User blog comment:Jenburton/An Update on Message Wall/@comment-4491280-20110930171142/@comment-44043-20110930173352

What about people who do know how to indent, how much to indent, when to use bullets, where to start new topics and always sign their posts? Sure, this could help user talk pages, but what about article talk pages? To take it one step further, what about people who don't know how to properly set up headings in an article, use templates correctly, or even link to another article. I've seen an entire article use html links and not brackets. Talk about annoying. It shouldn't take a big, huge new feature to correct this. Simple explanation and clear policy would take care of 95%. The other five percent you're going to have no matter what.

You've hit the core of this, though I'm going to change it slightly: Each wiki has their own way of doing things. Before Oasis came online, I could go to ten different wikis and see ten different layouts. If I like something here and something there, I'd integrate that into my wiki. Now, after Oasis, a lot looks the same across the wikis. I think that is why a lot of users are clinging to anything that gives them some kind of adaptability and variety.

So, I hope it is optional.