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Request for comment on removing genres from musician, album, and song infoboxes

There is a strong consensus against removing and prohibiting the "genres" field from musician, album, and song infoboxes. Some RfC participants mentioned requiring inline citations for genres in infoboxes. There was no consensus for or against requiring inline citations for genres in infoboxes in this RfC owing to insufficient discussion, so there is no prejudice against discussing that in a separate RfC.

Cunard (talk) 23:22, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

The "genres" field should be removed and prohibited from musician, album, and song infoboxes. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 18:42, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Support After reading this discussion, it seems like editors/admins on either side of the "is genre warring vandalism?" debate agree that the genre field of music related infoboxes is not helpful. Genres are extremely subjective and often not something that's black and white, so genres in infoboxes should be deprecated in favor of discussing the genre of the musician, album, or song in the prose, and to reduce the genre warring that has made the genre field in music related infoboxes unreliable. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 18:42, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose No rational given for major change. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:18, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
@Billhpike: As this is the first RFC I've started, I may have messed up with making it. According to Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Statement_should_be_neutral_and_brief, I'm not supposed to provide a rationale as the RFC statement is supposed to be neutral. My personal rationale is provided immediately below the RFC statement. Is that not the correct way to go about creating an RFC? I would appreciate pointers if I've messed up procedurally. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 22:09, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Warring over infobox content is distracting from the purpose of Wikipedia. We should be aiming for better prose, where one can discuss all the issues around genre. Bondegezou (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose edit warring in all forms detracts from Wikipedia and infoboxes have proven to generate their own generous share. In resolving those wars, which have considerably waned, WP:INFOBOXUSE is the core guideline that gave birth to many of the compromises that are cited by Arbcom and enforced by discretionary sanctions. There it says: "Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." I think we need to stay the course of deciding these things per article, as the guideline suggests, not by a centralized discussion that seeks to impose the non-use of a parameter upon all editors including the contingent of editors, like me, who believe genre is a useful parameter.--John Cline (talk) 22:37, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support In practice this is more trouble than it is worth. Do it in the text. "Style" and "movement" fields in visual arts boxes are also perennial sources of either arguments or misinformation to the reader. Many such arguments are valid - ie there is something to discuss - but in that case the information doesn't belong in an infobox, where data needs to be concise and clear-cut. Johnbod (talk) 00:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support–causes more trouble, edit wars, content disputes, and AN/I threads than necessary. SemiHypercube ✎ 16:14, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support – Admittedly, when I first started editing album articles a decade ago, I was mildly irritated by the temporary disappearance of the infobox genre field (sometime in October 2008?) and was pleased to see it reinstated, but that's a long time ago. I had no experience with writing prose, nor dealing with sources. I now see no reason how describing an album/artist's genre cannot be done in the article body, with reliable sources that clearly state a supporting genre. Removing genre from the infobox would go some way to deter drive-by edits of the genre-warrioring kind, as it would be more time-consuming to insert them into prose. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:47, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am vigilant against genre warring and while it can be abused, when done correctly conveys some key information about the article. Correctly means that there is a style section and the genres are supported in that section, or the genre is obvious from the prose in the article. When we see references to genres in the infobox and no prose to support, or simply bullet points or lists in a style section, it's not being done correctly. However, that's no reason to remove the parameter. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:55, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose but make citations mandatory for all genres. Genre information is useful, provided it is actually verifiable. That should cut down on disputes over it, too... —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 17:31, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
    We have adopted a sourcing requirement for genres listed on anime and manga articles. I really cannot say that it has prevented any edit wars though, particularly with the distinction—or lack thereof—between action and its sub-genre adventure. You will still have some editors claim to "know better" than the cited sources or that certain genres are "obvious and don't need a source." —Farix (t | c) 18:25, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
    Perhaps a new guideline for Wikipedia:WikiProject Music is needed altogether. Sourcing is an issue that isn't going to be addressed by either this proposal nor the oppose votes, so I'd be in favor of reworking this discussion to include when and when not to include genre information (even if we do or don't keep using the infobox). Normally I'm opposed to making things into more of a formality than they already are, but considering the means that have been used to discuss genre information over the course of literally years, at least having a page to point people too certainly wouldn't be unhelpful in that it would force the editors whom claim to "know better than the cited sources" to respect the established consensus and practices. —Mythdon 01:29, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
    TheFarix, can't those situations just be treated as normal disruptive editing? There are obvious right and wrong answers, if policy requires citations for it: no citation? it just doesn't go in. There's not a gray area then for people to argue over. If reliable sources state both action and adventure, then why not just list action and adventure? If someone says one of them's wrong, it's on the burden of the person who disagrees with the RS to supply an RS stating that the other RS is wrong. I don't see how there's any wiggle room to fight in, really, unless there is legitimately explicit disagreement between reliable sources, which seems like it would be a highly unusual situation... —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 16:43, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose All information here can be subject to controversy. Genre information is very useful. Inserting unsourced claims in prose is just as easy to do as inserting it in infoboxes. RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Quite a few opposers have brought up that sourcing can be problematic in prose content as well, but I believe the main concern isn't that infobox genres are often unsourced, it's that genre is a fluid concept that can't be distilled down to a few labels in the infobox, ie trying to box all music and music topics into genres is a fundamentally insurmountable project (the edit wars are a symptom, not a problem on their own). As an example, I'll point out Never Be the Same (Camila Cabello song), which has the song labeled as "Pop" in the infobox. However, the Composition section is far better with describing what "genre" or style this song is, pointing out the dark pop, bombastic electro elements, as well as describing other interesting aspects of the musical composition of the song. For albums and musicians, it makes even less sense to box them into genres. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 20:25, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Of course genres—especially in popular music—aren't a sufficient replacement of more detailed explanations. However, even though genres are vague, it doesn't matter because it's the classification system which is widely used to classify music. In contrast to your example, the infobox parameter serves as an useful location for these terms. For example, the GA-rated article for Perry Como doesn't mention "pop" in prose, only in infobox and categories. RoseCherry64 (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support—this is one of the biggest headaches when dealing with music articles. Aside from genre-warring, we also have people trying to load up this field with every possible genre every second of the subject could possibly fall under, rendering the field unhelpful, to say the least. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:14, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 Comment: The others being instrument and associated_acts, have just as much unsourced additions/removal as genres. - FlightTime (open channel) 00:52, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The purpose of an infobox is to "summarize [...] key facts that appear in the article" (WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). Genres are key elements to musicians, songs, and albums pages, and this field's removal from these articles is detrimental to the infobox's purpose. Its removal would also unjustifiably serve as a punishment to articles that don't suffer genre edit warring to such a degree, particularly acts outside of the mainstream and music released in non-English-speaking countries. Implement blocks, editing restrictions, and page protections instead. ℯxplicit 00:46, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per RoseCherry64 and Explicit. —Mythdon 01:06, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
    Also support making citations mandatory for all genres as per Goldenshimmer. Although that's a discussion for another thread, the sourcing issues are at least a valid concern raised by the support votes, which neither keeping nor removing this field from the infobox would address. —Mythdon 01:14, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Genre designations in modern music are subjective, overlapping (leading to ridiculous lists for one album), and above all, hard to reference, making them poor fits for an infobox. Outriggr (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
    The hypothetical source requirement doesn't change the fact of the infobox genre wars (they get reverted now, and so ... they'll continue to?). When things are in text a good portion of box warriors are suddenly bored. Outriggr (talk) 01:38, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • My concerns with the discussion that the RfC author links to and this one has nothing to do with sources, the problem is disruptive changes based on personal opinions, yes some have sources (which support their opinions). They're sources with their own opinions (just because some editor of X-website or journal, newspaper, ect..) has their opinion doesn't mean it's even close to what's generally thought of the subject. Another problem is lots of people think if the artist is heavy metal, everything they release is the same, but in reality a punk band can release a heavy metal song, or album. I'm on a razor edge between support and oppose, because removing the genre parameter form the infoboxes just means the mentions in prose will now be the target. IMO, when disruptive editing (ie. Genre warring) Admins need to take action (in most genre warring reports WP:BRD because the editor will not respond (because they just want to see a change published "that they made") or they just want to make their opinion made. Either way It's disruptive and time consuming for editors who have to revert and warn. End of rant - FlightTime (open channel) 01:51, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
I think this is part of your problem, FlightTime. You don't have to revert and warn when somebody disagrees with you. I agree with you about "IMO, when disruptive editing (ie. Genre warring) Admins need to take action (in most genre warring reports WP:BRD because the editor will not respond (because they just want to see a change published "that they made") or they just want to make their opinion made." What action would you take against this, this, this and this, for example? In the first three examples, what appropriate sanction do you think should be given for failure to cite a reliable source? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:33, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Box warriors will get bored, but I see that causing another issue. The infobox allows so that readers don't have to read so much. If things like these were only stated in article prose, that'll be so much more that readers will have to read, seeing as how long Michael Jackson and any Michael Jackson album/single-related article are for example. That solution might be helpful as far as editors are concerned, but damaging as far as readers are concerned, so it's almost like trying to address one issue with how genres are being discussed will cause other issues with how genres are being discussed. No solution that has been proposed thus far is going to address all of the issues that have so far been raised in this discussion. —Mythdon 02:02, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal, but the genres should be made to require a citation. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 03:28, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support The amount of disruption dwarfs any perceived value the field could give to the reader. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:33, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per RoseCherry64 and Explicit. Genres are useful information to have in the infobox and removing them would be detrimental. Random86 (talk) 17:41, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose but make citations for genre mandatory per Goldenshimmer and also the fact the genre parameter can be useful. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 20:33, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support mainly so we stop getting reports at AIV about this. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:41, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Genre is an undoubtedly useful and pertinent field, as it is one of the primary means by which musical works—and the performers thereof—are characterized and categorized. The purpose of our work on this website is ultimately to provide a better experience for the readers, but I fear that most of the supporters here are putting their own desires ahead of that. Features should be retained or removed based on whether they are useful and beneficial to our readers, not on whatever happens to be most convenient for us as editors. I am concerned that if this RfC succeeds, "I don't like how much work it takes to maintain" will become accepted as a valid reason to remove content that otherwise improves the pages that feature it. As ℯxplicit touched on, the user warning, user block, and page protection functions are perfectly sufficient for handling repeat offenders and pages seeing excessive genre warring, the same as for any other disruptive behavior. LifeofTau 23:08, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is a regular and useful data type for these pages (c.f. wikidata:Property:P136); though to echo some comments above, it should be a referenced data point. — xaosflux Talk 02:51, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Proposer does not provide any rational as to why genres are not relevant to music related articles, impossible to verify, or contributes to bloating the infobox. None of the supporting comments offer such reasons either. At best, their comments can be summed up with "more trouble than it is worth", which is an extremely poor reason to remove an infobox field. As with all other article content, infobox fiends must also comply with the core content polices of WP:Verifiability, WP:Neutral point of view, and WP:No original research. If there is rampant original research and/or pov pushing happening with this field, then enforce WP:Verifiability vigorously. I will defer to the members of WP:WikiProject Music and its subprojects to determine which sources are reliable for genres. —Farix (t | c) 22:58, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose infoboxes are intended to summarise the most important points of the article, and the genre of a piece of music is one of the most effective ways of doing that. I'd be happy with requiring inline citations for genres. Hut 8.5 15:30, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose having genres serves a purpose, if it is subject to discussion at times. Vorbee (talk) 19:56, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I don't believe I've ever seen an infobox in which a musical genre was helpful to me as a reader, but I have seen dozens of articles—maybe a hundred or more—in which there have been pointless edit wars over what genre belongs in the infobox. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose (summoned by the Signpost). Just like infoboxes shouldn't be banned because they are controversial, genres in infoboxes shouldn't be banned either. I could see reasons to ban genres on specific especially contentious types of music, such as rock. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) wumbolo ^^^ 17:12, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: the fact that it is a common cause of edit wars is irrelevant in light of the fact that it is a useful thing for readers. I look at the genres quite frequently when browsing music articles, and find them very helpful. Obviously they should be verifiable and reflect content in the body of the article. Mandatory inline citations would not be a change I support, as it would lead to a lot of removal of correct information, but it's a standard editors could hold themselves to if they wished. — Bilorv(c)(talk) 00:47, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I regularly make use of and find this kind of information useful when categorizing my music collection. Genres may be subjective, it's true, but only to a point. No one's going to argue that a punk rock song is jazz, or even that it's pop rock If there's disagreement, something like "Bluegrass/Country Rock" can be used to express the different possible categories. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:52, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Farix, Andrew Sheedy, and Hut 8.5. Contrary to Malik Shabazz I've seen hundreds of genres in infoboxes that were useful to me as a reader. If they aren't useful to some people then they can just ignore them. This really is a solution in search of a problem. Thryduulf (talk) 12:58, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose:: I am going to say exactly the opposite of Ritchie333. As I age and am familiar with less music, I depend on our articles and infoboxes (with proper citations !!) for valued innformation. The decided genres are one of the most important aspects of our articles, since many other areas use genres as categories (magazines, music stations, for example: although sometimes dubious). So any headaches we have over genre warring and sourcing drawf the value of the information contained in this field to the reader. I have spent much time (10 years) as an editor in the trenches of music articles so I am not typing off-the-cuff. Please leave genre, and take headache powders for aches and nerves. Less work for editors does not ever seem to me to be a valid reason to amend MOS. I agree with Thryduulf just above me: this is really a solution in search of a problem. Thanks, Fylbecatulous talk 20:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support all of the supporters above reflect my own opinion. It is a fairly useless, immensely tiresome, often subjective point of contention and often the genre given is somewhat arbitrary, hence the edit wars etc. I can see that it should work but all these years later, it still does not and indeed I think that is reflected in many other sources. This is likely one that those involved with the project will want to keep and most others will not because they can see the bigger picture. - Sitush (talk) 20:37, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
    • @Sitush: I'm someone who is not involved in editing music articles (beyond copyedits and the like), but I do read them frequently, so when I say I wish to keep them I do so as a reader and not as an editor. To me the bigger picture is clear: despite some minor hassles to editors on some articles, overall the genres provide significantly useful information to readers. Editorial convenience should never take precedence over providing benefit to readers. Thryduulf (talk) 00:41, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
      • I, too, do little editing of music stuff but read them. I find the genre usually to be worthless because it is so subjective. Yes, there are some clear cases (Sex Pistols = punk, for example, but even then some people would call that new wave) but the sheer number of subgenres that people introduce, in particular, makes the thing usually useless to me. I haven't looked at the article for Blondie, for example, but it would need to have a multitude of genres and they would be debatable; Joe Jackson would be all over the place as pretty much every album adopts a different style. I am far better off reading the article itself, which alas is something I can usually say also applies to infoboxes more generally. - Sitush (talk) 13:24, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support this would help avoid many needless infobox disputes and edit wars in music articles, which have already happened far too often. The trouble those create simply isn't worth it and we're basically asking for trouble by maintaining the parameter. Wikipedia is much better off discussing genres within article prose. That might not entirely eliminate genre disputes as people will inevitably edit prose, but will greatly reduce them. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:56, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
    • Speaking primarily as a reader, including this information in the infoboxes (after all the entire point of infoboxes is to summarise key information from the prose) is very much worth a few disputes and edit wars (the way to prevent edit wars is to not edit war, not to downgrade the encyclopaedia). Thryduulf (talk) 10:37, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
      • That's absurd; we'd save so many unnecessary disputes over listings without a parameter that's frankly more trouble than it's worth. I'm sure anybody who's witnessed even half the amount of genre warring I have would agree with my stance. Such a removal would NOT be a "downgrade" at all. Snuggums (talk / edits) 11:44, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
        • Everything that makes it harder for readers to find the information they are looking for is a downgrade. Removing the genre from the infobox would make it harder to find, therefore it would be a downgrade. As I mentioned above editorial convenience is something that should never take precedence over making the encyclopaedia better for readers. The way to deal with edit wars is not to edit war, and if people insist on doing so then use the appropriate tools to deal with it/them such as page protections, blocks, edit filters, etc. rather than inconveniencing the reader. Thryduulf (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
          • The average reader isn't likely to visit song/album/biography articles to look for genres. It wouldn't be nearly as big of a loss as you've suggested. Perhaps people would visit to find release dates for material (and parent album/EP for songs), but I highly doubt you could name very many people who are so concerned with genre that they come here before anywhere else. Snuggums (talk / edits) 16:38, 3 October 2018 (UTC)]
            • The average reader isn't likely to visit song/album/biography articles to look for genres. I am an average reader of these articles. We're telling you: Yes, they do, because we do. --Izno (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
              It's true; that we do.--John Cline (talk) 20:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
              • Same here, I often want a quick sense of what genre an artist/song/album is (e.g. if I'm reading an article and it describes song X by saying it sounds like artist Y, then I can go to the WP page for artist Y and look at the genre to get a rough sense of what song X sounds like — even if it's not exact, knowing that it's black metal rather than new age is informative, and even if there's debate over whether it's actually symphonic metal instead, at least I can guess that it's probably going to have more guitars and less nature sounds, which is useful). —{{u|Goldenshimmer}}｜✝️｜they/their｜😹｜T/C｜☮️｜John 15:12｜🍂 13:22, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
              • @NUGGUMS: I am another average reader of artist, song and discography articles (and less frequently album articles) and I do look for genres when reading these articles. Sometimes that is even my specific reason for visiting the article (e.g. if an artist's genre is labelled as "rock", "folk", "bluegrass" or something similar or related to them then it's worth my time investigating them further. Conversely if they're something like "thrash metal", "hiphop" or "jazz" then it really isn't.) Thryduulf (talk) 12:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Instead of removing, how about instead the genres of a page that controversial is located at infobox subpage that is template-protected, similar to Module:Portal/images. Hddty. (talk) 11:06, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
    It's a seductive idea, but there are over 88,000 articles with genre in the infobox (the regex timed out after that), so I don't think it's manageable to store the genre in a protected module for every page that uses it, even though it's theoretically possible. So we would have to have a different version of the infobox just for "controversial pages" that used the scheme of a protected module. The snag with that seems to me that the edit-warriors will simply edit-war the unprotected version of the infobox back into the article, and we're back to square one. --RexxS (talk) 13:08, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose if a genre is clear there is no reason for removing, if a genre is disputed or uncertain then don't put it in the infobox. We reduce car accidents by imposing rules for their use not by tearing up roads. (not the best analogy but I'm out of practice)GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose many songs, albums and artists have a clear and well-defined genre. If this is not the case for a song/album/artist then the genre shouldn't be used on the article, but removing genre completely is over the top in my opinion. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me | my contributions 15:14, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - While it might be controversial sometimes, it works totally fine in the vast majority of cases. Citations should be used, and unsourced content that is controversial may be removed any time, as always with any content. No need for this additional bureaucracy. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 00:17, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong support Genre classification is highly subjective and should not be reported in Wikipedia's voice. Furthermore "genre warring" is a frequent cause of strife at WP:AN/I and I think it would serve the encyclopedia to be silent on this issue. Simonm223 (talk) 12:08, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
    • BLPs, Isreal-Palestine, India-Pakistan, quotation marks, etc. are all also frequent causes of strife at AN/I and other boards, do you think we should remove all mention of these from the encyclopaedia to? Wikipedia exists to serve readers, not to make things convenient for editors. Thryduulf (talk) 12:16, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
      • I would posit that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a cause of strife on WP because it's a cause of strife in the real world. Whereas, per a recent example, whether a song by Fergie is club music is just petty nonsense. Simonm223 (talk) 13:20, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
        • Please see Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars and detail which topics that have been the subject of "petty nonsense" edit warring should be removed from the encyclopaedia - perhaps we can do without yoghurt or The Beatles? Thryduulf (talk) 15:25, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
            • No one is talking about removing anything from the encyclopaedia - please don't distort! But infoboxes should only ever contain concise information which is reasonably certain. Ignoring this is much of the reason for the unpopularity of infoboxes for some types of articles. In the many cases where genre is a matter of opinion/dispute/uncertainty, this should be covered at whatever length is necessary in the text, where all sorts of divergent views can be set out. It's too late now, but the proposal would have been better splitting out the various categories - most albums can resonably be tied to a single genre, but many artists with a long career try a number of genres, genre mixes, and most songs can be performed in a wide range of styles & genres, and very popular ones typically are. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose genre is one of the most common ways of categorizing music, and leaving it out of the infobox is just denying easily accessible and useful information to our readers. Like all information it should be based on reliable sources. Some idiotic edit-wars over whether something should be labelled "R&B, club" or just "R&B" doesn't mean genres should be removed entirely. The solution is to stop edit-warring over petty bullshit, not to remove the most widely-used form of music categorization from infoboxes. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 13:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose -- Music genre is a very important information, and removing it would reduce the usefulness of the article. --NaBUru38 (talk) 14:45, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - I'm working away in the background updating the album template to the new version, fixing template errors and generally gnoming it around album articles. I've lost count of the numerous articles that have notes in them warning <!-- DO NOT change genres!!! -->, it backs up all of the comments above about edit wars. The genre field is especially useless on compilations like albums and EPs where an artist may usually use 4, 5 or 6 different genres on one album, leading to a list in the infobox which is of little use, except being a list of genres. The most important thing to remember though is that the infobox is meant to be a summary of the prose. The majority of album articles do not discuss the genres of songs in the prose, by default this renders the genre field as an unsourced list. - X201 (talk) 08:48, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
I see little need for articles about compilations.Vmavanti (talk) 23:41, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Someone does, there are 15,000 articles about them. - X201 (talk) 07:48, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. Genres are not "extremely subjective" if you know something about music. Most popular music, the music that people buy and hear on radio and so on, is pop and rock music. Qualifications of those basic terms is usually unnecessary. Verse-chorus form, G, D, C chords, four minutes. Shoegazing? Yacht rock? That's the dumb stuff that should be deleted. Jazz and classical account for a tiny percentage of the rest and they are fairly easy to classify if you know the subject. Genres are handy for organizing information. Genres are made difficult by difficult people who put their interests ahead of the interests of Wikipedia. On the point about putting the subject into the prose of the article, I'm in favor of better prose. But first there has to be prose. I've edited many articles about music. Most people, whether IP editors or regulars, seem content to avoid doing any real writing. What I see is: A singer I like is on tour, or just released an album, or got an award, and I want to put that on Wikipedia so that everyone will like them as much as I do. I see a lot of picking nits. I'm certainly not going to support the lazy and ignorant. Let's put the readers first. If you want to reduce vandalism and dumb edit wars and wasted time, then require everyone who wants to edit to have an account first.Vmavanti (talk) 23:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose, if the issue is receiving too many AIV notifications about genre warring then sort out AIV, have a hard 1RR rule on genre warring, ban every editor who changes genre without providing sources, I don't care, but don't deprecate a whole useful section of an infobox. Now, if the proposal was to radically restrict the options within that "Genre" section of the infobox to about 15-20 all-encompassing options (rock, rap, blues, R&B, pop, metal, classical, jazz, folk, country, funk, etc.) then that I could get on board with. Fish+Karate 08:26, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
@Fish and karate: But what about Doo-wop?— Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:47, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: "Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music" Fish+Karate 07:48, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - If reliably sourced, there should be no problem. We use this protocol on so many other fields in the wiki, why should this be any different? Robvanvee 09:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose - we don't put blanket restrictions on reliably sourced encyclopedic content just because it's subject to a somewhat heightened level of content disagreement. Just like any controversial categorization, follow the sources. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:45, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't really buy the whole "as an average reader I certainly look for the genre in music articles" argument. Speaking as an average reader, I have no interest in the genre field. So there, two sides of the coin. For every reader who looks for the genre field, you'll likely get a reader who doesn't care. That being said, while genre is an absolute pain in the arse, throwing out the field in the infobox is doing a disservice to those readers who do look for the info. I'd be more inclined to a sanction based approach, whether it be something similar to discretionary sanctions. Genre warring seems to be the flavour of the quarter after the pro-wrestling war died down. Blackmane (talk) 22:44, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - Far more trouble than it's worth. SQLQuery me! 23:09, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
    That being said, I really like Fish and karate's suggestion. SQLQuery me! 23:11, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose (Summoned by bot) There are better ways to resolve these disputes. Removing genre will only decrease quality of the article. Rzvas (talk) 04:40, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: the proposal is not well conceived and there are alternate ways for dealing with edit warring and disputes (i.e. deprecating the use of the field for a particular article), rather than removing the field altogether. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:07, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. The majority of recorded music has rather uncontroversial genres which have been used by labels to tag releases on shellac and vinyl since the early 1900s. Doing away with a practice that predates the birth of our parents by decades, simply because a couple of online nerds spend hours, daily, on Wikipedia warring over whether the last chart-topping single is pop or pop rock... is laughable to be honest. Neodop (talk) 17:00, 22 October 2018 (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.

RfC that might be of interest

See Talk:Stanley_Kubrick#RfC:_Should_a_collapsible_infobox_be_added_to_this_page? for more info. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 11:40, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Bracketed plurals

Here's a small thing that bothers me in infoboxes: bracketed plurals. For example, Songwriter(s): Roger Waters

I understand this is to accommodate situations where there could be one songwriter or several. But I think it's unnecessary; just writing "Songwriters" suffices. The bracketed (s) is ugly, and listing a single item after a plural doesn't look weird to me. I suspect, though, that others may disagree... Popcornduff (talk) 19:17, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

"Defining data" as the term for content in infoboxes

I set up Wikipedia:Defining data to describe the kind of content which goes in infoboxes. I then added a link to that from the documentation here.

Is anyone aware of anyone applying a name to this kind of information or setting up guidelines for infobox content elsewhere? Thanks for any guidance.

If anyone remembers any historic discussion, even if you cannot find the link, please share any details you can recall such as circumstances of conversation, topic, approximately when it happened, or whatever else seems useful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:35, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree that the standards for infobox data should be less than those for article text. The reliability guideline should be applied universally. There is some leeway from WP:CALC with regard to the type of data discussed in your essay. DrKay (talk) 15:59, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@DrKay: I have some examples at Wikipedia:Defining_data#Examples where I think the reliability guideline fails for prose but works for infoboxes. What do you think? The need for primary source citations or original research comes up much more often for infoboxes. We might have a universal guideline but I want some clarity on this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@Lane: thanks for making a start on this topic. I have a couple of minor points to add. There's a formal distinction between "data" and "information". When the data has been organised and placed into context, as it is in an infobox, it becomes information. I've always seen the phrase "key information" applied to infobox content. The difference between "key" and "defining" is that "key" implies a limited subset of the information, and it seems to me a slightly more apposite term when considering the issues of infobox bloat. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 16:22, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
@RexxS: I could go with "key information". How sure are you about this? I could make changes now, or we could wait a bit, or I could seek other comments. I did a search around and yes, "key information" is a term in use in various places. I am not aware of any other term in use. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
The reliability guideline, or notability guideline, applies in all those examples. If no sources ever defined Rani of Jhansi, then it wouldn't belong at wikipedia. In the case of the Rani, there are of course multiple sources that define the term. She was an important historical figure. We can't reduce our requirements for reliable information; it would just lead to people making things up about her. DrKay (talk) 16:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I would avoid the word “defining”... as we use that term in categorization to mean something different (as in: a defining characteristic). In that context, the word has more to do with notability and importance than with mere reliability.
All sorts of data can be reliably sourced... some of that data belongs in an infobox, and some doesn’t. Some types of information are best presented in an infobox format, while other types of information are not. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
On the contrary, it seems to me we should use "defining" for infoboxes in the same spirit as it has long been used in categorization, with a certain leeway for defining sets of information, like sports or ship statistics. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Where to put things like 'Acting', 'Elect', 'Designate', etc.

Myself & @Goodone121: have a disagreement at Mick Mulvaney. In relation to it, I believe about a year ago, an Rfc was held on the matter of where to place 'Acting', 'Elect', 'Designate' etc infoboxes of politicians. Only about 5 editors participated then. Perhaps we should have an another Rfc here? with hopefully more input. GoodDay (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Can you link to the previous discussion(s), especially that RfC?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:49, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Here is the Rfc-in-question. GoodDay (talk) 17:01, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure this needs another RfC, since the result was effectively unanimous (there was one neutral !vote – yours). The discussion would have been better held at WT:MOSBIO or WT:MOSINFOBOX, but if the regulars of WP:WikiProject Biography don't make for a good enough sampling of editors who care about how we write bios, I'm not sure what would be. I wouldn't object to another RfC, but I think the result will be the same, and the original RfC is a good enough rationale to just put its result in the guideline. I think it should be in MOS:BIO, though, since it's bio-specific and doesn't pertain to infoboxes in general.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
The only problem with the previous Rfc, was lack of participation. Can four editors impose their will on all infoboxes of related topic? GoodDay (talk) 14:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, when an RfC is well-advertised, properly conducted, and the editorship at large accepts the result. There is no "there must be at least X number of editors present for a consensus to form" rule. It all really boils down to whether the editorial community accepts (explicitly or implicitly) the decision and generally abides by it – and that's most likely to happen when the conclusion simply puts already-dominant practice into words. Many WP:RMs have fewer respondents than the four in that RfC, yet still have precedential value under WP:CONSISTENT policy, as one example. RfCs don't even actually exist to be a decision-determination process, like a vote; they're requests for comments (for discussion) toward formulating consensus. Consensus can and most often does form without one, just by most editors doing something, and the editorial pool converging on it as a norm until we bother actually writing it down. I'm entirely neutral on the question asked in the RfC, and really don't care about it. I'm just speaking from a procedural position. If an RfC with five (counting the closer) total respondents wasn't valid, then the RfC process would have been abandoned the month it was introduced, as simply unworkable. Or an actual rule for min. number of participants would have been implemented (a form of quorum, i.e. a form of actual voting). Since we're all volunteers here, we can't force people to come participate in RfCs that they don't feel merit their attention. And since WP isn't a bureaucracy, we can't hold up something, in absence of any actual dispute over it, just hoping others say the same thing as the four who already did. If something like this turns out to generate more opposition than it does support/compliance, then obviously there's a WP:FALSECONSENSUS problem and a new discussion needs to happen. Or, yeah, you can just run another RfC, but we already have a lot of them, and a big closure backlog, so they're best reserved for actual disputes/confusions, not just potential ones.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Wish I had participated in that RFC... I would have !voted for “none of the above” - and added a proposal saying that we should WAIT until the office-holder is sworn in, and not rush to add inappropriate infoboxes. Blueboar (talk) 17:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
    I doubt that would fly. Someone can be the acting director of [whatever] for years, and be fulfilling the role exactly as if they were not "acting" (a label that might be dependent on something extraneous, like a parliamentary procedure that only happens on certain dates). And if we hadn't said that Trump was the US president-elect between November 8, 2016, and January 20, 2017, then our readers would have reacted very negatively, assuming widespread incompetence or an anti-Trump conspiracy. That said, it might not be necessary for such things to be in the infobox at all, as long as they're in the article text. I can't really picture it not leading to editwarring in many cases, though.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Multiple boxes per page

Is there guidance anywhere about the use of multiple independent infoboxes (ie. not one embedded in another, but entirely separate) on a single page? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

No. Sometimes it's reasonable and sometimes it's not. I've tried to remove it in an unreasonable case and been reverted. --Izno (talk) 02:12, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
It's hard to offer firm guidance because there is such a spectrum of cases where a judgement call is made to use multiple infoboxes in the same article. At one extreme, a song will often have a single article describing several notable versions by different artists. Our convention has been to create a section and an infobox for each version, and I think almost everyone will see that as reasonable. On the other hand, a single person who has more than one notable role will almost always be best served by embedding a child infobox. But there will be many grey areas, and it would take a lot of work surveying how each solution is used to try to distil good guidance. --RexxS (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
More than one completely seperate infobox should be seen as a rare exception that needs justifying, though it may be acceptable for songs. But the amount of different extra information such boxes hold is generally not worth "boxing". I very rarely accept it for works of art with different versions. One can normally be pretty sure that the person adding such a box has not given the question much serious thought. Johnbod (talk) 17:04, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
I've seen it a handful of times with biographical infoboxes, for someone genuinely and seriously notable in two fields for which we have and regularly use well-developed infoboxes that are actually helpful. I've mostly left these alone, except to remove redundant parameters (e.g. vital stats shouldn't be in both). In a few cases I've removed a second box when it was not actually helpful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Signature parameter RFC

Please see Template talk:Infobox person#Signature parameter RFC for an RFC about removal of the signature parameter from {{Infobox person}}. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:56, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Infobox character and WAF

Editors of this page may be interested in Template talk:Infobox character § Removing parameters regarding WP:WAF. --Izno (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Adding extra spaces to infoboxes

Eg here:[1]. Is this a problem? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 10:43, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Adding/removing the spaces does not seem to affect the visual output (what the reader sees) at all... Not sure if adding/removing spaces affects the “behind the scenes” collection of meta data (nor do I really care). Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Adding a category to infobox

Is there a useful guideline known for/against adding a category to the infobox? Most acceptable could be the eponymous category, and possibly there are arguments for other categories (example in case: {{Infobox gold}} could have Category:Gold, and Category:Gold compounds). -DePiep (talk) 16:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The applicable guideline is WP:CAT#T - templates don't belong in content categories. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
??? Misunderstanding? I propose to add a (clickable) category-link to an infobox. For example: {{Infobox gold/sandbox}} (see bottom ofinfobox). -DePiep (talk) 23:40, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
What do you feel would be the benefit of that in addition to having the category on the article as is typical? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
For starters: having the eponymous category is the first and foremost click helping. I'm sorry if I cannot explain: it's soooo obvious IMO. ({{Infobox gold}} → Category:Gold; see {{Infobox gold/sandbox}}). -DePiep (talk) 02:46, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I've seen it, and it's still not obvious to me why this would be desirable. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:07, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
(Redacted)
The advantage would be that the reader can click to all primary related topics easily. -DePiep (talk) 15:31, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
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