User talk:Jaredzimmerman (WMF)/Archives/2014/November

WMF Account
Hi Jared - quick question. I was under the assumption that the new WMF policy was that only staff edits could be made from a staff account. Shouldn't you be using a personal account to edit 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa?--v/r - TP 18:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * TP, thanks for the heads up! I must have been in the wrong browser logged into my wmf account rather than my personal account. I appreciate the reminder. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 18:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem. I wasn't sure what the policy was, I vaguely remembered something coming out of the Erik/Eloquence fiasco recently but I couldn't find any written policy about it.  Figured I'd ask.--v/r - TP 18:51, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * TP You can see the disclaimer on my user page that any content edits are not done in an official capacity as a member of the foundation, nor do I have any elevated user rights. I do my best to remember to switch accounts when making any major changes however sometime I make content edits as a means of testing interfaces, in which case, I'm at work and may still be logged in to my staff account. Hope that clears things up. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Director of user experience
Mmm, I sure have some things I'd like to discuss!!♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Dr. Blofeld feel free to post here or email me. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Camouflage
Hi Jared, could we please discuss the changes to camouflage. One or two immediate points:

The use of a chameleon at the top rather implies that chameleons are prime examples of camouflage; but their coloration, and especially their use of colour changes, is considered by many zoologists to be primarily for signalling. Further, there is already a chameleon image later in the article; and the flounder image unquestionably shows both exceptional animal camouflage, and use of colour change for concealment. Therefore it is a far better choice for the lead.

Among the changes that I wouldn't agree with are the very large gallery sizes which give a jumbled effect at many screen sizes. Further, the use of a fixed height means that if an image is in landscape format, it now appears (much) larger than if it is in portrait: the effect in the final gallery, for example, is to present images at sharply different sizes, and take a look at what it does to the right-hand caption in that gallery (even at 1920x1080, by the way, so this is not a matter of small screens only).

Perhaps you could begin by giving an idea of your vision for the article, so that we can work together to improve it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:56, 16 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Chiswick Chap, good point about the galleries wrapping oddly, it seems like that was happening with the the previous galleries as well, and since the images are so critical to illustrate some of these complex concepts the former postage stamp sized images weren't particularly helpful either. Is there another article you've seen with similar issues of needed to show so many varied images to illustrate concepts, combined with the relatively short sections of this article?


 * for the lead image, we could swap out the single image found on he peacock flounder article, if you feel that one is better, at illustrating the point, perhaps a good image of an octopus would be even better since it would illustrate both a chromatic and textural camouflage. Thoughts?


 * I feel the montage image for the lead is very poor choice, if you search for "paris" on the mobile site or app, you'll see an example of how similar montage images appear in search result, the sections appear so small that the images are indiscernible.Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this. I'll use a single flounder/octopus for the lead, and explore how to format the galleries differently, or remove them altogether. The history of this is that the article had over half a million visits per year when it was heavy on images, far fewer in the past year when it has been tidy, i.e. cleaning the bath removed the baby as well as the bathwater. Clearly school projects want a fairly pictorial treatment of what is after all a strongly visual subject: and equally clearly, camouflage isn't what most people think it is, ironically. The bigger question of how to handle highly visual articles is a vexed one; it is possible to get galleries through GA, but not FA - there is a visceral reaction from what seems to be rather a literary establishment. Greater diversity and recognition that there are different cases would be a consummation devoutly to be wished. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)