User blog:Ursuul/Shifting Gears

Hello everyone! It has been a while since our our last WU, but our Wiki has not been idle; Staff Members rise & fall, Projects abound, a Sandbox gathering is in preparation & the great machine that is the grinds ever onward as its s labor to improve its function amidst the many new things coming from FANDOM. Dive in, & see what you have missed!


 * -|Event News=

Next Sandbox
The next is scheduled for Saturday July 29th, 11 AM – 1PM Eastern Time (UTC 15:00 to 17:00). We hope to see lots of people attend!

TOTW
The first Tank of the Week project was completed by Banarama last month, and more will likely follow; stay tuned, but in the meanwhile don’t hesitate to !

Discord servers for ATWNM and EToD
Zathsu has opened a separate Discord server for development for what was formerly the Tale of Diep, now A Tale Where Nothing Matters. She welcomes all people to join! Diepmon has also opened another server for the Extended Tale of Diep. Check his server out too!   


 * -|Policy News=

An End of The Tale of Diep
From the to an entire Discord server; from “Boss Tank” to “Son of Domakav”; the  namespace has officially been retired as development for, or rather, A Tale Where Nothing Matters as it is now called, has officially been moved off-Wiki to. The Tale of Diep has been, and will always be a shining paragon of Fanon pages, as its well-planned ideas, witty compilation, and intriguing concepts have proven, even during the days of DCoW. Since development has been moved elsewhere, the pages on the Wiki are now left behind as a memorial of our former, and all her contributions to the Wiki as a whole. Rest in peace, the Tale of Diep. You shall remain in the hearts of many, and continue to shine as one of the brightest amongst a sea of Fanon.

Promotions and Demotions

 * — Demoted from after resignation.
 * — Promoted to.
 * — Demoted from to  after resignation on Discord.


 * -|Tech News=

Listing Lists to Listeners
A while back, our unordered lists got some nice restyling. More recently, this styling was improved, but now it’s completely overhauled! has created a new stylesheet,, to customize the way they appear. Not only does this restyle our lists, but it also can be easily customized if you dislike what we’ve chosen—see for more details, which you can implement in.

JavaScript offloading
Our configuration (which causes most of the slowness on-site) was  from 19,939 bytes to a mere 2,460 loading on all pages. All told,, hopefully optimizing load times. Only in the, , , , , and Thread s do most (some were uninstalled permanently) of them still load, meaning that on (including the ),  pages, and  pages they will not be slowing down load times since these were all scripts that were not needed in those areas. Lastly, several functions previously handled by JavaScript (such as removing Comment Buttons for anonymous users and hiding Message Walls) were offloaded to be handled by CSS, which is much faster and lightweight. If any bugs are noticed, please report them to a.

JavaScript changelog

 * Tags
 * Our configuration was moved to, by far our biggest JavaScript drain, now loading only in certain namespaces.
 * The Anon Tags function was also moved to Tags.js, and a bug that caused it to crash was fixed.
 * were removed from Interlanguage Administrators, with only Spanish and Chinese Admins retaining them.
 * MVP Tags were merged into VIP Tags.
 * Tags were converted into a, although they still keep their custom colors in honor of their service.
 * Tolerated Alt Tags were discontinued; an archived list can be found at.
 * Edit Farmer Tags were discontinued, and   were forgiven.
 * Styles & scripts that are now namespace-specific
 * DiscussionsLinks.js
 * Installed scripts
 * Uninstalled scripts
 * ( by | JS configuration also removed)
 * (configuration also removed)
 * (configuration also removed)
 * Standalone functions that were removed
 * ( by )
 * (now they can be however users like)
 * Uninstalled scripts
 * ( by | JS configuration also removed)
 * (configuration also removed)
 * (configuration also removed)
 * Standalone functions that were removed
 * ( by )
 * (now they can be however users like)
 * Standalone functions that were removed
 * ( by )
 * (now they can be however users like)
 * (now they can be however users like)

CSS changelog

 * General
 * , Rail Modules, and Tabbers were rounded to match the new WDS buttons post-Global Nav update.
 * Many common styles now use, making theming easier.
 * Remnant Monobook-related code was removed.
 * Relative font sizes were introduced in many areas.
 * Category Galleries were Diepified.
 * pages no longer have borders around them.
 * Infoboxes
 * Template:BaseStats was standardized in width.
 * themes were removed as development has ceased.
 * now also uses CSS Variables.
 * Social areas
 * The sort dropdown was Diepified.
 * Forum Topics (displayed on articles) were Diepified, in addition to Topic buttons in threads.
 * Closed thread warnings were Diepified.
 * Removal of comment buttons for anonymous users was transitioned from JavaScript to CSS.
 * Removal of bot Message Walls was transitioned from JavaScript to CSS.
 * BlogList headers were tweaked.
 * WDS buttons and Modules
 * Most WDS buttons were rounded, matching the Global Nav update WDS buttons.
 * Primary buttons were fixed.
 * A bug where WDS buttons transitioned instantly, instead of gradually, was fixed.
 * became an arrow instead of a button.
 * The configuration link was moved below the Interlanguage Module.
 * The ReferencePopups panel was Diepified.
 * The Hot Spots Module was Diepified, and the feed in general has new icons.
 * Some Rail Modules (namely the content-review module) were given replacement icons.
 * Gadgets
 * Gadgets completely failed for a time, but were restored thanks to.
 * The Scrollbar and WikiaBar Gadgets were updated to use CSS Variables.
 * A plethora of bugs were fixed, including but not limited to:
 * Global Nav being discolored.
 * Search bar in the Global Nav being broken.
 * being broken.
 * being broken.
 * Sign Out Button being broken.
 * links and personal links in general being discolored.
 * Et cetera; although some bugs still remain to be fixed, so report bugs to.

Templates changelog

 * General
 * were cleaned up to remove old Monobook parameters.
 * Less nested should decrease server load.
 * Link Template were also updated.
 * links were fixed and made.
 * The visible in  is no longer collapsed.
 * TOD-theme-related parameters were removed from numerous templates.
 * Infoboxes
 * Fanon Megabox had its /doc and cleaned up; report any bugs to.
 * Infobox/double also had XML cleaned up; again, bug reports appreciated.


 * -|FANDOM News=

Announcements!
FANDOM has released a new feature to unite all of the methods of announcing things to people, ! What a creative name! You may be wondering why it’s “Announcements” and not simply “Announcement”. The format is simple: any moderator can go to the, also accessible from the (which is ironically now available to s as well), and post a simple link to any URL you want (so long as it has a   or   subdomain). However, note that there can only be one Announcement at a time, as these notifications will be visible to all users who have edited the in the past 90 days wherever they are on FANDOM, like Discussions notifications, and more Announcements could overwhelm cross-Wiki users. On the, this feature shall be used to announce new WUs (initially in conjunction with the existing s), only the Announcements shall be seen via the on-site notifications (the bell at the top right of the screen) from now onward. You will continue to be able to see new WUs in the, , and in the right rail as normal; however, eventually Announcements will replace Forum’s Highlight tool, and all other forms of announcements such as Community Messages.

Global Nav Redesign
The Global Navigation has been redesigned to be sleeker and more consistent with current FANDOM branding, with a navy blue background and aqua Rubik text. If it burns your eyeballs, try out one of the many themes on the Dev Wiki, such as which is definitely not made by me and obviously not just shameless self-promotion. Seriously though, if you don’t like the default then check out some of the new themes! There’s more than ever :D
 * Sidenote
 * This update was accompanied with a host of unexpected issues, such as one that made all icons ridiculously large, practically taking up a quarter of the screen. Thanks to however, we got through without a single bug! Huzzah for the !

HTTPS for “Illegal Foreign Aliens”
One last thing of note (wow FANDOM has been busy this summer): is soon to be available for foreign language Wikis! This is good if you visit any non-English wikis, as full security is coming soon. Note that this is only possible with a new URL structure due to the nature of HTTPS support for subdomains, so for example  will become. A small price to pay for your password not being intercepted!


 * -|Opinion Polls=