MediaWiki talk:Monaco-sidebar

Guess it's probably best to start up the sidebar discussion here. My thoughts are: Your thoughts?--RosicrucianTalk 18:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Featured articles - articles, not characters. We'll want to really make sure that the ones we put on here are the ones that are actually featured, too.
 * Characters - Disambig entries for the major cast members (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, etc.) would probably be the easiest way to direct traffic here.
 * Franchises - A link to every major franchise. Easy-peasy.
 * Embrace the knowledge - If we keep this, I think we ought to do an audit so it's common glossary terms like Autobot, Decepticon, the planet Cybertron, Energon, Sparks, etc.
 * Can you do a double-flyout? If there must be flyouts, I think going two levels deep would be useful, especially under your proposed "Franchises" - two levels is little more annoying than one, and would be more useful. - SanityOrMadness 19:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like it might be possible. The raw code seems to just be a bulleted list outline, so indenting further seems to create further menus.--RosicrucianTalk 21:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I like both suggestions personally. --Professor Icepick 21:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you can create nested flyouts by indenting, like this:


 * :Category:Featured articles|Featured articles
 * :Category:Characters|Characters
 * Fallen
 * Wheelie
 * etc.
 * :Category:Power sources|Power sources
 * Energon
 * Seafood Louis
 * etc.


 * However -- the flyout names are also clickable, so you should make sure that they link to something. If the menu item just says "Franchises", then it's going to link to a page called Franchises. You can use the usual link syntax to send it to another article, a category or a special page.


 * I've been looking at what menu items get clicked on more. Articles definitely do better than categories -- people like clicking on names that they know. It's especially helpful if you can synch up the menu items with the things that people are searching for.


 * So, if this helps, these are the terms that people have typed into the search box in the last week, starting with the most common: Megatron, Starscream, Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Shattered Glass, Ultra Magnus, Jazz, Bumblebee, Soundwave, Prowl, Grimlock, Mission Accomplished, Sideswipe, BotCon, Arcee, Beast Wars, Ratchet, Sentinel Prime. That's what folks are looking for, so you might want to put that stuff up front. -- Danny (talk ) 23:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And really, nearly all of those would be included in what I've proposed, so I don't think that'll be a problem. I really do think that we can make the sidebar work well for speeding people to the articles they want.--RosicrucianTalk 23:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I also just checked on what people are clicking on in the current sidebar. Transformers Animated (cartoon) is the most-clicked by far. Murdered puppy and That big green, fire-snortin' lizard are next, and then there's a gap between those and the next most-clicked (Autobot, TA toy line, and Optimus Minor).


 * So don't forget to bring the funny. -- Danny (talk ) 23:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Most of your "searched in the past week" list is topical though. Shattered Glass is the BotCon 2008 theme. BotCon itself. Mission Accomplished is the newest TFA episode to air - in Canada only, so extra reason for people elsewhere to search for it. Ironhide made his TFA debut there in a 30 second cameo that showed little more than his name, accent, head hesign and faction. Ultra Magnus, Jazz & Sentinel Prime appear prominently in it - as do Optimus, Megatron and Starscream. Sideswipe's new toy was shown in full Sideswipe detailing for the first time at BotCon. Spotlight: Grimlock came out last week. And Soundwave & Arcee were were both announced for TFA returns at BotCon, with Soundwave in particular said to have a big role in S3.

Shattered Glass & Mission Accomplished will disappear quickly, the latter supplanted by later episodes. BotCon will fall down the list, while the other characters will wax and wane depending on prominence. The only one high up on your list without obvious topical reason is Beast Wars - and even there, you could try & spin the new BWS1 Cheetor toy's announcement (I don't, because Cheetor himself isn't on the list).

I don't think a week's data, ESPECIALLY when that week includes BotCon, is particularly representative of what we need permanent links to (beyond the ones which are already blatant- Optimus Prime & Megatron to pick the two most obvious). - SanityOrMadness 00:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, one good thing about the sidebar is that the links aren't permanent. You can change them any time you want. You could have a "Featured at BotCon" menu right now, and then swap it out in a couple weeks for something else. Or a "New episodes" menu, with a list of the episodes that are airing this month.


 * Just to give you some more data, here's the most-searched items from March: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Transformers Animated, Grimlock, Jazz, Bumblebee, Soundwave, Arcee, Ironhide, Blitzwing, Ratchet, Prowl, Ultra Magnus, Beast Wars. So it's more or less the same, except for the episode names and BotCon. -- Danny (talk ) 00:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * And I don't think he's suggesting anything too outlandish here. These are popular characters regardless of what weekend it is. The oddball ones getting more clickthroughs aren't surprising either, as they do kind of catch your eye. "They have an article about that?" --RosicrucianTalk 02:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sidebar as toolbox
I wrote this over on the Community Portal, but Kil told me about this discussion, so I've rephrased it here. The upshot is that I think the sidebar could be a lot more useful to seasoned editors if we rethink it from the ground up:

I agree with Rosicrucian that we should have a "Featured Articles" (with the actual articles that've been designated "featured") and a "Franchises" list. In fact, I think we should start by essentially replicating the Main Page, making the sidebar into a path to lots of major hub-pages (like a "Categories" list too). A "Series" list might be a little redundant if we've already got franchises covered.

From there, we can make the sidebar into a toolbox full of useful stuff that isn't gathered anywhere else. For instance, we could have an "Editing" list of key resources, like Create a new article, Stubs, Templates, How to edit, Style guide, Preferences, My watchlist, etc. I can't seem to make the section-link work, but there's a conversation on the Community Portal under "First go here! Next go here." that also has good ideas along those lines.

I think some of the negative reactions towards Monaco have to do with the fact that the most prominent piece of UI is currently catering to new users, while the real tools are pushed into a little, unorganized ghetto underneath. Reorganized properly, the sidebar could become a genuine resource that serves us better than Monobook ever did.

- Jackpot 16:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd love to see one of the options be a randomly changing franchise sub-menu. You load up one day, you get Energon, with a fly-out to the franchise page, toyline page, cartoon page, etc.  You hit reload, it's Armada.  Hit reload, it's Masterforce.  Or whatever.  Dunno if that's possible, but it'd be a great way to call attention to the more obscure depths of our content. -- Repowers 17:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd be cool with seeing that and that 'random featured article' picture thing we had on Monobook, of course, not attached randomly to the Search box this time. --FFN 17:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not totally impossible, Rob. I'll look into it.


 * As for the random article... well, you'll either have to badger Sipher into doing new versions that fit the new size, or get someone else to make some, since they obviously don't fit. But I would be very happy if that didn't end up going to waste, because I think we can all agree that it was definitely a very nice idea and I'd like to see it again.


 * I absolutely want to incorporate Jackpot's suggestion like right now. Can you give me an actual list of what you think it should be, exactly? It's a great idea. --Suki Brits 18:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll make a sandbox with my ideal sidebar sometime this evening. And, yeah, if randomness IS possible, then I think any lists that are meant just to attract casual visitors should be randomized. - Jackpot 20:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Randomness is indeed possible. I don't necessarily agree that everything should be randomized, as we do want to point casual viewers to either the best content or the content they're probably looking for... in addition to random stuff. I do really like Rob Powers' idea-- although maybe with key characters or concepts (like, the Masterforce flyout will have links to the franchise pages, but also Ginrai and Transtector and the such). I think I'll do that myself and put it up soon. --Suki Brits 20:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Given the randomness problems, why not have G2 under G1, Beast Wars & Machines under "Beast Era", and A/E/C under "Unicron Trilogy"? - SanityOrMadness 21:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know if there's a way to randomize; I haven't seen anyone else try it yet. The Customizing Monaco page shows a couple sidebar tricks that might be interesting, like #visited# or #newlychanged#. -- Danny (talk ) 21:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble. The only other thing I would suggest is creating MediaWiki:Random-franchise, and putting
 * *random-franchise
 * on the list rather than trying to work with templates that have never worked with sidebars on monobook (the MediaWiki namespace works differently - wikicode doesn't work most of the time). That SHOULD allow insertions (in theory), but that's not the same as swearing that using them to randomise will work. - SanityOrMadness 21:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The issue isn't that template inclusions don't work, actually; that much DOES work fine. The problem is that the MediaWiki extension I was using for random select doesn't. Given that normal templates seem to work fine (oddly enough), I've still got a line of investigation I'd like to try out; otherwise I'll just take it to the Wikia techs and let them see if it's possible. Phooey. --Suki Brits 21:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've made a sample of what I think is the ideal sidebar over here. It's still rough, but I think it's a good starting place. I'm definitely taking a form-follows-function approach and giving priority to toolbox- and directory-type stuff. I figure we can add more new-user fluff categories after we lay the groundwork, if we think they're warranted at that point. - Jackpot 04:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Random featured franchise
Alright, I like this idea in principle if it works, but I still think we ought to follow that with a more generic franchise menu that has a full list of the major ones, just for convenience of browsing.--RosicrucianTalk 21:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Right. What franchizes are included should not be randomized. Including a random character, episode or comic issue would be fine.--FortMax 22:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * A permanent, fixed fly-out menu with all the franchises would certainly be good, too. Better, perhaps.  But either way, I'd urge making the list include just about everything that's on the Franchise page, not just the major ones.  The whole point (well, the way I and some other folk see it, anyway) is to make the deep and obscure stuff on this Wiki easily accessible, and ultimately to say to casual visitors, hey!  Transformers isn't just Optimus Prime and that gun guy!  There's all this other crazy stuff too!  Share the love, brothers and sisters. -- Repowers 23:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'll agree that the current franchise flyout looks a bit sparse.--RosicrucianTalk 14:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Heck, now that I look at it, it's not even a franchise list. It's a direct swipe of our continuity family list. We should at least use the franchise list from the main page.--RosicrucianTalk 15:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * To digress slightly -- on the flip side, I'm still a little uncomfortable calling all that stuff listed on the Franchise page "franchises", even though I'm the one who put most of the list together. I just don't know where else that info would need to go, and that list does need to exist in some fashion, somewhere.  If we're gonna stick with the "for lack of a better term" approach and keep calling them all "franchises", then I guess it's fine, but I'd like to hear more voices chime in on the matter.  Maybe "series" is a better umbrella term to include stuff like Alternators, Star Wars, Animorphs, etc.  Or maybe not... either way I'd like to see some other users' opinions. -- Repowers 16:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What is this "franchise list from the main page" of which you speak? The only two franchise lists I know about - Franchise and Category:Franchises - are both too unwieldy to serve.  I figured it was better to start short and build up.  And the terms "franchise" and "continuity" are tossed around pretty loosely, to the point that I think both apply to what's in the sidebar now.
 * I think Toughpigs is right, and the sidebar is too long. I think, as per the Sandbox I set up, "Generation 1" and "Animated" should go.  Anything we want to highlight there should be rolled into the "Embrace the knowledge" category.  Also, the "Featured articles" should be the actual Featured Articles, which I listed in my Sandbox.
 * Has it been confirmed yet that we can actually do nested flyouts? That could influence things a lot.  For instance, we can put LOTS of, say, G1 articles in a flyout under the G1 link in the Franchises list.
 * - Jackpot 03:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah appologies, I meant the "by series" list apparently. Buuuut... each series is listed as a franchise. Each continuity family contains multiple franchises. So calling a list of continuity families a franchise list is somewhat mystifying.--RosicrucianTalk 03:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)