Forum:Your First Look at the New Wikia (discussion)

Reminder: the team is only watching the blog for comments and feedback. If you want your comments read by staff, leave them there. 16:34, 17 August 2010


 * Have Wikia staff forgotten how to keep track of interesting pages with their watchlist? How do they keep track of the blog comments, is there a way to restrict RC to comments for just one blog page, as is possible with categories? -- ◄mendel► 22:56, August 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Uberfuzzy's comment is really a lie. He wouldn't have put a comment here, if Wikia staff were really only watching the blog comments. I'll bet they are looking here, but they just don't want to appear like they're catering to those editors who are active in the Community Central Forum. It's not about truth it's about PR. Not good PR, but PR just the same. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 5:45 PM PST 18 Aug 2010
 * Uberfuzzy was talking about "the team", not staff in general. It is quite possible that the skin design team doesn't read this. -- ◄mendel► 08:36, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Related Pages

 * User blog:Sannse/Your First Look at the New Wikia


 * File:LoggedOUT for blogpost.jpg (talk)
 * Sarah Manley has a three bullet comment
 * Wikia’s new look - FAQ
 * Wikia’s new look - User Qs
 * Forum:Wikia’s new look - User questions
 * Forum:We want a new skin (July 23 - July 31)
 * User talk:Randomtime, includes a post by sannse
 * User blog:Spark01/Petition!

Interesting Blog Comments
Note: the names are linked to the cited comments.
 * Peteparker &rarr; Sannse: Yes, we tried a right hand navigation with Quartz. That version just didn't work well. We think this horizontal navigation, above the article, is much more comfortable to use.
 * Bentendo: A few (important) pages on my Wiki have several categories (up to twenty). They won't all appear at the top of the page, will they? &rarr; Sannse: No, on the prototype it's just the top three categories that show.
 * "The FAQ is pretty weak." &rarr; Sannse: We'll be adding to that over time... we just wanted to get the obvious first questions in there to start with.
 * Sannse: You'll still be able to customize the colors to suit your wiki.
 * Porter21 voices detailed criticism.

Discussion
Make sure to read: User blog:Sannse/Your First Look at the New Wikia and Wikia’s new look - FAQ

If comments to this blog entry are the way Wikia gets feedback, that sucks. However, I like the clean look of the new design. It is hard to tell much from a screenshot, though.

I'm hoping they have a good transition plan from Monaco long before the roll out. We'll see.

Comments? Speculation? Any beta testers out there? -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 9:37 AM PST 17 Aug 2010
 * I hope monobook's still going to be available -- Random Time  17:25, August 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the fixed width of the article space? Duskey ( talk ) 17:36, August 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * That question can only be answered by Wikia Staff or maybe beta testers. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 2:54 PM PST 17 Aug 2010


 * The "clean" look is the "look, ma, no ads" look. Get your 300x400 flash ad on the sidebar and a fixed banner across the bottom, attached to the toolbar (this is mere speculation on my part), and it it's going to look a lot less enticing.
 * This skin wins if it validates with less xhtml errors than Monaco does.
 * I'll not be applying for the beta. I've left detailed feedback on new features for Wikia in the past, and I found the rewards to not be worth it. -- ◄mendel► 22:38, August 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess mendel's last sentence is a word to the wise. We'll see if Wikia has learned any lessons from the Monaco experience. I suspect their tactic will be "the less information, the better" so we can't complain, having been left mostly in the dark. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 11:10 PM PST 17 Aug 2010
 * Just to clarify, I wasn't referring to my feedback re: Monaco. -- ◄mendel► 20:07, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Regardless, the Monaco experience was just as bad. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 1:25 PM PST 18 Aug 2010


 * Also, mendel please don't remove content without making a copy elsewhere or saying something in the forum post. An edit summary is not sufficient. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 1:29 PM PST 18 Aug 2010
 * Fandyllic, I moved the content in a single edit - it's all in one diff, it was moved to a new section right below the section it was previously, so I kinda assumed you'd be able to find it again. Of course, if you think of it as "Staff responses at blog" instead of "Interesting Blog Comments", you'd not find it so easily, but I invite you to just rename that section. -- ◄mendel► 22:28, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've removed the duplicated content - please see above, all the links and quotes are there. -- ◄mendel► 08:34, August 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * This shit is EXACTLY why, if I had the necessary money and tech know-how, I would take a database dump of my wiki and GET IT THE HELL OUT OF WIKIA. ---Blackout- 16:13, August 22, 2010 (UTC)

Astroturf or audience partcipation?
The people who posted comments to the blog today between 6:30 and 9:00 were SawBucks, JohnnyLightning, Chicken7, Thebrains222, Gebezis, Richmond2010, Pip25, Gourleyo, Gluetube365, Ldude893, Technobliterator, timmah911. Of these 12, Special:Editcount counts at least 7 with no more than max. 3 contributions, all of them on this wiki, all of them in User blog Comment:. If these are bona fide readers and not sockpuppets, getting them to voice their opinion is quite an achievement. --80.228.212.39 13:44, August 18, 2010 (UTC) '' struck inaccurate content, see below. -- ◄mendel► 08:59, August 19, 2010 (UTC)''


 * For the record, a global talk page message went out yesterday linking to the blog. Everyone had the opportunity to see it and post a comment without actually having to be on Central to find out about it. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 18:37, August 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Now, if Wikia has the tech, why can't I send out a wiki-global talk page message on my wiki? That'd be neat. -- ◄mendel► 19:39, August 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sitenotice...? Max21 04:52, August 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think they were sock puppets, but it would be nice to know the wiki where people have the most contributions. However, sifting through the blog comments for actual replies from staff is painful and annoying. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 1:24 PM PST 18 Aug 2010


 * The real reason is that Special:EditCount is broken and always displays 0 for the "all of Wikia" statistic -- I really should have caught that. -- ◄mendel► 08:45, August 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I rechecked the edit counts of the users I listed; since the "all wikis" EditCount does seem to get computed at some time after the initial request, I got "all wikis" editcounts for most of them today, and the people I listed do have edit counts in the hundreds and often in the thousands. This means that my previous conclusions posted here are completely wrong. -- ◄mendel► 08:59, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Load Times are crucial
One of the biggest problems with Monaco and related skins has been end user page load times. If it takes up to a minute to load a page, I'm twiddling my thumbs instead of doing contructive work on my wiki, and am getting frustrated in the process.

I do not use Monaco because it feels bloated to me. Pages take longer to load than on Monobook; sometimes the loads stall; I generally twiddle my thumbs more. Some of the bloat has, unfortunately, leaked onto monobook during the past years. I run a small volunteer wiki that I host myself, and the fast responses to any page action are as if a weight fell off. If you have competent skin designers who understand the impact that their design choices and coding style may make on end user load times, they may achieve making your new skin load almost as fast as any skin off an out-of-the-box MediaWiki install. If they manage that, I can gurantee that (almost) every editor will love the new skin; if you have a sane design that is easy to customize, we can always customize the looks and turn off unwanted features if it is worth it. Please make it so.

I know that you have done everything in your power to ensure that Wikia content is served quickly. However, end user page loads seem to often stall as 3rd party content (ads, javascript etc.) is being loaded, often before the page has displayed. Your technicians won't know about this unless they track the load times of 3rd party content on an ongoing basis.

Please have your skin designers read this document; have them ask your server techs to explain to them what they don't understand, since I know that the server staff have already considered everything this documents asks of them where it is sensible. However, a lot of the delay comes in where on the page content is loaded; preferably, third-party content should be loaded under Javascript control (most of it is Javascript anyway) after the wiki page has loaded and displayed initially.

You do not need beta testers to find out if you have succeeded, since you have offices and helpers around the globe; they should log out, clear their browser caches, and check how long it takes for a page to load at various times during the day.

Side note: is there an easy way to track whether I've received a comment? Unlike a talkpage, the blog comments have no table of contents, so the only way to find a comment and any replies seems to be to load the blog page (with useskin=monaco), allow "all comments" to load, and then use the browser to search for it. On a talkpage, I'd click on "my" topic in the TOC (and that works in monobook as well). This makes comments really unsuited for following any kind of discussion. The lack of a "preview" function and the propensity for important comments to drop from sight quickly doesn't help, either.

This post is a duplicate of this blog comment.

-- ◄mendel► 11:00, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Wanted: dialogue and clear advantages
Sannse, reading and listening is not enough. The idea of a dialog is to tell the people whom you are listening to what you have understood, so that any misunderstanding can be cleared up and controversies nipped in the bud.

The only response I've seen that I would qualify at an earnest attempt at a dialog is Sarah's, and even it fails to indicate that you have even noticed the foremost problem that has been raised in these problems: the transition from Monaco to UnnamedNewSkin.

The skin change will cost all of the wikis a lot in terms of retraining editors and users to the new interface, and tranferring the wiki's custom styles to the new skin. To make us buy in, I'd expect you to explain how the new skin offers clear advantages to our editors, our readers, and, if you're really honest and open, to Wikia support staff and Wikia marketing. You have fallen far short of this; mainly you've given us a new "look", and since most of us invested heavily in our present look, it's no wonder this announcement is received in terms of cost instead of benefits.

Btw, you could have stated on your initial blog post (this one) which of the features visible on the screenshots are already available on the new Wikianswers skin; it would probably have avoided some of the confusion.

Side note: is there an easy way to track whether I've received a comment? Unlike a talkpage, the blog comments have no table of contents, so the only way to find a comment and any replies seems to be to load the blog page (with useskin=monaco), allow "all comments" to load, and then use the browser to search for it. On a talkpage, I'd click on "my" topic in the TOC (and that works in monobook as well). This makes comments really unsuited for following any kind of discussion. The lack of a "preview" function and the propensity for important comments to drop from sight quickly doesn't help, either.

Note: this is a duplicate of my blog comment.

-- ◄mendel► 11:32, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

More discussion
Blog comment by Porter21 11:25, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Blog comment by User:Deltaneos 14:44, August 19, 2010 (UTC)

Blog comment by User:LordTBT 04:02, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

Blog comment by User:Najevi 00:49 & 01:00, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

''Blog Comment by User:Ciencia Al Poder 17:52, August 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, there are now sites (like fml) who allow their users to hide ads. But then, when Wikia introduced the 300x400 ads, there were already sites who integrated them in a right-hand-side-navbar, so I expect it'll be a year or two until Wikia catches up to hidable ads. -- ◄mendel► 18:24, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

Blog comment by User:Najevi 03:13, August 22, 2010 (UTC)


 * For me, Najevi's argument evokes an argument made about video games and television: at first, it was created by smart people for smart people; then, as more people got access, the media were retargetted to achieve higher numbers. Wikis used to be founded by digerati who had a strong hand in running them; Wikia has given the power to create a wiki to everyone, with the RTE tries to give the power to edit one to everyone, and the new skin seems aimed at making it attractive to the lowest common denominator. When their attention is spent on the wiki they're at, the big topbar lets them jump to something different without leaving Wikia, much like zapping through channels on TV or trying the next flash game on a minigame portal.
 * It begs the question whether Wikia continues to be the right service for digerati to host their wikis. -- ◄mendel► 07:00, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * Touché That analogy is very well described and apropos. I'd not heard the term "digerati" before but I get it's meaning. If any one knows of a wiki farm that offers free hosting (with or without advertising does not bother me too much) of plain vanilla MediaWiki capability and extensions then I'd welcome a recommendation.
 * One that I have come across while learning about various Semantic MediaWiki extensions is Referata ... has anybody here first hand experience with that free service?
 * -- najevi 12:03, August 23, 2010 (UTC)

The beta test
I'm temporarily suspending my hiatus to bring you this cryptic bit of information.

The beta test will start very soon, but the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement; even though they didn't call it that) is pretty restrictive, so you won't be getting much info from the beta testers unless they want to get kicked out of the test.

I'll also say, I didn't plan my hiatus to coincide with the beta test, but it seems to be working out that way... see you in a few months. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 9:45 PM PST 21 Aug 2010