From: Julia Kasmire J.Kasmire@tudelft.nl
Could you tell me, or tell me how to find, the following: the date of the first infobox on wikipedia? the rate of increase in infoboxes, or at least the number of infoboxes at several points in time and the date that number was measured?
These are difficult questions.
One answer can be found at [[Wikipedia:Database reports/Templates with the most transclusions]]. On April 22, the generic Infobox template [[Template:Infobox]] was transcluded on 566,270 pages. This counts both direct and indirect transclusions. Most infoboxes use this template; unfortunately, some of the most common don't.
The two most common specific infobox templates are [[Template:Infobox Settlement]] (202k uses) and [[Template:Taxobox]] (155k uses). Neither of these use [[T:Infobox]], as you can check for yourself by clicking on "edit"/"view source", and checking the list of transcluded pages at the bottom.
The database report on transclusions is kept up to date by a bot twice per month. You have to check for yourself at which date certain infoboxes started using [[T:Infobox]].
Older data is difficult to obtain. You may be able to parse database dumps of the entire wikipedia, to see how many articles contain the string "{{Infobox" or "{{Taxobox". (I think taxoboxes are the only common infoboxes that don't have a name starting with "Infobox".)
The oldest infoboxes predate [[T:Infobox]], and even templates themselves; they will be very hard to count. The earliest infobox I found was at [[Beryllium]], on 2 Feb 2002. It wasn't called "Infobox" then, of course, but it certainly was one.
Eugene