Forum:New Wikia header bar

In-line with the The Sims Wiki:Site feature policy, I feel the community should be made aware of an upcoming mandatory change to the appearance of the wiki. Specifically, Wikia is rolling out a new Global Navigation bar, replacing the current Wikia navigation bar. The Global Navigation bar is still in beta and is being tested on limited wikis, but every indication is that this design will be applied to all wikis within a month or so. You can read the full blog introducing the changes here. But to sum up the changes:


 * Current global nav bar (the dark green one, above the local navigation "mosaic" menu) is going away
 * New global navbar will be fixed to the top of the screen, even if you scroll down the page
 * Search bar will be moved to the global navbar, and thus accessible even if scrolled down on a page
 * Search bar will allow readers to search either on the local wiki or across all of Wikia
 * Global nav update introduces new Wikia Hubs
 * Dropdown menu, currently located under the user avatar and username in the upper right corner of the screen, is updated. The user avatar now appears as a circle instead of a square.
 * The new global navbar cannot be customized on individual wikis; the bar's height, color and text is set and cannot be changed as per Wikia's Terms of Use. This includes the "Search this wikia" and "start a wikia" texts.

The Site Feature Policy requires that this feature be disabled automatically here as soon as it goes live to all of Wikia. This discussion is intended to allow users to comment locally on the new feature, and to indicate whether they support its adoption or not. If the local community does not indicate support for the new feature, myself and other members of The Sims Wiki's admin team will contact Staff and attempt to get the feature disabled, in line with the SFP. So, if you want the new feature to be rolled-out here, be sure to mention so below. Additionally, if you feel strongly one way or the other about this feature, please leave comments on the above-linked Staff Blog.

So, thoughts on this new change? --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 07:47, September 25, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
Strong oppose - I am against this change for primarily three reasons. First, the bar height is too large, and tends to make the bar overly obtrusive on pages. My second objection: the color of the bar cannot be changed even to match the local wiki's theme. This won't be a major problem for us since we tend to use lighter colored themes, but it still does make the bar needlessly stand out. My third and most significant objection, is the text used on the bar, specifically the words "search this wikia." Wikia seems to be on a crusade to reinforce their brand, and part of that is to convert all of the wikis on Wikia into individual wikias. These efforts are already starting to have an effect on some readers, who erroneously believe that the name of TSW is "The Sims Wikia" or "Sims Wikia". We have challenges in establishing our own independent brand as The Sims Wiki, and having the words 'search this wikia' posted onto an immobile, easily-noticeable bar at the top of the page just makes our job even harder and confuses the issue even more. I want to say, that I support the idea of the new Global Nav in principle. Having the search bar on the top of the page and having that bar remain visible is a really good idea. But the way it's being implemented completely turns me off to the whole thing. I cannot support it and do not want it here in its current form. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 07:47, September 25, 2014 (UTC)