Portal talk:Main/Archive 2011

Main page redesign #1 (Peer review mock-up / Defiant)

This is based on an idea from Forum:Overhaul of PR, FA, & AotW#Peer reviews. The "current peer reviews" part of this mock-up would ideally be displayed in a frame like the other templates, though I'm not sure how to do that, programming wise. If this is still too big, the <small> format could be used for the text. --Defiant 12:00, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a fallacy to assume that anything on this main page is still being read. A real main page should, in the optimal case, fit on a typical screen, or be twice as long in the worst case. Our current main page is 9(!) screens long on a 1024 width resolution (and it doesn't get much less with higher resolution because of a fixed width viewport). So, if work is being put into a new main page at all, it should include a severe reduction of content, probably by moving most of it to further portal pages (we could create a Portal:Editing MA, for example).

That said, even just discussing the suggested addition here, I don't think it's a good one. It adds a "contributor-level" resource (a list to peer-reviewed pages) in the middle of two "reader-level" resources (Example article & Trek News). It doesn't belong there, but should be grouped with other links that address contributors. -- Cid Highwind 12:16, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

Added a box and used the template for PRs (a option could be added for the no reviews text later). This page also doesn't have the picture of the day box on it, though I assume it's suppose to be in the same location?

As for Cid's suggestion, if the editing portal was treated differently than the others, as in its link was located elsewhere on the main page and it wouldn't be in the nav menu, that might be worth looking into. Then again, a hub for editors is petty much what the recent changes page is, and what the abomination wiki activity is suppose to be. - Archduk3 15:36, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the picture of the day should still be on this page. This temp page obviously does not cover a "severe reduction of content", Cid; if that's what you're looking for, you could maybe try creating a separate main page temp to show what you mean, like I have done. --Defiant 16:46, November 18, 2011 (UTC)

Main page redesign #2 (shorter page / Cid)

Here's my suggestion - still a work in progress, of course: Portal:Main/temp-tiny. Its features:

• Sliding gallery, leading new users to up to four "main portals"
  • One of these (#3 in my example) would be a "behind the scenes portal" (perhaps Portal:Star Trek, perhaps a new one), which will contain the "News", "Broadcast data", and "Upcoming Media" sections of the current main page
  • Another one (#4) would be a "contribution portal", taking the "Edit" panel from the main page, and having space for things like the peer review list suggested here. It's true that this duplicates some of the functionality we have at the top of Special:RecentChanges at the moment - but that panel is pretty crowded already, and perhaps we'll get some new contributors by having a more spacy portal for them. That one could include links to current discussions as well.
  • The other two spaces of this gallery are up for discussion - perhaps one could be Portal:Star Trek (if that one will be separate from the News&Broadcast panel, and the other one could be changed for recent topics, like the upcoming new movie.
• Below the gallery, we would keep a "Featured Article" (assuming the merge suggested elsewhere goes through). Here, we should make sure that the short blurb really stays a short blurb for all our FAs. The placeholder text currently on that page is half of what our current AotW blurb is, and it's already a little lengthy.
• To the right is access to other portals and other language versions
• At the bottom is the "related wikis" box and our standard disclaimer.
• Anything below the line has no place yet - I guess we could re-format the Pic-of-the-day panel and have it located in the right column below the interwiki links. The rest, I think, should just go.

That's a 2-2.5 screens main page. -- Cid Highwind 22:42, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

We could actually kill the featured article blurbs altogether and just make one of the slider links go to one, based on the randomized suggestion elsewhere. The welcome could then be moved up to where the FA "slot" now is. The DYK has both in-universe and real world info, so that could be in right column, with the pic of the day under the welcome. This might push it to 3 screens, but I think the external links and copyright info will still be seen enough down there. We may also want to take a look at our portals and see which ones are actually working and which ones aren't. I can make a mock up of this below the current one if necessary. - Archduk3 23:28, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

I thought about moving the FA into the gallery - but we would be losing the text completely, so that we basically ended up with a random article between three portal-like pages. Also, we would need a 673 pixel wide image for each FA in that case, because the special gallery demands images of exactly that size. The DYK would be a good feature for the right column - perhaps it could be changed to a daily format with one entry, instead of the current (weekly?) format with 5 entries. I'm not sure we need the "welcome", at all... greetings on a homepage is somewhat last decade. ;) -- Cid Highwind 23:55, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

Having dedicated images for these shouldn't be that hard, and the caption could be Featured Article, with the text under that stated who/what it is. A daily format for the DYK might be a better idea, since even now there are still ones that mix IU and RW info. I'd also like to see this editor dedicated portal, maybe at Portal:Editing Memory Alpha. - Archduk3 00:31, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to suggest that a link to "Where to Watch" (assuming that the actual content is moved off the main page) be relatively prominent. Judging by the number of edits, it seems to be a pretty popular feature, and it makes sense for it to be easy to find, this being the Star Trek wiki. Other than that, I have no problems with slimming down the main page. The slider seems pretty nifty. ;-)–Cleanse ^{( talk | contribs )} 05:20, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Re:FA-in-gallery - I just tried using templated content inside the gallery, and it doesn't work. That means it wouldn't be possible to auto-generate the FA slider item, and we would be back to manually changing the FA each week. So, unless someone finds a solution to that, that's not an option. I'm still looking at the rest of the suggestions. -- Cid Highwind 11:44, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

I now merged "Featured Article", "Picture of the Day" and "Did you know?" into a single "Featured Content" panel - after all, all those things are featuring specific pages one way or another. I also changed the lengthy listing of "events on this day" into the last DYK item (which would be fixed, and always be a link to the current day). DYK should then have 2 or max. 3 items in addition to that final item - whether that works best as weekly or daily feature is up for discussion.

The right column is now slightly shorter than the left, so that a prominent "Where to watch" pointer could be installed there, as suggested by Cleanse. Looking through the existing portals, eventually removing some or creating others, is a good idea, too. -- Cid Highwind 13:11, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the right column would be longer after the ad is factored in. If the DYK went to a daily format, or even a randomized one, there would be space below it for links to other features that would be moved elsewhere. - Archduk3 16:11, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Having now seen it, I think keeping the PotD in the left column and placing a single DYK (with the link to this day in Trek) would look better. We don't need to be pushing up the external links, and could just loose them all together if having them becomes an issue. Also, it seems that not working with templates is a "feature" of the slideshow. - Archduk3 17:57, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

Tossed up a mockup for my suggestion, as well as creating Portal:Editing Memory Alpha, since that needs to be developed parallel to this. It seems that except for the caption, the rest of the slideshow is "nowiki". Not even having basic formatting is giving me a bit of pause on using this, especially if wikia isn't still working on it. - Archduk3 18:44, November 20, 2011 (UTC)