Talk:Main Page

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This page is for discussing the Valve Developer Community's Main Page. For discussion on VDC in general, see the Main discussion page. For questions about developing, please visit the New Help Desk! This page is not for support questions!

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• 19:28, 28 Nov 2005 (PST)
• 13:46, 10 Apr 2006 (PDT)
• 22:23, 15 February 2009 (PDT)
• 11:08, 11 May 2011
• 00:29, 12 May, 2023

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Thank you Valve!

For the first time in years, Valve came back! We can now edit the Main Page again. Thanks Valve. Now, please update the wiki so that it doesnt run on a horribly outdated mediawiki pls Equalizer5118 (talk) 4:04, 7 Jun 2023 (UTC)

I think the new design looks good.

Maybe make the VDC Navbox template make it look like the main page, or maybe make a new one and keep the old one? Because i think the navbox maybe should be here Mr. SystemError (talk) 8:45, 30 Apr 2024 (UTC)

Wow guys, the new front page looks great!, If you can make sure its been changed properly to your native languag Seal Enthusiast (talk) 19:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Took me 10 minutes to figure out how to make the rest of the main page fit with the Valve-Tech template, since i found the right colors, I went with it. I also made the colored boxes buttons.
Also i ported other lang to /strings subpage and transcluded from English page, except on Hebrew which uses its own page (flipped the grid design and made the text to be read right to left) N0one (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Going about tidying up the Main Page

So I composed a version of the main page in my sandbox, here.

I've changed certain element proportions, I moved the article count underneath the title (and got rid of other stats - the text on the page explains why). There's room for expansion underneath Source 2 section, for future games. I've replaced string lookups with simple text right in the page (with the exception of the navbox, as it's a template and I'd rather include it as template than replicate it).

Basically, it is tidier, more economical, easier to maintain.

The question is, how to go about using it?

I can replace the Main Page's code with it. The biggest con is it'll lose all the languages, as there don't exist translated versions of the Main Page, per se (the translations that currently exist aren't done that way, so they wouldn't show up as flags). They'll be lost until translated versions are reestablished. Which used to be the old way of doing it.

I can replace the Multipage's /en version with it. It'll be less intrusive, but some elements are declared on Multipage's base page, like copyright and legal section, they'll remain as string lookups, which I ideally didn't want. It'll also not change appearance to anyone using non-eng version.

I won't pretend I have the best solution, but I thought if anything I should start discussing this, here, now.

Cvoxalury (talk) 11:39, 19 June 2024 (PDT)

This one's a bit of a weird one, because with the main page being a bit of a mess of inline CSS it's a tad harder to pick things out. Perhaps more common things could be put as classes in common.css to reduce overall noise for styled pages, but that has the downside of needing staff action each time something should be tweaked, as well as being yet another page to edit (which we're trying to avoid, but I think it's more justifiable than the other stuff in this case). --DarkOK (talk) 17:37, 19 June 2024 (PDT)

Right, but I think in the meantime, the main page can still be edited to be less, well, messy, as it currently houses more elements than it needs. I don't want to impose my version without asking (and listening), however. Cvoxalury (talk) 10:02, 20 June 2024 (PDT)

I took the leap of faith and tidied up the page. I did a soft version of what I proposed, not replacing strings with text and such (so it should be as adaptable as it was, just shorter now). If I really did wrong by users by doing that, revert it. Cvoxalury (talk)

Autoconfirmed protection

I can't check for myself; can autoconfirmed people here still edit the Main Page? I'm not sure if autoconfirmed protection functions properly here. PabloS (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2024 (PDT)

I was able to edit the main page Darnias (talk) 17:22, 19 June 2024 (PDT)

Yes, i'm autoconfirmed and i can edit the Main Page and semi-protected pages. --N0one (talk) 01:11, 20 June 2024 (PDT)

Yep, works for me! --Seal Enthusiast 07:43, 24 June 2024 (PDT)

Why shouldn't it be protected so only moderators (and above) can edit it? It and its individual elements (templates it's composed of) could use more elevated protection. Cvoxalury (talk) 13:06, 24 June 2024 (PDT)

Avoiding clutter on the main page

I implore my fellow editors to not clutter the main page anymore. Sprinkling icon confetti, coloured text (not that someone did; this is saying preemptively) and things like that is purely cosmetic, style that doesn't improve the substance.

There's icons for the main branches of the wiki - Goldsrc, Source and Source 2 - its main three 'kingdoms' if you will - that's really enough.

We're climbing out of the dark times when it looked this bad, and we're currently at the point where it's pretty optimal. Reasons like 'looks nicer' is what led to looking like that pic in the first place.

Cvoxalury (talk) 08:14, 24 June 2024 (PDT)

Yeah it's looks pretty clean and good enough, another thing about the icon, the CS2 workshop icon is unofficial anyway (Valve didn't made one like other Source 2 games, so I made them based off HL Alyx Workshop Tools), the only problem that it doesn't seem to look good sometime on smaller resolution (16px), and probably looks bit too similar to HLA, but it works. --leonidakarlach (talk) 04:38, 25 June 2024 (PDT)

To the user User:Seal Enthusiast adding icons to the Source 2 games: they're useless clutter. It's not about bandwidth, it's about what's needed. Icons aren't needed, three of them are almost the same, everyone can read the text right next to them. Don't revert undos, as that becomes edit warring. Cvoxalury (talk) 02:35, 3 July 2024 (PDT)

Why don't you discuss it with others before you undo the change yourself? You are the one starting the war of edits now. At this point, there is nothing stopping you from changing the minds of the majority (and there are at least 2 people who disagree with you, not counting me and others who just don't care), but you just undo even a minor change instead of waiting for a response to your complaint 😒

--THE OWL (talk) 03:55, 3 July 2024 (PDT)

Apologies for any issues adding the icons may cause. --Seal Enthusiast 05:34, 3 July 2024 (PDT)