Talk:Main Page/2014 Archive

Main Page 2 - The Return of the Thing

Discussions on this seemed to peter out last time, so here's one more opportunity to talk about this design. If it isn't popular, I'd rather it were put to bed properly rather than hanging here for eternity. You can view the page (without having to copy any CSS) here. I'd welcome any comments, criticism, ideas or interpretive dances that you wish to offer. --Nick ^talk 22:58, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't call myself much of a fan of this proposed page. But too spare for my tastes. Over modern for the sake of... what, precisely? Less is more? Not in my experience. Perhaps tinker with the present page rather than try to wash it all away at once. You ought even consider the sliding windows they've got over at the WikiTravel. Beautiful design. Shame about the lack of community there. Cheers! Alhens (talk) 23:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments Alhens! It is quite a minimalist design, though there are perhaps things we could do to alter that. The WT Main Page design is indeed nice, although unlike our site's equivalent, it is not built in Wiki markup (which makes creating such things much easier!). It is also the case that, following our history with that site, we're probably best not imitating them.

With this design, I was attempting to position us a little closer to the design of professional travel websites (Lonely Planet et al), although whether that's a design direction that we desire is moot!

Do you have any ideas for how the current design could be improved? --Nick ^talk 23:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I repeat what I said earlier that if we do implement a new Main Page, we should delay it for a few months as we have a backlog of already-made DotM banners that would need to be completely redesigned to fit the new format. In general, though, my opinion is that we have enough pending issues on this site that we shouldn't be trying to fix what is not broken. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you're right that a delay would be useful if we were to implement this. I only bring this up (yet again - sorry!) so that we can either do something about it or kill it off once and for all. Previous responses have, unfortunately petered out. --Nick ^talk 01:01, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I would second Alhens's comments. I think a Javascript carousel on our current main page would be a great change, as it would reduce the amount of vertical space in use and allow us to user larger banner images (if desired), and I like a more prominent "search" box, but despite the admirable amount of work and persistence put into this new design I think it is too spartan and strays too far from the look & feel that helps brand the site as being a Wikimedia wiki. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I do see what you mean - tinkering with the current design is probably best for the moment. My only slight fear with introducing a carousel on the current page is that it brings us quite close to the current WT Main Page in design, but we can probably find a way around that issue. --Nick ^talk 01:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I like the new proposal very much and wish to see it implemented asap. The look of the current front page on wide angle monitors is really bad - any time I open WV, I can only see the map (which I don't find useful at all) and the top half of the first banner. Unless I scroll, I can never see the other featured articles, as if they were any less important than a featured huge city.

So either the proposed minimalistic front page (after we find a way of implementing Discover section, which we MUST preserve, IMO) or some other form of carousel is very welcome. And please don't give up! Danapit (talk) 08:48, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Love your never-subsiding enthusiasm Nick :-) I'm sorry to say it's a bit all too minimalistic for my taste as well. What I like about a page with several nice pictures and links to articles, is the more tempting invite to browse around, explore the world through travel guides. The new design, like LP has it as well, is at least more focused on just finding a page you already have in your head, at least at first sight. They have the other options below that one big picture still. A carousel would be nice and I really can't see a copyright problem in that. There's no copyright on the concept of a carousel (hundreds of thousands of websites have it) and to be quite fair: the basic new WT design relied heavily on our own design too ;-) JuliasTravels (talk) 10:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I applaud the effort, but this design doesn't seem to work very well at tablet resolution. In particular the content at the bottom becomes cramped and runs off screen. On an iPad, the Wiktionary icon isn't even on the screen any more. Also having the logo on top of the image seems a bit awkward to me, but that's just a personal opinion. Kaldari (talk) 23:05, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I do like the larger/prominent search box part -- I don't find the 'click on a continent' map terribly intuitive, personally. I also do like the carousel -- but would keep the "getting involved" sections below it. -- Phoebe (talk) 03:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether it is just me, but I couldn't get it to go to the continent that I clicked on it went to Wikivoyage:Collaboration of the month page. Why?

I also think that the Carousel is a good idea (as said in the last comment (by Phoebe) but it could be five instead of three images in a carousel. Wetter88 (talk) 06:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm getting sent to whichever continent I click on. Which continent did you click on, and what kind of hardware, operating system and browser are you using? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Carousel proposal

Any thoughts on this proposal, Nick, Ryan and everyone else. --Saqib (talk) 14:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I like it! And I think it's a nice compromise between ideas. I'd like to see the boxes line up first and to have some clarification about whether this is potentially too similar to the WT incarnation, but I do think this is an excellent effort! --(Less Disagreeable) Nick ^talk 15:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the carousel image need alignment but this is something I can't do because I don't have access to MediaWiki:Common.css. Can you try to fix it please? --Saqib (talk) 15:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I would be curious to see a similar version where the images slid up and down instead of side to side, with the arrows as up/down arrows to the far right. Might be a good way to further distinguish our look from that of WT. Texugo (talk) 15:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of a horizontal carousel. We might need to work on the technical details to make it work a bit more smoothly, but I think it would be a more efficient use of vertical space than the current main page. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Good suggestion Texugo. And if we're going to use this proposal, I would say lets remove the useless "world map" from top as well. It will definitely further distinguish our main page from WT. --Saqib (talk) 15:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Or at least put it at the bottom if there's not support for scrapping it altogether. Personally I've always thought it looked like a vacuous black hole at the top of our page. Texugo (talk) 15:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Though I still prefer the current Main Page, I can deal with Saqib's proposal as a compromise - particularly because the banner format is retained, thus avoiding invalidating the work put into dotm#Banners. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest splitting this discussion into two parts - one for the carousel and one for the header [edit: see section below for discussions about header] - which I think will make it easier to get changes implemented. It would be a shame to have discussions about carousel implementation bogged down over differences in opinion about the header or vice versa. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Done -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ryan, what do you mean by "We might need to work on the technical details to make it work a bit more smoothly". And I agree with Texugo, if we're going to keep the world map, I support putting it at underneath the carousel and replace the current image with a lighter world map image. --Saqib (talk) 14:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't work very well for me right now - clicking on an arrow or mousing over the carousel causes it to flash for me, and it scrolls very slowly (using latest Chrome on Windows). Additionally, the code as it is currently in MediaWiki:Common.js looks like it has been obfuscated, which will make it impossible to maintain, so we'll need to clean it up or find a replacement - something like , , or any other freely licensed JQuery carousel. Those aren't insurmountable problems, and we have a number of people on this site (myself included) who can help fix them, but if we want to move ahead they should probably be addressed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay. By the way, I've a off topic question for you Ryan. Shall we able to implement the carousel idea after the things got fixed? Nick has put a lot of effort into the new main page design but there's not any outcome yet and discussion has been stalled many times lately. We've some support for the carousel, but I really can't see when and how we can wrap up this thing. --Saqib (talk) 18:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any objection to using a horizontal carousel, so unless concerns are raised I would think we could get a final version ready, solicit support (or opposition) and then make the change if there isn't significant opposition. So far the only major concern seems to be that we might be too similar to WT, but while it would make sense to change other aspects of the main page in order to differentiate our site, I don't think that's a reason not to move forward with the carousel idea. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for quick answer. I think its worthwhile to move ahead then. By the way, I liked the carousel by "sorgalla.com" and wonder if that is freely licensed? I'll try to fix the carousel's JS code. I also think if we're going to use the carousel, we need to remove the world map from header. So far we've some opposition to remove it but as a compromise, we can put in underneath the carousel as you can here. I would like to know about your thoughts on this? --Saqib (talk) 18:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Here's a version of the current main page using the jcarousel: User:Wrh2/Main Page. I've copied the needed CSS & JS to the common files, so you shouldn't need to do anything special to get it working, although you might need to SHIFT+RELOAD in order to make sure you have the latest CSS & JS. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Well done Ryan. Your carousel is quite smooth as compare to previous one but shouldn't we remove the arrow keys since we've buttons now (1,2,3) and I'm thinking of replacing text of numerical buttons with title of the banner such as "Destination of the Month". --Saqib (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps others can weigh in - I think the arrows are a useful navigational aid and make it clear that this is a carousel, but they are easy to remove if desired. If we use something other than numbers for pagination we should probably keep the text short to avoid taking up too much space. An additional advantage of the numeric links is that they are added automatically, so if we only had two banners, or if we had six, it would update automatically. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Ryan, I've made some changes to main page in your user namespace. Hope you don't mind. As you can I've put the world map image underneath the carousel along with "Discover and Getting involved" boxes. --Saqib (talk) 23:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

To Ikan's point below, I've slowed the autoscroll from every 3s to every 5s, and we can easily slow it more if desired - I'm not sure how much slower is preferred . Regarding the changes to the proposed page, feel free to update as desired, but as noted above I think it will be much easier to gain consensus for change if we do one thing at a time instead of trying to push an entirely new page all at once. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the time interval is fine, but could the pace of the change, when it happens, be slowed, too? I feel like the pages whiz from one to the other more quickly than optimal, almost instantaneously. I wonder if the change took a half a second whether that would be too long. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

This edit slows the transition effect from 0.6s to 1s. Feel free to modify further as desired. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Ryan. I upped it to 1.2s, which I feel makes a small but palpable difference in the switchover that requires a move 2 images to the left. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Ryan, would it be a good idea to ask people to either Support or Oppose when the proposed main page is ready? --Saqib (talk) 18:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

When the page is ready, yes. I've mentioned a few times that I think it will be easier to change the main page if we break the changes into smaller pieces, but whether it's done as one big change or a series of small changes we would need to have a specific proposal that is in a finished (or at least nearly-finished) state for people to support or object to. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

You're right that things should actually go one by one but I think its fine to go here in one go. We've proposed only 2 changes for the main page: the carousel concept and header and both need acceptance from the community at once. Otherwise what we gonna do if we might able to gain support for one thing but not for the other? --Saqib (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

A new header?

Question to User:Saqib and anyone else who thinks the world map is useless. Why? Because most people won't want to read continent-level articles? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't necessarily think it's useless, I just think the near-black one we have is jarring and ugly. Texugo (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I too would want to think twice before removing the map. I think some people do find it genuinely useful whilst it also offers us a place to put the Welcome spiel. We could try a lighter map banner, but I think the definite colour (that isn't that dark in relative terms) both makes it stand out from the bland grey of Media-Wiki and attracts the eye to the welcome message. If we do lose it, I think we'd certainly have to retain individual links to continents. Personally, I'm not so sure about scrolling the images vertically as it seems quite unusual on web pages and as the banners are so wide I think it might look a bit odd, though I'm open to being proved wrong. I also remain slightly concerned about the visual similarity to WT (particularly if a lighter map is used) - not because I fear a lawsuit, but visitors need to be able to tell immediately that this is Wikivoyage and nothing else. Like Andrew, I'm not unhappy with the current incarnation, though I do like Saqib's idea. Perhaps it would be worth creating a list of things that we'd like from the Main Page that aren't currently provided? --Nick ^talk 00:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Great to see the main page effort is alive again. Thanks, Saqib! I strongly support the carousel concept. I've never found the world map particularly useful for destination search and wouldn't object at all to have it removed. It would also distinguish us from the other site. Right now, a more prominent search field is missing. Danapit (talk) 08:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

IK, actually I'm in favour of a simple header. --Saqib (talk) 12:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

To address Ikan's specific concern about the accessibility of continent articles, I assume that clicking on the continent names at the bottom of the header will lead to them? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I like the map better, aesthetically. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I found a nice header on Chinese Wikipedia. --Saqib (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I confess, I too prefer the map aesthetically. Whilst both of the above are fine, they seem a little bland in comparison and, even if no one uses the map's function, there few better general illustrations of our purpose than an image of the world. --Nick ^talk 21:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Nick, we can put a prominent search box underneath the header as shown in below image. --Saqib (talk) 21:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm less concerned about the search box and more simply by the aesthetics. I think the colours are too insipid and I'm sort of coming to the view that, as to have a list of continents, we might as well just keep the map which I think is more attractive than a lot of text. --Nick ^talk 21:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

BTW, are you willing to fix the carousel alignment please? --Saqib (talk) 21:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response! Life's a little busy at the moment, but I'll have a play when I get a chance! :) --Nick ^talk 18:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Nick. No need to work on fixing the alignment. Today, Ryan created a new carousel as you can see here which works more smoother than the previous one. I've put the world image map underneath the carousel. Do you (and [[Ikan Kekek) think its a fair compromise? Now remains the header and I'm in favour of similar to shown in the below image but with NO search bar. Do you have some other suggestion and btw, I've used some of the banners from your "MV". I think they're both pretty and useful on the main page. --Saqib (talk) 23:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the pixelated map looks as good as the current world map, but it's OK, and it's fine for it to be below the featured pages. I do have some other thoughts, though: I think the featured pages cycle through too quickly. I would prefer for there to be more time before the page moves. Also, we shouldn't link to "MyVoyage" until or unless it is fully developed. And what will the "Create an itinerary" menu actually do? I played with it a little and created a page, User:Ikan Kekek/Itinerary, which seems very hard to delete. (Update: I see that it actually wasn't saved and is a red link, so at least that's good, but I'm really not sure how useful that button is.)Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

IK. You're right about the carousel transition speed. It can be decreased easily so not a major issue. Don't worry about the world map image. We can change the image with another one if you don't liked the current pixelated one. My major concern was whether its fine for you if the map goes below the carousel and thanks for co-operation. As for banners that I borrowed from "My Voyage". Sorry for being not clear. Actually I put those banners for just an idea if how they appear on the main page and I think those banners actually look pretty and well illustrate our main page and we can use them to link various important things simply by changing their text. --Saqib (talk) 00:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I like where this is going, even if it's not there yet. If you're prepared to wait, I can make some more banners and things, though it might be mid-week before I get a chance. I've got some ideas for things we can do and I specifically kept the MY Voyage banner files so they can be reverse engineered fairly easily. Thanks for all your efforts Saqib and Ryan! --Nick ^talk 04:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure Nick, I'm willing to wait and looking forward to see what you've got for us but it would be great if you manage to do it somehow a bit quickly so we can proceed ahead and ask people to look at the proposed main page design and give either support or object. This thing is hanging since a long time and I really wish if this could be come to an end soon. --Saqib (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

To answer your question, Ikan Kekek, yes, I think that continent articles are not the most useful ones. I mean, they belong here, but they are a bit too generic for a traveler who is interested in a specific destination. And I don't specifically like the aesthetic of the current world map. With the current map it is not obvious you can click a continent without that "click on a continent" text, which is annoying somehow. I don't like seeing such a funny advise on a front page. Could perhaps a map be done that would change a color of continent when you hover over it? Then it would become clear that you can click it without the advise. The pixel map is quite pretty, IMO. Danapit (talk) 19:23, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I just looked at the mockup again. Its Discover section says that the Love River is pictured, but I don't see a picture. Why? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Image added IK. --Saqib (talk) 09:20, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Let's keep an eye out

I recall when we instituted the current main page, it was quickly plagiarized by WT without attribution, in blatant violation of CC-BY-SA 3.0. If it happens again, do we have any plans to address the situation? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

You should address this question to WMF Legal. Unless they sue, nothing will happen. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

We who created it actually own the copyright. And only the owner of the copyrighted content can sue. Thus it would be us who would be sueing. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

So someone would have to volunteer. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Feedback on the latest proposal

Responding to Nick's request for feedback in the pub, while there are aspects of this new main page proposal I like a lot, at the risk of sounding like a broken record I think it would be far easier to gain consensus for change if we make those changes incrementally, rather than replacing the entire main page all at once. For example, I am supportive of moving to a horizontal carousel because I think it makes better use of vertical space, I like the idea of implementing a "Where are you travelling?" box because it would be a big usability win, and I think the new map image is superior to the old one, but I don't understand the point of having a header that just contains an image of the site name (side note, but images that contain text aren't great for SEO), I like the old discover and getting involved boxes better (another side note: shouldn't that be "get involved"?), and I don't think we should be driving too much of our navigation to the bottom of the page. As a result, while there are aspects of the new page that I support, in the end I'm hesitant to support making a wholesale change. The discussion above seems to indicate that others feel similarly - there is still disagreement about the position of the map, the aesthetics of the map image, the inclusion of text links to top-level articles, etc, so given that reality I think it is going to be very difficult to gain consensus for a wholesale change of the page to the current proposal, and that we would be better off attacking the main page in smaller chunks. -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:21, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I basically agree with the approach Ryan suggested above, it might be a good idea to discuss individual features bit by bit.

Regarding the upper banner, I wouldn't be too keen to support it. It's kind of empty of content, plus I can't associate the font of "Wikivoyage" to anything about WV.

There are two minor issues in the carousel, at least the way it appears on my screen: the shaded box for the description does not extend all the way to include the title, at least not for the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Additionally, I would prefer the boxes to be slightly rounded, the way the titles in page banners are. Otherwise great, huge improvement!

For Discover section I would like that we keep one image to illustrate the section. And where are you traveling should be moved up to a more prominent position. Might the Get involved part move to the upper 1/3 of the page in some form?

Thanks for your effort! Danapit (talk) 07:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for taking some time to responding again. Ryan, previously I was in favour of making a wholesale change but it seems now we won't be able to gain support for a wholesale new main page so I'm agree to do it one by one. So lets implement the carousel first but how? Furthermore, I'm not in favour of current header as well as I said here but unfortunately we don't have ideas. Do you have any good idea for the header? --Saqib (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the current (in the sandbox) cursive header isn't right for the site. Could we just leave it as it is? --Nick ^talk 17:24, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently I didn't put my comments in the right place. This is what I said about the header at Talk:Main Page/Sandbox:

Sorry to say, but I think the cursive font is pretty awful. It's too bold, it clashes too much with the normal font in the next section, it's too big, and it's obtrusive in distracting too much from the other content on the page. The blue background is also unnecessarily tall, with a lot of empty space. The second one above is slightly better but the font is still too big, and the graphic is still too tall and empty. I'd be pretty happy with the third one if it were slightly shorter vertically and the colors could be faded to about 50% the current saturation.

That said, I agree 100% with what Ryan said above. I'd suggest starting with only the carousel change first. Could you make another mock-up where the only change is the carousel? Texugo (talk) 17:36, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Before I add my support to the voting below, let me just make sure: do you also see the issue with the shaded box? Is it fixable? --Danapit (talk) 06:52, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I tried fixing the shadow box size issue earlier today and couldn't figure out a generic way to do it, but we could probably add in some banner-specific CSS for that particular banner. If no one else figures out a way to do it with CSS (let's try to avoid JS for this if possible) then I'll give it another try in the coming days. -- Ryan • (talk) • 06:56, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Plus I would really like to see the shadow box corners rounded slightly, and wonder if others might as well prefer that to straight corners, but it is not a reason for me to vote against - just a minor issue. Danapit (talk) 07:02, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I see the same problem with the shaded box that you do, Dana. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:45, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't we just remove the shadow box? --Saqib (talk) 18:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Eeeee, better keep the box, if possible. It can improve the readability of the text over some more structured banners. Danapit (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

This edit allows specifying a larger width for banners with long titles and should fix the problem with the text overflowing the box - that's a bit of a hack, but I don't see any way to fix it with generic CSS. To restore the rounded corners would require undoing this edit, so maybe ping Nick to get his thoughts. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:41, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

If the consensus is to implement rounded corners then that's fine with me. I'm not unhappy with right angles, but I only changed the situation when we were using that page to develop an entirely new Main Page. Please feel free to revert if you're so inclined. :) --Nick ^talk 10:40, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be much discussion either way about the rounded corners I've restored them just to keep things consistent with the page banners. I'm good with either rounded or square corners, but we should probably be consistent. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Support new main-page design

• Support — I strongly support the new main page design. --Saqib (talk) 22:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support — I too strongly support the above iteration of the Main Page design. Any changes to other parts of the page require much further finessing. --Nick ^talk 23:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
• Almost; the right-arrow on the carousel is all the way at the right edge of the window rather than being aligned with the right edge of the image as the left-arrow is. Also, I would prefer a slightly longer interval between auto-scrolls; maybe 10 seconds? Powers ^(talk) 19:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

  Can you clarify what you're seeing? The CSS should be aligning the arrows so the circle is 50% on the carousel and 50% outside of the carousel, and it looks symmetric to me using either Chrome or IE11. If you see something different then a screenshot and your browser version might help to track down the problem. -- Ryan • (talk) • 02:46, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  Screenshot as requested. Chrome on Windows 8.1. Powers ^(talk) 21:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  Strange. I can also see both the header and carousel boxes width size is decreased for you. --Saqib (talk) 21:43, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  It looks like banner images have a hard-coded maximum width of 1125px. I'm not sure why that's done, but when the page width is larger than what it takes to display the banner things go wonky. I'll try to get it fixed tonight. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:17, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  This edit should resolve the issue (it fixes it for me using a very wide screen resolution). -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:45, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  That does seem to fix it nicely.

• Meh — Is there a good reason why this now *precisely* apes the Wikitravel main page? Have we learned nothing?? SpendrupsForAll (talk) 20:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support - But like LtPowers I'd also like the auto-scroll to have a little longer interval, and be a little slower. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:29, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

  The scrolling times can be changed by modifying two variables in MediaWiki:Common.js: "animation: 1200" controls the animation speed (time in ms) and "interval: 5000" controls the delay interval (also in ms). Please update as needed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:44, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• For the time being, I Support. SpendrupsForAll's point is well-noted and has been brought up before. We were in fact the ones to use banners on the main page first. That of course doesn't actually matter to the casual viewer, but this has been in the works for a long time. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 03:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
• The current main page finally got a page rank from google. If we introduce this new design we should do so slowly with the opportunity for our readers to provide feedback and making sure the google rank stays good. I like this and it will provide us room to create new main page features to pull people in. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral. The design looks okay and the 3:1 banner aspect ratio is preserved as I'd hoped, but the similarities between this proposal and WT's main page are striking and could potentially lead to trouble. Perhaps we should ask WMF Legal to chime in. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 07:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  Also, I'm not a fan of the shadowboxes, which should be removed. IMO, it's not worth obscuring such a large swath of the banner image for the sake of marginally better text readability, which is already largely mitigated by the text shadowing in the current design. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  What about now with a slightly smaller text size for the article title, and a smaller width (and height) for the shadow box? I really, really like the readability of the shadow box, and the look & feel is consistent with the page banners, but you're right that we don't want to hide the underlying image. -- Ryan • (talk) • 08:11, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

  We developed this design first and than they copied it. We have been speaking of a carousel for some time. Feel free to blame me :-) Legal will not give us advice. I am happy to place it live if this is consensus. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:21, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

What if we decrease opacity (fade) of the shadow box so that the banner image will be more visible. I also wonder whether a white shadow box will look good? --Saqib (talk) 11:32, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Andre, are you suggesting keeping the text shadowing instead of the box? Personally, I like the box better, it looks cleaner to me, and the opacity could be played around with. An argument for the box would be the style consistency with page banners having similar text box, although smaller. Danapit (talk) 12:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I would prefer to retain the text shadowing (possibly increasing its opacity if possible/necessary), but if we can decrease the opacity of the box, that might be an acceptable compromise. Might I be able to see what it looks like? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:56, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Just a wild idea, but would it be possible to allow either the text shadowing or the shadowbox depending on which works best for a particular image? Powers ^(talk) 14:43, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

For the record: I'm not in favour of text shadow. I prefer box over text shadow. --Saqib (talk) 20:47, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I prefer the shadow boxes and think we should be consistent with the page banners, but if anyone wants to experiment, try adding the following to either MediaWiki:Common.css (affects everyone) or create a local CSS file in your userspace (affects only you - example: User:Wrh2/common.css) that contains the following:

.page-Main_Page_Sandbox .topbanner .name { background: rgba(0,0,0,0.5); } 

The fourth parameter (0.5) controls the opacity and should be a value between 0 (transparent) and 1 (solid). 0.5 is what is currently in use in the page banners and the main page sandbox. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Ryan, its been a week since we started voting and so far no opposition. When this page is going live? --Saqib (talk) 20:51, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd like my proposal below (datestamped 08:45, 13 March 2014) to be responded to before that happens, please. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:13, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Andre, I responded above (timestamp 5:46, 13 March 2014). Can you clarify what else you'd like to see? -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

@AndreCarrotflower: Andre? Any further thoughts? -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:12, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I tried and failed to figure out how to play around with the CSS, and frankly I have too much on my plate at the present moment to delve any deeper into it. To reiterate my earlier comments in as specific a way as possible: I would be able to support the new main page design if the opacity of the textboxes is reduced so that the integrity of the banner images is less compromised. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to reconcile the desire for a change to the shadow box with the support for the shadow box expressed elsewhere in this thread (including a desire to keep it consistent with what is used for page banners), so since there seems to be enough support to make the change I'd like to close out this discussion and implement the new carousel barring further objection. Andre, I realize that means you may not be 100% happy with the change, but further changes can always be proposed so it would be good to get what we have in place and then discuss further tweaks. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:31, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. I've asked a friend if there is a way to make the shadow box fit the text better, which would address some of the concerns above about covering up more of the banner image than we need to, but even if that fix isn't possible I think the new carousel is an improvement over the existing main page and worth pursuing. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for my only intermittent feedback here. I really don't want to be an obstructionist. Given Ryan's tweak of the CSS to reduce the size of the shadowboxes and banner text (the latter of which also eases the problem of not being able to fit enough text into those blurbs!), I think I could support the new design if we also agreed to reduce the opacity of the shadowboxes a little bit. I still prefer text shadowing, but there seems to not be a whole lot of support for that idea, so I won't insist on it. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 08:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I too would like to see the shadowboxes at least tweaked. Like AndreCarrotflower, I'd probably prefer to see the text shadowing reinstated, but I won't stand in the way if that's not possible or popular. --Nick ^talk 23:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Please, go ahead. The carousel is surely a major improvement. Danapit (talk) 07:52, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
• General support, but I'd prefer a few changes: a) 1:4 or 1:5 ratio for the horizontal images., b) two carousels one above the other, and c) making the < > arrows 50% larger. Sj (talk) 10:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support I support the current version of the proposed new main page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Done -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Shadow box opacity test page: User:Wrh2/Sandbox

In the discussion about the main page carousel there were concerns expressed about the opacity of the shadow box. I've put together a demo page at User:Wrh2/Sandbox that shows opacities from 50% (current) down to 20%. Since I think we should be consistent with both main page banners and the banners used at the top of all other pages I've included examples of both. Please ignore any errors with the carousel functionality - the page is for demo purposes only so I was just concerned with the shadow box. Feel free to modify the page as desired. I don't have a strong preference, although I think anything lower than 30% creates readability issues. Is there support for a change, and if so what opacity do people prefer? -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

0.4 looks good to me! --Nick ^talk 23:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for this, Ryan. I prefer 0.3. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:51, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Having re-reviewed the evidence, I too like 0.3. :) --Nick ^talk 00:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

0.3 is the best of the options shown. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:02, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. 0.3, then 0.4, then 0.2. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

*bump* So far there seems to be unanimous support for changing from 50% opacity to 30%, albeit from a relatively small number of people. Anyone else support this change, or prefer another value? -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Plunge forward. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 04:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Done -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

About

Would it make sense to have a more prominent "about WikiVoyage" section either on the sidebar or linked somewhere on the page? Right now it's a bit hard to tell what differentiates this site from other travel sites... you have to pay attention to the "this is a wikimedia project" part. Something that clearly articulates that we are free, noncommercial, by and for travellers, etc. might be nice! -- Phoebe (talk) 03:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

If you click the larger text "Welcome to Wikivoyage", it will take you to the "about WV" page. --Saqib (talk) 11:28, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Main Page (again... sorry)

Swept in from the pub

Hi everyone!

Sorry to raise this once again, but Saqib and I have been tinkering around with ideas for the Main Page once again. A lengthy discussion has already taken place and a new mock-up is already up and running. Despite this, most of the discussion has revolved around only a very small portion of the community. We'd be grateful if you could take a look at the two links above and leave your thoughts and desires for the Main Page there. Thanks! --Nick ^talk 23:04, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Sorry guys if this topic has become a headache for some of you but this is something important and is unfortunately hanging since a long time now due to lack of community interest. --Saqib (talk) 23:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I like the mock up page better - Matroc (talk) 05:57, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Display on Firefox

On Firefox on Windows 8.1 I am getting the top two banners at about 60%width, and the rest at full width. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Peter, I viewed the main page on Firefox both on Windows as well on OS X but I didn't encountered any issue. Which version of Firefox do you use? --Saqib (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I too use Firefox and I'm not having any issues. Is it possible you're viewing a cached version of the page? --Nick ^talk 16:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Screenshot from LtPowers

@Pbsouthwood: are you using a high screen resolution? If so, is the issue similar to what is shown in the screenshot to the right? If that's the case, the original main page (pre-carousel) was coded in a way that set a maximum width for the banners (). That could probably be tweaked, but I think our maximum banner width may be limited by the maximum size of the banner images. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, High res on 23" screen, and looks like the screenshot, only more so. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:27, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Same thing on Chrome on XP on same size screen at 100%. Effect decreases at 125% and goes away above 150%. This only happens with the Main page. all other banners seem to adjust to fit the screen at magnifications of 100% or more. Are the main page banners smaller than the regular banners? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

<big> tags are no longer valid HTML

Is there any way to make text bigger other than using the <big> tag (or the <font> tag), at least for this page? It's not valid HTML anymore, since version 5. Jc86035 (talk) 16:11, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The CSS font-size property is the standard way to change font size and is controlled via MediaWiki:Common.css. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The <big> tags are gone now. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:57, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Banner on mobile not dismissable

Swept in from the pub

If I go to https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page# I see the banner "Welcome to Wikivoyage! Help us to improve our travel guides by contributing to an article today!" It is however not dismissible and very prominent in the UI. Can we please remove this or at very least make it possible to be dismissed? Jdlrobson (talk) 21:50, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Clicking [dismiss] does not dismiss it indeed. I created this bug report: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64737 Does it describe the problem correctly? Thanks for reporting the problem! Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Would be great to also show how the banner k

is setup. Is it a CentralNotice or a Sitenotice or something else? Maybe hide it via Mobile.CSS in the meantime - it's not the best experience ! Jdlrobson (talk) 15:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Mobile Main Page

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The mobile Main Page starts with this list:

   Africa
   Antarctica
   Asia
   Europe
   North America
   Oceania
   South America
   Itineraries
   Phrasebooks
   Travel topics
   Other destinations

1) I would be in favour of moving Antarctica into Other destinations, which already contains much more travelled places like Caribbean. Sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere, I could not find. Actually, I could not even find where is the wikicode for this.

2) The spacing between "South America" and "Itineraries" is not visually rendered, which is a pity because it makes the list a bit daunting with 11 same-level items.

3) I suggest moving Other destinations just after "South America"

Actually, how about something like this:

   Africa
   Asia
   Europe
   North America, South America, Caribbean
   Oceania
   
   Other destinations
   Itineraries
   Phrasebooks
   Travel topics

Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 06:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

1) would leave no way to reach Antarctica except through Other Destinations; the only other article for which that's true is Space. Powers ^(talk) 14:31, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, Antarctica is a continent and it's interesting, so why not let it continue to be treated as a continent? Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

In addition, the mobile page is currently derived from the desktop version - the map links create a hyperlink on the mobile site, which we'd have to change to remove Antarctica. --Nick ^talk 10:33, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Antarctica is currently the second most prominent item, even though Caribbean (which is much more important) is not even shown. That's a big problem. Another big problem is that the list is barely readable right now with 11 same-level items. Something needs to be done. Nicolas1981 (talk) 07:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Order & wording

We currently have:

Itineraries -- Phrasebooks -- Travel topics -- Other destinations

Why on Earth "Other destinations"? Nothing preceding that is a destination, so "other" is just wrong. Why "Travel topics"? That is a term we use here and is fine in some contexts, but it may not be meaningful to a first-time visitor so I do not think it belongs on the main page. Finally, why do we list things in the above order? I'd say we should try for an order reflecting a guess at the priorities of the reader.

I want to put the topics ahead of the phrasebooks but could not think of non-clumsy wording to do that. Best I can do is:

Destinations -- Itineraries -- Phrasebooks -- Other aspects of travel

Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 14:23, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

If we're going to eliminate "Other destinations" off the Main Page in favor of just "Destinations", then Other destinations needs to be renamed and have the continents added to the list. New users might not be able to intuit that the map banner is clickable, and it's intuitive for anyone that a link labeled "Destinations", with no qualifiers, ought to be able to take you to any destination article (or at least the ones at the top of our breadcrumb tree). -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

"Other destinations" is there because we used to have text links for each continent. Arguably we should link to Destinations instead. Powers ^(talk) 20:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm in support of Powers' solution. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I also support changing "Other destinations" to "Destinations". -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:03, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Given the lack of objections and the fact that Powers suggestion seems like an obviously good idea I changed the link and moved "Destinations" to the start of the list . -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Main Page without Javascript

Swept in from the pub

It is best practice for pages that use Javascript to still render nicely even if a user's browser has Javascript disabled. Our main page currently fails that test - the carousel renders as a massive horizontal blob with the first banner cut off and the other two hidden offscreen.

I've put together a fix for the main page that should render nicely for users with Javascript disabled, and behave just like the current main page for everyone else. I've tested with IE & Chrome on my laptop to make sure it looks OK, but can others take a look and report whether it looks any different, or behaves any different, from the current main page on their browser?.

• User:Wrh2/Main Page - test page, should behave exactly like the current main page.
• User:Wrh2/Main Page (no Javascript) - approximate example of what the test page will look like for users with Javascript disabled (this page has the carousel disabled).

To be clear: the first test page above should be exactly the same as the current main page, except that it still looks good even with Javascript disabled, so if it doesn't work the same for anyone please let me know what browser you're using and what issue you're seeing. Barring objections or problems it would be nice to make this cleanup live to improve the site for some of our users. Thanks for any feedback! -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:13, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I've made this change live now. If anyone notices any problems on the main page please let me know. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:51, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Montevideo image

The perspective of the destination of the month picture and the amount of grey sky is starting to annoy me. How about deforming the image a little? Also tried colour change but not sure about that. --Traveler100 (talk) 19:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I suppose it would be fine to replace the image, but you had two and a half months to bring up concerns of this nature at Wikivoyage:Destination of the month candidates/Banners, after the Montevideo banner nominees were submitted for review. During the review process, the grey sky was mentioned in passing by one commenter in the context of it not affecting his decision to choose the current banner as the best; the perspective issue was a concern raised by a minority of commenters, but the ultimate decision was that it was a natural product of the low angle of the photographic vantage point that had the pleasing effect of emphasizing the height of the buildings. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:18, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Did not have that page on my radar, have now added to my watch list. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Tweaking the Main Page

Swept in from the pub

I've put together a proposed update to the top banner on the main page and would greatly appreciate feedback (note: only the top banner has been changed): User:Wrh2/Main Page.

Since the look & feel of the main page is most relevant to new users who aren't familiar with the site I used a test group consisting of one web-savvy individual who wasn't very familiar with Wikivoyage when trying to determine what to change:

• User:Nicholasjf21 made the important point that our content is best reached by searching, and had put together a proposed update with a prominent search box. I've added a search box, but done so in a way that changes the page less dramatically than Nick did. It takes a lot of clicks to get to the city articles that most users will be looking for, so I think it's important to have a search box to make those easy to find. Note that there is already a search box in the top right corner of the page, but my single-person test group stated "I didn't even notice that" when I eventually pointed it out to her.
• I remove the "Click on a continent" guidance as well - the continents are still clickable, but my test subject also said that she wouldn't have read everything on the page, and thus wouldn't have noticed that guidance. In addition, finding destinations by clicking through continents is a painful introduction to our site.
• Again, due to feedback from my test subject I removed the "26,389 articles in English" line. Her comment was "if the site is in English, why does that say 'in English'"?, and after I explained it the follow up was "why does anyone care about that"? I actually sort of like having that info on the main page, but couldn't find a less conspicuous place to put it.
• I changed the dropshadow text to a shadow box to match the carousel; I'm not a fan of the dropshadow text because I find it hard to read, and I didn't like the inconsistent presentation on the page.
• The font used in the carousel banners has also changed slightly in order to be consistent with the rest of the page and to use h2 and h3 tags (SEO best practice).

Thoughts, comments, suggestions, objections, feedback, etc? I think it's really important to get a prominent search box on the main page so that visitors to the site can quickly discover that we really do have an article about their hometown or favorite destination - I suspect that currently we're losing a lot of visitors simply because they get to the main page but don't understand the amount of information available here. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

At the moment, it doesn't work properly with wide windows; the textbox continues to get larger even after the background image maxes out at 1125px. This causes the text to eventually exceed the height of the background image. Powers ^(talk) 20:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I always forget that for whatever reason we have a hard-coded max width for the top banner and carousel. This edit should resolve the problem you cited. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I thought the next time someone bring the main page issue, will get us rid of the uesless map. --Saqib (talk) 01:57, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I very much like the prominent "search" instead of the continent guidance, and fully agree with the assumption that it's much easier for users (especially new ones) to find what they're looking for that way. I don't find the new font an improvement, to be honest, and it's too large and "bold" for me. I wouldn't miss the article counter. Thanks for the work, Ryan. JuliasTravels (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Changing the font back would be easy enough - in converting the headings to h2 and h3 tags for SEO purposes it picked up the default heading fonts for the site, but it's a simple matter to change them back to what is currently on the main page if others feel that should be done. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Since there were no objections to JuliasTravels' suggestion to change the font, this edit should make the font in the proposed page essentially the same as what is on the current main page. Any other feedback? -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Talking of the homepage, I would highlight this question. --Andyrom75 (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Done Given past support for including a search box on the main page and the lack of objections in this thread, I've gone ahead and made the proposed changes live. If anyone encounters any issues with the new version please let me know. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:52, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Main Page aesthetics

Swept in from the pub

Screenshot of the main page with the latest changes using Windows & Chrome

I somehow missed all the discussion regarding adding the search field, and it might have been there for ages as I don't visit it often, but I must say that to me the current layout is aesthetically awful compared to the generally superb appearance of Wikivoyage, especially vs. the other site. I was wondering if anything could be done to make sure the first bar with the search field and the global map could display more nicely? PrinceGloria (talk) 08:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC) PS. One thing I believe to be a part of the problem is using much larger font sizes than usual, e.g. in the DotM banner. Reducing font sizes should help majorly.

What browser are you using? Using Windows with Chrome or IE11 the font sizes appear the same as they always have for me. Note that there was a bug due to some CSS cleanup done earlier today that caused the map to display at an incorrect size on IE, but that should be fixed now (diff). -- Ryan • (talk) • 10:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

A screenshot of what I see using Windows & Chrome is to the right. I also went to http://browsershots.org/ and generated screenshots using a variety of browsers on Windows, Linux and Mac and saw pretty much the same thing, so if you can provide any further information about what you're seeing (ideally with a screenshot attached) and what's different from before it would be helpful in debugging any issues. -- Ryan • (talk) • 12:15, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

In the screenshot the a in Wikivoyage in the welcome text is 19 pixels while the a in Saba is 16 pixels. I assume that is what the issue is? --Traveler100 (talk) 12:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, giving the welcome text the same font size would be much better, I imagine. It's a bit plump now, compared to the rest of the page. I'm using FF. Other than that, I much like the central search box :-) JuliasTravels (talk) 13:36, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Yup, it's the font size set to larger than in the banner below (and generally too large), not a browser-related issue. Would be good if this could be fixed. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:43, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I've put together three options that change font sizes at User:Wrh2/Sandbox. If people can come to an agreement on which option is best, or propose alternatives, then it's a simple matter to update the main page to use whichever option is preferred. One note: while the recent main page update did change these headings from div tags to heading tags, I don't think the font weights and sizes changed from what was there before - JuliasTravels noted that my original change proposal used slightly different fonts, so I changed them back to match what was on the existing main page. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:08, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Prefer option 3, less bold. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be better removing the italics from "Where would you like to travel?" It makes it look a little spotty to me. Nurg (talk) 08:22, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

#2 for me. I'm not a fan of the non-bold text. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

This thread has been relatively quiet, so based on the fact that at least three people above wanted the "Welcome to Wikivoyage" text to be the same size as the carousel text I've implemented that change. Further comments welcome. -- Ryan • (talk) • 23:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that "Welcome to Wikivoyage" ought to use a larger font than anything else on the page. Powers ^(talk) 00:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I've added an "Option 5" to User:Wrh2/Sandbox that uses a larger font for "Welcome to Wikivoyage" (230%, increased from 190%), a slightly larger font for the carousel (200%, increased from 190%), but makes all headings non-bold. This would be my preferred option, but I don't care strongly about it so I defer to whatever everyone else wants. -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I like 5 except for the carousel titles being non-bold. "Featured Travel Topic" looks fine but "Cruise ships" needs to be bold, I think. Powers ^(talk) 15:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I've added an Option 6 to User:Wrh2/Sandbox that implements Powers' suggestion. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:10, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think that's what Powers was suggesting: he likes it bold, at least for the travel topics. For me however, these options are not really an improvement. I don't think the Welcome text ought to be larger in our current layout. It would be perfectly fine to have a huge (welcome) header and clearly different other sections (many sites use a layout like that), but having a seemingly equal 1st and 2nd banner, but then a welcome text that's just slightly larger or bolder makes the layout clumsy in my eyes. As if we just didn't get our fonts right. I also don't care much for the larger fonts, although it's not as bad if they are non-bold. Making them larger ánd bolder is too much for my taste. But well, that's just my taste ;-) JuliasTravels (talk) 17:42, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh God, we're getting worse and worse with every iteration. Bold is OK, the font looks nice in bold. But we need the sizes not larger than the DotM banner. Anything in the top banner other than "Welcome to Wikivoyage" ought to be the size of the destination description in the DotM banner. Otherwise it's a clumsy cacophony of font sizes that look random. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

DotM, page view stats, and a potential problem with (and solution to) the Main Page carousel

Swept in from the pub

A little while ago I got curious about how much an article's page views are affected by being featured on the Main Page as a DotM, OtBP, or FTT. I did some research on the page view statistics of recent featured articles (go to View History on any article and you'll see a list of "External Tools" just above the most recent revision; Page View Statistics is one of them) and a clear pattern emerged: DotMs get a higher bump than OtBPs, which in turn get a higher bump than FTTs. I suspect this is because when you go to the Main Page, the DotM is the first of the featured articles to scroll through on the carousel. This strikes me as giving an unfair bias to DotMs in favor of OtBPs and FTTs. My question is, is there any way to tweak the coding of the carousel to randomize which of the three featured articles pops up first? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

It would probably be possible to have it initialize and immediately scroll to a random banner (). If there is interest I can put together a test. -- Ryan • (talk) • 17:54, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thats a good catch Andrew. Ryan, I wonder if it possible to have a carousel which shows banners all of the feature guides at the same time. Lets say 30% of images shows of each banner and when one hover over one of the three banner, it gives full banner image as well the text. Hope you got it. --Saqib (talk) 02:01, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Saqib, that would be a lot of work to implement, so unless there is widespread interest in such a solution it is more than I'd like to take on right now. -- Ryan • (talk) • 04:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

BUMP. Can we get folks' thoughts on this, please? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:48, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree it would be fair to give each of the three featured articles the same visibility and would support randomizing the starting point of the carousel. If I understood Saqib correctly, he's thinking of something like the Cover Flow of Mac OS and iOS — I'm not sure if it would be an improvement and if it's very difficult to build too, let's keep the layout as it is (and just randomize the starting point). ϒpsilon (talk) 15:12, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

BUMP again. I realize this isn't the most pressing issue in the world, but it seems to be an exceedingly easy fix, and I think we'd be remiss to let this issue fall off our radar screens. How about this: does anyone actively object to randomizing which featured article comes up first in the carousel, rather than having DotM always be first? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 00:44, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, just go ahead and do it. I think lack of objection is clear. Powers ^(talk) 03:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Done -- Ryan • (talk) • 07:21, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, sorrry I didn't contribute to the discussion before, I totally missed. I think it is a very good idea and thanks for implementing it! I find it quite witty how when the main page is uploading, the banners re-organize themselves quickly in search for a randomized configuration. Danapit (talk) 08:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)