User talk:Homerun-chan/Main Menu Redesign

About the novel

Moving discussion of redesign here from the other page. I'd suggest not grouping light novel in with manga. Because we have other official books. See here: [1]. You can change the naming convention there to all be Puella Magica if you want and make it NitroPlus Light Novel instead of Novel. --randomanon 19:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, at first the novel was a first-level item (just like Manga and Anime), but it just didn't look good, so I grouped it together with manga because "that's something with pages and stuff, yo". We can put it somewhere else (if it really belongs in this menu), but I don't really understand what you suggested. In the meantime, I tried to make a "books" section but then having a single item in the list looks a bit lonely ... --Homerun-chan 20:06, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Well tbh, I'm not sure by what criteria items are chosen to be lifted up to menu status. At the link I showed, there's also a comic anthology and a fan guidebook. They're all official books sponsored by Magica Quartet. You can leave out the fan guidebook since it's more like the magazine on background info on the anime, but the comic anthology will have Ume Aoki illustrations and doujin contributions by hanokage and other guests. It's probably similar to a spinoff manga where it will stay mostly consistent to canon but many would not consider it canon. The other option is just leave off the novel for now. It's not even out yet and it likely won't get translated for a long time. Feel strange to have something on the main menu that we won't have more than a blurb about. --randomanon 20:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

How about having a separate 'Official Guides and Books' bullet point and just linking it to this? Then everything would be included. It seems worthwhile for people to at least know from the start that there is an official novel, even if it might not get a translation. On the other hand, Randomanon pointed out on the other page that the anime section would most likely expand at some point. Taking that into consideration, we could make an 'Other' section for the novel and anything else that may appear, like any potential official game or whatever else they might decide to come up with. --Knon 04:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both for your input. I don't think the other two books are important enough to be linked from the main page, so making a "Books" section might be a bit too much. Also, I've been thinking: at the time being, the main reason there's a link to the novel is to "advertise" it. Wouldn't it be better then to just use the announcement box when it gets released? We could then link the page later if it grows enough and the novel proves to be popular. What do you think? --Homerun-chan 19:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me. I agree the novel isn't important enough yet to be directly linked. --randomanon 03:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

About the news and FAQ

Separate topic, I've been slowly putting together drafts for a FAQ page and news page I was planning on putting on the wiki in the next week or so. Just something to think about when you're considering the design. Also in the near future planning on doing a Otakon Madoka premiere page and a Measures of Madoka Popularity page. Both I think will be fairly interesting and popular with fans. --randomanon 04:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

How about linking to News and FAQ from the abstract, like what I've done here? (I'm not sure how to formulate the sentence though, I'll have to give it a thought). They're pretty much wiki-related (well, maybe not the news page, but the other pages are) so I don't think they should appear in the actual menu. The other two pages you're talking about are welcome here, and won't be a design issue (Otakon would go into Events and venues, Madoka popularity should get its own section in Articles, along with the sales analysis and Literature on Madoka) --Homerun-chan 19:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The news and FAQ I'd have in mind are Madoka-content related. Seems like every week there's something eventful that happens with Madoka that isn't on the wiki and is best categorized as "News." Example, the Aniplex US premiere of Madoka. FAQ would have to do with commonly asked questions about Madoka, similar to what the Japanese wiki has. --randomanon 03:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm okay with putting the FAQ in the left column. However, I still don't think the News page should be in the menu itself. It's not really about the content of the franchise per se, but it's not about derived content either. How about either leaving it as a link in the abstract, or using a "news box" with the latest news and a link to the "news" page? (a bit like our current announcement box, but less intrusive) --Homerun-chan 10:30, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I'm fine with anything design-wise, I just wanted to let you know what I had in mind coming up so you can plan where you might want to put things, and also to clarify the meaning of what those pages were which is different than the existing news and FAQ pages. --randomanon 13:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Well if you're okay with the News box, then I think we're set, unless someone else has observations to share. If not, then I'll gradually update the Main Page when the current announcement expires, i.e. beginning of next week. --Homerun-chan 16:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

About the news box

It might be just me, but I think the news box would work well in another colour. The blue that it shares with the franchise section sort of creates a frame around the Derived content and becomes distracting. --Knon 17:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I think so too, but the problem is to find which color to use. Red is a bit too aggressive; blue, yellow and green are already used for other elements. I tried with orange (should still be in comments in the code I think), but I wasn't really satisfied with the result. Maybe I could try purple or something ... If you have ideas, don't hesitate to share --Homerun-chan 17:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, here is the version with the box in orange, here in purple (and here in blue for reference) --Homerun-chan 17:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the purple would look best, but with a lighter coloured border. (I previewed it with #cc99cc for the border.) --Knon 17:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

ABout the news page

Just going to point out that it's only been a few days since I said I was planning on having the News and FAQ pages ready in a week or two. Was it really necessary to create placeholder pages now? I don't see why you couldn't have waited until the pages actually existed and then added them later to the main page. I think that's the last time I'm going to mention what I plan to do ahead of time on the wiki and just do things on my own schedule. --randomanon 20:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

You're not the only one here to be aware of what's going on about Madoka, you know. I think the News page belongs where it is; I see news about madoka being posted on the IRC almost every day, might as well keep record of them somewhere where people who want could leave them. As for the FAQ page, I know it's a bit rushed, I was just lazy to adapt the code to re-adapt it again in a few days. Will comment out the links, the placeholder page stays though. --Homerun-chan 20:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm fully aware of that. However, there hasn't been a news or a FAQ page since this wiki started many months ago and so it baffles me why there couldn't have been a wait of a few more days until the pages actually existed before making links on the main page or creating placeholders or whatnot. It's been over what, 8 months, what's with a few more days? I just don't get that kind of sudden impatience. --randomanon 20:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, how would you create a news page otherwise than with ... current news? Referencing news that happened months ago is pointless, news that'll happen in the future too; so it's only natural the page would be empty at first. How did you plan yours to be?
Regarding the FAQ, I already explained myself, and it's now fixed. --Homerun-chan 20:42, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

We have a different vision of the news page. There's plenty of Madoka-related news that happen that people are not aware of weeks or even months after the fact because it's not like they look for it daily. It has value to keep the pages archived so people can catch up when they visit. With that amount of volume, it makes sense to then categorize it. So manga-related news may have its own section with announcements of releases (and yes I ran into big Madoka fans at Orikon who didn't know about the different manga series or whether they were finished so it's quite common for fans not to know this). Another section perhaps for "lighter" entertainment like the announcement of an RPG game or Saimoe contest. Another for important industry information like the US premiere. Another for key official merchandise like a BD release. I also had in mind a different category for official documents where we'd announce when there's a new translation done, for instance. It's easy to list news by date and that's fine but I think it could be done better with a proper design. As to the FAQ, I believe it needs a name that will distinguish it from the existing website/technical FAQ. I was going to name it "Madoka Magica Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)." --randomanon 20:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I still don't see how your vision of the news page clashes with mine. There's only but 4 news for now, so it's not really a problem to sort them later, or even override them with your own design if you want to. That wouldn't be the first page to be redesigned as it grows --actually I don't think there is a single page here that hasn't been remodelled at least once.
And besides, you complain that the current page looks like a placeholder, but it would be far worse if you created all the categories you're talking about in advance. As I said, a news page has to start "somewhere" and be empty at first; only when there is too much news to allow for easy browsing do you start sorting them in categories IMO.
Finally, remember you have editing rights just like everyone else; if you want the FAQ page to be renamed or design of whatever page to be reorganized, feel free to do so. --Homerun-chan 21:05, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Other than that, I have to admit the design you have in mind for a "long" news page is quite promising. --Homerun-chan 21:12, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me try and explain this from my perspective: If you'd thought up these pages and did them yourself, I wouldn't be saying a word. But since I specifically brought it up as things I was working on and even gave a date when I'd have them ready, to then have someone else impatiently add the pages before that time with hardly a thought to what the fans coming here are looking for, proper naming convention to pages, content or design, for no reason I can figure out except impatience, is bothering. And I don't understand why you would think I'd add categories to the news pages without content--it is not my style to make up empty placeholders. My talk page has dozens of past news items in it and that's only part of what I have accumulated. I think the news and FAQ pages will become popular and well-read by visitors so I believe that they both deserve to have suitable thought put into creating them. IMO, they should be among the best on this site in both design and content. But bottom line is this: It doesn't encourage sharing of project ideas if someone else is then going to dash off a half-ass job of it for...well you never even said why. I'm assuming impatience but maybe I'm wrong. Why would you even do this, Homerun-chan? I still don't understand. --randomanon 21:31, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Eh whatever, I thought about it and it's really doesn't matter that much. It can be however people want it to be, it's not like it has to be perfect. I'll probably add my contribution to them at some point. --randomanon 21:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Good thing you realized it. Your comment above make it sound like I stole the idea from you and kicked you out of the party, which is obviously not the case. I keep repeating it in my answers, but you do have the possibility to edit pages as much as you like, so the only thing you missed (and which, apparently, made you rage so much) is the "previlege" to create the page --which is kinda pointless in a wiki meant to be (relatively) anonymous. If I am mistaken, then you might want to rephrase your comment, because that's how I perceived it.
As for the "wai you do this ;_;" part, let me explain my thoughts with a flow chart: "Do we have this feature yet?" > No > "Could this feature be helpful/enjoyable for people?" > Yes > Proceed to implement. Period. I'm not claiming it has to be the bestest page of the wiki evar because fans will surely like it. I'm not incubating pages for months before publishing them. I just create the pages as they seem interesting, and let the wiki magic do itself. Seeing the wiki as it is now, I'd say this method is quite effective. Yours may be too. Doesn't mean I'll go and personally attack you on the talkpages. --Homerun-chan 21:59, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

No, you really did miss the point of my post but it's not hard to avoid this problem in the future. Simply avoid discussing things in progress. So to use your flow chart it'd be - "Do we have this feature yet?" > No > "Could this feature be helpful/enjoyable for people?" > Yes > "Proceed to properly plan, design and implement it" then ask for it to be linked to the wiki rather than "Do we have this feature yet?" > No > "Could this feature be helpful/enjoyable for people?" > Yes > Mention it while working on it then watch someone decide to "implement" it with a blank page or a few lines of text. There's many pages that could be done on the wiki with value--like all the bio pages from SHAFT to the seiyuu (which I've posted info on in hopes of encouraging people to create new content pages)--are we going to make placeholder pages for all of them too? Also, when did taking a week or so to work on something, with RL delays and recovery from already doing all the Otakon stuff, become "incubating pages for months?" But to make it clear: I don't agree with your approach but I have an easy way around it so I'm not going to worry about it. --randomanon 22:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)