Template talk:IPA notice/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

"Due to technical limitations, software such as Internet Explorer may not display some characters correctly. If you are unable to view the characters, you might consider viewing the page in a different web browser."

this seems likely to freak out the less tech-savvy, it reads "this page may be too advanced for your crappy browser." It might be more politic to say something like "If your browser is not displaying these characters correctly, consult Wikipedia:Browser notes." Personally, I couldn't see them using Monobook Skin, I switched to Classic as advised there and then it worked (on IE6 with setting Tools>Options>General>Fonts>Web Page Font>Arial Unicode MS). Joestynes

I appreciate the anti-MSIE-propaganda, but the note is just too long, and it's just annoying to have it on every page containing IPA (eventually every page where pronunciation of a term is given!). If we need it at all (I doubt it), it should not be longer than "this page contains IPA. refer to some page if you have display problems". dab 14:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I guess we can use the tags <font face="a unicode-enabled font">IPASYMBOLS</font> for the IPA symbols, to force them to be displayed. Unicode fonts include Arial Unicode MS and Lucida Sans Unicode.

Bad move?

Seems like the Template page itself wasn't correctly moved. All the pages with the tempalte have broken. Was that move really necessary? The name may be clearer, but I doubt the name was needed for another template. Maybe I should check the namespace rules. --Circeus 04:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I moved the template to "IPA notice" because I want to use just plain IPA for the template to surround actual uses of IPA, so it appears correctly in IE. I have fixed all the pages that use the template. Nohat 04:24, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't get it

What does that {{IPA|[ʎ]}} syntax means?--Circeus 14:25, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Found it! Inserts a span tag forcing Unicode fonts. Great Idea. Should have been mentionned somewhere along the template --Circeus 14:32, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Explanation is at Template talk:IPA, if anyone else is curious. —Michael Z. 07:01, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Where?

SimonP has been moving this template and ConvertIPA to talk pages, which I think is utterly inappropriate. Have an opinion on it? --Circeus 17:11, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think ConvertIPA belongs on the talk page, because it's not part of an article, and readers don't need to read it. IPA notice, on the other hand, may help readers display the article correctly. I wish it wasn't so big, though. —Michael Z. 19:38, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

What do you think of the smaller version I've placed at the top of this section? It still appears at the top of the page, but doesn't steal attention away from the article's introduction.

The text could probably be more concise, too. How about: "This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. Help." —Michael Z. 19:54, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Great! The smaller version is much better! I already thought that the current one is too obtrusive. — mark ✎ 22:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll update it. What about the short text, does it convey enough information? —Michael Z. 23:37, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

Done. Because it floats, the template can conflict with other floating elements, like the language or phonetic navboxes. I'll be spending the next hour re-positioning the IPA notices. It looks like some good locations to put it are:

• At the top of the first section of an article that has IPA text in it. Often this is a language article's Sounds or Phonetics section.
• At the top of the first main section, so that it comes after the article's table of contents.
• At the top of the article, if there is no infobox.
• In a very short article, just beneath an infobox. It will float to the left of it.

As with all floating boxes, put it just above a paragraph, with no blank lines following it. This ensures that the following paragraph's text will neatly align with the top of the floating box's top border. —Michael Z. 00:07, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

I'm thinking that this notice's text should get built into the bottom of the language and phonetics navboxes. —Michael Z. 00:36, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

I'm against making it an inline box, with article text flowing around it. It's not part of the article, it's a note preceding the article. Just make it wide, but not tall. dab (ᛏ) 14:31, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see your point, but to me it seems that the reader's eye looks for the start of the article at the top-left corner (where 90% of them do start). I've always been slightly annoyed by the notices that span the page at the top. The floating box gets out of the left-margin document flow, much the way the series boxes do, which are also "outside" of the scope of the article (e.g., Mongol invasion of Russia). —Michael Z. 19:38, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)

Gratuitous IPA notice

<rant> Why on earth in a time when the majority of browsers happily support unicode do we need this objectionable message in articles which may have one word in 1000 in unicode? Does not the (IPA) link which normally precedes an IPA'd pronounciation guide suffice, in the event that people have difficulties. I view the mesage box as way over the top graffiti invented by people more interested in IPA than in articles. If you do, absolutely need this sort of mummying assistance, then surely at the foot of the document would be better than, for instance, competing with the lead picture in an article. </rant> --Tagishsimon (talk)

I mostly agree with you, but a simple link to IPA doesn't replace this. That article talks about the alphabet, and not about technical issues with displaying it in a browser. That said, this note and the longer one at the top of IPA in Unicode don't seem terribly useful or applicable.

Since Template:IPA has been introduced and has been widely added to work around MSIE's broken Unicode display, this note is much less needed. —Michael Z. 2005-02-25 04:00 Z

Theres been some discussion of this issue on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#IPA Notice - Ugly cruft alert. Personally, I'm inclined to think that this notice is OTT on pages that only contain one or two IPA transcriptions, and should be reserved for articles specifically about phonological issues. I think a better idea in most cases is:

• surround the IPA with the IPA template
• put in a discrete link to the International Phonetic Alphabet or International Phonetic Alphabet for English articles, in the form pronounced. I think adding a link to the IPA transcription itself is a bad idea, since the ensuing underlines may make the special characters more difficult to read. rossb 07:20, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Incorporation into Template:Language

As many language articles have IPA in them it was suggested that the IPA notice be incorporated into {{language}}. This will make it unnecessary to add {{IPA notice}} to articles containing the former. However, it will vastly increase the number of articles that appear in the category. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? --Gareth Hughes 19:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Changed smaller to 80%

There is a bug in IE that makes it behave verry funny when it encounters font-size:smaller.

Try this:

<div style=font-size:127%>
<p>Bla</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Bla</p>
</div>
<p>Bla</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
<div style=font-size:smaller>
<p>Smaller?</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Bla</p>
<p style=font-size:smaller>Smaller?</p>

In Firefox it seems to be equivalent to 80%, so I changed it to that. Shinobu 20:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Why English IPA?

I just came across this template when reading Khmer language. As it happens, I'm fairly competent at pronouncing (my version of) English: that's why I use the English WP. But the English phonetic repertoire isn't much use if I want to work out the pronunciation of an unfamiliar language such as Khmer, which includes (shudder) implosives ...

Couldn't the template direct the reader to a complete IPA table? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It now does. You can use {{IPA notice|lang=en}} for the previous behaviour. --Kjoonlee 19:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This template has bad formatting that breaks HTML reflow

There seems to be something wrong with this template that prevents text from reflowing around the left side of the template. I am coming here from the Modern English page and you'll notice a single disambiguation line at the very top of the page, then a huge empty whitespace next to the tables down to below this IPA notice template.

I don't see a way to fix within the article to solve the text flow problem. But through experimentation I see that if I chop out this IPA notice and do an article preview, the text will then flow down next to the table without any trouble.

This is the first time I've ever ventured into the template namespace so I have no idea how to edit, much less repair, a broken template with reflow problems.

DMahalko (talk) 00:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Is this still needed?

It's 2019, IPA letters and symbols are supported basically everywhere. (Some very obscure ones might not be, but they are also not being used in most WP articles.) Is this template really still needed? Can we at least remove this sentence: "Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters"? — Christoph Päper 09:19, 31 January 2019 (UTC)