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I think I see why. The creator likely didn't want all the lighthouses in a big clump, so they're in alphabetical order, with roughly equal amounts in each section. I reduced the size of the photo, which helped. I could have set it to 50px, but a small bit of whitespace helps, imho. There's always the option of making it collapsible, which I think is an easy change to make. See Template:Protected Areas of Florida for an example. Thoughts? :) --Ebyabe (talk) 16:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ebyabe is very perceptive on all points. Originally, I wanted to actually use groups & lists where necessary to layout these templates across the many states in a geographical manner. My flagship template was Template:Lighthouses of Michigan and if I had taken the time to locate the geography of every lighthouse, I would have began logical divisions (groups - Lower Peninsula, Upper Peninsula, while lists would be probably by quadrants). I think that those groupings are of higher quality to the avg reader than alphabetical order to understand them by geography.
However, it would have greatly slowed me down to do that for every state..I chose to get it into an acceptable form to launch the templates with the notion that rearrangement could be revisited later (hence, alphabetic order). I am hoping that the more local editors could help derive the logical groupings. (What would they be for Florida - southern, central, and northern?). I broke the groups up rather equally like Ebaybe describes above to keep them from clumping. I left lists in to leave the framework for the future redevelopment as well as ergonomics (eye relief in relocation of texts, background color helps) and also because I thought it simply looked better. All of the rows are flush with the edges in my 22 x 16 widescreen monitor (Firefox on Ubuntu Linux) except the last..I haven't viewed today's changes yet.
About collapsing the box: One reason why I left it expanded generally across the states is that there are different editors who operate differently..some will get use out of this box when editing systematically across "their" articles. Personally, I hated using categories to navigate...one click to get to a cat page, and then another for the article or possibly having to go into subcategories could make an article 3 clicks away. An open navbox means it is 1 click away, a closed navbox is 2...not a big difference if you are only editing a couple a day but some editors like Stan (7&6=thirteen) may visit 20 a day systematically moving across articles. I don't know if I'm being clear here but I actually watched how editing is being done across articles (states are sometimes the boundaries for editors) and used a summary of observations about what might be the most functional & useful to editors while retaining value to the average reader. I didn't design for me (I'm a newbie to lighthouses and still wouldn't know much about them if not semi-recruited by Stan). I designed for all of you. I've shared a few of my thoughts in the design process but the most important thing is that it serves you as a useful tool. Whatever works for you is fine with me...but if you chose to collapse the box wait til I load the photos for FL lighthouses tonight (hopefully tonight)...makes it easier to do "drive-by" editing. Cheers, ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 21:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's me, Mister Perceptive. It sounds like a super-villain name, but I use my powers only for good. :)
I understand where you're coming from. When I stubbed the Florida NRHP list, I could have made each one more of an article length, but it would have taken immensely more time. So getting something basic going that can be expanded upon, yo soy comprendez vous. :)
There are already articles for the Florida regions, I think we can use those as a guide for ours. Once that's done, we can see about the advisability of collapsing it. And what photos are you talking about? If you've not before, you should upload them at WikiCommons. Cheers! --Ebyabe (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More USCG photos - 12 by my reckoning (I'm leaving the unmanned scaffolding-types alone). I just got squared away at the Commons and added a handful of USCG photos to NC lights & MI lights last night. I still need to cross check that the photos aren't already available at Commons before uploading.
I was hoping Faye was going to come our way but we weren't so lucky..she didn't drown you did she? Mister Perceptive? I had you pegged for being a hot soccer Mom based on your handle...my eyes pull "babe" out of your handle. 8^D ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 21:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I said on my talk page, my complaint is that on my monitor using Firefox, the lighthouses of each list show as one long line followed by a short line, with two blank lines separating the lists from each other. It looks really clunky. -- Donald Albury21:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And with the latest change, white space between lists isn't so bad, but now only one lighthouse is on the second line for the first list, and only two on the second line for the second list. I think it would be best to not divide into lists and just let the link flow as one block. -- Donald Albury22:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
