Template talk:Infobox actor/archive1

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Colours / IMDB link / height

What are bgcolor/fgcolor for and what are we supposed to put in them? Why won't images work in it? --TheTruthiness 06:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Which page are you referring to? Images work elsewhere with this Mad Jack 06:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Does it have an issue on images with spaces, like this one?? I'll include an example. And what's with the colours, this page explains nothing about how to use this infobox. --TheTruthiness 07:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Helen Hunt
I gotta admit, I have got no clue. I just came here two days ago to cut off height and the IMDB link, both of which were irrelevant. Do you know how to deal with these infoboxes? If so, please fix at your leisure Mad Jack 07:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
You removed an IMDB link? I'd say that's relevant! Height would be stupid though, as are these bg and fg colours- which seem to just let people pick whatever they like for no apparent reason, meaning they wouldn't be uniform among pages. I have no clue how to fix these things. --TheTruthiness 07:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The IMDB is a pretty crappy source for info. If it is linked to at the bottom of the article, fine, I can live with that, but at the top of the page as well - nuh uh. Mad Jack 08:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
But it's an ACTOR template, thus a database that holds what they are in is pretty damn useful--Jaysscholar 21:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

IMDB is not a reliable source and should not be linked to twice. Wikipedia is a pretty damn useful actor database too, and most recently, a lot more reliable. IMDB really has nothing that we don't have (i.e. we have the credits too, and our information is better written, sourced, and more reliable). I can live with an IMDB link down under external links, but there's no point in sending visitors off to the unreliable IMDB right at the start of the entry. Mad Jack 21:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow! When I created the infobox, I didn't realise that there were so many issues to be dealt with. I thought I was the only one using it, sorry. I didn't know that a "usage" section would be useful. Firstly, I included the IMDB link because it was included in another infobox template. I agree with Mad Jack that it does not have to be linked twice. However, the information provided by IMDB is reliable most of the time since it is checked by their editors. Secondly, I didn't realise the foreground and background colour for the names would cause such a debate. I will change it now to have a permanent background colour of white with the foreground (text) being black. Of course you are welcome to change it. Lastly, the height was added because I saw that in another "biography" infobox template. Again, I agree with you that it is pretty irrelevant. I will create a usage section also to explain to other future users of the template. Ladida 00:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
No no no no no. The information on the IMDB is not reliable. I don't know what morons they have for editors there, but they let anything any user submits go on there, and unlike Wikipedia, it is very hard to get the info out once it's in. Name any actor, and I can probably pick out at least one or two glaringly incorrect bits of "trivia" or "biography" from their IMDB entry. Trusting that their "editors" have checked the info is taking a 50-50 chance that the info is incorrect. As for background/foreground, I have no opinion on that. My only qualms were IMDB promotion and height. BTW, what do you think about an infobox like the one over at Lindsay Lohan, i.e. smaller font? Mad Jack 04:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The trivia may not be reliable but the filmography is a kickass resource. I think it should be one matching color for back/foreground, and I don't think actors are varied enough to have different colours for different categories like they have for musicians. Good fixin', but it should have the caption for the picture I think. Not a dealbreaker, if I had a deal to break. --TheTruthiness 04:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
True, the filmography for past films is usually reliable, though upcoming films are once again in the realm of fan-submitted junk. However, most of the time, Wikipedia already has the filmography up on our page anyway. Mad Jack 05:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
You guys are full of it. IMDb uses verification for its data before it even goes live. Wikipedia however has all sorts of eroneous BS all over the place. I like Wikipedia and like to contribute, but I know that the data accuracy here is a great deal less than IMDb, and since the film studios themselves control some data there, and many actors and their management have complete control on their profiles.
Another things of note is that there's about 5,000 entries on IMDb that are not here on Wiki at all.
That's why I put it back.
--lincalinca 06:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
This is ridiculous. IMDb links are present for both Template:Infobox Film and Template:Infobox Television so why not the actor one? Kidburla2002 11:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Image Kinda Fixed

To match all the other infoboxes, I copied some of the code from Celebrity infobox, so that you don't have to do the silly image tagging, as infoboxes should do that automatically. The only 2 problems I see so far are this:

  1. It doesn't leave the field hidden if there's no picture
  2. Any existing ones Ladida used she'll need to fix because it will cause the picture to appear twice. I can lend a hand to fix that too, let me know if you need it.

I'm obviously not too skilled with the codes, so Lad or Jack- if you could fix it so the image field isn't mandatory that would make this infobox hopefully be used more by the community. --TheTruthiness 05:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sigh, the image thing seems wonky, it was working fine but now it isn't. Or it was Jack reverting the changes, like I say on Jack's talk page it's a royal pain that needs to be done. Maybe a mod/admin can let us use a bot to fix it? --TheTruthiness 05:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard is your friend Mad Jack 05:57, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I've added it. --TheTruthiness 06:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I altered it using the code from Template:Infobox_Celebrity. Thanks for the link TheTruthiness! I don't know if it works properly in all the pages so check all the pages that you used this on. Hope this helps. -- Ladida 00:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Pic still don't seem to work. --TheTruthiness 01:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
How about now? -- Ladida 08:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Depp's seems fine, at least Mad Jack 08:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems fine to me also. Nice work Ladida. --TheTruthiness 08:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. -- Ladida 08:20, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Birthname

Can we make the birth name field optional? A lot of actors use their real names, so I feel silly adding "Helen Elizabeth Hunt" in that field when she goes by "Helen Hunt". --TheTruthiness 03:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

imdb_id

Should the template have an imdb_id that links to their IMDB profile? --DrBat 21:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

see discussion above under "Colours / IMDB link / height" -plange 21:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Notable roles

I suggest that this field be either renamed or removed, because it introduces POV issues. What one editor may consider a notable role for an actor is not always the same one that another editor may consider notable. This means that the personal opinion of the editor is being inserted into the article, which is not what we should be doing. See similar discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians/Article guidelines. Extraordinary Machine 15:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

  • For the most part, notable role is fairly obvious. We don't remove the "best known for their role in Star Trek" section from their entry. To use Helen Hunt as the example, her two notable roles are obviously Mad About You, the one that undoubtably made her a star, and As Good as It Gets got her the Oscar. You may love What Women Want, but I doubt you'd claim it was a "notable" role. --TheTruthiness 17:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Aye. Take that, ye POV whiners. 24.126.199.129 07:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree with User:Extraordinary Machine and I would rather see it removed than renamed. Having someone select "notable roles" for a particular person introduces POV and it also fringes on original research. What I may choose as "notable" for some people is going to be different to what other people choose. It might work suitably for someone like Helen Hunt who has had quite a patchy career, but how about her co-star Jack Nicholson? Who would be qualified to identify three "notable" roles for Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda or even Jane Fonda, Robert de Niro or Al Pacino (and the list goes on). Wikipedia should be presenting the facts not interpreting them. This is stepping beyond what we are supposed to be about. Rossrs 06:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I've had Bette Davis on my watchlist and that is what sparked my comment above but I didn't realize that some of the people I gave as examples have had this infobox added to them. Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Fred Astaire, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe all now have long lists of "notable roles", every one of which I would dispute as POV. Rossrs 10:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. The notable roles on Fred Astaire were like a laundry list and excluded his two of his most famous roles (Top Hat and The Band Wagon). Also, on the basis of the edits so far 71.119.29.143 seems to me to bear an uncanny resemblance to 71.109.186.127 and 67.151.178.146 and Corvidae682 who recently caused chaos on these very pages with untagged image replacements. I could be wrong of course, but I'd recommend vigilance Dermot 18:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
And Bette Davis's list excluded All About Eve, one of the most notable roles any actress has ever played. Agree with the "laundry list" comment and I think apart from everything else, the big list is ugly. Rossrs 20:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
So, should we just limit the Noteable Roles down to Oscar wins, iconic roles (i.e. Holly Golightly and Rick Blaine), and roles that broke the star through? I don't think that we should remove the noteable roles option, because the roles that were posted up for the aforementioned actors correspond with what movies are emphasized in their Wikipedia bios. What I do think is that there needs to be a set of uniform guidelines set for all the actor boxes.
I still don't think so. Oscar wins are usually notable but not always. Bette Davis's Dangerous, Ingrid Bergman's Murder on the Orient Express ...... sure they won Oscars but it's not what they're remembered for. Iconic roles are still going to be a problem, because defining "iconic" for each individual is going to get down to POV. Not everyone has a Holly Golightly or a Rick Blaine - in fact many actors don't have iconic roles, so I think we'll be right back to reviewers noting their favourites. I can't think of a way that a guideline could be written to give a specific definition where every reviewer would come up with the same decision. Rossrs 20:36, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... The Noteable Roles Template must have had something in mind for what a noteable role is. There may be a few constants, though. For example, everyone knows that Humphrey Bogart broke into the big time with The Petrified Forest. So I guess it is up to the editors to define what a noteable role entails. Perhaps another group discussion topic is called for? 71.119.29.143 01:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC) Canker Blossom 71.119.29.143 01:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the notable roles is a good section (that should be limited to no more than 3), and where consensus comes in. I'd say one should be their "breakout" role (usually pretty easy to identify) and a couple others. I think reasonable people can came to an agreed consensus (I've seen it happen at the Steve Carell one) on any pages where there's a dispute. For example, I think Titanic is an abomination on entertainment but won't deny it's one of Leo and whatever her name was's most notable roles. --TheTruthiness 02:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
You said breakout roles are "usually pretty easy to identify", but that's the problem: they're not always. Nor are generally "notable" roles, and I'm sure there will end up being cases where a user thinks "Well, I'm having a hard time deciding which roles to mention in this section, but what I think is that...". I'm very concerned about letting editorial opinion find its way into articles. Extraordinary Machine 19:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
The reason I introduced "notable role" into the template was because I wanted to emphasise on the notability of the actor or rather, why they are "notable" enough to be added into Wikipedia. However, I can see that it can be opinionative. So how about this, if there are still people who doesn't want this attribute, then instead of "notable role", we can have "first role" - the first professional acting role of the actor. I just think it might be worthwhile to put an attribute about "roles" in an actor's infobox. What do you think? -- Ladida 08:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
"First roles" are often not notable. Often they are entirely forgettable. I can understand what you are aiming for. It's creating a snapshot of the person that tells you who they are and an example of what they've done. Most articles mention the most significant roles in the lead paragraph (1), which are then discussed, or at least mentioned, in the article itself (2). Many articles contain filmographies where the film is mentioned again (3). If it's also mentioned in the infobox this makes a minimum of 4 seperate occasions where the role/film is indentified. I can see some value in attributing "roles" in the infobox, but at the same time I think that the problems of POV and repetitiveness outweigh any possible benefits. Rossrs 13:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
The "first role" doesn't have to be notable. It's just a fact. Much of the information in the infobox is repeated in the article itself like birthdate and name. The infobox is after all, used to summarise information. It doesn't really pose any problems regarding POV issues. However, I do understand your argument about the repetition. -- Ladida 11:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
But if it's not notable what is the point? Rossrs 14:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
It's a fact... like all the other info in the infobox. -- Ladida 00:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, it's a fact. You said before that it was a fact, but I am asking why that particular fact is worth mentioning. It doesn't automatically follow that it's relevant. Rossrs 01:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
If their first role was as "Pizza Boy #2" in Straight to Video:The Movie, it's not notable. If it's not notable, it shouldn't be in a field called notable roles. AM DUR! --TheTruthiness 01:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Whether it's called "notable roles" or "first roles" or whatever, the infobox should only contain information that is either basic biographical data (birth/death etc) or that is somehow important - and equally important for every single actor. "Pizza Boy #2" does not qualify as important. I think you meant to say "it should not be in a field called notable roles" :-D (just as I thought) I don't like "notable roles" but I'd much rather have that than "first role". Rossrs 02:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're talking about. Look over there, it's Elvis! --TheTruthiness 02:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, so it is! And he fixed your edit too. ;-) Rossrs 02:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Sigh. There goes my suggestion... Ladida 00:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Academy Award winner option

Apparently there is a "rival" template entitled Template:Infobox oscar winning actor. There are hardly any articles that use it, but of course, its editor (who worked hard on it, blah blah blah) is going to try and promote it by replacing every oscar winning actor's infobox with his/hers, screwing over the consistency any good encyclopedia strives to have, just because s/he likes to see their work on pages instead of just suggesting something to the dominant template (like I'm doing.) In order to cut this off at the head, and because it's a good idea, this infobox should have an option for "Oscar-winner:" and a way to display what the Academy Award{s} won and the films they were for. 24.126.199.129 07:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Notable roles AND Academy award

In my opinion, this is going to cause more bother than help. The majority of notable roles now are ones for which the actor/actress is nominated for an Oscar. There's going to be duplication as the two topics will have pretty much the same info in. HamishMacBeth 13:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

  • True, but if something won them as Oscar it's obviously a notable role, so it can just be removed from the notable role section and only left in the Oscar one. --TheTruthiness 09:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with User:TheTruthiness. But the bottom line is, having more than one actor infobox floating around is bad. 24.126.199.129 09:36, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
If Oscars have their own field, then what will be put in the notable roles section? Also, I've just found that when using both 'notablerole' and 'academyawards', for some reason Academy Awards always appears above Notable Roles; I don't know anything about the code, so I can't find what the problem is. CelebHeights 13:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The notable roles will (if applicable) include notable roles they didn't win Oscars for, obviously. We shouldn't force notable roles in for people who won Oscars, guys like DeNiro for example. I'd say no more than 3 notable roles/Oscars combined. --TheTruthiness 00:43, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Height

I think "height" should be removed, because A. height in itself is unencyclopedic and hard-to-track (especially for dead people... at which point in their lives is the height thing referring to?), and B. there is almost never a reliable source that can be cited for it. Mad Jack 21:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I've always felt it seemed really silly. --TheTruthiness 01:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, I'll remove it tomorrow at some point if there are no overwhelming objections Mad Jack 04:51, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I completely disagree. A) It's perfectly encyclopedic as once a person reaches their maximum height, it won't change for the next 50 or 60 yeards. B) It's easy to source, either a quote from the actor's mouth themselves, or a specialist site such as celebheights.com (actually not my site) CelebHeights 12:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Except for really tall or really short people (ie- Tiny Lister and Danny Devito) how is that in any way relevant or notable. Does Steve Carell being 5'7 (a height I just made up, probably like most "sourced" heights) have any impact? Would he not have been The 40 Year Old Virgin if he was 5'8? Did he have a horrible childhood because his average classmate was 5'6 and thus had a big impact on his life? Would Robert De Niro be a horrible actor if he was 5'10? For models, athletes, etc it's more relevant that people who play pretend. --TheTruthiness 00:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Height is evil. Mad Jack 03:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
You don't want to hear the things they said about your mother. --TheTruthiness 03:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
How did she get involved in this? Mad Jack 03:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

So are or are we not getting rid of height? :) Mad Jack 19:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Only one guy (who seems somewhat obsessed with them based on his username) has spoken for them, so I'd assume yes, although it's really only 3 people discussing it here. --TheTruthiness 02:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't see what the problem is in keeping it. It was on many articles anyway, so by putting it in the infobox, they were cleaned it up a bit. Besides, in my opinion, it's a damn sight more interesting than spouse. CelebHeights 16:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I do not see any problem with keeeping it either, however criteria must be set for verifiability ie. hight should only be included if its from a verifiable source (the actor/actress them self etc) thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 16:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The verifiablity of the height was one of the reasons it was removed at first. So unless there is a reliable source attached to the height information, it should not be added. -- Ladida 08:46, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
But verifiability does not equal relevance. It adds nothing to our understanding of the person. It's about as significant as shoe-size. There are more important things that we could say but do we really need to clutter the infobox with every tidbit of information to satisfy every editor's particular area of interest? The infobox should be a short, sharp summary of the key points about the person and every piece of information should serve a purpose. We shouldn't be adding bits of information just because it's not a "problem" so unless someone can demonstrate significance..... I can't imagine anyone saying "well look at that. Steve Carell is 5'8. I wasn't going to read this article, but darn it, he's 5'8. I think now I will read it!" I agree with CelebHeights on one point - the spouses are pretty irrelevant too. Especially when it's someone outside of the public eye. In that case it's just a name, without meaning or context, and it's not something we should spotlight. Rossrs 12:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Spouse and height should both be gone. --TheTruthiness 00:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Other celibrity/politicans infoboxes have the spouse field. And they even have more fields than this infobox have. An infobox resumes information, I don't see the problem in having more information resumed, as long as we don't go overboard. I think it's worse where the "notable roles" fields has 10 or more entries. --Andromeda 11:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
That's true, they do. Maybe they don't need them either. Burt Lancaster is an example where the spouse's names are superfluous. It makes the infobox bigger than it needs to be, and it doesn't enlighten us about the subject who is a famous actor, not a famous husband. Rossrs 14:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
1) The field is not used correctly there (lacks years) 2) It also means a lot of people find it useful and, so far, only two people do not. --Andromeda 14:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
It means nothing of the sort. I see 3 people here saying that they don't like the "spouse" field and only one saying they do. The majority of celebrity articles do not include "spouse" as part of the lead section, which also says something about the attitudes of editors so it's a bit early to be suggesting "majority rules". I don't understand the spouse field's purpose. You say "people find it useful". If that's the case could you perhaps explain or demonstrate why or how they do, so that I can understand your viewpoint? Including the dates of when Burt Lancaster was married to those people adds nothing so the fact that it's not used correctly is irrelevant- it has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm asking. Do people really find this information useful, or is it just adding information for the sake of adding information? Even IMDb, which tends to be less scholarly than we aim to be, puts this information on a page that you have to link to, ("show more"), but we're putting it in the most prominently visual section of the article which implies that it is important. Rossrs 15:56, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
1) And such a big majority that is.
2) If people uses the "spouse" field it means they find it useful. Many people likes this info. Of course, the level of usability depens if the spouse also has a Wikipedia article or don't.
3) The majority of celebrity and politicians *templates* have a "spouse" field. This is the only template when this seems to be an issue.
--Andromeda 09:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
1) Well, I was not trying to suggest it was a big majority. You are the one who started discussing numbers to draw a conclusion, and I just stated what the numbers in this discussion actually were. 2) No, it does not mean they find it useful. Even if a million articles show spouses, this does not demonstrate anything other than people like including this information. "Use" does not necessarily equal "usefulness" and in this case it certainly does not. I want to understand how and why people find it useful. How does this information benefit our readers? Repeating to me that people like using this field isn't telling me anything that I haven't worked out for myself, and it avoids my question. 3) Once again, this does not mean it's right and does not mean it's useful. It seems to me that the more we add into the infobox the more we serve our interests as editors, without necessarily serving the interests of readers. The fact that we add this information doesn't prove that anyone actually reads it, and if we are getting to the point of being self indulgent in the way we create our articles, I would like to see that attitude pulled back somewhat. I appreciate that you've taken the time to reply to me, but you haven't presented a case or stated an argument and you haven't answered the question I asked. If you don't want to answer it, that's fine.
Something very interesting - as soon as an article gets taken into a wider arena such as featured article nomination a different group of people starts looking at it. The Jake Gyllenhaal article has just been stripped back to his name and date of birth and height, due to objections raised by other editors. I guess there are other people that don't find extra details useful. See also Eric Bana, Uma Thurman, Diane Keaton - all featured articles that have been extensively reviewed. No spouse, no heights, no notable roles. And these are believed to be among Wikipedia's best articles. Rossrs 10:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with the above. This is a ridiculous, utterly useless parameter, and ridiculous, utterly useless information. To be honest, I cannot imagine anyone aside from the most obsessive caring what an actor's height is at all; apart from a few cases where their height is of relevance to their fame (eg Herve Villechaize).--SB | T 01:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the two comments above. I believe that an infobox is supposed to be a quick reference tool for the reader to quickly see who the article is about, what the subject looks like and their date of birth and depending of the subject, the date of their death. Also, articles such as Eric Bana and Diane Keaton do not even discuss the actor's height, making its inclusion in the infobox irrelevant. -- Underneath-it-All 16:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with above, unless the actor/actress is noticed by his/her height it shouldn't be included. Somitho 03:43, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Since it seems we have enough support to remove it, I hope we can close this and move on. Somitho 03:43, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Use birth date and age

I saw that the Daniel Radcliffe's page (and several other) use {{birth date and age}} to specify birthdate. I think it may be a good it to use that template from now on and add it to the usage section as a reccomendation.

Taken from the above page, the result it gives is this: July 23, 1989 (1989-07-23) (age 18)

What do you think?

--Andromeda 05:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of redundant, don't you think? Also, every year you have to update their age. I'm sure readers of the article can calculate the actor's age if they wanted to. Regards, Ladida 08:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
It won't need to be updated - the template will do the math each time it's displayed. I agree it's a bit redundant though, and if it becomes widely used, we will need to look at how to fix the broken line in articles such as Jodie Foster. Rossrs 13:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I was proposing it exactly for not having to update each year and also people not having to calculate how old someone is. Provisionally, we could add a new field to add the birthdate as "1989|7|23" and use it to call {{birth date and age}} in the template. So, if (for example) birth_date is set, use it and call {{birth date and age}}; else display birthdate. --Andromeda 05:32, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I see. Sorry, I misunderstood you. :) Ladida 05:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Uniformity amongst actor templates?

If Wikipedia does strive to be a cohesive encyclopedia, should we try to enforce consistancy between articles in related fields? As in, having the same actor template for each actor? Because when first coming to Wikipedia, I noticed that Actors like Humphrey Bogart had a detailed actor infobox, while others like Gregory Peck didn't. Or, Marlon Brando has an Oscar Wins section in his box, yet others don't. It just irks me to see radically different boxes for each person. What do others think? Should the reigns on the actor infoboxes be tightened for the sake of giving Wikipedia more uniformity in their articles, or not? Discussion anyone?

--Carnyfoke 18:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC) Carnyfoke

There should be more conformity among the articles. Gregory Peck's article has a biography infobox so maybe that should be changed to an actor infobox.--NeilEvans 18:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree. For what it's worth, I prefer this infobox over any of the others. Rossrs 02:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
This looks more professional and it conforms to other templates like the musical artist template.--NeilEvans 14:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Academy Awards field

Is Wikipedia's constant references to Academy Awards an example of widespread POV?

I ask this question because several editors have studiously prefaced the beginning of numerous articles with "(name of actor) is an Academy Award winning/nominated actor" as though the award or the nomination is the defining moment for every actor. I don't believe that it is.

Audrey Hepburn is an example of what I think is so wrong and biased about choosing the Academy Award as the ultimate achievement, to the point of making it a field in this infobox, while completely ignoring everything else that person may have achieved throughout their lifetime. Hepburn also won an Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a Tony Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award, and even if she'd won a Nobel Peace Prize, the only thing we seem interested in is her Academy Award. Does anyone else think this is misrepresenting her unique achievements in this example, and demonstrating our own POV towards the Oscar in all other examples? Could we please (a) get rid of it.... or, if not (b) change it to a more generic "awards" field?

Question 2: Do we need to show Roman Holiday as both a "notable role" and an "Academy Award winning role"? Is the repetition necessary? Rossrs 15:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreement on what fields can be used

So far on this page there are people speaking for and against various fields such as "height", "spouse", "notable roles" and others. There is no consensus on this matter.

As far as I can see - and point me to another discussion page if I'm wrong - these fields were added into this infobox without discussion and without consensus, and editors who don't agree with these changes are just forced to accept it. I've noticed on several articles, when editors remove something like "height" as irrelevant, it gets reverted and/or they receive messages on their talk pages telling them to stop. This is not how it is supposed to work. It's not right that these things can be added without the courtesy of seeking consensus but when someone wants to remove something they are told they need to get a consensus. The actor articles currently use several different infoboxes, and each infobox contains a slightly different set of information. Can we please try to reach some consensus on this so that the infobox can be sorted out once and for all. Thanks Rossrs 14:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Height has been a field as long as I can remember, and I see no problem with it as long as it's linked to a source. It's interesting, and probably won't be mentioned elsewhere in the article. Notable roles is a fairly recent compared to it, but I think it works fine. Bar a couple of topics where people will find things to argue over, an actor's notable roles are pretty obvious. The Academy awards field works alongside it to make it even more simple e.g. Johnny Depp. Spouse I can't provide a case for. Unless the actor has a famous spouse, then you just get a red link in the infobox, and if it's known, it'll be mentioned in the article anyway. As for the articles using different infoboxes, I don't know to what you're referring, but I don't think that's true. As long as the person involved doesn't branch out and direct, produce etc e.g. George Clooney, this is the only infobox that should be used, and most often is. HamishMacBeth 14:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Sorry, I should clarify about the different boxes. I worded that extremely badly. Some also use the Celebrity box, and others the general Biography box, although they are in the minority and I've seen a lot changed over to this infobox recently. Looking at different articles, even where this infobox has been used consistently, there is no uniformity, mainly because people are using different fields. Also, using different colours for the heading gives them a more "random" sort of appearance, as another example of lack of uniformity. I think that Wikipedia should be about standardisation, consistency and a particular kind of "brand recognition". ie similar articles should have a similar look. Also with regards to Johnny Depp as an example where the "Academy Awards" field works well - he hasn't actually won and I don't know if listing nominations is a good idea. How would we go with Meryl Streep and her 2 wins and 13 nominations, and Katharine Hepburn with her 4 wins and 12 nominations? We'd have to break their infoboxes off into their own articles :-) Rossrs 15:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you about standardisation, and I believe the coloured name background was changed because the original colour (white) didn't work on every page, it also left grey to be used for dead actors. Something like that, anyway... I think if Oscar nominated roles they weren't mentioned in the Academy awards field, then they'd just be under notable roles, but this way you at least know why they're notable. Robert DeNiro for example; for all his notable roles, he's been Oscar nominated, so the info box would be pretty big either way. HamishMacBeth 17:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't looked at Robert DeNiro before. That looks (I'm surprised to say) very good. It's neat and tidy and not uglified with a lot of unnecessary bold text. Jack Nicholson is an example of what I think is bad. It's full of bold text and I think it makes the infobox look too busy and complicated. Plus it's got too many "notable roles". TheTruthiness suggested limiting notable roles to 3 and that would be an improvement, although it still leaves the door open on a lot of POV issues in choosing the 3. I also think listing Academy Award roles is POV as per my comments above regarding Audrey Hepburn. Rossrs 21:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the Jack Nicholson article; I think it looks horrible! I've had a go at cleaning it up. As for Audrey Hepburn, I can't, for the life of me, understand why her name has a turqouise background, so I've changed that too. HamishMacBeth 00:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to say this, but I think Nicholson still looks bad. He's had too many Oscar nominations - it's a sea of wikilinks. If it was just the Oscar wins plus 3 notable roles, I think it would look way better. Rossrs 09:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
As an experiment I've brought the Jack Nicholson infobox over and edited it. I thought we could perhaps use it as a kind of sandbox to try out ideas. Rossrs 13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
How about just stating the number of Academy awards and nominations instead of listing all of them since they should already be in the article itself? Just a suggestion... Anyway, which fields are we keeping? Also, should we standardise the background colour like it was before? -- Ladida 02:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
That may work but I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean. Would you like to edit that to one article just so we can see what you mean, and see what it looks like? I think standardising the colour is a good suggestion too, although some other editors have noted in article edits that grey was for deceased actors, and the other colour was for living actors. That also seems ok to me. Rossrs 09:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I think DeNiro's currently looks awful, I've changed it in the past but it keeps getting reverted. Oscar nominations should NOT be included in the infobox, only wins. If we do nominations, then if an actor was considered for a notable role but it went to someone else, should that be put in the infobox too? Oscars are considered the ultimate in acheivement, and that's by actors themselves. Plus you can just look at what a big deal the awards are treated to every year, it's just way bigger than an Emmy, Tony, BAFTA, SAG, Golden Globe, etc. I think the Academy is full of people who are horribly out of date and don't actually watch most of the films nominated, they just vote for people they like. But the fact is the Oscars are a huge deal for actors, regadless of what Rossrs and I think. --TheTruthiness 05:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
True, the Oscars are a huge deal. Seems most people like having the Awards there, and that's fine. If that's what people like, I'll stop making a big noise about including the wins, but I agree with you that it should be for awards and not nominations. What I like about DeNiro's is not the content, but the style. No bold text! I think you should stick to your guns and keep reverting DeNiro, and when you do maybe link back to this discussion in the edit summary. I can understand you would be sick of doing that but at least it would show that it's not just your whim. Rossrs 09:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Jack Nicholson infobox

This is a suggestion and a bit of an experiment. I was thinking it might be helpful to have a test case that we could use here to try out different ideas, rather than editing and re-editing in various articles. Consider it a sandbox. I thought, anyone can just edit this so that it looks how he or she thinks it should look and provide a brief summary of the characteristics, with a link back to each edit. And if this doesn't work, we'll have to think of another approach, but it might be fun. Rossrs 13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
Born John Joseph Nicholson
22 April 1937
New York, New York, USA
Spouse(s) Sandra Knight (1962-1968)

1. Diff : No height, no spouse (spouse linked to the wrong article anyhow unless he was married to a comic character). Added 3 "notable roles" and showed these entries without bold text. Choosing these 3 is difficult and the actual choice is not the point. Looking more at aesthetics. Took the "in" from the end of the role name so that just the role name is there, and replaced it with a dash rather than have a repetitive list of "in"s. Put character names in quotation marks. Removed Academy Award nominations, but retained Academy Award wins, abbreviated the link to read just "Best Actor" and "Best Supporting Actor" because we already know they are Academy Awards. Changed the year to the year of the film, rather than the year of the win, and unlinked the year. Removed "for" for same reason as above, changed the line breaks and removed commas. Rossrs 13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

2. Diff I'll bite. I haven't discussed template changes on here, though I have a bit with you personally, on the Audrey Hepburn talk page. I'll just jump in here and make the changes I see fit on your "sandbox." :-) Firstly, changed caption to wikilinked "Cannes Film Festival," with year preceding and unlinked. Disambig "New York, New York" to "New York City" (piped) and "New York." Remove quotes around characters' names. Remove movie years and bring back Academy Award years, preceding the award name. Replace spouse field; I think it's notable. That's it. Oh, and one more thing--forgot a "the" in the caption. -Shannernanner 17:49, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for biting. This is exactly the sort of reply I was hoping for, and I'm very happy to see you here. Cheers. Rossrs 20:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
No problem. Happy to help. :-) -Shannernanner 22:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

3. Diff Here's my attempt. Put height back in, got rid of spouse. Fiddled with the academyawards field a bit and settled on this, which I quite like. I removed year from notable roles (it's probably in the first sentence of the relative article anyway), and I put 'in' back into the notable roles because I don't really like the look of the hyphons. This design is what I ended up with, but I still something looks a bit wrong with it. Tried some bold 'cause I think it looks a bit 'weak' without it, but I couldn't get it right. HamishMacBeth 13:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

This is very interesting. Three edits so far, and three rather different ideas. I think it's very healthy :-) I think the Academy Award field looks very good. I also liked Shannernanner's idea of moving the date to the front of the title. I kinda think the years for the notable role films are helpful if this is designed to be a quick glimpse as it shows at what point in the career, these roles were played without having to look at the article. It's a matter of opinion though. I was thinking it might look more "standardised" if there was a line break before the film titles in the notable roles so that the title is not split and leave the "in" after the character name. What do you think? Rossrs 13:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I like the "Academy Awards" field as well, though I don't like the bold. I'm rather ambivalent about the having years in the "Notable roles" field; I can see reasons both for and against. I do like the line break, with either the "in" or the hyphen, I'm not sure which I prefer of those either. If the "Height" field is to remain, it should not cite IMDb, as it is not a verifiable reference for trivia. (Question: Can we "go" more than once on here? :-) ) -Shannernanner 16:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I also think IMDb is not a reliable source, but for height, I don't know what is reliable. As for the years, I think consistancy is always good. The awards have years, so I think the roles should too. Answer: you "go" as many times as you like :-) Rossrs 21:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

4.Diff All right then, I'm going again. :-) Removing height again; not only was my attempt to find a verifiable reference unfruitful (sources say his height is either 5'8½", 5'9", 5'9½", 5'9¾", or 5'11"--all on the first page of a search), but I'm still not sure it should be included anyway, as if it is not notable within the context of the body of the article, it gives an editor excuse to insert it in the infobox. Inserted line breaks after the "in" in the "Notable roles" field; having tried it, I do like it like that. Replacing the years in same field per suggestion. Removing bold in "Academy Awards" field. Replacing "Spouse" field.
Hmmm. It's starting to look pretty good to me. :-) -Shannernanner 06:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

5) Diff Right, here's my go, I think I've done it right. I've replaced height and tried to find a better source. Shannernanner, I don't understand when you say: as if it is not notable within the context of the body of the article, it gives an editor excuse to insert it in the infobox. There's not sensible place to put it in the article bar the trivia section so, to me, it seems like a good idea to put it in the infobox. I like what User:HamishMacBeth did with the academyawards so I've put back the bold, it just seperates it a bit more, I think. I like what you've done with the line breaks on notable roles, but just had a little fiddle around to try and make it look a bit better. Still undecided on spouse, but I think this infobox looks quite useable.CelebHeights 14:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks good, doesn't it? I'm not a fan of bold text in infoboxes, but I think the Academy Awards looks a bit better with it. It all looks really good. There seems to be a feeling among several editors that IMDb is not reliable as a source for things like height. Do you realize the link goes to Carol Kane? She's not quite as tall as Jack, I notice ;-) Rossrs 14:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
There's a quote on her page to which I was linking, but I don't know how to direct it to a specific part of the page. HamishMacBeth 13:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I missed that. OK, it says, in part, "he is no more than five foot seven or so himself." That's not a very strong reference. IMDb is often unreliable and this is a quote from another person, and it's not even precise as it says he's "five foot seven or so". "Or so" could be an inch either way - who would know? It's no big deal because we're only discussing the template appearance here, but in the article it wouldn't be reliable enough as a source. Rossrs 23:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the old infobox

I think Template:Infobox Celebrity serves a better purpose. It is a lot neater, and was used in a simple fashion. This one gets really long, and thus cuts into the text, not to mention the pov things like notable roles, and the random stuff like height. I would like to see the celeb one phased back in. It looks a lot better imo. Davey4 12:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

A celeb ad an actor are two things. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
celeb infobox is rubbish. Arniep 02:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Alignment

Can someone adjust this template to be aligned to the right-hand side of the page, like most every other infobox? -- Hawaiian717 21:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It is? — Could you provide a link to a page where its not on the right? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what happened (don't see anything in the template's edit history), but its fixed now. I was seeing the misalignment on William Shatner in Firefox. When I tried IE6 it worked correctly, so I reloaded the page in Firefox and its now right-aligned there as well. -- Hawaiian717 21:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

civility Matthew! civility Twentyboy 21:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Width

I decreased the width from 24 to 21, because a few of the entries I've seen have way too much unnecessary empty space. Seems to have worked out good. Hope that's ok with everyone Mad Jack 20:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

  • There are a few where I expect it'll now look a little cramped (e.g. those with multiple notable roles and/or Academy Award entries) but maybe an alternative is to unfix the width of the first column in favo/ur of padding-right... Regards, David Kernow (talk) 21:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Birth date and age template

Is there any objection to using the {{birth date and age}} template in infoboxes? The template has survived a nomination for deletion and it does no harm that I can see although I've encountered resistance to it being in infoboxes. Anyone?

My reasoning for using it is as follows:

  1. While editors may think that it's simple math that anyone can do on their own, the truth is many adults cannot easily do the math. I know several who would have to think about it.
  2. It makes an infobox, which is basically a quick reference, even quicker to use.
  3. It does no harm. Not very much space is taken up by "(age:XX)".
  4. It automatically links the date so that user preferences display the date correctly.

Thanks, Dismas|(talk) 13:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

  • When you say "using the ... template in infoboxes", do you mean incorporating it in the template's code or encouraging people to use it for the {{{birthdate}}} parameter...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 17:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
The second but the first would be nifty as well. Dismas|(talk) 03:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't care for it. I agree with your points 2, 3 and 4, although I don't think they address any great need for this information, but I am bothered by point # 1. It's true that many adults can't do basic math but that's not a good enough reason to add this. It's also true that many adults can't read well but we don't tailor our writing style to deal with various levels of literacy among readers. An encyclopedia should be assuming a certain level of aptitude/literacy/numeracy/motivation among it's users and aiming at that level, rather than below it, and we should resist the urge to "dumb down" what we are creating, or aim our articles at the lowest common denominator. I've read somewhere that we should be aiming at a relatively intelligent, inquisitive 12 year old (I wish I could find where I read this...) A relatively intelligent 12 year old should have basic numeracy skills and should not be too lazy to use them. Are we adding this information because we can, or because we should? Rossrs
Strongly oppose widespread use, per Rossrs. Shannernanner 00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Strongly in favor. Quick reference is the whole point of the infobox; it does not "dumb down" the encyclopedia in any way to make available at quick glance as much relevant information as possible. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 00:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
That's a matter of opinion, and in mine it does "dumb down" the article. It saves the reader from thinking. Heaven forbid, we should in any way stretch or challenge the reader, and let's not encourage anyone to improve their numeracy skills, if it's such a problem for them. The date of birth is there, the date of death is there - the calculation of age is redundant. BTW we keep adding and adding to these infoboxes and every time we do, they become less of a "quick reference". The number of fields we now have is excessive. Rossrs 02:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, again, challenging the reader is laudable within the article; it defeats, however, the at-a-glance purpose of the infobox (which gets too long sometimes). But now I'm only repeating myself... ;) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 15:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you are repeating yourself, and I think you should stop before I start seeing your point of view! Too late! Argh!  ;-) Let me explain what I meant by challenging. I think the age calculation is redundant and unnecessary because it takes data from within the infobox and uses it to make a calculation that it does not need to make. Most people should be capable of performing this calculation, if they really want to know how old someone is, but if it genuinely helps people scan the infobox and find what they need more quickly, I can understand the rationale. But when we say "lots of people can't do basic mathematical calculations, so we'll do that for them, and then they'll never have to learn how to do it for themselves", which paraphrases comments that have appeared here, and elsewhere on this subject - that's an entirely different thing, and it's bad. I can live (unhappily) with one rationale but not with the other. Rossrs 15:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
LOL! :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
It does not add any information which is not already available. Shannernanner 01:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, not factual; it quickly answers the question, for example, of anyone who wonders, "hey, I wonder how old that child star I used to watch is today?" It is a quick reference and an opportunity to do a simple little thing with a live encyclopedia that paper can't touch—and, this template could also be made to use any individual computer's clock to create the same effect within a CD Wiki. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 01:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
It is a fact that if one's birth year is available, their age is also available. Just because it it is a "quick reference" doesn't automatically make it necessary or enlightening. Shannernanner 01:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Necessary? No. Enlightening? The potential is more than strong enough for me. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
For those that say that it is redundant, show me one bit of the infoboxes that isn't redundant. The birthdate, location, nationality, notable roles, spouse, children, etc. is all already in the article. There are only two things that aren't redundant, the picture if there isn't a second image in the article somewhere and the colored bar at the top of the box. And the bar, IMO, is virtually useless since the average reader probably has no idea that different colors signify different things nor do they know where to find out what the colors mean. And then for those that say there's too much info, I don't see agree there either. On most resolutions/monitors the infobox probably doesn't even fill the page from top to bottom on one pageview. Take a look at Economy of the Bahamas or some similar article for a crowded infobox! Dismas|(talk) 03:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I was not implying that it was simply redundant to information within the article body; it is redundant to information within the infobox itself. Shannernanner 04:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
hmmm. edit conflict.... I was just saying the same thing. I agree with Dismas's point about the colour of the bar though. Rossrs 04:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I find infoboxes to be very useful in general, a lot people want to get basic information on a person quickly without reading the whole article. Also, people are primarily interested in a person's birth date to compute their age, and this provides it easily for people. Regarding the comment that it is not enlightening since one can compute the age from the birth date, I don't think it's harmful in any way, and some people do have trouble doing the math, and that does make their lives easier. I don't think snobbery that people should compute the age in their heads is really a reason to oppose this template. -Bansal 06:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that infoboxes serve a purpose and can be very helpful but I don't think it's snobbery to try to ascertain and maintain a particular standard in all aspects of Wikipedia, even regarding something as seemingly minor as this point. At what level do we wish to aim Wikipedia? The reality is that we can't aim it at everyone. The majority of our articles assume that our readers are fairly bright. If this is the level we have generally accepted as a standard, we should try to aim at that level, not above and not below. We don't deliberately aim below this level in the vocabulary or style of our text, or in our subject matter or concepts, so why is it snobbery to suggest that we should not aim below the level on this point also? Rossrs 08:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I would agree with you if this template was being used within the article; it does not (IMO) dumb down anything in any way to include this data at a quick glance within the infobox—since that's its purpose anyway. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 14:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, at least it's good to know you would agree with me if you could, but I accept that you can't. Neither can I agree with you, Sir. ;-) Rossrs 15:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
LOL! RadioKirk (u|t|c) 15:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Whats the big deal? Its a nice useful feature.. doesnt harm the infobox and just helps make an article more comprehensive.. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 14:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this takes away from intelligent users, whereas "dumbing down" the vocabulary in the main article would do so. In any case if I may take the discussion in a different direction, do you think it is appropriate to remove this template if someone adds it? We have a user that is reverting to the previous revision (in violation of Wikipedia policy in my opinion) every time he notices someone adding the template. Can we agree that while this template is here that it is valid to use it, and probably shouldn't get into edit wars over its use? -Bansal 15:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we can safely argue that discussion is virtually always better than edit wars... ;) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 16:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
For the record, I can see Bansal's and RadioKirk's views about "dumbing down". Fair enough, that was probably too strong a sentiment on my behalf. As to the second issue of the template being removed from articles, I think discussion is best, and it's a great shame that the template was added in the first place without discussion. I think it's a common problem that something can be added to an infobox without discussion and agreement, and yet removing it - which should be just as easy - is far more difficult and often comes after a lot of ill-feeling has been provoked. This is back-to-front and illogical. The "template is here" is the unfair result of someone adding it without establishing any kind of consensus. If an editor is removing it from articles, my opinion is that the editor in question should be given consideration and I personally believe that the editor is more right than wrong. The template should never have been added to the infobox without the discussion that is currently taking place and as the discussion is still very much active, we should consider that the template is not yet ready to be used. Please let's avoid an edit war. Whatever the end result, this discussion is the right course to follow. Rossrs 16:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Well I think to say that nothing can be added to Wikipedia until it has been peer reviewed would violate the spirit of "being bold" when making edits. And I believe it has survived an attempt to delete it, has it not? -Bansal 16:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Rossrs is absolutely right in that discourse is the right course; Bansal is absolutely right in that making deletion as easy as addition throws WP:BOLD out the window. Obviously, there are exceptions: if there's an immediate, powerful consensus to remove something or it's obviously damaging in some way, then out it goes. IMO, however, that does not apply here. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 17:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I wonder what remaining objection Rossrs has since he/she agrees with us on the "dumbing down" issue... -Bansal 17:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
First, Rossrs is a he. And I have no remaining objection. I withdraw all of my remarks. The template has survived a vote for deletion and that is really the deciding factor. Sorry, I should have looked for the discussion sooner. The discussion is here, so yes you're right. I was forgetting that the nomination for deletion was for the generic template, which obviously can be used in any bio infobox, including this one, so after all this lengthy discussion, I guess the original question is answered. I was arguing against its use in this particular infobox, but it's a moot point. You're also right about "being bold", but a lot of editors hide behind the "being bold" thing. If someone adds something to an infobox they are "being bold". If someone removes it they are a "vandal". That's a problem. As for throwing WP:BOLD out the window, sometimes WP:BOLD should be thrown out the window (or at least put on the window-ledge until a decision is made). From BOLD : "being bold in updating categories and templates can often be a bad thing" and "It is usually worth proposing any changes to templates and categories as above, on talk or relevant WikiProject pages, prior to making any change." It's no longer applicable to this situation, but for future situations, yes, a bit of discussion and agreement first is the way to go. Rossrs 17:18, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
So, if I'm reading this correctly, there is a majority in favor of the template? So, can I safely continue adding it to infoboxes? (P.S. How many ":" can we get before the text starts to be just a single column of words?  :^) Dismas|(talk) 03:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
My take is that there is nobody left in this forum who objects, and the template has survived a deletion attempt, so it's use would be very tough to dispute at this point. My advice would be if you add it and someone deletes it, refer them to the discussion during the deletion attempt (thanks Rossrs for providing the link) and this discussion. Have fun... :) -Bansal 04:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Woot! Dismas|(talk) 04:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea and should be what infoboxes are really for- quickly accessible info without having to think or search for something. Arniep 13:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Just leave it as an optional calculation, don't make the calculation automatic. I'm a new editor, and was editing Richard Biggs. It didn't register until after I submitted that birth date and Age did the calculation as of current day (of course it does), but he was not that old. In the case of someone who has passed away, we'll have to go back in and change the birth date to standard date linking, and change death date to use the Age calculation.... which brings another question... any way to treat the value listed in Birth Date as a variable, and perform the death date calculation based on that variable? In that case also, treat the existence of the death date as a "if exist", and if it does exist, then in birth date it can automatically perform the calculation. That way, when someone passes away, all thats needed is the entry of death date, and it automatically switches the age calculation off in the birth date entry, and on in the death date entry. Anyone follow my train of thought? Erpbridge 18:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Added emmyawards field

Ingrid Bergman

Image:Ingrid Bergman - For Whom The Bell Tolls.jpg
Ingrid Bergman in For Whom The Bell Tolls
Birth name Ingrid Bergman
Born August 29, 1915
Flag of Sweden Stockholm, Sweden
Died August 29, 1982, age 67
London, England, United Kingdom
Career active 1932-1982
Spouse(s) Dr. Aron Petter Lindström (1937-1950)
Roberto Rossellini (1950-1957)
Lars Schmidt (1958-1975)
Academy Awards
1944 Best Actress for Gaslight
1956 Best Actress for Anastasia
1974 Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express
Emmy Awards
1960 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Turn of the Screw
1982 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for A Woman Called Golda
Tony Awards
1947 Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for Joan of Lorraine

I just added a emmyawards field to expand the template for TV actors. --Andromeda 21:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

  • If the emmyawards field is being added, why not a Tony awards field as well to have all of the three biggest awards for actors listed? --PhantomS 18:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
  • If no one has any objections in the next day or two, I will be adding a tonyawards field to have all of the big three acting awards in the template. --PhantomS 03:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not an objection as much as a suggestion. If we must include awards, could the whole awards thing be more inclusive and less aimed at the American awards if it was just a generic awards field? This could be used for Oscar, Emmy, Tony as well as the major awards of other countries such as Britain's BAFTA awards, or Olivier awards for the British theatre, AFI Awards for Australia etc, etc. I think it's a bit POV to just arbitrarily decide which awards are worthy of mention. Rossrs 04:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

What about doing something similar to the Russian Wikipedia, where they seem to put all of the awards into one section? For example, the Russian article for Ingrid Bergman puts all of her Oscars, Golden Globes, and Emmy Awards in the награды field. --PhantomS 05:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Here is another example with Cate Blanchett. --PhantomS 05:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's pretty much what I was imagining, although if we did this we should give the name of the production. The Russian Wikipedia seems not to be doing this. Flying off on a tangent... I'm intrigued by the "Карьера: 1932—1978" which I assume is something like a "years active". I don't usually advocate adding more fields into this infobox, but that (IMO) is so much more relevant than how tall the person was. At a glance we can see not only the timespan during which the person lived, but the timespan during which the person contributed to their chosen field. Rossrs 15:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I think adding the names of the productions can make this field excessively large and may force the display of only a couple of the awards. What if the years linked to the individual film or play articles instead of the years in this case? Also, I agree the "Career" field would be a useful addition. --PhantomS 17:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
It may make it too large, I agree. It was just an idea, and maybe not a very good one. I think it should be restricted to the major awards in whatever country, so the list would usually be small, but determining which awards to mention may open up a Pandora's Box of POV. Linking the year to the film, may work but I don't think it's ideal. This is a tricky question. I honestly don't know. Rossrs 17:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I'll start a new section to ask for comments about the "career section" because it might get swallowed up and lost her, and if we're discussing two seperate points, it will just make this more confusing. Rossrs 01:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

What about making it look something like this? (sample) Adding only fields for major awards and perhaps a catch-all field for others? --Andromeda 20:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's getting there, and hopefully with further discussion we'll get the most usable solution. I think it would look more "standardized" if the award headers were aligned left as the other fields are. BTW, I've removed the image before someone calls "copyvio" on it. Rossrs 01:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
What about the new awards section I put in the sample infobox here? Would something like this work? --PhantomS 00:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
It's very repetitive and that's the only problem. I would have the award header and then have "Academy Awards" and then the film and then "Emmy Awards" (once only - just because she's won several doesn't mean it needs to be mentioned for each one. It just needs a subheader). I think the Emmy Award should be named in full, because there is a distinction between different types of lead roles. What do you think? Rossrs 02:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Removed the 'and' from the dates for the Emmy awards, and it works. I think it's ready for use. The academy awards field will probably have to stay because it's been implemented for awhile, but the Emmy awards field is new and can probably be removed. --PhantomS 03:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
No, that wouldn't work. Helen Hunt has only one Academy Award and her Emmy Awards are all for the same series, but other actors have more. I think this way is better. --Andromeda 10:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
I think it looks good, but I'm concerned that the box now shows 3 color bars, and the text is a bit bunched up. Have a look at the Bette Davis article. The infobox shows the awards in what I think is a very clear and concise manner. What do you think? Rossrs 12:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Simply enough, many people will be using this template. You cannot trust everybody will do it that way. You have to account for variability. --Andromeda 14:32, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you're right but you can't trust that people will do it this way, that way or any other way. We're already seeing people do all kinds of things and some of them look pretty bad. Whatever we end up with, we should put an example on the template page like they have with the Template:Infobox musical artist and the Mariah Carey example. Then, if someone wants to do it right, they'll know exactly what to do. Rossrs 15:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Problem that I'm seeing here is that we will end up adding about 10 or so separate awards fields if we don't create a single "Award(s)" field. By the way, I changed the sample to someone with more history and awards to play around with. --PhantomS 17:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, I think awards should each have a different color bar. How do these colors in the sample work? --PhantomS 18:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Horrible. They clash. The template should be a visual unit. Colours should coordinate. --Andromeda 15:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Considering they are pastels and typically clash the least, there are few options left for about 10 awards. I'm still more of a fan of a single awards field, but I've changed the color scheme to a single consistent color in the sample. --PhantomS 18:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I see on Robert De Niro the nominations are included as well as the awards- was this agreed upon? Isn't it going to get out of hand if we have Emmy award nominations as well? Arniep 18:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
No, it wasn't agreed upon. I don't think it's been discussed in any detail but there was a discussion on one of the actor pages - can't remember which one - that came up with "wins only". Rossrs 20:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
It definitely would be ungainly to have nominations and awards, especially if more award types are added. --PhantomS 20:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
The top colour is beige, the awards colour is blue. I don't think that matches very well. --Andromeda 20:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
The top color is LightGoldenrod, while the awards color is LightSteelBlue. They seem to match pretty well in my browser. Which colors do you suggest? --PhantomS 21:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
As an aside, yellow and blue are often put together on flags. --PhantomS 21:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't think flags could be taken as design examples, since they're a very generic type of object. I'll suggest either changing to the top colour to a shade of blue or the blue colour to shade of golden yellow. --Andromeda 22:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Flags are designed to be appealing, and newer ones are typically designed by artists. However, in order to go along with the suggestion of changing everything to shades of one color, I have changed the sample to different shades of blue. --PhantomS 23:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying that they're not appealing. I'm just saying they're a very specific type of object, whose design cannot be easily exported elsewhere. And yes, I like this version better. --Andromeda 09:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it agreed that this is the final scheme? Also, what awards fields should be used from the available film awards and television awards? --PhantomS 20:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the colors very much. I think they're a very good choice, but there is the potential for too many color bars. Rossrs 10:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Nooooooo. These two blues clash terribly! The boxes look much better with yellow at the top. I'm not sure why it is even necessary to have a separate color for the awards it just looks cluttered imo. Arniep 12:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
IMO, the yellow at the top was kind of an eyesore before. As for the awards format of the sample, it seems to be the format that is most liked at the moment.--PhantomS 16:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but really these blues don't look right at all. The yellow looks fine to me and at least it roughly matches the color of an academy award. It also tends to complement colours in photos well, whereas those blues are going to look even worse right next to an image, which is also why silver colour is good for deceased actors as we often have B & W photos of them. Arniep 17:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I've added an image to the sample to see the title bar color next to a color image. IMO, the blue looks fine next to it. --PhantomS 20:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what it is but blue just doesn't seem right to me - it makes me think of the navy and things like that, not actors. Also with the links in blue too it's blue overload- with yellow it complements the blue (yellow is the complimentary color of blue). Arniep 22:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I had a yellow title bar and blue awards bars, but I was getting complaints about them clashing. If you have an idea for another design, please edit the sample at the top of this section. --PhantomS 06:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it was the wrong type of blue- only a certain blue will be the complimentary color of a particular yellow etc. I'll have a go at combining a few colors-I think red might also go. Arniep 15:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Unless anyone objects, I will be adding the award format + colors seen in the example above to the infobox. --PhantomS 08:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Silver bgcolour

I have noticed that some actors and actresses have had their infobox bgcolour set to silver. Is this because they have died or because they were silver screen actors? --PhantomS 18:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it means they are dead. It may also mean some editors like silver. Or that some editors have copied and pasted the template from one article to the next without knowing that the colour may have significance. Who knows? It's yet another topic that needs to be discussed further. Rossrs 15:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)