1) White space. The image above shows the view of the Main Page from my computer. Can't we get rid of some of the wasted white space?
2) Description of the wiki. "The free library where anyone can contribute and review literary works" <-- The description of this wiki should emphasize the idea of collaborative fiction writing. I don't understand why we should describe this as a "library". The term "library" totally fails to capture the nature of a wiki website.
3)"Feature Fiction" <-- this is not correct English. It should be "Featured Fiction".
3) Additional main page content. Participants at this wiki should be able to add additional content to the main page. The recent deletion of main page content with the edit summary "if you're going to make changes, at least keep the final product seemly" is not "seemly. Yunzhong Hou, you do not own this website. I suggest you return the deleted content to the bottom of the page and apologize for your rude behavior. If you think the "final product" of someone's edits are not "seemly" then why not help improve the page content rather than delete it?
--JWSchmidt 01:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
JWSchmidt is right, all that additional content is needed, my call to recruit users in Ficciones, the Collaboration section, the news, etc. But the "owner" of this site does not want to do that. So, I will not bother anymore, for me, YZH, you can protect the page so you are the only one who can modify it. And, YZH, please do not reply to me, that is the last time I write something here. Point.
P.S.: If there were democracy on this site, this could be subject to a poll, the contents of the main page, but forget about it, you are the owner! congratulations! David 01:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Yunz does not own this site, he moderates it and keeps it professional. Any changes should be discussed, as they have been with Yunz. He proposed changes and terms were agreed upon if I remember correctly. It was a long process, not some thing thrown together. This site is a democracy, just that democracy is something the we agrees upon through discussion, not the you agreeing upon through example (Else example be open to modification)User:Serprex 22:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
- Are you trying to excuse bad behavior by calling it "keeping the site professional"? When Davichito started editing the main page all there was on the main page was an out of date and ungrammatical "Feature Fiction" template and a silly image with a bunch of useless white space....real "professional"! You have deleted the history of the Main Page, but I know that many participants of this wiki have wanted more than just "feature fiction" and links to klunky and ugly flat file lists. Yunzhong Hou's cluelessness and rudeness may have driven away most of this wiki's participants, but he still does not own the website. His removal of content from the main page was rude and not constructive. No sysop has the right to treat honest and constructive edits like vandalism. --JWSchmidt 00:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
- I agree. YZH was very rude at reverting changes. I mean, if someone here does not like what I changed, he could "correct" it instead of reverting. Reverting only shows tiranny, like saying: "Oh, God, what did you do to MY mainpage?". And YZH is really making people abandon this site, I just now understand why there are only few users here. They just cannot stand him, as I cannot. That is why I created Ficciones Wikia, there will be real democracy there. And a question: do you really think the main page is professional? A white space logo, a short paragraph and a Featured Fiction section? It says nothing to the newcomer, check other wikias and really learn what professional means in mainpages! Other wikias have news, more images, a section for starters and a sample of the best articles (shorter version of Featured Fiction, not that BIG). And this is the first wikia where changes to the main page are reverted when there is no vandalism. Reverting the changes you don't like is very professional, YZH!
- An example: imagine if we were writing in collaboration and if YZH does not like a change of mine, he just reverts the page to the old version! Very polite...
David 01:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Valid points. I myself found it odd that he did not revise the changes to be more concise. My wordings are inaccurate at times, but I mean more the intentions. Yes, the main page probably does lack information. In that regard, the old page was better. What I'm saying is that the changing of it perhaps could of been preceded had a forum created to plan out what we want the main page to show
(And yes, I'm in full support of a revamped Archive. Personally I didn't see the problem with Category:)User:Serprex 02:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the forum. But, anyway, I just thought as this is a wikia, that users would correct what they saw wrong, I did not change the main page on tyranny. This forum could be useful to paste the data here and after a poll, putting that into the main page, or something. That method will have the main page finished in months, but who cares. David 15:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Suggestions[]
First of all this, taken from Central Wikia:
The wikis are owned by the communities. No one user owns any wiki on Wikia. Founders are those who requested a wiki be created, but ownership of that wiki resides with the community as a whole, not only with the founder.
And this (bold is mine):
Control of pages
First, there's control of a page. Some contributors feel very possessive about text or images they have donated to this project. Some go so far as to defend them against all intruders.
Well, it's one thing to take an interest in an article that you maintain on your watchlist. Maybe you really are an expert or you just care about the topic a lot. But when this watchfulness crosses a certain line, then you're overdoing it.
You can't stop everyone in the world from editing "your" prose, once you've posted it to Wikia. All contributions to Wikia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License (see Wikia copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it.
If you find yourself warring with other contributors over deletions, reversions and so on, why not take some time off from the editing process? Taking yourself out of the equation can cool things off considerably. Take a fresh look a week or two later. (See Staying cool when the editing gets hot.)
Or if someone else is claiming "ownership" of a page, you can bring it up on the associated talk page. Appeal to the community to help with resolving the dispute. Do note that in some communities, especially ones where creative work or opinions are involved, the community might actually choose to assign a pseudo-ownership to the original author, and restricts other people's ability to edit it. Since the material is GFDL, you may still make a copy of the article (with proper attribution) and edit the forked copy, while leaving the original one alone.
Believing that an article has an owner of this sort is a common mistake people make on wikis.
I add, the main page. David
The content was taken from http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Ownership
So, with that in mind, we can discuss about the actual changes:
I am starting these new section to discuss the new changes the main page should have. I really think that newcomers would like more information than a single professional paragraph and a Featured Fiction that does not say anything to them, being newbies (maybe they don't even know how to edit or categorize). But, if "professional" means void or empty here, these section should not even exist.
Anyway, if some users want changes, read these things below. I will cite Main_Page2, the wanna-be main page, you can put your additions right there if you wish. Everybody will correct that main page2 so it fits everyone. Please, don't revert changes in that page, it would spoil everything, IMHO... Any additions are welcome. These points will be like an explanation for the changes I did, users just comment below each point, if you want.
1. I like the first 5 paragraphs I wrote before the revert. They were about:
- The title
- Cooperative writing
- Comments and rating
- Guide to writing (the article about that needs a lot of work, intended for newcomers)
- The article count
First of all, I would like to ask if those changes seem "professional". If so, let's go on:
2. Recent Activity and New works. Recent changes special page can be confusing for newcomers and if they are really new they would not know about [[Special:Newpages]] either. With that table in yellow they can easily see the recent activity of the site.
3. Create article. We could get rid of this, as site notice already has it. But as I always close that, I do not know.
4. Archives. An expanded version of the original and "professional" main page.
5. Useful links. It is very useful for "newcomers". It explains the basics.
6. News. A good section to keep users informed about new events. Most "professional" wikias have this section.
7. Requests. "Newcomers" could write something and nobody would notice. So, they can ask for a review. This section can be recycled as soon as the request is accomplished.
8. Collaboration. For stories written in collaboration, that way users will know which stories are looking for writers.
9. Feature fiction. From the "professional" main page so, no comments.
Well, if you get this far, you could comment every section: if you like it, why not and that... It was not my intention to do "tyranny" by making those changes, as nobody said anything BEFORE the reverting, I thought they were just fine. And I would like to remember users that this is the first wikia where changes to the main page are reverted. The only cause for that would be vandalism, but IMHO, I think it was not vandalism what I did. Also think that if we are going to make a poll, the main page will be ready for Christmas. So at last, I just know what will happen, no changes to the main page, to keep it "professional". My last two questions:
1. Can a main page, like the actual one, with only 40 words or so be called "professional"? By whose standards? Honestly, the main page for a starting wiki is even larger than that, and at least more informative. OK, I agree that 40 words could be good, but they have no content! We need content for the main page, even if users don't like my changes, the main page is too little to be of any use.
2. Does anyone on this site actually use the main page for anything besides seeing Featured Fiction? I guess the answer will say much about how "professional" it is. I guess a main page is more than a Featured Articles section... no?
P.S.: I wrote this here and not in someone's talk page because Wikias are owned by users and sysops can never be the last word on anything. So, I am saying this to users.
After all this, imagine if I had "intended" to change the logo...
David 02:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Greetings everyone,
Interesting.
1[]
I believe the first step to resolving this conflict is to understand what I meant to do. When I saw the state of the main page, I found it so confounding I could not handle remodeling the code, so I brought out an older version. That's not the same intent as reverting against a perceived vandal.
2[]
As for professionalism, my current ideal is the Web 2.0 framework, ie.:
- open white space over enclosed
- concise over wordy
- good appearance
- appealing to newcomers
3[]
Now, let's take a look at the page through my browser:
Here's what I think about each of the changes in the long version:
- Simplicity is a virtue. Remember the KISS principle. It makes finding things easier.
- Same with cleanliness and conciseness.
- I had interpreted peoples' unwillingness to update the sidebar's "Active fiction" list as an indication that it was not welcome. Then why the "Recent activity and new works" section here?
- The same section is strongly bordered and given the sole yellow highlight, which is sub-optimal to the eyes.
- The sitenotice already has the create article box and allows doing so from any page. Why this additional one then? Besides, it also has an annoying box.
- "Archives and more" is pointless now that we have a menu-link on the sidebar titled "archives". Repetition is at best useless, at worst a troublemaker.
- The two boxes don't even line up!
- We have a "popular theme" red-link? How more amateur can you get?
- "Useful links" is redundant; see the bottom of the page.
- "News" ought to be posted on sitenotice.
- The black picture on white background is an eyesore and is irrelevant anyway: Victor Hugo and what, I hasm bucket o spam?
- There's a good reason most developed sites don't use normal headers everywhere in their main page: It reeks of amateurism.
Of all the components of the long version, then, I find the "Collaboration" and "Requests" sections the only parts worth keeping.
4[]
As for why we don't have a complex, multi-pane main page like wikipedia, let me ask one simple question: do we have 50,000 significant contributors? We don't, so such a main page would be overly and pointlessly complex.
5[]
Now let's see my revision of the main page:
Granted, there's room for improvement, but the strong points I feel are worth keeping are:
- text balanced with logo; text balanced top with bottom
- all the important stuff can be spotted with a glance - a simple view
- the importance of the featured fiction is made clear (after all, it is the only thing that should change very much)
Keep in mind that the less clutter and crammed text you have, the more important are the individual words. You'll learn that much from many marketing texts out there, and that's what the main page is for, really.
6[]
Just because my revision is very simplified doesn't mean it's not respectable. It does what it has to do with minimal confusion and scrolling for the reader. Even if the page has only 40 words, if they are well-chosen phrases and important links, it may be far more effective than a site cluttered with boxes and columns of hundreds of links and text - which is one reason why Special:Allpages isn't very popular.
Oh and Davichito, I noticed how you tend to bitterly, verbally attack me every time we disagree with anything, even those things that aren't meant to be taken as major offenses. Cool out, dude. But you know what, just for you, why don't we open the floor up to people who want to change the logo. That'd be nice, actually.
Peace, 04:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I personally like the not so blend mode obviously relevant has a book in the picture logos for Novelas. As for the main pages, I think Main Page2 should use columns and have the information dispersed. With how it is, it looks a bit clumpy. Also, about the whole ownership. Why does DV have a User/Davichito panel on the spanish novelas sidebar. I can only imagine what he'd say if there was a User/Yunzhong Hou panel on our sidebar. Anyways, never forget KISS. But never forget that new people don't want to fiddle through menus to find some unknown informationUser:Serprex 14:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Serprex, it is not a cult to myself in there, it is just #category2 if you check MediaWiki page. As I am one of the two only contributors, that category is the largest and wikias order categories by size. But you are right, I had not noticed that, I will remove it, the point was that I am still beginning on the site, it needs a lot of polishing. Thanks for checking Ficciones! Any comments are appreciated. David 01:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)