Template Talk:Infobox Character/Archive 2 - House Cleaning List Template

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Parameter removal

{{editprotected}} I think we should remove the "number of episodes" parameter. First is it really necessary to list how many episodes a character has been in? Second, do people really count all the episodes a character is in for an accurate number? CTJF83 GoUSA 22:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Do it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. Just one small remark, when discussing of removing a parameter that is probably used in hundreds of articles and many people use it we have to wait more than one day for making any changes in case they are disagreements. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

More removal

I also think we should remove species, why is it important? They're either human or not.

• Call sign - what is the point of this?
• Specialty - the characters talents? Seems like a big OR issue
• Age/Date of birth/Date of death - per WP:IN-U they don't really have dates to go by and age is trivial. Do they remain the same age through the series, or should it be updated when a new episode has a new age.
• Spouse - change to partner, we should list significant others too
• Address - again, trivial, these are fictional characters with fictional addresses, not important
  • Last apperance - maybe on this one. A character may be killed, but it is OR to say they will never appear in flash backs in future episodes. CTJF83 GoUSA 22:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Let's keep "species" for dogs, etc. I am removing it for human characters as useless and obvious.
• Let's remove "specialty", "call sign" as OR, "address" as useless.
• "Date of birth/date of death" it's confusing for fictional characters. This info can be put in the main article, thus delete it.
• I am not sure about "Last appereance". -- 22:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC) --Preceding unsigned comment added by Magioladitis (talk o contribs)

Just a small note: We have to create a tracking category with deprecated parameters at some point. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

We can proceed. It's been enough days. Can someone change the code? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Can I please get an admin to remove the above categories per the consensus. CTJF83 chat 08:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

? Done but I am bit puzzled with the numbering of the variables. Category:Articles using Infobox character with deprecated parameters will keep the articles with deprecated parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I think age, birth, death and residence should be reuturned. They're pretty vital. --WölffReik (talk) 18:41, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

There are 1600+ articles tagged with Category:Articles using Infobox character with deprecated parameters. Who is going to start cleanup? -- Evertype·? 08:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Gender is for grammar

It should say Sex. -- Evertype·? 08:30, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Age

I think that this template needs an age paraneter. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 06:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

House Cleaning List Template Video

Updates

I realize that discussion is on going above, but I made a couple minor updates, which I hope are not controversial. (1) I changed the default background (header) colour to whatever is generated by {{Infobox television/colour}} since this template is typically used for television characters. (2) I added a "voice" parameter since there are many series where the voice actor is different from the portrayer (e.g., Seasame Street, or others mentioned above). I fully support the merging and removal of excessive fields. However, we do have so many "lbl#" and "data#" that are being used to skirt these in-universe fancruft issues. Let me know if any of my edits are controversial and I would be happy to either revert or discuss alternatives. Thanks! Plastikspork _-OE^(talk) 22:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

housecleaningbest.blogspot.com

Inclusion of

Requesting third party opinions regarding the inclusion of in-universe information--most specifically the family members section--in the infobox based on the criteria set forth by WP:WAF#Infoboxes.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:00, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

• We could do something similar with {{Infobox soap character}} for the family members. Certainly this has to remain to as small as possible and certainly we mustn't have any "Family tree" sections in the article. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

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Cause/Reason

Can we get rid of this field? It just encourages editors to put in stuff like "Stabbed by Dean Winchester with the "demon-killing knife" with help from Sam Winchester." It doesn't even make sense for real-world information, because often that requires a paragraph and a citation, and infoboxes are for neat little tidbits you can't really justify writing out in full sentences anywhere else.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 18:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Not sure about the cause one, but it would be nice to remove a few fields and see what drama that causes. Unfortunately, none of us are admins, I think. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:24, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I hadn't seen the above discussion 'til now. I had to get that bee out of my bonnet. My take is like Bignole's: some characters require the custom fields (for instance, "Notable abilities" for characters for whom special abilities are significantly part of their conception/reception, a la Heroes). The good thing about reducing that to the lbl21 field is it doesn't automatically suppose it must be filled in -- which would cause people to write "high IQ, advanced medical knowledge" as Dr. Greg House's "power".~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 00:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

September 2010

{{editprotected}} Remove per above consensus. CTJF83 chat 02:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Can we please remove the "Cause/Reason" field now, then?~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 02:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

www.divineirc.net

Tracking

We have the following tracking categories

1. Category:Articles using Infobox character with deprecated parameters
2. Category:Articles using Infobox character with multiple unlabeled fields

They should start to fill up once the server re-caches the articles. This should give us an idea of how this template is being used in practice. Thanks, and let me know if you would like to track anything else! Plastikspork _-OE^(talk) 15:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm seeing a lot of powers/abilities and affiliation/relationships. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Some of the information (blood type, sexual orientation, date of birth) is unnecessary. I move that we put in a limit at 3 custom fields, thereby making all fourth/fifth/sixth entries cease to work.02:50, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I 'll remove all the deprecated parameters using WP:AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

We should remove gender and species. Gender is rarely necessary; where it's worth discussing (ambiguity), it's best left to the article's prose to expound the interesting aspect of it. "Species" could be best presented as "Classification", "Race", etc. depending on franchise (e.g. Doctor Who has alien 'races', Pokemon has 'species' of Pokemon, a Slayer on Buffy is more of a classification than a race, etc.) Also, since when did these templates include nationality, religion, etc.? Why? Where is this ever going to matter?~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 20:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

housecleaningbovol.blogspot.com

Merge family and relatives

Are there any objections to merging the family and relatives fields? Also, having both alias and nicknames seems a bit redundant. Comments? Plastikspork _-OE^(talk) 03:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

• Agree with both CTJF83 chat 03:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
• I think we have some things to remove in addition to this based on the above discussion, but I agree with the merge and I also think that we don't need "nicknames". An alias and a nickname are not really the same thing, but at the same time I don't think nicknames are all that noteworthy for an encyclopedia to begin with. Few exceptions come to mind, Dr. "Bones" McCoy from Star Trek being one. Other than that, you see too many instances of its use filled in because some character jokingly called another character some name.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree with Bignole also...if nickname it will be in the opening sentence of the lead as in the example you gave. CTJF83 chat 04:08, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

housecleaningbovol.blogspot.com

Unnamed family members

Would I be correct in thinking that unnamed family members shouldn't be included in infoboxes? I'm almost positive I've seen this discussed before, but I can't find where. As a specific example, this is the article prompting my enquiry, but it's something I see quite regularly across a range of series. I can't imagine such information being particularly useful, and AFAIC, if these family members are relevant to the character they can be discussed in the body of the article (though if they're not relevant enough to have even been given names, their overall relevance probably isn't high). Is there community consensus or a relevant guideline on this? Frickative 05:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

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Cleaning house

It's time for some more cleaning house and going through this template to find out what is truly "essential to understanding the character", per WP:WAF. Currently, this is where the infobox stands:

  {{Infobox character  | colour      = #DEDEE2  | colour text =   | name        =   | series      =   | image       =   | caption     =   | first       =   | last        =   | cause       =   | creator     =   | portrayer   =   | nickname    =   | alias       =   | species     =   | gender      =   | occupation  =   | title       =   | family      =   | spouse      =   | significantother =   | children    =   | relatives   =   | religion    =   | nationality =   }}  

I think what we need to do is go through each category one by one and figure out if it's necessary, what type of article it is necessary for (i.e., not all types of characters would require us to know what their national origin to understand the character, yet I'm sure almost every character has some national origin listed somewhere is some form of in-universe media. This reason I am bringing this up again is because we're still having some issues with editors disagreeing over what should be included and I think we need to relook at this template and see what needs to stay and see about clarifying when certain sections should be used and when they shouldn't. "Essential to understanding the character" can be vague and I think we need some specific examples for controversial categories so that we can say "this article fits best with this example and thus should/shouldn't be using these in-universe sections".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

How about adding a tracking category to see which transclusions are using a large number of free "lbl" and "data" fields? Plastikspork _-OE^(talk) 22:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

What character has a relationship that is essential to understanding that character? This is about the template being in compliance with WP:WAF, which says that it must be "essential". Not merely add something, but "essential". In other words, the removal of said information would be detrimental to understanding the character. So what relationship is so essential that if we were to remove it's mentioning in the infobox it would damage the readers' understanding of the character?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The average reader knows that strength means and knows what the qualifier super means. To suggest otherwise would just be silly. But I agree...know their powers are not essential to understanding the character itself. Regardless, you still have not provided an argument for how a particular relationship could ever be essential to understanding a character. As of right now, I haven't seen any actual argument for that, let alone exceptions to that argument where it could be relevant for one type and not the rest. The reason being, as I have said multiple times, the importance of a relationship to a characters storyline cannot be created by the mere mentioning of a name in an infobox. The relationship has no informational value as surface level. You need prose to describe why the relationship is important in the fictional universe, and a name doesn't do that. I don't learn anything important about the character from a mere name. It doesn't tell me if their are good, bad, ugly, strong, weak, intelligence, etc. It tells me nothing more than they are related to another fictional character in some way. WAF also says, "there may be no appropriate in-universe information at all to add." For a lot of characters, I think this is very true but we feel the need to fill out everything that appears in the infobox because it's an option to do so. I think we have too many options that are rarely, if ever, going to be appropriate for fictional characters and when the time comes that they are truly appropriate then it's probably better to have a customizable option in the template than some standard section.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I think we were talking past each other. I was never saying we needed affiliations. I was just saying, comparatively to powers/abilities, its more useful. I did not that to be a ringing endorsement. I do think having relations can be useful. Easiest example would be indentical or near-indentical twins. As for affiliations, I would have to say I'm neutral.??_Jinnai 23:36, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Break

Gone for a while.

You miss the whole concept of what an infobox is suppose to be. Never will an infobox give detailed info on anything; that is not its purpose. It's purpose is to give brief highlights of important and relevant info to summarize the article therefore any point about "but you have to read more to get the context" is moot because that is beyond their scope. Yes, they do rely somewhat on common sense to know that if a character is a cat species you can understand some basic info on that character just as when we list their full name we assume people have enough common sense to realize that the character may be refered to by just part of their name. Yes, fictional info can get out of hand and bloat an infobox, but lack of such info harms the function as a summarization of the material just as much as the lack of any info.??_Jinnai 04:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I favor keeping the "Last appearance" parameter, because whenever a show is over, a character does have a last appearance, and it needn't be the last ep of a show (just like the "first appearance" doesn't have to be the pilot ep). If a character is assumed to appear no more (killed off or show has ended), the "Last appearance" field can be filled. If it's a character that is presumed to regularly appear, in practice the field is left open in the awaiting of closure, and doesn't show up for the reader. "Nationality" had some significance in shows with an international nature like Stargate Atlantis and maybe even Lost, but most shows are national, so I wouldn't mind seeing the "nationality" parameter dropped. As for the rest, merge all family parameters into one, merge "nickname(s)"+"aliases", and drop the rest in favor of custom fields. - sgeureka ^toc 09:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+I think that shows the problem that I was bringing up. "Final" or even "Last" implies that they'll never come back. If they weren't written out of a show, didn't die, but the show just ended then they don't really have a "Final" or "Last" appearance. If they did die or were written out, again we run the issue of suggesting that they'll never come back and even in real world mechanics that isn't true because of flashbacks, dreams, etc. Look at Soaps. They're based in the "real world" yet people die and come back all the time. "Latest" has it's own issues, as you pointed out.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ So, with exception to the "last appearance", it seems we're all in agreement about the other changes?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:01, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Request

• Template is protected, so only an administrator can remove the categories above that we agreed needed to be removed. In addition, add the appropriate coding so that we can track articles that are not using the deprecate parameters.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

• • I have altered Template:Infobox character/sandbox to the version I believe was agreed upon in the above discussion. Obviously, if I left something out, or took something out that should not have been removed then it will be noted and we'll just put in another request to have it corrected.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done for now: Unfortunately the template has changed substantially since the sandbox was coded. I can't copy it over otherwise these subsequent edits would be lost. Can you resynchronise and recode the sandbox, and then reactivate the request? -- Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:30, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Sex

Is there some reason why this template includes a field euphemistically called "Gender", when Sex is the correct term?
This is an encyclopedia. We are not squeamish around here.
Varlaam (talk) 19:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandals will always damages pages. But the fact is that the genders are three --masculine, feminine, and neuter-- while the sexes are two --male and female. To this end, the search "sex" should go to a disambiguation page and not to a page describing the act. Q43 (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Race or colour

Other than Sex (see above), the most significant distinguishing characteristic for a person standing 500 yds away is skin colour. And yet we have no such field?
The IMDb dealt with this problem years ago by encouraging photos of actors, so that no one had to create a label for Mariah Carey in so many words.
But we always seem to have copyright troubles with images around here.

In lots of cases, you are naturally going to distinguish the characters as "the blonde", the redheaded guy", "the black guy" and "the fat guy", and there is nothing right now that allows for that most natural form of identification.
"What is the name of the actor who played the funny fat guy on the TV show I saw 5 minutes of last night?" That is a real life question, and it cannot be readily resolved as matters stand at present.
Varlaam (talk) 08:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

New Field - Date of Birth

May characters have a date of birth, for example SpongeBob Squarepants. However, the character infobox does not have the birth_date field that the Person Infobox Template has. I propose that this field is added, please could an administrator take care of this. HenryHayes (talk) 10:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

One-time character

There are parameters for the character's first and last appearance but what if the character only appeared in one episode? I've seen it done with the first and last parameters being identical but that looks silly. McLerristarr | Mclay1 10:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Significant other

I hate it. In the few instances where a 'significant other' is notable (i.e. major part of character's storylines, supercouple phenomenon, etc.) it will be covered as is appropriate in the Lead section. For example, you would mention Kat Moon's relationship with Alfie in her lead (but probably no one else), Buffy's with Angel and Spike (but probably not Riley or Parker or Principal Wood), and you would mention Rictor and Shatterstar in one another's as a pretty interesting development in comic book representations of minorities. The fact of relationships on TV programs isn't the problem. The problem is that they are not really what infoboxes should be for. Infoboxes should not be providing 'biographical' information about characters, only the essentials we might leave out of the lead -- their first episode, their writer, other actors who have portrayed the character (e.g. a BBC radio production of Hitchhiker's Guide), maybe some tidbits that are interesting (e.g., the Jason Voorhees article lists "Signiature weapon: machete", which is fine).

Yet having the field simply encourages debates (such as over which Glee one-episode relations are 'notable') and generally bloats and makes infoboxes ugly. For example, I'm pretty opposed to listing Drusilla, Buffy and Harmony on the Spike article as it is such an unsubtle "one-size fits all" field: Drusilla, a backstory/early sig. other; Buffy, his complicated lover, almost-rape victim, later romantically-tinged close ally; Harmony, his annoying 'bit on the side', all equated. But Buffy articles and equivalents aren't the worst for this. Teen shows are. The boyfriend-swapping on 90210, Glee, The OC etc. is complicated because each transitory relationship is presented as "real love" at least for the duration of that particular story arc, until the next one comes along and provides a very subtle retcon. Following the text objectively, they all belong; using real life standards, probably none of them do. For another example, contemplate applying the significant other field to How I Met Your Mother character articles: the show's narrative has a 'present' (future) where everyone has an unnamed spouse (unnamed people being mentioned in infoboxes irritates me), and in our 'present' many, many weekly or seasonal boyfriends/girlfriends. I propose that field should just be removed entirely. It doesn't lend essential information to a character in the same way for example a nickname, which characterizes but doesn't belong in a Lead section on its own grounds, complements the infobox.~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 15:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

My main problem with including "notable" SOs is that if they're notable, they're in the lead. This isn't just for Lois and Clark couples. The lead will and should always do the job to the extent the job needs to be done. If, in the bizarre occasions where it can't, it can be one of the 3 custom fields allowed, no?~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 22:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Removal of in-universe fields

Further thought, perhaps on the Template: page we ought to simply put down some usage pointers? For example, encouraging editors not to list redundant information such as "Gender: Male" for John Kramer unless it's actually a fascinating aspect of the character. (Or we could just get rid of gender; sex-change characters are few and far between, and they can easily justify the custom field.) Also reaffirming that there is no 'present' in fiction and that infoboxes discuss characters according to their cultural reception (e.g. Bree Van De Kamp always, never Bree Hodge).~Zythe^{Talk to me!} 20:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

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