CPC Wiki is great, but... the mainpage still has this link to the CPC version of Green beret (a bad conversion for CPC). And this picture tells "CPC couldn't scroll properly".
Why do we kick out own butt? Xyphoe made so much exciting and wondefull Videos. Can we integrate one on them? (I mean I could do that, but better to ask here before..).
I personally don't mind Green Beret, though I just had to look at that video because of that "CPC couldn't scroll properly" message, thinking - you know what I mean! ??? Perhaps it's simply some poor attempt from someone at YouTube to consequently capture that as a video still as a means of luring people into watching it - if that's the case it's of poor judgement on their part! :(
I agree with TFM the frontage of the CPCWIKI needs a makeover ;) Also the video there at moment might not be the ideal one, maybe a more informative video dedicated to the CPCWIKI would be in place. A video that besides explaining the basic fundamentals of the CPC also explains the idea, concept and structure of the CPCWIKI. (My spoken English is even worse than my written, any native speakers interested)?
/Ygdrazil
Quote from: Ygdrazil on 09:18, 21 January 11
I agree with TFM the frontage of the CPCWIKI needs a makeover ;) Also the video there at moment might not be the ideal one, maybe a more informative video dedicated to the CPCWIKI would be in place. A video that besides explaining the basic fundamentals of the CPC also explains the idea, concept and structure of the CPCWIKI. (My spoken English is even worse than my written, any native speakers interested)?
/Ygdrazil
Your written English is good. I understood it well.
I agree with both TFM and Ygdrazil, the wiki frontpage does need a makeover.
Ygdrazil has a good point, perhaps the frontpage should showcase great Amstrad games.
I think having news there is ok, but it's not always up to date, perhaps link direct to the rss feed in the forums?
Make the forum link even more obvious, make it a larger font compared to the other links perhaps?
I think what we want the frontpage to say is:
"Come visit our vibrant forum and enjoy talking about CPC and read about new game, demo and hardware developments"
"Talk with other knowledgable CPC users, they could help you to make a game, utility, demo or hardware"
"The CPC wiki has a wealth of information covering cpc, hardware and games"
"The CPC has some really good games"
This will bring people in!
I sort of imagine the CPC Wiki Main Page looking like a front cover of an Amstrad Magazine. Naturally it would be bigger cause there's more here than in your standard Magazine, though the purpose of a front cover is to hook you into whatever it is your doing! ;D
I noticed that the link for Blue angel 69 which goes to the forum shows the last post on that forum, and when reading it, that doesn't make sense.
Perhaps it should go to the first post, or perhaps it should link into the wiki itself with it's own game entry?
Just something to consider for future releases.
I am sure most users would see this, want to click it and see the "released" message along with a download.
Perhaps we need an announcements forum thread?
Ok finally, on other forums I've see a "Say hi" thread where new users can go and say hello and give some info about themselves if they want. This could be something that could help to build this forum? (even if they only come by to post hi).
WoW! That's a big load of great ideas! I would be totally fine when we can just change the Video link to a game that look great on CPC. Then step by step we should realize the mentioned points. Arnoldemu provided a bunch of good ideas ,-) However, I would also mention Utilities, even they are not as desired as games or demos.
Hello guys... thanks for all the suggestions, greatly appreciated. Let me try and take them one by one:
-That specific video is there because it's supposed to be a general video on the CPC. If someone could produce something better we could link to it indeed instead...
-Yes, the front page does need a makeove, but there's only so much you can do with Mediawiki. However, please do give any and all suggestions as to layout and content!
-Re: showcasing the best games: The Wiki is not a Gamebase (though there have been discussions about it), but I wouldn't mind having a section with some nice ones! Any suggestions?
-The News section is indeed not always up to date. What can I say, I can't always keep updating as fast as things go :) However, seeing as it's an open system, anyone can add to it (and some of us do)!
-Making it like an AA cover... not doable with the Mediawiki's layout limitations... :(
-The forum does need some more prominent promotion, this has been discussed before and I have promised I'd do it lots of times. However, now that I'm out of a job (beginning next week) I double-promise I'll do it :)
-Linking to the forum RSS feed is technically possible (I've done it in the past, though it's disabled now), but fetching all those hundreds of posts would make no sense. On the other hand, as Arnoldemu suggested, we could have an "Announcement" board. But: a.this is already there!, b. I don't think I could only poll its specific RSS feed and c. it'd be awkward to announce something there and then go someplace else to discuss it... :(
-@Arnoldemu: Anyone can open a new thread for those "Hi!" occasions! I'm not sure I see much point in adding it to the wiki's main page though?
What I see from all these suggestions, and I like it, is that you guys feel there should be more of an interaction/connection between the wiki and the forum. So keep those suggestions coming!!!
Quote from: Gryzor on 10:22, 22 January 11
-That specific video is there because it's supposed to be a general video on the CPC. If someone could produce something better we could link to it indeed instead...
That may be right... but if somebody navigates to the CPC Wike the first time in life, the first thing you read on this picture is 'cpc can't scroll'. This is nice for c64 users, so they got one reason more to tell dirty jokes about us.
Now, guess you can take any other youtube video, that does't kicks cpc's butt.
Change that Video and I can sleep better :-X
Sorry I did say to make it look like the front cover to an Amstrad Magazine, though what I was trying to suggest is making the front page to the Wiki offer the same kind of appeal as a front cover to an Amstrad Magazine would (not necessarily the look of it).
As you stated there's layout limitations, though what you've got there at the moment with the boxes should be sufficient. The menu on the Left hand side is obviously necessarily and fulfill it's purpose, though the stuff on the right is somewhat descriptive, when you look at something like AA, the front page would be a summary of everything in that issue, though the rule is it's not running into all the details, on that main page for example is "CPC Related News" followed by all that News, instead of:
"CPC Related News
Check out the Latest News Here..."
for example. And then you have an easy means to taking those to a page of it's own.
The other things like what the CPC is about, Did you know, Being an Author, Where CPC Users are from, could all have their own pages like the News. Other Sections - perhaps something along the lines of being involved in the Community which could open up doors to things like this forum, though it could expand out to opportunities which need doing within the Wiki, though could branch out to Programming, Hardware, Demos - again it would be all summary based.
There just some thoughts though. :-[
Regarding the video - if you guys feel so strong about it feel free to change it :D
Quote from: Gryzor on 10:10, 23 January 11
Regarding the video - if you guys feel so strong about it feel free to change it :D
We could end up with a different video every week and people "dropping by" just to see what "this weeks" video is, and maybe staying to search through the wiki.
I'm more than happy and definitely interested in making a 'best of the Amstrad' video for sure ... that's a great idea, something that's been in the back of my mind to do for a while.
I would want peoples input on this video though, because what I may class as the best bits someone else will have a differing opinion.
Perhaps I'll make a new topic for the Amstrad's Greatest Hits vid :D
(Thanks TFM btw! 8) )
It would be awesome if you can do that!!! ;D ;D ;D
Sorry to be that dumb, but what is so bad with current front page ? As a reminder, CPC Wiki is a wiki ; which has to be considered as using wiki standards and not as any other multimedia website.
Quote from: norecess on 04:10, 24 January 11
Sorry to be that dumb, but what is so bad with current front page ? As a reminder, CPC Wiki is a wiki ; which has to be considered as using wiki standards and not as any other multimedia website.
I agree, but first impressions also count ... certainly the 'Forum' link needs to be prominently advertised as this is a major chunk of the site and people may miss it. If you weren't actively looking for a forum on here you'd easily miss the small text links.
Quote from: Gryzor on 10:22, 22 January 11
-@Arnoldemu: Anyone can open a new thread for those "Hi!" occasions! I'm not sure I see much point in adding it to the wiki's main page though?
Sorry for the confusion, this was an idea for the forum itself.
a special Hi section where new people can come by and just say hi - provided of course it's to do with the cpc ;)
So in effect its a "hi I am an old cpc user" or "hi, I just discovered cpc for first time".. that kind of thing, not posting "hi I love cpc, visit my drugs website for viagra" ;)
QuoteCPC Wiki is great, but... the mainpage still has this link to the CPC version of Green beret (a bad conversion for CPC). And this picture tells "CPC couldn't scroll properly".
this is just a bad coincidence as the youtube "picture" is taken at the middle of the video, and this just show this...
Perhaps there is a way to tell youtube what preview picture to show.
Otherwise just cut a few seconds (or add) to the video so it don't come to this specific picture where it stat "the CPC couldn't scroll properly (which is not exactly true) and display GreenBerets who was infamous for this (not that a bad game otherwise...).
end of the line.
Also there was a debate concerning the fact that the forum is not that easy to go to from the CPCwiki main page (it is written perhaps a bit too small)...
There is a kool "the CPC wiki" banner available from the CPCwiki and the Forum (I can see it right now...) : on the top-left part of the screen...
(http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9310/logoky3.png)
Why not adding a second one for "the CPC wiki's forum" ?
This would be the simplest way if this is possible.
Quote from: MacDeath on 05:38, 28 January 11
this is just a bad coincidence as the youtube "picture" is taken at the middle of the video, and this just show this...
Yes, right, it's just bad luck! But that's the first picture people see... and it contains a negative message. Bad luck, yes - but we must get rid of it!
Xyphoe will do his best to make a really good video for the Wiki mainpage (I hope it's biasd to promote CPCism ;-)
BTW: bout that vid: It's bullshit to say "CPC couldn't scroll", in proper logical words it should rather say "game XXX couldn't scroll properly" or so... :)
Would be better if the youtube picture displays Orion Prime/Gryzor/Whatever with the message "pure awesomness that C64 can only dream of"
;)
Yeah!!!
I think he agrees.
I think the main page is lacking on graphics at the moment. It may just be the limited size of my laptop screen, but when I load the page, there's only text, I have to scroll down before I see any of the graphics. A new header graphic would be appreciated.
Bryce.
This Redpoint... eh Redbox picture did look nice.
btw: Someone working on a video :-X ?
@Bryce: Hm, maybe move the News pic to the top? Also, maybe we could start a new logo/banner competition? I'd have to dig into my boxes to find some prizes... :)
@TFM: you're referring to the Merry Xmas banner? Long gone :D
Ok, so most of the day today I've been trying to play with different solutions to promote the forum; but, since we promoted the news/photos/video to the top of the page this doesn't look so feasible unfortunately...
So what I was thinking was a small popup, in-page text box. But I haven't found a suitable solution... so I'm asking for your help. Does anyone know of a script that:
-can have links
-does not create, of course, a normal pop-up but rather an in-page pop-up, with jscript or ajax
-uses cookies to remember when a user has closed it?
Thanks,
T
Please no pop-up... I simply hate this when unexpected stuff opens on my screen...
The best way to promote the CPC wiki is to lurk moar on various Retro-Forums... ;)
You probably didn't understand what I mean - it's not a real pop-up but an in-page window-like thing. It doesn't need to be closed and it doesn't steal focus and (hopefully) it opens only once... Kind like the new message notification here at the forum??
Quote from: MacDeath on 04:57, 01 March 11
Please no pop-up... I simply hate this when unexpected stuff opens on my screen...
The best way to promote the CPC wiki is to lurk moar on various Retro-Forums... ;)
Agree totally ;D
You're missing a point - the purpose of a popup or whatever is not to promote the wiki - indeed, for that, the best solution is generated traffic from other sites. The purpose here is to promote the forum on the main page, as has been asked by the users :)
A Google search reveals that if you search the term "Amstrad CPC" you get all the sites with "Amstrad CPC" within the Main Title, CPCWiki seems to be the first one which doesn't have "Amstrad CPC" in the main title of the page (well second actually if you don't count the "CPC Game Reviews" site). As a consequence it's bringing up Wikipedia's description of the "Amstrad CPCs" as the number 1 hit! This page is coming after sites like "CPC Game Reviews", "Old-Computers", "Amstrad CPC Games Resource", "CPCMANIA" even "Amstrad CPC ROMs / Amstrad CPC Emulators" is above this site! ???
There are other forums around which relate to Retro Computing. I go to vintage-computer.com which bring loads of vintage computer collectors together, the problem there is one has to work hard to generate enough interest to create a section for their machines. I was only successful in generating a section for machines which didn't have their own category! Not much has changed since then! ???
Again we're a bit off-topic, but it's for a good cause :D
Yes, you're right about the title. I fixed that yesterday. It doesn't have as much significance as you may think - wikipedia is first because it's the most popular (though I'm not sure how Google handles wikipedia; it's vastly popular, but I don't think that each article is more popular than specialty sites), and after all it doesn't have "Amstrad CPC" in its title :D It really beats me why the other sites come up first (that's why I had asked for specialised SEO help a while back), but you're making a good point - it's worth investigating what they do.
And, yes, spreading the words and link exchange is the best way to go, I agree; this creates organic results and quality interlinking that pushes the site up...
Actually I did a search for Amstrad CPC without logging in to Google, and our Wiki comes up at the 10th place!
-Wikipedia
-Images for CPC
-Videos for CPC
-CPCMania
-CPC Game Reviews
-Old-computers.com
-Amstrad-cpc.de
-TACGR
-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)
-an online ad for someone selling a 464 in Greece (localised results...)
-CPCWiki
Awful...
Quote from: Gryzor on 11:47, 03 March 11
-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)
Home of the "Basic Idea" a tutorial and webpages dedicated to Amstrad basic.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 11:51, 03 March 11
Home of the "Basic Idea" a tutorial and webpages dedicated to Amstrad basic.
Yes, I know. And the article on debugging Basic programs is good, too. But I'd hardly consider it more popular and/or successful... So why?
On Google Germany the CPCWiki comes in 9th place (Obviously that Greek guy selling his CPC doesn't advertise in Germany :D ), Wikipedia DE is first and Wikipedia EN second. Strangely, JavaCPC makes it in at seventh place :) Well done Markus.
Bryce.
Indeed well-done, but done what? Darn... :D
I have started looking into the technical side of things a bit, there seem to be a few things I can do. But AFAIK, no amount of technical tweaking will get you there - it's the content that does it, and content we have; hence my puzzlement....
Maybe it's more to do with the way you advertise this site. I'm getting CPCWiki in 8th spot now, though the competition is steep. Nich's game reviews are probably doing so well cause he's only dealing with Games for the CPC, old-computers.com, Wikipedia are large websites which deal with a broader audience, old-computers are catering a website dedicated for anyone with an old computer (Amstrad's are only a small minority part of their museum! ??? ), Wikipedia maybe at the top cause their catering for everyone (regardless)!! ??? CPCWiki has just moved up a couple of places and Sean McManus' website has gone down. I'm not sure if a slogan would help - I thought I noticed one on a few of those link pages, though wasn't sure if a search engine would utilise that if you included one, describing the site as "all things CPC related", that might have been the process in the past, sometimes to get to the top or near it, they want money don't they? ???
No, they don't want money - and even if they did I doubt any of the retro-sites would be paying Google off :D
Anyhow, I *hope* that the reason you gave is not true because it doesn't make much sense promoting bigger sites in their results when smaller sites are more relevant... if nothing else, Wikipedia would come first in about every single topic!
ight now even Sizin Amstrad comes before the wiki, which IMO points to some weird logic from Google... true, its url is amstradcpc.com, but so what?
I wish we had some stats from the other sites as well.
As I said, I'll study those that come first a bit and see why they are there. Hope I get a glimpse...
Gryzor wrote:
No, they don't want money - and even if they did I doubt any of the retro-sites would be paying Google off :D
Obviously, I should of made a better attempt of hiding my deliberate mistake, instead of sticking it at the end! :P
Anyhow, I *hope* that the reason you gave is not true because it doesn't make much sense promoting bigger sites in their results when smaller sites are more relevant... if nothing else, Wikipedia would come first in about every single topic!
Hmmm perhaps, a search for "Search Engine" in Google returns "1. Dogpile", "2. Bing", "3. Web Search Engine - Wikipedia" & "4. Google". Maybe it's "Google's" way of not making their site the pick of the bunch! ;D Yahoo on the other hand returns "1. AltaVista", "2. Web Search Engine - Wikipedia", "3. Search Engine Guide", "4. Search Engine - Image Results", "5. Dogpile", "6. Bing", "7. Google", "8. Yahoo". Bizarre!
ight now even Sizin Amstrad comes before the wiki, which IMO points to some weird logic from Google... true, its url is amstradcpc.com, but so what?
Guess it's really a matter on what search terminology you're using. If I say "programming+Amstrad" I get Sean McManus' website in first and second position, followed by something on the CPCWiki - the top one being "CPC Plus Sprite Format" page, followed by "BASIC programming on the Amstrad Computers", put "Amstrad CPC" in commas and CPCWiki is the top hit! ;)
Small sites like mine don't even show in those lists, so if their in there, their right back. My site only really comes up if you specifically type in certain keywords, "pascal" being one "Amstrad" another, though if I do "Turbo Pascal 3" it comes up in the first page (towards the bottom), though I couldn't find it when I searched it as "Turbo Pascal".
Larger sites like these you probably better off typing an activity to go with "Amstrad CPC". Terms like Hardware, Software, Games, Programming would probably give this site more precedence over a "Wikipedia" page about the computer, so a broad search term would return a broad search result about the topic which is probably why Wikipedia takes precedence in that case.
I wish we had some stats from the other sites as well.
I'm not sure how well my old site went (when it was on Geocities), though I know it was extremely difficult to get it up on Google, maybe cause it wasn't setup as a Website as such and it was on a provider which was affiliated with Yahoo. My current site does better cause it's coming up in Google, not that it's bring them in by the dozen, though from people who are specifically looking for that kind of site are picking it up. My website clearly isn't packing them in like this site would be, though with the right search terminology it can be the #1 hit in Google! 8)
Quote from: Gryzor on 11:47, 03 March 11
Actually I did a search for Amstrad CPC without logging in to Google, and our Wiki comes up at the 10th place!
-Wikipedia
-Images for CPC
-Videos for CPC
-CPCMania
-CPC Game Reviews
-Old-computers.com
-Amstrad-cpc.de
-TACGR
-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)
-an online ad for someone selling a 464 in Greece (localised results...)
-CPCWiki
Awful...
Well, in Spain a lot of people names the CPC as "the Amstrad", but the Spectrum is "the Spectrum" (not the "Sinclair"). I think a little change similar to "The Amstrad CPC-Wiki" in the name of the page could enhance this site and make it "visible" for more people.
You could be right on that subject. If you search "Amstrad" in google, the Amstrad.es pages comes on the top of the list in front of the mighty Wikipedia, and the cpcwiki comes out as the last entry of the third page...
I'm really not sure that Google uses the "the" article...
But, interestingly, if you search for "The Amstrad CPC" on Google.co.uk the wiki comes up 4th, while if you search for "Amstrad CPC" it comes up 8th.
On googlegr the results are 4th vs 11th. Argh, it doesn't make much sense...
@robcfg: you're in Spain, so it makes some sense giving you amstrad.es as the first result!
Strange !! :D But I don't mean the article "the" but the "Amstrad" word.
Ah. But "Amstrad" has alwasy been in the title :)
Mmmmm.... I see...
Maybe if we had a landing page in spanish with a title like "CPC Wiki - La web más completa de Amstrad", we could boost the site on the spanish searchs.
Just guessing... ;)
Mmm! Good point! English, French, Spanish, German? But maybe not the title but the description and keywords?
If you need a translation, let me know.