Last modified: 2010-03-19 23:35:11 UTC
en.wikipedia would like a talknotice, essentially for important community announcements. That would be a notice displayed on all talk pages, editable at Mediawiki:Talknotice, and dismissible like the sitenotice. It would be good to have this before the flagged revisions two-month trial.
cf. bug 4469 "Provide per-namespace site notices"
There is already [[MediaWiki:Talkpageheader]] which is displayed at the top of each talk pages, but without JavaScript to dismiss it (which is easy to do in MediaWiki:Common.js).
Talkpageheader is below the talk page title, while the talknotice should be above it, like the sitenotice.
Wikia already developed this functionality, so could be a good starting place - it's available here: https://wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/SiteWideMessages/ ... via a special page you can send out dismissable messages that show up on user talk pages. Because it's on user talk pages, it triggers the new message notification, so users will know it's there. You can target groups of people (admins, for instance), individual users, or just everyone. If needed, you can also retract messages after they were sent out. The messages can have an expiration date so they go away on their own after a specific date/time - useful for things like maintenance notifications where no one cares 1 month after the event. Also handles anon user talk pages, empty user talk pages, diffs, etc. This was a particularly useful extension as it allowed us to communicate with people en masse for whom we had no email address. The dismissable part of it is what made it appealing to the users. Jqsjqs (talk) 22:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
more here... http://help.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Talk_Page_Messaging
(In reply to comment #4) This could be useful and I've requested an implementation (bug 21377), but we'd like to have a message that can be displayed on all talk pages, not just user talk pages, for major announcements.
Closing this as as WFM: there are extensions that can do this. Requests to get it reviewed/enabled on WMF sites should be filed separately (like bug 21377). Implementing this as core functionality is bug 4469.
Maybe another wikimedia bug is needed as bug 4469 is for namespace-specific notices while this is for a dismissible notice on all talk pages.
As comment #2 pointed out, that can be done with sitewide JS.
The talkpage header is below the title so doesn't stand out as much as a notice should (and it would look awkward with talk page header templates), or is there a way to put the text in the same position as a sitenotice ?
