Forum:Wikia's New Style

(Note: pre-release comments are in the archives. I cleared the page to divide them from comments after the release -- sannse (talk) 09:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC))

How times have changed
Read this and drown in the irony. "We're hosting free-content on open-source software, making it very easy for people to leave if we piss them off. It would be stupid for any company to risk that." I miss that attitude. Perhaps we'll find it somewhere else now. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 02:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that sure is interesting, isn't it? Note the emphasis there: "Wikicities will never have pop-up ads!"  And yet, see the interesting change Danny made on Saturday to the Terms of Use.  No pop-up ads?  Don't count on it, my friends.  Got anything for us here, Danny?  ElasticMuffin 15:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * He addressed this above. -- 16:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Good catch. It's impossible to find this stuff in this useless muddled forum format.  Oh well.  I don't imagine me pointing it out again will hurt.  ElasticMuffin 16:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Want more? From :
 * By Angela: Rather than have an advert right along the top of the page like that, you could join Wikia and see only one  small  ad in the top corner which isn't even visible when you scroll down the page.. Hilarious, isn't it?.
 * By Angela: The money you would make from advertising on this wiki might not even cover the hosting costs of the wiki. They have only one google ad at the very top of the page, outside the content, and you can easily hide by scrolling down. And the ad covers successfully the costs of the server and the other sites hosted there:
 * By Archaic: at this point in time, it appears that the google ads will pay for more than double our existing hosting costs for the entire Bulbagarden network, if we maintain our current level of revenue.. And here seems like we are indebted with Wikia, even with ads. They are very lucky of not being hosted by Wikia! --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 18:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The scary thing is that wasn't even 1 year ago. -- LordTBT Talk! 21:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit preview bugs : related to ads in content area
Elsewhere I reported two edit preview bugs related to ads within content area. The first was fixed within 24 hours the second bug was reported over the weekend. Please check that post.

Here are two more edit preview bugs:


 * First:The label, Preview and the red font "This is only a preview; changes have not yet been saved!" ought to be moved to a point above the Page Title or at least to a point above the leaderboard ad.


 * Previously this did not matter to page layout and for pages where a leaderboard ad will be displayed, it still does not matter. However, on pages where a block ad will appear the true effect on article layout cannot be seen with the way a page edit previews today.
 * A satisfactory alternative would be to align the top of the block ad with the top of the first line of preview content instead of the top of the Preview heading.


 * Second:When editing an article section that appears mid-way down a page the edit preview still insists on inserting either a block ad or leaderboard ad depending upon the layout of that section. Of course this is not the intended purpose for displaying an ad in edit preview. ... is it Danny? ;-)

najevi 04:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for those, I'll get them both reported (not sure how the second is going to work out, could be tricky to do - not that I'm enough of a techy type to know for sure) -- sannse (talk) 09:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit preview feature request
It would demonstrate Wikia's stated desire to preserve the appeal Wikia offers to content creators if the edit preview displayed a gray or transparent rectangle in place of the block ad or leaderboard ad. This rectangle serves the necessary function of keeping an editor mindful of the effect of specifically the block ad on article layout.

Please think about this carefully before reacting with a knee jerk. I have two reasons for requesting this feature:


 * First: Since last week's announcement I have disabled NoScript so that I can see these ads. I have worked on the communitytest wiki both logged in and logged out so what I am suggesting here is based on that first hand experience with ads in the edit preview.


 * Creating content and developing that material to make it appealing to a target community requires a degree of focus or concentration. As an editor, you often scan a page preview and mentally note 3 to 5 items that need a touch up or correction. Usually it is easy to remember that many items as you switch your attention back to the edit box. An undesirable consequence of displaying live ads in the edit preview is that an editor's concentration can be broken by a distracting ad. The live ads in edit preview are a distraction to that edit process that was not in the focus field of view before now.


 * This makes it easier to forget 2 or 3 of those half dozen points you planned on touching up.
 * The live ad(s) in edit preview are an impediment to productivity.


 * Second: Today I was adding a section to our site's [Help:Why_create_an_account] page and found myself preparing this simple table. I may have been brainwashed by one too many of Danny's posts in the past week so you might recognize a little marketing spin in the comparison presented by this table. ;-)


 * {| style="text-align: center; border-collapse:collapse;" border="1"

! align="center" width="15%" |UnRegistered ! align="center" width="15%" |Registered ! align="center" width="70%" |Advertisement placement
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||
 * align="left"|browsing interface: left-hand navigation bar below the widget boxes
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||
 * align="left"|browsing interface: page footer below the article content area
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||
 * align="left"|editing interface: left-hand navigation bar below the widget boxes
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||
 * align="left"|editing interface: page footer below the article content area
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * yikes!||uh-oh!
 * align="left"|edit preview: article content area as described below
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||X
 * align="left"|article content area: depending on page layout either:
 * a block ad in top RH corner or
 * a leaderboard style ad across top of article below page title and above article text
 * - align="center" valign="top"
 * X||X
 * align="left"|main page content area: both ads as described above
 * }
 * }


 * Of course this page and this table is all about encouraging the casual visitor to create an account. I realized that I cannot honestly claim that the editing user interface is free of advertising because of the advertising being displayed during edit previews.
 * So my second reason is that I'd like to be able to turn uh-oh! into an empty cell.

A gray or transparent box will serve the same function of making an editor mindful of the effect on article layout of ads placed in the content area but without breaking the editor's focus from the all important task of creating quality content.

As I review this for the Nth time I am thinking, yikes! Even an unregistered user should not suffer the distraction of advertising while previewing their edit. If an unregistered editor makes a careless mistake due to such a distraction then it may go unnoticed by them and so create additional house cleaning for one of the regular, registered users. On the matter of edit productivity, there should be no discrimination between registered and unregistered users. najevi 04:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll put this forward, I think it will be a matter of practical considerations - Christian and the other guys working on this will know more -- sannse (talk) 09:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It goes into effect...
Does New Monaco go into effect GMT (a matter of hours), or EST? -- LordTBT Talk! 21:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Current plan is to release around 9AM UTC tomorrow, but it may be a little earlier or a little later. Will update this post if we know anything more precise angies (talk) 21:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ads on Image & Category Pages
Perhaps this question is a little late, but it seems most have been caught up in the ads appearing on articles, and we forgot that they're also appearing on image and category pages. Looking at, the ad appears broken...is this right?

Also, where will the ads be on category pages? -- LordTBT Talk! 23:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * On categories they are in the same place as on articles... see w:c:communitytest:Category:Community for example. On image pages, they are under the image, where the text starts.  Are you seeing that broken? -- sannse (talk) 23:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So is this correct? The ad overlaps the file history bar... --LordTBT Talk! 02:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Humm, I think it's as designed, but maybe the formatting could be better... I'll see what can be done -- sannse (talk) 05:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Skin choice / consistent look and feel / ad placement
Would you please tell us more about the reasoning behind the "consistent look and feel" requirement.

As you know it was communicated in the announcement and on this forum that consistent look and feel is an advertiser driven requirement. Was that the whole truth? recap:


 * We have to standardize the way our site looks across all wikis, using the Monaco skin for anonymous users. In the past, communities have used various skins – Monaco, Quartz or Monobook. That's a luxury that we can't afford to offer any more, as advertisers strongly prefer a consistent look-and-feel.

I am having a difficulty understanding why that is important when the locations for ad placement are:
 * 1) content area: top-RH block style below page title
 * 2) content area: leaderboard style below page title
 * 3) Skin: below content area
 * 4) Skin: below LH sidebar widgets
 * First of all, have I omitted any current or planned ad placement locations from the above list?

The only ad placement in the above list that could possibly be affected by the freedom of choice between Monaco and Monobook skins as the site default is the fourth one. This is only due to the narrower width of LH sidebar for Monobook (155px) relative to Monaco (215px).
 * Am I missing some other subtle point here?


 * What is the obstacle to selling LH sidebar ads that fit within 155px? :These would also be usable in a 215px sidebar albeit with a 30px border on either side.


 * What is the obstacle to selling LH sidebar ads in two width formats? :The 155px width ad format would reach a wider audience (i.e. fetch a premium price) since they can be viewed by entire communities which freely choose between either Monobook or Monaco as the site-default skin. The 215px width format would reach a smaller audience but might afford some other benefit (that I can't imagine right now.)

The sales opportunity for the first three ad placement locations are equal and independent of the choice of either Monaco or Monobook as a default skin.
 * Do you now understand why more words need to be communicated about the reasons for mandating Monaco and deprecating Monobook as the default skin for a wiki community?

LH sidebar widgets Now I suspect that the whole truth behind the mandated Monaco skin has more to do with plans for widgets in the LH navbar than it has to do with advertising sales opportunity. I can well understand that supporting widgets in two width formats would present a burden to wikia's engineering team.
 * Is this the true reason behind the "consistent look and feel" requirement?

najevi 23:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Najav, I feel we are getting into a level of detail here that is unsustainable. Much as we want to be clear about what's happening, we can't sit with you here and micro-analyse our every decision.  As has been said before, one of the reasons for the "consistent look and feel" is that it will help us with advertisers. And another reason is that it's easier and more cost-effective to maintain and develop wikis with one skin.  That's not some sort of hidden "real truth", but a part of the whole complex decision on the skin. -- sannse (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * A skin that has withstood the test of time (Monobook) is no longer available as a site default. The reasons given are twofold: advertiser's preference and cost-effective maintenance. The first reason has been brought into question in a thoughtfully considered and very reasonable way. Those questions remain unanswered.


 * As far as maintaining two skins is concerned. Wikia needs to do that in any case because it has been clearly advertised that registered users will continue to be able to select Monobook as their personal skin preference. It is incongruous to cite cost-effective maintenance as a reason for mandating Monaco while deprecating Monobook and yet still advertise (and in good faith I take you at your word on this point) that the Monobook skin will remain accessible to registered users who wish to select it.


 * That kind of lip service leads the uninformed (and yet patiently and politely enquiring) among us to assume/suspect/wonder/fear that Monobook might be discontinued as a user preference at some point in the future. Forgive me if this view is too cynical. Skepticism tends to creeps in when fair questions go unanswered.


 * najevi 04:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There are no plans to remove monobook as a personal skin choice. But future features may not work on monobook, as is the case with some recent features such as Edit Tips. -- sannse (talk) 06:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify...
The terms of use currently state "No user shall remove the advertising, or sponsored search features from the wiki in a way which means other users can not view the advertisements." Now this is taken to mean that we can't alter the site-wide skin files to eliminate the ads, but what about posting instructions for how our users can remove them on their end? If I would put up a sitenotice pointing users to instructions for using Firefox with AdBlock, would Wikia staff be compelled to take it down? -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 23:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well... we would ask you to take it down :) We have had exactly that situation in the past, and that was what happened.  I think it's not to much to ask that you don't sabotage the source of income that keeps the wiki going. -- sannse (talk) 00:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * And I think it's not too much to ask that you not sabotage the look and feel and flow of our content, but we seem to disagree on that. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's fine to be unhappy about the ads - angry, even - but there's no need to be passive-aggressive about it. If you feel the ads are a problem for your readers and/or editors, it's best to confront the issue - either find some other stable source of revenue for Wikia, or move. Asking Wikia exactly how far you can push them before they throw you off the site is not likely to lead to a happy ending for anyone. --GreenReaper(talk) 00:52, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My two cents here, but Wikia appears to have negotiated a better deal than they at first showed us. The 'intelligent' ads--only placing the giant corner boxes of doom on some pages--were a change for the better.  Wikia is pinned between trying to please the ideal of an ad-less Internet, and dealing with the cold reality that if they don't have money for the servers, the servers will shut down.  From what I can see, they've done the best they could given the situation.  --TarrVetus 13:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

June 17th Changes
I wanted to update everyone on where we are with the new ad format change and where we're going. We'll make the first part of the switch to New Monaco tomorrow -- Tuesday, June 17th. This will affect all wikis currently on Monaco, but not those currently on Monobook. We'll be helping wikis on Monobook switch over in the coming weeks.

We've made a number of changes to the original plan based on your feedback and the live tests on the Community Test wiki. We can't take up all your suggestions, or remove the need to make these big changes, but you should know that we continue to read your feedback and act on it where we can.

What you're going to see on the site tomorrow isn't set in stone. We need to see how this works on the site, identify any bugs, collect more data and hear more feedback. Then we need to look at both sides of the equation and figure out the parts that aren't balanced right. We're committed to making Wikia work - both as a company and as a community.

Wikia staff will be around tomorrow to collect feedback and bug reports. Please let us know if you see anything broken or if anything in the new skin doesn't seem to work for your wiki. Thanks for your passion, your suggestions and your patience.

color="Blue">Gil (color="Blue" size="1">talk) 05:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't like the fact that the bar with edit, history, move, etc. doesn't line up with the side bar at the top, that should be sorted and isn't too hard. And the ads have screwed the appearance of wikis right up, you could at least chuck 'em at the bottom under the articles? Andre666 09:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It sucks
The banner adds under the article title are not tooo bad, but I hate the square box on the right. The square box messes with the formatting on the page and pushes the primary picture of the page down. That picture should be the primary focus or at least be visible which it hardly is. I feel this just makes the wikia look cheap and unprofessional. --  MadYoer   (Communicate!)  09:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I'm going to need to do some major overhaul with TalkShoe Wiki in order for it to look it's best under New Monaco. Admitidly, some wiki's loog good under New Monaco, but I dislike the ad in the conent. It cheapens Wikia as a whole, just saying. --Taylor Karras talk contributions 09:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Totally agree, unprofessional wikis are not going to be visited. Wikia you've forgotten what you're supposed to be about!! Andre666 09:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No. The content is professional. The ad placement isn't. --Taylor Karras talk <font color="#51b732">contributions 09:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Logo
While we have to put up with this agonising change, where do I upload my logo now? Andre666 09:42, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Image:Wiki.png. --<font color="#306ac1">Taylor Karras <font color="#e13f5d">talk <font color="#51b732">contributions 09:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Logo info --Uberfuzzy 11:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

More Money for You
We make free content and you make advertising dollars off it… then you get greedy and want more money so you start messing with the content that we all created... Try and keep it simple... we make content you make money...not a lot but enough.

Makes me want to do more work at Wikipedia...--<font face=" Lucida Calligraphy "> <font color="#00CC33"> MadYoer  <font color="#ff00CC"> (Communicate!)  09:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We are doing this so we can make the enough you speak of, to continue to host and support the wikis. Kirkburn (talk) 13:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, Wikia does not make money... The starting investments was what Wikia has been running off of, the amount of money generated by past ads is so insignificant that those investments were being constantly drained and would one day run out. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Jun 17, 2008 @ 13:37 (UTC)

Bug report: Banner overflow covers controls on image detail page
Picture of bug on image detail pages, banner ads are overflowing into the controls if the article div is smaller than the ad. (They're overflowing tot he left of the box, you probably want them to overflow to the right) Presumably a minor fix. -Derik 10:26, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Derik, that's been fixed -- sannse (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Box? Banner? Is this a bug?
Sometimes articles show a box in the upper-right, sometimes a banner, but the problem is that I can never anticipate which is going to appear. I was going to start reformatting templates and such for the new skin, but I can't predict if the top of the screen or the top-right is going to be consumed by the ads. Is this a bug? --TarrVetus 11:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Having checked a few articles on Wookieepedia, it looks to me like a feature:
 * User pages, project pages, templates, and very short articles have no ads
 * Most long articles get the by now infamous box in the upper right corner, unless they are:
 * Articles which start with certain templates (like Wookieepedia's ubiquitous character/spaceship/battle/etc. infoboxes) that need banner ads instead because the box would upset the formatting.
 * Do I have this right? If so, I have to say the changes look a lot better than I had worried they would. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 11:56, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * After spending a while browsing through the wiki, you're right--the box doesn't appear on every page. That's great!  My biggest problem with it was the conflict between the box ad and traditional right-set infoboxes.  --TarrVetus 13:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's right. Special pages and talk pages also have no ads, and depending on how things work out their could be changes to the logic (for example, the box could sometimes be a banner even if there is no clash), but at the moment it's set for "box unless there is a clash". -- sannse (talk) 13:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Ads on short pages
I keep getting ads on the short articles on the Lego Star Wars Wiki, the ads keep pushing down the info boxes and they end up below the rest of the content. here are two examples: It makes the pages look ugly and weird. I tested one of the above pages on the CommunityTest Wiki a few days ago and I was the only one who got ads on this page then, I uploaded an image of that page with the ad, which can be found on the talk page. I think it's the fact that the infobox counts as content too, I feel it shouldn't. The infobox gets pushed down by the ad while there are only one or two lines of "real content." The Lego Star Wars Wiki is a smal wiki, for now. But many of the articles wil never grow to be very big, like the ones about the smaller sets. --Jedimca0(Do or Do Not, There is No Try) 12:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A short page with an infobox (I tested this page on the test wiki too)
 * Another short page.
 * From what I can see, these pages are just on the borderline between "long" and "short". Depending on your screen resolution and monitor size, they may be long enough to trigger an ad.  On larger monitors, they probably won't -- sannse (talk) 13:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Window size? Wowzers!  Are these things really that sensitive?  That must have been tricky to negotiate!  --TarrVetus 13:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And I'm seeing the exact same thing on the Half-Life wiki. WHITE SPACE MUCH? That's not the only problem, the ads are also stuffing up image placement, sometimes causing images to bleed over into the text. Example.


 * Thanks a lot for alienating your contributors by screwing up their work, Wikia, I'm packing my bags and I'm not making another non-discussion edit until this trash is removed from the article area. You clearly haven't really listened to any of the complaints, examples or solutions the community has put forward. Trying to reason any further is a waste of time. --MattyDienhoff 13:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We chose to use length of the page as the defining factor for "short" pages, so if the page (without the ad) is longer than the limit, then an ad will show. We need some sort of cut-off, and I'm afraid there will always be edge cases.
 * On the images bleeding... I don't see it in your example, is it possible for you to post a screenshot so we can see what you see? Thanks -- sannse (talk) 14:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Here it is. On length, infobox code shouldn't be considered part of the article length, it's not a reliable indicator as this page shows. --MattyDienhoff 15:04, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * MattyDienhoff, I must agree with you. All the hard work... Thanks! The whole layout is messed up, I'm not amused. It can not be true that you really like pages to look like this? What's the improvement there? --Wild Whiphid 14:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This would just be a total disaster. Some weird looking ads with a black rectangular in front of our pages? What's going on here? Not only will this keep visitors away with these ugly and unrealiable ads, it could also scare away users from many Wiki's ... Not amused ! --Sompeetalay 14:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Objectionable ads
So now that we have an even more diverse array of crap shoved in our faces, is there a central location for reporting ads we find offensive? -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 13:59, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please mail community@wikia.com or leave a message on User talk:JSharp. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 14:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Ads Are Pushing Infobox-Like Templates Down
They're pushing them down. Simply put, the page now doesn't look that great. The templates are custom made, and look better than what an infobox would in that case, but it doesn't trigger the box ad to go to a banner. It just pushes it down, and makes the template go below the content. Is there any way to make it so it doesn't without resorting to using Infoboxes for that? Look: There's the page. it should still have the ads pushing it down... It just doesn't look great. -- Omega Blademan   Sound Check   Contribs  14:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Did you seriously....
...just put a banner for gay fitness on the top of my strength training wiki?

I have to say it again, just because it sounds so rediculous you might think I'm joking. You just put a huge banner for GAY FITNESS on my STRENGTH TRAINING WIKI. Are you out of your fracking skulls?! That is uncool on many, many levels.

I guess the good news is I was only working on my wiki for a couple weeks before this AMAZING UPSET, so finding a new website won't be as difficult a transition for me as it is for some of you guys. But dissapointing just the same.

Tim Donahey 14:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)