User talk:Bbll22

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Revision as of 07:38, 25 December 2013 by CzechBot (talk | contribs) (Happy holidays)
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• Bbll22 •

Thanks for your recent edits! I'm Jimbo, your robot wiki representative! We hope you'll keep on editing with us. This is actually a great time to have joined, because we're now fully independent, and working on a host of new features!

We've got a couple of important quirks for a fan written wiki, so let's get them out of the way first.

British English, please

We generally use British English 'round these parts, so if you use another form of English, please be sure you set your spell checker to BrEng, and take a gander at our spelling cheat card.

Spoilers aren't cool

We have a strict definition of "spoiler" that you may find a bit unusual. Basically, a spoiler, to us, is anything that comes from a story which has not been released yet. So, even if you've got some info from a BBC press release or official trailer, it basically can't be referenced here. In other words, you gotta wait until the episode has finished its premiere broadcast to start editing about its contents. Please check the spoiler policy for more details.

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New Pages[[edit source]]

Please do not create articles for characters who have not yet appeared. Articles should only be created once the episode airs. No matter if the next time trailer shows or names them, or they are confirmed to appear, they shouldn't have articles created. Thanks for understanding. The Thirteenth Doctor 20:12, June 6, 2010 (UTC)

Your input is needed!

You are invited to join the discussion at Forum:Can we disable visual editor please?.

czechout<staff />   03:56: Tue 20 Dec 2011 

Your input is needed!

You are invited to join the discussion at Forum:Can we disable visual editor please?.

czechout<staff />   17:58: Thu 22 Dec 2011 

Lily Arwell pictures[[edit source]]

Good choice of photo for Lily Arwell. Keep up the good work! Think you can look at the River Song page and do a better choice of pictures? Boblipton talk to me 22:39, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

Infobox images[[edit source]]

I've noticed your discussion at User talk:Mini-mitch#Rory's main page image, and I just wanted to quickly weigh in with actual wiki policy.

As an admin, and therefore an upholder of tardis:no personal attacks, he couldn't possibly have intended rudeness. I mean, give a guy a break: he can only include a Twitter-length message in an edit summary! He was merely responding to your edit summary, pointing out that "newer" is not, in itself, a rationale for changing the pic. (And at least ya got an explanation in the summary; most people don't leave them at all.)

Here, then, is the (much!) longer explanation of why File:Rory - TDTW&TW.jpg is quite clearly inferior to file:RoryWilliams1.jpg for the purposes of being an infobox ("main") picture.

T:ICC specifically requests 16:9/16:10 widescreen aspect ratios for infoboxes wherever it is possible, and requires at least a 4:3 ratio. Since modern DW is filmed in widescreen, it's obviously possible to get a widescreen image of Rory. You've said to MM that "portrait images make the page flow better". That opinion is simply contrary to policy. It's also factually inaccurate. Longer infoboxes, which portrait-oriented images obviously create, are actually worse for text flow. Images within the body of an article can only start at the bottom of the infobox, so the longer the infobox is, the later in the article the first picture can display. This can create very odd text flow, which sometimes results in text on the top of the first body picture being somewhat "clipped" (technically, the margin between the top of the pic and the text disappears). Moreover, longer infobox images make for longer infoboxes which make the user scroll for a longer time on mobile versions of the site. That's common sense, but what's less explored is the dramatic difference between a "skinny" pic and a "fat" one on mobile. For some reason, portrait images are realllllllly long on mobile — at least as mobile is interpreted by iOS devices. On an iPhone, a portrait oriented infobox pic takes two or three scrolls to get through. Portrait oriented pictures are just damned annoying.

All that considered, any choice between a portrait infobox pic and a widescreen one will always result in the widescreen version being chosen.

You will, of course, find exceptions to this. Obviously magazine and book covers have a portrait orientation. That's fine; we have to deliver the entire cover to our readers. Some comic-derived images are also portrait-oriented. We're really examining these closely now and eliminating those that can be recropped in more widescreen aspect ratio. But a few comic images will always be stubbornly not-so-widescreen. Again, the rule is to give widescreen wherever possible.

And you will naturally find a few cases where a portrait image that could be widescreen is still standing. This only means we haven't gotten around to it, and that it should be marked for deletion. T:IUP ADMIN clearly states that the existence of a policy violation doesn't invalidate the policy.

Other policy declarations your image violates:

  • Bad cropping. Even if we were to allow portrait orientation, you've still inexplicably got a part of the Doctor's shoulder (see: T:IUP LIST)
  • Rory's eyes are facing right. T:ICC recommends they be facing left. The current pic looks left, too; therefore, any replacement would have to be looking left in order to be judged "a superior replacement".

Also, I think your picture is quite obviously "darker" than the current one. You're probably looking at these two pictures at their full size and thinking there's not much difference between them. And that's true. At full size, the lighting differences aren't terribly problematic. But you must always primarily consider how they look at 250px. And contrast is an awfully important thing at that size. Some great pictures look terrible at 250px, because they are drawn from low-light or oddly-lit scenes. Yours is definitely from an oddly lit scene, because it's a location shot looking into an actual house, naturally top-lit from the interior, and artificially front-lit from outside. That means natural shadows on whoever's inside the house.

So, having said all that, I hope you understand MM was certainly not personally attacking you, but judging the picture itself by a number of metrics we've established over the years. His removal of your image doesn't mean that we don't appreciate your work or your effort to improve things. Perhaps now that you understand our rules a little better, you might be able to find another picture to replace the one currently in the infobox.
czechout<staff />   17:01: Wed 07 Mar 2012 

Christmas cheer[[edit source]]

Happy holidays!

As this fiftieth anniversary year comes to a close, we here at Tardis just want to thank you for being a part of our community — even if you haven't edited here in a while. If you have edited with us this year, then thanks for all your hard work.

This year has seen an impressive amount of growth. We've added about 11,000 pages this year, which is frankly incredible for a wiki this big. November was predictably one of the busiest months we've ever had: over 500 unique editors pitched in. It was the highest number of editors in wiki history for a year in which only one programme in the DWU was active. And our viewing stats have been through the roof. We've averaged well over 2 million page views each week for the last two months, with some weeks seeing over 4 million views!

We've received an unprecedented level of support from Wikia Staff, resulting in all sorts of new goodies and productive new relationships. And we've recently decided to lift almost every block we've ever made so as to allow most everyone a second chance to be part of our community.

2014 promises to build on this year's foundations, especially since we've got a full, unbroken series coming up — something that hasn't happened since 2011. We hope you'll stick with us — or return to the Tardis — so that you can be a part of the fun!

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