Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes

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[edit] Vanishing SVG images

At the moment, I am working on replacing the manual infoboxes used for the 16 states of Germany with a template. The template is currently stored at User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Infobox German Bundesland and the 16 new infoboxes are at User:52 Pickup/Drafts/Test states. The overall layout is not yet finalised, but you can see that there is a problem: some SVG images are invisible - not bad links, just not shown. The maps for 4 infoboxes are not visible, and one of the flags for Saxony is also not displayed. Any idea why? - 52 Pickup 13:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've seen this happen outside of infoboxes, so I suspect it's some sort of bug with how MediaWiki handles SVGs, not anything related to the code. Kirill Lokshin 14:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
An extra strange feature of this behaviour is that if you play around with the width of the infobox, then different images (dis)appear. I guess I'll have to use PNG images instead. - 52 Pickup 14:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
It finally worked, after nudging the image widths N number of times. Very odd. - 52 Pickup 10:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Very big request

Hello. I have a big request for you, guys. {{Infobox City Poland}} needs much attention and improving. It is probably the most ugly and not-handy city infobox on Wikipedia. Maybe 52 Pickup can help, he has made already wonderful job with German Location infobox. My personal idea is that the Polish one should be just like its German counterpart which is elegant, handy etc. Standarizing styles is a good way, I suppose. I am not much into programming and the like so I can't do that, I fear I would break some patterns or something like that. Thank you very much. :) - Darwinek 14:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You should put problems of boxes on their own page, thus giving us Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes/Infobox City Poland for example. You also need to formalise your requests etc using templates and stuff. Anyway, enough from me, I will be around when/if I stop WikiBreak...TheJosh 11:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC) (moved from lower thread)
That infobox is huge! It needs liposuction or something... --TheJosh 23:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the infobox as it stands now is very big and needs a bit of work. A version similar to German Location is possible, but I don't want to set up any broad standards (that one was specifically made just for the German WikiProject). Also, I'm on a bit of a wikibreak at the moment. But Josh is right, any proposed work done here for this infobox should be put up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes/Infobox City Poland so we can all take part. - 52 Pickup 10:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox City Poland <= continue discussion here

[edit] Just to throw some ideas out there

Here's some ideas and thoughts I've had about infoboxes that might be worth exploring in this project:

  • Intuitive infobox selection. Whether it be a template category or a manual list of links, it should both be fairly reasonable to find the most appropriate infobox for a given article.
  • Decreasing / discouraging extremely specialized infoboxes. While I think it's good to have specific formats when needed.. KISS can be applied to a great degree. A great many infoboxes are exact copies of other boxes, but with a different template name.
  • WP:PDATA, and how infoboxes might make this process easier? Also, the same idea of PDATA but for other things with common fields, such as movies, places, etc?
  • Discourage making separate articles just to use multiple infoboxes and/or creating infoboxes that can accommodate more than one topic of a multi-topic article.
  • WP:LIST talks about the pros and cons of putting info in a list vs in sentence form. While not directly related to infoboxes, some of that same logic can apply. There are some facts or stats that really aren't helpful without context, even for at-a-glance use.
  • Collect and gather new ideas. There are many infobox ideas out there that most don't even consider, and there are probably many outside of Wikipedia that we're not used to seeing. Not to say we should fix things that are not broken, but I think it's interesting to look at other ideas, even if we don't actually use those ideas.
    • One idea I had a while back was to have some kind of.. (it might sound odd) "infobox fair" or something like that. Invite editors to make a "display space" on a page (maybe make it an event, with people working on the infoboxes then having a display deadline) and just show lots of different ideas. Encourage users just to try new formats, colors, tables, whatever, just to get the creative juices flowing. Even if no new changes are applied, it would at least be an interesting and fun learning experience. Just look at how many users like to experiment with their sigs.
    • We should also look at what is already being used on Wikipedia in situations people might not consider. What seems to be working now and what seems to be not working? How many do we have? What kind of info/stats do people seem to be adding and are they useful or not?
      • To steal a term from the WP:1.0 project, work-via-WikiProjects comes to mind. A great many WikiProjects already maintain a topic or two's infobox, and more people will be involved because they won't feel like they're doing "another task" (so much to do, so little time) but working on something related to their existing projects, etc etc.

I'm a bit hyper right now thinking of all this, and I'm sure I could even probably word some of this better, but the ideas are flowing and jumping! I gotta just hit the save page button for now or I won't be able to get anything else done today. Throw the ideas out there, like how we can be integrated with existing WikiProjects and areas of Wikipedia that handle this stuff. We're a new collaborative area, not a replacement for anything, is a good way to think about new WikiProjects that deal with old ideas. That kind of open attitude with allow suggestions brought here to be spread faster and with more open minds. Don't think of this project as the "new kids in town", but rather think of it as the same users but with new tools and a chance to share great ideas.

Man, I'm not even keeping on topic! So many things I wish to talk about! I'm in infobox-nerd-heaven. -- Ned Scott 22:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

    • PDATA would of probably required a wiki extension, so creating additional specialised data boxes will require a very slow development cycle, and plenty of bureaucracy. --TheJosh 23:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Adding PDATA requires nothing special from Wikipedia. The idea is that PDATA can be used by other things later on. It's like flagging data. -- Ned Scott 03:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
That's definitely a lot to think about. It will definitely be some time before we can come up with answers to all your suggestions. Thanks. - 52 Pickup 10:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't really expecting all of them to be answered.. it's just a brainstorm of ideas :) -- Ned Scott 03:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rwandan Genocide

Hi, I would be very grateful if you could propose some infobox for article on Rwandan Genocide. It currently has none and those proposed in the past were bad to say the least. I guess you are experienced in this kind of thing and I would really appreciate your help. Thank you.--Pethr 20:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what kind of infobox would be useful for a genocide; it's not really something that lends itself to being described too well with names and numbers.
(You could, of course, use a stripped-down {{Infobox Military Conflict}}, filling in only the conflict, image, caption, date, place, result, and casualties3 fields; it would be pretty basic, but should still be workable, at least in the short term.) Kirill Lokshin 21:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I was looking at this template. Thank you, I will try that.--Pethr 22:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
eh, I think this is definitely the kind of article that does better without an infobox. An infobox should not be seen as a logical step for every article. It really depends on the subject matter and how useful a box might or might not be. -- Ned Scott 02:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

I've just created a userbox and category page for members of this WikiProject. To place the userbox on your userpage just add {{Template:User Wikiprojectinfoboxes}}. This will also add you to Category:WikiProject Infoboxes participants [1]. Also, can someone add us to the Directory of WikiProjects. I would do so but I'm not quite sure how to. And thank you to User:52 Pickup for creating this WikiProject. Happy editing! Yuanchosaan 07:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the userbox. The project is now listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia - 52 Pickup 10:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Not?

“

This is not intended to be a place for infobox standardisation, rather a place for designers to help each other.

 ”

Why not? Look at the success of {{Infobox Australian Place}}. --TheJosh 22:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Because most infoboxes are maintained by active WikiProjects, who will look very dimly at some random group of editors coming in and "standardizing". Standardisation as agreed upon by the people working on some particular group of infoboxes is good. Standardisation as imposed in a hamfisted fashion across all of Wikipedia by a central group is not, because it's frankly unnecessary, and will involve far more virtual bloodshed than would be acceptable for such a minor issue. Kirill Lokshin 23:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. Furthermore, it is through the lack of standardisation that people find new ideas for their own work. Rigid blanket standards only hamper creativity. - 52 Pickup 10:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
While some of that maybe true, there are templates where standardization helps by taking small rarely updated templates that are only edited by a few editors (if any at all) and switches to the standard template that is consistently updated and edited/discussed by many editors. I have seen both sides of the argument before and they should be argued on the individual template talk pages. —MJCdetroit 21:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
That is also true. Perhaps I should've been a bit clearer. Localised standardisation is fine (and in many cases necessary), but blanket standardisation is not right. For example, while Infobox Australian Place has done a very good job at standardising many disused regional Australian templates and manual infoboxes, I would not say that its format should be automatically used for places in New Zealand - but if people working on New Zealand locations want to incorporate some of its features, that is fine.
If a certain feature in a given template is particularly good, it will find its way into other templates. Now, if a rigid standard was in place, then the development movement of these individual features becomes considerably slower. - 52 Pickup 22:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I think if we make good ideas easy to find they'll standardize themselves :) -- Ned Scott 03:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps standards should be proposed here, and then discussion made on a per standard basis for appropriateness. Also, if a project (in our example, Wikiproject Australia) wants a standard, they can come to us and make a proposal, and then Wikiproject Infoboxes (who are the theoretical experts on infoboxes) can do the dirty work, and save them some effort. --TheJosh 10:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

I have created some templates to ease development.

--TheJosh 11:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:Films Infobox Backlog

If you're interested in helping add infoboxes to film articles, you can visit here or adopt a letter here. We currently have about 900 articles that don't have infoboxes and have completed about 200 in the last few weeks. We would appreciate any assistance in eradicating the requests. There are instructions and an example on the template's page and if you need any help or have any questions ask one of the members who are currently working on the infoboxes or at the project's talk page. Thanks, and I hope your new project is successful in improving Wikipedia! --Nehrams2020 04:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question: Is there a standard infobox...?

Hello. Is there any standard infobox for administrative divisions? There are several regions, provinces etc. which still use (for several years) manual tables. See e.g. Midtjylland or Saint George Basseterre Parish. Thank you. - Darwinek 11:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I switched SGBP to Infobox City and it worked just fine. In the settlement_type= field type "Parish" or whatever if it is not a city. If the name Infobox City bugs you, you can use {{Infobox place}} in the first line. Infobox Place is just a redirect to Infobox City. Check out my example at SGBP and you can try it out on Midtjylland. —MJCdetroit 19:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, it is a good, possible way to go but maybe a different one for each country could be created. You know, many country issues are specific and e.g. in Infobox City it isn't a field for ethnic groups, ISO etc. Also several use of "parish" or whatever in Infobox City isn't much nifty. - Darwinek 20:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
We have floated the idea of including "blank" fields in the Infobox City for things like ethnic groups and ISO etc. You can always add them to the footnotes field until such blank fields are added. I'm not sure that I understood what your last sentence meant; you don't like the use of parish? What did you mean? —MJCdetroit 22:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh. I meant that Area - Parish, Population - Parish etc. thing. You know it is obvious that the numbers would deal with parish when the article is about parish. - Darwinek 22:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
There is already a nice {{Infobox Province Dominican Republic}}. Maybe something similar should be created for subsequent cases. - Darwinek 22:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hiding a column in a table infobox

Hi all,

For {{Infobox Weather}} I am trying to make the "Year column" optional. So far it does hide but adds extra spaces to the column before it (December) when hidden. The sandbox is here: Wikipedia:Sandbox/Weatherbox rebuild. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? —MJCdetroit 22:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The table preprocessor is sensitive to line breaks. When the column was hidden there were "extra" line breaks. I've restructured it so the extra line breaks don't show up. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project Navigation Template

I've just made a template for the navigation of our Project: Template:The Infoboxwatch. I'm a bit of an amateur with this but it was the best I could do. Anyway, as you have probably noticed, there are quite a few non-existent links. It is my hope that we will soon be able to fill them all up. Some of the links actually have similar pages under different names, but I thought it would be best to move/create new pages so that they will be more centralised. I will soon be attempting to create some of those templates but would really appreciate some help. Tell me if this is a good template and I will place it on the Project page. Happy Editing! Yuanchosaan 02:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Master Databases with all City/Town Data for the United States

Does anyone have, know someone who has, or can tell me where I can find databases with all information needed to create infoboxes for every single city and town in the United States? I'm looking to do this in the next few months, but can't find a single source with all the needed data. Right now I'm considering writing a bot to read through every US town/city article and extract the data, but it would much better if I could just find a set master tables (ideally from government databases sitting out there somewhere). I'll also take any information available on counties, census designated places, and any other geographic division that might require infoboxing.

The information I would need is: Town/City name, County, State, population total, population density (per sq mi and per sq km), population date, area total (sq mi and sq km), area water (sq mi and sq km), area land (sq mi and sq km), elevation (ft and m), coordinates, time zone, summer time zone, zip code(s), and area code(s). Optional data would include nickname, motto, type of government, leader type, leader name, website, and any other important notes.

Please let me know if you have anything, and I'll be happy to start compiling it all into a giant Excel spreadsheet for future processing into infoboxes.

Note that this will only be done for cities and towns that currently lack infoboxes (though I could theoretically use it to fill in missing information in cities/towns already having infoboxes).

Thanks, --CapitalR 14:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if zip code tabulation areas fits the bill, but I used it quite a bit for New Hampshire. BTW, NH is all done, so no need to work on those :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if this will help but take a look at the USGS's database. —MJCdetroit 17:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scotland

I am working on the infobox Template:Infobox Scotland place. As it is quite long I want to take out the line spacing between each entry to make the box appear smaller but maintaining all the text. I am trying to make the main text section look like the Template:Infobox Indian urban area as it looks tidy, with less white space between the text. The page I am using it on is Aberdeen but there are a lot of other articles using it. Can anyone help me make this change? Bobbacon 18:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you must have missed the call for discussions and involvement here Template talk:Infobox Scotland place for this new resource: Template talk:Infobox UK place. This is a new unified infobox for all parts of the UK, including Scotland, where different maps can be supplied, etc. The aim you have has been realized in this new infobox.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Library Infobox

Is there an infobox for libraries somewhere? I found one for museums, but no library and none of the library articles I looked at had one. Thanks. Aboutmovies 03:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There's the Infobox Library one that you can use. See San Diego County Library for an example article that uses it, or click on the "What links here" link from the template to see a few more examples. --CapitalR 04:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Aboutmovies 04:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Directory

I've started the directory of infoboxes now. However I'm going on holidays soon and won't be able to edit (sob!). Can anyone help out with this task? And should a short description be added to each box? Happy Editing! YuanchosaanSalutations! 07:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay,I've made the templates and updated navigation. Anything else need to be added? YuanchosaanSalutations! 04:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
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