User talk:Moonriddengirl/RfC

Core issue

Please help me clarify the core issue. My goal is to succinctly let newcomers know the major purpose of the conversation and what we hope to achieve via the discussion. The question is nuanced, which is what I'm hoping to convey with a lead sentence that begins, "to what extent and under what circumstances"--this presupposes that some extent and some circumstances are acceptable. If there are people taking position here that no customization is acceptable, it would be good to know that. :) Are people arguing that customization should be free, with no restrictions? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll gather my thoughts and post them. I think all should post a reasonably brief statement of what they see the issues being and where they see things going. I'm not taking a no-colour-customization stance, but do see us moving towards far less of this and a more cohesive site-wide approach to such things. Key points will be a proper rationale for any specific usage, strong impediments to anything that interferes with accessibility (or is, bluntly, garish), centralization of implementation details via mechanisms such as templates and styling-hooks for site-wide CSS, skins and user stylesheets, and clear deterrents to the incredibly poor practice of hard-coding things into individual articles. Moar, too, I'm sure. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Because of behavioral situations beyond my control, I will not be able to help with this, sorry. I truly believe I am not welcomed to this RFC and will not put up with what I have been having to put up with. Feel free to email me if you want. Thanks Moonriddengirl, I appreciate your hard work that you do to help the project. Thanks and get well soon, --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:23, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you commenting to me? If so, my comments at Talk:Scarlett Johansson#The reverting were not intended to run you off; the behaviour I expressed concern over is what I wish to cease. Jack Merridew 21:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I think mentioning WP:CONLIMITED would be a good idea, too, as it is the policy which currently reflects consensus against WikiProjects overriding site-wide policies/guidelines.

To my understanding, the color issue has to do with consistency. Wikipedia, in order to maintain a professional atmosphere, prefers consistency throughout its articles. In singling out a single kind of table (be they filmographies, discographies, bibliographies, etc), we are purposefully introducing inconsistency. As I see it, purposefully introducing inconsistency can be acceptable, but there must be a hard-lined reason to do so. For instance, WP:SIMPSONS using yellow to head the infoboxes and navboxes of articles within its scope. This becomes a semantic distinction, as The Simpsons have been, and are, recognized by their distinctive yellow coloring (The Simpsons fandom has even been referred to as "yellow fever", in the past, if I'm not mistaken). This does, however, open the door to other WikiProjects arguing for "their" colors -- thinking more of WP:SPONGEBOB, instead of WP:ACTOR, here. Therefore, the argument can be made that even semantic distinctions should be avoided whenever possible. In this particular case, the color blue (or, lightsteelblue) doesn't carry any semantic meaning with films, actors, or filmographies, whatsoever (unless I'm unaware of it, which is possible). Consistency comes further into play when you have an article with multiple tables, on multiple subjects (like Cher or Tom Waits, as actors and musicians; or like some actor articles where the actor has awards and nominations tabled separately from their films).

Also, to my understanding, the accessibility issue with hard-coding color choices into articles stems from screen readers. For instance, if style="background-color: #b0c4de" is included in the article (multiple times, even), a screen reader will read style="background-color: #b0c4de" verbatim (multiple times), again, that is to my understanding; I have never used a screen reader. Therefore, the use of a template can be a good thing, if a certain kind of wikitable is consistently going to be coded against default-wikitable settings. (I know this RFC isn't about the template, per se, but any color decided upon, would need to be incorporated into the template, unless it was decided that WikiProjects shouldn't deviate from the standard color)

There is also an argument that can be made on accessibility which involves ease of editing, wherein the case is made that hard-coding over-complicates the editing of an article for those who may not be accustomed to Wikipedia, or coding, in general. I don't believe this to be relevant, as it would entail Wikipedia catering to the lowest common denominator; which, while well-meaning, is detrimental to the encyclopedia's user interface (to the reader, not the editor) and its overall quality. While catering to the editor is crucial to Wikipedia's success, we shouldn't cater so much to the editor that it hinders our ability to serve the reader. Catering to the reader, after all, should be -- and is -- Wikipedia's main objection.  Chickenmonkey  21:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Mostly I'm in agreement with you here. I've tweaked the 'Core issue' statement to not hone-in on tables, specifically. The idea here was to be more broadly focused and navboxes and infoboxes should be considered, too (and typically their implementations involve tables).

Your last paragraph re ease of editing is something I still hold concerns over. See wikt:wiki. It means quick. We've all heard this, right? The idea is that editing a 'wiki' is supposed to be accessible to everyone and that a wiki should be able to be quickly and easily edited by people with only modest understanding of markup. People 'get' using a * to get a bulleted list, #, too, and pretty much everyone can cope with the apostrophe and bracket notation to get some basic stuff done. Beyond that a lot of people get in trouble. We've a usability initiative about here, and they definitely need to be brought into this discussion. Wiki-table markup is a significant step up from the basic stuff and people trip over it often. It's a significant barrier to editing, as is template syntax; see:

• http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability,_Experience,_and_Progress_Study#Toolbar:_Tables
• http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/04/template-folding/

I've been here a long time and one of the things I did five years ago was early infoboxes for countries. There were no templates such as {{infobox}}, then. These were straight tables marked-up at the top of the articles. Many of the smaller Wikipedias still suffer with these mechanisms. For example, I did about 1200 edits to jv:wp that mostly nudged such tables forward; about 4,000 such edits to id:wp.

Whenever some pattern of complexity begins repeating in a software system, it is important to encapsulate the mess somehow. Templates are one mechanism for this, CSS in stylesheets is another. The approach of copy-paste-paste-paste-paste... is a common pitfall. It's about losing control and chaos. The filmographies, for example, are a huge mess; there's little consistency and endless repetition of various flavours of the mark-up. It needs clean-up, without question. This mess won't sort for a number of reasons. A major one is that this is a technical concern that those knowledgeable about software development understand and that others miss due to having some other background. Absent understanding of the issues being raised, they focus on what they do understand, such as liking blue.

Sorry to rattle on; I'll be writing something more focused. On colour ;)

Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

This can be discussed at length at another date and location, but I agree with simplifying coding. The challenge is knowing/finding the happy medium between simplicity and design (i.e. using tables, but foregoing rowspan; whereas tables will likely remain unchanged once put in place, rowspan within tables will often be required to be updated and duplicated). I think that's enough on this subject, here, however.  Chickenmonkey  22:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Some of this is a bit off topic, but it is relevant to the question of *where* colour is appropriate; hard-coded in articles in a repetitive manner is very bad; it cements things in place and is inflexible. And hard-coded markup can get far, far, more complex than most of what we've been talking about. See the markup that implements my user page, for example. Mostly it's straight xhtml and parser functions. Articles could have such things in them, too (which would be a bad thing;). Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be a bad thing and is the sort of thing I'm referring to. I'm the first to say I am far, far, far from "good" at things of that sort, but some coding seems to have more positives than negatives (in wiki, that is)  Chickenmonkey  23:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against code, but I strongly believe that the messy bits should be tucked away; see inside {{navbox}} — most of our messy code is in the template namespace. With such things, we want one copy per project, not one copy per article. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that philosophy.  Chickenmonkey  00:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I haven't really had time to sit down and formulate what I want to say here, but I will say that if it hadn't become so contentious, a lot of fixing the tables would have been done already. Rossrs and I have a pet project which we (more or less) routinely work on, and that has to do with taking a survey of all articles with WP:ACTOR templating on the talk page. Besides looking for decent photographs and fixing things that we agreed were important (like checking leads and where none exist, checking for POV, infobox problems, etc., to cover anything that looks like a problem. Working on filmographies was part of that and still could be in adding templates, clean up, etc. except for what's been going on. I'm not in the least bit adverse to one copy of something per project. This issue is what that something is. I actually think that the idea that projects shouldn't have a hand in or say regarding issues the project works on should be allowed a bit of leeway instead of having to toe the line to something someone once wrote. The thing about making allowances for The Simpsons basically tells me that some things are flexible - and it should be. If things can be flexible for some given project, it should be possible for all projects, even if it is choosing a color to represent items in articles under that project. Yeah, I know I've said all that before, but I have issues with thinking that it can't be done. If that means WP:CONLIMITED needs to be revisited, then it should be. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:59, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Dito, and I haven't read everything that's been said above yet either. However, since I'm afraid I might miss this going live, here are a few thoughts off the top of my head:

1. I am certain that screen readers do not read out style tags!
2. Succession boxes and other article components have long been built with template modules, without issue.
3. We've used a light blue background in navboxes and infobox section headers for quite some time, I don't see grounds to argue that it should be unfeasible in a filmography table header
4. I agree that gratuitous use of styles should be avoided.
5. I don't agree that the coloring of filmography table heads is gratuitous. The colored table head is used on enough articles to function as a visual cue, and we use similar colored cues in other places.
6. I actually don't like it at all that navboxes have varying colors or styles. The bottom of the Abraham Lincoln article looks horrible, for example, due to coloring of nav- and succession boxes
7. I agree that WikiProjects don't have a free hand in setting or controlling a style guide for articles if the community as a whole disagrees. I don't think this is disputed by anybody, actually.
8. I believe that WikiProjects may, just as any editor, be bold (WP:BRD) in devising styles for articles taken under their wings. It's the wiki way, we don't centralize all discussions unless they are widely contested.
9. I believe that changing a given status quo requires rough consensus, and believe that current status quo is and has been for quite some time to use a colored filmography head.
10. I don't think that the RFC as worded at the moment will have a conclusive, concrete result WRT the issue of colored filmography table heads.

Not sure if and how any of this should influence the core question in the RFC.
Amalthea 16:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Additional text for core issue

I believe that a lot of the conversation above needs to be put into a specific viewpoint section. I could boil it down under "Core issue" into a sentence or two:

Some users believe that color use in articles must be strictly limited in order to...(a). Too, there are concerns that - if hard-coded - excessive color use (variance?) in articles may create difficulties with readability for screen readers and usability for contributors unfamiliar with the mark-up, while imprudently chosen colors may impact legibility for some browsers. Others argue that ...(b).

• (a) would be what? "maintain consistency across and within articles"?
• (b) would be what? "consistency across Wikipedia is less a concern if there is consistency within WikiProjects and article types and that the project needs to allow flexibility in color choice to contributors."

Please note that I'm not asking you to tell me why these views are wrong; I'm only asking if I'm conveying the basic point of division correctly here. :) I think it would be a good idea, once we define the parameters, if we have a "Side A"/"Side B" paragraph from participants before launching.

This RfC is most likely to be successful if we can actually propose some choices. Otherwise, we'll get hundreds of people (check my optimism!) saying, "Some flexibility is good, but it's important to define that" or "Consistency is good within reason" and nobody actually proposing any workable guidelines. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the way you've worded it sounds good, as the main question is whether WikiProjects should be allowed to purposely introduce inconsistency. Not that I'm trying to word it that way to make it seem like a "bad" thing. I mean, that is actually the question. Sometimes introducing inconsistency can be okay, and the question is whether, or not, using this special color is one of those times.  Chickenmonkey  00:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that the wording "Others argue that(b) "consistency across Wikipedia is less a concern if there is consistency within WikiProjects and article types and that the project needs to allow flexibility in color choice to contributors." reflects my view of the issue, especially the portion italicized. I'm not as certain that any passing editor should make arbitrary color choices based on POV. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions by Malke 2010

Suggested RfC question: Should a Wikiproject be allowed to choose the color (from colors already available in the Wikipedia software) in articles under their provenance?

The lightsteelblue color currently is in use by the Actors Project in tables that organize the large amount of content---the films/TV shows/stage work that is part of the body of work by actors. They organize the roles played, the awards won and other information regarding the work. The use of tables was included in the original formation of the actor group. The software is set up to display tables and that MOS style guidelines don't include it, is mostly because their guidelines have not been updated in a long time. Malke2010 15:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Concrete question

So, what is this RfC meant to answer? Based on the above, it seems that what's really at issue here is the vagueness of language in guideline such as this:

Deviations from standard conventions are acceptable where they create a semantic distinction (for instance, the infoboxes and navigational templates relating to The Simpsons use a yellow colour-scheme instead of the customary mauve, to tie in with the dominant colour in the series) but should not be used gratuitously. From Wikipedia:ACCESS#Styles and markup options

Some of the responders to the Actor RfC felt that the colors were used semantically, others found them gratuitous. Is the ultimate purpose of this RfC to request better definition of "gratuitous"? To determine how many people are required to establish that use is semantic? Are some suggesting that a rough consensus of participants in a Wikiproject may determine that use is semantic enough to justify deviations? Do some think that questions on deviations should be handled at centralized discussions, perhaps at Wikipedia talk:ACCESS? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Just colour? Use of sortability and rowspan is also being disputed. Fences&Windows 18:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is a new wrinkle. So far as I know, this RfC is on the question of color. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:49, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

This is how the ACTOR:RFC got huge; there are a lot of interconnected issues. The sort/rowspan issue was under discussion and got archived without resolution. off for a while, Jack Merridew 18:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

How about we do each problem one at a time? Can there be more than one section to talk about the other issues in this same RFC but organized in a way so that the discussion doesn't get out of control like the last attempt? I know the sortable and row span issues are a problem now that they are being put into articles, even without a resolution from the last discussion. --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Really, sortability wasn't an issue until Jack started adding it and removing the rowspan. It was simply something that rarely got added and from what I can tell, was usually removed. Suddenly, now that Jack has taken up the cause, rowspan is disputed. However, it was never discussed at the earlier RfC and has routinely not been used until someone started adding it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Are rowspan (I'm not even sure what this is--width of the table?) and sortability the same class of issue as we are already discussing here? If not, even if they are being disputed, they may not be appropriate for this RfC. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I would say, to avoid the splatter shot of which the ACTOR:RFC became, we should keep this RFC to addressing just one thing. With that said, I do think the "one thing" it should address would be better served with becoming "should WikiProjects be allowed to form consensus which goes against current site-wide consensus?" Would that not include the current issue regarding this color use? I think that is the core issue, is it not? Perhaps WikiProjects should be required to open centralized discussions on such future proposals as the use of this color? A clearer definition of "gratuitous" and "semantic" would help (the definitions are clear enough, but it could be good to define, exactly, what they mean within Wikipedia's use), but I don't believe that would solve this problem. The conclusion of the ACTOR:RFC was no consensus on color, but even if there had been a consensus, such consensus would be in opposition to current site-wide consensus: the fact that the default color is what it is and the fact that overriding the default color introduces inconsistency. I believe, this RFC would be better served in addressing the much-needed clarification of "what WikiProjects can, and cannot, do". Perhaps some proposal of introducing a new policy/guideline of sorts to inform WikiProject members on when to open a centralized discussion? Maybe, if a WikiProject opens an RFC, someone could review the RFC and decide if it needs to be addressed in a more centralized location? Perhaps there could be an RFC WikiProject, specifically to monitor and maintain RFCs (is this done already?)? I don't know, I'm just spitballing because I really have no idea. The current WikiProject-to-Wikipedia construct doesn't make a lot of sense, or at least, how it's currently being navigated.

It seems to me, multiple RFCs could be in order, in the near future. These would address: sortability within filmographies (which is a legitimate option provided by the shared css), this would be a WikiProject-specific RFC; clarification of "gratuitious" and "semantic", perhaps including a revisit to the consensus on "semantic use" being allowed at all, this would be a Wikipedia-wide RFC; the idea of "consistency" and what it means within Wikipedia, this would be a Wikipedia-wide RFC; and whether RFCs should be held on WikiProjects at all, perhaps a centralized location would be best for all RFCs to be held?, this would be a Wikipedia-wide RFC. For this current RFC, I think it should address the authority of WikiProjects in relation to whether they can go against site-wide consensus (essentially, a revisit to the consensus of WP:CONLIMITED to see if that consensus has changed) This would, naturally, encompass the current contention that WP:ACTOR should be allowed to use the "lightsteelblue" headers on filmography tables. This would be a Wikipedia-wide RFC which would, hopefully, serve to flesh-out the idea of WP:CONLIMITED and clarify some much-needed ground rules for WikiProject actions and what the purpose of WikiProjects are supposed to be.  Chickenmonkey  21:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

No, rowspan is connecting different lines of the table into one heading, such as combining all the films made in a given year together with one column entry, like the 1992 column in the filmography at Julian McMahon. I don't see that it is in the same class of discussion either, nor is the sortability, imo. I think it should be discussed on whether WikiProjects can make their own style guidelines as well. It doesn't sit well with me that some things have clear exceptions on color and block use in other cases. Especially with a subproject like The Simpsons as the exception. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

rowspan example

merged cell row1&2, col1	row1, col2
	row2, col2

"rowspan" is an html keyword that can be used in tables to cause a cell to extend into subsequent rows; there's "colspan", too. This results in what's referred to as "merged cells" at Wikipedia:TABLE#Formatting. There are several issues with the use of row/col spanning; it makes tables inherently unsortable as a re-sorted table will have the relationship between rows changed; if, for example, a filmograpy has all the multiple projects in a given year listed to the right of a singe cell containing the year, and the user then sorts the table by say the film titles, the group of titles will no longer be consecutive... yet there's only one instance of the year-cell. The use of rowspans confuses editors; day-in and day-out.^example Wiki-text is supposed to be simple and quick to edit and embedding obscure markup is not something that should be done without a damn good reason. We have a major usability initiative afoot and things like table and template markup are at the top of the list of things that have been identified as impediments to editing. The changes I'm seeking in our practices are not just some reformed sockpuppet's personal POV; the WMF is seeking to remove barriers to editing, and the "POV" I'm pushing is that of modern web design. I wrote rather more on this at User talk:Jack Merridew#Um... (and don't miss Plastikspork's comment on it at User talk:Jack Merridew#Collapsible sections). Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Jack continually brings up that it is supposedly difficult for various groups of editors, but he has yet to come up with valid statistics that support that, instead he finds examples from here and there and calls it good. And he's expanded "difficult" to the use of rowspan. I'd really like to see the support also for the comment above that identifies his pop-choices of current initiatives that suit his push of the day. And yet, he never comments on the various errors in sticking in "sortability" that I find all the time. Six of one, half dozen of another Jack. It is unhelpful to spout off something that suits you to identify it as a problem while pushing for something equally as problematic. Once again, that various things didn't reach consensus is not a support for your position over someone else's. It is still not support. And lets us not overlook that things you are citing above are all places where you insinuated that I'm too stupid to understand things, something that's been said before. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

You shouldn't take everything personally. Jack, while he could probably be more genial about it, has only said that he is proficient in coding. Something similar to you being knowledgeable about autographs. It's not unheard of that some editors are more knowledgeable about certain things than others. With that said, rowspan is something that often causes problems for editors; they'll add a film without realizing they need to increase the rowspan amount. Is that enough of an impediment to cause us to avoid rowspan? I don't know, maybe. That discussion should probably be had. Right now, sortability is an option, and in order to take advantage of that option, you have to avoid rowspan. If an editor chooses to take advantage of sortability, and avoid rowspan, that's fine.  Chickenmonkey  03:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Ask me about pure virtual functions sometime ;) read the lede; they haz signatures, too... Jack Merridew 03:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That makes my brain meats hurt. I think I have cerebellum oozing from my ears.  Chickenmonkey  03:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd advise using Vaseline and some cotton balls to keep your brains, you know, from spilling out. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Good idea; so far, I've just been using my fingers.  Chickenmonkey  04:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, it keeps your fingers from becoming sticky, and that's what we used at the developmental center to put popped out eyes back in place. (Happened way too often with one person.) :) Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That's fine; my eyes are always popped out.  Chickenmonkey  04:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep your fingers out of them!!! Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... you really think that may be what it is?  Chickenmonkey  05:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

colour

Modern web design practices eschew all sorts of poor practices. Not embedding markup in pages that is presentational in nature is a key goal with folks developing websites. This is where this mess began. A huge number of articles on Wikipedia contain things like "style", "font", "bgcolor" and the stuff is pasted into more every day; copy after copy after copy. The reason to not embed endless copies of things in individual pages is that it makes things much harder to change; the reason some do this is that it makes things much harder to change. Putting things like colours into a template can help with the maintenance, but it is also very limiting. The current template was just an example offered to illustrate how refactoring the extant mess might be done; I've referred to it as an interim step from the start. It will not work with a page such as Mary Pickford filmography. A better way to colour a filmography table would be syntax such as class="wikitable filmography" where "filmography" was implemented in a site-wide stylesheet (which is where the definition of "wikitable" lives); example at: lean, semantic, markup (the sidebar). The problem with this is that site-wide CSS is reserved for things that are important, and no one has come up with a rationale for the ACTOR:BLUE that amounts to much beyond "I like it" and vague hand waving about it being easier to read (which it absolutely is not, as the default colours have far better contrast). The barrier to entry for the site stylesheets is quite high; this is appropriate as things there should have very wide applicability. Adding a filmography class would be a poor precedent to set, as it would amount to a camel's nose and serve to invite a great many more skittlepedia requests.

The 'semantic' distinction re The Simpsons seems a rationalization. Yellow is a ghastly colour for a background, period. All sorts of topics have some colours associated with them, but that should have little to do with the colour of elements on Wikipedia pages. If I'm wrong, shouldn't Deep Purple have some purple shite? nb: Yellow Submarine (song) does get yellow, but that's just what {{Infobox single}} does for all singles. How about The Pink Panther? Should the tables I see there get pink headings (or pink text;) Does the pink navbox look good? Or unencyclopaedic?

The bar for deviation from site-wide norms should be very high in order to prevent a riot of colour from sprawling across the project (as it does, today). Most of the colour usage I'm seeing site wide relate to areas that are mass-marketed; Hollywood, television, music, video games. See {{Infobox actor}}, {{Navbox musical artist/color}}, and {{Infobox television/colour}}, for example. They're full of colours; why? Where are the rationales? These colours are in these protected templates because some admin stuck them there, often based on one user posting an {{edit protected}} request on a talk page. These colours are mostly arbitrary. How many people realize that a dead actor gets a 'silver' background behind their name while a live one gets 'khaki'? Why khaki? Why does a musical artist tagged as 'group_or_band' get a LightSteelBlue background while a 'solo_singer' gets 'khaki', regardless of whether or not they are dead or alive (Bob Marley)? There is no sense to most of the colour use on this project, just a meretricious riot of personal preferences and parroting of the branding efforts of large commercial franchises. It is all gratuitous ornamentation. Whatever colouring is used on this project should be determined at a high level, filtering out all the arbitrary and capricious personal preferences.

Filmography tables

The maintenance and accessibility concerns re hard-coded markup regarding colours and rowspan, apply to the use of tables themselves. They are a much more complex method of formatting information than bulleted lists are and people trip over them all the time. I fix lots of malformed tables, so does WHL; Rossrs is fixing omitted cells after we had a talk about the problem. Filmographies amount to lists of works and we have a MOS page about that; indeed we have a handy shortcut for the section regarding filmographies: WP:Filmographies; the MOS says to use lists. (beat.) Why are we even here? Someone slipped a link in to a rogue approach without any discussion.

WikiProject's as governing bodies

Chickenmokey is right about this. Wikiprojects have no authority. At best, they may craft useful proposals that go on to garner site-wide consensus. Any "consensus" of a wikiproject's members is merely the opinion of a small group. Core features of MediaWiki, such as "wikitable" and "sortable" amount to unchallengeable bedrock consensus.^Lessig It is simply a fact on the ground that most tables on our wikis should be of class "wikitable". Where it's useful, they should be sortable.

Jack Merridew 05:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm in basic agreement on colors. Most of the current variations from the norm are arbitrary, at best. While some of them do make semantic distinctions, they are not necessary, and the project would not be harmed by their removal.

The table v. bulleted list situation should probably be addressed in yet another future RFC. Obviously, I believe tables present the information in a better way, but this is another of those presentation v. production (or whatever I said earlier ;)) things. Where do we draw the line between making it so anyone can edit and maximizing the reader's experience; making the reading experience as intuitive as possible.

I do think WikiProjects can serve to clarify how current site-wide policies and guidelines should be applied to articles within their scope. For instance, what to include (filmographies, for example), what information should be in the lead. That sort of thing. We do agree, however, that WikiProjects don't have any authority.  Chickenmonkey  06:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that we could cope with black, white and greys. It would serve to focus people on the content. I'm not arguing that there is no purpose to colour, but as you've seen, it's ludicrous out there.

now about your sig... ;)

I've mentioned the tables v. lists as background to how this is all a rogue effort against the MOS. And I know that it originates with User:Dr. Blofeld,^{founder of WP:ACTOR} whom I've had talks with about this. You know about Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki? It's a project of Dr. Blofeld that I helped him get all the navigation going; there are something like 500 subpages and I've worked on them all.

I'm sure there are wikiprojects doing useful things; I'm not flaming the whole concept. We have somewhat more than 600 of them, although a lot are likely inactive. Their core function is as a tool for editors; how well they function and serve the project varies with the skill and intention of the editors involved in teh wikiproject. Part of what I'm concerned about re wikiprojects is a confusion of loyalties, a sort of succession from Wikipedia to a cliquish group.

• usability:

  WMF's pretty serious about this ;)

I'm glad we're back on-topic; all that stuff about oozing meat, vaseline and sticky fingers was... disturbing.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"Now about your sig..." Hey, hey, hey; now you're getting personal. ;)

That's the main point I was getting at re: WikiProjects, too. Some of them seem to be acting as their own governing body.

Usability is an important aspect of any sort of project, but especially one of this nature.

What exactly do you have against oozing meat and vaseline-covered fingers? ;)  Chickenmonkey  08:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"I'm glad we're back on-topic; all that stuff about oozing meat, vaseline and sticky fingers was... disturbing." You should have seen it, it was... disturbing. Putting it back in was even more so, but it had to be done - competently, which makes my present disability quite ironic (and I use that correctly here). Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:21, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

My major comment on this is that when a style is chosen from a WikiProject, it serves to preclude the riot of color that Jack rallies about. It sets the color. Your contention that "vague hand waving about it being easier to read" is your POV on that, Jack. And on that, you're wrong. It sets the table heading apart with enough contrast to made it more legible, and that wasn't the opinion of just one person. And you ignore the fact that one of the issues here challenges the limitations set by CONLIMITED regarding trying to control projects from setting standards for the articles under its provenance. And your continued efforts to blame me for every frigging thing regarding these tables has grown more than tired, it's contentious. Adding that blurb to the MOS was, contrary to your bad faith representations, only suggested a variety that had been established well before I was involved in the project. It said "WP:ACTOR#Filmography is an example of the style of filmography endorsed by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers." Not because anyone was trying to slip in a fast one, but to start to move to introduce the table to the MOS. I'm quite tired of your not so subtle comments to blame me. And while you shout "monsters" over that edit and completely insist that WP:Filmographies only suggest lists, you conveniently overlook the section on that page that suggests, that "[w]here a series grows complex, tables can be used," and provides links to tabled examples. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works)#List styles. And to avert your blaming me for that, I've only made one edit to that page and it preceded the formation of WP:ACTOR, which suggests that tables were being used prior to me, WP:ACTOR or anything else. I added a link, in addition to what is already there to an example. You also overlook that the list is supposedly suggested here, but it includes a direct link to an example on the Kiera Knightley page, which includes a tabled filmography. I didn't do that either, so don't blame me. Basically, I fail to see how your contentions above are supported when such contradictions to your claims exist. So give it a rest, I'm sick of your posting the blame back to me. Wasn't me that did any of that. And nowhere on that page do I see a suggestion of bulleted lists, such as you are pushing. You are misrepresenting what that pages says in order to blame me. Kindly stop doing that as well. And stop not-so-subtlely casting me as a bad guy on this. And you wonder why I have issues with you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Colour is inappropriate to convey information

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility)#Color

  Ensure that color is not the only way used to convey important information.

This is really just a local parroting of the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative. The W3C is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web.

See:

• List of Gilligan's Island episodes

and note: a) a riot of colour, 2) a soup of rowspan and colspan usages that make this puppy a bear to edit, and III) the use of only colour in the stuff in the right-hand column concerning "Visitors, Animals, Dreams, and Bamboo Inventions". These are "typical plots" as described at Gilligan's Island#Typical plots (and note that the LOE doesn't offer this hint). The riot of colour is pretty obvious, the soup of merged cells is going to stop most editors from ever changing the structure, and also serves as an impediment to editing by many editors simply seeking to edit the brief plot summaries that are all but lost in this sea of markup. Think you're up to editing it? And the indication of the plot theme(s) of each episode is indicated in no other way than via colour. If the means by which a user accesses this page is via a means that does not support colour, then the information is simply not conveyed to them. And note that 'user' includes entities such as Googlebot, which is intent on text and semantic structure, not colour (which is presentational, not content). Now I'll be at the front of the queue arguing that this information is not important and will point out that it is not sourced to anything at all and amounts to WP:OR by the single editor that seems responsible for it all (User:TnKs daddy). Further, on the talk page, User:DGG correctly lambastes this whole page as "non encyclopedic". He's a librarian and may well have useful input here; I'll ping him about this discussion, too. I'm going to poke the page with a pointed stick and get a better feel for what's going on in there. I'm quite inclined to cut the whole right hand stuff as inappropriate, inaccessible, unimportant, and OR. This is not an isolated example; all of these issues repeat thousands of times across our 6,913,126 articles.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:26, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Concrete issues redux

Wow. Days of nothing, and then bam. :) (You know, I may not be the best person to be mediating this conversation, since I barely understand what you're talking about, but maybe that's to the best. I can at least make its initial presentation friendly to the plebeian crowd.)

The questions here seem interrelated, but I'm not sure if an interconnected RfC would be successful. It does seem that the core issue is less about color choices and more about the degree to which WikiProjects may set their own style standards that deviate from site-wide guidelines. I am not sure if the other issues can comfortably be shoe-horned into that, if so.

Is this moving in the right direction?

Extended content

Core issue Given WP:CONLIMITED, to what extent and under what circumstances can individual WikiProjects and users customize article appearance with individual styles that deviate from site-wide style guidelines? Background The question arises following an RfC at Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers which began in part over concerns of the use of color in hard-coded tables. On that point, the RfC closed with no consensus. Some users believed that color use in articles must be strictly limited in order to maintain consistency across and within articles. Too, there were concerns that — if hard-coded — excessive color use in articles may create difficulties with readability for screen readers and usability for contributors unfamiliar with the markup, while imprudently chosen colors may impact legibility for some browsers. Others argued that consistency across Wikipedia is less a concern if there is consistency within WikiProjects and article types and that the project needs to allow flexibility in color choice to contributors. It seems that the core debate concerns the power of WikiProjects to determine the styles that best fit the needs of their subject. For instance, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility)#Styles and markup options calls for standardization of tables, but notes that: "Deviations from standard conventions are acceptable where they create a semantic distinction (for instance, the infoboxes and navigational templates relating to The Simpsons use a yellow colour-scheme instead of the customary mauve, to tie in with the dominant colour in the series) but should not be used gratuitously." Who determines when deviations are gratuitous or constitute a substantial semantic distinction? Should a WikiProject launch a central conversation before adopting such deviations, or may they decide such matters locally? If they adopt such deviations and these are challenged, where is the matter to be settled?

({{Infobox Sesame Street character}}: why is it green?)

If this is moving in the right direction, I'll put it on the face of the RfC. We can hash out specifics as we go. If it's not, tell me what I'm misunderstanding. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:32, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe that this is the core of the current dispute centred on filmographies. I went to some articles and was reverted with calls to justify myself to WP:ACTOR. I can dig up the diffs as needed; circa early March on Anna Kendrick. See: first edit to AnnaK and then step forward until at least this assertion of wikiproject authority in an edit summary. It seems to me that the question is pretty solidly answered by the policy as is, though. If some wish to change the policy, it's up to them to seek change. I am rather assuming that the MOS counts as a guideline (or policy), although it's not explicitly tagged as such. I also believe that the whole question of colour still warrants an RfC of its own. This is a much bigger concern than the bits involving filmographies. There is a huge amount of colouring out there that is way beyond what the MOS seems to be considering appropriate. And many people resist efforts to rein things in per the MOS.

I'd also like to see a clearer statement concerning my objections to heaps of hard-coded markup being embedded in individual articles. I made a detailed comment re my concern at:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 5#hard-coded markup

The prior RfC conclusions are themselves subject to WP:CONLIMITED because it was a small group with about an even mix of regulars at WP:ACTOR and others who were not; really only about 15-20 people commented. The RfC is on the order of a quarter of a megabyte of text and I commented extensively; it does serve as a valuable source of background to all the concerns.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

nb: I've looked further; the entire MOS is categorized under Category:Wikipedia guidelines, so WP:CONLIMITED definitely applies to deviations from the MOS. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:06, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed another group of templates that are supporting colour in fairly complex ways, and they seem to be driven by the wishes of another wikiproject; Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics. The specific template I'm looking at is {{Infobox graphic novel}}, but there a bunch more under Category:Comic book infobox templates. I state that the colour is driven by the wikiproject per this edit summary: Update coloring as per style suggested at Comics Project. There is also some history of the colouring being cut and restored and discussion about it all on the template's talk page; see: Template talk:Infobox graphic novel#Background colour. I'll let those folks know I'm talking about them, too. Several are known to me, although one has departed. This template also uses blue heading, albeit a different shade; it also uses a rather pale blue for the whole background. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:18, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware the changes to the graphic novel box were done to keep things consistent across the Comics Project's infoboxes, all of which seems in line with WP:ACCESS#Styles and markup options, especially the bit about semantic distinctions. (Emperor (talk) 03:27, 30 June 2010 (UTC))

This RfC is due to launch; if there's a rationale for any of those, do tell. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:44, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Kermit

{{Infobox Sesame Street character}} would seem to be green per Kermit the Frog, but I'm just making a reasonable stab, here. The specific reason is that the author of the template added the green early in its development. He tried red for a bit, too. The author has not edited in over two years, so we'll prolly not be getting an answer on the reasoning. A better question is how about we delete this template in favour of {{Infobox character}} which is a far more robust template that could be used instead. I'll be bringing this to User:Plastikspork's attention, as consolidating templates is something he does day-in and day-out. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:52, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I switched the backend of the Sesame Street character infobox to use the standard. I agree that the colour is a bit much, and will probably replace it with the standard soon and see if anyone complains. However, I will most likely nominate it for deletion soon after as it is entirely redundant. We should really avoid specifying colouring in these infoboxes, tables, navigation boxes, whenever possible and let the CSS classes take care of it. Typically it just leads to colour clashes between navigation panels, and the resulting colour choices are often hard to read. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:31, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I certainly agree and will go see just what you've done. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

nb: Plastikspork did TfD this, and three others that amount to the same thing. See:

• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 June 26

Consolidation, standardization and the reining in of gratuitous colour are the norm. This is all about taking a site-wide view of things. A local consensus can not stand in the way of such efforts at cleaning up the messes that inevitably occur when we allow anyone to edit. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:12, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

personal Opinion

As Jack noted, basically I stand with him on this. There are two sets of considerations: universal access, and good design in general. (as background, I've a close friend who has the very unusual condition of being unable to distinguish between green and blue, and I personally can not read print on a dark background, a common condition among older people.) It is essentially that information never be conveyed by color alone. This is basic, and no part of any article can really be allowed to violate it except for the unusual illustration where the information can not be conveyed otherwise. This applies to not just the information in an article, but to essential navigation. I think everyone here understands this, and it's not really the issue.

The real issue is design, and the desire to appear as much as possible like an adult professional publication. Such publications nowadays use color, not just for navigation and highlighting, but for visual effect to avoid monotony. They use it carefully: the proper use is where one does not primarily notice the color. I recall html 1.0, where only a few specified bright distinctive colors were really discernible on the typical inexpensive low color-depth low resolution monitors, and the garish designs that resulted. Color does help in tables. It does help in distinguishing both top and side headers from text. But it only really helps if it is consistent across articles within a type, and not wildly inconsistent between different types in the encyclopedia.

Jack has the right solution, which is consolidating templates, and using css instead of hard-coding. The use of exceptional colors to reflect the topic of a particular article is in my opinion not the way to go--the example given of how the MOS considers the yellow color of templates for The Simpsons as a permissible variation is a bad not a good example. Looking at it, it actually detracts from the distinctive yellow color of the images. Personally, if the question is whether colors for articles on comics should use more garish colors to complement the subjects has it backwards--the garish subjects stand out all the better by contrast. In my opinion, where we really need some color is in headings and border to text intensive articles--I could even understand changing slightly the color of the background for one or two of the sections--that's a common device now in textbooks.

The ad hoc incremental nature of Wikipedia editing is conducive to both dull text and bad design. Paradoxically, it's easier to do something about the design. DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Ready to launch?

Okay, I've implemented the updated text for core issues. Do we feel this is concrete enough to list it? If so, I think I will list it under "policy" RfCs and hook it on by transclusion to WT:CONSENSUS. That seems to be the heart of the matter. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:52, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to see you change the core issue using the Simpson articles as an example. We are talking about the actor group with the steel blue. At least using one of the article that is from the actor project would show that it's not distracting and so forth. --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:59, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The Simpson article example is quoted from the policy. I can't change it without consensus. :D --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I would still like to see a clearer statement of my core concern offered in the background paragraph: an impediment to maintainability. The tweak I made to the proposed text yesterday were only minor bit such as wikilinks and formatting. See my comment timestamped: 21:40, 26 June 2010.

How about tweaking the middle sentence to add this underlined phrase:

Too, there were concerns that — if hard-coded — excessive color use in articles may create difficulties with readability for screen readers and usability for contributors unfamiliar with the markup, while imprudently chosen colors may impact legibility for some browsers.readers, and that hard-coded markup makes maintenance an incredibly tedious process; i.e. the centralization of whatever styling allows site-wide control of things. (A little wordy, perhaps, but something in that vein, and better further up front. I also feel the screen reader concern is over emphasized and relates more to screen readers going all chatty due to the table structure itself, not the styling.)

Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:33, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added this, but I'm not really sure it belongs here. Though issues about hard-coding were raised, that isn't really the core issue here, is it? The core issue here, as I understand it, is about how and when people may choose to deviate from standard styles. If difficulties with maintenance were eliminated, would you then support WikiProjects determining color schemes for their own articles? (Let me add that this is the background section, not the core issues. If you worry that this material will distract from the core issues, I can truncate the background considerably. It doesn't really matter why there was no consensus or what concerns were raised, does it? What I'm proposing as core here is authority; who gets to decide?) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:01, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I would like that to stay, in about that form; it gets to the 'how'. I commented at length on this at:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 5#hard-coded markup

The inappropriate choice of colour is also a key concern of mine; see DGG's comments re good design, which I agree with pretty strongly. I certainly do not believe that wikiprojects have the authority to decide anything; at most they may propose something to the entire community (and sometimes they will have fine ideas). The determination of colour schemes is a site-wide issue and ultimately I see all of this sort of thing moving to something akin to 'skins' in prefs.

There are multiple issues in all this and that's why it sprawled. I know it's is important to keep focused, but these are key, and intertwined. The question of deviation is both about when and how any deviations occur. Good design, maintainability, and central control. If some bit of colour is added, it should not be repetitively added to each article: templates and stylesheets are the proper places. Right now, we have tens of thousands of copies of the blue in individual articles and it's a huge mess. Think stopping a train with a hundred coal cars, or turning a supertanker that's 500 metres long. While people are shooting at you ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Let me put this another way. I came to all of this concerned about inappropriate hard-coding of markup, specifically markup concerning colouring which I see as an inappropriate and gratuitous deviation from site norms. And I've been strongly opposed and full-reverted by people who do not understand the coding and maintenance concerns and who cite their wikiproject's authority to do as they will. They call my views my POV when in fact it's the POV of modern web development methodologies with me as the one speaking it. Better? Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

If I'm grasping that you like it as it is now then, better, yes. :) Other feedback? Maybe we can aim to launch this by about midweek, if we can iron out the initial details. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:46, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I've tweaked the text a bit; nothing major; minor formatting and phrasing. I still think the screen reader issue is over-represented, but I'd have to go see what was said in the prior RFC. I'm sure I'll have more to say but will not rail-on. Launching this week works for me. Thanks, Jack Merridew 19:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added a basic question:

• If customized styling is employed, how and where should this be implemented? (inline, templates, stylesheets...)

This is a lot of my concern; inline styling is very, very bad from a coding and maintenance perspective. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:36, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Launched

The RfC we've been discussing on color and consensus is launched and located at Wikipedia talk:Consensus/RfC. I am in the process of publicizing. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe I have notified every contributor to this discussion in the order of their appearance on the page. Off to publicize at central points. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I have placed it at WP:CENT, WP:VPP, WT:MoS, WT:ACCESS, WT:ACTOR, and WT:TABLE. I have not placed it at WP:ANI, because it isn't particularly an admin issue. If you think I've missed something, please let me know. Please do not notify others yourself, however, if you plan to participate in any way in the RfC. The RfC at the ACTOR talk page had CANVASS issues, and we should avoid that here. I do not plan to participate in the RfC beyond whatever kind of maintenance work may be called for. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. A couple things. Shouldn't this be at Wikipedia:Consensus/RfC, so that there can be 'talk' about it? I've not checked, so mebbe not. I would think WT:WikiProject and WT:WikiProject Council would be appropriate places to announce this. (I see that the first is a redirect to the second, so only the latter, of course.) And hopefully someone (not you or I;) will raise this on UT:JIMBO, which is the 'real' WP:CENT.^humour. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:22, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll announce it at the WikiProject and WikiProject Council, good suggestions. As to the page move, I don't know. I put in the talk area kind of automatically, I suppose, because that's what I have to do with article subpages. :) I don't think so, though. If the RfC were on the talk page itself, instead of transcluded, there'd be no separate talk page. That's usually where RfCs exist. I only transcluded this one to facilitate watchlisting it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:28, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

WT:WikiProject → WT:WikiProject Council. But the latter is done. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

That's my point; the RfC has no talk page; it's on the talk page. And you're going to have a nightmare of a time keeping what I see so far in a sane format. I could help with the structure of things, but it would prove explosive. I'll work up my thoughts and post a statement; prolly a day-off. This page should be pointed at for reference, as there are good points made here; especially mine, and I'm not humble about it. I think this talk need and archive box around it as it's done. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, RfCs usually are on talk pages. That's my point. :) All of these policy/guideline-based RfCs are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Putting them on separate pages seems very much the exception. I didn't deviate from that practice for the sake of making way for a talk page, but simply so that it would be easier for interested parties to watchlist the discussion and in anticipation of a certain amount of sprawl. The talk page of an RfC should really only be used to discuss the conducting of the RfC, I would think. If you think this needs one, we can talk about moving it.

As far as the individuals who made comments here, it's up to them to copy them in the RfC. The purpose of this page, though, was to discuss the RfC, as distinct from arguing any particular position. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Up to you; and I need coffee. I seem to have simply misunderstood, and was surprised. I was thinking of a few RFC/U where there were sectioned views by folks, and most of the zoo-effect was on the talk page. I won't copy my posts over but will likely use bits of them in a new statement and would point at things like my comments above here and section in the prior ACTOR:RFC. Thanks, again. Jack Merridew 21:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)