Timeline of the "recommended policy" - don't use "px" in your thumbed image - edit
- 05-05-2005 - meta:User:Patrick (en:User:Patrick) adds a new feature - user thumbnail preference - to the page meta:Help:Images and other uploaded files on Meta:"From MediaWiki 1.5 the default thumbnail width can be set in the preferences", and advices: "so typically it is better not to specify "px", in order to respect the users' preferences".Well meant, but the majority of our readers, who are not logged in, don’t have users’ preference settings.[1]
- 27-01-2006 - User:Omegatron copies it from Meta to En Wikipedia:Extended image syntax.[2]
- 03-03-2006 - User:Omegatron changed the wording from "...typically it is better.." to "...it is recommended...".[3]
- 17-07-2006 - User:Omegatron adds the new recommendation to the image use policy page, and therefore it became a '"recommended policy". [4]
- 05-09-2006 - User:Tyrenius adds it to Wikipedia:Images from Wikipedia:Extended image syntax.[5]
- 24-11-2006 - User:EncMstr starts to enforce the "recommended policy" referring to Wikipedia:Images.[6]
- 24-11-2006 - User:El_C changes WP:IMAGES and WP:IUP to read the opposite. [7] [8]
- 25-11-2006 - Discussion develops on Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy#Forced_image_size.
- Pros
- Prevents editors to enlarge images beyond proportions "because it’s such a nice picture".
- Uniform (less chaotic) image layout in an article, and between articles.
- Article dowload size
- Cons
- Not logged in users – most of our readers - don’t have preference settings and are therefore forced to look at default width thumbnails. Of course they can still click to see the image full size, but the "respect the users' preferences" reasoning is unimportant in comparison.
- By my knowledge, controlling the size of a framed image with caption is only possible with a forced thumb size, and therefore the most flexible image markup control there is.
- The whole article layout is the responsibility of all editors (size of paragraphs, tables, templates), why exclude thumbed image sizes from that? Because of logged in users’ preference settings?
- Extreme aspect ratios of pictures cause problems with a default thumb width (see: Camshaft).
- Proper detail requires a proper image size
- Bureaucratic prescription interpretation: "you probably can’t handle appropriate image sizes, all the same width, prevents image size disputes"
- Comments
Thanks for providing the above timeline and thoughts, Van helsing. El_C 18:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)