User talk:XAM2175/2023/05

British Rail Class 805
Hiya, any thoughts on the new photo on that page? Not willing to get into an edit war, just wondered if you thought it was too blurry as well, like me. Thx! Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 10:13, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah I just saw the change in my watchlist earlier, and I agree that it's not really up to scratch. I'll undo it in a moment. XAM2175  (T) 10:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

List of British Rail Class 37 Locomotives
Hi, I see you've tagged this as overcoloured. I spent a long time with the Style guide, not just on this page but many others as well, to ensure that it was as clear as possible for visually impaired readers. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)


 * It's not a criticism, and there's absolutely no problem with the contrast between text and background, which is one of the more common accessibility problems. My only real concern is that the row colours form the primary means of quickly identifying the status of any particular loco, and those colours can be rather tough to distinguish from each-other. I think it would be resolved quite easily if it had a separate "status" column and if the colours were moved a bit further apart on the spectrum, rather like at List of British Rail Class 43 (HST) power cars. I intend to do it myself, but I left the tag because I can't be sure of when I'll be able to. XAM2175  (T) 17:19, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Problem is I standardised on that colour scheme for quite a few articles, to try and achieve some consistency in presentation. The dark grey used for Scrapped in the Class 43 article is deprecated which is why I didn't use it.. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, why was it deprecated? It has something like a 13:1 contrast ratio, so there's no problem with accessibility. XAM2175  (T) 17:52, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Can't remember now (it was a while ago) what other material I used to check these things but certainly black text on grey was regarded as less suitable than using the pale accent colours as background. The problem is I have perfect colour vision so can't check these things first hand!
 * The other point was that far more Class 37s were scrapped than survived so it made sense to use the clear background for them as it saved an awful lot of typing. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 17:58, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'll add a status column to the table soon and remove the tag, and do some more thinking on the colours question. Cheers. XAM2175  (T) 11:18, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

East Coast Main Line
The previously problematic QQ is potentially going to get into an argument at East Coast Main Line. I'd appreciate your insight on whether one of us is wrong. 10mmsocket (talk) 21:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)


 * This is an interesting question, actually. The part of the MOS that QQ is so enthusiastically applying is MOS:CONVERSIONS, and the letter of that text would suggest that QQ is technically correct. However, and despite the fact that I'm a militant supporter of metrification, I do accept your argument that repetitive conversion of the same value is detrimental to the flow of the article, and the MOS does allow for this when it says [in] some topic areas ... it can be excessive to provide a conversion for every quantity .... Looking at the diffs, the primary issue seems to repeated mention of speed limits, so I would suggest as a compromise that all other measurements are converted as normal, but in the section where speed limits are repeatedly mentioned, convert only the first instance of each particular speed – giving 140 mph (cvt), 125 mph (cvt), 140 mph, 80 mph (cvt), 125 mph, and so on. That way a conversion will always be a couple of lines or paras away at most, but the flow will still be improved. XAM2175  (T) 11:16, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly my thoughts, and thanks for the pointer to the MOS text. You've probably seen I've done quite a few unit conversions, and I know that QQ is obsessive about them, so let's hope it works out OK. 10mmsocket (talk) 11:25, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * No worries, and yes your work with conversions is top-notch so I've no fear we'll end up with a suitable resolution. XAM2175  (T) 11:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)