Flow/Research

search on talk discussions has been a process.

Follow type test
Follow Port/Team/Meetings/2013-10-15 workshop October 15, 2013 Port search test 2013-11-23Usability testNovember 23, 2013

The Found at i cloud sever user test to get into the problems face  user when they are exposed to what are  simple with user talk pages.

Tests have been notice specific issues that use face they expect. data link to test may be found me to get they want

Takeaways
test users were to intuitively grasp anything use talk page take user around of use talk message near imo pressions of using wiki text for commun ("it's like math"). It is extensively confusing and somewhat demoralizing. User have discussion system will be sign more  busy friends User has different location their talk page Signatures especially confusing.
 * Users expect an obvious mechanism for replying to comments. They do not understand section edit links.
 * Users do not generally understand how to watch for replies (or if this will even happen).
 * Users have an expectation that those they engage with will be notified in a sane manner.
 * Users expect a way to leave messages for other users from User pages (not just User_talk).
 * Talkback templates are completely confusing and non-intuitive.
 * Users are surprised that they can edit other people's messages.
 * Users have difficulty understanding that conversations can exist in multiple locations.

Note that the scenarios that these users are sent through - and the talk pages they end up on - are typical experiences for new users.

Feedback during first release
Below are charts showing the sentiment of feedback in various feature areas that users gave during the early "sandbox" release period. This feedback was gathered from Flow-enabled pages on the ee-flow test wiki and mediawiki.org during November-December 2013; it was qualitatively hand-coded for feature area and sentiment.





Note: this is a very small sample (only 28 unique users total gave feedback during this period), so the results should not be considered representative of all experienced users.

Quora Question
User:Jorm (WMF) asked on Quora: What do you find confusing about Wikipedia's discussion systems?. The full text of the answers can be found at Experienced user responses.

What do you find confusing about Wikipedia's discussion systems?
Not everyone is aware that there actually *is* a discussion system on Wikipedia. There are two basic types: discussions about articles and then per-user discussion spaces (these are called "Talk pages").

I am currently working on a design proposal to build a better discussion system. I know what I think is confusing about Talk pages (there's a big list) but I want to hear what other people think, too, so that I can fold issues I may have missed into the design.

Experienced User Suggestions
These are suggestions from experienced users for improving the user-to-user discussion system. This list is by no means exhaustive, and is the result of a limited set of answers.

Bugs/Issues

 * Too much wikitext:
 * Signatures should be automatic
 * Indenting is tedious
 * Managing these errors by inexperienced users adds workload to experienced ones
 * Wikitext is "too free"
 * The label "talk" is counterintuitive.
 * It doesn't stand out enough that there is a conversation space.
 * No way to watch specific threads; must watch entire page.
 * Archiving is completely broken in many ways.
 * Lack of permalinks is especially bad
 * Context and history in conversations is typically lost
 * Where do replies go? My talk page or someone elses?
 * Lack of notification when someone mentions you in a discussion or replies to a discussion you are involved in
 * Timestamps can be difficult to follow or clutterish
 * Thread/topic management is an issue.
 * To easy to distort conversations through refactoring
 * Talkback templates/notices add clutter
 * On-wiki processes (such as suggesting merges or deletions) are complex and difficult to follow

Feature Requests

 * A desire for context/annotations
 * Namechecking/mentions (@Username)
 * Better way of linking to diffs
 * Native support for quoting
 * Profile photos or avatars. Discussions can be hard to follow and lack empathy
 * A way to "upvote" comments or indicate simple gratitude or support

Past research on user talk






"Ignored" new users
Since 2006, new user who are (e.g., do not receive any talk page messages)


 * Documentation

First messages to new user
Since 2006 English Wikipedia has seen an explosion of mated tools and boot that send welcome and warning messages to new user By 2011 of first messages to new users were templates sent were warning template

meta search Documentation

The imo port of use talk temp on new user
About registered and unregistered user check  talk page within  hour of receiving a message. The majority of use who edit evert and who receive return to edit again Never to get you want .change the list of temp has been sign prefer but not  retention.

Documentation

user help request� on talk
Based on a sample user edits from 2011, the majority editor ask talk page their own o other editor's.