Suggestions: Site Content and Layout Edit

I have already put through a suggestion to change the featured article to that of the Collector page. My reasoning for this is due to the fact that the page has been unchanged since the release of Mass Effect 2 (to the best of my knowledge) and it should be changed to keep up with the recent activity with regards to the game. In the same spirit, I believe that the front page could use even further remodeling. The "Contents" section is unnecessary in my opinion and could be switched in position with the News section.

While this wikia is quite informative and detailed, it lacks any noticeable dynamic presence on its front page. Since changes are constantly being made to the game in the form of patches, dlcs and other content changes, I think that it would be helpful to move the news section of the main page to a more prominent position. If you're wondering what kind of layout I'm talking about, here's an example: [1]

Another suggestion I have relates to another dynamic portion of the wikia. I believe that the Forum itself deserves an actual line on the left sidebar of the wikia. Removing it from the subset of community and placing it on its own line might foster some more activity within the wikia.

In summary, I believe that the list of "Contents" on the front page should be condensed and switched in place with the news section since it is already accessible via the search engine and the sidebar. In it's place I suggest that we expand the News Section. This would include but not be limited to DLC news, Patch News, Release Dates, Comic News and more. In other words, it's latest entry would relate to the Cerberus DLC recently released instead of Mass Effect 2 being released. I also suggest that we give the Forum its own line in the sidebar.

   Doctorgray     00:01, February 14, 2010 (UTC)

Just to touch on the FA bit right quick, we do have criteria for FA, which are as follows:

• the page must be free of spelling or grammatical errors
• it must contain at least one picture or screenshot
• it cannot be a current candidate for merge or deletion, or tagged as a stub (pages where the stub tag is an artifact will be considered)
• the page must be well formatted and tidy

This means a couple things. First, pages that are being heavily edited (and are therefor not assured to be "well formatted and tidy", or "free of spelling or grammatical errors") are not eligible. This does, of course, include the Collector page. A quick peek at the history of that page will show that it has been changed since the release of ME2, and changed quite a bit. In fact, it's been edited twice today. This is why the admins deemed it not ready for FA status when someone else turned it into an FA a week or so ago. It also means that articles with no images (such as Cerberus Daily News) are also ineligible. If there are any questions about FAs and what articles are and aren't currently eligible, please feel free to let me know! SpartHawg948 01:34, February 14, 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not my suggestion is viable, I still think that changing the FAs more frequently would be a good thing. If the administrators are completely set on keeping the policy which holds that articles being edited cannot be used, then at least take a set of pages which have been approved and use them in a rotation. This will give the visitors something new to look at each time they visit the wikia. Seeing the same "FA" for a month straight reeks of stagnation.

   Doctorgray     02:56, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

That is indeed what we are doing. We have a new FA up, another article already lined up to be the next FA, and a third proposed after that, at which time the ME2 articles should be smoothed out enough to enter the rotation. However, even with several lined up, standard practice is for FAs to be up for about a month (as the pool of prospective candidates is rather small), so having a new FA to give visitors "something new to look at each time they visit the wikia" is, quite simply, unrealistic. And again, as the standard is to rotate FAs on a monthly basis, we may just have to reek of stagnation, at least in your opinion, as this site is simply not big enough to rotate FAs daily, weekly, biweekly, etc. SpartHawg948 03:00, February 15, 2010 (UTC)

Reeking of stagnation may have been an overstatement. After more consideration I'd like to recommend my suggestion due to the fact that it may create more dynamic appeal. While there aren't many articles that are valid as FAs, there is close to 30 that you've posted so far. My suggestion is that you rotate these articles on a weekly basis.

   Doctorgray     07:31, February 16, 2010 (UTC)

There are close to 30 articles we've posted as FAs so far... since July of 2007. And 30 FAs over the span of 32 months rounds out to less than one article a month, which perfectly illustrates my position. Again, the number/quality of our articles supports a one-month rotation, but not a one-week rotation. SpartHawg948 07:38, February 16, 2010 (UTC)