Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sidebar update

Principles

The proposed changes that follow in this request for comment arise from the following conclusions we can draw about our site's navigation.

1. Even compared to other pieces of site-wide navigation, the sidebar is an extremely important navigation tool. With the vast majority of readers and editors using a skin (Vector or Monobook) with the sidebar placed on the left, it is in a natural position of important considering English speakers tend to scan left to right.
2. The sidebar is currently cluttered. On the Main Page, English Wikipedia readers see 22 links, not including language links. Basic usability priniciples tell us that more choices increases the amount of time users have to spend understanding navigation (see Hick's law), and that simplicity and clarity are worthwhile goals. The most recent design of the homepage of Google.com, famous for its simplicity, has half the number of links, for comparison. While removing some semi-redundant links (like Contents or Featured contents) would be preferable, if we're going to have this many links it means prioritization is key, leading to the next point...
3. The sidebar has poor prioritization. Users read top to bottom, and it is not unfair to say that the vertical order of the links should reflect some basic priority. However, currently, this prioritization is sloppily done. For example: the Wikimedia Shop and Donate functions are above very common and important functions like Help and the Contact page. Even if we assume all the current links are important and should stay, the order needs work.
4. The names for some links are overly verbose or unclear. Brevity is the soul of wit, and of good Web usability. We should not use two or three words where one will do.

Proposed sidebar

This proposal does not remove any links currently in the sidebar. It simply reorders and renames them, in the following way:

Note the following changes and rationales:

• Key navigation and help tools – mainly About and Help:Contents – are moved in to the main navigation section. These two links are particular relevant to many readers and new editors.
• "Interaction" is renamed to "Contribute". Interaction is a vague term that in many instances implies any interaction with software or people. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, first and foremost, and we want to encourage contributions more than we necessarily just want people to interact with each other. Note that Wikimedia Commons has taken a similar approach with their "Participate" section.
• Contributory functions like Upload file, Recent changes, the Community portal, and Donate are all moved to this renamed section.
• A new "Create page" link is added, leading to the Wikipedia:Article creation guide. There is currently not a single piece of site navigation that mentions creating new pages. The key contributory links "Edit" and "Upload file" are both exposed to readers and editors alike on most pages. Page creation is the only core encyclopedic activity which requires the user to eithe search or happen to find a link (in this case a red link).
• The "Wikimedia Shop" link is renamed to Merchandise for the sake of simplicity, and is left in its current place.
• Toolbox and Language links are unchanged.

Comments

General discussion

• Contents vs. Featured content: these two links seem close to redundant in their naming and purpose. I'd much prefer we pick one. What do people think? Steven Walling • talk 05:39, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
  • They are confusingly (similarly) named, but very distinct pages. There is a proposal to rename the "Contents" page, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Change Contents link in Sidebar, right now, which I urge you to contribute to before it gets auto-archived.
  • It's an ancient and useful page, that has been moved around a lot, but hasn't changed much in 7 years - it could do with a visual overhaul, given its general content-stability, but current amateur setup. It'd be great to get some professional librarians and IA-designers interested in this...
  • Is there any chance we could get some click-thru stats pulled from the Portal:Contents? It gets a lot of views, but where do they go from there? –Quiddity (talk) 08:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
    • It's unlikely we can get clickthrough data on reader behavior with these pages. It's a lot of traffic to track, and we generally shy away from tracking readers on a large scale. Steven Walling • talk 03:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Note: See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign for the last (2006) Overhaul synopsis page. There are 7 pages of talkpages associated with it, many of which were painful! If a full overhaul is wanted now, it'll take time and planning - I recommend a glance through the prior overhaul's archives, to help avoid past mistakes. –Quiddity (talk) 08:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Could you help us get 4 visualizations created: of the sidebar, the help system, the main page, and the Contents portal? There's File:Main Page Usability.png (which I asked the original author to update, but he didn't respond and is semi-retired) and it would be awesome to have an updated and expanded (and automatically generated every year or so) set of graphs like that, for at least those 4 core navigation tools. –Quiddity (talk) 08:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think if the problem is too many links, we should consider eliminating some altogether.
  • Frankly, I don't find Contents all that useful (in that I've never felt the need to use it). Trying to find one of 4.3 million articles using a table of contents doesn't sound like an easy task. The page itself gets around 15,000 hits per day, but subpages like Portal:Contents/Overviews and Portal:Contents/Lists get only a few hundred. And some subpages seem poorly maintained. /Outlines has not had a non-bot edit in over a year.

  @Mr.Z-man::The Portal:Contents subpages are all just composed of templates, hence they rarely get directly edited. Eg. Portal:Contents/Categories hasn't had actual categories listed in it since 2007, they're all down in subsubpages. They're not meant to finding things, per se, more for browsing, in the same way that the classic topic Portals are (which also tend to get neglected). –Quiddity (talk) 23:22, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

  I see that now. Some do appear to be maintained (but not by a lot of people, the whole thing would fall into disrepair if The Transhumanist ever retires) although there are still some that rarely get any changes. One of the nice things about regular portals is that they randomly rotate through content. So even if they don't get regular updates, they still change. This is pretty static though. The Featured Content portal is regularly updated with the newest featured things. Mr.Z-man 23:51, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

  • The next questionable link is Portal:Current events. This is already linked to on the Main Page, which I think is sufficient. I don't think it's so important that it needs to be on the sidebar of every page.
• Other than that, I like some proposed changes (rename "Interaction" to "Contribute"). But I don't like the idea of a "Create page" link. I don't like the idea of overly encouraging new users to start new articles. Articles by inexperienced users are highly likely to be deleted and then they get discouraged. I'd rather see something more general like Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia. Mr.Z-man 18:16, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Let me second that. I've encountered all too many people who tried to contribute, had their (poorly sourced, etc.) stub deleted, and who then gave up in frustration. It's a pattern of interaction that should definitely be discouraged in favour of education on how to create an article. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 23:03, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
    • @Nihiltres and Mr.Z-man: If you look at the link which I suggest "Create page" go to (Wikipedia:Article creation), it is precisely the kind of education about article creation we're talking about. It is a very short page and the two primary links are to "Your first article" and "Starting an article". The link does not go to Search etc. People are going to continue to create pages by the thousands. Would you rather they see this link in the sidebar, or go straight to search and a red link, because they can't see any guide for page creation? Steven Walling • talk 03:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Even giving people a little education generally doesn't help much. AFC guides people through the process with the Article wizard, but they still end up rejecting 90-95% of submissions. I'm not saying we shouldn't give people help if they want to create a new article, I'm saying we shouldn't overly encourage people to create articles in general. By advertising "Create a page" right in the sidebar, we may encourage people to create articles who may not have considered it, and then there's about a 95% chance their article will be deleted and then a 99+% chance of them not contributing again. We have over 4 million articles, nearly 2 million of which are stubs. There is no shortage of content to be added to existing articles. I do not understand why we continue to put so much emphasis on creating new articles. Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia also gives a link to the article wizard, but it also discusses other ways people can contribute. Mr.Z-man 15:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
        • First off, these "95%" and "99%" stats you're throwing around are hyperbole. You've done research on this area, and you know this. You also know that, regardless of whether you like it or not, people really really want to create pages. I think prominently pointing to a proper guide, instead of making them search and hunt for guides, is hardly a controversial idea. And as for the idea that we don't need new stubs... well just this week I created a stub that didn't exist before. It's an olive variety that comprises most of the olive oil you've probably ever eaten, and it didn't even exist. The idea that because we have many poor stubs, that we aren't missing important information... well frankly that's stupid. Steven Walling • talk 04:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
          • To get the rejection rate for AFC, I used Template:AFC statistics and just counted up the number accepted and number rejected. I'm assuming both sections cover the same time period. From my research, of 10225 new users who had their article deleted, only 64 were still editing ~6 months later. That's a retention rate of 0.6%. These are not gross exaggerations. Even if you look at 1-2 month retention, it's still less than 5% for users whose articles are deleted. Nowhere did I say we don't need any new articles. I'm saying that we should not be encouraging creating new articles more than contributing in other ways. And I think putting a "Create page" link in the sidebar definitely does just that. If everyone followed the instructions at AFC, they should be accepting the vast majority of submissions. They're not, so either the instructions are really bad or most people are ignoring them. I don't see the problem with enocuraging users to get started by doing things that don't require following so many instructions. I would also point out that MediaWiki:Newarticletext, for mainspace, links to Wikipedia:Your first article and the article wizard. So it's not like people creating articles from redlinks are doing so with no guidance either. Mr.Z-man 05:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• The current sidebar looks fine to me (unlinke in Spanish). I'd add a link to portals. Now, the contents portal could be improved.--NaBUru38 (talk) 17:20, 12 October 2013 (UTC)