User talk:Colin

Banner

What do you think about File:The "big 5 oz" (3).jpg for the banner at the top of American cuisine? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I tried cropping this 7:1 but then it was hard to get it so the bun was recognisable. The salad dominates, making the burger hard to see. I can see it is hard to get a banner if the photo isn't shot with that in mind. Would a hot dog work better? I'm no expert on American cuisine, and it is making me queasy looking at photos of junk food. Would Americans be happy to have their cuisine defined by junk food? Btw, Commons:Photo challenge/2014 - April - Food and drinks worldwide may have some good photos for other areas. -- Colin (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure about "happy", but probably not surprised. Fast food is a typical representation of American cuisine, and not entirely unfair. There are 75 million kids and teenagers in the US, and one of last year's shocking headlines was that we could expect about a third of them to be at some sort of fast food/fast casual restaurant today. (I don't know what the comparable numbers for adults are.) In addition to the burger-and-fries approach, pizza, tacos, spaghetti, and/or fried chicken would probably all feel representative of that.

For fancier restaurants, people would probably expect a grilled beef steak with a baked potato or mashed potatoes and perhaps a green vegetable. Among desserts, apple pies, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies would probably be expected.

A collage that shows a range of foods might be ideal, but I don't really expect to find that. I'm going to go look at the Photo challenge; thanks for looking at this, and also for that link. I should probably also see what similar articles are using. I'll post if I find something that seems promising. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Collages are normally not used on this site. See Wikivoyage:Image policy. We could put barbecue or some other recognizably American food in a banner, if one is available. Nice to see you here, Colin! Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:54, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

What do you think about File:Filet de bœuf.jpg? I think it might be possible to crop a "stripe" that shows beef (where the title would be), green beans, and mashed potatoes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:07, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Sure, if it looks good as a banner. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Ikan, small world. WhatamIdoing, yes you can get such stripe. Is that a recognisably American dish or very popular in America? It is a good photo, so could appear in the article too. I wonder if this 7:1 banner is too limiting for good pictures. I see the banner on Flickr user pages is constant height but variable width depending on screen width. And even that is hard to pick a picture that works well. The mobile Wikivoyage site seems to have a 180px tall banner with max width about 994px (a 5.5:1 ratio). If mobile devices are a popular way to view Wikivoyage and they are typically viewed in portrait mode, perhaps a 5:1 ratio would be better? If the photo is good enough, I'm sure people wouldn't mind it taking up more space on a computer screen. I've always felt images aren't handled nicely on wiki compared to reading a good magazine. -- Colin (talk) 12:05, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is common American cuisine. However, banners can't take up more space on Wikivoyage than the amount set by Wikivoyage guidelines. See Wikivoyage:Banners#Image dimensions and quality: Banners must have a 7:1 width to height ratio. Articles with banners of any other dimension should be marked with the {{crop}} tag for easy identification. "Must"; no ambiguity there. But of course, like anything else on a Wiki, that's open to discussion, so if you'd like to offer your insight at Wikivoyage talk:Banners, I'd welcome that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:12, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

(By the way, Colin, I'm an admin on this Wiki.) Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Ooooh. So I should call you Sir Ikan now? ;-). The ratio was just a random thought, and it looks from that talk page that this has been discussed at length. I agree things can change, but I guess it would take a lot of persuasion to change now. Being hard to find/create isn't a strong reason against the ratio. Perhaps if a lot of banners degraded badly when cropped on mobile devices, but I don't know if that is common. -- Colin (talk) 18:52, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

No reason to call me Sir anything. :-) I think it would be good to put down your thoughts for discussion even if you're not proposing any change in guidelines at this point. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Maybe. Let me think about it. I'd really prefer to have more experience creating (or failing to create) banners to feel my opinion was worth anything. Perhaps this is working out just fine. -- Colin (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

This might be a good chance to get some more experience: Wikivoyage:Travellers' pub#This month's cotm: custom banners! Or even just to see what others do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC)