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.
Improvements:
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)?
Improvements:
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?
@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?
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.
Aside: with Structured Discussions / Flow, I can't make an indented reply to the last post in a topic.
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.