Template talk:Person

I don't really think it's great to have an 'age' on this template because that all depends on the current year, which would depend on how the Forgotten Realms setting is being used. Maybe this could be "Age as of (year)" or "Date of birth" (where known)? Does anyone else have an opinion? Fw190a8 05:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree and have expressed similiar viewpoints in the community portal earlier Zerak-Tul 22:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have attempted to alter this template slightly so it looks like the other templates, eg: Template:Forgotten Realms Deity (used on Drizzt) and Template:Forgotten Realms Country (used on Waterdeep). Fw190a8 15:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Forcing category on template
Regarding Ebakunin's recent change to put any article using this template into the Characters category, I am not too sure on this, because there might be a more suitable subcategory for the article (such as Elves or Halflings). Any thoughts? Fw190a8 11:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Putting a category in a template (other than some of the standard maintenance categories like "Stub") is generally a bad idea. If we expand or modify the category structure some day, it will be hard to recategorize the articles. Also, note that if a category in a template is changed, the articles stay in the previous category until edited, which can be a pain in the... neck sometimes. Lets just separate categories from templates. --TOR 13:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Person > Character
I prefered Character over Person, as Person doesn't really fit certain demi-human beings, good examples would be shadovar like Hadrhune or other less-than-human people.. Zerak talk 18:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. The discussion was on the Category talk:Characters page and nobody said anything for a good long while after I suggested the idea. I think that for the most part, humans, elves, dwarves and other humanoids, goblinoids such as goblins, hobgoblins, and other species like kobolds can be seen as "people". I suppose it runs into trouble where dragons are concerned, and certain other races, but my rationale was that there are far more beings that can be considered "people" than cannot, and also that as long as they are referred to as "characters", it serves to break the reader's suspension of disbelief. I figured that most of the wiki is written "in character" from the point of view of an inhabitant of the Forgotten Realms. I think we can still change it back to "characters" if the majority of people would prefer it! Fw190a8 21:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I feel that anyone (roughly speaking) with sentience and intelligence is a person. Why not? What else is the criterion? Ville V. Kokko 14:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Changes to parameters
I admit this template is now more "complete" or "precise" in some sense, but boy did it just get more difficult to use, unless all data happens to be neat numbers. I don't suppose I'd quite like it reverted back, but I'm expressing my reservations nevertheless. For future consideration or in case it promotes further discussion or whatever. Ville V. Kokko 14:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Colour change
Personally, I feel that the colour change from white on black to black on pale orange doesn't improve the template, I'm afraid. My personal preference is with the old version, white on black. Fw190a8 15:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Patron deity
Since the Time of Troubles, folk became very religious and I thought that It should be mentioned in the person template who characters other than divine casters worship.

Dob/Death parameters
There seems to be a problem with the dob and death parameters. The template documentation says NOT to include DR or another type of reckoning, but if you don't, they're not included when the template turns them into links. However, if you do put DR in, and you use both parameters, it tries to calculate the age. Seeing as how it can't separate the number from rest of the parameter, it shoots out an error. I don't want to alter the template myself, not knowing how many pages it will break. Cronje 19:53, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

Gallery Functionaliy
I've added functionality so that, if the image parameter is set and Category:Images of XXX page exists (where XXX is the name parameter), it will add a link right to the category. A good example of this working is on the Drizzt Do'Urden page. Please let me know if it breaks anything or looks odd on certain articles, though I don't expect it will. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 11:38, July 28, 2011 (UTC)