Talk:Main Page

Starting Point...

Should we just start ahead with making a small stub article of every book/movie/game/miniseries ?
Some portions can just be copied from Wikipedia, it's GPL so that is fine anyway
--Timenn 04:16, 20 February 2006 (PST)

Yeah, as you said I think to start out we need to have the basic layout of how things will be organized. Better to start with that first rather then have to fix it once we are a few months in. I would first start by categorizing things by media type. So novels, movies, video games. And then sub-categories based on titles. How does that sound? --Gobalopper

We need to get a good chunk of at least one article done as a guide, as well as just categories and so forth.--NemaFakei 18:38, 20 February 2006 (PST)

Agreed, for the rest we'll just make some template articles for all the obvious subjects (e.g. Dune Messiah or Bene Gesserit) and then we can make categories we can place those articles in.
--Timenn 04:12, 21 February 2006 (PST)

Main Page layout

Another matter is the layout of the Main Page. It would be nice to have a featured article, but what else is there that can make the Main Page a fine place to start? A "Did you know that ...?", a featured picture, or a small headline with the latest news?
--Timenn 04:12, 21 February 2006 (PST)

That sounds good... maybe while we are still developing the wiki a box that lists where we feel things need to be expanded upon.
-- Gobalopper 09:00, 21 February 2006 (PST)

I think that would be very nice.
Then we have at least 2 boxes for the Main Page (the other one is the featured article) so at least that can be implemented. New stuff can always be added later on.
--Timenn 10:06, 21 February 2006 (PST)

There is no article that can be featured right now, so we should just stick with a list of open tasks. The main page should also be a navigation tool, pointing the reader towards important "entry point" articles (e.g. the Dune novels, people, places, organizations...) -- Edric O 07:05, 27 February 2006 (PST)

But it would be nice to have the code for that already implemented. For now we can just pick one "completed" article and put that as featured (that Wikipedia changes it every day doesn't mean we have to) Once more complete articles start to pop up it can always be expanded. But I agree it is best to start with the list of open tasks, since the featured article code is a little bit complex to add in as minor edit. --Timenn 07:33, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Organisation

One thing I was thinking of, in order to keep things organized, was using subdirectories. So for novels it would be Novels/Dune_Chapterhouse, games Games/DuneII, etc. Does that make sense?
-- Gobalopper 08:55, 21 February 2006 (PST)

I don't think that would be necessary for major items like novels. However, in certain contexts, such as Dune II/Atreides Arsenal, it might be worth it (I don't want to have DII unit data on the House Atreides page).--NemaFakei 05:37, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Subdirectories are unwieldy. I much prefer using categories and templates. (To see what a template can do, look over the wikipedia article on, for example, Christianity. You'll see a navigational sidebar on the right. That's a template.) As for Dune II unit data, shouldn't it go in the Dune II article? One thing I've noticed on wikipedia is that people are far more likely to see the information in the main article on a subject than the information in secondary articles. -- Edric O 06:19, 27 February 2006 (PST)

I agree with Edric. Besides, I think that every unit may have its own article, there is plenty of information available on all units seen in Dune games. Those units can then be placed in the right categories (would this be a good category tree: Sources - Games - Dune II - Units?) --Timenn 07:43, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Maybe some of the most famous units (e.g. Deviator) could have their own articles, but I see no point in ever creating articles for light infantry or troopers or combat tanks. Keep in mind that it is better to have one large article than a bunch of short ones. Thus, perhaps we should put all unit information in Units in Dune II, Units in Dune 2000 and Units in Emperor: Battle for Dune. -- Edric O 10:12, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Ok, you are right about that. When I came up with the suggestion I was thinking about such units as the Deviator, but indeed units like the Light Infantry have no real impact. Although I do think we may go into much detail about units, like giving information about weapons power or health for example. --Timenn 11:18, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Well as an example look at the unit information on the main site, there really isn't a ton of information you can use so I think doing a single page is the best approach, especially for a starting point. --Gobalopper 19:51, 28 February 2006 (PST)

Templates

What about stubs? I've seen them in a few places on Wikipedia but I'm not sure how they are setup. Do they allow you to include that content in multiple pages? I can see a number of instances where we could use the same data on multiple pages.
-- Gobalopper 09:02, 21 February 2006 (PST)

Use the template {{stub}}, which automatically adds the article to Category:Stubs--NemaFakei 05:37, 27 February 2006 (PST)

You mean content which can be included in other articles, and once you change that content it will be changed in all the articles that included it. I believe the include syntax for Wikipedia is: "{{Insert Article to include here}}". But I'm not totally sure about that, but I know it can be done.
--Timenn 10:01, 21 February 2006 (PST)

Just write an article called Template:Insert name here (in other words, write an article in the template namespace). Then you can instantly add it to any "normal" article by using the syntax {{Insert name here}}. -- Edric O 06:13, 27 February 2006 (PST)

I've created a template for the original novels (Template:Dune novels) and added it to the six articles on FH's books. -- Edric O 07:05, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Images?

Gob, can you enable image uploading? I've edited the code in my two templates to allow for a different image to be used in each article that contains them (as opposed to using a fixed image for the template). This means that, when you add the template, you have to write {{template_name|image= image_name}} (if you don't want an image, just leave "image_name" blank). -- Edric O 16:00, 27 February 2006 (PST)

Ok, I beleve uploads are now enabled.
-- Gobalopper 19:49, 28 February 2006 (PST)

Thanks. I've uploaded a few game-related images. About how much upload space do we have? -- Edric O 12:45, 1 March 2006 (PST)

Not sure, just let me know if you run out. -- Gobalopper 21:42, 5 March 2006 (PST)

Primary articles

I propose that 5 primary (or "entry point") articles should be created, and links to them should be displayed prominently on the main page:

• Dune universe (or Duniverse)
• Dune novels (FH's books)
• Dune prequels (BH's and KJA's books)
• Dune movies
• Dune games

-- Edric O 16:00, 27 February 2006 (PST)

New main page layout

As I'm sure you've noticed, I created a new layout for the main page (mostly from wikipedia code), using the following templates:

• Template:MainPageIntro - the top header of the main page.
• Template:MainPageBanner - an optional banner that can be used to display any important information. At the moment it is blank.
• Template:Improvement drive - should display the first paragraph(s) of the article we select to be the improvement drive of the month. Later on, we might replace this with a featured article instead.
• Template:Message - contains any general message to our readers that you want to display on the main page.

If you want to change any actual text on the main page, you should edit the respective template. Edits to the main page itself are only useful if you want to alter the layout. -- Edric O 22:38, 4 March 2006 (PST)

Things to do before the grand opening

1. Setup the 5 primary ("entry point") articles. See above.
2. Create 2 more navigation bar templates: Dune prequels and Dune movies.
3. Import all useful information from wikipedia.

DONE! Dune Wiki is now ready for the Grand opening! -- Edric O 10:14, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Actually, I there is one small thing to do. That is to fix the title of the Dune Encyclopedia. There's a 'a' in "paedia" which shouldn't be there.
And please see this idea: Dune Wiki talk:Guidelines for importing text
Timenn 11:02, 13 March 2006 (PST)

I think the a was Nema's doing... I defer all grammar decisions to him. :) -- Edric O 11:39, 13 March 2006 (PST)

That's probably me. I suppose we've got to use the proper title. Damned Americans and their impedance!--NemaFakei 12:20, 13 March 2006 (PST)

That's what you get with reading American books. Luckily we "continentals" can be neutral.
Anyway, I now agree with Edric that it's time for the Grand opening. --Timenn 13:29, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Ok I've just updated MediaWiki to 1.5.7 so software wise we are running the latest version.

Current events and community portal?

Gob, you might want to remove the Current events and Community portal links from the menu to the left, seeing how those two articles don't exist (and we don't plan to create them). -- Edric O 12:08, 10 March 2006 (PST)

Actually, we should really move the contents of this talk page to the CP, so as to leave the main page talk clear for the main page discussion. Ultimately, we want a main page useful to users, and a CP useful to editors, the difference being that the CP will display the worst pages (i.e. a todo list), and the main page will display our best pages. --NemaFakei 09:10, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Seems reasonable. But current events, at least, should be removed. -- Edric O 11:40, 13 March 2006 (PST)

http://wiki.dune2k.com/wiki/MediaWiki:Sidebar For the future I found out that the menu can be edited through that link. Sysop's only. -- Gobalopper 14:32, 13 March 2006 (PST)

Huh!

I've created a Leto_Atreides page, yet the link on the main page doesn't work...

--Dunenewt 15:04, 22 March 2006 (PST)

Seems to work fine for me... Have you tried reloading the page, or ctrl reload? --Timenn 15:13, 22 March 2006 (PST)

I'm still getting it, even in IE...weird. Yeah I've Ctr F5'd it...

--Dunenewt 15:19, 22 March 2006 (PST)

Dune wiki in other languages

What do you think? --Historik 00:37, 15 April 2006 (PDT)

I think we should get more done in english firt. Besides, is anyone actually visiting this?--Mahdi 08:58, 15 April 2006 (PDT)

Je pense que ce serait trop difficile parce qu'il n'y a sufficiment de membres de FED2k qui peuvent nous aider. Basically, there aren't enough people who could contribute, and as Mahdi says, we need to get this one going first.

--Dunenewt 07:36, 16 April 2006 (PDT)

O.k. For fans from CZ and SK we are going to create our own wiki project, I hope. There was chance to make international Dune-wiki... our Encyklopedia Duny will be a core of this project. --Historik 04:48, 21 July 2006 (PDT)

How exactly does one make a wiki such as this "international" anyway? Zerobot 12:38, 27 December 2006 (PST)

Standards

I am new to these fiction Wikis, but after reading some of the Brian Herbert novels and then starting to re-read Frank Herbert's works, I really felt like a Dune wiki needed to happen. There are some things that don't seem to jibe, and a wiki is a great place to suss this all out. However, we need to have some standards here. Some questions that might help us get started:

- Is this encyclopedia an attempt at a sort of Dune Universe wikipedia? That is, should all details from the books/games/films/etc be written as fact (as seen from within the Duniverse...), or should they always be qualified as part of a fiction?

- Are we worried about distinguishing WHERE every bit of information comes from? Might it be advisable to divide up each article based on which book the information came from?

I may start some edits, trying out new templates and such things, if you don't mind. I find this is a fascinating concept, as the Dune universe is ripe for a Wiki. Thanks for having me.Zerobot 12:48, 27 December 2006 (PST)

Forgive me...I see that there is a template already established. I blame my fervor for contributing. I will read over it and comment...Zerobot 13:38, 27 December 2006 (PST)

Timeline

Also, I think it would be a great idea to establish some sort of a well-referenced timeline, even if it gets a bit messy. There are a few things mentioned in the Dune books that are significant, but confusing in the light of history. And there are some minor things that might shed some more light on that history when examined.Zerobot 13:07, 27 December 2006 (PST)