On Mon, Apr 18, 2005 at 12:45:29PM +0100, Tony Sidaway wrote:
geni said:
It is a fact that a linked image cannot be put back into the article by the browser, but an inlined image *can* be turned into a link or placeholder by the browser.
In fact it is theoreticly posible to turn a link back into an image
I think you use the word "theoretically" with great licence, even though it is a significant concession. Where in the page would the image be placed? What size would the image be displayed at?
Just a thought: How about using CSS to show a block of color of the size and dimensions of an image that might be deemed "inappropriate" by popular standards of prudishness, with the ability to replace/cover that block with the image itself by clicking on it? This would be simple enough to implement it, involving probably a class= for potentially objectionable images. This could be the default behavior, with a link in place of the caption that says simply something like "This photo may be objectionable to some viewers. Click here to turn off content filtering." This would reload the page with the image shown, depositing a cookie on the client system that circumvents the image blocking in future visits to the site.
This way, we'd have:
A) initial default behavior that satisfies the more "sensitive" readers
B) initial default behavior that allows a one-click-per-image ability to inline the image without altering the layout of the page
C) a clear indication to viewers that the article would be better demonstrated by inline inclusion of the image if the viewer is willing to view it
and D) the ability to click once, ever, the first time you visit the site, to turn off this default behavior and simply have EVERYTHING inlined
I'm not saying this is the best option. It's just something that occurred to me and, in comparison with category rating and fine-grained controls on the server side, should be relatively trivial to implement, while maintaining a near-maximum degree of control in the hands of the viewer in terms of what he or she sees on the site. The only caveats to that are that the browser being used would have to properly implement the CSS used and, of course, some kind of "potentially objectionable material" image insertion wiki tag would have to be implemented to make it easily used when adding images to articles. Oh, and it would require people who wish to circumvent image blocking to accept cookies, which at Wikipedia doesn't bother me personally, but might bother others.
I suppose there's the concern that it might make the site aesthetically less pleasing to those who choose to browse with image blocking, but that seems to me to be no worse than the lack of illustrative images for encyclopedic purposes being inlined.
Thoughts? Comments?
Can you prove it degrads the enclyopedia?
Absolutely. Here's an exercise.
I think answering that rather than adjusting the language is probably not the best possible response. Saying it "degrades" it, without specifying what qualities are degraded, invites intractable differences of opinion. Perhaps, rather than saying "Absolutely," you might say "Yes: specifically, it degrades the encyclopedic informative capabilities of Wikipedia by removing illustrative images from their context within the article." That, I think, would be difficult to argue against, whereas simply saying "Absolutely!" leaves "degrade" undefined except by example, which admits room for counter examples, et cetera.
It's difficult to reach a meeting of the minds when the two sides of a debate are using different definitions of the word. It may degrade the article for you by removing illustrative images from context, but the converse may degrade the encyclopedia for someone else by making it objectionable to his sensibilities. Whether you agree that degradation of the encyclopedia according to matters of personal taste is something to give half a fig about, the fact of the matter is that for some people it WILL thusly be degraded, and by failing to define your terms your point gets lost in others' objections.
Granted, you did sorta make your intent clear with an example, but you never explicitly spelled your point out, thus leaving the door open to an inclusive interpretation of "degrade" that allows for "weighted" degradation estimations, where one balances personal taste against encyclopedic standards of content.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]