Template talk:Infobox comics character

This template causes issues with images

I found the problem on Spectre (comics). The More Fun Comics image has been pushed down to the level of the bottom of the template, leading me to suspect the template as the reason behind the displacement. I know only the bare minimum of wiki markup, and less html, and though I've created a subpage of my userpage to investigate the problem (subst-ing the template) I haven't been able to solve it thus far. If someone else could try to solve this problem, I'd be much obliged. BookishAcolyte 02:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The Infoboxes are set up to be a set 300 pixels across, minimum. They reserves that space from the right side of the page towards the center. This will cause the text to wrap to flow around the box.

If there is an image embedded in the text, the image will interact with the 'box. Images set for "right" of "center" will render under the box, no exceptions. Anything that's set "left" or defaults there shouldn't interact with the 'box, regardless of size, screen resolution, or font size.

As for the Spectre page, I'm looking at it right now. It looks fine, the More Fun and Adventure covers are on the left side and unaffected by the Infoboxes. — J Greb 02:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the image is on the left, as it should be... the point is that (as I see it, both on Safari and Firefox) that it's way down the page from where it ought to be, the top of the image being below the bottom of the infobox, when it should be part of the "origins" section based on where the code for the image is. The infobox below it doesn't seem to cause this problem. It could be Mac-specific... I'll check on a Windows computer.

Huh, that's funny. It shows up correctly on Windows XP, with Internet Explorer... in which case there's a problem with the way the box interacts with OSX (or with Safari and Firefox, could someone who has Firefox on Windows or Linux check it?).

The Adventure cover is being pushed down by the "More Fun" cover, but otherwise is fine, so I think the other infobox has no such problem.BookishAcolyte 04:48, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I forgot to mention that all the edit links for the sections above "Bronze Age Version" have been pushed down to that section as well. - BookishAcolyte 04:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

So there are 4, Fictional character history, Origin, Silver Age, and Bronze Age, lined up in a row with the Bronze Age header? I can't see how that is happening... the edit link should be locked to the related header. — J Greb 05:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess you've both failed to consider the fact that there are two templates snadwiched together and into that near top right space? Even if one template is the main offender, it's never a good idea to use two like that. I had a similar problem with Blue Devil. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 05:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

IIRC Ace, the situation implied on BD was that the "edit" links weren't all flush right and in a row. Hence my question to Bookish. If the entierty of the text shifts to the bottem of the character box on the Mac, with images and edit links in the correct, relative positions, then there may be an ordering problemwith the infoboxes, from a Mac stand point. If it's clumping the "edit"s so they are onlonger attacheced to the relavent section, that seems more catestrophic.

That being said I'd be interested in knowing if Bookish has hit the same trouble on onther pages, such as Justice League or Aquagirl. Both have multiple infoboxes, all be it in a different lay out. — J Greb 06:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The exact problem: both images and edit links were moved down below the upper box, even the ones that clearly should have been higher up. In this case, that meant that four links were right next to the "Bronze Age" header (much like this [1]), which was vexing, and that an image overlapped it, which was ugly. The text was all in the right place and wrapped nicely.

I have no problem with either article. I do, however, have the same issue with this one. It probably is the two boxes smooshed together. Lemme test that. Oh good, I moved them around (though they still look like they're together) and now the formatting looks alright to me. Feel free to fix it if that screws it up for any of you, of course. I'll make the same change to the project page as well. Thanks for all your help! I had no expectation of such an outpouring of suggestions! - BookishAcolyte 07:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say "I told you so", but that would be utterly immature.

...Right?

Aw, what the hell! Told ya so! Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 07:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Aw, play nice! I'm kind of sort of not really a newbie. ;)

So maybe you can tell me why the text overlays the Invisible Woman box on this page, and all the other boxes are way, way off to the right. Some of the edit links and text go way off to the right was well. It's the same in Firefox, and in Internet Explorer the Invisible Woman box is fine, but the other boxes are way off to the right again.

Sorry to be so much trouble. - BookishAcolyte 07:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No trouble, it looks like it's an undocumented function that needed to be ironed out. It is likely that the 'boxes need a notice on this interaction with Mac and/or Safari and Firefox. It would, hopefully, avoid this in the future. — J Greb 15:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Changes

Changed "Supporting character of" to "supports" because the font size change threw the formatting off. --69.136.111.100 18:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if this will be the place will editors will be editing pro-registration/anti-registration/mutant independence now. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 19:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

You might be right, that is such a terrifying thought I think I'm going to change it back. --69.136.111.100 02:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Affiliations

Currently the page says Affiliations include any current or previous team affiliations. Please stick to notable affiliations. Okay, but by the definition of a team, are we excluding all teams without names? For example 'Batman and Robin' can be seen as a 'team' easily by many people, only without a name like JLA etc, we would be obligated to exclude them from the SHB template. If it is the case that we only mean group teams, then the wording should be clarified to something like Affiliations include any current or previous team affiliations. Please stick to notable affiliations with team names (such as Justice League) and not individual team-ups (such as Luke Cage and Iron Fist).
Essentially I'm asking 'what defines a team in the superhero community?' -- Ipstenu (talk|contribs) 14:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Team - "A team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose."

Groups of people - defines team as "similar to a squad, though a team may contain many more members."

Group (sociology) - "defined as a collection of humans or animals, who share certain characteristics, interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity."

From these quick examples, it seems clear that a team has more members than a partnership. CovenantD 20:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why the fuss is being made about the word "team" when the section of the box is marked "affiliations". But rather than quibble over semantics, I think it would be more beneficial to ask why the brief stint that Sleepwalker had on the Secret Defenders is considered notable enough to put in a superhero box, but a long standing partnership (as between Luke Cage and Power Fist) is not. The box gives an area for "affiliations", and by wiki's own definition, an affiliation is "a partnership between two or more parties." D1Puck1T 00:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Look at the definition used to explain what is supposed to go into that variable:

"Affiliations include any current or previous team affiliations. Please stick to notable affiliations."

By that we aren't talking about partnerships ("Power Man and Iron Fist", "Blue Beetle and Booster Gold", etc) or "Boss/Henchman" relationships ("Employed by Kingpin" for example).

And as far as the Sleepwalker example... that seems contrary to the "Notable..." proviso, so it may be fair game to be struck. - J Greb 07:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to talk about this too. For some people, such as say, Black Cat, who has an extremely long partnership with Spider-Man, as well as Dr Curt Connors, who also has a long history of partnership with Spider-Man, in his human form, how is this addressed in Affiliations? Lizard joins the Sinister Twelve for what, an issue or two, which gets mentioned in Affiliations, but his working together with Spider-Man is cut outright? Sera404 00:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

As per my post above, the current structure is that "affiliation=team", not partnership or long term working relationships. So listing "Spider-Man" in the field isn't right. And as for the Sinister Twelve listing, is it notable? If not, the structure is to yank it as well.

That being said, is there enough interest in changing this item of the 'box to actually try to discus it and reach a consensus? - J Greb 00:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Would somebody please fix the template so that the "affiliations" field turns invisible/optional? I would fix it if I only knew how :( —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 14:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I was trying to treat "Affiliation" as a header when wither the team field(s) and/or partners field were present. Where those fields are blank, it shouldn't, and as near as I can tell doesn't appear.

If it's a major space/layout issues, it can easily be removed. - J Greb 15:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I see the "Affiliations" field blanked. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 19:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hrm.... let me try something.... - J Greb 20:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

That should have fixed the problem. - J Greb 20:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Now it looks fine, J Greb, thanks ;) —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 21:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"team" should be replaced with "organizational" to address things such as GCPD, etc. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.136.98 (talk) 16:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Move to Infobox superhero

To comply with the infobox guidelines, shouldn't this template be renamed "Infobox superhero"? GDallimore (Talk) 00:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Done, at last. I hope to standardise the markup against Wikipedia's state of the art for infoboxen in the future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, this is one of a "family" of templates. There has been an attempt to keep them similar in appearance, that includes caption size and the colored bands. The name change is understandable, but the generic look is not.

And yes, some of the templates have been restructure to use {{Infobox}}, but the existing style elements have been retained. - J Greb (talk) 22:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding the coloured bands and default sizes back to the new version is trivial and I'm more than happy to accommodate this. Given that relatively few editors are willing to take the time to tidy up templates, it'd be nice if we were given help to work towards compromise rather than expected to get everything right first time. Can you detail exactly what, stylistically, is wrong with the last revision so that it can be adapted to conform with the WikiProject's standards? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The quick and dirty?

1. Over sized, seriously over sized.
2. The colored bands.
3. Caption size, style, and placement. Current use is small without forcing bold. And it follows the standard captioning for image, right up against the image.
4. The "Wikitan" default image if not in article space.
5. First appearance link.
6. Losing information that has had inconsistent "variables" used across article. The one I know this happened with is "Alter ego" since 3 different variable were used. The syntax you put in place was only reading for one. Teams will also have this problem.
7. No distinction between "current" and "previous" teams.
8. Powers are not treats as a centers "trailing" text, especially since there are a mix of paragraph, list, and bulleted list in use.

And on a potential note, part of the move of the smaller related templates to {{Infobox}} is to allow for a forced default and max image size. The template allows for that but the "built from the bones up" versions don't.

Right now, the syntax in place works and there doesn't seem to be a good reason to move to a syntax that apparently works exactly the same way. - J Greb (talk) 00:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

In order:

1. It follows standard infobox size guidelines. Various WikiProjects ignore these, but they rarely seem to do so out of anything other than habit. If there's a particular reason to adopt a lower default width, could you link to a rationale?
2. Easy enough.
3. Easy enough.
4. It isn't up to templates to enforce policy. The Wikitan hack is cute but it's basically just pointless template bloat.
5. Deliberately removed because I didn't see the value in the article, but easy enough.
6. All variants should have been preserved. I'd like a test case if this was broken.
7. My version had more obvious separation between these two. Again, test case.
8. I consider powers to be one of the most important parts of the infobox. Their formatting across articles varies wildly already. Happy to make cosmetic changes, but I felt that giving them more space was an improvement in general.

The "move to a syntax that apparently works exactly the same way" helps template editors to maintain said things in future. The current markup is a mess and its aesthetic variations from other modern infoboxen appear to be arbitrary and based on nothing more than inertia.

Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

hrm...

• 1) My understanding is that is if article or project level consensus is more stringent than a guideline, another project 's or Wiki wide, that's good enough. The comics project has come to the 'box size through consensus of use and creation of like sized boxes. Unless it is policy that the 'box be 300px, then there is no reason to alter what a project is using unless it exceeds that.
  As a side note, the comics project, also by consensus of use, inserts images to try and fill, left to right, the 'box. With the suggested guidelines re image size, most of them should fall around 250-300px across. 250px fills the current 'box.
• 4+5) That sounds awfully presumptive. To be honest, if you are just updating the framework of a 'box, then you shouldn't be tinkering with what the project using has put into it unless it is a violation of policy or a more restrictive, relevant guide line. AFAIK, neither the Wikitan nor standing links fall in that category.
• 6) Tigress (DC Comics) is a good case — 2 'boxes in use for 2 different characters in the same article. One uses "real_name" the other "alter_ego". Both work with the old mark up. With the new, only "real_name" pops.
• 7) Rephrase: If you look at the old mark up, those two categories, along with "affiliations" all count as the same thing. The project came to the conclusion that just "Team affiliations" was preferable to that and a "Former" list given the fluidity of the topics. In other words, by splitting them up you moved the ;box backward.
  As far as the syntax... both "Team" and "Alter ego" of your version use the exact same method. If the AE isn't working, the Team won't.
• 8) More a case of "It wasn't broke, why was it changed, potentially for the worse?"

All of that being said, (and making an assumption), what is the take on the project watching of this style of 'boxes of the template I referenced? - J Greb (talk) 01:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Is this "consensus" or "convention"? There's a difference. Has this actually been discussed in itself? If so, happy to change from 300px to 20em.
• "Presumptive"? Templates aren't any different from article content. There's no requirement to seek permission before making edits to them so long as the project's rules on consensus and discussion are followed. Projects can set their own style guidelines and conventions, but they aren't closed clubs who have to approve of any changes regardless of whether they've been previously discussed or not.
• Good catch on the alter ego param. I'd assumed that these were alternative names for the same parameter. Easily fixed.
• I'm not seeing the semantic difference as clearly with the affiliations. I can change the output to look like the old version easily enough though. Is there a test case?
• "It wasn't broke, why was it changed, potentially for the worse?" isn't a guideline. In fact, it's a rejection of the Wikipedia ethos. We don't prevent editors from making changes because of some supposed "non-brokenness" of existing content.

Happy to have the project chime in on any of these. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

(dedent ←)

• Nuts and bolts — Best I can find is that 300px/25em is a suggested size within a guide line See here. At this point, given that the 'box has been in long use at the current size, and is under that, it seems incumbent for the person wanting to change to provide a reason better than "Being bold" or "It's allowed to be larger."
• Presumptive — Yes it is. While you are correct that, aside from protected pages (which I thought this was...), permission is not needed. However, editing an article is not going to have much impact beyond that page. Edits to templates, since they are transcluded to numerous pages, can have vast impact. Static ones, like warning or consistent boilerplate, don't tend to result in serious unforeseen consequences. Complex ones like infoboxes though are all but guaranteed to. Especially ones like this one that are in use on over a thousand articles and have seen multiple revisions without all older variables being removed/updated.
  Common sense would be to, as much as possible, leave the content as is. The editors that have built this template have come up with something that works for the topics it's used with. Content guide lines and the practical way the content is entered in use are set up based on how the template is currently laid out. For an editor who is just cleaning up and "modernizing" the markup to tweak things without thinking to see how the template is currently used on a wide variety of articles, or thinking through how those tweaks will impact on that use is, politely, presumptuous.
• Teams — I'll try to simplify this down:
  • "alliances" is the current preferred variable for listing the teams a character belongs or has belonged.
  • "alliances" was also used for this purpose in some versions of the 'box. Some articles still have it in place.
  • "previous_alliances" was used to collect teams that a characters was not currently a part of.
  • A consensus was reached between here and the project level talk page that maintaining separate "current" and "former" team lists was improper based on:
    1. WP:DATED
    2. The MoS at the time for writing about fiction. Upshot - anything written or placed in an in universe context had to be in the "ever present now".
    3. A maintenance night mare due to characters routinely leaving, joining, rejoining, founding, etc multiple teams.
  • Bottom line — In a deliberate move, the three variables were put into a single section with "if" statements structured make sure the information popped up.
• It's actually a fair axiom when the tinkering doesn't improve what's tinkered with in good faith. And the content changes made were not improving the 'box, but moving it backwards. It's also curious to note that looking at WP:INFOBOX and WP:IBX (the MoS), it looks like there is a move to the template based 'boxes and away from the table based ones. - J Greb (talk) 03:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I've taken as much as I can into consideration with the latest edit. I rather think there's still unnecessary cruft in the teams section, but I'd rather not get into an argument about it so I've used the existing code. If there are any breakages please let me know. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The colors! The colors!

In short; I was fine with the header colors, but the light blue colored bars need to die. They look horrible with the spacing, like some legacy web page from 1996; they clash with the rest of the article and almost every other infobox out there. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 00:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

So, aside from the dramatics, you just don't like the colors. That about it?

Since this affects multiple infoboxes, I've posted the concern to the project talk page. - J Greb (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Placeholder image

Does this box really need a placeholder image? Why can't the default be no image, instead of a placeholder? --Phirazo 03:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Nutshell, it was suggested/noted/acted upon as a cross Comics imfobox item here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics#Placeholder image. And it looks like it may be a moot issue with the direction that Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders is going. - J Greb (talk) 11:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox error

This bit "The image field is setup use the file name only and without braces. For example: image= example.jpg" describing how to use the infobox is contradicted by the later example showing the hyperlink ("[[Image:example.jpg]]"). I tested it on Wonder Man (Fox Publications), and it the second one that is correct. Maybe someone can update the template description?

Roygbiv666 (talk) 18:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem with updating a 'box that is applied across thousands (literally) of articles.

The bracketed format is the old one, what's currently listed will be the final version. In order to allow for a smoother transition a "trigger" field was added to apply the new formatting: " converted=y ". That being said, you're right, a not needs to be added to the template's page about this. - J Greb (talk) 18:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Update Publisher

The "Publisher" link has to be updated. "Category:Comic book publishing companies" was moved to "Category:Comics_publishing_companies"--Darknus823 (talk) 21:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Self-referential

The placeholder image caption, "If this infobox is not supposed to have an image, please add "|noimage=yes".", is self-referential. I'm turning it into a comment so that it can only be seen when the page is being edited. See Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid for the reasons why.--ragesoss (talk) 01:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

cat=Western?

We have Category:DC Comics Western characters so would it be possible to pick that up through the cat field, e.g. at Jonah Hex. Cheers. (Emperor (talk) 03:20, 12 April 2009 (UTC))

The template can already do this just add:

|cat            = Wester characters
|subcat         = DC Comics

- J Greb (talk) 13:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Problem in Opera 9.0

Resolved.

This template used to render just fine in Opera 9.0. Some time in the last few days or weeks, however, some change (I don't know if it's a change in this template and or in some nested template that this template uses) broke this template in Opera: now this template expands to fill the entire width of the page, pushing the intro text entirely down below the template box rather than having it flow to the left of the infobox. For example, see the Superman or Spider-Man page in Opera (note, on the other hand, that some pages that use the template, like Magog (comics), render just fine). Could someone please fix this? Thanks. —Lowellian (reply) 17:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm on 9.6 and it looks normal. Wiki markup could sometimes be buggy in Opera though, my nav popups have been jumpy as long as I could remember. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{spring • ahead}} 22:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I want to reiterate that this is something that only started recently, so it must be due to some recent change. The infobox used to work fine in Opera 9.0. —Lowellian (reply) 03:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

hrm... Are the related infoboxes still working right within Opera 9.0?

Reason being, the only change to this template within the last month was also made to those. The sporadic problem should be showing with the articles using those as well. (But then, you would also expect all of the character articles using the same markup to have the same issue, not a "select few".)

- J Greb (talk) 10:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't a "select few"; most articles using the template were rendering incorrectly in Opera. I asked about this on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 59#Template:Infobox_comics_character_problem_in_Opera_9.0, and it did indeed turn out to be an error in the template: User:Davidgothberg found and fixed[2] the error in Template:Comics infobox sec, which was included as a subtemplate of this template on the 5th of April[3]. Thanks to everyone who took the time to look at this problem! :) —Lowellian (reply) 06:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Colour-coding

Could we colour-code the infobox so that we have blue infoboxes for good guys and red boxes for villains (for example)? Richard75 (talk) 19:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Could we? Yes, just like the boxes used to be rainbowed for "publisher".

Should we is another issue. Part of it is that we'd be looking at 3 (minimum) colors, not just 2:

• Hero
• Villain
• Bystander

And then you get characters that shift over time - Eddie Brock is an example of this - from being "bad" to "good" or vice versa. And the "judgement call" characters.

- J Greb (talk) 19:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, those are good points, I hadn't really thought through all the ramifications. I suppose the third category could include ambiguous characters who don't fit neatly into the hero or villain category - that should avoid arguments, since the first sign of any disagreement would pretty much settle the issue by proving the character belongs in the neutral / uncertain category... I'm going to leave this now and see if anyone supports it. Richard75 (talk) 20:02, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Colour coding should be avoided unless there is a clear and obvious key and a clear and obvious need. Neither of these things are the case here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:00, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

There are many comics which aren't based on hero/villain oppositions. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Supports

The "Supports" tag seem to imply the character is a supporting character. Should there be a "support"/"main" tag to include characters supporting a main character. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox animated superhero

I've created an alternate version of the template called Template:Infobox animated superhero for use on articles of characters on superhero animated series (e.g. Batman (DC animated universe), Category:DC animated universe characters). I'm not the best with coding so any help on that or help on improving and applying the template is very appreciated.--Marcus Brute (talk) 05:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorting problem

Please fix When looking at Category:Character pop, I noticed that 'Mazing Man was sorted under "'" rather than "M", even thought the sort field was used as well as DEFAULTSORT. Can this be fixed? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Done. If this was intentional, please revert. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually it was since that is a tracking category for the articles not the content. - J Greb (talk) 03:18, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Could someone change the color to just white?

Like in the video game character infobox. --Niemti (talk) 09:20, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Remove placeholder image

This template should not be using a placeholder image. Such images were voted down by the community several years ago. Cf. Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders, which concluded with a consensus of "Image placeholders should not be used on article pages." (Emphasis in original.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:35, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:59, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you please make the same change on the other templates that use this same image? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Done, except Template:Branding timeline/doc; but none of these were protected. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Problem with aliases parameter

Could someone please look at Bane (comics) to see why the |aliases= parameter does not display in the infobox properly? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 19:38, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Because of a double up. There is an empty occurrence of |aliases=, where it should be based on the blank mark-up - after "alliances", not "real_name".

- J Greb (talk) 20:45, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Guess I should have scrolled down a bit.  :-) GoingBatty (talk) 23:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Deprecated not depreciated?

I found this via Category:Depreciated infobox param (affiliations). Shouldn't all such categories be named "deprecated" rather than "depreciated"? -- Trevj (talk) 18:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Characters originating in other media

I'd like to propose the inclusion of two optional parameters: "originally portrayed by" and "first comic appearance" for characters that originated in other media, such as Phil Coulson and Harley Quinn. The parameters would only be used for characters first appearing outside the comics and would only list the original actor to play the part, who's importance I would consider on par with the creators of the characters. This would also completely eliminate the need for the animated superhero infobox which doesn't seem to be used on many pages and doesn't allow for characters first appearing in live action media. --DocNox (talk) 00:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Width of the label column

Is it possible to make this strict so that the labels aren't squashed onto another line? It seems to do this at the merest hint of the content in the content column touching its sides. It's not a technical thing just an aesthetic issue. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 03:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request to remove placeholder image

• Placeholder images have been deprecated project wide, per WP:IPH and common practice of the community over the last four years removing in excess of 50,000 uses of placeholder images. In the template, the element "[[Image:Comic image missing.svg|125px]]" should be replaced by "[[File:Blank.jpg|125px]]" or similar to avoid use of File:Comic image missing.svg. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Question: Surely File:Blank.jpg is also a placeholder? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Not the same, as blank does nothing to change the appearance of the article. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Infobox comics character

It still takes up space though. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• The remove it entirely if you like, or drop it to 1px. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:04, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

A 1px image is still a placeholder: it occupies the place where the proper image would have appeared if it had been specified. Removed. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:12, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you! --Hammersoft (talk) 22:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Per my request above, could someone please make the same change on the other templates that use this same image? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:34, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Done, except Template:Branding timeline/doc; but none of these were protected. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, and sorry for not checking that they weren't protected. GoingBatty (talk) 15:42, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Alt text for image

Can we get an "|image_alt=" parameter, as per WP:ALTTEXT? Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

It's a simple matter, this edit should do it. I used |alt= for consistency with {{Infobox comics organization}}. Just need that to be tested, then consensus from the relevant WikiProject. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:39, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

How's the "alt=" parameter coming, can we please add it soon? Prhartcom (talk) 22:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I was kinda waiting for comments from a WikiProject, but none have been posted, so  Done - it's |alt= and you would fill it in per WP:ALTTEXT. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Works well, thank-you! Prhartcom (talk) 11:53, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Multiple publishers and the publisher subcat

Resolved

 – The parameter name is addcharcat2 and then after the equals sign, type out DC Comics superheroes. Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I notice the Milestone characters have been divided into two subcats: Some of them are still listed as Milestone (e.g. Icon) and others are listed as DC (e.g. Static). This means that the Milestone Media superheroes category has lots of missing characters. Is there a way to list both publishers? Should all the Milestone characters be moved to DC? (I haven't checked, but this might also affect WildStorm characters like Grifter, Apollo, Midnighter, etc.) Thanks. Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

After looking around some more, it seems that most of the Milestone characters are now tagged as DC characters. Since there are only three characters left in the Milestone Media superheroes cat, I'm going to switch them all to DC. Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:49, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

But Wildstorm characters are mostly showing Wildstorm in the parameter. Can the parameter hold two different companies? If not, can we decide whether the parameter should go to the original or the current company? Thanks. Aristophanes68 (talk) 19:55, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I just noticed the instructions for how to use the addcharcat# parameter: "Additional "<Publisher> <character type>" categories can be added with addcharcat#. Replace "#" with a number (currently the template is set up for 2 additional cats) and list the full category title. Please list the publishers in publication order." PROBLEM: I still can't get both categories to show up when I add |subcat2 = . Anyone here familiar with how to work the addcharcat# parameter? Aristophanes68 (talk) 21:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Alter ego?

Am I correct in thinking that if the article is for the character's real name then the Alter ego field should not also list their real name, as per this edit? Thanks. DonIago (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The alter ego should be DIFFERENT FROM the article title. That editor is enthusiastic but wrong. Aristophanes68 (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! DonIago (talk) 13:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

All the other Green Lanterns have the alter ego as their real name in the comics.108.34.209.194 (talk) 21:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to see links to the articles where that's occurred rather than just a claim please. Also, WP:OTHERSTUFF, and you shouldn't keep inserting your changes while the matter is under dispute, as I already told you when I warned you against edit-warring. As at least two editors have concerns about this please do not reinsert your change until there is a consensus in favor of it. If you continue to push your change through before there is a consensus I will assume you are willfully edit-warring and report you accordingly. Thank you for your understanding. DonIago (talk) 13:36, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Reviewing the history I see that this last time Green Lantern was added as an alias. This seems redundant given that GL is already listed as Hal Jordan's Alter ego. If this is how it's being handled at other character pages, please provide appropriate links. DonIago (talk) 13:41, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

[[4]]108.34.209.194 (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

[[5]]108.34.209.194 (talk) 00:25, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

[[6]]

108.34.209.194 (talk) 00:26, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

[[7]]108.34.209.194 (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, only the John and Guy articles include alter ego in the infobox, but it is true that they (strangely) list their civilian names there instead of GL. Perhaps all the GL articles should take a cue from Kyle's article and use the "aliases" parameter instead? I posted a link to this discussion on the other GL talk pages. Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:11, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy with any solution which resolves the silliness of reproducing the name of the article in the infobox for no evident reason. If the article's about Peter Parker than list Spider-man as the alter ago or alias or whichever, and vice-versa. It might be different if we were talking about a full name versus how a character is commonly known, but that's not what we're talking about here. DonIago (talk) 01:20, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

maybe we should just have green lantern as alias. 108.34.209.194 (talk) 01:29, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:02, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Redundant infobox title param

Question: Articles using this template are being added to Category:Redundant infobox title param unless the character's name is not identical to the name of the article (i.e. "Batman" is being added, "Tintin (character)" is not). The question is, what exactly is causing the redundancy, and is it something that can be fixed by tweaking this template? For example, Do we need an "if" statement somewhere so that it will not take both the "character_name" parameter and the article name for the top of the Infobox? Is that what is causing the redundancy? I tried reading the code but failed to answer my question; hopefully some of you can. Thanks. Note that this is also happening with Template:Infobox comics creator and possibly others. Note also that User:Koavf began a massive edit to remove the name parameter from articles calling the template, but it seems to me that it is reasonable to include the name parameter in the articles, and that removing it from all of them is the worse solution, but I do not know if tweaking this template is the better one. Thanks again. Prhartcom (talk) 21:29, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

The code in question is

{{#ifeq:{{{character_name|none}}}|{{PAGENAME}}|[[Category:Redundant infobox title param|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}

Adding the character name is harmless, but unnecessary in the examples you give. Hence someone familiar with things like Codd's rules for database design probably thought a tracking category and removal of "redundant" information was a good idea. However since the infobox can be moved to a different page, (say we merge (or copy the box from) "Robin" onto "Batman and Robin") actually removing these data may not be a good idea.

I would be happy to get rid of the above line of code if there are no objections.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC).

Thank-you, Rich; I, for one, would appreciate the removal of the line of code, unless it can somehow be conditional. I see what you mean in your explanation above, and a better reason for calling these templates with the "name" parameter is self-documentation: Who would imagine calling a template called "creator" or "character" without the creator or character name? After this is fixed, I would like User:Koavf to revert each of his changes if willing. Prhartcom (talk) 13:43, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Revert I guess I could but I don't really see the point. In the unlikely event that Classics Illustrated Junior or Baymax gets moved, then the infobox will just have a title reading "Classics Illustrated Junior (comic)" or "Baymax (character)", which would not be the end of the world. But if you want me to do it, I can. Just let me know. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank-you, Justin, yes, now that Rich has fixed the code, please do revert the changes you made that day, putting back the "name" parameters into the articles calling the template(s). Prhartcom (talk) 23:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@Prhartcom: No problem. I can do it over the next day or two. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Partners

What is the purpose/right usage of the partners field? On superheros it seems redundant to the team affiliations field, and as someone has abused on Batman, ripe for misuse. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

So are we content to remove this then? Seeing as noone wants to defend it? Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:11, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Misplaced comics infoboxes includes draft space

It is possible to make it so that Category:Misplaced comics infoboxes excludes articles in draftspace? I don't think a draft version of an article is a misplaced use of this template. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 13:48, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

"Alter ego" should just be "Other names"

Comic books are not known for being careful with terminology, and "alter ego" as used in older Superman comics is a bit of a stretch of the definition. Looking at the Wikipedia page for alter ego, in the context of the Superman it can only be applied metaphorically, because "alter ego" in the literal sense refers to a split personality rather than a masquerade (the Hulk has an alter ego, but Superman doesn't). I think "alter ego" should be replaced with "aliases", "other names", "AKA", or something like that. Superman has a Kryptonian name (Kal-El), a legal American name (Clark Kent), an alias (Superman), and a bunch of nicknames (Man of Steel, Man of Tomorrow, etc.). Few superheroes have an alter ego in any sense. Spider-Man has a secret identity, but he doesn't project a fake personality when he is Peter Parker. BaronBifford (talk) 13:09, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with this line of thought, though I have no strong preference for what the replacement parameter(s) are called. There is an "alias" parameter now, but it's lower in the box and is intended for a different purpose, I think. Argento Surfer (talk) 18:39, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Relatives

I want to start adding a relatives part to each comic book characters relatives on there infobox with the X-Men since they will be the easiest. I will experiment with the best look but, I want it to be just like how famous peoples relatives are listed so why not for fictional characters as well. I will also experiment with names and codenamed and maybe a slash so both can be shown. If someone could please help me to get this onto the template that would be awesome. I feel that this would make a great addition to the info box for comic book characters.

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 22:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I oppose this. Superhero infoboxes are bloated enough as they are. They're not meant to be a complete biography - what would the article's main body of text be for? BaronBifford (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be a nice addition making them like actual people's info boxes. It would be just the close family members like just their parents, siblings, kids, and a spouse. It wouldn't be too long and I believe would be a nice addition treating them like real people. Also it's like a highlight which would be more useful than the partnership category.

Fluffyroll11 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Comic book characters are not real people, so their relationships with other fictional characters are not of especially great interest. Furthermore with each reboot these relationships change very frequently and can get ridiculously over-complicated. Do you really want list the family tree of Jean Grey, taking into account time travel, parallel universes, and clones?

Keep this simple! The bare essentials only! In fact I wonder why we use infoboxes at all. BaronBifford (talk) 15:27, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Well actually Jean Grey's would be simple but, even with reboots their relationships stay the same and clones wouldn't count. Cyclops would be the more complicated one. Instead of saying how complicated it could be lets set some parameters and guidelines that would be followed with this. For example clones wouldn't count. So with the example of Cyclops it would go Corsair (father), Havok (Brother), Vulcan (Brother), Jean Grey (Wife), Cable (Son), Hope Summers (Daughter). This would be the most complicated and lengthy example I can think of but a simpler one which ould be the case for most would be for example Colossus Mikhail Rasputin (Brother), and Magik (Sister) (this would be a case to discuss if his parents are even worth mentioning on it which I don't believe they are) so most would be simple like this. the significance of each character mentioned could be decided with a set of parameters we set when implementing this or leave significance to the talk page. Can we come to a consensus of how to make this work and a reality?

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 18:26, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

"It would be just the close family members like just their parents, siblings, kids, and a spouse."

This may be how you would use it, but there are other editors who would want to list the second cousin who appeared in two panels forty years ago. The same thing happens in the powers/abilities sections now, and policing those can be a real headache.

Also, infoboxes are supposed to be a brief overview providing highly desirable information in a quick-to-find location. I don't think there's enough demand for the relatives of comic characters to justify 1) sourcing and adding this information or 2) the continuous effort to monitor and update it. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:01, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: I believe the family members are a desired information that should be in the info boxes overview. I'll try to make a stress test prototype of this with Cyclops but, we should come up with a set of parameters for it to prevent the insignificant family members to appear on it. Also I wouldn't make undertaking the addition of this information. So what do you say can we compromise and come up with a set of guidelines for this if it were to be added? Fluffyroll11 (talk) 17:07, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I support Fluffyroll11's attempt to experiment with a prototype infobox (how do we do that exactly?), but what is more important is these "set of parameters" that will restrict the list to important members. The biggest problems with the infobox will not come from size as much as editors bickering over what and what not to include in the list. An sandbox infobox can't predict how bad that will get. BaronBifford (talk) 18:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@BaronBifford: :@Argento Surfer: Thank you (So how do I make a prototype exactly anyways)? I believe now we need to discuss this "set of parameter" we need to establish like for example a clone doesn't count towards it's original for say since the clone is it's own character it would have it's own set like Madelyn Pryor is the mother of Cable etc. Does that makes sense? So lets estimable what this "set of parameters" should be. Also how do I make that prototype anyways because I tried a few different things and it didn't work so could someone point me in the right direction so we can get closer to making this a reality?

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 18:45, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know much about editing templates, so I can't be too much help for setting up a prototype. Template:Infobox writer has the parameters you're looking for, so I'd suggest viewing the source code for it, comparing it to the source for this infobox, and trying to combine them in your sandbox to see how it looks. You may also consider posting this proposal on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics to get additional opinions. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: Thank you but, there is one thing I am confused about and thats how to get the parameters onto the template? Cause the parameters should be just common sense immediate family the important ones like I said at the beginning and is there a way to have that put in there?

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 19:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

You'll want to get a consensus in favor of the proposal, then make another proposal like the one you made below. The first step to doing that will be getting more opinions by posting at Wikiproject Comics linked above and/or starting an Request For Comment here. If a majority of editor like the idea, then you can make another edit request like the one below. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:18, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: Ok then tell me if I did this right. I am starting a Request For Comment on the proposal of adding relatives to the comic book characters info boxes.

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 20:14, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

You need to add the RfC template to the discussion. I've done it for you. Now give it about a week for other editors to see it and respond. It can be closed early if there's overwhelming support or opposition (WP:Snow). Argento Surfer (talk) 20:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: ok but, where is that thing that you added. And what does it do I think I missed something. Anyways thank you for all the help and can't wait to hear what people think. I believe we can make this a reality.

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 20:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I added an RfC template to the top of the section (it's two curly brackets, template name, two curly brackets). It generates the box you see now. The box is a visual cue to other editors that a request for comment has been made. It also adds notifications to various pages around Wikipedia to let people who don't follow the page know about it. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: I think that it is time we brought this to the experimental stage. What do you think? Fluffyroll11 (talk) 15:30, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think you're anywhere near a consensus. Only one editor has supported you, and all the others have expressed reservations. Argento Surfer (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I think I am opposed too. I supported Fluffyroll11 at first but now I think that was an ill-thought act of kindness. I said Fluffyroll11 could experiment with a prototype infobox but that isn't going to prevent the squabbles akin to what we get with the Abilities entry and the Team affiliations entry. I see no point to a list of Relatives. We have the main body of the article to explore that. What are infoboxes for anyway? I don't see why we need an infobox to list Superman's team memberships, aliases, and powers. It's clutter. Did Fluffyroll11 question the utility of this or is he just trying to have some fun? I think he just wants to do it as an exercise in coding. I oppose. BaronBifford (talk) 06:33, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I would dispute that fictional characters' relationships to other characters are of no interest to readers. It is often one of the most covered matters in conversations about characters.

In Jean Grey's the basic family tree has remained fairly simple since the 1960s. Father Dr. John Grey, mother Elaine Grey, sister Sara Grey-Bailey, nephew Joey Bailey, and niece Gailyn Bailey, and all five of these supporting characters have since been killed. While Jean has had a number of clones and even children through these clones, she has had at best limited contact with any of them. I am not certain they would even count as family.

In Cyclops' case the most discussion or dispute I have ever seen is in the status of Adam X, a character created by Fabian Nicieza to serve as a maternal half-brother to Cyclops. The character and the implication was introduced in the 1990s, but Nicieza was not allowed to complete his story. Adam keeps making minor appearances but the story about his family has never been picked by other writers.

In Colossus' case, his siblings are fairly important characters with several appearances. But his parents Nikolai and Alexandra Rasputin were very minor supporting characters and their deaths were barely even mentioned. I am not sure there is much to write there. A mini-series called "X-Men: Colossus Bloodline" established that Colossus is actually a descendant of Grigori Rasputin, but this did not add much to the character.

The one character I would be unsure how to handle is the Scarlet Witch. In about 50 years, Marvel has given 3 different versions of the identity of her parents and they are recently trying to introduce a 4th one. Do we list 8 different parents? Marvel gave the Witch twin sons in the 1980s, then retconned them into magical creations, then destroyed them, then introduced two teenage characters as reincarnations of her children. So who do we list as "childen", the originals or the reincarnations? And there is not even a reboot involved, just entirely contradictory ideas by different writers and editors. Dimadick (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in Dimadick. I've copied your comment to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics#RFC on adding parameters for relatives to Comic Book Character Infobox, where the topic is being discussed by more editors. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:30, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 July 2016

I want to add a category to the template titled Relatives. Real people have them on their info boxes list off their parents, siblings, children, spouses, etc. so why not for comic book characters as well. So I was hoping to hear from someone about making this a reality and I hope this is one of those ways I can make it happen.

Fluffyroll11 (talk) 18:45, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:56, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Cat and subcat

How does one put Judge Anderson in Category:Mega-City One judges and not the redundant supercategory Category:Comics characters ? No combination of blank/nonblank cat and subcat seems to work; is there a "suppress" option? jnestorius^(talk) 19:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Jnestorius, I fixed it for you. Frietjes (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Thanks! Can someone add altcat to the template documentation? jnestorius^(talk) 17:34, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Template produces a visible error when non-numerics used in imagesize

Some preliminary input-validation is required. Just thought I'd leave my findings here.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:42, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Edit request to remove the imagesize parameter

The imagesize parameter seems to have been deprecated. It seems to currently default to 250, so including it in the infobox is pointless. --Omnipaedista (talk) 22:22, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Template:Infobox comics character

copied from User talk:Zackmann08.
Regarding your edits to Template:Infobox comics character, is there anyway to restore the default image width to 250 pixels? Your edit seems to have triggered automatic image scaling, resulting in extra negative space around the image and poorer image quality. Thank you.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:16, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I believe that I have set the default image size to 250px. Please start a thread at Template talk:Infobox comics character with links to affected articles if you are still observing problems. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Seems to be all good. Thanks.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 19:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I also set the max image size (width) to 250px, per the documentation. I did not attempt to replicate the complicated code that was setting the max height to 450px, so I deleted that note from the documentation. I expect there may be a couple of very tall images somewhere in articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:09, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 February 2019

Please revert the last two last edits [8] @Jonesey95:. It force a default size for users with another preference. And if there should be a forced image size it should be 220px which is default size for this wikipedia. Please see WP:IMGSIZE for some background reading. Christian75 (talk) 18:14, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. As far as I know, I restored the previous consensus, which was a default size of 250px, with a max of 450px. As I stated above in the section that I have just copied to this page, Please start a thread at Template talk:Infobox comics character with links to affected articles if you are still observing problems. Thanks.

I have placed the previous version of the template (the version from June 2017 through December 2018 25 January 2019) into the sandbox so that interested editors can use Template:Infobox comics character/testcases to show what changes might be desirable. Editors are also welcome to change the sandbox to their preferred version if that helps to illustrate a point. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:20, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I added a bunch of test cases with images, but the images were removed. You can see the images in this revision of the testcases page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:26, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

New parameter for last seen?

There is a parameter "First appearance" in this template. Shouldn't there also need to be a "last appearance" parameter? I think it is useful to know when the character last appeared in a comic. I'mFeistyIncognito | Talk 19:10, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

To editor I'mfeistyincognito: thank you for the positive suggestion. This seems to be something that needs the input of other editors who are also involved with this template, so...  Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. Thanks again for your interest in this encyclopedia! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 19:34, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@Paine Ellsworth:, Thank you for your response. How (and where) should I seek consensus for maximum likelihood of being answered? I'mFeistyIncognito | Talk 20:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@I'mfeistyincognito: I don't know if Paine Ellsworth meant that a formal RfC is required or not (one could be opened right here, and propagate from there), but I'd recommend opening a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics since that WikiProject would be the most frequent user of this template. -2pou (talk) 21:09, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

To editors I'mfeistyincognito and 2pou: whether or not to have an informal discussion or an RfC is up to the editor who wants the new parameter. The WikiProject's talk page would be an excellent place to discuss this and perhaps the best place to garner a consensus for this addition. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 22:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit request to add epithets parameter

There should be an epithets/nicknames section, since comic book characters often have epithets and so people wouldn't add epithets to the aliases section, a mistake I have noticed a lot in character articles
SinkingInMercury (talk) 03:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. DonIago (talk) 03:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

RFC: new epithets parameter in infobox

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should there be an epithets parameter in the infobox?

I think there should be, since most comic book characters have epithets, and also to prevent people from mistaking epithets for aliases and putting them in the aliases section, a mistake I have seen frequently in character articles. Any thoughts?
SinkingInMercury (talk) 00:42, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
Edit: Restarted the RfC
SinkingInMercury (talk) 10:57, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to see diffs of these frequent errors before adding additional fictional information to infoboxes, which are common points for bloated minutia. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer:
Batman:
+ Dark Knight, The World's Greatest Detective, Caped Crusader
+ Darknight Detective
Two-Face:
+ Gotham's Protector
+ Apollo
+ Gotham's White Knight
Harley Quinn:
+ The Cupid of Crime, The Maid of Mischief
+ The Mistress of Mayhem, The Clown Princess of Crime
Superman:
+ The Man of Tomorrow
+ The Man of Steel, The Last Son of Krypton
Green Arrow:
+ Emerald Archer, Battling Bowman
Wonder Woman:
+ Goddess of Truth
SinkingInMercury (talk) 14:24, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support adding the field. Argento Surfer (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
• Would you kindly provide a recommended documentation update to accompany this? Adding the parameter is unlikely to fix the issue unless people actually know what the parameter is for and its differences. I have to assume that a contributing factor to the erroneous additions is a close association between the word alias and the term AKA. Honestly, thanks to the word epithet itself and general human laziness, even with a good documentation update, I think the issue will persist until someone knowledgable of the difference corrects each instance on a particular page. I wonder if changing alias to AKA would be an easier solution to implement and enforce. Probably runs more risk of bloat, though. -2pou (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
  • @2pou: Editors seeing the epithets/nicknames in the proper field instead of in the aliases section is enough to prevent the issue from occurring again, I think, especially if the epithets parameter is next to the aliases.
    SinkingInMercury (talk) 01:38, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• Question - will these be restricted to epithets from the comics themselves, or will any purple prose from any review/blog/reaction/whatnot be added to this? - jc37 03:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  In addition, do we expect that the big red cheese, boy blunder, the blue boy scout, and other such epithets would also be added? - jc37 03:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Jc37: Should generally be restricted to ephitets from the comics, with maybe an exception for notable unofficial epithets SinkingInMercury (talk) 04:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  Teen Titans characters - Robin-o, Legs, Gillhead, Twinkletoes, Wonder Chick, Boy Bowman, etc.

  And Stan Lee created new ones in nearly every comic. Webhead, web slinger, Green Goliath, etc etc.

  All of these really require contextual explanations, the kind of thing we consistantly have said are not the kind of thing that should be in the info box. I understand the goal of this, but it would be creating more problems, and inviting WP:OR, amongst many other issues. - jc37 04:50, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Jc37:Those aren't epithets though, just nicknames, but I do understand your point. Maybe linking the epithets parameter text to the wiktionary definition for epithet might help, as well as hidden text in the parameter stating nicknames are not epithets or "avoid putting non-notable epithets or nicknames"?
  Also, I think that the current "notable aliases" section also invites OR anyway just as much as an epithets parameter would, with non-notable aliases or nicknames like this or this being listed in it at times. SinkingInMercury (talk) 05:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

  Actually, per wiktionary, wikt:epithet, wikt:cognomen, and wikt:nickname are all synonyms.

  Which makes this a solution to a problem which creates similar and more problems... - jc37 17:58, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with Jc37 here, and feel I have to mention that epithets are far from the only issue plaguing the alias field. For example, I often see people adding diminutives to the field, such as "Pete" and "Petey" for Spider-Man. In addition, I suspect an epithet field would fall victim to a trend I've seen on Wikipedia where editors act like little children whose sibling has just got a new toy: Only a tiny fraction (I'd guess less than 0.1%) of comics characters have epithets that are significant enough that they could justifiably be mentioned in their infobox, but once the epithet field pops up in a few articles, many editors will start feeling like an article is in some way inferior if it doesn't have that field, so they will resort to any stretch of logic to put something in that field for their favorite characters. If the character doesn't have a notable epithet, use one that popped up in a single line of a single appearance; if they don't have any epithets, make one up. I've seen the same thing happen to many infobox fields.--NukeofEarl (talk) 19:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
• Support Yes, it should be included based on what I've read above. The upsides outweigh the downsides, in my opinion. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 19:28, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Support It seems useful and concise Yleventa2 (talk) 17:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

What limit is there on this? Do we include "Bats" because the Joker uses it a lot? It seems like something that will just be abused. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:51, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

@Darkwarriorblake: Should be limited to epithets that fit the definition from this website: "a word or phrase used in place of or in addition to a name to characterize the person, place, or thing. In fiction or nonfiction, it’s an effective device for evoking the subject’s qualities and for elegant variation." Examples of this are the epithets listed here. SinkingInMercury (talk) 03:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support, User:SinkingInMercury makes a convincing case that this will reduce confusion and prevent mistakes.--Droid I am (talk) 09:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, I expect the downsides will far outweigh the benefits. While I concede that there are a handful of superheroes with notable or defining nicknames ("Robin, Boy Wonder", "The Dark Knight", etc.), I think that this parameter will end up as a fancruft magnet with endless lists of nicknames for even minor characters. I present the Marvel Cinematic Universe Fandom page on Iron Man (infobox section "Alias(es)") as an (admittedly over-the-top) example of what I expect this field will look like. Either that or we will get bogged down in endless debates about what constitutes a "notable" epithet...and the irrelevant nicknames will get added anyway. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:49, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Meaningful distinction. But the epithets should be sourced with citations to merit inclusion. Dimadick (talk) 08:53, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support Yes. It should be a parameter based off of what nom and others said, but like Dimadick said, there should probably be citations to merit inclusion. Rexh17 (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Species param to be used for humans?

Regarding this edit, should the Species parameter be used even for humans? DonIago (talk) 15:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)