Ryan, 

Thanks for this analysis, I think it is a good summary of the thinking on the matter. The current order of fonts specified seems to be the best ordering seems to achieve the desired look and feel short of loading free webfonts, which the design team is not opposed to, but it would take more research. 

I do feel the design team has made a good effort to evaluate all of the fonts suggested by the community, and come to the conclusions that you clearly enumerated above, which is that specifying any of these fonts has one  or more of the of the following consequences.

1. Penalize Linux users who have purposefully installed non-free fonts which map to the the desired design goals
2. Have no real effect, other that to appear to be endorsing FOSS fonts
3. Actively choose fonts which either don't look good (according to both users and the design team)

Long term lets invest (time, money, expertise) to build or extend a beautiful well designed typeface that suites the needs of our projects. Let's investigate how this could affect performance of the site, but its a pretty common practice even for large, popular sites, so i'm sure it's doable, given enough research. 



Jared Zimmerman  \\  Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia Foundation               
M : +1 415 609 4043 |   :  @JaredZimmerman



On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 9:54 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Now that I've blamed everyone except for myself, I would like to suggest that we stop pointing fingers and get down to brass tacks.

My question for both the designers and the free font advocates is: Are there any free fonts that are...
1. widely installed (at least on Linux systems)
2. easily readable and not distractingly ugly
3. would not be mapped to by the existing stack anyway (i.e. are not simply clones or substitutes for popular commercial fonts)

If so, I think they deserve at least as much consideration as Georgia and Helvetica Neue.

Ryan Kaldari


On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 9:07 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Frankly, I think there has been a large degree of intransigence on both sides. The free font advocates have refused to identify the fonts that they want to be considered and why they should be considered other than the fact that they are free, and the designers have refused to take any initiative on considering free fonts. The free fonts that I know have been considered are:
* DejaVu Serif. Conclusion: Widely installed, but horribly ugly and looks nothing like the style desired by the designers.
* Nimbus Roman No9 L. Conclusion: Basically a clone of Times. Most Linux systems map Times to Nimbus Roman No9 L, so there is no advantage to specifying "Nimbus Roman No9 L" rather than "Times" (which also maps to fonts on Windows and Mac).
* Linux Libertine. Conclusion: A well-designed free font that matches the look of the Wikipedia wordmark. Unfortunately, it is not installed by default on any systems (as far as anyone knows) but is bundled with LibreOffice as an application font. If MediaWiki were using webfonts, this would likely be the serif font of choice rather than Georgia, but since we are relying on pre-installed fonts, it would be rather pointless to list it.
* Liberation Sans. Conclusion: Essentially a free substitute for Arial. Like Nimbus Roman, there is no advantage to specifying "Liberation Sans" instead of "Arial" (which is at the bottom of the sans-serif stack) since Linux systems will map to Liberation Sans anyway, while other systems will apply Arial.

As to proving the quality of Georgia and Helvetica Neue, I don't think the designers have done that, but I also haven't seen any evidence from the free font advocates concerning the quality of any free fonts. So in my view, both sides of the debate have been delinquent.

Ryan Kaldari


On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg@wikimedia.org> wrote:
<quote name="Steven Walling" date="2014-02-15" time="16:08:41 -0800">
> On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > <quote name="Federico Leva (Nemo)" date="2014-02-15" time="22:52:31 +0100">
> > > And surely, before WMF/"MediaWiki" tell the world that no free fonts
> > > of good quality exist, there will be some document detailing exactly
> > > why and based on what arguments/data/research the numerous free
> > > alternatives were all rejected? Free fonts developers are an
> > > invaluable resource for serving Wikimedia projects' content in all
> > > languages, we shouldn't carelessly slap them in their face.
> >
> > I just skimmed the entire thread again, and yes, this has been requested
> > a few times but no one from the WMF Design team has responded with that
> > analysis (or if would respond with an analysis). The first time it was
> > requested the person was told to ask the Design list, then the next
> > message CC'd the design list, but no response on that point.
> >
> > I don't see much on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh
> > nor it's talk page. Nor
> > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/Typography
> >
>
> There wasn't an answer because the question is a fundamental
> misunderstanding of the way CSS works and options that are within our
> reach. The question isn't "are there good free fonts?" the question is "can
> we deliver good free fonts to all users?". I'll try to help the UX team
> document the answer better.

Thanks.

I may be part of the misunderstanding-of-how-things-work-in-font-land
contingent. Advice/clarity appreciated.

Greg


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