A few background notes: * The generic external link icon is applied by virtual of existence of the 'external' class, which is a nice simple implementation. I kinda like it. :)
* In contrast, the CSS rules used to mark certain external links with the PDF, IRC, SSL, etc "specific" icon types are relatively ugly and hard to maintain. These use inefficient client-side attribute value matching. There is a desire to clean these up in the style sheets, which would of course be easiest if they're simply removed. * If it's useful to keep those subtypes, it may be more desirable to implement them differently (for instance by having the parser apply the matching rules and output a class). This would simplify the CSS rules for maintenance, since they would be able to just use the classes. * Note that some of the rules such as PDF detection can misidentify resource types (for instance the rules would mark a File:Blah.pdf file *page* on Commons as "PDF" even though it's not actually a PDF download, but an HTML web page). This would not necessarily change under the above proposal to change implementation, as the basic problem is that you can't really reliably determine a file type from a "file extension" on a URL (the only real way to check is to try fetching the resource, or at least its HTTP headers, and report back what type was received). -- brion On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Quiddity <[email protected]> wrote: > As Bartosz says, and I think most of the communities would agree if asked > on their respective village pumps - we value the external link icon in > particular, and most of the other icons in general (with the possible > exception of the https padlock). We think they are useful for both editors > and readers. > > Re: Gadget - This isn't a particular workflow - this is: > "I'm reading a random article, and I notice an external link icon, so, as > a wikignome, I either: (if spam) remove it, (if citation) fix it, (if > [subjective decision about its relevance/worth and adherence to [[WP:EL]] > guideline) move it into the External links section." > A gadget would not be a good replacement. > > By all means clean up the CSS, but do not consider removing the icons > without seeking much much wider input. > > > > On 13-10-29 11:57 AM, Jared Zimmerman wrote: > >> Nick, good points, for the particular use case sounds like a gadget for >> showing external links called out for workflows around fixing them would >> be a good idea. After hearing everyone's thought i'm leaning toward no >> icons for the average user. >> >> * >> * >> * >> * >> *Jared Zimmerman *\\Director of User Experience \\Wikimedia Foundation >> M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman <https://twitter.com/** >> JaredZimmerman <https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman>> >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:41 AM, quiddity <[email protected] >> <mailto:pandiculation@gmail.**com <[email protected]>>> wrote: >> >> +1 for more discussion, and onwiki discussion to find out why >> we/they've each kept them in the individual CSS payloads for so many >> years... >> >> >> On 10/24/2013 02:48 PM, Jared Zimmerman wrote: >> >>> Its definitely a less heavy handed way of doing >>> the thing many (annoying) sites do when they warn >>> you that you're leaving their site. I just wonder >>> is the signal to noise it worth it. I don't know >>> that modern web users have any expectations that >>> link within a site always point to local site urls. >>> >>> >> Wikis are special, in relation to most sites, because of the density >> of internal links (many per paragraph), and the expectation that >> most links are internal and will lead to a similar quality/style of >> information. That applies from Wikisource, to Wookiepedia. >> >> In wikis that don't mix external links in the main content (eg most >> Wikipedias), the icons are also useful /for editors/ as they can >> >> easily notice that something needs to be moved/fixed. >> >> See >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Help:External_link_icons<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:External_link_icons>for >> a >> good list of what the English Wikipedia has. >> >> See also recent discussion at >> >> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.**org/show_bug.cgi?id=54604<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54604>("Ridiculous >> amount of CSS rules for external links") >> >> >> The only icon that seems (afaik) completely unnecessary, and >> bright/distracting, is the https padlock, which possibly >> could/should be replaced with the standard external link icon. >> (Unless there's a rationale for it that I'm forgetting/unaware of.) >> >> See this 2009 discussion where Davidgothberg created a blue (less >> distracting) replacement, if we need to keep a padlock for some >> reason. >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**MediaWiki_talk:Common.css/** >> Archive_11#Secure_links_**padlock<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Common.css/Archive_11#Secure_links_padlock> >> >> https://www.mediawiki.org/**wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/**60320<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/60320> >> >> HTH. Quiddity >> >> ______________________________**_________________ >> Design mailing list >> [email protected] >> <mailto:Design@lists.**wikimedia.org<[email protected]> >> > >> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/design<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design> >> >> >> >> >> >> ______________________________**_________________ >> Design mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/design<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design> >> >> > > ______________________________**_________________ > Design mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/design<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design> > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
