With a rise in teenage editors, there’s not too much we can do about talk page chatting. Even worse, there are quite a few teenage editors whose parents won’t allow them to get an email or visit chat rooms (constant chatting between two people in IRC can get annoying anyways). So I’d like to propose a solution: a simple PM (private message) system be added to the site. This would be beneficial because 1. People will have a place to chat about non-wikiHow related things without leaving the site. 2. PMs will not go through RC, so people can send as many messages as they’d like. 3. GC threads used by many people in the forums will not be bumped down by a chat thread between two people. While wikiHow is not a social messaging site, PM messages will separate chatting from editing as much as possible, while still staying on wikiHow. Also, I do not think the PM system should be widely advertised. In fact, I believe one of the only few places where the PM system should be advertised is in the {{chat}} template. Thoughts?
We have PM on IRC, isn’t that alright for chatting?
IRC is separate from wikiHow (so a lot of parents may not approve), and just as creating a separate channel hasn’t worked, querying hasn’t worked either.
I do not support (No offence wR, I love your ideas), because, we shouldn’t encourage people to talk, if kids want to talk, they can ask their parents and if they say no, kids need to respect it. wikiHow is not a social networking site in any way, and it would invite more teens to the site just to talk. On a side note, Wikipedia doesn’t even have Forums because they’re trying to emphasise that they’re not a social networking site. June Days
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I agree with June. Just because the chatting *does* clog up RC, it shouldn’t become another reason to be on wH… EDIT: And about June’s latter paragraph, there is a big factor of difference between Wp and wH, and that is the fact that we are a lot more community based.
Which is why we have the forums.
The PM system will not be emphasized, except to those who constantly chat. That way we would not be inviting more teens to talk. If teens are going to talk to each other on the site, there’s not much anyone can do about it, except block (which is the worst thing you can do because then we’re losing potetially valuable contributers). Just think of the PM system as a blanket to separate chatting from editing and RC. You must remember that the ability to socialize while writing and editing can actually draw more people in. If other people’s chatting is invisible or even nonexistent to the rest of us, who really cares what others do? Yeah, and when you edit Wikipedia, it feels like you’re all alone.
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I personally like the idea!
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But those who constantly chat need to henceforth be dealt with, or, in other words, blocked if they won’t abide by our policy’s or listen to us when we ask/tell them to stop. Otherwise, they’ll continue to stick around and use wH as a chatting site. And tell their friends to join. If you take a look at our mission, that isn’t the point here. www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Mission
I think we need a way for people to chat because people like me and CiCi for example, contribute a fair bit to Wikihow but like chatting as well so we need a balance. Maybe some sort of way we can ban users from chatting if they don’t make x amount of contributions to Wikihow?
An invisible chatting system would not affect or mission at all, nor would it prevent anyone else from working towards our mission. By blocking people due to chatting, you’re also blocking people from potetially making valuable edits.
We don’t ban people from being in IRC if they haven’t made X amount of edits. Why this?
Because you’re thinking of something apart from IRC and you don’t want people just chatting and not contributing.
Chatting will be *technically* separate from the site, in the sense that it will be nonexistant to anyone not using it. wikiHow is a volunteer site, so no one is required to do any amount of editing.
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^ Yes.
It may not severely affect our mission, but the point of it wouldn’t be putting our mission first, either.
^ like I said though there are and always will be people who do contribute but like chatting as well. I have no problem with someone chatting as long as they’re not just chatting.
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Yes, but why not chat somewhere else? There are a lot of chatting sites out there…
Not all on social networks.
Like IZ said, yes yes and a million times…Yes. Ned, wikiHow is a professional site, too. You can have fun and collaborate by not chatting, wikiHow isn’t about chatting at all, it’s about working towards our goal. If you can chat here with people you have never met, it’s safer to get a FB account …Plus, you can chat all you want there. June Days EDIT: It is not about chatting, and if kids want to chat on other sites, they’re totally fine with doing that, however, it’s mainly about editing. Over my sole year I’ve been here, wikiHow has attracted thousands of teen users - One year. If we had a PM thing, that would attract thousands more teens that do not do anything but chatting. You can also get bullied in PM (I speak from tons of experience), it would be safer to let them chat with people they know. If parents knew their kids were talking to strangers (even in this protected enviorment), they would be happier with FB - With people they know are their kids’ age.
Okay, so the engineers basically stick an existing PM system into wikiHow, modify it to make it work for user communication, and stick the finished result onto the side of the page? If not, how does your idea work?
