This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox company. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I like to know the answers on a few things:
1. What does orgins mean?
2. What does genre mean?
3. What does division mean?
4. What does area served mean?
5. A company is a recreational and sports business, what is the right key code to use?
6. If one company acquires another company in the same business field, does that make it a subsidiary or a division?
Thanks for the help. Sundogs03:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Origins is how the company began. I wouldn't include this unless it was as a result of a merger or something that can be shortened to a few words.
I belive genre is only used for specific types of companies, like publishing companies that may only publish a specifiec genre
Area served is where the company has presence. Coca Cola is worldwide, while Whole Foods is only in the United States
There is no key code (I assume you are referring to "industry") You can put whatever you want. If you want it to link to a page, do it like a normal link.
Thanks for the information. One last question, do I have to use the exact template or Can I modify it to my needs? Sundogs22:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Custom made company profile
If I was to say that I am working on a template almost looking like this template. How do I make the custom made template different from the syntax part? I was wondering how to make certain field unviewable on the template and then viewable on another article? Sundogs01:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
As much as I have praise for the template, I have a problem showing net income losses on the template. How can I show net income losses? Would I just write the number in negative? --Sky Harbor17:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Ticker symbol
For publicly traded companies, please add the ticker symbol, and if you want to be complete, the identification of the exchange on which the company maintains its primary listing. patsw13:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Captions for logos
To better comply with WP:LOGO, I have added a caption to the template that seeks to clarify potential trademark issues. It seems to work when the logo attribute is used witht the template, but not with the deprecated company_logo. Would appreciate help. nadav (talk) 02:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I added a Boolean parameter called intl. Right now, it's connected to the Net income label, and changes it to Profit per a request from User:Ansett. The same code can be added to other places in the infobox to make other changes between the standard (US-centric) version and the "international" version:
Replace [[Net income|Profit]] with the text needed when intl = yes, and [[Net income]] with the text to use in all other circumstances.
I've checked several uses of the template, and the change doesn't seem to break existing implementations. I'm not a native speaker of Template, so any improvement to what I've done would be greatly appreciated. --Ssbohio16:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Defunct companies that have merged
Is there some way to add info on companies that have merged? For example, on the page Square Co., how would I mention that it merged into Enix, and became Square Enix in the infobox (as I feel this is very important info for a defunct company). JohnnyMrNinja00:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
It's already mentioned in the lead sentence, so that should be sufficient. The infobox is only meant as a summary, not standalone coverage of the article; basically, articles should be written in such a way that if the infoboxes were removed, no actual information would be lost from the pages. Obviously, since most of the content on the page won't fit in the infobox itself, and since most companies haven't gone through a merge as Square Co. have, it's not considered a necessary field to include. Regards, --DeLarge09:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
No text display of name
The "name" property is mandatory, but it's not always displayed. The use of a logo, with no text display of the company name (and no "alt" attribute), both breaks the hCardmicroformat and renders the page less accessible. I think recent edits by Jamcib are the culprit. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett
{{editprotected}} I would like to change the text for the locations parameter to read "Number of locations" or "No. of locations" as opposed to "# of Locations."
I was attempting to use this template and found a significant lack of, or significantly out of date, documentation. Would there be any opposition to me redesigning the /doc page to include updated syntax documentation (basically, moving the three documents in the above #Using the template section) so it's easier for editors to use? -- HuntsterT • @ • C02:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, well then, I'll get to it as soon as possible. I'll just say school and work must take priority, but hopefully it won't take too long. -- HuntsterT • @ • C01:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Predecessor companies
Is there a way to mention predecessor companies in the infobox? At the moment, the date of founding can be misleading if the history really goes back further through different companies. Have a look at 20th Century Fox. It says "founded 1935", but the Fox history goes back to 1913-1915, whcih I've now noted. It would be tidier to note that one of the predecessor companies was Fox Film (the other was 20th Century Pictures). Carcharoth11:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Okay, documentation is completely overhauled (nitpicks welcome!), and alongside this I've slightly modded the base code. If an admin could please copy from User:Huntster/Sandbox/4, I'd be quite appreciative. -- HuntsterT • @ • C11:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
One question/nitpick, since you asked...:) Does the logo space have to be cramped like it is now? Before the change, there was a more normal level of spacing between the lines and the logo, now the logo seems tightly sandwiched in between the name and type. Enigma354200223:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I did leave something out, thanks for noticing that. Admin, please add " padding:16px 0 16px 0;" to the "td" tag directly before {{{logo|}}} bit, or simply copy/paste from User:Huntster/Sandbox/4. Any more error reports? -- HuntsterT • @ • C00:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
{{editprotected}}
I hadn't noticed that Mets501 made an additional fix to the template when he copied it from my Userspace the first time around. Thus, MZMcBride's copy/paste didn't have that fix applied. If one more copy from User:Huntster/Sandbox/4 could be made, I think we'll have this straightened out. -- HuntsterT • @ • C22:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for updating the documentation. I'm no longer contributing to Wikipedia in any significant capacity, so I'm thankful that others are investing themselves in the project. Adraeus10:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
"Revenue"
I know the non-US-terminology thing has been discussed before, and I accept that it might just be quite complicated to have separate infoboxes for each country... but it really does look terribly out of place to see "Revenue" on an article like W H Smith. Here in the UK, while I have no idea what happens in the City of London, in general parlance "turnover" is what we use. We simply do not use "revenue" in the way it's used in the Infobox. 86.132.138.20501:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Template Popularity
This template is currently used on the English-language Wikipedia in 11,044 articles excluding all links from outside the Main namespace. Congratulations, everyone! I believe that makes this template, created on 20 November 2004, one of the most widely used content templates on the English-language Wikipedia. Adraeus11:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I saw user pages using the template and removed it with a long edit summary explaining that the template is not meant to be used in the user space. The same user also assigned himself to main space categories (reference to a category without the ":" before "Category:xxx". What is the proper way of dealing with this, if you come across this. For the template, isn't possible to have a bot sweep the user space to remove any "Infobox xxx" template? --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 23:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
All that needs to be done is to add a request to WP:BOTREQ. If there is a bot capable of doing this, this is the best place to go I believe. This would be good for periodic sweeping, but a start could be made by using AWB and filtering out non-Userspace pages. -- HuntsterT • @ • C03:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
It will allow to display the flag of the country if this parameter is specified and if flag=yes. 16@r18:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see that this is a useful change - we don't need to put a flag on everything. If you would like more comments, you could ask at the village pump. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to put a flag on everything. I just notice some articles infobox have a flag (Sony, Yamaha, etc.) and so we could improve the code by providing a way to automatically add a flag on the infobox if there is a consensus about it. 16@r11:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Since the previous comment, I looked at WP:FLAG, which explicitly discourages this sort of thing. I think this needs to be put forward at WP:VPR or a similar forum before being implemented. The more likely outcome is that the flags in the company articles linked about should be removed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree this may need discussion but as for WP:FLAG I didn't find which specific line discourage the use of flag in a company infobox. Please give a quote. 16@r09:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't agree with those policies either. Logos and other official media (e.g., press kit photos) are intended to be distributed at-will. *sigh* The proactive censoring of content on Wikipedia is completely ridiculous. YouTube doesn't even do that. If the logos you upload are deleted for some equally ridiculous reason, just remember: not having that content available devalues Wikipedia, and that devaluation is Wikipedia's fault, not yours. Adraeus11:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation! But yeah, Wikipedia is way way way more strict about copyright than something like youtube. lol, or would it be more accurate to say that sites like youtube are a blatant and systematic violation of copyright while we aren't. -Theanphibian(talk • contribs)12:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
No copyright law requires that Wikipedia be tediously bureaucratic. All that Wikipedia has to do is use a big, fat disclaimer a la YouTube. See this and this. Adraeus03:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia commons rocks my socks. You can use an image on the commons for articles in as many languages as you want. That said, it makes the already complicated media uploading process a little more complicated. Flickr + the Commons = teh winz for building articles. -Theanphibian(talk • contribs)12:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
So long as you can include a fair-use rationale and license for the image, and no free version can or does exist, using non-free images is acceptable to a degree. However, you cannot include them on Commons, as only free license images are accepted. Remember though that Wikipedia is supposed to be "The Free Encyclopedia", so it makes sense that non-free material is discouraged. For the same reason, we strongly discourage links to non-free content on YouTube...I see folk all the time trying to use illegal copyrighted material as a reference. Yes, it is complex, but there is a reason behind it all. -- HuntsterT • @ • C17:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Another question
Do you have to write a fair-use rationale for every non free logo used? As I look at all major company articles, I don't see that any of the logos include them. Admitably, this doesn't make sense to me, but that's how I'll do them until I'm convinced otherwise.
Best to just follow all those damn rules if you really, really want the content you upload to stay online... I don't bother re-uploading assets when they're deleted. Adraeus01:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Fair-use policy states that a fair-use rationale must be included for every article that the object is used on. In other words, if you cannot strongly justify its existance on the page, it should not be there, period. Just because some images do not include those rationales does not mean that this is acceptable behaviour...it just means they haven't been detected or tagged yet (this is the same principle as "Just because it is done one way, this doesn't make it right"). Yes, there are a lot of rules, but my take is that Wikimedia would not have them in place if there wasn't a darn good reason for it. Perhaps it relates to fair-use laws? Irregardless, we are told to do it, so we do it. -- HuntsterT • @ • C03:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I was just about to ask what was wrong with the image page, but I see someone stepped in and fixed it up overnight. Just remember, using that as a basis (plus {{Information}}, which organises data) you can apply fixes to any image that is currently without. Remember that the four necessary components are "Author", "Source", "License" and "Rationale". -- HuntsterT • @ • C14:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering, Hoovers has five categories for financial information for publicly traded companies, yet the box only includes three of them: revenue, operating and total net income. Would it be possible to have the other two be added to the infobox template? They are for gross profit and diluted EPS (net income).
An example can be found here (I used Burger King as an example) and a definition of these terms is here
I feel this is a bit excessive for the infobox...it's fine for companies with two, three, four locations, but what about those that have tens of locations? It would be inappropriate to allow locations for one company but exclude them for another due to having a large number. I'd avoid this one. -- HuntsterT • @ • C14:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Apologies if this has been discussed somewhere else, but I wanted to talk about what foundation date should be listed in the infobox. I think a standard should be established & noted in the instructions. While this may seem straightforward in most cases, when the company changes owners, changes names, merges with another or liquidates and the remaining properties are acquired the answer is not so clear.
1860 is the year that S&P "traces it's history back to" as the date one of the founders published their first statistics book
1906 is the year that one of the companies that would become S&P was founded
1941 is the year that S&P was formed by merger
So which date do we use? My personal preference has always been the date the entity the article is about was first formed (so in the case of S&P this would be 1941). The other dates can be noted in the article under a Corporate History section. Other benefits of using that date include:
If prior entities are notable enough for their own article then the dates between articles will "flow" correctly (we could even do something like with a band's discography in the artist infobox, where previous & newer entities are displayed)
Establishing a standard will mean the infobox data is consistent, regardless of what each company calls their foundation date.
It seems logical enough that the date used would be the date that the current company came into existence. There seems to be plenty of examples of previous incarnations having their own articles (BellSouth Telecommunications seems to be a good example, and it uses the date of the merge between Southern Bell and South Central Bell as the founding date). Setting a standard would be a good idea...getting the community to use that standard is another issue :) — Huntster (t • @ • c)06:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems logical to me as well to use the date associated with the topic entity. Something to consider is the impact of knowing the foundation date. Yes, it is a 'milestone' that is encyclopedic. One use of the information is to place the company in a historical context, to be able to (across multiple articles) build a composite view of (for instance) 1941. In that case, the 1941 value in the example is a bit misleading, because in reality actors doing the business of S&P were working prior to 1941, just under a different organizational banner. Therefore, it would be prudent to add a post-script note such as [[#Corporate history|see history]] in those cases where the foundation date might be misleading with respect to the impact of 'persons acting in concert' prior to the stated foundation date ('persons acting in concert' could be a synonym for 'organization' in many cases). A suggested phrasing of an addendum to the instruction (this would be a line below the 'example' line): "Note: For companies that have undergone splits and mergers, clarification by cross-reference to a Company History section may be needed." (next line) "Examples: see S&P and {another one}". The "S&P" and "another one" would be permalinks to versions that reflect current consensus as to how to treat this, which would provide flexibility in exemplifying the field content. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Edit request
This template inserts unwanted vertical whitespace. This should be fixed by putting the <noinclude> directly after the </includeonly>, without intervening newline. – gpvos(talk) 11:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I have a fresh install of mediawiki and would like to use this template.
But it will not work ... I have not been able to find (other that basic definitions) what extensions
I need to allow the microformatting for this to work on my wiki.
Can someone tell me what extensions I need to get this to work? WoodBASE (talk) 19:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Tighten relationship with Infobox Defunct Company
I'd like to suggest that {{Infobox Defunct Company}} be kept in sync with {{Infobox Company}}. For example, type, one of the required company fields, is missing from {{Infobox Defunct Company}}. That specific example would be easy to add (even without logging in) but perhaps someone familiar with the syntax of intricate templates could come up with a core set of fields that all company-derived templates could share.
It's getting to the point where many companies have registered, recognizable sound trademarks that are used as logos in radio, television, and other audio formats. For example: NBC, AT&T, Intel, Southwest Airlines, Tivo, Aamco, and many others:
Considering these sound trademarks are used as audible logos in non-visual mediums, tied with the company, and available online - and no other reference exists on Wikipedia, I propose that the template be modified in a way to allow the standard playback box. A proposed example:
(non-free image removed per WP:NFCC#9)
With a requirement that the sound trademark be made available as an ogg file and marked as copyrighted work used for illustration - much in the same way corporate graphic logos are now classed. See information for above example. Lexlex (talk) 23:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
If we are already allowing fair-use logos, can we really justify fair-use sounds under the guidelines? We are supposed to be restricting use to bare minimums, not expanding it. — Huntster (t • @ • c)02:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't classify this as an "expansion" of existing logos, more a classification of another type of logo that hitherto had not been presented here. What other encyclopedia would have this information? I'm, not aware of any. The only database of such a thing is the U.S. patent office, and that doesn't cover logo use in other countries or for non-US companies. I really see a need here. Lexlex (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
My two cents - I don't think that the infobox should be modified to accommodate these. It makes more sense to me to incorporate sound trademarks, where notable, into the article somewhere, most likely in a section that talks about it's creation, use, notability etc. This seems to be how music samples are incorporated into artist articles. - Richc80 (talk) 04:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Change indicators for revenue and income -- commonly misused?
In an admittedly casual search of pages using this infobox, what I saw seemed to indicate the change indicators are not well understood by editors, and probably are confusing to the typical reader as well. The most common misreading was using the arrows as sign indicators rather than year-over-year change indicators, so that positive income was always accompanied by an "up" arrow. The similar belief seemed to be that the revenue field should either not have an indicator, or that it should always be "up", since any company reporting results will have a positive amount of cash coming in... .
As a related question: is there a convention for negative results? If a company reports a net loss, should that be reported with a negative number or parentheses? Should "loss" be added somewhere to make it even clearer?
Does anyone else see these as problems? If so, are the remedies in better documentation, or would changes of some kind to the template itself help?
Perhaps example of common situations would help:
Profit, higher than the previous year's profit (positive number, increase indicator)
Profit, but less than the previous year (positive / decrease)
Loss, more than the previous year's (negative / decrease)
Loss, narrower than the previous year's (negative, increase)
Profit in line with previous year (positive / steady)
Loss in line with previous year (negative / steady )
I've been watching a number of companies' pages and have come to the conclusion that the "slogan" line in this infobox is doing more harm than good. Problems include:
The slogan changes very frequently, making it difficult to keep current.
The slogan is advertising copy, not a substantive statement about the company, it's capabilities, history or mission. Advertising copy doesn't really fit with the purpose of an encyclopedia article.
While the slogan of a company may, in some rare circumstances, be stable enough and notable enough to earn a mention in an encyclopedia article about the company, I no longer think that discussion belongs in the infobox. Where it does, it should be added in as the exception, not the rule. Rossami(talk)13:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed with removal. Infoboxes should, in my opinion, present mostly static information about the topic. If inclusion is truly desired, perhaps a "free_label" field could be included for such purposes? — Huntster (t • @ • c)19:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, I don't see a problem with having a field for it in the infobox, it is optional after all. Can you provide a couple of examples of slogans that change "very frequently"? Due to the fact that it is typically incorporated into marketing materials, letterhead etc., I don't see how it could change more than say once a year, which from an update perspective would put it on par with a company's financial information. Richc80 (talk) 04:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Capgemini, for one, has changed every few months. And no, it's not incorporated into major marketing materials or letterhead. That would be their tagline under their logo. The slogan only shows up on their website - so it's very easy for them to change. Rossami(talk)12:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah I see, I'm confusing my terminology again. :-) Thanks for the clarification. In that case I guess I am OK with removing the slogan field so long as there is still a tagline field. Richc80 (talk) 13:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I remember the slogan being removed by popular choice shortly after I created the infobox. Then someone added the slogan back without approval. Then someone protected the infobox from further edits. *sigh* Adraeus (talk) 06:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
So who understands the code well enough to take it out? Rossami(talk)
The slogan was added back again today. Lets revert it and invite the editor here to discuss it. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
This makes the text in the second column left-aligned, and avoids strange results like this one from Rabobank.
Notice the large space between drs. and Hubert, and again between Maximilianus and Govert. My personal opinion is that left-aligned text looks better than right-justified text in a column as narrow as the one in this infobox. Shall I make the same change here?
To be perfectly honest, there is zero visual difference between the two boxes in both Firefox 3 and IE 7 for me. What browser are you using? — Huntster (t • @ • c)19:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Both are the same. The "text-align" value needs to be set to "justify" to justify the text; the field is currently empty, defaulting to text-align: left;. Both boxes are the exact same thing. GaryKing (talk)19:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I am also using Firefox 3, in a couple of different OSes (Mac OS X and Linux). I assumed the "text-align:justify" attribute comes from the underlying stylesheet, as most text on Wikipedia is always justified for me. I use the default monobook.css, and the two boxes look quite different to me. Puzzling :) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 22:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Very puzzling indeed, as I too use the default monobook.css, albeit with some additional material that doesn't affect such styling. Nothing is justified (and though I like justified text in most circumstances, I don't think I'd like it here!). — Huntster (t • @ • c)23:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Got it. There is a setting in Special:Preferences called "Justify Paragraphs". If I untick that, everything is golden. I don't remember setting it, but the old memory ain't what it used to be. Thanks for persuading me it was 'just me' - you were right. Move along now, nothing to see here. (No need to undo my change to Infobox Co-operative, as that switched to {{Infobox}} today, which, by the way, has text-align:left built in to override the user preference.) --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk)
{{editprotect}}
Can gross profit be added? It is fairly important in the financial sectors as to how well the company manages its assets in generating its net income. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 16:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
There are issues with such data going out of date quickly, particularly if companies produce quarterly results. It would add a considerable maintenance burden, probably to WikiProject Companies - perhaps consider asking them whether they think it's a good idea? Happy‑melon16:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Quite reasonable in concept. I have not looked at the details, but this shouldn't present any difficulties. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:58, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
I think we should readd the slogan to the infobox. It is notable to the company, and the company's image. Many companies say there slogan on their tv comercials, such as Best Buy ("turn on the fun") and Wal Mart ("Always" and "always low prices, always"). As for Rossami comment earlier in the page that companies change their logos frequently, that is not true at all. Most companies don't change them very often. That is why this is not a book encyclopedia, and can be edited in a second to update company slogans! Ctjf83Talk04:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I think you can assume that the rest of us are happy with the previous agreement. For those companies that have slogans that last more than a year or two, you can discuss them in the body of the article. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:28, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
generates an ADR (subset of hCard) microformat> However, class="adr" is applied, even if the data is entered using {{location}}. This is invalid; as ADR MUST have at least one child class. While it is always preferable for data to be entered in a more granular form, using {{location_city}} & {{location_country}}, where the combined alternative is used, {{location}} should be wrapped in <span class="label>, and class="adr" should not be used. Can anyone provide the correct code to achieve this, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy Mabbett; Andy Mabbett's contributions14:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. A further refinement would be, if the "location" value is set, to use a class of label. I think the mark-up should be | class10 = {{#if:{{{location|}}}|label|adr}}. Is that correct? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits21:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
The foundation date can now be entered using {{Start date}} for compatibility with the Infobox's hCardmicroformat, rendering the Note property on that field redundant, so please change:
{{editprotected}}
The current sandbox cotains an implementation of this template which uses {{infobox}} as a master. There have been minor formatting changes, but the main goal here is to make the template code much easier to read and maintain in future. Should be a drop-in replacement. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk10:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I've made some edits to the included hCardmicroformat; nothing else has changed, and I'm happy to discuss them in detail if anyone has concerns. Your change would render my request, above redundant, so I'll withdraw it.
Okay, so is the whole of the sandbox ready to go live, and if so, will there be any documentation changes to be made? — Huntster (t • @ • c)04:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Done. Also be sure to clear out the test cases page when you have wrapped up so it doesn't get included in project categories. — Huntster (t • @ • c)12:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
