Talk:Community Central/Archive 4


 * See Archive 1 for discussion between October 2004 and April 2005.
 * See Archive 2 for discussion between April 2005 and May 2006.

Vandals
Recently a string of sick vandals have been trashing my Wiki. I've cleaned up from their last attack, but I need to know how I can stop them from attacking again.


 * If you mean edits like, then we can put a block on the phrase "pwned.jpg" so a page couldn't be saved with that content temporarily. This is good for vandals who like writing the same thing on every page. Just let us know via Special:Contact as soon as the vandalism happens (if it happens again), and we'll find a way around it. There are also lots of people here to help you revert vandalism if you need that. Angela (talk)

egao.wikia.com
The discussion have been moved to http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Babel Talk:Zh-hant/首頁. The whole discussion would be in Traditional Chinese.--Hant 16:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

top 20
Just noticed the psychology wikia, which has ~4700 pages. should this be listed in the top 20 by article count, or isn't this considered part of that because its in the society gardens? Gimli 06:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's just rather out of date - a lot of growth in some Wikia and not in others. I've got a couple of more up-to-date lists, but I'll try and get a definitive one and update this today. -- sannse (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe it should be listed as those with more than say 500 articles? rather than a "top list" which is harder to keep up to date Gimli 08:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point - although we do have limited space and the number of Wikia with over x articles is just going to keep growing... maybe it needs a set time to renew it - say on the first of the month.  I didn't manage to get the stats yesterday, I'll try and hassle Jason for them today ;) -- sannse (talk) 07:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I've updated this. There are about 60 with over 500 articles (English language only) so if we switched to that format it would have to be a higher number. For now, I'll try and check this about once a month and see if it needs any changes. Hopefully Jason will be able to change the way the stats are displayed to make this easier to do. -- sannse (talk) 20:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * thanks for updating it. Maybe the 60 list could go on its own page? List of wikias by number of articles? - not exact numbers, but "over 500", "over 1000" etc Gimli 16:01, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that will work better. The main page is due for a redesign, so that would be a good thing to do as part of that. I'll add this page soon. -- sannse (talk) 15:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Redesign
I've been discussing the home page with other staff, and it was suggested that is should be redesigned in a way that encourages people to edit the less active wikis. This fits in well with Seahen's proposal for Collaboration of the Month. We could use the extension to rotate through different collaborations or messages automatically.

Here are some things we should aim to do:
 * 1) Use it to get volunteers for the central Wikia and Wikia as a whole (admins, translators, PR/spokespersons, CSS designers, bot runners, etc)
 * 2) make the page appeal both to people making new wikis and to people wanting community stuff from it, like "help/admins needed" messages, tips, and a collaboration of the month.
 * 3) make the page less techy and game-focused, with more links to wikis that appeal to wider populations
 * 4) highlight different types of wiki, not just the most active - new wikis, best wikis, wikis that need help
 * 5) the home page should allow non English speakers to find their language very easily (one problem is that if you go to Wikiciudades, for example, and click the logo, you're back on English... I don't know how to solve that yet).

If you have any ideas, suggestions, designs, etc, please add them below, or on a subpage of your userpage if it's a whole page design. Thanks! Angela (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Some thoughts:


 * Another addition could be "adopt a wiki".
 * I think the page needs to be more colourful and visually attractive - although the colour scheme wouldn't work here, Creatures has a very attractive front page and always makes me smile.
 * I think we should resist the temptation to put too much on the main page. it's better to keep it relatively simple, but with clear links to other pages with more content (and clear links back).  Too much information in one hit can be overwhelming.
 * -- sannse (talk) 07:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur with sannse's suggestions... Might also be nice to just have two clean lists of options, in big text&mdash;one for things like requesting a wiki, help, about Wikia, etc., and another with categories of Wikia (like the categories listed there now, only perhaps a bit broader)&mdash;each option leading to a portal for that topic. Then featured Wikia, collab of the month, and other spotlights underneath/around that)... Mindspillage (spill yours?) 13:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Ideas about Style
 * What do you think about this? Two circles in the front of the page;
 * the left circle like on http://www.wikipedia.org for languages and
 * the right circle for the categories with small pictures (pictures like in http://de.wikipedia.org).


 * Ideas about languages
 * Pardon my bad English - but if I shoult translate something into german? - Gerne! and/or into Esperanto? - Jen!
 * Best regards Lupíro Lupirka 20:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC) (from http://autobahn.wikia.com).


 * Oh, pictures are much more better than thousand words: here the first version


 * I think not every user have patience to read so much words. I refer to some webs and try to figure out what users need. I design a main page draft(en) and put some important link on the top of this page, but not finish yet.. You can add your idea on it!--KJ_(talk) 02:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I changend so much - so I put my ideas on new page. What about this second version (with the languages more in the circle like on http://www.wikipedia.org and with an other, but also a circle picture in the middle)?


 * I think, that I reduced most words by this webs, because there would be only categories and languages at first. And I used your prepared design, thank you! The only difference is the order: People look first, if there's a Wiki before they creat a new and they look first in the Tutorial before they ask... I think, that this would be better - or only germans think so?


 * The languages: I made it, that the (almost in Wikia) most important languages are about the circle, the less important after them. If you want to add the words in your (native) languages - do it! (meens the "[...]" in the link)


 * Best regards Lupíro (talk), who should sleep now, but more wants to creat this more and more... Lupirka 02:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * How about put the language link on the bottom of main pgae? Just like some ISP home page. --KJ_(talk) 03:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * First my here the 3rd version with the text after.
 * ISP - Internet Services Provider - aha. O.k., but the diference is, that english e-bay-nothing (-)) is on e-bay-nothing.com, german e-bay-nothing is on ebay-nothing.de, french e-bay-nothing ist on e-bay-nothing.fr and so on. So if you also want to creat wikia.de, wikia.fr, wikia.xy than you could make it like them.
 * I think, that the wikipedia also is like a service provider and the first the election is the language. An other idea could, if we first only make the language-election, here the 4rd version than the categories (with the language-election on the bottom).
 * Best regards Lupíro (talk) Lupirka 12:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Now: first page (homepage) - only election of the language 4rd. The first "national" page election of the category: 5rd version (What's in the text, is your decision, I only copied it).
 * What do you think? Best regards Lupíro (talk) Lupirka 13:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I like Vorschlag Hauptseite Lupíro en04 - how about trying that one with icons instead of text links at the top. Perhaps something like the Italian Wikipedia has, if there are any relevant icons related to these sections. Angela (talk) 16:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Top wikis
I think that rather than having the top 20 wikis, we should have all those with more than, say, 1000 articles. (This would leave us with about 25 at the moment, though it would obviously increase.) --Undc23 06:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good plan. Splarka 06:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think article count is always a good measure. The number of active users in the last month is a far better sign of an active wiki since it's very easy to copy in 1000 articles from Wikipedia and still have no community. Angela (talk) 11:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I concur. It is quite possible to have just one person make a thousand pages. I should know! :-) I would not call that a community, though it is obviously kinda neat for those who care about that topic to come and look at. --GreenReaper(talk) 04:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikia creatures mistake
I had added a few "indevelopment" projects to the section described, and to creatures wiki. They were about the TM norns. When I looked at the articals in the indevelopment section (not mine, others) EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAD MY ARTICAL ON THE TOP!

I hope that Wikia can correct this mistake. From KC11


 * Fixed. What you did, it seems, was add content to the template. When you do this, the content is shown on every page that contains this template. That is how templates work. See m:Help:Template. Splarka 00:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Browse by categories and languages
I have created a side by side version of the "Browse wikis by Category" and "Browse wikis by Languages" sections in my sandbox and I just wanted to see what people thought about it. It probably needs some more work, but I just wanted to gauge opinion.Lcarsdata 18:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If no one complains I will implement the second version in my sandbox.Lcarsdata 18:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Version 2 looks good. Perhaps the border color should be different for each box though to make it easy to see which are categories and which are languages. Angela (talk) 03:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I like version 2 as well; they're much nicer side-by-side. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good. I also checked at different screen resolutions, and it seems to work well for all -- sannse (talk) 11:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have changed it, but I may have inadvertently erased some of the content (if it has been changed recently), someone can add the colors later (I couldn't decide) once we have agreed on something. Lcarsdata 11:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have now added some temporary border colors, but these could be changed if someone can think of a better idea. Lcarsdata 13:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * One more thing, can any one work out how to make them both the same height, I don't know how to? Lcarsdata 06:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It will have to be one single table to do that (unless you trust setting absolute div heights and widths, not good for dynamic content). I've stuck them together as a test. --Splarka (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Very good, I have now changed the colors so that the two are different. Lcarsdata (Lcarsdata) 16:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Languages at bottom
At the bottom of the page is a list of languages, isn't this redundant being as they are already in the sidebar under the "in other languages:" header. If they are I think it would clear up confusion if we just erased them. Lcarsdata 12:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I like having that sort of thing at the bottom so's I don't have to scroll back up to move on. But today the "sidebar" list (at the top in Cologne Blue skin) is obliterated by "An open letter to the political blogosphere ..." so the bottom list is all that there is. Robin Patterson 01:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Main Wikia setup
The stylesheet seems to have changed on the main wikia. The user links are formatted to the left, and everything's huge. Is this temporary? Hope so... Chadlupkes 01:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Are you still seeing this? I'm not aware of any sitewide changes that could have caused this. Angela (talk) 22:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I am, but only in IE. Firefox looks fine.  I have no idea what changed, but I'm seeing it both at home and at work, so it's not machine specific.  Chadlupkes 14:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Codeine and Emil also reported this. I spent about a half hour trying to track it down with Codeine yesterday. No joy yet. --Splarka (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Found the cause, but don't know why (maybe IE6 needs doctype exclusively on the first line). On every wikia the first line is:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 * But on central it is:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 * It is related to the alternate advertisement tests I believe. Will ask the techs. --Splarka (talk) 22:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, it looks normal now. One last tweak that I'm noticing.  Using the mouse in text boxes like this edit box doesn't work.  I can't select any text, or put the cursor where I want it to go.  Keyboard still works, but not the mouse.  And again, this is in IE6.  I'll check from Firefox at home tonight.  Chadlupkes 23:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)