I used to get the link to the Wikidata property for an article when I clicked the menu button. But I can’t see it now.
What happened, was it removed? I found it very useful as I regularly use Wikidata.
Talk:Reading/Web/Advanced mobile contributions
Can you raise a phabricator ticket noting the wiki you are seeing this? That sounds like a bug to me. I am not aware of it being removed intentionally.
@Jdlrobson Can you tell me how and where to do that exactly? I am even seeing this on enwiki and other language wikis as well. Even on a simulated mobile device in Chrome.
I have raised phab:T256272 you can track progress there.
Hi Please let me know easy way to create new article in Mobile mode
Hey @Kasyap there is no special workflow for creating a new article in "Advanced mode" unfortunately. I think the best workflow would be:
- navigate to the URL of the page you want to create (for example if I wanted to create a page called xyzabc I would navigate to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/xyzabc)
- use the link that says "Start the _________ article"
I hope that is helpful
Hey, I was hoping to get some discussion going around the questions we posed in our recent update. Calling upon a few folks who participated constructively in some of the prior AMC [Advanced mobile contributions] discussions — @Donald Trung, Harshrathod50, arajc, jacobtohahn, AdrianWikiEditor:.
Which Talk page experience do you prefer, and why? Is there any low hanging fruit for improving the mobile Talk experience for advanced contributors?
I prefer the Wiki version instead of Default one and that is because it allows me to decide weather I want to sign or not after replying. The automatic signing functionality of Default version is very annoying.
I feel like the current mobile talk page is like the visual editor. Laid out nice and simple showing exactly what to do. However the "Read as wiki page" is like the source editing. You don't know what to do and it's all complicated for newer editors. Keep both but maybe have some sort of dropdown so you can pick between Visual editor and Source editing. Plus people will get angry if there is only one option available. All I am saying to to maybe change how you switch between them. AdrianWikiEditor (talk) 03:37, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
My concern is that the Talk page is non an "advanced" feature. Anyone who wishes to edit Wikipedia needs to know how to access Talk. First edits are often (almost always?) reverted and visiting the Talk page is the best way to find out why and get help. Implementing Talk access only in a non-default skin does not address the needs of first-time editors. I would suggest an alternative which should work for all skins: add a link to the Talk page at the end of the article's Table of Contents. This should be easy and quick to implement. We could then publicize this way to access talk to new (and old) editors. You could still continue the current project for other features in desktop that are missing in mobile.
To the possible objection that the Talk page is not a proper part of the article, I would reply that Talk is also an important tool for non-editing readers, as it provides useful information as to the state of the article, If there is a controversy raging on the talk page, for example, that alone cautions the reader that the article may be in flux and it also can provide a good overview of the issues involved.
The default mobile talk page (which is accessible at "Pagename#/talk") doesn't allow users to view and edit talk page headers (lead section). I can't post my comment where I want, in a specific section. It automatically signs my comment, even when I don't want to sign it(for some reason). I can't even edit my previous comments using this interface. That's why I don't prefer it. On the other hand, the Wikipage version of the talk page solves the above issues but it has few problems. First some templates don't work properly on the mobile Interface. For example, WikiProject banner. I can only view WikiProject banners if I click "about this page" beneath the talk page title (eg. w:en:Talk:2017_UK_Championship#/issues/all ). And this link only appears in pages in Talk namespace. I mean this "about this page" button doesn't appear in pages in File talk, User talk, Template talk etc. That's why I always have to switch to desktop version to see this WikiProject banner. Also "edit protection templates", "help me templates" etc are invisible in the mobile interface. I do not like this existing talk page interface at all. But I like this flow talk page. It is more advanced and user-friendly. I'd like to see flow talk pages instead of the current version in mobile interface.
Transition from Article to Talk.
In AMC, the Article/Talk selector is well-placed. But when you tap Talk you are dropped into a completely different layout and the top-page elements disappear.
It feels jarring and breaks the presentation of Article/Talk as a toggle between two related entities.
For those who do like the collapsed/summary talk page overview, is it possible to present that below the nice new AMC toolbars/controls/top-matter? (Not sure of best terms to use. What do the devs and designers call these?)
If not, please make talk "view as wiki page" the default and relegate the "following conversations are now active" to second-fiddle.
Oops, I just read the section that AHollender linked.
Sorry for reiterating something that’s already being planned.
“this current Talk page experience is a little disconnected from the article it belongs to … one of our design goals is to unify the article and Talk experiences, by rendering the Talk page as a tab of the article … help people keep their context, while also allowing seamless navigation back and forth”
Agree wholeheartedly with that quote.
Also, there’s no obvious way to go from read-as-wiki-page view back to following-conversations-are-now-active view.
So, on to the main question “Which Talk page experience do you prefer, and why?” I think I still like the wiki-page experience over the whatever-that-other-thing-is (not denigrating it, just don’t know what to call it). Partly that’s familiarity and aesthetics, partly because the latter is fairly limited. I do see pros and cons for each. Exploring them will make this a long post.
Summary view
- pro: clean minimalist appearance
- pro: consistent look with some VE-related screens
- con: very different look from AMC
- con: minimalist layout means omitted functionality
- no talk history
- no tools for merging or splitting topics (maybe not that important for mobile users?)
- no access to archives!
- There's not even any indication of whether archives exist or not. And how would a newbie know that “view as wiki page” is how you find older conversations?
- templates in general
- discretionary sanctions, page protection, other warnings. Arguably some things don’t really belong on Talk where they apply to the article and not the discussion itself, but they do need to be highly visible. For contentious topics you probably do need some kind of warning on the talk page where arguments may break out. Even if it's direct text and not templated.
- any other important templates I haven’t thought of?
- pro: loading just the topic titles up front
- I'm fortunate enough to have moderately fast network access (if the radio signal is good) and a reasonable data volume allowance, but this isn’t true everywhere in the world
- short of going to a desktop pc and fiddling user agent strings to find out for myself, does anybody have info on talk page sizes, with comparisons across the various UIs?
- I'm fortunate enough to have moderately fast network access (if the radio signal is good) and a reasonable data volume allowance, but this isn’t true everywhere in the world
- con: not much info about the topics, you need to tap through each to find out
- con: tapping back to the summary from the topic causes page reload?
- browser, platform, or resource dependent?
- HTTP caching headers?
- con: no access to content that lies before the first heading
- Yes, people sometimes put discussions there, not just meta-info. In a perfect world somebody would refactor and add a heading.
Improvements:
- for each topic listed, add post count, size (words), size (kB), number of participants, when created, when last updated
- (Topic info could be parsed on save/update/publish and stored in a separate table, rather than parsed on load. Maybe not necessary if the summary page itself is cached, but having topic metadata stored separately and indexed could provide opportunities for some nice searching and filtering.)
- search box (for whole board across all topics)
- single search across active board and its archives
- option to load smaller topics inline
- add an "untitled" or "top" topic item for discussion that has been posted above the first heading; or display top-matter on page before the topic list
Topic view
Haven’t used it much yet; looks like you can only bottom-reply and not make a threaded/indented edit. There are arguments in favour of that, but it's not the way that desktop users currently work on en-wp. Other communities may have different norms, of course.
Are there areas where top-posting to Talk is preferred?
Per-topic history would be nice. Maybe not so important of itself, but ties in with better history filtering in general for all pages not just discussions.
No formatting tools for Reply box. Haven’t tested this: does it accept wikitext? If it does, then how about a fixed-width font to give it a more source-edit feel (like this Flow box I’m currently typing into)?
Wiki-page view
- some talk pages are huge
- data usage and speed already mentioned above
- though even a big wiki page is as nothing compared to your typical commercial site that’s loaded up with advertising scripts, images, and auto-playing videos
- also big in terms of screen space, scrolling
- data usage and speed already mentioned above
- browser find-in-page searches whole board (but not archives)
- you don’t have to tap into each topic separately, valuable where there is a series of short topics
Improvements:
- Collapsible headings in talk, like articles have on mobile. (Would love to see this as an option for desktop also.)
- Visual editing option for those who like VE.
- Maybe not desirable for those mobile devices that don’t have enough grunt to run it?
- [Aside: I don’t see any formatting tools or visual option in this Flow editor right now. Is it disabled for small phone screen, or all mobile?]
- If it can be done without corrupting the pages.
- Because VE only does whole-page editing, it might be too easy for somebody to mess up others' posts and upset them.
- The more I think about this, the less it seems like a good idea? Leaving undeleted as there are some pertinent questions.
- Maybe not desirable for those mobile devices that don’t have enough grunt to run it?
Desktop view with 2010 wikitext editor
- con: a bit hard to use on tablet-sized screens (I should try it on a phone just for the challenge!)
- pro: preview, show changes
- pro: edit-preview-edit cycle saves state against browser crashes and tab reloads?
- comment: some skins responsively adapt to smaller viewport sizes better than others (hooray Timeless!)
iOS app
Natively only views and edits articles, pushes you into built-in browser for other namespaces.
In-built browser doesn’t sign you in, even when you’re already signed into the app and to the website in Safari.
re. Editing with Desktop view on plus-sized phone.
I tried this and it works surprisingly well with Timeless or Minerva Nueue as my desktop skin. Vector scales uncomfortably but might be usable with enough pinching and zooming. I noticed that the AMC tweaks were present in desktop-Minerva. Some toolbars wrap but still appear functional on brief examination.
(The point of directing people to discussion is not just to read but also participate, so choice of editor is as important as the choice of reading view.)
Selective loading, or not really?
In my long post above, I was assuming that each topic loads separately, and that something server-side parses and selects the relevant section from the underlying page.
Is this true, or does the whole thing get loaded for the non-relevant sections to be hidden client-side?
iOS app browser login
Off topic, but it seems that app 6.4.0 (1673) now loads non-article pages in Safari rather than an embedded browser. The latter behaviour was on version 6.3.2 (1659).
[deleted, was in wrong place]
@Jdlrobson, AHollender (WMF): Would it be possible to make the flow talk page default on mobile interface while keeping "view as wiki page" option? Flow talk page is much more accessible and new user friendly. Masumrezarock100 (talk) 08:38, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Masumrezarock100: Those with technical insight could confirm this for us, but from what I've read "Structured Discussions" (Flow without the workflows?) has very different back-end storage that's incompatible with free-form pages.
One possibility would be to enable both discussion spaces side-by-side, and let people choose to engage where they feel comfortable. A kind of natural selection. In can hear the howls of indignation and baying of wolves already, for even uttering this idea …
@Pelagic: I was talking about replacing the default (not Wikipage version) talkpage version, with flow talk page and keep the wiki page version like it was before.
Even if it means having separate content in the flow board versus the wiki page discussion?
No, that would not be good.
Yeah. I wouldn't mind that but most people would probably hate it.
There is a separate engagement at Talk pages consultation 2019 about building some new interface, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up more like the current mobile view and less Flow-like.
The default mobile talk page is nothing to this flow talk page.
Agree. :)
Though this layout creates a lot of excess vertical spacing where a discussion has mostly short 1–2 line entries.
Aside: with Structured Discussions / Flow, I can't make an indented reply to the last post in a topic.
That is why I am asking them to keep the wikipage version.
Wow, there are so many insightful thoughts and good ideas here. Thank you both @Pelagic and @Masumrezarock100. Since we're nearly at the end of our allotted time for this project we probably won't be able to incorporate these ideas as part of this project, however I've pointed @PPelberg (WMF) and @Iamjessklein from the Editing team to this discussion because they are just beginning to work on improving talk pages :)
There's currently no "Add discussion" button on the so-called advanced mode. This is a very strange omission.
@Hairy Dude can you explain your workflow and what you're seeing? If you're able to add screenshots that would be great.
Looks like it was added since I left that comment. Instead I have a different bit of feedback: when not using "view as wiki page", previewing your post is not possible.
Plz. Indian language Hindi option.
Hi, could you clarify a bit more? Is this about translating Reading/Web/Advanced mobile contributions to Hindi or something else?
As far as I know, there has always been only a big Thank button
Meaning
There is a "MobileUndo" user script that may be helpful: m:User:FR30799386/undo
Ok ohhh 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 no problem
I've installed it, thanks. But this really needs to be implemented as default. Urgently.
It's not hard... theres plenty of room.
Sometimes I stumble upon vandalisms, but am too lazy to open the article, go to history etc.. and then try to continue browsing from where I stopped.
Thanks, let me see if the script works...
The undo script can be installed to a local wiki, as a gadget. So that it can be enabled from a user preferences. Regarding adding an undo button to a diff page on mobile, the task is being tracked in phab:T191706. Currently Readers web team isn't working on this task despite the task is triaged as high priority.
Seems lika a quite old task. Can you do anuthing so that it will be seen? I mean, I know we're all volunteers, but that's not.hard to be done. The undo buttons already exist in the history page of the articles.... thaat should make things even easier.
Again, I know we're volunteers, but the slow pace of Wikimedia kind of annoys me a little.... things are slow...
Cheers
Seeing that noone is currently working on the task, I asked User:FR30799386 to work on it, since he created a the undo script. But he has been facing some real life problems, and is going to be inactive for 3 weeks.
Sorry about typos, I'm on mobile
Ok nah there is no problem
Still no updates on this???
I thought this carried over to an extent on mobile. I know it used to at least. Either way, a link in the settings to Special:Preferences from Special:MobileOptions would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'm going to file a bug report when I get home.
On the Dutch Wikipedia, there are complaints/comments about the missing categories section in the default mobile modus. Is it part (or can it become part) of "Next Steps" to add this function also to the 'normal' modus? (A mention when answering would be appreciated.)
Olá, venho aqui sugerir, que tenha um botão que dê a possibilidade ao editor, editar todas as seções de uma só vez em uma página na versão móvel da wikipédia, isso porque, atualmente, se o editor quiser editar uma página inteira com várias seções, ele vai ter que editar e salvar em uma por uma seção.
Olá, sinto muito responder em inglês. Eu nao falo português.
Thank you for sharing this idea with us. You are right to suggest that this would be useful, and we will bear that in mind.
Unfortunately, currently, our team is working on the Design Improvements only, and we are just maintaining the advanced mobile contributions (but not developing any further functionalities).
BTW, I encourage you to take a look at the Design Improvements page. What do you think about that project?
Wikipedia should have the dark mode which would facilitate the readers and would give them a strain free reading.
To me dark mode is one of the best advantages as it enables reading ease.This lulls as a bit of a defect ;I'd really appreciate this attribute
Can you make all a bit more customizable? For example, I ALWAYS want to read the talks "as wiki page". Also the "Move" button would be useful. I'm Ignazio Cannata.
I second this. The fancy new presentation for talk pages is just awful and I wish I could make it go away without disabling all other advanced mode features.