Talk:Wiktionary/logo/Archives/2006

Logo letters

To avoid any problems à la Wikipedia logo, I've decided to list all the letters used here, and if anyone (especially native speakers) can find any problems, feel free to suggest better letters:

• W (Latin alphabet) (Change to A has been suggested)
• श (Devanagari) (Change to अ has been suggested)
• 한 (Korean) (Change to 말 has been suggested)
• シ (Japanese) (Change to ウィ has been suggested)
• ﺵ (Arabic)
• λ (Greek)
• Ж (Cyrillic)
• 维 (Simplified Chinese)
• ש (Hebrew)

Thanks for your input, Smurrayinchester 16:06, ovember 2006 (UTC)

Suggest better letters? Better for what? Are glyphs chosen at random or by silly shape (シ, Ж, ש), or are they chosen to resemble each other (W, Ж, ש)? Are they supposed to they convey a meaning (W[iktionary] = first glyph of the project's name)? If so, perhaps the intended meaning should be stated so appropriate glyphs can be chosen.

My guess is that except for the Latin and Simplified Chinese glyphs for ‘Wiktionary’, no meaning was intended. If so, the Hangul tiles look slightly odd (한han[gul] = name of the glyph's script; 말 = ‘speech, word(s), language’ and could be replaced by some meaningless block such as 가 (first block by dictionary collation). A single jamo (e.g. ㄹ,ㅊ,ㅎ) would be even more neutral. 2006-11-06 04:09

As far as I'm concerned, the logo is fine as it is; I am just curious whether and which glyphs have been deliberately chosen for anything but looks. Wikipediatrician 03:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If we go for silly shapes, may I suggest 웃(looks like a person) for hangul? It is the first block of ‘to laugh’. Wikipediatrician 04:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"Better" so as it wouldn't look silly to the languages' native speakers, as is the case with the Wikipedia logo. For example, the two katakana letters ワィ appearing in the WP logo never come together in Japanese and don't make any sense (and remind me of similar looking ワイ, a vulgar pronoun). A similar case is present in Hindi.
And if the W is going to be changed to A, we might as well part from "Wiktionary" in Hanzi (Chinese characters) too and change 维 (the first letter of Wiktionary) into something else. I suggest 词 or 辞 both meaning "word" or "expression" although I would like to hear some opinions from native speakers if there are any people fluent in Chinese looking at this. --朝彦 (Asahiko) 10:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Surprise, surprise, surprise. I made an announcement at the Japanese Wiktionary, and its editors said they like ウィ, the first letter for ウィクショナリー（Wiktionary）in Japanese katakana. I would never come up with this idea by myself because ウィ appears as if there are two letters. However, in fact, ウ and ィ are inseparable in this case, therefore it is considered as one letter. It is always nice to ask other people’s opinion. As for the Mah Jong style main logo, they will be fine if you use シ or ウィ. Thus, you can continue to use シ if you want. Meanwhile, is it possible to use ウィ for the Japanese favicon? This is the opinion of editors who actually make contribution to the Japanese Wiktionary (its traffic is very s-l-o-o-w, and there are a very few active editors up there, though), and I would like to support their opinion.--Californiacondor 22:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

While ウィ would fit in a 40-pixel image for the "Sister projects" template, it'd be hard, though not impossible, to fit it in a standard 16×16 px favicon. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 09:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

comment - these are for like scrabble tiles, aren't they - would ウィ share a tile in scrabble in Japan? (or, if scrabble is not played there, I don't know, what about crossword puzzles etc, would they be a single grid piece?) --Random832 08:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Erm, nope. Japanese don't have either Scrabble or crosswords, as far as I know; instead, they have number puzzles like en:Sudoku and en:Kakuro. —Nightstallion (?) 18:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Why not ق or و for Arabic? ...Aurora... 11:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Hej, let me cast slightly different colour of light to this issue... though I'm not (at least, not yet) an editor who actually make contribution to the Japanese Wiktionary.

In short, I don't like random letters.

I don't care their appearance at all. Nor which letters in particular you may choose. I just prefer there to be some sort of consistency. Say, if we choose the first letter of each, uh, glyph(?), then I hope they are "A, α, あ", and so forth. OTOH if we decide to go with first letter of "Wiktionary" or equivalent, then "W, 维, ウィ", etc. I believe it's natual and intuitive that one who see this logo thinks "Aha! Perhaps all of these pieces tell the same thing although each letter differ significantly in shape! How inteteresting!" Therefore, what I do not feel great is something similar to: "A, 维, シ, ...", where there's nothing common among them. If the motivated (?) reader somehow get to this truth, I guess s/he'll be disappointed.

... well after all I'm not a contributor and it might be better forget this post... or remove ... or even rvv ... --Marsian 17:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

No, you've got a good point. The logo needs some consistency, and the random selection of letters was one of the criticisms against the current logo. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It should mean the same thing, like a, α, あ (with the same case if possible... but the upper-case A and alpha is almost the same -_-). The first letter of each alphabet would be a much better choice than the W that is only the first letter of the project in each language, in my opinion. - Darkdadaah 21:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

My original intent was to try and have the same sound for every letter (Shi, which is particularly common), but many alphabets (Latin for one) don't have this sound. I'll have a go at an alpha (or omega) version. Smurrayinchester 22:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I've hit rather a stumbling block; Greek Alpha, Latin A and Cyrillic A are identical, and I can't find the first letter of quite a few languages (esp. Chinese). I'll have a go at a Wikt one instead. One reason I chose the letters was uniqueness; each letter is unique to a writting system (although Japanese may use some chinese characters, they don't occur in any other alphabets. Many Latin-Greek-Cyrillic letters are very similar/identical (A, B, H, C, I, K etc.) Indeed, W is one of the few which is unique to Latin. As far as leeway is concerned, I'd only really be happy with D, F, G, Q, W or Z for alternative Latin letters, as these are both distinctive and eyecatching. Of these, only W has an possible meaning (Wiktionary or Words), so I chose that one. Smurrayinchester 22:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support the selection of "W" for the Wiktionaries that use it as the first letter of their respective names. To me, no other letter makes sense. —David Levy 23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

 Support Smurrayinchester. --Californiacondor 22:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

While I agree there might not be anything similar among Chinese characters, I don't quite see the problem in having a single glyph/shape (A) represent three alphabets (Greek, Latin and Cyrillic) at once. Wikipediatrician 03:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't perceive that as a problem, but using the character(s) with which the name of each language's Wiktionary begins makes far more sense to me. —David Levy 05:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine either way, especially if there is consistency in choosing what is displayed. Wikipediatrician 15:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The letter “Ж” is probably the third most disreputable Cyrillic letter (after “Ё” and “Х”) as far as Russian is concerned. Then again, maybe I'm just imagining it. Anyway, just my 2¢.

--Schwallex 22:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

How do you mean disreptuable? Smurrayinchester 18:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know why this letter in arabic , ﺵ . Does it stand for something?

Not especially, but it is sounded as "shi" which is nice symmetry with シ and ש, which are also "shi"s. Smurrayinchester 12:45, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't like using A just because it's the same in three of the scripts, and I find the Japanese character really distracting because it looks like a smily to me. Atropos 03:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm perhaps late but I suggest as for Chinese character on it, 維 is better. 百家姓之四 06:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Minor problem with shape inconsistency

The depicted glyphs differ in stroke width (fixed width in シ, श, 언 vs. variable in λ, W, ﺵ, Ж, 维, ש), serifs (micro-serif in シ; brush offset marks in 维 but none in 언) and case. This may be intended, but I think uniformity would look even better, for example if all glyphs were uppercase, sans-serif, fixed stroke width. Wikipediatrician 04:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Scaled?

I think this logo is a poor choice. An important aspect of a good logo is how well it stands up to being scaled:

Remember that one very prominent use of this logo is at the bottom of the Wikipedia main page - where it's drawn at 51 pixels:

Meh...looks pretty terrible at this scale. SteveBaker 23:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The multi-tile logo isn't intended for display at such a small size. That's what the single-tile version is for. Here's what it will look like on the Wikipedia main page:

—David Levy 00:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Urgh. That's just nasty. Oh well - it's probably too late now. SteveBaker 03:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I like it a great deal. —David Levy 04:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I second that. Simple and easy to see. --朝彦 (Asahiko) 04:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

SteveBaker, don’t make me laugh!

This logo was not my choice. However, the logo was selected by votes and I support the decision. Still, I think we ought to change the letter on the single-tile version. O.K. Dubya?--Californiacondor 16:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you please elaborate? Are you seriously suggesting that the "W" would be associated with George W. Bush (rather than Wiktionary), or was that merely a humorous aside? —David Levy 16:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

During the U.S. Presidential campaign in 2000 or 2004 (I can’t remember which one), George W. Bush supporters were given and/or were sporting an oval-shape bumper sticker with a large prominent letter “W” in the middle (I am sure that there were other fine prints on the sticker, and there might have been horizontal lines on the both side of the letter, though). If I remember correctly, the letter “W” was tilted in an angle just like in the single-tile version posted the above. Hang on. Let’s me see if I can find an image of the sticker somewhere because my memory is bad. Don’t believe what I have written until I find the image.--Californiacondor 17:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Specific bumper stickers aside, I realize that supporters of George W. Bush frequently display the letter "W." Nonetheless, it's contextually obvious that this "W" stands for "Wiktionary," and it seems very unlikely that many people would associate it with Bush or any other politician. Until you raised the issue (and I initially suspected that you were joking), the concept never crossed my mind. —David Levy 18:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Don’t jump to conclusion. I am more concerned about similarities between the particular bumper sticker and the single-tile logo in design. That’s why I asked you to wait. (I may or may not find an image of the bumper sticker, but either way, I will let you know.) I am concerned this because, if I remember correctly once again, the particular bumper sticker was issued by either the GOP itself or one of its PACs. This never crossed my mind either until I read SteveBaker's comment. Meanwhile, why don’t we clarify with SteveBaker why he thinks that the logo is “nasty”? Anyway, I am going to read archives to find out why a change from W to A has been suggested as noted by Smurrayinchester. --Californiacondor 19:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Because W isn't present in all the languages that use alphabets, if I remember correctly. An A would represent more languages than W would. --朝彦 (Asahiko) 20:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

We already plan to create different versions of the logo for different writing systems. Logically, each written language based upon the Latin alphabet (or some derivative thereof) should use whichever letter comes first in the name of its Wiktionary. For example, the Catalan Wiktionary (Viccionari) should use the letter "V." —David Levy 22:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Let's assume that your recollection of the bumper sticker is accurate. It doesn't make any difference, as this is an obscure, Americentric fact. As far as I know, the icon doesn't strongly resemble any well-known emblem, and I doubt that we could find a different letter that isn't vaguely reminiscent of something in some culture. (Perhaps Clement Attlee used a tilted "A" in his campaign materials.)

2. It's contextually obvious that Steve simply doesn't care for the icon's aesthetic appearance. —David Levy 22:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Plus, every other project of {LANGUAGENAME} can link to the {LANGUAGENAME} Wiktionary by using just the scrabble tile with *their* script on it, so it's very fair towards all languages! :) —Nightstallion (?) 16:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Favicon

When I open a Ffx tab with only Wiktfav_smurrayinchester.png in it, the downsized image that displays in the tab handle doesn't look good at all – I suppose this is not how the final favicon will display (please excuse my ignorance in digital graphics)? The tile's thin dark outline only shows near the corners, and the W is a bit hard to discern because the right upward stroke is broken. I suggest the W's thin strokes be thickened, and the tile's outline disposed of, or thickened. Wikipediatrician 04:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I've reuploaded it as an SVG: Image:Wiktfavicon en.svg. How does that look? Smurrayinchester 16:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, much better now. I like. Wikipediatrician 22:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it would help further if the 16×16 favicon weren't tilted like the full-size one is? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 01:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Wikipediatrician 12:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Recommendation for new Devanagari letter in logo.

A better choice of a Devanagari letter would be अ (Devanagari vowel a). The current choice, श (Devanagari consonant sha), is a bit obscure. Not that अ is not obscure to those who don't know Devanagari, but it is the first letter of the writing system and can be used in a logo to represent the script. Sarayuparin 03:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

To the page as a whole, and this thread:

Please see-also en:User talk:Ambuj.Saxena/Wikipedia-logo for the most current discussion on fixing Wikipedia's logo's problems. Thanks :) Quiddity 01:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)