Talk:Main Page/Archive1

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Here's the wikipedi story for FTL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeTalkLive

The main page is protected right now, meaning you can't edit it. Discuss any proposed changes here and a sysop will implement them or unprotect the page.

I have made an archive of this Talk page on the AMP BBS. What I'd like to do is have a place where we can discuss changes to the page without having to jockey over post here and figure out what was said by who and when. If you think that this is a good idea then lets move the talk portion of the main page to the BBS. That way we can clear this page up and have a place that we can work from that has a better way on keeping track of the time line. -- 15FEB2006 23:51 EST (Winston Wolf)

Not everybody who has an opinion is in AMP. You can mark your replies with the signature button. --Firam 23:56, 15 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I can re-create the thread in the General BBS so anyone can talk in there. The problem is that since this is sectioned off (Redesign, Past Shows, etc.) you have to scroll all over the place and figure out what the heck is going on when without a real time line. The BBS time stamps and the layout of the messages makes it easier to track. Example this edit has two edits by me, to figure them out you either have to compare versions or search for my name and look at time stamps. Short term that is no biggie, but as this thing grows its going to be a real PITA to keep track of things. -- 16FEB2006 00:10 EST (Winston Wolf)

i propose you unlock it, or that you make something completely different out of it. it's not very good looking or useful.

You can still access the code. Work somthing up and I can apply it or I can unprotect it for a little while. Not to make Torgo the bad guy, but he was the one to protect it and I don't want to step on his toes by unprotecting it for too long. I will monitor this and if you are ready to make a edit or give the code to me I'll help. --Firam 17:46, 7 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

1 Redesign
- 1.1 Redesign Completed
2 Past Shows
3 AMP Classics
4 Navigation Menu
5 New category: topics
6 Sandbox
7 HTML usage

[edit]

Redesign

Yeah, would those smarter than I add some links to the main navigation bar on the left? --Johnson 20:23, 6 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Basically talk about any major redesigns before you do them. --Firam 21:13, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Sorry man it's fugly -- try to use wiki markup for tables --CorrosionX 13:05, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

It looks like we took a step back with the HTML added back in. Isn't this what we fixed yesterday? --Firam 16:36, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Yup, looks like crapola with the puke yellow HTML tables! --eukreign

Ok, sorry I changed it without hitting the discussion first. However, I think the tables look vastly better than the list of files that was there. Really I don't think the files should be the centerpiece of the main page, so I was trying to keep it in some kind of container that can be put off to the side once we decide on some real content. --Tsaylor 17:24, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

agreed that files shouldn't be the focus of the main page. i wouldn't mind having a floating table on the right with latest shows, so the files would be there, but wouldn't be the focus of the main page per se. --CorrosionX 18:20, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

also please follow wiki formatting Help:Editing don't overstyle anything, we should use templating at the maximum --CorrosionX 18:20, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I think it makes sense to move the categories box, and the 2 lines beneath it, to the very top of the page. The rest of the content would come after them. If not at the top, it should probably go on the side, but I would hold off on moving it to the side until there is more content on the front page - it might make it look barren.

Could we maybe have a requested articles page? I don't know how to do that, other than make a regular wiki page for it. Lepidoptera

Special:Wantedpages go there --CorrosionX 13:42, 4 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Well that is esentially all the pages that have been created but there is nothing on them. So to make a wanted page just make a link anywhere. --Firam 14:34, 4 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I suggest a Misc. or some such category for articles such as the chicken measuring and fads. --Puke 02:16, 11 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Do we have stub formatting? I've made some stubs, and they're pretty sad, so they need marking.Lepidoptera 01:16, 6 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Yes, use the

{{Stub}}

template Argash 21:15, 17 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I'd like to do away with the Show Links, Torrent Links, and AMP Links on the front page. Essentially I'd like to make new pages for all of them and then link that from the main page. This would clean up the main page and maybe we can do some work to redesign that portion using CSS instead of the tables as they are now. -- 16FEB2006 00:10 EST (Winston Wolf)

I think we can find a way to organize it in such a way that removing any content from the main page is unnecessary. --Rabidfurby

[edit]

Redesign Completed

Since there were no major objection in the sandbox I've moved the redesign live. I'm thinking that most people didn't even see it in the sandbox so this way we can get even more feedback. If anyone has any suggestions, questions or objections please let me know. Also I guess If now that more people can see it and they don't like it we can always revert back to the original design. Argash 02:52, 28 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Please visit this topic on the BBS to vote on the redesign Argash 01:30, 29 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

[edit]

Past Shows

I added some rare quotes when the guys used curse words on air, due to be on air via the internet only, some of ian's are pretty funny! The Terminator 9:08 PM EST 12-29-2006

I think we should change the "Monthly torrent archives" section to "past shows". When I'm done wikifiying the show notes from all the torrents, we will have subcategories under Shows for each month, and could link to the torrent from that subcat page, as I've already done with the Dec 2005 category. This will also allow us to wikify the notes from the AMP classics and have them linked under "past shows", even though there won't be a torrent for them. --Rabidfurby 19:26, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I have no problem with that. I don't see the picture exactly but I get the idea. I just want the last 6 to be easy to get to preferably on the main page. Do it how you like and I'll try to help becasue the show notes from the january torrent need to be fixed at the end. I'm working on that now. --Firam 19:45, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Actually, with what I was thinking of, we don't even need the Topics pages - the info is already on the individual show pages, and it's already cleaned up too. See the Dec 2005 subcat to see what I mean. What I'm picturing is having that link on the front page, where the link to the December torrent is right now. Someone can click on that, download the torrent, or browse individual show notes. --Rabidfurby 19:55, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Very nice Rabidfurby, I like what you've done with the topics of the past shows... I've just seen this after making the Jan & Dec topics page and hotlinking whatever I could ... :) There's still something about the way that page looks that bugs me... --CorrosionX 20:42, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Would it be hard to arrange by week or make a table like thing for that page? --Firam 20:50, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

There's a way to make calendars and stuff like that, making templates with MediaWiki... just follow Wikipedia source code whenever possible --CorrosionX 22:51, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

As far as I know, if serious formatting changes are possible, they would require MediaWiki config changes to the way categories are displayed. I did test out a small change, though: on the 2005-12 page, FTL2005-12-01 is now listed under the heading "1". I did this by editing FTL2005-12-01 and adding a "|1" to the category tag. We could handle a whole month in this fashion: the first week would have |1 at the end of their tag, causing them to be sorted under 1; the second week would have a |2, and be sorted under 2, etc. The major downside to this is that there is no way that I know of to have more than 1 character displayed in the header, so no "Week 1" or "Week 2" for example (unless MediaWiki has a config option for this). --Rabidfurby 21:01, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Mediawiki is not the final word on wiki, there are some things that can bug people, like automatically making a table of content for pages, the category-subcategory thing, which seems to take all the place right now just because the wiki is getting started.

As soon as more pages get interlinked the categories/subcategories look won't matter, but still, the big FTL12-06-2005 title isn't attractive either. --CorrosionX 22:50, 2 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I agree, I tend to think we should use different names for the show pages. Do they keep track of the show numbers ("episodes")? We could use "Episode ####". I've also seen mixed usage of "Topics" and "Day Month ##, ####" for the first level heading that contains the topics. If we go with a different name for the Shows pages I'd recommend using the latter; otherwise I'd recommend sticking with "Topics". – gRegor 01:15, 29 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Actually I just switched the first header from Topics to dayname month day year so that it would look better for the main page redesign. Some time this week ill work my way back through and make that change to all the shows back to jan 1 Argash 01:28, 29 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I think the names for the pages themselves should remain consistant with the filenames of the archives. The "Topics" header makes the most sense, especially when we have multiple sections and a table of contents. See here for an example. That TOC would make much less sense if the "Topics" section was instead "Monday March 20, 2006". The whole page is about the show on Monday March 20 - it doesn't make sense to have a section for that night also, particularly since it would be the only top-level section. And the jury's still out on the main page redesign - personally I'm not even convinced of the necessity of having the most recent show's notes on the front page. --Rabidfurby 15:44, 29 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I agree, "Topics" makes more sense; but I'm not sure I understand why we should keep the title consistent with the filenames. It seems to make categorization of the shows a bit redundant. – gRegor 13:18, 29 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Should I start naming my sow notes pages with a space. Like last nights page that is FTL2006-02-02 should now be named FTL 2006-02-02? --Firam 08:56, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I still think the best possible choice would be to have calendar templates (Mediawiki extension) and assign shows to the days like the calendar would automatically link to for example February3-2006 and put the show there... no need for FTL in every show name, and each unique show is on a unique day --CorrosionX 11:57, 3 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

[edit]

AMP Classics

I think we need links to the pages for the AMP-only classics on the front page. All the pages are already up, but they can currently only be accessed through the Shows category and then 2002-11 or 2002-12. Can someone who is better at table layouts than I am add the links? Post here and I'll unprotect the page if you need it.

BTW: Is there any way to create an official "sandbox" page for the main page that non-sysops can edit in order to propose changes to the main page, which a sysop could then approve and apply to the main page? --Rabidfurby 18:37, 10 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

How about linking a page maybe to the Community Portal though it could be anywhere. People would make another page under that and list their changes. The name of the page could be their name or date. For example: Community portal->Main page ideas->Firam-> "My Changes on that page" --Firam 20:14, 10 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Well, I hacked my way through the table layout and added the links to the AMP classics myself. Please feel free to de-uglificate it if you can. --Rabidfurby 23:56, 12 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

Does anyone mind if I move the AMP Clasic section to the bottom? The current format (3 col) makes for one hell of a wide page to have on the main page. -- Winston Wolf

I think the new format, with the AMP classics section down at the bottom all by itself, looks just as bad. Do we even need the yellow table layout we have now? --Rabidfurby 20:44, 13 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I don't like it too much either. I'm not attached to the yellow. --Firam 21:19, 13 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

[edit]

New category: topics

I created a new category specifically for topics that come up in shows: category:topics. I think it might have a place on the front page, what do you guys think? Another new category: category:activism. Triddle 06:48, 23 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

I'm just going to add these myself but I don't have any style, if it makes it uglier I hope someone can find a way to make it look better rather than simply removing the new links to categories. I'd like to see more people create activism articles for sure. If I had to pick one or the other, it would be activism that stays. Triddle 15:39, 24 February 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

[edit]

Sandbox

I've created a Main Page sandbox at Main Page/Sandbox. If you want to make any major design changes to the main page, please do them there first, then post here for comments/suggestions. --Rabidfurby 13:52, 10 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

My appologies I didn't see the sandbox before switching the current month list to a calendar style. If the change isn't liked then please revert it Argash 21:15, 17 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

[edit]

HTML usage

While reformating the current month archive listing to a table formated calendar style the thought occured to me that instead of using HTML to format the main page wiki-formating should be the preffered method. whats everyone else think? Argash 00:32, 18 March 2006 (Eastern Standard Time)

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