On 12/16/2013 10:59 AM, Chad wrote:
I'm not sure either. I'd rather just see bold
edits to the homepage
that make it look nicer.
This is a content thing, not a software design thing imho.
If interested users can't edit the homepage on
mw.org, we can
fix that easily too.
"make it look nicer", heh. :) The
mediawiki.org homepage needs more
than that.
When you want to improve something complex, it is good to know what you
want to improve, why, and how. Brena is working on the answers to these
basic questions in order to propose a plan. Bold edits might lead you to
a good solution by chance, but the chances of failing, delaying, and
wasting energy unnecessarily are high.
From a technical point of view, bold edits are not that
simple in a
homepage that is pulling 35 templates, 21 of them exclusive to
Main_page. Any significant change probably involves editing/creating
wikitext, graphics, HTML, and CSS sitting in different places. I'm not a
designer, but as a content editor I would also welcome a plan agreed
before jumping there.
From a social point of view, bold edits to the homepage
of a popular
community site are only productive when you know where you are
heading,
the community is aware as well, and there is consensus. The chances of
someone asking 'Why are you doing this?' before reverting are just too
high, unless you limit yourself to polish non-challenging details.
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil