Template talk:Infobox spy

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Espionage Template‑class Top‑importance

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Military history: Intelligence Template‑class

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	Intelligence task force

Missing fields[edit]

The template is missing some notable fields, including:

Convictions & sentences
Handler
Whom and/or what the person spied against and/or for
Motive

Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can owner of this profile also please add "relatives"? - Aboudaqn (talk) 21:20, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we need a "double agents" template?[edit]

In the "Double_agents" category are listed several spies that had a codename for the government they were serving and another one for the other government they were spying on.
Maybe another template is needed because listing all the different codenames it's ok if he/she was a "unidirectional" spy but not for double agents... huh?
Not to mention the "triple agents" Markus Wolf (1923-2006) wrote about in his essay "Man without a face: the memoirs of a spymaster".
Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 08:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and also Triple Agent (e.g., Yevno Azef) – and if "Other" at the bottom is supposed to mean "other jobs," etc., then perhaps we a further "Cover" sub-section (e.g., Valerie Plame? – Aboudaqn (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Flags[edit]

The "Allegiance" field should not use flags, per WP:MOSICON. --John (talk) 07:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WORDPRECEDENT disagrees.Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't. It refers to "military units, government officials, or national sports teams". A spy does not fall into any of the three exceptions we have agreed. --John (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who's "we"? :-) Spies work for governments ("...where the subject actually represents that country, government..."), and apart from double-agents, also have very clear allegience to a particular country, which would make a flag entirely appropriate in this case.

PS: You dropped two important words from the words you quoted above: "such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams" (a subtle, but very important difference in meaning there when they are re-added). Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:50, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What do you contend that the flags add? --John (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously? The flags are so striking and informative a glance -- why would anyone want to remove them? (Besides citing "they said so," whoever "they" are) - Aboudaqn (talk) 21:21, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Codenames[edit]

I have a problem with "Codenames". Even though the template has upto 10 codenames, I have having difficulty to add even more than 10. There is a spy, I am re-writing the article which she could have used upto 18 codenames/aliases. Is there any chance the codenames be increased to 20? Adamdaley (talk) 00:30, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The codename3 parameter is no longer displaying on page Anthony Blunt. Why is that? --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:28, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've increased the limit back to 5 - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 00:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Adamdaley -- please, let's have "unlimited" codenames enabled (because, of course, there is some limit, it just varies per person) - Aboudaqn (talk) 21:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Image syntax[edit]

Articles using this template are in Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax even with correct syntax. Myra Soble is an example. Frietjes? MB 22:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:MB, should be fixed now. Frietjes (talk) 16:57, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Embedding[edit]

When I tried to embed this into Template:infobox academic on the Alison Frantz page, it inserted the word "Title" ahead of "Espionage activity". I've currently jerry-rigged it by making spy the main infobox and emgedding academic, but it's a little backwards given that Frantz was an academic who did a bit of spying, not the other way around. Does anyone know why this happens or how to fix it? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Investigating... — hike395 (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed -- the code in this infobox was just plain broken on embedding, now it should work. — hike395 (talk) 05:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]