User:Auntof6/What to put in a biographical article

Besides text, the things listed below are good to have in biographical articles. Categories should always be included. The DEFAULTSORT and interwiki links are usually needed. The other items are not required, but they make articles better, so use them when possible.

Infobox template

It is helpful to include an infobox to summarize basic information. {{Infobox person}} can be used, but there are also special infobox templates for specific types of people. For example, there are infobox templates for different kinds of sportspeople, people in specific professions, and more. See Category:People infobox templates to find these templates.

Picture

Wikimedia Commons has pictures that can be used in Wikipedia articles. If the article has an infobox at the top of the page, the picture can be put in the infobox. If there is no infobox, the picture can be by itself at the top of the page.

Categories

See the main page: Wikipedia:Categories § Categorizing people

In articles about people, include categories for:

• The person's year of birth. For example, Category:1970 births. If you don't know the year of birth, you can use Category:Year of birth missing or Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
• Either Category:Living people or a category for the person's year of death (For example, Category:2010 deaths). If the person is dead but you don't know the year of death, you can use Category:Year of death missing
• The person's nationality, and/or more specifically where they're from. For example, people from New York City is more specific than people from New York, which is more specific than American people.
• The person's profession
• The reason we care about the person, if that's different from their profession: is the person a murder victim, an activist, a convicted criminal, someone with controversial views?

Sometimes categories are combined. For example, Category:American movie actors includes a nationality (American) and a profession (movie actor).

Alphabetical order

Most articles about people need a defaultsort tag. That makes the person appear in the right order in the categories. A defaultsort tag looks like this:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, John}}

Make sure the defaultsort value matches the name of the article.

When not to worry about alphabetical order

Some articles about people have a title that is already in the right order.

• Names of people from Iceland: People from Iceland don't use surnames like English-speaking countries do. Their names are usually in the right order without a defaultsort.
• Stage names: Names such as Heavy D do not need a defaultsort
• People who use only one name, such as Madonna, Pink, Cher, etc. They might have a surname, but if they don't use it and it's not part of the article title, a defaultsort isn't needed.

Other websites section

Include the following, if they exist:

• A link to the Wikimedia Commons category about the person

You can also include these:

• The person's official website. Use template {{official website}} for this
• A link to the person's entry at the Internet Movie Database. Use template {{IMDB name}} for this.
• A link to the person's entry at the Internet Broadway Database. Use template {{ibdb name}} for this.

Do not include too many links here. Wikipedia is not a collection of links.

Interwiki language link(s)

Interwiki language links are now kept in Wikidata. If an article about the person exists on Wikipedia in another language, make sure the articles are linked in Wikidata.