Forum:Image tagging

Wikia has recently forced on us yet another hacky, broken, useless, slow, bloated, irrelevant, unrequested, unwanted, buzzword of a new "feature": Image tagging. Image tagging is the New! (look for it) feature on image pages that allows a user to add a box to an image and then link to an article describing what the box is near or around or perhaps inside (the box is fixed-size). Then, the "tag" is added to a list below the image and when a user hovers over it, the box appears. Ok, so why is this a bad idea?
 * MA, unlike most other wikis including WP, has a policy of treating image pages like we treat an article. They are required to be well described in the caption (page text), with proper links and sources. Therefore, all the items in the image are described and linked on the page already, and "tagging" is redundant, and unnecessary. And In my opinion, not at all desirable. The page is much more presentable with a solid, coherent caption, rather than this random-list-of-words tag nonsense.
 * 1) The tagging system implemented by Wikia is severely broken.
 * 2) It ignores the user's preference for image page size, now limiting the size to 600px regardless of the user's setting.
 * 3) It does not handle reverting an image.
 * 4) It is not easy to minor edit when the image is changed by revert or new upload.
 * 5) The boxes are almost always shifted left because the images on MA are centered.
 * 6) It fails to properly track the mouse click when the page is scrolled, and with Wikia's fantastic new skin, with it's ugly, useless, massive, and MA-belittling header, you are almost always going to be scrolled down on image pages, and all pages for that matter. Wikia now feels that the content of a page that you specifically requested is less important that a neat-o unchanging list of the top five most popular pages.
 * 7) Tags are not watchlist-able.
 * 8) It is a fun new way to be vandalized, just imagine someone as childish as sulphur labeling all the titties. Won't that be fun?
 * 9) No one asked for this, and from talking to others on the IRC channel, no one wants it.

This is yet another example of Wikia forcing some neat-o trick, but generally useless feature, on us against are wishes and ignoring our protests.

So, this thread is to confirm the "community consensus" at MA that I believe exists, that the image tagging "feature" extension should be removed. If you do disagree with me, say something, but justify your response with at least some moderate effort. If you do agree, then certainly say so. It is often that these issues get ignored by those that just want to edit for fun, not argue, and I completely understand that. --Bp 09:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with your comments regarding the current implementation of this functions - it's broken for several reasons, and should be temporarily disabled until that is settled. I partially agree with your opinion regarding the usefulness of this feature on MA/en - it's not an important feature for us, because most of our images are "tagged", in a way. However, that doesn't mean that this couldn't become a useful feature in the future. I don't like reading about your obvious dislike for Wikia in each and every, otherwise valid, criticism thread. It makes me think twice about joining that discussion in the first place, and I guess I'm not alone in that regard. -- Cid Highwind 13:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with bp in every respect. The feature is useless and irrelevant and most likely will be on MA for quite some time. It's also busted, which means whatever "testing" they did with the feature wasn't good enough. All this feature does is give vandals a brand new toy, while serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever to the legitimate MA community. According to them, we're in the minority so we don't matter. I'm sorry, but I just can't accept that. What works for some wikis won't work for all wikis and it's high time that they started taking that into consideration instead of just saying "We have some new features. If you don't like them or if they screw up your wiki, tough. Now screw off." Anyway, I'm babbling on – I support the complete and permanent removal of the image tag feature from MA. --From Andoria with Love 19:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I fully agree to the criticism on the malfunctions and that this implementation is nothing more than an "early beta" but don't think it is that useless. What about the images showing more than two "not that well-known" persons? And "giving vandals a new toy" should NOT be a reason to be against new features. Otherwise we would have to take other precautions not to be vandalised so that only a special group of registered users can upload images and edit articles. That's the way [OPwiki] works - and since then "we" are completely free of vandalism within article namespace.


 * I oppose the ban of image tags from MA, especially not if we are the only ones that remove it. 23:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is, giving vandals another toy to play with is the only thing it does on MA. It serves no other purpose since MA won't actually be using it for the purposes for which it was created. They can either be removed from MA or they can stay and never be used for anything other than vandalism. Obviously, the former is more logical. Other things that can be used for vandalism actually serves a purpose; this does not. --From Andoria with Love 23:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi. There are a couple of different sentiments here, so let me address individually...
 * The consistent comment here is that this isn't working as well as it should. I've been collecting comments to revamp this, so we'll disable until it works better as suggested above.
 * Bp - you have some valid concerns in there, I'll add them to my list when I discuss with the engineers.
 * There are a *lot* of wikis at Wikia and when we introduce a feature it gets enabled for everyone because we use a common platform. After that, we usually start getting tons of feedback about what works or doesn't work for various people and we take that into account for the next rev. The people who like things usually stay silent... the people who don't like things are the ones who speak up. Bp - as you said above, MA may handle their image pages very differently than most other wikis... that's certainly grounds for saying, "hey, we're not sure this adds value here because of xyz." ... but that's entirely different than saying the feature is without merit for everyone.
 * As an example, we also introduced search suggest... Danny from the muppet wiki raked me over the coals for that one... consistently and for several weeks. I could have done with out the flaming, but underneath all of that he had good suggestions for improvement. We worked those into the latest release and now I get emails from him saying he really likes it and understands why people would find it useful even if he doesn't use it himself. Coincidentally, Yahoo just introduced the exact same feature on their homepage... and that's a very very public endorsement that this type of feature really does help people even if some see no need for it.
 * We don't ignore... more specifically *I* don't ignore... the feedback on this stuff but many times the feedback is based on personal preference or personal bias rather than specific improvements or recommendations. Bp - you do have some good suggestions, so I'd appreciate it if you could get me future comments directly if you feel like you're not being heard. That said, I probably will have a harder time hearing you if you surround the good suggestions with anti-Wikia rhetoric... I get on the order of 1000 emails a day... please make it easier for me to hear the good in what you're suggesting.
 * So... I understand the concerns vandalism and wanting the feature to integrate better... assuming that's addressed, perhaps there is something here that can be of benefit to MA if we modify this a bit based on good suggestions? --Johnq (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, I would just like to say that I know there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of wikis out there to consider and it's difficult to address the concerns of all of them. It's just that, nowadays, it seems that everytime Memory Alpha complains or requests a change, we're brushed off for the sake of some new feature that doesn't appear to have much use for us, and the problems never appear to be fixed. I would like to apologize, though, if I made it sound as though every single member of Wikia and MediaWiki doesn't care about these issues; I know that's not the case. It just seems to us – at least to me – that they are spending time adding more reasons for us to complain while doing little to address the previous complaints, if that makes sense. Between this upgrade and the last one or two, MA seems to be getting the bad end of the deal (the whole #if exist bug has yet to be fixed after many months), and that's what's gotten me and some others so upset. And... that's about it. :/ --From Andoria with Love 21:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Shran... ok, that's fair. Sometimes it does take us too long to fix things. We're going to be better about that (although some things still require fixes from the wikimedia guys). Johnq (talk) 22:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you all know, image tagging has been turned off now -- sannse (talk) 10:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Awesome! Thanks for the heads up. :) --From Andoria with Love 02:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)