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Archive 1

mav - what do you think about the new separation between writing tips and pages edabout 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'sin 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

The copyright stuff is about as trimed as I'm comfortable with. For me and many others, this is a central reason why we contribute at all; it is also one of the reasons why we have been such a success. IMO the brilliant prose page is an anachronism and shouldn't be pushed on anybody. --mav
Do you mean in the current temp version or in the live version? I was referring to the live version. What do you mean with anachronism? I think the page is a good idea, it just needs to be maintained. Oh, I also miss the article counter. --Eloquence
OIC - I trimmed some more in the temp version anyway. I'm not sure about the article count though... Do we really need to be patting ourselves on the back when we have such a liberal definition for "article" detection? It also seems like detailed information that isn't central to what we are here for. --mav
I think the counter is important just to demonstrate prominently that our project is not vaporware. Whether the count itself is too liberal has been subject of debate; we will certainly adjust it again in the future, but getting rid of it entirely seems like a bad idea. Most encyclopedias note their article count somewhere prominent. --Eloquence
It's back in and I no longer see a reason why it shouldn't be there now that the other text has been boiled-down to the essentials. --mav

There are too many "free"s in the opening paragraph. And what does "and your work will be free forever" mean anyway? -- SGBailey 09:10 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

Noted. "free forever" is a carry over from the current Main Page. It means that once text goes GNU that it is forever free and can't be made to be unfree. --mav
That better? I really like the word "usable" better anyway - it has a clearer meaning. --mav

Lets try to keep the intro to four lines with standard Wikipedia and computer settings (not to mention on topic about Wikipedia). --mav

I'm not convinced about "and your work will be usable forever". It sounds almost as if a magic literacy pill is on offer, and requires a fair stretch of the imagination to convert into its intended meaning. Alas, I can't think of anything that is (a) better and (b) reasonably brief.

On the column width, the 58/42 split looks good on my system. OK for others too? Tannin

Looks good to me. --mav





Would it be possible to have the search box at a more prominent place? I think it's more natural to use an online encyclopedia with a full text search than clicking into one of the main categories and searching there. -- JeLuF 09:49 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think that is possible since HTML forms are not allowed in the world-editable part of pages. --mav
I looked at the source a little, we could add a new tag like <search> that would place the searchbox and the button anywhere on a page. Would this be desirable? It's a rather small change and would improve useability of the Main Page a lot in my eyes. -- JeLuF
good idea. We did it on Unreal Wiki -- See http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki -- Tarquin 10:37 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)
I think from a usability perspective the search box is fine where it is. We have it twice, at the top and at the bottom, and it's really hard to overlook and easy to access. But the search entry field width could be increased. --Eloquence
Sorry, I was logged in while checking and used the Nostalgia-skin (The only skin working fine on all the browsers I use). This skin has only a search box at the bottom. -- JeLuF
I see. The Nostalgia skin is being neglected a bit, I'll try to hack in the second search box next time I work on the skin code. --Eloquence


I definitely think we should have "Our replies to our critics" linked directly from the frontpage. It contains answers to some of the most immediate questions and misconceptions that many people have about our project and which will otherwise be hard to find in all the meta pages. I think most wikis also have a WhyWikiWorks link somewhere on the frontpage. We're used to the idea, but for many people it's a completely revolutionary concept, so I think we should address any concerns upfront. --Eloquence

I disagree. It makes us look like we are unsure about ourselves and are defensive. Besides that would be too many words. The replies are already linked from the about page which in turn is linked from every single Wikipedia page. --mav
I agree with Mav here. Furthermore, I view the replies to critics article as mainly a hangover from the early days of Wikipedia when a lot of people thought it would never work at all. Now it is obvious to all that Wikipedia at least sort-of works, and the coverage that we get from the press etc. is overwhelmingly positive. So it's not even really clear what 'critics' we are defending ourselves against. Enchanter
Alright, if you think it's too defensive, we'll keep it out.--Eloquence

mav: I don't know what criteria you are using for the order of the languages intheother language section - your comment says langauge code or something, whatever that may be - but it looks stupid and it makes finding a language harder. Uninformed folk will tend to look for Deutsch in the Ds not in the Gs, if it is here because of GERMANY then make the word Germany. -- SGBailey 10:13 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Everything is in alphabetical order via language codes (ar, bs, ca, cs, da, ....). Deutsch was misplaced and thank your for noticing that. BTW, the German language is not only spoken in Germany. --mav

I don't think it is at all necessary to have boxes around anything on the Main Page. One of the reasons why the current Main Page is so ugly is due to hr lines. --mav

i like HR's if done in the right place -fonzy

I like the vertical lines as they are now (after my edit summarised as "I like the vertical lines"!). They seperate the two columns nicely, I think. -- Sam 22:02 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

I am thinking some 'white space' would be good, though. --Sam

IMHO there should be

  • either only one vertical line (the right one),
  • or three, meaning adding one left of "selected articles", for consistency

Magnus Manske 22:23 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Yuck! I just noticed that there is a second vertical line all the way to the left. Now for most people using the standard skin there will be two vertical lines on the left: One for side bar and one on the page itself. I could live with one vertical line if it only separated the right and left cells in the larger table and was in the exact center of the divided space. But if this requires complex HTML tricks then I will have no part in it. --mav

The redundant vertical line is gone and the other vertical line doesn't look too bad. I still think it is not needed but if other people want it I won't object. --mav

I like it, but I won't object if it goes either. After all, it's just a line! It's past 11 and I start a new job tomorrow, so good night! -- Sam


I don't know what browsers/systems you all are using but thought you should know that the page as it is now looks very peculiar in my browser (IE5 on a Mac): the two columns are scrunched over way on the left with mucho unused white space on the right. -- Someone else 23:11 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

A screenshot would be nice. BTW, early versions of IE screw-up tables and we have no control over that. --mav

Here (I hope) it is: media:SHOT.png
If it's IE is screwing up, I think changing formats from one that it doesn't screw up to one that it does should be at least a factor (though not necessarily a determinative one) in deciding on how opportune the change would be. A pain in the butt to design around limitations, but this will be the first page many people see, and many people have old browsers. -- Someone else 23:35 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Yep - that is ugly. Was this a problem with earlier versions of this page (the vertical line might be causing the trouble - try [1]). There is one version (I think the first one) of IE 5 which we shouldn't care to support because it had numerous rendering flaws and was vernerable to a nasty computer worm so everybody who used that version should have upgraded long ago. Of course, every version since that one should be supported. --mav
Yep, it's the same with the earlier version of this page. It may very well be my IE version, since I just switched over to it. -- Someone else 01:00 Jan 6, 2003 (UTC)
Mav, I upgraded to v.5.1.6 and the page now looks as I presume you meant it to. Thanx -- Someone else 01:33 Jan 6, 2003 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Sandbox link should stay. The purpose of the sandbox is not to provide meaningful explanations but to prevent newbie experiments from harming articles. By saying right on the frontpage "If you want to play, go here", we avoid this problem. --Eloquence

I agree for that reason and an even more important one: Click on the "Edit this page" link above.... is on the Sandbox page and that is the most important thing for us to point out to new people. Few people bother reading manuals before trying out a new toy. --mav
Agreed, after some more thought! Enchanter
Welcome to Wikipedia, a multilingual project to produce the world's greatest encyclopedia. Currently we are working on 6,931,817 articles in the English version. Our editing process is open and our content is free, meaning that you can edit any article right now and your work will be usable forever. See our about, FAQ and help pages, and experiment in our sandbox.

I'm concerned about the use of lots of non-obvious links in the paragraph above. By non-obvious I mean things like Our editing process is open - it's not at all obvious to someone who wants to know about editing pages that they should click on editing process. The same goes for content, free and working on. Similarly, the welcome page is designed to be a first port of call for new contributors, but it's not obvious to someone arriving at the site that they should click on welcome. It is rather lost in a paragraph with so many links.

I suggest we keep newcomers in mind and decide on a few key pages - the FAQ, the help page, maybe the about page and welcome page - that newcomers should be steered towards to make it easier to find out about the project.

Enchanter

? What else could be behind the link titled 'editing process' in the sentence that includes 'Our editing process' other than a page that describes some suspect of our editing process? Same thing for "content" and "free". These are qualified as our content so somebody will expect at least a selection of our articles under content and a description of just how our articles are free under free. I removed the links listed below by Eloquence because they are not as important. --mav

Well, it certainly is a bit overkilll. The following could be removed, I think:

  • about + FAQ -- Wikipedia:Help is a directory of links, including both of these
  • Recent changes -- is prominently linked from everywhere, and the link is too non-obvious

--Eloquence

I prefer the centered version of "Selected Topics", it looks much better on high screen resolutions. --Eloquence

I think so too. --Magnus Manske 13:10 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I put it back the way it was. I disagree about the name and italics though; "Current Events" with bold titles (not italic) seems better. The links all have to do with stuff that is happening right now (or tht happened recently), and "Selected Articles" doesn't really give any clue to what the links are about. Also, bold is easier to read that italic IMO. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. -- Merphant 19:21 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

Are we seriously considering this page? It looks very cluttered to me, with the vertical line and the second column of info in smaller font. ... Google tries to keep its front page below 60 words, can wikipedia do that--introduce ourselves briefly and jump right to the search box? Are we that confident that most of what people are looking for will turn up? KQ

This page is actually far less cluttered than the current Main Page. It is more condensed, however. What you describe above is similar to what I would like http://www.wikipedia.org to be as soon as the English Wikipedia moves to either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ or http://wikipedia.org/en/ . But the index of links is needed - we are not Google and the Main Page is the TOC for the English Wikipedia. We of course do need a "book cover" for the whole project but that will come in time. --mav

I've made a couple of edit to this sentence:

Our editing process is open and our content is free, meaning that you can edit any article right now and your work will be usable forever.

This doesn't actually make it clear that Wikipedia is free in the open content sense. Although I am not a fervent supporter of free/open content (yes, I'm a Microsoft Windows user) I do think this is really important and something that sets us apart from, say, H2G2. Most people reading would assume that free meant free as in free beer, and probably wouldn't guess that by clicking on 'free' they would be told something different (an example of a 'non-obvious link').

Similarly, I don't think what editing process means is at all obvious (Does Wikipedia actually have a wikipedia process? People can follow whatever process they like to write articles).

I've moved the article counter away from the front paragraph partly to keep the paragraph concise, partly because it is no longer such a good uncontroversial measure of progress now we have so many bot-generated articles.

Enchanter

Hm. I don't think that was an improvement. Moving the counter was also a mistake: As you state, we do not have the number of articles that our counter indicates which is why the wording WE ARE WORKING ON was placed in the sentence. It was also a mistake to remove the date we started: It shows just how far we have gone in such a short time. And to think that having the full name of the GNU FDL makes it any more clear of what we are is just a fallacy. A direct and obvious link with the full name is on every page. Besides our license is secondary to what we are - it is a means to an end. In short the wording that was there before was aimed at giving an impression about what the project is without going into any detail. But the new wording concentrates on a couple of details and fails to give the big picture. --mav
Thanks for the feedback. I think our disagreements here stem from the fact that we are attempting to write an extremely concise introduction in two or three sentences. This makes it very hard to decide what to leave in and what to leave out, particularly when we disagree over what's most important.
One thing I am keen to avoid is half covering issues - for example, in the old text it said the project was "free" without explaining what it meant (unless by chance or curiosity you clicked on the link.) If we are to have a very short introductory paragraph, and I agree that it's a good idea, we should try to keep it simple and not cram too much in.
My suggested solution is a very short and sweet opening paragraph, with a very prominent and obvious link to a (perhaps slightly revamped) Wikipedia:About page, which can then cover all of the things we might like to have in the first paragraph properly.
Enchanter
Well if I'm the only one complaining then I guess I better start improving the about page. :-) --mav

This page is now looking better than the current main page, which wasn't true of many of the earlier versions. The Anome

I agree. The intro is now consise, making it much more friendly, and people can get right into looking for what they want to find or edit. -- Sam

Nice work on this, guys. It looks ready to replace the current front page. -- Stephen Gilbert 18:54 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)

Great! The plan is to go live on Wikipedia Day. Which reminds me: we should probably write a press release.... --mav

Hm. I wrote the above before reading the most recent changes. I therefore made some changes to the text. Also, our mission is to create the world's best encyclopedia - period. We are already the best open content one hands down.

I also readded the counter because it is important and useful to have this information on the Main Page. This number is always quoted by the press and is looked for by almost everyone else. Now are are at a full three lines of text at standard computer monitor settings instead of 3 and a quarter lines. Back before Enchanter's rewrite it was a full four lines. --mav

Shoudlnlt the Main page actually be moved to Wikipedia:Main Page

-fonzy

Yes, it will be moved on Jan 15 (Wikipedia Day), provided we can agree on one phrasing for the intro paragraph until then ;-> --Eloquence
NO!!! The last thing I want is a yellow Main Page. Of all the pages we have this should be an exception. --mav
Oh, I misunderstood Fonzy. I thought he meant Main Page/Temp->Main Page.


I think the phrasing "the world's greatest open content encyclopedia" is better than "the world's greatest encyclopedia .. we are open content" because the latter sounds far too arrogant. Also, I think open content is a better term than "free" because I do not want Wikipedia to be falsely referred to as a "public domain encyclopedia" (as has already happened in the past). "Open content" may be less intuitive, but in this case, that may actually be an advantage. --Eloquence 22:48 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)

I agree "world's greatest encyclopedia" is perhaps arrogant. As for "we aim to world's greatest open content encyclopedia" - that's probably selling ourselves short, we are already arguably the biggest and best. Perhaps "we aim to create a complete open content encyclopedia"? I also agree that "free" is a bad word to use - the most obvious meaning is "free beer" and doesn't distinguish us from enclyclopedia.com, h2g2 etc. Open content is a bit ugly, but I agree it is the best description. Enchanter 23:00 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
Yes, the "world's greatest" stuff could still need some fixing. Perhaps ".. project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia"? Completeness and accuracy seem to be the most important criteria to me. --Eloquence 23:04 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
OK now we are at four lines again. I'll work on it (again). --mav

I'm very happy with this version:

Welcome to Wikipedia, a multilingual project to produce the world's greatest open content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and are now working on 98475 articles in the English version. You can improve existing articles and write new ones right now. To get started, visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox.

--Eloquence 22:58 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)

having the title Main Page, cant tehre be something different a sepcial page for teh main page. -fonzy

What's with the three line fetish, Mav? --Eloquence

Economy of words. It also fills the screen of people with 800 x 600 screen sizes (standar fonts) in a very nice way. I'll upload a screenshot in a moment. --mav

I like this version of the text:

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to produce the world's greatest open content encyclopedia. Since January 15, 2001 we have worked on 6,931,817 English articles. Visit the about page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article right now.

It says everything we want it to say and gives a much better highlight to the most astonishing part: you can edit any article right now --mav

Here it is media:Main Page-Temp.png

I prefer the help page link to the about page link. It gives the important info ("How do I ..") much more prominently, and is better in the context of the sentence. "About Wikipedia" is already linked from every Wikipedia page anyway. Also, maybe it's just me, but I think the "Since January .. we have worked" phrasing is somewhat awkward. I much prefer "We started in January 2001 and are now working on .." --Eloquence
I'll work on it. --mav

You copuld mae it even shorter by getng rid of teh word "world's", as the greatest enyclopeadi aver woudl be the worlds greates encylopeadia. -fonzy

It doesn't cause a line wrap so it is harmless. --mav
New changes caused a wrap so it was removed. --mav

I really like the version below:

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to produce a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started early in 2001 and are now working on 6,931,817 English articles. Visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article right now.

What say you? --mav

It's good, except for "early in 2001", which I changed. One problem with this very brief text is that "are now working on .. English articles" might be misunderstood, as opposed to "working on .. articles in the English version". --Eloquence

I like this version! Enchanter
How about "in English"? The word "version" is redundant. --mav
Redundant, maybe, but I still think it makes the sentence read better. Enchanter

More economizing:

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to produce a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and are now working on 6,931,817 articles in English. Visit the help page and experiment to learn how you can edit any article right now.

I for one had no idea what a sandbox was other than the literal meaning before joining Wikipedia. Therefore it is fine to sublink the sandbox under the word "experiment." Having the extra wording is not worth a line break. --mav

I don't like linking "experiment", I think it makes it less obvious what the sentence and the link means. Enchanter
What else could experiment mean in the context of the sentence? If anything it highlights the word much better and will get a greater number of hits to the sandbox (which I have already noted is a non-obvious word). --mav
I think you exaggerate the importance of the display in one particular browser in one particular resolution. I'd rather have increased clarity ("in the English version") and increased precision ("experiment in the sandbox") than save a line break under certain conditions. HTML doesn't care about line breaks. But that's just my opinion, I'd like to hear more on that. --Eloquence
It is not just any settings, it is the settings used by over 50% of all web users. It is therefore very important to make sure that what they see is the best. --mav
The resolution - perhaps, although statistics are notoriously unreliable here (are you looking at Wikipedia statistics or web-wide statistics?). But have you tested the page in Internet Explorer? With Verdana, Arial, Times New Roman? With the font set to "larger" or "smaller"? With the sidebar of the browser turned on? Right now, I have the word "now" on a single line, which is ugly -- but it's silly to argue about these things, because when I go to work tomorrow, it will look different, even though I use the same browser with the same fonts, but a slightly different resolution. "Visit the help page and experiment" is shorter, but makes the sandbox link easy to overlook because "Visit the help page and experiment" makes sense without the link, too. And just wait for the other-language Wikipedians to jump on you for saying that "we" are working on n articles "in English". --Eloquence
All standard Windows settings. "Sandbox" is not at all an obvious term. --mav
The screenshot you posted is Mozilla. Yes, sandbox is not an obvious term, which is why it's a good idea to put it there, for the same reason you put the "learn how you can edit .." text in: it sounds interesting. --Eloquence
I first confirmed the look on Windows XP at 800 x 600 with standard font size. The screenshot is from my Linux box. --mav
I agree with Eloquence - clear writing is much more important than how it looks on screen. If it looks good on a particular common font size/screen resolution, that's a bonus, but it shouldn't dictate what we write. Enchanter 00:03 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
OK I changed it to read "English version." --mav

I like mav's version. -- Anon.

Actually, is a link to the help page really needed here? There is already a link to the help page on every page. If that link is taken out then go ahead and be verbose with the sandbox text. --mav

I think a link to the help page, (or about page, or welcome, newcomers) is essential. We need to make it obvious to newcomers 'this is where you go to find out more', and do so without bewildering them with choices by offering loads of links. (My own preference is for the about page to be linked, but the help page is also fine). Enchanter
Well we can't have everything and make it 100% obvious what each link means. It is enough for me then to have the sandbox sublinked from the word "experiment." It is obvious to me that that link will take you to a place to experiment in the same manor as the link under "help page" takes you to the help page. --mav

I took out the "right now" bit since it is not logical to be able to edit "right now" if you are first directed to other pages. That ain't right now at all. --mav

The idea that you can edit any article right now is a huge part of what makes Wikipedia special. There are plenty of other projects that let you merely "contribute". So I think it's important that we keep that in. Yes, I know it's not "right now" to the millisecond - still it gets the message across. Enchanter 00:46 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
Mav, admit you just did it for the line wrap. ;-) After all, above you argued that we need "you can edit any article right now" because it's so astonishing .. Anyway, I can live with the current version, although it places little emphasis on the wiki part of wikipedia (the intro would work almost as well for Nupedia, except for the sandbox). --Eloquence
Am I really that shallow? :) I put the wiki part back in (only because it works with 3 lines on my windows test box ;) --mav

I think the current version is fine. I'm going to bed now, hope it doesn't look all different the next time I check .. --Eloquence 00:55 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)

QA report -- three topics, mismatch of language versions, Macintosh browser report, problem with Internet Explorer, Query about empty topic

  1. Repeating SGBailey's comment from 10:09 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC), still true, the Other Language Versions on the righthand side of the page has 28 languages listed, while Other Languages: at the bottom of the page has only 10. I assume this means there are projects in 28 languages but actual going encyclopedias in only 10. If so, the page should say so. If there are actually 28 wikipededias, then we should say so.
  2. In other news, reporting from the Macwater, it looks fine on all four of my browsers, except that in Internet Explorer the blue background bar behind the Wikipedia banner doesn't show up and Internet links are the same color as Wikipedia links. (Could be a problem with preferences support, color mapping, who knows?)
  3. Speaking of colors, shouldn't there be an empty topic in the test page? If someone slipped and put an empty topic on the real main page, how would it show up?

Ortolan88

  • The language links are for the most active Wikipedias. All the wikis, including the stub ones that maybe get 5 or 6 edits per week are listed in the right hand column.
Well, they shouldn't have the same title then. I think the distinction between projects and active Wikipedias sounds right.
Good point.... I'll try to come-up with better wording. --mav
  • Blue background bar? What blue background bar? That sounds like someting that doesn't have anything to do with the wiki-editable text on this page.
This is a sample page, and I was reporting on what it looks like on four different browsers. I see now that the problem exists in IE on the regular main page too. Sorry I mentioned it in this sacred context, but it's still a bug.
No not sacred - it just seemed odd that a general bug report would be placed here. --mav
I didn't know it was a bug report. I rarely use IE and I noticed the difference on the test page and mentioned it.
  • What the heck is an empty topic? Do you mean an edit link? No there should not be any edit links on the Main Page.

--mav

Yes, an empty topic is an edit link. Lots of people call them that. They should not be on the Main Page and I respectfully suggest that the best way to make sure we will be able to catch any errant edit links that might show up accidentally on the real Main Page is to test how it looks on the sample before it goes out in the real world. Why so testy? I'm only trying to help.
Ortolan88
Sorry - it is in my nature to seem rude when in fact I'm just trying to get other people to clearly state things. I'll put a red link on the page but it is going to be very obvious. --mav
I don't know that there is any problem with the way I put it. Test the empty link to see if it works. I spent 15 years on software projects and it never hurts to make sure that all previous features work on new releases. It's called testing for backwards compatibility. If, by chance, the red link happened not to be red (some peculiarity of the syle sheet of the main page or whatever, something that changed at the same time as something else and affected it adversely), it would be better to find it out in the testing phase. You want those links to be obvious, particularly on a page where there are supposed to be none. Ortolan88
Orto, testing is OK, but the Main Page isn't really different from any other page, code- or stylesheet-wise, so I would be surprised if the outcome was any different. This temp page is not so much intended for testing but for developing a layout we can go live with on Jan 15. --Eloquence
But I don't know that, and what I suggested makes sense. Things that aren't supposed to change are the ones that should be tested. If we are going to alter the page that every single new visitor takes a look at, we should be sure it works right. I don't see the distinction between "developing a layout" and testing, and I am surprised at all the defensiveness my simple suggestion has attracted. Ortolan88
Chill. It's just a matter of perspective. To someone familiar with the code, it's simply not test-worthy. Check out m:How to become a Wikipedia hacker if you want to participate, we always need experienced coders like yourself. --Eloquence
I'm just a humble little bumblebee, going from flower to flower, sipping the honey and leaving the pollen. Ortolan88

Cant we move to en.wikipedia.org on wikipedia day too? -fonzy

We can do that as soon as we agree what to do with www.wikipedia.org and with the old links to wikipedia articles. I for one vehemently oppose a multi-language portal at www.wikipedia.org; I think it's a terrible idea. --Eloquence 10:54 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
Like it or not, the non-unanimous consensus was to do just that. I would prefer, however, that we don't make that particular change until the multilingual Phase IV rolls out. Otherwise any page at www.wikipedia.org will be just a pointer page with no real functionality other than that (no uber Recent Changes, no multilingual search, no combined user accounts etc.). --mav
LOL, "non-unanimous consensus" is lovely. Why don't we just hold a real vote, as was already started? --Eloquence
Consensus doesn't mean everybody is happy -- just most people are happy. I'm willing to wait for the software to catch-up with people's expectations. --mav
I con't care for it either, but it has been thoroughly discussed in the 'pedia pages and on the mailing list and the overwhelming majority of interested and informed observers is in favor of the multi-language portal. I think it's a done deal. Every decision, by definition, leaves some other interested and informed observer disappointed. Ortolan88
Sorry, but I don't remember the discussion that way. I'd like to see some hard data here. --Eloquence 17:43 Jan 13, 2003 (UTC)
Just read the posts to the mailing lists and the results of the poll. --mav

OK we are going to go live with the new Main Page within the next hour. I'm preparing an announcement right now. --mav

It's alive!! --mav
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