Article feedback/Ideas log

This page aims to track specific suggestions from the Wikipedia community for improving the Article Feedback Tool through its upcoming Version 5 (AFT V5). Our goal is to create a "communication funnel" that starts with community feedback from the AFT V5 Talk page and the Bugzilla Bugs list, then gets processed, distilled and prioritized on this Ideas page, and finally turns the most practical ideas into features on our Feature requirements page, which our developers will implement in phase 1 and 1.5 (separate requirements page will be created for phases 2 and beyond). See our AFT V5 project page for more info about our phased development plan.

Here's the workflow we envision for this community-advised development process: (see also shown in thumbnail on the right) Talk OR Bugs ==> Ideas (this page) ==> Feature requirements

The formatting of this Ideas page is up for discussion and will be improved in the near future, based on community feedback. For now, we separate it into two main sections: a dashboard summarizing the key ideas under consideration, prioritized by status -- and a breakdown of each idea, including its title, summary, status, rationale and relevant links to its origins and destinations. How does this work for you?

Phase 1 (Nov.-Dec. 2011)
These community ideas have been scheduled for phase 1 and are now incorporated in our Feature requirements page:
 * Comment box (e.g., "Suggestions for improvement")
 * "Did you find what you were looking for?"
 * Hide AFT for recently created pages (Bugzilla 29212)

Phase 1.5 (Dec. 2011)
These community ideas are under consideration for phase 1.5 (to be staggered soon after phase 1 gets underway) and are now incorporated in our Feature requirements page:
 * Feedback page per article (for editors)
 * Ratings dashboard per article (e.g., ratings distribution, averages over time, recent history, other page-specific metrics)
 * Revise the thresholds for inclusion in AFT Dashboard tables
 * Different calls to action
 * Make rating tool more visually compact (Bug 29303)
 * Checkbox of suggested improvements (e.g., needs image)

Phase 2 (Jan.-Mar. 2012)
These community ideas are under consideration for phase 2 (tentatively scheduled for early 2012) and will be incorporated in an upcoming Feature requirements page:
 * Integration of feedback on talk page
 * Ability to promote comments to talk page
 * Create a page for registered users where they can keep track of pages they rated

Resolved
These community ideas and issues have been resolved in the latest version V4 of the Article Feedback Tool.
 * Add legend to each star upon mouse hover (Bugzilla 29386) Added on 91122
 * Enable editors to opt out of the article feedback process via an option in their user preferences Available through preferences since 89673
 * Disable AFT on disambiguation pages added AFT blacklist category to disambiguation templates

Open issues
These community issues are deemed important for the near-term, but require more discussion between all stakeholders before we can determine a practical course of action.
 * Access issues: Can anyone post feedback? view the feedback page? vote on feedback? Or do you have to be registered to make any of these contributions?
 * Placement issues: Can we add a feedback button in article page margin, so that feedback form can be accessible anywhere on that page
 * Talk integration: How can we integrate feedback results on the talk page? can we start with a text link from the talk page to the feedback page?
 * Expanded feedback: Should the feedback form include the option to provide more suggestions through an expandable/collapsible feedback section?

On hold
These community ideas and issues are being held back for future phases, until we can catch up with all the action items already scheduled, which may make these requests less important.
 * Courtesy diff link for a user to the previously rated revision when rating has expired (Bugzilla 29251)
 * Allow permanent linking of pages scores (e.g. "Page A was among the 10 top rated pages of the English Wikipedia")
 * Add fifth parameter for accuracy. Many articles score well on the four measured parameters but contain serious factual inaccuracies.
 * For each parameter you should be able to find out how many individual votes there were for each possible rating, not just the average rating. Averages are too easy to manipulate.

Under review
These community ideas and issues are now being reviewed by the AFT V5 page, and will be prioritized shortly. (none yet)

Rejected
These community ideas and issues were considered, but have been rejected for now, for a variety of reasons. (none yet)

Details
This section will be fleshed out once we get confirmation from the AFT V5 team and community that this process and format should be developed on an ongoing basis. For now, only one example is provided to describe one possible format for identifying specific ideas or issues which need to be highlighted here. To avoid redundancy with the feedback being collected on the AFT Talk page, we would only highlight here special ideas and issues which require more details and deliberation.

Comment box
Summary: Many community members have requested a comment box instead of ratings for the AFT form. This comment box could be used to solicit "Suggestions for improvement" or other constructive feedback.

Status: Phase 1

Rationale: This was a very popular request, which the AFT V5 team also agrees with, which is consistent with our new strategy for AFT, and which is relatively easy to develop.

Links: Originally requested on the AFT V1-4 Talk page (can someone add specific links here?), this feature has been scheduled on our Feature requirements page for phase 1.0.