Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-22224-20180521161500/@comment-24155515-20180617182854

I'd venture a guess that:


 * part of the Oasis userbase genuinely likes it (judging by some of the "Monobook sux, Oasis is da bomb" posts I've seen since this thread and related ones were started; not everyone is so pretentious but...)
 * part of the base doesn't love it but likes it more than Monobook
 * part of it probably doesn't like either skin so didn't see any point in changing it
 * part of it probably knows what skins are but didn't know Wikia offered another
 * and part of it are users who actually know zip about wikis or Mediawiki in specific and don't even know what skins are or that you can change them (like... I venture a guess this might be a sizeable portion, since Wikia's default layout and preference selection caters to extreme entry level users, to the point that some (many?) never learn more technical Mediawiki skills)

(And IPs but a good analysis of preference would largely be weighted toward those who actually have the power to choose, which an IP can't do other than on a page-by-page basis.)

A lot of Monobook CSS customization that I myself did went to waste when they disabled Monobook, so I'm not sure the customization argument is a perfect one.

(If we're talking about extensions, part of that problem is that they continued to offer Monobook but refused to do more than the bare minimum at keeping it maintained enough to work and keep extensions maintained to work with it (and sometimes they did less than the bare minimum--I once asked them for help with something that was completely breaking Monobook layout on some wikis (only minimally breaking Oasis layout) and they were like, "eh, it's Monobook lol" (okay, they weren't that flippant, but considering the severity of the problem at the time, it felt like that)). That wasn't an extension (though I did once report an extension (forum extension) problem that made the extension completely unusable and it took months to fix), but if their approach to Monobook issues affected it universally, then that would play in. I can't tell if they couldn't afford to do the work or if they just didn't wanna.)

The toolbar's functionality was definitely present in Monobook, in a way that was easier for me, personally, to use. (Some things currently in my toolbar were in various places in the sidebar, some were tabs on articles. None were hidden in dropdowns, which means they were easier for my brain to parse.)

No ads isn't a pro, though, when you don't make money other ways (i.e. by fundraisers or selling things).

I'm not sure I'd argue Wikia is the best wiki farm. Just the biggest, probably.