MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive36

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Consolidate front page?

Man, that front banner is huge! Can it be smaller? And when we make it smaller, can we stack up the top-most two boxes next to it like so? --ItsWalky 15:58, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

The cropped image shown, of course, is just a placeholder. --ItsWalky 16:00, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
That looks about as clunky as Wikia's frontpage, IMO.--RosicrucianTalk 16:05, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
Well, it's not fine-tuned or anything. Thing is, either that banner's going to be cut down or removed entirely. It's huge, it's bandwidth-wasting, and it pushes all our real content down off the page. What's your choice? --ItsWalky 16:07, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
I'm probably knee-jerking based on the placement of the boxes. I guess it could be made to work if it's finessed a bit. It's not like we're running a ginormous ad there like Wikia was suggesting.--RosicrucianTalk 16:31, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
I dunno, personally I like this new idea. It reminds me of how our franchise navs look: Logo on the left, linkage on the right. Plus, yeah, unlike Wikia, our content on the right of the logo will actually be... content.
As for logo ideas, why don't we make a few different options where it's the TFWiki.net logo over a pic of a single character? We could have one for Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Jazz, etc. using the <OPTION> thingy. --Jeysie 16:37, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
As long as the site-name logo thing itself is HUGE. I really want to make sure the URL is shoved in your face. Branding continues to be important as we war against Wikia for Google prominence. --ItsWalky 16:40, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
If branding's important, why not change the actual on-every-page logo to use the actual TFWiki.net logo? And put TFWiki.net in the page <title>? - SanityOrMadness 11:01, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
Alternately, each one could be a group shot from a different franchise, with the font altered to match. Play up how many different continuities there are, eh?--RosicrucianTalk 17:00, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
This image to the right is what I'm now thinking. And it should probably have movie characters predominantly, at least for the next few months. --ItsWalky 17:04, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
I'm inclined to agree with sticking with the movie characters now, considering it's almost two weeks till the US premiere/release. --Lonegamer78 17:19, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

That's pretty darn good. Brings a lot more info above the fold, and the layout's pretty clean. The white background is good too, so any other images in the rotation should follow that example.--RosicrucianTalk 17:21, 9 June 2009 (EDT)

How do we make it done? The table markup on the frontpage is foreign to me. I'll upload the new image itself... --ItsWalky 17:32, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
Since Derik doesn't seem to be about yet, I'll have a go with it. Hmm. --Jeysie 17:42, 9 June 2009 (EDT)--Jeysie 17:42, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
Actually, we're really going to have to do something like your first example above, with the Continuity/Category tables underneath each other instead of side-by-side, because trying to fit the logo and the two tables all side-by-side looks hideously awful on a 1024px-wide screen. I tried just simply having the smaller logo, the text notices under it, and the two tables on the right, but it looked kind of... eh. --Jeysie 18:04, 9 June 2009 (EDT)
Mrr. OK, I made an attempt at tweaking, although I think it's going to need some external CSS tweaks at least, if only to center the Continuities table. --Jeysie 03:44, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
Looks okay, but the jarring thing about it is that the red and blue boxes aren't the same width, though they share a column.--RosicrucianTalk 16:19, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
That's something Derik needs to tweak in the Featured box template and/or external CSS... I can't do it just by editing the page itself.
Also, yea or nay on the link buttons? It just seemed a little more "Click me!" than the paragraph o' links. --Jeysie 16:49, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
I dig 'em. Good design decision, IMO. --RosicrucianTalk 16:52, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
Quite aside from anything else... what's the point in liking to tfwiki.info with an image link. It just about made sense as a text link, but is only going to confuse people who click on the Autobot symbol and end up back where they started. We need to cut down on main page-to-main page links, not obfuscate where they link to. - SanityOrMadness 17:30, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
Visual consistency. (And the mouseover text indicated it was an "alternate URL".) But, I tried tweaking it again. --Jeysie 17:52, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
It's fixed! Huzzah!--RosicrucianTalk 20:46, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
I realized I was just approaching it the wrong way. Eheh. --Jeysie 21:15, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
I'm a little ambivalent towards the "new" logo, just because I think it's a little bland, although I'm sure it's a work in progress. I am all for putting "TFWIKI.net" in the header and all over the fucking place as a branding effort, though. On a slightly related note, I'd consider flipping the "current series" in said box, so ROTF is closer to the center of the page and Animated is on the outside - if we're really trying to bring in ROTF traffic, having that logo front and center is probably a pretty smart idea. I also like the idea of a rotating logo box - maybe we even jigger it so that it links directly to the article for whoever's in it - like the Go! Boxes, but focused entirely on core characters (More Fallen, Movie Optimus, etc., less Irwin Spoon and Dinobots Strike Back). Stick with primary Movie-verse guys for now, and then in a month or so when the hype dies down, we can start to shuffle in some sufficiently advanced and significant articles (making sure that the characters are both important to the fiction and that their articles are nearly, if not entirely complete). Hooper_X 11:17, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
That sounds like a good idea. I'm down with that. --FFN 17:00, 10 June 2009 (EDT)


I has new idea for what module ought to be above the fold, and more ROTF promotiony stuff. --Jeysie 21:15, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

Sure, I'd go for it. --ItsWalky 21:26, 10 June 2009 (EDT)


Considering how crowded and text-heavy the front page is, I think the best way to draw attention to the banner is to surround it in as much empty space as possible, something like this, especially as the new banner's white background assimilates the page's whitespace so easily. - Magnus Maximus 03:10, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

I'm not sure how that's really different than it is now, other than putting the site notice at the top... which I kind of hate doing, because that pushes all of the content stuff down. The site notice is temporary anyway.
I was thinking we ought to make the movie stuff more prominent, rather than the continuity/category modules. I was also thinking of placing the banner, site notice, and external website links in one cell instead of two like it is now, which further creates whitespace... I just didn't think of that until after I made the layout change proposal pic.
I do agree/think maybe we could stand to lose a few modules, though... maybe ditch the Categories module entirely, and consolidate the Holy Grails and Editing Tips somehow. --Jeysie 03:32, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
Oh yeah, you're running a 1024 desktop, aren't you? I changed my res to 1024, and you're right, it really doesn't look much different. But this is how it looks in 1280, and even that little bit of extra space makes a huge difference compared with how it is now (in my opinion).
I agree about the notice, but I couldn't think where else to put it. Putting it under the banner (thus between the blue and grey boxes) made it seem wedged-in and out of place. Lesser of two evils, you dig?
I also agree about making the movie stuff more prominent, but the red and blue boxes are narrower, so they take up less of the horizontal space. I did think that maybe we could change the featured series box so that ROTF is on top of Animated instead of beside it, and shift that up next to the banner somewhat like it is on my temp page now. That also adapts to 1024 better, I think.
And yeah, losing some of the boxes would not be the worst thing in the world. - Magnus Maximus 03:52, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
Ehh... my problem with that idea is that, one of the reasons we redesigned the Main Page to begin with is because our greeting was so big that it was pushing useful content down below the fold. This sort of recreates that exact same problem.
But, I tried tweaking my Main Page design here: User:Jeysie/Main Page to give more whitespace. I figure that once the movie's been out for a while and we don't need to pimp it as much, we can replace the Featured Characters box with the Continuities box. --Jeysie 11:50, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
I was looking at the front page right now and thinking about some things - I'm glad to see most of them are in line with what's already considered. :)
That said, I suggest taking TFA out of the featured series box, even if only temporarily, and using the logo from the franchise page. I feel it's more recognisable as the ROTF logo than the more colourful one we have there, plus we can make it a bit bigger.
I also wonder if we should have "Transformers Wiki" written on there somewhere other than the site logo in the sidebar. --abates 07:11, 11 June 2009 (EDT)


"TFWIKI.net - THE Transformers Wiki"? Hooper_X 07:49, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
I made up a PSD template of just such a logo this morning. It's layered, so the transparent overlay of the Autobot leaders is optional.--RosicrucianTalk 12:18, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
I definitely prefer the font of the current TFWIKI.NET logo to that one.
Whatever we ultimately do though, surely we should use the same logo EVERYWHERE, including for the top-left logo, ja? (There's also the recurring thought that we have a G1 Autobot sigil for the top-left logo, but a G2 Autobot sigil for the favicon. I understand that the G2 favicon is unique, which was the main reason we went for it, but if we're thinking about branding...) - SanityOrMadness 12:37, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

If we want to be movie-centric AND use the TFWiki.net logo extensively for branding reasons, shouldn't we change the Animated-based logo to something more like this? (NB: Quick mock to make a point, not intended to be actually used, and may clash with the Teletraan on the Monacobook skin). - SanityOrMadness 17:30, 10 June 2009 (EDT)

I think we do need to keep some visual distinctiveness. If we go too far into the grey look of the movie we end up with understandable confusion concerning its resemblance to this.--RosicrucianTalk 17:59, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
Yeah. I'm really really fine with keeping our current page design/color scheme. The Wikia site is really gray, and I'd rather not veer to close to that. --ItsWalky 20:48, 10 June 2009 (EDT)
[Joke Suggestion] How about we make ours on fire? --FFN 04:27, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
It wouldn't actually be that hard to do... -Derik 12:08, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

Should we perhaps rebalance the featured-series box to be more like this? (Yes, I know there's a too-high gap between the two lines to the right of the TFA logo. It didn't preview like that, and I can't see why it's doing that.) - SanityOrMadness 14:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

That's pretty darn sweet-looking, IMHO. I tried swapping around my take on the Main Page to include a slightly modified version of it. --Jeysie 15:16, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
The way it is on the mainpage right now looks really great. Good density of info above-the-fold.--RosicrucianTalk 15:19, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
Or rather on Jeysie's test page, I see now.--RosicrucianTalk 15:21, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
Thing about including Main Page/featured-characters in it like that (which I just edited to increase the header-size to be visually bigger than the character names, and debold the character names themselves) is that if you separate that from above AND below with a line, you visually make it into a franchise by itself. TFA needs a stronger separator from ROTF than the ROTF stuff does within itself. - SanityOrMadness 15:39, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

How about this? - SanityOrMadness 15:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

Works for me. I added it to my test Main Page with a few minor formatting tweaks. --Jeysie 16:38, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
That looks excellent to me! --abates 07:23, 13 June 2009 (EDT)
Are we doing to do this then? - SanityOrMadness 11:06, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Was wondering that myself. Any more tweaks or suggestions to add, or should we go with my mockup? --Jeysie 13:02, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
The mockup looks pretty solid to me.--RosicrucianTalk 14:11, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
I say go for it! --abates 16:46, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Looking again at the featured-characters bit... is Sideswipe really the best choice for that fourth spot on row 1? I already changed Soundwave to Devastator, because the latter has been a LOT more prominent in promos for the movie, but I'm not sure who would be best for a fourth Autobot. Jetfire? Skids & Mudflap? (I'm not even sure if Ironhide is best for the third slot). - SanityOrMadness 18:54, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
I was trying to think of a balance between which characters were most prominent and which people were likely to be excited about... we could go for Optimus, Bumblebee, Jetfire, and Skids & Mudflap together in the last spot. --Jeysie 19:03, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Made that change for now, then. I think "prominence" should probably be the main factor, if we want to grab users. - SanityOrMadness 19:14, 14 June 2009 (EDT)


Featured article

Now that the featured series box has been sorted... nothing against Kup, but do we have a movie/ROTF article that could possibly take the featured spot at some point between now and the 19th? - SanityOrMadness 17:57, 14 June 2009 (EDT)

The Fallen is at Featured Article status. --Jeysie 18:07, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
And has been the Featured Article for awhile at A Certain Other Place. I'd rather not mirror them in that respect, personally.--RosicrucianTalk 18:22, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
In that case... I've got no idea. None of the rest are at FA status, and I can't think of which one would be most relevant to pick on for cleanup. --Jeysie 18:31, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Surely the three most obvious non-Fallen articles "to pick on for cleanup" are Optimus Prime (Movie), Bumblebee (Movie) and Sam Witwicky, ja? - SanityOrMadness 18:51, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Simmons might be mroe fun.  ;)
And Megatron more enlightening, if someone wants to take a whack at his DS-game backstory. -Derik 19:17, 14 June 2009 (EDT)
Looks like Primal Prime is the featured article at that other place, not The Fallen. In fact, it looks like their Fallen article has a cleanup tag, not a featured tag... - SanityOrMadness 17:07, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
Yeah, someone replaced it a couple of days ago after noticing that their "The Fallen" article wasn't up to scratch. --abates 17:40, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
Any objection to us featuring our superior The Fallen article after all, then? --Jeysie 18:08, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
Yeah, on the 24th, the Fallen's page is going up. ESPECIALLY if it's also up at Wikia. Our Fallen page has to supercede theirs, and burying it on the most important week of its life isn't gonna work in our favor. --ItsWalky 18:19, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

Hell, if we want to upstage 'em over at Wikia, just put Sideswipe as one of the featured characters. I was over there just to see how far the site had gone downhill and it surprised me. They don't even have a page for Sideswipe, it just redirects you to G1 Sideswipe. How sad is that?--AWT88 00:13, 17 June 2009 (EDT)

How hard did you look? I wont link it for obvious reasons, but there IS a page for him. - Cattleprod 00:22, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
I think he got messed up by the fact that the Main Page links to "Sideswipe" without the parenthetical, which does indeed redirect to G1 Sideswipe.
Having said that, their proper ROTF Sideswipe page is still miserable compared to ours, as is the fact that they got the Main Page linking wrong.
Not only that... I also noticed that one of their registered users, while editing their Main Page, managed to change their Twitter link to our Twitter in the process. --Jeysie 00:44, 17 June 2009 (EDT)
Yeah I didn't look very hard (alcohol is a helluva thing), the link was what I went for. Obviously someone over there screwed up. You got a problem with it Cattleprod, kiss my shiny, metal ass.--AWT88 01:29, 17 June 2009 (EDT)

Text Purging

Next possible round of changes: I've tweaked my setup to remove the Categories module (is it really that useful?) and try to reduce/consolidate the Editing Tips/Holy Grails section.

I also think we should do a purge of the Series box and stick to just the "major" series/franchises: Generation 1, Generation 2, Beast Wars, Robots in Disguise, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, Animated, the two movies, and Universe. (Possibly also Classics and/or Beast Machines). We have the comprehensive list linked to for anyone who really wants to look at everything. --Jeysie 19:52, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

The categories box is useful for two reasons: (1) In and of itself, it's useful. I certainly use it. (2) Without it, your mockup has an empty white space in the right column almost the exact size and shape of the categories box... - SanityOrMadness 20:49, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
I further note that, per Derik's statdump, it gets used. - SanityOrMadness 20:53, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
Well, if you can suggest other ways to clean up our Main Page, I'm all for it. As it is, I agree with Walky that it's getting to be too much of a sea of text, and that struck me as being one of the least useful of the modules. I guess we could consolidate it somehow with the Continuities module as a sort of "Quick Links" box...
We possibly could also get rid of the Editing Tips and Holy Grail modules, but I kind of hate doing that, as it's nice to try to encourage new editors to look at that sort of information. --Jeysie 21:02, 15 June 2009 (EDT)
Thing is, if I click on the first link in the Categories box because I want to find a particular character, I get a big confusing list of subcategories and... Mickey Mouse. If I'm a casual user looking for,say, Soundwave, that doesn't help me much, because then I have to hunt through the subcategories for something that looks like it might lead me there. Yes, it's possible that I might notice the search box and use that instead, but that kinda takes away from the point of having that there in the first place.
Though technically I guess I'm complaining about the organisation of the Characters category rather than the box itself. :) --abates 21:20, 15 June 2009 (EDT)

Jokes?

It is sometimes very hard to find relevant information on this wiki among all the juvenile humor. It's a little off-putting for a casual user like myself. I know this wiki is about robots who turn into cars, but, c'mon... Maybe tone it down a bit?71.107.102.102 16:56, 11 June 2009 (EDT)

No. Hooper_X 17:00, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
If you can point out specific instances where the humor is getting in the way of the information, we'll take those under consideration for adjusting, but on the whole we here tend to appreciate the humor. (Including this editor back when she was a newbie/casual reader.) --Jeysie 17:04, 11 June 2009 (EDT)
As does the overwhelming majority of the readership, it seems. We've gotten praise from all circles for the "do not take it too seriously" approach, even from industry professionals. --M Sipher 15:22, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

Tech Upgrades

Since we're cracking 1.5 million hits per day, I'm running an alternate webserver for testing over on port 8080. It's *not* cached, so I expect it to be a smidge slower, but I'm also aggressively tweaking it for better content compression and lower memory usage. It probably doesn't matter *now,* but I suspect that as we close in on the movie, and then as the movie is released and the edits go up, we're going to need to squeeze out every last ounce of performance available to us. That said, can you guys try to break it via logging in/out, editing articles, etc.? It's all on the same database, so any changes made there WILL show up here (and vice versa,) but my major concern is that we don't have those damned login session problems and their ilk going forward. Thanks! --McFly 11:05, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

So... an "editing copy" on one server, and a cached copy on another? Because 99% of TFWiki readers aren't editors? -Derik 11:53, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
Let's not overcomplicate it. Test on the new link, the software driving that will replace the existing (more resource intensive) software if it's any good. At this point, I want to find out if there are any bugs, and that's that. --McFly 16:38, 12 June 2009 (EDT)
I got a 405 error when I tried to upload an image on there, but otherwise it seems to be working great. --abates 20:41, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

"Wikia wiki" boilerplate

Between FortMax, Skyjammer and myself, I believe all instances of "Teletraan-I a wikia wiki" etc have been removed from our webpages. Huzzah! Hopefully that will help our Google stats and suchlike, unless I am mis-remembering how those things work... --Monzo 18:31, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

  • thumbsup!* --FFN 07:28, 13 June 2009 (EDT)

Special:Imagelist

Is there any way to strip out the deleted images from Special:Imagelist? It's kinda useless as things stand. - SanityOrMadness 20:11, 12 June 2009 (EDT)

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