Forum:Wikia's New Style

I'm still waiting
So. . . wait, Danny. I use Ironic Capital Letters to Poke Fun at a problem while asking a Completely Legitimate Question, and you become Horribly Offended (Oh no, Ironic Capital Letters!!!!! [Oh no! Ironic Capital Letters Again! It's almost as if you Brought This On Yourself!]) and use it as an excuse to completely avoid actually answering the question. Why do I get the feeling Wikia doesn't want to answer the question? If I were going to disrespect you, I'd be doing a hell of a lot worse than using capital letters to mark phrases. You've taken a lot worse disrespect, yet you don't comment on that. It's only when someone asks a hard question that all of a sudden, "Ooooh, I'm not going to answer that! You sounded kind of mean!" So here, consider this politely asked: Please explain exactly who "the advertisers" are, explain why it is that apparently only this ad form will do, or get someone on here who can do the above. I don't know how you expect anyone to genuinely understand the situation without providing that information, and I can't think of any reason Wikia wouldn't want to give it other than that they want to keep their users in the dark to make it easier to railroad changes over them. Maybe if Wikia showed any respect for us, if it did anything to earn any respect, it would actually get some. Until then, Wikia's pretty much forfeited the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sitting here going "Fuck you, Wikia! You're ruining my life!" I asked a necessary question and did it in the same mildly snarky way I did everything. Answer it. Havac 03:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Havac, I'm sorry... I'm not trying to avoid your question; I'm just having a hard time understanding it. You're asking, "Who are the advertisers?" I'm not sure how to answer that. Are you looking for a list of names?


 * We have someone working full time on ad sales. He talks to a lot of people, and offers our ad space for sale. I've been using the phrase "the advertisers" because it isn't a specific set of people -- it's a lot of people. You'll start to see some of the new ads starting next week, when the new format launches. It's not appropriate for me to provide a list of companies that we're talking to about ad sales, and I'm not sure why that would be helpful.


 * Your other question is, "Why is it that apparently only this ad form will do?" The answer is that as we've approached companies about advertising on our site, many people have told us that they would like to, if they could get a 300x250 ad at the top right. If they can't get that, then they're not interested. It's a very common ad format now, and they can find lots of other websites who will provide the ad format that they prefer. -- Danny (talk ) 03:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I wanted to know what you mean when you say "The advertisers". Apparently it is a large group of potential advertisers the sales people speak with. OK. And they say 300x250 or nothing. OK. Are there other advertisers who would be willing to buy non-250x300 ads? People do buy those elsewhere. If not (and I doubt that), why are we being asked to propose alternate systems, none of which (except the rather-good-but-now-bumped-to-archive ad-in-the-top-right-outside-content solution, which I would like to see more discussion of) would work? What I want is to try to get some facts and explanations so I can understand what's going on rather than engage in superficial bickering. Havac 04:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So just to clarify Danny (and I think this is what Havac was asking) did the advertizers ask for such an ad on the top right of the page (which I can agree would seem liek a pretty common request!) or did they ask for such an ad at the top right INSIDE THE ARTICLE? Because it's the 'inside the article' thing that seems to be borking people here.
 * We realize that ads within the article body are probably more valuable to you, but when pressed abotut he decision you always say that 'the advertisers demanded it,' without saying WHAT the advertisers demanded. Hovac seems to think that the advertisers demanded ads there, and rather than designing a page that would accommodate ads of that size, in that location (such as by rearranging the controls...) which is of course what the advertisers meant, you've instead taken this as an opportunity to created much more valuable ads in that location than they would have been proposing and shift all the blame for the resulting user backlash onto the advertisers.  "Don't blame us, we hate it too!  It was the advertisers!  We had no choice, feel sorry for us!"
 * Havac, is that what you're getting at? "You keep saying that advertisers burst into your office and told you that Wikia would be shut down unless you put spam in the MIDDLE of the article," is the scenario he paints, and you... um... what's the word... simply don't believe that's a credible picture of reality? -Derik 05:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Derik, the short answer to your question is: Yes. Prospective advertisers that we've approached have told us that they would be interested in buying ads that are inside the article space. That's the current practice for internet advertising, which you can see on virtually every other content site. I posted a list of six examples above, including one wiki. The advertisers that we're trying to attract are smart. They know that people ignore and block their ads. Therefore, they expect to place ads in places where people are less likely to ignore them -- like inside the article space.


 * However, you are correct in one respect: We have not had advertisers bursting into our office and threatening us with foreclosure. Office-bursting is not typical business behavior.


 * To answer Havac's question: People are not being asked to propose alternate systems. People have been making proposals, but we haven't invited it, or said that we would follow through with the suggestions that are being made. I tried to make this clear above, under the heading "Alternatives discussion", as well as several other places.


 * We know that the new ad format is intrusive, and we're not happy about disrupting the format that people are used to. This has been a difficult decision to make, and we knew that people would be upset. As an active wiki founder myself, I'm not happy to have to redesign pages, and have ads appear in the content space. But I'm also an adult, and I know that sometimes you have to make compromises in order to achieve a goal. In this case, the goal is for Wikia to earn a profit, remain healthy as a company, and provide a home for wikis on any subject that people want to write about.


 * I think part of the problem that you and I are having in communicating about this is a misunderstanding of the difference between a non-profit organization and a for-profit company.


 * Non-profit organizations, like the Wikimedia Foundation or Amnesty International, use public money -- government funds, charitable grants and public donations. They have a special tax status, which is granted by the government in exchange for making their financial information completely public. Non-profit organizations use public funds -- and therefore, it's their responsibility to prove to anyone who asks that they're spending the money that they receive in an appropriate way. Non-profits are audited once a year by the government, and they produce annual reports that are open to the public, in which they document every line item in the budget.


 * Wikia is a for-profit company. We don't receive public funds; our money comes from private investors, and from advertisers who buy ad space. We're not required to make details of our finances available for public view. In fact, to do that would be very inappropriate and unwise. For-profit companies have competitors. We have to keep the details of our business confidential. This isn't unusual or sneaky -- it's what every company does, to protect their information from being used by competitors.


 * Now, Wikia is an unusual company, because we have multiple "customers", and we're responsible to all of them. We're responsible to the contributors, who write the content, design their wikis and manage their communities. We're responsible to the readers, and we're always looking for new ways to encourage them to read more and join the communities. We're responsible to advertisers, in the sense that we need to provide ad formats that people are interested in paying us for. Finally, we're responsible to our investors, who provided us with our initial capital, and who are expecting a return on their investment. Each of those groups is important to us, and it's our responsibility to balance those differing needs.


 * We take our responsibility to the contributors very seriously. You can probably see how seriously we take that commitment when you look at the time stamps on my own posts over the last week. I've been waking up every morning to respond to people on this page and elsewhere on the site, and I'm still here talking to people late into the night. That's a level of personal customer service that I think is very rare, for any company.


 * However -- just because we're listening and responding to people doesn't mean that we have to follow everyone's suggestions, or answer questions that would be inappropriate or impractical to answer.


 * In an earlier post, Havac demanded that I "get you the money guy" so that he could answer your questions. The money guy is busy. He's trying to get us some money. If you have some money, and would like to buy some ads on Wikia, then I'll be happy to put you in touch with him.


 * If not, then I have to assume that you're a community member, in which case you talk to the community guy. That would be me. Hi, Havac. Hi, Derik. What can I do for you? -- Danny (talk ) 05:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you Danny, for actually talking to us like adults for once instead of obfuscating and snowjobbing. It's incredibly refreshing.  I'd like to see it more.  It would make people happier, and probably cut this little shitstorm *points around* by 40%.  what can you do for us?  That's pretty much it, it's what we've been asking for and not getting up until now. -Derik 06:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Any time, Derik. I'm all about making people happier. -- Danny (talk ) 06:38, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

top-RH block style ad vs banner style ad
We are shown two ad formats at the communitytest wiki site. Both appear in the content area below the page title but above or aligned with the first line of an article.
 * 1) a 300x250 pixel block style ad in the top-right hand corner
 * 2) a 90x730 pixel banner style ad across the top

Are your paying advertisers equally satisfied by both impression advertising locations and sizes or is one format a compromise that Wikia hope the paying advertisers will agree to? Najevi 03:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The advertisers that we've talked to expect a mix of ad inventory, leaning towards the 300x250 block ad as the most common. That's the mix that we're using with this format. On most article pages, you'll see a 300x250 on the right. When there's a collision that would break a table at the top, you'll see a 90x730 leaderboard. This format allows us the flexibility to provide the kind of ad sizes that people will pay for.


 * If we were going entirely for what would sell the best, then it would probably be a 300x250 top right ad on every page. But that would break some pages, so we're offering a mix. -- Danny (talk ) 03:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if this has been asked or answered, but it's hard to tell when we have this page + 2 archives now. At any rate, Danny your level of customer service is to be lauded, and you must certainly have a lot of Red Bull near your desk. Does the new ad system (banners and what I'm just going to call "the box") include the rollover-expanding ads in it's selection? E.g. I roll my mouse over the banner or the box, and then it expands to a half-page style ad I have to X out? If it doesn't, would you potentially sell these types of ads Thank you. --LordTBT Talk! 06:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yucky. — TulipVorlax 08:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My turn to answer... (although Danny seems to have drawn the short straw on either time-zone or site activity or both, and is getting most of the questions ;)
 * This is hard to answer, because we have no idea of what the future will bring for Wikia. So I'm not going to say that this or that won't happen ever, because I can't predict that fully, and it wouldn't be honest to pretend I can.  But I can say that there are no current plans for this type of ad, and that we are very aware that this would be even further intruding in to editors space.  We've seen the reaction to the current plans, we certainly don't want to go further down that road. -- sannse (talk) 10:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We all don't want to go further down that road, but all this seems inevitable, doesn't it? This is amazing; I somehow predicted that Wikia would go as far as making this change, and now I'm proven right! Something like that change basically hints that Wikia is planning pop-ups in the future, probably because Wikia doesn't feel that even this new monaco ad deterioration will be "sufficient", both in acquiring revenue as well as turning off potential contributors. And I guess the change now is to deter future arguments regarding timing. For example, in the future, if a user notes "OMG you pulled another fast one with the switch to popups!", Wikia would simply say "Well, we modified our Terms of use, which had said that 'Wikia will never host pop-up adverts.' for over 2 years (2004-12-24), back on June 14, 2008, so there!" I thought the word "never" would hold for at least a good 5 to 10 years but ... guess not. Next thing you'll know, the staff Cabal will oversight or manipulate the database to hide or alter previous revisions to censor the fact that that phrase ever existed in the first place in the Terms of use. I will laugh so hard if that does eventually happen. GHe (Talk) 20:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Someone reported seeing an expandable 728x90 banner ad on Muppet Wiki last week before she logged in. She also had a problem in which the expanded frame of the banner wouldn't close in her browser.  The problem with the broken "close ad" button was reported and, I assume, resolved.  But, regardless of whether Wikia plans to continue the practice, it looks like expandable ads have already been sold on some wikis. -- Peter  (talk ) 16:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I took out the line about never hosting pop-ups. We're starting to talk about the terms of service, and we noticed that that specific line made a promise that we weren't comfortable with. That line was written back in 2004, when the business was very different. In general, it probably isn't a good idea to write the word "never" in your terms of service. -- Danny (talk ) 20:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Common sense says...
Hey, Wikia. Notice how nobody on this forum wants the ads-in-the-content thing? That means don't do it. Period. It's as simple as that. Don't think about it, don't think how the advertisers won't like it, just don't do it. The ads where they are right now are fine. Leave the content area alone. Okay? Good, glad we all agree. --From Andoria with Love 10:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Congratulations, you've just made ana rse out of yourself. At least read all the information before telling Wikia what I want, yeah? 12:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Reaction to Top-Right Adbox
I looked through the archive, but I couldn't find any official Wikia reaction to the suggestion for a top-right ad box outside of the content area (shown at right). Is such a layout not possible with the current advertising contract? Is the ad required to be in the primary content area? --TarrVetus 13:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this is what I wrote in the discussion called "I'm still waiting" above:


 * Prospective advertisers that we've approached have told us that they would be interested in buying ads that are inside the article space. That's the current practice for internet advertising, which you can see on virtually every other content site. I posted a list of six examples above, including one wiki. The advertisers that we're trying to attract are smart. They know that people ignore and block their ads. Therefore, they expect to place ads in places where people are less likely to ignore them -- like inside the article space.


 * We're actually not talking about a current contract... We're talking about various companies that we've approached to sell ad space over the past few months. We've been told by many advertisers that they would be more likely to buy ad space if they could get a 300x250 ad in the top right, in the article space. -- Danny (talk ) 14:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Double-dipping on mainpages.
Is there a specific reason the mainpages have to display both a banner ad and a content space block ad? Because that makes a lot of mainpage info shoved down by advertising.--RosicrucianTalk 15:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's the same sort of reason as before: advertisers like main pages. So those are spaces they want, and selling two together means they can go as a block, very handy.  It's part of the compromises we made, to put the size and type that sell best in the places they sell best... but remove them where we can elsewhere (none on "editors pages", none on stubs, less on logged in user's views...) -- sannse (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, so you know: The main page redesign won't happen immediately, so you don't have to worry about that page right now. When the new ad format launches on Tuesday, it'll only affect article pages, and not the main page. Community and content folks will come around to individual wikis over the next couple weeks to help you add the new column tags on the main page. If you want a head start on it, check out the Help article on main page column tags. You can also just leave it for now, and folks will be around to help you with it within the next couple weeks. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What?!
I know that many people have voiced their dislike about the new ad placements, and now I must voice mine. Having ads in the content areas completely destroys the page itself, and even when the ads are blocked, it's simply a huge blank space in the middle of a page, which makes no sense. And also, if they want the ads Wikia must have them? What? Kevin-020 17:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikia is supported by advertising. That's how we make the money that we need to stay open. If we can't sell advertising space, then Wikia goes out of business, and all of our wikis close.


 * It's a big change, and not a pleasant one for our communities. It's just a step that we have to take in order to stay in business. Please check Communitytest to see how pages will look using the new ad format, and feel free to copy over pages from your wiki to check out how they'll look.


 * There's been a lot of discussion about the rationale behind the change on this page. For example, see the "Alternatives discussion" and "I'm still waiting" threads above. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * How about paying contributors then? That's what TheForce.net and the other websites crammed with ads do. Do you expect to find many volunteers wanting to work gratis while seeing Jimbo and wikia get all the money? And don't say you're short of cash, cuz if you are, you should have taken the credit card away from Jimbo before. 12344321 19:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't see what the big fuss is about. Everyone should go away, drink a cup of tea, come back and see that they have been having a paddy about nothing. So there is going to be some ads in the article, sure, I don't like it and I'm going to do my best to find a better solution but some people are over reacting a little bit - Kingpin13

My perspective
Whatever needs to be done to keep Wikia in business will be done. I understand that. I support whatever it takes to do that, even if I hate the changes themselves. But increasing the advertising space on the pages means to me that the existing ad spaces have not been generating the clicks necessary to provide the revenue stream needed to pay the expenses of the servers and personnel costs associated with providing the service. Wikia is a for-profit business. If they don't make the revenue to pay their expenses, they go out of business, and 6,000+ communities will need to find a new place to collaborate.

All that said, I believe that this change to increased ad space on the pages and within the content space of the pages says louder than anything else that the advertising model of revenue generation in general is a failed strategy. I wish Wikia would look into other methods of generating revenue as alternatives. For those communities that are willing and able, subscriptions could replace advertising. Or have people sponsor a page. Or have community fundraisers of some kind. There are alternatives to advertising that we should be looking into, and I hope that someday we will be. Chadlupkes 17:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Chad, I've seen some of your suggestions on the Central mailing list. I know that you've thought about this a lot, and it's nice to see how committed you are to finding alternatives. Unfortunately, many of your suggestions are more appropriate to a non-profit organization than a for-profit company. The investment plan that you talked about in your e-mail was for a non-profit... It wouldn't work the same way for a for-profit company. Page sponsorships and community fundraisers are also more appropriate for a non-profit.


 * It's okay for non-profits to exist more or less hand-to-mouth -- their job is to recoup their operating costs, and put all profits back into the organization. A for-profit company has investors and shareholders, so the rules are different for us. I wrote some more about this above, under "I'm still waiting." -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Non-profits do business with for-profits all the time. If Star Wars would set up a non-profit status for themselves, and offered to pay Wikia for hosting their site, would you do business with them?  Advertising as a business model is killing this planet, Danny.  That's just my personal opinion, but I'm pretty serious about it.  Chadlupkes 20:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikia has always been ad-supported; that's been clear from the beginning. Everyone's participation on a Wikia wiki has been made with the understanding that Wikia is a for-profit company that is supported by advertising. What you're seeing now is an adjustment in the size and location of the advertising. That's a change in the design of the site, but it's not a change in the way that we do business.


 * It sounds like you feel uncomfortable contributing to a wiki that's hosted by an ad-supported for-profit company. I'm not sure that I can help you feel more comfortable about it. The only thing that I can say is that it's not possible for Wikia to become a non-profit organization. Wikia is not a charity; it's a business. That hasn't changed. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Increase in user logins
When wikis have switched from Monobook to Monaco, they've seen huge jumps in the number of readers, contributors and user logins.

That's probably because people wanted the Monobook skin back. Zeldafanjtl 18:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Is the New Monaco Skin mandatory?
I really hope not. The consensus at Illogicopedia is that we, and I personally, would like to keep Monobook. I'm all for Web 2.0 implementation but we're losing the visual association with Wikipedia and hence interface familiarity is lost. -- Hindleyite 19:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, this will be the default skin for all wikis (with some very specific exceptions and delays). Monobook will stay available as a personal choice though -- sannse (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Huh, Special:ProblemReports/10845 --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 19:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That looks like an IE6 issue. If you are using IE6 upgrade to IE7. -- 19:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, that looks like a Monaco issue. So we use Monobook. There are many users who still use IE6. Upgrade is not the solution. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 20:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll take that as a yes. -- 20:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * For reference: WikiFur (a site with an unusually high proportion of Firefox users) still has 40% using IE, 25% of which are using IE6 (i.e. 10% total visitors). --GreenReaper(talk) 20:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup. FFXIclopedia is about the same. -- 20:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, there are "hard-coded" texts in monaco that we can't translate. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 20:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as the problem report goes... that's a technical issue. Clearly, there's something in the Monaco skin that's interacting with that specific template on IE6. We try to anticipate every situation on every browser, but obviously, things come up that we didn't know about. Now that we know this one, we can figure out how to fix it. That's a service that Wikia provides. Thanks for letting us know about the problem. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Although it is a good thing to upgrade, we must also think of users and investors alike. It IS good to change things around, due to the fact that it catches the eye of both investor and prominent new members alike, but wears away the origional authenticity of the users that were previously here. The new style looks great, but switching but switching things around can become quite a hassle (even more so when you have to look for the new search bar day in day out). Therefore, why not make it support both? we have random spawnings within set pages on here that always catches one's eye already, let's make a list on the side allowing us to go "Classic Wiki Monobook Style" or something of the sort? That way, we can have the appealing displays for the investors, yet all those who have been loyal to wiki for a while can still be able to find their way around in the style they remember so dearly. Investor and user solution alike if you will.Bloodgreaver 18:10 13 June 2008 (PDT)


 * Yeah, absolutely. You'll still be able to use Monobook as your own personal skin. If you like seeing the search box in the familiar Monobook place, then you'll be able to do that with no problem. You can choose your own skin in the Preferences. The change that's going to happen is that all wikis will have Monaco as the default skin for new readers. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Commmunity Test wiki
I think that Puppies is more appealing than Kittens. <tt>;-)</tt> Najevi 01:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

My View
I can understand Wikia has to show a profit to its shareholders (you guys have plans to go public any time soon?) and Board of Directors, so I can understand the changes being made here. And the Wikia staffers fielding the questions are right. A lot of websites do now have ads in the content area. And of those sites, Wikia's placement of the ads are the cleanest I've seen. Some sites have them crammed into the content area wherever they can get them (this is especially prevalent on tech help forums). So, I can understand the need to put the ads where you're going to get the money, the narcissistic tendencies of some advertising companies aside.

The first problem we're having here seems to be arising from the Wikia's New Style page. To be quite frank, I think it's poorly written. Even I, who has enough experience building websites (not just articles) to know how things should be placed to catch attention to important areas, was confused. After first reading it, I might have thought both the leaderboard and 300x250 ad were going to be on all pages. Even after researching it more, I still wasn't quite sure how it was all going to work. How were pages really going to look with infoboxes as compared to just pictures, and what exactly does constitute an infobox, anyway?

It wasn't until I did experiments with my own content that I understood. And to be quite honestly, for 2/3 of the content people have on article pages, the placement of the ads isn't that bad. As people can see on this copy of my Constructed world's main page, the presence of the infobox forces the leaderboard instead of the tandem ad. No 300x250 box shown. So far, most of my other pages that are not about people don't have images. So, as can be seen here, the right box does show up, but it doesn't really make the page look bad. Plenty of whitespace, no clutter of content and ad; in a word, pretty good.

The problem comes - and I think this is what most people have an issue with - when you use a simple picture. When I made this page originally, the picture was pushed down, as expected. When you want to represent something visually right away, the presence of the ad suddenly takes away from that flow. Obviously, the advertisers want this, since people will see their ad right away instead. Now, the apparent solution (the one the Wikia staff seems to promote) is to float my picture on the left side of the preamble, but here's my issue with that. I have never, in my time editing wikis, seen that done. Never. There must be a reason for that. Wikipedia doesn't do it, and I've seen it at none of the wikis on this site, or any wiki at any other site for that matter.

I think that the reason people never float the beginning picture to the left is that it looks as bad as putting the ad there. When scanning webpages on the Internet to see if they'll be interested, people have a tendency to go in an backwards S shape down the page. They'll start at the site logo, and then go from left to right, until they reach about the spot where your tandem ad will be. Putting an image on the left before where a large block of text starts will break concentration, given our left to right society. It might work on a wiki where the text goes from right to left, but not here.

So, people are going to want their first image on the right, where it won't break people's concentration. Pushing that image down will end up forcing people to view the page in an unnatural way, which is good if you're an advertiser, but not so much if you're an editor wanting to make an article look good.

So, take a look at what I did at my last example. I have a feeling that forcing the tandem ad on this style of artilce page will end up backfiring on you, because people will try to stop it by trying to trick the ad code into thinking an infobox is there. So, I tried to see what it would take to trick it, and found that it pretty much takes only one nested table to force the ad to switch to the leaderboard.

Now, I'm not a fan of circumventing how things are meant to be, but I think you're going to have lot of people trying to circumvent this so that the flow of their pages are not messed with. You'll have people coming up with a hidden nested table, or a caption for their pictures in a nested table (like I did in my test page), just so that they won't have to get the tandem ad and have a break in the flow.

I think that we're seen time and again that people just don't like "in your face" advertising. Anywhere, not just Wikia. They in fact usually react quite negatively to it as you've seen here. And I've seen that the negativity actually usually comes from the lay reader most. First we had pop-ups and pop-unders (and still do, but not as much), then we had the java/flash ads that pop up and they're often hard to close, then ads that move across the page to attract attention and are impossible to close, and now the in-content ads. Of them all, these are probably tied with popups in annoyingly irritating behavior, except for instances with multiple pop-ups.

So I have no problem with the infobox forcing a leaderboard on top of the content, and even think the tandem ad on a non-preamble picture page is pretty brilliant. On the other hand, I'm with other people on the tandem forcing simple pictures down the page, and think it's going to backfire in one way or another, as I've shown.

Thank for reading! --Dymero 05:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Dymero. When you say image leading on the left, do you mean like this? Because I think this works well. Additionally I'm interested in what exactly is forcing the banner ad at the top...because for this article I get the box, whereas in your example I get the top banner, and both have infobox-style templates...--<font color="Green">LordTBT <font color="Green" size="2">Talk! 06:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure it's because of the fact there's a nested table within the main one. If you take it out, the ad gets changed back to tandem.  Although in your example, there is no ad because your page is too short.  As for the left floated picture, on looking at your example, I guess it's not too too bad, but try telling that to most people. --Dymero 09:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Too many ads?
Look. One ad box at the top-right inside the content, other at the end of the article inside the content and other on the bottom-left of the page, outside the article.

The pay-by-impression ad inside the article content doesn't give wikia enough revenue? How did Wikia remained healthy as a company until now, with only one pay-by-click ad? Remember that those ads will become more intrusive, being replaced with image ads with animation. Those ads seems to give a lot more revenue that the current ads, so the other ads seems unnecessary. If not, either Wikia or the wiki contributors are being deceived with that. Yes, I think that's abusing. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 08:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm only seeing the top-right tandem ad. Am I missing something? --Dymero 09:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is what I see (both without a page reload): --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 13:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6206/treatyofbarrion1xi7.th.png http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5343/treatyofbarrion2qs3.th.png


 * The present ads have not been funding Wikia's expansion and would be unlikely to support its current operations. Wikia has, up until now, been funded mostly by "angel" funds and venture capital - about $20 million, I believe, some from Bessemer Partners, some from Amazon, and some from the original founders. At some point, this money will run out. I suspect Wikia would like to be making money before then - at least some significant proportion of their costs, to justify further investment. --GreenReaper(talk) 17:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

That is very odd! I do not see the ads you show at the bottom of content or on the LH navbar. In my LH navbar I see an "Our partners" box and an empty "Wikia Spotlight" box but no googlesyndication ads. (I doubt browser should make a difference but in the interest of being thorough ... What browser are you using? Mine is Firefox 3.0 RC3.) The only filter that might be affecting my screenshot below is my OpenDNS category filtering however when OpenDNS blocks a portion of a page I always see evidence in the form of a box with an OpenDNS branded announcement in the location where the objectionable material would otherwise have appeared.


 * http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/4992/barriongs6.th.png

Maybe you viewed your test page at the communitytest wiki at a time when staff were experimenting with alternative ad placement or perhaps you caught a glimpse of phase 2 of this invasive advertising. najevi 16:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems that those ads are not always shown. Reloading the page, sometimes shows one ad and sometimes three. The page also shows 3 ads for me. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 17:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Are the extra ads you sometimes see also served up by googlesyndication.com or are they from some other domain? najevi 18:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the "Ads by Google" inside the ads on the screenshots I'd provide gives you the answer. But yes, I confirm that. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 18:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The difference is whether you are logged in or out. Ciencia, you must have been logged out when you saw the extra ads?  As it says on the introduction page:


 * Ads will be running in various sizes and placements on article pages. The ads will automatically be placed in text areas using the same logic that adding an image does – the text will wrap around the ads, and they won't disrupt templates or tables. Distracting movement in the ads will be kept to a minimum.
 * Logged-in users will only see one ad unit on article pages; a 300x250 ad unit at the top right. (Example) On pages where a 300x250 ad would disrupt a table, the ad will render as a banner ad. (Example) Logged-in users will not see any other ads on article pages – no banner ads, no ads in the sidebar, and no ads further down in the article area.


 * If you weren't logged out, there may be something wrong. Please let us know if that's the case - sannse (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You are right, I was logged out. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 19:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Sannse, I am sorry, but I ruined your example links with my earlier edits to illustrate a different point. However, bunnies remains unadulterated!

I know you appreciate that it has been tough enough keeping in mind those wiki visitors viewing pages with 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc desktop resolutions not to mention IE versus Firefox browsers (and FF2.0 behaving very badly with table borders - that fortunately get's fixed in FF3.0RC3) ... we now have to concern ourselves with logged in versus logged out views being significantly different. I hope that you will work with my wiki to reach a happy middle ground that doesn't steer away potential regular visitors. najevi 20:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The differences are in the sidebar, and at the foot of the article. The top ad is the same with both views, so this shouldn't interfere with page design.  The aim was to giver logged in users less ads, so wherever possible we removed them for logged in users -- sannse (talk) 21:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Stupid
Excuse my French, but why the hell do we need a flipping ad section anyway?? It's stupid! Wikipedia doesn't have one, nor does any other wiki I've been to, it's stupid. They get in the way, just like pop-ups, which are also stupid, so why do we need them?? Akira Otomo Talk | Contributions 15:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Servers cost money. A lot of money. So do the people to run them. How do you pay for them? Wikipedia relies on donations. Wikia does not. --GreenReaper(talk) 15:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Personal .css
From what I've been told, it seems there the only way for a logged in user to change the monoco skin is to have a personal .css. The wiki I edit at has a bit of a younger audience, and we have few users who know anything about .css. Does wikia have any .css guides or tutorials that we could possibly show users? Thanks, Tesfan 15:55, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Admins can customize the Monaco skin on their wiki using the page MediaWiki:Monaco.css. There's instructions on Help.wikia to help you customize the skin. That page needs to be updated a little bit to reflect the differences between the old and new versions of Monaco -- but there aren't many differences, and most of the information will stay exactly the same.


 * There are a bunch of wikis you can look at for examples of customized Monaco skins, including Wookieepedia, Age of Conan, Marvel Movies and Indiana Jones. Let us know if you want help customizing your wiki's skin; we'll be happy to help. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There's also a wiki called Code Snippets, which is meant as a place to share useful bits of code and wiki markup. If anyone is interested in sharing knowledge of css for Monaco, that's a great place to contribute -- sannse (talk) 18:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The New Monaco isn't very good
Well it needs some time because I was able to certemvate a banner ad into an article using some handy code. I think your technical team needs time to fix this. --<font color="#306ac1">Taylor Karras <font color="#e13f5d">talk <font color="#51b732">contributions 16:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we're aware that people can use an empty table at the top to force the banner ad. We're taking a hands-off approach to that right now. There are some people who will be determined enough to put something like that on the top of every article on their wiki. Most wikis won't bother. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 17:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think a template to force a banner ad might be a good idea for small articles that are "just a bit to big" and will have ads on them, I've been told there is no ad on this article yet I see it everytime I view the page. The Lego Star Wars Wiki has a lot of pages like that and ads would ruin those articles unless there is some way to get a banner on them. I'm not saying I would add a template like that to every page on the wiki... I'm just saying that there might be some small articles that are "just a bit to big" and will have ads on them that will push the infobox down to where there is no other content because the ad is about as big as the content area is... --Jedimca0(Do or Do Not, There is No Try) 18:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it might be an Infobox Template interfering with the ads and incorrectly determining it not to be a stub. Is there any way you can program the ads to not include the  template links determine an articles size. --<font color="#306ac1">Taylor Karras  <font color="#e13f5d">talk <font color="#51b732">contributions 18:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Jedimca0, are you able to take a screenshot of that article with ads? If you could upload it to communitytest, and let me know where it is, that woul dbe a help.  Thanks -- sannse (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded a screenshot . --Jedimca0(Do or Do Not, There is No Try) 19:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Remember the Content Creators.
This is... rather frustrating, and it's frustrating for a very simple reason. We create the content.

Wikia trades on the content we create The only reason it is a viable advertising outlet is because people like myself constantly generate new content. When a new Transformers episode airs, people rush to add content about it. This in turn allows READERS to read about the episode. Without us constantly updating, there would be no reason for readers to come back to the site.

We don't get paid, and now we don't even get acknowledged as having a say. Without us, you HAVE NO COMPANY. But you're making changes that will make the content we've produced less appealing, less eye-catching and less entertaining. It would be fine if wikia was intending to rework every single content page that is affected by the new design. But they won't -- they CAN'T, it's an insane thing to ask.

So it falls to us editors to do it.

Do you see what I'm saying here? Without us you have no content. Without us all you have is a bunch of servers. Maybe it's time you started paying us -- perhaps a few cents an update or something. That would be nice. Maybe you could pay us a few cents a word, just like old pulp fiction magazine writers.

You can't, of course. If our feelings are hurt by the changes you're making, you should listen.

We're going to have to go back to the drawing board now. We're going to have to work with an ugly, horrible page design to try and make our content be still entertaining and interesting and engaging. We're going to have to compete with obnoxious ads that try and steal the readers' attention. The whole environment of Wikia has suddenly become less pleasant for we, the editors.

I for one, as a person who likes this place as an escape, a hobby, kinda resent that. If you're going to turn this into work, maybe it IS time you started paying us. Jhiaxus 18:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Content is created by the common user everywhere. Asking Wikia to "pay" you is an understatment because we contribute because we feel like we have information to contribute to these wikis. If people were to contribute for money, then the whole "balance" would be ruined. I don't see any reason why Wikia should pay you or anyone else for contributing. Contributing is only a hobby, nothing more, nothing less. --<font color="#306ac1">Taylor Karras <font color="#e13f5d">talk <font color="#51b732">contributions 18:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Taylor is right that it's a balance... And, yes, one side of that is that we need to make sure the site stays a place where you will enjoy contributing. And although this is a difficult change for many of you editors, we believe that's this can work, and that Wikia can continue to be a place that you want to come to and build the sites you love.  Wikia staff will do all we can to help with the transition, so please let us know where and when you want help.  We'll also be coming around to wikis in the next few weeks to help with main pages, to ensure they stay well formatted around the new ads.  -- sannse (talk) 19:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Jhiaxus, it's true that the contributors create the content that people come to Wikia to read. It's so obvious that the contributors are important to the site that maybe we don't say it as loud or as often as we should. You're absolutely right -- without the contributors who write content, design pages and manage the community, there's no wiki. If there are no wikis, then there's no Wikia.


 * That logic also works the other way around. When we have technical problems and the database slows down, then the contributors complain -- and rightly so. That means we need community people who pay attention to the communities and see the complaints. We need engineers who can identify the problem and fix it, as quickly as possible. We need operations people who can analyze what happened and take the appropriate steps to reduce the chance that it'll happen again. We need managers who can coordinate all of this, and make sure that everything is running smoothly. We need offices and bookkeeping and occasional air conditioning. All of this costs money, just to make sure that when the site slows down, we can speed it back up again.


 * So the relationship works both ways: If there's no Wikia, then there are no wikis.


 * You said (in a previous edit), "Maybe it's time to stop throwing the, "We're a company and have to stay solvent" thing back in our faces. We're the only reason you could possibly stay solvent." You could just as easily turn that statement around. Wikia's solvency is the only reason that your wiki exists, and will continue to exist in the long term.


 * It's true, we don't pay contributors to write content. On the other hand, contributors don't pay Wikia to host their wikis.


 * I've noticed that a lot of people over the last week have told us, quite proudly, that they use AdBlock, and will continue to use it. That means that you're using this site for free. We've taken a really hands-off approach to that, because we recognize that the people who are telling us that they use AdBlock are providing value to the company in other ways -- by creating and managing their wikis. But I think it's important to recognize that if you use AdBlock, then you're using the site for free -- and that means that somebody else has to pay.


 * Everybody who uses the service that Wikia offers does so with the full knowledge that this is a for-profit company that's supported by advertising. The new format does change something -- but it's not a fundamental change in the way that we do business, and it doesn't require a fundamental change in the relationship between Wikia and the contributors.


 * So I agree with you -- You contribute to your wiki because you enjoy it, because it brings value to your life, and because it's exciting to build something that you love. It's your choice whether you want to work on a wiki, and it's your choice whether you want that wiki to be at Wikia. If the new ad format damages your experience in a way that makes it not worthwhile anymore, then you can choose to stop contributing here. I hope that's not the case, but I understand that it's a possibility, and it's entirely up to you.


 * Whatever choice you decide to make, we're committed to helping you. As Sannse said, we'll be coming around to individual sites to help everyone adjust to the new format. If you decide that you don't want to contribute to your wiki anymore, then we'll make sure that Wikia stays solvent and healthy, so that the wiki will be here for you if you ever change your mind. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 19:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Danny, I can't speak for others so this is my perspective only. My explicit mentioning and demonstrating of various workarounds in these early days is to point out flaws in the reasoning that has been communicated to me via the wikia staff's initial announcement as well as their responses in this forum.

I do not believe for one nanosecond that advertisers are ignorant to the tools which savvy browsers may use to avoid being bugged by ads. That is why this current advertising campaign is destined to have a limited shelf-life. Sometime in mid-2009 we'll be going through a similar ordeal as studies then show that fewer than 5 people out of every 1000 are not using ad filtering tools or intelligent DNS servers. (NoScript, AdBlock, Proxomitron, OpenDNS, Hosts file, etc.)

If you would just stop defending the (arguably bad) decision and began a dialog that starts something along the lines of:
 * These are our needs ...
 * What are your needs?
 * Are we speaking the truth?
 * These are our priorities ...
 * What are yours?
 * Is this point a deal breaker or a deal sweetener?
 * What do you think?
 * What else could we/you do?
 * Fair enough so how about this compromise?
 * Is it fair to all concerned?
 * Will it benefit all concerned?
 * Will it foster good will?
 * Do we have a meeting of the minds?
 * etc.

The absence of (and apparent unwillingness to enter into) this type of process is what I was referring to about leading a horse to water but not being able to force it to drink. It might appear from my posts that I don't want to see ad revenue at wikia spike upwards. Actually no! I have no problem with ads at Wikia. I do want to see them placed in a way that they can be embraced by the content creators rather than be shunned, detested or circumvented.


 * Just about every wiki site hosted here is using some form of logo to "brand" their site. Some do this because it's cool or because it's what they see every other site doing. That branding area of the UI is prime screen real estate for time shared advertising.


 * Your current Monaco skin does something very close to this time sharing thing with the widgets bar sharing space with the advertising banner at the very top of the UI.

Here are a few ideas your marketing and design experts might want to give some thought to:
 * 1) allow a content area ad to be dismissed once viewed
 * 2) auto-dismiss an ad placed within content area after some fraction of a minute
 * 3) figure out some user activity detection script that restores a dismissed ad after several minutes of inactivity and then either allows a one click dismissal or auto-dismisses after several seconds of activity.
 * 4) revive and market the wasted screen real estate at the bottom of the LH navbar! You claim advertisers don't like that position so engage us content creators and encourage us to write articles that are longer (reward those of us who already do). I don't mean financially I mean make the ad placement a trade off decision that you automate like you do today for block ad vs leaderboard ad! If an article is so many "em"s long then you don't get either the the block ad at top RH corner or the leaderboard ad you get the LH navbar ad underneath (or above) Wikia Spotlight.
 * 5) develop and sell the site logo time share idea

If I can rattle off these few ideas working in a relative vacuum then just think how many more ideas you'd have if Wikia's Community Development Manager or Operations Manager actually took on the project of facilitating that type of brainstorming and review process with even your top 10 traffic-by-volume wiki communities. That is what I mean by facilitating a meeting of the minds.

You/we need to arm your marketing manager with an arsenal of reasons why wikia's proposed ad placement is better than anything they'll get elsewhere and here are the twenty reasons why.


 * Now the wiki site that I contribute to pales in significance and traffic when compared to wookiepedia, muppets, wow and others so I don't realistically expect any special say other than what noise I make in a forum like this one. What troubles me about this current debacle is that I have not read of any credible evidence of consultation with any of the big players here on Wikia!

GreenReaper's very early response and Gil's reply made that quite clear. When somebody earlier asked you to start treating us with respect and talk to us like adults the process I described above is the kind of approach I imagined they were meaning. (I might be wrong.)

So please go and reread what you have written about web browsing members of the public who choose to use any of the various filtering tools available. The insinuation is that these people are shirking some sort of responsibility to view impression ads. That is utter rubbish and I think you know that in your heart. So please stop with the spin doctoring. It isn't doing your credibility with me any good.

najevi 21:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Najevi: You're right. I think that your ideas are really good, and they're things that we should look at. There have been a lot of ideas and alternatives posted here in the last week. Some have been practical, some haven't. Yours are very practical, and worth investigating.


 * So, speaking the truth: We need to try this out, because we need some real data. We need to see what the actual impact is -- on the page designs, on the communities, on the readers and on the ad sales. And we need that data now, because advertisers are buying ads this month that will run through the end of the year. If we don't try something early this summer, then we lose out on Christmas ad sales, and that's a big potential loss.


 * As I said a few days ago, we'll be looking closely at all of that data. What launches on Tuesday will almost certainly not be exactly what we see six months from now. There will be bugs and loopholes that we'll have to fix. Somebody will have a good idea that makes things work better. We'll get some response from the community that makes us see things in a different way, and that'll lead to a better system.


 * There are two ways to have that period of deliberation and discovery. You could do it before you make any changes at all, and delay any changes until you've got a system that everyone agrees with. Or you could come up with an educated guess, put it up on the site, and give people something to play with and poke holes in.


 * One thing that tipped the scales towards "put it up and see how it works" was the time pressure around Christmas ad sales. But even without that, I personally think it's a better method anyway. If we started a conversation the way that you proposed, I think it would be very easy for people to ignore it -- it's not real until something is actually happening. It would also be easy for folks to take extreme viewpoints in the hopes of delaying any decision at all, and preserve the status quo.


 * As I've said before, I think the communication you're seeing from the community staff indicates the level of commitment we have to the community. In case you haven't noticed: It's Saturday afternoon. I don't know where you live, but here in San Francisco, it's 67 degrees and sunny. I'm not outside enjoying the day, because I'm here talking to you.


 * I'm fine with that -- I like talking to you, and it's an important thing to do. But if you expect me to listen to you and engage with you in this conversation, then please keep in mind the whole Saturday-afternoon thing, and cut me a little slack. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixed Width
I think that is always been a design problem of every media-wiki based site: Why has the skin a variable width? on a widescreen i have around 240 keystrokes per line. that is nothing but a bad layout. the new skin should have at least a maximum width--Shimas 19:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixing image alignment to article text
If image alignment to text is the only thing that bothers you then you are fortunate because a fix for that is trivial. It has been alluded to in several comments posted in this forum and has been demonstrated at the communitytest wiki on at least a few pages that I know of. The simple fix forces the leaderboard style ad which is not the advertiser's first preference but it is reportedly an acceptable alternative for those cases where page content would otherwise be adversely affected.


 * So what's the fix?: At the first line of any affected page insert an empty table using:
 * <tt>{|</tt>
 * <tt>|}</tt>

Variations on this theme can be seen at communitytest but you need to look for them. That's why I like puppies (and even grover) better than kittens. Danny has stated that for now Wikia staff are taking a hands off approach to this fix.

Danny I am grateful for this initial position statement however, I would very much prefer to hear that this is Wikia's long term policy rather than just an initial response. Many people actually do respect such things as "Terms of Service" especially when the service provided by Wikia is generally very good. So for those of us who do think this way it would be nice to know that we are not running afoul of any such current or planned TOS. najevi 19:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a really good question. The reason why I say that we're taking a hands-off approach "for now" is because we need to see how it plays out. I completely understand why some people want to find a workaround that preserves their page designs. At the same time, I expect that the contributors understand that if that workaround substantially damages Wikia's ability to sell advertising, then we'll have to take a different kind of approach.


 * I'm being vague about this, because it really depends on how things work out -- how many people use a workaround like this, how often they use it, and what the impact is on our ad sales. I can't make promises about long-term policy, because I can't predict what people will choose to do.


 * I know that it's a part of internet culture (and wiki culture) to create hacks and workarounds. That can be a really positive thing, and it's led to interesting design breakthroughs on lots of wikis. Wiki people love to make choices, and customize things.


 * It's also part of internet culture to "game the system", and see how much you can get away with. It's fun to get things for free that other people have to pay for. It feels good when you're clever enough to figure out how to bend the rules.


 * That's why we expect Wikia contributors to act in good faith. We expect people to be mature, and understand that sometimes you have to compromise. We expect that the people who are smart enough to "game the system" are also smart enough to know that they are part of the system. Everyone's interests are interconnected here, and the choices that you make spread out like ripples in a pond. In the long run, what you do on your own wiki affects everybody on every wiki.


 * So I can't give you a policy statement about this right now, but I can give you a suggestion: Use this workaround sparingly.


 * I totally understand why you'd want to use it on certain pages. I've already thought about using it myself, on the Sesame Street Episode Guide pages on Muppet Wiki. It would be a huge pain to reformat those pages, and forcing a banner ad would make life a lot easier there.


 * So yeah, if this workaround helps you to preserve a complicated design for a particular category, then it can be a really useful tool. On the other hand, if it turns out that all of the biggest wikis use bots to add this workaround to every single page on their wiki, then that's going to damage Wikia's ability to sell ads. Ultimately, that hurts everyone, because it means that either Wikia goes out of business, or we have to find even more aggressive and intrusive ways to make money.


 * I think it's in everyone's long-term interest to act in good faith, as mature adults who have the same shared goal. We all want the wikis on Wikia to be popular and attractive and amazing, and we want them to be around for years and years. We can all work together towards that goal. It requires good faith and understanding from everyone. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. That is understandable and sage advice. najevi 21:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)