Forum:CT:Official decision on MyHome feature

As many of you know, Wikia launched a new feature back in September called MyHome. Essentially, this is a “home page” for all users on all wikis specific to you, unlike a user page where everyone can see the exact same thing. Since we actually disabled it here awhile back, let me give you the details of it. This is essentially a summary of Wikia’s initial release comments.

MyHome is a “home base” for you that helps contributors see what’s happening on the wiki beyond just on the recent changes. It gives you a way to see the community on the wiki, and it’s meant to give experienced contributors new information they hadn’t yet had access to. It’s also meant to ease inexperienced contributors into the wiki setting.

Some features include the activity feed, which is meant to be a friendlier version of recent changes that shows you the latest activity. You can even see thumbnails of recently uploaded images, and you can see your watch list. Hot spots shows you the articles that have been edited the most lately. Finally, in the community corner, admins can highlight important things about the community. We could organize projects, show new pages, highlight CTs, and other things of that sort. I encourage you to read more about this here.

Now back in September when this was launched, we had an unofficial consensus of users from the IRC and other discussion areas that we’d disable it. Personally, I find the way we went about that to be a mistake. For starters, it really wasn’t official, and we basically asked you instead of giving you time to formulate your opinion. It also meant people we didn’t ask never got a chance to state their opinion. Furthermore, the big reason was this: you were forced to go to MyHome when you came to the wiki instead of the main page, which is a big no no in my book and in many other people’s books. Therefore, we used a hack that disabled both the redirect to MyHome and MyHome itself, as that’s all there was that the time. That’s why many of you likely don’t know about this feature.

Thankfully, Ciencia Al Poder over at Wikia Central has a hack that disables the forced redirect to MyHome while allowing you to keep MyHome on your wiki. That basically takes away the big problem that we had with the feature. Some users here definitely do believe that this shouldn’t be here, and you’ll see their comments and reasons for that in the “Oppose” section, but for now I’m going to give you a big reason for why we should keep it. Ready for it? Here we go:

User retention.

I’ll admit, when this feature was rolled out I thought it’d be ineffective. Nevertheless, Wikia’s research based on global wiki statistics says otherwise. As KyleH, one of the Wikia Staff members, said over at Central, “The data shows us that new editors are now 67% more likely to return to Wikia after making their first edits than prior to MyHome's launch. In fact, the total number of edits made by new editors make [sic] has increased 50% since launch! We have more MyHome enhancements planned, so be on the lookout.”

On SWF, we’re working to build a stronger community, and in doing that we need to make sure we have a number of means of making it that users are more likely to return to SWF after their first edit and become part of the community. This feature can do just that. Not only does it make people 67% more likely to return, but we can also speak directly to them. Some editors may not look at the site notice or the news section of the main page, but we can directly encourage them to join in on community discussions through the community corner.

Here’s another big reason for deciding to keep it now: we probably won’t have a choice in a few months. Wikia is working on some new MyHome related items which they feel will make the feature integral to the Wikia editing experience. Because of that, they may very well decide that hacks disabling MyHome are against global Wikia policies, much like hacks disabling the advertisements you see on wikis are not allowed. Approve this feature now and you won’t get pissed off if and when they force it on you later. Trust me, you will only get pissed later if they do this, just like people got pissed when the Monaco skin, ads, etc. were done like that. It’s best to just say yes now so you won’t be angry later.

MyHome has been re-enabled for now so you can see it while making your decision for voting here. It can be removed again if that’s the decision of the community. However, keep in mind that saying NO ONE on SWF is allowed to have MyHome is no different than Wikia saying that everyone HAS to be redirected there no matter what. If you don’t want to use MyHome, don’t. It’s up to you whether you click that “MyHome” button up at the top of the page next to your user name now that there’s no forced redirect. It should be no sweat off your back if someone else wants to click it and you don’t. I mean really, this isn’t social networking or anything like that. It’s a page that consolidates a number of areas for YOU, not for some sort of social networking nonsense between you and everyone else. Wookieepedia has it, yet they’re not suddenly some unprofessional Facebook look alike.

Because I foresee this being controversial, voting will last for two weeks, until 12/20/09, unless more or less time is required. All matters of the voting policy apply (do NOT vote farm either), and please be civil. - Brandon Rhea  (talk) 02:23, December 7, 2009 (UTC)

P.S. If you don’t want to see the noticeable redirect, go to your preferences, click the “Misc” heading, and then check the box next to “Disable my redirect to MyHome.”

Keep MyHome (1)

 * 1) As the proposer. PLEASE READ THE INTRO before voting. - Brandon Rhea Alliance Starbird.svg (talk) 02:23, December 7, 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
Remember: civility. - Brandon Rhea  (talk) 02:23, December 7, 2009 (UTC)