Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications

T263821: Introduce New Topic Notifications

First of all, I really like the notifications. And I want more of them! I find it especially powerful to not need to visit my watch list to see if there is something said in a discussion I follow. But I still have to do that to see if there is a new discussion started on some page I am particularly interested in. For these pages, I would like to auto subscribe to all new sections. Since it was so easy to unwatch a topic straight from the menu, I don't mind getting many notifications. I still find it likely to save me many clicks and loading time of pages.

We appreciate you stopping by to share this feedback, @Ainali! A response to the points you raised below...

First of all, I really like the notifications. And I want more of them! I find it especially powerful to not need to visit my watch list to see if there is something said in a discussion I follow.

This is helpful context for us to know about. Related to it: can you share why you prefer learning about whether something new was said in a conversation by way of receiving a notification rather than by way of visiting your watchlist?

In the meantime I've added a note to the ticket where we are considering introducing the ability for people to be able to subscribe to be notified whenever a new section/discussion is added to a talk page.

Yes, since the notification is shown in any Wikimedia tab, I would notice it much earlier than if I have to switch to the tab where I have my watchlist. It is also similar to other platforms where I have conversations. I get notified wherever I happen to be (and for the best ones, I can also select what to be notified about).

Ah, this is helpful! To make sure I'm internalizing what you are describing, can you please read the below and let me know if I've interpreted what you've said in ways that are different from what you meant?

The way I am interpreting the comment you made above.

"I prefer learning when something new is said in a conversation via notifications because notifications are visible to me wherever I am on Wikipedia. The watchlist on the other hand requires that I a) remember to check it and b) leave where I am in order to know if someone has said something in a conversation I'm interested in."

Also, out of curiosity: it sounds like while you're editing Wikipedia you have the page you are editing open in one tab and your Watchlist open in another tab. Assuming this is accurate, are there any other Wikipedia pages you typically have open in tabs while you're editing?

I have at least one tab open of Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Meta at all times. Usually several of each. Having them open and switching to them feels easier than switching to the tab. I have the watchlists as the default open page, and then any that have things I would like to read or come back to edit later.

This also reminds me that some other platforms (Mattermost, Slack, LinkedIn, Gmail) can give a visual clue in the favicon that there are notifications, so that if I would happen to be somewhere else knows that something has happened).

This additional context is helpful; I appreciate you sharing it, @Ainali and I'm sorry for how long it's taken me to respond here.

I've documented the idea you are raising of including some kind of "visual clue in the favicon" within Phabricator here: T1188#7486621.

Jan, do you think that, if they did this, you would see fewer article edits, or make fewer edits to articles?

Good question. I don't know. I imagine that I would be more active in discussions. That naturally leads to less time to make edits to articles. But hopefully those edits will now have fewer errors and instead be made with a clearer consensus. How it actually will play out, I can't really tell.

Last year, Peter told me about some research at Wikia/Fandom. They made it easier to comment on talk pages. The result was more talk, but no improvements to articles.

I would like this feature, and for me it should be completely separate from the watchlist. The reason why I like the topic notifications is that I don't have to (and don't want to) watchlist talk pages (e.g. local Village pumps). I would like to be able to "subscribe to a talk page" and get notification of new topics and their titles, but I don't want to be automatically subscribed to all new topics on the page.

One of the things they're looking at is automatically subscribing you to all discussion sections you start, no matter what editing tools you use. This means you could leave a warning message on a newcomer's talk page with a script (does fiwiki have a tool similar to w:en:Project:Twinkle?), and be automatically subscribed to that. (It wouldn't work with MassMessage, however.) Would that work for you?

We don't have Twinkle or any similar tool. Automatic subscription to self-started discussions could be a good idea, especially if it works the same way as watchlisting, so that you can choose if you want to subscribe to every discussion you started or do it manually each time.

hi @Ainali! A quick update to share that the functionality you started this thread seeking will be available within the next week.

There will soon be a new "Subscribe" button that appears in all desktop skins. When clicked, you will be notified whenever a new topic is started on this page.

Note: bringing this functionality to mobile will need to happen a bit later, once some technical issues are worked out.

Please look at this subject.

It's fairly common for vandals/inexperienced test editors to blank pages, e.g. here. This isn't normally a problem because it's easily/quickly reverted, but I've been getting "topic archived" notifications from it, which makes it a lot more annoying. I'd like to see the system improved so that these distractions go away.

Do you want to get notifications when any subscribed discussions are removed from the talk page, or are you hoping that they can distinguish between blanking and true archiving?

I don't want to be getting notifications for test/vandalism blanking.

If you are willing to give up notifications for true archiving as well, then you can turn off all notifications related to talk page archiving at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo

Hi. There is a serious problem in talk page subscriptions. Large enough to turn off the mechanism for all the users until the fix, probably. I can't create a phab ticket, because there is no way to list reproductions steps. Is this a good place here to describe the problem? Thank you.

Yes, please let us know. What's the problem?

The problem is that the tool ignores Special:TopicSubscriptions. I get notifications for random topics on random pages. For example, if I have page A topic B subscribed, I get all the time notifications for some unsubscribed topics C, D, E, F,... about a new post there, while the posts listed are not from the same topic. For example, for

Topic C
new post C1
Topic D
new post D1
Topic E
new post E1

I get a triple notification about posts C1, D1, E1, all of them in topic D. If I do not mark it as read, and later the page will look like

Topic F
new post F1

the notification will be now about posts C1, D1, E1, F1, all of them in topic F. Another example, I all the time get notifications about removed topics, when I am not subscribed for the topic, its page is not in my Watchlist, and the topic was created three days ago, when I opened the page last time three months ago. It looks like all the notifications are send to me instead somebody else, and mine are send to somebody, too. But, for some subscribed topics I get exactly what is expected. The list in Special:TopicSubscriptions looks fine.

Are you having any other problems with your Notifications list? (For example, is the number of notifications frequently wrong, so it says 1 unread message but there are zero?)

Is "unsubscribed topic C" (located on the Page A, posted after the ==B== section) a ==Level 2== or a ===Level 3=== section? What does ?action=info say about lint errors on Page A?

No I didn't see anything like this.

Well, taking one such a page for example. All the topics are level 2 there. There is one missing end tag (i) and 21 obsolete tags.

(Doing this found a bug in Linter itself.)

Can you give specific examples of the affected pages and topics? We haven't heard of this happening to anyone else.

If you don't want to discuss them publicly, please do it in a new "security issue": https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/75/

I can look in the database for your subscriptions and notifications once I know what I'm looking for, and try to figure out what is happening.

This is a page for example: he:wikipedia:דלפק ייעוץ. A lot of topics there.

I've subscribed to the one called "REVISIONMONTH name?" I haven't had a subscription notification at hewiki for about 6 weeks, and never on that page, so it should be pretty obvious if I get notifications for other sections.

I can see why it happens. You can stop receiving these notifications by unsubscribing here: https://he.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=XXX&action=dtunsubscribe&commentname=h-פלוני_שכתב_ללא_חתימה-2000-01-09T22:00:00.000Z (this link might also work for other people experiencing the problem).

This happens because the "unsigned" template תבנית:לא_חתם generates a fake invisible username and timestamp when none is provided (using this sub-template: תבנית:לא_חתם/חותם). This is a clever hack to make reply tool work, but it causes topic subscriptions to get confused, because we track which topic you're subscribed to by the username and timestamp of the oldest comment (see details here: Extension:DiscussionTools/How it works#Tracking topics).

As a result, if you subscribe to any topic where the first comment was signed using that template without providing a username and timestamp, you will be subscribed to every such topic.

I don't see a good way to fix it in our code, but I'll think about it. For now, I suggest removing the feature from the template.

The problem is that this fix is not just for this tool, and removing it will cause more problems. Does it use the substituted transclusion of the wikicode of the signature, or the parsed result?

Your answer might be in Extension:DiscussionTools/How it works.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Meanwhile, I'm continuing to get notifications about archived topics on pages I do not watch and did not open for years. And yesterday I saw somd page first time in my life, with all the topics marked as being watched. The page is not watched, and none of these topics is on Special:TopicSubscriptions.

You can stop receiving these notifications by unsubscribing here: https://he.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=XXX&action=dtunsubscribe&commentname=h-פלוני_שכתב_ללא_חתימה-2000-01-09T22:00:00.000Z (this link might also work for other people experiencing the problem).

Why? It's completely different pages.

Because of a technical decision we made long ago, where we don't check the page on which you subscribed, since that made it easier to keep the notifications working when the topic is moved to a different page.

I see. Very well, thanks. I did this. Let's see in the next few days if it helped and all the problems were solved. I'll be back.

Well, I'm back. It's still very problematic, but the problems come from anonyms indeed. Thank you. I think this topic should be resolved now.

Every time so far that I've started a new thread on a page I don't watchlist, I've wanted to subscribe to it. It'd be nice if there were an option that did this automatically to save me the click/take care of it so I don't forget.

This option already exists, though it hasn't been announced. See the last item in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion

I find that it usually works for my work account (which I use in Chrome or Safari) but not for my volunteer account (in Firefox). Also, it's doesn't pay any attention to whether the page is already on your watchlist, and it may be restricted to edits made using DiscussionTools (e.g., when you [reply], but not when you [edit source]).

I found some problem here - I edited section, I have there notice [Subscribed], but in my preferences was this option disabled (And I haven't change this option in last months)

Do I have this correct?

• The preference for automatic subscriptions is disabled in your account
• When you create a new section, you get subscribed to it anyway
• If anyone replies, you get a message in Special:Notifications

Is that right?

I recently saw task T304755 and was thinking, a possible alternative that could help account for these edge cases would be allowing people to subscribe to a reply (signature) and they would receive notifications for all replies to that.

This could be implemented by adding a "more options" three-dot button (...) next the the reply button where the following options could be "Subscribe" and "Link to reply".

am not sure that would be useful very often.

T275232 contains the issues and opportunities for improvement that surfaced in this conversation. These same issues and opportunities have also been documented on the project page: Talk pages project/Notifications#Usability testing.

An *in-progress* prototype of the new topic subscription feature is ready for you to try.

This prototype enables you to elect to receive a notification via Echo when someone posts a new comment in any conversation you have decided to "subscribe" to.

Below is information about:

1. The goals of this prototype
2. How to share feedback about the prototype
3. How to try the prototype
4. What will happen after you all share feedback

1. Goals

The goal of sharing this prototype with you all at this stage is to learn:

1. Which – if any – of the fundamental assumptions we've made about how the feature works conflicts with existing workflows/practices?
2. What – if anything – do you think could be changed about how the feature currently works for it to improve your awareness of new comments in conversations you are interested in?

2. Sharing feedback

Once you have tried the prototype and you are ready to share what you think of it, please add a new topic to this talk page by doing the following:

1. "Start a new topic" on this talk page
2. Name this new topic: "Topic subscription prototype feedback: YOUR USERNAME"
3. Write your answers to the "Feedback questions" below.

3. Trying the prototype

1. Visit this link on a desktop computer: https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/77cda30f9d/wiki/Talk:Main_Page
2. Create a new account (this is a test wiki, not a single-sign on wiki)
3. Experiment with the feature by "subscribing" to a few conversations on this talk page and/or create a new talk page.

4. Feedback questions

Please answer the questions below when sharing feedback about the prototype.

1. What did you find unexpected about how the prototype looks and functions?
2. What do you appreciate about the prototype?
3. What do you wish was different about the prototype?

5. Next steps

1. We will compile the feedback you all share and post it to this page.
2. Communicate when we will address the issues that surface
3. Learn what people who are new to using talk pages think of the prototype
4. Refine the prototype

Update: there had been an issue that would have prevented you from trying the prototype. That issue should be resolved as of earlier today, 6-April.

We have in ruwiki :ru:Википедия:Гаджеты/Удобные дискуссии and it is MUCH better for expirienced users, who likes wikitext. You see - I had to insert space inside wikilink and use copy-paste to have an opportunity to add plain text after wikilink (it typed inside wikilink). Also - no preview and no custom buttons.

Thank you

@Dyolf77 (WMF), @Patriccck, @Pelagic, and @Sunpriat: we value the time and effort you all put in to trying the manual topic subscription prototype and sharing the feedback you had about it with us.

We've documented, and in some cases, acted upon the feedback you all shared in this Phabricator ticket T275232.

At this discussion, I wanted to subscribe, but couldn't because I began it with a level-3 section. Could something be tweaked so that these sorts of discussions will be recognized? Cheers,

Previously requested here: T298617.

Removing the ===Background=== sub-heading from your section would make subscriptions work there.

1. What did you find unexpected about how the prototype looks and functions?
   • Testing as directed looked good to me in terms of UI. However, I (with the account GKFX) didn't receive any notifications for these edits (by me as GKFX2) despite being GKFX being subscribed, which seems wrong. I've checked my notification preferences which were all enabled, although I had not set an email address.
2. What do you appreciate about the prototype?
   • Straightforward UI.
3. What do you wish was different about the prototype?
   • I am interested in how "Once deployed, being automatically subscribed to discussions will be an opt-in feature for everyone except new accounts" will work - I hope that discovering how to opt in will be easy enough, particularly for people who are already using the discussion tools available. I would be interested in instead having a checkbox "Subscribe to this discussion" under the reply box, checked by default. This would be much like the "Watch this page" checkbox when editing articles, but with the presumption that people usually do want to see replies to their topics.

Thank you for giving the prototype a try and taking the time to articulate what you encountered. Responses below...

I (with the account GKFX) didn't receive any notifications for these edits (by me as GKFX2) despite being GKFX being subscribed, which seems wrong.

Question: do the steps I've listed below accurately and exhaustively describe what you experienced?

1. Visited Patch Demo and created a new account (username: GKFX)
2. Started a new discussion titled New section title
3. Noticed the You have been subscribed popup appear
4. Clicked the Okay, I got it button
5. Logged out of Patch Demo
6. Visited Patch Demo again and created a new account (username: GKFX2)
7. Posted two comments to the New section title discussion you started in step "2."
8. Logged out of Patch Demo
9. Logged back into the GKFX account
10. ❗️Did NOT receive notifications for the comments you posted with GKFX2in step "7."

I hope that discovering how to opt in will be easy enough, particularly for people who are already using the discussion tools available.

We too are curious about whether experienced volunteers will find it easy enough to discover Automatic Topic Subscriptions. We'll be evaluating how "discoverable" Automatic Topic Subscriptions are by looking at the percentage of topic subscriptions that are initiated manually vs. automatically in T280896.

I would be interested in instead having a checkbox "Subscribe to this discussion" under the reply box, checked by default.

Question: Ah, this is an interesting idea. Can you say more here? What do you think would be valuable to you about having the ability to adjust whether you are notified about new comments in a discussion each time you post a new comment or start a new discussion?

Missing notifications

I used Firefox's Container Tab feature to do the test, which lets you log into different accounts in different tabs by isolating the cookies (etc.) between each container. So I was logged into GKFX on one tab and GKFX2 on the other, and didn't log out at any point. I think I had:

1. Created the section and let myself be auto-subscribed as GKFX, seeing the dialog box and clicking OK.
2. Unsubscribed and resubscribed at least once to test that interface.
3. Navigated to "Main Page", i.e. away from the talk page.
4. Created GKFX2 in a new container tab
5. Replied to the post as GKFX2
6. Refreshed the page "Main Page" on the first tab (as GKFX). At this point I expected to see the notification icon light up, but nothing happened.
7. I repeated steps 5 and 6 and got the same result again.

I've logged back into those accounts again, and noticed now that "Peter" has also replied to that section, I'm still subscribed to it (there is an [unsubscribe] link in its header), and there is no notification about Peter's edit either.

Subscribe checkbox

What do you think would be valuable to you about having the ability to adjust... I would tend to subscribe to most of the quiet, normal discussions I comment on, as there are only a few people involved and it's good to be able to follow up on any later discussion. However, if there is an enormous controversial discussion, I would be more inclined to just read what has been said so far, express my opinion, but not want to receive any further notifications on the subject unless I'm pinged. (Of course, there is already an unsubscribe button so the choice to opt out of some discussions is there anyway.) The other reason for this suggestion was to make the feature more discoverable by giving it the same familiar, fairly prominent UI that page watching currently has.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T297264

GKFX, volunteer-me is having problems with Firefox, too. Have you tried this out at enwiki, in your regular account (in prefs here)? Is automatic subscription working for you? Also, do you have NoScript or anything similar installed?

I don't have NoScript or similar installed. I have Firefox's Tracking Protection set to strict, but I wouldn't expect that to interfere. I've tried it on my sandbox talkpage on enwiki and it worked fine, I got notifications along the lines of "GKFX-2 replied in 'New test section'". I remembered that when it broke on the test wiki I had subscribed, unsubscribed and resubscribed, but I tried that on enwiki and it continued to work. Automatic subscription seemed to work OK on enwiki too.

I tried commenting from my brand new test account on enwiki (GKFX-2). I enabled automatic subscription in its preferences, replied, and it seemed to auto-subscribe me but without the first-use pop-up expected, and iirc the heading only displayed "[unsubscribe]" after I clicked "[reply]" again. The automatic subscription still worked fine for GKFX-2 in terms of actual notifications being generated, there was just something a bit off on the UI. So still definitely not a reproduction of the behaviour described at the start of this thread.

1. What did you find unexpected about how the prototype looks and functions?
   1. The popup was unexpected. Generally, we don't get popups at all in our every day wikiwork. That is, if we're not new accounts.
2. What do you appreciate about the prototype?
   1. Strange detail but I appreciate that it doesn't notify me when I comment to my auto-subscribed topic. I don't know why I always thought that would be a bug that would be present in the prototype.
3. What do you wish was different about the prototype?
   1. So far, nothing. I wrote a new topic, I got myself autosubscribed at it. The possibility of unsubscribing was 1 click way. Simple as it should be. I haven't had a chance to see how notifications behave though as I haven't had comments yet. I'll report back here in case I have any new ideas or find any strange behaviors. -

We appreciate you reviewing the prototype, @Klein Muçi! Responses to the feedback you shared below...

The popup was unexpected. Generally, we don't get popups at all in our every day wikiwork. That is, if we're not new accounts.

Question: it's helpful to know the popup was unexpected and why you found it to be so. A resulting question for you: did you find the information contained within the popup helpful in any way(s)?

Strange detail but I appreciate that it doesn't notify me when I comment to my auto-subscribed topic. I don't know why I always thought that would be a bug that would be present in the prototype.

Question: would it be accurate for us to understand the above as meaning the following? "I (Klein Muci) assumed that when I added a comment within a discussion I am subscribed to, I would receive a notification for the comment I posted which seems redundant/unnecessary."

I wrote a new topic, I got myself autosubscribed at it. The possibility of unsubscribing was 1 click way. Simple as it should be.

This is wonderful to hear.

I haven't had a chance to see how notifications behave though as I haven't had comments yet. I'll report back here in case I have any new ideas or find any strange behaviors.

Thank you! We would value knowing if/when you encounter anything that you find to be unexpected.

@PPelberg (WMF), helpful of course. The only "problem" would be something that is outside of this topic: The preferences tab. Very few new users know about the preferences existence in general and I feel like they tend to avoid spending too much time sorting things out in it even if they're sent there with links. The amount of information/options there can be overwhelming. I've mentioned in another discussion that for the sake of new users, tabs like preferences, the "log out" link, maybe the watchlist, etc. should be changed from link-like to button-like, which Mediawiki rarely uses, not to say never. Buttons are more friendly towards new users and inspire exploration. But, as mentioned, this is another topic.

And yes, that interpretation is correct. Thanks for your attention! :) -

I wonder whether it would be better to have a "click here to opt out", rather than sending people to Preferences (which requires clicking multiple times).