Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk | contribs) |
Kirill Lokshin (talk | contribs) |
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Was there a field "Conflicts=" so you could enter "World War I" or "World War II", now that the infobox can be embedded, anyone that served can have the box, and they tend to have been in a single conflict, which should be identified. --[[User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )]] ([[User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|talk]]) 14:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC) |
Was there a field "Conflicts=" so you could enter "World War I" or "World War II", now that the infobox can be embedded, anyone that served can have the box, and they tend to have been in a single conflict, which should be identified. --[[User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )]] ([[User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|talk]]) 14:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC) |
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::It seems to be covered by "battles" is that correct? --[[User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )]] ([[User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|talk]]) 21:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC) |
::It seems to be covered by "battles" is that correct? --[[User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )]] ([[User talk:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )|talk]]) 21:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC) |
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:::That's the intent, yes. Note that the label on the "battles" field can be customized to whatever is most appropriate for a particular article. [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] ([[User talk:Kirill Lokshin|talk]]) 00:35, 6 September 2016 (UTC) |
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Usage of honorifics parameters
I've run into a conflict at Richard Peirse where Abraham B.S. keeps removing the |honorific_suffix=
. His arguments are that there is "no need for postnominals to be duplicated in infobox ", and "the majority of WP users do not browse by mobile. Also inconsistent with similar articles". I'd like to differ. In the mobile view, the infobox is displayed as one of the first elements even before the lead section of the article. So it makes sense to provide a summary of information that is found in the full text – which includes mentioning honorific titles and suffixes. While the majority of Wikipedia users may in fact still use a desktop PC or laptop for browsing, that is not a valid argument to deny a service to the mobile users. And if the majority of biographical articles does not display postnomimals in the infobox then they should be amended there instead of removing the parameters from articles that did already show them. The inclusion of |honorific_prefix=
and |honorific_suffix=
in the template code is consistent with {{infobox person}} that also uses them, but if there is general consensus to not use them at all, we should completely disable these template parameters. Otherwise I don't see a justification for removing them from articles. De728631 (talk) 20:19, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- As far as I am aware as well as the lead the infobox is a normal place for honorifics which is why they are in the code. MilborneOne (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- The inclusion of honorifics in Template:Infobox office holder may be relatively common, but it is not at all standard for Template:Infobox military person and should not have been added to the code. The latter was not intended to include honorifics like postnominals and doing so serves to clutter the small space, which in my view gives rise to accessibility issues. My main argument against including honorifics in Infobox military person, however, is that of duplication. The postnominals are already recorded next to the name in the lead, and the list of honours included in the infobox (not to mention prose and categories). Why is there a need to over-clutter the article and duplicate the same information multiple times over? Perhaps Ian Rose, Dormskirk, MisterBee1966 or any other editors who regularly edit biographical articles on military personnel may like contribute to this discussion, if they have an opinion? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- Hi - I agree with Abraham, B.S. on the basis (i) rank and awards already appear lower down in the infobox as well as in the first line of the lead and (ii) we already have a standard approach across many thousands of military biographies viz. we do not use honorific prefixes and honorific suffixes in the infobox. Dormskirk (talk) 22:27, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- Fully endorse what Bryce Abraham and Dormskirk have said. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:33, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- Hi - I agree with Abraham, B.S. on the basis (i) rank and awards already appear lower down in the infobox as well as in the first line of the lead and (ii) we already have a standard approach across many thousands of military biographies viz. we do not use honorific prefixes and honorific suffixes in the infobox. Dormskirk (talk) 22:27, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- Honorifics should be included the infobox in the same way that they are in most other biographical infoboxes, not least {{Infobox person}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:04, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
- Indeed. Wikipedia is full of inconsistencies, so in order to avoid further confusion for the standard reader (not editor) we should treat all biographical infoboxes the same way. If the general biographical template, i.e. infobox person, uses them, the military variant should also have such parameters. De728631 (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- With respect, I feel that is a poor argument that verges on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As Dormskirk has pointed out, such a change would unnecessarily alter thousands of articles and the established status quo among military history editors. Further, if the concern is for the reader, then one would be unnecessarily bombarding them with the exact same information multiple times over, while cluttering the page. It just makes no sense, and decreases accessibility for the reader and the editor. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- I am not sure that I fully understand the reason for being against its use. What about academic titles attained by soldiers? Are these not honorifics in this context? MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- Ditto knighthoods. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:49, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS concerns it self with rationales for or against deletion; nothing else. As for the supposed "established status quo among military history editors" (however that group might be defined), Wikipedia recognises no such ring-fencing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:49, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- I am not sure that I fully understand the reason for being against its use. What about academic titles attained by soldiers? Are these not honorifics in this context? MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:32, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- With respect, I feel that is a poor argument that verges on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. As Dormskirk has pointed out, such a change would unnecessarily alter thousands of articles and the established status quo among military history editors. Further, if the concern is for the reader, then one would be unnecessarily bombarding them with the exact same information multiple times over, while cluttering the page. It just makes no sense, and decreases accessibility for the reader and the editor. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- Indeed. Wikipedia is full of inconsistencies, so in order to avoid further confusion for the standard reader (not editor) we should treat all biographical infoboxes the same way. If the general biographical template, i.e. infobox person, uses them, the military variant should also have such parameters. De728631 (talk) 02:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
- The inclusion of honorifics in Template:Infobox office holder may be relatively common, but it is not at all standard for Template:Infobox military person and should not have been added to the code. The latter was not intended to include honorifics like postnominals and doing so serves to clutter the small space, which in my view gives rise to accessibility issues. My main argument against including honorifics in Infobox military person, however, is that of duplication. The postnominals are already recorded next to the name in the lead, and the list of honours included in the infobox (not to mention prose and categories). Why is there a need to over-clutter the article and duplicate the same information multiple times over? Perhaps Ian Rose, Dormskirk, MisterBee1966 or any other editors who regularly edit biographical articles on military personnel may like contribute to this discussion, if they have an opinion? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Foreign terms allowed? And a tiny error...
Is there any consensus on the of use foreign terms in infoboxes? For example, if the soldier in question is a German soldier, is right/wrong/undetermined to use "Heer" as Service Branch?
Also, I'd like to point out that the info box for Clifford Carwood Lipton used in the article has a small error. It currently gives his unit as, "Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment." In WWII the U.S. Army hierarchy was company/battalion/regiment/division, so the 506th shouldn't come after the 101st, should it? __209.179.86.123 (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
- You should really use the common name in English, a good guide is the article name, in this case it uses "Army". MilborneOne (talk) 09:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
When embedded
This infobox, when embedded in another one, say "Infobox person", get a fixed title "Military career". It is possible to make this title editable so to accommodate other types of careers, e.g. "Paramilitary career" or "Police career" or "Military and police career" or "Paramilitary and police career" or "Military and paramilitary career"? Carlotm (talk) 10:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
- Carlotm, added
|embed_title=
Frietjes (talk) 17:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)- Thank you very much, Frietjes. Carlotm (talk) 00:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Cause of Death
Can we add a cause of death parameter? I was updating Kay Summersby, who died of cancer, but there is no way to indicate this in the Infobox.
The generic People Infobox has
|death_cause=
so it seems it would make sense to include it as an optional parameter in this Infobox. — Safety Cap (talk) 12:51, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
- I would not have thought that in the case you quote that cause of death was not particularly notable and not needed in the infobox so it is unlikely to be needed and that is probably true for nearly all of the military person articles. MilborneOne (talk) 14:51, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with MilborneOne. Although this is an infobox for military persons who naturally have a higher likelihood of being killed as opposed to a death from disease or old age I don't think we need to stress the cause of death by giving it a slot in the infobox. De728631 (talk) 17:56, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
Children
Add children please, military life runs in families. I just counted 100 father-son wikipedia entries for military people before I stopped. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
- There is already a parameter called "relations" in the template. It might not be very obvious but this is meant to host the entries for children and other relevant relatives. See also the documentation for an example. De728631 (talk) 21:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
- Why don't we implement a new filed "children=" so it matches the name of other templates, and no one has to read the instructions to figure it out, standardization is a good thing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
- We could do that and use the
|relations=
for any other relatives. But speaking of standardization, we would then have to sort out any children from the existing|relations=
entries. I suppose that's a pretty extensive task. De728631 (talk) 16:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
- We could do that and use the
- Why don't we implement a new filed "children=" so it matches the name of other templates, and no one has to read the instructions to figure it out, standardization is a good thing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Infobox clutter for non-military persons
There's a dispute at director Mel Brooks's article about whether this module belongs. One editor insists on having it there. I think for someone who was drafted, spent two years in the service, and whose career had nothing to do with the military, that module in his infobox looks ridiculous. It also undermines the bio, since infoboxes should quickly summarize the notability of the person. But this module, which takes up almost half the infobox, misleads readers because on first impression, seeing emblems, flags, military indicia, medals, etc., a casual reader would wrongly assume the person was a career soldier. I feel that this module should only be used for those whose notability was based significantly on their military career. --Light show (talk) 05:15, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
- It does look odd and is distracting. I prefer them for career military people or people who died while in service. Looking at the infobox, I would assume that his career was with the military. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
- I entirely disagree. I took a quick look at several articles I've edited before to get an idea of what seems prevalent. For people like Rudy Boesch who's notability rests largely on military service, Template:Infobox military person is used. That's your career servicemembers, so those articles wouldn't use this module. Second you have people like Tim Kennedy (fighter) and Vladimír Remek who are primarily known for something else (Mixed martial arts and the space program, respectively) but both had military service. Remek retired from military service after 20+ years and Kennedy is still in the National Guard after already serving 10+ years. Each of them have the module. Finally you have people like Don Rickles as well as both Rooneys (Andy and Mickey who served during WWII because everyone did). The article about Rickles has the module but the other two don't.
- I disagree with the argument that infoboxes
"quickly summarize the notability of the person"
as Light show claims. Infoboxes are where we can store the sort of data the average reader can pick out of a table like birth date, middle name, etc. Military service, being a widely-experienced phenomenon, is as fitting a detail to include as spouse and children. It has little to do with notability. If the unease of"seeing emblems, flags, military indicia, medals, etc."
is an issue then simply enforce MOS:ICONS and remove the images. The text itself seldom takes up much room and certainly doesn't"take[s] up almost half the infobox"
nor do I find it"distracting"
. I resist any attempt to truncate or remove this template as matter of community norms. Implementation of the template can be discussed with MILHIST. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:25, 4 September 2016 (UTC)- Re: Infoboxes are where we can store the sort of data the average reader can pick out of a table like birth date, middle name, etc. While that may be true, it has little to do with including a module that, even after your icon removals, still takes up 40% of the infobox. His two years of service are not part of the misleading "Military career" heading. Per the bio, his career spans over 65 years in the entertainment industry. His "Years active" stated in the infobox do not include his army time. Nor does the lead mention it, and if it did it would look equally ridiculous. I feel that pushing an irrelevant module on non-military bios undermines them, as I said above. What it adds is much worse than being a mere distraction, IMO. --Light show (talk) 17:51, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
- It does look odd and is distracting. I prefer them for career military people or people who died while in service. Looking at the infobox, I would assume that his career was with the military. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
Conflicts
Was there a field "Conflicts=" so you could enter "World War I" or "World War II", now that the infobox can be embedded, anyone that served can have the box, and they tend to have been in a single conflict, which should be identified. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to be covered by "battles" is that correct? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- That's the intent, yes. Note that the label on the "battles" field can be customized to whatever is most appropriate for a particular article. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to be covered by "battles" is that correct? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC)