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)
- Strong oppose - Precisely the same reasons above ―The Tim Man (Infinite Histories • Galactic Crucibles • The Sims Wiki • Hallows Maleficent • Why I'm here in the first place) 08:15, September 25, 2014 (UTC)
Strong Oppose It looks hideous in Community Central right now, and for all the reasons LiR mentioned.
Fortunately, you can get rid of this by placing this in your wikia.css file, or in your global.css file (the latter loads on all wikis):
/** Global navigation bar funsies **/
/** Made by [[User:Jr Mime]] **/
.global-navigation {
position: relative !important;
}
.search-select-overlay {
color:#C8D2D7;
}
.global-navigation {
background-color: #002D55;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(left center , #000B15 0px, #002D55 50%, #000B15 100%);
}
.global-navigation {
border: none;
}
.global-navigation * {
border: none;
}
.global-navigation .page-width {
border: none;
}
.global-navigation img.avatar {
border-radius: 0 !important;
}
.search-form-wrapper .table-cell {
color:white;
}
.AccountNavigation > li .avatar-container {
border-radius:0%;
}
.wikia-logo img {
background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/keGMFzh.png);
}
The response (in the comments section) doesn't appear to be very positive, so I hope that Wikia will put a full stop to this idea, or at least provide wikis with the option to opt-out peacefully. Because right now, even though Wikia Staff say they "Don't want to be too much of a dictatorship", I feel like this is a dictatorship, forcing us to buy their crappy designs. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 10:41, September 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Strong oppose. The wikia with this design looks ridiculous at its first glance. The site looks like from my tablet, which it is bad (although, the mobile version is worst than the tablet version). I don't know why Wikia had this kind of things that makes you the crazies (e.g. this, VisualEditor, Must Look Videos, etc.). ~~.ThePeculiarMe | (talk to me) | (my mistakes) 12:57, September 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - Unfortunately, I feel the new design is hideous and it just doesn't suit the Wiki. I usually am in favour of implementing new Wikia designs/features, but this one doesn't work for me. Looking at it on Community Central just distracts me. Beds (talk - blog) 18:01, September 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - For the same reasons as sated above. Joey.eyeball (talk) 23:21, October 7, 2014 (UTC)
- Vehement oppose - Header is too obstructive and distracting. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 02:56, October 11, 2014 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - The new header bar does have some useful features, such as the search bar and new hubs. However, I'm not fond of the uncustomizable all-white color, huge, obviously meant-for-mobile-and-not-PC, and totally obstructive feel of the new header bar. Unfortunately, Wikia is forcing this to all of us in Wikia without any sort of opt-out and unable to use any sort of wiki CSS to remove it thanks to TOS.
- I'm not a fan of the new header bar, aside from the reasons stated above. It's simply not okay. It doesn't look all that great. It's too big and hideous. It's only really good for mobile users. Basically for me (a PC user), it's just no. EpicJoyBoy (My talk page!) 09:30, October 11, 2014 (UTC)
Oppose - The only part of this I care for is having the search bar be available w/o having to scroll back to the top of the page. "Search this wikia" and "Start a wikia" not only grate, they can foster confusion between Wikia the company/service and the wikis it hosts. Visually, "Search this wikia" and "Search all of Wikia" are too similar; "wiki" and "wikia" are more distinct than "Wikia" and "wikia". Also, I think individual wikis should be able to customize the color of the bar and the shape of the search box, in keeping with their individuak visual "brands". Dharden (talk) 12:08, October 11, 2014 (UTC)
Conclusion[]
After being open for more than a month, the response here has been unanimously opposed to the Global Navigation bar. -- LostInRiverview talk • blog • contribs 07:53, November 5, 2014 (UTC)