Wikipedia talk:Main Page/Temp

mav - what do you think about the new separation between writing tips and pages about the project? I also think that the first paragraph reads a bit forced (probably because it's been revised so many times), but I realize this needs to be handled very carefully, so I'll get some sleep before trying to improve it :-) --Eloquence 21:51 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

I like it. The list was getting long and needed to be broken-up. You did so using a logical break. Good work! Lets see what others have to say before we make any changes though. --mav

Well, this is how I would do it. You can revert if necessary, since it's in the history. I'm least sure about section 3. Perhaps we shouldn't feature any category scheme there, but just list a bunch of them (with short explanations after dashes, as I've done with links in the other sections); the "classic" subject scheme would then be moved to a separate page and just be listed first here. — Toby 13:39 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

Hi Toby, I liked the old version better -- I think the explanations are unnecessary (we shold think of self-descriptive link names) and the bullet format makes the page too long (and the layout inconsistent). --Eloquence 22:41 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)

Hmm, as usual I like my version better :-). In the current one there are 12 headlines, which is far too much for the headlines to be useful as a navigation/orientation guide (in addition, the non-english / background / list headings are awfully redundant). By having a different width for the two groups of links we imply a different meaning and do not need the "Browse"/"About" headlines. --Eloquence

Perhaps. But I'm the type of person who goes nuts if one of my pictures is not level on the wall. The page has a visual elegance at 50/50 when the 60/40 just bugs the hell out of me. --mav

Eloquence said: By having a different width for the two groups of links we imply a different meaning and do not need the "Browse"/"About" headlines. I agree. They work better two ways: (a) by using layout to communicate the two seperate sections rather than words (the page has too many words already), they help make the page more simple, intuitive and obvious, and (b) (Mav to the contrary) they are better balanced visually. Using the default view (with the control panel whatsit on the left), a 50/50 column split is unbalanced in any case, and if you have to be unbalanced, it's always better to be clearly unbalanced, rather than have that "almost symetrical but something isn't quite right" look. Tannin 09:54 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Balance is problematic from a design perspective because it takes away natural visual clues. Take a look at Jakob Nielsen's useit.com as a bad example. He has also split up the page into two 50/50 parts. This means the viewer has no visual guide to distinguish the different sections of the site. When I try to visualize the page in my mind, I always forget which side was the "permanent content" and which side was the "news" one because they are not sufficiently distinct (the headlines are terrible, too). If we do the 50/50 thing on Wikipedia, the reader will have to resort to headlines to figure out the difference between the two sides. And these sides *are* very different in their function. --Eloquence

That's a good example. (useit.com) The colours help, but you can't really get a good appearance with a 50/50 split using left-alligned text. The visual weight of the text makes the left side of each column "heavier", the right side wants to "float up" in the reader's eye. This conflicts with the strict symmetry of two equal-width columns, and it's that dissonance that makes it look unpleasant. Tannin

OK - let me try something. --mav

IMO the page is more plain now. But is probably is more usable. One thing that still bugs me about the 60/40 set-up is the list of languages overshoots the regular category section of the table. This will only get worse as new languages are added. --mav

Do we want the "In the news" stuff etc. bold? IMHO making it bold distracts much needed attention from the "Welcome to Wikipedia" paragraph. --Eloquence

Either way is fine with me. --mav

Not sure why you are doing all this, but I don't like the two columns bit. Try reading it with a window that is sub-VGA (ie not VGA full screen) (ie less than 640 pixels wide) - It's horrid. It may be boring, but I don't see anything wrong with the existing page. -- SGBailey 10:06 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Everything is horrid in sub-VGA. You have to draw the line somewhere. Tannin

SGBailey, what browser are you using? Opera is pretty good at sub-VGA. --Eloquence

It looks fine in my browser when I view the page in sub-VGA. The only thing that looks horrid is the current interest topics which wrap in ugly ways. But that section in the current Main Page already does that and I haven't gotten any complaints. Besides, people who have their browsers set to sub-VGA are used to having everything look horrible since the lowest common denominator of web design is VGA assuming a fully open browser window. That is where I draw the line. --mav

On my browser, the subject headings are now too big, the old size was better. Also the current events titles overwhelm the items listed. Italic was better here. -- SGBailey 10:11 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

Either bold or in a box with heading. Just italic is confusing. Smaller heads are good though. Tannin

By the way, did you know the list of other languages in the right column does not include some from the page footer! -- SGBailey 10:09 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

I like the current version. --Eloquence 10:19 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

So do I. One thing we might want to do is kill the < small > tag in the other languages section and simply trim the native form of the the language names that are currently in parenthesis next to each link. --mav

I am not convinced about the italics for the current events, but yes, the current version is good. Tannin

Native language links work for me, although it may look a bit snobbish. Hopefully people will be able to figure out that "About .." contains a list with the English names. --Eloquence

I'm more concerned with not offending the non-English Wikipedians. Besides if a person can't read the name on the link then they will be totally lost once they land on the non-English Wikipedia main page. --mav

Side by Side Comparisons ("Before and After")

large screenshot (~1200 px wide) medium screenshot (800 px wide)

I think we should work on this a bit more and then have it go live on Wikipedia Day (which in on the 15th). --mav

The version as of "12:40 Jan 2, 2003" is HORRIBLE. On my 1024*768 monitor with a 90% window it requires a horizontal scroll. Horizontal scroll should be avoided like the plague. -- SGBailey 13:02 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

I get a bottom scroll bar with this too. Could it be because the table width is set at 100% and there is already space taken up with the links on the left? It works OK until the latest version with that added. I have tried my screen at different resolutions and the same happens however I have it set. Sannse 13:12 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

"Timely Topics" is just too twee."

But "Current events" is flat-out wrong. Current events is just one area below the heading. Historical anniversaries can never be a current event and Recent deaths are not events at all unless the passing of a person causes a media event (like the passing of Joe Strummer). --mav

It's not flat-out wrong. It's an imperfect description, but "Articles of Timely Interest" or "Entries relating to current events" or "Recently in the news" or "Current events" or "Newsworthy entries" or "The Wikipedia Bugle" or "In the News", etc. are reasonably equivalent.

Historical anniversaries are certainly current events--a birthday party is a current event, even if it's celebrating something that happened a while ago. As are recent celebrity deaths--we're listing them because they are media events, in the sense that they get news coverage.

What I'm saying here is that a name for the section is less one of whether the name is "right" or "wrong" but one of word preference. --The Cunctator

I haven't looked at this page in a while! Well, I hate the table -- too cute, and of course ugly in the edit box (for now). Also, it doesn't really look nice in my browser -- Netscape 6 for Unix on Solaris -- because the space between the columns is rather thin. I changed the relative sizes of the headers, since the categories go together, not as individual as the other headers. Even with the table, this is relevant, especially with numbered headers. I'm not too enamored with the "== Topic categories ==" header that I put in, however. -- Toby 18:58 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

The "topic categories" header should go: it unbalances the look and is entirely devoid on useful information to any reader intelligent enough to able to read it. That aside, the current version is excellent. Tannin 23:10 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

"Topic categories" removed. See previous talk above and on talk:Main Page for reasons why. I also took out un-needed hr line and increased the spacing between tables and from between the two cells in the lager table. Hr lines are not needed since the page is naturally organized into three sections visually. The Hr line also distracts the eye and is one of the main reasons why the current Main Page is so ugly and hackish looking. "In the news" isn't a good title for the news/deaths/events/anniversaries table/section because historical anniversaries are hardly ever in the news. I'm still not totally satisfied with the "Articles of Timely Interest" title either but at least it is correct. The previous title was "Timely Topics" which I liked just fine but that was removed by The Cunctator for being too twee/dainty (but so is "Village pump" so I don't see the point). --mav

Village pump is private, this is our whole front page for the world. Besides, Village pump isn't twee, it is cute. Big difference. Timely topics is twee. But I don't see what's wrong with "Current Events". Every My Weekly Reader reader knows what it means. Ortolan88

"Current events" is already used for the second most popular page in Wikipedia. Also, there is nothing current about something that happened on this day 500 years ago, and unless their passing causes a media sensation, somebody's death is not really an event in the way we use the word (that's why we have a separate page for that). --mav

OK - other people keep on putting hr lines in the temp page so I've reinstated two and made them more closely match the hr lines in the uneditable header and footer. So what does everybody think of these lines? Good or bad? ---mav

On the HRs, I vote firmly for "I'm undecided". Maybe I lean a little towards keeping them. Either way is fine. The other changes, though - shrinking the intro text and so on - are looking good. "Articles of Timely Interest" ain't perfect, but it's the best suggestion seem so far. "Timely Topics" was too twee. Tannin 08:18 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. I too am a bit undecided about the hr lines. Visually, IMO, they really set the page off but functionally they might be giving more emphasis to the news/deaths/events/anniversaries section than we want (I'm biased here since I think this is one of the best parts of the page). "Articles of Timely Interest" isn't the greatest but sadly that is the most accurate title we have so far. If we can't think of a better name for it we may want to go with no heading for that section. --mav

I think the solid HRs look OK. I agree that "Timely Topics" sounded a bit artificial, it was just an attempt to find something catchy. We should stick to "Articles of Timely Interest" for the time being. I also believe that we should hack on the into paragraph a bit; I'm not too happy with it, especially after the changes. --Eloquence

What specifically do you see is wrong with the intro? IMO it was always odd to have so much text on the Main Page - this isn't a standard practice in modern good web design. --mav

Great idea putting in a link to the sandbox! --mav

cough I complained about that on Talk:Main Page a while ago ;-). I agree that the intro shouldn't be too wordy. What I find important is to point first time visitors to the most important information in the first paragraph they may read:

What are we doing
What?! Everyone can edit everything? Then how do you prevent ..
Oh! Can I try that out somewhere?

The copyright stuff is currently over-emphasized since most people don't care about copyright anyway. We might want to throw in a link to brilliant prose, also to give that page a little more attention. --Eloquence