Talk pages project

This page is a placeholder for the work the Editing Team will do in the coming months to improve talk pages and more broadly, how contributors collaborate on wiki more effectively.

This work is informed by the 6-month-long Talk pages consultation 2019.

More information will be coming soon. In the meantime, watch this page:

Getting involved
Throughout the course of this project there are going to be many questions we will need help answering. Questions like...


 * What was your experience like using this prototype?
 * How do you think we should measure the success of this feature?
 * Where should this be deployed first?

Please add your name to this list if you would like to be invited to these conversations.

Use this format to add your name:


 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)
 * : please keep me posted about possible research related questions ( summaries of conversations, voting systems, etc.)

Updates
The best place to stay up to date about the project is by adding this page to your watch list: Talk pages project/Update.

The team will use the /Updates page to share information like:


 * Progress about feature development
 * Decisions that need to be made
 * Decisions that have been made
 * Questions the team is trying answer

Updates are typically posted every 1-2 weeks.

The other two places you might considering checking for updates are:


 * Phabricator: to see into the team's daily work
 * Editing Team Newsletter: to receive highlights every 1-2 months about significant developments in the team's work

Essential questions
This section will list the high-priority, open-ended and subjective questions we genuinely need help answering.


 * What does a "better" talk page experience mean? How do we measure this?
 * What is "good" collaboration in the context of Wikipedia? How do we measure "good collaboration"?
 * How do we build software that will work for projects at varying scales and stages of development?

Goals
''What are we trying to achieve? How will we know whether we are achieving it?''


 * Improve on-wiki collaboration
 * How do we define and measure "good" collaboration and communication?
 * See 

Rationale

 * What research is this project built on?
 * What has been tried in the past?
 * See: Discussions tools of the past
 * What were the results of those efforts?

What is changing?

 * Creating a new default experience atop Talk pages
 * Probably adding to/changing wikitext conventions (if that enables important goals, like section-watchlisting)
 * Potentially changing where the "Discussion" tab exists on the page
 * Potentially changing where metadata – that currently exists atop some talk pages – is presented

What is not changing?

 * The ability to contribute using wikitext
 * The agreements volunteers have created over time to define the purposes of Talk pages

Scope of project

 * What pages will be affected?
 * Designated talk namespaces, e.g., Talk:, User_talk:, Wikipedia_talk:, etc.
 * Maybe individually designated Project: pages
 * Time scale
 * 1 or 2 years

Product principles

 * Promote collaboration
 * Honor mastery
 * Don't stop people from getting the job done
 * Reduce barriers

Process

 * User testing
 * Evaluating impact
 * Measurement and reporting

Glossary

 * Talk pages
 * Namespaces
 * User talk:
 * Talk: