User blog comment:DaNASCAT/Technical Update: August 16, 2011/@comment-4053809-20110817174436

Hey all -

I wanted to go ahead and post a response at the top rather than addressing individual comments because many of them are along a similar theme. I thought this would just be a more simple way to go.

First, I want to address the issue around our decision to change the way category links are handled and all the changes Wikia itself is going through. As you are obviously aware, we're making a ton of changes to Wikia - Admin Dashboard, category links and others. Some of the community has been vocally unhappy with these changes and yes, "we hear you." We absolutely read all your comments here, we quantify your feedback and pass it along to our product and management teams (and they're likely reading, too).

Specific to the category link decision we do feel this is a compromise (despite Rappy's assertion that it's not) - we consider this a compromise because we've given the community the choice to set this preference for their individual experience. I realize there are people who are not satisfied with this decision, and I acknowledge that, but at the same time we made this decision based on what we believe is the best for our site and service. This means some people will be unhappy with our decisions and while we are bummed when people are unhappy, we are confident that these changes are for the greater good.

And, yes, we make choices about direction of the company and its features. When making these choices we do take all of our user-types (heavy editors, occasional editors, founders, admins, readers and visitors) into consideration.

I want to thank Acer for pointing out specific examples of how the category link change went wrong for a few people - this is really helpful information that is more actionable than simply saying "I don't like this change." So, thanks, Acer.

We (the Royal "We" of Wikia) know that the changes we are making (and will continue to make) will likely upset some people - businesses grow and change and that's exactly what we're doing at Wikia. Often, one result of growth and change is that some people will decide that the site is no longer the best place for them - we know that happens and understand if you make that choice.