How users primarily enter Wikipedia? main page? watchlist? article page via google? other?
Is Wikipedia's Main Page set as your browser's home page?
Is Wikipedia's Main Page on your bookmark toolbar? (Firefox users, and other browsers with the capability)
I consider it important that we step back from the draft design and consider how the main page really is used and by who. I realize it's unscientific, but still helpful to get back to the usability ideas inherent in this redesign project. Thanks. --Aude16:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
There was some version confusion, which resulted in responses to the wrong version, but Draft 5 is back up and ready for critiquing. Please check the history of the draft to make sure you are commenting on the right version (in case someone else changes it - look for my namestamp). Thank you. Go for it!22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The voting round is over. Here is what Wikipedians had to say about Draft 5:
I Prefer the re-design (comments welcome):
Well, I prefer a redesign. I think we're getting close, and I like how this version is trying to go for that style, but I've gone a little furthur. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft (Italian_Inspired). I think it color is a very important part of the main page, and needs to be used. Also, the number of articles does not need to be linked to twice in the same box. Remove the one below the intro text and leave the one above the search box (which I also think is a must stay item).- Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 21:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
That wasn't the draft I posted that you commented on - it was edited. The draft I posted did not have the article count twice; and it had some new design elements, new colors, etc. Go for it!23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
It's getting better, but still got a long way to go. The blue is too bold. but the real problem with the top bars is the thickness - they're way too thick, overloading everything. The top box looks a little jumbled: KMF's design has the same content but does it better, putting the "Welcome to" farther left (maybe a little too far left) and splitting the yellow bar and the categories. The current draft has a big empty yellow space at the left of the top bar - it needs to be a little farther left. Also, will the picture of the day make the front page? Zafiroblue0523:09, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
It's somehow gone from bad to good in a short amount of time which is very nice to see. I like the brightness of it all, though some will obviously hate it. I prefer this to the KMF's design and Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft (Italian Inspired) linked above as they seems a bit cluttered. What I would do is add links to WP:FA or suchother pages from the images to the left of each header (if this is possible, I'm not sure how to bypass the image linking). I'd also, as has been discussed on the main page talk add a (more...) link at the end of the featured article. I know that's probably just something to add to each FA page but I'm sure some sort of coded link option exists too. Sorry if I'm repeating things that have already been said. Generally I like it (at last). Jellypuzzle | Talk01:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I thought so, though wondered if there wasn't a way to make the daily feautred article get its own redirecting page so that there could be a general link to the (full) feautred article. Sort of a variable that gets assigned daily automatically. We could then link to that um... with the (more). I now realise that this is far too complicated for something so minor, and possibly impossible anyway. Moving on then, the WP:FA link I referred to above should've actually been WP:WIAFA. I got the two confused and there's already a link to the former. The images just have "click me! click me!" written all over them to me so it would be nice if they could be pointed to something useful (if this is possible and if copywrite policy allows it). Jellypuzzle | Talk10:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I like this new page. It looks rather nice, and more organized than the current page. It is bright, which I believe has been commented on by a lot of people, but overall I give it a 9/10. (I recall giving a 7/10 on the previous one.) Link9er13:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm impressed. The overall look is more pleasing than the current main page and I like the added emphasis to the portal and project links. PoptartKing21:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the colours look unprofessionally bold. Also, those icons look awful with a white background. If they cannot be made transparent or something (drop shadow?) they should not be used. However, the redesign is clearly moving in the right direction and I'm sure it will represent a significant improvement over the current main page. Raoul216:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Support despite the flaws. I like this, but I'll point out a few things (including minor knitpicks that I'd fix myself if there wasn't a message not to edit the page):
The sky blue clashes with the pastel yellow and green. Why not get rid of the blue AND the green (though the green fits better) and use the shades of blue and red on the current main page revision?
The ugly whitespace surrounding the images is a problem with IE. I. Using Firefox, do not see something like this (credit to User:David Levy).
This is rather obvious, but we'll need to "unsubst:" the templates so they update properly.
Get rid of the "in other languages" links. We already have that in the body of the page and it creates an ugly whitespace (for me at least, veiwing with a large screen).
"A random category" -> "Random category"
"Welcome to Wikipedia" -> "Welcome to Wikipedia" or "Welcome to Wikipedia"
Move the sister projects to be centered, rather than alligned left. If you feel nice, do that on help:Contents, too.
This looks very good, it presents information well, and the general layout is better than the main page, but the green and blue are much too loud, and we certainly don't need icons next to every heading-- they're hard to make out anyway. I think dark pastels might be good for the headings. By the way, the search bar runs off the page on my browser, and it's a duplicate of the search bar already on the side. Also, what's up with [1] hanging out in the background? It looks like it's going to sneak up from behind and stab me. Ashibakatock23:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The current main page is much better. Clean, well organized, not broken. I'm suprised its even up for redesign. An issue with the redesign is the top bar on the redesign doesn't fit on my screen. MechBrowman00:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I like how clean and neat the front page looks now. It makes it look dignified and important. All these loud colors, soft fonts and, rounded edges makes Wikipedia look like Myspace or Livejournal. There is elegants to simplicity and, the current main page really shows it. --The_stuart14:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
There is very little reason to change the main page. It looks fine as it is. Clearly a great deal of time has likely been spent on the drafts, and that needs to be respected. However, the colors do not match the rest of the site, and the additional search button proposed is extremely redundant. The colors are also way too bright; looks amateurish. Much contribution and time has gone into Wikipedia and its popularity has grown with the existing main page. No reason to change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". --Mikecnn12:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
My problems with this page are made clear below. Basically, I think the current main page has a far better colour scheme and microstructure. --OldakQuill18:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. The only change to the Main Page that I would support is the replacement of the welcome banner. Run!19:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
File:Smarties (Candy).jpgSmartiesI agree about it looking too loud. The moment I clicked the link, my head jerked away from the screen. Stick with the current main page.
Yes too loud. Smarties downsized from draft 4 talk added here. I also agree with Run! about changing the top template - portals on the bottom of it please. 207.172.134.17509:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with our current main page. The blue and green are way too loud, the yellow background behind the header is fugly, and it just FEELS less professional. Rob17:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, there is nothing left for me to say, yet I want to repeat them to point out that it's a quite an important point. This new color scheme does not look professional. The current one is much better. I'm not sure about the efficiency about the places of the things but first thing that iritated me was that blue and yellow. --Quinlan Vos23:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'd say that the main page should fit the style... and no where else on wikipedia do we see rounded corners... consistency is good in an encyclopedia! 24.209.246.10917:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
There are now square corners. As for the round vs. square debate, I like square because the round is a little pixelated and it would require so much work just for an aesthetic change.--HereToHelp (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Colors. I think the current draft and it's colors (particularly the blue) are too bold, though the green color is more acceptable. I would prefer keeping the current main page colors, as that would make the new design less drastic a change from the present version.
Browse bar. I also like the original browse bar from Tom-'s original draft, with "Welcome to Wikipedia..." not centered, but towards the left and the search box. More recent comments here suggested making the links to the community portal, help desk, etc. more prominent. I suggest eliminating some items in "Almanac · Categories · FAQs · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Site news · Index" and adding links to the help desk, community portal, as well as for donations (as is on the current main page). I also suggest this "browsebarmain" be separate (white bkgd) from the yellow box.
Icons. I like using the icons from the Italian Wikipedia, though think "Today's featured article" and the "Featured picture" need different/new icons.
Other languages. Another suggestion was adding the "other languages" to the left column (as on all other articles). I had some feedback on that (keep the "other languages") on the bottom, though inconclusive on whether to have other languages also on the left.
I don't know if giving my opinion in this part is the right place. Whatever. The interest in giving the "other languages" on the left column is to make a kind of pattern for which will be followed by all the pages on Wikipedia. If we change it on one page - even if it's the "Main Page" - I think it wouldn't give the reflex to people to look at the left on the window to check for a foreign language version of the article. A problem remains, of course : do we have to keep "other languages" on the bottom ? I think this isn't a problem and that we can keep the two things together : the column in order to show the pattern of Wikipedia ; the bottom indication to show new people that there are other languages wikipedias in the world. What do you think of that ? (sorry for the IP address : I only registered on french wikipedia :o) ) 81.56.64.15012:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Community portal. I like that aspect of Draft#5, though I was just on the Spanish main page and liked what I saw in "Participa en Wikipedia".
Anyway, rather than just trying to describe my suggestions, after Draft #2, I copied it to my user space and worked with it, incorporating suggestions from this talk page, and other discussions over the past several months, as well as work from Tom- and Go for it!. My suggested redesign is less drastic a change from the current main page, which many people prefer, yet incorporates user suggestions.
Further suggestions for my redesign proposal are welcome, and I'm open to incorporating them. Please let me know what you think of my suggestion, any particular elements you like from it and would like to be incorporated into the new design. Or do you still prefer the current Main page? What about the current main page do you like? Or from other language Wikipedia main pages? If you dislike my proposal, that's fine with me. Or if you like certain elements, that you suggest Go for it! include, that's fine with me. Or whatever.
—--Aude (talk | contribs) 22:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The draft was altered, and therefore comments were made on the wrong draft. Sorry for the confusion. It has been restored to its intended configuration. Thank you Infinity0 for fixing the spacing problem I asked you about -- I sure couldn't figure it out. Go for it!22:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I just modified my comments to reflect this fact. Thanks for alerting me to this. I think the main draft is getting closer to what we need. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 23:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I like what you did with the top bar a lot (though I think the Welcome To and the search box should be a little closer together, each of them closer to the center - there's too much blank space in the middle. Zafiroblue0523:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the search bar is great too. But, we need to make the links to portals and catagories at least twice the size they are. Everything else on the page isn't nearly as important as the search catatgories, and portals. Those 3 things are the way people are able to come to wikipedia, and find the info they want. People don't come for news, or anaversiries, they come for the info they need. I propose the enlargement of the the links at the top. Tobyk77703:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia Community box
There was much demand in the last round of discussions for "linkage". So I've added a box to highlight the Wikipedia Community.
I couldn't figure out how to get space between the 2 main columns without adding margins on the far sides (via the cell padding variable at the top of the column table). Can anyone fix this? (That is, remove the padding on the sides, while keeping the space between the 2 columns)? Thanks. 20:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we really need to step back here. It seems to me that each successive draft is getting worse. Much more discussion and many more varied proposals need developing first. violet/riga(t)22:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. On this talk page (yesterday) - now archived, I had mentioned the idea of putting "other languages" on the left (as with other article). I was interested in feedback to the suggestion. Let's leave these proposals (Trevor's, mine, the current draft, and the current main page) up and allow for more feedback. I'm open to whatever the community prefers and suggestions, but it's hard to keep track of suggestions when the comments are archived. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 22:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The draft I posted was altered, causing you to comment on the wrong draft. Please check the draft's history before commenting. Thanks. Go for it!22:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the work you're putting into this. My problems with the current version include:
The colours are too primary and strong - they should be toned down
The borders are not all fixed (the bottom of the main two are missing)
The header background disappear frequently (IE bug)
The icons don't work with the backgrounds, partly because of their size and because of the background colour
There are too many links in the header and they are not all obvious what they are
The On This Day bullet points are too far to the left
These are obviously just my opinion, and some are easily fixed. I also dislike the sister and interwiki links, but I don't mind about that too much. As I said below I think a more radical redesign is required. violet/riga(t)23:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the above comment of how we should leave a few different styles up for comparison. Perhaps a list and screenshots? Anyways, I have a few tweaks for my version if someone could help. I'd like to round the corners, add a show/hide option to the other languages, fix the templates so the orange doesn't take over, and perhaps change the orange footer to green or something. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 01:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Examining other language Main Pages
We should do a detailed study into the Main Pages of other languages. The Dutch one, I think, is far better than any design proposed here so far, and there are many others that do it better. We really need to think about what is important on the Main Page rather than just reorganising what we have right now. violet/riga(t)22:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I was just going through the other languages, in order to add links to the left column (as w/ other articles) to my draft. I don't care for all the icons on the Dutch main page, however I like the Spanish main page. They have "Explore Wikipedia", "Categories", "Participate in Wikipedia" - I like that one, "Wikipedia in other languages" all in the left column; In the right column, they have "Today's featured article", "Did you know?", and "On this day" "In the news". They don't have "In the news""On this day" which I do like, nor do they have "featured picture". —--Aude (talk | contribs) 22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, my bad spanish translation. They do have "In the news" and don't have "On this day". I just corrected my comments. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 00:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Draft 5 was altered, causing a bunch of people to comment on an unintended version. I've restored Draft 5. Please take a look. Go for it!22:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I like draft 5, but...
I still would like the "rounded corner" look on the title bars for the boxes/columns. And since we have so much white space in the left bar, how about moving something like "Sister projects" over there? I also PARTICULARLY like the "browse categories" list. Her Pegship23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed on rounded being purty. I'll also echo the comment from further up the page that while the green is fine, the blue is probably a bit too intense. Is there any reason why we're sticking with the left stack in one colour and right in the other pattern, though? I'd personally prefer to see each of Itn, TFA, DYK and so on with their own colour. The Tom03:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
We're looking into the rounded corners as an option. I assume you both (and others that have commented) all use Firefox, Opera, or other Mozilla/Gecko compatible browsers. I've been looking into how the Italian Wikipedia does the rounded corners, and they use a <div> style attribute that only works for some browsers (i.e. folks still using Internet Explorer won't have rounded corners). I don't know what percent of Wikipedians use Firefox (Opera, or other browsers) vs. IE? We shouldn't necessarily care about IE, though.
Just a note, when viewed in Opera 8.51 you will not get rounded corners. The CSS used for this redesign in the case of rounded corners is not standards compliant, and an only Mozilla workaraound. To get it working on all browsers you would have to use the more industry standard background image, but that brings up hassles with the reliability of the media servers and the lack of flexibility without a lot of workarounds. Or you could wait for IE to actually support CSS3, which does not appear to be happening anytime soon. Also, not caring about IE is not a good idea, then you're just marginalizing part of your audience. Microsoft took a lot of fire for doing that against Opera and Netscape users, and I don't think it would be a good idea for Wikipedia to start up that practice. That being said, I might be just making a big fuss over what could be a small issue, it just doesn't seem like a wikipedia thing to do. --Moki8021:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
You're right. My comment before about IE, was referring to the fact that rounded corners are just an appearance thing and don't affect the functionality (or ability to use the site). Though, after all the discussion here, I definitely conclude that the main page must work well in all browser, even when it comes to appearance or the site. --Aude22:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Another issue with the div attribute, is that it only works from what I can tell with div boxes and not tables. This brings up problems from before about lining up the boxes/columns at the bottom. The Italian wiki doesn't line them up. Another problem with the rounded corners on the Italian wiki, is when you go past their main page, all the rest of their pages use square boxes. I personally don't like that inconsistency from their main page to the rest of the site. All that said, if the overwhelming preference from users is still the rounded corners, I think we could do it anyways. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 04:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the colours being too striking - suggest 153,204,153 for the green title bar, etc., and 153,204,204 for the blue. Also, the icons need the same background as their title bar. (The newspaper and calendar actually look tilted because of an optical illusion.) The bullets for "On this day" are very close to the box edge, unlike those for "In the news". And finally, something on the page is too wide - not sure what - so I'm getting horizontal scroll bars like other people. Otherwise, this is maturing nicely - well done.Bazza13:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Recent deaths section
Hey all. One thing that's been a source of on-again off-again controversy at Template talk:In the news has been the appropriate means to deal with obituaries. Many of us are in favour of a cut-and-dried set of rules so that we don't get bogged down into endless debates about whether death x has been notable enough to get onto the front page. Officially, we mirror the "no obits" rule in use on Current events, which I personally find a sensible standard, but some users have rightfully pointed out that this has been overlooked on the occasion of numerous deaths, particularly when they have been high-profile Americans (cf Peter Jennings, Rosa Parks).
One compromise solution that has been proposed is to stick in a small space for the latest one or two high-profile additions to Recent deaths onto the front page. I mocked this up for the current layout here, but the thought has struck me that it might be worth running by you lot, too, with it possibly getting implemented whenever you roll out a new version of the front page. Anyone with any cracking layout ideas? The Tom23:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the "Welcome to Wikipedia" can be left-aligned (with some padding). That would help somewhat with the overlap issue. Also, in your screenshot, the number of browse categories looks to be too many. I suggest getting rid of "Art" and "Philosophy" — those two aren't on the current main page. Thanks for the comment. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 01:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
What I've noticed over the past few drafts, is that for every person who wants it one way, there's another who wants it exactly the opposite way. Check the archives. Go for it!04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
div encoding unstable
The div method of source coding is wreaking havoc with various users' browsers. We may have to use a more stable type of code, like table encoding. See Portal:Cricket and Portal:Philosophy for 2 very stable pages. The current Main Page seems to be pretty damn stable too. Go for it!04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
round corners implemented!
Thanks to --Aude for locating the code for this. Unfortunately, it only works in Mozilla-based browsers (like Firefox), but fortunately the majority of users seem to be using Firefox these days. Go for it!13:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
You're right that the majority of web users in general still use IE. These are people we want contributing to Wikipedia, (such as, people forced to use IE at work, grandpa who knows alot about something, but maybe isn't the most technically savvy, or whatever other reason). It might be feasible to still have rounded corners, using bkgd images rather than .css. Though, (as with the Italian wikipedia), the rounded corners wouldn't necessarily carry over to pages past the main page. I'd advise against such inconsistency across the website. However, if the consensus is against me and still wants rounded corners, than maybe we can work on it. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 15:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with --Aude, you can't just marginalize 80% of web users. Plus, after so many people complaining that there were too many IE only pages, whats the point of adding Mozilla Gecko only pages? --Moki8021:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm using Firefox and I hate them. I'm really sorry... as a web designer I know how much effort it is to implement these kinds of things, but it just doesn't work here. I suppose that the main problem is that en:Wikipedia is not round. Even Wikipedias with the rounded tab style like fr aren't really round. As already mentioned we then have the compatibility issue. Consistency between IE and Fx is more important in terms of familiarity of Main_Page than any sort of nice design. Firefox itself shows some anti-aliasing problems. As well as these drawbacks I don't think elements like these are important to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is content-centric and these corners immediately distracted me from the content; the css also detracts from the predominantly semantic markup of Wikipedia, adds weight to one of the most viewed articles, not an ideal for mobile users etc. So I'm sorry but I strongly recommend the round corners go.
In other news, the last time I checked the progress of the draft we had the other languages and other wm projects side by side; I thought that worked particularly well... what happened to it? BigBlueFish20:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think WikiProject Rectangular Corners is a bit excessive, as I think the issue can be handled here. I think I made clear above the problems with rounded-corners (browser compatibility problems, inconsistency from the main page to the rest of Wikipedia, which has no round corners, too drastic/bold a change from the current main page). For these reasons, I agree with you that round corners shouldn't be used. Though, I think it was worth trying it in this draft, as there were numerous positive comments about the Italian main page. As for the portals and other pages, I have suggested User:Go for it! hold off on the round corners until broad consensus (if and when) is reached that Wikipedia should use round corners. —--Aude (talk | contribs) 03:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I just want to go on record as stating that I strongly dislike the rounded corners. Firstly, they're ugly. (Each one actually is a jagged series of straight lines.) But more importantly, I vehemently oppose the use of code that deliberately generates major visual differences depending upon which browser someone is using. We should be striving to create as uniform an appearance as possible, not throwing in gimmicky elements that—for the users that see them—distract from the encyclopedic content and contradict longstanding (and perfectly acceptable) style conventions. —David Levy15:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that in an encyclopedia, the catagories, portals, A-Z, and other navigational link curretnly at the top should be way bigger. People don't go to an encyclopedia, for news, or triva, or pictures, or anything else, as much as they information. The links at the top are by far the most important thing on the page, and must be enlarged from their tiny state. Tobyk77701:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Wrap is fixed in Firefox
Draft 5 2006-01-10
Here is the latest look in Firefox 800x600. You have fixed the problem shown above, even when resizing the browser. Looks good. --Ancheta Wis03:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Curvature
I know there are more important things to be worrying about, but the curvature on the green & blue sections looks horrendous.
Nononono. If you're going to use images to create rounded corners, use the method shown here. (If that no longer works, try this link.) In that example, images are used to create inverted curves (that is, white bg, transparent curve) which makes it look *much* cleaner... drumguy8800 - speak?04:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the colours are much too bright in draft five. Please change them so they are subtle like they are on the current main page. This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. Choalbaton02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with this page...
I think this draft has a number of problems at the moment, mainly in terms of colour. Not only are the colours too bold but they clash completely. The subtlty of the sidebar and background certain doesn't match the kindergarten green/blue shades, and the pastely yellow at the top looks completely out of place.
The asymmetry of the boxes (vertically and horizontally) makes it look odd - the existance of the sidebar doesn't help with this. The two lower boxes should start at the same point - this is particularly important if the boxes are going to have coloured title bars. I think it'd probably look better if the two were the same width.
The current main page is great because the colour scheme is consistant and quite understated/subtle. It matches the colour scheme that runs through the entire Wikipedia. Obviously some of the issues I've pointed out with the draft also apply to the main page.
Finally, I believe this project to be fundamentally flawed. What is most usable to one user is not suited to another. The optimal solution would be to give users a preference as to which page they land on when they type http://wiki.riteme.site/ into their browser. This may be the current main page, an alternative main page suited for the visually impaired, or even a portal. --OldakQuill18:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Lighter colors
I agree that the current colors are too bright. Something much more faded would be easier on the eye, yet still highlight the section. Her Pegship18:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it
I agree with anyone who likes it, because the current one is really bland. When are they planning on putting it up?205.202.240.104calvinsupergenius
Searcg box
Is there really a need to have more than one search box on the main page?
Add NOW
While y'all are screwin' messin' around (no insult intended) with getting the Main Page exactly right, a couple of real good things have come out of this project. So, how about adding almanac and glossaries right now. Just add them to the {{Main Page intro}} template and then all can have one click accessibility to a couple of neat places in the meantime (so to speak). ;-) hydnjotalk21:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Please make it more consistent
I think what you should so is ensure that the boxes all line up like they do at the moment. Like i say, the text for news changes every day, so the boxes will go up and down like a visualiser on a music player. Simply put some padding at the bottom, or between the article top, then it'll line up, and stay the same all the time (consistency, again) The magical Spum-dandy21:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Audience?
An important question to ask is who is the audience for the main page? I'm thinking it's more likely people that come to look for information on a topic, read articles, maybe edit some, and might be anons./IP. Though, I also think a lot of these people come in through google to an article page. People that come to the main page might not have a specific idea of what information they want, but more likely to browse? And as a contributor, I do look at the main page from time to time, to see what the featured article is and the featured picture on the weekend. I'm also interested in ITN and what articles are linked on the main page, that might need work. However, my main entry point to Wikipedia is my Watchlist or one of my vandalism watchlists.
I've been poking around Wikipedia to find out statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. How many people enter Wikipedia through the main page? Maybe break this down by anons/IPs, editors (maybe by # of edits, or when they registered, or something), and admins? I think this is an important consideration for how prominent the browse categories, the community portal/help pages, etc. should be. While I've found some interesting results at http://wiki.riteme.site/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm, I haven't yet found anything on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. Maybe these stats are restricted to admins-only or I'm not sure? Does anyone know where/how to find this information? At least, maybe a straw poll here, on what's your main entry point to Wikipedia? —--Aude (talk | contribs) 22:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I wonder how many users set Wikipedia's main page as their home page on their browser. Or have the main page on their tool bar for quick access. These might account for the majority of hits on the main page. Go for it!15:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
That's another good question. Maybe a straw poll will give us a general idea of how many users have the main page set as the browser's home page? —--Aude (talk | contribs) 16:26, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Audience poll
I think we need to take a step back, with the redesign process and get a better sense of who the users of the main page are, and how users enter Wikipedia. Ultimately, it would be useful to track down site statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia? e.g. watchlist, main page, article page via google search? I realize this poll isn't represntative, as it's just people who find this draft talk page. Maybe there's a better place for such a survey? —--Aude (talk | contribs) 16:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the redesign is rather good. I prefer this redesign to the previous design because it adds more colour and attraction to wikipedia.
I always use the Main Page and skim the page for a second, then I click the watchlist but I like to see the main page first to see if the featured article is something interesting. I like the "today in the past" kind of box. --Quinlan Vos20:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I come through the main page, glance at the news and feature titles, then click on Portals, or Help, or my User Page to get to the main navigation browsebar, which in turn leads almost everywhere. --Go for it!23:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I have the main page in my favorites, to see the FA, ITN, etc.; after arriving at the main page I will view my watchlist, etc. HollyAm07:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
My watchlist is the primary way I arrive at Wikipedia, though sometimes I first go to one of my vandalism watchlists. After I go through recent changes, I might look at the Main page to see what the featured article is or what's linked to the main page (on ITN). I also will use the main page to go browse for something. --Aude16:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I always go to my watchlist first. I have a button for it on my toolbar. I rarely go to the main page when I need to get to something else specific. I usually only go to the main page when I'm bored and clicking around. -- Schaefer09:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
When using my own computer I always go to my watchlist first, then I usually go to the main page to check In the News since it is updated sooner than the BBC News website for breaking news. When using a different computer I tend to go through the main page first. -- RuneWelsh | ταλκ05:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me for my poor English. I'm sorry for asking this question on this discussion but I want to design a portal with a white background coulor on the German Wikipedia site. Nobody knows how you have changed the background coulor to white at your drafts. Usually the background colour is defined by the software and can only be changed in personal sylesheets (user/monobook.css). Is there a way to override the default settings? I hope somebody can help us. Thanks --De.Doit21:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
IE Display Problems
I just noticed a couple of flaws in the page's appearance when viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. The top banner doesn't quite reach as far to the left and right as the two columns below it, and the book image is cut off before it reaches the top. Here's a screen capture. —David Levy00:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The colors are much better, but it's still got those cutesy icons. We don't need icons on the Main Page. Since they are links people will click on them and get all confused. And everything is in a pastel box still. You could take the Community and Other Languages sections out of their boxes, and it would look better. (Also the top section, which is getting too crowded with those background images. Who decided the top section needs a lame search box anyway?) Ashibakatock16:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I was working under the assumption that the images would be used, but the page really does look much better without them. You also have eliminated most of the display bugs in Internet Explorer. As far as I can tell, the only remaining problem in IE (which I just noticed) is that the bottom segments of the box borders are missing. Other than that, your version looks terrific in all of my browsers. —David Levy19:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Proposed version
I've created another draft (based upon Ashibaka's). This time, my goal was to add some of our conventional styling into the mix. I also fixed the last remaining IE bug of which I'm aware (mentioned above).
Does anyone have an opinion on the swapped sections ("Did you know..." and "On this day...")? This seems more logical to me, and I'll explain why:
"Today's featured article" and "Did you know..." make a nice pairing; the former features one of our most polished articles, while the latter features brand new articles that ideally will receive the same treatment.
"In the news" and "On this day..." also go well together; the former features current newsworthy events, while the latter features past newsworthy events.
"Today's featured article" and "On this day..." usually are the two longest sections, so it's better to place them in separate columns (for greater balance).
On weekends, the "Did you know..." slot belongs to "Today's featured picture." It makes sense for that to go directly below "Today's featured article."
I liked that you got away from the idea that Wikipedia's Main Page should look like a "I'm learning while I'm having fun! Why don't you join me" kind of advertisement. I don't like those fancy things on the biggest free encylopedia. Same thing applies for the color scheme. I realize, I repeat, repeat and repeat myself over and over again but so do the drafts. I want simplicity and the current main page does it for me. --Quinlan Vos22:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
What, in particular, is less simple about this draft? To me, it seems cleaner and easier to read than the current main page. Any comments regarding the individual changes would be sincerely appreciated. —David Levy22:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback! That's supposed to be gold, but it probably looks yellower on some displays than it does on mine. It certainly can be changed to a different color, and I'm going to give green a try. —David Levy23:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I really enjoy this draft. It is much cleaner and more toned down than the versions I have looked at. I agree with all the comments here as well. As far as the KISS principle that Quinlan Vos referred to, I'd like to offer this bit of advice. Look at the page in every browser you can find incluiding command line, and see how it looks. Being the free encyclopedia,it should look good and inviting in all of them.
The reason I keep saying to use the red is that many people are used to the old colors. I'm personally indifferent, but if people are going to object to this redesign on these petty grounds I say we might as well cater to them and be done with it. But before we go and change image backgrounds (they looked fine in the superior Firefox) let's see how much a green vs. red really is worth. I won't mess with it if no one else does, and I'm not opposed to having images for the main page with the backgrounds, but put them someplace specific, where they won't interfere with the regular images.--:HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 04:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
That's precisely what I've done. (The original images remain unchanged.) And yes, I agree that Firefox is superior, but we haven't converted the masses just yet. ;)
Actually, those images really should be removed entirely. I don't hate them, but I agree with the users who believe that the page looks better without them. I seriously doubt that we're ever going to arrive at a consensus until the icons are gone. —David Levy05:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on Draft Six. I've licked the problem of misaligned headings and column-ends, though there aren't enough changes yet to justify posting the draft for feedback. I took a break to revamp the Help page, and let some feedback accumulate here. Okay, milder colors. But can I change the pink???? --Go for it!23:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm new to this project, so I don't know how this is supposed to work. Is this a collaborative effort, or are you creating "official" drafts on your own (incorporating the feedback that you deem valid)?
It's abundantly clear that no radical departure from the current main page is going to garner consensus, so I suggest that you forget about the icons and redundant search box. —David Levy23:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure about the icons or search box, but what about using the main page colors we already have? Use the border for the haeders and the colors for the boxes. the color scheme is: #ffc9c9 and #fff3f3 (dark and light red, respectively). for blue, it's #c6c9ff (dark) and #f0f0ff" (light).--HereToHelp (talk) 23:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
My current draft incorporates shades of green and blue of roughly the same intensity. I dislike the pink box, because that coloring has become strongly associated with various {{POV}}-related templates (and the negative connotation thereof). The current blue box leans toward purple, and I think that it should approximate the coloring of the Wikinews logo. —David Levy23:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, I think we need to take a step back and consider what the point is of redesign (as part of WikiProject Usability). If we could gather more statistics and information on how people use the main page, search and/or browse the site. How can we make it easier to find information? The other main goal is to encourage people to contribute. Is there anyway we can do that better? Much more than colors and icons, we need to consider the functionality and usability of the site. From looking at the other language pages, I think the Spanish main page has a nice balance of elements on the main page. And the way they do the headings is nice too. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The Spanish Wikipedia's main page headings are fairly similar to the ones in Ashibaka's and my current drafts; each is a darker shade of the box's background color. In my opinion, this creates clearer demarcation between the sections, thereby making the page easier to read. —David Levy00:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
What the Spanish main page does is have a section for "browsing/finding information", "participate in Wikipedia", along with "Featured article", "In the News", etc. that keeps the main page fresh and interesting for everyone. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I realize this has been requested before, but nobody seems to have taken it into real consideration. I believe that the main page should have a look a lot like the current Portal:Browse page does, just a bit simplified and with other content for the news, "Did you know?", etc. While many Wikipedia readers are Wiki-nuts, there are some people who come on here just to find information on a broad topic, and, while there is a search function, it's not always easy to guess the name of the article you're seeking. As of now, the only resemblance our Main Page has to this is a few small links at the top.
Rather than having one person hog all the page-layout fun, we're holding an open session of editing between voting rounds. (See notice at top of page). I know how some of you have been dying to get your hands dirty on this project! So, now's your chance.
And by the way, THANK YOU! to all those who helped me on the Help Page redesign blitz. I hope we have as much fun on this one. --Go for it!01:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the split into four boxes. In my opinion,, the page looks much better with two boxes, even though the headings don't line up. This is how the current main page is configured.
The four boxes make the page look very busy, and such a setup completely defeats the purpose of having one color for the left and another for the right. —David Levy04:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
That would make the layout look even busier (and uglier). Keep in mind that numerous users have expressed a preference to keep the main page simple. —David Levy04:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Icons
I'd just like to reiterate that I wholeheartedly support the removal of the icons. Aside from my personal opinion that the page looks much better without them, it's obvious from the above comments that many people strongly oppose their inclusion. —David Levy06:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
With or without the icons, I think the headings look bad with colors still too bold and saturated, and the heading text proportionally too large. I suggest either the heading style (like the Spanish wikipedia) or stick to the style used on the current main page. When I get some time, I can work on improving the headings (if enough of you agree with me). --Aude (talk | contribs) 14:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Um... personally, I would prefer just plain text, or enlarged text from the logo. This reminds me of a children's movie or something. Ashibakatock18:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think thnat curretnly the Hebrew WP [2] has the best mainpage. It incorperates everything that our mainpage has and Portal:Browse into one, perfectly formatted page. It think that we should make our page look alot like this. What do you guys think? Tobyk77718:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
We can try that. I have a basic knowledge of Hebrew so I'll cover what's on there (although it uses a lot of pictures that anyone could dicepher):On the left, going down, is TFA, DYK, TDIH, holidays (part of TDIH on our page), and then ITN. Instead of a Top 8 or Top 10, they have many top level categories arranged like Portal:Browse on our language, with the category below it (above is the article). I recomend we get images for our Top 10 Portals and do something like what I have below. Anyway, there's the sister projects are beneath it; I don't know what the thing with the @ is. As for the language links, they're on the side but don't add wierd whitespace, so it's obviously selected languages. We could put ours in in a box, or put langs with 10k articles or more on the side. below is my draft for one of the Top 10 (it would be centered):
Yea the french one does it perfectly too. But in the Hebrew one, the browse, and other features are next to each other. In the French one, the other features are below the catagories. They both both way better than ours, but I like Hebrew better. Tobyk77723:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Assuming everyone likes it (that's the hard part), we can make the rest of the Top 10 links following the above example. then we allign the four classic templates to the left, each with it's own color, and then have room for the ten icons on the right (we can even reverse that if it gets us consensus). The rest goes under that, unchanged, unless we want to put the major language links on the side and kill the rest. I tried to make a model in my userspace but it didn't work (I'm no expert at HTML).--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 23:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes one taker with Ultra-Extreme Support. I think below these pics we should have subportals. The mainpage should be merged with the Browse page. Tobyk77701:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I just slapped a needs-fixing-if-not-swiftly-reverted box around "Community" adapting colors I swiped from the Spanish wikipedia for it. This could get out of hand, go for it! Metarhyme18:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Ashibaka's original assessment; that logo looks straight out of Disneyland. Under the previous setup, we sacrifice the Wikipedia link (at least, in its obvious form), and it's impossible to append "that anyone can edit" in a proportional fashion (because different people use different text sizes). Under Metarhyme's setup, we sacrifice both links. Substance is more important than style, people!
As several users have commented, we don't need a redundant search box. We're never going to arrive at a consensus if we keep restoring elements that many Wikipedians have complained about.
The above wasted too much space. In my case, instead of being able to view all four features without scrolling, only the first two were visible. Someone else might have seen zero instead of two.
Whether you love the icons or hate them, it's clear that the opposition to their inclusion is strong. Again, we're striving for consensus, so the most controversial stuff has to go.
Placing the "community" section in a box reduces the page's uniformity and creates display problems in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
I agree completely with most of those points. Exceptions: the search box does not seem repitive, although I concur that striving for something everyone likes is a good idea. Could we point the newcomers to the search box on the left? Also, the icons: what's wrong with them? We fixed the problem with the backgrounds. The licensing is fine. Is it just that it looks unprofessional? Well, I agree that the bottom box is bad. Shouldn't the style of the Main Page reflect what people will find inside? It's the opposite of judging a book by it's cover: we don't want to imply that we have fancy formatting on every page—although, yes, most things look better on the surface.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 21:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The existing search box seems perfectly obvious to me, and we would be doing a disservice by placing a second search box in a different location. (Some people might be confused when it fails to appear on subsequent pages.) The search link that you added seems harmless enough, but I don't know why anyone would want to visit a separate search page.
I don't hate the icons, but I do feel that the page looks cleaner and more professional without them. Irrespective of my opinion or yours, many people have expressed opposition to their inclusion.
Check out the size of the top before I shrank it! I agree that familiar and functional is better than wild and not working. I'd kind of like to see the portal links caps and small caps in instead of caps and lower case. Metarhyme22:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The "caps and small caps" styling matches the Wikipedia logo. Without the logo, does it make sense to include this? —David Levy22:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
As a subtle increase in emphasis it would be helpful to new users. It looked good in a previous draft. I responded to a newbie's main page talk item which said that there ought to be links for portals, which were there, so I think that there's very limited perception on first encounter with this page. Metarhyme22:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Is proffesionalism what we want? Do we want bleak lack and white pages of unwelcoming text? Or do we want to create an enviroment that welcomes newcomers and makes them want to use this source and contribute to it?--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 22:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Some Nuvulo images are a little childish, and we should try and avoid coming across in that way. The ones that were shown on the page were fine. violet/riga(t)23:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the icons themselves are fine, but there seems to be a significant amount of opposition to the inclusion of any icons in this context. I personally believe that the page looks better without them. —David Levy23:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't percieve it as more welcoming, but whatever. it's silly to argue over this. Either we make major changes "More like Hebrew", above) or we upload what we have and be done with it. I say put them in, but if I can win some favor with the consensus that we'll need for any major changes, I'll pick my battles.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 23:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Comparison (Do we really have to change?)
Hello everyone. We've been discussing whether we should have that, and this, and that for a long time and I really admire the people's efforts on this. I was just going to comment on a recent change that is made, but then I realized that I had to take a step back and see what's our mission and where we got so far. I assume that we all are trying to modify the main page so that it is - both physically and effectively - more appealing than the current one. So what I did was, I opened the current main page and current draft at the same time. Of course the first thing that struck to me was the colors. I won't get into the "which color is nicer" thing again so I'm leaving that out. Another thing was the headline; the draft has it a little bit bolder but everything else is the same. Another thing is the fact that the places of the boxes are quite different. Then I scrolled down and saw the first thing that really changed something. It was really nice that this draft had a community box. This was all. There are some other minor things of course but that's not my main point so I won't list them all. My overall feeling was that almost all of the changes were physical and didn't modify the main page's effectiveness a lot. Then I asked myself the question: if everything about its effectiveness is going to be same why are we changing the main page? I couldn't answer it and thus I am writing it here to get my mind straight on this. Thank you for your time. --Quinlan Vos22:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that, yes, the colors and icons are not sily per se but arguing over them is silly. The discussion "More like Hebrew" is focusing on the actual layout and major changes there. hey guys, this guy's got a point!--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 22:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Taking the main page from baby pink & blue to ocean blue & green is super-major. It's like buying a car or a bicycle or changing the walls - paint is all-important. If there's concensus that it's better, that's a time consuming accomplishment it would be a shame to waste. Metarhyme23:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
If we can improve the page's appearance to even a small extent, why shouldn’t we? The community seems to oppose a massive overhaul (as do I), but I see no reason why we should be stuck with the exact setup that happens to be in use. In my opinion, our current draft tweaks the existing layout in a manner that renders it more visually appealing, easier to read, and slightly more functional, without sacrificing most of the familiarity. What's wrong with that? —David Levy23:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
You'll recall I insisted for the current red and blue to be preserved. It is "sideways editing" to change the colors; and it just puts us further away from consensus. However, I think thatn alligning the current boxes left and then having something like the Hebrew MP is better as well. See "More like Hebrew" on this page.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 23:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, the current main page's left-hand box is pink. (This is a variety of red, but it's worth noting.) As I mentioned earlier, that color has become strongly associated with the various {{POV}}-related templates (and the negative connotation thereof). Additionally, the darker shade of pink required for the title bars is downright jarring (IMHO).
The current main page's color scheme has no special significance, and I seriously doubt that many people would oppose the redesign on this basis. We shouldn't change things for the sake of change, but I believe that the new colors are better.
I've read the discussion regarding the Dutch/Hebrew layout, and I disagree with the praise. Half of the main content is pushed down, purely for the sake of including space-consuming icons. (The accompanying portal links could be displayed without them.) —David Levy23:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your quick reviews but I guess I couldn't express myself in the right way. I didn't mean that we shouldn't have a change. I just tried to point out that where we are now (in the sixth draft, come on!) is not very different than the current main page. Things about the efectiveness are starting to be talked though. I really liked the discussion on the new format for example (Hebrew format) since it is really a change. I guess we started heading for the last draft with huge paces! --Quinlan Vos00:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Can the article title be disabled on a particular page?
(copied from the village pump & Go for it!'s talk page:)
Hi. I'm on the Main Page Redesign team. I'm looking into possibly turning off the title (H1 heading?) at the top of the page we are working on. We need to see what the Main Page Redesign Draft would look like without the page name showing up on the screen. What is the link to the the documentation on this? --Go for it!20:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of the code on monobook.js. Do you know precisely what code would need to be pasted in? If so, it would sure help our project along. I appreciate your help so far, it puts us one step closer... --Go for it!23:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
As with all changes in Wikipedia's CSS and JS, you have to clear your cache before it takes effect. Sorry for forgetting to remind you of that. It works for me on Firefox 1.5, and it's so simple I'd expect it to work even on MSIE. --cesarb13:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Ctrl-F5 did the trick (I use Firefox). Looks great! How do you clear the cache with Internet Explorer? --Go for it!14:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Very nice - what icon set are those icons now on the page from?
Does anyone know how to use a graphic as a background image in Wikipedia? I'd like to try an experiment and place the puzzle globe behind the 4 lines of text of the header. Any help/guidance you can provide would be most appreciated. --Go for it!06:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
A version with the little puzzle globe on the right.. the text on the left is vertically aligned and it works well with any text-size. drumguy8800 - speak?23:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Mozilla-specific code is entirely unsuitable. The actual image file would need to be adjusted, but I still don't think that this would look good. —David Levy22:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The Mozilla code I assume you're speaking of (-moz-opacity) isn't the only tag put in there.. there's also the IE one and the future opacity: tag. The opacity thing doesn't seem to work in Opera, though.. drumguy8800 - speak?23:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not thrilled with the browse icons, as I think they are confusing with three links under each. Since we've all been working on Wikipedia for a while, we understand the difference between Category, Portal, and the Article links. However, someone new to Wikipedia that's browsing for information, this seems very confusing. It's further confusing that when you click on the icon itself, it just links to the icon image and not "art", "culture", or anything. I suggest just one link for each icon, and clicking on the icon itself has to take you to the topic portal (or category). --Aude (talk | contribs) 06:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
No matter what happens with any icon used in any of these drafts, assume that it would link to an appropriate page (in the finished product). That's a given. —David Levy06:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The Culture and Geography icons now take you to the appropriate portal so we can see how it will work. I think we should only link to the Portal and the Category. Trödel•talk07:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
It's still confusing to have both "Portal" and "Category" presented. Categories should be incorporated into each of the portals, and just link to the portals on the main page. --Aude (talk | contribs) 07:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay. It works, but when you roll the mouse over the icon, it says "Image:Purple geography icon.svg". I see the image link is implemented with a redirect to "Portal:Geography". Somehow, the rollover "ALT" tag needs to just say "Geography". --Aude (talk | contribs) 13:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Good point, Kmf. As with all newcomer issues, we simply have to accomodate them by explaining to newcomers what they're looking at. A little note right below the icon bar ought to do the trick. --Go for it!14:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I really liked the icons, they are humorous and professional at the same time. We are really getting to something. (You can't believe how relived I was when I saw the simple color scheme) We're going to have a nice draft this time. Congratulations!--Quinlan Vos17:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Heading background colors
I had tried changing the heading styles in the Main page draft, similar to how it's done on the Spanish Wikipedia. The headings use darker, much less saturated background-colors that are easier on the eye and less distracting from the main content. Also the size of the heading text is smaller with more padding between the text and the heading box. What I had done is now at:
I thought they help greatly in making the page look more professional, in the use of color, typeface, padding, and margins. If you like, feel free to use heading styles like these. --Aude (talk | contribs) 17:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I prefer the current draft style. (That's entirely subjective, of course.) Also, you changed only one color (the one used for the green headings), thereby making the green headings darker than the blue headings. —David Levy17:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The blue has in my opinion, the proper amount of color saturation while the green is much too saturated. Furthermore, the size of the heading text compared to the background boxes, seems out of proportion to me. Just looking at the draft, the text "Today's featured article" jumps out at me way too much, compared to "Butter" which is the featured article. As I'm scanning the page (which is how most people read web pages), my eye is very likely to skip over the word "Butter". That's why I suggest the heading text size (with some padding/margins), and background colors that are less saturated. --Aude (talk | contribs) 17:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Today's featured article is a bigger deal than butter. A tremendous amount of striving and effort goes into attaining featured article status. The treatment you prefer makes it littler, which is a disincentive to editors reaching for this goal. Metarhyme17:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused by your statement. Butter is "Today's featured article". We should make the article as prominent we can. Though with the current heading/color scheme I'm likely to miss the Featured article link as I skim the page. --Aude (talk | contribs) 17:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, it's not going to be Ghee unless someone builds Ghee to Shoe polish quality. Today's featured article changes every day. Editors getting their piece featured in that spot feel good about having made the cut. Their article has to have been improved to better than most to get there. Wikipedia gets better because of this incentive to improved content. Look at it from the point of view of a labelled space which induces editors to improve content, since that is its function. I'm against shrinking the label on the goal post. Metarhyme19:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
For the headings/borders, I selected the hexadecimal values #d0f5e5 (green) and #d0e5f5 (blue). For the backgrounds, I selected the hexadecimal values #f1fcf5 (green) and #f1f5fc (blue). As you can see, both pairings contain two very similar values. To me, the blues and greens appear comparably saturated.
In my opinion, the current draft's headings blend nicely with the reminder of the boxes, while your headings seem more like separate elements, and actually draw attention away from the featured text. —David Levy18:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Problems:
is this a mental institute..? the colors are a little too sobering. Having monocolor columns also might be annoying.
Verdana/Tahoma/Whatever you're using for the titles looks tacky. The font is popular among personal web spaces but sould perhaps be avoided here.. try and stick with Arial or Helvetica (or whatever Wikipedia uses.)
The purple portal icons are also sobering. This is 2006, the internet has gotten past drab design. Consider multi-color icons like those posted above for easy identification and to be more aesthetically pleasing.
The padding around the titles (the text in verdana/tahoma) might be a few pixels too much and the titles might need to be made bigger. (Edit: Just kidding, padding is fine as it matches the rest of the text in the boxes..)
Everything else, save the lack of Featured-Picture, seems to be fine.
1. If you read the comments above, you'll see that most users have rejected bright tones and colorful icons. We want the page's appearance to be relatively sober, because that's what we deem aesthetically pleasing.
2. As far as I know, no special typeface is being used.
Firstly, THANK YOU, VIOLET/RIGA! I spent the longest time trying to figure out how to move the text links closer to the icons, and all of my attempts failed miserably. Nice work!
Secondly, I agree that it's better to link only to the portals. Linking to both the portals and the categories is potentially confusing to inexperienced readers, and they're better off visiting the portals (which are far more welcoming and user-friendly). —David Levy20:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it, but it means we can't use what they are working on at "How do you create and use backgrounds in Wikipedia?", above, without going through som more formatting hassles.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 23:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I implemented the background thing I made.. with the globe on the right.. on the new version of my page. Tricolor, tell me how you like: User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
Get rid of the whitespace near the top. Otherwise, great. I recomend putting it on the draft page so people see it and take it further. It's come a long way since the version I implemented.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 00:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Both of these layouts look nice, but I prefer the functionality of project's the current draft. It already has the portal links at the top, and I don't see why we should push down the featured content in favor of the icons. Drumguy8800's version also increases the likelihood of text wrapping (which looks terrible), purely for the sake of adding a redundant Wikipedia logo. Please keep in mind that not everyone is using your text size or display resolution, Drumguy.
Also keep in mind that many people have expressed a desire to retain the basic layout of the current main page. It seems rather obvious that no radical departure is going to garner consensus. —David Levy00:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm impressed with both User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft and User:Violetriga/inprogress, with the browse icons at the top. Before, I also had some concerns about the browse icons being below the featured content, as you'd miss them if you didn't scroll down. Now, you can't miss them, yet the featured content also looks great. On my monitor, Drumguy8800's version looks nice with the logo. Though, when I resized my browser, the logo overlaps the browse icons. That's my only concern now; I'm not sure of a good way to resolve that. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Why do we need these icons to be at the top? Isn't the ability to read the featured content without scrolling (or with less scrolling) more important than the ability to see pretty graphics (the function of which already is provided in text form) without scrolling?
The logo (which Drumguy appears to have abandoned) is even more problematic. It displays improperly in the most common browser, and it interferes with the actual content (particularly for users with low display resolutions and/or large text sizes). This is supposed to be WikiProject Usability, and the logo makes the page less usable. And besides, the logo already appears for most users on every page (via the default MonoBook skin). —David Levy01:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. When I first put the Portal icons up they were right under the DYK and second feature. Restore the links on top and put the icons as the first thing below the boxes under the subsection "Explore Wikipedia", like before. As for the logo, I think the text wrap is something to avoid and if it doesn't display, get it out. Unless there's a compatability issue with IE and the version with the semi-transparent logo behind the links (which there of course its), I'll support that.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
For reasons already explained by both of us, I think the second logo won't work well. I would greatly prefer how the browse topics are implemented on User:Violetriga/inprogress, as it works when resizing the browser. I think it's okay that one has to scroll down to see the rest of the featured content. It's obvious that there's more content and that one needs to scroll. On the contrary, having the browse icons buried below the featured content, I don't see it at all on my screen unless I think to scroll down. Many users won't though.
With the main page, we need to satisfy three goals (1) Allow people to browse and find information (though search and the browse interface) (2) Encourage people to contribute to Wikipedia (3) Showcase the featured content (the featured article encourages people to contribute and develop great content, ITN showcases the advantages of Wikipedia over other sources - that it's quickly updated with current information, etc., and keeps the main page fresh and interesting). All three goals are super important, and the key is finding the balance. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
But why are the icons so important? All of the portal links already are present at the top. As far as I'm concerned, we don't need the icons at all, but they don't hurt anything (and look nice) below featured content. —David Levy01:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
This is true. However, we must have consensus and any big changes will not met consensus. I don't like that system, I think that the only way we'll make progress is through big changes, but the facts remain. I agree with what KMF164 is saying, people won't realize they have to scroll down, but if we have the links at the top AND the icons we can help mitigate the problem. I still agree with you, I'm just being a realist and I'm taking David Levy's solution.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
ANOTHER REVISION .. ADDRESSED COMPLAINTS
User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
First, my apologies for hastily putting a problematic revision up front.
Now then.. At first I was attempting to incorporate the second logo as a floating layer so that it would ride on top of three colors.. which looked kind of cool, but it wouldnt even display correctly in internet explorer. I have revised a lot of things and it seems to work flawlessly in Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, and Internet Explorer.
Please note thatpreviously there were layout differences in spacing, especially in IE and Firefox. By previously, I mean the green/blue page. I've resolved these differences by removing most/all of the padding & margin tags which are notoriously interpreted differently in different browsers. I added divs that spaced between the header and columns, and spacing between the two columns. Everthing appears to be flush.. except for the two columns, which have 1 px of white border around them (collectively) but I can't figure out where that came from.
Again.. removed the second logo, like noted. I think things look smoother now.. comments..? drumguy8800 - speak?01:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I like how you provide links in the resurrected yellow bar to the stuff that's down low. I'm going to take out the Health Portal, though. Support the concept, deleting the cancerous nuance.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
As for reverting the box design, I'm actualy going to agree with you. That's a mjor help with winning a consensus (which I think Draft 6 will do). I'm going to fiddle with the color scheme a bit.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I can't work with the code to do this myself, but what if the first two lines of text (which, IMO, look out of place) wer moved into the yellow bar which would be made bigger to accomodate them? Or could the yellow extend up until the top of the page?--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid to place mine on the main page again..? Zocky's is drastically different from the previous version and my replacing it would be a problem again, probably. Should there be a list at the top of the (main not talk) page of all the different proposed revisions? Then one could vote between them and the current main page. drumguy8800 - speak?02:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a major difference between Zocky (whcih I WAS commenting on, thanks for making that claer above, and I like that version the best) and the others (which have now been taken off with the edit summary "just kidding"). We should vote between Zocky and something along the lines of the other two before we split hairs on the little things.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 02:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Drumguy, I like your version a lot. My only complaint is that it's too colorful at the top-- the borders surrounding the top div are distracting. But it has a lot of improvements over the current revision. Ashibakatock03:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I've refreshed multiple times in IE, don't see it. Might've been me messing with coding on the background section.. accidentally clicked 'save page' instead of 'show preview' in the middle of it and it might've been a slightly web-hostile (buggy) version. drumguy8800 - speak?00:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Portals
One other concern I have is the quality of the portals. Though, it helps a lot that User:HereToHelp got rid of the health portal, which is really primative and only recently been edited by User:Go for it! and myself. On the other portals, we should make sure the categories are all presented in a uniform style and position on the page. And, ensure each portal is regularly maintained and updated (e.g. switching the featured articles). I'll do what I can, particularly with Portal:Geography.
One other issue is the name of the "Society" portal. Is this supposed to encompass social sciences? I'm not sure I'd think to look under "Society" for economics or law. And where would I find popular culture (e.g. television, video games, sports, food & drink, etc.)? I might think to look under culture, but don't see these apparant on the Culture portal. This is all an issue of sorting topics, which is another important usability aspect of a website. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Very good point. We should strive to get these up to be Featured Portals (nothing exists in a vacuum, does it? Or else we could focus on the Main Page alone!)--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 01:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
This is why I would prefer to link just to the categories rather than just to the portals, but both of them do provide access to the articles, so it's no big deal. Ashibakatock03:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Yellow vs. white headers and box style
I want to discuss A) whether we should have a yellow (or at least colored) verson of the header or a white one as David Levy has proposed. I think, however, most people agree the header, so long as it does not have a redundant search box, allows us to put stuff up top where people do not have to scroll down while doing it in a space efficent fashon. And B) should the boxes be the new form with the title in a separate colored area [5] or more like the current Main Page [6]? IMHO, I think the header looks better colored and keeping the boxes like they were, but separate with new colors, will help us get the consensus needed to "go live" with this revision. Anyone else want to add to that? --HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 03:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Zocky's header format is practical and efficient. I disagree, however, with your other points.
Superficially, your preferred version might seem closer to the current main page. Structurally, however, my preferred version is much more similar.
Splitting the content into four boxes serves no apparent purpose, and it's relatively inelegant. The shaded heading bars, conversely, stylishly demarcate the various sections (without straying from the established two-box format).
Regarding the colors (of the header and the boxes), look at the comments on this page. Numerous users have explicitly opposed the needless use of multiple colors, which gives the page a childish, unprofessional appearance. In my assessment, simplicity is the key to this project.
I see the book image, but I liked the yellow. On the other hand, those top two lines looked very bad alone outside of the yellow header but they look better with the white one.
And, although some users may protest against the superficial differences with the new design, I see (and am starting to agree with) your point on the boxes. As long as it goes smoothly when we vote, go for it.
One more thing (this was brought up before but it somehow got lost): The words "Todays Featured Article" stand out much more than the actual name of the article. Does anyone have any thoughs on using "Todays Featured Article: Article name"? I'm not a strong supporter myself, I just thought I'd bring it up.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 12:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
These are all good drafts in their own ways. When we chose the Wikimedia logo, and the Wikipedia mascot, we took a straw poll on different people's ideas-- I think we could use the same process among these. Ashibakatock03:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I most like the colour schemes of the first two listed. The other are OK, but I'd say the last draft has too much going on, and looks a little too fancy for what it is. Little images in blank spaces; it starts to look a bit like a pre-teen girl's bedroom. Harro. 521:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Just want to point out that there are significant color variances, from monitor to monitor, for each draft. The color saturation/brightness that I mentioned previously (Re: User:David Levy/Main2 and the official draft from earlier today), is slightly less an issue on my laptop display but seemed much too bright on my LCD monitor. I did try adjusting the monitor settings, but colors still a bit too bright and bold. On my own draft, I just tried slightly darkening the colors to make them look better on my laptop. The colors on User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft do look different from my laptop to LCD monitor, but in both instances the colors look okay either way. --Aude (talk | contribs) 04:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The Health Portal is NOT one of the Top 10 subjects. Waht justification does it have to be there? Put it as a subset of Science or even better Anatomy or the Medicine Portal. Unless it is recognized as an equaly important branch of Wikipedia, which it currently isn't, please DO NOT re add it. Those Portals are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked. health is a science; it falls under that category. It has no business being on the Main Page.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, but I think the real problem here is the whole "Top 10" thing - very crass and unprofessional. Wikipedia is not a Letterman bit. I like this top bar a lot, actually, but there's got to be a better way to have links to the portals. Zafiroblue0522:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The Top 10 category was created this month. (Before that, we had the Top 8.) You say that the portals "are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked," but I don't know what distinction you're drawing. Who decided what categories would be included, and why is this determination sacrosanct?
"it helps a lot that User:HereToHelp got rid of the health portal, which is really primative and only recently been edited by User:Go for it! and myself."
I just copied the discussion from here (and above) about the Health portal and the overall quality/consistency of the portals to Wikipedia_talk:Portal#Main_page_redesign. This is something that needs work along with the main page design, in order to make it much easier for users to browse the content on Wikipedia. --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
HTH argues that the subject itself (irrespective of the portal's quality) is not "important" enough to warrant inclusion on the main page. This claim is based upon the fact that the health portal is not among the "top 10" categories. I'm wondering who compiled this list (and why it should be regarded as official). —David Levy22:31, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the idea of "Top 10" works here. There's a difference between what topics are *significant* or distinct enough that they don't really fit well as subtopics. I would consider Health a key topic... look at http://dir.yahoo.com/. But, in order to add the Health portal link to the main page, I think that portal needs significant improvements, as it's only been edited recently by two of us. And, I'm not a health expert by any means, though have some knowledge of public health and can try to help. But really, the health portal needs more integration with the Medicine portal. We need to call on the people working on the medicine and health articles to help. --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I would say that "because these are an official category, agreed on by consensus" but I already see the flaws in that argument. There was no consenus vote, and on a wiki, anything can be official. So I will present a new guideline: Put the Portals on the main page that are not subsets of other portals. this however, means Art goes under Culture, Tech goes under Science, Philosophy goes under either Science or Society, and maybe even Biography under Society or Culture and Geography under History. On the other hand, the Hebrew Main Page (although we've abandoned icons) has 20 topics! I'm not sure where I stand; perhaps we should judge by the quality of the Portals themselves.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 22:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Browse topic categorization
I also copied the portal discussions to Portal_talk:Browse#Main_page_redesign. We need some central place for discussion of the browse topics and how they are categorized. I'm thinking of other shortcomings... I would think of "Portal:Business and Economics" as a main topic (e.g. most universities have their Business schools separate from Arts & Sciences, Humanities, Health/Medicine, Engineering, etc.). Another main topic *might* be "Law and Government", as I wouldn't think to look under society for them. And, I'm still unsure where to put topics like Sports, Games (e.g. video games), Television, ... On Portal:Browse, they're currently under "Arts" but that doesn't quite make sense to me. Maybe they could go under culture? --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we can decide right now, once and for all. There is a difference between what topics might be considered main topics and should be on the main page, versus which portals are adequate quality and consistency to be linked from the main page. We need to address this gap. --Aude (talk | contribs) 23:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Background pics/ Watermarks
Its a small thing but perhaps people should read this Nature article, which basically says that the first impression of a website is made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. If all they see are text and mute colors we may be seen as a page not worth looking at.
A long these lines, I like the way the header looks now with the book in the background. I think it would also look good if the magnifying glass was returned to the right side of the header box. And perhaps an understated object could go in the backgorund of the Featured article, etc boxes. I think this would add a look of profesionalism to the page. (Like someone was actually getting paid to stylize Wikipedia and grab the attention of new users).
Thank you Trevor for promoting the idea that the POTD should be on the main page everyday and not just on weekends. And don't worry, it's not too much to ask for. It is within our capabilities to provide. There are three obstacles which we would have to overcome to provide this feature:
Having the POTD everyday would create 5 boxes instead of 4 and would unbalance the columns creating a lot of empty space. We'd need a 6th feature to restore that balance.
Break the picture free of its formatting. The picture of the day comes pre-formatted with its own heading and a (thick purple). We'd have to coordinate with whomever is preparing the POTD day-pages (they're dated), and ask them to prepare another version daily without the formatting. (The main page needs all the formatting elements centralized on itself, so that their style can be coordinated).
Turn "Did you know" into a daily feature also, so that we don't have duplicate POTD's on weekend days.
We might not work this out by this Saturday, but I have a feeling we're going to be working on this project a bit longer than that.
Check out the imbedded formatting (border and heading):
The Apennine Colossus is a stone statue, approximately 11 metres (36 feet) tall, in the estate of Villa Demidoff (originally Villa di Pratolino) in Vaglia in Tuscany, Italy. A personification of the Apennine Mountains, the colossal figure was created by Giambologna, a Flemish-born Italian sculptor, in the late 1580s. The statue has the appearance of an elderly man crouched at the shore of a lake, squeezing the head of a sea monster through whose open mouth water originally emanated into the pond in front of the statue. The colossus is depicted naked, with stalactites in the thick beard and long hair to show the metamorphosis of man and mountain, blending his body with the surrounding nature. It is made of stone and plaster and the interior houses a series of chambers and caves on three levels. Initially, the back of the statue was protected by a structure resembling a cave, which was demolished around 1690 by the sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini, who built a statue of a dragon to adorn the back of the colossus. The Italian sculptor Rinaldo Barbetti renovated the statue in 1876.Sculpture credit: Giambologna; photographed by Rhododendrites
I think we can deal with the three obstacles you mention. As for 5 boxes, how about making the "Wikipedia community" and/or "Sister projects" fit in one column rather than spanning the two? We could also make the size of the featured picture slightly smaller. A bigger deal is having DYK done on the weekends, but sure it can be done. --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
What if we changed the pic of the days' format? The page that gets changed only has the name of the image. Then people can do [[{{this is the page that gets changed}}|any modifications like size here]] and builf the frame and whatever around it.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 02:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
An even dozen portals?
Since we have more real estate with the new header format, I suggest we use it to greatest advantage. And since the browsebar that's all over Wikipedia has "Portals" prominently set in its top line, perhaps we should keep "Portals" on our top line for the sake of familiarity and compatibility. That would give us one more open slot to fill in the block of portals (we've got 11 portals listed there at the moment).
I'm not convinced there's any need to extend the main portals. I find that the existing ten already somewhat duplicate each other. Portal:Health is not and should not be a top-level entry point - in fact, it should probably be merged into Portal:Medicine. But this page is not the place for discussion of changes to the portal hierarchy - please continue that at Wikipedia talk:Portal.--cj | talk02:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The main page is the top of the Portal hierarchy, and the top of most of the hierarchies of Wikipedia. And since this is a feedback generating forum, it's the perfect place to find out if users prefer a dozen top portals to ten on the main page. And, if the feedback is negative, we can easily pull the extra portals. There's no sense in not finding out. Besides, so far efforts to place the expanded browsebar selection of portals onto the main page have failed. So the only truly appropriate course of action is to discuss it as a main page issue and a portal hierarchy issue. --Go for it!02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The Main Page is not part of the hierarchy itself. The problem is, concerns were already raised Template:MainPageIntro that the hierarchy was imperfect - and not just because of sizing issues. None of the templates you've changed are incorporated in this design. If you wish to change the arrangement, please discuss it where it was formulated.--cj | talk02:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Semantically, medicine is a subcategory of health. Medicine would therefore fall under both health and science in the hierarchy. Notice that the top of the hierarchy reads almost like the section titles of a newspaper. Health is a major section of most major newspapers, right up there with People and Lifestyle (Culture). --Go for it!02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I generally agree with you. We need to work on getting the Health portal improved and seek out help from those involved in the relevant medicine and other articles. Until then, I would keep Medicine as the topic or just not have either on the main page (yet). --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Medicine is a subset of science and easily access from there. Newcomers often overlook the "Help" link in the navigation bar, so I put that in the place of Medicine.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 02:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, we intend to propose modifications to the main page's layout/interface, but I feel that we should leave the fundamental content alone for now.
In other words, issues such as whether we should make "Picture of the Day" and "Did you know..." seven-day features (along with an additional entry) should be decided independently. There might be consensus for one set of changes (but not the other), and we don't want people to oppose the entire redesign because they view it as a package deal.
The addition of the "Wikipedia community" section should be uncontroversial, but I don't think that we should go any further than that. —David Levy04:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I think fundamental content should be changed if there is a change. This is a major issue and I guess we shouldn't be affraid of discussing on fundamental things. --Quinlan Vos11:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. The whole point is to redesign the page, not just arrange it so it looks better. If we encounter problems, like "which Portals are main the Partals" and "The Picture of the Day needs to be reformatted for us to use" only means that we are uncovering a few of the flaws in Wikipeda's structure. We should fix them and then incorporate them into the draft.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 12:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a major difference between the issues that you cite above and the concept of devising new featured content!
The page's static information certainly can be expanded to some extent, but an idea requiring people to regularly author an enormous amount of additional material is a proposal unto itself. We should be concentrating primarily upon improving the manner in which the existing information is presented (not in inventing new features out of whole cloth). —David Levy14:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I think fundamental content should be changed if there is a change.
So...it is an all-or-nothing proposition? If we don't radically alter the page's content, we shouldn't change anything?
This is a major issue and I guess we shouldn't be affraid of discussing on fundamental things.
I have to agree with David on this point. Let's take these issues/proposals separately. Ditto, for my suggestion about the Health portal and overall organization of the portals/topics. As for the sixth content item, I don't think we need it. The Sister projects and/or other languages could be formatted to just one column, rather than spanning two. This would allow the Featured picture to go in the other column. --Aude (talk | contribs) 15:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Seriously, we really need to be working within the main page's established parameters. I don't object to the idea of proposing major changes to the featured content, but attempting to create the layout for an as-yet unapproved (and barely discussed) setup is a textbook example of putting the cart before the horse.
And incidentally, it doesn't make sense to place the "community" links within one of the colored boxes, because they're supposed to contain featured (changing) content, not static (unchanging) information. —David Levy04:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Repetition
"Help" is now listed in the banner, in addition to the left sidebar. "Introduction" is above the banner, where both "ask a question" (which goes to the same page) and Wikipedia are prominently displayed. "Current events" is listed twice: left sidebar and at the bottom of "In the news". Wikipedia:Browse "Categories" and Portal:Browse "All portals" are both right at the top, which without a thorough investigation look to be the same page. I understand why all this is there, but perhaps some brevity would be better than making people's eyes glaze over with all this thoroughness. What are your thoughts on this? --24.26.178.22405:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
"Questions" mostly re-refers to "Reference Desk", "Help", and "Village Pump" (which are all linked to directly on the main page). "Overviews" again looks indistinguishable from both "Categories" and "All Portals". --24.26.178.22405:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Many users overlook the navigation bars. Repetition is good when it reinforces what you want to say ("If you need help, go here") and doesn't take up too much real estate, which it does not.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 12:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
If I may translate from the German Main Page in the upper lefthand corner[7]:
Welcome to Wikipedia!
Wikipedia is a project to construct a free encyclopedia in more than 100 languages. Everyone can contribute their knowledge directly with their browser. Begun in May 2001, there are 343,398 articles in the German language. Good authors are always welcome - the first step is easy!
I think this is very clear (and both links go to the same place). I would guess with the English Wikipedia, most people who don't know what is going on are going to click "anyone can edit" - because that is so surprising. The hazard with redundency is that there is no clear entry point, and it can quickly give the impression of a complicated maze. I know this was the case with me. P.S. I like a lot of what is going on here, just wanted to share my opinion. --24.26.178.22418:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
No need to apologize, we welcome anonomous users ("anons") to Wikipedia so long as they aren't vandals. I agree with the above that there should be a clear place to start.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 22:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
That contributor didn't apologize for anything, so I don't know why you are saying "No need to apologize". Anyway, many vandals have handles, and some 'anonymous' users are just too lazy to log in... :-) I do have a serious point to raise about the impression that Wikipedia is a "complicated maze", but I'll do that in a new comment. 62.31.128.1323:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Small Screens
I'm currently getting a (fairly insignificant) horizontal scrollbar at 800x600. Is there anything can be done about this? Are we aiming to make it work for even smaller screens, too, or is everyone at least 800x600 these days?--Cherryblossomtree12:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Tagline
"926,960 free encyclopedia articles
that anyone can edit"
Thanks for your comments. Now that I look at the page again, I think all we need is "926,960 articles that anyone can edit". The Wikipedia logo in the top-left corner already says "The Free Encyclopedia" so I think we can do without "free" and "encyclopedia". --Aude (talk | contribs) 21:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I took the liberty of removing "free" from the above wording (because I think that you meant to exclude it).
I wholeheartedly support this change. In addition to the logo that appears in MonoBook (the default skin), the text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." would appear directly above the welcome message on the actual main page. —David Levy21:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually I originally changed the page to be "xxx articles that anyone can edit" and HereToHelp added "free" in there. I actually like it, and it still fits nicely on a single line in 800x600. But whichever way is fine with me. --24.26.178.22421:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Picture of the day added
We've got our own picture feed now.
The Template:POTD column is transcluded in the draft. It in turn calls a subpage by date. Here are the page names of the upcoming subpages, the first few of which I've already stocked (Instructions, if you need them are on Template talk:POTD column):
"Did you know" only runs five days, and then gives way to Picture of the day (they share a feed). So we'll have duplicate pictures of the day if we don't create our own "Did you know" feed.
I'm working on it, but don't hesitate to jump in and help.
(You could also start looking for a 6th feature, as I assume Wikipedia Community is in the column only temporarily).
Don't you see the difference between the previous changes and the ones that you just made? No one has agreed to author a "Did you know..." feed over the weekend (let alone a sixth feature), so we're left with a layout that cannot be sustained under the current system.
Until now, we had a design that theoretically could have been dropped into the main page (with only minor, one-off changes to the transclusion setup), and everything would have worked. That no longer is the case.
Basically, you've changed the question that we're asking the Wikipedia community:
"Should reconfigure the main page to have a different interface"?
has become
"Should we turn the main page upside down, and create something dramatically different that requires more work and forces us to devise a feature that doesn't yet exist?"
I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that, but it should be a separate proposal. Otherwise, many people are going to take one glance at our work, think of it as a package deal, and reject everything ("If that's how it's going to be, just leave the current main page alone!"). How do I know this? Because it's already happened (on this very page) with additions as trivial as icons and bright colors!
And quite frankly, I'm not pleased with the current design. It requires that a great deal of empty space exist (which I just shifted from "Today's Featured Picture" to "Did you know..."), and it pushes "Did you know..." right off of the screen. And have you looked at the page in Microsoft Internet Explorer recently? I assume that you haven't, because it's broken.
I don't mean to belittle the effort that you've put into this, but I believe that you're combining two proposals that should be kept separate. —David Levy13:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
While I like the idea of the featured picture on the main page, I just don't think having 6 featured items is a good idea. It's just too much on the main page. I think we should just leave as-is, with feature picture on the weekend. Though, maybe way down the road, Wikipedia can become personalized like http://my.yahoo.com/ or http://news.google.com/, where each user can choose in "my preferences" which features they want on the main page. --Aude (talk | contribs) 14:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm on dial-up until my ISP figures out why cable is messed up. Four items loaded in a reasonable amount of time. Six items do not. After it loaded it looked awful, with gobs of wasted space. As a smelly chunk of the lowly masses, can I vote early here just 4 boxes, please? Metarhyme17:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not up to us to second guess the masses. They'll let us know starting Saturday what they think. A lot of people over the last few voting rounds have been clammering for Picture of the day. I kept telling them it wasn't possible because 1) The formatting (heading and border) were incompatible with our design, and 2) it was already coupled with Did you know. So there's no harm in leaving it in, because on Saturday we'll find out if users generally think there's too much material on the draft or not. And thanks to Trevor (who challenged me by sticking it in there), I spent too many hours trying to figure out how to make it and the other requested features work to let all that time go down the drain without getting a voting session's worth of feedback. We'll have plenty of time during the next editing session to adjust for users' desires. --Go for it!15:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
1. You seem to believe that you're in charge of this project. You aren't. People are complaining about your design, and you're basically telling them that you've made an executive decision. You can't do that (regardless of how many hours you've spent).
2. The proposed establishment of weekend "Did you know..." installments (and some as-yet undetermined additional feature) goes beyond the scope of the main page design, and therefore would require a separate consensus.
3. The most common type of input has not been a request to expand "Today's featured picture" to seven days, but has been a desire to not make any major changes to the main page's structure. We're never going to garner community consensus with a dramatically different design, and any attempt to do so will merely generate opposition to the general idea of modifying the main page. —David Levy21:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I say keep it at four features, as per above (loading time, space, a tendency to not scroll down, complicated formatting, and the consensus for minimal change). There's a lot of work in changing the format for the second feature. David levy, I agree entirely that Go for it! is taking too much control (15 consecutive edits, jeez!) but I also think that we should not be bound by consensus. That consensus, however, will not like the introduction of a 6th feature and major formatting issues for two of them. Remember the KISS principle. It will be very clear that people do not like the new features tomorrow. Go for it! (ha ha) if you like and run it by them. All I say is show them what we have with four features and make sure it's clear that this is not a package deal. I think they'll say they like it with four feature better, but go ahead and ignore me if you're sure—just expect a lot of "I-told-you-so"s.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 21:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses.
First, let me point out that the IE glitch predates my changes. Click here to see. I'm trying to track down the glitch now.
Second, nobody is claiming being in charge. Haven't you figured my role out yet? I'm here to stir things up! How have I done so far - this project's really rockin', huh? Though I didn't mean to stir you up quite so much. *good humored chuckle* True, my statement was rather strongly put - I think we all feel strongly in our views, and me expressing mine sure brought out yours! I admire your dedication to this project. And personally, I like all the versions (except the supermulticolored rough-up of the Italian page) and have something completely different in mind other than simple POV pushing. I didn't even see most of the alternate versions until I started looking for the glitch you reported! Wow. I'm impressed.
Third, our consensus does matter to me, and I believe we are in agreement: we're here to serve the community. The important question is "Are we following the consensus presented in the feedback?" The main consensus so far has been to keep the current main page. So if we we're to go with that consensus, we might as well just shut the project down and change the actual main page piecemeal one tiny element at a time (which we may wind up doing anyways). The point is, we're trying to build consensus for a new main page by designing something that will knock their socks off. Each round is an attempt to change their minds about the current main page. And the current main page certainly isn't our consensus. ;)
Fourth, I agree about the whole package deal thing, but if consensus is overwhelming in any particular direction, on any particular point, we can move on that. The drafts are just a frame of reference to generate that feedback. What would be really cool is if a couple thousand people came in here and expressed their opinions. Now that would be an accomplishment.
Fifth, if I do go out on a limb and try something, be sure that I help others try their ideas too. I assumed there would be more than 6 drafts before ratification, giving plenty of opportunity for everyone to get their ideas across. And public opinion is brutal - anyone brave enough to stick their neck out is likely to get their head chopped off. Mine's been chopped off here (on Wikipedia) several times. So, I don't mind waiting until Draft 7, 8, or 9, or even the next (or another) redesign project to try out the 6-feature idea. I'm not married to it. But at least now it exists, and can be put to use (remember FireFox).
We don't have much time left, so whatever we do, we need to do pretty quick. So rather than engage in lengthy debates, let's just work together and let the result flow. I'll step back and tweak things here and there. I'll meet you on the draft page, and at the end of this one. --Go for it!01:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Before I respond to the remainder of your post, I'll say this:
If you're willing to put the 6-feature idea on hold (pending the outcome of the separate discussion that should occur), I'll unfork the draft right now. I truly believe that this would be the best course of action, but I don't intend to force my opinion on anyone. It's up to you. —David Levy01:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Analysis of "Did You Know" problem
Unless somebody knows some trick for erasing text from a transcluded article, we can't just transclude Did You Know, because it contains an imbedded heading. Which will clash with our heading...
$%^&*(%^&*()
*LIGHT BULB*
We can overlap the incoming heading with a blank heading (with the background turned on). I hope transparency works.
This won't be a problem later: we can just remove the header because the template will have to work with this page, not the current Main Page.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 21:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
The "push-it-up-there" trick worked on In the news, sort of...
I was able to blank out the heading and use negative margins (top and left) to line the template's heading up where the blanked out heading was, thus overlapping it with the blanked out heading's background.
However, there's a line of code in the template that says "div style="float:right; margin-left: 0.5em;" that seems to cause the background of the heading below it to expand up to the previous header.
I added 17 hard carriage returns (br), and it pushed it back down, though there's variable space there now, depending how big or small your text size is adjusted to.
Does anyone know what is going on with this, and how to fix it?
We need to replace the 17 carriage returns with a better solution.
I think it has something to do with "float". Can we lock the template down somehow inside another div container, using some kind of command to anchor it?
If we lick this problem, we'll have a fully operational "live" news feed, making the whole page fully operational!
i am not known to the procedure with proposals to the main page so please move this one to the appropriate place if this way is not the way to do - thank you - User:Trigan777
I've seen a lot of discussion over redesigns of the Main Page, and my question is what should the ultimate aim be? Should it be to have something as simple as possible that as many people as possible can use (call this the MAIN PAGE)? Then fix this in stone, but make clear that it is a simple template that most people should modify to create their own main page. Anyone who comes along with a bright idea or personal preference for layout, can then create their own version (probably in their user space) and use it as their personal "entry point". Kind of similar to using RSS feeds, or having a skin. This would avoid the countless edit wars I've seen over minor points of style and trying to fix a page to suit a few types of users, rather than leaving it flexible enough for all users to use it in their own way. Maybe I'm missing something and this wouldn't be workable, or is already possible, but I'd sure like to see a range of styles and "Main Page" designs available to pick and choose from. You would also be able to change things over time as you moved around different areas of Wikipedia, altering your personal "home page" to 'retire' the old interests and add the new ones. 62.31.128.13 22:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC) — copied here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability#Customizable_Main_Page.3F --Aude (talk | contribs) 22:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. However, the HTML work would be horrendous. Also, it's a hassle to keep your own page updated. The programing would be a mess. People can just customize their own userpages, like FireFox did. And to tell the computer how to do that...--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 22:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)DID I MENTION THE PROGRAMING???
In the future, way down the road and beyond the scope of this project, I think it might be possible to have a customizable main page, like you can customize google news, yahoo, etc. by selecting which content items you want (e.g. weather, sports...) , and positioning them. In the meantime, sure it's possible for those inclined to go ahead and create their own version of the main page in their user space. (it is possible to have personal customizations of monobook.css and monobook.js in your user space too). --Aude (talk | contribs) 23:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the comments so far. I like some of the ideas and drafts I've seen around here. Does anyone have a fairly comprehensive listing of the many different drafts and versions that have been suggested, so that I can compare them, and try and pick and match ideas I like for a personalised UserMainPage(TM)? Is all the featured content on Wikipedia centred around the Main Page, or do other areas have constantly updating featured content? One thing I wanted to try and incorporate was having the Wikipedia: Signpost content appear as a feed, rather than clicking a link to go to it (goes and checks)... DOH! I see there is an RSS feed there already. I've been away too long! :-) 62.31.128.1323:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Additional "Opening" Page
There is another alternative to worrying so about what exactly is presented on the Main opening page— Which I agree should be a cross between something that showcases the capabilities of Wikipedia (which is an argument for the current layout including the "article of the day," etc.) and a guide to how to obtain the information (a non-contributing) user might be looking for.
My solution would be also to provide a repeat user with a "Toolset" page one can open upon (that one could bookmark), and that one can (1) modify in accordance with one's wishes, and (2) provide a rigorous "Starter toolset" into the heart of wikipedia.
To be honest, I think most people find their own ways of doing this. I for one have a "recent changes" style bookmark which I always use, and many others use their user page (or subpage thereof) to create a customisable entrance. violet/riga(t)23:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've added drumguy's draft with the browse icons as the third choice, as I still have some doubts about the brightness of the colors on the main drafts. We can just see what feedback we get. Also, I fixed the vote numbering. --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
IE Formatting Glitch
In IE, the formatting is off. Can you see it? The margins and the padding is all screwed up. Compare browsers and get back to me. --Go for it!01:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
![[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/MP-open-book.png){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
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