I agree with essentially all of this--but it's something I can't do (well, I could try, but you might not like the results). Jimbo right now is on the road (picking his wife and baby from Chicago!) and he won't be able to do anything like this until probably Monday at the earliest, I imagine.

The only part I disagree with is having the "Receive an article a day" link on every page. It gets people coming back, which is important at this stage in the game. Many people don't even see the front page, because they arrive at particular pages which are linked to by search engines and other pages. I say I disagree with this, but I don't disagree strongly. I really don't care that much about it.

I think it would be great to rename HomePage and RecentChanges, but only if we can "redirect" traffic from those pages to "Wikipedia: ..." and "Recent Changes."

Larry

On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Axel Boldt wrote:

I have a couple of purely cosmetic suggestions for the general layout of Wikipedia:

• The red alert text after the search box should be removed; there

should be a second search box at the top of every page. Often, if you have the wrong page, you are not going to scroll all the way down through the uninteresting text, to find the search box.

• While the "receive an article a day" feature is nice, I don't think

it deserves a link on every page of Wikipedia. It is an extremely rare action to take: everybody goes to that page only once. Link on home page and on announcements should be sufficient. The less links, the less overwhelming the initial experience.

• The home page should be titled "Wikipedia - free, collaborative

encyclopedia" or similar, and not "HomePage". The first two words on the home page are "HomePage", and this word is information free, and worse, looks like a typo to most people. A web site that calls its home page "HomePage"?? People must think we are idiots.

• "RecentChanges" should be "Recent Changes"

• At the bottom of every page, all links having to do with editing and

viewing previous versions should be visually separated from those relevant to surfers. The search box should be in the same line as RecentChanges. Two links for "edit this text" is overkill and confusing: everybody has to try out whether they do the same thing.

• The problems identified on Wikipedia commentary/Search Engine should

be fixed before next Thursday.

Cheers, Axel

[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

I am in Chicago now. I have computer access. I'll be leaving on Monday to drive back -- but it will take longer, since Kira (http://www.kirawales.com) will be with us, and she's probably not keen on 14 hour driving days. :-)

So, I will implement these purely cosmetic suggestions, as well as a few others that I have in mind, and *possibly* I can fix *some* of the things noted in the search engine comments page. The easy stuff I will do for sure. :-)

Axel Boldt wrote:

I have a couple of purely cosmetic suggestions for the general layout of Wikipedia:

• The red alert text after the search box should be removed; there should be a second search box at the top of every page. Often, if you have the wrong page, you are not going to scroll all the way down through the uninteresting text, to find the search box.

• While the "receive an article a day" feature is nice, I don't think it deserves a link on every page of Wikipedia. It is an extremely rare action to take: everybody goes to that page only once. Link on home page and on announcements should be sufficient. The less links, the less overwhelming the initial experience.

• The home page should be titled "Wikipedia - free, collaborative encyclopedia" or similar, and not "HomePage". The first two words on the home page are "HomePage", and this word is information free, and worse, looks like a typo to most people. A web site that calls its home page "HomePage"?? People must think we are idiots.

• "RecentChanges" should be "Recent Changes"

• At the bottom of every page, all links having to do with editing and viewing previous versions should be visually separated from those relevant to surfers. The search box should be in the same line as RecentChanges. Two links for "edit this text" is overkill and confusing: everybody has to try out whether they do the same thing.

• The problems identified on Wikipedia commentary/Search Engine should be fixed before next Thursday.

Cheers, Axel

[Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l