Wiki: Main Page

[TheBored]

AEM's format applied (or rather close to it) and "First Person Shooter" replaced.

TB

[juckto]

.

[aem]

What are we going to do with the space for a logo?

[aem]

How about we add a System Requirements link inside 'Info for New Players' to let prospective players know they can get by without a powerful system. Present original system requirements and mention that Allegiance has been updated so requirements are a little higher.

EDIT: Added it

[Tigereye]

System Requirements should be in there for sure, yes.

On another note, it seems we're not all on the same page here (pun intended) and I wanted to list a few changes I'd like, and why I'm suggesting them. If there are other reasons why the current page was prepped the way it was please post your comments here so we come up with the best solution. Be sure to back up your suggestions with reasons why it's better.

Anyways.Separate the "What is Allegiance?" from "How do I get started?" sections. Currently they're both in one gridcell (topleft). I liked it better when they were separate.Why? Answering "What is Allegiance?" is a separate animal from getting started. If you find you don't like this type of game, you won't even bother going into "How do I begin?"Right now there is too much info in one section of the main page. Separating them will keep them concise"What is Allegiance" should have info for new players who have never seen us before: Descriptions, screenshots, teaser movies, and press/award informationHow do I get started should link to information on how to download and install, link to the Academy for learning, the top 10 things you should know, and the Training master pageDo not talk about zones on the main page anywhere. Link to the content covered by zones, but don't mention zones.Why? Because - if you never heard of Allegiance and I asked you "What is an Allegiance Zone" would you know? Nope!The main page should use plain english to get the user to the place they're looking for. It should not include any game-specific knowledge or terms that new users won't know.Squads need to disappear from the main page.Why? There's too much content on the main page right now making it feel overloaded. The main page should link to a general "Events" page or "Competition" page where all forms of competitive events in our community is described (aka: the Event Zone page)This page should describe the different types of competitive events in our community from the most popular Squad Games to the old AllegianceWars and upcoming AllegianceZone games.The Squads page (reachable from the Events page) will list all information about creating squads, and information about each individual squad too including links to their private websites (if applicable)The "Additional Information" section needs to go. Ditch it and move its content to more applicable areas:Why? Content should be categorized appropriately to make it easy to pinpoint.Categorizing odds and ends under "Additional Information" is counter-intuitive and removes the benefit of categorizingTeamspeak - this is a "Where do I get started?" piece. Teamspeak makes it really easy for players to learn because they can ask questions in real time. Be sure to mention that TS is not enforced by FAO and is run separately, so is not subject to our TOS or RoCs.Informational tools like TEK shouldn't have a place on the main page. This should be findable via the master training/where do I start page.Developmental tools like ICE and MDLC should have their place under Development.Mods should fall somewhere under development (and linked to from the install page), and definitely not mentioned on the main page.Links shouldn't be in a section on its own. Throw them into the "Getting Started" section, because you should be visiting the forums and academy when getting started.Now that I think about it - lets move Development into its own mainpage cell since that's a pretty common reason to visit the wiki: getting the source.So those are the changes I am suggesting, and the reasoning behind them. If there aren't any counterarguments that may prove it's better to do it a different way, then lets change it up.

Thanks!

--TE

[TheBored]

Okay, TE and I talked for a while. I convinced him that the squads area should stay. I believe that the Squads are a very important of the community, and removing them from the Wiki serves no real benefit. If we were to remove squads, the community section would serve little purpose. With Additional Info being deleted, there goes half of our front page. Though the main page should be broad, we should at least use the space given to us /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

We also talked about replacing Zones with Events. Its a reasonable replacement under the community section. We will need to keep this up to date, but the ZL for that can appoint someone for it.

I agreed that the Additional Info area is pretty useless since none of the info was related, and it probably wouldn't be used very often.

The new main page is live, per TE's instructions.

TB

[Raveen]

When you say lose the zones, do you mean remove links to those areas, or just don't refer to them as zones?

[aem]

I think you are overlooking a lot of the reasoning why I structured my version of the main page the way I did. A lot of your list doesn't make much sense.Separate the "What is Allegiance?" from "How do I get started?" sections. Currently they're both in one gridcell (topleft). I liked it better when they were separate.Why? Answering "What is Allegiance?" is a separate animal from getting started. If you find you don't like this type of game, you won't even bother going into "How do I begin?" That is exactly why I did separate them. This is the information block for new players. So they get to the main page and think "Hey there is a block of info for new players, thats me" First, they want to know what Allegiance is. That is right there in the top left. Immediately after that, they will decide Allegiance is not for them and leave. If not, they will next want to know how to start playing. And hence there is a section on that right underneath it for them to move directly to and provides all the basics they need to download and start playing.Right now there is too much info in one section of the main page. Separating them will keep them concise"What is Allegiance" should have info for new players who have never seen us before: Descriptions, screenshots, teaser movies, and press/award information Yes, that is there already.How do I get started should link to information on how to download and install, link to the Academy for learning, the top 10 things you should know, and the Training master page. That is not sufficient at all IMO. Just linking to the Academy is a major problem. As of now there is no article there on how to start learning. Just giving them a link and saying here, go there is not enough. They need to get an summary of how to get started right away. If it is desired, ALL of the training information could be moved to the Training zone and just link to it here. But that isn't nearly as good IMO.Do not talk about zones on the main page anywhere. Link to the content covered by zones, but don't mention zones.Why? Because - if you never heard of Allegiance and I asked you "What is an Allegiance Zone" would you know? Nope! That was my argument against your skeleton /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> You had it in What is Allegiance? I have it in a separate section. If you aren't a new player, you don't need to know about Zones. Thats why there is a whole section on Info for New Players, so they know where to go. The Community section is for players who aren't so new and want to read about the past, present, and future projects or information contained within each zone.The main page should use plain english to get the user to the place they're looking for. It should not include any game-specific knowledge or terms that new users won't know. It does use plain English, at least in the Info for New Players. Thats why that is where New Players are directed. Anything not in plain English "@Alleg" is given a brief summary so they know what it means right there on the front page and can click the link for more info.Squads need to disappear from the main page.Why? There's too much content on the main page right now making it feel overloaded. The main page should link to a general "Events" page or "Competition" page where all forms of competitive events in our community is described (aka: the Event Zone page) Personally I do not feel the main page is overloaded at all. The main info is in the Info for New Players section and the Community section which are right up top. The information below is secondary information. But honestly I would not care if Squads are removed as I think they are the least important part of the main page. So I don't care much here.This page should describe the different types of competitive events in our community from the most popular Squad Games to the old AllegianceWars and upcoming AllegianceZone games.The Squads page (reachable from the Events page) will list all information about creating squads, and information about each individual squad too including links to their private websites (if applicable)The "Additional Information" section needs to go. Ditch it and move its content to more applicable areas:Why? Content should be categorized appropriately to make it easy to pinpoint. The content is organized about as good as it gets IMO in my main mage. Additional Information describes information that a lot of people should see but that does not fit well into any of our Zones of Influence. I challenge you to come up with a more concise, logical method that fits everything in. You can't without abandoning Zones and Zones right now is what our community is based around and as such makes for the best way to structure the Wiki. I don't know exactly what you would do, but I really felt the skeleton you had posted made it VERY difficult to find information. That was my main concern with it. Many things categorization made no sense at all.Categorizing odds and ends under "Additional Information" is counter-intuitive and removes the benefit of categorizingTeamspeak - this is a "Where do I get started?" piece. Teamspeak makes it really easy for players to learn because they can ask questions in real time. Be sure to mention that TS is not enforced by FAO and is run separately, so is not subject to our TOS or RoCs. So this can be mentioned in the Getting Started section. For more info about TS it links to in-depth Teamspeak Page in Additional Information. Teamspeak does not really fit well into anything but a Misc type section or a section on Communication in Allegiance. Some other places it deserves a mention because it is relevant, but will not be a logical place for someone specifically looking up TS info to find it.Informational tools like TEK shouldn't have a place on the main page. This should be findable via the master training/where do I start page. It is a bit different than Training but I wouldn't complain about it going there. It will certainly cause some confusion. If I was looking for TEK, I would not think of training. Where do I start is not a good place. Getting started you certainly won't be concerned about these types of tools yet. You just want to jump in a game and try things out.Developmental tools like ICE and MDLC should have their place under Development. Yes that was the planed. ICE serves both development and information and requires two different articles. How to read ICE for information and how to use ICE for core development.Mods should fall somewhere under development (and linked to from the install page), and definitely not mentioned on the main page. Again I addressed this in my other post. Mods are completely different from development in that nearly all people who want mods have no development knowledge or interest and just want to grab some of the pre-existing ones. Making mods only would be appropriate IMO for a development section. It is debatable whether or not they deserve a spot on the main page. I would say yes because they are one of the hottest topics in the Wiki after the Info for New Players.Links shouldn't be in a section on its own. Throw them into the "Getting Started" section, because you should be visiting the forums and academy when getting started. Again this doesn't make much sense because the links are completely different than anything in Getting Started. This is mostly a complete list of links, minus Press links which goes in that section. People want to go get links they will not think of going to Getting Started. That is a mis-categorization. Links can include everything from the Academy, to squad pages, to @Cadet info, to Allegiance fan sites (planetAllegiance, etc). Completely unrelated to info for new players. If is not for new players much at all and so it is placed elsewhere.Now that I think about it - lets move Development into its own mainpage cell since that's a pretty common reason to visit the wiki: getting the source. Not all that many people are going to want to get the source. Clearly if someone wants to get the source, development is the obvious place to go. When something is obvious there is no need to put a direct link on the main page. They can simply click the Development zone and be on their way. Huge waste of space IMO putting links to sections that you can obviously go, well of course this would be in development so click on development and get presented with all the dev topics.Being able to easily find info and making the wiki as accessible as possible should be the number one priority. And I think most of your suggestions make many mis-categorizations and will make navigation and looking up a certain topic very confusing. But this is your Wiki so it is up to you.

[juckto]

I'm currently going through the Main page, "sprucing up" the pages that it links to, so that new users get a nice impression wherever they click /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />. Anyway, I'm looking at Links. I like that page, I don't think it needs any sprucing up - but I'm wondering where the best place for it on the Main page is. It hardly seems like "Getting Started" material.

Keep in mind that "Community Portal" on the left hand tab redirects to Links.


Also does each squad really need its own link on the Main Page? It takes up a lot of space which could be used for something else ... not sure what though.

Also "Press Reviews" is a real damp blanket at the moment.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Over on the Dwarf Fortress wiki they have a system to display a random quote on the Main Page. I tried to copy it to pull a random "Did you know" onto the Main Page, but failed miserably. If anyone knows how to get that going it would be great. I can tell you that copying the DF random thingy doesn't work

{{#expr: ({{LOCALTIMESTAMP}} + {{NUMBEROFEDITS:R}}) mod {{{1|100}}}+1}}

Our wiki doesn't seem to recognise {{Localtimestamp}}, for starters.

[badpazzword]

Maybe they have a LOCALTIMESTAMP page on their wiki, or maybe they're using a different version of MediaWiki?