Should templates for military service be added without information?

Question

I see templates for military service being added with only the War and the military branch.   {{Mexican-American War|branch=United States Army}} as an example.   The profile has all the information about rank, start, stop dates, etc.   Why is it left to the profile manager to complete the template?   Shouldn't the person adding the template be required to fill out all the information?  I would rather have no template than one that has all the blanks in it.

Comments

I prefer less information in the sticker and more in the biography.

In my opinion, stickers should direct viewers to read the biography, not the sticker.

It's okay to have various parameters, but I shouldn't feel obligated to use them if I don't want to use them.

I prefer to keep stickers simple.

edit: changed them to stickers in last sentence

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@Lindy

Perhaps then the sticker should be structured so that if you do not have or want to add the information it doesn't leave all the blanks in the sticker?   ie.

Service started

Service Ended

Rank

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Makes sense to me; parameters should be optional. Let the profile manager(s) decide.

Answer 1

True, Robin. A partially completed sticker should have more. 

If added by someone else, not the PM, who could have read the info in the profile, he/she should add the info. Nearly empty stickers do not add anything to the profile.

Answer 2

I agree with you Robin. But it took me over a year to figure out some of the templates. I started off C&P them from another profile. Some where good and some where half blank, like the ones you're talking about. Then I started searching for where they are stored, what I could put in them and how. Sometimes this would take hours. All my notes would go into a notepad. Then I would get lost in the notepad Grrrrr. My final solution was to make a free page Badges Templates and Stickers of the ones I use the most and where to find the others. I think most people don't put the information in because they just don't know how.

Comments

Richard is right, dang things are hard to use and it seems all are a little different to get them to show right, takes so much time!  Do we have a video on those yet?