Discuciones estructuradas/Depreciación

This page is a translated version of the page Structured Discussions/Deprecation and the translation is 40% complete.

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.

Las discusiones estructuradas son una pieza de software compleja que genera muchos problemas de mantenimiento. La estimación del trabajo necesario para adaptar las discusiones estructurales al proyecto IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation reveló una carga de trabajo muy importante. En vista de todos estos desafíos, se tomó la decisión de informar a las comunidades sobre la futura desaprobación de las Discusiones Estructuradas.

La idea es animar a las comunidades de migrar las herramientas activas de Discusiones Estructuradas al formato de página de discusión DiscussionTools. Luego, las páginas de Discusiones Estructuradas se eliminarían de las wikis, en una fecha aún por definirse.

Actualizaciones del proyecto

  • - 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
  • - first meeting with Growth and Editing about SD deprecation
  • - Comparison table of the two tools.
  • - creación de la página del proyecto
  • - Datos sobre el uso de Discusiones Estructuradas
  • - Community discussions regarding archiving SD boards on wikis.
  • - Communication plan to assist communities archiving their Flow/LQT boards
  • - 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.
  • - 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


Depreciación de las Discusiones Estructuradas

The Wikimedia Foundation is working on changes to how IP editing is handled: IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation. 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.

El uso de las discusiones estructuradas es bajo. En agosto de 2023, en promedio DiscussionTools se utiliza alrededor de 18,780 veces al día, mientras que Discussions Structured se utiliza alrededor del 250 veces al día, principalmente en la Wikipedia en francés.

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.

Aprovechamos el trabajo en torno a las cuentas temporales para cuestionar a las comunidades interesadas sobre el futuro de las discusiones estructuradas.

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.

El objetivo de esta conversación es responder a las preguntas de la comunidad sobre el archivado de Discuciones Estructuradas.

La idea es proceder en dos etapas:

  1. las páginas de discusión que utilizan DE se archivan como subpáginas. Se sustituyen por una página de discusión clásica. De esta manera, las páginas más activas ya estarán listas cuando avanzemos al paso 2.
  2. Las DE se eliminan de la wiki. Las páginas existentes (incluidas las archivadas) se convertirán en un formato que aún no se ha definido.

Alentamos a las comunidades a dar el primer paso.

Preguntas para las comunidades

A partir de finales de noviembre de 2023, las comunidades en las que aún se usan las Discuciones Estructuradas se les informará progresivamente sobre la próxima depreciación de estas. Les hacemos las siguientes preguntas:

  1. ¿Son claras las razones que se han dado para archivar las discusiones estructuradas?
  2. ¿Están claros los dos pasos descritos anteriormente para archivar y desinstalar las discusiones estructuradas?
  3. Si es así, ¿cuál es el plazo razonable? Actualmente, no se planea la desinstalación de nuestro lado (aunque se mencione el segundo trimestre de 2024), ya que esperamos el final de estas conversaciones, que tienen lugar en múltiples wikis.
  4. En su opinión, ¿en qué formato deberían convertirse las páginas que actualmente utilizan DE cuando se proceda a la desinstalación de las Discusiones Estructuradas?

Communities discussions report

Deprecation timeline

The deprecation will be performed as follows:

  1. Moving all Flow pages that aren't sub-pages as sub-pages[1]
    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 not defined
Phase 1 bswiki, elwiki, euwiki, fawiki, fiwiki, frwikiquote, frwikisource, frwikiversity, frwikivoyage, idwiki, lvwiki, plwiki, ptwiki, urwiki, viwikisource, zhwikisource to be added to be added not defined
Phase 2 arwiki, cawiki, frwiki , mediawikiwiki , orwiki, wawiki, wawiktionary, wikidatawiki, zhwiki, cawikiquote, fiwikimedia, gomwiki, kabwiki, ptwikibooks, sewikimedia to be added to be added not defined


Comparación entre Discusiones Estructuradas y DiscussionTools

Main characteristics

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

LiquidThreads Discusiones estructuradas Herramientas de debate Convenient Discussions
Type of tool MediaWiki extension Gadget/Userscript based on DiscussionTools
Release status Unmaintained Maintained (Wikimedia Foundation) Maintained (Volunteers)
Activation Pending removal[2] Deployed on all wikis as the default discussion system.[3] User configurable (including opting-out). User opt-in and configurable
Visual editing  N No   Hecho   Hecho  N No
Backwards-compatibility with wikitext  N No  N No   Hecho   Hecho
Templates support   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – Tables, templates and parser tags aren't allowed in replies in visual mode   Hecho
Full history integration with the rest of the wiki   Hecho  N No   Hecho   Hecho
Mobile web support  N No   Hecho   Hecho  N No
Mobile app support  N No  N No   Hecho  N No
Permalink to a given comment   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho – if the signature of the comment is not altered.[4]   En curso

Discussion features

Interaction with talk pages and other comments.

LiquidThreads Discusiones estructuradas Herramientas de debate Convenient Discussions
Dedicated workflow for starting a new topic   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho
Topic and contents preload   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho
Indication of new comments when you read a topic  N No  N No   Hecho
Indication of edited comments when you read a topic   Hecho   Hecho  N No   Hecho
Each conversation has a permalink   Hecho   Hecho – Each topic is a different page.   Hecho – By linking to the title, or by using the first comment's permalink.[4]   En curso[4]
Move topics between pages   Hecho  N Noplanned but not implemented   Hecho – via wikitext editing; title and signature mustn't be altered during the move.[4]   Hecho
Include discussions on another page and reply to them there  N No  N Noplanned, including cross-wiki transclusion , but not implemented   Hecho – via transclusion
Editing comments   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – via wikitext editing the whole page or section. See T242562 and T245225 for the editing of individual comments.   Hecho
Thank a comment from within the talk page   Hecho parcialmente – via Page history   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – via Thanks in Page history.
  En curso – Work on supporting "Thanking" from the DiscussionTools UI is being tracked.
  Hecho
Sort topics by recent comment   Hecho   Hecho  N No  N No
Sort topics by start date   Hecho   Hecho  N No  N No
Summarize a discussion at the top of it   Hecho   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – by editing opening comment.
Mark a message as read or unread   Hecho  N No  N No  N No
Show/hide (collapse) subthreads   Hecho  N No  N No   Hecho


Notifications and interactivity

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

Maintenance and moderation

LiquidThreads Discusiones estructuradas Herramientas de debate Convenient Discussions
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more   Hecho parcialmente – if linked in the signature   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – if linked in the signature
Hide (moderate) a comment   Hecho parcialmente – no undelete UI   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – via undo/rollback (requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext   Hecho
Hide or delete a topic   Hecho   Hecho parcialmente – 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   En curso[5]  N No


Información de uso

En agosto de 2023, en promedio:

  • DiscussionTools se utiliza alrededor de 18.780 veces al día.
  • Flow se utiliza alrededor de 250 veces al día, principalmente en la Wikipedia en francés.
  • LiquidThreads se utiliza menos de una vez al día.

Notas y referencias

  1. We assume that any sub-page is an archive.
  2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332022
  3. A few wikis have Flow as the default discussion system.
  4. T339247 – Create entry points for the Incident Report dialog with DiscussionTools