[DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

[DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

EstrellaYoshte 20 Dec 2025 10:40

This is a small, but navigationally important (and also ahead of time) discussion on what to do when Series 11 opens.

Ultimately, it doesn't change how the wiki operates all too much, so all bikeshedding are welcome.

SCP Series on the Side Bar

As of writing, there are the ten extant series are laid out sequentially at the top. When Series 11 rolls around, there's a few options to consider:

A. Change nothing, just add a new line with Series XI

To be quite honest, this option is lame and doesn't consider future potential for link bloat, rather,, it just kicks that can down the road.

B. Put Series 1-10 in a collapsible, call it Era/Epoch/Collection 1

C. Link only 10 series at a time, shift them to the SCP Hub

SCP Hub will be retrofitted (and possibly the individual hubs) to have a link tree to all the Series.

D. Other

1. Reverse the series order, newest first

Listing the newest Series to deprioritize reading starting from series 1, and emphasize newer works.

2. Change Roman numerals to normal numbers

This was fine when there was only a few series, but not sustainable, I feel.

3. Groupings of 10 Series

I still think regardless of layout, we should still call it some names. Suggestions wecome.

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The discussion will last for 14 days.

Mainsite Mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-17494127/

Last edited on 20 Dec 2025 10:46 by EstrellaYoshte Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

Jerden 20 Dec 2025 11:08

Can we just not do Roman numerals? (Arabic) Numbers are easier to read and take up less space, plus work for more consistent spacing, that way we can fit it all on two lines for many series to come.

I think it defeats the point of the sidebar to not list all series in it, I don't think 11 links is an unmanageable amount.

I don't know if there's really a need to group them at this stage since there's literally just going to be one extra, maybe wait and see how the community refers to it and then start grouping them once we're a couple of series in to the 10,000s.

Last edited on 20 Dec 2025 11:51 by Jerden Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

Cerastes 21 Dec 2025 01:46

Basically my thoughts on this.

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

Jerden 21 Dec 2025 10:46

Also done a couple of mockups! I really do think it's worth us switching to normal numbers, it's much more easily legible. I think even people who can read Roman numerals (which won't be everyone) take a moment to have to decode VII = 5+2 = 7 and that's kind of annoying when you want to quickly navigate the site.

E. Numbers with Bars

If we switch to numbers rather than Roman numerals we can fit up to 9 per row (I checked with BHL and this also works fine on that sidebar, but any more will start to wrap around), but if we want to give more prominence to newer series, I think a sensible thing to do would be to put the more recent series above rather than below. Obviously we could split this 50/50 instead and have 7-9 on the top row, or have 5 per row, but double digits will not align very neatly with single digits regardless of what we do, and this new design will give more prominence to the most recent 2-3 series.

I realize it is kind of weird that this layout makes 10 and not 11 the start of the new "epoch", but oh well, we should have zero indexed anyway if we wanted consistency. At some point we'll need a third row because double digits take up twice as much space, but let's decide on that once we get to series 15.

F. Numbers without Bars

If we remove the bars between numbers we can actually fit them all on one row, for a couple more years, but I worry this is less easily legible, just thought it was worh comparing.

Last edited on 21 Dec 2025 10:49 by Jerden Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

BAD_DATA 21 Dec 2025 17:34

Concerning option E, is it possible to have each series number set up in a table so that they're all evenly spaced?

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

Ethagon 20 Dec 2025 17:08

Option C appeals to me most in visuals, though I think having the series as they are listed in Option B, but the layout of option C (aka Series 10+ are shown, collapsible afterwards called "Older Series" listing the rest).

I prefer anything that does not list the first series as a start so newcomers don't try to "start reading at SCP-001", but I don't think it should be more than a collapsible since I wouldn't want to put any real obstacles, like an extra link, between a reader and quickly navigating to an SCP they know the number of.

I prefer staying with roman numerals, but that is very much a personal preference.

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

BAD_DATA 21 Dec 2025 10:19

I think this is probably good opportunity to no longer list series 1 as the first people click on.

I like the idea of option D, perhaps in groupings of 5 as opposed to 10 though? So that series 11-6 are shown, then when series 12 opens display 12-7, and so on. I'm not sure about the "epoch/era" thing, I think a collapsible that's just "older series" or whatever is better, so long as it's friendly accessibility wise.

I'd support a change to Arabic numerals, it'll have to happen at some point if the rate of mainlist articles continues at the rate I expect it is at.

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

Uncle Nicolini 21 Dec 2025 18:16

why not just

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

AstralNavigator 22 Dec 2025 17:47

Of the listed options, I like Option D-1 best. What I like about it is that it still shows multiple series, giving readers a wide array to choose from, while still prioritizing newer series. I'm personally against dividing up into "Eras" or epochs or whatever; I don't really see the utility of doing so beyond a convenient way to shrink the amount of entries in the sidebar (And I think Option D does this better). If there's some other utility for making this distinction, I could be convinced but as it stands I think it's just gonna be something people get weird about like lower series numbers.

I like the aesthetic of the Roman numerals but I can't deny that just switching to Arabic numerals is a lot more readable.

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

KatyaStrangelove 26 Dec 2025 20:10

I think that the Eras/Epochs collapsible thing is not user friendly and portrays a big change to the site when we are literally just changing a number. I'm personally not wedded to Roman vs. Arabic numerals - basically whatever looks better is what I'm a fan of.

I like Option E but I think if it is done, it should be 1-6 on one line and 7-12 on another (for more even spacing). Preferably in some sort of a table, or with the spacing between each number on both lines justified instead of aligned to one side or another.

Re: [DISCUSION] A New Era: Series 11, Metaphorical Bikeshedding and Beyond

aismallard 02 Jan 2026 06:14

My thoughts:

• Roman numerals are cool looking but not practical above 6. We definitely should get rid of them now that we're entering double digits.
• We should divide by era/epoch/whatever we decide to call it, and as others have mentioned, should put more recent ones first.
• Now that we have double digit series numbers, we should zero-pad all the single digit ones, e.g. "Series 05" instead of "Series 5", though probably only in navigation. Combine this with a monospace font for the numbers so it all lines up consistently. (Alternatively, we could use space padding instead, like " 3" vs "03" if we think the preceding zeroes look bad.
• I think calling for collapsibles for groups of series is premature. Let's wait until we're on era/epoch/collection 3+ before discussing that.

Very lazy mockup encompassing the above:

Era 2
11

Era 1
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10

Final thought, we should formalize era/epoch/eon/whatever. soon as part of this (though it should be a separate discussion thread).

Last edited on 02 Jan 2026 14:42 by aismallard Show more