Currently at MOS:INFOBOXUSE. Discussion, notes, etc, regarding specific lines are contained in ref tags. Feel free to add some more ref notes, add thoughts to an existing one, or revise the text. More general discussion can be moved outside of the tags to a sub section.
The use of infoboxes is recommended for articles on specific biological classifications, chemical elements and compounds, events, people, settlements, and similar topics with a narrow and well-defined scope. Broad topics and overview articles like philosophy, time, or Mathematics are usually better served by navigational sidebars like ((philosophy sidebar)), ((time sidebar)), or ((math topics sidebar)). Stubs are usually too short to warrant an infobox, and infoboxes on them often attract edits expanding the infobox rather than expanding the article.
Where infoboxes are used, they should neither be too short nor too long. They should contain basic facts which readers would reasonably be looking for at a glance like date of birth for people or number of protons in an element. Infoboxes should not be used as repositories for any odd bit of information related to the subject because the visual clutter can make it harder for readers to find the most important information quickly. If information is important but too complex to distill into an infobox, consider using a link to a section or dedicated article on the topic. For example, instead of trying to decide which of Mozart's works should be listed in the infobox, the "works" field is a link to List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
References
Article | Date closed | Result | Closer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Felix Mendelssohn | August 11, 2023 | Consensus | starship.paint | Participants reference an eye-tracking study to demonstrate usefulness of infoboxes to readers |
Richard Wagner | August 5, 2023 | Consensus | Charcoal feather | "2/3 supermajority" |
Colleen Ballinger | May 17, 2023 | Consensus | ScottishFinnishRadish | "clear consensus", ~74% support |
Rod Steiger | March 31, 2023 | Consensus | Nemov | 21 yes to 2 no |
Mozart | February 2023 | rough consensus in favor | unclosed | |
Jenny Lind | February 23, 2023 | Consensus | ScottishFinnishRadish | "[Infobox] passed RFA without a crat chat [...] objections raised clearly did not have enough traction to convince more than a quarter of the participants" |
James Joyce | January 25, 2023 | Consensus | Ingenuity | specifies some parameters to include and exclude |
Claude Debussy | January 18, 2023 | No consensus | Red-tailed hawk | Roughly even numbers attending, no consensus due to MOS being neutral on issue |
Maddie Ziegler | December 31, 2022 | No consensus | Isabelle Belato | |
Tchaikovsky | January 3, 2023 | Consensus | Gusfriend | |
Laurence Olivier | November 27, 2022 | Consensus | Red-tailed hawk | detailed overview of arguments for and against |
Peter Sellers | February 26, 2022 | Consensus (see note) | Iamreallygoodatcheckers | Discussion specifically about uncollapsing the infobox which was an idiosyncrasy of the page |
Stanley Kubrick | November 15, 2021 | Consensus | Tol | |
Ian Fleming | March 4, 2021 | Consensus | Wugapodes |
@ScottishFinnishRadish and Red-tailed hawk: I see you both have been relatively active in closing infobox RfCs since I last waded in. Penny for your thoughts? There seems to be a relatively consistent, project-wide consensus in favor of inclusion of infoboxes given the list I've compiled (largely from Gerda Arendt's user pages, so if I've missed any please let me know, I'd like to be comprehensive). I'd be interested in what you both think should be included in a proposed text, especially ways to incorporate the insight from your closes as caveats or considerations. You'll see in the interlinear glosses some places where I left questions along those lines. — Wug·a·po·des 09:11, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
The use of infoboxes is recommended but not required) has considerably broader scope than the examples being cited. I imagine that most people are not going to want infoboxes for broad concept articles on abstract things (think: philosophy, time, Mathematics, and the like); when there's a box for these sorts of topics in the lead section, it tends to be a navbox. But if the point of the RfC is to come to a coherent community consensus about the active dispute, might it be more direct to launch an RfC that provides guidance specific to whether/how infoboxes should be used in biographies? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:29, 28 August 2023 (UTC)