Forum:New features on Wednesday, March 18th

Hi everyone! We have three new features that we're excited to be releasing tomorrow, and I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up with some information about them all. In addition to enabling video thumbnail previews in the Rich Text editor, tomorrow morning, we will be releasing the Wikia Welcome Tool, Category Select, and more Edit Page Enhancements.

Wikia Welcome Tool
Welcoming new contributors is a really important task on a wiki. When a new person shows up to help, we want to make sure that they feel appreciated, and connected to the community. Some wiki communities work really hard to make sure that every new contributor gets a welcome. Unfortunately, it's also a big chore, and there are a lot of communities where it doesn't happen.

Wikia has developed a new feature that will make the welcoming process a lot easier -- the Welcome tool! It's an automatic process that will welcome every new contributor, leaving a welcome message that the community can customize.

When a contributor makes their first edit, the Wikia Welcome tool leaves a talk page message for them, and creates a user page.

Hi, welcome to (Wiki Name)! Thanks for your edit to the Article title page.

Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- (signature)

The talk page message is signed by the admin (or Wikia staff member) who's edited the wiki most recently, to help the contributor find someone who's available to talk to them if they need it. The message is left one minute after the contributor's edit, so they'll get the message while they're still on the wiki.

We've been testing this on a dozen wikis over the last week, and the results have been really positive. On the test wikis, new contributors have been responding to the messages, reaching out to admins with questions. It's helping to create connections between contributors and admins, opening up the opportunity for conversations and collaborations.

There seems to be a real advantage to this method, even for communities that currently do their own welcomes. A welcome message left by a person can happen hours later, when the contributor isn't there anymore. Automating the welcomes accomplishes the same goal, but it's a lot faster, and active contributors don't have to spend time on a routine task.

Each wiki can still have its own specialized welcomes. The whole system is completely customizable by the admins, by editing the following pages:


 * MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user is the welcome message that's left for logged-in contributors.
 * MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon is the welcome message that's left for anonymous contributors.
 * MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page is the user page that's created for logged-in contributors.
 * MediaWiki:Welcome-user -- You can use this page to change the signature that's left in the welcome message, or to turn the feature off. There are three settings for this page:
 * @latest -- This is the default setting. This means that the message will be signed by the latest admin to make an edit on the wiki.
 * Username -- If you replace @latest with a contributor's username, then all of the messages will be signed by that contributor.
 * @disabled -- This turns the feature off, so nobody gets a welcome message. If you turn it off, you can turn it back on again by replacing this with @latest or a username.
 * MediaWiki:Welcome-message-log is the edit summary that the tool uses when it is leaving messages.

Because the new welcome tool has not yet been translated to other languages, we are only releasing it to English-language wikis for now. If you have any questions about the Wikia Welcome tool, please contact a staff member for help.


 * Great work, staff! — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It states that these get added a minute after the contribution. Are they in the job queue or something, as we have seen one on MA this am, and it took 51 minutes to get added.  There have been a few anon users that have edited since then, and no automated welcome. -- sulfur 13:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it goes in to a job queue. Right now things are backed up a little over 2 hours.  We're working to speed things up now. --KyleH (talk) 15:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there a way to disable the welcome message for only one group? E.g. is it possible for a wiki to have an automated welcome message for new logged-in users, but disable the message for anonymous contributors? --Fritzophrenic 19:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We're working on adding that feature in soon. I should be able to provide more information on this tomorrow. --KyleH (talk) 19:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a slight problem with this tool: it welcomes ANYONE. So if the user vandalized, it would say thank you for your edit. Not a very good thing... GB 04:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Welcoming a vandal won't change their behavior in any measurable way. You're going to block the vandal anyway. On the other hand, welcoming a good contributor has obvious positive benefits.


 * If you treat every new contributor like a potential vandal, then you risk driving away the good people. You can create the kind of community that you want by treating every new contributor like a new friend. Vandals are a dime a dozen, and they're easy to block. Good new contributors are gold. You should treasure them. -- Danny (talk ) 04:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. It'd be much better if it is possible to hide 'auto' welcome messages in 'Recent changes' page. (Or putting a bot edit flag.) The function itself is nice. Thanks - 60.39.102.165 04:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC).


 * Yeah, we've got that feedback from a bunch of people. We'll have some news about tweaks to the feature tomorrow; we're hoping to add the additional customization that people want. Stay tuned for more news. -- Danny (talk ) 05:12, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would not like these auto-welcome edits by "Wikia" to be completely hidden in recent changes. Marking them as "minor edits" and letting the filter for minor edits hide or reveal them would be OK. I used to rely on the red talk links to pick out new contributors and simultaneously greet them as well as take a look at whatever change they made on whichever page. I am grateful for the auto-welcome message but would still like an easy method to search the recent changes list (e.g. for that username "Wikia") to do spot checks on changes by such newcomers so as to remain vigilant for vandals. najevi 05:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I test this feature--88.113.38.202 18:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's Working!--88.113.38.202 18:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Category Select
On Wednesday, we're also releasing a new Category Select tool site-wide. Using this tool, you'll be able to add categories to pages in two new ways:


 * 1) From the article itself: At the bottom of each article there is a new "Add Category " button, this allows users to add categories to any article without going into full edit mode.
 * 2) From a new category section in edit mode: While in edit mode there is now a separate box for categories which allows you to add categories by simply typing their name and clicking enter without wikitext.

You can still access the raw category wikitext by clicking on the code view link in the right side of the category section. If you would prefer to disable Category Select altogether, you can do so within the Editing tab of your personal preferences and checking the "Disable Category tagging" option. For more detail about this feature, please see the help page.


 * Is there any way to have this give a list of categories that match or something similar? It doesn't appear to do that now. -- sulfur 13:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To do that it would have to have a way of knowing what you're thinking. The best solution is just using simply-named or easy-to-remember categories.  // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 13:43, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We have simply named categories, I was more thinking in the same style as the "Search Wikia" dropdown thing works. You'd type the first two or three letters, and it would then list them.  After all, in some wikis, the words may be a bit odd, especially when the wiki is either Fantasy or SF based. -- sulfur 13:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * But it's working like that now. Type a letter and wait 0.5s for dropdown. --Marooned 13:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * edit conflict: There already is something like that. I use it all the time. Here's how to make sure you have it turned on: in Preferences, under Editing, make sure that "Do not show link suggest" is not checked. // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 13:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, never mind then. It was taking longer than a half-second or so for anything to drop down, so I figured that it wasn't exactly working.  Heh.  My bad. :) -- sulfur 14:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, I just wanted to congratulate you guys at Wikia for adding this tool! Not only is it useful for every user, but it is really useful for new users, as they don't have to type out all the (talk) 19:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, only a little more useful than the one-click edit tool that should appear below the edit box. But for those of us who have difficulty scrolling at times, that's a distinct bonus. Some of us, however, have managed to add a "category" button above the edit box, usually quicker still. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit page enhancements
After taking in some of the feedback that you provided, we're also releasing a modified version of the edit page enhancements that went out last week. Here is how the edit page on Monaco will change for wikis that do not have the Rich Text editor enabled: These changes will not affect Monobook. If you would like to tweak how these changes display on your wiki, you can find out more information about doing so here.
 * In order to make more room for the edit window, the site notice, wiki tagline, and talk page message notification are not displayed on the edit page. Additionally, the size of the page title has been reduced (rather than eliminated, as it was before).
 * A bar at the top of the preview window now displays with a bright red background to make it clear that the edit has not yet been saved.
 * The "Show changes" button on the edit screen has been restyled to look more like a link. We found that a number of users were accidentally clicking it instead of the "Save page" button.


 * All looks good. I was missing the page title when giving categories parent categories, because a dragged copy of the page title is often the best starter line. On point about the "edit not saved" notice - above the preview is the best place for it, but it should say "scroll up or down" rather than "scroll down" so as to be correct for people who have the edit box above the preview. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 04:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the fix to the "Show Changes" button. I was constantly clicking on it, because it was in pretty much the same place as where Wikipedia has the "Save Page" button. — Young Ned (talk) 04:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

More Information
If you have questions or comments or need help with any of these features, please contact a Wikia staff member. Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 22:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I've got a
question. If we leave a template at MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page, will the template be placed? And also if we want the signature to be inside at table how do we place it? &mdash; 22:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Templates are supported; however, please use subst: on your templates wherever practical for performance reasons. MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page is the user page that is created (eg: User:KyleH), and it doesn't accept any parameters.  MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon are the User talk pages (eg: User_talk:KyleH) that are created, and they do support 3 parameters: $1 is the first page that the user edited, $2 is the talk page link of the user signing the page, and $3 is the signature of the user signing the page (this only supports the standard MediaWiki signature though; if you want something more complex, you'll probably have to manually enter a signature here).  To enclose the signature in a table, edit the Welcome-message pages and put $3 where you want the signature to appear. --KyleH (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Is this fine? Or do we have to put brackets around $3 and $2? &mdash; [[Image:BalisticSig.png]] 23:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Just putting $3 should be fine, without the $2. $3 will add your whole signature, so if you've got the talk page link in your sig, that'll appear.
 * Since I see people already customizing, here's the default code for MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user:
 * Hi, welcome to ! Thanks for your edit to the $1 page.
 * Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! $3
 * $1 is replaced by the name of the page that the contributor edited. $2 is replaced by User talk:Admin-name. $3 is replaced by the admin's signature. -- Danny (talk ) 23:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to have the "SUBST:" effect on talk pages created, but have the MediaWiki pages still update when the welcome templates do? // masterConjurer ( Talk ) 00:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there's a trick to it: You need to create the MediaWiki message BEFORE you create the template (or delete/temporarily rename the template before creating the message).  If you do that, MediaWiki won't process the subst: until it is actually placed on a user/talk page. --KyleH (talk) 00:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * And then if you update the message it'll break because it'll actually subst it. I think the real solution is to know if the trick we've always been using is compatible with the message. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic)  Mar 18, 2009 @ 01:36 (UTC)
 * I had assumed that templating tricks would not work, but if they do, my night will be easier. I personally have not checked yet.  // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 01:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point.  appears to work. --KyleH (talk) 02:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Will you be adding parameters to the User page soon (MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page)? And can you make one that is the user's name? That functionality is useful for creating user specific links for the new user. Example:  &mdash; JeiaraTalk 16:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * should be the same as the username, so  should work just fine.  That makes the code a little bit ugly ... you should also be able to use the subst: hack from above to make it a little bit cleaner when it is eventually output (eg.  )  (I haven't, however, tested this myself.) --KyleH (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Category Tag question
Has this bug and its update been corrected for monobook, is it going to be disable for monobook ? --
 * CategorySelect is now only enabled for Monaco. --KyleH (talk) 23:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Two Questions
I have two questions.

Welcome
We at the Club Penguin and Club Penguin Fan Fiction wikis take pride in manuall adding Template:Welc to every page by hand. Is there a way to disable the Automatic Welcome so that we can continue our proud tradition of maintining welcome articles? —This unsigned comment is by TurtleShroom (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ! 00:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Look up. If you add @disabled to MediaWiki:Welcome-user then it will be disabled. &mdash; [[Image:BalisticSig.png]] 00:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

MonoBook?
How many of your nifty new features will be available on good old MonoBook? Some of us still use it, and it would be very eaningful to use it there. MonoBook needs to be updated too! Don't leave it in the dust! —This unsigned comment is by TurtleShroom (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ! 00:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We support Monobook for users who prefer the familiar editing environment that it provides, and we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Because we are committed to providing that familiar editing interface through Monobook, we are not releasing any new features for it.  If you want to try out the new features, I encourage you to give Monaco another shot. --KyleH (talk) 01:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I support not modifying Monobook this way. -- ◄mendel► 21:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Second - old school monobook is the best RT  22:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Timestamp
Is it possible for the welcome message to include a current timestamp ? Some users see an early welcome date as a sign of honor or something. // masterConjurer ( Talk ) 00:40, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The signature used in MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon ("$3" parameter) includes a timestamp for the time it was left. It isn't possible to leave a timestamp without a signature though.  (At least I think it isn't; it may be possible to fake it using magic words and parser tags or something of that nature.) --KyleH (talk) 01:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there someone who would know if and how it could be faked? // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 01:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To leave a timestamp, use five tildes like so: 02:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC) See? Orngjce223 02:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That is very much not what this conversation was about. // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 02:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The word "current" is ambiguous as to whether you are looking for the timestamp of when the welcome tool left the message, or of the timestamp when the user is viewing the page., 2024 August/27.  I am not sure whether the "honor" is something you want to make use of to make users feel cooler, or something you wish to discourage to better preach equality. -Afker All hail AliceSoft! 02:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I mean when the tool leaves the message. // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 03:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * subst: the date magic words? -- ◄mendel► 21:31, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Welcome-user
Is there a setting that disables the signature without disabling the entire tool? // masterConjurer ( Talk ) 00:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yup, just remove the $3 parameter from MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon. --KyleH (talk) 01:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Editor Size
This is about the making of more room for the editor. I find that the editor is already too tall. In order to more easily research the subjects of my edits I often stack windows. Is there any chance that there will someday be an option to shrink it so that I won't need to operate two scroll bars just to see the entire edit? // masterConjurer ( Talk ) 04:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Have you checked your preferences and tried all the editing options? I use one that restricts to a nominated number of lines - though recently there have been some funny goings-on. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Depending of how this preference are set, Monaco doesn't fully respect preference settings --

Star Wars Fanon
I'm not exactly sure how this works, but are the changes I made to w:c:swfanon:MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user, w:c:swfanon:MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon‎, and w:c:swfanon:MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page‎ fine? --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 13:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yup, all of those edits look good to me. --KyleH (talk) 15:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

writable staff members
If you have any questions about the Wikia Welcome tool, please write a Wikia staff member. Wish I had known that were possible before, hoooooow?
 * Special:Contact is your best bet--that goes directly to staff members. --KyleH (talk) 15:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The goal is to show new contributors that there's a community on the wiki -- and to help connect them to admins, so they know where to go if they have questions. Won't this be applied even if there isn't a community, and that new editor is a lone contributor there?
 * Yes, this is the case. In many of these situations, however, the most recently active person is a staff member or helper, and putting them in contact with a staff member still helps them out.  Even in situations where the message is signed by an inactive admin, if the user leaves a message on that user's talk page, they'll probably get an email ... perhaps it will even prompt them to return. :) --KyleH (talk) 15:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

@latest Isn't working here... A problem I have with it is how it welcomes vandals, we don't want to make them 'feel welcome'... -- Sixorish 14:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC) I just kicked the tyres on this auto-welcome message feature and I love it. Thank you! najevi 02:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * @latest will only have an effect if $2 and/or $3 are in your MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and/or MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon messages--it replaces the signature and talk page links with those of the most recently active admins. You haven't included those parameters in your messages, so the only effect that @latest has is leaving the tool itself enabled.  Regarding vandals, that is a side effect of this tool, but I don't believe that these welcomes will substantially change their behavior, and I believe that the benefits that we have seen on wikis that do welcomes far outweigh the effects it might have on potential vandals. --KyleH (talk) 15:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Leaving a standard welcome message for a vandal and then optionally appending a polite note explaining whatever temporary ban may have been issued is a decent way of turning a vandal into a productive contributor.

Welcome-User help
I have simple question about this new tool. We currently only want it to welcome new users who have signed up for an account, not IP's. Am I able to place "@disabled" in MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon to have it not welcome them, or will it simply welcome them with "@disabled"? Also, can we do the same under MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page so it will not create a page for them? 19:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I would like that too. The system doesn't tell vandals and trolls apart from honest contributors, and it makes us look like idiots when it welcomes IPs that have vandalized a wiki and signs the message with our name. ―  T hailog  20:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I second this suggestion. Our policy is NOT to have user pages for IP users. --Lirielle 06:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I too do not think it should be thanking people whose contributions have not been examined. Two of the first four uses on Genealogy were thanking vandals. I don't mind giving them a qualified welcome, but thanks are not appropriate. Here's what I've changed to, on Genealogy:
 * User: Hello, and welcome to Familypedia, the Genealogy wiki! We volunteers hope you can continue making contributions to articles and/or discussion and other improvements. ...
 * Anon: Hi, we are pleased that you have found our Genealogy Wikia! It is unlikely that anyone has looked at your edit to the $1 page yet, but someone will. ...

— Robin Patterson (Talk) 11:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit summary
Perhaps a site specific welcome summary could be part of the customization. Perhaps MediaWiki:Welcome-user-summary. Some communities might have a more appropriate or, say themed, summary than a generic "welcoming new contributor" -- 21:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As you found out, it looks like this is already possible. You can edit MediaWiki:Welcome-message-log to adjust the edit summary. --KyleH (talk) 01:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Bug Fixes?
To be honest, I'm slightly irked new features are being released when other features have bugs that need fixing. What's the status of these? --LordTBT Talk! 19:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * With respect to video games, it's usually two different groups of people working on it. One fixes bugs, one makes new bugs. :) I suspect there is a divide at Wikia as well, though I wouldn't know if people cross it/it's a small divide... --Sky (talk) 23:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * We have a multi-talented tech team who make fun new stuff and fix bugs all the time :) As long as bugs get reported, we'll keep working on fixing them. 18:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

New user userpage
How do we turn this off completely? Admin consensus on Wookieepedia is that redlink userpages for new users in the recent changes are more useful than a generic template. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 20:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the Narutopedia awhile ago reached concensus to create a policy on limiting the use of userpages. We had so much userpage spam coming from users who never helped out (and even worse sometimes acted hostile towards the real contributors) that the community decided to delete irrelevant, and personal profile type userpages not relevant to the user being an editor. I'm experimenting to see if setting it to the standard "-" disables it. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Mar 18, 2009 @ 20:39 (UTC) (nope doesn't)
 * I'm also going to agree here. Some people just don't use their user page, they don't fill it with anything, but they're still good contributors, having this feature seems to be foisting it on people who might not ever want it. --Tangerineduel 14:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

See the next section for an update 19:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Updates
Hey all, thanks for all the feedback! I just wanted to provide you with a quick status update about where things are going. The majority of requests that we have received have been asking for one of two things: Both of these seem like pretty reasonable requests, and we're working with our engineering team figure out how we might be able to implement them. I should be able to reply tomorrow with more information about if and when we will be able to implement these changes.
 * 1) The ability to mark the edits made by the welcome tool as bot edits so that they are not shown in Special:Recentchanges, or
 * 2) The ability to prevent the welcome tool from creating the User: page for all users, or the User_talk: page for anonymous users.  (Perhaps by putting "@disabled" in MediaWiki:Welcome-user-page or something of that nature.)

In the mean time, if you have any questions, please contact a Wikia staff member. Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 20:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Category tag; Reorganizing categories when not modified
The category tag system is creating a lot of edits like this. Whenever a user makes a minor edit to a jutsu page the tool reorganizes the to be at the bottom of the page. This is basically going to continue happening to piles of our articles because we've kept to a style of going category tag, followed by semantic annotations, followed by interlanguage links. And it looks like the new tool wants to reorganize the category tags to the absolute bottom of the page even when noone change the categories. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Mar 18, 2009 @ 20:43 (UTC)
 * Hi There, Unfortunately this is one of the side-effects of the tool that we can't workaround. If you are wedded to the placements of the Category Tag on the edit page, we should just turn this feature off all together for Naruto. That would be sad, but if that's what you want, it can be done angies (talk) 22:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, quite frankly the Narutopedia barely uses any categories at all. We prefer to abstract as many categories as possible into infobox templates, and annotate pages with more useful semantic tags so we can do nice things like use semantic drilldown to drilldown jutsu lists. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Mar 18, 2009 @ 22:33 (UTC)
 * How does one go about removing said feature, and how much of the rest of the editor is effected? // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 03:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The tool has been switched off on Naruto. 18:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

New edit window - Show changes button
And now... what the hell did you do with the ' button on the edit window'''? Why are you deleting useful stuff? Please, return it back again. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 21:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * On my screen the "Show changes" button is still there. We did change the style of it a little bit when we made the edit page changes (to make it look more like a normal link) because we discovered that a number of users were accidentally hitting it instead of the "Save page" button.  Are you not seeing it at all on your screen?  If so, could you please post a screenshot?  Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weird. It has no underline like Cancel and edit help, so I missed it. Time to change it back for me now... --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 21:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Admin Signature
Is there a way so that it can use my actual signature when welcoming new users, instead of the generic signature? -- LordTBT Talk! 21:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It isn't possible for it to automatically do this, but you can manually add your signature in MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user and MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon. --KyleH (talk) 21:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is definitely a concern, as it means no personalized signatures. Also, is it reasonable that the wiki's founder or bureaucrat in charge should be the designated signer of welcomes? -- Energy bend  er  22:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Energy, the bureaucrat isn't "in charge", and since our own active Bureaucrat is far less active than some of the admins, it isn't reasonable to sign all welcome messages with Omni's sig. The 888th Avatar  (Talk) 22:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Sardapedia actually came up with a sort of solution to this. We put in and tags around the admin's and mods' custom signatures so that a random figure of authority would be the signer of the welcome.  It should work out fine, as we're all on about 20/7 anyway.  // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 22:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ya that's obvious, but then you would have a load of different tags and names after the message when it is substed to the page. It may not be visible, but is just a pain when viewing it edit mode and take a lot of space. It would be easier to put them into a template and transclude that template (as long as that doesn't get substed as well). I'm still for a more 'automatic' solution though. ~Joey~  ^Talk^  16:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

add category null edit not possible
On IE7, when I click on "add category", it says "press enter when done", but when I don't want to change anything and press enter, the input box doesn't close. -- ◄mendel► 21:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * For me, same browser, it has partialy close when i moved focus elsewhere. By the way the string "press enter when done" is badly translated in french. — TulipVorlax 01:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't speak for the translation, but I see the same thing on Firefox. I'll see if we can change that. 17:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Add Category : Limiting to main namespace ?
I found the feature a tad stupid when it show up on page like this one. It's a user page. Maybe this should be limited to main namespace. — TulipVorlax 01:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * User pages can have categories - but it's rather up to the wiki, than us to mandate. Even so, it could make sense to not show the view mode version for certain namespaces? 17:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to twiddle that based on a mediawiki page? Something like Mediawiki:category-tag-namespaces, and that would, by default, include everything, but could be changed on fr.guildwars (for example) to simply Guildwars, and Main.  Or something as such. -- sulfur 21:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Add Catgory : Unwanted on certain pages...
Would there be a way to add a sort of magic word in vastly used templates that autocategorise page depending on the parameters passed to it ? I really think that letting any user add a catogry to any page is not really wise. On fr.guildwars, lots of pages dont need to be in more categories than what they already are.

I'm not talking about articles that users could write on a perticular subject. The tool is usefull in that case. It's when the categories are decided by a template and no other category should be added.

Maybe i'm not clear. So i'll awnser any question. — TulipVorlax 01:17, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure of a good solution to it (if it needs one). Wikis are so dynamic and changing, magic words could cause more harm than good, especially if they change the editing experience. 17:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * A magic word would be a great idea for pages that are based on template categorization and it does not interfere on keeping those pages to do automatic and dynamic updates by just editing the template and then having to cleaning those manual(feature) additions --

Categorizer on Preview
When previewing new edits before committing them, the categories no longer appear at the bottom of the page. --LordTBT <font color="Green" size="2">Talk! 03:59, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I, too, am annoyed by this. The Looking For Group Wiki has many templates that automatically add categories, and I used that feature to be sure said templates are functioning properly in a new page.  // masterConjurer  ( Talk ) 04:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * We'll get this sorted out - thanks. 17:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Categorizer badly broken

 * Make it stop doing this, or make it go away entirely. Only one byte of that edit was deliberate. Your "feature" is violating our layout guide. Don't make us start blocking people who use Monaco for this vandalism. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 02:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Already note here for Narutopedia complain --


 * If that's the case, it needs to be turned off on Wookieepedia ASAP. We have pre-existing rules that this is BREAKING. There's no need for protracted discussion, we had that already to make the rules that this BREAKS. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 03:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * For quickest i recommend yo to send a note to wikia staff using w:Starwars:Special:Contact --
 * Observe how the category is pulled off the HTML comment that pertains to it, in the first link Darth Culator posted. -- ◄mendel► 10:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The extension has been switched off for starwars. We'll look at these issues and see if we can come up with a good solution. Thanks for the reports! 18:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Monaco's Edit tips margin issue
I Wish to know the reason why the Div with id  has a top margin of 20px? as it looks like a waste of space could that be remove or coded by CSS so it can be alter --


 * What effect are you seeing due to it? A screenshot would be rather useful. 18:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * [[Image:editingTipsToggleDiv issue.png|thumb|right]] Here is an image as i use Firefox+firebug i have selected the div so it can be clearly see the wasted space in light yellow. Also i notice now there is a page size msg on monaco (i had never seen it on monaco) that does not show because it has bottom:20px that displaces somewhere out of my view i tested this also on IE not logged --
 * Oh found the size thing it appears at the bottom right with the edit tips update it has more than enough space to the right. i prefer to see it above at least i can see it before the page finally loads but thats a matter of taste --

Make this awesome for cross-wiki editors, please!
Users who edit across multiple wikis find themselves creating their userpage and talkpage all over again whenever they come to a new wiki. The welcome bot adds the nuisance of added notifications, and the welcome messages it posts get largely ignored by these experienced editors.

Hence, I propose the following feature:
 * If a user has set up Special:MyPage/Userpage and/or Special:MyPage/Talkpage on Wikia central (i.e., here), the welcome bot does not add any wiki-specific welcome messages; instead, it copies these pages (if they exist; if only one exists, the other is not touched) to the user's local userpage and talkpage on the welcoming wiki.


 * The pages should be copied with the full history so as to assign proper credit, or at least be attributed in the page history to the editor to whom they pertain, not User:Wikia.
 * Technically speaking, the addition should be simple: the bot is already set up to create these pages, it just needs to check for these special pages and use them as source instead if they exist.

With this feature, cross-wiki editors would never have to remake their userpages again, and they don't have to endure welcome messages that aren't really meant for them. It transforms the welcome bot from an annoyance to a boon. :)

In other words, when I edit on some other wikia wiki, the welcome bot wouldn't post some newbish welcome at me, but instead copy my own generic userpage and talkpage from central wikia to save me work (I could still modify them later if I wanted to).

How do you like this proposal? Good idea! I don't need that. Bad idea. -- ◄mendel► 09:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC) & 11:30, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would really love this feature, anything to keep me away from the twenty five emails I got from that bot since it started. <font color="Green">~Joey~  <font color="Green">^Talk^  16:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems that staff don't know how annoying it would be, because they are not affected. Look: . Was this a condition to roll out this extension? --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 16:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is a good idea. The Welcome-Bot welcomes me to the wiki, which i edited, not in the Wikia-Community. Perhaps some wikis would like to say other things to their new users than an other wiki. And: i.e. I don't want to have the same User-Talk-Page on different wikis, because there are always different subjets on different wikis. So: the User-page... this could be nice, although it's not very difficult to copy a Userpage to another wiki. But the Talk-Page: no, these pages should be different in different wikis!! Sorry for my (perhaps real bad) English, I'm just a german... :-) MorpheuzZ (Fragen/Probleme?) 17:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not a terrible idea, but it would much better if it were part of the preferences and off by default. I don't want to have to generalize my user page for all the wikia wikis I edit, but it would be nice to have a custom boilerplate that I can apply, similar to how custom signatures work. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 1:04 PM PST 20 Mar 2009

This would be off by default because the pages I listed are not your regular user- or talkpage. If you do not consciously create them, you will see the wiki-specific welcomes, so it is strictly an opt-in feature as proposed.

The difference is that you don't activate it via preferences, but by creating the source pages. If you don't create /Talkpage then the bot won't touch your talkpage at all. —This unsigned comment is by M.mendel (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ! --01:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a really good point -- we want to make sure that people aren't discouraged from doing helpful things on lots of wikis. We've got a solution in mind for it, and we'll have more information early next week once we check with an engineer about it. :) -- <font color="Blue">Danny (<font color="Blue" size="1">talk ) 01:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * So, if i would set this up on Central wikia, it would have the effect of creating an english user/talk page on all wiki even when the language of the wiki is not english ?
 * Like some said, i prefer doing "custom" user pages for all wikis base on subject (and language). So, i guess i'll have another thing to disable in prefs... — TulipVorlax 23:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me repeat, if you do not want this feature, simple don't create the pages on central, and nothing will happen. In short: Do nothing, and this is disabled. How can that be bad?
 * Alternately, you could set up a multilingual userpage using the magic word, as in


 * This wiki has "" set as content language. -- ◄mendel► 12:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Category Tree picker
I try to organize a wiki's categories into a connected tree with a common root (so far, Category:Categories or Category:Browse ). Is it possible for CategorySelect to display that tree (much like the categorytree extension does) to select a category (and maybe flip the tree open when an existing category on that article is clicked)? -- ◄mendel► 14:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Welcome tool is excellent
The new welcome feature is extremely helpful. Thanks a bunch you guys for automating this task and making it easily customizable. Blue Rook 15:06, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

A few issues about the "Category Select" feature
I think the CSS of the Add Category feature is weired. And it behaves sometimes a little bit strange. And two bugs: I think the feature is in total a good idea, but I don't really like the current concept for several reasons: A better solution in my opinion would be, if the feature would not remove the category tags from the code window. Instead it should manipulate the category markup in the code window. For example if you click "Add category" the respecting is added in the code window at the end (or right after the last category). If you click the x to remove a category, the code is searched for the respecting category tag and it gets removed. Similar if you change the sort key. If the user adds categories in the code by himself they are detected and and also displayed visually by one of the follwing mechanisms: Either every few seconds the code is scanned for correct category tags, or there is a button which updates the visual list based on the code window. Justme2 18:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Why does this small piece of code use so much inline stylesheet and doesn't use one of the global CSS files? This is much cleaner and makes styling simpler.
 * 2) Why is the "Add Category button" positioned floating? It causes the button to lay outside of the main category div box . Example: It's outside of the blue box at Dan-Ball_Wiki. Of course you can overwrite this setting but if there is no reason you should maybe remove it.
 * 1) Why does the autocomplete feature add a leading and wrong "Category:" to the first few categories? Example: Go to Dan-Ball_Wiki, click "Add Category", and enter "Pow" (It will show: Category: Powder Game community, Category: Powder Game elements, Category: Powder Game physics. Also note the different spacing) or enter "Sti" (It will show: Category: Stick Ranger stages.).
 * 2) In the edit mode for an article press "Add category" than enter a few letters. A popup "Press Enter when done" will appear. Now don't press enter but change to "Code view". The bug is that the "Press Enter when done" message doesn't go away anymore.
 * 1) It prevents new users from learing the syntax about categories.
 * 2) It does not respect the placement and the order of the categories in the article code.
 * 3) The feature is disabled for templates. But if you are testing a template which should include categories into an article in your user namespace, the feature will completly obfuscate your code and make it impossible to work with (have a look at this example where the category is included right before the closing onlyinclude).

New features for the Welcome bot
Hi all,

We've been listening to your feedback regarding the welcome tool, and I'm pleased to let you know that we have added some additional features based on that feedback which are now available:
 * Bot edits: If you'd prefer not to see the welcome messages in your wiki's recent changes, you can ask a Wikia staff member to flag User:Wikia as a bot.


 * Enabling and disabling anon welcomes / user pages: You can edit MediaWiki:Welcome-enabled to set which pieces of the welcome you want to enable. The default message says: "page-user message-anon message-user". You can remove any of those phrases to disable part of the welcome tool.
 * Taking out "page-user" will stop the welcome tool from creating user pages for logged-in contributors.
 * Taking out "message-anon" will stop the tool from leaving welcome messages for anonymous IPs.
 * Taking out "message-user" will stop the tool from leaving welcome messages for logged-in contributors.


 * @sysop: MediaWiki:Welcome-user now supports an @sysop option, which tells the bot to always sign the message as an admin rather than a staff member or helper, even if the staff member or helper is the most recent contributor.


 * $4: You can use $4 to add the name of the person that you're welcoming to the message. For example, you can customize MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user to say: "Hi, $4 -- welcome to the wiki!"


 * Block the bot: You can now disable the welcome messages by blocking User:Wikia. It was already possible to disable it using the MediaWiki message so this is a bit redundant, but the bot now respects blocks.


 * Talking to yourself: Welcome messages will no longer be left for users with flags such as sysop, bureaucrat, bot, staff, or helper. This is mainly because in some cases users were welcoming themselves if they didn't have a talk page.

We are also evaluating some additional features, such as implementing a way for users who visit several different wikis to opt-out of receiving welcomes Wikia-wide, as well as some tweaks to how the bot selects whether to sign as a local sysop or a Wikia staff member. I should be able to provide more updates about whether these are possible some time next week.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact a Wikia staff member. Thanks! --KyleH (talk) 22:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If annon can be excluded, i can reactivate this on fr.guildwars. We (or I) likes to keep an eye on them because about 66% (or more) of anon edit are vandalism or so. So, when i welcome them i use that accept a custom message and a sig as parameter. (I have done this template and another for logged-in users just a few week before the welcome tool was annonced, duh! Now i'll try to see if i can copy and adapt it for the tool.) — TulipVorlax 00:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Please also consider allowing sysops who do not wish to be referenced in the welcome message to opt-out of being selected by the @latest option. (Requested by a colleague.) The interim workaround is to use a static username instead.
 * Now I think of it some more ... simply allowing more than one static username to be listed in an opt-in (volunteer) fashion and have the automatically generated welcome message use whichever of those usernames was most recently active would seem like a much better (more generic) solution. That way users who are not sysops can also volunteer to be named in those automatic welcome messages as an optional point of contact. This might serve to share the mentor responsibility without creating the unnecessary impression that a mentor must be a sysop. 60.225.224.199 00:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * On my part, i think it could be better that this automatic welcome would not "fake" anynone sing but send users to a list of admins to contact for problems and questions. — TulipVorlax 01:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose it is easy enough to specify "Wikia" as the static username to be cited. Then you simply modify the message templates to not refer the newcomer to Wikia's talk page at all. (other than in the signature, I guess)
 * I respect my sysop colleague's wish not be named in these auto welcome messages but if I put on the hat of a complete newcomer to the wiki community and I visualize from that newcomer's perspective arriving at a community where the most recently active admins don't seem to want you to approach them ... well ... I can see how that might be interpreted as a less than sincere welcome.
 * So long as you have one active sysop who doesn't mind being named as the static signatory then it's no problem. The problem arises when that static signatory is no longer active! najevi 01:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't object to welcoming new users (I did that fairly frequently on Wookieepedia before this feature was added) but I don't really like an automatic process signing my username to a message I didn't write myself. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 13:49, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Categories wrapped in noinclude tags
The tool automatically changes the way categories are listed when they are wrapped in noinclude tags (see here for an example), but still leaves the noinclude tags. This also makes unnecessary whitespace when the page is transcluded (see here), since they are on a different line. The multiple noinclude tags is redundant in my opinion. :X Can something be done about this? --D. (talk · contr) 17:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So that's what that was -- I've been seeing that and wondering. -- ◄mendel► 21:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

[BUG] Edit view pre-processor deletes category tags from within <tt>pre../pre</tt> tags
This is not easy to demonstrate because of the problem with whatever pre-processor that I am reporting as bugged however, I'll do my best to describe it.

At my user page (see Skills section) I share wiki markup code snippets to help contributors understand how to create a new page for some specific part of the wiki. I enclose those code snippets in <tt>pre../pre</tt> HTML tags for obvious reasons. In the past all wiki markup code enclosed within <tt>pre../pre</tt> tags is left unchanged by "whatever parser".


 * Often it is necessary to communicate what category tag should be used. Until now that could be done by including the traditional wiki markup, viz. <tt> Category:Name of  category</tt>, for a category tag within that <tt>pre../pre</tt> block. FYI in BOTH code snippets below there OUGHT to be _two_ lines of code. The first line survives but the second line which contains a traditional category tag is removed as soon as the page is next opened for edit.

The next line ought to show <tt> Category:Name of  category</tt> but does not.

It displays correctly while in edit preview and even displays correctly after the initial save but ... the second line is removed as soon as you open the page for subsequent edit. The result is that you see only the following in a subsequent edit view:

The next line ought to show <tt> Category:Name of  category</tt> but does not.

... and of course the host page is added to the category: "Name of category"


 * Since Category Select feature was introduced "whatever" pre-processor that creates the Category Select GUI for edit mode appears to remove these literal category tags from within the <tt>pre../pre</tt> block and mistakenly assigns that tag to the host page. Clearly that was not the original intent.

So I think that the "edit view pre-processor" (or whatever parser) needs to recognize and respect the <tt>pre../pre</tt> HTML tags and refrain from removing those traditional wiki markup forms of the category tags. najevi 01:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)