Template talk:Real-world person

Missing parameters
Having put this together, I've noticed that on Ed Greenwood the parameters are filled out in the template (like birthplace) but they're not showing up. Gender, however, does show up. I can't see what I've done wrong! Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 01:22, October 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * That's because you're calling the Person template on the Greenwood article. :P I've fixed it and it appears to be working fine. Cronje (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:49, October 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * Haha, crap. Thanks. Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 01:56, October 8, 2012 (UTC)

Template Update
I think the Author template is long overdue a significant update, both to expand its applicability to more kinds of creators and real-world people (artists, editors, actors...) and to bring it in line with modern conventions (such as on sex vs. gender). Before I tackle it, I thought I'd lay out the options and issues for discussion. For reference, here's what Wikipedia does.


 * Template name
 * Should it still be Author (as a grandfathered-in artifact) or could we switch to something more general? I'd suggest Person like the Eberron Wiki uses, but we already have that at Person – could that in turn be changed to Character? Could we change Author to something like Real-world Person?


 * Person name
 * True Name is odd. Could we merge True Name, Full Name, and Alias into Other Names or Former Names? I doubt we need more than one secondary names entry. I expect the page name and infobox title name to use the common/modern pen-name (Ed Greenwood, R. A. Salvatore, slade, etc.) while full names, nicknames, pseudonyms, and former names would go into Other Names. Alt Spelling could be removed.


 * Sex, gender, pronouns
 * The language on this topic has changed a lot in less than a decade; Gender: Male/Female was once the politest way of putting it, but now it's liable to be incorrect or inapplicable for transgender persons and an issue of contention for a section of modern fandom. We could change to Sex (Male/Female, the biological bits), but then a new Gender entry would need to be created. What about Pronouns? On the one hand, sex and gender aren't the wiki's concern, only the pronouns needed to write the article, but on the other they might be of interest to supportive fans.


 * Biographical
 * Home, Birthplace, Born, Died don't seem to need much changing, but Home may need more updating with moves than is feasible.


 * Occupation
 * A new one, an Occupation entry could cover whether someone is an author, artist, editor, designer, actor, programmer, etc. Some will have multiple roles. I think this should focus on someone's D&D work, that is, why they're relevant to the wiki, rather than any other odd jobs they've held.


 * Contacts
 * Not telephone number and email address, no, but links to websites and social media pages. The Eberron Wiki has Website and Twitter. What other set social media links should there be?

Can anyone think of anything else? BadCatMan (talk) 06:50, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Template name: I've been wanting to change Person to Character for a long while. I think that Real-world Person would be fine for this. In any case, we've been lacking an infobox for real-world artists, and it would be good to just merge all of them.


 * Person name: I agree that "true name" is dumb.


 * Sex, gender, pronouns: Using "pronouns" is probably a good route to go these days.


 * Signature: Particularly for the artists, I think there should be a signature image at the bottom of the template. If there are many, there can be the Signature Gallery at the bottom of the article.


 * Works By: I think there should be a Works by&hellip; link in the infobox automatically.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 12:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * All great suggestions and I support making the requested changes above. My only concern is if we are expanding the infobox so much, that it will make the author/artist pages look "off" since the infobox will be far larger than the article content, since the majority of author/artist pages are basically stubs. --Regis87 (talk) 15:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Template name: Character works much better than Person for in-universe infoboxes, so I agree with this change.


 * Person name: I hate the true name field for authors, so I'm on board with removing it. However, I'm not on board with reducing all name fields to "other names". There are, and could be, various useful fields, such as pen name. I wouldn't say "Richard Awlinson" is an "other name" for both Troy Denning and Scott Ciencin. Likewise, I wouldn't be able to tell that Jake Jaquet's real name was actually Gary Jaquet without these extra fields, instead of just a nickname. I wouldn't be able to tell if Thomas M. Costa's middle name was actually Marduk, or whether it was just an alias or a nickname, etc.


 * Sex, gender, pronouns: I'm not sure that it is relevant or necessary to have "sex" as a field for a real-world person infobox, as we already have gender in Author infoboxes. The pronouns field would be handy for those who are gender nonconforming, etc.


 * Signature & Works By: I agree with Lhynard. In addition, I'd like to see Images by..., Signatures by... be autoproduced here, and anything else related so as not to bloat out (or even require) the See Also appendix.


 * Biographical & Occupation: Yes, this works best. I agree with the D&D (Realms) focus.


 * Contacts: Might be better in External Links (see the section below for my recommendations)


 * A related note: We should include standardized sections along with the template and guidance for how the page should be laid out. Something like:

Name is/was ... (Forgotten Realms and related campaign settings focus. I don't need to know that someone is an accountant for their real life job in the first paragraph, I want to know if that someone is an author, editor, producer, etc.)

Works
(==Personal Life== Maybe of interest to some fans?)