User blog:SusannahWithAnH/Wikia Features

Hi, my username's *Ginny* and my real first name's Susannah, but you can call me Ginny ... everybody else does. I'm one of two admins on this wiki. I tend to make bigger changes on this wiki, usually images, templates, page formatting, categories and general mechanics, the behind-the-scenes jobs. This blog post is for everybody to read and reply to if they want to, not just for LilyLacreag.

All right, so my topic is this. There's a section on the Admin Dashboard called Wiki Features; if you're an admin on any wiki at all you'll know what I'm talking about. Wiki Features gives admins the option to customise and basically add new features to this wiki. All of them are completely optional, and I'd love to hear your opinion of them. Here they are in a nutshell:

Polls
Current status: Activated

Summary: ''Allow anyone on your wiki to create a poll! With Polls enabled your users can use the poll tag to add this neat feature to any page. This feature is a great way to increase contribution on your wiki.''

My comments: Well, considering we have a poll up on the main page, it seems a bit silly to get rid of this. Thoughts?

My vote: Keep activated

Blogs
Current status: Activated

Summary: Blogs allow users on your wiki to create their own blog posts on their profile page and can also be used as a great way to communicate news and events to your wiki community.

My comments: Well, we seem to have gotten good use out of this, and I'm happy with it (don't know about anybody else of course), so I see no reason to change anything here.

My vote: Keep activated

Article Comments
Current status: Deactivated

Summary: '' This extension will let people write comments at the bottom of article pages. Other users can reply to the comments, and signatures and timestamps are automatically assigned. This will replace talk pages on your wiki.''

My comments: I don't like this one, mainly because it replaces talk pages, which I love and think are really important for discussions or explanations. Also, comments can get out of hand if there's somebody out there spamming by adding hundreds of comments. Talk pages are easier to clear, whereas comments have to be deleted one by one.

My vote: Leave deactivated

Category Exhibition
Current status: Activated (trialling)

Summary: 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 comments: Sounds OK. Nothing wrong with it as far as I can see, and it is also rather versatile as it gives you different ways of sorting pages, including using the old format.

My vote: Leave activated

Message Wall
Current status: Activated

Summary: ''Communicating with the contributors on your wiki is an essential part of building and maintaining your community. The Message Wall uses a threaded conversation format and notification system that lets you control which conversations you're interested in following. No more missed messages!''

My comments: Just my preference, but I prefer talk pages, for similar reasons to what I said in the Article Comments section.

My vote: Deactivate

Forum
Current status: Activated (trialling)

Summary: ''Stay on top of every discussion on your wiki by utilizing Wikia's new Forums. Attract new people to participate in conversations about your wiki's content, and keep dedicated wiki editors efficient and engaged with all of the current topics.''

My comments: I like this because you can start discussions about particular topics, which are then linked on the topic page, near the bottom. So, if there is news about a new TV series or something, the forum thread will show up at the bottom of that page.

My vote: Leave activated

Chat
Current status: Activated

Summary: ''Instantaneously communicate with other people who love your wiki and your wiki's topic as much as you do! Anyone with a Wikia account can join chat via the "Join the Chat" button in the right navigational area of your site.''

My comments: Well, we've never actually used this as far as I can tell, so I've got no opinion. I can't find anything wrong with it and well, if anyone wants to use it, there it is.

My vote: Leave activated

Top Ten Lists
Current status: Activated

Summary: ''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 comments: I find this one pretty pointless, actually. I mean, I checked it out and we have polls for this kind of stuff. (Speaking of which, I changed the poll on the main page, if you didn't notice.) And we don't use this feature much, if at all.

My vote: Deactivate

Achievements
Current status: Activated

Summary: ''Achievements will help your wiki to grow by incentivizing editors to contribute a variety of content. You can create your own challenges that are unique to your wiki, and even upload your own images for the badges.''

My comments: Well, this one seems to have worked pretty well so far, and there aren't any immediate drawbacks (except people might do lots of spam editing so they can get more badges). We haven't had any troubles with it, though, and I think it's cool.

My vote: Leave activated

That's it. Please remember that you are, of course, entitled to your own opinion -- you're allowed to disagree with my choices! Do reply, please, and let me know your thoughts. *Ginny* leave a message 01:41, January 31, 2013 (UTC)