Help talk:Contents/Archive 3

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Graphs or pictures from PDF files 2 Help contents "Site Map" 3 Tip of the Day - Lightbulb 4 Trouble learning about Commons pictures 5 Page appearance 5.1 My the Bees are Buzzing on this one 5.2 I thought I was...I'm adding this: Wikipedia:Newcomers_help_page 6 Signature Stamp Problem 7 New Design 7.1 Sections 8 needs its pics again 9 Further Questions 10 The right edge

Graphs or pictures from PDF files

How do you copy a graph or picture from a pdf file and put it into a wikipedia article? , when i try to select it, it just takes the text out of the graph and throws it together in the article.

User talk:Daemion

You might try asking your quesition at Wikipedia's Help Desk. They have volunteers there specifically to answer help-related questions. This page we are on right now, is just the discussion area for the design of the help menu. I hope this helps. Good luck. --Go for it! 01:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Help contents "Site Map"

I was very excited to see references to a "Help site map", but when I got to Help:Contents/Site map I was disappointed to see that it was just an expanded contents list. What I would really like to see is a proper graphics map, one that maps the links between different sections. Sort of like the link-maps I've seen people do for Wikipedia, but simplified so as to help people see visually the way various areas relate to each other. Would this be at all possible? A starting point would be to get someone to generate one of those "link-maps", if anyone knows what I mean by this. Carcharoth 17:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

This is of course not what the term "site map" means. -lethe ^{talk +} 17:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Lethe is correct. I've only seen one graphical-link-representation site map before, and it happens to be of the Wikipedia namespace. Here it is:

That's the map I was thinking of! Would it be possible to do something like that for the Help namespace? And thanks for the correction on what site map means. Carcharoth 23:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Tip of the Day - Lightbulb

I was under the impression that the lightbulb image was merely to gather recruits for your project, and that it would be removed once the totd started functioning.

I object to the image. Is it distracting visual clutter, and only serves to obscure the real help available. I propose either the template is fixed to not have an image, or that the template is removed from this page and kept to userspace. --Quiddity 19:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

the help version is different than the userpage version. We can remove it from one and not from the other (or should be able to). But that's GFI!'s project more than mine, so he should do it.--HereToHelp 20:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Trouble learning about Commons pictures

I've been trying to find out how I could take an article in one language, translate it and put the accompanying images (from commons) in an article in another language. Copying the link won't work, and uploading the image again on the foreign language site is time and space consuming. So I gave up for now :-(

Copying the link should work. Commons images should be accessible across all wikis, so Image:Big_Cumulonimbus.JPG should be just as valid on en. as on de. or es. without any changes having to be made to the link. SFC9394 19:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Page appearance

Help:Contents is meant to show the contents of the help system. As such, the following text which is now at the top of it

---

The policy on harassment can be accessed by using WP:HA.

---

is innapropriate and distracting in my point of view. It unnecessarily elevates some items in the help system with strident visibility, as if that is the only reason people come to this page. I suggest that text about harrasment and help for new users be put in the appropriate lines in the table of contents. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:29, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the comments made by Oleg Alexandrov. Also, as a regular contributor to WP:NOOB, I can assure you that we don't want that much visibility. We already get way too many irrelevant questions. The only people we need to find us are the ones who really need us. If that makes sense. --TantalumTelluride 02:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

To elaborate my concerns, I think we need people to look at WP:FAQ and see links to other help pages before (or at the same time as) being introduced to the newcomers' help page. Otherwise, they will immediately click on the link and ask a question that is already answered in the FAQ or an encyclopedia article. They might also make suggestions that should go to the village pump or ask questions that belong at the reference desk. Thanks for the help, but we don't really need such a highly visible link. --TantalumTelluride 02:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• • TT- This is a sensible change, but two links can go in that box as easily as one. See my pages on WikiBooks. FrankB 04:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that header is UG-LY, and these style changes were made on a whim, with no sandbox mockups or community approval. See: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Don't make major design changes without consensus. --HereToHelp 02:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• That's spelled YoUG-Ly with a capital 'UG'... But kidding aside, No, NOT on a whim, I should resent that, but you've been generally too nice for that. And if my friend TT will consider it, in the long run this will be to everyone's benifit.
• Sorry to ring an alarm bell, but THIS IS THE ONE LINK which NEEDS some prominence.
• Note my comment below in red (now made so for emphasis). I pitch in on some of the other help sections too. But as I note below, this one has been a devil to find. At least you all got rid of the excessive graphics I saw there the last couple of weeks!
• Kudos on THAT wise move.
• Note the notification, then the self-evident failure to post the change so switching to rehetoric. I don't have all that much time to Gas, but if the page were locked, I'd have had to. Instead, I acted boldly per guidlines. Deal with it. FrankB 04:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflict with this post:

Agreed, fixed. I moved the Help:Help to the bottom in a see also. New contributors link was already in the quicklinks box, but i copied it to

the "getting started" subsection-page too. --Quiddity 04:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

FrankB, thank you for being bold. And we may need to find some way of emphasizing that page. But everything in its due course. What if everyone—WikiProjects, collaborations, proposals, everything—was competeting for a slot like that and it just turned the page into a series of boxes, each trying to lok more prominent than another? It just doesn't work. Also, I quote, "The Wikipedia community encourages users to be bold in updating articles." Updating articles. Now that may be a technicallity and the letter of the rule rather than the spirit, but the spirit in unarguably "don't be reckless". I consider this reckless. I'm considering locking the page and reverting it to a stable version, but I'll discuss that here first.--HereToHelp 11:30, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe it was more whimsically than not, as I didn't figure it would stand as my prior post your talk indicated. But it did elevate the issue for it's due consideration. We can't all spend a lot of time in areas where there are a sufficent number of patroling editors or interested parties, and I can live with that, as you'll all keep it in mind henceforth, I trust. That's the desired effect, for sure. Your point on locking pages is one I unreservedly support, as I said on your initiative. Best to all! FrankB 03:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

My the Bees are Buzzing on this one

A friendly post indicated this was going on above, let me respond by copying the post I made immediately after on Template talk: welcome

I thought I was...I'm adding this: Wikipedia:Newcomers_help_page

• I just installed this in the help menu with an increased visibility as it was so buried there in all the clutter. :* I've been editing 15+ months and tonight is the first time I've been able to find the danged page. So I'm simplifying for all newbies.
• Ditto in this template which I find myself placing frequently these days.

Best regards, Boldly yours FrankB 23:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

OKAY, Gas away, this is what I'd add (centered at or near bottom):

Click for General Help — Click for online Help

1. Or whatever presents well but looks good. The FAQ link is probably a good idea as well.
2. No one seems to be thinking as if walking in the newbies shoes. I took seven months away from WikiP on the relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, and I've just gone through it all again. Still am. There's a lot of detail to master, so the learning curve is steady, if not steep.
3. From that viewpoint, Help:Contents is certainly confusing at best, unless you've been around a while. At least they cleaned it up some since last week... it was more confusing then.
4. If someone is adventurous enough to join the ranks, it's condescending to spoon feed them only a few things. I generally tell them to access this and copy the contents to play with in their own user page like this guy, or A followup a week later, or User talk:Macs417.
5. You might want to add something about navigating by using categories. . They are off the page bottom on the default skin in general, Which I percieve as a real problem for the outside customer-user. Another thing I went months without ever appreciating, and contradictory to their whole räison de existancé (sp?) and WP:Btw. I'm going to bring up this last in an RFC, or can someone suggest a better venue. The default skin should make the categories highly visible— they're one of our best features.

Best advice I can give here since the template page is locked. Best regards, FrankB 23:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've just gone through it all again ... I really don't need to add anymore if you folks have any common sense.
So who are you serving? The interests of the customers, or your own pet preserves? Think about it. My opinion was rather visibly stated.<G> Best wishes, FrankB 04:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Signature Stamp Problem

My signature stamp is not working. Can anyone provide me with some clues on how to fix this? Gnosis

Answered on user's talk page.--Commander Keane 17:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

New Design

I have created a new design at Help:Contents/Draft which merges the quick links & menu (while attempting to make the links useful). The 2 most useful/important pages (IMO) are linked directly under the section link. This should hopefully allow users to "guess" the subject of the sub-pages. Many users should be able to find what they are looking for without needing to visit a sub-page, while this solution has the advantages of sub-pages (namely comprehensiveness & clarity, whilst keeping the main page brief). It also borrows the look of the Community Portal [1] (at the time of writing!). I am looking for support before replacing the current page. Gareth Aus 20:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks much better than the current help page, though think we still need somewhere the "Quick help links". Perhaps we can incorporate them into the Help Menu in some way, or otherwise keep them as-is. Also, I suggest TOTD in a more compact format, such as {{totd3}} (which we can of course improve). --Aude (talk | contribs) 20:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. The idea was to put the quick links under the relevant sections. {{Quick help}} seems to include many esoteric things (though it has improved). If there are misc. links that don't apply to any sub-page maybe they could go in the lead (could you list any you think are important here). The TOTD comes from a template (which I chose b/c it seemed the most compact!) though I agree it suffers from a bit too much whitespace. The template would need to be modified - so I'll leave it for the moment. {{totd3}} would need to be horizontal, rather than verticle, but considering it seems to be exclusively for the use of this page, it could be modified. Gareth Aus 21:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• It looks good, but I still have a problem in that it is inobvious to which link is patroled for someone new and wanting to close something out, and not knowing who to ask or where for a quick answer.
• I'd also suggest co-ordinating with the several templates for welcoming people. Stuff which is commonly posted via the welcome committee, could then be down played in favor of more advanced topics.
• One such which seems to have no reference is categories. Further comments are difficult w/o studying the whole heirarchy of links listed. Having just chased through a couple of those, I'm wondering why it isn't better to create an bulleted alphabetized list format with a good line or two discriptor of what lies beyond the link. Subsidiary topics could then be presented as further indented bulleted links. e.g. TOPIC: Editing Wikipedia Subsidiary Topics: {Contributing to Wikipedia, Tutorial } This would also have the virtues of being far less cryptic, and allowing many other subsidiary topics. IMHO, Link Titles, do not necessarily convey a whole lot by themselves. FrankB 04:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't work for me, the <h2> trick fails. Many <br/>, better use <br />, or an ordinary table with rows instead of all these <center> and <br>. Width in CSS has no effect for browsers without CSS, width="50%" should do. {{totd2}} is broken from my POV, {{totd}} would work. The {{shortcut}} is huge without CSS, see the actual page with {{shortcut/}} for a smaller variant. -- Omniplex 05:45, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

{{shortcut}} was updated yesterday. -- Omniplex 17:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the <center> and reduced the number of <br /> tags. The <h2> 3 line thing is not required (I got the code from the community portal, as I wanted to emulate the look) so it may be ok now? In responce to FrankB, I have moved Where to ask questions up next to the FAQ (this seems to be an issue that's not going to go away) and changed a few of the links, including placing Wikipedia:Basic navigation - which includes categories - on the page. Gareth Aus 15:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I really like the layout. Good stuff.

I've changed the colours to those of the main page purple (as at WP:COLOUR), hope that's ok. (We could alternatively use the darker shade listed there, or derive a third shade that matches the others.)

I'd suggest we change a few of the subheading links, but i'm still considering to what.

I'd strongly suggest we merge the "More about Wikipedia" section. It is 95% redundant. I'll delete the redundant stuff now, perhaps others can help with the placement of what's left. --Quiddity 19:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Simplicity is good. You guys work out the details, but I like the concept.--HereToHelp 19:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The blue is even better. --Quiddity 20:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I've changed all the subpages titlebox colours accordingly. (and added categories to those that were missing). More thoughts soonish. --Quiddity 22:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Quiddity, good job with the "More about Wikipedia" page. I'm wondering whether the "Keeping informed: News" secton of Help:Contents/Communication would be better as part of Help:Contents/The Wikipedia community?

When you say "I'd suggest we change a few of the subheading links, but i'm still considering to what.", I presume you mean the big links such as "Getting started". We certainly could use a better name for "Tracking changes". I will go and change the "Communicaton" link to "Communication methods" Gareth Aus 22:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Those are all good ideas too.

(I'd meant the subSublinks then. Particularly "Vandalism | Resolving disputes" under Community just seemed so doubly-negative as a representation of our community!) I don't yet have a detailed mental map of what all is included/needed here, so I only have weak opinions on content matters, I'm more interested in the style/usability end. (Plus i'm still mildly against the sub-page format, i preferred it all on one page. Ah well, at least the /Sitemap works.) --Quiddity 22:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I tried to pick prominent / useful links, so that most people didn't need to encounter the sub-pages, but at the same time links that were signifigantly different to each other. For example "Getting started" has links to Welcome, newcomers and the Glossary. I could have chosen Introduction, but that is the page most people will go from welcome. You're welcome to change the links, but please ensure you satisfy these two requirements.

Wikipedia:Collaborations seems the best "positive replacement" for the community section, but picking a valid replacement which has nothing to do with vandalism or resolving disputes from that page is quite tough! Gareth Aus 23:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Skipping later tests you're probably talking about this draft. With my prehistoric browser I'm not sure what the <h2> magic is supposed to do, but apparently it's only there to emulate <big><big> combined with align="center" and some additional CSS magic. If that's all you can get the same effect with something like

<div align="center" style="border:2px #B8C7D9 solid;"><span style="margin:.5em; margin-top:.1em; border-bottom:0; font-weight:bold;"><big><big>Help menu</big></big>     '''[[Wikipedia:Questions|Where to ask Questions]]'''   <tt>|</tt>   '''[[Wikipedia:FAQ|Frequently Asked Questions]]'''</span></div>

Is that remotely similar to what you really want? For the table I'd still prefer ordinary rows where topic 4 in the left column start next to topic four in the right column no matter how many line breaks are caused by long topics in previous rows. Tell me if you need a screenshot from my unique non-CSS POV. Maybe modern browsers also allow to disable CSS for testing - one of my other stoneage browsers does this (but I guess they added this option because they knew that their CSS support was broken ;-)

Somebody used <pre> somewhere on this page, therefore all &nbsp; and &#160; are destroyed. It should be as in Quiddity's sandbox2 (see also below). -- Omniplex 14:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I just implemented a new design without realizing that a new one was already under way here. Sorry for the confusion, and hopefully we can pull the best from both worlds. --Hetar 02:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

In the future, it's a good idea to discuss such designs—WP:DDGLO—but whatever. And yes, the one downside of that is that some ideas may not be brought up. Someone should look into merging the ideas of the new imlpemented design into the draft.--HereToHelp 03:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections

I tried to wedge the two on the draft page, but i'm not happy with the result. I think it looks a lot cleaner and less overwhelming with just the single ToC box. 2 suggestions follow. --Quiddity 07:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• TotD: does this need to be at both the community portal AND here? can we remove it from here please?

• Quick help links box: I'd prefer to merge it with, and emphasise the link to, Wikipedia:Questions. if we have to keep it, we can either take the duplicated links (things like VP, CP, DR) out of this box, or replace the links in the contents menu examples with something else.

Here's my draft proposal (sandbox). I moved the site news, and wikipedians links into the Contents menu. The 3 unplaced links are tacked on the bottom of the page, with suggestions as to where they should go. --Quiddity 08:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

TotD is available on the (dummy) help pages showing the sidebars "reader toc", "editor toc", and "moderator toc" at the moment, inserted by {{MediaWiki links}}. If it gets too ugly we better use something like Template:MediaWiki links (edit talk links history) on Meta without too technical points for Wikipedia. As long as it works I like it, see Help:Reader, Help:Editor, and Help:Moderator.

In theory we could move the quick menu +/- TotD from Help:Contents to Help:Help. Or we could use the sidebar approach {{MediaWiki links}} on Help:Contents. Or whatever, I only wanted to explain how it's used elsewhere at the moment, for Help:Contents anything working with almost all browsers is fine. -- Omniplex 12:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Quick help links: They're not on Help:Moderator, sorry, I forgot what I did. BTW, somebody removed an item from this box, and it wasn't pretty with a gap, therefore I inserted "other languages" in its upper right corner as mere placeholder. If you have a better idea like Wikipedia:Questions simply replace it, the "other languages" are irrelevant at this place. -- Omniplex 13:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Your proposal: technically the same issues as with Gareth's first proposal, the embedded <h2> magic doesn't work, and on narrow browser windows the topics in the left and right column aren't adjusted as soon as a topic in the left (right) column needs a line break where its counterpart in the right (left) column doesn't. IMHO its prettier to work with ordinary table rows, for an incomplete example see your sandbox2 - of course immediately reverted to your proposal. -- Omniplex 13:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as we seem to be forking for the time being, I have created a version at User:Gareth Aus/Sandbox. This includes the totd - though I won't mind if in the end it's given the flick. I have also kept the sub-links (below the section headings) to two per section, as three doesn't look too good at 800x600. Certainly the page is designed for 1024x768 and up, but it doesn't look too bad at 800x600 and most of the section headings do line up. The table draft has Account settings in the middle of the cell (vertical centre) - so it doesn't line up either.

I think {{quick help}} should be merged with the help section of {{H:f Help}} - that is it should be included in place of the help box already there (with relevant / common links - similar to the sub-links on this page) and NOT used on this page. Gareth Aus 18:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems like we're in agreement to move the quickhelp and totd off this page, I'll leave where to up to others, but those places suggested sound good.

I changed my draft back to only 2 examples per line.

I table-fied my draft, does that work for you Omniplex? it looks ok if i turn off css in firefox/opera6, and fine at 800x600. (and what browser/OS are you using? both out of curiosity, and so that i can potentially test with it.)

A new issue, do we really need 2 shortcut links listed? It is linked in the sidebar navbox after all. could we just list WP:HELP? I've done so in my draft.

I also expanded the width to 100%, is that a problem for any reason? It reduces linewrap problems. --Quiddity 20:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Nice work! I set the width to less than 100% simply because I thought it looked better, but it may be better overall at 100%. Btw, how do you turn css off in Firefox? about:config? Gareth Aus 20:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Turn css off in firefox with "View->Page style->no style". Or you can use the web developer extension which has lots of additional nifty features. --Quiddity 21:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Gareth Aus 21:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"Nice work": seconded, that works for me. I use a prehistoric mozilla 3 with narrow windows (varies, depending on what I do). -- Omniplex 04:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I've copied my sandbox back to the main draft page. I'm going to change the "Where to ask questions" placement to a sentence instead of just a link, see how you like it. --Quiddity 05:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I am not the only user who thinks the totd should stay on this page, so please don't remove it under the assumption that consensus has been achieved already. --Hetar 03:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Why does it need to be here, as well as at the Community Portal?

Plus it's perfect for user-space for those who want it. The first thing i often have to do when installing a new program is turn off the tip-wizard. I find them very distracting, and this one too (though it was a lot worse with the giant lightbulb icon). --Quiddity 05:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that the large majority of users won't see it on the Comunity Portal, its at the very bottom of a page that has a large amount of scroll. Plus, the tip is extremely convenient and useful here. Just because you are "anti-tip" (not that this is necessarily a bad thing) doesn't mean that other users won't benefit tremendously from it. I visit the help page almost daily in order to find one thing or another, and I have learned a large amount of information from the totd here. --Hetar 06:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the level reply :) Ok, i've added the totd back to the main draft, but i've given it an ID name ("totdhelp"), so it can be hidden with user.css --Quiddity 07:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a great compromise, thanks! --Hetar 08:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, TotD issue solved in theory, they stay on Contents and as long as it also works as 20%-sidebar on MediaWiki links = Editor + Reader. Now what about the quick help menu? IMO mixing it with the "real" help links for pages from Meta isn't a good idea.

We could redirect some empty / unused Ph:Whatever templates on prominent Help:Whatever pages without Wikipedia specific help to the quick help links (as on Editor + Reader, but those are of course no prominent pages, they're only a side-effect of the "reader toc" etc. sidebar - at the moment, maybe the Meta help folks add more to these "ToC"-pages later). -- Omniplex 19:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not that familiar with the help:handbook pages yet, so am not quite sure what all you mean.

I was beginning to get the impression that the handbook pages were a remnant of the original help pages (or the default help pages for mediawiki installations). For example: Wikipedia:How to edit a page supplants Help:Editing.

I have not yet stumbled upon an instruction as to what direction the handbook pages are intended to take; whether towards merging with our newer help pages, or kept as an isolated minimal handbook, or removed from the en:wikipedia altogether as redundant. Anyone know the short answer? --Quiddity 22:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly I don't trust Wikipedia project pages, they are often wishful thinking, or the private property of their owners. If I see "guideline" I automatically read lie. Of course the Meta pages also have their drawbacks, but at least I'd know how to fix it if I really want to. And they are by definition bound to technical facts valid for all projects.

The Ph:xyz templates here are what appears in chapter "Wikipedia specific help" of Help:xyz for pages imported from Meta. H:C and H:H are exceptions (not imported). That's arranged by H:f Help indirectly included at the end of all imported help pages, H:f = help footer, there's a similar H:h = help header mechanism. Many help pages have nothing special to say for Wikipedia, and then Ph:xyz is empty. It could offer links to related project pages (= Wikipedia namespace), or it could redirect to the "quick help links", or stay empty waiting for somebody to have a good idea, there's an edit-link for these Ph:xyz. -- Omniplex 02:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Some thoughts on this phrase: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by its users in over 200 languages. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and its contents are free and open. A table of contents for navigating the numerous help pages is found below." To me it seems kind of out of place. Maybe it should be on the FAQ page? If we move it off of this page, we can merge the shortcut box down into the Help Menu box and decrease the page scroll a bit. --Hetar 20:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I'll remove it from the draft. It's all mentioned in numerous other and more appropriate top level places already.

I tried putting the shortcut box in the Help Menu box, but it throws off the centering of the title and FAQs-link. Can anyone who knows table-code help? --Quiddity 22:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC) -- fixed through putting it just above the table. which somehow lets it remain within the table, but disregards it from alignment calculations. weird. --Quiddity 00:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I moved the "Where to ask questions" link back to the box because I think it looks silly as a sentence just by itself, and its role seems self explanatory. Gareth Aus 23:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine :) --Quiddity

So, draft finished? ready for insertion? unanswered questions? It all looks good to me. --Quiddity 01:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Two minor tweaks, does that work also for you?

1. Shortcut floating right together with the <h2>
2. Second table integrated into first as new last row, I can't judge if the transparent background works as expected for you. But a second table was odd, the column width was completely different from the first table.

-- Omniplex 02:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I tweaked the backgrounds to work, and italicized the "see also" text in that bottom row.

Depending i guess on lethe's response below, we can go live with this. --Quiddity 07:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The layout is okay now from my old-browser-POV, your last version minimally better than Gareth's: In the latter the TotD follows immediately after the table without any separating white pace (or something similar, <hr /> could do the trick). -- Omniplex 02:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

If my latest still needs more space, adding 1 or 2 <br />'s at the end of the reference desk line looks fine too, it that helps. --Quiddity

Was okay, but now there's some completely ugly Help desk / reference desk paragraph: Get rid of that. It's against the idea "help menu". Under absolutely no circumstancews must there any link to the weird "new contributors help page" in 149 chapters, that's crap. Too lazy for Mfd: -- Omniplex 21:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I updated the draft per lethe's feedback, as noted in edit summary. Give it a check, and sign-off below if all good. Thanks. --Quiddity 06:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll continue the thread below in "help desk links", as that's what it's about. --Quiddity 23:54, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

needs its pics again

the bullet-point images on the old design really made this page welcoming. now it looks clinical and dull. put them back! -- Alfakim -- talk 19:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see Help talk:Contents#Pros and cons of icons just above. That was the last mention of it here. I think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits (not just in number), so consensus would seem to indicate that we remain icon-free. --Quiddity 21:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Citing Help talk:Contents#Pros and cons of icons as an indication of consenus on the removal of the icons is inaccurate. Only one user posted in that section, and there are still plenty of other editors who liked the previous icons. Of course, the icon debate will be moot if we go with the new design, but still... --Hetar 03:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I added to that section to, and the conversation stopped immediately following it's posting, which i interpreted as meaning that the discussion was effectively over. If the issue of icons were to be raised again, it would need to attract a lot of feedback before an alternate decision could be made. --Quiddity 04:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

My preferences are either GIF, or JPG, or no icons at all. Stated somewhere on this page, not in the cited section. At one time loading the page with many different icons took ages (server side issue), and for inline PNGs (not supported by my browser) waiting minutes until I get ugly "broken image" icons obscuring parts of the text is frustrating. -- Omniplex 04:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Fine, let's have some GIFs or JPGs then. the point is, this page looks VERY dull right now, and looked much better before. i like the rearrangement but its just not as welcoming now. -- Alfakim -- talk 10:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

"Much better" was "much worse" from my POV. Maybe we've different ideas about the purpose(s) of H:C. There are at least two: You know that it offers a link to what you really want, then you're using it only for navigation. As fast as possible, beautification unnecessary or even a bad idea if you have to scroll to get to the wanted link.

Or you're seriously lost and clicked on Help, and then you might be in a dangerous state of mind, something does not work as you expect it. Clinic can be a feature if you're angry. Looking at H:C for fun as we do it here is untypical. IMO nothing's wrong with a single picture as on WP:VP to make it a bit less clinic, but the old state was miserable. -- Omniplex 20:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Further Questions

• "Policies, conventions and guidelines" subpage title.

is it meant to have "conventions" in the title? Is that traditional or another whimsical goforit addition? --Quiddity 02:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"Policies and guidelines" is better. More succinct and matches title of the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines page. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

• "Vandalism" section in the "The Wikipedia Community" subpage

could this be better placed in the "Keep track of changes" subpage? -Quiddity 02:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --Aude (talk | contribs) 01:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The right edge

The following is what I get. The right edge is not visible in its entirety. Does someone know how to fix that? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 12:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what is causing this bug. Quite peculiar. i blame microsoft ;)

We're working on a redesign that should be up any day now, thanks though :) --Quiddity 18:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)