User talk:Red Thunder/Main page 2010

flag Please leave feedback here. Thanks, red  - thunder  .  01:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Pi zero
The parts are too tightly packed together, so that I have trouble visually parsing the page &mdash; I find myself wanting the whitespace that, if I understand you, you're trying to eliminate. The space allows separate elements to be discerned, and does so in a way that keeps the whole from feeling frenzied or heavy.

The use, in the current layout, of a single continuous list of news stories down the whole right-hand side "above the fold" is especially easy to parse. I see you've also cut down the list from 20 to 10 (and the number of leads from 5 to 3); I think that's a mistake, because it will cause stories to scroll off the main page too fast. Wikinews is an interesting newsfeed for the community-driven variety and distribution of stories that it covers; and that variety, and the community character behind it, are displayed to best effect with a longer list. Also, having one's story appear on the front page is a reward for a job well done, and since it's news it'll be fleeting enough without halving its time in the limelight. --Pi zero (talk) 05:14, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

InfantGorilla
--InfantGorilla (talk) 06:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * When I view the proposal in Firefox, it seems to cram everything in really close together. In particular, the 'latest news' bullets have just a tiny (em space?) left margin, which may contribute to the 'too busy' impression I get.
 * However I like the concept of getting rid of unintended white space.

Changes

 * 1) Changed number of recent news stories to 15
 * 2) Changed number of leads to 5
 * 3) Removed constraints on font size

red  - thunder  .  12:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Popular articles?
Will there be room for Template:Popular articles when the new bot starts? (I see that Bawolff and Myst are working on it.) --InfantGorilla (talk) 08:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I did know it was down, but was not aware of it being re-done. I'll try to fit it in. red  - thunder  .  12:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Relative significance of Latest news
Latest news is the single most essential element of the main page. I'm concerned that the proposed layout makes Latest news feel like an incidental detail, presenting the leads as clearly more important.

As I try to envision how one might address this concern, I keep coming back to the treatment of Latest news in the current layout of the main page (with no lead above it). How best to reconcile that with the means used here to reduce excess whitespace is, I realize, a challenge. --Pi zero (talk) 16:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)