Wowpedia talk:Default Skin Preview

Please put any feedback about the preview of the default skins here! -- Rustak 22:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Pcj's feedback

 * I hate them both, categories don't show up, huge sidebar cramps the actual content. What we have now is fine. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 22:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi... for categories not showing up, where do you mean? If in the article, there have been no changes to that... categories show up there in these skins. Thanks, Johnq 23:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * How can I say "where I mean" if they're not there...categories don't show up anywhere in that picture. I don't see how you can have a question about that. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 23:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Those images are mockups. They don't contain the complete article text (including the categories). I was asking if you meant in the article or somewhere else I hadn't considered. Live pages have the categories and anything else that's in the page. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I know Wikia wants to promote other things in the huge sidebar, but constricting the main content area is bad. --
 * It's not necessarily that we want to promote things... we also have a bunch of tools showing up that should be pretty fun additions. :) Thanks, Johnq 23:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Seeing pictures of people who recently contributed to the article isn't really high on my priority list. Confining that information to the history is more than adequate; regular visitors don't need that information, and they come here for content, not some nifty extravagant navigation tools. --Pcj (T&bull;C) 23:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If you don't like that one, you can just close it and it doesn't show up for you anymore. For visitors, a consistent issue on all wikis (not just Wikia or WoW) is that visitors don't even know there are people here. Formatting in that box will probably change but it's just a simple way to let people see there's a community here they can join. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Adys' feedback
My honest opinion? The sidebar sucks, all these tools crop the actual content. I hate it on every single Wikia wiki, I'll hate it on here too.

To go through every feature one by one. The Search box is good and well placed, it should default out on the current wiki though. The idea of a sidebar at the right is absolutely awful, particularly when using div tags (see main page, or my own userpage). The recent editors list is utterly useless, yank it out. Two columns for stuff? Bad idea, use one column.

Search defaults to searching the wiki (the mockup has wookieepedia but it would be WoW on the live site). I notice that you're using Google search right now. Many admins on Wikia prefer the Lucene/SOLR search since it updates real-time after making changes whereas Google might not pick things up for days. If the strong preference here is to keep Google search, we'll just keep it the same. For recent editors, you can close that box and won't see it again if you don't want it. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"Rate this article" "Share this article" etc is useless aswell. Articles permanently change, an utter shit article can transform itself into an awesome article (see Tseric). Navigation links at the top I kinda like, will be hard to get used to but I prefer.
 * We're looking at, but don't have yet, a way to age old votes so that as an article changes they don't count as much as more recent votes. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Keep the tab order as it is now please. The toolbox I kinda like, though theres some misplaced stuff, and article's recent changes should still be at the top as History tab.
 * For history/move/watch/etc we just pull those in in whatever order a wiki has them. Some wikis have extensions that add other tabs... those are pulled in as well. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As for the red theme, well I kinda like it honestly, but to be even more honest that's gonna be awfully hard to implement. 95% of the wiki content looks awful in ANY other theme than the default one, there would be a lot of work to change all this. If it's not default theme it's not like its gonna be a problem anyway though.
 * Yep, that's why we're asking... personally, I like the red one also... but I'll just choose to use it as my preference on other wikis. :) Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

In a few words, theres some good but overall it sucks. People have been using this wiki for years with the current style. Imagine for a second if Google's default main page was completely changed ... you'd hate it, yes. -- 01:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * For existing users, nothing changes... you still see monobook. For people who have already been visiting WoW wiki, they should have been cookied with an existing skin preference by now... so they also will still see monobook. For visitors that haven't been here before, they'll see the new default but there's a link to change back to monobook if they want to. Johnq 05:21, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Addendum: actually, we've been capturing visitor skin preference on Wikia for a few weeks... I don't think we've been doing that on WoW wiki. I've asked the guys to start. Johnq 05:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

DuTempete's feedback
I think they're both really well designed, and certainly easy on the eyes. I like the idea of configurable space. All that said...

Users/Viewers don't come to our wiki thinking, "Gee, I'm bored. Wouldn't it be fun to browse WoWWiki?" generally speaking. Sure, I do that when I'm bored sometimes, but that's not why I came here in the first place. I could see that being the driving reason behind people showing up on Wookiepedia, though.

The people who come to this wiki are looking for one thing, and one thing only: information. Entertainment is in the back of their minds somewhere, but it's not the key motivation. A lot of them are looking for that information to be as available as quickly as possible, and to not require much time to digest.

So, I don't like the fact that the other stuff takes up so much space. I think you shrunk the WoWWiki page in that demo, because the infobox takes up more space than it does in that image. The sidebar should be cut in half. Make everything horizontal. I do like the idea of a recent editors box. I think you're right when you say that many people don't realize there are actual living, breathing humans behind what they're reading. It's a good idea for a default, and we would be able to upload an avatar in our preferences, I'm assuming.
 * Yes, there's a place to upload an avatar.

I also don't like that searchbox being so prevalent. I HATE Google search, and HATE any other outside search plugin. The wiki is the only thing that really understands how I think when I want to find something in the wiki. I abuse the wiki search tool. If you can make that the primary search function, like it is presented here in the navigation box, please do. If you can make the searchbox at the top work for the wiki search, it also needs a link to itself somewhere, in case a user wants to restrict/expand the search, instead of using the default.
 * I'm not sure I followed that. :) Can you give me another example? Johnq 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If you click on the "Search WoWWiki" link in the navigation box in the sidebar, you go to a different type of search than the Google search, lower in the sidebar. I am assuming that the search box in your demo is a Google search, or one similar to it. -- DuTempete   talk  |  contr  20:19, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok got it. Actually, our default search is the mediawiki-style search, not google.

I also don't see links to my personal information anywhere. I definitely wont be accepting of anything that doesn't make it easy for me to check my user pages in one or two clicks. Two is even a bit excessive. A dropdown box with my user page as the default would be okay.
 * Yes, the user page, talk page, preferences link, etc. are all in the drop down associated with the user name at the top. Johnq 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The ratings is a great idea, IF it takes into consideration what revision was rated, and how old that revision was. Something like the rating only being worth a certain percentage of itself, scaling down as the revision gets older. It would be necessary to allow users to add a new rating, only on a new revision, possibly negating the user's old rating. A standard rating system is definitely not as dynamic as it needs to be for a wiki. You may want to consider using specific category ratings. For example: a rating for layout, a rating for ease of use, and a rating for the value of information on the page.
 * Yes, the aging of the vote is something that's not happening now but we want to find a way to work aging in. The thinking right now is that new articles (or ones that aren't that good or fleshed out) don't get that many votes (even low score votes)... but articles that are good, do get votes. The effect is almost the same as the aging since good versions of articles end up getting a higher number and a higher score of voting.

The only other thing that I don't like (right now), is that it appears you have restricted the length of viewable article with that bar at the bottom. The reason it bothers me is because it forces the user to see the Wikia links, again devaluing the information on the page. I don't mind there being Wikia plugs in there, but I don't want to be forced to look at them, especially an area so huge. It's not subtle, and it's a very shameless plug. I would much prefer the length of the page to be determined by the length of the article, with all the Wikia stuff still at the bottom. You could even keep it that large, as long as I'm not forced to look at it.
 * Actually, no... the article displays fully and the footer is always at the very end after that. Our designer was trying to show us the interface elements and just took a partial article from Wookieepedia as an example. The full article shows up and isn't restricted by the bottom bar.

As a minor detail, the yellow in those bars is waaaay to bright. Pick something more in the middle of the range of yellows w/in the logo.

Overall, I think those skins could bring some really neat functions to the wiki, but I'm rather fond of the current skin. It's not flashy, it may be a bit old school, and it surely isn't pretty, but it does what a WoW player needs it to do, and does it well, IMO. (And I really do like the tab metaphor; it moreso suggests to me that the links are for what's in the article, than the design in the demo does.) -- DuTempete  talk  |  contr  15:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm glad to hear you're interested in what might be coming. :) Johnq 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The Russian Dead's feedback
I agree with many of the comments made here. My screen is 1440 pixels wide, and the 150ish pixels the sidebar is taking is big enough as it is. When an article has an infobox and CSS-floated image thumbnails on a non-widescreen monitor, it's already ridiculously narrow. Both my brother and girlfriend, for example, have about 1000 pixels across. My eyes hurt looking at a monobook-skinned wiki on either of their computers when there's a 250 pixel infobox and 150 pixel sidebar on the page. I could accept making the sidebar a bit bigger, but preferably by no more than 50 pixels—widen it more than 100 or so beyond where it is now and there's no way I'd use that new skin. And yeah, being a long-time Wikipedia editor theres other things I agree with too—the tabs in the Monobook skin look better than the Windows-XP-ish rounded linkbars, which are too bright for my tastes. The article rating stuff is totally useless, in my opinion, and I'd rather not see WoWWiki stoop to having visitors rate articles. I'm here to help build an information resource, and if it starts feeling like I'm on a commercial site that uses gimmicks to attract visitors, I'm outta here (we're a long way from that and page rank voting isn't gonna get us very close, but you know what I mean). I'm not so fond of the idea of links to a breast cancer wiki, a NASCAR wiki, digg, del.icio.us, etc, either. What have they to do with WoW? Links to related content is okay with me, but links to social networking sites and links to wikis just because they're wikis seems gratuitous. However, with the exception of the horizontal screen real-estate problem, these are all things I could get used to. After all, I got used to the dark background when I came here since so many of the templates assume you're using the default skin and override the background colour with the dark grey the default uses. Well, that's my critique. I'll probaby stick with the current skin if the default changes anyways unless people change templates to only look good with the new skin, so take it for what it's worth.  Русские мертвецы  17:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi... yes, I understand what you mean about gimmicks. As you said, we're a long way from that... and, like other communities at Wikia have done in the past, if we get something wrong we'll get smacked on the nose. We try our best not to be gimmicky... but to bring in things that help the wiki... sometimes those are ideas or features that were of benefit to other wikis (whether at Wikia or somewhere else)... sometimes they are features from the web at large that help newbies, sometimes trying to expand the visibility of a wiki. As a "for instance", Jamie Hari from Marvel & DC Database i(~40k pages) had his readership expand by 4x over the course of 3-4 months after joining us... this also brought in contributors at a higher rate and the community there was really happy about that. WoW wiki probably wouldn't have that specific thing happen... but there are lots of little things we do to try to help that might. So we're asking for patience as we work with you guys on these things. If voting really isn't doing anything, then we'll take it off for you... but let's see if it's gimmicky or if it ends up being useful before we decide. :) Johnq 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand what you're saying about the ratings, but I think they would also have a use for us editors. I would definitely like to know what people think of the content in my warlock pages.  Which brings me an idea.  I'd like to see the ratings link to a page that has comments on it from users.  Then we'd really know what we can do to make an article better. -- DuTempete   talk  |  contr  20:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * A feedback plugin wouldnt be a bad idea instead of these ratings I too consider useless. Something such as a small and short text box (much like the edit summary box) that lets visitors (even unreg) give some feedback about the article. Whats lacking and what not. Feedback accessible itself by a tab. Dunno, just pulling it out of my head, it might be a crap idea after all. -- 21:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, we have something in mind just like this... a link in the "recent editors" plugin that's basically... "thank the authors" or could be "give the authors feedback". This has been in use on wikiHow, a pretty successful wiki run by someone we know, and it was well received there. Johnq 22:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

To clarify my feelings towards page rank voting: although the poll-style voting and vote averaging for page rating that I believe I saw on the example struck me as bad, I do support the general idea of more outwardly encouraging reader interaction and feedback. To get specific, what we're really talking about with a feedback system apart from talk pages is increasing the visibility of the talk page idea, and more visibly encouraging readers (read: not editors) to comment. Since it would not be the same page as the talk page from what I understand, it would have the effect of compartmentalizing page discussion and slightly reducing the scope of talk pages. That isn't inherently bad, and it might even take off and cause other talk page functions to get their own piece of the puzzle. It also presents the idea of allowing anons to comment in a restricted way without having their IP logged for the world to see. It is definately an interesting idea.

Based on the discussion my input has generated, I just want to thank those involved for taking my comments at face value and not interpreting them as complaints; it can be difficult to constructively critize through as poor a medium as text without resorting to sugar-coating or coming off as a prick. I must say I was worried for a moment when I saw from my watchlist that I had earned my own section on this page.  Русские мертвецы  01:15, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I can't speak for any others here but my emails usually come with nuclear warnings. I think the ideas being generated are interesting. :) Johnq 02:34, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

DarkRyder's feedback
Okay, after having spent some time playing around with the Quartz skin (as it seems to be called, yes?) on the Diablo wikia, I see a lot more of the appeal to this layout, especially the user-selectable widgets.


 * page links (history/watch/move) are visually indistinct and run together -- and what happens to templates like ?
 * there really needs to be an option for a "single-width navbar" in addition to the current "double-width" one -- this alone would prevent me from using the layout
 * IMO, article ratings provide little value to a wiki -- it is difficult to "rate" ever-changing content in a useful manner
 * article ratings can also allow unscrupulous users to usurp the wiki's NPOV -- e.g. down-rating all Horde-related articles due to personal prejudice
 * moving the outro/footer columns (or at least some of them) into navbar boxes and laying out the rest horizontally would reduce the "heaviness" (and, IMO, ugliness) of the footer considerably
 * personally, I think both columns of "Toolbox" links could/should be moved up into the header area ("Wiki-specific link 1" and friends), reclaiming some of that space

How serious is the need for a new default skin? As far as I know, there aren't a lot of complaints about the current one aside from being fairly boring, but I suspect quite a lot could be achieved on that front with less effort than trying to come up with a modification to Quartz that everyone agrees on. If nothing else, though, I see no reason why Quartz couldn't be put in the list of available skins, I just don't think it makes a better default skin than the current one. 23:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC) (first posted 17:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC))


 * The wiki needs the new skin partly for reasons I'm not sure I can mention here yet, and partly for consistency within Wikia. Note that you should still be able to use other skins, you won't be forced to use this one. 03:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * No worries there &mdash; if nothing else, now that user CSS/JS has been turned on, I can manipulate the layout at a whim! (Mwa-ha-ha.  Ha.  Ahem.)  And I certainly can't argue with wanting to give users a consistent experience.  If the extra-wide nav column issue can be fixed, I'd have no problem endorsing Quartz as a default skin at this point.  As it stands... I'm on the fence, but don't have any other major complaints.  The nav widgets alone are a huge win.   18:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Fisker's feedback
My only gripe with the proposed layout is the sidebar, i find it way to intrusive and if it was possible that it could be modified to each users preference then i would really like to see:
 * Toggle Sidebar on/off
 * Toggle Sidebar placement(left/right)
 * Shrink Sidebar (Basically shrink it into the current sidebar, expand vertically)

The other is not that big a deal for me. 18:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Kirkburn's feedback
I've only had a short chance to try out the new design so far (having just arrived at the Wikia offices) - given the low res of this laptop, I would say my main gripe is the sidebar's size and the overbright yellow. Everything else seems quite reasonable though.

Note that the new design has now been released to most Wikia wikis as an option (not this one obviously), so you can test it out on there, but is not being forced upon people - you can still choose your skin from the preferences, and you will keep your old choice. For new users, I think the new skin is a huge improvement from boring monobook, and much more welcoming. The skin has had a lot more discussion than just here, and it's still being worked upon. :) 21:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * PS. The left skin by far. We cannot change the colour scheme, it's inconceivable. 03:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Do we know how existing content will look on this new skin vs. the current skin, and will there be mass article changes needed? I worry that regular editors will have the old skin, while new users will see the new one, and pages with mixed edits from both camps won't look right on either.  Mainly talking about tables, infoboxes, etc. with hard-coded colors and styles. --Piu (?!) 03:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think many changes would be required at all, assuming the dark skin is the default. Content should be relative to the content box, which just changes position. To allow the red skin, it would just push us to sort out the CSS and templates, could certainly be done, but it would take a while. 04:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The styling of the content area will not be affected at all by the new skins -- the Wikia-wide design only affects the header/footer and sidebar areas. If all your current content-area customizations such as the dark gray background or table styling is already stored in MediaWiki:Common.css so that it affects all skins, there'll be no issues at all; if not, you might need to move or copy some CSS from Monobook.css to Common.css to have them show up in the new skin. You will also be able to customize elements in the new skin-specific stylesheet - currently Quartzsmoke.css or Quartzslate.css, but I believe it will just be called Quartz.css when the tech/design folk are done playing with it. Hope that is clearer! — Catherine@wikia (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Piu's feedback
Looking at the two, I'd prefer the left over the right. The right has wookiepedia content, and I'm not sure if you're putting that layout up for consideration here, but I'd be strongly opposed to a light color background. Whoever is doing the skins and proposing it for the new default, that is what most new, impressionable users are going to see first, I really hope that you have played WoW to some extent and have a feel for the visual style and general organization of information present in Blizzard user interfaces and their official website. It's all very consistent throughout, and WoWwiki should try to flow with that.

I'm not saying we need to mirror Blizzard too much, we can still have our own individual style here. But, keep in mind: on this site, we incorporate a large chunk of imagery from the game, including icons, screenshots, user interface elements, etc. And this is a good thing, both aesthetically and functionally. A player coming here for information needs that visual cue from the game to match things up in his head, in a way words can't do alone. That's why things like our item template tooltip goes to great length to look like it does in-game. If you put that on a white background, the color clash will burn demonic runes on your retinas that no priest can dispel. This is my theory on why Wowhead took over Thottbot  in popularity. The responsive javascript UI is nice there, but the visual style - it just fits so well with the visual game info that they are presenting.

Thanks for your time reading this. --Piu (?!) 03:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Quick note that the design is for all Wikia wikis, not just this. The wiki needs the new skin for reasons I'm not sure I can mention here yet. 03:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, thinking about this again, I think I'm reading something that's not clearly stated: there is a design that is common to all wikia wikis, which is the stuff in the right column, the rate-a-page-o-meter, the safety-yellow header and footer. While there is also a skin that is applied on top of it, the color scheme and other UI elements like textures and button icons, that we pick as the default, which will be unique to this site. Meanwhile, users will also be able to pick their own preference, which is both a design (such as the current one) and a skin on top of it. Comments above seem to indicate that existing users can choose to use the current layout (left column, classic tabs on top, same colors) and will never notice a thing. Does this sound about right? --Piu (?!) 23:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yup, that sounds to be pretty much it. 23:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, that make a lot of sense. I'm pretty neutral about design. The right column seems a little big, it might detract from our content a bit, since it's bigger than the current left column. It sounds like this is a wikia-preferred design, and I don't really see it as all that bad. My comments are really only relevant to the skin that's gonna go on top. Given this particular design, what specific elements of it are skinnable, maybe we can make some suggestions knowing what is tweakable. --Piu (?!) 00:09, 8 August 2007 (UTC)