[Discussion] Redesigning the wiki

We all know the Essentials wiki (I hope!). It's your one-stop shop for everything to do with Essentials. And, well... it was looking a little dull.

I want to overhaul the wiki, the appearance and the content of it. You may notice that I've already toyed around a little with the main page - I changed its layout a little, and, if you view it with the Wikia skin, you'll see that it's now yellow rather than dark blue. I'm far from finished, though; I was only fiddling around a bit. The new design is very much up for debate.

In addition to changing the main page, I've also changed a few settings. This means I've changed to the new wiki forums, and I've turned user talk pages into message walls. Both of these should be easier for people to use. I've also added a favicon, the little icon that appears next to the website's name in your browser tab - this too is subject to change.



So what do I want? Well, I'm not that good at designing something like this from scratch. I don't know what the average user wants from the wiki. I'd like help in coming up with an improved design and appearance and layout for the wiki, both the main page and the rest of it.

I also want to know what you'd like to see added to the wiki. Does a page need to be changed? Is there information missing somewhere? Can you think of a type of navbox or infobox that would be useful to stick into certain pages (e.g. one that says "this feature is in the example maps" and states precisely where)?

Part of the appearance of the wiki are the wordmarks. These are shown at the top left of the page; there's one for each wikia layout, and they're each a specific size. If you have any skills of an artist, and you want to have a crack at designing new wordmarks for the wiki, please do go ahead. Templates are in the spoiler. You could also/instead make a background image for the wiki; information can be found here.


No holds are barred here. Please talk about absolutely anything you have an opinion on regarding the wiki. I want to know what you want from it.

What I would like to see are more tutorials and/or updated tutorials also and easier way to find them.

The wiki in its current state is a prime source of information for beginners (like myself). I would say it already covers all the basics of Essentials. From my own experience, it answered 80-90% of my questions about Essentials.

I believe one way to enrich the wiki would be with the extra infomation available on the forum. The forum offers an overview of what may be lacking on the wiki since people frequently post a question when they don't find the answer elsewhere. Moreover advice or answers given on the forum may be easily lost or difficult to find, which is one more reason to sort them and add them to the wiki.

Another way to upgrade the wiki would be by filling missing pages and adding more advanced information about Essentials. Now that I am more at ease with the basics, I would like to read new stuff, new ideas, new things to try out, and so on. Creative ideas, possibilities, further developments, examples given from advanced users...

From my point of view, a summary page of existing graphical/audio resources (basic tilesets, sprites, sound packs, etc.) from all versions would also be incredibly useful (right now it is split in several forum posts in the "Resources" section).

Finally, as a regular user of the wiki, I don't really care about the appearance as long as it remains practical and functional (as it is now). Finding the information I need and as quickly as possible comes first.

I liked alot the favicon, but guess that, since Essentials use FrLg graphics a FrLg Statue or even the Pokéball icon of an item on ground fits better.

I like the idea of saying where is an example in example maps.

I also like someone (not Maruno) doing the pages marked as red in front page. Missing content isn't a good thing, a the wiki NEEDs more people helping. The Script sections need more links and the sections need some of these comments at start theirselves. I have de impression that this page demand too many efforts, I suggest to deprecate it.

The fangame list need to be in another format, I prefer a standard list, because the descriptions fits bad in my monitor. A division to complete games (like you did on dead/foreign language ones) would be nice. I also prefer to raise the "dead demo" time to 1.5-2 years. I know active project that don't release a demo in a year since the last one, isn't too abnormal.

HarmonyConcept said:

From my point of view, a summary page of existing graphical/audio resources (basic tilesets, sprites, sound packs, etc.) from all versions would also be incredibly useful (right now it is split in several forum posts in the "Resources" section).

Click to expand...

http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=352449