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HammerWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 3

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This is an archive of HammerWiki talk:Community Portal between the dates of August 10, 2008 and November 11, 2008

Feel free to bring back old discussions and put them at the bottom of the main community portal talk page
 to revive talk, however please bring back the whole topic if you do so.

/Archive 1 /Archive 2 /Archive 3

Contents

[edit] Now that the new skin is in...

Discussion moved to HammerWiki talk:Skin.

[edit] Sidebar Options/quick links

Instead of what they have now, I'd suggest something like (where the further indented points expand out from the previous single-indented option on the sidebar like "Top Content" does):

- The http link to the Administrator's search on Special:listusers (click on "Administrators" above and you'll see) was because I wasn't sure how to link to that specific search using wiki-code.

So before mousing over anything, the sidebar should look like this:

This way there's two less links on the sidebar at a casual glance as well, so it'd be less long. We er, might wanna archive some of the discussion after this skin business is sorted. Alternatively you could add a Help section, something like:

  • Help
    • How to help
    • Editing guide
    • Glossary
    • List of Abbreviations

Or stick the Editing Guide in the Community Section. Either way the sidebar would still be shorter. I'll also understand if people wish to keep it as a simple links to our most prominent pages. ~ Revoran 12:37, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed the sidebar - tell me what you think. We can revert back to the old one if that's what people want, or we can modify however people like. For instance instead of having different kinds of Quests in the RvR and PvE menus, we could have a "Quests" menu and then have "RvR Quests" / "Public Quests". That might even be more handy for those viewing the wiki in monobook / skins which don't have the interactive sidebar functionality. ~ Revoran | talk
Browsing the wiki in IE7 (not logged in - i normally use FF3) I notice that the sidebar keeps changing (on each newly loaded page) between the previous version (before i started editing it) and the latest version (after I finished editing it). This occurs in IE7 whether logged in or not. My first thought was that MediaWiki:Sidebar and MediaWiki:Monaco-sidebar were conflicting, but MediaWiki:Sidebar isn't the same as the old version (pre-my changes) so logically they would have already been conflicting before I edited the Monaco sidebar - which they obviously weren't. If no one can help me I might contact a Wikia staff member. Excuse the lack of a timestamp on my signature, it's currently displaying mountains of code that it shouldn't if I type it the usual way. ~ Revoran | talk
This appears, to me at least, to be an obvious Monaco bug/issue. So yeah, I'd totally take it up with Wikia staff, they know their way around it real well, after all. :) » Bishop · talk « 21:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I thought it might end up like that, i'll contact someone then. Also: all new transclusion sig test! ~ Revoran | talk 21:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
It takes a while to update due to caching. This is normal behavior. You can see my long explanation here. --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 22:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Countdown timer

Hi, maybe you want to add a countdown timer to release date in the main_page: here is the js-code, and here is how it appears in greek wiki, Erdimus (talk) 08:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What a great idea! If we could find a place to put it on our main page, i'm all for this - thanks Erdimus. I think it's been mentioned before, but feel free to translate any of our pages for use on your wiki. ~ Revoran | talk 09:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for letting us know about that Erdimus, it's great! I went ahead and added it to the main page under the testing stages bar. If anyone has any suggestions for how to improve it, make yourself heard. - Pendrako talk 22:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
i think you can improve the counter a bit by changing the javascript code:

from: 

  // determine plus/minus
  if(diff<0) {
    diff = -diff;
    var tpm = 'T plus ';
  } else {
    var tpm = 'T minus ';
  }

to: 

  // determine plus/minus
  if(diff<0) {
    diff = -diff;
    var tpm = '';
  } else {
    var tpm = '';
  }

and in the main page you can just delete the 

<span class="nocountdown">This message will be displayed if the timer does not show up (like if you do not have javascript enabled on your browser)</span>

Erdimus (talk) 17:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Superb! I'll make those changes straight away. - Pendrako talk 19:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NDA lift

Discussion moved to HammerWiki talk:Community Portal/Structure#NDA lift - feel free to move it back here if you feel that's needed. ~ Revoran | talk 05:15, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


[edit] favicon

Are there any objections to changing the generic wikia favicon to something like this: Dwarfs ...cos it's, like, hammerwiki? - Pendrako talk 19:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well the main thing is that it gets changed, i'm getting tired of looking at the Wikia icon. ;) Personally i'd prefer a miniaturized version of the logo. But i'm not fussed. ~ Revoran | talk 08:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More content scullduggery

Compare Khorne to Allakhazam's [1]. Looks like they've lifted our content. Yet more evidence that we're doing something right ;)

They've re-organized a lot of it though, but they seem to have made a bit of a half-assed effort of it. Check the Khorne page again... Mob type: God, Level: *blank*, Race: unknown. Now what would be an appropriate level for a god of Chaos? - Pendrako talk 20:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

This will not stand. The other sites, tiny as they have been, have been completely inconsequential. The ZAM network, however, is massive, encompassing such sites as Thottbot and Wowhead. There is no excuse for them to be lifting our content without acknowledging the source as stipulated in the GFDL. » Bishop · talk « 21:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's definitely not cool for them to be copying the content without proper attribution. I'll shoot an email to the community manager over at Zam and see what we can do to get that cleared up. Thanks! --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
That's quite annoying. On another note, it would seem WHA's Wiki is also lifting content, though they're doing a better job of changing it around, and addin much more of their own original content in general (specifically they're using files like the ones that User:Eldanara has links to on his talk page) than the other wiki sites did. The main thing that bothers me, is that we make them redundant and vice versa (to a lesser extent). It just makes no sense to have two wikis on the same subject and split up community efforts. I'd suggest a merger, but i'm not sure what Garthilk would have to say about it. ~ Revoran | talk 08:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
Argh. I was hoping this wouldn't happen - but you may want to take a look at our Hysh page and the Hysh page on WARwiki or whatever it's called. Look similar to you? Or did I make a mistake and we lifted our own (at the time NDA breaking) text from the game to make the Hysh page? It's the same on the WHA wiki with the other magic winds pages, too. ~ Revoran | talk 07:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
No, you didn't make a mistake. I wrote those summaries of the colours of magic myself. They're mostly paraphrased from Liber Chaotica. But I don't see it as being a big deal, unless they start making a habit out of it. - Pendrako talk 11:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm starting to get a little confused about all the other wikis and semi-wikis, and which ones have been lifting content from us without attribution. Right now it feels like it's just about everyone. Maybe we should make a list... where'd all the discussion about the previous content-lifters go, anyway? » Bishop · talk « 12:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Your talk page? ;) - Pendrako talk 12:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Hey, just a follow-up: I'm chatting with the WAR Community Manager over at Zam; hopefully we'll be able to figure out a way to get the content attributed properly. For other wikis, I would suggest that you make a list of any pages where you see material being reused without it being properly attributed, and work with the community on the wiki that is reusing it to arrange for attribution. I would suggest that they create a template similar to Wikia's Wikipedia template and place it at the top of any articles which use your content. Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Standard_GFDL_violation_letter might provide some good starting points for those discussions. --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 23:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC) (P.S. I love the word "skullduggery")
Ack, thwarted by my own need for archiving. D: » Bishop · talk « 15:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
FYI, TheWarWiki have confirmed that their content is licensed under the GFDL (see [2]), so whilst of course attribution is required, it is now possible to copy content between there and here. --125.213.176.58 04:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

(Resetting indent) Here's what I would do if I had the time and energy to pursue this: I'd create a new sub-page of the community portal to deal with this topic alone. On that page, I'd make a table for people to enter any blatant copyright violations they notice, with a couple of extra fields to provide easy links to evidence and fields to check off if the following website has been contacted about the problem. This way we'd have a unified way of addressing the issue and follow up on progress. I don't really have that time and energy, however. But I will be available for advise and support if someone else takes up the gauntlet. » Bishop · talk « 15:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess I should add a note here (hi!) - I was asked by Net (owner of Curse) to help adminstrate TheWarWiki. I'll be more than willing to help deal with any copyright/attribution issues that may arise between here and TWW; I'd just request that if you're specifically trying to get my attention, you post on my TWW userpage. You can post on my talk page here (I'll get the email) if you want, I'd just prefer you posted on my talk page there, for ease of reference. :)
Added: I should also note here that if I don't respond to a message left on my user page, it's because I haven't read it yet - I will always acknowledge any direct message to me once I've read it, even if it's to say I can't respond until I've checked into other things (or can't respond, period). I've always found it frustrating to work in systems where I can't be sure whether my inquiries were noted or ignored, so I try to avoid that kind of situation. :) Aiiane 18:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
They're at it again, or at least someone is. The War Wiki gained a number of articles within the last few days taken directly from here. For example, Dwarf Ancestor Gods takes from three articles Grungni, Valaya, and Grimnir. For the most part, they all appear to have been added by the same user, who registered on the site at the beginning of the month, but as far as I can tell all of that user's new contributions are taken word for word from here. Things would be a lot simpler if the two projects would just merge, but that's another topic entirely. -- Heaven's Agent 15:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
this here is that user's contributions - While he is nice enough to quote the source (us) at the page bottom of most of the pages... it still leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. Not least because I wrote significant parts of some of those pages, and because TheWarWiki is supposedly about the "game not the lore" or whatever it was that Garthilk envisioned (not that i'm dissing Garthilk - he runs a great website and seems like a nice guy). I honestly just wish our two projects could merge, but yeah. Their skin is sexier than ours, for instance, in my opinion. I'm not exactly familar with what kind of attribution is necessary under the GFDL but it may be that he's met all the requirements by linking to us eg their Phoenix King to our Pheonix King - but the sub articles of their article aren't attributed on each page. I'm guessing in this case we should only report specific pages to Aiiane which aren't attributed? ~ Revoran | talk 15:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, the curse team seems like a nice bunch of people, some kind of merge would be totally awesome, I don't really know the real benefits from curse's side to have their own wiki (except that it should somehow be supported by WARDB later on), but some kind of compromise is really needed, having two competing wikis seriously won't do any good, TWW feels nicely straightforward and structured, but feels insufficient when it comes to everything else, one of the main reasons I can see that we have wikis at all, is that we should have one easy-to-navigate source for useful information, without the need of hopping between different sources. ∞ Sunspots {Talk | Contribs} 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe they have to not only cite the author of content they obtain, in this case HammerWiki, but also the individual article or articles from which the information was obtained. It's also recommended, though not necessary, to ask permission before using another wiki's work. The fact that they've lifting whole articles is especially disturbing to me, but as long as they cite it properly they are free to do so. That said, taking entire articles word for word is frowned upon by the wiki community at best, and it's up to the War Wiki admins to decide if they want their project associated with such behavior.
The Curse team seems like a good bunch to me as well. As you said, I can't think of any reason for there to be two WAR wikis. Even supporting the WARDB is something we could do here, and would only make both projects stronger. A consolidation of resources is a must, in my opinion, else neither project is ever going to reach its full potential. Has there been any real discussion on the topic? Anything we can do to help things along? If possible, a resolution or compromise before launch would go a long way. -- Heaven's Agent 21:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
When you talk to Warhammer Wiki, whoever does, you might want to give them a heads up that the user in question has begun lifting information word for word from sites not operating under the GFDL; even though he's providing a link to the source, they could get into a lot of trouble for such behavior. -- Heaven's Agent 03:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I've left a note on the talk page of the user in question pointing him at this discussion thread, Heaven's Agent. Hopefully you all can work out something that won't leave a "sour taste" in anyone's mouth. :) Please inform me if any more direct action becomes necessary. Aiiane 08:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
As the "user in question" in this case, I'd like to apologize for my gaffe in Wiki etiquette. My aim was never to take credit for the work of others, but rather to try and get the information out to as many people as possible, given that there are so many different, and incomplete, WAR history and lore resources out that they are not necessarily easily found by initiates to Warhammer Fantasy universe. I'd really prefer to see a consolidation of all the excellent work and information provided by multiple communities, and I'll do what I can to help with such an undertaking. Again, I'm sorry for ruffling feathers. Eckdahl 20:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Happy anniversary

On a lighter note, it might surprise you to learn that HammerWiki turned 2 on saturday. Then again, it might not. Either way, it's worth celebrating. *hands round cake and party poppers*

Here's to the next one! Whatever the year ahead brings, I'm looking forward to it ;) - Pendrako talk 06:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article tables

Heya! I notice some articles are enclosed in tables to create an image sidebar ... unfortunately this causes a problem for the ad system. For example, if you check out this you'll see that the system adds a box ad to the side. I spoke to the techs about it, and they recommended that the best way to deal with it would be to remove the enclosing tables - are the image sidebars required? (There is a way to force a leaderboard ad instead of a box ad, but it's a bit of a last resort.) Kirkburn (talk) 12:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It's OK to get rid of the tables around the career articles now - they were only there in an attempt to improve the layout back when the articles were much shorter. - Pendrako talk 12:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I'd prefer it if Wikia would fix the ad system, rather than impose burdens on the editors. But I do note that WoWWiki has a number of articles with tables that flush to the right of the page, so it appears that there must be a way to make it work. --» Bishop · talk « 16:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean - the article linked above has a table enclosing the entire article, which is not something WoWWiki does, has done, or will do. If you view Shadow Warrior, you will notice that the image bar reduces the width of the text well below the images. Kirkburn (talk) 23:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I apologize if I was not clear. I mean, A) that if the ad system causes problems for articles that are otherwise welformed, then the ad system needs fixing, not the articles, and B) that there should be better ways to format articles in a way that provides an image side bar, without enclosing the entire article in a table, and that I believe I have seen articles on WoWWiki where several images, or tables, are flushed down the right side. I do not presume to know WoWWiki half as well as you do, however, and if you say it does not have any articles like that, my memory must be faulty. » Bishop · talk « 23:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I think our code is the problem, actually. It's easier to align visual elements to the right edge of a page simply by adding an align right parameter to the element itself, rather than the entire page. As it is now, it's extremely clunky and prone to situations, such as this one, that shouldn't be an issue. Either that, or I'm completely misunderstanding what you're taking about, Bishop. -- Heaven's Agent 23:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification - just having a line of |thumb images in the code should create the same effect. By default any images with the thumb attribute will be aligned right, and will follow one after the other. (Sorry if I got a bit touchy, guess I'm a bit too attached to WoWWiki :P ) Kirkburn (talk) 23:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Homepage ad

Hey guys,

I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up about a special type of ad that will be running on the HammerWiki homepage starting on September 15th (or 16th). Starting on Monday or Tuesday, the following will happen:

  1. The two ads that are currently in the content of the homepage will be removed,
  2. The homepage will be set to a fixed width with extra space on both sides of the content area as well as above it, and
  3. That extra space will be filled with the new advertisement (which almost acts like a background that is covered up by the content area).

If you want to get an idea of what I mean, take a look at gamepro.com, but note that it will be different on the HammerWiki homepage because there will be no ads inside of the content area, and there will be an extra space for the ad above the header (but still completely divorced from the content area). Again, this only affects the homepage (all other pages will remain as they are now), and is temporary (I don't have an exact end-date yet though). I have tested this fixed-width layout, and you should not have to make any changes to accommodate it except for reducing the width of the "open beta" chart, but I'll take care of that for you so you won't have to worry about it.

So, in short, the new temporary ad with the fixed-width homepage layout will begin on Monday or Tuesday, but you won't need to do anything. I just wanted to let you know ahead of time so that you know what to expect.

Thanks! --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 21:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

A couple of questions:
  1. Why?
  2. What width will it be, exactly? While I wouldn't expect Wikia to go out of their way to support 800 x 600, I browse the wiki at 1024 x 768.
  3. By linking gamepro you mean that there will be 1 long banner ad across the top and a square ad to the right?
  4. Who else is this happening to? Just us?
  5. What ad provider will the ads be from? The usual ones Wikia uses? Google?
And obviously we'd appreciate an estimate on how long it will be for - as soon as you know. Cheers :) ~ Revoran | talk 01:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see, it's one ad the takes the space of two. ~ Revoran | talk 01:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Not exactly. I think that I probably didn't describe it very well. If you want to get a better idea, put the following code in your personal monaco.css file (eg. User:Revoran/monaco.css): 
body.mainpage .monaco_shrinkwrap {
        left: 50%;
        margin-left: -485px;
        width: 971px;
}

body.mainpage #background_strip {
        margin-top:186px;
}
Note that it may take around 5 minutes for the changes to show up. You'll also have to hold down CTRL when you press refresh to see the changes. Once the changes do show up, you'll see extra space at the top, left, and right sides of the page on the homepage only (and only in Monaco). If you take a look at the left and right sides of the GamePro page that I linked to, you'll see the characters in that space. That is how the ad will work; however, in the case of HammerWiki, there will be no ad within the content of the page itself (it will basically just be one continuous ad in those extra spaces that are created at the top, left, and right).
As you'll see when you test out that custom CSS, it will look fine in 1024x768 and higher, so you don't have anything to worry about. Because of the fixed width, there will be some extra space if you're viewing the site on a really high resolution, but this only affects the homepage, so anyone digging in to the meat of the wiki won't lose any space.
I'll try to pin down a more definite end-point for this campaign, but I can tell you that it is a single campaign, and it's more likely that it will only last a week or two rather than several months. These kinds of ads are only sold by our internal sales team, and only on rare occasion, so it's very unlikely that you'll ever see something like this from Google or a similar ad network.
Unfortunately, I can't go in to too many specifics because, for competitive reasons, advertisers don't like us to talk about their ad campaigns before they launch them. In fact, they would probably prefer that we not even post messages like this one, but we feel like you deserve to know ahead of time when you will see a somewhat significant change to your wiki. I can, however, tell you that there are a handful of wikis that will be seeing this advertising campaign (you guys are not alone).
I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you have any more. --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 02:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that answers most of them, and judging from the start date, and that you guys have collaborated with Mythic/EA on the Hunt for Tzeentch (or at the very least gotten them to post news about it on their Herald) I can probably hazard a guess as to what the advertisement might be about. ;) You know, unless Blizzard is pre-empting EA. Or I could be completely off. Either way, thanks for the always quick updates. Have fun. ~ Revoran | talk 02:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Now that it's live ... c'mon EA - it's soon time to get your response up ;) Kirkburn (talk) 17:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey ... quick update! The rollout of the ad has been delayed. It will now start on Tuesday, September 23rd and is scheduled to end on Tuesday, September 30th. The ad ran during part of the day today, but that was a mistake. Also, one of the things I said earlier was incorrect (sorry!). The 300x250 box ad that currently appears on the homepage will indeed be removed while skin ad is in place; however, the banner ad will still be there. --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 23:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
For whatever reason, when I view the page in logged out IE 7, the ads stil display, big blue animated WotLK ads... :/ - I normally view logged in in FF 3. If we do have to have ads, I'd certainly rather they weren't from directly competing MMO's - any chance of getting an EA ad here after this one runs? Erm, not that i'm asking for specific details, but yeah. And don't worry Kirkburn - you're perfectly entitled to be attached to WoWwiki, I image you feel the same way as I do about this wiki. :) ~ Revoran | talk 08:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Just so you know, I think all this intrusive advertising building upon the hard work of myself and other editors is getting way out of hand. Knowing first hand how few resources it takes to run a medium-traffic website like this, there is absolutely no excuse for this disrespect for the effort that has gone into creating the content. I'm currently debating whether I should suck it up and just stop doing more than cursory maintenance, fork HammerWiki or simply offer my services to TheWarWiki. They already used half of our content, so I'm sure I'll feel right at home. » Bishop · talk « 17:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Heya. The two homepage ads will be around until the special skin ad is displayed from 9/23 to 9/30. When the skin ad is turned on, the box ad on the homepage will disappear. I'm afraid that I don't know too terribly much about our advertising deals, but I do know that EA has the opportunity to advertise on the site if they want to.
Bishop, I completely understand where you're coming from. I imagine it feels like Wikia is giving in to anything that advertisers ask for, but I can assure you that this isn't the case. There are many people here who are fighting to make sure that make the advertising as non-disruptive as possible while still providing the support we need to continue to provide the services which we provide. For example, we currently do not allow advertisements that play audio without you clicking, display content outside of the normal advertising box, and many other kinds.
One of the things that we insisted on was that, if the "skin" ads that we're discussing right now are necessary, that they only appear on the homepage and that should only appear on rare occasion and only for a limited amount of time. That's why we're only going to be showing it for a week. Plus, did you know that relatively few people even see the homepage? Most people come in off Google looking for a specific topic. For example, Career is your most popular page right now. I know that you object to these kinds of ads in general, but I wanted to make sure that you were aware of that fact.
I imagine that it has also felt like there have been a lot of changes in a short period of time. I apologize for that. Part of that is my fault--I asked for extra time to transition HammerWiki to Monaco so I could help you adjust the homepage and get a custom skin set up. The result is that you haven't had much time to get used to Monaco before this change is happening. Now that we're at this point, though, I can tell you that we're not even talking about any other changes right now. I can't promise that some of our "rules" regarding ads won't change at some point in the future, but I can tell you that we're pretty comfortable with the way things are now, and that this homepage "skin" is the loudest ad that we currently offer. (Occasionally a bad ad might slip through on one of the ad networks; if you see one, please report it.)
I know that this probably doesn't address all of your concerns. I would love to have a more in-depth discussion with you about how you feel and the future of the wiki. We've been continually trying to give back as well--Doug set up the contest recently, and we've been trying hard to get EA to recognize the your contributions to the WAR community as a whole. If you have any suggestions about what we can do to give back to the community, I would love to hear them. Everyone here is really excited HammerWiki, so you have a lot of people listening right now. --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 18:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(Resetting Indent) I still consider myself somewhat new to this project, but I feel the need to add my voice to the topic as well. I understand the need for advertisements, and while they can be annoying at times they fall into the category of a necessary evil. I also understand that Blizzard has large funds to devote to such advertising, and with the success of WoWWiki it only makes sense that they throw some of that money this way. But the simple truth of the matter is that WoW and WAR are two games that are in direct competition with each other.

Having a noticeable number of the advertisements on a site devoted to WoW, when the site itself is devoted to WoW's biggest competitor to be released in some time, is inconsiderate at best and insulting at worst. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy WoW a great deal, and would still play if I could afford two game accounts, but when I visit this site any more and see the adds on the front page, I have to double check to make sure I'm actually on HammerWiki. And when the new ad went up for a few days, I immediately opened up my bookmarks and ended up reloading the page; my bookmarks for HammerWiki and WoWWiki are right next to each other, and I automatically thought I had unintentionally visited the latter of the two.

To make matters worse, and to be honest this is the most concerning part in my mind, the new ad superseded the site logo, identifying information, and account information. Suddenly it seemed that an add for WotLK is more important that the site the add is on. I'm of a mind that this should never happen; these basic elements identify the site for anyone visiting, and should always be at the top of the page. Now if these ads are effecting a contributer like this, I can only imagine how average visitors to this site respond. -- Heaven's Agent 22:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, is there a reason why I can't seem to pull up any ads for anything other than WotLK on this homepage? Other projects in the Wikia Gaming Community seem to have a selection of ads that come up, and they change when the page is refreshed. However, no matter how many times I refresh HammerWiki's home page, the only ads that appear are for WotLK. By any chance, could Blizzard's most recent advertising agreement with Wikia have singled out HammerWiki specifically for these ads?

You would have to be dense as stone to think Blizzard's increased advertising at the moment isn't motivated, at least in part, to WAR's release; it almost feels like we got sold out in exchange for Blizzard's advertising budget, and I hope this is something that's just in my head, but it seems too convenient to be coincidence. -- Heaven's Agent 23:05, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, after logging out and taking a look around, it seems all the ads on the site are all WotLK, all the time. This is more than a bit ridiculous. -- Heaven's Agent 23:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand that this is a difficult situation for you guys to have to deal with. I'm afraid that it is simply something that we have to do in order to provide the free services that we provide. I'm not privy to the specific details of Blizzard's advertising campaign, but I can say that it is not uncommon for an advertiser to indicate that they specifically want to buy ads on a certain site. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense ... I doubt that an ad for WotLK would find much traction on http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com.
I can give you guys a few more details now about the specific ad that will appear on HammerWiki's homepage. If you want to see the exact advertisement that will be running starting on 9/23, visit http://www.wowwiki.com. When you do that, you'll see the Wrath of the Lich King skin, a single banner ad at the top of the homepage, and no 300x250 box ad. That should give you a good idea of exactly what to expect. With that in mind, are there any changes to the skin that you think might make help with some of your concerns? We can't change the size or the position of the ad at this point, but we can do things like make the HammerWiki logo a little bit bigger. What do you think?
While I can't promise that situations like this will never come up again, what I can promise is that I (or someone else from Wikia) will let you know as soon as they know so that it will not come as a surprise. In this case, you know exactly what is coming, that it will only affect the homepage, and that it will only last a week (9/23 - 9/30). And, if any of that changes, you know that I will talk to you guys as soon as I find out. --KyleH@Wikia (talk)
I can easily imagine why Blizzard would target this wiki for their ads. I'm a business major, and it's just smart to do so (though I do get an ironic kick that they didn't seem to work out the same advertisement deal for WoWWiki). I'm not upset with Blizzard. It's Wikia that's got me upset. As a contributer to this project, I feel betrayed; whoever's in charge of advertisements had to have realized why Blizzard would want to do something like this, but it would seem that, at least to me, Blizzard's dollars were more valuable than those of us who are actually working to make this site the best it can be.
That said, what's done is done and there's no point in beating the dead horse. I'm just a contributer, and I don't expect to be included in the discussions held with the project leads that I imagine will come of this situation. Nor do I care to. I just hope that in the future Wikia looks out for us a little more.
As an aside, would it be possible to find out how long we can expect to see nothing but WoW ads on this site? It's going to be extremely difficult to be taken seriously as a comprehensive source of WAR information, when we have WoW advertisements on every page. -- Heaven's Agent 23:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Your input is really helpful, so please don't hesitate to give feedback because you're "just a contributor." Even if you won't personally be involved in all of those discussions, I can assure you that your voice will be heard. I understand your concern about being taken seriously as a source of WAR information. I'll see if I can find out when Blizzard's campaign ends so that I can let you know. (As an aside, I understand that they've launched similar campaigns on IGN and Zam.) --KyleH@Wikia (talk) 00:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
In that case, let me dig out my Gentleman's Club so I can start pounding away (there's a cookie in it if you get the reference).
I know Blizzard has launched similar advertising efforts on other locations. I'm not surprised; as I said, it's good business. But just because such an opportunity is made available by a company like Blizzard, doesn't mean it needs to be accepted, nor should it in some cases. It's important to consider the people that such actions will effect, something that should be especially true for Wikia.
Wikis are built by a limited number of public patrons; we're volunteers, not employees. As such, our concerns should be taken into more consideration than has been shown in this instance. Since we don't get paid, if we lose interest in a project we leave it. Wiki projects that lose their contributers stagnate and die. Now letting a project such as this die in order to bring in more money is a viable consideration in some business circles, and I won't claim to understand the business principles behind Wikia. But it needs to be understood that such disregard to a community's feelings in matters such as this can result in that community falling apart. I'm not saying it will in this instance, but this course of discussion should make it clear that there are a few of us here who have been thinking along these lines. -- Heaven's Agent 01:04, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Well Wikia isn't out to make a huge profit (they're out to maintain wikis) - but they are a commercial organisation nonetheless (you guys have shareholders and a public listing, right? - correct me if i'm wrong). I've got to say, in case I didn't make it clear in my last comment (didn't have a lot of time to type) that I really think the WoW ads are completely innapropriate (and I haven't even gotten to the new "skin" ad...) - while i'd love to have this one removed, it isn't going to happen - and so i'm going to have to ask that some effort be made to get other ads on the wiki, even if it's Age of Conan or something. That said, I understand that some of the money is obviously being used to keep HammerWiki afloat and/or pay the people who help us out, and I appreciate that other things are being done to help us. And I do appreciate the committment to keeping us informed.
To back up Heaven's Agent (and by the way, you're perfectly entitled to comment here, you have as much say as I do - this is a wiki not a dictatorship) - there are already a lot of people who see WAR and automatically think: "WoW copy lolz". By indirectly supporting WoW like this, we're giving that kind of idiocy more credibility, and turning away editors to other games / wikis / databases by making ourselves look a tad silly. Not to mention that we're devoted entirely to WAR, wheras IGN and Zam aren't.
I like compromise, compromise is good (hence the inline ads, monaco skin...), but this honestly made me pretty annoyed. And Bishop, I totally see where you're coming from - though i'd be very sorry to see you leave the project. And please do make the logo bigger, at least for the duration of the ad. ~ Revoran | talk 06:26, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Any commercial business that isn't out to make a profit isn't going to be a commercial business for long. Wikia, although providing a nice service to the community of whatever wiki they're supporting at that moment, is in it for the money. It's in their best interest to get people to visit their wikis and viewing their ads. In relation to the ad, I thought it was a bit much but in all I understood the reason behind it. Even though WAR is a competitor to WoW, the games are similar and people that are playing WAR are likely to be interested in WoW. It makes sense to advertise WoW on a WAR wiki - I just hope it wouldn't be so in-your-face. Slinky317 19:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
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