Talk:Main Page

What can we do to continue improving? Daw44 09:08, 29 January 2009 (MST)

I was wondering if we could include a feature about 'current events' on the main page. This feature could be a listing of upcoming conferences, upcoming workshops, etc. Roys 09:082 29 January 2009 (MST)

I think we can take care of this in the announcements section. I'm not sure reproducing everything on the AAA's website makes sense, but those specific to the Prep track make sense. Daw44 09:38, 29 January 2009 (MST)

I agree. In specific, I think it would be beneficial to have a listing of the upcoming participants on the SOA Workshop schedule. Roys 10:12, 29 January 2009 (MST)

When we get some time, we plan to implement an RSS feed on the announcements. That will still take a bit of time (probably after this semester is over), but it is in the works. We could put stuff like that up. Daw44 13:06, 29 January 2009 (MST)

I think when considering continuing improvement, you have to consider the marginal benefit of what you are doing. Do we have any statistics on how many people are actually using this site on an ongoing basis (as opposed to the 12 thousand something number at the bottom)?--Jlamro 07:04, 11 February 2009 (MST)

I agree that marginal benefit is something important in the continuation of progress on the wiki. Obviously, the wiki is an intended resource for all accounting students, particularly those considering a Ph.D. in accounting. Currently, much of the progress on the wiki has been in adding content to make it an informational resource. Though, to this point little emphasis has been placed on marketing and in making current students aware of the wiki. The Junior Core will be applying for the MAcc program next month and will be determining potential career paths and the prep track as part of the tax and professional routes. Little has been made known to the students in the Junior Core about the wiki's existence. I think we should start some kind of marketing/informational campaign to make current students aware of the wiki and to encourage them to use it. It would not be difficult to create a flier to be disseminated in each of the Junior Core sections with basic details about the Prep Track and with details on how to access the wiki. Also, plans are in the works to create a couple videos that visitors can view. Someone else volunteered to look into the availability of videorecording equipment, and I have not heard anything else about the proposed videos since then. In regards to costs involved in creating and paying for the wiki, there may be some politics involved of which I am unaware. Some of it may result from BYU's receipt of the AAA innovation award in 2007, but don't count me as an authority on that matter in the slightest. - Spuhlmann 19:06, 14 February 2009 (MST)

I think it might be a good idea to link our featured favorites to their individual pages. What does everyone else think? Spuhlmann 20:28, 31 January 2009 (MST)

I agree. Daw44 21:01, 31 January 2009 (MST)

I think it is time to highlight another student. I nominate Spencer P.--Jlamro 07:04, 11 February 2009 (MST)

I put up a new featured student; Spencer P is on the list of the next 4 students that will be up (I'm still waiting to hear back from him).--Emetts 08:50, 11 February 2009 (MST)

I think we aim for a week or a bit more. Jeff did a great job gracing the front page! Daw44 15:35, 11 February 2009 (MST)

Navigation Bar Discussion

• I kind of like the idea of a navigation toolbar for some of the pages. The coding is fairly simple to add to existing pages and may improve the wiki's accessibility. Though, when adding a navigation bar, it is important to determine what page best links to that page for the nav bar; i.e. many of the pages have multiple links and redirects to them. - Spuhlmann

Do you think it would be better on top or on the bottom of the page? I like the ideas of all the links back to the main page and to other pages as that will increase page rank. Daw44 07:20, 17 March 2009 (MDT)

I think maybe the bottom of the page would be best; it might be distracting on top. What do you think Spuhlmann?--Emetts 07:40, 17 March 2009 (MDT)

Most sites put it at the top of the page. I think if we include it, this nav bar would be most beneficial at the top of the page. Though, I agree that the nav bar can be distracting. To keep it from distracting, we could reduce the font size, change the box color, and minimize the size of the box that it is in. A possible change to these would look like this:

Main Page ► Teaching and Service ► How to ask good questions in workshop

I used 2createawebsite.com to play with the colors. About half-way down the page, you can enter a hex color and it shows the color with a couple similar colors similar to it that are both lighter and darker. Down the road, we could potentially do any of these to any of the headers we have posted thus far to improve readability. What do you think? - Spuhlmann I like how it looks, especially with the smaller font. What do others on the site think? Is a navigation bar useful and something that you would want to see on the site? Thoughts anyone? --Emetts 18:27, 17 March 2009 (MDT) Why don't you try and role out the new one (I like the smaller font size) on just one branch of the wiki. Maybe take teaching or research and just do it on those pages...We'll see how it looks, gauge people's feedback and then decide whether to implement full scale or not. You might consider right justifying the breadcrumbs so as to be out of the standard visual path of readers. Daw44 07:19, 18 March 2009 (MDT) I'll go ahead and try it out on Research; there seems to be some branches where it might be useful. --Emetts 09:33, 18 March 2009 (MDT) Suggestion It would be useful to have one page with all the schools where anyone who graduated from BYU is at (track or not), by school, and keep it current. This would be an invaluable tool for all to use, and creating it would have much more marginal benefit than other projects that might be undertaken on this site.--Jlamro 11:17, 27 March 2009 (MDT) We currently try to do this on an individual school's page. We also list where people got their Ph.D. (see University's where Individuals Received their Ph.D.). Finally, on the Current Faculty page we have this information as well. If these don't work what are you envisioning? Maybe a page like the Current Faculty page but sorted by University? Daw44 12:10, 27 March 2009 (MDT)