Change 370193 had a related patch set uploaded (by Huji; owner: Huji):
[mediawiki/core@master] Show links to blocked user accounts in italic and lighter color

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/370193

Does this patch apply the new style to all users, just logged-in users, or only users with the 'Strike out usernames that have been blocked' gadget enabled? I believe there needs to be a bigger discussion if this is going to apply to anyone other than opted-in users. (@SPoore, do you agree?)

Also, what's wrong with the style of the existing gadget? The slightly dimmed color and strike out combo are effective, in my opinion. And colorblind users would still benefit. Here's a screenshot:

@Jdforrester-WMF — are your accessibility concerns related to colorblindness, or something else in addition? Would a strike-out address this?

Re: style, the concern with italic that I mentioned in T169839#3410406 is that not all scripts/languages have a concept of italicization. (I only know that from hearing anecdotes and from reading https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Internationalization/Styling_and_typography (I think that's the only current documentation about it?) so I cannot help with specifics.)

In T172554#3637033, @TBolliger wrote:

Does this patch apply the new style to all users, just logged-in users, or only users with the 'Strike out usernames that have been blocked' gadget enabled? I believe there needs to be a bigger discussion if this is going to apply to anyone other than opted-in users. (@SPoore, do you agree?)

Possibly butting in here, but I would agree.

Also, what's wrong with the style of the existing gadget? The slightly dimmed color and strike out combo are effective, in my opinion. And colorblind users would still benefit. Here's a screenshot:

I use and love this gadget, but could understand why some might not be able to read the stricken text. I think Nick has a point with italics too; things like Arabic etc don't really have an "italic" the way we think about it.

@Jdforrester-WMF — are your accessibility concerns related to colorblindness, or something else in addition? Would a strike-out address this?

Can't speak for him of course, but I imagine he's concerned about contrast; rgba(67,101,204,0.7) - the colour it outputs links to blocked usernames - seems to fail the AA test.

In T172554#3637292, @jrbs wrote:

In T172554#3637033, @TBolliger wrote:

Does this patch apply the new style to all users, just logged-in users, or only users with the 'Strike out usernames that have been blocked' gadget enabled? I believe there needs to be a bigger discussion if this is going to apply to anyone other than opted-in users. (@SPoore, do you agree?)

Possibly butting in here, but I would agree.

Also, what's wrong with the style of the existing gadget? The slightly dimmed color and strike out combo are effective, in my opinion. And colorblind users would still benefit. Here's a screenshot:

I use and love this gadget, but could understand why some might not be able to read the stricken text. I think Nick has a point with italics too; things like Arabic etc don't really have an "italic" the way we think about it.

@Jdforrester-WMF — are your accessibility concerns related to colorblindness, or something else in addition? Would a strike-out address this?

Can't speak for him of course, but I imagine he's concerned about contrast; rgba(67,101,204,0.7) - the colour it outputs links to blocked usernames - seems to fail the AA test.

Agree with @jrbs on all counts.

In T172554#3637292, @jrbs wrote:

In T172554#3637033, @TBolliger wrote:

@Jdforrester-WMF — are your accessibility concerns related to colorblindness, or something else in addition? Would a strike-out address this?

Can't speak for him of course, but I imagine he's concerned about contrast; rgba(67,101,204,0.7) - the colour it outputs links to blocked usernames - seems to fail the AA test.

Yes, the regular on contrast/colourblindness safety, plus:

• How does any given treatment work for different languages/contexts?
  • Does strike-through make things readable enough, especially for people with limited vision?
    • Foo and 카나다 are both pretty challenging to read.
  • Does italics not working for CJK languages make this complicated?
    • Foo is OK for me to read, but 카나다 is potentially unfamiliar to Korean users.
  • Maybe different treatments in different languages, but then what do you do with Korean names on English wikis and vice versa, not to mention mixed script names ("Foo (카나다)")
• Does a colour+strikethrough treatment sufficiently convey the important information (user is blocked) more than other treatments (Red? Blocked icon decoration? Etc.)
• Is it confusing to users if the colour+strikethrough treatment is the same as used for suppressed ("oversighted") information but conveying different information, potentially occurring in the same space? (Not that it's necessarily the end of the world.)

How about adding a background color, e.g. a pink background color? I think that is distinctive, and language agnostic. Something slightly more beautiful than:

@Huji — I feel my first question got lost in the shuffle. I think it will dictate what happens with the design:

In T172554#3637033, @TBolliger wrote:

Does this patch apply the new style to all users, just logged-in users, or only users with the 'Strike out usernames that have been blocked' gadget enabled? I believe there needs to be a bigger discussion if this is going to apply to anyone other than opted-in users.

Just logged-in users, not anonymous users. And the classes added are "blocked" and/or "locked".

Have there been any on-wiki discussions about implementing this? This seems like a significant change in how the UI displays usernames, and has the possibility of ruffling quite a few feathers.

Could we at least add the classes as suggested by T172348 for now? We can always add styling later, it would be really useful to have at least the classes already.

In T172554#3642085, @Sjoerddebruin wrote:

Could we at least add the classes as suggested by T172348 for now? We can always add styling later, it would be really useful to have at least the classes already.

Yes, the WMF's Anti-Harassment Tools team will take a look at Huji's PR in the upcoming weeks (if someone else doesn't get to it first.)

Change 370193 abandoned by Huji:
Show links to blocked user accounts in a visually distinctive way

Reason:
Task declined

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/370193