Template talk:Infobox U.S. County

Contents of infobox
SCottrell,

Is it safe to remove the following items since they are not applicable in the FSWiki....

Largest city

Area

Population

Population density

Time zone

US Congressional districts

Latitude and longitude

the map with .svg is not used in FSWiki. And the map naming has not been quite standardized so it has to be manually entered as needed.

dsammy 06:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have made a series of edits to the template, removing the content/parameters that are not needed. --Steve 07:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Noticed one line is missing.... map size is 225 within Infobox. We do list courthouse/city hall address and wish to include a photo of courthouse or cityhall if there is one as well as photo of the person or place the county was named for.

Baker County, Oregon has photos of both. The size still has to be limited. dsammy 16:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have detailed all the parameters that are in the template in the documentation. I have also amended the test use of the template found in Dsammy/Sandbox3 to included the named for options and display a picture of the courthouse and it's address. Let me know if you think this is best order, or any alternative order you think things should be listed. Any other content/formatting issues? --Steve 19:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Is Infobox U.S. County all I need to enter template on the page without any underlying controlling template like Nav? (I know about brackets) dsammy 19:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, all you need to do is use Infobox U.S. County with the parameters applicable for the county page you want to use it on. --Steve 21:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Got all in fine but I would like to see the named for image and courthouse image be side by side to reduce the length of column. Please see Baker County, Oregon and tweak it before I bring it up in the User Group meeting at 2 pm Salt Lake City time. dsammy 06:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Requesting the images to be displayed side by side is difficult, as you would have to also allow for either or both to be missing. I think your issue about having the infobox extend too far down the page is that is pushes the section head along with it. This is due to the default skin and the way the higher level headings are formatted to include shaded boxes. The box extend across the page and get pushed down by the infobox. View the page using the classic or simple skin and you will see what I mean.


 * I was thinking that having the courthouse/cityhall image displayed between the seat and website would flow better, but this would not reduce the length of the infobox. --Steve 14:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Please do that switch. I thought about it last night, it looks odd to have courthouse below the person/event/place named after.


 * I have made that switch by introducing a new building image parameter between seat and website. I have tweaked the section headings so that the infobox does not push everything down, but allows the text to flow around it. --Steve 16:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's is even better! Not only that, the display of courthouse is on the level with the courthouse address section perfectly. Plus was delighted to have template for Wikipedia. Thank you! Now to the 3rd template, it might be more difficult to tweak.

Parent County
Steve, I think it might be helpful to add a spot for Parent County -- maybe just after Founded Date? Many counties had more than one, but I think making the heading singular would still work. I'm working with Bedford County, PA, and adding Parent County to the infobox would mean I could remove it from its own heading down below. It's such a short bit of data that it feels like it would work well in the infobox. What do you think? RitcheyMT 23:42, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Not always practical. A good number of counties were created from more than one county, rendering this difficult to do. Best to list this as part of "Boundary Changes" that was agreed (?) on in recent meetings on county page layout since we can detail additons and takeaways in the same section like you see for Adams County, Illinois. 11 changes for Bedford alone according to Newberry site. Dsammy 01:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good suggestion. I will add a new parameter and make it so a user can add wikitext to give more than one parent county if needed. Of course if there is a more complicated history this should be covered in the main article, but for many counties this simple field will allow to display useful information clearly in a standard location within the infobox. --Steve 16:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Reconsider this, one example Wasco County, created from 8 counties in Oregon and Washington (Washington Territory was created 14 Feb 1859, and as such lost entire rest of Washington north of Columbia River. Where do we draw the line? It is easier to keep all such info in Boundary Changes section, along with additional changes since the county was created. Wasco County underwent a lot of changes, since it is "Mother" and "Grandmother" of counties covering 2/3 east part of Oregon. Dsammy 17:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To be fair I do not think Wasco County, Oregon is typical. Counties with this many parents will be the exception rather than the rule. Also as mentioned before, in cases like Wasco County, Oregon the addition of this parameter should not limit the scope of the article to cover the complexities of how the country was created, but it is an optional parameter that can be used to clearly identify the parent county right by the founding date. These two suggestions (the parameter and the ability to give greater detail) are not mutually exclusive. --Steve 12:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Created vs. Organized Date
I am working on counties in Ohio (primarily the Connecticut Western Reserve), where most counties' created dates are not the same as the date they were organized and their government began functioning. Can we add an optional "Organized Date" field under the "Created Date" field? - LeeTHawkins 13:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Lee, the date option for the infobox is the founded date, but there is an option to define a different label using the parameter founded title, however I think you are asking for two date fields. In my mind having two dates would require some explanation why that is and therefore probably should be included in the main text of the article. Can you give some particular examples, which may better help me understand what you want to achieve. --Steve (talk | contribs) 16:20, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There are TONS of counties in Northeast Ohio, all part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, that were created/founded on one date, but the county government was not organized until a later date...sometimes even a few years later. Please see this link from History of the Western Reserve, page 58-59, which clearly identifies several counties which were set out, but did not have their governments functioning until a later date. I highly doubt this is unique only to Ohio. It has the ramifications of certain documents being caught in "limbo", that is, during the time in between county creation and organization, some documents may be left with the parent county or may have been taken to the new county--it just depends on who was organizing things and how it was done. Until a county (and this was true of many townships as well) was organized, there were no courts for the new jurisdiction, so some things had to be done through the previous one. I hope I have made this clear. - LeeTHawkins 17:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, a perfect example of such a county is Lorain County, Ohio, which I have been working on for the past week or so. While it was created in December 1822, it did not have a functioning government with courts, etc., until January 1824, meaning there are records that may reside with the previous three jurisdictions for this period. County records do not start for this county until 1824. Therefore, the creation date is not so relevant as the organization date. - LeeTHawkins 18:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Records Dates
I would like to suggest we add years for birth/marriage/death/land/etc. records to a section on the Infobox, since these are some of the most likely information to be hunted for. This would make that more standard information on each county, which it should be. - LeeTHawkins 13:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It would be possible to amend the template to include a table about period coverage for different record types. I think this proposal should be raised with the WikiProject U.S. counties. A group of contributors have been working on a general layout for US county pages. Their current preferred option for this information is a table in a County Organization section. --Steve (talk&thinsp;|&thinsp;contribs) 16:25, 19 August 2011 (UTC)