User talk:Alan Liefting

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Bicholim conflict

I apologize for not informing you about the AfD for Bicholim conflict. Because your only edit was a relatively minor one, I didn't expect you would have particular interest in the article. But yours was the most recent edit, so I should have included you in my notifications. Best, --ShelfSkewed Talk 05:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No sweat. I think my only edit was to try and get it speedily deleted as a hoax page. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Michael Kelso

I've done some work improving Michael Kelso. If you put the article against WP:FICT / WP:MOSFICT and take a look at other fictional character articles you may see that the article is notable enough for inclusion albeit in bad shape as far as format. Mkdw^talk 21:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Great work. Good to see all the new refs. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Do not remove the paper

Hi! Do not remove the nosratollah khakian paper. The paper is reliable and well-known and reputable sources and references. Thanks2.185.199.212 (talk) 09:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

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Redlinked images

Hello, Alan Liefting. Regarding your removal of redlinked images from articles I have been working on, please see my comments here and here. Thank you. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep. Got it. I guess I am being overly enthusiastic in clearing the backlog at Category:Articles with missing files! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alan. Regarding the additional information I added today on Terrance Clark - references now added. Thank you also for your offer of any help. I'm new, so will read tutorials and help pages suggested. Cheers Sarah Sarah Delatour (talk) 09:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Breakdowns revert

maximized, four columns of refs, white space minimized

unmaximized, two columns of refs, white space minimized, no scrolling

Hi. Mostly it comes down to semantics. Semantically, there is no reason to break the references into two columns—the whole reason we break them into columns in the first place is to kill excess white space, rather than for any meaning behind the columns. On a particularly large monitor, there will still be tons of white space if the refs are set to two columns. On a particularly small screen (like on any phone), the hard number of columns will force readers to scroll offscreen to see the second column. By setting column widths, the browser can automatically set the number of appropriate columns—a larger number for larger screens, or a single column for vertical screens like on phones. At home, I read Wikipedia on three devices: the family desktop, with its 20in widescreen, my ThinkPad Edge with a 13in screen, and my cell phone (as of yesterday an HTC J Butterfly with a 5in screen—until then, an HTC Desire with a 3.7in screen).

Semicolons are not semantically correct for bolding headers. The semicolon is used to create a definition list, but a section (or subsection) header is not a headwork in a definition list. We should be using either ===Header===, or if we really don't want it to show up in the TOC, we could use '''Header'''. Maybe there are other semantically correct ways—I lean towards the first one, as the semantics are most clear there. The semantics affect things such as the way machines parse the text—as when a blind person uses a screen reader.

These are things I've picked up from having articles reviewed. I'm far from being an expert in these things, and I may not have explained what I know in the clearest way, but I hope I've been helpful. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 12:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I had a look at some of the featured articles that have passed through the Main Page and there is no consistency with the name of the Notes/References/Bibliography/Sources sections or how they are separated, but one thing they all have in common is the the colon is not used. They are always use a bulleted list. I don't know what the MOS says about it, if anything. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

You can read about the hanging identation at Template:Refbegin#Option 3: Hanging indentation. I don't know how it affects accessibility—I honestly never thought about it until now. I have had two articles promoted to FA that have used this style, however: Louis Riel (comics) and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. If I ever found out there were issues, I'd change the style back to bullets, though. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 22:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess there are three things: accessibility, consistency, and readability. I am not sure about the accessibility issue but for consistency and readability bulleted rather than unbulleted is better IMO. Indenting is nice but not necessary if bulleted. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to defend it too strongly–like I said, I'm more than willing to change it if there are issues—but, like spelling and many formatting issues, consistency within the page is all that's required. If there really is an issue with the indenting, though, it should be brought up at the Refbegin talk page, rather than on individual pages that use it. CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 23:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep, its not a biggie. There are more important things to work on. But it would be good to get consistency across WP as well as within an article. It will save us a lot of time. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

From an HTML semantics point of view, the colon syntax is supposed to be paired with the semi-colon syntax: the semi-colon is used to indicate a term being defined, and the colon is used to indicate the term's definition. Since the list of works is a list, marking it up as a list is semantically appropriate, which is helpful for screen readers and search engine bots. (On a side note, the initial paragraph in this section does a great job explaining the relevant accessibility issues.) isaacl (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

But the wikicode is turned into HTML for browsers so using colons or semicolons should not affect HTML semantics? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 00:49, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The semi-colon wiki markup is turned into a <dt> HTML element (dictionary term), and the colon wiki markup is turned into a <dd> HTML element (dictionary definition). A <dd> element is supposed to be paired with a <dt> element, since semantically, it needs a corresponding term to define. isaacl (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Which means we can choose whatever is best for page layout. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

It means you should use ; and : in pairs, and not : alone, in order for screen readers and web crawlers to interpret the page correctly. isaacl (talk) 01:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

But they are used singly all over WP. They are a part of wikitext. They are in the Wikipedia:Cheatsheet. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 01:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I realize that; it would be nice if one day the backend could be changed to emit more semantically-correct HTML code. But I'll concur that it's not likely to happen. Nonetheless, just looking at it from an accessibility point of view, the semi-colon / colon syntax results in HTML code that should be paired together, and not used alone. isaacl (talk) 01:20, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Hackensack Christian School

The facebook reference is from the school's own facebook. Dplcrnj (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Facebook is not a reliable source of information. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Even if it's from the school.Dplcrnj (talk) 02:58, 5 January 2013 (UTC)