Forum:We decide NOT to move off wikia.com because of new Wikia skin

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It seems that despite the beta testers and the oodles of comments left concerning the change, Wikia is still going ahead with their change in look.

Check out Important Updates on Wikia's New Look to find out more information. See Experience the new Wikia to find links to experience the new wikia.

This skin means the Monaco and Monobook skins will no longer be supported.

An alternative has been suggested to me the Anti-Wiki Alliance and their alternatives. This would involve moving this wiki to another --Tangerineduel 15:09, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

On this issue I have commented on the staff blogs about issues concerning their new look. However, I'm divided on moving this wiki, there comes a certain amount of credulity in being under the wikia.com banner. Wikia.com is also for the most part a stable framework, with staff who are generally prompt to respond to issues that have arisen in the past and with other issues within the wiki's structure and framework.

This wiki is also about triple the size of the largest wiki listed on the Anti-Wiki Alliance's page that is making the move (the Simpsons wiki is about 6,000 content pages, compared to our 18,000 content pages).

While there are several issue with wikia's new skin, I believe they're workable and adaptable (or at the very least ignorable).

I think the new look is questionable, but I have serious issues with moving the wiki I don't think it's the best way forward for this wiki to move hosts. --Tangerineduel 15:09, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

The main problem moving would be the visitors. Not to say there aren't other problems, but the whole visitors thing would be the most problematic. People tend to go to wikia to search for new wikis rather than using google or anything, so someone could make a new doctor who wiki at this domain and probably hog lots of attention. Manga Maniac 20:54, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

We can move the wiki at any time, can't we? I say we wade it out for a while. We'll alter the main page to link directly to a forum asking people their opinions on the wiki and whether we should move it. Then the community can come together to decide. I wouldn't bother moving it before we know for certain whether it is worth the hassle or not. --The Thirteenth Doctor 21:02, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

Really, its not worth moving unless, y'know, they really mess up with this skin change. So much so that it somehow destroys all hope of navigation and how articles work on this wiki or something. Manga Maniac 21:33, October 2, 2010 (UTC)

That's some of my issues (with regards to visitors), I know when I'm searching for user generated stuff to do with other fandoms wikia is the place that I go. Gaining more editors is the way to build a wiki community so moving the wiki would jeopardise that as I've seen many other sites linking to this wiki. As I've said the wiki brand name does carry a bit of credulity with it.

I just thought I'd put the option out there and let everyone know (and so people know it's not something the admins can change/are at fault with!). --Tangerineduel 13:00, October 3, 2010 (UTC)

Wikisimpsons is NOT the biggest wiki there. WoWWiki is on the list, the third biggest Wikia wiki and Runescape Wiki is also in discussions. GuildWiki, the same size as this wiki, is also there. ShoutWiki will do all the work for you. Just ask and, hey presto! All content and even images and user accounts will go to the new wiki. It will use Monobook but may upgrade to the latest MediaWiki and get Vector and possibly Monaco, at a price. ☆The Solar Dragon☆ 18:57, October 3, 2010 (UTC)

And, maybe put a link in the sitenotice? ☆The Solar Dragon☆ 18:57, October 3, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, right sorry, WoWWiki is the biggest, my mistake.

I'm still not confident that moving the wiki is the best option for the reasons stated above. --Tangerineduel 14:28, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Here's their latest blog on the removal of Monaco and other changes. I agree that moving this wiki would probably not be a good thing for the project in general. I also feel that for the time being, such a move would be premature anyway. When they kill Monaco we'll probably have a temporary hassle adapting the Monaco-specific things we've got here, but after the dust settles I'm sure things will adapt and get back to normal. If for some unforeseen reason it turns out we cannot continue to function here, then it might be time to consider the benefits of moving. Rob T Firefly 20:56, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

What happens here

So, if we did move, what exactly would happen to this site? Would it no longer exist? Would it keep all the articles and pages? Would all user accounts still exist here?

I know we were worried that links and such would be made redundant if we moved, and this site would get a large part of the DW attention, but is it not possible for us to simply say on the main page that we've moved to a new site? --The Thirteenth Doctor 22:17, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

I can only guess based on what I've read. (So what follows is an educated guess, I may be wrong) However; when you do a database dump you take the database with you to the new wiki. This wiki stays the same with all its info and whatever (again not sure).

I've grabbed this from the halo wikia's discussion which makes it clearer with regards to traffic.

Traffic:Wikia staff will not close down halo.wikia.com, for legal and policy reasons. While this means that traffic on the new halopedia will be at first, considerably less, this shouldn't be an issue once the dedicated community switches its involvement from here to the halopedian.com and the articles are implemented. After that's done, traffic there should increase to pretty much the same volume that we currently have here. To explain this a little, the goal is to have it promoted above the halo.wikia.com in terms of search results etc, while leaving halo.wikia.com as a simple branch-off with little activity. This in itself can be beneficial to both us and anyone who might pass by, which I can explain if anybody requests so.

Which makes me uneasy, given the links from other sites I've seen pointing here and the large amount of pages that we've got and search terms within those pages that make them come up on the average search engine search, if we moved there would likely be a set of duplicate results coming up if you searched for a topic in a search engine. --Tangerineduel 14:39, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

After we moved, could an admin not then simply delete the pages? Or would wikia frown upon it? --The Thirteenth Doctor 14:56, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

One other wiki's decision

Guild Wiki has decided to move, not so much because of the new skin, but because of how Wikia has evolved from being primarily a wiki-hosting service to attempting to create a safe place for social networking using a variety of tools (forums, blogs, and, yes, wikis). Since our mission is primarily to provide an encyclopedic resource to make it easier to play a certain MMO RPG, we are left in the position of having to spend time adapting and evolving to tools that have no benefit to us.

You can read about the issues that led us to look for a new host and see the reaction from our contributors.

I post this here not so much to encourage Tardis to leave as to let you know that you are not alone in being worried about moving from stability to the unknown.

Whatever you decide, I hope it works out well for you. This is a great resource and I hope to see it continue to flourish where ever it might be hosted.  —Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:56, October 6, 2010 (UTC)

New skin is active

The new skin is selectable, go to Preferences and select Skin and then "New Wiki Look". I'd suggest everyone give it a try. (You can switch back to Monaco or Monobook, whichever you use after you try it)

I've been trying it out for the last several minutes. It's not as completely terrible as I thought it'd be. I didn't really like Monaco as I started on Monobook, but got used to it and worked out how to make it work for the wiki. I'm not saying I like the new wiki skin at the moment. It needs modifying and altering a bit to work better. It also looks quite odd due to the fixed width and other things. But...I think it may be possible to work with it. --Tangerineduel 13:27, October 7, 2010 (UTC)

Looks wise, it's more modern. Whether it will be better, we'll see, but it took a couple of minutes to get used to the navigation. I actually think we won't end up moving. I hope we don't, but I must say, I like the look. --The Thirteenth Doctor 18:00, October 7, 2010 (UTC)

It's not a bad look. Though it needs some tweaking, it does seem like something I'll be able to get used to. Rob T Firefly 21:41, October 7, 2010 (UTC)

Good to hear, I've started Forum:New Wikia skin - Things to do to be a sort of contents page for other forum pages to link off from it to sort out the tweaking and editing process. Forum:New logo or Wordmark is currently the only one I've added as it's one of the more noticeable things. --Tangerineduel 13:05, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not too keen on the new skin and have reverted back to monaco, however wikia keep tinkering with things and revert me to the new look. They've now tinkered to such an extent that i cant get monaco back and on the new look i cant seem to move adverts and recent changes boxes to the left side of the screen, its really irritating! Revanvolatrelundar 16:09, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

At some point the option to use Monaco will disappear all together, once wikia's sure everything's stable so says their FAQ for the new look. --Tangerineduel 15:43, November 5, 2010 (UTC)

Opinions

I have to say this skin is surprisingly... good. A lot more than it was given credit for. I've designed two wikis with the new style and they actually came out quite well. By the way, I believe our wiki's name is TARDIS Index Files, plural, not TARDIS Index File, singular.. Someone should probably fix that. A background wouldn't hurt either. Manga Maniac 20:25, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

• Where does it say we are plural? On all the logos and all pages referring to it, it is in singular form. --The Thirteenth Doctor 20:29, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... must've been my imagination... ah well. Mistakes were made! Still, a background wouldn't hurt, and as it stands the wiki looks a bit, dare I say it, plain. Perhaps putting 'TARDIS Index File' in another font? Or giving the color a slight tint of blue? Manga Maniac 20:36, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

I rather like the plain, clean look. It lends a bit of encyclopaedic class to the wiki. --Tangerineduel 13:52, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Tangerineduel; even that other wiki got rid of their background. Rob T Firefly 17:57, October 12, 2010 (UTC)

Where the hell are the talk/discussion pages????????????? 68.146.64.9 04:08, October 24, 2010 (UTC)

• Never mind. Wikia's decided to become a blog and copy facebook so instead of a "Discussion" link there's a dinky little "Talk" link with a number next to it that's going to message on every page where a huge number of comments are made. I'm not a fan of the new look at all. 68.146.64.9 04:20, October 24, 2010 (UTC)
  • It also took me a while to find the Page History. Why do people make changes if all it does it make it less intuitive and harder to find what you need? The IMDb underwent a bunch of changes last week which rendered it completely useless, in my opinion. 68.146.64.9 21:53, October 24, 2010 (UTC)