After having read the information on Wikia's new style, and discussing the issue with several of my fellow Wookieepedia admins, and many of our most dedicated users, I feel compelled to try to get across the message of just what a bad idea this is. Specifically, the decision to inject advertisements into the content of articles and the main page. When this was announced on the Wookieepedia IRC channel, in which almost all the major Wookieepedia contributors and admins spend time, it failed to garner anything but utter derision and disgust. The first question was "Can we move somewhere else?" Many of our users, myself included, were outraged. Not a single person spoke up in defense of the idea. Greyman, one of our administrators and a Wikia janitor, has informed me that he registered complaints, and was blithely assured that he was in the minority. Perhaps those who said so genuinely believed this. I fail to see on what evidence they have based this, and it certainly does not match my experience.
As I have stated in the IRC channel, I couldn't care less where ads are placed, or how many are placed. So long as they're not flashing garish colors or advertising goat pornography, they don't bother me. I understand business. I understand that advertising money is rightfully a major factor in decisions. We can't run Wikia on pure love for Star Wars or Star Trek or muppets or whatever our chosen subject is. But I have to draw the line at forcing advertising into the content of an article. Our articles are meticulously laid out to look good. Almost all of them have some sort of infobox at the top that would get forced well down the page by the proposed advertisement. They have images that would probably be forced out of alignment by pushing the infobox down. Moreover, the very idea of sticking foreign advertisements into the content area is pretty offensive to our dedicated users, who put a lot of time into their articles. As I said, I don't give a dang about what goes on outside that little box of individual article content. But unilaterally forcing (and the unilateral imposition of Wikia decrees on wikis with little or no warning and less consent has been a point of repeated outrage for Wookieepedia admins and users alike) a big block of foreign content right at the top of each and every article, not just beside but *inside* it -- that is not at all appealing. It's a horrible decision that seems to be motivated only be sales department concerns with no consideration of the impact on users and readers. When people see a gigantic ad block inside the article they come to read, it's not going to impress them. It's going to look ugly and intrusive. When people search for Luke Skywalker and find a great big ad and a few paragraphs about Luke with half an image lurking at the bottom, they're going to want to look elsewhere. Instead of looking professional, it makes Wookieepedia and Wikia look cheap, mercenary, aggressive, and indifferent to the quality of their content and the presentation thereof. It looks flat-out chintzy. I know that when I go somewhere online and get confronted by a virtual Vegas of obnoxiously intrusive advertising, I'm immediately turned off. I don't want to have to get through an ad before I get to content. Maybe advertisers like it. No one else does. Dedicated users are going to be offended, as I am, at the prospect of advertising being forced into their work with no regard for the presentation of the article, and I know that the response from everyone I've talked to has been outrage. I'm sure this little plan will inspire a serious push for a move elsewhere, because this is not something that is going to be taken well. Especially in that it's been decreed without any input from the actual users, and all concerns are apparently being brushed off with the ridiculous line that people will get used to it. People shouldn't have to get used to bad ideas, not when they've not had any input in the decision. I've seen no explanation as to why Wikia could not attempt to gain better advertising revenue from ads outside the content space. Why not a floating ad at the very top of the page that can't be scrolled away? Why should what advertisers think they like most determine, without any other factor apparently being given much weight, that an extremely intrusive addition be forced onto all wikis? Objectively, I think this is a bad decision and a bad direction for Wikia. Moreover, I think it's absolutely no way to treat the people producing the content and the page hits that give Wikia something to sell. I have to ask that Wikia please reconsider this decision. Havac, Wookieepedia administrator
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