--- elian elian@gmx.li wrote:
This applies to everybody: If someone has other visions he should tell me precisely how he wants to have it ("put the logo in this corner, take this text, take this color sample, include this...") and I'll make another version.
Hi,
Your page is including some good stuff. It is presenting langage and other wikipedias in a balanced way. Imho, it is just missing others very important features.
I think it is oriented toward a writer point of view, not toward a reader point of view.
- a writer (i.e., a wikipedian) is interested by 1)choosing his/her langage and 2)access to recent changes. 3)watch list (if log recognised)
1 and 2 are available in your proposition. Though in case of 2, I think I understood Interlanguage recent changes will *not* be available until phase IV, so are hardly of any usefulness right now. 3 is not available.
- a reader (i.e., anybody) is interested by 1) choosing his/her langage (for understanding) 3) multilingual search function (for punctual needs) 2) information/content (to be hooked, to get started) 4) access to main sections (for aimless wandering)
3 and 4 are missing. I believe it a problem. Some say that page must be bare, straightforward, minimalist. Well, I think a minimalist page is missing the point. Wikipedia is by definition a very lively, swarming, bushy place. A minimalist page is just a misrepresentation of what Wikipedia concept is. And it is booooooring. We don't only want a magnificent page, we also want a useful one. I don't think it is entirely useful for a reader here.
Reader/writer On international wikipedias, what we want to favor now are writers, because that is what we need, and our encyclopedias are not interesting/reliable/comprehensive enough yet. On the en.wikipedia, the content is beginning to be consequent. It is usefull for a reader. The en.wiki must support its writers for sure, but also the readers for it is the final goal of an encyclopedia I believe. The writers know perfectly well where to go, they won't go throught www.wikipedia.org.
On the en.wiki, I am much much more a "reader" than a "writer" for obvious linguistic reasons. I basically never go to recent changes (I am sure some will find that unbelievable :-)), the basic reasons being 1) my weeding job, I already do on the fr.wiki 2) loading time is a pain (hum, categories ?) 3) it seems each time I go there, 90% of the lines are from RamMan. This is similar to special:newpages, which I gave up looking at. And, well, as Tarquin said, these are uninteresting to me, and hiding other interesting pages in the mass.
In short, as a reader, I don't go to recentchanges. I wander from the actualities, I wander from some of the main categories, to tunnel deeper down. As a reader/occasional writer, I use the watch list on what is of interest to me.
Now, my questions are
- are we making the www.wikipedia.org for *readers* or for *writers* ?
- how much are readers expected to be occcasional writers ?
- how can we solve scaling issues ? When recentchanges are multilanguages, I don't think all changes should be displayed, even in a two languages choice. If a bilingual french/english find his changes made of 90% of RamMan entries in his list, he will quickly set back an entirely french recentchanges. This must be thought of.
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