Talk:Main Page/Archive 15

message: Great new front page! Can we archive the subject mentioned in "Did you know..." and "Featured article", so that we don't repeat topics too quickly. Either archive the actual paragraphs of text used, or even just the topics in a list. -- user:zanimum
:Perhaps they could be listed on their respective MediaWiki Talk: pages - archiving the whole text seems a little redundant, though, since we'll have a Page History for each one. - IMSoP 14:04, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Main page topic archiving

message: I just moved over to a eMac (about 2003 or so), in another room, with IE 5.2 on it.  The left hand side toolbar has completely disappeared, down to the very bottom of the page, every page. Did someone change the software for Wikipedia, because it's not just the main page that has changed. -- user:zanimum
:Did you try a shift/control reload? Dori | Talk 14:20, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
:: Yes, then tried on another eMac with IE 5.2, then on an iMac, IE 5.1.6. Tried logged in and logged out on both, no prevail. Only 2% use macs, but this still is a major problem. Any one else have a mac? -- user:zanimum
:::Yes, but I'm using Netscape, and the new page shows just fine. BTW, more than 2% use Macs. Those are the sales numbers, but any Mac user knows that an LCIII will still function as a useful machine long after a 386 has become landfill (and poor landfill at that...)
:::Also Mac (G4--2000 or so) with Netscape 7. Looked fine a couple of hours ago.  Won't be back there to try with IE until this evening. Elf 21:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: EMERGENCY

message: But I believe it can still be improved upon:
*The text at the top ought to attract more attention - it is easily overlooked right now. Maybe increasing the text size somewhat and change the background color - maybe switch with the left column since that one is big enough to catch the eye anyway.
*The 'Featured article'-section is somewhat big. Maybe use a smaller picture and display the 'recent features' in smaller fontsize.
*The same for 'recent days'.
*It is not at all clear from the first view you get that there are other, closely related 'pedias in other langauges. My suggestion would be that a reference is given not only to the number of articles in the english 'pedia there are, but also to the number of articles in all the 'pedias. That would not take much extra space, and it gives a hint to non-english new visitors that there is a chance that they might find interesting articles in whatever language they preferrably speak (or read). (Think one could be that nice to them, right?) So after "...in the english version", add "...and xxx,xxx articles in total". 
*The 'Browse wikipedia by topic', well, I think it is also too big, but I don't know how to improve it...
But overall - a nice piece of work!
Mikez 14:23, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It is getting better with each revision. The simplification is good, as is the edition of links to browse my topic and other languages. I think overall it is much better than the previous main page because it advertises Wikipedia much better and divides the encyclopedia stuff from the community stuff. ChrisG 21:28, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's getting better for every revision! 

message: Please! Bring back the old page! The new page provides more information, but at the cost of the beauty of the old page. Don't let this change be permanant. Auric The Rad 15:14, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
: Hi Auric,
: could you be more specific in describing what you don't like about the new Main Page?—Eloquence 15:46, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's awful (alil' disconcerting, but change always is). Overall I like it [initial impression]  ... but the pics are distracting to me (YMMV on that though). I'd just suggest that you put the text in and leave out the graphics [ppl can see them in the article] ... Sincerely, JDR 15:49, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't please everyone. I thought the old homepage was one of the ugliest on the internet, *anything* would have been an improvement on it. And lack of line-height made it not worth trying to follow links on it, because I would often end up with a page whose link was one line above or below the one I tried to click. (This is still an issue with the left nav bar on cologne blue - could we have a typical 140% line height please?)dramatic 01:50, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awful! 

message: Hmmmm. I'm a little confused regarding the update process and coordination between the Current events page, the "In the news" part of the Main page and the Template:In_the_news page. For instance, the Morocco earthquake item of 24 February existed in three versions as of this writing (1815 UTC the same day). Shouldn't all updates be propagated in the order described at the top of this page? Bad coordination of this process is detrimental to the professional impression Wikipedia should aspire to make on its readers.  --Wernher 18:22, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current events / In the news (Main page) / MW:Itn 

message: The yellow box has become too big because of the browse wikipedia by topic addition. One can barely see the top of the featured articles/news items/ photographs section(my resolution is 800x600 I think) without scrolling. This defeats the whole purpose of a happening main page. KRS 18:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow box has become too big 

message: If it aint broke......... Tweaking design is fine, providing the site isn't compromised. I now have to scroll down to the bottom of every page to see/use what was previously the left hand column. Bordering on unworkable. Moriori 19:21, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
What happens if we put the "Browse by topic" on the left and the various features on the right?
Then you won't need to scroll down for either (at least not for whatever features we put on top), nor will you need a hotlink in the intro box.
-- Toby Bartels 20:24, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm the one who choose to put the caeser article up. I can't help the other one. As for freeing the turtle... um... yea. →Raul654 21:02, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)
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I gave it a day to try to get used to the new format, but I can't help thinking we lost something.  In particular, I think the page is weaker for having moved the Wikipedia:About, Village pump, What our critics say about us, etc. pages from the front.  Hiding them on the Community Main Page dilutes the chance to celebrate what makes the Wikipedia special. Rossami 21:36, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia:About is linked from every page. Wikipedia:Village pump is linked from Wikipedia:Contact us, which is also on every page. If you try to integrate everything that is now on Wikipedia:Main Page into the frontpage, you end up with what we had before -- a mess of links, none of which provided any information about where they led besides the title. The old Main Page was mystery meat navigation, this one is much more user friendly.—Eloquence
My opinion: the new Main Page is trying to steer Wikipedia away from the realms of a smaller web-community project to a mainstream audience. Trivia and big pictures are more likely to attract a casual user surfing through than a comprehensive page of links designed for those already hooked. I'm missing that community section being on the front page, as the community is at the heart of Wikipedia, and this is something we should be pointing out to all visitors. --Kwekubo 21:56, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: We need to appeal to a wide audience. That's part of how we can hook new users. The community main page is readily available. If you feel the need to see the community section right away when you start, bookmark that page. --Michael Snow 22:16, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did it work OK before the fiddle? YES, Does it work Ok now? NO. 

message: Looks like the mini-obits are now gone from the Main page, leaving the link captioned "Obituaries".  If we keep it this way we need to go back the that "recent deaths" caption for the link, as we noted during prototying of this page that the link points to articles, not obituaries. Bevo 23:05, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Obituaries link on the Main page

message: See . --mav 02:03, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging "Events in history" with "Holidays" 

message: I've changed the yellow box into a table, right-aligned the "Browse", "Languages" links, and added a text-only link. In Mozilla the top box is now slightly wider than the other boxes, I haven't been quite able to figure out the cause of this.—Eloquence 05:27, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)
:Thanks for adding the text-only link. Optim 05:39, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow box updated 

message: Ever since the new Main Page has gone live, the Wikipedia:Sandbox editing rate appears to have more than doubled. I attribute this to the new "experiment" link which goes directly to the editing window. This should also alleviate concerns that the new Main Page is less effective in communicating the open nature of Wikipedia.—Eloquence 05:33, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)
: I do applaud linking directly to Sandbox. That's great. But there are still many concerns about the new design of portal vs. reference/community. Fuzheado 07:32, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sandbox editing rate 

message: Visitors would expect that clicking the image would take them to the article that the image belongs to. Linking to the image description page is uninformative and confusing. If it is not too difficult to change this behavior, it would be nice to change it. Arvindn 09:07, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, this is a problem, and yep, this talk page is busy. See Talk:Main_Page#Usability_problem a bit up, I posted a temp solution there. —Sverdrup(talk) 09:34, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main page images should link to relevant article 

message: On Jamesday's suggestion I removed the yellow box around the top paragraph. He pointed out that a box makes it look like an advertising banner and therefore likely to be ignored. That seems to be a valid point.—Eloquence 09:59, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)
----
Personally I think the new main page looks great... but I showed it to my brother, who uses the pedia occasionally as a reference, and he preferred the old version. His reasons were entirely different to mine, and equally valid, which I guess just goes to show that you can't please everyone all the time. He said the extracts were just fluff and the bit he wanted was the (alas nonexistant) search engine, or failing that an Index. 
He did make one good point though - if we are going to have a seperate community main page it needs to have its own link in the sidebar. He also thinks that the 'Wikipedia by topic' link should be there too, and he thinks there should be a text-only version of EVERY page (he assumed the text-only button would disable pictures for the entire pedia, not just the front page. KJ 10:34, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow box removed 

message: Shoot me down if I haven't searched enough of the archives to answer this myself.
What do people think of having a graphical article counter like this for the total number of en:  articles and perhaps also total all-languages articles? - Gaz 12:51, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why you think it should be graphical.  Also, is an up-to-date article count really that important?  As long as the count is updated periodically it will be pretty accurate, and there's always the statistics page. --HappyDog 12:56, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: We already have an up-to-date article count.  The count on the main page is dynamic, and up-to-date. Include a count on any page by doing  which looks like: . Perl 15:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: Nope, it looks so - nineties-ish. As it is now, you can put any wiki formatting on the number, which is much better. —Sverdrup(talk) 15:48, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

text: ROTFL - Forseti 14:41, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphical Article Counter