Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25073873-20160916150826

Yes, Yes, I know this is not an RP, and yes, yes, I know it is me posting this, not someone else higher up in the heirachy of the wiki. Yet, it is better to have awareness of coming changes, and be prepared.

Ok, I do no't actually know if all of you are currently aware that in the future (near or far I have no idea), Wikia has decided to implement a new feature known as "Discussions". This is a new feature, meant to increase the consistency between the the users on Mobile devices (your smartphones and tablets), and the users on Non Mobile devices (like laptops and desktop PCs). If you want the full details, you can go to the community central blog, which I will kindly provide to you HERE. (do click the hyperlink. They probably can explain it better than me. If you want the full hyperlink as you cannot click on a small word: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Cristina7/Introducing_Discussions,_a_New_Platform_For_Engaging_Your_Community )

Now, now, I know that it looks good on the surface, and probably has its own charm, especially to several people on this wiki, although others may not be so happy with this implementation. Everything seems fine and dandy, but the fact is that this "Discussions" feature is not going to be yet another exciting add on. It is going to replace the forums in entirety, as is the current plan of the staff at wikia.

I understand that Wikia is wanting to move on to like ... enter the mobile market for internet consumption, and there's perfectly nothing wrong with that. It adds with it another dimension of challenges and benefits, which I would leave to everyone to weigh in on. Both Discussions and Forums have their own set of flaws and benefits, as with any system out there. I'll have a base comparison.

Most of you should be familiar with how the forums work. It does include some things Discussions doesn't have at the moment:

1. Wikitext usage. This is undoutably a good thing, because we do not have to paste the whole hyperlink in the post, and can have a nice, clickable word

2. Easier management processes - as Discussions is planned to be more open to more people, there might very well be a larger influx of non editor ... viewers. This might very well present their own management problem, although I do not foresee that as a major problem for this site due to how few users we have. Also, as reviewed by many admins, it is sort of harder to maintain bans and such in discussions

3. Familarity. We are familiar with the forums. I doubt the discussions is that different overall, but it might just have stuff that make me or you unhappy, or stuff we may not know how to use on our first pass, as much as how we were unfamiliar with forums when we started out.

Now, I'll talk a bit about discussions

1. Mobile friendly - I mean, you can now use the "Discussions" much better on your mibile devices, because its done as an app style thing. It's hosted seperate from wikia, and doesn't have wikia'a clunky, computer optimized coding.

2. Higher viewership - apparently, the whole idea is to transform the forum into something more like mobile social media platform. It makes it easier for people to enter and use it more intuitively. For our wiki here, this is likely a minor thing, because of how specific the topics are, and what its purpose is.

I mean, I'm not going to judge openly and force my views down your throats, but i obviously prefer the old forums. I have my reasons, but this isn't of much importance now. It would be how you think, and perhaps, if an Admin sees this, maybe we can see if we want to give discussions a shot, and try to see if we prefer it or forums, or at least get used to it, seeing how it's going to be a compulsory feature in the forseeable future of wikia.

''Change is inevitable. The good old days are always better, but sometimes, shit happens. And so it's better to just move on.''

Please don't quit wikia if Discussions is not to your liking. Effort wasted is effort wasted. 