Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sidebar update

This request for comment (RFC) is regarding a revision to the sidebar (MediaWiki:Sidebar) to improve usability and ease of navigation.

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 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.

Implement the proposal in its current state

 * I support this update, obviously, as the author of the RFC (at least its first draft). Steven Walling &bull; talk   05:38, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems more like a vote than a comment. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:57, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sort of like the !votes in our last big RFC? ;) Anyway, support or not, just making clear my opinion. There's not a lot more to say yet, since I had my two cents in authoring the first stab at this. Steven Walling &bull; talk   06:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Not yet, the proposal needs work
This proposal mixes big changes and small changes in a way that seems likely to make it difficult to gather consensus. Making changes to the sidebar isn't an all or none proposition and the current structure and tone of this RFC incorrectly suggests that it is. We need to iterate, I think. Focus on specific problems and attack them bit by bit. For example, should sections be collapsed? Should the top section have an exposed label (I think Vector hides "navigation" with some kind of awful hack). Adding a "Create a page" link to the sidebar is a whole distinct discussion, I think. Etc. This can be a centralized discussion, but it needs to be better architected. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 06:01, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm totally okay with breaking apart some of the issues, or even simply deferring larger ones like the create page suggestion entirely. I just felt like it's a little silly to propose a heap of small changes individually. Regarding the collapsing issue: I was not going to propose we tackle that topic here. Only the order and kind and phrasing of the links. Steven Walling &bull; talk   06:03, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd recommend spending some time making sensible groupings of proposed changes and using subsections. Re-labeling certain links would be a subsection, each proposed additional link would be a subsection, etc. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sensible suggestion. I'll take a hack at it soon. Steven Walling &bull; talk   08:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that an update is needed, and also that we need more iterations and research before implementing anything. Specific comments below. –Quiddity (talk) 08:08, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * An update is most certainly needed, but I'm not seeing enough improvement in this proposal. There are still redundant and questionable links in the sidebar.  I also believe that the sidebar is less important than the content, and there should be an option to move the sidebar to the right side of the screen.  The current placement isn't ergonomic for all users, keeping in mind that not everyone is right or left handed, and there should be an ergonomic option for everyone.  Technical 13 (talk) 19:19, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm just trying to work out who isn't right handed or left handed (they've landed!!!!). OK, give the southpaws a right hand sidebar if that's better for them, and the ambidextrous can use it if they want too, and the aliens can too.  Peridon (talk) 19:51, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I would like to see the sections that are shown only by a triangle on the proposal. Toolbox obviously would change due to things being taken out of it, what else is planned for headers where their contents do not show, (i.e. "Donate" and "Languages") please?  Ellin Beltz (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The sidebar doesn't need changes

 * Personal opinion, this, and a query - where's this Wikimedia Shop thing come from? I can't recall ever seeing that before (BTW I use Monobook on XP Pro Classic view). For me, the only things I use are the toolbox and sometimes languages, unless I'm playing with random pages. I'm not interested in anything else in 'navigation', and nothing in 'interaction'. I find it well organised, and don't want to have to click a triangle to get the toolbox visible - or is that just a Vector blemish? In Monobook, everything looks well organised and easily accessible. I keep clear of Vector as much as I can - I tend to set preferences on the foreign WPs I visit (and wish there was a way of setting them all at once). Peridon (talk) 19:37, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Just looked in Vector - no Shop visible here or Main Page. But the triangle has to be clicked for toolbox. Bloody nuisance. If you do implement this, leave Monobook alone, please. Us Monobook people know what we like and don't want it buggered up. Peridon (talk) 19:44, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You can disable the "triangle" by deselecting "Enable collapsing of items in the sidebar in Vector skin" in the Appearance section of your preferences. Vector held back a lot on changing things from Monobook, but it does provide a much more modern feel, which was sorely needed. The trick is just to customize it here and there. Much of the time, I hide the sidebar entirely through custom JS and CSS. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits&#124;⚡}&#125; 21:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I'll stick to triangle-less Monobook which has (for me) a much less cold open modern (where does that wind come from?) architecture look. Brrrrr..... I'm just trying to make sure that Monobook doesn't get damn triangles. And wondering where this Shop that others can see is - not planning to buy anything, but curious as to why I don't seem to see it anywhere. Peridon (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Another thing, in my opinion, is the total irrelevance to this issue of Google's homepage. It's no more relevant here than the homepage of BloggsCo Carpets, or Finlay McSporran's wordpress page. Google isn't an encyclopaedia. Wikipedia isn't a search engine. Neither of these functions apply to BloggsCo, and neither Google nor Wikipedia sell carpets (although I still don't know what is in this mysterious 'Merchandise' or shop...). (The less said about Finlay's site, the better.) Google presumable has the needed links for their purposes. However many that is. We should have the necessary for our purposes. However many that is. Peridon (talk) 21:12, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

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 &bull; 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 Village pump (proposals), 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 &bull; talk   03:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: See 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.
 * 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 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. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits&#124;⚡}&#125; 23:03, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 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 &bull; 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. 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 &bull; 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 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)

Width, padding, and margins
You would have a lot more options in the sidebar if there were more space. Right now the margins and padding are way too wide in some browsers. It is poor design going way back.

One of the big problems with the Vector sidebar is the laddering caused when people increase their text size even a small amount in some browsers. More info, and some fixes:
 * Forum:Vector sidebar width, padding, and margins

The main problem is with the doubly-indented subsections:
 * Interaction
 * Toolbox
 * Languages

There is no need to indent the subsection links more than the links found at the top of the sidebar. In fact, none of the links in the sidebar need to be indented.

The subsection headers are the only text that need to be indented. And that is only because there needs to be room for the show/hide arrows. But the links within the subsections do not need to be indented. Sidebar padding needs to be greatly lessened in general on the left side in most browsers. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:16, 4 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you show us what it might look like with different width/padding/margins? Steven Walling &bull; talk   03:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Look at this page and open the "ShoutWiki messages" section in the sidebar:
 * http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Category:Cities
 * Use various browsers to look at the sidebar. Keep increasing the text size settings in each of the browsers until more and more laddering occurs in the "ShoutWiki messages" section. For example; with longer entries such as "New feature on ShoutWiki". It intrudes into content space in Firefox. It ladders in Chrome. It has plenty of room in the Internet Explorer sidebar.


 * See also:
 * http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Vector.css
 * I unfortunately only know a little about CSS. So what little I figured out and added to MediaWiki:Vector.css is badly done, and done by hacking at it, and seeing what happened. Someone far more experienced than me in CSS is needed. There are many things wrong with what I did.


 * I was able to figure out how to reduce the left-side padding/margin for the top section of the sidebar, but not with the sections below it (toolbox, ShoutWiki messages). I just don't understand the CSS used in those sections.
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 04:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ShoutWiki site has been going through some maintenance the last few days. The site has been up and down. Also, the MediaWiki software may have changed in its latest version such that the CSS changes at MediaWiki:Vector.css are no longer working in effecting the sidebar as before. At least in Firefox. I don't know. Maybe that is temporary due to the site not fully functioning. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ShoutWiki is back up. Added CSS from MediaWiki:Vector.css is functioning correctly in adjusting the sidebar. Weird thing I noticed about Chrome is that if you increase the font size (not zoom) in settings, both the sidebar image width and the sidebar width increases. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Google and Wikia design has gone to hell lately
Designers screw up so many things on Wikipedia and Wikia. Especially designers who sacrifice functionality for esthetics. Google is now starting to screw up some of their legendary simplicity and functionality. Please do not follow lemming-like Google's latest design decisions.

If annoying, click-away popups cover needed parts of the Google home page, or they distract you, or if some days you find the doodles annoying or slow-loading, try other pages as your home page in your browser. It seems that the various Google home pages (Search, News, etc.) have gone to hell at times, especially since Marissa Mayer left Google in July 2012. Wikipedia: "She also oversaw the layout of Google's famous, unadorned search homepage."

Google News is worse at times. Titles can be too short. Advanced news search and archive search of news can be difficult or impossible to find, or to use. In contrast, Yahoo News now can be easily sorted by time. That used to be easily possible at Google News. Also, I use to be able to copy and paste Google search result URLs. Not any more. I now have to add an addon to Firefox to fix that problem:
 * Google/Yandex search link fix. - addon shows actual URLs in Google search results.

Most annoying lately is that Google has now added an extra step to get to things. The grid method is slower than the line of links at the top. I was mad when they started removing links and adding them to the "more" link. If some people want the grid, then provide it. But don't remove the links. Don't do something similarly stupid on Wikipedia.

Clueless designers. I left Wikia for the most part because of them. Now years later after I told Wikia they needed a fluid width, they are finally thinking of doing it. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:19, 4 October 2013 (UTC)