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Peter Planyavsky
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, where he was director of music 1983–1990
Born	(1947-05-09) 9 May 1947 (age 76) Vienna, Austria
Education	Vienna Academy of Music with Anton Heiller and Hans Gillesberger
Occupations	organist composer of sacred music and parody music
Years active	1969 (1969) – 2004 (2004): Vienna organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral 1971 (1971) – present: Vienna composer 1980 (1980) – 2012 (2012): Vienna professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts
Parent	Alfred Planyavsky
Website	www.peterplanyavsky.at

Let's discuss an infobox, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:23, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I am (almost) always in favor of in infobox. I like a quick to the point list of facts. — Ched :  ?  19:51, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• There are a minority of articles - most often biographies - where attempting to summarise the subject will inevitably be misleading, normally because of the complexity of the content and the difficulty in creating a précis of nuanced material. Nevertheless, infoboxes are a very common feature and our audience is likely to expect a quick summary at the top left of an article. In addition, an infobox template acts as a wrapper for the html that defines standardised classes delineating information which can be scraped by external re-users to automatically generate data for them. This very often takes the form of marking a table as a vcard, the subject as a person, or as an organisation, or as a building, and so on. We have other templates that create this kind of microformats for birth/death dates and coordinates, but nothing that I'm aware of that produces as comprehensive a set of data as an infobox does. When deciding on whether to include a template, the summary and metadata reasons will always be present as factors in favour of an infobox. The principal factor against having an infobox, the possibility of misleading, requires someone to make a reasoned judgement and often will not be a consideration. My usual recommendation, therefore, is to have an infobox unless you can see a compelling reason not to. --RexxS (talk) 00:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like the "possibly misleading" argument can be addressed by just being careful what fields go into the infobox in the first place. From the point of view of layout and even navigation, they make a lot of sense and in many cases provide an excellent summary to the "drive by" reader who, for example, is simply looking for dates or locations and such... Montanabw^(talk) 01:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...most of which are either found in the lead or aren't important. This particular infobox is aesthetically a mess, and compromises the navigability of the article by compressing section headings and displacing edit buttons. Not to mention the intimidation factor for new editors seeing a block of confusing templatetext at the top of an article. Despite all these issues, I've made a change that should satisfy the desire for metadata without compromising the article quality. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments about the effect on headings and edit buttons; and about raw wikicode in the edit window, are generic and not specific to this article. If you wish to remove or hide infoboxes on that basis, please create a centralised and well-publicised RfC to overturn the current community support for the use, location and display of infoboxes; and to modify the MoS accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...and so are arguments about summary and metadata; what's your point? If I were attempting to overturn current guidelines I would certainly pursue an RfC, but I'm not. I'm simply trying to seek a compromise that allows the use of metadata. I was under the impression that you supported the use of metadata in as many articles as possible, is that not the case? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was bold and moved the box (hidden) to where it is expected and can be seen, following the example of compromise found for Little Moreton Hall. Please read the discussion there, - it's a waste of time to repeat things for every article. Robert Stoepel may also be of interest, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

LMH was not a compromise. Infoboxes should not be hidden. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:08, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox isn't hidden, it's collapsed. If it was hidden then you wouldn't be able to see it to expand it. George Ponderevo (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments about summaries and metadata are not about overturning current - and best - practice. Yours are. I am in favour of both summaries and metadata; hiding the infobox defeats its purpose of providing a quick and convenient summary. You are apparently seeking a compromise between widely accepted community norms and your idiosyncratic, small minority view. No such compromise is necessary; the wider community view is right and acceptable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise is a key feature of collaborative editing, Andy, and the sooner you realize that the more pleasant these discussions will become. I would prefer to have no infobox at all, per the current consensus regarding composer biographies. However, I realize that some value the metadata produced by these templates. Because there is currently no optimal way of producing that metadata without an infobox (or at least when asked you have not provided any), we may take the compromise approach of a collapsed infobox serving as a metadata emitter, placed at the bottom where metadata templates are generally placed (cf. persondata), or potentially at the top for longer articles like LMH. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:34, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would much prefer to see biographical articles like this without infoboxes, however if some people disagree then a collapsed box is obviously a workable compromise. Re metadata, this can surely be provided either visibly or invisibly, no? --Kleinzach 15:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly, as the example of {{persondata}} demonstrates. George Ponderevo (talk) 19:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Before once again lecturing me, Nikkimaria, you might like to consider the difference between "no compromise is necessary", which I didn't say, and "no such compromise is necessary", which I did. There is no "current consensus regarding composer biographies", as the RfC called by the projects involved determined. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:19, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh? And what compromise are you willing to make, then? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:04, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

collapsing the infobox[edit]

Peter Planyavsky
Biographical information Born (1947-05-09) 9 May 1947 (age 76) Vienna, Austria Education Vienna Academy of Music with Anton Heiller and Hans Gillesberger Occupations organist composer of sacred music and parody music Years active 1969 (1969) – 2004 (2004): Vienna organist at St. Stephen's Cathedral 1971 (1971) – present: Vienna composer 1980 (1980) – 2012 (2012): Vienna professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Parent Alfred Planyavsky Website www.peterplanyavsky.at

here is a hack that will collapse the core part of the infobox. I don't recommend this hack, but it does show that if minor changes were made to {{infobox person}}, a parameter could be used to trigger the insertion of this inner-table, making the inner part of the infobox collapsible. Frietjes (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that approach! The one currently in the article is copied from Elizabeth II and doesn't require changes to the template. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ps: not currently, it was in this version --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

now templated, so at least it won't look like as much of a hack. there also an issue that articles with raw html tables show up in database report for fixing. Frietjes (talk) 19:48, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Years active?[edit]

The box opposite looks fine, but the one on the article page has 'Years active' oddly appearing on the collapsed box. Why is that? --Kleinzach 16:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hope the ones who reached that result (see history) will tell us, I gave up ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I actually much prefer this version, and I agree with Kleinzach that the current infobox looks a little odd. The point I think is that elements of the uncollapsed infobox such as the list of positions he's held could remain collapsed even when the containing infobox is uncollapsed. If this was "my" article I'd go back to this version. George Ponderevo (talk) 16:38, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is "my" article, it was "my" version, I don't own it and like to please, in other words, I gave up - you can re-install it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, done. I think that's probably just about the best we can do until some people come to their senses. It would be nice if that collapsing code were added to {{infobox person}} of course, but there's more chance of me waking up tomorrow on the dark side of the Moon than that happening.George Ponderevo (talk) 18:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've also tried this out on the Pendine Museum of Speed article, and I think it works pretty well there too. You can see from the uncollapsed version just how overwhelming that infobox used to be, far bigger than the article itself. George Ponderevo (talk) 19:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

if you do add it to more articles, try to use the new templated version, so we can sync any improvements, and/or remove them if we add this feature to the various infoboxes. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. George Ponderevo (talk) 19:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course a downside of this approach is that it only works if there's an image in the infobox. Is there an easy way round that? George Ponderevo (talk) 20:01, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

do you have an example that I can work with? the version to the right appears to work for me. Frietjes (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It does work, you're right. How strange that it didn't seem to work for me when I tried it. Ah well, forget what I said. George Ponderevo (talk) 21:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

the key is that you must specify the name in this case, since it won't use the value from {{PAGENAME}}. Frietjes (talk) 21:35, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying it out on Pendine Sands, which has an English and Welsh name listed, and I had the {{collapsed infobox section begin}} template after the |native_name_lang parameter, but for the collapsing to work it has to go before it for some reason. Mystery solved. George Ponderevo (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

the '_lang' parameters don't generate visible content, they just add meta-data to a span or table cell (e.g., how {{lang|de|beispeil}} works). it probably would work if you added it to the visible field associated with the _lang. Frietjes (talk) 23:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That would explain it, thanks. George Ponderevo (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion on hidden infoboxes in progress, which is relevant to this article. Voceditenore (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

Why does the box at the top say "parents" when it's just the father that's given? Who was the mother? If unknown, why not say "father" instead of "parents"? Thanks, Soranoch (talk) 21:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That is a question for the designers of the box, look at {{infobox person}} for available parameters and then ask at template talk:infobox person. I personally only list "parents" with an article here, but it's a matter of taste, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]