This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. —spookywillowwtalk 21:39, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Reviving the Infobox Partner Field Debate
This was already spoken about a while back but didn't appear to lead to anything conclusive, so I believe it is best to revive this topic once again. The "partners" field of the {{Character}} infobox has been a point of contention, especially in its use to only list married or spousal partners.
However, some of us, myself included, believe that the field should be expanded to include all romantic partners (insofar as an actual relationship is established, of course; crushes, attractions, one-off things, and flings would very likely either not be included or subject to further scrutiny.) I myself would also argue that there is no reason to list sexual partners where there is no romantic relationship or attraction confirmed (for example, Hamato Xiono and Kazuda Xiono's mother would have procreated to make Kazuda Xiono, but we have no confirmation or indication whatsoever that they were also romantic partners).
I have also heard to some extent that the field was renamed from "Spouse(s)" to "Partner(s)" without being subject to a CT after its introduction. While I firmly believe it should remain at "Partner(s)," judging by the last SH regarding the field this is also a point of contention.
Please feel free to dicuss the matter below. I will re-summarize my personal thoughts as well. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Edit: Forgot to include a link to the previous SH; that can be found here: Forum:SH:Partners field in character infoboxes
Edit 2: Notice: The first CT regarding this subject, this one focused around whether or not to keep the field and what it should be named, has been published here: Forum:CT:Partner Field CT - Part the First
Discuss
- As mentioned above, I personally believe that the field should remain named "Partner(s)" and that it should be expanded to include all romantic partners (the "partners" bit is an important clarification), rather than exclusively married/spousal/common-law partners. I also do not believe characters having a sexual interaction alone qualifies them for the field if there is no romantic relationship (not merely attraction) implied or clarified. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- As an aside, if we agree there is a need to still denote spousal/married/common-law partners separately, this could easily be achieved with the {{C}} template. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think this aligns with my opinion exactly. Because of how often partners just don't get married in Star Wars and how marriage in Star Wars isn't even necessarily one set thing or really clearly legally defined like in real life, I think it's just too limited. And I really don't think it'll be difficult to discern between relationships and just crushes or one-night-stands. Panther436 (talk) 19:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Worth semi-noting that if two individuals had a child together and then (later) go on to raise the child together as part of one family, they could be in a queerplatonic partnership even if we don't know that they're a romantic pair. Bpth could easily be listed as (co-parent) or something to show that they still maintained a partnership of some sort, especially if long-term. Examples of this seem to be Phel and Sana Starros' father and Jorinda (due to barely being mentioned) and given Kaz is raised in what's defined to be a 'family,' both of his parents would be able to fit under a co-parent label as well. Would not apply for one-offs resulting in a child, but was more thinking if we do have proof that two individuals were coparenting a child for a length of time.—spookywillowwtalk 23:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I personally believe we should do away with the field completely as it leads to mostly speculation. And if we concrete define what goes in it, the arguments will continuing, only to argue that a certain situation does fit the established criteria. There's too much wiggle room here for this field to exist. NBDani
(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 18:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I personally prefer "Spouse(s)", but regardless, a CT should be made because there was not CT to change to "Partners". ThrawnChiss7
Assembly Cupola 18:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC) - I didn't actually comment on the first one but had some various thoughts:
- If kept, I do like it being named Partner(s), but think that should run through CT proper to codify it, because it's ultimately a major template and we really should've gone through the process proper—I do see that we really had no right to change it outright without discussion in hindsight.
- And then if kept, I think we should definitely list things in {{C}} to specify what relationship someone has to another, so it's clear. We might end up with an individual with a (spouse), (lover), or what have you, and it could get rather confusing if there's a longer list of individuals without those noted down. Probably also to be listed chronologically or alphabetically, to take out significance bias of what order to list partners in.
- But also mainly re: Dani this essentially can lead to very easily people slipping in headcanons based on perceived flirting. It does seem fine to open it up to people specifically identified as lovers, partners, boyfriend/girlfriend for longer than a brief period when the relationship is clearly defined and/or raising a family together as a couple; but things like crushes—especially if one-sided—aren't really "partners" in any sense of the word if it's not mutual, and should probably explicitly define in policy what is and isn't flying so we don't end up with a ton of that.—spookywillowwtalk 18:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I absolutely agree that it needs to be explicitly defined so cases that aren't actual partnership—ie just attractions or crushes—aren't filling up the infoboxes. Otherwise we'd have cases like Chelli Lona Aphra being listed in Luke Skywalker's "Partners" field despite it being a VERIFIABLY one-sided crush. I can also see the worth of Dani's suggestion for the field to be removed wholesale as well, as it removes that legroom for speculation. That being said, I personally believe it would be manageable with some definition provided. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- It would be a very cursed CT but it'd probably end up being something like "Vote 1: Keep or remove field," "Vote 2: What to name the field if kept," "Vote 3: If kept, options on how loose to make the field and codified examples."—spookywillowwtalk 19:04, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I absolutely agree that it needs to be explicitly defined so cases that aren't actual partnership—ie just attractions or crushes—aren't filling up the infoboxes. Otherwise we'd have cases like Chelli Lona Aphra being listed in Luke Skywalker's "Partners" field despite it being a VERIFIABLY one-sided crush. I can also see the worth of Dani's suggestion for the field to be removed wholesale as well, as it removes that legroom for speculation. That being said, I personally believe it would be manageable with some definition provided. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per above, I'm fine with the template being "partners" but it really should've gone through a vote first since the original CT was for "spouses". Rsand 30 (talk) 19:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Entirely per Dani, both for the tendency of this to lean towards speculation and on the grounds that in general I'm against infobox bloat and I would argue a serious discussion on multiple fields on several inboxes needs to be had because there's some fields that by nature are prone to bloat. Example-the individual ship infobox has fields for all named crew members and each battle a ship was present at, leading to something like the Millennium Falcon article where scrollboxes are employed to include all info which completely defeats the point of infoboxes being something that concisely lists the most key objective information. On the issue of the partners field specifically though, I firmly oppose expanding it to any romantic partners both due to inherent subjectivity and how long a list that could create for some articles. Fan26 (Talk) 20:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- What makes a relationship worth listing? As others have said, I think it's gonna be really messy if we're collectively trying to judge every article to determine what's significant enough to be put in the infobox and what's not, so the better solutions would be to either list all romantic partners or list none at all. I especially agree with Fan that an infobox's purpose is to give readers a sense of who a character was at a glance and that infobox bloat is an impediment; we're better off focusing on tweaking the intros and article bodies to lay out relationships and situationships in a way that is both clear to readers and faithfully comprehensive to the source material. Finally, Spooky's outline of a potential voting procedure sounds good to me. OOM 224 (he/him) 22:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, this should have been voted on since the original field was voted on and this was effectively a change to something that was voted on. That being said, I think romantic partners are something many readers are looking for in an infobox. Pretty much every other wiki has them listed, and romantic partners are important people in the lives of these characters. I think it's helpful to include them, but we need strict and clear guidlines on who can and can't be included. Master Fredcerique
(talk) (he/him) 22:40, 31 January 2024 (UTC) - Since the partners CT seemed like it's going to end up passing (or at least in non-consensus, and therefore kept by default) formed up this out of boredom and had some other folk look over it, before then taking it here. Because—while I am marginally in favor of the field, I do also see the dangers of not having it tight enough, and decided it'd be fun to take a crack at a set of definably strict guidelines and would like to see others' thoughts on them.—spookywillowwtalk 21:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- Awesome work! Imperators II(Talk) 16:39, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
- Technically, since policy treats non-consensus as a proposition not passing, and the proposition is to keep the field, if the proposition doesn't get enough votes to pass, the field would be removed. (Probably the vote should have been for the active option rather than the passive one, but this is not how the proposition is worded.) Asithol (talk) 17:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
- Worth noting that the the field in its original form was itself adopted through a clear community consensus, so a result of no consensus on this follow-up vote (regardless of whether it's phrased as keeping it or removing it) would not lead to the field's removal. Imperators II(Talk) 22:13, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
