Forum:Criticism of Wikia

Hey.

I believe in saying things as they are, instead of saying things like what someone might want to hear. And I feel that a serious criticism topic of Wikia is more than a requisite. After all, how else might the people with the power have the knowledge to change things for the good?


 * Firstly, the highly controversial Quartz skin with mixed reviews. I'm personally disgusted by it. I understand that Wikia needs to be seperated from Wikipedia. But Quartz is not the way to do it, at least not for me. Monobook is easy, classic, timeless and logical. Quartz is over-polished, stuffed and crammed, and I really am starting to dislike my own wiki because of Quartz as a required default skin. Admins should be able to change the default skin into their liking, other than - oh, six colors of Quartz.


 * Secondly, the board's dislike of IRC. Seriously, nobody uses Skype. I understand if an individual member of staff doesn't prefer IRC, but if bigshot bosses start to ban IRC usage, it goes over the top. This is - last time I checked the Wikia propaganda - an open community, not a conglomerate dictature. IRC is an easy communication method, and I personally dislike to ask the staff questions on their talk pages, in face of everyone. Wake up, and smell the technology.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate any kind of composed opinions. Thank you and peace. --Sysrq868 22:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Comments
The Quartz skin... I know I'm not alone in my dislike of it. It does have a lot of potential to be great, but a number of complaints have arisen from the everyday user&mdash;I myself still use the Monobook for its simplicity. These complaints range from things such as the layout, the resources it takes to run, etc. I feel that more community input would benefit the development of Quartz, given the right amount of communication + time. Once this is done, I don't see any reason why we, the Wikia community, can't have a great look to be proud of as a whole.

Likewise, I know from many many&hellip;many&hellip;conversations in IRC that the lack of staff online in IRC is beginning to have detrimental affects on the Wikia community. Those who we feel should be helping to foster a sense of community (a great sense of community which has been developed over much time, and which is the envy of many other web communities, IMO) are absent for the large majority of the time, and IRC is slowly turning the wrong way without their guidance. Because of this, I do agree with Sysre868 and his comments above. Greyman ( Paratus ) 23:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Quartz isn't final, I guess you can call it beta? There is a version 3 in the works and, ahem... feedback doesn't go unheard ;). -- 23:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oooh, I'm fully aware of that, trust me ;) Greyman ( Paratus ) 23:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As I've mentioned elsewhere: the Wikia community is an idea that does not have basis in fact. It's more of an nebulous confederation of separate wiki administrators rather than a strong community of the rank-and-file users of the site. Most of the sites that have had any success have their own communities in their own right - and most of the members of these communities don't think of Wikia as anything but part of a domain name. Pretending they do is like saying members of a particular website hosted on DreamHost are all DreamHost members.
 * If they do feel an affinity with Wikia, that's all well and good - perhaps they'll appreciate having a big "Wikia" brand at the top right of their website. They already have the ability to choose that. Personally, I see our commitment to Wikia as ending at the borders of the ad box. It's up to us to design the rest to fit our communities. Funnily enough, most of them are heavy users of Wikipedia, and so an interface that works the same way is highly beneficial - and hence more likely to attract the traffic that Wikia craves. --GreenReaper(talk) 00:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The thing is, there are times where actual staff assistance is required (something that cannot be achieved or answered by users in general). If staff are generally not on IRC, it makes it difficult to communicate. One option is email, but that would not be live and immediate support. People generally like quick responses from a live chat, and the delayed response would not make Wikia an outstanding host out of all the web hosts out there. Another option is to join the Wikia Skype channel, but like mentioned above, users may not (generally would not) want to download, install, and set up a moderately-large program just to ask a question or make a comment that is directed towards staff (which may be a private one).


 * Regarding the skin, like GreenReaper mentioned above, "It's up to us to design the rest to fit our communities." If the community wants a certain skin, they should be able to set it locally without submitting a request to the staff to make the modification. That should apply for all the possible skins; if a community feels that Simple (one of the old skins) is best for their design and theme, their admin should be able to set that locally. I understand that the techs spent a lot of time on designing the new skins, but if a community doesn't want it, it's not going to do anybody any good. GHe (Talk) 00:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, I actually brought up the IRC issue with Jimbo lastnight in a conversation we had, he can share his thoughts here if he wants, but Skype is one method of communication, but IRC is also another. Wikians shouldn't have to download and register something just because they have a question or two to ask. I'm not saying ditch Skype, I've used it. But the Wikia community should not have to rely on it. Also, if Skype is going to be used as a method of communication between the community and staff, people need a way of knowing what names/accounts to look for. However, IRC, especially via the gateway, is very easy to use and get questions, issues, or problems addressed quickly if there are staff, helpers, or janitors are there to answer/handle them. I'm always in #wikia when I'm online available to help in whatever I can, hopefully staff can start coming back in as well. My two cents. -- 23:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)