Talk:Claude Debussy

The addition of a minimalist infobox

Would anyone still be in favor of adding an infobox? I think we might be able to use Template:Infobox classical composer. We could keep the minimalistic look by merely moving the image and adding a birth date and link to the list of compositions. GuardianH (talk) 09:46, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Not a good idea. A "minimalist" info-box would be as useless as the one for the Beethoven article. As for linking from a box to the article on Debussy's works, if you look at Wikipedia's rules you will see that an info-box is supposed to summarise what is in the article. Directing the poor reader to another article altogether is not what the rules call for. Tim riley talk 11:00, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The proposal rules itself out: the birthdate is given in the first line of the article, and as Tim riley points out, the link to a workslist is inappropriate. Such an infobox (and, imo, any other sort of infobox) would trivialize rather than enhance.--Smerus (talk) 08:39, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe that that infobox is useless. It gives the age at death at-a-glance. I must say that in my many years of reading Wikipedia articles, the only ones that don't include such infoboxes with that piece of basic informaiton are incomplete articles on minor figures. 2600:4041:4497:4C00:ADAA:F70D:5CFF:78D4 (talk) 21:38, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

You might like to look at the Featured Articles on a dozen or so French and English composers. Nobody at FAC thought an info-box would be helpful to readers. Tim riley talk 22:17, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Fascinating that those urging infoboxes consistently go on about birth dates and death dates, both of which are always in the first line of any article (and to obtain either of which there is no evidence that most readers go to Wikipedia). Perhaps they have weak left eyes. In fact those who feel an urge to look up birth or death dates in Wikipedia can save themselves the trouble; just enter the name on Google and at the head of the links will come the Wikipedia article, together with a summary which by algorithm provides this precious information. --Smerus (talk) 08:56, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

And yet it seems that those who don't want infoboxes consistently belittle those who don't want to use the encyclopedia in the same way they do. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 06:09, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Is it a 'belittlement' to query the sense of an argument? And in the case of the present discussion, what moral or intellectual superiority is obtained by presenting those who don't like infoboxes as 'consistent belittlers'? I don't claim to know in what ways, or why, different readers may want to use WP. But the arguments in this discussion in favour of infoboxes are based on the assumption that key issues readers wish to know are birth and death dates; no reason is given to support this assumption - which it seems to me genuinely belittles WP users. And I have pointed out that in any case this information is available on Google, so the browser obviates any need to go to WP for it. As one of the major arguments presented for infoboxes is that they supposedly obviate the need to look for information in an article, the existence of the Google alogrithm is a further reason to deprecate infoboxes. --Smerus (talk) 09:26, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a very sound summary, and I would add that I don't know any editor who is opposed to info-boxes where they can contain useful information. (I put one in the most recent article I wrote on a musical topic and I added several mini i-boxes within the article to provide summary info.) But when there is nothing useful one can put in an i-box it makes Wikipedia look silly to add one saying it. Tim riley talk 20:58, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Debussy's opinion and position

Debussy rejected the term "impressionism" but embraced the symbolist literary form for his music. I seek to include this in the introductory description. Debussy is also ranked not only as influential in the 20th c. but as being among the top composers of all time. The page has an incomplete short description. Muyiwa Austin (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

This article has been through Wikipedia's most rigorous review processes – Peer Review and Featured Article Candidacy. You clearly think you know better than the authors and all the reviewers. Let us see if you can obtain a consensus for your view. Tim riley talk 18:32, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

The lead already includes his symbolist influence "He was greatly influenced by the Symbolist poetic movement of the later 19th century". The "An innovative voice in musical style, Debussy was among the most influential composers." is uncited puffery that is not nearly as meaningful as specifying the period in which he was most influential ("late 19th and early 20th centuries"). I see neither changes as improvements. Aza24 (talk) 18:39, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Did you think it was "uncited puffery" before or after you removed my BBC citation? The lead condescendingly places debussy on a crowded list of 19th/20th c. influential composers. Such desc. is wrong as debussy's innovation is widely acknowkedged to have altered the course of musical history. Debussy steadfastly denied any links between his music and impressionism, if this is included, then why not side by side with the composer's own description of his own music for the sake if exposition? Muyiwa Austin (talk) 20:19, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, let us see if anyone else agrees with you. That is how Wikipedia works. Tim riley talk 20:20, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually it was I and not Aza24 who first reverted Muyiwa Austin's edits, at which time I assumed good faith on the latter's part. I remain satisfied that this reversion was appropriate, and agree with the comments of Aza24.--Smerus (talk) 09:56, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I too agree with Aza24. The fact that Muyiwa Austin's repeated insertion was reverted by three different editors might perhaps be taken as a bit of a hint... Tim riley talk 21:17, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Reverted, and for what reason? Just to further drag wikipedia into the cesspool of factual arbitration. My additions were not whimsical, they are given credence to by various leading classical publications including several reputable newsmedia yet i can't include obviously because of misplaced objectivity. Muyiwa Austin (talk) 19:36, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Reverted, Muyiwa Austin, because nobody so far agrees with you despite your "cesspool of factual arbitration" and "misplaced objectivity". You might perhaps consider the possibility that everyone else is right and you are wrong. Wikipedia is quick to correct errors: see the next section, where a substantive suggestion has been made and duly dealt with. Tim riley talk 20:13, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Achille

I'm looking and not fully understanding why 'Achille' was removed from his name in bold, but its pronounciation was left up? Is his name Achille-Claude or not? Is it hyphenated? what's the right way to do this "Claude Debussy (French: [aʃil klod dəbysi]; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918" BlooTannery (talk) 15:41, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

You're quite right. Someone mistakenly removed the Achille a few weeks ago while seeking to remedy some vandalism (of which I fear Debussy's article suffers a lot). I'll put it back again. We follow the practice of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, in which the article, by François Lesure and Roy Howat, opens with the name given as "Debussy, (Achille-)Claude". Robert Orledge's article in The Oxford Companion to Music is also headed "Debussy, (Achille-)Claude". See also Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, in which the relevant article likewise begins "Debussy, (Achille-)Claude". For the composer's convoluted use of his given names, see footnote 1 of the article. Tim riley talk 16:10, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, fantastic. Thanks for the comment! Another note, very upset to learn that at times he billed himself as 'Claude de Bussy' BlooTannery (talk) 15:32, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Quite so. I could follow his lead and posh up my surname by making it "Rye-Leigh", but I won't. Tim riley talk 16:49, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

RfC regarding the addition of an infobox

As a response to @GuardianH's prior comment regarding an infobox, plus the RfC regarding an infobox on Tchaikovsky's Talkpage demonstrating a clear shift in attitudes towards infoboxes on classical composers' articles, I would like to establish an RfC process regarding additing an infobox to this article. Should Debussy's article have an infobox? Knightoftheswords281 (talk) 04:47, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

My comments made regarding the addition of an infobox to Claude Debussy was some time ago; I have since changed my mind. There is certainly a minimalist appeal to having simply only picture shown, and from what I know from other articles it is not too uncommon for there to be only an image of an artist or composter rather than an entire infobox. The only addition I would recommend would be to place Debussy's signature below his portrait—just as it is done for the page for Richard Wagner. An image for the signature can be found here; it is already placed in Debussy's article on the Spanish Wikipedia. GuardianH (talk) 04:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Knightoftheswords281, you should never copy the |rfcid= parameter from another RfC (in this case Talk:Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky#RFC regarding the addition of an infobox), because it damages Legobot's data tables, breaks the RfC listings and causes incorrect WP:FRS notifications to be sent out. You must always let Legobot assign its own. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) It would be useful to provide an example of what the infobox would look like in this case. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

  An example was installed in 2018, following the idea of Brian Boulton's identibox, suggested in 2013, see Percy Grainger. Before, we had this version, and in 2014 this one. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:19, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Support - Infoboxes are helpful for new readers to quickly get information about the subject. BogLogs (talk) 11:53, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Oppose. Reference to the Tchaikovsky discussion is not really relevant here. The Tchaikovsky article is pretty mediocre, and it would be better to spend time improving it. The present Debussy article is FA standard. The information in an infobox comparable to that placed in the Tchaikovsky article is already completely present in the opening of the lead. No one has produced evidence that people go to WP just to look at an infobox. Further, (even if this were proven) this basic information (dates of birth and death, when and where) appears immediately on any search on Google, thanks to the Google algorithm, making any infobox in WP redundant. (And for that matter the opening of the WP lead appears on consulting Bing, if anybody ever does that). If the amount of time wasted on infobox proposals on WP were devoted instead to improvement of articles (as in Tchaikovsky) that could make a real difference. I notice in passing that User:Knightoftheswords281 has never made any contribution to the present article until the present discussion (as they had not to the Tchaikovsky article). --Smerus (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• I see these infobox RfCs pop up from time to time, and have to say I find nearly all of the arguments both for and against very unpersuasive. They tend to all boil down to "it helps readers" and "it doesn't help readers", "people rely on it" and "it doesn't add anything". I am always wary of extremely strong opinions one way or the other. WP:INFOBOX provides no help whatsoever in determining which arguments are more "policy-based", so any attempt to try to find consensus based on "strength of arguments" is going to involve the closer unilaterally deciding what kinds of arguments are strong to them rather than what arguments are backed by policy and how much evidence was provided.
  So we can have a straight vote, we can have a closer choose some arbitrary criteria, or -- and this is generally my preference -- we can go by what the major contributors to this article think. In this case it looks like the five people who have added the most to this article are Tim riley (by a wide margin), Smerus, Dmass, Chuckstreet, and Ptelea. Count me as a +1 to whatever they say, collectively, until the rules about infoboxes change.
  Personally, I go back and forth on the use of infoboxes in general. I don't agree with most of the arguments of those who are staunchly anti-infobox and see some benefit to including them (including having a small amount of structured data in articles, even if that's less important since Wikidata came along), but at the same time I've seen some infoboxes that seem clumsy and unnecessary, and don't tend to include them by default when I start an article myself. Regardless, my own personal preference is more or less irrelevant to policy, except insofar as personal preferences are all we have to go on, so until the guidelines change, I support the personal preference of the primary contributors. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• That is a most thoughtful and balanced take on the matter. Thank you. Tim riley talk 09:58, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I’m hesitant to get behind “the biggest contributor to the page makes the rules”, but it’s more definitive than the current (nonexistent) system. Dronebogus (talk) 20:32, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

• Infobox. It really is just a matter of personal taste. My taste is for an infobox. That is it. All other arguments are just noise: it's a matter of personal taste, and personal opinion which is best for the plurality of readers. The first cannot have an objective answer, and the second has no objective answer until we do a big study, if then. I personally don't care about consistency -- if some articles have infoboxes and some don't, I don't care, and I don't think the reader does either unless they are inflexible pedants, whom you can never please anyway.

Or, and I'm dead serious about this, flip a coin. Really. We should do this more often. There is a website, Random.org, that lets you do this in a way that others can see and verify the flip, I think. Or I'll do it. I don't care enough about the matter to lie, and I do have four integrity barnstars, so you can trust me I guess. In fact, I'll do it right now, altho just for my own personal vote... heads infobox, tails no infobox... OK here goes... Random.org... and it's.... heads. So my vote remains unchanged. See? Easy. I genuinely think we should do this to decide the whole matter.Herostratus (talk) 17:30, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Support Infoboxes have become a normal and valuable part of the user experience when navigating an article on Wikipedia. This isn't a matter of opinions since there's data to support this conclusion..[1] Making information easy to find and consume is one this project's highest priorities. While there's always going to be a reluctance to adopt something new, infoboxes have become so common there would need to be an extraordinary reason to justify not including one in an article with significant content. There is certainly some room for discussion around what can or cannot be included in the IB, but it's time to accept that infoboxes are a valuable tool for the end user. This topic has recently come up at Talk:Laurence_Olivier, Talk:Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky, Talk:James Joyce, and Talk:Maddie_Ziegler and an infobox would be valuable addition to each article. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. As I said when this last came up less than a month ago, I don't know any editor who is opposed to info-boxes where they can contain useful information. (I put one in the most recent article I wrote on a musical topic and I added several mini i-boxes within the article to provide summary info.) But when there is nothing useful one can put in an i-box it makes Wikipedia look silly to add one saying it. Tim riley talk 09:58, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know any editor who is opposed to info-boxes where they can contain useful information
  It appears to be a very subjective thing what is "useful" and what is not. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose – What Tim said. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

  Oppose - Ditto. Dmass (talk) 07:47, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

• strongest possible support for an infobox because a quick look at Portal:Biography/Recognized content alone shows they’re the norm, not the exception, and not including them is confusing to readers and new users. The only holdouts seem to be modernist literature and classical music, plus oddballs like some Mexican general I found going through the cited list. Dronebogus (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no policy or guideline on consistency, so the line of 'other articles have them' doesn't wash. They don't aid "navigation", despite claims they do, and they strip out context and nuance to random factoids that don't actually help the reader understand the subject. 2A00:23C7:2B86:9801:7183:2FED:A175:2EA1 (talk) 20:14, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose The main/regular editors should decide, not drive-bys like me and several above. Johnbod (talk) 00:44, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  Again, articles arn't owned by certain editors. That's the whole point of an RFC. BogLogs (talk) 23:42, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  Again, WP:FAOWN! Johnbod (talk) 04:20, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

  There is no policy, guideline, or set of sources that tells us what to do here (since policy explicitly does NOT tell us an ibox is necessary, or unhelpful here), so why does WP:FAOWN apply? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:27, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support this is quite a long article, and I think an infobox would be useful to readers. See George Frideric Handel for how a relatively minimalist infobox could work here. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 01:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The snag with the Handel i-box is that it flouts Wikipedia's own rules about i-boxes, which are supposed to give an at-a-glance summary of the key points within the article. The one chez Handel refers the unfortunate reader to another article altogether. We ought not to be messing our readers round like that. Tim riley talk 08:44, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

What is wrong with referring readers to another article that covers their desired topic? Wikipedia articles aren’t islands. Dronebogus (talk) 15:59, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Because it is contrary to what the WP policy about i-boxes calls for, which is that the box is to give an at-a-glance summary of the key points within the article, not some other one. By all means propose a change to that policy in the appropriate place, but at the moment them's the rules. Tim riley talk 16:20, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:IAR Dronebogus (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

No one is suggesting an identical ibox to refer to other articles. This is a WP:STRAWMAN. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 04:29, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. Drive by editors shouldn’t be making this decision. This should never have been brought to an RFC. Start a conversation on the talk page, and work with the editors who have substantially written the article. Further, without seeing a proposed info-box, I don’t think there is anything here worth supporting. We shouldn’t be voting on an idea that hasn’t been fleshed out. This is an FA article, and any addition needs to be of the highest quality and thoroughly vetted before it’s taken to a vote.4meter4 (talk) 09:07, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  I’m getting really exasperated with the constant argument that FAOWN means “the top 5 or so contributors are rulers of the article, they make the rules”. Dronebogus ([[User talk:|talk]]) 15:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

  users have proposed many multiple infoboxes above, and I think the 2018 version plus a signature is a perfect solution. Doesn't include too much extraneous detail, incudes the most pertinent info, and is aesthetically pleasing. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:37, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

That's fine, but the issue here is that an RFC shouldn't be started for something so trivial as an info-box on one single article. If every single time we have a minor disagreement on a talk page leads to an RFC, that is an abuse of the RFC process itself. RFCs are for issues that typically impact many articles across the encyclopedia, or for major policy violations. Neither of those is the case here.4meter4 (talk) 18:06, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

No, it is necessary, because the issue is never going to be resolved otherwise. Nobody reads talk pages except a small group of interested editors who are adamantly opposed to infoboxes, which is not a fair survey of opinions. Dronebogus (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Well right there I take issue, because you are immediately assuming wider community consensus will agree with your point of view. That's clearly not a given as there are several new editors opposing the info box in this RFC, as well as some supporting. I'm really not seeing a problem here. That said, while FA contributors don't own articles, in general as a community we do tend to give greater weight to the opinions of the contributing editors who worked at bringing an article through the lengthy and rigorous FA process simply because not doing so would be foolish. We don't want to make poor additions to an FA article that would trigger a Wikipedia:Featured article review unnecessarily.4meter4 (talk) 22:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support the 2018 infobox is a perfect example of what could be here and be extremely helpful to editors. Infoboxes are meant to help our readers. Readers typically are not the most involved contributors in the article, so why would the FA editors be the ones who make the decision? Why would the wikiproject make the decision? We need a consensus of editors in a venue like this RFC which involves more outside input. As a naive editor, I found it strange how difficult it is to find the specific details of Debussy's life in the LEAD. An infobox solves this easily. such as where they were born and where they died. The 2018 version is a perfect example of what I was looking for. maybe add the signature, and that would be excellent. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
  • Infoboxes are meant to help our readers. Readers typically are not the most involved contributors in the article, so why would the FA editors be the ones who make the decision - You've built in the assumption that they are helpful to readers and then argued on that basis. Like going to an article at AfD and saying "we already know that it's notable, so I say keep" when the debate is about whether it's notable. And before you say "how are we supposed to prove it's helpful like someone would prove notability at AfD", I will agree with you. There's no quasi-objective criteria here. It's either a straight vote that becomes primarily between people interested in infoboxes, or consensus among those most interested in this subject. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

    Sorry, my attempt was not to beg the question and I'm sorry that was the result. I as a naive editor think an IB would have been helpful when I first came to this article. I am more similar to our readers than editors who have spent years honing the content here. That's the basis of my argument. I am not a super-infobox-hungry editor, I am not "in any camp" or anything like that. But going to these IB RFCs, and just looking at the article as someone who doesn't know a lot about composers, I would have found the 2018 infobox beneficial to me. That's it, that's all my argument is. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:02, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

    Now you’re just hopping on the “infoboxes are for the shallow, articles are for the intellectual” bandwagon. I don’t need in-depth info from every article, and neither do 100% of our millions of readers. Dronebogus (talk) 17:04, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

    • That is a truly perplexing read. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

      You’re using an ad hominem argument (“anti-infoboxers are just more thoughtful”) that doesn’t apply to readers and general editors, who don’t care and are routinely perplexed by bio articles without infoboxes. Dronebogus (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. How many "readers and general editors" have you asked whether they "don’t care and are routinely perplexed by bio articles without infoboxes"? Or is this perhaps another example of the Every-Article-Must-Have-an-Info-box-Despite-Wikipedia's-Policy dogma? Tim riley talk 18:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

This is anecdotal but in most bio articles without infoboxes there’s several sections by IPs or uninvolved users asking why there’s no infobox. Dronebogus (talk) 18:20, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Is that the case? Perhaps you'd care to provide statistical evidence for your assertion. Tim riley talk 18:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

First why don’t you provide statistical evidence for your assertion that infoboxes are useless to the article. Dronebogus (talk) 18:29, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

That's rather silly, don't you think? Statistical evidence that something is or is not useless? If you care to read the earlier contributions you will see why those who have written the article think an i-box is superfluous here, although we are strongly pro i-boxes where they are likely to help our readers. Tim riley talk 19:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

How do you determine whether or not it will help readers? Isn't the repeated adding of an ibox by anonymous IPs evidence that some readers want one? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The question is not whether some absolutists demand, despite Wikipedia's policy, that all articles must have an i-box, but whether those with any knowledge of the subject can find anything useful to put into a box. As I mentioned above, in the most recent music article I created I put in not only an i-box but four mini-i-boxes within the article because there was useful info to be summed up there. But those of us who have written the Debussy article think there is nothing similarly useful to put in an i-box here, and we have most certainly tried. What we don't want to do is put in an i-box just for the sake of it with nothing useful in it. Making Wikipedia look silly and amateurish is not what we are about. Tim riley talk 19:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I fundamentally think just the dates of birth, death, and locations of those, a signature, a link to a list of works, and a picture, would be a very useful infobox. Is that 'not enough?" — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn’t not like more but that’s good. Dronebogus (talk) 20:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

A very reasonable question. What you mention would pretty much duplicate what's in the lead, and I don't think needs repeating. As to what else could we usefully put in, it is something the info-box absolutists are curiously shy about mentioning, perhaps as they have no knowledge of the subject. Tim riley talk

@User:Tim riley: Please remember to add times/dates to your signatures with all 4 tildes instead of just 3. Makes it possible to respond to your comments with popular plugins. As to your comment, I don't see where in the lead it says Debussy's place of birth. I also would say, I think we have a fundamental disagreement on what makes an infobox useful. Inherently, anything in an infobox would probably also be at home in the lead, but the point of an infobox is not, to my eyes, to present novel information. It summarizes that information it in a convenient format for quick review. If I want to see where Debussy died, I have to read to the end of the lead. In an infobox, it would be piece of information #2. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for omitting a tiddly. I entirely agree with you, and with Wikipedia's policy, that an i-box should not present novel information, and, as already explained, the main authors of the article have not been able to think of anything useful to put in one. But if, as a new editor, you can think of something, please suggest it here. Tim riley talk 21:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I suggested above multiple things which have not been addressed. Based on your responses, it seems you and the other few editors who wrote a lot of this article disagree with me and other editors on what would be a good infobox. But as is the nature of WP:OWN, input from new editors is particularly useful in figuring out what readers are looking for. New editors have input that is valuable. A set of long-term editors on an article do not dictate what is and is not "acceptable." Why would an infobox be a negative impact on the article? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:01, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I think your suggestion that a group of dedicated editors expressing an opinion different from yours as being inherently a violation of WP:OWN is absolutely lubricous and highly insulting and WP:UNCIVIL; not to mention a complete misapplication of that policy. You can work to achieve a new consensus civily without throwing around accusations. At this point opinions seem divided on this issue with new editors both supporting and opposing an infobox.4meter4 (talk) 22:22, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I am only suggesting it because others have suggested we should take what long-term editors on this article have said as the defining argument. Which strikes me as preposterous. OWN would be if those same users were saying the same thing, which I don't think they are. I never actually said "a group of dedicated editors expressing an opinion different from [mine] is a violation of WP:OWN" nor did I say that any users were portraying ownership. I simply think it's wrong for long-time users to say "we know what's best" and I think it's wrong for new users to say "they know what's best". We should examine whether or not an infobox is appropriate based on the infobox and the content, not based on the opinions of editors based on how much they edit the article. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with User talk:4meter4 that the accusation of WP:OWN is hurtful. To repeat, yet again, the main editors of the article have considered repeatedly if a useful i-box could be possible, but we have not found, and nor have any of the drive-by editors here, anything helpful to put in an i-box. Tim riley talk 23:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I want you to understand, my entire claim is that I would find it useful to have an infobox that had the dates and locations of birth and death, signature, picture, and link to list of works, in an infobox. Continuing to suggest "nor have any of the drive-by editors here, anything helpful to put in an i-box" is also hurtful. I never suggested that you or other editors are violating WP:OWN, simply that we should not have a hierarchy of the "utility" of an editor's comments based on how much they have contributed. This flies in the face of the point of RFCs. We appear to disagree on what helpful is. Please don't continue to portray your opinion as an objective truth, thanks. You also, as far as I can tell, have never answered my question above: How do you determine whether or not it will help readers? Isn't the repeated adding of an ibox by anonymous IPs evidence that some readers want one? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

“Helpful/useful” is basically meaningless at this point. Almost no-one has any hard evidence that it is or isn’t. It’s actually more objective to argue for inclusion on a basis of consistency, since that is WP:BLUE. Dronebogus (talk) 23:15, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink I hear you. However, I think you haven't considered the context of that argument. The editors commenting here shepherded the article through a very rigorous community review process at WP:FAC that took months of hard work and many hours of their time to achieve. Poor additions to FA articles can trigger an Wikipedia:FAR; which nobody wants. In general, we do tend to give greater weight to the opinions of editors who worked to bring an article to an FA rating; simply because we want articles to keep their FA rating. If those editors are telling us an info-box downgrades the quality of the article, then we should be listening to that opinion. That said, by no means is the community opposed to adopting ideas by new editors to FA pages.4meter4 (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

No one is suggesting a rewrite. No one is suggesting we add paragraphs and paragraphs of info, or even a single piece of new content. I hear what you're saying, that they are concerned about the quality of the article, based on the effort they've put in. But an infobox is not a huge change. An untold huge % of FA articles exactly like this also have infoboxes. Why would this be a "poor addition"? Why would it degrade the quality of the article? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:23, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Please see the explanations, above, and explain what we could usefully put in an info-box. Tim riley talk 23:42, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

• Asinine disputes involving classical music composer infoboxes has been the subject of two ArbCom cases and a currently active discretionary sanctions regime. [2] [3] It is an intractable dispute. Based on the level of discussion here, I would say that editors may benefit from reading the findings of facts and stop insulting each other. There's no "clear shift in attitudes" here; this is the same debate we've been having for 7+ years. It's !!EXTREME!! WP:WikiDrama that'll basically never end. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 08:05, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

  @Chess: As someone who was just introduced to this debate a few weeks ago there is certainly some disagreement about this, but I wouldn't go as far as characterizing it as extreme (even it if was in the past.) Infoboxes have been around for a long time now and newer editors are a lot less resistant to the idea of inclusion. This can be seen at Talk:Laurence_Olivier. I'm not interested in insulting those who disagree, but this keeps coming up again and again in RfCs and it appears the general consensus for most of these discussions is to include the infobox. I have been trying to come up with a path forward to standardize the templates for WP:BIO. There's an opportunity to close the book on this contentious chapter. Thanks for your input! Nemov (talk) 15:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

• These discussions always end up being shouting matches from one bad faith assumption to another. Last I checked, any editor is welcome to edit any article on Wikipedia so long as they meet any special requirements for protected articles and are in good standing (i.e. not blocked or banned). Either Wikipedia has a hierarchy of editorship or it does not. We just recently went through this on another FA article. Whereas I do believe we should allow editors that worked on an article and worked through the FA process some leeway, they do not get special consideration nor should they be sole authority when it comes to what is allowed in an article. That takes nothing away from the work they accomplished but it does hold everyone to the same standards when it comes to editing. Would I like an i-box? Yes. Do I believe they are beneficial? Just as beneficial as the lead itself. That being said, it is really a community decision and one that should be taken on an article-by-article basis. I am almost never supportive of the cookie cutter approach to editing and I think the guidelines speak to this. Every individual article, while a part of the larger encyclopedia, is an entity unto itself and how it is presented should largely be based upon the decision of the portion of this community that is here to discuss, "drive-by" or "top contributor". I do believe that most articles will eventually have an i-box, including this one. It is inevitable because that is the way it is heading. It might be after we are gone from the project but anyone suggesting there are no readers wanting quick biographical information on subjects is like suggesting a large portion of readers do not only read the lead of articles. It has become a big reason for why the lead is there. A quick summary for readers that do not care about sources and do not care to parse through the article to find what they want to know. Should we be encouraging that? Does it matter at this point? By and large I agree with @Rhododendrites. --ARoseWolf 14:55, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I must agree that WP seems to be drifting in the direction of a compulsory i-box for all articles, and if that befalls we must all then comply, but perhaps some of the earlier contributors to this discussion would be helpful and honest enough to propose that change to our policy in the appropriate policy forum. Tim riley talk 16:24, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with this at all - until fairly recently the situation was fairly stable. I keep these diffs on my user page, from c. 5 years ago, on what types of articles do and don't have IB:

• "ye olde infobox arguments (to save recomposing yet again):[4], [5], [6]" I was thanked by several people for the first one in particular. These don't go into the particular problems with arts infoboxes. Johnbod (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• I do hope you're right! Fingers crossed. And thank you for your thoughtful contributions above. O si sic omnes! Tim riley talk 23:06, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. While sports and politician bios can benefit from infoboxes, most articles in liberal arts fields, as here, do not. See Signpost report: "Infoboxes may be particularly unsuited to liberal arts fields when they repeat information already available in the lead section of the article, are misleading or oversimplify the topic for the reader". I disagree with including an infobox in this article because: (1) The box would emphasize unimportant factoids stripped of context and lacking nuance, in competition with the WP:LEAD section, which emphasizes and contextualizes the most important facts. (2) Since the information in the box must already be discussed in the body of the article and the Lead section, and likely has also just been seen in a Google Knowledge Graph, the box would be a redundant 3rd (or likely 4th) mention of these facts. (3) The IB's overly bold format would distract readers and discourage them from reading the text of the article. (4) Updates are often made to articles but not reflected in the box (or vice versa), and vandalism frequently creeps in that is hard to detect because of the lack of referencing in the box. (5) Boxes in liberal arts biographies like this attract fancruft and repeated arguments among editors about what to include. (6) IBs in arts bios distract editors from focusing on the content of the article. Instead of improving the article, they spend time working on this repetitive feature and its coding and formatting. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:31, 10 December 2022 (UTC)