Forum:Wikia's New Style

(Note: pre-release comments are in the archives. I cleared the page to divide them from comments after the release -- sannse (talk) 09:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC))

Main Page for Non logged in users
Hello Wikia, the main page is the mostly entered page, and you destroyed the "keep it simple" principle. I can live with Monaco, also with "tandem" ads on main page. But I have a list what is wrong on this style.
 * 1) Please disable random messages for not logged in users in top of every page.
 * 2) The top banner and a message for non logged in users is shown some seconds (2 ore more) after loads the rest of page. A user is reading the first lines on main page, wand to click the entry and just in the moment the Google ads is under the mouse cursor you have clicked. That is very odd. The server should calculate the reserved space for ads before sending datas to users browser. It's an html tag "height=... width=...". Please not move or reformat the content area after loading.
 * 3) We have two buttons "Create an account". Ones left and an other on top line. You can not force users to login, if an user is just anonymous browsing for informations (see also 1.).
 * 4) The Font and the menu bars are to big. The content is the most important, not the edit line and not the menu and not the additional informations on left side.
 * 5) The left menu should be half of the size. - The width of the logo (135pix).
 * 6) Frame around the top banner ads, that stick inside the content. But it would be better to have the ads not inside the content!
 * 7) Disable the box "Community"

It's some of this changeable by Monaco.css‎?

It is perhaps a definition question: What are short pages? Can a Main Page also be a short page without ads? Our main page is viewed with 60-75% non content relevant add ons (Wikia, Google and menus) in a screen resolution 1024x786, 25-40% is our content that includes the logo and an other picture (40% only in F11 full screen mode). On a bigger or smaller screen resolution the added space are many more. On a screen 800x600 with IE in full screen mode (key F11) we have 100% ads, 0% content! Only the logo and the site title is seen, not more. All the viewed are from Wikia and Google. User must scroll to see any fuzz of article content.

The "tandem" ads are not on all Wikia Main Page. Some pages have only a top banner. Why we have it?

I ask your, why the page http://www.google.com is mostly set as Start- or Search-page in browsers, in comparisons against other search sites, for example http://www.yahoo.com? Check it self. -- HenryNe 20:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Mainly some main pages have a Banner Ad only. But they need to find another solution. --Taylor Karras talk contributions 02:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * With regards for the disable the "community" box idea, that would be a bad idea. It is quite useful for checking recent changes from users without having to go to Special:Recentchanges. MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 23:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

My intension was more to delete the top half of Community box with button "Create an account", total pages and so. All this messages stays also on Main Page. Loged in users have the same menu ("My page | My talk | Widgets") in top right user menu ("More"). And the last changes are in the widget "Recent Changes". For me, the "Community box" has all this texts in double. Without this box nothing would be missing. By the while I have hacked deep in css to have a lightway Monaco with more content space. ;-) -- HenryNe 00:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The total pages count on there updates faster than Template:NUMBEROFARTICLES . MarioGalaxy2433g5  { talk /contribs/Logs} 23:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * HenryNe your lightway Monaco is very cool and the closest approximation to Monobook I have seen emulated within the constraints of the Monaco skin. Thank you! najevi 12:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Nonciclopedia can't change skin
I'm putting here the opinions of Nonciclopedia users. Let me be straight: we need our skin to remain as it is, because we're a satirical copy of Wikipedia, so we have to stick to their style; I guess that other wikia-hosted uncyclopedias have the same concern. Plus, we've worked hard to customize our Monobook and other single-page css's - we just can't waste all our efforts.

I read somewhere that it is possibile for Wikians themselves to buy the advertisement space on their own site. So, I'm asking you: if we do buy our ad space, will you let us If both (and I mean both) of our requests cannot be accomplished, I'm afraid that we'll have to move to our own server: everyone of us agree with that. I would be sorry to do that - I think Wikia offers a great service, even with more ads; but it's not what we need for our purpose. -- 17:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) keep Monobook for all users, including anonymous
 * 2) have no banners inside the articles (or at least let us hide them with css)?


 * Yes, Nonciclopedia (and all the Uncyclopedia sister languages) have special requirements around parodying Wikipedia. We know of this, and so they won't be included in the changes at the moment. That's not to say that there won't be changes in the future, but we need to give this individual thought and attention. So for the moment, these changes won't happen for you. -- sannse (talk) 17:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * All right, I'm glad to hear that (in your face, non-Uncy Wikias!) -- 18:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

"Short" page determination fundamentally flawed.
Reference Fixer Bug for an example of what I at least think would qualify as a "short" article, made longer vertically by its box ad pushing its image down. This would, of course, be avoided by a banner ad, but the ad logic has deemed that this is a "long" article instead and thus merits a box.--RosicrucianTalk 21:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The article length is measured without the box ad. Looks as though this article is right on the threshold of short article cuttoff. This Cybertron Questshort article does not have an ad  angies (talk) 16:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Angies, "Cybertron_Questshort" article doesn't exist. I see a system message: "Oops! Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki does not have a page with this exact name. ..." - This is without any ads. But does no matter here, because we talk about real articles.


 * Sorry, my cut/paste messed up. The article name is Cybertron Quest. angies (talk) 05:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Old Monaco Look
How does FFXIclopedia still have the top bar Old Monaco look? -- LordTBT Talk! 06:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikia has perhaps not switched. This wiki use an older "stylepath". -- HenryNe 12:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * FFXIclopedia is on a different code trunk b/c they were testing the social tools. FFXI being migrated back and changed to New Monaco this week. angies (talk) 05:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Google ads - ESRB Mature 17+ rating?
Check the screen above - google advert - "Enlarge Your Penis Today Got a small penis? Want it bigger? These guys really helped me out!" - lol... doesn't it make wikia ESRB rating Mature 17+? Erm... I think it does - this category above allows "sexual references" s. Ok, maybe ESRB norms are for computer games only, but that's just to show the problem - Imagine that some girl, 6yo comes on Barbie Wiki or any other kids-related (eg. Teletubbies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, whatever) and sees such advert... lol. SkywalkerPL 10:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (Moved up to help people see the new info below)
 * Eep! not what should be showing. I'll get Jae to look into that urgently!  He may be in touch to get more info from you -- r:Sannse|sannse]] (talk) 11:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Got something similar on Sega Wiki's main page. Quote: "Penis Enlargement: Want a bigger penis? Increase your penis size naturally in 2 weeks!" Eeks... Wikada - Talk Contributions 11:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Please can someone get us the URL of the advert? That is, of the ad itself, not the page it's on.  We can't track this down without it.  Thanks -- sannse (talk) 19:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * http://www.enlargeyourpenistoday.com was the link on my website. EDIT: The advert itself seems to link to http://www.penisadvantage.com though. Both of them probably shouldn't be advertised. Wikada - Talk Contributions 19:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links, these'll come in handy. There is no way to misconstrue that.  —ǥrɩɳsɧƴ ɖɩđđɭɘş  [[Image:Grinshpon blinky cake.gif|19px]] 14:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * We need the actual URL of the ad. There are instructions on how to find this at w:c:help:Help:Bad advertisements.  I've tried repeatedly loading pages on the wikis where this has been seen, but haven't found one yet... it may be they are only being shown to people in one area.  So the URL will help a lot -- sannse (talk) 16:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Probably last notice about boycott...
See Forum:Boycott Wikia's New Style. --Fandyllic 16:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible changes for logged-in users
First, thank you for all your feedback. We have been responding where we can, and reading everything, so now we want to look at where we can adapt things to make them work a bit better for all of us. Obviously that doesn't mean that anything has changed about the need for ads, or in our conviction that the ad spaces that we have introduced are the ones we can best sell. As I said to some of you on this: "there may be wiggle room, but there isn't waving-arms-around room".

So, what options are there? One thing that people have said is that the ads are distracting for contributors and likely to dissuade people from editing. That's an important issue, and something we have been looking at closely. The number of logged-in users is actually very small compared to the number of logged-out users, only about 1% of users actually log in. So we have been considering what changes for this group might be helpful to encourage editing, while not affecting the income from ads more than we can bear.

One possibility we are examining is to remove ads from the content area, or even remove them completely from article pages, for logged-in users. Do you feel this would help reduce distraction and annoyance for those of you who contribute frequently or daily to the content of the wikis?

Would it help if we add clear messages to visitors that they can "log in to see pages without ads"?

We understand that this is not a solution that fixes everything, of course you are worried about the view that anons see and want the wikis to look good for everyone.

One consideration, is how would you (logged-in users) know how your edits are affecting a logged-out view? One solution might be to show "placeholder" boxes on preview pages. Another (which would take more time to develop) might be a "preview as anon" button alongside the current preview button. Or maybe we could add an option to switch ads on and off so you can see the changes. Or are new features necessary? As we remove the last bugs from the ad placement system, we hope you can begin to be able to trust that the proper box or banner ad is being placed, and that content is flowing properly around them.

So, I'm asking for opinions on this idea, and feedback on the best way to work around any downsides. I know there are a lot of other suggestions out there, and we're still discussing the practical ones, but for now we'd like a discussion on how this change would affect you. Thoughts? -- sannse (talk) 08:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all: The idea of removing ads for logged-in users is lovely! Far more than I expected :D :D :D Can't wait to see this. And about previews with ads - I prefer "preview as anon" button added option, but still think it could work wall as simple preview without any ads - if someone want to see page with ads then just save the article and logout. In most cases ads (even this ave-distracting square google ad) don't make more changes in page layout than resolution-change does. (ofq that's if we forget for a moment about moving the infoboxes by ads) SkywalkerPL 09:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (Edit Conflicted) The placeholders might be alright, though it's not to reflective, hard to determine differences... Rather I think 3 things would be useful combined together:


 * A user preference defaulted to off to enable ads even when they are logged in.
 * A url parameter &useads=0|1 which can override the user preference and let some advanced users just look at the current page (whatever it is, edit or not) and see what it would look like with or without ads.
 * And finally, a checkbox beside 'Watch this page" saying "Show Ads in Preview" defaulting to the user's preference on whether to show ads or not. That can be used when editing to checkout the differences.
 * However as a difference that "preview as anon" something more like the placeholder, and with a bit of JS. It would be possible to add that ad as a simple box which can be toggled on and off without reloading the page.
 * ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Jun 30, 2008 @ 10:13 (UTC)


 * Removing ads for logged-in users is an amazing idea! I'm quite sure we'd get many more users logging in and maybe that would encourage them to edit a little more. Also, you said that 1% of users log in, so there will still be a lot of ad views because not everyone will want an account. But if possible if we could make a "Turn ads on/off" control in the widget under the logo (maybe a button next to recent changes, what links here, etc.), it may help admins and users checking page design, so if we quickly want to check a page to make sure it looks good for logged out users, we don't have to edit and preview the page first, or go and change it in the preferences tab. Other than that, thanks for listening to our concerns, and I hope a reasonable compromise between all parties is found in the near future. Wikada - Talk Contributions 11:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Edit preview with white or grey placeholder rectangles where ads will appear is my preference. I can't see the virtue of preview as anon since any one live ad that is displayed is purely random and not representative of the color or animation or subject of all possible ads that an anon user might see. The only information of value is the size and placement of the ad rectangle. So a white or gray rectangle without any advertising content satisfies the need to check article flow around the ad. If an editor really wants to preview a page as anon then they can easily log out and view the page as an anon visitor. To your credit you have made logout and login very easy at Wikia.
 * Informing anon browsers that by registering they may view wiki sites without ads is a great idea! However, if this is merely a bait and switch tactic then you'll have more egg on your face in six or twelve months time when Wikia membership has increased to the point where you feel compelled to show ads to registered wiki members who you enticed to register by promising no ads. That would not be a pleasant PR experience.
 * najevi 13:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I guess you may be right about this "bait and switch tactic" but since all the time it's best solution I've heard. So even if it would be temporary solution - it's worth the effort.
 * Anyway: It would be good also to make advert more predictable and less article-layout spoiling like centered horizontal banner appearing all the time in articles... SkywalkerPL 17:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Najevi, we have learned not to make promises that we don't know if we can keep in years to come. So we are not saying there will never be ads for logged in users.  It depends on more factors than we can guess at right now.  We have considered other ideas, such as removing ads for people with over 1000 edits, or for those that edit at least once a week... and perhaps we will have to revisit them one day.  But we believe this can work, and hope people will feel it gives a better balance between revenue needs and the needs of contributors. -- sannse (talk) 19:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as I understand this - the issue is not about that if wikia says "logged-in users won't ever see the adverts" but rather that people login/register cause they see text "log in to see pages without ads", and then, after a year or so, adverts are back for logged-in users and people are mad. The issue is not that you promise to not give adverts ever, but rather that people THINK that they won't ever see the adverts.
 * The idea with removing adverts for people who edit once per week is very very great - it could greatly improve the quality of wikia wikis as people would be encouraged to edit form accounts, and -if they would be lazy- they still would make some useful edits, as fixing grammar or some other easy tasks which are still precious. IHMO it's far better than 1000 edits border as this could cause massive increase of spammers who make some random pointless edits (like write something stupid, then remove it - got only 998 edits to remove adverts; or other example: People who write article 2kb long making 15 edits - it's more than horrible.) just to remove ads, and after that would become completly inactive (in matter of editing). SkywalkerPL 08:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Placeholder Image: could this be taken from a default wiki image, like Image:Ad-placeholder.jpg on our wiki? That way, the wiki admins can decide what works best for them: grey, white, black, whatever. Could even be a site notice for editors only. --◄mendel► 20:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Typically, those who edit wikis already know how to hide or block ads, so hiding the advertisements for them would not change a lot. A clear "log in to see pages without ads" message would most probably only increase the number of inactive registered users, but still, it would be a nice way to get rid of the ads for people who do not have the knowledge/expertise to block them themselves. Drennan 08:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Additional issue to do with ads: doesn't seem to be 'slick' enough way of identifying ads, when problems - make ultra ultra easy helps. Also from a more positive angle is not theoretically impossible to like some ads eg on sca /green wikia etc there may be a particular green product or service that users approve of being advertised, similarly with ultra local advertising. Again ultra ultra ease of identifying - something like a tick box? - might be a help Philralph @ sca21 09:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * remove ads for logged-in users. Yes please Philralph @ sca21 09:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * add clear messages to visitors that they can "log in to see pages without ads"? Yes please Philralph @ sca21 09:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * some kind of switch to see with/ without ads. Yes please Philralph @ sca21 09:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Remove ads from content for logged in users: Yes. Log in to see pages without ads message: Yes. Preview as anon: Yes. Although, if no ads are an option for logged in users, I'm really wishing the Old Monaco skin could be an option too. --LordTBT Talk! 09:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Clarification & one question for non-wikia staff
 * User:SkywalkerPL correctly interpreted the intended meaning behind my "bait and switch" comment.
 * Sannse wrote:
 * One solution might be to show "placeholder" boxes on preview pages. Another (which would take more time to develop) might be a "preview as anon" button alongside the current preview button.
 * I very much paid attention to the highlighted words in parenthesis. Rather than investing engineering resources to implement "preview as anon" I would prefer to hear that those resources are being invested to support the Monobook skin as a permanently available option for a wiki site's default skin. With ad placement inside the article content area there is no good reason why Monobook should not be available as an admin specified default skin for unregistered visitors. If there is a good reason then it has not been clearly communicated. Other higher priority (IMHO) projects are support of Monobook style Printable version and Permanent link special urls for the Monaco Link Toolbox.
 * Request of one of the non-Wikia staff advocates of the "preview as anon" idea. Would you please explain what benefit you see from "preview as anon" and why that same benefit cannot be got from previewing your article edits with a plain rectangle "placeholder ad"?
 * Sannse, if the "placeholder ad" was served from within wikia.com then domain name filters would not prevent the "placeholder ad" from appearing and so the all-important article flow around the 300x250 block ad could be accurately previewed even for contributors who have advertisement serving domains blocked.
 * I also like User:M.mendel's suggestion for sourcing that "placeholder ad" from within a project's Image namespace.
 * I am not a fan of the proposed 1000 edit count criteria or weekly edit frequency criteria for registered users to not be shown ads. If you register then by default you should not have to suffer the ads. If you register and you want to see the ads then you should be able to enable the ads via your user preferences. User:Dantman suggested using CGI parameters to enable ads on a one time basis. That idea also has merit.
 * najevi 12:27, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of an ad toggle option in the profile area. I don't mind the new placement and would just as soon turn the option off in order to see what the other 99% see.  If I am doing some intensive and not layout specific editing, I can toggle the ads off to speed up the process.  That said, I too am worried about the bait and switch issue.  It would be a problem is anon users signed up because the box says "log in to get rid of ads" and then a week later it changes on them.  What if once per month a logged-in user needed to click something (not hidden but easily visible in profile) to get rid of the ads for 30 days - and that button plainly says that this is a limited offer.  Then, wikia could more easily remove that option one day.  IDK - just an off the cuff idea. -- 15:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you guys so much for considering this. Personally, I feel like this option gives a little back to the wikis' main contributors for all their hard work.  (I do realize you could log in and not contribute, but I wouldn't think that would be all that often).  That being said, any of the above ideas to view the ads while considering layout design would work for me.  I personally don't have an opinion as to how this is done.  Thanks for doing this in advance!
 * --Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 16:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This is pretty much a win situation, we get to keep hosting our wikis for free, it'll encourage more people to login to the sites. Plus, it gets rid of most of those ads. :) -- Phillip ( talk ) 16:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

How to test Mainpage ads?
Is there a way to 'force' the ads Mainpage to display on wikias they haven't been rolled out for yet in order to test them? Is there a schedule for when wikias are going to be transitioned? (We're getting banner ads on our main page now, and rather than try to redesign the entire page blind in preparation for the new content- I'd like to force it to display so it can be part of the design. But I have no idea if the ads are actually 'there' already and are just being "bumped" to banners by our table structure, or aren't displaying because they're not implemented yet.)

This makes it kinda hard to initiate any sort of page redesign without being able to tell if it works, and I'd rather not sink a lot of hours and community discussion over something that's goignto have to change because we can't tell if it works. Tangentally- it'd be better for the community (which is probably decamping-- I think this is a bad idea) if they could see what the new design was going to look like with the adblock as it's developed, rather than build up an expectation of th new design without the in-column ad that then gets shattered when they're rolled out, pissing people off about the whole thing all over again. Can't Wikia just piss us off once, rather than doing it in a series of small insults? (This is part of why I want to redesign now, to ease our community into the new ugliness rather than having it thrust upon us all at once.)

So basically-- "How do I test the mainpage ads?" Can I make a sub-page of communitytest 'behave' like the main page? (I'm guessing you don't want me to overwrite the existing one for development purposes.)

(Ah, there's a discussion about maybe nuking ads for logged in users! I shall see if I can cool TT1's wikia rage with it...) -Derik 17:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * We can help you redesign the main page... We can set up a test page for you on the wiki that uses the column tags. We've been leaving Transformers alone for a minute, on account of the rage. Let me know if you want someone to come help you with a main page sandbox. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)