Forum:CT Archive/Search icon duplicates

If you use the Monobook skin (and you should), you've probably noticed that recently, our roster of search icons in circulation expanded greatly due to the administrative efforts of  and the artistic efforts of several editors who created new icons for use. The rules for having further search icons added to the list are fairly simple, and the process of adding them simply requires an administrator to take action. However, there are some ambiguities in the system that this CT attempts to clear up.

Namely, what should we do about duplicate icons? A look at the search icons in use reveals that we have both duplicates with regard to linked subject matter (what you get when you click on the icon and it takes you to an article), as well as duplicates with regard to image (the same subject appearing on more than one icon, each of which takes you to a different article upon clicking). Culator wisely left several proposed icons on the proposal page because they feature the same character or thing, and it is unclear if it is OK or desirable to have such duplicates.

So here I propose we clear this up once and for all. This CT is for us to establish some policy on search icon duplicates, and then to add language to Search icons articulating whatever rules we come up with. The CT is in several sections, explained below. ~ Savage  16:12, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

First vote: Duplicate target links
This vote is to determine whether we want to have more than one search icon pointing to the same target article.
 * When you click on one the search icon that appears to the left of the screen in Monobook, you get a dialogue box with the quesiton, "What's this?" Clicking on that tells you what the subject of the search icon is, and takes you to that subject's article with another click. Do we want to allow more than one icon to point to the same subject? Note that we currently have two such duplicates in rotation: two each that point to Han Solo and N-1 starfighter. If we vote to disallow duplicates, we will need to come up with some system for removing the currently existing duplicates and for selecting between icon proposals that feature the same target link. These would be matters for a later CT.

Second vote: Duplicate visual subject matter
This vote is to determine whether we want to have more than one search icon visually depicting the same subject.
 * Several of the currently used search icons depict the same subject, but the target links are different. An example is one icon featuring and pointing to Yoda, and another featuring Yoda but pointing to Force form. This vote will establish definitively whether we want to allow or disallow such visual duplication. Note that if we vote to allow duplicate visual subject matter but not to allow duplicate target links (the vote above), the Han Solo and N-1 starfigher duplicates in rotation would be allowed to stay in the roster provided the links were diversified (so that, say, one Han pointed to Han Solo and the other pointed to Corellian). Also note that this vote is not to allow the exact same image to be used in two search icons; rather it is for two different images of the same subject.