Template talk:Languageicon

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[edit] Colour

I wonder if some other colour could be chosen? The problem with navy is that it looks too much like a link. A mid-grey would have my vote: or black, come to that. Just not blue or red! —Ian Spackman 15:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. A lot of people, as you can see in the discussions that have been archived for political reasons, agree with you. Nobody has yet defended the blue appearance (and bold and default cursor etc) with a decent justification, except for "...because I like it". If you read the discussion, you can clearly see how on WP sometimes arrogance can beat reasoned arguments and common sense. PizzaMargherita 17:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I consider this accuation of arrogance to be a personal attack. As per WP:NPA thats a blockable offense, I recomend ceasing such comments at once. Please do not discuss the contributors conduct who do not agree with you. --Cat out 22:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it should look have a link like color (navy is fine btw, links arent navy but light blue). They aren't clickable, what seems to be the problem? Can you elaborate? --Cat out 22:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
The answer to your questions has been pointed out many times by many different people in the discussion that you have just archived, as well as in your very post above. The problem (actually, one of them) is that they look like links and that they don't behave like links. This goes against all usability guidelines and defies common sense. I don't think it can be broken down any more than this. PizzaMargherita 10:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
They don't look like link! Links are usually right next to the icon. They do look totally differently! I don't object to the dark-gray color though. -- tasc wordsdeeds 16:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I really had no idea that people could become so impassioned about this template when I made the request that (currently) is at the head of this discussion. I have refrained from commenting since I made that discovery because I am sure that we are all better off venting our arousal on improving articles rather than fighting over this issue. (I cannot be bothered to re-read the archive to check—feel free to do it!—but I have the suspicion that people ventillating here have rather overwhelmingly shared my masculine gender.) But two things seem to me to be blatantly obvious

  • the balance between overemphasing the ‘icon’ and failing to draw attention to it at all has been slowly but extremely well struck. It’s easy to spot without being obtrusive: so all praise to a design wrought by a wrangling committee!
  • it is extremely silly to use a colour which says ‘click me, I am a link to something important: and being navy rather than merely light blue I am probably of even deeper importance.’ (I will refrain from genderizing ‘deeper’. (No I didn’t.))

So, let me put this a different way. If I were to change the colour to a shade of grey, upon what basis would it be sensible to change it to a shade of blue? —Ian Spackman 14:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[After Tasc's changes] Although the current colour is far superior to navy, I would simply like to register my preference for a lighter shade. For example, #6f6f6f is used for the "autocomment" style (section names in comments of WP article histories), as well as in Google news, without even being bold, and I haven't heard anybody complaining about its not being readable. Also, I would argue that a lighter shade would make the template more noticeable, therefore making bold even more unnecessary. In summary, I stand by my early proposal (Polish), although as I said I'm very happy with the progress that has been done. PizzaMargherita 21:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bold

Along the same lines, if I were to remove the bold attribute, upon what basis would it be sensible to revert it to bold?

From the discussion archived for political reasons, the following were identified as reasons to get rid of bold.

  1. Not needed, not standard, attracts too much attention.
  2. Makes the label more prominent than what it's labelling.
  3. Unnecessary emphasis.
  4. Ugly, distracting, unnecessary, non-standard, etc.

Note that no reason has been put forward to keep it bold other than "because I like it the way it is". PizzaMargherita 16:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree.
  1. it attracts due attention.
  2. label shold be prominent
  3. due emphasis
  4. very beautiful.
This is a very good reason to keep it this way. -- tasc wordsdeeds 16:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Isn't an attribute of a reference secondary to the reference itself? If so, why should it have a more prominent looks?
  1. it attracts due attention.—Not if it attracts more attention than the reference.
  2. label shold be prominent—Maybe so, but definitely not more than the reference it's labelling
  3. due emphasis—Not if it's more emphasised than the reference.
  4. very beautiful.—Maybe so, but once again objective usability considerations should come before any subjective aesthetic ones. In fact, I think the current template looks worse than it used to, but I prefer it overall for usability and accessibility reasons.
As I said, I think a lighter shade of grey, like the ones used in the autocomment class, would make bold redundant, as it would make the label stand out without being distracting. PizzaMargherita 08:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
They are just distracting. Sorry, it's a bit unprofessional. -- Bapho 22:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] icon placement

I'd prefer not to tell editors where to place an icon. Therefore, I'd propose to remove following statement.

Note
It's preferable that the template is used *after* the link. example:
French link (French)

-- tasc wordsdeeds 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine by me, there have been good arguments either way. PizzaMargherita 17:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree; the placement should be consistent in a particular article, and from article to article. —Michael Z. 2006-07-02 19:03 Z
Than it shouldn't be after the link. -- tasc wordsdeeds 19:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Why not? PizzaMargherita 20:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
There wasn't a clear consensus on the before/after question. But here's why it should be after: putting language labels of varying lengths on some entries certainly destroys the visual unity of a list of links or references, as well as the title→description→supplementary info hierarchy of information within a list item. Look at these neat lists, where links align like new crayons in a box:
And compare to the cans of mixed nuts in the articles below. I notice that where links come at the front, editors tend to attempt to create some kind of rough alignment by always including the redundant "English" labels:
If knowing the language of a link is considered primary information, then it should be only done in long lists by dividing them into shorter lists using language subheadings. —Michael Z. 2006-07-02 20:58 Z
Totally agree, I couldn't have put it better myself, and thanks for the examples. Once again, a pattern emerges: isn't an attribute of a reference secondary to the reference itself? If so, why should it have a more prominent looks and come before the reference? Indeed, if/when the language is so important, the references should be grouped by language, and this template should not be used. PizzaMargherita 21:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
But this icon is not used exclusively for external links. It is also used in references. And with references there is no way to divide them into sections! And of course it is primary information! -- tasc wordsdeeds 07:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
See the third link above for an example of references with (manually-entered) language labels. In any professionally-typeset book, every reference begins with the author's name. Notes and annotations follow the reference. —Michael Z. 2006-07-03 15:35 Z
This icon can also be used in inline text, where it could only be placed after the link to make any sense at all, so there's another reason why it should be put afterwards.
I don't think it's "primary information". Could a reference exist without language indication? Yes. Could a language indication exist without the link it refers to? No. Therefore a language indication is less important than the reference, and therefore it should attract less attention, not more. PizzaMargherita 11:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Theoretically, in inobtrusive label could be in front of the link, but this would only work if either every link had a label of the same size (impractical because most articles just have no need for any labels), or if the label were always outdented, so that all of the actual list items remained aligned (maybe possible, but probably impractical because of the technical limitations of HTML + CSS). —Michael Z. 2006-07-02 22:21 Z
Yes, well, let me rephrase. I meant, I have a very precise opinion on what should be done, and I agree that usage should be consistent throughout. However, a consensus on this matter seems farther than for other aspects of this template, so for now, since everybody seems to be using it at random anyway, removing the note on usage seems fair. PizzaMargherita 20:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why talk...

...when you can simply revert the fruits of months of discussions instead? Once again, incivility prevails. PizzaMargherita 14:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You are right, I reverted. Circeus 23:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately Ghirlandajo reverted again. He is clearly above all this time-wasting talk thing; since I joined this debate he has reverted consensus three times ([1], [2], [3]). At least by now all the accusations of this being me pushing my POV should have fallen flat on their face. I'm considering reverting again and invoke 3RR, but I'm afraid that it would degenerate into an edit war (another user has made similar unilateral reversions [4]) so I think we need some independent arbitration here. Any volunteers to invoke one? I have tried RFC recently, and nothing happened. PizzaMargherita 08:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Should be easy to demonstrate consensus for keeping non-link text from being coloured blue: who on earth would think that's a good idea? But a template which appears in over 10,000 articles shouldn't be subject to this kind of petty reverting. —Michael Z. 2006-07-05 14:25 Z
Who decided on grey? I see why some are against blue, even though it's been used for ages, but I really do think that grey is lacking. I was a little annoyed when I saw the blue icon on a page I was dealing with change to grey (although I think it was only blue because I added it during one of the non-consensus changes), making non-distinct the link that previously stood out as non-English. Someone suggested green—what about that? It works to draw attention, and even has a sort of connection to the idea of "unity of languages", as it's the colour of the Esperanto flag. OzLawyer 15:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
If you look in the second archive and even in this page, quite a few people have independently suggested grey. Personally, I much prefer grey to green because it's neutral (whereas the Esperanto flag is not), and it stands out (especially with a lighter shade) without being distracting.
While we are at it, I would like to summarise the criticism to grey and address it:
  1. Unreadable on the default background—A lighter shade (#6f6f6f) is used for the autocomment class (section names in comments of WP article histories), as well as in Google news, without even being bold, and I haven't heard anybody complaining about its not being readable. In fact, it has the added property of standing out even more.
  2. Not the "traditional" colour for language icon—Well, that's certainly not a good argument in favour of reverting to blue, which is the traditional colour for links on the web.
  3. I don't like it—There are more important parameters than aesthetics in web design, namely usability and accessibility.
  4. It doesn't stand out enough—References are more important than their attributes (such as language indication), so this template should stand out less than the references, not more.
PizzaMargherita 18:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
As one of the people who independently—certainly in my case—suggested grey, I have to say that I am not at all comitted to the colour, and I don’t think that there is an especially strong consensus in favour of it. At a purely visual level I think that navy blue looks better than any of the greys we have so far found. It’s just that having non-clickable blue text on the current Wikipedia goes totally against common sense and basic human interface design principles. Honestly I tried to click a language icon today. (It is worth noting that at one stage these icons were clickable, and that they brought up the page about the language. That was dropped—rightly, I think—as over-linking.) So please, no blues.
Except that if the language icon is embedded in the link like this
navy is obviously the way to go.
Which leads me to suggest that Languageicon formatting should be done as a CSS class, rather than as hard-coded style, and that the colour should be navy where the element is a descendent of a link element and some other colour (e.g. grey) otherwise. —Ian Spackman 21:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steady state

Pace my special-case argument above, there seems to be a perfectly clear consensus—both majoritarian and qualitative—against using a shade of blue. I suggest that any change of the ‘icon’ to blue should be reverted on sight unless the editor gives a justification on this page. —Ian Spackman 12:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a lack of concensus. I have no desire to comprimise any further. Originaly icon had two brackets, was bold, had a spesific font, as well as other things. The navy version was around as a comprimise.
Now people want me to comprimise more to the precise version PizzaMargherita wants. Why cant he comprimise? If people want to use a different color, they can create a sister template for the special cases they want this thing to apply. Grey just looks ugly the way I am using this.
--Cat out 17:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disccusion about version

Sane way, revert wars are problematic. Lets do this via comparasion. Ok lets debate. This is how I am using this template and I feel grey looks horrible. How do you use the template? --Cat out 18:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, mouse colour is horrible. It is barely distinguishable from the background. I see this page is haunted by revert warriors which like their pet version to be forced on us by hook or by crook. They wouldn't care to hold a vote on the issue that affects thousands pages. Therefore I leave this page in disgust. --Ghirla -трёп- 18:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The discussions have started a long time ago, and I have nothing to add on the subject to what people (including myself) have been saying in the last few months. In particular, the points you guys raise were extensively addressed in this talk page and in the archive. Happy reading. PizzaMargherita 21:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don’t know what combination of OS, browser and font was used to produce the screenshots, but the resultant type rendering seems to me to be so abysmal as to overwhelm any aesthetic concerns over blue versus grey. Subjectively I find them both extremely ugly and wouldn’t be drawn to read an encyclopedia printed so badly. But this is the Web and we know that the first principle of writing for the web is that users and user agents are varied and unpredictable. So concentrate on the semantics. It is a convention (not one I would have chosen, but a convention nonetheless) that blue text is a hyperlink. Blue on the web has a specific meaning: let us not randomly subvert it. Blue means ‘Click me’. And please let’s not get personal: I have read, enjoyed and respected the contributions made to articles by both Ghirla and PizzaMargherita. I have also found both of them rather annoying now and again. But who cares what I think of them? It is not a matter of personalities, it is a question of making Wikipedia usable. —Ian Spackman 23:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The two screenshots are also hard to compare, because only one is just big enough that it gets slightly resized on its image page, turning its aliased text into mush. —Michael Z. 2006-07-07 00:19 Z
True, but if you go to the raw images they are equally aliased. Still this is not the place to denounce people’s choices of type rendering systems, so I will shut up. (Especially since you also em-dash-prefix your signature, perhaps because you use a machine which makes that easy…)—Ian Spackman 00:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Just sayin’: if the one was cropped slightly, then looking at the two image pages side-by-side would be a fair comparison. I think people who use computers with aliased text tend to ignore that quality, and focus on the content—but once you get used to properly-antialiased text on a good monitor, it's hard to go back.
Anyway, although blue non-links are unacceptable, I don't like either example image. All of the “English” labels are redundant, and just make it harder to quickly pick out the foreign-language links in the list. But if you remove them, then the resulting poorly-aligned list of links will look like a complete dog’s breakfast. The labels should go at the end.
Typing an em dash: cmd-option-hyphen on any Mac English-language keyboard layout, since 1984. —Michael Z. 2006-07-07 01:00 Z
Sure I'll merge the two screenshots. They have been taken on firefox on win xp os. Should look identical on other oses. --Cat out 10:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok I'll adress the arguments above. Lets focus on the topic please. --Cat out 10:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • (to Ian Spackman) If wikipedia is going to be printed, the color of the links will not matter since you can't click paper. If you are going to dismiss wikipedia over this template over a single template you are welcome to do so but that is not a valid argument in choosing a version. --Cat out 10:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
  • (to Mzajac) I do not believe en icon is redundent (if it is it wouldn't exist). If you do not like either image (now united), you do not like either version and hence a 3rd verion is necesary. --Cat out 10:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
(to Mzajac) This is probably a good moment to warn you that you have changed an apostrophe to a quotation mark. At least where I come from that's not really acceptable. * isn't really interested in the real discussion, unwatches page * Shinobu 12:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About the color, the revertwar, and high use

  • IIRC, wasn't the color blue used originally because the template used to link to the language article? That reason being now outdated, using another color sounds pertinent.
  • This template is High use, and edits to it should certainly be kept minimal. Through its use, it's a ridiculously obvious target for a vandalistic attack that could affect thousands of pages. Maybe protection is pertinent, if only to make sure edits are properly discussed in the future. Circeus 12:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
    Semi protection please. --Cat out 14:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
    How will that help? Semi-protection will only keep edits from IPs, and none are involved in this. Protecting high use templates also serves to limit server load from constant updates. Circeus 14:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
    Vandalism just occured. I protect now. Circeus 23:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki

Can someone please add bs:Šablon:Simboli jezika (this is in Bosnian) to the In other languages section.

Thank you, Kseferovic 04:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Nightstallion (?) 12:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


Could some one add Japanese version too? ja:Template:Languageicon Thank you.--24.82.183.10 09:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

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