Talk:Deepika Padukone

Missing information?

(edit conflict) According to an interview she is trained in Bharathanatyam (source 2: [1]) and also jazz ballet (source 2) . Also, another article by The Times of India states she's learned Kathak (source 2: [2]). Is it worth mentioning in the article? Also, what happened to the infobox? It's missing!? ごだい (会話) 17:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Seems useful. Please ask the FA nominators User:Krimuk90 and User:Dr. Blofeld and add the info. ---- Kailash29792 (talk) 16:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to mess with the article so I'll just notify them. Thanks. ごだい (会話) 17:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, where's the infobox?   Sohambanerjee1998   14:17, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It was removed during the FA review as it adds nothing new to the article. Read WP:DISINFOBOX. And the information about her training in Bharatnatyam and Kathak can definitely be included. --krimuk ⁹⁰ 14:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Infobox >

What happened to the Infobox? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 18:00, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

We decided that it had nothing of value and looked better without it. Infoboxes are not compulsory you know.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:21, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't it provide consolidated info on the top of the page? Pretty handy for mobile users. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 19:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Nothing that the lead doesn't provide anyway see Wikipedia:Disinfoboxes.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:31, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

That's untrue. An infobox provides a quick overview in a predictable position of key facts that a reader can access at a glance. It also provides both microformats and structured data that facilitates third party reuse of our content. There's plenty that the lead does not provide. --RexxS (talk) 20:33, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Neither of the article authors want an infobox. The infobox contains nothing that isn't already provided which can be easily viewed. Take your infobox Nazism somewhere else Please get on with something more useful, there's a million and one things needing doing with article work on wikipedia.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:47, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree. For an article on a living person, it is probably better not to have an infobox (especially in this case). ☠ Jaguar ☠ 22:52, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Adding an infobox to this article as down in this revision here barely gave enough information in itself - it can all be found in the lead of the article anyway. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 23:07, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is it "probably better" in this case not to have an infobox? Do you have any reason to say that?

The infobox I provided was indeed minimal, as infoboxes should be. They become counter-productive if we end up cramming cruft and trivia into them. However, date and place of birth, age, occupation and the career dates would seem to me to be key information for an actor and the sort of information that a reader may visit the page simply to find out. We have the opportunity to give visitors the choice of using the article for (1) a detailed biography; (2) an overview of the person's life and career; (3) a quick reference for key facts relevant to the person. Those choices are provided by (1) the main article; (2) the lede; (3) the infobox. Just because all of the information in the lead can be found in the main body of the article, we don't adduce an argument that we shouldn't have a lead. Correspondingly, it doesn't matter that the infobox carries information that may be found elsewhere in the article; that's no reason not to have an infobox - it serves a different function from the lead and the article body.

In addition, the infobox I suggested provided the following microformats for third-party readers: vcard, fn, bday, birthplace, role. None of that is available in the lead. Nor does the lead contain the structured {label-data} pairs, {"Born" - "5 January 1986 (age 27) Copenhagen, Denmark"}, {"Occupation" - "Film actress, model"}, {"Years active" - "2006–present"}, which are used to gather information in machine-readable format, as well as by researchers who use them to train natural language parsers. There are many more uses for infoboxes than just collecting together a few key facts for the casual reader. --RexxS (talk) 01:26, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

RexxS, I'm sick to death of logging into this website and seeing people like you forcing infoboxes and then brandishing civility policies at editors who work in good faith here and disagree with you. Infoboxes are NOT compulsory and this was decided by Arb here. I have no problems, in fact I support infoboxes where they contain a wealth of information, whether it be buildings, sportspeople or aircraft or settlements and I think they're to be advised on things like that where a lot of facts are best represented in a table/box. What I detest is infobox pushers where the infobox is virtually redundant and contains nothing other than the name and date of birth and occupation which is all mentioned in the lead and the people who've bothered to promote it to GA/FA have decided they don't want one and it looks better without it. Your summary adding the box implying a virtually empty box is full of useful facts for mobile readers is simply false. Quite frankly I've had more than my fair share of infobox disputes and I do NOT want to see a repeat of Peter Sellers. I strongly suggest you read the "Obsession with infoboxes" section on my user page and do something useful instead.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

And why shouldn't I be equally sick to death of seeing you reverting my good-faith improvements to an article with no more justification than that you own the article and don't like infoboxes? Why shouldn't I detest infobox haters who don't understand the value of even small infoboxes for the casual visitor and for third-party re-use, yet feel the need to remove them without a proper discussion? Is your best argument "it looks better without it"? Is this all about your personal preferences? You have made no attempt to enter into discussion yet you have the gall to remind others of the ArbCom restating our policy "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." When this article went to FAC, one reviewer was against an infobox and one was in favour. They brought these arguments to bear:

• "I consider the infobox to be more of a WP:DISINFOBOX and utterly pointless here."
• "I see other Bollywood actresses have similar, so this must be the norm"
• "it's very standard for actor articles to have an infoxbox and I think you'll find yourself constantly battling with other editors over it...it's bound to be re-added all the time"
• "two pieces of information that they provide at a quick glance (not so easily available in the lead) are 1. the subjects age, and 2. the years they have been active"

But your response addressed nothing:

• Most of us here seem to agree that the infobox is pointless ... Looks better with out it IMO"

Yet you seem to think that your opinion trumps all other and that you can attack those that disagree with you whenever you choose. Nevertheless, I engaged with you politely and in a collegial manner, despite your lack of understanding of the value that an infobox may bring and the disinformation you spread. Beside me, there are two editors above asking what happened to the infobox and they deserve to have a proper answer. Are you unable to sensibly and rationally discuss the pros and cons of my edit without resorting to ad hominen arguments? I find that many others whose views on infoboxes are strongly divergent from mine are perfectly capable of entering into discussion with me and seeking consensus without resorting to the utterly unacceptable behaviour you have displayed. If you are truly incapable of editing in a collegial manner with editors like me, then I strongly suggest you find yourself another website to contribute to. --RexxS (talk) 17:28, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

RexxS, I think for most cases an infobox would suit an article very well - such as articles ranging from cities to small villages and types of flora to species, etc... but unless I'm mistaken, they're not compulsory. For an article such as this, an infobox with minimal information like you said above may not be needed. At a quick glance, all the information that was in the infobox can easily be found in the lead. Is ArbCom trying to make them compulsory? And even if they are, don't we even get a say in it? ☠ Jaguar ☠ 17:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging so politely, Jaguar. It's difficult to generalise about types of articles where infoboxes serve best, which is why our policy is to discuss the pros and cons on individual articles. At the FAC, Loeba said, "it's very standard for actor articles to have an infoxbox" and Cassianto (who is generally not in favour of infoboxes in biographies) added "other Bollywood actresses have similar, so this must be the norm". In fact there are about 2.3 million out of 4.4 million total articles with infoboxes, so there really isn't any norm, and of course they are not compulsory - but neither is their absence compulsory either (and ArbCom has no intention of changing any of that). As you can see from my comment above, there are several reasons for having an infobox. Equally there are several reasons not to have one. Sometimes the information cannot be satisfactorily summarised and needs a more nuanced explanation - trying to over-summarise can mislead the reader; sometimes the aesthetics of the page are badly disturbed by an infobox - a huge infobox can overwhelm a short article, for example; sometimes there are just insufficient key facts known to sensibly populate an infobox; sometimes an infobox can become a magnet for "true fans™" to cram every bit of cruft and trivia into it. Then there is the effort required to maintain an infobox and make sure the text, the lead and the box remain in sync with each other. For any given article, there are lots of considerations that need to be made to determine whether an infobox is a net improvement. And that's why it's important that the discussion can be made in a collegial manner. I'm not tolerant of editors who poison discussion with personal attacks and a "because I say so" attitude. --RexxS (talk) 18:23, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello all, another day, another infobox discussion. Firstly, welcome back RexxS and I'm glad your absence was a temporary one. Infoboxes; what can I say that hasn't been said already. It is true, I don't like them on biographies. The reasons why I don't like them on biographies are thus:

• over simplification of the facts
• they can give misleading and ambiguous information
• the information given is repetitive and redundant and can be found within the first line of the lede,
• they are ugly beyond belief! Especially if they bleed down the page and into the first section which has a sandwiching effect with the first picture
• How can we summarise accurately the life of a notable being who has had a seventy-year career and who has lived for ninety-years in a series of bullet points?
• They contain unimportant information; why do I need to know who their non-notable wives/husbands are? Who their non-notable children are? What gender they are? Why should these points be the first thing a reader sees?
• They can contain factoids, cruft, and other trivia which, although very interesting to fact hungry students who are cheating in exams and essays, do nothing for explaining the complexities of someone's career which they have worked hard on?

This is not to say I dislike them *all* of the time. They work well on geography articles, film articles, war articles, nobility articles, and political articles. I'm sure there are other but they escape me. Padukone is purely biographical, so IMO, all of the above bulleted points apply. My "other Bollywood actresses have similar, so this must be the norm" comment was rhetorical, which I put out there with a positive slant, fearing that I may start a heated discussion about infoboxes on it's FAC. This happend to SchroCat and I during the Ian Fleming FAC which was disruptive and annoying and made the article fail it's FAC. A do agree with RexxS; there appears to be no "norm" when presented with the statistics above. In fact, I agree with all of your cons and thank you for giving us the pros. In terms of FAs, I believe the decision whether to have a box or not should be down to the local editors who have worked hard to make it an Featured article. Cassianto^Talk 19:06, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Not to get into a big debate about this, but for my 2p (since I was tagged here and was involved in the artice FAC) I think Rex makes a very articulate argument for the inclusion of infoboxes. He has explained precisely why I favour them. They provide instant statistics in a way the lead does not, and there's nothing wrong with a reader wanting to find facts in an instance. If someone literally only wants to find out Padukone's age, I don't think they should have to look at the birthdate in the lead and do the maths. If they want to know the year of her debut, they shouldn't have to scan the lead when they can find it straight away in an infobox (I always look at the "years active" row when I visit a bio page, I find it really useful). These facts aren't things that can be miscommunicated in an infobox, either (I don't quite understand the argument about them containing ambiguous information, TBH). Likewise, it's very possible that a reader will be coming to the page to quickly find out who an individual was married to and what those years were. Maybe not everyone cares about those facts, but it's definitely something people will be coming to a bio article for so again - I think it's reasonable for us to make that information instantly available (it wouldn't be there in the first couple of lines of the lead). Don't we want to be as useful as possible? However, as Rex says, if a reader does want a full introduction to that individual, we have the lead (and then the full article). The infobox doesn't take away from this. Yes, it the info is repeated in the lead, but I think Rex's point that this info is also repeated in the main text is a very good one and almost makes the "repetitive" argument redundant. I really like his point that we give readers the option of finding information in three different ways (via quick statistics, via a written summary, or via a full biography). The appearance of infoboxes is a subjective issue as well - they don't offend me personally, on the contrary I think they give pages a more "formal" look. Although I agree that they look pretty silly on bare-bones stub articles. Basically what it comes down to is that I know I find them very useful and miss them whenever they aren't on an article, so I'm speaking on behalf of people coming to the page who also find them useful. --Loeba (talk) 19:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, could we all please try and avoid the uncivil language: there is as little need for the unfounded ownership allegation as there is for the Nazi tag and it's not a good way to start a conversation.

In regard to the IB, I'm afraid I don't see an advantage in this instance. The only "new" information the IB provides is her age, which is partially interesting, but not a terribly good reason to justify including an entire infobox just to support it: everything else in the box is redundant, being provided in the first few lines. As with many infoboxes, some of the information is misleading and ambiguous: the "occupation" field in this case is inaccurate, for example. As to the provision of metadata, firstly there is no consensus that we are required to provide this for unconnected third parties; secondly we already provide this: it's in the hidden {{Persondata}} template already that provides the key facts. – SchroCat (talk) 20:51, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would also like to avoid uncivil language, but I don't accept that my characterisation of Blofeld's behaviour as ownership is unfounded. Perhaps you and I have different views on what constitutes ownership, and we may have to agree to disagree on that point.

You make some good points about the IB here, but IBs are not required to provide "new" information. In fact they should generally duplicate the key items of information for visitors who want to simply look up a fact about the subject. I accept that the box I suggested was minimal, but the previous box contained a lot more information - too much in my opinion. Nevertheless if others felt that a larger box was more viable, I'd be happy to discuss what other information might be included or excluded. I'm also puzzled why stating Padukone's occupation as "Film actress, model" should be inaccurate, misleading and ambiguous. The lead states "Deepika Padukone ... is an Indian film actress and model" - surely the infobox is no more inaccurate, etc. than the lead is? The point about Persondata is important. It is certainly much better to have some metadata than none, but you have to remember than Persondata is proprietary to Wikipedia and it doesn't provide the generally-recognised microformats that the infobox would (vcard, fn, bday, birthplace, role are not generated in Persondata). There are several other ways in which Persondata would be a poor substitute for the infobox, but it's easiest to refer you to this essay for those. I agree we are not required to provide metadata for unconnected third parties, but we're not required to provide encyclopedia content for unconnected readers either! This project is a hobby (other than for the paid editors) and from my own perspective, I see value in providing data to third parties as they then disseminate it further and help us to create that "world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge". --RexxS (talk) 21:43, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

@Loeba. I'd feel differently if the infobox contained a lot of data but the infobox attempting to be added contains barely anything, It really doesn't add anything of major value and you seem to view it as a missing piece of furniture rather than it of having major value. The only thing I can see it useful for as it was "how old is she?" ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I guess part of it is that I'm used to them, but I genuinely do always look at infoboxes whenever they're on an article. And it may sound odd but yes, I do like seeing an individual's age (or their age at death) and the years active. As I've said a couple of times, these things can't be found at a glance in the first line of the lead (which seems to be the main argument for excluding this particular infobox). So it can't be said that the infobox provides "nothing" at all. Maybe I'm weird in wanting these particular pieces of information, or maybe there are a lot of people coming to the page who want to see them. Who knows? The only way we could really find out is through a large survey for all the IP visitors. As much as WP seeks to achieve "consensus", such discussions rarely involve more than a few people so it's hardly representative... --Loeba (talk) 21:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Funny thing is back in 2007 or 2008 I actually used to go through actor articles adding the former infobox actor with silver for deceased and gold for living to articles :-] If we could get the actor infoboxes to contain more data I'd be more inclined to support them in biographies again. It's not that they contain nothing, but in terms of extra information the infobox wanted here really is next to nothing in added value. What frustrates me more than anything is that the arb have decided that infoboxes aren't compulsory but the reality is that infoboxes generally end up being added to every article, whether the chief articles writers support them or not. They're more interested in civility.... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:45, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

But then we can go back to Rex's point that the lead doesn't provide anything that the article doesn't provide - on the contrary it is only meant to contain things from the main text - so can we also call that redundant? I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here but it is an interesting point - as I said above: with an infobox we're providing the same information in three different formats so you can use whichever is most useful for your needs. I don't really see how that's a bad thing. Someone who doesn't need the infobox format can just avoid it, whereas someone who does want the infobox format (for instance to find the age) doesn't get their requirements met if it is missing... --Loeba (talk) 21:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

If we could think of new parameters to add to the infoboxes like:

• Manager
• Alma mater
• Place of residence
• Physical data like height/weight etc
• Notable film awards etc
• Highest grossing film
• Worst grossing film

that would make the infobox more useful. I really don't care enough about infoboxes to argue over them for weeks on end but if Rexx is going to add an info box it should damn well contain info!! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:18, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Ernst, for those comments - they are useful. I could make an infobox for you with any parameters you wish - or start a discussion to add them to an existing infobox like {{infobox actor}}, which already has a field for Alma mater, Residence, Height, Weight and Awards. I'm not about to add an infobox to the article again (I keep to a strict personal 1RR) and I don't want to argue for weeks. I think I've added all that I usefully can to the discussion here and I'm happy for the regulars to make whatever use of it they feel fit. I'm just glad that we've been able to have a constructive dialogue now. Thank you. --RexxS (talk) 23:03, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

You would have been subject to an amicable conversation from the start Rexx if you'd joined the discussion here before inserting the infobox :-] There is a valid argument that an infobox should summarize the key facts of an article. I think some new parameters related to important facts about an actor's career which are not too trivial might help, including first release, latest release, highest grossing, lowest grossing film, who is the actor managed by and what studios are they signed to etc. I don't really think height and weight are a good idea though because weight is subject to change especially for actors and actual height is often disputable. I much preferred the appearance of the infobox actor and I always liked the idea of the silver for deceased and gold for living. I thought it looked classy and much more presentable. I find the current infobox biography rather ugly and plain. If you were to propose a reintroduction of infobox actor on condition that we add new parameters which are not included in the biography one I'd be the first to support it. But I know a lot of guys here like Pigs on the wing are trying to merge and keep templating as simple as possible and I generally support that movement like I've always done with a lot of the redundant geo infoboxes. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

What about a collapsed IB? I generally find that they keep both parties happy. Those that detest them get to see just the picture, and those that want quick information just have to press "more" Cassianto^Talk 10:17, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

As the main contributor to this article, I feel like I need to have my say here. As expected, I am completely against adding the infobox because (to repeat the obvious) all the information is right "beside" it in the lead. I don't understand why some editors are so hell-bent on adding it. But if it's such a major issue for them then I would support the inclusion of a collapsed IB. --krimuk ⁹⁰ 10:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

If I'm perfectly honest Cass I view collapsed infoboxes as even worse, it makes them look even more empty and redundant at initial glance.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:34, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Me too, but I'm trying to play devils advocate. At least the bloody thing is hidden that way. Cassianto^Talk 10:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

If we must have an infobox in every article we should at least strive to actually make them present key facts which are displayed throughout the article.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:52, 30 December 2013 (UTC)