Extension:LiquidThreads

Liquid Threads, abbreviated LQT, is an extension that implements a new discussion page system. The original code was developed under sponsorship from the Google Summer of Code 2006, the Commonwealth of Learning, and Wikia. It is close to completed by Andrew Garrett under contract with the Wikimedia Foundation, and will soon be deployed on some or all Wikimedia sites.

Installation

 * 1) Download the files from SVN and place them under $IP/extensions/LiquidThreads
 * 2) Add the required tables to the database: php maintenance/sql.php extensions/LiquidThreads/lqt.sql
 * 3) Add  into your wiki's LocalSettings.php
 * 4) Installation can be verified through Special:Version

Rationale
Wiki discussion pages have some advantages over web and Usenet forums. They allow use of the entire wiki syntax - from images to wiki links to transclusion. It is possible to refactor entire discussion pages.

Web forums offer a number of advantages over the MediaWiki talk page model:
 * Threads can be displayed in different views: flat, nested, sorted by date, subject, etc.
 * The user only needs to click a "Reply" button or link in order to respond to a comment. Manual indentation is not required. Quotations from the source comment can be inserted automatically.
 * Comments are automatically signed and dated. Avatars are possible.
 * The user can watch individual threads or be notified about responses in threads.
 * Comments and threads can be displayed individually, without the surrounding page.
 * Old comments are archived automatically and invisibly, with permanent links easily available.
 * Search for author, subject, date, etc. is possible
 * Individual threads can have categories.
 * It is relatively easy to manage related discussions in a subject-specific forum, whereas MediaWiki talk pages always follow the "one discussion page per content page" model.

LiquidThreads aims to unite the advantages of both forum types, and to add some unique discussion features to boot.

Addressing
Each thread has a unique and permanent wiki title, so they can be linked to: e.g., Thread:Talk:Main_Page/Thread 1.

Comments/feedback
I assume this section is where I can write my feedback?

That sucks, but it's not an easy problem to solve. Yes.
 * 1) Old talk pages are not migrated into the new system.
 * 1) Does 'you have new messages' still work?

Search of WikiEducator Google Group discussions

 * "liquid"
 * "LQT"

User comments

 * LQT (James Neill, WikiEducator)

Sites that use LiquidThreads

 * Wikimini (encyclopedia written by children)
 * CNS
 * Web Community Wiki