Template talk:Infobox Senator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Why delete this infobox?
What is wrong with this infobox? Nothing! Nothing is wrong with it! I don't get it. Deletionists!
[edit] TfD debate
Despite the hysterics just above, this template was not deleted. The discussion can be found here. -Splashtalk 00:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Law school
Law school attendance (or lack of) is relevant to an overview of a lawmaker. Other education (other graduate studies, undergrad, high school, etc.) will vary greatly by individual and can be explained in the body of the article. Potatoe 20:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
- Not all senators come from a legal background. The law school entry is not universally applicable, and really doesn't belong in the infobox (any more than a "religion" entry or "undergraduate college attended" or other such information). That sort of information can and should be mentioned in the article text itself (if that particular senator attended law school), but it's not really suitable for the infobox. -- Curps 23:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The law school category is universally applicable in so far as it shows whether or not a lawmaker has received a formal education in the law. This is not to say that one is better than another; political candidates will often play up/down their legal backgrounds/lack thereof. However, given that a senator's career is dedicated to crafting law, law school attendance (or lack of) is more professionally relevant to his/her profile than religion, undergraduate career, or, I would argue, spouse (which is presently included in the infobox). It is also a part of his/her official congressional biography, as listed in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress [1]. Potatoe 03:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
- A formal education in existing law is a prerequisite for the judicial branch of government, not the legislative branch. You could also argue that a sentator's career is dedicated to crafting budgets and bringing government funding and businesses and jobs into his state, and therefore studies in the field of economics are equally relevant. You haven't really given a reason why law-school attendance can't simply be specified within the article text... there is no good reason to put it in the template, particularly since it's not universally applicable to all senators (unlike party affiliation, etc).
- The value of this information to the average reader is also questionable: if Senator X went to Harvard Law School and Senator Y went to Yale Law School, then this tells me frankly nothing about how either one of them is likely to vote on any given issue. Even if I was intimately familiar with the faculty members of each law school (as of several decades ago) and their judicial philosophies, it would tell me or you nothing about whether the senators in question necessarily agreed with their professors' philosophies (or perhaps did when they were students but no longer do today).
- Even for Supreme Court justice nominees, where we know not only their law school attendance but much detailed information about their subsequent careers as lawyers and judges and appeals court judges, it often turns out to be surprisingly hard to predict how they will act when actually on the Supreme Court. So the mere knowledge of which law school a senator attended (many decades ago) tells us almost nothing about their legislative philosophy. It's a mere factoid that's part of their CV and life history information, along with the names of their wives, husbands, children, corporate careers if any and other relevant biographical data. It belongs within the article text along with all that other CV-related information, not in the template. -- Curps 07:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Makeover
Would anybody mind me changing this template a little to look more like the Template:Infobox President? --MZMcBride 07:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Word switches
I went to the (harder than I thought it would be) trouble to add (or in this case, revert) back the aliases for the Democratic Party (United States) in the party affiliation section. Settler 05:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
- What does this do, exactly? The template that it's linking to doesn't appear to do much, and it's rather confusing to me. Not to mention the fact that there's all this stuff for the democratic party, but nothing for the republican. At first I was going to try to add stuff for that, but seeing how I don't know what it does, I question whether it needs to be there at all. -- stubblyhead | T/c 21:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] new attribute
I've added a width attribute for the image. The previous version had the width hard-wired to 160px. If an image is smaller than this, it will be expanded to fit, causing a reduction in picture quality. The previous value is now the default, so current use should be unaffected. -- stubblyhead | T/c 20:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Religion parameter?
Why is this necessary? A person's religion has nothing to do with them being a Senator. VegaDark 04:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
- I re-added the visibility of the field after someone made a comment on the talk page of Joe Lieberman's article saying that the parameter was already in place, but that it wasn't displaying. I don't believe that a person's religion has anything to do with being a Senator, but either does who their spouse is. The field is used in other infoboxes such as Template:Infobox President and the purpose of infoboxes is to inform readers in a concise way the information that can be found on the page. I think that the field should be left alone. Thanks. --MZMcBride 04:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
- That field should be removed. I dont understand why somebody wants to know someones religion. Maybe i dont just understand US culture because i am from Europe, as we dont mix religions or any other superstitions into politics. --84.230.64.76 00:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
- I have made the field optional. Stealthound 15:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
- That field should be removed. I dont understand why somebody wants to know someones religion. Maybe i dont just understand US culture because i am from Europe, as we dont mix religions or any other superstitions into politics. --84.230.64.76 00:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Infobox "name" field - use common name? Full name?
I've posted a question about this at Template talk:Infobox Politician#Infobox "name" field - use common name? Full name?. Those interested might want to take a look there, and comment. John Broughton | Talk 16:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Current problem with Senators-Elect
There was not a good way to indicate the Senator-Elect without making a false statement, so I have added a footnotes section at the bottom. This will give the option to indicate the next in line. I couldn't figure out how to remove the middle line, so I put the footnote on the right side. Stealthound 06:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
