Should we integrate our talk pages with forum software, or add an extension to create forum style posts?
- wikiHow does this.
- A more advanced version would be to make each talk page a sub-forum - so it would be accessible and viewable through the forum interface, as well as via the discussion tab. Is this possible?
Note the open task in our BetterMeans workstream: Better talk pages.
Options
- LiquidThreads - WikiEducator has this. (Apparently with some headaches, based on a conversation between developers I heard at a wiki meetup. I think one issue was that it wasn't possible to go back to standard talk pages. --Chriswaterguy 11:20, 17 May 2011 (PDT))
- Wikia uses the DPLforum extension to create a forum within the wiki. It is being used actively, e.g. for their central forum. A conventional looking list of sub-forums can be seen at the RuneScape Wiki forum. Note: On closer inspection these are quite different forums. The Central Wikia forum is quite wiki like; the Runescape one is very polished and more like a conventional forum, somehow installed within the wiki. The more wiki-like one (used on Central) probably has better integration, gets people used to editing the wiki, and allows discussions to be categorized (which could be used for useful answers, content to be used for a wiki page...).
- Postcomment - allows users to post comments directly to discussion pages directly from a form at the bottom of each discussion page. Still at version 0.1, but used by wikiHow.
- wikiHow's talk pages... simple & easy, but no threading. (Can't see how they do it anyway, looking at their Version page. --Chriswaterguy 11:20, 17 May 2011 (PDT))
Good features of wiki-style talk pages
Think about: reactive moderation in forum, more openness - but also for the community for self control. Wiki, flame wars are moderated by the community, and the policy is set before. If there are flames, they are self deleted. Forum software doesn't give the community an ability to throw out the troublemakers. - Notes on a talk by Jimmy Wales, April 2007.
- note, however, that some forums allow flagging of inappropriate posts.
Alternative approaches and features
Monitor recent changes of talk pages. If a composite talk page could combine the RC pages for each type of talk page into one (main space talk pages, category talk pages, etc), this would help a lot in monitoring. (RC for everything except mainspace is as close as we can get for now.)