This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox scientist. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
nationality : Use if nationality not the same as citizenship above.
What does this even mean? The only objective definition of "nationality" would be "citizenship".
Perhaps this is intended as "ethnicity"?
If the slot is meant to record the subject's ethnicity, please make this explicit, don't call it "nationality".
Also, there are often the most depressing edit-wars and pissing-contests surrounding a scientists nationality-slash-ethnicity, and it is an ostensibly bad idea to encourage this sort of behaviour via dedicated template parameters. --dab(𒁳)13:21, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
Please replace the code for the parameter label34 with the following, so that the linewrapping for the label "Other notable students" is improved (compare its appearance in the Edward Teller article infobox):
|label34 = {{#if:{{{doctoral_students|}}}
| Other notable students
| Notable students }}
Sorry, MSGJ, I didn't see your comment here and have made the change. I think it is a more pleasing word-break, though I'd have trouble explaining why. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:35, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
It seems I got my question round the wrong way anyhow. I agree it is better this way, perhaps because the top line is longer than the bottom line. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:34, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
I was wondering if something like this was an option—this seems like a great idea. Scientists are people too after all :) and it's disconcerting to have these little stylistic deviations when navigating between people of different occupations. Moreover it strikes me as overly one-dimensional having to classify each person as strictly a "scientist" or an "engineer" when doubtless there are certain individuals who have made important contributions to both fields. I am a software developer by trade and my first instinct here was that a "scientist" infobox should somehow inherit the "person" box so as to take on all of its core attributes and then expand them to include the scientist-specific fields; this seems like a great way to introduce that type of functionality. --Xiaphias (talk) 20:34, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
No, please - give them their own little box. Much too crufty and against WP:INFOBOX principles. Of course adding them is an excellent idea, but not in the main box. Johnbod (talk) 17:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Do you have edit rights for templates? It should be added to harmonize the template with "Infobox Person". Of course it would be best if this was merged with "Infobox Person" and the 4 extra fields just appended, like the other dozen templates that were merged to infobox person. That way the common field names are always consistent. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:53, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Template:Infobox professor was deleted on 25 June 2012. No articles link to it. Is there a reason why it might not be advisable to redirect Template:Infobox professor to Template:Infobox scientist? The description of the scientist infobox says that it is for "a person who is a scientist, medic, engineer, mathematician, or academic". My view is that professor is a hyponym of academic. Are there technical reasons not to reuse the names of deleted templates? —Ringbang (talk) 17:18, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Can someone please add a parameter for religion? (I noticed this omission after seeing that James Joseph Sylvester's religion does not appear in the infobox although it does appear in the edit window). Many thanks, ------03:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
No—for example, what would adding a religion field to James Joseph Sylvester tell a reader? Would it mean that Sylvester had been educated in that religion, or that he followed it as an adult, or that it was important to his work? If the topic is important, why is not mentioned in the article? This issue has been extensively discussed, for example: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6. Johnuniq (talk) 08:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree. If a scientist's religion is important to his/her thinking or career, it would be mentioned in the lead section. In many cases, I guess in most, it is irrelevant. LynwoodF (talk) 09:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Name of spouse
Is the parameter Spouse supposed to be the birth name or the married name of the spouse? For Otto Hahn, another editor recently changed Edith Hahn, née Junghans to just Edith Hahn with the edit summary "Removed nee junghans because it means no children [sic], and is not part of the name". I changed it to Edith Junghans because it was her birth name, following example articles for Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Niels Bohr. However I could not find a general guideline in the documentation here or elsewhere.
And what if the spouse has changed her/his name due to a previous marriage? The infobox at Albert Einstein lists his second wife as Elsa Löwenthal, but the article on her (Elsa Einstein) points out that she "had the surname of Einstein at birth, lost it when she took the name of her first husband Max Löwenthal, and regained it in 1919 when she married her cousin Albert". So how should she be listed in the infobox? Dirac66 (talk) 20:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Personally I would have thought it would be the name the spouse was most commonly known by. In most cases that is probably the married name, however there may be occasions where the spouse is most commonly known by a different name. Off the top of my head, Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin is usually known as Mary Shelley, even though she was only actually married to Shelley for six years (until his death), and neither of them particularly believed in marriage. Hillary Rodham Clinton kept her maiden name until Bill's career took off, and even then, I believe she has never legally changed her name; Hillary Clinton is a political convenience as much as anything. I'm not sure it's possible to give hard and fast rules, therefore, but I would lean towards the name they are best known by. In most cases I would have thought the maiden name is not particularly relevant, but in some cases (e.g. if they came from a well-known or significant family) it might be interesting. --Merlinme (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
In the text of the article, I would use the name the spouse is/was most commonly known by, if the context is after the marriage (or the adoption of the man's name). So I would say Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein or Hillary Clinton was named Secretary of State However the spouse line of the infobox serves only to identify the spouse and gives no other information, and the married name is already given by the subject of the article, so why not give the birth name to provide more information? For example, the article title Percy Shelley implies that his wife would be named Shelley, so why not add her birth name as well? Dirac66 (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
It's an interesting point that the married name of the spouse is usually obvious from the article. "Elisabeth Schumacher" gives more information than "Elisabeth Heisenberg", which seems redundant, and "Elisabeth Heisenbeg née Schumacher" seems both redundant and a bit clumsy. On that basis I would support using the maiden name. For the really complicated examples such as Elsa Einstein I'd suggest using the name they were commonly known by when they got married, but I'm not sure it's possible to give hard and fast rules. I can't really see any substitute to getting consensus on the relevant talk page, as there will almost certainly be exceptions. --Merlinme (talk) 13:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
"Influenced" and "influences" for earlier thinkers
I'm not sure I agree with the Guideline as currently written, especially for earlier thinkers. I understand and approve of the need to keep the infobox to a manageable size, and cut down the interminable lists written by people who want to show their favourite thinker influenced the next thousand years of thought. However "personal contact" is a tough hurdle to cross in earlier periods, when knowledge may have taken hundreds of years to advance, particularly before mass printing, yet scientific influence may still be clear. Taken literally, the Guideline rules against Johannes Kepler influencing Isaac Newton; Kepler died before Newton was born, yet Newton was clearly building directly on his work. On the other hand the rather minor thinker Henry More is ok as an influence, because Newton spoke to him.
Should there be some allowance made for clear and direct influence, e.g. where a later scientist mentions an earlier scientist by name, in a major work by the later scientist? The example that brought me to this guideline was that of Alhazen. Alhazen built his entire optical system on the work of Ptolemy. Alhazen was himself enormously influential on medieval European scientists, perhaps most significantly on Roger Bacon, who mentions him by name.
I'm not sure the passage of time should necessarily preclude being influenced by an earlier thinker, provided the influence is clear, direct and significant. --Merlinme (talk) 16:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Gosh, this isn't a very high traffic page. I'll leave it another week, but if no-one has commented by then I'll make a Bold change to the guideline along the lines I've discussed above, i.e. "influence should be clear, direct and significant, for example where two scientists had personal contact, or one scientist built directly on the work of another." --Merlinme (talk) 13:47, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
The "influence" fields in infoboxes in the humanities are a regular cause of trouble, as people think it is being helpful to fill them up with something, anything, rather than leave them blank. The vast majority of people with this infobox are modern scientists, who would soon start sproting all sorts of odd "influences", so I'm opposed to a change. The text can cover this better. Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Personal contact is not really important here, as shown by some of the examples above. "One scientist built directly on the work of another" is a much better criterion. Dirac66 (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
It's a better criterion, but should be limited to the principal influences, (perhaps "primary" is too narrow) as shown by sources that cover it selectively. I'd even support saying "principal 2 or 3 influences". The subjects own views on who influenced them are not determinative--most of us think we are influenced by everyone important in our field ,and in a sense we are, but that's not of any encyclopedic value. DGG ( talk ) 05:55, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
I'd be happy with something like "influences should be restricted to a small number (perhaps two or three) where the later scientist was clearly and directly building on the work of the earlier scientist." Are other editors ok with that wording? --Merlinme (talk) 13:44, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
I'll leave it a few more days but unless there are further comments I'll make a change next week along the lines I've suggested. --Merlinme (talk) 17:41, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Your latest version seems good. Only the sentence is a little run-on, so I would add a comma after the parenthesis "(after two or three)". And "earlier scientist" should be "earlier scientist(s)", if there are two or three. Dirac66 (talk) 18:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
I think that is fine now. Of course, some editors will pay attention to it and others will not, but we can give a guideline for those who are interested. Dirac66 (talk) 20:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Agnes Claypole Moody wrote (at least) two theses: The Enteron of the Cayuga Lake Lamprey (1894), and The Embryology and Oogenesis of Anurida maritima (1898). Right now only the latter is in the infobox, since it's the first one I had found in my research.-- Brainy J~✿~ (talk) 18:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Try this format
Thesis title 1 (1894) Thesis title 2 (1898).
The line break is a <br/>, and the years go with the titles rather than in the category Thesis year, so that each date goes with the correct title. Dirac66 (talk) 20:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
|data18 = {{{workplaces|}}}{{{work_institutions|}}}{{{work_institution|}}} should be |data18 = {{{workplaces|}}}{{{work_institutions|{{{work_institution|}}}}}}, because |work_institutions= is plural form of |work_institution= and both of them must not have value at the same time. then, if |work_institutions= has not value, the value of |work_institution= will be placed if exists. -- Alireza Eskandarpour Shoferi (talk) 09:54, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Could someone please add information on how the the |children= parameter should (and shouldn't) be used to the Parameters and Guidelines sections of the template documentation? Should it be the same as the guidance at Template:Infobox person?:
Number of children (e.g. three or 3), or list of names, in which case, separate entries using {{Plainlist}} or {{Unbulleted list}}. For privacy reasons, consider omitting the names of children of living persons, unless the children are independently notable.
This message is to notify you that there is an RfC ongoing on whether to add pronunciation info to {{Infobox person}}, a discussion which may also affect this template. Your comments on the matter are appreciated. The discussion can be found here. Thanks! 0x0077BE(talk · contrib)17:15, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
OK I see it was added in as honorific_suffix and honorific_prefix. Is there a way to make the output not bold, consistent with other infoboxes? Thanks. —МандичкаYO 😜 03:31, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Personally, I would say that it is only for notable doctoral students, usually those with their own wikipedia page (though feel free to red link a name if you believe they are notable enough to have a wikipedia page). Therefore, it should be a list of named individuals. See also the parameter | notable_students = which produces Other notable students in the finished infobox.
The total of doctoral students supervised is interesting and relevant information. So by all means, add the number of doctoral students to the main body of the article. Don't forget that info added to WP:BLP articles needs to be well referenced.
The example you give of Nancy Rothwell is unusual. I don't see the notability of any of the doctoral students listed in her infobox. Infoboxes are not meant to be a collection of every little bit of information; they are highlights. To me, it looks as if people may have been adding themselves (as her doctoral students) to the infobox.
