'Non-article' page ideas

I do stop by tinWiki frequently and so I came up with the following thoughts right now, sort of an "observation" regarding the site in general.


Main page experiments page

One thing is something I've mentioned a little bit before (in the Main page discussion); the Main page is functional and works quite well as it has been developed, but I consider that there are still some fine tunings that could be done.

If the administrators consider that fine tuning the front page could be worth looking into, then one page idea is to have something resembling a sandbox page that is dedicated as a sort of project page for trying out ideas as far as tweaking the layout of the front page. (Starting out as a copy of the Main page.)

If such a project were created, then, in addition to Wiki Master William One Sac, I also think it would be good to have some input from Umbrax, who seems from the Main page history overview to have contributed a lot to the Main page layout.


Manual "Wanted pages" page

Another thought is something that has been mentioned by another user previously (not sure where I read it), which is to have a manual "Wanted pages" page. There is an automatic Wanted pages page which is generated based on number of links to a currently non-existent page (from the tinWiki articles). However, I consider that an additional, manual such page would provide a valuable opportunity for users to give input to tinWiki, which I think would naturally help the development of the site.


Apart from these two ideas, I have already made a page that is not really an article. That is a page I called Plagiarism. My thought when creating that page is that the topic needs to be specifically addressed and that a page was a natural way to do it. (I realize now that I may have overlooked a section inside the help pages that did address the topic, but i think I made a search and found no hits for "plagiarism", not that that means the topic has not been addressed.)

Of course it's an easy thing to create a new page, and so I could make the pages I have imagined, but I want to post here in the forum and ask what the administrators think. The ideas are after all not for normal article pages, so I am not creating them unless the admins consider it would be useful.

How does this seem, folks?

Optimist


edit: specified a sentence by adding "If such a project were created, then, "

[edit on 5-8-2007 by Optimist]

I think those are wonderful ideas Optimist. I felt that when tinWiki hit 500 articles, that perhaps a new layout for the front page might be in order (or some fine tuning as you put it). If you would like to create a test page where we can experiment with ideas for the main page, then by all means do it.

As for the wanted page, again, that is an excellent suggestion. If you create it, I will do my best to help add to the page as well.

As an editor, you can feel free to try these experiments. You've done a fantastic job so far, and I think I can safely say you have a good eye for these things.

William One Sac, Thank you, I was happy to see your reply. :-) I am glad you like the notion of trying to upgrade the main page a little bit. I, too, noticed, by the way, when the articles counter was approaching 500 and thought it was something like a "mile stone".

There is obviously -- given the nature of human beings, if I may -- a need and justification for tinWiki, a website which only focuses on "conspiracy related material". And I think this particular wiki has great qualities as it has already established itself, and of course it is a great strength that it's related to ATS. My impression or thought is something like you have thought also then, that right now could be a good time to try and, a little bit, further "tailor" the visual organization and the functions that meet the visitor, to get across a clearer impression of the qualities of tinWiki. Something like that.

I will go ahead and create an experiment page for trying out Main page improvement ideas. (Like I mentioned, to have something realistic or relevant to work from, I will make the experiment page have the same contents as the actual Main page, starting out.)

As for the manual Wanted pages page, Xkp created that already. It does indeed seem like a nice addition to tinWiki like I was hoping (I have already used it to write in ideas for pages that I thought would be good to have).

Actually I have had one more thought now for something that could be a good "non-article" page, and that is something I have seen in Wikipedia (to give credit where credit is due), namely some kind of "How can I help?" page. Not quite sure how it could be done, but the purpose of such a page would be to list the "chores" that exist at tinWiki, so that a visitor can go to one page and see a simple overview of contribution suggestions. This is just an idea, and, at least right now, a somewhat vague one at that.

I will think about the newest page idea and, according to your reply, go ahead and create a page for this purpose when I have a clearer or more specific "vision". I am thinking of making its title begin with "TinWiki.org:", like Xkp made the Wanted Pages page. (Of course, if someone else goes ahead and makes such a chores page before I happen to get "inspired", that is great, too.)

Thanks again for the reply. I really do think tinWiki is one of the really good uses of the Internet.

Optimist


edit: corrected two typos

[edit on 12-8-2007 by Optimist]