Forum talk:Improving the "people-page start page"

Draft outline of way forward
Sifting and synthesising much of what is above, I suggest our structure be as follows.

Create a page (the current sidebar link)
No change to what it says or its destination - Help:Starting pages for people, places, or surnames is the name that covers the three types of page we have most of (and can be extended for references or whatever if Bill or others are keen), so it's the proper target for a broad "Create a page" link. In case it becomes broader than the current three types, or if we want it simpler anyway, we can revert to its earlier name Help:Starting pages.

First target page
Help:Starting pages for people, places, or surnames as mentioned above, bringing back the gist of what got moved to the Guidance subpage, with clear brief directions (aimed at newbies but usable by anyone) sending readers to specific help pages:
 * 1) Individuals, with simple standard layout: Go to Help:Model page for person (which will have just the one inputbox option, using an infobox and other tidy standardizing as discussed at length above - and at some length in the future because we haven't firmed it up yet)
 * 2) Individuals, with specialized layouts: Go to Help:Alternative types of page for individual (which will have all or most of the inputboxes, including the "blank")
 * 3) Places: Go to Genealogy:Place Template (as is now a target of the relevant line; possibly much revised and/or renamed)
 * 4) Surnames: Go to Genealogy:Surname category template (as is now a target of the relevant line; possibly much revised and/or renamed)

Guidance subpage for individuals and other types of page
Keep it as a subpage of Help:Starting pages. Link to it from several pages, including the four targeted above.

Most of its intro will have gone back to the first target page, but can be summarized here.

The rest of it already includes most of what it should have. Here's my summary of how it should be (but anything else that's on it now could be retained).
 * 1) The real help paragraphs can start with help for newbies who are not quite up to handling the few complexities of Help:Model page for person. Maybe a link to an "extra help" subpage of that.
 * 2) It can then go on to emphasize the value of non-duplication, standardization, and Google-compatibility.
 * 3) Finally - at the bottom so that newbies don't feel obliged to read all the way but interested people can find stuff - it can explain some of the more specialized pages that users with a bit more experience may have found or may want to try: Help:Alternative types of page for individual and the place and surname and reference etc etc pages.

Robin Patterson 03:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)