Last modified: 2009-11-07 21:59:31 UTC
My "you have new messages" bar showed up today, because help.wikia.com was copied to sarahtestwiki.wikia.com. User:Wikia had welcomed me to help.wikia.com in May 2009, so MediaWiki thought the new page was a new message, even though it isn't.
Copying wikis is not part of the MediaWiki software. It must be something Wikia wrote, so it's their code that's broken. It probably copied over the user_newtalk table as well, while it shouldn't.
OK, thanks for the prompt reply. I'll post to the Wikia listserv or something.