Talk:MoodBar

Previous page history was archived for backup purposes at Talk:MoodBar/LQT Archive 1 on 2015-07-10.

I just discover this project and I wonder what is the link with the Article feedback extension. Is it intended to be used on Wikipedia with Article feedback? It seems to be a "light Article feedback", with an easier and simpler interface.

This post was posted by He7d3r, but signed as Seb35.

I have the same questions....

This is only for registered, new users, and it's intended as a feedback tool specifically regarding the editing experience (it appears the first time you make an edit). For example: "The syntax made me cry", "People are mean to me", etc. It's not intended to collect feedback about articles using this tool.

Is it intended to be used on Wikipedia with Article feedback?

It seems to be, see this topic:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Quick Feedback on Editing Experience: New Editors

I tried the MoodBar at http://ee-prototype.wmflabs.org (while logged in as "test-editor" as described here) but everything I tried was blocked with highly confusing error messages.

1. My first try was rejected because of an unexplained "rule violation"? I have no idea why. All I did was entering a single line of text.
2. Other tries are blocked because of an exceeded limit? What limit? Maybe it's because I'm using the "test-editor" login. But really, I don't think this is used by more than two or three people at a time.
3. All message disappeared very, very quick. I had no time to read the text.
4. Every time my comment was deleted from the form. I had to type it again and again.
5. I found it confusing that the submit button is disabled even when I entered a text. My use case is: I don't care about the smileys in the upper half of the box. All I want do do is to submit a little text. Why is this blocked?

I find all this extremely confusing and annoying. Also, were is the text stored? Were can I read the texts from other users?

Edit: I tried with my own login. Same problems. My first try was rejected because of an unexplained "rule violation". The form got deleted. All other tries are blocked because of an unexplained limit. How long should I wait? Five minutes? A week? This must be explained in the error message. Also the rule I violated must be explained.

Edit: I see the extension is abandoned. Never mind. Please ignore my comments then.

Hi, some users only abuse the moodbar but are great editors. It would be very useful to have a feature to block users from the MoodBar only instead of blocking them completely. I'd love to see this if at all possible.

Is there a way that a User can turn off the Moodbar from appearing on the Wikipedia pages? I have been attending to users concerns on the Feedback page and quite a good number claim it is annoying. Uwanja _{Talk to Me. Email Me.} 04:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if they click "What is this?" on MoodBar, the dropdown explanation includes the link "I'm not interested. Please disable this feature." which will turn it off for them.

Thank you Steven (WMF). I have in turn advised the user who had requested for this.

Would it be possible to create a Czech version for Czech Wikipedia?

Certainly!

In order for this to happen, we'll need to make sure it's been localized into your wiki's language before we can deploy, and then we'll need to see that there is community consensus for deployment.

Localization for the extension can be done at translatewiki; if you need help, you can ask around in #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net.

I'm trying to find this project on English Wikipedia but have no idea where to look. The report says that the software is now live but is only shown to very new users I believe. Even so, the new user's comments must be sent somewhere but WP:MoodBar w:en:Wikipedia:MoodBar soft-redirects back here and a sitewide search reveals only this as far as I can tell: w:en:User:Mdennis (WMF)/Moodbar feedback. I believe there is an implied promise by having a "mood bar" in the first place that user's comments will be read and responded to/acted upon by the community (this is the purposes of the "dashboard" I believe). Is this happening either on-wiki or through an OTRS queue or something similar? Wittylama 00:16, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

We are currently developing Feedback Dashboard, which is where the Moodbar Feedback is going to appear.

Yes, but what's happening to the feedback in the mean time? Wittylama 04:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It's stored, and shared with a few people via CSV files, which isn't sufficient - hence the dashboard.

Personally, I think that Feedback Dashboard will be a game changer.

Please don't impose this on enwiki.

Start a discussion/proposal, if you like - but please, please don't just implement it / try it, without asking. Thanks, Chzz 01:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I second this. There was a good deal of discontent when WikiLove was brought in, and a lot of that discontent came from the perception that this was slipped under the radar and everyone was opted in before being asked, both as a community, and individually (i.e. there was no ability to preemptively opt out.

If you bring this to the community, and they accept it, people will live with it even if they don't like it, but if you don't bring it to the community, it'll only add to feeling that the WMF is willing to steamroll its agenda over the community.

I can tell you for a fact is going to have vehement opposition. There is a large number of users who see the WMF as rolling out features designed to make the projects more like social networking sites. I personally hate this for that reason, and I know that I'm not alone, but the point is not that I hate it, the point is that detractors to the feature should have a public voice on Wikipedia regarding this.

Well, if any of these tools (Article Feedback, MoodBar, WikiLove, etc...) "make the projects more like social networking sites" in the sense of having more diversity and quantity of people participating in the projects, then I think one of its objectives is attained.

But I do agree that these specific features are being rolled out without the usual "local consensus" that users are used to have. I'm not sure this is really bad, though, since these pilot deployments seems to be needed to get the data needed by WMF. But I can't talk by them.

As far as I can tell, it is not adding to diversity or quantity of editors, all it is doing is causing distractions from actual work. So you know, I hate social networking sites. Hate is a strong word, but the intensity of my dislike for social networking sites warrants that word. Me saying that the WMF is turning Wikipedia into one is one of the worst things I can say, either about the WMF or the direction Wikipedia is heading in.

I've been chatting about the MoodBar with a few other people, and the opinions I've got range from neutral to "is there any way to veto it".

You all need to start a discussion, you really do, because it's the only way you're going to be able to set the terms of the discussion, you can set up a "let's vote to approve this" discussion and frame it any way you want. If you just throw this on us though, the discussion is going to go something like "let's remove this sitewide and make a community statement that we don't want to be included in any new features the WMF cooks up". I think you all underestimate the amount of quiet anger that the WikiLove roll out generated.

Hi Sven, as Steven says, this feature has nothing to do with social networking. It's about gathering quick feedback from new editors about where they're experiencing trouble. We've announced this on the English Wikipedia here, where there's also a bit more discussion.

This is also an experimental test deployment. We generally try to set user expectations for a feature and communicate about it commensurate with the scale of deployment. For this first test, we're simply making a determination about whether the signal/noise ratio justifies additional development effort or not.

I agree 100% with you Chzz, we shouldn't deploy this without discussion, the WMF has already done WAY to much of that and it needs to stop. We're a community, if they're SOO into letting the community decide, make a proposal, and let us vote. If we have to do it, they should have to do it too.

Hey Chzz, Sven

I'm not on the Tech side of things at the WMF, but I wanted to reply because I think I can clarify something:

1. Chzz, about your concern: this is not a permanent deployment. It's a test. At this point, the WMF has absolutely no idea whether new editors will even notice and use MoodBar enough to provide useful feedback. We can talk with Wikipedians like yourself all we want about whether we guess a feature might be desirable/necessary, but until we actually get the data about its use we can't have a useful discussion about whether it's necessary as a feature. Right now no one at the Foundation would suggest that we know enough about the feature to even bother making some kind of proposal or announcement about permanent deployment.
2. This isn't a social networking application. It's a feedback button that only appears to new registered users after they edit. There are no friend requests, poking, or other annoying elements. In fact, MoodBar is going to be totally invisible to you and almost everyone who read or edits Wikipedia. If you don't want to interact with newbies who want to leave feedback about their Wikipedia experience, you can continue doing that whether this tool is on the site or not.

Being like a social networking site dosen't necessarily mean friend requests. Superficial "how are you feeling today" stuff and talk-centric features are also social networking.

The Short Answer

I see the whole "how are you feeling today" thing to be superficial fluff. I have to assume that it's aim deals with editor retention and satisfaction, but "how are you feeling today" isn't going to do anything to solve the deep and systemic problems that drive editors away. Before you try and justify the research value of this, let me stop you ahead of time. The aforementioned deep and systemic issues have been around, and been the subject of much commentary, for years. The research this generates isn't going to differ from what you'd get if you read back on a half decade's worth of AN/I and VP threads.

The Long Answer

The WMF is tackling the problems of editor satisfaction and retention with:

1. WikiLove, which is superficial and ineffective. People give barnstars to other editors that they know, meaning that this misses new editors.

2. Article Feedback, which is easily skewed by a few idiots that decide they want to give 1/1/1/1s to everything. The solution to the issue of changing content rendering votes obsolete, having the votes last for only 30 edits, means that ratings last less than an hour on our most active articles, or years on our least active articles.

3. MoodBar, which might actually do its stated task of gauging new users' comfort with editing, but will miss the larger issues completely.

The larger issues:

1. High levels of incivility among vested contributors: A dozen or so editors on Wikipedia can get away with being... for lack of better terminology... irredeemable assholes... because they also generate large amounts of other good work. I don't have to name them, everyone knows who they are. These people are not only painting an ugly picture for newcomers, but are causing experienced, long term editors to leave. A half dozen vested contributors might generate 100 good articles, but they chase away two dozen users, themselves the source on 400 good articles. Even if the users that were chased off were not nearly as productive as the vested contributors, it still would be a problem.

2. Ineffective dispute resolution mechanisms: This one is being solved by the editors themselves, at least partially, because at this point it's gotten so bad that people are willing to try anything. Others are able to describe this one better than I am, but the long story short is that the steps along the road to ArbCom all have deep flaws, and while they solve the low hanging fruit issues, they don't stand a chance against anything really contentious. That stuff winds up, after many failed attempts at resolution have inflamed the problem, at the foot of a less-popularly-legitimate-that-you-all-want-to-believe-it-is ArbCom, which has a limited number of plays in its playbook, and at best is able to cool off situations for a year or two. That is, when the case makes it to ArbCom properly. When they circumvent the community and act by motion, it makes situations worse.

3. Lack of collaboration: I can count on my two hands the number of truly active (and actually productive) WikiProjects. We have hundreds of them, but most lie pretty dormant. In the absence of Wikiprojects, there's little recourse for contacting like-minded editors for resources or assistance. Editors that don't already know everyone are liable to feel stranded, or worse yet, join a Wikiproject and get turned off by the lack of a pulse there, and then feel stranded.

I'm not saying that this is all the WMF's fault, and I'm not saying that there are easy answeres. What I am saying though, is that you're rolling out lots of features that don't really help much of anything. You seem to have opted for the "let's solve the problems by asking everyone how they feel" course as opposed to the "let's solve the problems by tackling difficult issues head on".

Also, you really should have a cynic/devil's advocate on hand at all times, so you can run ideas past him or her. Having someone there to say "I've been on Wikipedia for three years and can tell you right now that [they won't like it/it won't solve the problem/you should ask them for imput this way rather than that way] will make things smoother.

One man's fluff is another man's golden opportunity to give feedback. We won't know until we try. As far as devil's advocate type feedback goes... that's what we have you for Sven. ;)

Sven, as you say, there are no easy answers, and addressing issues of editor retention and editor health will likely require many varied interventions, both on the technical and social side of things. We're engaged in both: While you're observing MoodBar, AFT and WikiLove (each of which has a story more complex than the one you're telling), work is also actively ongoing on developing a completely new editing interface for Wikimedia projects, for example, and members of the community department are studying the impact of different warning messages and measuring the scale and impact of WikiProject work.

We have indeed discussed, and are considering, for example feature interventions to increase effectiveness of WikiProjects, as well as exposure to those projects in the lifecycle of an editor. The Account Creation Improvement Project has resulted in a redesign of the sign-up process, which is still in active experimental production use, and which exposes new users more quickly to tasks they can engage in, and to ways they can collaborate with others.

We've engaged in countless deep conversations about these issues, where lots of experienced editors have weighed in. Some have stated similar problems to the ones you've mentioned, some have identified very different ones. You'll find an example of that on strategy:Talk:March 2011 Update or the summarized version.

We also have several experienced Wikipedians on the WMF staff (including yours truly, and while I've not been very active recently, you'll find me in the edit histories of many key policies and conventions on en.wp); we continually engage in conversations such as this one, and we generally have no shortage of people telling us that what we're doing is wrong. :-) Resistance and opposition to change comes with the territory; some of that is well-placed skepticism and conservatism, and we generally try to listen hard and make sense of comments as they come in. We also try to be bold and experiment with lots of different ideas.

We'll wait and see as to what feedback is or isn't reported through MoodBar. You may be right, that feedback is going to be largely redundant with what people already know -- if so, and it's useful feedback, it would still be helpful to know what the actual percentage of different types of problems is that people report at different stages in their editing experience. We could spend endless time debating what might happen, but rather than doing that, we'll just give it a try.

Well, this thread has drifted off-topic, totally.

I didn't want to discuss whether or not THIS feature, or 'social networking' in general, is a good/bad thing;

My point was, it would be nice if we - the community - were asked, instead of having new features imposed upon us. The fact that it's a trial is irrelevant; "Pending Changes" was a trial, too, and caused enormous ill-feeling.

If WMF really wishes to improve relations between WMF and the community, then communication is the key.

By implementing new things without asking, it seems they're assuming a "we know what's best" position, which causes resentment and ill-feeling.

By *offering* new features instead - and asking us if we want to try them out or not - this could be turned from a negative to a positive.

After all, it's not WMF that'll be using the things each day; it's us, the editing community. And it's us (experienced editors) who will have to deal with help questions about these new features. Chzz 05:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit: To head off the inevitable "but, it's only a trial" responses:

Fine - if you want to try something out on the live English Wikipedia, then explain to the community why, and ask if it is OK. No big deal. But Enwiki is a live system, so if you want to try something out, you need to explain the remit, clearly define scope for the trial, get some consensus and support for it.

And, yes, you'll have to deal with cynicism about the very word 'trial', because what happened with the "Pending Changes" trial makes us all very nervous about that. Chzz 07:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

STOP! do not let new users to have a voice before asking existing users for permission.

Is that what you mean?

No, it's stop, gain consensus before testing, I guess...

gain consensus from existing users to let new users have a voice?

Saeed.Veradi, you're misunderstanding, and misrepresenting, the point I am trying to make.

New users have just as much of a 'voice' as any other user - and that's something I feel is very important. But you're making it sound as though they're normally disregarded, and that somehow adding this test-feature resolves that - it doesn't.

My actual point is regarding *any* new feature which substantially changes a wiki, such as English Wikipedia - and that any such change should require a consensus. That includes testing new ideas.

If I, or any other Wikipedian, want to make a change (or perform a test of a new idea) on English Wikipedia, we have to get a consensus to do so.

-That does include a change that only affects new users. For example - imagine that I wanted to make a change to automatically 'welcome' all new users on English Wikipedia. If I wanted to run a trial. I'd have to seek consensus to do it. Your comment seems to indicate that asking existing users about changes that affect only new users is a bad idea - well, that's the current way things work. I don't understand how it could work in a different way; how can we ask users that haven't yet joined?

WMF do not have to get a consensus - they are empowered to modify the software to make changes (such as this trial) without consulting the community. However, WMF is funded by the community, and needs to work closely with the community to help improve the projects.

Not only would it be courteous of WMF to seek consensus for changes such as this, but also such communication would help improve relations between WMF and wiki-editors.

Many users - myself included - are frustrated with WMF imposing significant changes (such as this one) without seeking consensus from the community. Chzz 20:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

This feedback is:

• the first feedback available to typical people. people with -what we call- really low computer experience.
• about editing, not the community response.
• right after the first impression.
• genius. it asks for reason of sadness.
• about how people begin editing, not why they stop doing it.

Usefulness: Shows the simple problem with tools and environment. example:

• Cluttered edit page?
• Difficult markup?

FYI I created an ideas log page to keep track of suggestions/improvements for MoodBar.