Hi everyone. I would like to let you know about some updates to the Discussions feature. Some have happened recently, and others are going to happen soon. Always remember to update to the latest version of the Community App when it becomes available!
User badges: Users of the web interface have probably noticed that admins and discussions moderators now have small badges on their avatars, to make their role clear. This addition will come to the community apps in September (it did not quite make it into the app releases for August).
Post count on profile page: A Discussions post count will be seen on a user's wiki profile page, under the edit count. (For example, see starwars.wikia.com/wiki/User:Brandon_Rhea) The post count will be linked to the user’s Discussions contributions page. This will help make Discussion activity more visible to all community members.
Email Notifications: Users will start to get email notifications when their own posts receive replies and upvotes. This matches the push notifications that app users now receive. There will be a new email preference that allows you to opt out of these emails, if you wish. Further in the future (not this month) we will be adding more options for following any post and receiving notifications about it.
Graphics on the web layout: Admins will gain the ability to change the graphics on the web layout, both the square "community avatar" image and the wide "discussions header" image. The community avatar will become editable first. Please see the Help page for details about image size: starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Admin_and_Moderator_Tools_in_Discussions
Discussion categories: This is the most exciting update. Admins will be able to create categories for Discussions. Once this is done, every user will need to choose a category before completing a post. This will bring much more organization and structure to Discussions, and should be especially helpful for very active communities. We encourage admins to avoid creating too many categories at first. Only create the ones you need right now. The latest versions of the Community App have full support for posting to categories and filtering by category when reading. Remember to update your app!
Specific release dates are always noted on the Wikia Technical Updates blog at community.wikia.com/wiki/Blog:Wikia_Technical_Updates
We are very grateful to this community for being an early adopter of the Discussions feature. Your use of Discussions, and your feedback, has helped our developers learn more about what users want, and will continue to guide our next steps. Keep letting us know what you think!
