Wikinews:Main Page redesign

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As indicated by all these main page alternatives, we are in desperate need of replacing the design of the main page. This page is for organizing all the efforts at a Main Page redesign, including a list of all the designs and what the pros and cons are. Eventually, the community will vote on a new main page design.

Main Page designs[edit]

Feel free to add to this list and list more pros and cons for each page design. For long statements regarding them, make them on the talk page instead.

Current Main Page[edit]

  • Simple
  • Confusing organization
  • Emphasis on interesting areas of the website, such as original research
  • Doesn't look very nice
  • Puts little emphasis on topical (as opposed to regional) browsing

Sandbox3[edit]

  • Nice use of picture and colors
  • Squished together
  • Large blank area
  • Only main emphasis on published articles and developing/disputed

WideSandbox3[edit]

  • Nice use of pictures and colors
  • More things squished into narrow columns, plus a large whitespace area
  • Only main emphasis on published articles and developing/disputed
Would be cool if we could kill the sidebar, and replace it with first column. user:Bawolff

Sandbox4[edit]

  • Looks nice
  • Lead articles well organized
  • Emphasis on both topical and regional browsing

Main Page/Test[edit]

  • Very well organized
  • Very easy to use
  • Emphasis on both topical and regional browsing
  • Highly space efficient
  • Looks a bit shuffled, plus the colors may be a bit erratic

Main Page/topical[edit]

  • Similar to current main page, only with a section on "recent news" and then topical/regional listings instead

NGerda's Design[edit]

  • Colorful
  • Organized
  • Aesthetically acceptable
  • May be a bit too colorful
  • Items on the right column look a bit squished

MessedRocker-based Main Page redesign[edit]

  • Nice color theme
  • Organized
  • Text runoff
  • Only works in Gecko
    • Thats fixable. quite a bit of it is laziness with percents instead of em's, which IE interpets differently. Runnoff is also fixable. (although it depends how you want it. If you want the two columns to be aligned, then the leads have to have a maximin length, or you have to use scroll bars (via overflow:scroll) (or you have to use tables, but thats just a mess (also tables would be a mess beyond my skill level. my table skills are limited to the <td>, <th>, and <tr> tags with none of those fancy attributes. ) Theres proablly some magic solution to that, that I havn't thought of. If they don't have to be aligned it should work easily. Unfourtanatly this is the last time I'm going to see wikinews for about a month, so I can't fix any of these issues. user:Bawolff
      • I'm working on a fix to that.
  • Requires users to insert CSS code into their personal CSS page (if this were implemented as the main page, that probably wouldn't be necessary)
    • yes, but it would be via Mediawiki:Common.css. Thats a good thing though because its easily customizable. A user could easily make it yellow for example, or whatever the want (Its not going to be as customizable as the zen garden for example [1], but you'd be able to change quite a bit.)

I have fixed the text-runnoff issue. I personally think this will look good in the Datrio+MrM stylesheet I've been working on. (In firefox view→Page Style→Datrio+MrM or add @import "http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User:Bawolff/Sandbox/Datrio%2BMrM.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css"; to special:mypage/monobook.css. Don't need other stylesheets if using Datrio+MrM. ). (Also with no title like in wikipedia: and Wiktionary: main pages). Bawolff ☺☻ 19:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brent Dax's design[edit]

  • Simple
  • Not very colorful
  • Appears to be a bit shuffled
  • Items on the right are squished

Brianmc's design[edit]

  • uses dynamic nav boxes to shorten page
  • layout mostly similar to current page

Cspurrier's design[edit]

  • Simple
  • Only focuses on published articles and leads
  • Not very colorful
  • Not very space efficient
  • Only half done

Dan100's design 1[edit]

  • Isolated boxes (doesn't look very good)
  • Shuffled and not very space efficient

Dan100's design 2[edit]

  • Simple
  • Regional and topical browsing
  • Too much whitespace
  • Cluttered
  • Not colorful

Dan100's design 3[edit]

  • Virtually the same thing as Dan100's design 2

Dan100's Sandbox[edit]

  • Like the current main page, but with neatly organized topical/regional browsing

David Vasquez Main Page Sandbox 11[edit]

  • Refreshing new header
  • Nice color themes
  • Too much whitespace
  • Right column too squished

David Vasquez Sandbox 15[edit]

  • Similar to current main page
  • Only one lead
  • Topical and regional browsing

Doldrums' Main page[edit]

and an alternative layout, and another
  • similar to current design, shorter in length (hides stuff in dynamic nav boxes)
  • all article writing bits are grouped together (albeit lower down in page)
Intreasting, but I think a little too much is hidden. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ilya Haykinson's Sandbox 1[edit]

  • Neatly organized
  • No header
  • Descript main lead and short summary second and third leads
  • Topical/regional browsing
  • The gray for the "Breaking News" box, and in the right column, doesn't look very good

MessedRocker's design[edit]

  • Boxes look organized
  • Maximum illustration of Wikinews's functionality
  • Roundedness of boxes only work in Firefox
  • Page only works in Firefox
  • The page is rather long

Redge Sandbox 1[edit]

Theshibboleth Main Page[edit]

  • Similar to current main page, but nice colorful boxes instead of list of articles

Yorktown1776 Design A[edit]

  • Refreshing new header
  • The area between "Breaking News" and the header doesn't look that nice
  • "Breaking News" is a misnomer (the main lead isn't always breaking news)
  • Basically a remix of the current main page
  • The developing articles section on the bottom of the page doesn't match with the rest of the design (in terms of box length)

Yorktown1776 Design B[edit]

  • Similar to Design A, but the section between header and breaking news looks better

Yorktown1776 Design C[edit]

  • Similar to Design A, but with refreshing header and no search box

Our options[edit]

  • Keep our current main page
  • Choose one of our current drafts
  • Merge the quality factors of each draft into a separate draft

Discuss on the talk page what you think which option we should choose.

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