Template:WPBiography

Template documentation

This template is used on 500,000+ pages, and changes to it will be widely noticed. Please test any changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in a user sub-page, and consider discussing changes at the talk page before implementing them.

If you must edit this template:

• Please give a detailed edit summary to explain what you're doing and,
• If the changes are significant discuss it on the talk page first
• Don't mark major edits as minor
• Do the changes in a sandbox first and then paste them in in a single edit
• Template:WPBiography/sandbox can be used to carry out tests and provide code for major changes.

The template is used on over 515,000 pages and it's a big strain on the server every time it's updated (see the job queue); please be careful when updating the template.

Usage

Please note: This template should be transcluded ({{WPBiography}}) (right here!) and not substituted (subst) because it employs conditional code. Transclusion also allows easy updating of all the Project's talk pages without having to edit hundreds of thousands of pages. Many of these parameters put the talk page of the article into an appropriate category. A manually generated, sporadically updated, list of all the categories used in this template is at Template:WPBiography/Categories.

{{WPBiography
|small = 
|nested = 
|living = 
|class = 
|priority = 
|core = 
|attention = 
|past-collaboration = 
|peer-review = 
|old-peer-review = 
|needs-infobox = 
|needs-persondata =
|activepol = 
|a&e-work-group = 
|politician-work-group = 
|british-royalty = 
|royalty-work-group = 
|military-work-group = 
|sports-work-group = 
|s&a-work-group = 
|musician-work-group = 
|peerage-work-group = 
|baronets-work-group = DO NOT USE
|filmbio-work-group = 
|non-bio = 
|removal = 
|listas = 
|needs-photo = 
}}

Template layout

• small: Answer yes to make the template small and along the right side of the page (as opposed to at the top.)
• nested: yes when the template is nested inside {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}

Living people

• living: If yes, the box at {{blp}} will be included above the WPBiography box. This also affects the requested photo box, to emphasize the fact that free images must be used. Either this parameter should be specified or {{blp}} should be included if the person is living. This does not support the small or nested parameters.
  • This parameter populates Category:Biography articles of living people.

Assessment, priority and type classes

• class: Options are FA, A, GA, B, C, Start, Stub, Dab, Template, Cat, NA. If blank, this will default as Unassessed. Descriptions of the options can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment#Quality scale. NA is "not applicable".
  • These parameters populate the following categories: Category:FA-Class biography articles; Category:A-Class biography articles; Category:GA-Class biography articles; Category:B-Class biography articles; Category:Start-Class biography articles; Category:Stub-Class biography articles; Category:Biography disambiguation pages; Category:WikiProject Biography templates; Category:WikiProject Biography categories; Category:WikiProject Biography non-article pages; and Category:Unassessed biography articles.
• priority: Top, High, Mid, Low, NA. If blank, this will default as Unknown priority. NA is "not applicable". Descriptions of the options can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment#Priority_scale. Note: only Top will have a visible effect on the template - the other options will just assign the correct category. Second note: These ratings apply only to workgroups. Because of the scale of this WikiProject it was felt that assessing priority across the whole Project would be too much. (This has the effect of meaning that Top priority can be assigned a little more liberally, as Top is now Top to the workgroup and not necessarily a core biography).
  • These parameters populates the subcategories of Category:Biography articles by priority.

Core workgroup

• core: Answer yes if, and only if, the article is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Core biographies
  • This parameter populates the subcategories of Category:Core biographies work group articles.

Maintenance parameters

• attention: Answer yes if the page needs immediate attention, otherwise remove this line.
  • This parameter populates Category:Biography articles needing attention.
• past-collaboration: If the article is or was previously a "Collaboration", set this variable as a date (e.g. 1 June - 14 June 2006), otherwise remove this line.
  • This parameter populates Category:Past Biography collaborations.
• peer-review: Answer yes if the page is currently nominated for Peer review by WikiProject Biography, otherwise remove this line.
  • This parameter populates Category:Requests for Biography peer review.
• old-peer-review: Answer yes if the article has received a peer review from WikiProject Biography per the option above, otherwise remove this line.
  • This parameter populates Category:Old requests for Biography peer review.
• needs-infobox: Answer yes if the article needs an infobox, otherwise remove this line. Remember that infoboxes are not suitable for all articles, and can overwhelm short articles.
  • This box does not support nested.
• needs-persondata: Answer yes if the article needs persondata, otherwise remove this line.
  • This box does not support nested.
• activepol: Answer yes if the article is about an active politician, otherwise remove this line.
  • This parameter populates Category:Active politicians.
  • If this cannot be used (this box does not support small or nested), use {{activepolitician}}.

Other workgroup parameters

The following parameters populate the subcategories of Category:Biography articles by work group.

• a&e-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Arts and Entertainment work group, otherwise remove this line. (If the article is about a musician, please use musician-work-group=yes instead)
• politician-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Politics and Government work group, otherwise remove this line.
• british-royalty:Answer yes if the article is in the scope of WikiProject British Royalty, otherwise remove this line.
• royalty-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Royalty and Nobility work group, otherwise remove this line. (If the article is about British royalty please use british-royalty=yes instead)
• military-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Military work group, otherwise remove this line.
• sports-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Sports and Games work group, otherwise remove this line.
• s&a-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Science and Academia work group, otherwise remove this line.
• musician-work-group: Answer yes if the article is in the scope of the Biography Musicians work group, otherwise remove this line.
• peerage-work-group: Answer yes if the article is within the scope of WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage, otherwise remove this line.
• filmbio-work-group: Answer yes if the article is within the scope of WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, otherwise remove this line.

Other

• non-bio: Some workgroups or child projects might have slightly larger scope which extends beyond biographies (currently this applies only to WikiProject British Royalty which might want to include articles on, for example, the royal palaces within their scope). If an article is not a biography, and therefore not appropriate for the main Biography lists (Index · Statistics · Log) answer yes. Otherwise remove this line.
  • For current usage of this parameter, see Category:Non-biographical WikiProject Biography articles.
• removal: If the subject of this article does not want to be included in Wikipedia, you may answer yes here to flag the article for monitoring.
  • This parameter populates Category:Biography articles of living people who have requested removal.
• auto: This parameter is for the use of bots. It calls the {{stubclass}} template.
  • This category populates Category:Automatically assessed biography articles.
• listas: This parameter, which is the equivalent of the DEFAULTSORT sortkey that should be placed on all biographical articles, is a sortkey for the article talk page, e.g. for Elvis Presley, listas=Presley, Elvis -- so that the talk page will show up in the P's and not the E's of the various assessment and administrative categories. For more on this, see Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering names in a category.
  • This parameter populates the following categories: Category:Biography articles with listas parameter; and Category:Biography articles without listas parameter.
• needs-photo: Answer yes to request a photograph (or artwork) of the person(s) be added.
  • This parameter populates Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people.
  • This box does not support nested. {{reqphoto}} can be used instead.

Have an issue with the wording?

Please note that:

• The biographies of living people text is transcluded from {{Blp/BLPtext}}. Changes should be discussed at Template talk:Blp.
• The active politician text is transcluded from {{Activepolitician}}. Changes should be discussed at Template talk:Activepolitician.

Please don't request wording changes for those boilerplate messages on this template's talk page as you'll probably just be directed to the above venues.