[Wikipedia-l] Infoboxes doubts

[Matthew Brown]

On Jan 3, 2008 4:01 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> So, what can a computer scientist do to assist this messy process?
> You can extract semi-structured parameter data from template calls
> in the database dumps.  You can compile statistics on which
> parameter names are most commonly used in various templates (e.g.
> "year" vs. "age", "name" vs. "title") and give advice to how
> parameters should best be named in new templates.  For each
> template you can compile statistics on which parameter names
> (defined or not) and values are actually used and provide feedback
> on the "Template talk:" page.  You can work together with
> WikiProjects on the proper use of templates and infoboxes.

All good.  The good thing is that any infobox is encouraging
structured data, which will be easier to massage later into a better
form than completely unstructured data, either wholly automatically or
human-assistedly.

Not to mention that doing all this stuff seems to appeal to certain
editor mindsets, so they tend to improve over time.

-Matt