Talk:Pacific Island Guide to Family History Research

I love to see authors get credit for their work. But the nature of a Wiki is that it is a community product. Consider letting the history page show who contributed to this article without the more formal author attribution. Diltsgd 16:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It is crucial that all readers see the top of the Table of Contents without having to scroll. I re-jiggered the image sizes in order to maximize the amount of Table of Contents that appears above the fold (scroll) on all sizes of computer monitor. When the images are too large they crowd out text and push the Table of Contents down. If the Table of Contents is not visible on smaller monitors the whole purpose of this page is voided.

The reason I moved the first image back to the top of the page was partly to make room on larger monitors for more of the Table of Contents, but also, because I believe the image is more inviting and enticing than the text, and I prefer to see the beautiful image as close to the top of the page as possible. In my opinion it enhances, rather than detracts from the headers to the left of it. If the image appears below the text, it is dominated by the text, and should somehow be more directly related to the text (the forward), rather than being an attractive illustration for the whole set of related pages.

Yes, the images would be better if they could be larger, but not at the cost of making the Table of Contents disappear from bottom of smaller monitors. I would rather remove the images entirely than push the Table of Contents down too far so it become invisible without scrolling. The primary reason I added the images was to make the page more interesting and colorful. Yes, the map is difficult to read. But the map cannot replace the Table of Contents. If the map image is too large it crowds the list of island groups on the Table of Contents. Unfortunately, for people unfamiliar with geography, too large of a map makes the Table of Contents much more difficult to understand, because it forces what should be one line to word-wrap into two lines that look like separate places. I believe the majority of Wiki users understand that images can be enlarged by clicking them. In the case of this map it actually says that on the map. If the map is so large it makes the Table of Contents confusing, we have misused the map. The illustration should never distort the text to the point of creating confusion.

Another aspect of the design of this page which was not affected by changes was that the illustrations were also placed so they would help readers to understand more text and Table of Contents would be visible if they would scroll. By placing the images in carefully selected spots at least one partial image appears whenever a full image is displayed. This shows the reader more is available if he scrolls. Diltsgd 16:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)