Lee Daniel Crocker (?) wrote:
>Formulas should be seen as "inclusions", so I prefer the [[math:
>syntax overall. The software should look at the formula inside
>the brackets, and choose how to output it. In particular, if it
>detects Mozilla it should output MATHML instead of calling TeX.
>Maybe if it's just a variable name, it could just output a <var>.
That would be nice if the system could be that intelligent.
This would work if we parsed the material before passing it to LaTeX,
which perhaps we should do anyway for security reasons.
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>
Hello members..
In regard to the suggestion below - that pronunciations
be supplied in phonetics or pseudo-phonetics in SAMPA, I
find a number of problems.
First, American English and British English do not have
the same pronunciation for the same words, yet the two
are intermixed in the English wikipedia.
Second, no dictionary or encyclopedia offers phonetic or
pseudo-phonetic pronunciations. They offer some kind of
_phonemic_ pronunciation.
The decision to use SAMPA is not an obvious one. Very
few ordinary people are familiar with SAMPA symbols.
Probably British English speakers are much more aware of
the IPA, since it is used consistently in the Oxford
Press publications. American English speakers use
dictionaries that use a variety of pronunciation guides,
but all based on the IPA.
I think any decisions on supplying pronunciations
require a great deal more consideration, before anything
is implemented.
As Ever,
Ruth Ifcher
--
> I suggest we formulate a policy on using SAMPA for pronunciation of words
> In the long run, IPA might be nicer, since paper dictionaries &
> encyclopedias use it. However, until there's good support for Unicode,
> sampa is readable on any browser. If at some point we can switch, the
> two are in direct correspondance.
>
> I've started looking for articles which use pseudo-phonetic
> transcriptions, & putting a list on
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SAMPA/To_Do
>
> We could make [[pronounced]] a redirect to SAMPA, or a simplified SAMPA
> table page for ease of linking from articles which give pronunciation.
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
In all the wiki table syntax hoopla I think we have forgotten about the "p"
word; preformatted text. I spent a couple of hours creating a simple linear
HTML list at http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/List_of_elements_by_name and then
Zoe created http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/List_of_elements_by_symbol by using
preformatted text.
Unlike my table, Zoe's is /very/ easy to read in edit mode and is just what
an HTML unaware person would expect to see after hitting 'edit this page'.
In these cases it would be nice to have a way to justify this list,
optionally create a border around it and change the parsing on it to default
font instead of the hideous courier. Then making a table like that will be as
easy as it was with typewriters of old.
I tried to put some pre-formatted text I originally created on my palm-pilot
and then copied to http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Talk:Glycolysis into a table
so that it could be right justified and placed alongside the glycolysis
article but HTML tables treat the preformatting spaces as whitespace and
ignore it.
Would it be possible to change the font of preformated text and allow
preformatted text in tables (whatever the syntax)?
Just kicking around another idea.
--mav
The pages [[Sic bo]] and [[Let it ride]] were copied from the website listed
on them, which has no indication that I could find of the copying policy.
Should they be deleted, or what?
phma
On Sun, 4 Aug 2002, Magnus Manske wrote:
> "Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel(a)copyleft.no> wrote:
>>Is this really what we want? To have articles decide layout and colors? I think
>>this is a very scary development - this is the same thing that happened to the
>>web in the early days, and look where we are now! Next thing, we have
>>[[flash:fun.swf]]!
> IMHO, it is a Good Thing to have all articles within the same encyclopedia
> that deal with similar content to use similar layout.
Are you actually saing: "It is a Good Thing to have different layout for
different groups of articles within the same encyclopedia." ?
Because we already _have_ the same layout for similar content. Everything has
the same layout.
Perhaps you aren't thinking about layout, but items of content? Such as
specs for a country. There is no conflict between including such standard
content in all such articles, and avoiding the use of author-driven coloring
and layout.
> It would also help to develop a reputation as a source of knowledge, compared
> to a "random dump of factoids".
I just can't see how you reach this conclusion. Nothing exudes knowledge like
pure content, without bells and whistles, color and flash.
> Of course, an editor can still use it as the latter, but there should be an
> easy way to make wikipedia look a little more "organized" than the whole web.
> After all, we apply our own standards on content, why not on style and layout
> as well, where it makes sense?
Wikipedia already IS more "organized" than the whole web. Articles look the
same, work in the same interface, link cleanly to eachother, are available in
printable format, etc. The web, on the other hand, is a total mess of flash,
frames, incompatible "standards", bad layout, and abuse of markup (tables for
layout, etc.).
Why not apply our own standards on style and layout as well? Because there is
simply no need for this! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a Powerpoint slide!
And because once you open up colors and layout it _will_ be abused. People
_will_ use colors to encode content (see the periodic table), which means we
_will_ lose the ability to transfer cleanly to other media (such as voice or
print).
In addition, as has been mentioned here again and again, layout and styling
will complicate markup, and this will scare away writers - and writers are more
important than readers.
If one must have differently colored tables in, say, plant articles and country
articles, then let that be a property of the article, not the tables. Then get
the Wikipedia programmers to add some kind of category system which in turn can
determine the style sheet used (by HTML) in the tables. Sounds horrible? I
agree, but this is basically the same as styling tables directly, only less
intrusive and more forward compatible.
Another thing I already find quite upsetting is the tendency to use right
aligned "floating" tables. What is the use of this? It disociates the table
from the page, making it much more difficult for an alternate rendering agent
to determine where to put it (when to read it out aloud, for instance).
Okay, I notice I'm getting myself worked up here, so I'll stop. But please,
can't you all see that this is the road to disaster?
-- Daniel
I don't know CSS *at all*, and all this talk is well over my head. I know HTML enough to make a table when need be, but if we have to change from HTML I would very much prefer we change to something I (and other people, who *don't* know HTML) can read. In other words, something we in my high school physics class used to call "intuitively obvious."
cheers,
kq
Jan wrote (in part):
>It just doesn't feel very democratic to me
>if you divide our contributers in those that know CSS and therefore can do
>formatting and understand what the styles do, and those that don't. I admit
>that the fact that I don't know CSS very well may play a part here, but it
>also shows how high the threshold for doing formatting would become.
>
>-- Jan Hidders
>> The only thing that $$...$$ has over [[math:...]] is in the
>> situation of a very short formula like a single letter, and
>> there it's better to use <var> instead of a gif *anyway*.
> I disagree strongly. That would mean that if I have a formula
> with one letter variables and two letter variables the first
> would be written as <var> and the second as TeX within the same
> text. Always using LaTeX will look better and is more consistent.
Formulas should be seen as "inclusions", so I prefer the [[math:
syntax overall. The software should look at the formula inside
the brackets, and choose how to output it. In particular, if it
detects Mozilla it should output MATHML instead of calling TeX.
Maybe if it's just a variable name, it could just output a <var>.
On Sunday 04 August 2002 11:27 am, tarquin wrote:
> I second the comment on right-aligned tables.
> They force content that flows to the left of the table to be far too
> narrow to read -- unless one widens the entire window, and then the
> full-width content is too wide to read comfortably.
>
> Tables should be within the flow as a block in their own right, likewise
> images.
This simply won't work for long tables such as the elements tables of even
with shorter ones like the country pages. All that is needed is diligence in
not making these tables too wide. Granted the elements tables are a bit fat
and are at the maximum of tolerance for low res screens but the taxonomy
tables are not in the vast majority of cases.
Table content is important too and not having right justification will make
for unnecessarily long articles with hordes of whitespace. The same is true
for image justification. The result will be a more disjointed article with
that will not have /any/ readability benefits in or out of edit mode.
--mav
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel(a)copyleft.no> wrote:
> I just can't see how you reach this conclusion. Nothing exudes
knowledge like
> pure content, without bells and whistles, color and flash.
> Why not apply our own standards on style and layout as well? Because
there is
> simply no need for this! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a
Powerpoint slide!
> And because once you open up colors and layout it _will_ be abused.
People
> _will_ use colors to encode content (see the periodic table), which
means we
> _will_ lose the ability to transfer cleanly to other media (such as
voice or
> print).
Though bells and whistles may be wrong, adding structure and colours may be
very useful, _especially_ for an encyclopedia. I use an encyclopedia to look
up information. Therefore, I don't (always) quickly want to read through an
enourmous amout of data. A table with the animal kingdom to which this
species
belongs is a very quick way to find referenc information, and so is a
coloured
elements table with specific groups easily identifiable. I wouldn't even
consider
buying a plain text encyclopedia in my bookstore, would you?
As for the need to transfer to other formats: printed text can contain
colour as
well (or gray-shades, for that matter) and one can talk rather
colourfully ;-)
But seriously, if other formats were an issue at all, conversion should
take care
of this.
> In addition, as has been mentioned here again and again, layout and
styling
> will complicate markup, and this will scare away writers - and
writers are more
> important than readers.
Are they? Well, I certainly hope the article I write are read!
Otherwise, I'll be
gone soon. Of course, we need writers, but I think we'll only scare away the
vandals, and not those really willing to contribute. There's a learning
curve,
but new editors are coming in all the time, and most people understand
that adding
in a complex structure takes some time to learn - and they do.
Adding one consistent style to a group of articles will in fact make it
easier for
editors to work with them, since you can copy from other examples. The
benefit for
the reader should be obvious, I think.
> Another thing I already find quite upsetting is the tendency to use right
> aligned "floating" tables. What is the use of this? It disociates the
table
> from the page, making it much more difficult for an alternate
rendering agent
> to determine where to put it (when to read it out aloud, for instance).
You will notice that many of these tables contain rather factual
information that is
rather difficult to put in an article in a good running text (often the
country
article, f.e. contained a group of sentences like: "The capital is X.
The king is Y.
There are Z inhabitants." etc.). Nevertheless, these facts are sometimes
the only
thing people are interested in.
The entire idea of such tables is not new; many encyclopedias in print
also use
them.
> But please, can't you all see that this is the road to disaster?
No, I can't.
Jeroen Heijmans
Thank you for doing that. I agree that that is probably the wisest answer to
this problem, though it was not something I could do myself as I was
involved. I am frustrated by what I consider to be revisionist spam, some of
it copyrighted, being posted here. I hope there is some solution.
Danny