Wikipedia talk:A navbox on every page

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How about replicating this study a couple of times? Or running a blinded study? That would be most helpful in deciding how to react to this proposal :) +sj +

Why?[edit]

Why should there be a navbox on every page? Not every article warrants a navbox, just like many articles do not warrant a see also section. Promoting the idea that every one should have one seems to be a step in the wrong direction and a call to create inappropriate, unnecessary templates that would just clutter many articles. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. Blanket rules are evil. Navboxes should go on pages that needs navboxes.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a completely insane proposal. Navboxes group articles that fall naturally into groups. Many articles don't & it is crazy to set as a goal that all have them. The category system is far more flexible and useful. Johnbod (talk) 08:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be a bit blunt. This is a bad proposal because navbox will be added wherever appropriate. You don't need this rule to tell what others must do. Some pages just don't need navbox. Common sense trumps this rule any time. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this proposal is not workable at all. I've worked on many articles that are not part of a well-defined enough topic to justify a navbox. I could see modifying this into an essay that defines when a navbox is and is not appropriate, but in its current form this is not going to be useful. Karanacs (talk) 19:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This will turn into a stampede. I know some guy who makes a template for every year's sports team or award, and if a successful guy/team has a long career, there are 15+ like Nick Riewoldt. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 01:11, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

First, this proposal is far too long and wordy. Could you reduce it to two perhaps two paragraphs: "what" and "why". Then we can have a sensible debate.

Secondly, it constantly refers to "a navbox" - do you also mean "one or more navboxes"?

Also, you should consider how many pages are unlikely to ever have a navbox, and consider why that is the case. So far this comes across as a bold, sweeping statement, without much to back it up. How about a couple of quick examples of what you mean: take an article X that has no navbox, and propose what navbox could go there, and what other articles would be included. Show how to make it happen. Demonstrate whether it's practical, where the boundaries are, etc. Stevage 12:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent suggestion.

My comment is that there have been quite a few cases where people have got excited and created hundreds of pages of extremely dubious quality. I am concerned that if this proposal got much encouragement then some people will start improving their edit count by adding highly contrived navboxes. If unhelpful navboxes become common, readers will learn to ignore them like we ignore adverts on other websites. Johnuniq (talk) 06:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Wikipedia has tons of pages that take up less than half a monitor screen, that would probably be better off if merged into a few related articles (see WP:WITHIN). If you click the "random" tab, you will notice that a significantly fair percentage of pages fit that description and remain permastubs. I have found that the creation of navboxes reveals a lot of those pages. One of my ideas is that placing them in the navbox may help reveal all those pages and someone who would be good at it would help merge them. Sebwite (talk) 14:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the category system be better for this idea? -- œ ^™ 15:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Previously proposed as a Wikiproject[edit]

This proposal has previously been discussed here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Navbox. -- œ ^™ 16:25, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any anti examples?[edit]

This comment is aimed not at User:Sebwite but at the nay sayers. There are lots of comments above which say that this proposal is a bad idea but no one ever provides examples of articles that clearly would not benefit from the addition of a NavBox. I don't recall ever coming across one. Are there any? -Arb. (talk) 00:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the old page linked above. Alternatively try pressing random article a few times, & try to work out how useful a navbox would be (if there isn't one) in every case. Johnbod (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did the random thing for a while. Almost every instance either had a navbox or could benefit from one. The only exceptions that I came across in my small sample are people of minor notability. What navbox would you add to Andy Scott (sculptor)? Stevage 10:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another example, the novel The Flame and the Flower, or its author Kathleen Woodiwiss. Karanacs (talk) 14:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well that one is easy, you could have one for her and her 4 books (it seems the book you refer to has a number of sequels). Who knows if they're all notable though. Stevage 12:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They aren't, which is the problem. Karanacs (talk) 15:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If someone could do another study similar to mine, that might help re-evaluate this cause. Anyway, I never intended for a navbox to suddenly appear on every page by tomorrow, but for there to be a goal of trying to place them on as many pages as possible, as it is determined where they best fit. Sebwite (talk) 02:50, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this just advocating the use of more navboxes? It's not really a proposed guideline at all, it's just an essay. Fences&Windows 03:55, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did write this with the intention of it being an essay, as well as an instructional page on creating navboxes. Sebwite (talk) 14:13, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is, IMHO, a very valid thing to do: state a goal, and see whether people in fact support the goal. You don't necessarily need to propose any immediate action, but if there is consensus for the goal, then you can point back to that in many places, and use that to stimulate action. Stevage 10:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More comment[edit]

I read the "navbox on every page" essay and I disagree with it. Putting "hundreds" of items in a navbox would be an example of Wikilaziness; instead of recommending to the reader the one or two links that most relevantly explain the subject matter, instead waste the reader's time with scores of items that have been free-asssociated with no obvious sequence or ranking by relevancy. An article is instantly de-orphaned if it has a link, either in-line with the text (preferred) or else in a "see also" (if you can't think of a natural way of linking it in the text...and if you can't, then is it really necessarly to link to it anyway?). The essay admits that a "navbox" does the same function as a "see also" section, but without the benefit of an editor recommending items that are most particularly relevant to the matter at hand. Ultimately you'd just need one navbox saying "Other stuff" and put the whole of Wikipedia in it...after all, you might otherwise miss the connection between thermocouples and the Franco-Prussian War. (The advice to search for articles that "need" navoboxes by an Easter-egg hunt using "random article" is precious...if you don't know what's relevant to an article, for goodness sake don't randomly put in a navbox!) --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not on Userpages?[edit]

The statement "Navboxes should not be placed in user space, ..." caught my attention because I'm finding them quite helpful to navigate a relatively complex page. Can someone explain the reason(s) they should not be used in the User space?

Thanks. -- User:HansWobbe 18:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I second this. I am generally pro-navbox and keep a gallery of my major edits as part of my user page. So I have 8 navboxes I created or overhauled on my user page. Plus, I find it useful to click my user at the top then the navbox link rather than typing some longer article names. >> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 17:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea[edit]

This essay is a good idea. The arguments need stronger writing. I tried to tweak but was not sufficiently successful IMO. The idea is to be able to use this link on an edit line. When the editor goes to this page, s/he is convinced of the wisdom of (for example) having an appropriate navbox with that article in it and not merely attached to a subordinate article.

I think the name is wrong. Strong! But sounds WP:FRINGE because it is too strong! And wrong, too, I think. How about "Navbox guidelines," or (close to dangerous!) "Manual of style (navboxes)."Student7 (talk) 00:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with this essay[edit]

Agree with this essay. Navboxes serve a unique purpose. we can gain benefits by using them more widely. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 03:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]