Talk:George Formby

Infobox addition based on 2022 discussion

An invisible comment reads "There is a consensus not to have an infobox on this page," but this does not seem to be correct:

The comment refers to 2022 discussion. However, here are the results of the discussion:

• Nikkimaria - against
• Humbledaisy - for
• 91.85.196.221 - for
• 65.93.213.29 - for
• Ghmyrtle - for
• Vesuvio14 - for
• Hlliwmai - for
• RCLeacar - for

Therefore, reading the discussion, there is quite a clear motion that an infobox is a necessary addition to the article.

Keeping the results of this in mind, I will be adding an infobox to the article. The Fonz (talk) 14:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

• Removed. Consensus is not gained by vote counting. - SchroCat (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Was an RFC ever held on the topic-in-question? GoodDay (talk) 17:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I can't see any in the archive, just the discussions about it Shaws username . talk . 17:16, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

There have only ever been discussions. One about ten years ago and then one in 2022 when no-one could answer Nikkimaria's question. The vote counting is, obviously, not a way consensus is settled (per Wikipedia:NOTDEMOCRACY) and is a red herring. - SchroCat (talk) 17:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Consensus does not have to be unanimous. Was the opinion by Nikkimaria so valid that it outweighed (not best choice of word) the others? David notMD (talk) 20:51, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I would expect a long article (this one) that is a Featured article (this one) justifies an Infobox. David notMD (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Why would you expect it? This went through both PR and FAC ten years ago without a box. It has remained without one peacefully so, even when the article ran as TFA, until the recent disruption. Since it became an FA around 1.5 million people have visited the page (that’s about 15,000 readers a month); how many of them have complained about the lack of an IB? - SchroCat (talk) 21:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I would not add an infobox to this article -- the excellent Lead section covers the key facts about this person. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Disclosure: I'm here from the teahouse discussion opened by Evedawn99 (aka The Fonz); I have no previous involvement with the George Formby article.

I don't disagree that the lead section covers many key facts about the subject, but just based on Formby's Wikidata listing, there do seem to be a number of additional pieces of information that an {{Infobox person}} could quickly summarize. Including:

• Formby was male (arguably hinted at in the lead paragraph, with — emphasis added — On stage, screen and record he sang...).
• Formby's died of natural causes, a myocardial infarction
• There is an "official" website dedicated to Formby at https://www.georgeformby.co.uk/
• Formby was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (covered in the lead sentence, but not explicitly, and insanely easy to overlook if you happen to miss the "OBE" after his name — I did, three times, and since my powers of observation are not generally derided as exceptionally lacking, I have to assume others may as well)

Other information is found in the lead section (though not the lead paragraph), but requires somewhat careful reading of the prose to pick out, including:

• Formby's wife was named Beryl
• Formby died in Preston, Lancashire
• Formby was buried in Cheshire (the prose says "Warrington", which those of us outside the UK will hopefully be forgiven for not recognizing as a suburb of Cheshire)
• and so on

It's also worth pointing out that the article did have an infobox from 2007 all the way to 2014; it was only removed as an "experiment" by @SchroCat shortly before the FA nomination; after a brief two week run (and, it must be acknowledged, universally positive response on the Talk page, at the time) the experiment was declared a success. The timing and process could lead one to wonder if the infobox removal wasn't done specifically to cement the article's FA status without an infobox, so its FA-ness could then be wielded as protection against ever adding one back in. I won't claim that was the intent in removing it; I don't need to, as the result (FA status being deployed as an anti-infobox shield) has already been demonstrated here.

Ultimately, having an infobox to complement the lead provides a quick, at-a-glance rundown of key facts. In terms what SchroCat referred to earlier as "Nikkimaria's question" (which was never asked; Nikkimaria only made assertions in that discussion, and never asked a single question, but we can assume it's the standard "how would the article benefit from an infobox?" challenge): There's my answer. It's admittedly not very exciting, since it's the same reasoning generally used for any infobox on any article.

Nobody's disagreeing that the information is, for the most part, already to be found in the lead section. But I hope, in similar fashion, that nobody is claiming Wikipedia readers always do, or always must, completely read through an article's lead section to obtain any information about the subject. In terms of the 2022 discussion, Ghmyrtle's comment seems equally relevant, when they characterized the anti-infobox sentiment thusly: some editors think that readers should be compelled to read their deathless prose, rather than being given basic information in a clear way. FeRDNYC (talk) 12:34, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

"Eh, talk page has turned out nice again, ain't it." Martinevans123 (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle's mischaracterisation is as uncivil a slur on the writing as I would expect from an IB discussion. The fact you find it suitable to repeat such piffle is not great support for anything of standard. I also refute your rather inept suggestion that I removed the box to use an FA status as protection is contemptable drivel. Maybe you should have stuck to arguing the merits of the box rather than attempt to demean editors about whose thoughts and actions you obviously know less than zero. Why do people think it appropriate to attack other editors just because they hold a flexible viewpoint about a box on a website? I just don't understand why the lies and aggression.

In terms of the possible inclusion of an IB, there is no need. The "key points" on Formby are in the lead sentence. Most of your suggested additions go against the MOS and wouldn't bear repeating except as excessive bloat. "Formby was male"? Not a field in any IB; his death? Burial location? Utter trivia; website? cause of death? Not per the MOS. And his OBE is the third ‘word’ of the article! Sure, there's lots of trivial nonsense that could be used to populate the site, but no reason why. 1.5 million people have visited the page (that’s about 15,000 readers a month) how many have asked for an IB?; it seems that only people seeing the discussion from another forum (and with limited to zero knowledge of the subject) are trying to force the issue, despite no demonstration of why it is beneficial to the article. - SchroCat (talk) 13:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

What is so special about George Formby that youre so against a box for him? Loads of other celebrities have an infobox. Why are you opposed for one of HIM in particular? 2A02:C7C:9885:4E00:61CF:75AF:5DE:7437 (talk) 10:46, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Lots of biographies don’t have IBs and there is no automatic requirement that any article has one. Given the core information about the man is in the opening paragraph, why should he have one? ( As there is no consensus to have one, you have to build a consensus, which means you have to put forward the arguments to change the status quo). - SchroCat (talk) 11:09, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

While sports and politician bios can benefit from infoboxes, as a Signpost report notes: "Infoboxes may be particularly unsuited to liberal arts fields when they repeat information already available in the lead section of the article, are misleading or oversimplify the topic for the reader". I disagree with including an infobox in this article because the box would misleadingly emphasize less important factoids, stripped of context and lacking nuance, whereas the excellent WP:LEAD section emphasizes and contextualizes the most important facts about the subject. In addition, as the key information about the subject that could be included in the box is already discussed in the Lead, in the body of the article, and in the Google Knowledge Graph, the box would be a 3rd or 4th mention of these facts. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:01, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The relevance of the Signpost quote you posted is debatable, but that same report does provide an earlier, more directly relevant quote: One particularly controversial infobox is the 'bio-box' or biographical infobox. Another infobox that received a particularly negative reaction from serious music editors was Musical artist infobox with anachronistic, pop music derived fields such as 'birth name', 'genres', 'occupations', 'labels', 'associated acts', and 'past members' —misapplied to classical music articles. This article is a historical music biography. Which hits the trifecta of Smerus' Infobox-controversial subject areas, also mentioned in the report (immediately preceding your quote).

But, for reasons I feel like I shouldn't have to spell out (but will anyway), counting the Google Knowledge Graph as an existing mention of the article's facts is a nonsense argument in a Wikipedia content discussion — c'mon.

• It's Google content, not Wikipedia content
• Wikipedia and Wikipedians have no control over that content
• It's only shown alongside search results for the article title, not when viewing the article itself
• It's only shown when that search is performed using Google's search engine. (Believe it or not, there are others!)

If off-wiki locations where the information from the article can also be found are counted as redundancies, then it's game over for Wikipedia because we rely on those as the very foundation of WP:V. (Heck, it makes this entire project just one big redundancy.) FeRDNYC (talk) 05:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)