Portal talk:Main/Archive 2015

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mourn? or mourns?

Shouldn't it be MA and the community mourn his death as opposed to mourns his death? Distantlycharmed (talk) 23:12, February 27, 2015 (UTC)

MA mourns. MA and X mourn. I've fixed the grammar. -- sulfur (talk) 02:55, February 28, 2015 (UTC)

Date on Main Page

The date on the main page has been off pretty much all week. For example, on Monday it showed Sunday's date. On Tuesday, it showed Monday's. Is there a way to fix this so it shows the accurate date and Picture of the Day?

Tim – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.255.106.72.

It's showing the proper day and date for me, and the proper PotD for today's date as well. I'd check the date setting on your computer, since that's where the date and time displayed on pages comes from. -- Renegade54 (talk) 18:41, March 12, 2015 (UTC)

Non-logged in users are seeing a heavily cached version of the page. It can be off as much as half a week at times. Let wikia know of this problem; they won't fix it, but every little bit that stops them from "breaking" more things helps. - Archduk3 21:41, March 12, 2015 (UTC)

Returning FAs to the main page

Since it's been mentioned several times in a number of different locations since their removal, returning FAs to the main page seems to be a thing people want. The catch is, to keep the size of the page down, something would have to be removed, or significantly reduced in size. I suggest the picture of the day be moved to the side rail under the points of interest box. Since clicking on the image will open a larger version in the lightbox, the actual size of the image oKaferian the page can be reduced. If there's support for this, I can make the appropriate changes to the templates involved. - Archduk3 06:01, March 20, 2015 (UTC)

As part of this I'm trying out some ideas to keep the size of the page down without loosing too much, mainly by moving some of the links around and "combining" panels where it seems possible. Feedback would be appreciated. - Archduk3 06:37, March 27, 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit disappointed to see the picture of the day scaled down. Now, the intricacies of coding a layout like this are far beyond me, but here's my two cents: It seems to me that the news section could be made a lot more compact. How about putting that in the right column under the portal. Potentially even above it if needed for it to be prominent enough. If needed the right column might be made a bit wider (while clearly remaining the smaller column) to accommodate this. And the picture of the day could then be placed under the Featured article, more or less in its old position. Again, just the two cents of someone not epically invested in this. -- Capricorn (talk) 20:15, April 3, 2015 (UTC)

Checking the page in the oasis skin with any ad blocking software turned off I think will convey the main problems with changing the right column's size or placing anything too "tall" in there better than I can. When a "tower" ad is displayed in the right column, the portal panel is pushed all the way down to the FA panel as is. I think the news would consistently be taller than the PotDs, since only a few of the PotDs are taller than they are wide, and something had to give to prevent pushing the editing panel further down. I'm disappointed as well, but I think this is the best arrangement under the current conditions.

In a perfect world though, I would rather have all of the panels be collapsible, so people could chose to expand what they wanted to see by either selecting or hovering over them. I just simply don't have the JS skills for that, and I really don't want to see the cheap, half-broken version of that idea wikia would "mandatory release" if it was any good. Then again, MA isn't "hosted" by wikia in a perfect world. - Archduk3 07:35, April 4, 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize I was blocking adds (not even sure how that's happening, it's weird). Oh well, the current page is pretty decent given the constraints then, good work :) -- Capricorn (talk) 15:42, April 4, 2015 (UTC)

Newsworthy?

I understand that we want to be kept updated on all relevant Star Trek news, but I think we need to ask ourselves what we consider to be newsworthy. New/upcoming books, comics, films, etc are newsworthy. Actors winning (major) awards are also newsworthy stories. But really, do we need to know that Alexander Siddig is now going to be in two episodes of Game of Thrones? Or Bruce Greenwood is in Mad Men? If we go down this path of using the news part of MA as a kind of gossip column of what ex-Trek actors are doing years after the fact, there will be no room for actual Trek-related news!

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else feel that the news page is best kept for things like announcements or updates about projects, major awards, and sad passings? It just seems a bit frivolous, and this information could easily be added into the articles about the various actors instead. I'll defer to community consensus of course, but I thought it worth mentioning.

88.150.208.28 19:09, April 22, 2015 (UTC)

Actually I have to agree and asked this myself. Tom (talk) 19:11, April 22, 2015 (UTC)

Same here. In fact, I asked myself why I needed to know that Alexaner Siddig was in Game of Thrones when that note was put up a couple of days ago. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 19:23, April 22, 2015 (UTC)

Glad it isn't just me! 37.220.18.172 19:26, April 22, 2015 (UTC) (OP)

I've removed the two entries in question. Tom (talk) 19:30, April 22, 2015 (UTC)

Same here as well. 31dot (talk) 23:28, April 22, 2015 (UTC)

My how things have changed :-)

In the old days, before the new movies, Trek news was really slow after the cancellation of ENT. A look back into the 2007 archives shows that back then, we needed these other quasi-related only threw a Trek performer being involved news stories just to have anything on the page. Now that we actually have Trek productions and Trek news again, that stuff certainly doesn't seem important to the main page news. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 05:40, April 23, 2015 (UTC)

I suppose I'm the only dissenting voice then; I thought those kinds of items were pretty nice to have. I can get any news I want elsewhere though, no drama. -- Capricorn (talk) 08:25, April 23, 2015 (UTC)

With listing those actors involvements it looks sometimes like a copy of TrekMovie, IMO. Where is the limitation for listing that stuff? Only main actors with new projects? Guest stars or one time appearances with a new role? I think the news section would be too crowded and we would have new entries every day. The news section could be easily filled with news about new Trek projects, the passings of Trek related people, awards handed out to Trek people and maybe also something like weddings, births to main actors or something similar. Tom (talk) 11:37, April 23, 2015 (UTC)

Blank main page

What is going on with the main page? I am not seeing anything on here? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.255.106.72.

Works perfect for me. Tom (talk) 14:47, May 2, 2015 (UTC)

The page was displaying as blank around the time the anon commented. - Archduk3 15:32, May 2, 2015 (UTC)

I was having the same problem when I was logged out, even after refreshing and clearing my cache. It only started working after I logged in. - LostInRiverview ^{talk • blog • contribs} 01:15, May 3, 2015 (UTC)

It seems as though it's related to this discussion. --| TrekFan ^{Open a channel} 02:45, May 3, 2015 (UTC)

People?

I couldn't help but notice that this wiki's navigation says 'people' under the section portals. People, by definition only refers to humans, and yet the majority of entities listed in said section are not human. It seems like their are numerous words that are more fitting for such a section. Races, beings, entities, humanoids, species, breeds, Etc. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by SecretWielder (talk • contribs).

Where in Star Trek is it said that 'people' only refers to humans? 31dot (talk) 23:33, June 27, 2015 (UTC)

It does not say that 'people' only refers to humans in Star Trek, nor does it need to. The goal of a Wiki is to provide information available for the masses. There is no reason to use terminology that only applies in one world, when there are terms that convoy information just as well in both worlds. This is especially true for navigation, as you will want to communicate clearly with people who do not know a Wikis subject clearly. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by SecretWielder (talk • contribs).

There is a reason to use such terminology; this is the Star Trek wiki using words appropriate for the subject and theme of the wiki. A medical wiki would not use non-medical terminology, a political wiki uses political terminology. In Star Trek 'people' does not just refer to humans. As for people who might not be aware of that, they will learn once they see it. 31dot (talk) 08:50, June 29, 2015 (UTC)

Using MA to write Trek scripts - Simon Pegg

Really? So what does that say about the Trek writers these days that they have to resort to MA, a Trek wikia, to be able to write a Trek script? This is actually really sad for all of us Trek fans out there. That Pegg doesnt recognize it is sad and mostly an admission on his part that he doesnt really know Star Trek and is essentially writing the script off of a wikia page (and probably shouldnt be writing for Star Trek if that is the case then), is the saddest part. It is like saying I use Wikipedia for my master's thesis and acknowledging the writers of Wikipedia and thanking them for helping you write the thesis or PhD. Thank you for ruining Star Trek. Distantlycharmed (talk) 20:45, July 23, 2015 (UTC)

A couple of things:

a) Not a place for random discussion.

b) Many novelists use MA as well. Like Pegg, they're using it as a resource to make sure that they get the little facts right as they put their story together.

I don't read "I don't know anything about Trek, so am cribbing from MA" out of his comments. Quite unlike you apparently. -- sulfur (talk) 00:22, July 24, 2015 (UTC)