Welcome to the Community Portal Talk page. Please use this for any general discussions about the Wiki. Thanks!
This Page?[]
Question: What do we want on this page?
From looking at other Wikis, I see a range of options. One simply lists main contributors. Another has information to new users, lists of discussion areas, quality topics, archives, miscellaneous, and in the news. Yet another, a range of general wiki-wide topics. And Wikipedia has the most comprehensive one with an even wider range of general topics regarding the wiki.
In general, it seems that most Wikis uses the Main Page as the simple, sexy, user friendly overview and introduction to the wiki, while the Community Portal goes further with a wider/deeper and more technical list of topics.
The Main Page is the intro for the new and general user (visitors), while the Community Portal is for the active and contributing users of the site (community members).
Note: I moved Jon's reflections on the ES Wiki to What Kind of Wiki Should This Be?
Perkl 17:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Creating and Managing the Community Portal[]
Thanks so much for this question and research, Per! Wow! I am overwhelmed (I'm afraid literally) by the possibilities. This implies a level of sophistication and management I'm afraid I'm not built for. Are you? Should we be drumming up the right set of organizing-minded, public-spirited, ES wikian techies to become a team for this?
- I'll be happy to start developing the pages, with help from whomever may be inspired to pitch in. The ongoing management will consist of keeping track of the nomination/request/report pages, which seems appropriate for a small group of people - of which I can volunteer to be one. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
The Muppet Wiki Community Portal is a great idea, but the whole list of contributors could become a page in one of the boxes in your template, rather than take up the whole community portal page. How does one find out who is the posting the most? Count up entries on the Recent Changes, or is there a better way?
- I set up a users page. I don't know if there is a way to see level of involvement for each, but can look into it. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I see Wookieepedia community portal is where you got your proposed template -- which is fine with me!
- Yes, I thought that one had good organization and content. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
The WikiCities Community Portal is actually a list of requests for help (which I've used), rather than a guide of some kind. It is a very different use from the others.
And the Wikipedia Community Portal is totally mind-boggling. It is like stepping into the behind-the-scenes Oregon Country Fair Community: a buzzing stimulating swirl of intensely creative self-organizing activity. I can see it as a goal to aspire to.
- It can give us some ideas, and we can steal and modify some content from there. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm very happy to use the proposed portal you have suggested. Are you willing to do a lot of the work on the links? That would be SO FINE!!
- Yes, I can start developing the pages, maybe using and modifing some of the standard content on other Wikis. Others can pitch in and help to the extent they would like. Note: I will be gone (and computer free!) for three days, so it won't happen until next week. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
And/Or, are you interested in revising the Main Page? If I had to choose between working on the Community Portal or the Main Page, I'd pick the latter, and leave the former to you. I feel much more competent on content than on technical and background stuff....
- I would be happy to leave the main page to you and others. --Perkl 16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Tomatlee 14:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Formatting & Images[]
Stellar spire of the Eagle Nebula (NASA).
To all ES Wikipedians:
Formatting[]
Please consider formatting entries into shorter segments, using various levels of headers. This also automatically creates an index box below the intro and above the first segment, as seen on this page.
== Header == (w. line)
=== Subheader == (bold, no line)
Images[]
Please also consider including images with the text. A good source for astronomy images is the Hubble Site (select an album and image, then Screen Use > Large and download to your computer).
To include an image, see what is already available at the ES Wiki New Images. If you want to add an image to this collection, Upload File and then link to it.
Here is an example of coding for a thumbnail image with caption, placed to the right of the text: [[Image:StellarSpireEagleNebula.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Stellar spire of the Eagle Nebula (NASA).]]
See Wikipedia's editing guides for more about using images.
--Perkl 18:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
WikiMedia: It's made for Big.[]
These style guidelines are fine by me, but I would hesitate to model ourselves after Wikipedia, which has established its norms around the concept that it has x10,000 editors. (Check out how many edits are happening on Wikipedia on a given minute.)
The concept of a community portal is probably unnecessary, at this time, since we're not trying to coordinate the actions of a few thousand; The recent changes page, alone, should be more than sufficient..!
Most small wiki, such as community wiki, operate almost entirely by recent changes.
I'm now checking the wisdom of recommending MediaWiki! But, we're here, and we're doing wiki, and that's more important than which particular one. Just: I'm constantly surprised by all the mechanations here, that were explicitely set up for very large communities (thousands.) We're like 10 people, hoping to be say, 50 people, living in a 100 story skyscraper, made to host at least 10,000 people. We're trying to make use of the elevators and what not, to get to wherever we're going.
- Thanks for good comments, Lion. This iteration of the community portal is actually modeled on other small and medium-scale wiki community portals (specifically the Wookipedia!).
- It is set up for a larger user level than five or ten, but there are still sections that may be useful for newcomers (welcome text, how to edit, ways to contribute etc).
- Other sections, such as the news and nomination pages, may be appropriate as the number of users comes up to a few dozen or even a few hundreds.
- My vision for this wiki is that it will grow to be a small to medium size wiki with some hundreds of users with various levels of involvement, and some thousands of visitors every month (maybe even moving beyond that in time). Maybe that is optimistic, but why not plan for it from the beginning?
- Are there particular parts of the community portal you (or anyone else) recommend changing and/or removing? This is just an initial version and nothing is - of course - set in stone.
- --Perkl 22:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)