Talk:Talk pages project

About this board

This page is for discussing the Talk pages project. The software interface on this page is Structured Discussions ("Flow"), which is not part of the Talk pages project.

Automatic signature addition for moved comments (and other niche applications)

3
Sdkb (talkcontribs)

When I move a comment someone else made, e.g. here, Discussion Tools automatically adds a signature, which is not what I want, and I have to either use the source editor to make the post or make another edit to remove it. It'd be a lot easier if there was a box to check under the advanced options to not use a signature. Was that ever considered, @PPelberg (WMF)?

Nardog (talkcontribs)

This is why I use the reply tool but not "new topic"... There should be way to temporarily disable it rather than the all-or-nothing preference.

Wargo (talkcontribs)

This should be done with future "move" feature if it is planned.

Reply to "Automatic signature addition for moved comments (and other niche applications)"

Wiki markup for Replying and New Topic

6
StellarHalo (talkcontribs)

The Replying and New Topic tools both currently do not not readily provide Wiki markup and requires copy and pasting from the standard source editing page. Could we implement this especially "|" required for templates such as Talk quote inline?

Wargo (talkcontribs)

Could you provide step-by-step to reproduce this issue? What do you want to insert and what you want to achieve instead?

StellarHalo (talkcontribs)

When I reply to someone on Wikipedia, I want to use the Template:Talk quote inline (Template:Talk quotation) to quote someone else or policies and guidelines. For that I need to type in {{tq|text I want to quote}} to generate text I want to quote. However, Replying and New Topic currently do not permit me to insert the special character "|" that comes between "{{tq" and the quote.

Wargo (talkcontribs)

Make sure you use sourcecode editor. The switch is on the bottom-right corner of reply editor.

StellarHalo (talkcontribs)

I am always using the source editor but like I said, I could not find the button for the special character "|" and I always have to open another editing page to copy and paste it to use the Talk quote template.

Wargo (talkcontribs)

What exactly happens when you type it from keyboard? You are using other input methods?

Reply to "Wiki markup for Replying and New Topic"
Iniquity (talkcontribs)

Are there any statistics on how much the number of comments on any wiki increased or decreased after enabling DT? I know that this can be difficult, but it is very interesting :) Maybe you have already collected these data.

Reply to "Statistics"

Bullets as option for replies

3
Summary by Whatamidoing (WMF)
HTGS (talkcontribs)

Is it possible to set bullets as a checkbox option for replying? Because some discussions (RMs and RfCs at least) get a lot of single replies to the same post, the preferred format is to open each reply with a bullet for ease of reviewing different editors’ comments.

Andrew Davidson (talkcontribs)

Yes, I like to use a bullet in this way and so would use this option.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

The Editing team has talked about this, but unfortunately I don't think it will happen any time soon.

Reply to "Bullets as option for replies"
Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

I've posted a few notes (lots of credit to Peter, who left these ideas sitting around unsupervised so I could copy them). If you're already watching this page, you should see this message in your Echo Notifications and be able to take a look. This is all the equivalent of "pre-alpha" notes, so expect more content over the next few weeks, and feel free to ask questions and/or tell me which section you'd like to see expanded first.

Reply to "Outline started"

Adding the ability to use discussion tools to the Wikipedia application

1
Mostafamirchouli (talkcontribs)

(I am one of the active users of Farsi (fa) Wikipedia) Most of my activity is through the Wikipedia application, unfortunately the discussion tools are not available in the Wikipedia application and this is a negative and bad point.

Reply to "Adding the ability to use discussion tools to the Wikipedia application"

You can press ⌘⏎ to submit your comment

6
WhatamIdoing (talkcontribs)

@PPelberg (WMF):

I've run across an irritating bug for ~10 days now when I add a link. The correct path is:

  • Type [[ to open the link dialog.
  • Type the name of the link.
  • Press Return to select the correct page and close the link dialog box.
  • Feel happy.

What I'm getting instead is:

  • Type [[ to open the link dialog.
  • Type the name of the link.
  • Press Return to select the correct page.
  • Get a warning box (underneath the editing area) that says "You can press ⌘⏎ to submit your comment."
  • Take hands off keyboard (grrr) and click the blue "Insert" button to close the link dialog box.
  • Feel irritated.
Tacsipacsi (talkcontribs)
PPelberg (WMF) (talkcontribs)

Mmm, yes. Thank you for saying something about this, @WhatamIdoing. And +1 to what @Tacsipacsi shared: we've got a fix for this issue that will arrive to en.wiki next Thursday (2 Nov) or the Thursday after that (9 Nov).

DLynch (WMF) (talkcontribs)

It'll be the 9th - the patch only wound up getting merged yesterday, so it'll be riding next week's train.

WhatamIdoing (talkcontribs)

This is what happens when I'm not whining about these problems in meetings, right? ;-p

This post was hidden by Tacsipacsi (history)
Reply to "You can press ⌘⏎ to submit your comment"

Discussion tools per page?

4
Dan Shick (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

As I understand it, Structured discussions can currently be enabled per page. Discussion tools, in contrast, is implemented as an opt-in view for each user. Is there any way to make Discussion tools effective per page instead of per user?

Matma Rex (talkcontribs)

If the user has not enabled the beta feature, then there's no way to make them see the new tools.

If you don't see the tools despite enabling the beta feature, you probably can add the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word to the page. In MediaWiki it adds the "Add topic" tab next to the "Edit" tab, and we use it as a hint that the page is a discussion page and should have the tools.

Also, each wiki can be configured so that the tools are opt-out instead of a beta feature. You could get that done if you want everyone to see the tools.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)
Dan Shick (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

I have indeed done just that, thank you! I discovered that query string solution buried in a Phabricator ticket.

Reply to "Discussion tools per page?"
Whatamidoing (WMF) (talkcontribs)

Hello, all,

The final A/B test for DiscussionTools is underway, and it is likely that it will meet all of its metrics.

Assuming that it does, the Editing team will be planning deployments. I would like to encourage editors to opt-in early, instead of waiting for the deployments. Towards that end, if you speak a language other than English, please see:

and add or proofread your favorite languages.

Reply to "Translations needed"

Blanking/vandalism archive notifications

9
Summary by ESanders (WMF)
Sdkb (talkcontribs)

I've been continuing to receive the "topic X was archived or removed" notification for edits like this page blanking. These edits happen all the time, and they're generally quickly reverted, but they're a lot more annoying when they now generate notifications. Notifications from them are nearly as frequent as notifications from actual archiving, so this is a significant issue that I really hope you all prioritize resolving before DiscussionTools leaves beta, @ESanders (WMF)/@PPelberg (WMF).

My suggested approach would be that, for any edit that has the "Possible Vandalism" tag (like in the example) — or perhaps any removal at all that's a blanking, or that's made by a human editor rather than a bot — you build in a delay (say, 24hr), and only send the notification if the edit is not reverted after that period. This would substantially reduce the number of spam notifications. I also see little downside risk for legitimate removals — by definition, a topic being archived has become stale, so a slight delay in the notification is unlikely to be an issue.

Lofhi (talkcontribs)

Upvote, leaving the beta without addressing this problem of Wikipedians usages could nip the tool in the bud. And I don't really want to try to convince people to use DiscussionTools like I tried with Flow after a failed start!

Do we even need to notify users if a bot is removing a section? The role is usually given by community consensus, so abuse (hiding a discussion, for example, out of specific malice) should be virtually impossible or negligible.

The delay of 24 hours is not a suitable solution, I think.

Lofhi (talkcontribs)

I guess these reviews could count for T316163.

Sdkb (talkcontribs)

I have actually grown to like the notifications for bot archivals of topics, since it's a way for me to catch unresolved things. E.g. I'll start a thread asking a question, no one will reply, and when I get notified that a bot has archived it I'll realize I need to follow up elsewhere.

Lofhi (talkcontribs)

Funny, cause I am here wanting to disable this subfeature because archiving bots are spamming me! Imagine being the staff team trying to answer both of our needs. 😝

ESanders (WMF) (talkcontribs)

@Lofhi the fetaure can be disabled in your notifications preferences under "Talk page archiving".

@Sdkb these seem like sensible suggestions for a phabricator task. At the moment the notifications are triggered by the blanking edit, so building in a delay would not be a trivial fix. Filtering out blanking edits would be simpler, but we'd need to check that this convention applies to all wikis and situations.

Lofhi (talkcontribs)

For my case, I don't want to turn it off, but it would be could to turn off notifications caused by bots!

Sdkb (talkcontribs)

@ESanders (WMF), feel free to add me as a subscriber on a Phab task, or let me know if I should create it myself.

@Lofhi, could you clarify what sorts of removals you would want to be notified about? Automated bot archiving and (generally spammy) manual removals are the only two types of archive notifications, at least that I've encountered.

ESanders (WMF) (talkcontribs)

@Sdkb yes, please create a new task.

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