Template:Real-world person/doc

The Real-world person (formerly Author) template creates an infobox for a page about a real-world person, such as an author, artist, designer, or editor. All parameters except  are optional and will not be shown if left unspecified. Apart from basic information, all entries should be focused on the person's Dungeons & Dragons work, not personal information or work done in other franchises or other occupations.

Example
An example is shown to the right.

Usage
An example is shown to the right.


 * image: Optional. An image of the person. You can just specify the file name. For backward compatibility,  and   should still work. A large image will be resized to a width of 250 pixels to fit the infobox.
 * caption: Optional. A brief sentence describing the image, if necessary. This field will be italicized for you.
 * caption2: Optional. Not shown above. When an image collection like a tabber or slideshow is placed in the image field, the caption does not render. Use this field to add a caption to an image collection.
 * name: Required. The name of the person. This should be the name by which they are most frequently known professionally and most recently, as on the cover or in the credits. For the automatic infobox links to function correctly, this should be exactly the same as the page name and as the associated "Works by…" or "Images by…" categories. For example, "R. A. Salvatore", not "R.A. Salvatore". This may even be a pen-name.
 * fullname: Optional. The full name of the individual, including any middle names. For example, "Robert Anthony Salvatore".
 * othername: Optional. Any other names the person is or has been known by, including former names if they have changed their name.
 * nickname: Optional. Any nicknames or diminutives the person is commonly known by in D&D works or fandoms. If the same as the professional name, such as "Ed" for Ed Greenwood, this may be ignored.
 * pseudonym: Optional. Any pseudonym, pen-name, or nom de plume the person has also worked under. For example, Richard Awlinson for Scott Ciencin. If the professional name is a pseudonym, this may be ignored.
 * true name: Deprecated. Not shown above. If the author uses a pseudonym, then put the real name here. This should be updated to  or   as appropriate.
 * alt_spelling: Deprecated. Not shown above. If the person's name has an alternate spelling, include it here. This is useful if the spelling varies according to where this person is credited. This should be updated to additional entries for  or.
 * alias: Deprecated. Not shown above. An alias for the individual. This should be updated to,  , or   as appropriate.
 * gender: Deprecated. Not shown above. The person's apparent gender.
 * occupation: Optional. The person's occupations and roles within D&D publications. For example, author, artist, editor, cartographer, programmer, etc. Comics artists may be further classified as penciller, letterer, and colorist.
 * period: Optional. The beginning and end years of the period for which the person has been active within D&D. These should be the dates of their first and last published works, e.g., "1992–2008" for Steven E. Schend. For still-active persons, this can be open-ended from the date of the first work, e.g., "1999–" for Christopher Perkins. For persons with only one publication, write only the year of that publication, e.g., 1988. (Wait a decade before deciding someone's D&D career is over!)
 * series: Optional. Specific series the person has worked for (not individual trilogies or the like). Clarify these as necessary. For example, Forgotten Realms novels or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comics.
 * media: Optional. The media or kinds of works the person has worked in. For example, novels, sourcebooks, comics, video games, etc.
 * settings: Optional. The D&D settings the person has worked on, such as Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft. Note that the person should have worked on core D&D and/or the Forgotten Realms to be relevant to the wiki.
 * works: Optional. If any text is added here (typically "yes"), the template will display a "Works by X" link to, where X is the above   parameter. Note that there will be no category if the person has only worked in magazines.
 * images: Optional. If any text is added here (typically "yes"), the template will display a "Images by X" link to, where X is the above   parameter. (Not to be confused with  .)
 * home: Optional. The person's current place of residence. The town, state, and/or country is fine. Don't be a stalker.
 * birthplace: Optional. The person's place of birth, as above.
 * born: Optional. Date of birth for the person.
 * died: Optional. Date of death. The person should of course no longer be alive.
 * signature-image: Optional. An image of a person's signature, typically an artist's to be used to help identify artworks. Signatures can be found in Category:Signatures. You can just specify the file name. For backward compatibility,  and   should still work. A large image will be resized to a width of 250 pixels to fit the infobox.
 * signature-caption: Optional. A brief sentence describing the signature image, if necessary. This field will be italicized for you.
 * signature-caption2: Optional. Not shown above. When an image collection like a tabber or slideshow is placed in the image field, the caption does not render. Use this field to add a caption to an image collection.

The template will also automatically attempt to create two gallery links. One is a "Portrait Gallery" link to, appearing below the image caption, and the other other is a "Signature Gallery" link to  , where X is the above   parameter.

Standardized Style & Sections
An article about a real-world person should follow standard wiki format and encyclopaedic style and focus on their Dungeons & Dragons work, particularly for the Forgotten Realms. For example, emphasize that a person is a writer of Forgotten Realms and Spelljammer novels, rather than a writer of other franchises or genres, even if those are arguably more famous or relevant to fans, or that they were previously a butcher or also work in sales.

Unrelated information may be summarized in Biography and/or Personal Life sections (these may be merged), but only briefly and with some notable highlights. You can provide enough to show these are real people with lives and achievements outside D&D, but excessive detail should be avoided; surface details are sufficient. As a rule of thumb, focus on biographic information provided by the author in published D&D sources and on their own site. Say only what they would wish to say about themselves and discuss their work in a neutral manner. Links to Wikipedia and their own sites will give more general information.

As a real-world topic, present and past tense should be used where appropriate. For example, a person is a writer who wrote Forgotten Realms novels (if that person is still alive) or a person was an artist for various sourcebooks (if that person is deceased).

The following are typical and suggested section headings for an article about a real-world person. You can easily cut and paste it from here and delete the ones you don't use. The External Links should be professional sites and contacts, not personal or unrelated sites.