Template talk:Infobox scientist/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox scientist. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Remove religious stance

Can we please consider removing the religious stance field from this template? All of the other fields are particularly relevant to large classes of scientists, if not all of them, but a religious stance is generally not something that is relevant. In fact, I would guess that most articles on scientists would not bother even discussing a scientists religious stance. Of course there are a few exceptions, but that is to be elaborated on in those exceptional articles, not bandied around as a field on a widely used template that editors feel compelled to have as complete as possible. Cheers, Ben (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed over and over again. The best solution that almost satisfies almost everyone seems to be the usage guidelines laid out here: Template_talk:Infobox_scientist/Archive_3#Second_try_at_defining_a_template_guideline_for_the_religion_field. The capsule summary is, it's a useful and relevant field to have in some cases, but in cases where it's not relevant to the biography, it shouldn't be populated.--ragesoss (talk) 22:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

And yet there is consensus against the "spouse" field? Ridiculous. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 22:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say there is consensus against a spouse field. It just hasn't been discussed much.--ragesoss (talk) 23:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

There isn't much discussion here about the issue, so it's hard to judge any sort of existing consensus. Perhaps there was consensus for the 'religious stance' field at some point in the past, but consensus can change. When I started this thread I also posted a note on the science and mathematics wikiprojects, alerting them to this thread, since they seemed to be the wikiprojects that would most likely be affected. Some discussion was had at the mathematics wikiproject here, which together with the regularity that this issue is brought up by other editors on this talk page, gives me reason to doubt there is a consensus for the field. Ben (talk) 13:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I am opposed to having a religious stance field. I think that User:Paul August said it excellently on WT:WPM when he said,

...if religion isn't mentioned in the article (probably true for the vast majority of our articles) it shouldn't be in the infobox. And for those rare occasions where religion will be judged to be relevant enough to be mentioned in the article, something as complex and nuanced as "religious stance" will often not be able to be summarized meaningfully and accurately by being squashed into the narrow confines of a field in an infobox.

To this I have only to add: Compare the experiences of Galileo Galilei and Georges Lemaître. Does the "religious stance" field summarize in any accurate way their respective experiences with religion? Ozob (talk) 22:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the religion parameter should be removed. This has been raised many times and there always appears to be consensus to remove it, so it really ought to be done. SlimVirgin 05:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Given the above discussion and the discussion at WT:WPM I'm requesting that an administrator remove the 'religious stance' field. Cheers, Ben (talk)

Removed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What is the reason then for stating the religion of a politician? Adherent of the Enlightenment 10.0 (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Because its relevant to Politicians? In many countries there are links formal and otherwise between particular religions and particular Political parties, Ϣere SpielChequers 16:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Should be moved to Infobox academic

This template should be moved back to Infobox academic (from Infobox scientist). "Scientist" has many connotations of natural sciences, as opposed to for instance humanities. Mrandsl (talk) 10:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that not every scientist is an academic either. If the title bothers you though then this template is also available to use as {{Infobox academic}}. Cheers, Ben (talk) 10:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Signature

There is an ongoing discussion at Template talk:Infobox officeholder regarding whether we should keep images of signatures in infoboxes. MitchellDuce (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Please stop the infobox disease

Please, folks, get rid of this template. This infobox wastes a lot of screen space to say things that can be said much better and more clearly in two lines of text. It contains many fields (like professional history, advisor, fields of work, etc.) which *must* be left to the text, because they are often too complicated to fit in an infobox format. The name is already given in the article's title and in the lead parag, so with the infobox that is repeating the same information repeatedly and superfluously over and over redundantly not less than *four* times. Even birth and death dates are often disputed, in which case that information cannot be properly fit in a box field. In fact, the only field that *does* belong in the infobox is the photo; but that item can be inserted in the article more easily *without* the infobox.

Besides the idea of fitting people's lives into neat little boxes is just too bureucratic to swallow. Don't forget that "Wikipedia is not a database" and "Wikipedia is not a directory". People infoboxes, besides having tons of disadvantages and no advantage whatsoever, are things that belong to a KGBpedia, not to Wikipedia.

Folks, please stop and think. Infoboxes are not good things. They are not a standard feature of Wikipedia; the people who invented them and started adding them to articles never asked other editors what they thought about the concept. Infoboxes are a virus, a malignant cancer that is turning a once enjoyable encyclopedia into an utterly boring pile of forms and stamps. Adding infoboxes to articles is not merely a complete waste of your time, it is actually a form of vandalism, no matter how well intentioned. Please don't help spread this terrible virus. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 18:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, infoboxes are a major component of the web of Linked Data. For example Infoboxes are used by DBPedia and Freebase. Thanks to those technology, you can query wikipedia to get, for example: "All german scientists born between 1933 and 1945 that worked in the field of molecular biology".--Plindenbaum (talk) 09:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

If the infoboxes are useful for DBpedia, they should reside in DBpedia with interlinks from Wikipedia --- not the other way around. "Wikipedia is not a database". All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 13:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

PS. Besides there are better *public* databases for infoboxed info, such as the Mathematics Genealogy project, the DBLP, the Tree of Life, the SIL Interational laguage catalog, etc. Wikipedia is a very poor source for the query example you quoted, since it has very few academic bios (and the deletionists even want to prune them). Once more, "Wikipedia is not a database". All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes are useful for quickly flicking through related articles and finding the one you're interested in. I find them a useful summary for browsing, and as an adult I get to chose if I want to read the whole article or not. It saves me time. I think by overemphasizing the infobox as a database type entry you have created a strawman argument, because you have not accounted for the many other legit uses of infoboxes. KnownLoop (talk) 22:39, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Subject of Thesis

If "Doctoral advisors" and "Doctoral students" are of interest, why not "Title of Doctoral Thesis" and its date and place? Meerassel (talk) 19:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree this is useful information. But I think it is better left to the main article. Some thesis titles are very long and would look cumbersome in an infobox. KnownLoop (talk) 22:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Doctoral advisor

Now that there is an actual article doctoral advisor, could somebody fix this template to create a link to that article rather than the present "Doctoral" link? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Signature width

Editing Carl Linnaeus; signature is too small IMHO, but cannot change width (whereas you can for the image). A hard-coded 128px does not seem logical; can a 'signature_width' field be made such that blank=128 but otherwise it can be set by users? KTHXBAI. -- Limulus (talk) 04:10, 11 April 2010 (UTC) Note BTW that you can modify the width on the French Wikipedia: [1] -- Limulus (talk) 04:59, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I would rather not. I can see an argument to be made for upright signatures, but in this case, I don't see the point. Uniformity is better, in my opinion. However, that's my opinion, of course. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:26, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Uniformity in code unseen by the average user is better than being able to make a page look good? *boggle* Did you not see that I suggested leaving the default to what it is now? Do you realize that you can resize just about any image on Wikipedia? Including the main image in a Scientist Infobox? by setting a value for image_size? which has a default value? You obviously realize that signatures have different aspect ratios... I don't know what else to say. -- Limulus (talk) 13:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I realize you can even resize this one. Perhaps it would be better to have uniform height, instead of uniform width? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Additional microformat class

{{editprotected}}

Please add:

class7 = category

to improve this template's hCard microformat. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

And working; thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Usage guideline: residence

I note that although the infobox usage guideline for "Residence" says to use a "line break after each one," that is not the case in the example shown (Paul Dirac). Which is correct? Thanks, RadioBroadcast (talk) 17:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Ethnicity

How necessary is the ethnicity field? It seems that for the vast majority of scientists, their ethnic background is not a defining aspect of their career. If it is, then it should surely be mentioned in the article. A scientist's religious beliefs is surely something that people find of more interest than their ethnicity, yet the religious field was removed. It's understandable to have ethnicity if physical appearance is important, such as porn star infoboxes, but I'm not convinced of the necessity in having it here. Spellcast (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I see that Paul Davies has Citizenship=British, Nationality=United Kingdom, Ethnicity=English (and Residence in three countries!) which I'm sure is of interest to some, but seems obsessive to me. If the ethnicity of a particular scientist is important, it should be discussed in the article. If not, it should not be in an infobox. Johnuniq (talk) 10:33, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Ethnicity is usually implied by birth place or parental origins. For the relatively small number of scientists of whom ethnicity is worth mentioning explicitly, it should be done in the article. In the absence of any compelling arguments for its retention, I've removed the field accordingly. Spellcast (talk) 15:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

See here for a similar discussion about Criminals. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, you many not deem it important – but people might still be interested in the ethnicity. Why do we have categories like these: Canadian people of Irish descent, Jewish atheists? - you might also say – "I don't care about it. Let's delete it."

I think - even if it's not probable to hear the idea on TV - that the ethnicity is an important part of one's identity – why on earth would there be "XYZ history month" and stuff like that - if it was not?

And if you're only interested in (quote) "defining aspects of their career", well then you could delete citizenship and nationality, too, or if it was exceptionally important (quote) "surely mention it in the article".

217.236.194.35 (talk) 21:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, why do we have categories such as "Canadian people of Irish descent"? However, see WP:OTHERSTUFF. That refers specifically to deletion discussions, but the same applies here. JamesBWatson (talk) 23:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

At first sight I agree the ethnicity field does seem odd. However, I just trawled through the archives to find out why previous editors put it in there in the first place. One of the arguments that caught my eye was that an ethnicity field helps to sort out anomalies, for example, when a Polish scientist born in the days when Poland was officially part of the German empire. Without the ethnicity field it would be easy to lose the fact that the scientist really identifies with being Polish even though on paper his nationality & citizenship is German. This is just one example, and there are many others. Also, for example, there is Einstein who was born in Germany, studied in Switzerland, became American but was ethnically Jewish. There are many scientists in this kind of situation. I suggest to reinstate Ethnicity, but make the guideline clear that it is to be left blank unless needed for differentiating anomalous cases. KnownLoop (talk) 23:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Surely that is covered by the suggestions above that in the minority of cases where it is relevant it should be mentioned in the article. JamesBWatson (talk) 23:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's the problem: ie. it is not a "minority" of cases. There appear to be quite a lot of famous scientists like Einstein who were very mobile, and it is easy to lose track of their ethnicity. Of course you are right the main article should do the job, but this leaves the question as to whether it happens often enough to make it worth an infobox field. The previous editors of the template thought so. But what do people now think?KnownLoop (talk) 20:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Website attribute?

I'm sure this has been brought up here before, but since many (living) scientists/researchers maintain their own web page to discuss their work, wouldn't it be appropriate for this template to have a "website" attribute just as, e.g., Template:Infobox_person does? Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 18:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Sure, that would seem useful. A related question would be why can't this template be merged with {{Infobox person}}. Is there something special here that can't be handled by that template? It looks like there are only a few extra fields here, with most of them in the more generic template. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the two should be merged; the attributes for a scientist are not relevant to most other "types" of people. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 20:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I also came here looking for the website attribute. I'd like to see this implemented. __meco (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Please let somebody implement this. --IIVeaa (talk) 20:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I would like this and I have requested that it be added.-GrapedApe (talk) 03:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox sync

I've made some updates to {{infobox scientist/sandbox}} which clean the code up and allow for modularisation as discussed at template talk:infobox person#Modules. Only minor output changes. If there are no bugs or identified drawbacks I'll request sync. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:33, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Religion

Why has religion been removed? I propose the category be (re-)inserted. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 08:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The archives have many long discussions on this point. Particularly for a scientist, it is inappropriate to use vague labels concerning personal beliefs in an infobox. A scientist may have been influenced by religious beliefs, and that issue should be explored in the article, but cannot be meaningfully summarized in an infobox. A label such as "Catholic" can mean anything from "had Catholic parents", to "wrote about Catholic beliefs" and more. Having a religion field encourages editors to add the closest-matching label, regardless of whether it is actually appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 10:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Restore: I agree with DIREKTOR that the Religion field should be brought back. We have religion for policians. People are fascinated by the religion of scientists, and the interplay between science and religion. It is as important as the religion of a politician. I think Johnuniq's argument against it is invalid. Just because a label is sometimes difficult doesn't imply you remove the whole infobox field. That decision is made locally at the article level. The editors of the individual article can decide to leave the field blank if they feel they have a tricky case. People can be stopped from adding to that field by inserting a comment in the field that a consensus has been reached to leave it blank. Come on guys, let's bring it back and show some backbone! KnownLoop (talk) 13:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Restore: Agreed as per DIREKTOR. Politician infoboxes have this field. It really is no problem.PorkoltLover60 (talk) 20:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Restore: I don’t see how a person’s religion is potentially more vague than such categories as “influences” and “influenced.” Religion is often a very important part of a person’s life and identity and it should be considered an essential piece of biographical information.CurtisNaito (talk) 02:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Restore per CurtisNaito. InverseHypercube (talk) 02:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per Johnuniq. Politicians usually are very vocal and unambiguous about their religious beliefs. That is absolutely not the case for scientists. Why is this stale and almost 1-year old proposal suddenly revived? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 04:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Re the above "very important part", the crucial point is that of course such important information is included in the article (where reliable sources indicate that such discussion is WP:DUE). The problem comes from misguided attempts to sum up, say, Einstein's religion with a label in the infobox. Johnuniq (talk) 04:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Nationality

I propose that the nationality field be removed. The term is too poorly defined. As the nationality article says, it can mean the same as citizenship, or it can refer to ethnicity (a field that was removed), or it can refer to some self-defined group. Again, if this information is worth including in a scientist's article then it can go in the article body, where it can be explained what is meant. --208.76.104.133 (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe you have a point, but removing this without a broader discussion is likely to have some serious backlash. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

That is no argument. Every item in every infobox should be discussed in the article. The infobox exists as an additional alternative to the summary lead. Back in the First Age of Wikipedia, before the anti-"Sea of Blue Links" and deletionists gained ascendency, we were full of anarchists and libertarians and other various fringes, we made intentional efforts to engage readers of various learning styles. Images and text; lists and categories; infoboxes and "walls of text". Rmhermen (talk) 19:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree infobox items should be discussed in the article. However, articles are not written in an instant! They evolve and take time. I don't see it as a reason to permanently delete a field.KnownLoop (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

fields= parameter

I've just noticed that Bletchley (talk · contribs) changed the documentation from Scientist's major field or fields of study (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, engineering, etc.) to Scientist's major occupation field (physicist, chemist, biologist, mathematician, engineer, etc.) back in February 2009 (in this diff). The same edit introduced a new "Usage guidelines" section with Bletchley's further advice on the parameters. Those changes weren't discussed here and few editors seem to have noticed, since most instances of the infobox in articlespace (over 90% of the Nobel laureate categories I've examined) are still using the earlier usage. Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) fixed the parameter table on 21st April 2010 (diff) but left the Usage guidelines section unchanged. If no-one objects, I propose to fix the Usage guidelines section and reword the Parameters section to make it clear that "fields=" should only refer to fields (e.g. "Immunology") and not job titles ("Immunologist"). Thanks for any feedback. - Pointillist (talk) 23:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

template:infobox person

Any good reason this isn't derived from {{infobox person}}? It would allow such things as other_names = Doktè Paul. Damned, Gold Hat (talk) 21:16, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Good question. I could see a case for refactoring this to use {{infobox person}} as a backend. Are there any parameters in this box, which aren't in {{infobox person}}? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

ya: fields, workplaces, alma_mater, doctoral_advisor, academic_advisors, doctoral_students, notable_students, known_for, author_abbrev_bot, author_abbrev_zoo. I'm thinking they would simply layer on top of infobox person. There may be deviations of implementation in these or the shared ones, too. fyi, one of the reasons I'm pretty much flipping the project the bird these days is that participating in changes to protected things is permanently off the table for me. Damned, Gold Hat

^{off-the-reservation
sockpuppet}02:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... not so straightforward; do see the {{Infobox scientist/sandbox}} and how it is being used live by Geoffrey Pyke. Damned, Gold Hat (talk) 04:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Honorific prefix

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I believe that an Honorific prefix and possibly an honorific suffix should be added to the template, I understand it may be understood that as a scientist they are most likely a doctor et cetera, however, I believe it should be added as it can be found on almost all other person info boxes I have ever needed to use. For an example of how this can be done you can see Infobox person.

The code that follows needs to be added where it says |above=

{{#if:{{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|}}}}}}|{{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|}}}}}} }}<includeonly>{{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}</includeonly>{{#if:{{{honorific suffix|{{{honorific_suffix|}}}}}}| {{{honorific suffix|{{{honorific_suffix|}}}}}}}}

The above code would make the template read like this and then output like like this. Adwiii Talk 19:07, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Your example has "Dr." in the line above the person's name in the infobox, and frankly it is very unattractive. Some people unambiguously (and verifiably) have a title, but many scientists could be referred to as "Professor" or "Dr." and more, and I doubt if there is any benefit from privileging one honorific prominently in the infobox. The issue would need discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 23:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have deactivated the request, pending further discussion. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Where would be the best place for this discussion. As for the unattractive part, I was modeling it afterInfobox Person and a few other derivatives of that infobox. Adwiii Talk 13:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Well here, probably. But leave time for other people to comment, and try to reach a compromise. You could advertise the discussion at the WikiProjects who have tagged the top of this page. When/if there is consensus for a change, please reactivate the request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If putting the honorific prefix above the name is deemed unattractive, it could be rendered on the same line, with a minor change. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I am against honorific titles for two reasons: (a) Scientists themselves don't use them when acknowledging each other in Journal papers. (b) German honorific titles will look stupid. You'll get instances of "Herr Professor Dr Dr Dr" and nonsense like that, which no one really cares about. It's crazy. KnownLoop (talk) 13:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't particularly have any major feelings as to one way or the other, I just originally thought it would be a good idea as it is used in Infobox Person and I had come across an article of a scientist that didn't have the appropriate honorific prefixes. I guess either way is okay, as long as everyone agrees to keep it as it is currently. Adwiii Talk 11:52, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I am absolutely against including credentials (honorifics are actually something else) and in addition it contravenes WP:MOSBIO (specifically: WP:CREDENTIALS). --Crusio (talk) 12:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that honorifics merited by simple academic creditionals should be strongly avoided; if you add it for these, you're going to want people with bios that want their Masters degree displayed, and then you're going to get CPAs, and Esq. and just a whole mess of these. That doesn't mean, if the Queen of England knights a scientist that we shouldn't include that, as that's much less unequivocal. --MASEM (t) 13:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

As, indeed, stipulated by WP:HONORIFICS. It's a rare case, though, so I don't think this necessitates a change in the template, which would only lead to people thinking that the "honorifics" field is for academic titles... --Crusio (talk) 13:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out in the section below, WP:HONRIFICS stipulates that honorific prefixes should be displayed in infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

We deal with misuse (like your "esq" example for which there is no supporting evidence) with documentation and patrolling; not removing or prohibiting valid and useful content. WP:CREDENTIALS specifically refers to opening sentences; it says nothing about infoboxes. And how do you propose to include honorifics, without making the proposed amendment to the infobox? Please don't suggest shoehorning them into the name parameter; they're not part of the person's name; and they corrupt the emitted metadata when that happens. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Honorofics

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add |honorific prefix= and |honorific suffix=, as used on {{Infobox person}}, by replacing:

|aboveclass = fn
|above      = '''{{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''

with:

| above      = {{#if:{{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|}}}}}}|<span class="honorific-prefix" style="font-size: small">{{{honorific prefix|{{{honorific_prefix|}}}}}}</span><br />}}<includeonly><span class="fn">{{{name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}</span></includeonly>{{#if:{{{honorific suffix|{{{honorific_suffix|}}}}}}|<br /><span class="honorific-suffix" style="font-size: small">{{{honorific suffix|{{{honorific_suffix|}}}}}}</span>}}

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed the above section. Meh. We have many articles about scientists with honorific prefixes (Sir, Dr, Professor…) and/ or suffixes (FRS, FRCS, etc). We should report such titles as encyclopedic, and do so in a consistent manner across our templates. The proposed change is also necessary to properly include the honorifics in our emitted metadata. What they ues amongst themselves is immaterial; as are extreme-exception examples, which can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I intend to notify relevant talk pages of this debate. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Honorifics are vanity cruft; they also (especially with BLPs) are subject to change at any time. I think we should be cutting back on the use of honorifics project-wide, not creating a new window for them. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC) B.A. magna cum laude; big deal

I'm not sure how a knighthood or fellowship of a royal society is "vanity cruft"; please explain. I agree that we shouldn't be using them repeatedly in prose, but they are encyclopedic facts about our subjects, and we should be recording them; and doing so in a standardised location such as an infobox seems sensible. If they change which won't be that often, we can count ourselves lucky that we have an editable wiki to manage, not a dead-tree publication. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia:HONORIFICS stipulates that "honorific titles Sir, Dame, Lord and Lady are included in the … infobox heading for the person". Similarly, WP:POSTNOM states that "Post-nominal letters, other than those denoting academic degrees, should be included when they are issued by a country or widely recognizable organization with which the subject has been closely associated.". This change would facilitate such requirement, without shoe-horning the text into the wrong metadata fields, as is currently done - harmfully - on Isaac Newton. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No response to this, nor my question, above. May we now proceed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It does seem like this field is ripe for WP:AGF cruft-accumulation, a can of worms on a project already short of worm-wranglers. Already zillions of school infoboxes and students'-favorite-prof articles slap Dr/Mr/Ms/Prof on every adult name (as standard for student/adult-staff respect) and MS/BA after them (as standard for staff directories), neither of which seems appropriate. I have no objection to getting the appropriate (per MOS) ones used for infobox subjects themselves. How about if it sanity-checks against a known set of appropriate ones rather than being free-text? Put a {{#switch: inside the {{#if: logic that passes all good ones (per MOS) and with a |default action that instead adds a Category:Bio infoboxes with non-MOS honorifics tag for easy tracking. DMacks (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

How would that work? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Where now? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Looks to me like there is currently no consensus for a change like this. --Guillaume233 (talk) 16:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out above, the consensus is on the site-wide MoS; we just need to decide how to apply it here Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Where is that site-wide consensus that this stuff needs to go into infoboxes?? --Guillaume233 (talk) 17:22, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I quote from both Wikipedia:HONORIFICS and WP:POSTNOM, above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:HONORIFICS, that's the one starting with "The inclusion of some honorific prefixes and styles is controversial", right? --Guillaume233 (talk) 20:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Please read the quoted text in context; not just one detached clause. And please stop breaking the formatting of the indentation here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:17, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The indentation is fine, why are you getting all worked up by the fact that I put a bullet before my remarks? Keeps things nicely separate. Unless you want to quote some other policy that forbids this? I'm not re-formatting your comments, so please extend the same courtesy to me. As for this whole honorifics mess, WP:MOSBIO starts with saying that there will be occasional exceptions. As other people have argued above, including pre- and postfixes is almost certainly going to lead to a lot of problems here, with people going to insert "Prof. Dr." before names and "BA, MD, PhD" and whatnot after names. I think this infobox should remain one of those exception that WP:MOSBIO talks about. --Guillaume233 (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Your use of asterisks doesn't just put a bullet at the head of your comments, but formats them as individual, single-item, lists. WP:TPYES says "Keep the talk page attractively and clearly laid out, using standard indentation and formatting conventions". See also WP:TPO. Your other points seem to have been addressed already. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So, with no further responses, shall we now make this template adhere to the MoS? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

So, with only one person pushing for this and several others who have voiced opposition, shall we now shelve this discussion? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 12:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

There isn't "only one person pushing for this"; the community has already decided to make it art of the MoS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)