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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 22:38, 19 January 2011 [1].

Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (C)

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Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (C) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): — KV5 • Talk • 14:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that this is a second open nomination for me; however, my current nomination has four supports, one oppose which consensus has determined is invalid, and no unaddressed comments. Third list in a series of 21. Cheers to all reviewers. — KV5 • Talk • 14:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

Not sure what the grammar glitch is. Can you explain? As for the ACCESS concern: the text is already italicized. — KV5 • Talk • 01:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"allowing no runs in in three innings pitched" -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, ok, I'm not stupid then, just blind. Lol. Done. — KV5 • Talk • 11:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Meets FL standards. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:03, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Unfortunately, JAWS (one of the popular screen readers) doesn't read out the daggers by default. See Resolved comments from The Rambling Man in WP:Featured list candidates/List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: swords)/archive1 and this diff for a previous discussion on this problem when attempting to accommodate visually impaired viewers. Also, I'm by no means certain that all screen readers discriminate effectively between italic and normal text – WP:COLOR suggests italics, but that section is aimed at problems with colour-blindness. For what it's worth, the daggers don't render properly on Lynx, a text-only browser either. I don't think this is a problem sufficient to merit an oppose, but it is always best practice from an accessibility viewpoint to use standard ASCII characters wherever possible as keys for the extra information. --RexxS (talk) 03:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since nearly every baseball featured list contains the dagger as the method of denoting members of the Hall of Fame, I think it's a better option to find a way to make the daggers be read instead of changing all of those lists for an accessibility concern. Is there a way to put, for example, hidden alt text on the dagger that screen readers can read but which won't disrupt the rest of the list? — KV5 • Talk • 11:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your last question has been asked before and I'll try to find the discussion, but I'm fairly certain that the conclusion was that there is no way when using wiki-software to add hidden text for screen readers to anything other than images. I'm sorry to disagree, but if we're going to take accessibility seriously, then the better option is to avoid using non-ASCII text in any of the baseball articles. There's nothing about baseball that inherently requires such characters (compared with Japanese articles occasionally needing Japanese script, for example). --RexxS (talk) 13:59, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing wrong with taking accessibility seriously, but there is such a thing as overkill. There are so many changes that we're all being asked to make suddenly in the name of accessibility and frankly, I find it prohibitive to the general purpose here: building an encyclopedia. — KV5 • Talk • 17:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that meeting the challenges of making our content accessible to all will require significant changes to much of what we have taken for granted. That's the reason why I made a comment, rather than oppose: I don't want to see meeting WP:ACCESS as a hurdle to FLC. Improving the accessibility of Wikipedia won't be done overnight, but there are certain practices that we can adopt to advance that goal, and this issue is one of them. I only wish to see best practice encouraged, not mandated. I hope you would agree that it would be sad to put the effort into building a free encyclopedia, only to find we have inadvertently excluded a significant minority of viewers from benefiting from it. --RexxS (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"I hope you would agree that it would be sad to put the effort into building a free encyclopedia, only to find we have inadvertently excluded a significant minority of viewers from benefiting from it." - and that being said, what, then, becomes of the free encyclopedia if its editors are driven away by increasing requirements, drowning under what feels like bureaucracy? — KV5 • Talk • 18:59, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I wouldn't claim that improving accessibility is an easy task, because it's not intuitive for the majority that do not have disabilities. The trick is to encourage editors to become aware of how the choices they make affect accessibility, then it becomes less of a burden. The MOS is massive, and is still not comprehensive, yet WP:ACCESS is only a small part of the bureaucracy that some feel it imposes. Even so, this is a collaborative project and it's not necessary for every editor to take on board all the policies and guidelines that Wikipedia has. Eventually I expect that our best articles will improve incrementally to broaden their accessibility, and that will make it easier for other editors to emulate them in that respect. Since our conversation has moved somewhat off-topic from this specific review, would you agree that we should move it to its associated talk page, as I'm uncomfortable with potentially prejudicing this candidature by a more general discussion? --RexxS (talk) 21:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given the size and utility of Wikipedia vs the usage of JAWS (for instance), is there not an argument to ask JAWS to change rather than Wikipedia? It's becoming clear that it's not really a shortcoming of Wikipedia, but a shortcoming of some other software which sounds as if it hasn't been updated for some time. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, it's not just Wikipedia, but every website that uses non-ascii characters in this way, so you're quite right, the shortcoming is in the software. JAWS does get major new versions about every twelve months, but users may find the cost of regular upgrades rather expensive, and many different versions are likely to be still in current use – for example, Graham87 doesn't use the latest version (12), if I recall correctly. Eventually the problem will disappear as the software is updated, but in the meantime, I'd still ask if there's a good reason for using symbols such as '†', '‡', etc. in a key, rather than '+', '&', etc., when we know that the former will cause problems for some viewers? --RexxS (talk) 17:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well perhaps not for baseball lists, but for an absolute fact (and for the last 100 or so years) cricket has used the dagger to represent the wicketkeeper and the * to represent the captain. This predates screen-reading software and should never change for it. In fact Dagger (typography) makes for interesting reading, in that it is evident that screen-reading software really is at fault here, since this kind of icon has been used for several hundred years, in fields such as chess, biology, chemistry and military history. I would hate to think we'll re-write history for screen-reading software which is poorly written. It may not be that baseball has a history of using it, but since you've raised the point, I wonder what the best solution is for those kind of lists that have used the dagger for centuries? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem obviously arose when ascii text was invented, and standardised to a mere 95 characters, necessarily omitting numerous less common symbols. I'd recommend that we automatically accept the use of any given symbol where its usage is traditional or common in the sources. Anyone using a screen reader on any website related to cricket would be expecting a dagger and could switch to character-by-character readout to identify the wicket-keeper for example (JAWS works in this way, just not when reading continuous text). As I said above, we don't want to create hurdles in the FLC process, and I accept KV5's point that many baseball articles use the dagger consistently does have weight. For the moment, though, I still think it's valid to ask a nominator why a particular non-ascii character was preferred to a more accessible one. --RexxS (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so JAWS can do a character-by-character readout in any case? If so then why is it a problem to use daggers on baseball lists? I know you don't wish to create obstacles here at FLC, and most FLCers will happily accommodate ACCESS requirements but it seems that right now we're making a patchwork quilt of solutions which is a poor solution to any problem. It's 2011, screen readers should be able to cope with more than a 95-character set. Is there a list of "accessible characters" we can refer to (is it ISO/IEC 8859-1)? Are we working to meet the requirements of JAWS or is there a broader set of readers we need to satisfy to meet access requirements? Switching out daggers for something else on baseball lists shouldn't be a major issue but we need to make sure we're getting it right when we do change it. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC) I've had a quick look at the MOS which states plainly:[reply]

Do not use Unicode characters as icons, use an icon with alt text instead. For example, a character like "→" can not be reproduced into useful text by a screen reader, and will usually be read as a question mark.

So I suppose we could use an "dagger icon" with alt text, to comply with the MOS? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I finally found the debate I was thinking about: It's at WT:Manual of Style (accessibility)/Archive 11#Non standard ASCII. It concerned the use of ♠♣♥♦ and all the same considerations apply. The conclusion was that an icon with alt text was the best solution. For ease of editing I'd suggest making a template such as {{dagger}} with default alt text and the ability to have customisable alt text as an optional parameter (e.g. "dagger" by default, but |alt=wicketkeeper would read "wicketkeeper"). Templates aren't my forte, but I could see if one of Jack Merridew's talk page watchers can knock one up. --RexxS (talk) 20:30, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a good idea, at the very least for the dagger, since it's prolific use is above and beyond the simplistic approach of screen readers. We shouldn't prejudice against 99.95% of our readers because JAWS can't handle a dagger. I also think some additional info at WP:ACCESS that's clear and obvious wouldn't go amiss. We've gone to some lengths at FLC to ensure we never use just colour to represent a particular property of something, but now it seems we need to ensure we use a suitable "icon"/character too. It's not a huge deal, but if we can see clear guidance, then so much the better. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, perhaps the template may not be necessary after all, although a template would be more convenient. How does this look member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum? and this Phillies are the player's primary team? They both have alt text relevant to this article, which would be read out by a screen reader. I'll add this issue to my ever-growing list of clarifications needed at MOS. Thanks, TRM, --RexxS (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They look fine, but they need to be easy to use, and your suggestion of a template is the best way forward. If we could find even just half a dozen characters that would be acceptable to screen-readers, acceptable to FLC and usable to regular readers, even if we have to template the lot of them for consistency, so be it. Sounds like a plan? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, KV5, this template has been created for us (at {{dagger}}) – any chance you'd be prepared to give it a go? All you should have to do is search-and-replace the current dagger for the template. The default alt text (hopefully "dagger") should cover RexxS's concerns over naughty characters. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it's any easier, there's a template {{†}} which does the same job as it's a redirect to {{dagger}}. There's now also a template {{‡}} which redirects to {{double-dagger}}, if you wanted to complete the job. (I still wouldn't insist on this as a necessity, just a small but helpful improvement). --RexxS (talk) 22:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I have been away and missed out on this whole discussion. I will implement the templates tomorrow evening in this list and, if they work, I will make the changes throughout the entire series. As a sidenote: any chance the dagger image could be an SVG instead of PNG? Seems kind of fuzzy to me even at a medium resolution. I have Inkscape but have failed every time I try to make a proper SVG, so this is just a suggestion. — KV5 • Talk • 03:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I didn't note it. This has been done for some time. Still wondering about the SVG tho. — KV5 • Talk • 01:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The png's will always be fuzzy to some extent, purely because of the problem of small size and anti-aliasing against a transparent background. I made svg's originally, and following comments at Template talk:Dagger, I uploaded them to commons. Here's one of the svg's at the same size: – as you can see, the wiki-software doesn't render some svg's as they show up in Inkscape (cf. File:Dagger-200.png). The beauty of using the template in articles is that if someone creates a better image, then substituting it into the template will update it everywhere. Perhaps someone with better graphics skills than I can produce a more acceptable image? --RexxS (talk) 02:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The SVG looks loads better to me. I personally think that would be fine, and an improvement. — KV5 • Talk • 02:16, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you can't actually see the SVG, because the wiki-software rescales it and delivers a non-optimised PNG to your browser. I've made and uploaded two more PNG versions that have no anti-aliasing, to remove the fuzziness. You may have to use ctrl-+ (zoom) to see the differences. They look like this: and – are these more like what you want? --RexxS (talk) 12:10, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Those are perfect. I would be perfectly content with them. — KV5 • Talk • 23:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Our own article doesn't hyphenate extra-base hits, you do, any reason?
  • As a non-expert, I'm not clear what a "position player" is.
  • "Through seven seasons, Phil Collins won more, and lost more, than 70 games." while true, still reads a little odd to me.
  • " later writing a book about his experience." is this referenced?
  • Link Babe Ruth.
  • I've just noticed, no Phillies template you can use at the end of these lists?

The Rambling Man (talk) 16:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Template question was one that I puzzled over. We do have {{Philadelphia Phillies}}, but these articles aren't linked from that navbox. That template is on the main article, so readers can navigate back to the original to move from article to article. I didn't see any added utility to having a navbox just for this set of articles when the TOC already does exactly the same thing. Do you think it would be appropriate to add the sublists to the main Phillies template? We haggle over these things all the time at WT:MLB and the discussions can either be very productive or degenerate into a whole lot of nothing. — KV5 • Talk • 03:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks to me like it'd be a reasonable addition to the template but that's a little out of the remit of the FLC process, so it'd be down to you (and your MLB colleagues) to decide really.... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well we have a long time until these are all done. I'll raise the question at WT:MLB when I have a spare moment and we can see what develops. — KV5 • Talk • 18:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indeed we do.
  • I asked at WT:MLB and response was minimal (namely only one user with whom, for the record, I always disagree about the usage of navboxes and who said that I should leave the team navbox out). — KV5 • Talk • 01:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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