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?

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