Talk: Main Page

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Revision as of 13:02, 24 September 2010 by Johns (talk | contribs) (Usability feedback and Groups: improvements)
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Main page grouped by continents?

Hi , Here Ananth ,

It is Great Moment , I Inspired by Richards Philosophy ,

we need freedom to do some thing ,


Thanks and regards,

Ananth , Kiran Kumar

919985430278

Content and Purpose

The current event and community project pages are intended for, well events and projects. Apparently there is a conflict between the high traffic main page and suitable placement on other pages, potentially causing an edit war.

Clearly, we need to arrive at an agreement and avoid giving the wrong message to other groups (all parties involved are FSF, I believe). Since the issue is about content, this is a good place to discuss it.

To avoid escalating the situation, I have not removed the event link, but believe the one on the current events page is sufficient. There is no apparent culture here, so we should be careful what foundation we provide. Personally, I am trying to expand the wiki and realize it will take time before other users start exploring it again. However, the LibrePlanet event can assist in this process.

The Libre Planet project is specifically for webmasters to lay down the law and everyone else to comment on it. The Libre Planet group is intended specifically for the FSF to provide resource materials for Libre Planet, group networking, and upcomming FSF events.

The ugly banner I added intentionally focuses on the other pages, to create public awareness because they now have important content.

All I have done has been with the best intentions and ability. If I have offended anyone by my actions, I apologize. Blacky 07:17, 10 February 2009 (EST)

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)