Talk: Wiki-navigation

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wiki-navigation page. For general discussion, go to Memory Alpha's Discussions or Discord. Click here to start a new discussion on this talk page.

Involvement link[]

I clicked on the dropdown "Memory Alpha" sub-heading "Involvement" and it went to the now-deleted page [[Memory Alpha:Pages to be...]]. What should the link's destination be changed to instead? -LauraCC (talk) 04:29, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

How's that? 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:23, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

That works. --LauraCC (talk) 01:24, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Reevaluating top navigation system[]

Note: About a year ago, I was involved in a suggestion to rework the nav system that was ultimately rejected. My views on this topic have changed a fair bit since then, so this proposal is very different from that one.

It seems to me that the current organization of MA's top navigation is unintuitive and doesn't help our readers find what they are looking for. I'm fine with the first nav menu (Portals) and the final one (Memory Alpha), but the two between them need some work. We currently split the shows up by century and then list all the main characters for each, as well as the ships, films, and even undeveloped/abandoned projects. It's likely that the numerous sub-menus make it hard for average readers of MA to find what they're looking for, especially when Seven of Nine isn't listed under VOY, for example. Now, I understand that the reason things are the way they are is to maximize the number of links we can include without going over the limits, but I don't think completeness should be the objective here. Instead, we should focus on creating an intuitive and simple nav system that gives users links to pages they are actually trying to get to.

Judging by the most-visited pages on MA, I'd say that people are primarily looking at series and character pages (which makes sense). So we want to include those links, but ideally we want to avoid sub-menus whenever possible to keep the nav system relatively simple. So, I suggest two new nav menus to replace the "22nd & 23rd century" and "24th century" ones:

"Star Trek" (or, if desired, this could be "TV & films", "Series & films", "Shows & films", or something like that); and
"Individuals".

The first of those two menus would start by listing all the series and/or films on the "Top Viewed Pages" list (available to admins on the analytics page), in order from most to least popular, then from there it would list additional series/films starting with the most recent until we get to six. The seventh item would link to Portal:TV and films and would say something like "More". So, currently this list would be:

That's because TNG, SNW, DS9, and VOY are the most popular out of all the series and film pages, and S31 and PRO are the next most recent.

The "Individuals" menu would start by listing the most popular main characters from Star Trek (again, determined by the Top Viewed Pages list), followed by the lead character from each series/film in the order we derived above, until we get to a total of six. Then the seventh item would link to regular cast and display something like "More". So, currently this list would be:

That's because TNG > SNW > DS9 > VOY > S31 > PRO is the order we got for the shows/films above, but Pike is on the Top Viewed Pages list, so he is listed above all the rest.

I think this system is more intuitive and useful than our current system. If we decide to go forward with this, I'll make sure to drop by periodically to update the links as needed. Feedback is welcome, particularly with regards to what to call the first of the two menus I'm proposing: one of the options I listed above, or maybe something else entirely. I lean toward "Star Trek", myself. Anyway, thanks for reading this, and I look forward to receiving your feedback. LLAP 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:37, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

In general, I like the idea, but I dislike that films, by definition, will essentially vanish off of that list.

I think I would prefer an entry that's simply "Star Trek films" somewhere in that list, even though no film will make that top-viewed list unless it's a month or so out from production or just released. -- Sulfur (talk) 16:46, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

That's fine by me. #6 on the list can link to Star Trek films, and #7 can be the "More" link I suggested above. Sound good? Also, are you fine with calling that menu "Star Trek", or would you prefer one of the other options? 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:51, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

To match "portals", "people" and "productions"? Or would that be too much alliteration? -LauraCC (talk) 16:57, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:16, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. I also agree that "productions" is more clear than "Star Trek" and "people" is better than "individuals." Noel Tucker (talk • contribs • activity) 17:23, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Implemented. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:02, 9 July 2025 (UTC)