Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Evidence

Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. Create your own section and do not edit another editor's section. By default, the evidence submission length is limited to about 1000 words and about 100 diffs for named parties; and about 500 words and about 50 diffs for non-party editors. While in general it is is more effective to make succinct yet detailed submissions, users who wish to submit over-length evidence may do so by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. Unapproved overlong evidence may be trimmed to size or removed by the Clerk without warning.

Focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and on diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute.

You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent; see simple diff and link guide.

General discussion of the case will not be accepted on this page, and belongs on the |talk page. The Arbitration Committee expects that all rebuttals of other evidence submissions will be included in your own section and will explain how the evidence is incorrect. Please do not refactor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, only an Arbitrator or Clerk may move it.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and Clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

It's rooted in different interpretations/views of infoboxes
At the basic level, this conflict appears to be between a core group of editors who have opposing views of infoboxes: those for say they are useful because they are machine-readable and they summarize facts. Those against say information to be included is often uncertain in these subject areas, and the information that is not equivocal adds little/is redundant. Along with this are conflicting interpretations of some key policies like WP:OWN and WP:BOLD, and disputes over consensus at past discussions. Those involved are having difficulty reaching an agreement, but in this aspect, I would not single out any specific editor to be especially problematic. It would, however, be helpful if Arbitrators could consider the arguments for and against and propose some sort of compromise with extremely clear wording so as to avoid different interpretations extending this conflict.

There is disagreement over metadata
Below, Mr. Mabbett asserts that there are "two purposes" for infoboxes. What he neglected to mention, is that the second purpose on the linked page was added by him, then kept there despite attempts by others who disagreed to remove it. In the ensuing discussion, Andy claims that only the people he is arguing with are in opposition, and then asserts that Wikipedia is not a democracy, which while true, does not seem related. One might also note that the RfCs he links to state there is no consensus.

Key editors on both sides have been rather belligerent
Discussions have not been very constructive because discussions tend to degenerate into personal attacks and squabbling. Of those named above, I would tend to say User:Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) has been the most belligerent. Of course, that is not to say all others have been perfectly civil either, but Mr. Mabbett seems to be the one most often accusing others of ad hominem, strawmen, and "smear" tactics. As noted above, these arguments often fall to arguments over OWNing, as well as mass action by single users. From my personal feeling, the atmosphere of these discussions tend to drive other editors away; this appears to be the case even with other editors.  Bramble claw  x  01:05, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

TFA topic ban and infobox discussions
I have never been involved adding evidence in an ArbCom case before, but here goes:

On July 25, 2012, (Andy Mabbett) added an infobox to Georg Solti, a well known orchestral and operatic conductor, as it was a TFA at the time. This sparked a lengthly and contentious discussion on the article's talk page. On August 6,, one of the main contributors of the article and a well-respected editor, called out Mabbett on his own behavior and he retired 4 days later, only to return to active editing in November. After Tim's retirement, a seven-day discussion at ANI resulted in a topic ban on Mabbett for the FA of the day. Another contentious discussion occurred on the Cosima Wagner talk page back in December 2012. More recently, another contentious infobox proposal was made at the Johann Sebastian Bach talk page in March, this time by. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Nature of WikiProjects
This statement is more background information than "evidence". Having been through multiple rounds of this, one of the recurring themes is a misunderstanding of the nature of WP:WikiProjects. The definition is this: "A WikiProject is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia." WikiProjects are people, not subject areas or pages in the Wikipedia: namespace. These groups are often valuable, knowledgeable editors and can be a source of excellent advice. They can also occasionally develop issues that affect the rest of the community.

The main reasons that WP:Advice pages rejects the notion that WikiProjects get to decide "rules" for articles within their scope are these:
 * One group of editors never gets to tell the whole community what to do, especially for articles written by someone other than their own members. Most articles on Wikipedia are written by non-members but fall under the scope of at least one WikiProject.
 * Many articles fall under the scope of many WikiProjects, and these WikiProjects can and do have very different recommendations. For example, WPCHEM and WPPHARM and WPMED are all interested in nearly all articles about drugs.  WPCHEM and WPPHARM provide contradictory advice about which infobox to use in these articles.
 * The scope of a WikiProject is, per long-standing community guideline, whatever the members say it is, no matter how silly that seems to anyone else. For example, WPMED is free to declare that Cancer is outside its scope or that Website is within it.  WikiProjects can also be created at will, for any scope and without obtaining permission in advance.  If we were to allow WikiProjects to decide rules for articles within their scope, then any group of two or more people could decide that any article was "within their scope" and therefore subject to their rules.  The pro-infobox folks could trivially create "WikiProject Classical Composers #2" and declare that their advice was co-equal to the anti-infobox views of the first project.

Ownership
One of the main complaints in the music area is demanding that editors respect the (dis)infobox POV of one particular group of editors, merely because the one group of editors has decided that they're interested in the article's subject. Some of the hidden comments say things like After lengthy consideration at the Wikipedia Composers project, it has been determined that infoboxes are not appropriate for composer articles. Before adding an infobox, please review the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infobox debates. Text similar to this appears in a substantial number of composer-related articles. This editor behavior needs to be addressed directly. A significant example of the debate can be read at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes/Archive 8.

Outside of the music area, the issue of collapsing content has been a source of significant friction recently, e.g., Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes/Archive 7, and should also be addressed directly. The recommendation to collapse infobox content conflicts with MOS:COLLAPSE for reasons of WP:ACCESSibility. Reconciling this conflicting advice is important.

Generic
I understand discussions here are about behaviour, rather than content. Therefore I first invite everyone to read this article - it is not long, it is highly germane to this discussion and more relevant than restating any number of WP:RULES.

We will recognize in some Wikipedia behaviour the phenomena described in the article. There are attempts by both sides at 'scent-marking' and 'visual marking' - e.g. hidden texts, unadverted placing of infoboxes -, there are regular bouts of 'ritualised agresssion' - with much growling and occasional screaming -, and there seems to be imo the strategy, on the part of some infoboxers, to create a 'war of attrition'. Interestingly, WP rules are often invoked by both sides in exactly the partisan mode they are supposed to counter: e.g. WP:OWN is taken to mean 'You can't own this article, but I can', and WP:BOLD is taken to mean 'If you don't like it, it must be right'. In the heat of such discussions I do not deny that I have sometimes overstepped the mark, in effect encouraging reciprocity. I don't defend any of this; and if this arb case can remove all or any of these factors, not only from the classical music part of WP but or other infected areas, it will perform a great service.

--Smerus (talk) 08:02, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

This arb is not about whether infoboxes are 'right' or 'wrong' ; policy is clear, they are neither, and optional. There is no evidence base to indicate whether they serve a useful or desired function. That is why they are optional. Many infobox arguments are characterised by the frequent absence of understanding the difference between facts and opinion - as evidenced, for example, here. For my part, I don't like infoboxes (and will save my arguments on that for elsewhere) but I respect them when editors who have created articles choose to use them. But I am not going to argue further here on that topic. The arb discussion is about editor behaviour.

The Wagner affair
Gerda says 'about a million readers in July 2013 did not complain about the infobox in Franz Kafka'; I'm glad that page was therefore spared unpleasantness at a time when it was frontpaged. During May 2013 Richard Wagner had about 200,000 readers; none of them demanded an infobox, except User:Gerda Arendt, who parked a gruesome example on the talkpage a week before frontpaging - although she had unsuccesfully advocated an infobox in discussions when the article was up for GA, and then FA, consideration, and in the discussion re front page nomination; and although she was perfectly aware that I, as the main (but not only) editor involved was thoroughly against having such a box for the article. Gerda has claimed that she was acting on suggestions by User:Nikkimaria and User:Newyorkbrad; if this indeed true, they should examine their consciences. :-}.

What transpired is illustrative of many recent infobox discussions. Following my admittedly peevish response, I was then shat upon with an unwarranted personal attack from the proinfobox User:RexxS; NB. I had never previously accused anyone on WP of 'bad faith', nor had I any previous disputes with RexxS. When I invited an explanation of his behaviour, RexxS was supported by User:Pigsonthewing, bizarrely denying the use of words which were there for all to see. RexxS then launched a further agressive ad hominem attack on me, having the chutzpah to end 'let's get back to discussing this infobox', a topic which he had so far not raised. PotW meanwhile launched a ridiculous attack claiming that notifying relevant projects was 'canvassing'. And this was just on the first day or two. This dragged on until it occupied a vast space. By 20th May the discussion had petered out, with the general tenor against Gerda's box; anyone with a pronounced deathwish can read the whole thing.

On 22nd May (when the article was frontpaged) Gerda redeemed herself superbly by placing on the talk-page a tributary box of Wagner DYKs. So that visitors could appreciate this excellent contribution, I manually archived the talk page up to this tribute. NB: the talk page had always been manually archived, and was at an appropriate length for this operation to be carried out. PotW immediately started warring again, unilaterally unarchiving the page, instituting an automatic archive and generally snarling and issuing 'warnings'.

NB

 * At this time PotW was (and I believe still is) banned from interfering with front-page featured articles. He has made the excuse that this ban did not explicitly extend to talk-pages. This is a weaselly evasion of the clear spirit of the ruling.
 * I promptly referred PotW's behaviour on the Wagner page to an administrator, and, having no response from him, to AN/I. I was frankly extremely disappointed by the AN/I, which seemed to treat PotW as a vor v zakone. I do not understand why, despite his acknowledged industry as an editor, his consistent and recidivist anti-social behaviour, and the consequent encouragement of members of his entourage to behave similarly, is tolerated.
 * The bizarre symbiosis, whereby Gerda initiates a controversial infobox incident, and is then followed by PotW aggressively invading the territory (sometimes with posse members) that Gerda has opened up, is now being repeated elsewhere. (see here and here).
 * Unlike Gerda, who is both knowledgeable and industrious in the field, PotW and his posse members do not offer constructive content edit or comment to any articles on classical music. They pick on the topic as a bully picks on an otherwise inoffensive oik who has the temerity to disagree with him. Their agenda is not the quality of the article or of Wikipedia but a closed-mind no-hostages campaign which does not comprehend, or wilfully ignores, the difference between an encyclopaedia and a database. Personal and inflammatory attack is their default mode.

Recommendations

 * At the very least ban PotW from participating in infobox discussions, and in addition apply to him any other appropriate sanctions. Issue, at least, warnings to RexxS, and anyone else you like, to mind their manners.
 * No placing of infoboxes in an established article (not even by Gerda) before it has been discussed and reasonable consensus reached. The creation of a template design which some people may like is not a license to apply it without discussion.
 * Discussions on infoboxes should be on an article-by-article basis and debate their usefulness or otherwise in the article context. Evidence-based comments to be preferred to opinions of taste or 'metadata' arguments. In the absence of Mabbett and co., such discussions will I am sure be constructive and courteous, but -
 * Censure strongly any discussion tactics (infoboxes or elsewhere) which are designed solely to raise the temperature of debate.
 * 'Hidden texts' at the top of articles deprecating infoboxes should be removed; but -
 * The views of creators and maintainers of articles (and of projects relating to them) should not be summarily dismissed as WP:OWN; they may actually know something of the topics on which they speak.--Smerus (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Problems from previous arbitration requests are still evident
I have watched debates about infoboxes occur with depressing regularity on WP:ANI (example), and, as usual, Andy Mabbett is involved in the heart of it. This in turn has antagonised fellow editors to the point where they are actively motivated to bear-bait him (example). I agree that he's not the only culprit in the case, as presented by evidence up-thread, but I think he has kept the argument going the longest and seems, in my view, to be the least aware of the harm he has caused to the encyclopedia. I actually think Andy makes a lot of good edits and does a lot of work for this place, but his apparent love of filibustering to keep an argument going, sometimes for years, really depresses me.

I would invite people to look at a previous arbitration case in the summer of 2007 here. Not all the evidence is relevant to today, but the evidence about disruptive behaviour in classical music articles is, and I find it astonishly relevant that, six years after Andy was admonished for causing trouble with articles of this nature, here we are again, six years later with exactly the same problem. The phrase "a leopard cannot change its spots" springs to mind. Because Andy has had two appearances at ArbCom, and a number of topic bans, one would assume he is more aware of the requirement to lead by good example and adopt a more tactful and conciliatory tone. However, a quick search of his contributions reveals continuing attempts to attack or bait users, instead of having empathy towards their viewpoints. Examples:


 * ""lack the social skills or competence necessary to work collaboratively" Get the beam out of your own eye, Kleinzach."
 * "Why would anyone with any sense denounce an editor for saying that other editors should be listened to?"
 * "I have never suggested that any editors not be listened to. On the contrary. And unlike some posting on this page."
 * "a fundamental underestimation,if not a total misunderstanding, of the issues at stake; and the former is a further straw man."
 * "As for your your baseless ad homnem, shove it"
 * "I find coordinates useful in infoboxes. It's a pity that Brian seems only to have considered his own personal preferences, and not the circumstances of others."
 * "That's not a clarification, it's a distortion; and a lie."
 * "Which part of "If you believe that "the existing example needs to be junked", then feel free to apply the latter." would you like someone to explain to you?"

Infoboxes are not mandatory
To add a further data point to Giano's comment, I consciously decided not to add an infobox to M11 link road protest (now a GA), deciding a pictorial site map would serve the reader better. Also, when GA reviewing British rhythm and blues, I suggested the article might sit better with an infobox. Sabrebd, the nominator, disagreed. Since infobox presence is not part of the GA criteria, I passed the review anyway.

Andy Mabbett is (still) a belligerent, intransigent editor
Nothing has changed since Pigsonthewing1 and 2. To get a flavour of Mabbett's approach, I’d recommend reading Talk:Cosima Wagner in full. Individual diffs can’t do this justice.

Andy Mabbett, WP:OWNERSHIP and Featured Articles (yet again)
Andy Mabbett has long had a parasitic relationship with Featured Articles. His technique is to turn up at a Featured Article, add a feature (such as an infobox), and when this is removed or challenged by the primary editors (i.e. the ones who put most of the hard work in), to accuse them of violating WP:OWN. This was mentioned in the last RFAR (Pigsonthewing2).

A particular nasty more recent example of Mabbett (and his metadata tag team, including the now perma-banned User:Br'er Rabbit) turning up at a Featured Article and trying to force the insertion of an infobox can be seen at length at Talk:Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Some other examples of the "WP:OWNERSHIP accusation technique":

, , 

This response by a primary contributor is particularly telling:

Andy Mabbett received a community ban as a result of this behaviour
Eventually, people decided they had had enough of this and in August 2012, Andy received an ANI community ban : "User:Pigsonthewing is banned by the community from the FA of the day and any articles nominated or scheduled as FA of the day."

Unfortunately, it did not stop his disruptiveness. A few weeks later, he added an infobox to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek the day after it had been TFA. I've already linked the long, unpleasant talk page debate above. Most recently, he sparked off another long, wearisome discussion on The Rite of Spring the day after it had been TFA, trying to force the inclusion of an infobox against the wishes of the major contributors, and making no fewer than 65 talk page comments there. This behaviour is clearly gaming the system.

It’s (still) all about metadata
Andy Mabbett is on a mission to change Wikipedia from a prose encyclopaedia to machine-readable database.

Back in 2007, Andy Mabbett clearly stated he wanted infoboxes to save him the effort of entering metadata twice:

"being naturally lazy, I believe strongly in both not reinventing the wheel, and not doing work (i.e. entering data) twice." 

This is still the case:. Also:, , ,. etc. etc. "Machine readability cannot be more efficiently handled by prose". 

People who get in the way of Mabbett's noble quest (and his reluctance to enter data twice) are Luddites and must be bludgeoned into submission.

The red herring argument about community consensus
The "community consensus for infoboxes" line seems based on an argument from silence. But this argument can cut the other way. I’ve looked at some of the Featured Article of the Day archives and from the past few months alone, I found at least 18 FAs with no infobox (see Workshop for list ). I checked the talk pages and found nobody clamouring for the addition of one there. In fact, the pro-infobox push is mostly the work of the same handful of metadata enthusiasts. Plus, two-thirds of Wikipedia articles don't have infoboxes.

Conclusion
Two year-long bans as well as other sanctions have failed to stop Pigsonthewing's behaviour. It's time for a more effective and lasting solution.

Infoboxes are an accessibility tool
My statements are on the case page. Not everybody has read them. I am new to this: do I have to repeat it all here? I repeat:

Andy did not breach his topic ban
Andy did not breach a topic ban, quote "The ban is unhelpful as it's unclear and it allows pretty rubbish interpretations, but as it stands, Andy has violated no part of the topic ban as it stands". AN clarification: he is not banned from any talk page, quote: "clarified, move along". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Recent evidence vs. myth

 * It is evident that readers are helped when they can see at a glance a topic's time in history and location in geography, as an infobox can supply, for example BWV 10.
 * It is evident that an infobox should summarize key facts of the article, for example Carmen. It is a myth that it can.
 * It is evident that an infobox emits metadata.
 * It is evident that an infobox mirrors how the article is understood, as a good feedback.
 * It is evident that the excludes comments from readers, who will typically not search in the history of an article.
 * It is evident that there is no ban for infoboxes on talk pages. Or ?
 * It is evident that about a million readers in July 2013 did not complain about the infobox in Franz Kafka.

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Fighting prejudice
Did you know ...


 * ... that I was against infoboxes until September 2012?
 * ... that the last time Andy added an infobox to a TFA was in July 2012, Georg Solti? Would that infobox "damage the article"? I don't think so.

I collected diffs on more recent addition of infoboxes, their reverts and changes to them, looking at 48 cases. Andy added 18 of them and suggested one, I added 21 and suggested 6. Types included infobox person, infobox musician, infobox artwork, infobox organization, infobox Bach composition, infobox musical composition, infobox opera, infobox church, many types that should not be "contentious" or "controversial", keeping in mind that Bruckner's symphonies have infoboxes since 2007.

Did you know ...


 * ... that an infobox for Sparrow Mass caused an edit war that lead to the protection of the page?
 * ... that Nikkimaria removed 19 infoboxes, one, others with summaries such as , and changed 9?
 * ... that this often happened shortly after the infobox was added? (An AN/I case on stalking looked more at infoboxes than stalking. - Her reverting got milder after she and I made then an agreement to respect the infoboxes in articles of each other.)
 * ... that Nikkimaria removed from the infoboxes of Bruckner's symphonies details about the publishing history (example No. 1, edit summary: ), information that had been present since 2007?
 * ... that Nikkimaria removed an infobox of Mont Juic (edit summary: ), but the author likes it?

Wagner and no end
Did you know that I never suggested on the talk of Richard Wagner to have an infobox in his article? I said No infobox. That means, "Wagner affair", "Wagner digression" and other such terms are not to the point? The "discussion" that followed and the discussions of it show the position of some infobox warriors clearly.

"Perfectly acceptable": infobox opera
Did you know ...


 * ... that project opera made a template infobox opera ready for use on June 18, with the new option described again by Voceditenore on 8 July: ?
 * ... that editors who don't like infoboxes still think its use is contentious?
 * ... that on many opera articles, the normal space for an infobox is occupied by a side navbox to other operas/works by the same composer?
 * ... that for major composers, this only duplicates information of a footer navbox and is redundant?
 * ... that Kleinzach removed the footer navbox from many works of two composers, Giuseppe Verdi and Étienne Méhul, possibly only to avoid this redundancy? However, the footer navbox should be present in all articles that it links to, as expressed on article talks and project talk.
 * ... that Kleinzach removed an infobox even from the talk page of Don Carlos, edit summary: ? (The summary is right, the infobox should have been improved in the article.)
 * ... that Carmen could look like this?

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I like to adopt a phrase coined by George Ponderevo who made a precious edit to an infobox : "If you're here to complain about an edit I made to one of your articles then just revert it and tell me as gently as you can where you think I screwed up. I certainly wouldn't have done it mischievously or maliciously, and it's always good to learn something new." --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:33, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Peter cohen
For the information of the committee, I was the person who initiated the ANI thread referred to both in Sjones23's and Folantin's evidence which resulted in Andy Mabbett being banned from FA of the day and articles scheduled for it and I have been present in some of the drama threads concerning him, however, I do not hold strong views about at which end the Infobox egg should be smashed. I can't recall ever inserting one into an article but articles that I created have acquired them and I have made no attempt to remove them.

WP:IAR trumps WP:OWN and WP:Advice pages
People have referred to some bits of policy and guidelines in the above. However the key thing is that people make pragmatic decisions that are most likely to result in a high quality and reliable encyclopedia. I can think of a couple of times where I have come across biography articles where the infobox and the lede contain different dates of birth. Infoboxes create a maintenance overhead and when someone inserts one, they should be pretty damn sure that there are people willing to spend time maintaining that infobox. Unfortunately, Andy Mabbett rarely has any interest in maintaining the infoboxes himself. He imposes the overhead on the people who watch, and normally have helped create, the article in question. If those people don't like infoboxes and aren't willing to maintain them, then there is no use crying WP:OWN. If the volunteers who created the article aren't willing to maintain the infobox, then the pragmatism of WP:IAR says, well there had better not be one in the article. When I was more involved in the various classical music projects there was an attempt to recruit editors interested in this area of content to the projects. This means that when the advice pages were produced they represented a good faith attempt to reflect the consensus of editors who regularly contribute to that area of content. the argument that WP:Advice pages says that they mean nothing therefore falls to the same IAR pragmatism as the WP:OWN does.

Now, if there were half a dozen Gerdas around, there would then be a sufficient number of energetic editors around the classical music area willing to maintain the infoboxes and I would say go ahead and include them. But it has to be half a dozen Gerdas and not half a dozen Andy Mabbetts to address the issue of whether the infoboxes will be watched and kept up to date.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Quiddity
Other editors are covering behaviour. I'm interested in fixing the infobox problems, themselves.

Legitimate problems
There are legitimate objective and subjective problems with infoboxes. I'll list them all(?) below, along with possible solutions.

A: The wikicode
 * 1) It is intimidating to newcomers, at the top of the edit-source-box.
 * 2) * This is partially solved, for the editors who use VisualEditor.
 * 3) It often gets added en-masse, using the empty "Full example" from the documentation page. ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Solti&diff=504122433&oldid=504121341])
 * 4) * Add recommendations to WP:Manual of Style/Infoboxes, to prevent this.
 * 5) * Strongly related to B.1.

B: The individual fields - (This is the hardest part)
 * 1) The empty fields tend to get filled, often with imperfect/inaccurate/imbalanced/subjective/irrelevant data - Eg. ISBN for a book published before ISBNs ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Candide&oldid=556821203])
 * 2) * Add into the template fields, that should not be filled, in individual articles.
 * 3) * Add into more of the template-documentation examples, when a field is likely to be problematic.
 * 4) * Add Templatedata descriptions that warn against using troublesome parameters, or that suggest preliminary talkpage discussion.
 * 5) The field names in a generally applicable infobox (as opposed to a very narrow-focused infobox) are often not ideal for individual nuances ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:The_Rite_of_Spring&diff=557707520&oldid=557705837])
 * 6) * More work on making infoboxes adaptable. Stronger warnings against pushing square pegs into round holes.
 * 7) * Many of the Comments by SPhilbrick are relevant to this, and warrant discussion.

C: The image
 * 1) The infobox image is usually restricted to a width of 200px, which precludes the use of large beautiful thumbnails in the lede of articles. ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angkor_Wat&oldid=564537959] versus [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Three_Studies_for_Figures_at_the_Base_of_a_Crucifixion&oldid=559997325])
 * 2) * See below.

D: The overall aesthetic
 * 1) Many of the background colors are bright, garish, and eyecatching.
 * 2) * These can be altered on a per-template, and per-article basis. Encourage this, and provide more aesthetically minimal examples.
 * 3) * The WMF design group previously discussed creating a proposed overhaul of the aesthetic component. Ideally they (and we) would make something that is more minimal than what we have now.

Arguments that are Not valid objections
Z: Redundancy
 * 1) Infoboxes are intended, like the article-lede, to provide a redundant synopsis. They sometimes contain unique content, but not usually.

Actions that are Not solutions
ZZ: Hidden / collapsible
 * 1) The "collapsible" code, that originated in navboxes, has been spreading. It is frequently mis-used to bury a dispute, hiding something rather than discussing whether it belongs in the article or not. It spread to Infobox Writer's "Influences/Influenced" section . It spread to data-tables in articles ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hong_Kong&oldid=563977590#Geography_and_climate], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Standard_Model&oldid=563932513#Theoretical_aspects], [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_York_City&oldid=564811853#New_York_City_Global_Partners_network]). It briefly spread to Image galleries (Draw Mohammed Day, Gangrene) and still occasionally crops up ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Daniel_Webster&oldid=558265329#On_U.S._Postage]). It has now spread to entire infoboxes ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Fleming&oldid=564483881],[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Little_Moreton_Hall&oldid=561213897],[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Collapsed_infobox_section_begin&hidelinks=1]...).
 * 2) * Anecdote: I've never witnessed a friend/colleague click a [Show] button without prompting; and I have pointed them out to numerous people, all of whom were surprised. Hidden sections are hostile to readers.
 * 3) * Change the wording at MOS:COLLAPSE, to prevent misuse. Length issues should be handled by WP:SPLIT, not hiding things from viewers. Content disputes should not resort to this.
 * Other reasons that collapsed/hidden information is bad, include:
 * For editors:
 * errors, or vandalism, are harder to detect, because less editor-eyeballs will see it
 * For readers:
 * low accessibility (for users with vision problems, or dexterity problems)
 * less likely to see the info, as it requires interaction (effort)
 * less likely to see the info, as they might have never clicked a [Show] link before (discoverability).

Evidence presented by Giano
The danger here is thinking that this case is about whether to include an infobox or not; it isn’t. Infoboxes are not mandatory and the present system of leaving the decision to the primary content editors to decide by discussion works perfectly well. However, in my experience, it ceases to work when Andy Mabbit suddenly wanders in off the street ad demands the inclusion. In my view, infoboxes have their use on scientific pages, but when a building has evolved in ten styles, by seven architects for fourteen patrons over eight hundred years, they invariably become over simplified or misleading.

I have found Mabbitt to be intransigent and disruptive on the subject. I don’t like infoboxes on pages concerned with the arts, but long ago, through debate and without fuss, I found a perfectly reasonable compromise – the collapsed box; this lived happily for many years at Montacute House; that is until Mabbitt discovered it and. Interestingly,, the reason that Mabbitt discovered it was because the same collapsed infobox was being suggested for an FA on which I had collaborated/advised Little Moreton Hall. Mabbitt caused needless argument and trouble trying to force his will on others there too. The argument became fragmented, but a gist of it can be found here.

One only has to read the other diffs provided on this page to see that Mabbitt is a recurring problem; if he is banned from the subject, there won’t be a problem. Most editors are quite capable of finding a reasonable compromise all by themselves. The decision to include an infobox should be left to the primary editors who are responsible for maintaining the page.

Incidentally, the collapsed infobox (so hated by Andy Mabbit and his disciples) is now successfully used at Montacute House (a GA), Little Moreton Hall (a FA), Sunbeam Tiger (another FA) and assorted others ; where they serve their purpose admirably and are obviously acceptable to many.

When Mabbitt is unsuccessful in establishing an infobox, the page (or rather its primary editors) then become a target for his sidekicks' overzealous and erroneous interpretation of MOS (see . I can quite see why less determined and forthright editors than mysleld decide that it's easier to leave the project that contend with this petty, vindictive behavior. In many of his arguments, Mabbitt is supported by User: Moxy, and editor about whom I have serious concerns - these concerns have been forwarded privately to the relevant arbitrators.

To sum up: let the writers decide what is best for a page; not Andy Mabbitt and a few sidekicks - because if he's permitted to continue, there won't be any writing editors.  Giano  15:31, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Andy Mabbitt's evidence
I have attempted to fight my way through Andy Mabbitt's evidence and from what I can see most of it is superfluous to the case. This case is actually very simple: the only question for the Arbitrators to consider is should one unconnected editor be allowed to impose on a group of primary and maintaining editors something that is non-mandatory?

I and many others obviously think the answer is no. If the arbitrators agree with this view, then they have to decide how to deal with that single editor, and that too is quite obvious. In my experience, editors who collaborate together on the same subjects can usually compromise, agree or agree to disagree; it's when Andy Mabbitt wanders in off the street that problems begin   Giano   18:34, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Andy Mabbett needs to be sanctioned
As a member of the CM project and someone who has contributed on occasion over the last (is it now five?) years to this debate, I simply want to offer my complete and unambiguous support to the points raised by Folantin above. The debate about infoboxes on classical music pages has become repeatedly distracted by the unhelpful, often disruptive manner of engagement of Mabbett and he needs to be banned permanently. This behaviour is the real question here, not the use of infoboxes, which I think has been more than settled for classical music articles in terms of a clear project consensus that has been reiterated on numerous occasions. (If Gerda and others wish to make the use of infoboxes obligatory as a matter of policy, then I am sure no-one would object to following the practice. But as long as it is not in any way required for all articles, the continuing occasional discussions at CM are a fine way for interested editors collected together by the project to express itself on this matter.) I am confident that many other long time contributors to articles under the CM project umbrella would also provide strong ascent to Folantin's points. Eusebeus (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Extend (indefinite?) bans on Andy at least on adding or discussing Infoboxes
I can't agree more with Eusebeus and Folantin -- the arguments that Andy Mabbett starts when a user disagrees with him on infoboxes on articles are so disruptive to article creators and expanders that some, like me, have given up writing composer articles to avoid facing the conflict. His manner of attacking those who disagree greatly distracts from the developing of articles (see the Rite of Spring references above for what happened to improve the article only after the whole infobox fiasco was resolved (properly, in my opinion).) There is now a place for gathering machine-readable data about articles, Wikidata. The attempts to turn the prose Wikipedia into another version of that project only prevent WP from going forward. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

General utility and limitations of Infoboxes
This case is not about the general question of infoboxes I hope. But some assertions have been made above which compel me to add to the picture. I am not against infoxes in appropriate places at all, and just as I support the ability of WikiProjects to enforce their use as standard, I support their ability to reject their use. They work well in types of articles where the information is standard, uncomplicated in terms of definitions and certain as data. They work badly where these factors do not apply. They also drastically restrict the image size, and often take up a lot of space. It is for all these reasons that the Visual arts project generally dislikes them, as reflected in WP:VAMOS. In art articles, whether biographies or those on objects or styles, space for the very important illustrations is extremely short, and decently sized images essential. Infoboxes can greatly cut down the available space. In addition, many of the fields in art infoboxes are treacherous for a user without good subject knowledge, and often inaccurately or misleadingly filled out. For artist biographies, "Movement", "influences" and "Important works" are especial traps, but there are others. In all historical biographies going further back than a century or two the basic fields of "Nationality" and the states attached to places of birth, death etc can be notorious traps. But people insist on filling them out.

Some may remember the brief row after David Cameron corrected Gordon Brown in Prime Minister's Question Time on the birth-date of Titian (which is unknown), which Wikipedia got dragged into after aides began editing the article to prove their boss right. Before the row the article had correctly explained that the date was uncertain, but this would not do for the infobox, so one of the candidates was entered. This is typical of the way infoboxes handle complicated and uncertain information. Here's one I recently removed for Rodin's The Thinker because almost all the information on it was wrong or at best misleading (the article doesn't get the complicated history of this work right yet either), and if it were added correctly the ting would need 2 or 3 lines for most fields. I really can't see how the information in our infoboxes for many areas can be of use to WikiData when it is such poor quality. Infoboxes are fine for things like taxa, sportspeople, films and so on, but don't work well over much of the humanities, especially for pre-modern articles. Any move to make their use the default should be strongly resisted. Johnbod (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Wider than classical music
Responses to "Infoboxes: time for a fresh look?" (Signpost 10 July) and this recent RfC indicate that antipathy to infoboxes (and/or cramming more and more machine-readable "data" into them) is far more widespread than classical music editors. WikiProjects Theatre and Visual Arts aren't too keen either, albeit with more subtlety:
 * "None of the project's FA-class articles have an infobox. Infoboxes have been considered repetitive and unnecessary in those articles."
 * "There may be a conflict for space between the need to illustrate visual arts articles and the use of infoboxes. This is decided on a case-by-case basis."

Irrespective of hidden comments, active opposition from many classical music editors will continue, as it has in visual arts and literature, especially from editors who write and maintain Featured Articles. The recent conflicts leading to this case come from what these editors perceive (rightly or wrongly) as a relentless push by Andy (quite aggressively) and lately Gerda (always politely) which specifically targets FAs and/or classical music. Sample:
 * 11 February Andy uncollapses the infobox (a long-standing compromise) at Little Moreton Hall (FA). Read the ensuing "discussion" in full to get a flavour of how he operates. Unsuccessful, he starts another discussion at Manual of Style/Infoboxes 6 March. Unsuccessful, he lists the collapsing template for deletion 13 March. Still no luck...
 * 21 March Gerda proposes infobox at Bach. Andy arrives. Discussion degenerates into sniping and accusations on both sides. An editor suggests using common sense about BOLD when the editor knows full well it will cause controversy and friction . Similarly, Nevertheless...
 * 25 March, Gerda proposes infobox on Handel. Inevitable "discussion". No consensus for infobox. Nevertheless...
 * 3 April at WikiProject Opera, Gerda proposes infobox on Carmen (FA) (3 days before its TFA). Andy arrives. Discussion degenerates . The editor who brought it to FA (who's not a project member) expressed dismay at the timing . Andy plows on anyway . The editor requests TFA to defer its appearance . Nevertheless...
 * 16 May Gerda proposes an infobox be kept permanently on the Wagner (FA) talk page (a week before its TFA). Discussion degenerates. Andy arrives, . No consensus. Nevertheless...
 * 30 May Andy proposes infobox on The Rite of Spring (FA) (the minute its TFA ended). Discussion degenerates, . No consensus. Nevertheless...
 * 19 June Gerda adds infobox to L'incoronazione di Poppea (FA). Inevitably..., , , , ,

Consequences of a relentless agenda
Andy at the WikiData discussion list:

"Of course, there will always be some Luddites who see Wikipedia as a prose encyclopedia rather than the database of encyclopedic content which it really is ;-)"

Don't let the emoticon fool you. He means it. Featured Articles without infoboxes interfere with Wikipedia, The Free Machine-Readable Database. This is so antithetical to many arts editors' perspective that some leave altogether. Others push back hard at this agenda, becoming fearful of even the smallest compromise, sometimes belligerently. Everybody loses.

Voceditenore (talk) 07:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Ownership by Infobox Project
I consider infoboxes beneficial (even crucial) in many articles, just not all of them. There are only c.1.5 million infoboxes present on the Special:Statistics articles on Wikipedia – or a little over a third. While they are useful, they are not even present in the majority of articles, with two-thirds of all articles not carrying an infobox: their presence is not compulsory and the consensus of articles not needing infoboxes despite minor vocal opposition, thus enjoys widespread community support.

The Classical Music project upholds the MoS ("neither required nor prohibited for any article"). The Infobox project do not, and attempt to force inclusion on all articles. In their narrow interpretation, that "all articles of certain types include infoboxes", "I personally support infoboxes on everything", etc, they'll be happy to force a "one-size-fits-all" straightjacket on articles. As per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale": that also includes Project Infobox and their quest for uniformity.

Andy Mabbett
Shortly after Andy Mabbett inevitably joins in infobox discussions, they degenerate into an unseemly bunfight, with him making snide comments and accusing others of making ad hominem comments against him before he inevitably falls into accusing others of WP:OWN, simply for disagreeing with him. His evasiveness in answering valid questions, rudeness to others and inability to accept that others may have an entirely valid but opposing point of view, combined with an inability to concede that a consensus just may not exist in some cases, ensure that these discussions are unhelpful, divisive and circular. (See "the "Luddites" comment, also here and here here and many more for examples).

In a number of cases I've seen, the question of removing an infobox was raised on the talk page prior to any action being taken. If there is valid opposition the infobox has remained in place—without any edits taking place to remove the box. These conversations seem to be relatively short and conflict free, with the status quo being retained. When an infobox is added to an established article by one of the more active members of the infobox project, there is no prior discussion and it tends to be followed by a mini edit war and the usual conflab on the talk pages. If the question had been raised on the talk page first—and then not aggressively pursued on the talk page—I doubt that we would be having this process now.

Metadata. ( and many, many others)
We are not Google: we are Wikipedia and I can see nothing in the MOS that demands we unnaturally force articles into a particular shape on the basis Google's wishes (or any other profit-making companies): I am not a shill for Google, or some other profit-maker, I am a volunteer editor for Wikipedia. I can do no better than point in the direction of "Wikipedia as database"—from a user who has already left because of this mania.

- SchroCat (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing)
It is sad but unsurprising that good-faith attempts by Ched help resolve people's differences over infoboxes has degenerated into a continuation of the campaign by a small group of editors to stifle debate about infoboxes on "their" articles, by restricting or banning those who challenge their ownership. In my case, they have made numerous attempts to utterly prohibit involvement in such discussions. The community has repeatedly rejected their attempts to do so, even when it has seen fit to censure me otherwise. Unlike several of them, I do not seek to ban anyone from Wikipedia.

I second the points made above by Moxy (here), Gerda & WhatamIdoing.

Several involved editors are not named above, but most are related to the projects listed.

Purpose of Infoboxes; metadata
Infoboxes serve two purposes. They provide a summary of key points of articles for the convenience of our readers, and they make that available to machines. The use of infoboxes to emit microformat metadata has been supported both in practice (since 2007; categories) and RfCs (here's one)). 2010 RfC found: "consensus to either embrace or disfavour microformats has not quite been reached; however there is clear support for... moving forward with care. In general people felt that microformats had a place on Wikipedia, and there were no views calling for an outright exclusion". The data in our infoboxes is used by many third party companies, non-profits, academics and individuals (including Yahoo (who praise:, Google , Wolfram alpha, Watson , Dbpedia, and from DBpedia many more, including BBC )). Some editors have repeatedly denied these facts (,, "")

Regardless of infoboxes (but assisted by them) and the denials of some, Wikipedia is a database of encyclopedic content. It is queryable by machine; its API "provides convenient access to wiki features, data and meta-data". This accords with both Wikipedia's mission and the WMF's objectives.

No-one involved has argued that every article should have an infobox. Nonetheless, Wikipedia has well over 1.7 million infoboxes using Infobox alone and many others beside (N.B. very incomplete list) That's without short stubs, new articles and ineligible articles (lists, redirects, etc). Despite minor vocal opposition, they thus enjoy widespread community support.

That a few individual fields cannot be meaningfully completed, such as Beethoven's birth date, does not mean we cannot do so for any composer and does not justify a de facto prohibition on articles on them or elsewhere.

Excluding an infobox citing aesthetics is also subjective and illogical. Increasingly, readers view articles on mobiles (probably soon the majority) or third-party sites. What appears good on one setup will be poor on another; editors cannot perceive this without extensive testing. The RexxS's Buckingham Palace example renders badly on my and others' setups, precisely because if attempts to regulate how readers must see the images.

Those who do not wish to see infoboxes can hide them with a small change to their local CSS file; help doing so has been offered to parties here. Images in infoboxes can be resized when required.

Many readers expect infoboxes ; and express surprise when none exist in suitable articles. Academic studies show that readers use them when visiting our desktop site ).

Composers RfC
The RfC called by the Composers project found that:


 * WikiProjects... do not have the authority to override a local consensus on the talk page of an article.
 * Infoboxes are not to be added nor removed systematically from [classical music] articles. Such actions would be considered disruptive.

Nonetheless, infobox opponents (IOs) have represented such guidelines as binding (hidden comments; see above; "adding infoboxes... against guidelines") and/or representing consensus (ditto), or "", even after being asked not to. They. Some have continued to systematically remove infoboxes from affected articles (Gerda's table refers).

The behaviour regarding infoboxes of IOs in the classical music projects inhibits some editors {{{Diff|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infoboxes RfC|346569639|346567874}}, ; - note exasperated edit summary; editor ceased contributing after that and the subsequent hounding by involved parties at his talk page, [the later refers to ANI I can find no relevant thread there], and inexplicably, also on the project page.

Replacement infoboxes
Where IOs from classical music projects have worked on infoboxes these served to replace more fully-featured infoboxes, in order to suppress inclusion of information (Infobox classical composer duplicates a limited subset of so is redundant to it; Infobox orchestra has ("")). For example from the rendered article and 'minimalism' is removed, despite being considered "intrinsic" in the lede. . music director;  music director, pops conductor, assistant conductor, founder; and  past/ present music directors (and that it's USA based). Kleinzach made a large number of replacements similar to that, despite being asked not to until consensus was determined; citing a project consensus as justification. He also canvassed (below).

After valid deletion, Infobox classical composer was recreated out-of-process after userfication; then another TfD was summarily closed in an hour. It still has only 49 transclusions. Any other fork duplicating Infobox person would be deleted.

TFA
I am prohibited from editing TFA.

This was predicted on my supposedly having forced Tim riley from Wikipedia. I did not. He continues editing, and has asked me, often for help/ advice with infoboxes/ other matters, then thanked me for it ("grateful thanks for your colleaguely response"); and invited me to a meetup.

I am not prohibited from talk pages of TFAs, as ANI confirmed. Smerus continues disputing this, including here, despite that.

Similarly, there is no prohibition on my editing articles after their day at TFA.

Editor behaviour
Much is said above about "forcing", "bullying" and similar behaviour, supposedly by those in favour of infoboxes. It is not evidenced; either the claims have no diff or other link, or those that are given do not show what is alleged. Which articles have infoboxes thus "forced" on them? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? Georg Solti? Cosima Wagner? Hans-Joachim Hessler? None of them have one. Why not? Indeed, it's more believable that IOs "bully" or "force" infoboxes off "their" articles, by falsely claiming consensus; hectoring, and turning up "as a tag team".

In an apparent attempt to deter me from adding infoboxes to articles on any topic, Nikkimaria stalked my edits over months, even after cautions from other editors. She has also been warned for stalking Gerda. Evidence begins the ANI case I initiated, to which she posted only three comments; apparently believing her actions acceptable. In one, Nikkmaria an infobox, at 10px wide and 10% fontsize, and put it at the foot of the article. See if you can read it. Some compromise!

IOs selectively interpret voting as consensus. Kleinzach, saying "", even though six commenters split 4:2. The infobox remains absent. Giano: "".

Kleinzach prematurely/ selectively archives discussion (including on pages which he does not usually archive/ archived by bots) to hide or stifle debate:,. . This continued after he was asked to desist. Smerus also does this:

The language used by IOs is often intemperate, ranging from discourtesy to pejorative terms/ personal attacks - evidence from others here, plus:


 * Giano: ""
 * Giano: ""
 * Kleinzach refers to me, several times, as " 'that editor' " (with scare quotes).

IOs use unwarranted hyperbole. Adding an infobox does not "trash" an article.

I was by, 27 hours after making my first edit to Hans-Joachim Hessler in five days. He subsequently apologised to me offwiki.

Canvassing
Kleinzach regularly canvasses; either using neutral wording, but only for one project, or using non-neutral wording:


 * , but not the Birmingham or WM projects.
 * , but none of the other five projects.
 * Partisan canvassing of a TfD (result was "delete").
 * ANI issue announced on WPCM, not other affected projects.

This continued even after being asked not to.

Ownership exhibited
IOs have frequently exhibited, or supported, ownership, in contravention of core polices; in talk, and even here: ("WP:IAR trumps WP:OWN", "use of infoboxes ... more than settled ... in terms of a clear project consensus"; proposed findings)

The "views of creators and maintainers of articles (and of projects relating to them)" have not "been summarily dismissed as WP:OWN", references to OWN have followed examples or suggestions of breaches of it. e.g. Folantin's examples:


 * Not about infoboxes; followed "the main contributors... You have made one drive-by edit... If Malleus doesn't want to see it there it shouldn't go in unless you can convince him and PoD otherwise"
 * followed the bogus claim that "info-boxes are left to the principal editors discretion"
 * does not refer to WP:OWN, but refutes a claim of implied "PR/FAC consensus against an infobox"
 * follows reference to "consensus among those who work on articles in this category" (after others raised OWN).

Pattern of obstinate resistance backed with personal attacks by anti-infobox parties
I have quite frankly, aside from the stubbornness of the folks involved, had my ears blown back by the vehemence of those who oppose use of any infobox in classical music articles. My concern is the tone and viciousness of the attacks leveled against editors such as Gerda Arendt. The Wagner situation was particularly notable, as people threatened to sanction Gerda for even mentioning an infobox at talk. I am also troubled by the "echo chamber" of OMG! OMG! gets set up at the very appearance of Andy Mabbett, I see a couple of editors, notably Kleinzach and Smerus, being the leaders of the bullying pack. Others, such as Nikkimaria, seem to be "hooked" into the battle. We have WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:POINT-y editing, near 3RR violations, reverting without discussion, stalking Gerda from one article to the next, and just skirting the edge of sanctionable behavior.

My conclusion is that there needs to be a ratcheting down of the rhetoric and a decision to allow inboxes in articles, discussed rationally I know that edit histories are not ideal, but look at the edits in April and May of 2013, when the bulk of what I was involved with occurred. (I've kind of stepped back from a lot of it since this action was filed.)  Montanabw (talk) 22:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Kleinzach and Smerus gang up against infoboxes, making any number of tendentious IDONTLIKEIT arguments no matter what anyone else says
 * Round 2 of the same
 * Tendentious discussion where Gerda is trying to explain why certain information should be part of an infobox, with opposition mostly saying over and over "we don't want to" and insisting on reduction of infobox size for little real reason beyond IDONTLIKEIIT
 * see edit history between these diffs month long edit dispute over first adding the infobox and then whether to collapse a lousy half inch of information, combined with inaccurate edit summaries.
 * Stalking issue discussed along with debate over collapsing infoboxes in illogical ways.
 * Kleinzach and Smerus ganging up on Gerda to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 * Another infobox reversion/collapsing war
 * Ditto above, stalking of Gerda
 * And another
 * Claims of consensus where none exist
 * After Gerda performs substantial article improvement, another infobox war
 * absurd collapsing of infobox just to make the WP:POINT

@Nikki, when editors are on different sides of the world and one is asleep while the other is awake, it's not "tag-teaming" to watchlist an article when there is an upset wikistalker following an editor around ... I call that vandal patrol (/humor)! Montanabw (talk) 23:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

And today we have an absolutely PERFECT example of the problem: This is why we are here. Montanabw (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Smerus reverts Gerda, replacing a nicely-done infobox with a poorly-done navbox in the exact same spot and claiming "no consensus". Absolutely perfect example of WP:POINTy behavior by Smerus
 * 2) then it goes to talk where Smerus misinterprets Gerda's intentions, failing to mention that he favors the less-helpful navbox.
 * 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Opera&curid=740743&diff=566875123&oldid=566819181 Next he goes complaining to WP:OPERA], stating the same false accusations and misattribution of motive in an attempt to poison the well
 * 4) then Smerus goes to Talk:Fatinitza and engages in his typical bullying tone and misattribution of motive by saying (and I am quoting here) "... Gerda's trivial, partisan and unhelpful summary of the Wikiproject discussion. They (like me) scarcely bothered to contribute to the discussion on Wikiproject Opera because they are fed up with Gerda rabitting on about it. ... My view for what it is worth - as Gerda has been keen to advance her own opinion - is that editors' energies are better spent creating and improving articles than tinkering about with useless items of decor.  (boldface emphasis added by me)
 * 5) And yes, I got pissed at Smerus and snarked back a bit today. Trout me.  I am so tired of people being mean like this to Gerda.  She is really a very, very nice person and the attacks on her by the bullies like Smerus and Kleinzach are just uncalled for.  She is thoughtful, careful, knowledgeable about her subject and very willing to look at what actually improves things.  Her motives are misattributed, her contributions belittled, and the lack of AGF here just stuns me.  If you want an example of why editors, are being driven off wikipedia, this is a classic example; I admire her courage and tenacity to hang on and hang in.  Whatever we can do to actually ratchet down the ill will in this particular wikiproject will be to the benefit of all wiki.

On infoboxen and project autonomy/guidelines
So, just noting what others have posted, that's my thinking at the moment. Montanabw (talk) 23:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Just FWIW, yes, I am among the pro-infobox folks, and I think that for most biographies and many other articles where they are part of a large wikiproject, an infobox is suitable, though I wouldn't say 100% of all articles should have one.
 * I do see article not ready for one, or places where they aren't needed and I haven't added one to many articles I've created (such as hindgut fermentation).
 * I'm torn on the issue of WikiProject autonomy and consensus. On one hand, I think wikiprojects do deserve some credit for the expertise of their members on what might go INTO an infobox or how it's going to be formatted, but I don't think an absolute IDONTLIKEIT veto is appropriate either.
 * I don't see a real need to change the guidelines governing wikiprojects as the MOS itself allows for WikiProjects to deviate from certain standards when it makes sense within a given field or something... For example, while we may generally like standard measurements, gems are measured in carats, not grams, for example, and thus infobox mineral and the wikiprojects involving gems and minerals would rightly say that all gem infoboxes need to provide gem weight in carats.
 * However, the Classical Music projects are truly unique in their fanaticism against infoboxes; A composer is a human being, and hence I don't really understand the vehemence against a variation on Infobox person. I can see how good people can differ on what data goes into an infobox, and clearly there are some examples where the infobox has gotten out of hand, but these folks are just plain mean as hell about the issue.  Sheesh.

Pigsonthewing is one of several users who add infoboxes to new articles created by others
Background: I've never had much use for infoboxes myself. Being a habitual left-to-right reader, I often don't even notice them, unless I'm reading Wikipedia from a smartphone. I have, however, noticed that many new articles get visited by users who gnomishly add infoboxes to them. In some instances, I've created infoboxes myself, partly because I expected other users would be looking for them and partly as a pre-emptive action -- to have control over their initial contents. I've never paid much attention to the identity of the users who add infoboxes.

I browsed through my article-creation log to find articles with infoboxes that I didn't add. In a sample of 11 articles that have infoboxes now, initially added by other users, I find that Pigsonthewing added two:, ; User:TheCatalyst31 added three , , (all three of these are about U.S. settlements); and six different users were responsible for the other six, sometimes long after the article was created: , , , , ,. From this limited sample, I conclude that Pigsonthewing is a major adder of infoboxes in articles created by others, but he is not unique in this regard. However, I note that the other users added boxes to articles about topics in areas where they have some sort of personal editing focus, while the two articles where Pigsonthewing added infoboxes were on seemingly random topics. --Orlady (talk) 22:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Pushiness on all sides regarding infoboxes
These incidents go back years, but nothing has changed:


 * Wikiproject Universities tells the world (in "things to do") that every article in the WikiProject needs an infobox and encourages new contributors to add them. The project infobox template documentation indicates that one city and one founding date are required entries, although many institutions are not unambiguously associated with one city or one founding date. This was discussed as an issue, with a response from infobox keepers (second diff) that this is non-negotiable, so article creators must just pick a city and a date to fit the infobox (which is apparently a procrustean bed). --Orlady (talk) 23:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) points out that the date and city parameters are no longer mandatory. Happily, he is correct. However, the template documentation I linked to describes them as "REQUIRED", and I find that "city" is de facto required -- if it's omitted but other location elements (such as country) are included, the infobox template leaves a comma and a space at the beginning of the location field. --Orlady (talk) 02:55, 1 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Back in 2007 another user added an article about an opera singer to an article that I had extensively edited. Kleizach removed the infobox saying WikiProject Opera wasn't using them: . I innocently restored it because the person wasn't exclusively an opera singer: . Ultimately, Kleinzach informed me, in an authoritative dismissive manner, that the infobox was inappropriate because infoboxes don't treat opera singers with the dignity they deserve: . The message I got was to stay away from the whole topic of opera to avoid bullying. --Orlady (talk) 23:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by RexxS

 * Proposition: The problems experienced on multiple articles are almost entirely the result of a group of editors exhibiting a hostile reaction to what should be normal editing practice.

Wikipedia's mission
"To make available the sum of human knowledge to to every person on the planet" is what Wikipedia should be about. To that end we make available our contributions under a free licence that ensures our work is available for anybody for any purpose - and that includes commercial use. Re-users like Google are our allies in this mission and there is value helping others to spread our content in whatever form they choose. A problem is that some editors deny this and believe that the article that is produced is the only legitimate end-product.

Value of Infoboxes

 * Infoboxes provide a service to the casual reader: a reasonably well developed article will contain detail in the body of the article that may take some considerable time to digest. The lede will contain a summary of the main points that a reader may use to obtain an overview of the subject; and it may contain an infobox that provides a very brief summary of key points.
 * Infoboxes provide a single place where microformats may be added. These classes allow third-parties to use simple tools that extract key data such as birth dates, etc. from our pages.
 * Infoboxes have a regular structure that allow the data to be used for purposes that we didn't anticipate. For example, Google uses our infoboxes to train its text reading programs, providing a significant increase in accuracy. Intelligence in Wikipedia is a 50 minute Google Tech Talk explaining that use.

Although infoboxes are rare in list articles and stubs, they are the norm in well-developed articles. Taking a random sample from the list Featured articles shows that almost all of them have infoboxes. It is part of the normal development of an article for an infobox to be added at some point.

Problems with infoboxes

 * For some topics, or some key data within a topic, it may be impossible to capture vital nuances in the short "label-data" structure needed for an infobox.
 * There is a temptation to add as many pieces of information to infoboxes as there are parameters. Infoboxes benefit from being a concise overview and too much data defeat that purpose as well as increasing the likelihood that the parameters contain misleading information.
 * On some rare occasions, an author has deliberately put effort into the visual presentation of the article. Giano, for example, will spend time when he is developing an article to position and size images that illustrate the architecture to create an aesthetic - Buckingham Palace is an obvious example. In these cases, an infobox could easily destroy that effect. Admittedly, this isn't a consideration for screen readers and mobile users, but it is still important.

The crux of the problem
For any given article there is a need to weigh these very complex, and often subjective, considerations when deciding on whether or not to have an infobox, or which parameters to include. The values of infoboxes are pretty much consistent for any article, but the problems vary from non-existent to grave, so reasoned discussion is sometimes essential.

Our model of editing is for one editor to make an edit and other editors to accept, reject or modify it based on good reason. The process has broken down because of multiple occurrences of the reversion of infobox addition with spurious reasons such as "get consensus first"; "discuss on the talk page first"; "this is against a Wikiproject guidelines". One editor has even followed another around reverting his infobox additions with edit summaries of "cleanup". Such reasoning is inimical to our model of editing of Wikipedia and demonstrate unhealthy ownership of articles. This problem will only go away when we can patiently and rationally discuss the issues on an article. I invite everyone to look at Talk:Richard Wagner/Archive 13 for a classic example of how it has become impossible to have a reasoned discussion about the pros and cons of infoboxes. I am particularly disappointed by the spin placed on it by Smerus in his evidence above. It is clear from the very first response that Smerus has no intention of discussing the pros and cons of the infobox - especially when Gerda (one of the kindest and most accommodating editors we have) didn't even edit the article, but brought an example of an infobox to the talk page!

We need to find a way of restoring the normal editing process without losing the value of contributions of editors on both sides of this debate and I'll make some related proposals in the Workshop later. In the meantime, I would particularly endorse the comments above by Quiddity as positive and helpful. (This submission is over 800 words - should anyone wish to add me as a party to justify the length of this, then I have no objection.) --RexxS (talk) 23:27, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee cannot change existing infobox policy, or lack thereof
Per Arbitration/Policy: "The Committee does not rule on content, but may propose means by which community resolution of a content dispute can be facilitated." While I personally support infoboxes on everything, that is a decision the greater community must make.

The role of a WikiProject, or a local community
I am very pro-WikiProject. I believe that WikiProjects are the way to revitalize the English Wikipedia and to become more effective at curating quality content. However, we must also remember the principles of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope."

Pigsonthewing has attempted to force coordinates into Featured Article candidates
This is another example of his forcing elements that he wants into featured articles; his behavior extends outside that of infoboxes.

Pigsonthewing proceeded to oppose every road-related FAC on the basis of lack of geocoordinates for months, even with the same nominators, even after a delegate indicated they would not fail an article because of it (see Karanacs' comment at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 10. Some of his opposes border on disruption as a FAC delegate stated: "It is disruptive to repeat the same discussion at several FACs—such general discussion should instead take place at the relevant MOS page, which apparently is WP:RJL." These opposes have attempted to derail the FACs:


 * Featured article candidates/A1 (Croatia)/archive1 - opposing over lack of detailed coordinates
 * Featured article candidates/M-185 (Michigan highway)/archive1 and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/M-185 (Michigan highway)/archive1
 * Featured article candidates/U.S. Route 2 in Michigan/archive1 and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/U.S. Route 2 in Michigan/archive1 After the "disruptive to repeat the same discussion" comment from Ucucha, questioning delegate authority Personal attack
 * Old nomination for Ontario Highway 401 and Featured article candidates/Ontario Highway 401/archive2 (after Raul654 made an unusual restart of the FAC), definitely POINTy especially since M-185 and US 2 MI had passed by this time, and by the restart of the FAC, the RFC consensus was to use KML shapefiles

Pigsonthewing and Nikkimaria have been blocked for edit warring over infoboxes

 * December 31, 2012: Hans-Joachim Hessler - both Nikkimaria and Pigsonthewing were blocked, but then unblocked to allow for discussion.
 * While it may have been an inappropriate block, the fact of the matter is that a slow edit war took place.
 * March 30, 2013: Nikkimaria was blocked for 24 hours for edit warring over Sparrow Mass. Rschen7754 12:03, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

About Andy Mabbett
I have in the past criticised Andy Mabbett for many of these things. However, I have come to the view that, maddeningly persistent though he may be, he has a point, and he is doing a wikignoming task that adds value and that not many other people seem to want to do. I think it would be a loss if we were to take action to stop Andy from adding coordinates and the like to articles.

That's not to say that every article should have any/all features of any given infobox - still less any element (I get very annoyed when Bob Smith gets "birth name Robert Smith" as if Bob is somehow an alias or stagename rather than the standard contraction of Robert that everyone will assume from the name Bob). There is merit in having a centralised discussion of criteria to be used. But the reason Andy does what he does is that he sincerely believes, with good reason, that it adds value. His work with other users and contributors to Wikipedia in meatspace leads me to conclude that he is a decent man who gets along just fine with people most of the time, but (like many of us) he's inclined to be a bit single-minded at times. This is not evil. It can be annoying, it's annoyed me in the past, but I'd like to invite the committee to think about creative ways to settle this, rather than wield a big stick. Guy (Help!) 23:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, also: infoboxes are a good thing. They bring to the top of the article things which would otherwise be buried in the categories. "Known for" is good, especially. It requires editorial judgment, but isn't that supposed to be our job? Guy (Help!) 23:44, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Nikkimaria
Infoboxes are neither required nor prohibited; whether they are included is left to an article-by-article consensus. It follows, therefore, that when the addition or removal of an infobox is disputed or reverted, it should be discussed on talk and the resulting consensus implemented. Unfortunately, for various reasons, this has not happened:
 * Some editors add or remove infoboxes on a wide scale, sometimes systematically. For example, in 30 minutes on July 2, Gerda added 14 infoboxes. Andy has added hundreds of boxes to diverse pages.
 * When an addition or removal of a box is reverted, the reversion is often reverted rather than a discussion opened (ex)
 * Some assume with-box as default (ex last comment here), contrary to MOS
 * Disputes about application of WikiProject guidelines

Attempts have been made to compromise between full-box and no-box, and have been reverted. Examples include placement;non-visible metadata; removing or simplifying or collapsing long lists (per RexxS); removing blank parameters; various other formatting changes, etc. If infoboxes are meant to be a "tool for accessibility", this isn't the way to do it.

Pro-infobox editors agree we should follow BRD. Editors on both sides have edit-warred. Some have engaged in tag-teaming (ex) or using rollback (ex). Editors on both sides have violated WP:CIV/WP:NPA. Andy has provided examples, so here are some from the other side:

Some pro-infobox editors agree we should show respect for article creators and those with knowledge on the topic (although such respect is applied inconsistently). The concerns re: WP:OWN are noted, and there are examples for both sides. However, an infobox puts a burden on those improving or maintaining an article to ensure it is accurate, properly sourced, and up to date. That's great when the person both understands the template and knows the topic, but more often this isn't the case.

Some editors have made an effort to compromise and be responsive to concerns; others refuse to answer straightforward questions. We want to encourage the former and discourage the latter. Gerda and I have both made agreements in an effort to resolve disputes amicably; Andy has refused to do so. Relevant comments regarding the allegations of "stalking" are here and here for Andy and here for Gerda.

See here and here and here for other relevant comments regarding the problems of infoboxes. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

(After EC: note also that User:PumpkinSky's "evidence" is almost entirely false)

Pigsonthewing's behavior is a major problem
has been blocked ~32 times, including two year-long ArbCom bans. Of the other editors named in this case, only has been blocked (3x).

In my experience, Pigsonthewing seems to try to wear people down, arguing long after consensus against his position been reached. Despite his single-minded pursuit of his goals, he can be frustratingly inconsistent in his arguments. For example, his evidence (above) cites a no-consensus, nearly three-year-old RFC to support adding Microformats on WP. But when I pointed out six-month-old opposition to adding an Infobox at Talk:Rite of Spring, he basically dismissed it as "based on false claims" diff. He did not object to my citing numbers (6-1 against) then, and when I gave a tally/percentage (as is done at WP:RfA) of those opposed to an Infobox in the article (myself included) and those in favor diff, he wrote "So we are making progress!" diff. However when Gerda abstained, I recalculated the tally, and Pigsonthewing called my actions "asinine" and accused me of "rig[ging] the figures in your favour" diff.

Pigsonthewing is also out to delete Template:Geobox despite "no consensus to merge" (with Infoboxes) on his TfD. He then tried to delete the Geobox piecemeal, starting with the Mountains and Mountain ranges functions here, and here. Next he turned to Geobox|River, by proposing it be "deprecated" at Template talk:Infobox river (and no notice from him on Geobox talk). As part of that discussion I asked him questions which he would not answer, and which I hope ArbCom will ask him. I partly quote myself "Andy, when it says here (about you) that "His advice has been sought recently by organisations including Google and FourSquare (on their use of Wikipedia data); and The BBC, Facebook and the London Assembly (on microformats)." was that paid advice? Do you have a COI? Are you being paid to edit and/or get rid of templates that Google, Facebook, the BBC and other re-users do not like? These are serious questions, not rhetorical." diff I hope Andy Mabbett is a nicer person in real life than "Pigsonthewing" is to most users here on Wikipedia. Ruhrfisch ><> &deg; &deg; 03:44, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Metadata and the purpose of an infobox
As a quick note, Andy claims above that Infoboxes serve "two purposes" (emphasis his). This statement, claiming to be fact, is misleading. The second "purpose" - metadata - is a recent addition, by Andy himself. However, the discussion he points to to justify this addition at best ended in no consensus, with only the general agreement that metadata may be a useful bonus with an infobox. But it certainly has not been agreed that this is an explicit purpose of an infobox. I suspect that this language remains only because Andy wore people out.

Andy's obsession with metadata and microformats is extreme enough that he proposes to use Wikipedia as the launching point of non-standard and not widely used format. Notable here is that after his discussion in November went nowhere, he quietly restarted things in March, basically acting as if his plan is a fait acompli. As a couple other points: I think Ruhrfisch's questions about potential COI and his relationship with those organizations are valid, and should be answered. I also think that simply banning Andy (again) will cut the head off this dispute, however JzG's comment has merit. A topic ban related to adding/removing infoboxes and limitations on how he can make arguments about same would allow him to continue gnoming in other areas. Resolute 15:23, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Johnuniq
Johnuniq (talk) 00:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * A group of productive editors working collaboratively to develop core encyclopedic content should be overruled only when required by policy.
 * Infoboxes are not mandatory.
 * Whether a particular article should have an infobox boils down to ILIKEIT versus IDONTLIKEIT.
 * Some editors can propose changes in a manner that does not disrupt the community.
 * Some editors can't.
 * Some editors can recognize when a change they propose is not worth the ensuing disruption.
 * Some editors can't.
 * Infobox wars have been enormously disruptive.
 * The push by Pigsonthewing to add infoboxes has disrupted a group of productive editors who normally collaborate to develop core encyclopedic content.
 * Pigsonthewing should be prevented from continuing that push.
 * Associated bad behavior has arisen from extreme frustration with the years-long and highly combative campaign.
 * If infoboxes are as desirable as portrayed by their supporters, the proper procedure would be to enact a policy that, once added, an infobox cannot be removed.

The fault is Wikipedia's
This is more of a comment rather than evidence as to who is to blame or not blame. My assertion is that the Wikipedia guideline on infoboxes is the cause of this controversy.

Ambiguity creates controversy
If one looks at the history of wars or of partisan arguments, one of the frequent reasons for these events is ambiguity in understanding a document, idea, position, or similar credos. That Wikipedia has created an optional path for infoboxes is the reason why there is this current arbitration. Whatever the arbitration committee decides is not going to remove that underlying controversy. I would hope the decision would recognize this cause and perhaps find a way to eventually reword the guidelines for all of Wikipedia. -- kosboot (talk) 00:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC) (forgot to sign earlier)