Template talk:User Data

How do you...

How do you get the certain sections to disappear if there's nothing defined for the parameter? -Moe 17:27, 17 November 2006 (CST)

You don't have to define the parameter -- or even add the parameter to the template -- in order for it not to appear. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 18:10, 17 November 2006 (CST)

You mean how we do it technically? Every row in the table has something like:

class="hiddenStructure{{{marital status|}}}"

If you have martial status=married, that expands to:

class="hiddenStructuremarried"

Which is of course a bogus class. But if you leave married undefined, it expands to:

class="hiddenStructure"

Which makes it disappear. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 07:08, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

New fields proposal

I've implemented some new fields for this template in my testing area:

• born_date, born_month and born_year were ripped from {{Cast Data}}. If one or more of these fields is filled in, a Date of birth field will appear in the table. If all three are filled in, the user's age will be calculated, which overrides the user-specified value for age, which is only used if one of the three born_* fields is missing. (Note to Shane: I also fixed a minor comma issue: born_day=25; born_month=11; born_year=; renders "November 25," in {{Cast Data}}, but the comma obviously shouldn't be there. Maybe you can implement my fix in {{Cast Data}}.)
• showEC: if set, the user's edit count will be displayed and linked to the relevant Special:Editcount breakdown. Idea by Mercifull. Note that my testing area doesn't display this correctly, since it's on a subpage. My main user page does get it right, though.

So tell me what you think. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 07:08, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

I like them :) --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 12:00, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

I also added a timezone field. Doesn't do any magic, but it can be useful. We might also want to list admins' timezones on BW:AN. Also, I want to emphasize that this change won't break any user pages; it's fully backwards compatible. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 15:58, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

Looks good to me. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 16:00, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

The new parameters (born_day, born_month, born_year, timezone and showEC) are now available. I've looked at a couple of user pages and they weren't broken, but if my new template breaks yours anyway, please report it here or on my talk page. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 06:34, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Once again, we have two new fields: sex and femalecat. The former is just another field in the table, while the latter adds you to Category:Female Wikipedians. Tell me what you think. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:41, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

I dont like the specific female cat option. It should just be "ShowSexCat" or something which if theres a Y in there it addss you to the relevant category, either male or female, just like the country code does. --Mercifull ^{(Talk/Contribs)} 04:33, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

That would be better. I'll start coding it rightaway. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 04:58, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

It's done. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 05:15, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

The fields sex and nosexcat have been renamed to gender and nogendercat respectively, on Joe's request. sex and nosexcat still work, though. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 03:49, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

I am going t remove sex and nosex at all. It's shouldn't be there. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 06:29, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

Vacation field

I've designed two more fields:

• vacation: Set to Y if you're on vacation. This will display a "This user is on vacation" message right underneath your photo.
• vacationid: Name of the section or ID of the {{message box}} that elaborates on your vacation. If unspecified, the words "on vacation" won't be linked.

These params can be seen in action in testing area, and will be used on my user page from May 11 to May 18, when I'm going on a vacation myself (that's why I designed this thing in the first place).

So tell me if you like it. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 09:45, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

I have now incorporated these fields under the names away and awayid. A demonstration of what the away message looks like and how the awayid parameter works can be found here. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 07:34, 16 August 2007 (CDT)

Cylon=y

Why not? For those who'd admit their Cylonity, i.e. Cylon Wikipedians. DrWho42 22:47, 20 May 2007 (CDT)

That's a bit too wanky, isn't it? The "rank" field is bad enough. SMcCandlish 16:29, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

Overcat bug

This template overcategorizes, by adding people to Category:Galactipedian even if they also appear in one of the gender and/or national subcategories thereof.

This is done by design. You can not have those categories not show up by filling out the fields for exclusion. Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 18:10, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

Privacy consequences

The e-mail address and birth date categories should be removed (e-mail, gmail, and any of the IM options that also equate to e-mail addresses at those service providers), as the addresses can be harvested by spammers (and the system already has a built-in safe e-mailing feature to begin with), and the full birth date information is simply too revealing and could become an identity theft vector, especially since real names are also made available by many users, too many of whom (especially kids) are not aware of the privacy consequences of being so revealing on wide open public forums. Also, the COPPA law (US) probably legslly restricts this site from revealing any such information about minors under 13 to begin with, which could be a liability issue (not to mention it encourages "cruising" by only pedophiles). SMcCandlish 16:37, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

Use of the template is voluntary. And if you use the template, all the fields are voluntary. You don't have to fill every one of them out; you can cherry pick. If you look at it, no one needs to fill out anything on their user page. We're not like Citizendium where you have to have a biography on your userpage. There's neither a policy nor anyone here who forces you to use the template, it's a choice. You do or you don't.

In regard to the issues of e-mail harvesting... by simply linking to Special:Emailuser in your e-mail field, you circumvent the problem of harvesters.

Regarding COPPA, I'll dig through the userpages that use this template to see if anyone is under the age of 13. Though in my experience all the users who use the template (with the real names and birth dates) are well over the age of 13. And if there are uses under age 13, they haven't revealed their age or their personal information. (Also Shane, myself, and other higher ups on the Wiki have discussed the issue of COPPA before privately, so we're aware of it. Basically, the consensus was that we should be knowledgeable of it and be vigilant for underage users who willingly give out their information.)

On a similar tangent, there's nothing stopping anyone from revealing all the information in the infobox in a biographical blurb either. Although I will agree that we should probably notify users about the issues surrounding revealing their identities and age online. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 17:40, 26 September 2007 (CDT)