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"Languages" parameter

Seeing how it is not already included, I would like to suggest the addition of a "Languages" parameter for the Person Infobox indicating which languages the person speaks fluently. This would be useful for translation and the parameter "native_name" as well as render the parameter "native_name_lang" to be obsolete. Thank you! User:Учхљёная ^{(talk,philosophy,edits)} 20:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

First, it wouldn't render the native name lang parameter obsolete - there is obviously some correlation between the two but it's imperfect. Second, such a parameter is likely to encounter problems of definition. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it wouldn't render the "native_name_lang" parameter obsolete. However, despite that the suggested parameter would be relatively hard to define, it would still be a nice piece of trivia to know about a given person and with whom they are able to fluently communicate. User:Учхљёная ^{(talk,philosophy,edits)} 02:33, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

The template isn't intended for trivia. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Yep. This would not an encyclopedic parameter.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:26, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Infobox family cleanup

Could use some additional input on the post-merge cleanup at Template talk:Infobox family#Documenting and probably paring down the parameters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Style merge of related templates

Per sensible edit-protected request at Template talk:Infobox Christian leader, I've merged and normalized the code that handles pre-nominal titles, post-nominals, and the subject's name between them, in Template:Infobox person, Template:Infobox Christian leader, and Template:Infobox officeholder. There are probably others to normalize as well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:53, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Honorifics boldfaced?

I noticed that some of those templates were also applying font-weight: normal to the pre- and post-nominals (i.e. removing their boldfacing). Is this the desired output? I did not [initially] implement it in the merged version. Figured this is worth settling before normalizing this code between any further templates of this sort, to avoid having to go re-re-normalize them again later. PS: An option is splitting this code out into a little meta-template used by all of them so it never has to be changed again in multiple template pages; for simplicity, I would put that at Template:Infobox_person/name or something like that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:17, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Peeps immediately started complaining, e.g. at Template talk:Infobox officeholder, about the boldfacing, so I've put in the font-weight: normal (in all three templates). If people are going to vent about that, just open an RfC about what the display should be. People are apt to argue back and forth about this, and it should just get settled one way or the other so we can get back to more productive things than struggling over trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:53, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Size of prefixes and suffixes

These edits by SMcCandlish need modifying. Prefixes and suffixes now appear abnormally large, e.g. Winston Churchill. Can someone reduce the size back to normal? Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 22:44, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

It has the exact same font-size: small now as it did before; it's actually slightly smaller now than it was, due to font-weight: normal removing the boldfacing (two of the three templates whose styles have been merged were using non-bold; only this one was using bold). So, maybe try flushing your cache and purging the page. There's no reason you should be seeing "abnormally large" prefixes and suffixes. If people want it even smaller, that might be doable; one of the templates was using font-size: 77%(which is maybe too small), and another font-size: 87% (which is actually slightly larger than HTML <small> but slightly smaller than CSS font-size: small).

What size do people want? Here's a comparison:

CSS small (about 90% or so)	Pre-nominal First Middle Last Post-nominal
CSS 87%	Pre-nominal First Middle Last Post-nominal
HTML <small> (= 85%)	Pre-nominal First Middle Last Post-nominal
CSS 77%	Pre-nominal First Middle Last Post-nominal

It's easy enough to implement whichever people want, but going below 77% will likely be a WP:ACCESSIBILITY problem; even 77% itself might already be. Simplicity would suggest going with <small>.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:38, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

There is a potential accessibility issue for certain. We have consensus that no font should be rendered at less than 85% of the page's base font size, which is documented at MOS:FONTSIZE. Infoboxes aleady have their font size set to 88% of the page's base font size, so you can't use <small>...</small> (which is defined as 85% in MediaWiki) or CSS font sizes less than about 97% (=0.85/0.88) in the normal part of an infobox  – effectively not at all. Where the header has an increased font size as in {{Infobox office holder}} or {{Infobox person}}, there is more room for flexibility. To take an example, Charlie Chaplin has both honorific_prefix and honorific_suffix, which are currently rendered at 102% of base font size = 88% (infobox) x 125% (CSS applied to header) x 93% (CSS small applied to span). You could reduce the font size of the span further instead of using style="font-size: small;", but not below style="font-size:77%;" as that would reach the agreed limit. I'd suggest style="font-size:85%;" (same as <small>...</small>), which looks reasonable to me. --RexxS (talk) 03:12, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. I set it to 85% on all three templates.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Thanks, but note that the 85% as it appears on the infobox is not the same size as this, but rather the same size as this ({{midsize}}). In other words, |honorific_prefix= is not the same size as {{{officeholder}}}.--Nevé–selbert 18:29, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

There's only so much we can do without further style and code merging. Here's what the display differences are, at least for this part of the infoboxes, in the order person, officeholder, and Christian leader:

Extended content
Reverend Yojimbo Doodah DD Reverend Yojimbo Doodah DD Reverend Yojimbo Doodah DD

Size-wise, these appear consistent enough to me, though not 100% identical (using Chrome, on MacOS X). RexxS's analysis suggests we can go as low as font-size: 77% if we want the pre- and post-nominals to be even smaller.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:12, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I think we should give font-size: 77% a go, if that's OK.--Nevé–selbert 19:17, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

After this flurry of edits, I'm inclined to let it sit for additional comment for a while. There's really not a lot of input to go on here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:29, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Frankly, the size of the suffixes ought be reduced to its original size. On a Windows machine, the suffixes look ghastly at the present size.--Nevé–selbert 07:59, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

 Done. I set it to 77% ("its original size" doesn't really apply, since it varied between the three templates; see above for how 77% was calculated as a minimum size that will comply with MOS:ACCESSIBILITY).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:39, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Title/position

Hi there! A discussion is taking place at Talk:Michael_Portillo#Infobox_proposal. There seems to be consensus that the article subject, who was a politician until 2005 but then left politics to make a successful career in media, should not be constrained by "Template:Infobox officeholder". We are looking at using "Template:Infobox person"; this could suit (see examples on the talkpage) but at present the offices held by him in his previous career can only be listed as Title, which is not colloquial usage. Is there any way we could change Title to Office, or could Office be added as a parameter to Template:person? - there are perhaps many other cases where those who have once held office have gone on to better things.....Smerus (talk) 12:03, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

I've made the change in the sandbox and the second example on Talk:Michael Portillo #Infobox proposal is using it to demonstrate. The change in template code is trivial. Any objections if I update the main template in the near future? --RexxS (talk) 13:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

This looks good to me, many thanks. It has my support, and I hope it proves generally acceptable. Smerus (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Nationality

X. Ample
Nationality	Elbonian

Hey there, anyone down for some clarification on |nationality= in the documentation? In this edit, I removed "Cuban-American" from the parameter because that sounds like an ethnicity to me, not a nationality. What are the guidelines on this? If he was born in Cuba but became a naturalized American, would we put one? Both? Combine the two? Would it be "Cuban and American"? "Cuban<br />American"? Examples would be nice. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:59, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed; Cuban-American isn't a nationality. If someone has dual citizenship (or some similar arrangement, e.g. for someone before legal citizenship existed in a particular place), that would probably be rendered something like |nationality=Cuban, American, or |nationality=Cuban and American, or |nationality=Cuban (until 1959)<br />American (naturalized citizen, 1966), yadda yadda.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:44, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

My edit was reverted on the basis that the subject's ethnicity is "Latino". I suppose that's a good point, but isn't Cuban-American just a more specific description of ethnicity? How does anyone feel about adding some clarification to the template instructions? If your esteemed colleague (me) is confused about the proper usage, I can only imagine what inexperienced editors think. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:33, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

A huge RfC at WP:VPPOL concluded we should not be putting ethnicities into infoboxes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:15, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed that the nationality (by "nationality", I mean "country of citizenship") is not appearing in many infoboxes. Maybe I've missed the debate about that - if there has been one - but it looks like something new to me. Is there a reason for that ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 08:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Test at the right shows it working. Will need to see an example in situ where it doesn't work to debug it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:19, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Here are three examples : Catherine Deneuve, Robert De Niro and Donald Trump. Their respective nationalities (French for the first one, American for the second, American-Italian for the third) do not appear in the infoboxes. The fields have apparently been removed, or not included at all. Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 07:53, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

In what sense does Trump "belong to the nation of Italy" (definition of 'nationality')? That's exactly why we tend not to put such worthless factoids in infoboxes. While I'm here, how does linking |nationality=French to France help anybody reading the English Wikipedia better understand a subject such as Jacques Cousteau? Do you think our readers don't know where France is? Or is there something in our lengthy article on France in the sections on history, politics, or demographics that provides a key fact in the subject's life? We have WP:OVERLINK for a reason. --RexxS (talk) 15:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I could post some US polls on their citizens knowledge of international geography, but it would probably depress you. The short version is, yes a lot of readers wont know where exactly somewhere is. Encyclopedia for a broad audience remember. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:05, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking #What generally should not be linked: "An overlinked article contains an excessive number of links, making it difficult to identify links likely to aid the reader's understanding significantly. A 2015 study of log data found that "in the English Wikipedia, of all the 800,000 links added ... in February 2015, the majority (66%) were not clicked even a single time in March 2015, and among the rest, most links were clicked only very rarely", and that "simply adding more links does not increase the overall number of clicks taken from a page. Instead, links compete with each other for user attention."
... Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article, the following are not usually linked: ... The names of subjects with which most readers will be at least somewhat familiar ... This generally includes major examples of: geographic features ... languages ... nationalities and ethnicities"

References

'Nuff said? --RexxS (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Woops, sorry, I by "American-Italian citizenship" I obviously meant De Niro, not Trump. My bad. :)

As for the links, IMHO having them doesn't hurt either but quite frankly I don't really care since that's not the point. It's just that not having a mention of their citizenship in the infobox seems odd to me. Or, rather, I thought that the infoboxes should naturally have a mention of the subject's citizenship as well as date of birth and death, profession(s), etc. And yet, many infoboxes seem to miss such a detail. Is there a specific reason for that ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 19:48, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The way I understand it, you only put in nationality when it is not readily apparent from their birthplace. So there's no need to put "British" for a Briton born in the UK since that would be redundant. As for their citizenship, put the name of the country they are a citizen of, rather than the adjectival demonym (as is done with nationality). Citizenship should only be put it they have multiple citizenships, are naturalized citizens, or if it is not readily inferable from their birthplace. Regarding the OP, "Cuban-American" is more an ethnicity than a nationality. If they're a dual citizen then put "Cuba and the United States" or "United States and Cuba" in the citizenship field. Ethnicity is no longer included in the person infobox. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 09:44, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

There's no need to put "British" for someone who is clearly a Briton, but being born in the UK does not make a person British. British nationality is derived from a subject's parents and unless it is readily apparent that they were British, the field is not redundant. The same applies to many other countries, but not the USA (where nationality may be inferred from birthplace). --RexxS (talk) 13:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

It actually gets very complicated for Brits. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course, it's rarely simple in most countries. From Nationality law #Principles:

Jus soli (Latin: the law of the soil) is the principle by which a child born within a country's territorial jurisdiction acquires that country's nationality. Jus sanguinis (Latin: the law of the blood) is the principle by which a child acquires the nationality of his or her parents. Today, most if not all countries apply a mixture of these two principles: neither granting citizenship to everyone born within the country's jurisdiction, nor denying citizenship to the children born abroad.

References

Our article contains a brief summary of some of the different practices in different countries. --RexxS (talk) 14:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Death dates

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Should the death date of the article subject be given more than once in the infobox? Please comment at Template talk:Marriage#Death. DrKay (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

merger with Template:Infobox Chinese-language singer and actor

You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2017_November_18#Template:Infobox_Chinese-language_singer_and_actor. Thanks Timmyshin (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 19 November 2017

Please add {{subst:tfm|Infobox Chinese-language singer and actor|type=sidebar}}, per a nomination by Timmyshin {{repeat|p|3}}ery (talk) 17:17, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Not done: It will just cause unnecessary disruption. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:46, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I concur. We already over-use TfX notification templates that directly show up in articles. Our readers have no interest whatsoever in internal machinations like template mergers. The TfM notice can be put on the template's talk page (I have done this already).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

home_town vs residence

Why do we need poorly defined home_town when we can use residence and add in the date range they lived there? --RAN (talk) 19:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

According to the documentation, it's "The place where the person was raised and matured, if different from birthplace and residence." In my experience it's not uncommon for sources to simply state that a person is from somewhere without asserting that they were born there. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:56, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Infoboxes and succession boxes

Comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Limit_the_size_of_biographical_infoboxes_and_use_succession_boxes_for_multiple_offices. Thanks Greenshed (talk) 04:31, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Death date ditto

Can someone in authority better clairfy the instructions for the death date parameter. As is, it's confusing.

                                
<!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date)  -->

Proposed change

<!-- (death date then birth date) {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->

— Ineuw talk 18:11, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

That's not the intended content though. The goal isn't to list "birth date and then death date" and then recommend that the template is used. Instead, the intent is to use the template, which is then annotated about the order of the dates (first YYYY|MM|DD is death, second YYYY|MM|DD is birth). DMacks (talk) 18:28, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I realize and agree that in placing the instruction before the template is problematic. But others, including myself, didn't catch on until the template showed an error. (see an earlier post) Perhaps a tooltip hover can be added? Just a thought.— Ineuw talk 20:04, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

This [1] should be good enough. No, we're not going to reverse the parameter stuff with an explanatory note; the latter always go to the right in template documentation. The solution for people not getting the parameters quite right is to do exactly what we're doing: throw an error so they read the docs more closely and fix it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  11:34, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Fields appearing in child template

Hello,

I've added the "Infobox person" template to the page Bob Geigel with "Infobox professional wrestler" as a child template. The "spouse" and "children" fields should sit under the main template but for some reason they are appearing under the child template. Any insights into how this can be fixed would be appreciated. McPhail (talk) 20:40, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi McPhail. I fixed it by adding the line |module= to indicate that another infobox is included in "infobox person". I don't know where using child infoboxes is documented. I just searched articles linked to the wrestler infobox until I found one that included it in a person infobox. StarryGrandma (talk) 06:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

StarryGrandma - thanks very much. McPhail (talk) 08:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Doc overhaul

A combined diff [2], so far (includes additional tweaks by Nikkimaria and Kaldari). The gist, from edit summaries: better instructions; agreement with guidelines; semantic markup; rm. dead parameters; don't "advertise" non-standard parameter names; use cross-references, not redundant instructions; errors in param. names. Don't advertise deprecated parameters. Update for param. names now documented as "canonical" (because |post-nominals={{post-nominals}} makes sense, while |honorific_prefix={{post-nominals}} is pain. Also: use piped links to clear page names not per [[WP:ABC123]] stuff. Cite more guidelines and policies where relevant. Inline templates instruction section. All place info consolidated into one block. Move deprecated parameter to bottom.

Also did TemplateData update. Don't we have bots dealing with that these days? I hate doing this manually.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:11, 20 December 2017 (UTC); updated 00:04, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits

SMcCandlish, there is a difference between {{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|{{{honorific-prefix|}}}}}}}}} and {{{honorific prefix|}}}{{{honorific_prefix|}}}{{{honorific-prefix|}}}. I really don't care which one you use, but it should be consistent when used in a conditional. for example, consider

{{#if:{{{honorific prefix|}}}{{{honorific_prefix|}}}{{{honorific-prefix|}}}{{{pre-nominals|}}}|<span class="honorific-prefix" style="font-size: 77%; font-weight: normal;">{{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|{{{honorific-prefix|{{{pre-nominals}}}}}}}}}}}}</span>}}

which mixes the two. suppose we have |honorific prefix= and |pre-nominals=something? what happens then? the if statement is triggered, but it generates an empty span instead of any meaningful content. the following would be a very robust replacement:

{{#if:{{{honorific prefix|}}}{{{honorific_prefix|}}}{{{honorific-prefix|}}}{{{pre-nominals|}}}|<span class="honorific-prefix" style="font-size: 77%; font-weight: normal;">{{if empty|{{{honorific prefix|}}}|{{{honorific_prefix|}}}|{{{honorific-prefix|}}}|{{{pre-nominals|}}}}}</span>}}

since empty parameters would be treated the same as blank parameters. Frietjes (talk) 20:25, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: No one ever seems to really document this stuff. I've set up a comprehensive (I think) test page at User:SMcCandlish/sandbox_if_test. See note in 2nd test case (the one which I think concerns you here); it is not necessarily a bug, since it forces correction of duplicate/redundant parameters.

If you prefer that we allow someone to do {{Infobox person|... |honorific_prefix=OBE |post-nominals=MBE |...}} and have the result incorrectly be "MBE" even though that's old information and someone tried to update it by bone-headedly doing it in a redundant parameter, I won't overly fuss, I guess, but I'll say this one piece below.

If we do permit something like that, it should probably just go back to the {{#if:{{{honorific suffix|{{{honorific_suffix|{{{honorific-suffix|{{{post-nominals|}}}}}}}}}}}}| ... }} structure then, so we don't need a template call to {{Ifempty}}.

On to my actual objection: I disagree strongly that I'm "mixing" anything. In the predicate part of this code, the two arrangements have a radically different meaning; we would never do something like {{{A|}}}{{{B|}}}{{{C|}}}{{{D|}}} as output (versus if-tested input) unless the intent was really to concatenate all of these things, and each parameter had a different meaning.

I've been lectured at by various people more than once that the only reason to use an {{#if: {{{1|{{{2|}}}}}} |...}} (rather than {{#if: {{{1|}}}{{{2|}}} |...}}) – where these parameters are equivalent – is if the actual intent is to do something with explicitly null input like {{foo|1=}}, where |1= with no value is intentionally doing something different from both |1=something and the total absence of |1=. This is a scripting model we almost totally abandoned in the 2000s, because only template coding super-nerds understood that |1= being present but empty, and just leaving the parameter out could do something different, and 99.9% of our templates are not coded that way. The few templates left that still do something like this regularly confuse people. (I've actually fixed more than a few of them by giving an alternative parameter for that "special" condition, documenting it, and deprecating the "use a blank-value parameter" instructions from 2004 or whenever.) All that said, maybe I'm just mean and cruel in wanting to make people fix it when they put in a redundant parameter and get confusing output. >;-)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:10, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: There are basically four permutations here: (1) {{#if: {{{A|{{{B|}}}}}} |<span ...>{{{A|{{{B|}}}}}}</span>}}, (2) {{#if: {{{A|}}}{{{B|}}} |<span ...>{{if empty|{{{A|}}}|{{{B|}}}}}</span>}}, (3) {{#if: {{{A|}}}{{{B|}}} |<span ...>{{{A|{{{B|}}}}}}</span>}}, (4) {{#if: {{{A|{{{B|}}}}}} |<span ...>{{if empty|{{{A|}}}|{{{B|}}}}}</span>}}. All four generally function the same except in the case that both |A= and |B= are specified in the same transclusion. In that case, you can get some strange things happening when |A= is there but blank. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:37, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've documented them in the page I linked to in first sentence: User:SMcCandlish/sandbox_if_test. All that would be different by using {{if empty}}, at the cost of additional parsing, is that it will use the first value it encounters that isn't blank, and this may itself be an unexpected result for the editor. I.e., I don't see that it buys us anything. If you use two parameters for the same thing, the results are going to be confusing, because it's an error condition. Honestly, I don't really care which way it's done. If anyone feels strongly in favor of this way versus that one, have at it. I'm likely to keep doing stuff this way I'm doing it because it's the majority practice, and it's simple. If there's some big deal I'm missing, and I'm being obtuse, maybe I just need some coffee.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The Lord Tryon

{{Infobox person
|pre-nominals = [[Major]] [[The Right Honourable]]
|name = The Lord Tryon
<!-- ... -->
|honorific-prefix =
}}

Major The Right Honourable The Lord Tryon

{{Infobox person
|pre-nominals = [[Major]] [[The Right Honourable]]
|name = The Lord Tryon
<!-- ... -->
}}

The only problem I see is if somebody doesn't realise or notice that parameters like honorific-prefix and pre-nominals are aliases. With current logic, having |honorific-prefix= (blank) anywhere in the infobox will disable display of |pre-nominals=Xyz. That's why the {{if empty}} construction for the display is needed. --RexxS (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

exactly, the only problem is when both parameters are included but one is left empty. as long as only one set is included in the blank cut-and-paste version, it's less likely to happen, but still could happen. like I said, I don't care if we "nest" or "don't nest" as long as we are consistent. also, you probably want to make sure that |pre-nominals= and |post-nominals= are in the template data block. Frietjes (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I know; the test page proves this would happen. The issue with the {{ifempty}} approach is that it masks an error condition. If both a parameter and its alias are present and they do not match, it is a mistake, and someone is getting output they don't expect. It's just likely to be a minority, so the error is more likely to go uncorrected. If that wrapper is not used, then the error is much more apparent. Cf. all the red error messages the citation templates throw if you give them bogus parameters. It would be easy and "nice", in some unproductive sense, to not have those messages, but the point is to ensure the errors are fixed. I won't argue about it further; if youse guys insist on masking the error, have at it. I'm just on record as thinking this is a poor practice.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  22:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

If that wrapper is not used, then the error is much more apparent I'm not at all sure I agree. If somebody has created the box with some blank parameters (standard procedure) but hasn't filled them all in and one of them is e.g. |honorific-prefix=, and if somebody else – maybe someone with English as a second language – then comes along and adds |pre-nominals=XYZ ABC (perfectly reasonable), they should not have to scratch their head wondering why their addition does not show up. Looking at the two examples I give above, it would be extremely counter-intuitive for most people that the wikitext with more parameters has less output. An error is only an error if it produces an error; otherwise it's a problem that's been fixed. --RexxS (talk) 23:00, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Yet by not realizing there's an error here and fixing it, it sets up the situation where someone else (perhaps with different and not necessarily better sources) comes along, sees the blank one but not the filled one (blank infobox parameters are an "attractive nuisance" that inspires people to fill them whether they should be filled or not) and puts in "XYZ MNO"; we now have a direct conflict of information that could have been prevented. The truly robust solution is using a bot to normalize parameters away from their aliases to the ones listed in the TemplateData (after checking that to make sure it's 100% correct).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  00:07, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

A bot to do that would be a joy to behold (but murder to get approval for). Personally I'd have it remove every empty parameter it found, but my mate Andy would crucify me for suggesting that. --RexxS (talk) 00:18, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Nationality field

Is it necessary to include the nationality if it is the same as the birth location? For example, if someone is born in the US do we have to add American nationality? This adds some redundancy. I feel it should be used if it differs from where the person was born. Tinton5 (talk) 07:57, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Birthplace and nationality are not necessarily connected - speaking as the daughter of an Englishman born in Paris because my grandfather happened to be working abroad for a few years. PamD 11:29, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

@Tinton5: see Jus soli and Jus sanguinis. The americo-centric system of granting nationality to anyone born in that country is very much a minority practice among the world's nations. --RexxS (talk) 14:25, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Pre-nominals

The advice and example given here seems to contradict the advice given at MOS:BIO for Honorific Titles. In the infobox should "Sir" go on the line above or be emboldened together with the name on the same line? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:13, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: Could you be a bit more specific, please? The advice here at Template:Infobox person/doc #Parameters states:

• pre-nominals: This is for things like |pre-nominals = Sir ...
• name: Do not put honorifics or alternative names in this parameter.

And at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies #Honorific titles it says:

• The honorific titles Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady are included in the initial reference and infobox heading for the subject of a biographical article, but are optional after that.

As the infobox heading includes the lines for pre- and post-nominals as well as the line for the name, I don't see the contradiction. Am I missing something? --RexxS (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Where does "Sir" go in the infobox? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:37, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Like this: |pre-nominals=Sir, just as the documentation says. --RexxS (talk) 19:38, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

That now looks pretty clear to me, thanks. Perhaps User:Phinn could comment here? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

MOS:HON is clear that 'Sir', 'Dame', 'Lord' and 'Lady' are not included as honorific prefixes as they are honorific titles and therefore should be included infobox heading for the subject of a biographical article. The confusion has arisen from the example given in Template:Infobox_person/doc#Parameters of a honorific prefix as 'Sir' when this is incorrect. A correct example of an honorific prefix would be 'The Right Honourable', e.g. as per the infobox for Winston Churchill. Phinn (talk) 19:55, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about what the infobox heading is. It's the three lines made up of |pre-nominals=, |name=, and |post-nominals=. All three of those are rendered inside the table header as spans separated by <br> – you can check that by inspecting the html on a wiki-page such as Paul McCartney, (a Featured Article). A infobox not only displays information, but also encodes microformats that describe the information. Winston Churchill's name was not "Sir Winston Churchill" and his infobox is wrong in that respect.

Honorific prefixes are honorific titles – i.e. honorific titles that precede the name. Our article on Pre-nominal letters begins "Pre-nominal letters are a title which is placed before the name of a person as distinct from a post-nominal title which is placed after the name." 'Sir' is, of course, an honorific prefix, as is 'The Right Honourable'. See English honorifics #Formal titles. --RexxS (talk) 20:20, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

So how would be correct Winston Churchill, and all other infoboxes that have 'The Right Honourable'? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:13, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Put that stuff in |pre-nominals=, if it's used at all. It's not necessary to shoehorn every possible honorific prefix into the infobox. Many people who have them don't use them, and many that have a stack of them only use one. If Phinn is trying to imply that Sir, Dame, Lady, and Lord go in the |name= parameter, they do not. The lengthy discussion at WT:MOS about this recently concluded to treat all of these things are pre-nominals; there is no magical exception for Sir, Dame, Lord, or Lady. Yes, we're all aware of that some individuals don't like this. That's true of every line-item in MoS, and every line-item in every other policy and guideline we have, or that any organization has.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:40, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

I suspect Winnie's infobox will stay just as it is. As nobody will want to rob him of either his "The Right Honourable" or his "Sir", while The Right Honourable Sir just looks silly. Yes, I'm aware he doesn't use either any more. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:48, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 January 2018

My request is to add the (measurements) witch is a primary factor for models, beauty pageant Templates ....... Elly mino (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I see some discussion earlier last year here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:26, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Measurements were once in the infoboxes and were removed by consensus. See the discussions at Template talk:Infobox model/Archive 1#Women's measurements and Template talk:Infobox model#Women's measurements, part II. Note that besides measurements there was a field called "natural bust" to record whether a woman's breasts had been enhanced or not. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:04, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

@Elly mino, Jo-Jo Eumerus, MSGJ, and StarryGrandma: so apparently we just ignore the linked discussion and add it to the infobox anyway? Frietjes (talk) 15:07, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Oppose per prior removal discussions. Material like this – when actually relevant, which from an encyclopedic perspective is usually isn't – should be in the main article body, when consensus agrees to include it at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:51, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Baptized (vs baptised)

I would like to request that a baptized parameter be added in addition to the baptised parameter for those articles that use Oxford, Canadian, or American spelling, as well as other variants of English that use -ize suffixes. 142.161.81.20 (talk) 05:53, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@142.161.81.20:  Done. |baptized= was added as an alternative to |baptised=, not as an additional parameter (so you can't have both in the same infobox). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:20, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was what I intended. Thanks, Ahecht! 142.161.81.20 (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Notable works, known for, etc for actors

• Jack Albertson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) "notable_works", which I changed to "credits" --Ronz (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
• Paris Themmen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) "known for"
• Peter Ostrum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) "known for"
• Julie Dawn Cole (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) "known for"
• Denise Nickerson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) "known for"

209.112.222.126 (talk · contribs) has removed these fields from the five articles above. While I don't see these fields used often, they seem fine. I haven't looked for past discussions beyond here, nor other articles that use the fields. Pinging 209.112.222.126, RexxS, Oshwah ‎, Fourthords. --Ronz (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Ronz, you can't ping an IP, so I've left a note on their talk page pointing to this discussion.

As for the removals, it's been generally recognised that works or credits that are key to a subject's notability do belong in the infobox. Where the list of works is large (Beethoven for example), then a link from the infobox to a list article (e.g. List of works by Beethoven) is often substituted to avoid a long list. --RexxS (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

It is worth noting that when actors had their own infobox a consensus was reached to remove the "known for" field as inherently WP:POV. WP:UNDUE was also a consideration as the items in the field narrowed their careers. There was also tendency to edit war over what should and should not be included. Items in the field could get out of hand - I remember Olivier's infobox having 10 to 15 items in the field at times. Now I know that things have changed over the years but, as with other fields in the infobox, any mention should have sourced info in the body of the article to back up their use. MarnetteD|Talk 22:39, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

birth_place

The Explanation for birth_place says: "Omit unnecessary or redundant details. For example, it is not necessary to state: "New York City, New York, United States" when "New York City, US" conveys essentially the same information more concisely." But in line with edits like this, shouldn't it just say "when "New York City" conveys essentially the same information..."? i.e. what's the point of ever putting US after New York City? 86.187.164.242 (talk) 18:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps in this very specific instance, none; but as Wikipedia is for a worldwide audience, in the vast majority of cases a city or state name won't be clear and unambiguous to every reader worldwide; so for consistency the guidelines specify to always put a country, rather than take a guess as to which cities and states are sufficiently well-known to omit it. ('Georgia' in that example is particularly problematic as there is also a country of that name.) TSP (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I would disagree that "Georgia" would be in any way problematic, because, to the best of my knowledge, none of the cities within the U.S. state are synonymous with any cities in Sakartvelo. Joefromrandb (talk) 02:47, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

So it looks like a particularly poor example to give here? I'll adjust Alexander Kerensky, but I'm not sure it will remain trimmed. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree with that edit to Alexander Kerensky, I'm not sure if I gave the impression I would.

I think it is sensible to have a consistent guideline that country should always be given, and that is what the guideline currently indicates.

There are probably a few cities where it is redundant for most readers, and New York City is probably an example of one where it generally is; but I think it's more sensible, and is what the guideline currently says, to always give the country even in these cases, so readers can see at a glance what countries someone was born and died in; rather than the editor have to take a guess which cities are sufficiently well-known, and the reader have to mentally process multiple locations to establish what countries someone lived in. TSP (talk) 16:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I think birth places should be city, state and country order for worldwide reasons and it's a standard way to reveal the person's birthplace and such, no matter how people in this site see it. BattleshipMan (talk) 18:14, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

By that convention, Gerry Adams' birthplace would be listed as "Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom". Wouldn't that be amusing? Joefromrandb (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The "country" should not generally be linked. We just have to decide which is the country there. Or maybe there's two? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

On a general note, I suggest that it's always prudent to exercise caution when assuming what people may or may not know w.r.t geography....[3] PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

How can we possibly make allowances for some gormless BB sleb slapper like Jade, for heaven's sake?? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm all for bending over backwards to assist sleb slappers in improving themselves. (Ooh! Ow!) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:27, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not here to argue about what should or shouldn't be linked; I consider overlinking to be ostentatious and nauseating, but that's another discussion. We don't write: "Faroe Islands, Kingdom of Denmark", or "Rotterdam, The Hague, South Holland, The Netherlands, The Kingdom of the Netherlands", so we shouldn't write: "New York City, New York, United States", or "London, England, United Kingdom". I personally consider "London" or "New York" to be just fine, but "London, England", or "New York, New York" are tolerable. "NY, NY, US", etc., are completely over the line. Joefromrandb (talk) 22:38, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

The advice on locations and linking go hand-in-hand in this guideline. The general guideline is that country should be given. It would be much easier if the guideline explicitly said "New York City and London do not need any further locations after them." But it doesn't. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't go by guidelines much, so perhaps should not speak up here. - We are advised (per WP:OVERLINKING) not to link current capitals, such as Berlin and London. Then - if they are so well known - why add anything? I usually just give a birthplace town, such as Leipzig. Readers who really don't know can look it up in the link, including politics at the time of that birth. To add Germany for a time before Germany as a country even existed would be historical nonsense, no. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:37, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

• It would be truly unfortunate if we needed an RfC to establish that we should not include 'US' after the city and state names. Lepricavark (talk) 06:03, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

• Just to make this clear, this is not by any means a new "crusade" I'm on here; before today's bizarre incident, I had removed, as superfluous, "United States" and "United Kingdom" from literally scores of info-boxes without so much as a single word of protest. Joefromrandb (talk) 06:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

• Removing "United States" seems more in line with what the guideline says than removing "United Kingdom". It's just that, as we have seen over at AN/I, editors have different views. Without a totally clear guideline we'll just have more weeks and months of to-ing and fro-ing. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:55, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

• "Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom" is just as ridiculous as "Los Angeles, California, United States". The two editors at AN/I with "different views" do not supersede what appears to be a very clear consensus (not to mention common sense). Joefromrandb (talk) 09:01, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

• They may look ridiculous to you. The first probably because you live in that country. But to some readers, elsewhere in the world, they may be useful. All I'm saying is that this shouldn't be left to personal preference, but should be clearly defined in policy. It's a very basic kind of thing. There may not be one perfect answer, but at least clarity would prevent edit warring and questionable AN/I cases? Currently the only exception case given in the guideline, which bizarrely is also the only example, is for New York City. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:54, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

This "debate" is continuing here (and elsewhere, I'm sure). Can most readers be assumed to know that Indiana is part of the US? No, of course not. The reason infoboxes exist is to summarise basic information - including country of birth. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:02, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't look like you read my comment above. Readers don't have to know that Indiana is in the US, - they can trust that they will be told when they click on Indiana, and believe that the majority of readers of the English Wikipedia doesn't have to be told. If they don't know that it's in the US, don't rely on them knowing what U.S. stands for, and offer a link. I won't revert you, for both, but would never add U.S. (linked or unlinked) when in an article I write about someone from Indiana. On the other hand, if someone adds it to "my" article I will not make an effort to remove it. What I do is change every instance of West German and East Germany added to an article I care about, because these are no country names. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:47, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

But the first line in the guideline for birth_place says: "Place of birth: city, administrative region, country."? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:14, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

No, readers shouldn't need to follow a link to get to the basic facts (and they might be reading a printout or downloaded copy of the page). And while I can remember that Indiana is in the US, there are other states and Canadian provinces where I can't remember the country - speaking as a fairly well-read retired librarian from the UK. So please include the country, always. If it's redundant it can be ignored: if it's missing, the reader may not get all the information they need as easily as they should. PamD 10:39, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Now you seem not to have read my comment (2 up from here). Which country? A country such as Germany didn't exist until 1871 (so nonsense to add to any earlier birth, but if we name the little duchy some town was in back then we get into even less-known territory). Germany was two countries for a while, and some places were in France at a time, or Poland etc. Much easier - I think - if we leave all this complicated stuff to the history of the linked place, instead of loading the infobox of a person. KISS. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:53, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I tend to link countries which don't exist any more. But linking is a separate debate, I think. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:56, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I noticed today the introduction of {{Infobox person/Wikidata}} into Mady Mesplé, and even with |fetchwikidata=ALL it does not include a country – which is fine with me. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:41, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, we could easily change the template to add the country if desired, or a local value could be supplied anyway. Nevertheless, there is value in having a consistent guideline for situations such as this, as long as it is remembered that it really is just a guideline in these sort of cases. I seriously doubt that anyone reading the English Wikipedia would have any doubt about which country New York City was in, but it would be essential to state "Perth, Scotland" because of ambiguities. Rational thinking should trump blind adherence, and most importantly, this is a topic that really is not worth edit-warring over. If somebody thinks it helpful to add "US" to "Denver, Colorado", surely it is best to let it be? --RexxS (talk) 14:32, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I wholly agree with you. But whatever "worth" we think of the changes, this won't stop determined edit warriors on their respective subjective soapboxes. It just seems odd to me that the only example given here is New York City, when we can all see there are many more debatable cases. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

It seems, AutomaticStrikeout, that the answer to your question may sadly be "yes". We apparently may need an actual RfC "to establish that we should not include 'US' after city and state names". Sad, time-wasting, but at least it will be official at that point. Joefromrandb (talk) 16:02, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

A rule that New York City should only ever used on its own might be a better place to start? And what about "'UK' after city and county names"? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:19, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@Joefromrandb: A RfC would run a serious risk of arriving at "no consensus", a further waste of time. Perhaps it's worth reviewing the already-existing guidance at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), in particular the sections WP:PLACEDAB and WP:NCCS before deciding that the guidance we have is inadequate? --RexxS (talk) 17:43, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Problem with that is, we're not discussing the name of the article, we're discussing how to style it when talking about it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes. And only in fact, very narrowly, how to refer to locations such as birth_place in an infobox. Although I guess this applies to all infoboxes, not just this one? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:19, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan: Which of the considerations involved in the guidance for naming place articles is inappropriate for consideration on how the place is referred to in running prose or in an infobox? Did you actually read the guidance and its rationales? --RexxS (talk) 18:28, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh, so you've never been in any of the discussions about MOS vs NAME? You poor, innocent child... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

That's a bit rich, coming from someone who's younger than my youngest kid. Still, does that mean you can't answer the question: "What factors documented in how we write place names in WP:PLACEDAB and WP:NCCS don't apply to place names used in infoboxes?" Here's a hint: none of them. --RexxS (talk) 21:57, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Can the website parameter be updated?

The website parameter was updated/fixed on T:ITV and I was hoping it would be updated here too. The url displayed is distorting the infobox. Template talk:Infobox television#Website parameter. CherryPie94 (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Invitation

A relevant discussion for converting {{Infobox writer}} into a wrapper of this template has been initiated at Template talk:Infobox writer#convert_to_wrapper. Your comments will be appreciated. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 04:49, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Website should be at last

Frietjes can you please help in moving website below modules, as in a wrapper, website shows above career parameters which does not look good. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 04:37, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I've moved website below module, module2 and module3 for you, but left module4, module5 and module6 below that to give a choice should someone need a module in that position. --RexxS (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Capankajsmilyo (talk) 13:46, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@RexxS: There's some error, module values are not visible anymore. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 13:49, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, Capankajsmilyo, but I really don't understand what you mean. I can add a child template, or an audio file, etc. as a module and expect to see them. Have a look at Benedict Cumberbatch for an example. My edit has been reverted because it seems to be breaking the signature display, but I don't have time right now to figure out why. I'll have to try it out in the sandbox, although the change looks trivial. --RexxS (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Actually I am trying to convert {{Infobox writer}} to a wrapper of this one and the issue I mentioned was visible on {{Infobox writer/testcases}}. Thanks for trying though. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 16:44, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't know why but the modules have stopped working, see {{Infobox writer/testcases}} Capankajsmilyo (talk) 16:47, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I changed it use module5 instead of module and that worked.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:53, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Nah, it was me. I accidentally renumbered the signature field to have the same number for the image as for the header, while it actually needs the data number to be one more than the header number to make the full width available. At least we now know why it failed. Moral is: even if it looks like a trivial change, it's best to check it in the sandbox first. --RexxS (talk) 17:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

fixed. Frietjes (talk) 17:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. It is working perfectly now. I just wanted to ask that in original template spouse and other relations also appear below career info. So should they also move below modules? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 17:42, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

submodules usually have section headings, so, without a separate section heading, it would look strange. e.g., John Cena's relatives aren't part of his "wrestling career", or Patrick Dempsey's racing career. if they were, one could add them to the submodule directly. Frietjes (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Would adding a subheader (personal info) or something similar be a good option? Some editors did not like the changed order in testcases. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 18:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

you mention "some editors" and "changed order in testcases", but you have provided no specifics or links to another discussion thread. Frietjes (talk) 18:12, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Well the issue was raised during the conversion discussion of {{Infobox scientist}} and raised again in conversion discussion on of {{Infobox writer}}. Further, the more templates (bio related) I see, this looks like a norm to include personal info like relations and dob, etc below career params. For example, see {{Infobox royalty}}, {{Infobox officeholder}} and {{Infobox writer}} itself. Capankajsmilyo (talk) 18:19, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't see anyone other than you mentioning the ordering at Template talk:Infobox writer#Convert to wrapper. Frietjes (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I derived this interpretation from [4], but I guess that's not a correct interpretation. Nevermind, Im okay with it being above as well if that doesn't stop conversions to wrapper. One last query that I have is about the |awards= and |works=. I had to re-add them to make them appear below career params. Is that required, or them appearing above career is acceptable? Also can we use existing params of {{Infobox person}} below the module without changing code to Infobox person? Capankajsmilyo (talk) 19:02, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Changing example for birthplace

I would like to request that the example for the following:

Omit unnecessary or redundant details. For example, it is not necessary to state: New York City, New York, United States when New York City, US conveys essentially the same information more concisely.

Be changed to:

Omit unnecessary or redundant details. For example, it is not necessary to state: New York City, New York, United States when New York City, New York, U.S. conveys essentially the same information more concisely.

Most articles use the U.S. format and virtually none use the US format. Or at least add the option of 'U.S.' The former is more consistent and frankly, aesthetic. LivinRealGüd (talk) 10:02, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Given MOS:US, the best place to argue that case would be WT:MOS. If/when it changes there we can look at changing it here. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:33, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Just put: City, State, then Country. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 02:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Tracker

Please add {{compare|local={{{image|}}}}} at last to populate the respective hidden categories. Thanks User:Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 08:28, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

birth name for trans who has changed name

Has this issue. ever been discussed? An editor removed [5] the birth name field from a BLP for a trans (now genderless) person who had changed names, claiming that it was disrespectful and unpleasant to list the original name. Isn't that why we have the field, to list the birth name of someone who does not use their birth name? We certainly list birth names for quite a few trans people. And there are certainly other people who have changed their names who (for reasons other than gender identity) would prefer that Wikipedia not list their previous names. Meters (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

The issue has been discussed extensively, with much contention, several ANI threads, and at least one failed proposal. MOS:GENDERID doesn't provide any guidance on the question of birth names, but I believe this essay may be validly considered best practice. In a nutshell, was the individual notable under their birth name? If so, it probably should be mentioned somewhere in the article. If not, then it probably shouldn't. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 22:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Meters (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I should add that I have no interest in trying to put the name back in. It has been out for months now without issue. I just found the reasoning interesting and new to me. Meters (talk) 23:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Employer info

I think it would be beneficial to add some more distinction for the Employer option, and add in "Current Employer" and "Previous Employer(s)". There are some people who are recognized for their previous employers more than for their current. Keiji Inafune who have a long history with Capcom, but now working for Level-5. Hironobu Sakaguchi also had long history with Squaresoft and now works for Mistwalker. Tetsuya Mizuguchi has been noted to work for Sega and Q Entertainment but now works for his own company, Enchance game. Those are the only ones I'm aware of at the moment.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

There's nothing preventing anyone from adding previous employers to the employer param, and splitting it in two would increase maintenance burden. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:04, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Instead of replace, then perhaps just add them in as options? Maintenance wouldn't be so difficult after that.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 00:07, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, yes it would if they were ever used, because then we'd need to track not only where a person was employed, but when they ceased to be employed there. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:10, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

It would depend on the person and if they had more than one employment worth adding to the infobox. The examples i gave showed that they have long history with previous companies in addition to their current companies they're employed in. It's not a bad thing to have both. If it means making better articles. There is more than enough reasons to add it in and its not some special exception. There are a lot of famous people who are notable to being employed by multiple companies. Not just one in particular. It will have to be a case by case situation.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 00:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

My point is, if they are notable for being employed by multiple companies, great - put multiple companies in the employer field, as is already done. There's no need to create new time-bound parameters to do that. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:29, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I'll ask for more opinions at this point.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 00:31, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with Nikki that more parameters would be a lot of extra work to implement for little substantive benefit. If a person has worked for multiple companies in the past, they are going to have multiple entries anyway. - BilCat (talk) 01:11, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

As a compromise, how about renaming "Employer" to "Notable Employer(s)". It allows more than one Employer and don't have to clean up previous articles, and welcomes users like me to use it in confidence.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 01:18, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

@Blue Pumpkin Pie: In my opinion, Nikkimaria has the right approach here. Our convention has normally been for a field to contain as many items as are considered significant facts for the subject. For example we label a field "Occupation" in the singular, but regularly include a list of noteworthy occupations for the subject. We wouldn't need to state "notable" because non-notable facts don't belong in an infobox anyway. Similarly, the employer field can comfortably contain something like {{ubl | Capcom (1987–2010) | Level-5 (2017–present) }}. I'd certainly prefer not to complicate the logic of this infobox with any further options if we don't have to. HTH --RexxS (talk) 02:26, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

"Notable" anything in this context always bumps up against WP:POV and WP:OR. The problem is what is notable to one person may not be to the next one. All too often that leads to edit warring in an infobox over what is and is not notable. MarnetteD|Talk 02:34, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that Occupation and Employer are the same thing. You can use multiple Occupations in the single Occupation option and still seem natural for it to be referred in singular form because it can be considered multiple aspects of a single occupation. Employer doesn't have that benefit unless there are subsidiaries or a notable department within the employer. The infobox isn't shy to consider possibly plurality. Spouse(s), Partner(s), and Opponent(s) have the option to be plural. It makes a lot of sense to make this particular option into more plural-friendly too. I brought up the idea of "notable because then we'd need to track not only where a person was employed, but when they ceased to be employed there. Which that's something that's going to be tracked down even if we don't create the parameter. My main compromise is to include the (s). the only problem is whether people will feel comfortable using "Employer" option as it stands now. These articles that i listed prove otherwise. It also just doesn't look as clean as it should. As if Wikipedia does not officially recognize the idea of multiple employers, only the current one they have. SO my actual compromise is to add (s) to Employer for more invitation to use it.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 02:54, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Images of graves, buildings, badges, arms, etc, in biography infoboxes

I have started a discussion about the use of the parameter image. It often contains images which do not depict the subject of the article, and I would like to know if that is appropriate. The discussion is here. Surtsicna (talk) 10:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Year range versus full dates

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: WT:Manual of Style/Biography#The lead date-range vs. full dates thing.

It's conceptually related to the "long or short placename" discussion just above, and is also mentioning bio infobox dates in particular, though is focused on lead sections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

resting/burial_place parameters

Not sure if this has been asked already but here goes - is it really necessary for the template to feature separate resting/burial place parameters? To be honest it seems a bit pointless and nitpicky to me; the vast majority of editors just tend to go for "resting place" regardless of whether the subject was buried or cremated (and to my knowledge "resting place" is the term in most common usage online and offline). Might I suggest dropping the "burial place" parameter and just sticking with "resting place" for all? Hamptonian92 (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

This particular parameter has been discussed extensively before, both in terms of what it should be called and also whether to include it at all. Several commenters have proposed getting rid of "resting place" as a euphemism. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:11, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We probably should do something with this. What scenarios are we trying to account for other than a) burial; b) ashes scattered; c) put in a columbarium? It's correct that various NPoV objections have been raised about "resting place" as euphemistic. Wondering if there's another way to do this (such as a three-way parameter that says something more specific).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:19, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Lost at sea comes up regularly. Possibly also burial alternatives, although these will be less frequent. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:36, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Still not quite sure how "resting place" is euphemistic given how the phrase "Rest in Peace" (R.I.P.) is deemed quite normal and respectable in common usage (to my knowledge). Maybe in cases where the body was lost at sea it would be most respectful to forgo including it in the infobox completely. Should only really be included for subjects with a confirmed, locatable resting place IMO, maybe mention this in the documentation. Hamptonian92 (talk) 16:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Read the past discussions please. "Rest in peace" is also euphemistic. So is "passed away", etc. It's all avoidance of saying someone is dead. If you're dead, you're not resting, you're dead. When you take a nap, or sit on a park bench after a long jog, you are resting.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually RIP is requiescat in pace and is widespread in non-English speaking countries (the fact that the English has the same initials is a result of the fact that rest and peace both have Latin roots), but it is still a euphemism. It's also not without controversy - some fundamentalist Protestants believe it amounts to a prayer for the dead, and is thus heretical. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd forgotten about the background Latinism on that one (and didn't know about the Protestant objection).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:13, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Previous discussions

• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 4 #euphemism should be removed
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 4 #New Field
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 4 #'Resting place' not 'buried'
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 12 #Euphemism
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 29 #Resting place parameter
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 30 #RfC: Should resting place include cremation
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 30 #I propose dropping "resting place"
• Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 31 #The dead are not "resting" they are dead and buried.

There may be more. Would somebody like to create a FAQ? --RexxS (talk) 23:52, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We really should converge on "buried" and "burial place", and replace all legacy instances at least at the display level, for the same reason we say "died" instead of "passed". Euphemisms are inherently unencyclopaedic. Guy (Help!) 10:41, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@JzG: A major reason that proposal hasn't gained traction in previous discussions is it doesn't accommodate cases where the person wasn't buried. What would you do with those? Nikkimaria (talk) 11:51, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Can you give me an example where "resting place" works and "burial place" does not, please? Guy (Help!) 11:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

See Rhododentrites' comments here. Cicely Mary Barker is a specific example. Note: I actually agree with a proposal to remove "resting place", just looking for a way to mitigate common objections. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

New York City

The wording about "omitting unnecessary details" that was originally added by John has been removed by Bagumba as based on LOCALCONSENSUS. I've readded it for the moment as to me it appears to have a clear basis in the MOS, but opening for discussion here. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:55, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree, it is consistent with MOS. For the number of times I've seen this type of mistake made in infoboxes, it's helpful to have the guidance in the documentation. --Laser brain (talk) 12:43, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

To clarify, it seemed that the original edit was based on, at best, a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at Talk:Donald_Trump/Archive_36#New_York_City,_New_York,_U.S.. In my opinion, there seemed to be no consensus there, local or not. At any rate, let’s see where we stand today.—Bagumba (talk) 12:45, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that passage agrees in letter and spirit with WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the passage in question aligns closely with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes #Using infoboxes in articles. No local consensus in any template can override the broader consensus inherent in the MoS, and it is entirely reasonable to include an injunction in the documentation not to include unnecessary details. I support Nikkimaria's restoration of the text. --RexxS (talk) 19:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with Donald Trump. MoS instructions to avoid writing things like "New York City, New York, United States" for no good reason have been around since the 2000s.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:33, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Further background This topic most recently came up again at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biography#City,_state_in_infoboxes, which raised the question whether infoboxes should only list the city without the state/province. I had looked for the original edit that introduced the verbiage in question, and its edit summary reads: per recent consensus at Talk:Donald Trump, WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, and WP:OVERLINK)—Bagumba (talk) 05:05, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I stand corrected then. Maybe the MoS link conciseness stuff never made it into this infobox until after the Trump squabbling.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Special case for New York City/Trump? It's unclear when the state should be omitted. Is this following WP:USPLACE and its mention of the AP Stylebook? If so, this isn't consistent in infoboxes of other FAs (and many other articles). For example, Barack Obama lists his birthplace as "Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S."; John F. Kennedy's death place is listed as "Dallas, Texas, U.S."—per AP, they do not modify with state for those cities.—Bagumba (talk) 07:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

More examples Here are a few non-US President FAs: Angelina Jolie, born "Los Angeles, California, U.S."; Walt Disney, born "Chicago, Illinois, U.S."—Bagumba (talk) 08:17, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Some of these are things that require correction, not exemplars. The guidance is major location names that require no further detail, i.e. New York City, Paris, London, Moscow. Cities whose location are common knowledge. --Laser brain (talk) 12:10, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

At least for US cities and infoboxes, I do not believe it is common practice to exclude states.—Bagumba (talk) 17:39, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

And it's not about NYC in paticular, nor Trump. The Trump connection is just that an argument at the Trump article is what led to this I-box's documentation being updated to conform to the general MoS advice on this. However – and it's why I think a broader discussion is needed – common practice for a long time has been to treat the general MoS rule as applicable to running prose, not to the infobox location values. So, the change here is a substantive one. Normally, I'm all about "yes, do what MoS says and stop trying to make up exceptions", but this appeared to be an exception that enjoyed considerable support, especially after pressure to keep the lead more concise mounted, starting around 2010-ish, I think.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

My sense is that at the time, this likely did not meet WP:PROPOSAL: Most commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do. Though well-intended, these types of exceptions are unknown and non-intuitive to average ediors and especially newbies, who tend to edit infoboxes more, and it will persistently suffer drive-by reverts for consistency. These types of “guidelines” are not worth the churn.—Bagumba (talk) 23:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Adding an instruction to infobox documentation to comply with a guideline isn't a new proposal. What's at issue here is whether an MoS instruction about treatment of the main prose necessarily applies to an infobox item that serves a more tabular-data purpose than similar information in the lead would. That's really a template purpose/scope discussion, not a new proposal either.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:23, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Infobox displaces other images in article

When this infobox is placed in an article containing an image on its left (i.e. [[File:Anything.ext|thumb|left]]), the image is moved downward, just below the end of the Infobox (but still on the left side). Is there any way to circumvent that? Is this the expect behaviour of the infobox, or can it be fixed? —capmo (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, I found the solution. As I discovered, this is an HTML/CSS issue when there are multiple floating objects on the page, and not related to the Infobox. —capmo (talk) 19:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Infobox person/Archive 33
Occupation	Infobox

An image on the left has the float:left; style. An infobox has the float:right; style. That allows text to flow around those elements.

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So the default behaviour isn't what you're describing. That usually occurs when somebody has placed an element that has the clear:left; style after the infobox and before the image. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

RexxS, thanks for taking the time to create this example. When I added the Infobox and noticed that the image to the left had been dislocated downward, I wrongly concluded that the template was the culprit, by having a clear style hidden somewhere in it. I made several experiments with templates {{align}}, {{float}} and {{stack}} trying to fix the image position, but to no avail. Then I decided to read again the Extended image syntax manual, and came across the explanation that I cite above. —capmo (talk) 00:45, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Templatestyles

The templatestyles functionality has now been enabled on English Wikipedia. This allows us to make it easier to separate style from content in templates and should result in a general improvement in maintainability. More detail can be found at Wikipedia:TemplateStyles and the linked pages on MediaWiki.

I've created Template:Infobox person/styles.css and amended Template:Infobox person/sandbox to make use of it. It's only changed in four places. In Template:Infobox person/testcases, nothing is broken and checking a preview of several biographies when using the sandbox version produces the expected results; inspecting the preview with my browser's 'inspect' ability shows the text is being rendered from the stylesheet in Infobox person/styles.css properly.

Once we're satisfied that all is working as intended, we can update the main template from the sandbox. We'll need to make sure that Infobox person/styles.css has the same protection level as Infobox person first, so I've requested that. --RexxS (talk) 12:42, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It may be worthwile to create a specific style sheet for .honorific-prefix, .honorific-prefix {font-size: 77%; font-weight: normal;} and load that specific style on all person infoboxes (like template:infobox cricketer etc) that use honorific-prefix Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:39, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter: I was considering that, which is why I didn't rename the classes to person-honorific-prefix and person-honorific-prefix yet. The advantages of your suggestion are increased consistency between articles and ease of maintenance; the disadvantages are likely to include the resistance to change that some groups may put up if they have different styles currently in place.

Tangentially, my own view is that the reduction in size to 77% of the heading size is possibly too much and I recently saw the use of {{honorific suffix|size=100}} as the field value to increase the font size of that line, so I'm not the only one. I'd rather get the value right in the first place as using templates in these situations pollutes the metadata. Anyway that's a debate for another time.

Why not make Template:Infobox/bio-styles.css or something similar – I think the root 'Infobox' is the right template to host styles with a broader scope than just 'Infobox person' – and try it out while we're still in sandbox? It's much kinder to the server if we can get all of the changes agreed and made in one go because of the large number of transclusions. --RexxS (talk) 13:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I assume since it has been standardized relatively recently to 77% that there shouldn't be too much resistance now; I created Template:Infobox/biography-styles.css and made Template:Infobox person/sandbox use it. Also may want to consider Izno's idea of having a parameter in {{infobox}} for templatestyles, here Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:36, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the corresponding styles from Template:Infobox person/styles.css, otherwise they will override the ones you created. I assume styles specifically for Template:Infobox will go in Template:Infobox/styles.css, when somebody gets around to doing it. --RexxS (talk) 14:08, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

That misses the point of my suggestion. I have suggested a |template styles= for use in the templates which use Template:Infobox so that we can track those uses which still do not use template styles. --Izno (talk) 14:35, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what point I'm missing. The workflow for conversion asks us to add {{Uses TemplateStyles}} to the documentation for each converted template, so all of the converted ones should already be in Category:Templates using TemplateStyles. Isn't that enough to find those uses which still do not use template styles using PetScan or similar? Presumably, we can also search template space for insource:/"<templatestyles"/ to look for converted templates that don't have {{Uses TemplateStyles}} in their documentation.

Hmmz - having just tried that, I get 16 members of the category and 34 instances of "<templatestyles" in template space. Perhaps we need some gnoming first?

I'm not averse to adding a parameter, but I'm also not sure how adding a |template style= to {{Infobox}} would make it any easier to do the tracking, as we'd still presumably be dependant on the converting editor to add the parameter. What would be the best way to deal with templates that use two tags? --RexxS (talk) 16:23, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

This is probably discussion that should be at the above thread instead.

There is another benefit for e.g. checking color combinations as being AA or AAA (or what have you) in the metatemplate rather than in each invocation. (I'm sure there are other uses, but that was the immediate one.) The Lua for "has both a style and a template styles" would be something like if template_styles and (style or ...) and namespace == template then table:wikitext('[[Category:Tracking category]]') I think (I am not a Lua programmer). Why do you ask your last question? (Can you think of a realistic use?) I know we did the experiment to see if with two separate stylesheets whether one would be different from the latter based on position on the page, but I wonder what happens when we have two stylesheets with different specifities of selectors targeting the same HTML. --Izno (talk) 17:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

The other benefit makes sense: good idea. The Lua would be easy to knock up. The discussion earlier in this thread relates to using two 'templatestyles' tags in infobox person: (1) styles that would be common to any biographical template (Template:Infobox/biography-styles.css); and (2) styles specific to infobox person (Template:Infobox person/styles.css). So it was uppermost in my mind when I asked the question. --RexxS (talk) 17:55, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Having thought about this more, it may be better to simply have the whole code for honorific suffixes and prefixes (i.e everything in the br seperated entries thing) as a template/module common to all these biography infoboxes, rather than just the styling. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:05, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Infobox philosopher

Jane Doe
Born	today
Philosophy career
Era	Now
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy
Doctoral advisor	Karl Jaspers
Main interests	Political theory
Notable ideas	Homo faber

Can we get these two templates adapted so that either the philosopher parameters are recognised here or that template can be embedded? Of course this argument applies to all profession specific infoboxes which should ideally all be configured as subsets of this template. --Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 21:15, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: It is already possible to embed {{infobox philosopher}} within {{infobox person}}, see example right. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. for example - see Hannah Arendt--Michael Goodyear ✐  ✉ 02:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Yep. One note though: if you're using this template, then the documentation of this template also applies. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:38, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Use of "Alma mater"

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus for removal. Voices are almost evenly split. Those supporting removal of the term argue that it is redundant with the education field, not commonly used outside the US, and often misunderstood or misapplied. Those opposing the removal of the term argue that it has a distinct meaning, is sufficiently used outside the US, and useful for biographies where just a university is desired, and not detailed education. Comparing the arguments, there do seem to be points on both sides, both from those who write "see, it is confusing", and from those who say "if it's confusing for you, you don't have to use it, but it's both quite clear and useful for us". Closing a year after the discussion because of a request on WP:ANRFC. --GRuban (talk) 12:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

---

This has probably been discussed before, but the word "alma mater" is very rarely used by English speakers outside North America. Most other Anglophone countries would use the terms "education" or "university" when referring to the post-secondary institution that they attended. Because of this, I think the term alma mater is very Americentric and is quite jarring to other English speakers - see this discussion on the Alma mater talk page. It is especially unusual when used on the pages of British or Australian people, who would never use the term to describe their education. Furthermore, while alma mater is a term mostly confined to the Americas, the word education is universally understood by English speakers, and so seems like the obvious choice in this instance.

As a result, I would propose the changing of the "Alma mater" parameter on the infoboxes to read "Education" in all instances. Dathus • Talk Contribs 17:34, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support. A secondary and tertiary reason to do it are that alma mater really only pertains to an institution one graduated from, and only an institution of higher (post-secondary) education; but it's frequently misapplied here for any institution one simply attended. This is all better covered by "education", which can be as specific as is necessary on a case-by-case basis. Fourth and fifth reasons are WP:USEENGLISH and WP:JARGON; we shouldn't be using a Latinism, of limited reader comprehensibility, when plain English will suffice. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:26, 23 June 2018 (UTC); revised: 00:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
• Comment - see Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 30 #Education and Alma_Mater for a previous discussion that made a distinction between the Education field and the Alma mater field, in particular the points made by Xenophrenic about what was allowed by convention in each field. Also in Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 7 #Proposed Deprecation of alma mater there was a previous proposal, which mentions a Village Pump discussion. If there were a broad consensus at VP about the use of "alma mater", then a local consensus here wouldn't be enough to overturn it. --RexxS (talk) 20:54, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I've read over the links you provided (thank you, by the way). The first link does give a distinction between the two fields, but my argument is that they shouldn't be separate parameters, as the term "alma mater" isn't in common usage in the rest of the world, so the word that would be used would be "education". As a result, it doesn't make much sense that the two terms be separate when they mean the same thing to everybody other than Americans. It seems the second one is about a different topic. While it is about the deprecation of "alma mater," its reasoning is for different reasons - namely that the proposer finds the term ambiguous on Wikipedia, so I don't think the VP consensus applies in this case, but please do correct me on this. Edit: That being said, it might be worth going to the VP to gauge a consensus on this specific issue. Dathus • Talk Contribs 21:16, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: I simply only use |education=, thinking that is better understood by a general readership. As I write mostly biographies of Europeans, alma mater would rarely be appropriate anyway. No change is needed to do the same. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:03, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with your practice, and I think this is the best route for European biographies especially. But I would argue that it's not only Americans that are reading biographies of Americans, and since "alma mater" isn't in common usage in Europe - or anywhere else - the term "education" should be used instead, because that is a term that Americans can also understand, and is therefore more universal and inclusive. Dathus • Talk Contribs 21:16, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes; MOS:COMMONALITY is an additional argument to make here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:32, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: "Alma mater" and "Education" are quite distinctly different terms, and I assume that is why both parameters often appear in the same infobox templates. From my limited perspective as an English-language speaker, having received 100% of my formal education in the United States, "alma mater" is always (and only) an institution of learning, and should never be confused with "education". "Education", on the other hand, is the field of study + extent of that study, usually expressed in number of years completed or degrees earned, and the institution(s) is mostly irrelevant. For example, "I have a Masters degree in Information Technology." One might add to that, "... from M.I.T.", because of the common presumption that this otherwise unrelated factoid reflects on the 'quality' of that education. More commonly, however, institutions aren't salient when describing one's "education".

I was surprised to hear from the original poster that "alma mater" "is very rarely used by English speakers outside North America", so I looked at the linked Talk page discussion to learn more. I found several people claiming they have never heard of the term, and several claiming they have, but only one source (Oxford English Dictionary) was produced, and it doesn't indicate where the phrase is most common. The original poster also says, "It is especially unusual when used on the pages of British or Australian people, who would never use the term to describe their education." That also applies to Americans, who would never use "alma mater" to describe their education, because it only describes an institution. Looking further at the alma mater article and the examples within, it appears to me that the term is anything but "Americentric". When the original poster claims, "it doesn't make much sense that the two terms be separate when they mean the same thing to everybody other than Americans", I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the assertion that only Americans know the difference between "education" and "alma mater". If we're just working from personal perception and experience here, I guess mine is different.

If the ultimate intent is to remove the |alma_mater= parameter from infoboxes (-boxen?), I think a much better argument would be that it isn't really a "key" factoid deserving of infobox real estate. It's a rarely used term in American English, too, after all. And SMcCandlish raises some good points about the field being prone to misuse and misapplication. I have no particular attachment to the parameter, but I can't bring myself to vote for removal if the reasoning is the anecdotal and unsupported "alma mater is very Americentric" assertion. Xenophrenic (talk) 22:21, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

A better argument is that |education= is already a free-form field for education-related information, which can be used in multiple ways, one of which is the subject's alma mater (if that applies to that subject); so the parameter is simply redundant. We have a |children= parameter and do not need separate |sons= |daughters= |adult_children= |children_who_died_before_adulthood= |children_who_moved_to_Botswana= ... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

We need |children_who_moved_to_Botswana=. I'm always looking for the parameters and can never find it. LivinRealGüd (talk) 01:58, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

• Always use Alma Mater: If most people can scramble their brains around alumni and alumna, they can do so with alma mater. My main problem with education is that no one knows what that means. I've seen articles that have colleges, high schools, kindergarten, and study abroad institutions listed. Alma mater is simple. Its the graduate (and upward) school one attended and graduated from. If they attended but did not graduate, just leave it out of the infobox and explain it in the lead. You all too often see things like this:

• education: Harvard University's Medical School (2010), B.A., M.D. Lld., Ph.D. magna cum lauda , with department honors, Cambridge. transferred Cambridge University (2012) Ph.D in sociology with a concentration in informatics, summa cum lauda, with departmental honors

When you could have simply

• alma mater: Harvard University

If readers want more information, it is but a short scroll away in the main article. The infobox should be a snapshot of the article, not a complete rendition. Education is too broad and unhelpful to readers. We don't put long. and latitude for subject's births, lets not add unnecessary information when not needed. LivinRealGüd (talk) 00:04, 26 June 2018 (UTC)strike sock Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:46, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

The fix for a parameter that isn't being used consistently is to fix the documentation to prescribe specific uses. This is true of all templates. Nothing magically special is happening here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:49, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support - there does not seem to be any significant benefit to using alma mater over education in US articles, and the phrase is unheard of outside North America. WP:COMMONALITY states that universally accepted forms should be preferred to national variants. --Joshua Issac (talk) 20:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

  Comment: Well, there is the argument that the "alma mater" field is going to specifically contain an institute of higher education, while "education" may contain any sort of educational institution, and even co-exist with "alma mater" to show a department (e.g. a law school) within a university (which then goes in the alma mater field). It's also worth noting that I live in Europe and am clearly aware of the phrase, and that "alma mater" is recorded in English in the mid 17th century, so probably shouldn't be treated as a phrase peculiar to North America. --RexxS (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

  Except it is already not limited to such use, and we have no reason to think that it would be going forward. Even if that weren't true, it's still a redundant subset of |education=. We just don't need it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:11, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  The usage of alma mater is preferred. Whenever education is used, editors seem to clutter the infobox with useless information that just defeats the whole purpose of the template in the first place. When ever I see education used, it usually has a million things in it and lists things like primary school, secondary school, college, graduation, training programs, and everything in between. It has dates, majors, favorite professors, etc., and a bunch of other useless information. If readers want more information they are free to scroll down to the approbate section of the article. It should only be reserved for notable attendance of an institution, e.g. the name of their higher education schools. Not to mention it becomes a shit show when you factor things like transferring to multiple schools and studying abroad. LivinRealGüd (talk) 14:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Anyone can put clutter in alma_mater as well. If the name is a problem, then the parameter can be renamed to educational_institution. Usage of alma mater is uncommon outside North America but education is commonly used both in North America and elsewhere, so that is what we should prefer. --Joshua Issac (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  There are a lot of North American terms that non-American Wikipedians are familiar with. I know what alma mater is because I have been adding this parameter to several articles. But while alma mater exists in British dictionaries, for example, it rarely appears in biographical reference works or the like, and would not be understood by a non-American in the way that it would be understood by an American. --Joshua Issac (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Hardly, alma mater is a Latin phrase. Any language that is based in Latin incorporates the word. Not to mention if the readers of wikipedia can understand alumni, alumna, and alumnus, they should be fine with alma mater. My point is that when education is used editors do clutter it, not the case with alma mater. But Joshua Issac, you knew what alma mater was before you started editing Wikipedia. Most people understand the phrase, we shouldn't assume that they wont understand it. LivinRealGüd (talk) 23:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  I had never come across the term before I started editing Wikipedia, and the only times I have seen it outside Wikipedia are when I specifically looked up the term on dictionaries and websites. In my experience, the term has not appeared in the biographies and lecturers' university home pages I have read, nor in talks given by academics. They all say, "I went to so and so", or "I studied/read X at Y". Searching for the term specifically on university websites returns a few pages where it is used, and that is about the extent of it. Alumni, on the other hand, is frequently used by universities themselves when talking about former students, and the term appears in emails from universities to current students, advertising their alumni networks. So the exposure to the term is different to that of alma mater. People who speak a language derived from Latin, or studied classics, would be able to figure what alma mater means, and anyone can look it up in a dictionary otherwise, but we should pick an English-language term that everyone can understand without having to take extra steps.--Joshua Issac (talk) 09:00, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support - unnecessary and not internationally understood. We can use guidance on the template page if 'Education' is being misused - but equally I'm not sure that there is any unique notability in the (first?) HE institution one graduated from; what aspects of education are notable will depend on the individual. As a British English speaker I'm aware of - though would never use - the term; but it doesn't have the very specific meaning for me that it appears to have for Americans (and from the discussion above I'm not sure I even understand exactly what that is - in User:LivinRealGüd's example above it seems to me that both Harvard and Cambridge are almae matres, but they say that example should be simplified only to Harvard?) TSP (talk) 11:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  I actually regularly see |alma mater= misused for high schools, and for "some college/university that was attended but not graduated from". There is nothing magically special about it; it's just a redundant parameter. It's like having a separate parameter for |occupation_that_resulted_in_an_award=, or |relatives_who_are_dead=, or |office_appointed_not_elected_to=; we don't need hair-splitting subset parameters. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:14, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  My example was just illustrating how crazy things get with the education template. If a subject graduates both Harvard and Cambridge, both should be listed as almae matres. The problem is that a subject studies at Harvard, studies abroad at University of Paris, then takes a training program at the University of London over the summer, and then reads a book before graduating from Cambridge. The alma mater section would just neatly list Harvard and Cambridge while the education template would look something like this:

  Education = Harvard University (BA, 2001, sociology with a concentration in informatics; thesis: study of people in Uganda) University of Paris (study abroad, European history, 4.3 GPA) University of London (training program in sociology) Oh The Places You'll Go (book, read summer 2004) University of Cambridge (M.A. social informatics with a concentration in blah blah, 2005, honors)

  compared to:

  Alma mater = Harvard University University of Cambridge

  My point is that Wikipedia is not a resume depository and the education template is centered around resume formatting. LivinRealGüd (talk) 14:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

  Except it should not look something like that mess, per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. Nothing ties your hands and prevents you cleaning up the |education= parameter's value. And nothing ties all our hands and prevents us writing better documentation for this parameter to discourage dumping trivia into it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose In the discussion mentioned in the OP the editor says I have never once heard this phrase being used in the UK. I'm a British editor and can tell you it is well known in the UK. If it is swapped for "Education" it will open the door to all sorts of Dumb-Dumb College etc. to be added. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:16, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  I can't make any sense at all of this !vote. If someone's only degree comes from some community college then that is in fact their alma mater. It is what would go in that parameter. If they also graduated from a major university, that would also be an alma mater. Whether to include the community college one is a WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE discussion to have at the particular article. And that's the same discussion whether the |alma_mater= or |education= parameter were used. (It might actually be appropriate to include the community college, for example, if something about the subject's notability dates back that far, e.g. that's where they started their first band, or committed their first murder, or whatever). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:16, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

  I've only ever been aware of the European use of the word Alma mater#Special usage which is for Universities. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

  More and more it sounds like no one's going to agree of what this parameter is really for. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:23, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support , this would make it feel more appropriate and broader use for people that may never have gone to college, when to a community or trade school, or similar type of thing that we would never associate "alma mater" with. --Masem (t) 14:25, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support. A more general and more widely used term. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC).
• Support I don't see any use cases where alma mater is anything other than a subset of education, and no examples where there is any benefit that could not be obtained by simply cleaning up. Before cleaning up, I'd also note that listing secondary schools attended can be very useful for people, for example, researching privilege and wanting to know how many British cabinet ministers (or MPs, or judges) went to the same rather expensive secondary school in east Berkshire, compared to the number attending comprehensive schools. I'm sure this isn't the only case where having such information readily to hand is useful, and it's inclusion in education but not alma mater is another reason for preferring education as the parameter. Robminchin (talk) 02:08, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. It isn't true that this is confined to American English; as The Vintage Feminist says, this is well-known in the UK too. It's a useful field to have when all we know (or want to add) is where someone studied but not what. SarahSV ^(talk) 15:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support as not a widely used term, the article Alma matter itself states it's rarely used - When including education on any bio I've always used the Education parameter, With "Alumni" the term is used throughout the world I believe and is certainly in common use among UK universities and I'd assume US universities (or the equivalent) too, Anyway Alma matter is outdated, is rarely used and has never catched on like Alumni and other latin words. –Davey2010^Talk 15:14, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Davey2010 In the lead section it says that the plural of the term almae matres is rarely used, and in the Etymology section that alma ... was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin but I can't find where the article Alma mater only one 't' by the way states that alma mater is rarely used. Can you provide the quote? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 15:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Yeah for whatever reason I thought Alma mater was "Alma matter", Anyway as for the lede I thought "[rarely used]" was referring to Alma mater but just realised it was actually referring to "almae matres", Okie dokie we can ignore that part, Thanks for the correction tho :). –Davey2010^Talk 15:44, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. In general I approve of using colloquial English instead of more-technical Latin phrases. But in this case, it is important to restrict the infobox field only to institutions that the person received a degree from rather than making long indiscriminate lists of every institution of higher learning that the person was at any time associated with. The proposed new wording doesn't do that. I would view more favorably a change from "alma mater" to "academic degrees" or some such, but "education" is far too broad. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

  The proposed new wording does discourage long lists of every institution that the subject has been associated with; it suggests listing only the institution that granted the highest qualification, except where there is local consensus to add more. If someone adding the template will ignore that wording and add such lists anyway, there is nothing stopping them from adding the same list to the alma_mater parameter, either. --Joshua Issac (talk) 09:05, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. A.M. is clear and narrow meaning. Even I know it. Whoever is puzzled by the word, RTFW :-). Whereas "education" is vague; someone wrote it may be guidelined, but nobody reads the template guidelines. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. If it isn't used outside America, then simply don't use it in non-american articles. No need to strip it from American articles. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."--Auric talk 10:52, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment It's claimed above that "Alma Mater" requires graduation, my recollection is Wikipedia use to have advice (maybe still does somewhere) that Alma Mater does not require graduation, and MW-Dictionary in fact says it is either, attendance or graduation.[6]. So, it looks like we have to take that 'requires graduation' as a personal gloss and not actual meaning. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:12, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose subject to no better term. As a card carrying high school dropout, I favor the term alma mater. If you look at many of the ridiculously successful entrepreneurs and innovators, and examine the gestations of the concepts that have resulted in their notability; the formation often began in academe. The environment (not necessarily the classes) was often the kick start that produced enormous value from latent genius. OTOH, you could argue that they didn’t remain long enough to understand the pitfalls of their inventions. But then, how many students take ethics nowadays? In any case, I think the term is fair shorthand for an infobox; and the body can explain. O3000 (talk)
• Strongly oppose As per Xenophrenics explanation, I see no reason to remove Alma Ater, since the term has a different meaning and definition than education. I also think that this subject should be discussed further, before any kind of implementation. Presently, a consensus is not all that clear. I would like to see more users opnion on this matter. Dan Koehl (talk) 10:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose: In British English, an Alma Mater is any university you have attended regardless of graduation, education is related to school (which ends at either 16,17, or 18 depending on a number of factors). I have always used |education= to list the schools a person attended or details or tutoring/homeschool as applicable, and |alma mater= to list universities (universities are not schools). In the UK and Europe there is a clear difference between universities and childhood schooling. There is zero need to remove either or these parameters: if the local/personal need requires only one, leave the other blank. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk 14:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support change away from "Alma mater". As shown in the above discussion there is a lack of clarity as to what it means. In my usage of British English, "Education" is clear and universal, including whatever needs to be mentioned of school (US: High school), university, other college or institution. PamD 17:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support alma mater is indeed a foreign language to most English speakers, those of us that do use it in the UK would probably be using it ironically. Even in American English it can refer to the school song, rather than the school itself. And indeed in British English it is by no means limited to institutes of further and higher education when it is used. (When children leave school, they return again and again to their alma mater and do tremendous damage. Hansard) It would be better to come up with a concise formulation for |education= and remove this field. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:44, 9 September 2018 (UTC).
  

Implementing the change

As it seems most of the comments here are in favour of getting rid of the alma mater field, I suggest the following approach:

1. Amend the infobox definition so that alma_mater becomes a recessive alias for education, like this: | data24 = {{{education|{{{alma mater|{{{alma_mater|}}}}}}}}} and remove the code at position 25. That means that where |alma mater= is used in articles, it will disappear, unless there is no value for |education= when the value for |alma mater= will be displayed as Education.
2. Add a tracking category for articles using "alma mater".
3. Use AWB (or a bot run for the simple cases) to merge the values currently in the Alma mater field into the Education field.
4. Tidy up when it's all done.

The first step could be omitted if everyone is patient enough for the fixing to take place. I've done the second step now (Category:Infobox person using alma mater), so that we can have a look at the size of the job. --RexxS (talk) 14:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest adding an additional point: figuring out what the usage guidance in the documentation should be, as at the moment the two are not the same. IMO that should be done before any actual merging happens. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

The current guideline for education reads, "Education, e.g., degree, institution and graduation year, if relevant." We should restrict this to the highest qualification, because of the concerns about cluttering that editors brought up in the above discussion. --Joshua Issac (talk) 17:10, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Works for me, mostly, but there will be cases where a lower institution is relevant, e.g. because someone has multiple degrees or something about their notability is tied to the lower one. So it shouldn't be stated as an absolute rule. Also I'm not sure what you mean by "the current guideline". Template documentation isn't a guideline. MOS:BIO doesn't mention this stuff, nor does MOS:INFOBOX. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:10, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I would oppose that suggestion, if you are going to convert the category field alma mater to education, you can't pick and choose which form of education simply based on the reasoning that additions to the template cause clutter. That additional change is not even in the discussion above. For that matter as SMcCAnd1ish put it how do editors know whether a person's education is significant or not? For many bio articles relating to academics in the U.S. there are numerous alumni lists including both undergraduate and graduate degree holders and of which are sometimes also on lists in different institutional articles. How do you propose to sort out the existing discussion located here about what qualifies as alumni? I seem to remember a fairly contentious debate about this in the past. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 19:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I think SMcCandish's proposal for when more than one institution is relevant addressses this issue. The template documentation for alma_mater already states that article talk page consensus overrides documentation for the tag, and if there is a dispute about whether someone's notibility is tied to an institution, for example, then consensus can emerge on the talk page as people provide reliable sources to show things to be one way or another. My suggestion is not to have a hard-and-fast rule about what is allowed, but a statement about how the parameter is expected to be generally used, along similar lines to what already exists for the alma_mater tag, but accounting for the increase in scope (degree and year). --Joshua Issac (talk) 20:53, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep. We should be discouraging inclusion of trivia, without trying to make up an exact rule that's going to conflict with case-by-case article needs. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:19, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

So where do we move from here? Do we need to get a consensus from VP before we make then changes to the template, or is a local consensus sufficient? Dathus • Talk Contribs 05:05, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Please see RexxS’s comment above. Dathus • Talk Contribs 17:42, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

There is quite possibly consensus in the above discussion but that isn't entirely very clear; since this change would be reasonably significant, and involve subsequently thousands of edits replacing/fixing alma mater, you'd want a formal closure of the above. You can post at WP:ANRFC to request a closure. Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:20, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I see that user:Rich Farmbrough is already running AWB to replace "alma mater" with "education". I think this needs a broader discussion & stronger consensus for such a widely spread change. [Purely counting !votes you have 7 supports vs. 6 opposes -- plus the discussion was not even a RfC]. Rich, please hold your horses. I suggest running a proper RfC. Also, has anyone considered naming the field 'Educated at'? To me 'education' is very vague and not intuitive - are we talking degrees? science fields? institutions? Renata (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Education is too broad a term. It starts at birth and, one would hope, ends at death. I think we need something along the lines of academic exposure, only shorter. Of course, that’s kinda what alma mater means. O3000 (talk) 01:39, 3 September 2018 (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.

Category:Infobox person using certain parameters when dead

I was going to clean up some of the pages in this category but wanted to make sure I understand correctly that once a person is deceased the {{{salary}}} and {{{net_worth}}} params should be removed from their page? --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 22:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Salary

Is the salary parameter intended to include all compensation a corporate executive receives, or just the portion of their compensation that is considered their salary? Please consider an extreme case, where Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg earned in FY2017:

$795,769 Base Pay

$640,378 Bonus + Non-Equity

$21,072,431 Stock Award Value

$2,687,643 Total Other

---

$25,196,221 Total Compensation

At our article, we are currently reporting her salary as $25,196,221, the sum of all forms of compensation, including her equity in the company (which is not salary). Do we need an other_compensation parameter? General Ization ^Talk 01:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

References

If it doesn't add value to the article, or is potentially misleading, simply omit it. No one is mandated to use any of the fields. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:42, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Add ZooBank LSID?

How about adding Zoobank ZooBank LSID (identification number) to the template? Or maybe just a field for "Identification"? Dan Koehl (talk) 10:53, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I made a sandbox test version with Linnean naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. Dan Koehl (talk) 11:57, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Why not use {{authority control}} for the various potential identifiers? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

No, please god, no. Infoboxes should not become wastebasket repositories to shoehorn any shred of random information of practical use only to a minuscule number of taxonomists. And from an aesthetic perspective it looks absolutely horrid. Why not go ahead and include WorldCat Identities, BNE: XX1764384 BNF: cb11926622p Botanist: Thunb. GND: 119036495 ISNI: 0000 0001 0890 9989 LCCN: n85070562 MGP: 135259 NDL: 00476170 NLA: 35794745 SELIBR: 242296 SNAC: w68w3prj SUDOC: 033835624 VIAF: 41847187 in the infobox? --Animalparty! (talk) 02:41, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

One possible compromise might be to do the same as was done with {{Infobox medical condition}}. It was split into a normal infobox {{Infobox medical condition (new)}} and a navbox-type list of resources (such as ICD-10 codes, etc.) in {{Medical resources}}, which is placed at the bottom of a page. That keeps the infobox focused on the information most important to the general reader and allows specialist or niche information to be presented for those who would find it useful. Of course, {{authority control}} could also be expanded as Nikkimaria suggests to do the same sort of job if all of the extra fields were suitable for inclusion there. --RexxS (talk) 09:57, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Tracking category

Wanted to propose an idea for a tracking category... Something along the lines of Pages using Infobox person with raw dates for birth/death/disappeared. This would track pages which use this template and have something like birth_date = 12 Jan 2010 as opposed to birth_date = {{birth date|2010|01|12}}. Obviously it would have to check for all the different templates ({{birth date}}, {{birth date and age}} etc... But for a starting point perhaps we could do a check for do those parameters contain a template at all in their value? Ultimately I would love to write a bot that cleans these up but for starters, we need a tracking category. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 16:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Is there consensus that use of those templates is required? What would you do in cases where the date is not so precise? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:47, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I would say there is a consensus that they are required based on the documentation for the template. When I say required though, I mean they should be used not the template doesn't work if they aren't there. As for cases where the date is not so precise there are other templates that work. For example {{birth year}} which techincally redirects to {{birth-date}} and works for almost any value I can think of {{birth-date|1990s}} for example. Again for right now I'm just trying to get a sense of what is out there. Not suggesting we display error messages or force anyone to change things. Just want to track what is currently there to get an idea of what the issues may be. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 22:01, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Zackmann08: It's also a bit tricky trying to find a reliable method of testing whether a template has been used because any template has already been substituted by the time the infobox sees the value of |birth_date=. If all of the templates we're interested in were guaranteed to contain the same text (such as class="bday"), we could test for the text, but we would first need an exhaustive list of templates used so that we can check for that.

The code to insert would be something like:

• -->{{#if:{{{birth_date|}}}|{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:String|find|source={{{birth_date|}}}|target=class="bday"}}|0||[[Category:Infobox person with non-templated birth date]]}} }}<!--

Any template emitting the hCard microformat "bday" will match that. --RexxS (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2018

Hello,

My father is a distinguished professor and i think he should have a Wikipedia page. His Name is Adesoji Adelaja and has an extensive history in STEM and Economics. May i have access to this template so that i can help him have his own wikipedia page? Thanks! Badelaja (talk) 17:26, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: First off, this isn't the correct place to make such a request. Secondly, creating an article about a member of your immediate family is a Very Bad Idea. You have a conflict of interest, and cannot write such an article objectively and encyclopedically. Please read the information at this Guide about conflict of interest which gives some ideas for how to address this (such as creating a draft in your userspace and submitting it for review at WP:AFC). Please feel free to contact me at my talk page if you have questions. Thanks! ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

@Badelaja: Please read Wikipedia:Requested articles as that will give you some ideas on how you might proceed. You should also try to be certain that any article you want to create meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. HTH --RexxS (talk) 18:14, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

He does seem to meet WP:Prof. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC).