MediaWiki talk:Sidebar/Archive 1

For: ** Help:Guide_For_Contributors|Guide for contributors

I suggest changing Help:Guide_For_Contributors to Help:Guide for contributors to eliminate a redirect.

For: ** mw-cat-browser-url|cat-browser

A category list is not obvious on the intended purpose. To be more productive, I recommend replacement with finiki:Maintenance and a displayed text of "Improve finiki".

--LadyGeek 14:02, 27 December 2014 (MST)

The above may span to two lines. A suggestion which only takes one line would be to replace ** mw-cat-browser-url|cat-browser with

**finiki:Maintenance|Cleanup page

--LadyGeek 20:00, 3 January 2015 (MST)
 * Eliminated redirect, ✅ . As for the other suggestion(s), I've posted in the finiki lounge for a wider discussion that will hopefully be more visible to the editor community. Results will be summarized here and then implemented. --Peculiar Investor 07:21, 4 January 2015 (MST)

The relocation of "Recent changes" to the "Links for editors" section has no effect when not logged in. The link appears in the top menu section until you are logged in.

"Help" is pointing to MediaWiki (system interface message), which is not relevant for most readers. Consider removal or pointing to the new investor page Getting started.

--LadyGeek 08:49, 27 November 2015 (MST)
 * Per this MediaWiki article, MediaWiki aggressively caches content if possible, which often causes the navigation bar to persist after changes. The situation should resolve itself within the week. As to the "Help" link, suggestions under consideration. --Peculiar Investor 21:19, 1 December 2015 (MST)
 * That's good info, so I took a more proactive approach. After clearing browser cookies (they were tracking the sidebar location), I logged out and manually purged the cache via the URL ?action=purge parameter. No admin privileges were needed. Recent changes is now in the intended location. --LadyGeek 20:14, 2 December 2015 (MST)

--Peculiar Investor 10:36, 10 January 2016 (MST)

Re-organizing ideas
After the change to move Recent changes to the Links for editors section and the previous feedback I've been giving the whole organization some thought towards making it more reader friendly. Best practices to be considered are: I've got two thoughts to improve our Sidebar, remembering it's purpose is to put common navigation items in a handy location. First move the Links section down one, the wiki's main focus is engaging readers and editors and providing them a useful sidebar. Second, change the 'Links for editors' header to follow Wikipedia's 'Interaction'. Unfortunately it is not possible to demonstrate the changes (AFAIK), so this description will have to surfice. Any other ideas? --Peculiar Investor 15:38, 10 January 2016 (MST)
 * Wikipedia which puts items that I'd consider 'for editors' under a section header of Interaction.
 * MediaWiki which puts items under MediaWiki.org, which seems counter-intuitive.

I don't think the sidebar should be changed.

--LadyGeek 18:47, 10 January 2016 (MST)
 * Priority should be given to the readers, which vastly outnumber the readers. The "Links" section should not be moved under the editor's section.
 * Wikipedia allows anyone to edit. I'm not sure what "interact" means in that context.
 * MediaWiki's left sidebar is for two purposes. The top part is for everyone who wants to know about the software. The bottom part (mediawiki.org) is for those who want to dive into the details.
 * Agree that priority is to readers, but also recognize that some are FWF members, or potential FWF members, who could be future editors. Upon further research, the Wikipedia choice of 'Interaction' has been subject of discussion, one proposal that I saw suggested 'Contribute' as another choice. In my mind that's a better choice that 'Links for editors' which offers no chance of reader engagement. I've been trying to find other non-Wikipedia wiki's to 'borrow' ideas, so far I've struck out.
 * I'm still a supporter of moving Links down, even for a reader the priority is to engage them within finiki, not direct them elsewhere.
 * --Peculiar Investor 09:31, 11 January 2016 (MST)