User blog:Najevi/''AVOID''ing the latest activity on your wiki just got HARDer!

= Avoiding the latest activity on your wiki just got harder! = With regard to the newest obligatory content in the Monaco sidebar (i.e. the Latest activity box):
 * Hoorah! for the demise of the Community box - it's value-add was questionable (just as Kirkburn acknowledges here) and it was never able to be dismissed, just relocated.
 * Suggestions to improve the new Latest activity box
 * 1) Add an X sprite at top right to allow users to dismiss this box from their side-bar
 * 2) Label the (more) link My Home  i.e. truth in advertising
 * 3) * workaround: sysops can edit MediaWiki:Widget-community-more ack. Joeyaa
 * 4) Allow admins (and users) the easy option to
 * 5) * hide the various icons/sprites - they only consume vertical and horizontal screen space which remains a precious commodity
 * 6) * hide the page count - what is this pre-occupation with size/count/volume/width/etc.?
 * 7) * strip the special formatting of font (i.e. size and emphasis) - the browser's Ctrl+[Mousewheel|0|+|-] zooming of the displayed web page is the ONLY tool a person with failing eyesight needs to learn about to make their browsing less stressful on the eyes
 * 8) * display diff and history links - just as can be found at Special:RecentChanges
 * 9) * provide a spanner sprite at top right of the new box so that the default filter used for this list can be tweaked - i.e just as is possible via the Recent changes options header block of the Special:RecentChanges page
 * 10) If the old Community box is ever featured again then please see item 1 above

imho, the only compulsory content in the Monaco sidebar ought to be:
 * wikia logo
 * community logo (at discretion of the wiki community admin)
 * Navbox (default customized by admin but further tailored by each user)
 * Toolbox (default customized by admin but further tailored by each user)
 * Wikia revenue generating areas (I forget what these are as they never display in my filtered browser)

Advertising a new feature should not be done by way of unilaterally forcing it into view. If the virtues of the new feature do not lead to it's uptake by popular demand then for community's sake please let it remain in the obscure corners of the staff blog space.

Let the community create custom default widgets
The Wiki page in Widget feature is potentially very powerful. It has one serious drawback at present. There is no way for a custom widget to be featured by a wiki community's admin while still allowing each user the ability to keep or discard the custom widget.


 * it appears that there may be a way to do exactly this. Caveat: it has some bugs! Read w:c:vsk:Category:User widgets to understand more of where I am coming from on this score. I don't recommend you tweak any of the MW messages: Widget-desc-wikipage, Widget-title-wikipage, Widget-wikipage-source or Widget-wikipage-title just now because very shortly after I changed the default name from "Wikipage Widget" to "A Custom Toolbox" (''alphabetically better placed in the Special:Widgets page and the widget carousel/cockpit area) my wikipage widget at vsk.wikia.com stopped rendering correctly!

I suspect that if this key enabler (or infrastructure) was put in place by Wikia engineers then the creative juices of the greater Wikia community would begin to flow and you would see various users borrowing the innovative ideas for custom widgets that they notice in use at other Wikia hosted communities.

In this way Wikia staff would serve to facilitate the facilitators instead of being regarded (albeit unfairly) as peddlers of obnoxious product.

--najevi 00:27, November 5, 2009 (UTC)