Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates/Archive 5

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Template:How I Met Your Mother

Can we get some opinions at Template talk:How I Met Your Mother about linking to subsections? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 23:45, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

List of Carpenter named articles

Regarding: Categories,_lists,_and_navigation_templates including but not limited to the following portion quoted; "Many users prefer to browse Wikipedia through its lists, while others prefer to navigate by category; and lists are more obvious to beginners, who may not discover the category system right away. Therefore, the "category camp" should not delete or dismantle Wikipedia's lists, and the "list camp" shouldn't tear down Wikipedia's category system—doing so wastes valuable resources. Instead, each should be used to update the other."

Should this also include the "disabiguation camp" that removes partial listings used as navigation aids and who remove list pages? Example: List of Carpenter named articles - nominated for deletion mainly because it duplicates Carpenter (disambiguation).

Any input here or comments on the deletion discussion page would be appreciated. Jrcrin001 (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the issue currently being discussed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Carpenter named articles is unrelated to the guidelines listed here. Instead, it seems to be more of an issue regarding Wikipedia:Disambiguation as to whether such disambig list pages should be titled "X (disambiguation)", "List of X named articles", or have both list pages. Zzyzx11 (talk) 21:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Correct assessment. Given that "X (disambiguation)" is expected by users and by mediawiki search it would make little sense to "List of X named articles" other than as a redirect to the disambiguation page. Any distinct content should be merged to the dab page.LeadSongDog come howl 16:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I can live with a merge. The problem why the list was created was that one disambig editor removed partial listings and items mentioning Carpenter that he felt were no use to the disambig page. I asked for assistance and tried a compromise. Obviously it failed. If you support "merge," please note it at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Carpenter named articles. Thank you. Jrcrin001 (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Guidance for sidebar navboxes (navigation templates)?

By "sidebar navbox", I mean the navbox that often appear at the top-right of articles, sometimes "part of a series on ...", sometimes not. There is a dubious sidebar navbox under discussion elsewhere: the key issue is whether or not the list of articles in the sidebar navbox would be better served by a Category. I was looking for some guideline on that issue, but I could not find it. The guideline I would suggest would be something like: Articles listed within a sidebar navbox must be bound together as part of a single coherent subject (e.g. Template:Philosophy), contrasted with categories or lists, which can contain articles that are only loosely related (e.g. Category:People from Long Island). In other words: A sidebar navbox should not be used merely to list a bunch of loosely-related articles.

Another key point is that the dubious sidebar navbox is not associated with an article. That is, there is no article "for" the infobox - the navbox is functioning more-or-less as a List or Category.

In addition, since these sidebar navboxes are so common, and so prominent, shouldn't WP have some more guidance on conventions and styles? Im thinking of guidelines like:

(1) Aesthetic recommendations on layout, colors, etc
(2) Articles listed within a sidebar navbox must be bound together as part of a single coherent subject (e.g. Template:Philosophy), contrasted with categories or lists, which can contain articles that are only loosely related (e.g. Category:People from Long Island);
(3) Suggest that there should be an article corresponding to the topic of the sidebar navbox (which is not normally required for categories or lists).
(4) The sidebar is the first thing readers will see when they visit an article, so sidebars should be accessible/understandable to all readers
(5) Recommend that at most one sidebar navbox be used in an article - additional sidebars should have some extraordinary justification
(6) Place sidebar navbox at the top of an article; only place in middle of article with some extraordinary justification
(7) Recommend that each sidebar navbox be sponsored by a WP project, if possible.
(8) Suggest conventions for "Part of a Series on ..." sidebars
(9) Discuss the sensitive topic of maximum recommended size (similar to guidelines for article sizes)

Are these issues already addressed in some WP guideline somewhere ?

Of these nine items, the items that would be most helpful to resolve "dubious navbox" issues are (2) and (3) ... guidelines on that may help reduce or eliminate future lengthy discussions at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. So those are the two guidelines that I would suggest we establish, if not already extant.

See also:

--Noleander (talk) 00:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

See also:
-- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

Based on the above, I propose to add the following to the Navigation Template section of this guideline:

  • A Navigation Template should have an article that corresponds to the topic (subject) of the Navigation Template. If an article does not exist, consider creating one. If an article cannot sensibly be created for the topic, that is an indication that a Navigation Template is probably not appropriate, and a Category or List should be used instead. The Navigation Box's title should be a wiki-link to the corresponding article.
  • The articles within the Navigation Template should be closely related. Reliable Sources should discuss the topics (of the articles) as a group, and should relate the topics to each other. The articles in the Navigation Template should refer to each other to a reasonable extent. If the articles are just loosely related (that is, if no Reliable Source discusses the entire group in a cohesive manner) consider a Category or List instead. If the articles are grouped merely because they share some common attribute (such as "Baseball players from Rhode Island") use a Category or List, not a Navigation Template.

Comments? --Noleander (talk) 00:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

IMO, your proposal would be beyond the scope of this page. This page is primarily designed to basically compare and contrast each of the three systems. But unlike Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists), there has never been any official detailed guideline for navigation templates period. Wikipedia:Navigation templates and Wikipedia:Article series and the like have only managed to get to essay status. I would prefer you get those two pages and/or your proposal up to guideline status on separate pages before adding it here. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:15, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I see what you are saying.
However, because there is no dedicated guideline for NavBoxes, this compare/contrast guideline has become the default home for WP's NavBox guidance: in fact, this guideline already has some prescriptive info for Navboxes: "The article links in a navigation template should have some ordering, whether chronological or otherwise....[more guidance omitted] ... As with categories, all the articles in a template should substantially deal with the subject of the box. Ask yourself, is the subject of this box something that would be mentioned on every article in it? If the answer is "no", a category or list is probably more appropriate."
Therefore, it looks like the choices are:
A) add the guidance into this article, co-located with the existing NavBox guidance; or
B) create an entirely new guideline dedicated to NavBoxes (probably use essay Wikipedia:Navigation templates as a starting point)
I don't mind doing the work for (B) of creating a new guideline. But before I embark on that, I'd like to hear a couple of other editors confirm that there is a need for a Navbox guideline. As you say, Lists and Categories have their own guidelines, so perhaps Navboxes should also. But if no other editors endorse that path, I may humbly suggest just going with (A) and adding some detail into this guideline. Let's see what other editors recommend. --Noleander (talk) 04:12, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I for one would favour a guideline that pushes towards increased uniformity in the look and feel of navboxes and infoboxes. But I'm a bit pessimistic about imposing this. Pichpich (talk) 06:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Pichpich: could you clarify a bit? Guidelines usually contain "should" rather than "must" instructions, and exceptions are always permitted. So when you say you are "pessimistic about imposing" a guideline, do you mean that you dont think it would be adopted as a guideline, or you think no editors would follow it? (PS: There already is a guideline for Infoboxes at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (infoboxes), but that is limited to Infoboxes, which are a subset of Sidebar navboxes, which are a subset of Navbox templates.) --Noleander (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure we can find a few people to write a very reasonable guideline. But my experience with infoboxes and bottom navtemplates is that there's a lot of resistance once you try to apply a guideline to specific templates. See for instance this recent dispute. Pichpich (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Okay ... I dont mind helping write the guideline. I'm not too worried about enforcing consistency. My primary concern was having something concrete to point to when disputes arise. Essays are nearly worthless. --Noleander (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not seeing a lotta love here for a whole new guideline on Navboxes. Therefore, I propose to implement approach (A) above, namely adding a some guidance (proposed at the top of this section called Proposal) into the existing prescriptive material in this guideline. Any objections? --Noleander (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
First, thank you for collating the related links (I've added a few more, above), and restarting the discussion. Secondly, I agree that some specific (but non-rigid) guidance would be helpful. Third, re: your specific proposal, you seem to be addressing all navbox templates - I think including footer-navboxes would make this vastly more complicated, and we should stick to just "sidebar navboxes" for now. I'll try to stare at the related pages some more, later, and see if further ideas come to mind. (My ideal solution, would involve merging & redirecting all the historic proposals into a single page, to avoid the confusing profusion of historic pages that currently appear in searches for information). -- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "footer Navboxes" vs "sidebar navboxes": Yes, that is a critical distinction, and I was surprised to find virtually no mention of those two concepts in the current guidelines. I thought every single detail of WP style was nailed-down, but it looks like Navboxes are the last of the wild frontier. Conceptually I picture the hypothetical Navbox guideline as follows:

Definition - What is a Navbox;
Kinds - Distinguish footer Navbox vs sidebar Navbox (also: many horiz Navboxes are not located in the footer ... need a name for those); "One of a series ..." is a particular kind of sidebar Navbox
Guidelines for all Navboxes - generic guidelines: should have an associated article (and that article should be a wikilink in the Navbox title); the set of articles in a Navbox must be tightly bound (this requirement for Navboxes is more stringent that the similar reqmnt for articles in a List or Category - this is the key guideline I'm trying to establish); Guidelines on collapsible sections; aesthetics, etc.
Guidelines for footer Navboxes - Perhaps not as strict as sidebar Navboxes
Guidelines for sidebar Navboxes - Must be clean, nice-looking; not too big; Should have a photo or icon, etc
Guidelines for 'Part of a Series on ...' sidebar Navboxes - Should have a WP project that sponsors the Navbox
Alternatives - Lists, Categories, Infoboxes (refer to this guideline)

As an editor, that is the kind of guidance I would want. PS: any other editor is free to edit/add to the above outline. --Noleander (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Taxonomy for Navboxes

Here are some varieties of Navboxes I've been able to identify:

  • Horizontal layout:
  • Footer navboxes - the vast majority of Navboxes are at the bottom of articles
  • Header navboxes - A bit rare. Usually seen at the top of WP admin pages like Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
  • Horizontal navboxes - A "footer template" can be placed in the middle of an article, as is done in: History of Jamaica that has a "footer template" right in the middle (look for British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations).
  • Vertical layout
  • Sidebar navboxes - Summarize a group of closely related articles as in Template:Philosophy-sidebar. Usually appear at the top-right of an article, but can sometimes be found in the middle-right of an article.
  • "Part of a series ..." Sidebars - a special variety of Sidebar navbox
  • mid-article sidebars - Smallish sidebars scattered thru an article, see Wikipedia:Verifiability which contains several. These appear to be very rare, at least in the main article space.

I don't claim this is comprehensive. Nor do I suggest that a guideline should define or address them all. I list them to ensure that any name we choose for kind of Navbox is a good name. Based on the above list, the name "footer navbox" may not be ideal. Maybe it is better to designate the groups as "horizontal navbox" and "sidebar navbox"; or perhaps "horizontal navbox" and "vertical navbox"? --Noleander (talk) 23:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Im still not seeing much interest or response to this. I'll renew my proposal: to update this guideline (in the Navbox section) to include the two guidelines (above, at the top of the "Proposal" section); and take into account Quiddity's suggestion that the gudielines focus on sidebar (aka "vertical") Navboxes rather than footer (aka horizontal) Navboxes. --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm very interested, I just don't have much time to devote to this rather complex issue currently (ie, all the preliminary reading). Vertical navbox focus works for me. Placing it in this guideline doesn't seem to work though, as it doesn't fit within the mandate of this page (see, nutshell description). I'll try to get back to this soon. (All tasks, and editors, progress at different speeds :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
As I said above, this article is the only guideline that contains Navbox guidance (in spite of the fact that it may be slightly outside the scope of this guideline). Other editors have put Navbox guidance in this guideline (apparently because no other guideline was available). Other editors attempted to create dedicated Navbox guidelines, but those efforts stalled. What if I just add the guidance into this guideline, next to the existing Navbox guidance. Then, we can work on a new Navbox guideline? If the new Navbox guideline dies (that may take several months or a year to manifest itself) at least during that time WP would have some Sidebar Navbox guidance available to those in need. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Based on the above, I made some improvements to the NavTemplate section: (1) added more examples; (2) clarified the wording and flow; (3) added detail to the existing guidance about how the articles should be fairly closely related (using "should" rather than "must", to indicate that it is guidance, not a mandate); and (4) added an explanation of the difference between a horizontal navbox and a vertical navbox. --Noleander (talk) 16:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Coming in late here and confused. Just too many links to try to follow. Is there a good overview somewhere?
There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Adding template about the new Disability template being added indiscriminately to articles on various disorders. It would be very nice to be able to point to one well-organized page of guidelines! Thanks, Hordaland (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Hordaland: Yes, it is confusing. Like you, I stumbled on this due to a Nav template that was being (in my opinion) misused. If you want the problem in a nutshell: it is that there is no guideline for Nav Templates (aka Navboxes): there is merely an essay at WP:Navboxes. This guideline (the one we are on the Talk page of) is a true guideline, but it does not focus on Navboxes, and instead is simply a pros/cons comparison of Lists vs Categories vs Navboxes. Therefore, the best path forward is for some editor to take the WP:Navboxes essay and work on it and improve it and turn it into a guideline. The guideline WP:Categories, lists, and navigation templates does have some guidance for Navboxes, which is better than nothing, but still there should be a dedicated guideline. --Noleander (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Hordaland and User talk:Noleander, et al., I am the creator of the Disability template and I can tell you that my adding of it to distinctly disability-related articles does mean that the adding is anything but indiscriminate. I do agree with both of you that there should definitely be a central location at which to discuss the appropriateness or inappropriateness of templates — it would make life for Wikipedians a whole lot easier, including myself. For instance, I have had zero idea of whether to paste it into just articles that refer strictly to disability culture and organizations, or whether to also paste it into articles about conditions that are widely recognized by humanity to be definitive disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. So I've largely done both. That does not mean my major "tagging" job has been indiscriminate or that I am trying to make trouble by defending my case. I just wish that this could all remain open to discussion by as many different people as possible, and I also hope that mass reverts won't occur in an effort to purge most of these without discussions as to their appropriateness within each individual article's Talk page (for the most part anyhow). Lastly, again, I hope that some kind of discussion area for the specific guidelines' for sidebars could be started, or better yet, an official Wikipedia page detailing a policy on them. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Navboxes (both side and footer) should generally only appear in the articles that they list. If they list an article, they should appear within that article. Edge-cases require discussion. (Something like that should appear (or already appears?) in this guideline or the hypothetical-future-guideline). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Simple proposal on text colors

also posted at Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates#Simple proposal.Moxy (talk) 07:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I have in the past and recently come across footer templates that have coloured links..this in its self it not a big deal. However i do believe that certain colours should be discouraged based on the fact the templates are to help people navigate Wikipedia. Specifically the use of the colours black and red. As black is hiding the link to most new or unexperienced Internet users. Well as for red..this means an empty page to most. SO what i am asking for is a talk about hiding links with black font... and think it should be a guideline that this odd colours should be avoided...due to the fact that new and unexperienced Internet users will not know that links also are in normal black text. I dont believe style should trump easy of use....What do you guys think ...should this be a rule/guideline?....thinking of the new userMoxy (talk) 07:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

i.e from the past pls note that titles are black but actually are links... the second one is what it looks like now after a discussion at the Canada project.


  • Support blue; rationale at Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates#Simple proposal. -M.Nelson (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - The WP convention is: BLUE = link; RED = dead link; BLACK = non-link. Text in NavBoxes should be consistent with that convention. So NavBoxes should follow that convention, with the additional flexibility to make the non-link text any color other than BLUE or RED.. --Noleander (talk) 15:28, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I was editing the section anyway to improve its wording, so I added guidance related to link colors, per WP policy Link color. If anyone thinks the NavTemplate section is getting too big (I think the Category section is larger, so the Navbox section is probably not too big yet) we should probably bite the bullet and create a dedicated guideline just for Navigation Templates (see the discussion above about the NavBox essay, etc) --Noleander (talk) 16:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed language changes to WP:CLN and WP:ATA based on List RFC

An RFC on Lists was conducted between 23 Aug – 27 October which contained discussion of a wide range of potential List related policy and guideline changes. One of those proposed changes is related to this guideline and is outlined below.

Proposal: Change para 4 of WP:CLN by adding sub-section header, shortcut and adding 2 sentences:

  • Current wording of Para 4: Developers of these redundant systems should not compete against each other in a destructive manner, such as by nominating the work of their competitors to be deleted just because they overlap. Doing so may disrupt browsing by users who prefer the list system. Also, lists may be enhanced with features not available to categories, but building a rudimentary list of links is a necessary first step in the construction of an enhanced list—deleting link lists wastes these building blocks, and unnecessarily pressures list builders into providing a larger initial commitment of effort whenever they wish to create a new list, which may be felt as a disincentive.

Proposed changes:

  • Add subsection header above para 4: ===Categories, Lists and Navigation Templates are not duplicative===
  • Add shortcut: {{shortcut|WP:NOTDUP}}
  • Add sentences to paragraph (new sentences in bold): Developers of these redundant systems should not compete against each other in a destructive manner, such as by nominating the work of their competitors to be deleted just because they overlap. Doing so may disrupt browsing by users who prefer the list system. Additionally, arguing that a Category or List is duplicative of the other in a deletion debate is not a valid reason for deletion and should be avoided. Also, lists may be enhanced with features not available to categories, but building a rudimentary list of links is a necessary first step in the construction of an enhanced list—deleting link lists wastes these building blocks, and unnecessarily pressures list builders into providing a larger initial commitment of effort whenever they wish to create a new list, which may be felt as a disincentive. When deciding whether to create or avoid a list, the existence of a category on the same topic is irrelevant.

--Mike Cline (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

There looks to be a consensus for it so I'd say go ahead and add it. I might add "the existence or non-existence"... just so people are clear that duplication does not help OR hurt your case. Might add another WP:LISTCAT or WP:CATLIST link too. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:08, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • How does this affect guidelines like Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Award_recipients, which explicitly says that lists are preferred to categories in some situations? This is a fairly long-standing and well-accepted convention. I think the language may need to be adjusted somewhat to allow for these types of circumstances, because w.r.t. a category for an award, arguing that a comprehensive and well-sourced list already exists has long been accepted as a valid reason to delete when the guideline is taken into account. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
    Good point. That didn't come up in the RFC. My reading is that no one intended to erase or override guidelines where there's a preference for a category OR list. I'm not sure what an appropriate wording is to represent consensus. "Except where stated otherwise, when deciding whether to create or avoid a list, the existence of a category is irrelevent." Or maybe "in different situations, it may be preferable to have both a category and list, or only one or the other." I'm not sure. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • It seems that WP:OC is a compilation of exceptions to the rule. It existence was new to me, but because it is not linked to WP:CLN it remained obscure. I agree that it should be taken into count, but the best way remains a little vague. 1st I would suggest linking it in the hatnote for section Categories (something I went ahead and did) which would give it some visibility. 2nd it could be referenced in the new sentence: Additionally, arguing that a Category or List is duplicative of the other in a deletion debate is not a valid reason for deletion and should be avoided unless sanctioned by WP:OC.
  • Above all, the proposed changes are not intended to ignore WP:OC, but instead to combat the tendency in AfDs to frivolously challenge lists on the basis of category existance.--Mike Cline (talk) 02:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
    • WP:OC doesn't deal at all with mere duplication; nothing in it says that a category should be deleted simply because there's a list. One of the main principles of WP:OC is that certain categories are inherently flawed because of the limitations of the category format (the inability to annotate, source directly, give lengthy explanations on inclusions), and notes that in many such cases the information is better presented as a list because the list format cures those flaws. Another principle is that categories should be restrained to the most significant for their subjects because too many category tags on an article is a bad thing (as is an overly large category for which most of its entries have little meaning to the category topic) and also hinders navigation for the useful categories within the category structure itself, but the existence of independent lists doesn't burden the listed articles other than showing up in "what links here" so there can be more tolerance for less significant list topics. None of that is a duplication issue. In both cases, it isn't simply that the list would be better (or merely exists); it's that the category sucks in some way that the list does not. The first paragraph of WP:CLN is meant to address that principle too. postdlf (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I think there's a consensus that the RFC still applies, and doesn't interfere with the principles at WP:OC. I think we just need a wording. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:18, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Change made to WP:CLN and WP:ATA as proposed above. WP:OC issues still may need consideration in the wording. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Amend WP:DOL #5

WP:DOL #5 "Can become bogged down with entries that cannot be reliably sourced and do not meet the requirements for inclusion in the encyclopaedia."
Request change to "Can, but should not be assumed to have, become bogged down with entries that cannot..." per

"Actually, as I read WP:CLN, one of the major drawbacks to lists is that they Can become bogged down with entries that cannot be reliably sourced and do not meet the requirements for inclusion in the encyclopaedia. This page suffers from that already." -Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers Note 'lists' is invoked, as though this were a problem of lists in general, and then the page is asserted to suffer from the same problem without examples.

This whole section really is not a rule for exclusion, but it can be read as such, so there is already a problem with it. Add to that the fact that the previous rationales are real problems of nearly every list, where #5 is a hypothetical. Then there is the fact that such a problem should never have hit AfD in the first place, but be dealt with at the talk page. I feel that this particular rule is in need of some restraint.
Oh, and I take this opportunity to express my belief that RFCs should be monitored and arbited by admins, so that people with this sort of complaint have somewhere to go where they can expect relief, rather than forlornly waving an RFC distress flag that is doomed to be ignored or having to inevitably take it to AFD and waste everyone's time and endanger good articles.
Anarchangel (talk) 00:44, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Section title wording

Transhumanist: You changed ".. not duplicative" to ".. redundant". But I'm not sure that is an improvement. I think the original wording was trying to say "these 3 things do not overlap in a bad way". Changing the word to "redundant" means (to most people) "these 3 things do overlap in a bad way". That is a big difference in meaning, true? --Noleander (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Improving the markup of lists in navboxes

In a recent set of edits, I converted {{Bach cantatas}} to use {{Flatlist}}, and thereby emit proper and accessible HTML list markup. The changes have no visual effect. Please bear this in mind when editing or creating other such navboxes, and use {{Flatlist}} in the same way. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Bestselling authors having plain text in their navboxes

Most famous authors have navboxes. Sometimes not every single book they published, even the bestselling ones, have articles to link to. So they either have red links, or plain text listing these instead. This prevents it from being an incomplete list. Some don't like red links because of their appearance. Others state that navboxes are for links only, blue or red, and not plain text entries. Is there any rule against having plain text in one? This debated started at Wikipedia_talk:Red_link#clarify_wording_to_include_series_of_bestselling_novels_are_allowed_to_be_red_linked_in_template. Dream Focus 19:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Navigation boxes are navigation boxes. They are intended to help people navigate. Cluttering them up with other stuff defeats their purpose.—Kww(talk) 23:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • So with Tolkien and other famous writers Template:J._R._R._Tolkien should we leave their list incomplete, by removing those? The Red link guideline page says not to make red links to articles that aren't likely to ever be created. Everything serves Wikipedia's goal to educate above all else. And I don't see how having a few entries that aren't linked is going to clutter them up enough to stop people from easily navigating with them. Dream Focus 00:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • A few would come under an IAR argument. You are arguing (... and bouncing the discussion from page to page to page to page ...) for a template with more red-links/plain-text than it has links. —Kww(talk) 00:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Bouncing? I stated where it started at, and its now about what is allowed in a template, therefore I came here. This affects many author templates. Template:Dale Brown is one that currently has more plain text entries than blue links. Note all of those books are bestselling novels, and will most likely have articles of their own one day. Doesn't it look better to list everything in each series that has any blue links at all[1], than to leave that information out?[2] Dream Focus 01:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
No. Navigation boxes are for navigation, and navigation only. A few exception cases in a largely complete list? I'm not going to raise a fuss. A largely incomplete list where no one has ever cared enough to even create a decent "List of ... " article is a completely different thing. Please remember that being a best-selling novel is completely irrelevant. Having sufficient independent sources to allow you to create articles about them is all that is relevant, and, as WP:NAVBOX, a most excellent essay summarizing the opinion of many responsible Wikipedians points out, "Unlinked text should be avoided" and "editors are encouraged to write the article first". Go make some blue links and add them to the template as you go. Don't focus on adding useless material to navigation boxes.—Kww(talk) 03:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • In your example I think it would it work out best to keep the navigation template limited to navigational links, but add J. R. R. Tolkien bibliography to the template (perhaps prominently near the top)? The bibliography is pretty comprehensive. By linking there from this template the readers who want a comprehensive outline will get this and the readers who want to read articles on his most notable publications will get that as well. But this is an editorial decision that is best handled on a case by case basis. ThemFromSpace 00:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
No. Case by case basis means having the same argument continuously. It'll always end with some saying "its not on the guideline page so you can't have it" and others saying "think for yourself damn it!" And then it just drags on to a never ending debate. The most watched pages will be left alone, while they go and destroy the least viewed ones, that normally how things are done. Need to decide on the guideline page once and for all. Dream Focus 01:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Editorial judgment is a good thing, Dream Focus. It's important to analyze situations individually and come to reasoned conclusions.—Kww(talk) 03:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Should Template:Roy Clarke have the one book not blue linked removed, thus making the list incomplete? Template:AlanPlater is mostly plain text in that template. Template:C. S. Lewis has a lot of blue links and a lot of plain text. Not going to check every single author template there is, but so far I see plain text in all those that I find. Dream Focus 01:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The same issue has turned up for discographies of musical artists. See the discussion below. I would also recommend merging the two threads since they evolve around the same problem. My opinion is that plain text is a reasonable and needed addition as long as the navigation template displays a set of related articles such as books or albums. Showing only existing articles creates the impression that the author/artist has not contributed anything else, which is of course not always true and constitutes bad practice in terms of being comprehensive. We should not stick to the mere definition that a navigational template is simply for navigation, for the price of losing credibility and encyclopedic values. In my opinion "if it ain't on Wikipedia, don't show it around" is a giant boomerang in these cases. And I agree with Dream Focus that this matter has to be decided on a guidelines and directions level now. De728631 (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

@Kww, what you meant is Wikipedia:Navigation templates for the essay on navboxes, but WP:NAVBOX redirects to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Navigation templates (the project page of this talk) and the current revision there does actually not mention any guidelines about unlinked articles at all. Likewise I could refer to WP:REDNOT which allows exemptions for well-defined series and sets of articles: "An exception is red links in navboxes where the red-linked articles are part of a series or a whole set, e.g. a navbox listing successive elections, referendums, presidents, sports league seasons, etc." De728631 (talk) 17:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Addition of data from WP:NOTDIRECTORY to the Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates guideline page

A concern is list articles, particularly those that aren't referenced, or are poorly referenced. For example, many of these articles listed here are unreferenced: List of and lists of, yet they're useful to the encyclopedia. If someone comes along and wants to delete them, are there any rationales to the contrary, or are they just deleted? Addition of information in WP:NOTDIRECTORY to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates would help to clarify Wikipedia guidelines regarding lists. Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

When a list article is discriminate, with a narrow focus, it's inclusion appears to be warranted per WP:NOTDIRECTORY, but these points are not currently included in Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates guidelines. Perhaps this data should be slightly, and easily reworded and included here to clarify the matter. Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, a merge of information from the Wikipedia Manual of style, Appropriate topics for lists would be in order, to clarify overall list policies on this particular page (Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates). Northamerica1000 (talk) 14:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Meh. I don't see any evidence of a problem which requires the outlined "solution" above. It is unclear why such changes need to be made. --Jayron32 17:25, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Before suggesting changes as above, it might be useful to get familar with the lengthy discussion contained in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Inclusion criteria for Lists. Mike Cline (talk) 17:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

navboxes vs succession boxes

 – previous Village Pump discussion—Bagumba (talk) 11:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion on increased usage of navboxes over succession boxes, with discussion on whether predecessors and successors are more notable than an entire peer group. Other issues were sizess of some individual navboxes, and the large number of navboxes in some articles.

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_90#Using_navboxes_where_succession_boxes_would_suffice—Bagumba (talk) 11:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Discographies and lists of publications in navigation boxes

What started as a debate about the use of red links in navigation boxes at Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates#Red links in nav boxes has now raised the question whether it is legit to use navigation templates in a wider sense and e.g. display existing articles together with non-linked items in plain text where the navbox is used to display an author's publications or a musician's discography. Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Navbox ({{Navbox musical artist}}) has been using this kind of display in thousands of articles since 2007 without any complaints as far as I can see. Neelix however thinks that navigation templates should not display gratuitous information at all so I would like to discuss this here.

In my opinion a navigation template is very well suited to provide entries that are part of series or set of items (not necessarily articles) like the discography of a musical artist or the publications of a writer. There are infoboxes for key parameters of a subject but IF we use navigational templates displaying related articles in a line then we must not pretend that only what has been written about on Wikipedia can be found at all. Instead, if we use navigational templates to jump between related articles of albums or books we should present all published works together which includes works that are not notable per Wikipedia standards. The general reader expects us to be comprehensive and they would be fooled by finding only a list of three or so blue links in a template, thinking that was the entirety of published works by an author who has actually released six books and two essays.

And as has been written in WP:REDNOT red links in navigational templates may occur where that template is displaying links as part of series or set of related articles. Major publications, be they notable or not, are as well part of series related to main subject, the author. So while the primary purpose of navigational templates is of course navigation between related articles I think in such cases it is beneficial to allow for listing unliked items or red links besides valid links to existing articles. De728631 (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

See also the discussion about bestselling authors' templates above. De728631 (talk) 17:11, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I am joining this discussion after reading your comment at WP:MUSICIAN. I frequently remove entries from artist/band navboxes and cite WP:NAV in my edit summary—WP:NAV might only be an essay, but the logic is pretty solid. I don't believe navboxes should be informational nor should the reader walk away from a navbox and learn something new; that's what articles are for. An artist's discography article should be where the reader will find a comprehensive list of all releases regardless of whether or not it has an existing article. A navigational template should only be used to facilitate navigation among these topics that already have an existing article. So I agree with Neelix. However, I also like what Gerry D said about red links in his original post. I've seen a couple editors add red links to an artist's navbox in order to create somewhat of a "to-do list," if you will. I support this action as long as the editor has genuine intent to create the articles, but I don't support a red link sitting in a navbox for extended periods of time. Editors should write the article first, and then add it. Fezmar9 (talk) 21:07, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Then you might as well ask for the modification of all templates in Category:Configurable area-topic templates and other such generic code where many templates provide redlinks by default for articles that will never be created because the subject simply does not exist in location X. And please see also my reasoning in the above section about author navboxes. Navboxes are not meant to educate the reader but they are also not meant to create a false view of one artist's contributions. Otherwise all incomplete lists of major publications displayed in a navbox should have a disclaimer like "The articles listed below do not represent the full list of works by John Doe" which is an equally poor solution. And does your argument that the reader should not learn anything from a template also apply to infoboxes? I hope not. They display information from the article because that is their purpose but a broader scope like discographies may as well be presented in a separate template that provides links to existing articles where available. Missing articles in form of a red link however provide a sort of request for the reader to create them while plain text is less obvious. That is why I think that plain text is especially suited to display the non-notable (read: non-article) works as part of a generally notable series of publications. De728631 (talk) 21:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
On your comment about configurable area-topic templates, I have never heard of these before, but after looking into them, I don't really see much use for them. One of the examples at {{Brazil topic}} is a list of Brazilian airports by state, but every entry into the navbox is automatically a redlink. This is confusing because (A) wouldn't the lack of a template at all convey the exact same message (that we don't have any articles on these topics) to the reader as a template full of red links? and (B) the list of Brazilian airports template that's being used as an example isn't even being used at List of airports in Brazil. It's almost as if the template documentation admits that the template is completely useless by not being able to provide a suitable example of proper use. On your comment about infoboxes, I think that you're comparing apples and oranges. While both infoboxes and navboxes are templates, one is intended to ease navigation and other other is meant to give basic information. I'm actually also against the reverse situation: using infoboxes for navigational purposes. On some musician articles, editors will replace infobox fields such as genre or band members with "See below" which is a piped link to a section later on in the article about the band's musical style or history of band members. Navboxes and infoboxes have a purpose that's assigned by its own definition: either to inform or to provide navigation. Listing a subject without an article does not aid navigation, thus it goes against the definition of the template. You seem to be suggesting that if an artist or publisher or what-have-you releases 20 items, and Wikipedia only has an article for 10 of them, and only lists these 10 articles in a navbox, that this would constitute some sort of misrepresentation. I disagree. And like I said above, a more complete list including non-article topics will always be provided somewhere else for the reader. Fezmar9 (talk) 23:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I chose the area-topic templates as an example for unhandy code that is really not useful for some applications (positive examples include
and some such where lots of articles do exist). That is however not the same as a template that shows a list of items that is automatically limited like publications by creative people, such lists are not defined by the availability of WP articles but by the number of works. And you're right, I do think that incomplete lists in a navbox are a misrepresentation even because regardless of their purpose as a navigational tool, also navboxes do automatically provide information to the reader by showing that other related items exists within a certain framework. Neelix has been arguing that the reader should not learn anything new from a navbox but only from the text. I say however that some readers will inevitably learn something new from looking at a valid navbox (valid = only blue links) of articles about creative works by the same person. Reading an article on album Foo will eventually tell them from the navbox that there are also albums Bah, Foo 2, and so on from that artist which they might not have known before and which may not all be shown in the succession field of {{Infobox album}}. Of course they can click on the main article about the artist and read the discography section but if we provide lists in a navbox that go beyond the current article it is only logical to provide the complete list of similar items in a limited series, be they books or albums, etc. So if navboxes are not suitable for displaying well-defined lists items without an article only because their namesake is navigation then I am honestly willing to advocate the introduction of a whole new kind of template like {{Publications footer}} or some such. I am convinced that it would benefit the encyclopedia. De728631 (talk) 17:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
De728631's comment that I believe "that navigation templates should not display gratuitous information" is correct. Non-linked text should not be added to navboxes in order to complete a group of items (such as the albums of a band's discography). What is communicated by navboxes is not that the displayed items together constitute a complete list of the items in the given group but rather that these are all of the encyclopedically notable items in the group. It is not information but gratuitous information that should be absent from navboxes. Given the existence of discography articles and discography sections on band articles, I see no reason to duplicate this information in footer templates. Neelix (talk) 03:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Following that logic we wouldn't need any navigation templates or infoboxes at all because the reader will always be able to find the relevant articles and information without having them presented in a templated list. And to communicate the mere existence of notable articles the "See also" section would totally suffice. But what is most important, the general reader has no idea of Wikipedia's standards for notability, let alone the guideline about the purpose and content of navboxes, which is why they will perceive a given set of articles in a template as exclusive. The drive-by readers who want to look up the new album they just came across don't necessarily want to jump to the main article of the artist or the discography article (if it exists at all) to learn that any other earlier recordings of that artist exist than the one that appears in the infobox and two different ones in the navigation box below. Such information is never gratuitous but it follows the very principle that applies to navigation boxes: "Give immediate information to equivalent elements".
That said, where exactly is the supreme policy (not essay or guideline) that defines that navigational templates must not contain unlinked items in a pre-defined series? Wikipedia:Red link (official guideline) exlicitely states that "An exception is red links in navboxes where the red-linked articles are part of a series or a whole set, e.g. a navbox listing successive elections, referendums, presidents, sports league seasons, etc", and Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, which is as well a guideline, says nothing about not using red links or unlinked entries at all. So while you keep arguing that navigational templates are exclusively for navigational reasons and should only contain existing articles it seems to me that the use of non-article entries is already covered and we are rather discussing personal points of view. WP:NAV that has been cited by Fezmar9 is in fact just an essay and if in doubt, WP:IGNORE overrules them all. De728631 (talk) 18:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The assertion you make in your first sentence does not accurately describe my comments. The purpose of navboxes is to assist in navigation and article grouping; my logic does not suggest that navboxes should be done away with. The principle you cite, "Give immediate information to equivalent elements," supports this position; non-notable concepts are not equivalent elements to notable concepts. Wikipedia's navigation template guidelines state that navboxes are "boxes containing links to a group of related articles." If you believe that this definition should be appended to "boxes containing links to a group of related articles in addition to non-linked text referencing non-notable concepts that also fall under the heading of the topic to which the box is dedicated," you will have to convince the wider community that this is a better definition. I do not believe it to be one. Neelix (talk) 02:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
The proposed concept "...in addition to non-linked text referencing non-notable concepts that also fall under the heading of the topic to which the box is dedicated," you define there is in fact inferior to the current guideline and it is not what I am suggesting. My concept would be amending the current guidelines in line with WP:Redlink to something like "An exception is red links and unliked elements in navboxes where the items are part of a series or a whole set, e.g. a navbox listing successive elections, referendums, presidents, sports league seasons, etc.". Also, what really irks me is the fact that the practice of using discographies in {{Navbox musical artist}} has been advocated by the related WikiProject since 2007 and seemingly nobody tried to abolish it completely. Instead, single editors have been removing such unlinked items from the templates every now and then but the hundreds of templates in Category:Musician templates and its sub-categories speak for themselves. Using {{Navbox musical artist}} with complete discographies has become a customary law. And as to the wider community, they don't seem very interested in this discussion at all, the average page view numbers of this talk are not very prominent lately. Not to mention the fact that we are so far only three people discussing it here. I would have expected more resonance if there was in fact a severe breach of policies and guidelines by using discographies or bibliographies in navigation templates. So where would be a more suitable forum to have this debated with a broader audience? De728631 (talk) 19:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a difference in the amendment you propose that addresses the issues I have raised. This is the correct location for this discussion; we simply need to notify the wider community. I have left a message on the WikiProject Templates talk page linking to this discussion. Neelix (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Redundant articles?

Copied from User talk:Kudpung

Hey, I've been patrolling the NP log lately, and I've spotted a several creations of (to me) redundant articles by user Toto le chat. They've been creating articles like 2012 in Romania, 1992 in Russia, 2012 in Moldova and 2012 in Denmark. I don't think what the purposes of these articles are, when there are categories like Category:2012 in Denmark and Category:1992 in Russia; that articles like that cannot be written in prose anyway, and have to be lists, which is essentially the job of categories. What does everyone you think? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you -I guess it's to allow content from some big events and lots of bits that could be stubs to be merged together, so that the stubs are not ignored? - perhaps try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines? EdwardLane (talk) 16:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


Why we need lists as well as categories

Some years ago (I think it was in 2009), some one made a proposal at Wikipedia: Village pump (proposals) that we drop lists and just have categories. The proposal was soon shot down from people (myself included) who claimed we need lists as well as categories. It was pointed out that there and some things might be good for lists - such as lists of medal winners, or - an example I suggested - List of Nobel laureates. Lists such as these would help one to see WHEN x won the Nobel prize for medicine, or won an Olympic gold medal - information that would be hard to find in a category. Perhaps this could go somewhere in this page of Wikipedia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 00:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Stating the obvious

Perhaps this is obvious, but nevertheless, I think it should be stated somewhere in this guideline:

  • "Every article that transcludes a navbox should also be included as a link in the navbox so that the navigation is bidirectional."

For an example of why I think this statement should be added, see this discussion.

Is there support to add the above this this guideline? Also, would there be any exceptions to the above statement? Boghog (talk) 06:11, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has commented, I have been WP:BOLD and added the sentence above to the guideline. Boghog (talk) 06:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about including all musical ensemble members in a navbox about that ensemble

I have started a discussion to discuss whether or not navboxes about music ensembles should list all of the band members. Please feel free to comment on this to assist in reaching a consensus.--Jax 0677 (talk) 18:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Noticeboard

Currently, category-related discussions tend to be spread out over the talkpages of WP:CFD; WP:CAT, WP:NCCAT; WP:CLS; and elsewhere. Awhile back, it seemed to me that having a category-related noticeboard might be nice, so I cobbled one together. Recently, some helpful person added a notice on WP:CAT about it. So at this point, I welcome others' thoughts on this. What do you think about it, and if positive, how and where do you think we should notify others of its existence? - jc37 06:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Image choice (or presence at all)

There's a discussion at Template talk:American cuisine#Template image about what image to use in that navbox. Key ideas include amount/type of support (including WP:RS) needed to choose when the choice is controversial and whether an image really is needed (especially if it's unresolved controversial about the choice). It's getting pretty heated and some fresh editors' input might be helpful over there. I don't see any guidance in these sorts of selection criteria, so hammering out some simple statements to include in the Guideline might be generally useful for the future. I see that a previous attempt to get this guideline to give guidance on this type of issue went unresolved. DMacks (talk) 16:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Category question

(Sometimes categories mystify me). In Zimbardo article, a change was made to add Stanford psychologists separately. This seems a bit much IMO, but I can understand that there may be sufficient notable psychologists from Stanford to merit their own category. At the same time, category American psychologist was deleted. American Sicilian or something was added, along with Stanford, so that someone can figure out that he is American.

I am not canvassing here! Just looking for a general principle on which to base categories. My contention is that Stanford (or any other college including MIT scientists or whatever, should not have their own category.

A more relevant point (maybe) is that "American psychologist" has been lost in favor of implicit national categorization. I'd like to see some comments (and no direct help, please!  :) on this issue(s). Thanks.

Have a look at the category page Category:Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty. At the bottom you can see the parent categories for this particular sub-category. And you'll notice that "Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty" itself is listed in the higher category Category:American psychologists. So that information has not been lost, rather has the article been added to finer level of categorisation within the group of American psychologists. De728631 (talk) 21:44, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Is that standard for faculty categories? Because place of work ≠ nationality. My Canadian wife is not an "American professor" for having taught at an American institution. Treating such faculty categories as nationality subcategories also hinders navigation. So I think we should not remove articles from any nationality/profession categories because of inclusion in a faculty category. postdlf (talk) 23:21, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I've removed the Stanford category from Category:American psychologists; it's not a proper subcategory and is the only faculty category that was treated in that way. postdlf (talk) 14:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Collapse ... or not?

I personally favor an uncollapsed navbox if there is only one under the theory that collapsing it makes it nearly invisible to the casual reader. Can we introduce the concept of collapsing navboxes as something to consider when navboxes overwhelm the page (as opposed to something that is recommended in every case)? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I personally prefer the only navbox to be uncollapsed (just because I see no way it clutters anything), and multiple navboxes collapsed (as they are by default). I strongly dislike the idea of using shell template and/or section headings for navboxes, as these "solutions" seem to be more problematic then problems they are trying to solve. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 12:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Do we need to bother saying it? The basic templates do this by default. This might just be WP:CREEP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I am reacting to this addition. Maybe the best solution is to simply revert it and return to silence. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I would further trim it to exclude the "heading" thing using this opportunity. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 21:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
In order to keep our focus I request you make this issue the subject of a separate discussion. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 OK, reverted the change and started new discussion. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Project consultation for navboxes

An editor created a wonderful and comprehensive template for John Wayne films, {{Filmography of John Wayne}}, the only snag being that the Film project has a consensus against navboxes for actors, since the film articles would soon become cluttered up by them (see WP:MOSFILM#Navigation). It has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_October_7#Template:Filmography_of_John_Wayne. A lot of effort has gone into the creation of this template, and the editor is understandably irate that his work is up for deletion. He was unaware of the Film project navbox guidelines, and has consequently wasted a lot of time. Is there any way we can suggest in WP:NAVBOX that editors should propose potential navboxes at the relevant project pages first? This isn't the first time something like this has happened at the Film project, and I think an editor creating a navbox is probably more likely to read this guideline than say a project MOS. If it could save people from wasting their time it would be a good thing IMO. Betty Logan (talk) 15:26, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

MOSFILM is not a WikiProject WP:Advice page. It belongs to the whole community, and the people who happen to work together at WPFILM get no special say about it (although, naturally, they might happen to be editors who are experienced with the subject under consideration, but their "vote" isn't any more important than another person who likes to work on film-related articles all by him- or herself). We should probably consider whether that guideline unreasonably contradicts this guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
MOSFILM does reflect the consensus within the community that works on the articles though, so in effect carries the weight of community opinion. Obviously an editor has the prerogative of appealing to the wider Wikipedia community (which is effectively what has happened at TfD), but I think the crux of the issue here is that navboxes are not limited to isolated articles. They encompass groups of articles which usually fall within the scope of a project, so it seems sensible to me to seek input from the community of people who work on those articles. This page is an editing guideline after all, so it seems like a reasonable place to drop in the suggestion that editors who are going to create navboxes are advised to consult the appropriate projects. Betty Logan (talk) 22:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Navigation templates should adhere to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. People in WikiProjects may sometimes help, but WikiProject may have quite different opinions on the matters (eg. there was a recent drama regarding the clash between article titles rules and WikiProject Birds' take on article naming), so even an explicit unanimous approval can't be taken as an indication of compliance with policies and guidelines; and sure it doesn't guarantee survival at TfD.
I am not suggesting that navboxes should be beholden to project consensus though. This page is a guideline, right? That means it advises editors on good editing practices in relation to creating navboxes. Obviously, if you are going to drop a navbox on 200 articles, then it is probably good practice to consult the community that maintains those articles. In view of that, how is it not a good idea to consult the relevant projects if you are thinking of creating a navbox? At least then you have the option of not going through with it if you know they are going to TfD it. Alternatively, they may have good advice and be willing to assist you. Either way, a project is probably going to have a viewpoint on a navbox that will be utilised on many of their articles, so how is it not in the interests of the project, the navbox author, and the articles themselves to not solicit opinions about its construction? Betty Logan (talk) 23:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
I think this is our difference: "WikiProject Film" is not "the community that maintains those articles". We all are the community that maintains those articles.
WikiProject Film is just a small group of editors who happen to like working together on some articles. That's what a WikiProject is: a group of people who want to work together. A person who prefers working solo (and that's most of our editors—five out of six of editors with 1,000 or more edits, in one recent study) has every bit as much say in this as the small group that likes working together. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
This is not about the decision to bin a navbox though, since a project cannot delete a template, so that decision still lies in the hands of the wider community; however, it is the prerogative of a project to nominate navboxes for deletion, and if they have guidelines to that effect how is it not a good idea for a navbox author to not consult them? If a project is going to nominate your navbox for deletion, then would you rather know that before starting work on it, or would you rather just find it nominated for deletion? All I am suggesting is that a navbox author may benefit from finding out the views of the people who regularly work on those articles, because for better or for worse those same people have the right to express their views in a TfD discussion, and if they carry enough weight then it may lead to the deletion of your work. Betty Logan (talk) 01:02, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that queries without draft showing the scope, layout and structure won't receive any feedback (apart from "Where is your draft?", of course), so proposing to ask Wikiprojects before doing something flies in face of WP:BITE. Once a draft showing off the main traits of the template is ready, it is just too late to ask for feedback – completion of such draft would require far less work then its creation, so finishing and placing it would make more sense at that point. (Chances that a completed template would get TfDed are lower then those of a draft to be rejected by WikiProject.)
FWIW the most problematic templates are either duplicative (similar templates already exist) or go against some guideline. In any case, this page is by far more difficult to discover then anything else one may get problems from, so leaving the proposed advice here is useless anyway. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 01:32, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Sections for navboxes

Currently the page suggests creation of sections for navboxes:

Navigation templates located at the bottom of articles may be given a section heading such as "Related information", although the use of such headings has not yet been widely adopted.

Indeed such use of headings is not widely adopted, and it also seems quite questionable as navboxes visually stand out and have their own titles. I propose to remove this paragraph altogether. Comments? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I support the removal. Given the current advice we could as well put navboxes into "See also" which would then leave the References section and External links somewhere below the navbox. Navboxes don't need a section heading. De728631 (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that a collapsed navbox or a shell of collapsed navoboxes ought to be allowed in See also, can you tell me why that would be such a bad thing? (Once I understand that then perhaps I will understand why you are opposed to a heading for navboxes appearing at the end of an article.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The current layout has the External links placed at the very bottom of the article, i.e. the TOC ends quite logically with something that is not part of Wikipedia. By adding navboxes to "See also" or "Related links" we'd open a new subsection with Wikipedia content below the external links, thus mixing external and internal content in the TOC. On the other hand, having the external links listed below a block of navboxes may also be confusing for the casual reader whom I expect to view the navboxes as a natural sort of barrier that announces the end of the article. De728631 (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I am confused by the first part of your first sentence, don't navboxes (if there are any) appear at the very bottom of the article? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's where they should be. But without a separate heading for navboxes, the TOC will show "External links" as the last section heading. The first part of my sentence was only referring to the text part of an article. De728631 (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
O.k, just to confirm, your objection to the heading is that it will add an entry at the end of the table of contents that points to Wikipedia content but follows ToC entries that point to external content. Yes? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes exactly, giving the navboxes a heading will eventually garble the structure of how we present our articles. Another case would be using both "See also" and a separate "Related information" with the latter being only for the navboxes. How are we going to explain to the casual reader that there are two such closely related sections when this can all be put under one heading? But once that is done the question of positioning this combined section arises again. If the external links are listed below the section containing a navbox, the general reader might miss them without checking the table of content because a large template accros the page does act like a closing element. On the other hand, if the section containing "see also" wikilinks and navboxes is placed at the very bottom, the external links are given more weight in the article's structure than they should have. De728631 (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I object to the removal, and here are some Notes and comments on the background:
  • It was here added in January and tweaked in September (both 2012).
  • There have been a variety of related-discussions recently, all circling around the topics of our end-matter/appendices – the "See also" section, "Navboxes", and "Categories", (and to a lesser extent the Portal boxes and SisterProject boxes) – and what logical groupings are allowed and/or encouraged.
  • E.g. WT:LAYOUT#Proposal for navbox link in See also section, WT:LAYOUT#See also navbox, WT:LAYOUT#Move See also to after External links, and dozens more in the archives and elsewhere, incl 2 linked at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_90#"Related information"
  • Currently, we split the internal-appendices in half; partially (mostly?) because some editors use "See also" as a holding-pen for items that need to be worked into the article itself.
  • I've suggested previously, that it would be good to allow (at least as an acceptable-alternative) editors to group together the "related-info", at the very bottom (where the categories appear). It helps readers find all the "related-info" in a single location, page-end. (They'd see/use categories more, too). Our edits to categories would get logical auto-edit-summaries, using "->See also" or "->Related information", instead of the current "->External links"
  • Some editors like the "External links" appearing right at the bottom; some (me) think that it might be beneficial to not give ELs the prominence of "page-end". (The first and last items in any list, are the most likely to be looked at.)
  • The current layout style is becoming rigidly set in stone; which I think we should be cautious about (It's what we generally use, but it's not objectively "the best" layout). Explicitly stating that alternative styles are allowed, would be good. Using the "Related information heading" example might be good (I don't object to it, and support it or another example being used).
HTH. —Quiddity (talk) 01:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Navboxes only visually stand out if the reader thinks to go to the end of the page to see what is there. Even then, if the box is collapsed then a casual reader may not know that it is an Easter egg with potentially valuable information. The current guidance allows but does not require the heading. I say leave it be. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
Summary response to Butwhatdoiknow and Quiddity: such note implies that this option is encouraged or endorsed, which neither seems true, nor is warranted. As lonf as omitting it wouldn't forbid titles, its existence flies in face of WP:CREEP. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 01:18, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that if it isn't there then folks will revert and give the lack of mention of it as the reason. In short, omitting it would effectively forbid it. While wp:Creep is always good to keep in mind, it should not prevent us from allowing Wikipedia to explore new ideas. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:39, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but lack of reading and comprehension skills on behalf of some hypothetical editors is not only a weak rationale for keeping a minor detail in guideline, but actually a very bad rationale. There are just too many editing practices that are allowed by not forbidding them to list them all, and this particular clutter is no way special compared to other clutter one may want to add. If you want this opportunity documented, please write an essay instead. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 11:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, I have (with the assistance of others) written the essay: wp:NAVHEAD. Unfortunately, that has not stopped editors from reverting the heading and citing the silence in wp:Layout as their only reason. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Section headings for the navboxes are unneeded as per De728631. On top of from a layout point of view, they are disgustingly ugly when used. This practice should not only be discouraged but forbidden if you want my two cents. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
What is "De728631"? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
It is a reference to this comment by user:De728631 I believe. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 11:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll follow up on De's comment above. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Please see my response there. De728631 (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

 I removed the paragraph for now. If someone fills it should be returned (or that the practice should be discouraged/forbidden), an RfC should be held, as the matter appears controversial. Keep in mind, that RfC should seek the opinions both about the appropriateness of the sections for navboxes and appropriateness of instructions in the guideline. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 11:44, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

And I restored it. According to Wikipedia:Consensus#No_consensus, "In deletion discussions, no consensus normally results in the article, image, or other content being kept." Would you like to work with me on drafting an RfC (you can do the "anti" and I can do the "pro")? We could start with the appropriateness of the heading (because if that went in your favor then there would be no need to discuss whether to mention the heading on this page). Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
This is not a deletion discussion ("deletion" is an operation on pages, as opposed to "removal" as an operation on content).

Discussion re RfC draft

I put my proposal for RfC wording as the next section; please, modify as you feel appropriate. Please, don't start RfC until the wording is agreed upon. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 14:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for taking me up on my offer and for all of your hard work doing the first draft of an RfC. Unfortunately, my schedule may not allow me to make revisions within the next few days. I hope you will bear with me in the meantime. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
To my knowledge the issue isn't hot, so take as much time as needed. Also note, that being on against side I might have unintentionally misrepresented the for arguments, so I would feel more comfortable if someone from for side revised them. Addition to against side arguments are also welcome. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 23:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest this format for the pro/con section:

Should we change the policy to say foo? 01:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

No, we should not make this change Yes, we should make this change
We should not make this change because:
  • The change is bad.
  • The change is really bad.
 We should make this change because:
  • The change is good.
  • The change is really good.
Then opponents and proponents can each have a space to briefly summarize their viewpoint. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
This is obviously better then my version. Would you go ahead and implement it? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 01:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Dmitrij, I've been holding off on further edits until you have had another crack at it. Have you been busy or are the changes made so far acceptable to you? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

WhatamI, where would the response go? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You could provide a link to the page in the "pro" section ("See a list of responses to common objections") or in your own comments afterwards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Dmitrij seems to have fallen off the map since October 11. I'm holding off a bit to see whether he'll re-surface. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Should we think about publishing without waiting any longer for Dmitrij? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:10, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think so. He hasn't been onwiki for over a month now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Bloated Orson Welles navbox

An editor seems to think it appropriate to adapt the navbox into an entire list of everything Welles was ever involved in, including linking to Shakespeare plays, because Welles once directed a stage version, etc. There are also duplicate links to different sections of pages (trailers for Citizen Kane for example). Anyone have anything to add here? --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Please could someone join the discussion! The editor in question seriously doesn't understand how navboxes work! --Rob Sinden (talk) 01:42, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
The discussion really could use some further input! --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

"Much easier to build..."

Point 4 in the section "Advantages of a list" reads:

"Much easier to build (fill) than a category, because entries can be gathered, cut and pasted in from searches and other non-copyrighted sources, and do not have to be edited into each listed article."

Can someone explain to me what this means? I've read it over a few times and I can't make any sense of it. DoctorKubla (talk) 06:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Guess not. I've removed it. DoctorKubla (talk) 21:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
It means that it's easier to create a list, which requires editing only one page, rather than creating a category structure, which usually requires editing dozens/hundreds/thousands of pages. djr13 (talk) 00:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Okay. How about: "Can be built and maintained by editing a single page, whereas filling a category requires the editing of multiple pages." And maybe this point could be merged with point 2, by adding: "For this reason, lists are often more comprehensive". DoctorKubla (talk) 09:06, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Are those navigation aids really worth their cost?

Most discussions of wikipedia features, like categories and navboxes, seem to assume that if a feature is conceivably good for someone, then it is good and should be retained.
However, every feature also has a cost. Every feature (whether implemented as a template, a Rule, or in the basic wiki software) adds complexity to the system, and thus contributes to the steady decline in editor numbers. Every feature consumes countless hours of admin and editor time, that could otherwise go into improving articles. Features may cause editors to engage in fruitless disputes, may fill watchlists with robot edits, and so on. For example, how many editors get annoyed by rodot-inserted article-side editorial tags? How many hours are spent editing navboxes? Such costs may be very large, but unfortunately are very hard to notice and even harder to measure.
On the other hand, the benefits of a feature are often purely imaginary, based on implicit assumptions about reader needs and behavior that are always often dubious and never proven. For example, how many readers try to use the category system? How many are satisfied with what they find there? Would they be better served by adding a few wikilinks in the proper places?
Any well-managed company will want solid and quantitative estimates of costs and benefits before making any decision that may affect millions of customers or thousands of employees. Wikipedia "managers" (whatever that means) should try to do the same. For every feature, existing or proposed, they should demand at least a reasoned quantitative estimate of (a) how many editor-hours of work will it cost to implement and maintain the feature throughout Wikipedia, in the years to come, including editor disputes and vandal-handling; and (b) how much benefit will it bring (whether in seconds saved, or in information found) to how many readers, discounting "negative benefits" such as diverting the reader's attention from informative text.
Take for example the "stub" tags. There are 2.2 million of them in Wikipedia, and many more were added and then deleted. Each one probably cost 10 seconds of work by one or more editors: to add it, perhaps to replace it, and eventually to delete it. So the cost of that "feature" so far has at least 22 million editor-seconds, or about 6000 editor-hours. (Note that stub tags do not make editors spend more time on Wikipedia; at best, it diverts their work from some articles to other articles.) On the other hand, every time a reader gets to a stub, he will waste perhaps 0.25 seconds reading the stub tag before realizing that it is useless to him; that may add to thousands or million of reader-seconds wasted every day.
I am convinced that many prominent Wikipedia features, including navboxes and the category system, would utterly fail this test. Would anyone dispute that?
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:15, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding flippant, my reaction to this is the same as my reaction to those opposed to gay marriage: If you are against it then don't do it, but don't deny that right others who want to do it. (Or, more to the point, just because navigation aids have no value to you doesn't mean that there isn't a value to others. In fact, the existence and popularity of navigation airs suggests most editors have concluded that the benefit outweighs their cost.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
My claim is not "I do not like/use navboxes", its is "navboxes do more harm than good to everybody": millions of readers, thousands of editors. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
And my claim is that the prevalence of navboxes is strong evidence that the community finds that they do more good than harm. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Indeed there are many editors who like navboxes; but editors who do not like them cannot just delete them or remove them from articles, since that would be seen as vandalism. As in the case of dozens of other "features" that Wikipedia has accumulated over the years, the field is totally slanted towards the creation of new navboxes. Nothing prevents an editor from creating a navbox, and there is no way of getting rid of one after it has been deployed in a dozen articles. So, the fact that Wikipedia is full of navboxes is not proof than they are useful. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
What would you accept as proof that they are useful? postdlf (talk) 18:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Basically statistics showing that a significant fraction of Article: accesses by readers result from clicking on a navbox link (as opposed to clicking on a wikilink in the text, typing into the article search window, or following a link from some external page, such as a Google search result.) My guess for this fraction is "less than 1 in 10.000 acesses". (Even less than that for categories.) What is yours? --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:57, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
It's interesting how as editors we can perceive certain issues so differently. My jaw dropped reading your post Jorge. I find navigation templates indispensable in the content areas I work in, and would be seriously at a loss without them. It is the only coherent way we have to pull together linked topics, like a list of chapter headings in a book. Without a navigation template, the same task would have to be done through extensive work on the "See also" sections and would be much more difficult and time consuming to maintain. And even then, the see also's do not allow the structuring of content that is possible on a navigation template. Nor can see also's reflect areas of interest that intersect, as multiple navigation boxes can. Rather than getting rid of nav boxes, it might be better to try and educate readers to use them properly, so that are saving time instead of wasting it. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
But, do you mean of your work as editor (or perhaps "manager" of a WikiProject), or your work outside Wikipedia, as a reader? And here you touched on one of the reasons why navboxes are bad: they encourage editors to work on dozens of articles as if they were chapters in a book. That is defintely not what users need. Wikipedia is not a collection of books; and it should be structured to serve its readers, not its editors. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
This is a tangent, but could someone give me an example of "[robot]-inserted article-side editorial tags"? I haven't seen a bot spamming tags into articles. I've seen bots remove them, and modify them (especially to add dates), but I can't think of a single tag that gets added by a bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have said "tags inserted by editors with the help of a robot"? Template:Uncategorised Template:Orphan Template:Unreferenced ... --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Or perhaps you mean "with the help of a script", like WP:Twinkle? Personally, I type those by hand 99% off the time, so I assume that other editors mostly do the same. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Yest, that is it, sorry. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

If some stamp collecting editors enjoy creating navboxes and then as a side effect start improving the articles that are linked by those navboxes, how can that do "more harm than good to everybody"? Wiki hyperlinks provide a basic mechanism to assist readers in finding related information. Navboxes provide a more structured way for readers to quickly navigate between related articles. It also makes it easier for editors to find related pages and encourage them to improve those pages. How can that possibly be a bad thing? Boghog (talk) 19:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Paraphrasing Butwhatdoiknow, no one is forcing editors to create Navboxes. If editors are creating Navboxes, editors must think Navboxes are useful. If Navboxes help editors edit related articles, that is reason alone for their existence. Boghog (talk) 20:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
For one thing, if navboxes are not useful to readers readers, they are yet another side door through which editors get lost on their way to useful work.
But navboxes do demand work from editors who did not create them and who would rather not have them. For instance, a few weeks ago I had to turn an article X into a disambiguation page, and that of course entailed disambiguating all links to X. Even though X was wikilinked only from a couple dozen articles, it was included in a navbox that was used in hundreds of articles, most of them with no particular relation to X. But all those articles showed up in the "What links here" listing, so I was forced to edit that navbox just to be able to clean the list. Now, that navbox was a simple one, and I happen to know a bit about templates; a novice editor might not even have guessed why those hundreds of pages were showng up in the list.
Navboxes at the bottom are discrete enough, but also quite unlikely to be used. A navbox anywhere else uses valuable space that should be used for pictures, and almost always does a disservice to the reader by cluttering up the article and distracting his attention from the text (especially if it includes a canned logo or picture, as many still do).
A navbox (especially one at the top of the article) also tends to "fence off" a set of articles and to turn them into the "property" of a small clique of older editors. That is very bad, because it discourages contributions from novices or outsiders, and wastes a lot of editor time in non-productive activities like policy debates and enforcing consistency of style across dozens of articles. (WikiProjects and Infoboxes also have this nefarious effect, but over larger sets of articles.)
Wikipedia exists for the sake of readers, not editors. Besides, a navbox is a terribly inconvenient way of collecting articles for the benefit of editors. A simple List of left-handed Scottish astronomers would be just as effective as a Template:Left-handed Scottish astronomers for that purpose, but would be much easer to edit, could be organized in many more ways (e.g. with sortable tables), and would not clutter up the articles it lists. (Note that adding an article to that list requires editing only one page, not two as for the navbox.) --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
The disambiguation example you cite is fairly unusual and also straight forward to fix. In addition, disambiguating a navbox is no more difficult than disambiguating a list. Furthermore without editors there would be no Wikipedia articles for readers to read. Navboxes make it easier for editors with specialist knowledge to find related articles so that they can improve them and readers benefit as a result. Finally if editors did not find navboxes useful, they would not create them. Full stop. Boghog (talk) 17:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
The incident I cited is specific to any template that inserts canned wikilinks into dozens or hundreds of pages, and does not occur with lists. If the editors who created that navbox had created a simple List instead, it would show up just once in the "what links here" listing, and any editor would be able to fix it. Navboxes are definitely harder for novices to edit, among other things because navbox-inserted links cannot be found by searching: neither in the wikisource, nor (if the navbox is collapsed) in the reader's view. Then you have the scare factor of navboxes living in "another site" (the Template: namespace) and the special syntax of the navbox. Even if the edit is small in terms of keystrokes, it is not easy for someone who does not know how templates work. As for your last argument, sorry to repeat myself, but a feature cannot be assumed to be useful just because hundreds of editors think it is. Indeed it seems that many editors create and maintain navboxes just because they like doing that. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
The disambiguation issue is a rather unusual and it easy to fix. Furthermore navboxes are created because they are useful to both editors and readers. Navboxes incease readership and editing in articles on which they are included. Of course having more editors editing the same article increases the chance for conflict, but will also significantly increase the quality and completeness of an article. Hence the advantages of navboxes far outweigh any potential disadvantages. Boghog (talk) 09:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
What we really need, to solve this problem, is a Special:WhatLinksHere that excludes transcluded material. That would be useful for many purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
Consistency (within reason) in the way information is presented is a good thing. Readers often link to related articles and if the information in these articles (including information found in infoboxes) is presented in a consistent style it makes it easier for readers to quickly find the information they are interested in. Furthermore what evidence do you have that the use of navboxes tends to fence off articles? Boghog (talk) 18:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I do not know how I could quantify that, but I see it happening in many technical fields. An editor who creates a navbox with a dozen articles on a given topic will often feel that the notation and definitions in all those articles should be uniformized, obviously according to what he thinks is the "best" convention; and that often leads to conflict with editors who have different habits or tastes. (For example, engineers like to use boldface for vectors, like x, while physicists and mathematicians do not.) A side effect is that articles tend to get overly long (because it seems easier to enforce consistency if everything is in one article) and harder to read (since the editor assumes that readers will go through the articles in the order specified in the navbox.) The navbox may not be the cause of such "territorial behavior", but it is basically the only tool by which a "territory" can be fenced off. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Navboxes, infoboxes, and Wiki Projects serve multiple useful functions. They highlight articles that are missing and provide templates to assist in stub creation to fill in the gaps. Furthermore adding to an existing stub is far easier for a novice editor than creating an article from scratch. Without this systematic effort, Wikipeida would have far fewer articles than it currently has. Conversely these same mechanisms identify redundant content forks that should be merged. By combining redundant articles, the resultant merged articles are often more complete and higher quality than the individual article that they replace. Finally infoboxes and project specific manuals of style provide some consistency between related articles that make articles easier to read. Boghog (talk) 09:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC).

Just saying that something is good will not make it good. Just saying that something works will not make it work. I could give you examples and numbers of navboxes hiding gaps, of WikiProjects that don't work, of merged articles that become big messes, etc. etc.. But obviously no one really wants to find out whether their favorite toys are good or not.
Sigh. I give up, with the same sinking feeling I had at the start: Wikipedia will die, because the Foundation would rather let it die than upset all those wanna-be-editors-in-chief who have made it their playground.
All the best, perhaps --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 10:29, 23 February 2013 (UTC).

Although I disagree with you on the issue you have raised here, I feel your pain with respect to the difficulty of getting Wikipedians to take a fresh look at established practices. I encourage you to not let perfect be the enemy of good. Stick around and make those improvements you can. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:55, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
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