Gerard

On 15 June 2012 19:55, Marco Fleckinger <marco.fleckinger@gmail.com> wrote:

Hallo,

On 2012-06-14 12:33, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Hoi,
Technically there is nothing stopping Wikidata from hosting multiple
infoboxes on the same subject. The big thing about such infoboxes is
that their layout is the same for all subjects in the same category.
This does not mean that every one looks the same but it does mean they
follow a consistent pattern.

Providing multiple infobox templates for the same subject is a very good point, as it is not necessary to override (see below) on each single page of a language version.

When people talk about things like colours and stuff, it becomes highly
emotional but in the final analysis at this stage it is just more bike
shedding. It should be obvious that attributes like colour can be
overriden.. Given that info boxes will not be supported in the near
future ...

I agree that overriding attributes should be possible. The pages of different Wikimedia-projects sometimes look very different in colours and so on.

Just think of "acceptable view":

Overriding should be possible on two different positions:
# Style-sheet:
Example: The box may behave different if we use
"Lista de correo electrónico" instead of
"Mailing list" as a key word
# Rendering:
* Value-conversion: different units and languages.
** −459,67 °F = 0 °Ra = −218,52 °R = −273,15 °C = 0 K
** city(48°8′24″N 11°34′30″E) = "Munich" = "München" =
"Múnich" = "Monaco di Baviera" ...
* Precision:
** π shown as "3.1415926" with precision 7
** extended to subjects like locations of e.g. shopping
malls more or less precision is wanted. For example
the location of [[de:Europark_(Einkaufszentrum)]]:
*** "Salzburg (City), Austria" (for zh.wikipedia.org)
*** "Salzburg, Austria" (for de.wikipedia.org)
*** "Taxham, Salzburg" (for http://salzburg.com/wiki)

The notion that people should curate the info boxes locally is something
that I do not subscribe to. Not being able to agree on data and sources
is the same as not being able to reach a neutral point of view. This
does not mean that multiple sources may not agree but equally it does
not mean that different sources cannot be maintained from within Wikidata.

Finally, when Wikidata provides data and info boxes, it does not mean
that any project is compelled to use it. As Wikidata matures, it will
become increasingly clear that it is not the best practice.
Thanks,

I'm not a server specialist and not an excellent developer but due to the fact that it should also be possible to use pure data outside of wikimedia, data providing and page rendering should be seperated strict from each other.

Wikidata should therefore only be responsible for retrieving data with correct precision, value conversion and mode as requested. The rendering engine, not part of Wikidata, should be responsible for creating the HTML-code of the whole article including that of the infobox as well.

GerardM

On 14 June 2012 12:11, Gregor Hagedorn <g.m.hagedorn@gmail.com
<mailto:g.m.hagedorn@gmail.com>> wrote:

While I agree that it is desirable to support simple, preformatted
Infoboxes that can, with minimal effort be re-used in a large number
of language versions of Wikipedia, I strongly disagree with the demand
to make this the only choice.

I think the present Wikidata approach to allow local Wikipedias to
customize their infoboxes by accessing wikidata properties
property-by-property is the right path.

The large Wikipedias with many editors have invested considerable
creative energy into making quite a large number of infoboxes
elaborate information containers. That includes formatting, images and
hand-crafted links in both the "field name" and the "field value"
side. Some values are expressed through svg graphics, other values
expressed through background color coding, etc.

Limiting the usability of Wikidata to plain vanilla infox boxes could
cause considerable resistance in these communities. And although small
Wikipedia will profit a lot from Wikidata, without the engagement of
editors from the large Wikipedias into curating Wikidata content, the
increased synergies will not happen.

Another issue is that (I believe that) Wikidata does not have a notion
of ordering properties. Correct? This is no issue for the present
Wikidata approach because infoboxes remain curated in each local
Wikipedia. However, in a centralized "one size fits all" approach,
replacing existing infoboxes where information is presented in a
logical order with an alphabetical property order would create huge
resistance (and would be a complex issue that Wikidata would have to
deal with, allowing property ordering and filtering).

I believe that Wikidata correctly aims to provide a smooth transition
path, where it is possible to obtain only part of an infobox from
wikidata and inject wikidata content into existing infobox layouts.

That said: I would encourage a third party contributor to try to
create a default Wikidata infobox generator in a way (extension
installable in multiple Wikipedias) that enables a wikipedia to
autocreate a good looking, plain vanilla infobox with minimal effort.

Gregor

Marco

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