The prefixes are entirely unnecessary (no "Yugoslavia" but the SFRY had these federal subjects) and inaccurate in that they are true for only a part of the relevant period. Also imo it makes much more sense to list the subdivisions by size (the old Yugoslav "ranking") rather than bare alphabetical order. -- Director (talk) 00:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Prefixes are accurate for the period immediately preceding the country's dissolution (and a good number of years before that), which is in line with a similar situation at Template:Republics of the Soviet Union for example. Ordering them by population seems entirely arbitrary and confusing for unsuspecting readers (alphabetical listing is obvious - listing by population isn't). And in addition, the old version you are now arguing against was unchanged and unchallenged for four years after it had been originally created by yourself. This simply makes no sense. Timbouctou (talk) 00:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as I said, not accurate for the entire period. Prefixes like DF, FPR, PR, and FS also applied (this isn't the USSR, I see no relevance: WP:OTHERSTUFF). I disagree that not using alphabetical order is somehow "confusing".

What doesn't make sense? I know I originally put this up myself years ago, but I like to think my editing skill and sense of efficient coverage has evolved somewhat over the years. The "old format" (its really not that big of an edit) was good and it was up for quite a while, but that doesn't mean I can't improve my own "design" a bit after returning to it years later. -- Director (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Old prefixes are not used nearly as much as the ones which were current at the time of the country's dissolution, if the entire body of works written about SFR Yugoslavia and its demise are anything to go by. And convincing anyone that listing a country's subdivisions by any criteria other than alphabetical (without explaining the criteria in the template itself) is somehow less confusing is just plain bizarre. And WP:OTHERSTUFF applies to deletion discussions, not formatting of templates. This reeks of WP:OWN. Timbouctou (talk) 00:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

They're not used as much, but again, the last ones don't apply throughout. I simply do not agree population/territory size (i.e. relevance) is a confusing or illogical criteria that needs to be especially explained.

How is it "WP:OWN"? I'm basically reverting myself and you're opposing that. So that's kinda "bizarre", if anything. What also might be bizarre is that you seem to have been following my contribs a month ago when you reverted my self-revert here. -- Director (talk) 01:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I also think it makes much more sense to list the subdivisions by size if it was commonly used that way in Yugoslavia. I do not know if this is really true, but if it is that it is definitely more appropriate-more common sense. Wikipedia do not live outside of the real world.--MirkoS18 (talk) 18:14, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I concur that an alphabetical sorting is best unless we establish the other sorting criterion clearly for readers who don't know much about these topics - which is most of the English readers, really. For example, at {{ethnic groups of Croatia}}, I argued for a non-alphabetical order because there's a clear reasoning and a direct link to the source for that order. Here, there's no such thing right now. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 18:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

This is going to turn into a "thing", isn't it? Added note to the template. -- Director (talk) 19:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that {{ethnic groups of Croatia}} is not really example of good practice that we need to follow due to reason for change in that case. I don't think it should turn into a "thing" because I do not think there is too big capacity for conflict. However, I support DIREKTOR position.--MirkoS18 (talk) 19:54, 11 September 2013 (UTC)