User:OwenBlacker/Usability

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Removed RFCxxx template - RFCxxx templates should be used on talk pages eg User Talk:OwenBlacker/Usability, see RFC Instructions. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 05:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Conversation brought together from both user pages

Please don't change the titles of sources when you do your "cleanup" edits. It is very important that accurate information about our references is given. Also, please don't add those ugly commas between cite numbers. I really don't have time to go around cleaning up after your cleanup edits. Everyking 07:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean "changing the titles".
As for the commas, you're the first person to complain about them (and I've been adding them for a long time now). I add them to improve the accessibility of the citations — having no non-link characters between hyperlinks can cause problems for screenreaders. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this point. Sorry. — OwenBlacker 08:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
You don't have a consensus for it. I may be the first one to complain, but that's not a consensus. There's no instruction or agreement anywhere for people to put those commas in, and until I looked at your edits I had virtually never seen them used before. So don't add them to other people's work anymore. Feel free to add them in your own writing if you like, but don't force them on the rest of us.
As for changing titles, you've definitely done this. [1][2] You changed uppercase in titles to lowercase. Stating the names of the sources we use is not a matter of editorial discretion; you should report the name the same way that the source gives the name. Everyking 08:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I disagree completely, on both points. Both the commas and replacing capitalised text with mixed-case text are accessibility issues and using plain text between adjacent links is a WAI guideline, whereas using mixed case makes text much easier to read for people with astigmatisms (including myself).
With regard to "changing" the titles, I'm doing no such thing. Changing the case of the title is not the same as changing the title itself and makes no difference other than making it more readable. Indeed, our policy on citations (WP:CITE) does not insist that case be maintained. In fact, the implication I draw from MOS:TM is that what I am doing is correct, whereas leaving the titles in all-caps is incorrect.
So I'm sorry, but I sha'n't stop doing either. I'm trying to make the Wikipedia a more accessible place (indeed we have a Wikipedia policy to do so; see WP:WAI, as well as a WikiProject WP:USE), so I'm afraid I belive you're wrong and will continue to fix these problems as I have been doing. — OwenBlacker 19:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Well then, I will continue to fix your "fixes" whenever I see them. Everyking 19:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
In that case, I suggest we get some form of arbitration involved. Edit wars aren't helpful and are a waste of both of our time — we're both merely trying to create a better Wikipedia, after all, we just disagree on what is "better".
I'll list the issue on WP:RFC/STYLE so we can get some kind of solution out of it. We each feel the other is wrong and — particularly given the edits in question are ones done automatically — it makes sense to resolve this dispute "properly". I'll copy this whole conversation thread to User:OwenBlacker/Usability, so it's easier for people to comment on it.
In a separate note, though, could you please try to avoid reverting {{fr icon}} back to {{fr}} (and similarly with other language links), as I'm trying to disambiguate the two templates, as is the case with {{de}} and {{de icon}}.
Let's see if we can find some sort of resolution to this disagreement; I'm sure neither of us is intrinsically unreasonable  :o) — OwenBlacker 19:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The above is preserved as an archive of the original discussion. Please do not modify it.

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  • Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., in chapter 15 (Documentation One), p. 537, § 15.104 (Title, or Headline, Capitalization) states "Words printed in full capitals on the title page [of the work being cited] are regularly changed to upper and lowercase." --Gerry Ashton 21:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Per above, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#All caps, and MOS:TM and the naming convention pages that reference it, titles should be standardized.
    What do you mean by the commas issue (an example would be nice ;) Between multiple <ref> tags? That'd be slightly odd, and would probably need further discussion somewhere. --Quiddity 00:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I had not seen that in the MoS, so I suppose I will have to concede that point, although I still loathe the changes to the capitalization because I feel it reduces our accuracy. I'm still going to capitalize source titles accurately, but if Owen wants to go along behind me and change it, I suppose I can't stop him. It would appear, however, that there is little basis for the comma insertions. I feel people make refs complicated enough as it is with templates, and adding the commas just adds more confusing clutter for editors—not to mention it just plain looks ugly. Everyking 04:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Noone has given me an example still, or a confirmation that we are indeed talking about "...sentence.<ref>,<ref>,<ref>" type things.
        But if we are... Having thought about it, and looked at the WAI guideline, I have to say I believe I disagree with adding commas, purely because we have so very many sentences with links directly following each other (eg. "Bob is an American developmental psychologist."). I would suggest that developing some sort of accessibility fix for the ref tags specifically (this is kind of what css is for, after all), would be preferable. They are all going to end up being "corrected" by anyone who wanders by, otherwise. --Quiddity 04:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
        • That's what we're talking about, except he makes the commas float using {{,}}. Everyking 05:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

An example of the commas would be something like this:[1], [2], [3]

  1. ^ A reference
  2. ^ Another reference
  3. ^ A third reference

We could easily use CSS to make the template be to "off-left" them (1, 2). That should be pretty easy to accomplish in the template, though it'd be more difficult to accomplish in the citation functionality itself (which would need to analyse whether the <ref/> was adjacent to another). I don't have any experience of how MediaWiki is written "under the hood", so I don't know whether I could have a stab at writing something myself, though I'd be more than willing to have a stab at it, if someone could point me to the codebase.

You're right, though, in that we have a lot of adjacent links, so I'm more willing to concede on this point (though part of my rationale was that I prefer to see the separation between links and I do note that most scientific publications put a comma between references in a similar manner).

I do think we should define an explicit style guideline on capitalised sources, though. Unlike User:Everyking, I don't feel it reduces our accuracy in the slightest — any more than MOS:TM does. Whilst the commas would better be suited to a technical fix that doesn't involve using a template, I do think this is something we should actively change as a community — not least because the same accessibility issue arises for editors with all-caps references. I'd much prefer this were an issue resolved, so that going against the style rule we are presumably defining in this conversation be actively considered wrong. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 06:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)