Template talk:Steady

Shape

In many contexts, an unexplained turquoise rectangle is entirely meaningless. Use in a table with a key might be justified, elsewhere it is of no benefit to the reader. Kevin McE (talk) 09:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

We could add some floating text and certainly some alt text, to say "no change since last update" (or similar). One example is {{dagger}} which is used throughout many of our cricket articles. That way, the static, down and up arrows all make sense. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:19, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Do you have examples where this template does not make sense? Dodoïste (talk) 21:01, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure there are any examples Dodoïste, but while this discussion is active, what do you think about expanding the template to include additional info, both alt-text and text which regular viewers could see? I think that would be a real bonus to the Wikipedia if we could implement something along the lines of the {{dagger}} template that we did a while ago!! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Please note, this discussion applies, perhaps more so, to {{increase}} and {{decrease}}. Some users believe those templates to be unclear to a normally-sighted viewer, i.e that a green equilateral triangle with a flat base, sides pointing up to a point denotes "increase" and a red equilateral triangle with a flat top, sides pointing down to a point denotes "decrease" is unclear. Hence my suggestion we could make it clearer with alt text and some cool hover text? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

That seems odd, coming from someone who stated, less than an hour earlier "Sure, steady is not good without explanation". Imagine the reader unfamiliar with other uses of the template, coming across the infobox here: they see the FIFA ranking as 50, and a strange blue rectangle. Or here, where the club's income from sales is not merely €0, but €0 preceded by an odd bit of geometry. Entirely unintuitive. Kevin McE (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

What seems odd? Perhaps I'm tired, but didn't I just say "Hence my suggestion we could make it clearer with alt text and some cool hover text? "? To make it less unintuitive? That would solve your problem with the first example. The second example is just incorrect usage. It should simply be a + or - to indicate positive or negative, it's not being used to show a change in something. However, once again, my suggestion of some decent use of alt text and hover over text would even help there. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

In this case, changing the alt text is not useful. This image is aleady more explicit to the blind than to sighted users. The alt text currently contains "steady" which is very explicit.

As for sighted users, a hover text is a bad practice and a fragile way of doing things. I think we have two choices. Either we replace the image with the text "steady", either we remove the image entirely. I guess we must indicate an increase or decrease, but if nothing changes there might be nothing to indicate. Is this template really useful? Cheers, Dodoïste (talk) 07:46, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This template is wrong, because for "steady" is more logical the equals-sign "=". The "—" sign I understand as a "new entry", like in music charts or some other rankings. rise fall steady Maiō T. (talk) 22:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

A good point. Perhaps this template needs to be removed entirely? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

But equal to what?

Unkeyed symbols, used in isolation, unless absolutely clear and so universal in their use that misinterpretation is virtually impossible except by the highly undereducated, should be condemned in a project that seeks to inform rather than bemuse. The template documentation should make that absolutely clear, so that there is no excuse for using the symbols isolated from identification of their purpose and making it clear that the removal of the symbol in such cases is entirely proper.

(after ec's adding) I certainly would not be opposed to the removal of this symbol, and would point out the preferability of the rise and fall images that you propose over the equilateral triangles in use elsewhere: yours have some sense of specific directionality, rather than pointing equally in three different directions.

The proportions on that equal sign are odd: it looks more like a blue square with a white bar in the middle. Kevin McE (talk) 22:52, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This template is used to indicate the tendency related to some figure, and it does a good job of showing that there is no significant change since some obvious point in past (previous financial report, previous month stats, etc). Sure it should remain for the sake of consistency (otherwise the readers can't tell whether the change they expect to be reported as it is in similar articles was ever measured). As it is mostly used in space-sensitive context (prose is definitely preferred elsewhere), it shouldn't come with any inline caption. I don't think that equals sign is a viable replacement, as "income =123" doesn't really suggests that change of income was compared, and the other two counterparts are not mathematical operators. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 23:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant this example here. That is the MTV's song chart. Rising songs (in comparison with the previous ranking last week) are marked with , falling ones with and steady = . Maiō T. (talk) 09:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

All three symbols you propose differ in style, and all of them should not be used in context of numbers (as I explained above). I don't see any necessity to change anything. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I hate that "minus" steady symbol nevertheless. In this table: Snooker world ranking points 2012/2013#Ranking points it looks like a "no ranking in the last edition". Equals sign could be better. Or this compromise solution (arrow to the right). Maiō T. (talk) 20:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Though I don't see a problem with minus in that article (it is crystal clear that it shows lack of change, not lack of ranking IMO). Arrow symbol is inconsistent and counter-intuitive. What does exactly the direction of the arrow mean in this case? Why is this arrow stylistically different from {{increase}} and {{decrease}}. FWIW the bold dot would better serve the purpose, though still the use of minus is well-establish and never led to any real issues (as opposed to imaginary issues discussed here) before. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 21:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Now watch this! 2010–11_Serie_A_(women's_football)#Table. My new templates look good. Maiō T. (talk) 10:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Can table cells using / be made sortable?

Summary of the 2013 Malaysian Dewan Undangan Negeri election results
* Fraction of total seats in each state rounded to the nearest percent
± Change in number of seats from before the election

	Barisan Nasional			Pakatan Rakyat			Others			Total
State	Seats	*	±	Seats	*	±	Seats	*	±	Seats
Johor	38	68%	12	18	32%	12	0	0%		56
Kedah	21	58%	7	15	42%	6	0	0%	1	36
Kelantan	12	27%	5	33	73%	5	0	0%		45
Malacca	21	75%	2	7	25%	2	0	0%		28
Negeri Sembilan	22	61%	1	14	39%	1	0	0%		36
Pahang	30	71%	8	12	29%	8	0	0%		42
Penang	10	25%	1	30	75%	1	0	0%		40
Perak	31	53%	3	28	47%	1	0	0%	4	59
Perlis	13	87%		2	13%		0	0%		15
Sabah	48	80%	9	11	18%	10	1	2%	1	60
Selangor	12	21%	9	44	79%	10	0	0%		56
Terengganu	17	53%	7	15	47%	7	0	0%		32
Total	275	54%	32	229	45%	41	1	0%	7	505

Hello!

Is there a clever way to add hidden characters to the HTML code so that table cells using these templates sort correctly?

For example, clicking the sorting icons in the table on the right seems to order the values randomly.

Thanks, cmɢʟee୯ ͡° ̮د ͡° ੭ 20:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Steady template

In addition to the {steady} and {nochange} () template wording, also add {stable} as it indicates stability. Cheers, Luxure Σ 11:21, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

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Discussion at Template talk:Increase § Size parameter

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Increase § Size parameter. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:54, 16 August 2020 (UTC)