Template talk:Infobox artist

A photo option above name? - Spirou 03:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I feel the same way about this infobox idea (against it) as for Template talk:Infobox person. -- Sine 04:17, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Sine, please allow me to support my reasoning for this infobox-- An artist infobox is going to have different information than a person infobox (if you are suggesting that the artist infobox I've created is redundant?). A 'person' is not necessarily an 'artist.' I wanted a place for avatar, signature, prefered media.. all in one place that is easy for the eye to find. As well as that 'person' information. I think this box I've created fulfils that purpose. Infoboxes help to standardise the way information is presented on a wiki page-- an easy to use template that can be used for any artist. --Brallion 11:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Spirou, I like your idea to have the option of a photograph above the name. I have added that option, now. The photograph field is not required, and is made optional to anyone who chooses to use this infobox. --Brallion 11:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Bumping this for discussion as I continue to be against person infoboxes, even more so if their split such as this one for artists. If nothing else, so many people have different/changing/overlapping roles in fandom. -- Sine 17:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't even know this existed. Isn't it a bit redundant? It's just going to reiterate what the article should say... Equivamp 22:09, 3 June 2011 (EDT)

If it repeats statements from the article, but just in a few words, then it's useful as a summary. EvilCat 05:33, 4 June 2011 (EDT)

Arguably, EvilCat. At the least, I don't think there should be a separate infobox template for artists; a general person infobox template would be more than sufficient. -- Sine 16:07, 4 June 2011 (EDT)

I support its deletion. As it doesn't really add anything that isn't already in the article, it seems rather unnecessary.--Higgs Raccoon 21:45, 6 June 2011 (EDT)

So you're saying that all of the infobox templates on Wikipedia are unnecessary? :/ They serve the same useful purpose here, summarized important information. 76.84.40.148 00:11, 7 June 2011 (EDT)

The appropriate place to summarize important aspects of a topic is the lede. Infoboxes are designed to highlight information common to specific categories - often including not-so-important details which may be hidden within the body of a large article or not mentioned at all, such as ISBNs or a short list of international publishers.

Infoboxes make sense on Wikipedia; their articles are far longer than ours, and they cover thousands of very similar topics with potentially unimportant details (the first infoboxes were taxonomy boxes; most people don't need to know the phylum of the gray wolf is Chordata, but it needed to be recorded somewhere). Here, few articles are longer than a page; infoboxes run the risk of becoming disinfoboxes.

I favour their use for comics and websites, but people are tricky. In this case, "artist" is vague (what if they're better known for their fursuits, or con staffing?), and many obvious items of information may be missing due to youth (influences, works) or confidentiality (educational history, location, citizenship). Heck, we often don't even have their "real" name. We should keep considering such boxes but only add them when articles are of a sufficient length to justify it, and only after thinking carefully about upkeep - e.g. do we really want a signature upload for each artist? Are we going to have to update multiple places if the website changes?

They should also be far more readable and less eye-catching than this. The first thing the user reads should be the lede. --GreenReaper^(talk) 02:11, 7 June 2011 (EDT)

Well, if you remove this, make sure to fix all the pictures that will be stuck in the code of an inactive template. 76.84.40.148 06:33, 7 June 2011 (EDT)

I suggest that someone who's excited by templates work the relevant items of this one into Template:Infobox_person, and we could do with some guidelines for use, perhaps that a person infobox should only be on articles longer than a stub. -- Sine 12:23, 10 June 2011 (EDT)

And it seems the problems with user info boxes...

...As already been pointed out on this talk page too. Oh well, more opinions to the issues with them - Spirou 11:15, 7 March 2012 (EST)

Could we get an official, final decision on it, before we implement them on more/all articles? - Spirou 11:15, 7 March 2012 (EST)