[WikiEN-l] Re: more low bandwidth user comments

[Dan Jacobson]

>>>>> "A" == Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> writes:

A> (Apologies to Dan if you get this twice; I'm assuming you're not
A> subscribed to the list...)
Correct.
A> Dan Jacobson wrote:
>> On Talk pages there is a link '+' for adding a comment.
>> Well why don't you spell out with English etc. what you mean instead
>> of just this geekspeak '+'.

A> Have you checked the tooltip on that? Please don't tell me you don't see
A> it, you're using a decent browser...

Well even if everything was working and the user did think of putting
the mouse on top of it or whatever, this single insistence of using a
cryptic code renders the whole page from qualifying for users with
disabilities use to not becoming prejudiced against disabled and older
etc. users.  Therefore your whole project now doesn't pass the 'OK for
disabled users test' so no grant money... anyways, spell out what you
mean by '+', and don't expect images or tooltips etc. to be seen on
PDAs or hardcopy too.

>> OK, and if one clicks on this +, one must download 100+ KB of form,
>> just to add a comment.  Perhaps mostly rarely used accented chars
>> entry help stuff.

A> I'm on 42kbps dialup. I don't have a problem with it.

But it is a shame when it doesn't have to be so big, and there's no
way for the user to configure it not to be so big.

>> When one sees links like Discussion etc. you might as well give an
>> article count, e.g., Discussion (21 items). Mainly if there is no
>> discussion yet, I don't want to click, as I have nothing to say, just
>> want to see others.
>> 

A> If you determine a way of distinguishing the exact number of topics on a
A> talk page, please submit your feature to http://www.mediawiki.org/ - not
A> everyone will start a new section for their comment, so section counting
A> won't do it.

Maybe the count of times edited. Or at least show 'No entries yet' vs.
'yes there are entries already'

A> Anyway, the second to last button directly above the edit box gives me
A> the tooltip "Your signature with timestamp" and inserts --~~~~ (this can

Well you should put it next to:
"On talk pages, please sign your comment by typing four tildes (~~~~)."

I do see in the source code
ddButton('/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.png','Your signature
with timestamp','--~~~~','','');

but I don't see it in the rendered version, because 1. I didn't happen
to mouseover wherever it is hidden. 2. I don't download images. (I
assume your site still works without images.) 3. I am reading a 4 day
old copy offline. etc. 4. whatever. Anyway, don't count on tooltips.

A> If you're so desperate for bandwidth that you have to use perl to edit
A> your pages, why don't you just run [[Links (web browser)]] in the
A> simplest mode? No graphics, CSS or JS to download!

But if I use lynx I bet your site will still send the 100KB regardless
of my HTTP headers. Most of the 100KB being wasted in lynx.

>> On all pages there is "Go" "Search". Many don't know what "Go" means...

A> Type the name of an article into the box and hit "Go".

Without an idea of what will happen, users are hesitant to do so.

>> Anyways, hope this gets to wikien-l, where I suppose it is read (as
>> this is the best bug report address I know.)
>> 

A> Not the best place (wikitech-l at wikimedia.org /is/), but you could have
A> done a lot worse.

That's the only address I saw for bug reports. OK, setting Reply-to.