Template talk:Infobox scientist/Archive 4

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Abdus Salam

Taking one step back, I have just read the article on Abdus Salam, given by Nbauman as an example. The field says his religion was Islam. but reading the article we find he was an Ahmadis, a sect many Muslims deny are Muslims, that he left Pakistan because of persecution of the Ahmadis, and the word Muslim was removed from his tomb on the order of a magistrate. Religion was certainly a very important part of his life, but the description in the infobox is not only woefully inadequate, it is also misleading. Let's be done with this field. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You should wait until we've resolved the question in talk before making changes like that. The source is his Nobel Prize biography, which is a WP:RS. There is no question that he identified as a muslim, that he was active in muslim affairs in addition to his scientific career, and that Nobel.org is a WP:RS. You could claim that the Pope isn't a Christian, because there are some Protestants who think that the Pope is the anti-Christ[1]. There are some Sunis and Shia that claim the other is not muslim. Abdus Salam is perhaps the most prominent modern muslim scientist, and this deletion is disruptive WP:POINT. Nbauman (talk) 00:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, are you referring to an edit on another page? Surely it would be best to discuss it there? And oh yes, we don't find it necessary to mention the Popes religion in his infobox. --Michael Johnson (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

You should have discussed it on the Talk:Abdus_Salam page before you made the change. You gave your justifications here, we are discussing the general subject of the Religion field here, and this is the best place to discuss it. I think any further deletions or changes to the Religion field in Abdus_Salam without prior discussion and consensus would be disruptive editing, specifically WP:POINT. Nbauman (talk) 01:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't see how a good-faith edit on another page can be making a point here. Please assume good faith. --Michael Johnson (talk) 01:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It's WP:POINT because you changed it in a way that violated the consensus that we had attained here.

I interpret your sarcastic "Sorry..." comment as bad faith. Nbauman (talk) 17:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I havn't attacked you personally, I have only ever debated the issue on this page, and am only trying to improve Wikipedia. I would appreciate an apology for that personal attack. And we have not obtained a consensus here. There has been a claim that there is no consensus and therefore the status quo remains, which I am happy to accept for now. However that is not the same thing as an overwhelming consensus to keep. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Nbauman that self-identification by the individual is the significant element of the sourced material. I think that this emphasis is important in general for biographical details. Disputes between sects of a religion, even a very large sect or multiple sects disputing the categorization of a small group like the Ahmadis, definitely should not trump an individual's self-identification of religious group. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring image size?

In this article this template seems to be ignoring the set image size, I'm not sure why... it's especially unfortunate there because the image I found is very low-resolution. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 21:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, it's now fixed. The template previously used was not quite correct. Just copy and paste the present one if you need to put more in future articles. Bletchley (talk) 02:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 05:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Family information

Is there any reason that family information (spouse, children, etc.) isn't included? Several articles included the name of a scientist's spouse, parent, etc., especially when they're also scientists. Espertus (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, if you trawl through the discussion archives you'll see people simply voted against it. It is a bit odd, because spouse, children etc are in the People infobox and scientists are people with human interest. So you could argue that and try to create a new consensus to add it in. I would support it.TorontoFever (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Religion

What the hell is a "religious stance?" Is that like neko ashi dachi with a little bit of prayer? Is that like a political stance, where one say's "I'm for the death penalty" and someone else says "I'm against it." Is religion like that? Is a "religious stance" like a kind of quasi-scientific metaphor for "religion,"where the term "religion" somehow carries remarkably profound and controversial implications for a biographical article? If there is an issue of clarity required, allow for different terms. Ethnicity and Religion - that's it. In complicated examples, where more depth is required, Einstein's article does it right, with a link to a lower section. The "religious stance" concept is not only unecessary, it doesnt even have the appearance of making the concept of "religion" any more correct or rational in the context of a scientists' presumably "science-y" views. Yes, I've scanned through the above discussion, and I still don't understand how common sense failed. The idea of using "stance" appears to be based in some silly misconception about the irrelevance of religion to scientific matters, and that all scientists have such a particuar distance from religion that they don't actually have religion —they have stances. Is that actually true? Isch donst tsinck so. I now ask for a source to back that claim up. Iff not, just get rid of the "stance" thing, and stop fooling yourselves. -Stevertigo 00:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

As briefly discussed on this page, we (those currently talking) don't know why "stance" was added, and it appears there wasn't much explanation given when it happened. My guess is that "stance" attempts to broaden the label to cater for those readers who want a quick summary that includes what the scientist believed about "life, the universe, and everything" (for example, see Paul Davies for a florid description, or Fred Hoyle for "Atheist turned Agnostic").

There are numerous examples of scientists where we know (from reliable sources) that the scientist had a particular religious belief. As far as I'm concerned, the problem is with the larger number of scientists where there is no record of any personal belief, but where there might be a biography that states that a scientist was raised (say) as a Catholic. The question is, "should such a scientist (for example, Enrico Fermi) be labeled "Catholic" in the infobox?". I don't like the potential for misleading readers by putting a label in the infobox, when some would regard "Catholic" as referring to someone's childhood, while others would interpret it as a claim about belief. However, if we adopted the guideline discussed above, there would be a good procedure to follow when using the infobox. --Johnuniq (talk) 01:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

As you can see from the discussion above, "Religion" was changed to "Religious Stance" on 8 December 2007 without any mention in the Edit box or any discussion in the Talk page. There was some objection in the Talk page afterwards but nothing came of it. So the change was made by an individual editor on his own initiative without consensus. I'm not sure how it works, but I think that anyone with Admin status could change, and would have a right to change, the template back to "Religion," since it wasn't made through consensus.

You can find use of the phrase "religious stance" with a Google search, but no one could cite a reference book that uses the term. I don't like the term. I believe that in this context, it's a WP:NEOLOGISM. The people who use it seem to be promoting some philosophical point that I don't clearly understand, and they seem to object to the presence of religion in the infobox at all. Nbauman (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

What about the specific examples (Paul Davies, Fred Hoyle, Enrico Fermi) that I mentioned? What would you want for those cases?

The "philosophical point" is simply that a word like "Catholic" might mean "had Catholic parents", or it might mean "wrote about Catholic beliefs". Therefore the term is too broad to be useful. Such labels are from a previous era. --Johnuniq (talk) 07:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I would look at WP:RS such as Who's Who and American Men and Women of Science, to see how they handle it. If Fermi, in his Who's Who entry, identified his religion as Catholic, that would be WP:RS and the infobox should read, "Religion: Catholic." If it doesn't, then we should leave Fermi's religion out of the infobox. To say, "Religious stance: See main text" clutters the infobox, pushes a POV, and is a neologism.

I think that before an editor acting on his own initiative changed "Religion" to "Religious stance", we should have had a discussion and reached consensus that it should be changed. I think we should change it back and have a discussion about whether "Religion" should be changed. Nbauman (talk) 16:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I would support changing the label back to "Religion" and discussing it. I think it ought to say "Religion" by default, we ought to provide an override parameter that can change the label for a single instance of the template, and then we ought to make some usage policy statement endorsing different labels in particular situations to address the aforementioned concerns; for example, if "Religious stance" is a more appropriate label in the case of an atheist we could specify that.

But whoever made the initial change, I think that was a valid application of WP:BOLD; no harm done. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 04:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it would be a valid application of WP:BOLD to change it back. Nbauman (talk) 07:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly agree, go right ahead. I'm all for BRD cycles (though I don't feel strongly enough to revert anything myself in this case.) --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 09:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't. When I go to the template I don't see the Edit this page tab. I think that means I don't have editing rights because I'm not an admin, right? Nbauman (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not agree with changing the label "stance." For starters it is a well known phrase that I've heard many times before. If you Google it you get 28,000 hits. The phrase "political stance" gets 300,000 hits. I suspect therefore the phrase "religious stance" is borrowing the allusion from the more common political variant. So as a phrase it is valid, and less wordy than the alternative, which would be "religious position." The reason to retain it is that it broadens what we can put in there. For example agnostic, aesthetic, Buddhist etc. Some would argue that these are not "religions" but they are a position on religion or a "religious position" or "religious stance." TorontoFever (talk) 11:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that you can get Google hits on "Religious stance." ("Religion" gets 366 million hits.) But nobody can show a reference book that uses it in biographies. Someone may well have used it by modeling it on "Political stance." But that's WP:Synthesis or WP:Neologism. The term "Religion" has a common, neutral dictionary meaning. The term "Religious stance" does not. I know somebody who had "Religion: Agnostic" entered in his military ID card. If you ask a Buddhist what his "religion" is, he or she will say "Buddhism." If you ask someone what his "Religious stance" is, that will likely be a term he's never used or heard before. Most readers would not know the difference between "Religon" and "Religous stance." That's a good reason for not using it: It's confusing. Nbauman (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Saying the use of the term "religious stance" in this context is contrary to WP:NEO or WP:SYN is stretching those policies beyond any reasonable interpretation. However I do agree the term is clumsy and and open to abuse. If we are to continue to use this category in the info box, it should state "religion" and only be used when we have verifiable sources that this is their religion either currently, or in the case of deceased persons, at the time of their death. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Nbauman: I'm still hoping you'll address the specific examples (Paul Davies, Fred Hoyle, Enrico Fermi) that I mentioned. Please look up Fermi and say what you would like to put in his infobox (I mention that because it seems clear Fermi was raised as a Catholic, but someone watching the Fermi article reverted the addition of "Catholic" and after a very quick look, I couldn't find an online bio of Fermi supporting "Catholic"). The other two cases are also worth considering. The people taking an interest in those articles have put some fairly wordy text that fits "religious stance" but would look silly next to "religion". I have no problem with "religion" applied to documented cases of a scientists belief, but people seem to want the infobox to contain a more general world outlook that "religious stance" vaguely covers. --Johnuniq (talk) 01:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You guys are correct that putting just "Religion" only should be fine. However, you are forgetting that there are lots of atheist editors out there that will create a wiki war if you do that....they will argue that atheism is not a religion but it is a position on religion. My recommendation, simply for peace-keeping purposes, is to use the term "Religious position" as a compromise if you don't like "Religious stance." The term "Religious position" is undeniably well-known. Bletchley (talk) 20:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Johnuniq, I thought I already answered: I would look at WP:RS such as Who's Who and American Men and Women of Science, to see how they handle it. If Fermi, in his Who's Who entry, identified his religion as Catholic, that would be WP:RS and the infobox should read, "Religion: Catholic." If it doesn't, then we should leave Fermi's religion out of the infobox.

I can't get Who's Who and AMWS online, so I'd have to go to the library.

What more do you want to know? Nbauman (talk) 00:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen Who's Who for a while, but I suspect that for someone like Fermi, it wouldn't do much more than list a religion (only rarely would any explanation be given; it wouldn't explain whether "Catholic" means a Catholic childhood, or a Catholic faith while working as a scientist). I wouldn't want Wikipedia to be so vague.

However, the Fermi issue is not really my concern. You are saying you don't want "religious stance". Assuming that there are reliable sources justifying the descriptions in Paul Davies and Fred Hoyle, what would you want to put there? Would you delete the entries? Surely you wouldn't want "religion"? --Johnuniq (talk) 05:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know enough about Paul Davies and Fred Hoyle to give you an answer. If there are consistent WP:RS saying that they are Christian, atheist, agnostic or whatever, then it should go into the infobox as "Religion". If not, it shouldn't go into the infobox.

I don't understand "Religious stance." It's not a term that you can find in a standard English dictionary. You would have to do WP:OR to find out what it means, and you would usually have to do WP:OR to find out what it meant for the subject of the biography. For everyone who isn't in a standard religious category, you would wind up saying, "See main text," which is pointless. Nbauman (talk) 20:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Infobox scholar?

I wonder if it might be worth moving the page to template:infobox scholar or something similar. Historians, English professors, and a variety of other scholarly occupations aren't captured by "scientist" but have enough comparable features that there seems to be merit expanding the infobox criteria. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Renaming "infobox scientist" to "infobox scholar" seems like a good idea. However, the problem I have is the some scientists & engineers (eg. Bill Gates, Alexander Graham Bell, or Nikola Tesla) aren't really that scholarly but took the more commercial path. Might be better to just make a new scholar infobox and model it on the scientist one. Bletchley (talk) 22:51, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Updated Guidelines

See the template page. Following the fairly close consensus (in the discussions above) calling for updated guidelines, I've now added some detailed notes to the template page. I've tried to tweak them in a way that accommodates everyone's requests. If I've forgotten or missed something, please insert your complaint here and I'll do my best to fix it. Bletchley (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Bletchley. I see you've added quite a few details (apart from the religion guidelines), and I'll list three changes that stand out to me:

• ethnicity: Use only if significant in scientist's career → Use only if known and documented.
• influences: Any notable scientists who influenced the scientist significantly → Any notable people who influenced the scientist significantly.
• influenced: Any notable scientists significantly influenced by the scientist → Any notable people significantly influenced by the scientist.

I know many people are interested in ethnicity and religion, but I cringe a little when these labels are applied to a scientist (if it isn't apparent that they were particularly significant to the scientist's work). I'm not sure about the "influences". I suppose there's no particular reason to worry about using "people" instead of "scientists", but I thought I would list the significant changes. You'll notice that I did a little tweaking, although I did not make any substantive change. Overall I think it's a good result. --Johnuniq (talk) 07:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind comments. The reason for my slight tweaks are as follows: I noticed on some scientist pages they had a major influence that was not a scientist (eg. a notable philosopher). This is valid type of influence, and so I was tweaking the guideline to be more inclusive. With ethnicity, it does help sort things out: for example a 'Polish' scientist might strictly have been born and raised in the German empire, but you don't get to find out he was really Polish until the ethnicity field is properly filled out.Bletchley (talk) 21:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Microformat upgrade- no visual impact to template

{{editprotected}}

• Visual impact: None
• What it does: This change allows wikipedia to emit data in the form of microformat metadata, as do other infoboxes such as these and and these. The change should have no visual impact and introduces non functional classes to elements of the table. These classes are recognized by external microformat parsers to retrieve information in the cells.

• Requested changes:

1. |bodyclass = vcard → |bodyclass = vcard vevent
2. |aboveclass = fn → |aboveclass = fn summary

• Background: This allows events of the individuals life to be represented (such as the span of their life, from birth to death date. Further information on what this does and how to see some of the benefits may be found here.

-Thanks -J JMesserly (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Martin^msgj 08:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Images are still messed up

The template was changed to allow images to specify their own size, or scale to 225 px if none given. This is the wrong the to do for many reasons. It needs to be removed. 129.15.131.185 (talk) 00:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Please give an example or two: link to an article with the problem, and briefly describe at least one reason why it's wrong. Johnuniq (talk) 02:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It's wrong because it's against Wikipedia guidelines.^{1 2 3} Articles with this problem include every article that makes use of this template, as that's the nature of templates. Articles that fail specify image_width include at least the first thirteen articles in this list of articles that link to Template:Infobox Scientist, with the exception of Ada Lovelace, and Alfons Maria Jakob. Use thumb instead. 129.15.131.185 (talk) 19:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)