Admin Forum:Founder & Admin Central main page reorg/format

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Founder & Admin Central has been around for almost 5 months! We've started out slow and continue to grow as we go...with adding new blogs, guide pages and forum posts. But there is still more to do.

We're hoping to redesign the main page of Founder &amp; Admin Central to make it a great resource for all founders and admins, both new and old. I'd like to ask you guys for your thoughts or feedback:
 * What do you want to see on the main page of Founder?
 * What else would you like to see us focus on within this space?

Any thoughts you have or ideas are welcome and encouraged. None too small or too big! Please share below. Thank you --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 23:30, November 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * I personally would like to see the slider stay with images from the blog updates.
 * A section for the stickied forums, like a little sidebar
 * A section like the above, but for the most active forums of a certain amount of time.
 * Perhaps a layout like mainpages on wikis? Video Game Wiki being on I can think of (since face it, I'm biased to that place)

I know there's more stuff I would like to see, but I am currently drawing a blank. But yes, it should be updated and made to look nice in both the skins like it does currently. –  Jä zz  i  23:52, November 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of a main page layout for sure, and that's what we'll be aiming for. Thanks for the feedback Jäzzi -- I love the idea of stickies being highlighted on the front page. --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 01:22, November 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * Some feedback (not all specifically about the main page):
 * I'd like to go to the Admin Central:Main Page when I click on the "founder & admin central" wordmark.
 * The title text "Welcome to Founder & Admin Central" should be larger and more distinctively colored when compared to the other title links.
 * More links, in general, off the main page to go directly to useful other related pages like Admin_Forum:FAQs.
 * Have a link to a master help page with a collection of links to all the admin related help pages.
 * This is all I can think of for now. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 14 Nov 2011 6:41 PM Pacific
 * Fandyllic, all great points. I like the idea of "Welcome to Founder & Admin Central" being more pronounced. And as for more links, absoulutely, the idea behind the reorg is for it to be a page brimming with resources for all admins/founders. We had originally planned on linking to Help, but the idea of admin related help pages is great. Thanks! --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 02:53, November 15, 2011 (UTC)

Feels great, i can row against the stream again. I love it!

I do feel that the F&A main page needs a revamp. It looks not very nice and it sure isn't very well organised.

At the right sidebar at wikia skin i think there needs to be forum on top (i am lazy and don't want to scroll up or down, but prefer it all in a single page view) Help pages yust below there (with link to guides) and the blogs go under that part. Social media links, bleh... why would one need that on a main page bottom? Imagine a better place and keep usuability and easiness of use in mind.

The pictures, activity feed and link to chat imho can be removed from the main page. And since you are at the main page of admin central, your main goal will be either the forums or the blogs. Those need to be almost prying into your eyes.

When i get to the forums, offcourse the tips are at the bottom. Erm... right. That's where ALL new people always go and look for them, for sure. I like pictures. No. Correction to that. I LOVE pictures. Where are the pictures at the main page of the admin forums? Icons, little symbols, click and play thingies. Must be something out there which is freelicense and can be added so that even a numbnut can understand what you are getting at. It will make the forum look drastically more informative/ nice/ easy to use.

I love the way you take the world as being USA only. Watercoolers are used inside the US to be a place to talk regularly. But in my country it's the coffeecorner, and likely in Asian countries it's something completely different. So that makes it a bit of a confusion what goes into that. Since general questions is already present. Again the most logical way to you seems to be the bottom for new persons, where you place Getting started. In my perspective the getting started should be prying your eyes somewhere in the middle, being blinking, all kind of colors or so (no, i am yust kidding, don't make it annoying). FAQ's and Getting started however could be together. FAQ should also be more orderly.

Those are my upstream 2 cents.


 * The forums autopopulate with what has had the most recent activity. Getting Started is at the bottom because it has had no new threads recently. Watercooler seems to be doing great, regardless of the name. --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 17:38, November 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Dear Meighan, I honestly think that you are missing my point here.
 * The entire pages need revamps. That there is an auto formatting in place does not make it great. But heck, it was only my opinion and you are entitled to do with them as you like. I think the admin part could use a real good revamp to make it more attractive and usefull to new admins and experienced admins alike. Not with scrolling, that is not the way modern websites with a real high amount of traffic tend to do it. It's up to you though. I think it could be far better orientated to useability and not 'the way it currently is seems ok, because the current users have adepted to it', while you are asking for input to improving it.
 * Do as you like with this info. With a big revamp you may improve the quality of it, like help files did get a revamp and where improved (but aren't there by far yet), which meant a dramatic decrease in questions asked in CC support forums (at least, i feel it has decreased a lot since then).


 * Would it be possible to remove the sidebar for the F&A Central main page? I feel that would dramatically improve the options available for making it as useful as it potentially could be. The 888th Avatar   (talk)  11:14, November 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi 888, Yep! That is the first major change we're going to make. Any thoughts on what you'd like to see in that space once it's empty? --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 17:38, November 16, 2011 (UTC)

Having items with fixed width on a page looks ugly in Monobook. 1358 (Talk)  11:18, November 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't worry, Godisme fixed that by making Monobook fixed width too. Problem solved.
 * ^^^Godisme is all over it. ;) --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 17:38, November 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Forum listings would definitely be good. Transclusions are generally much better than links in terms of getting people to browse through content, so I think blog listings would work better than linking to blogs. And how about using the most recently-written guide as a sort-of-featured article? :) The 888th Avatar   (talk)  09:32, November 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * 888th, Those all sound great! I like the idea of our front page having a bunch of what most wikis have on their main page. That makes sense to me. Thanks for your input --Meighan http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 23:47, November 21, 2011 (UTC)

Allow me to sneak in a menial error report: the  element containing the Wikia, Facebook and Twitter logos is using the align attribute, obsolete by W3C's HTML5 draft Wikia currently uses and needed to be replaced by CSS. Cheers, 21:43, November 25, 2011 (UTC)