This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
William Gibson template. |
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Canada Template‑class | |||||||
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Novels Template‑class | |||||||
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Books Template‑class | |||||||
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→Taken from User talk:Skomorokh:
Thanks for your courtesy. I appreciate your concerns, but I believe that generic templates are generally frought with design and aesthetic compromises and are unnecessary and undesirable in situations where editors are willing to do the coding, as here. I agree with you that the bolding makes for confusion, but that can be rectified by changing the formatting of the section titles. As for restoring the blue wikilink, this violates the principle of bolding the title of pages in order to state clearly and without confusion what is to follow, as in the the presence in the lede of articles of the title of the page, without links. I am copying this discussion to the template talkpage. Skomorokh incite 19:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I've made the linked articles smaller to resolve the Agrippa problem and linked the entire title so that it's hard to miss. Skomorokh incite 19:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
→Taken from User Talk:Kevinalewis:
Hello Kevin, I'm wondering if you would mind making more use of edit summaries, especially when reverting the edits of others. For example, you reverted this edit of mine which seemed to me uncontroversial (novels necessarily being a subcategory of books, and subcategorisation being an uncontroversial Wikipedia policy). I've noticed you have twice edited Template:Gibsonian to convert the existing template to a navbox. However, you provided no rationale for why this was a desirable change. The navbox format unnecessarily multiplies the colours used and unbalances the text, rendering it ugly and difficult for users to read; furthermore by converting an easily identifiable template to a generic version it makes it difficult to identify this particular template by passing glance and contributes to the drab, aesthetically uninspiring style which affects much of Wikipedia, making it a less attractive resource for users. I look forward to reading your opinion on the talkpages, and hope we can avoid unconstructive reversions in future. Regards, Skomorokh incite 11:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
From the above conversation the block to a move to navbox formatting seems to be by a single editor over aesthetic differences. While it's certainly a valid opinion that navboxes are less interesting than individually-formatted tables, this isn't a consensus position. In fact, quite the opposite would seem to be true. I'm personally in favour of converting this into a navbox for reasons of standardisation, simpler markup (and hence future maintainability) and for the separation of content from presentation (navboxes can easily be styled through CSS in Wikipedia themes; Wikipedia tables intermingled with raw markup less so). While this isn't a democracy, I think the general weight of opinion lies in favour of using the modern template. Chris Cunningham 10:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if it's been suggested, but there are alternate style options for the navbox. Would you be content with something like this demonstration diff Skomorokh? That'd satisfy my discomfort over the title links being in black (we should never make users "hunt" for links), and the aesthetic result seems close enough to both to leave everyone happy? -- Quiddity 18:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason why there are horizontal stripes of a slightly darker shade covering the Short stories and Story elements sections? Is there a rationale for these? Is it possible that they might be removed? Skomorokh incite 19:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Bah, the recurring problem of links running beyond the boundaries of the template has raise its ugly head again. Is there a more elegant way than non-breaking spaces to fix this? Skomorokh incite 18:38, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
In [1], User:Thumperward said to "just drop the subcats. this isn't meant to be a taxonmy; it's only meant to get people to relevant links. too much categorisation in navboxen is counterproductive". I believe that proper categorization is very useful, however. What does everyone think? ~ Jafet ( spam) 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Discussion on proposed merges moved to Talk:Works of William Gibson Skomorokh incite 17:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
What do editors feel about adding an image of Gibson (such as that displayed to the right) to the template? Template images are used to great effect in e.g. Template:Nietzsche. I tried implementing it myself, but the overlap problem resulted in " New Rose Hotel" being superimposed on the image. Does anyone know how this might be successfully done? Skomorokh incite 18:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
So it's been a while since we discussed this. Is it okay to think about removing the additional styling here now? The navbox documentation recommends not using styling, and there really doesn't seem to be a concrete reason for setting this box in white. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Gentlemen, I am not the one adding style frills, you are; my version of the template is plain simple white, whereas you are adding the horrid functionless purple. The rationale for changing now - "it's a good time to make the change we wanted to now because, um, it's been a while since we tried the same thing last time" - is less than convincing. I'm fine with letting this one slide - this is not a productive use of any of our leisure time, but I must echo Quiddity's objection to the heading change. Introducing the category is pointless (and another warning against unquestioning "standardisation"), as all the articles in the category are linked from the template, where they are even organised better. The featured bibliography offers fuller publication details on the subject of the template - the works of Gibson - and unlike the category is non-redundant. Hopefully, the current version is satisfactory for all concerned. Respectfully, the skomorokh 13:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
did you see any gibsonian articles impacted with this diff? I just reverted such edit. Gibsonian articles are now normal. Also the edit by DrinkThineCookies has a link to Nіmp.оrg note that it's actually o*n.n*i*m*p.o*r*g for people using Windows-1252 (with no *s) -- ░▒▓Frogger3140▓▒░ ( talk) 14:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure quite how it works, but I've thrown together a copy of this template in the Book: namespace at Book:William Gibson. Input and suggestions welcome. Skomorokh 14:18, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
William Gibson template. |
|
Canada Template‑class | |||||||
|
Novels Template‑class | |||||||
|
Books Template‑class | |||||||
|
→Taken from User talk:Skomorokh:
Thanks for your courtesy. I appreciate your concerns, but I believe that generic templates are generally frought with design and aesthetic compromises and are unnecessary and undesirable in situations where editors are willing to do the coding, as here. I agree with you that the bolding makes for confusion, but that can be rectified by changing the formatting of the section titles. As for restoring the blue wikilink, this violates the principle of bolding the title of pages in order to state clearly and without confusion what is to follow, as in the the presence in the lede of articles of the title of the page, without links. I am copying this discussion to the template talkpage. Skomorokh incite 19:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I've made the linked articles smaller to resolve the Agrippa problem and linked the entire title so that it's hard to miss. Skomorokh incite 19:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
→Taken from User Talk:Kevinalewis:
Hello Kevin, I'm wondering if you would mind making more use of edit summaries, especially when reverting the edits of others. For example, you reverted this edit of mine which seemed to me uncontroversial (novels necessarily being a subcategory of books, and subcategorisation being an uncontroversial Wikipedia policy). I've noticed you have twice edited Template:Gibsonian to convert the existing template to a navbox. However, you provided no rationale for why this was a desirable change. The navbox format unnecessarily multiplies the colours used and unbalances the text, rendering it ugly and difficult for users to read; furthermore by converting an easily identifiable template to a generic version it makes it difficult to identify this particular template by passing glance and contributes to the drab, aesthetically uninspiring style which affects much of Wikipedia, making it a less attractive resource for users. I look forward to reading your opinion on the talkpages, and hope we can avoid unconstructive reversions in future. Regards, Skomorokh incite 11:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
From the above conversation the block to a move to navbox formatting seems to be by a single editor over aesthetic differences. While it's certainly a valid opinion that navboxes are less interesting than individually-formatted tables, this isn't a consensus position. In fact, quite the opposite would seem to be true. I'm personally in favour of converting this into a navbox for reasons of standardisation, simpler markup (and hence future maintainability) and for the separation of content from presentation (navboxes can easily be styled through CSS in Wikipedia themes; Wikipedia tables intermingled with raw markup less so). While this isn't a democracy, I think the general weight of opinion lies in favour of using the modern template. Chris Cunningham 10:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if it's been suggested, but there are alternate style options for the navbox. Would you be content with something like this demonstration diff Skomorokh? That'd satisfy my discomfort over the title links being in black (we should never make users "hunt" for links), and the aesthetic result seems close enough to both to leave everyone happy? -- Quiddity 18:24, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason why there are horizontal stripes of a slightly darker shade covering the Short stories and Story elements sections? Is there a rationale for these? Is it possible that they might be removed? Skomorokh incite 19:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Bah, the recurring problem of links running beyond the boundaries of the template has raise its ugly head again. Is there a more elegant way than non-breaking spaces to fix this? Skomorokh incite 18:38, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
In [1], User:Thumperward said to "just drop the subcats. this isn't meant to be a taxonmy; it's only meant to get people to relevant links. too much categorisation in navboxen is counterproductive". I believe that proper categorization is very useful, however. What does everyone think? ~ Jafet ( spam) 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Discussion on proposed merges moved to Talk:Works of William Gibson Skomorokh incite 17:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
What do editors feel about adding an image of Gibson (such as that displayed to the right) to the template? Template images are used to great effect in e.g. Template:Nietzsche. I tried implementing it myself, but the overlap problem resulted in " New Rose Hotel" being superimposed on the image. Does anyone know how this might be successfully done? Skomorokh incite 18:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
So it's been a while since we discussed this. Is it okay to think about removing the additional styling here now? The navbox documentation recommends not using styling, and there really doesn't seem to be a concrete reason for setting this box in white. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Gentlemen, I am not the one adding style frills, you are; my version of the template is plain simple white, whereas you are adding the horrid functionless purple. The rationale for changing now - "it's a good time to make the change we wanted to now because, um, it's been a while since we tried the same thing last time" - is less than convincing. I'm fine with letting this one slide - this is not a productive use of any of our leisure time, but I must echo Quiddity's objection to the heading change. Introducing the category is pointless (and another warning against unquestioning "standardisation"), as all the articles in the category are linked from the template, where they are even organised better. The featured bibliography offers fuller publication details on the subject of the template - the works of Gibson - and unlike the category is non-redundant. Hopefully, the current version is satisfactory for all concerned. Respectfully, the skomorokh 13:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
did you see any gibsonian articles impacted with this diff? I just reverted such edit. Gibsonian articles are now normal. Also the edit by DrinkThineCookies has a link to Nіmp.оrg note that it's actually o*n.n*i*m*p.o*r*g for people using Windows-1252 (with no *s) -- ░▒▓Frogger3140▓▒░ ( talk) 14:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure quite how it works, but I've thrown together a copy of this template in the Book: namespace at Book:William Gibson. Input and suggestions welcome. Skomorokh 14:18, 19 January 2010 (UTC)