Template talk:Infobox artist/Archive 5

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Template-protected edit request on 6 June 2014

Please could we add a DAAO record field? The daao_record field is a new URL field that points to the Design and Art Australia Online biography of the artist. The DAAO provides high quality, community moderated biographies of Australian practitioners.

There is an uncontroversial discussion on the WikiProject_Visual_arts page and (earlier) on the Template talk page for Infobox_artist.

I have implemented the change in the sandbox and added a test case here (its a sub page of the normal test case as I didn't want Vincent to be deleted or attributed a DAAO record). Sandbox testcase here.

Thanks! Queen Victoria (talk) 02:54, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm... Not much of a discussion. If no one comments, I'll apply it in a few days.—cyberpower ChatOnline 23:47, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  •  Working — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:27, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Okay, so I've made some changes in the sandbox so this works more efficiently and gives a clearer result. Queen Victoria, do these changes look good to you and do what you want? In order to get this extra row to show, all that the editor needs to do is put in the name of the person from the URL (E.G. |daao_record=mike-par) and the template will do the rest. If the url is always the name of the person, and always uses hyphens to replace spaces, it is possible to adjust the template further to automatically add the link without the |daao_record= parameter (which would still be available for overrides) but instead take the |name= and convert it to lowercase and replace the spaces with hyphens if "most" of these artists have daao records. Please ping me with your answers to those questions and we'll develop more in the sandbox until we come up with some good code and then I'll apply it for you. Andy, do you have anything to add here? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:52, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
      • I'd avoid doing anything so clever; consider William Morrison Wyllie aka William Wyllie. Also, we should be able to pull data from Wikidata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:01, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
        • Well, those types of cases are why there would still need to be a |daao_record= parameter that would override the attempt to automatically detect. Simply for those edge cases. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:39, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
          • Thanks for getting that underway and sorry I've been AWOL. I like the sound of your extension to the template -- sounds much cleaner. Looks like Netoholic has undone those changes though. Should I just roll back to your last version Technical 13? Queen Victoria (talk) 08:02, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
            • Probably not until Netoholic's concerns are answered. I personally support DAAO links as it seems to be acceptable as an Authority Control on the topic. Not having it almost seems to me like saying a baseball's MLB page shouldn't be linked in an infobox or something. I'm not convinced by Netoholic's objection, but we should give them time to clarify or for other objections to come to light. If nothing happens in a week or so, we'll assume that there are no further objections and you can feel free to restore my change. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 11:50, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
              • The DAAO is community-edited (a lot like IMDB or MusicBrainz) but does not seem to have the data reciprocity needed to be considered a strong authority control. If it was one, then Template:Authority control would be where you'd add this, not the infobox. The DAAO resource is best presented in External links, because there is no special reason that the site should be elevated above any others that provide biographical information (and in fact as a rule we prefer links that are not community-edited). We don't put IMDB links for actors and films/series in infoboxes, so we shouldn't put DAAO links either. --Netoholic @ 19:57, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
                • While being community edited the DAAO has a strong system of moderation including marking fields that have been edited but not moderated. The DAAO provides metadata to harvesters via OAI including the NLA. It consumes other sources of biographies and artworks that are online and (importantly) offline. The NLA is an Authority control for Wikipedia already but doesn't provide access to the richness of artists' works and events that the DAAO maintains. Therefore I think it is a valuable addition to the sidebar and fits well with the purposes of the sidebar. Does that address all your points Netoholic? Please let me know if you have any other concerns. Queen Victoria (talk) 23:04, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
                  • Unfortunately, it really doesn't. There are potentially many (even better) resources out there that could be included in infoboxes, but we don't do it. DAAO doesn't give us anything special enough to elevate its status above any other normal External Links. If DAAO data connects even partially to NLA, then Template:Authority control should reflect that data, but for the other stuff, a standard external link is the appropriate place to link to the DAAO. --Netoholic @ 23:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
                    • I am struggling to understand why DAAO is not acceptable as an authority for Australian artists. It's developed and moderated by two of Australia's leading universities in the arts as a scholarly activity; its development has been funded by the Australian Government over a number of years to be a single authoritative source in its field. Yes, it is open to input from the community but that input cannot be anonymous, all users have to provide an email address to create an account, citations are requested, the contributions are moderated and can obviously be questioned via email if the moderator is not satisfied. And I doubt that it attracts contributions from the general public; being a specialised topic, I rather suspect the contributing community is small and is predominantly made up of academics and researchers. Can someone point me to a more authoritative source for Australian artists? Kerry (talk) 07:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
                      • I trust that DAAO is an amazing resource and very well-respected. But we still don't put arbitrary external links about people into infoboxes ( {{Infobox person}} doesn't include IMDB links, for example). There is dedicated WP:EL section to each article where links to resources like this belong. You might also use DAAO as a citation if its considered reliable enough. --Netoholic @ 08:36, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel like this is a bad addition to the template. Sites like DAAO are better used as References or External links in the article. This could easily get out of hand as we could add many, many other websites with artist pages to the infobox. Some things just aren't meant for the infobox, and external links just aren't (except for an official website). -- Netoholic @ 21:31, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 October 2014

add support for Signatures

| label70 = Signature | data70 = {{#if:{{{signature|}}}|{{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage|image={{{signature|}}}|size={{{signature_size|}}}|sizedefault=150px|alt={{{signature alt|{{{signature_alt|}}}}}}}} }}

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 03:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there any discussion or consensus for this change? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:17, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
I Support this change the inclusion of |signature=, noting that the parameter already exists in {{Infobox person}} (but have disabled the EP template until we establish consensus). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
for a bit of history see threads in Archive 3, Archive 1, and the most lengthy in Archive 2. Frietjes (talk) 16:58, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
note that the code posted above would not be the way to do it, since this is a frontend for {{infobox person}}. I, personally, don't really care either way. but if it is done, it should be done by simply passing it through to {{infobox person}}. Frietjes (talk) 17:01, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
My comment duly amended. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:57, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
No consensus…yet, but it seems like a conversation is happening now. Which is good, I assumed it would be non-controversial since infobox artist is a subset of infobox person which already has the signature parameter. I was honestly surprised that it wasn't there in the first place given the importance of an artist's signature. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Support. I support the change, there are times I would have liked to add the signature – and have nothing further to add to what has already been said.--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:20, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Oppose for the reasons given in previous discussions – not infobox material, as many artists need 4 or more signatures to be given to adaequately cover their life. There is a whole book on Rembrandt's signatures. Johnbod (talk) 21:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Just for discussion purposes: I'm not sure that I understand the logic. The artist's appearance changes dramatically over their career, but we only have one image of them in the infobox.
There are books with artist's signatures that don't have multiple signatures per artist. How did they choose what signature to include? Would it help if there was a caption, like there is for images? I'm guessing that it goes without saying why artist's signatures are interesting.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
The unsubstantiated assertion "not infobox material" is easily refuted by pointing out, again, that a |signature= is already in the parent template. For every infobox parameter, there is an edge case such as the Rembrant example; that's no reason not to provide the parameter for the vast majority of cases where such extremes do not apply. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:04, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Request edit: add support for Ethnicity

I would like to suggest a new optional parameter, ethnicity. To show its usefulness, consider for example the case of Italian or German artists active before 1861 (Italian unification) or 1871 (German Unification): they cannot be defined as being Italian/German nationals, since Italy/Germany did not exist at that time. In these cases, at present we use the parameter "nationality", giving to it the meaning of ethnicity. With the new parameter we could either leave the nationality parameter empty or use it to describe the state of whom the artist was citizen or subject (for example, in the case of Titian, the Republic of Venice). In all the other cases (when ethnicity and nationality coincide), we could ignore the ethnicity and fill only the nationality field. Alex2006 (talk) 09:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 October 2014

add support for Signatures

| label70 = Signature | data70 = {{#if:{{{signature|}}}|{{#invoke:InfoboxImage|InfoboxImage|image={{{signature|}}}|size={{{signature_size|}}}|sizedefault=150px|alt={{{signature alt|{{{signature_alt|}}}}}}}} }}

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 03:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there any discussion or consensus for this change? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:17, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
I Support this change the inclusion of |signature=, noting that the parameter already exists in {{Infobox person}} (but have disabled the EP template until we establish consensus). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
for a bit of history see threads in Archive 3, Archive 1, and the most lengthy in Archive 2. Frietjes (talk) 16:58, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
note that the code posted above would not be the way to do it, since this is a frontend for {{infobox person}}. I, personally, don't really care either way. but if it is done, it should be done by simply passing it through to {{infobox person}}. Frietjes (talk) 17:01, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
My comment duly amended. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:57, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
No consensus…yet, but it seems like a conversation is happening now. Which is good, I assumed it would be non-controversial since infobox artist is a subset of infobox person which already has the signature parameter. I was honestly surprised that it wasn't there in the first place given the importance of an artist's signature. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Support. I support the change, there are times I would have liked to add the signature – and have nothing further to add to what has already been said.--CaroleHenson (talk) 20:20, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Oppose for the reasons given in previous discussions – not infobox material, as many artists need 4 or more signatures to be given to adaequately cover their life. There is a whole book on Rembrandt's signatures. Johnbod (talk) 21:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Just for discussion purposes: I'm not sure that I understand the logic. The artist's appearance changes dramatically over their career, but we only have one image of them in the infobox.
There are books with artist's signatures that don't have multiple signatures per artist. How did they choose what signature to include? Would it help if there was a caption, like there is for images? I'm guessing that it goes without saying why artist's signatures are interesting.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:44, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
The unsubstantiated assertion "not infobox material" is easily refuted by pointing out, again, that a |signature= is already in the parent template. For every infobox parameter, there is an edge case such as the Rembrant example; that's no reason not to provide the parameter for the vast majority of cases where such extremes do not apply. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:04, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Request edit: add support for Ethnicity

I would like to suggest a new optional parameter, ethnicity. To show its usefulness, consider for example the case of Italian or German artists active before 1861 (Italian unification) or 1871 (German Unification): they cannot be defined as being Italian/German nationals, since Italy/Germany did not exist at that time. In these cases, at present we use the parameter "nationality", giving to it the meaning of ethnicity. With the new parameter we could either leave the nationality parameter empty or use it to describe the state of whom the artist was citizen or subject (for example, in the case of Titian, the Republic of Venice). In all the other cases (when ethnicity and nationality coincide), we could ignore the ethnicity and fill only the nationality field. Alex2006 (talk) 09:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Date of birth

The doc now advises use of {{birth date and age}}, which requires a full date. However, as per WP:DOB the exact birth date should normally not be included in articles about living people unless it is widely published already, or has clearly been published with the approval of the person. Many editors seem to be automaically following this documetation and insertig full dates of birth where they should not. I have now included a warning about this in the doc. DES (talk) 18:46, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Request edit: Add support for Infobox person/relations

Add Please:
| relations = {{{relations|{{{family|}}}}}}
Feoffer (talk) 13:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:11, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I support this addition, but think we should add |parents= and |children=, too. (Better still would be to merge the two templates fully.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes, adding |parents= and |children= would be good. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:06, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

influenced_by and influenced

Is it possible to add influenced_by and influenced to the template (it calls infobox person which doesnt have theese)?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Christian75 (talk • contribs) 15:33, August 17, 2015 (UTC)

It used to be there and was removed and rightly so. Like "years active", it's a parameter that creates problems of emphasis and false precision, depending on how "active" and "influenced" are understood. Ewulp (talk) 01:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

RfC announce: Religion in infoboxes

There is an RfC at Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Religion in infoboxes concerning what should be allowed in the religion entry in infoboxes. Please join the discussion and help us to arrive at a consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Error message and tracking category for unsupported parameters

I have added error tracking for unsupported parameters to this template. See Category:Pages using infobox artist with unknown parameters. A red error message appears when you Preview the article, between the edit screen and the rendered preview. In the category, the articles are sorted by the name of the parameter that is unsupported.

It appears that the vast majority of unsupported parameters are |bgcolor= / |bgcolour=, |influenced=, and |influenced_by=. If these are not wanted, you might want to file a bot request to remove them.

If I have made any mistakes in coding, or if template changes are desired, please let me know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Other names

I think it would be helpful to include an "other_names" parameter, as in Template:Infobox person. It's not unusual for artists to produce work under more than one name, such as for branding purposes, or to obfuscate their identity when working for competitors, or to separate high-art from low-art work. For example, I had to use the "person" template instead to get this functionality on Oli Frey. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Agreed; and as there is no opposition, done, as |other_names=. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Residence?

Resolved

Is there a reason "residence" is not supported in the artist box? It is useful when converting an infobox person to an infobox artist, and provides important information. -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

No objections, so done. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Children not showing up in infobox?

For example Françoise Gilot, the children field is present, and it is a valid field in infobox person, but the info isn't displayed.

It's not a valid field in infobox artist. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:21, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Activate signature parameter

Please activate the signature parameter. The discussion above from 22 October 2014 is about a close to consensus as Wikipedia is likely to get. If anyone wants to remove the signature parameter then that should be discussed at Template talk:Infobox person, not here, as that is where the parameter is implemented. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: Sorry. The template has not supported a signature since 2009. I would want to see a stronger consensus before changing the status quo. And it is quite reasonable that a parameter exists on the parent template, which local consensus determines is not appropriate for this particular infobox. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:28, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Although given the significance that is often attached to an artist's signature, I am surprised not to see an option to include this here, frankly. That should be interpreted as a sign of support for the idea of adding it. KDS4444 (talk) 15:32, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Adding "media" parameter?

Is there a reason that this template does not include a parameter for the artist's principal media (oil, watercolor, charcoal, glass, steel, acrylic, pastel, marble, photography, etc.)? I am not saying that only one medium should be mentioned, but rather the option for several important/ relevant ones, as anyone who is considered an "artist" by definition needs to create his/ her "art" out of some kind of material/ media and there doesn't seem to be any other parameter here that covers this. I checked the archives, but found no discussion of artistic media as a parameter. Could one be added? KDS4444 (talk) 15:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Per the documentation, that information is included in |known_for=. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:53, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
Sort of, except the documentation says this field is for "Main fields in which the artist works" and gives examples like "sculpture" and "painting". But one can sculpt out of clay, wood, string, steel, and foam rubber, and one can paint out of almost anything liquid. I don't get the sense from the parameter description that "fields" is meant to include "media worked in" but rather "areas of acknowledged expertise or fame". We can't really say "known for marble" or "known for charcoal", and knowing what media a particular artist "works in" is often fundamental to their artistic record, yes? KDS4444 (talk) 21:35, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
We can certainly say "known for marble sculpture" or "known for charcoal drawing". Nikkimaria (talk) 02:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
We could also add a parameter for "media", which would let new editors using this template know that this is where to put that artist's media. Is adding this to the infobox problematic for us to do somehow? Would it cause issues in the template? Also, if you look at brochures for gallery showings of groups of artists, the brochures often say things like "Alice Smith/ ceramics" and "Steve Andrews/ acrylic, colored pencil, mixed media", etc. KDS4444 (talk) 10:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Either new editors using this template will read the documentation, and so know they can currently put this information in the |known_for= parameter, or they will not. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:12, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Signature

Hi, I was wondering why the signature does not show in the infobox. Lotje (talk) 06:15, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

As a technical question, because the template has no signature parameter.
As an aesthetic/practical question, #Activate signature parameter further up the talk page. There's been no consensus for its addition. for (;;) (talk) 07:48, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I strongly support inclusion of signature parameter. I have been working on cartoonist and illustrator articles, whose signatures are almost as iconic as their artwork. Despite claims of no consensus, there has actually been surprisingly little discussion (see 2009, 2010, 2014). The arguments against seem to be that artists may have more than one signature, that it is not relevant to their work, and/or it looks amateurish. I would counter that it should be an option, not a requirement, and the inclusion of signature fields on {{infobox person}} and {{Infobox comics creator}} attests to its utility. Including a verified signature from a visual artist can help in identifying their works (probably more important for less famous artists). The fact that signatures can vary over time matters no less than that people themselves vary over time: just as in infobox portraits, it should be up to editorial discretion to select the best representative signature, and discuss any significant variation in the article. The last "debate" consisted of 2 supports and 1 oppose, so I think more input is needed. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:59, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose – per long standing argument: Template talk:Infobox artist/Archive 2#Signature Parameter...Modernist (talk) 23:52, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose – A photograph or portrait of the subject is expected and is useful for identification; additional forms of ID such as signature, height & weight, fingerprints, family tree, etc. seem overkill. A signature by its nature is a bold graphic and unduly distracting, like a flag; possibly this is one reason Template:Infobox person contains the command "Do not use a flag template" 16 times. To encourage fixation on the artist's signature seems to me a disservice. A signature in an infobox can be of little use to somebody seeking to authenticate a work of art, as signatures are much more easily forged than artworks, and authentic signatures usually vary considerably, so what is the point of displaying one specimen so prominently? It's better presented in context as in Albrecht Dürer or William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Ewulp (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
...Except that the general public reading a Wikipedia article on an artist might fully expect to see an image of his/ her signature here— not in order to definitively identify some unknown work, but because artist's signatures are an important part of their identities as artists and are almost ubiquitously placed by those artists on their works as a sign of authorship (and artists seldom intentionally vary these signatures, even though some variation is inevitable). The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that this parameter really aught to be here. Forgeries are irrelevant (we are not an auction house). The fact is, artists sign their creations, and those signatures mean something about those creations. We should have a template that matches this fact, and the absence of a signature parameter here truly surprises me. KDS4444 (talk) 15:49, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ewulp: You fallaciously equate an artist's signature to "height & weight, fingerprints, family tree, etc." as if the inferred triviality precluded its inclusion. Note that in certain fields, height and weight are commonly tracked statistics. (See {{Infobox boxer}} and {{Infobox professional wrestler}}). I'm not saying height and weight are relevant to artists, but the mere option to include a signature certainly seems appropriate. Can you then explain why it is common in other infoboxes? Do you also find the signatures included in countless politician articles from Barack Obama to Hubert Humphrey or writers like Vladimir Nabokov to be overly bold and unduly distracting? Are we worried those signatures might not be the most exemplary? I see signatures as much more timeless and significant than "residence" (which was added below in total disregard of the opposing view). All of the current fields are optional, to be added to (or debated) based on editorial discretion and consensus at each respective article. I simply think that option should extend to signatures. There are books compiling artist signatures, monograms, etc. and for some (but certainly not all) artists, a widely used mark is probably more familiar than a photograph. --Animalparty! (talk)
The reason signatures are common in other infoboxes is presumably because consensus was in favor of inclusion, or because inclusion was decided in disregard of the opposing view. Politicians and writers usually write with a pen, which makes a signature like Hubert Humphrey's fairly discreet, whereas artists commonly sign with paint or charcoal, and the result is obtrusive in an infobox. An artist's biography usually includes several jpgs of the artist's work, and if the artist signs his/her works the signature can be seen there, which makes the signature in an infobox redundant as well as distracting. Ewulp (talk) 01:55, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Artists sign in the corners where the sig can be found only if looked for carefully, and for paintings is often covered by frames anyway. Also, I should point out that the Village Pump RfC happening right now about the use of the signature parameter generally in infoboxes has had at least two participants other than me indicate that the parameter should probably be retained for artists specifically, even if it is lost almost everywhere else. KDS4444 (talk) 10:28, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Until recent centuries, most artists did not sign their work, or did so in block capitals. Most signatures will not show up well in a snippet, with usually a dark background, and many will take a lot of space. If we allow this, before too long vast numbers will clutter up the infoboxes we have, reducing still further the space for actual pictures. Johnbod (talk) 02:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
That is a prediction of doom with no evidence that it is likely to occur. I'm also not sure what you mean by "won't show up well in a snippet"— maybe, thumbnail? Aren't signatures mostly black lines on white backgrounds? What could show up better than that? How much space do you think such a thing will take up? And who is limiting the picture space available in our articles?? KDS4444 (talk) 10:28, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Writer or politician signatures are mostly black lines on white backgrounds. Artist signatures, on the other hand, are often seen in the context of their artworks rather than isolated on paper – for example this or this. That's what I believe Johnbod is referring to. Within the infobox, the size of the image is limited by the width of the box (which can be changed, but not by much), and adding additional images will extend the length of the template and therefore reduce reasonable space for other images. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Again, having a signature field as an option does not make it mandatory that an ugly, charcoal, oil painting .jpg be crammed into the infoboxes. No one is required to add a signature. A simple look at Commons:Category:Signatures of artists shows that most are pen and ink, just like politicians, writers, and most other people, and many clunky jpegs can be rendered into sleek .svg files with transparent backgrounds. If you work primarily with oil painters, and don't like the look of anything in Commons:Category:Signatures of painters, don't use 'em! --Animalparty! (talk) 18:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Commons:Category:Signatures of artists seems mostly to contain non-notable (and in-copyright) comics artists. The problem with allowing potentially unsuitable fields is that other infobox-only editors come along and fill them, which is a perennial problem on artist infoboxes (field, movement, famous works etc, all usually inaccurate OR). So no. Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox artist signature

Template:Infobox artist signature has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 14:08, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

"Partner" parameter error

When editing the Annie Leibovitz article, the error message "Warning: Page using Template:Infobox artist with unknown parameter 'partner' (this message is shown only in preview)." appears in preview mode, though 1) the parameter does display when the change(s) are saved, and 2) the parameter is listed in the template documentation as a valid one. Would some one please be so kind as to explain and fix this? —DocWatson42 (talk) 14:24, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

DocWatson42, should be fixed now. Frietjes (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
It is—thank you. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 15:20, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 January 2019

Could a home town parameter ({{{home_town|}}}) be added exclusively for cases where the subject's home town is different from their birth place? This would be in line with {{Infobox person}}, {{Infobox writer}}, {{Infobox academic}}, {{Infobox clergy}}, etc. Thanks, 142.160.89.97 (talk) 05:04, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

 Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Nationality

"Nationality" needs to be clarified. Does it refer to the citizenship or the ethnic origin of the artist? Iyi muhabbet (talk) 00:09, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

See nationality. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there any rationale for instructing editors to provide middle initials?

While adding an image for a 19th-century British illustrator, I noticed that the Infobox artist template encourages editors to "include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name". This presumably is why the article for Sarah Drake uses Sarah A. Drake for the infobox name parameter.

I understand that sometimes we may want to distinguish among multiple Jane Does. We have rules to handle that for article titles; for systematic processes, authority control handles the issue well. So, is there a reason why we should include the person's middle initial in the infobox if that isn't/wasn't how they are known?

In the United States, the use of middle initials is fairly common when people wish to give a formal version of their name, although there are few artists who regularly use their middle initial. In the U.K. middle initials are almost never used in everyday life; people might use their middle name in preference to their first name or use their first and middle names together, but the form "John Q. Public" is almost exclusively American. Other cultures have very different conventions for personal naming and using a middle initial in infoboxes for these people would appear to be an arbitrary choice.

Am I missing some rationale for why we would want to specifically include middle initials for artists? If not, I propose that I remove this advice from the template. I'm guessing there are quite a few articles about artists where a middle initial has been included in the infobox based on this guidance. Is there an easy way to identify them? Rupert Clayton (talk) 17:42, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Sounds sensible, but I don't know how you would track examples down. Note that the use of two initials for authors etc was rather common in the UK a century ago: W.H. Auden, D.H. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence etc. Johnbod (talk) 02:38, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Residence

  • This issue is still not resolved BuffaloBob (talk) 14:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
It's not supposed to work; a discussion last November (Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 34#Residence parameter) resulted in a decision to delete the parameter. Ewulp (talk)
then perhaps it should be removed?ThatMontrealIP (talk) 21:37, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

typo :-)

Anyone out here to take a look at the bottom of the template? It says '{{Sandbox other||, should probably be {{Sandbox other}} Thank you for your time.

 Fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Use of photographer name in photo caption

The explanation here for "caption" says "try to include date of photo and photographer's name." and yet MOS:CREDITS distinctly says not to do this: "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. [...] If the artist or photographer is independently notable, though, then a wikilink to the artist's biography may be appropriate, but image credits in the infobox image are discouraged, even if the artist is notable, since the infobox should only contain key facts of the article's subject, per MOS:INFOBOX." -Lopifalko (talk) 17:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I support removing "and photographer's name" from the explanation. it is often taken advantage of for promotion.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Please add below Parameters

Suggest to add below parameter to infobox. | type = <!-- use to state type of person it can be use widely for all occupation e.g. artiste, actor, singer, celebrity, public figure, performer, professional entertainer etc--> | race = <!-- Chinese, Malay, Indian (Mostly for China, Malaysia and Singapore)--> | language = <!--Show how many language an artist know how to speak--> | religious_and_belief = <!--Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam etc--> | residence = <!--Stay at a place other than hometown--> | years_active = | occupation = <!--Actor, actress, singer, dancer etc--> | agent = | organization = <!--Charity Foundation--> | debut_date = <!--Date of launched a career--> | debut_place = <!--Place of launched a career--> | debut_works = <!--Work of launched a career--> | music_background = **Mandatory** Use one: solo_singer, non_vocal_instrumentalist, non_performing_personnel, or temporary | genre = <!--Genre of art, music, or literature. | instrument = | notable_roles = <!--Roles of actor, actress etc--> | website = {{url|website.com}} I suggest to add above parameters. Reason: Make the template more complete, no need to embedding other templates, mean all in one. Artists also include Actor, Actress, Singing, Dance, Performer etc. Please refer Wikipedia article on Artist Artist Happygirl1976 (talk) 13:00, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Happygirl1976: the artist infobox is usually used for visual and fine artists. You might be looking for Template:Infobox musical artist and Template:Infobox actor or Template:Infobox singer.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 05:18, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@ThatMontrealIP:Nowadays many artist have many career, one person can be three e.g. actor, singer and dancer. This mean editor need to use embedding on a infobox. If you said like this, this template is different with Chinese version template:artist, my opinion is if have a 10 in 1 template user no need to embedding so many module too troublesome. Anyway is ok, thanks for your advise. Happygirl1976 (talk 15:00 30 July 2020 (UTC)

parm check

Frietjes, can you sync the parms here also. |children= is valid and displays, but causes a unknown para warning in preview. Thanks. MB 22:25, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

MB, okay. Frietjes (talk) 22:44, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

bgcolor parameter?

I've been fixing a few broken infoboxes from Category:Pages using infobox artist with unknown parameters

, and a fairly common reason for pages to end up there, is still including a bgcolor parameter, which looks like it used to be a parameter, but is no longer. Is it appropriate to just remove the bgcolor value from the infoboxes, or is there some reason it should it be kept around for the moment? With data in some other deprecated/non-existent fields, it's often good to find a better field or add the info to the text, but I'm not sure if that's really relevant to a background colour. Thanks, Suelru (talk) 00:42, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Auction Record

May I suggest the artist's auction record for inclusion in the Artist Infobox? The highest price attained in a public auction can indicate the artist's percieved significance within the global art market, and is already commonly included in the artist's page under the subheading 'Market' or 'Valuation'. NovaBlueWave (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

para conflict

Frietjes, the {{infobox person}} parameter conflict check is flagging parents/mother/father here but I don't see a problem. (I've worked around in this article by changing parents to father. Thanks. MB 18:33, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

MB, should be fixed now. Frietjes (talk) 19:16, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Artist's Signature

Frietjes (I'm not sure who to tag here but you seem in charge to my newbie eyes haha), don't you think it would be useful to add a signature line on the artist's infobox? They have it for politicians like here but it seems to me even more relevant for artists. Unless there is something I dont see. Thanks in advance for commenting!--APG1984 (talk) 12:32, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

APG1984, there have been previous discussions on this topic that have not reached a consensus on adding it, eg. Template talk:Infobox artist/Archive 2#Signature Parameter. For that reason I don't think it would be a good idea to add it without having a more conclusive discussion, perhaps an RfC. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
oh wow. ok;) Thanks for the quick reply. --APG1984 (talk) 14:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Change 'nationality' to 'citizenship'

Proposal to change as in other infoboxes – for example in Infobox person, Infobox scientist, and Infobox writer. 'nationality' can be a bit misleading, and in my opinion it's better to have infoboxes with the same parameters that provide most relevant and non-controversial info.Artem.G (talk) 15:58, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

does this add "musical artist" as short description?

i noticed twice today presence of "musical artist" as short description below person name. Kathleen Parlow and Marie Hall does not contain Short description, yet they show short description? is this intentional? চামুণ্ডা/ashtamatrikas[আলাপ/talk] 06:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Those are using {{Infobox musical artist.. not Infobox artist! Ask there. Johnbod (talk) 14:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
@Johnbod: excuse. i did not notice. Brāhmī • tagboard  • (always start discussion using {{u|ashtamatrikas}}) 15:30, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 August 2021

Request to add info box parameter: existing works

Description: the number of existing or surviving paintings, drawings, engravings or other attributed art works

The following infobox parameter would tell how many paintings survived. For example El Greco has 500 existing paintings.

This will help historians understand how many paintings are attributed to each artist, Monet has 2500 existing works.

existing works = 500 paintings survived

Tzim78 (talk) 22:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. firefly ( t · c ) 11:04, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I need to Establish a consensus to change the template artist info box to add the parameter existing works see above.Tzim78 (talk) 19:23, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Infobox_artist

  • You can't mean that El Greco has 500 existing paintings--you probably mean he has about 500 existing paintings. He also has works in other media, such as his surviving drawings, architecture and possibly sculpture. And as for paintings, our article on him indicates there are several different opinions--authorities give numbers between 829 snd 137. Our article Art of ElGreco doesn't give a number but accepts as authentic early paintings which El Greco says are generally no longer so regarded. Our List of works of El Greco discusses the controversy, and in another section gives the number 500 based on an unreliable travel guide, which is an highly inappropriate source to resolve such a scholarly controversy. List of paints by Claude Monet quotes "nearly 2000 " with an authoritative reference. DGG ( talk ) 20:33, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • We need a feature on the artist infobox that quickly tells viewers how many existing works each artist hasTzim78 (talk) 21:28, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • This does not seem necessary to me, and that there is too much room for error. There is no central database or clearinghouse of such statistics for artists whose works have not been cataloged thusly across countries and continents. That is especially true of contemporary artists whose work has not yet been cataloged by an archivist or those without a catalogue raisonné. (Thousands of artists.) It seems that such statistics belong in individual articles if RS exist for them, but changing the infobox template is not necessary. My two cents, Netherzone (talk) 02:55, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
  • He has opened a Second Front at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal_to_Improve_Template:Infobox_artist_by_adding_parameter_for_existing_works... - opposition there is even stronger. Won't happen. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose (Summoned by bot) Too many obstacles to arriving at a reliable number, too many vagaries of what might constitute a work - as opposed to preparatory, or exploratory 'doodles' - which may well be different in the case of each artist and too complex a subject to reduce to an infobox number - as outlined by DGG and Netherzone. Pincrete (talk) 07:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose (Summoned by bot) - Reasonable information to include in the body of the article, along with any discussion of uncertainty. Infoboxes are not the place for stuff that requires discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This proposal was added to the Village Pump to establish a speedy Consensus

  • Oppose (and this should have been raised at the Visual arts project, not here). In many/most cases the numbers are uncertain, especially for drawings. There are often many disagreements as to attribution. Too detailed for an infobox, adding to clutter. What do you do for artists who are still working? Bad idea all round. By all means add the info to the article, but not box-suitable. El Greco actually illustrates the problems very well, as the number of his paintings is highly controversial: El_Greco#Debates_on_attribution gives several numbers, none very close to your 500 at all. Johnbod (talk) 20:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Johnbod, and agree that this is not the appropriate forum. This discussion can be moved either to Template talk:Infobox artist or WT:Visual arts, but it shouldn't remain here. I doubt that an RfC will be necessary, as I forecast snow. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:29, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose per discussion. Counting the doodles Picasso would do to pay for his dinners he has a gillion or more artworks. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • This is an invalid RfC - there is no statement and no timestamp, see WP:RFCST. If it's related to Template talk:Infobox artist#Template-protected edit request on 13 August 2021, then the whole thread also seems to be in breach of WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:08, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is why info-boxes, which I happily use for individual works, are unsuited to artist bios, especially late medieval/early modern, when, very often, almost nothing is known about the artist, and attribution is hotly debated. Tzim78 is obv acting IGF, but also see snow here. Ceoil (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose Numbers would be all over the place depending on the source cited, for reasons already mentioned. Better dealt with in the body of the article. Ewulp (talk) 00:10, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Too much room for error. There is no central database or clearinghouse of such statistics for artists whose works have not been cataloged across institutions, countries and continents. That is especially true of contemporary artists whose work has not yet been cataloged by an archivist or those without a catalogue raisonné. (Thousands of artists.) These statistics belong in individual articles not the infobox. Netherzone (talk) 03:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This can go in the body of the article. Besides, starting two RFCs on the same subject is forum shopping and is deprecated. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:05, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank You for Your Responses, a consensus was not established. This issue is closed.Tzim78 (talk) 11:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
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