File talk:20200410 Flatten the curve, raise the line - pandemic (English).gif

Initial suggestions (April 2020)

Woah, this has become a lot more complex than when I last checked in. I unfortunately have to say I'm not sure how useful it is to use a graph to illustrate "raising the line" or resurgence. Whereas flattening the curve is a somewhat complex concept that can be explained well using a graph, the ideas that we ought to increase healthcare capacity, and that we need to keep up the social distancing or there will be a resurgence, are both pretty simple and can just be stated. That said, since you've already created this, a few thoughts:

1. (most important, since it's a matter of factual accuracy) The x axis represents time, whereas the animation of the graph represents a shifting attitude between inaction and action. When there's talk of "raising the line", it's over time, so I think the appropriate approach would be to have the line be sloped, increasing from left to right. Right now, it seems as though prioritizing healthcare capacity will allow it to be increased instantaneously, which is unfortunately not how things work. If we want to show a difference between the "inaction" and "action" scenarios, the line could be flat or shallow in the "no mitigation" portion of the animation, and then made steeper in the "mitigation" portion of the animation.
2. Having a green background behind "healthcare capacity" upsets the "green is for where there's coverage, red is for where there isn't" dynamic. Could we change it to black text over the normal red background?
3. The red cross isn't really doing anything at this point when it's just sitting in the corner. Could we remove it?

- Sdkb (talk) 19:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Many of these thoughts ran through my mind as well.

Part of the issue is, I started with what was in a reference, and to vary from it is conjectural and might even be called Original Research.

P.S. the general idea was inspired by an editor at Talk:Flatten the curve#Illustration ('Illustration' section).

— Re Item #1: As I see it, each frame of the GIF/video represents one scenario: there are actually 49 graphs shown! I thought of sloping or otherwise manipulating the "capacity" line but I thought it would be too conjectural: if I considered growth of capacity by sloping the line, shouldn't I also consider worker burnout or sickness, or other non-linear effects such as surges in certain facility or equipment or testing supplies, etc.? Maybe if references start reflecting some of such subtleties we would have a more solid basis to refine this graphic. But flattening the curve is getting much more press than raising the line, as concepts.

— Re #2: I greened the background of the "Healthcare capacity" text because of the (misleading, confusing) way it looked with green text on a red background; there wasn't space beneath the line for the text.

— Re #3: The two indicia at the right (the text, and the cross) distinguish the two colored areas. I agree the cross isn't "necessary", but it does affirmatively indicate that healthcare is available in that 'zone'.

I'm constantly re-thinking how to improve this family of graphs. Item #1 would require a massive re-working that would take a full day, as compared to about an hour for small changes like #2 and #3 now that I have a 'system'. I'll wait before investing serious time again, as the curren graphics do communicate the concepts qualitatively even if not quantitatively. Thanks for your thoughts. Lots of things are evolving. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: would making the moving dashed line slope upward a bit, without other changes, make this graphic acceptable to you? In Talk:Flatten the curve#Lessened emphasis on "raise the line", editor Yug discusses the interrelatedness of flattening-the-curve (FTC) and raising-the-line (RTL), and I think RTL is also important. The present graphic conveys two ideas in the same amount of space. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@RCraig09: In order to be accurate, the line needs to remain at the same spot at the left during the course of the animation, since anything else would imply that, by changing our attitude, we can instantly boost healthcare capacity, which is not true. My preferred solution would be for File:20200403 Flatten the curve animated GIF.gif to be changed to feature a sloping line that remains static during the animation. The default caption can be used to explain (as it did at one point, then without being reflected in the graphic) that "the delay buys time for healthcare provision to be increased and improved". I think this would be sufficient for the main pandemic article, which already covers elsewhere the (very intuitive) idea that boosting healthcare capacity more is better.

For more detailed/focused articles like w:Raise the line, perhaps this version, with an animated line, could be used. It would still need to be corrected, though, so that the slope would increase during the course of the animation, but the starting point would remain fixed. It might also need labels like "healthcare capacity with minimal capacity boosting" at the start of the animation and "healthcare capacity with major capacity boosting" at the end, mimicking what you did with "without mitigation" and "with mitigation". Sdkb (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

— @Sdkb: You've hit the nail on the head, saying the left end of the dashed line should be stationary throughout. Bullseye!

— An animated sloping dashed line is appropriate in this "FTC,RTL" graphic because—as titled and captioned—it portrays two changing variables. To conserve valuable space, I could use a single abbreviated caption like "Increased healthcare capacity".

— My initial impression is that the first "FTC"-only gif should remain unchanged at this point, purposely to isolate a single variable (RTL) and not try to "get fancier" than the references, almost all of which have a "flat and stationary" capacity line. I found only one exception: [1], which shows a non-flat capacity line only in the context of a changing capacity line.

— In short, I think the next change should be to this "FTC,RTL" to show a straight line that "hinges upwardly" about its stationary leftmost point—something to occupy the hours while staying-at-home! —RCraig09 (talk) 21:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Yep, "hinges upwardly" is a good way to describe it; apologies I didn't describe it well initially above, but that's the idea. I'm not sure I'm persuaded about leaving the other graph as is — a static flat line and a static sloped line are both still a single variable (at least along the animation axis), but the latter more accurately shows that flattening the curve isn't just about reducing peak demand but also giving the healthcare system more time to boost capacity (which is a different idea than "raise the line", which I'd interpret to mean "we need to do more to boost capacity faster"). To the extent that most other "flatten the curve" graphics don't show that, I think that's more because most of them just aren't as good as the ones you're creating. It's not as though the cartoon that was used previously was a high-quality medical source. Sdkb (talk) 22:08, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

If you see the animation policies discussed between managements, it is then a transition between 2 final states : 1) "curve and line after unmitigated natural epidemic spread" vs 2) "curve and line after aggressive action's epidemic spread", then point 1 disolve. So Point 1 is fine. Point 2 is clear enough thank to the arrow. Also, point 4, know when you did enough good work and no more is needed. 5. Internaltional, no words version is generally best. Yug (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm starting work now. Maybe in a day or two...—RCraig09 (talk) 05:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb & Yug et al.: Alrightee then! Version 2 is uploaded, with the 'capacity' line pivoting about its leftmost point. I'm struck by how small a visual difference the change makes, though I agree the change clarifies the concept of increasing capacity. If there are no perceived problems within a few days, I'll also update the international version also. The more I think about it, I agree that the original flat-capacity file File:20200403 Flatten the curve animated GIF.gif also. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Sdkb You removed the two-concept graphic in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Are you comfortable re-introducing this new file instead of the FTC-only curve? This new graphic illustrates two important concepts at once. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@RCraig09: This looks a lot better! The green background is still bugging me a bit, especially now that there's no longer room for the word "healthcare", which increases the potential for confusion. The capacity line itself is black; what would be the issue with making its label black, too, and putting it over the red background? Re what to do for the pandemic article, I think it'd be good to start a discussion at the talk page to get wider input. My views for that specific page are influenced by the fact that it's already so full and information-dense, so my preference would be to have only the flatten the curve graph with a static sloping line, with captions/article text explaining the simple "raise the line" and resurgence concepts, and to have this more complex graphic and the resurgence graphic used on more focused pages. But I may be in the minority on that. Sdkb (talk) 19:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

You're right: black lettering on red background looks fine. I've started on Version 3.

I'm thinking that, because it's better to show than to tell, it's best to rely mainly on graphics (to show) rather than captions (to tell). I'm actually in favor of articles being information-dense (if it's organized and clearly presented) since that implies conciseness. Both FTC and RTL are basic concepts, readily perceived from graphics. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Sdkb The FTC and FTC+RTL gifs have all been updated, both for English-text and for international (four files total; see the galleries in the file description pages of any of the six recent animations). I think we're set, for the time being. Generating new versions is a bit repetitious so a break would be good! Thanks for all your feedback. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

A thought re labeling Healthcare capacity line

A thought I just had (and I know it takes a while to render, so no worries if it's not worth it to address this currently): Part of the confusion about the increasing slope of the capacity line may be that it says "increasing healthcare capacity" during all parts of the animation, even when it's flat, a situation in which it is not actually increasing. It might make it clearer to switch to something like you do with the curves labels, with a label at the start of the animation saying "static healthcare capacity", then no label during the animation, then "increasing healthcare capacity" at the end of the animation when the line is sloped. Sdkb (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Something like that actually occurred to me after seeing recent discussions (unfortunately after the most recent version). Though only the first of 49 unique frames truly shows Static Healthcare Capacity, because that frame is "held" for about a full second, it is significant. I'm now planning on changing Frame 00, but leaving Frames 01-48 labeled "Increasing healthcare capacity". I may also change "Number of cases" to "Number of active cases" or "Number of new cases" (which?). Thanks again for your constructive feedback. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

... or "Number of current cases" ? <--- that now seems most accurate. —RCraig09 (talk) 18:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer just "Active cases". The "number of" isn't needed. Sdkb (talk) 08:16, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Great suggestion. I've just completed re-labeling the vertical axis legend "Active cases", in all three English-language animations. Generally, if it's just a tiny change not requiring that 49 separate frames be individually edited, then my 'system' lets me generate a new version in less than an hour (if I don't make a clerical mistake along the way... ). It's 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)