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.
BTW, it would also create some ambiguity, as there are companies with multiple business directions, with each of them having separate set of competitors. Think of Microsoft for that matter. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 12:44, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Some companies outside English-speaking countries normally have two names: the primary name in local language and the secondary one in English. I suggest adding |native name= to this template to decouple native name from the English one. Should this suggestion gain acceptance, I'll prepare a diff. See above for diff and showcase. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:39, 1 August 2012 (UTC) updated 13:12, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
My initial idea was to first gain consensus on the principle of change, as there are many possible implementations: both names in infobox's caption, a separate infobox entry for local name or probably some other possibility I didn't think over yet. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 12:42, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I support what you are doing. However, please see KLM and re-consider side by side vs. a stacked layout. I don't like the idea of long company names like KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.) word wrapping. I would prefer that each company name start on its own line - a more clear delineation of where each entry starts. I think that enclosing the foreign/native name in parentheses makes sense - we do the same thing in the lede. The solution we use now (list them both with a line break in between) works fine, but I support improved coding that will handle this situation in a more straightforward way. The more obvious and easy we can make it for people, the better and I think your proposal will make it easier on everyone, especially newbies. FWIW, I don't understand why a native name might merit its own infobox - I suggest that you are looking at a simple modification of the exising infobox.71.212.66.226 (talk) 06:34, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it is a good idea to insert break between two names.
Compare:
ABC soft and nice toys group (Группа АБЦ мягкие и милые игрушки)
A couple of things struck me over the last day. Firstly there is a special box for Chinese names (examples can be seen in use at Foxconn and ZTE below the company infoboxes.
Secondly, there is often more than one way of showing the native name. For example Korean names can be shown in Hangul and Hanja (per Samsung). Japanese names are often shown both in Japanese script and romanised. Thoughts?Rangoon11 (talk) 15:10, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I think this problem should be solved by using other templates (specifically multilingual support templates, {{korean}}, etc). If absolutely desired, several |native_languageN= and |native_nameN= pairs can be added to infobox (to be rendered in comma-separated list within the "Native name" field), but these will certainly be abused by listing full and short variants of both English and non-English names. Regarding the special box for Chinese names: implementing this functionality in infobox would make it unnecessarily complex, which I tried to avoid by all means. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:54, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
I think you're right that trying to achieve the functionality of the Chinese template within the infobox would be a mistake. However when that template is used it will be necessary for the Native name field not to be filled in order to avoid duplication.
Perhaps we should have a single romanised name field however to cover the many Japanese companies where this is included.
OK, then probably we should have (from top of infobox down) |trading_name=, |native_name= and |romanised_name= (Japanese romanisation, transliteration of Cyrillic names, etc).
Just for clarification: could this field also to be used in case if the company has a long name but is known by the shorter version? E.g. Petróleo Brasileiro and Petrobras, Petroliam Nasional Berhad and Petronas, N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie and Gasunie, or Petróleos Mexicanos and Pemex. Beagel (talk) 18:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Certainly it is a common name. I asked clarification as both forms of the name are native names and there is no geographical division how these names are used, so it is little bit different from the above examples. But it is also my understanding that this new field applies also to these cases. Maybe somebody could add some guidelines about this field to the template's documentation? Beagel (talk) 19:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to this, but I'm not sure the xml metadata clutter (<span class="nickname" {{#if:{{{native_name_lang|}}}| lang="{{{native_name_lang}}}" xml:lang="{{{native_name_lang}}}"}}>{{{native_name}}}</span>) is really needed. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Documentation
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Please add <noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude> to the bottom of the template. I'm pretty sure nobody would argue that documentation (which already exists) should be shown, so this edit is absolutely non-controversial. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Again, for the same reason that we have coordinates in other organisational infoboxes: to allow readers to locate the subject, or find related information, on a mapping service of their choosing; so that the article will appear on the Wikipedia layers of services like Google Maps and Layar, and in our own mobile app; so that people can scrape and map coordinates from groups (such as, say, categories) of articles; and so that the coordinates are available as metadata about the article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits19:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree that articles on companies that operate from a single specific primary location -- famous single-location shops, breweries, shipyards, etc. -- could usefully use coordinates However, I worry that people will geocode other companies, particularly large companies, inappropriately by giving the location of their headquarters, something that makes no sense at all, as it would completely misrepresent the geographic scope of their activities. If we are to add coordinates to this infobox, we would need to think about how to prevent this sort of function creep. -- The Anome (talk) 00:02, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I see nothing in the documentation of this template to support that contention; it simply says "This template is used to create an infobox in an article about a company". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits12:14, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
You might notice the lack of image in the infobox. Editors choosing a template for a business with particular place would (and do) choose among options that suit better their intent. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Further to my comments above: subject to having a well-documented policy about what coordinates are acceptable, I think this is a clear-cut case for inclusion. Mark me down as being in support of the proposal for adding coordinates. -- The Anome (talk) 16:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
In any case, I don't think this metadata is particularly useful for distributed entities like (most) companies. --John (talk) 12:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Do it, as obviously appropriate. Every photo you take gets geolocation tagged to it. Articles on companies are no exception to this. Welcome to the information age. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 12:28, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Oppose: this particular infobox is used for the kind of organizations which can't be attributed to particular location, and its use for other kinds of businesses shouldn't be promoted. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Oppose as potentially confusing. In a lot of cases the registration address and physical address are not the same. Also, quite often the company may have several headquarters, not talking about a several locations of businesses. Also, the above-mentioned example of shops, breweries and shipyards as in the first place, they are buildings and structures and have more appropriate infoboxes as already mentioned by Dmitrij D. Czarkoff. Without having a proper documentation about usage of coordinates in this infobox, I don't see the way to support this proposal. Beagel (talk) 16:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Lets have the documentation prepared before making that kind of proposals. There is no clear picture how to avoid misuse of this field and this field seems at the moment totally unnecessary, and even worse, confusing. Beagel (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
That is not OK. We should keep things sorted, and not drop everything possible into each template. Each infobox field has a price, and in this particular case I see no single article which both (1) uses this infobox appropriately and (2) needs coordinates. Consequently, this option may not be used the right way, it may only be abused. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 20:38, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
See my below comment. *Everything* is getting tagged with geolocation information; get a recent digital camera, for example. Companies should obviously be geolocation tagged and infoboxes are the appropriace home for this feature. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I particularly disagree with the connotation that geolocation tagging is a good thing in all cases. I see neither obvious nor hidden benefits in geocoding Vodafone (whatever code is chosen) or Microsoft or whatever other company that is not tied in any obvious way to its location. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Oppose- most companies of any size (which means most companies notable for a WP page) have more than one location and placing the coordinates for the HQ in the infobox is meaningless and misleading. If there is an issue with the use of coordinates for other functions when dealing with single site companies then this should be dealt with in some other way. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes we know that there are examples of single site companies, however this is not the best approach for dealing with them. What's wrong with simply placing the coordinates outside the infobox in the top right hand corner?Rangoon11 (talk) 17:01, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Infoboxes summarise key data about the subject, which appears elsewhere in the article; for the benefit of our readers and as emitted metadata. That includes coordinates, on hundreds of thousands of articles. This is the best approach for single-site companies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits20:09, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Doubtful but it's certainly not the right approach for a company template used primarily for companies which are multi-site. Such a field will invite misuse and require constant policing. Not the right solution. Rangoon11 (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Think, more. This isn't {{Infobox Multinational corporation}}. Most companies are small, single site entities. Many will not warrant articles but the number of small company article will always dwarf the huge ones. That what this is about. And I've no issue with this being used for the main offices of multi site companies. Br'er Rabbit (talk)
I have thought about it, thanks. Most companies might be small and single site but they are invariably non-notable for a WP article. The majority of companies with a WP article are multi site. You may not have an issue with such a field being used for the main location/office/facility of multi-site companies (which is in any case highly subjective, not necessarily the HQ, meaningless for large companies, and many companies have a separate registered office in another location to their HQ) but I do. This is an attempt to push a one size fits all solution for the benefit of a relatively small number of articles and to the detriment of a large number of very high profile articles.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:20, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually it is consistent. Infoboxes should include the most critical information, and in 99% cases geolocation is not appropriate there. The rest of cases (aforementioned shipyards, shops, etc.) should enjoy appropriate templates. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:37, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Retail companies are not buildings. A company founded in 2001 may occupy a building constructed in 1875; a company founded in 1875 may move to building constructed in 2001. Or it may occupy a part of a larger building or two or more adjacent buildings. That's really not a satisfactory, or even adequate, solution. As noted above, there is nothing to say that this infobox is "headed towards businesses with no geographic ties", and its use suggests otherwise. Indeed, if we had {{Infobox small company}}, it would likely be merged with this one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits22:36, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, that's a really remarkable assertion, unsupported by any Wikipedia policy or by current and common practice but irrelevant here, because I didn't ask about a "company whose notability isn't strongly connected with its location" and many companies of the type to which I referred are are notably connected with their location Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits23:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Hi all. There are a number of eminent websites which do not have their Alexa rank included in the infobox, as the pages use {{Infobox company}} instead of {{Infobox website}} - and in most cases I'd say correctly. The problem is, some sites in the top-visited-in-the-world therefore don't have this fact noted in the infobox. It would be nice if this was included! (E.g., Sina.com is Rank 15 and Yandex is Rank 23) Nikthestoned11:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Strongest possible oppose: companies are not ranked by Alexa, only websites are. If the article is about company, it has nothing to deal with Alexa rank. If the article is about website/service it has nothing to deal with {{infobox company}}. See Google and Google Search as examples of what should be done. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Lol - was just a suggestion, an oppose would have done... Per the examples above though, which are certainly about websites yet the "company" information in the infobox is also useful, I'd say this isn't as clear cut as you make it. Nikthestoned11:58, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually it is as clear cut as I put it. Companies and their products are completely different topics, and for the purpose of encyclopedic coverage the article about company may include a brief list of its products (though list of its business directions is preferable in 99% of cases), while an article about service might include some company background at the very bottom and out of infobox (and this is rarely appropriate still). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 15:57, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
I propose adding a "Joint ventures" field to the template, to go below "Subsidiaries". At present notable joint ventures are either being put incorrectly into the "subsidiaries" field, or not being included. Joint ventures are often of considerable importance to a company, even constituting the majority of the company's activites (e.g. some of the big China-based car companies).Rangoon11 (talk) 00:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
RfC: reintroduce slogan parameter
The {{infobox company}} once featured the |slogan= parameter. The discussion above seems to be generally in favor of including long-standing slogans for companies, though concerns over possible misuse of |slogan= also expressed.
The proposal to comment on is:
Reintroduce the |slogan= parameter into {{infobox company}}.
Example infobox and summary of Pros and Cons from previous discussion.
The long-standing slogans are appropriate for infobox, as they are the essential elements of branding alongside logos and trading names.
The |slogan= would introduce the proper way to include slogans when approprriate.
Cons:
Most companies change slogans too frequently; in such cases the slogans would serve more promotional then encyclopedic purposes.
The legitimate (and illegitimate for that matter) slogans can readily be included within |caption= parameter.
Note: the example infobox (on the right) is intentionally promotional to remind of a threat the promotional slogans impose. Keep it in mind when answering.
Support: the slogan should be listed in the infobox, as (1) it may indeed be the essential part of company's branding, and (2) as noted above, |caption= is already here, ready for abuse, so providing no |slogan= won't help with fighting spam. The inappropriateness of listing short-lived slogans should be specifically noted in template's documentation. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 07:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Oppose per arguments provided at the previous discussion above. With some few exemptions (e.g. Nike), company slogans are not encyclopaedic but purely promotional. They may a part of company's branding, but Wikipedia is not a branding tool but encyclopaedia. If the slogan is encyclopaedic, et may be just added in the body text. Notwithstanding what kind of guidelines we are adding in the template's documentation, the |slogan= in the template is an open invitation for corporate spamming. As it was shown by the company's articles in general, there is not enough capacity to fight a corporate spam in all company articles. One additional argument is that we should avoid overloading the template with a number of field and keep it as short and simple as possible. Beagel (talk) 18:27, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Inviting the display of a branding slogan will contribute to the commercialization of the project without offering useful information for the reader (who can go to the business' web site for all the promotional information they desire). If necessary, we can add cautions against abuse of |caption=. Jojalozzo18:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Discussion
I just received a random rfcbot invitation. Rather than !vote right away, I'd like to test my ideas and initial reaction here:
A non-notable, slogan-of-the-moment doesn't merit mention anywhere in the article.
A notable slogan like Nike's deserves more than display in an infobox.
Putting a slogan in the infobox
draws undue, promotional attention to it
makes the company infobox look just like a web advertisement instead of almost like one
establishes Wikipedia's company infobox as a place to advertise a business
Agree with your points, and note as well that many companies have had multiple slogans, the current one of which might not be the most notable - indeed, there may be cases where the current slogan is not notable at all, but for one reason or another a past slogan has entered cultural literacy. I oppose inclusion of a slogan in the Infobox. KillerChihuahua?!?21:48, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Support: the slogan parameter should be added, but not how Czarkoff suggested. I think the company name should be moved inside the infobox and the slogan should be added underneath the logo like the motto parameter in the university infobox. Also, I think a color parameter should be added because a lot of companies use a colour as part of their identities (some are even trademarked), such as: AT&T, Cadbury, The Coca-Cola Company, and McDonald's Corporation.
It appears it already exists at [1] (check the cross-wikis) As to developing it further, you may have to take it to the talk page on the Tamil Wiki.Cander0000 (talk) 07:25, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Add telephone number field
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Please add a |telephone=... field for telephone numbers. I just spent three hours on the phone with a corporate behemoth and didn't get any satisfaction from their so-called customer service until I called the phone number on the first page of their latest Securities and Exchange CommissionForm 10-K report and asked for the CEO's office. Then my issue was resolved in under ten minutes. If you add a field for a phone number (appearing after "Headquarters" in the template, for example) then I will gladly return the favor by adding the HQ telephone numbers for the entire God-forsaken Fortune 500. Thank you. 70.59.14.20 (talk) 21:14, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
to add a |native_name_lang= parameter, as used in many other infoboxes. Thee will be no visual change, but non-English text will be capable of being marked up with the proper language code. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits11:44, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I would like to see start and end year added to the traded_as field (perhaps this a change required to each of the many ticker symbol templates?). This is used frequently for defunct companies, de-listed companies, and companies who have changed their ticker symbol. It can be expanded to list open-ended start dates for active companies, a reflection of the date they went public.
Example template:
| traded_as = {{NASDAQ was|symbol|start|end}}
Example usage for a company that went public in 1980 and changed its symbol in 2004.
Comment - I'd like to edit this request to remove the "small" tags for the date ranges. Apparently, per WP:ACCESS reducing the font size can cause accessibility issues. Open to suggestions for how to better present the dates. Pjhansen (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Replacing full stop with comma at the num_employees field
A lot of current num_employees fields in the companies infoboxes use a full stop (.) to separate thousands (e.g. 12.200, 5.200) instead of using a comma (,). This is confusing as a full stop (.) usually means the decimal point and this is also violates WP:MOSNUM. E.g. the infobox at Minerva S.A. states that "num_employees = 7.000". It would be replaced by "num_employees = 7,000".
Most of these (but not only) was introduced by blocked User:Edson Rosa and his sockpuppets. As the number is a large (mainly concerning Brazilian companies) and they are hard to detect manually, I propose to use some bot for this task. If the proposal achieves consensus, it applies only to |num_employees= of the template:Infobox company and its redirects. Expanding this function to other fields and/or templates needs separate discussion. Please add your comments and votes below. Beagel (talk) 17:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
The infobox could be coded to correct these errors at least until the bot is finished. Once the bot is done the coding of the infobox could be reworked to give an error message when given misformatted numbers. JIMptalk·cont02:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
If you think that the discussion should be moved to Wikipedia:Bot requests, I have nothing against it. As I myself don't run any bots and don't have any knowledge how to do it, help in this field is needed. Do you think we should migrate this discussion immediatelly or have it here for some more days and move then? Beagel (talk) 05:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I have a broader concern; I think it's very odd that a major sockpuppeteer would only make punctuation changes like this, so presumably their other edits are being cleaned up by some other mechanism. Is it possible that anybody could be using highly-visible-but-innocuous punctuation changes as a marker so they can find new socks, or articles affected by socks, and clean up any more substantial problems? If so, this bot task would mask a bigger problem. bobrayner (talk) 09:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
This concern is relevant and there may be other issues to be fixed (starting with the same (.) used to separate thousands also inside the body text and some other style issues). However, I don't think there is any big issue which is not discovered yet. The editor in question (but he is not the only one using (.) as a separator for thousand as this is a common mistake for editors from some certain countries) was temporary blocked for uploading copyrighted files without correct licenses and later blocked indefinitely for block evasion by using socks. Beside of uploading copyrighted files (which can't be tolerated, of course) he and his socks have made quote useful edits (again, not all of them but still a significant part) by creating new articles about companies and updating existing ones. In most of cases he did not made punctuation changes but was the editor who originally added these figures into infoboxes. I personally even believe if this editor states he understands what he did wrong and promises to avoid any further copyright violation and sockpuppetry, a change with community paroles may be given. Unfortunately, his history shows no single attempts to communicate with other editors or reply to concerns. However, to address the potential concern you expressed, one solution may be that if bot makes the proposed change, it also lists the article in the hidden maintenance category. It would be manually checked for other issues then. Beagel (talk) 19:02, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
This looks sensible to me; using "." as a thousands-separator is common in some European languages but it's not the done thing in English. Employees are a discrete variable so we don't have to worry about inappropriate attempts to fix a company that really does have 4.233 employees &c. What else can be done to weed out any false-positives? bobrayner (talk) 19:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
This is a well scoped proposal and improves consistency of the data within en.wikipedia. I would suggest that the bot not be left active after it's initial run, but rather turned on in 6 months to see if it detects any new instances at that time (or if there is evidence of a significant number of instances being created in the interim). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:35, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Suppoprt. While the decimal may be used in other languages to separate thousands, in English 7.000 means seven, not seven-thousand. Canuck89(talk to me) 01:01, January 30, 2013 (UTC)
I prefer the use of a comma over using a full stop in this context. It is less likely to be misunderstood and it reflects the general usage in English-speaking countries. Michael Glass (talk) 11:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Oppose
Joint ventures
I propose adding a "Joint ventures" field to the template, to go below "Subsidiaries". At present notable joint ventures are either being put incorrectly into the "subsidiaries" field, or not being included. Joint ventures are often of considerable importance to a company, even constituting the majority of the company's activites (e.g. some of the big China-based car companies).Rangoon11 (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I was looking at the 'subsidiaries' appendix of a US SEC 10-K document the other day and was surprised to see that joint ventures were section B of this appendix, subsidiaries being section A. Wondering if the SEC considers joint ventures a type of subsidiary relationship? I don't advocate adopting that here, but just wanted to point out a potential point of confusion which some editors might encounter. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that the rules on this can vary across juridisdictions and be complex at the margins but generally will depend upon factors such as the level of economic ownership, whether the owner of the stake in the joint venture is entitled to account for it as a subsidiary in its accounts, whether it can exercise management control, and the level of independence which the joint venture has in terms of having its own management structures etc.
My understanding is that, sometimes and in some juridisdictions, an interest in a JV could also be regarded as a parent-subsidiary relationship, but this will generally not be the case.
Given the international concern about companies minimising tax paid, is there a benefit to including in the template a space for a cited reference to the amount of "corporation" tax (for UK companies, similar for others) paid on the Profit/Operating Income figures already listed in the info box?
I think it would be unhelpful to try putting that in an infobox, since different companies pay different rates of different taxes in different countries; in some contexts it's debatable whether or not a payment is actually a tax; taxes might be adjusted or appealed later; we could spend years haggling over whether the numbers should be gross or net of RandomCountry's export subsidies or payroll tax relief blah blah blah. And so on. Not the kind of simple, universally-comparable nugget of information that infoboxes are made for. bobrayner (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Bobrayner. It is too complicated to have standardized information suitable for this infobox. Companies reporting their figures to SEC is only a small part of all companies over the world. Beagel (talk) 11:15, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
However, I do think it would be good to cover this more in the body of the article. At the moment, many of our articles on businesses focus on what products a business offers; we tend to neglect the people, the production sites, the brand, the balance sheet, ... bobrayner (talk) 11:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Strongly oppose - Tax rates vary wildly across the world, tax payable is affected by all manner of factors such as country of domicile, spread of activities, corporate structures, profitablity, tax planning etc. Taxes payable by companies can also be affected greatly by one off payments and exceptional. The information given would be misleading as well as very hard to maintain.
What might be more useful is something like a list article stating the companies which paid the most tax in major jurisdictions such as the US and UK.Rangoon11 (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Financial year
Often information included in this infobox (such as revenue, assets and so on) is based on a specific accounting period. Is there scope to add an |accounting_period=; field for this purpose? mgSH19:00, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Request addition of Gross Profit parameter
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I'm noticing that the infobox for non-profits has a slot for a "motto," but we don't have anything like that for the company infobox. Any thoughts on adding a slogan or motto slot? CorporateM (Talk) 17:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The latest discussion about this topic was just few months ago and is archived here. Oppose per arguments presented during that discussion. Beagel (talk) 13:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Support: I've read the arguments mentioned above, however I've decided to support it, but not in shape from that discussion. I think, it can safely introduced, same like in the {{Infobox website}}. --Rezonansowy (talk) 22:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Homepage parameter: are multiple URLs acceptable?
In Bloch (company), an editor has added to the homepage parameter the URLs of this Australian company's European and American main offices. Is this acceptable or should only the corporate headquarters URL be listed? Either way, should this usage be clarified in the template documentation? Lambtron (talk) 13:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
I've done some research and thought about this and concluded that Homepage should list only the company's corporate URL and not those of its sales offices. This is implied in the template documentation, and after all, the name of the field is Homepage, not Homepages. Also, I've looked at lots of other companies and haven't found any that list multiple URLs, even in cases like this, where there are multiple international sales offices. Accordingly, I've removed the sales office URLs from Bloch pending further discussion here. Lambtron (talk) 22:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Same logic applies to Capezio. This seems to me to be the right thing to do, as there is already a primary corporate URL, but it would be helpful to get a second opinion. Comments, anyone? Lambtron (talk) 04:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Can someone please explain how this parameter works? I have tried putting the ISO 639-2 code, as the template says, but it does not seem to do anything. I was editing Employees' Provident Fund Organisation of India, when I came across this problem. The native name (in Hindi) is present in the infobox, but putting the language's ISO 639-2 code (which is "hin") does not seem to make any difference. Infact, the only way I am able to get the native name to display correctly, is by using Template:Native name in the native_name parameter. BigJolly9 (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Wouldnt it be better to have the language name displayed in brackets like Template:Native name does? Right now, there's no way for a reader to know which language is used. You might be able to guess for countries that speak one language, but for countries like India it would be very difficult. BigJolly9 (talk) 13:27, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
We have native name parameters (using the same markup and so with consistent styling), in a large number of infoboxes. We shouldn't deviate for just one; but feel free to start a centralised discussion (on a MOS talk page for instance), to see if there is general consensus for your proposal. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits16:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I see no reason why awards or honors should be placed in the Infobox. This should be something in the prose, either as a table or drawn out in paragraph form. — Huntster (t@c)03:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. Too promotional, too subjective. This is not the basic information about the company. If necessary, this information could be provided in the prose. Beagel (talk) 13:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Oppose; I don't see it as promotional, but I'm skeptical that "awards" are the kind of easily-pigeonholed, core information about an organisation which is best suited to the infobox. Also, in practice, people get carried away with awards - lists of trivial stuff, membership of associations &c and I've even seen some articles which list official standards/requirements the organisation complies with, pretending that they are actually prestigious awards. bobrayner (talk) 03:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Slogan
Despite the discussion above, there aren't any slogan slot here. It is to be added once again. The Accenture article's source codes has a slogan part, but nothing is appearing. Please fix this as soon as possible. Altaïr Skywalker 47 (talk) 15:11, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
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I wanted to add a picture of a company in Infobox under the logo, but couldn't do for some reason. Is it something I am not allowed to do or could I add an image of company in Infobox like other Infobox in an article of city, country, and so on? --Db9023 (talk) 02:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
the template currently only accepts one image, which is the logo. if you would like to propose additional image parameters, feel free to make an edit request. Frietjes (talk) 16:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Use of "products" field for general type of products
Is there any suggestion as to where list the general type of product that a company sells? For instance, Modelzone lists the "industry" parameter as "retail", and uses the "products" parameter for listing the types of products that were sold, rather than any notable products as per the infobox guidelines.
So my question is this; if a company tends to sell a particular type of product (as opposed to having a notable individual product), is that information to be listed under "industry" or "products"? Or is there another parameter that I'm missing? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi. 300px is Wikipedia's standard for infoboxes that need landscape images. The consensus seems to be that 250px is too small for high resolution widescreen displays and too tiny and crumpled for smartphones while it fits well on 320px screens. Also observing practical usage, I discovered articles explicitly set the image width to 300px in the infobox, so I might as well help them.
That said, I don't understand the reason behind 250px. It stretches the infobox too. Anything wider than 235px stretches the default infobox. Still, stretching itself if snot bad.
I noticed the in the infobox in the Dell article, the former_type parameter is populated, but none of the populated data appears in the infobox. Can someone check/fix the code? Thanks. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:05, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Although there is no policy, the general consensus seems to be that infoboxes are not generally meant to hold past information that are no longer valid. For example, they do not hold a history of types, genres, version numbers, previously supported platforms, etc. As a template editor, I am forbidden to edit templates in presence of a vast edit consensus to the contrary. We need an RFC that not only exhibits support, but also addresses the problem of how should past types be treated in case there are multiple such types.
In "key people" field there is a limit of four entries. Shouldn't there be a similar limit to the "products" field since there can be a lot of notable products for some companies? --Mika1h (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
What would be the benefit of this? We are not trying to make a company directory, and the infobox is already very busy. Perhaps you may want to name notable board members in the body of the article, though other than CEO, President and Chairman, board member names rarely have encyclopedic value, in my personal opinion. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 18:45, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
It would show the relationships between companies - individuals can seat on multiple boards, so listing them would be of benefit. Zambelo; talk00:17, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi. I am afraid such a change would require evidence of due weight or contextual information, per WP:IINFO. That you find it useful for a specific case does not mean any layman would. Even then, such a field needs constant maintenance. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I guess the main issue would be the maintenance factor. I wonder if WIkipedia has any way of reading external databases - it could integrate data from places like http://littlesis.org/ which maintains an up-to-date database of industry leaders - it is useful to be able to map out the relations between organizations - sites like theyrule.net (using data from littlesis) do this well. It would be an interesting feature for Wikipedia to consider... Zambelo; talk03:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
About [2]: Logos are very sensitive to sizing. Now, "frameless" is a dynamic size between 120px to 300px. So, if we put the default size to "frameless", it may cause the logo to appear distored in one computer and good in the other.
I insist that the logo size must be a static value. This encourages users to alter it.
There is also an issue with using 220px as if the logo is smaller than 220px then it gets expanded where-as when frameless is used, the logo is shown at the original size. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:23, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Size
Example
Example
220px
frameless
Hi. Well, they say good edit summaries do magic. Still, I can't decide which one (small raster size or dynamic size) is the bigger evil. The AMD logo size irritates me. (It is SVG, so it is no big a deal, but what if it was raster?)
The AMD logo is fine with either default size option (frameless or 220px). I just picked a logo at random that was larger then 220px by default, just to include in the examples. (It's 1369px.) It's the small logos such as the 1&1 logo (which is only 60px) that do not work as well with the 220px default. I'm not sure what's the best way to go. By the way {{Infobox dot-com company}} uses frameless as does {{Infobox organization}}. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
@Idh0854: this all seems reasonable, but it would be good to wait for feedback, so I am temporarily disabling the edit request. In particular, it may be better to just embed {{Infobox Korean name}}, rather than adding an entire section for the Korean name (see the example). Frietjes (talk) 14:40, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
(EC) For the first some tests in the sandbox would be good. For the second, we have to worry about language explosion, conceivably many other countries would have display variants.
The native_name and romanized_name parameters could easily be used, for the same effect.
Should the type/company type field have the native type, e.g. Kabushiki Kaisha for Japan or Société Anonyme for France, instead of just the generic "Public" designation?
As I understand, legally all the company types are different, yet they can be considered subtypes of "Public company".
There needs to be clarity on this as for now, it's very much random. An example being Suzuki, where there are incorrectly 2 types present (one for Japan and one for Worlwide). Alepik (talk) 05:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I am not supporting adding this new field to avoid overloading the skeleton template. However, I think that the current 'type field' could be used for this, e.g. Public (Société Anonyme). Beagel (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Did not suggest that as it would indeed be an unnecessary addition as a separate field. Your suggestion for the type field makes the most sense, suggest the format is added to the template as comment. Alepik (talk) 16:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Edit request: parent parameter
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The article Parent company is much more appropriate than Holding company. Alternatively, change the label Parent to something matching better to the more generic holding company.
Currently the description for "owner" field is: "Use this parameter to list ownership percentages for private companies owned by a few key individuals or to list ownership percentages for joint ventures, if applicable. When listing a company as an owner, use the full legal name of the entity that holds the ownership stake in the article's subject company."
That is not a lot of guidance. I searched the archive and found just Template_talk:Infobox_company/Archive_2#Add_section, where it says that ownership should "list one or two of the largest owners". Today Seqqis added a single (albeit large - about 10%) shareholder to the Amgen infobox "owner" field in this dif. Amgen is a publcly traded company. I reverted in this dif with edit note: "not "owner" in any reasonable sense". Seqqis came to my Talk page and asked what is up, and we had some back and forth here -- apparently Seqqis has had differences with other editors on how this field should be used. Seems worth a discussion, again as there is little guidance. Perhaps the result will be that the Template instructions can be updated.
To kick off the ball, I think it should be left blank for publicly traded companies. Or, all holders of a beneficial stake (as defined in SEC regs as being more than 5%) should be stated. And supported with reliable sources, of course. What do you all think? Jytdog (talk) 21:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
It's OK to use the "owner" field to highlight ownership, where this is important or interesting. However, it seems silly to highlight the fact that just one investment manager owns 10% of a pharma business. Is that the best we can do? Is the other 90% owned by even less noteworthy investors? I would cut a lot more slack in cases where the "owner" were in the same industry rather than just being an investment manager or pension fund, as this may relate to broader issues of business strategy &c. bobrayner (talk) 01:16, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
I think that the current documentation you are referring above makes it explicitly clear that "owner" field does not apply for publicly traded companies. I think that another field ("parent") may be relevant in some cases if the company has listed its minority shares, but it operates as a subsidiary of another company which is a majority shareholder of that company. If we would like to list other shareholders (e.g. all shareholders owning more than 5%), including institutional investors, we probably need to create a new field named "major shareholders". Beagel (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
hi Beagel the instructions are actually silent on the issue of what to do with publicly traded companies. Silence isn't really clarity - it is just silence. If the intent is to exclude publicly traded companies perhaps the instructions could explicitly say that. I've been bold and made that change..... Jytdog (talk) 13:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, it says "owned by a few key individuals" and "joint ventures". If the company is publicly listed, it is definitely not owned by a "few key individuals" and it also does not qualify as a joint venture. Although the legal definition of a joint venture varies in different legislations, none of them apply to the publicly listed companies. So, publicly listed companies are excluded from the cases provided in the template's documentation because cases there are provided as a closed list, not as an open list. Beagel (talk) 13:45, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Use this parameter to list ownership percentages for private companies owned by a few key individuals or where ownership is particularly relevant to the rest of the article, such as joint ventures. Do not use this field for publicly traded companies. When listing a company as an owner, use the full legal name of the entity that holds the ownership stake in the article's subject company. List the owners alphabetically and use to format the entries.
Thanks for discussing this. I was mostly just trying to get guidance for Seqqis who has run into people with different points of view on this, as he/she has added information to this field in various articles. I have no dog in this fight, so am going to bow out of the discussion. Thanks again and good luck arriving at consensus on a clear definition. Jytdog (talk) 14:45, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
The reason it was reverted is because, I forgot to reference it's Capital Group Companies' ownership in Amgen. I haven't added the reference and Capital Group Companies yet because the issue with the company infobox isn't resolved yet. Capital Group Companies is referenced on page 32 as Capital Research Global Investorspdf documentSeqqis (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Verifiability is good, of course, but that's just a routine listing buried deep in a primary source. Why is it so important to highlight that point in an infobox? This is hardly like (for example) Volkswagen, where major stockholders are in the same industry or in broader economic/regulatory relationships with the business, and this ownership has been discussed by secondary sources... bobrayner (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Seqqis your statement of why I reverted you is incorrect. As I stated in my edit note when I reverted your addition: "not "owner" in any reasonable sense". The edit made no sense. In addition, as we discussed on my Talk page here, I told you that you brought no source for the content. But the primary reason for my revert was that the content made no sense - the problem goes to the definition of the field in this template. Jytdog (talk) 13:44, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Coordinates
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Could anyone explain why this edit to this template was made without any notification or discussion? There was discussion about adding coordinates to this template two years; however, there was not consensus for this. Consensus may be changed, of course, but it needs a discussion and not partisan actions. As the discussion two years ago was started by the same editor who made the change to the template, there was no bases to assume that the edit is non-controversial. Therefore, I request to restore the version before the above-mentioned edit and to add coordinates field only in the case there is a consensus for this. Beagel (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
I made that edit. I did so because I found a number of instances of this infobox, with coordinates shoehorned into one or other of the location-related parameters; or included in the article alongside but outside the infobox. I'd forgotten the earlier discussion, but it's in no-one's interest to have data pushed into the wrong parameters like that; or removed from the infobox's machine-readable metadata Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits17:57, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
This is really not a valid reason to include this parameter without a proper discussion, particularly if the arguments against inclusion of coordinates parameter for legal entities are still valid. As it was said, consensus may be changed but it is hard to establish consensus without proper discussion. Therefore, I would kindly ask you to revert your edit and discuss instead. Beagel (talk) 18:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello, Beagel. Actually, consensus through editingis a valid reason. If people are already adding a certain piece of information to infobox and there is no dispute over it, then we have a consensus that the information do belong in there. But if you actually had put up an effort to curtail these, then, yes, you have a case of dispute. You can ask Andy to supply examples for you to investigate though. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 09:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi, Codename Lisa. I think that you misinterpret WP:EDITCONSENSUS. Adding non-existing parameter to some article with a limited number of watchers does not make automatically bases for changing the template, which is used by thousands of articles. WP:EDITCONSENSUS in this context means that there is a consensus to change the template if the above-mentioned edit to this template is not disputed. However, it is disputed now. It should be also said that it is not reverted only because of the fact that editing of this template is limited by certain categories of editors. If the reason of making this edit without discussion was a honest mistake (what I believe it was), the correct things to do would be reverting it by the author and start a proper discussion why this parameter for this template is necessary. Beagel (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi. I didn't say anything about "adding non-existing parameters to some article with a limited number of watchers". In fact, I was very careful not to imply such thing. In addition, your second sentence is explaining WP:BRD, not consensus through editing. For the time being, I support the change. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 09:46, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
PS. I don't think that it is appropriate to mark the discussion as "this edit request has been answered" if it is rejected by the same editor who's edit was requested to be undone. It seems like violation of editing privilege. Beagel (talk) 15:05, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Oppose adding coordinates parameter for following reasons:
As a rule, coordinates are associated with objects and not with persons (including legal persons).
This parameter is ambiguous as it is not clear what is meant by the company coordinates (source of the problem is that companies are legal persons, not objects). This may mean coordinates of the registered address, address of the headquarters or the main business location. For some companies all of them are different. It is also quite usual that multinational companies may have two or even more headquarters. It is unclear which address the coordinates parameter should be used.
During previous discussion, it was said that coordinates parameter would could be used for companies with a single primary location, such as shops or breweries. However, as it was said during previous discussion, if the company is more notable as shop or brewery, it should be used a more appropriate template instead, such as eg. {{infobox brewery}}, {{infobox factory}}, {{Infobox shopping mall}}, {{Infobox refiner}} etc. Also, infoboxes should include the most critical information, and in 99% cases of companies geolocation is not appropriate there.
It was already asked during previous discussion that the addition proposal should be accompanied with proper documentation with explanation how to use this parameter. Unfortunately that request was ignored that time and also this time this addition was made without providing this documentation.
I'm concerned that, once a field is available in an infobox, people feel they have to populate it, which causes a variety of problems - emphasis on irrelevant or misleading details, infoboxes bigger than the stub they're supposed to summarise, edit-wars over how to hammer a square peg into a round field, and so on. For this reason I would be wary of offering a coordinate field in this template, because we can't add meaningful and non-misleading coordinates for 99% of our articles on companies, but editors will surely do it anyway. bobrayner (talk) 20:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Add former names parameter
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I suggest add a parameter to add the former names, like in Template:Infobox television channel. I suggest add this parameter after |romanized_name=
| label14 = Formerly called
| data14 = {{{former names|}}}
I don't see that being an issue; and any cases where it is can be dealt with locally. Accordingly, I've added the requested parameter, but as |former name= (singular, and with an underscore) in keeping with the template's other parameters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits10:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Something I noticed: when a <ref> for location_city is not placed after the location_country text, the Headquarters entry will display the citation number before the comma. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 17:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
and others were using <br /> to create spacing before and after the logo. not sure why we need this, so please feel free to remove it if you think it's entirely spurious. Frietjes (talk) 21:25, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
