Extension talk:Thanks

Early thoughts
My early thoughts:


 * rate-limiting from the start seems smart as this feature seems like it might be easy to mis-use or abuse;
 * extra care needs to be taken when dealing with revision IDs, as the user can sometimes not exist (if revision deletion/suppression was employed); and
 * without any log of who's been thanked for a particular edit, it seems like some users may accidentally thank users multiple times for a particular edit.

Other than these minor points, the extension looks pretty good. I'm a little worried about UI clutter (we'll end up with edit/undo/thanks), but that's probably not a big deal. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * On the logging issue... I'm pretty sure that's by design actually. To avoid turning this in to a Like button, thanks are supposed to private user-user messaging. You'll of course see immediately whether you've already thanked the person, and can't do so twice. But getting a dozen unique thank yous for one edit doesn't sound like such a bad case... ;) On the clutter issue: in the initial idea phase I sent Fabrice et al screenshots of what it might look like to add an extra button for Twinkle/Monobook users, which I think is a common case where the clutter might be very bad. We should continue to think about ways to avoid that for users of power tools like TW, but I'm not sure what the solution is. The obvious one is to just turn it off for people with TW, but I hate to propose that considering how popular it is. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   01:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "You'll of course see immediately whether you've already thanked the person, and can't do so twice." Hmm. I am sure I send 2 thanks to Kaldari (for the same edit, 1 from history, 1 from diff) but I don't see anything, no log, no contribution, not even a post-edit confirmation, nothing. And I can "thank" him for the same edit in the history again ...? Fishing for thanks, is he ;-) --Atlasowa (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That would seem to be a bug, where the view on one is not updating after you thanked him for the same revision already. Let me ping Kaldari and see what he thinks. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   19:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * filed. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   01:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I now see [thanked] in the history and diff, after thanking. But I see no edit confirmation and i have no idea what i send or did, and i can't thank myself to see the effect/result of my "thanks".
 * See also and . --Atlasowa (talk) 12:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Please keep in mind, that this Thanks-Extension will be very, very useful and important for Wikis with flagged revisions like deWP (and ruWP, arWP, plWP, trWp ...).
 * Let me explain why: Currently with flagged revisions, the edits of newbies and IP-editors are hidden by standard, until reviewed by another "reviewer" Wikipedian (which is a bit frustrating by itself, BTW). The newbies/IPs don't get notified when their edit is accepted, and it is technically impossible for the reviewer to make an edit comment (like "thanks for the reference") when accepting the edit. So there is really NO positive feedback unless a reviewer writes manually on the new users discussion page or leaves a template (and there is far less huggling, templating etc. on deWP!). On the other side, if the newbie/IP edit is "rejected" or "reverted", the experienced Wikipedian should give a reason in the edit comment ("vandalism", "unsourced accusation", "not NPOV"), which is: negative feedback. So as a result, flagged revisions systematically produces negative feedback, but no positive feedback for newbie editors. That's why this Thanks-Extension will be very beneficial and important, by encouraging positive feedback for newbie editors. It would be even better, if the "thanks" would also include a note "Your edit is now reviewed and live/visible on Wikipedia", which could be added if "thanks" are send from the flagged revision diff (see diff screenshot). For example, options in the diff:

accept edit accept edit + thanks reject edit


 * instead of just:


 * This is what the version history of articles on german WP looks like (see live example for yourself):


 * A lot of buttons, most are destructive. Only the small type "[Markierung ausstehend]" (and the diff-link/"Vorherige") leads me to the diff where i can accept the unreviewed edit by the newbie editor (screenshot above), but cannot comment.
 * BTW, on a side note: "[Markierung ausstehend]" is really incomprehensible (for a german native speaker!), it should be "ungesichtet" or "noch ungesichtet" ("unreviewed" or "not yet reviewed") but it says something like "marking pending" or "mark to be made". It's a badly worded left over from 2009, when a phase 2 of flagged revisions was considered but never implemented (and probably never will be). Unfortunately, these imcomprehensible words are what a newbie/IP editor will find in the version history, if he investigates what happened to his edit (not yet reviewed).
 * To summarize:
 * 1) This Thanks-Extension will be very useful and important for Wikis with flagged revisions, to counterbalance negative feedback.
 * 2) Flagged revisions is messy and clutters the UI already, a Thanks-Extension should be integrated carefully, at best cleaning up old left overs ("[Markierung ausstehend]") and the workflow. Talk to the german WP, it's the biggest project with flagged revisions:


 * de:Special:ValidationStatistics: 13.358 users with Reviewer rights
 * ru:Special:ValidationStatistics: 1.462 users with Reviewer rights
 * pl:Special:ValidationStatistics: 2.625 users with Reviewer rights
 * ar:Special:ValidationStatistics: 536 users with Reviewer rights
 * en:Special:ValidationStatistics, enabled on 447 articles only: 5.831 users with Reviewer rights.
 * 3) Concentrate on thanks for new users. Old editors are wary of changes, sceptical of semi-automatic messages, and they have motivated themselves without this "thanks"-appreciation so far. Sudden Thanks-bombing may be as unpopular as wikilovebombing, let it start with newbies.
 * 4) "Thanks" needs some sort of edit confirmation. --Atlasowa (talk) 12:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 5) Do not use the heart symbol. It's too similar to WikiLove and too girlish. Let's have our own sign for "hey, good contribution, thanks!" Something that is short and can be typed (like "+1") Maybe a "plus star in brackets" like this: [+*], as a designed icon [ Fairytale bookmark add.png ] or [ [[File:Green_star_plus_unboxed.svg]] ] ? Maybe have Wikipedians contribute ideas, as in the Wikivoyage 2012 logo drive? --Atlasowa (talk) 12:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Similar idea, kind of
user:leyo and me have been thinking about a similar idea, "wikithanks" for IPs and newbies (especially for pending changes on deWP). You can read a little bit about the rationale on meta:Talk:Flagged_Revisions (at the end) and the proposed ideas here (german, sorry, I hope you can manage with googletranslate). The idea was to use a modified "WikiLove", based on an older WikiDank-template (sadly almost out of use), without echo. Let me know what you think? --Atlasowa (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Error Message
I'm geting an error message "Warning: Missing argument 3 for ThanksHooks::onBeforeCreateEchoEvent in /var/www/html/w/extensions/Thanks/Thanks.hooks.php on line 122 "

MediaWiki 1.21.1

PHP 5.3.3

MySQL 5.5.28

Echo is installed property (1.21 latest stable) and declared in LocalSettings.php before Thanks

Thanks is showing up in Special:Version (as version 1.0.0)

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what could be causing this error?

I ran /maintenance/update.php again, just to be sure, rearranged LocalSettings.php by putting both at the bottom, no change. Should I try running 1.20 version of Echo?

Icon screenshots update needed
@Fabrice Florin: Hi. We need updates for these 2 images which are used at Thanks. :) Quiddity (talk) 18:51, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * commons:File:Notifications-Flyout-Screenshot-Thanks-Closeup-04-30-2013-1.png
 * commons:File:Notifications-Thanks-Heart-Icon.png
 * w:Wikipedia:Notifications/Thanks
 * Extension:Thanks

Thanks compared to the Like button; allowing users to accompany thanks with an explanatory comment; etc.
Usually when I thank someone using this extension, I end up leaving a message on the user talk page anyway explaining exactly why I found their edit helpful. I would prefer that it give me the opportunity to accompany my thanks with a brief comment (e.g. 255 characters or less, so it could fit in ). I filed this as 56373.

I also think it would be good to show how many people have given thanks for a particular edit. When you hover over it, it should show you what their comments were. I don't see a problem with it becoming like a Like button or Facebook comments, as long as it stays on the topic of expressing appreciation for the edit.

Actually, it's good for other users to see what people are giving thanks for, so they can know what behavior is useful to others, and emulate it. It serves much the same purpose as barnstars, except it's lower-key and less work. (I don't necessarily want to hand out, or receive, a new barnstar for every useful edit; it kinda cheapens the award and clutters up the place. Barnstars are more for a particularly useful contribution or for a pattern of useful behavior.) Leucosticte (talk) 12:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki version?
Is 1.22 actually needed for this extension to run? I installed it on 1.21.3, all fine no errors and Special:Version shows the extension in place, Echo was already working well on this install, but I don't see any "Thank" link in the recent changes :( --Steko (talk) 22:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Same here. According to Extension_talk:Echo, Echo now works with MediaWiki 1.22 though (haven't tried it myself).--Naersjoen (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

admin option
Is it possible to have an option for admins to thank a group of users? for example new users which made their first article (we can check if the article has interwiki+wikify+category+subsection+references it could be thanked)Yamaha5 (talk) 06:49, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

can't thank on fully protected pages
This is such a minor thing that I don't want to even bother bugzillaing it, but it's impossible for a non-sysop to thank someone for an edit made to a fully protected page. There are situations where this would be desired (such as when someone steps in and fully protects a ridiculous editwar and adds protection templates,) so if it's trivial to fix, it may be worth fixing eventually. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This is worth filing a bug about. You should be able to do that. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)