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WP:SCUBA Newsletter Issue #1

PPI Assessment Follow-up

Hi RExxS, thank you for assessing articles in the Wikiproject: United States Public Policy. I really appreciate your input and help, you had some great comments on the assessment talk page, I hope the project keeps you interested. This project is probably different than other assessment drives you have worked on, it involves more assessment of lower ranked articles, it has input and staff from the foundation, and specific goals to improve and measure content of public policy articles. It also involves collaboration from some university classes, we are using an experimental assessment rubric, and most articles will be assessed by multiple reviewers to get a range of scores for each article. I have learned a lot from many of the assessors comments and am really excited about the insight from this group of Wikipedians. I hope you are finding some benefits to involvement in this project. 1) your assessments are part of research that is attempting to increase credibility of Misplaced Pages in academic circles, 2) there is a great group of assessors involved in discussion of what is article quality and how to measure it, 3) WP:USPP is also piloting the Article Feedback tool, so if interested, those involved in assessment on the project will be asked to help improve and rate this tool as well, and 4) subject matter experts are assessing articles alongside Wikipedians and comparisons of results will provide some insight as to the rigor of Misplaced Pages quality rating.

To give you an update on assessment, about half of the assessments are complete for the first part of this first assessment. I had some trouble finding public policy experts to join us in assessing, but finally managed to recruit a group last week, hopefully some of them will join the discussion on the assessment talk page. Next week, I should have some preliminary results to share with you, I will also post the second assessment request very soon. The discussion on the talk page is very exciting, and I hope if you are interested, you will provide input on the Article Feedback Tool which is being piloted on articles in WP:USPP. Please let me know if there is anything I and the project team can do to make working on this project a more positive experience. Thanks again, ARoth (Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 23:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Amy, it's very interesting to take a fresh look at assessment of Misplaced Pages articles. I hope you'll be able to share an overview of this round; I think we may be able to refine some of the level descriptors in the light of those results. I'm looking forward to participating as actively as time allows me. --RexxS (talk) 00:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

PPI Assessment Update

Thanks for contributing to WP:USPP, your assessments are a part of a deeper look at assessing article quality in Misplaced Pages. The quality and rationality behind the assessment scores by the Wikpedians on this project is really impressive, it is an insightful and knowledgeable group. There is some information about preliminary results of assessment data on the project assessment talk page, I hope you check it out and add your thoughts. There is also an additional article assessment request for you. This assessment set will wrap up the first experiment which analyzes the consistency of the quantitative metric and compares subject matter expert assessment to Wikipedian assessment.

The second experiment will start in November and you will be asked to assess articles and also provide feedback on the Article Feedback Tool. The results of that experiment will compare your idea of article quality to the ranking from the Article Feedback Tool and your input will help improve that tool. I hope you enjoy being a part of this research, I am pretty excited about the results so far, and am looking forward to continuing to work with you on assessment. ARoth (Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 21:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Amy. I've set up my PPI assessment page ready to do the assessments. Hopefully I'll get those done over the weekend, if not sooner. --RexxS (talk) 22:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

RexxS, thank you for contributing to article assessment for WP:USPP. Your assessments are very appreciated. There will be weekly updates about the research for this project posted here, look for the first one tomorrow. The next assessment request will come in early November. There is a lot of expertise and discussion about article quality happening in the project, so stay tuned. ARoth (Public Policy Initiative) (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:NPOV page, ASF

thanks you for this edit. Relieved to see somebody's paying attention to subtle but important issues such as this. (I leave aside additional and ongoing arguments about what constitutes best-possible RSs across the vast wide wiki and how they might best be defined as a policy and guideline issue, but whatever "they" are, I would think we should certainly continue to seek to use only such source.) ... Kenosis (talk) 03:48, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, I must say I thoroughly agree with your sentiments. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 13:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Row headers and default centered layout

Could you please comment MediaWiki talk:Common.css#The main proposal to left align row headers? This proposal was already adopted at fr.wikipedia, and is doing a pretty good job at encouraging users to make row headers marked with scope="row". Edokter is the only one who is opposing it, against 4 support. I'd need you to weight in favor of this proposal. I'm leaving a message to a few users from the accessibility project I know. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 18:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Be careful of WP:CANVASS. I'm happy to comment there independently from my own perspective. Nevertheless, I'm very grateful to you for alerting me to the discussion. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the warning. Hmm, is my message OK, or is it considered as to partisan? On this page I found: "Appropriate notification: On the talk pages of individual users, such as those who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics), who are known for expertise in the field, or who have asked to be kept informed". You just asked me to be kept informed so it's OK. You are known for expertise in the field, as the 2 others accessibility project members I contacted.

But I sure "posted a notification of discussion that presents the topic in a non-neutral manner". Well, there isn't any significant disadvantage in this proposal, so I'm not sure how I should have wrote this message. Should have I just showed you a link to the discussion? Thanks for explaining me how it works here, I appreciate it. :-) Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 19:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome, as always, mon ami. You know I'll always judge discussions on their merits. I don't think you did anything wrong, but I know that some might not see it the same way, and I didn't want to see you in a time-wasting argument. All the best --RexxS (talk) 19:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate it. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 03:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

And another very difficult coding job...

Hi, Rex. Under the influence of delusions of grandeur, Pod has been adding more fishapods to his userpage, and trying to make it neat. Poor fellow—well, parts are ok, I guess... not a bad sense of design! ;-) But you see the problem: the learned and thoughtful bits about pet names and so on—the three lines under the portrait—are supposed to be centered under it. If they were, I suppose the three Tiktaalik images on the left would come together as a column, like he wants them? Unless people have very small screens. Anyway, I wish somebody would teach him a little about coding and placement (NUDGE)... and meanwhile, could you please tidy the page? Bishonen | talk 00:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

It wasn't a difficult job after all. I've left some messages for poddy-pal to encourage keeping things together when they belong together. Drop me another note if the page is misbehaving for you now. Best, --RexxS (talk) 00:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for tidy page venerable T-rex! Have a cool waspy plushy! (Why does stuff float left and right?) bishapod splash! 13:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

OW!

OW, what happen? Look at page now! I didn't touch it! bishapod splash! 13:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

Hmmm. I suppose that must be the "degrading gracefully" that I see now? With the pod way down on the page? But is very strange, because the screen and the window are the same as before. Not smaller, not changed in any way.

Hmmm--oh, it's the letters! They got bigger! Don't know why, SeaMonkey pretty crazy browser. Sorry make fuss, see it all now! Please forget fuss, play with plushy! bishapod splash! 13:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

Well, if you zoom the page (usually CTRL +), there comes a point when the total width of the three columns would be greater than the window width, so something has to give. It's a choice of having horizontal scrolling (which would happen if we had a three-column table), or of letting the three blocks slides underneath each other (which is what we have now). People with very small screens like mobile phones, or small tablets, often seem to find it easier just to scroll down, rather than having to scroll both ways. If you'd prefer, I can change it? By the way, CTRL 0 usually resets the page zoom to default, and thank you very much for the plushy – I'll play with it as soon as I can persuade the cat that it's not exclusively for her use. --T-RexxS (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

(CTRL—ouff—you're speaking to a Mac user!) No, please don't change, is all good. I think I know why it happened: Bishapod uses more zoom than me. So when he looked at the page, it got more crowded than when I did. (Why does he? Oh... I dunno. I expect he just thwacked command-plus at some point. Many socks → many questions. Sigh.) You'd better rescue the cat, that plushy can sting! Bishonen | talk 18:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

Ooops sorry, I guess you were able to translate my windows-centric commentary anyway. You have to remember that animals who evolved to read monitors underwater may have difficulty focussing on dry land, so we should make allowances for Poddy. There's no need to rescue the cat, she can take care of herself (we're talking about a housemate who spends most of her waking hours working out how to remove my intestines using the fewest strokes). --T-RexxS (talk) 19:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Haha, Little Stupid is evolved, who'd have thought it! Very good point about the monitors underwater. If you check out Pod's Tiktaalik images, the fishapod under water is the only one that looks really happy. Probably because he can edit Misplaced Pages more conveniently than the other guys. Bishonen | talk 19:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

Hello

Hi RexxS. Are you well? Just wondered if you could have a quick check in with WP:DISCOGSTYLE. It seems to be stable now and we have a working example at Rihanna discography. What do you think? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 21:00, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Lil' – I'm fine thanks and hope you are too. The additions we fought for at MediaWiki talk:Common.css will really pay dividends for the project as it will reduce the amount of hard-coding needed to get tables that are accessible and sortable, but still meet expectations of visual presentation. The Rihanna discography looks good and is a massive improvement for the visually impaired. Now that lists in table cells are left-aligned by default (hooray!), the first example in WP:DISCOGSTYLE no longer needed style="text-align:left;"| for the lists, so I've removed those – hope you don't mind.

Rihanna discography also uses lists for "Sales" and "Certifications", which I would encourage (although it makes the column wider) instead of HTML breaks. If you were to consolidate that into your examples, you wouldn't need the left-align markup there either. Keep up the good work! --RexxS (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Defo its what we're working towards. There's another completed example at Nicole Scherzinger#Discography and I'm working on Kelly Rowland discography over the next few days. (some changes already made). -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 17:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Help? Not big one this time!

Hello venerable Rex. I have added momentous information to poddie userpage, about creating own socks (twins, one boy one girl, cute fellers!). Rex put announcement in box that goes in the middle? 'shonen tried to useTemplate:divbox—upper limit of her coding skills—but that stretched across entire page width, a disaster! P.S., pale purple is good colour for box. Yours, invested in new dignity of fatherhood, bishapod splash! 21:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC).

Welcome to page, Little Poddy. I've tried to tidy up and left some hints in the code for you to play with. There's a problem with coloured backgrounds that makes it degrade much less gracefully - I'll look again tomorrow, but you can revert back if it doesn't work for you tonight. --RexxS (talk) 22:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hum... box colour is good. But can I please have box for announcement only? The portrait and the three lines were very beautiful as they were. I tried to move them out of the box... they didn't want to move, not gracefully. And maybe a header (ANNOUNCEMENT + date) in the box? Clock time and "UTC" only waste space, but date would be cool. Is the twins' birthday! Bishapod | talk 23:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC).

I must apologise for Little Stupid. I'm afraid doing favours for him just leads to more requests! I look forward with apprehension to the day he blithely asks you to animate the Darwinbish, making it walk and bite...! Bishonen | talk 23:49, 19 October 2010 (UTC).

It's all good, chère. It gives me pleasure to do favours for your younglings, as mine think they're too grown-up to need me any more. As soon as I've done what I can for the cause of accessibility at FLN, and sorted out a minor disagreement at Talk:Ursula Andress, I'll turn my attention to bringing life to Darwinbish. --RexxS (talk) 00:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, no... I hope you didn't think I was hinting... nothing could have been further from... no, no... Bishonen | talk 01:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

Help!

I didn't realise this accessibility stuff would be so difficult. Please can you get involved at the discussion page of FL (here) where I have attempted to explain the issues facing wikipedia and tried to engage some community action to support WP:ACCESS. But its not really working as planned and it looks like its going to be bulldozed. -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 22:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick note, the WP:FLC community wholly embrace WP:ACCESS and have done for some time. What we don't embrace is a sudden blanket "fail"/"oppose" on every single nomination citing WP:Wikitable or WP:DISCOGSTYLE when neither are part of WP:MOS. Also, when someone opposes nominations wholesale, we'd appreciate a community discussion on where each and every one of them is going wrong. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll drop by the page and see if I can be of any help . --RexxS (talk) 22:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Little sigs for little users

(No hurry, please!)
I made cute sigs for Bishapod's cute little socks, just look: darwin and darwinbish .

Nice, huh? You see how scandalous the allegation is that a divbox is the utmost stretch of my coding skills! But there's a problem... When I input the cute sigs in the twins' Preferences (with or without checking the mystery box about "wiki markup"), and then let the little fishes and bishes sign with four tildes, I get a mess! Something like this appears on the page (not just in edit mode): <br> <font color="darkblue">]</font><small>^{<font color="firebrick">]</font></small>} (talk)

And the date.

Yes, I see the inappropriate (talk)—where did that come from? But that's not even the main problem. If I copypaste the mess, as I just tried here on your page, it does produce a nice sig—I had to use <nowiki> to stop it! So it's the tildes that don't work right. Oh, why? . Bishonen | talk 21:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

It doesn't like 'small' with 'sup' (since sup does small anyway). Make sure the "Treat the above as wiki markup" box is ticked – it has to be ticked – and try:

• ]</font>^{<font color="firebrick">]</font>}
• ] ]

I just tried each of them in my sig and they seem to work thus: --darwinbish 22:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Sigs work! Thank you Rex! "Doesn't like 'small' with 'sup'... "? What a fussy thing! Excellent that you fixed it; the darwinbish was already in a regrettable temper because the Sinebot had interfered with her talkpage, and mentioned her wienie brother. Bishapod will rue the day he created that angry little sock! But I have to agree the Sinebot is a pest. Bishonen | talk 22:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

Heads up about an RfC

Please note that there's a new discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/2010 ArbCom election voting procedure in which you may wish to comment. It is expected to close in about a week. You have received this message because you participated in a similar discussion (2009 AC2 RfC) last year.  Roger 05:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks Roger, I'll have a good look at the discussion and see if there's anything useful I can contribute. --RexxS (talk) 11:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You have mail

Checked your Misplaced Pages e-mail lately, oh great dino? Bishonen | talk 15:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC).

Eeek - I hadn't. Mea culpa. Anyway I've added an example, and hopefully that will do the trick. --RexxS (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Greetings. friend of Jack Merridew

Hello. A mutual friend of ours, Jack Merridew, indicated that I should go and meet "Ralph." As you signed as Ralph, I went out on a limb and contacted you. Are you the Ralph of which Jack speaks? If so, hello, I am Sven Manguard, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you are not Ralph, well then, hello, I am Sven Manguard, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Sven Manguard _Talk 23:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm pleased to meet you as well, Sven. I am indeed the same 'Ralph' that Jack referred to – it's our little joke based on 'Lord of the Flies', where Jack and Ralph find themselves in the same predicament. I've been following your conversation on Jack's talk page (and I hope you'll forgive my interjection; I thought I'd removed the 'oh dear', but obviously forgot to). Anyway, I have a little technical background, so I'm always happy to try to help other editors sort out whatever technical issues they come across. I see that you've settled on a signature for now, but I'm usually around if Jack's away and you need anything. Cheers, RexxS _Talk 00:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Just as long as you two don't call me Piggy or Simon... Sven Manguard _Talk 03:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I've always had a real affection for Simon. In any case, I'm sure either would be better than being one of the "littl'uns" :D --RexxS (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but the littl'uns lived through the end of the book. Sven Manguard _Talk 04:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The boy with the port-wine stain birthmark on his face didn't live. Neither did the sow. samneric (talk · contribs) was blocked. Jack Merridew 05:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

All well. Everyone in that book that lived will have ended up with irreparable psychological scarring. Considering the state of mental health care when the book was written, most of them would have wound up in asylums. Of course if the book were written today, they would have gotten some pills, whitewashed the records of the events in the island, and ran for office. Nothing says 'good politician' like coming from a wealth family, having psychological issues, and representing the worst in humanity. He eh. Sven Manguard _Talk 14:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

For a good politician, having been a public school choirboy would have helped as well. Golding had such a depressingly pessimistic view of human nature that I just don't find his premise credible. Jack and Ralph are really just two sides of the same coin, and in the world that I live in, they work well together. ;) Cheers --RexxS (talk) 20:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Read my response to ling.nut on my talk page in 'It's raining thanks spam!'... Sven Manguard _Talk 20:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It's raining thanks spam!

• Please pardon the intrusion. This tin of thanks spam is offered to everyone who commented or !voted (Support, Oppose or Neutral) on my recent RfA. I appreciate the fact that you care enough about the encyclopedia and its community to participate in this forum.
• There are a host of processes that further need community support, including content review (WP:GAN, WP:PR, WP:FAC, and WP:FAR). You can also consider becoming a Misplaced Pages Ambassador. If you have the requisite experience and knowledge, consider running for admin yourself!
• If you have any further comments, input or questions, please do feel free to drop a line to me on my talk page. I am open to all discussion. Thanks • Ling.Nut (talk) 02:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Tks for your kind words. Cheers! • Ling.Nut (talk) 08:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

If you get bored on a rainy day...

...you may want to have a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Accessibility/Most widely used templates/Top 200. It's just a quick draft now: I'm working 40 hours a day starting the first of November (today), so I don't have as much time as I did.

Anyway, this is one of the most important way to improve accessibility. Some templates contain mistakes that are easy to fix, and have a huge impact. You're one of the rare guys here who is skilled enough to review these templates thoroughly. So don't hesitate. ;-) Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 21:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to mention: we're not in a hurry with this work. It's OK to fix a few templates once in a while, given their impact. It's best to take the time to review carefully the templates and discuss the changes between us two, before submitting an edit request. :-) Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I have sent this message by mistake to Jack Merridew a few days ago, and I was certain I send it to you. Just realized my mistake. :p I was sick and sleep deprived these days, that's why (on my first working day, oh no :s). I'm starting to feel better today. Anyway, take a look at this list, if you have some time. ;-) Kind regards, Dodoïste (talk) 13:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll make some time later this week to have a good look. It was on my list of things to do anyway, as Jack's page is on my watchlist, but thank you for thinking of me! Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Annoying other editors

Moved from User talk:Tex, Tex not home! (or... pretending not to be home? Not want blocked for assisting evil little -bish?)

Hmmmm. "Your signature should not blink, scroll, or otherwise inconvenience or annoy other editors." . Uhuh. Right. Rather difficult coding job! Big Rex help? darwinbish 15:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

Big Tex is stumped. Apparently Internet Explorer no longer recognizes the blink tag, so that wouldn't work. As for waggling, squealing and shocking, I'm not sure how to get that done either. I could make a nice animated gif that you could use as your sig, but as soon as you use that someone will take you to ANI. Hmm...maybe Big Rex can save the day. Tex (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Not much I can do on Misplaced Pages, sorry. You really need a Java applet or Flash if you want to make the sig waggle and squeal or give electric shocks. Misplaced Pages won't let us put those in sigs either :(

I'll make something offensive for you in another place, when I've time. Look at this for a start. --RexxS (talk) 18:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict, grrrrr!) Testing... <waggle>darwinbish</waggle>. Lousy html tags! Nothing work! Hnh. Tex or Rex (are you guys twins, too?) make animated gif I can use as illustration? Portrait walking darwinbish? Running? Leaping? Laughing evil laugh? Biting my brother? darwinbish 18:12, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

Something offensive coming? darwinbish 18:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

It has an embedded Java applet (which won't show if your browser disables Java) that replaces the word 'Welcome'. You could try looking at it with a different browser. I'm looking at ways of making those sort of effects viewable in any browser, but I'll probably have to settle for a Flash animation. Animated gifs are a pain because they tend to have large filesizes. I need to think some more ... --RexxS (talk) 19:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hehehehe, "Welcome" is waggling! So beautiful! I go surfing on the waggle! :-) But don't get mixed up, Big Rex. Big Tex is the one with crap browser. Darwinbish SeaMonkey see everything! Can also hear squeal, if there is squeal! Work, dino brain! Hard work is good for synapses! darwinbish 01:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC).

Big Tex make Little Ankle Biter an animated gif. What think? It's kind of crude, but I believe Little Darwinbish is a little crude too, no? Tex (talk) 19:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh! It's wonderful. I may end up staring at that for hours. You may think Darwinbish is a little crude, but I value my ankles too much to comment. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 00:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Next WP:USPP assessment

Hi RexxS! Since Amy Roth's out on maternity leave, I'm pushing out the next round of assessments she needs. This time, we're comparing your assessment to readers' assessments. And instead of us assigning you articles, we're letting you pick! The full list of topics is on a subpage of the Assessment tab on our WikiProject. Please choose 10 of the articles to assess. Use the link in the section title to go to the appropriate version of the article.

Also, as a thank you for all your help, I'd like to send you a small package of Misplaced Pages swag. Please email me your postal address.

Please let me know if you have any questions! --Ldavis (Public Policy) (talk) 21:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

FLC debate

Hi RexxS, thanks for your comprehensive reply at the FLC. I am rather frustrated by this (as I'm sure you can tell, my apologies!), more so by the lack of communication to our FL community and sudden implementation across existing featured lists without discussion than the technical details. Not much we can do about former, but I'd like to chat over the latter, the technical things...

1. I picked four separate websites which don't embolden the row headings, pretty prominent ones, but that's just as subjective as your choice of IMBD too I suppose. I think my question here is, what, in making them bold, makes them more "accessible"? We have some lists, where we have a number as the first column (e.g. this one), or a year, and the main subject of the line is in the second column. Should the second column be bold here?
2. The table captions seem to be most useful to screen readers. What's to stop us keeping that information invisble to regular viewers but able to be used by screen readers, like an alt= tag? That way I think we would achieve the near-impossible and please all of the people all of the time?

All the best, The Rambling Man (talk) 16:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

One more question, you adjusted the Long Island order of battle list to meet ACCESS, but the first element in each row is not in bold. Why not? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I do understand your frustrations, and there's no need to apologise to me. I know how you feel all too regularly! (see Talk:Ursula Andress). As I think I said previously, I'm sorry that nobody at accessibility wikiproject thought about inviting FLC reviewers to comment, but the changes were driven by a desire of many to meet WCAG, an external body – so were rather unlike other changes to Wiki guidelines which normally arise from a specific area of the Wiki, so have an obvious constituency of interest. Let me see if I can relieve your frustrations to some extent:

• When we change a cell from table data ('TD' in HTML, or '|' in wikimarkup) to a table row header ('TH scope="row"', or '!scope="row"'), your browser recognises the TH and applies bold and centred by default – just as it does for table column headers ('TH scope="col"', or '!scope="col"'). We are used to the behaviour of browsers in producing those visual effects, because we are used to having column headers and it seems 'natural' for those. On the other hand, most people don't see a difference between row headers and the rest of the data in the table, so have never used them – which is why we are not accustomed to seeing bold (or centred) in a column that actually should contain row headers. However, for a blind reader trying to move around anything other than the smallest table (e.g. Fantasia Barrino discography Singles table), hearing "3" doesn't mean much, and hearing "US R&B 3" isn't much better. But they could hear "Free Yourself US R&B 3" if we give them sensible row headers. The downside of course is that the cell containing the row header now becomes bold and centred. I wanted to reduce the impact of that, so if you look at the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#some wikitable ideas, you can see the struggle we had to get the row headers left-aligned by default for Misplaced Pages – and that was only possible because nobody could find a situation where they might need to be centred. I admit I quit while I was ahead at that point because I didn't have the strength to push for normal font weight as well, sorry.
• As for the lists with numbers or years in the first column, you have to ask yourself "If I were blind what information would I want to hear when I reached a particular cell?" What's best: "Unit; commander of Divisions-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 22" (as now)? or "58; Unit; commander of Divisions-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 22" (if we made the number the row header)? or "Oskar von Boddien; Unit; commander of Divisions-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 22" (if we made the name the row header)? Usually, I'd recommend re-arranging the table to make the key information (the row headers) the first column, but I do accept that can be a lot of drudgery. Is it worth it to make those improvements for the visually impaired? It's not really a question of bold/normal – that's just a consequence and can be adjusted afterwards to meet the style preferred – it is absolutely a question of whether we mark up row headers as headers so that visually impaired users can benefit.
• I agree that table captions are most useful to the blind, since a sighted person can quickly ascertain what data is presented in the table. However in just the same way as "Alternative text" for an image is composed of ALT text + image caption, for a table a blind reader will hear the text preceding the caption as well as the caption. If that preceding text already makes clear what they are to expect from the table, then the caption becomes redundant (and slightly annoying, I should imagine). Whether the caption is hidden from sighted users or not, the effect would be the same for blind readers. In many tables a good caption is a real boon for the blind; in the Featured Lists, it's almost certainly repeating what the section header just said. But how to get editors to understand that?"
• Finally, I made nearly all of the first cells in each row into row headers ('!scope="row") but then deliberately set 'style=font-weight:normal;"' to remove the bolding that would otherwise have occurred. It's the '!scope="row"' that makes it accessible, the bolding would only be a consequence and can be counteracted to preserve the former formatting without affecting the accessibility benefits. In many places, I also added 'style="background-color:transparent;"' to remove the grey background that a wikitable would usually have in a header, to preserve the previous formatting. Similarly for 'style="text-align:center;"' in those few cases where the author wanted the cell to be centred (a kind of column sub-heading, I think). But to be honest, it's got column sub-sub-headings as well (the bold, uncentred ones). I wonder if breaking it down into smaller tables wouldn't be best?

I hope that helps, but I'm always willing to chat more if you think I can help further. Best --RexxS (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I appreciate your response. Firstly I want to reassure you (and anyone else involved in ACCESS issues who cares!) that FLC contributors really do want to help with accessibility issues wherever they can. What appears to have happened here is a number of disparate debates (here, DISCOGS, ACCESS, Mediawiki) which have failed to engage an audience from what has to be the prime audience, the FLC community. You're right, you apologised for that before, my mistake for banging it home, but what would really help would be a centralised discussion at WT:FLC to allow list contributors to see exactly what is expected of them and their lists, and maybe more importantly, how to do it. Some markup here seems quite intricate and some results seem undesirable to many. That's just two of the hurdles we'll need to overcome. Reorganising lists isn't just a case of drudgery, it's also a case of style. If I had a list about athletics award winners for example, that list would be given in chronological order, so the most logical data for the first column is the year. The keywords would be the award winners. For a list of baseball managers, the first col would usually be the number of the coach, then the name then the years coached. It's different depending on the emphasis of the list. If we now have to start using markup to restrict the bold of the first column, that would be very unhelpful.

I'm still confused about why the table heading for blind people can't be invisible to sighted people. An image with alt + caption needs caption to explain what is going on in the picture. A table is self-explanatory (and if not, it has a key) so shouldn't need the analog of a caption in any circumstances. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I've commented at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Bold row headers and hope you find that constructive. Please don't be too upset by my colleague, Dodoïste; his English is very good, but it's not his first language and sometimes we read nuances into his text that he never intended. I'd be really happy to have a centralised discussion at WT:FLC and I've watchlisted the page in anticipation, although it's not my "home turf", so I wouldn't know how to start a constructive debate.

You're absolutely right about context being crucial to deciding on row headings, but I'd disagree with your choice of key (for 1996, is the key Michael Johnson or Gail Devers?). I always think about how I would store the table in a database (like MS Access). I want my first field to be the key field (i.e. an unique identifier for the rest of the data in the row). In the case of Jesse Owens Award, the unique identifier is the year and that should be the row header. The order of rows actually doesn't matter, because we often make tables sortable. In contrast, look at Dwain Chambers#Competition record - is there any benefit in making the year a row header? Absolutely not. The Competition field actually pipe links to 1998 European Athletics Championships not European Athletics Championships (for example) because somebody decided to separate the year, for no good reason that I can see. The Year and Competition fields could be merged, producing a simpler table, without "easter-egg" piping, and be amenable to being accessible to boot! Sorry, I'm banging on about pet peeves, rather than helping you here.

The point about a row header is that it can be repeated before each data cell by a screen reader, if desired. So we ought to be choosing a header that is helpful to the blind reader in identifying which row they're if they are moving up or down in the data of the table. For a list of baseball managers, would they benefit most from the number of the coach or the coach's name?

I'll try to add more later. Regards --RexxS (talk) 18:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I'd suggest the coach name, or years of tenure to be most relevant, but this isn't how it's been done at FLC. That's why the centralised discussion is so vital here. Your suggestions don't peeve me at all, it's a shame we couldn't have done this a few months ago in a general arena. Right now, my biggest fear is that this is going to kill FLC contributions because, on the face of it, it's (a) unnecessary (b) unclear (c) complex (d) a surprise. If we can debate those points away, so much the better. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

And FYI, I've attempted to initiate a section at WT:FLC to centralise this discussion. All the best, The Rambling Man (talk) 18:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

And (finally!) could you have a look at a recent nomination, List of leaders of the Soviet Union, and tell me what current ACCESS guidelines would turn it into? Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd say you've got the hang of finding the key data/identifier for rows of data. Be careful, you'll have Jack or Dodo recruiting you to revise tables every spare minute! I'll look in at the FLC debate in a while, but in the meantime, I've made my preferred version of that table at User:RexxS/List of leaders of the Soviet Union. I don't expect you'll like it, but it is clean and free from unnecessary markup, has appropriate row headers in the first column, and each row is self-contained with respect to the data relating to that leader. On the other hand, I could apply accessibility markup to the current table (scope for the column headers; row headers + scope in the second column and override the resultant bolding/left-aligning) if you would like me to. But my userspace version would still be better :D --RexxS (talk) 22:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi RexxS. The centralised discussion is causing, as I thought, some folks some concern over quite what FLC folks are expected to do. I appreciate your suggestions and examples and I think, if we follow these guidelines, they'll form the basis on how to go forward. I'd love for you to contribute some level-headed ACCESS stuff to the debate as, so far, we've all just been told off for whining. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi RexxS. Thanks for trying out that Soviet leaders table. To me it looks pretty good and I guess you're forcing the text weight back to normal from bold for the first column? The reordering of columns is fine by too. One thing I've asked a few times, is small text acceptable from an WP:ACCESS point of view? Here and in those discogs, there's the odd small text which, in my mind, would be even less accessible than unbolded text. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)