Notable Changes
- Recently Visited section readded to left navigation
Recent Fixes
- Horizontal navigation visible again within editors for the Community Description and Top Navigation pages
- "Current" navigation panel opened by default to logged-out users on Discussions
- Switching from "Current" to "Explore" panel did not set "Current" panel's close state
- MediaWiki update banners are no longer visible in the editors
- Enabling Achievements feature broke user pages
Fixes in Development
- Sticky local navigation bar on smaller screen sizes shows both search box and icon
Development Updates:
Platform
- [MediaWiki Update] MediaWiki will be updated to 1.43 over the course of the coming months
UXFCP
- [Product Tweak] Adding dropshadow to navigational elements
- [Experiment] Mobile Drawer experiments
- Re-order: "Others like you..." first
- Present different "Popular Pages" on every page
- Randomize order of widgets when loading the page
- To collapse or not to collapse the drawer
Eyo, lovely people! Welcome (back) to the Technical Updates blog series, where I will take you through a selection of updates on what happens on the tech side of the Fandom platform. This ranges from reporting on a selection of fixed bug tickets, things that are being worked on, experiments planned or running, and releases that you may already have noticed. I will be posting this update every two weeks, but while it's intended as a way for Fandom Staff to update you on things from our end, it's also a great place to sound off in the comments to let us know about what's on your mind when it comes to platform feedback or bug reporting.. Now that that's clarified, let's dive in!
Notable Changes[]

Example of how the Recently Viewed section looks after browsing several wiki pages across different wikis
Unless you're a new user who joined us after December 12, 2024, I don't think anyone missed the release of the new navigation design. While there upon release, the feature had to be removed rather quickly as we were running into performance issues. However, now it's back, so let's talk about the return of the Recently Visited section in the left navigation! Upon initial visit to the wiki, a user will see three icons: "Explore", FanCentral, and "Current". Upon further exploration of the wiki, a "Recent" section starts appearing in the form of buttons showcasing up to three pages you most recently visited last. As you continue exploring your fourth page, a "history" button will also appear, which triggers a pop-up holding up to 10 more history links. This feature is limited to browser and device though, meaning that if you use your account on multiple devices, you'll have a separate browsing history on each. Likewise, if you use multiple browsers on the same device, you'll have unique search histories for each browser. Let me know in the comments what you think of this feature!
Recent Fixes[]
- The horizontal navigation bar wasn't visible within editors on the Community Description (
MediaWiki:Wiki-description-site-meta
) and TopNavigation page (MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation
). - The "Current" navigation panel opened by default for logged-in users on Discussions if they have a screen that's at least 1640px wide. This is once again only the behavior for logged-out users.
- Switching from the "Current" panel to "Explore" did not set the "Current" panel to be closed by default on the next page load.
- MediaWiki update banners are no longer visible when editing a page.
- Enabling the Achievements feature on wikis broke user pages.
Fixes in Development[]
- On smaller screens, the sticky local navigation shows both the search box and the search icon where it's only supposed to show the search icon. This break point problem also causes functionality issues for the search box. The UXFCP team is working on a solution.
Development Updates[]
Platform Team[]
- Product Support Owner: Antonio
- [MediaWiki Update] Incoming MediaWiki update from Version 1.39 to Version 1.43: You've probably noticed the banner in your down left corner, but we're gearing up to update our MediaWiki software to the 1.43 version. For those unaware, MediaWiki is the software that powers wiki editing on Fandom (and other wiki farms), and like any software, it needs to be updated from time to time. In order to mitigate most foreseeable painpoints, we've devised a whole plan to ensure the update goes as smoothly as possible. Read the help page about the MediaWiki 1.43 update.
User Experience (UXFCP) Team[]
- Product Support Owner: Lostris
- [Product Tweak] New navigation tweaks: This point will most likely stay present in the tech blogs for a bit, as we're sifting through the feedback and tackling things left and right. The latest tweak you'll notice is a design change to the navigation elements. A border and light dropshadow will be added to the navigation bars to prevent them from seemingly bleeding into the wiki content in case they happen to use a similar color palette.
- [Experiments] Mobile drawer experiments: Both the mobile and the desktop drawers remain important focus points for the team to get the presentation of them right for our users. As such, we continue our commitment to develop through successful experiments and make tweaks when and where necessary based on data and feedback. Specially for the mobile drawer, the following experiments were, are, and will be tested:
- Re-order: "Others like you..." first:
Others Like You
is more dynamic, more targeted, and relevant to the page that a reader is on. As such, it brings in more diverse considerations than simple "popularity". However, it currently is the second tab within the drawer, so we experimented by flipping the order. This experiment ran from January 15th to January 21th. - Present different "Popular Pages" on every page: We know that the Popular Pages widget helps readers get to their next page to read. However, since only a limited number of options are shown, the reader quickly runs out of new options. To remedy that, we experimented for a week by "shuffling" the Popular Pages content, showing a fresh batch of popular pages each time the user reloads the page. This experiment ran from January 16th to January 22nd.
- Randomize order of widgets when loading the page: While I realize that this seems in conflict with the first experiment, the goal here is to determine if there is even value in having a set order of the widgets. To test that, the user received a random order of the widgets on each page load. This experiment is running from January 20th to January 26th.
- To collapse or not to collapse the drawer: Right now, the mobile drawer is opened by default for logged-out users on the first 5 pageviews and then it automatically closes onwards (unless the user specifically chose to close the drawer sooner). With this experiment, we want to verify if this is in the best interest of the reader by increasing the moment of automatic closure to be after the 10th page and even not at all. The reader does always maintain the option to collapse the drawer themselves, in which case that choice is respected. This experiment will run from January 27th to February 2nd.
- Re-order: "Others like you..." first:
That's it for the start of this year! Per usual, if you encounter something that feels off about the platform, please report it by sending in a bug report, reach out to your Community Manager, contact the Product Support Owner on their Wall/talk page, or just simply sound off in the comments here. Remember to include a link to where you're experiencing the issue, a screenshot if it is something visible, as well as steps to reproduce your issue. As always, thank you for helping us by continuing to communicate. Happy editing, everyone!
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