Template talk:Infobox scientist/Archive 1

Nevertheless, there was a large consensus for trimming down the number of fields in the box. In the discussion below we have obtained a near-consensus for which fileds to remove and the infobox now has almost half the original number of fields.

Visibility of TfD Notice
LOL. I hope we can now settle about where to put the TfD notice. I assume Mackensen intentionally did put the notice inside the noinclude so that the notice doesn't show up in articles. I just hope the fans of that box are not surprised if it is deleted (if that should be the outcome of the TfD debate). --Ligulem 23:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC) Hi Mackensen, I don't see why "ugliness" is an issue here. It's a temporary notice. Visibility is the real issue. Best regards, bunix 21:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I ran across it on Werner Heisenberg and it looked ugly. Mackensen (talk) 14:40, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Stupid revert war
Templates_for_deletion says "use   tfd or tfd-inline ". I.e. use that which is best suitable.

It should be made clear that a template is nominated for deletion. If the notice is put at the top of the page, how can we understand that it is the infobox that is up for deletion?

Fred-Chess 12:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

But what is wrong with this version? I think it is the best. Can we agree on using it?

Fred-Chess 12:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

PS. I semi-protected this template to avoid a disruptive revert war.


 * (A) It is the convention to put the tfd tag at the top. See other tfd cases.


 * (B) You understand what is up for deletion by clicking on the tfd tag link. In 90% of cases it is obvious, without following the link, as most of these articles only have one template anyway.


 * (C) Tucking away the tfd tag at the bottom of the infobox, makes it not easily visible. I myself did not notice it at all there and only stumbled on it by accident.


 * (D) Why are we worried about aesthetics when it is only temporary? Visibility is the most important thing for such issues. 149.167.200.118 12:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

(current version) is the best compromise I think. And I support the protection. Way too many edits here. Sorry to 149.167.200.118, but you did way too many edits here. Please try finding consensus on talk pages first for such a case. Templates affect a whole bunch of pages. --Ligulem 13:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Go for it Fred, your idea of using looks cool. bunix 13:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll keep it as it is then. I still prefer the same version as Bunzil, but at least consensus finds this version acceptable, so am sticking with it for now. If you prefer the other version too, say so. / Fred-Chess 14:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fred, your version at still does not seem to be implemented. This is the best one to go with and has better visibilty. Best regards, bunix 21:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Fred, time is ticking away and you haven't done the update as per your suggestion. Thus I have done it for you. Best regards, bunix 11:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, good. / Fred-Chess 15:25, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Your welcome. Best regards, bunix 22:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

cleanup
If this survives TFD, we need to slim it down a bit. In particular, I don't think we should be encouraging triva like Erdos number and handedness; that sort of think devalues the rest of the information in the box as, as the number of items becomes overwhelming to the reader. It's just not very important. If editors really want to add that stuff, it can be done in the extra field at the bottom.--ragesoss 13:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem with that. --Ligulem 16:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed those two. Now it's somewhat more focused, but still too much clutter in my opinion. I think we should also remove: --ragesoss 17:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * spouse
 * children
 * website


 * Not sure about that, but I wouldn't oppose. If we can gain a bit more support by the box dislikers, why not. Big boxes are indeed a bit ugly somtimes. The website could well go to the "External links" section of the article text, so we might need to migrate that first before simply removing it from the template calls. I could help doing that, if there is consensus (possibly using MWB).
 * However, it might be good to wait a bit with additional removals for other Wikipedians to weigh in. --Ligulem 17:29, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I withdraw my offer to help migrate data from the box into the text. I'll leave this task to those that want the box deleted. --Ligulem 09:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ragesoss, Spouse and Children are key parts of any biography and sometimes hard to find. Hence the reason for insertion in the box. In some very rare cases where a person has a prolific number of children (eg. Charles Darwin) the solution has been just to state the number of children and the editors of those pages are happy with that. With regards to website, it is a handy quick-to-find link especially useful for biographies of those alive. Don't forget some fields don't always have to be used in every article. Regarding Erdos number & handedness, I agree that these things would look better in a new template at the bottom of each article. So if the consensus is to remove these two fields, can you suggest how we go about removing them and transferring them to a new template without losing the information?....because the scientist infobox has propagated to over 100 articles and losing that info represents many 100s of hours of work (it takes huge hours to dig that kinda stuff up!). Best regards, bunix 21:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Because of the way parameters are specified within each article, changing the template results in no loss of information; it's still there in the markup, it just doesn't appear in the normal view. Thus, we can change the template as we see fit, and editors can move the info in individual articles at their leisure.


 * Spouses and children can be an important part of a biography, but are not important enough to be a standard infobox category; they are not usually relevant to someone's career as a scientist. They should appear in the text like thousands of other potentially important details that do not belong in the infobox.  The more concise the infobox is, the more focused on aspects relevant to the person's notability, the more effective it is (and the less of an eyesore).--ragesoss 01:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ragesoss, I respectfully disagree. Just because spouse(s) and children do not have a bearing on scientific career (and a spouse may well argue with you on that one :-) is not an argument for exclusion. By that argument we should exclude other biographical details such as month of birth....as they also do not relate to scientific career. So I submit that it is not "scientific career" that is only of relevance, but key biographical facts that lend human interest to the character as whole person. A biography serves to humanize a famous name that we know little about outside their scientific sphere, as well as summarizing their career acheivements. On the topic of conciseness, the present box has the same level of detail as many other well-accepted infoboxes....for example take a look at these and  and. I am really interested to hear what you think the difference is between these and the Scientist Infobox. I sincerely hope this discussion doesn't start a mass tfd surge on all these other infoboxes as they are all rather good :-) Best regards, bunix 05:11, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * How does simply naming (or numbering) spouses and children serve any constructive purpose? These things are important in context, but not free-floating in an infobox.  I edit many scientist articles, very few others, so I'm only asserting my opinion for this infobox; if people who focus on philosophers, sex symbols, or guitarists want a different standard infobox, that's fine.  Trivial one-line details may be well-appreciated in many of those articles; I don't think they are for scientist biographies.--ragesoss 15:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ragesoss, I'm happy to go with the consensus on the spouse/children argument. However, my reason for feeling they should be considered for inclusion is that it gives a snapshot of the scientist as a human (as I mentioned above). For example there is intense interest in the character of Einstein as a human: what type of father was he, was he married, what was his religious position etc etc? Seeing the list of spousal names and children (or lack thereof) gives a quick summary to the reader, who can then more easily find those names in the main article. An infobox often gives key facts of interest for the reader to "hook onto" for then digesting the article. I appreciate your help and effort you are putting into this. Best regards, bunix 22:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Most serious biographies of a person (even a scientist :-), will give significant attention to that person's relationship with their spouse(s), seeing these relationships as crucial to the subject's life. These are supposed to be biographies, not articles on their scientific work. Spouse and children are imporant elements of a person's lives and often significant to understanding them. So I'm with Bunzil on keeping them in.  In fact I think they're more important for the info box than doctoral_advisor and doctoral_students, which I presume is an attempt to get at influenced by and influenced like the philosophers' infobox but I don't think it reflects the reality of most scientists' working lives.  -- Siobhan  Hansa  11:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree with all Siobhan's comments on spouses and children. However, I would put greater importance on doctoral_advisor and doctoral_students than suggested by her. The "umbilical cord" between a scientist and his/her advisor is extremely important both from a historical perspective and in understanding the intellectual and political environment that the scientist was trained in. For example Einstein's advisor was Alfred Kleiner, and the interaction between the two is fascinating. Einstein appears to have submitted a thesis to Kleiner, then withdrew it, and then produced another one...all in an effort to please him. On a political level, Kleiner also partly shaped Einstein's future by providing an entré to contacts that shaped the next step in Einstein's career. Once you begin to dig deeper, you begin to see that the advisor can be influential, not only scientifically, but also in terms of the socio-intellectual environment provided. Scientists themselves are totally fascinated by their "scientific ancestry" ...the culture amongst scientitsts is to find the advisor of the advisor, and so on, to see how far the "ancestry" can be traced. For example, John C. Baez can trace himself back to Gauss and Pfaff! People are fascinated by this sort of thing and the infobox provides the "succession" facility to follow those links. Following those links in themselves is a fascinating journey through science history, and I have learned enormously myself through such exploration. bunix 12:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Your Baez example is compelling. I think I bauk at these particular fields because so many scientists have greater influence from more informal mentors.  This seems to put a false (to me) barrier on which influencers/ees should be displayed. I'm keener on keeping the spouse than getting rid of these fields, but I do think in general shorter is better! -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Siobhan, Your point about influence from other a mentors is a really good one, and the template does indeed allow for this flexibility. For example see J. B. S. Haldane who did not do a PhD, and see what was put there in its stead. Also the "footnote" field can be used to help out with any pathological cases. Best, regards, bunix 22:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Siobahn, scientists are influenced byt many, and many will have lots of students, which makes the template ridiculously long. If these facts are really important they will be added to the text by interested editors.--Peta 11:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

G'day Peta, As mentioned (below) "Doctoral students" is no problem. The intention here is only to list only the famous ones that have or should have a wiki article themselves. Usually a scientist will be lucky to have more than two. There are cases of more than 5 but these are very rare. At present I have erred on the side of putting in all students....this is with the intention of letting other editors decide which to delete consentually....I did not want to make that decision on my own. I was trying to be considerate in good faith. A little temporary bloat while things are evolving is surely okay. Perfection wasn't built in a day :-) Best regards, bunix 15:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion: How shall we clean up this template?
What I'd remove: —Rotring 17:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * alma_mater
 * doctoral_advisor
 * doctoral_students
 * known_for
 * societies
 * prizes
 * spouse
 * children
 * religion
 * footnotes

Hi Rotring, as per Siobhan, and the discussion above, the reasons for keeping Spouse/Children are clear. Female readers particularly want to see this there :-) Also I would personally argue for keeping in Students/Advisors as per the discussion above. Alma Mater is a good one to keep, as it is usually very difficult finding that info in the article and it is an important influence on the scientist. I agree that Religion is a hot potato, but I would retain it because biographies are intensely fascinated with the religious positions of scientists. For example, there is endless debate on Einstein's belief system. As for "footnotes", I'd keep that in for the odd pathological case. For example in the Marie Curie template it was used to mention that she is the only person with two Nobel prizes in different science fields.

Don't forget that fields don't have to be filled in; and on an article-by-article basis you'll see that most often the Footnote field has not been used and so does not appear. It has only been used for rare cases...but is handy for such cases.

So my conclusion is to keep everything, (even Erdos number and handedness, as per discussion on voting page) but delete: .....on reflection, these bits of information are pretty boring to the average reader. I would be happy so see these be just shifted to the main article. I suspect my strange like for handedness and Erdos number won't be supported by the consensus, so that will go in practice. So that's a delete of four items. This is a pretty good haircut and brings down the size of the template to below average compared to the other 13 people templates found at. Best regards, bunix 22:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Societies
 * Prizes
 * I agree that Societies and Prizes should go (at least).--ragesoss 01:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd keep alma mater at least, and delete spouse, children, and maybe religion. The doctoral advisor and students aren't vital, but my preference is to keep them for those cases when the influence is important.
 * To elaborate, I think that spouses and children belong in the text, not in a box. The names alone tell you little outside of context unless one of the family members happens to also be known to the reader, and the more complete family information is usually found in a convienant section on personal / family life that's easily findable.
 * So far as the religion goes, once there's a spot for a label, everyone feels compelled to insert one, whether it's particularly apt or not. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against trying to pick a simple religious label for historical figures in general, having spent too much time at list of United States Presidential religious affiliations, where every label has to have extensive qualifiers about whether the person was a regular communicant or if they once expressed some contradictory views, usw.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 02:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Laura, the names in the infobox (even though out of a context) provide "mental hooks" for the person when reading the article. Often people don't want to read a whole article and find it useful browsing an infobox first and then scanning down the article and reading chunks that have been flagged by the infobox. I take what you are saying about the Religion field presenting the problem of needing a never ending set of qualifiers. But remember the infobox is like an executive summary....the "qualifiers" are arrived at when the reader goes to the main article. Some critics may say "Ah, but what about people who only read the infobox and not the article and then go away without the full story?" (I have received this criticism on occasion). My answer is that people are people....we are not here to control their actions and force them to read everything. If you had an article without an infobox, I'm sure there will be many people who will not read the full story anyway! The infobox is just a way of making the article more user-friendly, acts a navigational aid, and whets the appetite as an apperitif for the main article. Scientists, after all, write 1-paragraph summaries at the beginning of every scientific paper. They are well-used to the idea of the executive summary and demand that in their own reading materials. Best regards, bunix 11:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I understand the executive summary aspect. That still doesn't address the, "Oh, there's a religion field, well I'll go find out what this person's grandparents practiced because the historical record doesn't show him practicing anything."  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 13:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I came into this from the Marie Curie article, so my view is definitely colored by her having such an impressive family. It might help us to think about the fields in terms of a prioritized list rather than comparing one field to another.  We might at least find some agreement on what has to be there.  Here's my take:


 * Name
 * image
 * caption
 * date of birth
 * place of birth
 * date of death
 * place of death
 * field
 * Footnotes(1)
 * work institution(2)
 * nationality
 * prizes(3)
 * spouse
 * societies
 * alma mata
 * doctoral advisor
 * doctoral students
 * children
 * website
 * religion.


 * (1)Known for should be included in this field, (2) Work institution should include country location so we can get rid of residence (On Bunzil's reasoning below, I'd change this to put residence above.), (3)I think this should be limited - along the lines of only prizes as significant as the Nobel (or whatever standard), alternatively it could be merged with footnotes, but that could get messy for accomplished scientists.

Looking at this list, I have to say I think its too long and ought to be cut in half. Which would leave out spouse even if my own priorities won everyone over. But cutting out bloat means sacrifices sometimes :-) -- Siobhan Hansa  12:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * My vote would be to cut it down further by removing "prizes" and "societies". I would put "Residence" back in, because a person's main country of residence still stays the same even if he works in a foreign unversity for a couple of years. The idea of the "Residence" field is to clarify where the person mainly lives, so as not to confuse it with his/her nationality (which can often be quite different). This would then leave 18 fields under the caption. Now 18 is pretty unbloated compared to say Infobox Politician which has 34 fields!!!! Why don't those who voted "delete" send out a hit guy to put out a TfD on the Politician box? (Just kidding). Regards, bunix 14:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * On the residence front, is this so valid? A scientist who is suitable for wikipedia isn't going to have just worked for a couple of years. Other than for a few edge cases, aren't their notable work institutions generally going to reflect their residence? -- Siobhan  Hansa  14:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Siobhan, my bad. I didn't explain myself clearly. What I meant was a scientist might work for 30 years in (say) Germany, but have taken 1 or 2 years leave and worked in a US university and then returned to Germany. His/her "residence" field would then only list "Germany" because the US part was a temporary stay. This is an easy example....in reality scientists flit around the world like yoyos working here and there, and its very difficult for the casual reader to work out where the scientist's main domocile is. Hence the need for a "residence" field.....actually maybe we should rename it to "Country of domicile"....would that make the intention clearer? Best regards, bunix 15:39, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I see your reasoning Bunix. That does make the residence field more important.-- Siobhan  Hansa  15:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

And what about religion, it seems to be the source of a lot of debates, was he/was he not Jewish? etc. Scientfically it has little weight. Science is suposed to be a meritocracy after all? --Salix alba (talk) 15:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I really don't like religion in this infobox. It's a too much of a lightning rod for confrontation (nationality is bad enough) and unsourced claims.  And from my perspective it's not something I'd look for about a scientist. -- Siobhan  Hansa  15:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Salix & Siobhan....BTW you both have lovely names! Those "S"'s go well together :-) My reasoning behind the "Religion" field is that people are totally fascinated with the religious position of Scientists. For example Einstein's postion on the existence of God is an endless source of debate till the cows come home. It's wonderful stuff :-) People want to know if a given scientist is an atheist, agnostic or follows some organised religion. Hence the need for this field so people can quickly find it in the infobox and compare with other scientists. Just because "religion" has nothing to do with science, doesn't mean we hide it. Remember this is a biography! The scientist is a human, and the reader wants to know the human side as a lover, spouse, parent, and possible religious adherent...these are all factors that are part of the scientist's story as a human. Everyone want to read about Einstein's lovers and love affairs....even though it is nothing to do with his science....it is part of his humanity. That is what a real biography is all about. Best regards, bunix 17:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Alert
Starting from when this TfD voting phase began, Pjacobi and his suspected sockpuppet 12.74.162.102, see, have been deleting Infobox Scientist from articles without waiting to hear the consensus from this TfD process or without obtaining consensus from the talk pages of the said articles. There have been about 15 deletes and the count is rising. Is there an admin out there who can mediate? bunix 22:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * You should try to nicely talk to him about it first. He doesn't seem to be removing them particularly persistently or maliciously.  WP:AGF  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 02:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * 12.74.162.102 remved the infobox_scientist on Marie Curie. I reverted and posted to the talk page.  User:JdH reverted me and posted this |response.  I don't know if JhD, Pjacobi and 12.74.162.102 are related, but try as I might I don't see a lot of good faith in that talk page comment. -- Siobhan  Hansa  03:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes don't add to article, except for a limited cases where structured information makes sense (species).
 * Infoboxes either provide redundant information or take away information from the prose.
 * Infoboxes make the information in our articles more complicated to be converted into different out formats, let alone accessable by screen readers and braille devices.
 * The "Scientist infobox" is an especially bad case, as it prompted it users to provide non-encyclopedic information for scientists.
 * If you wan't to do web design, design your website. Wikipedia's task is to create content.
 * Pjacobi 11:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear P, (i) See the discussion in the section above where we explain what an infobox adds to an article in terms of user-friendliness, (ii) It is never our intention to take away information from prose. By definition infoboxes add redundant information. If you study [information theory] you will see that some [Redundancy (information theory)|redundancy] is always a good thing and aids comprehension. (iii) Whilst it may present problems for braille readers etc, so do photographs and a bunch other things. Software that does these conversions is improving all the time. Our job is to move forward and the technology will surely catch up with us. (iv) See discussion in the previous section as to why we believe the parameters in the infobox are in fact biographical and hence encyclopedic. See also the discussion (above) on trimming the parameters down to make the infobox shorter...feel free to weigh in and tell us which parameters you specifically object to so these can be discussed for trimming. (v) The infoboxes have been indirectly creating content....they have provided a structure that has often reminded editors of articles that certain aspects of their biographies were missing in the main article. They then went away and fleshed it out. bunix 11:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've seen the discussion ad nauseam at de: some 18 months ago, if I remember right. I'm very happy with the outcome on de: to not use such infoboxes. I hope we'll go the same direction here.
 * For content issues, I also very much disagree with the inclusion of spouse, children and religion. For most scientist's biographies we should not add such information.
 * doctoral_students will have too many entries to be practical for a infobox for quite a number of scientists. For some, even societies and prizes won't fit.
 * For project focused on adding semantic metadata on biographies, as opposed to visual effects, see Persondata.
 * Pjacobi 12:08, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear P, (i) we explained why spouse & children are important parts of any biography (see above). Can you explain why you think they are not? (ii) "Doctoral students" is no problem. The intention here is only to list only the famous ones that have or should have a wiki article themselves. Usually a scientist will be lucky to have more than two. There are cases of more than 5 but these are very rare. At present I have erred on the side of putting in all students....this is with the intention of letting other editors decide which to delete consentually....I did not want to make that decision on my own. I was trying to be considerate in good faith. (iii) I agree with you, let's scrap societies and prizes. This can go in the main article only. I'm with you on that one! We do agree on somethings. Best regards, bunix 15:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Back to step 0
I was accused of not acknowledging the prior discussion. No I've read the entire talk page. I still don't know, what's the purpose of the infobox? Looking for example at Paul Dirac and withstanding the urge to throw it out immediately: Which important thing does the infobox tells the reader, that's already in section 0? --Pjacobi 12:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The American and Swiss connections aren't mentioned in the introductory section. But infoboxes aren't about content, they're about information design.  Take for instance, Marian Rejewski, Barbara McClintock, and Brian Greene, all scientists whose biographies have been featured in the biography portal - these have virtually all the information that would be in an infobox_scientist featured in the introduction.  But it's in different orders and surrounded by other information.  This isn't bad writing, and good prose shouldn't be aandoned for an artificail order of facts.  But the lack of consistency in order, and the adherence solely to prose makes it harder to find and compare particular pieces of information.   The infoboxes don't make articles a better read for someone who wants an indepth look, but they can highlight major achievements for those who find prose hard to scan.


 * So, what's it all about? It's about making the most notable facts about people's lives consistently available to all sorts of readers. -- Siobhan  Hansa  13:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Dear P, I agree with Siobhan's comments. Further to these, here is my spin on it: the purpose of an infobox is to provide a quick summary. In a sense it is a reader's navigational aid that provides "mental hooks" when reading the full article. That is what all summaries do. That is what an "abstract" does at the beginning of a scientific paper. It is a standard well-recognised writer's tool. I recommend you scan down the list of people who voted keep and see their reasons why they find the infobox useful. I think the root of the problem is that you are assuming "redundancy" is a bad thing. Redundancy is in the nature of providing an executive summary. That's what summaries do. Think about it. Then I think you'll see that some redundancy is not all that bad. Best regards, bunix 14:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Lead section. --Pjacobi 14:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What's your point? -- Siobhan Hansa  14:46, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Dear P, I think I see your point. You are saying the lead is a summary or abstract of the article. So there is redundancy in the lead....so this means you are happy with redundancy! However, let's not confuse the infobox with the lead...these are two quite different types of summary. The lead is in prose form and usually won't go into any detail on (say) all the universities the scientist worked at, the spouse etc etc. That's all too much there. However the infobox is able to provide a summary of these more fine grained facts because it list things out as one-word items. People find short one-word lists of key facts a very useful article navigational aid. That's why there so many thousands of infoboxes on the wikipedia...people love 'em! Now I can see your next objection is going to be that the date of birth/death comes first in the lead and first in the infobox and that is too much redundancy to bear. Sure. When I read any text book, the title of the book is repeated at the header of every page. That's lots of redundancy! I live with it. It appears that all wiki people infoboxes in all categories seem to follow that convention. So I personally just live it, like I live with text books. Personally, when I read a wiki article I am often in a hurry and skim till I find the fact I'm looking for...I only read a whole article if I'm very interested. Often I get what I'm looking for from an infobox without even needing the article. So I don't even need to look at the lead. Sometimes I check the infobox first as a way of seeing if I want to read the article in the first place. Sometimes, a fact in an infobox strikes my curiosity and then I go and read the whole article. Sometimes I click on the "doctoral advisor" of the scientist listed in the infobox, then I click on that person's advisor and so on....this takes me on a wonderful historical tour noting the influences and connections. This tour is impossible in a conventional encyclopedia and illustrates the unique power of the wikipedia. Best regards, bunix 14:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Undermining of TfD Process
It appears that Pjacobi is still continuing a mass delete of these infoboxes. Doing this in the middle of a TfD discussion appears somewhat underhanded... this is because removal of the template removes the TfD announcement tag from those pages. This therefore undermines the TfD process, and hides it from those editors who did not see the pages earlier. It unfairly deletes the TfD tag. Please can an admin look into this violation and revert the boxes so that the TfD tags properly appear on those pages that are affected. Or alternatively it would be nice if Pjacobi would consider doing this himself, so as to maintain the validity of the TfD process. bunix 13:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Deleting the infobox from the article immediately notifies the articles' watchers. So they can protest at the article talk page or raise their voice at TfD. --Pjacobi 14:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Given what happened on the Marie Curie page I think you're being disingenuos. -- Siobhan Hansa  14:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear P, And how will they know there is a TfD going on? Where is the TfD announcement tag on those pages, now that the box has gone? Please explain how the TfD process has not been undermined. Best regards, bunix 14:30, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you ever notice the "History" button? --Pjacobi 14:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear P, You are being naughty and disingenuous. The rule is that a TfD tag has to be visible on the front page of the article. Making it not visible (by whatever means) undermines the fairness of the TfD process. I think it would be a good idea if you could reinstate the boxes, otherwise a higher admin may come in and declare that this process has been biassed and reject the claim that "delete" won the consensus. So it might be in your best interests to put them back and let the process run fairly. Y'know, and if that means more "keep" votes come in as a result of you putting the boxes back, there is nothing to fear....the articles as they appear today will look totally different in 20 years time...they are all out of our hands in the long run....it's in the hands of the next generation. So let's be friends, have a beer, and let the votes fairly run their course. In the end, none of us ever have any wiki-permanence or wiki-omnipresence:-). It's all quicksand. Better to live with a clear conscience . Best regards, bunix 15:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, this is pure nonsense. It would even have been better, to remove all infoboxes, then propose the orphaned template for deletion. Whether an infobox goes into an article will be decided by the article's editors, if no guidelines or policies are established.
 * Also, the vote will most likely end with no consensus, just because the infobox is still used by some articles.
 * As per the higher admin issue: Please feel free to bring this to WP:AN or WP:RfC or whatever step in conflict resulotion you'd consider fitting.
 * Pjacobi 15:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Goodness gracious, Pjacobi. There is a reasonable request for you to desist from deletion until the TfD is complete. I admit that I would not have noticed the TfD if you hadn't deleted the infobox. However, I would have noticed the change a whole lot sooner (i.e. without historical digging) if you had simply placed a message on the talk page indicating that you believed that the infobox served no useful purpose. Bejnar 16:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Pjacobi should careful look into the articles from which he removes the infoboxes, so that no important information that is solely in the infobox is removed from the articles. If anyone looks through the articles where Pjacobi has removed infoboxes from, and notices that important information has been lost, he should reinsert the infobox.
 * Fred-Chess 18:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I checked, and found the only relevant information, which needed inserting into the article, to be the places of birth and death. I explicitely not checked whether spouse, childs, religion and students were in the prose. If that information was only added by the infobox insertion, I'll vote against its notability. --Pjacobi 18:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Fred, Pls can you comment on the point that the removal of the boxes also removes the TfD announcement tag from visibility? If TfD tags are removed from visibility, isn't that a bit like "vote rigging"? bunix 21:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's move on and reach consensus on the individual fields so we can trim the box
Here is a list of all fields with a reminder of their use and why they were put there. If you vote here, you are essentially voting to keep the whole template in abridged form. (If you are someone who doesn't want the template at all, then you should vote on the TfD page, not here). Please vote keep or delete underneath each heading. Hopefully we can then reach a consensus on how to best trim down the box.

Field#1: Birth Date


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert date of birth: month, day, year
 * Reason: It's here because this is standard to all people infoboxes.
 * Keep. It's standard. Sets period context. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep because it's standard. Would like to see date and place in the same box for space reasons though (some of the more interesting stuff gets pushed down the page, and it would be nice to have more above the fold!). -- Siobhan  Hansa  11:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Michael Kinyon 05:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#2: Birth Place


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert place of birth: town, city, country
 * Reason: It's here because this is standard to all people infoboxes.
 * Keep. It's standard. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as standard - but see comment for Date of birth. -- Siobhan Hansa  11:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Michael Kinyon 05:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#3: Death Date


Result is Keep.
 * Mode:Insert date of death: month, day, year
 * Reason: It's here because this is standard to all people infoboxes.
 * Keep. It's standard. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep As standard. As with birth, I'd like to see place of death and date of death together. -- Siobhan Hansa  11:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Michael Kinyon 05:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#4: Death Place


Result is Keep.
 * Mode:Insert place of death: town, city, country
 * Reason: It's here because this is standard to all people infoboxes.
 * Keep. It's standard. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as standard. See comment in date of death above. -- Siobhan  Hansa  11:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Michael Kinyon 05:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#5: Residence


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert countries where scientist has lived. If some are minor, select key countries only
 * Reason: Main country of domicile can often be different from nationality. This quickly unwraps the potential confusion for a lot of readers.
 * Keep. It navigates readers for distinguishing domicile and nationality.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove should be obvious from associated institution.--Peta
 * Comment. Peta, it's not so obvious where the main domicile is when there's more than one insitution across counties. bunix 00:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Then the person probably has had multiple residences (across space and time) and this will become another bloated field.--Peta 00:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Not usually that many. The are over 100 articles out there with the template...if you browse through a few by clicking on "links" on the TfD page you'll see that they are not bloated at all! (Some are temporarily bloated, awaiting trimming from local editors...but don't let that affect your opinion of the template in general). Remember the "Politician Infobox" has 34 fields!! We are doing really well compared to that box and I notice you haven't put out a TfD on the politicians :-)bunix 09:15, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep I see the importance, but think other things beat it out. -- Siobhan Hansa  11:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I know cases where this would clarify things, but in all others it's pretty redundant.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Sometimes the institution(s) isn't/aren't enough, so it doesn't hurt to have this one. Michael Kinyon 20:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I agree with Siobhan  Bejnar 16:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#6: Nationality


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert nationality of scientist
 * Reason: It's here because this is a standard piece of bibliographic data.
 * Keep. It's standard. And people like to know where science 'stars' are originally from.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove there is already an extensive category system fro nationality.--Peta 00:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. While there may be a category, those are at the bottom of the page. The idea of the infobox is it is at the top of the page and provides a consistent structured checklist for people who need to scan down it quickly. Some redundancy is a good thing. bunix 09:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep as standard. -- Siobhan Hansa  12:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep This can be as much a POV lightning rod as religion sometimes, and difficult to untangle for some (just last week I came across a scientist alternately identified as German, Hungarian, and Czech), but it's something everyone wants to know right away.   &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. It doesn't matter if everyone wants to know it, but it is standard. Michael Kinyon 05:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#7: Field


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: State if they are a physicist, chemist, biologist, mathematician, engineer....
 * Reason: If a reader is unfamiliar with that scientist this gives a fast snapshot of what broad field the scientist is working in.
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation'. Remember, not all readers are at the education level of the editors who wrote the article! bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. There is something seriously wrong if the first sentence of an article doesn't state what the person did.--Peta 00:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. People often scan the infobox only for making quick comparisons between articles and also as an entré before they decide to invest time in reading the whole article. Editors often make the mistake of assuming the average reader is at the same level of education and has the same reading behaviours as them :-) Try to see things more broadly guys! bunix 00:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response.It is also covered by categories.--Peta 00:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response.Disagree. (i) They are too limiting when a scientist crosses more than one field, and (ii) they are way down the bottom of the page anyway.bunix 00:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. First sentence and bottom of the page, pretty hard to miss in either case.--Peta 00:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. Notable scientists tend to be polymaths. Also, this info is usually in the first sentence of the lead ("X was/is a 19th/20th century immunologist/nuclear physicist/..."). No need for it in the template. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. In reply to both Samsara and Peta, the idea is that there are a large group of people who scan the infobox only. The idea is the infobox is a consistent checklist. Having the field in there is very useful for a fast snapshot. bunix 09:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Case for bloat still stands. - User:Samsara (talk• contribs) 22:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Everything is a case for a bloat. We are trying to prioritise here. Other fields will get the chop by consensus and thus cure any bloat...I doubt this one will get chopped because it is fundamental to scientific biography.bunix 23:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep If you're searching for a scientist you're not sure you've got the name right on, this is one of the first things you'll want to check. To me it's a classic example of the value the infobox provides.-- Siobhan  Hansa  12:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep The first sentence should establish this solidly, but I suppose it should be in the box, too.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. Pre-20th century scientists tended to do a lot, so the field will tend to bloat in those cases. However, I can see some use for it. Michael Kinyon 05:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Take your point, but there usually is a compact term to get you out of trouble such as "natural philosophy" and the like. The infobox only contains highlights, and the reader then refers to the main article for expanded discussion.bunix 00:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#8: Work Institution


Result is Keep.
 * Mode: Insert key companies and/or universities where they are/were employed. Leave out minor ones.
 * Reason: A reader usually wants to know where this scientist did his/her stuff.
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation'.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Scientists, especially modern day ones, are frequently enabled by their institutions as much as by their genius. I think this is an important field. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as optional field. &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. This one is obvious. Michael Kinyon 05:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#9: Alma Mater


Result is No Consensus, therefore Keep. (3 for, 5 against)


 * Mode: Insert universities where scientist obtained degrees
 * Reason: Key biographical fact to assist understanding early influences
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation' and readers usually want to find this quickly. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Suggestion this might be more useful if merged with the advisor field.--Peta 00:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Good idea. I concur.--ragesoss 00:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I like the way you think, but it doesn't work as a person's undergrad Alma Mater may be different to their Postgrad Alma Mater. Thus I vote to keep.bunix 09:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment.I should also add in connection with this, that while PhDs are issued by universities, there are cases where the recipient technically does their thesis work outside the university - and in connection with somebody who also isn't from the university (this set up is pretty common in Australia - and I'm assuming occurs elsewhere). How would the box reflect such a situation? Alma mater implies attendance, which may not be the case.--Peta 02:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. It's not a problem really. For example, Einstein's Alma Mater was ETH, but his doctoral advisor was at Univ. Zurich. So "ETH" goes in the Alma Mater field and "Alfred Kleiner" goes in the Advisor field. No problemo. This is another good reason to separate those two fields and not merge them. The Alma Mater is always the issuing university...if the person did not actually attend and did the work externally then this will be explained in the full article. bunix 09:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment.It is also a problem of terminology, most cultures don't use the term.--Peta 11:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Cultures? This is the English language wiki site! "Alma mater" is well understood by ozzies, yanks, and pommies....there is no other equivalent term as far as I know. So I'm afraid we are stuck with "Alma Mater."bunix 14:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Neutral. Less important than PhD supervisor, and fairly unspecific. It would be better to name the research group or similar affiliation (e.g. "Nuclear physics lab at Berkeley", "Vienna Circle", "Miller research group", "Bay Area Biosystematists", etc.) - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 07:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Not really. Alma Mater is very specific. Research group is too fine-grained and won't have a wiki link. bunix 09:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response.Give me an example where there is a direct causal link between alma mater and scientific contribution, and where there is no other institution where the scientist could have made the same contribution. It seems that the immediate environment (i.e. research group, institution, circle) is much more influential. Note that I don't consider "because X was also there" a good counterproof to my argument. It would have to be something that is described in further detail in the article about the institution to merit a link. Specialised equipment is the only case I can think of, and this usually has its own articles, e.g. Large Hadron Collider. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response.The "Alma Mater" is like the badge that represents the groups within it. Individual groups are way too fine-grained for the infobox. So to use an analogy its like saying the guy drove a Ford rather than going into the exact model number, engine capacity, and whether it had leather seats or not. bunix 23:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak delete I'm not so much opposed to the field as opposed to bloat. I think Alma Mater can verge towards trivia.  Scientists who did important work during their PhD or undergraduate time can have these institutions listed under work institutions.  -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. If kept then Rename to a more international name.  Presumably this refers to where they did their PhD, but I feel that the Doctoral Advisor is more important.  Anyone interested can check the text - I don't feel that it is important enough to include in the infobox. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. (i) You can't get more international than using Latin :-), and (ii) Alma Mater means any university you graduated from....so it applies to any degree, not just PhD. I think it is very important to keep in the infobox. The public are greatly interested in quickly looking up who went where...especially if they have kids they are thinking of sending to university :-) bunix 14:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. Since there is usually more than one. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Yeah, like one or two at most. No big problem.bunix 23:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. I think doctoral advisor means more than alma mater.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. Disagree. If you look up a footballer, the first thing you want to know is what teams he played with. Same with a scientist. The Alma Mater is an important part of the scientist's "team badge" so to speak. The public want to be able to easily find this stuff without trawling. As per Bender's comment about "usually more than one", just browse through the existing boxes in articles and you'll see the Alma Mater field is not all bloated. There's usually one or two universities in there and that's it.bunix 21:19, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. You're comparing science to a sport. &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 16:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Sure. I see scientists as 'heroes' as in any field of endeavour...let's not get too precious and fall into the trap of misplaced exhaltation.bunix 18:30, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Neutral. It is not as useful as doctoral advisor, but it doesn't hurt, I guess. Michael Kinyon 05:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Rglovejoy 20:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Remove I agree that doctoral advisor and students mean more than alma mater, but it does help understand the scientist's background.  Hopefully it will be in the full text. Bejnar 16:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Indeed it is useful and it should be in the full text too (as for all other infobox fields). However, an entry in the infobox is extremely handy for (a) picking out the Alma Mater fast, and (b) easily comparing different biographies. The public love to be able to quickly find Alma Mater to verify if the famous scientist went to the university that they are sending their kids to. We cannot misunderestimate this popular demand. bunix 02:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#10: Doctoral Advisor


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert doctoral advisor. If only to masters level, then use masters advisor. In special cases can insert other major influence.
 * Reason: Scientific 'ancestry' is part of understanding biographical influences as well as being of popular interest.
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation' and provides a quick link to a related biography.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment implies a very dull scientific genealogy, scientists have a variety of influenes during their careers, the extent of any influence should be described in the text - in the context of the persons career.--Peta 02:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. All stuff in the infobox demands expansion in the main article. So there is no problem. There is a sense in which the infobox gives editors a checklist to remind them if the article is lacking in key areas. The infobox is an executive summary. The significance of the doctoral advisor is that it is usually the first major influence. So it is "anchor information." Also there is great interest in scientific genealogy via the supervisor.bunix 23:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. More detail can be given in main text. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 07:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep I like the navigation/web-building aspect, but am concerned about the limiting nature of the field title. (Despite the mode "instructions", because of the field's title I think this will be used to list doctoral advisors over more influential mentors). -- Siobhan Hansa  12:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep This field provides a very useful navigational tool. Without it, the entire template becomes redundant. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for reasons above. &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for understanding scientific influences (not because of popular interest). Michael Kinyon 05:27, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field#11: Doctoral Students


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: If any, insert their key doctoral students. Does not have to be exhaustive. The intention is any students that aren't notable enough to have their own wikipage should be deleted.
 * Reason: Scientific 'ancestry' is part of understanding biographical influences as well as being of popular interest.
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation' and provides a quick link to a related biography.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. For some scientists, this is going to be a very long list of individuals, only some of whom will be notable in their own right. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 07:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. See notes above under Mode. Only notable ones are included....cases of more than two notables are very rare. At present, some boxes have erred on the side of temporarily bloating this as a "place holder" to give editors a fair chance to reach consensus on which are notable. But its only temporary. bunix 09:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. Difficult to maintain as bar for notability is lowered/notability of individuals is increased by subsequent event (e.g. rediscovery of importance of their work). - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Should be no problem. Wikipedia is organic. Future editors will always add and delete stuff to reflect new information. That's the power of wiki.bunix 18:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep If we're going to have Doctoral Advisor for navigational purposes, then having Doctoral Students allows navigation in the reverse direction. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. This will take some vigiliance to keep out the non-notables, but I think it adds to the big picture enough.  In a sense, one of the most important things a scientist does is train future scientists.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. No diligence needed. Any that do not have their own wiki article can be commented out. If they are notable, then they probably have their own article. Your problem is nice because it is a self-correcting one. Once a wiki article appears, that student can be commented back in. bunix 23:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep per Laura Scudder. Michael Kinyon 05:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #12: Known for


Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert key topics/areas of science that made them famous.
 * Reason: Very useful for readers who are unfamiliar with the scientist to quickly find keywords relating to the scientist's area of acheivement.
 * Keep. Important for reader 'navigation'.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove to variable with respect to POV. It also seems to be another major source of excess detail in the temaplte making it longer than is really required.--Peta 00:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I'd encourage you to browse through the 100 biographies that contain this template. You'll see in 95% of cases there is a nice neat descriptor, eg. "Radioactivity" for Marie Curie. I don't see how that is POV. In some cases there are a few extra descriptors when the person has been prolific. But it is upto local editors to trim those down to the highlights. The infobox is not meant to be exhaustive...it is a summary of highlights as an entré to taste before reading the main article.bunix 00:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. Peta's rationale does not ring true for me. Should we be taking features away because some people can't use them? Because some people feel obliged to fill every field? This seems to point to weakness in the Wikipedia process rather than problems with the template itself. The kinds of problems mentioned by Peta should be resolved by editorial discussions imho. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 07:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Again, to me, this is exactly what the infobox is good for. The instructions may need to include strong guidance on limiting size though.  -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Perhaps rename to "Achievements" Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply. It's a nice idea, but I still prefer "Known for." For example several scientists are known for their work in Quantum Mechanics, but it would be incorrect to label them as "acheiving" quantum mechanics.  I think "known for" says what we really mean. It's less confusing. bunix 22:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. Helpful if they're known for "discovering tellerium", less so for "extending quantum mechanics".  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I respectfully disagree. "Extending quantum mechanics" is very helpful. If I had not heard of that scientist in the first place, it immediately places the area of expertise in the QM area, as opposed to a 1001 other possibilities. The usefulness is clear. bunix 22:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Neutral. It might work, it might not. Michael Kinyon 05:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #13: Societies


Result is Delete.


 * Mode: Insert scientific societies where they have risen to level of Fellow.
 * Reason: Provides a quick lookup for a item scientific biographical interest.
 * Delete. Possibly not of great value/interest to the average reader. This is better off in the main article.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Mode and Reason. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove most scientists will belong to at least 5 societies, quite useless and duplicates categories tat exist for several major organizations.--Peta 00:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove, per bunix.--ragesoss 00:45, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete This is one of those things where I wish there was more interest. I love this stuff, but I don't think there's enough of an audience for it to justify being in the infobox. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. These can be mentioned in the text, and categories exist for fellows of most major scientific societies.  We need to cut down many of these extraneous fields to make the template more streamlined. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Most notable modern scientists have a long list of these.  It doesn't say anything particularly unique about them.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove Laura Scudder, Blaup. --Starwiz 04:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. The article is better for the important stuff, such as societies to which the scientist was elected as an honor, as opposed to just those professional organizations to which the scientist belongs anyway. Michael Kinyon 05:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #14: Prizes


Result is No Consensus, therefore Keep. (5 for, 5 against)


 * Mode: Insert notable prizes and medals
 * Reason: Provides a quick lookup for a item scientific biographical interest.
 * Delete. Possibly not of great value/interest to the average reader. This is better off in the main article. The average reader probably is only aware of the 'Nobel prize' and something of this magnitude can be indicated in the Footnote field, perhaps. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Mode and Reason. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, major prizes have categories.--Peta 00:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove, per bunix.--ragesoss 00:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep I think non-science readers are more interested in prizes that are well known in the mainstream - the sorts of things that get into mainstream papers - than they are in institutions and doctoral advisors. For someone who isn't that familiar with the science world, this is a key piece of information. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove Having these in the infobox doesn't really provide much additional benefit, and we need to streamline the template. Perhaps reserve to Nobel Prize equivalents, but these would be mentioned in the opening couple of sentences of the article anyway. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. The average reader probably wants to see that the work received recognition, whether they've heard of the prize or not.  The field should stick to the most significant prizes though rather than trying to be comprehensive.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. This is part of the scientist's notability. It doesn't matter whether readers know the prizes or not; they can look up the ones they don't recognize. I find it baffling that anyone taking this seriously as a scientist infobox would want to keep spouse, children, or religion, but delete prizes. I agree with Laura Scudder that the field should stick to a few significant prizes. Michael Kinyon 05:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - per Mode and Reason. - Serinde 07:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #15: Spouse


Result is Delete (2 for, 10 against)


 * Mode: Insert spouse(s) and year(s) of marriage
 * Reason: There is an intense public demand to see the human side of the scientist, which is part of the human story of necessity in any biography. This field provides a quick lookup of information normally hard to find.
 * Keep. Important for reader article 'navigation' and demanded by public.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove demanded by what public? Should be in the body of the text, multiple spouses bloat the box.--Peta 00:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. This is primarily important in context, not free-floating.--ragesoss 00:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove per Peta. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:11, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. The public wants to see the human side in any biography. This is significant. Zsa Zsa Gabor was not a scientist, and so far in 100 articles we have never encountered more than 3 spouses (and even that was rare). There is no significant bloat here.bunix 09:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak delete Not against the field, I agree with the rationale, just don't want the box to be too large.-- Siobhan Hansa  12:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove How many scientists have wives with wikipedia articles? The only reason I can think of for keeping this field is that its in the main Biography template. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Rarely in practice will the spouse also have an article.  I don't think a name all by its lonesome adds anything particularly.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Do not underestimate the public's passion for the human story in every biography. Finding spousal details is something the public wants to find out. From the viewpoint of the infobox being a summary and a navigational aid to the reader, it is important to put the spouse name in there. It helps the reader know the name they are looking for when they go onto reading the article.bunix 21:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. Remember, this is a scientist infobox; rarely is the scientist's spouse scientifically significant. In the case that the spouse is a scientifically significant figure, surely he or she will be mentioned early in the article.  This infobox is supposed to contain information that's germane to all, or at least most scientists; I don't think the scientist's spouse fits that criterion. --Starwiz 04:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. The scientist is a human. For example, the public are intensely interested in finding out about Einstein's wives and love letters. The person's humanity is equally part of the biography as the person's science career.bunix 17:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. As I argue in the Religion field discussion below, responding to "the public's passion" is not what we do here. Michael Kinyon 05:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Strong disagree. Public passion is what wiki is all about. Wikipedia is written by the proletariat, for the proletariat. Power to the people. Highly educated editors have to be careful of not being too elitist. bunix 21:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete scientist are not monarchs. If this information is relevant should be mentioned in the main text of the article - Serinde 07:23, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Disagree. People are every bit as interested in all aspects of a Scientist's biography as that of a Monarch's biography. One could also argue that scientists are the Monarch's of this technological age. bunix 09:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Field #16: Children


Result is Delete (2 for, 9 against)


 * Mode: Insert names of children
 * Reason: There is an intense public demand to see the human side of the scientist, which is part of the human story of necessity in any biography. This field provides a quick lookup of information normally hard to find.
 * Keep. Important for reader article 'navigation' and demanded by public.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove this is something for the text. Not relevant to an infobox unless the child is significantly notable to have an article.--Peta 00:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for that reason. Again, this should be weighed by the editors. Field will be useful if children notable. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Simply names and numbers will convey no important information to the reader.--ragesoss 00:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. As with all infobox entries they act as an entré to entice the reader to read the artcle. Seeing the names of the children act as mental "place holders" for when reading the article. bunix 10:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete There's too much else that's more important. -- Siobhan Hansa  12:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong delete. These aren't even in the main Biography template.  Multiple children simply bloat the infobox. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove for the same reasons as above. &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response: Again the intention is more navigational for the article rather than providing stand-alone information. Some information is conveyed when the reader sees at a quick glance the number of children.bunix 21:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong remove. If you're going to list the scientist's children, you might as well write the whole article in infobox format; this takes the infobox way too far. Again, in the rare case in which the scientist's children are important, they'll be mentioned within the article.  But few people go to Albert Einstein looking for a listing of his kids; that kind of thing really doesn't belong in the infobox. --Starwiz 04:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. My argument below regarding the Religion field applies here as well. Michael Kinyon 05:10, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is normally not vital information about a scientist - Serinde 07:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response: True. But this is a biography. The scientist is a human, not just a scientist. The public want well-rounded biographical profiles that show famous people in the context of their humanity as well as their career. For example, if you look up a book such as Who's Who spouse and offspring data are always included. That's because it is standard for bios and people want that stuff. Who's Who has been running for years. bunix 10:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #17: Religion
<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style="background-color: #e3f9df; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">

Result is No Consensus so Keep. (3 for, 10 against). I'm going to stick my neck out for Keep on this, but recommend that 99% of the time this field be left blank. Only use it where they have strong religious views which related to their scientific achievement. Bluap 17:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Mode: Insert religious belief system/affiliation
 * Reason: There is an intense public demand to see the human side of the scientist and the scientist's religious belief system (if any), which is part of the human story of necessity in any biography. This field provides a quick lookup of information normally hard to find.
 * Keep. Normally hard to otherwise find and of significant public interest.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete categories cover this, there is also an issues with biographies of living people and verification of their religious beliefs.--Peta 00:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. If verification is a problem, field should be left blank. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Too much other stuff is more important. Also, the reality of wikipedia is that this becomes a lightning rod for POV pushing and unverified claims.  Until that settles down I'd prefer it not be included. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong delete Largely irrelevant to their scientific achievement. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Don't forget this is a biography. This means looking at the person as a human as well as a scientist. The public are intensely interested in (say) Einstein's lovers, wives, children and religious position. This is all good stuff for a good human story. The science is only part of the story. bunix 14:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. This is asking for trouble.  If religion was important enough in a scientist's life for him to have publicly discussed his beliefs, then that should be discussed in detail in the article body.  Otherwise, there's no good reason to try to force a label on someone.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. We are not forcing a label. Only merely stating what is known. It then acts as navigational aid when the reader goes to the main article. In some rare cases if the religion is "unknown" or "debated", simply stating that in the infobox helps the reader from wasting trawling time. The public love finding out if a scientist was a hard core atheist or was a practising Catholic (for example). Popular demand urges us to take this seriously.bunix 21:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove I'm with Laura Scudder and Blaup on this one, yet again. --Starwiz
 * Delete. The "public is interested in"/"public demand" argument that bunix has used here and in other fields does not wash. The infobox should focus on what is important about the scientist as a scientist. If "the public" wants to find out if so-and-so was an atheist or believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, they can read the article (if the information is there and is important to understanding the scientist's notability) or go elsewhere. Michael Kinyon 05:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I disagree with the focus on a 'scientist as a scientist.' The scientist is a human, and a good biography integrates the whole person. The public do no want biographies of cardboard figures ...they want to see biographies of real people in their humanity along with their idiosyncrasies, flaws and foibles.  bunix 17:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. Which entirely misses the point. The infobox should focus on the scientist as scientist. A good biography infobox, whether for scientists or for people who purposely wear mismatched socks, is not where one reads the "warts and all" description of a person. That is the purpose of the article. Michael Kinyon 23:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I agree that "warts" can go to the main article. However, I respectfully disagree that "religion" is a wart or that the infobox is only for scientific aspects. For example, the person's place of death is there and has nothing to do with their science. However, it has everything to do with good biographical data. Likewise, religion is an important piece of biographical data. There is intense public interest in the belief systems of scientists and their influence on them. Also it would be incorrect to say that (say) Newton's religious beliefs had zero influence on his science. They in fact did! It is all part of the fascinating web of intrigue when unravelling a scientific biography.bunix 02:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. Such information can be mention in the article itself but I see no reason why this should be kept in the infobox - Serinde 07:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. It's useful in the infobox because it provides a quick snapshot of the person. This info is normally hard to find in the article. People are intensely interested in the religion (or lack thereof) of scientists...an infobox entry enables quick comparison with other scientists.bunix 10:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete It's a personal matter that doesn't have a lot to do with the research they conduct. Besides, for a lot of scientists, religious belief is not something that can be easily catergorized.  Take someone like Steven Weinberg, who is an atheist but was brought up in the Jewish faith and is an outspoken advocate of Zionism.  Rglovejoy 20:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. I disagree that difficulty of categorisation is a reason to delete. Rather, it is a reason to become creative! It is clear that in the Weinberg case that the solution would be to simply put "atheist" in the infobox, as that is his position. Then expansion on his Jewish upbringing would be something the main article would be responsible for. IMHO, I see no big problem. As for the point about it being not being related his science...remember a biography is not just about a person's career, it's about their life! Ignoring human interest is not what the average reader wants. A biographical article is a snapshot of the whole person...the career being a major but not exclusive aspect. bunix 00:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove We have to shorten the box somewhat. Bejnar 16:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove Unlikely it would be important enough for a mention in their infobox. If on the rare occasion this is the case, it will be discussed in detail throughout the article. darkliight[&pi;alk] 15:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I am totally against this madness of including religious affiliation. If we follow down this path, we might endup including zodiac signs, dietary preference, sexual orientation and other such minor details of the lives of these people which significantly masks the achievements of these people as well as their contribution to science. To me nothing except the scientific era (classical, Newtonian, Darwinian, pre-chrosomal discovery, after human genome project etc. as per relavant to the field of science) and their contribution to science are the only important data that require an infobox as these are the facts of their lives that need to be highlighted. We do not need to know the brand of Einstein's toothpaste to know about him!--Eukesh 19:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete It's a personal matter that could cause trouble if 'we' (wikipedians) assign such a statement to a person and they happen to disagree. Though religion is relevant, a person's religious affiliation is not an objective fact (they might disagree with the label itself, others in that religion may disagree, and so on.) so we must base any discussion of religious belief on what the individual is known to have said on the subject.Sojourner001 18:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Field #18: Erdos Number
<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style="background-color: #e3f9df; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">

Result is Delete.


 * Mode: Insert Erdos number
 * Reason: Provides one measure of 20th century influence. Influential 20th century scientists usually have a low Erdos number. Probably will get more and more popular, so better to include now to predict future public demand.
 * Delete. Possibily too esoteric. bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep if this does have reasonably widespread recognition. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete---Peta 00:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove - no way.--ragesoss 00:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Important in emergent fields across the social sciences (complexity theory, etc.), as well as pop-culture interest. If you delete it, a lot of painstakingly compiled data will be missing. I really don't think removing the number would improve the article in any way. Omphaloscope
 * Response. Surely this could be handled via categories or some other scheme. For most scientists, it's completely trivial. --Starwiz 04:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

talk 03:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. This one really is too serendipitous. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Trivia. Also, interest is limited to a pretty niche audience, which (in my opinion) is not what an infobox should be catering to. -- Siobhan Hansa  12:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak Remove Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Useless. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. I appreciate these numbers, but they don't belong in an infobox.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove doesn't measure anything useful. Erdos number is not a measure of importance in mathematics. --Salix alba (talk) 19:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong remove Entirely trivial; this doesn't belong in an article summary by any stretch of the imagination. --Starwiz 04:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete obviously. Sheesh. Michael Kinyon 04:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #19: Handidness
<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style="background-color: #e3f9df; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">

Result is Delete.


 * Mode: Insert whether left or right handed or ambidextrous
 * Reason: There is public interest in the relationship between left-handedness and mathematical ability. Provides quick visible lookup of information that is normally hard to find.
 * Keep. This is fascinating to do something a little different sometimes and not be too conservative. Wikipedia is more sexy than Britannica :-) bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Not key information. Should be in the text if relevant. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete trivial.--Peta 00:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove - this implicitly places undue weight on the supposed relationships between handedness and cognitive abilities.--ragesoss 00:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. This *may* deserve an article in its own right, which could include a list of well-known right- vs. left-handed people. Inclusion in a template in this manner corresponds to a sample size of 1, not informative. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete At best this is trivia. At worst, given the lack of uncontroversial, well accepted scientific theories about handedness and genius, this is OR and POV pushing.  I'm very strongly against it's inclusion. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Strong remove Bluap 15:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove If this is important, why not tag the article with a category label? --Starwiz 04:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per almost everybody. I am going to assume bunix was kidding. Michael Kinyon 04:54, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Field #20: Webpage
<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style="background-color: #e3f9df; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">

Result is Delete.
 * Mode: Insert a homepage (if alive) or a key informative website (if now dead)
 * Reason: Useful quick link.
 * Keep. This is pretty standard across all people infoboxes.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep if standard. Otherwise external links covers it. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete not included in any people infoboxes that I can think of, works fine in the obvious external links section.--Peta 00:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove - this belongs in external links.--ragesoss 00:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. Prefer external links. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:04, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Many other "people infoboxes" appear to have this field. It keeps the box self-contained and provides a quick link to the reader. It's worth keeping. People don't always want to look at the article....they want to go straight to the infobox and click on links there.


 * Delete I went through the templates at Infobox templates, People and found only two had a website field. Since there is a place to put this in external links that is standard on every page and it's not standard in bio infoboxes, I'm not in favor on keeping. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove These can be listed elsewhere in the article. Having it in the infobox is unnecessary. Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. An infobox is like a kitchen pantry of goodies. There's no point having some goodies in the garage. They need to be centralised in the pantry, otherwise it slows you down when you are cooking dinner.bunix 14:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Remove. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove. I would look for this first in External links.  &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Ah, but that is "you." When designing infoboxes you have to think like the average newbie. The infobox helps newbies navigate quickly. It is very useful to have a quick link to the main website in the infobox. Many other infoboxes in other projects do this...why are we different?bunix 21:44, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Because we are not lemmings. Indeed, we should set a good example for other infobox writers. Michael Kinyon 23:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Response. Giggle. I guess you haven't explained why it is 'good'.bunix 21:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment I don't particularly mind the webpage in the infobox, but I wouldn't object to its removal. If you're going to keep it, however, I'd prefer to see it formatted like "Website" or "Walter Lewin's Website" rather than how it is now, where the URL runs off the sides of the infobox if it's too long. --Starwiz 04:36, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Change it per Starwiz. Michael Kinyon 04:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've changed my mind. Delete per everyone who's mentioned looking in 'External links' first. Michael Kinyon 23:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Remove I like having the person's web page at the head of 'External links'.

Field #21: Footnotes
<div class="boilerplate metadata vfd" style="background-color: #e3f9df; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA;">

Result is Keep.


 * Mode: Insert any extra details here. Idea is not to populate this field very often. Only use in special cases where some special thing merits addition.
 * Reason: Useful for a quick explanation if there is something out of the ordinary.
 * Keep. This is pretty standard across all people infoboxes.bunix 23:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per above. Tyrenius 00:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Have seen it used to great affect on articles. -- Siobhan  Hansa  12:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Bluap 13:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bender235 14:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Laura Scudder &#9742; 15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's the most interesting part of some infoboxes. Michael Kinyon 05:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Birth / Death Information
I would like to suggest that instead of using the full date of birth, we simply use the birth year. This should allow us to have the birth date and place on a single line, reducing the total length of the template while still presenting the same information. (The full date of birth can still be mentioned in the opening paragraph of the article.) The template is designed to give a brief summary and, as such, I feel that a simple birth year is best. The same logic can be applied to the date of death. Bluap 17:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a nice idea. However when one looks at all other people templates the full date is always in there. I feel we should retain that for consistency. See, for example, where the template manages this on a single line. We could copy that structure. bunix 18:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

New Template Draft for Discussion
Guided by the (above) discussion, I have trimmed down the template. Where there was a clear consensus for "delete" or "keep" this has been done. Where a clear consensus has not emerged, I erred on the side of "keep" so we can at least see how it scrubs up (below). Please note that 15 optional fields are now a considerable improvement (over 22 before) and also considerably better than the "Politician Template" (34 fields). So we are doing well here, in terms of trim-factor.

Please note that Marie Curie is chosen as a totally random example just to see how the thing looks for your comments. Because the fields are usually optional, Curie has been chosen as a random example of a template that needs the footnote field.bunix 06:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good and very useful info in summary form. Tyrenius 03:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

<br style="clear:both" />

Updated Draft
The votes were drying up, so I've closed all the issues above. Where appropriate, I decided that no consensus = keep. The most unclear section is Religion, which had 3 keep votes, and 10 delete votes. I've decided to keep that section, but to recommend that the vast majority the scientists leave it blank. The Marie Curie article does not mention her religion, so I'm removing it from this example. I'm also trimming down a couple of her less notable prizes. Bluap 17:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Nice one Bluap. It does look good. Like the way you think. Though the Davy and Matteucci are notable prizes, in this case they get overshadowed by the Nobel. If a scientist only had a Matteucci, I'd leave it in. I'm gonna change the name of the field from "Prizes" to "Notable Prizes" ...this will make it clear that the list is not exhaustive.


 * Shame about Spouse and Children getting the chop. I'm sad about that. I think in the case of people like Curie who's spouse and children all have their own wiki articles, I would put this info in the footnote. People with non-famous children & spouses can have this left off. I've gone ahead and put it in the example below. bunix 22:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

bunix has asked me privately about putting university and other logos into the infoboxes. They do add color to the infobox and so long as they're kept small (20px or so), not all that distracting. See the articles Charles Hard Townes and Wolfgang Ketterle to see what I mean. I think that they make as much sense as adding national flags to describe nationality and residence. Also, they help keep the lists evenly spaced, as I've found that wikitables don't work well inside the infoboxes.Rglovejoy 16:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I have some misgivings about the use of imges like this (the flags too), To my eye they make the info boxes harder to read and scan (one of the main reasons for having an infobox). It's fine when I immediately recognize it, but a real nuisance when I don't.  Is the use of images proposed as a recommened practice?  Or could we experiment with how to place them? --Siobhan Hansa 17:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Siobhan, do you think the flags in the Curie example (below) are distracting? I think as they are not too many of them, it adds color and is something a number of other people infoboxes do...so it is common practice. The flags are very uniform in size and placement and so always look crisp & neat. However, Lovejoy's university logos at, eg. Charles Hard Townes, do make the infoboxes look a little crowded. Personally I am neutral about it and don't mind, but I worry that other editors will get upset about them. If we do keep them in, I would certainly like to see the quality if the MIT logo and the Manhatten Project logos improved. To me they look like fuzzy blobs at the 20px scale. Perhaps new cleaner versions can be loaded in?bunix 21:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Regarding the size fo the logos, it's a bit of a tradeoff. At 20px, some logos, such as the UCBerkeley one (it has a cursive-script "Cal") look fine, and others, like the one for the College of William and Mary do not scale at all and look like a mess at anything other than full-size.  On the other hand, if they're too large, then they really do look like clutter and ruin the flow of the infobox.


 * Part of the problem is that I was using images that had already been uploaded to Wikipedia, and the quality varies considerably. Also, there is little consistancy on the image file' naming: some are in .png, others as .gif or .jpg, and some folks have express the names in ALL CAPS.  To ease the situation, I created a directory of these images at University Logos.


 * As for the flag images, I've tried to keep them on separate lines, to make things less ambiguous. So, for the Marie Curie box shown below, we could have


 * [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_(bordered).svg|20px|]] Polish [[Image:Flag_of_France_(bordered).svg|20px|]] French


 * instead of
 * [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_(bordered).svg|20px|]] Polish-[[Image:Flag_of_France_(bordered).svg|20px|]] French


 * Rglovejoy 05:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't put logos of any kind in infoboxes (university logos, nobel medals etc) since it is a wikipedia policy that fair use images do not appear in templates. Also it appears that concensus was to get rid of website, why does it appear on some pages?--Peta 03:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * This isn't true. Please see my comments on your talk page. Rglovejoy 05:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * See FUC 8. --Peta 05:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Peta,

(a) Regarding website appearing in certain infoboxes. I am slowly going through all the >100 articles and changing them by hand to conform to the (above) consensus that we arrived at. I'm doing it by hand because I want to ensure that any "lost" information goes into the main article. This takes time. There are a lot of articles. Help would be appreciated.

(b) Regarding FUC 8, I don't believe it applies to flags, which are a very public domain form of insignia and ubiquitous. If you click on an arbirary flag and follow the links to other articles you'll see any given flag is widely used across many wikipedia articles. Therefore its widespread use is fully accepted across 1000's of articles. I don't think 1000's of editors could have got it wrong :-) If they did, then yikes.

Best regards, bunix 06:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The issue isn't gflags, it is logos. --Peta 06:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

In response to Bunix's question (somewhere above) about whether the flags in the Curie bix are distracting - as they are, yes a little. I do like the use of the symbols in many ways, I just find that they kind of overwhelm the text, which is one of the reasons I asked about placement. When I scan the infobox, my eye finds it harder to see the actual word after the flag. From what I know of interface design, it's because the elements are close together and with an image one's eye doesn't know when to expect it to stop, so it takes more time to work out that the image has stopped and a word has started. It may be that putting the flag after the word would work better. (I've tried below). --Siobhan Hansa 16:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. bunix 22:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Updating Usage Instructions
I failed to read the discussion about this template, so I happily repopulated Children and Spouse arguments on Marie Curie infobox. Shouldn't the Usage text itself indicate that there are changes going on and which arguments are being phased out? Svemir 03:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point. Sorry about that, I've been away on a wiki break. OK, I've now updated the instructions that can be seen at . bunix 22:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Alma mater
...is predominantly an American term, and this is an international enyclopedia. In British English we use the phrase extremely rarely, if at all. Could it perhaps be reworded? --kingboyk 14:33, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. How about changing the text to "Studied At"?  I suggest that we keep the data-field the same, to avoid altering all the existing usages of the infobox. Bluap 21:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

"Studied at" is not a bad idea. I quite like it. bunix 12:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of persondata
Would it be useful for this template to include the Template:Persondata metadata template also? Much of the data required by Persondata can be taken directly from arguments to this template, and would thus remove the tedious and repitive task of adding persondata manually. Thoughts? --SilverStar 07:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Off-hand, it should be possible to populate the non-visible Template:Persondata directly from this infobox. However, one problem is that Template:Persondata should be placed at the end of the article, while Template:Infobox_Scientist is typically placed at the top of the article. Bluap 20:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on this template
Intro. (Copied from the talk page I originally wrote it on) I recently read the TfD debate here, and then felt moved to leave comments here. I thought people here might also be interested in my thoughts, in particular my point about how an infobox designed to try and fit all scientists can miss the point when it is forced on someone it is not designed for. And if people read the infobox first, I believe they can genuinely be offered a misleading mix of basic and irrelevant data that should properly be introduced at the right point, rather than lumped together. I am now going to pop over to Einstein and see if that has any little flag icons in a bio infobox... Carcharoth 03:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment 1.Now I like liked the way it has had been done at Einstein. That is was simple, restrained and informative. The Marie Curie example above has the distracting doctoral advisor/students information. This really is not the point of Marie Curie. Trust me. Most readers of a general-purpose encyclopedia will just find this information distracting. It should be in the article. And that's another thing. I've seen some comments on this talk page about removing stuff from the infobox and "putting it back" in the article. All information in the infobox should already be in the article! Someone should be able to read the whole article without looking at the infobox (apart from the picture). The infobox is a cosmetic executive summary. Nothing more. Everything in the infobox should be duplicated in the article, and the infobox should be generated by drawing stuff from the article. Carcharoth 04:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC) Comments updated to reflect changing nature of Einstein infobox. Carcharoth 15:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply to 1. Just because you find infoboxes "distracting" is a rather weak reason to go against the concensus that put it there in the first place. You are not forced to read what you don't want. If you disapprove of violent movies on TV, turn the TV off and plug in your favorite DVD. (That was an analogy). SuperGirl 21:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reaction to "reply to 1." The TfD discussion shows that there is no consensus on this infobox. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 00:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. Check the discussion carefully. There is consensus. Add all the votes for "Keep" together with the votes that said "Delete or modify" it vastly outweighs those that wanted an outright delete. Then see on this page that it was in fact modified by concensus. Therefore the "Delete or modify" votes were satisfied, and count as positives. Furthermore you really need to discount the "delete" votes that were not complaining specifically about this infobox but were just visiting to vote against all infoboxes. These votes were rather silly. Also if you see the TfD discussion you'll see some of the deletionists indulged in questionable vote rigging practices. Despite this poor practice, the votes swung way in the favour of keeping.SuperGirl 11:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. So why was it closed as no consensus? Please don't try and subvert what the closing admin concluded. If you wish to claim that there was a consensus for keeping it, then nominate it for deletion and see if there is such a consensus. If there was a consensus for "keep and modify", then open a review on the discussion. The very fact that modification took place, when there was no clear consensus for modification, means that there is a consensus on this talk page (not at the discussion) for modification, which is fair enough, but please don't confuse the consensus on this talk page with the (no) consensus at the TfD discussion. Carcharoth 15:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. Don't know. I wasn't around then. The wikipolicy is that a "no concensus" means the template gets kept by default...so I assume those in favor of keeping the template did not contest outcome because it was going to be kept anyway. They were busy with other fish to fry. SuperGirl 00:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. The TfD is about whether the template should be kept, not on whether it should be used in every article (see for instance the comments by Ligulem and Mikker in the discussion, who said "keep" but noted that we can remove the templates). So you can't point to it to argue that there is a consensus to use the template. Furthermore, it makes no sense to disregard people who dislike infoboxes; after all, the issue is whether there is a consensus among all Wikipedia editors, not just among those who happen to like infoboxes. I did not see evidence that "some of the deletionists indulged in questionable vote rigging practices." Finally, when I do the bad thing and count, I get: 31 x keep, 3 x delete or abridge, 22 x delete. That's called no consensus, not "way in the favour of keeping". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment 2. And the flags. Please. Science is meant to transcend boundaries. Why have flags there? Just the word and a link is enough. It is even worse for historical figures like Isaac Newton, where flags bring to mind modern nations, rather than the England he lived in. Carcharoth 04:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply to 2. Olympic sports is supposed to transcend boundaries. But that doesn't stop flags appearing in sports infoboxes. What you are doing is transferring a sentiment about science onto an encylopedia in a manner that is inappropriate. Another example equivalent to what you are saying would be: "Science is about experimental repeatability. Therefore anything that is not experimentally repeatable must not go into the article. Oooops, we better exclude that fact scientist XYZ had political opinions because those opinions are not repeatably testable." Now see how silly my example is?  What you are saying is no different. If we let you have your way then wiki articles on murderers would end up all in red blood-colored font. SuperGirl 21:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Response. Hang on. I wasn't going to respond to your individual comments, but this one just makes no sense to me at all (you know as well as I do why flags appear in sports infoboxes - that is a totally facetious example). Think of any encyclopedia you can name, and ask yourself which biographical articles they put flags on, and if not on all of them (eg. scientists), why not. Then ask yourself why Wikipedia is doing it differently. Carcharoth 00:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reponse. Explain why flags in sports are different from science. They are both endeavors of acheivement. Ask yourself why wikipedia has 1000's of articles on Playboy centrefold models, but other encyclopedias don't. The fact is the wikipedia is different.SuperGirl 11:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. In sports, competitors represent a country. In science, people don't represent their country. Hence the differing uses of flags. The Playboy argument doesn't wash. Wikipedia may be different, but that doesn't excuse being different for the wrong reasons. You can't say "but this sort of thing is allowed, so why isn't my sort of thing allowed?" You have to argue on the merits of what you want to include, not what is included or not included elsewhere. Carcharoth 12:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. Sportsmen do not represent "their" own country. They represent the country of the football team that paid a $5,000,000 ransom for their scalps. Science is just as competitive as sports and countries love to claim certain numbers of Nobel prizes and inventions as much as Olympic medals. Just because science is a thinking-person's sport, doesn't mean we need to get precious about it and treat it differently from ball sports. The reality is science is just as viciously nationalistic and competitive as any sport. I am a practising scientist, so I speak with some knowledge on this issue. I agree the Playboy argment doesn't directly apply to the flags issue...I put it there as an amusing illustration of the wikipedia being quite a different ball-game to a regular encyclopedia. SuperGirl 23:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. See Don't overuse flags for another opinion that there are too many flags. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply to 1. Personally, I was attracted to the Scientist Infobox by the students / advisors links, and the way in which it might be possible to provide uniform navigation around the "research family tree". Bluap 16:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Response. That might be useful for current scientists, but it will never be complete as not all scientists are notable enough to be on Wikipedia. It is less helpful for dead scientists from 50 or 70 years ago, as information needs to be put in its proper context and introduced at the right time, not thrust up front to sit like a sore thumb in an infobox. Carcharoth 17:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Response. (1) Sure it will never be complete. Correct. Likewise 100% of articles on the 'pedia will never be 100% complete. So what? You need to start seeing this whole 'pedia business as an evolutionary process and not worry about the present snapshot in time. Don't let the present stop you from moving into the future. (2) Your statement about dead scientists is incorrect. Their academic genealogy record is well documented. (3) The wiki policy on Academic Notability is that the PhD advisor of a notable scientist is also notable. Check it out. Also the experimental fact is that notable scientists tend to have very notable lineages...hence the interest in studying this stuff in the first place. QED. SuperGirl 21:01, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. A lot of what you say does make sense to a certain degree. But I think that the current implementation of infoboxes, especially the scientist one, is a crude and blunt way of presenting information. It has resulted in articles often having three different areas competing for the attention of the reader: (1) The lead section; (2) an infobox; (3) the main article (the bit that appears below the table of contents). In particular, articles that looked nice and were a pleasure to read now have a distracting infobox with bad layout and formatting, and misleading presentation of information. It seems that some of those who enjoy doing infoboxes need to stop and think more carefully about them. I've seen some very good infoboxes, and some awful ones. I also suspect, from the effort some people put into defending infoboxes, that some people may be defending the amount of work they have done on infoboxes, rather than being objective. A lot of people may support infoboxes, but it should equally be recognised that there are some very valid arguments against them, and it might be time to step back and say: "let's try something different". I always default to letting the individual editors of an article make the decision, rather than trying to impose a "cookie-cutter" style across all articles. In other words, infoboxes can be done well, but from what I've seen of they way they are being done at the moment, more harm is being done than good. Carcharoth 00:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reponse I'm sorry to sound negative, however your above paragraph is lengthy and contains no argument of substance. Words such as "crude" etc. are POV without backup. Please be more specific aboyt what is "awful" in this case. All I see are generalities and POV without solid reasoning. Also why don't you put together a new infobox and post it on this page for discussion. That would speak a thousand words and we could see what you are talking about. If it is true that your vision is better than the present "crude" one, we (including myself) will all vote for your new box. My advice is to stop discussing and just lead by example. SuperGirl 11:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. I've re-read what I wrote. It seems perfectly clear to me. Please point out the bits you don't understand. For specific points, see earlier posts where specific points by me were met by generalities and analogies with sports and TV from you. I would lead by example, but that would involve redesigning the infobox beyond recognition, and effectively presenting one that is specific to each scientist and no-one else. I believe that the infobox should summarise the important points of each article, rather than being a way to compare scientists across 1000s of articles. Such comparisons are notoriously difficult and prone to being misleading. At some point, comparing a 20th century physicist with a 17th century physician needs only a few points of comparison, whereas comparing two 20th-century physicists in closely-related fields needs lots of points of comparison. Carcharoth 13:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. There is some validity in what you are saying about having different infoboxes for different centuries. Check out the bio pages of western philosphers. They have a special infobox heading for each period. Personally I am happy with the present scientist infobox. If you compare the way it has been implemented for Euclid with John Horton Conway you'll see both are neatly done. However if you can come up with something even better, please lead by example and create some new templates for discussion. I will support them if they are better and if the improvement is worthwhile enough for the effort of swapping over >300 templates. It's a huge job so think carefully before you commit yourself :-) SuperGirl 23:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment. I agree with Carcharoth. As the tfd discussion seems to show, there is no consensus concerning this template, and the proponents should stop pretending that there is one. There should have been consensus to add the template first before imposing this 'policy' across the board; what happened is that the templates were added first and its pushers now claim that since there is no consensus, the infoboxes cannot be removed. Having worked featured three scientist bios, my personal opinion is that these infoboxes are (maybe) useful for some scientists but not for others. Discussion should be moved to the individual articles; the case for Euclid is not the same situation as the case for John von Neumann. Borisblue04:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. See my answer above to Jitse Niesen about why the facts of the TfD support a real consensus. SuperGirl 11:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment. This infobox is a shame for an encyclopedia and those contributors who are not longer aiming at writing an encyclopedia are a shame for Wikipedia. --Pjacobi 11:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment. And BTW: WP:CFD is not a vote. Consensus is not majority. And if you want to count, the counts were about 35:25. --Pjacobi 11:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. I find the fact that information is presented in different ways is a good thing. People are different, some like to read prose, some like a more visual style of information presentation. Personally because of my dyslexia I find prose text harder to read. Also remember that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. The way people read the web if different to the way that people read a book, if you follow web-usability guidelines you find that info box style presentation scores high on usability.
 * As for flags - I don't think they add much and could be easily deleted. As for the past TfD discussion, at about the same time there was a major trim down of info in the infobox, which addressed some of the criticisms raised. --Salix alba (talk) 12:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment. OK. There are some valid points on either side, but I don't think the core of the issue is being addressed, which is whether having infoboxes in general is a good thing. Tabular presentation of information is one thing. Prose presentation of information is something different. The two need to work together, not clash. I know this sort of wider issue needs to be addressed in a wider venue, so I am going to try and find the right venue and then provide a link from here. Carcharoth 12:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Response. I'm still unclear what your "core issues" are. Perhaps you can illustrate them visually by pointing to a scientist template that you consider bad and one that is good. There are many Scientist Infobox examples out there that in IMHO look "crisp"....some indeed are a bit of a mess, but I tolerate that because editors need to be left alone to tweek them over time to find best solutions. I recognise the evolutionary process and don't let that concern me. If your problem  is not specific to this template, but you have a wider issue with all infoboxes then you are right that you need a different forum to this Talk Page. I suggest you read WPBIO: that calls for inclusion of infoboxes at the top of every biographical artical page as standard policy. You may want to raise your concerns on the talk pages of the admin guys that set up the WPBIO: policy. It was all done before my time here, and I personally have no issue with those policies. So I am currently supporting the status quo. SuperGirl 01:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Begin Essay No, and for the following reasons: So, generally, no. Geogre 21:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) If we were to grant that articles should receive boxes, then we would still be multiplying inconsistency, rather than healing it, by having a box like this. A "scientist" is not merely a scientist.  First, he may well be a professor, and there is a professor box, and she may also be a politician, and there are politician boxes, and he may also simply be a public figure who will be stuck with the bio-box.  In other words, the insertion of such a box not only has the general problems (see the rest of this list), but it also requires a POV determination that this person is a scientist first.
 * 2) There is no compulsion to have a box at all. Many of us regard the boxes as infinitely reductive when applied to people.  Inasmuch as people are not consistent, no life can be encapsulated in a handy-dandy box.  While infoboxes are nice when putting plants and animals into kingdom, phylum, genus, and species, people are not plants and insects and lower animals:  I.e. no taxonomy is applicable to human beings.
 * 3) The most cited benefit of a box is "readability," but boxes, instead of increasing the readability of the prose, obliterate the prose by offering a second analysis. Boxes compete with the article rather than enhance it.  "I can read this 4 screen article, or I can get this 4 line box" is the option offered to readers.
 * 4) No Project has jurisdiction over articles. Projects are coordinations of like-minded editors with a common interest, but they cannot substitute for consensus whenever there is a dispute.  Therefore, if any editor disagrees with a box being placed, that editor cannot be overruled by a "Project's" endorsement.  Instead, consensus would need to be determined, every single time.  Given that, boxes are a huge editorial change, and Projects let us imagine that there is a blanket decision to ride rough shod over every article that could be put into a category.
 * 5) No human is one thing. Human beings who publish scientific papers are always more than scientists.
 * 6) "Scientist" is vague to the point of being undefinable. A person working on zoology and a person working on cryptozoology are very different from one another, and a molecular biologist and materials scientist will have in common only the microscope.  Given the natural heterogeneity of "science," any uniform template or box misleads the reader by promising that there is some one particular thing that constitutes "scientist."
 * 7) This particular box is more objectionable than the usual run. It is anti-scientific to be nationalistic, and yet this box wants to wave little flags.  Science is not a sport, and regionalism/nationalism are inimical to scientific progress and scientific practice.  There should be no flags, as science is international.  Additionally, the details of birth and housing are as critical to the scientific output of the individual as the person's diet, and no more.  Unless we wish to copy down the average caloric intake, we ought not care about where born.  Details of birth and education are important only in a context of training, national industrial complexes, etc, and those things can't be discussed in a box.
 * 8) This box juts into the text with its judgments on the vital quiddity of the life in science. This is a horrible insertion of point of view, and an insupportable one.

Reply to Essay See below. Wiki-kisses, SuperGirl 09:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Would you propose to add this template to scientists like Al-Hazen? What was his "nationality" and his "residence"?  Who was his "doctoral_advisor" or his "doctoral_students? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point. Ditto for Ptolemy and other scientists of past eras. I feel rather strongly, as someone who has actually studied the history of science, that this template can only be minimal (and therefore not very useful) for historical scientists, and more useful for modern scientists. Carcharoth 01:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of what you've said here, Geogre. Granting that the flag icons are a hideous monstrosity and that we shouldn't encourage nationality to be displayed in every infobox, I disagree with your specific argument.  While part of the traditional ideology of science is internationalism and universalism, science and scientists can and frequently have been highly nationalistic; there are many cases where I would say that nationality (and the cultural and institutional contexts that go with it) was central to the self-identity and scientific career of an individual scientist.  Just because science says nationalism isn't important, doesn't mean it's always true.--ragesoss 20:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

A Reply to Geogre's Empasioned Speech
Dear Geogre. I really loved your beautiful and passionate use of the English language. Your speech was very moving, but I must respectfully disagree. Here are my responses:


 * 1) False. Examine the >300 scientists for which this template has been used. There is no doubt in each case that they are foremost scientists. There are many bio infoboxes: celebrities, scientists, philosphosphers, sportsmen, ploiticians...etc. Are you suggesting to delete them all? If so, go ahead and good luck to you!
 * 2) Strawman argument. You are saying infoboxes are great for plants, people are not plants and thefore infoboxes can't be applied to people. You have broken about 4-5 different rules of logic 101 in that argument. Besides, the fact is the horse has bolted and there are 1000's of biographies of all sorts on this wikipedia all with infoboxes. They are there peacefully co-existing with their host articles in loving consensus. They are there because they look fine to a lot of people.
 * 3) It is false to develop an argument based on a questionable "most cited benefit."  There are many cited benefits not just that one. I'm not going to repeat myself but you'll find many good arguments on this talk page. Please read this page fully before shooting from the hip! Your statement: "I can read this 4 screen article, or I can get this 4 line box" in logic 101 is technically called a false dichotomy. The reader is not faced with these two choices at all. There are many others. Here are some simple examples: (i) The reader scans the box, then goes to the article for expansion of facts (just as one does with any summary). (ii) A reader reads the full article, comes back to it at a later date and uses the infobox to quickly locate a fact....and so on. If you use your imagination you'll see there are many valid uses. Please do not impose your view of how you read articles on to the general reader. The average reader is quite different to the average editor.
 * 4) You are right about gaining consensus at each page. However calling boxes a "huge editorial change" is an overstatement. There are bigger fish to fry.
 * 5) I totally agree with you that no human is one thing. This is precisely my argument why it is interesting to discuss the personal lives and even religious position of each scientist in the article (much to the chagrin of many editors who think you should only discuss scientific acheivements of a scientists). I have been trying to preach the idea that scientists are humans and have interesting lives that are all part of a biographical story. Perhaps you & I are not so different in opinion after all. We have some common ground here to work upon.
 * 6) Errr...you are talking to a scientist here. Trying to tell me that my job is vague and undefinable is not received well. Perhaps leave the job to us folks who are good at defining these things. There has been no problem on this score so far.
 * 7) Science is just as competitive as sports and countries love to claim certain numbers of Nobel prizes and inventions as much as Olympic medals. Just because science is a thinking-person's sport, doesn't mean we need to get precious about it and treat it differently from ball sports. The reality is science is just as viciously nationalistic and competitive as any sport. I am a practising scientist, so I speak with some knowledge on this issue.
 * 8) "Judgements?"  Pray tell.

SuperGirl 09:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Alas, you have mistaken much in your response. Geogre 21:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Remains the same point over and over: a scientist is not a type of creature, but a general determination of a line of work. Who determines when a person is a scientist instead of one of the "many bio" boxes?  It is an insertion of POV to say that this person (let's say Da Vinci) was a scientist, not a painter, not a politician, not a draughtsman, not a sculptor.  If the box has currently been applied to 300 people who you feel are undeniably scientists, you are judging for the reader ahead of time that such is the case (as well as inventing a profession), and you do nothing to limit the application of this box to people like me, for example, a philologist.
 * 2) Not at all! The box works well for plants because it narrows their position in the context of knowledge: it delimits them by an accepted taxonomy.  Persons cannot share that quality with plants (functioning within one location in the context of knowledge), and therefore the useful part of boxing does not apply when boxes are placed on people.  In fact, I was pointing out the error of the argument by analogy which advocates boxes because they work so well for insects.
 * 3) The boxes compete with the text quite obviously. This is called aesthetics.  By setting out a bordered graphical element, we draw the reader's attention to that element.  Do I need to cite the research that demonstrates this?  It is, in fact, a general purpose of an "infobox" in book publishing to draw attention.  Therefore, responsible educators use infoboxes in their texts to provide alternate information rather than a digest of the information in the body text, precisely to avoid usurping the body text's function.  It is possible for readers to go through the text and then go to the box, but the box gains priority and primacy in the reading experience (unless it annoys the reader), and so whatever it says tends to shape the reading.  It "top posts."
 * 4) Because persons are not one thing, they cannot be defined by a set group of guideposts, and therefore the one thing that a box purportedly offers -- consistency -- is impossible when applied to people. It's true that all must be born and that almost all must die, all occupy space and possess mass, but that's about it.
 * 5) Your job is not "scientist." This is a classic joke from Dr. Science (who has a master's degree "in Science!"), and it does not function in the actual world.  Having done bench work in molecular biology, that work was science, and the persons engaged were "scientists" to some extent, but that is rather like a kingdom level distinction.  Add to that the fact that "science" is comprehensible only in the ideology of scientism and the naive empiricism that developed after the "enlightenment," and we have a real muddle.  I doubt that you could define "scientist," except as one who does science, since no one else can, either.  (The assumptions are thick, and they include empirical and physical investigations bound by the processes described by Bacon, but that includes so many as to be practically meaningless.)
 * 6) Your statement is anti-scientific. People may desire acclaim, but nationalism, regionalism, and even competition are not part of science.  They are part of humanity, and a rather nasty part of humanity.  If a person's nationality has something to do with what science is available (e.g. 1590's work on the vaccuum being possible in Holland and not in France or Spain), then it should be discussed, but that requires body text, not flagicons.
 * 7) Have told, but please do listen. Just because I am currently a philologist does not mean that I am not or have not been a professional scientist.  The evolution of the ideology of scientism is quite interesting, but it's also quite well discussed by now.

Reply. Darling Geogre, We can keep arguing till the cows come home. I stand by my arguments and believe your reply, although beautiful, is flawed. I bow out here to let others have their say. It is occasions like this where I wish we could somehow meet editors face-to-face over a glass of wine and discuss things. These talk pages have their limitations. I do respect your viewpoint and I believe we do have common ground to work upon. But on this issue we must agree to disagree. Wiki-kisses to you. Spread the wiki-love, SuperGirl 22:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Response to flags point: Don't overuse flags. Only an essay, but I hope you get the point. I do have some ideas to improve infoboxes, so I'll return to this later. Specifically the idea to have empty fields that can be put anywhere to list important points specific to each individual. Carcharoth 10:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Reply. As you say, it's only an essay. But you should also see its Talk Page to see that support for flags persists. The consentual support for flags is clear when you see the 1000's of flags throughout the wikipedia as a whole. The horse has bolted, and if you can't beat 'em you may as well join 'em. The only question in that essay that merits discussion is "do flags add anything?" Personally, for me I find they make a nice marker for my eye when I am quickly scanning an infobox. It's a quick visual way of comparing countries. If you are going to scrap flags, then you may as well scrap all other forms of visual markers such as bullets or punctuation. I think the anti-flag people are perhaps sweating small stuff and should have a break to go fry some bigger fish.SuperGirl 13:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Reply. Actually, I see this as the thin end of an insiduous wedge. If we allow flags to proliferate like this, where will it end? One day you may encounter people adding stuff you don't like. What will your reaction be when they dismissively tell you that you are too late, that you are "sweating small stuff" and should "go fry some bigger fish"? I hope you will be as reasonable as I am trying to be. Carcharoth 00:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply. Carcharoth my Darling, there is no "thin end of the wedge." This is the wikipedia, which is put together consentually. Any page that goes overboard with flags above the level that the consensus can tolerate will get trimmed down by consensus. It is simple as that. You do not have to worry yourself about insiduousness, as that concept does not apply to the wikipedia. The wikipedia is an evolutionary self-correcting organism. I appreciate your viewpoint and am not being dismissive, but merely trying to help you see how one doesn't really need to panic about flags. They will be sorted out on a page-by-page basis in practice. Wiki-kisses, SuperGirl 20:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply. In reality, rather than a slow, organic, change towards a future ideal, you will get individual editors thinking: "why don't I go and put flags on all the infoboxes I can find?", or an editor thinking "why don't I go and put infoboxes on all those Islamic scientists?" Thus you will get horizontal change applied indiscriminately by a generalist across a wide range of articles, cutting across the careful crafting of individual articles by the editors in that speciality. Can you see how that could be (and has been) a problem? Carcharoth 01:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply. As far as I can see the flags in the scientist infobox have been tastefully done. If anyone goes silly and puts more in the scientist articles I will help you delete them. But for now it looks fine too me. As for the rest of the wikipedia, it will look after itself...there's no need to be mother hen. If some crazy fad takes over the whole wikipedia, then by definition it is consentual and Jimbo Wales is happy. I'll give you a good example: the amount of "trivia" and pop-cultural references in articles is huge...its so consentual that you, I or Jimbo cannot stop it. So what was once a crazy fad is now standard on the wikipedia...some editors still moan about pop-cultural trivia, but the consensus has their way with it. However, is it such a bad thing? No. I must admit finding myself strangely mesmerized by the wealth of fun trivia and for me it makes the wikipedia refreshing. It's what the people want, and therefore we must run with it. If you have any problems with this, you are on the wrong page. Take your concerns to Jimbo direct. SuperGirl 09:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Just a few more comment. Your argument sounds reasonable, but I fear you are seriously misunderstanding what is meant by consensus. Particularly the difference between 'default' consensus and 'active' consensus. If something happens by default, it is wrong to argue that it has consensus (which properly means discussion). What you can say, is that it has happened by default. But to say more than that is to mislead others. There is also the difference between prescriptive and descriptive, which is always good to bear in mind. You are describing what is happening 'out there'. Policy and guideline discussions tend to veer between aiming to describe what is going on, and how to steer what is going on towards what might be better. If you continually default to "but it's already happenning", then you are taking the path of least resistance, and it is possible (maybe even inevitable) that quality will slowly decline over time. Guidelines and policies help to keep standards at a vaguely defined level, rather then letting things evolve to what might be a very messy end. Carcharoth 11:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Image size problem
I have added the infobox to Henri Poincare but the image remains small no matter what size I set it at. Any ideas. Lumos3 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems large enough to me.--Chealer 05:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Having a default image size is probably a good idea for large images, but I doubt it for small images; see Ian Murdock. Were there similar discussions somewhere else? ...otherwise any ideas?--Chealer 05:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Another flags debate
Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography. Carcharoth 12:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

religion field / atheism
Hi, I recently added "religion=atheist" to the Richard Dawkins article; it was removed; and a discussion ensued on the talk page. Folks arguing against inclusion (the majority) pointed out that (a) atheism is not a religion; (b) they didn't like the religion field; (c) the religion field says to "use sparingly". Folks (mostly me) arguing to include "religion=atheist" or "religion=none (atheist)" said that (a) the "religion" field doesn't have to mean "belief in a religion"; it could mean either "belief about religion" or "belief in religion"; (b) the template includes it whether we like it or not; (c) wikipedia categorizes "atheism" with religious beliefs in categories (e.g., "Category:Atheist mathematicians"); (d) atheist and agnostic were used frequently as examples in discussion on this template (including the Marie Curie sample above); and (e) while atheism is not a "religion", it can be a significant identifier the way religion can; to the extent religion is ever appropriate/relevant to a scientist's life/research/public persona, atheism can be as well, and the "religion" field is where one would go to find it. ... Apologies if I'm shorting the anti-inclusion folks; they should feel free to better explain their arguments. I'd much appreciate some general guidance on this from others who developed this template. --LQ 02:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I had a more thorough response that got lost in the depths of MediaWiki. So this is mostly a cut-and-paste from Talk:Richard Dawkins, sorry. Marie Curie was used on the template talk page as an example for playing with the infobox, you'll notice that her last infobox above does not list a religion of any kind, and neither does her current article. Atheism is not even a "belief about religion". It is not a stance toward religion either way, and simply declaring it doesn't tell you a thing about what a person belives about religion. Robert M. Price is an atheist who loves religion, even describes himself as an "atheist Christian". About 28% of Unitarian Universalists are atheist or agnostic, but they do have a religion, UU, complete with choirs and collection plates. Dawkins does not have a religion, his beliefs about religion are far too nuanced to include in an infobox, and the vast majority of the world recognizes that a philosophically detached opinion about religion does not belong in the same category as an actual religion. The suggestion that "religion" is such a flexible subject that we should include "beliefs about religion" is insulting to religious people, and imho pretty demeaning to atheists as well. That the infobox on scientists includes religion at all is the wrong choice, because scientists are bound to methodological naturalism in all their relevant scientific work; just because no consensus made the mistake of including it does not mean that we should compound the mistake further by using it. The same goes for the category of atheist mathematicians. If all the other infoboxes and categories are jumping off a bridge, that doesn't mean we should too. There are mistakes being made everywhere on Wikipedia every day. That does not mean any of them stand as useful precedences. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 14:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This is interesting. The result of the earlier vote was to include the religion field, even if it was recommended that it not be used in most cases. However, in cases where the scientist does have strong publicly acknowledged religious beliefs that have a bearing on their career, then clearly that field should be filled in. In Dawkin's case, he's a very public atheist and just wrote a book making a case for atheism. Its pretty clear in this case he should be identified as such. The argument that "atheism isn't a religion" is ridiculous – its not a "religion" per se, but it is a distinct belief about religion and should be treated as a "religion" for purposes of the infobox. My take: either 1) Delete the religion field from the template., OR 2) Use this field in cases like Richard Dawkins. Peter G Werner 17:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Were it so simple. First of all, I just argued in the paragraph above yours that "atheism is not a belief about religion" and you did not address my points at all, but merely stated that it is. "Atheism" is a philosophical stance concerning the existence of gods. "Atheism" has nothing whatsoever to say about religion, positive or negative. To further elaborate, Platonism includes beliefs about God, but it is neither a religion nor a belief about religion. A serious problem with using the template in this way is that when the "|religion=Atheist" bit is included in the infobox, it says on Dawkins's page, "Religion 	Atheist", and, as User:Sophia pointed out at Talk:Richard Dawkins, "it plays into the religious lobby's court to try to categorize it as an alternative belief system". I am all for removing the religion field from the template, because it doesn't matter at all for scientists, because their work only involves methodological naturalism. But even if it is not removed, it is not appropriate to use it for atheists, no matter how outspoken they be, because you can't simply go around labelling people with "Religion: Atheist". It really like saying "Hair colour: Bald", regardless of LQ's claims that this is sophistry on my part. It's hardly sophistry when atheism can't even be said to be a belief about religion. Would you go to a Hindu's page and change it to say "Religion: Polytheism"? Is polytheism a belief about religion? Or is it rather something else? I invite all commenters here to first read the full discussion at Talk:Richard Dawkins before leaping to conclusions. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 17:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The wikipedia article on atheism defines it as "Atheism is the state of disbelief or non-belief in the existence of a deity or deities. It is commonly defined as the positive denial of theism (i.e., the assertion that deities do not exist), or the deliberate rejection of theism (i.e., the refusal to believe in the existence of deities). However, others—including most atheistic philosophers and groups—define atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities (cf. nontheism), thereby designating many agnostics, and people who have never heard of gods, such as the unchurched or newborn children, as atheists as well." In other words, the statement that atheism is not a belief about religion is but one take on atheism, and not necessarily the majority view.  I would suggest that most people, atheist and non-atheist alike, hold atheism to be a belief/principle/stand that has bearing on religion.  To distinguish between "theism" and religion, and thus between "atheism" and, I presume, "anti-religion", is to set up a linguistically pure scheme that does not reflect common practice. Exceptions to the rule do not negate the rule. --lquilter 18:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * If atheism is a stance about religion, please explain to me what precisely that stance is. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 18:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I suspect that, just as "religion" varies from person to person, so does "atheism". The wp article breaks down strong & weak atheism according to positivity of assertion w/r/t existence of deities and in general explains this better than I will here. The useful example of the common use of atheism is Dawkins himself. In various fora, Dawkins has talked about religion as equivalent to theism; then when challenged with deistic or other beliefs, stated that he's excluding them from the set he's talking about. I think this is a pretty common understanding for those in Western countries used to dealing with Abrahamic faiths: that atheism is a denial of gods; that religion is inherently about belief in gods. The stance about religion that atheism entails, therefore, is that (theistic) religion is based on a false premise. --lquilter 19:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it certainly does vary a bit, and that is all the more reason not to put the single word in the infobox and pretend that it such an addition presents meaningful information. I'm quite familiar with strong/explicit and weak/implicit atheism, atheism's claim over much of the territory of agnosticism, etc. You are wrong about Dawkins and Deism. From the beginning of The God Delusion: "A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. ... Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. ... Deism is watered-down theism" (emphasis mine). And it may be "common understanding for those in Western countries used to dealing with Abrahamic faiths: ... that religion is inherently about belief in gods", however, Wikipedia is not just for Westerners familiar with Abrahamic faiths. Your approach would be discriminatory against Buddhism (either the fourth or fifth largest world religion depending on how one counts) as Buddhism is most certainly not about believing in gods and many Buddhists are atheists (yet Buddhism is their religion). If Dawkins actually chose a religion to combine with his atheism, such as Zen or Unitarian Universalism or Invisible Pink Unicornism, then I would not hesitate in supporting you in including that atheistic religion in the infobox.
 * Anyway, as I said over at Tawk Dawk, the template when used in the manner you describe simply displays "Religion: Atheist". Not "Opinions about religion in general: Doesn't much care for them". What does "Religion: Atheist" mean? The meaning is quite clear at simple face value; it means atheism is a religion. And that is POV-pushing, and most certainly not Dawkins's POV. You might like to take it up at the atheism article if you want to present that POV alongside others, but his article has to conform to WP:LIVING and you cannot push "atheism is a religion" there. You might hope that "Religion: Atheism" could be interpreted some other way, but the plain meaning of it is quite contrary to any hope that a subtler meaning will be extracted. The full body of the article is the appropriate place for discussing the nuance of his views about religion, and if you don't think it's properly addressed there then by all means be bold in improving it. But you cannot squeeze that kind of subtlety into an infobox field. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 21:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The last proposal on Talk:Richard Dawkins was to have the religion field say "Religion: none (atheist)" which seems to me to be common-sensical and captures as much necessary nuance as any declaration of religious belief / ideas would. All shorthand terms are inherently ambiguous and insufficiently nuanced to be truthful but that doesn't mean they're not useful. ... I have NOT pushed the POV "atheism is a religion" and I resent the suggestion that I have. --lquilter 21:38, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This strikes me as commonsensical as well. It strikes me as just plain wrong that you can use the field to point out that the individual in question is a Roman Catholic or Zen Buddhist, but for reasons of definitional hair-splitting on the part of some Wikipedia editors, can't mention that the individual is an atheist or agnostic. The relevance of having this field in the infobox to begin with is questionable to begin with, and the above debate makes it only more useless. Would it be OK to start another poll as to whether to delete the "religion" field or not? It seems called for. Peter G Werner 17:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think a reopening of the debate would be wise, considering that it was previously kept with 3 keeps and 10 deletes. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 18:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Since this conversation is not actually about the infobox template, could you please take it somewhere more appropriate? Thanks --Siobhan Hansa 21:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Added "author abbreviation" fields
I added a couple of fields to the template, Botanical author abbreviation and Zoological author abbreviation, each based on the Template:Botanist. These fields are extremely important for articles about taxonomists. I put in a botanist and zoologist field separately, since they are treated under two different codes of nomenclature and in a few cases, taxonomists have two separate abbreviations as a result.

The fields add the text: "Botanical author abbreviation – The standard author abbreviation   may be used to indicate this person in citing a botanical name", or "Zoological author abbreviation – The standard author abbreviation   may be used to indicate this person in citing a zoological name". This may be a bit wordy for the infobox, but I simply used what was already present in the Botanist template. Peter G Werner 17:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)