On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:30:46 -0700 (PDT), in uk.d-i-y
wrote:

On Aug 15, 12:18*pm, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:57:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
The idea was to move the content in 'Main page' out, renaming it
something else, and make the 'Main page' redirect to the contents
page, this one:
http://www.wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index....ecial:Allpages

No the default "main page" needs to tell the user what the wiki is about
and then lead them to indexes and/or search methods.

But it's not an "introduction" it's just a list of articles. Nothing about
why or where those articals have come from.

I'm unsure why you think that imoprtant to a first time visitor. Task
number 1 is always for them to be able to read whatever article they
want - a list of all the articles does that - as would your list of
categories.

*some* people go to an information source to look something up; many
others go there to learn about the whole subject, or to find out what
the subject encompasses. E.g. "I've just bought a house, I want to look
into this DIY lark I've heard about".

If I'm new to the wiki, and I've been given a link from uk.diy to a
wiki article, I want to read the article.

Obviously!!

Anything else is just waffle
to me at that point - certainly it has its place, but its not what I
want to read first, and if an article listed on the front page
addresses what the wiki's about I can read it when I want to -
probably after I've got the diy job done that I'm halfway through.

As a specialist contributor, you appear to be seeing it from that POV;
step back and think about the needs of the wider readership.

The basics appears to be there already, it just needs some sorting out.
The 50 odd categories just need something (a template?) to bring them into
a more manageable/structred list form for display. The main categories
Plumbing, Heating, Electrics, Lighting, Building etc already exist.

No-one is currently doing what you two want, but I daresay it will
happen. Hence I propose to make the main page article redirect to the
contents page as an improvement-for-now move, and we can await the
appearance of a more structured option.

No, the main page needs to remain as an introduction as Dave L
describes, but it needs a much clearer link to the meat. At the moment,
the location of the meat is concealed in the last point "5 See Also".

To correct this is simple:
"Wiki Subject Categories" at the very bottom of the page, needs renaming
to read "Contents" and moving near the top of the page, and ""Wiki
Contents" needs renaming to read "Index" and putting just beneath
Contents.

Phil