MediaWiki talk:Nonunicodebrowser

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[edit] Less technical sounding version

As a new user commented on the Wikipedia:Help desk recently, complaining about how unclear this message is, I've decided to open up discussion on a less technical sounding version.

User:Theresa Knott suggested(semi-seriously):

Your browser doesn't support fancy letters. You're fine with ordinary numbers and letters a,b,c,
etc but if you want to edit a page that contains anything fancy like a foreign language letter
then you will see a code number instead of the letter.

In order not to irritate technical viewers of the message, I would merge the two versions, like so:

Your browser is not unicode compliant, i.e. it can't handle fancy letters. You're fine with
ordinary numbers and letters a, b, c, etc.(i.e. ASCII characters) but if you want to edit a
page that contains anything fancy like a foreign language letter then you will see a number
(a hexadecimal code) instead of the letter.

Thoughts, ideas, objections, etc? If there are no objections by the time I become an admin(September 1st, assuming my RfA goes through), I'll do it myself. ;-) JesseW 00:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Use a link to one article that explains most of this -- I guess Unicode is the best one. — Sverdrup 09:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Your browser is not Unicode compliant, i.e. it can't handle fancy letters. You're fine with
ordinary numbers and letters A, B, C, etc. (i.e. Latin-1 characters) but if you want to edit a
page that contains any special character then you will see a number
(a hexadecimal code) instead of the letter.

-- my version. — Sverdrup 09:40, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Your browser is not Unicode compliant, that is, it can display only
ordinary numbers and letters (A, B, C, etc., also called Latin-1 characters).
This simply means that if you edit a
page that contains accented characters, you will see a number
(a hexadecimal code) such as &1234; instead of the letter.

--my attempt, again a simplification of the concept ("accented characters" isn't entirely correct but I think is better than "fancy letters", which could imply just a font change, but I could go with "characters from other languages", too ("foreign" is somewhat english-language-centric.)) Elf | Talk 15:36, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Your browser seems to be unable to handle Unicode (i.e. a lot of fancy
letters and symbols, and writing from several other languages.)

You're fine with ordinary numbers and letters A, B, C, etc. ( Latin-1 
characters) but if you want to edit a page that contains any special 
characters, they'll show up as numbers (in  
hexadecimal) instead of letters. That way, even though your browser can't
show what is meant, at least you'll know there's supposed to be something 
there, and you might even still be able to figure things out a bit.

-- It's wikipedia, so link! -- Kim Bruning 15:42, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So link, but which kind of link? HTML or Wiki? Some MediaWiki: messages use raw HTML syntax, some use parsed Wiki syntax, and some use neither... --cesarb 15:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Of the ones submitted so far, I prefer Kim Bruning's. I think we should attempt to pick one of the ones suggested, and get it moved onto the page... JesseW 18:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

It's way too long for a quick "error" message. Also remember that one of the original complaints was how wordy some of our pages are. Elf | Talk 19:23, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. How about the following:

Your browser is not Unicode-compliant and may have problems handling fancy letters. You're fine with ordinary numbers and letters like A, B, C, etc. (called Latin-1 characters), but if you want to edit a page that contains any special character you will see a hexadecimal number instead of the letter.

-- No need to talk about codes, avoid the overly formal "i.e.", and add a link for "edit a page" (maybe there's a better one than, though). Lupo 15:56, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

How about just

Your browser is not Unicode compliant. This may cause some problems displaying particular letters and symbols. For information on what you might be able to do about this for now right away, (or what you could do more permanently in future), see: wikipedia and unicode compliance

And put a nice detailed story on that separate page. That way we gain both the advantages of a "short message" and the "long detailed explanation".

Something like that?

Kim Bruning 22:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:56, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Had the (generalizing) terms "non-Latin" or "non-European" (characters) ever occurred to anyone? -St|eve 23:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Kim, your version is great. Here is a small tweak:

Your browser is not Unicode compliant. This may cause some problems displaying particular letters and symbols. For information on what you might be able to do about this, see: Wikipedia and Unicode

However, this leaves us with some work to do: We should really update Wikipedia:Unicode to be about why and how Unicode is used. The discussion there is old now, and we can move it. — Sverdrup 23:46, 31 August 2005 (UTC)