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Topic on Talk:Recommendations for mobile friendly articles on Wikimedia wikis

guidance is wikipedia-centric

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Billinghurst (talkcontribs)

The guidance on the previous page seems focused primarily on (encyclopaedic) articles. I am wondering how this guidance would be structured if users are looking at Commons, Wikisources, Wikispecies, Wikiquotes, etc.

From a Wikisource perspective numbers of those points made are particularly problematic when replicating a published work. It would be useful to start a conversation about these issues to see how the more structured Wikisources can work better within mobile, countering the strictures of header fields, images, metadata, tables, etc.

Billinghurst (talkcontribs)

It almost seems that the Wikisources may need a project of their own to address the issues and differences that exist with management of css, skins, and mobile views.

Jdlrobson (talkcontribs)

I think the guide should be universal to Wikimedia projects although admittedly with my experiences of using Wikipedia and Wikivoyage right now it likely to be catered to encyclopaedic (but things like table usage still apply!).

I'm happy to take a look at some wikisource problems and provide some recommendations. While wikisource has very clear mobile issues relating to the MediaWiki software itself, are there particular issues with user generated content that you can surface to me?

Billinghurst (talkcontribs)

@Jdlrobson where is the best place to have an extrapolative point-wise conversation? In some senses the Wikisources have struggled, usually through enthusiastic transcribers with limited css knowledge, to come to terms with reliable means to replicate works, especially where some wish to have a facsimile. Even the page width of an original work in a book, or with pages with columns, don't migrate well to a computer screen.

Of the ten listed points, I reckon that the WSes probably break six straight out. Some examples (as I perceive the commentary)

  1. Header fields, and trying to encapsulate meta data about a work itself, or its status as a transcription
  2. templating and inline formatting to represent the reproduced edition; though with template styles there may be opportunity to improve where we are
  3. tables as typeset in original publication, and similarly reproducing block center (though some of that relates to old browsers, and old ways, and with new css, there may be scope to improve)
  4. how to handle sidenotes in a published work, then translate that to either a wide screen where the sidenotes then overlap, or in a narrow screen where they take-up valuable screen space.

We are possibly redeemable in some sense, as we do try to template code as much as possible, rather than work with raw code. We have also long been trying to not force widths, or specific sizes, instead using relative settings. Our enthusiasm and comfort to focus on the production of an old work inhibits and deters the conversion to a new world of underlying publication means. Probably many of us are of a generation that does not have that familiarity with css, style, class and elements. It has been hard enough to explain span and div, and to get users to get those working to avoid Linter issues. <shrug emoji>

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