, the conclusions reached may not be in line with what Blizzard intends. Trying to coin the "correct" terms ourselves, can easily lead to situations where people look up info here and draw the wrong conclusions. The dangers of wiki magic are real! There are just too many unknowns, I feel, for us to make the call about what's what. The infoboxes are for the base facts. For the rest, users can read the main page, or the sections relevant to their interests. PeterWind (talk) 10:13, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

There's no need to include the "government" line in all factions, but just those we know for sure i.e. the Alliance kingdoms. But if it brings problems, kill it, throw it into a pit and bury it. The Searing Gorge would be a nice place to do so :think: -- Ryon21 (talk) 13:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm in favor of axing the parameter. Too speculative for most things, for the few that is confirmed can be tossed into the culture section anyways. — SurafbrovWarcraft Wiki administrator T / C 14:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)