Talk:Main Page/Archives/2008

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2008, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Archival

Comments posted to User talk:Pathoschild/Projects/Main page, predating the implementation of the new design, were exceptionally archived to m:User:Pathoschild/Archives/2006/06. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 03:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm concerned about it, though; it's slightly too far up, which means that I'm unable to click on any of the links. Is it possible to move the "Main page" header title down a little bit? Jude (talk) 08:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

hello hello hello. how are you all. im concerned about it, though it's slightly too far up, which means that i am unable to click on any links!!!!!! can you please make it possible so i can click on the links. thanks lots'Link titleBold text

Featured text

Would it be possible to add a relevant picture to the Featured text on the Main Page? Yes, I know the focus is on source texts, but the text is very plain-looking and doesn't really stand out very well on a page that is loaded up with text in a tight configuration to begin with. –Pakman044 16:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It'd be possible, if there's a picture relevant to the featured text. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 21:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Can we add a link right at the words 'The Gettysburg Address' - and bold it as well. I found it awkward to find 'Read on' to click. It feels like it should be more immediate than that.Banjee 11:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I just figured out how to add the link (almost by accident) Banjee 23:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Text around Spitzweg image

On my browser, the first line of the text "Wikisource is an online..." begins to the right of the Spitzweg image and is vertically centred. This looks odd as the remaining text continues below the image. Maybe some CSS "vertical-align:bottom" (or whatever wiki equivalent) or similar is missing.--GrafZahl 20:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I added a top vertical alignment to the cell. Try refreshing your browser to clear the cache, since the styles were only recently added to the stylesheet. If the problem still occurs, can you upload a screenshot? // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 21:27, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I did a hard refresh (Shift+reload) and it looks great now. Probably it was that hard refresh that messed things up for me all along. Thanks for your hint.--GrafZahl 08:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

By cibin

Other Wikisources

Personally I think it would look better with the links (Norsk, Italiano, Francais, &c) at the bottom of the page, not the top - is there Wikimedia policy on this, or what are other's opinions? Sherurcij 19:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean; the interlanguage links are on the sidebar. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 23:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The position of the interlanguage links depends on the skin you use. In the standard skin they are at the top of the page. Wikipedia has the links at the bottom of the main page, but they are using ordinary inline interwiki links (is that the right words? I hope you understand what i mean).

While looking at the standard skin [1] you should also do something in [MediaWiki:Standard.css] so that the whole sitenotice is visible in the standard skin. Maybe you should check the new layout in other skins too. /EnDumEn 23:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, my bad - should've realised it was a Skin thing. Sorry. Sherurcij 01:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems

We need some way to access historical documents from the main page I know it there somewhere and I cannot find it following these links. And I am somehow misspelling it so I can't use the Go button either--BirgitteSB 17:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The page you're looking for is Index → Works → Historical documents. The index is linked to from the main page, and it exists precisely to make every page easy to find. :) // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 18:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to avoid having Categories and Index Pages with the same name, especially top-level ones. Or else link to the top of the category tree as we do with Wikisource:Index and not Category:Works. Because when you know you are looking for a page called "Works" and there is a link on the main page called "Works" You expect it to be the page you want. I do not necessarily know how we should definately arrage this. However if I have go to Google and search "historical documents site:en.wikisource.org" I have to believe that people less familiar with the site will be having problems.--BirgitteSB 19:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, the categories should match the indexes. This is obviously not the case, but it's something I intend to remedy in the future. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 14:39, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Obviosly when people come to Wikisource they are looking for works. why don't we just migrate a smaller formatted version of Works to the Main page instead of having to find index then works. Other language wikisource pages do the same thing and it works well. It took me a long time to find the page where all the stuff was organized and I'm neither drunk nor blind.--Metal.lunchbox --Metal.lunchbox 00:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Heading overlap problem fixed

Certain users had the first-level heading overlap the sitenotice or the tabs with the CSS hide method. I switched to the hybrid JavaScript/CSS method used by Wikipedia, which is more dependable as long as users have JavaScript enabled. Hopefully, this should fix the problem. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 15:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Just from today the problem seems to have arisen that the article/discussion/edit/history tabs on the main page are showing over the actual main page contents rather than above it. AllanHainey 09:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That's odd; the tabs on the main page display just fine for me.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 13:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you tell me the skin (default is Monobook), browser, and operating system you use? // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 05:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

the skin is just the default, browser is internet explorer & OS is Windows 2000 Professional. AllanHainey 07:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Does the same problem occur on Wikipedia's Main Page? We are using the same JavaScript method to hide the header. // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 15:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity

It would be appreciated if you could add a link on the list of sister projects to Wikiversity, now that it has become a seperate sister project. For an example (and the current Wikiversity "Logo"), you can copy the example from The Wikibooks Main Page, or especially the sister projects template on Wikibooks.

And yes, Wikiversity does has a reciprical link to Wikisource as well ;) --Robert Horning 18:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry it is beyond my ability. The closest I got to sucess is in the Wikisource:Sandbox[2]. If you can get me some good code I will certainly update the template.--BirgitteSB 17:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the template to add Wikiversity and fixed any small glitches that were lying about.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The link to Wikiversity does not work. --68.109.175.242 13:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

It now seems to. Maybe we should ask Robert Horning to list us as "The Free Library" at the Wikiversity template? :-) Dovi 14:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

the link to Wikiversity does not work. please fix this if its ok....

collected = collective

The link collected on main page leads to a page called collective works. perhaps the name of the link should be changed to "Collective" --Metal.lunchbox 19:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Comprehension Of The Content.

It would be very benefitial if there would be a link after every "individual content", mean to say after every text which would lead to its explanation or comprehension. this would be very much benefitial for a person who is wek at understanding the text ,like a poem.

Wikisource is merely a repository of texts, we are not anything like Spark Notes or Cliff Notes. The most we really can do is to link to the corresponding Wikipedia page, which usually provides the context of the text in question. But if you want something that's professionally done and fairly reliable, it would be best to look at Spark Notes or the like.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity logo and link fix

Please update the icon to the new one () in the main page template: Template:Sisterprojects, and fix the link to http://en.wikiversity.org/ as mentioned in the templates talk page already in February. 194.251.240.113 20:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I updated the image. What link do you mean? The one on Template:Sisterprojects seems to be correct.--GrafZahl (talk) 08:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

?

What is this thing used for? It does not state what is this used for! So please explain SOMEBODY!!!--Saikano 16:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

This thing — ? — is a question mark, used at the end of questions. Meanwhile, the purpose of this web site (which you were probably talking about), Wikisource, is to share free-content publications. If you have other questions, ask at the Scriptorium. 64.178.98.18 05:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

About other languages links

You should add a link on your main page to the Macedonian wikisource to the links for other languages. http://mk.wikisource.org/

Done. Yann 12:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Please add a link to the newly formed Tamil wikisource - http://ta.wikisource.org --Ravidreams 08:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yann did it. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:09:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Slight restructure?

With the deletion of the "Wikisource:Fiction" page, we might need to do a slight restructure to the main page. In the top right corner is our index, which has links to non-fiction, poetry, biographies, etc. But with the fiction page deleted (and to discourage recreation), that corner should be reworked. Would linking to the respective categories be a better idea?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I think so. It might also be a good idea to have a template that crossindexes categories to avoid redundancy (ie, Modern works and Fiction versus Modern Fiction). This would mimic much of the usefulness of manual indexes. For example:

Generate a list of...

• Modern fiction
• Early modern fiction
• Renaissance fiction

—{admin} Pathoschild 19:49:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey

your page doesn't give me enough info about S.C. like about John F. Kennedy,Crisis in Berlin and in Cuba, Johnson and the Great Society, The Tradgey of Vietnam, 1968-A year of Disater, Richard M. Nixon ect.

reword "ask questions"

It currently says "Feel free to ask questions at the Scriptorium,..." which seems to encourage the random questions that tend to pop up there and get ignored. Maybe it shold be reworded to something like "Feel free to ask questions about this project at the Scriptorium," -Steve Sanbeg 14:51, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

re-worded--BirgitteSB 16:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Locking of the Template:New texts

This page was locked subsequent to the entry of the last new text on the list. I request that this template be unlocked or that a process of review of new titles be done by admins, who can then add them to the template. The locking is faulty, though not ineffective: you can still see the "edit" tab as opposed to the "view source" tab that appears for pages that are similarly locked. If this template was locked in error, I request that it be unlocked.--Drboisclair 23:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This template is semi-protected, meaning that only unregistered users cannot change it. You should be able to edit it.--GrafZahl (talk) 07:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: This template was cascade-protected by the Main page protection. I've removed the cascade protection.--GrafZahl (talk) 13:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, but do you think that that protection needs to be put back from time to time? I can understand the need for locking things. In this case, so that not more titles than you want be displayed.--Drboisclair 13:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Redundant redundancy

At the bottom of the page, we have Wikisource's Multilingual Portal · List of Wikisources · News & Updates · Wikisource – The Free Library. Numbers 1,2 and 4 are near-identical, offering users a glimpse/link to other language subdomains. Can we please merge it into one such link? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook} 00:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Each link provides a different resource, and those links are actually meant to be much shorter and aesthetic than the list of languages by size which appears at that same point on the Wikipedia Main Page. I hope the "Wikisource languages" section serves the function of being a short but very clear and appealing passageway into the world of multilingual Wikisource. Dovi 18:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to explain what "different resource" this provides that isn't already covered by this. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Thomas Wyatt} 23:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The second is a table with all kinds of interesting information on subdomains. The first adds links to the languages without their own subdomains at wikisource.org (as well as being a door to the whole wikisource.org website). Dovi 16:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

New York Times

Is anyone working on transloading the complete New York Times from prior to 1922? They say they're opening their database.--128.115.27.10 20:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is working on it at this time, the New York Times page is largely a collection of unrelated articles that are collected together, after being added by different authors for different reasons. I added The New York Times/Wireless Workers Back from the Scene of War because it was related to the w:Haimun article that I did for Wikipedia, Lgagnon added The New York Times/Emma Goldman and A. Berkman Behind the Bars because he does a lot of anarchism-related texts on the project. I imagine such a large-scale project as copying the entire database is unlikely, but it certainly does afford us a unique opportunity to go back and search for articles on a certain subject which we would like to see added. (I'll be adding any articles that discuss Author:Leo Tolstoy for example) Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Richard Francis Burton} 20:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Title

"Welcome to Wikisource, the free library that anyone can edit." - I think a term like "improve" or even the onerous "where anyone can add books" might go a long way towards preventing the annual newb question of "Why the hell can I edit War and Peace????" - and would appear less enticing to would-be vandals. ("Dude, I can edit the Bible?") Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Richard Francis Burton} 20:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"Welcome to Wikisource, the free library that anyone can expand"? —{admin} Pathoschild 21:40:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I like "improve" rather than "expand". Yann 22:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I like "improve" better as well—much of the work we do here is cleanup and formatting, which isn't really expanding anything. And "improve" I think implies "expand". --Spangineer^wp {{{1}}} 13:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

DONE. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Thomas Wyatt} 01:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Please add bn: to the list of interwiki links on the Main Page. Thanks! Bastique 14:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What's up with the logo?

Why is it a Glacier? 208.180.120.34 18:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Our project was originally named "Project Sourceberg", as a homage to w:Johannes Gutenberg and w:Project Gutenberg - but after we renamed to "Wikisource" we kept the image as it was fitting to demonstrate that the material we have commonly available today (in bookstores, online, in libraries), is merely "the tip of the iceberg" compared to the wealth of knowledge available through the ages. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Stratemeyer Syndicate} 20:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Top template

I'd like to remove * Fiction * Non-fiction * Biography * Poetry * Speeches * Collected * Ancient * Medieval * Modern which seem to be chiefly a random listing of indices (some of which are being deleted as being "useless" as they work against us, making it look like we only have five modern authors on WS because they're too broad) - and replace them with a single link to Index of Works. Any complaints or suggestions? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:William Gordon Stables} 00:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Go for it! Personally I would also put the Author Index there and remove it from the upper right box were it is linked to in parenthesis. --BirgitteSB 21:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Armenian wikisource

Can someone add the Armenian Wikisource to the list of other languages. The code should be hy: Thank you. VartanM 04:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. John Vandenberg 05:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you John, see you on en.wiki. VartanM 01:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

How do i submit an RFA?--Good 03:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Christmas decorations

How long y'all leaving them up this year? -- Kendrick7 20:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

That section of the front page can be altered by anyone: Template:New texts. I've taken down the Christmas lights. John Vandenberg 22:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Category

I suggest add the root category to Wikisource Mainpage. --Mac 12:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"Categories" is on the main page, up at the top left, under "Welcome to Wikisource". John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice design

I like the design of the main page. Defintely one of the better ones. AJ @ --84.45.219.185 12:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It works for me, it brings me to http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page - what does it do for you? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Karl Marx} 20:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the Main Page also allows anyone of us to update, that is very domestic.--218.81.233.76 02:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Not easy to fast get what I want

In this open source site, I feel it is not very easy to find what I want. For example, if I want to get some help about dot net framework 3.5, except searching from the left panel I don't know how I should start from. How do you guys think?

See wikipedia:.NET_Framework#.NET_Framework 3.5 --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

New look for the main page

I personally like the old design better. The new look just isn't interesting. I think the reason the old version was better is because it was more colorful. Something about the shades of brown used made it inviting. It sort of made me feel like I was in a physical library, which was kind of nice.

71.96.131.101 04:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree; I think the new design is a bit cold. To quote my comment in this design's original proposal:

I designed the previous main page, so I may be biased in comparing the new design with it. That said:

• I don't like the colour theme, which has nothing to do with Wikisource. The logo's colour scheme is not really something we should be using elsewhere, since it has no relevance except as a play on a common expression (further, some users have pointed out that water is actually anathema to paper literature). The current main page's scheme was selected after discussion based on the colour of papyrus and old paper, which is very symbolic for a project to archive literature.
• I don't think the "Did you know..." and "Featured images" sections are very relevant. I think we should minimize community processes, and focus on those which focus on adding or editing texts (like Collaboration of the Week). For example, images are only used on Wikisource to supplement texts. This section includes an excerpt from the text version and links to it, so that the text version should meet all our quality standards. This would lead to our having redundant featured text processes, one exclusively for those with images and with lower quality standards.

If we remove these from the proposed design, we essentially have minor tweaks to the current design (some of which have merit). We could discuss and implement those individually, but I don't like this design as a whole. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:01:52, 02 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see what other users have to say about it, though. —{admin} Pathoschild 06:22:32, 07 June 2008 (UTC)

"I don't think the "Did you know..." and "Featured images" sections are very relevant. I think we should minimize community processes, and focus on those which focus on adding or editing texts (like Collaboration of the Week)." The featured image and did you know sections had been striked from the design a long time ago, and the COTW added... As for the reference to the logo's color scheme, it is inconsistent to have a brownish main page in contrast to the clear blue of the logo. One of them needs to be changed for consistency... —Dark ^talk 06:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The new design includes much more information and looks more professional, which makes it far superior to the old one. The color doesn't matter a lot to me, but I must say that I like the blue color scheme. When you have blue links and a blue logo, a blue main page color scheme makes sense. Psychless 22:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with contrasting colors? As for having more information, why not simply add the new information to the old version?

71.96.131.101 00:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Additionally can the link labelled 'Community discussion' be changed to 'Central discussion' to match the side-bar? Suicidalhamster 13:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. —Dark ^talk 01:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The painting was a nice touch. Most WMF projects seem to have more "piles" (EG. WpA has (eN): News, DYK, languages, other stuff, etc, etc. This seems rather short. That being said, anything is OK that's useful. 68.39.174.238 22:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

A bit more on subject of COTW

Collaboration

The current Collaboration of the Week is collecting texts related to...
Søren Kierkegaard.

I think we should include a little more information on the subject of the COTW to interest people in it more. For example,

The current Collaboration of the Week is collecting texts related to...
Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher whose writings laid the foundation for existentialist thought.

By the way, the current code for the COTW is broken. The name isn't in bold (it should be). Fixed:

<div style="width:50%">
{| class="plainlinks" style="width: 100%; background:transparent;"
| style="border: 1px solid #cedff2; padding: 1em; font-size: 100%;"|
<div style="font-size: 135%; background:#569BBB; color:white;">{{c/s}}Collaboration{{c/e}}</div>
[[Image:Kierkegaard.jpg|left|50px]]{{c/s}}'''The current [[Wikisource:Collaboration of the Week|Collaboration of the Week]] is collecting texts related to...<br />'''[[Author:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]]'''.{{c/e}}
|}
</div>

Also, shouldn't "Index of Audio recordings" be "Index of audio recordings"?

Psychless 22:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration

The current Collaboration of the Week is collecting texts related to...
Søren Kierkegaard.

Recent collaborations: John Masefield, Percival Lowell, Confucianism ...

Replying to the first comment about including more info on the COTW box, how about adding a line of recent collaborations? It could be small and in italic so as to not deviate much attention from the current COTW author(s). I also expanded the size of the current COTW author's name for better emphasis. See example above left. What do you think? - Mtmelendez 14:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Font size

I like new Main Page. (Liked the last one too but it was time for a change...)

Would be neat if there was still room for an eye-catching image somewhere...

Would suggest normal font-size for the text below "Wikisource languages" (i.e. the same as for "Sister projects"). Since this is at the bottom of the page, it doesn't interfere with anything.

Good luck to all, Dovi 19:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I further suggest a line-break before the sentence beginning "It currently..." and also to fix one of the dots dividing links at the bottom which doesn't appear correctly. Dovi 09:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Floating boxes

I'm having trouble with the main page: the text boxes of "Main Categories" and "Collaboration" aren't floating next to each other, and instead are one on top of the other in different columns. My resolution is 1440x900 on a widescreen monitor. Are they supposed to be like that or am I the only one seeing it? - Mtmelendez 19:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Icons for the main page

Why not add some icons for the main page? This wikisource has icons on it main page and it looks terrific. http://id.wikisource.org/wiki/Halaman_Utama Why don't you incorporate some of the source from there? --Diaa abdelmoneim 18:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed community news link

I removed "You can also read about local community news." from the main page. The news is almost a year old, and I don't think our users are interested in something that outdated. Psychless 22:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Tiny code changes

In order to make some tiny improvements, would an admin please replace code towards the bottom of the page with the following equivalent:

This is the English language Wikisource, which began to collect texts in 2003 and moved to this separate domain in 2005.<br>It currently contains [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] texts.

Wikisource libraries are also being built in many other languages. For information on them, please consult the following resources:

'''[[:oldwikisource:|Wikisource's Multilingual Portal]]''' · '''[[:m:Wikisource#List_of_Wikisources_by_size|List of Wikisources]]''' · '''[[:oldwikisource:Wikisource:2008|News & Updates]]''' · '''[[:oldwikisource:Wikisource|''Wikisource – The Free Library'']]'''

<test> This is the English language Wikisource, which began to collect texts in 2003 and moved to this separate domain in 2005.
It currently contains 1,038,990 texts.

Wikisource libraries are also being built in many other languages. For information on them, please consult the following resources:

Wikisource's Multilingual Portal · List of Wikisources · News & Updates · Wikisource – The Free Library </test>

Thanks but the dot after "List of Wikisources" still needs to be replaced with this: "·". Thanks, Dovi (talk) 10:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Done Jude (talk) 11:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Page layout today

I'm not sure whether this is a problem on my end or not, but the Song of the Day appears superimposed on top of the New Texts to the right of the Featured Text. I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.17, by the way. If this is a problem with the page itself, can someone look into it? Thanks! Lusanaherandraton (talk) 09:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Yay fixed! Lusanaherandraton (talk)