Template talk:Infobox writer/Archive 2

Bibliography Link
A standardized "Bibliography" link would make a lot of sense, it could be shown for any author that has a bibliography page. As an example the Stephen King infobox now has a link in the Debut Works section.

There is now a template:Book list that may be used to create bibliographies.

--Deflective 02:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Flag icon?
I don't think we would want to use flag icons to mark writers' nationalities, places of birth and death, would we? I wanted to take the little flag out of the Kurt Vonnegut article, but thought I would enquire here first. WP:FLAGCRUFT seems like it might be relevant here. --John 17:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Good question. I was wondering the same. I kind of like flag icons. For American writers, I've been using either a country's flag for nationality or state flags for place of birth and death (especially when they're not the same state)... but never all three. --Midnightdreary 14:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I personally like the flag icons. Since writers' works are often studied by country or culture (British Literature, etc.) it seems apt that a writer would be identified as such.--Gloriamarie 21:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, please don't encourage this habit here as well.As much as I like flags myself, they are of absolutely no use in most infoboxes (and definitely of no use in writer infoboxes). All the little squares with the bright colors clash with both the background and the text, and can get really annoying &mdash; especially when they mean absolutely nothing. Dilemmas like the one above can be solved simply: don't use them at all. And, yes, WP:FLAGCRUFT clearly applies here. Dahn 21:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

pseudonyms
Question, in the pseduonyms section of the infobox I've noticed that an editor is bolding the names, not just in one article but in all that they edit. I understand the reasoning, sort of since the MOS states "In the first paragraph of any article, put the article name and any synonyms (including acronyms) in boldface," but is this correct for the infobox? I've taken a look at a few others and haven't noticed bolding being used on pseudo. and just want to double check. Thanks. --ImmortalGoddezz 15:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Relations field
I used the relations field in the infobox on Eiki Eiki, for adding her notable grandfather and brother. However, the field's label reads: "parents". Can this be changed to just "relations", so it can be used as indicated on the template page? Ninja neko 07:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've made this change. --Canley 03:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Dates
The template appears to force American-style dates (i.e. month before day). Is this so, and if it is, is it desirable? -- Picapica 21:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Prizes
Query: Could there be a field added for "Notable prizes" ("prizes") as in the infobox Scientist template: see Template:Infobox Scientist? For example, that would enable one to add the Nobel Prize in Literature and Nobel icon in that field instead of as a image (icon) beside the name field (which has caused some dispute). (In the scientist infobox the Nobel Prize in Physics appears for at least one scientist's infobox that I recently examined, which gave me this idea; cf. Albert Einstein, who has three prizes listed in that field, including a Nobel Prize. It would be good for the inboxes for Writers and Scientists receiving the Nobel Prize to have this feature/field as an equal possibility.  --NYScholar 21:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC) [added emph. --NYScholar 02:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)]

Only writers in influences/influenced?
In many cases, some of a writers biggest influences and those they influenced most (significantly) are non-writers. Why exclude them? Skomorokh incite 05:01, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The infobox lists "influences" and "influenced"; I agree that such influences may be various kinds of influences. See, e.g., the infobox for Harold Pinter; among his influences is a literary and artistic movement (Surrealism); and among those he has influenced is former political dissident/former Czech President Václav Havel, who is also a writer/playwright; Havel's early plays were influenced by playwrights associated with the movement that Martin Esslin named the Theatre of the absurd and included in his book of that title [Ionesco, Beckett, Albee, Pinter, etc.]; Pinter was originally in section of a chapter; Havel discusses these influences (individual playwrights, the "theatre of the absurd") in his book Letters to Olga.  The description of the field does need to be more open and not limited only to other writers.  I've revised it accordingly to be more in line with reality. --NYScholar 23:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC) [additional info. --NYScholar 00:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)]

Prizes?
Scroll up re: "Prizes"; could someone who knows how to construct the template properly please add the field? Thanks. --NYScholar 23:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Problem with image formatting
Could someone please go to Richard Brautigan and look at the way this box shows up on the page? Note the presence of the words "" at the top of the box under the author's name. I tried a couple of edits here (deleting blank spaces), that I thought might fix it, but to no avail. I'm hoping that someone who understands this type of formatting a little better than I do can help. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 02:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * This is still occuring, and in the case of the Maggie Shayne article the image was marked as an orphaned because it wasn't appearing properly on the page. What happened and can it be fixed?? Karanacs (talk) 19:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

New proposed infobox writer template fix
This is a proposal for changing the template infobox writer.

Since I cleaned up the code I also read the talk page above and made some changes as described at infobox writer fixes and changes which gives complete description as well as examples in use. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 13:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Support - Please make this change. I almost used your sketch because we need a collapsible awards field and a number of your features. For example, the Oscars upcoming in two or three weeks will give new screenwriter awards and all those people who are not also actors are missing their nominations in their infobox. For some subjects a nomination like that is meaningful and for Wikipedia it is almost always. -Susanlesch (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks but waiting to see if anyone else supports before making any changes. Been around enough to know what happens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeanenawhitney (talk • contribs) 13:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Support -- much easier to navigate visually (and more pleasant to look at)!!! Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I will be implementing shortly. Just making sure everything is ok. -- pete 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Haven't been active on authors pages in a few days and just now noticed this. I like all of the changes except the addition of the colored header. More specifically the green color. Aesthetically green reminds me of bugs and plants, not writers. I like the idea of different colored headers for deceased and living writers but the dark green with the white font is distracting/hard to read. Would it be possible to change this to a lighter color with a black font, or no color at all for a living author? --ImmortalGoddezz 17:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment: I haven't had trouble reading the Green box, but maybe there are issues with certain browsers, etc.? I like the color -- it reminds me of library bindings! Aristophanes68 (talk) 18:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * That is exactly what I was shooting for library bindings. pete 18:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How do you get the new box to give the author's age at death? Figured it out! Sorry! Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Religion
How about adding "religion" parameter ? Religion played important role in life of many writers and influenced many works. - Darwinek (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, that can be added into the main article if needed. This infobox is way to big now. -- pete 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Works
I would think that "major works" or something of that sort would be worthwhile. It's likely to be more meaningful to readers than "movement" (which is typically a label used by academics among themselves). Looking over the archived discussion, a past objection raised was that the determination of "major works" was POV... but then, "influences" and "influenced" are even more subjective; at least "X wrote Y" is an verifiable and objective fact, and in most cases there is a clear consensus of 1-3 most notable works. Frankly, the current field of "debut works" are commonly trivial and obscure, and may require digging up titles that don't even qualify as notable (or even known); I recommend removing it. - JasonAQuest (talk) 00:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am confused with this suggestion? I would think eliminating movement completely (as I have no idea what it means). I also agree that major works would be POV. And we would just have edit wars on that. I disagree on adding major works. -- pete 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My point is that "influences", "influenced", and "movement" are all at least as POV as "major works". The statements that "X was influenced by Y", "X influenced Z", and "X wrote in style A" are opinions.  There may be a scholarly consensus supporting any of them, but that's no more NPOV than a short list of X's most notable works. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Add major works
This has been repeatedly suggested, and I've seen only one dissenting comment, to the effect that it was impossible to reach a consensus on it. While there may be cases where this is true, in most cases there is no serious disagreement about a writer's most notable work(s). I think it would be valuable to the infobox reader to identify what the writer is noted for. - JasonAQuest (talk) 17:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * See above. -- pete 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see the problem. You assume there would be edit wars over it, but is there really any debate over what the major works of J.R.R. Tolkein or Jane Austin or J. M. Barrie or Roald Dahl or Boris Pasternak or Dante Alighieri or William Gibson are?  It's usually pretty obvious, or easily settled.  And if no consensus can be developed for a particular writer... it can be left blank (with a comment asking that it be left that way).  You seem to be arguing that some articles will have POV clashes on certain points, so no articles should present that information... even when it's clearly noncontroversial. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not arguing, so what do we do here add major works? I can see it being done. So how should we name it? Major works or Notable works or whatever? I don't care I just want to see it done. Just make up your mind so that we can get the documentation set.


 * There are over 3200 articles that use the infobox writer. I am scanning them now to see what they are like. Here is a link to a list Articles that use infobox writers. -- pete 16:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * "Major works" would be the most concise and most natural way to describe the field, but "Most notable works" would be more precise. - JasonAQuest (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Parameter notableworks added. See documentation Template:Infobox Writer/doc for usage instructions. pete 16:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove debut works
More of often than not, this is borderline trivia. In any case, it is uncommon for an author's debut work to be especially noteworthy (in which case it would better be described as his "major work"), so I don't see the value of including it in the infobox. And what about a novelist whose first published work was a short story (not at all uncommon)? This seems to be asking for a lot of work with little value to the reader. - JasonAQuest (talk) 17:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:49, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. and removing. -- pete 14:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

add "Literature Portal" tag in the infobox
That would make it a lot easier to get the portal link placed in an easy-to-see location and to guarantee that it is included. Aristophanes68 (talk) 00:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried this and it it seemed to make no sense. You literature people may think it important but the lowly chumps like me could care less. -- pete 14:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Default image size
150px seems rather small to me, particularly in a template that generally renders at >200px wide. Combined with people's tendency not too crop portraits very tightly, this leads to some rather postage-stamp sized faces. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I do have a reason for the default. Just to tired to explain now. Will explain tomorrow. pete 22:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Awake yet? :) - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Japan wiki called and asked for help and I got distracted. I personally do not like images overpowering the infobox as well as the page. The image is just an representation of the (in this case) the writer. The default can be overwritten with the imagesize parameter (which you of course know about). The default can be changed. But many of the images that render at a higher px count get pixalated. It's better to go low then high. pete 22:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think a substantial-sized photo adds to rather than overpowers an infobox, and 150px is approaching postage-stamp size. Articles without infoboxes routinely have them much larger, and MOS even suggests lead images in excess of 300px.  Portrait files less than 200px wide are uncommon, so scaling up to that would be rare (and easily handled on an exception basis), and Mediawiki actually does a good job of resampling files downward without pixelation. - JasonAQuest (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I upscaled the image at William Gibson as soon as I had seen this change. The small 150px size is non-ideal. An absolute minimum would be the default monobook thumbnail size of 180px, but 250px or 200px would be preferable, per JasonAQuest, and precedent elsewhere. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Contents of Influences, influence fields no longer displayed
The contents of the "influences" and "influenced" fields are no longer displayed (e.g. Allen Ginsberg, Arthur C. Clarke). The use of a smaller font in the descriptions for the fields is of dubious value as well. 67.100.45.72 (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC).


 * You need to click on "[show]" for these two fields to display. If you're not seeing that, can you specify what browser you're using?  That might help debug the problem. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You're right, it's probably brower-specific. I'm using an antiquated version of Mozilla that predates Firefox.  The "[show]" is only visible when I remember to turn on Javascript.  The combination of those two factors might make this an outlier not worthy of attention, but I will point out that "Awards won" from  exhibits different, and more useful behavior under the same circumstances.  In the latter's case, if Javascript is turned off, it shows the list of awards.  67.100.45.72 (talk) 03:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC).


 * It works with all current browsers. I am working on a solution. The smaller "dubious" descriptors can be fixed, it was it was just imported from another template. As far as the infobox actor awards is a one hide/show, not so easy when you have more then one and it is not at the end of the script. Infobox chef uses the same format as here and no one has reported any problems with it. In the mean time let me see if I can fix this. pete 16:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This increased the size of the template by over 250% and added lots of cruft like | everywhere. Isn't there a better way to fix these? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't noticed the "cruft" -- I just cut and paste from the template page and fill in the lines -- nothing to delete and no <><>s to work around--am I missing something? Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

nobel
as far as i can tell, there's no provision in any relevant mos i could find that permits the inclusion of the decorative nobel icons in the header of the infobox. barring any objections, i would like added explicit instructions in the documentation barring the icon-kruft akin to that of flagicons. --emerson7 18:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with changing the documentation to; do not use the icon. But now that we have an awards parameter, that is where it should be noted (without the image). If you plan on removing the images I would also strongly suggest that you add the awards parameter. I started to do this with the help of AWB. By moving the icon from the name parameter to the awards parameter adding Nobel Peace Prize. But what I found were other editors were changing it to a more appropriate link like Nobel peace prize for literature (I am not at all aware what the award is completely about other than noble created dynamite). So my further edits just added Nobel prize. My only concern is that this information could be lost because the icon appears in the name parameter of the infobox but many times no mention is made in the article. I started correcting the page but have only hit about 200 of the 3200 pages that use this infobox. Maybe we need a bot to make all the changes to the new format before doing anything else. ? pete 22:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * One other note. At the same time we chage the documentation for the awards parameter to state the same. pete 22:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * i concur 100 percent. --emerson7 04:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Nationality
Nationality causes problems. I feel that there should be 2 catagories - one for ethnicity and another citizenship. In Eastern Europe the borders changed numerous times which caused problems in Nationality. By having both citizenship and ethnicity these problems can be over come.

i.e Gogol was ethnically Ukrainian but a citizen of the Russian empire. Liudkevych was ethnically a Ukrainian but initially a citizen of Austro-Hungary, then th Western Ukrainian Republic, then the UR, then Poland, then the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, the the Soviet Union. Now the city in which he lived in is in Ukraine. Bandurist (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree. Concept of nationality is completely different in Western and Eastern Europe. English Wikipedia still has Western bias in this issue. - Darwinek (talk) 20:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I propose that we eliminate nationality parameter completely and not add ethnicity or citizenship parameters. Nationality, ethnicity, and citizenship can all be included in the article itself. -- pete 08:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

request multiple websites
Some writer's have multiple sites. This infobox breaks if you try to put in two links. Thanks.DavidRF (talk) 19:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Website should be the Official website only. Unofficial websites should be placed under ==External links== in the body of the article. In your case with John Sickels, simply make a choice of only one. I would say to use johnsickels.net as it appears to be registered to a john sickels.  -- pete 23:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I changed John Sickels today to reflect johnsickels.net as his Official website. I am also rewording the documentation to state only one address. -- pete 08:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like to second the request for multiple websites. An author may have more than one, especially under different pseudonyms. For example, Faith Hunter has official websites with both that name and her Gwen Hunter name. Both are appropriate for the info box. The box used to support multiple websites - why was this broken? Aleta  Sing 16:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See the updated documentation. You may also be surprised that new parameters were added as well as removed. (see Template:Infobox Writer) -- pete 17:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I see it. That doesn't solve the problem though. Something that worked fine was broken, and the new parameters are irrelevant to this issue. Aleta  Sing 17:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

References for infobox
We used to be able to cite references in the infobox. This seems to be broken now. What happened? Aleta  Sing 16:41, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Excuse me but I do not understand your question? Could you be more specific with what you mean? -- pete 16:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I had ref tags in the infobox in Faith Hunter. One of those defined a named ref (i.e. which was used later in the article. When I looked at the article today, the tags from the infobox did not seem to be recognized, and where the named ref was used again, an error message displayed saying no text had been specified for that tag. Simply taking the named tag out of the infobox and putting it in the text made it work again - but leaves no citation in the infobox. Aleta  Sing 16:56, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, perhaps it is because the citations were for "debut works"? Aleta  Sing 16:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, I now see what you mean. You are trying to enter information on the debut_works parameter which was removed earlier this year. I suggest you read the new documentation for the template. see Template:Infobox Writer. -- pete 17:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it's not that I was trying to enter anything there - it was already there, and removing the parameter had unintended consequences. Aleta</b> <sup style="color:#0095B6;"> Sing 17:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Parameter: religion
As many writers have been deeply influenced by their religion imo it would be quite convenient to include such a parameter. --Eleassar my talk 20:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see it was suggested before. I have missed the discussion. Anyway, my proposal is to reconsider the decision. This is an important type of information. --Eleassar my talk 20:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Writers can be influenced by a great many things, including their politics, their economic class, their level of education, etc. But for many, it's just a piece of trivia.  The ideal role of an infobox is to summarize the kind of information that applies to all members of the group it is for, and I wouldn't want to see people hunting down the religious affiliation (or political party etc.) for an author for whom it isn't relevant. - JasonAQuest (talk) 03:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The basic problem is that a person's private opinions can change, and they can be difficult to assess or label from outside. The infobox is intended for information which is simple and clear-cut. If it is very important, it should be explained in the lead. Xanthoxyl (talk) 04:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Many of the parameters that are already included can often be just a piece of trivia (like spouse, children, domestic partner, signature etc.) It is at the editors' discretion to determine what is important and what not in particular cases (i.e. which parameters should be included in an article).

As for the basic problem: If the information is sourced it may be included in the article and if it is important enough to be included in the lead it may also be included in the infobox. When a person's private opinions will change and this will be reflected in reliable sources the information will be corrected too. Many things about a person can change (even his/her name) so I don't see this as a viable argument not to include the religion parameter. --Eleassar my talk 09:05, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

adding Lit Portal (part 2)
Someone said a while back that trying to add the Lit Portal tag in the infobox didn't work, but I see that it's been done in Template:Infobox Christian biography. What's the difficulty with adding it to the Writer infobox? Aristophanes68 (talk) 21:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See template documentation. [[Image:Portal.svg|20px]] Literature portal was added as an optional parameter. If there is a dispute between editors if this parameter should be used be used in the article, it should be brought up on the articles talk page. If no consensus can be developed for a particular writer, the portaldisp parameter should be marked with:


 * -- pete 10:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding that! Aristophanes68 (talk) 12:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Converting infobox writer to new parameters
Well out of 3711 articles that have the infobox, I have converted 1822 of them. Interesting what you find in these boxes. They really need some major cleanup. Mostly I am just taking out the defunct parameters and renaming to the new conventions. -- pete 10:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Birth date
What should be the proper way of editing when the a writers birth date is unknown? Should it be just left blank? After going through 2000+ pages there seems to be no real consensus. Some editors leave it blank while others place 19?? or ?. -- pete 07:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Never mind. Got my answer from wp:mos and wp:date. -- pete 20:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)