Help:Notifications/Thanks

The Thanks notification offers a new way to give positive feedback on Wikimedia projects. The purpose of this feature is to give quick positive feedback to recognize productive contributions. It allows for editors to give others positive feedback for their edits.

What is this feature?
The Thank notification allows a user to express their gratitude towards another user through notifications. When you thank someone, they will be notified personally through the MediaWiki notification system.

What the feature is
This feature, which we're just calling "Thanks", makes it easy for you to express your gratitude, using the notifications tool. It's a simple way to thank another editor for a revision, when viewing it in history or diff view, as shown below:



How does it work?
When someone thanks you, you get a notification in the personal menu next to your username. The Thanks notification includes the name of the person who thanked you, a link to their user page, the name of the page you edited, a text snippet from your edit (or its summary), and a link to your edit's diff of the page.

To thank another user, go to the History tab of any page. Next to each revision will be a thank link. Click the link to send thanks to that user. This link is also available in the diff view, and below comments on Flow boards if Flow is installed. Bots accounts cannot be thanked. They usually have usernames ending with the Bot suffix.

When the thank link is clicked, you will be asked to confirm Yes or no. The page will return to its previous state if no is clicked. If yes is clicked, the recipient will receive a notification. The Thanks notification includes your name, a link to your user page, the name of the page the recipient edited, a text snippet from the edit (or its summary), and a link to their edit's diff page. A record of the action is also recorded as a log entry at Special:Log/thanks.

When does it not work?
The Thanks feature should be used as a simple, personal messages of gratitude, rather than a public endorsement of edits. Thanks messages are noted Special:Log/thanks, so it's possible to monitor the volume of Thanks being given out. It's not possible to use this feature directly from user's watchlists or recent changes page. They are only in page histories and edit-diff pages.

The Thanks feature is best used to encourage good work rather than bad work. You do not (and should not) Thank someone for thanking you as these messages should be reserved as small acknowledgments, especially towards new editors to encourage more participation.

How do I see the thanks I've got
This is part of the notification system. You'll be notified of anyone thanking you, unless you have turned off Thanks notification. See below.

To see every thanks you have received, visit the Thanks log. Type in "User:" followed by your user name in the "Target" field, then hit enter. Now the log shows only the thanks that were given to your edits.

You will only be able to see who thanked you, and when. The log does not record what edit of yours that triggered each thank you. To find that out, you're better off browsing your Notification archive: Special:Notifications. The notification for each thanks (as opposed to the thanks log itself) does preserve the edit for which you were thanked; clicking a notification for a thanks takes you directly to the diff of the edit you made that somebody thanked you for.

How do I see the thanks I've given out
You need to visit the Thanks log, and filter it on your own user name. (Visit the log and type in your own user name under "Performer", then hit enter. Now the log shows only the thanks you have given out).

You will only be able to see who you thanked, and when. The log does not record the specific edits, and you cannot access other editors' notifications.

How to turn off this feature?
To stop getting Thanks notifications, you can opt out from them in your preferences.
 * Click on Preferences in the top right.
 * In the Preferences menu, click on Notifications.
 * Uncheck Thanks from Notify me about these events in both Web and Email.

For tips on how to use the Notifications tool, visit this FAQ page