Greetings everyone,
Following a preliminary poll, it showed a consensus for us to have a discussion about including new features on our Wiki.
Detailed explanations of the features can be found here: Forum:Preliminary Poll - New Features.
As per the previous forum promise, this is now the official forum. I have made three sections for voting/discussion to take place.
Please note: If you oppose all features, you don't need to leave an oppose in all sections, just place an oppose under "all new features". Likewise, if you support all changes, you can leave a singular support underneath the "all new features" section, you don't have to put a support under all. An overall percentage will be tallied and used at the conclusion.
Kind regards,
343TheGuiltyProphet - Contact
15:23, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
All New Features
Strong support - My support has nothing to do with being a Global Discussions Moderator or a Councillor for FANDOM but represents my own personal view. I think it's time our Wiki starts to match those around it, providing a social platform (not just chat) that allows people to have discussions that don't fill Wiki Activity and be able to leave a message without having to incorporate basic Wiki markup.
15:23, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
Oppose to all. Gurte(Talk) 15:34, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
- Hello, we don't accept comments like this in our criteria so please leave a reason for your opposition otherwise this will not be counted in the final result. 343TheGuiltyProphet - Contact 15:35, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
Oppose—for the reasons I outlined in no small amount of detail here.
I have said my piece already. The Discussions feature has a history of hostile takeovers that cannot be ignored. Besides the linked breakdown of the problem, this third push for Discussions comes amid the inevitable post-finale exodus and strikes me as a misguided attempt to stir up new activity. Discussions are a different platform requiring different moderators that we could not assemble at our peak. Not only would this move channel activity away from the wiki proper; it would accelerate the flight of us old-timers.
TL;DR: We rightly protested against Discussions when FANDOM started forcing them on our peers. Once enabled, they cannot be disabled. To my knowledge, no one remaining here other than 343 is interested in policing them. They are redundant against wiki-side features like blogs. Opening Pandora's box runs the risk of turning the wiki into something unrecognizable and untamed.
Guildmaster Grovyle (talk) 23:06, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
Oppose Unless we can guarantee an excellent user experience, we should not enable new or different features. Discussions is a nightmare to manage from every possible standpoint. I am not sure those in support quite understand the level of attention Discussions needs for even a moderate level of traffic. And like Guildmaster said, it is a permanent change. Wikia will never turn them off for us should we change our minds. We practically begged to get rid of them on the CoD wiki after we changed our minds and told them we would not moderate them any further. But Wikia's response was to send external moderation our way instead of listen to us. Let's not make ourselves victims as well.
The MLP wiki has always been a content-focused website. Our most active editors and administrators are experts at creating content and thus keeping this website unique and relevant. While they certainly could handle monitoring Discussions, I don't want them to. There are plenty of websites which offer forums and chatrooms for MLP. But there is only one MLP wiki. As for Message Walls, well, they are just inconsequential overall. I guess I am more neutral on those, but some of what I said for Discussions holds true for them as well. 
02:52, January 23, 2020 (UTC)
Oppose I agree with CoD4's argument that the wiki has been serving better as the well-polished source of official content than as one of many discussion centers. Especially if we are going to include Pony Life content on the site, I think the thinning staff resources will be better applied towards content moderation than forum patrol. As for message walls, problems with erasing messages continues in earnest to this day; I can't imagine its incorporation would do anything but increase the moderation load, given that it makes it easier to erase messages and requires a different change-tracking page altogether to find.Fluffbrain (talk) 05:26, January 23, 2020 (UTC)
Just Discussions
Strong support With the season 10 comics on the way, not to mention nine seasons of memories, I think a discussions page would be quite useful for talking about old times, or what we would hope to see in season 10.The Nth Doctor (talk) 20:19, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
Strong support Even though I did not vote, this will be useful for talking about all that happened in the show. Also, we can use it to talk about what we want to happen in the future, like a possible Season 10 or crossover with another show (I want this one to happen). PrincessTwilightSparkle98 (talk) 21:17, January 22, 2020 (UTC)
Just Message Walls
Strong support - I feel the that Message Walls are a excellent upgrade for this wiki and will make messaging more efficient and organize specific topics in the long haul. My major concern with adding a Discussion is an may lead to infighting and trolling between users who are kicked out of the chat rooms. They may need to monitored more closely than blog posts. Dry63 (talk) 18:27, January 22, 2020 (UTC)