Last modified: 2013-06-18 14:37:41 UTC
Mediawiki has several indentation methods, (:#* and combinations). Problematically, these all indent to different positions, resulting in a messy left margin. Example: * I agree with the above, delete it. Explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation : (Also it is a BLP problem - explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation explanation) This kind of situation where a bulleted point is expanded by further paragraphs (etc), is common. Likewise numbered lists with bullet or non-numbered lines included. It would be nice if the various indent methods lined up the text at the same position; the left margin in the above kinds of cases is ragged.
Another minor visual issue for you guys to consider. :) IIRC the various list types lined up more cleanly under the ancient standard/classic skin, but were always pretty mismatched under Monobook.
*** Bug 4829 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Good news! It looks to me like * and : now indent to the same position! # doesn't # aligns the number with where the text begins for : and *. When you get to # more than one or two digits though, you won't be able to fit it in the same space as the * or : indent, so in my opinion, it makes sense to not worry about where # lines up since it is going to have to be either variable width or obscenely wide. The unpleasant thing is that #: aligns differently than ::, but again that's because # has to be wide enough for an indent, a number, and some more space, so there's really nothing to be done about that, and I can't see any stylistic way to improve on the current layout. Marking this worksforme, as only part of the initial report was actually 'fixed'.
Reopening. This was fixed locally on the English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=438598357#Align_indents_and_lists . Obviously it has only been fixed on en.wp for a couple of days, but doesn't look like it's going to be reverted. Needs to be added to default SVN/other wikis.
Created attachment 8821 [details] Patch for monobook, vector, modern and chick's main.css (To reitterate my comments on enwiki:) The current situation is as follows (for Chick, Modern*, Monobook and Vector): <ul> has a margin left of 1.5em. <dd> has a margin-left of 2em. (* missing in Modern) <ol> has a margin-left of 3.2em. You can see why this creates problems when mixing these elements, but they can easily be resolved. I suggest setting the left margin for <ul> and <dd> to 1.6em, without touching <ol>. This means the bulleted list (*) will have 0.1em added (unnoticable) and the defenition list (:) will have 0.4em less space to it's left, lining them all up perfectly, and without any breakage.
Created attachment 9100 [details] Patch for commonElements.css Updated patch since large part of skin-specific CSS has been moved.
Added the "patch" and "need-review" keywords; Mark hopes to get someone to review the patch soon.
r102026
Created attachment 9556 [details] Patch for common/shared.css There is another place (in shared.css) where the margins for ol/ul are defined, so that needs to be patched as well.
(Bump) Hope to get his done in time for 1.19.
Applying the patch is easy, but I was wondering, from my POV, it seems "confusing" if the margin is the same, because then it seems as if the indented text is part of the bullet text. Imho you should at least see that it is a different text.
However, mis-aligned indents and bullet points area true eyesore, so aligning them outweighs any confusion it may cause,which I think it doesn't. There is alreay a margin between mixed list types. This is also a supplemental patch, as shared.css is already patched.
Updated shared.css in r107073, but only because the files should have the same ul margin, and not directly because I agree with the change :-)
(In reply to comment #11) > Applying the patch is easy, but I was wondering, from my POV, it seems > "confusing" if the margin is the same, because then it seems as if the indented > text is part of the bullet text. Imho you should at least see that it is a > different text. Reopening. The last version is very confusing IMHO, for the reason mentioned by Robin. Although perhaps improperly, many users relied on the old behaviour to distinguish bulleted items from other indented content, where a double indentation was too much. Such a change should be at least reported in the release notes, but anyway I don't see any reason why it should be considered an improvement, at least as is.
Created attachment 10213 [details] The usual identing (MediaWiki 1.14)
And I cannot see any reason this is not an improvement. This change was triggered by the many, *many* complaints made on enwiki over the years. It may be confusing only when misapplied; they should generally not be mixed, but having equal indentations will enable proper nesting of various lists if done correctly, which was not possible before... at least not since monobook. In HTML, <dd> and <ul> have matching indentation be default; Why would you want to deviate from that in the first place? Given the number of original complaints vs. the one call to revert, I'm reclosing this.
(In reply to comment #16) > And I cannot see any reason this is not an improvement. This change was > triggered by the many, *many* complaints made on enwiki over the years. Are you saying it's a change considering only en.wiki's wishes? > It may > be confusing only when misapplied; they should generally not be mixed, but > having equal indentations will enable proper nesting of various lists if done > correctly, which was not possible before... at least not since monobook. Nested lists worked before as well, because each # and * gave the same indentation; : is not used to nest lists, even on en.wiki, based on what I see in [[Help:List]] (where it's only an extreme random example) and [[Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (lists)]]. > In HTML, <dd> and <ul> have matching indentation be default; Why would you want > to deviate from that in the first place? Given the number of original > complaints vs. the one call to revert, I'm reclosing this. Robin has already said why, and I've reopened the bug based on complaints on Italian wikis.
(In reply to comment #17) > Are you saying it's a change considering only en.wiki's wishes? Since enwiki is by far the largest project, yes. Its consideration is regarded to be representative. > Nested lists worked before as well, because each # and * gave the same > indentation; : is not used to nest lists, even on en.wiki, based on what I see > in [[Help:List]] (where it's only an extreme random example) and > [[Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (lists)]]. No they didn't, that's the point. And ":" is primarely used on talk pages, which is where unmatching indentations with * and # were the biggest complaints. Hence why there are now matched. > Robin has already said why, and I've reopened the bug based on complaints on > Italian wikis. Reclosing again... This bug has been resolved. Continuing to reopen this one is not the proper procedure. Please open a *NEW* bug (add the bug number here for reference), and provide links to those complaints, so we can assess their merit.
(In reply to comment #18) > (In reply to comment #17) > > Are you saying it's a change considering only en.wiki's wishes? > > Since enwiki is by far the largest project, yes. Its consideration is regarded > to be representative. No it's not. > > Nested lists worked before as well, because each # and * gave the same > > indentation; : is not used to nest lists, even on en.wiki, based on what I see > > in [[Help:List]] (where it's only an extreme random example) and > > [[Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (lists)]]. > > No they didn't, that's the point. And ":" is primarely used on talk pages, > which is where unmatching indentations with * and # were the biggest > complaints. Hence why there are now matched. You're only considering en.wiki usage; : is used in many places on other projects. Nested lists worked perfectly, unless one want things like # ## #* #** #*# to "work" and be aligned, which is obviously impossible. > > Robin has already said why, and I've reopened the bug based on complaints on > > Italian wikis. > > Reclosing again... This bug has been resolved. Continuing to reopen this one is > not the proper procedure. Please open a *NEW* bug (add the bug number here for > reference), and provide links to those complaints, so we can assess their > merit. This bug has not been fixed properly so reopening it is the usual process for what I see. I'm not a CSS guru so I don't know how to avoid the problem that «it seems as if the indented text is part of the bullet text». I also want to asses the merit of your complaints, given that you're only providing confused anecdotal references to supposed usages of nested lists (please provide guidelines instead, or statistics on usage) and links to discussions with very few participants and not even unanimity. As regards discussions, which seems to be your only point, the problem is now bigger than before because comments indented with : could now look written by the same user as comments indented with * above them, which is a severe regression making discussions a mess. But if you want links like yours, here are some complaints https://it.wikiquote.org/?oldid=466240#Indentazione , here a guideline which requires the old system [[q:it:Wikiquote:Trascrizione]], here one of the hundreds of pages broken by the change [[:q:it:Tito Livio]], [[q:it:MediaWiki:Common.css]] had to be changed. Usage on all Wikiquotes and Wiktionaries, which are the main users of lists, must be considered.
I've asked the bugmeister for the proper procedure in this case. The reason why a new bug is prefered is in case this ends up as WONTFIX, which would result in an incorrect resolution for *this* bug. Looking at the various uses of lists in the Italian wikis reveals a fundamental incorrect usage of the various mixed list formats, who's markup solely depends on unmatched indentation. I dare not even begin to point out the faults in this approach. Plus, you already seem to have fixed this locally. So why should the rest of the world suffer from unmatched metrics because of the Italian wiki's preference in incorrect list formatting?
(In reply to comment #20) > Plus, you already seem to have fixed this locally. So why should the rest of > the world suffer from unmatched metrics because of the Italian wiki's > preference in incorrect list formatting? As I said, the current resolution seems to worsen the problem you stated to be willing to solve on en.wiki. Also, usage on other wikis has not even been considered by you, although we have hundreds of Wiktionaries and Wikiquotes.
(In reply to comment #19) > I'm not a CSS guru so I don't know how to avoid the problem that > «it seems as if the indented text is part of the bullet text». > I also want to asses the merit of your complaints, given that you're only > providing confused anecdotal references to supposed usages of nested lists > (please provide guidelines instead, or statistics on usage) and links to > discussions with very few participants and not even unanimity. As regards > discussions, which seems to be your only point, the problem is now bigger than > before because comments indented with : could now look written by the same user > as comments indented with * above them, which is a severe regression making > discussions a mess. I agree with Erwin that a new bug report should be open for this to be discussed properly. That said, I think we can all focus on the main point Nemo is making, that is to say, with regard to: Some comment - AUser (talk) * Blah blah blah. - DifferentUser (talk) : Some other Comment. - AnotherUser (talk) Should it appear as though AnotherUser is replying to AUser or DifferentUser? IMHO the former is the far more intended, but maybe that's observation bias.
(In reply to comment #22) > Some comment - AUser (talk) > * Blah blah blah. - DifferentUser (talk) > : Some other Comment. - AnotherUser (talk) > > Should it appear as though AnotherUser is replying to AUser or DifferentUser? > IMHO the former is the far more intended, but maybe that's observation bias. The 0th bias is that you're considering only discussions and not how other hundreds of wikis use the syntax, but I can live with it. I don't know if it's more the former or the latter, but surely AnotherUser wants their comment to be distinguished from DifferentUser's. Everyone knows that putting your comment with a single : under another comment with a single : will make them confused as it messes up the hierarchy (that's the syntax for a single, multi-line indented comment); not the same applies to * below : and viceversa. So suddenly an unknown number of discussions have changed meaning,
What matters is consistency. When I reply to someone who uses :, I use ::. When someone uses *, I use **. When someone posted before me using : and I use : as well, the signature should make clear that the posts are different; reverting this change will not fix that. > ...and not how other hundreds of wikis use the syntax... You don't know that. So far, you are the only one complaining. If there *were* hundreds of wikis using that syntax, there would hve been a ot more complaints about now. The Italian wikis uses teh wrong format. Instead of: * Item : Subitem It should use: ; Item : Subitem Which is the proper syntax for a definition list. I am positive we are not going to revert this change so some people can continue to use semantically and syntaxwise incorrect list formatting.
(In reply to comment #24) > So far, you are the only one complaining. If there *were* > hundreds of wikis using that syntax, there would hve been a ot more complaints > about now. Erwin, I do strongly appreciate all the work you are putting into this issue, but I think I would prefer to work harder to assess how the members of our various sites will react to this change before changing it unilaterally. Many times over the past several years, people have thought "well surely not too many people are doing *this* illogical thing that depends on obscure, irrational, undocumented behavior," and found out that a nontrivial percentage of users do. Hundreds of thousands of people each use the sites in different ways. And we do try to balance the convenience of legacy support/backwards compatibility with the need to pay down technical debt and straighten things out for rationality and better future development. You've been working on this sort of thing for a while so I know you understand these constraints. Perhaps you could work with Chris McMahon, Mark Hershberger, and the wikitech-ambassadors list to reach out to some additional communities and ask them to comment here? Most Wikimedia editors don't know of Bugzilla and don't hear of issues raised here unless we reach out to them.
(In reply to comment #20) > I've asked the bugmeister for the proper procedure in this case. Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply until today. The original issue in this bug was in comment #0: "It would be nice if the various indent methods lined up the text at the same position; the left margin in the above kinds of cases is ragged." This has been addressed. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:MarkAHershberger/sandbox4 for an example.) (In reply to comment #17) > (In reply to comment #16) > > And I cannot see any reason this is not an improvement. This change was > > triggered by the many, *many* complaints made on enwiki over the years. > > Are you saying it's a change considering only en.wiki's wishes? enwiki isn't the only community that we're concerned with. I think I've shown this by working with ptwikibooks, for example, to get some of their concerns resolved. If you are unhappy with this solution, then the proper procedure is to open a new bug with your explicit concerns in the first comment. Reopening this bug and asking that its requested solution be backed out isn't the correct response.
