User:Rob Kennedy/Image placement policy

A mid-April 2007 discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style pointed out a problem I’ve noticed before, and although I don’t think my comments are necessary at that discussion, I’ve summarized the issue here so I can remember it later.

The problem we’re observing is that when a left-aligned image appears between a section heading and the section’s first paragraph of text, the image placement causes an undesirable separation between the rendered header and the rendered body text — the reader’s eye needs to “jump” over the image to get to the body text, and that’s something we want to avoid. The problem is compounded in the case of third-level headers (===) because in the default styles, there is no full-page-width line beneath the header to “connect” it to the body text, making the “jump” that much more precarious. There are a few ideas for solutions, three of which I’ve seen mentioned before, and a fourth that I’m adding to the mix:


 * 1) Disallow left-aligned images at the start of a section: By this I mean either above or below the header. In other words, the visual appearance of a page would never have a left-aligned image leading off a section.
 * 2) Recommend left-aligned images be placed above section headings instead of below: This is what the Manual of Style does today. This policy forces the section-heading text to be pushed to the right, so it’s even with the body text. It solves the immediate problem, but introduces another one, namely that the [[Image:foo]] code no longer appears in the section it’s meant to be associated with when doing single-section editing. Instead it’s included with the preceding section.
 * 3) Change the MediaWiki software to address the previous problem: When determining which text to present in the edit box for single-section editing, the software usually includes everything from the section header down to the next section header. It could be changed to include any [[Image:foo]] code immediately preceding the section header as well.
 * 4) Change the site’s stylesheets: I wonder whether it’s possible to use CSS so that left-aligned images after a section heading will push the heading text to the right. I think it’s possible for the basic case, but there are lots of corner cases where the image or text placement just won’t look right.

The first two ideas can be implemented just be editing the Manual of Style to make the image-placement policy clear. They’d need to be worded such that their rationale is included, or else they’d seem like rather arbitrary policies to editors who don’t have eyes toward page layout. The third and fourth ideas are more complicated to do, but they would automatically solve the problem for all pages without anyone having to edit them. The fourth, if it’s possible at all, is preferable over the third because it keeps section divisions the same as they currently are.