LGPedia:Lucy's Balcony/archive5

This is the archive of discussions from Lucy's Balcony that are no longer active or have been resolved. To revive an old issue, please start a new thread at Lucy's Balcony.

Browser neutrality or Official Browser

Ok there are some pages ( like the list of videos page ), that have significant differences when rendered in different browsers, and currently anyone can just edit to make the page look good in there own browser, and things don't look quite right in other browsers. I think we need a standard, either we enforce "Browser Neutrality", by not allowing any page design that doesn't look as good in all Browsers, or we declare one Browser the official Browser, and all pages are optimized to look best in that Browser, but must still look reasonble in all browsers. Realistically there are only 3 Browsers, that we need to concern ourselves with Safari (Webkit), Firefox (Gecko) and Internet Explorer (Trident), since every other Browser uses the same rendering engine as one of them. all of them have pros and cons:

Safari (Webkit) -

• Pros: Renders fonts better than any other Browser, most compliant to WC3 web standards.
• Cons: Windows version is still Beta,
• Other Webkit Browsers: OmniWeb, Swift, Sunrise, Midori, Shiira, Konqueror

Internet Explorer (Trident)

• Pros: Largest market share,
• Cons- Ignores WC3 standards, renders poorly
• Other Trident Browsers: AOL Explorer,Avant, Maxthon

FireFox (Gecko)

• Pros: Good WC3 compliance, best cross-platform support.
• Cons: inconsistent line spacing, adding extra pixels to object heights.
• Other Gecko Browsers: Netscape,Seamonkey, Camino, Galleon, Epiphany, K-Meleon, Flock

. --misty 14:03, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

Vote Tally

Browser Neutrality

1. Support Enforced Browser Neutrality
   1. Zoey
   2. Misty
   3. Modelmotion
   4. Phoenician
   5. JayHenry
2. Opposed of enforced Browser Neutrality
   1. Renegade
   2. -R-

Official Browser

1. Support Firefox as the Official Browser
   1. Renegade
   2. -R-
2. Support Safari as the Official Browser
   1. Misty
3. Support IE as the Official Browser

This is a non-issue

1. We currently test LGPedia pages in the main browsers of the day and check their specific rendering results in something that ranges somewhere between OK and excellent in all of them, accepting they will not be identical. For major pages/portals, the standard is higher and must be in the good to excellent range. I vote we continue this policy and not waste time making pages absolutely identical in all browsers or even declare that we care more about one browser than another. I can live with a bit of white space at the bottom of the List Of Videos in IE... it still looks very good overall but not identical to the better fit in Firefox. (Although, Firefox users can change their font settings to produce a variety of different display results that we just can't second guess.) In the past we have relied on the LGPedia community to spot if a major page falls under the good-to-excellent range in a particular browser and then reacted accordingly. I vote to carry on with this. If you agree, add your name to this list... Psmith 07:26, 16 July 2007 (CDT)
   1. Psmith
   2. Phoenician 14:22, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Didn't we reduce the render-difference to different line heights in List of Videos? At least that's the only significant difference I remember and see...

Of course I'd love Firefox to become the official browser, but unless that happens, I'd prefer neutrality - 'cause I sure as hell won't develop on IE, and I'm not gonna install that buggy apple thing on my machine.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 20:14, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

Personally, I vote for browser-neutrality. As web developers, you want your pages to look nice for everyone who views them, not force your viewers to use a certain browser or "tough luck guys". Plus, with something as widely viewed as the LGPedia, I think it's fair to say no matter what browser would be chosen as "official", there will be a LARGE number of viewers who do not use that. So yes, I vote for neutrality. --Zoey 23:52, 7 July 2007 (CDT)

Ok well if we for browser neutrality the list of videos page need another redesign, sinse the montage to list alignment breaks browser neutrality. so no pages can be designed to need vertical alignment of independent objects. So it looks like so far everyone is agreeable to browser neutrality, I say that if there are no objections by midnight July 10, that we make that official policy, and add it to the style guide -Misty 02:33, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

I think different line height is close enough to not count as "differently looking".

After all, the only thing different is how far down the montage extends.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 03:32, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Yes it certainly counts , in fact that is the main issue for this whole discussion. We either declare Firefox safari or IE as the official Browser, and align it for that; or we declare Browser Neutrality and the page gets redesigned so vertical alignment doesn't matter. -misty 03:59, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

If you decide to redesign a perfectly fine layout just because the lines are a little more spaced in one browser, you're doing that alone, missy. :P

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 04:27, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

That sounds like a vote againsts enforced browser neutrality. Ok so that things don't get confused I'm going to put a vote tally: Please ad or edit your vote appropriately. -Misty 11:42, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

I use all the main browsers with the excepetion of IE (but including Safari and Firefox). As long as pages are readable on a mac I am happy, but please dont make this a mac vs pc issue.--modelmotion 19:50, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

I'm mainly an IE user, but I've also use FireFox as well. I think the best way to go is browser neutrality, since it wouldn't be right to force a certain browser on others. As for that videolist montage, its unmatched with the latest vids from an IE view, but hey, I'm used to it. --Pheon 03:43, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

no one is talking about forcing people to use a particular browser, having an official browser means that pages that render differently in different browser must optimized for that browser. Currently the list of videos is the page that most renders differently, so saying "I support enforcing browser neutrality, but I don't care about the list of videos" is saying "I don't support enforced browser neutrality". So then we have to pick a browser to optimize the list of videos for , that's why we would need an official browser. -misty 11:56, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Uh, O.K., I see this has kind of been going on for a while, but I want to jump in. I believe that FireFox should be the official LGPedia browser on account that it is cross platform. There are really no literal "system requirements" which is good, because I run Windows 2K and most newer browsers won't support the OS. I'm not sure if this really effects most of the people on the site, but sometimes it does to me. I don't care if it is the official browser, but if it is at least optimized for a cross-system browser, I'll be happy. Love, -R- 15:50, 10 July 2007 (CDT)

Well I was hoping that we would have a clearer consensus. from the comments, I'm not 100% convinced that people who voted for enforced browser neutrality really understood what they were voting for. I think we need to give it a few more days, before setting policy. So how about July 15 Midnight CDT -misty 02:01, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Finally something ending in central time :D but honestly, I am all for the official browser being FireFox. Love, -R- 02:14, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

More importantly, they probably don't know that these three rendering engines render pages differently, and that it's impossible to "enforce" browser neutrality. If you consider different line-height reason enough for a re-design already, LGPedia will never ever be able to use anything with width and borders again - simply because of IE's box model.

Again, I reiterate: We should try to get it as close as possible, but trying to enforce the pages look 100% the same is just stupid, because it's impossible - unless you're doing nothing more than colored text.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 04:55, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

the problem isn't that there are differences, between browsers, the problem is that some designs rely on specific alignments to look correct, and if the browsers render them differently, then it doesn't look correct in all browsers. On the other hand if one browsers spaced things at 11 pixels, and another browser spaced things at 13 pixels, if everything still lined up correctly in both browsers, the page wold be considered browse neutral, even though it doesn't render identically in both browsers. -misty 18:13, 15 July 2007 (CDT)

Well It looks like Browser Neutrality won out. I managed to make a Browser Neutral version of the LIst of Videos, and maybe tomorrow I'll add Browser Neutrality into the style guide. -misty 01:52, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Congratulations, Misty...you just destroyed half the usability and a good deal of the design of that page just because you didn't like the line height. Way to go. *thumbs up*

Having it look like crap on all browsers is so much better than having it look differently good on each of them.

Just look at the fucking mess that is the TOC now - isn't that so much better than having a real list, people?? *rolleyes*

This is fucking ridiculous. Without the numbering, the page is only a slight bit better than a pure category listing. The lack of numbers also puts all episodes on the same status, meaning early NBR and OpAphid episodes look like they're just as official as a normal Bree-blog. But hey, the line height is equal everywhere! What's factual accuracy if it looks the same on all browsers? *rolleyes*

I also highly object to the way this was inserted. The Portal/Main Page switch had to be done by today, as per Creator request. We had no time to consider your sudden uprise after you decided to ignore that project for two weeks, only to start bitching on the last day. That was not the case for a LoV redesign. It would have been perfectly possible to leave this piece of crap in your sandbox for a few days and listen to opinions before you make this horrible abomination our official video list.

Now we're gonna get a flood of bebo-users today who'll think we're too stupid to use a list over a billion <br>s.

Now tell me, Misty...what is the great advantage we have from equal line heights in FF and IE?

What enormous change does the "browser neutrality" of your version bring us that it justifies destroying the main focus and the factual accuracy of the page and turning it into a design- and code nightmare?

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 03:22, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

What are you talking about????? First of all the it was decided that the OPaphid and NBR videos are as official as the BDJ videos. And if the numbering is so important to you, add the numbers back in. The design of the page hasn't changed very much just the alignment. Maybe you and I, are seeing something different, but besides the line numbers, it doesn't look that different, other than that things line up correctly. Here's a screenshot that directly compares my version to the previous one. How is it any more crap than the old version??? screenshot -misty 05:32, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

"Add Poe Hinder Vilification" is not the nineteenth episode of the Lonelygirl15 video series, "An update of sorts" is not the 43th episode, and NBR1 is not the 80th episode - yet that is exactly what your list states. Yes, later episodes have been accepted into canon, but that doesn't change the fact that Miss Me? is the only Op video officially listed as an episode, and it doesn't change the fact that even Miss Me? was more of an "evil Danielbeast" blog than an actual OpAphid video. Even the video list on the main page, which most definitely is authoritive, lists OpAphid videos as ####b, not as ####+1. It doesn't matter if you are incapable of seeing how much more crude and less well designed your page looks through your omissions, or if you understand what a horrible faux pas your abuse of <br>s is - the important fact is that your list is just factually wrong and cannot stay that way.

And I refuse to fuck up the code even more by manually numbering through and handling 250 forced line breaks when a simple ordered list works fine and the only problem was that one browser has 0.1em more space per line.

There is no justification for this violation. The fact that a page is slightly longer in one browser, without even changing the layout or altering information, cannot possibly be a valid reason to destroy the code, the appearance, and the factual accuracy of a page.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 06:36, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

The LGPedia is browser neutral people. Deal with it, or leave. Seriously. It's not even negotiable. We're here for LG, not to promote Mozilla. --JayHenry 12:19, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

It's not about promoting Mozilla. It's about commensurability. If you check the discussion logs for the re-design, you'll see that we went through great lengths to ensure that the layout looks equal in both browsers. Have you actually checked the "unneutral" version in both browsers? The only difference is that one is slightly longer, because the line height is minimally higher. That's it. Nothing more. It's not even noticable if you don't know it's there. And for that tiny, little, insignificant difference, Misty wants to remove the numbering, making the list itself incorrect, remove the list code as a whole, making the code semantically incorrect, and she wants to optically destroy the TOC layout. All because of a little more whitespace.

This is not about "promoting Mozilla" - if that was my goal, I'd have refused to even look at it in IE months ago. The very fact that it is that similar proves that I'll go through great lengths to ensure it looks as similar as possible in both browsers, just as the recent re-designs of the main page/portals prove (it's no coincidence there are several revisions referencing "IE fixes" in the history). This is not about promoting Mozilla. This is about stopping an insane crusade with no basis. There is simply no reason to destroy a perfectly fine page on multiple levels, just because Misty doesn't like whitespace.

Oh, and for the record: I find it rather cheap of you to discard all factual arguments I made and drag this down to a supposed browser evangelism issue. I don't know if Misty bugged you or if you hold some personal grudge against me, but I made quite clear in my first comment on this issue that I'd of course like FF to be the official browser, but that I do support a sane neutrality dogma instead.

But killing pages over slight whitespace differences is not sane.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 12:32, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

I'm all in favour of passive browser neutrality, but not "enforced browser neutrality" if by "enforced" you mean every page must look identical in every browser down to the last pixel. This may put off the average wiki editor from making changes lest they break the policy and get pounced on by the "enforcers". That is why I voted for the status quo.

As an aside, this discussion is going the way of others on Lucy's Balcony in recent times. A bit too much sound & fury which I'll just put down to everyone's passion for LG. Let's tone things down a bit lest Lucy hears us and finds us all squabbling on her balcony. Psmith 14:02, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

No by enforced I don't mean identical down to the pixel, all browsers render differently, I mean that making the page lay out in one browser doesn't throw it off for another. In the case of the list of videos, if the page length in 2 browsers were 300 pixels apart, but the items on the page still lined up that page would be browser neutral. But the reason the list of videos isn't browser is because, if the list is aligned to the montage in 1 browser, there is an almost a 300 pixel offset in another. The 'status' quo you are talking about, means that people can change it back and forth to align for their own browser. I have no problem with choosing 1 browser as the standard for alignment, but the greatest consensus was for making it neutral, so I devoted my whole weekend to figuring out what would work. -misty 15:04, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Vote to dismiss as non-issue, problem not reproducable under IE 6.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 15:54, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I agree. Non-issue. Let's move on. --JayHenry 16:19, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

A good-bye of sorts

There have recently been some changes in my real life. I was unsure what the adjustment would be as far as my time online is concerned. It has now become obvious to me that I will no longer be able to remain active here at the LGPedia. I still intend to read it, follow it and even occasionally edit and discuss, but I don't have the time to faithfully execute the job of administrator. I'm still immensely proud of having been involved with this wiki for the last 9 months and 3600+ edits, I am immensely proud of the quality of the Wiki and its over 1,000 articles. But it's time for me to step aside. Effective immediately, Zoey will now serve as bureaucrat -- she and Miles will be the only people with the ability to create and remove administrators. As Brucker and I have been inactive for months, I'll remove our rights. What happens after that is up to you. I wish everyone the best going forward. --JayHenry 11:21, 11 July 2007 (CDT)

Bye Jay!!! :( Definately hope to continue seeing you around, even if it's not on the LGPedia. Thanks for all your hard work for so long! I shall try to do you proud! *cheesy grin* --Zoey 02:33, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Bye man. it was good working with you.--TJ Marsh 14:40, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

LG15/KM

This morning I got on the LGPedia for the first time in a while, and found all these changes on the main page and subsequent new main changes. And now, when I browse through articles, I find all this Kate Modern crap mixed in with the Lonelygirl15 information.

I get it. Kate Modern -- woohoo, a new project for the Creators, and hopefully it gives them some added income. But do we really have to mix them? I come to the LGPedia to read about... go figure... LG. So why must I see all this stuff about Kate Modern? From what I understand, they're completely two separate projects.

Can't Kate Modern have their own wiki? I came here for Lonelygirl15, not Kate Modern. The two don't have anything to do with each other, aside from the same creators, so why would we combine them? --Andy 22:26, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Read this page for the information regarding inclusion of KateModern in the LGPedia as per the request of Miles Beckett. --Zoey 22:32, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

I'd argue this further, but since Miles said it should be done, it seems pointless. Thanks. --Andy 22:39, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Redesign of our redesign in response to their redesign?

Jay's comment above got heads spinning, and the question of the moment is: Should we redesign our recently redesigned pages to fit the new look of LG15 and KateModern, or should we stick with what we have now, given that several people commented favorably about it?

I, personally, don't particularly like the new logos (I find them ridiculous), and see no problem with the visual difference between pedia and main site, so I'm not particularly keen on going through an entire redesign again. I'll do my very best if it is wished, though.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 22:35, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

I'm with Renegade on this one -- the new LG15 logos seem very weird indeed In fact, When I first saw the red LG15 logo (with a red dot) in the corner, I thought it was going to flipflop to a KM logo (with a blue dot) when I visited the KM portal. Sadly it didn't. --Pheon 22:46, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, I don't think it's necessary to go through an entire redesign. I just wish they'd put our old and familiar blue LG15 box back in the corner of the LGPedia. Unrelatedly, I gotta say, so far, hot as Kate is in a sundress, the KM series isn't doing anything for me. --JayHenry 16:33, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

Award Ceremony

We should have an annual award ceremony for all lgpedians. If you go onto Zoey talk page you will find my message to her about ideas of awards. If not a whole entire ceremony that the adminastrators can run then it can be just random awards that anyone can give out to who they see fit. Houdini 23:22, 23 July 2007 (CDT)

I'd like to nominate User:Admin in the category "Award for Best User Page," for the original version on display here. --JayHenry 16:44, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

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