On Aug 16, 12:44*am, Phil Addison wrote:
On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:49:28 -0700 (PDT), in uk.d-i-y
wrote:

On Aug 15, 11:07*pm, Phil Addison wrote:
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

Sounds good, just done that.

Hasn't appeared as yet

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

I cant agree. Unless I'm mistaken, most people find the wiki by a link
in a ukdiy thread,

I think you're mistaken; grunff has said there is a large amount of
traffic on it, so I assume that indicates significant hits from search
engines.

and at that point what they want to read is just
that article. Then maybe they get curious, and want to see what else
is there. Allpages immediately shows the wide range of stuff the wiki
covers, and the amount of info there is.

and on the 'against' side, it shows a disorganised mish-mash of titles.
Personally it would put me off exploring further, in fact it did - I
visited the allpages and categories page several times before I deciding
I better take the time to see what is really in there, and still find it
painfull navigating it.

Then there are those that find it by other means, and want a general
read up on diy. Again the same applies for allpages.

A person can get into the wiki from any page, whether its the present
main page, allpages, categories, anywhere. It seems from this thread
that diferent approaches suit different learner styles, so lets offer
them all, and give them a choice of all of them on the Main Page. Lets
point them to all of allpages, categories, and a structured page yet
to be written.

Agreed, but please use conventional book terms, Contents and Index, not
the obscure wiki terms Allpages/Categories. And retain the intro
material on the page.

When in a bookshop choosing a book (non-fiction) from amongst several,
what order do you look at these - the back cover, the Contents List, the
Index? Why do publishers put the index near the back? Is the contents
list hierarchical? *why?

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".

fixed hopefully

not seen a change yet

Phil

ok, fixed.

What you say just confirms one thing: different people have different
learning styles, and we would be best with all 3 approaches in place.


NT