I think the discussions are in pretty alright condition. Harry Potter FANDOM keeps on reaching the most trending FANDOM every now and then, be it wiki wise or discussion wise. It is a pretty big achievement for the local staff and the contributors. And I would like to make this thing very much clear before I give any more input or feeds, that I am here in good faith. I am not targeting any specific individual as long as I don't mention it specifically. This is a feedback from a discussion user who has been observing and taking active part in discussions for more than 3 years.

Discussion board is a place where users interact with each other and enjoy each other's company and most importantly get to talk about stuffs that they are mutually interested in. That makes this to be a social platform for users to interact(not like other social medias). According to the numbers that I see, there are 160K+ users that have joined discussions. HPW was able to provide a platform to so many potterheads is just fascinating.

Thanks to the moderation team that has always shown right path by moderating this wiki. Occasionally they have been really strict and taken the course of discussion board from moderation to dictatorship but those are some honest mistakes that happens due to changing circumstances. The existence of OT(Off-topic post) and Ask a mod post is the proof that the mods want this wiki to thrive not only by discussing potter-verse topics but by interacting with users on other topics as well.

You can already see that the discussion board is in a good place already.

What does it lack? Nothing can be just perfect but it can always be better.

We lack quality posts. What are quality posts? Posts that educate and inform users that Potter-verse is not just about an orphan boy's adolescent life but about an entire universe that is full of magic. This is the problem. What is the solution? Because no lock is made without a key right?

The solution is very much simple. This wiki has some amazing editors that have dedicated their time and knowledge to make this wiki just the way it is meant to be. I would recommend if these editors can occasionally come to the discussion board and make quality posts about articles, I think we will be able to bridge the gap between discussion users and editors. Many wikis have these issues. Some have practically disowned the discussion board.

What type of "quality posts" do I expect from editors? Truth be told there are no proper parameters for "quality posts". Because for a new potter head, quality posts will be (harrypotter.wikia.com/d/p/3258895044706319151) or probably any post from this thread (harrypotter.wikia.com/d/p/3100000000000115211) but that won't be the same for long term users.

My suggestion is that every now and then articles on the wiki need to be edited, need to be improved but they need to be discussed before doing so. Why not discuss them on the discussion board? with users who might have some really great inputs or coding skills or image editing skills. This will be the best way for both type of users to interact, and the best part is, the wiki will benefit a lot from this. Every regular editor who has created at-least one page on HPW can make a post about it and discuss it with users. And the best part will be that those inputs will be verified by many other users. It won't be mandatory for everyone to participate, but once users start enjoying it, there will be more and more volunteers. And I am talking about discussing for updating articles not while adding new ones(for that editors need to fast and furious). If both sides of users in a way depend on each other, I think this wiki thrive and be a better place. In order to make those posts legit and kinda official we can add some special text to the heading of the posts.

example : "HPW article editorial: "

As far as spam-my posts are concerned, they will never go, especially on a platform this big, not even the trolls but that is why we have the moderation team,to help us maintain perfect law and order, with every moderation tools that they could possibly need.

I would also like to make a suggestion specifically for moderation team workings. Some users might disagree with this but being a user I think this would be appropriate and once again this is just a SUGGESTION not a demand.

Mods have rights to ban users. which makes them really powerful as users. Initially when a user was to be banned, a mod would take a complaint to an admin's talk page and lodge a request for ban. This whole process gave them time to evaluate the ban time and reason for ban. In many cases the ban time would reduce from 1 month to 2 weeks giving the user an opportunity to return back and rejoin the wiki with a fresh start. With these new rights that reduction in ban time does not happen and the users ends up getting banned for a very long time period due to which that user is gone forever. This is reducing our count of active and new users on the wiki. Mistakes are made by everyone but they should be given an opportunity.

I would suggest that mods should not be allowed to ban users for more than 2-4 weeks. If users need to be banned for more than 2-4 weeks(the only cases would be trolls. Because such severe ban cannot be for punishing a user. ) then the mod will have to request an admin to do so. If a mod violates this ban system then there should be punishments for them too( because even mods are humans.) Other than that, on a monthly basis any one mod must create a brief report about the bans that took place in that month and reasons behind the ban. They can also add a few lines about the progress of the wiki and what new has been happening. This way the admins will stay in touch with what is happening on the discussion board and will indirectly be involved in moderation works as well(other than the fact admins are already contributing by making some quality posts). If you read this post properly, then you will see that all the demands made by certain user on rights permission page are being fulfilled and it won't be so incontinent for the admins to make these things happen.

Once again this was not an attack on anyone, merely a suggestion. Be wizard enough to take it as one. Please help the author maintain the decorum of this post and not convert the comment area in a battle ground.

Thank you for being so patient to read my feed/ suggestion and apologies for typos.

Edit: upon reading the below reply I recognised a missing point from my suggestion. The discussion post where the page updates are being discussed should be linked at the end of that article.

So Reverb brings up a suggestion I had thought of for a while now, moving some of the Special Pages from the wiki, to the discussions. I was thinking especially of the Wizengamot page, where users can discuss and propose changes to hear what the global community thinks. I'm not sure how editors would initially react to such a change, but I feel like it wouldn't affect all that much as the Wizengamot is already very rarely used. I believe this would be implemented with a "Wizengamot" category.

As for his proposition of moving over more types of articles from the Wiki, I can especially see a problem with moving Talk Pages here. First of all, there is no search option, making it very difficult to find the actual discussion. Alternatively we could maybe have a redirect page that would send us to the discussions page, but that seems pretty useless. I'd only see this be possible with small articles... As we can see with certain talk pages, they tend to span on for quite a long time, which would make it difficult to follow certain discussions, especially as they wouldn't be under any sort of header. Of course it would be possible to create separate posts for every different discussion on a certain article, but that would just create clutter, and once again would be difficult to follow without a search option.

A couple of weeks ago we reintroduced House Debates, discussions that seem to attract Editors as well as recurring users! With our soft rule of linking to be obligatory, we think that this will attract more people towards the actual wiki.

To try and bring the actual wiki together with the discussions, we have to see it in two ways: Do we want Editors to use the discussions more, or do we want users on the d/board to use the wiki more often? These are two vastly different options, and frankly, I'd support the first one: A lot of the users on the discussions are children, often under the age limit, and therefore we can assume (that most) are not experienced enough to be able to discuss wiki related stuff, and/or edit the wiki. The thing is we can't rid the discussions of these users because 1) They should have just as much right to express their thoughts and love for Harry Potter and editors and older/more mature users, and 2) Fandom would rid us of our rights, and start running this site themselves (because of a reduced amount of posts).

I think we as mods, have taken a slightly wrong path in trying to ensure editor activity on here. Instead of trying to rid all low-effort posts, we should instead have created separate categories for them, and instead had editing users use separate categories designed for them. Either for discussing in-universe stuff such as theories or analyses, or just topics concerning the wiki in and of itself.

Integrating the discussions into the wiki as a day-to-day platform for editors will be hard, but I believe, with a little pushing from mods and admins, that it will work. We can always hope right?

I love discussions, and I think there should be more sections and special areas for specific topics, to go along with CosmicChronos and Reverb frost. I also think there should be a tutorial for how to use the app, because when I first got it a while ago I was confused about how to use it.

I love discussions because I get to see other people’s ideas and theories, which opens up my mind too.

All in all, the Harry Potter community is awesome!

Ah.. I see some of what I've written has been discussed. Anyway...

Issues with Discussions Posts which divide rather than connect members.

Discussion posts are Transient- readers seldom go back further than 24 hours, which leads to endless repeat discussions being posted. Editors prefer the ongoing stability of 'Talk' pages over discussion posts and are extremely unlikely to visit Discussions where their thoughts and subject development are lost quickly beneath all the low effort posts. Engagement of editors cannot be forced on this level, despite the obvious value in having them as well HP educated posters in discussions. Even inviting specific editors to discuss their own page creations would be short term and unlikely to build real engagement.

Related Issue with Talk pages: Accessibiliy and visibility- Discussion on Talk pages is by edit only which makes it awkward for mobile/app native members. Visibility of Talk pages is on each related wiki page, but only as part of the desktop interface, which again causes issues for mobile/app users.

Related issue with new user engagement:

There are a staggering number of hits on the HP wikia, and yet an equally staggeringly low retention and engagement rate. These hits are almost exclusively a result of Search Engine search on a particular subject. Only wikia pages appear on these searches- not Talk or Discussion pages relating to the subject at hand. In the vast majority of cases a wikia visitor attains the information they desire and leave. There is no engagement method or call to action on any wikia page.

Possible solution:

Adding a section to popular wikia pages that invites readers to add or discuss the page further.

In this section there should be a permanent link to a well developed discussions post. This raises awareness of the discussions element of the Wikia which is accessable to any form of native user in an easily searchable on topic area with high visibility (The searched for wiki page).

Each 'Talk' page should have a link to the appropriate high quality discussion post. This directs Editors to the most appropriate discussion without requiring them to search back through months of previous posts. This increases the chances an editor might actually see and even be involved in a quality on topic discussion.

Each discussion area can/should also have a link to the appropriate 'Talk' page, raising equal awareness of the editing aspect of the wikia.

Other possible improvement:

Add other post categories (General, Spoilers etc.) to give members maximum flexibility to customise their experience. Currently we only use 6 of a possible 10 areas.

Potential options might include:

FAQ - MODs to add FAQs to this section, making them more visible, accessible and easy to search, including the official 'What's your House thread' for example.

Editor Chat - An area to discuss editing and promote currently popular editing discussions as created above or Talk page awareness

Memes and Fun - Move and post OT, Creativity and all meme and 'Fun' posts here.

New Users! - A place to introduce yourself.

Golden Quill award winners/ Hall of Fame - A home for quality posts as decided by the membership.

House Competition Posts. Make this theming element easy to access and search.

Re: New Discussion areas.

Great customer service is about understanding the needs of your customer

Poor Customer service is bombarding customer with an abundance of information.

To assess the customers goals, key questions need to asked. We currently have no system for that, and just hope new members find their way..

We need a.. Sorting Ceremony..

Currently discussion filters are something members find after some experience.. but what if thet were part of a pre post questionaire..

We already have a pop up welcome message that directs new members to the Guidelines, but is it possible for the Filters to become part of tailoring new members experience in a way that's most appealing to each.

Something along the lines of..

"Welcome to the Harry Potter Wikia Discussions area!

Please tick any area of discussions you'd like to be a part of!

✔ General

✔ Fan Theories

✔ Memes and Games and Polls

❌ Questions and Answers

❌ In Depth Theory Discussion

✔ Editing

✔ MOD Posts (Mandatory or preselected..)

❌FANDOM Staff ONLY

and have their responses auto update their filter options.. thus meeting only a new members needs and not flooding them with areas they find unappealing.

With all new categories and restructuring the old one- we can be all inclusive to all parts of the HP Demographics, provide targetted post areas and reduce over exposure to non target posts.