User blog comment:HiccstridFan92/Talk pages vs Message Walls/@comment-26219548-20190202153610

yeet yeet potato skeet I'm back haha. A few things to consider here!

For talk pages, I do see the value in them because firstly, our site has had a long history with talk pages and it's has somewhat evolved into one of the idiosyncrasies of this site. Secondly, talk pages allow for much, much, much more liberty when it comes to coding, customisation and edits because essentially, it works just like a normal article. This means that the uploading of codes, interfaces and templates will come in much easier. You have the freedom to create archives, sub-pages, sandboxes, etc.

Another major point is that it's also really, really good for multiple people to speak at once regarding a certain topic. For example, for some larger projects I've been part of, like a category clean-up, what the 'team' did was create a sub-talk page for this project and every discussion was channeled there. It made compiling lists and keeping track of progress a lot easier. It's something I believe message walls will never be able to replicate.

On the other hand, for message walls, I do feel that it's definitely more common among other fandoms. It's definitely much more user-friendly for new editors and you do get notifications when someone else replies. With the influx of new editors after HTTYD 3 and if we are ever striving to expand this community, having a simple, convenient interface is going to play a huge role. It's more than just having a user-friendly interface, it's also about how we present our fandom to other users.

But another issue that might crop up is: how are the content on talk pages going to migrate over to message walls? There might be some important discussions that might require tracing back and it would be lowkey risky to discard them all just like that. I'm not quite sure if we will be able to enable both (if anyone has the answer to this, do enlighten me!) but even then, it will be extremely messy to have 2 different discussion platforms, even if one is defunct.

Personally, I prefer message walls, as I feel refining the site's presentation and keeping up with the needs of new users and visitors outweighs the pros of talk pages. I feel that message walls will be able to carry out the same unique functions talk pages have, though it might be a bit messier or tedious. Eg. incredibly long threads and problems with uploading certain templates. But this is just my take, and me throwing out a few concerns that haven't yet been raised for you guys to consider.