Help:Message Wall

MessageWall
Author(s)	Fandom, Inc.
Extension link	GitHub
Description
Communicating with the contributors on your wiki is an essential part of building and maintaining your community. The Message Wall uses a threaded conversation format and notification system that lets you control which conversations you're interested in following. No more missed messages!
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Message Wall is a communication tool that allows you to send public messages to other users.

Leaving messages

To start a new conversation:

• Simply go to the profile of the person you want to talk to and click their "Message Wall" tab, or simply type "Message Wall:Username" in your URL box, but instead of "Username", put the name of the user you want to talk to. You can also do it quickly by clicking on the "Post To Wall" () button on an user profile.

• Click in the box where it says "Write a message to username".

• Enter a subject line for your message where it says "Add a title". This is required and will help you identify the conversation when you need to come back to it later.
• Enter the text of your message in the area below where it says "Share your thoughts".
• Use the toolbar buttons below to format your message or add photos or videos. Click on the "T >" button to show or hide the text formatting options.
  • From left to right, the toolbar buttons are: bold, italic, bulleted list, numbered list, preformatted text, link, and image.
  • When adding a link, the full URL is required. For example "community.fandom.com/wiki/Help:Templates", not "Help:Templates".
  • To add an image, you must select one from your computer. Images on the wiki cannot be added to Message Wall posts.
• Click "Post".

To reply to an existing conversation:

• Click on "Write a reply" at the bottom of the conversation.

• Enter your message in the field that appears.
• Click "Post".

To quote a previous message:

• Copy the text you would like to quote and paste it into your reply.
• It's a good idea to format the quoted text with italics and quotation marks.
• You can then add your response below the quoted text. This is especially helpful when replying to an earlier reply.

Editing messages

You can edit a message or a reply that you've posted, within 24 hours of the time you posted it. Administrators and discussion moderators have the ability to edit all messages if needed, at any time.

To edit a message:

• Hover over the vertical "..." (3 dots) button in the message's top right corner.
• Click "Edit Message" in the dropdown menu and then you can edit the message and the title to however you want.
• If you're happy with the changes you've made to the message, click "Post". It will display who made the edit once the change has been submitted. If a message was edited by an administrator or moderator, it will mention only that usergroup and not the name of the user who edited it. (Note: There is currently a bug that causes messages edited by the author to display "Edited by moderator" to other users, and just "edited" to the user itself.)

Reporting messages

If you encounter inappropriate content (such as spam or insults against a user), you can choose to report the post or reply via the "Report" option on the message's vertical "..." (3 dots) menu.

You will see an orange triangle on any post or reply that you have reported, and the "Report" option will be changed to "Already reported. This is only visible to the user who reported that post, and to discussions moderators and administrators.

Locking and unlocking messages

On a Message Wall, admins and discussions moderators have the option to lock and unlock a message to prevent further replies.

To lock a message:

• Hover over the first message in the thread and click the vertical "..." (3 dots) menu.
• Click "Lock Message" in the dropdown menu.
• The message and all replies will be locked. Other users will still be able to read the thread, but cannot reply to it.

To unlock a message:

• Hover over the 3 vertical dots "..." in the top right corner of the message wall.
• Click "Unlock Message" in the dropdown menu.

Most of the time, simply locking a thread is enough. However, in some cases, admins may also want to delete the thread so other users can no longer view or restore it (as with highly offensive vandalism or sensitive personal information).

Deleting and restoring messages

Users can delete and restore messages on their own message wall, but cannot delete messages they have posted on other users' message walls. Admins and discussions moderators can delete and restore messages on any user's message wall, which is useful for cleaning up vandalism, sensitive information, or inappropriate comments.

To delete a message:

• Hover over the vertical "..." (3 dots) menu in the message's top right corner.
• Click "Delete Message" in the dropdown menu. The message will be greyed out and marked with a red triangle.

The deleted message will remain visible to admins, moderators, and the message wall's owner. Other users will be unable to see or reply to it.

To restore a deleted message:

• Hover over the vertical "..." (3 dots) menu in the message's top right corner.
• Click "Undelete Message" in the dropdown menu.

Viewing message wall activity

To see all messages and replies posted by a user:

• Go to the user's profile and click their "Activity" tab.
• Click on "Messages".

To see all message wall activity on a wiki:

• Go to the community's Recent Changes page.
• Click on the "Social Activity" tab. The report includes Discussions posts, message wall posts, article comments and blog comments.

How to enable or disable Message Walls

• If you're an admin of your community, click the "Admin" link on the toolbar at the bottom of your screen.
• Message Wall is found in the "Wiki Features" panel in the bottom right corner.
• Click the toggle to turn the Message Wall feature on or off.
• If Message Walls are disabled, it is replaced by user talk pages for your community.

Special considerations

• If Message Walls are disabled, it will be hidden from view. This means existing message wall conversations will not be visible until this feature is enabled again.
• If Message Walls are enabled, user talk pages will be hidden from view, and existing talk page conversations will not be visible until this feature is disabled again.
  • However, the contents of a user talk page can still be viewed by transclsuding it on another page like a template:
       {{User talk:Username}}.
  • Alternatively, the raw Wikitext source of a talk page can be viewed by going to a link like this:
       https://name-of-wiki.fandom.com/wiki/User talk:Username?action=raw

Next pages

• Learn about your profile
• Learn how to work with wikitext

Further help and feedback

• Browse and search other help pages at Help:Contents
• Check Fandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
• Check Contacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article