User blog comment:Susanolivia/Fixed Width, Sidebar, and the Removal of Monaco/@comment-1610819-20101003024423

I, personally, have to agree with the people that dislike this. This looks far too much like a blog site, which would be just fine if Wikia were a blog site. Wikia is a wiki, and I strongly believe that this supposedly more "user-friendly" interface doesn't belong here. I find this a completely unnecessary "improvement;" just because one is capable of making a new skin doesn't mean one should. Wikis are, at their hearts, encyclopedias, and even if it did have "the best possible user experience" (which it doesn't), it would still undermine Wikia's BASIC PURPOSE.

My opinion is presented below.


 * Pages are too small. The idea of sacrificing page space for a larger toolbar seems like a bad idea, as does that of putting the category list at the top. What is the need for that? Even less necessary, I think, is displaying the name of the last user to edit there. And (almost) the least necessary of all is putting the name of the user to upload an image under the file. Seriously? Why should we need that?
 * The toolbar that follows you around. I despise those. My point of view is that you should only need to look at these things if you want to, not be forced to look at the buttons as you scroll down. Also, these buttons (Share, Follow) are not by any means the primary buttons used for EDITING. Instead, they're meant to bring out the "social" aspect of the site, which I am against.
 * "Popular Blog Posts." Again, encouraging the "social" bit, not the "wiki" bit. It's not that I have anything against the blog posts (they've been very popular on my main wikis) but this seems a bit extreme. If you want to turn Wikia into a social networking site, just SAY so.
 * Why on Earth would you WANT to look through a mandatory photo gallery on every page? The gallery widget is fine because it's not mandatory. But to look to the right and see a photo gallery that most definitely DOESN'T help with the article's content is just... GAAH...
 * For what reason exactly has the "edit" button been replaced by a stapler? It's not like the average person needs an image to understand what the word "edit" means.
 * COMMENTING TO ARTICLES. I very, very, very much have a problem with this. In the old days, talk pages were used to discuss how to improve the content of the articles. Commenting on pages like on social networking sites doesn't just encourage spam; spam is almost mandatory under these conditions. Overall, this is just another worthless way to attract "contributing" users, "contributing" being "contributing in exactly the way one isn't supposed to." I saw the Twilight wiki with the new skin and page comments enables, and the amount of spam is unbelievable.
 * "Wiki Activity:" Basically the unbelievably useless My Home under a new name. Please explain how this is better than Recent Changes, or indeed helpful at all. I don't know of a single person that uses it on the wikis that I'm active on.
 * The bar at the top... Why is it needed? Does it help in any way? NO. Does it waste space? YES.

My final opinion: This looks like a blog site. This is not a blog site. This is a wiki. Perhaps you could let some blog site use this instead?