CZ Talk:Home

On this page, I'd like to have a simplified, redesigned project home page. At the top of the page should be the latest 3-5 "notice board" announcements. (We'll make the present notice board an archive.) Then a section about getting started. Then, perhaps in two columns, divided into cells, we'd arrange links in sets, one set per cell, roughly (this call be edited!) according the templates you can find by following the small-font links below. So, for example, one cell would concern Technical Help; another would concern Content Policy; and so on. I also think we need helpful little graphics for each of these page sets, such as a little pen for Content Policy, and something "technical" for Technical Help. --Larry Sanger

Should we be sandboxing any edits or just make them here? Or can I make a section? --Robert W King 23:20, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

I would say, just dive in. We can use CZ:Home as our collective sandbox. --Larry Sanger 23:21, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

If anyone would like to dive in and add (some of) the links that appear in the various templates (so, put the Template:Getting Started links under "Getting Started", I would certainly appreciate it...if not, I'm sure to do it soon! --Larry Sanger 13:16, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Where's the old yellow-box version? I wanted to use it as a reference. --Robert W King 14:20, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Buried in history? I'm not sure what you're referring to actually. --Larry Sanger 17:30, 7 September 2007 (CDT)

Well folks...what do you think of this? --Larry Sanger 15:01, 8 September 2007 (CDT)

Feedback

I like it; however, there are some things I would change. Two of the boxes have the same shade of blue, and the "Content Policy" blue-on-brown section is quite difficult to read (compared to the others). Also, I don't like scrolling down to view the notice board, but that's something which I can't see a way of fixing easily. Oliver Smith 04:32, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

Please, feel free to fiddle with the colors. Note that the colors are also used in the templates at the bottom of the various community pages (the pages linked on this page, so those templates might need to be fixed too).

I'm canning the notice board; I'm the only person updating it and I haven't been updating it, relying more exclusively on Citizendium-L and the Blog. I guess I don't think it's necessary. --Larry Sanger 21:02, 5 February 2008 (CST)

The page itself is a real welcome addition. In the past, it seems like I have spent too much of my time trying to find the items listed here. This is very handy, but it leads me to ask: Are there other important CZ: pages that we ought to know about or is this it?

Aesthetic Note: Six different colors for the headings on the boxes looks awfully busy, chaotic and (forgive me) amateurish. My hunch is the whole page would look more polished and streamlined if the boxes were all one color, perhaps different from the deep blue of the main header to set them apart. This particular green comes across on my monitor as hideous (as opposed to the green of Special Characters on the Edit page which is sort of soothing). Almost any of the other five colors could work, although I have a slight preference for the "old gold"/brass color.

Roger Lohmann 12:04, 21 January 2008 (CST)

Amateurishness is to be expected when a philosopher attempts design. Again, I would greatly appreciate if anyone were to redo the design, including of course the colors. They could all be the same color, I suppose. Whatever looks good. --Larry Sanger 21:02, 5 February 2008 (CST)

placement of the technical help section

I suggest we move the technical help section to be the top right section. Thus, on the left one sees the "register" stuff (perhaps workgroup to the right should be moved into that section?), and then on the top right people would see "how to edit an article" and "start page with subpages", which would be far more useful than the section currently occupying this valuable space. David E. Volk 13:45, 23 January 2008 (CST)

Yes, sounds fine. Please do this (anyone!). --Larry Sanger 21:02, 5 February 2008 (CST)

Wasted space

This page wastes a lot of space, requiring way too much scrolling to use efficiently. In particular:

• Why is the introductory message set to half width? Actually, why does that introductory message exist at all? It doesn't say anything the user can't figure out by reading the rest of the page and uses some of the most valuable real estate on the whole wiki.
• Couldn't the links and descriptions be put on the same line? Sure it would be uglier, but usable and ugly is a lot better than pretty and slow to use IMHO.

--Warren Schudy 23:21, 15 February 2008 (CST)

I made the changes mentioned above. There are still some warts, such as why there's so much vertical space below "more". --Warren Schudy 22:44, 16 February 2008 (CST)