Talk:Main Page/en/archive 1

Typo for the Foundation name

"Welcome to the strategic planning process for the Wikipedia Foundation!" Really? Adrian Suter 12:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

no, not really! thank you. -- Philippe 15:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Rules

"The very first page everyone must read is..." Whatever happened to Ignore All Rules, and not having to read rules and regulations before being bold and helping out? I say we strike that, or make it something more suggestive and less commanding. Steven Walling 03:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, first, Ignore All Rules is a Wikipedia policy; not one on this wiki. Second, I don't think it's out of line to require that people be familiar with the (very few) community norms here. We really do require good faith for this wiki. However, I don't think it's a big deal to change it to "should". -- Philippe 16:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Allowing people to be bold and edit is a wiki value, not a Wikipedia rule. Thanks for softening the language. Steven Walling 05:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd at least expand on what IAR means to new editors... that can be couched in a different language, though. Xavexgoem 02:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

New Scientist article

Just seen this After the boom, is Wikipedia heading for bust? in New Scientist. Esowteric 11:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Please unlock the Main Page

Tangentially related to the thread at the top of this page, the Main Page should not be locked. This is a wiki. Wikimedia is a community of wikis. It bears repeating that wikis are supposed to be about open editing. Unless there's a history of vandalism or problematic behavior on a page, it should not be protected.

Please unprotect the Main Page so it can be improved. Thanks! --MZMcBride 05:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

MzMcBride, thanks for the suggestion. I want you to know that this isn't a decision that was made lightly, to protect the main page. The sad truth is that because of our visibility, the main page of a good number of the Wikimedia wikis are protected. We'd like to model ideal behavior, and so have protected as few pages as possible on this wiki. At the time that I read your note, I went to look and see how many were fully protected, and determined that the three we had were too many - and unprotected two of them. I wish I could unprotect the one remaining page - the main page. Unfortunately, part of reality is learning from the experiences of other wikis, and I think this is one of them.

However, I'll tell you that we're in the midst of a redesign of the new page (which you can find in its very rudimentary form (there will hopefully be video, etc, much like on wikimediafoundation.org), and I'd love your input into that. You can find it at (the very creatively named location) New Main Page. -- Philippe 06:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Did you look at the page history of the Main Page? How do you expect to get community participation by hijacking the most visible page on the site? "We're all about wikis and open editing, see?" So you lock the Main Page? If you're really concerned about vandals (I see no reason you should be, I imagine this site gets about 100 visitors a day), can you switch the page to a template-based system? --MZMcBride 06:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what our current pageviews per day are, but I hope they're about to skyrocket - our central notice should go out early next week. Your point is well taken. I think a template based system is a really good option. At this point, I've been traveling (and working) every day for seven, so I'm going to try to get home and ~not~ work and I hope you'll understand that. Can you give me one day to think through the options? In the meantime, I've moved the page to semi-protection, which I hope is a reasonable interim solution that attempts to meet both of our concerns. -- Philippe 12:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for downgrading the protection. I've fixed up the layout a bit. The "Start here" / "How to participate" boxes are still too uneven, but overall the page is better than it was. --MZMcBride 21:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

<----- Works for me. Thanks for the fixes! Like your language for community guidelines, too. -- Philippe 22:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The process

Issues, and the overall process

Is the "Fact Base" analogous to what I have been calling Issues? My structured-problem solving background is from the design world, which I know has a very different language than the consultant world. The way I am used to talking about this, which is similar to the business management way of talking about problem solving, is a seven step process:

1. Accept
2. Analize
3. Define
4. Ideate
5. Select
6. Implement
7. Evaluate

The Fact Base seems to be step #2, and the proposal section is step #4. So what I'm looking for is step #1 and #3 and a way to connect the first four steps. That was what I had in mind by looking at things in terms of issues. In my experience #3 seems to be the crucial step that focuses or diffuses creative energy.

Is phase one of the process meant to encompass steps one and two, and phase two meant to be steps 3 and 4? If so, that seems a little awkward. I'd rather see it organized as clumping 1, 2 and 3 together in phase 1 and then having step 4 in phase 2, with the possibility of revisiting the earlier 3 steps. In the design world, the dynamic is that a client will come in with an idea of what they want (step 4) and then you have to take them through the first three steps to enable a creative solution to a well defined problem. Most people think in terms of specific solutions without putting much effort into defining the underlying problem. Is that what you have been modeling? Is the intent to use the proposals to help define the issues?

It seems valuable to me to present the process from several different points of view so that people with different experiences understand it better. So where does problem definition, as I understand it fit into your process? How can I best merge what I am attempting with the Issues page, to the process as it has been defined? I am wondering the best way to plug my efforts into the work that you are doing. My goal in this is developing a group process for a wiki, that is ongoing, that can work with a large community, and that can be replicated in the other projects. -- Sam 20:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I also don't see Acceptance and Definition steps, or intermediate review and coordination steps. Without attention to these points, this could become yet another (more elaborate than usual) self-selecting group working in a relative vacuum (new wiki, new terminology, new guidelines, new metrics) and assuming, in all good faith, that the result will be good for those who didn't join the process as well.

There seems to be a lot of work this week leading up to an initial assessment of where we are and what the big issues are -- it would be helpful if a group of active editors who have helped work on the scope and guidelines for major projects could take up the challenge of reviewing what is on this wiki, linking to their own scope and goals discussions, and offering high-level feedback on whether this seems to be addressing any of their core interests and concerns. Sj 18:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Sam,

The "fact base" is a set of issues papers that are being written by Bridgespan. They include four major topics: Reach, Quality, Participation, and Foundation/Meta. It is more of a "here's where we are" set of facts.

Could you tell me more about step 1, "Accept"?

You are correct that the proposals will be used to define issues (they'll be sorted into larger issues categories).

I think that problem definition will emerge from both the proposals, and from the questions that are submitted.

-- Philippe 22:02, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Different disciplines seem to emphasize different steps in the basic problem. Here's a link to a business approach. Acceptance is often overlooked because of the assumption that since a problem is being workeed on, there must already be acceptance that there is a problem that needs to be solved. In a design situation, acceptance can not be ignored because an outside party (often the designer) might see problems in ways that the client is not ready to accept. Also, as a result of analysis and trying to define a problem, something more serious might come to light that needs to be accepted as being part of the problem. It seems in a Wiki, that acceptance is a big difficult political problem. Part of the community might not think there is a problem while the rest of it does. Often the people frustrated by the problems leave or give up talking about them. As institutions get settled in their ways, they often consider many areas as being outside of their scope, partially out of habit, and partially perhaps because to change means dealing with problems that few people want to deal with. So I think this is very relevant to Wikimedia and the way that the status quo gets entrenched. -- Sam 11:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed - we need a very serious discussion of scope and areas of focus, to facilitate acceptance. And we need a reflection and review phase to triage past efforts at doing this- which have been numerous and productive. Learning from what worked and did not work in the past is more important in my eyes than starting a new process that we can polish -- since polish doesn't guarantee long-term usefulness. Sj 18:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Two quick notes: First, Bridgespan will be contributing to the Fact bases, and we encourage others to contribute to them as well. The purpose is to contextualize our questions. We need to understand where we are right now -- including the state of the world -- in order to determine where we need to go.

I don't agree that those four questions are particularly key. So it's weird to have so much attention on them, in that division of terminology. As long as the data is general and reusable, that shouldn't matter, but please bear in mind that this is part of acceptance. Sj 18:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Second, we're already in the weeds in terms of language, and I'm wary of introducing more terms and steps. If anything, I think we need to simplify the steps and the language. Sam, I think your underlying points about acceptance are important and should be discussed, I'm not sure it's useful to create new steps and language to describe those. --Eekim 21:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Bring in the colored boxes ..

I must have missed the policy that requires all Wikimedia wikis to have ugly colored boxes on its frontpage. ;-) Seriously though - any objection to a lighter touch, e.g. boxes more similar to the http://de.wikipedia.org or http://fr.wikipedia.org frontpages?--Eloquence 01:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The applicable policy is NOT#BORING.  :-) I like the color, and think too much subtlety makes for a very dull front page... but I'm open to other ideas. :) -- Philippe 02:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Eloquence, and welcome to Wikimedia! :-) MediaWiki, the software that runs this wiki, supports user subpages, where users are free to work on ideas before they're ready for "prime time." Feel free to create a subpage at User:Eloquence/Main Page sandbox (or pick your own title) and showcase your ideas for an improved main page! Looking forward to seeing your designs! Regards, --MZMcBride 02:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Funny. I've tweaked it.--Eloquence 03:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What about this color scheme? HenkvD 15:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Or this one, only background color at the topline? HenkvD 07:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

How do we translate the main page?

Especially if it's protected... - 89.139.86.196 17:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You do not have to change the Main Page to add a new language. This are the steps:

1. add your language code in Template:Languages/Main Page
2. go to the main page and view the source
3. use the link in the template to go to the main page in your language, and copy the viewd source

Good luck. HenkvD 18:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No more anonymous contributions

There is already so much in this project and so much is not even strategic by our regular editors. With proposals like "can we have a Romanian Wikipedia", a Wikipedia we have for years now, it is clear that the quality of the process is improved if we ask people to at least contribute as a user. Thanks, GerardM 15:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Participation

The main page is so "Wikipedia" style... it is very dry. Let us introduce dymanic content. What about featuring newest proposals, recently rated or somehow other dynamically rotate content?--Kozuch 19:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I created "Browse proposals" section. Can someone put the links in two columns?--Kozuch 19:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Your "Browse proposals" section would be a welcome addition to the main page but I can't find it. -- Ryk V 23:33, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I removed it, with Eugene's agreement. The main page is specifically designed to be minimalistic. I'm pleased to put browse proposals just about anywhere else. -- Philippe 00:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually I was thinking of a link to a page where you can easily browse the proposals (like Category:Proposals_by_subject but it's incomplete and not really organized), because it seems to me the Call for Proposals page is a bit too long with 15 categories, 5 time that in sub-categories and I don't how many proposals. But if the main page should remain minimal, it could as well be added to the Call for Proposals page. -- Ryk V 19:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Language list

Please note that several of the versions are in the wrong position on the list. LouisBB 08:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I miss many languages on volonteer main page? What about Serbian (sr). --Kaster 09:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Call for participation/Appeal letter/sr is not ready. I would say its a mix from Indonesian, Serbian and English. --Goldzahn 09:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

QWERTY ASAP

It's these two that are commonly messed up. I heard some people say, I don't like the ASAP set up on keyboards - it's annoying. Worse however has happened. In a school, some kids were told to make a report QWERTY (instead of ASAP). The children came up with a report containing only the letters QWERTY. Most people nowadays don't get them confused, because we are all used to the new lay out. Sho this to your friends QWERTY! Oops I mean show this to your friends ASAP!England Lions CC FC 20:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Page org suggestions

Hi - I think it would be great to provide some additional navigation on the main page, so people have a better sense of all of the content behind this page. I'd suggest:

1. Create a separate link under the "where should we go?" question to "guiding summary (read this first)"
2. Add a section below the main navigation on Emerging Strategic Priorities with links to each ESP page and a link to the task forces overview page

I think this will help increase click throughs to the content we would like the world to read without creating too much clutter. Or at least worth a try.

Hey Barry - you might check out the redesigned main page - the content isn't static yet, but the design generally is. I'll going to get started on content tonight and we'll hopefully move the main page out tonight or tomorrow. It's at Main Page redesign. -- Philippe 23:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

spamming

have you gone completely bonkers, spamming everyone in sight with usertalk creation messages? i am SO not interested in this project, why do you think you should email me about it? --an extremly pissed off WP user

on the other hand, I'm very interested in this wiki, and think it's great to get a reminder (which brought me back here having had a bit of a wiki break lately) - it feels inclusive, and engaging to me. I also feel that folk can do with being less grumpy! :-) Privatemusings 08:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

i am NOT a user of this wiki, nor will i ever be. what you as a user find acceptable is completely irrelevant. your clueless botmaster is spamming everyone with a unified login, which is beyond stupid. --still waiting for someone to realize you have a problem

Please sign with ~~~~. And tone down the rhetoric, please. You got a message because you have a registered account here. You're free to disable e-mail in your preferences. --MZMcBride 19:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The "clueless botmaster", who - by the way - is a user with a rather extreme amount of clue - was doing as I and Eekim asked. If you want to abuse someone, you might choose one of us instead. We spammed the lists because our job is to drive up the number of users who are contributing to the strategic planning process so that as many people as possible have input into this process. You got a message because you signed up. Feel free to disable email. -- Philippe 08:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic content

Well, 99% of the page is still static. Random proposal is a bit "screwed" due to a purge link, but I can oversee that. What about another main page redesign?--Kozuch 20:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, let us redesign the main page in a "portal" manner. I am looking for some code to make this happen right now...--Kozuch 18:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Main Page looks like shit

The Main Page used to look pretty decent (ref). Someone has completely shitted it up. --MZMcBride 19:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, watch your language please. A fact that this wiki is little does not mean we want to read this in here... Secondly, I too think there is maybe too little content at he MP right now. Maybe a compromise between those two linked revisions would be useful? The content has to be presented in a more "portal" way though (usually something like table of 2 rows and 2 columns, with cells highlited with different contents). I was looking for some simple portal code but I ran out of time.--Kozuch 09:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• The lack of content is intentional. The one thing we were hearing over and over was that there was too much stuff on the main page and that people were getting lost on the initial page. -- Philippe 09:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

  This makes sense, but I miss what were, to me, handy navigation links. How about adding a link to the Sitemap? In terms of appearance: Unless the page is viewed in a window that is wide enough for the nowrap attribute on the "Questions lead to answers" div to allow the {{Participate}} box to float, then the page is really ugly (Can I say "ugly" here?) because it is dominated by a very large gray blob. ~ Ningauble 16:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Can we get rid of Liquid Topics please?

They are cumbersome, slow, and very, very annoying (and I am not the only person in the Task Forces complaining about them). Yes, I see their potential, yes, they have nifty features, but as they are, they are not good enough for public use, and I don't appreciate being a guinea pig :( At least, there should be an option of turning of Liquid Threads and going back to the regular page discussions. The LT are so annoying that I am in fact reading and posting less than I usually would, and again I don't think I am alone in that. --Piotrus 05:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)