Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial: Difference between revisions

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== Row with blank data ==

I created a table, which has became the subject of an edit war between admins and an anon editor. The table is as below (prior to the edit war):

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align: left; border-spacing: 2px; border: 1px solid darkgray;"

|+List of special service brigades

! width="15%" scope="col" |Formation name

! width="5%" scope="col" |Date formed

! width="5%" scope="col" |Wartime date ceased to exist

! width="5%" scope="col" |Location(s) served

! width="10%" scope="col" |Notable campaign(s)

! class="unsortable" width="55%" scope="col" |Notes

! class="unsortable" width="5%" scope="col" |Source(s)

|-

! scope="row" align="center" |[[1st Special Service Brigade]]

| align="center" |{{dts|November 1943}}

| align="center" |N/A

| align="center" |Italy, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany

| align="center" |[[Allied invasion of Sicily]], [[Operation Overlord|Normandy]], [[Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine]], [[Western Allied invasion of Germany]]

| align="center" |Redesignated as 1 Commando Brigade, on 6 December 1944.

| align="left" |Source info here

|}

The following is the edit that is made, which has been reverted.

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align: left; border-spacing: 2px; border: 1px solid darkgray;"

|+List of special service brigades

! width="15%" scope="col" |Formation name

! width="5%" scope="col" |Date formed

! width="5%" scope="col" |Wartime date ceased to exist

! width="5%" scope="col" |Location(s) served

! width="10%" scope="col" |Notable campaign(s)

! class="unsortable" width="55%" scope="col" |Notes

! class="unsortable" width="5%" scope="col" |Source(s)

|-

! scope="row" align="center" |[[1st Special Service Brigade]]

| align="center" |{{dts|November 1943}}

|{{N/A}}

| align="center" |Italy, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany

| align="center" |[[Allied invasion of Sicily]], [[Operation Overlord|Normandy]], [[Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine]], [[Western Allied invasion of Germany]]

| align="center" |Redesignated as 1 Commando Brigade, on 6 December 1944.

| align="left" |Source info here

|}

Does the template <nowiki>{{N/A}}</nowiki> conform to the MOS for a table such as this? Should it be used or not?[[User:EnigmaMcmxc|EnigmaMcmxc]] ([[User talk:EnigmaMcmxc|talk]]) 11:55, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

:{{re|EnigmaMcmxc}} I couldn't find any recommended styles for empty cells. Maybe someone else might find something? I found a similar unanswered question here: [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Empty cells]]. If the intention is to indicate that the data wasn't overlooked as a blank cell might suggest, then using either one seems sufficient to me. [[Template:N/a]], which displays an em dash, is used on approximately 47,000 pages, so in a way you could say it is an acceptable option. I don't know the number of "N/A" uses, but [[N/A]] indicates that it is a "common abbreviation in tables". Using one over the other seems more like a preference since to me they both indicate the same thing. Regardless of which one is used, it should match the same usage in other tables found on the same page and follow consensus.

:Just to see what other manuals of style suggest, I searched and found the Chicago Manual of Style suggested using an em dash, ellipsis, n/a, or n.d. with some rules around the latter two abbreviations (see [https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/91315/how-to-represent-no-data-cells-in-html-tables]). Note, the Chicago MoS doesn't dictate Wikipedia's MoS.

:{{tq|Section 3.65: Empty cells. If a column head does not apply to one of the entries in the stub, the cell should either be left blank or, better, filled in by an em dash or three unspaced ellipsis dots. If a distinction is needed between "not applicable" and "no data available," a blank cell may be used for the former and an em dash or ellipsis dots for "no data" ... If this distinction is not clear from the text, a note may be added to the table. (Alternatively, the abbreviations n/a and n.d. may be used, with definitions given in a note.) A zero means literally that the quantity in a cell is zero....}} [[User:Jroberson108|Jroberson108]] ([[User talk:Jroberson108|talk]]) 13:46, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

:As an added note, the "N/a" template uses the "data-sort-value" attribute, so sorting it versus the "N/A" text may order them differently unless the same attribute is used on the text version. [[User:Jroberson108|Jroberson108]] ([[User talk:Jroberson108|talk]]) 14:14, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

::Thank you for the in-depth response on this. I played around with the table, although it is very limited, and both seem to sort in the same manner. I guess with the widespread use of the template and outside style manuals saying that is more preferable, I think I can end the edit war with using that template.[[User:EnigmaMcmxc|EnigmaMcmxc]] ([[User talk:EnigmaMcmxc|talk]]) 17:25, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

== MOS:COLHEAD potential workaround? ==

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== Better describe the problem of missing captions for screen reader users (SRUs)? ==

Do we need to expand on the issue of missing captions? I ask because '''so many data tables do not have a caption''', suggesting that editors are unaware of the problems caused where one is missing. For example, a SRU can call up a list of tables on a page, each labelled by their caption. Where the caption is missing, the table is announced along the lines of "6 columns, 20 rows" by [[VoiceOver]]. I suspect that other software says something similar. Unless the user is a mind-reader (!), this is no good at all. What do others think? What can we do? I coulddo not want to spend my whole editing career adding captions to existing tables.! [[User:CrazyBuilder|<span style="color: #db0000">Crazy</span><span style="color: #3c78b4">Builder</span>]] [[User talk:CrazyBuilder|talk]] 20:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)