Forum:Wiki skin revamp

hey everyone, today I'm going to propose some changes to the site skin we currently have. Personally, I'm extremely sick of the all-black layout we have. There's no colour on the wiki, just black and some grey lines. It was fine for a few months or so but its becoming a bit of an eyesore imo.

So I propose we give a little life and colour back into the wiki. I've made and almost completed a sample skin, but i need some feedback to make it better. The one that i have done so far is a lighter, bluer skin based on the water level featured in Call of Duty: Ghosts. I'm currently making another skin on my second personal wiki that will take some darker elements but still retain some colour so everything isn't pitch black. you can see the skin i have completed (which also needs input/feedback) here: http://hurr.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WikiActivity (the sagan heads aren't apart of the skin :p)

So any ideas you have about the skin above, please post below. I should be finished with the other sample skin by tonight or tomorrow. KλT 19:08, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
I'd like to point out a while ago I made my own forum regarding the look of the wiki, Forum:Wiki design overhaul, which seemed to come the consensus that no one seemed to care for a redesign. 19:09, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * well this is a new forum about it, and I'm putting some effort into it by designing some skins for people to give their feedback. I personally think that forum is irrelevant to what I'm trying to accomplish. KλT 19:11, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * Well you're trying a wiki redesign, which is what I wanted my forum to achieve. Meaning it has relevance to this forum as well. I understand you've put effort into a new design, however my point was that the general attitude to have a redesign is low. 19:16, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * yeah but you're assuming peoples opinions haven't changed. This is a fresh forum, how about we see what people have to say now? KλT 19:18, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * It's only been 2 months since the forum in question, and the War Room has hardly gotten much more active. Chances are since you've done something, they'll say they like it and simply stop caring about the issue in whole. 19:22, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey, how about we stop discussing "what would happen", and start discussing the forum in question, please?.-19:28, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I brought up a similar forum with similar aims as I believed it would be of topic. But fine, I'm used to being ignored and ganged up on when I've stuck to my guns. 19:31, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think you're being ganged up on, I just don't think another forum with a similar topic from two months ago has anything to do with this one. Two months is a long time, and people can change their minds in that period. Plus I think I have a compelling argument. regardless this isn't doing anything good for this particular forum. Plus so far it looks like people want to see some change. Lets be positive! KλT 19:34, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that looks really good. A revamp of the colour in the wiki would be pretty much appreciated, since we0ve been doing the black colour for, what, 3 years now?.-19:19, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * Its been pretty much dark for the past 3 years. But at least the black ops 2 skin had that neat orange flair. Our current skin is just grey and black. KλT 19:21, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

I'd approve of a re-skin, the white text on black background is straining to the eyes. But, I think basing the new design on one short level isn't a good idea. Rather, we could use black/gray with green undertones to simulate the overgrown "post-apocalyptic" urban setting that most of Ghosts takes place in. 19:25, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I'll use that as a platform for the second skin. KλT 19:34, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the blue just doesn't fit the look and feel of Ghosts. A shade of green would definitely fit. 12:08, March 30, 2014 (UTC)

I like the Background of the test design, but I don't like the gray used for Recent Changes and Articles and such. I realize it's a demonstration, but we should work out a better color than gray or black.

Additionally, I think we shouldn't limit ourselves to basing the theme off Ghosts, or the newest game in general. I, for one, loved the Wiki's BOII scheme and unless Sledgehammers new game has some unique color scheme, I'd rather we take inspiration from all the games rather than just Ghosts/CoD 2014. 19:37, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. A sort of culmination of all the previous iterations in one skin. I could try my hand at that. KλT 19:41, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of the skin being relevant to the game that is next coming out (considering i made the last 3 rofl) because it makes us seem like we're keeping up to date and its just cool. (also the bo2 one was damn sexy, the orange hnnnnng) 21:01, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * If "keeping it up to date" in 2014 means more Gray and Black, I refuse. 21:06, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * bunch of racists -- 22:58, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

Your proposed skin is pleasant to the eye, I gotta say, except when reading. The light grey doesn't go very well with the light blue text in my opinion, so if either one was darker I'd be very happy with a change. The current layout is a bit... boring. 19:44, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

Um, yes, excuse me - CTRL+F says there is no mention of monobook here, and that's a problem. Probably the biggest problem to have ever existed on the internet. Will it stay the same? Because it's still got a green background from like MW3(?) and could use some love so I no longer feel left out by being the only person on the planet to even be aware it still exists. -- 23:04, February 12, 2014 (UTC)
 * Since i designed the last monobook skin, I'll give it a snazzy update. KλT 22:08, February 13, 2014 (UTC)
 * do people apart from azuris actually use monobook 10:30, February 21, 2014 (UTC)
 * Is azuris even a person 22:25, February 21, 2014 (UTC)
 * /raises hand 05:56, February 28, 2014 (UTC)

I personally don't at all like the gray color in the linked example. It makes all text difficult to read and links nearly impossible. If we're going to change the skin, the background of the text, at the very least, needs to be either black or white, or something very close, or else we sacrifice readablility. Joe Copp 09:00, February 14, 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. 04:48, February 17, 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like it but thats probs because I prefer the darker themes. It seems to bright and I don't see the point in using a random background image from 1 mission from 1 game. I think its better when we do a new one for every game but that's just me. 10:30, February 21, 2014 (UTC)
 * Except the new one for Ghosts ended up being incredibly boring compared to the ones for BOII and MW3. Plus if Sledgehammer doesn't change up their color scheme for the next ones marketing, it could easily be just as boring. 13:26, February 21, 2014 (UTC)
 * Not to mention Darwin killed off the background, so we can hardly see it any more. So most of our flare comes from the colours of the wiki itself. So we'd want to focus on bold colours. And to a degree, I preferred the white background, but since we had to change a bunch of templates to go black I'd rather see us work around that. 13:42, February 21, 2014 (UTC)

I like dark themes but we're currently running on pitch black. I think we should go a bit more grey if we're gonna update anything. 22:25, February 21, 2014 (UTC)

I like the grey but I have a question, how is the grey going to match our background? -- 00:46, February 24, 2014 (UTC)
 * A skin revamp implies the background will be changed as well. And as everyone keeps saying, this isn't a final skin by any means. 01:09, February 24, 2014 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the background is a lower priority now. On larger screens, you can barely see much of it, and I beleive smaller screens just don't have it at all. 01:41, February 24, 2014 (UTC)
 * I would say that on most 16:9 screens, there is enough background visible for it to be an important aspect of a skin change. Joe Copp  04:46, February 24, 2014 (UTC)
 * I have a 16:9, and all I really have is half a skull, and a small amount of someone's face. While there is enough room there to actually have something, there's no longer enough room to have anything too noticeable as the side bars are quite thin. So having a character would only have about half of them in shot or something. 16:22, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm on the same boat. While we can't really fit a character or other items which would be considered traditional themes for a background, we should maybe look for some sort of tasteful pattern that matches the theme of the game, or some such thing. Joe Copp  16:32, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * A Pattern would work. But I'm not sure if Call of Duty has one really. 17:01, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * Just something that would look nice. Maybe a camouflage pattern with the main colors of the game? Imagine a BOII camo, with a few shades of gray and orange highlights. In that circumstance it would look nice. Maybe not for Ghosts, but you get the idea. Joe Copp  17:12, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * I can make a digital camouflauge with either three or four colors as long as I know what colors you would fit Ghosts best. I was thinking black, medium white with some slate blue to match the Ghosts UI. SS Blitzstrahl (talk) 20:47, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure, can we get a mockup? Joe Copp  14:50, March 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * Sample of the camo. I can change the colors if you would like it darker and such. SS Blitzstrahl (talk) 16:38, March 1, 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't we also use this? Since it already matches really well, and repeats perfectly. 03:39, March 2, 2014 (UTC) I love the monobook color scheme. Whatever you do to the other format that's fine, but please don't get rid of the nice green color Monobook currently has. It's so much more welcoming than black or grey. 05:56, February 28, 2014 (UTC)


 * Here's my take on a possible "Ghosts blue" theme. http://testtheme.wikia.com/wiki/Test_theme_Wiki SS Blitzstrahl (talk) 05:14, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks too 8-bit. I know Digital uses squares, but not pronounced as that. Also, I could have used my wiki as a test bed. 05:16, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * While you might not like the camo, does the UI look like it would come from in-game? SS Blitzstrahl (talk) 05:45, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Not really. Ghosts is more black than blue. 07:02, March 6, 2014 (UTC)

Importantly, I think the colour scheme used should be neutral enough so that both light and dark coloured images are noticeable. The downside to our current theme is that images on page such as the APS Underwater Rifle aren't very visible. The guns are predominantly greyish-black and so they blend in quite well with the article background, which isn't great. The sooner a new background is decided upon, the better in my opinion. 13:02, March 17, 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, we should try and switch to a more neutral colour. I nkow Black goes with all the recent CoDs, but it's not a very welcoming colour. Going on to Wikis that have white backgrounds also feels a lot better on the eyes most of the time. 13:30, March 19, 2014 (UTC)

Character Theme
We could have an image of the winner of N7's character as a side bar character. We could also have a color scheme similar to their features or game. Thus... Russman Theme

AFGBOYS2000 23:42, February 24, 2014 (UTC)
 * I actually kinda like this idea. Maybe not this one specifically, but I like the concept that the community can collectively choose the background. Perhaps something more can be done with it? Joe Copp  16:05, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, the poll did not feature any characters from before Call of Duty 4. So by right, it wasn't a complete poll, and the outcome would technically be invalid for anything aside from fun (which it is). 06:17, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
 * But if we're being honest, none of the characters pre-CoD4 would win the competition, so it might still be considered valid. Joe Copp  14:58, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a subjective point. It needs to be tested to be confirmed. 17:44, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
 * What I don't think needs to be tested though is recognition of characters. Just based on sales alone, a post-cod4 character will be recognized by our greater community than a pre-cod4 character. 16:59, March 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm saying. The only character that would have any realistic chance of competing would be Price, and even that's a stretch. Joe Copp  22:40, March 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * Thing is, it would still be an unfair to base it on an incomplete poll, even if we believe certain characters would lose. It would be like holding a poll for best US president, but leaving certain Presidents out because we think they're too bad, or too old. 22:53, March 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * No, it's more similar to leaving out certain presidents because we know the greater community just won't recognize them. I can tell you that despite his popularity within the community, I had no idea who Alvin Bloomfield was before coming to the wiki. I didn't even know there was a WWII version of Price. These are just two examples of characters who are very popular with the fans who know who they are. When it comes to what the general audience is going to recognize, Soap and Mason are gonna win out over Bloomfield and Tanya time and time again. 01:57, March 2, 2014 (UTC)

Either way, leaving options out of a poll still makes the result an invalid result as it did not test all available outcomes, no matter what we believe the outcome will be. 03:26, March 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * But we're not conducting a scientific study. We're trying to temporarily change the background image. Joe Copp  21:13, March 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * But to make a change based on a n incomplete test is using an invalid result. If we want a true consensus for performing a change, then we must ensure all options are offered up. 21:21, March 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * Either way. Getting back to the original idea here, I think letting the casual/blog community decide the background from a preset list of a few options would be a good way to get people involved without sacrificing quality. Joe Copp  15:41, March 5, 2014 (UTC)
 * We'd have to test them before showing them as options. No point saying "Well X won, but it looks naff, so we won't be using it". Characters are too wide to be used effectively as side images. We'd be better off with a repeating pattern. Perhaps one of the in-game camos. 02:37, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah that's basically what I'm saying. Load a couple of em up on test wikis to see how they feel, and if they're good then we can put them to a vote. Joe Copp  03:44, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Well right now, I've got Imageplacement using a version of Blue Tiger, which you can see here. I've tried with the other MW2 camos and they all repeat perfectly (Red Tiger and Blue tiger need a bit of cropping to repeat flawlessly, but they still do). I'm not sure about CoD 4, but anything beyond that won't repeat due to the design it's given. 05:38, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'm not exactly sure that would look right unless we changed the rest of the wiki colorization, like headers and buttons and stuff, to match it. Blue Tiger is a pretty odd color pattern. Joe Copp  15:45, March 6, 2014 (UTC)
 * Well we don't have to use Blue Tiger, it's just the demonstration I have up to show how the tiles can work. I can try with other tiles as well, such as Red Tiger. I tried Digital, and I'm not a huge fan of it. 20:24, March 8, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think one of the iconic camo's (except for gold of course, that would be god awful) as a background would be nice. I think Red Tiger would look pretty good (and quite menacing, if I might add) as a background. So, I think we should get two votes in. First one to distinguish the best looking camos from Call of Duty titles (CoD 4 to Ghosts), then another for which one looks the best as a background. Zombie Rank 8 Icon BOII.png Kylet357  ·  talk  03:14, March 17, 2014 (UTC)

Any progress on this yet? The continued black is genuinely depressing to the eyes! 17:06, March 27, 2014 (UTC)

Moving on
Since this forum has grinded to a halt. I've implemented the new colour scheme (since no one opposed). Now, before I close it, this section is just so we can discuss if we should use one of the Camo images as a repeating background. If I don't hear anything soon, I'll just close the forum outright. 13:18, April 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I jump in a little late but the thing I don't like about this theme is that blue text can't be seen very easily from the background, which hampers some pages that have many links, especially special pages like S:RC. 13:53, April 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, the issue there is I've not used the link colour that was on the example. I'll change that in a moment. 15:28, April 1, 2014 (UTC)
 * It's been updated. It should look better now. 15:31, April 1, 2014 (UTC)

Actually. I've looked though the comments, and I remembered I had a green code stashed away for making those MW style name plates. Anyway, I gave it a test and it looks like this:

I think it looks quite good, so I was curious if people wanted to try using this green instead of the blue. 09:59, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm up for it. 10:47, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * you have too many tabs open Looks good. 12:52, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * Too few tabs really. Most I've had at one point is around 200. 12:58, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * The green does look better than the blue, bit I think a darker, more natural green might be better than the bright MW2-ish one. Since any color can be added with hex codes. 14:05, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * Green honestly looks better than the blue-on-blue that was recently implemented IMO. As far as a darker shade, that might be harder to read as the current background is also darker colored. 14:11, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * The green will do just fine, just use a tone that isn't too bright. 14:17, April 2, 2014 (UTC)

Here's a slightly darker green. Is it any better? I'd rather not go much darker or it'll start looking a bit tacky. 14:35, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * That suits the wiki, plus it will be easier to see the links. 14:40, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Conqueror of all Zombies (talk) 14:49, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * I like how the recent activity box has all 4 edits from me. But in all seriousness, both of the shades look really good for the wiki skin. However, I think this that this one looks better, especially for the navigation bar and links. 14:51, April 2, 2014 (UTC)

I have a few mock-ups for backgrounds. Once we're happy with the colour, I will show the mock ups and we can discuss which one we prefer. 15:23, April 2, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that darker green looks great! Much better then awkward blue. The only thing is what about the admin color? Wouldnt it be confusing since normal users like me would have the same/similar user color as an admin like MLG? -- 03:52, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Those can be changed also, for example admin highlight could be changed to orange (I still liked the BO2 theme best) 03:55, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * In fairness, the current link colour looks very close to the b'crats link colour. So this green should be fine. 09:16, April 3, 2014 (UTC)

I personally do not like this background color whatsoever. It's too far from black or white and, even with the current link color, decreases ease of readership. Joe Copp 05:31, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to sound rude, but you've waited an awful long time to bring it up. 09:16, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm finding it much easier to read now than when it was pitch black. And as much as I like white, we've changed nearly every template to match black, so if we swap back to white again, we'd need to change all our templates. And a lot of our theme is wrapped up in our .css, meaning we'd need someone that understands the code to make most of the changes. Given we're not as busy as we once were, making a transition like that would take an incredibly long time. 12:29, April 3, 2014 (UTC)

"I've implemented the new colour scheme (since no one opposed). Now, before I close it" We didn't have a vote? Personally I don't like this new colour scheme at all, I thought it was just for april fools but it turns out its not. I don't even think of blue as a colour related to Cod of Duty. 20:39, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with N7, the new color scheme is really not nice looking in my opinion. We should have atleast voted on it. -- 20:50, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * We went nearly a full month with no one inputting anything new. So firstly, we had a dead forum that had no direct opposition. And secondly, no other mock ups had been offered. So far the only other mock up that's been suggested since Kat's link are my images where we use a green instead of blue. I'm sorry if you dislike the new theme, but you really should of put in more input earlier. 21:33, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah I didn't know that if no one inputs into the forum then we just make the changes without a vote. Must have missed that rule, sorry! 09:47, April 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * Given I was aware that the pitch black colour scheme was causing users discomfort, and that no one else had stated much dislike, or any alternate mock ups, I chose to implement the new colour scheme. However, the forum is not currently closed, I've got a mock up here currently to replace the blue which you've stated to dislike. So if you ahve any of your own mock ups or suggestions, now would be the best time to make them. 11:51, April 4, 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it would be easier if we went back to the old pre-MW2 theme ingeneral. The theme is easy to the eyes and looked nice, but we can add differences such as some color swaps from it to add some originality. 21:55, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I would love to go back to White, don't get me wrong on that front. I'm mainly sticking to this shade of grey and working around it because it means we don't have to change half a dozen templates and images (logos we inverted) to rematch the new colour. 22:04, April 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I really don't think changing back to a white-based scheme would take that long. Probably 2 hours tops for one of us. Regardless, the difficulty should come secondary to the actual aesthetic appeal to the community. Joe Copp  01:44, April 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * Why not make the navigation bar black and white and then make the link color green? -- 01:50, April 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * If you'd like Joe I'll make some mock ups of a white background and we can go from there. 09:04, April 4, 2014 (UTC)


 * That would be excellent. Joe Copp  13:15, April 4, 2014 (UTC)

Here's a mock up I could think of. Ignore the BG image for now. If you have any ideas let me know. 16:05, April 5, 2014 (UTC)

it seems like in the past week or two, the theme of the wiki changed. id like for it to go back to how it was. we usually have the theme based on the current "color theme" of the current call of duty. that fit the best and this new one weve had is annoying with the almost black on grey. i know you were discussing changing it to the green but this is just my opinion. RisingSun2013 (talk) 16:10, April 5, 2014 (UTC)

never mind, the almost black on grey is fixed, but i still think it should stay the same. green is definitly not the color theme of call of duty ghosts.
 * I'd prefer to have the colour scheme that doesn't give users migraines. 16:24, April 5, 2014 (UTC)


 * i dont see how itd give people migraines. the theme is dark and not very bright. white and green might though, considering theyre bright colors.
 * now if your just saying that figurativly, well, i can see the unappeal of the current skin since its very dark and boring, but still, theres the fact that the colors follow the color scheme of the current game. RisingSun2013 (talk) 16:35, April 5, 2014 (UTC)
 * The pitch black theme, that you want us to go back to, was making users feel discomfort. Furthermore, in my mock-up, there's only green for links. And since most pages on the internet are defaultly white, I think we can assume there's no issue there. especially considering, unless you have a super bright monitor, white is a neutral colour. 16:48, April 5, 2014 (UTC)