Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Acid2/archive3

• Oppose I spot lots of problems. Prose, organization, comprehensiveness and comprehensibility.
  • The lead does not seem to summarize the article; the history of it, for instance, is left out.
  • "Like Acid1, the way a web browser renders the test is compared to a reference rendering. If the two match, the browser is considered to pass the test." Seems like an overly cumbersome way of expressing a rather simple idea. "Like Acid1, a web browser passes the test if its rendered output matches a reference image."
    • Thanks for your feedback; I've put your suggested wording into the article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Redundancies abound: "The idea is that if both web sites and web browsers follow agreed-upon industry standards, then any web site will work the same in any web browser." Will "work" or will "look" the same?
    • Will work the same - web standards are not just limited to appearance. Acid2 in particular tests hovering effects, object fallback, and error handling, which often tie into behavior and not just appearance. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • OK, and the redundancies? BuddingJournalist 16:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • The lay reader is not going to understand that good web design depends on both the web site and the web browser. They may well think that the web site is responsible for everything, and have no idea that the browser might actually be responsible for some problems. The word "both" emphasizes that web sites and web browsers both have to do their part to cooperate with each other. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
        • The lay reader may not realize that web standards were created by joint discussion either. They may think that web standards were created entirely by the web developers or entirely by the web browser makers. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Finally, the phrase "The idea is that" tells the reader that this sentence sums up the whole point of web standards. Without that phrase, it's not so clear why the sentence is relevant to the article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "Microsoft later joined other browser makers" What does "joined" mean in this instance? Later is vague.
    • The "Non-compliant applications" section details Microsoft's progression towards Acid2 compliance. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • That section still doesn't explain what "joined" means here. "Joined" in doing what? Later is a vague term. Precision and clarity over vagueness. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • All it's saying is that Microsoft is making its new version of Internet Explorer standards-compliant like other web browsers already are. The word "joined" does not refer to a specific event but rather Microsoft's progression from not properly supporting standards to properly supporting standards in certain cases to almost always properly supporting standards. This progression is detailed in the "Non-compliant applications" section, where the specific dates of specific progressions are given. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
          • This is why I feel the History section needs more work in establishing context. To lay readers, "joined" could be referring to a specific event that is not spelled out. BuddingJournalist 23:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "After several complaints, the test was again updated in January 2006 to remove a test for unpopular SGML-style comments that were never widely implemented." Vague. Readers unfamiliar with this issue will not understand what the complaints were. Widely implemented = ? Link comments.
    • Reference #2, "People who don't realise that they're wrong", explains the issue in detail. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • That's not the point. Prose in an article should be explanatory. That means for technical terms, they should be linked (for example, "comments"). Widely implemented is a vague modifier. By whom? What does "widely" mean? BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • History section seems rather thin. What was the motivation behind Acid2? Was it chiefly to challenge Microsoft to get them to comply with standards? Were there broader goals in mind? A paragraph setting Acid2 in context would be helpful for many readers. What was the browser landscape like when Acid2 was under development/released (especially with respect to standards)? What was the effect of Acid1 on the industry? "and at that time, every web browser failed it spectacularly" OK, so when did browsers start passing the test? Did browser makers noticeably respond to their shortcomings in the Acid2 test? In short, what was the impact of Acid2?
    • From reference #3, "The Acid2 Challenge to Microsoft": "To ensure that IE 7 does not become another failed promise, the Web community will issue a challenge to Microsoft. We will produce a test page, code-named Acid2, that will actively use features Web designers crave, such as fixed positioning of elements." —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • The new beginning of the History section gives a clearer picture of the motivations for Acid2. BuddingJournalist 16:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Acid1 was a relatively narrow test of CSS 1.0 compliance that was not nearly as extensive or salient as Acid2. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I got as much from reading the article. That doesn't answer my question of what the effects of Acid1 were on the industry. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I added a sentence about Lie hoping that Acid2, like Acid1, would force browser makers to fix their applications or face embarrassment. Better? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • The "Non-compliant applications" and "Timeline of passing applications" sections show exactly how the major web browsers have improved over time. The impact of Acid2 is that the standards tested are now much better supported in major web browsers than they were before. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • "The impact of Acid2 is that..." Then state so in the article. That'd be perfect for the History section. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "that made the mouth appear too close to the nose" On some browsers? On all browsers?
    • On all browsers that were able to render the face to that level of detail, yes. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Is the article going to be updated to clarify this? BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Caption: "The smiley face of the first version of Acid2. Note that due to problems in this version of the test, the mouth is too close to the nose and the text "ERROR" appears." This does not make sense to me. Is this an image rendered by some browser?
    • Yes, the image is the first version of Acid2 rendered by any standards-compliant browser. Even though the browser is standards-compliant, the rendered image still did not match the reference image due to problems in the test. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Is the caption going to be clarified? Also, why isn't the "ERROR" text problem mentioned in the article? BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I've clarified the caption and made the History section explain that the "ERROR" text results from the SGML-style comment test. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "The creators of Acid2 considered object element support important because it allows for content fallback; in other words, if the specified object fails to load then alternative (generally simpler, more reliable) content can be presented instead." I don't know what's being said here. What is this "specified" object and who's doing the specifying?
    • Please read HTML element#Images and objects, which is linked to in the article. A web developer can embed an object such as a Flash video or sound file into a web page with HTML's <object> tag. The <object> tag also allows the web developer to specify content to display if the specified object fails to load. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • OK. Then this prose needs to be cleaned-up. What is this "specified" doing here? The passive "be presented" is confusing to lay readers. "The creators of Acid2 considered object element support important because it allows for content fallback—if an object fails to load, then the browser displays alternative (generally simpler, more reliable) content in its place."
        • OK, I've put your preferred wording into the article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "Interestingly, although" Please stick to encyclopedic words.
  • "from the usual position of the element" What does "usual" mean?
    • Where a web browser would normally draw the element on the page. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Is this going to be clarified in the article? BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "allows specifying", "allows applying", etc. -> awkward
    • How would you suggest this be worded? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "features new to CSS 2.0." First time readers are hearing about this. Was this 2.0 standard introduced after the Acid1 test? If so, the History section seems like a pretty good place to discuss this. What was the implication of CSS 2.0?
    • CSS 2.0 was introduced after Acid1 and contains many new and powerful features that abound on the web today. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Answering my questions here is good and all, but is this going to be addressed in the article? Do you understand why readers might be better served if this was discussed in the History section? Not all readers are going to be familiar with the timeline of CSS 2.0 and its implications. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I've tried to clarify this in the lead section. What do you think? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "web developers can add decorations and annotations to specified elements without having to add the content to each one individually." Again, don't know what's trying to be said here. Another puzzling "specified". Does "content" mean "decorations and annotations"? Code?
    • For example,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
        <title></title>
        <style type="text/css">
            p:before {
                content: "§ ";
            }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>Foo 1</p>
        <p>Foo 2</p>
        <p>Foo 3</p>
    </body>
</html>

• • • would produce

      § Foo 1

      § Foo 2

      § Foo 3

    • in a CSS2-compliant browser. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • The elegant variation of "decorations and annotations" to "content" is confusing, as is "specified". BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "This helps ensure cross-browser compatibility by making all browsers treat CSS with the same level of strictness, so that what works in one browser should not cause errors in another." Isn't this the goal of the entire Acid2 test? How is this salient to this specific CSS parsing test?
    • Most of Acid2 tests for problems where the web developer did everything right and the web browser did something wrong. The error handling test makes sure that if it was the web developer that made the mistake, the web browser gracefully handles the error as directed by the CSS specification. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • That seems very different from what's being said in the sentence I quoted. I'm questioning whether it adds anything valuable. It seems like quite a generic statement. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Back up and read the sentences before it: "A number of illegal CSS statements are present in Acid2 to test error handling. Standards-compliant browsers are expected to handle these errors as the CSS specification directs." —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
          • I think we're talking past each other. The two sentences before it are fine, and I understand them. I'm asking what value the sentence I quoted ("This helps ensure cross-browser compatibility by making all browsers treat CSS with the same level of strictness, so that what works in one browser should not cause errors in another"), which is quite generic, adds to this paragraph. One could take that same sentence and apply it to the other CSS tests, no? Is something more specific trying to be said here? BuddingJournalist 22:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
            • I'm really having a hard time seeing where the confusion comes from. Maybe an example would help us see eye-to-eye. In HTML, the <style> tag is required to have a "type" attribute, for example <style type="text/css">. Now let's say that I make a web page and I forget to include the type attribute. The error is clearly on my part. How harsh should the web browser be when it sees this mistake? Should it ignore the tag? Should it just assume that the type is text/css? Should not render the page at all? This is the kind of question that Acid2's error handling tests, though the specific cases it tests are a bit more complicated.
            • Now let's say that another browser sees a web page that says <style type="text/foo">. This is perfectly valid HTML, but even though the web developer explicitly said type="text/foo" this browser treats the tag as though it said type="text/css" and consequently garbles the entire display of the page. The web developer did everything right, but the web browser did not follow the HTML specification and because of that the page was garbled. Almost all of Acid2 tests for this kind of error, where the web developer followed the standard but the web browser is not. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "paint order, that is, overlapping elements", "user moves their" I shouldn't be seeing elementary grammar errors in an FAC.
    • Could you please clarify what needs to be changed? It sounds fine to me. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • The first one is a run-on sentence. Looking back, the second is actually using a singular they, which may or may not be correct, depending on your point of view (I say no, but others may disagree). BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
        • So, you want a period instead of a comma? Okay. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
          • That run-on sentence I pointed out has nothing to do with personal whims/"wants". There are may ways to correct a run-on sentence; I left it up to you to decide how to do so. BuddingJournalist 22:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "placed or painted" Are these two different? Why is the latter emphasized in italics?
    • Because "placed" is more of a layman's term and "painted" is more of a technical term. The article is trying to make what happens as clear as possible. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • It's not being very clear; otherwise I wouldn't have wondered why the two are used and painted is italicized. If painted is a technical term, then just link it. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • "while it has traditionally been used for hyperlinks, it should work on a wide variety of HTML elements" "While" introduces a logical contradiction, but I'm not seeing one. Just because it's been traditionally used for something doesn't mean it shouldn't work on something else.
    • Exactly. Internet Explorer 6 restricted hovering effects to <a> elements when they should work on a wide variety of elements. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Must have misread this. My bad. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/April/browser.php <-- What is this measuring and is this a reliable source?
    • It essentially shows how prevalent various browsers were on the web in April 2005. You can find more statistics sources in the Usage share of web browsers article. All the statistics clearly verify the simple statement that Internet Explorer 6 was the dominant web browser at the time of Acid2's release. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I tried searching around the site for some methodology or at least some explanation that this was indeed trying to measure browser share for all web users, but I could not find any. Could you point me to where this may be located? Is this site a reliable source? BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • http://kilianvalkhof.com/2008/css-xhtml/understanding-css-positioning-part-1/ Reliable?
    • You can get the same information from any book or site that teaches CSS. This one seemed to be the most clear. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • That's not the point. Sources should satisfy WP:RS. If this one doesn't, replace it with one that does. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I stopped at the end of "Overview of standards tested". Doesn't bode well for the rest of the article. BuddingJournalist 02:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I think you would have understood Acid2 better if you had read the rest of the article and followed the contextual links. There are some areas where the article could be clearer, however much of the vagueness you noted is clarified in linked articles and the sections past what you read. Before commenting again, would you be willing to read through the whole thing to get a better picture of what it's trying to say? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I have read the entire article now, and I'm not seeing how the rest of the article makes the things I point out clearer (most of it is just lists). This notion that vagueness is OK is puzzling. Prose should be as clear as possible. The lists later on certainly present an aesthetically pleasing presentation of facts, but they do not synthesize/analyze these facts for the reader. That's why, when I asked about what the effect of Acid2 was on the industry, a list of compliant browsers does not adequately address the issue. BuddingJournalist 16:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • "Timeline of passing applications" features lots of technical jargon that could at the very least use some links. Not all readers will understand "Firefox 3 reflow-refactoring branch lands on main Gecko trunk. Firefox/Camino/SeaMonkey trunk builds now pass Acid2, barring other regressions." BuddingJournalist 02:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • "Unfortunately, another" Like "interestingly", another word to avoid. BuddingJournalist 16:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
    • A copy-edit of the Non-compliant applications section would be helpful. I'd actually suggest merging the prose of the non-compliant applications section into the History section, and then converting it to a list of non-compliant applications like the Compliant applications section. As it stands now, the two are oddly quite different, when (by their titles) they seem to serve the same purposes.
    • Where are the references for the list of Compliant applications? Not all of them seem to be covered in the timeline. BuddingJournalist 23:03, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
      • If a web browser uses a layout engine that passes Acid2, then that web browser will pass Acid2. The web browsers that do not have explicit references are new enough that they have used compliant layout engines from day 1. These layout engines were copied from the prominent open-source web browsers such as Firefox and Safari where all the work necessary to pass Acid2 was already done. Does that make sense? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)