The Community Development Team?

[Antvasima]

Is this group of interest to request help from, in order to get more visits to/page views for our community, or would it risk to mess up most of the necessary links and structure for our front page?

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central:Community_Development_Team

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central:Community_Development_Team/Requests

 

[Gemmysaur]

It'd be cool to have custom designs like that, but I'm worried for some of ours with slow internet or slow computers that would get slower with the flashy backgrounds.

I remember there was that one wikia I visited back then that slowed my computer with all the contents it has. Never visited it again.

 

[Soldier_Blue]

People in developing countries such as mine (which have painfully slow internet) will suffer because of those flashy things as Gemmy said. And for people with slow internet and potato systems, it will be a double blow.

Also, I actually prefer the simple design we have now. And I'm pretty sure a lot of other people feel the same way.

I remember there was that one wikia I visited back then that slowed my computer with all the contents it has. Never visited it again.

I feel you. I once visited a wiki which took f***ing forever to load and made my previous system crawl. Never went back.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

I don't know if and how would it mess up any structure of our profiles, but speaking from a visitor's point of view, I am against overly flashy designs.

That said, I am definitely not against giving this Wiki a bit more style (perhaps a background image or smth), as long as it's not heavy on the eyes and especially on older computers. The experience of the users is paramount.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I was just worried since our link structure in the first page, with lots of instruction pages, is fairly complicated, and might be too hard to adjust while including all of the current material.

However, if a too picture-heavy page would be a problem for many of our members, I suppose that this might be a bad idea.

Could somebody with such a connection try to visit a picture-heavy first page, such as the Marvel wiki, to check if it is an obstacle for the accessibility?

 

[Soldier_Blue]

Could somebody with such a connection try to visit a picture-heavy first page, such as the Marvel wiki, to check if it is an obstacle for the accessibility?

Okay then.

Okay. My net connection right now is actually decently fast (though it can get painfully slow). The home page and the page for Captain America took a damn long time to load.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

What about the ACF wiki?

 

[Soldier_Blue]

What about the ACF wiki?

Okay. This one loads up a good deal faster than the Marvel wiki.

 

[Antvasima]

Maybe something somewhat similar to that layout then?

 

[Antvasima]

We would need to keep all of the explanation text though.

 

[Soldier_Blue]

Simplifying things and making other changes which could make things a little easier for new users I can understand. But let's not do things like some fancy background and other such stuff which could cause slowdowns.

We need more input from more staff.

 

[Antvasima]

No, backgrounds are not necessary. I like our current layout in that regard. Maybe just a few images, and the same structured sections as currently.

 

[Soldier_Blue]

Sounds good.

 

[Sera_EX]

Yes, something similar to ACF with images and sections would be stunning to look at and not-so-hard on our users with older computers or bad-net connection speed.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, it all depends on to what extent it would be possible, given our long explanation text segments.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

A bit more input here would be nice.

 

[Antvasima]

Our current conclusions seem to be that we should keep the same background, and not use large images, but that some small images for links, and better organisation, in a similar manner to the ACF wiki, might be nice, as long as we keep the explanation texts.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

I'm okay with adding some images for links and organizing it a bit. Do we have a rough output how it would look?

 

[Antvasima]

No. But we could refer the Community Development Team to our discussion here.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

If you can do that, sure.

 

[Antvasima]

I am waiting for Kavpeny to get the time to give input first though.

 

[SomebodyData]

Hmmm I think a little touching up (tho the wiki is already pretty good save for that one glitch that you can only see the first page of discussions of a topic, but pretty sure that's universal) could be neat.

 

[Antvasima]

The official Fandom staff told me that they were going to try to fix that bug when I asked them about it again 1-2 months ago.

 

[Antvasima]

However, they also said that their programmers are very busy.

 

[Kavpeny]

I agree with making a request. I am not even against large images, but not adamant about having them. I would, however, strongly prefer not to have flashy pages.

Based on the source blog post, these seem to be the goals of the project:

• Optimize wiki front pages => Would appreciate this, for a more responsive browsing experience for viewers and members alike
• Design cool skins and logos => Fine either way, but no flashy stuff (elegant yes, but not flashy)
• Make wikis organized and easier to navigate => IMO, the most important facet for our wiki. We have the content, to be sure, and have tried to simplify navigation to the greatest degree we could, and I believe we have done a fine job of navigating the most important pages. However, some external help to improve wiki navigation for a site as large as ours (25,690!) would be a massive improvement
• Help with content creation => Not sure how much they can help on this one, give our site's unique content
• Improve wikis' chances of catching Google traffic => Second-most important aspect, IMO. We have a humongous amount of content; increasing web traffic via key changes would also be a big help

I agree with Sera, the ACF wiki main page is far superior, both graphically and functionally. A better main page would be a boon.

 

[Antvasima]

I would also like if we got a first page similar to the ACF wiki's. I am just worried that I will not be able to properly communicate to the Community Development Team exactly what type of layout that we are looking for, and that keeping the explanation texts is necessary for such a complicated wiki as ours.

 

[Antvasima]

Oh well, I suppose that it is worth a try in any case. However, it is probably best to wait until after our upcoming striking strength revision project.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

Why don't we try to do something ourselves as a general idea of what we want? We can come up with ideas here and then we can suggest them to the Dev.Team and ask how they would be implemented.

 

[ScarletFirefly]

Something I've noticed with our first page, is that is has an ungodly amount of links to different pages. Unless we come up with pages for every section, I think it will be hard to implement them all in a simplistic image-based front page like the ACF.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, that is the problem. We need to keep all of the links and explanations for new members to become acquainted with how things work here, as our system is quite complicated.