This sounds good @PierPiero! 
Makes a lot of sense and I feel the points are valid. Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts @Salmon_Songs !
I don’t use the Wikipedia nor MB start pages so I would not say it does not do well.
I use online encyclopedias just like I use paper dictionaries, I search them directly*, I don’t read their table of content more than once, after buying them.
* Through DDG !bangs for simple ones, through some saved browser advanced search engines or simply browsing from one of my collection entries.
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My point is that for someone who might be interested in this encylopedic usage, but is not an experienced user, the homepage does not do a good job of introducing the kind of information that is available in MB.
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Would be a dream to have the “Did you know?”, i really enjoy reading them on Wikipedia.
(But would require a smart IA or a way to input them, CritiqueBrainz?)
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The homepage would be better if it successfully prepared naive users to not expect that adding analog information to a predefined-fields database would be an intuitive experience and that their current IT skills will likely be sufficient.
A strobing red<->green background, a loud emergency siren and an overlayed box that flashes alternatively “You will fail 50 times” & “Your expectations are the problem here” might be off-putting to some new users so I feel something slightly more subtle would probably be better.
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Site users don’t necessarily have to be editors and, due to the issues of the missing hierachy in the area and genre information, even experienced users can’t get a full list of artists based on specific inputs, for instance.
Not to mention the complexity of the advanced query syntax for non-techies or the limited functionalities of the user interface, which doesn’t even allow to sort the search results alphabetically, by year and so on.
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+1 to this, it’s quite frustrating. I think it’s something that needs to be done ASAP.
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To consider how other sites are evolving, take a look at the “Chart builder” included in Sonemic, RYM’s new site.
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@aerozol I would love to get in touch with you. The work regarding this will start in early September, which isn’t far off now. You have been of constant help and I would love your suggestions at each step as I move forward. Please consider joining the #musicbrainz channel on irc.libera.chat. Thank you!
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If we’re also spitballing more general wishes for a website redesign, I would again come back to the search form I mentioned earlier.
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Remove the confusing choice between three different search types.
Choosing between the search types requires technical knowledge that should ideally only be relevant to the people running the Musicbrainz servers. Especially “Direct database search” feels like a holdover from the time before we had fast indexing. Having the advanced search options should be the default, IMO.
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Add a UI for the advanced search filters.
They are potentially very powerful for finding what one is looking for, but the currently used syntax is extremely undiscovered and barely usable for people who are not already programmers.
I created a basic mockup of what I could imagine as a better solution: https://codepen.io/elomatreb/full/JjJjJJv
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Great point @elomatreb ! We have a similar UI to the one you proposed in the MB Android App.
Thanks for the suggestion, will take this into account!
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Yes! I always forget those are there, and when I do remember, they’re sometimes difficult to get my head around, especially for advanced advanced searches… 
I also second more prominent links to the forum as well as the other projects (BB, AB, etc.). I feel like I scoured the website for a forum a couple months ago, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Ended up just happening to notice the link tucked away at the bottom of the page in that tiny font.
I’m sure you’re probably talking about the search bar at the top of the page, not the search bar when you’re adding relationships and whatnot.
I use that all the friccin’ time 
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I use Direct as often as Advanced search, I think it should stay. 
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