Hello. I was shown the new infobox categorization scheme on Starter and was horrified by what I saw. It makes me glad I am not creating a new wiki right now. I would not want to clean up the start wiki's mess right at the start.
The Starter mess[]
The following categories are on WantedCategories on Starter.
- Category:Templates/Infobox (8 members)
- Category:Quests (2 members)
- Category:Locations (2 members)
- Category:Items (2 members)
- Category:Events (2 members)
- Category:Episodes (2 members)
- Category:Characters (2 members)
- Category:Books (2 members)
- Category:Albums (2 members)
- Category:Templates/Quote (1 member)
- Category:Templates/Navbox (1 member)
- Category:Policy (1 member)
- Questions
- Why are category sub-pages being used to categorize anything?
- Why are infoboxen being categorized by their topic, especially without the suffix " templates"? I would not put the template into a category like Books, but Infobox Book would categorize articles that use it into books. Infobox book would be linked in the category description only, and categorized in Infobox templates.
- Why are those categories uncreated? They are all listed on Special:WantedCategories.
- Why is policy still showing up? It was deleted, and there aren't any pages in it.
Possible replacement scheme[]
I put together a template categorization scheme that is much more descriptive but can possibly be filled by choosing a template type. Each category should have at least one template in it as an example of what templates use the category. Also these categories should be created so new founders do not start off with wanted categories. (There should be nothing in any wanted list when a wiki is first started so no wanted pages, categories, templates, or files.)
- Category:Infobox templates
- Category:Quote templates
- Category:Notice templates
- Category:Infoicon templates
- Category:Scrollbox templates
- Category:File templates
- Category:Image templates
- Category:Video templates
- Category:Audio templates
- Category:Gallery templates
- Category:Data templates
- Category:Design templates
- Category:Navigation templates
- Category:Context-link templates
- Category:Navbox templates
- Category:Non-article templates
- Category:Unclassified templates
Infobxen on Starter[]
And now back to infoboxen, the ones included in Starter are not general enough for most wikis. Almost all wikis might benefit from an Infobox company, since most content based wikis would have articles on companies behind the topic. An auto wiki might use Infobox company to build Infobox automaker, and a toys based wiki might build Infobox toymaker. I know that most wikis would probably benefit if there were an Infobox person that they could use to for their people based templates. For example, a sports wiki would probably want an Infobox athlete, and a health wiki might have an Infobox doctor.
Infobox location does not take real world locations into account? What would most wikis do with the level parameter? What about a location's demographics? Who is the leader of the location, and what is the leader's title? I live in a small town that has a burgess instead of a mayor.
I do not know how many wikis out there would use a template as specific as Infobox quest. It might be a good idea to take Infobox quest out completely, or somehow only put on wikis that might realistically have quests. How does Infobox quest help auto, education, finance, or politics wikis?
Infoboxen in general[]
And talking about all these infoboxen made me realize they are not named for easy use of the pipe trick. Instead of just typing "Yes there is a [[Template:character infobox|]]", users would have to type "Yes there is a [[Template:Infobox character|character infobox]]". Infobox names might need a serious rethink. Sure seeing the word infobox lined up in the category is pretty, but it is not semantic.
In closing[]
Please fix Starter's infoboxen (and all templates') categorization and maybe rethink what infoboxen are included with a new wiki.
Notes[]
You may wonder why I use infoboxen as the plural for infobox. It is something I brought over from Wikipedia where the plural of userbox is userboxen, so infoboxen and navboxen follow naturally for me. 8)
Also, if you have any thoughts on this like more general infoboxen or other template category schemes, please send them to me on my message wall? I do not get notified when I get blog comments, so please humor me.
Thank you for your reading! Lady Aleena (talk) 09:45, November 16, 2017 (UTC)