User talk:Go for it!/archive02

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[edit] Moved from userpage

Hi Go For It - just got your message about the procrastination article - been away - still need help? --New Thought 18:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] I went for it

I am inspired by your username. I went for it. I have already merged Art and Arts into Art. "Fine arts" is a very specific list. All other distinctions are hair-splitting. Architeture is hard to pigeonhole and can live in both Art and Technology w/o the user feeling imposed upon. -- Fplay 10:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

For the cat system and browse page, I agree. Nice job in the cat system by the way. How do you edit those tags so quickly? Go for it! 11:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

Hi Go for it. Please, if you don't agree with something I do, talk to me, and don't complain to Fplay. You can try to guess which of the two will be more constructive. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Question on passing variables

Unfortunately, I'm not knowledgeable in this area at all -- just lucky. I work by trial and error, without much knowledge of what it is I'm doing. So far its worked! But I really must sit down and read up on all the technical stuff so that I can answer questions like this. So...I'm not really sure what your asking.--cj | talk 06:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. As an aside: were you doing something with Portal:Technology? I just finished Art, and was about to start Technology before noticing someone was fiddling with the skeleton.--cj | talk 09:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll start at Society then. Happy editing, --cj | talk 09:49, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Supporting your cause

I just want the navigation stuff to be all the same. Changing the Main Page to add Art and Philosophy is now the easiest solution so I support expanding the navigation to the Top 10. I am not so sure about your new layout for the Main Page. The list of 850 words is probably overkill: there are too many non-encyclopedic "concept" words. E.g. prepositions should not, in most cases, get articles. -- Fplay 09:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The 850 words are not part of the Main Page draft. I've put an "end of draft" line there now. Sorry about the confusion. Go for it! 13:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portals

It looks like we share the common goal of working on portals. Just so you know I'm interested in Portal:Science, Portal:Technology, and Portal:Biology. But of course, if you have any changes to make, please do so! I'm more worried about adding content; from your edit it seems like you like editing formatting? Thanks! --Cyde Weys votetalk 00:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] cryonics revisions in Life extension

See Talk:Life extension --Ben Best 01:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] CfD

I have listed Category:Wikipedia voting forums on CfD. [[Sam Korn]] 16:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Page

I dunno if you meant to or not, but you added discussion topics to my main userpage.. not my user talk page. I wasn't notified of them because of this.. and they aren't supposed to be there in the first place. I figure you might know this since your page is so .. complex. mm. drumguy8800 - speak? 06:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main page draft

Thanks for your feedback. I'm quite sure that POTD is semi-automated, with the help of templates, but not 100% automted. The process is explained at Wikipedia_talk:Picture_of_the_day#Generating_POTD_entries. I'm sure the POTD process and templates can be modified to suit the main page layout. Solipsist seems to be handling the duties each day, so I'm sure asking him, we can get this worked out. I wouldn't bother him yet, until we get good consensus from users on the overall design. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 14:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the current draft is a big improvement, though I've made a bunch more suggestions on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft. To help illustrate these points, these ideas are mocked-up at User:Kmf164/Main_page_draft. It incorporates something from Tom's original draft (the second search box), the subsequent drafts you have worked on, some from the Italian Wikipedia main page, the current main page, and user comments. Feel free to take any of this to use. Thanks. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 02:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Draft 5

Thanks for alerting me to the fact that draft #5 was altered. I like the colors you use better than the cyan, as well as the community portal feature. I'll edit my comments on the draft talk page to reflect that. Thanks. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 22:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Italian wiki css

Italian Wikipedia in Internet Explorer (no rounded corner)
Italian Wikipedia in Internet Explorer (no rounded corner)

I'm looking in to their use of .css. The big thing I've found out thusfar is that the rounded corners effect only works for those using Firefox (or other Gecko/Mozilla browsers). So, it doesn't work for the poor souls still using Internet Explorer (see right). We can still try for the rounded corners effect, anyway. I'll keep looking into it and get back go you soon. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 03:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I still can't find exactly where the .css is that the Italian wiki uses, that specifies the rounded corners. I can keep looking. Though, I have figured out the specific code to put in the style inline attribute for <div> tags: style="-moz-border-radius-topright: 1em;-moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em;". For Mozilla browsers, this makes the corners rounded. I tried it: User:Kmf164/Main page draft2. As for the rounded corners in the skin, you copy my .css at User:Kmf164/monobook.css to User:Go for it!/monobook.css, you'll have the rounded corners in the top tabs and left column. I think the Italian Wikipedia has incorporated this .css code into their Monobook.css
Anyway, the div box .css attribute only seems to work for div boxes and not as a table attribute. Using div boxes then gets back to the problem of the columns and boxes lining up at the bottom. On the Italian wiki, once you go past the main page, the boxes are all square. If users overwhelmingly want the rounded corners, we can do it. Though not as elegent, it would also be possible to use a background image in the table or div cells to give the rounded corners effect on the main page. Though, I personally don't like that inconsistency from their main page across to their other pages. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 04:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Re: monobook.css - I think you might need to restart the browser, or possibly clear your cache. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 05:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the monobook link. I see the style="-moz-border-radius-topright: 1em;-moz-border-radius-topleft: 1em;" code in the italian monobook, but not the en. monobook. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 05:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Placement in left bar

Re putting stuff in the main page left-hand column...dang, I was hoping you knew how that worked. I'll look around a bit... Her Pegship 03:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Kewl. Looks good now, thanks. Her Pegship 04:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Check this out

I already had, but I can't see the changes. I noticed everyone raving about rounded corners, but for some reason, they don't appear such (for me). Do you know why this is? It sounds like a nice format, --cj | talk 06:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've gotten myself Firefox and am looking at the rounded corners presently. To be honest, whilst it looks okay, it's not as fantastic as I had hoped or as people had made it seem (although it does work particular well for Portal:Philosophy). I prefer the square-edge borders that appear for users of IE. By the way, what do you think of adopting Image:Nuvola apps mycomputer.png to replace the current Technology icon?--cj | talk 15:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] class defintion

Yes, class definitions are maintained in a CSS file. A class for a specific element is defined like the following, which is a cut from my own website's CSS file:

div.object { float: left; left: -10px; position: relative; width: 240px; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; }

When a div is called, you can type <div class="object"></div> and its style will be defined by the class above.

To explicitly define a specific div's style in a css file, you do the following:

div #ent1 { background: transparent url(collection/02210502s.jpg) center no-repeat; text-align: right; left: 0px; }

And it can be referenced with id:

<div id="ent1"></div>

You'll note that the only difference is the "." in the class definition in the css file and the "#" in the id definition in the css file. Also in the div declaration in the HTML, the only difference is referencing "class" or "id". hope this helps..

Derek drumguy8800 - speak? 13:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fplay

Fplay was running an unapproved bot. I blocked it until he discussed what he was doing, but instead of adressing the bot, he used a sock puppet, User:Emact, to go to WP:ANI to attack me for making the block. When somebody else (I can't remember who) called him on talking to himself on Fplay's Talk page and making comments as if he were a different person, he started making attacks on me as being "of a certain demographic", which I finally figured out means he has a thing against women. It turns out, in the meantime, that he is the banned user User:Amorrow. Amorrow definitely has a thing against women, especially Elizabeth Morgan. User:Zoe|(talk) 04:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Amorrow was blocked first, then he came back as both Fplay and Emact. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Reference Desk

I did. I'd prefer if you'd raise it first on the talk page. Part of the reason pages are protected is to ensure that changes are first discussed. Oh, and I'm fine with you using my user page format - your not the first, and mine was original derived from others. Although it'd be good to retain a certain uniqueness, the layout is exceptional.--cj | talk 16:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Touch bot

User:Commander Keane bot uses the python wikipedia bot. The pywikipedia bot has a function for touching the "What links here" for a page. So, for your template problem (which is a common one), you could run a bot to clear out any of the false postives that were troubling you. Incidentally, for bot or human, touching a page should not leave an edit in the history (I wish someone could have told Fplay that a couple of weeks ago). You can run your own python bot, and I'll help you set it up if you like.

The python bot has lots of other features, but I'm not too sure if any of them cover the other things you want to do. My knowledge about bots is rather limited.

I don't have any idea about creating classes, MediaWiki:Monobook.css appears to list them all though. Its seems an admin can edit the page, which I'm guessing creates a site-wide class than anyone can use. Maybe stike up some discussion there, or at the Village Pump.

One other tool I know about is AutoWikiBrowser, talk to the creator to see if it can help you out.

To garner all the bot related info you can (eg, how to solve your points 1,2,3,5,6,7), you might try posting the points at Wikipedia:Bot requests. Quite a few bot operators watch that page. Maybe even a general question like:

What (other) resources (pages, bots, utilities, etc.) do the power users / most prolific contributors of Wikipedia use?

at Wikipedia:Bot requests or WP:BOTS will yield you some great information.

--Commander Keane 01:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Almanac

I reverted your move at List of reference tables and left a reason at Talk:List_of_reference_tables#Moved_page.--Jiang 06:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] H2 headings

Try the inline style="border-bottom:0px", or you could put this into your .css and associate this style with a particular class of h2 headings. —Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I can see you like rounding ;-)

Heh, hi there. I love the new design for the main page! however, i think that you should make the tables fixed height so that they line up with eachother; because the way it is at the moment, the height of the right column will change depending upon how much , or how little news traffic there is that day. Similarly, i don't think that there should be a search box at the top, because there's already one at the side, which is always in the same position. Still, apart from that,fantastic! The magical Spum-dandy 21:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what element you are talking about. I think the bottoms of the columns line up. Do they line up on your browser?

If you are referring to the second headings ("On this day" and "Did you know"), it wasn't clear in your post. I'm not sure how to make those line up, but I can work on it, if that is what you were referring to. I've updated the news items, and the second-headings currently do not line-up. Take a look. And thank you for the feedback and words of encouragement. Go for it! 22:03, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Here, take a look! :-)
Image:Different main pagE thing wing.png
Here's what it looks like on a minimalist Konqueror.

[edit] Okay, how's this?

User:Go for it!/Workshop/Main Page Redesign Draft 6 --Go for it! 22:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Perfect! In terms of a comparison to a piece of music, it would be the equivalent of a beautiful woman being seduced by a mellow, sensual Barry White number ;-) The magical Spum-dandy 23:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I really like that! How soon can you upload it?HereToHelp (talk) 03:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mozilla-specific markup

I noticed that you've been adding code that generates rounded edges only in Mozilla-based browsers. This is fine for user pages and user talk pages, but I believe that it's inappropriate for use in the encyclopedia proper. Aside from my personal opinion that it looks bad, I don't think that we should deliberately create major browser-based style differences. I feel that we should strive to provide as uniform an appearance as possible among all of the graphical browsers. —David Levy 00:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking for code for round corners for the other browsers, but haven't been successful finding any so far. I'm not sure any other browser supports round edge rendering. If you are aware of any code, let me know so I can expand my experimentation to include the other browsers.
Is there a feature of wikimedia that counts hits per page? Or, are there records of hits kept in the sql database that drives wikipedia? It would be useful to know how many people are seeing the changes. Failing that, are there any statistics on the proportion of readers to editors? So far, the only feedback I've gotten (on my talk page or the various edited pages' talk pages) is a handful or two. They seem to either really like the style or really dislike it, and so far run about equal. Any assistance you could provide for digging for statistics would be most appreciated. --Go for it! 03:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any code that can be used to accomplish this in the other browsers. (In fact, I wasn't aware of the Mozilla code until now.) My understanding (based upon what I've been told by SoM) is that this feature has not been widely implemented.
I don't know the answers to your other questions, and I suggest that you attempt to contact one of the MediaWiki developers.
As for the rounded corners, I'm afraid that I belong to the "really dislike it" camp. (I use Firefox, so I noticed the difference.) The appearance is extremely jagged.
But again, even if this looks terrific, I oppose the idea of using code for the purpose of generating a style difference in some browsers. —David Levy 03:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awesome work on Help:Contents!

I really admire what you've done with Help:Contents. Between the graphics you made and the hassle of making a new page, I'm tempted to just move Help:Contents to Wikipedia:Help portal and forget about a redesign. And to think, I helped come up with that idea! (scroll down a little from pages? here). Anyway, great job.HereToHelp (talk) 03:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take a look, and will get back to you. --Go for it! 06:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This should tak you to a comparative history of the current verson and one before you came along (roughly).--HereToHelp (talk) 13:15, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Belated thanks

I now have a few extra tabs at the top of my Wikipedia pages. Thanks for your support. Banno 07:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re:Please unprotect Template:Browsebar

done. --Jiang 08:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page New and Main Page New2

Hi! I wonder: what is the point of Main Page New2? Punkmorten 11:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll delete Main Page New and Main Page New2 shortly, unless you have a reason for them to exist. violet/riga (t) 17:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for asking. They were temporary mark ups to see what the browsebar would look like on the main page. They are no longer needed, and feel free to delete them. We can always create more in the future if we need to. --Go for it! 18:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The new Help portal look

Yes, I like it very much! If you're looking for icons, try Commons:Category:Icons. I personally like the Nuvola icons (can be small, nice, compact, and shiny) and if we go with the bluish & white color scheme they will add a dash of color here and there. Shall I mess with it a bit? Her Pegship 21:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rounded corners

Rounded corners distract people from the actual content. There's absolutely no reason to use them. This is nuts! Ashibaka tock Save our rectangular corners! 02:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Variety is the spice of life. Viva la difference! Go for it! 02:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

That's no reason. Some people have complained about rounded corners-- nobody has complained about rectangular corners! Ashibaka tock 02:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ashibaka. We tried round corners in the main page draft, and while some people liked the round corners an equal (if not more) number of people don't like them. Furthermore, the inconsistency across browsers (firefox vx. IE, Opera, and others) is very problematic. I'm now regretting that I gave you the code for round corners, as it seems you're getting carried away on the Help page and the Portals. It's fine to try them on the draft page, but you're not using them on actual help page and portals (not draft versions of those).
I'm not sure if you've been much involved in the Articles for deletion process, but it represents how Wikipedia works when it comes to making decisions. If the vote for deleting an article is split/inconclusive, then Wikipedia will not delete it and keep as-is. The same principle needs to apply with the Main page design, as well as other important pages (e.g. help). If the votes for round corners are split/inconclusive, then we must keep with the status quo with no round corners (and keep the current main page design). So, please stop with the round corners, until some time that there is overwhelming consensus among Wikipedians for round corners. I'm sure we can make the main page, help page, and portals look quite good with simple, standard boxes. Thanks. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 02:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I had a long argument prepared to refute you, however, on retrospect, the issue of round vs square corners is not really worth fighting over. The funny thing is, I like both about equally. I'll go with your preference on the border shape, so we can better spend our time filling in the icons and refining the content of the page. But I really want my spaceship back!!! --Go for it! 15:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[[ |thumb|200px|right|You are awarded 500 MegaFonzies for being cool with Spum]]

[edit] Discussion

Please remember that Wikipedia favours discussion over edit wars. violet/riga (t) 17:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I look forward to discussing your proposed changes on Help talk:Contents. --Go for it! 17:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting the searchbar on the new mainpage

I saw in the main page drafts history that you decided to delete the searchbar. I thought that was a great addition. Why did you delete it? Tobyk777 07:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry I don't know

I have no idea how to insert backround images if it's even possible. If it is, i'm not sure that wikipedia regulations would allow it. On the new mainpage however, as I said, I think the searchbar is crucial, and saw that you were the one who added it, then deleted it. I don't know how to add that back. I think it would be great if you would. Tobyk777 17:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More on the Searchbar

Someone else deleted it after it was added again. It needs to go there and stay there. Tobyk777 02:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If they keep taking it out, then that means it doesn't have consensus. Or it means that it just didn't look good the way the header was layed out. I suggest you get in there and mess around with the format. I personally don't understand the need for a duplicate search bar, considering it is always on the user's screen in the bar on the left.

Please explain to me why you believe the search bar should be placed on the front page. --Go for it! 02:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft

Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of the code on monobook.js. Do you know precisely what code would need to be pasted in? If so, it would sure help our project along. I appreciate your help so far, it puts us one step closer... --Go for it! 23:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. Ask any administrator when you want it undone. --cesarb 03:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to have worked, as the page title still shows up at the top of the page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft. Please take a look. --Go for it! 04:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As with all changes in Wikipedia's CSS and JS, you have to clear your cache before it takes effect. Sorry for forgetting to remind you of that. It works for me on Firefox 1.5, and it's so simple I'd expect it to work even on MSIE. --cesarb 13:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Ctrl-F5 did the trick. Looks great! --Go for it! 14:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need your expertise!

Hi, i recently made a wikiNews football portal here and i was wondering if you'd be able to use your design magic and make it look ever more sexier? thanks ever so much! The magical Spum-dandy 12:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematics as subportal of Science?

I noticed on the Portal:Science page that you listed Portal:Mathematics as a subportal. I don't think this is correct but I wanted to hear your reasoning before undoing it. There is a main hierarchy of portals, including Arts, Culture, Science, Technology, and Math. Since Math is already a top level portal it can't be classified as a subportal of Science. Also, the point of the subportals list was to highlight and link to specific topic field portals that may not be getting as much exposure. The Math portal is already linked to at the top of every portal page in the {{browsebar}} so its inclusion isn't merited in the Science subportals under these criteria. Thank you for understanding, Cyde Weys 2M-VOTE 14:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Responded on my talk page. --Cyde Weys 2M-VOTE 16:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I used an external stylesheet

Pretty simple really. I just used Portal:Football/football.css, then used a DIV class, so that then it would link to the actual stylesheet. You can do it on your own userpage as well :-) Gotta get an admin to protect it ;-) The magical Spum-dandy 15:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Monobook.js

Are you sure it doesn't work? I moved your block of text to a separate file that should only load if the page is actually the page you want. Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft looks fine to me. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-18 19:45

The code isn't working. The skin elements we had removed are back on the page. Please restore our code to MediaWiki:Monobook.js. --Go for it! 19:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Everyone on Wikipedia is involved, because everyone has to download Monobook.js with that code that only a few people are utilizing. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-18 20:04

Thank you for changing it back. Actually a lot of people are looking at the page, as we are linked to from the Main Page's talk page, with a notice right at the top of that page. And this project may actually replace the main page some day, which will make the use of the code universal. If there is a way to accomplish what you are trying, Wikipedia's javascript experts should be able to help. One user who is pretty adept at this stuff is User:cesarb. Perhaps he could answer your questions on whether or not what you were trying can be made to work. (I'd be very interested in the answer too). --Go for it! 20:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

Sorry, but I don't think you're good enough for admin. You're enthusiastic, but sometimes you rush into things too quickly, and tend to end up running a one-man show. Infinity0 talk 23:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny enough, I think he's a good candidate for an admin because he's bold. --Cyde Weys 23:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Reckless or bold? He's very at collaboration when you agree with him, but on working with him in on {{Philosophy navigation}} and Portal:Philosophy, we disagreed many times, and in those vital few cases he rarely co-operated. Infinity0 talk

A lot has happened in the past couple of months, Infinity. Actually, I have you to thank for that. I think everyone goes through the "edit/reversion war phase" when they start editing Wikipedia, and you just happened to be the one who got caught in my episode of that virtual malady. After awhile, you realize how time-consuming and wasteful such battles can be, and learn how to go with the flow. My main modus operandi now, is to create a start, and let others take it from there, mingling changes without being overtly pushy. Check out my latest collaborations. See the help page, and the latest round of edits on the main page redesign. I actively called in people to help on those, and then let them do their thing. Thanks for the help on the Main Page redesign, by the way, you fixed a problem I could not figure out. --Go for it! 00:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I think the summary is good, but very long in comparison to most RFA applications. I'd suggest using a much shorter summary on the RFA page itself (some of it can be split out into the standard questions) and including a link to the page you have set up. Even then I'd condense down to the big points... the 'before' and 'after' on the help redesign tell a nice story, and the bit about stepping back is important... inability to do that gets admins into more trouble than just about anything else. Might combine the various portals you helped on into a general statement with links to some of them. As to your general fitness to be an admin, we've crossed paths now and again and I haven't seen any issues which would prevent you from being a good admin. Personally I'm a process and coding wonk with generally little patience for making things 'pretty', but in each case I've seen, the results after 'whirlwind Go' has blown through have been an improvement on what it looked like before. I have seen you in disagreements with people on various portal issues without getting uncivil about it. Infinity0's comments about 'recklessness' and 'one man show' aren't without merit, but if the result is an overall improvement and you aren't nasty in disagreements I still think that's a net positive and any details you blew past while pursuing your 'big picture' can be sorted out at a more leisurely pace once the dust settles. Shaking things up is inherently rattling to people. I remember thinking, 'Ack, who is this guy and what is all this stuff he is doing to the portal?' the first time we met... but we talked back and forth on a few issues and the end result was definitely an improvement and alot of help. I've kept and expanded on those changes you made and even copied them over to Portal:Featured content. From what I've seen you incorporate things from other people into your efforts and open discussions... all the forms are there, just be aware that not everyone is moving at the same speed you are. Good luck with it and your other projects in general. Let me know if there is something where I can lend a hand. Right now I'm deeply absorbed in the world of meta-templates, but I'll get back to exploring Wiki-java and MediaWiki eventually. --CBD ☎ ✉ 00:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I replied on my talk page. By the way, I agree with other comments about you rushing things sometimes. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] solutions for the two problems you have been experiencing

I have have some solutions for the problems you are experiencing

  • Instead of locking the page you could either make a copy, or provide a permanent link (e.g. to a specific version of the page history).
  • I don't think updating the "live" system, especially not experimenting, would be a good idea. Also you would need to discuss every change on the village pump before making it. It would be a much better idea to install MediaWiki on you own computer and experiment "offline".

Cheers, —Ruud 23:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with some of the above comments. You've only been registered for a couple months. I would give it one/few more months. I think you can get much more out of your account, as-is, such as using your user-space where you can try things out with monobook.css and monobook.js. As for voting on a static draft (w/o others mucking around with it), how about copying it to your user name space? Nobody's mucked around with my drafts. Another option, if your more tech savvy, is to install MediaWiki on your own computer. I've done that for my personal/work. Having worked with configuring and customizing MediaWiki software, I've learned a lot about its inner workings.
As for your statement, it needs to be summarized more, and where you say "so that I would have access to .css files" concerns me. I'd prefer you to test things out with an unofficial version of the .css (or the help page or whatever). And while I largely like what you did with the Help:Contents page, I would have preferred that you first worked on the "proposed draft" version that was there. Ditto, for the Community Portal, where many help links were removed without discussion first on the talk page. In all, I suggest you give it some more time on Wikipedia before RFA to get more experience with the policies and procedures. I've enjoyed working with you and will be likely to support you. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 01:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement. --Go for it! 02:25, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Portals

Changes to the randomn help pages do not impact on the portals; changing the hierachy does. The reason I reverted was because there is no apparent consensus to broaden the hierarchy, but there have been concerns that the existing was already too large at Template:MainPageIntro. --cj | talk 02:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't increase the size much: "Math | Health" = 13 characters. "Mathematics" = 11 characters. I increased the size by two characters, but because of the way kerning works on the screen and that the pipe character takes up nearly no room at all (it separates 2 spaces and therefore doesn't have any kerning space assigned to it), I only added one character in width.

And was the expenditure of one more character's width of space worth putting Health on the bar? Isn't Health one of the biggest issues and biggest problems of society today? Is there a more central issue than the health of Earth's citizens? Will readers be better off for it being there? Think about it. It's a good choice for the front page, and the browse bar. I didn't come to this conclusion lightly, and nor should you.

As for the discussion you mentioned, a consensus was not reached there and did not apply to the browsebar anyways, which had already been expanded. The issue was whether or not to add Art and Philosophy to MainPageIntro, and the consensus was 3 for and 2 against, with everybody else meandering off into hierarchical debates and musings. We never did find anyone bold enough to make the changes again. Sigh.

We didn't chop down the browsebar due to that discussion then, and that discussion applies to no greater extent to the browsebar now. The size of the "bar" on the main page wasn't even the issue exactly, as it pertained to the number of topics included rather than how much space they took up. The only real conclusion that could drawn from that discussion was that the heirarchy makes little sense. And that's true, it makes little sense as a strict hierarchy, because of the overlaps. But we're looking at the wrong function here. The big question is, how can we make the main page, and the browsebar, of the most use to readers? The precise hierarchy is irrelevant, for that is the beauty of hypertext: however much overlap there is in the hierarchy, we can easily accomodate it.

The health of the world is in your hands. What do you say?

--Go for it! 03:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: On Saturday we'll be pulling a lot more people in on the discussion, when Draft 6 goes up for critiquing. That's what that project is for, to generate feedback, and it is a much wider venue and gets a lot more participation than any of the browse pages. We should take advantage of that and gather as much feedback as we can get!

[edit] RfA

I will provide some constructive criticism, all designed to provide you with the best chance of the successful RfA. Please don't get upset, I am doing this is your interests.

  • You need to answer the 3 standard questions. You can see them at the bottom of each of the current RfA's.
  • Your request is too long. Looking at other candidates, about 1/4 or 1/5 of the that length is optimal, voters won't want to read so much.
  • You can consider me ignorant is you wish (but many votes will share my lack of understanding) but why do you need to change the .css files? I personally don't agree that the Main Page should get special treatment with css. Also, I think only a very experienced Wikipedian should bugger around with the css, not a new admin. Since this is the only reason you put forward for being an admin, I forsee many objections.

I'm happy to talk this through if you like, I'll check here to see if you respond--Commander Keane 04:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The only reason I need to change .css files is to change the names of background images, to swap an old image for a newer image modified for our purposes, such as with the name of an image that has been faded (to be more transparent). Your point is well taken. I've begun studying cascading style sheets, and shall become familiar with their use on my user pages first. --Go for it! 11:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Ac067.gif

Thanks for uploading Image:Ac067.gif. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. --OrphanBot 06:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This icon is no longer in use. We found another icon to replace it. I have no objection to its deletion. --Go for it! 10:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Ac475.gif

Thanks for uploading Image:Ac475.gif. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. --OrphanBot 06:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I no longer have a use for this image. It has been replaced by one from the Nuvola icon set. I have no objections to you deleting it. --Go for it! 10:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proofread

Okay, will do. The magical Spum-dandy 11:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Community portal

Hi there. I reverted your removal of the help boxes from the community portal - it's really useful information, wikipedia can be really daunting for new users/people who don't know every single facet of the inner workings of the beast, and 'community portal' comes before 'help' in the nav box on the left. Please discuss major changes on the talk page in future. Natgoo 21:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Repeating useful information in strategic locations can be helpful. --Go for it! 23:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Box-header

Yes, it still occurs. If you view any portal using the box-header in IE, you'll notice it. Portal:History, Portal:Art etc. Please revert your change once you've checked it.--cj | talk 08:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Great! Now we just need to make sure maintainers remember this. I don't like the appearance of the current edit link though. It'd look better if it were understated like the previous one (only in the header). Something like this.--cj | talk 13:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK and mainpage redesign

Hi, this is regarding your message on my talkpage. Mainpage redesign seems both interesting and intriguing. DYK is typically updated 3 times a day; still, I guess we would be able to fill up entries for the weekend also. You were right about Template talk:Did you know being used for operations primarily. For discussions such as these, we use Wikipedia talk:Did you know. I have put your message there so that we would get further comments. I've been updating DYK only for a month or so - nixie has been doing it for ages and I just complement her efforts. Let's see what she has to say. Anyways, nice idea and good to hear from you, --Gurubrahma 13:02, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think we can support it 7 days a week. Up until just a couple of months ago, that was always the case, it's just that it was updated less frequently on weekends, so someone took the initiative to move POTD in there. There's no reason at all DYK can't run 7 days a week. We have MORE than enough nominations for stuff, that's why we can update 2, 3, 4 times as day as it is. No worries. jengod 18:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree, having DYK on the weekend would be no problem.--nixie 22:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine, there are definately enough suggestions to run DYK 7 days a week.--nixie 02:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Draft 6B

Is that 6B on your user page? hydnjo talk 01:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advice feedback

Thanks for your sage advice. - ElAmericano | talk 02:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Main Page Drafts

I've added links on each draft at for example Draft 6A to all of the other drafts, it's really the only way to make comparisons. If you think this is stupid then let me know, otherwise I'll keep it up. hydnjo talk 03:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Learning from the boldmeister I guess. But I do think that your User Page solicitation for 6B is a bit over the edge.  ;-) hydnjo talk 05:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Huh, hydnjo is a "gestalt entity"? I have no clue whatsoever. I'm at a loss - help? hydnjo talk 06:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


Hello. I have added a notification to the Main page as you requested. I took your point about the consultation period, and so I have extended the consultation to February 4th, an extra week. I wonder if you would be good enough to trawl through the pages that link to the drafts page to make sure all the appropriate notices reflect the extended voting period? I expect there are many (on some user talk pages for instance) that won't need updating. I've already modified the {{main page discussion header}} and the drafts page itself. Best wishes, RobertG ♬ talk 10:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page

It was already worded as an informal straw poll. We're on the same wavelength. --Go for it! 21:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to make sure that the message was as clear as possible. It wasn't inaccurate, but it was ambiguous; some people might have mistakenly gotten the impression that they were being invited to vote in an official election (similar to the recent ArbCom elections) to immediately determine a new Main Page. I felt that it was important to mention that this is part of WikiProject Usability, and that their feedback (not merely their voting) is requested. —David Levy 21:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Despite my best efforts to ensure I did everything without upsetting a consensus, I have been told in no uncertain terms that notification of a redesign is not appropriate for the main page. I am not sure I agree with the person who made that assessment, but I am not willing to enter an argument over it. So sorry - I did what I could to help. Try notifications at WP:AN and WP:VP if you haven't already. --RobertG ♬ talk 14:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for removing the heading from In the news

By doing this, you fixed a major bug in the Main Page Redesign drafts. Now each design can standardize its own headings without using a bizarre formatting trick. Thank you! --Go for it! 22:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome! Do you use Internet Explorer? Can you confirm that Main Page still looks fine? (It looks the same in Firefox, which is what I use.) dbenbenn | talk 22:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks fine in IE. --Go for it! 02:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Markup bug on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

Hi. I hope you have seen my message on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Markup bug. I'll paste a copy here:

Please have a look into my sandox at this revision. I have replaced all div tags with span (diff). Don't ask my why, but I have had several very strange effects with div in the past, without being able to say what goes on. --Adrian Buehlmann 18:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

--Adrian Buehlmann 22:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft

I'm posting this with three of the leadership in this effort: (alphabetically) David Levy, Go for it! and HereToHelp.

This page is getting to be non-navigable. The issue at hand is seems to have become one of deciding the procedure whereby a new MP is chosen and I believe that it deserves its own attention space. I therefore propose that you start a new page called Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main page selection procedure or whatever you decide. Post it prominently on this headline page and on the new page describe the two alternatives (many vs two) and invite discussion of the merits of both on the new talk page. The talk page can for example be set-up as two sections: (1) I prefer.... and (2) I prefer.... Since this will be a discussion of the pros and cons of each approach, it will not be a binding vote but rather a gathering of the communities thoughts. You (the principals) having heard from the community in a focused way can decide on the consensus opinion and if you can't decide then go on to another usability project. hydnjo talk 23:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm just curious...

Why did you create a brand new main page draft from scratch? And what are this page and this page for? —David Levy 00:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

  1. I didn't.
  2. It's self-explanatory.
  3. A markup fix sent to me by another user.

Go for it! 01:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you please elaborate? It isn't clear what questions you're answering. —David Levy 01:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sock puppets

I don't have the Check User capability, so I can't do it. See Wikipedia:Quick and dirty Checkuser policy. Only a few admins have this capability. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


Seven individuals currently possess CheckUser authorization on the English Wikipedia.

I can assure you that I've never registered a second account on this site, but feel free to request a comparison between my IP address history and that of HereToHelp.

I am, however, disappointed that you would automatically suspect us of sock puppetry, simply because we happen to agree with one another (and disagree with you). —David Levy 00:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I didn't automatically suspect anything. Nothing is automatic with me, you should know that by now. I expressed my uncertainty in my query, and stated that you guys are probably real. But sockpuppetry is where you find it, and the only way to find it is to check. You shouldn't be disappointed, in that the only thing I know about you for certain is that you are (like all Wikipedians) a virtual entity, comprised entirely of edits. In an environment of such anonymity, it is unreasonable to expect anyone to believe you are real.  ;) --Go for it! 01:18, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I selected my wording very carefully. You didn't accuse us of sock puppetry, but you absolutely suspected/suspect it.
Ordinarily, Wikipedians are expected to assume good faith, unless faced with substantial evidence to the contrary. Two users expressing agreement with one another does not constitute such evidence. But again, feel free to proceed with your CheckUser request. I have nothing to hide. —David Levy 01:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but this is the Main Page we're talking about, and an election. So due diligence may be warranted. --Go for it! 01:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Do you intend to request a sock puppet check for every user that disagrees with you? —David Levy 02:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Time will tell. --Go for it! 02:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Ummm, just to save some time and effort around here hydnjo's IP address is and has been for a long time now: 24.41.0.87.  ;-) hydnjo talk 02:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll get right on it. --Go for it! 02:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Please do let me know if anything of interest comes up. Heidi will be delighted to learn that I'm still interesting (euphemistically of course) to somebody!  ;-)))) hydnjo talk 02:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Tell her I find you quite interesting. Though I prefer the whole gestalt entity. ;-) --Go for it! 03:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Good thing for you that we know what that means. hydnjo talk 03:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
My lucky day. --Go for it! 04:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Guess so! hydnjo talk 04:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geesh

I'm posting this with the same three principals in the MP effort that I posted to earlier: (alphabetically) David Levy, Go for it! and HereToHelp.

Hey you guys and especially Gfi! I hope that I didn't precipitate any bad blood between y'all by addressing my proposal to the three of you, you three just seemed to be in the leadership. I obviously don't agree with all of you, but I thought it efficient in making my point to post directly to the three of you. I am deeply apologetic if by my posts I have created or widened any rift amongst you - that was certainly not my intent. I am going to assume that we are continuing to work together on this. hydnjo talk 01:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Nope, no bad blood on this side. I'm just being curious, as usual. --Go for it! 02:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

"Curiosity" and "suspicion" are not synonymous. —David Levy 02:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

They are if one is being used as a euphamism of the other.  ;-) --Go for it! 02:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You've Left Me Burning With Curiosity!!!

What is this "formatting bug" of which you speak (on Starter toolset)?

⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 22:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Of Course! I Use OPERA

and neither bug showed up in Opera!

Thanks for the invite; I will be over as soon as I get past my dentist tomorrow (I have an abcessed tooth, which naturally occurred on Friday night!) ⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 22:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 22:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked at Opera in years, maybe it's time I've had another look. --Go for it!

[edit] Site map

Actually, I was trying to think of a way to make the page shorter. Google has a one page help system. G Clark 02:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What are your views on the help system?

Hi Go for it!.

I started working on the help portal because I couldn't find the help I needed & help contents clearly required a lot of improvement. In short, Wikipedia's help seems to be fairly comprehensive but hard to access (though this has improved with your redesign of help:contents). The main problem is there are just so many links; fitting these all on to one page makes that page long and complex. With the help portal, I created 2 medium length pages. This still requires a lot of "digging" particularly if the link is on the advanced page.

User:Kmf164 said on the help portal talk page: Maybe it would be more *usable* to just list the main help topics and subtopics, with links to more in-depth help pages. Take a look at how Amazon (my pick) does their help page. They have headings (w/links) for "Ordering", "Viewing & Changing Orders", "Shipping & Delivery", etc. Amazon makes it just so easy to find answers on their help pages (though dealing w/ their customer service staff isn't so helpful). Another good example is Ebay, and how they break up their help pages by topic/function (e.g. "New to eBay: Registration | How to buy | How to sell | more...").

I think this is a good idea, though I imagine it will require a similar bureaucratic process to the main page redesign, as many "navigation" pages will have to be created. It is basically a rewrite of the navigation system. Clearly some consensus should be reached before creating a lot of pages an it will need to be discussed further. I also think a "must see" page / section of a page with a small list of the really common / useful pages (but not pages for new users) would be useful for intermediate users (probably the most common type of Wikipedian) and those "graduating" from being new users. Maybe we need some page view statistics?

Another problem (this is common to all Wikipedia not just help) is finding related articles. If using the proposal above, the main help page is the top level page, navigation pages are mid-level pages & the help articles are bottom level pages, then a link to the next level up, at the top of every page might be a good idea. Wikipedia:Links already exists as a mid-level page. One link from the top level page goes to a collection of links on a common topic. So if we look at the first proper page link (not linking to a section), Wikipedia:URLs this should contain a link back to Wikipedia:Links which should then link back to the main help page. This would be much more helpful than the current link to the Category "Wikipedia help" and would be more comprehensive than a "see also" section (though these could be used as well where appropriate).

Finally we come to the issue of meta pages being used here. Some of the meta pages are poor and require work. If Wikipedia wants a good help system, then the meta pages must be improved as well. I have started to rewrite / clean up / add to some meta pages ( check my Contributions on meta to see what I've done) but there are many more that need improvement. This in my opinion should be a top priority, because a help system with good navigation but poor articles is a poor help system.

The way these pages are displayed also need improvement. Using Help:Minor edit as an example, this page includes both meta and Wikipedia specific content. The Wikipedia specific content come from Wikipedia:Minor edit by way of a template. Unfortunately Wikipedia:Minor edit contains no mention that this is intended to be part of a bigger article and that article should be viewed instead. This is a serious source of confusion for new users. Indeed click the "?" next to "This is a minor edit" when editing a page. It links to Wikipedia:Minor edit when it should point to Help:Minor edit - implying this is more widespread problem. Visiting Help:Minor edit also shows that the Wikipedia specific content from Wikipedia:Minor edit repeats much of what has been said higher up the page. If Wikipedia specific content is necessary then it should be just that: Wikipedia specific, and not clash with the page from meta.

I hope this isn't too long and provides some constructive help. Let me know what you think.
P.S. I like Image:Main Page Usability.png. Maybe it could be used as the basis for some kind of graphic navigation system? Gareth Aus 23:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to answer each of your points in order.

Concerning the length and complexity of the help page, perhaps this will help:

Contents

Getting Started
Browsing Wikipedia
Account Settings and Maintenance
The Wikipedia community
More about Wikipedia
Policies, conventions and guidelines
Communication
 Finding Answers
(to frequently asked questions)
Editing Wikipedia - The Basics
Contributing to Wikipedia
Advanced Editing
Tracking changes
Technical information

I've placed it on the help page - it seems to work pretty good. Let me know what you think.

Concerning Kmf's point, I wonder if the above solution provides the same structure he was referring to without the need for chopping it up into seperate pages?

The bureaucratic process is great for fine-tuning, but tends to bog down development. Let's just point out problems with the system to each other, and dive in and fix them. Others will follow and adjust what we've done. There's no need to get approval for creating a page, though blasting an already existing fine-tuned page would likely get resistance.

Setting up a help tree (tiered structure of pages with backlinks) would be relatively simple to implement using subpages (which have backlinks automatically provided). Wikibooks are created using this system (take a look). On Wikipedia, subpages are discouraged in the main namespace, since encyclopedic content does not lend itself to easy hierarchical classification. However, subpages are quite alright to use in the Wikipedia namespace. And "help" does break down hierarchically quite well. Such a system could be built without disrupting the current system. There is a caveat, however:

  • Subpages should be developed under the page they intend to be used under, even if that page isn't ready yet. This is because, if you develop a tree under a temporary name, each page will have to be renamed one-by-one to be a subpage of the intended page. And this would be very tedious if there were more than a couple subpages.

I agree on meta-pages. Since they are part of Wikipedia's help system, we need to treat them just like any other Wikipedia page. But, this kind of puts a crimp on using back links, so perhaps the metapages could be replaced entirely with pages in the Wikipedia namespace.

The metapage system is cludgy, and we'll have to decide whether to work around the problems caused by them being external links, or replace those pages entirely. But if we do keep them, then I agree that the merging of meta and Wikipedia information should be seamless (and not repetitious).

Okay,

Let's get started.

--Go for it! 04:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The contents box is a definite improvement, though I still prefer a help tree. The sub pages idea is interesting - I was thinking about templates (though I don't know too much about them) at the top of the articles. Anyway the reasons I prefer a tree are:

  • reduction in clutter (not just on the main page but on the sub pages as well)
  • easier organisation / access - a list of images could be put on the image sub page as well as a list sub page
  • users can go back from articles and see related articles
  • topics can be divided into subtopics - the image sub page (see below) is a good example (in a unified page this would be too long and people would complain about double linking). This allows a sub page to be more comprehensive than a unified page, which makes the articles easier to access.

Sure, some of these can be achieved on one page but I think they work better in a tree system.

I started creating a draft of this system a little while ago and it is now in a reasonable condition. Have a look here User:Gareth Aus/main help page. As you will see, there are only a few sub pages, and the "linking" link points to a pre-existing sub page. The sub pages I've created have been styled in a format similar to disambiguation pages (see Mercury). The back links are manually added to the top of the page and these pages have the (navigation) suffix. This reminded me of another issue with the help system - naming. Some standards need to be set eg. singular or plural, Wikipedia or Help namespaces. A help "Manual of Style" might no go astray either. Gareth Aus 04:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Things I've noticed you said about css

Hope this helps (sorry for evesdropping):

  1. Alternitave for rounded corners in IE (doubtful that it be allowed) http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/intro/ . Another thing is use the proper CSS3 codes (but its a draft and nobody supports it)
  2. External stylesheet for bg (like in Wikinews:football portal) Need magical abilities to make that work. You could convince an admin to modify Mediawiki:Common.css or Mediawiki:Monobook.css instead.

Bawolff 01:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot

Are you running a welcome bot? It's putting some welcome messages in the article space, such as K:BThomas. Rhobite 03:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page redesign timescale

I want to direct your attention to this. What exactly will we be doing from the 18th until the first?--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 14:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought a time buffer would be good to handle anything unexpected that comes up, and for specific preparations. For instance, you need to talk to David about getting a team of admins together to oversee the election -- vandalism would be particularly tragic, and we also need the admins on-hand in case someone reverts the election notice off of the main page. We also need time to properly prepare and submit the announcement to Signpost. I tried submitting one before, and didn't even get a reply, let alone posted. It's better to have more time than you need than not enough. Then there's the coordination with the Main Page subdepartments, getting the draft fully operational, testing it, fixing bugs, and so on. We also need to test the finished draft on every skin, and the various browsers. And who knows what else. Also, a bit of rest might be nice, before the storm. --Go for it!
Now that youm sauyn that, it does sound like a good idea. I'm still not sure about anything on the Main Page itself to anounce the election; that was fervorantly opposed by some. However, in addition to the Signpost, there's also getting a notice up, ArbCom style. That will take time.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 16:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Another option would be to put a link to Wikipedia:Main Page alternates on the Main Page, and then have the announcement to the election on Main Page alternates. --Go for it! 16:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus

As I've explained to you on several occasions, building "consensus" is not about blindly tallying votes. Aside from the fact that your raw counts are grossly inaccurate (as I noted in a message that you ignored), you're failing to consider various important factors (including the specific comments that were made).

I was promoted to sysop on a platform that was based in part upon my ability to gauge and implement consensus. I'm helping to do so, despite the fact that some of the design elements (such as the standalone headings and search box) do not match by personal preferences.

HereToHelp has lived up to his name. Conversely, many of your edits (while certainly made in good faith) have been counterproductive. I realize that you're attempting to honor consensus, but you simply don't understand what that is. You've misinterpreted the results of the straw poll, and I respectfully request that you take a step back and give my advice some serious consideration. —David Levy 03:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

What is your interpretation of the straw poll, and please point out the specific steps through which you arrive at your conclusions. You have been supporting specific design elements in your edits, but I've yet to see how you arrived at the conclusion that each of those were consensus achieved in Round 6. I very much look forward to seeing your step-by-step interpretation of the data, upon which you have based your edits. --Go for it!
Part of the problem is your belief that this is a purely scientific process. It isn't. If it were, we'd use a bot.
I read each and every one of the comments that were posted, assessed the meaning of and motivation behind the votes, observed the various trends and patterns, and sought as much common ground and compromise as possible.
You need to realize that blue plus yellow equals green, even if there's 51% blue and 49% yellow. Building consensus is about arriving at an outcome that can be widely agreed upon, not declaring the numerical majority the "winner."
You also need to realize that when blue and yellow can't be mixed, the same basic principle applies. Even if 51% of people prefer blue, it's possible that most of them also like (or don't dislike) yellow. If most of the yellow fans dislike blue (and provide compelling reasons for their stance), yellow prevails.
I've already gone into greater detail on the project's talk page, and I ask that you read and reply to that message before I'm forced to repeat myself more than I already have. —David Levy 03:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reply

I will do it when the next dump is complete, which will be a few days, progress is detailed here. thanks Martin 00:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page tweak

I like how you fixed the heading problem in Did you know, and customized the heading on the main page to match the contents of the box. Way to go. --Go for it! 00:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I sincerely appreciate your praise, and I hope that this is indicative of regained composure and newfound trust.  :-) —David Levy 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comm portal

I am happy to see that it drew you attention. I hope you are going to organize some nice redesign (with all that experience gained during the main page overhaul). All the best, Renata 13:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest that we work on improving the community portal using a draft page, rather than tinkering with the real community portal. I noticed all the help links and writing resources are gone. Where are they? We really should be doing this in a draft space. We could put a notice on the community portal (like on the help page, and main page talk) about the ongoing effort to redesign the community portal, so that people aren't surprised when the finalized draft version replaces the current community portal. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 15:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's the draft workspace for the community portal: Wikipedia:Community Portal/Draft. *Please* let's use this to work on overhauling and improving the community portal. I really don't think we should be making so many rapid and unexpected changes to the community portal. People expect certain links and content to be in the community portal, and not announcing that these items are moving or changing goes against key usability principles. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Using the direct approach, I and others (including HereToHelp) overhauled the Help Page in just a couple of days or so. Don't worry, that turned out great and so will this. The removed material was entirely redundant, as it was folded into the Help Page during that page's overhaul, but as you saw, it was easily restored and doesn't warrant a panic attack. Let's see how users respond rather than merely anticipating the worst-case scenario. Wikepedia and its pages cannot be broken, plus I'll be monitoring the page over the next few days, so no worries. If the feedback turns sour, I'll adjust my approach. --Go for it! 16:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

After a quick rethink, you know, since those sections you restored follow all the on-topic content, they really aren't hurting anything. So it actually makes sense to keep them. Thanks for the nudge. --Go for it! 16:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm just concerned about the number of changes, and that they're often unannounced. As for the help page, it's better than before but still way too confusing and too many links. It's really not that helpful, and the only way I can find things is with CTRL+F. Also, the community portal and the help pages should take on the design styles used in the new main page. It would be nice to introduce new help and community portal pages, along with the main page, so that they all look coordinated. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The help page is a work in progress. The help project is working on a fix for the link overload. We're waiting on a database dump from a techie from the village pump so we can start work on a site map. Then we'll be able to see how to simplify the Wikipedia namespace. Much of the content of the help system needs rewriting so that it all fits together better, and that's a HUGE undertaking, but we're already getting commitments from various users and groups from around Wikipedia. So the Help Page will continue to improve as the help system is redesigned (the help page will likely be chopped up into subpages, or at least that's the current theory).

As for the community portal, I'm not against cinquing up its style with the Main Page. Ditto for the help page. But we don't need to worry about that until about March 21st, when the Main Page election is over. I think we're on the same wavelength. Thanks for the feedback. --Go for it! 17:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See the Wikipedia_talk:Community_Portal/Draft talk page. I have the Jan. 25 enwiki db dump on my computer with the entire list. It's 102,574 pages in all, but these mainly include duplicate VFD, POTD, RFA, ... pages, as well as numerous redirect pages. In all, you probably don't want the entire list, but I have narrowed a list of the 1000 most popular WP namespace pages. The links are on the CP talk page, and I have begun sorting through them (as well as some pages beyond the 1000). We should use this list to inform our reorganization of both the help and community portal pages. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 17:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
As for the other questions, I responded about including both the extra search box and portal links at the Main page draft talk.
And for moving the help link, it's not possible. This is coded into the mediawiki software, and not a .css issue that we can tweak. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 17:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, good work on the portal, but I think a lot must still be done. Unfortunatelly I will not have for any major edits any time soon... So I just layout my ideas here:

  1. Have a veeeery narrow "cheat sheet" for frequent users where you would list links to vfd, rfa, fac, etc etc. So it would effectivelly merge the bottom where it says "Help" and "Resources." And the page it self will be much shorter.
  2. Also, as I said somewhere before: have a community bulletin board. Now going ons are very formal and structurised and not really interesting. have a separate box where people could very briefly post their own news: new portal, new project, new notice board, new discussion, new vote, new proposal, etc. There is no such central place, and comm portal would be perfect! Or make the going ons box less formal.
  3. Move archives to separate page, don't put them at the bottom, it is just cluttering the whole thing. If you decide to leave them, please cut the months to three letters, instead of January write Jan.

Not logged in User:Renata3 01:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

This is an ilustration of what I mean by "cheat sheet" [1]. I know everything looks ugly as it can be, nothing is linked or anything. It was done in like 10 mins at 12am. But you should get the idea. And the comment above is really mine. Renata 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fr browse

Hi, I encountered this page Fr browse on User:Bluemoose/Uncategorised good articles. What to do with it? Could you perhaps move it to your user page? At least I assume that's where it belongs. Thanks. Garion96 (talk) 20:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

NP. Btw, I put a speedy delete on the redirect. Garion96 (talk) 20:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Community Portal

The alignment on the bottom of the two columns is going to change pretty frequently, depending on the length of the titles of the collaboration articles. — J3ff 20:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep the draft design on the draft page for now. I only created it a few hours ago and it's not ready to go live. We should work on improving it much more, let people comment on it, and introduce it (with plenty of warnings and announcements), along with the new main page design. Same goes for the Help:Content. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solicitation

Hello Go for it. If you're going to spam user talk pages (which is a greatly frowned upon practice) with regards to the box-header deletions, you should at least do it in an neutral manner. I respectfully ask that you recast those inflamatory comments you've already posted.--cj | talk 10:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't blanking, I was in the process of answering it on your page...

>Hello Go for it. If you're going to spam user talk pages (which is a greatly frowned upon practice) with regards to the box-header deletions, you should at least do it in an neutral manner. I respectfully ask that you recast those inflamatory comments you've already posted.--cj | talk 10:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't spam anyone. The persons I contacted couldn't see the deletion notice because it was hidden on a subpage, and checking the templates which operate invisibly in the background is not a routine operation, so they would have been caught totally off-guard, which would not be fair to them. So in fairness, I informed them of something they would want to have known about a page they constantly relied upon. And as it was an act of courtesy, and a correction of an impediment to fair notice, I don't think it will be frowned upon at all. Though can you honestly say that you weren't aware of the fact that the notices resided on subpages which in all likelihood would not have been noticed by me nor by the others who used them? Being as experienced a nesting template user as you are, that is a detail that most would find hard to believe that you missed, for you even had to go to multiple subpages to post them. How is that not a sneak attack? --Go for it! 11:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, there are only a few pages with the code, and they aren't hurting anyone. Mostly kids enjoying managing a page on their favorite videogame or cartoon show, or movie fans trying to spruce up a page on their favorite character. So why do you have to spoil the Wikipedia experience for them. It was entirely unnecessary. --Go for it! 11:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
(You did blank the comment, however.) I am not obligated to notify anyone. One can assume that the interested parties are those who are actually watching the pages in question – the notice, by necessity, had to be non-included. And I don't believe that the Portal:Box-header-round was chosen especially for all the portals that use it either; rather, it was used in some cases as a consequence of editors not knowing of the other options. By the way, you continue to use the word "attack", which needlessly escalates the situation. It is a debate, not a battlefield (nor a poll).
I still consider your copy-and-pasted comments spam. I do not object, nor would I expect others to object, to the users posted to being let known about the deletion discussions. What I do object to, and what has been opposed by the community in several instances, is the biased solicitation of "votes" to manipulate an outcome. Such actions are detrimental to Wikipedia and ultimately troublesome for offending users (if you recall the "Catholic Church of Wikipedia" or Userbox sagas). I'm not alleging that what you did is on a par with those incidents, but just remember it's a sliding slope.--cj | talk 12:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
With regards to your secondary comment here: Wikipedia isn't a playground – it's an encyclopædia. --cj | talk 12:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

True, you aren't obligated to notify users directly. Not by Wikipedia policy, and as it would appear, not by your own personal code of conduct either. Not very gentlemanly though. Not what they would call "fair play" or being on the "up and up". Though it's not much of a debate when one side isn't even invited to speak. Not that you were trying to manipulate the outcome or anything. It's reminiscent of the opening scene from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The notice to tear down Arthur Dent's house was "on display" in the dark basement of the municipal building, in a locked file cabinet, and all he had to do was answer it to save his house. Perhaps that's where you learned your manners, and your political tactics. You were supposed to post those notices, but you didn't do so in good faith, because you were well aware of the unlikelihood of us finding them. And therefore you broke the spirit of Wikipedia policy while adhering to the letter of it. Thanks for the consideration Cyberjunkie. --Go for it! 14:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come off it. It seems you're having difficulty with both faith and civility (no matter how you veil it). I've not done anything to manipulate the outcome: I've nominated them for consideration by others. I haven't gone about soliciting the votes of those that might share my stance. If you were truly concerned about the debate being one-sided, you wouldn't have done so or you might also have invited users like Ashibaka, Kmf164 or David Levy. Happy editing, --cj | talk 15:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:GO

I see your point, and I'm not particularly fussed about the changes either way, but wanted to make that clear, as similar changes had been reverted on those grounds before. Ambi 07:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I need a list of all pages in the Wikipedia namespace - How is this done?

The Help Project is considering taking on the clean-up of Wikpedia namespace. We'd like to build a site-map, and in order to do this, we need a list of all pages in Wikipedia namespace...

I looked at Special:Allpages, but that only lists the pages one screen at a time, and without brackets. Is there a way to get a list of all of the pages in one step, and with brackets? I'd settle for getting a list in one step, with or without brackets. --Go for it! 04:42, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Did you try Special:Prefixindex? And didn't we have already not one, but two sitemaps of the Wikipedia namespace, both out of date? --cesarb 04:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
And won't this map be out-of-date even before it is started? :-) Seriously, I think a site-wide map of Wikipedia would be a great idea. I've been wanting something like that for a long time. The closest I've got so far is using Category:Wikipedia to drill up and down through categories, but that relies on everything being categorised. Oops. Looks like it's been reorganised. I meant Category:Wikipedia_administration, though that looks different. I was probably thinking of another category... Carcharoth 10:55, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not necessary to use Special:Prefixindex. Special:Allpages is designed for such purposes, and has the list available. Superm401 - Talk 04:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Could you use a the database dumps? A little out of date but has the info you need. --Salix alba (talk) 15:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
When the next dump is complete I can make the list, it will probably be in a few days. Martin 23:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The site map is so that we can see what we've got to work with. The goal, hopefully an achievable one, is the clean-up of the Wikipedia namespace. Currently it is a morass of misnamed, misplaced, disorganized, and repititious pages. --Go for it!

Is there a way to get Special:Allpages to list all the pages in a specific namespace all on one page? I would like a continuous list, without the need to cut and paste the thing one page at a time. Some of the answers above seem to imply that this is possible, but I went there and cannot figure out how to do it. Please help. --Go for it!

I have the January 25 db dump loaded on my computer, so should be able to help. I'm running the query now, but it's taking a while. Must be a really long list of pages. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
The number of pages in the Wikipedia namespace is really huge — 102,572. Though, this includes every WP:RFC, WP:RFA, WP:POTD, WP:VFD, etc. Thus, we can narrow the number of pages in the list, and sort it by popularity (hits). --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm going through the list now, weeding out the duplicate pages (e.g. WP:VFD, WP:POTD, ...), as well as redirect pages, and formatting the list. Right now, I have it down to 14,000 pages — still too many for any site map. --Aude (talk | contribs) 04:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help Project needs help

The Help Project is undertaking the cleanup of the Wikipedia namespace. As this is no small task, we're going to need as much help as we can get. --Go for it! 06:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

... very much for the update. The CBB is perfect! I hope people will like it and will use it. The Cheat Sheet was just an idea, and I figured it would be very hard to make it work, but I still think it is a pretty good idea. Now with your help project... If you see my new year wiki resolutions on my user page... it is right up there. :) So I will try to help, but given my current situation, not too likely. Anyways, thank you! Renata 16:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I think I want to become the overseer of the CBB :) I like the idea too much :)
I made quite a few changes: simplified the rules (at least that's what I think); I put pulldate in front to be easily spotted by editors (readers don't see it anyways); put everything in chronological order (abc does not make a slightest sense to me); put 7 days as pulldate (now people are putting whatever they want, I project that it's gonna get waaaay to long in the future when people will start using it); put everything into simple formating (uniform, less flashy); I don't think that outside articles belong here (village pump is doing just fine with that).
How do you want to archive it? Renata 05:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and may I also suggest putting "new featured content" under the CBB and not under the collabs? Renata 05:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I like your changes. They're sensible. I agree that links to outside articles are inappropriate unless there's a Wikipedia discussion that can be pointed to with it. Otherwise, it's totally external news (for Current Events) and not Wikipedia news (announcements of discussions are appropriate CBB items).

Archiving is unnecessary, since the CBB is automatically archived in the template's history. If a more formal archive is needed later, such can be provided as a list of links to specific versions in the template's history. Anything else is labor-intensive, and prone to missed deadlines. See Wikipedia:Goings-on which is already passed its deadline for archiving today.

As for you being overseer of the CBB, I support you 100%. If you ever need me, just drop me a note, and I'll come running. --Go for it! 08:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: For the help project, the team and I will be working on navigation tools for the Wikipedia and Help namespaces, so your cheat sheet idea will be on my mind throughout. As I come across links for it, I'll add them to a list. I started working on a similar project, "Wikipedia by department", but haven't gotten far with it yet.

Now I have another thing that bothers me: the CBB is getting very long and it's just a couple of days. Any ideas how to make it smaller? (I am pretty sure someone will complain pretty soon) Renata 11:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we struck a nerve! It looks like we put it in the right spot. Don't worry about the size, it's a one-week buffer and items will start dropping off and the list will level-out. Also, we're experiencing a grand-opening surge, because everyone with an event from the past 2 or 3 weeks who didn't know where to post it, are discovering the CBB and are putting up their announcements late. The surge should subside in a week or two. Besides, the page is 4 times as fun as it used to be, and more people are checking it out, so more people will browse the rest of the features on the page. And since the CBB changes often, users may visit the page daily or even more frequently, making it more likely they'll check out the other features too.

Another benefit with increased traffic will be that the other features will likely get more editing attention. --Go for it! 14:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I feel much better now :) You have the power in your words :) Anyway, I found another reason to worry: the location. I mean its real address is Template:Announcements/Community bulletin board. Now there is no Template:Announcements. So the beginning looks weird. Also, this could be a nice stand-alone page. So I would consider it moving to Wikipedia:Community bulletin board. You can include WP namespace articles just like templates so the comm portal won't be affected. What do you say? Renata 03:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There wasn't a Template:Announcements because I hadn't built it yet (it exists now though). The reason the CBB is placed under "Template:Announcements" is because the CBB is an announcement template, and because it has sister templates. As a standard practice, placing announcement templates under Template:/Announcement/ makes them all easier to find using the special page "All pages". And Wikipedia is chaotic enough without having them strewn all about under unrelated names. Currently, there are 3 pages listed there, and there will be more in the future

Also, the CBB is a template because it is planned specifically for transclusion. It will likely be displayed in at least one other place (the page "Goings-on" is a good candidate host page).

There's one last reason why the CBB should remain a template: it isn't designed to be a stand-alone page. It opens specifically with a heading, because when headings are provided in a template, their edit buttons are active in all pages where the template is transcluded. The price is that the editor opens up for that "section" only in the template, so if the page has any opening material of its own before the heading, it won't show up in the edit window. So it really isn't a stand-alone page.

I hope this answers your questions to your satisfaction. --Go for it! 04:57, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Icons & Portals

Hey there, Go for it! The debate on the main page design has gotten me interested in icons, especially in relation to portals and categories. It's clear icons won't be on the main page but they are already present on the portals and categories pages. I've been looking through commons and was wondering what you would think of using for philosophy/religion? Cheers SeanMack 17:12, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey again. Thanks for the notes. I wasn't sure which portal matrix you were refering to? I been messing about a bit with various portals incarnations. I've been doing it in my sandbox as I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be adopted.

Anyway here are some links into commons where I got the icons.

My thinking was that because they were portal pages the jigsaw piece made sense (jigsaw being the portal icon already) - especially as these individual icons get created already for stubs and templates - there is a, 2 birds one stone, thing going on there. We can keep adding portal icons for as long as we keep adding portals - there would be a consistant feel by using the jigsaw piece. There may be better ways of doing this mind you...

Thanks for pointing out the alternative main pages, having looked at them, Misty Breeze would be my absolute personal favorite by a long shot. I had a play with it in my own area to get my head around transclusions etc and came up with a couple of portal sections. One using jigsaw pieces - and another that didn't. I also changed a few of the heading icons on there. It's at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SeanMack/sandbox2 if you wanted a look?
I've been looking at related issues and have also seen a few people commenting on the whole Categories & Portals hierarchies and how these need restructured a fair bit (eg User:Vir). I would agree and my opinion is that having individual portals on the main page at the minute is a bit premature before an overall restructure happens... Big job though... A few thoughts I had about the problem:

  • Many people will oppose icons on the main page for various reasons. If that reason is performance - surely some techs can set up caching so that the icons have less of a hit on the servers?
  • We should ensure that when we talk about Categories we are very specifc about the difference between a normal idea of a category and those within wikipedia. I had originally thought that the main page should have overall headings (like categories and portals browse at the minute - however I'm not sure if we should refer to these as Categories. I think there is a need to separate 'Subject Heading' from Categories - as this has a very specific meaning within the wiki.
  • The overall headings could be represented by the Nuvola icons - with portals being represented by the jigsaw icons - categories I think could do without icons - this would make more sense as textual (with decent formatting mind you).
  • I do think it's confusing to have the same "look and feel" on both sets of pages currently though. Do you know what the current plans are regarding all that?

A completely different approach would be where a selection of portals is chosen each week and added via template to a header (not neccessarily just the featured one though), the options then would be:

  1. Show off the best portals
  2. Show featured portals
  3. Encourage people to work on new portals
  4. Encourage widescale thinking about categories and meta information. (I came across something about root pages but was too busy playing in my sandbox at the time...)

I am keen to get involved in the usability side but don't know where to start here? I have experience in RL. Could you point me at an up to date page where helpers are welcome? Regards SeanMack 14:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The jigsaw piece makes it hard to see what the picture is. I still can't tell what some of those are.

---Fair enough - I didn't make them - just chose them from the hoardes in commons to suit some high level portals. There is a job here for a decent designer
By the way, there are already icons on the Main Page. Check out the Wikipedia Sister projects. No one complains about those.
---Yeah saw that.
The problem with the word "categories" is that Wikipedia has hijacked the word for its own context, so if you want to use the generic english context, "subject categories" is less ambiguous.

The biggest objection to icons on the main page at the moment is the "ugly wrap" problem. That is, the icon is treated by the program as a word and not a bullet, so when you increase text size, wrapping is activated and the icon winds up on one line and the link on the next. If you can find a way to turn off wrapping for an element rather than the whole page, this would solve the problem. I don't know how to do it.
---I didn't see the point in looking at it as I thought that there were more obections tha just the wrapping..
There aren't enough Nuvola icons to cover all the portals.
---True - that was part of my point about using the jigsaw piece icons - people are already creating these for templates and stubs so if an icon isn't already there in commonc then surely to create an icon for a portal isn't a biggie? We just need to get a few icon deisgners on board(?) I just think that it would identify a portal page in an instant.
Concerning plans, Wikipedia is very chaotic and decentralized. Very ad hoc. Also, it is nearly impossible to make a standard design stick across pages because of the "anyone can edit" rule.
--Yeah true again - however doesn't mean we shouldn't try for some sort of consitent look and feel in various areas.
You mentioned 2 sets of pages, and I didn't know what you were referring to. ---The category pages and the portal pages - they look the same and have the same icons - I don't think that helps to differentiate them.
One user wanted to make the Help page and Community Portal match the Main Page, but on retrospect I think they should have their own identity.

I agree with you.

If you were referring to the Main Page alternates, it doesn't matter, because that's for users to pick the design they want, and some will want the Main Page with slightly different features, like icons. Confusion isn't a big problem here, because those pages are all fully operational and the links lead to the same places anyways.

Yes, I have some suggestions on where you can chip in:

  1. The column version of picture of the day (which is used on most of the Main Page alternates) needs to be kept stocked up in advance. Currently there is only one person doing this (me), but it's good if more than one person is keeping an eye on it. The link to the archive/cache is on the Main Page alternates talk page. Basically you go to the pic of the day archive, copy each day's entry over to our corresponding pages, and strip out the chart markup code (see a previous pic for an example). _--Unfortuately I don't think I have the time to commit to that on a regular basis - by necessity I drop in and out.
  2. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Help is about to undertake a redesign of the Wikipedia namespace and the help system (most of the help system is in the Wikipedia namespace). The first step is to create a site map of what's already there, to see what we have to work with. If you want to become an expert on everything Wikipedia, this would be the place to do it. We got off to a false start, because the lists put up for us to work with are incomplete, with key pages missing. So we've got to go back to the database dump and start over.
---Might take a look later when things get going.

--Go for it! 23:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC) Regards SeanMack 16:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:WF

You seem to be a serious user, but I can't understand your contributions to the Wikifun pages. If they are actual answers, could you please elaborate? Fetofs Hello! 00:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The "seem" was actually friendly. I was assuming good faith from you even though your edits looked like blatant vandalism. Sorry if I was misunderstood, no offense meant. Fetofs Hello! 21:47, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S: I can't judge whether your answers are correct or not, that's Ravn's job, but he has clearly stated that all answers that don't give any reasoning will be considered incorrect.

Damn, if they looked like vandalism, they must really be off.  :-) --Go for it!

[edit] Community portal

I noticed you removed the draft notice. While your changes to the community portal have been generally positive, I still think it's better if they were to a draft page where it's easier to get constructive feedback and have collaboration, as has happened with the main page design. We are still indexing the WP namespace, and figuring out which pages belong where (e.g. community portal, help, ...). With the draft, we can have discussion of splitting off sections of the community portal (e.g. About Wikipedia) that would be inappropriate to do right now at the Community portal without any discussion or notice to the community. Please don't remove the draft notice again, without warning or discussion. Thanks. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 01:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks from Amr Bekhit

Thanks for the message regarding my contribution Diode Modelling and the description of the lisences with the images I uploaded. I have modified all the images, to show myself as the author and added a lisence to the images. Also, you mentioned that it would be better to save my images as .png files instead of .jpg. I am happy to do that, but do I need to delete the jpg images first so as to save space?

Amr Bekhit 21:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm the one who sent you the welcome message. I know little about graphics, and nothing about diodes. It was User:RHaworth who tutored you on the pictures. He did a fine job, and deserves your thanks. --Go for it! 23:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The helpproject

Yes, I'm there :p. I've told at least some of the regulars at #wikipedia-bootcamp, and left a new message at Wikipedia talk:Bootcamp. I will try to do what I can, but am rather busy for the time being due to school. Bjelleklang - talk 17:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Userpage and browsebar

Hi Go for it! Thanks for the nomination, although I can't say I'm overly interested or due credit (the basic structure wasn't my creation). Ironically enough, I withdrew from Esperanza just a minute before your message.

By the way, as the biography portal is now known as the biography portal, rather than people, the browsebar has become excessively wide. Thus, this being an immediate impetus, I've again cut health. This isn't an excuse for removing it either - I still don't believe it belongs, but I haven't had the time to argue further at WPT:P.

Thanks, --cj | talk 01:38, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dog categories

You added categories Animals and Mammals to the Afghan Hound article. I removed them again because it's already in category dog breeds, which is in catg dogs, which is in catg canines, in carnivores, in mammals, in chordates, in animals. (Also dogs in domesticated animals, in animals directly.) So it'll clutter up the higher levels to put low-level articles in those catgs. Now--I could go for a scheme that figures out how to get normal human beings from "animals" to "dogs" a little faster--I've added some intermediate things at the higher levels. Elf | Talk 23:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Odd category

What's the point of Category:Animal names? - UtherSRG (talk) 00:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Ditto--I understand that you want a kid to be able to go to "Animals" or some such and be able to find dog or zebra without having to go through "chordata" or even "domesticated animals". However, you're adding this category to every living thing in sight, from high-level names like "ape" (which covers many different animals) to specific breeds of dogs and even individual insects, which is going to be totally confusing as well as going on for thousands and thousands of entries. This is not a good solution yet. For a major undertaking like this, you're much better advised to take it up as a discussion item with other editors; you're making a lot of work for yourself that's just going to get reverted. Elf | Talk 00:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Somewhere in categories there should be one that lists all the entries in Wikipedia of animals by their common names. It doesn't matter if they are group names, as long as it is a name of an animal. Insect, mammal, ape, chimpanzee, dog, poodle, cat, tiger, etc. They are all animals. They all have Wikipedia entries. And there are not thousands (yet). But even if there were thousands, the list would be alphabetical and therefore highly useful. The list could also be used to familiarize oneself with all the animals of the world. --Go for it! 01:17, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

No way. First off, if you are concerned about searching for an animal name, that's what the search function is for Categories are not made to lump large numbers of articles together, but to create a web of related subcategories that can be traversed by a query, either manually or via a program. I'm going to list your category for deletion. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I might agree that "search" shouldn't be the only way to get to lists of familiar animal names, but this isn't the way to do it. E.g., there are already 350 dog breed articles with probably another 350 to add over time; there are already 190 entries in category:insects and I suspect that barely scratches the surface; and there are 130 horse breeds already. That's 670 articles right there and I haven't even touched, say, mammals or arthropods or birds... And I seriously doubt that a list of thousands of items including, say "Azawakh", "Novokirghiz", and "Aschiza" is going to be useful to the kid that you have in mind. IMHO the general idea is worth pursuing but it's a long way from finding a solution.Elf | Talk 02:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Good point. What I'm shooting for then is a good basic list. Perhaps breeds would make it too specific (e.g., horse is probably specific enough). The same with species - stopping at a particular type, like beatle, rather than listing every species of beatle (John, Paul, George, Ringo, etc.). So, one level up plus everything above that. But what to call it? --Go for it!
May I suggest a portal? A Zoology (animals) portal, as well as a Botany (plants) portal would fit nicely as Portal:Biology subportals? -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 02:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idea

Hi, thanks for defending the box! :) Anyways, I took my time to think. And I got one idea. Let's make screenshoots of every header that was proposed and have a sort of poll-beauty contest. The header is most discussed/editted part. I think there should be a sepaprate discussion about it. (sorry for joining the party so late;) ) Renata 06:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Better late than never. The draft is pretty good even without all the bells and whistles. Though it is a slight shame we couldn't put forth our best efforts rather than the least common denominator. I helped set the schedule for the project, and for the sake of good sportsmanship, it's important I keep on supporting it. Starting 00:00 Sunday UTC we go into the debugging phase, in which we have 10 days to make sure it works on all skins, in most browsers, on most computers. If the competition is prolonged, it will distract the team from the important chore it has before it.

BTW, we tried the beauty pageant approach already (with multiple draft candidates in Round 6), and it failed miserably to build consensus, due to the "package deal" argument. Support for a specific design with several elements wasnt' taken to be support for the individual elements. Even those elements that were in all the drafts weren't accorded the benefit of support because they weren't specifically praised. So to avoid this objection, the elements need to be isolated in support/oppose fashion: search box (support or oppose), 12 portal matrix (support or oppose), art (s/o), culture (s/o), etc.
--Go for it! 07:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, later I saw it and decided my idea is bad. Well, it looks like the box is failing because people don't remember their newbie feelings and forget the KISS principle. Agh, well. Anways, good job on this whole humongous undertaking. Renata 16:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

Thanks a lot, that is very kind of you. You should complete the formatting - i.e. remove <nowiki> tags. Give me some time to think about it. Renata 17:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I was waiting for your reply to activate the timestamp, but as per your request, the formatting is complete. I humbly await your response. --Go for it! 23:18, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
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