Forum:Huge-ass UnNews modifications expecting YOUR approval
Right. So should we:
- replace the current header with UnNews:UnNewsNavBar2
- replace the UnNews Main Page with the now-heavily-populated opt3
- inherit audio files next to article names using {{InlineMedia}}
- Call the Comics/Weather/Magazine/Horoscopes page just "Comics", since that's the only thing it provides extras of that the current Main Page doesn't already have.
- Embrace the <forum> tag as a way to convey recent articles, which has already been done on opt3 and the topics pages like UnNews/Politics
--Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 17:32, July 25, 2010 (UTC)
- Don't really like the color scheme on 1. 2 seems a bit cluttered. I can't figure out why 3 is different than the current template we have. Also, did you talk with Zim before putting this on forum? They just did an overhaul a couple of months ago. ~
05:44, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was being negative here. Looked at it again. The navbar should really have a more color friendly scheme. It started with the current navbar that, as much as it's useful, burns holes into the viewers eyes. The opt3, if I understand properly, is now based on proper article indexing, which is great - but it overwhelms the reader with information. As long as you're doing it, why not use the Wikinews layout? We do mimic them after all. ~ 05:51, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was being negative here. Looked at it again. The navbar should really have a more color friendly scheme. It started with the current navbar that, as much as it's useful, burns holes into the viewers eyes. The opt3, if I understand properly, is now based on proper article indexing, which is great - but it overwhelms the reader with information. As long as you're doing it, why not use the Wikinews layout? We do mimic them after all. ~
6. Add sharing (Digg/FB/other) buttons to {{date}}, or some other useful place. --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 07:19, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
ORHLY?
Is there a good reason as to why this is the first I hear about this, or why this isn't in the Newsroom? 
Rev. Zim_ulator (Talk) I am the dirt under your rollers 18:59, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
I gather that Gert5 is an Uncyclopedian of renown who predates me, though he has been absent for a while. When I came to UnNews half a year ago, I started tweaking in individual areas, each time asking for buy-in (from "the community," which at that point, was usually just Zim). By the way, even that was too fast for some people, and I was politely asked at one point to tread water until mysterious messages from the Cabal were decoded.
Consequently, I'm happy that Gert5 has brought superior skill to a few of our intractable problems, and has broken out the issues to be decided. I'm unhappy that the format is to prepare a parallel UnNews, with changes in tools, organization, and aesthetics, and propose to slide it in, in place of everything. I'd prefer if you got consensus and reversibly replaced one piece of UnNews, waited a week for bugs to shake out, then solved the next piece. Spıke ¬ 15:20 28-Jul-10
Zim created the Nav Bar and I expanded it to include four Specialty Indexes, which I maintain. They are hardly complete, but at least they get you to an attractive "section front page" that someone is taking care of. They also enable "archived Specialty Indexes," such as UnNews:2010 World Cup, a good way for readers two years from now to attractively pick any story anyone ever wrote on the World Cup.
I endorse the use of <forum> for automatically-generated lists--provided you get paging to work so that we can see more than the first n entries--and think they should replace our Departments, which are broken as a method of retrieving old stories. But I don't believe such lists need to be in the Nav Bar.
I don't want to click to open a section of my UnNews newspaper and see nothing but a query result set--though there should be a prominent way to do that. Spıke ¬ 14:52 28-Jul-10
Point 2 (four-column Front Page)
I am in a unique situation which is no one else's fault: I do all my editing on a 768x1024 laptop, on which I force text to be rendered in 12 point. (By default, you all see 10 point.) The redesigned Front Page resembles the many-column format used by my local real newspaper. However, it ceases to fit on my screen, as the current, two-column Front Page does, and brings up a horizontal scroll bar. The resulting columns are narrow, any long word makes rendering even more problematic, and the result is cluttered on my screen. Consequently, because of my atypical situation, I'm against this change. Spıke ¬ 14:59 28-Jul-10
As I said in the Newsroom: Now it all fits in the width of my screen now without a horizontal scroll bar. Remaining problems: (1) in the right column, Write a new UnNews Story should move above what was written 1 year and 2 years ago; fixed (2) the right column is the widest column, on my rendering, and consists solely of stuff that the casual reader won't use; (3) lower on the page are long, unillustrated lists of various departments--visually unattractive answers to questions the user might or might not have asked--I'd replace them all by an expanded rendition of our broken Departments, consisting entirely of links to these reports. Spıke ¬ 15:55 28-Jul-10
ACTIVE: Point 3 ("listen" legend)
I'm talking about adding the (listen) bit to the end of article promos on the Uncyc Main Page. We can't add them to the lists at UnNews' Main Page. --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 08:52, July 26, 2010 (UTC)
- The changes are looking good to me. --
RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 18:01, July 26, 2010 (UTC) - A painless way to advertise the existence of an Audio, if Zim buys in, as he primarily maintains the template used on the home page. Spıke ¬ 15:00 28-Jul-10
Detailed review
As I mention on my Forum thread, I experimented with coding {{InlineMedia}} preceding the text (synopsis) in {{Lead Article}}, which currently features an UnNews story for which I did an audio.
- When I do it, I get "[listen]", and brackets inside parentheses look ugly. When you do it, you get "listen" in blue. Don't know why.
- Looking at the source code, you seem to assume that the MP3 file starts with "UnNews--". Mine all do; this is my way of denoting, in the File: namespace, an audio file deposited there on behalf of UnNews. But it's surely not universal. {{InlineMedia}} might not work on other people's audios. Spıke ¬ 17:25 2-Aug-10
Point 4 (more concise department names)
Read the Newsroom archives. I have long asserted that "OpEd/Letters/Columns/AllThingsBatFuck" is concisely referred to as "Opinion" but Zim pushed back. I believe you can still see some jousting between us in the banner of that section.
I agree that Comics is the only value added on the Comics/etc page, but argue in the Newsroom that an alternative is to relegate the other stuff to that page. Spıke ¬ 15:09 28-Jul-10
Point 5 ("forum" tool)
As elsewhere, it works better than our existing indexing tool. But paging doesn't work yet.
Beyond generating newest-first lists of UnNews stories containing [Category:Sports] or {{UnNewsAudio}}, I'd like a tool to generate a comparable list of stories containing "Chuck Norris," or any string. Spıke ¬ 15:14 28-Jul-10
- We already have the Search function for that. See if you can miracle something up on The list of criteria DPL can filter with. --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 09:46, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
Point 6 (support for Digg, Facebook, et al)
Should we add {{BookmarkRow}} to the news? It's going to cause a huge-ass job queue. --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 15:04, July 27, 2010 (UTC)
- Point one, you want to take the discussion over to the news room and bring Zim on board. If you don't talk with him, I doubt you'll get anything in motion. ~ 16:24, July 27, 2010 (UTC)
- It will slow things down for me in situations where WiFi is poor, and I won't benefit. As with Point 2, my situation is sufficiently atypical that, if I am outvoted, no hard feelings. Spıke ¬ 15:02 28-Jul-10
- I don't think that. Merely, my local newspaper has a row of bookmark tags and, in cases of poor reception, this is the slowest part of pulling up a page--certainly not by burdening my old processsor; I've assumed it's because it requires a visit to Digg et al, if only to retrieve the logo. Separately, I won't benefit. Spıke ¬ 12:39 29-Jul-10
Point 7 - Editorial template
A relatively modest addition of using encouraging the UnNews:ColumnistInfo template for future UnColumns. Also note that these are modifications, not improvements. --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 13:34, July 29, 2010 (UTC)
- All this takes is adding a recommendation to the Style Guide, which I've now done. But everything comparable is in the Template: space, where I think ColumnistInfo should be moved. Spıke ¬ 15:26 29-Jul-10
- I like the idea of this. When I wrote news/entertainment for real sometimes the only motivation was the warm vanity feeling I got when the paper hit the stands. ~ Avast Matey!!! Happytimes are here!*
(talk) (stalk) Π ~ 
~ 30 Jul 2010 ~ 04:02 (UTC)
- I like the idea of this. When I wrote news/entertainment for real sometimes the only motivation was the warm vanity feeling I got when the paper hit the stands. ~ Avast Matey!!! Happytimes are here!*
