Template talk:Infobox government cabinet

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Ministry or cabinet

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Given that the infobox is called "government cabinet" I'd be inclined to leave the references to a cabinet rather than a ministry. In any case everyone needs to stop editing the template as it changes every page it's transcluded on, let's discuss first. What are other's feelings on whether it should be ministry or cabinet? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the problem comes from the meaning of "ministry" as ministry (collective executive). The linked article says it's "usually preceded by the definite article, i.e., the ministry", but we don't do that in this template, so we're using it in a manner ambiguous with ministry (government department). The word "cabinet" is not ambiguous in this context, it refers to cabinet (government), and it matches the template title, so I really fail to see why we should prefer another term. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:37, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
JFTR I was reverting an edit for being "completely wrong" because its edit summary had said:
This template is only used on pages which are about “ministries” in the sense of governments, as opposed to cabinets. I am fixing wording to make this clearer, because they are not the same thing.
This change did not make this clearer, and indeed it eludes me why they chose the ambiguous term instead of the term they used themselves: "government". It is in turn ambiguous in American English usage, but there the matter is of expanded scope rather than entirely shifted scope. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia

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The article Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (PGDFY) uses this template as it's infobox. The issue I noticed was that if you're navigating using the flag navigation for the Former Countries infobox, it takes you to the PGDFY page, which does not have flag navigation in the infobox - you get stuck.

I see that flag navigation is not possible in this infobox. Should this template be continued to be used on the PGDFY page or should Infobox Former Country be used in it's place? Feel free to ping me when responding! --hmich176 10:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Hmich176: added previous and successor links. Frietjes (talk) 18:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Frietjes: - thank you much. I wasn't sure if that was proper or not for this template. --hmich176 03:49, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

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There is a move discussion in progress on Template talk:Infobox cabinet which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Assistance

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There is one fatal "flaw" with this infobox, which is that it does not allow for alternative names when displaying "70th cabinet of such and such". In many cases, our articles are not about cabinets, but about ministries or governments (Commonwealth sense) or councils of ministers. The template should be modified to allow for alternative terminology, otherwise it can be misleading. RGloucester — ☎ 02:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To follow up, I meant to say that I'd like to see a "cabinet_type" parameter drawn up, which would allow one to specify what should appear in that phrase. RGloucester — ☎ 03:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:RGloucester, added |cabinet_type=, but would be nice to have it documented. Frietjes (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
many which could be updated like this Frietjes (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this. It is a great improvement. RGloucester — ☎ 18:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New parliamentary majority parameter

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@Nub Cake: Does this new parameter not duplicate |legislature_status=? Also, how did you derive the 74 seat count here? It's 276 seats for an absolute majority; 312 − 275 = 37. Alakzi (talk) 18:23, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, I've checked a few pages that used this infobox and none of them seemed to give the majority. I calculated the majority as (312-(550-312)) = 312-238=74? Nub Cake (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You can express it in writing, e.g. |legislature_status=Absolute majority (X over threshold). What's that a calculation of? Are we not calculating the number of seats they hold over the absolute majority threshold? Alakzi (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the Majority article, or the 2015 UK general election article as an example, I think a majority is calculated by subtracting opposition members from government members. I.e., Government MPs minus not government MPs. Nub Cake (talk) 18:43, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so you're calculating the majority they hold over the remainder of the legislature. I suppose that makes more sense in this context. It should still rather be placed in a parenthesis inside |legislature_status=. Alakzi (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, fair enough. Nub Cake (talk) 18:55, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Restrict number of images to two

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I was surprised to find the infobox supports a column of four images, which probably isn't something we want in an infobox. Normally a single image should be enough, but for exceptional cases I'd be okay with a second one. Larger image galleries should not be part of the infobox but may be appended to the article text. I therefore propose adding tracking categories to find out whether the third and fourth image is used at all, and would then phase out the respective parameters. --PanchoS (talk) 10:13, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

President, Monarch, Prime Minister, Taoiseach, and Governor-General headings.

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Comparing the articles for Australian Prime Ministers and their governments, (eg. Scott Morrison and Morrison Ministry, where this template is used), there is a discrepancy in usage. There is a decades-long discussion in Australia over the identity of the head of state (see Australian head of state dispute, and the consensus solution has been to use titles where there is no dispute, such as "Sovereign" and "Governor-General". This complies with NPOV.

Briefly, the Australian situation is that the title of "head of state" is not defined in any Australian law, and the Governor-General, while nominally the Queen's representative was initially given significant powers in his own right and has accrued many more over the past century that were not given to the monarch. So the position is more than being an agent of the monarch, and in fact the original situation was that the Governor-General was the Australian representative of the British Government. Calling him the representative of the Queen was a polite way of putting it. With the Statute of Westminster, the then Dominions were seen as equal in status to the United Kingdom, with HM advised by dominion governments, rather than the British. High Commissioners were appointed to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and so on to represent the British government, filling the same role as ambassadors in non-Commonwealth nations.

With the passage of the Australia Act, the British government ceased to have any power over Australian affairs at all. The High Court determined in 1998 that the UK was now "a foreign power", and there have been various republican movements aimed at removing the monarch entirely from Australian government. The Queen is much admired and respected, but cannot possibly be seen as "one of us", which is a primary function of the role of head of state.

The United Nations diplomatically lists the Australian head of state as the Queen in brackets, above the name and title of the Governor-General. (see page three of this document.

I'd like to add "Monarch" and "Governor-General" to the template as titles, in order to bring usage for articles where this template is used into consensus line with other articles where NPOV titles are used. --Pete (talk) 01:44, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The monarch is Australia's head of state, not the governor-general. About 2 years ago, at an Rfc at WP:POLITICS (archive #17), the result was overwhelmingly in favor of showing the 'Monarch' as the Australian head of state. GoodDay (talk) 02:01, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If what you're proposing, is adopted for all 15 non-UK commonwealth realms, then that's acceptable. Otherwise, no. GoodDay (talk) 02:15, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I refer you to the Infobox Country template, as used in Canada, Australia, and other Commonwealth nations. The terms used under the "Government" heading are "Monarch", "Governor-General", and "Prime Minister", a consensus which has held for well over a decade (as per this version dated June 2007. If we look at Canada, we can go back even further, for example this version edited by yourself. I note multiple edits by yourself on both articles, and never a murmur about the titles used in the infobox.
This usage is, in fact, consistent over all 15 non-UK Commonwealth realms, such as Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the rest. --Pete (talk) 05:09, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly which type of articles are you proposing a change to? I thought you meant articles like 29th Canadian Ministry & Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand for example. GoodDay (talk) 09:13, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. Have to include "Governor General" (no hyphen) for Canadian articles. Shouldn't be too difficult to run through Commonwealth realm articles where the template is used. Good way for you to boost your edit stats with not a lot of work! --Pete (talk) 16:49, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at where the template is used, obviously it needs to be updated to include titles such as "President" and "Taoiseach" in (for example) Government of the 29th Dáil. Having "Head of state" and "Head of governemnt" for every nation bears all the marks of tackiness and expediency. Bring such articles in line with titles used in associated articles such as Republic of Ireland and Bertie Ahern. --Pete (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Accordingly I've modified the template in the sandbox to show titles rather than generic labels. Most of the variables were there already, such as the ability to show the monarch's title after their name. There's a little bit of fiddly new stuff in the deputy head of government heading, which can show a title if set, "Deputy" + head of government title, if set, and "Deputy head of government" if neither has been set. Feel; free to import fresh examples into the test cases; just remember to add "/sandbox" to the template name. Any bugs or features, let me know, or just do 'em yourself. --Pete (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looking over your testcases, I agree with your proposed changes (generic labels to titles) which brings these aforementioned articles' infoboxes in line with their respective sovereign state articles' infoboxes. PS - The German head of state is the President :) GoodDay (talk) 20:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

American English

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Is there any way to enable American English for this template. Per Talk:Cabinet_of_Joe_Biden#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_17_June_2021, it is odd to see "organisations" rather than "organizations" and terminology that Americans don't use, like "ministers", in the article about Joe Biden's cabinet. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:53, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've thought a little bit about how this could be added, and one option is using {{engvar}}. This requires we either add a |engvar= parameter to this template, which would be set to en-US in AmEng articles, or perhaps infer it automatically based on |jurisdiction=. The explicit parameter works and is clear, but is in theory not necessary if the jurisdiction can be reliably interpreted to determine the (default/likely) engvar. I think {{engvar}} will already support the |jurisdiction= values for the uses we are interested in, but I haven't tested it. — The Earwig (talk) 06:12, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done by inferring from |jurisdiction= after some testing showed it would work. — The Earwig (talk) 06:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Earwig, thanks! – Muboshgu (talk) 22:46, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on composition bars in the infoboxes of cabinet articles

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During late 2024 to early 2025, there has been a tendency from multiple users (mostly IP and/or recently-created accounts) to add composition bars to the "Status in legislature" field in the infoboxes of cabinet/government-related articles. This situation has resulted in a number of issues that need to be addressed. Researching on this matter, I have found hardly any discussion or substantial input on this issue, meaning there is no explicit consensus for this (in fact, composition bars seem to have been added either unilaterally or in good faith by people who actually thought this was a widely-accepted formatting). Due to this affecting a wide range of articles, I believe a RfC is the most straightforward way to proceed. Thus, the question put forward is: should we include composition bars on legislature status in the infoboxes of cabinet articles, Yes or No? If Yes, how should it be formatted? Impru20talk 09:08, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (RfC on composition bars in the infoboxes of cabinet articles)

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  • No; let's dive into the issues:
Firstly, composition bars for legislature status do not topically fit in articles that are not about legislatures; we typically have separate articles on the legislatures themselves (such as List of MPs elected in the 1997 United Kingdom general election, 14th Congress of Deputies, List of members of the 28th National Council of Austria, and so on), which are better suited to handle changes in particular parliamentary compositions, and which can also indicate which of those parties do support the government in question (either by being part of it or through confidence and supply). However, cabinet articles, while can (and usually do) revolve on the parties forming the government, are not suited to cover the specific numerical support they get from parliament, both because it risks bringing the article off-topic and because the government's parliament (direct) support may (and frequently does) vary through its tenure.
Secondly, on a related note, we have MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE stating that "The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article. Barring the specific exceptions listed below, an article should remain complete with its infobox ignored."). As of currently, these composition bars do supplant information in the articles, as these typically do not cover the parliamentary composition of the government (and they were never meant to in the first place). And, in those minor cases where this is shown (i.e. Cabinet of Petr Fiala, in this version of the article), the article's content does not even match the composition bar in the infobox, as several compositions are shown.
Thirdly, the addition of composition bars is misleading and prone to errors: as said, a government's parliamentary support does frequently vary. Take Third government of Pedro Sánchez, for example: the parliamentary numbers of the parties directly forming the government has gone from 152 upon formation, to 147 in December 2023, to 148 in February 2024 to 147 again from March 2024. This brings us a number of reasonable questions:
  • Which specific situation should we consider? Should we include all (thus basically turning the infobox into a compilation of composition bars) or just the latest one? If only the latest one, how do we justify than that composition is more descriptive of the cabinet's specific numerical strength in parliament than others?
  • What happens to parties providing confidence and supply support? Should we include them into the composition bars as well? Why yes or why not?
  • What happens to bicameral systems, should we include composition bars for both chambers or just one, and why?
And so on.
This situation means that the current setup being enforced by a limited number of users is (with due respect) a chaotic mess: Meloni government shows both chambers but does not disaggregate parties; many others do show only one chamber and disaggregate parties; First Johnson ministry includes a figure (317 MPs) that it never had; the infobox at Skvernelis Cabinet goes on into a complex setup (which could be vastly simplified) just to accommodate composition bars; Second Cabinet of Andrej Babiš goes as far as to have a composition bar for opposition parties; we have a composition bar for Goebbels cabinet as if this was somehow relevant there (lol); etc.
Finally, the very purpose of these composition bars: in some of the cabinet talk pages, some IP editors argued that these provided "useful information", without clarifying which information and how was it "useful", or addressing the aforementioned points, or explaining why this could not be done through the separate articles intended for actual parliamentary composition, etc.
Thus far, the motivation behind the inclusion of composition bars into the infoboxes of cabinet articles seems to based on mere decorative purposes, which Wikipedia's MOS do not favour (this is explicit for icons, as outlined in MOS:ICONDECORATION), without a thoughtful consideration of the issues arising from its use, formatting and application, which are many and hard to manage (most specially in a coherent and consistent way, since this would affect many articles involving cabinets across a wide number of countries).
For all of the above, my !vote is an outright No. Impru20talk 09:08, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no issue with the formatting in Cabinet of Petr Fiala. The data is accurate and matches what's in the article body. Tahomaru (talk) 09:55, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are two compositions listed in that article section as of currently: one adds up to 104, the other to 108. Only one is shown in the infobox, without any explanation given. A total for senators is also given, yet that is not shown in the infobox. Yeah, there are multiple issues in that article alone. Impru20talk 10:00, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but you're mixing apples and oranges. The 108 figure was the initial composition, after the Pirate Party left in 2024, it became 104, which is what the infobox shows. There is no error, it's just how governments evolve.
There's also little reason to include Senate strength in the infobox when the cabinet is appointed and supported by the lower house. Raising that as an issue is a red herring. The formatting reflects that appropriately, and the inclusion of Senate data in the article body is just another MOS:VAR. Tahomaru (talk) 10:08, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not mixing anything: I am bringing reasonable questions on this issue. The 108 was the initial composition, yes, so: you argue that the infobox should not include the initial composition (i.e. the one under which the government was elected) but yes to subsequent ones? Or just the latest one, even if such composition lasts, let's say, for two days? And you believe every casual reader will assume what that composition means, or its relevance, just by looking at it? This is within the core of the issue. Plus, none of your statements are something that cannot be solved by using the proper articles on legislature composition (which are factually better suited to address many of the raised points above).
"There's also little reason to include Senate strength in the infobox when the cabinet is appointed and supported by the lower house" Then why is that information included in the article you cite? I mean, you cannot argue that Cabinet of Petr Fiala is an example of how to conduct composition bar formatting, then complain on me for pointing out the existing inconsistencies. Those are within the article, they are not my fault. Do not shoot the messenger. Impru20talk 10:13, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again. You're conflating two separate issues. The inclusion of Senate data in the article body doesn't mean it belongs in the infobox. Pointing to unrelated content in the article to discredit the infobox is a distraction, not a formatting issue.
(I'll be posting a more precise formatting proposal shortly) Tahomaru (talk) 10:32, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1) The Senate data in that article is in the very same section from where the composition bar data is, allegedly, obtained; 2) My !vote (the one you were replying to) explicitly mentions the issue of bicameral systems and what to do with them.
This whole RfC is based on seeking an answer to the question of "what belongs in the infobox", so I cannot see how this is a "different issue" to the one we are discussing, really, other than you realizing that Cabinet of Petr Fiala does not serve the purpose of being a good formatting example (I guess you are now realizing the issues it has if you are now scheduled to post "a more precise formatting proposal shortly"). Impru20talk 10:41, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Czech Senate has no voice in govt formation/dissolution. I agree that to include it in the article body is a bit off so we can remove the senate seat count if it makes things better. Tahomaru (talk) 11:07, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, but it was you who argued than that article had no issues; I am glad that you have been convinced that it indeed does. Impru20talk 11:17, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Edit: Just for context: in this discussion we were discussing about this version of Cabinet of Petr Fiala; Tahomaru has subsequently edited the article in order to try to fix some of the issues I pointed out to them ([1]), though this is only an immediate fix to the existing inconsistencies on the article by removing the Senate part, not actually addressing one of the points raised in this RfC which revolves about whether to take bicameralism into account or not. Impru20talk 14:17, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional YES. The composition bar isn't a mere decoration. It's a clear, useful visual showing the government's strength in parliament. That's relevant in almost every parliamentary system, especially for readers unfamiliar with the political context.
I'm not saying it must be everywhere. But if the number of government party/coalition seats is mentioned in the article body (and properly sourced!), then the bar simply summarises it. That's not a MOS:IBP violation, it's a style variation (MOS:VAR). If the info isn't there, the bar shouldn't be either. But again, that's a style matter, not a reason to delete this element from every article.
It's also worth pointing out that this RfC comes after mass removals were already made. That's backwards and no different from IPs adding the bars without consensus... Big changes like this need discussion first so I'm glad the author eventually opened this RfC.
(Proposed formatting: Retain the current formatting but make sure a sourced seat count for the governing party or coalition, mentioned in both the article body, excluding confidence and supply. Keep it simple and consistent. It should be optional and used at editor discretion.)
Thank you for your input: you assert (with subsequent edits adding boldtext to emphasize the idea) that "It's a clear, useful visual showing the government's strength in parliament", but you fail to explain how is it useful, nor address any of the points I raised above. You claim that "if the number of government party/coalition seats is mentioned in the article body (and properly sourced!), then the bar simply summarises it", but 1) almost none of these articles does that (which is obvious, because that was never within their scope); 2) typically, the number of government party/coalition seats changes throughout the legislature, so we have multiple different compositions: which one(s) do we add and why? And so on.
On your comments on the "mass removals": you have only complained (even in my talk page) about my edits removing the composition bars (a move that was backed by other users in some of the pages and which your own comment does explicitly support by claiming that "if the info isn't there, the bar shouldn't be either", which is the case basically everywhere), but did not voice anything about the mass reverts conducted by another user (in some cases reinserting plainly wrong information or even reverting third uninvolved editors, i.e. this) in a bot-like manner. Unless you are willing to denounce mass edits conducted by everyone, I think your pointing out of some but not others is unfair.
Finally, you propose "Proposed formatting: Retain the current formatting" Ok, but which is the "current formatting"? We have multiple different formattings. This is a chaotic mess. Impru20talk 10:09, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I must confess, setting clear procedural rules isn’t really my strength but I do think that if we want a usable and consistent approach to composition bars in cabinet infoboxes, I have some basic common-sense points and I hope you will consider them.
  • The composition bar should be optional. It's a helpful visual, not something that needs to be in every article.
  • It should be sourced reflect the cabinet's current or most recent parliamentary strength.
  • For past cabinets... (I'm not sure. Could technically use initial or outgoing parliamentary strength but that's debatable and may be misused.)
  • If a cabinet started as a majority and later became a minority, it makes sense to show both bars, one bar for the initial composition and another for how it stands now, with a simple note like (since March 2025). (This became de facto practice)
  • If it's unclear how the seats break down, or if there's no reliable source in the article body, it's probably best to just leave the bar out...
Tahomaru (talk) 11:01, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, this seems like the best course of action. By no means should composition bars be mandatory inclusions. As for past cabinets, I feel like the "at dissolution" composition is all that's needed, maybe the initial composition could be useful as well, but in my opinion, that's only really necessary if the initial composition includes (a) different party(ies) to its composition at dissolution (as is the case with the Scholz cabinet). – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 11:15, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Answering to this proposal:
  1. Well, on this "optionality" we have a problem: GlowstoneUnknown has essentially enforced composition bars on every article in a bot-like manner, so the current setup does not reflect the opportunity of composition bars existing in cabinet articles (I mean, this is outrightly absurd). In none of these cases it has been explained how it's a "helpful visual": Glowstone has essentially assumed it is and has gone as far as to attempt to forcibly alter some articles' scope just to justify having the composition bars in, when that should definitely not be the course of action.
  2. So, if a cabinet spends 3 years with a given composition but then its composition changes by 1 or 30 MPs for the last couple of days of its tenure, would the "current or most recent parliamentary strength" accurately reflect the cabinet's legislative strength? The starting strength (the one under which the cabinet was elected) has no relevance? Etc.
  3. Glad to see you acknowledge this is a headache to determine.
  4. If a cabinet started as a majority and later became a minority, this is easily described by having both the majority government and minority government links (which is already done without any issue in many articles). I cannot see how adding the specific numbers adds anything to it, other than having a potential problem if these numbers do change within the majority and minority status.
  5. Basically point 3: you acknowledge this is quite problematic to enforce.
However I think there is (at the very least) an emerging consensus that adding composition bars in a general way as they are now is problematic and should be avoided, with a point to resolve being particular situations (which would have to be determined). Impru20talk 11:27, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"[What] if a cabinet spends 3 years with a given composition but then its composition changes by 1 or 30 MPs for the last couple of days of its tenure"
What if... what if a bomb drops on your head right now? :D
I get the point but honestly, these edge cases can be handled ad hoc. I hope we don't need to write formatting policy around the hypothetical one-seat shift on the final day of a government's term. Editors can use their judgement case by case. That's why I favour flexibility and sourcing over rigid rules. Tahomaru (talk) 11:40, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to reiterate that I'm more than fine with excluding comp bars from some articles. The ones I've added in the past were mostly a hobby and done with the intent to provide some consistency between pages (in particular the Lithuania ones, as there were some that had them and some that didn't). To your 2nd point: in cases where there's a drastic change in the number of seats (more than 1 or 2) at some point in the term, that's when I'd argue a second bar is necessary, as in the case with Støre Cabinet following the departure of the Centre Party. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 11:40, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A key difference is that it is unlikely that a bomb drops on my head right now, but the situation of cabinet member parties having changes in their parliamentary composition is quite frequent and affects a wide number of articles as of currently. So, an unforeseeable hypothesis versus an actual reality. Yes, these situations in which a government's exact parliamentary composition is stable for most of its tenure, then changes, does happen (sorry for pointing out Cabinet of Petr Fiala again, but that's one such situation...), so obviously we do have to account for it.
Editing as a hobby is good; it is bold, it is in good faith and it brings joy and purpose to our activity in Wikipedia. Doing mass-reverts across dozens of articles to well-explained edits without any meaningful reasoning other than it was to defend additions made "as a hobby and with the intent to provide some consistency" (which, evidence shows, have clearly failed to achieve so) is not so good, and one of the reasons we are discussing this here. Impru20talk 14:28, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I take your point that shifts in parliamentary composition are common and yes it's a real issue. But this line of argument also risks creating a situation where any attempt to include even a straightforward, sourced visual (like a composition bar) becomes impossible unless it's wrapped in procedural scaffolding and pre-cleared through exhaustive justification. That's not a compromise... that's a procedural trap...
If we're trying to build a usable and consistent approach, I'd suggest the bar (no pun intended) shouldn't be so high that even clearly sourced cases are treated as violations unless they follow a rigid formula we're ought to suggest. Otherwise, we end up discouraging editors from contributing at all, not because they've done something wrong, but because the standard has become functionally unreachable. Tahomaru (talk) 15:30, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I on my part do see so many shortcomings in the use of composition bars that I do not actually see them as helpful, not even as visual indicators, in cabinet articles (I, however, can see their use in legislature composition articles). We can maybe discuss some particular cases, but I think we all agree that, at the very least, the general rule should be to avoid using composition bars unless their use can be clearly and unequivocally justified.
I never mentioned sourcing as being a problem. You can obviously source all composition changes. But, while all content within Wikipedia must be sourced, not all content that can be sourced merits inclusion into Wikipedia. It is the number of composition changes, the conflict with the article's scope, their practicity, their random use (even for dictatorships or to depict opposition parties), their inconsistency, etc. that pose problems.
Not using composition bars in infoboxes is an "usable and consistent approach". Let's not pretend that it's not a valid option. These articles have survived for a long time without composition bars before someone added them "for hobby"; they can undoubtely survive unscathed without them. Impru20talk 16:12, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, composition bars are useful visual indicators of the different legislative situations of governing cabinets. In particular the inclusion of seat numbers and percentages concisely demonstrate the difference between a regular majority and a supermajority as well as the difference between a 49% minority that only needs a few extra members to provide supply and confidence (as is the case with Second May ministry) and small minority/sub-40% governments like Barnier government that are liable to collapse at any moment and are sometimes glorified caretaker governments. The WP:IBP argument better serves as a case for adding information to the article body than excluding it from the infobox. The MOS:DECORATION page lays out exceptions for elements that provide additional useful information on the article subject, serve as visual cues that aid the reader's comprehension, or improve navigation.
As for proposed formatting, I'm in favour of including a composition bar only of the domimant House/Chamber (except in cases of symmetrical bicameralism) and (within reason) a separate composition bar for any changes in parliament around the time of a major reshuffle of cabinet members or major departures of parties from the governing coalition. I am, however, willing to compromise on that front if necessary, to potentially include just a single bar of the legislature's status at dissolution if it's a previous government or the current composition if it's incumbent. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:58, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your input, which I will gladly answer to:
  1. The legislative situation of a governing cabinet is already described in the infobox (typically with a link), so having the exact numbers at any given time does not actually add anything. Factually speaking, the description of "majority", "minority", "coalition", etc. already covers that without the multiple issues arising from adding the composition bars. "Supermajorities" are not even a cabinet-related thing in many countries (only for legislative and/or constitutional reforms), but even when they do, you can solve that by having the proper link; the exact number gives no additional information, as a 51% or 57% majority or a 75% or 80% supermajority bears no relevance whatsoever to the cabinet's status.
  2. The difference you convey between a "49% minority that only needs a few extra members to provide supply and confidence" and "small minority/sub-40% governments" is quite subjective and not something that corresponds to the infobox to determine: the Second May ministry was quite unstable despite having a strong minority, whereas Bayrou government is proving quite durable despite commanding only 37% support. Once again, the exact numbers add nothing on a cabinet's particular situation. To the contrary, Second May ministry lists the cabinet commanding the support of 317 MPs, but this was only at the start of the term: the Conservative Party had a number of splits and defections during the cabinet's tenure that are not reflected in the infobox.
  3. Indeed, MOS:DECORATION provides room for exceptions: having something because you like it is not one such exception.
  4. Your proposed formatting essentially means randomly cluttering some of the cabinet infoboxes or cherry-picking compositions at your specific leisure, which I do not think is fair or clear and is something that will undoubtely lead to lots of confusion. Factually, the starting composition is more important than the final composition, as it's the one under which the government is elected. But subsequent compositions, if we argue that numbers do matter, are also relevant. You would have to add all of them for infoboxes to be consistent, but then that's not the purpose of these articles.
So far, this input does not address almost any of the points I raised (among them, particularly, on why cannot the specific numbers be left for the articles on legislature composition, which do exist and are more suited for this representation of information). Impru20talk 11:15, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • A little bit from column a/a little bit from column b (Summoned by bot): just to be difficult I'm not going to give you a yes or no answer. However I'll give some what is my experience. Recently here in Australia we had a federal election. Now given that I'm an editor with an interest in Australian politics, I have all of the major Australian political parties pages on my watchlist regardless of whether I edit them very often. Over the course of determining the outcome of the election, on some Australian political party pages I saw incremental edits to update composition bars for the amount of seats held by that party in the new parliament. When I've seen it I've immediately thought about whether composition bars should even be in the infobox for political parties, and to be honest I don't think they do. I think an infobox should not include the kitchen sink. On the other hand pages about 'xxxx year of y country parliament' could benefit from having such detail in the infobox. TarnishedPathtalk 12:25, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - I believe too much is put into the composition bar, in such a way that it has become decoration. The most basic information I would want from a visualisation which shows the legislature status, is whether it has a majority. But if it is a slim majority, that is hard to spot. Spotting how many seats individual parties have, is totally impossible. The other thing is that the status in the legislature doesn't change that often, but the exact majority/minority might change. This immediately clutters the infobox imo (see Schoof cabinet), or it is left out (see Third Rutte cabinet and Second Rutte cabinet). Setting aside the composition bar for a minute, it would be nice to clarify what information is recommended in the field legislature_status. Second Rutte cabinet for example, has five lines of different information. Dajasj (talk) 20:17, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The "legislature_status" field has been typically used to denote whether the cabinet is a majority or minority one (and if it is a coalition government or not), so it is typically only one line. If it changes throughout the parliamentary term, then additional lines are added to reflect these changes, but this hardly ever results in more than two or three lines in total for that field (unless there are many changes). The situation in Second Rutte cabinet is a weird one (and exemplifies one of the motives behind this RfC): you can clearly see that it would be easily solved with one line, as the cabinet was a majority coalition for the whole term, but it has been expanded to five lines just to acommodate the composition bar and to add some verbosity that someone thought would be decoratively nice, instead of simplifying. Impru20talk 11:01, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    These Dutch cabinet pages definitely excessive, listing the political composition in |legislature_status= (Centre to centre-right coalition government, bold mine). Unless there's something about the Netherlands' political system I'm unaware of, the political leaning of a cabinet is certainly not a status in the legislature, and so shouldn't be in that field or indeed in the infobox itself — that's information for the body, for the formation section, if at all. — Kawnhr (talk) 17:57, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Impru20, @Kawnhr, Yeah, the Dutch cabinet ibps are kind of the other extreme... definitely overkill. I'd say keep the composition bar optional, but only if it's properly sourced, supported by the article body and doesn’t break the visual flow of the infobox.
    Everything else, political alignment, verbose coalition labels, extra commentary, really doesn't belong in legislature_status. In my opinion it should just be:
    • Majority / Minority
    • (coalition) – if applicable
    ... Optionally! a clean, sourced composition bar
    Nothing else
    Also since we're discussing infoboxes. Have you seen Hitler cabinet...? Tahomaru (talk) 16:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Only the Dutch cabinet? Some Lithuanian cabinets have 16 lines when they could use as few as two. The main issue with keeping the composition bar optional is that it will mean what Kawnhr has said below: it's not going to be intuitively understood and editors unaware of the specific mechanics will think that optional = let's use it everywhere because I choose to activate that option (just as someone acknowledged doing "as a hobby"). Kawnhr has synthetized it quite nicely: "This is going to require vigilance to maintain, annoying a bunch of editors (both those who revert and those who make them in the first place), and for what? In the context of these pages (a list of cabinet ministers and possibly its formation and dissolution), this isn't a necessary level of detail."
    And yes, Hitler cabinet (or Goebbels cabinet) are outrightly absurd, and I'm quite surprised that some other user's (unjustified) reverts of my (justified) edits bringing some common sense there were not even discussed as problematic. Impru20talk 16:54, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll be honest, I came in thinking "optional bar" was a fair middle ground and I still think it has merit in theory, but in practice? You've made a solid case, and frankly, I hadn't thought through how messy this gets across dozens of articles.
    So, I concede. Let's drop the bars altogether. Lesson learnt on my part. Tahomaru (talk) 17:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That line was about dispute over the precise the seat count, but I agree that even optional use of the composition bar will invite slow-rolling edit wars. The restoration of the bar on Goebbels cabinet (which, full disclosure, I just removed again) is a great example. Not to call this one person out, but this is the most obvious case for no composition bar there can be (the Nazis were the sole legal party; of course they held all the seats; bar is not actually demonstrating anything that the text did not) and yet an editor still believed there needed to be a discussion and consensus found. Is this how it's going to go any time anyone objects to a composition bar? That sounds like a waste of everyone's time.
    I think if this can be sourced, or it's a useful visual aid for a parliamentary vote, it ought to be in the body. Cabinet of Petr Fiala#Party composition (to borrow an earlier example) breaks down the coalition support by party, and that's a perfectly goodplace to have a bar as a visual aid. I think that it's overkill for the infobox.
    On the topic of the Skvernelis Cabinet: I think the main thing here is that we also need to be smart about these lists, consolidating what we can. Instead of listing the member parties in four groups, for each 'phase' of the government's status, we can just say:

    Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union
    Social Democratic Party of Lithuania
    Electoral Action of Poles (2019–2020)
    Order and Justice (2019)

    Simple, concise, done in four lines instead of eighteen. The purpose of an infobox is to summarize the article; the details can be left to the body! — Kawnhr (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. The biggest problem here is what the proposer says: is the bar supposed to represent the government's seat count at formation, or their seat count currently? While we can work out an answer to that here and now, put that in the documentation, and all that… it's still not going to be intuitively understood, and you can bet that editors unaware of any consensus (which is to say: most of them) will see this bar, think "hey, that's not right, the government just won a by-election" and correct what they see as an oversight. This is going to require vigilance to maintain, annoying a bunch of editors (both those who revert and those who make them in the first place), and for what? In the context of these pages (a list of cabinet ministers and possibly its formation and dissolution), this isn't a necessary level of detail.
One editor above suggests that these bars provide helpful info to the reader by indicating the government's stability, but I disagree. For starters, there have been minorities that have proven surprisingly resilient, and conversely, majorities that have proven surprisingly unstable (indeed, in a coalition government, stability is generally not determined by seat count but by the relationship between the parties in government; the First Conte government had 55% of the seats but nevertheless fell in just over a year due to conflict within the coalition). But fundamentally, I don't like the idea that we should be leaving these little hints for the reader to catch; if a government is thought to be unstable, that's information for the prose, not something that should be left for the clever reader to intuit from a coloured bar. Finally, I'm not sure this is even in the scope of these pages, which are — as said — about the formation and membership of a particular cabinet, rather than its political decisions and actions. These pages generally aren't supposed to have commentary and interpretations like that. — Kawnhr (talk) 17:52, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but we should only include the amount of seats the governing coalition had at formation and at dissolution or the present moment, to solve the issue Impru20 and Kawnhr have stated. There is no need to detail every detail of who enters or leaves a political party in the infobox; such information is better served in tables within the prose. Additionally, the use of a multicoloured to indicate which political parties are a part of the coalition should be decided on a case-by-case basis. It often doesn't provide much information without seat counts for each party (which would belong in the prose) and also might introduce accessibility issues. -insert valid name here- (talk) 00:58, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The biggest shortcoming I see with this is basically what the previous !vote stated: that this is not going to be intuitively understood, even if you put that in the documentation, and would require a permanent vigilancy in order to be maintained. Then, this would risk leaving out situations where neither the amount of seats at formation nor at dissolution are representative of the coalition's strength during most of the government's tenure (because of early/late defections). Then, seat count is not very informative either (this is particularly true for coalitions in which the partners don't get along too well (such the aforementioned First Conte government); of minority governments that become divided by a single issue (such as the May ministry with Brexit); or of governments that rely too heavily on the confidence-and-supply of an outside, large partner (i.e. Kristersson cabinet)... you cannot represent all of that with a composition bar of the governing coalition's seats). This without including the aforementioned accessibility or even usefulness issues. Impru20talk 07:25, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]