User blog:Brandon Rhea/Wikia Chat feature -- a new way of communicating

Hey guys. I wanted to make sure you were aware of a new feature Wikia is currently being tested called Chat. Essentially, this is an IRC-like chat system that is built directly into Wikia rather than an external IRC channel (which we have and can be accessed here). You can read more about this in the initial blog post, in a recent blog post, and a general fact sheet.

Sometime in the near future, this will be rolled out to all wikis. Wikis that currently have the Wikia Labs feature on their wiki can enable Chat to test it, and the admins can collect feedback and send it to the feature's designers via Wikia Labs itself. It's a great way of instantly getting your feedback to the programmers, particularly in regards to things you may not like or errors you encounter during this beta period.

I really like this feature. I like IRC too, but I think this is also a good feature. I was wondering, would you guys be interested in testing Chat out? I can get Wikia Labs available so we can turn on Chat (I wouldn't turn on any other features that are currently in Wikia Labs&mdash;Editor Redesign, Article Comments, Achievements, Category Exhibition, and Top 10 Lists&mdash;without the community supporting it). This is a big wiki with a lot of users who currently don't talk to other users all that much, so this is a feature that can really help to foster more community involvement&mdash;hence why I'm proposing we be one of the wikis to turn it on and test it.

Now, I know some of you will be asking about IRC. That's not going anywhere, nor should it. IRC is a great hang out place for the wiki. However, being that it's an external channel with few ways of being publicized, it doesn't get much activity beyond a few core active users and users who auto-join when they log onto IRC. With Chat, users who use the Wikia skin will see a "Join the Chat" link on the right sidebar of every article page. It'll be right there all the time. Note that Monobook users who want to use Chat will have to add ?useskin=monobook to the end of the Special:Chat URL.

You don't need to register an additional account, as your Wikia account is used in Chat. All you have to do is click "Join the Chat" on any page where you can see that.

Additionally, all administrators will have operator rights in the channel, just as they're given on IRC. Other non-admins can also be given chat mod status.

So what do you guys say? It's a feature that'll be coming out soon anyway, so I propose we jump on it early, begin using it now, and be able to send any issues that arise during this beta period. Also, even if you don't intend to use it, it will ultimately be on this wiki and a lot of people will end up using it too.

- Brandon Rhea  (talk) 21:40, July 8, 2011 (UTC)