Wikia shot itself into the foot

[Tribun]

Don't know if that has yet reached the news here.

Wikia, hosting service for many specialised Wikis, has managed to enrage the userbase to such a degree, that their base is now crumbling away. It happened, when they bred out a new skin called "Wikia" (how clever, was first called "Oasis"). The skin is horrible bacause of several things:

* Fixing the width, making widescreen montors useless.
* Putting the sidebar on the right side (it had always been on the left) and enlarging it.
* Cutting the width of the articles in half from what it was before.
* Hiding lots of the more often used tools behind flip-open menues.
* Cramming EVEN MORE ads into it.
* Essentially turing wikia into Facebook-lite.
* ...and numerous other things, too many to list.

While there'd been trouble like this before with the Monaco-skin in 2008, that was harmless compared to now. They are forcing the skin on all users as of November 3rd it will be the only one available, then ignored all grievances and only gave canned responses. It's especially bad since the new skin breaks many formattings of existing pages.

Users became pissed enough, that whole Wikis are now leaving -the biggest being the World of Warcraft Wiki- using now hosts. That Wikia takes their content hostage and continues to use it as a zombie site only fanned the flames of anger. I myself also am under the ones that left (our Wikia moved to being self-hosted), since we found the whole thing unacceptable.

If you think that's not news, just look at the offical list of wikis that have left (there are more that just packed and left without a word).
The Wikis that have left

[Tolya]

Maybe those idiots will finally learn that layout is not something that "those strange guys over at art department do" but rather a very important thing that defines site functionality. No sane company changes its logotype without a good reason and without a huge media campaign. The same should apply to site layouts, especially those that rely on habitual browsing (knowing where shit is and how to find it easily and effortlessly).

Serves them right.

[Srelex]

Why? Why eliminate the other skins? What senses does that make? What, is the amount of ad shit shoved in your face inadequate?

[Losonti Tokash]

Hilariously, there is a giant ad covering up a bunch of the new URLs.

[Slacker]

I've been using the site for my game and my players pretty much all hate the new design. I realize a wiki of a hundred articles and 10-15 users doesn't quite match up with WoWwiki or some of the others, but so it goes. Their response has been hilariously inept.

[Archaic`]

As one of the founders of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance (NIWA), and having refused two blank cheques from Angela Beesley herself for my own Bulbapedia, this whole turn of events has just given me a huge feeling of vindication. We've picked up so many disenfranchised wikis from this it's kind of ridiculous. Wikia's hubris in pushing forward with this is frankly astounding. Did they just think they'd be able to replace any lost editors? Didn't they learn any lesson from the Transformers and Guild Wars wiki incidents of years past?

[KlavoHunter]

Ewwww, the SNDW4 Wiki is fucking messed up now.


Where the hell is the most-recently-changed-page bar? Goddammit wikia.

[Tribun]

Btw., looking through the boards, Wikia has decided to top themselves with being even bigger dicks than they'd already been.

* They took offense at the WoW Wiki leaving despite the attempt of bribing them with a modified width just for them. They've taken away all admin rights from the old site, effectively putting it under their diract control (or whoever flunkies they promote).
* Also you shouldn't dare to tell your readers that the community has moved, since Wikia will erase all notices (happened with the Wiki where I was) and often remove admin rights (claiming vandalism).
* Negative comments in the blog are declared off-topic and erased.

Do I really need to point out that this is a 100% PR-disaster?

[Losonti Tokash]

I'm also fairly certain that they tend to ban the admins from Wikia in general, not just take away admin rights.

[Tanasinn]

The new layout is putrid and worthless; the person who designed it should be set on fire.

Fortunately, I can apparently switch over to the Monobook format still, which is less god-fucking-awful.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, this is a magnificent cluster. Is someone setting up some kind of Wikia alternative, preferably with the ability to wholesale read/rip the content from Wikia and transfer it over? It's a pain in the ass for the wikis of the rpg game I'm running, but could be slaughterization to my fanfic if Avatar wiki sinks and I lose the ability to do research.

[RogueIce]

Fortunately, I can apparently switch over to the Monobook format still, which is less god-fucking-awful.

Indeed. At least it's old-school Wikipedia. I did like the Monaco better, but Monobook is better than Wikia New Look. Hopefully they let us keep this one.

[Archaic`]

They won't. They've already mentioned that the ability to select Monobook will be removed shortly, it was only still up there for a short "grace period". The new skin is intended to be the only skin.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wikia's hubris in pushing forward with this is frankly astounding. Did they just think they'd be able to replace any lost editors? Didn't they learn any lesson from the Transformers and Guild Wars wiki incidents of years past?

For those of us not up to date on our wiki-history, could you give us the cliffs notes version of those 'incidents' you're talking about?

[Ryan Thunder]

Ewwww, the SNDW4 Wiki is fucking messed up now.


Where the hell is the most-recently-changed-page bar? Goddammit wikia.

Here.

Took all of two seconds or so to find.

I think the fixed-width bullshit and the floating footer are stupid, but other than that it's hardly intolerable given that it's free and our shit's already there.

I have to agree that they're idiots, just not so strongly as other folks here.

EDIT:

They won't. They've already mentioned that the ability to select Monobook will be removed shortly, it was only still up there for a short "grace period". The new skin is intended to be the only skin.

Actually, I hadn't noticed this. On second thought, they are irredeemable idiots.

Still don't feel like moving, though.

[Shroom Man 777]

What the fuck? What's their problem? What's their rationale for this?

[Phantasee]

What is it with every website coming up with those floating headers and footers that consist of nothing but links to Facebook, Twitter, and the comments? They make websites ugly as fuck when I scroll, and slow everything down for nothing.

[Archaic`]

Wikia's hubris in pushing forward with this is frankly astounding. Did they just think they'd be able to replace any lost editors? Didn't they learn any lesson from the Transformers and Guild Wars wiki incidents of years past?

For those of us not up to date on our wiki-history, could you give us the cliffs notes version of those 'incidents' you're talking about?

This site has the best quick summaries of those and other incidents.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Well, that explains why wowwiki suddenly started sucking ass. I can't even USE the damn thing anymore.

[White Haven]

That'd be because you're not using Wowpedia, which is where Wowwiki moved.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Am I the only one that hasn't even noticed this? I don't know what the big deal is.

Then again, I've been using ad blocker on Mozilla since I got my computer a year back...

[ShadowDragon8685]

What the hell? It's not like I'm strapping you into a chair and forcing you to proofread it or anything!

I just somehow feel very strongly that if you finish your fanfic and put it on the internet that it will be the straw that breaks the camels back. Only in this case it will be the shitty fanfic that breaks the internet.

Hey, pal, with all due respect, fuck you.

The guys who read my stuff universally clamor for more, and tell me that were I to produce original works of as high quality as the fanfics I write, I'd have publishable material better than most of what's out there. Such praise is cheap, but the $300 check the one guy sent me certainly wasn't! (Fucking floored me when I got it, let me tell you.)


You've never read my stuff, so you have no fucking status to pass judgement on it.

[RogueIce]

Am I the only one that hasn't even noticed this? I don't know what the big deal is.

Look at this page on Wookieepedia. The new right-aligned Activity feed/ad stuff totally fucks the formatting up. And everything is now crushed between the left border and the whitespace on the right where the ads don't extend down to. It just makes the whole thing ugly, and essentially breaks using the Infoboxes (because everything next to the Infobox is even more crushed than the rest of the page) which have been a staple of Wikis since, well, as long as I've bothered to look at them.

There's probably a way to make the pages look non-ugly, but you now have to essentially redesign the whole thing. And for what, exactly? OK, they want to roll out a new, unified style, fine. But why make it right justified which is practically guaranteed to break formatting on pretty much every single Wiki there is?

[Stark]

Hey, pal, with all due respect, fuck you.

The guys who read my stuff universally clamor for more, and tell me that were I to produce original works of as high quality as the fanfics I write, I'd have publishable material better than most of what's out there. Such praise is cheap, but the $300 check the one guy sent me certainly wasn't! (Fucking floored me when I got it, let me tell you.)


You've never read my stuff, so you have no fucking status to pass judgement on it.

This is the funniest post ever.

RogueIce, I imagine the real problem is the way Wikia controls content and is simply trying to make more money from ads. Several wikis have left in the last few years, and it seems likely many more will do so. The best part is WIkia keeps zombie versions of wikis that leave live.

[Sarevok]

Perhaps someone should make a browser plugin/dedicated program that lets you read wikia content in a formatting of your choice. Why bother restricting oneself to shit aesthetic choices of the wiki editors? User interface is something people will never agree about 100 percent. So why not make a dedicated wiki reader program that lets the user choose skins, layout, colors etc ?