Template talk:Infobox Paranormalpeople1

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Paranormal Portal
This non-article page falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.
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Archive 1 - ended January 2007

Contents

[edit] Paranormal People 1

[edit] What this is

This is a biography template pertaining exclusively to people involved in researching, or documenting the paranormal and relate fields as defined by Project Paranormal. Or who have played a noteworthy part in enabling/campaigning for such work. Please note, belief in the paranormal is not a predetermining criteria, neither is the integrity of their contribution to the field (fakes, frauds and hoaxers all fall within exceptable bounds).

People who are eligible to use this template include

  • Ufologists
  • Cryptozoologists
  • Paranormal writers (for example, Jerome Clark)
  • ESP/EVP researchers
  • Ghost hunters
  • Debunkers
  • Notable fraudulent researchers/investigators

[edit] What this is not

This template is not for use with people who have witnessed or otherwise been involved in paranormal incident but who have not furthered research by means other than their testimony. Or for people about whom paranormal claims have been made.

For example it does should not be used for:

  • Haunting victims
  • Vanishing victims
  • Psychics, unless they have contributed notably to research or founded a notable group
  • Abductees/contactees, (please see Template:Infobox_encounters), unless they have since contributed notably to Ufology or founded a notable UFO group
  • Fictional characters
  • Famous people who believe in the paranormal, but whose notable contributions have been to non-paranormal areas (For example, US presidents who believe in flying saucers)

[edit] Usage

Copy and paste the following code into an article. Fill in as many of the fields as you can. If you cannot fill in a field, leave it blank instead of deleting it. Another use might know the answer and fill it in later on.

Fields marked with * are mandatory and must be completed, all other fields are optional and will be hidden from view if left blank.

[edit] Instructions

  • Class = The overall super-group of the infobox (not the discipline of theperson being described) Chosen from "Paranormal Researcher", "Ufologist", "Cryptologist"
  • Image_Name = The name of an image. Brackets are not necessary
  • Image_Caption = A suitable caption describing the image
  • Name = The Person's name. Format:Given Name Family Name
  • Born = Date of birth. Format: Month Day, Year
  • Blocation = Location of birth
  • Died = Date of death. Format: Month Day, Year
  • Dlocation = Location of death
  • Phd = Their Phd or Msc subject/s followed by the institution that they received them from
  • Djob = If they have a conventional job description (eg writer, Physicist) it should be included here. If not, include their paranormal job description (eg Ufologist)
  • Pjob = If the above is used for their day job, include their paranormal job here, else leave blank
  • Affiliates = Organizations that they are affiliated with (eg Mufon)

[edit] Size

  • I find this box to be to large in size and appearance, I thought we could possibly minimize its bulkiness by brining it up to par with the Template:Infobox Biography

use

{| class="infobox" border="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 21em; font-size:90%; text-align: left; align: right;"

instead of the current

{| class="infobox" border="0" cellspacing="0" align=right cellpadding=1 width=265px style='margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;

(:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 14:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not certain exactly what you're getting at. How does 21em compare to 265px? We need to remember that a certain amount of width is required because of all of the long words (cryptozoology etc) that are likely to be used.

perfectblue 14:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I have tried changing before, but it was undone, just replace the coding to see the difference, the current infobox in my opinion is just to bulky and big and i think it would be better to shrink it down to a better size (dont take any data out, just shrink its appearance) and one good layout to use as an example is Template:Infobox Biography (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 18:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Mot to be rude or anything, buy I looked back at your revision and it actually looked wider than the original, I think that you're browser might be the issue here rather than the code, are you using an older version of IE?

As I said above, the current infobox size was selected because it fitted neatly with the long terminology being used. If you shrink it down any more it can cause problems with sentence wrapping.

perfectblue 20:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • the infbox is bulky, keep the data but just looking at it makes me feel that it can be shrunk (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 22:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

  • I find that the picture box forces small pictures to be to large for some people, we need to make it so that we give the user the option to decide how big the Image should be or shrink down the Image size in the template (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 14:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

200px is a standard size and forcing it helps to keep uniformity throughout the project. I've also found that when you give people the ability to control the size of the picture, they tend to make it too large, or they forget to include the size field and it defaults to a set value which varies between users.

perfectblue 14:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if you change the infobox to add an image field, it means that "somebody" will have to go to every page that uses this template, and they will have to add the new category manually to each page. I've tried that before and it was a complete pain.
perfectblue 14:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • i will fix them, someone just needs to make it so that the user specifies how large the image is like they do in the Template:Infobox Biography, we have small images being stretched to 200px in this current state and it looks verry strange (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 18:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
{{#if:{{{image_name|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">[[Image:{{{image_name}}}|{{{image_size|180x180px}}}|center]] {{#if:{{{image_caption|}}}|<div style="line-height:1.25em;">{{{image_caption}}}</div>|}}|}}

Not to be rude, but there are two issues here. The first one is that for the sake of neatness and uniformity, all images in all of the project's infoboxes should be the same size. The second is that most images in the project are actually too big, not too small, and 200px is a good middle ground that words well on the average screen size. The current setup came at the end of a long period of experimentation.

perfectblue 20:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • then what should we do about the small pictures that get blown up in 200px and look messy? (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 22:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Edit the picture so as to create a white/transparent border around the edge that brings the total image size up to 200px. Alternatively, you don't have to use the pictures that are there right now, you can always upload a higher quality image of your own in their place. - perfectblue 10:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)