User blog comment:Sarah Manley/Beyond the Encyclopedia - A Wiki for Everyone/@comment-44061-20100924195954

What I find issue with is there seems to be alot of talk from the Wiki Staff about functionality and bringing the community together and all this very good altruistic stuff. But largely I see alot of them not compromising not listening to any of the wiki's about the issues they have with this new look.

Now I have nothing against advancement or change but there are plenty of diversity in the wiki's that not all of them want or choose to be the same. This new look seems to be an attempt to make them all the same. There is talk of customization but not enough by a long shot.


 * The Right Side bar is too large.
 * There is the needless Pics on the wiki section that on the bar that follows you all over the wiki.
 * There is the fact that alot of the wiki's consider the content to be the star and its a added effort by the wiki staff to make that impossible by compartmentalizing the information into this small section in the middle an smashed together. They say:

"We have decided to move Wikia to a fixed width. Fixed width allows for greater compatibility with a variety of screen resolutions and monitor sizes so that wiki content, including tables, infoboxes, etc., are consistent. So anything that you design on the page will now be what the reader sees. Shorter line lengths make it easier to read pages, encouraging visitors to stay on the page longer and read more. It also works well with the overall design and complements the standard ad units on the page. We’ve found that overall, fixed width simply looks better. "

Now what world are you living in where this makes sense. How are people encouraged to read little type in a smashed up amount of information. When currently the information is star and takes up most of the page. But they think the new way is better who would want to read that way.


 * The horrible placement of names at the top of the page making that person the king of pages. These sights are about content this isn't face book. Also the adding of names to uploaded pics. If a sight has alot of pictures on a page that looks ridiculous.

This seems alot about making wiki usable on a smart phone and being more like a social network sight instead of making anything more functional or better. The staff largely cares nothing for others feedback. In all they have ignored or dismissed the majority of comments and only post and acknowledge the 1% that agree with the changes. Its basically this is what we wanna do and are gonna do, there is no discussion whether the community in large wants this. Im not talking about scrapping the new look im talking about scrapping the predetermined changes as ascribed above or at the very least giving the wiki community the option to change them. As currently everything is set to how the parent site wants it, with no concern for actual wiki sites thoughts. No all wiki's dont have to be encyclopedia's but apparently being one according to the staff doesn't mean anything as long as they can they force it on you as usual with the skin changes. I wonder who is giving the feedback of positive change here considering that none ever seem to be the people using them.