This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 |
Continuing from Talk:San Jose, California#Airport parameter:
In the past few years, I have noticed city articles using the blank parameters in {{ Infobox settlement}} to stuff more and more information that would better be explained in the lead as prose, such as listing off airports, highways, waterways, transit systems, and representatives in national and subnational legislatures. I have boldly removed these in the past (to de-clutter infoboxes and keep them easier to update) and discussed the issue at WT:CITIES, but had no definitive response either for or against them until today. My case is citing MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE ("The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.") and NOTTRVAELGUIDE, which discourages including information better suited for a travelogue. I appreciate feedback from the wider community on this, as internal project discussion has not yielded great results. Sounder Bruce 23:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
and they shouldn't be removed except for on a per page basis when a significant amount of editors who usually maintain and edit that page oppose said parameters.That is not how it works. Wikipedia recommends (although it does not mandate) the bold-revert-discuss cycle. Any editor can make an edit, including an edit that removes a parameter recently added to a page (the one at San Jose was added 26 May 2021 [1], which is quite recent in that page's history). If anyone disagrees with any edit that is made by another user, they may revert to the status quo, and a discussion should commence in talk to seek consensus. Any editor may contribute to any discussion. Discussion is core to finding consensus, yes, but it is not required prior to a bold edit. Sirfurboy🏄 ( talk) 21:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
lackluster amount of information on their transportation systemsbeing a justification for inclusion in the infobox, the lack of information in an article's body would tend to indicate that editors contributing to an article have not considered it significant. It indicates that the information is not a key point (per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). It is a justification for it not to be included in the infobox. Cinderella157 ( talk) 06:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
These parameters have been used for major transportation elements for far more than just a few years. The purpose of an infobox is to summarize the article at a quick glance, and a major city is going to have a section on its significant transportation infrastructure, so the infobox should summarize that section in the barest way possible. Twice I've already had to reinstate the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox because of the misguided removal of such a critical element of the city as a settlement. The precedent is there (London has the same usage) and has been in use for years. Being that guidelines are to document practice, not dictate it, the guideline for city infoboxes is out of date and must be amended to match the actual use, not be used as a circle to remove key relevant information that is found in the article. oknazevad ( talk) 14:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Twice I've already had to reinstate the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox. If the infobox has the sole mention of it, it should not be in the infobox.
keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the articleper WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Rather than restoring it to an infobox, surely you should be placing the material within the body of the page.
Follow up thought: what makes a postal code that's total administrivia to anyone not mailing a letter to a city worthy of inclusionIn most cases it shouldn't be included. However, in the UK there is a concept of postal towns, and where a town article describes the postal town, then (and only then) does it make sense to include the postal code. The mere existence of a parameter does not mean it should be used. Sirfurboy🏄 ( talk) 18:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox, does tend to convey that it is the sole mention in the article. Talk page communication is not always as clear as we would like. And personalising statements (
you shouldn't be commenting on the infobox contents at all) is rarely a good idea since it can easily be seen as uncivil.
I generally think an infobox should summarize key facts already in the prose of the lead. Too often, an inbox is a repository of trivial information or a replacement for writing prose. Obviously, WP:IAR exceptions apply, but they should be limited. As for airport codes, its surely useful to some readers, but so would a list of major local sports teams, fine arts venues, green spaces, shopping malls, etc. However, we can and do make editorial decisions to exclude, based on consensus. To me, an objective approach would be: "If it's too trivial to write similar prose in the lead, why is it important for the infobox?"— Bagumba ( talk) 06:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Sorry to drop this in the middle of a long conversation. As for community articles in United States, please keep the following "blank" fields, otherwise I don't care if you remove other "blank" fields. I assume you didn't mean to delete these, but thought I better say something since I didn't find the words "FIPS" or "GNIS" in your conversation.
• Sbmeirow • Talk • 20:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I recently noticed editors have been adding 0 values to fields like {{{fatalities}}}
and {{{injuries}}}
within {{
Infobox civilian attack}}. Is this best practice? I was under the assumption that we didn’t need to do this unless the content specifically talked about how there were zero deaths or injuries. In other words, if an article on a school shooting mentions there were three deaths we note that in {{{fatalities}}}
, but if it doesn’t discuss that there were 0 injuries we don’t note that in the infobox. Could anyone point me to best practices in this regard?
Viriditas (
talk)
23:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox university § Add Visitor as a field. Robminchin ( talk) 02:30, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
No Consensus to do anything. I see that a few editors added comments recently, but this still has not emerged from the no consensus stage.
This has been going on awhile, and closure has been asked for at least twice at the WP:CR page, so at this point, maybe everyone can take what they've learned so far, and if wanted, start a new discussion. - jc37 11:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Are commanders/leaders (a parameter in
Template:Infobox military conflict) specialised information per
WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE and therefore exempt from the general advice at
WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE that infoboxes summarize ... key facts that appear in the article
- ie that information appearing in the infobox should be supported by the article.
Cinderella157 (
talk)
09:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
This question relates to a discussion at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Commanders and Leaders. Cinderella157 ( talk) 09:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Notifications:
Cinderella157 ( talk) 10:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
This is somewhat confusing to me. Are we saying that most biography infoboxes violate the guideline in the next sentence? If so, what are we doing about this? If that's not how I should be reading this, what's the purpose of the first sentence?
Can we perhaps reword the whole thing? Here's my suggestion:
Thanks. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 11:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
An RFC about the infobox of the two general elections in Italy, is being held.-- Scia Della Cometa ( talk) 08:46, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Please contribute. Cinderella157 ( talk) 23:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC on establishing a biography infobox guideline regarding changes to infobox guidelines found on this page. Nythar ( 💬- 🍀) 18:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I see there's at least one previous section and an RfC on this issue above, but I don't see where it's been discussed previously in relation to heraldic tinctures.
Giltsbeach made their first edit on March 23 and has been editing in the field of heraldry. On April 1, they took two editors to AN/I for disagreeing with them: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1124#User talk:JalenFolf and User:Mako001. The section was archived after JalenFolf expressed satisfaction that Giltsbeach had not removed information, but when I examined Giltsbeach's edits at Sable (heraldry) their opening statement at AN/I turned out to be accurate: they had removed a section from the article on grounds of the information being in the infobox. Giltsbeach asserts consensus to have this information—on "poetic designations", in other words flowers and gemstones (and in some versions of the articles, metals) that became associated with the tinctures in alchemy and early modern heraldry, see the table at the top of Tincture (heraldry)#List—only in the infobox of the tincture articles on grounds of triviality, which I believe to be the reverse of the guidance. I joined the section that JalenFolf had started at Talk:Sable (heraldry)#Poetic meanings section and edited the article twice: the first time endorsing the rollback by Mako001 while making other changes, the second time again restoring the article section and also reverting a strange layout change that Giltsbeach has since self-reverted. This received a revert by Giltsbeach alleging vandalism as well as editing against consensus. The section on the article talk page failed to change Giltsbeach's mind or to attract participation by anyone else, so on April 5 I started a section at WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology to determine whether there was indeed a local consensus to override project-wide guidance on this matter.
This attempt at discussion also failed to attract a response from any other heraldry editors. Giltsbeach's last engagement with the issue on talk is the identical uncivil personalization at the WikiProject and the article talk. So I then did my own research and I believe I found the origins of the WikiProject deviating from the guidelines back in 2018, in the aftermath of Ssolbergj creating Template:Infobox heraldic tincture and adding it to Gules: this edit by Dbachmann. I put a lengthy report, including pinging the two editors who apparently originally discussed and developed both the sections and the table at the Tincture (heraldry), into the WikiProject discussionon April 8. It's now April 19 UTC and there has been no response; other than Citationbot, no one has further edited the Sable article except Giltsbeach. I appreciate Giltsbeach's willingness to work in a recondite field, and I assume they bring useful knowledge, but I can see no reason for this to be an exception to the guideline that information that can be comfortably accommodated in the article should be there as well as in the infobox. Not all readers read the infobox in preference to or even as well as the article prose, and this is not highly technical, statistical, or graphical material. The "consensus" appears to have come about by oversight, which was why one article, the sable article, still had the information in the article prose. So I can't see even that reason for an exception. Is there one that I'm missing? Yngvadottir ( talk) 01:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored, with exceptions noted below).The only information about exceptions that I can find is in the next paragraph:
there will be exceptions where a piece of key specialised information is difficult to integrate into the body text, but where that information may be placed in the infobox.and belownoting less than perfect compliance and further technical/tabular examples:
Be aware that although all information in an infobox ideally should also be found in the main body of an article, there isn't perfect compliance with this guideline. For example, the full taxonomic hierarchy in {{Taxobox}}, and the OMIM and other medical database codes of {{Infobox disease}} are often not found in the main article content.Giltsbeach's first edit to the Sable article, on April 1, violates this guideline by removing a section from the article, leaving only the listing of that information in the infobox. So did Dbachmann's 2018 edit at Gules, which I linked above. Giltsbeach then edit warred over removal of the article section, culminating in their opening the AN/I against the two editors who had reverted them: their rationale at AN/I is explicitly contrary to the guideline in that they assert the prose section is undue because the information is in the infobox:
I made an edit to the Sable (heraldry) article to remove a subsection with redundant information that was given undo weight. The information was already found in the infobox to the right of the page, and remained there with my edits.On the article talk page, they also asserted triviality as well as local consensus:
The poetic interpretation isn't a key fact, it's trivial. A fad. ... The rest of the tincture articles follow this style. The community has already come to a consensus on this.Its not being a key fact is a reason to exclude it from the infobox rather than from the article, its being trivia is a reason to exclude it from the entire article (neither of which I am advocating; it's referenced information), and it is not
difficult to integrate into the body text. Yngvadottir ( talk) 03:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
A follow-up note. I attempted to summarize Giltsbeach's statements and the outcome of their AN/I report, but it is always possible I failed in some respect. Since here, too, they were the only one arguing for an exception from the guideline, I went ahead and reinstated the section to Sable (heraldry) and Gules, then to the other tincture articles. In doing so, I found that Giltsbeach's assertion that all the articles except Sable had the information only in the infobox had been mistaken. Several articles still had either a section or a paragraph without a section heading. There was no consistency. There is now, following the guideline, and I also looked for and added references for the material where there was none. Yngvadottir ( talk) 00:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Editors' comments are sought at Talk:H._A._Willis regarding whether the infobox should note that one child has died. Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:40, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Template talk:Infobox legislative election#Survey has a discussion that some here might find interesting.
Personally, I think there’s an unfortunate trend for ever larger election infoboxes, but others may disagree! Bondegezou ( talk) 12:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 |
Continuing from Talk:San Jose, California#Airport parameter:
In the past few years, I have noticed city articles using the blank parameters in {{ Infobox settlement}} to stuff more and more information that would better be explained in the lead as prose, such as listing off airports, highways, waterways, transit systems, and representatives in national and subnational legislatures. I have boldly removed these in the past (to de-clutter infoboxes and keep them easier to update) and discussed the issue at WT:CITIES, but had no definitive response either for or against them until today. My case is citing MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE ("The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.") and NOTTRVAELGUIDE, which discourages including information better suited for a travelogue. I appreciate feedback from the wider community on this, as internal project discussion has not yielded great results. Sounder Bruce 23:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
and they shouldn't be removed except for on a per page basis when a significant amount of editors who usually maintain and edit that page oppose said parameters.That is not how it works. Wikipedia recommends (although it does not mandate) the bold-revert-discuss cycle. Any editor can make an edit, including an edit that removes a parameter recently added to a page (the one at San Jose was added 26 May 2021 [1], which is quite recent in that page's history). If anyone disagrees with any edit that is made by another user, they may revert to the status quo, and a discussion should commence in talk to seek consensus. Any editor may contribute to any discussion. Discussion is core to finding consensus, yes, but it is not required prior to a bold edit. Sirfurboy🏄 ( talk) 21:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
lackluster amount of information on their transportation systemsbeing a justification for inclusion in the infobox, the lack of information in an article's body would tend to indicate that editors contributing to an article have not considered it significant. It indicates that the information is not a key point (per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE). It is a justification for it not to be included in the infobox. Cinderella157 ( talk) 06:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
These parameters have been used for major transportation elements for far more than just a few years. The purpose of an infobox is to summarize the article at a quick glance, and a major city is going to have a section on its significant transportation infrastructure, so the infobox should summarize that section in the barest way possible. Twice I've already had to reinstate the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox because of the misguided removal of such a critical element of the city as a settlement. The precedent is there (London has the same usage) and has been in use for years. Being that guidelines are to document practice, not dictate it, the guideline for city infoboxes is out of date and must be amended to match the actual use, not be used as a circle to remove key relevant information that is found in the article. oknazevad ( talk) 14:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
Twice I've already had to reinstate the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox. If the infobox has the sole mention of it, it should not be in the infobox.
keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the articleper WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Rather than restoring it to an infobox, surely you should be placing the material within the body of the page.
Follow up thought: what makes a postal code that's total administrivia to anyone not mailing a letter to a city worthy of inclusionIn most cases it shouldn't be included. However, in the UK there is a concept of postal towns, and where a town article describes the postal town, then (and only then) does it make sense to include the postal code. The mere existence of a parameter does not mean it should be used. Sirfurboy🏄 ( talk) 18:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
the sole mention of the New York City Subway in the NYC infobox, does tend to convey that it is the sole mention in the article. Talk page communication is not always as clear as we would like. And personalising statements (
you shouldn't be commenting on the infobox contents at all) is rarely a good idea since it can easily be seen as uncivil.
I generally think an infobox should summarize key facts already in the prose of the lead. Too often, an inbox is a repository of trivial information or a replacement for writing prose. Obviously, WP:IAR exceptions apply, but they should be limited. As for airport codes, its surely useful to some readers, but so would a list of major local sports teams, fine arts venues, green spaces, shopping malls, etc. However, we can and do make editorial decisions to exclude, based on consensus. To me, an objective approach would be: "If it's too trivial to write similar prose in the lead, why is it important for the infobox?"— Bagumba ( talk) 06:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Sorry to drop this in the middle of a long conversation. As for community articles in United States, please keep the following "blank" fields, otherwise I don't care if you remove other "blank" fields. I assume you didn't mean to delete these, but thought I better say something since I didn't find the words "FIPS" or "GNIS" in your conversation.
• Sbmeirow • Talk • 20:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
I recently noticed editors have been adding 0 values to fields like {{{fatalities}}}
and {{{injuries}}}
within {{
Infobox civilian attack}}. Is this best practice? I was under the assumption that we didn’t need to do this unless the content specifically talked about how there were zero deaths or injuries. In other words, if an article on a school shooting mentions there were three deaths we note that in {{{fatalities}}}
, but if it doesn’t discuss that there were 0 injuries we don’t note that in the infobox. Could anyone point me to best practices in this regard?
Viriditas (
talk)
23:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Infobox university § Add Visitor as a field. Robminchin ( talk) 02:30, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
No Consensus to do anything. I see that a few editors added comments recently, but this still has not emerged from the no consensus stage.
This has been going on awhile, and closure has been asked for at least twice at the WP:CR page, so at this point, maybe everyone can take what they've learned so far, and if wanted, start a new discussion. - jc37 11:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Are commanders/leaders (a parameter in
Template:Infobox military conflict) specialised information per
WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE and therefore exempt from the general advice at
WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE that infoboxes summarize ... key facts that appear in the article
- ie that information appearing in the infobox should be supported by the article.
Cinderella157 (
talk)
09:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
This question relates to a discussion at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Commanders and Leaders. Cinderella157 ( talk) 09:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Notifications:
Cinderella157 ( talk) 10:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
This is somewhat confusing to me. Are we saying that most biography infoboxes violate the guideline in the next sentence? If so, what are we doing about this? If that's not how I should be reading this, what's the purpose of the first sentence?
Can we perhaps reword the whole thing? Here's my suggestion:
Thanks. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 11:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
An RFC about the infobox of the two general elections in Italy, is being held.-- Scia Della Cometa ( talk) 08:46, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Please contribute. Cinderella157 ( talk) 23:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RfC on establishing a biography infobox guideline regarding changes to infobox guidelines found on this page. Nythar ( 💬- 🍀) 18:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I see there's at least one previous section and an RfC on this issue above, but I don't see where it's been discussed previously in relation to heraldic tinctures.
Giltsbeach made their first edit on March 23 and has been editing in the field of heraldry. On April 1, they took two editors to AN/I for disagreeing with them: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1124#User talk:JalenFolf and User:Mako001. The section was archived after JalenFolf expressed satisfaction that Giltsbeach had not removed information, but when I examined Giltsbeach's edits at Sable (heraldry) their opening statement at AN/I turned out to be accurate: they had removed a section from the article on grounds of the information being in the infobox. Giltsbeach asserts consensus to have this information—on "poetic designations", in other words flowers and gemstones (and in some versions of the articles, metals) that became associated with the tinctures in alchemy and early modern heraldry, see the table at the top of Tincture (heraldry)#List—only in the infobox of the tincture articles on grounds of triviality, which I believe to be the reverse of the guidance. I joined the section that JalenFolf had started at Talk:Sable (heraldry)#Poetic meanings section and edited the article twice: the first time endorsing the rollback by Mako001 while making other changes, the second time again restoring the article section and also reverting a strange layout change that Giltsbeach has since self-reverted. This received a revert by Giltsbeach alleging vandalism as well as editing against consensus. The section on the article talk page failed to change Giltsbeach's mind or to attract participation by anyone else, so on April 5 I started a section at WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology to determine whether there was indeed a local consensus to override project-wide guidance on this matter.
This attempt at discussion also failed to attract a response from any other heraldry editors. Giltsbeach's last engagement with the issue on talk is the identical uncivil personalization at the WikiProject and the article talk. So I then did my own research and I believe I found the origins of the WikiProject deviating from the guidelines back in 2018, in the aftermath of Ssolbergj creating Template:Infobox heraldic tincture and adding it to Gules: this edit by Dbachmann. I put a lengthy report, including pinging the two editors who apparently originally discussed and developed both the sections and the table at the Tincture (heraldry), into the WikiProject discussionon April 8. It's now April 19 UTC and there has been no response; other than Citationbot, no one has further edited the Sable article except Giltsbeach. I appreciate Giltsbeach's willingness to work in a recondite field, and I assume they bring useful knowledge, but I can see no reason for this to be an exception to the guideline that information that can be comfortably accommodated in the article should be there as well as in the infobox. Not all readers read the infobox in preference to or even as well as the article prose, and this is not highly technical, statistical, or graphical material. The "consensus" appears to have come about by oversight, which was why one article, the sable article, still had the information in the article prose. So I can't see even that reason for an exception. Is there one that I'm missing? Yngvadottir ( talk) 01:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored, with exceptions noted below).The only information about exceptions that I can find is in the next paragraph:
there will be exceptions where a piece of key specialised information is difficult to integrate into the body text, but where that information may be placed in the infobox.and belownoting less than perfect compliance and further technical/tabular examples:
Be aware that although all information in an infobox ideally should also be found in the main body of an article, there isn't perfect compliance with this guideline. For example, the full taxonomic hierarchy in {{Taxobox}}, and the OMIM and other medical database codes of {{Infobox disease}} are often not found in the main article content.Giltsbeach's first edit to the Sable article, on April 1, violates this guideline by removing a section from the article, leaving only the listing of that information in the infobox. So did Dbachmann's 2018 edit at Gules, which I linked above. Giltsbeach then edit warred over removal of the article section, culminating in their opening the AN/I against the two editors who had reverted them: their rationale at AN/I is explicitly contrary to the guideline in that they assert the prose section is undue because the information is in the infobox:
I made an edit to the Sable (heraldry) article to remove a subsection with redundant information that was given undo weight. The information was already found in the infobox to the right of the page, and remained there with my edits.On the article talk page, they also asserted triviality as well as local consensus:
The poetic interpretation isn't a key fact, it's trivial. A fad. ... The rest of the tincture articles follow this style. The community has already come to a consensus on this.Its not being a key fact is a reason to exclude it from the infobox rather than from the article, its being trivia is a reason to exclude it from the entire article (neither of which I am advocating; it's referenced information), and it is not
difficult to integrate into the body text. Yngvadottir ( talk) 03:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
A follow-up note. I attempted to summarize Giltsbeach's statements and the outcome of their AN/I report, but it is always possible I failed in some respect. Since here, too, they were the only one arguing for an exception from the guideline, I went ahead and reinstated the section to Sable (heraldry) and Gules, then to the other tincture articles. In doing so, I found that Giltsbeach's assertion that all the articles except Sable had the information only in the infobox had been mistaken. Several articles still had either a section or a paragraph without a section heading. There was no consistency. There is now, following the guideline, and I also looked for and added references for the material where there was none. Yngvadottir ( talk) 00:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Editors' comments are sought at Talk:H._A._Willis regarding whether the infobox should note that one child has died. Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:40, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Template talk:Infobox legislative election#Survey has a discussion that some here might find interesting.
Personally, I think there’s an unfortunate trend for ever larger election infoboxes, but others may disagree! Bondegezou ( talk) 12:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)