Forum:Wikia mandated changes

There have been several mandatory changes from wikia lately, with several more on the way. This forum post is to notify MA users of these changes as well as address any MA specific questions that there may be. Overall questions, complaints, and feedback should be placed on the individual wikia blogs or by using Special:Contact.

Uncreated categories

 * See the forum post and blog post at wikia central.

All previously red linked categories will now appear blue. This means if you misspell a category nothing will seem wrong, so please take the extra time to do more work because wikia has said this is here to stay. Feel free to let them know what you think about it by using Special:Contact. - 10:46, August 10, 2011 (UTC)

Concealer now includes CSS to re-add red links, but problem remains for all other users. - 21:13, August 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * Do I have to add that to my concealer? I'm still seeing blue links for "red" categories in Monobook.--31dot 23:28, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

.newcategory { color: #C20; }

You only have the concealer called on your wikia.css, so it won't work in monobook. Just add the above CSS to your monobook.css file. Some poeple have been adding an !important to it, but it seems to be working fine on my end without it. - 23:38, August 18, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think I've got it now.--31dot 23:57, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

Admin dashboard

 * See the blog posts about this at wikia central.

If you're an administrator and using the Oasis skin, you already know about this "feature". There is no turning this off, but wikia says it will be addressing some the major bugs and problems this caused. This includes: Several changes have already been made to the CSS files to make this look like the rest of MA, and more will be required as wikia updates it use the sites theme, which it didn't do at release. - 10:46, August 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Restoring navigation links and the search bar
 * Removing the sidebar on special pages
 * Fixing broken formatting to special pages
 * etc

New user page headers

 * See the blog posts at wikia central.

Another compulsory change will be a new user page format. Some adjustment of the current CSS for user pages will be required for this most likely. - 10:46, August 10, 2011 (UTC)

CSS adjusted. Concealer moves the talk page edit button to reduce the amount of wasted space. - 21:13, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

New default editor

 * See the blog posts at wikia central.

A change to the editing window that should be live here "in a couple of weeks". I strongly suggest we start contacting wikia on this now, not after it replaces the current version. I also suggest that editors not using monobook go to community central and try this out, or switch to monobook now. - 10:46, August 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Aside: The RTE is supposed to be disabled on MA, so I'm not sure how this will change will affect things. -- sulfur 11:32, August 10, 2011 (UTC)

The way staff have been putting it is that "visual mode" will remain disabled, but you will have to use the new format, and the new format blows ass in my humble opinion. This is why I was suggesting we get on top of this issue now. - 14:19, August 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the "visual" editor is disabled on MA still, and will stay that way. The new "source" editor is still pretty irritating though.  Alas. -- sulfur 13:50, September 8, 2011 (UTC)

Now live, report editor bugs here
This is now live, and still buggy as hell, so report any problems here. Also, the CSS for this still seems to be in flux, so further updates to our CSS may be required. - 00:37, September 8, 2011 (UTC)

The copyright link located in the editing rail, where it can be hidden I might add, links to wikia's copyright information, not ours. This needs to be changed, since the only other place the copyright info is located on editing pages now is hidden in the notifications popup, which is neither conspicuous or helpful to new editors. The copyright info should never be able to be hidden anyway, but all links to that information should be to the correct ones. - 07:01, September 8, 2011 (UTC)
 * Reported. -- sulfur 13:50, September 8, 2011 (UTC)

Since the new edit mode is in place, I'm experiencing severe problems on MA-fr and MA-en. The first week, half of the time, it took me 30 seconds to open the edit mode on MA-en/MA-fr and sometimes, preview and publish button were deactivated. After waiting a week for eventual technical updates, I've contacted Wikia. Now, since the beginning of October, each time, it's up to 3 minutes of wait just to edit a page (preview and publish problems still occurs sometimes). Does someone here know how to handle this (CSS or other things ?), because it's really really really irritating. We've planned to reach 6000 articles on MA-fr last month (5957 now), but as the two main admins (and main contributors) are technically off-game, I must admit that the motivation is falling completely (circa 200 new articles per month before to only a few articles for the last days and less and less motivation to do more). - From Cardassia with pain 00:43, October 13, 2011 (UTC)


 * Wikia e-mails :

Sarah Manley, Oct-05 05:01 pm (UTC): Hi Philoust123,

It appears other users are having a similar issue and our technical team is investigating what is causing the issue. Thank you for your patience as we work this out.

As for the admin dashboard - the color can't change yet - but we are working on a method for it to appear better on dark skins. We hope to have that figured out in the coming months.

Thanks, Sarah

--- Sarah Manley Wikia Community Support

Philippehils, Oct-04 07:28 pm (UTC): I don't know if you made something or if it is the result of Firefox 6 to 7 update, but since 2 days, I have no more any script error message.... but now besides this, it is getting even worse. When the new edit mode is opened, half of the time, it still searching for something for up to 3 minutes now (30 seconds before) before I can begin to write something (even have a white screen for a minute at a moment and all other firefox pages are impossible to reach). Still have publish and preview buttons deactivated sometimes. So it's rather getting annoying when I'm waiting 3 minutes, begin to write and see at the end that the publish button is deactivated. Sometimes now, when editing a page after a long time like 20 min, it begins to search again for 3 minutes.

I also used Internet Explorer to check if the same happens (this time unlogged) and... after 20 minutes of wait after clicking on the edit link, I've closed finally IE (the same page opened well at this particular moment on firefox, even if I issued difficulties minutes before).

After checking for viruses on my computer, the complete analysis reveals no viruses on it.

Admin board works well today, but is it possible to change the background color somewhere (didn't find) because some informations are in light yellow on white background, which is quite unpractical.

Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:15:15 +0000

Sarah Manley, Sep-30 05:15 pm (UTC): Hi HILS Philippe,

Thanks for sending in the report and pictures. Our technical team is investigating the issues on the editor. The category issues is one we are currently working to improve.

As for the admin dash issues - I just checked there and its working ok for me. Is this happening all the time and on all browsers?

Thanks and sorry for the issues, Sarah

--- Sarah Manley Wikia Community Support

Philippehils, Sep-29 06:54 pm (UTC): There's no specific pages, but the whole website in general (even on the english version). Sometimes it doesn't work and five minutes later it works, then finally doesn't work again and so on. But each time, it takes some 30 seconds at least just to open the edit mode (stating as searching for memory-alpha database, facebook...) and half the time, publish and preview buttons are disabled. This is rather not motivating.

Another point is the admin board which is quite unreadable.

I send you some images for exemples :
 * MA-fr normal publish button activated : exemple of page working well (even if 5 minutes before, I couldn't do anything on that specific page) - publish (dark blue) and preview are working
 * MA-fr script and publish button deactivated : script problem and publish button (light blue) deactivated - the deactivation of publish + preview buttons doesn't necessary occurs at the same time as the script problems
 * MA-fr script.jpg : script problem (but here publish button was activated)
 * MA-en script.jpg : the same script program occurs when I open the english version
 * MA-fr admin board : the new admin board as it appears to me (C-Imzadi, the other admin has the same problem, which already demotivated him)
 * MA-fr admin board2 : same image but I've selected the first lines to see something)

Last point, the decision made by wikia on category mode is now completely impracticle. The precedent version enabled to write the first letters and it proposed existing categories, now you have to write the whole and as all categories are blue, it's now impossible to check if it is the good category. So, each time, you have to check category by category if the real category is singular/plural or if you don't mistake with all the possible combination/synonymous of category name (even today, I've made a mistake with the category "Mets et boissons de la Terre" {"Earth food and beverage"} which I mistook with "Mets et breuvages de la Terre", next time I'll probably mistook with "Mets et boissons terriens" or "Mets et breuvages terriens" and so on... and I couldn't see my mistake, creating 3-4 new categories for the same thing)

Cordially HILS Philippe MA-fr main admin

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:47:41 +0000

Attachment(s) MA-fr script.jpg MA-en script.jpg MA-fr admin board2.jpg MA-fr admin board.jpg MA-fr normal publish button activated.jpg MA-fr script and publish button deactivated.jpg

Sarah Manley, Sep-26 06:47 pm (UTC): Hi,

Thanks for the report - but can you send in a couple of examples of pages that are having this issue. I just checked a couple on firefox and didn't have a problem. An example would be very helpful for further investigating.

Thanks, Sarah

--- Sarah Manley Wikia Community Support

Philippehils, Sep-25 07:45 pm (UTC): The new edit mode is more and more unpractical to use on Memory Alpha french edition. Each time I want to edit a page, it seem to search a script (even on MA-en), so I must wait 30 seconds at least before doing something. And half of the time, the preview and publish buttons are disabled, so that no edits are possible. That way, I need to reopen completely my firefox 2 or 3 times before these buttons become finally active.

Philippe HILS MEMORY ALPHA-FR Admin

The new edit mode reboots me now up to 4 times (with up to 3 minutes each time) before being able to write something. To fix links on 8 articles (changing "The Mind's Eyes" to "The Mind's Eye"), it would have taken me less than a minute before and it took me ... 40 minutes!!! Does somebody know what to do ? Because, my nerves are gone. - From Cardassia with pain 10:25, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

"External Sponsor Links"
Can we get rid of the completely impractical "External Sponsor Links" sections? Except for the majority of episode articles, they mess up the formatting of caps in headings (other than being completely unrelated to the content of each article, and totally unencyclopedic). Is wikia just trying to be a pain in the ass?! --Defiant 09:12, September 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * Based on this, yes. - 01:30, September 10, 2011 (UTC)

New user talk pages
Wikia thought hard, and now thinks that user talk pages don't work as they should. Their answer is "more speech bubbles!" (apparently, that's their answer to everything nowadays): information about the "message wall".

If you archived older discussions from your talk page, please think about moving these archive pages from User_talk: to the User: namespace, and make sure that those archives are as up-to-date as possible shortly before the switch - I guess that User_talk: pages could become inaccessible once "walls" are activated. -- Cid Highwind 17:03, September 29, 2011 (UTC)


 * An update on the project so far- apparently it may be possible to disable this feature when it is released, at least during the test. --31dot 03:24, October 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, Wikia "throttles" page moves so that once you have done three, you have to wait to do more. For people like me with talk page archives going back to 2006, this is annoying. --OuroborosCobra talk 04:33, October 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * See here and here for more info and to test this abomination out. This is also clearly going to replace all talk pages eventually, or at least some version of it will, under the same wikia bullshit about "consistency". MA is a wiki that was intended to run on a Mediawiki installation similar to Wikipedia, the most popular wiki out there; what it will be in two years if we stay here is beyond me, but it won't look, feel, or read like a wiki anymore, that's for damn sure. - 12:03, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * Apparently this is available now, and optional (for the moment anyway, according to this) Admins got this message about it. I'm not advocating this whatsoever- merely keeping this updated.--31dot 22:06, February 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm already seeing an issue with a user's signature containing a link to their nonexistent Message Wall(I presume they made their sig on a wiki that has enabled it). What effect will that have?--31dot 22:11, February 1, 2012 (UTC)


 * When you go to that page, it is locked and does not allow editing. Which is a good thing.  But, it's yet another poorly thought-out method for usage here.  The Community Wiki is using Message Walls now, and they make the Recent Changes page completely unusable. -- sulfur 22:45, February 1, 2012 (UTC)

New Wiki navigation (upcoming)
According to, we're getting a new navigation menu soon. The menu actually doesn't look too bad on the available test wiki, with some exceptions: -- Cid Highwind 17:39, October 5, 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) "Level 3" menu items are sometimes formatted wrong (text escapes box) and especially hard to navigate (if hitting another "level 2" entry while moving the mouse, the previous menu will close without delay). For these reasons, I suggest that we not use any "level 3" menu items.
 * 2) Apparently, the current "Wiki Activity" button will be removed. For that reason, I suggest that we make the rightmost "level 1" menu item a link to Special:RecentChanges.
 * That seems unnecessary, and would waste a slot, since the "On the Wiki" tab will contain it...and will open by default when the pages loads...and we can't change the contents of that tab which will be determined by wikia. So yay! Can we have a serious conversation about changing "hosts" now, since wikia clearly isn't hosting MA anymore. So we lose the address until 2013, it's not like we don't have alternatives, and wikia can't keep a copy, or "spin us off" as they like to call it, since it violates the copyright, which is held by us. - 11:16, October 6, 2011 (UTC)

The "on the wiki" tab will apparently not contain a link to RC, but just one to its retarded cousin Special:WikiActivity. It also need not be a "waste of a slot", because there probably are more slots available than we can sensibly use for other links - and "Recent Changes" in fact works well enough as a level 1 header containing links to "New pages", "FA nominations" or even "Deletion suggestions". So, my suggestion (both, actually) stand for the moment. I'm not sure where you see big opportunities for totally leaving Wikia, but I'd like to hear your ideas - just, in a different forum thread, please. -- Cid Highwind 13:42, October 6, 2011 (UTC)


 * Done, see here. - 12:45, October 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * Since this is now "live", we might as well discuss any other links we may want in this. I would suggest creating Memory Alpha:Chat, to replace the old chat page/link, and placing that under community or forum. - 11:30, October 25, 2011 (UTC)

Preloaded page layouts
I was pretty sure this was turned off on MA as a whole, but apparently it's back on again. We should either customize these or, preferably, get it turned off again. - 23:20, November 8, 2011 (UTC)