New and recent features on main page

User avatar
Daniel Beardsmore

21 Nov 2013, 19:33

It might be a nice idea to have a list on the main page of recently added pages, and recently modified pages. See for example these MediaWiki extensions:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Newest_Pages
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Recent_Pages

We have Special:RecentChanges on its own page, but it would be much easier for forum members to see what's going on in wiki land if they could see, directly and immediately a simple list of:
  • The five most recently created pages (in the Main namespace only, i.e. not Category, (Main) Talk, File, Template etc)
  • The five most recently updated pages (again, Main namespace, and not counting the recently-created pages, which may be hard to achieve unless both lists come from the same extension)
  • (optionally) The five most recently uploaded documents in the File namespace (images, spec sheets etc)

User avatar
HaaTa
Master Kiibohd Hunter

21 Nov 2013, 20:37

This would give a bit more publicity to stuff getting added, which would be nice. :D

Findecanor

21 Nov 2013, 23:03

Didn't we use to have the recent changes on the main page? :?

User avatar
Daniel Beardsmore

21 Nov 2013, 23:09

Not any time in the last 14 months.

The problem with recent changes is that it gets too easily flooded. Every batch of image uploads clobbers it. Multiple changes to the same article drowns out changes to other articles. Large numbers of page modifications make it hard to see new pages that have been added. Special:RecentChanges is also not, by default, limited to the Main namespace, so editing a user page shows up when it probably shouldn't.

Hence keeping new pages and recently modified pages separate, and restricting the list to pages, not revisions. Probably worth excluding minor changes, too.

User avatar
Daniel

22 Nov 2013, 21:28

The Wiki should be kept as vanilla as possible to minimize dependencies. In case of a sudden need to move the content onto a different server etc. too much dependencies is just a pain.

But as this plugins only add a single page and don't affect the content, they should be integrated. I think it's a good idea.

Post Reply

Return to “Deskthority wiki talk”