Wikivoyage/Lounge/Archive/2023-07

A little rant about the design of Wikivoyage

(Longtime WMF lurker here, too lazy to create an account.)

Let me say that I have no problem at all with the content of Wikivoyage itself. What I DO have a problem with is the design used (at least on the English version).

The Main Page… While the other Wikimedia sites (at least in my native English) use simple tables that display well on slower connections, the English Wikivoyage main page is a “dynamic” mess that reeks of dated-as-heck Web2.5 tropes. It would feel right at home on some Fandom wiki about a Netflix show. The immediate predecessor of Wikivoyage, Wikitravel, may have been managed by a company even more corrupt than Fandom/Wikia at their worst, that tried to sue Wikimedia over CC-licensed content, but at least they knew what a wiki main page should look like: https://web.archive.org/web/20100830065847/http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page If I ever became a Wikivoyage admin, the first thing I would do, is try to bring back some variant of the Main Page design Wikitravel used to use.

The logo… the initial logo (the globe of arrows) was kinda decent, but got thrown out because Wikimedia received a legal threat from some sort of UN trademark agency, and was replaced with a Dadaist abomination that has a vaguely totalitarian shape, and looks horribly dated now that the 2010s are over. If I had a say in it, I would bring back the original logo with the globe of arrows, but recoloured in shades of blue to match Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiquote, and Wikiversity, and with the wordmark in a small-caps Linux Libertine font like that used by Wikipedia and Wikisource. 2001:569:BF37:5300:E83F:529:1C41:D24B 02:02, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

2001:569:BF37:5300:E83F:529:1C41:D24B, you don't need to be an admin to propose changes. Admins have no special powers regarding this. You only need to convince the community to vote in favor of the change. As each language variant manages their own main page and logo, you should make your proposal on one language variant.
Personally I have no strong opinion on this. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Personally there is much more to be desired in design, but...it is not easy to do it.

@Alexis Jazz all info is true, except the Admins can help make things happen much faster as they know procedures or absence of them + You only need to convince the community to vote in favor of the change. part is actually super non elegant and hard, as inertia is a might force in Wikimedia. --Zblace (talk) 09:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

User:2001:569:BF37:5300:E83F:529:1C41:D24B, if you have some suggestions of specific changes you'd like us to make, please post them in the Travellers' pub, so we can consider them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:26, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

@User:2001:569:BF37:5300:E83F:529:1C41:D24B This is exactly why you should create an account. You could show us your proposed logo by uploading it into Commons. You can't just rant and hope everything gets better magically. Also, no one can contact you if someone interested to help your idea in the future. If you want to bacome an admin in Wikivoyage then go for it. No one is stopping you to make a real change but yourself. Veracious (talk) 04:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)