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The Academic background divider is often a bit obstructive for the many articles which have no other info that fits under that section besides education/alma mater, so it ends up pushing the infobox downward and overall looks awkward. Some of the parameters are also confusing and appear contradictory — i.e., Thesis goes under academic background but is thus excluded from Academic work, which sort of implies that a person's thesis is not a part of their academic work.
I think it would be great to have the infobox take on a similar formatting as Template:Infobox scientist, and it will provide the additional benefit of providing some consistency to readers. For example, Template:Infobox scientist actually puts Thesis under Scientific career, which is appropriate, and doesn't have any sort of divider at all; it would be less of an eyesore/confusion if Template:Infobox academic did the same.
I would be in favor of just having one section header, “Academic career” with an ordering of fields that is compatible with {{Infobox scientist}}. I agree having two headers is too crowded. — hike395 (talk) 15:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, and it seems more editors would too. Izno — since you've rearranged and removed some of the template parameters before, what do you think about this proposal? GuardianH (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The education parameter might also should be added back, as there are quite a few US articles with them that use it and some UK articles use the parameter to denote a subject's secondary education. GuardianH (talk) 19:57, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
hike395 As it is right now, I think most editors would agree wholly with the changes. But there were some qualms with the influences/influenced parameter, and I remember that there was a controversy within the last year or so when it was removed and a cohort of editors lobbied for its conservation. IMO maybe it would be best to leave it in for a separate consensus to determine its inclusion. GuardianH (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Khiikiat: I would have reverted and discussed more given your objection, but now there's an RfC phrased in the negative. Would you be willing to cancel your RfC, I will revert, and we can discuss the issues that you have? — hike395 (talk) 12:29, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hike395: I have ended the RfC so please revert this edit. I started an RfC so that more editors would be involved in the discussion. I think it would be a good idea to start a new RfC about your proposed changes. Khiikiat (talk)
Well, it was just you and me who were in favor, which is a very weak consensus. Even one objection means we don't have consensus and need to discuss further, or invite more editors into the discussion. — hike395 (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hike395:was there parts of the proposed change you thought made the infobox worse? Yes, your proposed change makes the infobox much worse. There is nothing wrong with the current version. There are three sections: a section for personal life (birth, death, spouse, children), a section for academic background (education, thesis, doctoral advisor), and a section for academic work (discipline, institutions, main interests, notable works). It is perfectly logical. Your change breaks the section for academic background in two. Education is moved to personal life, and the thesis and doctoral advisor are moved to the bottom of a new section called Academic career. It makes no sense at all. Take Avi Shlaim as an example. The reader would learn in the first section that Shlaim has a PhD from the University of Reading and then would have to scroll down to the end of the infobox to find the title of the PhD thesis. It is completely illogical. Or did you want more editors involved? I think a major change to an infobox used in approximately 16,000 articles should be supported by broad consensus. Otherwise, the status quo should prevail. Khiikiat (talk)
Per your feedback, in the sandbox, I moved |education= and |alma_mater= back into the academic section, just before the thesis information. I also made Shlaim a new test case. Does the proposal make sense now? @GuardianH: what do you think? — hike395 (talk) 12:02, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid your proposal still does not make sense to me. Education is usually something that is separate from and precedes one's career. Furthermore, the term "career" may not be appropriate for some independent scholars. As I explained above, in my opinion, the infobox is perfectly fine as it is. Khiikiat (talk) 10:12, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hike395 No, I don't agree with the changes that @Khiikiat has proposed. One's academic career and notable academic work begins after their undergraduate and graduate education; it makes perfect sense, not to mention its parallel characteristic with Infobox scientist for consistency. The ironic thing is that Khiikiat's example of Avi Shlaim where The reader would learn in the first section that Shlaim has a PhD from the University of Reading and then would have to scroll down to the end of the infobox to find the title of the PhD thesis" absolutely makes sense, especially when the subtitle is pertaining to the subject's academic work, which a PhD thesis is. Education and academic work are related but not the same; parameters are appropriate. The reversion should be reverted back to its original form. GuardianH (talk) 02:53, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@GuardianH: I'm trying to see whether we can achieve partial consensus (i.e., whether we can modify the proposal to address specific concerns of Khiikiat), then we can open up the remaining disagreement to a wider audience. I've made two changes:
I moved |education= and |alma_mater= back into the academic section, and
@Hike395 In regards to this question, I insist that the removal of the Academic background section in favor of simply Academic career just as it is in Template:Infobox scientist is necessary (we don't need the baggage weighing down the infobox, and it's even more ugly to readers). I am wondering: is there a way to make a new template that those wishing to remove the Academic background divider can just substitute instead of trying to change the entire Infobox academic?
The reason I ask this is because the Academic background divider alone makes it impossible to add theses or doctoral advisors in the module parameter without destroying the format of the infobox. This is why on numerous pages where the article, i.e., uses Infobox officeholder, a lot of editors simply resort to adding Template:Infobox scientist if the subject has an academic career. The obvious problem here is that you get a lot of academics who aren't scientists stuck labeled with a Scientific career. Thus removing this Academic background parameter is an easy fix to a lot of needless baggage. GuardianH (talk) 06:48, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand what you are saying, you want to fork the infobox to allow editors to remove the "Academic background" header? I think this would be a redundant fork to avoid reaching consensus on changes, so would not be allowed.
I just thought of another way to resolve the disagreement, based on Guardian's question. Perhaps we can simply add a parameter |no-background= which suppresses the "Academic background" header for infoboxes where that header is not helpful? Then we leave everything the same as it is in the current infobox. — hike395 (talk) 10:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(1) @Hike395 If the suggested |no-background= parameter would be able to give an option to remove the Academic background divider, I would be all for it, provided that it also does the already-discussed format changes bringing everything that needs to be under Academic career, well, under Academic career. This seems promising!
(2) I took a look at the testcases and |education= and |alma_mater= are still under Academic career. I explained this previously but these parameters should not be under Academic career but rather above it. GuardianH (talk) 19:35, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reason why those parameters are under "Academic career" is that I was trying to find a middle ground between your desires and the objections of Khiikiat. There does not appear to be such a middle ground.
How about this: I will restore the sandbox to the original proposal and will attempt to solicit feedback from multiple WikiProjects. Let's see what happens. — hike395 (talk) 05:27, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From a suggestion by GuardianH, there is a proposed changed to this infobox which only has one section instead of two. This proposal is implemented in the sandbox. Please see the test cases for the effects of the proposed change.
I think the loss of academic background as a general section, with its fields redistributed elsewhere, make this version generally worse. I would not support deploying this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}09:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am still opposed to changing the infobox. I still think the current version is better than the proposed version for the reasons stated above. Khiikiat (talk) 11:53, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another proposal
Given the feedback from Nikkimaria and previous feedback from Khiikiat, I have generated another proposal in {{Infobox academic/sandbox2}}. In that proposal, there are only two changes from the current infobox:
The "Academic background" header is removed (per GuardianH and Remsense)
The "Influences" field is moved down to be above "Influenced" in the "Academic work" section. Without the "background" header, the "Influences" field would now be out of place floating amongst education fields: it seems best to put it next to "Influenced".
I still oppose the removal of the 'Academic background' header. Moving Influences together with Influenced is fine by me. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}15:24, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hike395 What about the proposal to simply add another parameter that editors may use that may optionally allow for the removal of the Academic background divider? I feel as if we have overlooked this proposal not long after it was proposed. GuardianH (talk) 21:44, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that would be extremely silly and lead to a bunch of nonsense edit wars. "I added the infobox first without the divider / Oh yeah well, I'm the main author, and I want a divider." Headbomb {t · c · p · b}22:34, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is truly not a reason at all. I already pointed out the formatting issues that arise with the Academic background divider, and how in numerous cases editors simply defer to using Template:Infobox scientist because the divider in Infobox academic is a formatting nightmare. There is no reason to keep the superfluous divider simply but for aesthetics. No other academic subject template has a divider either (i.e., Template:Infobox economist, Template:Infobox scientist, Template:Infobox philosopher). It's a wonder as to why we even have this divider that has stuck out like a sore thumb for so long. GuardianH (talk) 22:40, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is one of two proposals. I would be in favor of that suppression and the removal of the Academic background divider entirely so that the template can be reorganized. Perhaps to automatically suppress the header when used as a child template is something that we can get done now while the other larger discussion is ongoing. GuardianH (talk) 02:22, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure there is no consensus to remove the divider from the infobox. I don't think more discussion will help. I was trying to understand if the formatting problem you were attempting to solve was limited in scope to child templates. I cannot tell if that is true from your response.
A recent example I saw was Tsai Ing-wen, which uses Infobox scientist to avoid confusion with "Academic background". I can of course go about and find others if more examples are needed (I recently used this very same avoidance in the infobox for Ma Ying-jeou to avoid collateral with infobox academic). GuardianH (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An example for the ugly format that Infobox academic creates can be seen at Joseph Stiglitz, where the thesis is pushed all the way at the end with the "Academic background" divider, separating it from all the other educationally-relevant info above the divider. The obvious issue here is (1) a doctoral thesis, being a part of one's academic work, should be moved under that section, and (2) that by pushing the thesis into an "academic background" section implies that everything above the divider is not part of his "academic background", which is untrue. GuardianH (talk) 04:25, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In this proposal, the current infobox would remain unchanged, except for when it is used as a child infobox. In that case, there would be one header "Academic career". As you can see from the tests, that is parallel structure to other child infoboxes, which display headers such as "Military career" and "Scientific career".
That's the order that they appear in the main template: I don't know how to fix that without making a complete mess of the template (in effect, making a new template only for child use cases). — hike395 (talk) 07:20, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the easiest way to accomplish what you want is to add |academic= to {{Infobox scientist}}, which will change the "Scientific career" header to "Academic career". This would be analogous to the |non-academic= parameter in this template. — hike395 (talk) 07:43, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural close - No effort to discuss this was made before creating a RFC. A RFC is the last resort and isn't necessary for every change. Nemov (talk) 13:14, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there is no indication of what "hike395's recent changes to {{Infobox academic}}" might be; we should not be made to search.
Furthermore, six RfC categories is over the top. It's completely outside the scope of |style, |policy and |prop, barely within |proj. About the only truly relevant ones are |bio and |tech. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bad RFC No attempt is made to describe what these changes are, and there was no attempt to discuss this beforehand. Please close this RFC and discuss the issues with hike395 instead. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Request to Add Parameters for Native Place or Hometown
Dear Template Maintainers,
I hope this message finds you well. I would like to request the addition of a new parameter (e.g., |hometown= or |native_place=) to the Infobox scholar template. This parameter would allow users to specify the subject's native village or hometown, which is often distinct from their place of birth (|birth_place=).
This distinction is particularly important for individuals whose birth and ancestral or residential ties belong to different locations. Including such a parameter would enhance the clarity and accuracy of biographical entries, especially for scholars from regions where such differences hold cultural or personal significance.
If adding a new parameter is not feasible, I suggest utilizing an existing optional field (e.g., |notes=) for this purpose. However, I believe a dedicated field would make the information more accessible and structured.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Please let me know if I can provide further clarification.
Oop that's fully on me I completely missed that lol, I've never tried editing a template. Thanks for letting me know! Pacamah (talk) 19:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This template is a customized wrapper for the infobox template {{Infobox academic}}. Any field from {{Infobox academic}} can work. Questions? Just ask over at Template talk:Infobox academic while referencing Template:Infobox philosopher.
{{Infobox academic}} clearly uses parameters influenced and influences
