Difference between revisions of "LGPedia:Lucy's Balcony"

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(Browser neutrality or Official Browser)
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::: This was the most idiotic dispute in the history of the Wiki.  Just saying! --[[User:JayHenry|JayHenry]] 15:09, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
 
::: This was the most idiotic dispute in the history of the Wiki.  Just saying! --[[User:JayHenry|JayHenry]] 15:09, 1 July 2007 (CDT)
  
--[[User:Phoenician|Pheon]] 14:23, 16 July 2007 (CDT)== Browser neutrality or Official Browser ==
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--[[User:Phoenician|Pheon]] 14:23, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
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== Browser neutrality or Official Browser ==
  
 
Ok there are some pages ( like the list of videos page ), that have significant differences when rendered in different browsers, and currently anyone can just edit to make the page look good in there own browser, and things don't look quite right in other browsers.  I think we need a standard, either we enforce "Browser Neutrality", by not allowing any page design that doesn't look '''as good''' in all Browsers, or we declare one Browser the official Browser, and all pages are '''optimized''' to look best in that Browser, ''' but must still look reasonble in all browsers'''.  Realistically there are only 3 Browsers, that we need to concern ourselves with Safari (Webkit), Firefox (Gecko) and  Internet Explorer (Trident), since every other Browser uses the same rendering engine as one of them.  all of them have pros and cons:
 
Ok there are some pages ( like the list of videos page ), that have significant differences when rendered in different browsers, and currently anyone can just edit to make the page look good in there own browser, and things don't look quite right in other browsers.  I think we need a standard, either we enforce "Browser Neutrality", by not allowing any page design that doesn't look '''as good''' in all Browsers, or we declare one Browser the official Browser, and all pages are '''optimized''' to look best in that Browser, ''' but must still look reasonble in all browsers'''.  Realistically there are only 3 Browsers, that we need to concern ourselves with Safari (Webkit), Firefox (Gecko) and  Internet Explorer (Trident), since every other Browser uses the same rendering engine as one of them.  all of them have pros and cons:
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:::::I'm all in favour of passive browser neutrality, but not "enforced browser neutrality" if by "enforced" you mean every page must look identical in every browser down to the last pixel. This may put off the average wiki editor from making changes lest they break the policy and get pounced on by the "enforcers". That is why I voted for the status quo.  
 
:::::I'm all in favour of passive browser neutrality, but not "enforced browser neutrality" if by "enforced" you mean every page must look identical in every browser down to the last pixel. This may put off the average wiki editor from making changes lest they break the policy and get pounced on by the "enforcers". That is why I voted for the status quo.  
 
:::::As an aside, this discussion is going the way of others on Lucy's Balcony in recent times. A bit too much sound & fury which I'll just put down to everyone's passion for LG. Let's tone things down a bit lest Lucy hears us and finds us all squabbling on her balcony. [[User:Psmith|Psmith]] 14:02, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
 
:::::As an aside, this discussion is going the way of others on Lucy's Balcony in recent times. A bit too much sound & fury which I'll just put down to everyone's passion for LG. Let's tone things down a bit lest Lucy hears us and finds us all squabbling on her balcony. [[User:Psmith|Psmith]] 14:02, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
no by enforced I don't mean identical down to the pixel, all browsers render differently, I mean that making the page lay out in one browser doesn't throw it off for another. In the case of the list of videos, if the page length in 2 browsers were 300 pixels apart, but the items on the page still lined up that page would be browser neutral. But the reason the list of videos isn't browser is because, if the list is aligned to the montage in 1 browser, there is an almost a 300 pixel offset in another. The 'status' quo you are talking about, means that people can change it back and forth to align for their own browser. I have no problem with choosing 1 browser as the standard for alignment, but the greatest consensus was for making it neutral, so I devoted my whole weekend to figuring out what would work.  -[[User:Misty|misty]] 15:04, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
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::::::No by enforced I don't mean identical down to the pixel, all browsers render differently, I mean that making the page lay out in one browser doesn't throw it off for another. In the case of the list of videos, if the page length in 2 browsers were 300 pixels apart, but the items on the page still lined up that page would be browser neutral. But the reason the list of videos isn't browser is because, if the list is aligned to the montage in 1 browser, there is an almost a 300 pixel offset in another. The 'status' quo you are talking about, means that people can change it back and forth to align for their own browser. I have no problem with choosing 1 browser as the standard for alignment, but the greatest consensus was for making it neutral, so I devoted my whole weekend to figuring out what would work.  -[[User:Misty|misty]] 15:04, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
  
 
== A good-bye of sorts ==
 
== A good-bye of sorts ==

Revision as of 20:06, 16 July 2007

A couple of LGPedia admins (Jonpro & Psmith) take a breather to admire the view from Lucy's Balcony.
In happier days, friendly LGPedia admins, Brucker (now retired), OwenIsCool, and JayHenry (also retired) enjoyed unseasonably warm afternoons on Lucy's Balcony.


Welcome to Lucy's Balcony, a place to ask questions or discuss general issues about the LGPedia. This page is intended to be a place where admins and active editors can discuss ongoing issues, ideas and concerns. To start a new thread, click here. Please remember to sign your posts by typing ~~~~ at the end.

For old or inactive conversations, visit Lucy's archive.

Zoey, one of your LGPedia admins, frolics with the doves on Lucy's Balcony.




General deletion/inclusion guidelines

As a result of the discussion on Template talk:HoverTOC and also somewhat on LGPedia:Tasks/Completed#LordGreystoke422's videos, I think it's high time we figured out exactly what our deletion and inclusion policy is here. Currently our deletion policy is rather minimal and very much open to interpretation. There was a discussion about this on LGPedia talk:Deletion Policy quite a while back, and most of that is probably still applicable, but I have a feeling people will have some new ideas as well. I think the best way to handle the inclusion aspect of this would be to create a list of criteria that are necessary in order for an article to be included here. What we don't want to do is turn into Wikipedia here, but having some generals guidelines wouldn't be a bad idea. Another issue is deletion, which I suppose is very related to inclusion. I guess we could also have a list of reasons for why an article should be deleted, and maybe another list for reasons that aren't enough for an article to be deleted. Really, this is very open-ended, but I would love if people would get involved in the discussion here. To put in my two cents, I think a good first point for inclusion would be that it is related to Lonelygirl15 in some way. How closely related it would have to be is a point of discussion I guess, but that's a start at least.--Jonpro 17:39, 7 June 2007 (CDT)

Okay, for me, I think that with fan videos, you should kind of look at what the purpose of the videos is, how they tell their stories, and what kind of stories are being told. Like I think videos that seem to be "going somewhere"... like distinctive stories with distinctive arcs may be better with just large summary pages that people can read. It makes it much easier to follow those kinds of stories when things are all laid out in one place. Like, LG422... and GC and such. Those are the kinds of stories I mean. However, with things like say... aaronbeast, where they're kind of... response videos.. or videos that don't really follow a specific story but kind of adapt based on what's going on in the Breeniverse, those should get their own video pages. That's how I would view it... although I'm not entirely sure that made sense... hopefully it did. :P I'd love people's thoughts please!! --Zoey 18:31, 7 June 2007 (CDT)


I've gotta say, while I did negatively notice this before, when I was looking through the templates to catalogue them, I was once more reminded how many fan-created series have pages here.
That is not bad per se, but, without going to sound arrogant or anything...many of them are just not noteworthy.
Example - chosen randomly, not a personal attack: Linsy. We have a page on her, three video pages with transcripts, and even Category:Linsybeast's blogs. And you know what? I have no idea who the fuck that is.
Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against fanfic, fan participation, or anything. But I think we should set a certain standard of "noteworthyness" before listing people here, at least on more than one general site. Stuff like HSAO gained a lot of user traction, and Dr. Immant's videos apparently were quite well done and well-received by fans (never seen them) - but we don't have to have entire catalogues of every video every LG15 fan once did, just because they pretend to be in the Breeniverse.
Another thing is useless occupation of space; example: There is a hardcoded sidebar-template for "GuillotineCalamity", which means that sidebar is fixed for that video series and cannot be used by anyone else. What's it used for? Two pages that contain barely more than "Transcript incomplete". Check out Category:GuillotineCalamity - the five season subcategories are all empty, and GC Seasons does nothing more than link to these empty categories. Apparently, at least according to the main page on that topic, there actually were quite a lot of these videos. Where are they? Why do we need five categories and a sidebar, if all we have on that series other than the main page are two video pages with no information?
Like I said, don't get me wrong - I have nothing against fan fiction. But what we're currently doing is like accepting every little essay a grade schooler once wrote into the Great Library of Alexandria. We are flooded with pages that, quite frankly, don't interest anyone but the authors...and maybe two or three other people.
I don't know exactly how to solve this problem, maybe by requiring a certain amount of hits on a single page, before branching out is allowed or something, but I think the overall quality of this encyclopedia suffers from this. While fan fiction most definitely is an important part of LG15, this is the official encyclopedia on the official site, sometimes visited by The Creators themselves through their Admin account - I think it should focus on important and official stuff first, and then on fan faction and trivia. Right now, we have some important core pages, like List of Videos, the video pages themselves, List of Characters and the character pages, and a whole lot of crap that is fun to have, but takes focus away from the efficient administration and care for the important pages. Do we really need a page on H.P. Lovecraft? As far as I'm concerned he has had no major influence on the canon. He has enjoyed, perhaps some passing references, but that's nothing special. Hundreds of videos everyday do that. But they link to Wikipedia instead of writing their own page about him. Dava Sobel. wtf do we need that for? It's a one line note, and it's been said on the video page for Proving Longitude Wrong. There is no reason to have that page.
Okay, I think you got my point here - it's late, so I'll move on.
Deletions. Yeeees. Zoey has ignored me for the past few days, so I guess it's evident I have quite some strong feelings on this topic. Most of them I have already posted, so let me just sum things up quickly:
I have nothing against deletions as such. In fact, I myself have given good reason for the deletion of both Template:PageHeader and Template:Clr, after this whole orgy was over - see the respective talk pages. What I was, and still am, annoyed by is the notion that a template should be deleted just because it's currently unused. A template is a convenience thing. A tool. Do you throw away your hammer just because you don't use it at a given point in time, and then get it back out when you actually use it? I think not.
If a template is useless and will most likely never be used, fine - kill it. But if it's a useful little thing, why delete it, just because right now nobody is using it?
The discussion also revealed a kind of weird view of deletion around here - apparently, it means nothing. The stance here seems to be to delete something if it's currently unwanted, and to restore it if it's wanted again. And that just takes the use and meaning out of it. A deletion should be a strong statement that the page is not wanted anymore. Instead, it's being used for a crude form of giving the appearance of order - similar to a child that gets the order to clean his room, only to shovel all his toys under his bed. Sure, it looks clean, but as soon as he'll need the toys, he'll get them back out.
I am not against restoring, I said that. But it should be a tool rectify a mistake - not an action as common as opening a page.
In fact, this stance is probably connected to what I mentioned above - we have too much crap lying around here. If pages were reduced to essentials and semi-essentials, it'd be a much harder decision to delete anything, simply because it'd have a major impact on the information presented. Instead, an admin can delete half the pages here without fear to destroy anything important - 90% of all users would still find exactly what they want.
It's two o' clock in the morning, so I'll stop here. I know I didn't present any solutions, but maybe it's better to hear your reactions first anyway. Don't be shy, and don't be afraid to use whatever language you might find necessary. Just remember that we're talking about administrative issues here, not friendship or community. This is not, at least from my point of view, about whether or not somebody's feelings might get hurt if his pages are deleted (be it "my" templates, Linsy's blogs, or carefully crafted pages over totally insignifcant details), but about how to get a certain sense of order in this thing, and setting a certain standard of quality.
You cannot accept everything if you want the average to be good. The question is just if you have the balls to turn people down if it's necessary.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 19:09, 7 June 2007 (CDT)
*looks up* ...oops. Template:Quote, if anyone is crazy enough to reply.
BAH, Zoey, out of my line of post! [Editing conflict resolved]
@Zoey: Hmm, that's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would really work. I don't think it would be too fair to say that a certain series shouldn't have video pages just because it has the "story" format that you're talking about. Similarly, there's no reason that a rather minor fanfic video should get its own video page just because it doesn't have that story format. I think the criteria should be something like popularity, connection to LG15, probability of canonicity, etc.
@Renegade: I think you raise some good issues. Firstly, I agree with you about the problem with notability of videos. I think when the whole new girl thing was going on, every possible "new girl" was given a page, and all of their videos started to be transcribed. This has created a lot of probably-less-than-notable fan blog pages that people may not be that interested in. I think a good solution might be to figure out which ones are actually notable (perhaps page-view count as you suggest or maybe something else), and then determine if we need the transcript pages or just one page for the character that could give a summary of their blogs and general information on them. That way, the notability or important of a fan series is reflected here by how much space, time, effort, etc. we put into it. Again, it might be hard to determine the "notability" factor, but I'm sure we could come up with some method to do so.
As far as the waste of space, the reason that happens (at least from my point of view) is that we hate to undo someone's work because we either 1) don't want to hurt their feelings (a lame reason really) or 2) think they might come back to it at some point in the future. It's a little similar to the templates you created, Renegade. We see that someone has created something which looks like it could be useful, but isn't really being used yet. We're skeptical about deleting it, and yet it seems like it would help clean up if we do. I think just better communication all around would help solve this problem. We shouldn't be afraid to ask people why they created a certain page, template, category, etc. as long as it's done in a considerate way. If there is a genuine good use for what they have done, then they can explain it. If it was done on a whim or we decide it's not necessary or there's a better way to organize the information, then it can be deleted or reorganized.
And really, I agree with you about the deleting/restoring thing. What I was trying to say before is that if a page gets deleted because no one sees a good use for it, then we can fix the mistake of deleting it by restoring it. I was trying to point that that deletion isn't that big of a deal because it can be undone. Of course, if we think we're going to be restoring something later, then of course we shouldn't delete it. I hope this makes sense, and I'll try to explain better if it doesn't.
One final word. You're right that we're not talking about friendship or community here, and I agree that people should be free to express their opinions openly. Sometimes, though, this can turn into a war between people rather than between those people's ideas. I encourage everyone to not take anything personally here. As I'm so fond of saying, we're all working toward the same goal, so please remember that and never assume that someone is attacking you personally. Any and all personal attacks here will not be tolerated, so let's try to not make that an issue. That said, let's continue to have a helpful discussion that will make this place better for everyone.--Jonpro 12:22, 9 June 2007 (CDT)

Okay I just wanted to say, my idea was for how to handle videos once they're already gotten the stamp of approval to be on the page, based on whatever criteria we set. Because like Renegade said, the GC videos and the CIW vidoes all have video pages, but really arent used. So um, if based on our criteria to get something on the site in the first place, they're still good, I think we should look at the things I mentioned before, and perhaps decide that they don't need video pages, only summary pages (like LG422 videos as well). As far as WHAT those criteria are, I don't really know...

And Renegade, I haven't been ignoring you. I've been reading everything you say very closely. The strength of my opinions on these topics, however, doesn't even come close to yours, so it is difficult for me to give you worthy responses. But I am reading what you are saying and just... trying to take a step back and examine all viewpoints before I give any input on what I think should be done for what things. --Zoey 00:46, 16 June 2007 (CDT)

Pinging Zoey with 478 bytes of data:
Reply from Zoey: bytes=1006 time=563040000ms TTL=255
hehehe :D
Nah, seriously...thanks for replying at all. Although I now feel like a fundamentalist radical on the topic of deletions, it at least gives me the hope I didn't piss you off for good. I do see some irony in the fact that Template:PageHeader still exists, though, given that even I am for its deletion now. :D
Aaaand that brings us back on topic (ain't I good?): It's dead. Nobody wants to talk, but us. So I propose we do the stuff suggested below, to make people aware of what we're discussing above. Sound like a plan? Good. I'll try to code/design something and ... Update: I did code something, behold it on LGPedia:Participate. But now my favorite admistress (or one the other demi-gods) would have to go to MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and add {{LGPedia:Participate}}, as I lack the power to do that. Make sure to add it outside of a block of text though (first thing on the page at best) as everything else fucks it up. Took me three revisions to figure out the template was fine, and the the positioning was to blame. -_- And adjust the top-margin when it's added, I had to guess for now.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:35, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
It's looking really good. I think featured articles and proposed merges should also be added... and probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of ATM. I'm assuming it doesn't update automatically though? So people will have to really be on top of it. Oh, and also, I think the text under Participate should be bigger... for those of us who are blind *cough*. I'll see about adding it to recent changes, but I generally fail at that kind of stuff anyways, so it might be better to wait for another admin to come along and make it look nice...
And um, yeah, I'm going to go delete PageHeader now :D --Zoey 16:12, 16 June 2007 (CDT)
The fact that "Renegade" does not know "who the fuck" Linsy is, is pretty unimpressive criteria for deleting anything a fan has taken the trouble to add to LGPedia. I think the opinion as expressed here is incredibly arrogant and hostile to community (comments such as "grade school", "crap", "having balls" etc. do not inspire confidence). My personal opinion is that unless you are running into some hard technical issue such as exceeding storage space (which is usually absurd these days, but possible), there is very little justification to delete contributions made by occasional posters or those outside the core LGPedia group. That is the opposite of what you should be doing. Add structure? Absolutely. Move really random/disconnected items off to an orphanage for lost pages (or equivalent) sure. But don't delete, and leave a link (comprehensive note on a talk page or comment in history or *some* obvious path to finding the moved article without having to contact a staff member - I'm not sure what the best solution there is).
There are growing and independent circles of fans, who are every bit as invested and involved in their segments of the Lonelygirl15 community as the few LGPedia mainstays, and the vitality of this effort depends on the confidence that time invested in posting here will not be discarded by someone with a different idea of what is important. That kind of editing would be disrespectful and foolish. My contributions here have been minor, and may not even fit in with your concepts (I don't know), but if I put something here and linked to it from off site, and came back later to check for updates, etc. and found my work silently deleted, I would be angry. That kind of move should be made with the utmost care and respect.
So address the issues, but find a better solution than deleting even relatively trivial contributions from fans. You never know when they will come back to expand on or edit their work, possibly becoming more significant contributors later. You folks have a great thing going here - there is no need to alienate the occasional contributors. First contributions take the most effort sometimes, and should not be undervalued.
Maybe a better editorial concept is to think of a core set of pages (a trunk and main branches) that are tightly controlled, surrounded by a cloud of satellite pages (twigs and leaves) that are a bit wild and unruly, with a few orphans that fall to the ground, but are still down there somewhere. ~ QtheC 08:15, 24 June 2007 (CDT)
So wait, let me get this straight...you wait for eight days, to attack a sentence in a post that's almost three weeks old, over a fact that was clearly introduced with "chosen randomly, not a personal attack"?
Riiiiiight. Were you bored, or just in an aggressive mood?
Everybody else got fine that it was an example to illustrate the issues with noteworthyness we have here, and the fact that you can only fight it by dragging it down to a personal level and attacking my credibility just proves to me that I raised an undisputable point; you may not like it, but fact is: In all probability, said "Linsy" adds nothing to the Breeniverse.
Yes, it is nice to have devoted fans, and yes, the fan interaction in and with this series is great - but that does not automatically mean that the official encyclopedia has to include every single video by every user that slightly, remotely connects to the topic. I have nothing against including notable fans on LGPedia. If a video series gained a big viewership, like the several Cassies or HSAO, or some of the OpAphid analyzation vids, fine, include them - they are important to the community around the series, and, as such, important to the series.
But, no matter how arrogant you'd like to interpret this, reality is: The latest vid of that "Linsy" person has 71 views. It has a page with nothing but a sidebar, and it's a shaky video of her or her character's birthday "partay". Okay. Typical YouTube content. Fine to be online. But why the hell does it have to be on LGPedia? Is it of great importance to the canon? Nope, she's not canon. Is it of great importance to the fandom? Nope, it's had 70 views before I just clicked. Is it an exceptionally well-crafted page? Nope, it's one line with a sidebar.
She may be a nice person, and her videos might even be funny - but, as of this moment, there is nothing exceptionally significant or notable about them that'd require us to list it here. And the positive effect of having everything listed gets outweighted by the negative effect of having almost everything look like crap.
Even if you wish to list each and every tiny little fanvid, what's the use of listing them if their page says nothing? Let's say we let that page stay as it is. What is the great advantage gained by users through this? Is it that, of nineteen videos existing, only four are listed? Or that, of these four, one fourth doesn't have a transcript? Or that they can read a transcript at all?
Who is, realistically, going to read a transcript of some girl's fanfic blog?
You can call me arrogant all you want, whoever lives in reality sees I'm not trying to belittle that girl, but to be realistic. It is great she's active in the community, and it takes a great deal of courage to tape a video and put it out there for everyone to see. But the fact that she's a fan with a video alone doesn't make her or her video significant enough to be put up on the official site next to the information on official videos.
We should focus on information important to the Breeniverse and the fandom. And some girl's birthday party, as nice as she may be, just has nothing to do with. The maximum effect that page will have on unintroduced users will be that they wonder how she is tied into the series, and get all confused.
Added to reply to addition:
That may be a nice idea, but the problem is, would care for the twigs and orphans. We'd have hundreds of unmaintained pages laying around, building a "cloud of crap", so to speak, around the important entries. If someone maintained these pages, it'd be a different issue...but people won't. You can hope and dream all you want, a "lowly" fanfic-video-page just isn't gonna get the same editorial attention as an official video page.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 09:12, 24 June 2007 (CDT) [Editing conflict resolved]
And for the record, thanks to the new sidebar on recent changes, silent deletions are almost impossible now - unless someone disregards all procedures.
This was the most idiotic dispute in the history of the Wiki. Just saying! --JayHenry 15:09, 1 July 2007 (CDT)

--Pheon 14:23, 16 July 2007 (CDT)


Browser neutrality or Official Browser

Ok there are some pages ( like the list of videos page ), that have significant differences when rendered in different browsers, and currently anyone can just edit to make the page look good in there own browser, and things don't look quite right in other browsers. I think we need a standard, either we enforce "Browser Neutrality", by not allowing any page design that doesn't look as good in all Browsers, or we declare one Browser the official Browser, and all pages are optimized to look best in that Browser, but must still look reasonble in all browsers. Realistically there are only 3 Browsers, that we need to concern ourselves with Safari (Webkit), Firefox (Gecko) and Internet Explorer (Trident), since every other Browser uses the same rendering engine as one of them. all of them have pros and cons:

Safari (Webkit) -

  • Pros: Renders fonts better than any other Browser, most compliant to WC3 web standards.
  • Cons: Windows version is still Beta,
  • Other Webkit Browsers: OmniWeb, Swift, Sunrise, Midori, Shiira, Konqueror

Internet Explorer (Trident)

  • Pros: Largest market share,
  • Cons- Ignores WC3 standards, renders poorly
  • Other Trident Browsers: AOL Explorer,Avant, Maxthon

FireFox (Gecko)

  • Pros: Good WC3 compliance, best cross-platform support.
  • Cons: inconsistent line spacing, adding extra pixels to object heights.
  • Other Gecko Browsers: Netscape,Seamonkey, Camino, Galleon, Epiphany, K-Meleon, Flock

. --misty 14:03, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

Vote Tally

Browser Neutrality

  1. Support Enforced Browser Neutrality
    1. Zoey
    2. Misty
    3. Modelmotion
    4. Phoenician
    5. JayHenry
  2. Opposed of enforced Browser Neutrality
    1. Renegade
    2. -R-

Official Browser

  1. Support Firefox as the Official Browser
    1. Renegade
    2. -R-
  2. Support Safari as the Official Browser
    1. Misty
  3. Support IE as the Official Browser

This is a non-issue

  1. We currently test LGPedia pages in the main browsers of the day and check their specific rendering results in something that ranges somewhere between OK and excellent in all of them, accepting they will not be identical. For major pages/portals, the standard is higher and must be in the good to excellent range. I vote we continue this policy and not waste time making pages absolutely identical in all browsers or even declare that we care more about one browser than another. I can live with a bit of white space at the bottom of the List Of Videos in IE... it still looks very good overall but not identical to the better fit in Firefox. (Although, Firefox users can change their font settings to produce a variety of different display results that we just can't second guess.) In the past we have relied on the LGPedia community to spot if a major page falls under the good-to-excellent range in a particular browser and then reacted accordingly. I vote to carry on with this. If you agree, add your name to this list... Psmith 07:26, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
    1. Psmith
    2. Phoenician 14:22, 16 July 2007 (CDT)



Didn't we reduce the render-difference to different line heights in List of Videos? At least that's the only significant difference I remember and see...
Of course I'd love Firefox to become the official browser, but unless that happens, I'd prefer neutrality - 'cause I sure as hell won't develop on IE, and I'm not gonna install that buggy apple thing on my machine.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 20:14, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
Personally, I vote for browser-neutrality. As web developers, you want your pages to look nice for everyone who views them, not force your viewers to use a certain browser or "tough luck guys". Plus, with something as widely viewed as the LGPedia, I think it's fair to say no matter what browser would be chosen as "official", there will be a LARGE number of viewers who do not use that. So yes, I vote for neutrality. --Zoey 23:52, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
Ok well if we for browser neutrality the list of videos page need another redesign, sinse the montage to list alignment breaks browser neutrality. so no pages can be designed to need vertical alignment of independent objects. So it looks like so far everyone is agreeable to browser neutrality, I say that if there are no objections by midnight July 10, that we make that official policy, and add it to the style guide -Misty 02:33, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
I think different line height is close enough to not count as "differently looking".
After all, the only thing different is how far down the montage extends.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 03:32, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
Yes it certainly counts , in fact that is the main issue for this whole discussion. We either declare Firefox safari or IE as the official Browser, and align it for that; or we declare Browser Neutrality and the page gets redesigned so vertical alignment doesn't matter. -misty 03:59, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
If you decide to redesign a perfectly fine layout just because the lines are a little more spaced in one browser, you're doing that alone, missy. :P
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 04:27, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
That sounds like a vote againsts enforced browser neutrality. Ok so that things don't get confused I'm going to put a vote tally: Please ad or edit your vote appropriately. -Misty 11:42, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
I use all the main browsers with the excepetion of IE (but including Safari and Firefox). As long as pages are readable on a mac I am happy, but please dont make this a mac vs pc issue.--modelmotion 19:50, 8 July 2007 (CDT)
I'm mainly an IE user, but I've also use FireFox as well. I think the best way to go is browser neutrality, since it wouldn't be right to force a certain browser on others. As for that videolist montage, its unmatched with the latest vids from an IE view, but hey, I'm used to it. --Pheon 03:43, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
no one is talking about forcing people to use a particular browser, having an official browser means that pages that render differently in different browser must optimized for that browser. Currently the list of videos is the page that most renders differently, so saying "I support enforcing browser neutrality, but I don't care about the list of videos" is saying "I don't support enforced browser neutrality". So then we have to pick a browser to optimize the list of videos for , that's why we would need an official browser. -misty 11:56, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Uh, O.K., I see this has kind of been going on for a while, but I want to jump in. I believe that FireFox should be the official LGPedia browser on account that it is cross platform. There are really no literal "system requirements" which is good, because I run Windows 2K and most newer browsers won't support the OS. I'm not sure if this really effects most of the people on the site, but sometimes it does to me. I don't care if it is the official browser, but if it is at least optimized for a cross-system browser, I'll be happy. Love, -R- 15:50, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

Well I was hoping that we would have a clearer consensus. from the comments, I'm not 100% convinced that people who voted for enforced browser neutrality really understood what they were voting for. I think we need to give it a few more days, before setting policy. So how about July 15 Midnight CDT -misty 02:01, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Finally something ending in central time :D but honestly, I am all for the official browser being FireFox. Love, -R- 02:14, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
More importantly, they probably don't know that these three rendering engines render pages differently, and that it's impossible to "enforce" browser neutrality. If you consider different line-height reason enough for a re-design already, LGPedia will never ever be able to use anything with width and borders again - simply because of IE's box model.
Again, I reiterate: We should try to get it as close as possible, but trying to enforce the pages look 100% the same is just stupid, because it's impossible - unless you're doing nothing more than colored text.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 04:55, 12 July 2007 (CDT)
the problem isn't that there are differences, between browsers, the problem is that some designs rely on specific alignments to look correct, and if the browsers render them differently, then it doesn't look correct in all browsers. On the other hand if one browsers spaced things at 11 pixels, and another browser spaced things at 13 pixels, if everything still lined up correctly in both browsers, the page wold be considered browse neutral, even though it doesn't render identically in both browsers. -misty 18:13, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

Well It looks like Browser Neutrality won out. I managed to make a Browser Neutral version of the LIst of Videos, and maybe tomorrow I'll add Browser Neutrality into the style guide. -misty 01:52, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Congratulations, Misty...you just destroyed half the usability and a good deal of the design of that page just because you didn't like the line height. Way to go. *thumbs up*
Having it look like crap on all browsers is so much better than having it look differently good on each of them.
Just look at the fucking mess that is the TOC now - isn't that so much better than having a real list, people?? *rolleyes*
This is fucking ridiculous. Without the numbering, the page is only a slight bit better than a pure category listing. The lack of numbers also puts all episodes on the same status, meaning early NBR and OpAphid episodes look like they're just as official as a normal Bree-blog. But hey, the line height is equal everywhere! What's factual accuracy if it looks the same on all browsers? *rolleyes*
I also highly object to the way this was inserted. The Portal/Main Page switch had to be done by today, as per Creator request. We had no time to consider your sudden uprise after you decided to ignore that project for two weeks, only to start bitching on the last day. That was not the case for a LoV redesign. It would have been perfectly possible to leave this piece of crap in your sandbox for a few days and listen to opinions before you make this horrible abomination our official video list.
Now we're gonna get a flood of bebo-users today who'll think we're too stupid to use a list over a billion <br>s.
Now tell me, Misty...what is the great advantage we have from equal line heights in FF and IE?
What enormous change does the "browser neutrality" of your version bring us that it justifies destroying the main focus and the factual accuracy of the page and turning it into a design- and code nightmare?
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 03:22, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
What are you talking about????? First of all the it was decided that the OPaphid and NBR videos are as official as the BDJ videos. And if the numbering is so important to you, add the numbers back in. The design of the page hasn't changed very much just the alignment. Maybe you and I, are seeing something different, but besides the line numbers, it doesn't look that different, other than that things line up correctly. Here's a screenshot that directly compares my version to the previous one. How is it any more crap than the old version??? screenshot -misty 05:32, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
"Add Poe Hinder Vilification" is not the nineteenth episode of the Lonelygirl15 video series, "An update of sorts" is not the 43th episode, and NBR1 is not the 80th episode - yet that is exactly what your list states. Yes, later episodes have been accepted into canon, but that doesn't change the fact that Miss Me? is the only Op video officially listed as an episode, and it doesn't change the fact that even Miss Me? was more of an "evil Danielbeast" blog than an actual OpAphid video. Even the video list on the main page, which most definitely is authoritive, lists OpAphid videos as ####b, not as ####+1. It doesn't matter if you are incapable of seeing how much more crude and less well designed your page looks through your omissions, or if you understand what a horrible faux pas your abuse of <br>s is - the important fact is that your list is just factually wrong and cannot stay that way.
And I refuse to fuck up the code even more by manually numbering through and handling 250 forced line breaks when a simple ordered list works fine and the only problem was that one browser has 0.1em more space per line.
There is no justification for this violation. The fact that a page is slightly longer in one browser, without even changing the layout or altering information, cannot possibly be a valid reason to destroy the code, the appearance, and the factual accuracy of a page.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 06:36, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
The LGPedia is browser neutral people. Deal with it, or leave. Seriously. It's not even negotiable. We're here for LG, not to promote Mozilla. --JayHenry 12:19, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
It's not about promoting Mozilla. It's about commensurability. If you check the discussion logs for the re-design, you'll see that we went through great lengths to ensure that the layout looks equal in both browsers. Have you actually checked the "unneutral" version in both browsers? The only difference is that one is slightly longer, because the line height is minimally higher. That's it. Nothing more. It's not even noticable if you don't know it's there. And for that tiny, little, insignificant difference, Misty wants to remove the numbering, making the list itself incorrect, remove the list code as a whole, making the code semantically incorrect, and she wants to optically destroy the TOC layout. All because of a little more whitespace.
This is not about "promoting Mozilla" - if that was my goal, I'd have refused to even look at it in IE months ago. The very fact that it is that similar proves that I'll go through great lengths to ensure it looks as similar as possible in both browsers, just as the recent re-designs of the main page/portals prove (it's no coincidence there are several revisions referencing "IE fixes" in the history). This is not about promoting Mozilla. This is about stopping an insane crusade with no basis. There is simply no reason to destroy a perfectly fine page on multiple levels, just because Misty doesn't like whitespace.
Oh, and for the record: I find it rather cheap of you to discard all factual arguments I made and drag this down to a supposed browser evangelism issue. I don't know if Misty bugged you or if you hold some personal grudge against me, but I made quite clear in my first comment on this issue that I'd of course like FF to be the official browser, but that I do support a sane neutrality dogma instead.
But killing pages over slight whitespace differences is not sane.
~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 12:32, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
I'm all in favour of passive browser neutrality, but not "enforced browser neutrality" if by "enforced" you mean every page must look identical in every browser down to the last pixel. This may put off the average wiki editor from making changes lest they break the policy and get pounced on by the "enforcers". That is why I voted for the status quo.
As an aside, this discussion is going the way of others on Lucy's Balcony in recent times. A bit too much sound & fury which I'll just put down to everyone's passion for LG. Let's tone things down a bit lest Lucy hears us and finds us all squabbling on her balcony. Psmith 14:02, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
No by enforced I don't mean identical down to the pixel, all browsers render differently, I mean that making the page lay out in one browser doesn't throw it off for another. In the case of the list of videos, if the page length in 2 browsers were 300 pixels apart, but the items on the page still lined up that page would be browser neutral. But the reason the list of videos isn't browser is because, if the list is aligned to the montage in 1 browser, there is an almost a 300 pixel offset in another. The 'status' quo you are talking about, means that people can change it back and forth to align for their own browser. I have no problem with choosing 1 browser as the standard for alignment, but the greatest consensus was for making it neutral, so I devoted my whole weekend to figuring out what would work. -misty 15:04, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

A good-bye of sorts

There have recently been some changes in my real life. I was unsure what the adjustment would be as far as my time online is concerned. It has now become obvious to me that I will no longer be able to remain active here at the LGPedia. I still intend to read it, follow it and even occasionally edit and discuss, but I don't have the time to faithfully execute the job of administrator. I'm still immensely proud of having been involved with this wiki for the last 9 months and 3600+ edits, I am immensely proud of the quality of the Wiki and its over 1,000 articles. But it's time for me to step aside. Effective immediately, Zoey will now serve as bureaucrat -- she and Miles will be the only people with the ability to create and remove administrators. As Brucker and I have been inactive for months, I'll remove our rights. What happens after that is up to you. I wish everyone the best going forward. --JayHenry 11:21, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Bye Jay!!! :( Definately hope to continue seeing you around, even if it's not on the LGPedia. Thanks for all your hard work for so long! I shall try to do you proud! *cheesy grin* --Zoey 02:33, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Bye man. it was good working with you.--TJ Marsh 14:40, 12 July 2007 (CDT)