Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)
I would like to start a discussion on redesigning the English Wikipedia website. I'm not sure if the WMF would need to get involved with this. Here are some design changes I would like to see and would like to know your thoughts on them. To start, I would like to see the sidebar's contents be moved to the top of the page as menus and be replaced with the table of contents of a particular article. Britannica does it best there with its articles (example). I would also like to see the main page to be redesigned. Since the 2006 design, the design has changed very little and I think the main page is due for a redesign. Britannica also does good here with this factor with its modern look. The current main page is dated and I was hoping we could make an RFC on what we could do to make it more user friendly. I would appreciate any comments about where to start with how we can simplify and redesign the Wikipedia website and the main page. Interstellarity (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
I would like to continue the discussion before this gets archived. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to structure the Wikipedia page? Interstellarity (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
Why should we just copy Britannica's interface? We're not Britannica, we're Wikipedia. X-Editor (talk) 00:21, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
One of the hallmark characteristics of the draft namespace is that it is not rigorously patrolled. As anyone who ever done AfC patrolling knows, it has a lot of junk. Because of this, and also just because it's not part of the encyclopedia proper, we don't index it for search engines.
However, it's still not too hard for readers to stumble into it. For instance, if you go to a redlink for a page with a draft but no article yet (example: Cleo Abram), you'll be pointed to the draft. It's also possible for someone to share a direct URL to a draft off-wiki. And if reader does come across a draft, there's nothing really there to tell them what it is and to give them relevant disclaimers.
Therefore, I think it might be a good idea to add {{Draft article}} to the space permanently as an interface element (i.e. it'd be outside the wikitext). I also think we could improve the notice to tell readers This is a draft encyclopedia article. It is not yet part of the encyclopedia and has not been reviewed for compliance with Wikipedia's editorial standards.
