Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes

message: Please see Template talk:Infobox person#Template:Age for a proposal regarding  whereby, when a date is unknown, it would change from showing a single number to a range of ages. Johnuniq (talk) 03:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Age of person in an infobox 

message: Relisted for further input. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relist [[Template talk:Infobox military conflict#RfC on "supported by" being used with the belligerent parameter]] 

message: In this page Second Siege of Anandpur, an editor has repeatedly added a figure in the infobox from Koer Singh - an 18th century writer, who wrote detailed exegeses on the Sikh religion and explications on Sikh history, particularly about Guru Gobind and the events that transpired throughout his life. Koer Singh's work Gurbilas Patshahi 10 was composed from 1751-1762-. The source being used on the Wikipedia page is a reliable Oxford University published source, however much of the book is written in a tertiary tone, merely presenting an accumulation of summaries of primary sources, with little to no original commentary, intepretation or analysis from the author. 
The book  reads . The entire section preceding and after this is just recounting what the sources at that time said, the author does not seem to endorse or dismiss any particular narrative.
So should this 1 million figure be included in the infobox or not? On a side note, 1 million is an obvious figure of speech, sending 1 million men to besiege a few thousand belligerents would have been an incredible anomaly, iirc the entire Mughal army at it's zenith was 1 million, however that is being wilfully neglected, in my opinion, to push a narrative. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 22:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can recounts of primary source strength and casualty figures be included in military infoboxes, if they're included in a secondary/tertiary source? 

message: The redirect Wikipedia:DIT has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Isla 🏳️‍⚧  10:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Wikipedia:DIT]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: In a recent constructive discussion between MyCatIsAChonk, Nikkimaria, Sdkb, NebY, Folly Mox and Gawaon, an idea emerged that elegantly realizes MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE's principle "key facts at a glance": Instead of just naming a link “List of operas”, name it "Thirty-nine operas". I think that idea merits inclusion in this MOS. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 11:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: What specifically would you propose to add to this MOS to reflect that idea? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:    How about something like “Use a pipe link with a number like 39 operas.” (Writing the number as a figure per MOS:NUMERAL, differently from what MyCatIsAChonk had). ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 08:29, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please make the number optional. For living composers, it will change, for prolific composers, it may be hard to find, and will raise questions such as if unfinished works also count. I just , believing that even without a number, a link to a composer's works is a highly useful link from a composer's article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed.  — SebastianHelm 13:22, 9 November 
=== Template or Lua function === 
I wonder ,though, if the problem for living composers could be solved with a template or Lua function returning the count of a category, as in . However, that would currently yield 43, rather than 39. One too many from The Barber of Seville discography, which should be fixed by correctly putting that article in :category:The Barber of Seville‎, but I don't know where the other 3 are coming from. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 13:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

text: List of operas by Gioachino Rossini is also in the category. List of operas by Gioachino Rossini lists Ivanhoé and Robert Bruce in the Pasticci table but they are included in the category — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 18:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, Ghost! That explains it. So, the function would need to omit entries piped to space, as the main article. Maybe that could then be used to check for consistency by a bot.  ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 20:36, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:   There is then the issue of discography articles and other list-like articles. They should probably be sorted with an asterisk and the test is then to exclude articles with any non-alphanumeric sort key. — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 21:04, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:   Good idea. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 21:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add numbers to link? 

message: I wonder ,though, if the problem for living composers could be solved with a template or Lua function returning the count of a category, as in . However, that would currently yield 43, rather than 39. One too many from The Barber of Seville discography, which should be fixed by correctly putting that article in :category:The Barber of Seville‎, but I don't know where the other 3 are coming from. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 13:22, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: List of operas by Gioachino Rossini is also in the category. List of operas by Gioachino Rossini lists Ivanhoé and Robert Bruce in the Pasticci table but they are included in the category — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 18:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, Ghost! That explains it. So, the function would need to omit entries piped to space, as the main article. Maybe that could then be used to check for consistency by a bot.  ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 20:36, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:   There is then the issue of discography articles and other list-like articles. They should probably be sorted with an asterisk and the test is then to exclude articles with any non-alphanumeric sort key. — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 21:04, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:   Good idea. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 21:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template or Lua function 

message: I've removed the following as worse-than-useless noise:
To walk through it:
*"Overall approach" does not actually describe this content.
*"The recommended process for creating an infobox template is ..." isn't true, since this does not describe an actual process, and no consensus concluded to recommend what is in here. Nor does a section that actually did provide a recommended process for creating such a template belong in an MoS page in the first place; that would be a matter for "Help:Infobox".
*"simply to begin": What a silly thing to say.
*"gather as many requirements as possible" is meaningless gibberish. What would be a "requirement" and how would we "gather" it? Even if that had a clear meaning, when would it not be "possible"?
*"Test the base format for a new template" has no clear meaning and sounds like pseudo-jargon out of Tron.
*"as a static table first": No one develops templates this way, and trying do it would largely be counter-productive, especially given how the underlying meta-template code for infoboxes works today.
*"then once consensus is reached, migrate it into template format": More of the same. No one has to establish a consensus before using template code to code a template.
*"The template should be reviewed before being used extensively in articles in case the template or defined parameters need modification to minimize re-work": This really doesn't parse well due to missing punctuation and some other syntax issues. But really this is just "use preview and sandbox" advice that pertains to all template development, and has nothing to do with MoS, including MOS:INFOBOX. It's just poorly reiterated basics from Help:Template.
* "If new fields and parameters are added, articles must be updated to reflect the new requirements." That's patently false. The infobox as deployed in a article would continue to work perfectly well; it simply wouldn't have additional parameters (and "fields and parameters" is redundant). Articles only "must" be updated if an existing parameter has been invalidated in a way that makes the template break, and this is something we don't do. The old parameter name is retained as a parameter alias, or a "retired" parameter (like  in ) is simply made to no longer produce any output at all.
* "If parameters are renamed or removed, many articles will likely be unaffected, since extraneous parameters are ignored." This, too, is factually wrong. If a parameter was literally renamed (i.e. changed from one string to another, without the old one being retained as an operational alias), then while the original would become an "extraneous parameter" that was ignored, that  of course affect the article, by removing previously displayed information from the infobox. Again, we don't do this; we create aliases for old parameter names to the new ones so this does not happen. If a parameter is completely removed, the same thing will happen (by intent), but will still be affecting the article.
Literally not one single piece of that mess has any business being in this guideline.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, the guideline is better without it. Presumably that was useful guidance long ago (it was in the guideline 15 years ago, I stopped looking after that), but it has far outlived its usefulness. Ajpolino (talk) 23:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  I support the deletion, as the language was not helpful and, as SMcCandish pointed out, confusing nonsense. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:14, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of senseless blather 

message: There's a discussion in place at the main MOS talk page about whether or not MOS:COLLAPSE supports the use of collapsed infoboxes of the type seen at Montacute House and Little Moreton Hall. Feel free to comment if this is of interest to you. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  MOS:COLLAPSE 

message: Hi, I have found inconsistencies between the cities across the globe on Wikipedia relating to the images format on the infobox. Refer to the articles New York City, London, Liverpool and Chicago vs Newcastle upon Tyne, Prayagraj and Hyderabad. Which is the accepted image format? Is there a particular norm or rule dictating the format of the images to be placed in? My recent edit on Hyderabad got  reverted saying that it is not accepted format. What is the accepted format? Since I find lot of cities in the united states and many cities in India itself like New Delhi and Mumbai have a different format. Also refer to the talk page: 456legendtalk 00:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Please participate in this discussion to come to a common interpretation about the infobox image format for the city related articles. It would be of a great help. 456legendtalk 01:06, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

text: This issue was previously considered at this (incredibly annoying to link to because someone had the bright idea to put brackets in a section heading) discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_203#Putting_captions_in__galleries_in_infobox. There wasn't any formal consensus, but the status quo had previously been to have one caption at the bottom, and that discussion didn't exactly find agreement to move away from that. The main issue is space, which is at a huge premium in city infoboxes given how crowded they already are. Your alternatives aren't the same size, but you can still see how much more room alternative 2 takes up. Sdkb talk 03:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Sdkb I'm sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. That said, shouldn't we actually reach a consensus for the purpose of maintaining consistency? 456legendtalk 04:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Consistency is good where it helps us enforce best practices and reduce the maintenance burden in situations with functionally identical circumstances. In this case, there's possibly a best practice (in my view alternative 1), but not a big maintenance burden from inconsistency (the biggest part of it is the confusion/uncertainty it creates over which format to use), nor functionally identical circumstances (e.g. some cities have much more recognizable landmarks in their galleries and therefore need the captions to be nearby less). Sdkb talk 04:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for highlighting these aspects. Also considering the points raised by the user Huggums537 in the archived discussion, it seems reasonable to conclude that flexibility should be allowed for editors, as hinted in your statement to necessarily help address the varying circumstances and potential confusion, ensuring a more practical and adaptable approach. (Since your example does makes sense and is practical in nature) 456legendtalk 05:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

text: I prefer Alternative 1 for several reasons. Firstly, it occupies less space, which is advantageous. Additionally, it presents a cleaner appearance overall. In terms of viewing information, it's essential that info boxes remain as compact as possible while still conveying all necessary details. Therefore, opting for Alternative 1 aligns with this principle. RWILD✉ 13:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  City related articles infoboxes 

message: * It breaches INFOBOXPURPOSE (and FORCELINK). The entry “Works: Full list" does not "allow readers to identify key facts at a glance". The key facts are only available by clicking onto a different page, which goes against the purpose and spirit of what an IB is supposed to be and do. - SchroCat (talk) 22:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Yes

message: * Linking to a related article that includes a full awards/works is not prohibited by MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. I don't object to how it's used at Barack Obama as well. However, these links should not be used for content that's included in the article. . Setting aside the policy argument, the reason these links have existed in many different articles is because they're useful. Making information more difficult to find for end users is something we should avoid. Thanks! - Nemov (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: No

message: *I'm content with either version. GoodDay (talk) 04:43, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral

message: This question is so badly formed it’s not worth approaching or voting on. Any information in an article is “related” - that’s why the information is in the IB. This can be taken as being if the (linked) place of birth is allowed, because it’s related. Can I suggest you frame the question properly first? - SchroCat (talk) 22:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: You can review the infobox of James Earl Jones in the above discussion that features a link to his "full works." Each example has a link that goes to a full list of awards/works/etc. The content in these related articles is too big for the main article. Also added example of the Ludwig van Beethoven infobox which features a link to list of his compositions. Nemov (talk) 03:56, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

text: What would something like that look like for a biography? Nemov (talk) 04:36, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says an ibx should . However, some want to allow navigation links, like a sidebar would, which does not directly summarize notable achievements to the ibx reader.—Bagumba (talk) 05:46, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Given this use is against INFOBOXPURPOSE as it’s stands (even the sensible ‘no’ !votes are more about the links being “useful” than about whether they are compliant with the guidelines), then recasting the guideline to bring it in line with the proposed use would be the only way to avoid the breaches such use brings, and to avoid any future misuse of IBs (based on this ‘thin end of the wedge’ misuse like this). Changing the basis of INFOBOXPURPOSE would, I think, need a centrally advertised RfC based on wording that allows this use, but that avoids any other problems. It should not be too onerous to change the wording at PURPOSE to reflect the current use, but it does need to be done properly, rather than just ignored. - SchroCat (talk) 07:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Popping in here because I had a similar discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking (see here). It seems that the main argument for the Yes side is that the wording of INFOBOXPURPOSE prevents these kinds of links. Where would an RfC to change the wording of that guideline be started? MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 11:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's see how is discussion plays out. Given how many articles this affects, we would need a pretty clear consensus to say these links violate INFOBOX purpose. Nemov (talk) 13:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  But that's exactly how the question was framed ().  It wasn't an open ended, "is it a good good idea to..." —Bagumba (talk) 13:12, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

text: Given most of the sensible 'no' !votes that haven't stuck their heads in the sand acknowledge that current practice isn't in line with the wording ("less persuaded by arguments about what the guideline says/doesn't say than arguments about what it ought to say", "If this is contrary to the current guideline then the guideline needs to be changed", etc), these are also more towards supporting a wording change (which needs an RfC), than the current standing is more towards changing the wording. This who are ignoring the problem are just not reading the guideline in full, or ignoring the bits they don't want to acknowledge. It may as well be done properly - it's not like this is a pressing problem that needs sorting immediately. I suspect an RfC supporting the wording change would be well supported, but given it changes what the purpose of the IB is, it's not something that can be done in a half-arsed way by sneaking through something others may want to have input on. - SchroCat (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: This discussion was promoted at WP:VPP, WT:BIOG, and WT:BLP, so this question has been open for wider community feedback. There's clearly no consensus so far that these links prohibit INFOBOXPURPOSE. These links appear to have support from the community, but perhaps there could be some clarification about their specific use in a future RFC. , do you want to proceed with that? You could use the village pump to workshop the language if you feel it needs more work. Nemov (talk) 14:19, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for spreading the word and ensuring people are aware of the discussion- I've posted a message at the village pump for feedback on the wording of the proposals, since the discussion here has mostly been about the merits of an RfC. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 18:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Next steps

message: * Support My sense after surveying discussions on infoboxes over the last few years is that our guideline has not kept pace with the actual consensus in practice. For example, you notice that the (hoepfully exhaustive) list of discussions these last few years involves biographies, while articles on chemicals, settlements, and species appear to have an obvious consensus to include them where possible. To drive the point home, 3.1 million articles (nearly 50%) have infoboxes.  We should document that consensus. The area of contention seems to be biographies, and particular kinds of biographies at that: subjects who are engaged in theatrical, literary, musical, or visual arts with widespread critical acclaim which makes their subjective achievements difficult to distill into a line in a box. Despite this, editors have routinely found consensus that these articles are better with an infobox than without. We should document that consensus, and hopefully reduce the time the community spends mediating a relatively niche area of controversy.The goal of the proposal isn't to require every article have an infobox, in fact, it gives specific recommendations for when an infobox shouldn't be used. The goal is to synthesize the various considerations editors raised across the discussions surveyed to provide accurate guidance for editors and help improve decision-making on true edge-cases. It is not helpful when we have guidance that is years out of date and doesn't provide actual guidance, and keeping it around just to handle a small subset of biography articles is a net negative. Let's incorporate the insights from those debates into the guidance, but as caveats to the consensus from practice that infoboxes are part of our house style. — Wug·a·po·des 20:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless, some specific wordings could use more work or might be better cut altogether. I think the sentence "Broad topics and overview article ..." could be safely cut, since the text is to be about infoboxes rather than sidebars, plus it's already implied in the mention of "topics with a narrow and well-defined scope" in the preceding sentence. And I think that the advice against the use of infoboxes in stubs should be removed – adding an infobox to a stub seems a reasonable way to help it grow, and the claim "infoboxes on them often attract edits expanding the infobox rather than expanding the article" seems entirely speculative without evidence to back it up. Might it not be the other way around, with edits to the infobox leading to other edits outside of it, whether by the same editors or by watchers? "they should neither be too short nor too long" is a triviality and not helpful, so that clause should be cut too. "consider using a link to a section" violates the rule that infobox entries should not link to sections within the same article (which I consider reasonable – that's what the TOC is for!), so it should be removed too (and the rest of that sentence reworded accordingly). But those are details – the core idea of the RfC is sound, it would help both readers (by leading to more consistency in article appearance for related articles) and editors (by reducing the need for repetitive discussions, and providing guidance in cases where discussions still happen). Gawaon (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

text: This should not be dismissed as just a matter of biographies from antiquity - classical Greece and Rome and suchlike. Information is scant on many notable historic and even living people. Many historic measurements cannot be converted because of our incomplete knowledge of the units of measurement; even the content and dates of any laws governing them are often fragmentary or lacking. For wars, battles and military campaigns, there are often no clear records or historical consensus on the sizes of the forces involved, the military or civilian casualties, or even if anyone can be said to have won, yet helpful or biased editors will fill in those fields with ancient exaggerations or invent their own. Of a plant on which a city's economy depended, we know little but the name and that it's extinct. Population sizes and demographics are only vaguely known and much contested throughout time; even present-day numbers of adherents of different religions and none, in particular countries and worldwide, are the subject of much infobox warring on little or no evidence. These are only a few examples from my experience; other editors would be able to add many more fields of study. Overall, it is not at all only "liberal arts" for which infoboxes are sometimes inappropriate; in many ways, it's the occasions when infoboxes are appropriate that are far more limited than this proposal acknowledges. NebY (talk) 15:34, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: Proposed language:  "The decision on whether or not to include an infobox in an article should rest with the editors who regularly edit and maintain the article." -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved this to the comments section from above the "discussion" section since it's not what people were discussing and it's confusing to present it as if that's what's being discussed. — Wug·a·po·des 23:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: New proposal

message: I am not inherently against infoboxes when their construction is well executed. But all too often, we see boxes that are way too bloated because editors try to write the article in the infobox and/or they are populated with dubious "facts" (as in the example). The example is from a small boat operation conducted by Ukrainian special forces in five RHIB assault boats. They were opposed by no less than two Russian fleets commanded by two admirals. Of the five boats deployed, seven were captured or sunk and one managed to escape! The Ukrainians were apparently commanded by Col. Serhii Lupanchuk, who isn't in the source cited and probably wasn't in any of the five (or is that eight) boats. Perhaps he is the ghost of one of the casualties.
But not only do we get crap like this, we get editors reinstating it! Cinderella157 (talk) 00:52, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a case of “then remove the unsourced material”. And if editors are reinstating bad content that’s known as “disruption”. But I don’t get how “some infoboxes are poorly cited crap” translates to “this is The Problem inherent to infoboxes”. Like, literally any form of content could have these issues. Dronebogus (talk) 05:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

text: I very frequently see conflicting information between infoboxes and the articles in which they appear, over time infoboxes tend to accumulate factoids that are not found or referenced in the article, and these factoids are almost always unreferenced in the infoboxes. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I don’t deny that’s true, but the infoboxes you most vocally oppose are not that. They’re biographical infoboxes with 4 or so objective, sourced, extremely basic factoids. Nobody seems to be working on widespread systemic errors in battle/war infoboxes but everybody acts like a composer getting one carefully designed to provide specific, useful information is sacrilegious. Dronebogus (talk) 05:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: what then should we do about the many poor infoboxes? You say, “Nobody seems to be working on widespread systemic errors in battle/war infoboxes”, so how do we encourage that to happen? Because presently there are lots of editors who focus on infoboxes over article content and vigorously defend bloated and unsourced infoboxes. Bondegezou (talk) 06:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you trying to create some kind of myth?  Who are these "lots", be specific. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:12, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I see a lot more editors fighting over the first sentence than focusing on infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't hang out or watch arts biographies much, I think. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

text: @Bondegezou reminder that infoboxes have a CTOP designation and any editor engaging in disruptive behaviour to restore unsourced information into them can be taken to WP:AE provided that they've been given advice on their talk page prevoiusly of the CTOP designation. That some editors display behavioural issues concerning infoboxes is not an argument against their usage. TarnishedPathtalk 06:31, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have a rule that is frequently broken, it is sensible to review that rule. Bondegezou (talk) 09:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, I guess that's what this RfC was all about? Making our rules/guidelines re infobox use better fit the actual practice. Gawaon (talk) 10:44, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: But on the whole it does reflect general practice, given less than half our articles have an IB in place. - SchroCat (talk) 11:16, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: One of the problems with infoboxes

message: There's currently a discussion to establish consensus on aspects including layout and sourcing on the Hokkien article. Input from folks would be appreciated. Remsense诉 21:49, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hokkien]] infobox 

message: I realized this would likely be of considerable utility, so I've gone and quickly created . I hope others find it useful! Remsense诉 04:23, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inline maintenance tag 

message: While this is certainly rhetorically helpful, I've found that this explication doesn't help a lot of the time, as strictly speaking only moves the issue down a rung: clearly, many people have broader notions of what "necessary" or "key" facts are, or how brief a "glance" is. Keeping in mind I do not want to reduce the effective flexibility of editors, it seems a concrete addition may help. There are problems I can already ascertain with this addition, but it's a starting point, perhaps:
 Remsense诉 22:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: This would still be an arguing point, with personal views of who retains what based on personal experience of editors familiar with the subject (and have therefore retained) rather than a blind test. On the other hand, if it is not supported by the body of the article (and the article does not remain complete without the infobox) it is clearly not a key fact. I would say, that just because a field exists in an infobox does not mean that it should be used in a particular article. That might be more useful. Apart from that, I don't think that we are going fix bloat by trying to be more prescriptive. It takes a concerted effort such as happened at (Napoleon or Syrian civil war) to say this is just beyond a joke. Perhaps we need a list of infoboxes in articles by size so that the community can actively scrutinise the worst excess? Cinderella157 (talk) 00:15, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I think including a list of reference articles in the guideline might be a possibility. Remsense诉 00:17, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly disagree with your argument above.  The shorter the infobox, the more effectively it might help readers to identify key facts at a glance.  It is essential to exclude content that is not "key".  I find this instruction to be extremely helpful.  Any discussion of what is key, necessary and able to be understood "at a glance", and what is "possible", may require discussion at the article's Talk page, but that should be, at least, the aspiration.  "Under a minute"?  A geographical or political infobox could take many minutes to digest, while many biography infoboxes should take 10 seconds. And any time you put an upper limit on something, people will argue that they should be allowed to put in all the stuff you can put in up to that limit.  It must be a case-by-case discussion based on common sense and experience. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:33, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: These are all extremely good and welcome points. I plucked one minute completely out of thin air: I want to reemphasize my suggestion was a scaffold interrogating what kinds of suggestions could work, and nothing more. Remsense诉 01:52, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rule of thumb suggestion?