Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries

Context

I'm an editor working on the Andorra article, which I have been improving extensively over the past month through a detailed, section-by-section review of the entire article. The other day, while working on the Geography section and its Climate subsection, I noticed that it contained a weather box chart. My first instinct was to remove the old weather box, since including one did not initially seem appropriate in a country article. However, Andorra cannot always be compared directly with regular/larger countries: it is a microstate, and its exceptionally small territorial extent gives it distinctive characteristics that are relevant when deciding how the article should be presented. As an editor, I try to keep this defining feature in mind whenever I work on the article, since it is a fundamental characteristic of the country.

In this respect, Andorra's total area is considerably smaller than that of cities such as Berlin, Rome, Toronto and New York City. All of those cities have a weather box in their respective articles, as is common in city articles, because such boxes present genuinely useful information to readers in a compact and accessible form. Presenting monthly average temperatures, precipitation and sunshine data entirely in prose would be extremely impractical and much less useful. That is why charts of this kind are regularly included in city articles. Even when a city has a dedicated climate article—which Andorra does not—its main article still retains the weather box; New York City, for example, does so despite the existence of Climate of New York City. Therefore, just as weather boxes are included in the articles of cities larger than Andorra, it also makes sense to include one for an entity whose total area is smaller than that of those cities.

Before making a final decision on whether to retain the weather box, I also compared the articles on the other European microstates. As editors, it is important to maintain a reasonable degree of consistency among articles belonging to the same group. In doing so, I found that all of the other European microstate articles contained a weather box: Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco and Vatican City. This reinforced my conclusion that removing it from the Andorra article would make Andorra an unexplained exception. Weather boxes can be particularly suitable for European microstates because their limited territorial extent makes a compact summary of climate data proportionate at the country-article level. There was therefore no clear article-specific reason to make Andorra the sole exception.

For that reason, rather than deleting it, I worked extensively to replace the old weather box with the most recent available data, using the strongest available data source: the centrally located Roc de Sant Pere station, which is operated by the Andorran National Meteorological Service as a reference station for monitoring the country's weather and is recognised by Météo-France. I also improved the accompanying prose on Andorra's climate and added a new paragraph below the chart covering climate-change trends and the associated risks to the country. I believe the result was a substantial improvement, and because the weather box was collapsed by default, its visual impact on the article was minimal.

However, only hours after I had finished, User:Moxy removed the weather box (diff), citing only the WP:COUNTRYCHARTS advisory guidance of this WikiProject in his edit summary (guidance that he had himself written).

After seeing the removal, I immediately left a message on his talk page in which I set out the same reasoning I am presenting here and objected to the removal as an editor actively working on the Andorra article. I also drew his attention to the explicit caveat against enforcement contained in this WikiProject's structural guidance:

This structure guide is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question. Articles may be best modeled on the layout of an existing article of appropriate structure and topic. — WikiProject Countries: Structure and guidelines

After setting out the issue, I ended my message by politely asking him to restore the weather box. The following day, however, Moxy replied with a brief one-line response that did not address any of the arguments I had raised.

For that reason, I considered it important to raise the matter here, both to clarify how this WikiProject's advisory guidance should be applied and to help prevent similar situations from recurring in other country articles. I have also seen that other editors have raised similar concerns in the past.

Application

First of all, it is important to stress that the advisory guidance provided by this WikiProject is a useful tool for editors. Maintaining a reasonable degree of consistency among country articles is beneficial. I follow this guidance myself when editing, while also consulting a number of established country articles as editorial benchmarks.

With regard to charts, it is clearly inappropriate for a main country article to contain lengthy tables or charts listing past officeholders, detailed election results or similar material that belongs in dedicated articles. I have applied this principle myself: for example, I removed a sixteen-item bullet list detailing Andorra's areas of participation in the Council of Europe because that level of detail was disproportionate for the main country article. However, that does not mean that all charts are useless, nor that all of them can or should be converted into prose. Charts, tables, diagrams and infoboxes are genuinely useful tools for presenting information clearly and efficiently, particularly for readers seeking quick and accessible facts. In the specific case of weather and climate data, many readers open an article about a place specifically to scroll down to its weather box and consult the figures. The real question is therefore not whether charts should exist, but whether each one is relevant, proportionate, well sourced and appropriate for the particular article.

The wording of WP:COUNTRYCHARTS is itself conditional: it refers to "overly detailed" charts and diagrams that "lack any context or explanation". Those qualifications necessarily require case-by-case editorial judgement; they do not establish a blanket prohibition on every type of chart mentioned as an example.

It is also important to understand that, although country articles generally follow a similar structure, differences will always be necessary depending on the country. We cannot expect the articles on China and Vatican City, Russia and Bhutan, or Switzerland and North Korea to follow exactly the same format and structure or to treat their subjects identically. Every country has its own characteristics, and these will sometimes require editors to give greater weight to certain subjects than would be appropriate elsewhere. One country article may devote more attention to religion, another to the consequences of its exceptionally large or small territorial extent, and another to its political system or constitutional arrangements. Such differences are not defects or inconsistencies; they are a necessary consequence of applying editorial judgement and due weight to the circumstances of each country.

In conclusion, this WikiProject's guidance should not be applied as a blanket prohibition or used to justify indiscriminate removals without considering the purpose of the material and the particular characteristics of the country concerned. This is especially important when a removal would depart from the consistent treatment of the same group of countries, as in the case of the European microstates. Editors should also engage constructively with those actively improving an article and address the article-specific reasoning they provide, rather than acting unilaterally. Thanks for your attention. --Beethoven (talk) 18:12, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I suggest you take this to Talk:Andorra, which would be the ideal place to discuss the content of our article on Andorra. Thanks, MediaKyle (talk) 18:15, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, it seemed more fitting to raise this here, since the issue concerns this WikiProject's guidance and other editors have also raised similar concerns about its application to country articles they were working on. I'm sure simply clarifying the wording of the guidance could help editors avoid similar situations in future. --Beethoven (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

No WikiProject guidance can prohibit an editor being WP:BOLD, and the guidance is necessarily very broad given that every country is unique. This should be discussed on the article talkpage. CMD (talk) 01:42, 30 July 2026 (UTC)