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Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum talk:Help - Table overhaul

About the need/ point of a separate "sources" column in tables

There is currently a discussion about this going on on Discord, channels #40K (original start) and #40K-en (continuation in proper sub-channel). Quoting myself: "is there a negative impact if we make footnotes also compulsory for homeworld etc in the table?" Meaning put Fn/Endn sources directly in a table field and lose the separate "sources" column. Obviously this discussion should be continued on Discord as it started there but for Non-Discord users they can of course also deposit their thoughts and (counter) arguments below here. Thank you. --Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum (talk) 10:23, 18 December 2022 (UTC) ...

I'm very much in favor of abandoning current citation requirements regarding citing a page that already has a proper citation in a "list" page. It adds a lot of work and screws around with the ability to reference. I can see exceptions though, such as adding specific information for that page within the listing.Harriticus (talk) 08:24, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Example of where I don't think citations are necessary
  • List of Necron Dynasties
    • Dynasty A (has its own cited page)
    • Dynasty B (has its own cited page)
    • Dynasty C (has its own cited page)
    • Dynasty D (is a red link with no page, requires its own citation)
etc.
Example where I think a citation would be necessary
  • List of Necron Dynasties
    • Dynasty A (has its own cited page)
    • Dynasty B (has its own cited page) - Destroyed in the blah blah blah Crusade (requires a citation)
    • Dynasty B (has its own cited page)
etc.
Also, citing descriptions of images within pages they're links is also a big chore of questionable value. Harriticus (talk) 08:28, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Sortable tables with padding to space out lines

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5
Words More Words Lots of Words - perhaps because this is the most general part of the table and therefore entries here require a more detailed explanation. The padding is possibly not necessary here. Words. This column is centred as well. Words (perhaps sources). This column is centred and padded.

Agri World table changes

Hey! You changed the tables in the "Agri World" article stating that there are 'illegible custom colours'. But I don't see them 'illegible'. The color was like the rest of the Lexicanum site (see attached pic). The white of the present edit is much 'illegible' for me. Also the 'unnecessary text centring' of information - we do this in many tables. in any case, before making edits that change the essence, design or appearance of articles (which is used in many articles, and what everyone has long been accustomed to), you should first propose this for discussion or at least add it to the edited Talk article, where you write “I made such and such changes, if something is wrong , please discuss".--Darkelf77 (talk) 07:42, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

 
old one
 
new one
@Hairy Dude: Please as a general rule raise fundamental changes before implementing them, thank you. For example here, on this talk page. So in this case why and how you think tables can be improved. --Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum (talk) 13:00, 29 October 2023 (UTC)




Table Standardization

Hey I've been doing some work with standardizing tables as I've come across them, in some cases cleaving over ten thousand character just by updating the formatting while retaining a colour scheme and style appropriate to the wiki. A (mostly) complete list is as follows:

And while on the topic, I do feel the sources should follow the Fn/Endn like all other sources, it's would then be consistent everywhere and likely save characters as well. Rooroom48 (talk) 21:49, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I do feel it would be very useful if you could illustrate that by inserting one or some before/after examples as screenshots here so that people can visualize it without having to jump between tabs. Also a list of what changes you have applied to the old formatting would probably be quite helpful. Thanks.
And just for clarification what you mean about the sources: Removing them as a separate column and putting them in one big block at the bottom of the list article?
--Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum (talk) 15:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Sorry about that! I feel the Known Members of the Deathwatch article may be a good illustration.
Before After
    
{|class="wikitable sortable" cellpadding="30" cellspacing="10" align="center" border="0" style="background:Ivory4;" width="100%"
 
{|class="sortable" align=center border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"
|- style=background:#4F4F4F align=center

Note: I left the column widths present on that page as is, if the width isn't "important," then suffix width="100%" following cellspacing="0" 

|--- style="background:#AFAFAF"
|style="padding:15px;"|[[Abathar]]
 
|-
|[[Abathar]]
And for citations, I meant to remove the source itself from the column (e.g. The Last Son of Dorn (Novel), Chapter 1) and doing as the other pages do (e.g. {{Fn|1}} then at the bottom 1: The Last Son of Dorn (Novel), Chapter 1). I've done such on the List of Hives page as example. Rooroom48 (talk) 17:42, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Roomroom aesthetic work is very good. The fact that there is no hardcoded background color is key for it to look good on mobile phone. That said, i feel it would be better to create a "table" template with a degree of moddability (number of columns comes to mind) to ensure that the same aesthetic is automatically reproduced (and if necessary, updatable) on the whole site. Also, columns header text should not be black against this dark grey background, but rather white. Or the background should not be dark grey, but a lighter shade to accomodate black text.
Regarding citations : i vote, as i always did, for no citations at all in tables which serve as gateways to detailed articles, and not as a repository of information It simply bloats the pages, for reasons that i deem not valid in this particular case, wether it be in the table or at the bottom.--Siegfriedfr (talk) 18:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
What I've proposed has no bearing on the number of columns, that's outside of the "table formatting" itself which is up to whoever is making the table in question. (Though some examples I've shown included me moving around some columns, like List of Hives). The formatting itself can be easily turned into a template as well, and here are some colour demos for the headers, I've used colours present on the Sidebar menus.
Planet Hive Notes Sources
Test1 Test1 Test1 Test1
Planet Hive Notes Sources
Test2 Test2 Test2 Test2
Planet Hive Notes Sources
Test3 Test3 Test3 Test3
Planet Hive Notes Sources
Test4 Test4 Test4 Test4
Personally of these, I prefer Test 2 Rooroom48 (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I was the one who originally added the padding. I think the tables looked better with it because without it, the row heights were really uneven. I’m also not particularly happy about some of the changes. List of Astra Militarum regiments can be a bit difficult to find specific points in the list for e.g. adding new entries. As for the sourcing in rows vs at the bottom, I think it boils down to how many different sources there are vs how many rows the table had. Putting the source in the table reduces the amount of space the page needs overall and without needing sources numbered 1a to 1z or beyond if lots of different pages are cited. However in a table like List of sectors then the disadvantage is that the column at the end is scrunched up pretty badly and technically not all of the info in a row is sourced. KazilDarkeye (talk) 19:12, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

  • "The fact that there is no hardcoded background color is key for it to look good on mobile phone" --> agree.
  • "i feel it would be better to create a "table" template with a degree of moddability (number of columns comes to mind) to ensure that the same aesthetic is automatically reproduced (and if necessary, updatable) on the whole site" --> absolutely agree.
  • "columns header text should not be black against this dark grey background, but rather white. Or the background should not be dark grey, but a lighter shade to accomodate black text." "Personally of these, I prefer Test 2" --> Personally I prefer higher contrast and am not the biggest fan of this yellow/gold, so I would prefer Test 1 or 3. But if more people prefer Test 2, whatever, in the end that is of minor relevance to me personally.
  • "I was the one who originally added the padding. I think the tables looked better with it because without it, the row heights were really uneven." --> Precisely what is the padding we are talking about here?
  • "List of Astra Militarum regiments can be a bit difficult to find specific points in the list for e.g. adding new entries." --> Please explain.
--Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum (talk) 10:55, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
If you ask me, I like 1 Test and 2 Test...-Darkelf77 (talk) 19:37, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Things I was asked to explain:

re padding: I see. Maybe there is a way to define a minimum line height?
re list of regiments: Wouldn't inserting a separator line with the starting letter solve this issue?
re universal table template: By universal I mean an expendable and adaptable base template. I can't really imagine that articles (outside of very specific cases) would have such differing table requirements?
--Inquisitor S., Großmeister des Ordo Lexicanum (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for my unilateral changes to some tables. It's good to see this issue is getting some discussion. Some principles I feel we should bear in mind:

  • The bare minimum is that the site is usable. Black on dark grey is not that, the contrast is too low to be legible. Inquisitor S. I took a look at your user page and the quote from Wikia about fan art, black on dark grey (contrast ratio 3.34:1), is physically painful for me to read. Someone with less acute eyesight than mine (which isn't perfect, but not any imperfections that are normally relevant for reading websites) may find it impossible. The site should ideally follow WAI accessibility recommendations which in the case of colour means a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 in most cases. If we choose colours other than shades of grey, we also need to take colour blind accessibility into account.
  • Once a standard colour scheme has been agreed, it should go in site wide CSS. That way, editors no longer need to care about choice of colours in style attributes because they get applied automatically. A different colour scheme can be chosen for the mobile site if desired. Use of site CSS is also relevant to accessibility: someone who finds our colour scheme unusable can change it using a custom stylesheet (MediaWiki lets you do this via a subpage of your user page), which overrides the standard one. Inline styles thwart this because they override the user stylesheet. If relying on admins to edit stylesheets is too cumbersome, consider the TemplateStyles extension.
  • The site ought to produce valid HTML. MediaWiki serves, specifically, HTML 5. The align, cellpadding, cellspacing, border etc. attributes are presentational and not valid in HTML 5, even if they happen to work on common browsers (because they existed in previous versions of HTML and browsers have to work with even badly coded websites). CSS should be used for these instead, using the style attribute if necessary. Generally the wikitable class produces good spacing and padding IMO, so we can just drop those attributes and change wikitable to make the colours more suitable. You may disagree and think we need different padding, and that's OK; again, just change the stylesheet.

Hairy Dude (talk) 03:27, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

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