[WikiEN-l] Slightly less hideous placeholders

[David Gerard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Replace_this_image_female.svg&redirect=no
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Replace_this_image_male.svg&redirect=no
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Replace_this_image1.svg&redirect=no

(those are the HTTP links to the non-redirected versions, as the image
pages redirect to [[Wikipedia:Fromowner]])

The previous Village Pump discussion got bogged down in wording and
colouring discussions, but I think the one point everyone could agree
on was that the previous images were hideous and jarring. So for
these, I have:

   1. changed the background from transparent to a soft blue (#E6E6FF)
   2. made the text into a path.

I have not changed the actual image outlines and I have not changed
the text (except adding a comma to two of them).

The text issue was that the font was being rendered by MediaWiki's
servers as serif, even though the actual image specifies Bitstream
Vera Sans. (I don't have Futura here, or I'd have used that. Mind you,
Bitstream Vera Sans is Free™.) Making it into just another path makes
that not an issue, although it reduces editability. (We can always use
a previous version as a base if anyone can ever agree on a wording
change.)

Hopefully these look more inviting and less like a spork in the viewer's eye ...

As well as adding hundreds of placeholders, I have been busy on Flickr
looking for replacement images and have uploaded quite a lot of them
in the past week or so. So I'm trying to help things along in the
right direction ;-)


- d.