Forum:Why do some user names look different?

You may have noticed that suddenly the names of some users are in a different font and color. Why is that? Well, people who edit with us come from a variety of different backgrounds. Some have never edited a wiki before, some are very familiar with wiki editing but not Wikia editing, and still others know the ropes very well because they've spend a lot of time on another Wikia wiki.

But the one thing that's common to all editors is that there comes a point where they need help. Everybody occasionally needs to get in touch with an administrator. It's not particularly obvious to most users how to do that.

By coloring and changing the fonts of certain individuals, we're making it obvious who the administrators and key Wikia staff members are. We're also clearly pointing out the work of bots, so that you know which edits aren't strictly completed by a human. Highlighting bot changes is particularly useful in forum lists, because bot changes are never substantive. Thus, if you see that a bot has changed a forum thread, you know that the last change wasn't significant.

Admin local to this wiki are in purple, Wikia staff who work for Wikia, Inc., are in a shade of barley/brown/gold, and bots are in blue like other users, but in a fantasy or calligraphic font (depending on your computer).

Rest assured that this color scheme isn't meant to make it seem like admin are "more important" than other users. It's just to make it easy for admin to be found. 20:06:13 Sat 16 Jul 2011
 * Mind telling me how you did it? I'd at least like to differentiate all the User: namespaces from the rest of the articles, especially on Special:SpecialPages on a wikia I'm admining. Thanks in advance. --Anime Addict ☎  14:10, October 27, 2012 (UTC)
 * Take a look at MediaWiki:Common.css, searching for the name of any admin. This is one way of achieving the effect, but other wikis take other approaches.  Ours is probably the widest approach, and will affect even tabs on admins' user pages.  17:57: Sun 28 Oct 2012


 * Thanks for the quick reply! I actually like the "wild" approach better, I like the namespaces being differentiated on all pages, especially on Special:SpecialPages. I'll look into it and tell you if I've got it right. Great work with formatting this wiki btw. --Anime Addict ☎  18:12, October 28, 2012 (UTC)