Wikipedia talk:Talk page templates/Archive 2005-05-24

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Archive 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.

This is an archive of Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation, created on 24 May 2005 from resolved discussions.

Contents

Featured "icon"

There used to be a "logo" for the featured articles, but this was recently (and, I believe, temporarily) removed from the template to reduce the load on the image servers. It would be good if new designs for Template:Featured could incorporate these images (see the top of Template talk:Featured), even if it might not get put on the live version for a little while (I'm not sure what the current state of the server is for these things). — Matt Crypto 19:30, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here are the images:
— Matt Crypto 19:30, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I also like the "featured stars": in my "ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll" I used all three, plus a fourth that I modified for our purposes. – ClockworkSoul 13:45, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A possible solution - each template takes a parameter (number between 1 and 6, for example) that decides which copy of the image would be used. Wouldn't that reduce server load? Alphax τεχ 05:43, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've made a request to User:Avsa for some reduced size icons. Noisy | Talk 09:03, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Here is user avsa. What do you mean by reduced size icons? you want me to re-upload a scaledown image? I thought that the server only scaled down an image once it was requested, then kept the smaller image on memory, so that it wouldn´t need to resize a]the image for EVERy visitor. That poses a problem, because whenever I contributte with an image I try to upload the bigger size possible (you never know the day wikipedia will need images with a printable resolution - 300dpi). Anyway, if that´s what you want, to reduce the image and reuploaded it you need no other program than wikipedia itself: Just download that image you see on the page and reupload it. Or am I simply misuderstanding everything? thanks--Alexandre Van de Sande 15:38, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is my understanding as well. From a software architecture point of view, it would make little sense to do it any other way. – ClockworkSoul 15:44, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That's great then. Does this address User:JDG's concerns? Noisy | Talk 15:48, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
No I'm afraid it doesn't really address my concerns. Unless I'm very wrong, Avsa's above description of the matter doesn't really address what's going on. For one thing, if you look in your browser's cache after visiting a Talk page that uses his star in a message box that scales it down to 60px you'll see the image has been downloaded at its original dimensions (181 x 197 px). So, for at least the first hit, the Wikipedia server and network pipes have dealt with the full image size. I'm not sure what he meant by "the server only scaled down an image once it was requested, then kept the smaller image on memory". As far as I can tell, the image at full original dimensions is being served, is resized by the client browser according to the markup and subsequent requests are handled by the client-side cache. If Wikipedia servers, through Squid or whatever, are only serving already-resized memory-resident versions of these images used by templates, why would I be seeing fullscale png's in my cache and no reduced-scale png's? Also, on-the-fly resizing methods, whether server-side or client-side, are usually done with a fast but low quality algorithm (as opposed to a high quality resample). We get away with this in this case because the original image is very sharp and reduction to 60px square results in an acceptable looking graphic. But if we listen to the developers warning us about server load from these templates, we would want graphics of about 35px square. On-the-fly resize of this star to 35px would yield a junky looking image. We need images created to look good at 35px, with no software resizing going on. JDG 00:38, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Chances are that the bottleneck with the image servers is in the cache lookup. I'm not intimately familiar with the system, though, so you would really have to ask a developer. – ClockworkSoul 01:37, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comparison

It would be interesting to create a page which showed all the versions of a particular template for comparison. Which would be the most appropriate one to choose, or would it make sense to compare all of them? --Phil | Talk 15:13, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

  • Perhaps this would be something to create once the voting actually begins. – ClockworkSoul 20:37, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • That's what I was thinking - I was going to have a page with the featured and peerreview templates so people can easily compare the themes. This will indeed be best after the submission date has gone. violet/riga (t) 20:41, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just a comment - I like most of the nominations - there are so many nice ones. →Raul654 13:34, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

a few suggestions

Glad to see the competition going. Sorry if it was painful getting here. There are some very nice entries by my lights, including Violet's "Classico".

Have you considered separating voting on the text from voting on physical properties? I know I've been meaning to craft my ideal FA TALK text (and I would also lobby to put this text near the "Save" button on any FA editing page because the people who most need to slow down are exactly those most likely to ignore Talk pages). I'm pretty sure user Blackcats and a few others will be weighing in on the exact wording too. As long as all proposed messages are within about a dozen words of the current message word counts, it shouldn't affect the aesthetic side of the competition.

Another thing-- in the template example pages scattered around in people's user spaces I think it would be best if people throw in at least five blank lines to separate each template. In the recent controversy I think a number of people had a problem not so much with colors, borders, etc.,., but with the way the template actually sat on the Talk page. How was it aligned, did it push all other material off the first screenfull and so on. These things would be easier to judge on the candidate pages if blank lines are used to float each template in some isolation that stands for the Talk page itself.

Lastly, I would encourage people to come up with tiny graphical elements for the templates. I like the star and star points that were being used, but they probably don't scale down too well to real mini-iconic size (the star is a very nice graphic with a faceted multicolored-light-reflections look, unfortunately that sort of detail collapses into a junky look in a severe downsample). It seems good to have the template messages strongly marked off from page text and nothing short of garish table cell colors would achieve this as well as standardized mini-icons (they'll need to be mini due to the server load issue). Since strong cell colors will get almost no votes we'll have to look to graphics to make this at-a-glance distinction. JDG 17:32, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vote

I am going to be away for the vote and may not have time to visit next week, so please would someone register a postal vote on my behalf for

  • "Violet" by violet/riga
  • "Earthy colours" by Talrias (but not the paler version)
  • "Classico" by violet/riga
  • "Death to colorful boxes" by Netoholic (but see comment on the talk page)
  • "ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll" by ClockworkSoul
  • "Cadet Grey II" by Allen3 (in blue and in gold)
  • "Simple" by violet/riga
  • "Obvious" by violet/riga
  • "Simplistic" by ALoan
  • "Tick ToC" by Noisy

and against

  • existing templates
  • "Strong monochrome" by violet/riga
  • "Border free" by Talrias
  • "Monochromat" by Carnildo (ugh - can't see half the text)
  • "Serif" by Zach (just don't like the font)
  • "Cadet Grey" by Allen3
  • "Cadet Grey II" by Allen3 (in grey)
  • "Titlebar" by Allen3
  • "Developed solution" by violet/riga (neither one thing nor another)
  • "Grey Georgia", "Grey Times", "Simplistic Georgia" and "Simplistic Times" by Zach (why prescribe the font?)

-- ALoan (Talk) 21:15, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC) [updated a couple of times]

I also am going to be away next week, so I'll cast my absentee ballot for violet/riga's "Simple" (first choice) and "Obvious" (second choice) and "classico" (third choice). I'd like to cast an explicit "no" vote on Noisy's "Tick ToC" and both of Allen3's "Cadet Grey" designs. --Neutralitytalk 22:22, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Same submission?

As far as I can tell, there appears to be no difference between Netoholic's "Death to colorful boxes" and ALoan's "Simplistic". Am I correct in saying this? Talrias (t | e | c) 23:04, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As stated at the top of Simplistic, the difference is that the headings are in boldface. —Korath (Talk) 23:33, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Both sets of headings are in boldface - hence my query. Talrias (t | e | c) 00:14, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Netoholic's aren't explicitly boldface, though whichever skin you're using might render them that way. Classic doesn't. —Korath (Talk) 01:35, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
Indeed - it depends on which skin you are using - Classic skin displays the following as non-bold:
non-bold example 
the heading is not bold for this one
and this one as bold
bold example 
the heading is bold for this one
HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:37, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Talrias (t | e | c) 09:40, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How are we voting?

I don't see any mention of what voting method we are going to use. I don't know much about voting theory so I don't have any suggestions, and I don't have any serious objections to the kind of voting being done above. Does anyone else? Zach 23:35, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've always been in favor of approval voting. --Carnildo 23:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I vote for approval voting also. Paul August ☎ 04:10, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
I vote for the approval voting. Basically, simply say which ones you like, and the one which has the most people liking it gets to become the replacement (after we've worked on colours and wording). Talrias (t | e | c) 07:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
So what happens if there is a tie? Do we have a run-off? Zzyzx11 | Talk 07:58, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are two options which I favour:

  1. People vote for the ones they like and can vote for as many (or few) as they want to
  2. People support and oppose templates and can vote for as many (or few) as they want to

Being a design contest I don't really like the critical side of the second option, but maybe it is better to point out ones you don't think work very well. violet/riga (t) 08:54, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One of the voting method articles links to a web-site where you can set up votes using a kind of STV system: I'll see if I can find it again. --Phil | Talk 09:25, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
I found a couple:
  • Voting Calculator requires that you collect the votes and feed them to the calculator: a bit more work for us but reasonably flexible
  • Condorcet Internet Voting Service allows you to create a poll:

    Here's how it works. Anyone is allowed to create a new CIVS election, and only authorized voters will know about it. Voters and the election supervisor must have e-mail and web access. When an election is created, voters are sent e-mail informing them that the election is open and giving them a URL where they can rank their choices. Open, public polls may also be created for which voters do not need e-mail access; however, the results of such polls are less trustworthy.

    which sounds great but does involve a fair deal of faff
HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 09:46, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Approval voting with each voter being able to vote once for each candidate; if only one candiadate gets over 75% then choose it; otherwise, a run off between the top n (the top two, or any with over 25% approval). -- ALoan (Talk) 10:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ok, we'll do it as Aloan suggests, with the caveat that voting lasts the standard one week. If a run-off is needed, we'll just run the top 2 for simplicity's sake (again, for one week). →Raul654 23:54, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC) PS - After looking them all over, I think I like Clockwork's Coffee Roll the best. →Raul654 23:54, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I've drafted an example below - will the "conditional support" cause problems, I wonder. violet/riga (t) 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Example vote

This is just an example of the vote layout.

"Violet" by violet/riga

Support

  1. FooUser 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  2. Foo2User 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Conditional support

"Earthy colours" by Talrias

Also partially available in paler pink/red colours.

Support

  1. Foo3User 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Conditional support

  1. If we use the Pale version. Foo4User 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Obvious" by violet/riga

Support

  1. Foo5User 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Conditional support

  1. Use this layout but the colours from ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll. Foo4User 09:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The example vote

Support

  1. Good poll format r3m0t talk 11:12, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have 3 different votes for the 3 different primary elements: format, color, and text? – ClockworkSoul 13:28, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I thought we were chosing the general style now, and that the details (such as the precise text) would be sorted out later? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:34, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yeah that's more of how I saw it – the wording of one submission might not work on another, so it'd be best to decide if any need a rewrite after the competition. violet/riga (t) 13:58, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A 3-way vote would just be too complex. Let's keep it simple. — Matt Crypto 14:11, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right: it may be too much, and the final victors may not integrate well in the end anyway. – ClockworkSoul 16:46, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Voting begins

OK, so I've just started the vote, though I was a little caught out by BST/UTC. I doubt I'll be awake in an hour though, so it should be fine (any submissions within that time can be added no problem). I'll go through the proxy votes listed above and add them in now. violet/riga (t) 23:08, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Old Status

How about if one of the "old status" templates included is a "Previous COTW" one, that sems to fit in with the general idea. I realize (or at least think) there is not a current template like this, but it's just an idea... --Dmcdevit 03:48, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a very good idea. violet/riga (t) 12:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New text proposals

Now that we're nearing a decision on design, I think we should make a considered effort to improve the text of at least the main FA template. I feel strongly that the wording should serve to give users, particularly newish users, pause before they jump in with edits, without outright discouraging them. I feel so strongly because there are now quite a few articles that are truly gems and that represent scads of personhours in achieving just the right wording, balance, detail and thematic progression. A great disservice would be done to the project if the topnotch writers of these articles are alienated by a steady scrambling of their work. They will be "disincentivized" big time and will contribute less or even leave altogether. We certainly don't want that.

I don't know if there should be voting for this. Maybe we can take a swing at an informal consensus on this Talk page and go to voting only if we seem stuck.

Here's my attempt at FA:

"This is a Featured Article. We believe it is one of the best examples of the Wikipedia community's work. Changes should not be made lightly, as you will be altering text and/or a thematic progression that by consensus is already of very high quality. Even so, improvement is always possible, particularly by addition of new or interesting text.

Archived discussion that led to this becoming a featured article should be at the nomination page (may not exist for older articles)."

JDG 16:11, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

voting against

i wish there were a way to vote against the ugly ones.  :-) - Omegatron 23:58, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

There is -- vote for the good-looking ones. That's how approval voting works. --Carnildo 01:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Agh. Too late now. - Omegatron 23:41, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Hey! :P ‐ ClockworkSoul 23:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
I didn't mean yours.  :-) - Omegatron 04:37, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Whoa - what's happening here??

Hey, first we were told Clockwork's template was the winner. Now appears a calculation that apparently will result in a runoff. This is not good. I diasgree with the method of calculation. Had I known this was the way it would be tallied, I would have deleted all my votes other than the one for Clockwork.. At this point we should ask all multiple voters to pick just one template and see if anyone has 75% after that. JDG 00:59, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. Violet/Riga was a bit previous in her calculations, and the decision doesn't meet the criteria specified before the competition. The voting criteria for a run-off weren't specified before-hand, so your idea of selecting the top scorers and going to a single-vote decider seems good. Noisy | Talk 01:07, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
It really depends on whether the tallier (in this case Violet) chooses whether to count "conditional votes" whose conditions were not met. – ClockworkSoul 01:44, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, looking at the History on the project page it's clear this is not Violet's tally. It's Noisy's... This is why I sorta was nudging Raul to sorta be the MC here. I knew having contestants also serving as supervising admins would lead to this sort of thing. Oh well, I'm for just declaring Clockwork the winner, but who am I? JDG 05:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Surely we have consensus here? Votes serve a purpose of indicating consensus, and we make decisions based on consensus. I don't see it being worth the effort to go through the formality of a run-off. — Matt Crypto 02:08, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
No doubt I'm to be considered biased, but I have to agree. The top two runners up were ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll and Noisy's templates where "pretty much everything stolen from ClockworkSoul's efforts". The former received between 210% and 247% of the votes of the latter (depending on how the votes are counted). – ClockworkSoul 03:24, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
It's quote obvious that Coffee Scroll won the concensus... 70% of the vote and more than double the number of votes than the second place getter seem like a pretty healthy majority to me. I think it is unfair on ClockworkSoul to have any further voting or vote counting. plattopustalk 05:15, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
Just to jump on board - I too agree with the above. I see no need for a runoff. Does anyone disagree, or can we just skip this step as quite unnecessary? →Raul654 05:23, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. These rules were sloppy from the beginning (how exactly do you arrive at a clear percentage of votes when multiple votes per voter are allowed?). In most real world votes any candidate with a plurality (>50%) makes a runoff unnecessary. Coffee Role obviously has the consensus. Without further objection so ordered. JDG 05:35, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
It may not be the 75% specified in the original proposal, but it sure looks like we've got a winner. --Carnildo 05:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not exactly happy that Noisy has come along and messed around with things just because he didn't win. I too would've thought it obvious which the winner was. If he wants to be picky about the wording then the "top candidates" in the run-off consist of whoever I choose, me being the person that's organised this whole thing. I therefore choose a run-off between Coffee Roll and nothing else.

Second way of looking at it: My calculations show there to be 55 voters for standardisation and 5 against. That shows a clear majority for doing this and then votes can be counted, giving Coffee Roll 76% and its nearest rival at just under 31%.

Third way of looking at it: It's just blatantly obvious that Coffee Roll has won.

Noisy: I'm sorry you didn't win, and thanks for your submission, but to change things around after I'd organised it all (and without any discussion) is quite rude. violet/riga (t) 07:51, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Blame the voting procedure

I agree that the overwhelming consensus is that Coffee Roll won, and the second vote should be dropped simply because nobody wants to hold it. However, Noisy shouldn't be blamed for the messy outcome - that's the fault of the people who decided on the voting procedure. He especially shouldn't be blamed for thinking his template was still in the running, because according to the procedure, it was. He even went to the effort of tallying the votes (though with a bit of a misinterpretation of approval voting, when he made a column for percentage of votes instead of percentage of voters), and for that contribution you call him "rude".

Violet's "first way" is surprisingly arrogant, and the "second way" is another misinterpretation of approval voting. None of the arguments put you in any position to yell at Noisy. By the comments above, it seems that editors clearly decided there would be a runoff between the top two, assumed to mean the two that got the most votes, if one didn't achieve support from 75% of voters. None of them did. The voters have only now reversed that decision by an overwhelming consensus.

Why does Wikipedia inspire people to make up voting procedures with bizarre conditions? This seems a lot like what happened to the big huge Wikipedia amendment that 100 people with gazillions of edits were supposed to vote on, too. This vote should have used just approval voting. No 75% minimum, no runoff, no problem.

Or better yet, just skip the vote and look for consensus. That would be way better than holding a flawed vote and then falling back on consensus.

RSpeer 03:07, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that the voting procedure was pretty straightforward: approval voting to select the most popular option. If there was more than one option with high support, or if there was only moderate support for a number of options, there would have been a runoff. --Carnildo 03:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Rspeer is very right in my book. Noisy would have been perfectly within rights to insist on the runoff, given the stated voting rules. He was a good guy to let it drop and still has to endure a tongue lashing, apparently because he had the temerity to actually tally the vote and assign percentages when the organizer of the contest didn't do so... However, I don't think informal consensus would have done the trick. There have been too many instances of come-from-behind wins in normal voting (for instance, the big logo contest of last year). An informal chat fest would always leave the feeling that the tide may have been about to turn, so you need the cutoff and tally of a vote. It seems a more detailed version of approval voting could really be satisfactory, but I'm not up to it at the moment. Just to have something to refer back to I'll write what I think the core of it should be: Contestant with over 65% of all votes is immediate winner; Contestant with over 50% of all votes with nearest contestant under 38% is immediate winner; All other situations, all contestants with >25% of all votes go to a runoff (note "all votes", not "all voters"-- this would need some work to really be explicable under multiple-votes-per voter...a better scheme might involve allowing a max. of 3 votes per voter, his/her "prim" vote giving 3 points, "sec" giving 2, "tert" giving 1, then simple addition gives winner). JDG 04:19, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Rspeer was right. "Why does Wikipedia inspire people to make up voting procedures with bizarre conditions?". Your proposed system bears little resemblance to approval voting, and manages to eliminate all the advantages of using approval voting. --Carnildo 05:47, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
You seem to think the approval voting held here was straight up and effective. So why did we have all this confusion and recrimination at the end? If approval voting really is simple and effective, then it wasn't implemented correctly here. How would you have implemented it (that is, how would you have described the rules and tally methods beforehand and how would you have published the results and declarations of winner or runoff afterward)? Be specific. JDG 14:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
I think my comments to Noisy sufficiently deal with all of this. And I didn't really give him a "tongue-lashing", just expressed the reasons why I think that what he did was wrong. violet/riga (t) 11:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
In what was he wrong? I've received a private communication from Noisy about all this and he's extremely upset with how he was treated. Were you mad because he edited the results page? But that page is freely editable. Are you mad because he tallied the winners? Why didn't you do the tally? JDG 14:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
I went through and announced the results, going so far as to inform ClockworkSoul of his victory and Noisy of being the runner-up. He then came and edited the announcement without any attempts at discussion either here or at my talk page. Coffee Roll is the blatant winner and to change things around like that isn't really on. I didn't tally the results publicly because there wasn't really a need – the votes page itself showed the results and then some. If Noisy is upset about any of this then by all means he can come and discuss it with me, but as far as I'm concerned that stage of WP:TS has concluded. violet/riga (t) 14:45, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Taken from main page

The vote is complete as of 23:59 UTC 01MAY05. There were 183 votes cast by 60 voters. Seven designs achieved over 5% of the votes cast (15% voter approval), but no single design achieved the 75% mandated. The results are shown below.

Submission Votes for % of
votes cast		 % of
voters
"Violet" 7 3.82 11.67
"Earthy colours" 6 3.28 10.00
"Earthy colours (paler pink/red colours)" 0 0.00 0.00
"Strong monochrome" 10 5.46 16.67
"Classico" 10 5.46 16.67
"Border free" 5 2.73 6.33
"Death to colorful boxes" 4 2.19 6.67
"Monochromat" 0 0.00 0.00
"Serif" 4 2.19 6.67
"ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll" 42 22.95 70.00
"Cadet Grey" 6 3.28 10.00
"Cadet Grey II" 3 1.64 5.00
"Cadet Grey II (blue)" 8 4.37 13.33
"Cadet Grey II (gold)" 2 1.09 3.33
"Obvious" 16 8.74 26.67
"Simple" 13 7.10 21.67
"Titlebar" 7 3.83 11.67
"Developed solution" 12 6.56 20.00
"Simplistic" 3 1.64 5.00
"Tick ToC" 20 10.93 33.33
"Grey Georgia" 0 0.00 0.00
"Grey Times" 0 0.00 0.00
"Simplistic Georgia" 0 0.00 0.00
"Simplistic Times" 0 0.00 0.00
None of the above 5 2.73 8.33


Whoa, I disagree with this method of calculation. If I'd known it would be counted like this I would've voted only for Clockwork... Seems like these numbers can be munged in several ways. Give us a break and find a way that gives it to CoffeRoll, the clear winner. JDG 01:13, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
It's here, but there's also a link at the top of the page ("A vote"). I'll add a plainer link to help us in the upcoming resolution. – ClockworkSoul 01:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I notice that you decided to count "conditional votes" whose condition was not met. – ClockworkSoul 01:42, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Switchover

I've gone ahead and switched over all the major templates. I think the result is damn good looking. See talk:Charles Ives for an example. →Raul654 07:49, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

You missed out all the categories. I'm adding them in now. I think I've done them all (I went through your past contributions) - I've only readded categories, if none existed I've done nothing. Talrias (t | e | c) 08:08, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Damn good looking I agree. Thanks to Violet who got the standardization movement going and to Clockwork for bringing together a lot of good ideas into one template. JDG 16:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Gee, I finally went and did something right for a change! Imagine that! – ClockworkSoul 16:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

So, what did I win? ;) – ClockworkSoul 17:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Results

For the sake of completeness, here's the results. It's clear from this that ClockworkSoul's design has a large margin between it and the next - 70% compared to 30%. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Voters:

  1. ABCD
  2. Allen3
  3. Aloan
  4. Alphax
  5. Andre
  6. Bevo
  7. Bishonen
  8. Bratsche
  9. BrokenSegue
  10. Burgundavia
  11. Carnildo
  12. Circeus
  13. ClockworkSoul
  14. Conti
  15. Dan
  16. deathphoenix
  17. Dmcdevit
  18. DMLeach
  19. Dystopos
  20. Evil Monkey
  21. Greg Robson
  22. Grunt
  23. Guy M
  24. jdb
  25. JDG
  26. John Fader
  27. Joyous
  28. JYolkowski
  29. JuntungWu
  30. JRM
  31. Korath
  32. Lochaber
  33. Localhost
  34. Matt Crypto
  35. mattfast1
  36. merovingian
  37. MGM
  38. Neutrality
  39. Noisy
  40. Oleg Alexandrov
  41. Paul August
  42. Phil
  43. plattopus
  44. Radiant
  45. Raul654
  46. remot
  47. R. S. Shaw
  48. sean k
  49. shoecream
  50. SimonP
  51. Spangineer
  52. Talrias
  53. thames
  54. Thryduulf
  55. Thue
  56. Tomhab
  57. Violetriga
  58. Zeerus
  59. Zscout370
  60. Zzyxz11
Design No. of voters  % of voters
"Violet" 7 12
"Earthy colours" 6 10
"Strong monochrome" 9 [1] 15
"Classico" 10 17
"Border free" 5 [2] 8
"Death to colourful boxes" 4 7
"Serif" 3 5
"Coffee Roll" 42 70
"Cadet Grey" 6 10
"Cadet Grey II" 3 5
"Cadet Grey II (blue)" 7 [3] 12
"Cadet Grey II (gold)" 2 3
"Obvious" 16 27
"Simple" 13 22
"Titlebar" 7 12
"Developed solution" 12 20
"Simplistic" 3 5
"Tic Toc" 18 [4] 30
Status quo 5 8
  1. ^  MGM's vote not counted as condition not met.
  2. ^  MGM's vote counted as this would be done (see note on design page).
  3. ^  Bishonen's vote counted, as condition not relevant; Carnildo's vote not as condition not met.
  4. ^  Talrias', violetriga's vote not counted as condition not met. MGM's vote counted.

From main page

Comments and suggestions

Two comments:

  1. On the featured article template, community consensus has been anthromorphised. Perhaps it should be reworded to "as the Wikipedia community, through consensus, has identified it as one of the best articles produced."
  2. The survived VfD says "This has article" - redundant word "has".

Good job! Talrias (t | e | c) 23:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Heya, Talrias. Thanks for the observations and the kind words. I fixed the extraneous "has" that you noticed, but I'm going to listen for a few days before I propose a new wording on any templates. – ClockworkSoul 00:19, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Congrats, Clockwork. Only change I would make would be a very slight paling of the cell bgcolor. It's a totally subjective thing of course, but I think it goes a way toward staying in harmony with the monobook stylings while still demarcing the template from random Talk page stuff. So, I'd change the current

#F8EABA to #FFFFBF

Of course, I think we're going to have to really thresh out the wording of the main FA template. If I understood Talrias correctly, this will be done after the new design is live? JDG 23:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

As this is the standardisation page I think it would be inadvisable to discuss specific wordings here. Furthermore there is already some discussion about this topic at individual template talk pages and we should look at, and expand, those. violet/riga (t) 23:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Why would we continue to discuss on scattered pages of proposed templates no longer in the running? Talrias, are you a sort of organizer here? If so, please tell us where and when to discuss wording. JDG 00:27, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
It's me that's organised it. The discussion should take place at, for example, {{featured}} once (now) the scheme is implemented, not the development/design pages of those articles in peoples' user space. As you are aware there are already discussions at the talk pages of those templates and we should continue them. The wording of one template isn't really a "standardisation" issue, hence me looking at not holding the discussion here. violet/riga (t) 07:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I think a good reason to have the discussion here is that now it has been changed, there will be lots of people looking at this page. So I propose discussing it on the template talk page but having a clear link from here to where it should be discussed. Talrias (t | e | c) 08:25, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
See the new section above. violet/riga (t) 08:22, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
My bedroom was that exact shade of canary yellow when I was a very little Clockwork. If I remember correctly, it had puppies and kitties painted on it too. :) I'm very open to working on the wording, but I want to wait a day or two for some more proposals to come in before I update it. – ClockworkSoul 00:24, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like a nice room. When I was a tiny JDG my room was done up in a brilliant jungle scheme. Not a good idea. My dreams are still neon bright... Clockwork, don't take this wrong, but I wouldn't say it's a question of your being open to changed wording. It was understood from the start that the voting was on aesthetic formatting and that new text would be a separate process, including a vote if necessary. I hope it's not necessary, but I feel new wording is at least as important as new design, and I hope Talrias or whoever sets up a clear, well-attended place for discussion....Hmm, re-reading Clockwork's above comment, are you saying my proposed new color looks "Canary yellow" to you? On my screen it just looks like a little more milk has been poured into the coffee, which is what I intended. But I'm on a cheapish laptop LCD monitor at the moment. JDG 00:34, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I would not want to drink that coffee. --Dmcdevit 00:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC) (it's yellow)
My screen must be tricking me. Could one of you come up with a "Lite Coffee" color? JDG 01:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I like the background colour as it is now. It does seem like a "Lite Coffee" colour to me. Perhaps #F8EECC seems better, though? Ben Babcock 01:20, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I also voted with this understanding. I hope now we can come to a consensus on wording. I don't think wording is so subjective as the design, so a vote on it shouldn't be necessary. See my comment above for where I think we should discuss it. Talrias (t | e | c) 08:18, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that we'll have any real difficulty with the wording. We all seem to be thinking along the same lines. I'll be able to work on it with you all tonight. At the moment, it's 5:17 am EST, and I'm slaving away on a research paper due at 11 am. Speaking of coffee... – ClockworkSoul 09:17, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm also curious about the creation of an additional template. It strikes me that we need a "previous COTW" template to stay on the page for posterity, just like the facfailed, and peer review and that kind of thing. Just to further document it's development. Currently there's no template at all (and thus no wording). --Dmcdevit 00:38, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Create one and then discuss it at WP:COTW – I think it'd get support, and I certainly think it's a good idea. violet/riga (t) 07:58, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't like the coffee color, either.
Featured article candidate star This article is a current featured article candidate. A featured article should exemplify Wikipedia's very best work, and is therefore expected to meet several criteria. Please feel free to leave comments on its nomination sub-page.
Featured article candidate star This article is a current featured article candidate. A featured article should exemplify Wikipedia's very best work, and is therefore expected to meet several criteria. Please feel free to leave comments on its nomination sub-page.

Eh. The yellow is only very slightly different, but I think it goes a little better with the monobook grays and blues. - Omegatron 03:29, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • It's more than very slightly different. It's the color of sulfur, and I don't think that it's very attractive... :/ – ClockworkSoul 03:36, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    Actually, sulfur () is more of a #D3D301, according to the GIMP. I think it's kind of pretty, but not as a color for templates... - Omegatron 04:41, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • On my laptop's LCD, the two colors are very similar, both a light tan. On my desktop's CRT monitor, #FFFFBF is yellow, while the original color is a "coffee with cream" color. --Carnildo 05:06, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The colors above seem a bit strong. How about toning it down to something like ece8c9, like with Template:Oldpeerreview. -SV|t 14:12, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I just don't think "coffee with cream" goes with the blues and grays we have everywhere else. Then again, maybe it's just because I don't like coffee... - Omegatron 19:41, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

It goes quite well with the yellows and whites I see. Not everyone uses the Monobook skin. --Carnildo 20:56, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
So the rest of us have to suffer? I am outraged. I will not stand for this prejudice against the color of my skin! - Omegatron 22:36, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Other templates

{{TrollWarning}}, {{Cleanup taskforce notice}}, {{Cleanup taskforce closed}} and {{Cleanup taskforce 1911}} have since ben redone to follow this. Would we want to eventually have ALL the talk page templates to follow these standards? Circeus 17:58, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Uniformity never hurts... but a suggestion for {{TrollWarning}}: maybe the "comment" exclamation mark image would look better than the hand? plattopustalk 18:21, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Cell spacing: 5 pixels or 3 pixels?

There is a discrepancy between what it says here on cell spacing (5px) and what is actually implemented in template:standard template style (3px). Wim van Dorst 08:57, 2005 May 13 (UTC).

A choice of sizes

Regarding Wikipedia:Template standardisation/Sizes - giving both excessivists and minimalists represenation, while still keeping standardization.

Sounds like a good idea. Especially the extreme minimalist one :). I do think we should decide on one standard template and stick with that.Radiant_* 19:37, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

By "one standard template do you mean 'one size, and make it a large'? :) Thats just not going to work - the process bias tendency for bloat is too strong. Better to offer a simple choice - the larger might be appropriate for the first hour or so, and after that nobody wants to see it - use the smaller one. Whats wrong with choice? -05:18, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

This entire discussion should be move to Template talk:Tfd. That is what talk pages are for. -- Netoholic @ 20:37, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

No, it should not - It should be at Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation. We really have a problem with consolidated talk issues. -SV|t 05:18, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
Above copied from Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation/Sizes


On the article page (see Wikipedia:Template standardisation#Choices), User:Stevertigo has said that I proposed having a choice of sizes for templates (at Template talk:Tfd#either/or?). That is a misinterpretation of what I said there. Here is the start of what I said:

"Must this be an either one or the other situation? Is there a chance that this group of editors could come up with a golden mean between the too short and too colorful version by Stevertigo, and the too large and wordy version that it had replaced?"

I was only commenting on Template:tfd, which I thought was verbose and awkwardly worded, but also thought that Stevertigo's revision was too short and uninformative. I do think, however, that there are quite a few other templates that need a good copy editing for length and clarity, but I do not endorse any of the current "minimalist" examples that Stevertigo has put forth, nor do I, at the moment, see a reason for having a choice of templates for doing the same task. BlankVerse ∅ 10:41, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

BV: "nor do I, at the moment, see a reason for having a choice of templates for doing the same task." Yes, of course:

* Template:Delete
* Template:Deletebecause
* Template:Deleteagain
* Template:Nonsense
* Wikipedia:Speedy deletions
* Wikipedia:Template messages/All
* Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion
* Category:Redundant images
* Category:Image pages with missing or corrupt images

-SV|t 17:50, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Huh? The latter five aren't actually templates. I could see some point in removing Template:Delete and Template:Deleteagain, though. Particularly the former. I'll give some thought to TFD'ing them. Radiant_* 11:43, May 20, 2005 (UTC)