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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Infobox person template.
Template:Infobox person is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.

Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.


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This template (Template:Infobox person) was considered for merging with Template:Infobox artist on 14 June 2014. The result of the discussion was "speedy keep".
For pending merger proposals (2009 to date) see Template talk:Infobox person/Mergers

Bad example

The example shown uses <br /> to separate list-items, contrary to parameter descriptions which state:  Separate entries using {{Plainlist}} or {{Unbulleted list}}. The 'plainlist' doc explains that this is preferred to linebreaks, and adds:  Detailed reasons for using this template can be found at WP:UBLIST.  At any rate, an "example" should be a "good example". It's not that I intend to be nit-picky, it's just that it would have been nice to have an example to go by instead of tracking down documentation elsewhere. ~Thanks for your attention, ~:71.20.250.51 (talk)

Death date and age template

Any reason why the (aged xx) part of this template is now appearing on a line break when used in the death date field? eg. Never used to do this until recently... can it be fixed? Connormah (talk) 20:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

the template in common in both examples is template:death date and age, so perhaps you should ask there? Frietjes (talk) 13:38, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

death_name paramter

Would it be useful to have a death_name parameter? This would cover for cases where the person is not now commonly known by the name they had on their death. Yaris678 (talk) 15:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't | other_names = cover this on occasions when it is needed? (Though if significant it ought to be in the lede anyway). Do you have any examples in mind that could benefit from adding a death name parameter? GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
The case that made me think of this is Joan Clarke. Famous for her code-breaking during WWII, she late married Jock Murray. It seems she took his surname name but kept her maiden name as a third middle name.
I'm open to suggestions of a better way to summarise this in an infobox.
Yaris678 (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

First Lady of Japan?

I'd say that's the Empress of Japan. The "second lady" would be the Crown Princess. Akie Abe is neither. Surtsicna (talk) 14:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

labelstyle's padding-right

Having just passed by Pythagoras, I'd recommend increasing labelstyle's padding-right from 0.65em to e.g. 1.0em. Anyone know if that would cause a malfunction somewhere..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Clarification on Children parameter

Is the Children parameter intended to display a number of children, or names of the children? The template docs are lacking appropriate explanation. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Typically only numbers, names if the children are particularly notable. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi there, Nikkimaria. Do you think there's any benefit to clarifying the template docs? If a preference for number vs name is split, I think at least the docs should contain some explanation that non-notable minor children should not be named, since that does come up quite a bit. (Can't remember the exact shortcut, but I remember it being a BLP concern.) Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:03, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
"For privacy reasons, consider omitting the names of children of living persons, unless the children are independently notable" seems fairly clear to me - what would you propose to add or include instead? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Holy crap I am an idiot. I was looking at the template, and somehow missed the text about the Children parameter. I think perhaps because there are no embedded notes in the blank template with all parameters. Anyhow, my fault entirely. I think maybe an embedded note summarizing the doc text might be helpful for idiots like me. Ack! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't be opposed to doing that, but if we were going to I would think we would for more than just that parameter - "relatives" and "parents" both have a similar note in the doc text, for example. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

When should party field be included in the infobox?

Should the political party field be included for a non-politician who has self-identified with a party, absent any other support for the party or its candidates or affiliation with the party? There’s a debate going on over at Talk:Orson_Scott_Card#RFC:_Should_we_include_his_political_party_in_the_infobox.3F I believe that self-identification isn't enough to make it relevant (particularly in this case where there's a bit of ambiguity), that some real connection with or support for the party and/or its candidates is necessary, but others disagree. Bennetto (talk) 22:53, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Citizenship

I was wondering whether the concept of citizenship could be brought to more prominent positions in the infobox listings.

In comparison to "nationality", "citizenship" gives more flexibility:

On a POV basis and, while not claiming to be an expert, I would be much more inclined to promote Patriotism than Nationalism.

Being a patriot the example I checked through was Paul McCartney (no prizes for guessing where I'm from). Although I did not do an extensive search, the parallel article in the majority of other languages tended to name the nation at the end, or following, the birth section of text.

A notable difficulty with the proper noun terms is that they frequently link to disambiguation pages:

As examples:
>The code for "Chinese" can either be written: ] or ].
>The code for "American" can either be written: ] or ].
>The code for "British" can either be written: ] or ].
Both types of option are used so, I guess, some editors have the priority to indicate nation even under the name of nationality.

At the moment the:
Blank template with basic parameters
reads:

| residence    = 
{{Infobox person
| name        = <!-- include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name -->
| image       = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing ] -->
| alt         = 
| caption     = 
| birth_name  = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date  = <!-- {{Birth date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} or {{Birth-date and age|birth date†}} -->
| birth_place = 
| death_date  = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} or {{Death-date and age|death date†|birth date†}} -->
| death_place = 
|  nationality = 
| other_names = 
| occupation  = 
| known_for   = 
}}

Can citizenship replace nationality or at least be added?

At the moment the:
Blank template with all parameters
reads:

...
| residence    = 
|  nationality  = 
| other_names  = 
| ethnicity    =      <!-- Ethnicity should be supported with a citation from a reliable source -->
|  citizenship  = 
...

Can this be reordered as follows?:

...
| residence    = 
|  citizenship  = 
|  nationality  = 
| other_names  =      (a section that I suspect is rarely used)
| ethnicity    =      <!-- Ethnicity should be supported with a citation from a reliable source -->
...

I think it makes sense for citizenship to follow residence and for ethnicity to follow nationality. Gregkaye 08:12, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

I've been adding some audio and IPA pronunciations to various articles lately, and it occurred to me that while in some cases the information is very pertinent in the lead - say, for example, in the case of Maya Angelou, whose name is often mispronounced - it's often useful-but-not-required, and can sorta break up the flow of the article. So for example, I recorded the name Hadley, which is an intuitive-enough name to pronounce, but it doesn't hurt to have it there (presumably particularly useful for non-native speakers, who wouldn't have the same intuitions about how people pronounce names). I'd rather be adding these pronunciations to an infobox than the lead. Can we add a pronunciation parameter, similar to the "signature" parameter that already exists? 0x0077BE 14:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

0x0077BE this has been discussed before in this thread. not sure if there was ever a conclusion. Frietjes (talk) 20:57, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer Frietjes. That discussion sure seems to have been scattered across many, many different pages. Surprisingly, it seems like there's broad support for the idea of decluttering the lead sentences, but no implementation. The most substantive discussion seems to be here and here. Honestly, I think we can implement a "pronunciation" or "pronounced" field in this template without any sort of requirement that the pronunciation be moved from the lede. Infoboxes usually tabulate information that is scattered around the article. For some articles maybe you'll want it in one place or the other. If I work something up do you think it would be a major issue to implement it? Otherwise, we can try to bring this to an RfC at the Village Pump to see what people think. 0x0077BE 21:15, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
0x0077BE, implementation is easy, if there is consensus concerning how/where it would appear in the infobox. Frietjes (talk) 22:12, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
I would recommend that the IPA pronunciation either go under "native name" or above or below "signature". I can see the audio file going one of two ways, either you include it in the IPA template, like this: /ˈɡɪl/ , or have the audio file as a separate parameter in the infobox. The advantage of doing it the second way is that even if we want the audio file included in the IPA template, we would always have the option of switching to a full audio player just by changing the back-end. The downside is that IPAc-en, the preferred template, takes individual arguments for each phoneme, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to incorporate those into this template.
One technical question is about multiple pronunciations. Often you'll get pronunciations in multiple languages, and very frequently we'll use both IPA and pronunciation respelling for English. Should each of these get its own line / entry? Should we just add support for up to say 6-10 languages under |pronounced-1, |pronounced-2=, and |pronounced-lang-1= , or should we try to enumerate the items like |pronounced-us, |pronounced-ca, etc. My guess is that the first approach is preferable, but maybe there's an even better way.
Either way, is this the right venue for this? Should I be taking this to Village Pump or something to get consensus? 0x0077BE 18:48, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
this is probably no better than any other place for the discussion. however, given that you probably want this change in more than just this template, you probably want to start an RFC and add pointers on other talk pages (e.g., {{infobox musical artist}}, and others). Frietjes (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
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