Template talk:Forensic science

Applicability

Was this template intended to appear on the page forensic science only, or on all of the other pages listed (e.g. forensic pathology or forensic anthropology)? -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 22:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether this really belongs on the Forensic Psychology or Forensic Psychiatry pages. While essentially all relate to criminal investigation, the subject matters are substantively different and there really isn't any overlap except in profiling and psych autopsies, which are extremely tiny pieces of the much larger fields. I can be convinced otherwise, but right now, I'm not seeing it. Tamara Young 17:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Gil Grissom

Is Gil Grissom, a fictional character, really one of the four notable "People of Forensics"? I didn't know that being a character in a popular television series nominated you for "notable" status among other historical figures. There already is a link to "The CSI Effect", isn't that enough? 137.238.101.173 (talk) 20:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

External Links Request

As per the hidden field. I wanted to add an external link to an upcoming ABC TV Catalyst (Science show) dedicated to forensic science - the show is also available for download. It covers DNA testing to solve a 4000 y.o. murder, advances in drug forensics; a collaboration between US and Australian forensics, and a story that will be of enormous interest to Australians on the alleged murder of a national icon. Who will give me permission to add this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.176.173 (talk) 03:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Vertbox

This template is very wide. I'd like to suggest {{Vertbox}} conversion. --Geniac (talk) 00:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Bernard Spilsbury

Why isn't he in the notable persons section? ThuranX (talk) 05:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

• FWIW, I don't know why there is a "People" section in the template at all, especially since there is an extensive listing on the main Forensic Science page. I think this section of the template has very little value and should be removed. — RB Ostrum. 15:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed removal of 'People' section

Further to my comment dated July 11, 2011, I am requesting feedback about a proposal to remove the 'People' section from the Forensic Science sidebar template.

Rationale:

1. there is no need to (partially) duplicate information that is given in the main text.
2. the listing is incomplete and inclusion is subjective. For example, why list only these people? Are they pioneers or significant in some other way? How does one know who should or should not be on the list?
3. even if the title was to be changed to something more specific (such as 'pioneers' or 'notable persons'), replication tends to produce inconsistency. For example, as of July 28, Juan Vucetich is listed in the sidebar but he is not in the article text.

I was tempted to act on this according to WP:BB. However, as I expect this move to be a bit contentious, I would like some discussion before acting. Any comments? — RB Ostrum. 14:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

New collapsible template

@Paine Ellsworth: Since this template was built as a sidebar that appears at the very top instead of as a normal navigation template I'm not sure collapsing it was such a good idea. Considering WP:COLLAPSE is an accessibility issue. In any case, the sections have to be redone as they were never quite right to begin with. Forensic chemistry, for example, can hardly be called a physiological science. Toxicology would but general forensic chemistry falls outside that purview. And the rest of the "uncollapse" parameters have to be put into the rest of the articles. --Majora (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

To editor Majora: Agreed, and I'm working on the rest of the article links.  Paine Ellsworth  ^u/c 01:57, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

To editor Majora: just to set you at ease in regard to accessibility, collapsing in navboxes has been dealt with by the software by rendering the navboxes invisible to the classes of users affected by accessibility issues. To illustrate, you can go to the testcases page for this template and click on the "Minerva" skin, which is used to render Wikipedia on mobile devices. While the other skins show the template, the Minerva skin renders only as a template link in this way: {{Forensic science}}. The actual template is invisible to Minerva users.

And to follow up, I've switched the sections for chemistry and toxicology, added a couple more appropriate links and completed adding the uncollapsed parameters (and in a few cases the entire template) to all the links in the template. Feel free of course to make any further improvements, and Happy New Year to you and yours!  Paine Ellsworth  ^u/c 05:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

To editor Majora: for curiosity's sake, I added the sidebar to the sandbox as it appeared before my edits and found that it would not appear on mobile devices (Minerva skin) even then, so collapsed or not collapsed, the software appears to make sidebars invisible to mobile users. Just FYI.  Paine Ellsworth  ^u/c 13:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Propose removal of customisable "image" field

Customisable images encouraging the sidebar user to find "different and better image... for a specific article subject" seems unusual for a sidebar, which usually has a single generic image related to the broader subject. Putting a unique image in the sidebar like this has three obvious problems:

• There is no caption to explain what the picture is of (the image on Forensic polymer engineering is intriguing but unexplained)
• The 55% of readers viewing the article on mobile will not see the image, meaning that many articles on this subject will have no lead image at all for them
• A specific photo can make the navbox appear to be about a different broader subject (glancing over the article without reading carefully, the ladybird anatomy clipart on Forensic entomology makes the navbox look like it is specifically about insects)

Should the "image=" option be removed and replaced with the same default skull image wherever this sidebar appears? --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Arriving back here to say something else three years later: yes, it should, per WP:NAVBOX (Do not rely solely on navboxes for links to articles highly relevant to a particular article, or override the "image" field to illustrate something from the article.) Belbury (talk) 18:55, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Skull photo

Is File:Punuk.Alaska.skulls.jpg the best image to use here? The skulls depicted aren't part of a crime (the caption on Commons says Currents carry many dead things to Punuk Island making it the graveyard of the Bering Sea). An image of a fingerprint (such as File:Teerahertz near-field array for μm-scale surface imaging.png) might look better, and could be cropped to be a slim banner. Belbury (talk) 19:12, 1 June 2023 (UTC)