Hi all,
While adding details on story #589 https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/589 about showing the caption above the fold in Media Viewer, I recalled that we were considering not showing the file description below the fold for files that have both a caption and a description. I wanted to confirm if that is the case, and the changes it will imply.
I created story #895 https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/895 to capture required changes if we remove the below the fold description. Basically it reorganises a little bit the authorship information so that is can expand using the room the description used and avoids just having an empty area below the fold.
The rationale for removing the description below the fold was that for files that have both caption and description they tend to be redundant most of the time. I did a quick exploration by picking some random vital articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles and going through 62 images:
- 46% of the images lack description or it was not shown in Media Viewer - From the rest of the files where both caption and description: - 58% (26% of total) provide redundant information or the description didn't add additional details (example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci#mediaviewer/File:Clos_luce_04_straight.JPG ). - 44% (20% of total) show more details on the description or complementary info to the caption (example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)#mediaviewer/File:Mercuryorbitsolarsystem.gif ).
I'm not sure how representative this is compared to all our files (any data on the subject is welcome), but taking into account that the file description can be accessed through the "more details" button which we plan to make more prominent, I'm ok with removing it if we don't found stronger evidence of its need.
Should that be made as part of the changes of #589 https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/589? I don't know, I created card #895 https://wikimedia.mingle.thoughtworks.com/projects/multimedia/cards/895 as a separate card so that it can be done after #589 or at the same time, as it makes more sense according to development efforts.
Any thoughts?
Pau
Pau Giner, 17/09/2014 14:14:
I'm not sure how representative this is compared to all our files (any data on the subject is welcome)
Plenty of examples were provided on the countless talk pages, e.g. for graphs. I don't understand from your email if you want to remove the caption or the description, but certainly eliminating captions and just transcluding descriptions would be welcome from what I recall of the discussions.
Nemo
On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Pau Giner, 17/09/2014 14:14:
I'm not sure how representative this is compared to all our files (any data on the subject is welcome)
Plenty of examples were provided on the countless talk pages, e.g. for graphs. I don't understand from your email if you want to remove the caption or the description, but certainly eliminating captions and just transcluding descriptions would be welcome from what I recall of the discussions.
That's quite the opposite of what I remember.
The plan is to remove the description, but use it as a fallback if there is not caption.
I am working on measuring how often a description is available, but it will take a while until that starts producing data.
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