<p>I meant to say "negatively impacting" in my previous comment. The introduction of Featured Videos, the reduction of ads, and the improvements in page performance have had a positive impact, with users spending more time on the site and reading more pages on any given visit. </p><p>Like I said you can provide feedback on the product itself and how it works via Special:Contact, but beyond that this is a global feature so it's not something that can be opted out of. You are welcome to participate in the script review or script writing process. </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>Brandon Rhea wrote: Like I said you can provide feedback on the product itself and how it works via Special:Contact, but beyond that this is a global feature so it's not something that can be opted out of. You are welcome to participate in the script review or script writing process. </p> </i></div>
<p>This pretty much sums up most features of Wikia. "A global feature we're gonna put here whether you hate it or not". We can complain here all we like about it, but we have no voice or opinion on opting out of this feature, and all we can do is give feedback about adding something we do not want. Don't get me wrong, some features have been ok, but the vast majority generally fall into either: </p>

1. Something horrifically bad that just goes against all normal internet design principles
2. A feature that often results in 99% shitposting, toxicity, hate speech and nonsense spam from "community members"
3. A feature that is backwards to an existing feature and entirely redundant that gets removed within a year or two.

<p>I don't know why Wikia bothers telling communities "we are planning on testing this feature and we want your feedback", because really it's just "we're telling you what we're doing with your community and we don't care if you hate it, because it's going to be put on the wiki even if you all object profusely to its addition". </p><p>Brandon, you can see here that everyone who has posted DOES NOT WANT this feature to be put on this wiki. Why are you insistent on forcing it on the community when it's not wanted? I feel like every single editor here should stop editing the site, or visiting it, in order to demonstrate a point against how totally pointless and awful this feature is, but I know people will still visit it any way and tick your pointless boxes of "this is a success on metrics". </p><p>I've been a member of Wikia since 2009 or so. Every single awful change that has been made in the last 9 years has followed exactly the same outcome as this thread. Nothing whatsoever has changed in a decade, and I don't see Wikia caring to change their practices about how they add new features any time soon. </p><p>My two cents, no matter how harsh they might be. </p>

<p>Featured Videos are a global feature with global implications across the entire site. Without Featured Videos, we would not have been able to improve the ad layout on FANDOM or make the resulting improvements to page performance. Because of that, it's not something we can offer exceptions or opt-outs to. If you prefer the previous site experience, which included more ads and longer page load times, then that's fine, but the previous status quo was not in the long-term health of FANDOM and its communities and it's not an experience that we will be returning to. </p><p>I'm happy to answer specific product-related questions moving forward in this thread, but beyond that my recommendation in regards to content concerns would be for the community to discuss whether or not it wants to participate in script review or script submissions. </p>

<p>Looks like "RANDOM" is back at it again. Ready to implement yet another, otherwise, useless feature. It is pretty clear that when "RANDOM" says they are testing out something, it means that they are going to do it (at least in my experience). There is no reason to dispute about it because "RANDOM" won't listen. They hear, but don't listen. They'll do what they think is best without consensus to us, the actual wiki editors. It's whatever I guess. </p>

<p>well, if we can do nothing to stop it, can we do something to better it? </p>

<p>I'm going to try and stay positive about this, and not reply to you @Brandon Rhea with the same, repetitive frustration: </p><p>I am aware that we can do nothing to prevent this feature of yours from being implemented into FANDOM (rightfully so, it's not our property, there's really no point fighting it), but CAN WE, as a community who has been active for 10+ years now, refuse to have the test of this new feature of yours take place on Narutopedia? </p><p>Because if we cannot, then this entire thread is a sham and you are wasting our time... </p>

<p>@berserker unfortunately, thats also true. </p>

<p>The test isn't something that can be opted out of. Narutopedia is one of several communities the test is running on so we can gather enough user interaction and engagement data to inform our decision about what our next steps should be in developing this feature. The test will show us what works, what doesn't work, if any changes should be made to functionality, and so forth. </p><p>That test is scheduled to end next Monday, May 7th, at which point the Recommended Videos test module will be removed. However a new module will eventually return if we decide to move ahead with building this test version into an actual feature. </p>

so there is nothing we can do just to at least change to our simplest needs?

<div class="quote"><i> <p>Brandon Rhea wrote: The test isn't something that can be opted out of. </p> </i></div>
<p>Then stop wasting our time! People have the right to be upset, so it seems. </p><p>Your conceited notion of "help us help you" isn't fooling anyone, and this thread serves no purpose other than to give false satisfactions to people by making it seem that we had a choice in the matter... </p><p>A mod should just close this thread, there's no point to it anymore... </p>