Forum:Why can't we know every change going on around here?

It's come to my attention that the Watch button image just got changed from binoculars to a star. I was never informed of this change, and was quite surprised as a result. Additionally, the rating icon just got changed from stars to hearts, and I didn't even ask for the change. I realize now that every change that Wikia makes, no one is alerted/supposed to be alerted, which brings up the question: "Why are we left in the dark?" Anyone have a good answer to this question? R A N 1  (talk • contributions) 19:10, April 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Please, stay calm. The search icon was a mistake in the CSS not uploading at the same image as the image it was fixed quickly, and a refresh of your browser should fix it. As for the the hearts, lets keep that discussion over there. Wikia staff do try their best to keep users (admins too) in the loop. We cant always announce every minor change, or people would get numb to them, also some changes are rapid "lets see what happens, will this help or hurt?" tests, that are changed weekly. We need some flex room to try out new things. Feedback is greatly needed, but it needs to be seen. Forums are great for user chatting, but if you want to make sure that staff see your message, fire it off to Special:Contact so that we have trackable proof to show the other teams that we've gotten X complaints about a feature and it needs to be changed. --Uberfuzzy 19:21, April 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I posted the request to this in a calm fashion; I don't see why you're telling me this. On the other hand, a list of changes that do go permanent would be nice to see here; I'd feel a lot more comfortable when I see that, that's all I'm saying. R A N 1  (talk • contributions) 19:42, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

I'm with him here, a list of permanent updated changes would be nice. -- Light Daxter |  Talk  19:47, April 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * I also agree with RAN1's request. It is not fun to have to keep up with the layout errors generated by these sudden unannounced changes. Aside from the icons being changed, which is odd but not really bad, the changes to the Activity and Watchlist tabs at Special:MyHome obviously didn't take into account the color schemes of wikis with darker backgrounds. (Example) I understand what you are saying, about wanting us to send you these error reports through Special:Contact, but the issue isn't with the changes, the issue is that the Admins who care are not being informed beforehand. Some people in the past, in comments on staff blogs (like this one), have also requested better communication on these matters. Let me quote them for you:
 * "It would be exceptionally nice if changes like this were documented so that they can be tested on different skins (ie, ones that aren't the basic default) to ensure that they don't look out of place when added to Wikis that don't use the default and standard skin exactly as is. I can see advantages to the feature, but the overall implementation of them, especially in terms of documenting them, is sorely lacking. Every time something like this is done, we end up having to spend 2-3 hours trying to come up with a decent workaround for it, time that could be better spent improving articles instead ... Telling us in advance and showing us what changes what makes us happy clients. Telling us after and then taking your time to actually document it makes us very annoyed clients."
 * -Sulfur
 * "This might be the wrong place for a comment like this, but why aren't feature changes like this being sent out to admins as global messages to our talk pages? I know it's not a major change, but it would be nice to have a "gee, we changed this" or a "please check the staff blog for a feature update.""
 * -Topher208
 * "But as has been said above notification of new features would be nice rather than randomly by chance finding info from a post in the forum section."
 * -BulldozerD11
 * I understand that this change was a relatively minor one, but even so it is annoying not to be informed of something that directly affects our sites. I would really appreciate it if there were some kind of list we could sign up to that would send updates to the admins who really care about it. You say "We cant always announce every minor change, or people would get numb to them" so just limit the updates to people who want to know. If there were some kind of RSS feed to publish this information I would gladly take advantage of it. ~Gardimuer 20:30, April 28, 2010 (UTC)