Template talk:USP header

Currently on a computer that has no fonts installed except the basic Linux and Microsoft packs, so "The UnSignpost" doesn't display in a reasonable font for me--which reminds me that it should probably be an image, as Wikipedia has it, so people without fancy fonts installed can still see it as intended. Too busy (in theory) to do it right now, so this is here in case anyone else feels like doing it or has objections. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 17:22 23 November 2014

Agreed. Authors should not dictate the font in which anything appears. (Articles that do so stand out like a sore thumb in the encyclopedia — as the author often intends, as a way to sneak a "signature" onto the content pages.) CSS lets the author suggest, but there should always be fallbacks; articles should not fail depending on what toys the reader has installed. In a style rule:

STYLE="font-family: Palatino, Verdana, serif"

Anton199, can you make it so? Spıke Ѧ 17:32 23-Nov-14

I replaced the inscription with an image. Is it better? Anton (talk) 19:18, November 23, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, but it's kind of wide (I think I tend to use narrow windows, which puts me in a minority group that some don't care to cater to) and has subpixel shading... I should try and do an SVG. But I do hate to complain when you were so kind as to do something I couldn't be bothered to do. Spike, I don't have the foggiest why you mentioned the fonts you mentioned, as the Signpost thingie is supposed to be one of those cursive shiny thingamajigs; I suspect my brain is just fried as usual. I also suspect I've utterly failed to communicate anything senseful and I'm about to start talking about blue unicorns again. Or was it pink mice? never mind. ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 23:05 23 November 2014

The particular fonts that I named above are merely examples (and bad ones at that, as they are the most widely installed). Looking at Anton199's change, I see he had "serif" as a fallback in the first place and wonder what the problem was. Returning to the first post on the page, if you "have no fonts installed except the basic," you must expect stuff sometimes to be displayed in fonts that aren't "reasonable" to you. PS--Come to think of it, there should be a way to change your browser's default "serif" font to something more agreeable. Spıke Ѧ 23:13,23:58 23-Nov-14

I have a minor argument here. Spike has said "authors shouldn't dictate font", but in replacing font with an SVG aren't we doing exactly that?

I also feel that a web designer should define the look they want an overall site to have. While I disagree with "unfriendly" fonts - RuneScape Wikia springs to mind - a legible, decorative font (with low file size) would be an acceptible in my perspective. Given only admins can edit site CSS, and user-side CSS trumps that, having a specific font statement should be okay.

So as an alternative, we can add @font (I think it is) as part of site CSS, and upload a font that suits the "look" we are after to achieve the same result. A well structured font file would be a comparable size to a CSS image, and would allow more design flexibility.

(You can upload font files at fonts.wikia.com, and as it's the same domain it won't fail with the Firefox font domain restriction, btw. See the forum we had on fonts about 9 months ago for what was set up then.)

Of course, I'm just a visitor now, rather than a regular contributor, so feel free to disregard my thoughts. I won't be offended. *silently weeping*                                • Puppy's talk page • 01:10 am 25 Nov 2014

Web designers absolutely should. Collaborators to a group writing project absolutely should not — They should let the software act to ensure that their page has the same look-and-feel as other pages in the encyclopedia to enhance the encyclopedia cover-joke, ideally concentrating their humor sense on their use of English. The key question is: Is Anton199, as the architect of the UnSignpost, a web designer? Spıke Ѧ 01:16 25-Nov-14

In this explicit instance, I'd say yes. USP is a significant sub-project, so I'd like to get it "right". More to the point though - the main issue is the "look" of the font, which is a web-design concern, not a author-ish concern.

If we were discussing an issue of "I want to use this cool font on my user pages", then no. I recall one user who always posted in New Times Roman - can't recall who. A perspective could be this is just a way to subtly make a bigger visual mark, and therefore get around the signature restrictions.

In short, I think specific example supports, but I wouldn't call it a precedent for site-wide text gags. (Except in cases like monitor.)                                • Puppy's talk page • 01:33 am 25 Nov 2014

Spike, you were thinking of articles, weren't you? This page isn't an article; it's a... er... thingy. Outside of mainspace, decorative, all that. It also is modelled after a Wikipedia project that also dictates the font via an image, and so it only makes sense, no? Puppy, it was TheHappySpaceman--not that it matters. About web design, you seem to have been referring to changing the overall look and feel of the site, whereas Spike was objecting to making that look and feel inconsistent, which is obviously wrong and stuff, and which wouldn't be done by dictating the font of the USP header since it appears in multiple places and is a feature all by itself, which means it isn't a single, inconsistent instance of dictating the font; it's a multiple, inconsistently consistent instance of dictating the consistency. Did that make sense? ❦ Llwy-ar-lawr • talk • contribs • 04:23 25 November 2014

Consistently. And it's not as though the option I'm throwing in is by any means the only option - just an option.

And as a by the way, I put in serif as a fall back font in case all else fails. What messed up font faces do you have?                                • Puppy's talk page • 10:28 pm 25 Nov 2014