Talk:Typography refresh

Wikipedia or MediaWiki?
I am getting conflicting information whether this update is Wikipedia only or MediaWiki thing. Some examples below.

Wikipedia: "'Type is a core visual element of Wikipedia's language'" "'we want the font choice to reflect us and our content'"

MediaWiki: "'which is a good thing for both Wikimedia and third party users of Vector/MobileFrontEnd'" "'it's something we should do before we move to merge anything from the typography refresh in to Vector proper'"

Please clarify which point of view has been used as basis of the changes. If it is Wikipedia, please clarify what thought has been given the suitability of the choices for 3rd party users of MediaWiki. For example, do you want every site to look like Wikipedia? --Nikerabbit (talk) 08:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I too would like to see an answer to this. Legoktm (talk) 07:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Dearchive unanswered question also asked several times on mailing lists and made even more pressing by the newer text "Wikimedia's default typography", "Wikimedia content must be highly accessible" but "all projects (as part of the Vector skin)" etc. --Nemo 17:39, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a partially unresolved question, but is probably best answered by the first question in the FAQ. When it comes time to remove this from Extension:VectorBeta the most logical destination is Vector skin in MediaWiki core. Whether other MediaWiki users want to retain the change is up to them of course. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   17:52, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I don't find any answer in the first FAQ question. "Of course"? How? --Nemo 18:00, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "Who will see this change?" "All users of Wikimedia sites who use the default Vector skin, including readers and editors. Users who use their preferences or another method to use an alternative skin, like Monobook or Cologne Blue, will see no changes." Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   18:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Why are you copying it here? If you're implying that this change will not be made in core or the Vector extension, it would be useful to say so explicitly. --Nemo 18:23, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Latest release
Hi everyone,

We've just updated the beta feature with bug fixes and a new font stack, the details of which are reflected on the main document here. (Not everything is rolled out across wikis, but it is present here on mediawiki.org, and will be everywhere by the end of next week.).

Other than the bug fixes and new font stack, I want to bring up the idea of releasing a permanent version of this beta feature that does not including elements such as:


 * 1) The Table of Contents redesign
 * 2) The new, minimalist thumbnail style
 * 3) The new blockquote style
 * 4) Removal of custom icons for external links, based on file type (e.g. a music symbol for .ogg files)

These changes are valuable in that they help remove visual cruft and increase focus on the text of pages. I personally like several of them. However, they also require a lot more testing and the previous discussions brought up numerous issues that remain unresolved. I think the conservative approach here is to submit them for review separately, if at all, and take in to account more edge cases (like wikis that heavily use templates for blockquotes, or the fact that wikitext markup for thumbs and frames would be made redundant by removing all frame styles from thumbs). Thoughts?

Also, many thanks to, , and others who wrote the bulk of the new FAQ and summary of changes. I highly encourage everyone to read it. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   17:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Only system font
"Helvetica is the only default system font that properly renders glyphs in non-latin scripts", seriously? Either "default" or "system font" here must have some very specific definition that I'm unaware of, could you clarify? --Nemo 17:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Is "browser default sans-serif" precise enough for your taste? Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   17:49, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, this is unexpected. How do the browsers' defaults matter? How many browsers set their own defaults (overriding the OS)? --Nemo 18:02, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The browser default sans matters because that's what we set in Vector core currently, without the new stack in place. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   18:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Ok, so that's Typography_refresh/Font_choice. Are you saying you tried to pick a font among those? Helvetica is the current default only in iOS and MacOS, according to that list. All the others except Roboto (i.e. Arial, DejaVu Sans, Liberation Sans) are definitely ok in non-latin scripts. --Nemo 18:27, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The section is getting a bit better. I still don't understand «the fonts that most browsers use in this condition do not account for proper rendering of glyphs, pairs, and diacritical marks at small sizes»: even according to the table in the subpage, scores of Arial, DejaVu Sans, Liberation Sans are very similar (8 vs. 10) and some upstream bugs have been fixed in a matter of days after being reported. --Nemo 19:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The reasoning for Helvetica Neue
Body copy (the main text of pages) has been set to "Arimo, Liberation Sans, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif". Could you please explain the reasoning for selecting Helvetica Neue and prioritize it over Helvetica?

According to the body font evaluation at Typography refresh/Font choice, plain Helvetica got a better general score. While Helvetica Neue seems to be 2 points more more "appropriate" (10 to 8 in terms of "readability, neutrality, and "authority"", relatively subjective factors), in technical terms (a factor that can be measured more objectively) Helvetica wins Helvetica Neue 10-1.

Helvetica is also as "appropriate" as Arial, and both look very similar. For all these reasons, wouldn't Helvetica serve better to the goals of this Typography refresh? (readability, consistency, availability, accessibility)--Qgil (talk) 19:23, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah this needs to be clarified. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:56, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Georgia on Linux
The FAQ states: Linux systems (perhaps ironically) do not recognize Linux Libertine nor Georgia.

According to this font survey, Georgia is installed on 70% of all Linux systems, so that statement is uneducated. Most Linux users have it installed throught the old CoreWebFonts package. However, it contains rather outdated fonts from when they were still freely available (pre-2005), so they may lack essential Unicode support. It means that 70% may potentially see mis-rendered text in headers should they occur.

With that in mind, perhaps Georgia should be removed from the stack. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 23:59, 14 March 2014 (UTC)