This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | → | Archive 20 |
There is a proposal at the Village Pump [1] to add featured picture stars to featured pictures in article space (below the featured picture, in its caption box, or image caption box in the case of taxoboxes with featured pictures.
The discussion includes asking the question whether they should be added to all featured pictures in articles including in taxoboxes, added just to featured pictures in caption boxes only and not to featured pictures in taxoboxes, or not added at all. Currently to find out if an image is a featured picture the user has to click on the image and its file page indicates with a star in the upper right hand corner that it is a featured picture.
To join the discussion and express your opinion go to the Village Pump. -- IP69.226.103.13 ( talk) 08:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Homo floresiensis | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | |
Species: | Homo floresiensis
|
Binomial name | |
Homo floresiensis |
Archonta | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Superorder: | Archonta
|
Orders | |
Oryzomys anoblepas | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | |
Species: | Oryzomys anoblepas
|
Binomial name | |
Oryzomys anoblepas |
Banksia | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | Banksia
|
In a discussion at Talk:Homo floresiensis#Taxobox, some users brought up the suggestion to change the taxobox to introduce a new feature that would change the "Scientific classification" heading to something else when the classification is disputed, as at H. floresiensis. I added a sample here of what this would look like. This would allow us to include the valuable information the taxobox gives, which is valuable whether or not the species is valid, while not giving the impression that we are considering something valid (i.e., taking sides in a debate) that may not be valid.
I think there are two other situations where a similar change in the taxobox would be helpful. One is for obsolete taxa, such as Archonta, where a taxobox is still helpful in showing what the earlier classification looked like, and the other is where we simply don't know what the classification should be, as in the case of Oryzomys anoblepas. I feel this is distinct from a disputed taxon such as H. floresiensis, because in cases like this there is simply no research that has established a classification, which is something different from a disputed classification, in which there are two sides that have different views of what the classification should be. I added similar options to the taxobox sandbox, also illustrated to the right here.
The precise wording is of course open to change. Hesperian proposed "Putative scientific classification", which I don't quite like, because I don't think "putative" has the meaning we want to have here. [2] [3] Ucucha 03:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
We all seem to be in agreement that this change is a positive one, and since it only introduces flexibility and does not affect existing taxoboxes, I am going ahead to request that it be added. {{ editprotected}} Please do this edit to {{ Taxobox}}. Ucucha 13:39, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
|
|
Hey folks,
So I think it's time we started to move towards making this a real {{ infobox}}. I've updated the sandbox to use styling which is closer to that expected of modern infobox templates: I've made concessions to the current taxobox styling with regard to font size and width for now so as not to do too much at once. As usual, comparisons are available on the test cases page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
<th>
element for these keys rather than a <td>
with a colon also imparts additional semantic value, which helps automated tools incuding screen readers for the blind to make sense of the data. As for the colour band behind the fossil range, that's fairly trivial to resolve, but again on the majority of the encyclopedia's infoboxes it is only the title which is given a colour band (and even then not always). Again, the main rationale for these changes is not aesthetic, but rather to impart more information through the markup, to present our infobox templates consistently to our readers and to simplify the code. In the current sandbox the deviations from the standard {{
infobox}} layout are purely for the sake of not doing too much at once.
Chris Cunningham (not at work) -
talk
19:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Chris, assuming you're familiar with relational databases (you seem like the kind of guy who would be): I don't think of the above taxobox as presenting a single (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) tuple. I think of it as presenting a sequence of (rank, name) tuples. To put it another way, (Genus, Boletus) is not a key-value pair; it is the value of a key-value pair for which the (implicit) key is the tuple (name, rank). It follows that "Genus" is not a key; it should not be in bold; and it should not be wrapped in <th>. Hesperian 23:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I've updated the sandbox to reflect the discussion above. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I have never heard, and still don't buy, the argument that taxa should be bold in the taxobox per WP:LEAD. The scientific name should be in the lead, where it is accessible to people who have difficulty reading infoboxes, and it should be bolded there. Nonetheless I do prefer the taxobox to boldface the taxon/taxa covered by the article... yet unbolding it would not be that big a deal, in my opinion.
My problem with the "Name, Rank" header is simply that it looks horrendous.
I think accessibility here is a red herring. First, table heads can have any style. Bold is the most common browser default, but they can be italic, small, small-cap, line-under, boxed, or even unemphasized. Except that some of the common screen readers would ignore it, they could even be made invisible in the visual display.
Second, data tables don't always have to have headers. If they are small, and the meaning is apparent when linearized, headers may not be necessary. Certainly, to a screen reader user who knows about the taxonomic hierarchy, the meaning is apparent. Whether the meaning is apparent to any user unfamiliar with the taxonomic hierarchy is arguable.
Third, one could make a case (not a good one in my estimation, but nevertheless) that it is a layout table, not a data table: a linear presentation of "Kingdom, Animalia; Phylum, Chordata; Class, Mammalia..." would be (arguably) as comprehensible.
@Hesperian, you were the one who made the convincing argument about the data structure; the headers are the crop that you reap :-). I could go either way, but if they are kept, I'd suggest restyling them.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 14:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I think there are two other issues here for which we should consider whether we want them:
Regarding the second, I think it's important to have some visual distinction between name and authority everywhere in the taxobox for those who're not familiar with the conventions regarding authorities. In the |synonyms= field, we usually use "small" tags for that; I think the general authority should be consistent with that. Ucucha 14:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
<small>
(aside from being deprecated in HTML5) leads to unpredictable results in infobox templates due to the layers of nested CSS involved. For what it's worth I'm in favour of consistency here: one problem is that in the current code these authority references are sometimes given in text smaller than 80%, which is eye-strain territory for most people at healthy head-to-monitor distances. The smallest we should be going with any text is to the size of the standard WP image caption.
Chris Cunningham (not at work) -
talk
15:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC){{ editprotected}} The section header for the type species currently links to biological type. It would be preferable for it to link to the appropriate article, type species. Could an admin please carry out that change in the template? Ucucha 21:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Back in early 2006, someone added the parameters "genus2" and "genus2_authority". The reason they gave for doing this was for use in common name articles such as Night heron which span more than one genus. If you visit the article Night heron you'll see these two parameters are no longer used, as "Night heron" is now understood to include 3 genera. This brings me to my point. If a common name refers to a group of genera, the editor should use the "subdivision" parameter, not "genera", "genera2", "genera3", etc. To see the correct way to do this, take a look at Rorqual, which does indeed include 2 genera, but does not use the "genera2" parameters. If it's OK with everyone else, I would like to remove these two parameters from the template. I would, of course, find all the articles which currently use the parameters and migrate them to "subdivision" before deleting "genus2" and "genus2_authority". Kaldari ( talk) 05:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
How do you propose to find all the articles that need migrating? One option is to temporarily make the taxobox categorise into Category:Taxoboxes with genus2 parameter. Then, once you've emptied that category, we remove both the categorisation and the support for genus2. How does that sound? Hesperian 05:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 12 | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | → | Archive 20 |
There is a proposal at the Village Pump [1] to add featured picture stars to featured pictures in article space (below the featured picture, in its caption box, or image caption box in the case of taxoboxes with featured pictures.
The discussion includes asking the question whether they should be added to all featured pictures in articles including in taxoboxes, added just to featured pictures in caption boxes only and not to featured pictures in taxoboxes, or not added at all. Currently to find out if an image is a featured picture the user has to click on the image and its file page indicates with a star in the upper right hand corner that it is a featured picture.
To join the discussion and express your opinion go to the Village Pump. -- IP69.226.103.13 ( talk) 08:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Homo floresiensis | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | |
Species: | Homo floresiensis
|
Binomial name | |
Homo floresiensis |
Archonta | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Superorder: | Archonta
|
Orders | |
Oryzomys anoblepas | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | |
Species: | Oryzomys anoblepas
|
Binomial name | |
Oryzomys anoblepas |
Banksia | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Genus: | Banksia
|
In a discussion at Talk:Homo floresiensis#Taxobox, some users brought up the suggestion to change the taxobox to introduce a new feature that would change the "Scientific classification" heading to something else when the classification is disputed, as at H. floresiensis. I added a sample here of what this would look like. This would allow us to include the valuable information the taxobox gives, which is valuable whether or not the species is valid, while not giving the impression that we are considering something valid (i.e., taking sides in a debate) that may not be valid.
I think there are two other situations where a similar change in the taxobox would be helpful. One is for obsolete taxa, such as Archonta, where a taxobox is still helpful in showing what the earlier classification looked like, and the other is where we simply don't know what the classification should be, as in the case of Oryzomys anoblepas. I feel this is distinct from a disputed taxon such as H. floresiensis, because in cases like this there is simply no research that has established a classification, which is something different from a disputed classification, in which there are two sides that have different views of what the classification should be. I added similar options to the taxobox sandbox, also illustrated to the right here.
The precise wording is of course open to change. Hesperian proposed "Putative scientific classification", which I don't quite like, because I don't think "putative" has the meaning we want to have here. [2] [3] Ucucha 03:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
We all seem to be in agreement that this change is a positive one, and since it only introduces flexibility and does not affect existing taxoboxes, I am going ahead to request that it be added. {{ editprotected}} Please do this edit to {{ Taxobox}}. Ucucha 13:39, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
|
|
Hey folks,
So I think it's time we started to move towards making this a real {{ infobox}}. I've updated the sandbox to use styling which is closer to that expected of modern infobox templates: I've made concessions to the current taxobox styling with regard to font size and width for now so as not to do too much at once. As usual, comparisons are available on the test cases page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
<th>
element for these keys rather than a <td>
with a colon also imparts additional semantic value, which helps automated tools incuding screen readers for the blind to make sense of the data. As for the colour band behind the fossil range, that's fairly trivial to resolve, but again on the majority of the encyclopedia's infoboxes it is only the title which is given a colour band (and even then not always). Again, the main rationale for these changes is not aesthetic, but rather to impart more information through the markup, to present our infobox templates consistently to our readers and to simplify the code. In the current sandbox the deviations from the standard {{
infobox}} layout are purely for the sake of not doing too much at once.
Chris Cunningham (not at work) -
talk
19:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Chris, assuming you're familiar with relational databases (you seem like the kind of guy who would be): I don't think of the above taxobox as presenting a single (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) tuple. I think of it as presenting a sequence of (rank, name) tuples. To put it another way, (Genus, Boletus) is not a key-value pair; it is the value of a key-value pair for which the (implicit) key is the tuple (name, rank). It follows that "Genus" is not a key; it should not be in bold; and it should not be wrapped in <th>. Hesperian 23:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I've updated the sandbox to reflect the discussion above. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I have never heard, and still don't buy, the argument that taxa should be bold in the taxobox per WP:LEAD. The scientific name should be in the lead, where it is accessible to people who have difficulty reading infoboxes, and it should be bolded there. Nonetheless I do prefer the taxobox to boldface the taxon/taxa covered by the article... yet unbolding it would not be that big a deal, in my opinion.
My problem with the "Name, Rank" header is simply that it looks horrendous.
I think accessibility here is a red herring. First, table heads can have any style. Bold is the most common browser default, but they can be italic, small, small-cap, line-under, boxed, or even unemphasized. Except that some of the common screen readers would ignore it, they could even be made invisible in the visual display.
Second, data tables don't always have to have headers. If they are small, and the meaning is apparent when linearized, headers may not be necessary. Certainly, to a screen reader user who knows about the taxonomic hierarchy, the meaning is apparent. Whether the meaning is apparent to any user unfamiliar with the taxonomic hierarchy is arguable.
Third, one could make a case (not a good one in my estimation, but nevertheless) that it is a layout table, not a data table: a linear presentation of "Kingdom, Animalia; Phylum, Chordata; Class, Mammalia..." would be (arguably) as comprehensible.
@Hesperian, you were the one who made the convincing argument about the data structure; the headers are the crop that you reap :-). I could go either way, but if they are kept, I'd suggest restyling them.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 14:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I think there are two other issues here for which we should consider whether we want them:
Regarding the second, I think it's important to have some visual distinction between name and authority everywhere in the taxobox for those who're not familiar with the conventions regarding authorities. In the |synonyms= field, we usually use "small" tags for that; I think the general authority should be consistent with that. Ucucha 14:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
<small>
(aside from being deprecated in HTML5) leads to unpredictable results in infobox templates due to the layers of nested CSS involved. For what it's worth I'm in favour of consistency here: one problem is that in the current code these authority references are sometimes given in text smaller than 80%, which is eye-strain territory for most people at healthy head-to-monitor distances. The smallest we should be going with any text is to the size of the standard WP image caption.
Chris Cunningham (not at work) -
talk
15:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC){{ editprotected}} The section header for the type species currently links to biological type. It would be preferable for it to link to the appropriate article, type species. Could an admin please carry out that change in the template? Ucucha 21:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Back in early 2006, someone added the parameters "genus2" and "genus2_authority". The reason they gave for doing this was for use in common name articles such as Night heron which span more than one genus. If you visit the article Night heron you'll see these two parameters are no longer used, as "Night heron" is now understood to include 3 genera. This brings me to my point. If a common name refers to a group of genera, the editor should use the "subdivision" parameter, not "genera", "genera2", "genera3", etc. To see the correct way to do this, take a look at Rorqual, which does indeed include 2 genera, but does not use the "genera2" parameters. If it's OK with everyone else, I would like to remove these two parameters from the template. I would, of course, find all the articles which currently use the parameters and migrate them to "subdivision" before deleting "genus2" and "genus2_authority". Kaldari ( talk) 05:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
How do you propose to find all the articles that need migrating? One option is to temporarily make the taxobox categorise into Category:Taxoboxes with genus2 parameter. Then, once you've emptied that category, we remove both the categorisation and the support for genus2. How does that sound? Hesperian 05:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)