Template talk:Infobox law enforcement agency

Rationale for this template

There were multiple very similar templates doing very similar things but not exactly the same, and some grouping the same agency attributes differently in different places in the infoboxes.

This template provides a standardisation for articles about all law enforcement agencies, to give their infoboxes a common look and feel, so that readers know what to expect when they look at a an article about a law enforcement agency of any type.

Templates deprecated by this template that I have found are:

No allowance has been made for an image of the agency head in the infobox because it is an infobox for the agency, not a person. If an image of the agency head is relevant to the agency article, then it should be in a relevant section in the article.

Peet Ern (talk) 03:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To do list

Enhancements:

microformatting to allow for hCard etc.
allow for a common name
- under formal names before abbreviation Done Peet Ern (talk) 05:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- use common name if it exists as sort order for auto categorisation Done Peet Ern (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
more than one governing body Done Peet Ern (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
review autocat for more sort order options
change default "red link" for no suitable category to always be the preferred name structure Done Peet Ern (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
sub categorisation for speciality jurisdiction types
wikilink text in parameters table on doc page
split formed into formed year and formed month day Done Peet Ern (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- autocat organisations established in 'formed year'
headquarters location map Done Peet Ern (talk) 02:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
child agency type/title
sworn type/title eg special agent, police officer Done Peet Ern (talk) 01:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
unsworn type/title eg support staff Done Peet Ern (talk) 01:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
mascot name, type, image
make civilian police a subcategory of civilian lea on hold (Category deleted)
detail auto category names in doc
snapbox mode / slave templates Done Peet Ern (talk) 07:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
change restriction to specialisation / restricted to specialist, etc. and cleanup Done Peet Ern (talk) 04:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
if division (state) categorisation is available, then do not do the country categorisation Done Peet Ern (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
do not bullet list repeating groups if only one item provided in the repeating group Done Peet Ern (talk) 02:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- only done for preceding, constitution, minister, chief, and child agency, but that is all I am doing for now.
allow alternate size for images Done Peet Ern (talk) 07:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- only done for patch, logo, badge, and flag, but that is all I am doing for now.
auto categorise for parent agency
parent agency type
add footnotes for speciality
split autocat of military police to be by country
reduce width of template
add secret police characteristic with references

Bugs:

national title needs legal/opsjuris conditional Done Peet Ern (talk) 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
check autocat for rest of standard category naming conventions
need better / more elegant collapsible infobox set up for snapshot Done Peet Ern (talk) 06:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
something screwy with new reference parameter
- Possible bug in {{Reflist}} / parser / server software. See Template talk:Reflist#Parser / reflist interaction bug? Peet Ern (talk) 02:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Resolved using {{#tag: . . .}}. Done Peet Ern (talk) 04:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Overkill?

As can be seen on FIOD-ECD, this template creates multiple strangenesses:

It places 4 references to Wikipedia articles into the reference list. I believe these should be made straight links if linked at all - they are certainly NOT references for the article.
It places the article in categories that don't exist - apparently conflating the country name with the agency type.

I wonder if it's appropriate to embed this much behind-the-scenes magic in a template. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References:

Resolved

I am not sure that there is any problem with an article referencing other Wikipedia articles, in this case for definitional things, as distinct from further information which would be links. If the concensus is that they should be links I would be happy to change them.

They really ought to be links, at the moment they are just wikilinks with footnotes containing the same wikilink, which is superfluous to requirements, and is confusing a lot of article. I implore you to just them as wikilinks, please :) --SGGH ^speak! 14:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed then. I do not have time right now - and dialled into the internet at only 28kbps is not a good feeling - I will fix in the next 36 hours though. Peet Ern (talk) 21:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done Peet Ern (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Categories:

The template expects standard categories for the type of article to be in place.

Overkill:

While it does more than most templates, this has been a deliberate strategy. The categristion is a good example. The philosophy is to try to get authors / editors to better categorise articles. I have taken the liberty and created the expected templates for this article.

Cheers. Peet Ern (talk) 21:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Country

If the country is USA, can you make it not automatically add the category? The category for US lea's may be a duplicate. In other words, the department may better fit into a state subcategory, and the country is unnecessary. Also, if I try to enter [[United States|USA]] in the country field, it repeats the brackets surrounding USA. Is there a way you can fix this? I don't know how. Thanks! Cmcnicoll (talk) 07:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As per the template documentation, the template will link so you get double brackets. However, I have now added a new parameter countryabbr, so please try:

| country       = United States
| countryabbr   = USA

Please let me know how it goes.

I will fix the country categorisation versus state categorisation in the next 48 hours.

Peet Ern (talk) 14:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done The template will now only categorise by Country if it cannot categorise by the division (state) in the country. Peet Ern (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A request

Could you please reduce size of this template? It is huge and occupies a lot of space.Biophys (talk) 05:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another question. Should this template be used for Gestapo, KGB and NKVD?Biophys (talk) 05:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Size: I presume you refer to the size as being the full list of possible paramters? All these paremeters are used somewhere by an article, or will be soon. However, is there a problem just deleting the ones you do not want out of the skeleton after you have copied it over into an article? This can dramtically reduce the "size" of the template. But, I am not entirely sure of what you mean by size? Do you mean the size of of the generated infobox?

I simply mean that template is very wide and long. It occupies a lot of space, which does not look good (usually we have smaller boxes). Can you make it more narrow at least? Thank you for reply.Biophys (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will see what I can do to reduce the width of the generated infobox. Peet Ern (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gestapo: - As far as I am aware, yes. The dissolved and superseding parameters can be used.

KGB: - As far as I am aware, yes. Its successor(?), the FSB already uses the template. The dissolved and superseding parameters can be used.

NKVD: - As far as I am aware, yes. The dissolved and superseding parameters can be used.

Peet Ern (talk) 05:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still believe that we need to make a distinction between the "law enforcement agencies", "intelligence agencies" (like KGB), and "secret police organizations" like Gestapo. The latter are NOT "law enforcement agencies" because they operate beyond the law instead of enforcing it.Biophys (talk) 12:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are interesting points, but go much further I think than the template. I agree that these organisations operated in a manner which most reasonable people would regard as beyond the law. However, the debate then becomes one of how is law defined, for example, the law is in reality the set of social behaviours enforced within a society, whether or not they have been legitimately codified, are conscionable, etc.

I fully agree that these organisations are not just law enforcement agencies. They are also typically intelligence agencies, and should be categorised as such as well. Note that this applies to many current day legitimate law enforcement agencies too. Their primary role though, and I am happy to stand corrected, as I understand it, was to enforce the law, even if the law was draconian, arbitrary, illegitmate, unconscionable, . . .

I will look at including secret police as a characteristic in the template too. I did not do this initially for two reasons, one, I simply had to draw the line somewhere, and two, secret police labelling can be an emotive and controversial issue. I think to include it will require explicit secondary references to be provided.

Please keep the feedback coming. It is the only way to improve the template.

Cheers. Peet Ern (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Simplicity and readability

The naming of multiple-word parameters are concatenated, instead of spaced with underscores; I believe this makes the template hard to read, and breaks old articles.

I guess this comes down to personal preferences. For my eye the underscores are very distracting and make it harder to read. Generally, words are concatenated or hyphenated in the "real" world and rarely "underscored". So I would think that concatenation is generally more readable, unless one is used to looking at software all the time. Peet Ern (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An example is the edition of this template from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation article. Since then (correct me if I'm wrong), the template has removed the underscores representing spaces from the template arguments. These underscores are (mainly) included for readability (in my opinion), and I believe their use is by far more common, and superior, then template arguments without underscores. What are the benefits of removing the underscore other than 8-bits per underscore?

Actually I am suprised it works at all! The relevant editor changed templates from {{Infobox Govt Agency}} to {{Infobox Law enforcement agency}}, by just editing the template name. This is incorrect in my view. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as far as I can tell, while part of the justice system, is NOT a law enforcement agency. The template change should be unpicked and reverted. Peet Ern (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Below is the template used in the aforementioned article:

| agency_name     = 
| nativename      = 
| nativename_a    = 
| nativename_r    =
| logo            = 
| logo_width      = 
| logo_caption    = 
| seal            = 
| seal_width      = 
| seal_caption    = 
| formed          = 
| reorganized     = 
| headquarters    = 
| employees       = 
| sworntype       = 
| sworn           = 
| unsworn         = 
| budget          = 
| chief1_name     = 
| chief1_position = 
| website         = 
| footnotes       =

Compare this with the current template and the suggested template usage:

| agencyname      = 
| nativename      = 
| nativenamea     = 
| nativenamer     = 
| logo            = 
| logocaption     = 
| formedyear      = 
| formedmonthday  = 
| headquarters    = 
| sworntype       = 
| sworn           = 
| unsworntype     = 
| unsworn         = 
| budget          = 
| chief1name      = 
| chief1position  = 
| website         = 
| footnotes       =

Note that the seal* arguments are no longer accepted.

({{Infobox Law enforcement agency}} can accept a seal, or any other image, by picking any image parameter and setting the relevant caption.) Peet Ern (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Int21h (talk) 05:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]