User talk:Sonny Day

Harold Hopkins

Glad to see your editing on HH. I started the page in the summer and am delighted to see how it has grown.

(I used to live round the corner in Barnet 1951-59; I was friendly with his son Tim: my borther knew Kelvin quite well.)

Do you have any contact with Tim perchance?

Johnbibby (talk) 13:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What the deuce

The answer to both questions is 'because there was a 20-line gap between the top of the page and the text'. The infobox should run alongside the text, not on top of it. Ironholds (talk) 18:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank-you for your prompt reply. I can see from other biography sites that your layout is the norm for Wiki and I will therefore conform. However I think it is illogical and certainly very clumsy and unaesthetic. The title tells you you have arrived at a certain article. The info box hopefully either confirms you have found the article you were seeking or gives you an idea of where you've ended up and therefore I would place this underneath the title - followed by the summary opening paragraph. Of course if you are familiar with the Wiki layout you might immediately look at the info box regardless of location - but even if you are, then this layout leaves the eye/mind wandering around the top of the page in a most unsatisfactory fashion. The ugliness and discordance of the usual position of the 'contents box' adds further to this visual confusion - frequently leaving a gaping white-space (often of twelve lines or more) bang in the middle of the opening page. As presumably space costs nothing on Wiki and vertical scrolling is acceptable and familiar to most people then I personally cannot see the benefit of the Wiki layout - quite the contrary. My original layout had the info-box at the top (actually I wanted it on the left) - followed by the definitive opening paragraph, both visible immediately on even a small laptop screen. This provided the casual visitor with a simple, direct, uncluttered, aesthetically balanced and logical opening page. The contents box should, I believe follow underneath - and below that the main body of the article. Whilst wasting paper is criminal, one luxury of online publishing is using layout with spaces to promote clarity. I am very interested to know why I am wrong about this. Sonny Day (talk) 09:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of the opening paragraph and the infobox is not to inform the user that they have come to the right page but rather to give a 'summarised' version of the page; the opening paragraphs are meant to contain a summed-up version of the article, while the infobox does the same thing for a few key facts. You might want to look at WP:LEAD for the logic/policy behind it.Ironholds (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sock-puppet

Of Kelvin Hopkins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.69.250 (talk) 11:52, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]