"Kasimir Gabert" kasimir.g@gmail.com wrote in message news:52836a540706151913r43b7f0d6v5b73372ba47cd7@mail.gmail.com...
On 6/15/07, Mark Clements gmane@kennel17.co.uk
wrote:
"Rob Church" robchur@gmail.com wrote in message
news:e92136380706151806u7193ecffub4de3411b48285c2-JsoAwUIsXouq+1Nelnf3ueG/Ez 6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org
On 16/06/07, Angela beesley@gmail.com
wrote:
don't look like Wikipedia. To many people wiki=wikipedia and they don't understand why a wiki would not look like that. It's not only
an
The "wiki" == "wikipedia" thing is a bigger problem, of course. :)
issue of design, but of branding. People associate the monobook skin with a professional, neutral site and they want their wiki to have that same branding.
Ick. Too many goddamn wikis using Monobook these days. Where's the
creativity?
Well, monobook looks pretty good. It's a nice layout and easy to
navigate.
I remember the excitement when it was introduced - suddenly we look like
a
proper website, rather than a relic from arpanet.
Given that monobook is the only skin in MediaWiki that looks even
slightly
professional and modern, and given that it isn't particularly obvious
how to
create a new skin, it is no wonder that it is so prevalent. For the
general
public that use MediaWiki (i.e. non-WMF sites) some kind of style editor
as
described here would be a great tool and would hopefully alleviate the monotonybook woes. I'm not sure what, if any, benefit it has to WMF
though.
However, I think if WMF introduced a _very good_ new skin for their
wikis
then it would only be a positive thing! It shouldn't be a big departure though - same basic page layout, but new imagery/colours.
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
To copyright and then lock up a skin on a wiki, specifically one released under the GPL, is very silly. I feel that if that were to happen, many people would lose faith in Wikipedia and in wikis as a whole.
Kasimir
Well, whether to copyright it or not is a decision for the WMF to make. As you say, it may not be sensible to do this, although I think your doom and gloom prohpecy is perhaps taking it a bit far (after all, the WMF logo is trademarked, and nobody seems to care about that...).
The important point is that the skin should not be included in the MediaWiki software, as is currently the case.
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)