User:Ubzerver/sandbox

Should animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page, be automatic, optional or prohibited?

Terminology

Automatic: This is the status quo. If an animation or video file has been posted to the Main Page, it is loaded and played by default, whenever the page is opened. The user has no control over this process.

Optional: Only still images would be loaded and displayed by default. If animation or video is available for one of those images, the user would be asked whether he would like to load and view that animation or video. The user interface for controlling this process should be discussed only if a consensus in favor of this option emerges.

Prohibited: Only still images would ever appear on the Main Page. An animation or video file would never be accepted.

Note: The picture for the "In the news" section of the Main Page is transcluded to the "Topics in the news" section of the Current Events Portal. Consequently, the policy concerning the handling of animation and video on the Main Page would apply to the Current Events Portal as well.

Organization

Most of the discussion to date has been off topic. Therefore, as permitted under Talk page guidelines, Editing others' comments, I have begun to move all of the off-topic content to separate subsections or appropriate User Talk pages. This is a big job; it will take me several days. Ubzerver (talk) 10:37, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I completed most of the relocating of material to other places within this section, and I fixed up most of the threading. This discussion is now fit to read. Ubzerver (talk) 08:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

I wrote the Terminology subsection and finished fixing up the threading. This discussion is now ready to receive new comments. Ubzerver (talk) 10:38, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I merged the contents of an earlier discussion entitled "Web animation on main page" into this discussion. That earlier discussion is now closed and archived, but its contents provide important background for the current discussion. Ubzerver (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I moved this discussion from Wikipedia talk:In the news to this page for three reasons:

1. This discussion pertains to the entire Main Page, not just to its "In the news" section.

2. The earlier discussion mentioned above was conducted here.

3. At its previous location, this discussion immediately went badly off topic. I am hoping that here it will attract some on-topic comments. Ubzerver (talk) 05:58, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of this policy question

Note: New comments should be added to the end of this subsection. To facilitate taking the poll when this discussion is closed, please include the word Automatic, Optional or Prohibited, and set it in boldface type.

This is the first time I've seen animation on the main page. It is really annoying. Static images are less distracting as I'm browsing Wikipedia's home page. Androsynth (talk)

Do we really need the animation there? It seems like a waste of bandwidth and, as Androsynth said, a nuisance. Animating the eruption doesn't add anything to the image.--WaltCip (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

We have a video version. We often have video on the Main Page. I think animation takes even less bandwidth but I could be wrong. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 20:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Heh. I think Wikipedians are probably the only internet users "annoyed" by a tiny, 200px wide animation. (For the record, the New York Times homepage does these a lot.) — 🦊 20:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This user is constantly annoyed by animated popup ads on various sites but rejoices in hitting the X-box labeled 'close'
– if, providentially, there is one. – Sca (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

"I'm mildly annoyed by this thing thousands upon thousands of other people aren't bothered by. Can we immediately change this thing for me?" --Jayron32 19:15, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Already descending into condescension, time to close. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Optional. I enjoyed the video clip of the Taal Volcano eruption. However, my Internet access is through my smartphone, at four to five Mbps, so downloading the page took noticeably longer. The clip didn't consume a sizeable percentage of my monthly data allocation, which is four GB, but I am concerned that this clip might be the proverbial nose of the camel. Let's remember that not everyone has unlimited Internet access and a 30 Mbps connection. Only a still photo should have been displayed on download. The caption should have included the instruction, "Click here for an 8-second, 12 MB video." Ubzerver (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I see a lot of talk about using various methods to reduce the file size, but I don't see anyone talking about the basic issue which I raised: should animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal be compulsory or optional? It seems to me that we could make everybody happy by making it optional. Let only a still image be downloaded and displayed by default, but empower the user to accept animation/video of specified duration and file size. If it will repeat in endless-loop fashion, that also should be stated. The "Accept" button should not be the large, white, rightward-pointing triangle, superimposed on the image, which is conventionally used to start playback of a video file. That would spoil the image for those users who don't want the animation/video version. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of other topics

Configuring a smartphone to block unwanted video

I have the option on my phone to stop automatic playback of video- do you not have that option? 331dot (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

331dot: I was viewing the page on my laptop computer, not on my smartphone. I have a Samsung smartphone which runs under Android. I use Android's Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot feature to put my laptop on line. I don't think that my phone's video limiting capability can help me in this situation. If there is a way, please let me know. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Minimizing the file size

This was not a video but gif. For some reason, it was 61.73 MB while the original video it was created from was only 758 KB. There was no need to convert it to gif. That was the issue that precipitated all the complaints. Converting to gif is a Web 1.0 mentality that should be abandoned. Almost all browsers these days support video embedding with no difficulty. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 11:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The gif is not optimized. Working on it. --Masem (t) 18:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Without switching to dithering or any other lossy method got it down to 43mb instead of 62mg. There's other ways to optimize. If we are talking a front page image where we aim to be 100px, we can always remake a scaled-down image specific for front page use. Testing a few things here even though the image has since fallen off the front page. --Masem (t) 18:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

And perhaps just throwing this out there, perhaps for any main page image, the amount of bytes delivered to the user for that image should be at most 1-4 megs. This allows for reasonably short webm's, and I bet with some work and lossy conversion, I could make this gif to within that size. --Masem (t) 18:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Best I was able to do was to get the 100px width image to 4.5mb - still large but no longer 'my bandwidth!" large. I'd still agree that if we can use the webm instead - which uses lossy compression methods - that's tons better than gif tweaking. --Masem (t) 18:32, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to David who made added the clip, for his comments. Stephen 03:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There appears to be some confusion.

I didn't transclude the GIF linked above. Had I done so, the thumbnail would have been a still frame.

As noted on the description page, "due to technical limitations, thumbnails of high resolution GIF images such as this one will not be animated." According to the MediaWiki documentation that I read, the limit is 12,500,000 pixels total (width × height × number of frames).

We customarily display a 4:5 image at the resolution of 120 × 150 pixels. Ideally, the base file is a minimum of 240 × 300 pixels, enabling enhanced support for high-DPI displays.

For these reasons (and to keep the animation reasonably short and the file size reasonably small), I reduced the resolution to 240 × 300 pixels and the number of frames to 173 (240 × 300 × 173 = 12,456,000). At a rate of 33 ⅓ frames per second (the closest approximation of the original video's frame rate possible under the GIF standard), the resultant playtime was 5.2 seconds.

The base file, Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020 (reduced).gif, is 6.45 MB in size. On a standard-DPI display, the ITN thumbnail was 1.96 MB. (I assume that Ubzerver's "12MB" figure was a guesstimate, but even the high-DPI version was much smaller than that.) Pinging Masem to communicate these details.

Clicking on the thumbnail led users to File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.webm (not the larger GIF) for the full video.

Coffeeandcrumbs: As explained above, I didn't use File:Phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano, 12 January 2020.gif. You mentioned "all the complaints", but this is the first instance in which any issue has been brought to my attention. The only feedback that I received from you on the matter was thanks for the edit in which I transcluded the animation. Please point me to the other complaints that arose (of which I was unaware).

Stephen: I appreciate the ping (now and whenever such concerns arise). —David Levy 06:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@David Levy: I apologize for not pinging you. You often ignore my pings so I assumed you would not want to hear from me again. That was an error in judgement which I will avoid even if it makes me uncomfortable to continuously ping editors that do not respond to me. That is your choice and it is my responsibility to ping users when their actions are being discussed. You are right as well that you did embedded the reduced file and the version that displayed was even further reduced to 120px. "All the complaints" was a bad choice of words. There was only 1 other complainant. Sorry for all these errors. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: I don't purposely ignore pings (and I'm very sorry to have given you an impression to the contrary).

I recall multiple instances, such as this one, in which another editor fulfilled your request (which you then removed) before I arrived to read it.

If you're referring to instances such as this, I didn't realize that a reply was expected from anyone other than the user to whom the question was addressed (who did, in fact, answer it).

If I've edited the site without responding to pings pertaining to ongoing issues in need of my attention, I assure you that this was unintentional and apologize for the oversight. Please don't hesitate to contact me whenever you deem it appropriate. I can't promise that I'll always be available to address your concerns in time, but I can promise that I won't mind hearing from you.

Note, also, that my previous message was intended to encourage such engagement and ensure that all of us were on the same page, not to complain about any deficiency on your part. Thanks for providing the discussion link. —David Levy 07:42, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! There is a concern I raised at Talk:Main Page that I think only you can understand. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

David Levy, ping, Facepalm. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 08:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

David Levy: Both the "8 seconds" and the "12MB" figures were guesstimates. When I wrote my original comment, the video was no longer available for me to time, and I didn't know how to obtain the actual file size. I still don't know how to do that, but maybe I will figure it out after I read this discussion a few more times.

Coffeeandcrumbs: In the Talk:Main Page discussion "Web animation on main page" to which you referred, I count four complainants who objected to animation or video on the Main Page. Ubzerver (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

A proposed user interface for controlling optional animation or video

Agree with C&C that adding 'gif' popups isn't going to gain consensus. Such a feature would be needlessly distracting, IMO – which was the point of my somewhat oblique comment at "Web animation on main page". – Sca (talk) 15:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I am working on a more detailed description of my concept. Please bear with me. Ubzerver (talk) 12:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that a popup screen would be too distracting. Fortunately, for this purpose it is unnecessary. What I have in mind is a user interface which is simple, intuitive and unobtrusive. It is just a one-line field which appears at the bottom of the picture's caption. The left side of the field is a line of text. The right side is a button. The following table describes the behavior of the field under each of four conditions:

Status line	Button label
For a 5.2-second, (non)repeating, 1.96-MB video,	Click here
Loading...	Cancel
Playing...	Stop
Stopped	Resume
Completed	Repeat

Coffeeandcrumbs, Masem, Stephen, David, Sca, The Rambling Man: What do you think of this user interface, and the basic idea of making animation and video, anywhere on the Main Page and on In the News, optional rather than automatic? Ubzerver (talk) 09:36, 25 January 2020 (UTC); edited 10:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Ubzerver, what you are proposing now is a fundamental change to MediaWiki. We are just lowly editors on the English Wikipedia. There are thousands of websites that use MediaWiki. We cannot dictate its software from here. I have previously attempted to suggest the reduction the size of the Play button for videos. That was 4 months ago and no response from the developers. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 09:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Popups are the bane of the internet. – Sca (talk) 14:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Other comments

Androsynth, WaltCip, Sca, Jayron: I feel that The Rambling Man closed the discussion "Web animation on main page" prematurely. It was only two days old, and there had not been a response from anyone who was in a position to change the policy on the issue under discussion. Fortunately, a very similar question is being considered here. This discussion is still open, and technical experts are definitely involved. So, if you like my proposal to make animation/video on the Main Page or the Current Events Portal optional, at the discretion of each user, then this is the time and place to say so. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Closing comment: "Already descending into condescension." – ? – Sca (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed it was. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 15:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

"anyone who was in a position to change the policy" Do you have any understanding of how setting policy works at Wikipedia? No one single person or small group of people is on charge of changing policy. We all are collectively. Also, we don't need policies to tell us what to do and what not to do. I mean, if you want to have a discussion to write some best practices for the use of animation at Wikipedia, please do that. But no one at Wikipedia should ever be afraid to do something useful because there's no policy that says they can. We should not be getting upset at people who used animation if that is what was useful to illustrate the article on question. I rather liked it. If you really think we need guidance, start a discussion at VPR and see where it goes. The closed discussion was not that. It was drive-by bitching and no more. This discussion may be marginally less so. But really, if you want to write some best practices down, do it right. --Jayron32 19:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I assumed the talk page was the correct place to talk. I now have no desire to learn the correct procedure because every experience I have had discussing on wikipedia has ended with a Jayron32 type shouting. I don't edit wp anymore and I don't donate anymore because wikipedia is the best site on the internet, but pull back the covers and it's a toxic waste dump. I no longer care if the editors and admins want to move the main page in the direction of an ad-based NYT-esque, animation-heavy, click-baity publication (the "did you know..." section is already distastefully click-baity). I don't intend to post again. Androsynth (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see how getting shouted out here by long-standing users would upset you. Apologies for that. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 20:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffeeandcrumbs: If an editor wants to ping you, how can he prevent your username from appearing in red, indicating that the "page does not exist"? Even if the pings are getting through to you, the red text is a little distracting. Ubzerver (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I have received both your pings. Sorry I did not respond to your first; I had nothing relevant to add. I am not sure what you are suggesting. If it is to add a popup screen, asking if the user wants to load the gif, whenever we have an animation, I don't see that proposal gaining consensus.

About the redlink, how exactly is it distracting? It may be unusual but distracting is something else entirely. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 14:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)