Daniel, I suggest there isn't a need for "data objects (that) will be cached in the client wiki (i.e. wikipedia)". In the transclusion approach, nothing at all is cached by the client wiki except the infobox's HTML, within the squid cache as has been outlined. IOW, I'm still wondering *why* data objects must be retrieved and then cached by anyone, in the first place. And, so that I fully understand the wikidata approach, isn't it actually true that the API calls that you say are NOT occurring "during the render process (that) would be very scary", are indeed executed during every purge of a wikipage? If, as you imply, transclusion meets wikidata's functional requirements, then would it still be necessary to require every wikipedia to install the client/server API (aka the "wikidata client")? What is so compelling about the client/server approach? You say "Keeping the control over the formatting in the client wiki seems desirable to me" overlooks the fact that normal wiki rules-of-the-road apply within the wikidata environment also, where authors certainly should be able to exert "control", likely even more so, over infobox content & styling. Thanks - john On 10.07.2012 14:08, Daniel Kinzler wrote: jmcclure(a)hypergrove.comwrote: impact of every wikipedia calling an API for each property that it wishes to format as content in pages' infoboxes, as I understand is the design the project is pursuing. objects will be cached in the client wiki loaded into memory once for any page that uses them. during the render process would be very scary. explain to this community why it's technically superior to field a client/server API rather than transclusion, e.g., {{wikidata:en:infobox:Thomas Jefferson}} It seems more stable a design to format the infobox on wikidata, and then simply transclude the result. seems desirable to repository for infobox templates. like for images: use the local version if thetemplate form a central repo (which may be on the somewhere else).

Denny and Wikimedians, In what ways might World University and School (which is like Wikipedia with MIT OCW), with plans to be in all 3,000-8,000 languages, and 200 countries, each a school or beginning university as a wiki page, to begin, participate in this process? The English version presently has nearly 500 wiki pages. Here's WUaS's Subject Template, - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE - as one key to WUaS's structure. Cheers, Scott On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 8:17 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: -- http://scottmacleod.com/worlduniversityandschool.htm This email is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of this email message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and destroy/delete all copies of the transmittal. Thank you.

Personally, I think the focus of this discussion on infoboxes is short-sighted. My personal hope is that Wikidata will actually allow the Wikipedias to use fewer infoboxes (and when they are used, for them to be much smaller). This may sound counter-intuitive, but let me explain... <opinionated rant> Right now, English Wikipedia suffers from a continually growing plague of infobox cruft. Most articles on Wikipedia now look more like Pokemon cards than Encyclopedia articles. Compare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft 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. In fact they actually detract from that goal. The infobox for George Washington leads me to believe that he had equal allegiance to Britain and the U.S., that he was a Deist Episcopal (which is quite misleading in its simplicity), and that his role as President of the United States was just as important as his role as Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia. Not to mention the fact that it's nearly 3 pages long! Imagine an infobox like that sitting in http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington. If we had a repository where people could put all the fact-cruft that they want, they would probably be less tempted to spam the infoboxes with it. And maybe at some point we could even replace infoboxes with a "Data tab" or something similar that gave a full interface to the Wikidata data, but without having it dominate the Wikipedia article (as infoboxes do). I imagine that eventually the Wikidata content on many subjects will exceed the Wikipedia content. So my personal hope is that Wikidata will eventually allow us to think outside the infobox. Heh, I think I'll make that my new slogan: "Think outside the infobox!" Or maybe "Death to infoboxes! Long live Wikidata!" :) </opinionated rant> Disclaimer: I'm not directly involved with the Wikidata project, just an interested onlooker. Ryan Kaldari On 7/10/12 6:01 PM, jmcclure(a)hypergrove.com wrote:

Agreed. I love Infoboxes and they are generally the first thing I read. I will admit that the George Washington one is far too long though; at that point it is no longer " Highly scannable info", but rather just a pile of data. I like the earlier mentioned idea of a Data tab for the extra information that could be removed from longer infoboxes. Thank you, Derric Atzrott P.S. Sorry about my terribly worded email to the list earlier this morning. I was tired and didn't proof read it first to make sure that it actually flowed according to the rules of English instead of my thoughts.

On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Ryan Kaldari &lt;rkaldari(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: +1