Hello,
After the last update which included the links to the user:discussion page (which is certainly useful) I have problems to scan RecentChanges for the really important things, i.e. the articles which were modified. In English it is not such a big problem because "diff" and "hist" and "talk" (and "block") are a lot shorter than "Unterschied" "Versionen", "Diskussion" and "blockieren" but German RecentChanges are at the moment almost unreadable for me.
Example: * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . M Tannhäuser; 02:17 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (wikifiz) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . M Krieg; 02:16 . . Nerd (Diskussion) (Vorheriges tlw wiederherigestellt) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . Tannhäuser; 02:16 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (aus dt. LIt. d. Ma.) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . .N Occams Rasiermesser; 02:15 . . Morken? (Diskussion?) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . Karl Popper; 02:15 . . 217.85.236.108 (Diskussion? | blockieren) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . Jurist; 02:13 . . Juergen (Diskussion?) (erweitert und umformuliert) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . .N Neidhart von Reuental; 02:13 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (aus dt. Lit. d. Ma.) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . M Quecksilber; 02:13 . . MarianSz (Diskussion?) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . Deutsche Literatur (Mittelalter); 02:13 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (wikifiz) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . .N Wolfram von Eschenbach; 02:11 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (aus dt. Lit. d. Ma.) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . M Krieg; 02:11 . . Nerd (Diskussion) (biologistischen Standpunkt kenntlich gemacht) * (Unterschied) (Versionen) . . Diskussion:Der Kürenberger; 02:10 . . Hunne (Diskussion) (@62.178.228.146 und Kurt Jansson)
Suggestion: my first idea was to display the article in bold but this would conflict with the watchlist feature. But it should be possible to display at least some parts in a smaller fontsize: "Diskussion" and "blockieren" and maybe also "Unterschied" and "Versionen".
What do you think? Could someone please change this, at least for the German wikipedia?
greetings, elian
comparison table: en: diff hist talk block de: Unterschied Versionen Diskussion blockieren es: diferencias historia discusion ? sv: skillnad historia Diskussion ? eo: malsamoj historio Diskuto ?
elian wrote:
Hello,
After the last update which included the links to the user:discussion page (which is certainly useful) I have problems to scan RecentChanges for the really important things, i.e. the articles which were modified. In English it is not such a big problem because "diff" and "hist" and "talk" (and "block") are a lot shorter than "Unterschied" "Versionen", "Diskussion" and "blockieren" but German RecentChanges are at the moment almost unreadable for me.
Ich empfehle die Einstellung "Erweiterte letzte Änderungen" :-) Recommending "Extended Recent Changes"
comparison table: en: diff hist talk block de: Unterschied Versionen Diskussion blockieren
Vielleicht als Kürzel? / How about "pseudo-icons"? de (neu) : [-] [...] [D:] [X]
Magnus
Magnus Manske magnus.manske@epost.de writes:
After the last update which included the links to the user:discussion page (which is certainly useful) I have problems to scan RecentChanges for the really important things, i.e. the articles which were modified. In English it is not such a big problem because "diff" and "hist" and "talk" (and "block") are a lot shorter than "Unterschied" "Versionen", "Diskussion" and "blockieren" but German RecentChanges are at the moment almost unreadable for me.
Ich empfehle die Einstellung "Erweiterte letzte Änderungen" :-) Recommending "Extended Recent Changes"
*oops* I didn't notice these were already incorporated. But actually, it made things only worse. Now I have "Änderungen, Versionen", "Aktuell, Letzte" "(2x)" or "(3x)" and a list of all people who changed something...
I asked my boyfriend to simulate a newbie who is trying to understand what all this does - it took us quite some time to figure out what each link actually does.
Some questions: - are the times a user changed something (2x) really worth being displayed? You have the overall number of changes and if you display the thread you can count the per-user changes. - Am I right in guessing that the line which is displayed in the "closed" state and the first line of the "opened" state refer to the same edit? - Does "Aktuell" (or "cur") actually show the diff to the _last_ edit, i.e. does it do the same as the link which is titled "Unterschied" or "diff" in the old recentchanges? - Does "Änderungen" ("changes") at multiple edits do the same as "Aktuell" ("cur") at a single edit (which does the same...see above)? - how many people use/need/like the history link on recentchanges? I just realized I never use it. I use "diff" to see the modifications or I read the article and eventually go from there to the history if I am interested in it. I dare to say that the history is only of interest if one has already read the article.
suggestions for both versions of recent changes: - use the tool tips to display something useful, pleeaaase! at the moment diff, hist, changes, older versions, cur, last, next, the article link itself and whatever display all the same: the article title! I dream of something like "display differences to the last version" or "edit history of the article". (The German Wikipedia has no tool tips at all) -exclude the history links (if there are no protests of people who use them)
suggestions for the modern recentchanges: -exclude the "(2x, 3x...)" -use the same names for the same things (older version=hist, changes=cur=diff)
other suggestions: - provide a link from Special:Preferences to the explanation of all the settings at: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AUser_preferences_help and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHandbuch_-_Einstellungen it is necessary, really...
comparison table: en: diff hist talk block de: Unterschied Versionen Diskussion blockieren
Vielleicht als Kürzel? / How about "pseudo-icons"? de (neu) : [-] [...] [D:] [X]
d for Diskussion and x for block are fine (I have a webcommunity in which admins can delete stuff (even whole users) with an "x", but despite my fears I never accidentally deleted something in two years) u for "Unterschied", v for "Versionen" combined with a good description in the tooltips and/or in the introduction (next to "Below are..") should help, too.
I really like the lots of functions the wikipedia software provides but I fear we steer too much away from the original wiki concept of "keeping it simple".
greetings, elian
- are the times a user changed something (2x) really worth
being displayed?
We need this, in some form. The original version didn't have it, and it was very hard to keep track of who edited what (many people make two or more changes before saving, but they do not remember this, so when they see "3 changes", they don't know if these are 3 changes by them, in which case they do not have to review them, or changes by someone else). We ended up expanding changes a lot when we really shouldn't have, and Magnus decided to provide an edit summary to avoid this. So this was actually a change that grew out of a real need :-).
The information could probably be better presented, though.
- how many people use/need/like the history link on recentchanges? I just
realized I never use it. I use "diff" to see the modifications or I read the article and eventually go from there to the history if I am interested in it. I dare to say that the history is only of interest if one has already read the article.
Hmm, good point. I never used it either.
- use the tool tips to display something useful, pleeaaase!
Agree, but the tooltips should not be an excuse for bad link titles.
-use the same names for the same things (older version=hist, changes=cur=diff)
Absolutely, but before we can do this, we need to change the layout to allow long link titles. Or use icons, which saves us translation work :-)
Regarding diff, we also need to think about which kind of diffs we really need in RC. Most likely, only the "diff to last" and the "changes" link for a summary diff.
- provide a link from Special:Preferences to the explanation of all the
settings at: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AUser_preferences_help and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AHandbuch_-_Einstellungen it is necessary, really...
Hopefully, we can make it unnecessary. But yes, we need a good design *and* prominent help links.
I really like the lots of functions the wikipedia software provides but I fear we steer too much away from the original wiki concept of "keeping it simple".
Yeah, RC has gotten somewhat out of control. For the old hands all the links are nice to have, but for a newbie it's really overwhelming. I'm afraid our RC layout might even have driven some people away already.
Regards,
Erik
Hello,
After the last update which included the links to the user:discussion page (which is certainly useful) I have problems to scan RecentChanges for the really important things, i.e. the articles which were modified. In English it is not such a big problem because "diff" and "hist" and "talk" (and "block") are a lot shorter than "Unterschied" "Versionen", "Diskussion" and "blockieren" but German RecentChanges are at the moment almost unreadable for me.
I like neither the long version nor the short version, and the Enhanced RC is a mess when it comes to link titles (sorry, Magnus). The fact that we're not using tables yet makes RC even harder to navigate.
I'm considering the following:
1) Use tables, as shown here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_Changes_redesign
2) Use icons for some stuff (User talk, block IP, diff, history, perhaps the minor/new identifiers which are confusing to newbies)
3) Use two lines per change if necessary to get decent link titles
The "cur/last" links are IMHO the most confusing of them all, and "hist" is pretty bad as well. Even by trial and error it's tricky to find out how the diff stuff works, and that is really one of our most elementary functions.
So, yes, this needs to be overhauled. I'm currently hacking on the history page, and I hope I'll find some time to work on RC as well.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
- Use tables, as shown here:
I tried that design at the test site once, but couldn't get the "folding" mechanism to work with tables. Really strange.
- Use icons for some stuff (User talk, block IP, diff, history, perhaps
the minor/new identifiers which are confusing to newbies)
I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again. Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)
- Use two lines per change if necessary to get decent link titles
Which would really work much better in a table. My Phase II table design wasn't widely appreciated, though ;-)
Magnus
- Use tables, as shown here:
I tried that design at the test site once, but couldn't get the "folding" mechanism to work with tables. Really strange.
It should work; K5 uses tables extensively and also has a dynamic mode. We'll have to look into this.
- Use icons for some stuff (User talk, block IP, diff, history, perhaps
the minor/new identifiers which are confusing to newbies)
I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again. Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)
"Text icons" don't really work. [-] and [H] are even worse than "cur" and "hist". Finding the right icons is hard - I don't really like the icons used by MoinMoin, for example (the only obvious ones are the magnifying glass and the printer). But a comic-style balloon for User talk would certainly work. For diff I'm thinking of something like this:
_________ _________ | \ | \ | | | | | | | | | A /---\ B | | ---/ | | | | | |__________| |__________|
- Use two lines per change if necessary to get decent link titles
Which would really work much better in a table. My Phase II table design wasn't widely appreciated, though ;-)
If you give me screenshots I can tell you why ;-)
Regards,
Erik
On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 12:16:11PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
I also tried "[-]" for diff and "[H]" for history at athe test site, but was immediately asked to replace them with "diff" and "hist" again. Also, icons could only be an option (text browsers etcl!)
Surely that problem is effectively dealt with by ALT tags?
On 12 Feb 2003, elian wrote:
Hello,
After the last update which included the links to the user:discussion page (which is certainly useful) I have problems to scan RecentChanges for the really important things, i.e. the articles which were modified. In English it is not such a big problem because "diff" and "hist" and "talk" (and "block") are a lot shorter than "Unterschied" "Versionen", "Diskussion" and "blockieren" but German RecentChanges are at the moment almost unreadable for me.
Well then, would it not be an idea to just use smaller versions for the German Wikipedia as well? I mean, 'diff' and 'hist' are abbrevations in English too. So what about 'Unt', 'Vers', 'Disk', 'block'?
comparison table: en: diff hist talk block de: Unterschied Versionen Diskussion blockieren es: diferencias historia discusion ? sv: skillnad historia Diskussion ? eo: malsamoj historio Diskuto ?
nl: wijz hist Overleg blokkeer (wijz=wijziging, hist=historie - although on the page themselves we use 'voorgeschiedenis' rather than 'historie')
Andre Engels
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