Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:17, 2 November 2016

Biography Template‑class

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography Template This template does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

This template was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination: Deletion discussions: Withdrawn by nominator per agreement that custom responses in {{{reason}}} are to be deprecated as ambiguous. Also, per the comment of Andy Mabbett, microformatting will be finished., 2014 February 22, see discussion. Snow keep, 2013 September 16, see discussion. No consensus, 2013 April 3, see discussion. Keep, 2013 January 21, see discussion.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Who is widowed - topic or topic's spouse?

There is a clear consensus to remove the "widowed" functionality. Cunard (talk) 22:32, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I see this has been discussed before, but I could find no clear consensus. I just now wanted to use the template, and in the case in question the topic's spouse had outlived the topic. Now, to me the reasonable thing to add to the marriage template in such a case is "widowed", as in the spouse was widowed.

Just to make sure I did things correctly I looked at the template, which really doesn't clarify things at all. Then I looked at the template talk (here), and see that this has been discussed repeatedly. Yet I see no clear outcome of these discussions, other than to leave out the word "survived". What about "widowed"? Who is widowed? The spouse (which makes sense to me) or the topic? What's the consensus? Manxruler (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I think it should refer to the spouse not to the topic, i.e. the topic died and the spouse was widowed. DrKay (talk) 09:59, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I think so too, DrKay, but the template doesn't explain that, and after skimming through this talk can't find any mention of a consensus regarding this question. I'll just leave the whole business out for now. This also relates to "death", whose death? Manxruler (talk) 10:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

The spouse is widowed (or dies). If this is discussed again consensus may be easier to establish because a previous prominent contributor is no longer with us. Thincat (talk) 21:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Per , this parameter is confusing and misunderstood. Should it be removed? DrKay (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

To say that "X was widowed" is to say that X's spouse died, so I don't see "widowed" in the template as a clear explanation to the reader as to the cause of the end of the marriage. On the other hand, "his death" clearly explains that the marriage was terminated by the person's death, rather than by divorce or other type of termination. Eliminating the parameter completely would also eliminate that snippet of information from the infobox, which I think would be a major loss for those looking for dashboard information. (Consider Henry VIII or Elizabeth Taylor, for example.) Perhaps a reworking of the element order and punctuation would help clarify things. What if it looked like: "m. 1923-1967 (his death)" ? 32.218.47.115 (talk) 20:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I am not familiar enough with the template syntax to mock that up in the sandbox. Are you able to do it? DrKay (talk) 20:18, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Removal of "widowed" function

This template uses a parameter, "end", to display a reason for the termination of a marriage. The template documentation advises that the end date should be the date a marriage was dissolved or the date that the spouse of the article subject died. However, in the event of a marriage ending by the death of the article subject, it is possible to signal that by using "end=widowed", for example {{marriage|Joan Smith|1916|1942|end=widowed}} produces the output "Joan Smith (m. 1916; wid. 1942)", attempting to indicate that Joan Smith was widowed in 1942. Should this functionality be kept or removed? DrKay (talk) 20:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

• Remove. Per the discussion above and at Template talk:Marriage/Archive 3#Survived parameter, the word "widowed" can be misunderstood to mean that the article subject was widowed rather than the spouse, i.e. that the spouse died in 1942 and the article subject survived. Furthermore, all transclusions of the template are embedded within infoboxes, meaning that use of the widowed parameter duplicates information already given in the infobox, since the infobox will already give the death date of the article subject. If no date is given for the marriage's end in the "spouse" parameter, it is natural to assume that the marriage lasted until the death of the article subject, and it is not necessary to repeat the death date. DrKay (talk) 20:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

• Remove, confusing and unnecessary duplication of info.Pincrete (talk) 20:44, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

• Remove - Per DrKay --Terra 03:21, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
• Remove. Too confusing. I misinterpreted the example before I read this RfC. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:04, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

• Remove duplication of info and can be misleading. Fraulein451 (talk) 15:02, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

• Remove: DrKay's analysis carries the argument in my opinion. Snow 09:03, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Engagement

A formal engagement, as a "promise to wed", is something that could usefully be added to some articles. Could or should a template equivalent to this one be set up? Schwede66 01:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I also support this idea - very useful for celebs who announce engagements that can be long-term. —Мандичка 😜 13:10, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Schwede: Isecond that idea. An engagement template should be created. Better yet, a template for domestic partnership and a cohabitation should be created, in addition to an engagement template. CookieMonster755 𝚨-𝛀 20:10, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

MOS:DATERANGE recent changes

The Manual of Style guideline for date ranges (MOS:DATERANGE) recently went through an RfC that resulted in the deprecation of the two-digit abbreviation of year ranges within the same century (i.e. 2008–10), replacing it with the original full format (i.e. 2008–2010). Could this template please be altered to reflect that change in the MOS, whenever convenient for an administrator. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 06:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

This template is exclusively used in infoboxes, where two-digit abbreviation of year ranges is permitted. DrKay (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Maiden names

The template description should state Misplaced Pages style standards for whether wives should be listed by their maiden name or married name. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

@Anomalocaris: I entirely agree. Matieszyn recently made edits to Barack Obama and George W. Bush removing the maiden name piping. I happen to believe that the maiden name is useful since this was the surname that happened to be superseded by marriage, preventing any confusion as to whether the wife had the same surname (e.g. Eleanor Roosevelt having the same surname as Franklin D. Roosevelt, them being distantly blood-related). @DrKay: Any thoughts on this?--Nevé–selbert 18:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I prefer maiden names personally, but there was some prior discussion at Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 29#Spouse parameter and surnames. DrKay (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Died vs divorced

"Arline Greenbaum (m. 1941; d. 1945)" "d." could be divorced or died, on my desktop I can hover the cursor over the "d" and see that it means "died" but that option is not available for mobile. More than 50% of all searches are by mobile and growing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:48, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not convinced, though I might be if some evidence of confusion in readers was provided. I think it could be changed to "died" without abbreviation by simply removing the line from the template, as shown in the sandbox, or by changing it to "| d | d. | died = died". DrKay (talk) 20:23, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

End

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Biographies When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

I have noticed there is a mixture of using just the start of marriage in the template: (m. 1900) while others are more complete with the "end=" parameter filled in, as in: (m. 1900; his death 1941) or (m. 1900; her death 1941) or (m. 1900; divorce 1941) or (m. 1900; annulled 1941). Should we always be filling in the "end=" parameter? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:54, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

No. If the marriage ends with the death of the article subject, there should be no need to repeat the death date, which will already be given in the infobox. If no other date is given for the marriage's end, it is safe to assume that the marriage lasted until the death of the article subject, and it is not necessary to duplicate the information. DrKay (talk) 18:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't assume that, and I don't think the average reader assumes that. I just think no one did the research as to why the marriage ended, or that legally they are still married, even after death. How is the reader to know which of them died first without doing further research? Spouses usually do not have their own articles so the research involves looking up obituaries. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Per Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment#Suggestions for responding, you shouldn't be making edits to articles along these lines until the RfC has concluded. DrKay (talk) 21:16, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Every situation is different, which will affect the parameters, but I guess I am a little confused as to what you are asking/proposing. Do you have any actual page examples of what you are talking about and how you think they should be different? Thanks.Kerdooskis (talk) 16:48, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton, I'm totally with you. The whole situation can be rather confusing and ambiguous. Good on you for wanting to sort it out. Schwede66 18:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

• Template-Class biography pages
• Misplaced Pages requests for comment