Forum:New Wikia navbar

I'm here to inform The Sims Wiki that tomorrow, on December 3, Wikia will release their new "Wikia Navigation Bar" (the bar at the top) for all wikis. This change is compulsory, and use of JS or CSS in the MediaWiki pages to try and modify it are strictly forbidden!

The new navbar has been out for Community Central Wiki for months now, and if there's one thing I can really say negatively about the bar is how distracting it is. It's massive (although it has been shrunk slightly since its initial release) and it makes it extremely difficult to read an article, as the navbar is some serious eye candy, and my eyes, no matter how hard I try, hunger for it. Not to mention it follows you when you scroll, like some irritating stalker that's always in the same room with you, even if you're in a pit of lava.

Secondly, the bar's buttons are... ughh... clumsy, to say the least. The old design had a simple, neat line of drop-down menus that activated when your mouse moved over them, and the menus didn't take up half the screen as the new bar does. The buttons are now massive, sucking up screen space and distracting me from everything. Not to mention the user options buttons must now be clicked in order to trigger them, instead of simply cursoring over them. Viewing notifications takes another click, and so on. So many clicks for the same result... well, for a gigantic BFG that makes me feel like an ESL (English-as-a-second-language) student.

Thirdly, and I can't stress this enough, but the navbar clearly shows Wikia's apparent hardcore desire to change their branding from "Wikis" to "Wikias"(1). While Wikia apparently claims that "We also know that Wikia is only as good as its communities, so we're not going to force you into changes that you are uncomfortable with" (a lie), they at least aren't going to force wikis to change to something like the "Avatar Wikia", or "The Sims Wikia". Now say "Avatar Wiki" and "The Sims Wiki". Doesn't "Wikia" sound so awkward and clumsy to say? Disgusting... but now the navbar will say "Start a wikia" and "Search this wikia" (2). Speaking of the search bar...

Number 4: The search bar is now at the top of the dang screen, the old search bar has been replaced. And I just don't see how it's beneficial at all to have a search bar that follows you. Wikipedia has their search bar at the top-right corner of the screen and people have no trouble finding it. When did Wikia get the impression that a search bar wasn't obvious enough and decided to have it dangle in front of everyone like a carrot in front of a horse? Madness!

Now, Wikia seems determined to carry on with these changes despite strong community opposition and lots of criticism and feedback. They still haven't done anything about the notifications despite claiming to find a resolution three months ago. Now seems just about time to whip out TSW:SFP and give Wikia a ticket if they drive past our red light, but firstly, we'll probably need consensus to get Wikia to make the changes to fix this dang navbar and make it less awful than it is now.

Thoughts? //RANT OVER --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  00:40, December 3, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
There's nothing I can add here that wasn't already said in the initial discussion thread. That thread, for the record, was unanimously opposed to the new navbar. My opinion has not changed, but neither has the reality that this navbar is coming and we are totally powerless to stop it. --  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 01:23, December 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I use Monobook in my preferences, as do several other editors on another wikia wiki that I am an admin on. I wonder how it will affect the look of sites in Monobook: the navbar doesn't currently show up for me even when I visit Community Central. Simsilikesims (talk) 04:41, December 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Monobook won't be affected by this change.


 * Oh, man. The new navbar is utterly huge, intrusive, and distracting... You've said pretty much everything I'm annoyed at. I kinda like that search bar is now available in the editor, but still it's just way too huge! OTOH, too bad we have to ditch the custom search bar. I liked the design. I'll comment out the css code if nobody has done it yet.


 * If there's any way we can remove the navbar (or maybe collapse / hide / minimize it), I'm all for it.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  14:32, December 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * I noticed that the bottom category bar seems to have lost its custom design. I guess Dec. 3 update changed the css class for the bar. Just saying.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  14:50, December 3, 2014 (UTC)

One solution I can offer for this debacle is to copy and paste the following code into your personal wikia.css or global.css file:

/** Global navigation bar funsies **/ .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:00b7e0; } .AccountNavigation > li .avatar-container { border-radius:0%; } .wikia-logo img { background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/keGMFzh.png); }

The navbar will turn from a harsh, glaring, distracting white to a much more tolerable blue, and the bar no longer follows you when you scroll. However, it messes up the search bar, where search bar suggestions that pop up as you type are virtually unreadable. Fixed in new code --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  21:15, December 3, 2014 (UTC) --I am  k6ka   Talk to me!   See what I have done  15:04, December 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * Also, reception for the new navbar is not looking good, so I hope Wikia will actually decide to roll back these gawd-awful changes. --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  15:09, December 3, 2014 (UTC)

ETA: I've made some modifications to the code above, please be sure to install the new code and remove the old one. --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  21:13, December 3, 2014 (UTC)


 * I got up this morning to find the new wikia navbar had been put in place overnight. It's not as bad as I had feared but I do wish I could have the old navbar back. I'm all for minimizing this navbar if it's possible to do so without affecting the other wikis. It looks awful on my test wiki. :( --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 19:44, December 3, 2014 (UTC)

The official reason for this forced change is the most ridiculous thing I've read in quite awhile. Quoting from the thread K6ka linked to in the intro to this thread (titled "Wikia: So Much More Than a Wiki") "When we meet and talk to Wikians at live events, at our office, or online, we often ask what Wikia means to them. An overwhelming majority of them answer with 'community,' and we agree."

Unfortunately, Wikia demonstrably fails to understand what 'community' really means. To the average Wikia user, the meaning of community is not a community across Wikia, but the community formed on each local wiki. I don't come onto Wikia every day (or nearly every day) to participate on Wikia, I come to participate on local wikis. Most people who value their communities value their wiki communities and feel that the wiki communities are important, not the greater Wikia "community". So Wikia believes that by rebranding wikis as wikias, and by aggressively pushing their branding through the new global nav, they are somehow building a stronger Wikia community. But, that's impossible, because there is no Wikia community to begin with. --  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 01:40, December 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * A bit hilarious, but there are petitions going up calling for Wikia to kill the navbar. One at Community Central, and even one at Change.org. --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  01:41, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * Petitioning against this is like pissing into the wind, honestly. --  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 01:52, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * It's terrible, absolutely terrible. I believe that LiR does have a point - wikia kind of are trying to push their branding through the new global nav, even though the wikia really only functions for as long as there's enough wiki community members to support and/or edit it. At least that's my understanding of it. --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 01:55, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * The wiki only functions as long as there are enough editors to edit it. Wikia only functions as long as it can keep making more money. --  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 01:57, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikia makes its money from ads. But the navbar lacks any ads on it (if it did have ads, you can help me pack up the suitcases and load them into the trunk), so I'm not sure how this is necessarily related to money. More like "Not caring about their community" is what I would say is the issue, in addition to "Lying to them". --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  02:00, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, true, and without wiki community members, there goes - at least some of - wikia's money. No contributors → no wiki → no wikia? (shrugs) --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 02:03, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * You forgot to capitalize "Wikia" there. Don't fall into the habit of writing it in lowercase. Resist! --  LostInRiverview talk • blog  •  contribs 02:05, December 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * I tend to forget to capitalize "Wikia" because it's not capitalized (or doesn't seem to be at least) in the logo. Now that you mention it, I'll do my best to resist falling into the habit of forgetting to capitalize "Wikia".
 * K6ka's comment in the parentheses (or brackets) was rather hilarious. --  C.Syde  ( talk &#124;  contribs ) 02:10, December 4, 2014 (UTC)

It is possible to change the size of the bar by setting a height in pixels in .global-navigation-item { height: ??px; } Dharden (talk) 13:04, December 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * This is getting ridiculous. It's so confusing and annoying and really looks bad when you look at it. Wattpad had this same navbar and I've been rant that and this to my rant book. Well, some of the websites, like DeviantArt (which changed only the not hot logo), didn't changed something that's so bland like these.  ThePeculiarMe   (talk to me)   (my mistakes)  11:30, December 6, 2014 (UTC)


 * In addition to a new navbar, we're going to get a major revamp on the article layout next year. Read more about it here.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  08:28, December 12, 2014 (UTC)

Best solution (so far)
The best solution to this is to install this JS script in your global.js file at Community Central. The navbar now conforms to the wiki's theme color and no longer follows you as you scroll. This, I believe, is the direction Wikia needed to go in, and it makes no sense that Wikia didn't create this script, but a VSTF member. Wow Wikia. But the navbar is finally fixed.

(oh btw, if you have the CSS code above that I posted, you should remove that before installing this) --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  21:48, January 6, 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tips. It's much better than the original one! Although it no longer follows the page, it's still too large and takes up space in the editor.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  03:48, January 7, 2015 (UTC)