Template talk:Infobox Latter Day Saint biography/Archive 1

From Discussion on Joseph Smith, Jr

I have been working with friends at Infobox pope to get a standard Infobox proposed for religious leaders. I have implemented it on this page for everyone to take a look. To edit the infobox go here: Template:Infobox prophet or comment at the talk page. I am implmenting on Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young since there is lots of activity on JS right now. Trödel|talk 02:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is this supposed to be specific to Mormonism? Cookiecaper 13:51, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Yes. The infobox for religious leaders is a proposed standardization (with some fighting about styles, etc) for all religious leaders. Individual Infoboxes would probably need to be created for different denominations - like Mormonism could have all prophets automatically include information about call to the 12, etc. I am trying to figure out a way to include information about callings in the 70, presideing bishopric, etc for those cases where it needs to be. The nice thing is the format that goes on the article page - just the name, facts, and image - no formatting codes. Trödel|talk 15:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it'd be better to move it to Template:Infobox LDSGA or Template:Infobox General Authority or something like that. Can you clarify what prophetic calling is supposed to be? As you see, I changed it from the date the Church was organized to the window of the First Vision. I believe that's correct as the time Smith received his "prophetic calling". It'd probably be smarter to change that to Title or Position or something and just keep the dates ordained, as that's really all we know for most of the people this will be applied to. There are many non-GA prophets (namely anyone with a testimony of Christ or any other knowledge acquired via the Holy Ghost) and many GA's were prophets before they were called to their position. But I like the box overall. Good job.Cookiecaper 17:39, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good points - I am not sure how to handle Joseph Smith because he is different than his successors since he was establishin the structure and it came in pieces - not all at once. I will move the page but am trying to think of a good name - and still figuring out if I can use one box for all General Authorities similar to the way that Infobox pope uses the Infobox pope/dead subpage for including death information only for those that are actually dead. JS may just not fit into a template - I am thinking that a subpage might work better for him - since that would hide the ugly table formatting codes from being on this page but allow specialized customization for him.

I am trying to think of some short words (since it needs to be concise on the infobox) like "Called to Twelve" for the "Call as Presiding High Priest". Assension would be the easy word to use but it is not in the lexicon or usage of LDS. Maybe "Sustained President", or "Became President" or something of that nature. Any thoughts - we should probably move this discussion to the Template talk:Infobox prophet since we are getting a little of topic hear (copying) Trödel|talk 18:16, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Subtemplates

After much trial and error I have found that using Subtemplates won't work for Prophet/Apostle in one Infobox because of two many conditions.

So I am creating two templates LDSInfobox and LDSInfobox apostle - and maybe later LDSInfobox seventy

Among the things I can't get right are the inclusion/noninclusion of an extra line and listing the died information twice.

Good work, keep it up. The light blue color is slightly annoying. Are we going to keep or replace the succession boxes? Jgardner 21:36, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

I lightened the color quite a bit - it will now show white on computers that have 256 colors but it should be less "blue" and more subtle. See if you like that color.

Thinking about this, I think it would be best to keep the succession information separate from the info box. We should only list when they were called to what, etc... in the info box. Jgardner 22:30, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

I guess that the succession information could stay in the bottom succession boxes - the pope pages all have both - so I guess that is a precedent. I liked the idea of having all their apostle/prophet/president of the twelve information in one box. - easy to access and easy to navigate. Trödel|talk 00:12, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about a compromise? Let's list preceding and succeeding presidents (of the church) but not for apostles (or presidents of the 12). We can leave the succession boxes on the bottom. I think this would present the most valuable information in the box, but leave the less interesting order intact at the bottom. Jgardner 06:56, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Request for Comments

Some of you may have noticed that I have started putting this box on some of the Prophets/Presidents of the Church. I propose that this be a supplement, rather than a replacement for the succession boxes at the bottom of the articles. Because of this I think that the Quorum of Twelve information in this Infobox be the person whom they replaced in the Quorum and the person who replaced them. (instead of the prior, next as in the series box for Quorum of Twelve). Although it is duplicative I think the President of the Church should still list the predecessor and successor as well as the date of ordination.

I am not planning on adding a section for President of the Twelve - leaving this for the succession boxes only.

I have also created Template:LDSInfobox apostle that would be the same as this box but with out the President (obviously).

Please comment. If the proposal above is accetpable - please indicate. Thx in adv. Trödel|talk 02:40, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative Succession: We could also include who ordained whom.

	Quorum of Twelve
	President of the Church
	Ordained	March 12, 1995
	By	Thomas S. Monson
	Predecessor	Howard W. Hunter
	Successor	incumbant
	Ordained	October, 1961
	By	David O. McKay (presumably)
	Replacing	J. Reuben Clark

Trödel|talk 05:01, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In many cases, it isn't clear who replaces whom in the quorum. (For instance, if a president dies, and a new presidency is formed calling one of the twelve as a counselor, then is the new apostle called to replace the dead president or the new counselor in the presidency? I've written that they replace the passing prophet; others are explicit that they replace the new counselor.) It's also mostly irrelevant. The only reason why seniority and order of ordination (or readmittance, in the case of a few early apostles) is important is for the pres. of the quorum, and later pres of the church.

Because of these issues (who replaces whom, and whether to use that or order) I have removed apostle mention from the template - it varies from the series boxes and could be confusing and it was an issue I never got around to resolving). Trödel|talk 19:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As far as who performs the ordination, that's not entirely important either. Only that it was performed, and the date of the performance are really important facts.

I propose that we keep both who they replace and who ordains them in the text and not in any special boxes anywhere.

Jgardner 06:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is hard to determine and there are some conflicting statements given in General Conference. However, we can be consistent here, and since when the Prophet dies the counselors return to the Quorum, I have used death or excommunication as the cause of a vacancy only.

One reason I have suggested the "replaced by" part is that it is interesting which prophet called which later prophet, similar to the current discussion of the Cardinalate appointments by Pope John Paul II. For instance, Lee, Kimball, and Benson where called to the twelve by George Albert Smith. The first prophet not called to be an apostle by Joseph Smith is Lorenzo Snow. The turnover in the twelve and the connection between early churhc leaders to now has become much more obvious to me as a result of looking into this - and the continuity of the leadership is interesting from both a what stays the same and what changes aspect. Trödel|talk 12:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

President of the Church

continued from Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr.

Somebody placed the JS portrait into a box that includes the title President of the Church. This seems a bit ambiguous in the context of a world encyclopedia. Is there a way this can be clarified? Tom Haws 14:50, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

I did this - I created the Template:LDSInfobox to put together the vital info (birth/death) succession information into a single box. However because JS was the restorer he was not first called as an apostle like subsequent presidents, so there is a similarly styled box for Joseph Smith at Joseph Smith, Jr./Infobox. As I was trying to come up with concise titles I choose President of the Church as the best one line only description I could think of. Since we should make this change for all the Presidents - this discussion should probably continue on the template talk page - I will update the JS infobox with whatever consensus arrives at. Trödel|talk 16:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, a solution is not easy. Would any of these work? Also, is it possible that this Infobox project was conceived in a POV manner, but can be salvaged to abide by NPOV prnciples?

LDS President (my favorite)
LDS Church President (Gives impression of meaning the LDS Church rather than an LDS Church)
Mormon Prophet (I don't like this one)

I changed to LDS Church President as I like that one best of the others - since no on really comments here on anything I am just going to make the change and monitor the Mormon Prophet pages to see if anyone comments :) Trödel|talk 22:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good for you. I am afraid it has POV implications, but I am not going to oppose it alone. :-) After all, I may be a looney case. Tom Haws

I don't like the phrase "called as prophet". If this is a section about LDS Church president, then it should say something like "presidency began" or "term of office", similar to the template of either Catholic Pope of US President. For a non-Mormon, President doesn't immediately imply Prophet. "called" is a somewhat mysterious term to a non-Mormon. Nereocystis 07:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Presidency began could be ambiguous as well since both Brigham and WW could be considered as having their presidency begin at the time of the death of the prior prophet since they were then presiding over the church as President of the Twelve. "Ordained" may be better and it is the event than begins service as president of the First Presidency. Perhaps we could link Ordination to the appropriate article. The Pope pages use papacy - which I immediately lookedup in March when the pope was sick and I began reading about the Catholic transition process and borrowed the idea for the infobox. Although most members of the LDS Church would consider it to be Calling as Prophet began - because the term prophet has other meanings and the Church itself avoids the term for whatever reason I did as well. Since Ordained is already on this box - I'll check the JS and GBH specialized boxes to make sure they are consistent. Trodel 13:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS The JS box was inconsistent - just an oversight on my part - I made it ordained - as it is on the template. But is kind of problematic with JS - ordained to what and when :). as First Elder, as Co-president, I am using the date from the President of the Church (Mormonism) page which is the date the church was official organized. Trodel 13:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ordained is still a little mysterious, at least for non-LDS. Does ordain mean the first day of office. Possibly, but it's hard to tell for sure without looking further. How about term of office (see Bill Clinton as an example, or presidency began and presidency ended (see Pope John Paul II). Add the ordination dates, if you wish, but make the beginning and ending dates crystal clear. Nereocystis 16:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we could link to ordained rather than change the wording as this is not a "term of office" in the political sense. I personally don't like presidency began and ended, but am open to comments/consensus if others agree with the suggestion above. If there are no comments for a few days I will probably move this discussion over to the LDS movement Wikiproject. Trodel 14:59, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This infobox seems to be nothing but trouble on the Joseph Smith article. An anon just made a change there in the date, and that highlights what I believe are going to be continual problems using the infobox for JS unless you can get the fit better with the subject. I'm not a huge fan of the infobox due to the ambiguity regarding JS's role and relation to successors. But Trodel or somebody else who is a big proponent of the infobox idea needs to wrestle with this matter and come up with a satisfactory answer. The problem of the day is that from the outside perspective, JS wasn't ordained or appointed anymore than was Jesus Christ. Rather, he is seen as the Founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. As such he stands alone. You wouldn't put Mohammed, Siddartha Gautama, or Jesus in an infobox with a line of popes or successors, would you? Likewise, I just don't think it makes sense to put Joseph Smith in with the LDS Church presidents. You need to find a better way. Tom Haws 18:53, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

This was resolved - see Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr./Archive_5#President Titles and Dates

Border

Can someone put a border around this infobox so it doesn't look like it has been chopped in half? I tried to steal it from {{infobox_lake}} (which I consider one of the best looking templates around), but I couldn't figure out how to do it. --Lethargy 18:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or merge?

We should probably put Template:LDSInfobox up for MfD or have it merged since any LDS Church-unique info is now more comprehensively conveyed in Template:LDSGAinfo (see, for example, redundancy on Gordon B. Hinckley). The biographical info is better presented in Template:Infobox Person (see WP:GA Thomas S. Monson) and any succession info is already presented in the Template:Succession boxs at the bottom of each article. I'm happy to nominate but would appreciate input or alternative ideas first. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It could also be merged with Template:LDSApostleshipinfo. It wouldn't be hard to include an optional top section for those who were ordained presidents of the church. But if you're looking to excise redundant data, then merging it with Template:LDSGAinfo could work. The only downside I see to that is that it would prevent the "President of the Church" info being at the very top of the infoboxes, as it is now, and most people would probably expect the presidency info to be most prominent. I designed the Template:LDSGAinfo to be chronological, without worrying about prominence of President of the Church since this box existed on all of the President of the Church articles already. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:05, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template redesign considerations

I've noticed substantial redesign of this template over the past month. If this template is to continue to list all general authority offices ever held by a person, I'd like to see its design more closely mirror Template:Infobox officeholder (see, for example, its use in John McCain).

Here are some concerns regarding the current design:

1. The enlarged text in some fields looks goofy
2. Most people infoboxes put the name of the person on top of the headshot, a trend I feel this infobox should follow
3. I suggest putting the highest church office of the individual immediately below the headshot, similar to Infobox officeholder
4. If the general authority also held a political office at some time in his career, I feel that should go at the bottom of the infobox (similar to how Infobox officeholder displays military service info) -- if this is an LDS biography infobox, LDS service should go first
5. Don't have duplicate office entries -- just list all offices held in reverse-chronological order, starting with the current office
6. What is with the odd shade of blue used to offset subheadings? I say either use Wikipedia blue (again, see Infobox officeholder) or some color that aligns with LDS church branding color scheme (à la lds.org, mormon.org, etc.).
7. Is it possible to add a military service field? Maybe even a missionary service field?

I know working with templates is tedious work, so I appreciate the consideration. —Eustress ^talk 23:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, I hope you don't mind but I numbered your suggestion ONLY to allow for easyer refernce to the item. I would normally NEVER edit someone else comments, but in this case, since I mostly agree with you, I want to be able to say "in regards to item #X). Please forgive me if this upsets you.

The redesign I did was to just to merge the three different LDS infobox together (ie. {{Infobox LDS biography}}, {{Infobox LDSGA}}, {{Infobox LDSApostleship}}). The reason I did this was because a huge number of pages had Whitespace issues created with when two or three of these templates were used together. However, I didn't "redesign" things in the sense that I change font sizes and positions. I left them in the order they originally appeared on the individual webpages.

However, I agree with most of what you said and the rest I'm just not sure what you mean. I am more then happy to work with you to make this template better in layout. I never liked some of the stuff as it was, but I left it the same just to avoid changing things that have been the same for a long time. However, since someone else agrees with me, I will start to implement them.

Anyway:

Re #1 Please give me an example. I have no problem adjusting the text size, but I'm just not sure which ones you mean. I may just be confusing the code, so I may be wrong, but as far as I can see the text sizes are all the same. The titles are bold, but I don't see how the sizes are different.
Re #2 I totally agree. It is now done.
Re #3. To be honest, I'm not sure about this one. I left the political office first only because it is listed first on infobox office holder. However, I really hated it. Personally I don't like the idea of putting anything above the Basic biographical information (name, birth date, etc). Since this is for people notable for LDS service, I would think that the best order would be Basic biographical information, LDS Church President, LDS Church Apostle, LDS Church General Authority, Political office. However, I am open to making the order different with input from others.
Re #4 I agree.
Re #5. This one is also tricky. I don't know why LDS Church President and LDS Church Apostle were always list first and then the offices were listed again in {[tl|Infobox LDSGA}}. My best guess is that you don’t have to be in the Quorum of the 12 to be an Apostle. However, I didn't question it and left it as it was. I am going to implement this, since I agree, but again, I am open to an explanations that my change this.
Re #6 perfectly fine with me. I need to find the HTML color code, but I will change it.
Re #7. I also thought about this. However, I was worried only because of the amount of new fields this would add. If you look at {{Military service}} there is just so much to put in. I thought that the box was just too big as it was. However, again, I wanted include this information, but was just couldn't figure it out.

FYI: I do most my template editing and experimenting at User:ARTEST4ECHO/template2 and User:ARTEST4ECHO/Sandbox first, in order to not have so many correction on the template (not that I don't seem to do it anyway). I am starting to implement your ideas there and will move them over.

--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 12:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses, and thanks for inputing numbering. Before we hammer out details to the current template, take a look at what I have in mind at User:Eustress/Sandbox2 (template at User:Eustress/Sandbox4). This version assuages my concerns and, with a little customization, could do well for an LDS biography template. The drawback to such a substantial overhaul to the code would be the work needed to update the templates for all general authorities articles. Cheers —Eustress ^talk 17:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there would be substantial code work done, but I do like most of the changes you made or at least the ideas you have put forward, but with perhaps a few wording changes. However, I think I can adjust the code to match what you have done without changing the inputs. However, I have to admit, I'm not so sure about putting the Biographical information at the bottom. However, that is something we can work out. However, I can't do any more work on Wikipedia today.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 21:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Regarding the placement of personal details, I believe most People infoboxes (e.g., Template:Infobox Christian leader, Template:Infobox Jewish leader, and of course all the officeholder templates) follow this order. Most personal detail items (alma mater, birth date, spouse) are secondary to the person's notability (his church calling), so I think this makes sense. —Eustress ^talk 22:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The #5 change has some potential to be problematic. Only rarely have apostles been ordained as an apostle (a priesthood office) and sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (a quorum membership) on the same date. They are usually different dates—usually ordination occurs first. There are also cases like Alvin R. Dyer, who was an apostle but was never a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. It may be that the date someone was sustained to the Quorum is not as important for biographical purposes, I'm not sure. But when someone is ordained an apostle, that doesn't make them a general authority, which makes it problematic to head the section about being ordained an apostle as a section about being a "General Authority". There are ordained apostles who left the ranks of the general authorities after a period of time, e.g., Joseph Angell Young. He was an apostle until he died, but he stopped being a general authority after his father Brigham Young died and he was no longer in one of the GA Quorums of the church. Similarly there are instances of people who were not ordained apostles being sustained to the Qof12, such as Dallin H. Oaks, who I believe wasn't ordained until well after he joined the quorum. (It's probably nothing that can't be overcome with some tinkering, but one does need to be careful about confusing merely holding a priesthood office with being specifically called to be a GA or be a member of a specific quorum. ) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we just need to instill the template with flexibility, so it can best serve as many people as possible. Have you checked out my mock-up at User:Eustress/Sandbox2? All positions are customizable and the template expandable up to 8 callings. There are also free labels in the case that someone is LDS-notable for being an apostle despite never being a member of the Q12. I'm just hoping we can arrive at something that is simple yet elegant, for which I thought the officeholder template does a nice job. —Eustress ^talk 00:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problematic issue as I see it is that being an ordained apostle is entirely of a different character than, say, being a counselor in the First Presidency or a member of the Qof12. One a person is ordained to and lasts a lifetime, while others a person is merely set apart to be in the position and it often comes to an end before death. They are not really equivalent "positions", so it creates some difficulties in using a generic template for all of them. It doesn't mean it can't be done, but I've already seen some sloppy mistakes made in changing things around with the result that false information is communicated. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ordination / termination reasons

Hello. I'd like to help this template get on its way, so allow me to start with one issue. I would like to remove the parameters End reason and Reason for ordination. I feel this presents too much detail for the infobox and usually only presents the obvious (someone died). Any elaboration could and should be given in the body of the article. —Eustress ^talk 00:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Typically, this information has not been found in the text of the article for LDS Church apostles, so if eliminated from the template it would require a substantial amount of moving information. But I actually like it in the template because it provides a quick indication of succession issues. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:22, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I see with removing "End reason" is that there are cases where the info is valuable. For example, Richard R. Lyman. (ie: end_reason1=Excommunicated for unlawful cohabitation|) and his successor However, I agree the "Death" as an end reason is still in alot of case (like the prophets). So I tought I could change the code to ignore "Death" and "death" as reasons. I will work on it right now.

As to Reason for ordination I can see both sides here. There may be case where the info is valuable and other when it is not. I am open to some change, but I think completly romoveing it may not be best.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 17:48, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding end reason, in the majority of cases someone's term ended due to death, and where there was an exceptional reason (Lyman, for example), it is clearly pointed out in both the lead and body of the article. Therefore, in the majority of cases it serves only to lengthen the infobox, and in the minority, it duplicates attention already given in the lead. But maybe we could compromise... Update the documentation page to say that only for GAs with exceptional end reasons should the field be utilized? Then we could slowly phase out the death reason from individual boxes as (to address GO's concern) we are able to integrate the contextual death reason information into the body of the article accompanied by a reliable citation. What do you guys think?

I'd like to propose the same compromise for ordination reason too: Use only when exceptional, phase out use elsewhere article by article.

Thank you for your consideration. —Eustress ^talk 18:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to end_reason. I can see it both ways, but I like having a simple and short (shorter the better) explanation within the infobox when something other then Death for end_reason. I have come to learn about GA excommunications and such that way. After alot of experimentation in my sandbox, I have found that it is more complicated (or beyond my skill to do it easily) than I expected to ignore "Death" and "death". I have come to like Eustress idea of changing the documentation page and slowly phase out "Death" and "death".

With regards to ordination_reason and I would like to include Reorganization at end of term also. I am a bit more neutral here. I can see a need to allow for exceptional reasons, but I also see Eustress POV. I really don't need to see "Death of Adam S. Bennion" for Reason for ordination for "Hugh B. Brown". And the succession box really gives the same information as Reorganization at end of term. The question I have is, what about Reason for ordination like Howard W. Hunter under LDS Church Apostle. Is the moving up of another apostle considered "exceptional"? Not that I'm sure ether way, I just think we need to figure out what "exceptional" is and isn’t a little better.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 21:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The succession box does not give the same information as the template gives. On the template for Hugh B. Brown, it says the reason he was ordained was the death of Adam S. Bennion. But under the succession template, it says he "succeeded" George Q. Morris in the Quorum. The "ordination reason" in the template is what prompted the person's ordination; the preceding person in the succession box is merely the apostle that was became a member of the Qof12 immediately prior to the individual and was therefore immediately senior to them in the Quorum. You may not care to see "death of Adam S. Bennion" as the reason Brown was ordained, but it is far more relevant than knowing Morris was the apostle ordained immediately prior to him!
And "death" only marks the "end reason" for the minority of LDS Church GAs, usually members of the Qof12. The vast majority of GAs' service in a position is because they are released from the position or made into emeritus general authorities and thereby released from duties. For this reason, I don't see the "end reason" as being superfluous as is being suggested. "Death" is in fact the exceptional reason, not the more typical reason. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't consider being made emeritus exceptional enough to list in the infobox either. It sounds like we differ on how much information should be conveyed in the infobox. My stance is that the infobox as-is conveys way too much detail. WP:IBX (emphasis added), "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content." Most of the information we're debating is contextual and belongs in the body of the article; e.g., someone died, which created a vacancy, which led to a calling.

My proposed compromise is to list end_reason and ordination_reason only when exceptional (e.g., excommunication) and move contextual info to the body. Is this acceptable? —Eustress ^talk 17:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not in my opinion, because it relies too much on a subjective opinion of what an "exceptional" reason is. Unfortunately, the vast majority of articles with the infobox right now do not contain the information that is currently in the infoboxes in the textual body of the article. If you rectified that situation across the hundreds of articles for which the infoboxes currently apply, then I might agree with you. But this current proposal appears to be approaching things backwards. The details need to be placed in the textual body of the articles, then the infoboxes could be simplified. But not until that happens. Otherwise you are essentially proposing a net deletion of valid information across a few hundred articles. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I proposed phasing it in (read above), article by article. I don't want to delete any information. —Eustress ^talk 12:17, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

home_town parameter

I notice the "home_town" is a parameter. I am wondering what it is defined as and what it would be used for. None of the pages the use this templates use this parameter. I'm all for using it, if it is needed, however the documentation needs to be updated to include this parameter.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 14:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to remove it since no one seems to know why it is in use anyway.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 13:58, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After thinking about it and reading the discription at infobox:person, I changed my mind. Just to allow for the posaibluty of it's use. I updated the documention.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 23:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. It is possible that the documentation page will need updating. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 21:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox LDS biography → Template:Infobox Latter Day Saint biography –This will allow this template to be used on any Latter Day Saint sect leadership page, such as Alexander Hale Smith. The current name (ie. LDS) is reserved for only the LDS church leaders. Just to note, Some minor documentation changes will also need to be made.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 14:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Oppose~~ Weak Support Some titles in this template link to LDS Church-specific pages (e.g., President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles), and creating an omnibus templates blurs the distinction between the sects. —Eustress ^talk 21:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. It makes sense to generalize this so we can use it at least for Community of Christ leaders as well. The other Latter Day Saint groups are sufficiently small so as not to require a separate, dedicated template. The LDS Church-specific pages referred to by Eustress are not incorporated into the template itself; they are simply options among many that can be entered. There no reason the template couldn't be used for the "President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles" of the Community of Christ, for instance. This doesn't require anything to be incorporated into the template itself. Also, strictly speaking, all the leaders prior to 1844 were not "LDS Church" leaders—there were members of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who never carried on to become members of the LDS Church, such as William E. M'Lellin. The template should be usable for these individuals as well, and it is currently—which leads to the implication that M'Lellin was an LDS Church member, which he was not (though LDS Church members may claim him as one of their own, as every other Latter Day Saint sect would because he was a pre-1844 leader). Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Eustress, please note that the "Document" page will have to be "generalized", the template itself wont have to be adjusted in anyway. The LDS Church-specific title (i.e President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) are created by the code "|position_or_quorum1 = President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles" which is not part of the template code itself. Therefore, no LDS pages would need to change. By changing the name to "Template:Infobox Latter Day Saint biography", we then could use this template on pages like Israel A. Smith. He is "|position_or_quorum1 = Prophet–President", a completely non-LDS position. Also, as Good Ol’factory we are already using this template on pages where it should be, since they were never part of the LDS Church (i.e. leaders prior to 1844).--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 12:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed to weak support based on your last point about leaders prior to 1844. However, I am still concerned that the line between the sects will be blurred. Any ideas to address this concern would be appreciated. —Eustress ^talk 22:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will create the new template document in Template:Infobox Latter Day Saint biography/doc. Just give me a little time and you can see if you like it.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 18:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Tell me what you think. Template:Infobox Latter Day Saint biography/doc. Please note that as of this moment {{Infobox Latter Day Saint biography}} is a "redirect" to {{Infobox LDS biography}}. This means the two examples I have chosen (since they both included political offices) are actually running on the same coding as before (ie {{Infobox LDS biography}}). This means I made no changes to the template coding, only the documentation, which allows all sects to use this template.--ARTEST4ECHO (^talk/_contribs) 20:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.