Help talk:Contents
Before creating a discussion or leaving a comment, please read about using talk pages. In particular, sign comments using
~~~~ and add new discussions at the bottom of the page. New discussions should be made visible with {{Talk|date = 2024-05-17}}.
== Discussion title ==
{{Talk|date = 2024-05-13}}
A comment [[User:Larry|Larry]] 13:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
: A reply [[User:Sally|Sally]] 11:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
:: Another reply [[User:Larry|Larry]] 06:22, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
:: Your reply ~~~~
| Navigate to first: |
|---|
Remove from "Editing" section the content that is redundant with the "Getting started" section of the contributor's guide
The content I'm talking about, is everything between "Editing" title and "Essential editing topics" subtitle (which means, everything from "For small corrections, such as typos" to "but we will try to answer any questions the best we can.").
As the text mentioned above doesn't seem to be more useful/informative than Gentoo_Wiki:Contributor's_guide#Getting_started, and is, as far as I can see, only duplicating information, shouldn't it be removed ?
--Blacki (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks Blacki , I'll have a bash at making it less redundant with my latest reworking of this article and of the contributors guide.
- btw, I still haven't properly caught up with all the changes that went on while I was away, but you seem to have been really busy with great edits - thanks a million ! :).
- Also, I have had a complete rewrite of the link checker for some time now. It now resembles something more serious and maintainable that just a pile of random commands xD. As soon as I get round to it, I will test it and upload it to github.
- This section seems to have deviated from the contributor's guide a bit more now. What is still duplicated is info that it is important for people to see. Think of it like advertisements: the more exposure the better :). Looking to close discussion...
- Hope everything is OK with you Blacki , haven't seen you for a while...
- Closing this, since you were planning to close it anyway.
- — Waldo Lemmer 07:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
Plans to reorder these pages
The following discussions by me will be accompanied by proposals. I'm just writing this down so I don't forget, but also to encourage discussion.
Help pages should be arranged in the order that new contributors learn to use/edit the wiki. Help:Contents already roughly arranges them in that order, but I think it can be improved:
Using the wiki:
- Finding support (for readers, not editors)
- Finding pages
- Search
- The current category structure
- Special:Ask (no page yet)
- Watching pages
- Preferences
Contributing to the wiki:
- Making small changes
- How to use the visual and source editors
- Basic inline formatting (<code> vs {{C}}, bold, italics, links)
- Discussing changes
- Code of Conduct
- Talk pages
- Signatures
- Categorizing discussions
- Making larger changes (i.e., writing new sections)
- More advanced inline formatting?
- Block-level formatting ({{Note}}, etc.)
- User pages
- Writing new articles
- Article blueprints
- More formatting (article descriptions, images) and templates ({{InfoBox}}, embedded pages), most of which will come from the Guidelines
- Categories
- Contributing to the help pages
- <syntaxhighlight>, etc.
- Writing templates and template docs
- Template subpages
- Fancy stuff like subst: and safesubst:
- Forms
I will put some more thought into this, then propose a new Help:Contents in my userspace.
— Waldo Lemmer 13:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
The "Help" button at the top should probably link directly to "Using the wiki", since it currently links to Help:Contents, which mostly contains information for editors. I imagine many users seeking support currently click this link and are annoyed at how long the page is and how much irrelevant information it has (to them). Click "[Expand]" to see what such a user said in #gentoo-wiki (webchat) after they asked for support there instead of in #gentoo (webchat).
<minion2> well I clicked the big giant help button at the top of the wiki because i needed help. It was not about getting help with g entoo as i expected but mostly getting help with the wiki. I scrolled down untill i saw anything that wans't just a link to the wiki and it was a link to this web chat. <minion2> there are linkgs to get help with contributing, guidlines, fixing howto errors, editing pages, talk pages, behaving, formating text, info about the wiki, info about the gentoo wiki, info about frequent questions, how to improve the documentation, and how to contribute again, but this time in bold. <minion2> my contribution is that the help page shoudl have a link somewhere near the top tellign people where to go if they are lookign for help with gentoo <minion2> :D <minion2> well.. the big green box at the top is a start (read the wiki/handbook) but i would assume that if someone is on the wiki they know about the wiki and if tyhey are lookign for help it would be the 'opther' forms of help they are searching for. <minion2> maybe the support link under it should be the green one.. i dont know how i missed it <minion2> anyways the wikihelp has an easy to lcick weblink that brought me right in... the 'support' link does lots of talking and links to other pages that do lots of talking but none of them directly link to the irc webchat like the wiki help does
I think "Contribute!" should link to a page with the following:
- Where contribution is needed
- Be bold
- Support for editors
- A list of the sections above, like what Help:Contents is doing now.
— Waldo Lemmer 13:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
About Help:Guidelines
I also don't think the guidelines should be a single page. Let's face it: It's long and hard to memorize. A much better idea is to spread its contents across all of the other pages. That way, when a user reads the help page for what they're trying to do, they also see the respective guidelines alongside it, and get to learn those guidelines by doing, not memorizing.
The selective transclusion template should help with that. For now, this should probably wait.
— Waldo Lemmer 13:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)