Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 13

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Image caption

The instructions state "Try to include date of photo and the photographer." This has been consensus since June 2007. It was briefly discussed at Template talk:Infobox actor/Archive 6#Consistency in infobox captions, but I see no other pertinent discussion. This issue is now a subject of argument at Talk:Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother#Info box caption. I think the documentation should read "The caption should include the date, and any pertinent information that is necessary to understand the image, such as when an actor is depicted in character rather than in person (e.g. Colley Cibber), or when an image is imagined or dubious (e.g. George Fox). Notable photographers and artists may be credited in the caption." DrKiernan (talk) 15:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

That would be a great improvement. I wonder if there should be a link to WP:N in "Notable" to drive home the point that notable is meant (there are many credit-seeking photographers who would consider themselves to be notable). The slightly harder wording in WP:CREDITS is very appropriate IMHO and I think the documentation should require that a reason to credit the photographer in the high-visibility infobox is available (a reason related to the topic of the article). For example, why should Roman Vishniac have a photo credit? The photographer is sufficiently notable for an article, but it appears that photography is not the reason for the notability. Johnuniq (talk) 01:33, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Roman Vishniak was a photographer. The name of the taker for each image in the article is significant and informational. The wording on WP:Credits is the same as the wording I've suggested. Neither requires another reason for the name of the artist beyond notability, and there is no semantic difference between "pertinent" (my wording) or "relevant" (WP:Credits) so both restrict the caption in that sense. DrKiernan (talk) 09:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

My reading is that WP:CREDITS is more restrictive than your proposal. WP:CREDITS says "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article." which has a default position of do not credit. I see that my above wording ("why should Roman Vishniac have a photo credit?") is not right—I meant to ask why the photographer (Andrew A. Skolnick) of the image in the infobox at Roman Vishniac should have a credit. If the name of the image creator is important for an image in an infobox, why is it not important for every image? Johnuniq (talk) 10:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I understood what you meant on Vishniac. My point is that on Vishniac's article, I think all the photos should have a credit, if it is not obvious that the image is by Vishniac.

The wording from WP:Credits is derived from a discussion on licensing requirements. It is not necessary for the purposes of the CC-GFDL license to credit photographers in captions if the information is on the file page. What should be in the infobox caption is a different issue, as to what is appropriate encyclopedic content. That is better served by the entire Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions guideline rather than the specific section on licensing requirements. DrKiernan (talk) 11:02, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I wonder how this sits with images that are available under a CC licence requiring attribution? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a bit of discussion on that at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions. DrKiernan (talk) 11:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Authority control

I've just embedded an instance of {{Authority control}} in the infobox on Marshall Goldsmith. Is that the best way to show authority UIDs, or should we make them individual parameters of the infobox; or have a differently-formatted sub-template with one key/ value pair per line? There's some prior discussion at Template talk:Authority control#Move to infoboxes; it's probably best to continue discussion there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Which UIDs get to make it into the infobox and which don't? At one point in the past there used to be things such is IMDb links (and others) in infoboxes but eventually it was decided to put these things in the external links section rather than in the infoboxes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

List of missing images?

In Template:Infobox actor, I set it to add to a category when there was no image, now it's been merged here, that has gone, the category has been deleted as empty. Would that be useful to add to this one. I think it's useful to have a list of required images to track down. Code from the old template was a simple one-liner...

{{#if: {{{image|}}} || [[Category:Actors needing an image]]}}

 Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think there was a discussion on that in the past. I recall that the conclusion was that there is no reason to explicitly ask photos for vll actors and not for other professions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Journalist

Infobox journalist has now been merged with this template. To make this possible, without any major effort, I had to add a parameter for |family= and |credits=. For the family parameter, I just added a new field. For the credits parameter, I overloaded the "notable works" field so that one can use either credits or notable works, but not both. I think we can probably clean this up, but for now that was the easiest solution. I also fixed a bug in the template code which had the signature field and one of the modules using the same number, which would mean that only one (but not the other) would work. I think at the very least, we should see if we can replace the family entry with one of the other ones (e.g., relatives, children, spouse, ...). Let me know if there is a problem. I also preserved the old journalist talk page history (see up at the top of this talk page). Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 06:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Good work, thank you. I would put |family= alongside |relatives=; in the same way that you put |credits= alongside |notable_works=. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the journalist infobox had both |family= and |relatives=, so some work would be required to check to make sure they weren't both being used at the same time, or I could just wedge them both into the same field, but then it might be confusing why there are two value that get wedge together in the same field. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Medal templates as a pseudo-infobox

How should we deal with instances of the medal templates, used as a pseudo-infobox? Your comments would be welcome at Template talk:MedalTop#Name, redux. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Field called Background

Could someone add a tag to this template called "Background" which is broader than ethnicity. I think it is needed, and will end debate on various pages eventually. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 09:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Interlink to Italian Wikipedia

Could you add the interlink to it:Template:Bio?--Mauro Tozzi (talk) 10:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. That was (I hope) just an edit to the doc page: Template:Infobox person/doc. Johnuniq (talk) 10:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Use of infoboxes on biographical articles

Discussions have arisen, at Talk:Marian_Anderson#Infobox and Talk:Samuel Barber#Infobox, about whether to include infoboxes on those articles, or whether "prior determination" prohibits them.WikiProject Classical music has been canvassed, but other interested projects talk pages were not notified; and {{Infobox person}} has been proposed an alternative; hence this post. Wider participation would be welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Religion: Atheist?

In a BLP (Kari Byron) we have a very well sourced statement that the subject is an atheist ("I am an atheist,"[1]). This much is not disputed. What is disputed is the inclusion in the infobox under Religion. Two editors replaced it with "None" (since removed as unsourced). My argument is that it belongs there as being descriptive of religious beliefs and to be consistent with the catgegories Category:American_atheists, Category:Atheists_by_nationality, Category:Atheists, etc. being subcategories of Category:American_people_by_religion, [[:Category:People_by_religion_and_nationality, Category:People_by_religion, etc.

I understand the argument that Atheism is / is not a religion (based on whatever definitions are being used for "Atheism" and "Religion". We're unlikely to settle that dispute. However, it seems to me that the Religion field is there to provide information on the person's beliefs. Atheism, as opposed to Agnosticism, is, to me, a belief that there is no god(s). Surely this is as meaningful as a blanket statement that someone is -- nominally at least -- Roman Catholic, a Muslim, etc.

On talk, another editor suggested an RfC. I'm here for some answer to what we currently do. (Do we generally include Atheist under Religion or not? If not, how do we reconcile this with the parent/subcategories?) - SummerPhD (talk) 02:11, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

If a source says the subject is an atheist, then by definition, "religion: none" is fully and adequately sourced. atheism is, again by definition, not a religion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Strongly opposed to ever listing atheism anywhere under the label religion. "None" is, however, fine. If there was an article about me and my atheism was listed this way I would be quite offended and consider it a BLP violation. The religions field is not there to provide information on people's beliefs. It is there to provide information on people's religious beliefs. I believe in toasters, wood, lint, water and cardboard, By your use of belief, they belong there just as much as Christianity. Atheism actually belongs there less than these (reductio ad absurdum) objects because it is an absence of belief. Remember the old, saw: If atheism is a religion then not collecting stamps is a hobby. "Atheism, as opposed to Agnosticism, is, to me, a belief that there is no god(s)." Not at all. I am just as much an amickeymousist as I am an atheist. The only reason we need a word for atheism is because so many cotton to religion that a word is needed to describe the lack thereof. The real problem with your statement is that it treats any old belief as the equivalent of religious belief relying on faith (my lack of belief in gods is just as everyday as my lack of belief that mickey mouse is a real sentient being).

Belief:

      1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.

      4. a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith: the Christian belief.

When a religious person speaks of belief in god, he refers to the latter definition. When he wishes to assert that "atheists believe in lack of gods" he must perforce mean the first, but his argument implies the second definition, nonetheless. Just because the English language uses the same word to denote both meanings is not license to use those meanings interchangeably.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

"None" is most descriptive of agnostics, as those who don't have religious beliefs. I suppose it could be used to describe atheists too, but for clarity's sake we should use "atheist." Remember that, despite common mis-usage, an agnostic is one who either doesn't have religious beliefs or believes that religious knowledge is unattainable, while an atheist is one who holds the affirmative belief that in the non-existence of God. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise, but your premise is itself incorrect. What you are talking about is one kind of atheism (my kind) sometimes called explicit/strong/hard/positive atheism and is as opposed to what is sometimes called implicit/weak/soft/negative atheism under which there is no belief in any deity but also no claim of falsity, and which definition can even cover human babies, raccoons and inanimate objects.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps "Religion" could be replaced or complemented by something like "Religious views" or "Religious position"? This would enable us to list a person's attitude towards religion without necessarily implying that they have a religion themselves. "Religious views: Atheist"? I'm aware that atheism isn't a religous view in and of itself, but couldn't it be considered a view on religion? Flax5 (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Atheism isn't a religious view. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:20, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that atheism is not a religious view, but it seems strangely unbalanced to be able to place religion in the infobox but not whether someone is atheist or agnostic, which describe a related attribute (you cannot both have a religion and be atheist). What about changing this to belief? it isn't a perfect term, but I think we don't have one in English and it can be explained in the documentation. I think having a slot where this can be listed is more important than getting the perfect name for the slot label. Francis Bond (talk) 12:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Atheism is not a belief. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say it was. I said we should have a slot in which we can put Atheist, we don't have a perfect name for it, so lets go for belief as the closest we have been able to come up with. If you can think of a better name, fine. If not, excluding the information from the infobox because English has a lexical gap seems to be worse than a slightly misleading label, which can be acknowledged as such in the documentation. The options seem to be:

a not label people who are atheists or agnostics in the infobox

b make up a new slot for this

c come to some compromise for a name which includes both atheism and belief in religion

I think c is better than a which is the current situation. I would be more than happy to see a better solution, but no one has proposed one. Just fixating on labels does not strike me as a solution at all. Francis Bond (talk) 09:49, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Language codes

This template's documentation currently says, for |native_name_lang=:

ISO 639-2 code e.g. "fre" or "fra" for French.

Shouldn't that be ISO 639-2 and "fr"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:28, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Per List of ISO 639-2 codes - no! fr is ISO 639-1 says the table. mabdul 13:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant it should be be ISO 639-1 and "fr", not ISO 639-2 and "fre" or "fra"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how(or if) these fields are really used, but I think that 639-2 is preferred since it is simply newer and better. mabdul 12:59, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Why mention the name of the parents and spouses, but not the children?

Seems a bit odd. If the names of the children are reported in the media, is there any reason not to list them? Dream Focus 17:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, for royalty, etc. that would make sense. History2007 (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Dream Focus, but the names of parents are only mentioned if notable as well. And I believe that is the keyword: notability. Nymf _hideliho! 17:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, notability is needed. But if both parent and child are notable, does the box have a facility when it is for the parent? History2007 (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure I follow. Jane Fonda is a good example of someone having both notable parents and children. As you can see, names are used in both fields. If the parents aren't notable, the field is left empty. Nymf _hideliho! 19:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I misunderstood Dream Focus' question. The infobox is fine, as your example indicates. History2007 (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

So even thought Alicia Silverstone's baby is mentioned in the press, since the kid doesn't have his own article yet, under children it should just say "1" instead of the kid's name.... yeah... that still sounds rather stupid no matter how you try to explain it. And a lot of people, such as Ted Turner, have their parents and children listed even without any blue links there either. Dream Focus 01:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The only person who does not have to be notable to be mentioned in the infobox is the spouse (or partner) of the subject. I suppose the rationale is it's more important background information than parents and children. As for Turner, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Don't know whether there'll be any push back, but I've removed them from the Turner article.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Biographic articles always list the names of the parents in them. If that information is important enough to always be in the article, why is it not put it in the infobox? I don't see any reason why spouses would be there and not the parents or the children. Dream Focus 09:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The infobox is only meant to summarize the article, not cover it completely. The same goes for the lead. Unless notable, you probably only mention (if at all) that there is a daughter or son. Nymf _hideliho! 10:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge alt and caption parameters?

In most cases, the 'alt' text will be the same as the caption (since they're both targeted at describing what the image contains). So could the two parameters be merged together to simplify the template call? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:47, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It's my understanding that the alt text is often orthogonal to the caption, see Wikipedia:ALT#Examples. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:21, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing the link, but that seems to set out the reasons for having a useful alt text, rather than explaining the difference between an alt text and a caption... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The difference is that a caption does not need to include information that sighted persons can plainly see in the image, such as a backdrop, or what the subject is doing, or what color the subject is. Alt text, on the other hand, should describe visually what the image shows without getting into the context. So a caption for this image could say "A bottle of Chateau Margeaux, 1994 vintage", while the alt text would say "A green wine bottle with a white label." Powers ^T 21:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The alt text and caption should never be the same. That would just be redundant and piss off every single user with a screen reader. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Documentation of the years_active parameter

The instructions for years_active as of this writing do not appear to make sense, and do not reflect actual usage. The parameter is almost always used to indicate the year range that an article subject was active in the field(s)/activit[y|ies] for which they are notable (this is even reflected by the order in which this field appears in the documentation). The /doc instructions seem to be trying to simultaneously suggest this and to forbid it and instead insist that it be used for fl. date ranges when a birth date, death date or both are unknown. It certainly could be used for the latter, and this is appropriate for ancient subjects, but not for all subjects. Consequently, I'm going to remove the contradictory restriction. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:21, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Orientation

Should there be a new line on sexual orientation in the infobox? Just an idea. Pass a Method talk 10:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

This would almost never really be relevant, though (a physician or singer or mayor or whatever is very rarely going to be more or less notable simply for being or not being hetero-, homo- or bi-sexual); for many people it's a flexible thing that changes over their lifetime; and it would lead to a large number of editwars, even about "gay" activists (both Susie Bright and Margaret Cho, for example, have at different times publicly identified as lesbian and as bisexual, but many sources WP would normally consider "reliable", like mainstream newspapers, have a tendency to simply say they're lesbians, thus leading to sourcing conflicts and squabbling about them). Where sexual orientation is important to a subject's history, the article prose can cover this, and do a better job of it. Generally I think this sort of thing is a good argument against ethnicity and religion parameters, too. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Influenced by unsupported information in Infobox

I'm tempted to revert this edit with an edit summary of "The Infobox is a summary of information in the article—which Michael Mann isn't (and Orson Welles doesn't appear in the Michael Mann article)", but thought I'd check with others here first. As an aside, I'm not that keen on the "Influenced" and "Influenced by" parameters as they invite fairly subjective additions, and it's hard to be consistent with a level of influence for inclusion. GFHandel ♬  21:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

My sympathy. I normally look the other way since it is hard to explain some things to some people. The docs in the template are typically vague, but they do link to WP:NOR when suggesting that editors should not assume that X influenced Y. I would take that as support for the rather obvious position that a claim that X influenced Y should, if challenged by another editor, be supported with a reliable source (not a random website), either in the infobox or preferably in the article where the influence is described. Johnuniq (talk) 23:14, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The fields have always been problematic. The tend to become a list with little to no sourcing. There is also no context as to how/why etc the "influence" is demonstrated. On occasion they become so bloated they can distort the entire infobox - although this alleviated when they were adjusted to be collapsible. I don't know if there has ever been a discussion about removing them but I would think that names not mentioned in the article or sourced in the infobox should be removed. MarnetteD | Talk 00:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request (typo or grammar)

In the alma_mater text box description, the phrase "It is usually not relevant to included either parameter for non-graduates" should be changed to "It is usually not relevant to include either parameter for non-graduates" (bolding added to show requested change).--Bbb23 (talk) 13:57, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

This is in the documentation, right? You can edit this yourself at Template:Infobox person/doc#Parameters. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:28, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Ambiguity when birth_place but no birth_name

Has anyone else observed a possible ambiguity when the birth_place parameter is specified but birth_name isn't? Some place names could be mistaken for people's names. Where the birth_name isn't specified, the label (label11) is still 'Born'. I think that relabelling as 'Birthplace' in such cases would be less confusing for readers. Doing so would probably mean that birth_date and birth_place need swapping, in order for it to make sense. I started previewing some changes in the sandbox but unforunately got lost because I'm still learning about template syntax. -- Trevj (talk) 09:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

organisation parameter

Hello, is it possible to add "organisation" parameter with s also ? People often use "s" instead of "z". Thank you! -- ɑηsuмaη ^{ʈ ᶏ ɭ Ϟ} 19:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Known for/Notable works

Years ago, when the separate actor infobox still existed, there was a "Notable roles" field. I recall that it was deleted because it violated WP:NPOV. How are we to say what is and is not a notable role? What is the limit on notable roles? Surely, the role one person considers to be someone's most notable, is a role another person has never even heard of... and so forth. My point is, do the "known for" and "notable works" fields in this infobox suffer from the same problems? Surely for some people, everything they've done is a "notable work", or what they are "known for"? It just seems like the kind of content which should not be in the infobox. Or is there some kind of policy with regards to what should be included in these fields? If this has already been discussed/resolved, just point me in that direction. Thanks. Gran² 10:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Year ranges

I put this on the talk page for Infobox television a few weeks ago, but got no reply: Can we have some clarification on the standard procedure or consensus on the use of parenthetical year ranges in infoboxes? When should they be used, and when shouldn't they be? (I know they should for spouse). Is (0000–) or (0000—) acceptable? Is < small > acceptable or not?

Suggest you raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Middle initials in name=?

When an article's title lacks a middle initial, but the middle initial is known and appears in the lede (per WP:FULLNAME), should it be used in the infobox? (Secondarily, is it preferred to omit the name field in the infobox and use the default from the article? If so, then that would encourage the infobox to not have the middle initial.) Example: Angela Santomero. jhawkinson (talk) 12:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say yes, and no, respectively. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hearing nothing further,  Done. jhawkinson (talk) 02:13, 10 September 2012 (UTC)