LIMSpec Wiki

An infobox is a fixed-format table designed to be added to the top right-hand corner of articles to consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles. The generalized infobox feature grew out of the original taxoboxes (taxonomy infoboxes) that editors developed to visually express the scientific classification of organisms.

The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article.

Infobox templates contain important facts and statistics of a type which are common to related articles. For instance, all animals have a scientific classification (species, family and so on), as well as a conservation status. Adding a {{taxobox}} to articles on animals therefore makes it easier to quickly find such information and to compare it with that of other articles.

Infobox templates are like fact sheets, or sidebars, in magazine articles. They quickly summarize important points in an easy-to-read format. However, they are not "statistics" tables in that they (generally) only summarize material from an article—the information should still be present in the main text, partly because it may not be possible for some readers to access the contents of the infobox. In particular, if infobox templates hide long columns of data inside collapsing tables, which means readers using assistive technology may miss their presence entirely.

Many infoboxes also emit microformats—see the microformats project.

In general, data in infobox templates should be:

• Comparable. If a lot of different subjects all share a common attribute (for instance, all people have a name and a date of birth), then it is useful to be able to compare these across different pages. This also implies that where possible, material should be presented in a standard format.
• Concise. Infobox templates are "at-a-glance", and used for quickly checking facts. Long bodies of text, or very detailed statistics, belong in the article body.
• Materially relevant to the subject. A common problem is including material which is trivial and would not otherwise be included in the article body: for example, a fictional character's blood type may be referenced in passing in a work, but it is not especially useful to understanding the subject. Infobox templates should not be used for details that are too trivial to include in the article body.
• Already cited elsewhere in the article. Infoboxes, like the introduction to the article should contain primarily material that is expanded on and supported by citations to reliable sources elsewhere in the article. However, if necessary (e.g., because the article is currently incomplete), it is possible to include footnotes in infoboxes.

There are two steps required to add an infobox to an article:

1. Locating the infobox
2. Editing the article

In order to use an infobox in an article, an editor must know its name, parameters, and how those parameters are intended to be used. Because infoboxes are kept in a Wikipedia:Namespace separate from articles, it takes some effort to identify an infobox by name. Once the editor has the name, however, it's straightforward to lookup the infobox's documentation.

There are two ways in which an editor typically locates which infobox he or she wants to use:

• By browsing the set of all infoboxes via Category:Infobox templates.
• By determining the name of a particular infobox used in a particular article.

For example, the article D-Terminal contains an infobox. To determine which one, simply edit the article:

{{Infobox connector
...
}}

The "{{Infobox connector" identifies the markup between the enclosing braces as a use of the "connector" infobox. The editor can look up the documentation for the template, including a list of parameters, in the Template namespace under Template:Infobox connector.

In accordance with Wikipedia's Manual of Style, infoboxes should be placed at the top of an article after any disambiguation links and maintenance tags.

The infobox documentation page usually contains a convenient "blank" template that can be copied directly into the target article. The template consists of opening ({{) and closing (}}) double braces that contain the name of the infobox and a list of parameters without values. An editor then fills in the value for each of the parameters to the right of the corresponding equals sign.

For example:

{{Infobox person
|name    =
|image   =
|caption =
...
|website =
}}

might be filled out like this:

{{Infobox person
|name    = Casanova
|image   = Casanova_self_portrait.jpg
|caption = A self portrait of  Casanova
...
|website =
}}

In this example, the names of the parameters ("name", "image", "caption", "website") are fixed in the design of the infobox and described in its documentation. A parameter that is misspelled or is not supported by the infobox implementation does not display at all.

The infobox documentation describes which parameters are required and which are optional. Required parameters display between triple braces (for example, {{{requiredparametername}}}) when previewed or saved. Optional parameters may be left empty or omitted entirely.

It is a good idea to seek the opinions of other editors before embarking on a design of a new infobox or redesign of an existing one. Most requirements are already met by an existing infobox and most of the remainder can be met with a tweak. Unnecessary duplication leads to clutter and article divergence. Prototype your new design in your own user space. Once prototyped, propose the infobox changes to the appropriate WikiProject and gain consensus before deploying your new design in the template namespace.

For detailed guidance on how to design infoboxes, see Help:Designing infoboxes.

Requests to delete an infobox should be brought to the attention of Wikipedia:Templates for discussion and any WikiProjects associated with the infobox. A template may be merged with another rather than deleted outright.

• Wikipedia:Disinfoboxes
• Wikipedia:How to read a color infobox
• Wikipedia:How to read a taxobox
• Wikipedia:Thinking outside the infobox