Streamlined Infoboxes

Why Streamline Infoboxes
w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-10/Dispatches

Goals

 * Keep the box simple, and limit it to essentials.
 * Must be glanceable.
 * Information must be consistently organized, so a user knows where to find information.

Core Template Types and Data
Top 7 Template Types:


 * w:Template:Infobox settlement
 * w:Template:Infobox person
 * w:Template:Infobox album
 * w:Template:Infobox football biography
 * w:Template:Infobox film
 * w:Template:Infobox musical artist
 * w:Template:Infobox officeholder

Places, people, and media, seem to be the most-used types of infobox in the largest Wikipedias. Species taxoboxes (w:Template:Taxobox) are also in the top 3.

Open Questions

 * Do infoboxes need a main title? In most cases repeating the title name is redundant, can we use this to present alternate names or meta information?
 * A main title is wanted in most cases I can think of, to be followed by something like a subtitle explaining what the article is about, or a true subtitle, or a catalogue number. Especially in cases where the title is in a foreign language (as for all Bach cantatas) some help should be given, which should not look like the title.
 * title: Münchener Kammerorchester, sub: Chamber orchestra
 * title: L'Arianna, sub: Opera by Claudio Monteverdi
 * title: Messiah, sub: Oratorio by George Frideric Handel
 * I would like a step further and see for a person, before the facts of birth and death, above the picture, what is the most important fact about him, for the example below and a composer (who will not get an infobox) that would be:
 * title: Thomas Edison, sub: Inventor
 * title: Giuseppe Verdi, sub: Composer of Italian opera
 * --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Principles

 * All templates carry a minimum of 1 section with label-value pairs
 * 2 column layout for label-value pairs
 * The infobox does not reserve the entire right rail