MediaWiki talk:Sidebar

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pages in the MediaWiki namespace regarding this message

For explanation see mw:Manual:Navigation bar.

One can also set personal preferences for links like these: they can be added with Javascript, and made invisible with CSS. See m:Help:User style.

You can suppress various elements using these code snippets:

  • #n-Contents {display:none} - Removes just the new 'Contents' link.
  • #n-portal {display:none} - Removes the Community portal link.
  • #n-currentevents {display:none} - Removes the Current events portal link.
  • #p-about {display:none} - Removes the entire 'about' box.
  • #p-search {display:none} - Removes the entire 'search' box.
  • #p-about h5 {display:none} - Removes just the 'about' box title.
  • .portlet h5 {display:none} - Removes all box titles.

Contents

[edit] Older discussion

I've split the "Help/Contact Us" link into separate "help" and "contact us" links. See also MediaWiki talk:Help. Angela. 06:14, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Is there any objection to adding a "permalink" in this sidebar. Since permanent links to the current version are now possible, I think it would be a useful addition for people who want to link to a version that they can be guaranteed is not vandalism. See meta:MediaWiki:Permalink-url. Angela. 06:29, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

The Permalink is now part of the toolbox instead of the sidebar following discussion at village pump (proposals). Angela. 02:17, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry for adding the link without consulting anyone, but I think a link to a quick form (an an "add new section link" is just that) for reporting errors is something we could use - that's what the readers are more likely to edit, as being given a form to quickly fill in and click "save" in the sidebar is more intuitive to them than writing an e-mail or writing it at a talk page (where often no one will see it). If you think it's a bad idea, remove it, but it's working quite fine at Polish Wikipedia - so far people don't report bugs but actual factual errors in articles which we managed to fix thanks to that. Ausir 02:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, Ausir, my apologies for removing it. I've removed the "Report an error" link because I think it is bound to lead to lots of erroneous bug reports generated from users who don't understand how Wikipedia works. Also, it just presented the user with a blank edit screen to add a section to Wikipedia:Report an error without explaining what sort of thing the user should write there or when they should make a bug report. Thus, I think it is not a good idea to have it there; I think something better would be a good idea, however, perhaps a link to a page which explains what to do if you think you've found a bug. It probably works OK on the Polish Wikipedia due to a lower traffic volume, but I'm a bit apprehensive about having it on en. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, we could always try adding it there for a short period of time to see how the readers will use it - that's what we did at pl: at first, actually. Ausir 03:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Proper, that is, well-written and correctly presented, bug reports should be filed on BugZilla. Rob Church Talk 03:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
It was meant not for bug reports but for reporting factual errors in articles. Ausir 03:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Then surely the talk page would be the place to raise them? And a single page for reporting that would become intolerable with a wiki the size of en, since every POV reader in the universe would be moaning on the Report an error function about how their POV was misrepresented. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 03:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, since 71% of pages are unwatched, raising concerns on 71% of talk pages is unlikely to result in a response. We do need something like this; maybe a system similar to AFD, with subpages per day (or even per hour, if needed)? —Kirill Lokshin 03:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, that's why we introduced it at pl:. Ausir 03:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Community Portal

I've noticed that the menu item "Community Portal" is in title caps (both the C and P are capitalized). This seems inconsistent with the rest of the menu which only uses normal capitalization. Maybe the P could be put in lowercase simply for visual consistency? Yes, it's a very minor thing, but those count as well, right? —Michiel Sikma, 09:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, "Contact Wikipedia" in the menu follows the same format. --Siva1979Talk to me 22:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a proper noun. The Community Portal is treated as one as well for no obvious reason. Dragons flight 22:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that 'Portal' should be lowercase. Themindset 22:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It is the Community Portal, not a Community portal. We've had discussions about this (I believe on Talk:Main Page, though I could be mistaken. The Main Page is the same thing. Ral315 (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The sidebar redesign discussions, which went on for many weeks, favored lowercasing both. Dragons flight 08:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linking to sections

On my website exampleproblems.com in the last version of wiki I could link to a section with a pound # but it doesn't work in 1.6.3. Here's a slice of code that used to work:

  1. Complex_Variables|Complex Variables
  2. Complex_Variables#Exponential_and_Log|---Exp and Log
  3. Complex_Variables#Residue_Calculus|---Residue Calculus
  4. Complex_Variables#Complex_Integration|---Complex Integrals
  5. Integral_Equations|Integral Equations

Now they all link to Complex_Variables. Thanks for any help.


- Tbsmith

I'd suggest you'd probably have better luck asking at Wikipedia:Village Pump (technical). Dragons flight 07:15, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Request?

I don't know if I'm allowed to ask here, but anyway, can't you make custom sidebars? or add sidebars to userpages like navigational templates but in the left, not to waste the free space (no interwiki links)? I did something like that in my userpage by superimposing a table to a " " (space) with negative "left" value, but in different explorers has differnt distance to the true sidebar. —Argentino (talk/cont.) 21:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All pages

I added ** Special:Allpages|All Pages like e.g. on http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar , it is more convenient than going to Special:Specialpages first.--Patrick 13:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Big question, who really needs this all pages after all since it is a hassle to peruse in there in search of who knows what. The nav bar is supposed to be a simple bar that helps the readers (and after, the editors) though by adding the All Pages, it just creates more confusion as to the use of the navigation bar after all. Lincher 14:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree, see also: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Special:Allpages_in_sidebar. Dragons flight 14:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I removed it. Seems like a consensus to me. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
When you don't know who the articles are spelled... What do you do then? Many other wikipedias have this added to the sidebar, and it is important. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jannizz (talk • contribs) 19:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Sidebar redesign final vote!

It's that special, special time! No, grandma's not coming over. No, not time to clean out the fridge. It's sidebar redesign voting time! Yes, the community has narrowed it down to 3 different options, and a vote for the same old original sidebar is a choice one could vote for as well. Voting for multiple options is allowed, and discussion on the whole shebang is right there on the vote page itself. (msg text copied from JoeSmack) --Quiddity 07:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sidebar delay - meantime changes?

Based on an indefinite delay with the sidebar redesign (it's an enhancement, not a critical bug, hence is low priority for the devs), could we just update the Featured articles link to Featured content now instead of waiting? -Quiddity 03:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Dragons flight. :) -Quiddity 22:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] December sidebar change

Please see Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign#Sidebar changed!, we think this half-implemented update may have been a little too hasty, and might need to be reverted until it's discussed. --Quiddity 00:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You wager your keester it was a little too hasty! I've spent way too much time investigating the changes and reworking my personal monobook.css page to adjust, only to find it's all reverted!!! FYI, I thought the reorg was fine once I fixed my personal respacing. Now I have a big space of white between "navigation" and "toolbox", with my search field lying neatly in the lower left hand corner (default screen rez of 1152 by 768). FWIW, I think this sort of change should be announced in a notice for reg'd users that appears like the "You have new messages" alert, or similar to the fundraising "popup" at the top that appeared this past weekend. Example: "Attention, the sidebar is about to undergo an overhaul..." or something, with a convenient link for more info. This "interface change" caught me by surprise at a somewhat inconvenient time. Hoping more comments emerge going forward.  Schweiwikist • (t)  01:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured content link problem

The title (mouseover-hover) text for "Featured content" is old, it says "Featured articles - the best of Wikipedia". I don't know where that variable is stored, but please update "articles"→"content". (per). Thanks :) —Quiddity 07:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. —David Levy 07:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:About

Sandra Ordonez (User:WikiBlue), the Foundation communications person, has strongly suggested a link to Wikipedia:About should go in the sidebar, and not just at the bottom of the page. Any objections? - David Gerard 18:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

How worded and where? "About", maybe above "Donations"?
Maybe above "Contact Wikipedia". Whatever works. I've put it into MediaWiki:Sidebar, but it's not showing - could someone with more confidence in hacking at MediaWiki:Common.js please implement ... - David Gerard 13:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Because of caching, sidebar changes have a significant lag before being displayed, but it is there now. Dragons flight 16:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me. Once updated, I'll change the redesign draft to reflect. --Quiddity 20:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me as well. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Now that Wikipedia:About is more visible, it needs to be as helpful as can be in answering people's questions about Wikipedia. With that in mind, this page was in need of copyediting. I have made an attempt at copyediting the page, reordering sections in a more logical way, etc. I may do more later, to think about what the most frequently asked questions or issues are and make sure those points are addressed properly. If anyone has suggestions, feedback, or can go in and improve the page, please do so! --Aude (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Hack it to death. It's absolutely GOT to be n00b-friendly. Simple sections, useful links, NO JARGON. The last part is tricky ... - David Gerard 10:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Hold on. Before 'hacking a page to death' and making it more user-friendly, consider that there might be a more user friendly page available already. Several pages were revamped and tightened up in the past few years, and most were linked from Main Page when that was redesigned. What about Wikipedia:Introduction? That seems the most user-friendly introduction to me. Also, don't lose the non-newbie version, as the detail of the current Wikipedia:About will be of interest to some. It's not an either/or choice - sometimes it is better to fork between a simple version and a detailed version (article forks are bad, manual instruction summary-style simple/detailed forks are often helpful).
Help:Contents is already on the sidebar, and Wikipedia:Tutorial is a subpage of Wikipedia:Introduction. Another point is that these issues were discussed in the sidebar redesign discussion - is Sandra Ordonez (User:WikiBlue) reading these pages, and is she aware of the previous discussions? How much relate to her Foundation communications role? Carcharoth 00:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] capitalization

It is foolish and unprofessional to have a link capitalized differently than the title of the page to which it refers. This instance is clearly secondary to the title, so here the capitalization should be "Main Page". If the actual title of the Main Page changes, the sidebar should follow. — Dan | talk 22:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

One of the (few) things that came from the two months of sidebar design discussion was a preference for the current format. If you want to argue for changing it back, I suggest you take it to one of the village pumps. Dragons flight 22:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add "Contents" to sidebar

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: add "Contents" to Wikipedia's main menu for a current discussion about adding the link Wikipedia:Contents to the sidebar. --Quiddity 18:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sidebar Redesign, part 22.5

And another: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Sidebar redesign. Feedback please :) --Quiddity 19:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooo, I'm so amazed that something I kicked off actually got implemented! Although, how did you come up with the idea for the header "about"? The proposal was always for "interact". Also, could you move out of the navigation box the links "recent changes" and "community portal"? Thanks :) — Jack · talk · 08:14, Thursday, 22 March 2007
The change was made by Eloquence. But why/where to do you want to move "recent changes" and "community portal"? – Chacor 09:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Into the new box, currently titled "about". In fact, may I go as far as to ask if Quiddity could make said box look like this(?):

interact

...perhaps even putting the "make a donation" in bold? Lol, maybe not.. — Jack · talk · 09:05, Thursday, 22 March 2007

Well, only administrators can make the actual change, so unless you mean to ask Quiddity to make the change to his proposal, he has no power to make any change to the sidebar we all see... – Chacor 09:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Ahh, sorry, I was under the impression Quiddity was an administrator. I'll alter: could anyone with the ability please make the sidebar look like this proposal? — Jack · talk · 09:19, Thursday, 22 March 2007
At this point I think we need to get some kind of wider agreement on one of the half dozen proposals floating around. Otherwise we are going to have alot of changes back and forth. Since the whole redesign project Wikipedia:Featured content, Wikipedia:About, and Wikipedia:Contents have been added to the sidebar. Do those additions change things? Could the non-overlapping portions of Wikipedia:Questions be merged into Wikipedia:Contents? Alot of Wikipedia:Community Portal overlaps with those two also... and Wikipedia:Featured content has links to all the content sub-types which are also prominently listed on Wikipedia:Content. Et cetera. Some overlap is inevitable and good, but the picture keeps changing and we should try to keep the sidebar links to a vital minimum. --CBD 11:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Quiddity removed Questions from his proposal, because a link to it is already provided at the top of the Help page, making it just one level down in the menu hierarchy. The consensus currently seems to be to leave "Help" at the bottom where it is most visible. The Transhumanist   17:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I removed Questions because you (Transhumanist) requested it, and I was trying to reach consensus with you in some reasonable order of time, for a change. --Quiddity 19:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've suggested (at the relevant talkpages) that Wikipedia:Questions and Wikipedia:Contact us either get merged, or at least more clearly interlinked; so far with no feedback. Merging it into Wikipedia:Contents is an interesting idea though; I'd like to see a draft.
  • Transhumanist (aka Go for it!) keeps creating "header navigation bars" (the prevention of the proliferation of which, was the main reason I started the sidebar redesign [1]). Most recently {{WP help pages (header bar)}} and {{WP nav pages (header bar)}}, neither of which I'm fond of. Overlap and redundancy is something he and I seem to disagree about quite strongly.
  • I still think Wikipedia:Contents should be below Wikipedia:Featured content. A) because Wikipedia is trying to promote quality articles over quantity. B) because Wikipedia:Contents isn't at a consistently acceptable level of quality for my liking - many of the pages it links to (e.g. many of the "List of basic ____ topics" lists) were written by a single editor (TT), and aren't on anyone else's watchlists. I've asked him to contact the relevant wikiprojects to let them know of the existence of said pages, and he has said he will, but so far hasn't.
  • Just to clarify: 'Featured content' replaced 'Featured articles', it wasn't a new addition.
  • Its been suggested many times that we remove Portal:Current events from the sidebar, but I've never seen a reply. It's already linked in the Main page's 'In the news' section, so I resuggest its removal from here. --Quiddity 19:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with removing the link to "questions", although I think "current events" should stay. "Featured content" should definatly be adjacent to "content", regardless of which comes first. — Jack · talk · 02:06, Friday, 23 March 2007

[edit] Some slight adjustments are needed

One of the main thrusts of the sidebar redesign project has been that the links in each section fit the heading for that section, and to divide links based upon their relevance to the encyclopedia vs. support.

To fit these design philosophies, which reached strong consensus last September, the "Community portal" and "Recent changes" should be moved down to the second box, as they fit the context of "about" and clearly are not for "navigating" the encyclopedia itself. The Transhumanist   18:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I second this motion — Jack · talk · 10:16, Friday, 23 March 2007
Thirded.
I'll add that the title of "about" ought to be changed to "interact", and the title of "navigation" ought to be changed to "navigate" – to reflect the weeks of discussion we had about this, and which will better reflect this thread's requested item reordering. Thanks. --Quiddity 01:59, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Summarized, please update this page to:
  • navigate
    • mainpage|Main page
    • Wikipedia:Contents|Contents
    • Wikipedia:Featured content|Featured content
    • currentevents-url|currentevents
    • randompage-url|randompage
  • interact
    • Wikipedia:About|About Wikipedia
    • portal-url|portal
    • recentchanges-url|recentchanges
    • contact-url|contact
    • sitesupport-url|sitesupport
    • helppage|help

See how that goes. Harryboyles 02:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Very nice. It looks much more organized, though I thought I was losing my mind when the RC link disappeared ;). :: ZJH (T C E) 04:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I haven't read the piles of discussion on any sidebar changes, so please correct me if I'm wrong here, but: please change 'navigate' back to 'navigation': this is causing many scripts to freak out, and people have had this problem before with renaming navigation. GeorgeMoney (talk) 04:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I reverted to "navigation" and labeled the second box "interaction" to match. Are the scripts okay now? —David Levy 04:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Could you please add the village pump link to the sidebar? zero » 04:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Where? Cbrown1023 talk 17:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
interaction section. — zero » · 5:09:25 pm, Saturday, 24 March 2007
Done Cbrown1023 talk 17:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with that addition. The VP is linked prominently at the Community portal, and at Help. Adding it to the sidebar is unnecessary, and adds to the size, which is why links such as Wikipedia:Questions were removed from the draft - if anything else gets added to the sidebar, Questions has priority, as it also prominently links VP, and the other help desks too. --Quiddity 18:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, my reasoning was just that I thought it was there previously and must have gotten remove accidentally. I must have been thinking of another project. Cbrown1023 talk 19:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The "search" box

The "search" box is lower than usual on my screen and I have to scroll down to get to it after the recent work on the sidebar. It should be fixed. Matei Tache

The new sidebar pushes the Search box below the first screen on monitors operating at 800x600 screen resolutions. There is still a significant minority of web users that operate at that resolution, but personally I think it is impractical for us to continue to limit our navigation links to only those we can fit in that very limited amount of space. If developers ever make it possible to move the search box higher (as per the original redesign proposal) that would be better, but for now I say we stick with things as they are now. Dragons flight 16:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup, what Dragons flight said.
Another possible remedy for people who have this problem, is to disable any unneeded browser-toolbars. Firefox and Opera in particular, allow a great deal of dragging buttons around - I've arranged my menu items, nav buttons, and address bar in a single toolbar; with that plus the tab bar, I can see the search box at 800x600.
(Just for a random yardstick, I checked the smallest current apple macbook 13" inch screen specs; it runs at 1280 by 800 (native), which is more than my 17" crt will run happily!) --Quiddity 20:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A late comment

I know everyone here has already reached a consensus, but I just learned where this discussion was occuring, & I have a significant problem with the new layout: I use the Classic skin & I do not have access to any of items under "interact". This affects me most because I use the sidebar to get to the Community Portal on a regular basis. (And please don't say {{sofixit}} with the Classic skin, or change my skin. I don't know CSS, & I find too many features details of the Mono skin ugly or unhelpful.) -- llywrch 18:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Ack! Most sorry; We often seem to forget the non-monobook users :(
I don't know how to fix either. Might removing the blank-line above "interaction" work? (From the code, and skinpreview, it looks like they have the same problem with missing links in the other languages. E.g. no link to Gebruikersportaal in classic at Dutch.)
(Just for easy checking of the problem, for monobook users, here's the English classic skin preview link.) --Quiddity 21:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Only the first sidebar box is supported in Classic. I suspect the possibility of multiple groups didn't even exist at the time that Classic was last the normal skin. This is something that probably needs to be addressed by developers. Dragons flight 21:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
So does this mean those of us not using monobook have to live with this, or is a rollback under consideration? -- llywrch 22:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mouse-over comments

I've just been catching up on the latest sidebar stuff (as someone who was around when the sidebar redesign took place - was it really six months ago?), and I like the new sidebar, with a few minor points to raise. The link labelled "Help", which appears under the heading 'interaction' implies to me that we are asking people to help us. The other links (except 'About Wikipedia') have helpful mouse over comments. The 'Help' mouse-over is the less than helpful: "The place to find out." I suggest:

  • (a) the visible link text is made more intuitive, something like "Help pages", or "Need help?"
  • (b) the mouse-over text is changed to "Wikipedia's help pages", or something.

While on the subject of the mouse-over text, I'll be pedantic and point out that "About Wikipedia" should really have a mouse-over - at the moment it looks like someone forgot to add one. Plus the 'Recent change' mouse-over says "The list of recent changes in the wiki. [alt-r]" - first the word "wiki" is jargon, and for consistency, the "." after it should be lost as well. The 'Help' mouse-over text ends in a period as well, so that should also be fixed. Also, the 'What links here' mouse-over text also uses the word "wiki". I suspect "wiki" is being used here as a global term to refer to all projects, not just Wikipedia. But we should tweak it to a Wikipedia-specific text if possible. Carcharoth 01:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Participation

Instead of "interaction", how about "participation"? – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 03:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, never mind. I forgot "Help" is under that heading too. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 03:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
And all the articles are means of participation. Anyone can participate by going to "Featured content" or "Current events" or "Random article". —Centrx→talk • 21:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
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