Jump to content

Talk:Main Page

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Eloquence (talk | contribs) at 05:10, 2 June 2004 (→More intro rewording?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Today is Wednesday, (UTC)2024; it is now 21:41 (UTC)


See Wikipedia FAQ for general questions about Wikipedia; you can ask questions at the Village pump.

See MediaWiki_talk:Wikipediatoc and talk:Wikipedia category schemes for general discussion of the category scheme on Wikipedia's Main Page.

Please post screenshots of the current Main Page to Main Page/Screenshots to assist in debugging design issues, especially when you notice that it looks different from the screenshots which are there.

Main Page cache purge - click this link whenever a change has been made to any of the MediaWiki pages displayed on the Main Page. This will clear the Main Page's cache (located on the Wikimedia servers) so that non-logged-in users can see the update. This may or may not force your browser's cache to expire. See Wikipedia:Reload to learn how to deal with that.

Subsections of the page have been moved into the MediaWiki namespace to make them editable. See Wikipedia:Editing the main page.

NOTE: Any bolded item that on the Main Page must be updated and listed on its corresponding subject area page before being listed on the Main Page. For example, a news item should first be listed on current events, then the article on the subject of that news item should be updated to reflect a current event. Then that item can be placed on MediaWiki:In the news.

See Main Page/Old for the old Main Page design.


Post a comment

Archived talk

Archives of older material from this talk page: Archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

The layout of the Main Page underwent a significant redesign, implemented on 23 Feb 2004. Talk archives 1-13 relate to the old design. Archives after this date: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

Talk pages specifically dealing with layout and design, or alternative designs for the Main Page:

Reminder:

No personal attacks!

Why was the introductory text removed? TERRIBLE!

Really, I find the new Wikipedia page which now only includes the links rather than a short intro is extremely dry, boring, and ugly. Of all the things to cut, it had to be the short introduction? How many people do you think will bother to click those links anyway? Not half as many as would have read the introduction which explained the main idea behind Wikipedia. In addition, it made the design more pleasing and the encyclopedia more welcoming. It was less in your face and provided the links neately organized to the side of the introduction.

I am totally agaisnt this change and if I had known I would have voiced my concerns earlier. Infact, I think that the MAIN PAGE should be made nicer, not uglier. For example, once the icons and bullet drawings mature, a TOC with bullets or icons should be added and I think that other Wikipedia sister projects should have icons above the plain links.

Who's ever idea this was, I am very dissapointed. I do not see what you meant to achieve with this and find it to be an irrational change not fueled by necessity. Please explain your reasons for ruining the front page. Thank you --Exigentsky 04:36, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Front Page Observation

Today's main page has Did you know... links to Broadmoor Hospital and mental institution. The first is now peppered with redlinks (as a result of it's front page appearance, one imagines) - the nature of which will not be understood by a first time visitor ("Yikes! How have I hacked the site? I just pressed a link.").

The second, to my mind, is a pretty shoddy article in that it is riddled with implied and explicit criticism of the subject from start to finish: criticism, which, whilst valid, really needs to be explored as a discussion of the subject later in the article rather than entangled throughout.

Whilst I know something of the subject, it isn't really enough I'd feel happy tackling it. I've listed it on pages needing attention.

My point is: a little care in what is put on the front page may be called for? I would hate to think of people being made sour on such a fantastic project by ill chosen main page links. --bodnotbod 11:45, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

The reason this occurs is that it was decided that the "Did you know" content on any given day has to be new content. New content tends to appear on new pages, which tend to be more red than old ones. Your point seems to be valid though - see also MediaWiki_talk:Did you know and its archive. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Ive gotta disagree with you here Bod. Having "perfect" articles only on the main page leads a false impression of what wikipedia is all about. Having articles that need some work will encorage newbies to do that work. When I first pressed a red link and got to an edit box I didn't think "("Yikes! How have I hacked the site?" I thought "jesus I've never seen anything like this before, then set about creating my first article". I personally don't want newbies afraid to edit because they feel they cannot come up to the exacting standards of a perfect article.theresa knott 12:16, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
For what its worth I think that getting across the message "there is some quality here" is more of a challenge and more important than getting across "work in progress". If stuff on the top page has to be new can we put it somewhere else 48 hours ahead so people can tidy it up? --(talk)BozMo 07:33, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I almost added something here about Cap Arcona, which is referenced from the front page and had (until I fixed it) some lousy and confusing English in it (I'm still not sure I've captured the author's intent). I disagree with Theresa here - while we want to encourage contributors, we also want to encourage readers. An encyclopedia which is only used by the people who write it is a pretty pathetic object. We want people to come here because they get solid, factual, useful information. If I had come here and found that most of the articles were confusing or badly written I would not have bothered to start contributing - it was the high quality ones that made me want to contribute.
Incidentally, no insult to whoever wrote Cap Arcona, you did a good job (especially if English is not your first language). DJ Clayworth 14:29, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't like the articles featured in DYK, then do this:

  • Keep an eye on Special:Newpages
  • When you see a potentially interesting article, edit it to meet your high standards
  • Then add one interesting fact from that article to MediaWiki:Did you know.

This way, everyone benefits. This was my intent when I invented DYK -- getting people to keep an eye on newly created articles. Brushing the bad ones under the carpet won't do us any good.--Eloquence* 00:46, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

You guys aren't gonna like this, but the first time I clicked a red link, I thought "Yikes! How have I hacked the site?" than backed away from anything Wikipedia-related for a few months. --SMWhat 04:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Linked to from today's front page is User:Eloquence/Favorite Wikipedia quotes which has, as the first quote: ""ATTENTION WIKIPEDIA, THERE IS A MAJOR BUG ON YOUR SITE ALLOWING ME TO DO THIS (WRITE ON YOUR ARTICLES). I HAVE DONE NO DAMAGE BUT AM TRYING TO ALERT YOU BEFORE SOMEONE DOES"
Cant... stop... laughing! But really, who would actually think that Wiki is actually a bug? I'm gonna get the giggles out now. KirbyMeister 18:10, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, DYK is very suspectible to articles with pictures. High quality articles WITHOUT pics are almost always placed below lower-quality articles WITH pics. No offense to all the articles that have been featured there that have pics. jengod 23:11, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

How would people feel about featuring one of the pictures on Wikipedia:Featured pictures in the place of the featured article, on one day of the week? Would that be too confusing? Instead of just 100 pixels, we could use a centered pic of maybe 300 pix with a caption below it. I see no other place where this could be sensibly put.--Eloquence* 00:07, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

It would definitely be a good idea to draw more attention to the featured pictures. I think it's worth doing this despite potential confusion. Angela. 03:12, May 12, 2004 (UTC)
This is a very bad idea. With an article there, someone reads the blurb, decides they're interested, and goes and reads the article and maybe tidies it up a bit. With a picture, there's nothing there (directly) for someone to read or edit; no incentive to go any deeper than the main page. →Raul654 04:46, May 12, 2004 (UTC)
The current tip on the community portal was a great idea for promoting featured pictures, but I think Raul654 has a good point about the problems with doing this on the main page. If we do use this approach, I would suggest that we keep the picture at 100 pixels, and instead provide some text by saying "This picture is found in the article(s) about [[such-and-such]]" with very short summaries of an article or two where it is used. Then the featured picture could still motivate visitors to the main page to contribute to articles. --Michael Snow 21:10, 12 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree partly, as I'd assumed the image would have some text with it anyway. However, it ought to be bigger than 100px. I think this will encourage people to go further than the main page in the same way that the featured articles do, but also encourage people to contribute photos more. They are very under-recognized at present. Angela. 22:12, May 13, 2004 (UTC)
The original suggestion was only a caption, although perhaps Eloquence had some text in mind, too. I wasn't sure how much room 300 pixels would leave for any text, other than just listing the previously featured items. Somewhat larger than normal (150-200?) would be fine, and serve the purpose. The point is that just because we've been neglecting pictures while promoting articles, I don't think we should overcompensate and completely neglect articles, even for a day, in order to promote pictures. --Michael Snow 04:16, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I set up a test main page at User:Raul654/sandbox and put a featured picture in. You can see the results for yourself. As I said earler, it doesn't really give the user someplace to go. And, another unanticipated problem - I'm no touchy-feely art major, but even I can tell that it totally throws the main page off balance. The picture tends to dominate everything else around it. →Raul654 04:27, May 14, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree that 300 pixels is impossible. I've reduced the picture to 200 pixels and added a little text. What do you think now? --Michael Snow 04:39, 14 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this shouldn't be on the Main Page at all, but instead a MediaWiki block that people can put on their user pages and elsewhere to lighten things up a little. I've started an experiment at MediaWiki:Pic of the day. Let's see if anyone adopts this.--Eloquence* 04:47, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

The layout in User:Raul654/sandbox isn't ideal. It would be good to give featured images more prominence, but perhaps this isn't the best way to do it. I like the {{msg:Pic_of_the_day}} idea, but I don't see it as a substitute to having the featured images on more a highly viewed page than user pages. Angela. 06:50, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Typo ?

Isn't "retailiation" spelled 'retaliation' ? If so, I humbly suggest the typo be removed from the main page. Tjunier 07:26, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

Why is "by academic discipline" abbreviated to "by acad. discipline" under sorting systems? There's no gain in abbreviating academic.

thanks for pointing it out! It used to be a vertical list of categories, at which point there was gain from making the whole column 3 ems thinner... fixed.

Under May 19th Mexico-America war - surely "ceding large tracks of land to the United States." means large "tracts" of land? Nedlowe 09:22, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Intro

As I write, the most recent edit by sj has removed the link to the sandbox, and replaced it with a link to the village pump. Is this a good idea? The VP is already losing some of its utility by virtue of its size (100-150k most of the time). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:32, 13 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A good point. We should fix this by fixing the VP, though... it remains the first place we direct users for interactive help, once they are lucky enough to find a page that tells them where to look for it. If the VP were quick to load and working properly, how would you feel about linking to it? +sj+ 10:32, 2004 May 13 (UTC)
I agree it is a "good" page, in that you will get a decent reponse there, and quickly. I suppose in that sense it is a victim of its own success, but I don't currently have any great ideas on how to improve it (some suggestions are at Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump but none of them spring out as a winner solution). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:41, 13 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Newcomers should be sent to the Wikipedia:Help desk, not the Village pump. Angela. 22:09, May 13, 2004 (UTC)
Angela is exactly right - the village pump explitely says it is not for new users. The help desk is where they should be going. →Raul654 22:17, May 13, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for setting me straight. I think a help desk link, rather than a sandbox link, will be more helpful for most users -- particularly those not already familiar with wiki, which are both the majority of our readers and the visitors least likely to casually become editors. Thoughts? +sj+ 08:21, 2004 May 22 (UTC)
No. I have reverted it.-Eloquence*

Question

Why is the Nick Berg link still here, but there are no links on the prisoner abuse in Iraq (allegedly the motivation behind the killing)?

Nick link is gone. I think this is just a less important branch to the worldwide U.S. prisoner abuse issue.

Images on the Main Page should have captions

Well, that's what I think; even if they're tiny captions. It is not always clear which listed story they belong to and so they confuse as much as they decorate. --Tagishsimon

It would be useful, but they would have to be kept very short so as not to mess up the layout. Angela. 00:17, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
Maybe just something meaningful, like the person's name or something? RickK 00:21, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree. With the exception of selected anniversary, the picture should just be connected to the top item. We also have alt tags--there's just so little real estate as it is on the main page. Most of the pictures are rotated relatively quickly anyway. jengod 04:47, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
People should not have to rely on alt tags to know what an image is depicting. Many users will be unaware that the picture always relates to the top item, and even if they are that doesn't necessarily tell them what the image is actually of. One or two words in small text under each picture wouldn't do any harm in my opinion. Angela. 07:12, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
But it doesn't always relate to the top item. That's the problem. I've been confused a couple of times by trying to figure out which item the picture referred to. RickK 14:58, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Nutrition Values

Can we incoporate the USDA food nutrition data (100g, edible portion) into all related food pages? Maybe someone could build a bot to do it automatically. The USDA SR 16-1 database is very comprehensive and, I guess, in public domain.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR16-1/sr16-1.html

On Scale Models

Does Wikipedia has articles about modeling? Currently, this link goes to science models.

I think building models is an important part of human activities. It surely deserves many many articles.

I think the modeling page could be restructured into a disambiguation page rather than a redirect -- I'll try to tidy that up this weekend. What you're looking for is currently split up into various hobby articles: model train, model aircraft, model rocket, model ship, model car. See also List of hobbies. Good luck! Catherine | talk 04:22, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence

Well its the second really. In "We are building an open-content encyclopedia in many languages." could we embolden the word encyclopedia to make what the site is stand out a bit more? -- SGBailey 22:11, 2004 May 20 (UTC)

I agree. Angela. 01:12, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
So, now "Welcome", "encyclopedia" and "you" are emboldened. An excellently descriptive triplet :) Fredrik 01:23, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
But please, let us claim they are bolded rather than emboldened! <G> - Nunh-huh 01:31, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find the word "bolded" in a dictionary. Though the meaning is obviously obvious. Fredrik 01:34, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Boldfaced is probably in most. Emboldened is a bête noir of the Miss Thistlebottoms who prescribe proper use<g>. -- Nunh-huh 00:09, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It's a personal preference obviously but I thought it looked better without encyclopaedia being in bold face, I just think it stand out far too much as a long word, maybe if it linked to encyclopaedia and thus appeared blue it would be less attention grabbing. -- Ams80 19:06, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest unjustifying tables

I browse Wikipedia in justified text mode and, on the main page, the text in tables are not displayed in the best way, because cells are not wide enough and words are not hyphenated. I suggest adding "text-align=left" in <td> style (-> <td style="text-align:left">), if it works. gbog 06:09, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

.NET programming

we want the complete knowledge and details of the software VISUAL STUDIO.NET and about .NET programming

We have articles about Visual Studio and .NET. Wikipedia is however an encyclopedia and not a programming reference. I suggest you look to MSDN. Please place future questions of this kind at the Wikipedia:Help desk, as this particular page (Talk:Main Page) is about Wikipedia's Main Page and not for general questions. Fredrik 10:28, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The logo on the main page is not that of the American Red Cross, who use just a red cross without the border. You could argue, that since it is a member of the IFRC, this logo is not completely unjustifiable, but it is misleading, could someone change it? Thanks! Mark Richards 16:05, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies?

If the upgrades are a good thing, then why are we apologizing? I'm certainly not apologizing for them, and I feel a little offended (just a very little, of course) that an apology is being offered by the community (of which I consider myself a part) for something that I, for one, am not in the least sorry for. :) Anyhoo, looking forward to 1.3; kudos and much applause to the developers for all their hard work... -- Seth Ilys 21:59, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

We apologise because it is a traditional and courteous form of words for such an occasion, and because we're well brought up, polite and considerate people. NOW GET BACK TO WORK ON THOSE MAPS AND STOP CHATTERING, YOU LAZY WRETCH ;) --Tagishsimon. Oops. Inappropriate joke under the circs: yes; go and get some real life. Come back and tell us what it's like out there... - s
I agree; no apologies necessary. I also hate it when notices like that take up more than an inch of vertical space on a small window... so I cut the last line and shortened the rest a little. +sj+ 23:56, 2004 May 21 (UTC)
Because it's polite to apologise when you know that you are going to inconvenience someone, just as it's polite to apologise when you bump into someone. It's also a technique to calm down those who are upset at not being able to do something they want to do. Corporate apologies are a pretty standard thing for such situations. Jamesday 20:18, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no "Edit this page" option for the Main Page? I see the word "indispensable" there misspelled as "indispensible." Yech. But how does one fix it? --Myles

The main page itself is protected, but the text you see there is mirrored from templates. →Raul654 01:38, May 22, 2004 (UTC)
The main page is protected because, if left unprotected, it would be a constant target for vandalism and newbie tests. We instead use a sort of security through obscurity to protect the main page; much of the content is, in fact, editable by anyone, because it's copied in from MediaWiki messages. So far, it's worked rather successfully in preventing vandalism. :) See Wikipedia:Editing the main page for more details. -- Seth Ilys 02:03, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are too many links in the first sentence... I think it should either be expanded or have some of the links removed. ugen64 the powerless at school

I agree. What we are seeing is the gradual expansion of the number of links in the first sentence. While a good case can be made for each of the links individually, the overall effect of too many links is to confuse the reader, and leave them thinking 'where do I go now?'. I think we should keep the paragraph short and simple, and reduce the number of links, keeping only those that are absolutely necessary. Enchanter 14:17, May 28, 2004 (UTC)
Are we talking about the first sentence, or the first paragraph? --Michael Snow 19:10, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Use French Main Page design?

I really, really, really like the design of the French Wikipedia's Main Page - it looks one heck of a lot cleaner and more professional than the current English one. I propose we use it for our design, probably playing with it to be more like our current Main Page though. Would make a nice change as we get the new 1.3 skin.

Any thoughts? Tom- 17:15, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a mock-up of the English homepage with the French design (still tweaking it though, it isn't finished!) to see what it could look like. I like it myself. Tom- 18:34, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I do like the layout, but I think the standard article font should be used, not Arial. Fredrik 18:48, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
No - the most relavant information should be near the top. I love have ITN and the featured article at the top because that's what I use. →Raul654 19:00, May 28, 2004 (UTC)
New mock-up using standard font Tom- 20:22, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that this is a significant improvement, and I would certainly oppose significant loss of image content. What is it that you find cleaner and more professional, and what do you think are the problems with the current version? Major layout changes to the Main Page can be highly controversial, and there was significant resistance to change when the current version went up. I think we might do better to address your concerns using the current design as a starting point.

For me, the one issue that comes to mind right now is the visual imbalance between the two split boxes. That's basically a function of the amount of text being crammed into the different MediaWiki messages that go there. For example, I observe that the Selected anniversaries section has expanded considerably in size compared to the past, and I think people need to be a little more terse there. --Michael Snow 19:10, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The images could certainly be kept. The major improvements are using a smaller font (though it should not be Arial, but the default font) and moving "browse Wikipedia by topic" to the top. Anniversaries and Did you know really are less important than browsing by topic. Fredrik 19:19, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I like the mockup a lot. I can't read French so I'm not so sure, but it looks like they use the other format on all their pages. It looks a lot cleaner. Could this be done to the English wikipedia relatively easily? It would be something to consider if we change the first page - keep the formatting consistent, and all that. -Seth Mahoney 20:51, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're confusing the new skin with the actual layout of the Main Page. --Michael Snow 20:55, 28 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Since we're not voting, I vote to keep the current main page format. The French main page looks too much like My Father's Encyclopedia; the word "staid" comes to mind. Denni 20:00, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Ooooh!

Yay for monobook :-) A mainstream press story on wikipedia some time back (think it was CNet) started off with "its home page has a web design from the early 90s" or something like that. I guess they can't say that any longer :) Its going to take a while for my relflexes to adjust to the new postions edit link and other links, but I'm sure it'll be worth it. Arvindn 18:48, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia redesign

Hey, it's really cool! A great improvement over the previous design. That said, I have a few suggestions that I think might improve on these changes.

  1. The Wikipedia logo looks to be a transparent GIF antialiased against white. With the new background in shades of gray, there's some ugly fringing going on here. The logo needs to be redone against the new background or (ideally) changed to something that's not quite as ugly.
  2. Why no margin on the sides and top of the page? Disconcerting.
  3. Body text is rendered in Verdana, but headings appear to be in the browser's default sans-serif font; this should be corrected.
  4. Not enough spacing between paragraphs, so body text is muddied. I would suggest either double-spacing paragraphs (as before) or adding a first line indent.
  5. Bright red color for links to nonexistent articles is jarring and calls too much attention to phrases that don't deserve it--maybe a dark gray would be better?

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for comments, so I apologize in advance if this is out of place. I'd try to fix these problems myself if I knew how. Ideas?

-- Wikisux 18:55, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Just adding on to your last point, if a link to a nonexistant article is clicked once, it takes on the same color as a visited existing article. That can be quite irritating. Would be nice if that could be changed as well. Aside from that, good job to all those involved in the re-design. Yardcock 07:59, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
strong agreement on both counts, re: the red links. I hadn't quite put my finger on why those links bother me so much, but this is why. +sj+ 08:15, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Consider it a strong moral obligation to start the article once you've clicked the red link ;). Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:01, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sans-serif fonts: almost as bad as the metric system

Eww, ewwww, EEEEWWWW! Sans-serif fonts are so very twentieth century. They look lazy, as if the typographer couldn't be troubled to finish them; and besides, they make the baby Jesus cry. Unfortunately, changing the main page has broken the main page in the traditional skin, making the entries much too wide for a single screen. -- Smerdis of Tlön 19:01, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Old Design still stored in squids

The old page layout is still stored in the squids for common articles, but accessing a less-popular entry yields the new design.


Generated HTML on the Main Page

From the main page: 

<p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
<small >Note: <em><a href="/wiki/Wikimedia_servers"
 class='external' title="Meta:Wikimedia servers">New server computers</a> 
are being added to the site over the next few days and Wikipedia may occasionally
 be unavailable for a few minutes at a time during this process.</em> </small >
</p><p><br/>
</p>

is extraordinarily poor markup, when the page content suggests that 

<p>
<small >Note: <em><a href="/wiki/Wikimedia_servers"
 class='external' title="Meta:Wikimedia servers">New server computers</a> 
are being added to the site over the next few days and Wikipedia may occasionally
 be unavailable for a few minutes at a time during this process.</em> </small >
</p>

would be more appropriate. Result: lots of unnecessary whitespace on the main page. -- The Anome 19:11, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I liked the old style better because with the new style the links just dont show up.

Yea, and that underline-only-on-mouseover thing is a gimmick that I do not like. 67.169.129.118 00:49, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

New skin: possible bugs

  • "Justify paragraphs" option doesn't work
  • Two newlines in the wikitext puts two <p>'s in the html. (Feature?) This results in extra whitespace in a lot of articles.
  • Keyboard shortcuts interfere with mozilla's

Arvindn 19:17, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

FFF FF

Kudos to the printing stylesheet, but here's another bug to add to this possible bugs list:
  • Rendering cuts off page for the main page on both Safari (1.2.2) and Mozilla (1.6)
Robert 21:57, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


In Opera, on the main page, the bottom footer bar doesn't render properly (looks correct when using IE though). The text is mal-aligned, and actually covers the GUN FDL logo, making it unreadable at parts. I put a screenshot up at:

File:En homepage screenshot opera 5-30-2004.png

.

New skin -- YAY!

Very nice work, whoever you are. Now if you can bring the same clean lines to the edit page, that would be appreciated. The one thing I did like about the Cologne skin was the clear color difference between visited links and unvisited/expired links. While dark red may not be necessary for visited links, it needs to be a little more distinctly not blue. Perhaps the green that was previously used for external links? Denni 20:06, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments

  • I agree with the above comments that the sans-serif font gives us a rather 1970s feel. I prefered the traditional serif font on aesthetic grounds but I suppose I will get used to this one.
  • I also agree that the colour of the links is too recessive. A brighter blue please.
  • Greek and Cyrillic appear no longer to be readable, but this may just be due to the fact that I am using someone else's computer.
  • The spacing between lines in photo captions is too big, making them much too "deep," relative to their width.

Adam 20:01, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely like the old Standard skin better, but to each her/his own. But in resetting my preferences, I had some thoughts:
  • Will the "Standard" skin keep that name, or will I need to go back to my preferences menu & find its new name & reset my preference?
  • I noticed some breakage in the "Nostalgia" skin. Should I report that at the Sourceforge site? Or should I wait a day or two for the changes to work their way thru the system? (BTW, it might be nice to have a link no the front page when the software is being updated to lead users directly to that URL.) -- llywrch 20:08, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm browsing with Firefox, and I get a javascript error "Error addcss is not defined". Also the links for my user page at the top are hidden behind the logo. Can anyone confirm? For what it's worth. I like sanserif, but the font size (x-small, scaled 123%) is an odd way of defining too small. Zeimusu 23:27, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

New Skin and Uploaded Images

Is there some way to fix it so horizontal rules separating sections don't interfere with photographs, diagrams and such? Some tend to run right through images and their captions. Gerald Farinas 20:37, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thus it has always been, if you use wikicode. The only workaround I've found is to use html line breaks to force the offending line below the image. Denni 20:51, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The wikipinks in the new skins are very very very unnoticeable, unless the curser is just over them. This undermine the whole existence of the Wikipedia. The underline should always appear, or another way should be found in order to distinguish simple text from a wikilink. 

eman 21:26, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I'll second that. I'm just not using the new skin. Meelar 21:26, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I'll third that. I would very much prefer a more legible default skin. I find this rather difficult to read. Two Halves, who should log in using a different skin from now on.
And I fourth that. ~ FriedMilk 23:12, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the links need to be a little more distinct. Upping the blue value of the linked text would help, and adding a bit of magenta to the read-link color would also help. I dislike underlining - I find it interferes with the legibility of the text and makes the page look cluttered. Even though Wiki is not paper, I still want it to look like paper as far as text presentation is concerned. Denni 22:19, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Serif fonts are easier to read

Given that this is an encyclopedia with some very long articles, I suggest altering the new design to use serif fonts, in alignment with other similar comments. Serif fonts are easier to read in long blocks of text -- see the wikipedia entry on typeface, in the categorization criteria section. There are numerous studies related to human factors that support the better readability of serif fonts. Robert 21:37, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

More sophisticated studies suggest you will find serif fonts more readable if you learned to read serif fonts, and you will find sans-serif fonts more readable if you learned to read sans-serif fonts. Though studies about readability of fonts on paper do not necessarily generalize to reading on a computer monitor... I imagine somewhere there's a place where one could customize this preference... (either within Wikipedia or on your browser). - Nunh-huh 21:46, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The majority of web users don't have antialiasing enabled, which makes sans-serif fonts much easier to read than serif. Arvindn 05:48, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I much prefer a sans font. Just reading the heavily serifed monospace on this edit page is enough to make me pull my hair. I quite like Helvetica, and Verdana/Arial/whatever it is works for me too. Denni 22:24, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

the old layout...

I liked the old layout better, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon. :)

I hate the new lay-out. Not just is it dog uggly, it has all kinds of little imperfections (aliasing of the logo, boxes of which the surrounding line is broken, boxes that bump into each other), by setting the font-size it shows perfect disdain for all its visitors (what is wrong with not setting the font-size for the body text?), and it's a severe regression of the pro-web interface Wikipedia used to sport. Now it just likes the so-manieth corporate web site by people who don't get it.

Not to mention that the tabs seem stolen from Plone/Zope, and badly stolen at that.--Branko

I also detest the new layout. It is disgustingly twentieth-century, and, like the man above states, excruciatingly corporate. To make matters worse, the lack of serif fonts only complicates this dilemma, not to mention making the site hard to read. I beg of you to revert back to the original. --Esquire

To much White, to much squared boxes, return the colour to the picture boxes

the boxes have corners, some should be round. The tabs above "article", "discussion", etc, should have round corners. the font is not the best. In the article the area of pictures, is pretty terrible, the boxes of images should have some color, like a lite orange.... Some articles that were pretty cool, now they seem awful and amateur :-(

I'm starting to get used to the font. give a nice color to the images boxes in the articles and it will be fine... -Pedro 08:47, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Layout again

Pretty please, do let the main body of articles be in a serifed font. Unserifed fonts are fine in headers, but they strain the eyes, if they occur in blocks. There is a reason why Times Roman has withstood the test of time (See Ransom note effect, which isn't an article but should be). Io 23:57, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with with you, I'm uncomfortable with how you cite your sources. Perhaps you could write that article, or at least a stub? -- llywrch 00:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, paragraphs should be in serif and headlines in sans-serif. Fredrik 00:06, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
This is a matter of taste. I don't have sources. Io 00:12, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
PS: Except for every human being I have ever known , of course. Io 00:17, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh--please not Times New Roman, which is a hack of a print typeface meant to make it marginally more screen-readable. If it were up to me I'd set Wikipedia's body text in Georgia, which was designed specifically for use on low-resolution devices like computer screens (large x-heights, clearer bold) and looks simply beautiful when used properly.

FWIW, common wisdom used to be that sans-serif fonts were easier to read than serifed ones when it came to onscreen text, due to computer monitors' limited resolution being unable to render serifs subtly enough. I doubt it's still true today, what with all our fancy technologies like subpixel antialiasing and the like.

-- Wikisux 00:25, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

As I'm reading this in Arial(?), I can at least definitely state that I would prefer to have the text in some serifed font. Georgia vs. Times vs. Bookman? I'll let the experts figure that one out. But computer screen resolution has become so good in the last few years, that you can readily use the rules of visual presentation of print and transfer them to the screen. In any case, isn't it a maxim of Wikipedia, and probably Open Source altogether, that you put something out and technology will catch up? Io 00:36, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I very much would like a serif version of the monobook skin; I'm struggling today with changing it by customization, but after chaning to serif I have to go through the whole skin and change spacing, margins etc. Please add a serif variant of a next-generation skin. ✏ Sverdrup 12:27, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

More comments

  • It seems that virtually everyone prefers a serif font.
    • Let me be the lone dissenting voice then :-) I can't stand serif and have infact disabled serif fonts in my browser.
    • I also prefer sans. I don't mind a light serif font, but most are too heavy. Times? Gaaah!
  • Everyone also seems to agree that the links are not prominent enough. They should be in a bright blue. In fact the lack of colour is very puzzling - why are we suddenly so dull and monochrome? What is that ugly grey swirly thing in the background?
    • That ugly grey swirling thing is an open book. It's what I first noticed when I bumped into the new skin, and I quite like it.
    • When reading articles, I find the color contrast between links and text distracting. I like the unobtrusive color.
    • I agree there should be link-color preferences, with the default being somewhat more prominent. +sj+
  • It is very irritating that there is no Edit button at the foot of the page, as there was in the old design. Please fix this.
    • There's an Alt-e keyboard shortcut, which might partly address your issue.
    • Definintely agree. *please* add this back into the default layout, especially since there's no shortage of space at the foot of the page. +sj+
  • Is the style junta taking notice of these comments? Is Wikipedia a democracy? Adam 03:30, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm pro-serif myself. Books have historically been in serifed font, before those wizards of the previous century mucked it up, and, besides, sans-serifed font makes us look too much like all those other Internet "encyclopedias". It took me a moment to realize I was looking at the real Wikipedia, and not one of our copycats. Rickyrab 15:24, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The "ugly grey swirly thing" is a book. See the full image. You can change the fonts and link colors in your own stylesheet. See m:User styles. You can add an edit link at the bottom. See m:User styles/bottom tabs. Any other problems, see m:MediaWiki 1.3 comments and bug reports. Angela. 04:12, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note -- having to change your stylesheet on every WP is a pain; having to create a user account (and figure out how to config those prefs) is non-trivial; and I also really miss color. The Standard skin needs to be maintained until many more of these issues wash out... +sj+ 08:27, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Angela, thanks for your comments. I still think there should be an Edit button at the foot of the page, since that is where most readers will be when they decide to edit the page. On the general look of the page, encyclopaedia readers do not expect to have to reconfigure their screens very time they visit. This seems to me to be yet another example of the privileging of producers over consumers which is at the heart of most of Wikipedia's problems. Adam 06:34, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't override the user's choice of font: that way they can have either serif or sans-serif as they wish. -- The Anome 07:56, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I Liked it the old way. Please change it back. This is awful. 198.108.150.2 14:43, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I feel very unhappy looking at the new layout as well. I like wikipedia for it's content, and would therefore like a layout and font that is default easily readable and does not force me to choose another browser, choose different fontsizes, or choose different settings in the site's preferences (it seems I can restore the normal look by choosing standard skin in my preferences, but for how long?).

About the serif and sans-serif dilemma: I've looked at these through quite a few browsers, and more often than not serif becomes ugly at smaller font-sizes (as with the new look). However, rather than changing to sans-serif to restore the readability, I would have preferred normal fontsizes for the main text. If there would be any small print (in navigational links or menu's) somewhere on the page, sans-serif would be advisable for those pieces of text.

I hope my standard skin setting will enable me to never see this mess again, so that I can forget about it all together. I noticed however that the main page in standard skin had changed to some sort of multi-column layout which forced me to scroll to the right, which would seem to indicate that something is amiss with the standard skin as well. --Kornelis 22:42, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What's going on?

Who's monkeyed with the program? The Main Page no longer fits onto the screen - and there's no way to make it fit. Graphics aligned right now sit left. Tables (such as Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics) have gone crazy. Has my browser gone awry, or has the program gone crazy? Does anybody know what's going on? David Cannon 03:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I had that problem once too. Try hitting refresh or hard refreshing (control+F5). →Raul654 03:51, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Raul. It works now! I'm wondering whether what you've told me could be posted as a brief warning on the main page, so that anybody else encountering the same problem will know what is going on and what to do about it. Again, thank you for telling me. David Cannon 12:30, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The main page is very broken on the Standard skin. See this screen shot (beware, large) that I took for the myriad of things going wrong. Many other pages are exhibiting similar behavior: images go all over the place, and text that should follow the bottom linkbar are coming before it. Generally the whole appearance of the Wikipedia is broken, but I suppose that's a rant for another place. P.S., what's with showing the url after the external link. Bleh. &#151;Ed Cormany 01:53, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Main page image

Is that squiggly thing the Prime Minister of Iraq? Non-alignment between text and images is a chronic Main Page problem. Adam 06:34, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Standard Skin

Please make this page work properly under the standard skin! right now it's doubly wide, and the external-links-inside-mediawiki-msgs expand in a very funny way (see bottom of page). +sj+ 08:32, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


Yes, I've got the same problem (doubly wide page under the standard skin) too. Please help!

--TomS

Language bar

With the new skin, "other languages" shows up on the left "navigation" area toward the bottom. Shouldn't this be true on the Main Page as well, to establish consistency across the interface. dml 13:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Colour scheme

The colours of the "Featured article"(pink) and "ITN"(violet) do not go well with the rest of the skin, however the "Category" section (blue) is okay. How about changing at least one of the colours- either pink or violet? KRS 16:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Symmetry

I would prefer the blocks on the main page to have the same width. I don't see any objection to this, and this would add more symmetry to the main page.--Georg Muntingh 18:21, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

What about the side bar? The featured article and selected anniversary sections also need more space. --mav 00:16, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
A fixed width (as the page is now) biases the page against anyone with less than perfect eyesight (like this senior citizen) because if you zoom into the page to get the text large enough to read, half the page disappears and you have to scroll horizontally to see the rest of the page. Down with all fixed widths! GreatWhiteNortherner 17:42, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
That is one reason why I created the table-free Main Page. --mav

Current number of articles

Sure would be nice to have a comma in that 6 digit number that is the current number of articles. nroose Talk 18:26, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure - some people like separators like that, some don't; and in some countries (but perhaps no English-speaking ones) a comma would be a decimal point, which is why some people use a space instead. Personally, I think it can be helpful in really long numbers, but anything less than 7 digits it seems a bit wasted. More importanly, that number is automatically generated, so inserting a separator would require a change to the software to work out where to put it - not difficult, but don't hold your breath amongst the fixes and enhancements to this new version. - IMSoP 21:27, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


A lot of images now seem to report "There are no pages that link to this image" when there really are links. The first one I noticed was Image:Airspeed Oxford.jpg which is used in Airspeed Oxford article - there are many more. --Keith Edkins 06:59, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Category

Go to any blank page, quite literally, and it's listed as being under "Category:war". This isn't good. -- user:zanimum

Are you sure? I don't see any category tag on blank pages. Angela. 05:46, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
It was, at least. Not when you are in the editing text box area, but on the actual "Wikipedia does not have an article..." page. -- user:zanimum
It doesn't seem to be any more, in any case. --Camembert

The Special:Allpages link is blank; can I take its link out of the main page until it's updated? --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 02:58, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Special:Allpages/€ works though. Maybe that could be linked to, or is there an index page that could be linked to? Angela. 05:46, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

White spaces around images on Main Page

I've noticed (in Internet Explorer at least) that the images have white spaces around them, clashing horribly with the coloured backgrounds of the sections. I suggest changing the sections to paler backgrounds until this bug has been fixed. See the example I have prepared at User:Mark/temp. - Mark 06:49, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)


background change

What hapoened to the back ground of wikipedia? When was it changed to gray and why? Also I've come accross a few pages unchanged and I was wondering if that was deliberit. The new back drop looks to cold and steril. Vital component

I agree. It makes me sad now to visit WP pages. Please, if you insist on having a background image, make it lightly colorful (pastels, perhaps) and with a white or lightly-colored base shade. +sj+

desenrascanço

Your page containing the meaning for the portuguese word desenrascanço is circulating on the internet, but there is a lack of accuracy in it, and the definition is rather insultuous to portuguese people. "Desenrascanço" is presented as the main characteristic of the portuguese people, that are referred as ignorant and under developed. The word is described as synonym for lack of planning and ignorant way of doing things, when in fact it means that one is able to solve an unexpected problem without panic. "Desenrascanço" is the contrary of "narrow mind". I can refer to you several situations that hapenned to me abroad, that explain very well what "desenrascar " means, where you can see that a portuguese presence avoided a panic situation. I hope you clarify this definition, taking into consideration not to insult the portuguese people.

C. Cordovil

CNN Anniversary

According to its website, CNN made it broadcasting debut on JANUARY 1, 1982, NOT JUNE 1, 1980! I've taken the liberty to correct this on the CNN page, add it to the "JANUARY 1" and delete it from the "JUNE 1" page.

I'm not sure what your source is, but CNN did indeed begin broadcasting June 1, 1980 (see [1]). It was "CNN2" (now known as CNN Headline News) that began broadcasting on January 1, 1982 (see [2]). I've reverted your edits. --Minesweeper 23:37, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

white outline around images

Why is there a white (uncentered) outline/border around the images on the main page? Latitudinarian

I'm getting my duct tape!!!

The Ariel font?! Ariel is horrible, IMHO. --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 22:09, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

Now that's more like it, but I still miss good ol' Times New Roman --Merovingian ↕ T@Lk 22:21, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)

More intro rewording?

How about rewording the intro paragraph on the Main Page like this:

Welcome to Wikipedia! Since January 2001, we have been building an open-content encyclopedia in many languages, including 6,896,861 articles in English alone.

Then we need to add something to entice new visitors to contribute, and let them know they can immediately become/are by default part of our community. The current final sentence is disjointed; I know Eloquence is dead-set on having "Sandbox" and "How to edit" links in that last sentence, but they're somewhat redundant and can be confusing if new visitors follow those links first.

I would prefer a single link in the final sentence to a newcomer-oriented page that introduces the community-edited aspects of WP in one place -- to someone who doesn't know what it means to "contribute" to such a project, and wants the notion and community explained in a nutshell. Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers takes a long time to explain a few concepts, and more than half of the page is full of links to ther info pages... not ideal for such an audience.

Throwing people into the CP might be the best single link for now; it gives a quick feel of what the community does, and has links to all these other things in the directory. Other thoughts?

Visit our community portal to find out how you can help edit Wikipedia.

What more would you add? +sj+ 00:03, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I like your proposal for the first two sentences. As for telling newcomers how they can contribute, I think the page that presents this information best is Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers, actually. I have a feeling people miss that link, any thoughts? Fredrik (talk) 00:37, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

We could take a lesson from the German Wikipedia here. They have a page called "First Steps" which is a very nicely formatted step by step instruction for starting to work on Wikipedia. In my opinion, this is different from the purpose of the Community Portal, which is more a central hub for users who already know the basics, and which allows them to navigate the system.

Given that the Community Portal is itself linked in the sidebar, I don't think it needs to be the emphasized link in the intro. If we had an equivalent to the German "First Steps" page, I could agree with removing the link to the sandbox (which would be the first "step" on that page) and replacing it with something like:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia built by volunteers. Anyone can improve Wikipedia articles! Read Wikipedia:First steps to get started.

However, as long as the CP itself doesn't fulfill this function and no such page exists, I must insist on prominently having the sandbox link as it's the best way for newbies to quickly experiment.--Eloquence* 03:12, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

I would also insist on leaving the sandbox link on the first paragraph. It's important enough to mention right off the bat that people can edit/create content here. Dori | Talk 03:14, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

I've done a little radical experiment by replacing the intro with the four most important links. Here are some other changes we could make:

  1. Now that we have the category system, we can move the whole "browse by topic" stuff to a single root category page, e.g. Category:Main page. This is all still very unfinished but linking it on the Main Page (with the appropriate notice) will only lead to more people working on it.
  2. The new skin puts language links in the sidebar. I don't know how many we can fit in there, but we might be able to move at least the largest languages there. That would be prominent enough to eliminate the need for an intro link, IMHO.

--Eloquence*

I don't like it. We need the intro IMO. Dori | Talk 03:43, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)
I concur. People need to know *what* Wikipedia is when they come to the main page. Furthermore, the sandbox link is crucial to drive home exactly what a wiki is. - Seth Ilys 04:50, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. It doesn't take up too much room and really helps orient people. -- nknight 04:52, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Here's a link to my revision. I think the tutorial, or a similarly constructed page, is actually more useful than the sandbox, because it doesn't just throw people into hot water (especially as the sandbox header is often gone, and there is a certain risk of edit conflicts). Aside from that I do not see any argument above. Why do we need the prose?--Eloquence*

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&oldid=3836144"