Template talk:Infobox writer/Archive 4

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Religion

{{editprotected}} I was wondering why there isn't a religion or religious beliefs section. Many other userboxes have it, and often a writer's religion influences their works in a significant way. I came here after checking on Orson Scott Card's page and noticing his userbox doesn't mention his religion, which is a definite factor in some of the themes of his work. Can we add this section to the userbox? DogFog (talk) 17:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have objected, so I've added the editprotected flag. DogFog (talk) 22:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Done --Elonka 05:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted. This has been brought up three times before, here, here, and here. Reasonable objections were raised each time, so this shouldn't be added without a clear consensus. Flowerparty^☀ 22:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Category

This needs to be added to the Category:Theatre infobox templates category. DionysosProteus (talk) 12:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Collapsed/uncollapsed appearance of the "influences" and "influenced" fields

The default setting for these two entries is currently "collapsed", requiring the reader to click on "Show" to see the names or movements concerned. Where the entries contain just a couple of names, this seems needlessly complicated and hides useful information that could otherwise be taken in at a glance.

Would it be possible to give editors inserting this infobox into an article the option of specifying "uncollapsed" as the default state for these entries? Jayen466 17:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Bibliography field

This idea was proposed a while back (see archive here), but there was no discussion thus no action taken. In a similar manner that Infobox Television creates a link in the infobox to a List of Episodes (if one exists), shouldn't Infobox Writer create a link to a Bibliography article or section if one exists? hornoir (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

How many articles would this actually affect? Pi zero (talk) 19:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Most author/writer articles have some form of bibliography as at least a section, though there are a growing number with separate bibliography articles. The main purpose, overall, would be to make a quick link from the infobox to the bibliography, where ever it may be (section or separate article). I don't know if this quite answers your question, but... hornoir (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I had imagined (perhaps too hastily) that this infobox field would be used only when there is a separate article; admittedly, thought, it could also be a quick way to find the right section of the author article, since that information might not leap out on a quick skim of the article's TOC. At any rate, what I was wondering was how many authors have separate articles for their bibliographies. To make a small start on answering my own question: The archived proposal alludes to Stephen King. Just off the top of my head, I checked Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Anne Rice, and Anne McCaffrey — and found separate bibliography articles for Isaac and Robert, but not for either Anne. If I were going to spend more time on it, I'd choose a larger (and less skewed) sample by drawing from the list of best-selling authors.

I'm inclined to agree that this could be a rather handy field to have available for the infobox. Pi zero (talk) 01:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I meant for it to be used as a quick resource of linking for in-article bibliographies as well as separate article bibliographies. There are several instances, though usually mini-series, when Infobox Television's List of Episodes directs to a section rather than separate page thus I don't see why we'd have to treat this aspect differently. And yes, the bibliography link doesn't always jump out of the TOC at you, thus this would be a good method of ensuring visibility of that aspect. hornoir (talk) 13:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ethnicity?

Isn't it nice that there's a quaint little ethnicity box. Maybe we can add some other qualities like nose length, distance between the eyes, size of the eyebrow ridge, etc. Just remove this bullshit notion. Ethnicity is a little more complicated these days, isn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.250.13.132 (talk) 08:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It is offensively irrelevant, I agree. Skomorokh 21:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The reasons why there isn't a field for religion seem to apply equally to ethnicity. Pi zero (talk) 22:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not too bright. Although ethnicity can be very complicated, it is not a bullshit notion. Can someone explain why it is “offensively irrelevant?” —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 05:49 z

Regardless of that argument, if the field is removed then people's ethnicity, and supporting reference citations, will just be entered into the article body. Or worse, editors will just enter things like “Canadian citizenship, ethnic Ukrainian” in another field. —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 06:20 z

Disagree with removal. While I am not a fan of the Ethnicity or Religion fields, both might have bearing upon the writing of the individual — thus seem valid inputs regarding an author. Since they are optional fields with no set default value, you can always opt not to include them if they bear no significance into an author's life and work. If you fret that someone else might add these values on an article where they would be irrelevant, simply place a polite message like...
| ethnicity = <!-- Please leave this field blank, as it serves no purpose on this particular article. -->
...in the infobox and that should warn off most editors. hornoir (talk) 16:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

There is no religion field. It was very briefly added and then reverted last November, on the grounds that its addition had been rejected for sound reasons in the past and therefore significant consensus would be needed to add it now — but the admin reverting it apparently forgot to revert the documentation page. I have just done that, but since I'm not an admin, I can't do a null edit of the template page to force the system to re-compute the transclusion of the documentation page. Pi zero (talk) 18:19, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, Pi zero. As I said, I don't like it as a field thus try not to use it... but I will note that in regards to an author it might have more bearing than some of the fields that do exist on the infobox. Regardless, thank you for removing it from the documentation. hornoir (talk) 19:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me that this discussion probably belongs at a less-specific place, like {{Infobox person}}. —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 19:41 z

This really is the place for this discussion. {{Infobox Person}} is a separate case; it doesn't cover the same people as Infobox Writer plus other people as well, it covers people that aren't covered by any more specialized template such as this one. Because of that purpose, Infobox Person has to follow a somewhat inclusive policy toward fields; that is, a field is included if it is relevant summary information for a number of people within its purview, even though they might be a small fraction of the total number of people covered by the template. In contrast, because of the purpose of a specialized Infobox like this one, it tends to follow an exclusive policy toward fields; that is, a field is included only if it relevant for pretty much everyone covered by the template. By putting an Enthnicity, or Religion, field here we are implying that this is one of the most important things to know about writers in general. Pi zero (talk) 23:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pi zero is correct; it is up to each specific infobox to determine what is and what is not relevant to their scope. For instance, if I hoped on over to the fictional (at least, I think fictional) Infobox Religious Figure and said "I'm trying to get rid of the religion field from ALL infoboxes, want to help?" the result would be not in my favor. The template infobox (from which all other infoboxes are built) needs to be as diverse and have as many fields as possible. It's up to the limited scope infoboxes to deem which fields should be used on articles under their purview. hornoir (talk) 13:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, they're all biography articles, and is there something about the national identity of other people which could never apply to writers?

I was led here by discussion at Talk:Taras Shevchenko#Nationality. This was a writer pivotal in creating the modern notions of Ukrainian ethnicity and nationality. He had no choice but to be a citizen of the Russian Empire. He lived at the same time as Nikolai Gogol, another Ukrainian who wrote about Ukraine in the Russian Empire, but our view of his nationality and ethnicity is very different. Yeah, it can sometimes be unclear what to enter in these fields, but I don't think there's anything special about writers which makes them moot. —Michael Z. 2009-01-10 04:09 z

Citizenship, ethnicity, and nationality

Nationality essentially means ethnicity, but these days the word nation is often confounded with country, especially in the USA.

Can we either define what “nationality” is supposed to mean for this template, or remove it? —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 05:47 z

Support with replacement suggestion. Citizenship and Nationality seem to cover similar field, but neither to an acceptable outcome. Perhaps the insertion of a Residence (or Location) field, whose answer would imply the two above fields, that would become inactive upon the insertion of Deathdate (since Deathplace would replace Residence/Location). hornoir (talk) 16:27, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This demonstrates the problem: citizenship is strictly a black-and-white political affiliation evidenced by which passport(s) one carries. To me nationality means ethnicity, belonging to a nation, which may correspond to a country (a nation-state) or not. E.g., a citizen of the U.K. may belong to the English or Welsh nation, or if he recently became a citizen then he may be of another nation altogether, like the Spanish or the Basques (which is an example of a nation without their own country or citizenship).

I'm not positive, but I believe it is in the USA, whose inhabitants are not citizens of a nation-state, nation has come to mean “country”, and nationality is misapprehended as a synonym for “citizenship”. Fine if you disagree with my interpretation, but that's just the reason to remove this ambiguous term from the template, which may overlap with two others.

I believe that citizenship and ethnicity unambiguously cover all of the options. —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 19:37 z

It occurs to me that this discussion probably belongs at a less-specific place, like {{Infobox person}}. —Michael Z. 2009-01-08 19:41 z

Alternatively (because, as I remarked in the preceding thread, I don't think Infobox Person is actually a more general venue, just a different one), how about Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography/Infoboxes?. Pi zero (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I replied to your above thread, Pi zero, and I still believe this is the correct venue for the discussion. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Infoboxes is more commonly used for suggesting new field specific infobox to garner support or to suggest improvements to the basic infobox model. These issues do not seem to really fall under either, since the model requires diversity in its fields. This discussion is as to what this infobox should include or not. hornoir (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

On further reflection, I believe you're right, that this thread too belongs here. What I was thinking was that, although the preceding thread belongs here because it is entirely about field inclusion in this template, and while this thread started that way as well, the topic of this thread has migrated toward the question of how Nationality, Ethnicity, and Citizenship are related in general, which would make it a reasonable topic for discussion in the more general venue. However, we're probably better off settling it all in the context of this particular template.

I see that {{Infobox Person}} has documentation on Nationality that we don't have here, saying (if I understand it rightly) that Nationality and Citizenship are pretty much the same thing and one should use whichever one of the two will be clearer. Should we adopt the same wording here? Pi zero (talk) 16:23, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I wonder what dispute led to the notes there, and I wish it offered some examples so we could understand the problem. Puzzling, but the advice to use as few of these fields as makes sense is probably good. It may prevent editors from filling filling them all in just because they're there. —Michael Z. 2009-01-10 03:57 z

The Nationality field of Infobox Person appears to have been added on August 6, 2007. I meant to look in the talk archives for debate at that time, but didn't even get that far because I immediately hit this thread, which ironically cites Infobox Writer for Ethnicity and Citizenship fields, and which also leads back to failed guideline proposal Wikipedia: Citizenship and nationality. I hope to find time to actually skim through the whole debate there at some point, but not having time to do so at this moment doesn't make me feel lazy; there's way too much of it.

Meanwhile, I was going to go ahead and copy the notes from Infobox Person, but having uncovered all this I'm thinking it sure would be nice to get a handle on all that history before embracing what may turn out to have been a lame compromise. Pi zero (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Your tenacity is admirable, but I suggest setting a limit on how much to research previous debates before being bold and getting on with contributing to the encyclopedia. And we'll find out more about previous debates more quickly by making an edit and waiting for the complaints to surface ;-).

Obviously, nationality means different things to different people. One approach is to pick a definition for our own use. But that might extend this debate forever. And even citizenship and ethnicity are not absolute: they are subject to change, uncertainty, different cultural and historical interpretations, and the subject's self-identification.

How about we add descriptions to the fields which give editors a head start by acknowledging the debate, and let them use their best judgment for each case:

• Ethnicity: the ethnic group or groups which the writer belongs to or identifies with.
• Citizenship: the country or countries to which the writer has owed responsibility or duties.
• Nationality: the nation or nations of the the writer's origin, culture, association, affiliation and/or loyalty.

I'm sure the text can be improved. —Michael Z. 2009-01-12 17:20 z

(outdent) The purposes of the fields of Infobox Writer are twofold, I think: fields may be relevant to this box because they give fundamental information about the subject's identity as a person, or because they give fundamental information about the subject's identity as a writer. For example, Relatives serves the former purpose, while Literary movement serves the latter. In this spirit, here are alternative candidates for usage notes.

Nationality	Nationality. The nation or nations of the the writer's origin, culture, association, affiliation, and/or loyalty. Use this field either instead of citizenship (below) in cases where use of the citizenship field would cause confusion, instead of, or in addition to, citizenship in cases where the person's identity is strongly associated with the nationality, or in cases where the person's nationality is important to their writing.
Ethnicity	Ethnicity. The ethnic group or groups which the writer belongs to or identifies with. Use this field either in cases where the person's identity is strongly associated with the ethnicity, or in cases where the person's ethnicity is important to their writing.
Citizenship	Citizenship. See usage notes for nationality.

Pi zero (talk) 22:06, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Religion

{{editprotected}} Can some admin add religion to this infobox? The general one for person has it:

| label29    = Religious beliefs
| data29     = 

Xasodfuih (talk) 22:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

This has been raised several times. So far, consensus has been judged to be needed, but consensus has not been forthcoming. (See here.) Pi zero (talk) 22:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Remove unnecessary code

{{editprotected}}

First of all, the font does not need to be set to 100% as this is by default. Secondly, the line below the image caption is unnecessary, and most other infoboxes do not include it. To make these changes, simply remove the following code from the template: font-size:100%;border-bottom: 1px solid #C0C0C0; And you're done! Gary King (talk) 01:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik (talk) 19:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Pen name

The current version of the template has a field that displays as "Pen name;" however, many people (e.g. Michael Crichton) have multiple pen names. Is there a general way this is handled on Wikipedia? It seems like it ought to say "Pen name(s)" or have multiple fields or use parser functions or something. CapitalSasha ~ talk 22:38, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Display url of website?

This template displays the link to an author's website as "Official website". Wouldn't it be more useful to display the actual url, as happens in the "Infobox University" template among many others (see e.g. Leeds University)? That way, if someone prints out a WP page for reference the information is still available. The actual url seems useful information which the infobox is hiding. PamD (talk) 23:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Microformat upgrade request- no visual impact to template

{{editprotected}}

• Visual impact: None
• What it does: This change allows wikipedia to emit event microformat metadata, as do other infoboxes such as 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. class="infobox vcard" → class="infobox vcard vevent"
2. class="fn" → |class="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. Currently the template supports hCard format which does not describe events indicated in the infobox. Further information on what this does and how to see some of the benefits may be found here.

Thanks -J JMesserly (talk) 20:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Martin. -J JMesserly (talk) 22:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Portal image

Can we change the default portal image of Portal.svg to something literature related? The main image on Portal:Literature looks good to me:

Looks good to me also. (Wanting to see an example of what the current default looks like I was just going through pages that use this infobox, and of the first hundred listed, through H.G. Wells, I only found one that used the optional portaldisp parameter, Gary Gygax. So this isn't exactly a high-impact change.) Pi zero (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Employment field?

Really? It is not necessary to link the word "occupation" to employment - this is a basic enough phrase. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed this myself; is there any reason to have any of the links apart from pen name and literary movement? Bradley0110 (talk) 18:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Religion parameter

The issue of adding a "religion" parameter has been raised several times as noted in the archives. Moreover, at one point an editor added the parameter, and another editor reverted citing lack of consensus. Rather than a lack of consensus, since the issue has been raised many times, and an edit has been attempted and reverted, it appears to be high time to seriously consider adding the religion parameter. In my opinion this parameter can be extremely important in helping readers to understand the subject of an article. I will cite two cases where I believe this to be true, however I'm sure there are many more than two. It should also be noted that when any article author believes that the parameter is unnecessary in the particular case of his subject, she or he can simply leave out the parameter. And this would give future editors the ability to add the parameter if they deem it helpful to readers.

1. Isaac Asimov – Asimov frequently noted himself to be an atheist and more than that, a humanist. An editor has already added the religion parameter to the "Infobox Science Fiction Writer" box (just in the Asimov article, not in the actual template itself), which I assume is the same as the "Infobox Writer" template. Of course, since the religion parameter is not part of the template it does not appear in the box. I have recently added the "humanist" description to the "atheist" as in "atheistic humanist", but of course that does not appear either. This information is crucial to an understanding of Asimov and his writings, sort of a "special relativity". And a "general relativity" would carry this cruciality to many more authors.
2. Georges Lemaître – Lemaître is well-known in science circles as the originator of the "Big Bang theory" of the beginning of the Universe. On his Wikipage he is described using a "scientist" infobox, which is appropriate because he was an astrophysicist. And yet, he was also a Roman Catholic priest and an author who, in 1931, published his "primeval atom theory", which was to later become the Big Bang theory. I think it's rather crucial to note that the most widely accepted cosmology theory of the beginning of the Universe was conceived by a man who also believes the Genesis account of God's creation of the Universe, don't you?
3. A third consideration: It's not a problem in the case of Georges Lemaître, because the scientist infobox already contains a religion parameter. This is also seen in the article on Carl Sagan, who is noted as an agnostic humanist. So the third thought to seriously mull over is... why would the religion parameter be important enough to include in the scientist infobox, but not in the writer infobox?

Thank you for reading and for your consideration in the matter of adding the religion parameter to the writer infoboxes!  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  09:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting you should mention scientists ... see Infobox Scientist talk. Several of us are irritated by the attempt of the infobox to summarize the complex beliefs of a scientist in a short label, while others feel that many readers would want a quick summary. Of course where religion was important to a scientist, that fact should be fully explored in the article, but several of us thought that attempts to sum up religious views with a label were not helpful, and would lead to pointless debates about exactly which two or three words would best sum up a scientist's beliefs (whereas the article could use as many sentences as are required).

In the end, some pretty stringent guidelines were added to the scientist infobox documentation, essentially saying that the religion field can only be used if a reference shows that the scientist identified themselves with the religion (not just upbringing).

I think there is less problem summarizing a writer with a label, but I still don't see the point. Where religion is important, naturally the article should have the details. If it's not in the article, it shouldn't be in the infobox. Religious views often change throughout a person's life, and are hard to sum up: What was Hemingway's religion? Some sources say Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism – what goes in the infobox? Johnuniq (talk) 10:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Quite often it is not even important enough to mention in the lead of the article. So it's definitely not important enough to mention in an infobox. Garion96 (talk) 10:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

All good points Garion96. And I would be the first to agree that trying to sum up any person in one or two words, especially as regards religion, is usually far too generalizing. The frequent pleas for this change, to include religion as a parameter in the writers' infoboxes, seems to me to be focused upon having the option available when an editor thinks that the quick-reference info would be helpful to readers.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  15:47, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

But you have to realise the wiki way. When it's available, it will pretty much always be used. Plus, even with the examples you mentioned, I don't think it should be in a infobox. Garion96 (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In a specialized infobox template like this one, providing a field for something like religion implies that it's one of the important things to know about everyone to whom the infobox applies. It isn't, and in fact thinking that way about writers' religion leads to a dark place. I have been wondering for a while now, though, whether the influences field would be an appropriate place to list a religion. The documentation for that field says "names of other persons, literary movements, and others"; surely that wording should be clarified. Other movements? Other factors? Pi zero (talk) 17:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I think using the influences field for religion is a good idea. I haven't looked lately, but at one time I noticed people enthusiastically adding the closest matching religion to as many scientists as possible (even Richard Dawkins was claimed by some faith, as I recall up to age 15!). When religion is important in the life of a writer, it should be mentioned in the "influences" field. That way, there is a reason for noting the religion (it really is relevant to the writer's work or life), and editors have something meaningful to argue about ("a reliable source says ..."). By contrast, arguing that a certain writer should or should not have a certain religion listed in their infobox seems pointless, and impossible to resolve meaningfully (if X attended a Catholic school, is X a Catholic?). Johnuniq (talk) 00:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the OP this info box needs a religion tag so it can be used. the reason that can is in bold is that some people are arguing that it's not detailed enough, not always necessary etc. which are stupid points because if the article's editors don't find the need to use it they wont but that does not mean it's not incredibly useful to others. 1NosferatuZodd1 (talk) 16:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Later in the discussion, the reasoning against evolves into something much more clear-cut than that. There is a better alternative, the influences field, that focuses appropriately on the question of what influenced the writer's work, rather than implying an inappropriate sorting of writers by religion. That alternative is always better, not just sometimes better. It's also a reality of the social dynamics of Wikipedia that if a religion field were created then it would foster universal use; that reality would be unaffected by the existence of some editors who would not be the ones to use it that way. Pi zero (talk) 18:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)