Template talk:Infobox fire department

Infobox Template Help

All, I created a new infobox meant to display basic information regarding fire departments. It can be found here. I want to include a logo in the top of the infobox but my code seems to be improperly done. I copied it from another infobox so I may not have done it properly. Can someone with experience with infoboxes or related codes take a look at it, maybe fix it or at least let me know what the problem is? Cheers! --Daysleeper47 18:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Modification of link

Would it be okay to change the link for Squad to Heavy rescue vehicle since that's where Rescue squad (disambiguation) links to? Rescue squad is a link to the organization. I'm not trying to start a naming war, here. I've been through it once. But since "squad" on the infobox takes one to more or less a dab page, it's just my thought. --MPD01605 (T / C) 19:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I added squad to the template to include FDNY's coining of 7 engine companies as "Squad Companies". That is the only Department to which Squad applies. The rest should categorize any rescue vehicles (heavy or otherwise) under the "Rescue" appendage. I know in NE Ohio a squad is an ALS transport unit. Where I live now, it is a heavy rescue. I would prefer no one use it except for the FDNY article. --Daysleeper47 19:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good to me. You may just want to work on the Squad article to reflect that so it's not confusing like it was to me. --MPD01605 (T C) 19:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Public Protection Classification

How about a field for the Public Protection Classification (The "Class" assigned by the Insurance Services Office) for the fire department? This only applied in the United States however. Group29 17:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree...is there anything new on this? An ISO rating would be great info to include. Maxwellwarner (talk) 23:40, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

@Maxwellwarner: one of the main reasons I have personally held off on this is that there is no article on the ISO Class rating on Wikipedia. I also haven't been able to find good sources to make a page. IMHO it should not be added to the infobox until it can link to a good page explaining what it is. At that point, I would be 100% in favor of adding it. :-) --Zackmann08 (talk) 23:58, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Added "Battalion" and "HAZMAT" fields

I added these to reflect the departments in my neck of the woods. Firedogbme (talk) 08:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Redesign

I am contemplating a redesign of this template to make it "better". I was looking at the Infobox law enforcement agency template and wanted to make this one more like it. Anyone have any thoughts or opinions on the matter? --Zackmann08 (talk) 17:56, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with making it look more like that template, but we should really not use any of the code from that template, which is incredibly over-engineered. if you have some specific suggestions for what you want to change, I can comment, but otherwise I don't really know what you mean by "better". Frietjes (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes I totally agree with you. That template is WAY over engineered. I actually updated this template yesterday. The changes haven't fully rolled out yet because of caching, but if you look at NYFD you will see it. You can also always purge a page to see the changes. Let me know what you think. --Zackmann08 (talk) 16:18, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes Thanks for the cleanup help. One idea I had but ended up not doing was adding the ability to customize the color of the infobox based on the department. Make the default fire engine red but allow it to be customized. At first seemed like a cool idea, but then seemed to detract from the basic format of infoboxes which is why I didn't implement it. I'm curious what you (and others) think? --Zackmann08 (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Zackmann08 I would rather not, but I could be convinced otherwise. most agency and company infoboxes use the standard efefef, which has high contrast with the text for readability. if we start adding more colours, we risk reducing the readability. by the way, I am now done checking all the changes to make sure nothing broke. if we want to remove any particular fields, then we can certainly do so, but I added back that were removed in the last edits. thanks for the updates, it does look better now. Frietjes (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes, I agree with you. Keep the readability, it is much more important. One thing we could do would be to add a field that states what color the department uses? We could make it add the page to a category based on what color they use. That way you can get a list of departments using red, yellow, white, etc. etc. Again, just a thought. Thanks again for your help. --Zackmann08 (talk) 17:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Add Request: OES Identifier

@Zackmann08:Every fire department in California has a three-digit OES/EMA identifier (SBC, STB, MTO, LMP). These ID's are used for brush fire strike team deployments. USAR, hazmat, etc. A spot to add a department's ID would be cool. Maxwellwarner (talk) 00:12, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@Maxwellwarner: Hmm. That is an interesting idea. The thing to remember is that this template is not only for California, but for the whole US and infact the world. I don't see it being that useful elsewhere. However, I like your thinking. May I propose an alternative? There is a List of California fire departments. How would you feel about reworking this page to include this info? I will leave you a message on your talk page with more. --Zackmann08 (talk) 00:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Tankers? Medics?

@Pigsonthewing: in particular, would love to discuss this. What is the intention of adding tankers and medics to the template? Tankers doesn't link to anything. If you look at the page for Tanker, the only page related to firefighting is Water tender and the template already has that. Are these not one and the same? Additionally for medics. What is meant here? Medic links to "a general term for a person involved in medicine". Well that would seem to describe everyone in the department... The medic units of a department are the Ambulances and that is already in the template as well. --Zackmann08 (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Terminology

I would like to propose that additional terms be added to the template - not in terms of adding more categories, but adding more inclusive terms to what's already there. At present, the terminology is US-centric - engines, trucks, squads. Could we make it "engines/pumpers" as pumper is a frequently-used term elsewhere (also a standard fire truck industry term)? And what's the difference between a squad and a rescue? The article for squad refers to the organization, not the apparatus. And we could also have "tanker/tender" (or vice-versa) to deal with that whole question.

BTW, this template has been used for non-US fire departments, hence the question. Blotto adrift (talk) 21:28, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Edit request

If anyone sees this who knows how - the ability to embed other templates to this one needs to be created, as does the option to add maps, like pushpin and {{maplink}} maps. ɱ (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Images (logo,patch,flag) layout - propose same image size

In 2017, a patch image and a flag image was added to the infobox which had a logo image. At present, each image has its own image size. I created a testcase similar to Template:Infobox law enforcement agency which sets all the images at the one size and if no image size is specified it defaults to 140px. A logo is used on 237 pages few use flag with only 5 or patch with only 6. The change would affect few pages.--Melbguy05 (talk) 11:29, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Made changes as above as three months no objections. Updated documentation.--Melbguy05 (talk) 09:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Generic parameters

I've just added generic parameters that will enable more adaptable terminology to be used in the infobox for the variety of circumstances where the current parameter list doesn't suffice, without the need to extend the parameter list yet further for every new case. I have preserved the existing infobox structure in all respects and tested the changes thoroughly, so I am not expecting any problems with existing transclusions, but I would advise all watchers of this page to keep an eye out for issues.

I'd appreciate someone else running their eye over the updated documentation as well to be sure that it's quite clear how to use the new parameters and what the effects of implementing them will be. Check Country Fire Authority for my own example implementation. Triptothecottage (talk) 08:46, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage: You have duplicated the parameters under the Agency Overview and Facilities and equipment headers to use with non-US fire departments such as the Australian Country Fire Authority with 26 new generic parameters - that can have customised labels - 3 for chiefs, 3 for units and 20 for appliances. Another option instead of adding more parameters was to use the existing and add a customised label for example see sandbox code for label 29 and the CFA test case. I added a divisions_label using the existing Divisions it now displays Regions. I'd imagine that some of the appliances would be a similar type of vehicle but the infobox used a North American name. In the documentation, in the General parameters section if a customised label was added it could for example state that this type of vehicle can be also known as with examples.--Melbguy05 (talk) 05:03, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Melbguy05: Appreciate you taking a look. This is how I implemented the change originally but decided against it for several reasons: it's less user-friendly (difficult to justify that you can have Divisions, or Regions, but not both); it creates unnecessarily complex template code since the presence/absence of parameters is essentially an if statement anyway; and the assumption that every appliance type logically correlates to another doesn't hold – the Pumper Tanker, very common in Australia, is neither an "engine" nor a "tender" - it's both! In essence I don't see that your proposed change actually improves the functionality of the template. Triptothecottage (talk) 05:10, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage: I've fixed the documentation. It only had an example previously before you added generic without a blank infobox. It displays blank infoboxes now.--Melbguy05 (talk) 11:28, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage: I tidied up the documentation a little more. Chief Fire Officer |CFO= is a non-North American term used in the North American template variant. It was added in 2015 and is used in 48 articles.--Melbguy05 (talk) 06:17, 13 August 2020 (UTC)