Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:25, 12 July 2013

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Infoboxes and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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This WikiProject was featured on the WikiProject report at the Signpost on 11 February 2013.

Requested modifications to legislative infobox

Hi! I'm part of a new Wikiproject, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject United States Federal Government Legislative Data, focused on writing articles about notable pieces of United States legislation. The current infobox related to this, Template:Infobox U.S. legislation, is designed primarily to contain information about enacted legislation, whereas our project is interested in also including notable proposed legislation. We'd like to see some changes in the infobox to make it more friendly/helpful to this purpose. I've outlined the proposed changes here: Template talk:Infobox U.S. legislation#Requested Modifications. I'm too new at this to do this myself and I don't want to screw up all the pages that are using this infobox. Can anyone check out my proposed modifications and help me out? Thanks! HistoricMN44 (talk) 14:21, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I just want to rescind this request, in case anyone looks at it. I've been working with some other editors in my geographical area to fix these issues. Thanks!HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:48, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox YouTube channel

Hey there WikiProject Infoboxes . I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but can one of you help me make an infobox? I want to make a an infobox for YouTube channels at

. I just do not know how. Cheers, nerdfighter 14:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

you could probably use {{infobox website}}, unless there is something specifically that cannot be handled by that template? Frietjes (talk) 16:40, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

searching at TFD, it looks like Infobox YouTube video used to exist, but was deleted. Frietjes (talk) 16:43, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Infobox orchestra

Please comment on the replacement of {{Infobox musical artist}} with {{Infobox orchestra}} at Template talk:Infobox orchestra#Use of this infobox. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

To have or not to have infoboxes

I feel WP's non-committal attitude towards infoboxes is the cause of a lot of unnecesary dissention on WP. I see Andy Mabbett (whose energy seems limitless) arguing with various parties, and it strikes me as such a waste of energy. If there was a clear direction, everyone could either fall in line or get out of the way. Of course the nature of WP is that there are few hard-and-fast rules (which I think is a major cause of arguments). I wish there could be more of an endorsement that infoboxes are a good and recommended thing, and a necessary feature if WP is going to move into the semantic web. Is there any path through which this could be achieved? -- kosboot (talk) 15:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I would like to see a requirement that all articles of certain types include infoboxes. For example, I think that all biography articles should have an infobox, but some people resist even that. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; since things have to be done by consensus, what can be done to create a strong case for infoboxes even for people who are against them? -- kosboot (talk) 22:40, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The content issues (that are specific to each article) can and need to be solved, and it requires more work than most drive-by !voters or infobox-adders are often willing to do.

This issue doesn't need force of weight behind it. It needs careful understanding of why exactly the sane/rational/intelligent editors have certain objections. Most of the issues can be resolved, but require smart solutions, such as the very restrictive documentation that we came up with for Template:Infobox classical composer. To repeat: Well-written template documentation, is a key step in solving this.

Bruteforce majority will end badly (with the editors that churn out Brilliant Prose, ie. the meat of the Featured articles, retiring in groups). Slow and careful analysis, of the all-too-real problems in infoboxes for topics with subjective areas of classification (eg "genre" or "ethnicity" or "other occupation") will potentially result in amicable steps forward. I sure as hell hope we take that slow path. –Quiddity (talk) 00:57, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly endorse Quiddity's final two sentences. However, {{Infobox classical composer}} is a pig in a poke, recreated out of precess after a legitimate deletion debate, and used mainly to replace other, better, and more richly featured infoboxes. That is not the way forward, either. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there any value in asking why infoboxes contain fields requiring subjective classification in the first place? If the field is subjective then by definition completion of it is the editor's opinion. I thought we didn't have editorial opinion in articles. If a person's "ethnicity" isn't reliably sourced it has no business being anywhere in an article, much less in the infobox. Or am I just being naive? Cottonshirtτ 04:15, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the distinction lies within the difference between the inherently subjective nature of racial classifications but the objective essence of reflecting reliable sources about a person's ethnicity. So while it would be troublesome for me to claim that some person is of X ethnicity/race, I can nevertheless reflect that a person was called X race/ethnicity in a reliable source; Eg, simply saying that Marco Rubio is Latino would be OR, but reflecting that he is called a Cuban-American politician in reliable sources would not be problematic. So even "subjective" fields can be objectively sourced. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 07:33, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The fields are all optional, and different articles might use them or might not use them (This needs to be emphasised in all the infobox-templates-documentation).

The problems generally arise when goodfaith editors try to fill in fields that don't have definitive values, or have values that changed over the course of time, or have values of varying importance (eg. the "other occupations" fields for composer's biographies), or etc.

Placing near-empty infoboxes on pages, with all the fields just aching to be filled out, is another part of the problem.

Making the documentation clearer, and getting into the habit of leaving comments saying <!-- don't fill in this field, see talk --> in certain fields on certain articles, are two potential fixes that we need to be thinking about. –Quiddity (talk) 08:33, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it's worth pointing out that infoboxes may be much more helpful to some projects than others. I'm working on one about American federal legislation. In this case, a good infobox provides a quick bite of helpful information about the bill the article is about - who introduced it, when, what committees looked at it, major votes on the bill, etc. It's easy to add that data, it's all strictly factual, and it adds value to the page to readers. I hope that any decisions made about infoboxes wouldn't negatively impact cases like this one. (I do agree that some infoboxes need better documentation...). Just my two cents as a fairly new user. HistoricMN44 (talk) 15:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Dispatch article

Infoboxes are discussed, very negatively, at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2013-07-10/Dispatch. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

RFAR

I have filed an Arb request here: link — Ched :  ?  17:25, 12 July 2013 (UTC)