Talk:Main Page:Archive11

Cooperation Continued
I finish cleaning up the posibilities list, Help:Other_sites, where do you want to go from here ZyMOS
 * Great job. I will take a look soon. After inspections we could then start making communications systematically with all of them one-by-one, as I imagine. Inyuki 17:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The multilingual main page
http://howto.wikia.com

I have talked with Jason from Wikia about it. He told that we could create suggest HTML, images and CSS to make the page look good. However, that needs some approval, however, he said he could make sure if it is okay, and possibly replace the current portal.

I think that we could make something similar to http://www.wikipedia.org, however, we could make it only out of pure picture without the name (I think it would be very original, and not bad, to have the the idea, not the name, what people should concentrate on first anyway, and being without name may be beneficial to cooperation.). I really liked ZyMOS picture, as it is very expressive.

What do you think of something like international main page

Inyuki 17:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This is far from done but here is what ive been working on....


 * The peices will all be in a circle (so ignore the paper and the plyers) And i want there to be more interaction like the notes turning to math equations and so on
 * For the international page we could put some thing like this in the center in place of wikihowto and have the various lang like wikipedia...I just through this together, i think it be really cool if on the other side of the wire frame the backs of the continents showed, but i couldn't find anything yet...


 * But i dont think we should due international until we have 20 or so from 2 other languages.
 * until then we can do something like this


 * By the way all the images are used with public domain inapges, so no copyright issues...
 * ZyMOS 00:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think we could add a few pictures of something like rockets, sattelites, nanotech, biotech as well... Inyuki
 * Ya that is a good idea.... what do you think of the first pic(so far)
 * ZyMOS 04:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yea think the Wiki-newlogo-temp.png is great. It depics the creation things and tools like (scissors, musical instruments, musical compositions, pliers, sewing tools, agricultural and digging tools, chemical container and processes, computational tools and source code). I think we should try analytically think of what all the mankind's creation is firstly represented with, and what we have finally, and choose the most representative aras, and then choose the most representative pictures to represent these areas of creation. For example, maybe one pf the first ones would be the spade for digging, and the last would be something like computer science or space engineering.


 * To give some ideas, I went to Wikipedia and looked at the main portals' names:
 * Arts
 * Biography
 * Geography
 * History
 * Mathematics
 * Science
 * Society
 * Technology
 * Philosophy


 * These are the areas of Wikipedia. Explaining how to create products may be more related with the areas in bold. Find the best pics to represent Arts, Geography, Mathematics, Science, Society and Technology, Philosphy, and the problem is solved.


 * Arts => [musical instruments, musical compositions] - Complete
 * Geography => [something geological => spade] - Complete
 * Mathematics - [ ] - Incomplete
 * Science => [Chemistry => [Test tube, fire, chemical reaction]] - Complete
 * Society => [ ] - Incomplete
 * Technology => [Computer => Desktop Computer] - Complete
 * Philosophy => [ ] - Incomplete
 * (I think philosphy principles are necessary when you are building companies, and other social structures, I think it could be represented by pictures of philosophically-grounded behaviours of people or something like that.)


 * I think the set of things that images to represent the same thing is very large, but maybe searching images.google.com could be a way to find examples of pictures, which most represent what people think of technology. I will also try to do some survey upon what people think when they see the website with the picture like this, what they think the website is about. Our goal would be that their interpretations were as close as possible to what we say in words.


 * Also, maybe looking at the Wikipedia articles about Arts, Geography, Mathematics, Science Technology, Philosophy, could give good ideas.


 * Inyuki
 * Also, I think we should keep the images precise enough, so that people wouln't think it is a simple DIY, which for me makes a feeling that we are creating not mass produced, or not very high quality things (I think DIY has this connotation).
 * Inyuki

Engineering wikicity
http://engineering.wikia.com/wiki/Natural_gas Also: http://engineering.wikia.com/wiki/Engineering:Engineerfication

Their goals are descriptional, something like to be a technical encyclopedia. If their project would grow, I think we could link some objects to there instead of linking to Wikipedia.

Inyuki

Featured howtos?
When I was in the Engineering wiki, I saw the "Featured articles". I think the success of the new users is very important. That is, if they come here and can't accomplish something, it's useless.

Also, through recent studies I realized that people really need pictures to understand quickly and easily.

If the user at least will be able to try out and really experience howtos, he or she would quickly understand the idea. So maybe we need to create some of the howtos that would practically be effective for many people...

However,... Still, I think that only the pretty descriptive international picture could make people understand the idea much clearer.

Inyuki 12:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Picture
I think using a picture of the earth like in wikipedia is a good idea. This project is complementary with wikipedia. Actualy many pages in Wikipedia could be moved to Wikihowto. For example, this lists in an object-style are better if they were Wikihowto Guides. Then you have other lists as categories.
 * I agree, i fact there are many articals one wikipedia that are esentially howto, this is also true with some wikibooks(not on howto book shelf) and on wikitravel....ZyMOS

So Wikihowto could use a picture of earth like in wikipedia, maybe the same, with some diferences: the color could be more variated, with blue and transparency of red backroung and yellow. And in the place of the letters we could put there litle objects that eventually have the same or similar shapr with the original letters from wikipedia. This way it will seem the same image, but more colored and on a closer look you will see objects instead of letters. moa3333 16:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Putting a earth like in wikipedia, not with the continents will alow also to express the universality. We are not speaking about earth only, but maybe about astrology, etc... moa3333 16:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Here is an image. moa3333 16:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You mean, Astronomy?
 * Inyuki


 * The images are far from done, but i really like the uniform color, I think it adds a nutralaty about who we serve(If i can get a globe pic without america in the center i will, america gets in the middle of things too much as it is) and i think it would be event better with the the back side of the globe having the back sides of the continents in a different color, and the satilights are definatly getting added.. but of course everything us open for debate.
 * I may not have expressed my intention with the globe very well. I wanted the globe surrounded by the circle of things in the previos picture.    I just thought of this but maybe it would loop really good it the things went around the globe like a ring around satern(maybe). also perhaps one could be interacting with the globe.
 * As for the DIY comment, i agree, and I dont want it to look like only arts and crafts howtos. I will add a better chemisty interation and higher mathmatics merging from the music.  I think the computer works well to describe computing but i may have a charator poping out of the screen doing something else.  If i can find more public domain techincal icons i will add them too. right now i am using openclipart, so i am semi-limited.
 * As i make changes ill post them...
 * i hope u like um ZyMOS 02:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * well, everything is good for now to replace the text-logo... moa3333 04:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Featured howtos? (cont)
I think thats a great idea. maybe a table on the front page, one section resent (finished) addition, and another one for a few howtos of guides that are well made.

This will show that this site is active and growing and will give some good examples so people can see the benifit. ZyMOS 02:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes.
 * Ubuntu Wiki - project we could colaborate with - they have intresting pages

Portals
Objects will always be lists (more or less ordered). And i think portals should be related to one or more Objects. There are two reasons to create a portal:
 * An object becomes too big. In this case, the portal/portals will alow to graphically see very fast the most important guides/howtos and will improve the browsing experience (number of seccond to go to find a content page for the first time and to refind it the next day)
 * Many similar objects that have only a few howtos/gides each, but that we are not able to find an regrouping object. In this casde the portal will alow to see all the howtros and guides in a single page. (this should also improve the number of seccond to find/refind a page, but it is less probable that we would need many)

So we have portals regrouping objects and most of all portals decouming big objects, or maybe portals doying both at the same time. With the particularity that for very big objetcs, we could even have more than one portal, each describing a diferent "mentality", and each will suit various people (one will be more technical, other wil be more colored, some other will be more for experienced users).

An object could have a box or a few boxes, very visible, annoucing that it has one or more portals related, with the "type" of each portal. I think the only role of a portal is to improve the speed of browsing especialy for big objects. Unfurtunately we do not have such big obects yet, but we can include this in the proposal in the meantime. moa3333 05:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Video in Wikihowto
Today I saw one great tool for students (but it is not open and free) to learn over the web. Well, I only watched how one student is listening and seeing the lecture of mathematics over PC.

Inyuki 09:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

We could promote or recommend usage of http://video.google.com

WE could already start to play this "uninhabited island" game
Look, we are in separate areas, and when we want someone of us to do something, we could pointing to the procedures (howtos) by giving links.

I think, for example, I would like to know about installing and running the ZyMOS developed bot for the Japanese version of the site :-). So, ZyMOS could teach me how.

Inyuki 09:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

how do we link to pages on this site from wikipedia???
 * quick question:
 * en.howto.wikia:Guide to blah

ZyMOS 02:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know the best way, but maybe Angela would have a better idea. I will try to write an email to her to come here to write a comment.
 * Inyuki 04:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * You know what,.. I would suggest just adding one link to the corresponding Object in Wikihowto. Because it is in many cases meaningless to link all the Guides or howtos to the Wikipedia. Unless Wikipedia has an article in which it mentions something about doing... And then at these places people could give links to as how to it.
 * Inyuki 04:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * You can link from Wikipedia using Wikia:c:en.howto:Article name. Angela (talk) 06:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * my bot scrwed up an blanked all page lists, ill revert them wen i get to my lab... it probably becase i have been screwing aroung with my dns stuff...
 * ZyMOS 16:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I reverted all the more important pages, hopefully ill fix the problem today. ZyMOS 19:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Goals
we have come up with a allot of good ideas in all different directions. I think we need to specify a set of administrative goals, ones that NEED to be done, before the site is truely practical. im not saying we shouldnt do the smaller things that would make the site better i just think we need to make sure we dont forget the BIG things

Please add to it, edit my examples, .... maybe make a template. I just think its a good idea to specify out priorities. ZyMOS 01:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we have to concentrate also on the About page (Wikihowto:About), because it is the first page that most of the new users will access (The link is on the left bottom corner of the Wikihowto logo). - Inyuki