Talk:Main Page

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Revision as of 20:52, 19 November 2004 by James (Talk | contribs)
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Contents

Links to toons/pages

This has been refactored. There was some discussion about whether "External Links" should go at the top or bottom of the page. A few people liked having them at the top for easy access to H*R.com, but it was eventually decided that they should go at the bottom, following Wikipedia's example.

Screenshots

This has been refactored. It would be nice if we could figure out how to make the screenshots on toon/email pages into thumbnails. This would get them out of the way so that content isn't pushed too far down the page. We need (read: Joey needs) to talk to our host about getting Image::Magick installed on the server before that will be possible.

Upload file

This has been refactored. There is some concern that some members of our community (or outsiders for that matter) will upload unnecessary or innappropriate images. It was decided that they could link to them just as easily as they could download them, and it's better for the images to be hosted here than free sites that may be unstable. Bandwidth is not really an issue, though it probably would spike if we allowed uploads (and consequently a lot of image downloads) from our server. There are a number of special pages we can use to monitor uploads so they will not get out of hand: Special:Imagelist, Special:Unusedimages.

Is there any way to make GIF an allowed format? I don't like GIF any more than the next guy, but it's useful sometimes. For example, the 'tear' icon from Strong Sad's Lament is an animated GIF, and I'd like to upload it for posterity (since the Lydia one fell off the face of the Earth).
We can't upload GIF's? I had no idea. I'll look into it. --JoeyDay 08:54, 26 Aug 2004 (MST)

Adding the rest of the stuff

Okay, I did a few tweaks on AgentSeethroo's addition. We have to figure out a few things:

  1. How to list the Characters on the Characters page. I know the few characters we have setup now were done with categories. I don't know how we are going to get them all (secondary etc.) on one page.
  2. I indented the 3 Features. They are under Toons, but I know they deserve a spot on the Main Menu... any other suggestions on how to do that?
  3. Rejects/Everything Else - what to call the page. Or even if we need that page. Should we just list everything on the Characters page under several headings? And we have to figure out what the categories are going to be.

Ideas everyone? -- Tom 09:10, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)

Okay...
  1. I'm not a huge fan of the Character page on the old wiki, but we may have to do something similar due to the amount of character "aliases" or whatever...I'll have to think about that for a little bit.
  2. I think the indention is okay, but it's the only thing on the page that's indented. It makes it look kinda wierd. I also thought the Features link was gonna get ditched from the main page? Maybe I got lost sometime...
  3. This is gonna take some discussion I think. I think it should go byebye, and if anyone makes ANY pages that could be deemed NOT canon or not very important, like ANYTHING in rejects, it goes under the category of Misc. -- AgentSeethroo 09:55, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)
Yeah, we need to get Joey in on this discussion. I know he had some great ideas that seem to escape me at the moment. And you are right about the indent. But maybe we could have other indents?

Some of these pages are pretty big. I know that games page might work as two pages. Then an "Old Games" page could be indented underneath or something. Joey? -- Tom 11:39, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)

I think that characters can be broken down, as well as games. Maybe even places...maybe...

But I don't wanna randomly start indenting and cluttering things up, either... Joey? -- AgentSeethroo 12:14, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)

Hm. Does every character have to go on the Characters page? I think rejected characters shouldn't even show up on the Characters page. If they are linked to from the toons/emails they appear in, or if someone references them in comments, then that's fine. The pages for Rejects should be created, but they need to be designated as stubs. Or, perhaps we can have a "Disputed Characters" category (or whatever name was decided on in that poll a while back, and then create a "Disputed Characters" template that says something like, "The validity of this character is in question. If you feel that this character should be considered for placement within the 'Characters' category, discuss it on the talk page." --JoeyDay 09:01, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
I agree. Keep them off the Characters page, and create a category for them at most. -- InterruptorJones 09:07, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Yeah, keep them off the Characters page. But okay then, we need to set up a good system of rules to determine what's going to go in that category/on that page, and say... what's an Inside Joke. And I like the template idea. -- Tom 09:19, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
And quit asking for my input. I trust you guys. Do what you feel is proper. As for the "features" link, it should go. --JoeyDay 10:43, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

Sketchbook?

I just had a thought...should we have the Sketchbook here on the main page, since it's being updated weekly (or so), or will it only be in the museum?

That's a good question. We were behind a few weeks when they started doing the Weekly Fanstuff, because we didn't know they weren't going to archive it. I say as long as we have it somewhere and record it for now, we're good either way. If it becomes as regular as Weekly Fanstuff or the Quote of the Week, then we can add it to a more prominent place. I guess. -- Tom 14:13, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)
I do'd it anyway! HA! How's it look? Someone was keepin' up with it already, so I just moverized it.-- AgentSeethroo 15:41, 12 Aug 2004 (MST)

Wiki Stuff

Okay, now that that's kinda settled...How are we gonna format the WikiStuff section of the main page? I know not everything will be included in this new wiki, but some stuff needs a place, like HelpDesk and WikiSandbox and whatnot. Do we just follow the same formatting as the old wiki, even though it may be like 5 links and that's it? Is it possible to make a sidebar links thingy that'd show up on every page? That'd be awesome, and it'd set us apart a little more. Also, half of the pages that we linked on the main page make me wanna barf. I wonder why we never looked these things over periodically? I mean the downloads page, on a scale of 1 to 10 is horrible.5. There's gonna have to be some major overhauling of most those pages to make them look WAY more professional. I'd like to make this a site that TBC can NOT ignore, ya know? -- AgentSeethroo 14:58, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)

Ah, very good questions. MediaWiki has these things called "Namespaces". For example the "Category:" part of the link puts the page in the "Category" namespace. Our Wiki's namespace for pages like the sandbox and stuff would go under "Homestar Runner Wiki:" just like the Homestar Runner Wiki:General disclaimer and Homestar Runner Wiki:FAQ pages. The HelpDesk is in the "Help:" namespace. See Help:Contents. Also, a lot of that is under the "Special:" namespace: Allpages, Listusers, Ipblocklist, and so on. We can put stuff over there on the sidebar too. And yes, some of those pages are totally "barf" as you say. I couldn't agree with you more. Maybe someone else has some suggestions on all this... Joey? -- Tom 15:29, 11 Aug 2004 (MST)

Homestar_Runner_Wiki namespace

The Homestar_Runner_Wiki namespace really needs to be shortened to just HRWiki. Sewiously. - furrykef 01:16, 14 Aug 2004 (MST)

Any idea how I do that? --JoeyDay 09:04, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Hm. I think I've made the change, but things are still pointing to the wrong places. Check out the "Search" page. The namespace is called the right thing there. However, the "About" and "Disclaimers" pages still point to "Homestar_Runner_Wiki:About" and "Homestar_Runner_Wiki:General_Disclaimer". I'm also looking into changing the name of "Current events" to "H*R.com updates" and making the "Community portal" link a "WikiForum" link instead. On a related note, I found a really useful page for the admins: Special:Allmessages. This lets us change all of the various system messages. --JoeyDay 10:38, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Okay, I'm a confused kid right now. I've edited at least three of the system messages, but they aren't changing. I've changed them from the Special:Allmessages page and directly in the Languages.php file. What the heck am I doing wrong?? Specifically, I'm talking about the "portal", "portal-url" and "copyrightwarning" pages. Here's where I learned about this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_namespace. Help! --JoeyDay 10:47, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Okay, our case-change stuff messed up more than I thought it would. Apparently, while I was editing "portal", "portal-url" and "copyrightwarning", I should've been editing "Portal", "Portal-url", and "Copyrightwarning". I wonder if there's some way we can limit our case-change stuff to just the HRWiki namespace. --JoeyDay 11:01, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Hmm, now the WikiForum link links to a Wiki page called "http://forum..." Hrm.

Let's Open 'er Up

So, lately I've had this horribly sick feeling that things have gone all wrong. This wiki is a community, and therefore a project like this should be done as a community. What we should do, above anything, is get things ready to be opened up. I'd like to see our community finish moving emails, toons, and characters (maybe I'm just lazy, but I really do feel that this is a matter of principle).

I know some of you might be freaking out and thinking that we can't trust our users to move stuff the right way, but think about this: This community has worked so far precisely because we have given everyone the freedom to edit any document. This is the wiki way! If we don't trust our community to get things right, why is this even a wiki in the first place? We might as well just have a normal website maintained by the dozen of us that are working on this migration right now.

So, what we really need to do is all the stuff that's necessary for this place to be operational. We need to build the documentation, make sure all the namespaces and options are set up the way we want them, etc. What do you guys think of this? --JoeyDay 09:31, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)

Okay, this is a little scary. I think for the mostpart, you're right, but we still have to issue of page load. If we open up both the old wiki and the new wiki to everybody, things are going to slow to a crawl again. Can you think of any solution to this? Also, I'm afraid we'll have tons of collision problems with lots of people working on the same documents at the same time. And a lot of people are going to try to copy-and-past things the lazy way, without taking the time to fix links, etc. I agree that this should be a community effort, but I think we have to resolve those issues first. -- InterruptorJones 09:37, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
I know you guys know I'm against opening it up. We don't even have any of our help page written yet. Or have the copyrights worked out: we have one place that says GNU and one place that says CC. And Jones is right about that page load. and the everyone doing everything at once thing. Just some more stuff to think about.
As to the problem Joey's dealing with: our not giving everyone the freedom to edit... I think that would create more problems. Joey's right, giving everyone editing rights makes the wiki better, but that happens over a longer period of time. Right now we have to think on the short term. -- Tom 10:25, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
I agree with the Tom and Jones. This place is still a wiki, people will still be able to edit it when it opens up. Lettin' everyone on right now, even to help, would be kinda like lettin' a bunch of kids into an amusement park before it's finished and saying "You have to help us finish, though." There. My two cents. -- AgentSeethroo 08:34, 31 Aug 2004 (MST)

CSS Tweaks

Joey, could you increase the paragraph (P tags) spacing in the CSS? It's a little difficult to make out paragraph boundaries right now. -- InterruptorJones 09:37, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)

Working on it... --JoeyDay 10:38, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Done. Sorry it took me so long. --JoeyDay 10:13, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

Case issues

I just noticed something that might be an issue. Since we made case matter (for the emails), we now have the issue of Ballad of the Sneak and Ballad of The Sneak (and every other case variation) being two completely distinct pages. Is this going to be a problem? -- InterruptorJones 09:39, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)

This is already a problem on Wikipedia for any word after the first word. For instance, try looking up "George bush". We'll (and when I say we, I'm talking about the whole community, not just us admins) just have to pay close attention and create redirects where necessary -- at least until all the links can be fixed. --JoeyDay 09:56, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Okay, "George bush" is a bad example because there's already a redirect. Try "Greek orthodox". --JoeyDay 09:57, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)
Okay, no probalo. -- InterruptorJones
Yeah, we have this issue with The Paper and The paper. I think Joey did the redirect for that. -- Tom 10:25, 23 Aug 2004 (MST)

Flash file links

Okay, so this has kinda been buggin' me for a while. Whoever first called it "watch this video in fullscreen" obviously had no idea they were linking to the actual raw flash file. Since then, we've continued to call it "watch this video in fullscreen". Can we change it to "download the flash file of this video", or something more meaningful? What do you think? --JoeyDay 10:34, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

Hm, I guess you're right. Though I wish you'd mentioned it before I did all the toons. :D Anyway, "download" isn't quite the right term, since it'll just play in most people's browsers. -- InterruptorJones 10:52, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)
Hm. It downloads in Firefox, but I guess that's probably a preference setting. "view the flash file"? "watch the flash file"? --JoeyDay 11:13, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)
"view the Flash file" seems good to me. -- InterruptorJones 11:32, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)
We could use a template, like: [http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail50.swf Download the Flash file] {{swf}}, and the {{swf}} prints a small boilerplate saying it may download the Flash file or it may instead view it in "fullscreen". - furrykef 13:48, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

Convertulator suggestions

StrongBadEmail should be automagically changed to Strong Bad Email. Anyplace where StrongBadEmail/ appears, it should be removed, so StrongBadEmail/flashback automagically becomes flashback. Only problem would be links like this: flashback. They would turn out like this: flashback, which I suppose isn't a big deal, but it's unnecessary bloat. We'll just have to watch for those. --JoeyDay 11:39, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

I've implemented your suggestions. However, I did find one small bug. If you have a (()) Wiki link that itself is in parentheses, e.g. "(((Some Page)) here)", the Convertulator will convert the first pair of parentheses, yielding [[(Some Page]] here). There's no easy fix for this, so unfortunately we'll just have to just be on the lookout for it. -- InterruptorJones 14:17, 24 Aug 2004 (MST)

Characters featured

While adding Filmography categories, I noticed something. The featured characters lists don't seem to be in any particular order. I've been alphabetizing for the filmography categories, but I think the "Featured:" list should be in order of appearance. Maybe it should say...

Cast (in order of appearance): Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, Homsar

What do you guys think? --JoeyDay 09:53, 27 Aug 2004 (MST)

I've always tried to do them in order of appearance. Seems like a good standard to me. -- InterruptorJones 10:54, 27 Aug 2004 (MST)

Navigation links on left

Two, maybe three of the nav links on the left have odd tooltips.

  • Main Page - Visit the main page [alt-z]
    • This is fine.
  • Strong Bad Email - About the project, what you can do, where to find things
    • Obviously this isn't what it is at all.
  • H*R.com updates - Find background information on current events
    • And nor is this really.
  • Recent changes - The list of recent changes in the wiki. [alt-r]
    • Also fine.
  • Random page - Load a random page. [alt-x]
    • Also fine.
  • Help - The place to find out.
    • Slightly odd?

Also, we probably ought to have shortcuts for everything or nothing.

Very good catch. I didn't even notice that the alt text was still set for the default links that used to be there. We also need to get the external links to the WikiForum and the WikiChat there as well. Thanks for the heads up, "84.9.23.83". -- Tom 10:34, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)
You're welcome! I've got myself a proper account now. - Mithent 11:00, 25 Sep 2004 (MST)

Inside jokes

Why are Inside Jokes classified as "wiki stuff"? They are part of the content of H*R, and do not refer to the workings of the wiki. - Drhaggis 00:31, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

I guess Rejects are in that same catagory. Plus things like the glossary just kind of float somewhere in between. I think some reformatting of the section definitions are in order, as long as the Main Page is recieving an overhaul. Any additional design suggestions? -- Thunderbird 01:35, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

I was just doing some more thinking, and what about having the Knowledge Base contain ONLY the things listed on the H*R main page(s), and put everything left over into Wiki Stuff. Basically it would look something like this, and would have the added bonus of evening the two sections out, leaving External Links on the bottom...

Then this to the right of it: (Perhaps the first part in an additional section)

(Perhaps another section here?)

Then the external links in another catergory. Does anyone like this idea? I think it draws a clearer distinction between things organized by the site, and additional Knowledge sorted by the Wiki. I think a clearer illustration would be that the Knowlege base is simply the 10 vegetables, and the Wiki Stuff is all the different salads they can be made into. Does anyone understand this very abstract illustration? As of now there is no clear line drawn, and many pages float in between. At the very least pages like Inside Jokes and Songs seem to be in the same catergory and in my opinion should be sorted accordingly. -- Thunderbird 01:48, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

The Wiki Stuff should be for all the internal housekeeping pages like help pages, list of Trolls, ongoing projects and the like. The material that branches out from the core H*R content like Sightings can be grouped together, but they are not Wiki specific things. -Drhaggis 12:44, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

Then what about renaming the section, or even adding a seperate section? Perhaps name that one something like... 'Base Knowledge', and the other one like 'Secondary Knowledge', or something like that. Then have Wiki Troll, Ledger, Ect. under 'Wiki Stuff'. Or move EVERYTHING H*R related to Knowlege base, including Inside Jokes, ect, but that would make the menu look very offset... -- Thunderbird 12:58, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

Does anybody have an opinion about my idea? I think it's a good layout... -- Thunderbird 22:56, 18 Nov 2004 (MST)

New Format = Banners?

I like the new format, it does make the title screen smaller, and more... colorful, I guess, but what happened to those cool banners? Any way to incorporate them into the design at the tops of the boxes? They really gave the main page a distinct look, and I would like to see them live again. If they don't fit, could whoever made them maybe remake one or two for a custom fit? I dunno, just a suggestion. -- Thunderbird 01:28, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

Also as long as we're on the topic of the new format, what about moving the External Links to below the Wiki Stuff section? There's alot of unused space there. Might even get the page to one screen, without scrolling. Plus should anyone put the explanations of the links back? There seems to be a lack of explanations, only half the links have them. -- Thunderbird 01:32, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

Ah ha. I uploaded the banners to Image:officialsite-banner.png, Image:wikipages-banner.png, and Image:externallinks-banner.png. I'm hoping that someone will come up with something similar that will work with this format. I'm thinking the width should be limited to around 100px. -- Tom 13:16, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

I don't see what was wrong with a lil' scrolling. I'm taking this very harshly. It was my only reminder of the old wiki. --Lunar Jesters 14:08, 17 Nov 2004 (MST)

It reminds me a lot of Wikipedia. Maybe to much. I'm thinkin' we need something to "liven" the page up a bit, maybe like an official "Homestar Runner Wiki" banner across the top of the page. -- FireBird|Talk

Other New Format comments

Oh, god, I looked at the new format and I almost lost my lunch. It's so ugly! I really think the old banners should be back! Is there a way we can get them back?

Homsar999 17:04, 17 Nov 2004

I agree, the Banners are needed. Any way to put them along the tops of the colored boxes, even custom stretching them to fit? I think that would look rather good. -- Thunderbird 16:33, 17 Nov 2004 (

It's not that big of a deal. If you puked over this, I'd hate to ride a Tilt-A-Whirl with you. Get over it. -- FireBird|Talk
I'm starting to notice a pattern of people percieving improvements as being evil here, first with the switchover from Tavi to this, then the reformatting of the front page. --TheNintenGenius 02:53, 18 Nov 2004 (MST)
If there's one thing that never changes, it's that people are afraid of change, no matter how much it improves their lives. Never try to give your grandma a new TV. Anyway, the banners aren't gone for good. The ones we were using just don't fit in the new layout. And just so we're clear: messing about with the front page just because you "liked it better before" is trolling and will be handled as such. — InterruptorJones[[]]
uh, how does this change improve my life? I guess the layout is more functional, but as for improvement, I don't think it really adds anything to the site.
I agree. It looks more crowded and ugly. Needs more color, like the homestar runner website. Keeping the new layout is fine, we just need smaller banners. (Btw, why is keeping the old layout trolling, yet putting up a worse layout not? I agree with your point, I just find that statement a very harsh thing that goes agenst the wiki spirit.) Also, this layout looks like crap at 800x600 --James 13:52, 19 Nov 2004 (MST)
Can't we settle this with a vote? --Lunar Jesters 18:17, 18 Nov 2004 (MST)
I don't know. Whichever wins, a whole mess of people would be mad. -- FireBird|Talk


Afraid of change, no. Liked the banners, yes. :( --Southpaw018 21:47, 18 Nov 2004 (MST)
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