Wikipedia:Discuss and draft graphical layout overhauls
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
Caution is required when making major changes to the graphical layout of a page. It is often best to test changes first (in a sandbox page in your userspace, or a subpage of the page in question), and to discuss the proposed change with other editors before making it live. When many users edit a page for layout, different plans can conflict, and the page may get worse rather than better.
This is particularly true of highly visible pages, such as those linked to from the navigation boxes on the left of the screen. These often use intricate formatting to convey their information, and a lot of work has gone into making them as user-friendly as possible. Moreover some pages form groups whose formatting is intended to be uniform. You should not make unapproved design edits to these types of pages. Examples include the Main Page (permanently protected anyway), the Community Portal, the Featured content group of pages, and the group consisting of List of topic lists, Portal:Browse, Wikipedia:Browse, List of glossaries and Wikipedia:Browse by overview.
Note that the color scheme used for portals is not necessarily arbitrary. For example, most portals related to countries use the colors of the nation's flag. Here again, it is a good idea to propose changes on the talk page first.