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As there has been no substantial discussion or input since August (excepting Snowfire's reply which has not re-sparked interest in the last 5 days), closing and archiving this. RE the proposal to remove Alma_mater field - there is no consensus to do this. RE Changes involving font size - as a matter of past practice a local consensus is highly unlikely to allow smaller font sizes than the MOS allows for due to accessibility. While the MOS is sometimes ignored (it is a guideline), it is upheld far more rigourously when it comes to display criteria that impact on readers with accessibility issues. Changes to the MOS should be proposed at the relevant MOS page. If anyone wishes to continue the other stale subsection conversations, feel free to separate them out. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:02, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Remove Right now it is only used to remove degrees from anyone's infobox with the argument that "education" is the only place where degrees may be mentioned. Remove it. Collect (talk) 16:40, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Alma mater" and "Education" are both English words, and both make equal sense, and they do not mean the same thing. I find the assertion unpersuasive that "we really should not be using Latin, where we need a blue link in a template so people can figure out what it means". Just as bonus, ego, bona fide, per se, ad hoc, impromptu, vice versa, etc. (yes, even et cetera!), are common English words with "blue links", so is "Alma mater". You do realize that most of English is derived from other languages, such as Latin, right? Just remove the unnecessary blue link from "alma mater" if that is your concern, as the English term is rather self-explanatory. If you wish to remove the |alma mater= field altogether, with what do you propose to replace it (remember: "education" serves a different function here)? Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 18:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
All three degrees and all three schools go into the |education= field. The |alma mater= field, if it is also used in this highly unlikely hypothetical situation, would only have the name of the main institution described as the "alma mater" in the reliable sources already cited in the body of the article. Xenophrenic (talk) 04:45, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep
Keep per Sarah: |alma mater= is appropriate when we only know the school; |education= when we have more details. The Latinate phrase is common English. Rebbing02:34, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
KeepNeutral All information appearing in the Infobox should first appear in prose in the body of the article anyway; the factoids in the Infobox are supposed to be convenient "at-a-glance", clear and uncontroversial summaries. There are metadata collection applications that access parts of our Infobox data, but I'm not familiar enough with them to know which may use these specific fields. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Sometimes the degree isn't known, or the person may have left without a degree. We should keep it with advice to use the "education" field when the degree details are known, and the "alma mater" field when not, but not to use both. SarahSV(talk)18:16, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SarahSV, could you elaborate on why one couldn't use |education= to cover both cases? It provides more room for details than |alma mater= which is designed only for institution name and nothing else. (I could see an argument for removing |education= as an anti-clutter measure, but I'm not sure I understand your point). Nikkimaria (talk) 20:01, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria, where we don't know what degrees were obtained, but we do know that the person attended a certain university, adding "education = Harvard University" seems odd. SarahSV(talk)20:30, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They were still educated at Harvard even if we do not know the degree earned and the year they graduated, or if they dropped out before graduation. If the field name needs a blue link to explain the Latin phrase then it is not a good field to have. It will also eliminate the problem stated above of people warring over what belongs in what field, like we are doing now. As I pointed out in the previous post we have one editor eliminating the years and the degrees from the alma_mater field instead of changing the field name to "education". I counted over 100 deletions. The current two fields confuses Wikidata which imports the data and supplies it to the other language Wikipedias. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:38, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Per the description above, |alma mater= is "a more concise alternative" to |education=; the former includes just institution, the latter is designed to encompass "clutter". Nikkimaria (talk) 03:51, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Because the description calls it "concise", does not mean it is, "nourishing mother" is archaic, more than concise. Nor is "education" clutter, 99.99999% of Wikipedia is clutter because I have no interest in reading it. "Clutter" and "trivia" and "cruft" and the other synonyms you see in arguments, just mean "I have no interest in it". If you have no interest, ignore it, and let the people who have a genuine interest in the topic, find what they are looking for. Purposefully obscuring the information in prose somewhere in the body of the article does not serve the reader. Using outdated Latin terms, just to show we know Latin, is silly when we have a perfect English equivalent. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:01, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever information you personally think should be included, institution name alone is undeniably more concise than institution name+degree name+year+whatever else. I'd be fine with calling the parameter "education", but only if it adopts the description/data currently used for |alma mater= rather than what is currently used for |education=. And the anti-clutter argument that you dismiss is based on WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE - we don't include every datapoint that someone might possibly be interested in. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:10, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Education template
How about an education template so that they are all formatted identically with the degree and year in small text? This would be similar to the "marriage" template that formats marriage and end of marriage dates identically across infoboxes. previously it was hard to discern if "Barbara Smith (1810-1840)" was the birth and death years or the marriage interval. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:06, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What's your point? I was only showing you that {{marriage}} saw the problem of small text in infoboxes already. MOS:FONTSIZE says Avoid using smaller font sizes in elements that already use a smaller font size, such as infoboxes, navboxes and reference sections. In no case should the resulting font size drop below 85% of the page fontsize (or 11px). Your suggestion of "all formatted identically with the degree and year in small text" fails immediately because putting small text into infoboxes is contrary to MOS. --RexxS (talk) 16:13, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We have guidelines not Biblical laws, they were written by us, and can be changed by us, through consensus. At one time all fair use images were being purged, and a few weeks later were being restored, all through consensus ... consensus can and always does change. The classical music group deleted all infoboxes from biographies despite all other biographies having them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:52, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong - see Beethoven. These particular guidelines at MOS are an accessibility issue - 85% of base page fontsize is a bright line - and aren't going to be changed to suit one editor's individual aesthetics. Putting small text into an infobox is never going to fly with the majority who believe it is important to accommodate readers with impaired vision. --RexxS (talk) 19:05, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The second constant in Wikipedia is that those editors who care about the readers will always outnumber those who don't. --RexxS (talk) 00:02, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the precise field of study is important to the person's notability, suggest use of school, year, degree (without Wikilink to degree name - just use "B.A., M.A., etc.)
How much info should the field contain? Which field? |alma mater= or |education=? The alma mater field should contain only the name of the main institution (usually the most recent location where the most advanced education was received). The education field should contain degrees earned, along with the field of study for each degree (noting that someone earned a B.S., without saying what field of study, is uninformative for our readers), and optionally the institution name(s). Special formatting, font sizes, non-standard characters, and other clutter shouldn't appear in either field. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just as if I asked someone where they lived, and they said Earth. While correct it conveys less information than the county, state, and city. Knowing that someone attended the University of California is not as informative as knowing they attended the "David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA" or "UCLA School of Law". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And yet, you have yet to explain where you draw the line with respect to specificity, because earlier you were concerned about being too specific. Graham (talk) 05:08, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Faculty of Arts, University of X" is a department, not a school. We also are not supposed to be using Easter Egg linking. I expect a physician to be attending a medical school, and I expect a lawyer to attend a law school. Knowing that someone is a human is less informative than knowing if they were male of female. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:22, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Richard Arthur Norton: I think there may have been a miscommunication, because I don't think I advocated easter egg linking (which, as an aside, is an issue I've been coming across more and more in the alma mater field recently). Graham (talk) 04:28, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, how do you distinguish between a faculty and a school, if you're arguing that's the dividing line? The terms are used differently by different institutions. For instance, at the University of Warwick, a school is just a part of a faculty, and that kind of nomenclature isn't uncommon in a number of English-speaking countries. Graham (talk) 04:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why we wouldn't link to the article about the university itself in the case of non-collegiate universities. Bear in mind, institutions like the John F. Kennedy School of Government don't normally have the authority to issue degrees; that resides with the university. Also, with your suggested "compromise", that would involve linking to articles about faculties (that have the word "faculty" in their name) in some cases. Graham (talk) 03:07, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on which field. |alma mater= should only display the main institution name, and not the satellite schools, departments, branches, specialty divisions, etc., of the main institution. The |education= field, however, might display the more specific school branch(s) of the university along with the field of study and degrees earned, but would not indicate the alma mater. Xenophrenic (talk) 18:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Very belated, but depends, which means not automatically changing any of these since it varies on a case-by-case basis. There are a lot of times where the specific sub-college is quite useful, and other times where the parent college is only a historical curiosity and not even formally affiliated anymore (e.g. many seminaries). SnowFire (talk) 03:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Support I would think that logically they would hold the same or about average standards, perhaps with a seperate clause that states that if the marriage was well known/reported (which would likely be considered notable anyways so its somewhat redundant), they should be listed. IazygesConsermonorOpus meum04:28, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Given that the requirement for parents is "notable or particularly relevant", not "bluelinked" as the RfC erroneously states, are you sure that supporting this proposal actually does fit with your expectations for spouses? --RexxS (talk) 00:12, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Summoned by bot. Many marginally notable persons have Wikipedia articles and I do not see the point of including their spouses, who are rarely notable and very often are not even mentioned in the article unless they are. Coretheapple (talk) 20:50, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support with clarification. Notable is sufficient (i.e., a legit article could be written; one does not already need to exist). Agree that always including spouse[s] in the infobox is generally trivial clutter. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:14, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral
I support wording demanding reliable independent sourcing. Demanding spouses have articles is a bit too much when often times marriages are notable but not the spouses. Parents parametre at present demands they be deemed "particularly relevant" (in this regard the RfC is clearly misleading); though vague I believe spouses should be held to similar standards. FoCuScontribs; talk to me!13:06, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Oppose. Marriages (and sometimes there are several) of public figures are major and highly notable events/parts of their lives, and therefore where applicable (depending on the notability of the article subject, not the notability of the spouse) should be mentioned, with dates, especially if there were or have been more than one. Spouses are chosen, parents are not. Obviously someone with a short wiki article and/or someone who is notable for their accomplishments only and who is not notable as a public figure, will not have that parameter filled out. But obviously someone who is or was a major public figure or celebrity, and who has married more than once, should have that parameter filled out, as the infobox is the perfect place to briefly summarize that data. Softlavender (talk) 05:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Spouses are chosen, parents are not" Leaving aside who chooses who.. is this only an argument for listing number of spouses [in a row], and dates/durations of marriages; and only names of they are notable? comp.arch (talk) 12:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. 1) notability of a subject is not defined by whether or not it already has a Wikipedia article (blue link). 2) The existance or otherwise of a spouse or other domestic partner and children is relevant information about public figures. Inclusion should follow the same guide as other fields - that it summarises prose in the article which has an appropriate reference. --Scott DavisTalk13:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If the rule is that they must be blue linked, then they must be deleted if not blue linked. What is the point of having a rule and not enforcing it? We changed the comma rule of ", Jr." a few months ago and removed them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:47, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a rule. It's advice, as in an essay. If you want it to be a rule, the procedure is at WP:PAG#Proposals.
There's nothing about "blue-linked". It's perfectly possible for a parent or spouse to be independently notable, but not have a Wikipedia entry. Conversely, they may be non-notable, but be "blue-linked"; it's called a 'redirect'.
The advice is "include only if they are independently notable or particularly relevant". Did you deliberately miss out the part about "particularly relevant", or did you just not read that far? --RexxS (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What does "particularly relevant" even mean? It is 100% subjective, please define it so we can all know who is "particularly relevant" and who is "not particularly relevant", maybe a decision tree or a checklist. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Plenty of people, places and things are "notable" and/or WP:NOTABLE and do not (yet) have Wikipedia articles. Requiring a pre-existing blue link assumes that articles are only ever created in most-to-least-notable order, which is nonsense. Regardless of her personal notability, my wife is relevant to my biography, so I expect a spouse is at least as relevant to the biography of someone who is notable. --Scott DavisTalk06:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If a spouse is included in the prose (which they almost always are if there's a source that names them), they should also be included in the infobox, since infoboxes summarize key points of the prose. clpo13(talk)22:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: the purpose of this RfC is to create a test - that of having a Wikipedia article in order to be mentioned in an infobox - by the back-door. Whether or not such a test is desirable, this is no way of going about creating that rule. At present the guidance for parenats, children, etc. is to include them when "notable or particularly relevant". If the proposer wants to change that to "has a Wikipedia article" and bring spouse into line with that, they should make that proposal openly, not by disguising it through a misleading preamble to this RfC. --RexxS (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Replacing the "notable or particularly relevant" test with article existence is a poor decision. The current test is sensible yet subjective, but the proposed replacement is irrational. Many notable people do not have articles, and many non-notable do have articles, so judging notability by the editing habits of Wikipedians is not useful. (Of course, article existence vel non is evidence to be considered when questioning whether someone is notable: if we have a GA-class article, that's solid evidence of notability; if the article was recently deleted at AFD for lacking notability, its subject is almost certainly not notable.) Rebbing00:22, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Far too over-broad a proposition; marriages can easily be of deep encyclopedic relevance/salience to an article topic, even if one of the spouses does not as yet have an article or namespace--or indeed in many instances, regardless of whether an article is forthcoming. This is particularly true of historical subjects. In my opinion, this rule would be unwieldy and counter-intuitive. Snowlet's rap09:48, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Snow Rise. Another consideration is that it would lead to the disproportionate removal of women, who are less likely to be bluelinked, especially in older bios. SarahSV(talk)03:02, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Editors at individual articles can decide whether information about spouse(s) warrants inclusion. I oppose blanket rules that take away the option of individual editors to write the article, in this case the Infobox, as they see fit in accordance with the particulars of the individual article under consideration. Bus stop (talk) 03:47, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per everything Softlavender said. We shouldn't downplay big events in people's lives, especially when the marriage is highly publicized. Snuggums (talk / edits) 05:40, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Marriages are part of the basic information in any biography, and most spouses of notable people are not notable in their own right. This proposal sounds utterly un-encyclopedic. — JFGtalk14:32, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
There is no mention in the guidance of "bluelinked". Since an individual can be notable but not be bluelinked, and conversely have a bluelinked redirect when not notable, this RfC is defective in its preamble and should be closed. --RexxS (talk) 00:00, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The description of this parameter is "the last-attended higher education institution" why a single institution? I think we should change it to "the higher education institution or institutions attended". What do you think? --RaphaelQS (talk) 19:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose alma_mater is Latin and is singular and means "nourishing mother", we already have an "education=" field for someone's full education from high school to graduate degrees. We should really just eliminate alma_mater, since the function is duplicated by the "education=" field. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Many people are using the "education" parameter for the secondary school attended (for exemple this is the case with many articles about British subjects) and the "alma_mater" parameter for the colleges/universities attended later, other are using the "education" parameter for the list of diplomas and degrees. I don't see any reason to limit the "alma_mater" parameter to a single institution. Most (if not all) the articles about scientists are listing all the universities attended in the alma_mater parameter. --RaphaelQS (talk) 00:45, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is because those infoboxes were created before the education field was created, or the editors still cling to the old ways. I still use outdated ways of formatting data because that is all I know ... until someone points out a better or newer way. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On Talk:Tracey_Curtis-Taylor page there is difficulty in reaching consensus on what an occupation is or how to describe a subject in the context of the article, I would like to add qualification(s) as an infobox field. This would allow contributors another way to describe a subject without having to address issues such a remuneration, or what proportion of their time is spent on the activity for it to be described as an occupation.2.96.37.100 (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Other contributors appear to feel strongly that an occupation has to be how one earns a living, what about occupations that have no relationship to earning a living, e.g. student, housewife, scholar, volunteer, charity worker, counsellor, retired, full-time wikipedia editor etc. The crux of my argument is that qualification(s) provides another avenue for contributors to come to a consensus on how to describe a subject that adds context to an article.78.144.79.169 (talk) 13:47, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: As soon as there's that much difficulty in reaching consensus, it's a sure sign that the inclusion of a particular field like "occupation" needs more explanation than a single word summary can provide, and hence it is unsuitable to include in that infobox. A subject's qualifications are almost never key facts in their biography and having such a field would simply be a magnet for inserting trivia about a subject's exam grades, etc. This proposal is solely intended to circumvent the problem of stating Curtis-Taylor's occupation as "pilot" by giving her qualifications as "pilot's licence" or something similar. We don't create fields in an infobox used on 230,000+ pages just because a handful of IPs don't like the outcome of an issue arising in a single, barely-notable BLP. --RexxS (talk) 15:44, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: IP, how would this solve the problem you raise? None of the occupations you mention could really be described as "qualifications" - we don't require someone pass an exam or earn a license to be a housewife, for instance. If you disagree with the documentation of |occupation=, or how others are interpreting that documentation, you could certainly start a discussion on that issue - but this isn't it. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Honestly this seems to be an easy decision, adding in "qualifications" is far too vague a topic. For example, if someone took a few years of Organic Chem are they officially qualified as someone who can be trusted for Organic Chemistry? I would hope not. This example can be enlarged as well as shortened, but either way you go, you run into troubles of vagueness. Funkyman99 (talk) 01:58, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Follow up Comment to opinions above Tracy Curtis Taylor is just an example, both occupation and qualifications are subjective. I am frustrated that consensus can not be found to describe what a subject 'does' in the context of a biographical article. Qualification(s) would be another 'magnet' for controversy but it also provides an avenue to find consensus. Used in 230K+ page is a sensationalist argument, does it really disturb or damage those pages in anyway? Or is the consensus just give up and don't bother, there must be away to describe the subject is sensible way in the context of the article, qualifications provides an additional avenue?88.105.43.64 (talk) 12:37, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus appears to be that the solution you propose is not a good or the best way to address the problem you've identified. For my part, I believe it would be useful in a minimal number of cases - under most circumstances this would be covered by either |education= or |occupation=, if it should be covered at all. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: No clear criteria, would mostly be used for trivia. We already have too many parameters that people use as excuses to shoe-horn detailia into the infobox, which should be a summary of only the most important facts. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 12:12, 7 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: As WP:INFOBOX states "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose", and filling with redundant trivia makes an infobox much less effective in its job. - The Bounder (talk) 07:48, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Occupation should chiefly reflect the occupations for the person for which they are notable. Strong consensus for not introducing Qualifications field. Closed RFC.Aeonx (talk) 09:26, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to indicate that a person has been member of different parties? The template now indicates only one party, even if the field has multiple values.--Carnby (talk) 10:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I notice at Shreya Ghoshal that |ethnicity= displays from this template, (and perhaps at a number of biographical infoboxes?) but there is no presence of this parameter in the template documentation. Was the parameter intended to be removed? If not, there should be clear instructions for this parameter, as ethnicity is a contentious concept. What is the appropriate usage? Should the parameter only be used when it is significant to the article subject, as was decided with |religion=? Like, does the community care what ethnicity an actor or a famous American auto racer is? And lastly, how do we determine ethnicity? Independent attribution, or self-identification? Something in between? Thanks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wow. Cool. Thanks for the info, Nikkimaria and RexxS. And thanks for removing the parameter form the template, Rexx. Have these changes been made across the myriad biographical infoboxes? I know it's a tall order. I don't even know how such a thing would be implemented. Do any of you know if there's any plan to have a bot (or some other mechanism) remove them from articles across the project? Just curious. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria and RexxS: When I look at the header to the Ethnicity in Infoboxes RfC, it immediately tells me to See also related concurrent RfC about religion parameters in infoboxes. When I look at the Religion in Infoboxes RfC, it immediately advises me to See also the ongoing Ethnicity RfC for similar reasons. Both RfCs, which refer to each other, had similar outcomes. Since the |ethnicity= parameter has now been disabled, should the |religion= parameter be likewise disabled to implement the outcome of the RfC? Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
How to implement this removal while ensuring that those cases in which the religion is significant to the article subject is adequately covered either in the body text or in a custom parameter will potentially require a second RFC if a discussion can't agree on a mechanism for an orderly removal of the parameter, but it's clear that there's strong consensus to remove the parameter from the generic infobox.
The argument was that religion may be a key fact in certain individuals' biographies, in a way that ethnicity could never be. The documentation makes a good job, imho, of describing the result and warning against the indiscriminate use of the field. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable removing the ability of the infobox to display |religion= while there's no guidance on how we should include that in those relatively small fraction of infoboxes where it is appropriate. Perhaps it's time for that second RfC to meet Iridescent's prescription? --RexxS (talk) 20:48, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
{{Infobox person/RPsandbox |religion = Pastafarian}}
{{Infobox religious person |religion = Pastafarian}}
Having thought about it, I've created a demo of how Template:Infobox person could be modified to accept a custom parameter instead of |religion= at Template:Infobox person/RPsandbox. That could be called from a wrapper template that I've created for demonstration purposes at Template:Infobox religious person. The latter template accepts and displays |religion=; the former will not display |religion= and shows a message when previewing the wikitext. If folks wanted to go along that route, then the sandbox version could replace {{Infobox person}}, and biographies needing the |religion= parameter could use {{Infobox religious person}} --RexxS (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Off the top of my head, a very non-standard but workable way to prevent the |religion= field displaying indiscriminately while still allowing it to be used in cases where the subject's religion is inherent to their significance would be a separate and invisible |religion-justification= field, with the infobox coded so as only to show the religion field if the justification field is not empty. It would be easy enough for people to game it, but it would hopefully force people to think "why is it necessary to display the religion in this case?" for each article. ‑ Iridescent14:48, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When I look at the two RfCs, I see the same outcome for both: Remove the problematic parameter from the Infoboxes. The only difference I see between the closing of the two RfCs is that Iridescent also included some routine cautionary guidance in the closing statement. That guidance applies equally well to the implementation of either RfC decision: ensure that any content which gets removed from the Infobox because of these changes is still present in the body of the article (or in a custom field if necessary). I don't recall seeing where an argument was made "that religion may be a key fact in certain individuals' biographies, in a way that ethnicity could never be." Reading that assertion has prompted me to review both RfCs, and while I still can't see where that argument was made, I must admit it is more difficult for me to name many people who are notable first-and-foremost for their ethnicity. (Perhaps Anne Frank, Sitting Bull, Rachel Dolezal ...)
The community decided to remove these parameters from the Infoboxes as a solution to some specific chronic problems. We should probably be mindful that we aren't re-enabling those very same problems by implementing workarounds which effectively negate the decision to remove the problematic fields. If either field remain available to be easily used, they will continue to be misused, in my pessimistic opinion anyway. For article subjects whose religion is legitimately a defining characteristic of their public notability, there already exist religion-specific infoboxes with all the necessary and relevant fields, if I recall correctly. And I've seen that most "Infobox person"-derived templates already have support for manually entered custom fields for the very rare exceptions, if any exist. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 23:53, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As the closer, I confirm that my closing comment was intended pretty much as Xenophrenic interprets it above; a note that while there's an obvious consensus to remove the field from infoboxes, there are going to be numerous cases in which it's essential to the reader's understanding that the subject's religion be known (a missionary, a martyr, a participant in a religious war…), and thus once the field is deprecated, in these cases people will need to ensure that their religion is either explained adequately in the body text (which should already be there, but one can't assume, particularly on shorter articles), or that a mechanism is established for re-including religion into infoboxes when it's genuinely significant. ‑ Iridescent13:34, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The reason why the two RfCs had different outcomes is that - as Iridescent says - there are numerous cases where where it's essential to the reader's understanding that the subject's religion be known. There could be hardly any where the ethnicity has the same importance. Therefore, the problem, as I see it, is that it is a huge job to ensure that the religion is either explained adequately in the body text or a mechanism is established for re-including religion into infoboxes when it's genuinely significant, whereas it it trivial to do the same for ethnicity. The community quite reasonably shows its expectation, but nobody has taken on the task. I certainly have no intention of volunteering for it. Nevertheless, as a first step, I've removed religion from the list of accepted parameters. --RexxS (talk) 14:02, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the clearer explanation of your concerns, Rexxs. We disagree that the two RfCs "had different outcomes". The outcomes appear identical: remove the problematic field from the Infobox. However, your point is well-taken that the implementation of those community decisions affects many more articles with "religion" fields than with "ethnicity" fields. Of course we want to cause as little disruption to articles as possible when implementing the community decisions. But as Iridescent correctly observed, such information should already be covered in the body of the article. That's also where any citations should already reside. So while the removal of the |religion= field will affect many articles, the net detrimental effect should still be "trivial" (if I may borrow your term), because that same information will already be in the body text in all but a few articles. In the rare case where religion is the defining characteristic of the article subject, the article likely should be using the Template:Infobox religious biography, or a similar one, anyway. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, perhaps the same result, but with differing implementations, but that's not important. At present, my concern is with editors who curate articles which properly use |religion= in {{Infobox person}}. It certainly seems to me that recommending that they should change to {{Infobox religious biography}} makes sense, so perhaps someone who is familiar with the latter template could comment on any likely pitfalls, and update this template's documentation to help them switch? Once we are reasonably certain we have sufficient guidance to avoid major disruption, I'd be quite happy to disable the religion parameter here, if someone doesn't beat me to it.--RexxS (talk) 23:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
RexxS, those numbers are beyond what I expected as well. I also expected the nearly balanced "ethnicity to religion" ratio to be much different, along the lines of 1-to-20. I'll try to put a dent in those numbers, but I've already encountered a couple problems. (1) I see there is now a red label warning in the "edit preview" stage which warns editors that the field will be removed soon, but still the numeric count of articles using the field increases. (2) I've seen field removal reverted, with an editor using the justification that "The Template documentation still says the field can be used, so I'm restoring it." Are we waiting until the tracking categories are emptied before we remove the problematic fields and update the documentation? If so, the task will never be completed. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Xenophrenic: I expected the same sort of ratio as you and the absolute numbers to be at least an order of magnitude smaller, but we have what we have. The category populates slowly, so it may even take several days before the number stops going up. I placed the warning note in preview to try to give editors a "head's-up" so that they can work out what, if any, action they need to take. In light of your experience, I've now updated the documentation. If editors revert the removal of religion from an article infobox, that's their problem: the parameter is going to be removed anyway. I don't see any point in waiting for empty tracking categories - their function is mainly to to provide a list for bots to do automated edits, and not to second-guess consensus. --RexxS (talk) 21:49, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What are we doing with |denomination=? My reading of the RfC suggests that it too should be removed, but that wasn't spelled out in the close. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Cyphoidbomb: I don't know whether denomination can be a key fact in its own right, but the RfC was based on the Proposal: Should we remove from {{Infobox person}} the |religion= parameter (and the associated |denomination= one)?, although the only two contributors who mentioned it seemed to be against removal, a position that did not enjoy support. I would think that Iridescent in closing the RfC probably didn't have much to summarise about denomination, but I suppose we could ask him if he simply assumed that the "overwhelming consensus" to remove 'religion' would apply equally to 'denomination' - for obvious reasons. As for the issue of other infoboxes, despite the RfC title, the proposal confined itself to {{infobox person}}, and it's not obvious to me that the result should automatically propagate to other biographical infoboxes, as it couldn't apply to {{Infobox religious biography}} and its ilk, could it? I think that the least we should expect would be a discussion at the infobox talk page where removal is proposed. I accept that others may disagree with me on that. --RexxS (talk) 03:51, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I closed this precisely because I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I would think it's implicit that "denomination" is a subset of "religion" and trying to keep the former while eliminating the latter would just be an end-run against consensus. The RFC was explicitly about {{infobox person}} and not infoboxes in general, or it would create the ludicrous situation where {{infobox bishop}} couldn't include the denomination, although I'd urge those who do maintain other biographical infoboxes to look at every field and consider "is this really necessary?". ‑ Iridescent19:52, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Iridescent: I think that if the spirit of the RfC was to remove |religion= because it's not relevant for most biographical subjects, then that idea should carry to most biographical infoboxes for which religion would not be relevant. Models, actors, probably (but maybe not entirely) politicians, and similar. Of course I'm being vague as I don't know the extent of the use of |religion= across these templates, I just wanted to float the idea so that things didn't get lost in the cracks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Right now in my sandbox, I have an example where the religion parameter is relevant, even though the subject is not primarily known for working in a religious occupation (though she does do that, too). Natalie Sims is a Christian, and this is relevant not only because she performs Christian hip hop, but because four years ago she wrote several songs for The New Classic by Iggy Azalea. This is important because there was significant controversy in the Christian hip hop community over this collaboration, and Sims herself said that she regrets how the collaboration turned out. My point with all of this is that this is something significant about Sims, there were two articles written about the collaboration and subsequent controversy, and only occurred directly because of Sims' faith. Maybe that's not enough to warrant the religion parameter, but I thought that it should be considered.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:28, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, 3family6. I agree with you that the subject, Natalie Sims, is a Christian, and that fact is "relevant". For that reason, it most certainly should be covered in an article on her. However, that alone is not justification for also activating the special purpose "Infobox field" for her as well. Unlike most fields in Infoboxes which can be filled with very little thought or concern (birthdate, school attended, place of birth, spouses and siblings, etc.), there are 5 special fields which should remain blank and unused unless a bunch of other requirements are met to substantiate that the use of the reserved field is required. (See WP:CATGRS for the 5 kinds of information which require special handling.) If she is famous for being a songwriter or a singer, the special field shouldn't be activated. If instead she is famous because she is religious, then it might be used. For example, religion is obviously "relevant" to Tim Tebow, and it is likely most people who know of him also know this relevant fact. But that does not justify the use of the reserved field in an Infobox. Hopefully this helps better explain the Infobox field situation. Kind regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If the "right" way to annotate religion and activities is going to be {{Infobox religious biography}}, could someone who knows how please make that an embeddable module? I see a lot of historic politicians who were also Presbyterian or Methodist lay preachers for many decades. This is a notable part of their biography, but not the reason they are notable. {{Infobox Christian leader}} is already embeddable, but not the simpler form. --Scott DavisTalk05:58, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The "right" way to annotate a person's religion via an Infobox, which is only done when religion is a defining characteristic of that subject's notability, will likely be to use a "religious biography" Infobox template, which should already have all of the necessary fields. There are no doubt historically notable people who were also religious, and this may indeed be a notable part of their biography - and as such, it should be covered in the body of the biography - but as it is not the reason they are notable, this information won't be found in the Infobox. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:38, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That argument has been hashed over many times already. Most infoboxes contain info that is not the reason that the subject is notable. If the infobox only contained the reason that a person was notable, it would be a couple of lines at most, without birth or death dates or places, and rarely their name or photograph. It is supposed to succinctly summarise the key points about that person/thing, and for some people, their religious affiliation is relevant to their life story. --Scott DavisTalk03:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Scott Davis. There are many biographies of persons where their ethnicity or religion is relevant especially outside of the US. In Africa, one's tribe is a defining characteristic of who one is and not just something trivial. In Iraq, whether one is Arab or Kurd, Sunni or Shia, is also relevant. Religion for people like newscasters or journalists is also important since their religious views could slant their reporting. Say for instance, Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American baseball player. Why would it not be relevant to have in his infobox that he is of Penobscot ethnicity. Or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, that she is a Somali?Patapsco913 (talk) 08:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with Scott Davis. Why does religion or ethnicity have to be "defining"? Aside from rational reasons for the applicability of a religion or an ethnicity to subjects of biographies, readers can have inexplicable reasons for being interested in the religion or ethnicity of the subject of the biography. I don't see us as being here to suggest to the reader what matters and what doesn't matter. If the sources place adequate emphasis on these dimensions of the person's identity I think we should dutifully pass the information along to the reader, in the Infobox. Sourcing of course matters. Do sources fairly often mention identity in terms of religion or ethnicity? Bus stop (talk) 12:50, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason for "ethnicity" to be used unless it is a non-contentious defining characteristic of a person. The best source is, as usual, self-identification with that ethnicity, but right now the field is used to ascribe "Jewish" as an "ethnicity" where it is disallowed as a "religion" as not having self-identification. As a result, it is clear that the field should only be used where clear self-identification is present, just as with nationality, religion, etc. The prior consensus that self-identification is required is well-established. Collect (talk) 12:58, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Collect—Wouldn't "I am proud to be Jewish" constitute self-identification? Yet the Infobox at Bernie Sanders does not read Religion: Jewish. All of this wrangling over policy fails to serve the reader because common sense and countless sources support that Bernie Sanders is Jewish. Are we taking a principled stand when we studiously avoid indicating in the Infobox that Bernie Sanders is Jewish? Should material of this nature be omitted from the Infobox? Bus stop (talk) 15:03, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am not allowed to comment on Sanders. I note, moreover, that where a person states they are "atheist", they do not then also have a "religion." Infoboxes on living persons are governed by WP:BLP and discussions thereon, and, so far, your position has not gained a consensus to overturn the existing consensus, which is in line with my position. Collect (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Already done from reading the discussion above it seems this was done two days ago. If you are still seeing this in an article, please provide more details — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Why? Their presence is surely beneficial as a pointer to editors of the template in future that the parameter was once there but has now been removed. We are in no danger of running out of numbers. --RexxS (talk) 13:42, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
At present, the field labelled "Other names" can be populated by |other names=, |other_names=, |othername=, and |alias=. Are you saying you want to be able to use |nickname= as well as those four? Or did you mean something else? --RexxS (talk) 18:15, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox is an html <table>...</table>, so behaves as do most html elements; in particular, it will widen to accommodate wide content like images. The default width is 22em, which is about 240px in my Monobook skin. Any image wider than about 230px will result in a wider infobox. --RexxS (talk) 20:36, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
--Carnby (talk) 16:34, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Already done from reading the discussion above it seems this was done two days ago. If you are still seeing this in an article, please provide more details — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Not done: This would be pointless and add unnecessarily add 233,506 pages to the job queue. — JJMC89 (T·C) 17:21, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Done: It was caused because the 