Template talk:Unicode chart Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms

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Reverted note. It's useful but misplaced. It should be in one of the articles that includes that chart. Individual characters aren't footnoted and if they were, there would be hundreds of footnotes in the charts.

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The following, unsigned comment was added to my user page. I've copied it here so any discussion could have a wider audience:

While I'm not dismissing your decision out of hand, on many pages individual characters are footnoted, if there's something special about them. Your argument that we'd have hundreds of footnotes is clearly a straw man.
A downside of trying to put the note in the specific Unicode block article is that the direct connection between the character and the note gets lost. I know from experience that this makes it harder to find information about a specific character.
But if you really think this footnote clutters up the Hangul article too much (and if you do, shouldn't the other two be removed also?) why not use some template magic that makes the footnote only appear on pages that ask for it?

Here's my reply:

There are four standard notes: version, grey/non-assigned, black/noncharacter, and deprecated. I'm aware of only four templates with custom note(s):

The Emoji template includes two additional references, but it isn't a Unicode block.
Hangul Jamo has two custom notes explaining green/white background highlighting.
Miscellaneous Symbols has two custom notes about omitted and inherited characters, but only if the emoticons parm is passed (using template magic)
Sutton SignWriting has a custom note of "U+1D84D, U+1D84F, U+1D851, U+1D85C, U+1D85E, U+1D8F6, U+1D904 shown with modifier U+1DA9B SW-F2".

None of the notes are anchored to an individual code point cell; they are all anchored to the chart title. I am strongly opposed to changing this convenstion.

I don't think notes about how a character is used belong in the 300+ code chart templates. I see this as a slippery slope that could lead to hundreds of notes. That said, I probably wouldn't have reverted the edit if the anchor had been on the title instead of the individual code point cell. I'm not sure if others would have though. I retain my position that an explaination of how HANGUL FILLER is used should appear in articles and not in the code chart template. DRMcCreedy (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

Agreed that notes on individual characters do not belong in the template, but should be added as text in the appropriate article, in this case Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms (Unicode block). However, the comment "It is meaningless in Unicode" is not appropriate and should be excluded or rewritten to explain exactly how it is meaningless in Unicode. BabelStone (talk) 17:10, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure which code charts are made using templates or not, it doesn't matter to the reader, but your assertion that none of the charts contain notes on individual characters is patently false. There are plenty, see Code page 437#Character_set for just one example. Your slippery slope argument is clearly a straw man, nobody is suggesting to add notes to characters like the individual jamo for example, because one can already see what they are. But HWHF is a mystery character.

I don't see why the other notes are better just because they're linked from the title. If the HWHF had been linked from the title, it would it have been more acceptable, even though it would have been functionally worse? Of course not. I think if notes in character tables are unacceptable, the present two notes should go as well.

Your assertion that the statement that HWHF is meaningless in Unicode is inappropriate is false. The character is obviously meaningless in a Unicode context and if you're too dumb to see why just check the reference provided. And given that it is, that's an exceptional property for a character and it should be noted.

So... 1) Why must the present notes be on the character code templates and why can't they be in the relevant articles?

2) Why is the solution to make (some) notes in the character code template appear only in its main article unacceptable?

3) Would turning the HWHF table cell into a hyperlink that leads to an explanation be acceptable?