User:Kleinzach/Draft

Special questions

1

Would you care to comment on how the publishing and technical questions you point out might be structured for the arbcom-mandated community infobox discussion to maximize the possibility of a positive outcome?

Structuring the discussion is important in order to avoid the kind of muddled conflation of issues that we have seen in the past. Separating out the problems and 'detoxifying' them one by one must be the way forward. A grand, one-stage resolution of the issue is not possible.

In my view, this implies that we need a drafting committee — of perhaps three or five members. All interested parties would be allowed to submit topics/questions to the committee, with an understanding that all relevant/meaningful questions should be included. Structuring the submitted material would be up to the committee. I would hope that both 'publishing' and 'technical' issues would be comprehensively covered.

What I call ‘publishing’(copy-editing) issues are all about consistence, clarity and coherence, relevance, appropriateness, balance, and presentation. The following would need to be included: 1. position of infoboxes within articles, 2. size/text length of infoboxes in absolute/relative terms, 3. box/lead content relationship, 4. box/article content relationship, 5. collapsed or non-appearing fields and field names, 6. appearing field name rules, 7. linking and referencing within boxes, 8. rules on avoiding anachronism, 9. material exclusive to the box (i.e. not in the article), 10. illustrations, 11. use of technical, scientific and foreign languages, abbreviations etc. etc.

What I call technical issues include template coding and design, data formatting, extraction and re-use outside Wikipedia (metadata), development of smart boxes etc. etc.

2

You have been pointed out elsewhere in the thread as an "anti-box" editor. If this is the case, could you summarize this position?

I’m moderately ‘infobox-sceptic’ not an ‘anti-box’ editor. (I don’t know any editors who have accepted the (vaguely pejorative?) label of being "anti-box".)

My position is that infoboxes are perfectly acceptable on many articles, but of doubtful value on others. (FWIW I've added hundreds of infoboxes to articles.) Unfortunately many current boxes are not fit for purpose because of poor design. In particular, some 'monsterboxes' have been created with far too many fields, unfamiliar abbreviations etc. that are actually longer, bigger, more prominent and more difficult to read than the articles they are supposed to summarise.

1

Definitions: What is the difference between an infobox, a header, a navbox, a footer?  Are there examples of the various types of infoboxes we can put in the report?

An infobox offers a quick summary of the article, while a navbox (navigation box) offers links to related articles. Some boxes combine the two, of course. (AFAIK ‘header’ and ‘footer’ are general publishing terms that have no special meanings on WP.)

An example of a ‘type’ of infobox would be the controversial 'bio-box' or biographical infobox. The misapplication of the Musical artist infobox on classical music articles — with anachronistic, pop music derived fields such as 'birth name', 'genres', 'occupations', 'labels', 'associated acts', 'past members' — turned many of the serious music editors into infobox sceptics.

2

Getting started: Where can new users find out about infoboxes? How can a new user select an appropriate infobox for a new article? Is there a place to “shop” for them, that you can see what they will look like quickly? Can they be made to order? Is there a group that users can turn to for assistance?  

a. From the encyclopedia,

b. From similar articles,

c. I hope not,

d. I hope not,

e. There is no group I could recommend at the moment, though there is an infobox project (for technical questions), and obviously the subject projects (for editorial questions).

3

Specs: How you can tell if an infobox “emits” data, and what protocols they are compatible with?  Are there specifications for infoboxes, as far as compatibility and emissions? Are there different types of categories of infoboxes for different types of articles?

a. My understanding is that all boxes, and indeed articles, can “emit data”.

b. Not as far as I know.

c. Yes, although there is a strong desire on the part of some editors to standardise, and this causes conflict with subject-based editors who want more customization.

4

Best practices: When should you use an infobox? Are some articles more suited than others?  Are there any projects that have addressed the issue for their own topics?  Are there standards for deleting templates? (Carcharoth’s observations about WP:TFD here may be germane: [1] ) What are the “pro-box” and “anti-box” stances (surely the issue is not quite that binary)?

a. When it contributes positively to the article.

b. Yes.

c. Yes, almost all subject projects have discussed infoboxes.

d. Templates are often controversial because they have often been edited 'behind the scenes', without content contributing editors being involved.

e. The idea that there are two ‘stances’ is not really correct. There is a spectrum. While there are a few uncompromising ‘pro-box’ editor who believe there should be a box on every article, no-one has taken up the opposite position (that there should be no infoboxes at all in the encyclopedia). Objections to infoboxes have been localised, relating to particular topics and particular infoboxes that have either been mis-designed (not fit for purpose) or misapplied.

5

ArbCom-mandated discussion: In the words of the committee: “The Arbitration Committee recommends that a well-publicized community discussion be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article.”   [link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration.2FRequests.2FCase.2FInfoboxes_closed] How should this discussion be framed?

The wording of this recommendation was not ideal. Looking just at how infoboxes are used (i.e. inclusion/exclusion disputes on article pages), but not at how the templates are created, means concentrating on effects rather than causes. Fundamental issues about template design and MOS guidance should be faced. Any future discussion needs to be much broader than that defined by ArbCom.