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.
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)
Wikipedia: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.
[1] (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 [2] looks cool. bunix 13:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi Fred, your version at [3] 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)
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)
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:
--ragesoss 17:14, 9 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)
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 [4] and [5] and [6]. 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
What I'd remove:
—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:
.....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 [7]. Best regards, bunix 22:08, 11 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Starting from when this TfD voting phase began, Pjacobi and his suspected sockpuppet 12.74.162.102, see [8], 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)
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 [information theory] you will see that some [Redundancy (information theory)|redundancy] 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
Result is Keep.
Result is No Consensus, therefore Keep. (3 for, 5 against)
Result is Delete.
Result is No Consensus, therefore Keep. (5 for, 5 against)
Result is Delete (2 for, 10 against)
Result is Delete (2 for, 9 against)
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)
talk 03:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
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 [10], for example, where the template manages this on a single line. We could copy that structure. bunix 18:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
...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)
"Studied at" is not a bad idea. I quite like it. bunix 12:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Would it be useful for this template to include the Template:Persondata metadata template also? Much of the data required by Wikipedia: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)
Intro. (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)
Comment. This infobox is a shame for an encyclopedia and those contributors who are not longer aiming at writing an encyclopedia are a shame for Wikipedia. --Pjacobi 11:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment. OK. There are some valid points on either side, but I don't think the core of the issue is being addressed, which is whether having infoboxes in general is a good thing. Tabular presentation of information is one thing. Prose presentation of information is something different. The two need to work together, not clash. I know this sort of wider issue needs to be addressed in a wider venue, so I am going to try and find the right venue and then provide a link from here. Carcharoth 12:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Response. I'm still unclear what your "core issues" are. Perhaps you can illustrate them visually by pointing to a scientist template that you consider bad and one that is good. There are many Scientist Infobox examples out there that in IMHO look "crisp"....some indeed are a bit of a mess, but I tolerate that because editors need to be left alone to tweek them over time to find best solutions. I recognise the evolutionary process and don't let that concern me. If your problem is not specific to this template, but you have a wider issue with all infoboxes then you are right that you need a different forum to this Talk Page. I suggest you read WPBIO: that calls for inclusion of infoboxes at the top of every biographical artical page as standard policy. You may want to raise your concerns on the talk pages of the admin guys that set up the WPBIO: policy. It was all done before my time here, and I personally have no issue with those policies. So I am currently supporting the status quo. SuperGirl 01:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Begin Essay No, and for the following reasons:
So, generally, no. Geogre 21:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Reply to Essay See below. Wiki-kisses, SuperGirl 09:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Dear Geogre. I really loved your beautiful and passionate use of the English language. Your speech was very moving, but I must respectfully disagree. Here are my responses:
SuperGirl 09:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Alas, you have mistaken much in your response.
Geogre 21:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Reply. Darling Geogre, We can keep arguing till the cows come home. I stand by my arguments and believe your reply, although beautiful, is flawed. I bow out here to let others have their say. It is occasions like this where I wish we could somehow meet editors face-to-face over a glass of wine and discuss things. These talk pages have their limitations. I do respect your viewpoint and I believe we do have common ground to work upon. But on this issue we must agree to disagree. Wiki-kisses to you. Spread the wiki-love, SuperGirl 22:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Response to flags point: Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags. Only an essay, but I hope you get the point. I do have some ideas to improve infoboxes, so I'll return to this later. Specifically the idea to have empty fields that can be put anywhere to list important points specific to each individual. Carcharoth 10:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Reply. As you say, it's only an essay. But you should also see its Talk Page [12] to see that support for flags persists. The consentual support for flags is clear when you see the 1000's of flags throughout the wikipedia as a whole. The horse has bolted, and if you can't beat 'em you may as well join 'em. The only question in that essay that merits discussion is "do flags add anything?" Personally, for me I find they make a nice marker for my eye when I am quickly scanning an infobox. It's a quick visual way of comparing countries. If you are going to scrap flags, then you may as well scrap all other forms of visual markers such as bullets or punctuation. I think the anti-flag people are perhaps sweating small stuff and should have a break to go fry some bigger fish.SuperGirl 13:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I have added the infobox to Henri Poincare but the image remains small no matter what size I set it at. Any ideas. Lumos3 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Having a default image size is probably a good idea for large images, but I doubt it for small images; see Ian Murdock. Were there similar discussions somewhere else? ...otherwise any ideas?--Chealer 05:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Flag_icons. Carcharoth 12:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I recently added "religion=atheist" to the Richard Dawkins article; it was removed; and a discussion ensued on the talk page. Folks arguing against inclusion (the majority) pointed out that (a) atheism is not a religion; (b) they didn't like the religion field; (c) the religion field says to "use sparingly". Folks (mostly me) arguing to include "religion=atheist" or "religion=none (atheist)" said that (a) the "religion" field doesn't have to mean "belief in a religion"; it could mean either "belief about religion" or "belief in religion"; (b) the template includes it whether we like it or not; (c) wikipedia categorizes "atheism" with religious beliefs in categories (e.g., "Category:Atheist mathematicians"); (d) atheist and agnostic were used frequently as examples in discussion on this template (including the Marie Curie sample above); and (e) while atheism is not a "religion", it can be a significant identifier the way religion can; to the extent religion is ever appropriate/relevant to a scientist's life/research/public persona, atheism can be as well, and the "religion" field is where one would go to find it. ... Apologies if I'm shorting the anti-inclusion folks; they should feel free to better explain their arguments. I'd much appreciate some general guidance on this from others who developed this template. --LQ 02:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Since this conversation is not actually about the infobox template, could you please take it somewhere more appropriate? Thanks --Siobhan Hansa 21:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I added a couple of fields to the template, Botanical author abbreviation and Zoological author abbreviation, each based on the Template:Botanist. These fields are extremely important for articles about taxonomists. I put in a botanist and zoologist field separately, since they are treated under two different codes of nomenclature and in a few cases, taxonomists have two separate abbreviations as a result.
The fields add the text: "Botanical author abbreviation – The standard author abbreviation <abbreviation> may be used to indicate this person in citing a botanical name", or "Zoological author abbreviation – The standard author abbreviation <abbreviation> may be used to indicate this person in citing a zoological name". This may be a bit wordy for the infobox, but I simply used what was already present in the Botanist template. Peter G Werner 17:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
