Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
We went over quite many transformations, and I think we are still not done with all of them yet :-)
Specific french features are * the logo (which I hope we'll update to better fit our new colors) * a quite colourful design, with our special colored little dots and text areas * a brand new reorganisation of the different headings, with move and creation of items. * an announcement community area
In particular, we proceeded - to make less proeminent "sciences" (in particular technics and applied sciences) which were maybe a little bit overrepresented compared to real life and lay wo-men concerns. - move such fields like philosphy to human sciences where it seems to us to belong; add cognitive sciences to human sciences - introduce ecology and universe sciences in the natural sciences heading - separate fields such as "industry" and "business" (which at least in France represent the 2nd and the 3rd sector in economy, and as such are separated) - make more proeminent an entire heading dealing with Politics, Law and Society (and introduce notions of family, defense and environment management) - give more room to religion... - make a brand new heading about daily life (with topics such as nutrition, health, sexology...) - to get more in touch with everyday matters and questions ...
The announcement community area is still a bit controversial. It seems there is an agreement for the existence of this area (when there is need for an announcement that is...), but not on what should be allowed to be in. For example, Francis put an announcement for last saturday Peace March (with either official support from some, or silent support or misinterest from others), announcement which stayed there for nearly 24 hours before Curry removed it for being non-encyclopedic. However, this argument doesnot hold any more if the announcement is clearly set in the community area :-)
Anyway, the new homepage is welcomed, and the refactoring opened quite a few wide areas, on which all french-speaking are invited to get wild.
Anth�re
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At 10:27 AM 2/19/03 -0800, Anthere wrote:
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
We went over quite many transformations, and I think we are still not done with all of them yet :-)
My French is poor, but it looks good.
<snip>
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 10:27:40 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
Hi Anthère, You have two errors in the other languages code: &;#954; in Greek (extra semicolon) and &#26085; in Japanese (& turned into an entity). Are there browsers which are actually correcting these?
--- Richard Grevers dramatic@xtra.co.nz wrote:
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003 10:27:40 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage
at
Hi Anth�re, You have two errors in the other languages code: &;#954; in Greek (extra semicolon) and &#26085; in Japanese (& turned into an entity). Are there browsers which are actually correcting these?
-- Richard Grevers
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the tip...I am probably responsible for this as my favorite browser is very hungry for > and < (it changes them in to &) in particular
When it is in relation with <font>, I see the typo and try to correct it.
When it is in an international link, I never touch anything for my browser doesnot read this caracters anyway, so I can't distinguish the good from the bad ;-)
Usually, I wait for someone to fix things for me :-)
I'll put your comment in the talk page... thanx alot
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Anth?re writes:
| |I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at |http://fr.wikipedia.org/ |
I see that the French main page manages to stumble along with only *one* list of Wikipedias in other languages while the English Wikipedia has three lists, of varying content, at the top, bottom, and righthand side of the main page. If we add a language list on the lefthand side of the English main page, they could play bridge.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
--- Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com wrote:
Anth?re writes:
| |I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at |http://fr.wikipedia.org/ |
I see that the French main page manages to stumble along with only *one* list of Wikipedias in other languages while the English Wikipedia has three lists, of varying content, at the top, bottom, and righthand side of the main page. If we add a language list on the lefthand side of the English main page, they could play bridge.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
You raise an important point Tom
Previously, we had the three places for the languages. As one of us is a linguist, he insisted that all the links (to all the languages) should be placed on top (and consequently at the bottom)...it took half of the window on the small screens...which was embarassing.
When we changed the design, all these languages were removed from the top. Some said it was either all of them or none. So, we only kept them in the community block
You will notice that the international links are in regular font size, not in small size as on the english wiki.
I would not object if the links were also at the bottom as before, or if a drop-down would allow access to all languages without taking too much space. Suggestions ?
Notice that in bridge, there's a dead...
Anthere
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Anthere wrote:
I would not object if the links were also at the bottom as before, or if a drop-down would allow access to all languages without taking too much space. Suggestions ?
In Wiktionary the language list is currently at the top on the [[Recent changes]]. This and other things take up a fair amount of space with the result that only the first four items of recent changes appear in a full screen before one needs to scroll down. Could the list of languages be moved to the quick bar at the side.
Notice that in bridge, there's a dead...
I know that "le mort" is the correct term in French, but the literal translation doesn't work here. In English we call it "the dummy".
Eclecticology
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Notice that in bridge, there's a dead...
I know that "le mort" is the correct term in French, but the literal translation doesn't work here. In English we call it "the dummy".
Eclecticology
quite amazing the number of things I am learning in Wikipedia...
the dummy...thanks Ec !
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|From: Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 22:35:05 -0800 (PST) | | |--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: |> Anthere wrote: |> >Notice that in bridge, there's a dead... |> > |> I know that "le mort" is the correct term in French, |> but the literal |> translation doesn't work here. In English we call it |> "the dummy". |> |> Eclecticology | |quite amazing the number of things I am learning in |Wikipedia... | |the dummy...thanks Ec ! |
Anthere wrote:
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
We went over quite many transformations, and I think we are still not done with all of them yet :-)
Une belle présentation! Ec
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
I like the French design. One thing it demonstrates quite well is how protecting pages reduces the potential for progress. I checked the history: the French design is the result of a fairly amazing evolution, which is not possible on the English Wikipedia because the main page is protected.
I, Mav and Enchanter have been experimenting with using similar colored tables for the English main page. One problem I have with the current French design is while the colors are pretty, they don't seem to mean much. Maybe the yellow that is used for special+talk+wikipedia pages should come to be identified with the community.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage
at
I like the French design. One thing it demonstrates quite well is how protecting pages reduces the potential for progress. I checked the history: the French design is the result of a fairly amazing evolution, which is not possible on the English Wikipedia because the main page is protected.
I, Mav and Enchanter have been experimenting with using similar colored tables for the English main page. One problem I have with the current French design is while the colors are pretty, they don't seem to mean much. Maybe the yellow that is used for special+talk+wikipedia pages should come to be identified with the community.
Regards,
Erik
Yup, several putschs to change that page...
Yes, why not having the backgroud of meta pages green instead of yellow...just as the community area on the main page...
And we have not agreed on the announcement part yet...
Plenty of room for improvement ;-)
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From: "Anthere"
Hello !
I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at http://fr.wikipedia.org/
It look good. In fact it looks so good, that we decided to use the same layout on the danish wiki at http://da.wikipedia.org/
Regards Christian List
The Danish Wikipedia differs from the French in having three language lists instead of one.
Tom P.
|From: "Christian List" clist@visi.net |X-Priority: 3 |X-MSMail-Priority: Normal |X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 19:08:12 -0500 | |From: "Anthere" |> Hello ! |> |> I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at |> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | |It look good. |In fact it looks so good, that we decided to use the same layout on the |danish wiki at |http://da.wikipedia.org/ | |Regards |Christian List | |_______________________________________________ |Wikipedia-l mailing list |Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l |
--- Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com wrote:
The Danish Wikipedia differs from the French in having three language lists instead of one.
Tom P.
So ?!?
Do you think we should necessarily look all the same ?
I dig (or dug ?) up for you the last home page before the first pusch (4th of february)
Please have a look
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Accueil&oldid=27380
You will notice we had 30 languages listed at the top and the bottom. Hopefully, that list should grow even more. 2 lines of langages is quite different from 4 lines of langages in terms of communication on a main page, especially on a small screen. The top of a page should display the biggest point for it is the place people see first.
Question is : what is the *most* important message to convey, that we are multilingual, or that we are an encyclopedia ?
|> I just wanted to introduce you to our new HomePage at |> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | |It look good. |In fact it looks so good, that we decided to use the same layout on the |danish wiki at |http://da.wikipedia.org/ | |Regards |Christian List
That's a great honor Christian :-)
Cordialement � tous deux
Anthere
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|From: Anthere anthere6@yahoo.com |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 17:43:42 -0800 (PST) | | |--- Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com wrote: |> |> The Danish Wikipedia differs from the French in |> having three language |> lists instead of one. |> |> Tom P. | |So ?!? | |Do you think we should necessarily look all the same ?
No, but I believe that one list of languages is all anyone needs.
The message said the Danish page had the same layout the French, but the French main page has only one language list and the Danish has three.
I believe that one is the right number of language lists. I believe that more than one is both confusing and uses space that could be better used for encyclopedic information.
The English main page also has three language lists, which is two too many.
I don't say this to offend or annoy. I admire the efforts that all wikipedias are making to provide information in their own languages. I believe that each wikipedia should publicize the availability of wikipedias in other languages. I believe that even the small, beginning wikipedias should get just as much publicity as the larger, more established ones.
| |I dig (or dug ?) up for you the last home page before |the first pusch (4th of february) | |Please have a look | |http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Accueil&oldid=27380 | |You will notice we had 30 languages listed at the top |and the bottom. Hopefully, that list should grow even |more. |2 lines of langages is quite different from 4 lines of |langages in terms of communication on a main page, |especially on a small screen.
I think two lists of languages is one too many. That space could be used for more information.
|The top of a page should display the biggest point for |it is the place people see first. |
But is a list of *other* languages the first thing people look for? Or is it information on how to look something up, what information is available, and so forth, in their *own* language?
|Question is : what is the *most* important message to |convey, that we are multilingual, or that we are an |encyclopedia ?
I believe the *most* important message is that we are an encyclopedia. Most people read only one language. Nobody can read 30 languages. (very few anyway). Even people who can read more than one language have a preference. I'm not the world's greatest linguist, but I can get to the train station or order a meal in four languages and read with decreasing comprehension in three of them, but I still do the most in my native language.
I think the French wikipedia is correct in not placing language lists on three sides of the main page the way we do in English. I can find my four languages on one list. I don't need three lists.
The other wikipedias are welcome to design their main pages as they like. I propose that they all follow the French model and have only one list of languages. I particularly propose that the English wikipedia, to which I am a contributor, should not have three lists of languages, but only one. (Someday, maybe, if I live long enough, I will have contributions in Norsk, Deutsch, and castellano too.)
Doors don't have three handles. I don't think having three language lists helps anyone. If I am missing some advantage of having three lists, I am sure someone will tell me.
For your attention, tusen takk, muchas gracias, danke schoen, and thank you very much.
Tom
| | |> |> I just wanted to introduce you to our new |> HomePage at |> |> http://fr.wikipedia.org/ |> | |> |It look good. |> |In fact it looks so good, that we decided to use |> the same layout on the |> |danish wiki at |> |http://da.wikipedia.org/ |> | |> |Regards |> |Christian List | |That's a great honor Christian :-) | |Cordialement � tous deux | |Anthere | |__________________________________________________ |Do you Yahoo!? |Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more |http://taxes.yahoo.com/ |_______________________________________________ |Wikipedia-l mailing list |Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l |
Vendredon, 2003-02-21 20:00, Tom Parmenter skribis:
But is a list of *other* languages the first thing people look for? Or is it information on how to look something up, what information is available, and so forth, in their *own* language?
For that, it would help if they can *find* their own language. For that, we need links. :)
I await with bated breath your suggestions on how to make a long list of language links not suck while remaining easily findable and accessible.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
|From: Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com |Organization: |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: 21 Feb 2003 20:15:20 -0800 | | |--=-y9jyPU66MsI+bYU9OWLV |Content-Type: text/plain |Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable | |Vendredon, 2003-02-21 20:00, Tom Parmenter skribis: |> But is a list of *other* languages the first thing people look for? |> Or is it information on how to look something up, what information is |> available, and so forth, in their *own* language? | |For that, it would help if they can *find* their own language. For that, |we need links. :) | |I await with bated breath your suggestions on how to make a long list of |language links not suck while remaining easily findable and accessible. | |-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) |
That doesn't tell me why three lists are better than one. Put it anywhere you like, but why duplicate it? More to the point, why have lists of languages that are *not* duplicates?
If I read Arabic, my eye would absolutely leap to a bit of Arabic text no matter where it appeared on the page, I am sure.
I believe we should have one list and it should be complete and not discriminate against any language that has a wikipedia project. In other words, all 30 languages, and when the Tagalog and Shoshone and Pig Latin editions are available, add 'em. If the list has 300 languages, well, cool. People will still be able to find their own language just as well with one list as with three.
How to present? Alphabetical order, according to the alphabet (or other equivalent sorting technique) of the language of the main page. Maybe there could be a link to other presentations, sorting by number of articles, chronological order of appearance, little flags, maps, pulldowns by linguistic groups . . .
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
PS -- While we're discussing encyclopedian languages, is it strictly accurate to state, for instance, that the article [[Louis Armstrong]] is also available in German, if the German article is completely different from the English one? If the link said, "Other Wikipedias" instead of "Other languages", it would be more accurate.
Tom
|
On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 00:42:33 -0500, Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com wrote:
That doesn't tell me why three lists are better than one. Put it anywhere you like, but why duplicate it? More to the point, why have lists of languages that are *not* duplicates?
If I read Arabic, my eye would absolutely leap to a bit of Arabic text no matter where it appeared on the page, I am sure.
I believe we should have one list and it should be complete and not discriminate against any language that has a wikipedia project. In other words, all 30 languages, and when the Tagalog and Shoshone and Pig Latin editions are available, add 'em. If the list has 300 languages, well, cool. People will still be able to find their own language just as well with one list as with three.
I agree completely. I fail to detcet any logic behind the selection of the 10 languages on the "short" list. It certainly isn't based on number of speakers, and doesn't seem to be based on number of articles, which leaves the fact that they are all European languages feeling slightly offensive.
So I would suggest a text list of all languages on the main page, although I find the current strung-together list quite hard to read. A table or list layout might be better.
I do believe that a dropdown list/redirector would be the best way to offer a second listing. The main page could have both text and dropdown versions, and the dropdown form could be provided on some other pages. It could even be an off-by-default user option on all pages (only multilingual users are likely to enable it). The dropdown could be a static include, generated and distributed to the various wikipedias as part of the system for creating a new language.
How to present? Alphabetical order, according to the alphabet (or other equivalent sorting technique) of the language of the main page. Maybe there could be a link to other presentations, sorting by number of articles, chronological order of appearance, little flags, maps, pulldowns by linguistic groups . . .
Flags and maps are never good indicators of language. I agree that language names need to be written in their own language not the language of the page. Languages which use non-latin writing systems do need a latin variant to cope with user agents which can't handle unicode. (including speech browsers etc!)
On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Richard Grevers wrote:
I agree completely. I fail to detcet any logic behind the selection of the 10 languages on the "short" list. It certainly isn't based on number of speakers, and doesn't seem to be based on number of articles, which leaves the fact that they are all European languages feeling slightly offensive.
Well, it might well be based on number of pages - it IS the 10 largest non-English ones in number of pages.
Andre Engels
Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com writes:
Doors don't have three handles. I don't think having three language lists helps anyone. If I am missing some advantage of having three lists, I am sure someone will tell me.
Doors don't have three handles, that's right. But a house where more than one family is living, has normally at the front door a number of signs for all parties living there.
Wikipedia, at the moment, is maybe best compared to a multifamily residence, where Mr Smith has ten signs on his door reading: "Mr Miller is living on the right" "Mr Gates is living over there" and "there is the apartment of Mrs Williams"... The others have also ten signs, saying the same.
I propose to wait with a settlement of the language list problem until a solution for the wikipedia front page is found. Then the problem will solve itself.
greetings, elian
|From: elian elian@gmx.li |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: 22 Feb 2003 05:42:38 +0100 | |Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com writes: | |> Doors don't have three handles. I don't think having three language |> lists helps anyone. If I am missing some advantage of having three |> lists, I am sure someone will tell me. | |Doors don't have three handles, that's right. But a house where more than |one family is living, has normally at the front door a number of signs for |all parties living there. | |Wikipedia, at the moment, is maybe best compared to a multifamily |residence, where Mr Smith has ten signs on his door reading: "Mr Miller is |living on the right" "Mr Gates is living over there" and "there is the |apartment of Mrs Williams"... The others have also ten signs, saying the |same. | |I propose to wait with a settlement of the language list problem until a |solution for the wikipedia front page is found. Then the problem will |solve itself. | |greetings, |elian | |_______________________________________________ |Wikipedia-l mailing list |Wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l |
I'm not objecting to listing the languages. I'm objecting to listing them three times in ways that aren't identical and therefore convey, to my way of thinking, less information than one list would convey.
I'm asking: What is the advantage, if any, of listing 12 wikipedias at the top of the page, the same 12 wikipedias at the bottom, and 28 wikipedias in the middle of the page? That's what I mean by three handles on one door.
Are the 16 "extra" wikipedias in the middle supposed to be any less "real" than the 12 at the top and bottom?
I don't understand why I seem to be coming across like some kind of rude crank on this. I don't mean to. I apologize again to everyone. I have nothing against anyone's language or anyone's wikipedia. I just don't see the point of the redundant, inconsistent information on available languages.
Sincerely and humbly yours,
Tom
Tom Parmenter tompar@world.std.com writes:
I'm not objecting to listing the languages. I'm objecting to listing them three times in ways that aren't identical and therefore convey, to my way of thinking, less information than one list would convey.
I'm asking: What is the advantage, if any, of listing 12 wikipedias at the top of the page, the same 12 wikipedias at the bottom, and 28 wikipedias in the middle of the page? That's what I mean by three handles on one door.
Yes, I understood you perfectly well and to some extent I even agree with you ;-)
Are the 16 "extra" wikipedias in the middle supposed to be any less "real" than the 12 at the top and bottom?
Seems to. My policy in the German wikipedia was to list on top and bottom only these wikipedias which consist of at least some articles - otherwise I fear to dissappoint the reader if he sees "other languages" and clicks first on turkish, then greek and the russian - and everywhere is nothing.
So the more complete list in the middle was intended to show that there is the _possibility_ to work at a turkish wikipedia, but actually it doesn't exist yet.
I hope this explanation is halfway comprehensible...
BTW, while renewing the Main page recently, I replaced the list in the middle in the German wikipedia by a simple link to a complete list. Bit of a sacrifice, but I thought it would be better to promote the existing Wikipedias on a prominent place than risking that some people don't find the information in the middle.
I don't understand why I seem to be coming across like some kind of rude crank on this. I don't mean to. I apologize again to everyone.
If my reply invoked this impression in you, I apologize. I didn't mean to - sometimes I am a bit of cynic, I can't help.
I have nothing against anyone's language or anyone's wikipedia. I just don't see the point of the redundant, inconsistent information on available languages.
It is not inconsistent - it just transmits a different message.
greetings, elian
elian wrote:
Wikipedia, at the moment, is maybe best compared to a multifamily residence, where Mr Smith has ten signs on his door reading: "Mr Miller is living on the right" "Mr Gates is living over there" and "there is the apartment of Mrs Williams"... The others have also ten signs, saying the same.
In neighborhoods where all houses are built according to the same set of construction plans, these signs can be useful. After an evening of concentrated carousing a little help is sometimes needed so that you don't accidently end up in a neighbour's bedroom. And if you're in no condition to read, you're probably also in no condition to remember what happened in the neighbour's bedroom.
Ec
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