MediaWiki talk:Sidebar

This page is for discussion of the Wikiversity left sidebar, the links under the logo at left on every Wikiversity page.

Clarity
The left sidebar should clearly display overall information architecture of the site by providing well organized one-click links to the primary site destination hubs. Visitors expect this of a site's sidebar. Let's do it. --Rogerhc 00:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Primary site destinations
Wikiversity's primary site destination hubs are (please click edit and add to this): --Rogerhc 00:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Main page
 * Help
 * Recent changes
 * Browse !!!
 * Portal
 * Categories ???
 * Schools ???
 * Topics ???
 * News
 * Colloquium

in navigation
--Rogerhc 00:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikiversity:Browse | Browse
 * done. -- sebmol ? 07:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization
Wikiversity's front door should be Main page, not Main Page, in keeping with Wikiversity's naming convention. Admin, please move the main page to make it so. (A permanent redirect should be left at Main Page -> Main page.) Now is the time to do it so that it sets a helpful example of how we generally want pages named. Thanks! --Rogerhc 00:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * This is how it is on all Wikimedia projects in English (afaik), and it is the MediaWiki default, so I don't really see any reason to move it.-- digital  _  me   04:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It still seems odd (read also: unprofessional) that there is inconsistent capitalisation for the first bit of text on the main page! Perhaps all WM project wikis and the MW default should be changed. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Random topic/pages
See also: Talk:Random.
 * I think one is enough, perhaps with other more random options available at Random or something like that. -- Jtneill - Talk 07:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I tested out Special:Random/Topic and Special:Random, a despite my instinctive dislike for the (misused?) Topic namespace, I must admit that Special:Random/Topic gave distinctly better results. --McCormack 08:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice. Any thought on bringing this back?  –SJ + > 23:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I like what Wikibooks have done with their Random link, but how is it implemented? It's not in b:MediaWiki:Sidebar. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Common.js/RandomBook.js -- dark lama  00:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Could we try this javascript approach? It seems to have a nice blend of randomness with some pre-selectiveness. However, for the meantime, I've changed the sidebar link back to Special:Random based on this discussion and at Talk:Random and because its more like what I imagine cross-wiki users are expecting to find. Maybe we shouldn't be hiding any dirty laundry - Special:Random does provide a way to find and improve mainspace content. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Trying Special:Randomrootpage based on discussion in the Colloquium. This also matches what Wikibooks currently has. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Help / Help desk
Could the distinction between these be made more clear? Or one of them dropped from the sidebar? -- Jtneill - Talk 07:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How about moving help desk into community? -- Jtneill - Talk 15:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Community - Vision? / Sister projects?

 * I'd like to suggest consideration about possibly (eventually) adding a link something like Vision (which still needs work) in the sidebar. The rationale would to provide visitors with a direct connection to the heart of what we understand to be purpose of Wikiversity (and also for WMF, connection to the broader set of projects). Alternatively, this could be a link such as Sister Projects to connect visitors into the wider sphere of wikis. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Search

 * One day, a third button for federated search of all WMF wikis. -- Jtneill - Talk 10:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How about getting the search box directly under the logo, top-left? This would be easier to find without scrolling. In classes, I tell student students to search WV sometimes - they struggle to find the search box. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 13:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Recently at de.WV it was also changed and I don't see so far that interrupts my normal behaviour at WV: so, just do it. We are a platform for experimenting/learning/teaching. So, why not try out for a few days and collect feedback at the Colloquium? Can be done like this, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 15:58, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Statistics
Can we get sidebar statistics? e.g., like this: Where do users go after the main page?. -- Jtneill - Talk 11:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * In these statistics, random article is (surprisingly?) popular. -- Jtneill - Talk 11:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Damn - wrote a long reply to this and lost it in an edit conflict. 3rd time today!! Ah well... --McCormack 11:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Random article is popular with vandals. --McCormack 11:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Chat
How about adding the chat ? Then we can point the user excatly the info she needs. Of course someone should be in the chat also :-) Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat (try) 19:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure the quality or activity of the IRC channel would qualify as making it a centre of major educational endeavour / scholarship. At least, not quite yet. --McCormack 04:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Current events
Do you think we could reasonably drop the link to Current events. News is provided now on the Main Page and it seems the Current events might have been broken for some time? I just added a redirect. -- Jtneill - Talk 14:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. --McCormack 04:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Colloquium
How about a link to the Colloquium? I thought there was one previously?? -- Jtneill - Talk 14:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * BTW - I think something funky happened with the sidebar for a while there yesterday - I thought I was going nuts - there were different links displaying (e.g., Current events, no colloquium, etc.) -- Jtneill - Talk 01:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I can confirm this. --McCormack 04:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's doing it again today. Actually, what's happening is that the Mediawiki software is ignoring Mediawiki:Sidebar and is displaying the default menu instead. --McCormack 03:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sidebar problems
Any ideas why we're only getting the default sidebar? -- Jtneill - Talk 13:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I tried updating it just to see what happens, and the custom version started to appear for me again. How about you? --McCormack 16:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * All good now, yes. -- Jtneill - Talk 00:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It has gone back to the default again, I'll try resaving it, see what happens. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That fixed it; weird. Wonder if its related to editing the talk page. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I also had a brief revert to the default version at the same time. --McCormack 06:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sidebar playing up again. Will resave. -- Jtneill - Talk 17:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Me too. Kind of weird how this constantly crops up. --McCormack 17:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Zapped the sidebar again this morning. --McCormack 07:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Zapped again. BTW, I noticed this earlier, but decided not to zap, to see whether it would eventually just revert, but this is about 9 or 10 hours later. McCormack could you give a link to the bug#? -- Jtneill - Talk 23:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Zap. -- Jtneill - Talk 23:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Zap. OK, I'm not going to post here on every re-zap anymore. Seems to happen approx. 1/day. -- Jtneill - Talk 02:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikimedia developers have also (today) announced that it is a 24-hour thing, because that's how long it takes the cache to expire. --McCormack 04:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Throwing around some ideas for reform of the sidebar
Here's a bag of suggestions, none of which I feel too strongly about, but which might get the ball rolling again. --McCormack 04:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Rename help desk. The help desk might not be a bad idea, but it looks silly next to another link marked "help". Perhaps we should think of another name for the help desk?
 * Yes, how about renaming to Ask a question -- Jtneill - Talk 05:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And perhaps it belongs better in community than in navigation. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Add guides. Add a link to Help:Guides and Help:Tutorials, once these pages exist and are sufficiently developed.
 * Add portals. Add a completely new section entitled portals and add the pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary and non-formal education portals to it.
 * Yes, this would be good. Maybe call it 'featured portals'. -- Jtneill - Talk 05:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Remove "portal". The link currently entitled "portal" confusingly links to Community_Portal, perhaps stemming from a time when it was the only portal?! Is that page sufficiently active or useful to the general user to be linked?
 * General principles: stuff on the sidebar should be the best, most well-developed and most useful content on Wikiversity, not pages hoping to attain such status.

Toolbox
This requires a different kind of editing for changes to be made: -- Jtneill - Talk 11:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

* Don't forget to complete your posts and sign them ;-) --McCormack 10:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Feedback
What do other think about adding a link to Feedback in the sidebar? -- Jtneill - Talk - c 02:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * What makes that page different from Colloquium or Vision? -- dark lama  02:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikibooks link
The link b:Wikibooks:Main Page doesn't exist, so please replace it by Main Page. JackPotte (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessary; there is now a redirect.--Collingwood (talk) 10:02, 30 December 2012 (UTC)