- This extension is enabled by default on Fandom.
A sample blog post, also showing the masthead and comment area
A sample blog listing page
Wikia Blog Articles (also known as Community Blogging) are articles written and attributed to one person that can be voted, commented on, and organized into a listing like a typical blog. They are different than a typical wiki article in that they are not intended to be a collaboratively written pieces of content, but instead a single user's composition. The idea is to create more of a community feel for a wiki, and give users more outlets for their endless creativity.
Some examples of why a user would choose a blog article instead of a traditional wiki article:
- Fan fiction and original work
- Op-eds and personal stories
- Articles that pose questions and solicit responses
- Reviews, suggestions or recommendations
Of course, it's entirely up to each wiki's community as to how it gets used.
How the blogging system works
There are three main sections to the blogging system: the blog post itself, the user's blog page, and the blog listing page.
Blog Posts
A blog post page is created via Special:CreateBlogPage. Votes and comments are defaulted to on, but can be switched off at user's preference.
Each post is created under the title "User blog:<Username>/<Blog post name>", though the article itself will only show "<Blog post name>" in the title area. Only registered users can make blog posts.
Blog posts can only be edited by the original poster and administrators, as it is a "personal" area on the wiki. When editing blog posts you can turn comments and voting on/off again using tickboxes shown just above the edit summary.
Posts are automatically categorised under Category:Blog posts. The name of this category can be changed at MediaWiki:Create-blog-post-category. A "blank" message (just a "-") means no category will be added.
Comments
Blog posts come with commenting functionality, which takes the place of discussion pages. Note that comments use wikitext-style input, so you can link other articles as normal. For posts with large numbers of comments, a comment entry box appears at the top of the comments as well.
Each comment shows up on the recent changes and user contributions lists, and clicking on it will take you to the blog post.
Admins: Comments can be removed by using a delete link, shown next to the comment's timestamp. In addition, when a blog post is deleted, all associated comments will be deleted.
To access a comment's own page, you will need to bypass the redirect. You can do this by adding &redirect=no&action=delete to the comment URL. For example: http://<WIKINAME>.wikia.com/index.php?title=User_blog_comment:<BLOGOWNER>/<NAMEOFBLOG>/<COMMENTER>-<TIMESTAMP>&redirect=no&action=delete
User Blog Page
This page is automatically generated from a user's recent blog posts. It resides under the address "User blog:<Username>" and can be accessed from any person's user page. RSS feeds are also provided, and should be picked up by your browser.
You can edit this page to add a section of text above the blog posts, or to add a category. It's up to you!
Blog Listing Pages
Blog Listing Pages allow you to create a list of blog posts by category. You can access this via Special:CreateBlogListingPage, or the link on the edit toolbar on the top of any existing Blog Listing page.
A listing page is essentially a simple implementation of an Embedded Blog Listing, which are described in more detail below.
Please note that the listing pages and extension do not update immediately upon creation of a new blog post. Either you can wait for the cache to clear (a couple of hours), edit the page, or add ?action=purge to the URL of the listing page.
Embedded Blog Listing
A sample bloglist, in the default box
This feature allows you to embed a blog listing within a normal wiki article. It's like a blog listing page to go, and uses the <bloglist> extension.
There are a number of parameters you can define to format the embedded list to fit within different content pages - e.g. the main page, the community portal, a contest page, etc. - and it is extremely customizable.
For more information on how to use this extension, see Help:Blog article/Bloglist.
Summary of the new additions
- Functionality
- Blog posts
- Blog post listings (pages and extension)
- Namespaces
- "User blog" - for user blog posts.
- "Blog" - for blog listing pages.
- Special pages
See also
- Blog background on Wikipedia