Forum:Thumbnails

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Do thumbnail captions need to be in universe? If so do they need episode links e.g (DW: Example)--Skittles the hog 12:25, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

They should be in-universe on in-universe articles, but can be in the present tense as they show something happening. But yes, on in-universe articles they should all have the (DW: Example). --The Thirteenth Doctor 12:32, September 18, 2010 (UTC)

What about links? For example to a character page if they are mentioned in the thumbnail but also previously in the article?--Skittles the hog 19:40, September 25, 2010 (UTC)

If a character is mentioned in the caption I think it could be useful to wikilink them, as the reader's eye is often drawn to a photo and its caption before the main text it accompanies. Rob T Firefly 11:35, September 26, 2010 (UTC)

I would disagree that captions always need to have a source, it depends on how they're worded. For instance, if your caption on, say, a character page is, "Nyssa and Tegan in the city of Castrovalva", do you really need to waste space by typing, "Nyssa and Tegan in the city of Castrovalva (DW: Castrovalva)"? I think the answer is no. However, if you're on the Third Doctor's page, and your caption is, "The Doctor faces off against the Daleks", you might need an attribution because the Third Doctor did that on more than one occasion. Of course, the far better solution is just to reword the caption so that it makes the source unmistakable — as in, "The Doctor faces off against the Daleks on Spiridon".

I also think there's a question of proximity. If your picture is illustrating a relatively short section, and the serial is linked in the body of the text, you risk running foul of Tardis:Manual of Style#Links by over-wikifying. There are some sections of some articles where the section only talks about one story. If you put a pic on that section, it's pretty redundant to cite the story in both the caption and the paragraph. Indeed, this is the case for many, many short articles. I don't think it's necessary to source the pics on Royal Leadworth Hospital (or any of the hospital pages) for instance.

Overall, I think it's far more important to link to other articles of interest than a story page. If you wikilink to a planet or alien or object or something that's clear in the picture, you'll get readers to go onto pages that don't get as much traffic as the story page. And that's what's important: keeping readers here a bit longer and channeling them to other pages. I'd rather get one more click out of users too impatient to read the article, than to spoon-feed them the answer to the question, "Where does that come from?"

Finally, I should point out that the MOS doesn't actually give us a specific format for captions, so anything I or the respondents above have said is a matter of opinion rather than actual wiki policy. We should probably therefore keep talking about it for a bit. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 18:23, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

Your suggesting (for example) all users would know what episode Castrovalva appeared in; the purpose of a wiki is to inform. Sources are a natural part of wiki. It's not even hard to do; I don't see a problem with this and it is currently used on many pages. Are you suggesting all "obvious" thumbnails should be un-sourced?--Skittles the hog 19:14, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

I think I tend to look at this wiki more from the perspective of the non-fan, non-wiki-expert user than the reverse. I'm saying that as long as it takes no more than one click to figure out which episode is being referenced, we've sufficiently sourced it. By being less "on the nose" with the sourcing, we're encouraging click-throughs, which improves our stats as a wiki. I'm not at all saying that we should go back and de-link what's already been linked directly to episode. But I think we should be allowed to choose how we write captions. As long as the language allows the reader to click on something which then immediately identifies the source of the pic, it's fine. Castrovalva immediately identifies Castrovalva (TV story), so it's fine.

A Silurian, as first encountered by the Doctor's third self on Wenley Moor. (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians)

Another consideration is just how much space story sourcing takes. It can add one, two, or in some cases three lines of text to a caption. This, in turn, can make the space for the caption bigger than the space of the picture. It can be okay in some cases to have a big caption, but if the caption is itself two lines long, I don't want to double that just to cite a story. To give a practical demonstration of this, I've included here two examples with exactly the same caption. On the left, we have a widescreen pic with dimensions typical of the new series. On the right is a pic drawn from the old series, with typical 4:3 dimensions. Look at the overall height of the example to the right. It's massive with that full attribution. Two whole lines are added. The ratio of the height of the pic to the height of the caption is effectively 1:1. That's a big damn caption block. But it's nothing like the example on the left. With modern pics, full referencing makes the cap block obviously taller than the pic itself. Now, of course, there are times where you need to write a little more in a caption block. That's fine. But I don't want to have to be forced by insensible policy to roughly double my cap block. Not when I can unmistakably identify a picture by economically linking a geographic name or a the name of a character who appeared in only one story, or the like. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 21:59, December 7, 2010 (UTC)

I think creating articles or altering content to improve our stats is the wrong way to be looking at how we create information and make it useable.

The thumbnails have some bulk even without a caption, due to the new skin, a little more isn't too much of an issue, given the eye is drawn to the image no matter the bulk of the text. As I found recently reading through some articles that I wasn't too familiar with, it was good to know what they were talking about and what story the image's subject matter were from.

It seems not having the attribution is just forcing/tricking new readers to follow whatever link is on the thumbnail, rather than having the info that is actually needed/wanted. --Tangerineduel 14:04, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

I'm struggling to understand how using the power of wiki markup in order to write more creatively while simultaneously keeping users on the site a bit longer goes against the goals of a wiki. This isn't a book with static text. We don't have to hit everything on the nose. We absolutely can and should adapt the ways we write in order to take advantage of linkage. Don't portray the proper use of wiki code in the negative light of a "trick"; that's highly unfair and rhetorically manipulative. The way people get addicted to reading and editing wikis is if they follow breadcrumbs, clicking one interesting blue link after another. If you always give them the name of the story from which a picture comes, that reduces the "fun" of the wiki experience for the end user. It also makes it less fun for the writer. The slavish inclusion of a story name on each and every caption is a purposeless suppression of creativity that works against the natural advantages of wiki markup code. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:07, December 8, 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused.

Above you're concerned about images using up space, but as this isn't a book of static text why should it matter?

I think it is a trick, if you want to find out about the information in an article you want to click the information related to the page it's talking about, not being forced through a series of links. You will naturally follow a series of interesting links, regardless of whether the story link is there if they're interesting and it's what the reader is interested in. If the story link isn't there then you are tricking/forcing readers to follow a series of links to get to the info they want. Again why should it matter if the reader decides to choose the story link over whatever else is linked there?

Shouldn't we be letting the reader discover the information they want, rather than leaving out key information which forces them to follow a series of links to get to the info they want? --Tangerineduel 04:22, December 9, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Tangerineduel, users should be able to view the information they want.--Skittles the hog 21:11, December 10, 2010 (UTC)

Just because this isn't the print medium doesn't mean we shouldn't be governed by some of the rules of layout and style. And a cap block should rarely be taller than the picture it captions. That's just a basic rule of design. Since the citation isn't conveying the information better than a cleverly worded, but shorter, caption, it really makes no sense to be required to specifically cite stories.

I note, too, Tangerineduel, that you're exaggerating my words. I've never proposed that readers should be forced "through a series of links". I've only said that captions should identify their source in no more than one click.

It all depends how you word the thing. If, again, the caption is "Tegan and Nyssa in Castrovalva (DW: Castrovalva)" then you're needlessly wasting space. One click on Castrovalva will immediately make the story clear.

Again, my position is that forcing us to always include a story link:

will lead to less creative writing
will almost certainly violate basic page design aesthetics on almost every picture on the wiki
will lead to less linkage to minor articles, and fewer click-throughs to the same.
will mean that in some cases fewer pictures can be on a page, because the cap blocks are so big CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:49, December 11, 2010 (UTC)

Have a look around this wiki, most thumbnails have a story link and there are no real design problems. I think it makes it look better. Your the one exaggerating with these complaints.--Skittles the hog 17:29, December 12, 2010 (UTC)

Forget about looking "around the wiki". Look around professional sites. You will see, great consistency in design theory. Cap blocks are not meant to have anything close to the height of the pic itself. Here are examples from today:

Why do trains have a winter timetable? from BBC
UN climate change talks in Cancun agree a deal from BBC
Risky Borrowers Find Credit Available Again, at a Price from The New York Times
Keli Lane's 'problem' child from The Sydney Morning Herald

Or just pick up any newspaper or magazine. The 1:1 relationship of cap bock to pic block just doesn't happen in the world of professional design. (Or even amateur design, judging by school newspapers and annuals, and even church newsletters and the like.)

What I notice on our site is only that people have started to "bulk up" cap blocks more consistently in the last few months. But in the 3+ years I've edited here, no one has ever said to me, "You must put the story link in the caption." Clearly, Skittles the hog started this campaign by beginning this thread. And obviously it's fine to want to change things; I want to change a lot of things here. But don't try to play this issue as if this was the previous rule and I'm standing outside that "rule" throwing stones at it. This is an active topic, and as far as I can see, no actual consensus has been reached. It is not yet a part of the Manual of Style to do what you're suggesting we should do.

See, what you describe as "complaints", I see as me reminding this thread of standard practice throughout the publishing world. It's so standard, in fact, that when you start newsletter templates in Microsoft Word, the sugested caption blocks follow this sizing theory. And layout templates have been doing it since at least Adobe Pagemaker 1.0.

I have no doubt you're being sincere when you say thumbnails "make it look better". Your particular eye might well think that. But I'm not exaggerating when I say, "It is against standard design theory to have captions which meet or exceed the dimensions of the photographs they caption." Requring story citation will create such monstrous cap blocks, as I've demonstrated, above. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:35, December 13, 2010 (UTC)