Help:Extension:MassMessage/en

This is a help page for usage of the MassMessage extension. For installation instructions, please see the extension documentation page.

Creating delivery lists
There are several ways to create delivery lists for MassMessage:

ContentHandler delivery lists (MediaWiki 1.24 or later)
Note that this method is not available if $wgContentHandlerUseDB has been changed to false.

MassMessage includes a ContentHandler-based system for managing delivery lists. To create a new delivery list, go to "Special:CreateMassMessageList" on your wiki. You can choose to create a new list, or to import pages from an existing delivery list (in any format). Pages can be directly added or removed one at a time when viewing delivery lists, and the Edit tab provides an interface for modifying the description and for adding or removing pages in bulk.

On wikifarm setups, pages on other wikis are specified in the format "title@site" in the bulk editing interface (e.g. Project:Noticeboard@en.wikipedia.org). Pages on the local wiki with "@" in their titles are also specified in this manner to avoid ambiguity (e.g. Foo@bar@mediawiki.org).

Category delivery lists (MediaWiki 1.23 or later)
MassMessage can deliver messages to all pages in allowed namespaces in a given category. Simply specify the category (e.g. Category:Foo) as the delivery list when sending a message.

Parser function delivery lists
You can create a page containing a custom formatted list. The format of the list is as follows:

In this case, the page name is "Project:Noticeboard". If you are on a wikifarm setup and wish to post to a page on another wiki, you would use:

This example would post to "Project:Noticeboard" on en.wikipedia.org.

For a real example, check the Signpost subscription page.

Sending a message
Go to "Special:MassMessage" on your wiki.


 * 1) The first input box is for the delivery list. Type in the full page name of the list you created in the previous step.
 * 2) Next is the subject of the message, which will also be used as the edit summary. For this reason, it is limited to 240 bytes.
 * 3) Finally, the body of the message. This field accepts any valid wikitext, but it may warn you if it notices bad input. See


 * 1) Hit Preview. This will load a preview of how your message will look on an example page.
 * 2) You can now either modify the message and preview it again, or if you are satisfied with your message, hit send. This will queue your delivery.
 * 3) You can visit "Special:Statistics" on your wiki to view how many messages are still queued in the job queue.

Note that the default configuration will automatically convert all User pages into User talk pages - If you specify "User:Foo" in a delivery list, the message will be posted to "User talk:Foo".

Customizing
Each wiki from which messages are sent can require a footer to be added by editing "MediaWiki:Massmessage-message-footer".

Each wiki that receives messages, can edit "MediaWiki:Massmessage-hidden-comment" for similar functionality.

Input checking
MassMessage attempts to check your input for common errors like improperly closed HTML. Currently the following checks are in place:


 * improperly closed HTML tags (requires JavaScript, shown immediately); and
 * unescaped language links (e.g.,, shown on preview).

Opting out
Any MassMessage delivery requires an input list, so removing yourself from whichever input list was used is the most straightforward way to opt out of a particular subscription. Usually the message being delivered will include an "unsubscribe" or "wrong page?" link.

If you want to exempt a page from any and all MassMessage deliveries, you can add the page to. This string is localized and may be customized on your wiki, so check what the value of the page "MediaWiki:massmessage-optout-category" for the exact exclusion category being used locally.

If you want to exempt an entire wiki from any and all MassMessage deliveries, you can block the account used to deliver messages (on Wikimedia wikis, this account is "MediaWiki message delivery"). Blocking MassMessage deliveries would likely be considered highly disruptive. Be careful. Deliveries that were aborted due to the block (or any other restriction such as page protection) will be logged at Special:Log/massmessage.

Monitoring
You can use Special:Log/massmessage to monitor the tool. You can also visit Special:Statistics to see how many queued messages there are (if any).