Talk:Doctor Who Wiki

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Redesign
Following on from Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Updating the main page & theme, I have (potentially temporarily) reopened this page to act as a place to continued discussing the redesign of the main page. To provide more focus, transmats have their own section on this page.

To get the ball rolling (again), here's some ideas I have:
 * Some module showing new releases. I have a draft for this demonstrated on this page. Perhaps it could work better in the sidebar, though?
 * Some module highlighting current key characters in recent releases. During larger events, such as the airing of a new series on TV or the release of a major audio, all slots on this module could be given over to these key characters.
 * Some module highlighting people's birthdays. I have a highly glitchy proof of concept on this page (you may need to purge the page twice to make it work).
 * Some module highligting Doctor Who 's 60th anniversary.

I'm interested to know if anyone else has any thoughts and ideas. Bongo50  ☎  20:27, 16 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but it seems to me that we should future proof this new page, since it takes us so long to redesign these things.


 * I think our home page should, very simply, start with pictures of the first 14 Doctors. Maybe the first 16 (War + Fugitive). I think when people come here, they're often curious about the franchise. Just having the entire history of the show laid out would be a really fun trick.


 * Then we can have a segment linking to the latest TV story. How does everyone feel about this? OS25🤙☎️ 20:40, 16 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I did a real rough mockup in GIMP of what I'd suggest, obviously a first draft and subject to change. I didn't edit sidebar stuff at all, so just don't bother with that. The point is more how much I cut out and how I reworded/reorganized some things. That's the level of minimalism I'd like to see, personally. We could expand on some of that, maybe also have a section for new editors, etc. But there was so much bloat. This is way closer to my ideal. Najawin ☎  01:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Transmats
This discussion is continuing on from Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Updating the main page & theme. Bongo50  ☎  20:27, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Hey, so I'm gonna continue where we left off - here's the current draft of the new transmats, for reference.

I think we've almost wrapped-up the discussion surrounding the layout + the transmat contents, but I want to be 100% sure before moving on to the next step (ironing out the details + the individual designs)

The new transmats, as they currently stand, are entirely about real-world media - we have representation for the main series, the TV spin-offs, Big Finish, DWM, and the various print publishers.

This is a little different to the existing transmats (included here for reference), which is 50% media, 50% in-universe stuff. I've seen differing sentiments, in regards to this:


 * From what I can gather, Najawin would prefer to retain in-universe related transmats.
 * In the above section, Bongo50  mentions creating a module highlighting key characters on the main page, while OS25 put forward the idea of prominently featuring pictures of all the mainline Doctors, etc.
 * In theory, if one or more of these concepts were implemented, I'd argue the in-universe related transmats will become increasingly redundant.
 * (I specifically mentioned having a semi-randomised template, with a table showing different links to different characters, articles, etc. at different times, but I don't want to get too off-track.)

If it becomes clear there's an overwhelming desire to retain the in-universe related transmats, I'll willingly go back to the drawing board and hash out a new layout. Otherwise, I think we should move forward, and start figuring out all the fine details (for which I have many more thoughts + questions to share - but one thing at a time!)

So yeah, what do people think? TheGreatGabester ☎  14:26, 17 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Every time I see this transmat, I think it looks great, but it's so weird that Doctor Who Magazine is the highest, and is grouped with the TV shows. I'm absolutely certain people would click that thinking it's just the logo for the TV show. OS25🤙☎️ 14:49, 17 March 2023 (UTC)


 * That's a fair point - I just shifted the top side around so all the spin-offs are on the left side, is that better? TheGreatGabester ☎  15:45, 17 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah I think so. But it does feel like we could easily split SJA and Torchwoood, then move DWM down to the bottom. like, I really don't think we need something like Candy Jar. OS25🤙☎️ 15:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy to do that, though I doubt Najawin will be on board with it, as they made clear in the old Slot 3 thread. TheGreatGabester ☎  17:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

tbh, I'm not sure if we need to keep the IU transmats. I understand why they exist. But they need updating. My earlier proposal kept them because I felt it would be a more radical change to get rid of them, and I asked about keeping them because, well, a lot of work went into them and there's probably reasons to have them! (I haven't gotten that far in my historical dive on the forums yet.)

I'm at least a little skeptical - I don't know if most users will click on a semi-random topic on the front page and want to see a random page related to that semi-random topic, but, then again, most users won't go to the front page, they'll search for what they're looking for and leave. But, again, I dunno. I'm not sure Bongo's proposal fills quite the same niche though.

As for splitting SJA/Torchwood, let me note that I don't want to merge the two, I wanted to merge SJA/K9, and Torchwood/Class. I wanted to have groupings that encouraged people to treat the shows as for similar(ish) demographic groups. I think merging SJA/Torchwood is a bad idea, but I also think letting each show have its own transmat is a bad idea, and a violation of T:NPOV. The only reason this is being done is because other people have decided to focus on the production circumstances of the various entities, rather than something like the medium, which has dramatically increased clutter. (Also, Candy Jar has published/been around more/longer than Arcbeatle, surely if anyone goes it's them. No offense to the Arcbeatle fans/employees.) Najawin ☎  19:28, 17 March 2023 (UTC)