This template is used on ៩០០+ pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.
Because the {{WikiProject Biography}} template is used on over 900,000 pages and it puts a big strain on the servers every time it is updated (see the job queue), the template is currently protected and can be edited only by administrators.
If you would like to propose a change to this template:
If the changes are significant, then discuss it on the talk page first.
Please note: This template should be transcluded as {{WikiProject Biography}} and not substituted, 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 place the talk page of the article into an appropriate category. A manually generated (though sporadically updated) list of all the categories used in this template is at Template:WikiProject Biography/category list.
Place this template on the talk page of biography articles.
Note for |listas=: For most articles this will be "Surname, Given Names" but this is not always true. See WP:NAMESORT and Category:Names by culture for further details.
Living people, active politicians and other BLP issues
|living= Answer yes or no. If yes, this also affects the |needs-photo= parameter, to emphasize the fact that free images must be used. This parameter must be specified whether or not the person is living.
|blpo= Answer yes if the subject of the article is not a living person, but the article contains sensitive information about other living persons, otherwise remove this line.
This parameter adds {{BLP others}} above WikiProject Biography.
Can only be used if |living=no.
Note: The {{BLP}}, {{Active politician}} and {{BLP others}} banners will not be visible if WikiProject Biography is used within {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}, but the relevant categories will still be added. In such cases, these banners can still be added to a talk page by using the relevant parameters in {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}; please refer to that template's documentation for further instruction.
Any changes to the wording of these banners should be requested on the corresponding template talk page, not here.
Quality assessments
|class= Options are FA, FL, A, GA, B, C, Start, Stub, List, Book, Category, Disambig, Template or NA. If left blank, this will default to Unassessed. Descriptions of the options can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment#Quality scale.
|auto= This parameter is for the use of bots. |auto=yes indicates that an article has been assessed as Stub-Class because it has one or more stub tags.
|a&e-work-group= Answer yes if the article is within the scope of the arts and entertainment work group, otherwise remove this line. If the article is about an actor or filmmaker, please use |filmbio-work-group=yes instead; if the article is about a musician, please use |musician-work-group=yes instead.
|a&e-priority= Options are Top, High, Mid, Low or NA. If blank, this will default to Unknown.
These parameters populate the categories listed here.
|filmbio-work-group= Answer yes if the article is within the scope of WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, otherwise remove this line.
|filmbio-priority= Options are Top, High, Mid, Low or NA. If blank, this will default to Unknown.
These parameters populate the categories listed here.
|military-work-group= Answer yes if the article is within the scope of the military biography work group, otherwise remove this line.
|military-priority= Options are Top, High, Mid, Low or NA. If blank, this will default to Unknown.
These parameters populate the categories listed here.
|musician-work-group= Answer yes if the article is within the scope of WikiProject Musicians, otherwise remove this line.
|musician-priority= Options are Top, High, Mid, Low or NA. If blank, this will default to Unknown.
These parameters populate the categories listed here.
|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.
|past-collaboration= If the article was previously a WikiProject Biography Collaboration, set this variable as a date (e.g. 1 June - 14 June 2006), otherwise remove this line.
Please note that the A-Class review department of WikiProject Biography is currently inactive. This parameter cannot be used to request a new review.
Listas
|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). This is important because it is one source used by those who set DEFAULTSORT on the article; consider also setting the DEFAULTSORT for the article when setting this parameter. For more information about this, please see Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering names in a category.
|small= Answer yes to display a small version of the template aligned along the right side of the page (as opposed to at the top), otherwise remove this line.
Special
The following parameters should not normally be used.
This parameter populates the categories listed here.
|category= Answer no if, and only if, a banner is being used for demonstration or testing purposes, to prevent unnecessary or undesirable categorization.
