Talk:MediaWiki/LQT Archive 1

Main Page redesign
I have come up with a suggestion for a new main page design. It is at User:HappyDog/Hub-based Main Page. Please let me know what you think. --HappyDog 01:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * (From a random MW user) I like it. The splitting of links into users, system admins and developers it good. There's never been a "tasks" box stating what tasks people can do to help the structure and content of MediaWiki.org I don't know if there's a reason for that. That would of course be a bit more work :) --Rick 23:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * See User talk:HappyDog/Hub-based Main Page for some old discussion about the page redesign. However, any new comments should be placed on this page now that it is live. --HappyDog 12:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I like the pictures of computer screens and a chalk board. These instantly hit the casual newcomers with the idea that this is not Wikipedia but something somehow different, probably about computers stuff, which it is. This is good clear front door imagery for the site. This will work well. Thanks HappyDog! --Rogerhc 05:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Please change a link on the front page
Please have the word "Upgrading" in "Installing/upgrading" link to Manual:Upgrading. The current link doesn't take readers to anywhere particular useful. --Kingboyk 15:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Good idea - 'tis done! --HappyDog 16:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --Kingboyk 18:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Template mania
The templates are kind of... intimidating to edit. Perhaps we should provide a better example on our own site? :) --Brion VIBBER 05:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Template:Main page should rarely need editing as it is purely page structure and holds no actual content. It will only need editing if we decide to change the layout of the main page.  All the page content is made easy to edit at Project:Main page templates, as is mentioned in the comment on this page.  If you can think of a better way to direct editors to that page then I'm sure that would help, although as only sysops can edit the page anyway, I'm not sure it's as big a problem as you think. --HappyDog 15:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have removed a bunch of CSS styling out of Template:Main page and into MediaWiki:Common.css, so that template is now a bit easier to read. There are further improvements that could be made, I am sure, but I'm out of time for today. --HappyDog 19:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding « Browse » to Main page
Hey guys,

As a constant advocate of user experience improvement, one of the first things I do whenever I implement a local version of MediaWiki is adding a link to the root category of the wiki to the MediaWiki:Sidebar. I must admit I'm very surprised this has never been integrated in the default settings so I guess I just had to speak up a little!

Good wiki content management for me implies that there should only be one uncategorized category in any given wiki, the root category. I would love to see a new " Browse content " added to the sidebar that could in turn be translated directly in the localized language files.

I then categorize the main page to the root category for users expecting to find the category at the bottom of the article " as usual ". The main page should in most cases be the only one listed directly in the root category, so it also makes it very easy to notice if another user has categorized a given page as root simply because they didn't know where to put it. Obviously, it also makes maintainting a structured category tree a lot easier.

So this is my suggestion for the MediaWiki website but since I truly believe this is good practice that should make it's way all over the wiki world, please feel free to pass this suggestion along to the proper channels.

Ciao. Stéphane Thibault 21:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Download Links
The "latest version" box seems pretty useless without working download links. The link to sourceforge is quite frustrating, since the SF project is not really maintained any more, and the latest version may not even be there. I couldn't find out how to download 1.6.10 from that page for example.

I propose to replace that box with Template:MW_quick_download, or use very similar content. That would be a lot more useful.

I would have simply fixed it, but the multilanguage-main-page super-template-system is too much for me. I'm sure it's very noice and generic and all, but to me it just seems write-only. Probably like the code I write seems to other people. -- Duesentrieb ⇌ 11:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hm, good point. I would suggest to just replace the current SF link with one to our central download page, and remove that link from the heading ("current versions") instead. It's always better, that users go to Download fist (which is deliberately a short and very compressed page) before downloading just any version they find on SF, or not? -- :Bdk: 14:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that direct links to the download page would be useful. I regularly download new version of MediaWiki and find it frustrating to have to navigate the complex download system SourceForge uses. Lcarsdata 14:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)