Hi, this is something that made me somewhat lose faith in my eye vision (which is horribly bad anyway):
in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, two entries, viz. "Pages" (second line) and "Active users (registered users with at least one edit or logged action in the past 30 days)" (8th line) have a small asterisk (*) next to them. I take it that the asterisk denotes a reference to a footnote...but I'm unable to find anything at the bottom of the page, not even a sentence like "Entries marked with an asterisk mean..."
What on earth am I missing? Where is explained what these stars/asterisks are for?
Thanks, Michael
The stars means there's a tool tip, hover your mouse over those lines.
Ah... Am I the only one for whom this is slightly less-than-intuitive? Should we maybe at least include a short hint on top or at the end of the page (essentially your reply)?
Maybe I'm too much a book person, but when I see a star somewhere, I jump down to the end of the page / the site, I don't assume that I should point my mouse at the star...
M.
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:21 AM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
The stars means there's a tool tip, hover your mouse over those lines.
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On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
Ah... Am I the only one for whom this is slightly less-than-intuitive? Should we maybe at least include a short hint on top or at the end of the page (essentially your reply)?
Maybe I'm too much a book person, but when I see a star somewhere, I jump down to the end of the page / the site, I don't assume that I should point my mouse at the star...
M.
Don't worry I was the same as well, I've submitted a bug report about so hopefully there will a footnote or something added about it.
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
Ah... Am I the only one for whom this is slightly less-than-intuitive? Should we maybe at least include a short hint on top or at the end of the page (essentially your reply)?
Maybe I'm too much a book person, but when I see a star somewhere, I jump down to the end of the page / the site, I don't assume that I should point my mouse at the star...
M.
Don't worry I was the same as well, I've submitted a bug report about so hopefully there will a footnote or something added about it.
Cheers! M.
2008/11/28 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
The stars means there's a tool tip, hover your mouse over those lines.
What an odd use of an asterisk... usually they refer to a footnote. That's completely non-intuitive (I was just as confused when I saw them, but couldn't be bothered to ask about it).
On 11/28/08, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/11/28 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
The stars means there's a tool tip, hover your mouse over those lines.
What an odd use of an asterisk... usually they refer to a footnote. That's completely non-intuitive (I was just as confused when I saw them, but couldn't be bothered to ask about it).
So the mystery has been solved, and good grief! In terms of accessibility this is about as useful as road-signs printed in braille. I should not have to (literally) feel around in the (figurative) dark.
Please fix this or it will only be a matter of time before some nimrod decides it would be neat to use the same format in article space for inline reference citations.
(This would follow closely in the footsteps of other efforts to decrease the visibility of refs, like putting them in a tiny scrollable box or one collapsed by default, hiding them in invisible html comments, or at the very bottom of the page beyond the navboxes and external link-spam, or even on a separate page—I'm not exaggerating any of this.)
—C.W.
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
(This would follow closely in the footsteps of other efforts to decrease the visibility of refs, like putting them in a tiny scrollable box or one collapsed by default, hiding them in invisible html comments, or at the very bottom of the page beyond the navboxes and external link-spam, or even on a separate page—I'm not exaggerating any of this.)
Well, if we didn't implement these proposals, the casual reader might be tempted to think that we once intended to write something scientific...like a reference work...oh, wait a minute...
I didn't see the notes in the asterisks unless I moved the cursor *right over* the asterisk. I don't think many people will realize to mouseover. Why can't we use footnotes?
~TNP http://thenewphobia.wordpress.com/
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 4:17 AM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, this is something that made me somewhat lose faith in my eye vision (which is horribly bad anyway):
in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, two entries, viz. "Pages" (second line) and "Active users (registered users with at least one edit or logged action in the past 30 days)" (8th line) have a small asterisk (*) next to them. I take it that the asterisk denotes a reference to a footnote...but I'm unable to find anything at the bottom of the page, not even a sentence like "Entries marked with an asterisk mean..."
What on earth am I missing? Where is explained what these stars/asterisks are for?
Thanks, Michael
-- Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com
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It's been fixed in r44013 and replaced with a lightbulb! https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16481 although i think that will still be confusing. you can see a demo of it here http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Statistics?uselang=en
2008/11/29 K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au:
It's been fixed in r44013 and replaced with a lightbulb! https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16481 although i think that will still be confusing. you can see a demo of it here http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Statistics?uselang=en
It's not ideal, but it's certainly better. When I see an inexplicable symbol on a webpage, my first thought is to hover the mouse over it and hope for some kind of explanation.