Talk:Main Page/Archive 14

message: 56 table-of-contents sections, 13 archives of old talk and 6 pages of talk about layout and colours? Give me a break! Why don't people devote their time to producing content? Miguel 19:38, 2004 Feb 24 (UTC)
: Actually 10 pages of talk about layout. Perhaps we devote our time to layout so that it looks good enough to attract more people producing content and not lost them baffled with arcane Main Page. ;)
Forseti 08:40, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: (untitled)

message: IMO, the new page looks a lot better than the old one.  However, it's getting a little cluttered.  I think we should avoid the "web-portalish" look (i.e. a painfully overwhelming layout; visit http://www.lycos.com/ for an example).  I would reduce the amount of text in the "Featured article"/"In the news" to 75% of what it is now.  Connelly 06:59, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Critiques of the new front page

message: I prefer the old frontpage, there you could see all the 'in the news', 'recent additions', 'featured pages', etc. categories at once. And it was just half a page of scrolling to the bottom. Now the frontpage is too large - once can't see all the 'changing' categories at once. Abigail 11:44, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Second this comment. I do not want the chief Wikipedia presentation (seen by everyone) to look just like some commercial web page. It should fit on a single (nominal) screen. The main page should be, essentially, a collection of pointers to more, not images and bitty comments/teasers. Change the new style. It's not good for Wikipedia! ww 17:02, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Too much scrolling

message: 23 February or February 23--obits has the former, the rest has the latter. What do we do? jengod 20:37, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
:Why not just wikify the obituary dates, so that the users' preferences will make them all look the same? Arwel 21:26, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. I see, although the dates in Template:Holidays are wikified, they're not formatted as dates are in ordinary articles. Something for the developers to look at! Arwel 21:32, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Date Standard

message: Since this page will be seen by large numbers of complete newcomers, it might be better to say 
:Please let us know what you think about our new Main Page on its discussion page!
rather than the discussion page. Otherwise people might think the link goes to a general discussion page, and we'll get things posted here that should be on the Pump, at the Desk, or somewhere completely different. - IMSoP 21:09, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh, thank you, Kaihsu - IMSoP 21:30, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I suggest rewording the request for comments slightly 

message: It works like the glossy paper wrapper on a book. It's much more accessible to a first-time user. Wetman 22:23, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Kent Wang 22:28, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seductive layout... 

message: I've noticed the large table cells containting "Featured Articles" and "In The News" look different in Mozilla Firefox (0.8 Windows) and IE6.  They have black borders in Firefox and light gray borders in IE.  You can make them look the same by adding "border:lightgray" to the style attributes of these two TD elements.  New look is great, by the way.
User:Farmerchris 22:41, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)
This applies to the two large cells at the bottom of the page too ("Browse Wikipedia by topic" and "Wikipedia in other languages").
Farmerchris 22:45, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Table Borders

message: I'm very happy overall with the new front page. Although total information content has dropped (with the movement of many things to the Community Main Page), it really grabs your attention with the photographs and immediately relevent facts.
If I had to note a disadvantage, it would be that this page encourages reading above writing of articles; this may not even be a disadvantage.
Derrick Coetzee 00:04, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This main page is for readers (who outnumber writers IIRC 20-40 to one if not more). I think it was a great idea to separate the two functions. The old main page (which I helped design and itself was a great improvement over the really old main page) tried to do too many things at once. --mav 02:25, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Much better 

message: ::Propose an alternative heading, then I can tell you if I have objections.—Eloquence
Just to throw out a few ideas: 
* "Featured new article" Voting: Alex S
* "New article du jour" 
* "New article spotlight" Voting: 
* "New article" 
* "Did you know..." Voting: Kingturtle, Perl, —Eloquence, Seth Ilys, Elf, Jengod
* "Hot off the presses"
* "Now Showing"
* "Freshly Written"
* "New and Improved" Voting Mr. Jones
→Raul654 02:07, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
----
Creates a much better first impression. Looks more professional and modern. Well done guys. Splitting the community from encyclopedia elements is retrospectively a rather sensible move. ChrisG 01:59, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative headings for Did you know 

message: Very professional looking. Should attract users of the encyclopedia (not just editors) and all to explore. Disagree with others that think it is a disaster. It looks great! - Marshman 02:35, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Main Page - comment 

message: Congratulations Eloquence (and others). Your hard work over the last week and a half have paid-off.The new main page moves us foward by a decade. mydogategodshat 02:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Congratulations

message: Is there anything we can do about this? silsor 03:24, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
:We could get rid of the header that says "Main page from Wikipedia, the free encyclo". It is redundant, wastes space, introduces white space in an ugly area, and saps initial impact from the page. mydogategodshat 
: Are you referring to the left/right balance? There should probably be an additional news item at least. Also, could you add the screenshot, with a proper filename and caption, to Main Page/Screenshots?—Eloquence
:We could also drop the font size a wee bit; would compact it slightly and make line breaks better on narrower screens/windows.  Elf 04:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Wasted whitespace makes page far too tall

message: No matter earlier discussion regarding the Wikipedia:Plain vanilla main page, I would like to thank all people who volunteered their time and effort to make the new main page possible. Indeed, it's more beautiful. But we may still need to have something simpler for users with old computers, PDAs, etc. So, an additional plain vanilla main page wouldn't hurt, if we can maintain it. Optim 03:25, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Having a link to a simpler Main Page at the top of this one makes sense. Maintaining the two should be easy - just update the MediaWiki msgs and both versions get updated. --mav 03:57, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  congrats 

message: Looks pretty good! A few points though:-)- the welcome box in yellow is too wordy, and important points are not highlighted. And if the latest announcements/comments (such as the now existing sentence asking for comments about the main page) are going to form a permanent feature, its all the more important. Basically the main body of the page is fine, but the yellow box looks more like a statutory warning than a pleasant welcome!:-) Also, can the side bars and the standard top menu be slightly changed?  Maybe if the matter below the side bar extends to the full width of the screen with a horizontal break emphasised (through light line/ colour) it would be better. (The browse wikipedia by topic can extend fully thereby avoiding too much of white space) KRS 06:25, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pretty good, except for the yellow box, side bars and blank whitespaces

message: * Toby's change evilly added after the poll was begun
*# ... producing this! (Toby Bartels)
*# Anthony DiPierro
* With Jengod's 2nd changes 
*# mav (I like the overall look better, but miss the holidays section; IMO it would still fit)
*#* Holidays can be part of today in history--just a thought... Jengod
*#* Not all holidays happen on the same day every year. --mav
*# This is the best in the poll ... (Toby Bartels)
*# Anthony DiPierro
*# User:Dramatic
* Jengod's 1st changes 
*# →Raul654 07:00, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
*# jengod 07:12, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC) pretty sure my first edits were good--not so sure about second edits. ;)
*# Baldhur
*# Gentgeen
*# Marshman Not sure about differences with these versions, but like the box at top best in this one 
*# ChrisG I like all the new versions better than the old, but this is probably the best. But where are the links to other languages/link to browse by topic on the top right which I thought were useful?
* Before jengod's changes
*# ... although I'd rather start with this, then change the font size ... (Toby Bartels)
*# Otherwise we're going to have "death by 1,000 nitpicks." RadicalBender 13:48, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New Version(s)

message: * Previous main page
*# Jamesday 07:56, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Version(s)

message: I think that the new desing is change to the worse. First: it doesn't looks well in 800*600 resolution. Second: former design was more compact without unnecessary distractions (like Featured article). I especially enjoyed Selected Articles -  you can glance & click to what interests you and it was short and orderly. Even on 800*600 one could view Selected Articles and headers of Encyclopedia and Community. Third: on former everything seemed in place - now the real content is left at the bottom behind Featured Article and In the news sections.
If you want to keep new design anyway, I think that remedies should include:
* restoring Selected Articles on top as it was supposed to be quintessence of Wikipedia. In the news, recently featured, Holidays, Obituaries and A day in history could go there in form of pure links (wiki is not news portal anyway, is it?)
* moving Featured article (with somewhat shrinked photo) to the right column with Did you know below it - these are not terribly important things and so should be kept in supporting right column not main central one). Also Featured article text is too long - it should be about half that lenght.
* The central, widest column should be occupied by Browse Wikipedia by topic as it is IMHO most important thing on the page - a set of entry points to Wikipedia system.
* While it seems good to move Community thingies to separate page, somewhat more of it should be on main page. It could be one-liner of links in their own color box like:
**Community: New to Wikipedia? - Guidelines - Policies - Village Pump - Contact usForseti 08:50, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Forseti's comments, and worry that the community has been lost in the new design.  The "Welcome newcomers" is two clicks away, as is "About Wikipedia".  Featured article and did you know, both non time sensitive "features" should be grouped together, and made smaller.  The topics should be back up top.  Wikipedia is a reference site first, and a news site second. Fuzheado 08:55, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, Welcome is the first link, as well as the first word]] on the page.  In my opinion, Wikipedia is a website first, a refrence second, a news site somewhere way down the list.  With that in mind, we need to understand our market and make sure we grab the reader so they come back a second time.  The old page didn't do that, just about the opposite, really. Gentgeen 09:41, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  You can't reasonbly expect anyone to click on that first "Welcome" link.  They're in reading mode and will likely never go back to visit it. Fuzheado 09:44, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: I made Main Page/Temp9 so you could see what I mean. Sorry, I haven't much time so it's done only as illustration and needs to be filled up. I merged several Temps and Tests for this. But of course Featured Article needs to be shortened. Comments please.Forseti 11:15, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to the worse + remedies 

message: I like the new look of the main page. Congratulations and thank you, it is a huge improvement. -- Baldhur 11:13, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New design 

message: How did you create the  tags that were used for the test page Main Page/Test8? Bevo 09:35, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:MediaWiki namespace —Sverdrup(talk) 14:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  <nowiki>{{msg:itn-test}}</nowiki> 

message: This new frontpage is much more attractive! And it's a great idea to add a sample article... It's nice to read about other topics of ours without looking for it! Definitely, I love it!
 pycoucou
*I loooove it! --Ryan and/or Mero 12:33, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
Can we have something about carnival day? (brazil) Perl 13:35, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great 

message: That's my opinion. -- The Anome 01:26, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New page design is a great improvement