Template talk:Infobox writer

Citizenship, Ethnicity and Nationality

Isn't it redundant to have both "Citizenship" and "Nationality" in the infobox as they are practically the same thing? Also, one might argue that "Ethnicity" can also be synonmous with "Citizenship" and "Nationality". I suggest removing "Citizenship" and replacing it with something else, like the "Cause of Death" that is used on many other infoboxes, as many writers and authors have had notable causes of death. Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Citizenship, nationality and ethnicity really are different things. Consider, for example, Andy Warhol. -Mardus (talk) 19:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

TfD

Please apply {{TfD}}, per Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 December 17#Template:Infobox writer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:38, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I've applied {{tfm|Infobox writer|Infobox person}} which is more appropriate. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:34, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:35, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I notice ‹ The template (Infobox writer) is being considered for merging. › is appearing at the top of articles [1] Can you please arrange it so that the merge proposal is not advertised on the article? It's unsightly. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:55, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Maintenance tags are often objected to on the grounds they're unsightly, but they're part of what allows the project to function over time. The decision of whether to merge is, after all, of concern to those who maintain the articles on which this template is used, which in theory is the entire readership of those articles. --Pi zero (talk) 15:02, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Time left till PD

There should be some artihmetic in code and a parameter with some (user-provided) values to show how much time is left till an author's most works are to enter public domain according to current laws and depending on country of first publication. -Mardus (talk) 19:31, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. I'm peripherally aware some of this sort of thing is done at Wikisource.

• Where ought it to be placed in the infobox?
• What form should a notice take, in either state (before threshold or past threshold)?
• Does it require redundant data entry, or is there some way to extract what's needed from existing parameters?

--Pi zero (talk) 17:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

What needs to be extracted is the date (or year, if lacking a specific date) of death and user-supplied parameter values could, depending on country, be the years set in law, like death+50/70/95/100+1 year — some countries' laws specify that entry into public domain starts on the calendar year following the date of death.

A simple variant for a person with a date of death would be:

Copyright status: Works in public domain

then status could also be

Copyright status: Public domain for works first published in Country

If the copyright status for works is not public domain, then:

Copyright status: Public domain in XX years for works published in Country

(Some countries do not employ the rule of the shorter term.)

The wording could perhaps be made even more compact.

First I thought of a line or lines showing whether an author's works are in general already PD by way of the author being dead for this many cycles, or not...

A timer would be more fun :>

-Mardus (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

"resting place" guff

I propose that this silliness be replaced with "interred". I note this change was proposed some time ago, but wasn't followed though on. -- Rrburke (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

"Interred" isn't any better than "Place of burial", as "to inter" means "to bury in a grave". I suggest you join the conversation at Template talk:Infobox person#Euphemism, and whatever is decided there be done to this template as well. No need to hold discussion in two places. Anomie⚔ 01:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine any outcome from that infobox person discussion that we wouldn't want to adopt at infobox writer. Just in case that's a shortcoming of my imagination, I'm waiting to see what the outcome there actually is. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect default image_size set

I recently noticed that this template appears to have a default value of "frameless" set for the image_size parameter (rather than a value of 200px as defined in the documentation). This recently caused a situation where an image was appearing rotated on its side on Stefan Fatsis since an image_size was not specified (issue since fixed by adding "|image_size=200px" to the infobox, but one can see the issue in an old version of the page without the "image_size" specified). I would assume that a number of other articles using this template may be experiencing a similar fate. My suggestion is to alter line 7 of the template code from:

| image = {{#if:{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{{image}}}|{{px|{{{image_size|{{{imagesize|}}}}}}|frameless}}|alt={{{alt|}}}]]}}

to:

| image = {{#if:{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{{image}}}|{{px|{{{image_size}}}|{{{imagesize}}}|200}}|alt={{{alt|}}}]]}}

This change should allow an editor to set either "image_size" or "imagesize" in the template and if neither is included will set the default width to 200px. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deejayk (talk • contribs) 21:48, 17 February 2012

Just tried out your suggested change on the sandbox. I needed to add some pipes in otherwise the {{px}} template wouldn't recognise the sizes, ending up with the images displaying at full resolution. Also, I replaced 200 with 220 because the default thumbnail size is 220px so using this value would avoid changing the articles visibly for most users.

| image = {{#if:{{{image|}}}|[[File:{{{image}}}|{{px|{{{image_size|}}}|{{{imagesize|}}}|220}}|alt={{{alt|}}}]]}}

I'll preview this change on some articles, and if all goes well I'll add it in. Tra (Talk) 10:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I went back to the Stefan Fatsis article and unfortunately, setting the width to 220px made it go on its side again. Even worse, when I tried purging the image, it made it appear on its side for all thumbnail sizes. Eventually, I managed to fix it by downloading the image, rotating it a couple of times in Windows Photo Viewer and uploading again.

What this indicates to me is that changing the thumbnail size can only be a temporary solution to the image rotations, and it's really necessary to actually fix the images themselves or else the problem could easily reoccur when the images are purged. So I don't think this approach you're suggesting is the best one for in the long term - I think it would be better to handle any problematic images individually. Tra (Talk) 10:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you tell what it was about the image that caused this issue? The image appeared to be oriented correctly on its file page. If it is an issue with the image itself then I agree with you that a change to the template is unnecessary, however it seems very odd to me that just changing the display width of an image would effect its orientation. I did some poking around and couldn't turn up any other examples where this phenomenon was occurring. Thanks for taking a look, but I'm more confused now about what was up with this image (and perhaps with WP's image handling?) than I was before. — DeeJayK (talk) 19:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It could be related to Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-12-12/Technology_report#Image_rotation_change_mishandled.3F but with the various thumbnail sizes being cached, I don't know what was generated when (this would be why, before purging, the different sizes gave different results). Strangely enough, the image appeared the correct way up when viewed at full resolution and also when I downloaded it. It's only when the software resized it (for a thumbnail or for the image description page) that it appeared on its side after purging.

When I fixed the image myself, I had to rotate it clockwise, save it, rotate anti-clockwise, save it again. This would presumably have sorted out how the rotation was stored internally in the image. Tra (Talk) 20:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)