Wikia:Sitenotice guidelines

Wikia - creating communities

It is possible to display important messages to all users of a wiki by adding text to the Site notice. The message will be displayed at the top of every page on the wiki. The Sitenotice page can be edited by any administrator.

It's important to use the notice effectively, because it takes up valuable screen space which pushes down the page, including tools that users need. If used too often, regular users to your wiki might begin to ignore it, making it harder to get the really important notices out.

[edit] Best practices

• Use the notice only for important and temporary messages, leaving it empty most of the time.
• Keep site notices short and sweet -- one or two lines of text with links to more extensive information is best.
• Keep page load times fast by avoiding images, polls, DPL, or other extensions in the site notice.
• Consider whether to use the anon notice, which allows you to talk only to users that are not logged in, or to show a different message to that group.
• Use the main page, Community Portal, or sidebar for links to news, policies, or help.
• Sitenotice messages should generally not be signed.