MediaWiki talk:Editingold/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Lost-removed-reverted 2 Proposed changes 2.1 Design 2.2 Colours 2.3 Wording 3 Proposed changes discussion 3.1 Layouts 3.2 Wording 3.3 Discussion: Messagebox colors 3.4 Different take 4 Proposed 3RR text 5 And then.... 6 Current

Lost-removed-reverted

I only just noticed that "...any changes made since this revision will be lost" was changed to "...any changes made since this revision will be removed" Perhaps it should instead be "...any changes made since this revision will be reverted"? 'Reverted' is really what we're trying to say here; and often if people are editing an old version, it's because they want to revert, so it can't hurt to provide them a link to the relevent policy page. --Aquillion 07:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed changes

Design

CURRENT

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#1

Out of Date Revision

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version.

#2

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#3

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#4

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#5

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version.

#6

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#7

NOTICE: You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, newer changes will be reverted.

Colours

1) messagebox

Test message

2) messagebox.merge

Test message

3) messagebox.cleanup

Test message

4) messagebox.standard-talk

Test message

5) messagebox (customized)

Test message

Wording

(CURRENT)

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

#1

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version. If you revert with good cause, this is what could happen to you.

#2

WARNING: You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this version will be removed.

Proposed changes discussion

Layouts

Owch: I appreciate the sentiment behind the new version, but it is eye-bleedingly hideous. Please just use text and an underline and bold or something. Graphics are one of the worst possible ways to get a message across without stuffing it in my face every time I have to fix a history. -Splash^talk 00:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted, not because I disagree with making the message more prominent, but rather because there was outcry (especially in #wikipedia-en) about the new format. Let's start a discussion of a new format here; I'll run and try to put something more aesthetic together. — Essjay · Talk 02:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

How about something like:

Out of Date Revision

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version.

We can fiddle with the details (what colors, which words should be bold, etc.) but is the basic idea good? — Essjay · Talk 02:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to propose this:

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version. If you revert with good cause, this is what could happen to you.

Might cut down on revert warring. -- — Essjay · Talk 02:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC) I was only kidding when I added this, it is quite obviously not a serious contender. I was just trying to bring a little levity to a situation that could spin downward (i.e., reverting between versions). -- — Essjay · Talk 06:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This is nothing more than a standard message box, with the background color and warning graphic copied directly from Template:WoW (and the same background color is used in Template:Impostor and others). So if you consider it eye-bleedingly hideous, well, you have quite a few standard templates all over Wikipedia that you'd need to change.

I'm not inventing anything, but simply adhering to existing standards. If you want those standards changed globally, go ahead and propose to do so, but for now, why not stick to the existing Wikipedia standard for warning messageboxes.

The current plain text message is far too easy to miss. On a couple of occasions, I have clicked on an old diff and started editing the page and saved it, missing the "out-of-date" message, and ended up reverting a bunch of changes. This happened just yesterday in an AfD vote, where I got accused of reverting other people's votes. An important warning message needs to use a warning messagebox, not just a plain text message; this is the standard used elsewhere on Wikipedia. -- Curps 04:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the text, I just copied it word-for-word from the previous plain text message. If you want to fiddle with the wording, I don't particularly care, but that's a separate issue. I just want to make absolutely sure the box itself can't be missed, and reusing standard components and colors used elsewhere in Wikipedia seemed like the logical choice for consistency. -- Curps 04:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, I understand why it was done. On the other hand, I don't have to look at {WoW} pages every day, nor the other templates. Maybe I dislike it because it was vertically large. Try spreading it out horizontally, but giving it a triangle and background; that would actually be more in keeping with talk-page boxes. -Splash^talk 04:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ouch this thing is ugly. Please change it to something smaller–

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

In the name of all things (un)holy, I implore someone to change it to this or the old warning. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Titoxd try this out--

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

You might also try getting rid of the <br /> to allow wordwrapping to take over. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

New box I agree with OWCH..this new huge box is an eyesore. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 04:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of my smaller proposal above (well, smaller vertically anyways)? —Locke Cole • t • c 04:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Somewhat better, the current verions with the 65% setting is leaving a large ammount of white space (pink space) in the right of the template. Personally I prefer the phrase ""You are editing a prior version" to "You are editing an out-of-date revision" as well. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, that wording is okay with me as well. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

New padding helps, thanks! xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:37, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Which browser are you using BTW and at what resolution (and is the browser maximized, if not, how large do you have it?), would help with trying to figure out something that looks good. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 05:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Consensus: Please obtain consensus before editing important MediaWiki messages; there's no rush to implement the latest proposal. The last version of the message is duplicated below. // Pathoschild 05:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be removed.

Why are you saying this to me? I haven't touched the message. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The comment was addressed to everyone concerned, not just you. :) // Pathoschild 06:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I added some sections for the various suggestions so far above, please add more if you have any. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I like proposal #1 best. I'd personally make it much smaller, though; reduce the font size and padding, change the title to an inline bolded text. My proposal:

This is an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, all changes made since this revision will be removed. See Wikipedia:Revert for more information on reverting to a previous version.

// Pathoschild 06:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Added as #6 above xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this one is that it is not visible enough (which is the whole reason the notice is being changed). Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

My preference is for #2 or #3 (I'd like to hear if #3 looks alright to Xaosflux tho, heh; does it need more padding?). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The (now) version #4 above looks good to me for layout on the screen (not sure about color scheme though) I tried it at a few resolutions as well. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I updated my message above since they got renumbered. #4 has too much space around the icon IMO (and it causes the word wrapping to be funky). Agreed on the colors, I was just trying to get away from using the talk page colors Curps went with originally. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Number 3 above looks ok up to 1024x768, but then gets offcentered (I'm usually set to at least 1280x1024, but 1024x768 is proablly more standard to editors, in which case #3 looks better). Oddly, #2 looks centered in all my resolutions. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the CSS width to "auto" for #3, #4 and #6. Let me know if that helps at all (I think it did). Also, we agree the color is probably bad, but otherwise the layout is ok? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That fixed the centering at all resolutions, #2,3,4,6 are all inline. I now like #3 or #6 the best (assuming there are still diferances and its not all an optical illusion!) xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

No, no optical illusion. #6 has padding (.75em) to the left and right of the icon, #3 has the default spacing I believe (or .5em between the icon and the text, but no extra spacing between the icon and the left border). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Editors are rather unlikely to revert acidentally, and the red themes are strongly suggestive of emergencies, errors, or final warnings. The message should be visible, but not excessively so. Proposals #1 and #5 are both highly visible and stand out well from the surrounding page; they can hardly be missed, without being a black hole for the viewer's attention. // Pathoschild 06:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The argument made by Curps (at least in the message history; sorry, but this needs to be WAY more prominent, the current version is way too easy to miss. Eg, click on an older diff, click on "edit this page", and accidentally save an older version) was that the older message didn't stand out, and IMO #1 and #5 don't stand out very well and are about as likely to be missed as the previous warning message (currently listed as "Current"). —Locke Cole • t • c 07:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposals one and five aren't very likely to be missed; their colours contrasts with the background colour without drawing undue attention, they're surrounded by thick dark borders, they contain the only bold text visible on the screen after the header itself, and they push down the edit box several line-heights. If we go with the ultra-high-contrast themes, there's really no point whatsoever in emphasis any longer; what meaning do the flashy warning designs have if they'd blend right in with the cautionary messages? Reverting is not a drastic mistake; it can be undone at will. We might as well have a huge warning template about accidentally adding spelling mistakes. // Pathoschild 07:19, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Wording

Does anyone else want to discuss changing the verbiage on this template? I think revision is a little esoteric for new editors. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Would "version" in place of "revision" work? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I am more in favor of version then revision, it is a more universal term; as for out of date this could be referencing a one min old article, or a recently vandalized version as well, is out of date the best term as well? xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 06:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the other suggestion of prior (instead of out-of-date) would work. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion: Messagebox colors

These are the standard CSS messagebox classes as defined at MediaWiki:Common.css. They may be overridden by your skin's CSS, or by your user CSS. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally prefer proposal #1. For one, it's not excessively obvious: it's a message, not an error, an emergency, or a warning. Further, the chosen style makes more sense, since it's a message (not a merge or cleanup message, nor a standard talk template). Ad hoc use of the styles simply for their visual appeal defeats the purpose of stylesheets in the first place, since it goes against the whole point of standardisation. // Pathoschild 07:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's the problem with why we're not seeing eye to eye on this. The problem is, it is a warning and should be displayed as such. In so far as the modified style, assuming we can agree upon a color/format for warning boxes, I'm going to lobby to get it included as "messagebox.warning" in MediaWiki:Common.css so we can standardize on it. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, here's how #6 (under images) looks with the colours/#5 (I've also modified it to use "prior" and "version" as above)--

WARNING: You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this version will be removed.

—Locke Cole • t • c 07:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is really getting fragmented. These arguments are presented under 'Layouts', but placed here again for the sake of later reference. Proposals one and five aren't very likely to be missed; their colours contrasts with the background colour without drawing undue attention, they're surrounded by thick dark borders, they contain the only bold text visible on the screen after the header itself, and they push down the edit box several line-heights. If we go with the ultra-high-contrast themes, there's really no point whatsoever in emphasis any longer; what meaning do the flashy warning designs have if they'd blend right in with the cautionary messages? Reverting is not a drastic mistake; it can be undone at will. We might as well have a huge warning template about accidentally adding spelling mistakes. // Pathoschild 07:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal #1 (under images) suffers from being too large (more specifically, too tall). Proposal #5 is the correct size, real estate-wise, but the text is small and the colors lend themselves to being missed rather easily (at least in monobook). I've offered up some compromises, and am willing to discuss this matter further, but I really think a reddish tint and the icon are necessary to make it difficult to miss. (And as above, I'd like to standardize on a "messagebox.warning" CSS style and have it included in MediaWiki:Common.css). —Locke Cole • t • c 07:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Different take

These are more or less modeled after the "You have new messages" style, with colors indicative of a warning/potential error (red).

You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this version will be removed (see Reverting).

You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this version will be removed (see Reverting).

If we can tighten up the wording, it might even look nice at sub-1024x768 resolutions (as is, the bold version (top) just barely fits at 1024x768). We could lose the "(see Reverting)" bit if we linked Wikipedia:Reverting to "prior version".. ? The biggest change here is that it only takes up a single line, and loses the icon. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm obviously in the minority, so I'll do my best to address everyone's concerns. I disagree that reverting is drastic enough to need a blaring red warning, but there are more subtle ways to get attention. My proposal below does away with the red background, but adopts bigger text, bold, and an attention-grabbing red outline. The white background assures the user that although they should be cautious, they aren't about to do something critically dangerous. It also incorporates the Wikipedia:Revert wikilink in the text, per Locke Cole's comment above.

// Pathoschild 01:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of low resolutions, but I understand the need, this box will fit on one line at 800x600, with room for 4-7 more characters. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 01:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, newer changes will be reverted.

At higher resolutions it has a lot of pink space to the right again though, perhaps centering? xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 01:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This version uses just about all the characters you can get without going in to multiple lines on 800x600, while still drawing attention:

NOTICE: You are editing a prior version of this page. If you save it, newer changes will be reverted.

(added as #7 above)xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 02:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's my proposal (which is actually closer to my original intent with this "different take"; making it in a style similar to the message box you get when you have a new talk page message)--

The reason I prefer a background color instead of something more subtle is, again, that I think this is an important notice and not something we want to hide from the user or make harder to see. The red/pink bar is something that you won't even have to read once you've seen it because you'll instantly know what it means. Unlike the user message notice, the colors here are more muted as well (the user message having an almost pure orange background with a darker shade border). Oh, and sorry for missing out on the discussion here. :( —Locke Cole • t • c 08:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed 3RR text

Proposed addition: If you are reverting an article, please be aware of the three revert rule.

- Evil saltine 23:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. --TantalumTelluride 05:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's necessary, especially considering this is a warning for when people may be accidentally editing an older version, not something to stop revert warriors from continuing their crusade (and besides, if any of the proposed language above is used, we'll be linking to Wikipedia:Revert, which has a section noting the harms of edit warring as well as linking to 3RR). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And then....

Current

We got a bunch of work done on suggestions, but then this went stale, Can we narrow this down to a few canidates and perhaps do a straw poll? xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 01:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. FWIW, this would be my candidate:

The other larger ones I worked on earlier, while nice, are also larger. =) I think it would be better to keep this notice small, but difficult to miss (hence the background color). I'm willing to discuss lighter shades of red/pink, so long as they still stand out against the default background color used in Monobook. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This version seems to have gotten some of the best response so far, I'm going to link this up to VP for community feedback for a few days. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 03:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Posted up at WP:VP. For new editors to this discussion, Archive 1 above has many of the other proposed ideas. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 03:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• It might just be my monitor (or my eyes...), but I have to look twice to distinguish that pink colour from the regular background. --Colle||Talk-- 03:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Which skin are you using? In Monobook it's mostly just a reddish shade of the default (light blue) background color. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm using monobook as well, it could just be me. It seems to be more pale than the default blue. --Colle||Talk-- 03:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

That said, the blue colour doesn't exactly grab your attention either.--Colle||Talk-- 03:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

True, how about this? –

(As a side note, I've modified the HTML a bit for both messages; apparently there was an issue with using the "usermessage" CSS class directly, so I've basically copied the CSS directly into the DIV style). —Locke Cole • t • c 04:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

That brighter version looks better, and will probally stand out better on dim monitors. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel like a retard for asking, heh, but are you referring to the one directly above that I posted today? Or the one at the top of the page from a few weeks back? (I should probably start naming these, like "A", "B", "C", etc). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I was referring the the latest one. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 23:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

How about adding the warning graphic:

I also made these changes: 1) start the second sentence on the second line, just for general formatting reasons, and to make it stand out just a bit more 2) yellow background 3) changed "reverted" to italicized "destroyed" (more likely to get a person's attention and emphasize the seriousness of the act). However, these three minor changes are not of importance, the main think I am saying is, why not add the warning graphic? Herostratus 13:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Ultimately I ditched using images because I wanted to keep this reasonably unobtrusive (see the archive for some other ideas that included images). I feel that the user-message-style bar is thick enough to be difficult to miss (as it covers almost the entire screen width-wise). If you haven't perused the archive yet, I'd give it a look-see (it's not too big). —Locke Cole • t • c 13:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

"Destroyed" sounds permanent. The edits can always be found in the article history. And I think it's unnecessary to make such a bright, attention-grabbing box for such a common operation (reverting); that will just make other important boxes easier to overlook. I support the red "removed" one, if anything. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)