Proposal: Infobox pilot

Status: Open.

Builds on: Wikidata ID on articles

Pull requests: None yet.

What changes

A small trial of infoboxes, the box of key facts at the top right of an article, filled from the article's Wikidata item. It uses three predefined templates and no classification system, to learn what is useful before building anything larger.

The templates

• Person: date and place of birth, date and place of death, occupation, nationality.
• Organisation: founded, founders, headquarters, type, website.
• Taxon: scientific name, rank, parent taxon, conservation status.

An article uses a template when it has a Wikidata ID and its Wikidata item matches the template's kind (for example, "instance of: human" for Person). Other articles show no infobox.

How the facts are shown

• Values come from Wikidata. They are read-only on Agpedia; corrections are made on Wikidata.
• References. Each value links to its statement on Wikidata, and the number of references Wikidata gives for it is shown next to the link.
• When Wikidata has no value, an editor can add one on Agpedia with an Agpedia citation. A Wikidata value always takes precedence; a local value only fills a gap and is marked as such.
• Old versions of an article show today's Wikidata values, with a note saying so.

Why

Readers expect key facts at a glance, and Wikidata already has them for most people, organisations and species. Starting with three templates shows what works before deciding on article types or more templates.

Technical notes

Wikidata values are cached on Agpedia and refreshed regularly. Local fallback values are stored with the page, keyed by Wikidata property (for example P569 for date of birth), so they can never duplicate a Wikidata field.