My summer vacation is ending :( This Monday I go back to college, back to the textbooks. I'm doing what I can until then, both to prepare for the semester as well as to make sure Acepedia doesn't require me looking at it every five minutes like it did last year.
This isn't me saying goodbye or stepping down or anything like that, for the record. I just won't have the time to spend completely remaking every poor page from 3+ years ago like I used to. :P
If I say so myself, I'm really proud of everyone contributing here. I joined five and a half years ago; I can safely say that, for as long as I've been here, 2015 has probably been one of the best years for Acepedia thus far. (And it's only half done!) And that's not something I'm going to claim for myself or something; It's thanks to all of us, all of you guys that have put in so much effort to make this the best place to browse through the massive history of Ace Combat.
Seriously, pat yourselves on the back. I'm proud of where Acepedia is right now, and I'm really proud to see so many helpful contributors doing their best every day.
No, I'm serious, stop reading and pat yourself on the back. :P
Among the things that I've been working on while I still have the time is a redesign of the Main Page. For reference, this is what it looked like in July 2013, and this is what it looked like exactly a year ago. This is what it looked like a week and a half ago, before the Javascript injection attack against Wikia forced the disabling of Javascript elements. Now that Javascript has been reinstated, I've felt that it's time to come to a final design decision on the Main Page to make it functional and fashionable.
So, I decided to add some section backgrounds and borders to make everything look like they're in their own places rather than just floating around everywhere. The slider has been replaced by a static image gallery, which got praised in the Skype group when I brought it up there. I also made some minor style changes to how the On This Day and Featured Article elements are displayed. The result? Click here to see it live!
Now, this isn't final. (Nothing ever is!) Personally, I'd love to bring back the polls. I don't think I'd like to keep the Infinity calendar from Google due to how annoying it was to update it on my end as well as how out-of-place it looked. I'm not sure what else to add, though; maybe a list of newly-created pages, maybe the latest tweets from the Japanese @PROJECT_ACES Twitter, maybe the latest posts from the English Ace Combat Facebook page, maybe something completely different that I'm too tired to think about right now? Please, make your suggestions for both design and content below! I want to make sure that we have an awesome Main Page that everyone will enjoy.