On Mon, 23 May 2005, Timwi wrote:
Geoff Burling wrote:
It's an ancient version of Mozilla that I probably compiled incorrectly when I installed in years ago
In that case, I'm very afraid you have no grounds to complain.
Did I say that *was* the grounds for my original complaint? You asked, I answered.
Download times are a very off-putting experience whenever one deals with the Web, & very few web developers bother to optimize for speed -- or even consider it a problem.
[snip]
Some of the Wikipedia skins do that too and you can happily read away the text as soon as it has been transferred. Unfortunately, Monobook isn't one of them, because it uses several CSS files which themselves include yet other CSS files...
For the record, I don't use the Monobook skin.
And turning images off is not the solution.
I never suggested that. That wouldn't make the text appear any sooner anyway.
Did I say you had?
I'm not interested in seeing every known image with the proper license that could be related to the subject.
Then don't look at them.
So how I am to selectively view images? Last time this question was raised (for reasons other than viewing convenience), the conclusion was that this was an all or nothing situation: either every image linked in a page gets downloaded -- or none do.
Should I start removing images from pages where I feel there are too many? Or would this be an example of disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point?
Timwi, I'm not clear where this exchange between us is going. My original complaint is with contributors who want to insert more images than I believe are necessary; at the moment I feel this is an issue best solved by education, rather than policy or programming. You seem to hear my generalized complaints about Web design philosophy as attacks on how Wikipedia is designed; if I had specific complaints about Wikipedia, I'd be filing detailed bug reports in the proper manner.
If you think I'm picking a fight with you, I'm not; I'm just trying to express my belief that the average contributor to Wikipedia sometimes lacks a clear idea what constraints many end users endure when they view Wikipedia. And this erroneous impression is related to a number of other issues I have with Web design -- & with the assumptions software designers far too often make about their intended audience.
I could expound a little about those, too, but it's probably better to concede the floor to someone else at this point.
Geoff
Geoff