Forum:(Poll) Monaco or Monobook?

I prefer to use... Monaco Monobook Other 

I've recently had an interesting discussion with another wiki admin about the past controversy that occured when Monaco was chosen as default skin for Wikia, contrary to the "classic" Monobook skin as used on Wikipedia ever since, which is apparently still rather popular among some Wikia users.

Now I heard various reasons of why to or why not to use either of these skins, but something that would be far more interesting would be to hear from the community which skin is generally preferred and what reasoning is used to back up this preference.

So, do you prefer to use Monaco or Monobook and what are your reasons for preferring either of these skins?

 ( C rynsos Talk 09:16, February 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Controversies come and go. At the time, Wikia had itself strung between the needs of its users and the need to become profitable, so something had to be done. Monobook was not suited for these purposes, and anyway, it was difficult to navigate - hence all those navigation templates Wikipedia so desperately requires.


 * As you may have guessed, I do prefer Monaco as the default on Wikia. Monaco, used for communities of a less serious nature than Wikipedia, is much easier to navigate, and is far more intuitive. It is far easier for new users to engage and learn. With a bit of customisation (the default is obviously not so good because it is a default), it can look much better than anyone could ever make Monobook.


 * This is not to say that Monaco is necessarily better on all fronts than Monobook. I would be raising my eyebrows if a project like Wikipedia used a skin like Monaco. What I am saying is that for the purposes of Wikia, Monaco is more suitable. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 11:19, February 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's easy to search the forum for old topics that show users complaining about the skin change, or even the other way around : http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=monobook&thisWikiOnly=1&ns110=1
 * And i can also add that almost every weeks there's someone that comes in the central forum to ask how to set up his newly created wiki to use "wikipedia skin" as a default. — TulipVorlax 03:33, February 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I see and saw enough of them as well, although I wonder for their reasoning... I simply don't see many (technical) downsides with Monaco myself, so anyone with a rather recent browser should have no problem with that... and for those which want to use Monobook for its aesthetic style, the best reasoning for that would be probably to "look just like Wikipedia", because otherwise Monobook is totally bland and lacks customizability.  ( C rynsos Talk 05:39, February 27, 2010 (UTC)