Notifications/Testing

Welcome to our testing page for the Echo notifications project!

We'd love it if you could help us test this beta software right here on MediaWiki.org, as outlined below. (You can also test it on on this prototype site).

Once you've tested Echo, please share your feedback on this discussion page. You're also welcome to report bugs on Bugzilla.

To learn more about Echo, check out this project hub, the feature requirements page and other related documents.

Testing Tips for Echo
Here are a few tips for testing Echo, our new notifications system on MediaWiki.org.

1. Log in (or sign up) First, log in on MediaWiki.org -- or create a new account if you don't have one yet -- using the links at the top right corner of the page. Once logged in, you should see a notifications badge near your name in the top right corner of any page on MediaWiki.

2. Create a second account Then create a second account on MediaWiki.org, using a separate browser, so you can easily test notifications between the two accounts.

3. Post a talk page message Next, use your second account to post a message on your first account's talk page. (See feature description.)

4. Check your notification You should now see a red badge near the notifications link in the top right corner of any page on MediaWiki. Click on it to see your new notification.

5. Test other notifications You can trigger most of these notifications for your first account by performing the corresponding trigger actions from your second account:
 * thank you (click on a thank link next to any edit by your first account on any article history page)
 * user rights (ask an administrator or bureaucrat to change the user rights for your first or second account)
 * user mention (link to your first account's user page on your second account's talkpage)
 * edit reverted (undo or rollback an edit made by your first account)
 * page link (add a link to a page created by your first account)
 * review a page (this feature can only be tested on this prototype site)

Here's the short list of first notifications we are developing for the first release of Echo in April 2013.

6. Test Bundling The bundling feature only sends a single notification about related events, to reduce information overload. It now only works on the web, with these two notification categories:
 * talk page messages
 * page links

For example, if a page you started is linked from different pages in a row, you only get one notification: "'San Francisco' was linked from 'California' and 2 others." And if several users post messages on your talk page in a row, you only get one web notification: "Kaldari and 2 others posted on your talk page." Note that email bundling is not currently enabled.

To learn more about bundling, read these feature requirements.

7. Coming soon In coming weeks, we plan to implement other features and notifications:
 * 'Getting started' notification (test it now on this E3 lab site)
 * Preferences (updated version)
 * JobQueue
 * HTML Email
 * Default settings by user group
 * Watchlist preference change
 * Metrics dashboards

8. More guidelines For more testing guidelines, we also recommend reading this test charter.

How to give us feedback
General feedback If you have any questions or suggestions about this release of Echo, you are welcome to post a comment on this discussion page. If reporting a bug, please file a ticket on Bugzilla, as outlined below. We will respond as soon as we can.

Report bugs on Bugzilla If you encounter a technical bug, please post it on Bugzilla, and add this info :
 * Summary: Enter a short headline for your bug
 * Description: Describe your bug, in detail:
 * What is the problem you experienced?
 * What steps can we take to reproduce this bug?
 * What did you think would happen?


 * Severity: blocker, critical, major, normal, minor, trivial, enhancement.
 * Hardware:All, HP, Mac, PC, Other.
 * OS: Enter your computer's operating system.
 * Web Browser: Include your browser name and version
 * URL: Add a URL for the page where your bug can be found.
 * Attachment: Include a screenshot (if it helps show your bug visually).


 * Note: To see all of the bugs that are now being worked on, check this Bugzilla search page.

Join our community events From time to time, we host online events over IRC to discuss this project with community members. Our last IRC chat took place on January 8, 2013 (see chat log). Our next community chat will be scheduled in coming weeks on IRC channel. This IRC chat will be aimed at experienced Wikipedians and MediaWiki developers, and we will invite participants to test our next beta version on MediaWiki, when it is ready. A banner will be placed at the top of this page once we have set a date. More info will also be provided in this section.

To learn more about Echo, check out our project hub, the feature requirements page, and other related documents.

Enjoy this early version of Echo ;o)