Talk: Main Page

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(Added links on mainpage to help address Ciaran's feedback. removed as old/resolved)
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. [[User:Ciaran|Ciaran]] 01:10, 22 January 2013 (EST) (UPDATED)
 
. [[User:Ciaran|Ciaran]] 01:10, 22 January 2013 (EST) (UPDATED)
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== More navigation problems - bells and whistles could be culprit ==
 
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I'm back complaining again... :-)
 
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I was looking at this page:
 
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* [[Group:Free_Software_Foundation/Tasks/ModifyNoScript]]
 
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and I wanted to look at the pages for the other High Priority Projects.  So I trim the URL and try:
 
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* [[Group:Free_Software_Foundation/Tasks/]]
 
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* [[Group:Free_Software_Foundation/Tasks]]
 
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but find nothing.  So I do a [http://libreplanet.org/wiki?title=Special%3ASearch&search=priority&go=OK search for "''priority''"] and pick the two most likely:
 
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* [[LibrePlanet:About/Priority_Projects]]
 
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* [[Group:Priority Projects]]
 
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but neither give me any way to find the pages for the other High Priority Projects.
 
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On the home page, nothing springs out at me but I look in "''Software Groups''".  I skim the text and find "[[Special:SearchByProperty/Organized-20around/software|software groups category]]".
 
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When I looked at that page, I realised: this wiki is made by a programmer, not a wiki user.
 
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So here's my annual comment (for 2012) about usability: I can't say I'm a guru (my authority is ruined by the lack of a contributor community on ''en.swpat.org''), but I think that libreplanet.org should have a higher ratio of regular contributors to short-term contributors.  The abundance of the latter indicates that lots of people are hearing about libreplanet.org and are interested in the idea and they're willing to make a page about something, but the fact that they don't come back and maintain that page or contribute to other pages means there's something wrong with the site.  Maybe it's that the site uses too many extensions and departs too much from what people expect a wiki -and particularly a MediaWiki wiki- to be.
 
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Wikis are pages of editable text where bits of that text can link to other pages and they should, IMO, generally resemble what people are familiar with: Wikipedia.  From years of editing wikis, I've seen that contributors tolerate inefficiency, and I suspect that they don't tolerate complexity or surprises. ...but until I've built a wiki with a thriving community, these comments are just one person's thoughts.
 
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Happy New Year! [[User:Ciaran|Ciaran]] 15:16, 31 December 2012 (EST)
 

Revision as of 13:45, 10 September 2019

Note: if you edit this page, please sign your edit with 4 tildes: ~~~~ Iank (talk) 15:20, 25 June 2018 (EDT)


Salutations in other languages (than English)

What is the general policy on how a user is greeted? It seems to be inconsistent at present, e.g. Dutch=informal, French=formal (main page).


Usability feedback and Groups

When I saw a comment on Talk:GNU Generation, I went looking for the PlayOgg page. What I tried:

  1. manually type in http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/PlayOgg - blank page
  2. go to Main Page and use browser's find function for "playogg" - not there
  3. clicked the "… further results" link at the bottom of the "My Group" box on the front page, then clicked the "500" so that I see all entries; use browser's find function for "playogg" - not there
  4. Put "playogg" into the search box in the left-hand side of page - no hits
  5. Scrolled down a little on the search results page and saw a "Groups" box, ticked it, and clicked "Search" - still no hits
  6. Repeated the previous step but this time I scrolled down further and saw there's a second, separate button for "Advanced search", clicked that - Bingo! Group:PlayOgg

But had I not seen the comment on Talk:GNU Generation, and if I wasn't a regular wiki user, I wouldn't have found it. The failure of the second last step is a MediaWiki usability problem, probably not simple to fix. Some ideas for reducing the other problems:

  • PlayOgg should be made a #REDIRECT to Group:PlayOgg, and equivalent for all other groups
  • The MediaWiki search facility should include "Group" in its searches by default, instead of just "(Main)"
  • Maybe the Main Page should somehow offer quick/direct access to the things/groups people are most likely to come looking for
  • Maybe pages like Group:PlayOgg should be in Category:Group so that they appear when people click the "… further results" link at the bottom of the "My Group" box on the front page

Other ideas on improving intuitivity? Ciaran 01:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all those suggestions. I'd noticed the searching problem as well. I think maybe we can change that in our defaults. For right now, I'll ask about fixing the search, and I'll work on putting the groups into the group category. I'm hoping that Semantic MediaWiki will also help with this, because we will give pages properties that indicate that they are groups. --Johns 16:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The search issue is finally fixed. It will now look in the Group namespace by default, so that should go a long way toward helping people find things. We are also working on adding the [[is entity::group]] property to all the groups. I've added a link to what will be a full Group list to the front page as well. Johns 17:02, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


Where do I list my new page?

I've made this page:

It isn't a group and doesn't need a group to form around it, and it isn't an essay either. It's just part of the wiki - an article, which I'll improve from time to time and I hope other transients will too. Does this wiki have a section for normal wiki pages :-) ? Ciaran 20:23, 9 June 2012 (EDT)

And this page:
Should I make a box on the Main Page for these pages?
Maybe the wiki needs a sitemap? The structure of this wiki seems to be missing something. It doesn't have the organic growth model, or the interconnectedness of other wikis. Is it possible that an over emphasis on Groups is harming the structure? Maybe a mixed Groups+normal_pages model would be better? Ciaran 17:26, 26 August 2012 (EDT)
And this:
. Ciaran 13:55, 4 November 2012 (EST)

Pages I made - happy home sought

I've still no idea where to link to these pages:

. Ciaran 01:10, 22 January 2013 (EST) (UPDATED)

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