Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes

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Template:Pipe

The above template produces a "?" instead of what I assume is suppose to be a "|", at least on Firefox. Is this the intended effect, or does my browser just not support the IPA character? How can this be fixed?--Old Hoss 02:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox 3.0b3, EN_GB - it produces a pipe character for me --80.6.91.145 (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Important discussion of "Nationality:" in bio infoboxes

Please see WT:FLAGCRUFT#A case study for "Biographical use".

Most of the discussion there has turned to "regulating" infoboxes, and I believe that this discussion should be happening here instead, as it is out-of-scope of that essay-to-be-guideline, and off-topic for WP:WPFT. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ideas for simplifying infobox design

Hi Folks,

In my userspace, I've been playing with some ideas for simplifying the design of infobox templates. I've written a brief introduction to these ideas here, including many examples adapted from existing infoboxes. Of the four infobox templates that I've experimentally adapted from elsewhere, two required only simple template syntax.

I'd be grateful for any comments. Jakew 21:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A clever idea, certainly; but it would probably be prohibitive to support infoboxes that have various sorts of complicated code tricks inside via this sort of syntax. For the more convoluted cases, raw parserFunctions are likely to be more maintainable than a meta-templated version of themselves.

As an aside, see this for a more brute-force approach to infobox standardization (albeit on a more limited scale). Kirill 00:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're correct in stating that very complicated infoboxes would probably not benefit from this approach. However, based upon an informal survey of existing infoboxes, I estimate that only 10-20% fall into this category. I'd guess that'll be the case for new infoboxes, too.

It occurs to me that WikiProjects which already have complicated infoboxes (and perhaps standardisation templates as in the example you gave) will probably have little use for this approach (though the entry templates might perhaps be useful). But I suspect these are in the minority.

Two questions spring to mind. Firstly, will these templates (in some form or another) be useful to people in creating any new infoboxes? And if so, where is the best place for them & their documentation (for example, a sub-page of this project) so that they can be easily found by those who might find them useful? Jakew 13:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That looks highly valuable, Jakew. I assume it could be subst'd so infoboxes can grow beyond the template? I say move it to the public namespace and add something to the project page - see if other editors run with it. Vagary 01:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Background colour?

Can anyone tell me what the default background colour used by {{Infobox Korean name}} is? What I want to do is introduce a parameter to adjust the colour, but I can't do that without knowing what the default is. Thanks in advance for any help! PC78 11:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the colour is #FAFAFA. PC78 06:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{Infobox Organization}

Could someone add a parameter to this template for the acronym of the organization? --EncycloPetey 19:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Professional associations and organizations

There doesn't seem to be any Infobox format for scientific or professional organizations, such as the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Could an appropriate box format be generated? The Template {{Infobox Organization}} is inadequate and does not really meet the needs for an organization like the IAPT. Most of the parameters don't apply and the ones that would be useful don't exist. The useful parameters are as follows, those in bold do not appear in the {{Infobox Organization}}:

name
acronym
image
image_border
image_size
caption
map
map_size
map_caption
formation
extinction
discipline - the academic discipline that is the focus of the organization
nation - the nation(s) of membership
membership
leader_title
leader_name
programs
publications - journals and regular publications
awards - honors and awards given by the organization
website

Collapsibility of (Brecht plays) navigation infobox?

Can I ask your advice? Relating to Template:Brecht plays which includes a picture that (currently) prevents the box being hidden, is it possible to change the coding so the picture collapses with the text, or should the picture be removed? Any help will be appreciated. -- Kleinzach 23:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All done. Let me know if you would like any other modifications made to its style. --CapitalR 00:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to ask the creator of the template such a question, no? DionysosProteus 00:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DionysosProteus, please read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles if you are not already familiar with it. Just because you create an article or template does not give you complete control over it. My edits were in good faith and constructive, and I hope that you will improve them instead of just reverting them. Thanks, and I hope we can work together to improve this template. --CapitalR 00:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To CapitalR, thanks. DionysosProteus wished to retain the picture so I'd have thought your solution (which included keeping it in the box) was uncontroversial. -- Kleinzach 01:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did not imply I had complete control over it. The changes made to all of the theatre templates are for the worse in most cases, resulting in some quite ugly replacements (the Hamlet and Greek dramatists, for example). The Brecht plays was designed not to be collapsible in line with others that are not, such as Shakespeare, as was clear from the talk page. DionysosProteus 01:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tibetan towns and villages

Hi I want to create a standard infobox Tibetan settlement for all the towns and villages in Tibet under Template:Infobox Tibetan Settlement. Is there anyway we can have something like this: Domartang but with parameters to include the Tibetan/Chinese language section like on Deleg at the top so it all goes neatly in one box for settlements? Please respond on this as soon as you can as I feel it very important thanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 13:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Something like this:

Generalizing {{Infobox Govt Agency}} to handle more than just agencies

Hi everyone. I just made a proposal at {{Infobox Govt Agency}} to generalize it to handle more than just agencies. In a nutshell, it would move the code to {{Infobox Govt Unit}} and then the agency template would call that. For non-agency pages, they could just use the more general {{Infobox Govt Unit}} instead of the agency template {{Infobox Govt Agency}}. This will allow all of the articles on government departments, offices, bureaus, commands, administrations, and programs to have a standard infobox, instead of just agencies. I'd appreciate people reading the proposal and commenting on it at Template talk:Infobox Govt Agency#Proposed new version. Thanks, --CapitalR 00:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted this user has been unwilling to even discuss this matter at the infobox's talk page, being more inclined to enter a revert war over it yesterday which led to the article's protection. There now appears to be a bit of forum shopping going on to find a venue amenable to his ideas. I would suggest the talk page of the template is a better venue. Orderinchaos 04:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possible conversion ?

Hello. Can {{Polish politician infobox}} can be automatically converted into {{Infobox Politician}} ? I think that Polish infobox is very simple, redundant and thus can be converted. What do you think? - Darwinek 19:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is what TheJoshBot was made for, it if is an approved move by the community --TheJosh 09:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes and NPOV

Claims made in infoboxes are by nature unattributed and lack nuance. How does the NPOV standard apply? Is a claim made in an infobox ipso facto a "claim of consensus"? Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Infobox policy. --BlueMoonlet 21:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Saw this on AskWiki

Standardization of Info Boxes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.15.117 (talk) 02:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Locations

Should infoboxes always be at the top of an article or are they better placed in specific sections? I couldn't find any real guidelines on this. Foot's anatomy box is in the Foot#Human foot subsection and it looks a bit weird to me. WLU 19:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a slight disagreement as two pieces of guidelines say (or at least said) different things and a consensus between the two never really emerged. Some people believe they should be top right: others that they belong at the top right of the main section. One argument is about the placement of a picture top-right, which no one really disagrees with. Yet many (or most) infoboxes allow for a picture to be there. Some people just think they're ugly, or they constrain relevant information into pre-defined fields. In basic terms: those who are in favour of infoboxes would like them at the very top. Those who don't like them at all want them all deleted, and those who accept they have a wide consensus of usage but don't like them want them placed further down the page out of view. If an infobox is already down the page, you may need to make a good case on the talk page of the article to move it to the top. Severo^TC 10:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple infoboxes

Based on Jim Bunning and Pamela Anderson I decided multiple infoboxes is O.K. Since I have been involved in adding multiple infoboxes to Jesse Jackson, Greg Skrepenak, and Whitey Wistert. I am considering requesting a second infobox for Charlie Ward. Is there an official policy on multiple infoboxes?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 00:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no policy or guideline. The only question is: does it help the article. The point of an infobox is so that a reader can look up a page and quickly get the most important facts, so does two help: does this help the reader or confuse the reader? This probably depends on a case-by-case basis, but you may find that the templated infobox has too many fields (you hardly need to replicate "name") so may want to strip it out a bit... Just some thoughts. Regards, Severo^TC 10:22, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Falkland Island infobox

I am trying to convert Template:Infobox_Falkland_island into a working format along the lines of Template:Infobox_Scottish_island, but I am having no joy with it. Can someone help please? I have little experience with infoboxes. --MacRusgail 16:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opera navigation boxes

Greetings from the Opera Project! We have a series of 40 opera composer navigation boxes. (Each box lists the composer's operas in chronological order). The long thin boxes are designed to go in the top right corner of the page, for example Janacek operas displayed in The Cunning Little Vixen.

My question is this: would it be possible to add the usual 'v.d.e' and 'hide' buttons to a bar at the bottom of the box? (Obviously there is no space at the top.) Thanks in advance for any help on this. -- Kleinzach (talk) 03:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are navigation boxes, not infoboxes. I can't think how to do it right now, I'll have a think later. Regards, Severo^TC 10:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, is there a different project for navigation boxes then? Have I come to the wrong place? -- Kleinzach (talk) 10:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no project, just the help pages (such as Help:Template and m:Help:Navigational template, which, to be honest, aren't all that accessible). I'm not sure how to add a hide button on the bottom bar (or if it would be possible, as when you click hide, it becomes show in the same place). You can add the v.d.e links using {{tnavbar}} on a new row of the table. Adding something like this:

|- style="background-color: silver; color:black" align=center
| {{tnavbar|Template Name|mini=1}}
|}

to the bottom of the table will put that in (replacing Template Name with, unsurprisingly, the given name of the template). Hope this gives some help! Severo^TC 14:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks that's very helpful. The bottom bar looks good. -- Kleinzach (talk) 07:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

English/Metric Conversion Feature?

There seems to be a lot of ongoing confrontation in many articles over the use of metric vs. imperial or English units when presenting various statistics. For example, in the "Moon" article, metric advocates have consistently removed attempts by others to provide parenthetical conversions of metric radius figures, etc. to imperial. But the issue is Wiki-wide, and one of the people in the Moon discussion has raised the question of whether it may be possible to provide, system-wide, a method of presenting the data in the units of the viewer's choice! The infoboxes seem to be a likely first candidate for a specific place where such a function could be introduced. I am imagining an "English/Metric" control button which is actually part of an infobox structure (such as the Planet infobox), which would convert and redisplay data (which would have to be tagged as such, and also tagged as to original unit system). The function and redisplay would be limited to the infobox contents, just to keep it limited in its first incarnation. Now I don't know how difficult it would be to create such a standard control function in the Wiki system, but web pages have this kind of thing, so it can't be beyond possibility. Thoughts? Rep07 (talk) 21:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Incumbent" In Infobox

In the Infoboxes of articles dealing with current government leaders (e.g., President Bush or Prime Minister Harper) the area regarding the leader's successor it says "Incumbent" which is clearly factually wrong. The current holder of a political office can be reelected or reappointed (law permitting), but he can not succeed himself. I propose placing the numerical designation of the immediate successor to the current government leader in that part of those Infoboxes. In the case of President Bush, that would be "44th President." In the case of Prime Minister Harper, that would be "23rd Prime Minister." What most important regarding this issue is the replacement of the word "Incumbent" for it is clearly factually inaccurate. --SMP0328. (talk) 21:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the particular office holder infobox, {{Infobox Officeholder}}, successor is an optional field. Therefore, you can simply remove it, as it is clear they are incumbent in the bar beneath their name. Indeed, in the Stephen Harper article, it is not used. As it is about template usage, I would bring it up at Template talk:Infobox Officeholder. Regards, Severo^TC 21:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend removing the successor section from all the infoboxes of current officer holders. If that's not acceptable, then I'd go with SMP0328's suggestion. GoodDay (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have gone with GoodDay's suggestion, because it's uniform and easier to apply. A successor section should only be in an Officeholder Infobox when a successor has taken office. --SMP0328. (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sample infobox redone as a usable generic meta-template

I think I've got it set up all nice and functional now, so I thought the folks at this project might be interested to take a look at what I've done with {{infobox}}. I've done it up as something similar to {{navbox}}, making it into a meta-template that should make it much simpler to create simple infoboxes with a style similar to most of the common infoboxes I've seen around the wiki. Anyone have ideas on how to improve it further? If the old "sample" code that was there before is still useful it could be moved to a non-template-namespace page somewhere. Bryan Derksen (talk) 04:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On your new meta one, you have v.d.e links, but I don't see them on (m)any existing infoboxes. What's the reasoning behind adding them? Severo^TC 11:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They're useful. A major reason why I got started on this is to make infoboxes easier for less-technically-minded editors to be able to work with infoboxes more easily, and the first difficult hurdle in editing an infobox is finding it in the first place. It's also a standard feature on navboxes and I'm using navbox design as the default for site-wide consistency. I imagine the main reason they're not on most infoboxes is because most infoboxes are made with hand-crafted table code, which is complex enough as it is without worrying about how to insert edit links targeted to the right page and whatnot. Most non-{{navbox}} navboxes I've come across lacked them too. Bryan Derksen (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. I had a similar idea some time ago. Please feel free to borrow anything useful from User:Jakew/sandbox3. Jakew (talk) 19:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. You're taking the modular approach there, I see. My goal with the current design of infobox was to keep things simple and uniform, the modular approach allows a lot more flexibility but is more complex. I can see both systems being useful in parallel; most infoboxes don't need more than the straightforward image-header-label-data structure I came up with but more complex ones could use yours as an alternate. Not sure how the two could be used simultaneously, though. Bryan Derksen (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. What do you think of adding a [hide] button, which might pacify the people who don't like infoboxes? Severo^TC 21:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be fine with it, though I personally don't find infoboxes to be nearly as intrusive as navboxes. It should probably default to "uncollapsed" rather than "autocollapse", otherwise the people who like infoboxes will probably react more strongly than those who don't like them. :) Bryan Derksen (talk) 22:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question

I'm currently conducting a GA Review of Railway stations in Cromer. A recent change in article focus caused the infobox to be moved from the top of the article to a section, because it concerns only one station (the principal station, but only one of four.) I don't like the way that looks, but I don't know whether there's any policy or guideline on placement of infoboxen. Can anybody offer any insights? Commenting over there would be especially helpful, but I'll watch this page too. Thanks! -Pete (talk) 20:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've answered over there, I think it's fine as the guidelines (which, to be honest doesn't reflect usage) say it should be used either after the intro or in the most appropriate section. Severo^TC 21:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox:Israel district

Hi I have just made the Template:Infobox Israel district and there is an issue with the coding which adds an extra '}' at the end. If anyone could look at it, Id really appreciate it. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 18:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Severo^TC 18:16, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox proposal

I've been tearing out my hair (what little there is) trying to get an infobox set up for proposal. I couldn't make it work, then I think I realized why...is there somewhere that an infobox has to be templated for it to work? If so, where? The infobox I created is at User:Leobold1/template/ACW Corps. Maybe I didn't do it right, I don't know, this is my first. Thank you in advance for any help you can give. Leobold1 (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Head of government infoboxes

There's been lengthy discussions at both Talk:Stephen Harper and Talk:Kevin Rudd regarding the filling out of the "head of state" section of the Template:Infobox Prime Minister. A survey of current PM articles shows that approximately 98% of them include the name of the president or monarch the subject of the article serves, making Australia and Canada presently two of a tiny few articles that don't follow this common pattern. The present parties in the debate seem to be locally, and respectively, from Canada and Australia, and some of those seem to have political motivations behind excluding or including the head of state. To further complicate the issue, these countries also have a viceroy that permanently represents the monarch, and there is debate in Australia over who the head of state is. Outside input is definitely needed in this matter, and, perhaps, the establishment of some kind of guideline. I feel that if the infoboxes remain as they are now - with a tiny few not listing the head of state - then there could be confusion for uninitated readers over the actual reason for this inconsistency. --G2bambino (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In agreement with the G2bambino's concerns. GoodDay (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is something that needs consensus at the relevant pages and possibly via the help of the relevant national WikiProject (WikiProject Australia and WikiProject Canada). This talk page isn't really the place for infobox usage discussions—as the project page says, this project deals with design issues. Regards, Severo^TC 00:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I thought it was more broad in scope than just the Canadian and Australian articles. --G2bambino (talk) 17:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You need to establish consensus at the relevant places, whether that's at the individual articles or with the help of national WikiProjects to set a style standard for similar articles. This is not a relevant place. Severo^TC 17:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Linking units on infoboxes

Copied from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style - as far as I know, there is no such rule going one way or the other. Does anyone know differently? - 52 Pickup (deal) 16:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering if there was anything out there, perhaps MOS, that discouraged the linking of units of height or weight in infoboxes.Londo 06 14:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

consistency

Should an infobox take consistence of appearance into consideration in its coding? I'm honestly driven nuts by {{Infobox Television}}'s permittance to change its background colour based on user preference. I'm not familiar with any other well-used infobox that allows that sort of customization; {{infobox actor}}'s bgcolor changes automatically based on the implementation of certain variables, but it's consistent across the board. Thought/input? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 22:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's generally against the point of having an infobox - which as you say is for consistency setting a style across similar articles - although I don't think it's against any design guideline. The way {{infobox actor}} does it is very clever and works very well; it is clear a lot of thought has been put in. Maybe there is some scope for {{Infobox Television}} to take some ideas from this. Severo^TC 22:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I asked at the template, but the replies seemed rather ambivalent about the subject. I was just rather hoping there was a guideline of MoS dictating infobox standardization. grr.. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 00:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did a little hunting for information on infobox standardization myself back when I first set up {{infobox}} as a meta-template, and didn't find much. So I just copied the general layout of a bunch of randomly-selected infoboxes that looked popular and used the same color pattern as navbox. Hopefully that means it's approximately what most people expect. If you find any sources of standardization let me know so I can update the template, or if you prefer you can just use what I've got as a guideline. Bryan Derksen (talk) 03:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

class vcard?

I've done a bit more work on {{infobox}} lately and while poking around in existing infoboxes to look for other features I should be implementing I've started looking into the class="vcard" I've been seeing on a lot of them. It appears to be something to do with microformats but I haven't been able to find any definitive source of information on it. My interpretation of Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 12#Add hCard to lists of impact craters is that one would add class vcard to an infobox to flag it as containing hCard information and then flag each data cell with a class indicating what kind of data it contains. I could add extra parameters for defining classes like this quite easily but I figured I should make sure I knew what I was doing first. (Heh. And moments after posting this I find that hCard confirms it. Still, is it a good idea to implement in {{infobox}}?) Bryan Derksen (talk) 19:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and added support for microformats. See Template:Infobox#Microformats. Bryan Derksen (talk) 21:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Flag icons in infoboxes

As stated in an above thread, there is some discussion over at WT:FLAGS regarding the use of flags icons in infoboxes. As also stated above, some of this discussion has some place here, or at least we should keep up to speed with what is going on over there. This has all come up for me since I've recently become involved in such a case. A very slow edit war has erupted at Template:Infobox German Bundesland regarding the use of some flag icons [1]. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion either way, but this to-ing and fro-ing is not on. What do others think about such issues? - 52 Pickup (deal) 09:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. It's hard to know where we stand with flag icons now. Severo^TC 07:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i thought this was a settled issue? see: wp:flagcruft. --emerson7 17:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'm against flag use because in a lot of situations it yields little information, and resolving arguments over which flag to use is not possible. For instance:

Do we use the flag of the country currently representing the geographic region they are from, or

how about the flag in use at the time of birth?

the flag in use at the time of death?

Or maybe the flag representing the country they spent the most time?

what about the flag representing the country of the person's citizenship? (surely! but again which version? flag at time of birth, death, or current?)

What if they are citizens of more than one country?

More than one flag? Should we use every flag the bio subject has ever been associated with?

I have seen editors argue over all of these and more. There's just not enough benefit considering the information added versus the ensuing arguments. And it's not always clear exactly what the info added (via a tiny flag pic) is supposed to mean. R. Baley (talk) 21:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only time I use flags in infoboxes is with {{infobox Military Person}} and its "allegiance" variable. That's specific and non-debatable for the people in question, so I use {{flagcountry}} in those instances as opposed to the country name alone. Thoughts? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 21:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request help with generalizing Template:Infobox University

As discussed at Template_talk:Infobox_University#Infoboxomania and earlier at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#Infoboxomania, there is a desire to modify the subject template so that "establishment date" and "city" are not required fields. Can these be made optional without messing up the template, or will it be necessary to create an additional template for university articles that need to avoid putting these items in an infobox? --Orlady (talk) 05:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nobel prize image

This may be related to the flag issue raised two sections above. I noticed some back-and-forth reverting on the Al Gore page as to whether the Nobel Prize image belonged there. Is there a policy or consensus regarding this? OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure where it goes but I think it's nice to have on there. I've been trying to ensure that all prize image placement is at least consistent within the prize field, and for Nobel Peace Prizes, which Al Gore was awarded, it appears to be next to the name in the infobox. --Eustress (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

as merely decoration, i don't believe the nobel tokens should be displayed in the infoboxes header. much like the flagicons, once permitted, editors tend to go wild and place any- and every-manner of decalcomania to highlight the slightest identifying characteristic. the practice has been deprecated in {{infobox musical artist}} for a plethora of reasons, and i think this one should be nipped before the genie is out of pandora's box. (how's that for a mixed metaphor trifecta!) --emerson7 01:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think placing an Nobel Prize image (not just any decorative icon) will underestimate one's other characteristics or overemphasize the value of prize. The Nobel Prize is one of the most recognized awards throughout the world and worth a space in the infobox. If we can have a collection of icons for other awards, we might need to consider a special section in the infobox. eDenE 02:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

then where does it end? if this is allowed to proliferate, i won't be long before little pics of medals of honour pop up, and olympic medals, and on and on in the same manner of the flagicons. --emerson7 02:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the image is not helpful and thus it shouldn't be there (what is the reason for having it?). I don't know what a Nobel prize looks like, and I certainly can't recognize it from such a small picture (unlike some flags). I think that this is true for most people. I asked for opinions at Template talk:Infobox Scientist#Image:Nobel.svg but did not get any reactions. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a hasty generalization, although I don't know how many people can recognize the Nobel Prize medal. If you really don't know you might want to look it up. Notable awards are very helpful to know about a person fast. However, many infoboxes lack such section and it is not a small job to edit all those infoboxes. So, the question is how helpful placing the icon would be for readers. I don't know, but it will be helpful for me at least. eDenE 20:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

this thread has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Nobel prize image. please continue the discussion there. --emerson7 02:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Central Park Info box

Can someone fix the picture size, i dont know how this info box works but the picture size is just silly.--GazMan7 (talk) 15:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox design is flawed, but I can't really see what to do. I've made a fix so no image is too big, but things are still not right. Severo^TC 20:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:ClickFix. Slambo (Speak) 20:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Town Square Infobox

The WP:GAC reviewer of Lafayette Square, Buffalo has requested an infobox. There is not currently an infobox for Town squares that I know of. My problems are elaborated upon at User_talk:Chrisfortier#Lafayette_Square. Can I request such a template here?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 01:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are any templates at Category:Geobox or Template:Infobox historic area would be appropriate?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 03:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Default infobox styling

A while back I reforged {{infobox}} as a general-purpose infobox metatemplate, and now that it's starting to see more widespread usage there's a discussion underway about what default styling should be used. I set the original defaults based directly off of the default styles used in {{Navbox}}, since I presume they've undergone a very extensive debate and because I personally find them quite useful. However, there are a couple of editors who've requested that the default infobox to be colorless. I know this wikiproject specifically disclaims being about global discussion of default styles, but since I figure most people participating here will be interested in the subject I'm canvassing here for more input into the discussion over at Template talk:Infobox. Bryan Derksen (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Customisable infobox colours/styles

Changes have just been made by an editor to {{Infobox Former Country}} where it is possible to add extra CSS code. One reason given was to address some differences in box presentation between Firefox and IE, which is on its own a good thing since that has been bugging me for a while. But this goes one step further and allows editors to choose different colours for the infobox, which I believe to be a bad thing (see discussion). A modified version of {{Infobox Country}} has also been made with these features and can be seen in action at the Wales article. What do other people think about this level of customisability? I'd like to undo these changes to the Former Country template, but not before discussion. 52 Pickup (deal) 09:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The same look article to article is kind of the point of a standard infobox. If someone would like to introduce color into the template code to "spruce up" the infobox's appearance, then it should be agreed upon and done on a template wide level. Customizable individual infoboxes are just not a good idea. It is so much better to have a consistent look page to page than some different custom colored infoboxes from page to page. —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 11:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like it, it's against the point of having a standardised infobox. {{Infobox Musical artist}} has colour changing options which seem to work quite well, but they are agreed on so it's not just random. Severo^TC 12:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is starting to get out of hand. See Template talk:Infobox Country for further discussion and a lot of drama. 52 Pickup (deal) 11:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that Template:Infobox Country did not allow styled borders, and so some users, many of them from Wales (where Talk:Wales has more drama about this, as well) wrote and started to use a template-fork: Template:Infobox Country styled. A disagreement began about whether this was useful and whether individual projects should go ahead with these kinds of forks. The template has now been nominated for deletion: the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page, bringing about more drama, accusations of canvassing for votes to keep, and angry exchanges in many places, including the TfD entry. The whole mess does neither anyone nor wikipedia any credit regarding the collaborative way of doing things. DDStretch (talk) 12:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an infobox anywhere that does allow individually-styled borders? I've had no luck finding one so far. Indeed, the mess does nobody any credit, but I guess this is what happens when process is ignored and collaboration is bypassed. 52 Pickup (deal) 12:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Since there has been no solution so far, I've set up a RFC: link - 52 Pickup (deal) 21:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links#Repetitive, redundant links, concerning external links in infoboxes. A few editors dislike the duplication between external links in infoboxes and the "External links" section, and one editor dislikes all external links in infoboxes. Input might be useful. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of infoboxes

There seem to be three lists of infoboxes:

(Plus Category:Infobox templates)

Is there a preferred location, that these three manually created lists could be merged/redirected to? I imagine that the bad duplication, is the primary reason these are all so unkempt.

(I suggest moving them all to location #1, in the layout/style of #2, as that seems to include the worthwhile information, and allow them all to be easily watched). Thoughts? -- Quiddity (talk) 21:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is the category not enough? Severo^TC 21:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's another option (and fine by me). I just assumed that the obsessive list makers would demand a manually created location ;)

It would definitely simplify things... and a mw:Extension:CategoryTree could be added anywhere necessary... -- Quiddity (talk) 21:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

use of footnotes on infoboxes to avoid drive-by edits

Hi there, let's see if you can solve some doubts I have some infoboxes. There are some controversial articles, like Crown of Aragon, where readers will see the article and change parts of the infobox to what they think is a more correct version (in this case, the capital and the caption of the flag), and then think that wikipedia is biased when their changes are reverted.

This is currently solved by me by adding references to the polemical points, so people will check the sources first and not make drive-by edits without a good reason.

Is this an appropiate solution? Is it better to improve the article with better sections (which has to be done anyways) and then move all the references out of the infobox? will this solve the crive-by edit problems? Is it adequate to leave a footnote or two on the most controversial statements where there have been more well-intentioned drive-by edits? Do you know of cases where they have tried any of this? --Enric Naval (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]