Template talk:Infobox journalist/Archive 1

Archive 1

Image param

It might be worth noting for newbies that the Image paramester requires a value of the format [[Image:name_of_image_file.jpg]]. If someone feels like modifying the template, I personally think it would make more sense for the template to add the double-brackets, rather than the user, since they're required in all cases.

It also might be worthwhile for one or more of the creators of this template to put together something on this talk page explaining the intended use of the parameters. Especially "occupation": I mean, isn't that somewhat redundant to the fact that this is supposedly for Journalists? Or are we assuming that all journalists need another job because the pay sucks so bad? --Geoff Capp 21:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Bug: field displayed twice

{{helpme}} (shoot up a signal flare)

I think I've found a bug in the template. Check the Alexander Cockburn article: "birth name" displays twice, once at the top of the first section and again at the bottom. The template appears to be correctly invoked in the article. +ILike2BeAnonymous 05:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. —Centrx→talk • 05:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Alias should not show as "Other names"

Alias should not show as "Other names" but as "Aliases". __meco 16:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Orange bars

The orange bars are too jarringly bright. A more pastel-type color would fit better with WP's longstanding (muted) design aesthetic. Badagnani (talk) 09:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The orange bars are too jarringly bright. A more pastel-type color would fit better with WP's longstanding (muted) design aesthetic. Badagnani (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

{{edit protected}}

The editor 'Badagnani' is right, and has been ignored. There is no rationale for the garish orange on all journalist bios. It is simply an arbitrary and gratuitous ornamentation. Absent a semantic rational, the following line (line 3) should be removed and the default background-colour of infoboxes allowed to appear; see WP:Deviations; it's MOS.

• | abovestyle = background-color: #ffb32f

Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Will do. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ;) Jack Merridew 05:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

"Circumstances"

The "Circumstances" bar doesn't make any sense. Please change this to some other clearer and more appropriate term. Badagnani (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions:

For someone who is familiar with wiki syntax, I suggest the following two edits: 1. Per the above comment, the "circumstances" bar makes no sense, at least to American English speakers. It should be eliminated entirely. 2. Four separate fields for birthplace, birthdate, date of death, and place of death is extraneous. As with (most?) other infoboxes, there should be two fields, born and died, which encompass these four pieces of information. --MagneticFlux (talk) 21:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Religious Belief(s) and Notable Credit(s) does not display properly, other items

Generally I like the use of templates but when I filled this in the "(s)" section wrapped to the line below. Also what is the point of "salary" and "networth"? Seems non-encyclopedic. Mfields1 (talk) 00:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

domestic partner

{{editprotect}} when this template was updated to include domestic partner, either the documentation (domesticpartner) or the parameter (domestic_partner) was entered incorrectly. i believe most infoboxes do not use the underscore. --emerson7 07:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done - needs the underscore in the template. SkierRMH (talk) 00:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Affiliations?

Should we add a parameter for a reporters affiliations/organizations they have worked for? Scapler (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Allow inheritance of name from page title

{{editprotected}}

Requesting sync with the new sandbox to allow for the {{{name}}} parameter to be omitted if it's the same as the article title. No changes to deployed instances. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

So instead of a name in the orange bar you get just the orange bar without the name? Garion96 (talk) 18:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Errr, no. If you don't include a name attribute, it gets picked up from the article title. Most high-profile infobox templates do this already. See the test cases for an imperfect example. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, makes sense. Done. Garion96 (talk) 06:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Spouse should be Spouse(s)

{{editprotected}} This is how Template:Infobox person has it, so it should be consistent in this template. The way it is now looks particularly bad in the article for Ed Bradley. Victor Victoria (talk) 15:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 03:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Doesn't look like it was done. The infobox in the Ed Bradley article still says spouse, not spouse(s). Victor Victoria (talk) 00:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It's done. Articles take a while to update. — RockMFR 01:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Residence field

{{editprotected}} Could someone please add a "Residence" field, like in {{Infobox Person}}?--Blargh29 (talk) 13:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Are there any comments from others about whether this is needed/desired? Or has there been a discussion elsewhere? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Deactivated pending response. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if there is any other talk of this, but I happen to this it would be useful. In fact, I was surprised that it didn't exist before.--Blargh29 (talk) 20:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I was also very surprised not to see this in place. Please add it.--Shakehandsman (talk) 05:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Infobox conversion

{{editprotected}}

Requesting sync with sandbox to convert this to a vastly simpler, more consistent and easier to maintain {{infobox}}-based syntax. Neglibile output changes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 04:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Nationality and Awards field

{{editprotected}}

Can anyone add a section for awards and nationality. Thnx.--23prootie (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Enabling, sandbox has been updated to remove the inappropriate {{{salary}}} and {{{networth}}} attributes and add {{{nationality}}} and {{{awards}}}. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with removal of attributes but don't see benefit on adding these two. Awards for instance have been removed from Template:Infobox actor. It was getting excessive. Garion96 (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the awards field is a great idea. I would like to see a "residence" field in addition to a "nationality" field.--Blargh29 (talk) 12:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Awards aren't suitable in all cases, but awards in journalism tend to be pretty prestigious things; journalists are often defined by them, in a way that actors aren't. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I've declined the edit request; please get consensus for potentially controversial changes. For the record, I support the removal of {{{salary}}} and {{{networth}}}, and share Garion's concern about the proposed additions.  Skomorokh, barbarian  09:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I think nationality is one of the few items which definitely make sense in the infobox. On the other hand "ethnicity" and "relatives" should be removed, because their inclusion in the infobox is likely to over-emphasize these aspects of the person's life, and also is likely to exacerbate BLP issues. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Please add nationality. It is kinda basic compared to "ethnicity" and "relatives". I feel this is really important. —  Cargoking  talk  13:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I have readded the editprotected template. I think adding nationality is quite reasonable. —  Cargoking  talk  16:07, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

 Removed salary and net worth.  Added nationality. Please could you update the documentation now? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done —  Cargoking  talk  21:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Free image request

I've updated the image parameter on Stuart Scott with "Replace this image male.svg" which should place a silhouette of a man, but nothing appears. {{Infobox military}} also does not work properly. See Tony Brown (journalist) which uses the {{Infobox celebrity}} for an example that does work.

Ethnic

Resolved

The parameter |ethnic= is not well named. To avoid confusion, I'd like to have it renamed here (first by duplication, then a BOTREQ to change all instances of the template using that parameter, then removal of the original), to the more standard |ethnicity=, as used in {{Infobox person}}. Any comments? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

No objections, so please change:

{{{ethnic|}}}

to:

{{{ethnicity|{{{ethnic|}}}}}}

and I'll then make a BOTREQuest. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. BOTREQuest filed. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:02, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

This is now done; so please change:

{{{ethnicity|{{{ethnic|}}}}}}

to:

{{{ethnicity}}}

Cheers, Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

•  Done --CapitalR (talk) 23:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hello, I have a suggestion. Is it possible to add a "Years active" field to this template? I noticed that most infobox templates (including actor, musician, even the basic person) include a years active parameter. Tinton5 (talk) 00:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Support as standardising on generic parameters from {{infobox person}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The proper image field (like in Infobox Person) and an employer could also be factored in. Most journalists are not free-lance. —  Cargoking  talk  16:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be better to add any of this template's unique fields to {{infobox person}} and convert instances of this template to that one; perhaps by redirection, otherwise by making this template call it. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You could say the same about Infobox Actor. This one is for journalists, like the other is for actors. —  Cargoking  talk  18:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed; and I have previously done so. In fact, all the parameters in this infobox are already available in {{infobox person}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The orange from here is quite distinctive. I think Infobox Person should have a colour option like in Infobox Music. (You can steal that if you want, and suggest it at Infobox Person. I would do it myself, but you seem to be quite familiar with it.) —  Cargoking  talk  20:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. The {{{years_active}}} is now added. Let me know if there are more fields. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

imagesize

This template needs image size, because many large pictures take up the whole page if they aren't shrunk.Schnapps17 (talk) 03:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

There should also be an "image_alt" parameter for alternate text for the image (per WP:ALT), right?  Chickenmonkey  02:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

nowrap

Hi everyone,

When I look at Rachel Maddow, I see that Religious belief(s) and Notable credit(s) are word wrapped before the (s).

I suggest the template be changed from:

| label14    = Religious belief(s)
| data14     = {{{religion|}}}

| label15    = Years active
| data15     = {{{years_active|}}}

| label16    = Notable credit(s)
| data16     = {{{credits|}}}

to:

| label14    = Religious {{nowrap|belief(s)}}
| data14     = {{{religion|}}}

| label15    = Years active
| data15     = {{{years_active|}}}

| label16    = Notable {{nowrap|credit(s)}}
| data16     = {{{credits|}}}

so that this anomaly does not happen.

--Kevinkor2 (talk) 10:33, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. I also added the nowrap to "spouse(s)", although that probably won't be an issue since it's so short. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 07:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yay! That looks much better! Thank you, Plastikspork. --Kevinkor2 (talk) 12:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Twitter

Has the idea been raised to add a Twitter parameter? Many journalists use twitter and therefore, I propose a parameter to be placed at the bottom of the infobox near the website parameter to put a journalists twitter handle. --Flyguy33 (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Twitter is quite the fad right now, but that parameter would still be inapplicable to the vast majority of journalists covered on the encyclopedia. Furthermore, we do tend to avoid that sort of social linking in infoboxes, even if journalists typically use Twitter in a slightly different more "newsish" way than might be expected of other users. Better that official Twitter accounts be linked to from the external links section of articles IMO. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 07:21, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Chris, I agree with you that there is a portion of journalists that still do not use Twitter. However, I argue that many political, foreign, and sports reporters are using Twitter heavily. I actually raised this idea because I specifically went to a few reporters Wikipedia biography pages looking for their Twitter accounts. I was actually kind of expecting the information to be there. I also tested the idea of linking to Chuck Todd's verified Twitter account in the external links section of his Wikipedia page and it was quickly removed with a WP:ELNO notice. I thought the idea of using the infobox could be a good possibility. I'm interested to see what others think about the idea. --Flyguy33 (talk) 07:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The infobox is only supposed to be used to summarise material already included in the article body. If a link was removed from the article due to ELNO then it doesn't belong in the infobox either. Personally I'd take up that particular removal with the edito who removed it, as we have a {{twitter}} template for the precise purpose of adding Twitter accounts to article EL sections. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 07:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Chris, thanks for the input. I'd like to keep this idea out there and get some additional opinions on placing a Twitter parameter on journalist's infobox's. Additionally, I started an amendment proposal at Wikipedia talk:External links#Proposal to Amend Policy for Journalists and am looking to gather some opinions there as well for the External Links sections of pages. Thanks. --Flyguy33 (talk) 07:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought that if the primary site for a particular journalist is twitter then the URL parameter could be used. If someone has multiple sites such as a website, a blog, twitter, facebook, etc. then wouldn't it be best to just put the main one in the URL param and all of them in the external links section of the article? -- WOSlinker (talk) 09:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I've always considered the URL parameter in the infobox to link to the biographical page the journalists employer maintains or the archive page of all of their reporting on their employers website. If I've been using this improperly, I understand, but I feel that journalists using Twitter to report the news has evolved enough that it could be potentially very useful for readers to have a dedicated parameter. Thanks. --Flyguy33 (talk) 14:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Notable usage of Twitter should be mentioned in the article, and the infobox, for the convenience of our readers; not just for journalists, but for all biographical and organisational subjects. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with WOSlinker, that one official website link is enough. The rest can go in the external links section. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:21, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Bear in mind that such a person's Twitter name is increasingly an important piece of data about the; including it as suggested allows it to be emitted as part of the template's metadata. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I for one am ready to include it as an optional parameter in the infobox, if others agree, I say we make this happen. --Flyguy33 (talk) 22:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I still don't think we need it as a separate parameter. I would support changing | below = {{#if:{{{URL|}}}|[{{{URL}}} Official website]}} to | below = {{#if:{{{website|}}}|{{{website}}}|{{#if:{{{URL|}}}|[{{{URL}}} Official website]}}}}, which would allow for more flexible linking, for example using say |website={{twitter|foo}}. I am sure you could put your microformats in that template. However, it appears as though bots don't like twitter. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

We could make {{Twitter}} use HTML class="nickname", but that would only work if the displayed text is set to be the Twitter name (e.g. @pigsonthewing). Currently, that seems to happen only in the minority of instances. The bot, from it descriptions, seems set to discriminate against IP edits, which are ignored if made by registered users.Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The bot indeed would revert non-autoconfirmed editors and IPs. And then still only once, and it leaves an explanation on the talkpage of the user. All other users are ignored by the bot.

Regarding Twitter - twitter links are discouraged per our external links guidelines - they are often unspecific, unstable, and actually, they do not tell about the subject, but rather about the things the subject is 'working' (generally speaking) on. Moreover, if the social networking sites (not only Twitter) is important to the person in question, then it is often prominently linked from (the) official page(s) of the subject. It would not be in Wikipedia's goal to have links to all possible sources of information about the subject (and twitter is not specifically about). I do therefore believe, that even for high-profile journalists who are very active and up to date with their twitter feeds, and have very interesting twitter feeds, that I would still wonder, if the twitter is really that necessary.

Having said that .. I did once suggest that the 'web presence' of a person can in itself be a notable fact - and for that reason, if the twitter feed (or myspace or facebook presence) gets mentioned in the text .. then it would be in line to then have a link in an infobox to said web presence. (linking in the text would be out of line with our WP:MOS .. and sometimes even leads to .. unencyclopedic texts like 'For the twitter feed, click here'). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:08, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

religion ≠ Religious belief(s)

I noticed here[1] that the "religion=" parameter in the infobox template transcluded as "Religious belief(s)". That is probably more often incorrect than correct. Just because someone is born into a religion doesn't mean they "believe" everything in that religion, which it would imply. Even practicing a religion doesn't mean the person believes everything in it, unless they come out and say so. In the example I reverted, not only has that (BLP) subject declared that they "are not religious", but they drink wine and even write about wine, in extreme contradiction to the "belief(s)" of that religion. I imagine someone innocently added it because the subject was born into that religion. For the sake of simplicity, and so other editors don't innocently add the "religion=" parameter, can "religion" just mean.... "religion" when the infobox transcludes? I also couldn't find where to change this. First Light (talk) 00:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I guess the strange wording is an attempt to suggest that the person has not necessarily signed up to the religion (perhaps that religion does not accept the person), but is an indication of how the person is aligned. There have been long discussions about {{Infobox scientist}} where the religion field used to say "Religious stance". See Template talk:Infobox scientist#Religion (and other sections on that page). The religion field was finally removed from that template on the basis that, particularly for a scientist, it is not appropriate to label a person unless the label is very well supported by reliable sources and the published views of the person—the more nuanced positions that many scientists have regarding religion are more properly dealt with in the article, and there should not be an attempt to find a word to summarize the situation. Before the label was removed, there were absurd edits like adding "Anglican" to Richard Dawkins on the basis that he was brought up in that religion, followed by excruciating discussion about what kind of atheist he was. I don't like unreliable labels in general, but have no particular feelings at the moment regarding this infobox (my comment is just some background). To change the text, an admin would have to edit the protected template (label14). For that to occur, a longish discussion (probably an WP:RFC) would be needed to establish consensus. Johnuniq (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Removing any "religion" parameter altogether would really be my first choice. It is so problematic to essentially "tag" someone as this religion or that, when it is so nuanced, as you can see from my example. I don't see much difference in that regard between scientists and journalists. Short of an RfC for complete removal, I guess an alternative would be removing it on an individual basis, when it violates WP:BLP, which it will probably do most of the time. The only exception is when someone strongly self-identifies that their "beliefs" are such-and-such religion. That narrows the use of that parameter significantly. Did it take an RfC to remove it from the scientist infobox? Thanks for the help. First Light (talk) 03:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I see from browsing those links you provided that it just took some discussion to remove it from the scientist infobox. Thanks, First Light (talk) 03:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Requested edit

This is an edit request to allow for image resizing, like the parameter in the parent template Template:Infobox person. Previous requests at Template_talk:Infobox_journalist#imagesize have gone unanswered. I realize that there are editors/developers who prefer templates to use a standard image size and to allow for users to control their desired sizing in the preferences, however, while this sounds great in theory, in practice it doesn't work and there is no such template standard at this time. Page design and layout must take into account readers, not just logged-in editors who have variable preferences. Viriditas (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Image size support was added five months ago in this edit. Use image_size. For what it's worth, using the default image size works perfectly well, which is why it's been so warmly welcomed as it's been rolled out to the majority of high-profile templates in the last year or two. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

Please add {{TfD}}, linking to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 22#Template:Infobox journalist. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:09, 22 February 2012 (UTC)