Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using MassMessage for Project Notification

Occasionally, members of the Military history Project must be informed of certain project specific events, such as the nomination and election phases of the Military history Project Coordinator Elections, Military history WikiProject historian and newcomer of the year awards, editorial drives (such as backlog or tag and assess drives), and project discussions which require input from the community as a whole. To notify the project members of the need for their input it is customary to send out a mass message to project members to allow for anyone interested to participate in the given matter at hand.

Mass messages should only be sent to groups of users who are likely to want their attention drawn to the message. Judgement should be exercised to only use mass messages for very important topics, so as not to needlessly spam the project's members. This essay will therefore serve as a guide to mass messaging, including when to mass message and how to send out a mass message.

Guidance for use

Audience

As noted above, mass messages should only be sent to groups of users who are likely to want their attention drawn to the message. A prime example is notifying members of a WikiProject about local events or edit-a-thons, though for any regular mailings users should be informed of how they can unsubscribe from future messages (see below).

For other cases, less personalized means of communication are preferred. Wikipedia's primary means of communication is through posts on article talk pages, Wikipedia talk pages, or various noticeboards, including the Village Pump. Editors who are interested in a given topic may have the corresponding page on their watchlist. The requests for comment process can be used to increase participation in a discussion.

To reach the members of a given WikiProject, a post on that project's talk page can be used. Site-wide notices are used for messages of importance to a great many users. Geo-notices are used for locally significant messages. Some topics might also be included in the project's newsletter, The Bugle, although it is best to check with one of the newsletter's editors first.

Content

Adherence to the talk page guidelines is important with mass messages as it can affect a large group of users. Formatting standards should be given consideration, being that verbose, overly formatted and especially large messages may clutter the user's talk page. Formatting is not discouraged, however. For invitations to local events, such as an edit-a-thon, it is common to include an image and attractive styling to help encourage participation.

The guideline on canvassing is especially relevant to this tool and users should familiarize themselves with its provisions before sending out mass notifications.

Requesting a mailing

Requests for mailings may be made on the talk page; on the talk page of any of the 900 users of Wikipedia with the needed user right; or by asking any of those users directly.

Before making your request

Please have the following things available before making your request:

• A proper list or category of users to mail your newsletter or notice to.

• For Military history Project drives, discussions, and election notices, the relevant list should be Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Members/Active, as this ensures everyone active within the project is alerted to the discussion, drive, or election notice.

• A newsletter or notice ready to go:

• For the monthly edition of The Bugle, our monthly newsletter for the project, the relevant list is found at User:The ed17/sandbox3

Tracking your request

Once your request has been answered, you may follow the progress of your request:

• You can see how many messages are left to be sent on Special:Statistics.
• You can see if there were any issues with any of the members on your list on the log page.

Sending the message

Because the Mass Messaging tool is only available to administrators and mass message senders, an admin or mass message sender will have to format the message to be delivered. Invariably, some of the project's co-ordinators will have admin user rights, and can be approached to make the necessary edits. (If the message relates to the project as a whole, it should normally be socialised with the co-ordinators and remainder of the project first to some extent, and your request can be raised in this forum). To access the tool, click here. Once the page loads, the following need to be added to the page from the top down, respectively:

• The active member list or The ed17 mailing list, depending on the message to be sent. Include the entire page name verbatim.
• The subject header. Choose a description that adequately summarizes the body of the text being sent. In the case of The Bugle, the subject header should read "The Bugle" and the given edition being sent out.
• The body of the message. This should include a brief message with links to the section describing the drive, nomination, election, or discussion taking place. In the case of The Bugle, the section should include the code for the current edition of The Bugle being delivered. Take care to ensure that all links in a given edition of The Bugle link to the current month before sending the newsletter out. Although its rare, we have occasionally had misfires on Bugle links which have required a follow-up delivery to correct links for the current month.
• Take care to import your signature for the mass message system, followed by five tildes (~~~~~) for the time stamp. Using the standard four tildes (~~~~) to sign your name within the mass messaging window will result in the name "MediaWiki message delivery" rather than your username.

Once the fields are completed you will be required to preview the intended message. Take the time to ensure that the links go to the right place, that there are no major spelling or grammar issues, and that the correct mailing list is being used for the message to be delivered. Once this is done, click send, and the mass messaging tool will handle the delivery.

Parts of this essay originally appeared at Wikipedia:Mass message senders.