Template talk:Okina

TFD

The template was kept. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 18. -Splash^talk 23:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Disruption to articles

I don't have an opinion on the merits, but Kauai is almost unreadable with the text < ‹The template Okina has been proposed for deletion here.› inserted in almost every line and caption of the article. Isn't it possible to proceed is a less disruptive manner? --Walter Siegmund (talk) 07:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the TFD notice here to the talk page to avoid disrupting pages using it. --Angr (tɔk) 12:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Having [] boxes all over the place for all Internet Explorer users on Windows is unacceptable. This template needs to be replaced by a symbol like ` that more than 20% of Internet users can view correctly, while the template is removed in Hawai`i articles over some period of time in favor of the symbol. Then once that has been done, delete the template. The only reason the vote for deletion didn't go through was because it messed up existing articles that used the template. But they're already messed up. Hawai[]i looks terrible. It doesn't matter if it's Windows' fault or Microsoft's fault or IE's fault. If this were a printed encyclopedia would the reader care about technical details like that, if they had to put up with "Moloka[]i"? -socalifornia 08:50, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I can't see it either (on a new computer with IE 6.0.2900). See also debate on Hawaii. I changed this into a simple ' character for now which defeats the purpose of the template but at least it works. If anyone can make a template which actually works for this, perhaps it might be good. Rmhermen 15:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but not without reservations. We all hope that there will be one day that mister Microsoft will repent, I look forward to it, but until the day that unicode 0x02BB is generally available (I would say on 90% of the computers), we shall have to live with the { {okina} } template. Well, it could be worse. But please do not take 0x0027 as replacement, then at least 0x2018.

Perhaps the idea of User:Agent_X in Talk:Okina is not so bad after all. --Tauʻolunga 21:52, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

No. If there's a problem, you fix the browser, you don't "fix" Wikipedia. I'm making sure it stays the proper Unicode ʻokina. - Gilgamesh 21:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Is this a wise decision? In that case people who see [] (boxes) may change articles, resulting in even worse edit wars with those who see ʻ (apostrophes), as in fact now already happens. Using 0x2018 then at least is a compromis for the time being. --Tauʻolunga 03:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

If other users change them, they are wrong. Using the one cross-platform standard is neutral point of view. Catering to one browser on one operating system is majoritarian, and thus quite POV. By changing just for broken non-standard browsers like IE, you're letting IE alone—rather than the international standards—dictate policy on Wikipedia, breaking the NPOV rules. I'm very sorry that IE is broken as it is, but if you have a problem with it, you either report it to Microsoft, change your browser, or live with the rectangles. I will abide by existing transparent international standards—the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Unicode Consortium, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the various authorities for language standardization. This is standard Hawaiian, in standard Unicode, which uses standard ʻokina, and that's the way it is. This has been a known issue in IE for a long time, and it hasn't been fixed in years. I would suggest you install Unicode fonts like Code2000, and also use a browser like Mozilla Firefox with a tidier text display engine—unlike IE, it will scour your installed fonts for missing font glyph mappings, and mix and match multiple fonts in the same text if necessary. - Gilgamesh 12:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

It is fine with me, Macintosh users do not have this problem in the first place, and I am a big promotor of 0x02BB myself. But most people are not as enlightened as you are. I found some other people getting very angry on ME when I use this template because THEIR computer cannot do it. --Tauʻolunga 05:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Anger is human nature, and those who get angry at you are misdirecting their anger. Those who can understand, will understand, and direct their attentions where they will be productive. Those who prefer to stay angry at you are choosing to be boorish, and they indulge their fundamentally inadequate software rather than fixing their situation for themselves on their end. You can either try to please everyone whether it's right or not, or you can just do the proper thing, and let the chronically displeased make their own choices. And who knows...maybe if the box problem keeps lingering with IE, people will begin to see the box as a glyph variant of the ʻokina. - Gilgamesh 08:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:'okina?

Why is it that this template uses another template within itself, and why is it that the first template uses the glyph that is incompatible for IE users, instead of the Unicode variant (and is named via the use of an apostrophe)? Ryulong 02:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I recently editted Template:'okina so that instead of the symbol, I made it ʻ, which still creates the symbol when used, to the best of my knowledge, as I use Internet Explorer.--Ryulong 02:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The {{okina}} is the general-use template for most situations, especially for Hawaiian English, and it is equivilent to {{Unicode|{{'okina}}}}. But since the {{Unicode}} template uses the HTML <span></span> tags, using this template in other templates that use these HTML tags will cause it to break. So, in such circumstances, it is more appropriate to use {{'okina}} itself, even though it is slightly less IE-has-been-broken-for-years-friendly. - Gilgamesh 02:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

So it is more useful to use {{okina}} which in its own coding uses {{'okina}} which used the unitelligible symbol (to IE users, the broken box) instead of the Unicode hex values? Because {{okina}}(ʻ) looks like a skinny box, {{'okina}}(ʻ) looks like a fat box, and {{okina}} when bolded (ʻ) looks like this [, but shorter. Ryulong 03:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's because of the {{Unicode}} tag. It references a stylesheet that specifies a list of readily available fonts that display a large variety of Unicode characters. The browser displays the first font in the list that's installed on the user's system. And this is how IE is broken—when any font is specified (including Wikipedia's basic display stylesheet such as Monobook.css that, if I'm correct, specifies Verdana by default, which does not support ʻokina), IE displays the contained text in that font and only that font, even if the text contains characters the font doesn't support. Mozilla-based browsers and Safari go through this font selection process for every single character in the text (and looks for additional installed fonts if none in the font list support a character), which allows elegant implicit mixing of fonts in the same text as needed. This is broken in IE because this behavior—as with so much other IE behavior—has been left all but unchanged for years. When IE became the dominant browser, they stopped adding new features for years, because they weren't being forced to. They have only been forced to gradually add new popular features with the rising popularity of Firefox. - Gilgamesh 06:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for clearing that up. So, once again, it's all Microsoft's fault. Ryulong 06:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

My latest modifications to {{'okina}} and {{okina}}

I have recently editted {{'okina}} so that the okina is shown through a font that Windows has and can be seen through Internet Explorer. Now users of IE will not see the evil box, and will instead see the 'Okina that WikiProject Hawaiʻi has strived for. Ryūlóng 20:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I had no problems before, so I cannot test it, but would this then finally after all these months, years, and all these angry words and heated debates, be the solution? --Tauʻolunga 06:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I use Internet Explorer, and I see the ʻokina fine now. It's no longer a giant box, or a small box. It's what it should be in any internet browser, as long as Lucida Sans Unicode is on someone's computer. Ryūlóng 08:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I am somewhat confused here - shouldn't the ‘okina be ‘ instead of ʻ as done by this template? Or does the correct ‘okina not work properly with the wretched MSIE? Dysmorodrepanis 19:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't specify fonts for other browsers

Since this template is meant to work around a bug in MSIE, it should be changed to use the same technique as template:IPA and template:Unicode, using styles in common.css to change the font specification for MSIE only, and not affect the display for other browsers. —Michael Z. 2006-08-16 19:05 Z

Simply done by changing it to <span class="Unicode">. — Edokter • Talk • 00:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

There are 16 fonts in .Unicode before Lucida Sans Unicode. Unless you can tell me that they all include the okina, then this problem is not fixed by that method. —Michael Z. 2009-02-14 20:28 z

HTML

{{editprotected}} Why don't we use <span style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'"> instead of <font face="Lucida Sans Unicode">. This way, it would be more standards-friendly and XHTML-conforming. It would still work in IE. --Ysangkok 20:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 01:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Mass subst, moved From User_talk:KelleyCook

Can you explain why you are changing the okina to unicode when we have problems with the unicode displaying in all browsers? And can you explain why you haven't discussed this global change without informing anyone? Are you aware of why the template is being used in the first place? Please see the discussion about the bug in MSIE here. Viriditas (talk) 04:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please stop and let the discussion catch up to your actions. Mahalo. --Ali'i 16:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

First of all thank you for your comments and concerns. The WP:BRD style change was because the okina template, which was only a hack around the eventually added correct change, has like many of the other MSIE templates already retired, out-lived it is usefulness. Which means it is has come time to fix the problem. Even for IE6, it was just a matter of not forcing configuring the browser to force a particular non-unicode compatible font before you use Wikipedia which is the same as for thousands of articles using Unicode fonts not just the ʻOkina character. (See the discussion at {{Unicode}}, which is in process of being replaced by {{lang}}). So to test my hypothesis, I've slowly been changing Key spots such as the highly visible Hawaiʻi article a week ago[1], Hawaiian Language and semi-ironically ʻOkina. Notice that no one has complained nor reverted those changes.

The obvious next step in my WP:BRD was to get to a wider audience. I chose to do this by a substing the use of ʻokina in the 52 transcluded templates which were in turn using {{okina}} as this ended up affected thousands of pages (the most bang for the buck, as it were). And then see if people complained about the rendering on those pages. You reverted the {{Hawaii}} pair. The other 50 have not (yet) been reverted. So are you actually seeing a problem? If so which browser are you using? -- KelleyCook (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've looked at the pages on a wide variety of browsers, unsurprisingly, IE 5 on an old Windows 2000 box failed and though I don't have one handy I suspect anyone using Windows 9x is screwed, but those also won't work for most of the Unicode characters present on thousands of pages. Linux and OSX platforms have performed as expected.

On the assumption that no-one is complaining about a real and uncorrectable problem, my next course of action was to wait a few weeks and then simply re-open the failed 2006 WP:TFD for {{okina}}

Of course if my hypothesis proves to be false and mass hysteria breaks out, I have the list of modified pages and it will be easy to subst the ʻokina back on the 54 pages I changed.

Now onto the bigger issue of what harm does {{okina}} cause. Besides the point that this is the ONLY template designed to render a single character, it makes editing much more unreadable than it needs to be -- KelleyCook (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I self-reverted because I have no evidence that your change is any better or worse than the okina template. In the future, it would be very helpful if you could drop the appropriate WikiProjects a brief line on the talk page before you make a series of changes. I appreciate that you were bold, and I support active experimentation, but I don't think a warning of your upcoming edits would have changed the outcome. Now, I do have some questions: 1) For browsers that don't support unicode (legacy, mobile browsers, etc) is there any significant difference between using the template instead of the unicode? 2) Does the template prevent editors who lack unicode support or have misconfigured fonts from using the wrong character? 3) Are the concerns raised in Okina#Tentative_approximations still valid? If so, how does the use of the template address them, if at all? 4) If you are trying to deprecate the template, shouldn't you be going through TfD first? Viriditas (talk) 10:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know all of the techno-lingo, all I know is that using {{okina}} works for me, but all that I see with this new way is a little box. I believe I'm using IE6. Something I'm missing? Mahalo. --Ali'i 15:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

So, it worked for you previously with the okina template? If there are large numbers of people still using IE6, shouldn't we be insuring backward compatibility? Wasn't that the reason it was in use? Surely the foundation can release the numbers of people using which browser so we can have actual numbers here? Viriditas (talk) 02:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

At this time the title of ʻOkina in the top browser bar looks messed up as does the <h1> heading of the article (does not look like an okina) in Firefox 3.0.19, a browser just over 2 years old. –Newportm (talk • contribs) 03:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What is this for?

Someone please add some documentation explaining exactly what the purpose of this template is. Is it meant only for MSIE, as implied by the category it's in? If so, then why is a CSS font declaration being applied in all browsers? Why is there no fallback font specified? There's an argument going on, and there isn't even any basis to decide who is right.

I asked about this over two years ago. Since there hasn't been any response, I'm going to move the declaration to MediaWiki:Common.css, declare it so that it doesn't affect other browsers, so that you MSIE users can keep having fun arguing amongst yourselves about nothing, without changing the display in Wikipedia for everyone who went to the trouble of getting a web browser that supports Unicode. —Michael Z. 2009-02-13 15:51 z

I've posted a request to add style sheet support at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Template:Okina. This would allow the template to only affect MSIE.

I suggest you guys finalize the CSS declaration. —Michael Z. 2009-02-13 15:59 z

My mistake; I see the controversy is over whether to use the template, not over what the CSS declaration should be. Since it's stable, then it's safe to move it to the style sheet and that shouldn't affect this discussion. If it's decided to retire the template, then it can be removed from the style sheet then. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2009-02-13 16:06 z

Using template:lang

I believe that the Okina only appears in Polynesian languages, and not in English. If so, then that would mean that, for example, {{lang|haw|ʻokina}} could replace this template completely, and a CSS language selector in the style sheet could format Hawaiian text for MSIE, killing two birds with one stone.

Note that this implies that in articles we would cite the Hawaiian name Hawaiʻi and Hawaiian term ʻokina, but in regular English prose we would refer to the state of Hawaii and the okina, with regular English orthography. I'm not sure if this is the case, because even the article ʻOkina is not consistent. If it is, then it should be mentioned in the MOS.

See also Wikipedia:MOS#Foreign terms. —Michael Z. 2009-02-13 16:40 z

I don't think that would work. Hawaiian words, like other loanwords are often used in English (182 listed in the 1962 Third Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, probably more today), and it is standard practice to use the okina even though some authors have a bad habit of removing it, and historically, it was rarely used on some islands (Niihau), and didn't begin to be used with more frequency until after WWII. The state of Hawaii is generally referred to as "Hawaii", but the island of Hawaii is usually called Hawaiʻi. See also: MOS:HAWAII, where you may want to discuss this on its talk page. Viriditas (talk)

No, I don't think I want to get into that discussion. Just checking if that was a possible solution. There is a line somewhere where people using a defective browser might be confronted with the fact that they have to live with less than 100% functionality.

Out of curiosity, does Webster's use the Okina in any English headwords or alternative spellings, in '62 or today? Do we know of any other major reference publications or style guides which do? —Michael Z. 2009-02-14 06:35 z

I'm not sure if they do or not, but the okina is considered to be the eighth consonant in the Hawaiian language and is treated as a letter that changes the meaning of the word, so it is important to use. Viriditas (talk) 10:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I assume then that it is not used in English words of Hawaiian origin. But it could be used when Hawaiian proper nouns are mentioned in English prose. Proper nouns are normally not marked up as foreign, so in this situation formatting it for broken browsers still requires {{okina}}, and can't be accomplished with a language tag. —Michael Z. 2009-02-14 15:58 z

I see the MOS:HI only states that the okina is used in Hawaiian, but itself uses the Hawaiian orthography in proper names in English prose. This is a pretty common convention in Wikipedia in general, for example in European names. —Michael Z. 2009-02-14 06:46 z

The importance of the ʻokina is represented in a federal bill (U.S.A.) as well: Hawaiian National Park Language Correction Act of 2000 (S. 939). As for the technical part: the similarity between other diacritical marks and the UTF-8 standard for the ʻokina (U 02BB) could be another reason to maintain the template {{okina}}, because it's easier to check the correct spelling in the source code. --ThT (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

"Used" or "not used" in English words of Hawaiian origin is a grey area. Many people do, and many people don't. For the people who do, using the ʻokina and kahakō is not a foreign spelling. People who speak English who are more connected with Hawaiʻi are probably more likely to use it. But if it's mainly in or among Hawaiʻi, then so what? It's a regional English text variation, as valid as labor vs. labour. I feel very dirty and unclean stripping English words of Hawaiian origin from their Hawaiian markings, mainly with the hard-negotiated acception of the word "Ha·waii·an" itself because of its inherently different three-syllable (not four-syllable) development. If people were to pronounce "Ha·wai·i·an" as four syllables, then it whether to use the ʻokina would surely be an issue. - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• In additiona to Viriditas' citation of Websters, the citation of usage in official documents of branches of federal and state governments establish the okina as a proper letter to use for some place names and words. It is a letter in common usage in Hawaii and should not be regarded as a pronunciation aid. Without the okina these names do have alternate spellings that are often deprecated because they promote mispronunciation. It is not limited to proper names or extremely obscure words, for example "a'a" occurs nearly as often as "aa" when discussing lava in .gov documents, and the interest is avoiding confusion due to incorrect pronunciation, not the avoidance of offending local sensibilities. Dictionaries may omit the okina, but usage dictates language, not dictionaries, and official government documents recognize these spellings. It should be recognized that larger issues form the subtext of this discussion. This may be regarded by some as an exercise in political correctness, but regardless- the spelling is an accepted spelling. IMHO, it should be the dominant spelling. Global information doesn't mean that local identity should be pidgin'ed to conform to majoritarian ignorance. Ironically, it is the majority that does not recognized its distortion is a pidgin, and instead characterizes the local subcultures as using a pidgin form of english. This tendency is not to be avoided simply because it is culturally arrogant. When we lose distinctiveness, we cheat everyone of the rich flavor of the world. English is morphing into a lingua franca for the world, and as such the trend for its orthography is for growth in the incorporation of symbols that help avoid confusion. Aloha, -J JMesserly (talk) 19:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Named character entity

It seems like a better practice would be for the wikimedia engine to define and support additional custom SGML named character entities, such as &okina;. This can be converted on the fly during source to html conversion. Is this on the table?--Bxj (talk) 23:09, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Link to the page on the okina

Should the okina added by the template link to the Wikipedia page on the okina? FokkerTISM 05:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)