Sandra (the Foundation communications person) suggested an "About Wikipedia" link go in the sidebar, not just at the bottom of each page. So I floated it on [[MediaWiki Talk:Sidebar]], got no objections and put it in today. This is to be the sort of "about" link lots of websites have.
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled wikiveterans of this list to hack at said page until it's actually the sort of thing a completely fresh visitor would expect to see linked from "About Wikipedia." At the moment it strikes me as about twice as long as it should be and entirely peppered in caveats ... thoughts plz.
- d.
On 2/8/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Sandra (the Foundation communications person) suggested an "About Wikipedia" link go in the sidebar, not just at the bottom of each page. So I floated it on [[MediaWiki Talk:Sidebar]], got no objections and put it in today. This is to be the sort of "about" link lots of websites have.
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled wikiveterans of this list to hack at said page until it's actually the sort of thing a completely fresh visitor would expect to see linked from "About Wikipedia." At the moment it strikes me as about twice as long as it should be and entirely peppered in caveats ... thoughts plz.
- d.
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I'd rather ask people to settle on a final version on meta, so we can translate it consistently accros projects. Otherwise en: will endup having a version different from what other wikipedias have.
This is the sort of things that should have the same information across languages
Okay... I noticed the addition of "About Wikipedia" in the sidebar and discussion at [[MediaWiki_talk:Sidebar#Wikipedia:About]], before seeing this thread on the mailing list.
I'm of the opinion that the [[Wikipedia:About]] page needs to be most helpful as can be in answering questions people often have about Wikipedia. This is especially true, since it is linked more prominently. With that in mind, I have boldly gone through the page to do copyedits and reorder sections, as needed. I may come back later, after giving more about the most commonly asked questions and issues are, and see that those are addressed properly in the "About" page.
Your suggestions and feedback would be most helpful, or please go in and improve the page yourself if you wish. I don't mind taking the page to meta and working on a common version.
-Aude
On 2/8/07, Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Sandra (the Foundation communications person) suggested an "About Wikipedia" link go in the sidebar, not just at the bottom of each page. So I floated it on [[MediaWiki Talk:Sidebar]], got no objections and put it in today. This is to be the sort of "about" link lots of websites have.
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled wikiveterans of this list to hack at said page until it's actually the sort of thing a completely fresh visitor would expect to see linked from "About Wikipedia." At the moment it strikes me as about twice as long as it should be and entirely peppered in caveats ... thoughts plz.
- d.
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I'd rather ask people to settle on a final version on meta, so we can translate it consistently accros projects. Otherwise en: will endup having a version different from what other wikipedias have.
This is the sort of things that should have the same information across languages
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 2/9/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled
Omg, [[Wikipedia:About]] is like a clone of [[:Wikipedia]]. But not. So similar. Yet different. It even randomly links to the encyclopaedia article in the text. How horrendously confusing. We should replace the graphic in the top right with some sort of navigational box to make it look less like an encyclopedia article. Maybe a vertical version of the template at the bottom of [[WP:LOP]].
Steve
I thought the same of the graphic. Some kind of template or navigation box to key pages would help. I don't have anything specific in mind, but what you suggest sounds okay. The page should address key issues and questions that come up when dealing with media inquiries and OTRS -- answers to which may be less encyclopedic but are suitable for an "about" page.
-Aude
On 2/8/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/9/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled
Omg, [[Wikipedia:About]] is like a clone of [[:Wikipedia]]. But not. So similar. Yet different. It even randomly links to the encyclopaedia article in the text. How horrendously confusing. We should replace the graphic in the top right with some sort of navigational box to make it look less like an encyclopedia article. Maybe a vertical version of the template at the bottom of [[WP:LOP]].
Steve
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Geepers... well my left sidebar was getting so cluttered its reaching all the way down the page - but, simple solution I guess;
li#n-About-Wikipedia {display:none}
:P
On 2/9/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Sandra (the Foundation communications person) suggested an "About Wikipedia" link go in the sidebar, not just at the bottom of each page. So I floated it on [[MediaWiki Talk:Sidebar]], got no objections and put it in today. This is to be the sort of "about" link lots of websites have.
The link goes to [[Wikipedia:About]]. I ask the august embattled wikiveterans of this list to hack at said page until it's actually the sort of thing a completely fresh visitor would expect to see linked from "About Wikipedia." At the moment it strikes me as about twice as long as it should be and entirely peppered in caveats ... thoughts plz.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 09/02/07, Glen S wikiglen@gmail.com wrote:
Geepers... well my left sidebar was getting so cluttered its reaching all the way down the page - but, simple solution I guess; li#n-About-Wikipedia {display:none} :P
Yeah, there is the "more and more crap" problem ... what would people suggest removing, if anything?
(There is a plan somewhere on the Village Pump to reorganise the sidebar completely.)
- d.
On 2/9/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, there is the "more and more crap" problem ... what would people suggest removing, if anything?
(There is a plan somewhere on the Village Pump to reorganise the sidebar completely.)
Well here's my 2 cents:
Main page: scrap it, it's redundant. That's what clicking on the ball does. Community portal: Worst name ever Featured content: Keep, but possibly rename Current events: Weird, never even noticed this before. Do people actually click it? Recent changes: Scrap it. Good for tiny wikis. Useless at WP. Move to toolbox if it must be kept. About Wikipedia: Good addition. Contact us: Keep Make a donation: Keep Help: Something tells me people look for help in the top right hand corner. But keep.
In the toolbox: What links here: Keep, very useful Related changes: Somewhat useful Upload file: Scrap it. Nuke from space. Haven't we been saying this for years? Special pages: Keep, very useful (but consider renaming) Printable version: Keep, but perhaps this would work better as a tab (like discussion, edit this page etc - it's a different view of the same page, right?) Permanent link: Yeah, I guess. Never used it. But for a newbie...
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 2/9/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, there is the "more and more crap" problem ... what would people suggest removing, if anything?
Well here's my 2 cents:
Main page: scrap it, it's redundant. That's what clicking on the ball does.
A friend of mine recently redesigned a well-known website and got rid of the textual home page link. In the user testing here in the San Francisco area, it worked fine. When the site launched, it was their number one usability problem, because many people don't know that a site logo is a magic home link.
They wanted to make it more obvious that the logo was something special, but didn't want to do anything as gauche as putting a blue border around it. Their final solution was to make the logo highlighted on mouseover, so that mere mortals could learn that it was a link to the home page.
William
On 2/9/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
A friend of mine recently redesigned a well-known website and got rid of the textual home page link. In the user testing here in the San Francisco area, it worked fine. When the site launched, it was their number one usability problem, because many people don't know that a site logo is a magic home link.
Same thing happened on Flickr's redesign; they ended up putting a 'Home' link back in their top-bar, even though the logo worked to get back to the site's top page.
Seasoned web users know this convention; newbies don't.
-Matt
On 2/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Seasoned web users know this convention; newbies don't.
Ok, I stand corrected. What about my other suggestions?
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
Ok, I stand corrected. What about my other suggestions?
Heh. That required seriously thinking about each one, rather than just posting the one I happened to know about. :-)
I think they're all plausible suggestions, and I like most of them, especially renaming the community portal and making the printable version a tab or something else up at the top. I personally would keep "Recent changes", as it demonstrates to newbies that people can make things happen.
At least in my professional life, I'd user-test all of the suggestions to see how they play in Peoria. Then the ones that passed that I'd to A/B testing with a modest percent of the traffic to see which ones were clearly better by the numbers.
Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
Thanks,
On 2/11/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
I think they're all plausible suggestions, and I like most of them, especially renaming the community portal and making the printable version a tab or something else up at the top. I personally would keep "Recent changes", as it demonstrates to newbies that people can make things happen.
At least in my professional life, I'd user-test all of the suggestions to see how they play in Peoria. Then the ones that passed that I'd to A/B testing with a modest percent of the traffic to see which ones were clearly better by the numbers.
I'd be wary of applying the results of testing on smaller wikis directly to Wikipedia. In this case, "Recent changes" probably performs much better on smaller wikis.
Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.
Steve
On 14/02/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/11/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.
There has been a bit on de:wp, which someone posted to wikitech-l about. In particular, the image page format and the process for uploading an image both need to be taken out and shot.
- d.
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 2/11/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
At least in my professional life, I'd user-test all of the suggestions to see how they play in Peoria. Then the ones that passed that I'd to A/B testing with a modest percent of the traffic to see which ones were clearly better by the numbers.
I'd be wary of applying the results of testing on smaller wikis directly to Wikipedia. In this case, "Recent changes" probably performs much better on smaller wikis.
Sorry if I wasn't clear; I'm suggesting doing typical user testing, where you use the real thing or simulations as close as you can get. I agree that smaller wikis may not be good substitutes.
Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.
Interesting. Is that a conscious choice? Or more a historical habit?
Thanks,
William
On 2/15/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Interesting. Is that a conscious choice? Or more a historical habit?
Probably a natural result of the developmental process. Usability testing normally happens when a corporation decides that there is a financial benefit in having usable software. They spend money on it. MediaWiki development happens when people find an interesting problem to solve, and code a solution to it. There aren't many people who would be sufficiently motivated to study the problem, come up with a solution and actually code it. I would certainly be interested in helping with usability, but I don't have the technical (php mainly, but also knowledge of the mediawiki framework) skills to implement it.
Oh, also, there is generally great resistance on the part of users to change, particularly highly visual change. For almost *every* change that would improve usability, there are a couple of people that argue vigorously against it. That can be depressing.
Steve
On 2/10/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Seasoned web users know this convention; newbies don't.
Ok, I stand corrected. What about my other suggestions?
Getting rid of the "upload file" link would solve some of the major image-related problems.
Steve Bennett wrote:
Current events: Weird, never even noticed this before. Do people actually click it?
Yes, it's always been one of our most popular pages.
http://hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org/~leon/stats/wikicharts/index.php?lang=en&...
5th if you don't count the special pages.
-- Tim Starling
On 2/11/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
Current events: Weird, never even noticed this before. Do people actually click it?
Yes, it's always been one of our most popular pages.
Because people go to WP to find out background on current news stories, I suspect.
-Matthew
Tim Starling wrote:
Steve Bennett wrote:
Current events: Weird, never even noticed this before. Do people actually click it?
Yes, it's always been one of our most popular pages.
http://hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org/~leon/stats/wikicharts/index.php?lang=en&...
5th if you don't count the special pages.
It's good to know that Saddam Hussein is more popular than sex. :-)
Ec