Template talk:Infobox comics creator/Archive 2

Categorization
Can someone explain to me why articles like Fabien Vehlmann and Jef Nys are added to Category:Comics nation sweep? Apart from that, I agree with some of the above comments that even though the infobox adds categories automatically, that shouldn't mean that the explicit cats are removed from the article. Now, if the infobox categorization is removed for some reason (e.g. a sitewide deprecation of that feature), then these articles have lost their categories for no good reason. Fram (talk) 07:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking at the category page, it says Population list for Template:Infobox comics creator of those cases needing "nationality" reviewed. I've glanced at the template but I can't see the switch that operates it without drilling through the code, so I'll wait for J Greb. It's a hidden category, so it must be for maintenance.  It might be where we've switched from one form of categorising to another? Hiding T 08:34, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually it's looking at what is in the nationality field and what shows up in the infobox at "Nationality".
 * The nutshell is that multiple divergent pages were being linked there, most pointing to the article on the nation or the population either directly or via redirect. nationality is simplifying that down to just one - the article on the "People of" or ethnicity. At the moment Comics infobox sec/creator nat is set up to handle 31 nationalities (see here for the list), but it only looks at plain text - American for example, not American.
 * The maintenance cat is there to collect 2 things - 1) 'boxes where the 31 currently handled items are using wikilinks already and 2) those that have a nationality not currently in place. Ideally a bot could run to clean up the bulk of them, but it would be looking at 40+ variations to spot to handle the 31 current cases. - J Greb (talk) 11:13, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't fully understand it yet. Jef Nys has Belgian. Which should this be according to you/the cleanup cat? I don't see what is wrong with the current nationality link. Charlie Adlard has British. No reason why it should be "cleaned up". Isn't this "cleanup" just creating extra, unnecessary work? Changing things that work into other things that work as well? Fram (talk) 11:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * There is currently no uniform naming standard for those articles so you get People of the United States and British people, but the latter has a redirect from People of the United Kingdom so it might be possible to do this fairly simply and pick up any problems with redirects to the right article. I am unsure if it requires cleanup per se but I will keep an eye out for this feature in future (as this is the first I heard of it - I only just added the Jef Nys infobox for example). (Emperor (talk) 15:45, 28 October 2009 (UTC))
 * Ahhhhhhh I've just had a play with this and see how it works. You need to fill in the nationality field for it to kick in. I had an idea recently that I was going to propose - why not use the sortkey field to fill in the nationality? It has the two-birds-with-one-stone simplicity we are aiming for with a more complexly scripted infobox. The nationality field can then be used to override this setting if needed. (Emperor (talk) 18:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC))


 * Fram: It isn't a case of a "problem", per se. It's a case of simplifying down. As Emperor points out, what has gone into the field. Articles on Americans have see:
 * American
 * American - American
 * American - American
 * American - American
 * American - American
 * And so on.
 * All the 'box is doing now is taken a standard, non-wikified word and slotting in the appropriate link. The result is a degree of standardization. In the case of Nys, slotting in "Belgian" would have Belgian placed into the 'box. Which is where People of Belgium redirects btw.
 * It also has an advantage in that if People of Belgium were to be converted from a redirect to a separate article, all of the links can be fixed in one go.
 * Emperor: Looking at it, that seems to be a natural "next step" since it would cut down on the standard parameters. - J Greb (talk) 21:40, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. There has been a lot of back and forth with nationality articles - it is only recently that it has been possible to create a consistent direct link to such articles. This does mean that there are a lot of "legacy" links to all sorts of different articles (as J Greb notes) and most of them are incorrect and do need changing to something more accurate. (Emperor (talk) 02:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC))

But why do we need such standardisation? There are long-time guidelines on this, stating that when different solutions are equally correct (working), don't change something to your preference, but let them be. E.g. redirects shouldn't be removed or changed unless truly necessary (from a disambig to the correct article). But this is what you (plural, general you) are doing. Change/tag those where there is a "nationality" article, but the link isn't pointing there. But leave those where the link is pointing to the correct current article alone. This is just standardization for the sake of standardization, creating a cleanup sweep where nothing needs to be cleaned or changed. Fram (talk) 07:28, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, of course incorrect links should be corrected, but links that work perfectly fine should be left alone. The current method of including things in the sweep is much too broad or imprecise. Fram (talk) 07:44, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

What I mean: above, you state "All the 'box is doing now is taken a standard, non-wikified word and slotting in the appropriate link. The result is a degree of standardization. In the case of Nys, slotting in "Belgian" would have Belgian placed into the 'box. Which is where People of Belgium redirects btw. It also has an advantage in that if People of Belgium were to be converted from a redirect to a separate article, all of the links can be fixed in one go." So if I understand you correctly, you plan on changing the link from "People of Belgium" to "Belgium", because that would make it easier to change it back to "People of Belgium" afterwards? Wouldn't it be just slightly easier to let things stand as they are? Fram (talk) 07:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * But the point is the majority of such nationality fields don't contain a link to a page on the nationality - most are either to the country (United Kingdom or United States) or a non-descript possessive term (like British or American). I know this because I've been updating the nationality field for a while (since I saw the nationality articles were available, which is a relatively recent development, hence the mix of incorrect solutions) and if I hadn't already changed the field then it was almost always incorrect. It is these incorrect ones that need fixing but there is no easy way to populate a category for the field filled in wrongly but it is safe to assume that the majority are not linking to the right article.
 * Should "nationality=Belgian be removed to let this be automatically populated? I don't see the need personally as it will always point at the right article no matter where it is moved to. So I won't be removing them (unless I get the urge to I suppose, never say never) but I won't be adding them again and won't be concerned if someone else removes them. That said having it automated does have slight advantages over hardcoding it as it makes it easier to update not just the link but also the wording (it is always possible someone objects to Agentinian and says the official one is Agentine or vice versa). Of course, removing the field even if it is correct would also have the effect of allowing us to see which ones still need work, so there may also be an advantage there too. So if the link is correct then there are good reasons to still remove it but not enough that I'd go out of my way to do it but if I was updating an infobox I might do (although if the infobox needs updating it probably pre-dates the appearance of consistent nationality articles so will probably be exactly the ones we need to update). (Emperor (talk) 17:21, 29 October 2009 (UTC))
 * A few things that crop up from Fram's last 2 posts...
 * As a general observation, I've seen a lot of edits to wiki links where all that is being done is avoiding a redirect. That includes adding pipes, removing them, changing them, and altering where the ]] falls. In most cases this doesn't seem to generate conflict.
 * Links should be to the most appropriate article associated with a term. IIUC this is one of the reasons WP:EGG exists. That does make a good case for pointing the generated links to "People of..." instead of the nations. Nationality is about the people not the geography.
 * If the "next step" is taken, essentially combining the function of the "nationality" and "subcat", wikified text cannot be used in the field. At the very least, it would break the cat links since trying to account for it in the coding would break the 'box.
 * - J Greb (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * So if anyone in the future would insert wikified text in the box, it will be broken? And how are editors supposed to know that? This is making the infobox less editor-friendly, without apprent gain for the reader (removing categories from articles because they are added by the infobox is no gain for the reader, the end result is still the same categories). Coupled with tthe complaints below that this breaks the incategory searches, I still don't believe that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. And despite the explanations, I still don't understand why e.g. a link to "people of Belgium" (which is what you expect the link to be eventually) is included in the sweep, but a link to "french people" isn't. The fact that the one article already exists and the other is currently a redirect should have no impact on whatever maintenance categories are created by the comics infobox. One can wonder if it wouldn't be more useful to focus our attention in getting first the correct infoboxes in all articles, instead of caring about the "correct" wikilink for the nationality of these people. Looking at some fifteen articles, only three had an "accepted" nationality (Jacques Tardi, Al Williamson and Albert Uderzo), all others were either "incorrect" (Will Eisner, Jef Nys, Hergé, Robert Crumb, Frank Hampson) or had no or a different infobox (Marten Toonder, Charles Schulz, Frederick Burr Opper, Gerrit De Jager, Al Capp, Ham Fisher, Bud Fisher). The last group however are not included in this sweep. Fram (talk) 10:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Long and short of it: Yes and No. Yes, it would cause problems for the cats. No, it wouldn't be non-editor-friendly. The wikified text, or the un-added nationality, would place the article into the maintenance cat. It would appear as is in the "Nationality" field, and, ideally, by-pass the "job" categories. So an editor can add the 'box, w/, say, American, and have the 'box pop in nice an pretty. But it's flagged as a potential issue with a hidden category. - J Greb (talk) 12:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Allright, that's ar least one concern less. I understood that the infobox would return an error instead of an infobox, but if that's not the case, then that part is not a problem. Fram (talk) 12:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry I had left that impression previously.
 * Looking at the other points you raised (and since I've got a bit more time right now...).
 * Inclusion criteria: There is a list of 35 one or two word terms here that the template automatically converts into a link. That list also has each linking to thereasonable article, or title if it exists as a redirect, so it's clear what the template places. If it runs across something not in that list, it does a verbatim placement - ie American as a live link - and flags the article. A wikified link to French people or Italians is handled just like a wikified link to People of Belgium.
 * Article names: (And I may be reading more into this than I should...) At present, what the template is putting in place is what is available. The existent articles on peoples of various nations do not have a consistent names, with "People of Foo", "Fooina peoples", and "Fooians" all being present. In at least one case - Australian - the terms "People of Australia" and "Australian people" seem to be a bit of a football.
 * Numbers and comparisons - Right now there are ~2446 articles tagged as Comics creator related (this excludes categories, images, identified lists, "NA", redirects, and templates but is likely not limited to bios). Of those, 1766 have this template placed on them. And of those 706 are using something not in the referenced list as a nationality.
 * Now, I was aware of a manual process being rung to check/update/add the infobox that encompassed upgrade for the template to create the nationality link. That had only gone through the first 220 articles. So 840 articles caught the upgrade by themselves. Or had just plain text fitting one of the 35 cases already addressed. So, why do some articles using this template have the flag and others don't? Because, at this point, no one has changed them.
 * As for why there are ~670 articles not using this template. Three reasons spring to mind: 1) They should be, but no one has stumbled across them to swap out the 'box. 2) No 'box is in place yet. Or 3) it's someone like Kevin Smith or Neil Gaiman - where a different 'box is more appropriate.
 * One last aspect of this point - right now this is something that is intrinsic to this biography 'box. Is it something that should migrate to the others? IMO, at least for the nationality link, yes. But until that happens, bio articles for people like Smith and Gaiman won't be in a "nationality field needs a look" maintenance cat.
 * Incategory: Aside from the later point that a specific abuse filter was having a minor fit, I'm not really sure what use the incat procedure is. Most of the large intersections (nationality and primary jobs) are already categorized. YoB/YoD groupings are pretty much point less - they really do not show groupings of contemporary professionals. And the smaller "People from..." cats tend to miss significant aggregates - "American comics writers" and "People from Cincinnati" would pull a very slim number but there is no way to pull the larger intersection of "Comic writers" and "People from Ohio".
 * - J Greb (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
Just a heads-up to say the "| subcat       = Northern Ireland" switch works for artists (see PJ Holden) but not writers or cartoonists (see Malachy Coney), the latter because it is still Category:Northern Irish cartoonists. (Emperor (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC))
 * Should be fixed now... - J Greb (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Categorisation, again
I just noticed that this template adds people to unwanted categories. If you indicate that someone is e.g. also an inker, he or she is automatically added to the category Category:Comics inkers, even though "This category is for comic book inkers, specifically those who primarily make a living embellishing other artists' pencil work, rather than their own." Now, someone like Jean Giraud obviously inks his own work, like most European comics artists, but he is not someone who inks other people's work, and shouldn't be in that category. European comics artists should just be in the "artist" section, not in the inker or penciller section, except for some special cases. But it is impossible now to indicate now in the infobox that yes, he pencils and inks his work, without adding him to the category. Please remove all overcategorization from this template, as such standardization makes life harder, not easier. Fram (talk) 06:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Totally agree with above statement. Garion96 (talk) 08:26, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And I'll point out here the same thing I pointed out to Fram on my talk page - The category was added based on the state of the infobox prior to the edit. The 'box was listing him as directly calling him "penciller, inker", the edit was made to properly generate the in-'box list and add the category (more on that in a second). This is almost no different that adding Category:... at the bottom of the page. The slight difference is that if one is corrected, both are. In this case Fram makes a good case that the listing should be "Writer, Artist" with the corresponding categories. The 'box can easily be changed to accommodate that. And frankly, if the 'box wasn't propagating the cats, an editor adding or removing a category that would be reflected in the ;box should be updating it as well.
 * As for Category:Comics inkers, actual use and stated use, like any category, don't line up. In this case the use has been wider than "primarily or only" to include "notably" whether they provide art in some other manner for comics or not. And yes, this may cause an issue with European or Asian creators that start to work in American comics if they only provide inks in those. Though the notability of their non-American work would likely out weight the "notability" of them inking an American book.
 * "But it is impossible now to indicate now in the infobox that yes, he pencils and inks his work, without adding him to the category."
 * I really, really do not know where to start with this. Lets look at the docs for this infobox:
 * art - artist, if this is used then pencil, ink, and color should not be used.
 * This seems pretty clear that if the person routinely provides the full art, then the pencil and ink fields should not be used. Does this need to be further simplified or idiot proofed?
 * - J Greb (talk) 16:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't need to be simplified or idiot proofed, it needs to be removed. Many European afrtists provide pencilling and inking, but not the colouring. How would you indicate this? There is no reason why the infobox and the cats have to be exactly parallel. Note that the remrk a few sections above that "Note that categories included by templates breaks the "incategory" special feature of article searching, see WP:S#Additional_features." never has been answered. Fram (talk) 20:30, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And there is no reason that the infobox and categories should not reflect each other. As for color... maybe it does need to be idiot proofed to "and/or" to avoid issues with artists that only produce black and whit material. Or have their pencils published as the finished art. Or just work in India ink. Any other variations you can think of?
 * As for incategory. At this point duplication doesn't seem to be a bad answer. The infobox is a good way to make sure the article is categorized when editors only tinker with the text of the article. If someone wants to duplicate the categories, the duplication is going to have to stand (and yes, that's why I tend to remove categories that are duplicated by the infobox - they are duplicate efforts). The infobox dies its job and incat can do its.
 * - J Greb (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you deliberately misunderstanding things? It's not about artists who work in black and white, although there are those as well. It's about the hundreds of notable authors who write, pencil and ink their work, but let the colouring be done by others. The infobox creates incorrect or at least unwanted categories, which work bad with other Wikipedia tools. They still add the ridiculous (thankfully hidden) maintenance categories as well. And the explanayion you give for the removal of duplicate categories makes no sense at all (duplication doesn't seem to be a bad answer, but you tend to remove duplicate categories anyway?), and that removal means that if consensus turns out to be against (some of the) categorization through the infobox, then these articles lack categories because of your edits. Please at least stop the removal of categories from articles until it has become very clear that this kind of categorization has consensus (which, for the moment at this talk page, it doesn't seem to have so clearly at all), and that it is considered to be better to remove those categories. Fram (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Starting with the last first - I have stopped doing the removals after my last post here. I may dislike the duplication, but it seems the best compromise point with regard to the interaction between the infobox and the in-category tool.
 * As for the first, frankly I could ask you the same question.
 * Bluntly, "Comics artist" functions two ways. Generally, it's a catch all for those that provide part of the art work for comics. So it covers the penciler, the breakdown artist, the inker, the colorist, in some cases the letterer and/or the separator. It's also used as a specific term applied to those that completed, print ready work, be it a painting, inking their own pencils, or inking and coloring their own work. The tricky thing is that some of the biographies cover people that are notable in 2 or 3 of the "Penciler", "Inker", and "Artist" categories. Being notable in one of the fields means it should be included in the infobox and the category should be appended to the article. (And it is worth noting that a "Comics penciler" category has never gained traction, it's been treated as defaulting to "Artist" since it is the primary artwork for the comics.)
 * Now, the documentation for those fields can be set up to simply state what was assumed as obvious information for those that would generally by putting the template into use. And given the direction this has gone, that is without regard to if the categorization stays or goes since the tags generate the "Area(s)" list with the wiki-links.
 * Lastly, something I pointed out off the hop: If you feel that a flag field is applied incorrectly to a biography, change the flag to the correct one. This fixes both the categories and the 'box. Both of these should be corrected if there is incorrect information in the article. It should not be a case of "I'll fix the category and leave the article to someone else" or vice-versa.
 * - J Greb (talk) 21:55, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Nationality
I have removed the nationality background workings of this template. It tried to automatically link to "X people" article when nationality was given as X, even though the "people" articles are about ethnicities, not about nationalities. E.g. When you have the Danish nationality, then it should be linked to Denmark, not to Danes, which is about "This includes people with a Danish ancestral or ethnic identity, whether living in Denmark, emigrants, or the descendants of emigrants, e.g.: the Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, a former Danish province." According to "Denmark", some ten percent of the people in Denmark are not (ethnic) Danes. Similarly, in Dutch people, the Frisians, and the people with Dutch nationality but with a foreign background, are not included (while on the other hand some editors want to include all Flemish people in that article as well). Basically, we shouldn't be linking nationality fields to ethnicity articles. Fram (talk) 09:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, having "Danish" point to Denmark is a form of Easter egging - the linked term/word is not the same as the country. That being said, and looking at Danes, Demographics of Denmark may actually be more correct in trying to get across the nationality of "Danish". May since the field itself has been a bit of a hot potato over how precisely it gets filled in - current working residence (Gaiman would be American then), self identification, hyphenated, tracking naturalization(s) (3 listing for Byrne), and so on.
 * In either event, linking to an article covering the peoples of a country is preferable to linking to an article about the country.
 * - J Greb (talk) 10:16, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * On a side note - it may be worth looking at the articles currently pointed to to see what exactly is in the subset that is "ethnicity" rateher than "nationality". - J Greb (talk) 10:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

So you just reverted because "In either event, linking to an article covering the peoples of a country is preferable to linking to an article about the country." Why? Nationality is only linked to a country, not exclusively to an ethnicity. Either you should change the linked articles to point to nations (or to the nationality law of some countries, we have articles on those az well), or the field should be changed to "ethnicity" instead of "nationality" (which I would oppose as well, as being much too subjective in many cases). You claim that "having "Danish" point to Denmark is a form of Easter egging - the linked term/word is not the same as the country.", but you are incorrect there: the Danish nationality can only be given by the country Denmark and is directly related to the country Denmark. It has little to do with whether you are an ethnic Dane or not (although of course the majority of ethnic Danes live in Denmark, and the majority of people with the Danish naitionality are ethnic Danes). That things coincide more often than not is not a reason to use it by default. That many of the "people" articles are much, much worse than the country articles is an additional reason to avoid them (e.g. Belgian people vs. Belgium.) Fram (talk) 20:40, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A bold edit was reverted since it was made in lieu of discussion. I'm sorry if you do not like this method of collaborative editing.
 * As for that discussion: "Nationality" is not a piece of land. It is, at best, a statement of a person's identity. Pointing a nationality term for a person to an article on a country is not serving the purpose of having a link. It is pointing to a different topic, related or not. Even if you want to go from the point of "Only Denmark can convey the Danish nationality", at what point in Denmark is an explanation/ general outline of what "Danish" as a nationality is? Is it a linkable section?
 * You have brought up a valid point: some of the articles currently linked through "nationality" do not speak exclusively as to what the listed nationality implies. Of the 3 example you point to:
 * "Danish" pointing to Danes,
 * "Dutch" pointing to Dutch people, and
 * "Belgian" potentially pointing to Belgians (where Belgian people redirects and not what the link currently uses).
 * The first two have a good argument for finding a better article or article section since both article leads make it clear the articles deal with ethnicities. Without that, no link would be better than linking to the an article on geography at its lead. The last is less clear since it's lead is explicit that "Belgian" is not an ethnicity. That leads to the question of if there is a better article or section to replace it with, but not an outright condemnation of using it.
 * And then there are the examples of the articles that  are about the nationality - People of the United States, Argentinian people, British people, and French people. These are articles that in the lead note that citizenship is a factor in the material covered. These serve the purpose of clarifying what a nationality is much more than pointing to United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, or France does.
 * - J Greb (talk) 00:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, People of the United States only concerns itself with citizens, not with nationality. The article which you are looking for Citizenship in the United States. So for the majority of articles, the automatic linking was incorrect... Fram (talk) 10:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hold on... Danes is incorrect for "Nationality" because it concerns itself with an ethnic group but not the wider group of those that are citizens of Denmark and "People of the United States" is incorrect for nationality because it does concern itself with citizens. Fram, that makes zero logical sense. - J Greb (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no idea where you read that "Danes is incorrect for "Nationality" because it concerns itself with an ethnic group but not the wider group of those that are citizens of Denmark" Danes is incorect because it concerns itself with an ethnic group and not with the different (not wider) group of people with the Danish nationality. These can or can not be ethinc Danes, and can or can not be citizens of Denmark. A Dutch person living in Denmark is a citizen of Denmark, has the Dutch nationality, and is perhaps an ethnic Dutch, or a Frisian, or a second-generation immigrant in the Netherlands. Since the infobox is for "nationality", we should only concern ourselves with articles relating to nationality, not with being a citizen or ethnicity. The confusion probably stems from the fact that the United States for some reasons calls "nationality" "citizenship".Fram (talk) 08:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing jumps out immediately now...
 * That is what exactly "nationality" is. Off the hop, "national status; specifically : a legal relationship involving allegiance on the part of an individual and usually protection on the part of the state" would seem to cover it (Miriam-Webster online sense 3a). Though it is interesting that the source also provides "an ethnic group constituting one element of a larger unit (as a nation)" (sense 5b). The Cambridge International Online Dictionary provides shorter but similar definitions. By either of these sources, the articles currently linked to most of the terms (a few redirect to the article on the geographic location) are correct. The same can be said by looking at MOS:BIO and the link it provides for defining "nationality".
 * As for the question as to why "citizenship" is associated with "nationality" in some quarters, that is likely to be chalked up to citizenship being an observable statement about the legal relationship between the individual and the state. Also, in light of the material pointed to by MOS:BIO, if the United States and Americans do hold the two terms as synonymous, maybe it is appropriate to point to an article that reflects that.
 * In any event though, "nationality" in the context of a biography is still dealing with the group the person belongs to, no the state or geographic region that claims that group.
 * - J Greb (talk) 16:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

"Location" vs "birth_place"
Can someone please add birth_place as an alternative to location. Right now all other person infoboxes use birth_date and/or birthdate. This will help consistency with Infobox person. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Added the additional parameter - as "birthplace" for intenal consistancy here - along with a tracking category - Category:Depreciated bio infobox param (location) - to show which articles need a switch. FWIW IIRC "location" is a hold over from an older version of the person box, and was a bit odd looking since it seemed, on its face, to want "current residence" rather than a place of birth.
 * - J Greb (talk) 01:15, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The tracking category is perfect. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:37, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * re:Ybot's run... Please note that "birthplace" was used for consistancy with the other birth and death fields on this template. No space. Ybot at this point is removing places of birth for the infoboxes as they appeare in the articles. - J Greb (talk) 00:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can use "birthplace" instead if you prefer. Yobot is only replacing "location". Both "birth_place" and "birthplace" are used to obtain information for Persondata so we are good either way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please, it's easier to just deal with the one field than five, and the fields should be consistant internally to the individual template. - J Greb (talk) 07:55, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. I switched to "birthplace" and renamed all location. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 12:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

sortkey still needed?
I think sortkey should be removed. Working with DEFAULTSORT is much better. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:21, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unless the base functionality of DEFAULTSORT has been fixed - IIRC there has been an issue with it not being picked up properly by categories not immediatly adjacent to it - there would still be an issue with categories added by the template but not included in the pack following DEFAULTSORT. And since the parameter is matching DEFAULTSORT, I don't believe the redundancy is impacting the the pack following DEFAULTSORT. - J Greb (talk) 18:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * But the natural for editors is to search, add and modify DEFAULTSORT and not some parameter in an infobox. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * True, editors used to using DEFAULTSORT are more likely to just add that and be done with it. But that doesn't address the question about DEFAULTSORT's ability to affect categories not immediatly below it, or being placed by the infobox.
 * It also adds a question of if an editor starting an article is likely to add the infobox, the infobox w/o the sortkey, DEFAULTSORT, bothe the 'box and DS, or neither.
 * - J Greb (talk) 18:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Spelling Fix
I just fixed a spelling mistake in the template and documentation pages:

Colaberators --> Collaborators

Some transclusions may or may not have to be fixed. Sorry if I broke something. --vgmddg (look &#124; talk &#124; do) 00:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Bug in rendering when yob param is specified.
See the top of this version of an article for an example. --Bxj (talk) 01:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Fill in . That by itself clears the issue. - J Greb (talk) 03:17, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * And before you jump - it is and has been for awhile marked as a required field. If need be the infobox can be coded to not show or present a nice error message if a required field is omitted. - J Greb (talk) 03:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a good reason why sortkey should be required. It should be removed from this template since can and should be used instead. --Bxj (talk) 02:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. We should move in the direction to use the standard birth_date/death_date parameters. The yob/mod/dod/sortkey/us system is confusing and non optimal. Check rendering times. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In fractional seconds?
 * @Bxj, if DS catches all the categories, I'd agree. Last I checked though it seems to miss ones that aren't close to it.
 * - J Greb (talk) 11:00, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Singularizing Area(s)
I'm sure a complicated switch or something would get the job done, but its there a simple syntax that could test if there were only one |area, so that "Area(s)" could be formatted as "Area" when there is only one |area filled in?  C üRly T üRkey  Talk Contribs 07:13, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

yob & yod params
It would be worth adding a temporary tracking category for a while to at least see how much the yob/yod params are used rather than the birth_date/death_date params. I've used a different category name: Category:Infobox comic creator with yob or yod parameters instead. We could then discuss if any changes are worth doing. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * birth_date and death_date are standard fields used in all infoboxes and they also allow the use of birth date and age in contrary to the unique yob,mod,dod,etc. Moreover, in many cases we had conflicts of both of parameters used. I think we should slowly deprecate the uncommon style. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In the moment we are like 55-45 for birth/death_date. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, while there no need for a single infobox template for all types of people, it would be useful to have some standard common parameters in all the different people infoboxes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I also agree that standardizing the field names for many reasons would be preferred. --Kumioko (talk) 16:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * While I agree standardization is a good goal, there are a couple of other thing this is head butting:
 * The fields are functioning beyond generating the birth/death lines in the infobox.
 * Using the fields is easier for the uninitiated in the arcane templates and mark-up to plug in the information and get the same result. That is: a new user doesn't have to know about, or how to code, et al. Just place the year, month, and day and the 'box passes it through to the template. It makes the process a bit more user friendly. Maybe that is something that should have been implemented on the other biography 'boxes.
 * - J Greb (talk) 23:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And just to be above board here, I've reverted Magioladitis' removal of the fields that were in use so that the first editor he invited to comment, WOSlinker, can get an accurate read. - J Greb (talk) 23:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * After your first two reverts I only removed the yob field when it was conflicting or was already covered by the birthplace field, so I don't understand why you did it. I think you oppose standardisation ans I don't understand why. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * and since most of my edits were fixing stuff, most of the time out of AWB's standard general fixes, I can say I am a bit disappointed since I respected your disagreement and I am trying to form a consensus. I also note this one which had nothing to do with the parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Some pages with incomplete data can be covered by the method you describe and has 4 more parameters than the standard method. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * To start with, since the depreciation/removal of the parameters was contested, 'botting to remove them shouldn't have been happening. And I'm sorry, I tend to see it as dishonest to do it, even with good intentions, as either part of other "fixes" or because it exists with the other parameter(s) in question. It doesn't help when a third editor states they want to see where the questioned parameters are in use and they are still being removed. As for cases like Tove Jansson, yes, I miss-clicked in the manual change based on the list of edits. But then immediately rolledback my edit. - J Greb (talk) 15:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the tracking category for now as it has served it's purpose. 1046 articles are using the yob/yod params. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Some pages use both yob/yod and birth/death. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Reasons to replace old parameters with the new ones: -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Old parameters hide standard and commonly used categories into the infobox. Check where the parameter was "hacked" to work. Then I fixed it.
 * The are 6 instead of 2.
 * They don't work in all cases. For instance when some parameter is uncertain or unknown.
 * 100+ infoboxes use the standard parameters and not these.
 * Birth date and age is better to be visible in order to accept extra parameters if necessary.
 * Hard-coding is not a good idea for templates in general.
 * "6 instead of 2" is a little myopic. If the two were accepted without the 4 part template family, I'd agree. But the push is to have a consistent output, it make sense not to imply that over coding is required. Just a place to enter the data.
 * For uncertainty, and I just stumbled across this, BirthDeathAge looks like a better fit than family that is currently being used. And FWIW, a set of the "both parameters in use" are there because, IIRC, the "Birth/Death date (and age)" set didn't do partials at the time. And Birth and age still breaks if the day of the month isn't present.
 * "...in order to accept extra parameters if necessary" is that the International/American ordering tag or potential new fields for the template set?
 * - J Greb (talk) 15:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * just a comment - There are 7 params rather than 6 as there's also nonUS which is used in the date formatting. Not that it matters much either way. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with J Greb's argument #2. The redundant yob/yod/etc. fields do not ease the uninitiated. Instead, it creates burden to everyone who is not familiar with this specific template. They have to waste their time having to read about additional fields that do not need to exist in the first place. Get rid of bloat to ease the uninitiated and the initiated equally. As a bonus, you get to remove a bug that I've reported in the field below. --Bxj (talk) 02:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't really make sense to me either how someone can argue that having 6 parameters is better than 2 or that this is easier than having it as the same standard as most, if not all, other infobox templates. --Kumioko (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

We can remove the yob/mob/dob/yod/mod/dod fields now without any loss of information. This will simplify the infobox and make page rendering faster. Shall we? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Since it appears a consensus since the late mass run seems to have been reached to change them, and that has been done at this point, why not?
 * - J Greb (talk) 22:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Categories should be removed once and for all
J. Greb, please stop reverting the removal of the automated category creation from the infobox. It is against the applicable guidelines, and is opposed by many people on this very talk page (see multiple discussions above). You clearly don't have local or global consensus on your side here. Fram (talk) 15:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * This can't just be taken out. If this is the way things are going some kind of system needs to be put into place to hardcode the categories that were previously automatically generated. Given the fact that all the information is in the infobox it should be easy enough to do get a robot to run through and do the job but until that is in place, taking out the code from this infobox is just making a mess of a lot of pages. (Emperor (talk) 20:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC))
 * All things given, using the 'box to generate the categories should be done. But it seems, cynically, that the attitude is "You want 'em, add 'em manually." - J Greb (talk) 22:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Considering that this has been complained about for over two years, and that this categorization through infobox is inconsistent with most or all other infoboxes, and goes against WP:TEMPLATECAT, I see no reason to let this exist any longer. Using the Wikiproject to do a categorization drive to correct these problems created by the people insisting that the categorization should be done through the infobox instead of directly is acceptable, but not a requirement to postpone or reverse the removal of this. Fram (talk) 07:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really - if one make changes that cause things to break (like moving an article and sticking a disambiguation page where it was, breaking incoming links) then one should be prepared to make sure they are fixed - saying "it'll get done by someone" or "it's your fault" isn't exactly helpful. (Emperor (talk) 15:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC))
 * I can add all the appropriate categories using WP:AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:52, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding
Need to add ru. --Mrfett (talk) 11:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Another problem with this infobox
I'm seeing an output of "Writer, Penciller, Publisher". Only the W should be capped. This clearly was a common misconcetion in the old days where every profession was linked (and MOS was breached in capping even them).

Can someone work out how to fix all of those fields (which currently require just a "y" for yes, I suppose. Best to write them in manually. Tony   (talk)  09:35, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Linking Nationality
General consensus is that nationality should not be linked as per WP:OVERLINK. Template should be updated to reflect that. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:33, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Deprecate "Influences" and "Influenced"
Can we please deprecate "Influences" and "Influenced", as they have done at Infobox writer? Curly Turkey (gobble) 02:21, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be pleased to follow the move at infobox writer. Influences are just too subtle and complex (and varying in intensity) to be shoved into an infobox. Tony   (talk)  11:55, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

nonUS has to be defined for name_nonEN
It looks like the template is requiring nonUS to be defined as a language abbreviation if name_nonEN is to be used, otherwise it complains about lang not working. Can someone confirm this is the behavior going forward and modify the doc? AngusWOOF ( bark  •  sniff ) 02:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Confirmed & edited. One alternative would be to modify the template to pass "und" as the first parameter to lang when "nonUS" is not specified. 59.149.124.29 (talk) 07:34, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added to track this error. It will take a while for articles to filter into the category. At this writing, there are two 105 such articles (after some creative null-editing; there should only be a few more after this). – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:03, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Free images outside articlespace are not handled correctly
If, outside article space (in draft space, for example), one sets the image field, the image is replaced by a picture of Wikipe-tan with the caption: 'Wikpe-tan says: "You can't use fair-use images outside of articlespace!"' It's true that fair-use images may not be used in draft space. The problem is that this error message appears for all types of images, including CC-BY-SA images (which are fine to use outside article space).

Contrast this with Infobox person, which displays all types of images, without doing any error checking for whether the image license is compatible with the namespace. Infobox comics creator's code seems to have been copied from Infobox comic book title. Perhaps the code is pragmatic in the latter template, because perhaps images added to articles about comic books are almost never free. Images of comics creators might not be free, but there's also a good chance that they are free, as with images of people in general.

The code should be changed to be more like Infobox person, which allows images regardless of namespace, or should be improved to disallow only images that are not free. --Worldbruce (talk) 06:24, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

No embed
Doesn't seem to embed correctly as a module into other infoboxes. 142.167.242.182 (talk) 01:26, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Non-English names
I see that there's a parameter for names not in English, but is it possible to rename the parameters to "native_name" and "native_name_lang" to make it more accessible? Template:Infobox person and Template:Infobox musical artist already uses those. lullabying (talk) 17:58, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Requesting addition of "partner" parameter

 * Information to be added or removed: Add partner parameter that mirrors the parameter of the same name as defined in Template:Infobox_person
 * Explanation of issue: We need a partner parameter from Template:Infobox_person as a result of the ongoing discussion at BLP noticeboard regarding partnership of comic artists Trina Robbins and Kim Deitch. They are not married, but the long-term partnership was a substantial aspect for both articles.
 * References supporting change: Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard
 * Sandbox changes:

Beyond that, it should be clear that the absence of such a parameter creates institutional bias, especially in areas where a couple can not marry (see Legal status of same-sex marriage and LGBT comics creators). I believe this change to be uncontroversial.

--Elephanthunter (talk) 21:23, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅; tested on an appropriate page in preview and this edit seems to work well. Thank you!  P.I. Ellsworth   ed.  put'r there 03:23, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Convert to wrapper
This should be converted to wrapper of Infobox person Capankajsmilyo(Talk 03:33, 24 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Because...? If you don't present arguments, I have to oppose this. Fram (talk) 07:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:INFOCOL Capankajsmilyo(Talk 09:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:JUSTANESSAY. Fram (talk) 10:35, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You asked for reasons; you've been given them. Carping about the medium in which they were delivered is unhelpful. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I have a question about that. How does Infobox person deal with "nationality2"? Should we remove it from Infobox comics creator? I think the first step is the make the two infoboxes look as similar as possible. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:04, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the first step is to decide if this is wanted, necessary, ... Why would we start with a first step of "making two infoboxes look as similar as possible" if we don't know yet if we should eventually merge them or not? Fram (talk) 11:10, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For similarity between articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For the reasons given in the first reply to you above, which you have already acknowledged. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose this conversion and the manner in which it is presented here. Total lack of actual arguments, impressive bullying on the other hand. Capankajsmilyo tried the same at Template talk:Infobox writer, but when it was pointed out that 12 parameters didn't exist at the general infobox, their reply was "Yeah right, out of around 175 params, Infobox person don't have merely 12 params, and this is no case of conversion. Good observation. " In this case, the number of missing parameters isn't 12, it's 37 or thereabouts. Fram (talk) 12:22, 24 March 2020 (UTC)


 * See also Template talk:Infobox comics creator/Archive 1. Similar faces, similar lack of explanation and instead simple assertion that everything is explained. Fram (talk) 12:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Just noting again that you have been given an explanation, in a post which you have acknowledged. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * And the reason for repeating this three months later...? A link to an essay is not an explanation why this dissimilar template should be converted to a wrapper, it is a cop-out. Repeating the same "but you have had an answer" ad nauseam is not helping the discussion one bit, if that was your intention. Fram (talk) 12:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

US spelling in Dean Trippe?
I notice "colourist" is used in Dean Trippe but I can't tell how to switch the spelling to American spelling Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Wrong image and strange message!
Hello. I'm using the Comics Creator infobox here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Ron_Tiner and as you can see it's not coming up with the right image (of a man working at a desk) and also has a puzzling message "Wikipe-tan says: "You can't use fair-use images outside of articlespace!". Can you tell me what I need to do to get rid of this and make it work for me properly?Jontickner (talk) 12:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Language
Should this infobox have a section marked "language", to show the language that the cartoonist works in? This would match with Template:Infobox writer Sheila1988 (talk) 21:36, 19 March 2021 (UTC)