User talk:Tarkisflux/sandbox/AuthorBox Update

required to exist for testing

Better Idea That May or May Not be Feasible
Might be a better use of space to have the ratings be a small tooltip-style pop-up (via Ajax or something) or an actual tooltip. That could avoid cluttering the Author sidebar. Surgo 03:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I could just collapse the ratings box too, and you could click it to open. I thought that would be insufficiently obvious, but I can roll it up easily enough. - Tarkisflux Talk 03:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * 1)Would it better as one box, instead of a box within a box? 2) Having an italicized homebrew reminder above the author box, then another within is repetitive; one or the other would reduce clutter. 3) For the sake of completion placing where Status, Editing and Balance would help. --Franken Kesey 05:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, yeah, I guess it's easy to make it collapsible/expandable. I'm an idiot, I didn't even think of that. I think that would be a better idea personally! Surgo 16:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't make it not a box within a box and still have it be collapsible. I also toyed around with those formats early on and found them insufficiently eye catching since they melded with the author box better or more annoying because they colored up the whole line in the author box. Since there have been a number of concerns about the colored boxes though, we'll probably move away from the boxes and towards an image based setup for the warnings, with the talk page and ratings links beneath them (though the collapsible ratings box will remain). I just need to beg Gan for a few more favors basically.


 * And per request, more fields are now showing and the ratings boxes collapse. You can also see how it looks on a live article on any of these pages (well not the template one, but the rest are good). - Tarkisflux Talk 16:57, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I am curious as to the rational for having tree separate boxes. --Franken Kesey 23:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Responded in new section. - Tarkisflux Talk 22:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I Don't Like Three Boxes
I don't understand why splitting it into three boxes is better than one box! Surgo 22:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I may be putting words into Havvy's mouth here, but the argument goes like this I think:
 * The Author box serves 4 primary roles-
 * Tag stuff as obviously homebrew, and not reprinted published work.
 * Display authorship information and editing restrictions.
 * Indicate balance.
 * Indicate quality or level of review.
 * Current form does 2 and 4 well, 1 okay, and sort of washes out 3.


 * The idea then is to give equal visual weight to those things. An image was suggested for balance, but it doesn't stack with the rating image well and wouldn't sit next to it well either. A split form breaks the stacked image issue and gives equal visual weight to 2, 3, and 4 (1 would be handled in other ways, and is already implied by 2).


 * That said, I'm not sure there's any need to display them equally on the page. There's the cost of space and scrolling vs. the benefit of more obvious displays to consider, and my default position was one of being willing to sacrifice more casually obvious balance displays in favor of a shorter block. It's up here because changes were requested and I thought I'd work it up and see what the response was. So it's better in terms of visual weight for the things the box is supposed to be conveying, and worse in terms of space. Whether that's a useful change is something I'm still not certain of. - Tarkisflux Talk 22:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought the current author box indicates balance okay. It doesn't blare it out in scrolling blink tags, but it's there for anyone who wants to know. Surgo 22:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The concern was that being available "for anyone who wants to know" wasn't sufficiently obvious for casual users, and that a similar visual draw should be given to it since we care about that a fair bit. Hence the image suggestion, and the current IMAGE GOES HERE placeholder. - Tarkisflux Talk 23:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me -- why not have 3 bars in a single box? Right now the author box only has one heading bar for all parts, and here we have 3 separate boxes for 3 separate header bars. Why not one box with three bars? Surgo 01:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I could do that. It would look like it does on the page now (ignore the right aligned secondary heading bars, they're weird CSS inheritance stuff that I don't feel like working around atm). I think it's less clean, but it is tighter. I may play with horizontal bars in the table instead, see if those work better with a single container. - Tarkisflux Talk 03:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I like the second setup more than the first, and much more than the three part one of before. --Franken Kesey 02:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * What is the Authorship Information link for? Is it necessary? Personally, having the authors name larger than all other in box is better. Are the last two links necessary? One of the box’s purposes is to help new members, not to encourage stupidity. Having the image visible while reading is a nice benefit (leaving it at the bottom as it is now); in fact, should the picture be a part of the author box? --Franken Kesey 20:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If one of them is going to be a link, they all should be for consistency. The about link is just a placeholder for now because I didn't feel like finding the right one at the time. Sizing differences for the author line were played with, and they looked bad. Feel free to edit it and look at it in preview if you want to see it, but please don't save it. I don't know what you're getting at with the rest. - Tarkisflux Talk 21:41, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Request for feedback
I have 4 mockups in slightly varied colors and configurations here for commenting upon. Things I'm looking for: I like the first option the most currently, despite being wide and sort of a throwback to the 3 box thing that people were not fond of. - Tarkisflux Talk 17:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you like any of these? If yes, what's your favorite?
 * 2) Are any of these worth using in place of the current author block?
 * 3) Do you want to see anything different on any of these?
 * 4) If you don't like them, is there anything in here worth salvaging elsewhere?


 * Feedback request bump. - Tarkisflux Talk 00:29, 12 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Personally like the rating aspects of the second one more. Specifically that one sees number before average. Yet find the black outlines of the first helpful. The sizing difference with rating may make it smaller, yet is not agreeable to continuity of the rest of the box. For the purposes of a complete project: the aspects of different voting values would be nice (favored/opposed, no rating and no comment). --Franken Kesey 23:15, 16 August 2012 (UTC)