Template talk:Infobox Military Person

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edit · changes

Contents 1 Organization 2 Fields to add 3 Entered Service? 4 Percival 5 Slim 6 Trimming some fields 7 Finished? 8 Alt text for images 9 Portrayed by? 10 Problems? 11 Nicknames 12 Allegiance and Military Branch 13 Change 'allegiance' to 'nationality' or 'nation of service' 14 Date of Birth 15 hCard 16 Interwiki 17 Priority of awards for that paramter? 18 Interwiki +mk 19 Interwiki+bg 20 "Lived" field 21 Image size 22 Blank copy 23 listing the Cold War as a conflict the subject participated in? 24 Born and died fields broken 25 On Alexander Suvorov 26 'Commands' field 27 Cemetary optional field 28 Add "Occupation" or "Previous occupation" field 29 Spouse 30 Inquiring minds want to know... 31 Burial coordinates 32 Template width 33 Burial 34 Recommend changes 35 Place of burial - class for microformat 36 nesting function 37 Template:Infobox Polish Soldiers Blue 38 Microformat upgrade request- no visual impact to template 39 Addition of Service Number field?

[edit] Organization

Is it possible to change "Organization" to another word? In Commonwealth English this is spelled "organisation", so it'll look out of place on bios written in CwE. I don't know much about how these infoboxes work I'm afraid, maybe the template can be changed individually? I don't really like the organisation idea anyway, what do we put for Montgomery for example? During WWII he was in command of a division, an army and an army group in major actions. It seems to be very well suited to the example case but less so for senior figures but a vast improvement over the Infobox Biography, though. Leithp 08:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

"Awards" might also be better renamed "Decorations". Leithp 08:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Easy enough to change. Keep in mind, though, that this template has only been around for a few hours; I expect it will change significantly between now and the final version adopted ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 11:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

"Organization" could become "Commands" or "Notable Commands" --Loopy ^e 00:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Not all of these are officers, though; we have piles of VC recipients that died corporals. Maybe separate fields for officers and enlisted ranks? —Kirill Lokshin 00:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps "Unit", "Military Unit" or even "Served in" would work better? Or maybe just for enlisted men, leaving "Notable Commands" for officers. For Monty, both British Eighth Army and British 21st Army Group would be "Notable Commands", while Alfred Henry Hook would get Served in: 24th Regiment of Foot. --Habap 23:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of "Notable Commands" for officers and "Served in" for other ranks. --Loopy ^e 00:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I've added a "Notable commands" field and renamed "Organization" to "Unit". I've also collapsed the various ranks into a single "Rank" field. Hopefully this will be somewhat more flexible. Any other ideas? How do we want to format multiple ranks/units/commands? —Kirill Lokshin 01:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of having both fields. To take another British general as an example, Michael Carver, I would use the "notable commands" field for time as Chief of the General Staff and the "served in" field for his role as an officer in the British 7th Armoured Division during WW2. I'm sure this is true for many officers who saw active service early in their careers before later rising through the ranks. Leithp 15:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fields to add

Let's consider a few widely different people and see what needs to be added to make the box work for them; for instance (unless someone has any better ideas) Hannibal, Carmagnola, Jean Lannes , Robert E. Lee, and Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr..

Some initial observations:

• Some may serve multiple countries, and hold different ranks in each country.
• Some may be commanders but have no formal rank.
• Some may be part of a complex chain of command.

Any ideas? —Kirill Lokshin

For ranks in multiple countries perhaps it could just be up to the editor to do something like this:

Infobox Military Person
Rank	Coronel (1937 - Spanish Army) Lieutenant Colonel (1940 - French Army) Admiral (1947 - Royal Navy)

--Loopy ^e 00:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice! We probably need a separate country field for rankless commanders, though. —Kirill Lokshin 00:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

For rankless commanders the rank field could be ignored all together and what they commanded be shown in what is currently the "organization" field, or perhaps a "comparative rank" field or similar? --Loopy ^e 00:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we should go the simple route and change the attribute name to Rank(s). If they didn't have an official rank we can just say N/A. Oberiko 02:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Or just leave it blank. Would we want a separate "Country" (or "Allegiance") field beyond that, though? —Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Let´s add the signature field too as in {{Infobox Royalty tempelate. --BorisGelbukh (talk) 04:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Entered Service?

What's the point of the entered service field, I'm not sure I see the relevance. Also wouldn't a "major actions" type field be beneficial? Leithp 10:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the entered service field and added "notable battles" and "allegiance" ones. Anything else we need? —Kirill Lokshin 16:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Percival

Per Kirill's suggestion at Wikipedia:Peer review/Arthur Ernest Percival/archive1 I've replaced the infobox biography there with this one. My first impressions are that it's very big and could do with a little trimming. Leithp 20:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of the parameters can be omitted if they're not particularly important; the "later work" section seems like a good place to start. Also, reducing the picture width can shorten the box considerably. —Kirill Lokshin 20:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slim

If anyone is looking for another example of this box "in action", I've just added it to William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim. Leithp 22:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

And there is now a discussion on the talk page of that article as to whether it is appropriate. Anyone who's interested please participate, as I suggest this discussion is going to happen again and again for any military person who has had a significant other career. In this case it's Governor General of Australia. Leithp 09:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trimming some fields

Would anyone object to removing the "family" and "currentlyresides" fields? They're not particularly useful in most cases, and would be better mentioned in the article text rather than in the infobox. —Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Leithp 16:55, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finished?

I think this is about ready to roll out, isn't it? Leithp 20:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think so; it's beginning to come into use, and there haven't been many complaints. I'm sure we'll have further ideas for improvements at some point, but I'd say we're done for the immediate future. —Kirill Lokshin 21:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Just come by this template and think it looks great. Have taken the liberty of trimming the basic font-size used to 95% in order to reduce chances of otherwise unseemly line-wrapping; hope that's okay. Suggest that "Later work" reworded as "Other work", as in at least one instance (Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen) it's not necessarily later than (i.e. after) the person's military service. Best wishes, David Kernow 01:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The line wrapping is going to sometimes be ugly either way (see, for example, John Abizaid; reducing it in the left column causes more in the right). —Kirill Lokshin 01:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about the "Later work" → "Other work" field?  I could start working through those articles that use it. Regards, David Kernow 12:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

If we do that, we can just change the label in the template. Changing the actual field name isn't worth the effort, in my opinion. —Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay; have just made change. Best wishes, David Kernow 00:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alt text for images

"The image must be given in the form [[Image:Example.jpg|300px]]; ..."

It's good practice to include a description of an image, even if a caption isn't needed: [[Image:Example.jpg|300px|MajGen John Q. Example USMC, Burma, 1944]].
—wwoods 10:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes (although a caption should generaly be used here); the main point was that thumb or right or other image tags break the template. Kirill Lokshin 12:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portrayed by?

I just don't think it's notable enough to name actors in the infobox. Space in the infobox should be premium, only important stuff should make it in. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 01:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that was in the original version somebody created; it's never really been discussed. If nobody drops by with serious objections, we can probably remove it. Kirill Lokshin 01:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I've only used it once, on Brian Horrocks, and the actor is mentioned in the article anyway. It really doesn't need to be in the infobox. Leithp 10:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed it. If anyone has any convincing arguments for leaving it in, I'm sure they'll drop by shortly ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Would this cause trouble with existing boxes with the field filled in? -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 00:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No; that field will just disappear. Kirill Lokshin 00:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, that's good. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 01:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems?

Some of the sections don't work. See Eugene Roe for example. There's information about his nickname, where he lived, etc., but it doesn't seem to show up on the actual page. Morhange 20:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Strange, I see all of the fields on the page. Have you tried clearing your cache? Kirill Lokshin 20:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nicknames

Hi everyone. I have a question regarding nicknames: I see that there is a field for them in the template but is there consensus on whether or not these are too trivial for an encyclopedia? At the Adolf Galland page for example there is some disagreement about whether or not his nickname should be included. As you can see from the page history, and my talk page, I think they should be included.Mumby 14:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Broadly speaking, I can't see any reason why a nickname that can be found in reliable historical sources couldn't be legitimately included. Kirill Lokshin 15:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Allegiance and Military Branch

I certainly think that the Allegiance field is worthwhile and that many articles use it as directed on Template:Infobox Military Person. However, some articles replace they country with a military service (eg. they use British Army instead of United Kingdom). I have two thoughts about this. First, consistency is important and we're currently lacking it. Second, both national/non-state allegiance and military arm or service are of interest. I suggest that we include a new field called something like "Military Branch" or "Armed Service" which would contain data like: People's Liberation Army, Royal Navy, Israeli Air Force, United States Marine Corps, etc. Greenshed 02:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, wouldn't the branch/service already be indicated (perhaps implicitly) through the unit/command fields, for those cases where it's relevant? Kirill Lokshin 02:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

That's often, but not always true (eg. multinational and inter-service commands or when personnel are attached to a unit). However I would suggest that the main point of info boxes is to provide quick-to-read summary information and not to leave the reader trying to work out implied details. If I were providing a quick summary of a military person, I think I would (at least in modern warfare) mention their armed service. Greenshed 14:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough; I've added a branch= field to the template that should be suitable for this. Kirill Lokshin 14:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In the US Army at least, "branch" means something like "infantry" or artillery". I suggest "service" instead. I've been putting that into the rank line, e.g.

"| rank = [[Second Lieutenant]], [[United States Marine Corps|USMCR]]".

—wwoods 18:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, another one of those messy US/UK things. Could we perhaps get away with something like "Service/branch" as a label for that field (and perhaps suggesting that both be identified if they're different in the relevant country)? Or is that going to be too confusing? Kirill Lokshin 19:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I think "Armed Service" would work fine in British English. If that works ok in US English then if there are no objections .... Greenshed 20:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Ordering of Allegiance, etc

I think that the following order makes sense:

• Allegiance
• Branch
• Years of Service
• Rank

Having Branch down the list, as it is now, does not make logical sense. — ERcheck (talk) 19:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense; I've flipped the order of the fields. Kirill Lokshin 20:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change 'allegiance' to 'nationality' or 'nation of service'

Greetings,

I don't like the below infoboxes because they use the word 'allegiance' which is POV:

Claude Choules March 3, 1901 – Place of birth Pershore, Worcestershire, England Allegiance British

Australian Service/branch Royal Navy Royal Australian Navy Years of service 1916 – 1956 Rank Acting Torpedo Officer, Fremantle Chief Demolition Officer Battles/wars World War I World War II

Note, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in 'pledging allegiance'. Not only that, but we have persons like William Seegers who only served tepidly/because they had to. Did the current pope give his "alliegance" to Hitler? Would it not be less jingoistic to say 'nation of service.' Note, for example, Lazarre Ponticelli served for France while an Italian citizen. His 'alliegiance' was not to France alone but to the Allies. "Nation of service" would remove the POV/patriotic jingoistic association that is attached to the word "allegiance." Sadly, even the example of the "American" soldier seems to be glorifying war. War might be a necessary evil in some cases but it shouldn't be glorified.

'Nationality' is less POV; it is simply a descriptor.Ryoung122 23:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that, of course, is that not all military personnel served a "nation". So far, "allegiance" (imperfect though the term is) is the only label we've found that can capture the full range of groups that organized armies.

(One alternative might be to split the field into national and non-national versions; but I'm not quite sure, off the top of my head, what the logistics involved in that would be.) Kirill 03:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Date of Birth

does anyone other than me think that the dates of birth and death looks kinda ridiculous at the top of the infobox? it really looks like an afterthought. --emerson7 | Talk 20:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it is ok that way. It seems to be in line with more traditional print formats.Mumby 08:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It is different from most other templates for people - Template:Infobox Actor for example - where it is below the picture. Inwind (talk) 10:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hCard

I wish to add hCard microformat mark-up, as used on {{Infobox Biography}}, using HTML calsses:

• vcard - on whole template)
• fn - on page name
• nickname - on nickname

honorific-prefix could be used on "rank", but only if there is no content other than a prefix.

Andy Mabbett 15:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill Lokshin 21:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, but class="vcard" does not seem to appear in the output. Andy Mabbett 20:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, it seems MediaWiki is too clever about trimming extra markup; it should work properly now. Kirill Lokshin 21:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to work, now. Thank you again. Please will you now add a subheading, "Microformat", followed by {{UF-hcard-person}} to the documentation? Andy Mabbett 21:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill Lokshin 21:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Splendid, thanks. I'll leave you in peace, now ;-) Andy Mabbett 21:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki

{{editprotected}} Please add nl:Sjabloon:Infobox militair persoon as an interwiki. SalaSkan 18:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Y Done ck lostsword•T•C 19:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Priority of awards for that paramter?

The template guidelines say:

*awards – optional – any notable awards or decorations the person received.

Is there a threshold for which awards should be listed and which shouldn't? It seems to me that if an individual has say several campaign medals along with others, the more notable ones should take precedence in the infobox, because all the decorations received are likely to be listed anyway on their page. Taking Richard Winters for example, I am wondering if his 5 campaign medals (American Defense Medal thru National Defense Medal) can be left out of the infobox in recognition that the others listed are more notable. --BrokenSphere 03:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say it's probably more dependent on the total number than anything else. If listing everything doesn't bloat the box too much, that's a reasonable approach; conversely, on the other extreme, someone like Georgy Zhukov is going to have a much higher cutoff point to avoid having the infobox stretch on halfway down the article. I don't think there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer that we can give here. Kirill 03:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Criteria that has been used for most USMC bios — in order of precedence down to the Purple Heart; adding lesser awards if particularly pertinent to the person's notability, such as POW. Also, include significant foreign awards. — ERcheck (talk) 16:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki +mk

{{editprotected}} Can you please add mk:Шаблон:Инфокутија Воено лице? Thank you. INkubusse 01:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill 02:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki+bg

{{editprotected}} On 17 of August I create this template in bulgarian wiki, so I hope anybody of administrators to add bg:Шаблон:Инфокутия Военно лице. Thank you.--Desertus Sagittarius 11:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill 15:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Lived" field

Recently, I was deciding whether to use this infobox or the regular person infobox in an article, which led me to compare the two. One difference is that this infobox uses the "lived" field, while most of the other bio infoboxes use separate birthdate and deathdate fields. Is there some reason you have chosen not to do the same?

This infobox also includes less attention to family than the standard person infobox, but that is true of many of the other specialized bio infoboxes. --Groggy Dice T | C 01:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason for the combined field is that this infobox predates the introductions of parserFunctions; at the time when it was designed, it wasn't possible to deal neatly with placing a combined birth-death range into a single field when the date of death was absent.

This is no longer an issue, though, so it should be possible to add the normal birth/death fields here. I'll try and do that when I get a chance. Kirill 01:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added "born" and "died" parameters to the template; does that work? Kirill 02:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image size

Is 300px the max? Is there a "preferred" size to specify if the image is larger than that or is it largely individual aesthetics? BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

300px is the maximum size for which template stacking will work properly, as well as the conventional size overall. A larger size can only be set if there are no auxiliary templates in the article that need to be stacked with the primary infobox. This particular infobox is usually used without auxiliary templates, so it shouldn't be too big a deal; but it's typically used with vertically-oriented portraits, so I'm not sure why a larger image would be necessary in any case. Kirill 17:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Size isn't a problem. I guess what I'm getting at is whether there's any preference for a portrait size within that parameter at all or it's up to what editors think looks suitable, as people will differ if a 250px size portrait vs. a 200px sized portrait from say 400px original looks better in an infobox. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Smaller sizes are perfectly fine. Kirill 17:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blank copy

My reason for formatting the blank copy was to match the parent {{Infobox Person}}; what transclusions would that break? --Geniac (talk) 20:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The header is the part that would break transclusions; sorry if that wasn't clear. As far as the formatting is concerned, I think it causes more trouble than it's worth—note, for example, that in the "full syntax" version of Infobox Person, the alignment is broken—and doesn't really improve readability, particularly when the field values wrap onto multiple lines. That particular style of formatting is certainly not a standard; compare all the infoboxes in Category:Military infobox templates. Kirill 20:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I had a look at the transclusions and understand how the header would mess them up. However, I'm not sure what you mean with the "full syntax" version of Infobox Person. Do you mean the "Blank template with all parameters" or the Bill Gates example? What part of it's alignment is broken? Do you mean with the resting_place_coordinates field? --Geniac (talk) 14:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I meant. Kirill 14:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] listing the Cold War as a conflict the subject participated in?

Edward L. Beach, Jr. lists this, but I'm wondering if there are any guidelines to list it or not, or should that parameter only be reserved for "hot" wars. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 17:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

There's no real firm rule; for many people, listing the Cold War is probably more useful to the reader than not doing so. Kirill 18:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Born and died fields broken

The born and died fields do not show in the infobox— see the template example. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hm? The dates are right at the top, just under the name; I can't see anything broken, but maybe I'm not looking for the right thing? Kirill 13:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah- I was looking in the body of the infobox. I can't recall ever noticing then in the header. Thanks. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On Alexander Suvorov

Hello everyone,

On the Suvorov talk page there's been a message under the Wikiproject Biography template stating that "an appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article." This message has been there since at least September 2006 and since then apperantly no one has bothered to add an infobox to the article or remove the message. I decided to add one with this edit. I'm not sure whether I overdid it with information or what, but the infobox was removed a few days later by Ghirlandajo (talk · contribs).

Now, mind you, I really hate to see the work thrown in the trash without any apperant reason stated in the edit summary. However, as the aforementioned gentleman appears to be an admin, my only conclusion is that he knows what he's doing and an infobox does not belong in that article...for whatever reason that is. If that is the case, the message asking for one needs to be removed from the talk page so that others won't make the same mistake. My other conclusion is that the users who dominate that article just don't like infoboxes. In any case, I haven't reverted the edits but instead have come here wondering what you all think on the matter.

Regards, 71.112.145.211 (talk) 09:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This issue should be discussed on the Suvorov talk page— I have copied it there. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:08, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Please put doun this language ru:Шаблон:Военный деятель--Ventusa (talk) 06:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Please put doun this language ka:თარგი:ინფოდაფა სამხედრო მოღვაწე--85.117.43.111 (talk) 09:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Commands' field

I think that it should be changed (in the display) to something like 'commands(ed)', because 'Commands' clearly implies that it's the unit that the officers commands presently, and does not allow for a list of units he commanded in the past. There is no other field for such a list either. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 10:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

"Command" is being used in its noun variant here. Kirill ^(prof) 13:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This is not intuitive to the reader. It can still be changed to 'command posts', 'command positions' or something similar. On a side note, I think the width of the infobox should be reduced. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 15:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmm, fair enough. I've changed it to "Commands held", which should hopefully be clear enough without needing to go into the various subtle distinctions among posts/positions/etc. Kirill ^(prof) 14:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cemetary optional field

Per this help request and this followup, I'm submitting a request on behalf of User:Jonathan Logan. Can the Cemetery field be inserted underneath Place of death in the infobox. Please give me a shout if you need help with template code etc. Many thanks, Gazimoff ^Write_Read 13:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Many military figures aren't buried in cemeteries, so I've added it as "placeofburial" (with an overridable label). Hope that helps! Kirill ^(prof) 13:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that works for everyone. Many thanks! Gazimoff ^Write_Read 14:01, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add "Occupation" or "Previous occupation" field

Please. Complement to "laterwork". Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 05:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The actual label on the "laterwork" field is "Other work", so I think you can probably just use it for both pre- and post-military work. Kirill ^(prof) 13:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That will do nicely. Saintrain (talk) 23:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spouse

Can somebody please add spouse to this infobox?--Dr who1975 (talk) 15:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

There's already a "relations" field that I would think could be used here. Kirill ^(prof) 12:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inquiring minds want to know...

Could someone please look at the recent history of Prescott Prince.

Someone else tried adding this template. The image didn't work right. They tried it with an extra "Image:" in front of the image name, but the image didn't work right when I removed it either.

In the meantime, I changed it to {{infobox person}}.

Inquiring minds want to know... Geo Swan (talk) 05:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The image has to be in full image format (i.e. [[Image:Example.jpg|300px]]) to work correctly; the template doesn't auto-link images on its own. Kirill ^(prof) 00:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree this is probably the better approach. But should that trump consistency with other similar infoboxen? Geo Swan (talk) 04:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

That's how all the miltitary infoboxes work. Given that, in many cases, several separate images are placed in that field, I can't imagine how auto-linking could be made to work without removing existing capabilities from the templates. Kirill ^(prof) 09:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

What consistency? Infoboxes vary widely as to how the images are formatted, field names and the look. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Burial coordinates

Please consider adding a "placeofburial_coordinates" parameter, like that on {{Infobox person}}, for people with notable grave sites. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Done. Is there an associated microformat tag for these? Kirill ^(prof) 01:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template width

This template is unnecessarily wide, as can be seen on Mark Antony and many other articles, where the extra width is not needed. I think the default width should be reduced, or an optional width parameter added. Mr. Absurd (talk) 06:45, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see a width parameter on all of the standard infoboxes for people. There are some that have it and some that don't. Some awards have long names, so the wider infoboxes are nice to prevent wrapping. — ERcheck (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Burial

I would like to have the "burial" changed. Hindu, Buddhist, Sikhs, and Jains are mostly cremated, and Zorastrians are neither cremated nor buried -- left for the vultures. Could someone please change the template for accuracy? =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you want it changed to, though? Kirill ^(prof) 13:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on {{Infobox person}} is to use resting place, for those very reasons. Consistency across infoboxes is also sensible. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hm. We do, at the moment, have a separate label field that allows that label to be changed. Based on the comment here, I'm guessing people would prefer that it read "Resting place" across the board rather than changing it on a per-article basis? Kirill ^(prof) 13:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the default label to "Resting place" but left the support for a per-article change in place; does that work? Kirill ^(prof) 13:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

We can offer the following text options 1. "burial" 2. "cremation" 3. "resting place" in the first column. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You can do that now by setting, e.g. "placeofburial_label=Cremation"; the label on that field is configurable on a per-article basis. I suppose the question is what the default label should be; at the moment, it's "Place of burial", but "Resting place" may make more sense for consistency. Kirill ^(prof) 13:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Not many would know of these customizable settings. This is what I suggest: For burial (Christians, Jews, Muslims) we use the text "burial", for cremation (Hindus, Jains), we use "cremation location", and for all other we use "resting place". Ashes of Hindus are immersed in the Ganges, so the text "resting place" is inappropriate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's neither here nor there; if people don't look at the instructions for the template, then simply adding more variations won't help them. Obviously, all the variations you suggest can be done using the current template (although not automatically); perhaps the instructions can be changed to make the proper use of the "_label" parameter clearer? Kirill ^(prof) 13:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

<reindent>Ok, this can be resolved by having a funeral_type= parameter. This would change the text to:

1. funeral_type=burial --> "Place of burial"
2. funeral_type=cremation --> "Place of cremation"
3. funeral_type= blank --> "Resting place"

This issue stands out on Sandeep Unnikrishnan, where I noticed it renders as Place of burial. I'm not sure if everyone reads this template, its difficult to navigate to the template for a new person or anonymous editor. In my experience, editors usually copy-paste infoboxes from other pages, and then replace the necessary text. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That is exactly what placeofburial_label= does; for example:

{{Infobox Military Person
| name          =[[James Bedford]]
| placeofdeath  =
| placeofburial_label=Place of [[cryopreservation]]
| placeofburial =[[Alcor Life Extension Foundation]], [[Scottsdale, Arizona]]<br />{{coord|33|29|35|N|111|55|34|W}}
}}

James Bedford
Place of cryopreservation	Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona 33°29′35″N 111°55′34″W / 33.49306°N 111.92611°W / 33.49306; -111.92611

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh sorry, got it now, although the label is misleading and I would prefer a simpler, more neutral label. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Please note my related request for #Burial coordinates, above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Support this, if the label is changed to allow cremations etc. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

placeofburial_label is the label for placeofburial; both names should match for consistency. As to coordinates, simply add them to placeofburial using {{coord}}. See the example above. What should the label be for Sandeep Unnikrishnan? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but a separate field allows for greater and better granulartity of data, especially when exported as metadata. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

IMO the infobox has to be updated. There are many fields we can import from Template:Infobox person, and also ensure that the field names are neutral. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recommend changes

I would like to recommend a couple changes to this infobox but I wanted to solicite everyones comments.

Suggestion 1: As someone else mentioned above there are some fields within the Infobox Person that I also think should be added to this template. Here are the ones I think would be useful to add with comments as to why after each:

• |body_discovered = (there are quite a few who's remains where never found)
• |death_cause = (There are a lot with KIA in the death place or in other locations but I think this would be a good addition in general)
• |callsign = (This pertains almost exclusively to military pilots and is better suited to be here)
• |spouse = (Although the relations is already in the template it is better to have the spouse, parents and children seperate and use the relations for things like cousins, brothers, grandparents, etc).
• |children =
• |parents =

Suggestion 2: There are at least 120 Infobox templates for people and many of them operate differently. Several of these others could apply to a military member and although I know that it would be impossible to incorporate every field I recommend adding something that identifies if another could apply, for example if we added a criteria for Astronaut or aviation and it was marked with a Y then that could tell readers that the person was an Astronaut or Aviator. This would also make it easier for editors to add the additional infobox criteria if appropriate and this field could be automatically or semiautomatically be updated using AWB or a BOT. --Kumioko (talk) 19:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll add the fields when I get a chance. I'm not sure how you'd want the second part to be set up; if we use simple yes/no tags, then people are going to complain about the standard display being misleading. We could use them as mere metadata, with nothing actually being displayed, but then they have no immediate benefit.

Generally speaking, I'm not sure that the infobox model is a good fit for what you're trying to do here; this seems more suitable to the category system or some derivation of that. Kirill 17:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.--Kumioko (talk) 00:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Allow me to reiterate my related request for #Burial coordinates, above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

That was done a couple of weeks ago; is it not working correctly? Kirill 17:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I missed that. It seems to be fine, Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Three's a lot to be said for standardising those 120+ biographical infoboxes - they should all take the same generic fields, with the same name, for instance; and merging those which only differ slightly. Some work has been done on this, but it is currently stalled. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 01:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Your right and virtually all of them have ten or twelve fields in common for example (name, image, caption, date of birth, death date, etc) and what I have seen in the past is that when a field that should be common to all gets added to one, it frequently does not get added to all. Place of burial is a good example, there are only a few that have this built into it and it should be a common field to all. I know that typically we try and avoid building templates into templates but it seems like we should be able to do something to standardize some of the templates. Plus there are a couple that are extremely close to each other and only vary by a couple fields. I think if we use the Person data template as the core to the others then it would minimize the changes required to maintain them all and it would help to standardize them throughout WP.--Kumioko (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Place of burial - class for microformat

{{Editprotected}}

Please change:

{{!}} {{{placeofburial|}}}

to:

{{!}} <span class="label">{{{placeofburial|}}}</span>

to apply the label (aka "unstructured address or location") property for the hCard microformat used in the template. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, done. Kirill 19:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine, thanks. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 01:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nesting function

In working with several biographies, I've noticed that many military people tend to lead entirely different lives after leaving military service. Some of these subsequent careers have thier own infobox, for example, Template:Infobox Astronaut to Template:Infobox Wrestler to Template:Infobox Officeholder. This can result in a single biography having two or even more contrasting infoboxes, which looks unsightly and disorganized. The latter template has made an imprefect solution, to include parameters for prior military service, but it does not offer as much functionality as this current infobox provides, and it would be impractical to add these parameters to every type of professional infobox.

The solution I've come up with is to add a nesting parameter to this template, to allow it to be inserted into another infobox and merge seamlessly. Template:WPMILHIST nests perfectly into template:WikiProjectBannerShell, we could do that for this.

Thoughts? bahamut0013^words_deeds 12:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not a bad idea in theory, but keep in mind that the nesting of project banners in {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} is highly standardized—in other words, the form the banner should take when nested is clearly defined, and there is only a single wrapper template it needs to work with. I don't believe it will be feasible to create a nesting format that can be neatly used with an arbitrary wrapper template, since infobox styles are so variable (unless we use no style formatting at all).

In any case, to get something like this to work, we need to define what the template should look like when nested, ideally in a way that's not dependent on the formatting used by the outer template. Kirill 13:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not particuarly skilled in coding, or I'd try to offer an example, but what I have in mind is simply a variable function that includes all of the fields of the navbox without the outer box or any spacing/padding. I think this means that inserting it into another infobox should look just like inserting plain text, and the shell infobox will format everything to look like a native entry. Ideally, it would look a great deal like Template:Infobox Officeholder. It also occurs to me that we could simply create this as a seperate template, if it is not possible to use a variable to strip away the excess formatting. bahamut0013^words_deeds 10:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This is why, where possible, biographical infoboxes should be merged into {{Infobox Person}}. Any move to implement your suggestion, which does have some merit, should be based on making it possible to insert sub-templates into that parent. The smae model could then apply to other sub-templates. Accordingly, I suggest moving discussion there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that using the Infobox Person template as the base code would be best. I also think at the same time we should look at consolidating and eliminating some of the redunant templates and I think that the point that Kirill brings up about standardizing the infobox templates similar to the wikiproject banners is a good one. He wasn't suggesting that I know, but it might be good idea for the longterm good of the WP project. Just my cents--Kumioko (talk) 19:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Polish Soldiers Blue

Should presumably be redirected here? It is used only in several articles. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should probably be redirected. We'll need to change the articles using it first, though, since some of the parameter names aren't the same between the two templates. Kirill ^[pf] 21:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Microformat upgrade request- no visual impact to template

{{editprotected}}

• Visual impact: None
• What it does: This change allows wikipedia to emit data in the form of microformat metadata, as do other infoboxes such as these and and these. The change should have no visual impact and introduces non functional classes to elements of the table. These classes are recognized by external microformat parsers to retrieve information in the cells.

• Requested changes:

1. {{WPMILHIST Infobox style|main_box|vcard}} → {{WPMILHIST Infobox style|main_box|vcard vevent}}
2. class="fn" → class="fn summary"

• Background: This allows events of the individuals life to be represented (such as the span of their life, from birth to death date. Further information on what this does and how to see some of the benefits may be found here.

Thanks -J JMesserly (talk) 16:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Y Done. Martin^msgj 18:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much Martin. -J JMesserly (talk) 19:35, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Addition of Service Number field?

If readers wish to research soldiers outside of Wikipedia, the service number of the soldier is often of great assistance when searching national archives. Obviously each country runs it own systems of identifiction numbers, but this inclusion would still be very handy. For example, British soldiers published in the London Gazette always have their service number listed. This enables readers to perform an archive search which shows each time the soldier has been published. Searching with names is less reliable because names are not unique, and additionally can change through marriage or other means. Mr Pillows (talk) 04:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea for a lot of circumstances, but I'd have privacy concerns, especially with BLP. Also, Americans did away with service numbers a few decades ago, and now identify service members by thier social security number. I'd be very much opposed to listing that particular number on any Wikipedia article, whether the individual was alive or not. bahamut0013^words_deeds 05:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)