Talk:Main Page/Old

"Unknown" Category

Should there be a "Misc" catch-all category or perhaps an "Unknown" category?

For example, where would (or could) I place the Time-Life Magazine Toy Camera I own? I don't think Time-Life needs it's own manufacturer category because it was simply a re-branding but I'm still not sure who actually made this camera. --phule 15:13, 21 Jan 2005 (EST)

An "unknown" category makes sense to me. --Lbstone 04:11, 23 Jan 2005 (EST)

I was just going to add an "unknown" category, but after seeing it in the edit preview, I realized it actually makes no sense at all. Think about it: how in the world are you going to list every type of "none-of-the-above" camera there? You could put in the Time-Life camera, but there must be 10,000 other cameras like it as well.

But what would make a lot of sense would be a "toy camera" category; perhaps even a "junk camera" category, which would easily cover cameras like this. (For reference, in case you haven't seen Marcy Merrill's great site, you owe it to yourself to check it out.)

And that's not to even mention another glaring deficiency of this site: nothing about pinhole cameras. (But that's another discussion for another day.)

Film

Shouldn't there be a category for various film types? (i.e., B&W, C-41, infrared, silver types, etc.)

I say go for it. --Lbstone 19:30, 21 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Camera makers

Before people add each and every maker existing or having existed in the past so many years, and there is a bunch, maybe we should make subcategories:

• Digital only makers, ie all the brands that are mainly electronic brands and make digital cameras, (ex. Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba)
• Today's analogical makers (ex. Konica-Minolta, Nikon, Canon), or ex-analogical which went all-digital for their cameras (ex. Kodak)
• Analogical camera makers no longer in activity

--rebollo_fr 23 Sep 2005

My concern is that so many makers are both digital and analog, so it may be a little confusing. In any event, I don't believe the list is too overwhelming at this point. Maybe later on down the road we may have a greater need to group them, but right now I don't see it as a big deal. --Lbstone 13:35, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Well, there are two fewer analog camera makers; scratch Konica-Minolta as they are quitting all cameras completely and selling high end to Sony, and Nikon is ceasing film camera and most lens production for film cameras, just maintaining some accessories.

What about a list of camera reviews? I personally have a hard time finding profs reviews in one site. I mean, I gotta go to different sites to check how my powershot a95 is rated! Maybe a list of sources in camerapedia could work?

Camera Makers vs. Top Camera Brands

I've been giving a lot of thought to the homepage and I think it's best to make a differentiation between camera makers and camera brands. The maker is the company that made the camera, but their name may not be widely associated with the actual brand of the camera. (Take Ihagee (Exakta) for example... I'm not sure that Ihagee needs to be on the homepage... and Exakta should be filed alphabetically under the letter "E".) Since the brand is how everyone knows the camera, I think the homepage should reflect the most well-known brands and display them alphabetically. This way the majority of people will more easily be able to find what they're looking for.

We may even consider splitting the homepage into "Well Known Brands" and "Lesser Known Brands". Although, I'm not sure how we would make that determination. (And it may actually lead to some arguments.)

I also think it would be helpful to link to some of the various categories from the homepage. From there we could link to the exhaustive list of Category:Camera makers, Category:Lens makers, etc. --Lbstone 16:44, 5 February 2006 (EST)

To separate the brands from the makers would not be without problems: Plaubel and Makina are both reasonably well-known (to the point that someone had created a Plaubel 67 page for the Makina 67), which one would we choose? I think today's way is good, the maker's name and the better known brand name between brackets.

I have made an attempt to put in bold the better known brands.

Maybe we could distinguish between the makers still in existence and the other, this should be objective enough. The lesser known brands are mostly lesser known because of their age.

More generally, the site has to address two kinds of demands: the normal user/buyer that buys modern up-to-date digital cameras and does not care too Sandbox Maimuch about the lesser known models, and the user/collector, always happy to discover previously unknown makers and models. Of course both demands are legitimate. This difference will be reflected in the rest of the site: the discussions about the size and contents of the infobox template reflect this, as well as the choice of one page per variant versus one page per family. --Rebollo fr 05:30, 6 February 2006 (EST)

You bring up very good points. I'll be giving this some more thought. --Lbstone 12:40, 6 February 2006 (EST)

An additional thought to add... If I'm looking for a Horizon camera, I'm more likely going to hope to find it under the letter "H" rather than under "K" (for KMZ). It's likely that this will cause confusion for some people. --Lbstone 12:43, 6 February 2006 (EST)

I think that if you're serious about making this into a useful repository of information—that is, an encyclopedia, and not just one guy's hobby site—then you probably want to consider this: there should be (at least) two lists, one of "Cameras by manufacturer", the other of "Cameras by model". Otherwise, as you point out, people looking for Horizon[t] won't find it, as it should properly be filed under KMZ under the current scheme. This problem is only going to get worse as more cameras are added, especially obsolete and classic ones. (I discovered this problem on my own, as I just added an article for the Paxette, made by Braun; I put the camera in the list, which is incorrect the way things stand now.) --ILike2BeAnonymous 15:39, 1 March 2006 (EST)

As you can see from the previous discussion, the current solution is only a compromise, probably not a completely satisfactory one, so feel free to experiment with the main page's layout.
Note however that in McKeown's encyclopedic book about classic cameras, the classification by makers is yet more strict than our current one, to the point that they are listing Pentax under "Asahi", and Leica under "Leitz". Some years ago, they were even listing Rollei under "Franke & Heidecke" and Kodak under "Eastman". But it was considered as an invaluable source of information all the same. --Rebollo fr 19:03, 1 March 2006 (EST)

Well, I might just take you up on that and take a crack at it.

Regarding your comment about a strict classification system, that shouldn't be a problem here; easily handled by helpful references. For instance, "Cameras by manufacturer" entries might look like:

• Asahi (Pentax)
• Leitz (Leica)

I'm sure something workable could easily be done. --ILike2BeAnonymous 20:35, 1 March 2006 (EST)

OK, I went ahead and did it (split into 2 lists, "Cameras by Manufacturer" and "Cameras by Model"). I think this is a lot better. Of course, I'm sure I got some things in the wrong place, for which I apologize in advance; if anyone sees something out of place, you can put it where it belongs.

I also put a TOC in. The only way I could find to do this was with the "__TOC__" directive. If there's a better way, let me know or change it yourself. --ILike2BeAnonymous 21:15, 1 March 2006 (EST)

OK, phew; after adding in camera models from only two mfrs. (Agfa & Zeiss), I can see that the "cameras by model" list may end up being way too big. If it does, how about going to an alpha TOC ("A B C D ... ")?

Also, question about listing models with variants, e.g., the Contax series: how about always having a single page for the series ("Contax") which then lists the variants (Contax I, Contax II, etc.)? The list would only show "Contax", not all the variants.

Finally, another question: why are some of the entries in the list bolded? What does this mean? There's no explanation on the main page text. --ILike2BeAnonymous 21:41, 1 March 2006 (EST)

I have just seen your reorganization. It is interesting but I have the following concerns:

1. the "cameras by manufacturer list" is the first thing people will see, and it is yet less explicit for the majority of people than the previous list (with the brackets, and the bold type to emphasize the better known brands)
2. the "cameras by model list" will grow forever and easily reach hundreds or thousands
3. the whole thing is targeted to collectors only, the average user looking for a review of the latest digicam only finds impossible model names such as Leotax or Colorflex, and will flee from the site. Of course we can add all the digicam model names on the main page, but it will be kilometers long of alphanumeric poetry.

I think what you are suggesting would make a great index page. We could have a link from the main page to the index page, with a comment such as "If you don't find your camera model, please look at the index. Do not add a camera brand to the main page unless you are sure it is not already there."

As you can see, the problem is difficult. As the main page tells much of the whole site, and as we would not want to be qualified as "collectors only" in people's mind, I suggest to revert to the previous version and transfer the new proposals to a separate "Main Page:Working Version". But before that, let's wait for Brandon's opinion. -- Rebollo fr 06:02, 2 March 2006 (EST)

Well, OK, I share your concern about what the user sees on the main page. I don't think this necessarily argues against the organization scheme I used, but it does call for a reorganization of the main page. It might be better if the things near the bottom, like the list of camera topics and types, were at the top instead. That way, the casual user would see links to general information first, before an exhaustive list of camera makers and models.

Recognizing the problem with the size of the list of cameras, the question is, what cameras would you want listed on the main page? Would it be some subset of the entire list? How would you select those cameras? It would seem to only make things more confusing, since you now would have two lists, not one.

I'm leaning towards putting the big list of cameras under an alphabetical index ("A B C D ...") as I suggested before. Another way to make the list more manageable would be to divide it; one logical division that would greatly reduce its size would be to separate digital from film cameras. Any further division (by type, format, physical construction, etc.) might only make it more cumbersome to use, since not many people are knowledgable enough about cameras to even know the difference, say, between a strut folder and a folding-bed camera. --ILike2BeAnonymous 14:53, 2 March 2006 (EST)

I went ahead and changed it again, this time with the alphabetical index as I discussed. This seems to work very well; I'll let others look at it and comment on it. One thing I should say is that I realize that way I implemented this is a total kluge; I'm sure it could be much more easily done by using categories or some other way, by someone who knows a lot more than I about how Wiki-stuff works. I won't be upset if someone changes it. The work was still worth it, I think. --ILike2BeAnonymous 16:33, 2 March 2006 (EST)

It looks good. The upward move of the general info was needed. The A to Z links are useful. Eventually this classification can be managed with categories, I will try to setup that. I would like to reintroduce the bracket thing for some important model names, when they are better known than the maker itself. I will add an explanation with it. --Rebollo fr 10:50, 3 March 2006 (EST)

I have added alphabetical categories for all the cameras that you had listed in the "cameras by model" index. There are still many cameras to categorize. -- Rebollo fr 12:48, 3 March 2006 (EST)

Good, and thanks for doing that. I knew categories would be a better way to organize things.

One little thing: can I rename that list "Cameras by model"? I think that's more meaningful than "Alphabetic list". It says exactly what it is. (And it is obviously alphabetical, so no need to describe it so.) --ILike2BeAnonymous 14:55, 3 March 2006 (EST)

Yes, of course: the wiki is yours! --Rebollo fr 15:24, 3 March 2006 (EST)

Thanks. One more thing; sorry to bug you with so many little details, but one thing that kind of bothers me is that now all camera articles are shown to be in some alphabetic category at the bottom (e.g., "N cameras"). I'm not complaining about the categorization scheme, only that it shows at the bottom of each article. First question: do you think this is a good or a bad thing? (The user could use this to browse cameras that start with the same letter, but how likely is it they would want to do so?) Second question: if it's not a good thing, is there some way to suppress the display of this categories—in other words, put the camera article in the appropriate category but not have it display at the bottom of the page? --ILike2BeAnonymous 17:14, 3 March 2006 (EST)

I have reworked it to make it less obtrusive, with better category names: "A" instead of "A cameras" and so on. It think a little A or B at the bottom of the page won't be disturbing. --Rebollo fr 08:39, 4 March 2006 (EST)

Help!!!

I don't know where else to post this, so I'm putting it here. (Hey, folks, how about a few instructions and hints about things like that, huh?)

I need help with a couple of things:

1. Adding images to an article: no go. I've tried all the following:

• [[image:<image URL>]]
• [image:<image URL>]
• image:<image URL>

(without the angle brackets, of course)

Each does something different, and interesting, but not what I want it to do, which is to just display the damn picture. Actually, all of these "work", sort of, but I see the "[image" and "]" on the left & right sides of the picture, respectively.

So how do you add an image? Your instructions are nowhere near enough to do this. I did figure out the Flickr part of it, and uploaded my pictures there.

Are there formatting options like on Wikipedia that let you align the image left, center, right, all that kind of stuff?

2. Adding an article: The only way I've found to do this is via the address bar in my browser, by constructing a URL that has the name of the article I want to create and "action=edit" in it. Pretty klugey. I've looked everywhere and can find no button, link or anything else to create an article. (Since on Wikipedia you automatically get a link to create an article when you search for one that doesn't exist, I kinda thought that might be the case here, but no.) So what's the secret to doing this? Do you think you could put some kind of simple control somewhere where a mortal human being might have a chance of stumbling across it? Thanks. --ILike2BeAnonymous 23:23, 27 February 2006 (EST)

To add an article, I type the intended title in the search box, and the first sentence is: "No page with this exact title exists, trying full text search.", and this exact title being a link to create the new page. --Rebollo fr 11:28, 28 February 2006 (EST)

Order of Sections on Homepage

Hey all... Looks like some good progress being made here. I made some minor tweaks to the homepage. It seemed like things were getting a little verbose, so I tried to trim it down a little. I also put the camera makers near the top, since that represents the main content of the site. Hopefully these were steps in the right direction. --Lbstone 14:08, 5 March 2006 (EST)