Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes/Archive 4

Template:Infobox building - auto categorization

See my offer in the discussion there: Oashi (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

automatic adding to Categories: if Baroque & Germany > add to the Cateory:Baroque architecture in Germany

Alt text for infobox images

The WP:ACCESSIBILITY and WP:ALT guidelines recommend alt text for images. I've added to {{Infobox Disease}} and to {{Infobox Writer}} support for this in infobox images. It takes the form of an "alt=" or "Alt=" parameter, depending on whether the template prefers parameter names to be capitalized. I suggest adding similar parameters to other infobox templates that use image names. Eubulides (talk) 18:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation field in infoboxes?

Interesting proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive48#Pronunciation to foreign place infoboxes. I'm not sure of the best place(s) to advertise this, so please do mention it elsewhere if it seems prudent. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Political party infoboxes

Unresolved

Shouldn't all the infoboxes in Category:Political party infobox templates by country be merged into {{Infobox political party}}? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

ugh, well, this is probably a good idea, but it looks like a bit of a job. I'll run through and tag the article for conversion as I get the chance. --Ludwigs2 15:14, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Request for peer review

I've extensively expanded Help:Infobox and am looking for editors to kindly review and improve. I am particularly interested in whether editors believe that {{Infobox}} should be substed (as this is what the original author of that template believed).

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 19:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for Infobox for a scientific expedition

I have looked and have not found the approaching. Such parametres are necessary:--Andrey! 04:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

• Name
• File
• File size
• File caption

---

• State(s)
• The scientific organisation
• The head
• Planned date

---

• Begin date
• Begin coordinate
• Begin transport

---

• End date
• End cordinates
• End transport
• The reason of end

---

• Map
• Map size
• Map caption

---

• Web Cite
• Commons category

I will use this template in North Pole-1--Andrey! 04:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Should there be a project-wide policy wrt bio infoboxes in "event" articles?

At some articles such as Disappearance of Madeleine McCann a consensus appears to have been arrived at to delete biographical infoboxes in "event" type articles; yet the consensus at a host of other articles appears to allow bio infoboxes in "event" articles, such as at the recent article "Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard." (Also -- see talkpage: Talk:Kidnapping_of_Jaycee_Lee_Dugard#Infobox.)

Questions these circumstances raise include, Should Wikipedia continue to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis or should we adopt a project-wide policy? and, Does the existing infobox guidelines' non-disallowance of bio infoboxes in "event" articles themselves provide for a project-wide policy? What do you all think? ↜Just M E here , now 17:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

My feeling on this are that, if there is interest in some biographical data appearing in the article, then it should be allowed. Otherwise non-notable people being involved in an incident that is notable obviously generates some interest in the people involved. There seems to be widespread consensus that WP:1E is a real concern, and I tend to agree, so I dont' see creating a separate article as a compromise. I don't have any issue with some biographical detail being included in event articles though, and (to directly address the question) I think that it should be a case by case issue.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 05:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

A rule-of-thumb could be: "Would it make sense for the article 'Foo of Bill Bloggs' to be renamed 'Bill Bloggs'?" Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:21, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

• Note: I've also broached this, or perhaps merely a similar, question here: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_50#Inter-articles consensuses happen...well, when? ↜Just M E here , now 16:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Bibliographic databases

• Can someone here tell me what the appropriate infobox would be for bibliographic databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus? As most of them are online, I could use the infobox for websites, but perhaps there is a more appropriate one. Thanks! --Crusio (talk) 19:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Guide

Moved from main page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Could anyone make a guide (or point me to it if there is one)for userboxes? I'd like to know the different elements that can be put in it. On one userpage I saw that the person had even added their nationality to their userbox. It would be awesome if someone made a guide to userboxes. -thanks Aelyanariah (talk) 13:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to try to get round to writing a general introduction to infobox templates in the near future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible infobox

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but is it possible to have collapsible fields in infoboxes? I'm especially thinking of Template:Infobox officeholder; it would be good if on pages like Alistair Darling, for example, to collapse all but his current office. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

• Are you looking for somthing like this? Chicago --WlaKom (talk) 16:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• • No, not quite, that requires the use of another template. What I would like is the ability to collapse whole sections of the infobox. For example, in the Alistair Darling infobox it would be good to be able to collapse the offices between Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Edinburgh South West. --Philip Stevens (talk) 22:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple infoboxes on one page?

We are creating content for transport schemes in the UK, starting with a List of future transport developments in the East of England. The total value of the 100 schemes we have currently researched is very significant (£40 billion). We now want to create infoboxes for each scheme, however for some articles contain details for multiple schemes. The A14 road (England) and M1 motorway articles are good examples of articles where there are multiple separate schemes being developed on different timelines each of which would justify a separate infobox.

This information would be of value in its own right within wikipedia but our key motivator is to allow the information to be exported to DBPedia, and Freebase for further analysis.

Are there already examples of multiple infoboxes being used in a single article? Does anyone object to us creating multiple infoboxes for a single article?

I should note that DPPedia and Freebase currently expect there to only be one infobox per article, but it the import could easily be adapted to allow for multiple boxes per article and is being discused currently. PeterEastern (talk) 14:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Need help with Infobox captions

Can someone help me with the captions on Jon Dalton and Jenna Morasca? They use two different userboxes, the Wrestler one and the Survivor Contestant one, but I can't get the caption to show up in either one, even though I've tried formatting it in different ways. I even tried to look at the Bill Eadie article to see how the caption is formatted in that one, since it uses the Wrestler Box, but it still didn't work. Nightscream (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

{{Infobox Wrestler}} uses img_capt and the {{Survivor contestant}} doesn't have a caption field. That one needs to have it put into the image markup. - J Greb (talk) 21:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added {{{caption}}} to the latter in the process of rewriting it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

political infobox

At the moment there is a debate about that the BNP's info box should contain regarding their positions. The main issue is that a number of RS (including scholars and opponents) call them fascist whilst they themselves deny it. My question (now we have contexts) is, should the info box contain what a party says its views are or what others say their views are even if they deny it?Slatersteven (talk) 18:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

We must go with descriptions that are used by reliable, neutral sources. Powers ^T 14:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Infobox sport

Not sure if this is the right place for this question but here goes!

There seems to be a problem with the formatting of the sport infoboxes, see Association Football and Rugby Union. After Highest Governing Body they say 'data2 =' and then the list of nicknames. Some of the other information that should be there has disappeared completely. I have no idea how to sort this out so is there anybody who can help? If not, can you recommend who I should ask? Thanks. Mah favourite (talk) 02:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Simple vandalism, now fixed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Idea from French Wikipedia

This is a bit random but I was looking at sporting infoboxes on the french Wikipedia and came across their Infobox Version 2 idea. Basically taking the idea of simplicity of use and presentation, and applying it in a somewhat harmonised manner on a number of infoboxes across Wikipedia. This serves to visually group together a bunch of related topics through a similar presentational means. See here for an example of how simple sectioning and a very basic image incorporated into a heading serves to group together various related ideas. Also see their list of simple pictograms.

Infoboxes seem to mainly fall within the realms of specific WikiProjects, but there seems to be little communication between creators of infoboxes across different projects to working towards a similar style – in spite of the fact that there is actually little difference between what most infobox creators want to achieve. The French Infobox project also hints at a basic tutorial for new users, something I don't think we've covered in Help:infobox.

Is there also interest here on the English wikipedia to create and modify infoboxes towards a loosely harmonised model through title illustrations and presentation? I think ours look good when they include pictures (e.g. FIFA World Cup) but when there are none present they seem a little bare bones and unappealing to the eye (e.g. UEFA European Football Championship). The infoboxes on the French articles (fr:Championnat d'Europe de football and fr:Coupe du monde de la FIFA), although a little wide, definitely seem more professional and appeal more to the eye in my opinion... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 12:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I dunno... I think those French infoboxes look really sharp and professional. They did a great job. But that said, I think there's some charm in "bare bones". =) Both aesthetically and in making it easier for members of particular projects to agree on how the infobox should look. =) Powers ^T 13:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I do kind of like the horizontal infobox look - might be worth making a secondary template just to have that choice available. --Ludwigs2 02:44, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "horizontal"? Powers ^T 15:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit an infobox template

Can someone tell me how I can edit an infobox template, or how I can request changes to one? I would like to fix a vocab issue on {{Infobox_French_canton}}. Thanks. Eric ^talk 20:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Since it uses the infobox template, see Help:Infobox. You can fish for which Wikiprojects are interested in the template by clicking "What links here" and then browsing articles that reference the template. For example Canton of Marseille-Les Olives references the template, and its Talk:Canton of Marseille-Les Olives shows that it's part of Wikipedia:WikiProject France. -- DanielPenfield (talk) 20:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

editing templates is not too hard. give it a go, and if you have any trouble post back were and we'll help out. --Ludwigs2 20:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• Because fooling around with templates can break many articles with a single save, encouraging people to be WP:BOLD as with individual articles is probably a poor choice. Help:Infobox#Redesigning an existing infobox recommends prototyping the changes in one's own user space first and giving the appropriate Wikiproject some say in the matter. There's nothing like finding out your "fix" only works for the articles you double-check (assuming you're double-checking at all), but breaks dozens of articles you haven't. -- DanielPenfield (talk) 20:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for the input. The issue I want to address is a spelling one that shouldn't be controversial: one of the terms is spelled halfway between French and English. I could not see any link on the project page for discussion/editing of its infoboxes. As for the technical end, I poked around for a while before I posted here, but could not see how to edit the template. I could not see in the edit window where to edit the term that results from the abbreviation used in a template element ( the fourth element in the template, dépt, yields Departement, but should yield either Department (en) or Département (fr). Eric ^talk 21:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• So that means you found | subdivision_type2 = {{#if:{{{dépt|{{{dept|}}}}}}|[[Departments of France|Departement]]}}? There is | image_caption = {{{image_caption|Location of {{lcfirst:{{{nom|{{PAGENAME}} }}} }} in the departement of {{{dépt}}} }}} as well... There's at least one layer of indirection through {{Infobox settlement}} -- DanielPenfield (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Where did you find that? Eric ^talk 23:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and fixed it. look at the diff in the page history to see what I did, and then click on the 'Edit this page' tab to see the entire text of the template. you'll get the idea. --Ludwigs2 23:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I could swear I looked there before, but... Eric ^talk 03:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

no problem - I'm used enough to templates that I can see right through the code; it's a skill that takes a while to develop. glad I could help. --Ludwigs2 04:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem related to javascript dependency

{{infobox writer}} and {{infobox philosopher}} both have influences and influenced parameters, but their behavior varies when javascript is disabled: the writer infobox displays those parameters when javascript is turned off, while the philosopher infobox displays only the labels for the two fields. Would someone with template/infobox experience fix the philosopher infobox? Try turning off javascript and then comparing what the infobox displays for writer Ayn Rand and philosopher Michel de Montaigne, for example. Thanks in advance for your help with this. 67.100.126.51 (talk) 17:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done --Ludwigs2 19:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Best Infobox?

I'd like to add an Infobox to the Grand Ole Opry, which is both a live stage show and a radio broadcast. I'd appreciate any input on which Infobox template would be best to use. Thanks, RadioBroadcast (talk) 16:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: I have discovered the "generic" infobox option and have gone that route... RadioBroadcast (talk) 22:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:reqinfobox

Please could someone take a look at {{reqinfobox}}, per the comments I have left at the talk page? Regards, WFCforLife (talk) 11:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

NFL, NHL, NBA

In a great move, the Wikiproject Football had decided to do away with the NFLretired infobox and converted the NFLactive for use by both active and retired players. Being that the NFLactive and similar MLB infoboxes are clearly the best, why not do away with both the current NBA and NHL infoboxes and make them similar to the NFLactive infoboxes.Beast from da East (talk) 23:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I realize this is a long dead and ignored discussion, but the reason not to make such a change is the fact that the NFL infobox is an ugly blight on Wikipedia. Resolute 15:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

So merge them into one, good, template - preferably based on {{Infobox}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Beast from the east already proposed that at wp:sports and it was blown out of the water by editors from pretty much every sport. -DJSasso (talk) 16:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

On principle, I'm in favour of standardization but I find it counter-productive to try and do this through small groups of similar templates. There first needs to be (and I don't think there currently is) an agreement that infoboxes should be standardized to some extent. Pichpich (talk) 17:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The existence and widespread use of {{Infobox}} and MoS (Infoboxes) are each de facto agreement to "standardize infoboxes to some extent". Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

What I'm saying is precisely that de facto agreements are too weak to impose standardization. Working like this is a sure recipe for drama and it forces repetitive little battles that, as you've seen recently, don't always go smoothly. Do we, as a project, want to pursue real thorough standards for infoboxes (like the fr.wiki does)? This needs to first be discussed at the Village Pump. If an agreement can be reached, the relevant MOS should be updated accordingly. Only then will it make sense to start a systematic series of adjustments to the templates. Patience is important. Pichpich (talk) 19:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you refer to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB Infoboxes? I don't see my proposal being discussed there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you actually read discussions? Or do you just disagree on principle that someone that has disagreed with you in the past said it? That discussion is clearly him asking about merging infoboxes into a similar style. But yes that is one of the locations I was talking about, he brought it up at individual projects as well. -DJSasso (talk) 16:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I wish you lots of luck convincing dozens of projects to agree on a uniform look for all biographical articles, Andy. Personally, I'd rather spend my time writing articles than wasting it fighting over trivialities. Resolute 01:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

That's precisely why a discussion at a higher level is necessary. It's not about fighting or trivialities. It's just a typical MOS issue, though perhaps you're of the belief that all the format and layout questions are trivialities. But if that's the case, why would you comment here? Pichpich (talk) 23:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

You'd prefer to have people debating the same issue over and over again on each template's talk page, or each article talk page, rather than doing so once, centrally? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

The cutest part of Wikipedia governance is that unless it is a hot button issue, central discussion of topics such as this often involves only a handful of editors who then try to proclaim a project-wide consensus. The very fact that you would have to debate the same issue over and over again when you try to push such a proclamation out into the world should be your first clue that the original plan was not as widely supported as believed. Resolute 23:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

We were discussing repetitive debates as an alternative to centralised discussion, not a consequence of it. Your "clue" is thus a false one. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The point is that a centralized debate that involves a trivial number of editors lacks the consensus required to bypass debate on individual template pages. Resolute 19:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Where do you see anyone proposing "a centralized debate that involves a trivial number of editors"? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

You are completely missing the point, what he is saying is that most centralized debates only get a trivial number of users. And its not until they try to move their decision out onto the rest of the wiki that they end up getting wider input and find out that maybe the decision that a handful of editors decided on is not actually the consensus in the wider setting. -DJSasso (talk) 19:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Then I look forward to your proposal to delete {{Cent}} and abandon the MoS. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:12, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, its useless trying to talk to you sometimes. We aren't saying people shouldn't have centralized discussions. What is being said is that they often go nowhere and more often than not a very small number of people often less than 10 make a decision to do some major change then when they start trying to do the change they have all kinds of debates with people that don't want the change. They then claim its wiki-wide consensus when its clearly not or they wouldn't have so many people objecting. When you end up having battles on so many pages to make your desired change its a clear sign you don't have consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 23:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that anyone is proposing a centralized debate involving a trivial number of editors, Andy, I am stating that it is an inherent flaw in the system. Resolute 02:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)