Front Page Proposal
This is a proposal to revamp the current front page of the wiki. While specific page history data is unavailable due to the security incident on 6.17.2022, the current front page is comfortably a decade old and has been ad-hoc edited, expanded, and altered without substantially changing the base CSS that it’s built upon.
Problem
The result is that our first impression to many users is a bit of an overgrown mess; most of the article features are hidden below the fold, a substantial amount of space is wasted, the design of the boxes is inconsistent and a bit idiosyncratic, the art features require compositing the images into one large image, the design of the page is rather dated, et cetera. All these issues are exacerbated when the front page’s structure is suddenly altered, such as to suit a contest announcement or an art contest winner. Generally a large number of minor issues aggregating into our first foot forward being both ugly and often nonfunctional in its purpose: displaying what the SCP Wiki is about, and letting people easily see the content we’ve elected to feature.
Improvements
In that interest, I’ve been hammering out a rework that most of you have seen at this point in some form or another. Here it is. Additionally, here's an alternate version of the page showing off a) the contest banner b) the survey line and c) the solo art feature. I encourage you to look at both of them.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of improvements
- A classified banner that’s smaller (70% of the original) while still retaining the aesthetic of the original. The CLASSIFIED also links to the About the Wiki page, giving it a level of functionality beyond form.
- A grid-based double column layout that’s responsive on mobile.
- More economical use of vertical space.
- Almost all article features are immediately visible without scrolling, which is fairer and leads to overall more clicks on each article.
- Art features on a rotating slideshow that doesn’t require any raster image editing.
- The entire system is built on Wikidot vars, so each item can be changed from the front page itself without the need to edit the individual fragments. This lets us have a clear, centralized edit record.
- The vars and sections are all also clearly annotated for editors.
- The individual components are still set up in fragments as with the current front page, reducing the risk someone will accidentally edit and/or break the CSS.
- A clear, constant link to the Site News.
- Set up to accommodate rather than work around contest announcements; as you can see on the contest alt, during contest season the contest div can be altered to suit the contest and replace the classified banner for the duration of the con.
- It’s also set up to accommodate the annual survey announcements, as you can see on the contest alt.
- Generally a more updated, 'modern' looking visual design to the page.
Criticisms
In the interest of fairness, there have also been some criticisms directed at my design.
- The modern design clashes with the overall older aesthetic of Sigma-9, which we have long informally used as a basis for the visual design of official/highly-visible pages.
- While this is inarguably true, I still think “everything on the site should be consistent(ly ugly)” is perhaps less applicable to our front page when that consistency comes at the cost of functionality.
- The slideshow only shows a portion of the art, and not always the most interesting bit.
- True and something I have unsuccessfully tried to set per-image. Hopefully I’ll figure it out in the future and patch it in, but I’m not a fan of holding up the overall net good of the slideshow (and the rework at large) for this.
- It looks ugly.
- This is ultimately subjective — which is fine, it’s also a visual update. Everyone’s sensibilities are different. I think it looks pretty nice, for what it’s worth.
Rule
Much of the problems with the old front page arose from the fact that it was assembled by about a dozen people over about as many years, with many of them making decisions overriding or altering those of their predecessors. The underlying code didn’t change much, but the way it was used did, and this often led to friction between people with differing ideas on what the front page should have. An easy example is the current look: an art contest feature was promised to the winner of the 173 Birthday Contest, but that wasn’t really considered beforehand and the layout of the page had to be jankily altered to make it happen. Or how there’s often small disagreements whether something like a contest or survey announcement should get its own block or go inside the news block. While this design eliminates many of those by creating designated spots for art features, contests, and surveys, there’s still a need for a clearer set of guidelines for what we can and can’t do to easily the most-visible page on the entire site. As such, I’d like to formalize the following tidbit of policy:
- The layout and structure of the front page should remain the same during routine updates. Any such changes require approval from Community Outreach, Navigation and the Technical Teams.
This discussion is open to everyone, and will carry on for seven days.