Forum:Blog article feature feedback

This thread covers feedback (suggestions and bug reports) about the blog articles feature on Wikia.


 * Help page - Help:Blog article
 * Archive - Forum:Blog article feature feedback/archive

Lots of feedback
I've posted this as a comment on w:User_blog:KyleH/Announcing:_Blog_articles.


 * Threaded comments would be really nice.
 * Comments that you can't preview and that you can't edit are also very un-wiki-like.
 * When I edit a blog page or blog listing page, the headline says "Create a new ..." instead of "Edit".
 * WhatLinksHere is broken for blog pages, it should list the user blog pages and blog listings it is linked from.
 * Adding a category to a comment doesn't place the comment in the category.
 * I can write/edit an introduction to a User Blog: page, but not to a Blog: page.
 * The comment edit box only has 3 lines, which makes reviewing this rather lengthy comment for coherence and style rather difficult. (3 lines in Monobook, slightly larger in Monaco.)
 * It is possible to add comments to a blog post although the author has disallowed this.
 * Level 2 headlines in a blog post do not display in the aggregate page.
 * The Special:CreateBlogListingPage doesn't allow to filter by author.
 * If somebody adds a category to their blog post that adds it to my blog listing, I won't know; and if they initially created their blog post some days ago, I might not even notice as it gets sorted into the listing lower down.
 * There is no way to #link to a comment.
 * The "Email this user" link on the masthead is displayed even if the user has turned email off in their preferences.
 * The Newest first / Newest last choice is not persistent.
 * If I choose "Newest first", the comment I post is inserted at the bottom (should be inserted at the top).

I would really love for the new masthead links to show up in the sidebar toolbox (a blog link on User: and User talk:, a User: and User talk: on User blog pages). That would allow us to unclutter the top of our page by hiding the masthead altogether without losing the links (because they'd still be in the sidebar).

-- ◄mendel► 14:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

-- ◄mendel► 20:02, 30 June 2009 & 20:06 & 20:20 & 20:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The blog listing page hadn't noticed a new blog post 7 hours after it was created, a manual refresh was necessary.
 * The User blog and the blog listing page do not display the number of comments if the blogger has turned comments off for that post, even if there are some (that were made before commenting was turned off).
 * I have 3 blog posts on w:c:communitytest:User_blog:M.mendel, and I get an 1 Older posts » links at the bottom that leads to an empty page.
 * Blog entries can only use a subset of Wikicode if you want the text to show up in the blog listing. Compare w:c:communitytest:User blog:M.mendel/Transclusion to its entry in the actual blog.
 * There appears to be no way to set the "cut".
 * The fact that the page title is shortened makes it possible to spoof mainspace articles.
 * Avatar images are not shared with other Wikia modules that use them, e.g. on WikiAnswers.

-- ◄mendel► 20:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't image how inappropriate blog posts can be flagged by users the way regular pages can be delete tagged now: editing them is prohibited, and categories on comments don't take effect.

-- ◄mendel► 21:08 & 22:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no way to systematically review recently uploaded avatar images other than to visit teh user page of everyone who appears in Special:Log/useravatar.
 * There is no way to attach licensing information to avatar images, prohibiting reuse (or even use of most open source images).
 * There is no edit summary for blog post edits, making the history much less useful.
 * Enhanced/grouped RecentChanges should fold comments for the same blog post.
 * There is no notification system for new comments, not even the watchlist.


 * Thanks for all this Mendel, we'll be checking it all out :) -- sannse (talk) 14:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

-- ◄mendel► 16:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Avatars can be deleted from any wiki without notification to the user; there should be an automatic talkpage notice on the wiki where the deletion occurred, signed by that admin.


 * I agree comments are unwiki-like. I wish I could edit my comments instead of typing a new one to correct the latter, in case of errors or changing the meaning a bit. --Davinci - talk 16:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're changing the meaning you should make a new comment. Also, please consider having your name redirect to your user page Yes, I'm aware of the "talk" link. A_F_K_sig_2.jpg A F K When Needed 12:00, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Masthead colour
I'm guessing that one of the first questions people are going to have is how to adjust the colour of the masthead. The css you need in MediaWiki:Monaco.css is: #user_masthead { background: #xxx !important; }

-- sannse (talk) 14:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Following some suggestions, which could be done to the default skins. Marc-Philipp (MtaÄ) Helper  (Talk) 14:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Sapphire
background:#3366CC; color:white; } color:white; } background-color: #5588FF !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Jade
background:#228B22; color:white; } color:white; } background-color: #77AD77 !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Smoke/Slate
background:#FEC423; color:black; } color:black; } background-color: #DEA423 !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Beach
background:#B0D9F3; color:black; } color:black; } background-color: #ECD995 !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Brick
background:#5D1B01; color:#FEC423; } color:#FEC423; } background-color: #F9EAC1 !important; color: black !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Gaming
background:#09101D; color:white; } color:white; } background-color: #FFCB3B !important; color: black !important; }
 * 1) user_masthead {
 * 1) user_masthead li a {
 * 1) user_masthead li.selected {

Some sugesstions ;) Marc-Philipp (MtaÄ)  Helper  (Talk) 14:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You forgot to style div.blog-comm-input . -- ◄mendel► 06:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

"Monacobook"
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/gw/images/6/6e/Monacobook_Masthead_small_grey.png /* Masthead size reduction and color adjustment */ div#user_masthead h2 {display:none; } div#user_masthead img { height:20px !important; width:20px !important;} div.blog-comm-input { background: #F5F5F5 !important; border: thin solid silver; } -- ◄mendel► 06:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) user_masthead { background: #F5F5F5 !important; }
 * 2) user_masthead li.selected { background: white !important; }


 * Not bad. ;-) — TulipVorlax 06:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

RTL masthead problem
Masthead doesn't go by the direction of the wiki. It's always ltr, even in rtl wikis.-- BlueDevil Talk 22:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you got a link to an example? 15:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Adding links to the masthead
I was wondering if there was anyway to add more links to the masthead. An example would link to the prefix index so you could see user sub-pages. -- Gamer 2127 00:23, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * On my part, i would remove some that a duplicating arealy presents links... — TulipVorlax 00:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like a way to add these links to the toolbox. But a MediaWiki:Masthead that works teh same as MediaWiki:Sidebar would not come amiss. -- ◄mendel► 06:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That would solve both cases. — TulipVorlax 06:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

News functionality?
I'm not that keen on blogs as such, but I think they're pretty good as a newsposting functionality. Thanks to this, e.g. fan wikis could rival other fansites also as news sources. I'm currently testing news through the blog listing function at The Vault (Fallout wiki): w:c:fallout:The Vault:News. It's working fine, but I think it could use some improvements.

For one, I think that there should be a separate News: namespace set up for news articles, using mostly the same code as the blogs already do, but with the following differences:


 * News articles could be set to be editable by anyone
 * Instead of pages like User_blog:Ausir/Point Lookout released, we'd have cleaner looking "News:Point Lookout released"
 * Instead of linking back to the user blog as a subpage, all news articles would link back to the main news page. Currently all news are still treated as part of a user's blog
 * An option to show an image thumbnail in the news summary would also be neat, and add some color to the main news/blog pages
 * The ability to move and/or copy blog posts to the news namespace (unlike manual copypaste, this would retain the original posting date and history, copy and not just move so that the user could keep it on his blog while the same post is also copied to news) - this would also allow us to transfer older news from the blog namespace to the new news namespace.
 * Separate RSS feed

I also think simply "submitting news" would be easier and more intuitive to most users than making a blog post and adding it to the news category. Ausir 00:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It is probably possible to set something like this up using DPL with section transclusion, much like the DPLforum works, with clever use of the Inputbox to preload stuff. -- ◄mendel► 06:54, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds rather complicated to me, but I'm not into technical stuff that much. As long as it means "yes, it's possible", it's good enough for me, though. :) Ausir 10:42, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * User blogs are not just "pretty good" as a news posting tool; in my opinion, it is one of the best. I adapted user blogs to do exactly that on Avatar Wiki, and we've become rather attached to that form of handing out news. I think Ausir's ideas are definitely deserving of consideration too. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 14:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Another advantage would be that with a separate News: namespace, we could set news to be searched by default by Special:Search, leaving out user blogs. Ausir(talk) 23:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

This is definitely something we're looking at. Keep more thoughts and suggestions coming if you have them :) 13:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Give blogs a chance before opt-out
I've copied this comment from Kyle's blog.

This is an excerpt of a comment I wrote on my talk page on Avatar Wiki regarding how blogs have helped the community.

''"Blogs are a feature that the community wasn't too confident about when I pushed for its introduction, but now I can tell that the community is finding it quite useful. The best way to go about with the blogs is to allow a lot of flexibility - allow users to write about whatever they want, to a reasonable limit. (To that end, I don't advise deleting blogs unless they are totally off-topic, or are spam/vandalism.) So here, we have a wide variety of uses for blogs - fanon advertisement, opinions on the wiki and the topic, a way for asking for feedback etc. I've also found the embedding feature to be particularly useful on main pages, because I think it is an efficient (the best) way for well-developed wikis to deliver their main site news, because you can get the announcements out, but also provide more detail very easily. This is in contrast to a lot of wikis that have to make the decision between having a cumbersome site news section or keeping a site news system that doesn't really inform users well. However, in general, I consider community blogging to be a great success and I'm very happy that it is now Wikia-wide."''

There, I described quite a few things blogs are useful for. I don't think many people have really thought about it, especially Star Wars, who took "all of five minutes". Well, really, five minutes? Think about it more for a little more than that! :) Basically, I think there are a lot of users who simply reject new features on Wikia because they simply say that wikis will never be the same again. It's become quite a culture, and I think we should be more open about new features on Wikia.

I like this feature, much more than quite a few others - especially because it has very few bugs - and I think it is genuinely useful. Like on Avatar Wiki, if you can open your mind and at least give the blogs a chance for a month or two, you will start liking it. Wjxhuang, the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 14:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Give me some more demand and a day, and I can give you a DPL-based news system that works better because the news can be written by more than one person and stored in a standard archive rather than individual user's blogs. -- ◄mendel► 16:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Great Job!
It is very useful to me. I have a new idea for it. On admins pages, it could say "Administrator" on the menu bar on the top. -- seahorseruler | Talk  (EditCount) Yoshi! 14:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It's certainly an interesting idea, and seems fairly appropriate. We'll look into it. 16:14, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all this feedback
...we are collecting it, and will be looking very closely at it. Thanks to everyone who is taking the time to add their bug reports, thoughts, and ideas to this page -- sannse (talk) 19:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Google Blog Search
I brought this up to the Wikia Twitter account a while back and never got a response, so I'm bringing it up again. Wikia blog posts do not appear in Google Blog Search results, and I'm under the impression this is because Google does not know to search for it as a "blog". Is this fixable? -- LordTBT Talk! 16:49, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


 * A good question, I'll ask. 15:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

More Color Scheme Customization & Commenting
Had a thought this evening. It would be nice to be able to customize the background color for comments, as well as the colors for the "COMMENTS" bar text and background. I also mentioned while back it would be worthwhile to have a "preview comment" button, and I'd like to reiterate that. -- LordTBT Talk! 03:40, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * These sound like great suggestions. I've seen quite a few stuff-ups as a result of a lack of a preview button... Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 13:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment previews is something that's on our list to look at. I'm not sure what's not customizable about the comments area though. It appears to have classes you can use to do so. 15:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Found the classes. Cheers. -- LordTBT Talk! 17:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Templates & categories in comments
will categorize neither blog post nor comment subpage. Just mentioning.--AB 22:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the fifth point on my list above, thanks for confirming that "adding a category to a comment doesn't place the comment in the category". ;-) -- ◄mendel► 00:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, you're welcome. Ahem.--AB 13:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Masthead bug on Sub-Subpages
The masthead does not work on Sub-subpages such as User:M.mendel/sub/subpage because it gets the username wrong, and everything based on that as well. -- ◄mendel► 00:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Confirmed. Thanks, we'll look into it. 14:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Many users develop wiki content using a sandbox or similar sub-page below their user page. I'd prefer that the Masthead not appear on User sub-pages. It adds no value once you are working on a sub-page. Access to eth mast head is one click away - by clicking your user name. najevi 05:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * At the moment we've fixed it so that the masthead always appears correctly, but we may revisit removing it for sub-subpages. 15:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Edittools
Enabling MediaWiki:Edittools for posts would be really appreciated. Writing a post is the process as writing an article: sometimes I have to use non-standard characters (especially wovels with macrons) and I find quite difficult/annoying opening new pages just to copy the characters.

I think I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. Thanks~ -- EXE.  eseguibile  19:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion - it's on our list to look at. 16:26, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I see that blog posts now have MediaWiki:Edittools (and the edit summary box, and the "released under the CC-BY-SA" message, and the other normal stuff). --Kernigh 00:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, we overhauled that page so it fits much better with the rest of Wikia. 13:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A sensible change, delighted to be able to claim that writing blogs is no harder than writing articles. :) Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 13:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Blog:Recent posts
After I make a new blog post, http://romhack.wikia.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts does not show the new post unless I add "?action=purge" to the URL. --Kernigh 23:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Normal. It's the way wikis are working. Every single page is cached. When you go to Special:Statistics there a line that say "Job queue length" and then the number of page that need to be refreshed.
 * That happen when the wikia software (or staff?) think it's the best moment to do so. — TulipVorlax 05:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Software. Indeed it is cached - at the moment for the blog posts I think the cache is set to expire within a 24 hour period, so even if you don't purge the listing, it should update within a day. 15:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I wrote a blog post entitled "Everything about addition" at 13 July 2009 but http://romhack.wikia.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts does not show the post as of 20 July 2009. The job queue length is zero, so I guess that the wiki forgot to expire the cache. I noticed that someone added a "Refresh" link (which I used to display a blog post entitled "Whether or not we like assembly hacking" at 9 July 2009). The "Refresh" link is a sufficient solution for now. At least I know, from Tulip and Kirkburn, that the wiki caches "Blog:Recent posts" like a normal wiki page. Meanwhile, http://romhack.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Kernigh seems always to show my new posts. --Kernigh 03:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Seperate Avatars for different wikis?
Hi, I am not sure if this is the right place, but I just had some thing on my mind. I think we should be able to have different avatars for different wiki's. For example, I play online games and work on wiki's for them, but I also edit wiki's about stuff that interests me in Real Life. I dont like certain people knowing about what I do online, and I'm not sure about the rule about Alt Accounts. Any comments etc? --Lcawte 17:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It's something we're thinking about, but aren't currently working on. 11:59, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Math formulas and Images
Math formulas are shown as plain text in Preview mode and on User_blog:User_Name page
 * http://ru.science.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Raindrop

Images are not shown on User_blog:User_Name page --Raindrop 09:45, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The lack of images is intentional due to the wide variety of ways blog summaries can be shown (we wouldn't want to break small previews, for example).
 * However, we'll look into the math tag issue, see if we can fix that. 12:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

User log out dumps edit text
Bug: Logged in user begins Blog entry, leaves workstation then returns later to complete posting. User hits save page, error message comes up that user must be logged in to post blog entries. No problem, user goes back to edit page.

Problem: The edit text is lost (using Firefox 3.0.11 and most likely any other browser). Expected result: edit text is still present as with any other wikia edit session.

Note: the edit text is still sitting there in the postdata, so an experienced user might simply log in using a different window then go back to the step that generated the error page. The resend of the postdata will succeed. Beginner users would certainly not figure this out, and would probably just freak out. Maybe in advance of a serious fix, we could put up some better error text, (link to log in, then tell them to refresh the error page screen)? 19:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing this out - we'll see what we can do. 15:11, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Lists in blog listings and comments
If you use numbered/non-numbered lists in blog posts, they will not display as usual (with a bullet or number in front) in blog listings but unformatted. The same is valid for comments, lists in here are formatted like a comment entry itself (i.e. with a border at the bottom). This is a sideeffect of the way the CSS for the listings/comments is set up; the styling for listing entries and comments itself carries over to lists inside them. -- Porter21 (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I am not sure what you mean, unfortunately - can you give me a link to examples? 16:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I've made an example for lists in comments at User blog:Porter21/Example blog. All the items in the comment are list items (* and # in wikicode) but instead of having the usual list look (with "bullets" and numbers) they are underlined. The same happens when you use lists in a blog post, and that blog post is displayed in a blog listing (type=box). I'd link you to an example, but I've fixed these CSS issues for my "home" wiki already. -- Porter21 (talk) 16:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the example. I've confirmed both the comments and bloglist bugs with lists, and have passed them on. 13:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Update: the comments issue should been fixed, the bloglist version is still on the list. 15:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

problem with blog comments
It seems like the first two comments posted to a blog article cause a problem for browsers. Upon clicking the "post comment" button, the cursor turns to a clock, but the page never updates to show the posted comment. The third comment always works fine. --JWSchmidt 17:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I appear to be able to reproduce this, thanks for the report. 15:22, 27 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This should now be fixed. 15:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Customize
Maybe we can customize User Masterhead (options and background colors).  Webkinz Mania   says   stuff...  20:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Colors are customizable. -- LordTBT Talk! 06:15, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. What about options?  Webkinz Mania   says   stuff...  15:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)


 * How do you mean - user-specific options for their individual masthead? 15:26, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Pipe Trick Bug
Just a simple bug, performing the pipe trick (inserting an internal link preceding a pipe, ex. User:Joeyaa ) will be shown as literal text instead of an actual link during preview, even though it will save correctly. An example is shown here as the first two links stuffed up in preview, and the regularly piped didn't fail in preview mode. ~Joey~ ^Talk^  08:02, 26 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Strange - and I can confirm it. Will get it looked into. 15:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Blog categorizing broken
Just in case it hasn't been noticed yet, since yesterday you cannot categorize blogs anymore. The category cloud does not appear and when entering the categories manually, they are not saved. I've encountered it both here on central and on The Vault. -- Porter21 (talk) 10:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks - we've confirmed this when entering categories in the main edit window on blog articles. It appears to be fine if you use the CategorySelect input area, and on other namespaces. We'll look into it! 13:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * What's the status of this? -- LordTBT <font color="Green" size="2">Talk! 16:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * We're still looking at it - no update yet. If the issue is anything other than being able to enter categories in the main edit window, let me know. 20:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, if you have CategorySelect disabled and edit a blog with categories, the existing categories are also deleted. -- Porter21 (talk) 23:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see - thanks. 13:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Seems to be fixed :) -- Porter21 (talk) 15:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it! The fix went out today. 16:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

User blog pages
They ought to have noindex, when nonexistent.--AB 14:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)


 * This is because they're showing up in Google searches, I believe? We'll look into it. 18:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments
I've noticed that we get a lot of duplicate comments for blog posts, resulting from people not seeing the page update and hitting the "save" button until it finally does. I think it'd be good if two things could be done to remedy this problem (other than disabling the page cache for blog pages): Improvement would really be appreciated, right now deleting duplicate comments takes up most of our deletion log (I had to delete 30+ this morning alone, and those were just the ones which piled up over night). -- Porter21 (talk) 15:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Add a message below/next to the comment edit box stating that comments may not appear on the page instantly and that people should please be patient.
 * 2) Set a time limit for comments from the same IP/user, i.e. you can only post a comment every x seconds.


 * Yeah, I agree - this also came up just before the weekend, oddly :) The time limit idea sounds good, but even better may be trying to do detection of identical comments (and refusing/ignoring the subsequent ones). We'll look into it. 14:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * After I click "Post comment", the cursor becomes a watch and the comment never appears; but if would look in Recent changes, then I would see the comment appear immediately. --Kernigh 00:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe the fix for this issue (where the first two comments do not update the page correctly) will be going live tomorrow. 13:57, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Editing a blog listing
I edited the Central Wikia Blog:Recent posts to sort by date instead of by author. The title of the edit screen was "Create a new blog listing page" but I was editing an existing page. Also, the option at the bottom was "Create listing as new page" but I was editing an existing page. --Kernigh 00:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is true, though not easily fixed as it uses a special page. We'll see about making some tweaks to make it more obvious. 14:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)