Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 September 23

= September 23 =

question about iud study
Question moved to "Question about iud study" on the Science desk. -- EronTalk 16:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Gender equality?
Female known persons are often presented with partners/spouses/children much more often than male persons. Example Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg that I just looked up. I think persons despite gender should be presented the same way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.16.11.12 (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * what exactly is your question here i'm have difficulty finding reliable sources to help answer ur question so can you explain pls thanks  ~Helicopter  Llama~  16:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The article Jane Birkin uses template:Infobox Person, which has space for spouse(s) and children. Serge Gainsbourg uses template:Infobox Musical Artist, which doesn't. It's not gender bias, just the choices of the editors who created the pages.  Rojomoke (talk) 16:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Good call. The way the templates are designed does seem to contain an implicit bias though: it implies that the spouses and children of "persons" are notable by default, while the spouses and children of "musical artists" are not... SemanticMantis (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That's because musical artists aren't people... -- Jayron  32  18:53, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Technically true perhaps. As per the template doc, the musical artists template covers both individual artist and bands. While the individual artists whether solo or those who make up the band are obviously people, in most jurisdictions, the band itself isn't. Nil Einne (talk) 19:18, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, so e.g. Pink Floyd is a musical artist, but Pink Floyd is not a person. Unless they are a legal person, by right of having incorporated under that name in the appropriate countries. I don't really have a horse in this race, but the compositional semantics are interesting. I suppose if WP were designed by certain programmer types, we'd have inheretitance of attribute types across subclasses. Anyway, the OP seems to have the answer, if not the cause. Seems to me that plenty of people are interested in the spouses and children of Pink Floyd (i.e. of the members of the group), but just because those attributes are not in the infobox template doesn't mean it can't be added to the article by any interested parties. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * (EC) I don't know if I'd agree with your interpretation. A differing one is that since the persons one is very generic intended to cover as many base cases as possible, hence the large number of possible parameters. And that the spouses and children parameters is useful often that it's a parameter. (The template also has partner.) In particular, it seems likely that it would be useful in a broad enough set of cases, in other words, it's not like spouse and children would only be included any specific set of cases that a specialise template may make sense. Remember also that for any parameters it lacks, you (I think) either have to exclude the info from the infobox or design a new one.
 * For musical artists a much more specialised case, it's evidentally not considered important often enough to include as a parameter. In any case, as the musical artist template says and described here WikiProject Infoboxes/embed with this example which coincidentally (I think) is a musical artist one [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Watkins_%28Lostprophets%29&diff=588227116&oldid=588227038], the template itself can be included as a module of the person one. (Actually I seem to recall someone tried to combine all the sub templates for people in to the person one at one stage but due to some controversy this was halted.)
 * To be clear, I'm not saying I the exclusion of spouse and children from the musical artist template is correct (I think it's far more different to argue against parameters for the person template) but I think it's a more accurate assessment of the situation. Consider for example that person has stuff like signature, criminal record stuff, education stuff, agent.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 19:08, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with everything you say, and the rationale makes sense. But I don't see how that's not an implicit bias that comes about because of the way the boxes are designed. The way our tools are designed absolutely can bias what we do with them. I'm in over my head on including one template as a module of another, but that seems like the right way out, as far as I understand it. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well you could say there is a bias against musical artists spouses and children being significant enough to be included in article. As I hinted at, I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with that POV.
 * My point was more that I don't see it useful to compare it to the inclusion of these parameters in the person infobox, because the circumstances there are wildly different. In particular it doesn't mean it's considered defacto significant or anything, simply sometimes useful for a infobox intended to be very broad. (Actually if you look at the infobox talk page, there's a fair amount of discussion on when the parameters should be used, particularly for children.)
 * Of course the parameter being there, it's probably going to be used so does risk resulting in a differing or biased general result compared to infobox boxes where it isn't. But the point remains, there's no bias for or against musical artists and their spouses/children by the inclusion in the person infobox, the bias if there is one arises solely by the inclusion or exclusion of these parameters in the musical infobox. A better comparison may be with other specific infoboxes. However I'm still not sure it's that useful or helpful, it'll probably be better to concentrate on whether the parameters are sufficiently useful for the musical artist infobox without worrying too much about what other infoboxes do.
 * Getting to your point above and also hinted here, I think it is true things on wikipedia are often incredibly adhoc and therefore inconsistent. They arose because someone, probably a long while ago, designed them that way possibly with limited discussion, reference to other examples, or unifying principles. People may have changed them over time, again possibly under the same conditions. It may or may not also be the case that the people most active in related articles (such as members of a wikiproject) did or now prefer them that way.
 * There have some attempts at improving unification and consistency, but at best limited agreement on how far. In the specific case of infoboxes, I may be mistaken about any mega merger proposal or attempt since I couldn't find it. But if you check out the infobox person talk page, there have been a number of mergers over the years so the number has gone down. I can see a number of reasons why people may be opposed to such mergers (such as the large number of confusing and specific parameters you may end up with) and one of the failed merger proposals I saw mentioned some of them. That said, there are obviously issues like that highlighted here. (Personally, I'd learn towards as few infoboxes as possible, with wikiprojects providing appropriate advice or docs for parameters you'd generally use for them.)
 * In terms of the specific case of musical artist, it would probably be better to specifically propose the addition of these parameters on the appropriate talk page if they're considered likely to be useful often enough. (If it's only rarely they should be including, the module approach where necessary would probably be better.)
 * Edit: Actually I see this was discussed very recently Template talk:Infobox musical artist. The fact Jane Birkin uses the person infobox isn't particularly surprising since the specific infobox was merged Templates for discussion/Log/2010 August 20. Also I'm not sure if anyone else is aware, but I just noticed there's a specific reason why the OP chose these examples. The OP mentioned partners, and the above examples were partners of each other so the discordance seems more acute. Also, besides Jane Birkin, at least one of his spouses was notable, which may change things somewhat (i.e. push towards inclusion) from a more ordinary case. Also I just realised I forgot to mention that I think the development of wikidata is also changing things a bit I think.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 20:08, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * This "question" should never have been entertained, but nipped in the bud. It's simply an expression of the OP's opinion, and he was inviting a debate.  Now, I seem to recall we have a policy on debates ... somewhere around here ... maybe stuck on the fridge? ... nope ... I'll keep looking, it must be around here some place, maybe in some dusty drawer or other ...  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Technically, yes, there's no question being asked (beyond the implicit, "Why is it like this?"), but there is an odd flaw being exposed here. This should probably not be nipped in the bud; it should be brought over to the help desk or the village pump by someone who understands the technicalities of what's going on so that we can examine the issue in the proper way. Matt Deres (talk) 13:31, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I do agree that the OP has raised an interesting issue. And while the above discussion has concentrated on the infobox issue, I'm not sure it's the only issue, but rather simply one that arose because of the specific examples used. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a more general male/female bias. Admitedly I would have expected it more in the other direction (at least for partners/spouse), although this arises perhaps mostly because of the difference in the way spouses are handled for politicians, than anything else. You're right that this isn't the best place for a discussion on what, if anything to do. OTOH, in terms of generally explaining stuff to the OP, while the RD technically isn't the correct place I don't think there's any harm in answering it if it's a simple query. Nil Einne (talk) 20:08, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It's a known problem, in those circles who care about bias in Wikipedia, and the listing of family in this way is a commonly-cited example of this bias. It's not as obvious to some observers as the stuff to do with pictures of Filipino women, for example, or the preponderance of articles on porn stars, but it's part of the drip-drip-drip that people discuss. 86.136.125.63 (talk) 08:27, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Gender equality is achieved when women and men enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of society, including economic participation and decision-making, and when the different behaviours, aspirations and needs of women and men are equally valued and favoured. Nowadays, the sense of the gender equality is stronger than before. Besides, the high degree of social concern, the improvement of the legal system, also the development of self-awareness, which make female get more knowledge to protect their rights. However, there still a problem that within in the same career position, men will get more income than women. So that, gender equality than before, but need more equal opportunity by considering in many aspects.Jun7self (talk) 17:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)