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Template:Infobox person is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

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Gender

There is no mention of gender in the infobox. The only way of determining the gender of a person is by the pronouns used (he, she) in the article. When articles contain little information it can be hard to work out the subjects gender. I propose gender be added to the infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asdasd23 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it would be beneficial to have some sort of flag for gender, but I imagine a good many editors would be opposed to listing displaying it in the infobox. There are also edge cases around "gender queer" and transexual people. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

IMO it is a rare article where you can't tell the gender from the persons name but if you are having problems one suggestion is to hit the "end" key on your computer and read the categories at the bottom of the article. In most - though I admit not all - cases you will find the gender mentioned there at least once. Andy is correct that there would, no doubt, be some opposition. I remember the edit warring that went on for several days if not a couple weeks when Laurence Wachowski became Lana. MarnetteD | Talk 21:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary; it seems to me that most biographies' categories do not include gender. Humans may be able to tell the gender, from the article's prose and use of pronouns, but machines can't. Without recording the subject's gender in a consistent, logical and predictable fashion, it's not possible to programme queries like "all the female scientists from Germany" or "male songwriters born in 1933". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:39, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You may be right. I usually see Male/Female writers or stuff link that but I don;t get around to as many articles as you do. In any event it was just a suggestion to the OP. MarnetteD | Talk 21:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I've put a hard-coded mockup in the sandbox; please see the test cases. We'd need to work on styling (I envisage it being the bottom-right corner of the infobox); wording ("m" or "male" for men, for example); colours (pink and blue are traditional, but some would object to the stereotype); and to add a switch for the values "male", "female", and, say, "other". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:07, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks pretty good. I would tend to steer away from colors - well bright ones anyway. As you suggest there is the stereotyping issue - although those haven't been around as long as we sometimes think - a year or so ago I learned that pink was associated with boys at one time and it wasn't until the 1950's that it became the color to denote women - in the US anyway. Maybe more neutral colors like grey or tan or some such. You might also want to get more input from other editors. Again these are just a suggestions. Congrats on your efforts. MarnetteD | Talk 22:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks terrible. For programme queries something like this should be put into persondata rather than the infobox. DrKiernan (talk) 22:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it does. That's why I said we need to discuss styling (including positioning), colours and text content. I have written an essay explaining the problems with Persondata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I know. You told us yesterday. DrKiernan (talk) 22:37, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone improve the styling? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Gender or sex

I'd like to suggest that before dealing in detail with gender, the person's sex should be added. And then perhaps have an additional field for gender in those cases where it is different? I certainly can't do a test case like Andy's, but the input might be something along the lines of:

| caption     = 
| sex  = <!-- Male, Female or ] -->
| gender  = <!-- only if different from sex: Male, Female or Other -->
| birth_name  =

It seems that a fundamental bit of data is missing from the infobox, and indeed from many articles, and that that should be remedied. But I see all sorts of potential difficulties with such a project. Who will determine the gender of, say, George Eliot? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be making a distinction that would be opaque to most people. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Taking the common but not universal view that sex is what you are born with, gender is the social construct, the identity that you choose (or in cases which I hope are rare, are forced) to assume. These distinctions are well explained in our articles on these topics. Facebook, or indeed Misplaced Pages, asks for your gender (you can of course reply as you wish); the doctor or the passport office wants to know your sex, and probably expects the truth. The two are not (yet?) synonymous. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I oppose all the additions that are under discussion. I don't need or want the infobox to tell me that George Eliot is a woman of male gender. In virtually all cases it is absolutely unnecessary to detail a person's gender in the infobox because it will be obvious from the article title, first sentence of the lead, or lead image. We should be trying to reduce the size of infoboxes not bloat them with even more extraneous parameters. At most, such information should be hidden for the purposes of data-mining. DrKiernan (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

The sex (or gender) will not be obvious, from the article title, first sentence of the lead, or lead image, to a machine, which is what is under discussion here. As noted in the essay of which you are already aware, hidden data has a number of problems, not least that it isn't easily scrutinised. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

DrKiernan makes a valid point: there is no need to put sex in the infobox if it is already obvious from the article. But doesn't the same criterion apply to all other infobox data, such as the person's name? That is usually perfectly obvious from the article title, and yet we persist in including it in infoboxes. I don't know what others think, but to me it is more important to know a person's sex than, say, that person's net worth. And as Andy says, if that stuff is in the infobox then it is also machine-readable (at least, that's what I've been told - myself, I wouldn't know). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Marriage template deletion

{{Marriage}}, widely used in {{Infobox person}} is being discussed for deletion at WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 April 3 § Template:Marriage.

—— 18:46, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Birth name, again

At Charlie Wilson (Ohio politician), the lead is:

Charles A. "Charlie" Wilson, Jr. (January 18...

In the Infobox, |name= Charlie Wilson. So, in keeping with usual practice where a common name is used for the article and name, I put his full name in the Infobox as: |birth_name= Charles A. Wilson, Jr. The change was reverted by User:Connormah with the edit summary:

the A probably stood for something

I reverted with the explanatory edit summary:

The "A" was well-used in his time in congress to diff him from Texas' Charlie Wilson. See house.gov. It's in the lead, and should be in Infobox.

He reverted with the edit summary:

unless there's a cite that his full name was actually "Charles A. Wilson, Jr.", then te lead is sufficient enough. wait for an obit that lists the full name

So, I put it back and cited one of many (200+) places the middle initial is used at house.gov, figuring that would be the end of it:

The Infobox is supposed to match the rest of the article, particularly because the name is different than the article title. I asked that you see house.gov, and have now cited one such doc there, his nom for #110.

He reverted again, this time as User:CMAH:

no, it does not need to match the article. This particular field, 'birth name' is used for the full name of ther person at birth...unless we have a cite that the 'A' stands for nothing and he was born with this name, it should be left out here

He even put the cite back in afterwards. So, he seems to ack that it is his name, but doesn't think it belongs in the Infobox, claiming that |birth_name= is only for the person's name at birth (literally on their birth certificate, perhaps). He apparently would even accept it if we knew what the initial stands for. I claim that we routinely use |birth_name= for a complete name when |name= is an abbreviated name, nickname, stage name, etc., and that we have sufficient evidence that his full legal name is Charles A. Wilson, Jr. (albeit with an abbreviated middle initial for now). Is |birth_name= to be used for this perhaps-not-quite-literally-as-named purpose or not? —— 01:26, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Just going to chime in here, I had always thought that the field was for people known as a name other than their birth name, eg. Bill Clinton or Gerald Ford - IMO the field has become overused over the past while. For this case, I think that if we have the full name or a citation that the "A." stood for nothing then it would be fine in my view. – Connormah (talk) 02:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that the birth name parameter is for a birth name that is substantially different from the adult name of the individual. If the first name and the last name are the same at birth and later, then it just looks like needless repetition. DrKiernan (talk) 06:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Parameters that can optionally be called from Wikidata

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2 was just closed with a consensus to allow "modify existing infoboxes to permit Wikidata inclusion when there is no existing English Misplaced Pages data for a specific field in the infobox", but with an advisement that this be done very deliberately and cautiously. To that end, I'd like to start a discussion on picking a handful of parameters (three to five, I'm thinking) that we can try this out on. They would be called using a syntax like {{#if:{{{parameter|}}} | {{{parameter|}}} | {{#property:p000}} }} – in other words, as was decided in the RFC, any Wikidata value would only be displayed if the parameter were left empty here. Essentially the question is what parameters do we think this would be the least controversial with? A few I'd suggest are: spouse (d:P:P26); birth_place (d:P:P19); death_place (d:P:P20); birth_name (d:P:P513); and maybe something like signature as well (d:P:P109), which could be called from Commons with a File: prefix. A full list of person-related properties can be found at d:WD:List of properties/Person; an automated list of all properties can be found at d:Special:AllPages/Property:.

Oh, and, if people are concerned about cases where there's a consensus that one of these parameters should NOT be set to anything, we could always come up with some syntax to override without displaying anything locally, e.g. {{#ifeq:{{{parameter|}}} | __NULL__ | <!-- don't display any Wikidata values --> | {{#if:{{{parameter|}}} | {{{parameter|}}} | {{#property:p000}} }} }}.

— PinkAmpers& 19:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Regrettably, it's likely that spouse and signature, and perhaps birth name, would cause drama (though it would be interesting to see how a subject who was married twice or more would be handled). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:52, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

For any properties with multiple values, the claims are shown separated by commas, as you can see at Misplaced Pages:Wikidata/Wikidata Sandbox. I'm not sure if they can be configured to display differently, but I can find out, if you'd like. As for drama-inducing-ness, which parameters do you think would be less controversial? I have absolutely no preference myself; those were just the best examples that came to mind. — PinkAmpers& 05:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

For most parameters, multiple properties should be displayed using {{flatlist}} (instead of commas or other in-line separators), or {{Plainlist}} (instead of new lines); per this (and other) infobox's documentation and WP:LIST. If wikidata can't accommodate that, then that's a bug. Comma separators are particularly inappropriate where included values may contain comas - consider |occupation=Teacher, Westminster, headmaster, Eton. I'd suggest hon. suffix and prefix (comma separators may be acceptable there); and URL (which should use {{URL}}). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually Wikidata should be returning a data structure consisting of several items whenever there are multiple values connected to a single label in Wikidata. We ought to be using Lua to read that data structure and filling a list with its values. That would yield the granularity we need to be able to make links as well. I'll see if we can make some progress on that on Sunday at wmuk:Lua on Wikimedia. Wikidata isn't going to get far in infoboxes until it can store a data of type "date" though :( --RexxS (talk) 03:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's rather annoying that what would probably be the least controversial data to use (dates) are somewhat overdue in the development pipeline. Valid on pretty much any biography, very rarely the subjects of controversy, and would probably very often be supplied on Wikidata but not here (e.g. relatively obscure politicians form foreign countries). — PinkAmpers& 10:01, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I won't be there, but I'll raise the matter at the Amsterdam Hackathon the following weekend. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:15, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm assured that this is doable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Adding 'Radio' alongside 'Television'

There is a Parameter 'television' defined as 'Television programmes presented by or closely associated with the subject' and I think that there should be a similar 'radio' parameter.

This may be unique to the UK but there are some radio programmes (mostly on what is now Radio 4) that are long-running and so well known that they are regarded as part of the nation cultural.

One example that may be better know to non-UK readers is Letter from America by Alastair Cooke. There that is listed under 'Notable credit(s)'.

I was prompted to raise this because I looked at the Tamsin Greig article, where her work on The Archers is listed under Television, which seems more than a little surreal to me!

FerdinandFrog (talk) 10:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

We could either add this, or change the label of |television= to "Media appearances" or suchlike. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Parameter for voice files

Note the voice file and media player, below the infobox in Sue Black (computer scientist). Can we add a parameter to the infobox, that allows the player (or something like it) to be inside the infobox? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:57, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 July 2013

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

please update to this version of the sandbox, which adds |honors= or |honours= below awards. this will allow us to merge the honors infoboxes in articles like Jane du Pont Lunger. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 July 2013

After thorough discussions involving a large number of editors since April, with postings at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Film, from which this has been transposed, and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers pointing to that page, there is what appears to be unanimous support for the removal of the "influences" and "influenced" fields since these have been continuously prone — as the template's own directions warn — to uncited and sometimes grandiose claims and fannish POV. It has been a bucket-against-the-ocean situation in filmmaker articles, absorbing large amounts of time by Project Film editors in policing the generally unfounded claims placed there. Even cited claims, without context, add little useful information. We urge the admins of this template to please take these comments, gathered over months, to heart and work with us on this otherwise intractable problem. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Additional note: One other possibility, if other projects feel theses fields aren't prone to subjectivity, is to create an "infobox filmmaker" without them. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:11, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox: "Influences / Influenced"

It may be time to rethink this portion of the filmmakers infobox, or at least set specific standards. Right now it's little more than a dumping ground for fans' POV assumptions of who they believe influenced so-and-so, or who so-and-so influences. Yet virtually never do they give citations for these claims. And how could they? Mostly these claims come from own minds. At Tim Burton, people have added names with no basis other than the editors' own POV assumptions. Cites in the article body support only the two influences currently in the infobox — which has been cleaned out before, and will almost invariably get filled in again with fans' uncited presumptions.

Do we really need those two fields in the infobox? Additions there are almost never cited, and these fields seem to do nothing but encourage amateur film buffs from adding their own POV claims. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This has been a problem ever since the "actor infoboxes" (in which we had eliminated several of these subjective POV fields) were merged back into the "person infobox". At the very least these should be sourced. IMO it would be better to have their mention in the body of the article where some context could be given. It would also be nice to keep them to a minimum but I don't know if either of these are workable. Whatever we decide we should note it at our MoS at the actors and filmmakers project. MarnetteD | Talk 20:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This may become less of a problem when the Infoboxes are migrated to Wikidata (due to start tomorrow), with the complexity to adjust them putting off those embarking on a simple POV insertion and more eyes (across multiple wikis) watching that subsequent changes. I agree entries should be sourced at minimum, ideally with a self-declaration for influences and a declaration from the 3rd party subject of the influenced field. for that field.Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I favor their complete removal from the infoboxes, where they serve no purpose. The infobox should be exclusively for simple facts (date and place of birth and/or death, etc.). A discussion of influences should be in the body of the article, with sources. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 13:05, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support removal of field. In an article, influences can be discussed in prose with sources. The infobox should deal with hard facts, not subjective information like this. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree with The Old Jacobite and Rob Sinden, the infobox should be for simple uncontroversial facts.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 13:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree also. I've restored this discussion from Archive 46, since we reached what appears to be a consensus as of May 2 and no one made additional comments after enough time that the auto-archiving took this. No one acted on this consensus, but in the interest cautious and prudent before we remove that problematic field, let's post this one more time to make sure all voices have been heard. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support removal too, per the rationales given above. Lugnuts 17:39, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal as well, per all of you. Corvoe (speak to me) 19:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support Randomuser112 (talk) 22:37, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support Fortdj33 (talk) 20:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. You are asking for trouble when you start adding anything but objective facts to the infobox. "Influences" makes little sense without accompanying context. Betty Logan (talk) 20:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. Along with the rationales provided the fields are a magnet for fan entries. I have seen IPs add all manner of names simply because the like the person the article is about. MarnetteD | Talk 21:04, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support Man, great idea. Banish them from infoboxes for eternity. --SubSeven (talk) 21:33, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. Infoboxes should keep to hard facts. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This is one of my pain points and pet peeves. Too many entries in these parameters are unsupportable. Delete both of them. Binksternet (talk) 23:34, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. A bare list does a poor job of presenting this type of information. For one thing, the definition of influence varies greatly from one case to another; e.g., "A was inspired to become a filmmaker at age nine after seeing a film by B"; "A is widely considered to be a slavish imitator of B";"A learned filmmaking from B and then went on to make films of a completely different kind"; "A once made a film parodying the films of B"; "A once expressed admiration for the work of B"; and so on. An infobox reductively lumps all these together as though there were no distinctions. Ewulp (talk) 09:42, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to make sure a related project is aware, I've put a notice of this discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

There is no doubt that we in the film project have agreed to remove the fields in question. I should point out that other projects - BLP & Biography, Novels etc - have not. Thus, if any of us were to go to the "infobox person" and remove the fields I am guessing there would be resistance if not outright WikiDrama. So, I want to suggest that we simply add to the MoS for the film and filmmakers projects that the fields are not used and to be removed from individual article infoboxes whenever possible. This is just one editors idea if any of you have other ones please feel free to mention them. I do hope that we move on this. We have had discussions in the past about altering the film MoS and then time goes by and threads get archived (as this one did) and we forget to followup. Please note I don't mean this to sound accusatory - I am as forgetful about this as anyone (as the thread I am about to add below will show.) Thanks to everyone for adding their thoughts and opinions to this thread. MarnetteD | Talk 04:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

This project has, I think, a solid basis for removing this parameter from every person who is primarily known as a film director or producer. There might be a little resistance if we apply the removal to actor and actress infoboxes. Binksternet (talk) 05:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

You are correct - although I can't really remember seeing the fields used in the later - not that they aren't out there I just don't remember seeing them. We can always direct editors to this discussion if they question our changes to the MoS's. MarnetteD | Talk 05:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

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