Structured Discussions/Deprecation

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T332022

Structured Discussions (SD - Flow) is a deprecated extension. Users are advised to discontinue its use, and communities are encouraged to move their talk pages that use Structured Discussions to subpages and stop using them. It is used on a few wikis. This extension is not maintained. DiscussionTools (DT) is the default discussion system on wikis now.

The Growth team (SD maintainers) and the Editing team (DT maintainers) have started thinking about how to deprecate Structured Discussions (and possibly LiquidThreads) and replace them with DiscussionTools.

Structured Discussions is a complex piece of software that generates a lot of maintenance issues. Estimating the work required to adapt Structured Discussions to the Temporary Accounts project revealed a very significant workload. In view of all these challenges, the decision was taken to inform the communities of the future deprecation of Structured Discussions.

The idea is to encourage communities to switch active Structured Discussions tools to the DiscussionTools talk page format. Then, the Structured Discussions pages would be removed from the wikis, at a yet to-be-defined date.

Project updates

• 8 June 2022 - first internal document by Kosta Harlan (Staff software engineer, Growth team) and Benoît Evellin (Community Relations Specialist, attached to the Growth team) on sunsetting SD
• 14 March 2023 - first meeting with Growth and Editing about SD deprecation
• 14 March 2023 - Comparison table of the two tools.
• 29 March 2023 - creation of the project page
• September 2023 - Data on usage of Structured Discussions
• December 2023 - Community discussions regarding archiving SD boards on wikis.
• May 2024 - Communication plan to assist communities archiving their Flow/LQT boards
• October 2024 - Communities are progressively informed of Flow/LQT's deprecation and are invited to move their pages using these tools as archived pages. These pages will be set to read-only mode soon after.
• 28 October 2024 - Phase 0 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
• Next - Phase 1 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
• Next - Phase 2 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
• Next - Convert Flow/LQT contents

Structured Discussions' deprecation

The Wikimedia Foundation is working on changes to how IP editing is handled: Temporary Accounts. Temporary accounts for unregistered editors will be a new type of user account. This requires changing how features we use to contribute to wikis works.

This work concerns all features, and it raises some challenges. The case of Structured Discussions (also known as “SD” or “Flow”) is one of them. This extension is used at a few wikis, that were progressively contacted in November and December 2023. Flow is a complex piece of software that was never quite finished, fits poorly into the MediaWiki architecture, and creates a significant number of technical errors.

The usage of Structured Discussions is low. In August 2023, on average DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day, while Structured Discussions is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.

We considered several options to adapt Structured Discussions, including a full adaptation, or a partial adaptation where Temp accounts can respond but not create new conversations. All of them would take a lot of time and effort for a short-term benefit. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation's long-term plan is to remove Structured Discussions from the wikis, mainly due to the maintenance cost. As a consequence, we prefer to avoid adapting Structured Discussions to Temporary accounts.

We took the opportunity of work around Temporary accounts to question the concerned communities regarding the future of Structured Discussions.

DiscussionTools is the replacement for Structured Discussions. DiscussionTools is the default discussion system at all wikis. It allows anyone to start, reply or subscribe to a conversation. It provides a visual experience for wikitext-based conversations, and it covers the vast majority of features Structured Discussions offers.

The goal with this conversation is to respond to the community's questions regarding the archival of Structured Discussions.

The idea is to proceed in two stages:

1. discussion pages using SD are archived as subpages. They are replaced by a classic discussion page. In this way, the most active pages will already be ready when we proceed to step 2.
2. SD are removed from the wiki. Existing pages (including archived ones) will be converted to a format yet to be defined.

We encourage communities to start the first step.

Questions asked to the communities

Starting at the end of November 2023, communities where Structured Discussions are still in use are progressively informed of the upcoming deprecation. We ask them the following questions:

1. Are the reasons given for archiving structured discussions clear?
2. Are the two steps outlined above for archiving and uninstalling structured discussions clear?
3. If so, what is a reasonable timeframe for archiving pages for deinstallation? At present, deinstallation is not planned on our side (even if the second quarter of 2024 is mentioned), as we are waiting for the end of these conversations, which take place on multiple wikis.
4. In your opinion, what format should pages currently using SDs be converted to when we proceed with the deinstallation of structured discussions?

Communities discussions report

Deprecation timeline

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T370722

The deprecation will be performed as follows:

1. Moving all Flow pages that aren't sub-pages as sub-pages
   1. First this move is done by users. This way, users of active Flow boards have the opportunity to move active discussions to a classical new talk page.
   2. At a given date, a script will moves the remaining pages.
2. Setting these pages in read-only mode.
3. Converting contents to wikitext.

The two first steps are conducted by the Editing team starting October 2024. Wikis have been grouped by phases.

Phase	Wikis	Moving all Flow pages as sub-pages	Setting Flow pages in read-only mode	Converting contents to wikitext
Phase 0	commonswiki, cswiki, enwiki, eowiki, frwiktionary, hewiki, kkwiki, metawiki, pawiki, ruwiki, specieswiki, svwiki, test2wiki, tewiki, nowiki, outreachwiki	Script ran on 24 October 2024	30 October 2024	not defined
Phase 1	bswiki, elwiki, euwiki, fawiki, fiwiki, frwikiquote, frwikisource, frwikiversity, frwikivoyage, idwiki, lvwiki, plwiki, ptwiki, urwiki, viwikisource, zhwikisource	28 November 2024	28 November 2024	not defined
Phase 2a	arwiki, cawiki, frwiki , mediawikiwiki , orwiki, wawiki, wawiktionary, wikidatawiki, zhwiki	to be added	16 December 2024	not defined
Phase 2b	cawikiquote, fiwikimedia, gomwiki, kabwiki, ptwikibooks, sewikimedia	to be added	to be added	not defined

Structured Discussions and DiscussionTools Comparative review

Main characteristics

Status of each tool, and their integration to the wiki's key features.

	LiquidThreads	Structured Discussions	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Type of tool	MediaWiki extension			Gadget/Userscript based on DiscussionTools
Release status	Unmaintained		Maintained (Wikimedia Foundation)	Maintained (Volunteers)
Activation	Pending removal		Deployed on all wikis as the default discussion system. User configurable (including opting-out).	User opt-in and configurable
Visual editing	N No	Yes	Yes	N No
Backwards-compatibility with wikitext	N No	N No	Yes	Yes
Templates support	Yes	Yes	Partial – Tables, templates and parser tags aren't allowed in replies in visual mode	Yes
Full history integration with the rest of the wiki	Yes	N No	Yes	Yes
Mobile web support	N No	Yes	Yes	N No
Mobile app support	N No	N No	Yes	N No
Permalink to a given comment	Yes	Yes	Yes – if the signature of the comment is not altered.	In progress

Discussion features

Interaction with talk pages and other comments.

	LiquidThreads	Structured Discussions	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Dedicated workflow for starting a new topic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Topic and contents preload	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Indication of new comments when you read a topic	N No	N No	Yes
Indication of edited comments when you read a topic	Yes	Yes	N No	Yes
Each conversation has a permalink	Yes	Yes – Each topic is a different page.	Yes – By linking to the title, or by using the first comment's permalink.	In progress
Move topics between pages	Yes	N No – planned but not implemented	Yes – via wikitext editing; title and signature mustn't be altered during the move.	Yes
Include discussions on another page and reply to them there	N No	N No – planned, including cross-wiki transclusion , but not implemented	Yes – via transclusion
Editing comments	Yes	Yes	Partial – via wikitext editing the whole page or section. See T242562 and T245225 for the editing of individual comments.	Yes
Thank a comment from within the talk page	Partial – via Page history	Yes	Partial – via Thanks in Page history. In progress – Work on supporting "Thanking" from the DiscussionTools UI is being tracked.	Yes
Sort topics by recent comment	Yes	Yes	N No	N No
Sort topics by start date	Yes	Yes	N No	N No
Summarize a discussion at the top of it	Yes	Yes	Partial – by editing opening comment.
Mark a message as read or unread	Yes	N No	N No	N No
Show/hide (collapse) subthreads	Yes	N No	N No	Yes

Notifications and interactivity

	LiquidThreads	Structured Discussions	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Highlight a set of unread comments	N No	Yes	Yes – only when subscribed to a topic and using links from notifications	Yes
Subscribe to be notified about new comments to a topic	Yes – via Watchlist	Yes – via Echo		Yes – via Echo or itself
Be notified when a new topic is started on a talk page
Auto-subscription to a topic you created	Yes – default
Highlight a quoted comment	N No – can link to comments but only as standalone pages	Yes	Yes	Yes
Notification of edited comments	Partial – only on your own comments	Yes	N No	N No

Maintenance and moderation

	LiquidThreads	Structured Discussions	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more	Partial – if linked in the signature	Yes	Partial – if linked in the signature
Hide (moderate) a comment	Partial – no undelete UI	Yes	Partial – via undo/rollback (requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext	Yes
Hide or delete a topic		Yes		Partial – same as DiscussionTools
Archiving discussions	Not needed	Not needed	N No – see T337293 Requires 3rd party bots for automatic archival Requires wikitext editing or 3rd party gadgets for manual archival	N No – Same as DiscussionTools, though moving topics can be used for manual archival.
Report an inappropriate comment	N No	N No	In progress	N No

Data on usage

In August 2023, on average:

• DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day.
• Flow is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.
• LiquidThreads is used less than once per day.