If you could add one thing to Bulbagarden...

[Dratini927]

Well, you do have some categories of general things in the upper right corner of the Pedia front page (Anime, People, etc.) That could be classified as "content portals" in a way. But more general things to browse could work too.

 

[Koroku]

In terms of a PokeDex, I'd say leave it in the pedia, but format it differently. Do some categorized lists, so that people can find the articles. The pedia is impossible to navigate.

For instance, to find the PokeDexish page for Bulbasaur, I had to search for it. Not a big deal.

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Bulbasaur

I got that page. I'm sure I'm not the only one that skipped right down to the bullet points, and completely missed the link to the PokeDex page. It was the last one I saw - and the only reason I actually did see it is because I knew that it had to be there. Someone that hasn't used a pedia before won't.

The format of that page alone shows how complicated working the pedia is. There needs to be some way to make the pedia more newbie friendly, so that we know where to look and how to look.

A good way to do this would be to edit the navigation bar so that it actually links to *useful* stuff.


...and of course, BMGf would be 200% better if this sexy ninja here had an italic name.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

Or if I also had an italic name, while we're on the subject. XD

And yes, I would very much like that to happen. ^^


Anyway though, as for making the site better......

I say we either:

1. Give Bulbagarden regular Pokemon site stuff, such as a Pokedex, episode pictures, episode guides (maybe?), and of course the next episode sidebar thingy. XD

2. Bring back the regular Bulbagarden site, which I LOVED because it had so many great things on it (lol, just kidding, I know you wouldn't actually bring back the old BMG for any reason). XD

 

[Archaic]

1. Give Bulbagarden regular Pokemon site stuff, such as a Pokedex, episode pictures, episode guides (maybe?), and of course the next episode sidebar thingy. XD

Well, we do, pretty much. They're just all on the 'pedia. But yes, we do need to make it easier to navigate to these staple pages.

 

[ugobama]

I go with what u ppl say. And Archaiac, u never PM'd me back!

 

[paperfairy]

The Pokédex pages on the Pedia need some serious work, but nothing we can't do. ^_^ d

 

[Argy]

I have only seen the main page when the staff was working on "upgrading" it. I always use individual bookmarks for the forums, 'pedia, and 'news.

And agreed, we don't have 1) episode pics, 2) a pokedex, or even 3) a "On Next" side bar.

1) We link to Filb's pictures in each episode's 'pedia entry.
2) Zhen says he is working on a comprehensive Pokédex for Bulbapedia.
3) See Bulbanews.

...and of course, BMGf would be 200% better if this sexy ninja here had an italic name.

You should have thought about that when you resigned a while back.

i'd personally like to see a salad bar

DDD

 

[FabuVinny]

We had episode pics on the Archives for a while as well. What happened with that?

 

[Zhen Lin]

Terminated, because it took quite a bit of work to do. (All 180 pictures are hand-picked for saliency.) Besides, why bother? It only duplicates what others do. Filb does it at higher resolution and in greater numbers.

 

[Koroku]

You should have thought about that when you resigned a while back.

Remind me not to make a joke here again.

 

[ck920]

You should have an area for the members of this forum could have their websites listed. And I also think you should incorporate the bulbapedia and bulbanews with the forums more.

 

[Archaic]

Hmmm....perhaps a plugin for the forums which could automatically link certain words to the Bulbapedia, or at least make linking to 'pedia pages easier...

 

[Zhen Lin]

It's already trivial. Just use the [bp] tag. There's also a [wp] tag. It's been here for a few months, maybe even a year. Usage notes are here together with the rest of the custom tags.

 

[eX.A.K.R.]

I think we should somehow tie up all the lose pieces of Bulbagarden into one conherent page, as a starting point to navigate this web site, and I personally see Flib.de as a good example of how to do that. It's a very well-designed web site, but pity it's in German, a language not everybody could speak. An idea could be to intergrate specialised but completely seperate and different web sites under Bulbagarden's server into Bulbagarden (such as Dogasu's Backpack)

Another thing: I think we might also try to be more unique, by having something others usually won't, or not having features virtually everyone else is doing. We already have one:I don't think anyone else have such a comprehensive English wiki on Pokémon (Flib.de has one, but it's in German). This is one of our strengths, and I think we need to brainstorm and improve on this.

 

[Archaic]

Now that we're on a new server, there's a few small projects that I'll be enabling for Bulbagarden in the near future, that we couldn't do on the old server due to the load they could potentially have caused had they become big.

 

[Zhen Lin]

This is how Bulbagarden is unique: each part of the site is a specialised and different site run by people who know best how to run that part. Putting a similar look on things is just hiding facts.

 

[ck920]

Yeah, each part of Bulbagarden should be unique but not totally unique. It would be weird to have the sites grouped under the same name but the name would be the only thing they have in common.

 

[eX.A.K.R.]

Intergration doesn't have to mean "slapping the same name on everything". It can be really tying the loose pieces together and eliminating duplication, and thus a more efficient network.

 

[Kasumi]

A solid graphic image is not going to take away the "uniqueness" of each one of our projects, Zhen.

 

[Zhen Lin]

No, but it is trying to give an impression of what isn't there. Can you honestly say that the Oekaki community is the same as the forum community? Or the Bulbapedia community?

Now, as far as I can see, there is no overlap in function between any part of the site, no duplication (save for user accounts, but that is something that can be debated elsewhere, and discussion: almost every part of the site has its own forum-like functionality). Even Archives and Gallery, which are both collections of images, have different purposes and approaches - one is subject-centric: any user can replace an image with another of the same name; the other is creator-centric: each user owns their own images and each image can only be changed by its owner.