This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Many thanks to those who contributed feedback and critiques in the last voting round. We are now in the process of applying those requests and criticisms to designing Draft 7, which will be pitted against the current Main Page for final approval by the general Wikipedian population. Towards that end, the draft is open for anyone to help in this endeavor. Please study the poll results (which are provided for your convenience below), and implement those results in the draft. Get along, have fun, etc....
Does anyone want to try and refactor this increasingly long and convoluted discussion page? Several issues have been discussed in different sections, and some discussions probably got lost in the noise... Carcharoth 12:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The idea behind the changes is an attempt to focus on who the target is for the page. If we say assume that a high proportion of views of the main page will be by newcomers, it is expected by non-technical people to get something that stimulates the eye as well as the brain. So, I can't understand the opposition to icons when they are high quality and there are already icons for sister projects on the page. You can edit! - I wanted to emphasize to newcomers that they themselves could edit the place, as opposed to it sounding like "oh just anybody can edit". The book is in the middle because I found it very distracting behind the text at the top. I would have removed it completely for a cleaner look, but wasn't that bold. Regards SeanMack 19:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I think many people were against icons because of the size in which they were presented. I was against icons before but would be for this version. Its a small addition that adds a lot to the page. - Trevor MacInnis ( Talk | Contribs) 23:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm unimpressed with the way some (i.e. David Levy) are handling the portal icon situation.. it seems very unconstructive. i understand that a select few are opposed to icons full stop.. and that all previous attempts have been ruled out by consensus.. but this doesn't mean we couldn't get consensus on something different (possibly similar to the version David Levy reverted).. and in the interests of making wikipedia more user-friendly, it seems highly advantageous to try - plus, many people have claimed the opposition to icons exemplifies the elitist atmosphere within wikipedia.
to solve the consistency problem, i'm going to go on a limb an propose an idea (that unfortunately may not be able to be implimented until after the voting..): have a contest for the best portal icon set. "Your icons could be featured on the Main Page!!" - that's pretty good motivation, if you ask me. it's simple enough to give size requirements, and what the icons should represent.. i'm sure there's quite a few people who would be willing to put a good amount of time into designing a nice complete set. and shouldn't it be possible to change the icons after (assuming it is) the new main page is voted in?
The argument that the icons cause wrapping on some browsers, so we shouldn't have them at all, seems negative, unconstructive, and if you ask me unprofessional.. i mean, i know very little about wiki-markup, but surely this is a fixable non-issue. 131.111.8.96 15:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I personally like the look of the icons, but don't support them. I don't support them because if you click on the icon, you go to the image page, not the portal the icon represents, which will confuse new users. Prodego talk 21:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I support the use of icons, at least at the top of the page. It looks really good and is inviting. AllPeopleUnite 14:32, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
(repeated from below) I, and many other editors, are Strongly Against any icons, other than those for the wikimedia sister projects. Trying to add them at this point Will be Futile. The only point that could be discussed is whether or not to use bullets. -- Quiddity 20:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
1. The addition of any browsebar link beyond the existing six causes the text to wrap in the 800x600 resolution (at the default text size).
2. The section "Other areas of Wikipedia" refers to areas other than articles. Article navigation links do not belong there.
3. All three of the links added by the anon are confusingly similar to the existing article navigation links. We mustn't overwhelm users with so many redundant paths.
4. Again, the icons are heavily opposed. And again, there's no way to add them without messing up the page for people with the very common 800x600 resolution. I can't stress this enough. Are any of you even bothering to check? No matter how this is coded, something has to give. When the line wrap is suppressed, this results in horizontal scrolling (which is arguably worse). No matter how "cool" one deems the icons, this is absolutely unacceptable. — David Levy 01:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I, and many other editors, are Strongly Against any icons, other than those for the wikimedia sister projects. Trying to add them at this point Will be Futile. The only point that could be discussed is whether or not to use bullets. -- Quiddity 20:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Why advertise on the main page that 'anyone can edit'
Yes, anyone can and anyone does, 'edit', that is. And all of us spend endless wasted time and effort in reverting endless vandalism created by the 'anyone can edit' philosophy and practice. Not only that, we have to read this trash which is worse than the time spent on getting rid of it.
What should be included are more measures to assure responsibility and accountabily by editors.
The 'anyone ccan edit' practice could be introduced through the Community Portal, not on the main page.
Thanks Hmains 20:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I tried to add this to the draft but failed. Anyway this is fresh news, like 3 hour old
How were you able to hide the titlebar and tagline? I have failed to see anything in the code on this. How did this occur in the history, too? I am amazed how this could be possible. -- WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
This section is for listing any concerns regarding the current revision. If an issue is resolved, strike it or remove it from the list. For technical problems, don't forget to note the affected browser(s) and operating system(s). If a bug does not affect all browsers/operating systems, it would be helpful to include a screen capture.
There seems to be an edit war going on right now over whether or not to include the srticle count in the header. The argument thus far seems to be that it might give a false impression to non-english speakers. I for one am neither for nor against this, although I will say that the English Wikipedia specifically targets english speakers, and concerning ourselves with other languages would seem quite superfluous to its scope, especially as most languages have their own Wikipedia. In either case, I though the statistic page explained how articles were counted well enough.
What do you all think? -- 81.104.41.42 00:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
=Main Page= From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That "obsecenely [sic] long list," as Raul654 referred to it, was taken directly from the current main page. At one point, we used CSS code to hide the "over 1,000 articles" portion by default, but this became unnecessary when we moved the section to the bottom of the page. There certainly has to be some arbitrary cutoff point, but I believe that this should be discussed. I'm concerned that people might vote against the draft if it removes languages that presently are listed on the main page. — David Levy 07:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
You included every language that has over 100 000 articles except Portuguese. Why is that? Please include it.
AllPeopleUnite
14:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The 1000+ section should remain. English is a second language to many and these versions will only grow if people (i.e. native speakers) know about them. -- Grocer 07:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I support the inclusion of the 1000+ section. It's at the bottom; but more importantly is representational of how open we are. Just because we're the biggest, doesnt mean we can/should ignore the smallest. -- Quiddity 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Within this section, i'd like to suggest we move the sentence "Wikipedias are also being written ..." down to its own line. Primarily to remove the effect of the line-wrap at 1024x768. (the most common current size) -- Quiddity 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Any chance we can have a browser & version in the edit statements? I think it will help anyone who is looking at cross browser comparisons. SeanMack 16:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello to everyone,
I have suggested this before and I'm here to do it again. Remove the "the free encyclopedia" slogan. It just takes away from the level of respect people have. By having that people won't think this is a real encyclopedia, it'll sound like a joke. I just don't think we should keep it. Thank you for your time
--(
Aytakin) |
Talk
16:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to Go for it!'s proposal to center the Sister Project links, but it renders with the next header centered as well. There's probably just an HTML tag missing somewhere. Here's a screenshot:
I hope we can clear this up.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 16:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Look at the history more closely. The language centering was already in the draft that I stuck the re-aligned wikisisters into. The centering showed up in the edit just prior to mine, ala User:Vir. In that draft the langs are center tagged. -- Go for it! 04:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
And the sisters aren't centered, they are left-aligned. I can't figure out how to center them as a block. Anyone know how to do this? -- Go for it! 04:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... The search box looks a little awkward in its position right now, overshadowed by the portals above it and scrunched off to the side. Is there any way to align it so that is perhaps wider and centered under the portals without screwing up the position for those with alternative monitor resolutions? zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
It would be nice if we could get a 4th column in the portal matrix. HereToHelp mentioned that such causes a wrap problem like with the icons. But I saw a different problem (on IE only) when using the largest text size: the matrix overlapped with the Wikipedia text block on the left of the header (the two text blocks come together in the middle - uggggggly). On Firefox, the overlap does not occur, as the browser opts for a scroll bar solution instead.
Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Is there any way to fix the overlap problem in IE? -- Go for it! 04:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
...is there something behind FDR's picture today? What's back there? -- Go for it!
I think it looks cleaner without them, busier with them. And we can reduce the room they take up if we remove the bullets. -- Go for it! 23:02, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
No bullets, please. Avoid bullets whenever possible. If you must, a little differentiation in background shading. +sj + 23:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Economics is a sub-field of business, is much narrower in scope. For instance, Economics 101 is taught in business school, not the other way around. Also, business is one of the Big 3 occupational areas: Business, Science, and Politics. The matrix just seems a little shy without it. -- Go for it! 23:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The Economics portal can easily be made ready before March 1st, and I would see to it personally if it and the 12 portals are listed in the header. -- Go for it! 07:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The underlying issue is that the whole subject category hierarchy needs an overhaul. But that's beyond the scope of this project. If and when the overhaul occurs, no doubt it will affect the current Main Page at that time. No worries. -- Go for it! 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Concerning the browse-section approach, the English Wikipedia is designed differently. Instead of presenting the Main Page as a "Super Portal" with browse links, we have provided links to fully developed browsing pages like Wikipedia:Browse and Portal:Browse. There's also Wikipedia:Browse by overview which is provided on the Template:browsebar used throughout English Wikipedia. However, there are 2 Main Page alternates with browse sections: Main Page alternate (blue boy) and Main Page alternate (italian-style). -- Go for it! 05:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I've looked at the main page hundreds of times (and the portal page dozens) in the last few years and I've never noticed the link to the alternate layouts. Am I missing something? This should be prominently linked: Main Page alternates]. I think one of the alternates you mention -- blue boy or the Italian format -- would be better for the current front page. Those pages are more helpful and have much better categories.
Not sure where to put this bit of writing now so put it here to save it on this page and in case you wish to comment: I took time to look through the front page history listings -- so, I'll share some thoughts about this. Perhaps should make a new post about this. Wonder if this history of categories is outline in more detail anywhere?
Perhaps many of you know this. However, perhaps will be helpful to people who haven't been with Wikipedia since early 2004: I made a brief review of the history of the main page regarding changes in the main category scheme.
1. Original Categories. The front page had approximately these main categories (with dozens of subcats), for the first 2 years of until February 2004:
About our category schemes - Alphabetical order by title - By category - By academic discipline - Historical timeline - Themed timelines - Calendar - Reference tables - Biographies - Countries - How-tos Source: a Feb 2004 main page (Note: I alphabetized the above.)
2. Longer Category List With Many Subcategories. Then, in late February 2004, main category multiplication set in with the development of something that looked like the current collection of main heads on the current Portal:Browse page. That was much too much info on a front page -- and seemed to take extra time to load. Also, the main new 8 categories are not quite are OK as main heads (though the above are easier to work with) as some thing get left out of the top level (like social sciences and applied sciences):
one example: late Feb 2004 main page
3. One-Word Categories with No Subcategories. On August 27, 2004, the really huge Portal-like layout got cut from the front page and moved to the portal page. And, the current one line of a handful of one-word links (wrong solution I think) were put at the top. It made the page load more quickly. This was discussed some at the time but perhaps not enough. One comment noted that categorization is a science in and of its own right, here: discussion of dropping categories. This is the first page edited to drop the large group of categories: August 27, 2004 main page
Comments: I believe that Wikipedia editors got main categories right at the start!!!! Or, a lot closer to it than the current scheme...
Wikipedia being an encyclopedia I think the project would want the front page to have a good basic category structure. I think that the correct action in August 2004 would have been to return to the original 4 categories with some major subheads or have 6 or 8 or so categories that are comprehensive -- the current 9 (and even 12) one word cats can't do the job. I think it is the correct action to go back (or forward) to the better scheme -- such as to use more text in 8 categories, as in the [ French Wikipedia] front page.
Yup. Those categories on the main page (in the header or wherever) should follow the standard across the encyclopedia -- perhaps voted on once in awhile -- just like there is one programming language for the project. AND: The original Other Category Scheme section above is important too. That way category schemes that don't get top level exposure can continue to be available. Vir 06:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
First of all I think that near the bottom where we put the other areas of wikipedia has a lot of white space on the right hand side, I don't know how to fix it but I think it should be fixed. Second of all near the bottom they talk about starting a Wikipedia in another language but I think it should just say Wikipedia. Tell me if I am wrong in that assumption.
Why is the search box taking up so much room vertically? -- Go for it! 08:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Can we get rid of the outer borders of most of the boxes? These are the kinds of additional lines that newspapers long ago learned to do without; we can get along quite well with the occasional rule and variations in background color, without the borders. Has there been a draft so far that attempted this? +sj + 23:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not soliciting votes or anything, but I thought you'd like to know that one of the most active participants here is up for RfA at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kmf164. -- Go for it! 09:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
What do you think about adding sub-portals as list in mouseover in portal-links? Example:
*[[Portal:Art|<span title="Architecture, Comics, Film, Dance, Literature, Music">Art</span>]]
→ Aza Toth 16:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Quoted from above:
The underlying issue is that the whole subject category hierarchy needs an overhaul. But that's beyond the scope of this project. If and when the overhaul occurs, no doubt it will affect the current Main Page at that time. No worries. -- Go for it! 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
For the record, I'm a guy. The selection of 12 portals is about as close as we are going to get to a top-tier of the overall structure. There are 3 main reasons for this:
Culture and Society overlap almost completely (they are invariably interwined - culture implies society while being an aspect thereof. Meanwhile, all societies have culture and each society throughout history is a culture - Mayan, Aztec, British, French, etc.). The two terms are almost synonymous. And while Art is a subcategory of Culture, my guess is that most users would skip Culture and go straight to Art if given the choice. Culture is the most ambiguous subject currently on the list, and the best candidate for replacement. --
Go for it!
01:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just checked over the drafts from the poll. The minimum number of portals in any of the drafts displayed in Round 6 was ten. So where the heck did nine come from all of a sudden? That's shrinking the number below the minimum! Most of the drafts have 11 or more, and those that use a matix have 12. Nine wasn't even visited and therefore has no consensus in the draft poll at all. Nine is clearly not an issue. -- Go for it! 02:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Quoting David: "it's about recognizing that the decision of which portals to add should be made separately and with the full participation of the community." I agree however I do have a suggestion that would keep the portals debate going - in a good way. Why not have a link to the main portals page, additionally have a few rotating selected portals. These portals could be dealt with in a way that would be a combination of featured articles and DYK. It would mean that a mechanism is in place to determine the portals by template which would have it's own evolution separate to this redesign process. New users would be introduced to various portals over time (they seem to be proliferating which to me is a good thing). It's maybe too late for this page but I thought it was a idea worth getting feedback on? Regards all. SeanMack 15:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
We need a resolution on the 2nd search box question. There seemed to be support for the proposal to highlight the left nav column's Search entry, by making changes to MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Is there any opposition to this idea? Are there any alternate color suggestions? And is there anyone who can steward the idea through the villagepump process..?
the proposed change is adding this line:
#searchBody {background-color:#F7F7DF;}
which results in this look:
questions/comments? -- Quiddity 21:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Another proposal: Moving the sidebar search box to the top of the three boxes (above the "navigation" box). This would make it more visible. Though in its current position it breaks up the text of the "navigation" and "toolbox" boxes quite well. -- Quiddity 20:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
We need a decision on these 2 items, and someone who can guide them through the village pump process if changed. (do we need a vote here?) -- Quiddity 05:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just saw a note on the Technical Village Pump about using small icons as bullets for the portal list. I really liked the sample given. Has this been discussed? What do people think? -- Oldak Quill 11:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
There's some debate over what to call the ninth link... "All portals", "Other...", "More topics...". I agree with Urthogie that the term "portals" isn't exactly clear to the newbie. In my mind, I think portals = topics. But, all topics don't (yet) have portals. So, think "More" is a better term than "All". That's how I came up with "More topics...", but I'm open to other suggestions. Also, does Portal:Browse really include *all* portals? It might, but I'm not sure. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 15:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
You're the only person pushing for this, Go for it!, and your refusal to address some of our concerns (such as the obvious lack of consensus regarding which new portal links should be included) is quite troubling. — David Levy 17:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I understood that discussion about Portals is independent and must evolve further, but i don't understand why Culture and not Art. Just now, the second is much more developed and interesting! Cyb3r 19:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a news site, so I'm wondering what the purpose of this part of the main page is. I can see some utility in pointing people to encyclopedic background information on "current news stories" , for some given value of "news", but am wondering just how much of the front page should be devoted to this and how much should happen on an ancillary page. It seems that there is a very limited about of front page space. I've no answers, but am wondering if putting news headlines on the front page that are nothing but links to another page with more story detail that contains links to the actual articles would not better serve the purpose of the front page news section. (Again, the first step is some succinct statement of the purpose of the news section on the front page. Apologies in advance for not devoting any real energy to rooting out such a statement.) -- kop 20:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I've often looked for expanded coverage of the news items, to be frustrated by linking to unrelated articles. But the place to get that changed would be the Main Page talk page, or the In the news department itself. In this project, we just reworked the main page design, without getting into the inner workings of the departments whose data is piped in to it. -- Go for it! 02:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
We were considering going with icons as bullets, but the browsers treat them as words and wraps when text size is increased in the browser...
Welcome to Wikipedia Information
6,848,680 articles that
anyone can edit |
Is there a way to turn the text wrap feature off for just the matrix above? -- Go for it! 00:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
(Also, science looks a bit lower. What's causing that? -- Go for it! 00:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't work (try increasing text size now, and watch the above matrix wrap). -- Go for it!
Many editors dont/will not like what we see as "cutesy" icons. Specifically:
This is a text-heavy encyclopedia, not an AOL forum, and I and others will be turned-off by taking its design in that direction. Maybe, after this re-design is done, make another Wikipedia:Main Page alternates instead? -- Quiddity 08:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Rather than icons, which I agree would be too small to be useful here, how about light shading differences for the three columns? +sj + 23:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Just stepped back and had a look at the top of the draft, and I have a comment about the positioning of the links. There are two types of links in the header and the area below it: browse links that take you to browsing pages; and information links that take you to pages that explain stuff about Wikipedia. At the moment the right-hand side is all browse links or search options, apart from the Special:Statistics link in the search bar. The left-hand side is mainly information links, except the Categories link and the A-Z link. I feel it would make more sense for these two browse links to be separated from the informational links, or at least for something to make clear that they are different from the three information links (Tutorial, Questions, Help).
I also prefer the wording "More portals", which doesn't seem to take up more space (even if it does, use of a slightly smaller font to offset it, instead of bolding it, might help, or maybe italicize it?). Carcharoth 09:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Further to my comment above about how the header links divide nicely left/right between information links and browse links, I would like to suggest that if the search box gets dropped, that the two links "Categories" and "Index" get moved across to replace it. Thus the left-hand side of the screen would be the Tagline and Subtitle (two information links), with three further information links below it (Tutorial, Questions, Help), and the right-hand side of the screen becomes the portal links, with two (or three, depending on where the Portal:Browse link ends up) links below it (Categories and A-Z). In fact, I like these layouts so much, I'm going to add them to the page's edit history. I'll add links here to the three layouts I have in mind. Carcharoth 10:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Here are links to versions in the history of the draft page, for three layouts for the intro/browse area (the header - portals list - browse bar).
1) [6] (a) Search box included. (b) "All portals" link in header. (c) "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset slightly (middot and enspaces) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help).
2) [7] (a) No search box. (b) "All portals" link in header. (c) "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset markedly (other side of page) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help). (d) Links in this area now divide neatly left/right between information/browse types.
3) [9] (a) No search box. (b) "All portals" link NOT in header. (c) "Portals", "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset markedly (other side of page) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help). (d) Links in this area now divide neatly left/right between information/browse types.
Which do people prefer? Carcharoth 12:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
4) Sj-draft. a) Search box, longer. b) "All portals" link. c) other links below top header box spaced out a bit more. d) softer border around the header. d) no bullets before the lists of portals.
5) This is my vision of the final draft. I updated Kmf164's draft to include the browsebar links from the current draft. -- Quiddity 05:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not a fan of the redundant search box, and I believe that its removal would boost the draft's likelihood of succeeding in the election. — David Levy 20:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I prefer "All portals," which matches the other items on the list. Capitalizing the first letter is an arbitrary style convention, and there's no reason not to follow it consistently. (In other words, there's no linguistic justification; it isn't as though the other terms are proper nouns.) — David Levy 20:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Exdenting:
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft/Sj -- minimized borders, fewer distracting lines and bullets (no bullets in the header), more spacing between links on the left hand side of the header, longer search-bar.
I really like having a search bar front and center on the main page. And I strongly support moving the search up to the top of the stack in the left hand nav, on other pages. +sj + 23:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
My opinions:
I'm sorry to be so negative. — David Levy 23:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
HereToHelp and +sj: You seem to be the main 2 editors still wanting a second search box on the main page. Could you elaborate your reasons for wanting it? and could you update your opinion in the
Decision thread now that i've enlarged the images to show the highlighted sidebar search in context. thanks. --
Quiddity
04:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Starting at the beginning of the nineteenth, we enter a period between this open editing session and the final vote that is basically a chance to find bugs with the program, get everything operational, and test with different resolutions/browsers/OSs. As taken Go for it!'s talk page, GFI! says:
I'm not adverse to that at all, but we need to figure out some way to reorganize the talk page for that. So:
The reason I'm telling you this is because I'm going to out of town over the long weekend and unable to get on. So, I'm doing my best to ensure that this happens smoothly. Comments, like always, are welcome.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 12:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Cherry blossom tree! I completely overlooked this page's existence (which illustrates the importance of the link), and this is the sort of thing that I intended to set up at Wikipedia:Featured content. I'd planned to spend hours working on this today, and I'm glad that I didn't waste the time and effort. — David Levy 16:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted Go for it!'s reinsertion of his favored portal link (with the misleading edit summary "efficiency"). Portal:Philosophy is good, but there is no consensus regarding which new portal links should be added. That will have to wait for a future discussion (which should immediately follow the main page redesign project), at which point I fully intend to support the inclusion of this portal link.
Also, we can't refer to the quick index simply as "index," because the categories and portals are indexes too. This is a specific type of index—an alphabetical one. "A–Z index" works, and "A–Z" is the term used on the current main page. — David Levy 16:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Your logic makes no sense. The portals on the Main Page was just changed twice, without consensus, and you didn't step in there. You are being very selective in your enforcement of your consensus standard. -- Go for it! 05:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Newcomers dont know what a portal is!-- Urthogie 16:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to have a specific vote of some sort on whether or not to include a search box in the header. The second box was recently boldly removed, but the last round of voting had little consensus on the matter, but (to me, at least) it appeared to show that a large segment of editors strongly wanted a search box, while those opposed to it on average felt less strongly about it.
It's a very either-or, for-against question (I personally am *very* strongly for), and as it appears that far fewer people are contributing in this round of editing (thereby making a less-representative result from this round *much* more likely to occur - see genetic drift), I think we need some way to bring a larger segment back in. Basically, there's not much more one can say about the topic, about whether it's redundant or necessary - few people are likely to be convinced from one side to another. We just need to solve the problem once and for all, and then both sides must be willing to accept the result.
I don't think a compromise is really possible. There already was a compromise, a very good one, incorporating both the portals in the top box and the search box below it. But if the issue is simply whether or not the search box should exist, it can't half-exist. zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Agh, what a drama :) You just need to find the right combination of divs and tables and it would work perfectly. But it dos not matter, I am not defending my edit (I completely agree some stuff there was going against compromises), I am defending the box. I suggest we go back to the basics, that is, what we do about the darn box? Have a pool? When? How? Not have a pool? Then what? I would suggest to have voting here and now before going to introduce the draft for voting. DL suggested we put the box after the draft is approved. But then it will mean another giant vote and another 2 months of discussions. Let's do it in one sitting. Renata 04:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
The complete draft would get overwhelming support because it had a little bit of everything on there. People aren't going to shoot it down as long as their favorite things are on there -- it won't matter to them if there's one or two things mixed in that they don't care for. As long as the draft is a general improvement over the current Main Page, it will win. Therefore we should be BOLD and provide the absolutely most functionally packed page we can. Not some scared-to-stick-its-head-out-of-the-hole-rabbit version. -- Go for it! 05:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
As for the argument concerning bugs. That's irrelevant at this time. We've got the rest of the months to debug whatever format we come up with. Whether that be with search box, or not. Whatever we decide to go with, it's pretty certain we can make it work. And even if we can't, we'll learn that soon enough. But this timid "we're not going to win the election if we put such and such in" doesn't even sound Wikipedian to me. Heck, we should put Wikipedia's main slogan Be Bold front top and center, so nobody forgets it. --05:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Such a big fuss was made over the search box during this past round, that it seems absolutely ridiculous to pull it at the last minute. Someone has the wedding jitters. If you want some really sound advice, provide a draft with as many bells and whistles as we can provide, and if it is overkill, then specific features can be pulled out later. The draft is just too good not to win against the current main page - the draft in its myriad of configurations got overwhelming support from those who took a look. The Main Page got hardly any votes at all. And it's not like this draft will be completely untouchable once it becomes the official main page - I predict a firestorm of tweaking once it takes center stage. So we should put our best foot forward, give it everything we've got, rather than be timid and afraid of losing the "election", or of setting irreversible precedents, when in fact the main page doesn't have a snowball's chance in...
--
Go for it!
Besides, strict voting doesn't count on Wikipedia. It is possible that some unpredictable consensus will come out of the upcoming "election", for if enough people state they want something specific, we really won't have much choice but to give it to them. -- Go for it!
It wouldn't hurt anything to provide expanded portals and the search box. Those were 2 of the main developments of the main page draft design project, and now they're both being tossed out the window. -- Go for it!
Now there's a sysadmin who has the right idea. He just went in and changed the Main Page. We should be following his example. That's the fastest way to find out what people want. If the draft dies in the election, you could be sure we'd have another one ready the following week, and another the week after that, until it wins. So why be afraid? Some people are so afraid that consensus hasn't been built, that it has slowed this project to a crawl. The help page took 4 days to overhaul. The community portal took 3. And there was a heckuva lot more material on both of those. -- Go for it! 05:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I humbly suggest you go back and read the input for Rounds 2 to 5. You'll get a real feel for the project then. It was mostly negative until Round 6, when things really took off. It actually started to feel like we were doing something right, and then fear set in. But there's nothing major at stake, so the conservative approach is just silly. The worst thing that could happen is Round 7 (though further rounds are inevitable anyways, whether under this project or a future one). -- Go for it! 06:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Many thanks to those who contributed feedback and critiques in the last voting round. We are now in the process of applying those requests and criticisms to designing Draft 7, which will be pitted against the current Main Page for final approval by the general Wikipedian population. Towards that end, the draft is open for anyone to help in this endeavor. Please study the poll results (which are provided for your convenience below), and implement those results in the draft. Get along, have fun, etc....
Does anyone want to try and refactor this increasingly long and convoluted discussion page? Several issues have been discussed in different sections, and some discussions probably got lost in the noise... Carcharoth 12:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
The idea behind the changes is an attempt to focus on who the target is for the page. If we say assume that a high proportion of views of the main page will be by newcomers, it is expected by non-technical people to get something that stimulates the eye as well as the brain. So, I can't understand the opposition to icons when they are high quality and there are already icons for sister projects on the page. You can edit! - I wanted to emphasize to newcomers that they themselves could edit the place, as opposed to it sounding like "oh just anybody can edit". The book is in the middle because I found it very distracting behind the text at the top. I would have removed it completely for a cleaner look, but wasn't that bold. Regards SeanMack 19:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I think many people were against icons because of the size in which they were presented. I was against icons before but would be for this version. Its a small addition that adds a lot to the page. - Trevor MacInnis ( Talk | Contribs) 23:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm unimpressed with the way some (i.e. David Levy) are handling the portal icon situation.. it seems very unconstructive. i understand that a select few are opposed to icons full stop.. and that all previous attempts have been ruled out by consensus.. but this doesn't mean we couldn't get consensus on something different (possibly similar to the version David Levy reverted).. and in the interests of making wikipedia more user-friendly, it seems highly advantageous to try - plus, many people have claimed the opposition to icons exemplifies the elitist atmosphere within wikipedia.
to solve the consistency problem, i'm going to go on a limb an propose an idea (that unfortunately may not be able to be implimented until after the voting..): have a contest for the best portal icon set. "Your icons could be featured on the Main Page!!" - that's pretty good motivation, if you ask me. it's simple enough to give size requirements, and what the icons should represent.. i'm sure there's quite a few people who would be willing to put a good amount of time into designing a nice complete set. and shouldn't it be possible to change the icons after (assuming it is) the new main page is voted in?
The argument that the icons cause wrapping on some browsers, so we shouldn't have them at all, seems negative, unconstructive, and if you ask me unprofessional.. i mean, i know very little about wiki-markup, but surely this is a fixable non-issue. 131.111.8.96 15:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I personally like the look of the icons, but don't support them. I don't support them because if you click on the icon, you go to the image page, not the portal the icon represents, which will confuse new users. Prodego talk 21:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I support the use of icons, at least at the top of the page. It looks really good and is inviting. AllPeopleUnite 14:32, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
(repeated from below) I, and many other editors, are Strongly Against any icons, other than those for the wikimedia sister projects. Trying to add them at this point Will be Futile. The only point that could be discussed is whether or not to use bullets. -- Quiddity 20:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
1. The addition of any browsebar link beyond the existing six causes the text to wrap in the 800x600 resolution (at the default text size).
2. The section "Other areas of Wikipedia" refers to areas other than articles. Article navigation links do not belong there.
3. All three of the links added by the anon are confusingly similar to the existing article navigation links. We mustn't overwhelm users with so many redundant paths.
4. Again, the icons are heavily opposed. And again, there's no way to add them without messing up the page for people with the very common 800x600 resolution. I can't stress this enough. Are any of you even bothering to check? No matter how this is coded, something has to give. When the line wrap is suppressed, this results in horizontal scrolling (which is arguably worse). No matter how "cool" one deems the icons, this is absolutely unacceptable. — David Levy 01:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I, and many other editors, are Strongly Against any icons, other than those for the wikimedia sister projects. Trying to add them at this point Will be Futile. The only point that could be discussed is whether or not to use bullets. -- Quiddity 20:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Why advertise on the main page that 'anyone can edit'
Yes, anyone can and anyone does, 'edit', that is. And all of us spend endless wasted time and effort in reverting endless vandalism created by the 'anyone can edit' philosophy and practice. Not only that, we have to read this trash which is worse than the time spent on getting rid of it.
What should be included are more measures to assure responsibility and accountabily by editors.
The 'anyone ccan edit' practice could be introduced through the Community Portal, not on the main page.
Thanks Hmains 20:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I tried to add this to the draft but failed. Anyway this is fresh news, like 3 hour old
How were you able to hide the titlebar and tagline? I have failed to see anything in the code on this. How did this occur in the history, too? I am amazed how this could be possible. -- WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
This section is for listing any concerns regarding the current revision. If an issue is resolved, strike it or remove it from the list. For technical problems, don't forget to note the affected browser(s) and operating system(s). If a bug does not affect all browsers/operating systems, it would be helpful to include a screen capture.
There seems to be an edit war going on right now over whether or not to include the srticle count in the header. The argument thus far seems to be that it might give a false impression to non-english speakers. I for one am neither for nor against this, although I will say that the English Wikipedia specifically targets english speakers, and concerning ourselves with other languages would seem quite superfluous to its scope, especially as most languages have their own Wikipedia. In either case, I though the statistic page explained how articles were counted well enough.
What do you all think? -- 81.104.41.42 00:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
=Main Page= From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That "obsecenely [sic] long list," as Raul654 referred to it, was taken directly from the current main page. At one point, we used CSS code to hide the "over 1,000 articles" portion by default, but this became unnecessary when we moved the section to the bottom of the page. There certainly has to be some arbitrary cutoff point, but I believe that this should be discussed. I'm concerned that people might vote against the draft if it removes languages that presently are listed on the main page. — David Levy 07:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
You included every language that has over 100 000 articles except Portuguese. Why is that? Please include it.
AllPeopleUnite
14:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The 1000+ section should remain. English is a second language to many and these versions will only grow if people (i.e. native speakers) know about them. -- Grocer 07:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I support the inclusion of the 1000+ section. It's at the bottom; but more importantly is representational of how open we are. Just because we're the biggest, doesnt mean we can/should ignore the smallest. -- Quiddity 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Within this section, i'd like to suggest we move the sentence "Wikipedias are also being written ..." down to its own line. Primarily to remove the effect of the line-wrap at 1024x768. (the most common current size) -- Quiddity 21:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Any chance we can have a browser & version in the edit statements? I think it will help anyone who is looking at cross browser comparisons. SeanMack 16:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello to everyone,
I have suggested this before and I'm here to do it again. Remove the "the free encyclopedia" slogan. It just takes away from the level of respect people have. By having that people won't think this is a real encyclopedia, it'll sound like a joke. I just don't think we should keep it. Thank you for your time
--(
Aytakin) |
Talk
16:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to Go for it!'s proposal to center the Sister Project links, but it renders with the next header centered as well. There's probably just an HTML tag missing somewhere. Here's a screenshot:
I hope we can clear this up.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 16:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Look at the history more closely. The language centering was already in the draft that I stuck the re-aligned wikisisters into. The centering showed up in the edit just prior to mine, ala User:Vir. In that draft the langs are center tagged. -- Go for it! 04:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
And the sisters aren't centered, they are left-aligned. I can't figure out how to center them as a block. Anyone know how to do this? -- Go for it! 04:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... The search box looks a little awkward in its position right now, overshadowed by the portals above it and scrunched off to the side. Is there any way to align it so that is perhaps wider and centered under the portals without screwing up the position for those with alternative monitor resolutions? zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
It would be nice if we could get a 4th column in the portal matrix. HereToHelp mentioned that such causes a wrap problem like with the icons. But I saw a different problem (on IE only) when using the largest text size: the matrix overlapped with the Wikipedia text block on the left of the header (the two text blocks come together in the middle - uggggggly). On Firefox, the overlap does not occur, as the browser opts for a scroll bar solution instead.
Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Is there any way to fix the overlap problem in IE? -- Go for it! 04:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
...is there something behind FDR's picture today? What's back there? -- Go for it!
I think it looks cleaner without them, busier with them. And we can reduce the room they take up if we remove the bullets. -- Go for it! 23:02, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
No bullets, please. Avoid bullets whenever possible. If you must, a little differentiation in background shading. +sj + 23:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Economics is a sub-field of business, is much narrower in scope. For instance, Economics 101 is taught in business school, not the other way around. Also, business is one of the Big 3 occupational areas: Business, Science, and Politics. The matrix just seems a little shy without it. -- Go for it! 23:08, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The Economics portal can easily be made ready before March 1st, and I would see to it personally if it and the 12 portals are listed in the header. -- Go for it! 07:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
The underlying issue is that the whole subject category hierarchy needs an overhaul. But that's beyond the scope of this project. If and when the overhaul occurs, no doubt it will affect the current Main Page at that time. No worries. -- Go for it! 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Concerning the browse-section approach, the English Wikipedia is designed differently. Instead of presenting the Main Page as a "Super Portal" with browse links, we have provided links to fully developed browsing pages like Wikipedia:Browse and Portal:Browse. There's also Wikipedia:Browse by overview which is provided on the Template:browsebar used throughout English Wikipedia. However, there are 2 Main Page alternates with browse sections: Main Page alternate (blue boy) and Main Page alternate (italian-style). -- Go for it! 05:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I've looked at the main page hundreds of times (and the portal page dozens) in the last few years and I've never noticed the link to the alternate layouts. Am I missing something? This should be prominently linked: Main Page alternates]. I think one of the alternates you mention -- blue boy or the Italian format -- would be better for the current front page. Those pages are more helpful and have much better categories.
Not sure where to put this bit of writing now so put it here to save it on this page and in case you wish to comment: I took time to look through the front page history listings -- so, I'll share some thoughts about this. Perhaps should make a new post about this. Wonder if this history of categories is outline in more detail anywhere?
Perhaps many of you know this. However, perhaps will be helpful to people who haven't been with Wikipedia since early 2004: I made a brief review of the history of the main page regarding changes in the main category scheme.
1. Original Categories. The front page had approximately these main categories (with dozens of subcats), for the first 2 years of until February 2004:
About our category schemes - Alphabetical order by title - By category - By academic discipline - Historical timeline - Themed timelines - Calendar - Reference tables - Biographies - Countries - How-tos Source: a Feb 2004 main page (Note: I alphabetized the above.)
2. Longer Category List With Many Subcategories. Then, in late February 2004, main category multiplication set in with the development of something that looked like the current collection of main heads on the current Portal:Browse page. That was much too much info on a front page -- and seemed to take extra time to load. Also, the main new 8 categories are not quite are OK as main heads (though the above are easier to work with) as some thing get left out of the top level (like social sciences and applied sciences):
one example: late Feb 2004 main page
3. One-Word Categories with No Subcategories. On August 27, 2004, the really huge Portal-like layout got cut from the front page and moved to the portal page. And, the current one line of a handful of one-word links (wrong solution I think) were put at the top. It made the page load more quickly. This was discussed some at the time but perhaps not enough. One comment noted that categorization is a science in and of its own right, here: discussion of dropping categories. This is the first page edited to drop the large group of categories: August 27, 2004 main page
Comments: I believe that Wikipedia editors got main categories right at the start!!!! Or, a lot closer to it than the current scheme...
Wikipedia being an encyclopedia I think the project would want the front page to have a good basic category structure. I think that the correct action in August 2004 would have been to return to the original 4 categories with some major subheads or have 6 or 8 or so categories that are comprehensive -- the current 9 (and even 12) one word cats can't do the job. I think it is the correct action to go back (or forward) to the better scheme -- such as to use more text in 8 categories, as in the [ French Wikipedia] front page.
Yup. Those categories on the main page (in the header or wherever) should follow the standard across the encyclopedia -- perhaps voted on once in awhile -- just like there is one programming language for the project. AND: The original Other Category Scheme section above is important too. That way category schemes that don't get top level exposure can continue to be available. Vir 06:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
First of all I think that near the bottom where we put the other areas of wikipedia has a lot of white space on the right hand side, I don't know how to fix it but I think it should be fixed. Second of all near the bottom they talk about starting a Wikipedia in another language but I think it should just say Wikipedia. Tell me if I am wrong in that assumption.
Why is the search box taking up so much room vertically? -- Go for it! 08:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Can we get rid of the outer borders of most of the boxes? These are the kinds of additional lines that newspapers long ago learned to do without; we can get along quite well with the occasional rule and variations in background color, without the borders. Has there been a draft so far that attempted this? +sj + 23:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not soliciting votes or anything, but I thought you'd like to know that one of the most active participants here is up for RfA at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kmf164. -- Go for it! 09:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
What do you think about adding sub-portals as list in mouseover in portal-links? Example:
*[[Portal:Art|<span title="Architecture, Comics, Film, Dance, Literature, Music">Art</span>]]
→ Aza Toth 16:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Quoted from above:
The underlying issue is that the whole subject category hierarchy needs an overhaul. But that's beyond the scope of this project. If and when the overhaul occurs, no doubt it will affect the current Main Page at that time. No worries. -- Go for it! 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
For the record, I'm a guy. The selection of 12 portals is about as close as we are going to get to a top-tier of the overall structure. There are 3 main reasons for this:
Culture and Society overlap almost completely (they are invariably interwined - culture implies society while being an aspect thereof. Meanwhile, all societies have culture and each society throughout history is a culture - Mayan, Aztec, British, French, etc.). The two terms are almost synonymous. And while Art is a subcategory of Culture, my guess is that most users would skip Culture and go straight to Art if given the choice. Culture is the most ambiguous subject currently on the list, and the best candidate for replacement. --
Go for it!
01:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just checked over the drafts from the poll. The minimum number of portals in any of the drafts displayed in Round 6 was ten. So where the heck did nine come from all of a sudden? That's shrinking the number below the minimum! Most of the drafts have 11 or more, and those that use a matix have 12. Nine wasn't even visited and therefore has no consensus in the draft poll at all. Nine is clearly not an issue. -- Go for it! 02:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Quoting David: "it's about recognizing that the decision of which portals to add should be made separately and with the full participation of the community." I agree however I do have a suggestion that would keep the portals debate going - in a good way. Why not have a link to the main portals page, additionally have a few rotating selected portals. These portals could be dealt with in a way that would be a combination of featured articles and DYK. It would mean that a mechanism is in place to determine the portals by template which would have it's own evolution separate to this redesign process. New users would be introduced to various portals over time (they seem to be proliferating which to me is a good thing). It's maybe too late for this page but I thought it was a idea worth getting feedback on? Regards all. SeanMack 15:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
We need a resolution on the 2nd search box question. There seemed to be support for the proposal to highlight the left nav column's Search entry, by making changes to MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Is there any opposition to this idea? Are there any alternate color suggestions? And is there anyone who can steward the idea through the villagepump process..?
the proposed change is adding this line:
#searchBody {background-color:#F7F7DF;}
which results in this look:
questions/comments? -- Quiddity 21:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Another proposal: Moving the sidebar search box to the top of the three boxes (above the "navigation" box). This would make it more visible. Though in its current position it breaks up the text of the "navigation" and "toolbox" boxes quite well. -- Quiddity 20:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
We need a decision on these 2 items, and someone who can guide them through the village pump process if changed. (do we need a vote here?) -- Quiddity 05:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I just saw a note on the Technical Village Pump about using small icons as bullets for the portal list. I really liked the sample given. Has this been discussed? What do people think? -- Oldak Quill 11:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
There's some debate over what to call the ninth link... "All portals", "Other...", "More topics...". I agree with Urthogie that the term "portals" isn't exactly clear to the newbie. In my mind, I think portals = topics. But, all topics don't (yet) have portals. So, think "More" is a better term than "All". That's how I came up with "More topics...", but I'm open to other suggestions. Also, does Portal:Browse really include *all* portals? It might, but I'm not sure. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 15:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
You're the only person pushing for this, Go for it!, and your refusal to address some of our concerns (such as the obvious lack of consensus regarding which new portal links should be included) is quite troubling. — David Levy 17:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I understood that discussion about Portals is independent and must evolve further, but i don't understand why Culture and not Art. Just now, the second is much more developed and interesting! Cyb3r 19:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a news site, so I'm wondering what the purpose of this part of the main page is. I can see some utility in pointing people to encyclopedic background information on "current news stories" , for some given value of "news", but am wondering just how much of the front page should be devoted to this and how much should happen on an ancillary page. It seems that there is a very limited about of front page space. I've no answers, but am wondering if putting news headlines on the front page that are nothing but links to another page with more story detail that contains links to the actual articles would not better serve the purpose of the front page news section. (Again, the first step is some succinct statement of the purpose of the news section on the front page. Apologies in advance for not devoting any real energy to rooting out such a statement.) -- kop 20:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I've often looked for expanded coverage of the news items, to be frustrated by linking to unrelated articles. But the place to get that changed would be the Main Page talk page, or the In the news department itself. In this project, we just reworked the main page design, without getting into the inner workings of the departments whose data is piped in to it. -- Go for it! 02:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
We were considering going with icons as bullets, but the browsers treat them as words and wraps when text size is increased in the browser...
Welcome to Wikipedia Information
6,848,680 articles that
anyone can edit |
Is there a way to turn the text wrap feature off for just the matrix above? -- Go for it! 00:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
(Also, science looks a bit lower. What's causing that? -- Go for it! 00:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't work (try increasing text size now, and watch the above matrix wrap). -- Go for it!
Many editors dont/will not like what we see as "cutesy" icons. Specifically:
This is a text-heavy encyclopedia, not an AOL forum, and I and others will be turned-off by taking its design in that direction. Maybe, after this re-design is done, make another Wikipedia:Main Page alternates instead? -- Quiddity 08:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Rather than icons, which I agree would be too small to be useful here, how about light shading differences for the three columns? +sj + 23:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Just stepped back and had a look at the top of the draft, and I have a comment about the positioning of the links. There are two types of links in the header and the area below it: browse links that take you to browsing pages; and information links that take you to pages that explain stuff about Wikipedia. At the moment the right-hand side is all browse links or search options, apart from the Special:Statistics link in the search bar. The left-hand side is mainly information links, except the Categories link and the A-Z link. I feel it would make more sense for these two browse links to be separated from the informational links, or at least for something to make clear that they are different from the three information links (Tutorial, Questions, Help).
I also prefer the wording "More portals", which doesn't seem to take up more space (even if it does, use of a slightly smaller font to offset it, instead of bolding it, might help, or maybe italicize it?). Carcharoth 09:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Further to my comment above about how the header links divide nicely left/right between information links and browse links, I would like to suggest that if the search box gets dropped, that the two links "Categories" and "Index" get moved across to replace it. Thus the left-hand side of the screen would be the Tagline and Subtitle (two information links), with three further information links below it (Tutorial, Questions, Help), and the right-hand side of the screen becomes the portal links, with two (or three, depending on where the Portal:Browse link ends up) links below it (Categories and A-Z). In fact, I like these layouts so much, I'm going to add them to the page's edit history. I'll add links here to the three layouts I have in mind. Carcharoth 10:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Here are links to versions in the history of the draft page, for three layouts for the intro/browse area (the header - portals list - browse bar).
1) [6] (a) Search box included. (b) "All portals" link in header. (c) "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset slightly (middot and enspaces) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help).
2) [7] (a) No search box. (b) "All portals" link in header. (c) "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset markedly (other side of page) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help). (d) Links in this area now divide neatly left/right between information/browse types.
3) [9] (a) No search box. (b) "All portals" link NOT in header. (c) "Portals", "Categories" and "A-Z" links offset markedly (other side of page) from other three links (Tutorial, Questions, Help). (d) Links in this area now divide neatly left/right between information/browse types.
Which do people prefer? Carcharoth 12:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
4) Sj-draft. a) Search box, longer. b) "All portals" link. c) other links below top header box spaced out a bit more. d) softer border around the header. d) no bullets before the lists of portals.
5) This is my vision of the final draft. I updated Kmf164's draft to include the browsebar links from the current draft. -- Quiddity 05:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not a fan of the redundant search box, and I believe that its removal would boost the draft's likelihood of succeeding in the election. — David Levy 20:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I prefer "All portals," which matches the other items on the list. Capitalizing the first letter is an arbitrary style convention, and there's no reason not to follow it consistently. (In other words, there's no linguistic justification; it isn't as though the other terms are proper nouns.) — David Levy 20:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Exdenting:
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft/Sj -- minimized borders, fewer distracting lines and bullets (no bullets in the header), more spacing between links on the left hand side of the header, longer search-bar.
I really like having a search bar front and center on the main page. And I strongly support moving the search up to the top of the stack in the left hand nav, on other pages. +sj + 23:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
My opinions:
I'm sorry to be so negative. — David Levy 23:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
HereToHelp and +sj: You seem to be the main 2 editors still wanting a second search box on the main page. Could you elaborate your reasons for wanting it? and could you update your opinion in the
Decision thread now that i've enlarged the images to show the highlighted sidebar search in context. thanks. --
Quiddity
04:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Starting at the beginning of the nineteenth, we enter a period between this open editing session and the final vote that is basically a chance to find bugs with the program, get everything operational, and test with different resolutions/browsers/OSs. As taken Go for it!'s talk page, GFI! says:
I'm not adverse to that at all, but we need to figure out some way to reorganize the talk page for that. So:
The reason I'm telling you this is because I'm going to out of town over the long weekend and unable to get on. So, I'm doing my best to ensure that this happens smoothly. Comments, like always, are welcome.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 12:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, Cherry blossom tree! I completely overlooked this page's existence (which illustrates the importance of the link), and this is the sort of thing that I intended to set up at Wikipedia:Featured content. I'd planned to spend hours working on this today, and I'm glad that I didn't waste the time and effort. — David Levy 16:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I've reverted Go for it!'s reinsertion of his favored portal link (with the misleading edit summary "efficiency"). Portal:Philosophy is good, but there is no consensus regarding which new portal links should be added. That will have to wait for a future discussion (which should immediately follow the main page redesign project), at which point I fully intend to support the inclusion of this portal link.
Also, we can't refer to the quick index simply as "index," because the categories and portals are indexes too. This is a specific type of index—an alphabetical one. "A–Z index" works, and "A–Z" is the term used on the current main page. — David Levy 16:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Your logic makes no sense. The portals on the Main Page was just changed twice, without consensus, and you didn't step in there. You are being very selective in your enforcement of your consensus standard. -- Go for it! 05:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Newcomers dont know what a portal is!-- Urthogie 16:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to have a specific vote of some sort on whether or not to include a search box in the header. The second box was recently boldly removed, but the last round of voting had little consensus on the matter, but (to me, at least) it appeared to show that a large segment of editors strongly wanted a search box, while those opposed to it on average felt less strongly about it.
It's a very either-or, for-against question (I personally am *very* strongly for), and as it appears that far fewer people are contributing in this round of editing (thereby making a less-representative result from this round *much* more likely to occur - see genetic drift), I think we need some way to bring a larger segment back in. Basically, there's not much more one can say about the topic, about whether it's redundant or necessary - few people are likely to be convinced from one side to another. We just need to solve the problem once and for all, and then both sides must be willing to accept the result.
I don't think a compromise is really possible. There already was a compromise, a very good one, incorporating both the portals in the top box and the search box below it. But if the issue is simply whether or not the search box should exist, it can't half-exist. zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:15, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Agh, what a drama :) You just need to find the right combination of divs and tables and it would work perfectly. But it dos not matter, I am not defending my edit (I completely agree some stuff there was going against compromises), I am defending the box. I suggest we go back to the basics, that is, what we do about the darn box? Have a pool? When? How? Not have a pool? Then what? I would suggest to have voting here and now before going to introduce the draft for voting. DL suggested we put the box after the draft is approved. But then it will mean another giant vote and another 2 months of discussions. Let's do it in one sitting. Renata 04:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
The complete draft would get overwhelming support because it had a little bit of everything on there. People aren't going to shoot it down as long as their favorite things are on there -- it won't matter to them if there's one or two things mixed in that they don't care for. As long as the draft is a general improvement over the current Main Page, it will win. Therefore we should be BOLD and provide the absolutely most functionally packed page we can. Not some scared-to-stick-its-head-out-of-the-hole-rabbit version. -- Go for it! 05:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
As for the argument concerning bugs. That's irrelevant at this time. We've got the rest of the months to debug whatever format we come up with. Whether that be with search box, or not. Whatever we decide to go with, it's pretty certain we can make it work. And even if we can't, we'll learn that soon enough. But this timid "we're not going to win the election if we put such and such in" doesn't even sound Wikipedian to me. Heck, we should put Wikipedia's main slogan Be Bold front top and center, so nobody forgets it. --05:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Such a big fuss was made over the search box during this past round, that it seems absolutely ridiculous to pull it at the last minute. Someone has the wedding jitters. If you want some really sound advice, provide a draft with as many bells and whistles as we can provide, and if it is overkill, then specific features can be pulled out later. The draft is just too good not to win against the current main page - the draft in its myriad of configurations got overwhelming support from those who took a look. The Main Page got hardly any votes at all. And it's not like this draft will be completely untouchable once it becomes the official main page - I predict a firestorm of tweaking once it takes center stage. So we should put our best foot forward, give it everything we've got, rather than be timid and afraid of losing the "election", or of setting irreversible precedents, when in fact the main page doesn't have a snowball's chance in...
--
Go for it!
Besides, strict voting doesn't count on Wikipedia. It is possible that some unpredictable consensus will come out of the upcoming "election", for if enough people state they want something specific, we really won't have much choice but to give it to them. -- Go for it!
It wouldn't hurt anything to provide expanded portals and the search box. Those were 2 of the main developments of the main page draft design project, and now they're both being tossed out the window. -- Go for it!
Now there's a sysadmin who has the right idea. He just went in and changed the Main Page. We should be following his example. That's the fastest way to find out what people want. If the draft dies in the election, you could be sure we'd have another one ready the following week, and another the week after that, until it wins. So why be afraid? Some people are so afraid that consensus hasn't been built, that it has slowed this project to a crawl. The help page took 4 days to overhaul. The community portal took 3. And there was a heckuva lot more material on both of those. -- Go for it! 05:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I humbly suggest you go back and read the input for Rounds 2 to 5. You'll get a real feel for the project then. It was mostly negative until Round 6, when things really took off. It actually started to feel like we were doing something right, and then fear set in. But there's nothing major at stake, so the conservative approach is just silly. The worst thing that could happen is Round 7 (though further rounds are inevitable anyways, whether under this project or a future one). -- Go for it! 06:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)