User blog:JoshuaJSlone/ReferencePopups, UserTags, SocialIcons

Hey guys. Recently I've been checking out some cool things at the Dev Wiki, both to add useful new functions for myself, and for interesting new wiki-wide features. A couple of these I implemented silently recently as I didn't foresee objections, but there's another I've just run across that I think needs a bit more input.

ReferencePopups
This one just makes references a little sexier. Normally you can click on a reference number and are brought down to the list of references where you can check out the source. With ReferencePopups you can just hover your mouse over a reference number, and it will float a little window with the appropriate information. The info window that floats up has a little configuration icon so you can change some of its behaviors, including disabling it altogether if you don't like it.

UserTags
By default when viewing someone's user page on Wikia, you'd see something like Founder, Admin, or... not much else. UserTags allows for more information to be shown. Check the original founder of Hello! Project Wiki and you'll see he now has an Inactive tag next to his name. WonderBuono! isn't just listed as an Admin, but as a Bureaucrat. It's also possible add links to tags--Admin and Bureaucrat tags now link to Hello! Project Wiki:Administrators, for instance.

I still only consider this a half succes, though. I tried several of the listed customization options, but each time I did it seemed to break UserTags altogether. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what--I've posted about my troubles on the [UserTags Talk page], but haven't had replies yet. Things I couldn't get to work:
 * Hiding the Autoconfirmed User tag. Applies to everyone but extremely new editors, so I don't see the point in showing it as a big tag by default.
 * Adding an extra tag. By default it seems to have the Bureaucrat tag override the Admin tag, but since it's technically not a superset (one can be a bureaucrat but not an admin, though it would be weird), I tried to get it to show both Bureaucrat and Admin for WonderBuono!
 * There's an option to allow people to choose languages they know, and rate their fluency 1 to 5. When I tried this it worked and I was able to set myself as a native English speaker--but it made all the other tags disappear, so bleh to that.

SocialIcons
I'm not a fan of news articles that seem to have a dozen icons trying to get people to promote their work all over the Internet, but this seems like a fairly restrained set of options that would encourage sharing links just a little more.

The main thing with this one is I'm not sure what the best settings are. It has a number of size, color, location options. I want it to be inobtrusive, but I don't think any way is perfect. If they're placed at top they'll always be clearly visible when visiting a page, and push down the regular page contents a few pixels. If they're placed at the bottom, though, they show up centered and right above the categories, so it kind of seems MORE like part of the page.

Trying it out a bit elsewhere, I kind of like it at the top with small enough icons. That's using the "color" option rather than the "light" gray option which might blend in a bit better here. For comparison, here's a site where I think they're too noticeable.

Actually... on this front I might be able to do better. I don't understand everything that's going on in the SocialIcons code, but I think I might be able to tweak it a bit so the buttons instead show up someplace like to the left of the page count, or to the right of the Talk link.