The infobox game

Humour

The infobox game

Empress Barbara X. Page (If I had an infobox this is what it would be)
Barbie (before age 8)
everyone wants to be me
Pronunciation	βa-βa-ɻa pʷeɪj
Born	Barbara PahTootey Falks (1960-05-06) May 6, 1960 (age 63) Upper Schlabutkeeville, Michigan
Disappeared	you wish Linn Run State Park
Status	lost in the woods
Died	not established
Cause of death	premeditated murder
Body discovered	envied by a top modelling agencies
Resting place	there is no rest for the wicked
Monuments	~~hundreds~~ thousands(planned)
Nationality	French, Canadian, English, Polish
Other names	just expletives
Citizenship	world and galaxy
Education	self-taught
Alma mater	Spring Arbor University
Occupation	Wikimedian
Years active	ten
Era	common
Employer(s)	me and I have two library cards
Organization(s)	secret, there really is a cabal
Known for	making other editors crazy
Notable work	Empathy in chickens, English two-letter words, Monarch butterfly migration
Style	encyclopedic
Television	nope, too busy writing WP articles and voting on new administrators
Height	5 ft 2 in (157 cm)
Title	"The magnificent..."
Term	lifetime
Predecessor	none
Successor	none
Political party	there is always a party whereever I am
Movement	smooth
Opponent	read my talk page
Board member of	mahogany
Criminal charge	failure to disperse
Criminal penalty	3 hour jail term
Criminal status	unconvicted
Spouse	wishes to remain anonymous
Children	six
Parent(s)	Carol and David
Relatives	Many
Family	Bros. and sisters
Awards	Nobel prize for ridiculousness

Ah yes, the infobox. I am a big fan. These boxes come in handy when I only have seven seconds to read an article. My absolute favorite parts of the infobox are the amazing parameters that can be included. For once, I would like to see each parameter filled in with each tiny fragment of information. So I made one about myself.

You are probably familiar with the infoboxes for entertainers, gaming, movies, cities, et cetera et cetera.

But DYK....that there are infoboxes for:

CHERUB, a series of young adult spy novels by author Robert Muchamore, about how the British Security Service employs children, predominantly orphans, under the age of 17, as secret agents? There are actually 14 different infoboxes for this one author.^{[attention spam hunters]}
Four different Dungeons & Dragons infoboxes for the classes of characters? (But what template do you use if an entity is a deity and a creature?)
Hill of Rome used 15 times, but I thought there were only seven hills of Rome...?
Huts?
Heteroisoform? Which probably needs an article so we all can know what it might be.
Bullfighters?
Yoga schools?
Water buffalo breed?
Craters on Venus?
Volcanic hotspot?
Pandemic?
Artificial fly (not a fake bug)?
Telephone area code?

and DYK...

...that the baseball biography infobox is used over 22,000 times?
...that the football (soccer) biography infobox is used over 100,000 times?
...that the cricketter biography infobox is used over 16,000 times?

I think infoboxes have a firm future because of our ever decreasing attention span. And it would take little effort to commercialize infoboxes by transforming them into trading cards. Instead of detailed arguments about pogs, we will hear: "I'll give you one Joe Negri for a Phil Ochs, a Melissa Greener and Caroll Spinney". I already have mine in a binder and inserted into those dandy plastic sleeves. I anticipate forming a massive collection. I can see my children at the estate sale after my death trying to unload my infobox/biography trading cards off on some clueless investor who trades in infobox futures.

In this issue

15 July 2017

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I think you misspelled "wherever." ~T P W 03:00, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I did. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. I can't believe you expect me to knot make misteaks.

Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 03:03, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would collect infobox trading cards. I can already imagine a game based on the different infobox templates. Are soccer biographies strong against comic strips? "You got a Hill of Rome? Damn, those are rare. I'll trade this artificial fly card for it." ~Mable (chat) 10:20, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ooo! ooo! Each infobox card could be ranked by the daily average pageviews. So if one infobox card was for an article with 1000 views per day, it would be worth two infobox cards with 500 page views per day. You are a genius. AND there are no copyrights! Good job Maplestrip. We are going to be millionaires. Wouldn't it great to have this set up for Wikimania in 2018?

Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 22:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the images would often be copyrighted (though not always). I would love to see something like this happen, but it sounds like a lot of work :p ~Mable (chat) 07:53, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Way too much work. Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 11:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is fun. I just now read it (cleaning out my talk page). Thanks! Softlavender (talk) 23:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: doing it for free since 2005.

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