Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/Prototype testing

Not working for me.

I tried to comment following the instructions. First time I tried to save, the message just disappeared. Second attempt the system humg up and I had to close the tab to get out. Firefox/windows 10 desctop. Logged out. Pbsouthwood (talk) 11:14, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for attempting to try the prototype, @Pbsouthwood and for letting us know about the issue you encountered (not being able to publish a comment to the talk page and for that comment to disappear when trying to do so). We have been able to reproduce this issue. Are you able to try the prototype on this talk page (en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Talk:Dogs) and reply here whether you were able to successfully publish a comment or not? It seems like this issue is confined to this particular talk page. In the meantime, I've replaced the problematic (en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cats) with the one that seems to be working (en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Talk:Dogs). PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Made a few more logged out tests (IP105...) on Talk:Dogs. (don't worry, I am not worried that my IP address may be connected to my username) Seems to work better, but not entirely as I would expect. New sections drop the new system. Cheers, Pbsouthwood (talk) 06:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for following up – I'm glad to hear the prototype is now working for you!

A couple clarifying questions...

1. By saying New sections drop the new system. are you referring to the fact that the new system does not support being able to start a new section (e.g. ==New section==) from within the body of a reply?

Yes, and if you start a new section in the normal way there is no reply link on the new content and it is not autosigned either when creating or thereafter. I guess these are all tied together. Pbsouthwood (talk) 09:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you for clarifying that. Have you noticed when you typically start a new section in the same edit as replying to a comment in an existing conversation?

RE if you start a new section in the normal way there is no reply link on the new content and it is not autosigned either when creating or thereafter. I guess these are all tied together. As I think you discovered in this edit, the reply link appearing depends on a comment [either in an existing conversation or a new one] being signed.

Beyond expecting your signature being automatically appended to the comment you post, are there any other parts of the "starting a new discussion" workflow you find difficult/frustrating/inefficient/etc.? I ask because this happens to be the next feature the team will be working on and we are just beginning the design process. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 04:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I have been using the old system for 10 years and I guess I am used to it, warts and all. Being able to reply directly to a specific edit is very helpful. Being able to immediately find my last edit would also be very useful, and being able to spot all my edits on the page also useful. I like having the edit preview on by default, and on WP I get my sigs highlighted. Having the whole of my most recent edit highlighted could be a way to make it easy to find.
If I click on New section, I would expect an edit window much like the one for reply, and consistent behaviour for saving previewing etc.
There still needs to be a way to edit sections and the whole page as is now the case. The reply function is useful, but we still need to be able to curate the page. Pbsouthwood (talk) 13:47, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

2. Are there other ways the new system behaved in ways you didn't expect?

Not sure what to expect really, other than consistency. Pbsouthwood (talk) 09:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

...the more details you can share the better. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 06:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for following up, Pbsouthwood...A few questions in response:

Being able to immediately find my last edit would also be very useful

In your experience testing the prototype, has it been difficult for you to see where the comment you just published was posted to the talk page?

If I click on New section, I would expect an edit window much like the one for reply, and consistent behaviour for saving previewing

You expecting there to be consisting between the new replying and starting new discussion workflows is helpful to hear...thank you for sharing this.

There still needs to be a way to edit sections and the whole page as is now the case.

Absolutely. We – Editing Team – see full page editing as something that needs to be preserved, no matter what other new features are introduced to the page. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

In your experience testing the prototype, has it been difficult for you to see where the comment you just published was posted to the talk page?
No, but they have been small pages. On a large talk page with large sections it is sometimes necessary to search for my username, then go through the several instances that are highlighted.
On ENWP I have a script that highlights my signature in yellow, which is a huge help, as not so many users use yellow highlight on their sigs to confuse the issue. Unfortunately when editing this feature is not there, so a search for a key word can help. Pbsouthwood (talk) 10:22, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

It might be useful to default highlight the user's sig on talk pages, or have a button to toggle it on and off.

not working for mee too

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On the page of the task is does not work: https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Talk:Dogs

Not working for me. Trying 'Reply' on the second till most inner lines comment : I get This comment can't be replied to using this tool. Please try using the full page editor instead.

Accepted for first reply; => 16:30, 10 December 2019 (UTC)Reply => opening a text box down.

Once published, my text appears nowhere.

https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dogs&diff=prev&oldid=419107

salvage write remains possible in the source : take care

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On this page (from topic above) https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Catsit <= it is ok I can insert

I reply here 213.245.48.203 (talk) 20:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Christian FR (talk) 19:53, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Error contacting the Parsoid/RESTBase server (HTTP 500)

Hello, today I cannot post a message anymore on https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Talk:Dogs. I systematically get an error message that says "Error contacting the Parsoid/RESTBase server (HTTP 500)" whatever the text I type. At the opposite, everything works fine on https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cats Pamputt (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

New section should not be indented

Hello, when I click on the New section tab, a new section is created but is indented as shown here. It is not clear why. In addition, it could be nice that thte signature is automaticaly added if MediaWiki detects that it is not present when creating a new section. Pamputt (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Feedback topic titles

@PPelberg (WMF): May I suggest prefixing the topic titles created by the feedback link (https://w.wiki/RQD, here) with "Feedback: " to make it easier to distinguish from the rest of the discussions? —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 12:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aron Manning: , great idea. Done: https://w.wiki/RZg. Thank you for saying something (and for giving version 2.0 a try!). While we're here: did you find any aspect of the test confusing? We'd like to have confidence the test is formatted well before publicizing it more broadly. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@PPelberg (WMF): , the test was straightforward for me, though I'm quite familiar with the concepts. I think it's well worded, easy to follow.

Though, I think there's one less important point that will steal the show:

8. Change the ping you created in step 7 to someone else.

In IM solutions editing a ping is not an option, or I've never noticed it: never needed it, I just delete the ping and do it again. If this question is not asked, I'd have never felt the need to try changing it.

I think this is not a practical use-case and the question is distracting from more important use-cases, so I'd remove it and ask testers at the end if they've encountered any functionality that was counter-intuitive or confusing, to see if they explore this naturally, without being directed to. I think it's possible very few ppl will notice it or mind it. Personally, I'd just remove or disable that functionality if it causes confusion. —Aron Man.🍂 edits🌾 16:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aron Manning: This feedback is helpful – thank you. I agree with you in thinking Step 8 (8. Change the ping you created in step 7 to someone else.) may not be a common use case. As such, I've updated the language to read 8. Remove the ping you created in step 7.[1]. Reason: we are curious to know how people experience the link dialog in the context of phab:T252083. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:53, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Small wikis - General discussion

Hello! I'm an admin at some Albanian wikiprojects and I very much liked the changes that are being discussed about talk pages. I've been dealing for quite some times with new users and the way they interact with the software, hoping to make it easier for them so I can give some opinions on the subject.

For starters I can say that social media logic is dominating online conversations these days and whatever's true for Facebook, is considered a given for every kind of conversing online platform. They tend to expect to be able to mention/call someone by using the @ symbol and their name. Gone are the days when it would be more logical to use the word ping - a forum kind of style of mentioning. Maybe Ping is more well-known in the English world but @ is becoming more universal as time passes and more and more platforms starts to have the same style of mentioning other users. Mentions failing to send, problems with multiple-mentions, problems with editing or removing the mentions are all alien technical concepts to new users. Adding on that, signing their answer is something no new user does, no matter how much they get bombarded by intro-information and disclaimers that advise on doing just that. The word "sign" just doesn't make sense to them until they are advised personally by someone during the conversation. They expect to have their name and date automatically added after their "comment" (using social media terminology) and are usually very appalled by the crude interface Wikipedia has in these things. The same thing with indentation. Usually, the point when we have to explain indentation to them, it's usually the point when they start to express their frustration on the site's interface. "All these technicalities only to write a comment. Imagine writing an article!" In the Albanian Wikipedia, I've made the mentioning template as following "{{@|Username}}" only to suffice to that kind of logic. I've thought of proposing to activate "Flow" too to deal with the indentation and we've been thinking of having a sign bot. It would be very nice if we could have a single solution to all these problems.

Another problem that is very present in small wikis is the lack of discussion in general. You mention here that new users are confused by the terminology (add a new subject) or the purpose of the talk page in general, confusing it with a forum page. That's true but in small wikis we have a bigger problem: Not many users (new or veterans) actually use the talk pages at all. Since talk pages need to be created first, if you are not sure of their purpose, given that they somehow create the impression that they're a technical thing (since it's not a mainspace page), not many users dare create them. And even if the page is already created, they don't know exactly what that page is for. It may seem like a common thing to know in big wikis, but in small ones, the situation is a bit different. The few ones who actually have dared create one and proposed changes on it regarding the accompanying article, have spent hours, days and months without any answer and went on to do the changes themselves anyway and never used a talk page again. The whole talk page infrastructure works well in big wikis because they rarely have articles without their accompanying talk pages, all the talkpages have a well created header that explains what's it for and how to use it and they have bots dealing with their archiving process (and MANY veteran users already creating the right path/example for new ones). In small wikis, talk pages are usually only redlinks and on the few occasions that they exist, they are literally only blank pages that no one looks after since they don't create notifications, except for in the watchlist, again an option not many new user/veteran users use in small wikis. It would be nice if that infrastructure could be automatically applied by default to all talkpages as needed, without the use of manual templates and bots. Starting by the name of the talk page that makes it more clear what that page is for (discussing for changes in the article), continuing with a clear explanation on how to use it (the explaining header) and maybe a more eye-catching position related to the accompanying article (not many new users instinctively see at the top side of the article for somewhere to discuss about it), and maybe even dealing with the archiving process without the use of any user bots. Talk page autocreation (and even the ability to delete them together with the article if so needed - a phab request for quite some years now) would be a good idea too to implement. - Klein Muçi (talk) 02:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Sandbox for testers

If you want to try the current Reply tool on this page, click here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Replying/Prototype_testing?dtenable=1 and then look for the [reply] buttons at the end of the comments in this section. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Here's another reply. What happens when you reply to this one instead of to the first one? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

List

• Sometimes discussions use list formatting. You can see what happens when you reply here. The behavior has changed over time, and the behavior in early 2021 is not a final decision. phab:T263902 has more information. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 10 February 2021 (UTC)