User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-5617235-20130504054126/@comment-188432-20130504162621

User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-5617235-20130504054126/@comment-188432-20130504162621 The "justification" is that people think certain nicknames are cool, and they don't understand what an infobox is. The only way to deal with it is to delete it when you see it, and leave a good edit summary when you do it. That way, people will get the hint, and if they re-add, they have to justify it somehow.

An infobox is a summary of the most important information. A lot of people, I think, feel that it is a form that needs to be filled out in detail. That's why we:
 * end up with long lists of aliases
 * it gets cluttered with parentheticals like (dies), (joins), (leaves), (cameo) and the like
 * people want to use the typically unnecessary variable to label it with the longest name that person or object has ever had
 * people say "none" instead of just leaving inapplicable fields blank

Infoboxes should be brief. You should always endeavour to trim the fat out of them, and make them as vertically short as possible.

And since we're pointing out reading lists, may I draw new users' attentions to the category of infobox discussions? If you thought finding the name for this infobox field was tough, you should see all the other work that went into creating them.