View source for Template talk:Job

== Clarification of limitations ==

This template is bumping up against the limits of {{SMW}}, since assigning so many associated properties to a single entity requires it to be a subject in itself, i.e. to have a handle on which separate simple properties can be hung. One page per job sounds like a non-starter; another possibility ''could'' be a separate page section, but that sounds fiddly and/or not how SMW is designed to work - an uphill struggle at best. There must be other SMW wikis who have faced this problem, so advice from more seasoned SMW users/developers would be good, even if the answer is to await a richer software platform. The template is as functional as I can easily make it with my level of skill in RDF/SMW, and is good enough for the time being - it can be rewritten later to represent the data semantically however seems convenient. [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 07:23, 8 February 2014 (GMT)

* <s>The '''Deputy''' and '''Boss''' sections for jobs are correct, but have a warning triangle and unwanted messages.</s> Now fixed -- [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 10:37, 14 April 2016 (IST)

This one could need a |party= , for members of parliament etc. 
[[User:Terje|Terje]] ([[User talk:Terje|talk]]) 10:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
: Well, [[people]] have {{t{{!}}political_party}}, though I suppose that does change sometimes, so attaching it to specific jobs would add something... I'll have a go at this. -- [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 19:17, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Robin, could you add a style guide here for jobs with commas in them, for example "Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology"?
[[User:Terje|Terje]] ([[User talk:Terje|talk]]) 06:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

=== Handling commas in job titles ===

One limitation of {{SMW}} as used here is that the comma character (",") is employed as a separator. This makes for very readable source text, and allows for easy cutting and pasting of name lists. With people's names it doesn't cause a problem, since they never include commas<ref>Note that decorative titles are not included in pagenames</ref>. However, other names can, especially jobs. To see why this is an issue, here's the source of the [[Spain/Minister/Education Culture and Sport]] page:{{t|<poem><nowiki>{{employment
|wikipedia=
|start=
|interests=
|constitutes=Minister of Education, Minister of Culture, Minister of Sport
}}</nowiki></poem>}}
Here the {{t|{{!}}constitutes}} line is currently interpreted by SMW to mean that the this job simultaneously constitutes 3 things: [[Minister of Education]], [[Minister of Culture]] and [[Minister of Sport]]. If the line were {{t|{{!}}<nowiki>constitutes=Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology</nowiki>}} then the software would similarly create the {{t|constitutes}} relationship with the ''two'' items it sees as being listed: [[Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment]] and [[Support and Technology]]. 

To avoid the ambiguity of whether to treat "," as a separator, the rule since 2014 has been that '''commas are not permitted in titles of pages'''. This raises the question of what to call pages which should properly have one or more commas in the title. The current standard practice is simply to omit them, so the above job would be restyled "Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Equipment Support and Technology". This is not an ideal solution, and I'm open to alternative suggestions, including improved SMW templates.

Note by the way that ''commas are permitted as titles of redirects'', so creating a link from the correct title (with comma) allows it to be used to reference the commaless pagename.
-- [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 17:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

== Equivalence? ==

Looking at how this is being used, I wonder whether it would help to make the following equivalence:

{{job
|title=President
|employer=Some name
}}

{{job
|title=Some name/President
}}

The logic here seems pretty clear:- IF there is no '/' in |title AND there is a non-empty 'employer', then replace title with |employer/|title.
I dare say there are edge cases where this may have unexpected results, but I expect it would generally help. -- [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 02:39, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

:so you mean its better like:
:{{job
|title=Confindustria/Director of Studies
|employer=Confindustria
}}
:-[[User:Terje|Terje]] ([[User talk:Terje|talk]]) 02:58, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

::I'm considering logic so that the below two would register as the same job:
{{job
|title=Director of Studies
|employer=Confindustria
}}
{{job
|title=Confindustria/Director of Studies
}}
:: This would affect the SMWDocs output and the display of Successor/Predecessor. -- [[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 08:31, 26 March 2025 (UTC)