Talk:Talk pages project/Usability

Feedback: Greg at Higher Math Help
It seems like a good idea to improve the visibility of the "Add topic" functionality. I actually found this page because I was looking for a way to make it more visible for new users. Thanks for working on this!

Here's my use case. I want to invite educators to discuss a course plan that I've started on Wikiversity. They have a lot of expertise to share, but many of them have probably never edited a wiki. Asking them to interpret the navigation tabs ("Resource," "Discuss," "Read," "Edit source," "Add topic," etc.) seems like too much to ask; many may not even notice that the navigation tabs are there.

Also, in the legacy skin, which is the default on the talk page I'm working with, the functionality of the "Add topic" tab is inconsistent with that of the other tabs. All the other tabs open an entirely new page rather than a new section, which may create confusion (maybe "Add topic" will be interpreted as adding a new page).

A button closer to where the new section will be added seems more intuitive. That's my initial impression, at least. Including a button at the bottom of the other sections, as in the legacy mockup you shared, might be ideal, although there's one possible problem that I noticed: positioning it directly below a comment might cause some confusion between "Add topic" and "Reply." Maybe there could be some kind of separator?

For now, I've created a working "Add topic" button at the top of the talk page I'm working on. It's a temporary fix, but I think it solves my immediate issue. Now I can direct new users to "Click the 'Add topic' button to start a new conversation," and that's really all they need to know, since the DiscussionTools interface takes care of the rest.

As others have mentioned, having an "Add topic" button at both the top and bottom of the page could be helpful (or even a sticky button), but the possible confusion between "Add topic" and "Reply" at the bottom may need to be sorted out.

Thanks again! -- Greg at Higher Math Help (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Greg at Higher Math Help, on some pages, volunteers have put some text around a top-of-page button, to explain its use even further ("To start a new discussion thread on this page, click on this button:"). You could consider that as an option. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Done! Thanks for the suggestion. Greg at Higher Math Help (talk) 00:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Incomprehensible recent addition
Please review what you added in this edit to the linked section. I simply don’t understand what you wanted to say – half-finished sentences, suddenly first-person singular instead of first-person plural (is it a quote? from where/whom?)… —Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:37, 11 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Good spot; thank you for saying something. Hopefully this edit clarifies things. Tho, please let me know if that's not the case. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Old [reply] button
You wrote that the old, bracketed [reply] button will be removed everywhere. Does this mean that it will be unavailable, or just that it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements? —Tacsipacsi (talk) 01:54, 13 December 2022 (UTC)


 * You wrote that the old, bracketed [reply] button will be removed everywhere. Does this mean that it will be unavailable, or just that it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements?
 * The latter thing you described – "it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements" – is accurate. Do you think this edit makes this clear, @Tacsipacsi? Also: good spot; thank you for saying something. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Feedback: Proposed Revisions to "Add topic" button
There is a prototype ready that we would value feedback on: https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/e22ef06cf7/wiki/Talk:DiscussionTools

The prototype introduces two changes for people using the  skin:


 * 1) The "Add topic" button appears in a more prominent location on the page (above the existing page toolbar that contains actions links like "Page," "Discussion," "Read," "Edit," "Edit source," etc.)
 * 2) The "Add topic" button is styled differently

Feedback prompts PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * What – if anything – concerns you about this proposed change?
 * What – if any – ambiguity might we be able to address that would make it easier for you to evaluate this change?


 * Nothing concerns me I'm still just learning and trying to figure this all out because I really need to get beta Angelabm38 (talk) 04:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Add a config to configure this extension on any page
According to this discussion, I think a configuration should be added to the tool. This is because Wikimedia forums are held in the project namespace, and forums are therefore deprived of these benefits. খাত্তাব হাসান (talk) 09:47, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It’s actually already implemented: usability improvements work on all non-talk pages that have . However, according to T331635, this mode is currently only enabled on Hungarian and German Wikipedias. I think if you request enabling it as described at Requesting wiki configuration changes, the developers will be happy to fulfill your request. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Tacsipacsi Thanks a lot! খাত্তাব হাসান (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: fix talk page archiving so links don't break when a topic is moved
I'm not sure if this is being addressed in the scope of work, but with the enhancements I hope addressing how talk pages handle the lifecycle is being taken into account. Currently archiving is bot or manually curated, but in the process the sections move and old url links break. Talk pages should be designed to be an archive from the start with a URL structure that allows for a permalink ie no url change for links to a topic. Which means probably moving away from just anchor links to an ID structure that would handle each topic individually https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability#Moving_page_to_Talk_pages_project/Legibility to possibly https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability/T2#Moving_page_to_Talk_pages_project/Legibility which inserts an incremental ID and the associated topic to any moved topic to a new page would maintain its direct link or something that would allow reconstructing links to anchor linked topics that are moved due to page size. Wolfgang8741 (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * We have been actually working on this!, although we looked at the problem from a different angle.
 * We felt that changing the discussion system as you describe would likely not be accepted by the entire community, and could result in a big failure like the deployment of Flow back in the day. (Although it is possible to do even today, if you convince people who would use those discussions that it's a good idea – as an example, Portuguese Wikipedia's village pump page is set up that way, where each topic is on a separate page like this one: .)
 * Instead, we're trying to track the topics as they're moved to the archive, and we introduced a special page that functions as a permanent link to a topic (or a single comment). For example, Special:GoToComment/c-Wolfgang8741-20230810123700-Proposal:_fix_talk_page_archiving_so_links_don't_break_when_a_topic_is_moved is a permanent link to this thread. Right now it links back to this page, but when it gets archived, it will redirect to the archive. As another example, Special:GoToComment/c-Whatamidoing_(WMF)-2021-02-05T20:13:00.000Z-Test_page is a link to the first thread on this page – I had just set up archiving here, so it should get archived today and then you'll find that the link goes to the archive.
 * We're still in the process of deploying this feature to all wikis (you can follow the progress at T315510), and deciding how to make it accessible in the interface (at this moment, it's just a "secret" special page). Matma Rex (talk) 19:47, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * For some high-traffic pages, I have wished occasionally for something less extreme than the single discussion/separate page approach used at ptwiki, like w:en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents to be split at least by year. That page presently has more than 1.3 million revisions, and gets ~60K edits per year. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Localising Topic Containers - CLDR ticket created
@Matma Rex, @Tacsipacsi, @Whatamidoing (WMF):

It emerged in our discussion at [] that Topic Containers take data from CLDR, and since there is a mismatch between the language codes for Konkani in MediaWiki and CLDR, the localised text for Konkani is not appearing in Topic Containers. I have created a ticket to correct this in CLDR. I would be grateful if the Wikimedia community could support this ticket in any way. The Discoverer (talk) 08:12, 27 September 2023 (UTC)


 * @The Discoverer Hi, thank you for doing that! I don't know how to support it, but I think @Amire80 knows more about the CLDR project, so perhaps he can help. From my side as a developer, I can offer adding local overrides for the CLDR data in MediaWiki, so that we can fix the localisation without waiting for them: I've done that before for the Sorani Kurdish language in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/cldr/+/880547, and I could prepare a similar patch for Konkani if you point me to where to find the localisation data. Matma Rex (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually, I somehow never became much of a CLDR expert. @Raymond, @Nemo bis, and @Nikerabbit understand it much better than I do. Amir E. Aharoni &#123;{🌎🌍🌏}} 18:13, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * @Matma Rex, @Amire80 Please add me as reviewer for a CLDR patch. Raymond (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Tracked in Phabricator: T347626 The Discoverer (talk) 19:32, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Topic containers and Reply links missing at Wiktionary:Tintto
This Phabricator task seems to indicate that Discussion Tools will be enabled whenever the magic word __NEWSECTIONLINK__ exists on the page. However this community discussion page in the Konkani Wiktionary is missing Topic Containers and Reply / Subscribe links, even though the magic word is present. The Discoverer (talk) 04:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Reply and Subscribe links do appear, but only in newer topics (such as Tech News: 2023-24), because DiscussionTools only recognizes the currently used timestamp format (I found two tasks about this, T245789 and T246047, although I’m pretty sure there’s at least one more, on which I’ve commented that this problem is not only about decade-old comments). A few newer topics don’t have Reply and Subscribe links because of the lack of user page links in signatures. (Mass message senders should get educated about the importance of proper signatures.)
 * Topic Containers do not work in non-talk namespaces on most wikis yet, only on German and Hungarian Wikipedias (T331635); the wider deployment seems to have got stuck. If you get local consensus, I’m sure the developers will be happy to turn it on on Konkani Wiktionary as a third phase 0 wiki. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 15:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Tacsipacsi. I will initiate a discussion and create a ticket. Regards, The Discoverer (talk) 04:23, 25 October 2023 (UTC)