[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] infobox growth

[Eugene van der Pijll]

> From: Julia Kasmire <J.Kasmire at 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