Template talk:Post-nominals

Edit request 14 March 2026

Description of suggested change: OLY for some reason doesn't appear to be compatible with this template if the template also uses the country parameter. For example, {{post-nominals|OLY}} produces OLY but {{post-nominals|country=AUS|OLY}} produces a blank space. But trying to use certain country-specific parameters with out the corresponding country parameter also results in a blank for those letters. So, for example, {{post-nominals|OAM|OLY}} just produces OLY instead of OAM OLY. It seems OLY should be made compatible with all countries. Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 01:32, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

 Not done Please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first. See WP:TESTCASES --MikeVitale 14:44, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea how to. Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 17:08, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Examples encourage MOS violations

Per MOS:POSTNOM, post-nominal letters may be included in any part of the article other than the lead sentence (emphasis in original). I can't think of many places other than the lead sentence where a construction like Jane Smith PC CC OBE or Jane Smith, PC, CC, OBE would make sense, so the documentation for this template seems to implicitly encourage the inclusion of post-nominals in a way that violates the MOS. Given that the proposal to exclude post-nominals from the lead sentence was in 2023, I think this encouragement is probably intentional, and just a holdover from before the MOS changed.

I think the documentation should make clear that this template is not to be used in the lead sentence, and we should give examples that do not hint at such usage. We also ought to link to the MOS, given that it has a section all about post-nominals. I think the main use case that remains is in infoboxes, so perhaps we should explicitly say that this is a (the?) primary use case for this template. (Template:Infobox person already suggests using this for honorific_suffix.)

(The reason I ended up here is because I hovered over a link to John Davidson (activist) and spotted a nonsensical comma after the name in the popup: John Davidson, is a Scottish activist. I have seen this comma before in popups for biography articles, and it is often – though not always – because the lead sentence uses it to introduce this template immediately after the subject's name; the template is left out of the text shown in the popup, but the comma remains. In other words, there are good reasons that are quite unrelated to style for not including the examples in this documentation in lead sentences.)

I am able to edit Template:Post-nominals/doc, and I may well do that, but I wanted to see if anyone had any objections to these ideas. Cheers. Pink Bee (talk) 19:35, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

While I am not averse to removing postnoms from the lead, I don't think they should be removed unless there is an infobox to put them in (and they are added to that infobox), as this simply amounts to removing information, which we should not ever be in the business of doing. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:57, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Necrothesp, if no infobox isn't in the article than they should be in the first sentence. The onus is on article creators and the content removers. Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 13:06, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I think that makes sense. There was some discussion of that when the proposal was made and accepted.

To be clear, I am not campaigning here for/against what the MOS currently says, nor saying how we should deal with "fixing" those articles that currently have the post-noms in the first sentence. (As Necrothesp says, the way to do that is certainly not to just remove the information if it is not elsewhere in the article.) What I am suggesting is that we change the documentation of this template to clearly highlight what the MOS says so that editors do not add this template to the first sentence where it was not there previously. Pink Bee (talk) 13:23, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

I have added some guidance on usage to the documentation. I didn't change the examples to remove the names; after all, this is the post-nominals template. Anyway, any editor who reads what I have added to the beginning of the documentation will know that the template isn't supposed to be used in the lead sentence, whatever the examples suggest. Pink Bee (talk) 17:20, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 June 2026

An inquiry on whether the Fellow of Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA) should be included. Pangalau (talk) 07:52, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

References

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before posting an edit request. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 16:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 10 June 2026

Please add the following for Australia.

Code	Link	Apparent post-nominals
DSC1	= Distinguished Service Cross (Australia)	DSC & Bar
DSC2	= Distinguished Service Cross (Australia)	DSC & 2 Bars
DSM1	= Distinguished Service Medal (Australia)	DSM & Bar
DSM2	= Distinguished Service Medal (Australia)	DSM & 2 Bars

Cheers. Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 04:55, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

 Not completed: the following are already in use at Template:Post-nominals/AUS:

DSC    = [[Distinguished Service Cross (Australia)|DSC]]
DSCa   = [[Distinguished Service Cross (Australia)|DSC]]
DSCuk  = [[Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)|DSC]]
DSC1   = [[Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)|DSC]] & [[Medal bar|Bar]]
DSC2   = [[Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)|DSC]] & [[Medal bar|Two Bars]]
DSM    = [[Distinguished Service Medal (Australia)|DSM]]
DSMuk  = [[Distinguished Service Medal (United Kingdom)|DSM]]

Please advise. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 05:38, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm requesting the post nomns for the Australian award bars be added, the presence of the UK awards is irrelevant. Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 20:59, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

DSC1 and DSC2 are already in use (for example, at Otto Becher and four other articles). They presumably earned the UK's DSC, since the Australian DSC was not introduced until 1991. We can't just change the link for DSC1, since that will make some articles inaccurate. Some work will have to be done to sort this out. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:47, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

DSCa1 & DSCa2 perhaps? seems fairly straight forward. Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 06:08, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

That could work. Some testing using the sandbox would be the next step. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:46, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

And so that there's no doubt, the page to edit is the [AUS sandbox], and the [main test cases] page should be used to check your edits. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 22:38, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

So have they been added yet? Nford24 (PE121 Personnel Request Form) 20:28, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Template:Post-nominals/AUS/sandbox and Template:Post-nominals/testcases are unprotected pages. Make them like you think they should be, and I will be glad to make the live template reflect your improvements. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 03:59, 14 June 2026 (UTC)