Template talk:Infobox scientist

Template:Infobox scientist is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

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This template was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination: No consensus to merge, 2020 March 19, see discussion. No consensus, 2006 September 8, see discussion.

I would like to propose a new parameter, Research collaborator -- quite different from Doctoral advisor, Scientific adviser, Notable students, etc., because I mean well known collaboration between scientists of equal status, such as Stanford Moore and William Stein. Few biochemists think of Moore without immediately thinking of Stein, but infoboxes of neither mention the other. I realize that this could be abused, for example mentioning a coauthor of one common paper, so there needs to be a warning comment along the lines of Use only when the collaboration is itself well known. Athel cb (talk) 15:26, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose it most certainly will be abused, & has too much nuance for an infobox. Warnings will certainly be ignored most of the time. Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When dealing with biographies of individuals born in countries that have changed their name, structure, or form of government, which version of the country's name should be included? For example, in the case of someone born in Yugoslavia or in a kingdom that later became a republic. I’m asking this because some pages seem to adopt inconsistent approaches. What are your thoughts on this? Lord Ruffy98 (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that WikiCorrector5241 has been going through infobox scientist entries (e.g. Einstein) and changing the short link to a phrase with a verb, for instance changed "Gravitational wave" to "* Explaining gravitational waves". Leaving aside the question that adding "Explaining" could be WP:OR, on general principle I feel that the prior short links are more than enough for an infobox. Comments please, I did not see this being discussed in any of the archives. Ldm1954 (talk) 17:47, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with @Ldm1954 that such expansion to long phrase descriptions is not appropriate for an infobox, whose entries must be kept brief. The links are enough. Also, WikiCorrrector5421, your additions seem to be own opinions about the work. For Einstein you expanded to:

• Coining the term unified field theory
• Describing mass–energy equivalence
• Explaining Brownian motion
• Explaining gravitational waves
• Explaining the photoelectric effect
• Formulating Einstein field equations
• Introducing Bose–Einstein statistics
• Introducing the cosmological constant
• Postulating the Bose–Einstein condensate
• Proposing the EPR paradox
• Proposing general relativity
• Proposing special relativity

There's a lot of overlap between this and Template:Infobox academic; maybe it should wrap that instead of wrapping Template:Infobox person directly? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:26, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can we finish discussing the infobox philosopher wrapping, and then figure this out? It would be nice to keep {{Infobox academic}} stable during that discussion, and I may need to change it again for this wrapping. — hike395 (talk) 11:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, sounds good to me. I'm just trying to identify all the academic-related templates that could be deduplicated—the other one I know is Template:Infobox economist, which should probably wrap this template. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:05, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The scientist infobox doesn't have the ability to specify offices. I'd like to be able to add these to scientist like John Flamsteed who was the first Astronomer Royal. Something like

| title1 = Astronomer Royal | order1 = 1st | term_start1 = 1675 | term_end1 = 1719 | successor1 = Edmond Halley

I'm not sure if there is another way, if so please suggest. I am happy to try and figure out on the sandbox how to do it, but don't want to proceed if it's already been done or discussed. GrimRob (talk) 21:32, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How about just doing the following? No need to modify any infobox code.

John Flamsteed FRS
Portrait by Thomas Gibson, 1712
Born	19 August 1646 Denby, Derbyshire, England
Died	31 December 1719 (aged 73) Burstow, Surrey, England
Alma mater	Jesus College, Cambridge
Known for	First Astronomer Royal
Spouse	Margaret Cooke
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy
1st Astronomer Royal
In office 1675–1719
Succeeded by	Edmond Halley

— hike395 (talk) 23:38, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, just what I was looking for GrimRob (talk) 08:16, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hike395, I may have fixed my titling error in the sandbox. Please take a look at the testcases, especially the embedded one, where |known_for= is misplaced in the live template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The latest edit by Jonesey95 eliminated the "Scientific career" header in the infobox. See the test cases, where the sandbox has the latest edits, and the main template has the previous state.

I'm not sure whether this was intentional? If it was, then I would prefer keeping the "Scientific career" header, because it breaks up the long infobox and makes it more readable. I also know from my experience in wrapping {{Infobox person}} that editors appear to have strong opinions about headers, and so any intentional removal probably should be discussed first.

Comments/thoughts? — hike395 (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I didn't see Jonesey's comments (above) in time. The current version looks good to me. — hike395 (talk) 18:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was an error by me. I'm not as familiar with the template wrapper as I should be, so I didn't notice that the title disappeared under normal conditions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox person has an RfC for possible consensus regarding the removal of color from person infoboxes. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. — Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:31, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]