Talk:Welcome to Citizendium

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Created Archive 1, 10:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC) — Caesar Schinas

Why I revised the front page intro a few days ago

I revised the front page intro substantially a few days so thought I should explain my rationale. The former verbiage was seeming sort of like a business that had been around a while yet still rather oddly had its "Grand Opening!" sign up front. That sort of sign works to draw in new customers for a while, but there is another group who will still only drive by and not come in. They want to know "we're still here and we're a growing business who is here to stay, so it's a really good to come in now." It's flowing with a seemingly natural cycle, I suppose. At any rate, that was what I tried to do. Stephen Ewen 06:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Slight redesign

I don't like the current layout of the main page; it's too cluttered at the top and it looks silly having the logo twice.
I'd like to change it to something like this or this (sorry about the long header, if you have a low-resolution screen) - what does anyone think of the idea?
Caesar Schinas 11:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I decided to be bold. If people don't like this, we can revert. Caesar Schinas 15:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

See here for the old version. Caesar Schinas 15:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I prefer the new version over the old one and think we should go ahead with the redesign - for instance, I like the drop image very much but find it out of place here: adding water to the ocean probably isn't too appropriate an image for an attempt to structure anything, and be it knowledge. --Daniel Mietchen 00:00, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, an improvement, and yes, exit the drop. Ro Thorpe 00:16, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the drop should go. A nice pic, but not the message we want to send. How about a pic of a *VAST* reading room, such as the LOC or whatever it is in London, or the Bodelian, or whatnot, a *enormous* repository of knowledge? Old-fashioned, sure, and not hip, but appropriate.... Hayford Peirce 02:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

When I worked at LOC, there was a very popular cartoon from the New Yorker, with a crowd, pointing Superman-style to a lone figure in the Main Reading Room, shouting "Look! It's a Congressman!"

Hehe. Hayford Peirce 04:17, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You don't know what vast means, however, until you get accidentally locked in the stacks and the lights are turned out. Trust me. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You should read the wonderful 1951-ish novel by Michael Innes called either Operation Pax or The Paper Thunderbolt, where the climatic scene is set in the 30-story-deep underground stacks of the Bodelian.... (imaginary, he says, in a note) Hayford Peirce 04:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the drop, but perhaps as you say it's not appropriate. It's not very noticeable down at the bottom of the page, anyway. Caesar Schinas 06:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added code to make the quotation change every month, and added a few more quotations... Not sure if we want them to start again after a year, but it's a start.

Best not to get rid of the drop until images are working again. Caesar Schinas 07:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Server restarted

There was some bad RAM in one of our main servers, and it was just replaced. Glad I was around when the server went down, so I could get the Steadfast people on the case. But now (I observe) the images are not showing up. Well...we'll see what's going on there, I don't know when the images will be showing up, but by tomorrow AM I hope. --Larry Sanger 06:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd just been going to ask if something was wrong with all the images or if it was just me...

When is "tomorrow AM"? How about a GMT time?

Caesar Schinas 06:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't live on GMT, I live on Eastern Standard. That is 4 or 5 hours behind GMT, depending on time of year...you can do the math, I trust. :-) --Larry Sanger 01:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I can understand that. It's hard for us non-US-people to get our heads around the fact that you have so many different timezones...

Perhaps we should make it a rule that everyone puts their timezone on their userpage? I know some Citizens already do.

Caesar Schinas 06:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No idea about the time zones, but I don't see the images either. Aleksander Stos 07:12, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Splitting out AOTW and NDOTW

I've moved the Article of the Week and the New Draft of the Week to CZ:Article of the Week/current and CZ:New Draft of the Week/current, respectiveyl, and transcluded them onto this page so that this page doesn't have to be edited every time those are updated. Caesar Schinas 07:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Pictures

I don't see the pictures on the main page, not with FireFox, Google Chrome nor IE8--Paul Wormer 08:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC) PS: All picture stuff (including LaTex) is screwed up right now.--Paul Wormer 08:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Larry is aware of this - see above - but I don't know if anything is being done about it. Caesar Schinas 09:03, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Pictures are appearing for me, as of 13:37 GMT. Anton Sweeney 12:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

They actually started working again some time before 12:30 GMT yesterday. Caesar Schinas 13:20, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Update

Well, RAM on the server that was chronically crashing was replaced last night (almost 24 hours ago now). It is possible that bad RAM was the cause of the chronic crashing. If so, we shouldn't see crashes nearly as regularly. Fingers crossed! --Larry Sanger 01:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Quotations

I've altered the code slightly so that a pseudo-random quotation is displayed on every page load, though in practice it won't be quite every time due to caching.
There are currently 12 quotations - should we have more?
If anyone adds more, they'll have to change the randomisation code slightly; it needs to know how many quotes there are.
Caesar Schinas 16:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Logo

Who else think that this looks much better than this? Caesar Schinas 08:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)