User talk:IsadoraofIbiza/Archive 4

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Requests:

Hello,

I just wanted to mention that your diagrams are the best I have seen on the internet and are excellent at clarifying concepts. If you have time, I have some requests for possible future diagrams, including:

• Bacterial cell membranes, illustrating differences between gram negative and gram positive cells
• Active Transport
• Nitrogen Cycle
• Carbon Cycle

Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.3.45 (talk) 05:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear, the nitrogen cycle. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions!—Kelvinsong (talk) 13:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Complex templates and image maps

Hi. In addition to my question at Template talk:Plain image with caption, I just noticed the fascinating & intriguing Template:Chloroplast DNA, and other examples in Chloroplast. I'm very curious as to the possibilities and implications for future development, but also quite worried about the complexity and accessibility and how it renders in non-typical browsers (eg phones/tablets, or old computers, or even printed pages).

I'm not even close to being an expert in templates or accessibility, but I'm wondering if our usual mw:Extension:ImageMap might be a better choice? See Category:Wikipedia image maps and Wikipedia:Picture tutorial#Image maps for further info on that. Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 20:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi! {{Chloroplast DNA}} is essentially the same trick as {{annotated image}} except without the border, and with better text wrapping. I would have chosen {{Chloroplast cladograms are complicated}} or {{Calvin cycle}} as better examples ;).

Now for accessibility. To answer your question, yes, I do test the templates on mobile devices (namely the iPhone, because I have one). I test with different fonts and different browsers. I've found that among modern web browsers there is no real difference except under Firefox at Chloroplast#Primary endosymbiosis, where the triangle on the lineage table changes color slightly. On mobile, I do observe some very slight differences in display, mainly objects being a few pixels misplaced, as an artifact that mobile browsers double every pixel value they see, but not percent values, so margin-left: 30%; left: -2px; becomes margin-left: 30%; left: -4px;. I don't know about old browsers, as I don't have access to a copy of IE6, but I anticipate the only problems will stem from "border-radius" and some 3-digit hex colors like #fff or #aaa failing. The first case means no rounded rectangles or circles, the second is more of a problem (objects turning black), but easy to fix. (#fff → #ffffff)

I don't use image maps because 1) they're hard to use, and 2) they don't let you assemble individual molecule pictures and put hover-underlines under your links like {{Calvin cycle}}.—Kelvinsong (talk) 20:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I really like the hover-underlines on links, that your code enables. Much better than the zero-feedback of imagemaps.

However, I'm not a fan of the text-wrapping, aesthetically or code-complexity wise, that can be seen for example at Chloroplast#Primary endosymbiosis. I'd strongly recommend not using that - Extra Whitespace, and flat-sided paragraphs, are definitely preferable.

Thanks again for the explanations and details, both here and the other thread. (I keep hoping that's a diagram of the Calvin cycle... ;) –Quiddity (talk) 21:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I did that to mitigate text sandwiching between the two endosymbiosis images without having to resort to {{clear}} which I already used too much on that article, but I can see what you mean. I don't see an easy solution. I should probably redraw and combine the two diagrams into one (both of them are mine, BTW).—Kelvinsong (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Chloroplast red links

I understand your position on the red links and have reverted to your revert of my first red link removal, but I believe they look rather ugly on the article and are unhelpful for the general reader. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 19:17, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

See WP:REDLINK—"Likewise, a valid red link term . . . should not be dealt with by removing the link brackets, simply to temporarily reduce the amount of red text in an article."

All the red links you removed are completely notable topics ranging from cell structures to species to molecules, which we have tons of articles about. Now I want to avoid an edit war here, so I suggest you go and put all the red links back.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 19:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Well I stand corrected. And I already have done BTW. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 19:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Present for you

Present for you on my user page. 512bits (talk) 23:23, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

:) — Love, Kelvinsong talk 00:39, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Botany#Plant_anatomy_and_morphology

We're ok with this change if you still want to make it. 512bits (talk) 00:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I just need to find the sources for it—I don't have physical access to my bio textbook right now (and the electronic version is a pain to use on Linux); the part about Saintpaulia comes from my own experience, but I can probably find a gardening website that can be used as a source.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 00:51, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Your Pictures are amazing :). They are better than all the textbook diagrams I've seen. GingerGeek (talk) 07:06, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!—Love, Kelvinsong talk 15:44, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

File:Dispersive prism.png

Original image

Your explanation of the colors in File:Dispersive prism.png isn't completely correct. Yellow and cyan dominate because the beam of light entering the prism is too wide. You have to have a narrow beam to get the classic colors of the rainbow, especially close to the prism. Green is just starting to appear where the light leaves the left edge of the picture. This effect caused a lot of debate in the years after Newton's famous experiment. See Theory of Colours. The image File:Goethe-Prism-FigI.jpg might be of particular interest.

The absence of violet is interesting. The R, G, and B filters in a digital camera are not narrow; they have to be wide bandpass filters for the camera to work correctly. I don't know how far the "B" filter extends into the violet, but I suspect that the absence of purple from the image may have more to do with the specific algorithms used by the camera to convert the raw sensor data into the final image, than with the sensitivity of the sensor in that band. Another digital camera might have rendered the image with more purple.--Srleffler (talk) 05:45, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm pretty sure it's three RGB light cones coming from the prism and not a smooth rainbow. File:Prism tribeam 1.jpg shows this more clearly:

In fact, if you turn down the exposure, the three light cones narrow and you can see the RGB:

I tried this with a different camera too—same thing:

I did get a smooth (er) rainbow by laying the prism flat, as in

And for some reason outdoors, the violet actually shows up (which come to think about it, maybe the glass in the window used to let in the sunlight blocked out some of the violet that the camera sees. However I could see it with my eyes when I took the pictures.)

—Love, Kelvinsong talk 18:54, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia blog

I saw the blog posted on Wikipedia's Facebook page and was very impressed with your attitude on creating images for people to use and the way you enjoy seeing the images used outside of Wikipedia. You were certainly the best choice for EOTW!--Amadscientist (talk) 05:53, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I was slightly misquoted in that article though—here were my actual answers I sent her:

1 Where are you from? Have you always lived there? Long Island, NY—I have yet to meet another American on Commons. Or maybe it's because I only remember the foreigners (shoutout to the French—you don't put spaces before punctuation marks in English ;) ). Internationality isn't a bad thing though.

2 How old are you? (Optional) That is classified.

3 Do you have a family? Yes

4 Are you a professional photographer or do you consider it to be more of a hobby? I'm not a photographer, I'm mainly an illustrator (though I do do photos). Neither is professional.

5 If it is a hobby what else do you do outside of Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons? I draw cartoons, do random science experiments now and then (See File:Artsy density column.png), etc

6 How long have you been a photographer? How did you first get started? I'm not a photographer, but I've had a camera since I was 11. I've done vector illustration since I was 13.

7 Are there particular types of photos that you specialize in, or especially enjoy taking (i.e. specific subject matter, landscapes, portraits, black-and-white, etc.)? I like doing microscope photos, and occasionally plant pictures (though I have trouble identifying them). I mostly draw stuff related to plant cell biology.

8 Why do you contribute to Commons? The concept of copyright has never really made much sense to me, and Commons is a great place to get your stuff out into the world. Not only is it awesome to be able to add your pictures to wikipedia articles that are seen by thousands of people per day, it's also cool to see other websites pick up your pictures and use them. In my experience about 60–80% of them will give you credit for your work. Funny story, I once came across an online store that was selling my pictures on T-shirts and coffee mugs. They didn't provide attribution, but I found the situation more amusing than anything else (who would buy a lunch box with the Centrosome cycle on it?)

9 How long have you been contributing, and how did you first get started? I've been contributing for close to a year—I got started I think doing election diagrams for the 2012 American elections, then I started doing science illustration. User:LadyofHats was a big inspiration even if she's not around anymore. My first science picture was a large diagram of the Animal cell cycle which somehow managed to make Featured Picture (Something that looking back is quite surprising cause it's not that high calibre. File:Plant cell cycle.svg is in my opinion much higher quality (and more scientifically accurate), but it didn't make FP. But that's a different interview.)

10 How has your experience on Commons been? Very mixed. On one hand I do like the free culture and the many people who are willing to help out with translations. Unlike art sites, it's good knowing your pictures have an educational purpose and will be seen by many. Also other than the retired LadyofHats, I seem to be the only science illustrator on Commons ^a. On the other hand there are some really annoying software bugs like non-updating thumbnails, and yes, I have tried purging. The Featured Picture process is dreadful—Yes, we do have a couple of qualified voters, but most of the people there are in my opinion, photographers who know little about vector illustration. Photographs get judged on their artistic value and technical quality. Illustrations get judged on the visual shapes they make at first glance, and I get a lot of opposes that are like "This is too complicated" or "This is too simple" (sometimes at the same time) or "this is too unrealistic" or "This is too realistic"^b (If there exists a goldilocks zone, I have yet to find it). Often the picture fails because not enough people voted—the most aggravating part of the FPC rules. It seems the only way to get voters to the polls is if the picture is bright and shiny in some way (see File:Sun poster.svg which got photographic turnout). At least we're past the days where people opposed on "This SVG is too low resolution" ^c. However I should note that there is a substantial population of voters who gave the benefit of the doubt and supported my pictures in the nominations.

11 Can you tell us a little more about your featured picture? Is there a story behind it? File:Plant cell types.svg was inspired by a diagram of muscle cell types in my Biology textbook (Campbell and Reece's 8th Edition—also beautiful from a graphic design standpoint). The diagram had microscope pictures along with drawings, so I wanted to do something like that. I like plant science, so I decided to do plant cells (a leaf, because nearly all the major plant cell classes are represented there). Commons is severely lacking in plant microscopy photos, but I managed to find representatives of each cell type. I take scientific accuracy very seriously, so I usually do a ton of research on the topic, and I wound up combing through a lot of plant science papers to figure out exactly what each cell looks like and to get the scale somewhat right. Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell are my favorite journals due to their large collections and open access policies (Annual Reviews, argh!). Luckily my same textbook also had extensive coverage on the topic. To draw the cell-cubes themselves, first I made a three dimensional wireframe render with Blender, then traced that in Inkscape. The rest is technical stuff that I don't entirely remember and would probably only make sense to vector artists anyway. Then I wrote the captions and manually linebroke the text (a big thing a lot of people don't realize is a part of making these diagrams). Then I do some grid-aligning so it will look sharper at certain resolutions, outline the text so it won't get ruined by the Commons renderer, and I upload.

12 What were you doing when you came across the shot? Probably listening to Taylor Swift.

13 Was there anything tricky/interesting about the composition of the shot or the situation you were in? I really had to work to keep the captions as short as possible while maintaining scientific accuracy (Something you should know about biology in general—there is ALWAYS an exception.). I kinda overblew the perspective on that picture, so only the Phloem and Xylem blocks could be made into standalone subdiagrams. Also, the scientists at Plant Physiology seem to be the only people who know what a phloem transfer cell looks like.

14 What do you hope the picture will communicate to viewers? War is pointless and you can be anything you want if you just believe in yourself.

15 How do you feel about having your photo featured on Commons and in the Wikimedia projects? It's wonderful! Including the top 0.00039% part. Especially the top 0.00039% part.

Something I feel is important for people to know You do not need to, and should not add unnecessary borders, shading, or gloss to stuff that does not require it. I'm looking at you, MediaWiki interface. Also, no more DejaVu Sans. Please. Even among free fonts, there are a few that are much better than Deja Vu.

To aspiring Commons illustrators Masks. SVG masks are your friend. Also, do not use ellipses. Ever. (circles are fine). Use a rounded rectangle "pill" shape, or better, draw your own oval with the pencil tool.

^a Many people have contributed high quality science illustrations, but to the best of my knowledge, me and LadyofHats are the only users who've ever uploaded a large number of these diagrams.

^b Yes, that's actually happened to me

^c Look through some of LadyofHat's nominations. By the way, SVG stands for Scalable vector graphic—they have infinite resolution—the pixel value they have is just the default render size.

—Love, Kelvinsong talk 19:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! That was great. Yeah, they did misquote you.--Amadscientist (talk) 19:14, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

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