On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
The problem with infoboxes is that they are inherently
unencyclopedic.
Infoboxes are for viewing data, not for giving a nuanced and comprehensive
overview of a subject.
Don't underestimate how much readers love infoboxes. We did a mobile
UX test a while ago, and it turned out that infoboxes were
accidentally broken on mobile at that specific time. Some testers
pointed this out quickly as a bug, along the lines of "Where's the
little table which gives you all the useful info at a glance". It's
not an accident that Google has integrated infobox-style information
into search results. Highly scannable info can be of great value to
readers.
So I'm not sure moving all this stuff outside of the article is ever a
good idea. But I agree there's a fair bit of cruft there as well, and
Wikidata could help separate key at-a-glance facts from details.
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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