Forum:Wikia features

So now that I have gained admin status, I wanted to float to the community the idea of possibly enabling some additional Wikia features. These are features that are available to any Wikia wiki, but which are optional. The features we can add include:

Article comments: Users may post comments at the bottom of an article. Essentially replaces talk pages, though talk pages can still be created manually if desired.

My thoughts: Meh. I have this enabled on Eternal Sonata Wiki and it may work for some wikis, but talk pages are so established here, and this really just seems like a magnet for off-topic comment trouble on a wiki that receives as many hits as this one.

My vote: Leave disabled

Category Exhibition: "The most popular eight pages in your categories are already displayed as images, but this feature will list all of your pages as image links sortable by name, recency, or popularity!"

My thoughts: I tried this on the Eternal Sonata Wiki, but the lack of pictures on many of the pages at the time I tried it meant that it didn't work well at all. It might be worth trying here, but I have no strong feelings about it.

My vote: No opinion

Message Wall: Messages to other users are posted on a new threaded Message Wall system and users can receive alerts of new messages within a thread and e-mailed notifications of responses.

My thoughts: This is a good feature that has been enabled on a lot of wikis, but it seems to me it may be problematic on a wiki that has long established talk pages. Existing talk pages would be moved to an archive and replaced with this.

My vote: Weak leave disabled

Top Ten Lists: "Top 10 Lists allow anyone on your wiki to create a votable list. If you're looking for a great way to get junior editors to interact with the wiki, this is it! Enabling this feature will add "Top 10 List" as an option when you click 'Add a Page'"

My thoughts: Meh eh...

My vote: Leave disabled

Achievements: Commonly referred to colloquially as Badges. Users are rewarded for certain editing achievements with emblems that appear on their userpage. Badges can be customized with both unique names and images.

My thoughts: The general argument against this is that it encourages spam editing and editing for the sole purpose of getting badges. However, since I enabled it on Eternal Sonata Wiki, I haven't noticed any uptick in vandalism, but then again, I've never really noticed any vandalism at all. On the other hand, I find that the badges for editing once a day encourage me to pop in at least once a day even if I'm busy, thus keeping at least some activity going on the wiki as far as fresh content goes. In any case, Badges aren't granted to unregistered members anyway, which is where a lot of the spam and vandal edits come from.

My vote: Enable and customize

ProfessorTofty (talk) 00:51, October 20, 2012 (UTC)