As I see it, the cons of keeping all discussion on the wiki:
- talk pages can get very long and unwieldy
- Forums are definitely better for "comments and suggestions" drive-by type things. Like "great project!", and "can I make a pdf from this?"
- Forums are also better for "bike shed" discussions and polls, aka "shinjin & locked spaces" (I'm still keeping the torch alive!), etc.
- It's nice to have a good place for discussion of things not directly related to the wiki projects.
- You can scan through several discussions at once on one talk page, without all that clicking. So it's easy to find something to add to. That small bit of friction will not stop someone who's dedicated, but for the passing anonymous user, it definitely will.
You might say that this is a worthwhile filter, but dedication isn't necessarily a direct correlate of value, since the number of undedicated but constructive people will always be higher, just because there are FAR more undedicated people out there. (those who just happen to be passing by, and want to add some input, fix something, clarify something, etc.) - You can track all updates to the discussion on the Special:Recentchanges page -- in fact, you can keep track of just about anything from that page. It's incredibly convenient to be able to find out about updates, and immediately click to the discussion from there. If the discussions are in the forum, then (barring a "recent posts" feature) you just have to check each forum to see if there are any discussions of interest to you.
Note that the cons of forums could be worked around, more or less.
- "Recently active threads" feature. With something like this, (vs a "recent posts" feature.) an incredibly active thread wouldn't drown out the ability to see that there was activity in another thread. (I found something here, but I have not tried it out; can't vouch for it.)
- View the full text of the last N posts of every recently active thread -- or of every thread within a certain forum/volume/chapter topic. (I haven't been able to find this, but it's not really an easy concept to search for.)
- Add a blurb in your edit summary if you've made a related post in the forum.
In light of the points I've put forth, I suggest this compromise:
- Keep most discussion in the wiki. Archive old discussions on a subpage of the talk page. (What you get free with subpages: "links to all ancestor pages are shown automatically" + ability to use relative links.)
First section of current talk page can have a list of archived topics with links to the corresponding page. Note that there would still be anchors that can be linked to with Page_name#These_kinds_of_links -- That way links don't get broken. (also, with the method used here, you can create anchors without cluttering the TOC with old topic headings.)
before:after:Code: Select all
== archived topics == == Topic 1 == lots of text here == Topic 2 == lots of text here === Topic 2 subtopic === == Topic 3 == not much text here
(I'm pretty sure the repetitive stuff can be done with a template. hmmm ... BlckKnight?)Code: Select all
== Archived topics == <!-- this works the same as an anchor name. I've tried it in both Internet Explorer and Firefox --> <!-- the link goes to "This_Page/archive 1#Topic 1" --> <span id="Topic 1">[[/archive 1#Topic 1|Topic 1]]</span> <span id="Topic 2">[[/archive 2#Topic 2|Topic 2]]</span> :<span id="Topic 2 subtopic">[[/archive 2#Topic 2 subtopic|Topic 2 subtopic]]</span> == Topic 3 == not much text here
- Start all polls/major discussions with a link to a forum thread, and then when discussion is finished, add a summary to the talk page. This works great for big topics, because you have the link from the front page, as well as the talk page link. So if people are looking through the wiki, they WILL find it. (For smaller topics, this isn't as good an idea, because with those, you don't really know if you feel like replying until you've read some of it. And few people-just-passing-by have the wherewithal to click through and read all those small topics.)
- If a conversation is starting to get long and off topic, one of the participants can create a link to a forum thread, and continue it there. The main non-meandering discussion (if there is one) can continue on the talk page. The rationale for this is that only dedicated people take part in meandering and involved discussions anyway.