Template talk:Infobox writer/Archive 1

Similar Template
There is a similar template at Template:Author. Carcharoth 13:32, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I find the other template a bit lacking. -- LGagnon 15:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. But what should be done about it? It falls under the WikiProject Books purview, so I'll comment there. Carcharoth 19:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * In the case of Harper Lee, the implementation provides only 5 pieces of information, Four of which are covered more effectively by the opening sentence of the article. (And all of which are presented before one makes it halfway through the second sentence). In other cases, the infobox might be a nice frame for the author's photograph, but where none is available, I fail to see the point. --Dystopos 01:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Writing Period
Perhaps the definition of "period" should be more related to when the writing was actually done rather than published. It is particularly non intuitive with works that were published posthumously. Also with the publishing definition this window can, in principle, be extended every time some lost essay or collection of letters is found and published. --WCVanHorne 04:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree - it should be the period when the writer was actually writing works which were subsequently published i.e. unpublished childhood eassys not included.--JBellis 08:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

screenwriter
could this template be used on a screenwriters page? -- 216.232.214.23
 * I assume it could. It's meant to be very open for any type of writer. -- LGagnon 15:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Magnum Opus
This field is inherently POV; even in instances where we can find a reliable source to call one specific work by a writer his "magnum opus" or "greatest work," it will usually be possible to find another source to counter it. I suggest we remove the field. | Mr. Darcy talk 04:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Maybe just reduce it to "Major work(s)"? This allows more than one book to be listed, or maybe, even better, just a link called "bibliography" to allow people to jump to the section where all an author's books are listed. Carcharoth 06:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm comfortable with either of those solutions. Any objections? | Mr. Darcy talk 13:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There are about 380 pages using this template, so the best thing to do, I think, is to remove magnum opus from places where you disagree with its use (you can tweak the template to detect the pages using the magnum opus field), and then change the magnum opus field to major works. The bibliography link would be a totally new parameter, and to kickstart that, someone will need to find a new articles with good bibliographical sections and use the field to link to them. I'm not brilliant with template coding, so hopefully someone else can do this sort of thing. Carcharoth 14:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * you can tweak the template to detect the pages using the magnum opus field OK, I'll bite: how do I do that? Sounds like a useful thing to know how to do. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it is as simple as changing the current link in the title of the field. At the moment, that points to magnum opus. If you changed that to something unique, like 425164361, and then waited several weeks for the "whatlinkshere" index to be updated, then you could see what links to that link you added. That's the theory. In practice, you have to do this in such a way that the reader doesn't notice. One thing people sometimes do is put a category tag in the template, so if the magnum opus field is used, the page is added to a category like "Pages using the magnum opus field in the Infobox Writer template". But that too disrupts the encyclopedia, as this category tag will appear at the bottom of the page. I'm sure there are much better tricks than the ones I mentioned above, and there is a really simple way as well. Click on "what links here" for the template (as I said before, around 380 pages. Then click on "what links here" for magnum opus (453 links). Then compare the two lists. The ones that appear in both lists are the ones you are after. There will be some pages where "magnum opus" is linked in the main text but not used in the template, but those can be manually weeded out. But the category idea is best. And that can be done without even creating the category. When you go to edit the category red-link, it will give you the list. You can then quickly copy the list, cancel the category creation, and revert the edit to the template. Hang on a mo. Carcharoth 16:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Category:Magnum opus writers is there now. And the category tag is at the bottom of George Orwell and J. R. R. Tolkien, two authors whose Infoboxes I know use the magnum opus field. But the category isn't populating. There is probably a reason why, but I don't know. I'll wait a bit (maybe someone will come along and explain what has happened), and then remove the category tag and put the category up for speedy deletion, as it is a bit of a silly category really. Carcharoth 16:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hang on. The category is populating now. Alex Haley has appeared in it (and now Jim Butcher). I guess there is a job queue somewhere that needs to run first. I'm a bit worried now, as I think I should have asked someone about this first. I guess it can't do too much harm though. I hope. Carcharoth 16:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * We'll clean it up. There are over 200 authors in that category now. Before either of us tries to tackle some of them - and I may post a note at the Pump to look for volunteers - we need to agree on what we're altering those entries to read. "Bibliography", with a link to the #Bibliography section? | Mr. Darcy talk 18:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit uneasy about leaving things in this state (I will be away over the weekend). This was only meant to be temporary, and the category tag really shouldn't be at the bottom of all those pages. With this in mind, I've turned that category into a list, and put it at User:Carcharoth/Magnum opus. Please feel free to copy or move that to wherever you think best. Carcharoth 22:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've removed the magnum opus field from the master template; it doesn't seem to have broken anything, and in the absence of a viable replacement, we're better off without it. | Mr. Darcy talk 00:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The template still works, but you've removed the magnum opus infobox entry from hundreds of articles.I would have preferred the "major works" phrasing, as that is more vague and gives people less room to argue. ie. the parameter remains "magnum opus", but call it "major work(s)". I'll wait a bit though, and see if anyone turns up to object to what you've done. Carcharoth 01:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Removing it from those 220-odd articles was my intent; as I said earlier, it's inherently POV, and not verifiable, and therefore had to come out. Even with "major works," I'm not clear how we draw the line; e.g., William Faulkner arguably has four major novels to his credit, so how do we decide which to include in the box? All four would be overkill, but there's no way to choose just two. Let the infobox just be an box of info - vital stats, all verifiable. | Mr. Darcy talk
 * For future reference, you can do the same sort of thing largely 'invisibly' by adding something like; " " inside the conditional statement for the row in question. That adds a blank space to the displayed output, but if placed at the end it should not have any visible impact. Since there is no actual content there is no link created to click on (though if there were non-markup characters immediately to the right of the closing brackets they WOULD be picked up as a link). However, the 'what links here' for 'FakePageName' will then show every page which contains that conditional row. Note that this 'link' really can be to a page which doesn't even exist... as it is possible to get 'what links here' for pages which have not been created yet. I don't think the category method is too disruptive if cleaned up quickly, but if there are alot of them that will require time to deal with the above should be less intrusive. --CBD 11:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to re-run the experiment for some other parameters, or maybe even this one. There is something strange about the history of this template. Both the parameters 'magnum opus' and 'main work' have been used in the past, and lots of articles seem to use one or the other, but not consistently. Carcharoth 14:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization
Per wiki guidelines, should this be Template:Infobox writer ? *Sparkhead 12:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * People don't worry too much about naming conventions when it comes to templates. The important thing is that the wording is clear, not what the capitalisation is. Carcharoth 13:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Language
I believe there is place to add the language of writing in this template since, especially nowadays, writers may write in several languages and nationality alone cannot tell us what language the writer is using. A few examples: I could go on, but I think I've made my point. AshcroftIleum 02:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Franz Kafka - Czech writer, wrote in German
 * Vladimir Nabokov - Russian writer, wrote in Russian and English
 * Hayyim Nahman Bialik - Ukrainian writer, wrote in Hebrew
 * Isaac Bashevis Singer - American writer, wrote in Yiddish
 * J M Coetzee - South African writer, writes in English
 * Isak Dinesen - Dutch writer, wrote in English
 * Samuel Beckett - Irish writer, wrote in French and English
 * This is a good idea. Easily verified data point. I agree it should be added. Carcharoth 18:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Religion and political opinion
User:Flammingo recently tried to add parameters for religion and political opinion. I was asked why it didn't work - the reason is that the edit only added the parameters to the visible bit, not to the actual template code (the bit with lots of #if and !---> bits). Don't touch that code if you don't know what you are doing! I've removed the addition and raised this here for discussion because I don't think that religion and political opinion are suitable for a writers infobox. They are more suitable for a religious figure's infobox, or a politician's infobox, but not a writer's infobox. If a writer is noted for his or her political opinion or religion, this fact needs to be mentioned in the article, along with a clear and careful explanation of why it is relevant to the article. Just mentioning it in an infobox with no explanation is the wrong way to do this. Discussion would be very welcome. Carcharoth 19:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree 100% Xanthoxyl 02:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Magnum Opus (II)
This parameter was recently added. While it is more relevant to a writer's infobox than religion or political opinion, there was a discussion above that concluded that it was not relevant. Indeed the previous parameter "main work" got removed after that discussion. This new 'Magnum opus' parameter would just be redoing the work that was involved with adding the 'main work' parameter, so I removed it. If anyone feels consensus has changed, please discuss here. Carcharoth 19:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 'Major Works' makes the most sense to me. I would remove 'Debut Works' as well (these are usually either minor and unimportant, or could fit into the 'major works' category), and just list two or three seminal works. AshcroftIleum 07:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem then is which works to include and which not to include. This is precisely the sort of nuanced information that is better provided in the article, instead of an infobox. An infobox should be reserved for clear data points, like name, date of birth, etc. Anything more than this, and it risks becoming an introduction to the article that skews people's first impressions of the subject of the article. Carcharoth 11:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't really see how an infobox can skew opinions one way or another, but it seems to me that if someone just wants to get a general idea of the writer he/she would be better off if two to three major works are listed. For most writers this would not be an issue (for example, you may like Hemingway's To have and have not, but it is The Sun Also Rises that made him famous and defined his style; you may think Tropic of Capricorn is a better book but Tropic of Cancer is more widely read; Underworld may be a better book, but White Noise is the one people think of when you say DeLillo, etc.) Much like the Actor infobox, we are not trying to encompass the writer's whole work, just give a sense of it. I don't really see the point of an infobox about a writer that doesn't name any of his/her work. Debut works, as I've said above, doesn't cut it. AshcroftIleum 16:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Stability of infobox templates
Recently there have been changes to this infobox. Comments on how to handle the specific cases above, and how to handle infobox stability in general would be welcomed. Carcharoth 19:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * (1) First, after the first discussion up above about Magnum Opus (actually called 'main work', that parameter was removed because it was too subjective. But this was done by removing the template parameter, but not going to the articles that had this parameter activated, and removing the text from the articles. This feels untidy. What is the best way to handle removing widely-used parameters that are later agreed to be not suitable? (Note that the removal didn't seem to be noticed, as it wouldn't have shown up on talk pages of the articles concerned).
 * (2) Second, a proposal to add language was given above, and this sounds sensible. When new parameters are suggested like this, what should the process be for adding them? Discuss and reach consensus? Then update hundreds of articles to include the new parameter?
 * (3) An addition of politics and religion parameters was tried, removed and a discussion started above. Again, if something is rejected, should the articles transcluding the parameter be tidied up to have this fully removed if it was added?
 * (4) The Magnum Opus parameter was recently re-added. I removed it per the initial discussion, and have started a new discussion above. What should be done when the wheel is reinvented like this?
 * People are not allowed to alter the code of widely-used templates without discussion on the talk page. This fact ought to be pointed out on the template page itself.
 * You can tidy up the articles using abolished parameters if you want (it is not strictly necessary, because they are invisible). Xanthoxyl 02:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wife and Kids?
Someone added wife and children to the template without prior discussion. I removed them for now and claim there is no real reason to add them at all. First, such details are usually irrelevent to the writer's work. Second, such a listing could not only be too lengthy for an infobox (several wives/husbands, several children), but also provide an opening for other irrelevent details of the writer's private life, (parents, brothers and sisters, maybe pets, shoe size...). Lastly, the purpose of the infobox is to give us a general idea of the writer and position him/her in terms of period/genre/movement/etc. It is not meant to present a full account of his life and work - that's what the article is for. AshcroftIleum 07:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * An old discussion, but an interesting one. I totally agree with AshcroftIleum. However, Edgar Allan Poe failed an A-Class review a couple months ago and one reviewer criticized that the infobox was missing information about relatives. (I think it's just getting harder and harder to pass anything these days). --Midnightdreary 14:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Width of first column insufficient to fit the label "Occupation(s):"
The label "Occupation(s)" in the first column often gets split, with "Occupation" appearing by itself, and "(s):" then following on the next line. Doesn't look good. Why does it happen? Can the width of the first column be adjusted to fix this? Jayen466 20:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Other than just removing the ugly (s), there are a few solutions that come to mind.
 * Making the width of the first column fixed. Problem: depends on font size in use
 * Inserting &amp;nbsp; (non-breaking space) between Occupation and (s). Problem: makes a space
 * Inserting &amp;#xfeff; (zero-width non-breaking space) or &amp;#x2060; (word join) between them. Problem: Unicode, not understood by all browsers
 * Here are the results for the second and third options. Tell me what you see.
 * Non-breaking space... Occupation (s)
 * Zero-width non-breaking space... Occupation&#xfeff;(s)
 * Word join... Occupation&#x2060;(s)
 * Narrow non-breaking space... Occupation&#x202f;(s)
 * My choice would be the zero-width, or &amp;#xfeff;, but I don't want to make a change until I can be reasonably sure it will work for almost all users. Xanthoxyl 01:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * In IE6.0, only this line
 * Zero-width non-breaking space... Occupation&#xfeff;(s)
 * looked as intended (the final two lines each had a square box appearing before the "(s)"); in Mozilla Firefox 1.5, the following lines came out right:
 * Zero-width non-breaking space... Occupation&#xfeff;(s)
 * Word join... Occupation&#x2060;(s)
 * Narrow non-breaking space... Occupation&#x202f;(s)
 * The non-breaking space also worked fine in both, but the gap is unsightly. Removing the (s) might indeed be the easiest solution – right now, the loss incurred because of the display problem outweighs the value that the (s) might conceivably add, IMO.
 * Cheers, Jayen466 00:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've removed all parentheses from the left-hand column. If anybody shows up to complain we'll try &amp;#xfeff; and maybe think about using #pos to detect commas if it gets implemented. Xanthoxyl 11:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, looks great now. Jayen466 16:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding rfu
I tried to add refu-c to J. K. Rowling, as her image is up for rfu, but it doesn't work because the 200px paramater and closing brackets are there; the image doesn't show up. Can anybody mess around with parser functions to automatically close the image off when template brackets are detected? Hbdragon88 07:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Did you subst it? There isn't really room for this template inside the infobox. I'd suggest that you copy and paste the text from rfu-c into the Caption parameter, maybe with &lt;small&gt; and &lt;/small&gt; around it. Xanthoxyl 02:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I added subst to it. Either the image didn't show up or   showed up (If I added the brackets manually to have the image show up)). Hbdragon88 23:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you tried placing it at the beginning of the caption field? --PhantomS 23:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Just tried that. Apparently someone inserted brackets in there or something, as it doesn't work. Hbdragon88 00:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, all I can say is I just did it and it worked fine for me. Xanthoxyl 11:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Brith date shouldn't be required
Biographies of living persons specifically mentions that for marginally-notable people, that there may be cases where it's best to avoid discovering and posting their birthday in the article. However, the template currently requires the birthdate to be filled in. Could that field be made optional? (granted, it should be filled out for 95+% of articles, but BLP clearly states that there are at least a few cases where it shouldn't be) --Interiot 17:20, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * You can just put the year, or "private", or "unknown", or anything else you think fit; if the subject is a marginally-notable person who just happens to be a writer, the bio infobox might be more appropriate.
 * If there is somebody in particular you have in mind, I can alter the template to make it optional. Xanthoxyl 02:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Debut Works field
Instead of a field that says 'debut works', it would be a better idea to have the field say 'important works' or something to that effect. Most often a writer's 'debut work' is not their best nor their most influential work.ILuvTea 10:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, see discussion of "Magnum Opus (II)" above. Isn't it about time we did something about it instead of conducting this circular discussion? AshcroftIleum 18:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur. Maybe it could just say "notable works"? Is someone going to change it? I'm new here so I'm not sure how it gets done. It seems that people are in agreement that some change needs to occur. Uluwulu 07:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This is not a good idea. Who determines what is notable? Even among academics who study individual authors, there is debate about what is most "notable" or "important," so inevitably the field would descend into edit wars. These kinds of theories (what was the writer's most influential work, etc.) should be discussed in detail in the article, with all sides' opinions clearly articulated. Awadewit | talk  00:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that it is a good idea to choose Important Works rather than Debut Works; for most authors, it's usually easy to choose their most-well known or admired work, and for ones where it is most difficult (imagine doing this for Shakespeare!), it could be discussed on the talk page.--Gloriamarie 21:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Are info boxes mandatory?
In that Wiki policy discourages lists in general, and in that the info box is one big list, is having an infobox mandatory for all writers? In the case of William Shakespeare, for instance, I find the info incredibly redundant, subject to challenges, and it only increases the size of an already long article.Smatprt 14:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, infoboxes are not mandatory. Awadewit | talk  00:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Influenced/influences section
While well-intentioned, the influenced/influences section just isn't working. What objective criteria can be used here? Most authors are incredibly well read and thus are influenced by hundreds of other authors. Similarly, any major author is read by everyone. Who wasn't influenced by Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or Hemingway? On every author page I watch this part of the infobox is the subject of near-constant edit-warring. Something as nuanced as influence needs to be dealt with in the text of an article -- not in the infobox. --JayHenry 19:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. This section asks us to take writers who may have influenced the article subject in completely different ways and list them side-by-side in an out-of-context list.  It's inevitably misleading.  You'd never get through FAC if you did that in the body of an article, or at least I hope you wouldn't; it shouldn't be encouraged in an infobox either.  &mdash;Cel  ithemis  20:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that this is a ridiculous field. Any set of influences is in the end probably going to be original research anyway, even if each individual influence can be demonstrated. Often the influences listed in the box are not even discussed in the article. The box should stick to easy to verify facts, not interpretative theories regarding a vague "influence." Awadewit | talk  00:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, so people agree. I don't want to spark a widespread edit war by removing these in bulk, so I'm going to try to solicit further opinions by contacting the Books and Novels Wikiprojects.  I see two options -- one would be to remove the influences/influenced section completely, the other would be to only allow influences/influenced if they are specifically mentioned in the body of the article.  I see either as acceptable, though (I think) would prefer outright removal. --JayHenry 19:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I realize that this is a relatively old conversation, but I was just coming here to raise much the same idea. It would seem to me that, if these sections are left in the infobox, they would need to be sourced.  I would advocate removal of the sections.  &mdash;   Music  Maker  5376  21:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Occupation field
I'm going to take the liberty of making occupation optional: We've hit a situation where the infobox is causing layout problems, and so I have to cut it to a minimum, and it seems pointless to have to cut more relevant information while leaving that in (And it's not like you can really place a poet-dramatist-short story writer-critic like W.S.Gilbert cleanly anyway!) Adam Cuerden talk 16:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent choice. Awadewit | talk  00:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Image problem
Something has changed with the infobox and the images that is not helpful. Although one no longer has to put Image in front of the image one wants, whenever an image file is placed in the image field but no size is delimited, the image does not appear. Apparently, one has to remove the "imagesize=" line. This is not very intuitive as other infoboxes (at least those that I work with) do not require the removal of lines to make them operate correctly. See the history of Sarah Trimmer for an example of the problem. What can we do about this? Awadewit | talk  00:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I second that. I notice it happening in Mircea Eliade and Tudor Arghezi. It is frankly a shame when users start editing an infobox without taking in view the consequences - I mean, I suppose that a lot of the changes were constructive in their nature, so reverting the changes may prove disruptive, but also disruptive is what some of those edits amounted to. Are we expected to go and update the infobox in every single article just because editors would not review their own mistakes? Dahn 11:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * apparently the current template adds an extra "l" after the image name if there is an imagesize line. if no one else is game I will try to find the bug, but I've never hacked a template before...--Jaibe 21:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In my case, I'm not sure it was that: I was actually able to fix the problem a couple of hours ago, by adding specifications to the "image size" requirement (the articles where this happened had none specified). Dahn 21:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * well, it was still broken where I vieweed it, maybe your change hasn't propogated to Europe? I just reverted it back two edits & was about to notify the 14 June editor --Jaibe 21:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What I meant was in relation to those two articles I cited (Eliade and Arghezi, see above). This probably means that the problems are different in nature (depending on the infobox?) or that the changes were not tried in other articles. Dahn 21:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to test your change, look at the most recent but one historical version of Alison Bechdel -- the most recent one I fixed by deleting the image size line, but then I went here to figure out the real problem...--Jaibe 21:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Mea culpa. I had removed a trailing vertical bar from, which prevented the image from displaying if the imagesize parameter appeared without a value . I did review my changes by checking some articles using the infobox, but never saw any that had this problem.
 * After becoming aware of the problem, I started checking ALL the 2000+ articles using this template. In the first 1000 or so checked, only about 40 articles had been affected (and those were fixed when my edits were reverted).
 * There is another problem which existed before my edits: using imagesize without a value displays the image at its native resolution, expanding the infobox if width is larger than 250px. For an example, see Jonathan Coe.
 * Back in June I started fixing the affected articles to include the actual image width if smaller than the default of 200px (the original intent of the imagesize parameter). I will get back to this project shortly and once I've gone through the remaining articles I will update the template to use the default width when the imagesize parameter is omitted or blank.
 * Zyxw 07:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you please fix the infobox? Currently, the format creates a stray "image" and stray size figures before and after the image. Thanks. Str1977 (smile back) 22:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * My changes were reverted on 18 June 2007, so there shouldn't have been issues with the infobox itself. This was likely a caching issue that should have eventually resolved itself. -- Zyxw 07:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment Additionally, I can't link to images I've uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using it, because of the appended Image: at the beginning - it turns links to any other project to read Image:commons:Image:filename.jpg, instead, invalidating the use of commons as a way of collecting images. --Thespian 05:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * To my knowledge, all images uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons are accessed the same way as images uploaded to Wikipedia. For an example, see the Terry Pratchett article where the infobox contains . That displays Image:terry_pratchett.jpg, which is stored on Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia. -- Zyxw 07:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)