Forum:Main Page Redesign

Right, this forum is Drake's idea and not mine, he just didn't want to create a forum on his own. So now he can post here about his ideas for redesigning the main page. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 12:31, May 9, 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Kaido! Anyways, like Kaido said I have a couple of proposals in mind for redesigning the main page of the wiki. The main page is usually what new users and visitors see when they come to the wiki and having an attractive main page can help draw new users in. My first proposal is to give the scrolling navigation gallery bar (the one with episode guide, the manga, animal species, and merchandise tabs) an upgrade. The new navigation bar would look something like the one from this wiki http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki (the one with one big square and 4 smaller rectangles). Not only would this give the front page a nicer design, but it would allow us to add more information as well. It's also very easy to navigate with a touchscreen, perfect for our mobile users. In addition, we would need to update the some of the pics. Surely, there are better pics from Dressrosa than just the colosseum itself...My other proposal would be adding a place for latest blogs on the front page. You would be surprised how many people have trouble finding blogs sometimes. This would make it easier for visitors to find our latest blogs without them having to go looking for it. So yeah, feel free to leave suggestions and any constructive feedback Roranoa Drake II (talk) 13:48, May 9, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
The blogs thing sounds good, but I can see the debate about making the main page touch screen friendly lasting for months...

14:54, May 9, 2016 (UTC)

Making image slider thing touchscreen friendly is only one of the benefits to adding it. Technically the current one is touchscreen friendly too, but there's only 4 things you could touch... Roranoa Drake II (talk) 15:37, May 9, 2016 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding recent blogs to the main page. I guess a column (similar to what we have on the wiki activity) on the bottom right of the page would be a good location for the blogs?

As for the new pictures.... I wholeheartedly support the idea of getting new pictures. Dressrosa's arc is ending soon in the anime, so maybe we can have a picture of them celebrating Doflamingo's defeat when that episode come out? And we can update the manga picture as well to reflect either the ending of Zou Arc (something to do with the new alliance, maybe?), or the beginning of the new arc (though I'm not quite sure what picture to use yet).

I'm up for updating the front page's slider, but not in the same way as Dragon Age's slider. I feel like it just don't work well with the rest of the page. While making our wiki touch-screen friendly is important, we also have to keep the aesthetic design in mind. But I'd be up for something between our current slider and Dragon Age's slider. 20:57, May 11, 2016 (UTC)

I've never been a fan of the wiki's main page, mainly because I don't like the color yellow but it is indeed in need of a redesign. Instead of the Dragon Age slider, I suggest the one from avatar.wikia.com. Besides the slider, I suggest that the rest of the main page gets reworked too, as well as the mobile main page. MavikVCT (talk) 21:52, May 11, 2016 (UTC)

More then fancy stuff, the main page just need a redesign of the template style. That alone would give a "refresh" look to it without even touching the layout or the template themselves, just the style. After all the main page doesn't seem to lack content. We could start from there and then see if we want to do anything else. Also a bit of suggestion: Wikia has his own mobile app for one piece, I created a badge for my wiki but I think it should also be relevant here. I can make it for here too if you guys like it.


 * I'm all up for updating the templates. The templates are sorely outdated, and unfortunately, it's not just the templates on the main page that have the problem. I'd try to redesign the templates myself, but I just don't know enough coding to do that and we don't have a lot of users that are experts with coding on here =( 01:49, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

@Mavik, I don't really like the Avatar slider at all. It's not very touch-screen friendly, which is not what are we looking for. Furthermore, it's more of a hassle to navigate than our current slider, and we should make our slider as simple as possible for viewers to navigate, while keeping the same amount of content. And this is just my personal opinion, but it feels like it's even more outdated than our current one. So yeah, I don't really like the Avatar slider... 01:49, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

I agree with most people that there should be a slider, I also support the idea of revamping the main page, update "Do You Know?", add page portal, revamp the news section and many others.

So when should we start?

Joekido (talk) 04:23, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

I can try to revamp things but I don't know where to test it tbh...

Adding a recent blogs section would be nice. A lot of people new to wikis might not know how to find blogs the usual way, so having them on the main page like on the [Bleach wiki http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Bleach_Wiki] might help. 20:53, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

Anything to make this wiki not look like it's trapped in 2007 would be a vast improvement. I lean towards the dragon age style, but but the avatar one isn't bad. I just really want to see true improvement either way!

I think this forum needs to be divided into sections to discuss separate topics. 22:29, May 12, 2016 (UTC)

Sections
I think there's definitely sections we don't need on our mainpage too. The sidebar is especially cluttered when compared to the rest of the page. There's also sections that could be more helpful to us that we don't have. And tweaks to sections we already have that could be done.

My thoughts are the following sections should be removed:


 * Spoiler warning
 * It's 2016, people. Does a wiki really still need a spoiler warning? Very few that I've seen have them still.


 * Guidelines and Rules Warnings
 * It's great to warn people of our policies, but I don't think their current spot on the main page helps us when placed above content. A single link to our Guidebook might be nice, but placed lower on the page. We live in an age with content mods, we don't need to place so much weight on the image guidelines anymore.


 * Did you know?
 * This section seems kind of outdated, useless, and immature. Do we really need it?


 * Affiliates
 * This might need to be a separate discussion, but I don't think affiliate wikis really help us all that much, and putting them on the main page isn't that helpful. Rather than get rid of affiliations, what if we made a page for affiliations that had small blurbs about the other wikis and put them in the Guidebook or something?

From the sidebar:
 * Content
 * I don't get what this box is for. Just a box with links to broad content? How does that really help us?


 * Mythbusters
 * This box with a link to the Mythbusters page isn't helpful. More on that later.

Here's my thoughts on things that need to be tweaked/added:


 * Blogs Section
 * This was mentioned already, it's a great idea. Should be featured prominently in any new page design


 * Current events
 * We should have the infobox images from the chapters/episodes when available. Might also be nice to add one for the newest movie/special, as well as game.


 * Random Mythbusters template
 * One of our most unique and useful articles, it might be nice to automate a template that can take random sections from our mythbusters page to highlight that page.


 * Animanga Box and Shonen Jump Box
 * Animanga just needs to leave the sidebar. Both need to have have a variable size/width.


 * Social Media
 * We should have a twitter box or something. Something that visually highlights our social media, not just a series of links, as it is now.

Anyone else have ideas/responses? 22:29, May 12, 2016 (UTC)