[Wikipedia-l] RE: Plea for help

[Mark Christensen]

In addition to the addition of more explanatory text, and -- most
importantly -- making that information far more prominent. I'd really like
to see a light background, of whatever color,  added to each of the
different subspaces.  

This will make it possible to see at a glance which subspace you are in.  I
am very confident that this UI improvement will be of tremendous value in
making the namespaces issue clear to new users, without the requiring them
to read a complex explanation of the concept of namespaces to them in a FAQ.

Yours
Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 1:17 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Plea for help
> 
> 
> Julie Hofmann Kemp wrote:
> >(partially
> > because I seem to have offended some delicate programmer 
> sensibilities
> > by saying that they were acting exactly like programmers -- 
> good at what
> > they do, but less interested in making it clear to the user through
> > documentation).  
> 
> Oh, I'm not offended by that -- it's accurate.  :-)
> 
> > Whether or not people want to hear it, the new site is not all that
> > user-friendly as far as explaining subpages and namespaces 
> goes (or how
> > to report bugs, for that matter -- why isn't there a bug 
> report link?).
> > People are still trying to create /Talk pages and /whatever 
> subpages.
> > All we need is a carefully placed announcement or two -- I suggest
> > adding a special page (changes to the system) and links on the home
> > page, on how to edit a page, and on recent changes.  I know 
> that Lars
> > added some stuff on namespaces under the article, but what 
> is needed is
> > a primer -- something that says...where one did  x in the 
> old version,
> > please do y in the new.    I'd do this myself, but am pretty sure I
> > can't create a special page (guessing it's an admin thing) 
> and I'm still
> > not clear on it.  It appears that, instead of subpages, we should be
> > creating link pages (maybe) and that each page is generated with an
> > associated talk page.  
> 
> I think this is a great idea.  In fact, I think that we 
> should link to a
> "changes to the system" page directly from the edit page.  
> "Need help with
> the new system?  Click here for a few short tips."
> 
> --Jimbo
> [Wikipedia-l]
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