User:BappleBusiness/Sidebar standardization project

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There are various aspects of how sidebars are currently designed and used on Wikipedia that are problematic. In a few main points, sidebars...

  • have inconsistent formatting: Sidebars should generally be consistent in order to avoid reader confusion, as well as to present an appearance of professionalism and competence. The exception to this rule comes when sidebars differ in function in such a way that specific differences in formatting would aid in each of their use cases.
  • are ugly: While beauty is (arguably) subjective, most people would likely agree that most sidebars could look a little nicer. A prime culprit is the spacing and separation of elements—generally, existing sidebars are cramped and use either a deficient or excessive amount of visual cues to separate lists.
  • have an unclear use case: While WP:SIDEBAR currently has guidelines on sidebars, they are ambiguous in many cases. This ambiguity has led to an extraordinary variance of links per sidebar. It also has allowed for the creation of sidebars with needlessly overlapping scopes, causing template creep.

All these problems are just symptoms of a larger problem: a lack of proper organization. The burden of sidebar design has been offloaded to individual editors and projects, to be settled on thousands of individual template pages. This is an inefficient and ineffective system, but we can fix it.

Proposal

To improve and standardize sidebars, it is proposed that there be a community process consisting of three objectives:

  1. Construct a list of sidebar types, each corresponding to a unique use case. This would involve documenting the variation of sidebars currently in use, then eliminating any variation that is superfluous.
  2. Create standards for each sidebar type. This would involve developing prototypical examples and refining the formatting of each type. For each type, more detailed guidance would be drafted, including the circumstances under which each type of sidebar should be used and the formatting it should follow.
  3. Enforce these new standards. The base code of the templates would be altered to reflect the formatting of the prototypical examples. Because many sidebar templates diverge from the base code, they would have to gradually be edited to correspond to the new standards.

While this process would be extensive, it's important to remember that Wikipedia has no deadline—we are allowed to take time. Ultimately, the current problems with sidebars cannot be resolved without a systematized effort to tackle them.

Preliminary surveying

Below are the results of some preliminary surveying of existing sidebars, identifying current trends and inconsistencies. From this informal survey, I have generated some questions that strike at issues I believe need to be answered in order to develop standards. This list is by no means complete; other editors are welcome to add questions!

Some of these issues may seem trivial. This is in part because current inconsistencies have been not been driven by substantive problems, but by numerous personal preferences. If we consider consistency to be a worthy goal in itself, we need to settle current inconsistencies, even if such decisions are arbitrary or "subjective". At the same time, some questions may not be suited to a single answer—this may reveal where multiple types of sidebars or space for variation would be useful.

An explicit standard need not be established for each issue, especially when it would be overly restrictive or bloat. Less important decisions can instead be "enforced" through template defaults.

More information Topic, Existing variation ...
Topic Existing variation Questions to answer
Purpose, scope, and size Currently, the Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates guideline states: "The collection of articles in a sidebar template should be fairly tightly related, and the template should meet most or all of the preceding guidelines [on navigational templates in general]. If the articles are not tightly related, a footer template or navbox, located at the bottom of the article, may be more appropriate."

Wikipedia:Navigation template (an explanatory essay on the prior guideline) states that sidebars are "useful for smaller amounts of directly relevant links. Tangential information should be kept out of sidebars. Few articles have more than one sidebar."

There is currently great variation in sidebar size. Some sidebars have a handful of links (e.g. Template:Programming language lists has 5), while some have hundreds (Template:COVID-19 pandemic sidebar has ~264; Template:Marxism sidebar has ~378; Template:Elections in Pennsylvania sidebar has ~820).
  • What is the purpose of a sidebar?
    • Are there multiple purposes currently being conflated?
  • Should there be a hard limit (akin to Wikipedia:Article size) on the number of links in a sidebar? If so, how many?
    • What types of links should be included or excluded?
  • What kinds of topics should have sidebars? Which should not?
    • Should the sidebar topic correspond to a category?
General formatting Most sidebars use the Template:Sidebar or variations of it (like Template:Sidebar with collapsible lists). There is a small but significant minority (e.g. Template:Military navigation) that use a modified version of the navbox formatting (Template:Navbox). Some sidebars for people (particularly political figures; e.g. Template:Barack Obama series) use Template:Sidebar person, while others use the regular sidebar template.
  • Should sidebars use a modified version of navbox formatting, the formatting of Template:Sidebar, or some other formatting?
  • Should sidebars for people have different formatting?
Sections and headers Sidebars are generally organized either as a single list or as multiple lists organized through headers. Some sidebars use collapsible headers, while others use static headers. Particularly large sidebars often use static sub-headers.

The formatting of these headers is all over the place. Some headers are centered, some are aligned to the left. Some sidebars separate sections with dividers in various places (above the header, below the header, both; above and below the lists; above and below the header and the lists). Others use headers with colored backgrounds, with various colors (sometimes gray, sometimes purple, sometimes custom) and various widths (sometimes the entire width, sometimes with padding). Others use both methods or neither. Headers are generally bolded.
  • When should headers/sections be used to organize sidebars?
    • When should sections be collapsible?
  • When should sub-headers be used to organize sections?
  • What formatting should headers and sub-headers use?
Topics and subtitle Most sidebars have subtitles. Most commonly, the subtitle is "Part of a series on [the]" or "This article is part of a series on [the]". The portion "a series" is sometimes linked to a category linked to the topic of the sidebar. In other cases, the subtitle lists the sidebar as part of a parent "article series" that is more broad than the sidebar topic (e.g. Template:Party politics uses "Part of the Politics series").
  • Should subtitles be used? If so, what should they say?
    • Should subtitles use the term "series"/"article series"? If so, should the article series referenced in the subtitle correspond to the sidebar topic, or are parent topics acceptable?
  • Should there be series encompassing multiple sidebars akin to the Philosophy or Politics series?
    • If so, how should these be organized and maintained, and by whom?
    • If so, which topics should have series? Should there be a systematized attempt to group sidebars together? (One possibility is to develop a list of high-level topics from Wikipedia:Contents).
Title Some titles have a colored background, while others do not. Most titles are bolded and 145% the size of regular text, though some differ.
  • Should titles have a colored background?
  • Should titles conform to the existing consensus of bolded and 145% the size of regular text, or to something else?
Images Some sidebars have images; some do not. Some images do not directly correspond to the article topic—these often have a caption (e.g. Template:Catholic Church sidebar). Some sidebars (e.g. those of topics related to Catholicism) have icons at the top.
  • Should images be allowed in sidebars?
  • If yes: which types, under what circumstances, and how many?
    • Should icons be allowed for similar sidebars?
    • How large should images be?
    • Should images have captions?
List formats The lists of links use a variety of list formats, though hlist is most prevalent. Plainlist is also frequently used, usually for when links have a clear order (e.g. chronological) or when links are longer. Some use bullets and subbullets.
  • Which list formats should be used, and when?
Important links above In some sidebars (usually those with sections), important links like other navigational aides or essential topics are listed above the main links and below the title & image. These are sometimes separated with a divider above and below, sometimes not. Sometimes they are separated with a different color. Most of the time, these links are bolded, though sometimes they are not.
  • What kind of links should be considered important enough to separate?
    • How many is optimal?
  • Should important links above be separated with dividers, or just with spacing?
  • Should these links be bolded?
Navigational aides below Some sidebars list portals, generally located at the bottom of the sidebar, though sometimes at the top with other important links. They are sometimes, and sometimes not, separated with a divider above and below. Sometimes these portals correspond directly to the sidebar topic, while other times they are more broad. The category corresponding to the sidebar topic is most commonly listed in the subtitle, but it is sometimes listed at the bottom.
  • Should portals be listed?
    • If so, should the number of portals be restricted?
  • Should categories be linked? If so, where?
  • Should a divider or other methods be used to separate below content, or is spacing sufficient?
Spacing Most sidebars have very narrow spacing between various elements—perhaps most noticeably between the top element and the border. Some have greater spacing.
  • What spacing should be used for various elements?
    • Between the top border and the first element (usually subtitle or title)
    • Between and within sections
    • Around images
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See also

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