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MassMessage

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MassMessage (Special:MassMessage) is a tool that allows users to send messages to a list of pages quickly and easily. This tool has been activated since October 2013.

MassMessage allows local administrators to send out messages to their respective wiki and allows Meta-Wiki administrators and MassMessage senders to send out messages to users on any Wikimedia wiki.

For general information about how to use the extension, including opt-out instructions, check out MassMessage extension help page.

Please report any bugs or feature requests on the talk page or directly in Phabricator by creating a new task.

Limitations

MassMessage is being deployed to Wikimedia wikis with two limitations: an additional user right and a configuration decision that limits the tool's capabilities.

The additional user right is called "massmessage" and is only assigned to local administrators (sysops) by default. Previously, anyone on an on-wiki access list (including non-administrators) could easily send out mass messages. Your local community should consider its options: adding a viral user group (i.e., anyone in the user group can add others to the same user group), allowing administrators to assign the user right in a specific user group, or setting up a "requests" page queue for administrators to process. Please be cognizant of the fact that MassMessage, at its core, does little more than automate what any user could do with browser tabs without even logging in.

The configuration decision restricts local users (except on Meta) from making cross-wiki deliveries. Again, any user can easily open browser tabs and post cross-wiki without even logging in, but the option in the MassMessage extension is disabled, for now.

Global message delivery

Only on Meta-Wiki (this wiki), any user with the "massmessage" user right (administrators and massmessage senders) can send messages to any Wikimedia wiki. In addition, on this wiki there is a wrapper template ({{target}}) that should be used for input lists.

  • The recipients list must be a valid list accepted by the extension (like one of Global message delivery/Targets or MassMessage/Lists).
  • The subject line is fairly straightforward. It may not exceed 240 bytes (doing so causes truncated edit summaries).
  • The body is the text of the message you wish to deliver.
    • For messages longer than a few lines, the body should be just a few lines of introduction with a link to the actual message, translatable with the Translate extension (example; tutorial) – unless it's a user who opted in or a project page in the same language as the message.
    • Do not use templates. You never know if such template exists on the target wiki as well as if it will behave the way you need.
    • Be careful with links. Most of them typically link to Meta, thus must be in the form of [[m:Some Meta Page|text]]. Otherwise they will appear red on the target wiki.
      • Use links in the form [[m:Special:MyLanguage/Page name here]] if the page has translations and the Translate extension.
    • If you are sending a message in English to non-English wikis, please wrap your message with <div lang="en" dir="ltr"></div>. You can also add {{int:please-translate}} (which says "Please help translate to your language", in the user's own language) to the body of your message, to request translations into the local language.
    • Include a link to Global message delivery or another page where users can understand why and how the message was delivered and give feedback (like the user talk of the sender, the Meta-Wiki or mediawiki.org page of the project).
    • If not accomplished by the previous point, include a link to the distribution list — for example, "(Wrong page? Fix here.)".
    • Optionally, add a link to your user page or user talk page on Meta, to mimic a normal signature: [[m:User:Example|Example]] ([[m:User talk:Example|talk]]) to produce Example (talk).
      • If you are sending a message in a left-to-right language to any right-to-left language wikis (or the opposite), then wrap your signature in <bdi> tags (Bi-Directional Isolation). You can also auto-translate the "talk" string. For example: <bdi lang="en" dir="ltr">[[m:User:Example|Example]] ([[m:User talk:Example|{{subst:int:Talkpagelinktext}}]])</bdi>
    • Close the message with a timestamp (the wiki markup to achieve this is 5 tildes: ~~~~~).
  • Do follow Best practices for reaching out to projects in multiple languages.
  • Avoid embarrassment and double-check that you are sending to the right distribution list. By using this, you agree to the following: you are fully responsible for any mistakes (including typos in the body text, inappropriate recipients lists, etc.) and you commit yourself to manually cleaning up any messes you create.
  • If the message is going interlanguage or interproject, please manually test the message at a range of these wikis to ensure that links work as expected, also refer to Special:Interwiki.
  • Do visit each of the wikis you are going to be posting at. This will connect it to your Global account. If you do not do this, then your GlobalUserPage will not work there, and you will not receive notifications for posts at your usertalkpage. (Or, use the global SUL tool to connect your account at all wikis.)

See also

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