Forum:User notification system

Recently we had a discussion about a proposed policy. All things were going as normal i.e. very few people were talking. Then when the final version of the policy had been written up and was up for final discussion, I went around to about 50 different user talk pages and left a message informing them of the discussion. The result? Within three days, 21 people (by my count) came and weighed in. Of these, more than 2/3rds of them were not administrators, which is a rarity in our discussions here as of late.

With all this in mind, I'd like to propose a more formal user notification system. This system would be used to semi-automatically place messages on user talk pages (in such a way where the message would trigger the 'you have new messages' notification) when important wiki discussions are started. I think there would need to be a couple things put in place; for example
 * Limits on frequency of use. Over-using the system I think would have a detrimental effect, as fewer and fewer people would consult the notice if multiple notices were left in short succession.
 * Limits on who can use the system. There's no rule against a user writing on multiple user talk pages, but this sort of system might need to be controlled somehow, since it could be used to spam if put in the wrong hands. Perhaps having it set so an administrator needs to trigger it could prevent that issue.
 * An ability for users to opt out of notices. For this, we could set up a page like The Sims Wiki:User Notice Opt-Out which users would go to and sign, then we'd be sure to keep them out of the list of users we contact using the bot. Or we could have the users add a template like which would auto-categorize them into  or something like that.

Finally, I think the system would be more useful if we messaged users before the vote/consensus/final discussion period on a discussion. That way, they are a part of the discussion closer to the beginning of it.

Thoughts? --  LiR speak ~ read 01:24, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion
I like it. If it works, it will probably be for the better. If it doesn't, you might want to try using Bots to do the dirty work for you. I got a message delivered by Bawt from Lab informing me of some other community discussion, so you might want to consider using LiRBot instead of going through all the trouble of creating a system. But I guess it might be easier with a system. I'm not really tech-savvy when it comes to this kind of stuff, so you might want to talk to someone more inclined about something like this. :) 02:44, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

I'm all for a notification system as it clearly works. However, as stated in the proposal, overuse can cause a detrimental effect. I know it's possible to send a notification across the entire wiki much in the same manner as the new messages prompt - it just needs JS iirc. As for who can deliver the said notifications should we go with the original talk page proposal, I'd say that if the user is deemed trustworthy enough to run a bot then I don't see why they can't help with this - it's only a simple page appendage. I'm okay with using Bawt to help out as well as the opt-out system though my raw notification idea is just a thought. 12:18, December 20, 2012 (UTC)

Overuse of the system is my main concern, but I'm glad it's been put in the consideration. I like the overall system, as we need community inputs on certain topics too.  Nikel  Talk  –  Vote!  13:34, December 21, 2012 (UTC)

Comment - So, I decided to be bold and use my bot to notify users of an equally, if not more important discussion. Unfortunately due to the "nominornewtalk" permission, which disables triggering a talk page notification if the edit is marked as minor, I had to deflag my bot so that users would actually get the message. You may be interested to know that my bot doesn't use AWB primarily because I think it's the worst thing ever developed (no joke). Unless we plan to use AWB bots only or somehow convince Wikia to unbundle "nominornewtalk" from the main bot flag and into its own usergroup (which I honestly doubt they would do), using bots may be an issue and may not solve anything at all. 21:46, December 22, 2012 (UTC)
 * One work-around might be to use a bot specifically for this purpose, and run it through an account that is intentionally not bot-flagged. But I wonder whether this might somehow be a violation of ToU (not saying it is, just saying it would need to be evaluated), since we'd be running a bot without informing anyone we were using it. Otherwise, another possibility could be to take the programs of choice and run them through a normal user account, since it wouldn't be bot flagged. --  LiR speak ~ read 01:59, December 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * K, this discussion has died. Therefore I've taken the initiative and have created The Sims Wiki:User Notifications for users to sign if they do not want to be contacted. I've also outlined a little bit of notification protocol, for your reading pleasure. As for the nuts and bolts of this, I'd suggest just running the bots through personal user accounts or de-flagging the bot accounts until we can find a more glamorous solution. --  LiR speak ~ read 05:56, January 3, 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion
Closed - All done here, for now. 17:16, January 13, 2013 (UTC)