Forum:New Main Page and pagetitle

Forums: Yew Grove > New Main Page and pagetitle

Notice of Intent - A Consensus will be determined June 17th, 2009. (For why struck through, see below. Issues remain unresolved.--Degenret01 09:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC))If you have any opinions, questions, or comments, please place them in the discussion prior to this date. Thanks. Bonziiznob Talk 16:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey guys. I just wanted to drop by and mention some new things going on across Wikia. Wikia is currently updating the way Main Pages look and how the pagetitle appears. For Main Pages, we are aiming more towards using images to direct users to categories. For example, see the Main Pages of Last Remnant Wiki and Pokemon Wiki, and note how images are used that take visitors to categories. Also, we are trying to reduce the links on Main Pages as according to Google, Main Pages with less than 100 links perform really good in search results.

Another thing is the pagetitle. Both MediaWiki:Pagetitle-view-mainpage and MediaWiki:Pagetitle should be updated so that they contain "Article - Wiki Name - 3 key words". For example, the Pokemon Wiki's pagetitle is "Article - The Pokemon Wiki - Pokemon, characters, games, and more". The RuneScape Wiki's could be "Article - The RuneScape Wiki - RuneScape characters, quests, skills, and more". The current pagetitle is not really helping search engine optimization due to the lack of keywords.

So that's basically it. I know the Main Page would be lots of work, so it is up to you, the community, if you want to go through with changing it, though it will probably help drive more traffic to the wiki. You can learn more at The Magic Bullet and by reading Advice:Raising your wiki's Google ranking.--Richard^talk 16:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Discuss

Comment - I think we have enough traffic already (^.^). Doing quick Google searches of "Runescape" and "Runescape fansite," the wiki appeared on the first page both times. I do suppose we could bump the wiki up a bit, and it won't hurt to have even more visitors here.  Tien  17:04, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I agree with Tienjt0. Lvl 3 skils3 ^{Talk~ Holiday Signup ~Hiscores‎} 18:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Pending - Want to see what others think...

Bonziiznob ^Talk

18:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - A possible move would be to streamline the right-hand side's list of popular articles and ensure they are all necessarily on their. It's quite a long list. That said, I'm not sure we're short on visitors :). --King Runite1 19:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment As stated in this, the wikia shows up multiple times on the first page. Keywords sound like an excellent idea, butting us above other fansites perhaps. Template:Chaos Monk 20:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Well, im a bit confused. What would it look like? Maybe a background as seen on Narutopedia (sorry bout no link). And logo...I will put up an idea....There already is a thread about that but nothing changed and what richard is saying is that it needs to updated with the wordage. I'm now Armadyl Bunny 01:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC) it changed recently but it was all orange (except for page) and had leaf logo all over repeated. Maybe put up an in-game screebshot that might look good in the background? I'm now Armadyl Bunny 01:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - When I searched "RuneScape" in Google, I find that this Wiki is near the bottom of the page, on Live, we are nonexistent, and on Ask, we are on the Second page after some less reputable sites... (gold sellers -.-) So I do think we need to improve our front page and make it less complicated for new users/players, although there may be other reasons to us being in such places, sadly on all those sites, it tries to autofill the search bar with moronic ideas with how RuneScape actually works... Template:Signatures/Bluesonic43 02:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - For keybowrds, I suggest we use "Items, Quests and guides". Doucher4000^******r4000 03:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment

Google - Runescape - 7th (behind 5 RWT sites, Main Page)

Google - Runescape Fansite - 5th (MP)

Google - Runescape Help - 8th (MP)

Google - Runescape Guides - 90th (Money making guide)

Google - Runescape Forums - 24th (forums)

Google - Runescape Information 32nd (not main page)

Google - Wikia 10th

Yahoo - Runescape - 8th (MP)

Yahoo - Runescape Fansite - 7th (MP)

Yahoo - Runescape Help - 5th (MP)

Yahoo - Runescape Guides - 8th (Guides)

Yahoo - Runescape Forums - 24th (forums)

Live - Runescape - 76th (MP)

Live - Runescape Fansite - 5th (MP)

Live - Runescape Help - 22nd (Help:Editing)

Live - Runescape Guides - 46th (Guides)

Live - Runescape Forums - 7th (forums)

To be completed 4ndrepd ^Talk_Contribs^{Jump to the God Wars II!} 17:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Completed. Huanghe63^talk 03:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Try Alltheweb too

Bonziiznob ^Talk

19:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)~

Support - Change is good. I'd like to see some examples if someone can put them together, but we can handle becoming more modern.

Bonziiznob ^Talk

19:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - We do need to do some search engine optimization, but I hate to lose our motto "The RuneScape fansite that anyone can edit!" may be we can somehow save it or include part of it. - TehKittyCat (talk) 19:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - I'll work on a new logo i guess. I agree with cat so i'll include that. it'll be up shortly I'm now Armadyl Bunny 20:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - We already had quite a lengthy discussion, and decided to keep out old logo. So, it stays. Doucher4000^******r4000 22:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Support Per everyone, and its just common sense if you ask me lol Hess36^talk 04:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Slight support - We can try it, and if it works out then great. What I am supporting is having a new mainpage proposed and then we have a discussion on it. The appearance and functionality of the main page is more important than how many hits it brings up on google IMO. †Blade^#† 15:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Support The first impressions are essential. One important thing is to move up the list of popular pages, and get it more synthetized. 4ndrepd ^Talk_Contribs^{Jump to the God Wars II!} 16:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I did see that, D4K, but it states above that we need a new logo. I am trying to make a new logo and it will be up shortly. I'm now Armadyl Bunny 17:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC) (woah that sucks about the places were in!)

Please quote where it states above that we need a new logo. The only thing being requested of us is to change the mainpage and a few search terms.--

Azaz129 ^{Talk Edits Contribs}

00:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Here - Here is a logo i put together. I can easily change fonts, colour, etc if wanted if people like it. It's on imageshack for now. Search rswlogo if you want it from the site. http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/9530/proposedlogolightershad.gif i can take away the shadow and resize it if wanted. I'm now Armadyl Bunny Oh sorry i misread the thing above. Sorry I'm now Armadyl Bunny 01:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Well, for main page appearance we need to change some wordage but what about a background? What if we have an in game screen shot of one player dressed with bronze med, wooden shield and bronze long saying "For new players" and another player standing next to him/her dressed in full void/dragon/barrows or something like that saying "Or for more advanced players"? It may get overwhelming but it may make it look great. It could be like xxphatmagexx's youtube channel background... I'm now Armadyl Bunny 03:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Support -0 The pics would make it less cluttered, and people might click on them rather than going to tip.it.Joe Click Here for Awesomeness18:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

How about making the MainPage a bit more Simple. Like taking away one of those List that says the "quests, Items, ect" Because there are two of them. --PCWiener 06:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I'm putting an example together. Might be ready this weekend. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 08:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't support - I heard these things use like new flash and stuff. My computer can't cope with that and i'm sure there are at least 10 other users won't be able to use it eitherWhovian39 06:17, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Just informing, before a consensus get's made. I'm trying to find out how to add the link attribute rel=nofollow to links on the mainpage. It's a bit complicated, we might need to use javascript or get a staff member to make a new link tag. The nofollow attribute prevents search bots going to that specific link. If that page had have lower pagerank, our pagerank would leak to it. [1] So if we manage to add this, we get higher pagerank. I'm still waiting for an answer from Richard at this time. This coding should not change anything visually, so we can implement it at a later stage. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 08:50, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Are we sure we want to do this? rel=nofollow is meant to be a way for sites to show that they don't "vouch" for a particular link. For example, if your site allows people to post links to random places, then you don't want those links to affect how a search engine perceives your site. We certainly can "vouch" for all of our internal links, however. MediaWiki should already by default apply rel=nofollow to external links that we don't have control over. Also, I don't think JavaScript to add it on page load would be a reliable way to implement this. --Quarenon  _Talk 09:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Yes, I especially want to add it to the 20 links to other languages. They are on wikia so classified as internal. I don't wanna add nofollow to all internal links on the whole wiki! Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 11:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Would using the <span class="plainlinks">[http://example.com example]</span> syntax work? You'll have to use an actual URL, but using the plainlinks class removes the external link icon (example without plainlinks, example with it) --Quarenon  _Talk 12:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Here are some examples with plainlinks. =)

• <a href="http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/" class="external text" title="http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/" rel="nofollow">Kenyaaaa</a> External link (rel=nofollow)
• <a href="http://fr.runescape.wikia.com/wiki/" title="http://fr.runescape.wikia.com/wiki/" >Bonjour</a> Classified as internal link to a other wikia
• <a href="http://tinyurl.com/nzbtj6" class="external text" title="http://tinyurl.com/nzbtj6" rel="nofollow">Bonjour</a> Classified as an external link to a other wikia (rel=nofollow)

See the differences? We could easily apply rel=nofollow to the 20 language links by making a tinyurl of them. I wonder if any1 has trouble with that. Jagex uses it too. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 13:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I don't see why tinyurl is needed. Just use the full URL to the article you want to link to, using the external link syntax with plainlinks wrapped around it to remove the external link icon. --Quarenon  _Talk 13:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The point is.. that although http://fr.runescape.wikia.com/wiki/ looks like an external link. It isn't classified as that, because it's on wikia aswell. So it does not add a rel=nofollow to it. I'm trying to stop the leak of pagerank to the 20 links to other languages. Because those pages have a pagerank of 2/10. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 13:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

New pagetitle

I've gone ahead and updated the pagetitle at MediaWiki:Pagetitle and MediaWiki:Pagetitle-view-mainpage so that it includes 3 keywords (skills, quests, guides). I'll work on a draft of a new Main Page soon to give an idea of what can be done to it.--Richard^talk 20:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean with working on a draft of a new main page? I posted in the commment above that i'm working on an example, isn't that the same? Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 23:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I think he's giving us an idea of how our new main page should look.  Tien  16:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

That's what I ment too. Idea/example same? o.O Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 16:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as he's a Wikia helper (I think, because his name is pink in the Recent Changes), he should have a good idea of how the main page should appear. Well, at least we'll have two drafts to choose from.  Tien  16:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

New Mainpage design

I've been reading through the comments on this forum and had to agree that something had to attract more people on the mainpage. Also the lay-out could use some work. I got quite some experience with other popular websites and decided to work on a new lay-out for the RS Wiki mainpage. The finished result can be visited here.
Notes for when there is a consensus to change the mainpage to this design:

• Flag images are able to show the language name when hovered with mouse, only once images are on wiki itself. (Can't show it now because images are hosted on imageshack).
• When this design goes up, I'll edit the mainpage, templates and css (due to all new coding).
• Will be adding up to 5 different buttons/images for Skills, Minigames, Bestiary, Armour and Weapons (they'll change randomly).
• Featured image section will stay like the current format on the mainpage, it's just a thumbnail atm because I needed to show how big it will be.

So, comment below, tell us what you think, and perhaps this will be the new look of the Mainpage! Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 19:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion on new design

Support - Looking great! Except the image for Bestiary. I don't recognize the mainmonster2. Perhaps a more common monster, like the goblin? Hapi007 ^{Talk! Sign!} . 09:16, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

\ That's the Angry goblin lol, I could add a normal goblin instead. We'll see, Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 09:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - I support elfanurin's main page. It looks real nice and added a few new stuff to the front page, which can save us the time of finding/typing in the database. Powers38 ^おはようヾ(´･ω･｀) 09:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Main Page overlap.png

Overlap of images in the Main Page.

Oppose for nowNeutral - The current Main Page layout may not be suitable for browsers with resolution of 1280x1080 (or lower). Even if the majority of users are using large resolution browsers, the number of users using resolution of 1280x1080 (and lower) is significant (532/1538 = 34.6%) based on the recent polls on the Main Page.   az ^talk   14:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

\ Is that monobook skin? Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 14:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

\ That's with monobook skin (unknown % of users) on a resolution of 1024 x 768 (20% of users). I'll see what I can do. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 15:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

\ I've solved the problem! It took me some hours but I finally managed to. :D Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 21:12, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Main page overlap fixed.png

No more overlapping with Monobook skin, and a resolution of 1024 x 768 or smaller.

Support - It looks amazing, very nice job. ‎ Texan H B K 15:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I like it. Perhaps Az, you could help ElfAnurin with the resolution problems so this could work for us. That would be cool.

Bonziiznob ^Talk

22:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Weak support - But I will strongly support if the issue that Az arose is fixed. Otherwise, it's a nice layout, I like. The1AndOnlyMikeFile:Tribal top (teal).gif 22:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Problem solved.. Please read the comments that I gave on Az' comment, as I already said that I solved the issue. :) Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 22:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Support - looks great! Andrew ^talk 06:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all comments so far. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 08:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Support - Wow! That looks awesome!Nephilim ^Retired 17:42, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Weak Support - Nice addition of icons. The only problems I see are 1) we should get rid of the "more popular articles" collapsible box and 2) it seems that the CTI is oddly positioned to the right of the "On This Day..." text, maybe it should be moved to its own line right below the dates in the "On this day" box. --Quarenon  _Talk 08:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Issues and suggestions

  az ^talk   07:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

50x50 icons

The main icons should be reduced to 50x50 pixels, and the icons displayed in a single line. This way users with wide screen browsers would see a single line of icons, while users with small screen browsers would see 2 or 3 lines.

This would be a better than having empty white space for wider resolution browsers as only 4 icons appear in a line.

Don't randomise the icons

Use a single icon for a particular section.

Users might identify a particular icon (i.e. TzTok-Jad) for the "Bestiary" section. The next time they visit, they would look for the same icon for go to the Bestiary section. If the icon is randomised, they may not find the same icon.

In my opinion, random images on Main Page should be limited to the "Featured image" section.

Reduce the number of links

The main reason this forum was created was to reduce the number of links on the Main Page.

“	...we are trying to reduce the links on Main Pages as according to Google, Main Pages with less than 100 links perform really good in search results.	”
	— Richard

Thus, I think we should remove the dropdown list of "More popular articles". Most of the links are available in the sidebar. Displaying them again on the Main Page will be redundant.

Template:Maintop

I have another version of header template which I use for my Main Page. The text has been modified a little, and the font sizes have been made uniform. The original version (not the proposal) had 3-4 different font sizes which I found to be a little bit odd.

This version also removes the flags and the links to other languages, replacing them with a link to Wikia's RuneScape page. Most of the links are available in the sidebar, and therefore redundant.

RuneScape Wiki the wiki devoted to the MMORPG RuneScape that anyone can edit! 44,138 articles since 8 April 2005. Help • Getting Started • About • Policies • Terms of Use • Style Guide • FAQ • Disclaimer Other languages and sister wikis

Featured image

Although I like the use of the DPL extension (<DPL></DPL>) for the "Featured image" section, the frame for the image is kinda ugly, in my opinion.

Current proposal	Original
	Ancient Cavern The Ancient Cavern with her dangers, hidden under a lake.

And the link to the article is not provided... as only the summary is provided. Will it be possible to include a link using the DPL extension? If not, we should stick with the original template.

\ Comment

• My intention was to keep the current format of featured image. I just changed it to thumbnails to show the size, sorry forgot to say that.
• 50x50 is to small I think; http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7947/mainminigamessmall.png . The intention of those icons is to draw the attention of the visitor and make it easy for them to recognize something and to click on. Also, I don't have trouble with the white space. 50x50 wouldn't solve that for you either, because 8 icons*50+margin = about 420 px. Exactly the same width as we have now..... lmao
• I have already reduced the number of links that originally were in the popular article thing. If you wanna reduce it more feel free to take off some links once it's done, but remember that they are used as quicklinks..
• It's obvisious what a monster looks like. And I thought ppl would like some lil changed when they visit the mainpage. But I don't have a problem with making 1 monster. For armour icon I'll change it to some f2p and p2p armour in an image.
• Reduce links, try to do here and here. And we could remove some flags of sites that aren't big or active. And if the menu uses Javascript then search bots are hardly able to recognise the content of it. So popular links give us a higher rank as they can be indexed. Also get me the source why over 100 links aren't good.

• <meta name="keywords" content="RuneScape Wiki,runescape,RuneScape Wiki,1 June,169,19 May,2004,2005,2007,2009,27 May,28 May,29 May" /> - Kinda dissapointing meta tags.. Where are the real keywords?

• I think it's better if you keep your personal main page.. personal. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 08:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"I think it's better if you keep your personal main page.. personal" - Is this comment necessary? I was really offended by this statement, as I was merely giving some ideas. Aren't other people allowed to contribute to this discussion? Earlier, when Richard offered to help out designing the Main Page, you reacted by saying, "What do you mean with working on a draft of a new main page? I posted in the commment above that i'm working on an example, isn't that the same?"

Remember that this is not your personal Main Page, so anyone can provide alternatives, suggestions, and improve on it. It doesn't matter what you think, but what the overall community thinks. It is up to the community to decide whether they like it or not..

• "50x50 wouldn't solve that for you either" - The suggestion is for the users with smaller browsers, not for me personally. I used "BrowserShots" to check the design in all types of browsers, for different screen resolutions. If 50x50 is too small, try 75x75. There's nothing wrong in trying. Show us how it looks, and we can decide which is the better alternative.
• The Google PageRank for our Main Page is 4/10. For more information about Google PageRank, and why more than 100 links are not recommended, see:
  • http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
  • http://searchengineland.com/sculpting-your-pagerank-for-maximum-seo-impact-12982

  az ^talk   11:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

\ Comment

• No there's nothing wrong in trying. Just gives me more work to do while you sit back testing. Here is your suggestion implented with 50px and 75 px images. 100x100 is what I chose after I read this in the 2nd sentence of this forum; ''For example, see the Main Pages of Last Remnant Wiki and Pokemon Wiki, and note how images are used that take visitors to categories.''.
• Richard, didn't even read my comment that I posted before him, or he ignored it.
• ''I think it's better if you keep your personal main page.. personal'' - I take this comment back. It just looked like you want to put up a lot of changes, that you had on your own version of the mainpage, while you didn't contribute to this discussion at all before. It was not necessary I agree. But hey you leave me with a problem that I gotta solve. Like how many users with 1024x768 are using monobook skin? It makes the page even smaller! due to ads! But ok, I agree I should find a fix on that. So I work on it for 3 hours and when I'm done you don't even say 1 thing about it. Null. Not even a thank you or a compliment, noooo you throw up even more issues that are wrong with my page. How am I supposed to react on that. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 12:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thumb I support a thumb. And elf please don't hijack this topic, resolve probs on talk pages.Joe Click Here for Awesomeness14:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

logo

I think that only runecrafting is no the only thing, there are 30 skills more!!!!!! the logo only show runes -_- OMG!!! --Sistemx 02:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you trying to say we should change our logo? Liam - Beta Tester ^(talk) 06:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Meta keywords

ElfAnurin pointed out earlier that the meta keywords for our Main Page are "kinda dissapointing". I have to agree. Currently, we don't have control of generating meta keywords since they are created automatically.

<meta name="keywords" content="RuneScape Wiki,runescape,RuneScape Wiki,17 June,169,2004,2005,2009,8 April,Achievement Diary,Armour,Bestiary,Calculators" />

To add keywords manually, we need to install Extension:MetaKeywordsTag. We would then have more control of what keywords to include on a particular page, especially for the Main Page.   az ^talk   09:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Support I was wondering where to edit the keywords, there it is :P Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 11:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Postpone - I think we should postpone the determination of consensus for two reasons:

• The issue of reducing the 100-link-per-page limit is still unresolved.
  • Several suggestions have been made to reduce the links.
• The issue of whether to install "Extension:MetaKeywordsTag", so as to have better control of the meta keywords on the Main Page. Installing this extension would be beneficial for search engine optimisation, which was the main topic for this forum thread.

  az ^talk   09:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree If the problem isn't solved then what is the point? I will remove the notice of intent.--Degenret01 09:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• Using images to direct users to categories - done
• Reduce the links on Main Pages to less then 100 links. - partly done; about 23 links less, down to 120
• The current pagetitle is not really helping search engine optimization due to the lack of keywords. - pagetitle has been updated, meta keywords can be improved with solution above

I'd like to request a partial determinaton to go ahead with things that we DO have a consensus for. Anurin _{Talk · Sign! .} 11:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)