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---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Julia Kasmire J.Kasmire@tudelft.nl Date: 26 April 2010 12:45 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] infobox growth To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear Wikipedia Mailing list,
I am doing some research on the increasing structure in information transmission and I am very interested to know some information on the history and growth of infoboxes, or other machine searchable extracted information, in wikipedia.
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?
The discussion page "How many Wikipedia articles covered by DBpedia?" gives two such infobox data points and one approximate date, but I want to flesh out the history a bit.
Thank you very much in advance, and please feel free to ask me if there is any more information I can provide you with!
Kind regards,
Julia Kasmire PhD Researcher TU Delft
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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
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 9:55 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
<snip>
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.
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
Carcharoth
Carcharoth wrote:
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
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.
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
Yep, this was Maverick149's good work. I even confess to adapting his model to battles and biological taxa. The hard-coding made things much easier to follow than transclusions.
Ec
On 28 April 2010 06:43, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
2004, with MediaWiki 1.3, I think? Editors pounced on this marvellous new capability.
- d.
On 28 April 2010 10:58, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 06:43, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
2004, with MediaWiki 1.3, I think? Editors pounced on this marvellous new capability.
- d.
Well the Template namespace initialisation script went through in june 2004 however before that people used {{msg:whatever}}.
On 28 April 2010 21:48, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 10:58, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 06:43, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
2004, with MediaWiki 1.3, I think? Editors pounced on this marvellous new capability.
Well the Template namespace initialisation script went through in june 2004 however before that people used {{msg:whatever}}.
Yep! The {{msg:whatever}} usage was rare, but it really took off when templating was properly supported.
- d.
On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 10:16 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 21:48, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 10:58, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 April 2010 06:43, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway?
2004, with MediaWiki 1.3, I think? Editors pounced on this marvellous new capability.
Well the Template namespace initialisation script went through in june 2004 however before that people used {{msg:whatever}}.
Yep! The {{msg:whatever}} usage was rare, but it really took off when templating was properly supported.
Talking of templates, I recent discussion I raised died a quiet death (due to neglect more than anything else), and I was wondering what people here think of what was said there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Summary_style#Problems_with_part...
Carcharoth
On 29 April 2010 00:16, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Talking of templates, I recent discussion I raised died a quiet death (due to neglect more than anything else), and I was wondering what people here think of what was said there? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Summary_style#Problems_with_part...
The template guideline used to say this was a bad idea and you shouldn't do it (I know, I put that in), but the temptation is obvious.
- d.