Talk:Main Page

Photo

No offense to whoever did it, or Solon, but is there a reason that a team photo of a random high school team is on the main landing page? It seems extremely unnecessary and seriously breaks up the flow of the page, which I believe should try to be as informative as possible. If I, a random nobody who had just heard of quizbowl, found that image on this main landing page I'd be seriously confused. - EG

If we are okay with having an individual team shown here, would we want the specific team to rotate (similarly to how the NAQT homepage showcases different teams)? -Kevin Wang (talk) 15:54, 15 March 2021 (CDT)

Isn't that for national champions? That would make sense if we decide to keep the image, I just really don't understand *why* it's there to begin with. -EG 3/15/2021

I did it and no offense taken. I added pictures to some of the main pages to make this wiki more lively so that it wasn't all text. I didn't think it changed the flow of the page because the text is the same with our without the image. If you think it would be clearer if there was a better caption or if the picture was at the bottom, then feel free to make those changes, and if a few people agree with you then get rid of it. David Reinstein (talk) 16:22, 15 March 2021 (CDT)

I'm in favor of having some kind of photo there for Reinstein's reason and also just to show what we're talking about, and I think a photo of people playing quizbowl is a good choice. I don't care what photo it is, within reason, and I'd be fine with changing it once, randomly, periodically, whatever. Just make sure the photo is licensed for such use, doesn't make anyone look foolish, isn't ridiculous, and is taken down if anyone depicted requests it. Jonah (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2021 (CDT)

I agree with Jonah. There's no reason we can't switch this around between different teams or players if we have good photos to use. Fred Morlan (talk) 21:08, 24 March 2021 (CDT)

Introduction to Quizbowl

The current Introduction to Quizbowl sidebar seems a bit outdated. Suggestions for things to add/replace? I think "How to Get Good at This Game" has gotten a bit dated and could be replaced with "Quizbowl Improvement Methods." "Toss-Up Bonus Format" also seems redundant with "Toss-up". And I'm not sure why "Trivia" is still up there by itself; it might be better to have a "Trivia vs. Quizbowl" article instead to make that distinction more clear. Chris C.

Major change in format

Changed the main page to look more like Wikipedia's. It's a little unwieldy, but maybe we can compartmentalize parts of it more as the need arises. The sidebar has been removed - we can think about efficient ways to reincorporate the information again. -Kevin Wang (talk) 13:49, 28 October 2021 (CDT)

Yeah the current layout is wonky. The old one had issues though too, so this might be workable. It does seem harder to find key bits of information though. For instance, what happened to "The most important organizations in quizbowl are ACF (at the collegiate level), PACE (at the high school level), and NAQT (at the collegiate, high school, and middle school levels). Much quizbowl community activity occurs at hsquizbowl.org, which is hosted by the Quizbowl Resource Center. Also check out our pages on quizbowl software, buzzer sets, and outreach to new schools and players."? I thought that was a really good set of things to keep on the front page since it hits a lot of the big organizations, questions, and other things that can then be accessed with one click from the very start. I think in general it would be good to have a bit more explanation of what some of these things are rather than just separate boxes with lots of acronyms and names--what would a brand-new person to quizbowl see if this is one of the first things they find?

Another point: is it possible to add some kind of slide-show plugin for the featured picture? Switching through multiple pictures I think would be good if there's going to be a continued feature picture on the front page and there probably are already some additional pictures already on the site that might be good to include in this.

Also right now there's 3 links to this https://www.qbwiki.com/wiki/Quizbowl article on the front page. I don't know if that page is extensive enough to really be that useful (it's actually surprisingly short) and if it makes sense to keep directing people there for things like International Quizbowl History (perhaps I can create a new page for that). Not sure if there needs to be a link to the in-joke category either on the front page, especially since many of those are really old. The Lingo page link is good; more explanation of exactly what that means along the lines of something like: "Curious about what a "power" is? Learn various words and terms used in quizbowl at the _lingo_ link" might help direct new users there. -Chris C.