Talk:Welcome to MEpedia

Tutorial on Portal pages: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Portals

Contents link exposed to general public?
The main page is attractively laid out with portals, and appealing to a viewer wanting to browse through major topics. However, I’m not sure there should be a link to the ‘Contents’ page available to the general public. My impression of the unsightly Contents page is that it is primarily for contributors, not the viewing public. I don’t see a need for a public-facing Contents page when we already have a great Main page such as this one. Perhaps we could move the ‘Contents’ link to the ‘Contribute’ page instead, so that it's available to contributors there? (Another option is to move the link to the left-hand sidebar under "Tools".) Tagging page editors and administrators for discussion: User:Bill User:JenB User:Brettz9 User:JaimeS User:Ollie Pyrrhus (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2019 (EST)

I have now added a link to the Contents page on the Contribute page, so contributors will have it available there. Pyrrhus (talk) 01:15, 17 February 2019 (EST)


 * I would prefer the Contents link to stay - if you know roughly what you want or want to browse through what's available that is the best place to go. notjusttired (talk) 18:17, 26 February 2019 (EST)


 * Thanks so much for the feedback, notjusttired!
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 20:53, 26 February 2019 (EST)

Treatments Portal
Can the main outline page(s) be added for this plus the link to them? I know how to complete some of the content like Featured pictures and Featured articles but there is no skeleton there.

I think a link to clinical trials from here might be helpful too.

Tagging page editors for input User:JenB User:Brettz9 User:JaimeS User:Ollie

notjusttired (talk) 18:17, 26 February 2019 (EST)

Links on lefthand sidebar
The lefthand sidebar of the main page contains links for the public and links for contributors. Perhaps the links for the public should be on top, above the “Donate” button. And the links for contributors should be below the “Donate” button, labelled “Links for editors”? The top links for the public would include “Main page”, “Random page”, "Popular pages". The bottom links for contributors would include "Contents", “Recent changes”, “Help”. (The lower "Tools" section would continue to include “What links here”, “Related changes”, “Upload file”, “Special pages”, etc.) Thoughts? Pyrrhus (talk) 20:20, 28 February 2019 (EST)
 * Fine by me. Possibly add the most popular pages link? Some of those aren't in the current side bar. Tagging some  other editors for views User:MEandCFS User:Kmdenmark User:Canele User:Hip User:Samsara
 * notjusttired (talk) 06:30, 7 March 2019 (EST)
 * Thanks so much for the feedback, User:Notjusttired! The popular pages link could certainly go above the "Donate" button.
 * Do you think this task would go in the Dev queue or the Admin queue?
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2019 (EDT)
 * I didn't realize there were 2 separate queues. It just needs the order of the lines changing in MediaWiki:Sidebar so I think Admin probably? Tagging others on this too User:JaimeS User:Ollie User:Brettz9 - Njt notjusttired (talk)
 * Thanks Njt! Now all that needs to be done is to replace the contents of MediaWiki:Sidebar with the contents of User:Pyrrhus/MediaWikiSidebar
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 22:34, 17 March 2019 (EDT)
 * Update: I have added 2 more links for the public: List of abbreviations and Glossary
 * I have also added 1 more link for contributors: MEpedia:Pages in need
 * The currently proposed list is available for review here: User:Pyrrhus/MediaWikiSidebar
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 00:00, 29 March 2019 (EDT)
 * Hearing no objections, I am going to request an admin to replace the contents of MediaWiki:Sidebar with the contents of User:Pyrrhus/MediaWikiSidebar
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 12:04, 12 April 2019 (EDT)

Incorrect page counter?
Last year, MEpedia announced on facebook that more than 4500 pages had been created. The page counter on the main page is only 2590. Is the page counter inaccurate or was the facebook count inflated by including category pages, etc? Pyrrhus (talk) 19:15, 7 April 2019 (EDT) The page counter uses a variable called, which counts all pages in the main namespace that are not a redirect or category or talk page, and contain at least one link. This includes stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages. The Facebook announcement obviously included all pages, including talk pages, categories, user pages, etc. Case closed. Pyrrhus (talk) 23:41, 9 April 2019 (EDT)

Search Full Text clarification
Originally, I was confused by the search box buttons. I didn’t understand the difference between “Try exact match” and “Search full text”. I think it would be clearer to new people if we changed “Search full text” to say “Search anywhere”. (Simply add  to the inputbox.) Pyrrhus (talk) 16:23, 26 April 2019 (EDT)