User:Geogre/Templates

The subject of templates and "infoboxes" on articles causes conflict among editors from time to time. I have been involved in the past, and many of the people who write quite a few articles have as well, with either fending off an unwanted box or trying to add a template or box that some other or others have no faith in. To try to settle these disputes amicably, I am writing the following to try to set out some principles that can guide us. No set of principles can act as a universal law, and the words "always" and "all" should be used sparingly on Wikipedia and readily sacrificed to individual circumstances.

What is an infobox?

An infobox is, first and foremost supplementary content. It is a quick and easy summary, in graphical form, of the contents of a longer, discursive article or it is information presented purely as a supplement to the vital information. However, all of what is contained in an infobox must be derived from the article or non-essential to the article. It cannot have information that is not present in the work it graces or information that is vital. If it does, then it is no longer an infobox, but rather a competing article lodged within a topic or the main article itself.

So, if an infobox is a summary in graphical form, then its primary uses (not advantages nor disadvantages) are:

1. It is a fast read.
2. It conveys commonly accepted high points of distinction from similar articles of the type.
   1. It makes all of a certain type of article "uniform" and "consistent."
   2. It is helpful for those comparing across a type of article.
3. It is visually appealing.

Each of these uses carries with it a peril and an element that can lead to dispute. The very things that make an infobox work can be things that make people argue over its existence, its content, and its placement. Some of these include (matched with the "uses," above):

1. It threatens to eliminate the longer article by implying that all of those words are mere padding.
2. The material has been selected by a third party to the article rather than by cited sources or the presumed expert editor(s) who constructed the rest of the article.
   1. It implies that there are uniform elements of distinction between articles of a given type (that birth and death dates are vital distinctions in biographies, for example, or that the record label is a vital distinction among CD's).
   2. It implies that a given article should be seen primarily in the context of a given type of article (that this is a biography and should be measured like biographies, that this is a music CD and should be measured that way).
3. It is graphical.
   1. The placement of the graphical object could disrupt the placement of images, the formatting of paragraphs, and the alignment of text with images in an article.
   2. The graphical element may be unncessary, may be viewed as "ornament" or "decoration."

The objections and supporting views to infoboxes cannot be reduced to a universal. In one case, a box may meet no objection. In another case, a box may be seen as destructive. I could well agree that putting an album infobox on Saturday Night Fever is logical and useful and yet think that putting a biographical infobox on Giles Mompesson is destructive, as I might argue, in the former case, that the record album made the fortunes of a record label, set the stage for soundtracks as independent albums, and launched disco, while, in the latter case, that Mompesson isn't all that important as a biography, that what is vital is his demonstration of the loopholes of court patronage and his role as a causus belli for the Puritains in the English Civil War. Similarly, I may have no objection to a saint box put on Rupert of Salzburg, as there are no pictures of him worth getting, but be terribly upset if a novel box were put on the carefully illustrated Oroonoko.

Therefore, it seems to me, that we have to recognize that each usage can meet with valid objections and valid supports and try to work out a universal procedure rather than an universal decision.

What is a tag

Tags are little packages of information that go at the head of a page. As such, they can do something inarguable, like announce that one is looking at a disambiguation page, something procedural, like tell you that the page has been nominated for deletion, or do something to sound an alert or warning, like tell you that someone thinks the page is pointedly from a point of view.

Tags of procedure

Tags that announce the function or position of a page within the Wikipedia structure are generally neutral. They imply no value to a page, either good or bad, and merely inform a reader that someone thinks a merge should take place (that there is a nearly identical page to this one), that XfD is discussing the page's inclusion, or that this page is one of several that disamibiguates. (The latter, incidentally, is important, as we use disambiguation pages to avoid having subpages, but that's another subject.) Disputes over procedural tags are rare or rarely justified. (Although some do argue that any meta-data, including these tags, belongs on the article talk page, not on the article itself.) Removing them is, without question, wrong, and placing them is, without question, proper. When a new and excited author removes the AfD or TfD notice from a page he has made, he will not affect whether the page is deleted or not, as the tag is merely nunciatory and not actionable. It doesn't ask anyone to do anything. It only announces a fact.

Tags of admonition

This is where the heat comes from. A tag of admonition warns readers that there is something that needs to be done to an article. It may be that the article needs NPOV or wikification or clarification or references. It can be virtually anything. The new tags that are made are generally aimed at admonition and not procedure. (At least I have seen very few new procedural tags, where I have seen all sorts of new admonitory tags.) These have, as with infoboxes, uses that can be problems.

1. They immediately call attention to a problem.
2. They invite all readers to edit by appealing to them, rather than by merely holding it out as a possibility.
3. They deprecate a problematic page and designate it as being less "official" or "acceptable" than others.

The potential problems with these uses should be apparent at a glance.

1. They are applied by a single person who does not need to demonstrate that a problem exists.
   1. The person applying the tag does not have to present a rationale for the opinion.
   2. All of the article is denigrated by the tag at the top of the page, even though it might be a single sentence at the bottom of the article that caused the tag's application.
2. They encourage people who have not done research in a subject to "help" and thereby increase the likelihood of Wiki-Frankenstein prose.
   1. They do not actually help the page, as the person applying the tag has not necessarily edited the article in any fashion.
   2. They call names without contributing.
3. They insult the page authors by suggested incompetence or ulterior motives.
   1. They imply dominance, as the person applying the tag suggests that her or his judgment is superior to the authors'.
   2. They are negative findings: Instead of announcing what the article is or offering up a normative value against which it can be compared, the tag applier is saying, effectively, "I don't know how to write it well, but I don't like it the way it is."

Status quo versus boldness

If you wish to propose a bill before your legislature, you will have to demonstrate 1) that there is a problem with the way things are, 2) that your bill will cure the problem, and 3) that your bill does not introduce new problems. In other words, there is an inherent advantage to the status quo over all changes. Before anyone advocates a change, he needs to demonstrate that there is a reason for a change, that there is a problem. Additionally, she needs to demonstrate that the change will not cause a new set of problems. On the other hand, Wikipedia's version of "Don't Panic" is "be bold" in your editing. This boldness is not to be confused with abrasiveness or crudity.

For each tag or box, a minimized version of a debate should take place to determine how much of a new problem it will be. Therefore, the following guideline should apply:

1. Before applying an infobox or tag, place a notice of intention and desire on the talk page of the article.
2. If there are no objections in 48 hours, go ahead and tag/box the article.
3. The more dissent and the greater the textual and apparent change introduced by the box or tag, the less justified one is in placing the tag/box.

Well, this may sound instantly unworkable. First, some people will complain that it is instruction creep. It isn't. This is a guideline, not a policy, and it is designed to set up a harmonious procedure. The 48 hour requirement is not much to ask, as it only means adding an article to one's watchlist and coming back to it in a couple of days, if there is no argument. It is still awfully bold to apply tags and boxes but have to wait to see how much anger that's going to create.

Secondly, some people will notice that this requires peace and love before any tags get placed. See below for "When good boxes go bad" for the dispute resolution guidelines. Furthermore, this guideline applies to admonitory tags, not procedural ones. It is true that the Neo-Nazi will argue that his paeon to Hitler isn't POV and the UFO "abduction victim" will be sure that it's merely truth she is writing in her article on the lizard people of Centauri Proxima, but that's addressed below.

When presenting the minimized version of the debate, please indicate the advantages of the box or admonition. It is far better to state the positive effects of the change than to groan and criticize the current state of things. You should be presenting readers and authors with good things, not a list of every mistake you think they have made. This is not anything silly like "assume good faith": it is attempting to go forward by setting out goals rather than corrosively denigrating whatever has been done.

When good boxes go bad

A fair number of tags will generate vociferous dissent. If that occurs, call in some other sets of eyeballs. If the argument is one on one, the result is going to be some escalating hostility anyway, so you will want backup in any case. Many of the things posted on the Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents come from one person vs. another in a blood match. Generally, one of the parties is unambiguously correct and the other wrong, but because one person went in, all alone, against a phrenzied true believer, things got to the threat/vandalism/stalking level. Therefore:

1. If there is any dissent with tags, make no change unless there is a preponderence of opinion for the change. If there is no preponderance in favor of the change, get more viewers.

In the case of boxes, the numerical situation is often reversed. One WikiProject or another will have announced or decided (sometimes there isn't a lot of discussion there, folks) that all articles of a particular type will bear a particular graphical element with a specified set of fields. They will then go to articles written and read primarily by people who are not part of the project and apply the element. Therefore, a solitary editor working on medieval texts, possessing quite esoteric knowledge of diplomatics and chancery hand will discover that "We at WikiMedieval have decided that all articles on all topics we deem medieval will bear the following box showing how the article fits in with the Battle of Agincourt." The poor scholar is bewildered. After working for months getting the specialized fonts to display, he is being told that he is all alone, that an army at a project he has never heard of has declared that his careful work must get shoved aside to harbor this box. He gets enraged and either swears off working for the public good at Wikipedia or goes to get all of his friends to scream at this apparently monolithic "project" that trumpets loudly that it has an iron clad reasoning behind it. Therefore:

1. If there is any dissent with informational boxes, make no change until there is unanimity from both the project and all authors/editors of the article.

That's right: unanimity is the requisite. The reason is that any and all infoboxes are, essentially, replications of information already in the article. They cannot, therefore, add to the encyclopedic function of an article. They can do other things, quite laudable things, but, unless what they add is entirely commensurate with the informational flow and content, they destroy. In most cases, there will be unanimity, as the article will be old news, but in those few cases where the editors have been working consciously for a particular method of presentation, it isn't too much to ask that they be convinced.

The danger of steamrolling such contributors is entirely too high to be risked for a speed read or consistency. We need our contributors, and we especially need our expert contributors and our contributors who are capable of providing well researched content. The higher the quality of the article to begin with, the more cautious any project should be about altering it, even with informationally neutral elements like biography boxes. If an article is a Featured Article, the FAC voters approved it in that form and usually will have said a great deal about the look of the article, so in a case like that it's pretty clear that there is already demonstrated consensus approval of the layout as "among the best Wikipedia has to offer."

These guidelines are not intended to stop the boxes or tags. They are not designed to give approval for all tags and boxes. They are designed to set up a methodology by which we can avoid paralyzing fights.