User blog comment:Dopp/Communicate Easily with Message Wall/@comment-1025281-20110928124310/@comment-33628828-20110928135341

One of the biggest reasons that wikis work is the fact that people need to contribute first, then interact with other editors after that. As a new user on the MLN Wiki two years ago, it seemed like a big place and I had no clue how things worked. However, I could see how people were writing articles, so I joined in on that. Almost all new users start out editing a page in the mainspace as it is.

This change will allow social interaction to be easier, and that isn't necessarily a good thing. These wikis are topic-specific, so if a new user was asking an experienced one a question it is more likely to be about the topic of the wiki, rather than how to contribute. Who knows what this change in precedent would do for the wiki, from new users making their first edit to a talk page rather than a page in the mainspace?

Well, we already get a bit of an idea with this from blogs and article comments. Especially with article comments, new users have their first edit usually commenting on an article. And guess what? Most users keep to the comments. Editing a page, having it conform to policy, having it be written in a similar manner to other pages - these are all hard things. And when a user's first experience on a wiki isn't trying to improve the wiki, from my experience I find that most users just stay out of the mainspace. This is great for a fansite, but these aren't fansites, they are encyclopedias.