User talk:ForbesMM/England/Test1

Mollie, I'm confused! Why has this page been created? What is wrong with the England portal? Are we abandoning portals??? bromaelor 13:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, we are looking into changing the portal structure. I'm working with the director of the Hyde Park FHC (I think that's what she is) to come up with an alternative. This is my test page that I'm using to try new layouts. Please feel free to offer suggestions as well! While portals offer good layout options and ease of content editing, they have some issues. We anticipate adding a semantic layer to this system within the next year (Semantic MediaWiki). The semantic layer conflicts is several ways with the current portal structure, specifically in search results and the ability to annotate data (tag metadata). Molliewog 15:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. I can see the reasoning behind it. However, from my experiences on Wikipedia, people will simply keep adding to this 'front-end' page rather than creating new articles. This will result in large and unreadable articles. The previous difference between a 'Portal' and an 'Article' tended to stop this happening. I think you could end up losing control of the way users are 'directed' through the site? But if we are going down this road: (1) Each country needs an introduction (2) Keep "Counties" and "Topic"s separate: There are many Topics which are not county related. (3) "Related Pages": I think this is inviting problems?It could end up with a vast number of links? Do I take it these are replacing Categories? Not a good move in my opinion! bromaelor 16:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You bring up some great points! The way users are directed through the site is definitely a concern. Hopefully, we can structure these major country pages in such a way to provide a useful user experience. Regarding your numbered items: (1) Although some don't see a need for an introduction, I agree that we should have one included at the top of the page. Please feel free to add one to this Englad/Test1 page. I'd be interested to see what you invision. (2) Yes, counties and topics will be separate. My note on the page to combine the 2 was only an idea to have 2 adjacent column boxes on the page; one for counties, and one for topics. The topics on this page will be only those that related to the specific subject of the page, which in this case is England. (3) Related pages is not a good title. In this area, I was thinking of links to other United Kingdom constituents and affiliations, similar to the nav boxes at the bottom of Wikipedia pages. This will not replace categories. Time for me to go to a meeting.... Molliewog 16:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)