User blog comment:Jenburton/An Update on Message Wall/@comment-1142365-20111002154432/@comment-33628828-20111007232625

I would argue that the current requirement of some technical knowledge to post messages on a talk page is a beneficial thing. While all wikis want new users, we want users of some quality too. If we dumb down everything so much that 8 year olds can use it well, then that's exactly what will happen - more younger users will start on the site, and while it does mean that your precious ads get clicked more, it isn't a good thing for large wikis with detailed notability policies, etc. As it is, these social changes do bring in new users, but they also exponentially increase the number of reverts that happen each day, and cause whole new issues. An example of one of these issues is this - back in the day, a user's first edit to a wiki was usually to a content article. My first edit to the My LEGO Network Wiki four years ago was improving a walkthrough. I very quickly learnt what was acceptable and what wasn't, and I was there to make an encyclopedia. These days, people's first edits are to article comments or blogs, and most new users tend to stick with these forms of social media, rather than improve content. Ultimately, I've heard many new users say that they don't work on content because they don't know how to, and from this standpoint, message walls will only hinder and not help this problem.

Beyond that, this is just an example of a reason why a community might not want to enable these. The big issue here is why this isn't being made optional. Many wikis, like Wookiepedia, Brickipedia, the RuneScape Wiki and other large active wikis that still focus on the encyclopedia part might want to retain that focus on the encyclopedia. Considering Wikia is a wiki hosting company, why are they forcing changes on communities that change that?