User blog:Peteparker/Message Wall - It's here!

Hi everyone!

We’re ready to begin the testing on the Message Wall, and we are one of the first wikis to try it out. In case you're not aware of it, Message Wall is a new user-to-user communication feature, intending to replace the User Talk pages. You can go check out your new Message Wall on your profile now! (Your old User Talk page has been archived; there’s a link to the archive at the bottom of your Message Wall.)

During this test, Wikia's Staff are really interested in how you use this feature, what works for you, and what doesn’t. They'll be watching activity and feedback closely both in the comments below as well as on their latest community blog post, so keep them posted on how much you love it!

Please keep in mind that the feature is still in development, so there may be some bugs. Heads up, they've let us know about a few things that aren’t quite done yet:


 * You can't follow a whole wall yet; you can only follow specific threads.
 * Wiki Activity shows the thread title, but it doesn't say whose wall the thread is on yet.
 * Recent Changes and Contributions pages aren't as tidy as they should be; these will be cleaned up soon.
 * Emails
 * You only get the URL — not the thread title
 * You get an email for every new message and reply – but we don't give you the actual content yet. (When it’s finished, you’ll get the full message in e-mail.)
 * Workaround: if this is bothering you, you can disable emails from Wall posts on "Followed pages" in Preferences. It will be better soon, though.
 * A lot of our system messages still say "Talk" instead of "Wall"
 * View Source fails on archived talk page (Note: this is a site-wide bug, not related to Message Wall.)
 * Blocked users can’t post messages -- but right now there isn’t an error message for them. We’ll build a warning message or close the fields.
 * The welcome bot still posts messages on archived user talk pages. We’ll be turning this off for our test wikis for the time being.
 * Anons don't get notifications yet.
 * Monobook users can't delete threads or messages yet. (Workaround in the meantime: add ?useskin=wikia to your URL to access the page temporarily without Monobook)
 * You can't link to a specific reply and have it scroll to the appropriate place.
 * When a page is unfollowed or deleted, it still appears in your notifications drop-down. Deleted messages stay "unread" until you click "Mark all as read". This will work better soon.
 * We plan to auto-suggest links while you’re typing, but this isn’t live yet.
 * Handmade links to the Message Wall appear as red. The link still functions, though.
 * There are no cross-wiki notifications for the Message Wall yet. Be sure to visit your other wikis during this test phase to check for new messages.
 * No thread history. Timestamps don't update to reflect edits either.
 * Managing deleted threads is complicated and messy. We'll make it smoother.

These things will be finished and improved over the next couple of weeks, and hopefully they won’t be too annoying in the meantime. If something about the system is really bugging you, please let them know. They're also tracking this list at Community Central, and will be updating that page regularly, so check it often if you’re curious about feedback from across Wikia, known issues, and latest progress.

However, the absolute best place to leave feedback is in the comments below.

As usual, thanks for all of your help and patience on this project, on behalf of myself, the admins here, and Wikia Staff, we're looking forward to your feedback! :)

&mdash; Nathan (Peteparker) (Earth-1218) (talk &bull; contribs &bull; email) 16:58, October 5, 2011 (UTC)