Structured Discussions/Request Structured Discussions on a page

This page describes the procedure of requesting Structured Discussions (formerly known as Flow) on a Wikimedia project.

Important notes

 * 1) Like all MediaWiki extensions, it is difficult to remove Structured Discussions once it is installed (see T186463). Wikis can deactivate it, but completely uninstalling it will break a wiki in some ways. Some communities have enabled Structured Discussions only on some trial/sandbox pages; you can use Talk:Sandbox on this wiki or similar pages on Test Wikipedia if you only want to test this feature.
 * 2) If your wiki uses gadgets, user scripts or other tools extensively, please note they may need to be updated to work with Structured Discussions. (e.g. the Twinkle gadget does not yet support Structured Discussions, and would need to be modified to adapt such talk pages). Therefore, you may miss some automated messages until the bot's writer adopt Structured Discussions (see T107093 and related tasks). In addition, many large communities, including English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, which uses scripts and bots extensively, have chosen not to use Structured Discussions currently.
 * 3) Wikimedia is maintaining but not actively promoting Structured Discussions. A completely new system might be developed in the future; see Talk pages consultation 2019.

Procedures for enabling Structured Discussions
You may enable Structured Discussions on one or all of:
 * 1) One or more specific pages (e.g. a help desk, a wikiproject, a village pump, … );
 * 2) One or more namespaces (e.g. all article talk pages);
 * 3) User talk pages of all users who want to have Structured Discussions on their talk page (through a Beta feature).

For a request not of the first type, you should create a task at Phabricator, after reaching a community consensus on your wiki.

For a request of the first type:
 * 1) Check whether Structured Discussions is enabled on your wiki. Visit Special:Version on your wiki, if you find "Flow" listed, then Structured Discussions is installed. If it is not installed, you may request it at Phabricator, after establishing a consensus on your wiki.
 * 2) Check whether you can enable Structured Discussions on a page on your wiki. Visit Special:EnableStructuredDiscussions in your wiki.
 * 3) *If you find a form, then you can use it. You should follow local consensus on how to use it.
 * 4) *If you find "You do not have permission to create Structured Discussions boards in any location, for the following reason", you do not have access. You may ask an administrator to enable Structured Discussions on a page if they can. Administrators can create Structured Discussions boards if your wiki has enabled Structured Discussions on one or more namespaces, or as Beta feature. You may also request to allow a specific user group to enable Structured Discussions as a configuration change.
 * 5) If administrators can not enable Structured Discussions, or there are no active administrators, you may request to enable Structured Discussions by a steward at Steward_requests/Miscellaneous (after a discussion).

Note there is no activations on-request on user talk pages anymore: all wikis have now to use the Beta feature if they want to have Structured Discussions on user talk pages. You can start a discussion on your wiki to get community consensus to have it enabled.

It's encouraged to contact the Global collaboration team liaison to keep the development team aware of the decision process. Any questions may also be forwarded to the team.

Information on your wiki's first use of Structured Discussions
For the first use of Structured Discussions at a wiki, the developers need this information:
 * If any, the exact name of the local discussion & feedback page, e.g. Wikipedia_talk:Structured_Discussions or Discussion_Wikipédia:Discussions_Structurées. However, we recommend to use the global feedback page at Talk:Structured Discussions where you can post in any language.
 * The exact name of a "sandbox" page, where the community would like to test out Structured Discussions, e.g. Structured Discussions/Sandbox or Viquipèdia_Discussió:Structured_Discussions/proves, useful for trials and check for translations
 * What word to use for the "Topic" namespace and check if that name is not used (it is possible to archive old contents)

You may have to check for translations in the language(s) used in your wiki, if you think you need them. It is up to your community to know what are their needs. The following can be translated:


 * the documentation (that page first),
 * Structured Discussions interface messages (listed as ext-flow) on TranslateWiki (the many MediaWiki:Apihelp-... messages can be safely ignored).
 * If you consider to convert a whole namespace to Structured Discussions for good, please check that list.