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Template talk:Infobox scientist

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 17:36, 25 October 2006 (→Thoughts on this template: reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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This template was considered for deletion on 2006 September 8. The result of the discussion was "no consensus".

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)

Stupid revert war

Misplaced Pages: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.


(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:

  • spouse
  • children
  • website

--ragesoss 17:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

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. --SiobhanHansa 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! --SiobhanHansa 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:

  • alma_mater
  • doctoral_advisor
  • doctoral_students
  • known_for
  • societies
  • prizes
  • spouse
  • children
  • religion
  • footnotes

—Rotring 17:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

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:

  • Societies
  • Prizes

.....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)

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. — Laura Scudder ☎ 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." — Laura Scudder ☎ 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 :-) --SiobhanHansa 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? --SiobhanHansa 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.--SiobhanHansa 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. --SiobhanHansa 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 — Laura Scudder ☎ 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 . 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. --SiobhanHansa 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. Misplaced Pages'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 you will see that some 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 Misplaced Pages: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. --SiobhanHansa 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 Misplaced Pages:Lead section. --Pjacobi 14:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
What's your point? --SiobhanHansa 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. --SiobhanHansa 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.

Field#2: Birth Place

Result is Keep.

Field#3: Death Date

Result is Keep.

Field#4: Death Place

Result is Keep.

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)

Field#6: Nationality

Result is Keep.

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)

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. - 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. - 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)
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.

Field#9: Alma Mater

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

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.) - 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. - 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. --SiobhanHansa 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)
Response. Yeah, like one or two at most. No big problem.bunix 23:54, 25 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. — Laura Scudder ☎ 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)
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)

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. - 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). - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Response. Should be no problem. Misplaced Pages 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)
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)

Field #12: Known for

Result is Keep.

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 Misplaced Pages process rather than problems with the template itself. The kinds of problems mentioned by Peta should be resolved by editorial discussions imho. - 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. --SiobhanHansa 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)
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)

Field #13: Societies

Result is Delete.

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. --SiobhanHansa 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. — Laura Scudder ☎ 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)

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)
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)
Response. Strong disagree. Public passion is what wiki is all about. Misplaced Pages 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)
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)


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)
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

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)

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)
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)
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)

Field #18: Erdos Number

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)

Field #19: Handidness

Result is Delete.

Field #20: Webpage

Result is Delete.

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.
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)
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)

Field #21: Footnotes

Result is Keep.

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)

Marie Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
BornNovember 7 1867
Warsaw, Poland
DiedJuly 4 1934
Sancellemoz, France
Nationality Polish- French
Alma materSorbonne and ESPCI
Known forRadioactivity
SpousePierre Curie (m. 1895)
ChildrenIrène, Ève
AwardsNobel Prize for Physics (1903)
Davy Medal (1903)
Matteucci Medal (1904)
Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1911)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist and chemist
InstitutionsSorbonne
Doctoral advisorHenri Becquerel
Doctoral studentsAndré-Louis Debierne
Marguerite Catherine Perey
Notes
The only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different science fields.


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 Misplaced Pages, 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
Polish
French
instead of
Polish- 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)
Marie Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
BornNovember 7 1867
Warsaw, Poland
DiedJuly 4 1934
Sancellemoz, France
NationalityPolish -French
Alma materSorbonne and ESPCI
Known forRadioactivity
AwardsNobel Prize for Physics (1903)
Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1911)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist and chemist
InstitutionsSorbonne
Doctoral advisorHenri Becquerel
Doctoral studentsAndré-Louis Debierne
Marguerite Catherine Perey
Notes
The only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different science fields. Married to Pierre Curie (m. 1895), with notable children Irène Joliot-Curie and Ève Curie.

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 Misplaced Pages: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

(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)

Now I like the way it has been done at Einstein. That is 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)
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)
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)
That might be useful for current scientists, but it will never be complete as not all scientists are notable enough to be on Misplaced Pages. 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)
Template talk:Infobox scientist Add topic