構造化された議論/廃止予定

Phabricator で追跡中
タスク 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 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.

Project updates

• 2022年6月8日 - 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
• 2023年3月14日 - first meeting with Growth and Editing about SD deprecation
• 2023年3月14日 - Comparison table of the two tools.
• 2023年3月29日 - creation of the project page
• 2023年9月 - Data on usage of Structured Discussions
• 2023年12月 - Community discussions regarding archiving SD boards on wikis.
• 2024年5月 - Communication plan to assist communities archiving their Flow/LQT boards
• 2024年10月 - 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.
• 2024年10月28日 - 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

Phabricator で追跡中
タスク 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 2024年10月24日	2024年10月30日	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

Structured Discussions and DiscussionTools Comparative review

Main characteristics

各ツールの状態と、それらのウィキの主要機能への統合状況。

	LiquidThreads	構造化された議論	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
ツールの種類	MediaWiki 拡張機能			議論ツールに基づいたガジェット/ユーザースクリプト
リリースの状態	保守されていない		保守されている (ウィキメディア財団)	保守されている (ボランティア)
除去を保留中	除去を保留中		Deployed on all wikis as the default discussion system. User configurable (including opting-out).	User opt-in and configurable
ビジュアル編集	N 未完了	完了	完了	N 未完了
ウィキテキストとの後方互換性	N 未完了	N 未完了	完了	完了
テンプレートに対応	完了	完了	部分的に完了 – ビジュアルモードでは返信で表、テンプレート、パーサー タグを使用できない	完了
ウィキの残りの部分との履歴の完全な統合	完了	N 未完了	完了	完了
携帯機器ウェブ対応	N 未完了	完了	完了	N 未完了
携帯機器アプリ対応	N 未完了	N 未完了	完了	N 未完了
指定したコメントへの固定リンク	完了	完了	完了 – コメントの署名が変更されていない場合。	進行中

議論の機能

トーク ページやその他のコメントとのインタラクション。

	LiquidThreads	構造化された議論	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
新しい話題を開始するための専用ワークフロー	完了	完了	完了	完了
話題およびコンテンツのプリロード	完了	完了	完了	完了
話題を読んでいる際の新しいコメントの表示	N 未完了	N 未完了	完了
話題を読んでいる際の編集されたコメントの表示	完了	完了	N 未完了	完了
各会話に固定リンクがある	完了	完了 – Each topic is a different page.	完了 – By linking to the title, or by using the first comment's permalink.	進行中
Move topics between pages	完了	N 未完了 – planned but not implemented	完了 – via wikitext editing; title and signature mustn't be altered during the move.	完了
Include discussions on another page and reply to them there	N 未完了	N 未完了 – planned, including cross-wiki transclusion , but not implemented	完了 – 参照読み込み経由
Editing comments	完了	完了	部分的に完了 – ページ全体または節単位のウィキテキスト編集経由。 See T242562 and T245225 for the editing of individual comments.	完了
Thank a comment from within the talk page	部分的に完了 – ページ履歴経由	完了	部分的に完了 – via Thanks in Page history. 進行中 – Work on supporting "Thanking" from the DiscussionTools UI is being tracked.	完了
Sort topics by recent comment	完了	完了	N 未完了	N 未完了
Sort topics by start date	完了	完了	N 未完了	N 未完了
Summarize a discussion at the top of it	完了	完了	部分的に完了 – by editing opening comment.
Mark a message as read or unread	完了	N 未完了	N 未完了	N 未完了
Show/hide (collapse) subthreads	完了	N 未完了	N 未完了	完了

Notifications and interactivity

	LiquidThreads	構造化された議論	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Highlight a set of unread comments	N 未完了	完了	完了 – only when subscribed to a topic and using links from notifications	完了
Subscribe to be notified about new comments to a topic	完了 – ウォッチリスト 経由	完了 – Echo 経由		完了 – Echo またはそれ自身経由
Be notified when a new topic is started on a talk page
Auto-subscription to a topic you created	完了 – 既定
Highlight a quoted comment	N 未完了 – can link to comments but only as standalone pages	完了	完了	完了
Notification of edited comments	部分的に完了 – only on your own comments	完了	N 未完了	N 未完了

保守とモデレーション

	LiquidThreads	構造化された議論	DiscussionTools	Convenient Discussions
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more	部分的に完了 – if linked in the signature	完了	部分的に完了 – if linked in the signature
Hide (moderate) a comment	部分的に完了 – no undelete UI	完了	部分的に完了 – via undo/rollback (requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext	完了
Hide or delete a topic		完了		部分的に完了 – same as DiscussionTools
Archiving discussions	不要	不要	N 未完了 – see T337293 Requires 3rd party bots for automatic archival Requires wikitext editing or 3rd party gadgets for manual archival	N 未完了 – Same as DiscussionTools, though moving topics can be used for manual archival.
Report an inappropriate comment	N 未完了	N 未完了	進行中	N 未完了

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