Wikipedia talk:Community portal/Draft/Archive 2

message: A possible idea mooted a few months ago was to split the community portal over 2 pages, that and other ideas can be found here: Wikipedia_talk:Community_Portal/October_2005_Redesign. - CheekyMonkey 13:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, we need continuity of style - even the web has fashion. We can't have one page wearing a shirt and tie and another wearing a hoodie and t-shirt. Also, the community portal looked fine when it was last redesigned - it now looks like a huge mess. With more mess, and even more, and some litter on the floor. Davidpk212 17:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with both of you and had worked some on Wikipedia:Community Portal/Draft (Here's the version we had).  I was pretty much alone in the effort (though, a few others chipped in), which was continually thwarted by User:Go for it! who prefers making edits directly to the Wikipedia:Community Portal page. I was also fine with the community portal before all the edits in the past month(s), but if it needs to be redesigned then so be it. I'm willing to help out. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: That was me. To be honest I wanted just two columns at the bottom myself, and to get rid of all the deletion stuff. But I can't figure out the code, every time I try the two columns shrink down so they don't spread across the page. the wub "?!" 10:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I thought this might be interesting for ideas. Furthermore, what about putting  here? HereToHelp 01:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, a similar approach had been unsuccessfully tried by User:Gareth Aus and others for Help:Contents, with Help:Contents/Draft.  The help pages now needs help too. --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed. and your comments above too... Re: the help page, someone suggested just putting the Help:Contents/Site_map back as the main help page. which i think is an excellent idea, but dont have time to work out how to fix the "ToC" links to be inter-page links. That would be my recommendation for now. --Quiddity 12:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Can we redo them Main page style? Also, those templated-in level 2 headings look bad—they're bigger than the regular headers! HereToHelp 02:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I really like that version. It could do with the Signpost adding in and probably a cut down of the Archives section. Having the other collaborations spread over two columns is a good idea though and saves a lot of space, and I don't really think the new featured content section fits all that well on the CP. the wub "?!" 10:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Re: TotD. No Absolutely not. see this short thread (Help_talk:Contents#Tip_of_the_day_-_remove) for my and other's dislike of the "tip of the day", and a solution from CBDunkerson. --Quiddity 11:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I really like where this is heading.I agree with the wub that the featured content section doesnt really fit with the page. it is already prominently linked at the newly invented Wikipedia:Featured content page that is linked from the main page.  --Quiddity 12:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at :commons:Help:Contents, which is actually helpful now. --Aude (talk | contribs) 16:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And Commons:Community Portal.  So simple, helpful, easy to scan and find what I'm looking for. --Aude (talk | contribs) 16:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

message: # It's confusing if they both look the same. The community portal should have a distinct look and feel of it's own.
# The main page design relies on putting everything inside multiple levels of boxes. This is a bad design methodology that would be terribly exacerbated if implemented on the community portal (where there is far more information to present). The community portal should instead use color and whitespace as the primary means of organizing information visually and then use lines and boxes only where necessary. These are basic principles of good web design that wikipedia seems determined to ignore.
Kaldari 18:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with his philosophy.  While wiki-style editing is generally fine, with key pages such as the main page, community portal, and help:contents, there needs to be some stability for the sake of readers and editors.  If stuff keeps moving all around so rapidly as has been happening, edit wars going on, etc., you get usability hell.  I can't possibly keep up with Go for it! (yet alone new users).  This is partly why I gave up with Wikipedia:Community Portal/Draft.  And while I disagreed with changes he made, here and there, I'm reluctant to join in on the edit war and make the situation worse for users.  I think we really need to treat the help:contents and community portal in the same way as the main page — some consistency please (over time).  Some cohesion across these various pages would also do users a lot of good.  Whether all these pages should look so much like the main page or not, I don't care.  But with a draft, we can experiment with various options.  And, some consistent style and organization across these pages would be excellent. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:19, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we have are job cut out for us (the right way is always the hardest!): We have to make each page similar and consistent without confusing users between über-similar pages. First, though: What should be here? The community? Becuase it seems to have developed an air of "how to write an article". I thought the point was to go outside the main namespace.--HereToHelp 02:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm okay with the community bulletin board here, but it could be more concise, so scrolling isn't required to see beyond it.  Other "news" and "community"-related items are good too.  If we separate out the "how to edit" links to elsewhere (while retaining a single, prominent link here to that), that could be helpful to trim the amount of information on the community portal.  The key policies (and Wikipedia:Five pillars) should still be linked here, however, as this is what we refer back to when there are disputes among editors.  I'm open to ideas.  What are your thoughts? --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Re: Community bulletin board - I experimented with placing "news" into the left column, leaving the right oclumn for something different (so people know there's more than news here).  Or we could keep CBB at full screen width, but fewer items (cycle through them more frequently, and archive them).  Or maybe some other way. --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree with his aesthetics and his methods. He voted for the Italian inspired main page redesign. He scattered Template:Catbar and Template:Browsebar across 300+ pages, and then argued as if they were a tradition, until called on it. He is primarily responsible for the recent community page confusions-for-all. I believe he should spend more time in the article space, before he "leaves his mark" across more of the wikipedia namespace. He has only been here since November, and the ~9000 edits does not make him a veteran or an interface designer. Sorry for the stern words, but gentle hints havent been working. He does tend to steam-roller people with his edit count and his ability to nitpick language usage (the curse of philosophy students...), and i know my opinions are shared by others and admins. --Quiddity 02:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He has some good opinions and some not-so-good ones. As said above, we need to strike a balance between consistency and repetitiveness—which will prove to be much harder than either of the two extremes.--HereToHelp 03:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could he somehow be encouraged to confine his additions to the linguistic side of wikipedia, and to stop trying to experiment with visual design? He is leaving a trail of frustrated editors and a mess of code. --Quiddity 08:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He definetly needs to hold back and discuss stuff a bit more when he is making those community wide changes of him. - The DJ 19:26, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: What if we use the blue, green, and purple from the Main Page with the current layout?--HereToHelp 15:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds well enough. The thing that's most annoying me on the redesign is the white bar at the top copying the Main Page. Ashibaka tock 02:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree with you about the top header (white box). --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please do not base the community portal design on the main page design 

message: *I attempted to insert the colours from the old october CPP, and similar ones. 
*added the "Ongoing projects" section. (mostly to fill the space, for aesthetic testing/proposing)
*added the bulletin board to the bottom. (there'll be an outcry is it goes?)
*fixed the header links to coincide with the above
*i removed the "new featured content" section. We should instead maybe be fixing up the Wikipedia:Featured content portal, so we can convince the-powers-that-be to link that in the navigation-sidebar box, instead of the "Featured articles" link that got added this week. 
*(and added a banner link at the top of Wikipedia talk:Community Portal, directing anyone here.)
thoughts? thanks. --Quiddity 07:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At least it sounds like a good idea. Another good idea would be to state some consensus that the community portal is too important to be everybody's playground. Major design or content changes should be discussed before being implemented. Kosebamse 13:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh that's a given (unless you're GoForIt!) --Quiddity 19:17, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Davidpk212 reverted my first test, so i'm trying a new one, but with flipped original colours. This helps distinguish it from the main page, and is also contextually relevant: news in blue (as on main page), article collaborations in green (related to featured articles on main page). --Quiddity 19:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have only recently discovered the degeneration of this once-relevant and usable page into that mess. Has this been going on for a long time? If you are saying that it is essentially a sibngle user's responsibilty then something must be done about it. I have seen his comments on Wikipedia talk:Community Portal, but has he been approached about this by more than a few users? Or has there been a clear statement by a substantial number of users that the community portal is not everybody's playground? Kosebamse 07:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In a word, yes. But he continues regardless. He is leaving a trail of frustrated admins and users. From the history, He essentially took over the place in early February. I've listed some links on his talk page. The same pattern is being identically repeated at the Help:Contents page, (and elsewhere), and was apparantly encountered throughout the Main Page Redesign. --Quiddity 08:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My concern is that if the Main Page wasn't protected, he would have tried the same thing there.  --Aude (talk | contribs) 15:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  April 1 changes 

message: The CBB needs to be more compact, and get rid of the white space there now.  I see a few options:
# Get rid of the "Signpost" box, and move the new WikiProjects and Portals there.
# Move the WikiProjects and Portals to a different section of the Community Portal, separate from the CBB.
# On the current Community Portal, there's a section for "New Featured Content".  We could move that to the top, right column and put the CBB in the top left column.  These two sections could complement each other nicely.
Any thoughts regarding these options, or other suggestions on making the CBB more compact and concise? --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 3. - copied from above - maybe we could be fixing up the Wikipedia:Featured content portal, so we can convince the-powers-that-be to link that in the navigation-sidebar box, instead of the "Featured articles" link that got added this week. --Quiddity 04:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

text: 1 + 2. - Yeah. But move the CBB to occupy the top right column. (I really think "Jobs to do" should remain at the top of the page. They would also complement each other, and the CBB would be above the Collaborations.) (The "News" section should also be above the "jobs to do", it got cut out accidentally when the CBB was moved up in the last edit.) --Quiddity 05:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Community Bulletin Board

message: problem(s) with the header box:
*The within-page links in the top right, are actual page-links in the Main Page's header box. That is confusingly inconsistent.
I suggest we try making the title box 50% width, and leave a normal ToC floating in the top right. (as on the current CP) --Quiddity 05:04, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The title box looks good with a 300px width. Then if we have 2 columns of content, it would be good to have 2 matching columns of intra-links (as on the help:contents/sitemap). I can't manage to code a box that floats top-right though. --Quiddity 09:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Header box