Board Thread:New Features/@comment-20644-20170522203248/@comment-31825503-20170614073818

Technobliterator wrote: This has been explained before - the new page headers are supposed to be consistent across the entire site, same with the very top bar and the footer. This helps users move across the different wikis as they become a much more familiar experience to them, and more important, prevents certain wikis from adding bloated CSS that makes the header appear unreadable. Some wikis make decent use of CSS, but others just add fancy fonts and gradients just "because they can" and ruin it, which drives readers away.

Everything else can still use CSS, and even the top header still allows you to add a picture - so for those who aren't CSS savvy, it's technically more customizable than before. Also, the design of the top nav, which most people agree is infinitely better than the old one, is what most customized top navs looked like anyway. So it's not like this is some evil plot to take away customization from the entire wiki, it's literally just for the page header. I would agree IF the end results in consistency. Being able to now see this new release, I foresee this will be less consistent across wiki's in key areas that are important resulting in discouraging visitors from actually contributing to wiki's.

Wiki Activity which used to be seen in first menu, and which most admins etc believed was good location for it, has now been moved. It gave priority to that topic drawing first attention to its visitors and hopefully encouraging them to actively participate. This is simple matter and some have already moved it back. However the end result I am guessing is that a lot will have moved it back there, yet not all will. End result less consistent.

Other such basic ways to contribute such as uploading Images, Videos is no longer easy to find. Another way to actively encourage visitors to contribute. Can visitors still upload, sure but they will need to know differing ways how, which once again detracts from encouraging basic visitors from doing such. Which once again now means wiki's will have to find alternative and creative ways of incorporating these links back. I can almost gaurantee, end result will be less consistent.

Talk page used to be easily seen, when you could see a number indicating that users were having a discussion, this once again potentially encourages visitors to actively be involved. But not anymore, it is now hidden behind the edit button and will only encourage active contributors and not inactive ones. Even than an active contributor must actually look to see if is such talk. I can once again see wiki's attempting to find alternative ways around this. Leading to inconsistency.

So I must ask how is the design of new nav bar considered by most to be better? I can agree that the appearance will now make all wiki's instantly more recognizable, but the actual function (imho most important aspect of drawing visitors) will be less recognizable. Is it good to have the 'less is more' so as to not overwhelm visitors? Sure it is, but ONLY if it is done well. Sorry to say, but Fandom has not done this well at all. Their given KISS method is great, but Fandom has taken it too far. Of course you dont need to see every topic and option .. but you really do need to see some of the important ones. Ones that will hopefully encourage visitors to contribute. Making wiki names redundant now, is also not what I see as keeping it simple. Sure some wiki's did not have it in their wordmark image while most others did which was not consistent before. However, this will not change that. Some will now be like OP shows (Wiki name being listed twice), others will change text to something else, while those that didnt have name in wordmark can still choose to leave it like default or change it to say something else. In other words keeping it simple failed to work in this regard of keeping them consistent. Of course allowing more options obviously doesnt either though.