User blog comment:Kirkburn/Introducing the Community Page - a hub for community info/@comment-5645428-20160818125230

Our wiki has had the Community Portal page serve the same purpose that Special:Community seems intended to replace in practice. Advantages of Special:Community is that it provides new modules and data that is essential information for users who may be interested in the latest activity, most active users and a list of staff members. Disadvantages of its design is that it lacks customisation and for some wikis, what information it provides may not be in the interest of their management to display to users.

I find the creation of such a page a well founded concept, but in this instance, it is poorly executed. Special pages display data and facilitate wiki configuration. Here, a special page is being treated as a pre-coded Project page. It will never be able to be used effectively by wikis if its ability to be customised is limited, meanwhile, possibly unwanted information is forced on it instead. I highly doubt Special:Community will evolve much from its current state, not unless radical changes are made. I predict it will become an infrequently used feature, yet, one that had potential.

The idea for using a special page in this way should be dropped altogether. However, every module should be converted into an insertable tag that can be used on articles the same way that the chat module, the forum module and the Special:WikiActivity feed are right now. They can be used on the main page or Project pages very effectively, as could the Special:Community modules. This would offer much more freedom of use which, if organised in an accessible manner, would quickly be adopted by wiki managers who know how best to present content to their viewers.