Forum:Page-top navigation menus

As we continue to see new contributors who have apparently read little if any of the main guidance page, I'm proposing to make it slightly harder for them to avoid seeing that page and easier for them to read and remember the really important bits.

Currently the relevant menu and sub-menu are coded thus:

Form:Person|Create article for person

Form:Person advanced|Advanced form (rarely needed) Form:Person|Form:Person Fm-link page creating articles|Help: Creating articles Forum:Data entry without using Form:Person|Semi-manual method

The "Form:Person|Form:Person" line is new. It does exactly what the menu header currently does - i.e. it leads to Form:Person for those now not very common occasions when we want to create an article for a person that cannot be started from an existing link. I've placed it second in the sub-menu so that it should sit just below the header and thus be almost as easy to reach as the header is. That form has its own brief instructions about the really important matters but it can't contain all possible warnings.

I propose to reorient the header (while giving it a more general name, such as "Start an article") to the main guidance page (currently item 3 on the sub-menu). Those of you who follow that page may have noticed that, over recent months, I have been talking of having that guidance page oriented primarily at newbies starting a page. There are distinct advantages in getting the basics right first time - highlighted by our recent "page move bug" which requires a helluva lot of fiddling to restore proper working to a person-page that has been renamed.

The guidance page needs a bit more trimming, with material that's not strictly relevant to the creation of an article moved to the basepage. Both pages are due for renaming more simply though accurately. The guidance page could have a memorable name such as "Help:Starting articles". The other one doesn't need to be so concise but can be shortened a bit. We could trim the guidance page even more by directing place-page-creators to a separate help page. (Phlox would not approve. One page was enough for him... )

Any queries or suggestions?

(PS, if my system conks out again or I seem to be taking too long, please would someone else take up the challenge!)

-- Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:02, November 10, 2015 (UTC)