Forum:Wikia Spotlight


 * See also Uncyclopedia:Forum:Wikia spotlight

New feature
You might have noticed a new feature called Wikia Spotlight above the ads. We are featuring eight wikis here to see whether this is useful in bringing in new users. The eight wikis we're trying this with first are World Wikia, Marvel Universe, Halopedia, Cell Phone Enthusiasts, iPod, PokerWiki, The Film Guide, and RuneScapeWiki. Do you think this is useful? Do you have any suggestions for other wikis which should be highlighted in this way? Unlike the Featured Wikia, I was aiming to find medium-sized wikis which could really benefit from some new users, rather than larger wikis which are already doing well or really small ones which random visitors wouldn't find useful yet. Angela (talk) 13:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ya, I'd consider that a good idea. Promote the wikia' which are minorly active, but not abandoned to try and make all the wikia' start to gain a uniform userbase. Kinda like my wikia, I'm the most active person there so the wikia isn't abandoned by it's founder anymore since I adopted it, and there are occational people who will do something, but it could still realy use some more members (The last time anyone other than me did anything was 3 days ago, and that was a forum post. Before that was vandalism that I quickly fixed) Now If I could only find someone with decent art skills better than mine so I could promote the wikia in the place that matters most, the subject. dantman 14:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's a great idea. AT the Marvel Universe wikia we've already doubled out editors (from 3 to 6) and that was in the first day the spotlight went up. I look foward to seeing this feature for a long time. Thai420 14:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Angela.  I agree this will be useful and hope to get some more interest in PokerWiki as well as the other wikis. Cheers, PhilipR 18:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: customizeable per wiki
Would this be possible inside of a wikia? like I'm thinking the box there, with a list which would be customizeable using a page in the MediaWiki namespace. I just thought of it, because many of our articles need attention from our members, and the only way I get any member to go anywhere besides the few things that they think they should just do, is to create a new topic in the announcements forum which will then show up on the Main Page. Perhaps this feature could become a extension that could be placed on a Wikia to try and also strengthen the form of the content within the wikia', Or Perhaps not, I dunno. dantman 02:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You could do something similar by changing MediaWiki:Sidebar and linking things in there, which appears in the "navigation" box on the left. Angela (talk) 08:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Formatting and bugs
I like the idea, but maybe the names should'n be bolded, because on resolution 1280x1024, with FF, I get a scrollbar at the bottom of every page (screenshot). --DCLXVI 05:29, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I got the same, but on 1024x786 and FF, it not depends on bold, something else is broken. Szoferka 05:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I took the bold off the longest two. It should show up in a few hours.  Let me know if it fixes the problem color="Blue">Gil (color="Blue" size="1">talk) 17:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it fixed the problem, but it looks strange having some links bold and some not-bold. Hyenaste talk 20:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem isn't the boldface, the problem is that the box is too big. In Firefox, there is a 5px gap between the content column and the ad column. The Spotlight box is 125px. The ad column is only 120px, so presumably the page layout was designed with that size in mind - thus, the Spotlight box runs off the side of the page. Probably the easiest way to fix it would be to change the Spotlight box size to 120px. It doesn't need to be 125px anyway. --StBacchus 12:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I tryed using the CSS editor to see how to fix that, I couldn't fix it by changing any of the section's widths to 120px, and I tryed all of them at the same time. But the one way I did fix the problem was when I changed "#column-google"s width to 125px. Dantman (Talk) 01:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It only worked temporarily for me. I meant someone here at Central Bureaucracy could change the width. But your fix worked, so thanks! --StBacchus 00:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The RuneScape Wiki is one of the wikis in the spotlight. However, as listed it is called the "Runescape Wikia", but it is generally accepted that the "s" be capitalised. While a minor change, if the name could be changed to the "RuneScape Wikia", the editors of the RuneScape Wiki would greatly appreciate it. If not, we still appreciate the extra publicity it brings. -- Couchpotato99   (talk)   (contribs)  05:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll find out how to change this. Angela (talk) 08:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I fixed it, it should show up soon color="Blue">Gil (color="Blue" size="1">talk) 17:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Small but slightly annoying bug: when you linked "Wikia Spotlight" to the appropriate page, you left off an  so that the "-" on the first link to a wiki is linked to Wikia. It's annoying. --B e H E 18:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Rotation and wiki choice
Like this, but not sure how wiki chosen - i.e. anything democratic about it? Wonder if the handful could be rotated relatively often e.g. once a week so that more wiki could benefit? or perhaps every once in a while a listing could feature a handful from Society Gardens?Philralph 15:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It wasn't democratic this time, but it would make sense for future if we try this again (the way Featured Wikia are chosen seems to work well). It might actually be more useful if each wiki could choose which wikis they wanted to link to - it would give a spotlight on wikis that would be more relevant to the reader if the 5 were related to the wiki they're reading. On the other hand, perhaps it's good to link to unrelated topics which people might not otherwise find out about. Angela (talk) 16:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe we need an "advertise your wiki here" link on each ad, that takes you to a page where we discuss these things... Angela, what do you think? color="Blue">Gil (color="Blue" size="1">talk) 17:06, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Heading
The only thing I don't like about the box is the three asterisks before and after the "Wikia" name. It looks rather ugly, and makes it harder to style properly. Additionally, could you use a proper formatted list instead of &lt;p&gt;'s and dashes? &mdash;B e H E 17:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought that too. The reason Gil changed it from "Wikia Spotlight" to the asterisks is because it's currently being shown on all wikis with no means of translation (something we aim to change), so the idea was that ***Wikia*** would make more sense to non-English speakers than "Wikia Spotlight". If you can translate "Wikia Spotlight into another language, I'm collecting a list of those at MediaWiki talk:Spotlight header. Angela (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Which wikis to highlight next?

 * This section is kept as an archive. For newer suggestions, please create a new forum discussion on the Watercooler.

Please add suggestions for which wikis to show next. Remember, they should be medium sized - not yet big enough to be featured wikis, but also not inactive. They should have some editors, and be in need of some more. We may be able to customise this to show wikis in the user's own language, so feel free to add non-English wikis that need some attention (and tell me how to translate "Wikia spotlight" at MediaWiki talk:Spotlight header). Thanks. Angela (talk) 13:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

| Futures Wikia. Recently the site has gained a few contributors, as well as an administrator and bureaucrat. We've groomed the larger articles and deleted many "empty pages". The tally of articles is in the 400's (from the list at Special:Shortpages) and the ones in excess of 1kb number around 170, with the largest 10 articles at 17-40 kb. Yunzhong Hou 21:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

| Forgotten Realms Wikia; we have a few dedicated editors, and around | 400 articles so far, with editors doing sporadic edits now and then, thanks for considering us in advance. | Zerak-Tul 16:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Hitchhiking Wikia just reached 200 articles. I'm by far the most active editor, there are some other fairly active people, but it would be nice to have some more contributors. Don't know how many hitchhikers are reading wikia.com though. But maybe some people will be tempted to actually hitchhike, which is one of the reasons I'm working on it :) Guaka 18:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

We've got a few members at the Gaiapedia but we do need contributors to. We're over 200 articles plus stubs, but most of them need cleanup including the big articles. Dantman (Talk) 19:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, we have 1000 articles but most of them are uninformative or fragmentary. The German GTA-Wikia doesn't start rolling. There is too little help from users. I'm sure, with the "advertising" on the side, we can celebrate a new beginning. By the by, I'm also the most active user here and as I said before: A little help would be nice. Zaibatsu 16:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

GameInfo is a fairly active wiki with 300+ articles. Could use some promotion in the Spotlight. --Will N. Dowd 15:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The Heroes wiki is extremely brand new and the TV show is very popular and has its ratings on the rise, this would help get the editing running unsigned by Swimmerdude157

The Pet Diabetes wikia is having a PR push next week, maybe it could be added to the Spotlight rotation the week after that to keep momentum up? w:c:petdiabetes:User talk:Steve_and_Jock

We were hoping to add the Marvel and DC Databases to the Wikia Spotlight. Cheers! --JamieHari 17:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Spanking Art (984 articles) might be a good candidate for the Wikia Spotlight. It is active, medium sized, has some editors but is in need of more. I nominated it today for Featured Wikia, but maybe it's not big enough (and/or won't get enough votes) to be featured. So I'm also nominating it for the Wikia Spotlight. --Spankart 13:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

All of the above suggestions will be added soon. This section is kept as an archive. For newer suggestions, please create a new forum discussion on the Watercooler. Angela talk 22:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Categories
I really don't think the English language cellphones wiki will get many contributors from a Spanish language humor wiki. This would be far more effective if it could connect wikis from the same categories or at least in the same language. We don't even have to vote, just make it random from within the same shared categories.--Rataube 14:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * We're hoping to be able to tailer the highlighted wikis to the user's language. Further customizations on a per-wiki basis might be possible in future, but it's not something we've developed yet. However, if you do want to link 5 wikis from a wiki, you can always use the Sidebar. Angela (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In that case I advise all science fiction wikia to advertise each other. Same for other wikia sharing the same categories.--Rataube 19:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you think an automated addition somewhere (maybe in the page footer) that shows links to all wikis in the same language and same category would be useful? Perhaps it would be too many for some large categories, but they could rotate so only 5 or 10 are shown at a time. For exampple, a TV wiki might have this:
 * Sister projects: Adult Swim &bull; Baywatch &bull; Buffy &bull; Desperate Housewives &bull; Idol
 * which switches to a different 5 wikis on different pages, or in different weeks. Angela (talk) 19:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It dosen't seam that good. The wording makes it seam like they are actualy linked to the wiki, but they are only similar projects, they don't have any connection to the wiki but that box could mislead people to beleve that the other wiki has contact with the current wiki's administrators or something. A box like that would be better suited as something that could be altered for the individual wiki. Because there are no wiki's similar on the same subject as us, but we are partners with the Plowiki but that's off site. Dantman (Talk) 22:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It may be helpful, specially for smaller wikia. To meet Dantman objection you can just call them "similar projects" or "similar wikia" instead of sister projects.--Rataube 17:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Show off your logo
http://images.wikia.com/cybernations/images/b/bc/Wiki.png Would you like to show off your wiki's logo? One alternative to having plain links in the spotlight would be to show the logo for one wiki at a time. Add a link to your wiki if it has a good looking logo and you'd like to be highlighted in the sidebar for a while, or if there's another wiki that you think could use some attention that has a great logo. I'm going to start the list by suggesting Cybernations which has a new logo today. Angela talk 13:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * StumbleUpon. Kamesan 21:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC).
 * i don't mind MetaCollab ;-D. Mark Elliott 12:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Can wikis which have made their logo using portions of images copied from their subject's website and placed their personal contributions on the logo into the Public Domain to keep the image under fair-use be featured? If so the Logo I made for the Gaiapedia is probably the best I've ever done. Dantman (Talk) 00:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like part of the ads
I like the idea of the Wikia Spotlight box, however it looks like it is part of the adverts because it is not separated off in any way. It would look better if it were in a box and used the bullet points normally used by MediaWiki to seperate it from the adverts. Talking about the adverts, sometimes they look very weird because they get split up due to using multiple ad providers. Lcarsdata (Talk) 07:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I suppose that's actually something for individual Wikia to design for. Like how I've boxed things in inside the Gaiapedia. Though, I admit AdBrite is annoying because it can't be styled, and even though I never see it because AdBlockers block AdBrite by default but not AdSense it's annoying with the different sets of things and what you half to do just to get the boxes styled. Dantman (Talk) 11:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikia Spotlight: Heads Up
1) The Wikia Spotlight has been up there long enough, I'd say (it seems to be the same 8 for the past 4 months). Whoever is in charge of it could possibly have abandoned the project, and now those 8 wikis are gaining a lot of publicity through a supposedly undemocratic fashion (see above). It definitely needs a revamp: find another set of wikis to post there, or something similar.

2) What goes on there next? Instead of making a separate vote procedure (we have two already: Collaboration of the Month and Featured Wikia), we could add the wikis that had the most votes after the ones that won, to the wikia spotlight. That would simplify matters, so that we wouldn't have to revote all the time.

3) By the way, it may be useful to simply combine the votes for the Collaboration of the Month and the Featured Wikia (one could be the first place, one could be the second place, or some other rule). Anyway, users shouldn't have to vote for their wiki twice in two different places. I think such a change would make it easier for us.

Thanks. --Yunzhong Hou 14:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

A possible alternative?
I don't see anything useful in the current implementation of "Wikia spotlight", largely because the links are not being targeted in any sensible way. Sorry. The same links appear on every page of every wiki in every language, site-wide, and relate neither to the page topic nor the wiki on which they appear.

Perhaps a more suitable alternative would be to link other Wikia in a similar way as that used to link to other languages within the same project. Instead of having one box "in other languages", split this into three categories:
 * 1) Use the existing "in other languages" box to link to wikis that are part of the same project, regardless of where they're hosted. For Uncyclopedias, these would be Hikipedia, Ikkepedia, Desciclopédia and the like.
 * 2) Create a box for "other wikis" or "other Wikia", which might not be part of this project but are hosted on the same server and happen to have a page on the same topic as the page currently being viewed. For instance, any page on Star Trek on any wiki could be given an interwiki link to Memory Alpha.
 * 3) Create a "see also" box for links to any other wikis which are independent but are valid according to the current wiki's interwiki table - this would include sites such as the various Wikipedias.

This way, instead of linking to the same few Wikia from every page on every wiki, with utter disregard for whether the links are even relevant, links would be specific and targetted, linking only to directly related pages on other wikis. The Wikia links would have their own dedicated box and work in much the same way as the existing intra-project links from one-language to another.

The portions of the code which produce the existing interlanguage link box would be:
 * Parser.php contains replaceInternalLinks, which will getInterWiki each of the links and then getLanguageName to decide which links to move out of the text area into the "in other languages" box.
 * Skin.php prints the otherLanguages code for classic skins like cologne-blue, nostalgia. The others (including MonoBook) use SkinTemplate to store a list to be displayed later in skins/MonoBook.php

Presumably some of this code could be recycled to generate the additional "in other wikis" boxes? The multiple skins do complicate things, but shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle.

The idea had been raised in some form here and here a few months ago.

If links were in a form like see-Wikipedia: or wiki-Memoryalpha: this could use the existing interwiki tables. Just create some prefix which forces the link into the sidebar. Robots could add these links the same way they currently add language links like.

Is this worth pursuing? --carlb 21:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)