Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 10

Timelines disambuig
There doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to name the various Timelines articles.

I feel that any disambiguation in the article title should be limited to keeping the articles separate. For instance, Optimus Prime (Shattered Glass) should be at Optimus Prime (Timelines) unless there is another Optimus Prime who's first appearance in anything was in Timelines. G1 Prime appearing in the 2007 Timelines comic does not affect this, as he is already at Optimus Prime (G1). If G1 Prime being in a Timelines comic affected this, we would need to move Cyclonus (Armada) to Cyclonus (Armada whatever size class he is) because a version of G1 Cyclonus appeared in Worlds Collide. The only reason to include the set name in the article title is two separate characters who first official anything is in Timelines. --FortMax 17:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Shattered Expectations
Um, shouldn't those 12 who appear in Shattered Expectations have their own page like others 12 even their counterparts' article would be short? --TX55 06:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I brought this up on Category_talk:Mayhem_Suppression_Squad. As I said there, I think they should either get their own articles or if that's not warranted just be covered on the Mayhem Suppression Squad article. Either way, I don't think "Shattered Expectations" fiction sections belong on the normal-verse guys' pages. --KilMichaelMcC 07:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Monaco skin
Hi -- Have you guys seen the new Monaco skin that's being used on Wikia now? You can see it at Muppet Wiki and Marvel Database.

As we've been rolling the skin out across Wikia, there are a few things that we've found when wikis switch to Monaco:


 * The number of pageviews goes up. The flyout menus encourage new readers to explore the content on the site, and people end up sticking around on the site for longer.


 * The number of new editors goes up. Readers spend more time on the site, and find pages that they want to contribute to. Also, the design makes the edit button more prominent.


 * The site is faster. There were some changes made last week to Monaco that make pages load a lot faster than Monobook. Hit "random page" a few times on a Monaco wiki, and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm going around and proselytizing to the Entertainment wikis that are still using Monobook. If you want to make a custom Monaco skin like Marvel Database and Wookieepedia have, I can help you make that happen. What do you guys think? -- Danny (talk ) 22:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Monaco does look nice, though it might go against what I understand is the wiki's purpose, which is to be quick and dirty, no fancy stuff and no pretention that this wiki is in any way officially endorsed or serious. At least that's the gist of what I was told after I previously suggested we could make the default colour of this wiki a shade of orange, like the computer systems in the original Transformers cartoons. --FFN 23:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we don't have to do a custom skin -- it could be the basic blue and white. I'm mostly interested in the improved functionality. -- Danny (talk ) 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Eh, if it makes the place easier, I don't think the "pure and simple" folks will object.--RosicrucianTalk 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And truth be told, I think the main dealbreaker here might be the extent to which Suki and Derik may or may not have farted about with tweaking Monobook. I know they've both made alterations, but I don't know quite what.--RosicrucianTalk 23:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That stuff won't be affected at all. We can copy Monobook.css over to Common.css, and all of the tweaks that they made will still work. No problems. -- Danny (talk ) 23:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the menus. The "by series" list could easily fill the entire vertical direction of the screen. We don't actually have all the series listed on the main page now (Machine Wars, Dinobots, Timelines, Universe (2008), not to mention licenced lines like Animorphs, SWTF, Crossovers).--FortMax 00:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, the idea with the menus is to be selective rather than comprehensive. It's not supposed to be a complete sitemap for the wiki -- you just want to give the new readers something to click on first.


 * On Muppet Wiki, we put up the most popular Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, and then a link to "More characters". We just want to entice people into making that first click, without overwhelming them with choices.


 * I have access to click-through data for the Monaco menus, so it's possible to run some tests. You could put up a set of menus for a few days, and then I'll be able to tell you which items are getting clicked. That way, you could refine the menus so that you could highlight the items that are most likely to get clicked on. I've been doing that with the Muppet menus, and it's fun to see what the readers are actually interested in reading about. -- Danny (talk ) 23:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * So what do you guys think? I'd like to help you switch over to the new skin... -- Danny (talk ) 19:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * For some reason none of the admins have chimed in. I assume they're all off doing useless things like living in Real Life. --FFN 21:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I left messages for Chris and ItsWalky... -- Danny (talk ) 21:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You might want to leave messages for User:Suki Brits and User:Steve-o as well. --FFN 13:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Well admins? Let's hear your opinions! I find the silence from the staff to be discouraging. --FFN 16:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If there's an actual interest in switching over to Monaco, then I would certainly have nothing against that... but I'd definitely like to hear more from the community first. Aside from that, I have no objections speaking as an admin; the modifications really aren't an issue. On the other hand, speaking as a wiki editor and professional web designer... I would definitely want to use a modified version, as it's got several pretty important issues. My thoughts, in no particular order:
 * Search is nigh useless, again. Right now it resembles our broken Monobook search. I don't think that's a good thing. On the other hand, I'm currently working on fixing that anyway, so it's not like the same couldn't be done for Monaco.
 * The header sucks. It really, really does. It's only 150px tall, but it sends a pretty powerful message: we'd rather show you this pretty, irrelevant picture then let you immediately get to article. I would want the top of the article as close to the top as possible.
 * Gah, I brought it over into another browser that doesn't block ads... and now I see why it's so obnoxiously huge. I am strongly opposed to putting giant hideous banner ads at the top of everything. Like, it's a little insulting that Wikia really thinks that that should be the first thing readers see. Teletraan I, like everything else on Wikia, is naturally ad-driven; but Monobook isn't offensive about it.

There's also a bunch of minor things, but they don't really matter so much. The big issues are the useless space, a need to do major fixes to search, and the huge obtrusive banner ads (as opposed to the ones on the side in Monobook). But if Wikia's really willing to work with us on it, then by all means, it's up to what the community thinks. --Suki Brits 20:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The language selection is in a dropdown box, which is a TERRIBLE idea. This personally doesn't affect me, as I don't speak Hungarian, but it's pretty awful for anyone who actually is interested in seeing foreign language versions of articles... and has to click a dropdown menu on every single page if they're curious.
 * The "community" box is really unhelpful. Half the content (user page, user talk, etc.) is redundant with the top of the screen, and absolutely nobody is interested in just the most recent two edits. That just leaves the number of articles. This is a lot of wasted room for nothing.
 * I do like that the obnoxious sidebar on the right is gone. The current framing in Monobook wastes all sorts of space and Monaco definitely doesn't look like it has that problem.


 * I've been around the Wookieepeedia lately, and I've noticed when you click edit, it loads significantly slower on Monaco than it does on the Monobook format. --FFN 05:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi guys -- Sorry it took me so long to respond. I'll make up for it with a super-long answer. :)


 * Yes, absolutely -- I want to work with you on this. Some of the things you've raised I can clear up immediately. For some, I can explain the rationale behind the approach, and show you some stats that may help. And if there are some things that need to get tweaked, I can talk to the designers & tech folks to see if we can come up with a solution.


 * Just so you know: I work for Wikia now, but I started out in 2005 as the founder of Muppet Wiki. Working on wikis is my job now, but Muppet Wiki is where my heart lives, so I'm always looking out for what's going to help or hurt "my wiki". I am/was a big Monobook fan, and I was skeptical about Monaco as it was being designed. The thing that made me a Monaco fan was actually trying it out on Muppet Wiki, and then looking at the stats to see how it was working. Muppet Wiki and Teletraan I are very similar -- about a dozen really active contributors, a strong admin team and a community of about 60-80 contributors. So I can share with you what I saw on Muppet Wiki, and what I can see in the pageviews stats.


 * First up, the rationale behind some of the decisions made with the new skin. There are some features on the new skin that the most active editors think are useless, like the Community box or the flyout menus. And it's true, those aren't very helpful for the active contributors. They're designed for the anonymous/new people, who are the vast majority of our readers.


 * Here's the stats on unique visits for Teletraan I. (Unique visits counts the number of visits to a site, and not the number of pages you look at in each visit. So if you come to the wiki and look at 100 pages, that counts as one unique.) In the last month, there have been 2,725,000 anonymous visits, and 261,000 logged-in user visits. That means 91% of the visits to the site aren't logged-in contributors.


 * Logged-in editors make 77% of the edits here, so obviously we're the people who are actually building the content that people are reading. Logged-in editors are important, and the dozen people who make over 100 edits here every month are especially important. Still, if you want to make the community bigger and more active, then you have to think about whether the design of the site encourages anonymous users to sign in and become active members.


 * The purpose of designing the new skin was to make the wiki more accessible to the 91% of anonymous readers. Obviously, we have to keep the functionality that the active contributors need in order to build the wiki. At the same time, we have to be aware that the Monobook skin that we're familiar with is kind of confusing for brand-new people.


 * For example, the "log in" button is in really small type at the very top right of the screen. From a website design perspective, that's crazy -- it's like we don't want people to find it. The log-in buttons on Monaco are big, green, candy-like buttons. There's one at the top right, and there's another one in the Community box on the sidebar. We want to encourage people to log in.


 * In general, having all the important Monobook controls in little bitty tiny type says: We hate people who are older than 40. ("Go back to AOL, old man!") All of the Monobook buttons are in the same font, from the crucial stuff like "Log in" and "Edit this page" to the more obscure controls like "Related changes" and "Permanent link". On Monaco, the stuff that's important to brand-new users is bigger -- log-in, edit, the link to the home page. The search box is at the top, rather than being buried down in the sidebar. The controls that logged-in users need, like "What links here" and "Special pages", are in smaller type -- they're important to us, but a brand-new user wouldn't know what to do with them.


 * Okay, so that's my very long introduction... Now I'll respond to the points that you guys have brought up.


 * Search: I think when you say that search is broken, you mean that there's just a "Go" button and not a "Search" button next to the search box. (If you mean something else, then let me know.) That's true, and it's something that I struggled with as the design for Monaco was taking shape. I use the Search button all the time, and I was frustrated that it wasn't included. Then I looked at the stats. On Teletraan I in the last month, logged-in users used Go for 91% of searches, and Search for 9%. Anonymous users used Go for 97% of searches. Given that, I think it's okay to make the Search button less prominent. I remember when I first started using wikis, I was totally confused by having two buttons. (Do I want to Go or Search? Well, I want to search, and then go to the search results...) I only figured out the difference through trial and error. So in Monaco, the search box at the top is Go, and then you can have a link to Special:Search in the toolbox. (Some wikis have that, and some don't -- Muppet has it, if you want to see how it works.)


 * Community box: That's one of the features that's designed to encourage brand-new users to explore the site. When you look at a wiki as a new reader, it's not always apparent that there's a community there. You read pages, but you don't necessarily know whether the articles were written today or a year ago. (Unless you look at Recent changes, which a brand-new reader doesn't know to do.) The Community box is designed to bring a little taste of the community activity up to their view. It's not a helpful way for a contributor to keep track of Recent changes, but it does show new people that something's going on. If you come to the site and see that somebody edited a page 15 seconds ago, then you understand that there's an active community. On Muppet Wiki in the last month, 1,404 anonymous readers logged in using the button in the Community box, 1,539 anon readers clicked the "more..." button to go to Recent changes, and 1,287 clicked on article links that they saw in the Latest Activity area. Those are readers who may not have been engaged with the site if they hadn't seen the activity going on in the Community box. On the other hand, logged-in contributors only clicked in the Community box 350 times. It's not designed for us; it's for the 91% of anons.


 * Obnoxious ads: This is the one area that's designed to help the company rather than the wiki. Basically, the deal is that Wikia doesn't make a lot of money from the "skyscraper" ads on the right sidebar. Nobody clicks on them, and most advertisers don't bother to make ads like that anymore. Advertisers want banner ads, and they want them at the top of the page. I can't justify this one in wiki terms, except to say that if we want Wikia to stay in business and continue to host wikis, then we need to change the skin to accommodate the changing ad market. Otherwise, there won't be a Wikia after a while.


 * Languages drop-down: We changed the list into a drop-down menu because sites like Wookieepedia had a long list, which took up a lot of sidebar space, and only had about 100 clicks on language links in a month. On Teletraan I, there have only been 2 clicks on the language links since October.


 * Content space: There is slightly less content area on Monaco when you first come to the page. The sidebar is smaller than the combined left & right Monobook sidebars, so the content area is wider. The banner ad means that the height takes a hit for the first screen. As you scroll down, though, the Monaco content area is bigger than on Monobook, because the page is wider. I can show you some screencaps if you want more info on this.


 * Slow edits on Wookieepedia: That looks like a bug that's specific to Wookieepedia... I'm not sure what's going on there. It looks like when you hit edit on Wookiee, it's looking for something from maps.google, and that can slow down the page load for the edit screen. I hadn't seen that before, so I'm really glad you pointed it out. That's not affecting other Monaco wikis like Muppet Wiki or Marvel Database, so there must be something in Wookieepedia's css that's causing that. I'll look into it. If you look at Muppet or Marvel, you'll see that the page load is lightning fast right now. (Not counting periods of site-wide database problems, which affect every skin.)


 * So anyway -- this is a huge long post, but I think I responded to everything. As you can tell, I take this stuff really seriously, and I'm willing to put in the time to research the impact and explain what's going on. Do folks have other questions or concerns about Monaco? I could keep talking about this stuff all day. :) -- Danny (talk ) 17:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, as regular contributor, I'm fine with switching to Monaco, so long as we get to keep our new 'random page thumbnail' above the search box (or anywhere, really). I think it's useful for visitors to be able to visit a random page with an interesting thumbnail image rather than simply doing random searches or hitting Random page repeatedly. --FFN 17:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I knew there was something I forgot to mention! Yeah, the featured page thumbnail. I think that's something that we can adapt.


 * That feature doesn't have anything to do with search -- it just happens that you can put a picture in the Monobook search box. I actually think what you've made is a little misleading. The picture says "Search" on it, and it's right above the search box -- so as a user, I would assume that if I click that, I'll get some kind of search results page. Instead, it goes to a featured article, which isn't necessarily what you'd expect.


 * The feature is really a rotating spotlight for featured articles, which is cool and visual, and helps to bring readers deeper into the content. It's a great idea. I think it would actually be more effective if it was split away from search, so readers would be more likely to recognize it as a featured-article spotlight.


 * So there are a couple ways to do that in Monaco. The easiest way would be to put it in the sidebar -- check out MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar for an example. Here's pics to show what that would look like.


 * It's not graphical, but it allows you to bring the funny into the sidebar, which you've never been able to do before. One advantage of this approach is that you can add in new articles to the sidebar without having to wait for somebody to make a graphic.


 * If that's not enough and you need to go graphical, then I can talk to our designer, Christian, about creating a widget that can go into the sidebar and have the same function. It could sit above or below the Community box. It would be separate from search, but like I said, that may be a good thing. What do you think? -- Danny (talk ) 21:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to sell this to Walky... make it orange.--RosicrucianTalk 22:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Does this work? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The brick skin has a pretty nice brown/orange thing going. That's what I'm using at the moment. --Professor Icepick 22:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See, that's what was needed to get his attention. The orange will draw him, like a moth to a flame.--RosicrucianTalk 22:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's how Brick looks... -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Do it! --ItsWalky 00:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I TOLD you guys that we should make this wiki orange (to actually look like Teletraan 1) way back before we even knew about Monaco, but you were all "We are serious business about not taking ourselves seriously". --FFN 06:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know all that much about what can and can't be modified, but can't a number of the problems with Monobook be solved simply by changing the css or js files? I'm mainly talking about the small text size for the tabs and login. Plus, most people who edit wikies are probably familiar with Wikipedia's Monobook interface. Plus, I don't think anyone wants the trouble from the ad format being changed again. A few months ago the site started taking showing wider vertical ads, and it was awhile before the horizontal scrolling mess got cleaned up. But then again I'm the guy who uses XP's Classic Windows scheme with Windows 98's colors and icons, so I may be biased when it comes to new interfaces. --FortMax 22:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The Monobook problems can't be solved with css changes. The type size is an example, but it's really a general problem with the layout. Wiki veterans are used to Monobook, but it's not necessarily a great layout for new people. I meet people all the time who read Wikipedia, but when I ask if they've ever made an edit, they say no -- it never occurred to them. I think it's important to make wikis more accessible to new people, and we're finding that Monaco is helping people to explore the wikis and make their first edit.


 * Are there other concerns that people have that I can help with? I know that this discussion has gone on a bit, and I'd hate to have it just run out of steam before it gets to a decision. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 18:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems like there aren't any more concerns about the new skin, so I'm thinking about changing it over to Monaco tomorrow, unless someone has objections. Once it's switched over, then I can help you out with whatever customization you want. Is that cool? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 15:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A great number of us are indisposed at BotCon 2008 this weekend, but there should still be a handful of us around. So you know!  --ItsWalky 16:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Gyah. I thought we were doing Brick?--RosicrucianTalk 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * We can do anything you guys want... I'm just playing around for a minute to see if I can come up with something interesting. It's gonna look bad for the next five minutes... and then we can talk about what you guys want, and fix it up nice. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, never mind. That just looked bad. :) So I set it to Brick. If you guys want to change these colors, we can change them to whatever you like. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently implemented
Is there any way to override this that doesn't override the skins on every Wikia-hosted wiki? - SanityOrMadness 21:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you mean, you want to see the skin in Monobook? You can go to Preferences --> Skins, and set your preferred skin to Monobook. You can check or uncheck the box that says "Let the admins override my skin choice" to either see customized skins or not. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know that. My problem with that is the "This setting will follow you across Wikia." clause. I don't want to override EVERYWHERE (e.g. Memory Alpha). Just Monaco wikis. - SanityOrMadness 21:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too... At a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco. Is there something about Monaco that you don't like? -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The flyouts. Certainly not the only thing - the more I look, the less I like, especially the pathetic "Latest Activity" box with a practically-camouflaged recentchanges link, and why exactly are the preferences hidden? - but they're the biggest dealbreaker. - SanityOrMadness 22:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, at first I wasn't crazy about the flyouts either. We tested out using the sidebar without the flyouts on Muppet Wiki, but then I looked at the click stats and found that they really helped new readers to find content on the wiki. The pageviews went down when we took the flyouts out. If you're interested, there's details here: Muppet Wiki:Current events.


 * The "Community" box is also something for the new users. When you first come to the wiki, you might think that it's just a static site... There's no way to know that there's a living community. The latest activity shows people that there are pages that were edited in the last couple minutes. Also, logged-out users see a log-in button in that box. For active logged-in users, a lot of these features aren't that useful. They're really aimed at the 90-something% of readers that aren't logged in. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * (NB: I was expanding my post at the same time you were typing, since I was spending a bit of time looking around).
 * See, I'm not coming at it from the "guy who runs the wiki" perspective. I'm not a sysop on a Wikia wiki, so "this will boost Teh Stats" has no effect on me [perhaps that means you consider my position irrelevant. I can't help that]. Nor am I a newbie to Wikis, so again, not the target group.
 * My problem is that (1) they require me to turn JavaScript on in the first place (strictly, add to the NoScript whitelist, but...) and (2) the click-on flyout in the top right is worse than pointless, since there's room for the links without that and it just makes preferences harder to access and (3) I hate non-click flyouts since you they will inevitably be scrolled at the wrong moment, trebly so since they're on the side rather than the top. - SanityOrMadness 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think "this will boost Teh Stats" actually matters to everybody. More readers looking at more pages = more potential contributors = a more active community = more and better content on the site. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, I'm not trying to make you like the skin. Either you like it, or you don't. I'm just explaining the rationale behind some of the design decisions, so you know that it wasn't just random or malicious. -- <font color="Blue">Danny  (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are three things that would make me more... reconciled... to it. I still probably won't like it, but...
 * 1) On your own "help.wikia", there's a group of links beneath the flyouts to Recent Changes/Upload/etc. They don't appear here or on most Wikia wikis (well, strictly they appear for about half a second on a Ctrl-F5, which suggests they're present but being hidden with CSS or something). They should be there as standard.
 * 2) Links to Special:Preferences and Special:Contributions/(self) should be available with a single non-flyover click, either in the "Community" box or at the top right, not in a flyover only. ESPECIALLY Special:Preferences.
 * 3) Be able to override the colour scheme on an individual wiki basis, rather than just "all or nothing" - SanityOrMadness 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * For #1, I'm not sure why you're not seeing the toolbox links. That's an important part of the skin, and it's on every wiki. Check out the screenshots that I added above -- every wiki has links to Recent changes and Upload. If you're not seeing it, then that's a weird bug which we can try to figure out. What browser are you using? Are you only seeing the toolbox disappearing on Transformers, or on other wikis too?


 * If you want it, we can put links to Preferences and Contributions in the toolbox, or in the sidebar. I don't know how to change the top header.


 * Can you give me an example of what you'd like to see as far as overriding the color schemes? I think it's possible that what you want is currently possible, but I'm not sure. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, #1 was my own fault. An in-browser hack I'd done on Monobook was interacting "unpredictably" with Monaco, and had knocked that (and some minor stuff that doesn't make any difference) out of joint.
 * Okay on #2. I'd be interested to find out how many people ever use Special:Preferences on any skin(s) while you're trotting out stats...
 * On #3, basically, being able to use different (non-default) skins, or at least colour schemes from the chosen skin on different wikis without being limited to the "this will follow you across Wikia". Just because one wiki chooses to smother the page in bright pink (or orange...) doesn't mean I want to change the colour scheme on every wikia. - SanityOrMadness 23:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I love trotting out stats!

Here's the stats on how Transformers contributors click on those links. In the last month, there have been the following clicks:


 * Watchlist: 3,114
 * Contributions: 427
 * User page: 213
 * Talk page: 67
 * Preferences: 22

So, yeah, contributions is #2 on that list, but preferences is all the way down at the bottom. Preferences is useful when you need it, but people don't need it that often.

But the hypothesis is: If you put Contributions and Preferences into a drop-down menu, people won't click on it as much, and you'll see clicks on those two items going down.

To make a comparison, I looked at Muppet Wiki editors' clicks in February (on Monobook) and in April (using Monaco).

Here's the clicks on Monobook:


 * Contributions: 403 (52%)
 * Watchlist: 148 (19%)
 * Talk page: 132 (17%)
 * User page: 83 (11.5%)
 * Preferences: 4 (0.5%)

Here's the clicks on Monaco:


 * Contributions: 320 (60%)
 * Watchlist: 123 (23%)
 * Talk page: 53 (10%)
 * User page: 23 (4%)
 * Preferences: 15 (3%)

The hypothesis doesn't seem to hold up. Percentage-wise, clicks on Contributions and Preferences went up using Monaco. This is a really small sample, so it's not proof of anything... but it indicates that the drop-down menu doesn't chase away clicks.

As far as seeing wikis in different skins, try choosing Monobook in your skin preferences, and keep "allow admins to override my choices" checked. Transformers isn't using a custom skin right now, so you should see this wiki in Monobook -- and you'll also see the customization on Memory Alpha, etc. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

New version
I take it everyone got the same message?

Apparently, every top-right image, usually the main image on a page (main character images, title cards, covers, etc etc) will get shunted off the screen by a big ad block... - SanityOrMadness 22:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Bah. Well, Monorailguy did say we could choose to switch back to Monobook.  Who wants to find out if he was lying? -Derik 23:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh no, wait-- that was a lie! They've decided to take Monobook away with tis version.  It's like boiling a frog. -Derik 23:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So... after coming up with a spiffy new masthead to be Monaco compliant, the next version of Monaco breaks that masthead?--RosicrucianTalk 23:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * *turns off adblock to experiment* You can force the thing to render as a banner ad above the article.  I'm thinking that'd be desirable for short articles where forcing down the main image would essentially destroy their flow.  Alternately... left-float main images?  Episodes (for example) could have their templates redesigned so this wouldn't be too big an annoyance.
 * (Of course, if you have Adblock Plus installed like all good internet users should, the ads vanish as if there were never there.) -Derik 23:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Those bastards are using our increase in clicks from Botcon as a justification on their feature page. That's so... wildly disingenuous.
 * Well, it's a good thing this is a wiki anyone can edit. *vandalizes their page* -Derik 23:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Heck, wasn't ToughPigs trying to convince us that the reason for the banner ads at the top was that the advertising brass had determined that all the advertisers wanted that style as opposed to the skyscraper ads? I mean, it's vastly annoying that we made the effort to convert over and it turns out that we're not even converting to the final version of the skin, which renders some of the alterations we made moot.--RosicrucianTalk 23:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you seen the mainpage example?! You get about a postage-stamp sized area in the mist of a banner and two+ big ad blocks to the right.
 * (and yes, I've got AdBlock - not adblock plus, because I've never liked that you don't get a list of blockable-on-the-page elements in the bottom right - installed. But, as "Monorailguy" was always telling us, we need to think of the anons, who probably won't have it installed...) - SanityOrMadness 23:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Grah. I mean... I almost want to be ticked at ToughPigs for this, but he's just a community rep, not one of the decision makers. He was probably giving us the best info he had at the time, but it just feels like we somehow were hard-sold into preparing for the wrong version of this skin. I've given him a poke over at his central Wikia talkpage to see if he can come over and offer some advice.--RosicrucianTalk 23:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * *idly gets into edit war with him as he deletes my cites that the stated increase occoured during Transfandom's busiest month of the year*
 * The trick is to keep making minor, but message-based, changes! That way you're demonstrably seeking to address the deficiencies he found with the content while still maintaining that your part has merit, and not merely getting into a revert war!  Because that would be trolling.  This on the other hand is merely vastly entertaining!  -Derik 00:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * * adds note on the Dubai airings increasing anon postings...* - SanityOrMadness 00:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ros - he made the change over BotCon weekend, while most active editors weren't around to object. Moreover, Memory Alpha (where the suggestion was met with indifference apart from - the two wikia-employed shills aside - a couple of users who didn't like it and posted once, rather than argument) hasn't been changed over...
 * Clearly, the mistake that got T1 forcibly changed so early was the failure to completely ignore the guy.
 * PS: Whether or not he was the guy that made the decision to push the snake oil, he was still the door-to-door salesman. They have a bad rep for a reason. - SanityOrMadness 00:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes well, I notice that all the site admins were very polite to Monorail Guy while he was here. In my experience they are less polite about him in private. -Derik 00:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If you read my comments to ToughPigs, SanityOrMadness, you'll see that not only am I aware of the BotCon point, I brought it up to him.--RosicrucianTalk 00:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I read it - you brought it up in a different context (that of the post-BotCon flood of content). I was referring to the absence of editors at the time of his "I'm going to do this now unless someone objects?" message - SanityOrMadness 00:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. New layout with the ads looks like utter shit. And the idea that we should left-justify or delete main images to accommodate that is basically insulting. --M Sipher 00:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, guys. Yup. When I was given the job of doing the communication on New Monaco, I was thinking, Man, wait till the Transformers guys hear about this. I know.


 * I'm going to repost Rosicrucian's message to me from Central, and then respond to it under that...


 * Er, couple of problems with the upcoming big switch over on Teletraan-1.
 * 1. It borks up our traditional page layout something fierce. I can tell you probably sympathize, because the Muppet Wiki uses a similar layout of main image in the upper right which under the new system gets shoved downwards in a most unseemly way.
 * 2. A lot of the adjustments you encouraged us to make during our initial switch to Monaco... well... it just seems as if we ended up preparing for the wrong version of the skin. We cooked up a new masthead for the occasion and suddenly we're back to the old masthead. It seems like a lot of wikis were pushed to be early adopters, and now the new version of the skin seems to cater more to the stragglers, which somewhat penalizes those wikis that were given the hard-sell to forge ahead.
 * 3. I personally really don't quite get the logic on the ad placement. First we were told that the right-column skyscraper ads weren't selling so well, which is what necessitated the top banner ads. We were told that the top banner ads were what advertisers wanted, so we went along with it only to find out that, again, we were essentially preparing for the wrong version of the skin. A skin that, very soon, will be mandatory.
 * I can certainly appreciate the help you gave our community during the migration and if it feels like I am pinning this on you please let me put that fear to rest. I fully believe you gave us the best information you had at the time, and I'm not part of the admin staff at Teletraan so I can't speak for the wiki as such. However, I am seeing a bit of frustration over on our community portal regarding this, as well as the fact that this announcement touts us as a success story for the new skin when we're still not all that certain it had that positive an impact (BotCon is always a big flurry of activity following, as it reveals a lot of new Transformers products which nearly all need new articles).


 * The sum total of this is that it does feel a bit like we went forward in good faith but were a bit left in the lurch as the standard for the new skin was changed. We could use a bit of help/feedback on this if you have the time.


 * Thanks in advance.--RosicrucianTalk 23:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for assuming good faith about the apparent bait-and-switch. All I can say about that is yeah, you're right. The plans changed, and it's my job to talk to the communities about it. So the bait-and-switch was extremely annoying and not intentional. I apologize for that. If I'd known that this new version was coming so hard and fast, I would've put off talking to you guys about Monaco a couple months ago. I knew changes were going to happen at some point, but I didn't know it would happen like this. So we both got punked a little.


 * That being said... I don't think there's much difference between the customization that you've done now and the customization for the new version. Monaco.css, Monaco-sidebar -- that's all going to work the same way. The only difference is that the logo will go back to Wiki.png. So, yeah, wasted effort on the logo -- but besides that, the custom stuff is the same.


 * The page borking is something that everybody is going to have to deal with. On pages with infoboxes and images on the right side, the ad will push those down 250px. Pages with a table that goes across the top of the page will get a banner ad instead, so the table doesn't get broken. Page layouts won't actually break, so when the new format launches next Tuesday, you won't have to go around and fix things. But it does add a new element into the design, and every wiki is going to have to look at whether to leave their templates and infoboxes the same, or change them.


 * There are some things about the new format that actually make things a little easier. The content on the left side ends up higher on the page. There won't be ads on short pages, and there won't be any ads on user pages, talk pages or special pages. Still, I know that articles are the most important.


 * I saw the objections to the stats that I posted on the Central page, so I've taken out the Transformers example... Don't worry about it; I'll pull some different stats. There are other examples.


 * So I think I've responded to all the big points, but I've probably missed something... Sorry to be a little scattered. As you can probably see, I've got people asking questions all over the place. Anyway, the bottom line is -- I'm happy to help you guys with anything you need help with during this (second) transition. I really like this wiki, and I like this community. You guys are tough and funny and critical. So let me know what you need. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Gotta hand it to you, you sure know how to end a conversation!
 * (Specifically, you end it by locking the page in question before anyone else can site any annoying facts that disagree with the selective picture of reality you're presenting.) -Derik 00:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * When are you going to address the lie that we'd still have Monobook as an option, which is part of why we swallowed the change to Monaco in the first place? When are you going to address your completely disingenuous claims that natural usage spikes caused by our fandom's only convention and the airing of a brand new show can be credited to Monaco -- claims you've used to peddle this shit to other wikis?  I'm embarrassed about ever letting you host a word of my content for free.  Your ads aren't worth shit if people stop coming here. Chip 01:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Derik, any way you can work your magic to restore Monobook? --FortMax 00:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Derik: Wikia's New Style page is an announcement page, not a discussion page. The forum pages are there for discussion. Go nuts. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 00:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You were trading on our good name to spread falsehoods and lend credibility to your case. When fact was injected into the discussion you removed the section and locked the page to prevent such a thing from happening again.
 * Community consensus bitch. Consensus is that your version of the page was wrong. -Derik 02:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

*snrk* Mean-spirited, but fun. -Derik 03:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, addressing my lies... When I told you that you could switch back to Monobook if you didn't like Monaco, that was true. That was in April. Over the last two months, senior management changed the plan. Now it's been decided that people can't switch back to Monobook anymore. That wasn't my choice, and it wasn't true two months ago. I told you what I knew to be true at the time.


 * About the statistics on the New Style page... I'm sorry that you guys found that offensive. I figured that you wouldn't like New Monaco -- nobody likes the ads -- but I was under the impression that you guys kind of liked Monaco. At least, you talked a lot about customizing it, which I took as evidence of a general interest in the skin.


 * You guys say that all of the increase that I talked about was due to Botcon. We'll have to disagree about that interpretation. When I was writing that page, I pulled up stats on four wikis that had switched from Monobook to Monaco -- Teletraan-1, Muppet Wiki, Neverwinter Nights and City of Heroes. All of them showed the same pattern -- an increase in pageviews, search, and logins. I chose to use the stats from Transformers as the example, because Muppet Wiki was already mentioned a bunch of times on the page, and I don't care about the Gaming wikis. I figured it was kind of a plug for Teletraan-1, talking about how well you guys have been doing lately. Obviously, you didn't like it, so I took it out. If you think I was wrong, then it was an honest mistake.


 * I've uploaded a snapshot from our stats, showing the pageviews on this wiki since April 15th. Obviously, you see a dip there around the weekend of April 24th, during Botcon, and then a bump afterwards. Then it went up and down a bit, but generally trending upwards, with a huge move up starting around the end of May. You can interpret that traffic pattern in a bunch of different ways. It's similar to what I've seen on other sites when they switch to Monaco, so that's my interpretation. I think saying that the improvement is entirely due to Botcon is a little hard to see. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That really big, 300k spike? That's when the Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen subtitle was announced.
 * The smaller spike, around the end of May? The day SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy aired in Canada & A Fistful of Energon aired in the US
 * The plateau from June 3 onward? That's when English-language Transformers Animated episodes world-premieréd for three days in a row on Nicktoons UK, with corresponding worldwide downloading, and non-downloaders wanting to spoil themselves.
 * The raise in early May? Post-BotCon combined with the Dubai airings and the corresponding firestorm, that died down as all the BotCon stuff got played out and Animated pages started getting protected against anons.
 * Weekdays in the middle of May? That's when nothing much was being announced or shown, and the skin wasn't pushing anyone to check much out.
 * As for checking out the customisation options on Monaco - when you're apparently stuck with something, you try to make the best of it. And the worse it gets, the more percussive maintenance required - if it worked out of the box, it wouldn't need customising. - SanityOrMadness 01:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I stand corrected. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

See further discussion here.

Script-style quotes
There seems to be some disagreement on whether script-style quotes should have quotation marks or not. Personally, I strongly favor including them, for two reasons:
 * Visual consistency. There's no reason not to have all the quotes in as similar a format as possible.  Having some with quotation marks, and some without, in the same section, seems like needless variation.
 * It's... well... it's a quote. We're not writing a screenplay; we're quoting something someone actually said.  And a quote gets quotation marks.... fullstop. -- Repowers 21:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I'm afraid I disagree. They're simply not necessary, and they clutter the page.
 * And, regardless of whether we decide to use double-quotes, can we put a stop to script-style where the quotes are are in double-quotes and italicized? {shudder} JW 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The italics stuff is flat out bad formatting, no disagreement here. There's an earlier discussion about it somewhere on this page or the archives.  Nobody should be adding stuff in that format anymore... I hope.
 * As for double quotes... um... I have no clue what you're referring to. -- Repowers 21:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Gone Too Far
I've been alerted it's past the 30-day period for "coming soon Club stuff" non-updating. Have at it. --M Sipher 22:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Searchbox improvement drive
So now we have a very nice set of searchboxes, thanks to the lovely design work of M Sipher and the superhuman coding skills of Suki Brits. The effort of these boxes is to show the visitor all of the awesome crap we have. To do that, said cap must in fact be awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of the pages linked to by searchboxes are imageless, missing fiction, or pretty much content-free. Thus, I propose an improvement drive of the searchbox articles. When you click on one of those suckers, try and add something. I dunno how we'd make this official, exactly... - RolonBolon 06:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Are these images supposed to show up automatically by/around/with the actual text box in which you type your search parameters? If so, I'm not seeing them in the current Monaco skin.--Apcog 14:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * They don't show up in Monaco, Quartz, Cologne Blue, or any other custom theme. Just Monobook, the default. --Suki Brits 20:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to get the search box changes to load sooner? The way it is now the custom settings for the box are the last thing to load; it uses the default settings until the google ads finish loading. This can take awhile depending on how the crappy campus wireless is acting. --FortMax 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with RolonBolon about the searchbox thing. I know we're hard up for help, but why are we spending time creating these little searchbox images using pics from God knows where, yet we've neglected to upload a single image for the actual pages these buttons lead to? Not the mention pages that have absolutely no content whatsoever. I think we've overreached ourselves, and in the future we should only do these searchbox things for articles that are largely complete and/or have alot of content and imagery, otherwise we look really half-ass and unfocused. --FFN 22:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, what drove it home for me was Sixtrain. I see Sixtrain in the Search box. It looks nifty, like it's his box art. I click on the article, no images. Why the heck can't we upload Sixtrain's box art when we evidently have a clear enough copy of it to make a search teaser?--RosicrucianTalk 23:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I was simply making boxes using what I had on the hard drive as examples, and not everything is good quality at main-image size. I don't think we've "overreached ourselves" at all. At worst, we omit a few items from the searchbox list if their entries are that empty for a little while, OH NOES. --M Sipher 00:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I am of the opinion that a fuzzy picture that can be replaced later is better than no picture at all. It helps users know what it's talking about in the meantime, right? Spriteless 02:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We prefer no pic/no content to a crap pic/crap content. I've been taking a break from the Wiki, but it looks like I'm going on another image safari. My scanner not working is annoying. --FFN 06:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that the image is the last one on the page to load isn't just visually annoying; it for some reason also makes whatever you've typed in the search field vanish in Firefox. I've had this happen to me a bunch of times. A lesser annoyance is that the input box moves when the image appears; it would be nice if it could stay in the same place (maybe by making the whole Search box a fixed size?), as it's a bad idea to have a clickable thing that spontaneously jumps around. - Jackpot 20:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The way the Search Image works right now, I'd rather not even have them. My computer has slowed down epically trying to load those images each time, and if it's a high traffic time of day, the rest of the page will basically freeze for 30 seconds or more until that search image gets around to loading. This is extremely annoying when I just need a quick peek at a page before making a link, like checking if Stormcloud is one word or two or if Whirl needs to be disambig-ed in the link. And if I try to click Search to move on to a next page too early, the Image drops down in front and shang-hais my "click", so I go there instead of being able to type in where I want to go.


 * I don't like the thing at all. It's been nothing but a hassle for the last day or so. There's already a Random page button right about it -- do we really need this too? --Xaaron 00:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The same thing has been happening to me lately, and I've never experienced that problem on Wookieepedia. And this is a real problem for me, as I'm actually supportive of the image icons. We may want review the system. -- SFH 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Though in fairness, some of that may be due to Wikia's tendency to nearly-crash every weekend. And to be honest, this weekend has been rather traffic low. I mean, seriously, did every head to BotCon a week early? -- SFH 02:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me know if this continues to be an issue during weekdays (well, before Thursday, anyway). If it is, I'll figure out a way to let users optionally turn them off. I've never noticed it slowing down while trying to load, and any sane browser shouldn't, but if that really is happening for some users, something definitely ought to be done about it.
 * I'll also take a look at preserving the form data while the images load, because that is definitely something that really should happen, too. --Suki Brits 03:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Things sped back up again shortly after SFH's last post, but I'll post again if it keeps happening regularly. Maybe it was just an anomaly. --Xaaron 03:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Furthermore: I did a bit of code modification that should make the form retain anything you've typed before the images loads. You may need to do a hard refresh for the change to show up, but lemme know if that doesn't work for anyone. --Suki Brits 03:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Templates listing
Is there a page editors can refer to for templates (messagebox, user notices ect) without having to go through the categories or remembering the last time somebody used it so they can copy-paste it? They seem to be unnecessarily difficult to track down. --FFN 03:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * here --FortMax 04:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My main concern was not requiring the page soley for myself, but was this page obviously linked on a help page or something somewhere that anybody could find easily? I'd personally like to see this wiki become more user-friendly. --FFN 07:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, as I've said before on this very page. -- Repowers 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Our lack of user friendliness might discourage people from joining up. --FFN 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What I'm worried about is that some of the other users would actually be okay with that...-- SFH 17:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, last time I checked some of these other users don't own the wiki. --FFN 09:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

new template: Comicinfo
Please checkout Template:Comicinfo. It's a little rough around the edges, but something I think could be useful on the comics pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.--MistaTee 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Masthead
Okay, the old Monobook masthead doesn't look so good under Monaco. How do we change this?--RosicrucianTalk 21:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've looked around and seen that other wikis have already taken advantage of the extra masthead space. Question is, how do we do so, and what dimensions would the new masthead be?--RosicrucianTalk 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Before we do anything, I would recommend keeping the masthead's filesize reasonable, because there's nothing worse than trying to load a site with a masthead image that is like a megabyte or something. --FFN 16:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, absolutely. I was mainly thinking perhaps something involving a 'shopping of the TFA logo, considering it'd fit the color scheme nicely. Alternatively, maybe something aping the "grid" of G1.--RosicrucianTalk 16:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Another thought is whether it's possible for the masthead to be random/rotating. If so, it'd let us do Autobot/Decepticon versions of the same masthead (via color swap) or even rotating versions for different franchises (G1, BW, UT, etc.)--RosicrucianTalk 16:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Sidebar
Given that we're getting a lot of Transformers Animated traffic lately, I'd say an item in the Monaco sidebar is likely going to help direct people to the right articles.--RosicrucianTalk 21:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, I put it in the sidebar. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 21:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think on it, the more it seems we'd be best served by condensing the G1 and TFA menus and instead just having one menu that's franchise navigation. I dunno. I'm a little bothered that we can't seem to get the admins to chime in on this, since they're the ones that can edit the sidebar setup the most easily.--RosicrucianTalk 19:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Eh. Monday after BotCon. A lot of them are probably still sleeping off their flight / drive / booze. Another reason why big changes probably shouldn't've happened this weekend. Give it a day or so. --Xaaron 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The sidebar does need major work, and MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar is a protected page so I guess it's not just easier for admins to change it, they're the only ones who can?

The issues I have with it are:

--KilMichaelMcC 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "Featured characters" menu still includes articles that haven't actually been Featured, as well as Spark, which has been featured but is not a character.
 * Generation 1 and Animated are the only franchises listed.
 * The G1 and Animated menus are inconsistent in the sorts of articles they list. The Generation 1 menu includes Autobot and Decepticon, articles were not restricted to G1, then several high profile characters and one obscure, jokey one. The Animated menu, on the other hand, just lists the franchise's cartoon, comic, toyline, and books articles.
 * The "Embrace the Knowledge" menu seems to take a bit of scattershot approach. Marvel Comics is listed, but none of the other publishers. Hasbro is there, but not Takara. With Mini-Con there, might this be a better place for the Autobot and Decepticon articles, and other factions as well?


 * MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar can only be edited by admins. That's true for all MediaWiki pages. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Set up properly, I think the sidebar could be really handy. The best approach I can think of is to turn it into essentially the Main Page. Have the four categories be Featured Articles (with the actual articles that've been designated "featured"), Categories, Franchises, and Series. More or less duplicate the lists on Main. Or if anyone else has even handier ideas, let's hear 'em. "Franchises" and "Series" might be a little redundant if there's something else I'm forgetting. But whatever we do, having an easy way to navigate around the main hub-pages of the site seems like a great potential tool. Edit: Aha, I just thought of something: An "Editing" list of key tools, like Create a new article, Stubs, Templates, How to edit, Style guide, Preferences, My watchlist, etc. Right now there are a lot of very informative pages just scattered around or even apparently unfindable without searching. This could be a great place to round up the most important ones. This conversation also has good ideas along those lines. - Jackpot 07:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Discussion of the sidebar has also started up on MediaWiki_talk:Monaco-sidebar. Might want to mirror your suggestions over there. --KilMichaelMcC 09:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Done. - Jackpot 16:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hate the new skin.
Hate this new skin. Just wanted to say it. The old look was much more pleasent and open to read. New one is just crouded and Blah. THIS is gonna take getting use to. No Sir, I don't like it.


 * Can it at least not be burgundy and orange? - Chris McFeely 22:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it can be any color you like. I was messing around with colors before, but wasn't doing a great job with it, and Rosicrucian said he wanted this color scheme. Any admin can change the colors by editing MediaWiki:Monaco.css. There's instructions on how to do it here: Customizing Monaco. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I mainly liked this because it fits with the color scheme of Teletraan itself. I'm not married to the idea, though. I also figured I'd speak up about it because Walky liked it, and he's off enjoying his ridiculously expensive Transformers collector's items at BotCon.--RosicrucianTalk 22:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, right, well, I can see the logic, there, all right... I'm just not dying about the dark-coloured backgrounds, since it's a big visually jarring to have big white boxes of text in the middle of them. - Chris McFeely 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Seconding the hate. -hx 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This looks pretty hideous compared to MonoBook... and it's hard to navigate. Well, at least I can override it in preferences, but I think I'll be ignoring admin skin choices unless a custom one appears in the future.--MCRG 00:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I can try to get used to the new skin unless/until I find something inconvenient. Well, so far so good. At least the seach function is better. But the logo on the left side of the top, well... um, oh. --TX55 01:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Fourthing the hate. The colors hurt my eyes. That, and the obscure character search images are gone. --FortMax 01:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I don't much like it either. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to uncheck the "override" box on my preferences.  JW 01:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the new skin either. I don't get the menus at the side. "Featured characters" includes articles that I don't think have actually been Featured. G1 and Animated are listed, but no other franchises. And the menus are inconsistent. The G1 menu lists Autobot, Decepticon, and then a bunch of character pages, while the Animated menu lists Animated's toy line, cartoon, comic, and books articles. Why the difference? And what was the selection process for the "Embrace the Knowledge" menu?

By the way, in the middle of BotCon is probably the worst possible time for major changes like this to be made. --KilMichaelMcC 04:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The menus at the side are examples that I made up. You guys can change them to be anything you want, by editing MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar. I'm sorry about the timing... We've been talking about this for maybe three weeks.


 * Lots of things can be changed -- the colors, the menus, the logo. I'll put it back to the basic Sapphire for now, which is more like Monobook. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 05:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a fan of the skin, either. Losing the brown and yellow from earlier was a step up, but it still doesn't quite work. The extra crap on the side feels bigger now, so the actual articles feel smaller. And those blamed automatic pulldown menus keep getting in the way everytime I move my cursor to or from the Search box. Annoying. --Xaaron 17:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm a little unclear- you say Monaco is the new Wikia standard skin. No one likes it.  But we can override the style in our preferences to set it back to Monobook.
 * So does TT1 have the option of deciding to switch back to Monobook if that's what the consensus decides? Danny is saying they are switching Memory Alpha Monaco and "at a certain point, pretty much every Wikia wiki is going to end up on Monaco."  So is this something we get to decide for ourselves, or will Monaco be forced on us even if we don't want it? -75.168.112.43 18:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What I find interesting on the M&Alpha; example is that Toughpigs said, and I quote:
 * Actually, they're working on switching over to the Monaco skin on Memory Alpha too
 * Now, who are "they"? Because I've just looked at M&Alpha; - and in the designated forum on the matter, one Wikia staff member (who has no main namespace edits on  M&Alpha; in the past three years) is the only user pushing for it. Only two other users have (briefly) commented - one admin who's strongly against it because of the top ad banner, and one other user who dittoed that. The only other place it is mentioned is on their main page talk, where one "Wikia Helper Group" member (who has no M&Alpha; edits on any other matter, main namespace or otherwise) shilled it - and in response, got a reply from one user that they were confused, and another user that they preferred Monobook. Unless there's some hidden forum somewhere, there's no consensus from M&Alpha; that they want to switch.


 * If Toughpigs's line is intended to say there's a push from M&Alpha; as a "do you want T1 to be left out", it's, well, draw your own conclusions. - SanityOrMadness 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been vague about what the future holds, because I don't know. Right now, the community does have the option to switch the site back to Monobook, if that's what you decide.

However, at some point in the future, Wikia may need to switch everybody over to Monaco. We need to figure out how to get more advertisers to buy ads on Wikia. We're exploring a lot of different possibilities right now, so I can't predict how that's going to go yet. But we may find that it hurts us to have skins with completely different ad sizes all over the site. Companies don't want to advertise on sites that have a leaderboard on some pages and a skyscraper on others.

Right now, we're able to offer a lot of flexibility with the skins, and we're not forcing a change on any community. But if you think about it, no other (sane) website does that. Ad-supported websites have a format, and everything on the site is in that format.
 * I have no real problem with Wikia's need to place more prominent banners. I don't like them, but I recognize that it is a reality of your business model.
 * I do take issue with the banners being tied to a sucky new UI that's being forced on us, hammering us with a double-negative. Is there any way to place the new banners (satisfying Wikia's business imperatives) in the old skin (satisfying our desire to not have the site suck so badly?) Maybe we can find a treatment that makes them less obnoxious without de-valuing them.
 * Of course- you keep stressing how this new UI causes more clicks... which means more pageviews, with means more bannerviews, which means more ad revenue. I really feel like your entire pitch is a thinly veiled attempt to monetize this wiki regardless of what the users want.  So not only do we have to have the banners that generate more revenue-- we have to have the UI that's editor-unfriendly but promotes more pageviews.
 * Why don't you just rewrite the site interface so you have to click 8 times to do anything like MySpace? I mean- that seems consistent with the whole 'sacrifice the user experience in exchange for saleable ad impressions' philosophy you're espousing here.
 * You quote a lot of statistics. Are they internal?  Do/can we have access to them?  Would TT1 be allowed to pursue evolving our interface to maximize pageviews without having to buy into Monaco?
 * Strictly speaking the best way to increase pageviews on this wiki would to make all the links un-disambiguated, so every time you click on a link you have to view the disambig page before you can select the page you actually wanted to see from the list. There- pageviews have increased... at the expense of the user experience.
 * Packaging can be a force multiplier to make content more attractive... slightly more attractive. But in the end it's the quality of the content that drives readers.  If we have to increase viewership to pad Wikia's bottom line, I'd really rather we did so by offering different or better content- not by putting obnoxious shiny packaging around it. (And yeah, that's a toy marketing metaphor.  You get a lot of those here.) -75.168.112.43 07:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know that the obvious response to the ad talk is "that's your problem", but it's actually everybody's problem. Wikia offers free hosting to communities like this one because we're advertiser-supported. But the ad market is changing -- and if we don't keep up, then we go out of business, and we can't host wikis anymore.

Anyway, we're not anywhere near a problem at the moment. Wikia is fine, and if the community decides to switch back to Monobook, then that's fine. But it will be easier in the long run if folks give Monaco a chance, and see if we can make it work the way that you want it to work.

Meanwhile, I can address a couple of the concerns that people have posted about. First up: The size of the content area. Xaaron says that the crap on the side feels bigger, so the content area feels smaller. I took screenshots of the same page using both Monaco and Monobook, at the same browser size and screen resolution.

You can see from those pictures that Monaco gives you a wider content area. The first two paragraphs take up 16 lines in Monobook. On Monaco, it takes up 13 lines.

The number of logins has gone up just in the last few days. On April 26-27, 41 people logged in to the site (20.5 per day). From March 1-31, there were 381 logins (12.3 per day). This may be because of the interest generated at BotCon, but it also seems like being at BotCon over the weekend kept people away from the website. The increase in logins is consistent with what we've seen on other sites -- Monaco makes logging in more visible to new users.

On the sidebar over the last couple days, these are the most clicked on items:


 * 1) Transformers Animated (cartoon): 295 clicks
 * 2) Murdered puppy: 192 clicks
 * 3) That big green, fire-snortin' lizard: 168 clicks
 * 4) Transformers Animated (toy line): 131
 * 5) Autobot: 111
 * 6) Optimus Minor: 108
 * 7) More featured characters: 83
 * 8) Optimus Prime: 76
 * 9) Gas Skunk: 74
 * 10) Airazor (BW): 72

Pageviews for April 26-27 are up 21% over the average from the previous 30 days. That may be because of the interest around BotCon and the new episodes, but it might also be because the sidebar is helping new readers find articles that they're interested in, and because the pages load faster with Monaco. In any event, it doesn't seem like Monaco is chasing people away. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It could also be because existing users have been giving the new skin a test drive. Anyway, couple of things about the skin that I'm wondering. First, the Teletraan 1 image in the upper left corner is now tiny with ugly, empty whitespace on three sides. Can it be enlarged? Second, can the recently-added neat little search box images be included in the new skin? --KilMichaelMcC 20:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The logo can be changed by uploading a new image to Image:Wiki_wide.png.


 * The search box images are a neat idea, but I'm confused about why they're attached to search. They don't take you to a search page. They're basically a random featured-article generator. If you want, I can talk to the designer here about creating a randomized featured-article widget for the sidebar. -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 20:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I personally would like to see that added in. I think it makes it more appealing for a random article to be represented in image format. --FFN 10:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Basic test image for the top left:



- SanityOrMadness 21:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've got some ideas for the masthead. I'll 'shop something up when I get home from work.--RosicrucianTalk 22:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My proposal:
 * [[Image:Teletraan masthead.png]]
 * Whaddaya think?--RosicrucianTalk 02:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That one is beautiful. --ItsWalky 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Look nice for Rosi's. --TX55 02:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ooo, rock me, Amadeus. Verra nice.  JW 02:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That is perfect, Rosicrucian. --KilMichaelMcC 04:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That is lovely. --Sntint 04:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, funky. --FFN 10:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)