Proposal: make it a universal rule that all non-stub biographies should have infoboxes
General arguments for standardization
edit- Overwhelmingly common on biographies— this is a brute fact, citing enclaves that are deliberately policed to block infoboxes doesn’t change that
- Removing infoboxes deprives readers of something; adding them does not take any existing content away
- Standardization would prevent these debates from coming up again and again, wasting massive amounts of time and energy
- WP:SURPRISE— users and readers expect infoboxes and assume there’s an been an oversight when they’re missing, which is why this keeps coming up
- Most boxeless bios are obscure and poorly maintained, so a high-profile one lacking one is detrimental to the appearance of quality
- Standardization is simplification, and simplification is good
Why the current situation is unacceptable
edit- Current system is rife with WP:OWNership issues, with many voters defaulting to the biggest contributors, or to unilateral decisions made by projects, like they were the equivalent of topic experts on infoboxes
- WP:NOTBURO— relying on a convoluted, obscure mixture of MOS, ARBCOM, “local consensus” (top contributor preference), project consensus, essay this or that, etc. to determine who gets an infobox does not make editing easy or accessible and balkanizes Wikipedia articles over a trivial issue; a universal rule that all bios should have infoboxes cuts through this Gordian Knot
Refuting common objections
edit- opposers have not backed up their data-based arguments (i.e. that infoboxes attract more false information) with objective data, making them unfalsifiable
- There is no “right” way to read an article; saying infoboxes “oversimplify” or “strip context” is offensively patronizing to readers who just want or need raw facts and data.
- Boxes are often considered magnets for useless trivia, but box-less articles still routinely feature signatures (a useless piece of trivia if there ever was one) placed prominently below the subject’s image within the same border in the style of an infobox. If blocking i-boxes is supposed to stop the addition of useless information it’s an abject failure
- It’s often parroted that “liberal arts biographies are uniquely unsuited to infoboxes”, yet there are countless (probably a majority) of liberal arts bios that have them without controversy; this is a case of following a “rule” for the sake of it without bothering to ask why
- Some editors have supported blocking infoboxes so people will be forced to only read or edit the text— this is WP:POINT-making, pure and simple
- Opposers have not presented a strong case why blocking infoboxes from certain articles against such a basic norm is even necessary. Normally breaking a nigh-universal standard is done for a very good reason, so the burden of evidence is on the opposers
- If there was something so catastrophically wrong with infoboxes in general, why are they so overwhelmingly popular and universally adopted? Consensus has long since decided in favor of using them, why are we still fighting the Civil War on this?