Difference between revisions of "User talk:Zoey/sandbox"

Latest revision as of 21:57, 4 March 2009

I disagree with renagades ordering, the first thing should be welcome. I also don't see why we need to have all those verbose paragraphs if we trimmed the text we could have the welcome message and spoiler art in the space the spoiler alert is taking now also the portal intros are too wordy too. -misty 12:37, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

1. The primary purpose of the page is to be a portal to the other ones. (Not our idea, complain to Miles.)
2. The spoiler warning should warn of spoilers before they might occur.
3. The welcome message is not that important.

The point is, how often are you going to read the welcome message?

Once you've read it, all you want in the future is to quickly proceed to your series of choice, nothing more. The way the page is designed currently, the portal-part is right in plain sight and can be used without further scrolling.

With your ordering, you're forcing the user to scroll past a giant box he's ignoring, just to click on a link to leave the page he's not interested in anyway.

Look at it this way: There are two parts of the page now - the portal part, and the main page part. The portal part is at the top and links to the other portals, while the bottom part is a main page for the 'pedia as a whole.

Your re-ordering mashed up these two parts. Right now, it's Meta-Warning - Portals - LGPedia; you had LGPedia - Portals - Meta-Warning - LGPedia. And that just doesn't make much sense from a design point of view.

In addition to all that, as much as I like to stay diplomatic, the giant message box at the top just looked like crap.

As for the spoiler-warning, the portal-links lead to series news and episode guides. So with your ordering, somebody could scroll past the welcome box that's blocking his way, click on Lonelygirl15, and be instantly spoiled, before ever even seeing the warning.

There is no use having a spoiler-warning after you linked to the majority of spoiling content.

And finally, a fixed width of 800px makes no sense whatsoever. Not only is fixed width unnecessary, 800px also instantly makes the main page unusable for anyone with 800x600 or lower.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 12:59, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

the whole reason behind your argument is that there is way too much text, so that it make it have to scroll. I created an example of what it would look like with less text. the long message fromthe administrators, i moved to the welcxome page where it is much more appropriate. --misty 16:55, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

No, that's not "the whole reason" behind my argument. The welcome box a) looks totally out of place up there, and is b) simply wrong there, from a page breakdown point of view.

Why the hell are you so desperate to have that box up there?

Also note that Zoey and I are live working on that page, it's really disturbing progress when you just revert half a dozen changes.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 17:01, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Just like you think it looks looks totally out of place at the top , I thinkit looks out of place in the middle of the page. it's like having a book with the table of contents before the title page. How is it wrong from the breakdown point of view? I disagree with the whole catagorization listed above and i don't see it any more inline with what miles said than what did. The way you have it, it's Intro - Portals - Intro, LGPedia; I now have Intro - Portals - LGPedia. And that makes much more sense from a design point of view. -misty 17:22, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

The warning is not an intro. The warning is a warning. A notice. A friendly reminder. Nothing more. It is not part of the page content as such.

The Welcome-box initiates LGPedia's content. LGPedia's content begins below the portals. Therefore, it simply makes no sense to initiate LGPedia's content, then show the more or less unrelated portal-links, and then to continue LGPedia's content.

The markup alone should make clear that the portals are different from the rest of the content. They're quick gateways. Not valuable content. The pimped version of "Click here for Lonelygirl15 news". What you have is not "Intro - Portals - LGPedia"; what you have is "LGPedia 1 - Portals - LGPedia 2", whereas I have "Notice - Portals - LGPedia". And that makes a lot more sense.

Look at it this way: If you took out the portals, the page would be exactly as you think it should be. Welcome, then content. It's just that, above that normal main page stuff, there are the portals now.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 17:41, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Man, you guys have done a ton of stuff! However, after having a look around and a good thick read of discussion notes, I agree that there's just too much text for a portal page. Granted, we need the necessary welcome & Spoiler warnings, but the LGPedia didn't need that much verbage when it was just LG15 that we were working on. That said, I think we just need the pictures of the two shows for now, and not all that text surrounding them (though amazing succinct summarries they are!). I also think, if possible, to have a recent videos/events column somewhere on the portal page, but I'm not too concerned about that at the moment. --Pheon 19:18, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Don't forget that this isn't some hidden-away portal page, but the main page; while I certainly won't rant against taking a whole bunch of stuff away, as that eases the job considerably, the main page is the only place where we can logically display a featured article or other general LGPedia-related info, and the only "front page" where we can display series-independent information. Not to mention that Miles said

Miles said:

“

”

[...] LGPedia would therefore need a new homepage that would provide links to these sub-page portals for each show, and a lot of the information that is already on the homepage since alot of this is more about the LG15 Universe. [...]

(Emphasis added.) Also, the notion that the current main page needs fewer words is deceiving: The current main page simply doesn't have a welcome block, and as such logically has a lower word count. LGPedia:Welcome, which is invisibly linked and never visited, is actually longer than the block.

iow, you are making the same mistake as misty, but the other way round: Just as you can't reduce the new main page to the main page content, you can't reduce it to the portal. The main page is still the page visited first by a large number of users, especially newbies, and therefore has to include something to "lead them in". If the main page consists of nothing but two pictures saying "click me", newbies will be confused where to go from there.

As for the recent events, we discussed having all recent events on the main page, but agreed that it'd a) go against the strict division Miles wants, and b) means double-updating every time a new video is added, which is undesirable and might lead to potential asynchronisms.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 19:40, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

That's true, Renegade. I certainly don't want the new portal/main page to be downgraded to two pictures -- I do like the LG15 Universe Central & Featured Article blocks, for example. I have a feeling I didn't explain myself. When I said, "I think we just need the pictures of the two shows for now, and not all that text surrounding them," I simply meant most of the summary material talking about LG15 & KM. The rest of the page below (LGPedia & Universe Central & FA) and above (spoiler warnings) the portals is grand. Of course, some summary/description for the portals can be good, I simply thought those two paragraphs were just a tad big. --Pheon 20:08, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Re-sizing?

Should we stretch out the portal section to match the width of the rest of the page, or leave it alone? For some reason, it's bothering me, but it's not that big of a deal. Love, -R- 17:04, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

O.K., I played with it, and if we change the size to 97.7%, it will match up with the rest of the sections (just for reference) Love, -R- 17:16, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

(P.S., just checked and 97.7% is off by one pixel in IE.) Love, -R- 17:20, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

I think there is a probalen withscretching the portals, especially on monitors with a resolution 1920x1280 (or even 1680x1050) -misty 17:22, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Oh, duh. I totally forgot about resolution. I am on a 1024x768 monitor from 1997 xP Love, -R- 17:27, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Not only is the difference in width not an accident but a design element, but making that part wider will also lead to a large amount of blank colored space, which'll look stupid.

You can check that out by setting width to 100% and previewing - just don't save, please.

~ Renegade (talk | contribs) 17:24, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, I've been messing around in the previews, and for some reason, when I put it on 100%, it stretches WAYYY too far. But like I said, its no big deal. Love, -R- 17:27, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

mumblemumblequiteditingwhileiammumble [Editing Conflict resolved]

The correct size you're looking for is 100% with 10px margins.

resolved even more conflicts down here :rolleyes:

More voices needed

This is a major redesign for Lgpedia and so far there have been only a few voices heard. Zoey how about moving this to main peage/redesign -misty 18:51, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

I've just had a chance to see what's been brewing here, but I got to collect my thoughts first . . . man, that was a waste of a post, wasn't it?--Pheon 18:59, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

I've added a link to the "participate" box on "recent changes". That should attract more eyeballs. As for my quick thoughts...

• The core red/blue part looks great.
• Renegade's rationale for the ordering of the other sections is very sensible, but it just doesn't feel quite right to me yet (I'll let you finish tinkering and refining it though as it is definitely coming together and maybe it's just because I'm so used to seeing the old main page layout).
• I agree that a huge welcome banner is not required but I also agree with Misty on keeping the wording down in general, especially the spoiler alert which does not need to be more than a short sentence, as long as it is prominently displayed at the top.
• Do we really need a featured article here? It would be neater to put a trimmed "welcome" and the "universe central" side by side. Also, a featured article on the show's portal would allow for a feature more relevant for that show and therefore more relevant to that show's audience.

Anyway... looking good. Psmith 20:02, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Okay, there are a lot of comments spread through the various sections, so I am just going to reply here and hope everyone finds it :P. I am really very happy with the way the page has progressed. It has been worked on for the past week and, unfortunatly, this is a page that needs to be up by a certain date (Monday), so it is not something we can just wait for comments on until everyone agrees. We need to get a working model up and live BY Monday, as per the request of Miles. Obviously, we can change it later if there are huge objections and we can agree on a design after DISCUSSION on a talk page, but we really do need to get something that will be up and running. Like he said, Psmith has put a link on the Participate on the recent changes, and hopefully people will be able to find it from there, if not, like I said, the talk page will still exist once it goes live.

I agree with the way the page is currently ordered, as to me it makes perfect sense. It is logical to have the spoilers warning before the portals, as the portals themselves contain spoilers.

I don't have any real objection to making the spoiler text itself shorter, if someone would like to do that, but the rest I think should stay as is. The series summaries are a great thing to have on the main page, as I think it gives new viewers a much better idea of what they are looking at, without having to read through a bunch of pages. The text is short and to the point, and personally, I think it ADDS to the visual appeal of the page, not detracts from it.

The stuff about the LG15 Universe is there as Miles requested. I think the Welcome to the universe is nice and gives the 'pedia a friendly touch. I don't currently find it too wordy, it is actually trimmed down from some earlier ideas I had had, and like I said, I think it makes the universe more clear cut and easy to understand. Having it on the front page is also a benefit for new users, plus I think it is relatively appealing.

As for having the featured article, that was actually something I had cut out all together, but put back when Miles requested the main page look more "dynamic". I think having it on the front page makes sense, as its something someone who is looking at the universe as a whole might want to pay attention to, while a person going to the portals probably has a better idea of what the series have in store for them. I also find it visually appealing and helpful. Testing it on the portal pages themselves looked kind of bulky. Plus, we always have a bit of trouble finding a new article to put up anyways (the number of available ones keeps getting smaller ;o) so having one instead of two to maintain is probably better for our sanities anyways.

Overall, I think this page is really coming together, and for the most part, I think it is really good as it is. Like I said, if someone wants to shorten the spoiler text a BIT, I would be on board with that, but as for the rest, I do not think it is a bad thing to have a bit of text on the welcome page to get new users accustomed to the LG15 Universe... "welcome" them in if you will. I do want to thank everyone who has been working on this page/giving their ideas, as it's great to hear everyone's thoughts! Hopefully we can reach some sort of a consensus soon, as no matter what, this has gotta go up by Monday! ;D And hopefully I replied to everyone's concerns and um, hopefully this sounds good to everyone. -die- --Zoey 22:04, 14 July 2007 (CDT)

Update: The website is actually going to be done some tonight, so I think I'm going to go ahead and make the portals and new main page live now, while it's still running. Psmith, I saw your new warning, and modified it slightly. I'm still not 100% sure about it and if people want to continue giving their opinions, that's fine, but I think it's good enough to go live atm, so I'm going to go ahead and do that. Thanks to everyone for their hard work and thoughts on these pages! --Zoey 18:07, 15 July 2007 (CDT)