Hey all,
Roger ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rogerhc ) worked on a bunch of options for the wikivoyage launch banner and posted them on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikivoyage_2013/CentralNotice#Banner . There hasn't been a ton of feedback (no one but DocJames) and so I defaulted to making the one that Roger liked the most http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=WikivoyageMockUp5g . Bring over one of the others isn't impossible yet but if we want to we should do it soon.
I don't know what time people were expecting to actually 'launch' the banner campaign but I assume it was probably soon or in the past so I'm bringing over the translations now into the CN system and then will go home (I'm at the office) and have a drink to give some time for anyone to give last concerns :). You are also welcome to find other meta admins to launch the campaign since once all of the translations are imported I'll put the banner into the campaign and get it ready to start whenever anyone checks enable.
tldr: Speak now or forever hold your peace :)
James
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
Looks good. Lets go live.
J
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 7:43 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Hey all,
Roger ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rogerhc ) worked on a bunch of options for the wikivoyage launch banner and posted them on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikivoyage_2013/CentralNotice#Banner. There hasn't been a ton of feedback (no one but DocJames) and so I defaulted to making the one that Roger liked the most http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=WikivoyageMockUp5g . Bring over one of the others isn't impossible yet but if we want to we should do it soon.
I don't know what time people were expecting to actually 'launch' the banner campaign but I assume it was probably soon or in the past so I'm bringing over the translations now into the CN system and then will go home (I'm at the office) and have a drink to give some time for anyone to give last concerns :). You are also welcome to find other meta admins to launch the campaign since once all of the translations are imported I'll put the banner into the campaign and get it ready to start whenever anyone checks enable.
tldr: Speak now or forever hold your peace :)
James
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
Very important: It should link to wikivoyage.org, not en.wikivoyage.org.
Less important: serif font looks weird, but at least it stands out
Very important: I love the way the logo is used.
Powers &8^]
-----Original Message----- From: James Alexander [mailto:jalexander@wikimedia.org] Sent: Monday 14 January 2013 22:44 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
Hey all,
Roger ( http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rogerhc ) worked on a bunch of options for the wikivoyage launch banner and posted them on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikivoyage_2013/CentralNotice#Banner . There hasn't been a ton of feedback (no one but DocJames) and so I defaulted to making the one that Roger liked the most http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?banner=WikivoyageMockUp5g . Bring over one of the others isn't impossible yet but if we want to we should do it soon.
I don't know what time people were expecting to actually 'launch' the banner campaign but I assume it was probably soon or in the past so I'm bringing over the translations now into the CN system and then will go home (I'm at the office) and have a drink to give some time for anyone to give last concerns :). You are also welcome to find other meta admins to launch the campaign since once all of the translations are imported I'll put the banner into the campaign and get it ready to start whenever anyone checks enable.
tldr: Speak now or forever hold your peace :)
James
James Alexander
Manager, Merchandise
Wikimedia Foundation
(415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.comwrote:
Very important: It should link to wikivoyage.org, not en.wikivoyage.org.
good catch, that makes sense I had automatically started using some of the language domains since some of the translations did. However easier to all use the same url anyway :)
The banner is launched.
It is currently up in only the 17 languages that were translated, there are a couple more in the proof read stage and once those are set any meta admin can add them to the banner and add the language to the campaign. I'll try to keep an eye on the page as well.
So that everyone knows:
Currently it's showing to about 40% of logged in editors on English Wikipedia (sharing with the logged in shop banner and the steward banner). Elsewhere it's showing at 80/20 with the steward nomination banner (non admins will just see no banner for that 20% .. no real way to avoid that). It's possible that people will want to bump up the steward nom banner so that it's a bit more visible (perhaps 70/30 )
For logged out users you are currently 100% anon for all 17 languages. In a couple hours I'm going to put up the shop banner so you'll share 50/50 only in the US/Canada and Mexico (and only on English Wikipedia) for 24 hours and then back at 100%. I think that's the only anonymous banner going up in the next couple days so everything else should be 100%.
James
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:09 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.comwrote:
Very important: It should link to wikivoyage.org, not en.wikivoyage.org.
good catch, that makes sense I had automatically started using some of the language domains since some of the translations did. However easier to all use the same url anyway :)
Well, it is having a fairly dramatic effect so far..
Ian.
On 15 January 2013 15:56, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
The banner is launched.
It is currently up in only the 17 languages that were translated, there are a couple more in the proof read stage and once those are set any meta admin can add them to the banner and add the language to the campaign. I'll try to keep an eye on the page as well.
So that everyone knows:
Currently it's showing to about 40% of logged in editors on English Wikipedia (sharing with the logged in shop banner and the steward banner). Elsewhere it's showing at 80/20 with the steward nomination banner (non admins will just see no banner for that 20% .. no real way to avoid that). It's possible that people will want to bump up the steward nom banner so that it's a bit more visible (perhaps 70/30 )
For logged out users you are currently 100% anon for all 17 languages. In a couple hours I'm going to put up the shop banner so you'll share 50/50 only in the US/Canada and Mexico (and only on English Wikipedia) for 24 hours and then back at 100%. I think that's the only anonymous banner going up in the next couple days so everything else should be 100%.
James
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:09 PM, James Alexander <jalexander@wikimedia.org
wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.comwrote:
Very important: It should link to wikivoyage.org, not en.wikivoyage.org .
good catch, that makes sense I had automatically started using some of the language domains since some of the translations did. However easier to all use the same url anyway :)
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:56 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
The banner is launched.
Can we turn it off on Wikivoyage.org itself? Since the sites also have their own welcome banners it's a bit overkill.
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:56 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
The banner is launched.
Can we turn it off on Wikivoyage.org itself? Since the sites also have
their own welcome banners it's a bit overkill.
Sure, done.
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
Um, is sending people to the portal good? Let's think about this. Many people might not go any farther than one click into a banner (how far would you go?). Are we wasting their time if we only show the to the portal in that one click? What of interest is there on the portal? Not much at all. Zilch rather. Much better to show them to a Wikivoyage Main Page which has a much better change showing them something they are interested in.
So I think we want the URL to be '''//en.wikivoyage.org''' for _all translations_ except only the 8 non-English versions of Wikivoyage (de, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, sv) which could link to their respective version.
The biggest number of banner impressions will be on en.Wikipedia of course. Could someone who is an admin on Meta and knows how to do central notice translation edits take care of setting the URLs to //en.wikivoyage.org, especially for "en" please?
Feel free to discuss here first.. but please give this some thought. I think people want to see our Main Page in one banner click, not the portal. I need to turn in for the night. Will see you all in the morning!
Roger :-)
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:22 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:56 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
The banner is launched.
Can we turn it off on Wikivoyage.org itself? Since the sites also have
their own welcome banners it's a bit overkill.
Sure, done.
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
Agree with Roger actually, good point
Cacahuate
On Jan 14, 2013, at 10:22 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com wrote:
Um, is sending people to the portal good? Let's think about this. Many people might not go any farther than one click into a banner (how far would you go?). Are we wasting their time if we only show the to the portal in that one click? What of interest is there on the portal? Not much at all. Zilch rather. Much better to show them to a Wikivoyage Main Page which has a much better change showing them something they are interested in.
So I think we want the URL to be '''//en.wikivoyage.org''' for _all translations_ except only the 8 non-English versions of Wikivoyage (de, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, sv) which could link to their respective version.
The biggest number of banner impressions will be on en.Wikipedia of course. Could someone who is an admin on Meta and knows how to do central notice translation edits take care of setting the URLs to //en.wikivoyage.org, especially for "en" please?
Feel free to discuss here first.. but please give this some thought. I think people want to see our Main Page in one banner click, not the portal. I need to turn in for the night. Will see you all in the morning!
Roger :-)
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:22 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:56 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
The banner is launched.
Can we turn it off on Wikivoyage.org itself? Since the sites also have
their own welcome banners it's a bit overkill.
Sure, done.
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On Jan 14, 2013, at 10:22 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com javascript:;wrote:
So I think we want the URL to be '''//en.wikivoyage.org''' for _all translations_ except only the 8 non-English versions of Wikivoyage (de, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, sv) which could link to their respective version.
The biggest number of banner impressions will be on en.Wikipedia of course. Could someone who is an admin on Meta and knows how to do central notice translation edits take care of setting the URLs to //en.wikivoyage.org, especially for "en" please?
Done, but I left the default for the non-existent language versions to go to the portal instead of directly to en.wikivoyage - that probably needs more discussion. Expect the level of traffic received thus far to at least double as users will now directly going to enwikivoyage.
PLEASE change it back. I don't agree with Roger's concerns and think sending people to the portal is absolutely the right way to go. Even worse than sending English readers to the English Wikivoyage directly is sending NON-English readers to the English version directly.
It's extremely important that we show people how many language versions we have. Direct people to the PORTAL; do not assume what language version they want to read!!
Come on, people.
Powers &8^]
-----Original Message----- From: Thehelpfulone [mailto:thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 06:46 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
On Jan 14, 2013, at 10:22 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com javascript:; wrote:
So I think we want the URL to be '''//en.wikivoyage.org''' for _all translations_ except only the 8 non-English versions of Wikivoyage (de, es, fr, it, nl, pt, ru, sv) which could link to their respective version.
The biggest number of banner impressions will be on en.Wikipedia of course. Could someone who is an admin on Meta and knows how to do central notice translation edits take care of setting the URLs to //en.wikivoyage.org, especially for "en" please?
Done, but I left the default for the non-existent language versions to go to the portal instead of directly to en.wikivoyage - that probably needs more discussion. Expect the level of traffic received thus far to at least double as users will now directly going to enwikivoyage.
Hello,
I agree with that. The default landing page should be the Portal, not the English version.
Regards,
Yann
2013/1/15 Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com:
PLEASE change it back. I don’t agree with Roger’s concerns and think sending people to the portal is absolutely the right way to go. Even worse than sending English readers to the English Wikivoyage directly is sending NON-English readers to the English version directly.
It’s extremely important that we show people how many language versions we have. Direct people to the PORTAL; do not assume what language version they want to read!!
Come on, people.
Powers &8^]
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that anyone clicking from any English language project or any language that we don't have yet will most definitely be looking for English. Our other languages are linked to twice from the main page. The portal is unnecessary (and lame looking) and we should keep the link as is
Cacahuate
On Jan 15, 2013, at 5:53 AM, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
I agree with that. The default landing page should be the Portal, not the English version.
Regards,
Yann
2013/1/15 Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com:
PLEASE change it back. I don’t agree with Roger’s concerns and think sending people to the portal is absolutely the right way to go. Even worse than sending English readers to the English Wikivoyage directly is sending NON-English readers to the English version directly.
It’s extremely important that we show people how many language versions we have. Direct people to the PORTAL; do not assume what language version they want to read!!
Come on, people.
Powers &8^]
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On 15/01/13 11:01, Cacahuate wrote:
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that anyone clicking from any English language project or any language that we don't have yet will most definitely be looking for English. Our other languages are linked to twice from the main page. The portal is unnecessary (and lame looking) and we should keep the link as is
Cacahuate
I disagree. Anyone clicking from en: simple: meta: might be looking for English, but the choice of second language for languages that we don't have is going to vary.
No Haïtien Creole? Bon, on essaye en français. There may be some Latvians who understand Russian but not English. Galego Wikipedia users might want español or português as obvious alternates as gl: is linguistically and geographically wedged between the two (fala Portuñol?) much like Basque is between fr: and es:
Admittedly, I'm at a disadvantage here, never having learned a foreign language. One message that *should* be translated is a request that individual wikis replace their {{wikitravel}} template and any wikitravel: interwikis with the Wikivoyage sibling link, then delete the old template (en: and one or two others have already done this, but we're still left with hundreds of links from a long list of languages like Indonesian or Finnish which really need to be updated by someone who speaks these languages). I can't easily raise an issue on the Indonesian village dump / village pump if I only speak Canadian, for instance. There might be a page named "embassy" on the individual projects which handles this sort of co-ordination across languages?
There may be some Latvians who understand Russian but not English
That would be a pretty small group, and they'll definitely see one of the 2 links to Russian on the :en main page
Cacahuate
On Jan 15, 2013, at 8:19 AM, carlb carlb613@hotmail.com wrote:
On 15/01/13 11:01, Cacahuate wrote:
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that anyone clicking from any English language project or any language that we don't have yet will most definitely be looking for English. Our other languages are linked to twice from the main page. The portal is unnecessary (and lame looking) and we should keep the link as is
Cacahuate
I disagree. Anyone clicking from en: simple: meta: might be looking for English, but the choice of second language for languages that we don't have is going to vary.
No Haïtien Creole? Bon, on essaye en français. There may be some Latvians who understand Russian but not English. Galego Wikipedia users might want español or português as obvious alternates as gl: is linguistically and geographically wedged between the two (fala Portuñol?) much like Basque is between fr: and es:
Admittedly, I'm at a disadvantage here, never having learned a foreign language. One message that *should* be translated is a request that individual wikis replace their {{wikitravel}} template and any wikitravel: interwikis with the Wikivoyage sibling link, then delete the old template (en: and one or two others have already done this, but we're still left with hundreds of links from a long list of languages like Indonesian or Finnish which really need to be updated by someone who speaks these languages). I can't easily raise an issue on the Indonesian village dump / village pump if I only speak Canadian, for instance. There might be a page named "embassy" on the individual projects which handles this sort of co-ordination across languages?
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
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
It is my opinion that we should link from the language version in which WV exists to that language version as suggested by Roger. Keep it simple.
James
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
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:36:41 -0700, James Heilman wrote:
It is my opinion that we should link from the language version in which WV exists to that language version as suggested by Roger. Keep it simple.
James
Is there any reason why the Ukrainian or Azeri version should refer to English and not to Russian?
Cheers Yaroslav
I would tend to refrain from linking directly to enWikivoyage for languages that don't exist. For those I'd personally link to the portal to give people a chance to choose, we don't know what language they would prefer and we don't want to make it seem like the one they prefer doesn't exist (for example I know welsh editors who would prefer spanish rather then english since they hail from the nice welsh communities in Argentina ).
For languages that do exist I'm fine with linking to the language itself but will leave that decision to those of you who are much more involved in the projects then I am :) I'm just a lackey that does the will of the community ;) While any meta admin can change it, and I certainly won't stop them, I would personally prefer to wait until we have a bit of a better consensus given the relatively strong disagreement here on the list . I understand roger wanting to get it settled as quickly as possible but it'll be up for a while and I really don't want an edit war on something like this :). I'm sure we can figure it out fast
On a completely unrelated note is anyone collecting press links for the launch on wiki? We're getting a nice collection :).
James
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:36 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
It is my opinion that we should link from the language version in which WV exists to that language version as suggested by Roger. Keep it simple.
James Alexander Manager, Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
I'd especially like to see the English banner version linked back to en.wikivoyage.org. I am not too concerned about the others--I don't mind if the default for languages we _don't_ have a language version of Wikivoyage in remains www.wikivoyage.org as long as the English version is en.wikivoyage.org.
Reasons are in me earlier post.
Thanks James for all your assistance,
Roger
I think you're not giving readers enough credit. It is wrong for us to assume which language version a curious reader might want to see. And it certainly doesn't seem to have affected the number of people coming to make edits.
Without some sort of concrete data behind your claim that no one is going to click through the portal page, I can't agree with making it more difficult for readers to find the language version they're interested in.
Powers &8^]
-----Original Message----- From: roger@rogerchrisman.com [mailto:roger@rogerchrisman.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 13:58 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
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
Let's get specific, here's what I think would be best:
German wiki's --> Banner --> de.wikivoyage.org
English wiki's --> Banner --> en.wikivoyage.org
Spanish wiki's --> Banner --> es.wikivoyage.org
French wiki's --> Banner --> fr.wikivoyage.org
Italian wiki's --> Banner --> it.wikivoyage.org
Portuguese wiki's --> Banner --> pt.wikivoyage.org
Russian wiki's --> Banner --> ru.wikivoyage.org
Swedish wiki's --> Banner --> sv.wikivoyage.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
All other wiki's --> Banner --> www.wikivoyage.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
That is simple. Reasons why this is best are in my 10:57am post of earlier today.
Is any of the above problematic?
Congratulations everyone for many little, and no so little, jobs well done! And done again.
Roger :-)
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com wrote:
I think you're not giving readers enough credit. It is wrong for us to assume which language version a curious reader might want to see. And it certainly doesn't seem to have affected the number of people coming to make edits.
Without some sort of concrete data behind your claim that no one is going to click through the portal page, I can't agree with making it more difficult for readers to find the language version they're interested in.
Powers &8^]-----Original Message----- From: roger@rogerchrisman.com [mailto:roger@rogerchrisman.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 13:58 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
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
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:49 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com wrote:
All other wiki's --> Banner --> www.wikivoyage.org
That is simple. Reasons why this is best are in my 10:57am post of earlier today.
I don't think it's that simple.
I haven't run CentralNotice campaigns in a while, but the list time I did, it wasn't possible to have the English message be different from the default message because English was the default language. That may have since changed, but I don't think it did.
-- Casey Brown (Cbrown1023) caseybrown.org
LtP, you can't possibly think that the number of users clicking on the banner from wp:en and seeking a language other than wv:en could be anything but minuscule.
And for the tiny group that might be, the other languages are then just a 2nd click away, from two different points on the en main page. Making it just as accessible as linking to the portal would. Not a single click extra
Cacahuate
On Jan 15, 2013, at 2:12 PM, "Powers" LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com wrote:
I think you're not giving readers enough credit. It is wrong for us to assume which language version a curious reader might want to see. And it certainly doesn't seem to have affected the number of people coming to make edits.
Without some sort of concrete data behind your claim that no one is going to click through the portal page, I can't agree with making it more difficult for readers to find the language version they're interested in.
Powers &8^]-----Original Message----- From: roger@rogerchrisman.com [mailto:roger@rogerchrisman.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 13:58 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
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
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
I most certainly can.
en.wikipedia is so popular that lots of people use it even when it's not their native language. Editors from other Wikipedias go there to edit interwiki links, find articles to translate, copy template code, brush up on their English skills, etc.
I realize the other languages are linked from the Main Page, but not prominently. After all, Roger's whole point is that he thinks we should show people Real Content they'll Enjoy Looking At rather than stupid language links no one wants to see, right? So why would they go scrolling around for language links if there's all that beautiful Content looking at them on our Main Page?
The other point, beyond accommodating non-native English speakers, is showing /everyone/ that we have a full multilingual project already. Reporters, curious onlookers -- everyone.
Powers &8^]
-----Original Message----- From: Cacahuate [mailto:yocacahuate@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 22:18 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
LtP, you can't possibly think that the number of users clicking on the banner from wp:en and seeking a language other than wv:en could be anything but minuscule.
And for the tiny group that might be, the other languages are then just a 2nd click away, from two different points on the en main page. Making it just as accessible as linking to the portal would. Not a single click extra
Cacahuate
On Jan 15, 2013, at 2:12 PM, "Powers" LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com wrote:
I think you're not giving readers enough credit. It is wrong for us to assume which language version a curious reader might want to see. And
it
certainly doesn't seem to have affected the number of people coming to
make
edits.
Without some sort of concrete data behind your claim that no one is
going to
click through the portal page, I can't agree with making it more
difficult
for readers to find the language version they're interested in.
Powers &8^]-----Original Message----- From: roger@rogerchrisman.com [mailto:roger@rogerchrisman.com] Sent: Tuesday 15 January 2013 13:58 To: Wikivoyage Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikivoyage-l] Wikivoyage launch central notice
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
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
No central notice is showing on Wikipedia right now. Wikivoyage Launch is only showing on the other sister projects now, alternating with other notices and sometimes no notice.
On Meta Special:CentralNotices[1] it looks like Wikivoyage launch notice is still supposed to be showing on Wikipedia till 2013/01/17 23:59 (UTC I expect), yes?
Have we popped any rivets yet?
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CentralNotice&method...
Roger :-)
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com wrote:
No central notice is showing on Wikipedia right now. Wikivoyage Launch is only showing on the other sister projects now, alternating with other notices and sometimes no notice.
Works for me. I see the Wikivoyage notice, alternating with the steward and grants banner, but it's definitely showing on Wikipedia. If you are not seeing anything on Wikipedia, it's possible that you dismissed the banner or are not refreshing the page enough times to see the banner you want.
-- Casey Brown (Cbrown1023) caseybrown.org
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com wrote:
No central notice is showing on Wikipedia right now. Wikivoyage Launch is only showing on the other sister projects now, alternating with other notices and sometimes no notice.
Works for me. I see the Wikivoyage notice, alternating with the steward and grants banner, but it's definitely showing on Wikipedia. If you are not seeing anything on Wikipedia, it's possible that you dismissed the banner or are not refreshing the page enough times to see the banner you want.
It's also working for me.
___________________ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
Oops, my mistake. I have now cleared my browser's cookies and central notice is showing again on Wikipedia. I don't remember clicking the close box on the banner but somehow maybe I did. Thanks for responding.
Roger
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 1:31 PM, roger@rogerchrisman.com wrote:
No central notice is showing on Wikipedia right now. Wikivoyage Launch is only showing on the other sister projects now, alternating with other notices and sometimes no notice.
Works for me. I see the Wikivoyage notice, alternating with the steward and grants banner, but it's definitely showing on Wikipedia. If you are not seeing anything on Wikipedia, it's possible that you dismissed the banner or are not refreshing the page enough times to see the banner you want.
It's also working for me.
Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
415-839-6885, x 6643
philippe@wikimedia.org
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
The global site notice on languages like fr.wikipedia.org (and likely others like de: it: sv: where Wikivoyage has a local version) is pointing to en.wikivoyage.org instead of the same-language version of Wikivoyage. Can this be corrected?
Hmmm that shouldn't be the case, I'm looking into it now.
James
Sent from my iPhone
James Alexander Manager - Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation +1 415-839-6885 x6716
On Jan 20, 2013, at 10:16, carlb carlb613@hotmail.com wrote:
The global site notice on languages like fr.wikipedia.org (and likely others like de: it: sv: where Wikivoyage has a local version) is pointing to en.wikivoyage.org instead of the same-language version of Wikivoyage. Can this be corrected?
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
Thanks Carlb,
It looks like there was a bit of an accident with the French link and it defaulted back to English (because of the CentralNotice software that "translation" is unfortunately always the default. I checked every language up and the rest were still set correctly:
Right now (because of a bunch of complaints about going just to the portal) the languages that have wikivoyage a (like fr, de,it, en etc) go directly to their main page while other languages go to the portal so that the user can decide.
(For the exceptions people should know that the language and link you get us based on your preference setting so if you've manually changed your language to German for example on the enWikipedia the banner and link will be German)
James
Sent from my iPhone
James Alexander Manager - Merchandise Wikimedia Foundation +1 415-839-6885 x6716
On Jan 20, 2013, at 10:16, carlb carlb613@hotmail.com wrote:
The global site notice on languages like fr.wikipedia.org (and likely others like de: it: sv: where Wikivoyage has a local version) is pointing to en.wikivoyage.org instead of the same-language version of Wikivoyage. Can this be corrected?
Wikivoyage-l mailing list Wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikivoyage-l
On 15 January 2013 12:48, Powers LtPowers_Wiki@rochester.rr.com wrote:
PLEASE change it back. I don’t agree with Roger’s concerns and think sending people to the portal is absolutely the right way to go. Even worse than sending English readers to the English Wikivoyage directly is sending NON-English readers to the English version directly.
It’s extremely important that we show people how many language versions we have. Direct people to the PORTAL; do not assume what language version they want to read!!
Come on, people.
Hmm, I thought I'd only changed the language specific ones but it appears when I was changing the English one I accidentally changed the general one. As your concerns are so strong, I've reverted myself for now - so to be clear *all links should now go to **www.wikivoyage.org*http://www.wikivoyage.org * *and we can discuss this further later if there is a need for the language specific links.
wikivoyage-l@lists.wikimedia.org