User talk:Sannse

/Archive 1

Formatting on MA/eo and /es
Hi Sannse, there seems to be a problem on both MA/eo and MA/es. Apparently, there's a duplicate closing DIV tag somewhere, leading to malformatted content on all pages. Can you have someone look into that? Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 18:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've got it reported -- sannse (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you have someone check the CSS files necessary for Monaco on at least MA/eo, too? I was going to play around with the skin, there, but changing to Monaco leads to a completely unformatted page. All the CSS files I checked (not just the Mediawiki: ones) are empty or don't exist. Thanks again. -- Cid Highwind 12:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * yep, they are looking at that, they saw that while looking into the problem ... strange -- sannse (talk)


 * OK, both issues are fixed... looks OK to me now. Thanks again for letting me know -- sannse (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Bots without community consensus
Hi Sannse, the following accounts have a bot flag set, but do not have community consensus. Please remove the bot flag in these cases: User:Default, User:MediaWiki default, User:WikiaBot. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 19:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Cid, these are global-bots... "default" isn't active here, so can be de-flagged without problems (it is involved in making new wikis). "MediaWiki default" is a script that runs any time the default mediawiki messages are updated during upgrades, so although it's rare, it may flood recent changes at times.  "Wikiabot" is our QA tester.  It will perform occasional edits and other actions to ensure nothing is broken.  I can unflag them, but wanted to be sure you knew what you might see on recent changes first -- sannse (talk) 19:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, after talking on IRC, done -- sannse (talk) 14:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Use:Rogol
Hi Sannse, last night, you made User:Rogol sysop and bureaucrat. This decision has not been discussed with the community, the user has exactly two edits (creating his user pages) and seems to be part of the non-english community. Could you please revert that change? Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 10:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Woops! in a big way! Sorry about that Cid, that was supposed to be on the Russian version! -- sannse (talk) 12:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

#ifexist broken?
Hi Sannse, could you have a look at: Forum:Film template error? It seems as if the "#ifexist" parser function is broken, leading to broken templates all over the place. Thanks. :) -- Cid Highwind 13:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm too slow :) Kirkburn got there first - sorry! -- sannse (talk) 17:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

IE8 problems
Hi Sannse, you went offline on IRC shortly after I gave you this link - not sure if you even saw it, was really close. ;) So, here it is, again: Portal talk:Main. Thanks for looking into it. :) -- Cid Highwind 18:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Cid, sorry, I did miss that one. We've let the tech team know of the problem.  Thanks -- sannse (talk) 09:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Shared help problems
Hi. Please have a look at Help talk:Talk pages. First, please have Shared Help disabled for this wiki. Second, there's a bug in the implementation, leading to infinite redirects if the help page on help.wikia consists of a redirect (A>B) and the local help page consists of a redirect the other way around (B>A). Redirects on help.wikia need to be evaluated there, before page transclusion! -- Cid Highwind 11:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Cid, we've just heard of that bug, nasty one! TOR is looking at it now, and should be able to let us know how long it will take to fix later today.
 * I've disabled Shared Help here. Hopefully we can get it working in a way that suits MA and get it back on (see also my conversation with Sulphur on IRC about what might work :) -- sannse (talk) 13:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Which I just missed (AFK), sorry for that. I can only agree with what Sulphur stated on IRC, though. I'm sure it is a helpful feature for a new or otherwise small wiki, but not so much for an established wiki with a well-established system of help pages in place - especially if that generic help gets placed on top of the existing one.

The suggestions you made on top of completely disabling shared help (which were "reversal" and "per-page disabling") are good ones. Eventually, the default behaviour should be to not display central help if there's local content, or at least display it below.

As another suggestion, it would be great to have a special page listing all shared help pages that currently do not have a corresponding local page - or even a listing by the date of last change on help.wikia. That way, we'd get the benefit of immediately having help for new features in place, while at the same time allowing an admin to check which help pages might need "localization" or an update. -- Cid Highwind 14:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * My two cents: I agree with everything Cid said about shared help. While I'm not against the concept in any way (just the opposite), in its current implementation it's very unsubtle and pushes all of our meticulously-customized local help out of the way to assert itself on the top of the page. There has to be a better way to handle it. :) -- Renegade54 14:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback both, I'll make sure it's seen by the right people -- sannse (talk) 17:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Quick update about Shared Help: next week we'll be switching the order, so local content appears at the top. Kirkburn (talk) 17:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

FYI
Forum:Wikia now owns memory-alpha.org -- Cid Highwind 15:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up Cid -- sannse (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Database update?
pages_current.xml.gz - still unzips to 160130191 bytes, timestamped 2009-03-06 01:47. Where is the updated one? --bp 12:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's the full version at http://wikistats.wikia.com/dbdumps/enmemoryalpha/pages_full.xml.gz - not the one you need? -- sannse (talk) 14:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, just current, but full is alright I guess. Just takes longer. --bp 15:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've requested that one to be done manually too, and we are discussing how to improve the system too... I know it's annoying when they aren't up to date! -- sannse (talk) 16:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Tabview
sannse, for some reason, the tabview function is displaying two sets of tabs for each occurrence of the tag. See the bottom of Help:Recent changes for an example. Could you have someone take a look at this? Thanks! -- Renegade54 14:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's probably a change in Mediawiki 1.14 affecting it, I'll ask Uber to have a look -- sannse (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Is this still broken? looks ok to me. likely got fixed in apr 29th's code release. there were other issues with tabview, so it might have gotten fixed in multiple ways. --Uberfuzzy 15:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC) oh, in monobook. ok, will look into it, file tickets, etc. --Uberfuzzy 15:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Any word yet on this issue? Thanks! -- Renegade54 16:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, nothing on this yet. It's in the bugs queue, but there hasn't been activity on that ticket yet -- sannse (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

And another thing...
Another small oddity that just started cropping up: the first line in Special:WantedPages displays "Invalid title in result set;" now instead of a page title. Perhaps something else related to the upgrade? -- Renegade54 13:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * also now filed. it wasnt caused by the upgrade. they tell me the problem existed long before it, we can just now see it. theres a couple reasons/ways it can happen. someone will look into why its happening here/this time. --Uberfuzzy 16:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

And one more...
Our CSS class "appear" seems to have broken with the upgrade as well. We use it to collapse long lists in div tags, as. -- Renegade54 13:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * All the above have been reported to the tech team -- sannse (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Lockdown comments
FYI: your comments on the proposed lockdown have been moved to Forum:Star Trek (film) - Removing spoiler restrictions / Site lockdown. I think that there may be a cultural misunderstanding at work here: people who work on MA alone and not other wikis may not value openness as much as someone who comes from, say, Wikipedia does. I'm fairly peripheral here, and don't really want to get involved in a policy dispute, but I thought you might want to see the discussion. —Josiah Rowe 17:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the heads up :) -- sannse (talk) 19:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Image replacement issues
Do you know if the image servers (or cache servers) are having some issues? At least two images I've uploaded newer version of are still displaying the older version. See File:United Federation of Planets logo.png for one example. Thanks! -- Renegade54 17:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That one seems fine now. Whats the other image? Sometimes when you are overwriting an image that already existed, you need to give it about 2 minutes for the new data to reach everywhere, especially if your outside the US. If it doesnt update after that, (and if it looks smushed/resized), add a   to the end of the url. give it about a minute, then refresh the page, that should fix it (if it doesnt, then its a server problem, not a cache problem, and something the techs are already aware of, yay for auto-trigger alarms) --Uberfuzzy 20:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The other image is File:Startrekonline.png. I've tried purging them both, to no avail. The UFP logo (still) appears to be the correct image, but smashed vertically. The STO image appears to be the previous image, even though I've deleted the previous image from the history. -- Renegade54 20:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

JJ Interview...
See: Forum:Star Trek (film) - Memory Alpha / JJ Abrams Interview!#Update - it's been a month... :( &mdash; Morder 20:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Banners and deceiving ads
We've had a couple of complaints in the last day or so about deceptive ads coming up on Wikia pages (specifically MA) and ads moving overtop of actual page content, making the page unreadable. The two discussions can be found here and here, along with screenshots.

Can you please investigate? Thanks. -- sulfur 15:53, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Sulfur, I've replied in both places. Thanks for the heads-up -- sannse (talk) 18:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The Toyoda ads on the main page need looking at. - Archduk3:talk 05:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, please see the Help Wikia for information on how to report problem ads. It looks as though that one may be tagged with the wrong size, but I don't see the same thing so it's hard to know for sure. -- sannse (talk) 17:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The ad finally came up again, so I sent the email, hope I put the right info in it. Thanks. - Archduk3:talk 05:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Archduk3 :) -- sannse (talk) 18:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

WYSIWYG
Hello Sannse, Forum:WYSIWYG Editor your your eyes only! :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 08:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Morder, yeah, the formatting changes can be annoying. Some are inevitable, but should only happen once per article (as it adjusts to the standard format)  Others are still being worked on.  Let me know when you want the switch done, and hopefully I'll be able to ask you to try it again sometime in the future when it's more refined :) -- sannse (talk) 17:40, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I let it sit for a few more days and nobody objected so whenever you'd like to disable it would be great. A few things of note - if you could disable parts of the formatter it might help. For instance not specifying param tags for those that don't require them in a template. Our e template works well when it's compact such as   but the formatter insists on putting it on multiple lines such as

That's just silly. There are plenty of other similar examples where it's silly to do what the formatter does. The real trouble comes from readability in several instances. We take the time to setup a table, for instance, to make it easy to read and add new information to and what not then the formatter comes along and makes it all ugly...sure it makes it easier for those who don't know wiki formatting but a pain for anyone that does. Sorry for the rant. I'll stop now but just thought I'd bring a few of these things to your attention. Thanks for all your help. &mdash; Morder (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, it's off, and I've passed your feedback to the RTE team. Thanks -- sannse (talk) 21:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Skin tweak
Hiya sannse! I'd like to customize the little arrow graphic that appears on the left of redirect pages. From what I can see, I'll need to redefine the following in CSS:



Is there an easier way to do this? Thanks! -- Renegade54 15:27, September 28, 2009 (UTC)


 * css is the say to go. You should be able to define it in Common.css, which will change it on all skins.  You may need to add "important" to make it take, but otherwise it should work just fine -- sannse (talk) 17:38, September 28, 2009 (UTC)

My home
There is a discussion on the new My home feature here: Forum:My Home. The questions seem to be can we control the color on the masthead, or have it turned off, and can the My home page be disabled on this wiki, as it is redirecting people from the main page. - Archduk3:talk 02:39, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've replied there :) -- sannse (talk) 17:15, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. You might want to take a look at this too: Forum:Error in wikia sidebar, and sorry in advance for my poor error reporting skills. - Archduk3:talk 17:19, September 30, 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, that one's been fixed :) -- sannse (talk) 21:29, September 30, 2009 (UTC)

New problems
Just thought I'd bring this to your attention - it's not a serious problem but rather more annoying than anything. Just hoping someone has a clue as to what's going on. :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 08:01, October 23, 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Morder :) -- sannse (talk) 23:15, October 23, 2009 (UTC)

Editor issue
I came across a strange issue that the new Wikia editor causes. It's not here, but rather on the Doctor Who wiki. You can see it at this edit diff. Specifically, whenever it seems a '&' inside a link, it duplicates the link awkwardly. For example: Love & Monsters gets converted to: Love & Monsters Can you pass that up the chain so that it can get fixed at some point? Another problem that it causes is that it inserts &amp;nbsp; tags all over the place in pages, something it should definitely not do. That goes hand in hand with the random swatches of blank lines that it occasionally adds. Thanks. -- sulfur 21:40, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'll pass it on :) btw, it's better to use Special:Contact for this sort of thing.  Then if I'm away, someone else will pick it up. -- sannse (talk) 19:27, January 7, 2010 (UTC)

"Memory Delta" wiki
Hi Sannse. Two days ago, I sent you a mail regarding a licensing issue. Not sure if that mail has reached you by now. In any case, you haven't replied or acted yet, so I'm trying a different channel this time:

There's a problem with the "Memory Delta" wiki (dealta.wikia.com). Besides not having any obvious/sensible scope or goal (don't care much about that part), what I do care about is the fact that the creator and sole editor of this wiki copied several of our articles to that wiki with no or minor changes. This is a problem because, a) there is no attribution, although our license demands one, and b) "our" content is re-published there using an incompatible license.

I ask you to remove "our" content from that site by deleting the relevant articles - if necessary, I can create a list of all those articles. Whether that wikia needs to stay open at all is another question. For the record, its creator has been banned permanently from MA for harassing users, and this "Memory Delta" wiki is most probably the result of not being able to edit here. -- Cid Highwind 14:33, January 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Cid. Sorry, I missed your mail... I don't look at that address very often now (and have been mostly away until today).  My new address is sannse@wikia-inc.com, although it's generally better to use Special:Contact.  That will be picked up by someone even if I'm away :)
 * I'll have a look at the wiki now -- sannse (talk) 20:52, January 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I've deleted the pages that seemed to be the problem, and warned the founder. -- sannse (talk) 22:56, January 7, 2010 (UTC)

File deletion errors
File:La Forge hologram.jpg has been restored

Consult the deletion log for a record of recent deletions and restorations.

Errors were encountered while undeleting the file:

* Could not find file "deleted/p/b/t/pbtmooflm58ks7a3r6szn5zybmf9kml.jpg". * Could not find file "deleted/j/k/3/jk3ayxrpdjdsoeca28ejdef8wf0n6xw.jpg". * Could not find file "deleted/g/s/b/gsbpqpz4pcgn17sti6gu2phdwjuzu31.jpg". Hi, Sannse, the above errors occurred. Have anyone that could take a look at them or should I Special:Contact them? I think I'll do it anyway :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 00:35, January 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's a problem with the image DBs. I contacted Wikia about it earlier today. They're working on it. -- sulfur 00:45, January 14, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that much I knew...I was just hoping that someone could help me to retrieve the file...not necessarily fix the error. :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 00:46, January 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * They can't until they solve the problem. Like I said... I had the same issue earlier. :( -- sulfur 00:48, January 14, 2010 (UTC)

Things should be back to normal now. Sorry about that guys -- sannse (talk) 18:53, January 15, 2010 (UTC)

I can't edit!
I'm the administrator of MA/es, and now I can't edit any page, the wiki show this legend:

Error 404: ¡Página no encontrada! Esta no es el tipo de páginas que estás buscando. Sal de aquí, por favor.

I don't know when I can fix it. Could you help me, please?

Thanks! (sorry for my english :D )--ElAuriano 01:45, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's an issue with the new subdomain - it's been reported. &mdash; Morder (talk) 02:38, April 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * It should all be working now, sorry about that! -- sannse (talk) 18:30, April 20, 2010 (UTC)

Forum talk
Is it possible to just disable the forum talk namespace? On this wiki we get a lot of spam there and it's an unused namespace, as well. I'm going to say it's probably not but just thought I'd ask anyway :) &mdash; Morder (talk) 09:15, May 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it is... If you use Special:Contact, then someone can look in to how it's done.  -- sannse (help forum | blog) 02:20, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

Reviewing deleted pages
Hello- For some time there used to be a link at the top of the History page to view any deleted edits of that page. The last few times I have deleted something this does not seem to be present anymore, and I have to go into the Deletion log to view and/or restore any deleted edits. Is there a reason for this change?--31dot 18:06, May 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a Wikia change. I've checked on a couple of other wikis and it's still there.  Possibly someone has changed the local css/js? -- sannse (help forum | blog) 02:26, June 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, now I've logged in >_< I see the undelete link in the edit bar if I view history (Monaco skin) -- sannse (help forum | blog) 03:01, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

An accidental occurence

 * Hello. I'm a fan of the quality work of this wiki, which i visit very often, and i wanted for a long time to be a contributor. But just out of curiosity i clicked the button which connected my facebook account with MA creating a new account for me here. But this is not what i wanted (having my real name and my facebook profile for all to see). Since you are an administrator of the wiki, can you please help me in deleting this account, so i can create another in a future time, as i would like it and start contributing to MA. Alternatively, is it within your power as an admin to delete it? (i won't take a personal offence i promise :-)) I apologize for the inconvenience User9872345 14:42, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

The above was posted on a defunct admin talk page. &mdash; Morder (talk) 14:46, August 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've replied on his talk page. Thanks -- sannse (help forum | blog) 20:35, August 30, 2010 (UTC)

Bureaucrat removal
Hi Sannse. Can you please remove User:Eloquence as bureaucrat (and also as admin, while you're at it)? Reason: personal request due to inactivity, as has been stated here. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 18:36, September 7, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, that's done -- sannse (help forum | blog) 23:07, September 8, 2010 (UTC)

Mobile device MA issue
Hey -- this was brought up this morning. Can you forward that on, or possibly answer the question?

Is it related to the new skin stuff that you guys are working on implementing perhaps? -- sulfur 12:33, September 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Sulfur, sorry for the slow reply here, hopefully you got my mail. I'm not sure whether it's connected to the changes related to the new skin, although I think that's possible.  It's certainly not an intentional change, and it's listed in the bugs queue now -- sannse (help forum | blog) 04:41, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

Yup. Saw the email. Also saw the thread in the central forum, so I added a link to that there. Our one major mobile user having issues has gone so far as to pull a mobile CSS out of google's cache, because he reported that it has vanished off of Wikia's central sites, but is still having issues. -- sulfur 10:05, September 24, 2010 (UTC)

JavaScript
Hello- JavaScript functions do not seem to be working (editing toolbar, etc.) for the last couple of days. It seems to be working on other wikis. 31dot 00:02, October 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'll get it checked... thanks 31dot -- Sannse 03:21, October 1, 2010 (UTC)

New Wiki Look question
Hi there. I know there will be a change to how MA and other wikias are going to look like soon. I am not sure if you are the correct person to contact regarding this, and maybe you have heard this before, but I believe many users are not very happy with the new look, which - in my opinion - has made things more complicated and user unfriendly. It has moved around many useful links and changed their accessibility; it has also contributed to many features being harder to access or disappearing and the interface is just very inconvenient.I could go into examples of specifically why, but that is another debate and would take entirely too long. Anyway, I am wondering - if in fact you are the person to talk to about this - it is possible to keep the Monaco skin as an option under the "skin" preferences instead of removing it altogether. This way, you guys get to have your new look as default but users can still access the old version if they so desire. As a regular contributor, I find the new layout to not be particularly intuitive and/or very accessible. Thanks very much. – Distantlycharmed 01:02, October 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll just sub on this instead of making a new section. Is the png/gallery issue being looked into? I reported it in the beta and with special contact and haven't heard a peep about it either way. FYI, the footer is broken. - 18:50, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * Distantlycharmed: Unfortunately it takes a lot of work to maintain two complex skins like Monaco and the new Wikia skin. We wanted to make a wide range of improvements to the interface, which meant we needed to start from scratch rather than re-do Monaco, but that means that we need to put all our resources in to that new skin.  The real crunch point will be when we upgrade to the next version of the underlying software, MediaWiki.  We will need to check every aspect of the skin to make sure it's compatible, and two skins means doing that twice (and some aspects three times, with our version of monobook).  But even before that, it's not workable to maintain Monaco alongside the new skin.
 * I know the new layout is strange for those used to a different version, I went through an adjustment period too :) but I'm really finding it good to use now I've got used to the new button positions and set up my mytools menu.
 * Archduk3: are you still seeing this problem? I think it may have been fixed in the last code release -- I'm seeing grey backgrounds to the images now -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 20:37, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm still seeing it it, and I've tried disabling all my personal CSS as well just in case. This is also more than just the background problem, since short, wide images are cut off or have the blue background show above them. Granted this is only a problem when images are reduced in size, but since wikia is no longer interested in even pretending to discuss the default image size in the galleries, which only shows three per row now with the new skin, it may become necessary to reduce all our gallery images to compensate, so I would like to know that this issue is as "fixed" as anything gets around here before doing that. Also, I'm very interested in the purposed increase in the "fixed width area to 1200px" that's been brought up at the WoWWiki, and would like to know the numbers on how many of our users have screens below that number. Thanks. - 23:20, October 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * This is odd, I don't see the background at all (even if I view with your account). I'm not sure where to go with that one, is anyone else seeing the same? Are the similarities in set-up etc? (I'm on the same browser as you, so I don't think it's that). On the selected default width, the intention is to make it fix as best as possible with the current page width -- I'm not part of the group involved in working on that feature, but I can pass your feedback on for sure.
 * On fixed width, I've been expanding on this some here. For Memory Alpha, 1024x768 is the third most common resolution, whereas on WoWWiki it's the sixth.  That's the most of common resolution that now has a bottom scrollbar on WoWWiki.  I don't have all the figures available, but that's one of those that was used in this decision (along with other factors, as I mentioned on the WoWWiki page) -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 21:48, October 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Very weird, since other users are seeing similar problems; btw, the background color changed from light blue to the current dark blueish green color when we updated the theme via the theme designer, so maybe that might help track it down. You can also see that instead of shrinking the image further with a blue background showing, or just cutting it off, it just spills out of the box on an image that's short and wide. This also shows why the default image width is way too large, so that might be worth passing on as well. Of course, I've been saying the same thing at the blog on the galleries since the last update, and I haven't been alone in that, so I'm sure someone must already know.
 * As for the width, I'll take a look at the link, but I know there is a lot of interest in the user base here in a wider default skin and we do have several tables that are just too big to work at this width. - 22:40, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem I'm having is that there is so much custom CSS here that it's hard to see what effects are because of the feature itself and what is due to a CSS change specific to this wiki. I've tried uploading some of the images on a test wiki, and I get a very different effect.  So it looks as though the problem is (at least partly) in the custom styling here... and that's not something I know how to help with :-/
 * On tables... I know there is work going on to develop a something new to help with extra wide tables, that should help with that page and others that have tables wider than the content area (and it's worth saying that jut widening the content area wouldn't fix the problem for everyone -- they would still be an issue on low resolutions). There have been fixes and changes to the skin already, based on feedback... and there will certainly be more to come -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 06:35, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * That's interesting, since I get the same results there, albeit with a light blue again for the background (assuming that I shouldn't be seeing that color), and the problem with short wide images being cut off is there as well, so it's not our CSS at all, at least partly. As for our tables and width, while this should have been there at launch solution may resolve one problem, it doesn't cover the other. - 07:14, October 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * We can't always cover all problems I'm afraid, sometimes what suits for one group or person won't for others. But we will keep looking at how to make the skin work for as many on Wikia as possible.


 * Here's what I'm seeing on the test wiki. There is a border directly around each image (not a larger box), and the blue is the background set for that area.  The middle image isn't a transparent one, which is why it shows the darker background.  I think that the main custom change for MA was to add the extra border to make each area the same size:

.wikia-gallery-item .thumb { border:1px solid #666; background-color:#222222; }


 * That background colour is overridden directly behind the image by the accent colour:

.accent { background-color:#1B303E; border-color:#006CB0; color:#D5D4D4;


 * Although the border part of that, and possibly others are a removed by other local code. So I think that setting .accent in the local stylesheet will change things there.


 * The bit I'm most confused about right now is the over-flowing. I can't see that, and I think we are using the same browser, so that's not the issue.  I see:

.wikia-gallery-item .thumb { margin:0; overflow:visible; position:relative; text-align:center; }


 * Possibly that's clashing with something set locally? (Although that doesn't explain why I don't see the problem - caching maybe?).


 * I'm definitely feeling my way around the code here -- this sort of difficulty is why we prefer the Theme Designer as a way of styling the site, although I fully understand you wanting more specific changes than allows. -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 21:20, October 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sure that's what your seeing there as me (if my upload and phantom deletion are any indication ;) ), but this fixed the color problem:

.gallery-image-wrapper { background-color:transparent; }
 * ...so the issue wasn't that we had too much CSS, the issue was we didn't have enough. Why your programing guys keep adding layers of code to the galleries without reinstating a way to adjust the default size from the CSS file is beyond me, though I'm sure there's some mission statement that says their job is to make sure people like us don't use the CSS file at all. Also, why would they have that background color displayed so predominantly without it being selectable in the theme designer (at least marked, since it does seem to be adjustable by one of the options in there), not that this is the worst of the many issues with it.
 * The problem with wide images being cut off when reduced remains though, both here and at the test wiki, so as far as I can tell, that's all on your end. You would need to check with sulfur about the problem with images spilling out of the "box" though, since I'm not getting that at all. He might be on a different browser, but I seem to remember him saying something about using firefox, so there could be something else at work there. - 21:45, October 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ummm... yeah... sorry about that upload, that's a tool I'm usually especially careful with >_<
 * There are a lot of colours in the Theme Designer that are selected automatically based on the main options. The aim is to give a balanced scheme around those colours, rather than to make every aspect selectable (although this is v1 of course, there may be other options in future).  So that's what I meant by too much... the idea of the theme designer is that you don't need to add the CSS for all aspects, so you don't end up with bits missing -- but I do understand that you prefer more specific placement of colours.
 * I've asked a colleague to look further at the gallery problem... it should be in the bugs queue from your previous report, but he'll check and let me know what he finds out -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 06:37, October 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey all, the gallery issues with the long & skinny images have been found and fixed. Due to the holidays upcoming, however, this will not go live until December 1st. Let me know if you still see it going on after that! Hope this helps! --daNASCAT (Help Forum) (blog) 00:03, November 17, 2010 (UTC)

Width Issue with new skin
Hi. Thanks for your response earlier. Since nothing can be done to keep Monaco, I hope that at least individual requests can be incorporated as much as possible? I guess one can get used to where the tabs and controls are etc, but my main issue is with the width of the new look (see screen caps). As you can see there is essentially this dark 6 inch or more border or column on the right of each page that narrows the width of the text and it just makes everything look awkward and shrunk. Everything is now "squeezed" to the left side and a lot of space on the right is just empty and seems "wasted". Do you see what I'm saying? Can that be fixed? Thanks. – Distantlycharmed 23:02, October 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, we are certainly trying to incorporate feedback in to the new design -- although, of course, we can't include all suggestions. The fixed width is probably the biggest change we've made, and certainly one of the most controversial.  The aim is to get a consistent look, that works on as many monitor sizes as possible.  On wider monitors, that means wider side areas... but it stops the problem of pages designed by those with wide monitors breaking on lower resolutions.  There's more about the fixed width, and why it's been introduced, on the staff blog.
 * One thing I want to be sure to say (I may have said it before on this page) all aspects of the skin will be reviewed over time... we want to see how things work in the real wiki environments. I'm not expecting the fixed width to be changed in the foreseeable future, but I know that it's one among many things that will be watched closely as the new look settles in.  I hope that answers your questions -- Sannse (help forum | blog) 06:45, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

Dear Sannse, I can assure you that I have looked at MA on many different monitor types, from smart phones to laptops to PC monitors of all sizes and shapes, and the width looks bad in all instances. As another user pointed out, you cannot tell me that this [] looks better than this []. You dont even need to have an arts degree to see that. I cannot see any reason for mutilating the pages to look so incoherent (and yes I have read your staff blog). Not only is the text in this little box (that is supposed to represent the article) unjustified, but there is a lot of space wasted both to the left and right of the page for no really good reason. The pages are the equivalent of a construction zone with materials scattered around all over at random with the text of the article just dumped in the middle like a blob.

You guys have essentially taken something that works and turned it, unnecessarily, into a chaotic mess that many users have been complaining about as difficult to navigate and counterintuitive. This is not a matter of getting used to a new layout or a few tabs changed around here and there, this is a matter of making something be user unfriendly and just bad looking for strange, incomprehensible reasons. With all the tools and technologies available to us these days, there is no reason Memory Alpha should look like the experiential web-design project of a 12 year old. This is just, and sorry for being so blunt, bad designing. I am sure there are ways to achieve the goals of upper management without compromising the aesthetics and navigability of the site. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to these requests, but I must admit, as a regular user and contributor, I do find it frustrating that except for some minor issues here and there, our concerns and requests largely remain unanswered (as you exemplified by stating that we should not expect the width to change anytime soon). Sincerely...– Distantlycharmed 22:07, October 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand your annoyance Distantlycharmed, and wish I could help. I'm sorry -- 70.42.129.157 22:34, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

ProfessorTrek
Sannse, this user was validly blocked both here and on Star Trek Answers wiki due to his behavior. His account was not hacked or otherwise taken over as he claims here. Just FYI.--31dot 21:28, February 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi 31dot, that account was compromised - but that was on February 15/16. I secured the account on the 16th, and there's no sign of problems after that date (including during the time of the offensive edit summary I see in his contribs). -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png  (help forum | blog)  01:39, February 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * On a similar and unrelated note, this might interest you, and there are some questions for someone at wikia there. - 01:42, February 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Hopefully just one question, which I've answered :) -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog)  22:58, February 24, 2012 (UTC)

Your version of the main page
I've archived, via deletion, your version of the main page. The panels and layout have changed enough from when it was created to make it obsolete, and the need to keep it updated every time something changes is a hassle. If you want it restored, just let me know, or I guess you could restore it yourself. :) - 18:29, October 26, 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem, I'd forgotten it even existed :) Thanks for letting me know -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png  (help forum | blog)  20:38, October 26, 2012 (UTC)