Talk:Main Page

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Mobile site
Home page on mobile is a bit outdated. Is there any way to edit it? Derp Herpington (talk) 19:45, January 18, 2017 (UTC)


 * Mobile skin? Updated it now. :) Monk Talk 21:06, January 18, 2017 (UTC)

Languages in their own language
Swedish should be Svenska, if we follow the same rule as with Deutsch, Español, etc Lord Evil (talk) 15:41, August 3, 2017 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 12:20, September 14, 2017 (UTC)

Link to "Starting this wiki"
Main page has a link to Help:Starting this wiki. Now that there are over 13000 pages, it might be time to say that the wiki has been started. The link should be removed. —⁠andrybak (talk) 00:26, June 15, 2019 (UTC)

App
I don't know if it can be fixed here but whenever I click a vehicle's photo on the app in the "Vehicles in Grand Theft Auto V and Online" article it only shows up with the photo of them. DarkGamer199 (talk) 06:51, October 20, 2019 (UTC)

Wrong language name for Italian
The language name for Italian is wrong, it says "Italiana" instead of "Italiano". Please fix it, thank you.

--Raffox97 (talk) 20:42, January 24, 2020 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thanks for letting us know. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 20:53, January 24, 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for being so fast with the edit :)
 * --Raffox97 (talk) 20:54, January 24, 2020 (UTC)

Main Page June 2020 update
For people not on the Discord or whom prefer this style of discussion, I shall make my case here: your current home page has a lot of core issues. I would like to start with an apology, and I understand any lingering sentiment of "too little, too late". I hope you can appreciate I had the best of intentions.


 * My proposed changes (linking the history because the wikirail is disabled on edit history, meaning you can see how it'll look full-width).
 * I already updated this with some of the feedback I saw on Discord - namely moving the series links up so that GTA V/Online isn't the focal point when you load the page.

The homepage and top-navigation are the only things I deliberately changed. Your homepage I changed in my capacity as an editor - your top-navigation I changed because it's currently bugged and the moment that Fandom fix the bug, you're going to lose half your navigation (and they explicitly asked me to update the navigation in advance of the bug being fixed). I'm sorry for not consulting you on the changes I made to the top-navigation - changes do need to be made, however.

Regarding my changes to the homepage - I'm sorry again that I didn't consult anyone. Web design is something I enjoy and I got carried away.


 * 1) Your homepage is currently heavily skewed away from being useful to readers. You only have 1 navigation section - with the remaining 8 sections being either for editors or contain external links that take readers away from the wiki. Unless your a new wiki - your homepage shouldn't have so many sections dedicated to editors.
 * 2) Your navigation section is broken or badly designed. At the moment, the navigation seems to be drawn at random from one of the available games whenever the page-cache is refreshed. This means that users have the potential to come to the wiki and receive GTA 4 navigation panel - and it'll stay that way until the page is null-edited or the cache is refreshed. I do not know if this randomness is intentional, if it's meant to update more frequently, or whether there's meant to be some sort of tab interface to change the visible game menu - but as it stands it's not good. More than 95% of your traffic is for GTA V or GTA Online - there should always be GTA V and GTA Online navigation on your homepage. You're wasting real-estate pretending that the other games are equally as important. Well-designed navboxes on each game's page should be sufficient for navigating people through old content. (As it happens - mine has been showing me GTA 3 links for the last hour or so.)

A lot of the rage on Discord seems targeted at changes that I didn't (deliberately) make. All I did was updated the top-navigation and remake the homepage, including the creation of new templates for the homepage. None of these changes should have affected navboxes. I would genuinely appreciate being shown where my edits had unintended consequences, or else someone else was making a mess at the same time I was making my edits. 👑 Emptylord (talk) 23:48, June 23, 2020 (UTC)


 * Sandbox Updates
 * New preview with Help section: Link.
 * New preview with Nostalgia section: Link.

Response 1

 * Navigation menu
 * Thanks for the heads-up on the nav menu "# of entries trick" being due to be patched. I will revise it back to the compliant number of entries per menu level. If you check the history, I had recently made several fixes to it when it was non-compliant and the "trick" was only implemented in April when I saw it being used by Tephra (another Fandom wikimanager) on Diablo wiki (as I mentioned in the Discord chat at the time I changed it). I had been considering another overhaul of those menus to change the sort order to latest release at the top of each menu to bring them more in line with "best practice" ideals.


 * Homepage
 * Point taken about the editor-focused panels on the main page. When I started the major overhaul and redesign in January 2020, I kept most of the existing panels implemented by the prior Bureaucrat - which are admittedly more Contributor-focused. That said, I do want to retain some of that contributor (or potential new contributor) focus on the main page. A healthy wiki should encourage editors, not just readers.
 * The Random Title panel is working as I intended. This is the GTA Series Wiki, not the GTAV/Online Wiki so yes, we DO want to encourage visitors to read about more than just the latest title. If you want to promote only the latest game, there's at least one GTAV dedicated wiki on Fandom you can do that on. I won't link to it, given who created it.
 * Removing some of the Contributor-focused panels will free up some real-estate for a panel dedicated to the latest game (which will be GTA Online rather than GTA V by the way). But we don't EVER want the home page of this wiki to look like the wiki is only about one (latest) game.
 * We pride ourselves on being the most up-to-date wiki resource on the entire series. Other wikis that have not kept updated with GTA Online content have withered and died (don't even get me started on Fandom globally blacklisting links to the split GrandTheftWiki contrary to the agreement made when the split occurred).
 * So yes, some of your ideas and points are valid and I will work on implementing them, but your method is what got the red mist flowing, so thanks for the public apology acknowledging that error in judgement. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 00:37, June 24, 2020 (UTC)


 * Response
 * I'm not saying that you cannot have anything for editors on the homepage - of course. Just, it shouldn't be 50% of the page content. For example: Template:Portal/Help. This is a prefab and hasn't been edited for GTA yet. Example of it in use on the sandbox.
 * I am somewhat sad to hear it's [the home navigation] functioning as intended as my criticism is harsh, but I stand by it. Your homepage is one of your most viewed pages - but all of your other most viewed pages are GTA V or GTA Online. As I see it, you're not encouraging people to read more - your just inconveniencing 95% of your readers by forcing them to use the wiki or google search to find specific pages. The individual navigation sections that you're currently using on the homepage could easily be separated into separate templates and placed at the top of each game's article - so if you go to GTA 2 you have quick links to other GTA 2 articles.
 * I don't even think it's good design if you're trying to be a "series wiki". Look at the Sonic Fandom to contrast. If your intent is to treat GTA as a series - you should have series-wide articles about locations, characters, etc, and link them on the homepage. Having separate Locations links per game is still bad design.
 * I still think you should have a section dedicated to 5 and Online regardless of what else you include.

Regarding the fork/duplicate wikis - most of them are closed or candidates for closure, at least of those on Fandom/Gamepedia. There's a few that are hosted by other platforms - but so far as I can tell, you don't really have any competition. You are the resource. You really shouldn't feel ashamed or take it as a personal slight that people only care about GTA Online right now.

👑 Emptylord (talk) 01:27, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

Response 2

 * Apology
 * I would also like to offer my apologies for how rude I came across with my Discord messages. As much as my thoughts about the look of the redesigned main page are negative, it did not warrant the statements I made, so for that I apologize. Besides, I think my "rage" was caused more by the lack of a heads-up or consultation than the actual design itself; a sentiment I'm sure me, Kiwismurf, and other staff members hold.


 * Thoughts on changes
 * In regards to your thoughts on changes made to the Main Page, please allow me to put in my two cents. In terms of the page being directed more towards editors than readers, I can say that I'd generally agree. However, with the sheer amount of both vandals and "accidental vandals" (users who mean well, but do not follow our Policy or MoS), having a large section dedicated to the rules, policies, and needs of the Wiki "drives the point home" to new editors. I will say that your Help Portal is a great compromise from what we have currently in my eyes, but it still should be a prominent part of our page.
 * Secondly, in terms of the amount of main page dedication to GTA V and GTA Online, I will say that I also somewhat agree. However, they way in which you implemented is too focused on the two games, rather than news and updates as with the example you provided with the Sonic Wiki (I hope this is the right wiki you were referring to. Please correct me if I'm linking to the wrong one). Given, a potential news section of our main page would be likely just GTA Online updates, but it should not be solely dedicated to the current generation of the series.
 * Additionally, your example of a [portal for series-wide articles for characters and locations would not work in my eyes, for the fact that the GTA Universe features multiple iterations of characters (El Burro), locations (Los Santos Tower and Maze Bank Tower), and vehicles (Itali GTO) spread across the 2D, 3D, and HD Universes of the series. These items should still be sorted under their respective "universe", and not amalgamated to one page, to me at least. This issue of identically named/designed parts of the series is something that I don't believe (again, correct me if I'm wrong) is an issue with the Sonic Wiki. In fact, we did previously have pages dedicated to listing every character under "Characters By Surname (sorted alphabetically)", but these pages were recently deleted by Noirlime for a reason that I'm not sure of, but I'm sure higher level staff than I can provide.
 * Well, that's my thoughts on the matter. Overall, you may take my opinions with a grain of salt, as I am a relatively new staff member and may have a misunderstanding of the intentions of your proposed changes. Again, I sincerely apologize for the comments I made on Discord. Your changes did not warrant such a negative response from me, especially as many of the changes were not intended. Good day.

BolbiiS (Talk ~ Edits) 02:35, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

No need to apologise.
 * Re BolbiiS

Regarding the need to establish rules - I think it suffices to say that no amount of rules will stop actual vandals. There needs to be a good balance between taking reasonable precautions against ill-doers and having precautions that are a hindrance to everyone else. Most ill-doers aren't unaware of what they're doing. But I'm glad you agree there's an excess as it stands.

That is the correct Sonic Wiki. I confess that I used it solely as an example of what a good "series" wiki looks like - I did not mean to imply that it was necessarily an appropriate direction for GTA Wiki. I was trying to illustrate that attempting to have full navigation for each game on the homepage is not an attainable goal - you either need to have a series-spanning navigation or a game-focused navigation.

That said, I'm not sure that having a single article for El Burro would be bad assuming that it's the same character. As with, say, an article on Sylvannas from the Warcraft IP - you'd just have a history section with what they did in different games.

👑 Emptylord (talk) 03:40, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

Response 3
I've updated the nav menu to fit as much content as I can within the limitations again. It means a generic "Content & Gameplay" group heading which I dislike (and is contrary to "best practice"), but it's better than removal of those components.

Believe it or not, I pay particular close attention to the Special:Analytics Admin dashboard stats, so much of my prior redesign of the nav menu was to reflect Reader preferences. High traffic pages, high search terms etc brought to the forefront of the navigation options.

Analytics was also why the main page Featured Title element was built the way it was, so that every title button would appear sequentially on the Mobile homepage (after the mobile skin elements when the reader taps to "view more"). Again, perhaps an argument could be made to reverse that sequential order so the latest title is shown first.

I agreed that the Main Page had too much contributor focus. One or two components are sufficient. Bear in mind the "Bulletin Board" could have any sort of message, not just the current "remove gameplay tips" message, it would usually be the outcome of recent discussions/decisions on the GTA Wiki:Community Noticeboard about wiki content though.

We had a news element, but it was not maintained, so was embarrassing to have featured on the main page when it was months or years out of date, so I removed it as part of the last redesign.

When I say GTA Series wiki, it is intended to have the same in-depth level of detail for every individual game in the series, not just be an over-arching "series" focus. So no, generic series "list" pages are not the content we are aiming for here. Comparing the GTA wiki to Sonic? Try other mature content titles - Fallout (nukapedia), Diablo, Elder Scrolls etc, they are our peers, not sonic or animalcrossing.

The wiki is a long-term project covering a long-running series. We probably have a bit more of an understanding of the two distinct elements of the "GTA community" that make up our audience than you or the current raw numbers suggest.


 * 1) The casual gamer, for whom the current GTA title is flavor-of-the-month on their play list - probably (currently) the majority of the consumers of the wiki content. Highly probably under-age children. Unlikely to buy or play older titles.
 * 2) The long term "fans" of the series, own more than two titles, many of whom treat [ insert current title here ] as an affront to the series' credibility (and have since San Andreas really), until the next title comes along and the prior title is then elevated back up the credibility hierarchy.

The population of Group #1 has increased significantly, especially in the past month since GTAV/Online was given away free on Epic's store.

Group #2 are our potential editors, provided we can capture their attention and we can encourage them enough to stick around, get them to click-through to multiple articles (we know how important that is, right?). If we are reasonably credible/reliable to them, and we have content focus on all the titles, they may start to contribute their knowledge, not only to the current game but the older ones too.

Both groups contain an inherently anti-social sub-group that are attracted by the actual game content that make the wiki prone to vandalism (probably more than the aforementioned other mature game series from what I have seen over the past 6 years).

However, the change to the development cycle of the series as a result of the unprecedented continuing success of GTA Online and its updates has changed the traditional balance and long term life-cycle of the flavor-of-the-month titles on the wiki. We are still coming to grips with how to handle that vs having our traditional "downtime" between releases to catch up on other game content.

Our WAM score is still pretty respectable (it has taken a little bit of a hit in the last month though), I don't think we're doing too much wrong.

In short, Fandom staff may want us to be more attractive to the kids and try to be a de-facto social media site (article comments?), but we value our credibility as an overall information source first and foremost. Perhaps you should also read up on the History of the wiki and also look into GTAForums to understand the credibility argument and the so-called "fork/duplicate wikis" which are still the "competition" hosted on other platforms (named above - I can't link because of Fandom's petty blacklist of the url). Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 04:10, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

I don't have much more to say. I'm glad that you've acknowledged the issues and hope to see improvements.
 * Response

One thing I did want to comment on was your elitist comment against the Sonic Fandom. I wasn't comparing the game content of the two titles: I only meant it as an example of a well-constructed wiki with with no specific focus. The desire here isn't "kid friendly" - the goal here is user friendly. Your comments on maturity and your comment that GTA V/Online players are "kids" or fairweather players does have worrying implications about your motivation.

But, as you wish... let's look at the Elder Scrolls Fandom. The top-navigation is ESO | Skyrim | Other Games. Their "general" navigation is a list of the games and then links to "characters, locations, questions, items, factions, mechanics and lore" for the entire series. Diablo is the same, except Diablo is currently fortunate that there's only 4 games in the series - so they don't need an "Other Games" yet. 👑 Emptylord (talk) 12:07, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

I have updated the Sandbox with a nostalgia/want more/flash back section. 👑 Emptylord (talk) 12:31, June 24, 2020 (UTC)


 * As mentioned on Discord, the main page overhaul I started in January was paused in late April when I got side-tracked into the Fonts exercise and I was remiss in not returning to the main page when the fonts hit a licensing issue. This left it incomplete. As mentioned, I will take some of your input on-board in the continuing redesign.
 * A couple of rebuttal points though:


 * Diablo wiki's nav menu - as mentioned, that's where I copied the "number of entries" hack from. Tephra is going to have to sacrifice his menu when the hack is patched so "only 4 games in the series" will become a problem for him too.
 * The comment about Sonic wiki wasn't meant to disparage that wiki or that particular game, but if you can't acknowledge that there is a difference between the intended audience for "mature" content and "G-Rated" content, then Fandom has more of a problem than can be covered here.
 * I am probably in a very small minority of GTA fans that has never played a "mature-rated" title illegitimately as a child, I was in my late 20's when the first GTA game was released. I am also probably in a parental minority of not allowing my (now adult) children to play them until they were "of age" either. So yes, I do have a very personal problem with under-aged consumption of mature content and make no apologies for my law-abiding position.
 * Nostalgia? You are still clearly missing the point.
 * Thanks for your continued input, as stated, some of which will definitely be implemented. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 00:55, June 25, 2020 (UTC)

Re:Rebutals
 * 1) Fair. Then yes, he will need and update too and I imagine they will combine 1 and 2 into an Other Games header.
 * 2) The target-audience was not relevant to the point I was making. I was comparing how two different communities have addressed the challenge of scope. The fact they've made theirs more colourful to "appeal to children" does not factor into the usability issues I was raising. That said - Fandom as a platform generally caters to a specific demographic regardless of game. The Sonic Fandom is colourful because Sonic is colourful - making accomodations for the "target audience" of the game is wasted effort because the target audience of a wiki is not the same as the target audience of a game.
 * 3) I'm sorry. I assumed you were using the term "kid" as a pejorative to describe a type of player you do not approve of, as an alternative to other expletives that are more widely frowned upon. I thought you meant "kid" as in immature/unsophisticated. It sounded like you were looking down your nose. I did not realise you actually thought that children were browsing this wiki. At no point did I meant to imply that you should cater for children and, as mentioned in my previous point, that's not actually something you need to take into account - your readers aren't children. The Sonic Fandom is used by the same demographic as the GTA Fandom - you both have the same readers.
 * Am I meant to understand from this that you all deliberately trying to make this wiki appeal to "maturer" audiences? Or, perhaps the opposite, that you're deliberately trying to make the browsing experience tedious so that "kids" will be put-off?
 * 1) Again, I apologise. Your previous comments really come across like you're some lofty/elitist hipster looking down at the "lesser" players. "I liked GTA before it was trendy and I don't care to cater for people who are just partaking in a fad". My response was, in large part, trying to cater to the person I was imaging you as. You seem to hold past content with reverence, so I used the term "nostalgia". However - I think that the majority of readers who are consuming old content will be doing it for nostalgia reasons. I genuinely don't think you're going to encourage people to read articles about GTA 2 just by having them linked on the homepage.

That said, I do not think my choice of words (such as "Nostalgia" and "Play Now") should be used against the design, though. They could easily be substituted for "Other Titles" and "Rockstar Links". I must confess that (a) I was working from my own prefabs that were designed for a generic "player" demographic and (b) a lot of my design choices come from a web design background and the basic theory is about making people stay on your website. 👑 Emptylord (talk) 01:56, June 25, 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the understanding, yes I literally meant children. If I'm honest, I know that kids have always played the games in vast numbers, but 5 minutes in GTA online voice chat should expose you to the level of "squeekers" we are dealing with these days. :(
 * I think you're still underestimating the "currency" of older GTA titles for the GTA "fan" though. Some of the responses you saw on the Discord (e.g. from Slash) are typical of our community, they are not outliers. GTA V/Online is the current "bastard-child" for a significant proportion of the GTA Fan community, and yes, there probably is a significant element of elitism in that point of view, but it's been present as far back as the release of GTA San Andreas, and perhaps even earlier.
 * However, as I alluded to above regarding the change in long-running currency of GTA Online as the "active" title, we have to acknowledge that our subject matter and audience changes and we have to move with the times a little bit. But we will not do so at the cost of alienating our core long-term audience and/or our (perceived) credibility.
 * That's why I've said I was willing to compromise and have a dedicated section to GTA Online (the current title) on the mainpage as well as the "random featured title" element. We have the same core aim - to capture our visitor's attention and get them to click-through to more than whatever individual page/fact they came to see. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 02:33, June 25, 2020 (UTC)

Just on the point about "it's a common opinion on Discord"... it's... uh, "the community" (aka the editors) are a different breed. My main wiki is League of Legends and it might surprise you to know that the majority of "the community" are lore-buffs. It's an uphill battle to keep the League of Legends Wiki from becoming a Runeterra Story Wiki. I can appreciate that it's hard to consider "the readers" as important when they don't edit or converse; and that it's easy to design just for the people you know. Perhaps my position as an outsider makes it too easy for my to forget about the community, though. It's a hard balance - especially since it's the editors that make the world go around. 👑 Emptylord (talk) 03:02, June 25, 2020 (UTC)
 * Major update work completed tonight using the template framework.
 * All external links are now confined to the right side column (the "Rail position" on normal pages).
 * Editor-focused "Help" section is at the foot of the page.
 * Prominent section devoted to "current active traffic audience".
 * Will work on making the "random featured title" element fit cleanly into that framework tomorrow. Smurfy: illuminate - communicate - spectate 12:38, June 25, 2020 (UTC)

why was the main page reverted
I liked the last revision it was useable I missed the argument on discord thought I even sent a message to Emptylord praising him then it was reverted back to the broken revision and it was protected and Emptylord had to explain himself the issue here is the wiki is stuck with a broken main page all because a Bureaucrat decided to beat his chest and assert his authoritah. Owen 01:22, June 25, 2020 (UTC)

Main Page
the new Main page is much better and the addition to the lucky wheel is very useful to players on GTAO and readers alike I said things that needed saying and I am happy something positive happened Owen 10:53, June 25, 2020 (UTC)

Typo
I just wanted to point out that there's a minor spelling error in the description for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. There's the word 'inbetween' which is incorrectly spelled as 'inbwteen'. Can a staff member please fix this? Thanks. <font size="4" face="Old English Text MT">Andy A. (Talk · Edits)  02:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)