Forum:Wikia overhaul?

Forums: Index > The World that Never was > Wikia overhaul?

maggosh - I had been told the darkness would devour me, but what terrors could it possibly hold, so long as I found the strength to control it?
TALK - This world is just too small.

I'd rather we skip the formalities. Well, after I made an edit to the Bleach wiki for the first time in months, I was directed to this blog. Apparently Wikia's going to have an overhaul concerning changes, aesthetically and software-side, by the end of the year; one of which includes putting the name of the user who uploaded a picture in its caption. Which, in my opinion, is a bad idea. There's more here, here, and here. Just thought I should post this here so we could discuss what goes on. Merci beaucoup.

Discussion

Uxie Lover1994 Tiempo de morder de nuevo con el poder! El tema de hoy: su sorpresa! ^{— 04:21, September 28, 2010 (UTC)}

I got that when I first edited other wikis. I am sick of it, y'know!

KrytenKoro - "Because I knew something he didn't. I knew that I was lying. Seriously, sir. 'No silicon heaven'? Where would all of the calculators go?"
TALK -

Every change they are listing pisses me off. Whatever they implement, I'm going to ask that we can opt out of.

LapisScarab - You accept darkness, yet choose to live in the light. So why is it that you loathe us who teeter on the edge of nothing? We who were turned away by both light and dark - never given a choice?
TALK - That may be... however, what other choice might we have had?

Ugh, really? Again? Have we ever used any of the little individual "improvements" Wikia has created (RTE comes to mind)? Why do they keep trying to "improve" a system that works fine? Somehow I doubt that there was an overwhelming demand for this, but I equally doubt that they will listen to the complaints. Not much I can add that hasn't already been said in those comments you showed us, maggosh. Lia Schiffer sums it up well.

Uxie Lover1994 Tiempo de morder de nuevo con el poder! El tema de hoy: su sorpresa! ^{— 09:46, September 28, 2010 (UTC)}

One of these days, Wikia will freeze after too much upgrades. They should just stop for now. y'know. Plus, the staff will just ignore things unless they are major (eg: bad freezes, vandals who trash more than three wikis etc).

17master - Hey, guys, check out my new camera!
TALK - Oh wait, this isn't a camera... - 09:57, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I got the news from Bleach Wikia too. I got a slow internet connection so it can be a nuisance sometimes, I just hope the upgrades don't make it worse for us, slow-internet-connection-users.

KrytenKoro - "Space Corp Directive 195—In an emergency power situation, a hologrammatic crew member must lay down his life in order that the living crew members might survive."
"Yes, but Rimmer Directive 271 states just as clearly: 'No chance, you metal bastard.'"
TALK -

I took a look at the thing in action on the reddead and muppet wikis:

The text of the article is compressed down to about 50% of its former width, before adding in images. It is very difficult to read. When you add in a normal-sized image (~250px), the text is confined in a column of less than 1/6 of the page's width.
The image credits are both obnoxious, due to immature usernames, and extend the height of the images, disrupting any previous flow.
The "last edited by" at the top of the page makes it look even more like a prototype wiki, rather than a polished, mature one. I've literally only seen crap like this on primitive wiki's.
It looks like they've increased the spacing between lines from 1x to at least 1.5x, if not 2x.
The pages now have a window for all images on the wiki, which seems inane. If I'm reading about Paopu Fruit, it is purely disruptive to have a 1/8 of my screen showing images of the Mysterious Figure or Monstro.
They have a box at the bottom for what looks like will be Featured Wiki's.
They now place the two most common categories at the top of the page. We have a lot of pages with maintenance categories, meaning they will almost always be those top two, and I'm sorry, but we're not going to abandon our tracking of problems for this.

I honestly cannot find anything positive coming out of this. And so here's my suggestion:

Abandon wikia.

When the furor over ads first started, the transformers wiki, tfwiki.net, took a stance against both the utter disruption of their layouts for non-logged users, against wikia's lack of vetting for ads, which resulted in ads for let's call them "pleasure toys" on a wiki about children's toys, and on principle, against wikia's complete lack of "giving a shit" to the opinions of their unpaid workforce. They left wikia, kept their own layouts while finding ads that were actually relevant to their wiki, and have done nothing but succeed. We didn't follow them, but then, the layouts were only disrupted on the non-logged pages, and we just took that lump. Now wikia is demonstrating that they absolutely don't give a hoot about presenting encyclopedic content. We can either leave, or have a wiki that looks and will always look like a pile of shit.

Now, tfwiki was one of the biggest wiki's. They had even more editors than we do, and they were absolutely dedicated to their wiki. They are literally the best example of what a wiki should be, in terms of both content and culture. There is no guarantee that we could do this and succeed - it would take huge amounts of work, and honestly, our staff is dropping off like flies. But if wikia is unwilling to make this change optional, it's something we seriously need to consider.

17master - Hey, guys, check out my new camera!
TALK - Oh wait, this isn't a camera... - 14:49, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

Does that mean.... we're gonna make a new KHWiki... right from the start?

I agree that the changes are jokes, but other wikia doesn't like it either so maybe they'll get a lot of complaints and decided to stop the new upgrades.

Although, starting a new wiki doesn't seem so bad... But getting some editors for our wiki isn't easy, the reason tfwiki and bulbapedia have a lot of editors is because they were popular since, like, 19-ish? And Kingdom Hearts just started on 2002. Hey, I'm not saying we can't, but it's just gonna be hard to get a bunch of active, new, editors.

But, all-in-all, I'll stick to our community, whether we're moving to wiki or stay here.

}

KrytenKoro - "Hurricane beats all housing or apartments. This sucker is a Cat-6!"
TALK -

Oh got, no. We just transfer everything - articles, images, even the user pages and forums. The only work most editors would have to do is to change their bookmarks and reapply for an account at the new location. Of course, if you wanted to help with the transfer and with the selection of more appropriate ads, more power to you.

KrytenKoro - Click
TALK -

By the way, if you guys decide not to move in the end, we need to use this:

[1]

Posted four pleas to Wikia, three under my name and one under KHWiki's name. Now, I'm only doing this with the hopes that they'd listen, but in the event they don't, I have a few questions :

We'll be hosting it on an external server. Don't we have to pay for it ? Where would we find one and how ?

How would we develop the page from scratch until we achieve wiki format ?

What happens to the KH-related wikis under our umbrella - KHFR and KHES ?

But I've learned that deep down, there's a light that never goes out! • Trois Nyx Étienne — 15:07, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

KrytenKoro - Most bears were content to live their lives, mauling and eating one, maybe two humans at most. "Mass-murder," as the bears always said, "is for the sharks." But not Barry. Barry was different. He knew that one day, he would kill ALL of the humans. This is the inspiring, tear-jerking story of one bear and the dream he dared to dream.
TALK -

I've asked the tfwiki guys for a link to their discussion, because I can't find it, but basically, we'd set up an ads account with project wonderful or similar, and we would work to have targeted ads. The main problem with this is that we'd need more stuff about kingdom hearts or final fantasy to want to place ads here - webcomics, toys, etc. Transformers wiki had an easier time of that because its franchise is so long running.

For the wiki format - honestly, we'd need some coding experts to help, but it's not going to be simple html. We will still be a wiki, and have a wiki server, it will just be something like "khwiki.net" or similar. All links and coding would work the same - we would basically just straight up copy everything we have to another server, that's all.

Also - I've looked into some more, and some people are talking about it being possible to manipulate your css so that it shows the old version, or at least eliminates some of the massive problems. However, wikia is starting to say that "not only is it against the ToU to remove ads (which we knew, obviously), but also any of our nifty little features aren't they so darling". Basically, they will only allow us to modify our personal css's, not the wiki's.

And I say f'em. That doesn't make any legal sense, and they aren't providing us a service that we aren't giving back a hundred-fold, so it's not like they are the benefactors here anyway. If we decide to stay here, we use our layout - if they throw a fit, we can throw one right back.

That will probably result in our elimination, or at least the banning of whatever knucklehead is behind the scheme, but it is still an option.

KrytenKoro - "Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."
TALK -

For all mechanical purposes, they aren't under our umbrella. If they decide to stay, that's their decision, if they decide to come with us, I'm sure we can figure something out. After all, whatever targeted ads we could find would certainly apply to their readers as well.

I'm speaking for KHFR and we're coming with KHW ! Of course, in the event that Wikia decides to be... well, I don't know what to say about this anymore.

Why did the Keyblade choose me? I have to know. • Trois Nyx Étienne — 15:30, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

KrytenKoro - This is the song that runs under the credits; these are the credits, so this is where it goes. 'has nothing to do with the movie so we'll say, "Hey! Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey hey!"
TALK -

Right. It's a lovely show of friendship, but if we decide to do this, and if you guys think it's a bad idea, there's absolutely no reason you would have to go down with the ship. I absolutely don't think it will fail, if we decide to do this, but just saying.

I'm aware of that. But just for all to see :

an Ankoù dit :
*j'ai lu
*et je continue d'espérer qu'ils vont laisser le choix
*ça nous épargnerait bien des peines
*même si certains trucs vont forcément changer
*moi j'ai pas vraiment envie d'en arriver à devoir déménager le wiki
            Stryion                dit :
*Moi non plus, mais au pire...... Je prefererais demenager plutot que de survivre avec les "ameliorations"
an Ankoù dit :
*certes

I read, and I continue hoping that they'll keep the option.
it'd take away a lot of pain from us, even if some things are bound to change. 
I don't really feel like having to leave the wiki.

Me neither, but worse comes to worst, I'd rather move than survive with these "improvements".

True.

Regardless of whether it's warranted or not for me to put this up, I'm pretty sure all of us would feel the same way back on the other side. If push comes to shove, we move.

Helping others always comes before asking others for help. • Trois Nyx Étienne — 15:41, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

17master - Hey, guys, check out my new camera!
TALK - Oh wait, this isn't a camera... - 15:47, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not good at coding, but if you guys need any help, I'll try to help the best I can

JFHavoc ^{Talk to Me!}— I once took an IQ test and got a score of over 9000.

_{You're all morons. — 16:22, September 28, 2010 (UTC)}

I wouldn't be too happy about all the stuff they're doing or leaving wikia, but at this point I support any decisions you guys make.

EDIT: Just checked it out on one of the Beta Wikis..... this sucks.

D a n

- What's going on? Everything's black and white. ^{— 16:51, September 28, 2010 (UTC)}

Ugh... I've always disliked the look of the Muppets, Twilight, and GLee wikis... What's the point of having almost half the space on-screen empty? I'm with you guys, move before giving over to these changes...

ShadowsTwilight - He's leaving you behind, and when you catch up, he'll be a different person
TALK - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

two rules with things that aren't broken: if it isn't broke,don't fix it, and and if it isn't broke DON"T BREAK IT!!!!

		Neumannz — Looks like I'm gonna have to jump...! TALK — I work alone! Except when I work with Xion...which is all the time. — 16:59, September 28, 2010 (UTC)



		If the situation is really intolerable, I support moving, but I recommend we get a viable plan together. I find myself looking at the Homestar Runner Wiki[2], which I consider one of the highest quality and professional-looking fan-run wikis I've seen, especially outside of wikia. They have around 600 more articles than KHWiki. They have no ads, but have a fundraising drive a la Wikipedia. Something to consider, noting our relatively low article count.

KrytenKoro - This is the song that runs under the credits; these are the credits, so this is where it goes. 'has nothing to do with the movie so we'll say, "Hey! Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey hey!"
TALK -

I could definitely help out with some donations, but that's still a lot to ask, considering how young most of our reader-base is. I think targeted ads would be the optimum approach for this.

SC, it'll only happen if they're gonna make it an option. But from the look of those posts, they aren't. That's why we're flustered !

There are some things even the stars cannot tell me. • Trois Nyx Étienne — 19:22, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

KrytenKoro - "Space Corp Directive 195—In an emergency power situation, a hologrammatic crew member must lay down his life in order that the living crew members might survive."
"Yes, but Rimmer Directive 271 states just as clearly: 'No chance, you metal bastard.'"
TALK -

SC, you've got to remember that this wiki isn't just for us. We have readers, and this reformat will make our articles, to a one, unreadable. Added to that is the fact that central wikia has said that it is against their rules for us to remove or modify any of these space-sucking add-ons (not just the ads, which is understandable), and you've got our wiki being unreadable to anyone without an account (at least 60% of our readership, if not 90%).

On the Digimon Wiki, I just had what I think was wikia stuff neutering the ToC bar that you have on the left - and they did it without any real knowledge of what we do there, reducing it to six total options out of almost forty, and removing links to the actual main content.

According to central wiki, your situation is purely temporary. This change will be mandatory across all wikis, and they are phasing out monaco completely. Monobook will remain, I think, but gee, there goes our site theme.

Central wikia's constant attitude is one deleterious to content, and focusing on becoming a magazine or advertising insert, rather than an encyclopedia. If the outcry against this won't pull their heads out their bums, then there's no reason to believe that the next revision won't be any less catastrophic.

Bluer says at 20:32, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy with my Monobook, thanks.

KrytenKoro - "Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."
TALK -

We all like monobook, I think, but we're not allowed to use it as the default skin. Meaning that, depending on whether they keep monobook, we may be able to keep reading the articles, while visitors will not.

Plus, our background and wiki image is incompatible with monobook as it is, so we can either be compatible for one or the other.

Ultima - Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test.

I have to say, th new wikia looks horrible. I'm with Blue: Monobook rocks.
I'm not sure what I think about abandoning wikia, but if the community wants it, then I won't complain.
-21:41, September 28, 2010 (UTC)

The Inexistent - Pitiful users, mindlessly collecting information. The rage of an edit releases this knowledge, and they all come together, to form: The Wiki!!!
TALK - And on the Wiki these words appear: "My name is The_Inexistent, user of users: Look upon my edits, ye Mighty, and despair!"

I'm late getting here, but, wow, did we just realize this was happening? They announced this like a month ago. Anyway, I protested it back then, and, since they refuse to make it optional, we are screwed

The Inexistent - All the world's a puzzle, and I the one who made it so...
TALK - EVIL has come... at last...

Oh, and I volunteer to go down with the ship... I have nothing to lose anyway...

The Inexistent - Fire rages in the streets...
TALK - And swallows everything it meets...

Wow, third message in a row... but, anyway, I know for sure that blix could figure out how to make it look wikiish if we would move...

Keyblade0 - ...And here you go, a cool keyblade.
TALK - You can't see my face, because Nomura didn't bother to create it yet. — 23:41, September 28, 2010

(What!?) People, people people, please let’s all

Calm Down.

Yeah, the new things SUCK, but we’ve been through worse, right? So, let’s all calm down and hope/pray that they’ll not go through with this.

The Inexistent - Cry Havoc, and let slip the Wikis of war!
TALK - I am become The_Inexistent, the destroyer of Wikis.

Don't you understand? It's happening no matter what. All I want is for it to be optional!

Keyblade0 - What!? They're suing me for using their weapons!?
TALK - But... I look so cool with them... — 00:09, September 29, 2010

What!?!?(again) Well, we’re just going to have to bear it. If not, then we can move. (and possibly lose some of he work/progress we worked so hard on getting)

JFHavoc ^{Talk to Me!}— I once took an IQ test and got a score of over 9000.

_{You're all morons. — 01:30, September 29, 2010 (UTC)}

I actually don't think we've been through anything as bad as this, Keyblade. We wouldn't have to abandon Wikia if they weren't doing this. The brought it upon themselves. (And we still don't know for sure if we really are leaving).