Hi all,
For a long period of time, due to life commitments on the whole, I haven't been able to contribute to the site as much as I would have wanted to. While I'm hoping that will begin to change, being away for so long has given me the opportunity to check in occasionally and see the site as a casual observer. As a result, I've put together a list of proposed changes/cleanups for the site and was keen to hear others feedback on whether they think they would be useful changes or not...
- Infoboxes
I've always found the infoboxes we've had quite bland. The ones we had
originally fell in line with Corriepedia and the EastEnders Encyclopedia originally but, following a Wikia upgrade
in 2015, we were approached to upgrade our infoboxes to ensure that they were visable across all devices, including mobile and tablet users. I've recently discovered that infoboxes can now be altered and we have a chance to revert back to our original design which, in my opinion, makes them stand out more, makes them more compact and gives them a more polished look.
Please click image thumbnails for examples.
- Images
Some of the articles on the site are too overrun with images for me and I'd be reluctant to use as many images as what we have so needlessly when it's better to err on the side of caution to prevent any issues regarding liscensing. We're a reference first and foremost, not an image gallery and I'd argue that one image per episode page (unless there's specific cause - e.g. tribute messages in the notes sections) which should be a screenshot from the episode and, at most, images on character pages should be around one per biography 'section' and used to break text up more than to be a comprehensive archive. I'd also completely do away with our image galleries to be honest, which largely just recreate images from elsewhere on the site and just clutter things up.
- Character Pages
The vast majority of our character pages need work. I've always considered the character pages to be second to the episode pages as we can largely build up the character pages at a later date from the episode pages. However, we current have a lot of pages that are lacking information or, more importantly, a fair amount that are brimming over with too much information. Character biographies should be informative but brief and easy to read and should sum up events in a character's history rather than providing a detail by detail breakdown. Tense is also a major thing that's going to require a lot of rewrites on here I think.
- Location Pages - Infoboxes
I think completely removing all information regarding 'current' and 'former' residents/employees is better to be removed and use appropriate sub-sections below. I'd limit the infobox to an image and an address.
- Quotes / First & Last Lines and Memorable/Notable dialogue
We've become a bit inundated with random quotes particularly on our character pages and I think there's t
wo possible ways we could go about limiting these so they're easier to maintain. Completely do away with the quotes section on our character pages and, follow in the practice of Corriepedia and just limit to 'First and last lines'. Or, use a quote template which I was dabbling with a few years ago and limit one quote template to each section of a character biography. Examples in clickable thumbnail.
- Episode Synopses
While a good idea in essence, I think they manage to clunk up the appearance on episode pages. I'd argue that if we did use any, we either use the official ITV synopses for an episode and the ones that come from the EPG rather than writing our own. Also, I do wonder if they would be more useful as part of an episode 'guide' (which we could produce either as part of the existing guide pages or seperately) rather than part of the episode page when we're also aiming to eventually have the TvTimes synopses on each episode page too.
- Home Page
I also think we're due a complete overhaul of the main page as well. I think we can lose the poll, unless anyone has any good suggestions for alternative questions and I'd possibly try to rejig things to make everything a little more easily accessible and stand out more. I'm planning on doing some tinkering to prepare a draft for feedback soon so I'll come back to this one as soon as I've got something prepared but would welcome any suggestions.
Any feedback on any of the above and/or anything else would be welcome if anyone has any ideas. I think with classic episodes now drawing more attention to the programme and the site in general, a couple of rollouts of some of the ideas above could help pick up our traffic somewhat and enable us to grow further! Please let me know your thoughts.
Lastly, I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone for all your contributions and time on the site. I joined here in 2013 after previously contributing as a non-registered user on and off since 2011 and some days back then, I was the only editor! It's marvellous to see the site has come so far now that it's got a team strong enough to successfully manage it when you're forced to take a break while life takes over.