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RfC: Should the "influences" & "influenced" parameters be removed?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

On July 1, 2013 a proposal was made on this page suggesting that the ‘influences’ and ‘influenced’ parameters be removed from the INFOBOX PERSON template. Supporters for removal cited these reasons:

  • The infobox should be exclusively for simple facts (date and place of birth and/or death, etc.). A discussion of influences should be in the body of the article, with sources.
  • Infoboxes aren't special zones where core content policies can be ignored, especially those regarding unsourced material, undue weight and NPOV. "Influences" in infoboxes are particularly prone to such violations
  • These are probably the most problematic of all the common infobox fields.
  • It has been a bucket-against-the-ocean situation in filmmaker articles, absorbing large amounts of time by Project Film editors in policing the generally unfounded claims placed there. Even cited claims, without context, add little useful information.

Included in this RfC section was a copy of a survey at the Wikiproject Film and links to a survey at WikiProject Actors and Filmakers where there appeared to be unanimous support for the proposed removal. All total about 50 editors participated in this survey in various locations which resulted in a very strong consensus for the proposed removal with less than 10% of the participants stating their opposition.

There was also general support from several editors, for the enactment of the proposal and in an extensive discussion they attempted to appease the concerns of the three participants who had previously opposed the removal and who continued to express their objections with enthusiasm.

The removal of the ‘influences’ and ‘influenced’ parameters from the INFOBOX PERSON template was enacted on July 5, 2013 but then reversed for further discussion. The change was then reinstated on July 22, 2013 and to the best of my knowledge remains in force today.

Note: I am an uninvolved, non-Admin closing this RfC per the guidelines at WP:RFC after finding this item listed at WP:ANRFC.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Should the influences and influenced parameters be removed from {{Infobox person}}? 19:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It has been a week since the discussion was expanded into an RFC, and the consensus is clearly unchanged. Reinstating the edit that removes the parameters.—Kww(talk) 16:07, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 July 2013

Edit request relating to the removal of the parameters. This was enacted but then reversed to facilitate further discussion.

After thorough discussions involving a large number of editors since April, with postings at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, from which this has been transposed, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers pointing to that page, there is what appears to be unanimous support for the removal of the "influences" and "influenced" fields since these have been continuously prone — as the template's own directions warn — to uncited and sometimes grandiose claims and fannish POV. It has been a bucket-against-the-ocean situation in filmmaker articles, absorbing large amounts of time by Project Film editors in policing the generally unfounded claims placed there. Even cited claims, without context, add little useful information. We urge the admins of this template to please take these comments, gathered over months, to heart and work with us on this otherwise intractable problem. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Additional note: One other possibility, if other projects feel theses fields aren't prone to subjectivity, is to create an "infobox filmmaker" without them. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:11, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
I removed the "Influences/ Influenced" parameters per the request, and tested it in a sampling of infoboxes. I did not renumber the parameters following the two deleted ones. If there is some reason that it is important to do so, let me know. I didn't believe the risk of screwing things up to make an unnecessary change was justified.—Kww(talk) 03:08, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikiproject Film discussion

Extended content
Note this section was copied from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film#Infobox: "Influences / Influenced"--Salix (talk): 18:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
The following was copied to this page on 5 July. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It may be time to rethink this portion of the filmmakers infobox, or at least set specific standards. Right now it's little more than a dumping ground for fans' POV assumptions of who they believe influenced so-and-so, or who so-and-so influences. Yet virtually never do they give citations for these claims. And how could they? Mostly these claims come from own minds. At Tim Burton, people have added names with no basis other than the editors' own POV assumptions. Cites in the article body support only the two influences currently in the infobox — which has been cleaned out before, and will almost invariably get filled in again with fans' uncited presumptions.

Do we really need those two fields in the infobox? Additions there are almost never cited, and these fields seem to do nothing but encourage amateur film buffs from adding their own POV claims. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This has been a problem ever since the "actor infoboxes" (in which we had eliminated several of these subjective POV fields) were merged back into the "person infobox". At the very least these should be sourced. IMO it would be better to have their mention in the body of the article where some context could be given. It would also be nice to keep them to a minimum but I don't know if either of these are workable. Whatever we decide we should note it at our MoS at the actors and filmmakers project. MarnetteD | Talk 20:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
This may become less of a problem when the Infoboxes are migrated to Wikidata (due to start tomorrow), with the complexity to adjust them putting off those embarking on a simple POV insertion and more eyes (across multiple wikis) watching that subsequent changes. I agree entries should be sourced at minimum, ideally with a self-declaration for influences and a declaration from the 3rd party subject of the influenced field. for that field.Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
I favor their complete removal from the infoboxes, where they serve no purpose. The infobox should be exclusively for simple facts (date and place of birth and/or death, etc.). A discussion of influences should be in the body of the article, with sources. ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 13:05, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal of field. In an article, influences can be discussed in prose with sources. The infobox should deal with hard facts, not subjective information like this. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Agree with The Old Jacobite and Rob Sinden, the infobox should be for simple uncontroversial facts.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 13:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree also. I've restored this discussion from Archive 46, since we reached what appears to be a consensus as of May 2 and no one made additional comments after enough time that the auto-archiving took this. No one acted on this consensus, but in the interest cautious and prudent before we remove that problematic field, let's post this one more time to make sure all voices have been heard. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to make sure a related project is aware, I've put a notice of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

There is no doubt that we in the film project have agreed to remove the fields in question. I should point out that other projects - BLP & Biography, Novels etc - have not. Thus, if any of us were to go to the "infobox person" and remove the fields I am guessing there would be resistance if not outright WikiDrama. So, I want to suggest that we simply add to the MoS for the film and filmmakers projects that the fields are not used and to be removed from individual article infoboxes whenever possible. This is just one editors idea if any of you have other ones please feel free to mention them. I do hope that we move on this. We have had discussions in the past about altering the film MoS and then time goes by and threads get archived (as this one did) and we forget to followup. Please note I don't mean this to sound accusatory - I am as forgetful about this as anyone (as the thread I am about to add below will show.) Thanks to everyone for adding their thoughts and opinions to this thread. MarnetteD | Talk 04:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
This project has, I think, a solid basis for removing this parameter from every person who is primarily known as a film director or producer. There might be a little resistance if we apply the removal to actor and actress infoboxes. Binksternet (talk) 05:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
You are correct - although I can't really remember seeing the fields used in the later - not that they aren't out there I just don't remember seeing them. We can always direct editors to this discussion if they question our changes to the MoS's. MarnetteD | Talk 05:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Survey

  • Oppose' for now. It's clear that some affected projects (films & acting; I assume in good faith) have been notified; but what about others? Such a wide-ranging proposal for change should be widely notified; to all affected projects, or through a centralised discussion. Note also that this issue is not a reason to fork the template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Orson Welles's infobox has gone back and forth for a year, now, with POV edits at regular intervals. — WFinch (talk) 01:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Many others hit the problem: without context or sourcing, such lists are POV. They are also excessive for an infobox, which really should relate only key information, which this is not. Far better suited as a sourced section in the article body. Resolute 01:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I agree with Andy Mabbett, that some care is needed. First we need to check just how big the effect of the removal would be. I would suggest adding a tracking category Category:Articles using the influence field of infobox person and adding the appropriate template code. Let that populate the category for a day or so and then see if it is just film people. We may well find that other professions use it, writer, scientist etc. Then when we see if its just a film thing or not we can proceed.--Salix (talk): 13:18, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Now tracking into Category:Infobox person using influence.--Salix (talk): 17:21, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
The categories taking a while to fill but the first two are Martin Luther King, Jr. and Kevin Vanhoozer (a theologian) neither of whom are in film, so its looking like a wider issue than just film. I'm concerned that all the comments upto 5th of July are from one section of the community. For philosophy and theology there is a big tradition of schools of thought with people in one school influencing others, and philosophers often have a lineage of influence.--Salix (talk): 17:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Mention of the philosophers precisely illustrates the point that they need to be mentioned in prose in the body of the article. In the Vanhoozer article these names are in the infobox Robert Gundry, John Frame, Augustine, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Paul Ricoeur. None of them are sourced. None of the are mentioned in the body of the article let alone is there any description of how they influenced him. Thus, it is just a meaningless list of names. As you state "tradition of schools of thought with people in one school influencing others" in philosophy, but, if you don't describe how they influenced each other the info adds nothing to a readers learning and, indeed, leave one understanding less after perusing the article rather than more. MarnetteD | Talk 18:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's information that is commonly mentioned in reliable sources, particularly for painters and musicians. That tree of influence is of interest to some people and should be preserved. Having it in its own fields in the Infobox makes it easy to extract into Wikidata and will make it easy for it to be of use. Much of WP is not sourced because people don't always take the time to do so, not necessarily because the info is wrong. I understand policy to be to challenge something that has a reasonable chance of being wrong and give others a chance to defend it before swinging the axe. Wholesale assertion of a whole class of data as wrong without proof, without a chance to defend it, and deleting it all – that's just wrong. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:58, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Comment: "Much of WP is not sourced because people don't always take the time to do so, not necessarily because the info is wrong." If people aren't taking the time to cite, that's a huge irresponsibility that cuts at the very core of Wikipedia policy and we have to spend the same amount of time policy that as policing incorrect subjective claims. And this category's very nature makes it the target of subjective claims by fans. It has been out of control for some time, and while we can argue theory about inclusion or removal of infobox categories, in the real world of editing filmmaker articles, these subjective and/or unverified claims are taking up an enormous amount of time and energy to continue addressing. And it won't end, because there are always going to be fans throwing subjective claims into infoboxes, where experience has shown us that wrong information will remain in place longer than in article bodies, which editors check more frequently. --Tenebrae (talk) 16:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support - This is information with should be in prose. Not in an infobox. Garion96 (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support away from just the film situation. As my example above illustrates these fields bring no understanding for readers who are not familiar with a given subject. MarnetteD | Talk 18:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. "Influences", be it of an artistic or philosophical or political nature, are by their very nature a vague and complex issue. Of course our articles ought to treat such influences, as well-sourced statements in prose, but I find it hard to imagine a situation where they could usefully be condensed to a simple list of names that would be appropriate for a box, and browsing through several entries of the tracking category mentioned above I clearly get the impression that few if any of the existing uses of these fields have been useful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal of the fields for the reasons given. It attracts cruft and encourages bad habits; and it does not fit with the purpose of an infobox. When the music articles stopped including the "Reviews" in the infobox it was a step in the right direction. The same arguments apply here. —Designate (talk) 12:58, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. These entries require context so the reader can understand the nature of any influence and sources because otherwise they are just junk. Particularly if infobox data is to be transferred to Wikidata, it must be unambiguous and bullet-proof in the sense of "would survive any Featured Article Candidacy or Review of an article including it".
    I have checked a couple of items in the tracking category:
    • in the case of Steve Jobs, Edwin H. Land is listed as an influence. The article supports this with a reliable source, but I question whether, in the context of schools of philosophy and so on, this field was ever intended for influences such as "great admiration" or "individual role-model". The article can make the nature of the influence clear, the infobox cannot.
    • in the case of Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin is listed as an influence but is not mentioned in the article at all! The influenced list has
      • Johnny Carson, both articles mention they worked together, no real mention of "influence"
      • Steve Martin, no other mention, Martin does not mention Benny at all
      • Richard Pryor, reciprocal mentions in the infobox, no other mentions in the articles. Pryor uses Infobox comedian, which still has these lists. Most entries in the Pryor lists are sourced, but as it happens the Benny entry is one of several that are not.
      • Phil Hartman, no other mention, Hartman does not mention Benny at all
      • Bob Newhart. Benny does not mention Newhart. Newhart has "in the Benny tradition" without an explicit source
    Thus, in just these first two articles I have looked at, most of the entries are unsourced and should never have been accepted in the first place. The rest are sufficiently subtle to require context in the article as well as reliable sources.
    Finally, for clarity I would like to explain that I fully support the general principle of providing metadata separated from content. Those pushing energetically for this do their cause a disfavour by trying to extend the concept to unsuitable information. --Mirokado (talk) 14:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong support for removal, which should not be construed as opposition to the notion of tracking influences in many fields. The concept is enormously important, and often insightful. However, a field with either "influences" or "influenced" implies that the answer to the question "Did person X influence person Y" is a binary notation which can be fully answered with a simple yes or no. Even a numerical score would not fully capture the notion, as Nietzsche was undoubtedly influenced by Aristotle in some areas, but perhaps not in others. This is precisely what prose is well-equipped to do—discuss the extent to which one person influenced another. To reduce this to a single bit of information is over-simplification carried to an extreme. While this may have been prompted by editors interested in film, it is equally true of other areas, such as economists, philosophers and artists. It would be a bad idea even if it were an attempted summary of a discussion carried out in prose, but it is doubly a bad idea because I have seen it used often when the the main article does not even discuss the influenced issue, much less have references to support the claim.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:13, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support as not needed IMO & per all above!. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:57, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal SPhilbrick points out that an infobox entry on incluenced/influences reduces the question to "yes" (person A influenced person B), or "no" (person A did not influence person B). That is clearly inappropriate because in almost all cases the question cannot be answered in an objective manner, and cannot be reduced to yes/no. It would not be reasonable to restrict usage to those supported by reliable sources because it is unclear how a source could be "reliable" on the question—all that could be done is to write "source X says A influenced B for this reason"—that cannot be done in an infobox. Mentioning influences in infoboxes would be misleading because it would show a very superficial tree supported by opinions on arbitrary cases (source X may say A influenced B, but if asked, X might have said "however, that influence was minor; it was really C and D that had a major influence on B's work"). Johnuniq (talk) 03:18, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Infoboxes should be restricted to unambiguous facts like birth and death dates; they're ill-designed for nuance or opinion or selective content. DrKiernan (talk) 09:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal: Although infoboxes are used to provide a condensed overview to article content, influences are best discussed in a relevant section within the article itself. There is absolutely no room in infoboxes to develop discussion beyond "who".— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fylbecatulous (talk • contribs)
  • Support removal. This is the sort of information that belongs in the body of the text, not the sort of "quick basic facts" expected in an infobox. Angr (talk) 21:54, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Nope, it looks fine the way it is. WikiProjects who find it 'inaccurate' should not use the influence/influences parameter, but the other WikiProjects, such as Literature, should be able to use it, as it helps define the subject and perhaps further explain the reasons as to why a particular figure may have acted the way he/she did. I think it's not a discussion about removing it or not; I think it's more of a discussion about using it or not. You may want to put this under a broader RFC, as it affects WikiProjects throughout Wikipedia, not just the ones that you have mentioned above. --JustBerry (talk) 02:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
If you will scroll up you will see that nine different wikiprojects have been notified of this discussion. As to literature if you look at the Agatha Christie article, to give just one example, Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katherine Green, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton are listed as influences. None of them are sourced and only Doyle is mentioned in the article. So this leaves a list of names which may or may not have influenced her but are meaningless for the reader. No one is saying that the subject of an article should not mention the people who influenced them and those they influenced. What we are saying is that they need to be discussed in prose in the article with proper sourcing. MarnetteD | Talk 03:43, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong support for removal. A pointless fancruft magnet at the very best of times. - SchroCat (talk) 05:09, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal, having just deleted the singer from Mumford & Sons from G. K. Chesterton's "Influenced:" field. --McGeddon (talk) 16:02, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Strong support removal--per all of the above. Riggr Mortis (talk) 20:43, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Johnuniq's analysis is accurate and eloquent. This is not appropriate material for value-attribute pairs. In addition, this parameter has cased hundreds of articles to have spurious "information" and will continue to so unless it is removed. Voceditenore (talk) 07:48, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal, support to handle the fields with care, with a notice in the empty template example that only people whose influence appears sourced in the body of the article may be listed. (Example for usage: Franz Kafka) The notice might stay in the article, to inform later editors. I personally will not add to the parameters in my infoboxes, but respect the work of others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:45, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal Infoboxes aren't special zones where core content policies can be ignored, especially those regarding unsourced material, undue weight and NPOV. "Influences" in infoboxes are particularly prone to such violations, as the examples offered by editors above show. Plus, the usual problem of round pegs into square holes... --Folantin (talk) 11:15, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Per the above concerns about sourcing, POV, etc. Even in articles where "influence" is properly sourced, the word is so vague and semantically overloaded as to be useless for this kind of summary. There's little to be gained from knowing that X "influenced" Y if you don't know how and in what way, and trying to feed this to machines is a textbook example of GIGO. Choess (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal, often POV, often uncited, often UNDUE, often ... ugh! Get rid of it, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:50, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal - Entirely subjective parameters. Infoboxes are bloated. Carrite (talk) 01:20, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal per the above — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal It's fancruft, and in excess of the level of "essential biographical information" I would expect encapsulated in 30-second summary. At best, such mentions of "influences" and "influenced" are subjective, and could cause problems of due weight even if sourced. At worst it can easily be pushed beyond reasonableness and into potential violation of WP:BLP. As such, this is best kept clear of infoboxes. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 01:50, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal influencers and influencees are rarely cut and dry or absolute, so this information belongs in the article body where context and proper explanation can be given. Information in the infobox can be taken out of context as "fact", when these categories are more matters of opinion or analysis. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 03:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal I don't care for Infoboxes but to the extent that they have a role it should be limited to factual information. The Influences are too open to POV engineering: BigCheese reviewed a work by the subject or name-checked the subject in passing in an article, therefore some inherited glory can descend on the subject; and these are the ones which can be clearly referenced, leaving just an undue weight debate to be had. Influence should be a matter of article discussion. AllyD (talk) 06:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. These sections are just cruft magnets. They are rarely sourced and have little utility, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 06:24, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support These are probably the most problematic of all the common infobox fields. It is rare that this can be unambiguously reduced to one or two names, and if it includes more than that it misrepresents the situation, for the influences will be to a different degree (consider Freud, for example:c can think of an appropriate case: returning to psychoanalysis, the primary influence on Jung was Freud, although many more are listed in the Jung infobox (many based on an unreliable source, and not discussed further in the article--checking the articles on them, they did influence him, but clearly to lesser degree than Freud) Clearcut cases like this are not sufficient to justify keeping the infobox; the way I would handle them is to mention the primary influence by Freud in the lead of the article, and discuss the influences in sections in the article-. 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 18:48, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal. This is too subjective for an infobox field. Better to describe the nature of the influence in the body. Kilopi (talk) 01:02, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Support removal, goes against the concept of the infobox, which should be for at-a-glance facts nobody could possibly dispute. In situations where an influence is notable and supported by sources, for example Dali's many references to Vermeer or George Lucas' open admiration of Akira Kurosawa, then that info should appear in the article as prose. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The removal has happened. Of course it should be in the article as prose, sourced. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
What blindness is it that lets you not see that it happened, - you don't need to pile on. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
It was still advertised at Template:Centralized discussion. I've removed it from there. DrKiernan (talk) 20:41, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Looks like it was enacted and there was an objection that it hadn't received enough attention so it was more widely advertised to gather greater consensus, which it has. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:20, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

It's disappointing to see this change enacted, despite there being no clear consensus here and the discussion not being more widely notified as requested, It should be reversed immediately, until the later is done and consensus demonstrated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:18, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Also, the outcome doesn't really make sense. Are we saying that we will not report influences/influenced at all, or just not in the Infobox? It seems that the primary argument is that "it's too hard to police", but that would be an argument to remove the info from the article entirely, and that's not what's happening, is it? For the Infobox not to include something based on this criterion, but the article to include it makes no sense. Also, I continue to contend that it is an important topic in the study of the arts, and widely mentioned in reliable sources. Ignoring it just because it's hard is not right. There are plenty of similar examples of types of data in WP articles that need a lot of policing. They get it, too. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
It's disappointing to see such a blindingly obviously correct bold move being contested and dragged into a pointless bureaucratic discussion that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know could only have one possible outcome. Let's get on with writing an encyclopedia rather than have such ridiculous anti-intellectual nonsense cluttering up the central discussion list. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment From the comments above it seems there is a consensus the Film project find this parameter onerous. The infobox for people should contain generic parameters for documenting clear factual information that apply to everyone across the board, rather than a minority involved in certain disciplines. While "influences" may be applicable to philosophers and artists, it is overwhelmingly irrelevant to most occupations. Projects that have a specific need to document this information can easily provide it through project specific templates, or preferably through sourced prose where the context for such claims may be provided. Betty Logan (talk) 11:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment The removal of this parameter was supported by the above consensus. The parameter is a controversy magnet, guaranteed to engender endless debate and needlessly consume the time of good editors. Do you honestly think you can reduce a person's "influences" to a few words? This exemplifies Andy's blind spot perfectly. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • There seems adequate consensus to remove influences/influenced. @AlanM1: Where appropriate, of course an article should discuss influences/influenced, but it should be done in the article where some context can be given (was the influence great or small? did the person acknowledge the influence? in what way is the influence recognizable?). In many cases, it seems likely that an attribution would be necessary ("critic X says A influenced B") because the bare statement "A influenced B" is stating someone's opinion in Wikipedia's voice as a known fact. In the vast majority of cases, there would be no objective way of assessing how much of B's work was influenced by A, nor would it generally be possible to decide why A should be mentioned as influencing B, but not C or D or E. The docs for Template:Infobox scientist say that influences/influenced should only be for people who had physical contact with the scientist—that is to avoid nonsense like listing 100+ names as being influenced by Einstein. Johnuniq (talk) 12:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no "above consensus", save for that at the film project, which doesn't have precedence here. Discounting the !votes copied from there, there seems to have been a 6:3 split. That's not consensus, and my call for wider participation remains unaddressed. Why not see what the community's view is? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Since the above post was made, and following wider solicitation for comments, it seems clear there is a far wider consensus for removal than by any one Project. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
If you want to solicit more input, by approaching other wikiprojects or by listing this as a general RfC, feel free to do so. But the prevailing opinion as expressed here so far, including all the opinions from a wider audience registered after you posted at WP:AN today, is clearly in favour of removal, so it will certainly be justified to keep the fields out for the time being, pending any hypothetical swing of opinions in the other direction. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
My posting at WP:AN was a procedural note asking for an admin to enact the above {{Editprotected}}; nothing else. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:22, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I know that, but it's evidently had the side-effect of also bringing more previously uninvolved editors from a wider audience in to comment here. So far, every single one of them has supported the removal. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:59, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Andy, there most certainly is clear consensus here, so that aspect of your complaint is obviously invalid. And FTR, my support for removal applies to all professions using this infobox, not just film and actors. It's a bad field everywhere. Resolute 15:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm marking this edit request as  Not done. First off, I agree with Andy that there were procedural problems with the removal of this parameter. While there was a strong consensus for removal from the discussion at WikiProject Film, this template affects many more projects than just that one, and I think there should have been a discussion involving a broader section of the community before the parameter was actually removed. Having said that, the initial consensus from discussion on this page is also for removal of the parameter, and so it seems to me that not much would be gained from reverting. For the purposes of discussion, it doesn't really matter whether the parameter is present or not in the live template, and if we reverted we might only end up reinstating the edit again. This template has 130,000+ transclusions, so we should avoid reverting unnecessarily. Instead, I think it would be better to let the discussion run its course, and perhaps expand it into a full RfC with a listing at WP:CENT. After the discussion has finished we can ask an admin to close it (I am willing to do so - just leave a note on my talk page) and then the edit can be reverted or not as necessary. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:19, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Update: I have just noticed that Kww has restored the parameter pending the outcome of this discussion. I should have checked that before writing the above post, but I'm going to leave it in place as it is mostly still relevant to the discussion. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm seeing something like two editors against the change out of the large number who support it. And one of those two editors seems to be saying that this is about removing any mention of influences from articles, which is just not so — this is only about the two fields in the infobox. I know this isn't a poll or a vote, but I'm not sure "consensus" means "unanimous". --Tenebrae (talk) 21:02, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
There are more than two of us opposing and the reason is that this decision will have wide-ranging effects, but the proposal has not been widely advertised by its proponents. One project - no doubt in good faith - has effectively been canvassed,while others affected have not been informed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I've gone to the first two entries at Category:Infobox person using influence, which are architect Rajon Das and "senior talent recruiter and motivator ... involved in planning terrorist operations" Anwar al-Awlaki, and while a couple of the influences/influenced entries in their infoboxes are cited in their articles, the bulk of them are not. I'd have to think that as bad as unreferenced claims of influence are in the filmmakers project, it's probably far worse to have such uncited claims in articles involving politically related subjects. --Tenebrae (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Andy's objection—at least his initial one—seems to be that the unanimous support disproportionately draws from one project. Given the subsequent comments I don't think that argument quite stands any more, but at the same time it wouldn't hurt to reach out to other projects. You should slap an RFC tag on this discussion and get some site wide input and see where we end up. Betty Logan (talk) 21:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm in the middle of a contentious RfC now, and a discussion at another talk page seems headed that way. I don't think I have the emotional wherewithal for a third. Honest to God, these things take it out of you.... --Tenebrae (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I've taken care of it. If it becomes contentious then the parameters won't be getting removed anyway, but if the position is largely supported then we may as well push ahead. Betty Logan (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts. I can understand the reasoning behind removing it, but I suggest editors do not go around and remove the field from articles until a consensus develops to avoid edit wars and wiki-drama. See Alan Moore for example. I'd also caution editors that removing sourced material from an article, again Alan Moore is an example, is not a good thing. I would strongly recommend that any influences which are sourced should be added into the text of the article, or failing that placed on the talk page rather than lost in the edit history of the article. That's the best service to our readers and to previous editors and I hope a consensus to remove the field does not result in a removal of the field from a template and the loss of valuable, sourced information. Editors should be prepared to do some legwork to support the recommended change. Hiding T 15:48, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The proposal is to remove the influenced/influences fields from the template. The text would still be in the article wikitext, but it would not be displayed. It would be up to those following particular articles to move any useful (but not displayed) wikitext from the template to a suitable place in the article, if any. I agree that no one should go on a pointless rampage to delete all the wikitext—leave it up to someone who will care for the article, although I can see why a couple of editors think that Alan Moore has a rather large number of people mentioned. Johnuniq (talk) 23:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Note that removing parameters from an infobox template also removes contnet from articles, but without creating a watchlist notification for those following particular articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
That is true with the respect to watchlist notifications. However, in this particular case, if the "influences" are discussed and referenced in the article's text (where such a subjective judgement must be), removing that parameter does not remove content at all. If they are not discussed and referenced in the article's text, the loss of this spurious "content" is not a problem in my view. Voceditenore (talk) 07:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I think in this case a project could help by an advice to its members to carefully look at the parameters and in case of doubt better not use them. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:54, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
The potential help from individual project guidance is both minimal and impractical. As we have been told many times, no one is required to take a blind bit of notice of what projects say in their guidelines. Besides, many (probably most) of the misuses of this parameter are not added by editors who are members of specific projects. Often they are drive-by edits from people desperate not have an orphan tag on "their" article or are ones from editors seeking to make their subject look more important than he/she is. Most active projects which deal primarily with the content of articles in their scope are small, with very few truly active members (who already have a lot on their plate) and many articles in their scope. They simply don't have the people-power to go around monitoring all the infoboxes to look for problems created by others. The larger umbrella projects don't do significant content work at all. Many, many articles have only the umbrella Biography Project banner on their talk pages or at most a couple of other banners for defunct, moribund, or only tangentially related projects. There are over 1 million articles with the Biography banner. Voceditenore (talk) 09:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Concur with Voceditenore. The abuse of the infobox "influence" parameters is simply too widespread and recurrent to police. And concur with Gerda Arendt that in case of doubt about the way a parameter is used, it is better not to use them, i.e., remove them. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:08, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
I feel misunderstood ;) (It happens.) I said "not use them", in the future. I did not say "remove them" because it would affect the efforts of previous contributors. See above, look for Kafka. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
My apologies. I'm sure you can see how "not use them" could be taken the way I'd interpreted. I've struck out that portion of the above.
That said, responsible contributors would have put that information, with citing, into the article of the body, not just in the infobox, which is a summary of the article and does not contain information not found in the article. I would agree with the overwhelmingly majority of editors here in favor of removing the problematic fields from the infobox. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:02, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Come to think, I'm not sure what's meant by "not use them". If they remain in the template, they'll be used. Which is the root of the problem, their being used by fans pushing uncited POV. --Tenebrae (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Now I come to think. Look at Kafka, both parameters are there (not by me), names that appear sourced in the article. Removing the parameters would cause them disappear from the infobox without even a warning to the authors that something changed. Do you think that's fair? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
What does fair have to do with it? Changes to templates, infoboxes, editing methods, etc happen all the time around here. For instance we lost the OBOD a few months ago without any notice at all. It is part and parcel of editing an online encyclopedia. I hope that you realize that everyone who edits an article is one of the "authors." As has been stated by numerous contributors to this discussion a list of names in the infobox gives no indication how the subject was influence by those people or how the subject influenced others. If they are not discussed in prose in the article then the mention of them in the infobox is meaningless. MarnetteD | Talk 23:24, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
I realize that every contributor to an article is an author, but how would you name someone who made some hundreds of edits to an article compared to one who made one or two? - We are talking about example Kafka, where the selected people (of many more) who influenced him and the selected ones (of many more) who are influenced by him ARE discussed in the article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
I think the Kafka article makes the case for dropping the parameters to be honest. Things like his birth date and alma mater are factual content well suited to the infobox i.e. they don't require any extra exposition for us to understand their nature. As for the influence names, it is impossible to know how they relate to Kafka without reading the article. Any data in the infobox which requires exposition in the article to be fully understood probably isn't suited to the infobox. The infobox should be self-serving in giving us a brief factual overview of his life, but there is no way to square that with such incredibly subjective parameters. Betty Logan (talk) 07:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
You can't see in the article anymore what I wanted to explain, because the parameters were removed. Anybody who knows what Søren Kierkegaard, Heinrich von Kleist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, and Franz Grillparzer stand for, could see at a glace what influenced Kafka. I find/found that helpful. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
While this subject is now closed I will point out that Wikiepdia's articles are for readers who "don't" know what those people stand for or have in common. The only way for an average reader to discover any connection between those people is for it to be expressed in prose in the body of the article. That is precisely what people who took part in this discussion pointed out again and again. MarnetteD | Talk 19:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
May I point out that the parameters were collapsed, and of service for those who were interested enough to click "show". Why not add something for their understanding? - I am also afraid that those who don't know Dostoyevsky will likely not get far in reading Kafka, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
You just don't seem to understand that a name in an infobox is meaningless without context. Those that don't know Dostoyevsky won't get anything by his name being Kafka's infobox. BTW there are all manner of learning styles out there. I have no doubt that there are men and women who have read Kafka who have gotten plenty out of his works without reading a word of, or even knowing who Dostoyevsky is. MarnetteD | Talk 20:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't see why we should keep the parameters and their associated fields when the parameters are no longer called. If the influences are notable and are sourced, they will all be in the body of the article, so removing these parameters should not result in any loss of qualitative information. It would just serve to clutter up the already very busy edit window, and maybe as some sort of sop who dream one day of resurrecting the appearance on the face of the infobox, with all the concomitant problems that that restoration would bring. I suspect that the problem is widespread enough for a bot request to be made to remove |influences= and |influenced= along with their associated content from articles that use this infobox. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 02:30, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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