Talk:Main Page

Sources / Propaganda
-- Petri Krohn 07:09, 19 August 2012 (EST)
 * What happened in Houla? – video by al Jazeera

We Need Translator(s) on the Team
Talk on the main page? A good enough place for this point. In my whole network is one admitted Arabic-speaker who was willing to help, and has, greatly, reading notes and signs and understanding what people are saying. He's been too busy to help lately, and there should be more than one around. AFAIK, among all three active members at the moment, we have no more than that.

Any ideas how to find preferably a couple of part-time volunteers to spread the load (or sometimes get two readings)? I feel like anyone would have more insights than me, with my level of social skills and out-getting. --Caustic Logic 21:06, 11 September 2012 (EST)

The Shut-Down
Yay, the site is back! Petri says it wasn't just on my end, and the lack of edits for about a day backs that up. Any details/lessons etc. on what happened, perhaps CE can fill us in. If it's mundane enough, then maybe not. Will get back to work here tonight. --Caustic Logic 09:57, 15 September 2012 (EST)
 * The whole service with all hosted wiki's was down for about 28 hours, most likely had nothing to do with us. I suspect hardware/connection problem on their side. There's a thread on the support forum but no explanation so far. Well, it's for free. :o) Lesson: I was able to puzzle the stuff together and get it running on my local machine, but without the pics you guys uploaded. Will download them all as they come. This wiki will survive the service if it has to. --CE 19:39, 15 September 2012 (EST)
 * Belated note: Excellent work, CE! Thanks! I've got all my own images saved here too, if that helps. Text, not so much. --Caustic Logic 23:20, 27 September 2012 (EST)

Front page, Menu and "Other research"
As it is developing (you're on a roll, CL) I wonder how we manage which articles should go on the front page and the menu, and if we should delete them from the "other research" page or if that should contain all articles in a kind of sitemap. I don't consider it to be helpful to cluster the menu on the left with a huge number of articles (titles there should be short to not waste layout space anyway), so I suggest we keep that brief ... maybe even briefer than it is now. I could add an area for "developing" articles, maybe in a different color top right, to the front page. But that would imply that the other, older articles aren't developing anymore. As to when an article is front-page-worthy ... maybe a "nomination" by the lead author (or anyone) including short summary would be good, here ... of course you're free to add it yourself but if you do so, be careful with the layout I handicrafted ... that's a bit fragile. :o) Thoughts? --CE 21:04, 17 September 2012 (EST)
 * A site map is a good idea, but other research should be separate. Those shaved off should ideally be more listed and available after, somehow. I think a page for all pages would be in order soon, prominently linked up-front. As for the front page, I don't know. Four main ones, maybe six, ideally updated sometimes to reflect what's exciting (even if the subject is old)... --Caustic Logic 21:39, 17 September 2012 (EST)
 * Yes, a sitemap with everything more than a stub, and additionally a "suggested and rudimentary research" page as it is now. That's good. I'd like to have something on the front page, in addition to the main articles, which shows visitors that things are happening and makes them come back ... and maybe even contribute (seen that I renamed "community portal" to "How to contribute" and added some "warm words"?). Maybe a "new and developing" thingy ... will think about it. --CE 22:01, 17 September 2012 (EST)


 * Checking out the special pages, it occurs to me there's no need to make a special 'all pages' page at all. Couldn't the ready-made all-pages and/or popular pagesor whatever is useful be linked prominently up front? I'm also hashing over ideas to make the main page, and the main Houla massacre page, more attractive as destinations, prior to seeding the links wider. For the main page, maybe two boxes, one for prime massacres, explained in context their vying for top slot: (eg: Jisr Al Shughur, the early whatever, Houla, the big ugly oneand turning point, Tremseh, the failed eclipse, etc.) and one box for 'other,' top three or so. Plus featured article, maybe external links, etc. Some thoughts. --Caustic Logic 18:54, 22 October 2012 (EST)


 * That's a good idea, including special pages should be no problem. Home/popular/all as upper menu, the "other research" down on the main page? Keep thinking. :o) --CE 20:26, 22 October 2012 (EST)

Featured Article
Ok, I build in the randomly-chosen featured article (and removed the one Douma article). That's really nice, you can even give the items a weight which regulates how likely they are chosen, default of 1, but I didn't use that (only mentioned as reminder to myself). So far i've added four articles, I suggest we keep track on them here. The blurbs could certainly be better, feel free to sharpen them (should be around that length, though). Or add more articles here and/(or i'll do so) to the page. (three dots at the end get added automatically) --CE 00:06, 19 September 2012 (EST)


 * This is pretty sweet! Blurbs, not bad, but could be better. Later. --Caustic Logic 08:46, 19 September 2012 (EST)

I've added all those I was working on. Didn't really finish them except here, so hopefully good enough. Feel free to repair or tweak anything wrong. And, hey, is there a way to assign pictures to these so they're more eye-catching and the variety is enhanced? --Caustic Logic 14:05, 7 October 2012 (EST)
 * Nice, will take care of that later. At the moment it's just one textblock with a link, but images shouldn't be a big problem, will think about it on occasion. --CE 16:52, 7 October 2012 (EST)
 * Tweaked a bit and shortened here and there to not blow up the layout. Will implement in a minute. --CE 01:58, 8 October 2012 (EST)