Thread:JAlbor/@comment-25301601-20131231014037/@comment-16072884-20140101042934

 I've found through experience that visual design catches peoples eyes better than walls of texts, which potentially increases the amount of people who stay on the community and actively contribute. The visual portal would hardly make a difference on people who know a lot about the game, who are the people we'd like to contribute, who also don't need the visual portal to enhance their experience. If they were willing to contribute, they'd be just as willing to if the vertical list was there, maybe even more, since the information they need is laid out right there for them, giving them a better approval of the wiki. How is a bunch of lines with just one or two words per line a "wall of text"? It would certainly seem smaller than the visual portal.

they free up space Once all the characters are confirmed, it will take up more space than it currently does.

 You also create a hypothetical person who is "just looking for a list" and "not wanting to see a gallery". That hypothetical person I just created, someone looking for a straightforward list of all the characters, is the most common type of person to be reading the page.

The gallery is functionally a list, albeit one that moves horizontally instead of vertically. Having it both horizontally and vertically just makes it more difficult to read than if they were all stacked on top of each other in a strictly vertical list.

And yes, in fact, vertical space will be saved with a horizontal format. Vertical space will not be saved once all the characters are revealed and the amount of space taken up increases.

Believe it or not, but the vast majority of gamers, many of those thousands of people who visit this community but never edit, are not as familiar with the characters as you or I. I doubt that anyone reading this seriously wouldn't know anything about the game at all, and most people reading this have played the game a lot, enjoy it a lot, and know a lot about it, or at least who the characters are without looking at the pictures.

'' Regardless, I actually DO think we should cater to minorities if the majority are not inconvenience by a decision. You are still the only one I have heard from that does not like the visual portal.'' The non-vertical list makes it more inconvenient for people to read than the vertical list without the pictures. Quality is also more important than just quantity when deciding things like this.

I haven't heard any good arguments to suggest it will make it harder to explore the site, just that you don't like it because you believe wikia pages should be one way and not another. And I think that wikia pages should be one way and not the other because the other way will make it harder to explore the site.

of the five people (myself included) that have responded to the idea, you are the only one opposed to it. Quality is more important than quantity in deciding stuff like this. Which side is better: the side that can't support their arguments, or the side that can show why their side is the better side? (This is just in general)

user-friendly for those that prefer images over a list of visually similar links Most people who are looking for information would rather have the information flat-out given to them in a list rather than have to dig for it in a bunch of pictures.

When compared to the visual character portal the list of names just looks lazy and bland. A list does not look like absolutely no work was put into it at all, and blandness can be necessary if it makes the text more readable and easier to view.

''Smash is a fighting game. People will be coming to look at the wiki from all corners of the FGC and there are plenty like me that choose characters based on looks, who would find the visual character portal to save time immensely.'' That's another extremely situational event; why would anyone who plays a fighting choose their character by looking here when they could just play the game themselves and look there, with the added bonus of seeing a character's moveset and how they work in-game?