Structured Discussions/Deprecation/id

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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 IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation 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.

  • - 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.
  • - creation of the project page
  • - Data on usage of Structured Discussions
  • - 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


Structured Discussions' deprecation

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.

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

Pengurangan akan dilakukan sebagai berikut:

  1. Memindahkan semua halaman Flow yang bukan sub-halaman sebagai sub-halamannya[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
Tahap 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
Tahap 2 arwiki, cawiki, frwiki , mediawikiwiki , orwiki, wawiki, wawiktionary, wikidatawiki, zhwiki, 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 Pembicaraan Terstruktur DiscussionTools 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 Belum selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai
Backwards-compatibility with wikitext N Belum selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai
Templates support Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – Tables, templates and parser tags aren't allowed in replies in visual mode Yes Selesai
Full history integration with the rest of the wiki Yes Selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai
Mobile web support N Belum selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai
Mobile app support N Belum selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai
Permalink to a given comment Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai – if the signature of the comment is not altered.[4] Dalam pengerjaan Dalam pengerjaan

Discussion features

Interaction with talk pages and other comments.

LiquidThreads Pembicaraan Terstruktur DiscussionTools Convenient Discussions
Dedicated workflow for starting a new topic Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai
Topic and contents preload Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai
Indication of new comments when you read a topic N Belum selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai
Indication of edited comments when you read a topic Yes Selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai
Each conversation has a permalink Yes Selesai Yes Selesai – Each topic is a different page. Yes Selesai – By linking to the title, or by using the first comment's permalink.[4] Dalam pengerjaan Dalam pengerjaan[4]
Move topics between pages Yes Selesai N Belum selesaiplanned but not implemented Yes Selesai – via wikitext editing; title and signature mustn't be altered during the move.[4] Yes Selesai
Include discussions on another page and reply to them there N Belum selesai N Belum selesaiplanned, including cross-wiki transclusion , but not implemented Yes Selesai – via transclusion
Editing comments Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – via wikitext editing the whole page or section. See T242562 and T245225 for the editing of individual comments. Yes Selesai
Thank a comment from within the talk page Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – via Page history Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – via Thanks in Page history.
Dalam pengerjaan Dalam pengerjaan – Work on supporting "Thanking" from the DiscussionTools UI is being tracked.
Yes Selesai
Sort topics by recent comment Yes Selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai
Sort topics by start date Yes Selesai Yes Selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai
Summarize a discussion at the top of it Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – by editing opening comment.
Mark a message as read or unread Yes Selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai
Show/hide (collapse) subthreads Yes Selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai Yes Selesai


Notifications and interactivity

LiquidThreads Pembicaraan Terstruktur DiscussionTools Convenient Discussions
Highlight a set of unread comments N Belum selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai – only when subscribed to a topic and using links from notifications Yes Selesai
Subscribe to be notified about new comments to a topic Yes Selesai – via Watchlist Yes Selesai – via Echo Yes Selesai – via Echo or itself
Be notified when a new topic is started on a talk page
Auto-subscription to a topic you created Yes Selesai – default
Highlight a quoted comment N Belum selesai – can link to comments but only as standalone pages Yes Selesai Yes Selesai Yes Selesai
Notification of edited comments Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – only on your own comments Yes Selesai N Belum selesai N Belum selesai

Maintenance and moderation

LiquidThreads Pembicaraan Terstruktur DiscussionTools Convenient Discussions
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – if linked in the signature Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – if linked in the signature
Hide (moderate) a comment Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – no undelete UI Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – via undo/rollback (requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext Yes Selesai
Hide or delete a topic Yes Selesai Belum lengkap Sebagian terselesaikan – same as DiscussionTools
Archiving discussions Belum lengkap Not needed Belum lengkap Not needed N Belum selesai – see T337293
  • Requires 3rd party bots for automatic archival
  • Requires wikitext editing or 3rd party gadgets for manual archival
N Belum selesai – Same as DiscussionTools, though moving topics can be used for manual archival.
Report an inappropriate comment N Belum selesai N Belum selesai Dalam pengerjaan Dalam pengerjaan[5] N Belum selesai


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.

Notes and references

  1. Kami menganggap bahwa setiap sub-halaman adalah arsip.
  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