User blog:Najevi/My wish list for blogs at Wikia

In no particular priority order:


 * Preview for comments: this will improve the quality of comments left by users and it will avoid the premature reaction to any inflammatory comment (comments currently need to be posted before they can be reviewed and edited by the author of the comment)

@najevi - have you tried ...
 * Make the timestamp beside each comment an anchor link: Suppose the timestamp provided a link to the current comment's unique page. Currently the only way to easily get to that page is to tediously search Special:RecentChanges for the comment's time stamp and copy the link from there. (When it is your own comment you have access to the history link right beside the comment.) Having this link handy beside each comment would allow a user responding to another user's comment via such methods as
 * to be specific about which comment (from among potentially numerous comments) is being referred to. Furthermore it would allow specific portions of the comment to be more easily quoted as part of the response.


 * Most recent comment at top: ahh ... thank you for this! Now if only my personal setting of this field was remembered each time I view a blog, any blog.

 Search announcements
 * Include the central blog space in forum search results: At central.wikia.com so long as Wikia have adopted the policy that Wikia announcements be made via staff blogs rather than via forum topics then those sometimes important announcements risk being missed by users searching for answers at the traditional venue.


 * More bytes consumed by the avatar than the comment: I am not a fan of eye-candy but I can appreciate that others do enjoy the display of some unique icon against their name. The sad fact remains that every visitor to a blog page downloads user avatars which consume more data bandwidth than the comment (and even the several comments by the one user in many cases!) It's a trivial matter to users whose ISP charges a flat rate for internet connectivity but there are less densely populated countries on the planet where ISP's either charge by the MB/GB or shape your broadband bandwidth after exceeding some arbitrary data down/up-load threshold. You don't need to visit a third world country to experience this ... although some might consider Australia to be at least a 2nd world country!


 * Date and time of original post: Although every comment bears a time-stamp the original blog post does not (unless the poster signed it like they do/should a forum post). Curious! (case in point is this blog)


 * Comment count is not updating: At Blog:Wikia_Staff_Blog the number of comments does not seem to update until a new blog is added to the list (or presumably any other edit takes place at Blog:Wikia_Staff_Blog). A small detail that may lead to confusion.


 * &lt;bloglist&gt; bug #1:Categories are being deleted whenever a blog is opened for edit. This bug was reported fixed in August but it is broken today.


 * &lt;bloglist&gt; bug #2:Regardless of whether or not the timestamp parameter is set to true or false a timestanp is generated.

Solved
At first I thought the following were shortcomings but then I learned of satisfactory workarounds. Problem &lt;bloglist&gt; output needs distinct class names to simplify CSS customization DIV element class names (wk_blogs_link, wk_blogs_summary and wk_blogs_comments) need to change so as to make it clear which is used inside a div#wk_blogs_article container and which is used inside a div#wk_blogs_panel container. This will better enable us to customize the layout and thereby reduce wasted screen space. For the plain text output an example might be reordering (really a job for JQuery/JS and not CSS) the 4 main divs as below so that the date and comment/vote output can be styled "float:right" to reduce overall vertical height. FROM:                             TO: div#wk_blogs_article              div#wk_blogs_article div#wk_blogs_post                 div#wk_blogs_post - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  div.wk_blogs_link                  div.wk_date div.wk_date                       div.wk_blogs_comments div.wk_blogs_summary              div.wk_blogs_link div.wk_blogs_comments             div.wk_blogs_summary I haven't studied the box/panel style output as thoroughly yet but it's clear that what's good for one is not good for the other and the easiest way of handling the different need is with distinct class names. The relevant div elements appear to be div#wk_blogs_panel div#wk_blogs_body - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  div.wk_blogs_link        ** div.wk_blogs_details span.wk_blogs_date span.wk_blogs_author div.wk_blogs_summary    ** div.wk_blogs_comments   ** The trouble here is that 3 of those 4 key elements are currently sharing class names and therefore styles. Usually the panel/box format is narrow and tall while the article/plain format is usually wide and not as tall. Specifying one desirable style for a compact plain/wide output format without compromising the desired style for a boxed/narrow output format is, therefore, problematic. Solution clear: none !important; float: right !important; } clear: right !important; float: right !important; } clear: left !important; } clear: none !important; } clear:both !important; } This conserves just one line of output initially but when combined with a piece of JS to reorder the elements it will conserve two lines of vertical space. /* tweak the HTML generated by bloglist tags
 * 1) Use  to associate one or more styles only with matching elements inside the ID-entified container. i.e. a logical AND operation applies when selectors are separated by white space while logical-OR applies when separated by a comma.
 * 2) Use javascript as needed to reorder elements within the HTML hierarchy.
 * Example:The following causes date and comment for each blog post to be floated right while likn and post remain at left:
 * 1) wk_blogs_article div.wk_date {
 * 1) wk_blogs_article div.wk_blogs_comments {
 * 1) wk_blogs_article div.wk_blogs_link {
 * 1) wk_blogs_article div.wk_blogs_summary {
 * 1) wk_blogs_article li.list {

affect div#wk_blogs_article but not  div#wk_blogs_panel Goal #1 -- change the hierarchical order of div elements FROM this                         TO this ul.list                           ul.list li.list                           li.list                    * CSS clear:both on this element div.wk_blogs_link                 div.wk_date               * CSS float:right on this element div.wk_date                       div.wk_blogs_comments     * CSS float:right & clear:both on this div.wk_blogs_summary              div.wk_blogs_link div.wk_blogs_comments             div.wk_blogs_summary
 * 1) wk_blogs_post div.wk_blogs_post  #wk_blogs_post div.wk_blogs_post

function tweakBlogList { $("#bodyContent #wk_blogs_article #wk_blogs_post ul.list li.list") .each(function       {        $(this).find('div.wk_blogs_comments:first').prependTo(this);        $(this).find('div.wk_date:first').prependTo(this);        }); } $(tweakBlogList);
 * In the long run I'd prefer a customization solution that does not require javascript to reorder these elements to achieve desired float:right for div.wk_blogs_comments and div.wk_date in the plain/wide format of output from the &lt;bloglist&gt; tags.