On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 11:57 AM,
<roger@rogerchrisman.com> wrote:
Please change the default banner link back to en.wikivoyage.org. Here's why:
Links to various language versions are in the left sidebar of every
Wikipedia and Wikivoyage page. The _very small_ number of our default
banner clicking audience who don't want English should not drive our
choice here. De, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, and sv Wikipedia should all
have custom links to respective language. The default link for all
other language version banners and most importantly the English
Wikipedia banner should definitely be en.wikivoyage.org.
The hard fact (those who know more about this please chime in) is that
most people clicking a banner are only curious and will go away if
this click only takes them to a boring portal. They have other things
to do.
We will have failed badly, and wasted our Central Notice spot, if many
people who click our banner never even see our site. These people were
consulting Wikipedia for a reason and understandably wanted to get
back to what they were doing. Asking them to go farther than one click
into our banner is overreaching. So skip the portal.
When I started working on our banner, I was sure the portal was the
place to send people because *I* wanted to show off all our language
versions. I also wanted to show off some of our beautiful travel
photos right in the banner itself. But that would have required a
separate photo credits link in the banner. Jalexander, who has done
many central notice banners, told me that he had found that putting
more than one link in a banner actually confuses people about where we
are leading them and many respond to that lack of direction by not
clicking on the banner at all. Oh, I realized, *I* wanted to show
people two things, our portal AND our site, but that people would
respond to this lack of direction by going away because they only want
to see one thing and then get back to what they were doing.
So the question becomes, do we want people to see our portal or our
site? And which would people find more rewarding to see? It's a matter
of perspective. I propose we honor the perspective of most of our
banner viewers and show them the en.wikivoyage Main Page, unless they
are viewing one of the eight other language versions of Wikipedia for
which we have a Wikivoyage version.
CentralNotice is a hugely powerful messenger, it is a shame to use it
badly. I don't think people's feelings will be hurt by our portal but
I do think most of them will feel it is so much uninspired and boring
cruft and many will go no farther. Period. What a shame that would be.
So link to our site directly, not the portal.
People don't want to go to another page to another page. They are wary
of that time sink.
This is not about our feelings. It is about the feelings off the huge
number of people we are showing the banner to who frankly expect us to
show them something interesting in _one_ click. It is about doing this
smart. Let's not bore them with our portal. Please think this through.
It is exciting. But let's face it, you and I are more interested in
Wikivoyage than most people. Let's not start off boring them with our
boring portal. If they are genuinely interested, they will find it
soon enough next time they type wikivoyage into their location bar.
But they wont even do that if they haven't first seen the site and
what it offers. We need to offer a first glimpse of the site, not a
fist glimpse of the boring portal. Most people will be lending us only
five seconds of their time. Let's not squander it.
I designed the banner's default link, and the English version link, to
be en.wikivoyage.org for above reasons.
Would a Meta admin please change it back to en.wikivoyage.org. Sure,
wait for discussion, but don't wait till tomorrow... the notice is
running now.
Roger
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