User blog:Master Ceadeus 27/An Open Letter to Wikia, Regarding Change

Dear Wikia,

I write to protest the unnecessary changes that have been coming to Wikia. I'm sure you know what changes I'm talking about -- they've been happening since 2010. Skin changes, color changes, branding changes -- wikia is an online company, so things will always grow. I understand that. But there are bold, sudden, and plain unnecessary changes that have been arriving of late.

What I'm specifically talking about is the "updated global navigation." Many users, including myself, have displayed massive amounts of disagreement with this change. As of today, 12/3/2014, it was pushed to all wikias. There are so many reasons that I disagree with this change. It would be indeed difficult to state them all in one blog and truly capture the blatant disapproval that users show for the change. If you are reading, wikia staff, hearken to me!

Firstly, the global navigation is very, very standoffish and puts a great amount of unneeded distraction in the user's wikia browsing window. This is due to its size and the incredible amount of solid branding featured on the nav. Users cannot change the color from it's incredibly bright, annoyingly bold white, and the amount of wikia "diversity" and "openness" pushed on the user as they attempt to search or access the hubs is downright distracting. How can a valuable, hard-working wiki hope to successfully attract users if they're distracted from editing by a giant bar, asking them to visit other wikis? How can we hope to gain more readers for our wiki if all they're doing is looking at maybe two pages and moving on to the next? How indeed.

And then there's the utter lack of customization. Users are totally not allowed to customize the bar across their wikia. They are limited to personal scripts, and because of this, only editors who are devoted anyway will make use of such preventative. The bar cannot be adjusted in any way. It is eternally white and eternally huge. This bar assures for the future users of wikia that only already devoted wiki editors will be the only ones who stay at length. We need communities. We need more users. We need long-time users. We need new admins and new mods and new people to do bad for long times to teach admins how to be admins. We need users of longevity.

Finally, I believe it is in my best interest to present how this affects Wikia as a whole, because I feel as though Staff has not yet learned this. The majority of your users dislike this change. Many suggest changes to it -- in fact, very few do not ask for change. This is because this navigation is just plain bad. It works well; I'll grant you that. It would even look alright -- perhaps on something like Buzzfeed or Answers.com, where giant, huge movements to social-media-fy the surroundings are appreciated. This change is going to bring a much bigger underlying change... You will find that, just like four years ago, many of your once appreciated, devoted editors may be moving on to better things. Which is ok--if you're fine with static content and slow movement forward.

Wikia... this isn't a change for the good. Just... think about it.

- Yours truly, Master Ceadeus 27

User base... I ask you this. Blog. Send messages. Comment. Do something. Protest this movement all the more, if you truly disagree. Thank you for reading.