Talk:MediaWiki/Homepage redesign/Preview/Archive 1

Please create new topics under the most appropriate section.

= Design =

Top box
I'm very impressed, great work, I'm going to base my feedback on the mockup rather than the code as implemented since it seems a little further along. from top to bottom:

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * the box on the text feels a little weird, we might want to just add a subtle drop shadow to the text or modify the actual image, to darken the top. The photo banner could actually be 50% taller i think, it feels very thin now. The "Community Collaboration" text should probably be in Title Case and the leading between it and the sub-title feels off.
 * (Jared, I took the liberty to integrate the rest of your feedback in own sections for better discussion)--Qgil (talk) 00:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Margins
All the content feels uncomfortably close to the left and right container edges, I think having a bit more whitespace on either side would help.--Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Bulleted list
Bulleted list item as mentioned, lets use the mediawiki.ui style buttons, looks like S Page (WMF) has you covered there.--Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What bulleted list are you referring to?--Qgil (talk) 00:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The gallery, I'd love to see these pictures bigger, maybe staggered left and right? they aren't really clear call to actions, are they access points to this type of information or asks that i create extend this type of information, its unclear at this point when i think of myself as a user new to this page,


 * The video in the bottom left doesn't have a clear call to action, what is this thing, why do I want to watch it?


 * News seems to need a header of some sort


 * We seem to have lost the "other companies/projects that rely on mediawiki, I think its important to have.

Again, great work, really looking forward to seeing this out in the wild.

Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I like that there's a great big "Get MediaWiki" button. It kinda reminds me of the big green "copy" button on copiers; there's no way to miss it. However, I think the main page should continue to say what the current version of MediaWiki is, and provide some of the same quick links we have now to certain useful content. If I were doing the redesign, I would keep the top half or two-thirds of the main page (including the Using MediaWiki, System Administration, and Developing & Extending parts) mostly the way it is now. I would condense the Welcome to MediaWiki.org section by getting rid of the newlines, and replace the icons with either better icons or more quick links, since the current icons aren't all that descriptive of the concepts they represent and thus are mostly wasted space as it is now. I would keep the Current Version section the way it is, except move it up to the top right and put a big "Get MediaWiki" or "Download MediaWiki" button there.

I would replace the News and New Opportunities sections with something more useful; I'm not sure what, though. Maybe randomly featured content; e.g. there could be a randomly featured extension section, if people wanted to put in the effort to write up some blurbs for various stable or beta extensions. Or randomly featured documentation pages. Or new extensions. Or new documentation pages. (That would be the equivalent of a "Did you know").

Maybe there's just not a whole lot that needs to be said on the main page, which is why the current main page has so much whitespace and so much content that will be of use to only a small number of people (e.g. notices of gatherings in Zurich), and why the preview calls for having a big photo of a crowd of people, great big icons, and lots of whitespace. It's basically filler and/or decoration. We're not exactly going for the Craigslist look of cramming as much text on the main page as possible. It's also not as though we have a large enough readership or editorship that there would be much interest in creating the kind of "Today's featured article" or "Did you know?" or "News" content that makes Wikipedia's main page a go-to place for introducing oneself to intriguing new topics and goings-on. It would be badass if we could maintain something like that, but we probably can't. Leucosticte (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

mediawiki.ui
I'm trying apply mediawiki.ui in span tag but the style isn't applied. Is there any configuration I have to do first? I'm trying like this. --monteirobrena (talk) 14:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * might be able to help.--Qgil (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The module that has the CSS,, isn't loaded by default (to confirm, in a browser console enter mw.loader.getState("mediawiki.ui.button") , it's "registered" but not actually "ready").   proposes to load it on all pages for exactly this reason. Vote early and often! :)  In the meantime, you could put code to load it in MediaWiki:common.js , see how en:MediaWiki:Common.js does it. -- S Page (WMF) (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * , thank you so much. I created the file common.js and mediawiki.ui was apply. --monteirobrena (talk) 22:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have edited MediaWiki:Common.js. Thank you S!--Qgil (talk) 23:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Icons
The icons using on preview is the initial proposal, feel free to suggest and do improvements. --monteirobrena (talk) 20:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I like both icon styles but i think we need to stick with one or the other, the top row speaks to me a bit more, so perahps we could use that style for all 6 icons. (black rounded outlines, brand colors used as accents)
 * gears don't really make me thing "Extend" this might be a place where we could use the puzzle piece iconography.
 * I think we need an icon for "reliable" from a quick search this is usually represented as a simplified bar graph or tachometer those seem boring, but I can't think of something better off the top of my head.
 * Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

So many people!
I hope it's not an indication of anti-social tendencies on my part that I'm somewhat bothered by all the people and photos on the front page. :) First, it's unexpected - I don't think I've seen other software homepages that featured photos of the developers quite so prominently. (Please correct me if there are other such pages.) But I think there might be a deeper issue, which is that it changes the focus: instead of "how can this software help you", it's "look at us, making this software in our tight-knit community". It might be intended to show humanity or inclusivity, but it seems oddly... alienating. Yaron Koren (talk) 00:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

= Content =

Something about existing usage?
Given that this has a marketing feel (which is good), I think there should be something about the current usage of MediaWiki here. MediaWiki is the world's most popular wiki software - I don't think many people would disagree with that. Besides Wikimedia sites, it's used on the world's most popular wiki farm (Wikia), and it's used by governments, corporations and organizations around the world. Could there be some text to reflect that? Testimonials would be nice too, of course, although that requires some separate effort. Yaron Koren (talk) 00:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

= Code =

Clickable images in gallery
I thought we could just use the beautiful design offered by the MediaWiki gallery in our row with four pictures. However, the problem of this is that the pictures themselves are cickable, which makes sense total sense for a gallery but not for a homepage. "link=" won't work here. Can this behavior be implemented in the current gallery in any way? Should we just replicate the HTML manually?--Qgil (talk) 19:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Unless you find a way to give attribution, you pretty much have to have them clickable. I think this is an acceptable difference between us and other homepage types... what do you think? heather walls (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Not a bad argument. Let's keep it as it is.--Qgil (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

News
The news added on preview was collected from tech blog more specifically from posts using MediaWiki category. We need find a way to feed this automatically. Any idea? --monteirobrena (talk) 21:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * We don't know yet what source we will use, and how we will update the news manually. In the meantime updates will be done manually.--Qgil (talk) 00:27, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Video
The video used was found in a search with words: video + feature. The idea is feed automatically such as links. Any help? --monteirobrena (talk) 21:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That video will need to be updated manually until we find a better way to solve this. Also, we might want to leave it as "Media" more than commiting to video. We might have a PDF, an image...--Qgil (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

= Other =
 * "Tested and maintained as long as Wikipedia exists." And hopefully even longer; I'm sure a challenger to the throne will emerge at some point. Wikipedia might also migrate to some other engine eventually; the tech world is a fast-paced place full of creative destruction. Leucosticte (talk) 23:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure, but while that day comes, featuring the Wikipedia name and "W" is a good proof of reliability and a marketing asset that MediaWiki can benefit from. If a challenger beats Wikipedia, editing that block will be the easiest thing.--Qgil (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2014 (UTC)