Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up

Participant groups are a critical part of the "hub-and-spoke" structure of the consultation>Talk pages consultation 2019|2019 Talk Page Consultation. The primary project page on this wiki, MediaWiki.org, will be the centralized "hub" for the entire process. To allow for different types of Wikimedians to share their thoughts, we want everyone to be able to talk about wiki discussion systems in their primary language in an environment where they feel comfortable.


 * What is the name of the participant group?
 * A formal or informal name to identify the participant group. This can be an existing name (such as an affiliate name or WikiProject name) or an new name just for this consultation.


 * Which language?
 * The participant group should discuss talk pages in whatever language they feel most comfortable. The final report will however be done in English.


 * Which user will be the primary contact?
 * Participant groups can be as large or small as they decide, but each group needs one (or two users) to coordinate the group with the central talk page consultation here on MediaWiki.org.
 * This user needs to read and write English. We will be in regular contact with this user to make the process as easy as possible.
 * This user commits to treat all feedback and opinions equally, and take them into account in the final report.


 * How will you consult your group?
 * For some groups this may be on their home wiki, others may decide to discuss on another website (such as a social network, as many communities already do), while others may want to talk in-person, such as at an edit-a-thon.


 * Where will you document your discussions?

For conversations that happen on-wiki, please provide a link to the discussion. Setup a separate page on (biggest) wikis may help to track all the feedback. For conversations that happen off-wiki, please provide a link to a written summary of the discussions. These can be in your preferred language, and we will coordinate translations later.

Phase 2

 * In its second phase, the consultation is focusing on conversation around trade-offs. Each participant of the group gives individual feedback related to the below questions:


 * 1) What do you think of the proposed product direction?
 * Context: The Wikimedia Foundation proposes building a new, clearer design on top of existing wikitext talk pages. It will offer simpler tools for replying, indentation and signatures. You could continue to use wikitext on talk pages, if you prefer that. It should also be possible to participate in a discussion without using wikitext.
 * Question: What do you think of this product direction?
 * 1) Marking separate discussions
 * Context: People want to watch individual sections on the talk page. They want better notifications, archiving, and search.  To do any of this, we may need to create a more structured definition of what counts as a single discussion. This may mean making changes to the wikitext conventions on a talk page. For example, we may create a new way that discussion headings look in wikitext, or a new link that you need to use to create, rename or split a thread.
 * Question: What are the pros and cons of that approach?
 * 1) Helping newcomers find the talk pages
 * Context: Newcomers have difficulty finding talk pages.  During user tests, only one person out of ten found the  tab. Most testers looked for a  tab on the opposite side of the page, where all of the other tabs and links are. Many people also expected to see links to discussions about specific sections in the article. We may want to move the link to the talk page to the opposite side of the article page.  We might add discussion functionality connected to individual sections.
 * Question: What are the pros and cons of making the connection between article content and discussions more visible?
 * 1) Where to show discussion tools
 * Context: Currently, many wikis have community discussion spaces in the project namespace (  or  ), rather than in a talk namespace (  or  ). The project namespace is often used for village pumps/cafés, noticeboards, and some workflows, such as Articles for deletion. The system will need to know where discussions happen, so that it can display the new tools in those discussions, and not display them on other pages. There are several potential ways to do this. One of them is to move all discussions to a talk namespace.
 * Question: What are the pros and cons of doing that?
 * 1) History tradeoffs
 * Context: Sometimes, you need to see the history of the entire page.  Other times, it would be more helpful to see the history of only a single discussion thread. It would be ideal if we could provide both, but we're not sure how to do that.
 * Question: What are the pros and cons of having a complete page history or a specific thread history?
 * 1) Metadata location
 * Context: Some wikis place templates at the top of article talk pages.  These may show instructions, warnings, or FAQs.  They may hold page quality information, link to relevant WikiProjects, or identify past activities.  Many new users are confused by finding non-discussion material at the top of an article talk page.  It would be helpful to move some or all of that content somewhere else on the page, or under a different tab.
 * Question: What are the pros and cons of that approach? Which templates are crucial for the proper use of a discussion page, and which could be moved somewhere else?
 * Every participant gives others the opportunity to express themselves. At the end, the feedback is documented.


 * When does the feedback collection end?
 * Community summaries for Phase 2 are due by June 15, 2019.

Under construction groups
This second table is for groups that are under creation. If your group is ready to receive feedback, please move it to the first table.

Phase 1

 * In its first phase, the consultation is not a debate or a process to get a final decision on agreeing on what to do/not do. Each participant of the group gives individual feedback, phase1>Special:MyLanguage/Talk pages consultation 2019#Phase 1: Collect information|following the guidances:
 * When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
 * What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
 * What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
 * What do you wish you could do, but can't due to the technical limitations?
 * What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
 * Every participant gives to others the opportunity to express themselves. At the end, the feedback is documented (see below).


 * When the feedback collection ends?
 * Community summaries for phase 1 are due by April 6, 2019. Ending the consultation by March 31 may be a good option to have enough time to analyze and structure the feedback.

Participant groups
Already existing groups are listed below.

Community summaries are due by April 6, 2019. We advise communities, especially the ones that would have had collected a lot of replies, to end the conversation by March 31.

We do not advise creating new groups now, unless you can get a significant amount of feedback before the due date.

Under construction groups
This second table is for groups that are under creation. If your group is ready to receive feedback, please move it to the first table.