Talk:Main Page/Archive 2

Old summarized comments

Protected Main Page? Please, put a notice on this discussion page if the main page is protected!
We actually haven't made a protected note yet. WHOOPS! thanks for pointing that out. [Since Dec 7] any changes made are being done through templates and not [by editing] the main page itself. The list of templates should be at the start of this discussion board. Lyellin 01:03, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
沃德 : 有中国人吗
: 有. There are a few... Not enough to start zh.wikinews.org yet, however (and many people would oppose such a site at the moment). Sj

I'm studying Chinese, so now we have 3 people who can sponsor a Chinese Wikinews! Only a few more! --Ce garcon 10:11, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please write in English here -- King Ho Cheung January 24, 2005

This page needs pruning and summarising if appropriate, again. Any volunteers/objections? Simeon 06:40, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Main Page section headers

Weather Map

Discussion about weather map width, main page.

New Main Page topic needed - Environment and conservation.

Headlines and Blurb size

Articles proposed to be on main page one week.
Add date, category of news, and region categories to each article for archives
Main Page section headers
- do not use graphics as section headers
- do use secondary color panels

Use of graphic logos

I see a logo on the front page today which adds no meaning whatsoever to me, but it does look like a product placement.

Please use logos only in a graphic context which adds meaning to the story, for example showing two companies' logos together for a merger, or showing the logo against some visual clue that gives context, for example this time it is an oil company, if the logo was shown against an oil platform or gusher etc it would tell me something. Simeon 08:53, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Main Page : Just for our best work?

only reviewed articles
remove articles being written and edited box, etc.
redlinks questioned

Main Page in the long-term

Questions about what to include on the Main Page, largely undiscussed:

opposition to "Articles being written" box.
Links to sections
Reduce the number of direct article links, limited "latest news" or "today's news".
simplify, move topic links to top
include old news (but new articles) on main page?

Wikinews is news

See: Wikinews:Making news

Weiss, Aaron. "The Unassociated Press." The New York Times. February 10, 2005. [1]

Hof, Robert D. "All The News You See Fit To Write." Business Week. December 27, 2004. [2]

Murali, J. "Wikinews: News service with collaborative reporting." The Hindu. December 13, 2004. [3]

Naughton, Philippe. "Open-source hacks." The Times (London). December 11, 2004.

Brazilian newspapers:

Folha de São Paulo (AF) - Jimmy Wales interview

Estado de São Paulo (AE) - "After Wikipedia success, Wikinews is born"

Brazilian online media newspaper:

Observatório da Imprensa - "Is this a new revolutionary journalism?"

Section pages generated automatically

Section pages like Politics and conflicts, Economy and business, Sports, etc could be generated automatically by software. Is it possible? -- Carlosar 23:46, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Not entirely. Main page entries could be auto-update through the use of templates. Section pages may be more in-depth but similar to main page layout? with updated latest news templates (which are on the main page.) But I don't believe there's any way at the moment to build latest pages for categories. - Amgine 08:17, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Order by news event X Order by finished editing

The articles should be ordered at the Main Page by the news event date or by the arrival date? How articles which are older but have been finished recently should be organized at the Main Page? -- Carlosar 23:59, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be put at the date when the event occured -- King Ho Cheung January 21, 2005

I disagree. The news article should be listed under the date it was started. An event that happened three weeks ago but was only written about today should get posted as today and not three weeks ago: otherwise it wouldn't even appear on the latest news pages. -- IlyaHaykinson 04:01, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

currency?

I'm not sure if this has been brought up, but is there a standard for currencies? So far what I've seen is the local currency and in parentheses the USD equivilent. Is this the best way? Would it be crowded to add, for example, the euro in there too... maybe: CDN$400 (US$350/EUR€300). (I know the numbers are way off) Is there a standard I was unaware of?

Take a look at the money and currency section of the style guide for info on currency usage. It doesn't mention providing a USD or EUR alternative to the local currency, though: maybe this is something we should mention there. How do other news organizations deal with this? -- IlyaHaykinson 18:40, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Exchange rates fluctuate minute-to-minute throughout the trading day. It is possible for exchange rate calculations to become obsolete quickly.

It is somewhat customary to state estimated figures in the local currency of the publisher -- in this case, Bomis, a US concern -- when citing exotic foreign amounts, e.g. "XXXXXX Cambodian Rials (XX US dollars)"; but in the case of Euros or Loonies this is usually deemed unwarranted. Providing US-CAN-EUR calculations is too much information, the savvy reader will check the rates at their own leisure.

For all intents and purposes, Bomis is not the publisher of this site. It is simply the hosting provider for some of the servers. -- IlyaHaykinson 02:14, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Developing stories : new design

I redesigned the Developing stories here. It is simple and it gives information about the status of the article. It is a general ideal about how the Developing stories could be. Off course it can be improved. -- Carlosar 00:05, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Really, if an article isn't ready to be published, it simply belongs on the Wikinews:workspace. Dan100 23:49, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Others wiki users had decided in a poll that unfinished articles should be put at the Main Page. -- Carlosar 09:36, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That poll doesn't finish until January 20. Dan100 (Talk) 21:59, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

New intro

I've introduced a Wikipedia intro text, which will no doubt be met with howls of horror ;). Sadly I can't do anything about the huge area of white space between 'Main page' and the intro; an admin will have to (please!) fix that. Dan100 19:10, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dan, I submitted a request on the Administrator page for one of the Admins to please remove the extra space above the Main Page welcome, by moving the Welcome template above the main table opening brace. I've posted an example at this page to show the fix. — DV 01:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Cheers, it looks much better now. BTW I made the short paragraph text 100% as I had to squint to read it at 94% on a 1024x768 monitor - and I thought I had good eyesight... Dan100 09:07, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Removed sorted stories

I've removed the Template:Sortedstories (included via the Template:newstories redirect) with the support of User:Dan100. The sorted list is horribly out of date with just a couple of stories added to the list since the beginning of the year. The activity in Latest News is probably enough to showcase our recent writing for now, at least until the main page changes get decided upon. -- IlyaHaykinson 19:52, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Could there please at least be a link to this sorted categorization from the main page? It is still interesting to see what's been written under a certain category even if it is not up to date. Also, if a policy of adding categories to each page is enforced, this should ensure that this is facilitated and automated (if these are done as category pages). Brettz9 17:28, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Ilya. Page loading speed is better (and it's probably less of a hit on the servers). Brettz, sortedstories hadn't been updated since December. If you go to Special:categories, you can see all the categories in use and have a poke about in them. However I'd recommend looking at the digests for recent stories which have gone from the Latest news. Currently, the main 'top-level' categories haven't been decided on and there doesn't seem to be a way of updating templates automatically. See the Water cooler for more. Dan100 (Talk) 21:39, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Developing stories: inaccurate warning

Developing stories at the Main Page may contain inaccurate and incomplete information since they are not ready yet. Should we warn the reader about that? -- Carlosar 13:56, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree, so made the changes. Dan100 (Talk) 21:56, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Original research

Okay, ive lauched our first experiment in original research - Conference discusses the credibility of blogs. I'm not trying to push this on anyone, just having a go at it while we are still in beta to see what happens. user:sj will be at the conference (with jimbo) and will hopefully feed us quotes and what not. So lets see how this goes. The bellman 12:27, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Main Page layout, article development.

The current layout is effectively broken and is causing additional conflicts. It consists entirely of recent articles and articles which are incomplete, and the weather module/categories are lost at the bottom.

The problem comes down to what do we wish to display on the main page, and how do we put it there.

What to display

Due primarily to screen size/length issues, the main page should be as simple as reasonably possible, and content (by screen footprint) should consist of graphic links and text links to published articles.

The category bars of major news agregators are small, and located near the top of the screen, the rest of the screen is usually news.
Including links to developing stories on the main page has been very effective; links to other elements of the editor tasks much less so. Perhaps links to articles in those other deprecated "stages" in sections of the workspce could reduce their impact.
"Breaking news" or latest news is a category, and should be only the very latest, perhaps the previous 24 hours or the last 5 articles "published" if we can automate the process.

- Amgine 18:06, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

my feeling is that news always looks best in columns. So like it is now, with the two columns is good, but i dont think that having the workspace on the front page is a good idea, so something else there. just dont ask me what else... The bellman 22:53, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How to add articles

I strongly suggest we develop a method of automated display, which I am now working on an extension to do.

In the meantime, the sections which are planned to be displayed on an ongoing basis need to have editors who are interested in maintaining them. This will probably only work if they are admins. There are currently at least 6 regular contributors who would likely be willing to take on the responsibilities.

Main page templates should be manageable through a single page, but also allows multiple access points.

Prominently linked on the main page (see also edit links under Categories below)
The masthead and navigation, being rarely changed, should be protected.
Categories, including the latest news, should each have their own (nested) template
- No direct edit link from main page
- direct edit link from management page, workspace
  The justification for this is the amount of "testing" edits. If people can easily experiment on the main page, they will. By adding a single step (link to the management page, then to the template to edit) the number of sandbox edits should be sharply reduced without removing access to everyone.
Section editors can link directly to the template they are interested in to sidestep the management page.

Main page templates should be linked to from the workspace as well. A section which discusses where articles should be placed - add to archives and one main page category - and links to the category templates.

- Amgine 18:06, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My 2 Cents on Front Page Layout

I feel that the front page is not user friendly and should be customizible. In addition, the weather is too far down and the catagories of the news are virtually impossible, for a new member/guest, to access. This should be modified for the further expantion of Wikinews.

I don't believe a customizable main page is likely in future versions of the Wikinews software. However, multiple front pages can be, and if we make the elements of the front page modular you can build your own personal front page under your user page (User:Cafzal/frontpage as a possibility.) - Amgine 16:58, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

scroll

I just wanted to mention ( if you don't already know) that at 800 x 600 in firefox you have to scroll across to see the entire page which is kinda annoying. 24.65.22.111 23:37, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dan100's layout

...can be seen here.

Why? Simple is best.

Being a news service, the most prominent feature (with the most page space) is the NEWS! However there's more than that to WN, so above the LN template is a small but prominent (and hopefully attractive) box with the most basic, essential, links.

I don't think we need to see Developing stories nor Editor tasks on the front page. Only 5% or so of wiki users contribute, the rest simply want to read, so are only interested in Latest news. However those who are keen contributors can still rapidly access DS and ET via the large main links.

You may have noticed an absence of any links to categories etc. You may also know that I don't like them. Instead, there's a prominent link to the 'how to search' guide, which will enable people to find past news quickly by searching. I believe that's more effective than categories. You can read more of my thoughts on this on the water cooler. Dan100 (Talk) 12:39, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

he he, I like it so much I gave it a purge link, bookmarked it and now use it as my own personal front page :). Well, it is a bit easier on the eye, isn't it? Dan100 (Talk) 21:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

other langs

Is it to early to put the little other languages image that they have in the top right hand corner of wikipedia, wikibooks, and other projects. I know that atm there is only german, but others are being planned right? The bellman 06:59, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The situation with other languages is most odd. A new language project is supposed to set up after a minimum of five people have petitioned for it. However, there are many petitions with other 20 signatures but nothing has been done. It seems the Wikimedia top brass have lost interest in Wikinews. Dan100 (Talk) 17:08, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

nope, nl was just set up, and the mailing list said that french and something else are going to be set up very soon. The bellman 13:27, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am waiting for other versions (e.g spanisch and french). Wikinews should be a global project. SonicR 20:36, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Spanish, Sweedish and French were just set up, so can some Admin please add the other langs icon, and possibly even an other langs section. The bellman 05:15, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Done. -- IlyaHaykinson 05:30, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Xwd

Suggest adding today's crossword to the front page? Dysprosia 11:28, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Possibly under the Weather template, in a little strip, titled Diversions, or something? Can this be done or some mention at Wikinews:Water cooler on the issue of having crosswords? Dysprosia 07:01, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NL.wikinews

Could you please link the main page to the nl.wikinews nl:Hoofdpagina ? Waerth 20:03, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Added. -- IlyaHaykinson 20:09, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia in another medias

File:Veja-wikipedia.jpg

The major Brazilian magazine Veja published an article about the Wikipedia project last week.

The Brazilian magazine Veja published an one page article about the project Wikipedia last week. I put the picture and this news just for curiosity. The article praised but also criticized the project. I can write an story about it in Wikinews case there are some interest. --Carlosar 00:20, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Man looses

This February 2nd article should be man...loses. But how to change it? Squeakfox 00:52, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)