Board Thread:Support Requests - Community Management/@comment-3417079-20150626034226/@comment-3417079-20150711084103

DEmersonJMFM wrote: Bruce A wrote:

Ideally you want to actually go beyond that and have a nice preview sample like:

> Hi, thanks for editing Tournaments.

It would make it clear that's just an example, and would instead show the page name for whatever they edited. But that preview would be nice. Unless you can predict the future, you will never have this kind of preview. The message is generated after the first edit is made. You can't have a real preview of the message when the events haven't occurred yet.

Wikia spends time creating help pages for all features (including the welcome messages). These variables require very little advanced coding knowledge, as I said before, they are simple parameters filled internally. So, I'd like to leave this issue be, heh, but I'll just clarify what I meant before I do:


 * I've seen the exact type of preview I mention elsewhere (I don't remember where; I use lots of software). It's not about predicting the future--it's about pulling a random page that matches the variable and showing it as an example so people can grok in their mind what it would look like when someone edits a page and gets that message.


 * Time spent on help pages doesn't mean they should exist. Manuals and explanations are, for the most part, a sign that things weren't designed as well as they could have been. It should "just work" and be simple and intuitive already. I'm not saying "the design is terrible!!!111" or that manuals and explanations are bad, but if you can have no manual and no explanations because things are so simple and intuitive, great.
 * God of War 2 (game), for example, had almost no need for a manual because of how well it was designed. Everything just made sense and felt right. Few games reach that level of intuitiveness. It did because they intentionally designed for it and playtested the game like crazy.
 * Another example: creating templates on Wikia is much harder than it needs to be. There could just be a template gallery of already made templates that you can pick and choose from, and easily edit--similar to how wordpress has plugins and skins, rather than requiring people to code.