Feedback Dashboard/Phase 2

This document describes the Feature Requirements for Phase 2 of the Feedback Dashboard. The main goal of phase 2 is provide a method for experienced editors to respond to the Moodbar comments left by new editors.

Objective
To provide an easy way for experienced editors to respond to Moodbar comments left by new editors. This interaction will hopefully help resolve some of the frustrations of new editors. We also hypothesize that direct interaction with experienced community members will have a welcoming effect and contribute to a higher level of editor retention among new editors.

Use cases

 * Experienced editor sees a comment on the Feedback Dashboard and would like to help the new editor by responding to the comment.
 * New editor who leaves a Moodbar comment receives a response from an experienced community member.

Feature Requirements
This is a draft, subject to revision.

Experienced editors should be able to respond to a comment in the Feedback Dashboard, which leaves a message on the new editor's talk page.

Mechanism for replying to Moodbar Comment
 * Experience editor should be able to respond to a comment in-line.
 * Upon submission, the reply is posted to the new editor's talk page.
 * Talk page message has link back to original discussion message
 * Feedback dashboard indicates that there is a reply to the Moodbar comment, with a link to the response.
 * Open issues:
 * What happens when original Moodbar comment is hidden?
 * What happens when reply is removed from the talk page?
 * Initial thought is to make sure comments are not duplicated (e.g., comment exists both on the dashboard and on the talk page). We should think through the more detailed use cases to confirm this is the appropriate behavior.

Replying to a reply
 * If a new editor wants to respond to a Moodbar comment, he may do so by editing his own talk page.
 * Alternatively, he, or any other editor, may respond again on the Feedback dashboard
 * Multiple responses will not be threaded (i.e., there will be only two levels: the original comment and the replies to the comment)

Notification
 * When a new editor receives a response, they will receive an email (if there is an email address associated with their account). This email will include:
 * Original Comment
 * The fact that a user replied, including the username and time of reply
 * Text of reply (only most recent reply in the case of multiple replies)
 * Link to the reply on the user's talk page
 * Brief explanation of what a talk page is
 * Open issue: if a user doesn't have an email address associated with their account, should we ask them to submit an email address/create an account upon submission of comment?

Metrics

Alternative method for reply system
 * An alternative method for replies is to contain the entire discussion on the Feedback dashboard page.
 * The benefit of this is that we would have the opportunity to use a structured discussion system to manage the discussion.
 * The downsides are that:
 * We lose the opportunity to educate the new user on the Talk page.
 * Other experienced editors (other than the one leaving the comment) are likely to look at the new editor's talk page to get a sense of what their editing experience is (e.g., what areas they need help on). It is helpful to have all these discussion on the user's talk page because this is likely where experienced editors to get an understanding of the new user.