Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1 report

( Note for translators: we did a quick calculation, and translating the entire report would take an experienced translator about 40 to 50 hours.   So please feel free to choose which pieces you want to focus on. We thank you very much in advance for the help you would provide. )

The TPC>Talk pages consultation 2019|2019 Talk pages consultation (TPC) has reached the end of Phase 1: a global consultation on how contributors use wiki talk pages, and the problems that people experience. This report summarizes what people have said and what we've learned, proposes a direction for the project, and proposes specific questions to explore in Phase 2.


 * by the Talk Pages Consultation team: Danny Horn, Benoît Evellin, Sherry Snyder, Thomas Meadows and Marshall Miller.

Introduction
A wikitext talk page isn't made out of software; it's a collection of cultural conventions that are baffling to newcomers and annoying for experienced editors. Counting colons to indent a reply properly, using tildes to sign your name, having to watch an entire talk page instead of the section you're participating in, not having an easy reply link – these are headaches for everyone.

At the same time, there are many things that wikitext talk pages do well. The empty edit window has given people the freedom to invent templates and techniques that are extremely flexible and adaptable. Conversations can be reorganized by anyone, at any time. Links to diffs and old revisions show what's been done on a page, when, and by whom. The functionality that helped people collaborate on millions of encyclopedia articles for 15 years shouldn't be dismissed casually.

Wikimedia Foundation product teams have worked on on-wiki communication tools before, including LQT>Extension:LiquidThreads|LiquidThreads (started in 2006) and SD>Structured Discussions|Flow/Structured Discussions (started in 2012). Both of these projects have been used successfully on many wikis, although they've also both been heavily criticized, and neither has gained wide acceptance on many of the largest wikis.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis: to ask questions, to resolve differences, to organize projects, and to make decisions. Communication is vital for the depth and quality of our content, and the health of our communities. We believe that this project is essential for us to reach our goal of freely sharing the sum of all knowledge.

The global TPC>Talk pages consultation 2019|Talk pages consultation began in March 2019 with Phase 1 discussions hosted on groups>Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up|20 wikis and usergroup spaces. This included Wikipedias in 15 languages, as well as Commons, Wikidata, two Wiktionaries, and an in-person user meeting. These discussions were Phase1Summaries>Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1 community discussion summaries|summarized by a member of each community, and the TPC team read all of the on-wiki discussions. The team also conducted UserTesting>Talk pages consultation 2019/New user tests|two rounds of user tests on UserTesting.com, with people who read Wikipedia a lot, but who haven't contributed because they don't know how.

Phase 1 ended at the end of April, with this report being published in May. Below is a brief summary of our findings, a proposal for the project direction, and a list of questions for Phase 2 discussions. This is followed by a longer and more detailed review of the discussions and user tests.

The basics
There's universal agreement that three basic elements of wikitext talk pages need to be improved: replying, indentation and signatures. For new users, these basic mechanics are confusing and off-putting. Even very experienced users sometimes make mistakes with indentation and signatures. To improve talk pages, we need to add an easy tool for replying, and make indentation and signatures automatic. (See Indentation>#Indentation|#Indentation, Replying>#Replying|#Replying and Signatures>#Signatures|#Signatures below.)

Experienced contributors
Very active contributors who participate in complex discussions and workflows favor the flexibility of an open, unstructured wikitext talk page. For those users, an open wikitext page is liberating. It allows them to change the structure of a discussion or page to respond to the needs of the moment. They have a strong desire to keep continuity with the existing wikitext system. Editors agreed with this view at many wikis, including at wikis that have been using Flow. (See Stability>#Stability|#Stability and Wikitext>#Wikitext|#Wikitext below.)

There are many other features that experienced contributors would like to see added to talk pages, including:
 * The ability to watch specific discussions, so that users can follow one conversation instead of seeing notifications for every change made to an article or the rest of the talk page. (Watchlist>#Watchlist|#Watchlist)
 * A more consistent archiving and search function, to help users find previous conversations on a specific topic. (See Archiving>#Archiving|#Archiving and Searching>#Searching</>|#Searching below.)
 * A more consistent notification (ping) function, to make it easy to alert specific people about a discussion, and easy to receive clear notifications both on- and off-wiki. (Notifications>#Notifications</>|#Notifications)
 * A way to view the history of a specific conversation, especially if that conversation has moved to an archive. (History>#History</>|#History)
 * The ability to use talk pages fluently on a mobile device. (Mobile>#Mobile users</>|#Mobile users)

At the English Wikipedia, some editors mentioned metadata templates. These are used on article talk pages to display instructions, warnings, quality ratings, WikiProject affiliations, and other information about the article. Other wikis use similar tools. This topic is important, but it didn't get specific attention in Phase 1. We'll ask for further information about it in Phase 2. (Metadata>#Metadata</>|#Metadata)

New contributors
New contributors find unstructured wikitext talk pages confusing and difficult to use. The conversation tools that they've learned to use on the internet are very different from the tools that we provide. This difference discourages people from participating and becoming active community members.

In addition to the on-wiki discussions, we ran Tests>Talk pages consultation 2019/New user tests</>|new user tests with ten potential newcomers. All of them are very familiar with reading Wikipedia and expressed interest in learning how to edit. In these tests, we observed the following:


 * All of the users struggled to find talk pages. Most thought that clicking "<tvar|Visualeditor-ca-editsource></>" in an article section heading would lead them to a discussion forum about that section. When we asked them where they would go to ask a question about editing the article, only one out of ten noticed the "<tvar|Talk></>" tab at the top left of the page (in English, a left-to-right wiki). They generally searched in the upper right of the page, thinking that the "<tvar|MyTalk></>" link (for their own user talk pages) was the right place to ask a question.
 * When the test directed them to the "<tvar|Talk></>" tab, all of the users expected to see a typical message board or a discussion forum. Many were confused by the structure of the talk page. The similarity between the visual design of the article and the talk page led them to assume that each section in the article corresponded to a section on the talk page.
 * The users struggled with "basics>#The basics</>|the basics" described above: replying, indentation and signatures. Some users thought that the "(<tvar|Talkpagelinktext></>)" link in a user's signature was the reply button. Only three of ten could figure out how to add a signature. Most of the users could figure out how to use colons for indentation from looking at previous posts.
 * This test was done with copies of talk pages from the English Wikipedia. Article talk pages there often contain templates about the article (example>W:en:Talk:Mountaineering</>|example).  For most users, the templates at the top of the talk page seemed out of place. Several users became so focused on the template boxes that they didn't scroll down to the discussion without being prompted; they seemed to believe that the templates themselves were the full extent of the talk page.  (See Testing>Talk pages consultation 2019/New user tests</>|New user tests for more.)

These findings were echoed by comments in the on-wiki discussions. New users reported that responding on a talk page was confusing, and that confusion leads many users to give up. Many experienced users said that newcomers struggle with the current design and functionality, and that it can be a barrier to participation. (Newcomers>#Newcomers</>|#Newcomers)

Major themes
During this process, two major themes have emerged.

In order to provide these features, the system needs to be able to tell what "a discussion" is – that this specific part of the page is a single discussion, and separate from other edits on the same page. That may require making some changes that limit the endless flexibility of an open wikitext page. Those changes need to be carefully considered and agreed upon, and changes that limit flexibility need to connect to a visible, positive improvement in functionality. That's what we want to discuss in Phase 2 of this consultation: How should we approach finding that balance between long-requested features and flexibility?
 * Clear design and appropriate tools: Right now, article pages and talk pages are very similar in their appearance and functionality. That appearance is misleading and makes it more difficult for people to learn how to use talk pages correctly. People are meant to use a talk page in a different way than an article; it's a different form of content. A core principle of product design is that the tool should help the user understand what they're supposed to do. It should be easy to use a product correctly.  A good product design minimizes the opportunities for users to make mistakes. While experienced wiki contributors have learned to live with limited product design – and are justifiably proud of the workarounds they've developed to compensate – it's not fair to allow badly designed tools to be a barrier to participation for knowledgeable and passionate people who want to join the communities and contribute knowledge.
 * Features vs Flexibility: The desire for talk page improvements is not limited to newbies. In fact, experienced contributors are the ones who know best how inadequate the existing tools really are. Experienced users want to participate in a single discussion on an active talk page, without wasting time looking at irrelevant edits in other sections on the page. Experienced users want to be able to find discussions easily and quickly, even if the discussions have been moved to an archive.

Proposed product direction
Based on these findings, we propose that wikitext talk pages should be improved, and not replaced.

Experienced contributors in the larger communities have built a very large number of important workflows based on the ability to manipulate wikitext, and the list of use cases is long and intimidating. LiquidThreads and Flow both involved replacing talk pages with a new system, which then had to handle all of those use cases before they were fully adopted. In complex ecosystems like this, it's better to start with a product that works (called a "minimum viable product"), and then make improvements that can be built and released over time, learning more with each release. As flawed as wikitext talk pages are, they've powered wiki discussions for more than 15 years, and that's a minimum viable product.

Our idea is to build a new design on top of wikitext talk pages that changes the page's default appearance and offers key tools – the "clear design and appropriate tools" described above. This new design should communicate to the user that this is not a content page, and help the user interact appropriately with the tools. This should include clear signals for how to start a new discussion, and to respond to an existing discussion or to a specific message within that discussion. It should add the signature automatically, and place the message in the correct nesting order.

In order to keep consistency with the existing tools, this new design will be a default experience that existing users can opt out of. With some caveats discussed below, it should be possible for users to keep the view that they currently have, and work in wikitext instead of using the new tools.

The caveats: as we said above in "MajorThemes>#Major themes</>|Features vs Flexibility", improving talk pages may require small-to-medium changes in wikitext conventions and practices.

For example:

To improve page history, we may have to make some decisions. Some experienced contributors talked about the need for a complete history for the whole page. Others emphasized the need for a thread history, for individual discussions. (Right now, wikitext talk pages have a page history but not a thread history; in Flow, it's the other way around.) It would be ideal to provide both page history and thread history. We'll have to think and talk about how to make that possible.
 * To build the ability to watchlist a single discussion, the system will have to be able to tell the difference between one discussion and the next. The page can't just be a pile of unconnected edits. That might mean changing the wikitext convention for a discussion header. Maybe editors would type <tvar|Example> </> instead of <tvar|EqualEqual> </>, or <tvar|example> </>. (These examples are purely for illustration, not actual suggestions.) Experienced people would still be able to use wikitext, but they'd have to learn a new convention.
 * To make the new features work, and not interfere with non-discussion pages, it may be necessary to specify where they are enabled. We could have them work only on pages in the "talk" namespaces (such as <tvar|namespace1> </>, <tvar|namespace3> </>, <tvar|namespace11> </>, etc.).  If so, then some existing project-wide discussion pages (such as the deletion discussions at some wikis) would have to relocate from   to   pages, to be able to use these tools.  Another possibility is that the features work automatically in the talk namespaces, and that people could turn them on for other individual pages with a wikitext magicwords>Special:MyLanguage/Help:Magic words</>|magic word. Or maybe they'll work anywhere, as long as you use the   prefix. (Again, purely for illustration.)
 * To build the ability to move a discussion to an archive without breaking links to it, it may be necessary to create a unique ID for each discussion. This could mean that you need to use one of the new tools to create a new thread, merge two threads, or archive an old thread.

The intention is to only make changes that are necessary, in order to enable functionality that's worth making the change. Ideally, the result should be approximately the same amount of work or less for contributors. For example, if you want to move a discussion from one page to another without breaking people's watchlist, you might need to click a new "move discussion" link and enter the name of the target page, so the system can keep the permalink active. That would be a new habit to learn, but moving a thread by cutting and pasting wikitext takes just as long.

The inspiration for this approach was the eager adoption of the Mention>Help:Notifications/Mention</>|ping feature, which was created around six years ago and is now widely used by experienced users. To send someone a notification that you'd like them to look at a discussion, you have to post their user name in brackets, or use a specific template, such as <tvar|example1> </> or <tvar|example2> </>. But the ping only works if you sign that edit with <tvar|signature> </>. If you misspell the person's name, then you have to fix the error, and sign the message again, on a new line. That's a new set of wikitext habits to learn and remember, but lots of people have happily switched their habits, because it enables a feature that's incredibly helpful.

The adoption of the ping feature demonstrates that it's possible to make widely accepted small-to-medium changes in wikitext conventions, as long as we can find that balance between the trouble it takes to learn and use the new convention, and the value that users get from a new feature. It will take serious thought and discussion to find this balance for each stage of the project. We're willing to think and talk and try new things, in order to make talk pages easier to learn and use. We hope that many of you are willing to join us as we figure out how to make this work.

Questions for Phase 2
Posting this report marks the end of Phase 1 for the Talk pages consultation, and kicks off Phase 2, which will be a new round of discussions and surveys.

An important part of Phase 2 is to hear your responses to the direction>#Proposed product direction</>|proposed product direction. That can begin right now TalkPage>Talk:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1 report</>|on the talk page of this report, for people who would like to share their thoughts, ideas, and questions there. We will also ask groups that participated in Phase 1 to tell us what they think.

In the Phase 2 discussions, we're asking the following questions:
 * 1)  What do you think of the proposed product direction? 
 * Context: The Wikimedia Foundation proposes building a new, clearer design on top of existing wikitext talk pages. It will offer simpler tools for replying, indentation and signatures. You could continue to use wikitext on talk pages, if you prefer that. It should also be possible to participate in a discussion without using wikitext.
 * Question: What do you think of this product direction?
 * 1)  Marking separate discussions 
 * Context: People want to watch individual sections on the talk page. They want better notifications, archiving, and search.  To do any of this, we may need to create a more structured definition of what counts as a single discussion. This may mean making changes to the wikitext conventions on a talk page. For example, we may create a new way that discussion headings look in wikitext, or a new link that you need to use to create, rename or split a thread.
 * Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of that approach?
 * 1)  Helping newcomers find the talk pages 
 * Context: Newcomers have difficulty finding talk pages.  During user tests, only one person out of ten found the <tvar|Talk1></> tab. Most testers looked for a <tvar|Talk2></> tab on the opposite side of the page, where all of the other tabs and links are. Many people also expected to see links to discussions about specific sections in the article. We may want to move the link to the talk page to the opposite side of the article page.  We might add discussion functionality connected to individual sections.
 * Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of making the connection between article content and discussions more visible?
 * 1)  Where to show discussion tools 
 * Context: Currently, many wikis have community discussion spaces in the project namespace (<tvar|ns4> </> or  ), rather than in a talk namespace (<tvar|ns5> </> or  ). The project namespace is often used for village pumps/cafés, noticeboards, and some workflows, such as Articles for deletion. The system will need to know where discussions happen, so that it can display the new tools in those discussions, and not display them on other pages. There are several potential ways to do this. One of them is to move all discussions to a talk namespace.
 * Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing that?
 * 1)  History tradeoffs 
 * Context: Sometimes, you need to see the history of the entire page.  Other times, it would be more helpful to see the history of only a single discussion thread. It would be ideal if we could provide both, but we're not sure how to do that.
 * Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a complete page history or a specific thread history?
 * 1)  Metadata location 
 * Context: Some wikis place templates at the top of article talk pages.  These may show instructions, warnings, or FAQs.  They may hold page quality information, link to relevant WikiProjects, or identify past activities.  Many new users are confused by finding non-discussion material at the top of an article talk page.  It would be helpful to move some or all of that content somewhere else on the page, or under a different tab.
 * Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages of that approach? Which templates are crucial for the proper use of a discussion page, and which could be moved somewhere else?

The rest of the report continues below with detailed findings, but first, here's how you can participate in Phase 2 as part of your local community, or as an individual.

Communities can sign up to host a discussion about the Phase 2 questions at <tvar|1></>.

Check to see if your community is hosting a discussion -- and if not, please sign up and create one on your wiki! We'll ask the hosts to write a summary for the local discussions by 15 June 2019.

To participate as an individual, please think about the six questions above; you can post your answers at 1>Special:MyLanguage/Talk pages consultation 2019/Individual feedback#Phase 2 questions</>|Talk pages consultation 2019/Individual feedback#Phase 2 questions.

On approximately 22 May 2019, we will start 1>Special:MyLanguage/Talk pages consultation 2019/Communication/Qualtrics</>|an off-wiki survey with the same questions, for people who prefer to respond in that format.

Phase 1: Process
'' Note on translations: The discussion quotes below have been machine-translated into English, and posted in both the original language and English translation. This is a long report, and we don't expect that volunteer translators will have time to translate the English text. We're very grateful to the translators who are working on translating the sections above. Thank you! ''

The goal for Phase 1 of the Talk pages consultation was to collect information about how people in the movement communicate with each other.

Below is a description of the process, followed by a close look at the discussion results.

On-wiki discussions
Overall, approximately 450 editors, contributors, program organizers, and other people in the movement shared information with the team.

Most of the participants were highly active Wikipedia editors who have contributed to the projects for many years.

People were invited to reply at the central pages and/or to organize a local discussion.

Invitations were sent to hundreds of communities by messages posted in about 25 languages to Wikipedias and sister projects, by e-mail to public mailing lists and program organizers, via on-wiki messages to groups that work with newcomers, and in posts on social media.

A survey form was provided to people organizing editing events.

The invitation was further shared by volunteers, especially in advertising local discussions.

In addition, a CentralNotice banner ran for all users (logged in and logged out) for two weeks, and a second banner was run in English only for 24 hours, which led to a shorter, simpler page.

You can see the list of local discussions at <tvar|1></>.

Additional information about these efforts and sample messages can be read through <tvar|1></>.

People were asked to provide information about:
 *  All the tools they currently use for communication:  This produced a list that included everything from posting comments on article talk pages to chatting on social media and attending conferences.  You can see that list at <tvar|1></>.
 *  All the things they need to do:  This was the main focus of the consultation. In most cases, people were asked 1>#Results of on-wiki discussions</>|five questions.  Common needs included discussing content, getting information to and from new users, and making decisions.

Summaries of the local discussions, written by the local organizers, were posted in English at 1>Special:MyLanguage/Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1 community discussion summaries</>|Phase 1 community discussion summaries.

That page provides links to the original discussions, so that you can read the full discussions in their original languages.

New user testing
In addition to reaching out to existing contributors, we also wanted to incorporate the perspectives of newcomers.

These people represent the future Wikimedians who aren't yet part of a community, but whom we hope will start contributing.

They may come from different cultures and have different expectations of technology than existing Wikimedians.

We don't want our communication tools to keep them away.

In order to try to understand how new users feel about the current state of communication on wiki, we used UserTesting.com.

UserTesting.com hires people who record their experiences, reactions, and thoughts while they test software.

For these tests, we recruited ten people who have never participated in wiki discussions.

They recorded themselves trying out Wikipedia article talk pages for the first time.

We wanted our testers to reflect the sort of people who would be likely to encounter talk pages.

That would mean a certain amount of technical literacy, familiarity with Wikipedia, and to be someone who might want to edit.

To narrow to those people, we asked a series of screening questions, such as "How often do you look something up on Wikipedia?", "Have you ever engaged in a discussion with other users on Wikipedia?", and "If you have not edited Wikipedia in the past, what would you say is the main reason why you have not edited?" We included only people who were familiar with Wikipedia and who seemed likely to become Wikipedia editors in the future.

A summary of these results, plus information from the on-wiki discussions about newcomers, is on this page at 1>#New contributors</>|#New contributors.

For a detailed description of these tests and what we observed, see the page on 1>Special:MyLanguage/Talk pages consultation 2019/New user tests</>|New user tests.

Results of on-wiki discussions
The purpose of Phase 1 of this consultation was to collect information on how people use talk pages, and the problems they run into. To start the conversations, we asked:


 * 1) When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you? Why?
 * 2) How do newcomers use talk pages, and what blocks them from using it?
 * 3) What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
 * 4) What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to technical limitations?
 * 5) What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?

Approximately 450 users participated in discussions hosted on 20 wikis and usergroup spaces. This included Wikipedias in 15 languages, as well as Commons, Wikidata and two Wiktionaries. People also participated on the central Talk pages consultation page, and another page set up for individual feedback. The consultation team read all of the discussions (using machine translation where necessary), and sorted responses into themes.

There were strong themes that came up often, which are summarized in the following table. The frequency of comments is estimated on a seven-point scale, going from ✎ (some people mentioned it) to ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎ (a very popular topic). It is based on the number of terms used, how often, in which context and also on the overall feeling from community summaries. This isn't a scientific classification, but it helps to summarize the feedback.

All comments have been translated into English, mostly using machine translation. The original text is included. There may be errors in the translations; please feel free to correct a translation if you find errors.

Indentation
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎

There were dozens of complaints about counting colons to create the appearance of indentation. This was the most frequent complaint. Experienced editors find it clunky and difficult, and it is even harder for new editors.

All other communication systems on the internet manage to represent the messages posted by different users as individual messages, without needing the users to set a visual indentation level by hand. Editors of all levels of experience and ability would like to see this simplified and standardized.

Some solutions were proposed, including offering Flow or a similar system, scripts that automatically count and insert the correct number of colons. Some editors talked about replacing colons with some other wikitext code (perhaps typing  to indicate indentation instead of , or perhaps creating a method for clearly marking both the start and stop of a comment) as a way to solve the wikitext discussion system's accessibility problems.

Below are some representative quotations from participants in the Phase 1 consultation. They discuss the desire for automatic formatting, the need to focus on the content of the comment, and the confusion and annoyance the current system causes, as well as HTML semantics and accessibility.

Many individual comments related to more than one theme. Comments about indentation often addressed #replying, #design, and the use of #wikitext as well.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] Etwas mehr technische Strukturierung wäre sicherlich für Neuautoren hilfreich, etwa so wie in Diskussionsforen mit anderen technischen Infrastrukturen, wo viel Layoutgestaltung automatisiert wird. Also z.B. getrennte "Knöpfe" für Neues Thema, auf Beitrag antworten, Beitrag editieren/löschen/sonstwas und automatische Hilfestellungen wie Einrücken, Signatur etc. worum man sich nicht mehr selbst kümmern muss. Eben so, wie in den meisten Foren, die solche Sachen automatisiert formatieren und gestalten. Wo man sich also nur noch um Inhaltliches Gedanken machen muss, aber nicht mehr, wie man es technisch darstellt. Sowas sollte einem die Software abnehmen. — H7, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Somewhat more technical structuring would certainly be helpful to new editors, similar to discussion forums with other technical infrastructures in which much of the page layout is automated. So, for example, separate "buttons" for new sections, to post a reply, to edit/delete/whatever a comment, and automatic assistance such as indentation, signature, etc. so you no longer have to take care of it all yourself. Just like in most forums, which automatically format and design such things. So all you have to do is think about content, and not any longer about how to present the content technically. The software should do that for you. — H7, German Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [nl] De techniek is voor veel beginners een ramp. Een handtekening plaatsen vraagt om een onhandige handeling; voor inspringen moet je een dubbele punt gebruiken; voor een reactie daarop een dubbele dubbele punt; nieuwste reacties moeten onderaan; iedereen kan ongestraft de hele opmaak verprutsen door lukraak ergens tekst tussen te plaatsen. Het nodigt niet echt uit tot overleggen. De techniek is gewoon niet intuïtief. — Thieu1972, Dutch Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] The technology is a disaster for many beginners. Placing a signature requires an awkward action; for indenting you must use a colon; a double colon for a response; the newest responses must be at the bottom; anyone can ruin the entire layout with impunity by randomly inserting text somewhere in between. It does not really invite discussion. The technology is simply not intuitive. — Thieu1972, Dutch Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Al momento de responder un comentario y utilizar el signo " " para bajar un nivel, resulta visualmente confuso el tratar de escribir mensajes de más de un párrafo de longitud, porque al colocar " " en cada párrafo, da la impresión de que son comentarios distintos. — Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] When responding to a comment and using the " " to indent a level, it is visually confusing to try to write messages of more than one paragraph in length, because when placing " " in each paragraph, it gives the impression that they are separate comments. — Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Durante mis primeros pasos en Wikipedia, he encontrado pocos problemas que me ha sido dificil acostumbrarme. Pero hay uno en particular que si es molesto, me refiero al caso de los " ", debería hacer algo con eso como uso de separación. Cuando uno ve en la discusión un debate largo de varios párrafos, uno está obligado a poner eso para separar su comentario y así diferenciar del primer comentario y también de los otros usuarios que participan. Eso forma una escalera larga de comentarios de diversos usuarios y causa confusión tanto para los que leen como los que escriben. Debería haber un orden en eso, tal vez haciendo que cada comentario tenga su nombre al principio sin perder la firma al final (que también tiene nombre), así evitar esa forma de escaleras. — Alexis Eco, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] During my first contributions to Wikipedia, I found few problems that were too difficult to get used to. But there is one in particular that is annoying, I mean the case of the " ", which I'm supposed to use somehow to separate comments. When you see in a discussion a long debate of several paragraphs, you should put that there to separate your comment and thus differentiate yours from the first comment and also from the other users who participate. That forms a long staircase of comments from various users and causes confusion for both those who read and those who write. There should be a system, perhaps by making each comment have the editor's name at the beginning without losing the signature at the end (which also has a name), that avoids that type of stairs. — Alexis Eco, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Formatting to differentiate your post from previous ones takes knowledge/experience. Also, with lengthy discussions, it's impractical to just keep adding indentation. — Flugaal, Individual feedback on MediaWiki.org

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] It would be great to have the option to render talk pages in a way that resembles online forums, with a "reply" button that automatically applies the correct indent. — dlthewave, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [nl] Hiervoor gebruiken we op mediawiki.org Flow al, die de inspringing en ondertekening automatisch regelt. Het is even wennen en zal misschien tegen het zere been van de oudgedienden zijn die alles zelf willen bepalen. — Ciell, Dutch Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] We already use Flow for this on MediaWiki.org, which automatically arranges indentation and signing. It takes some getting used to, and it might be a sore spot for the old-timers who want to decide everything themselves. — Ciell, Dutch Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] If the mechanics of specifying threaded responses could be handled by the software, rather than relying on all editors to follow a convention which requires copying just the right string of punctuation and putting it in the right place, it would simplify matters. – isaacl, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Better and specific markup for indenting would solve the accessibility issue and end the silly  versus   confusion (which is done for optical effect, not for semantic reasons). Finding a universal character for this might be difficult across all WMF wikis, but it sure is worth exploring. — Kusma, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Quant à l’éditeur de code classique, pourquoi ne dispose-t-il pas d’une fonctionnalité d’indentation automatique, comme n’importe quel éditeur de code un peu travaillé ainsi que les éditeurs WYSIWYG ? J’écris parfois des réponses de plusieurs lignes qui sont très profondes, et c’est une horreur de devoir retaper sept deux-points  pour écrire chaque nouvelle ligne. On pourrait faire de même avec les puces : une nouvelle puce serait ajoutée lorsqu’on appuie sur Entrée, et si on appuie sur Entrée sans rien écrire on redescendrait d’un niveau d’indentation. D’ailleurs, l’éditeur visuel ne prend pas en charge l’indentation, ce qui me semble bien stupide, d’autant plus qu’il y a des boutons « Augmenter/diminuer le retrait » qui pourraient servir à ça par défaut. – Frigory, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] As for the classic code editor, why doesn't it have an automatic indentation feature, like any code editor that basically works, as well as WYSIWYG editors? I sometimes write responses of several lines in discussions that are very deeply indented, and it is a horror to have to retype seven  to write each new line. It could work the same as bulleted lists: a new bullet would be added when pressing Enter, and if you press Enter without writing anything, you would go back down to a level of indentation. Moreover, the visual editor does not support indentation, which seems very stupid, especially since there are buttons to "Increase/decrease the indentation" that could be used for this by default. – Frigory, French Wikipedia

Replying
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎

A common challenge for new users is figuring out where and how to reply to messages. Modern internet users are used to typing into a text box to reply, since this is the model used on other websites. Typing directly under someone else's message, in the same way that a Wikipedia editor might add a new paragraph at the end of an article, is a very unusual model for communication.

Experienced users also have trouble with this on long, complex discussions. Editors sometimes want to be able to reply directly to a comment that's in the middle of a thread, but this requires scanning a window full of wikitext, finding the right spot to add the comment, and using the correct indentation. People also use varying ways to respond to a particularly long or multi-point comment.

These quotations from Wikipedia editors represent the common themes related to replying to an existing discussion: although a precisely formatted large discussion can be followed logically when you're reading, when you are replying to a free-form discussion on an unstructured wikitext page, it can hard to find the right place to add your comment and to quote or otherwise indicate which comment or sentence you're replying to. Editors want a tool that allows them to reply in the correct place, with the normal formatting.

Comments about replying often overlapped with concerns about #indentation and #newcomers.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] A key difference of Wikipedia Talk pages with some other common linear discussion systems is that you can follow the logical sequence of a conversation even when it diverges into several sub-topics, by reading all the replies that have been made to a single comment. This capacity is lost when the direct replies to a comment are widely spaced and intermixed with other topics. – DiegoMoya, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] If I want to reply to a specific comment within that massive collection of comments, it takes a long time to find the one I'm looking for within the wall of wikitext. A reply-to feature would be nice. – Ununseti, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Fajną opcją w dyskusjach byłby guzik "odpowiedź na wpis" pojawiający się przy nazwie użytkownika w dyskusji, któremu chcemy odpowiedzieć, po kliknięciu skrypt by sam tworzyć wcięcie i przesuwał kursor do miejsca gdzie należy wpisać odpowiedź. Czasami tak jest, szczególnie w złożonych dyskusjach, że ciężko jest odnaleźć w edytorze tekstowym miejsce gdzie kończy się tekst osoby, której chcemy odpowiedzieć. – Andrzej19, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] A nice option in discussions would be a "respond to this entry" button appearing next to the username in the discussion that we want to answer; after clicking, the script would create the indentation itself and move the cursor to the place where the answer should be entered. Sometimes, especially in complex discussions, it is difficult to find the place in the wikitext editor where the comment of the person you want to respond to ends. – Andrzej19, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] New editors often have trouble understanding how to reply to comments on talk pages... We need a reply link functionality added to each comment, to make it easier for IPs and new editors to reply to comments on talk pages. – Insertcleverphrasehere, Community Wishlist 2019

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I find myself missing the ability to easily point others to exactly what I'm talking about frustrating. Native support for quoting. This is especially relevant for long messages. – Waldir, Flow/Research/Experienced User Responses

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Flow: lorsque l'on veut contacter d'autres contributeurs, c'est très rapide et c'est facile de répondre. Par contre dès qu'il y a plusieurs personnes qui interagissent, je n'arrive pas à voir au premier coup d'oeil quelle personne répond à une autre. – Yodaspirine, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Flow: When you want to contact other contributors, it's very fast and it's easy to reply. However, when there are several people interacting, I can not see who responds to which other person at a glance. – Yodaspirine, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The five main things that Wikipedia could adopt from Reddit's mobile interface are: – Newslinger, English Wikipedia
 * 1) The ability to reply to a specific comment in-place on the talk page without having to scroll to the right place in an entire section on a separate editing page
 * 2) The ability to edit or delete one's own comment in-place on the talk page without having to scroll to the right place in an entire section on a separate editing page
 * 3) A clear visual indicator of where a comment begins and ends
 * 4) A clear visual indicator of a comment's level of nesting
 * 5) The ability to manually collapse and expand a comment and its replies for easier scrolling

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Ogólnie to przydałoby się coś w rodzaju cytowania wiadomości. Nie tylko fragmenty artykułów czy kodu ale też pojedyncze zdania wypowiedziane wcześniej, do których się odwołujemy w dyskusji. – Wargo, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] In general, it would be useful to cite a message. Not only fragments of articles or code but also the individual sentences posted earlier that we are referring to in the discussion. – Wargo, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  J'aimerais : pouvoir facilement, en un ou deux clics, citer un extrait d'un précédent message (de moi ou de mon interlocuteur), chose possible sur de nombreuses plateformes de discussion modernes disponibles sur le web. – Jules78120, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I would like to, easily, in one or two clicks, quote part of a previous message (from me or my interlocutor), as is possible on many modern discussion platforms available on the web. – Jules78120, French Wikipedia

Signatures
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎

Many users reported that manually "signing" pages by typing  at the end of a typed message is unusual and off-putting. No participants defended the current signature process as an ideal approach. New user testing also identified this system as a stumbling block.

Other related problems include people using signatures that don't correspond to their usernames. Some editors object to distracting decorative elements, such as colored backgrounds or images included in signatures.

These typical comments from participants discuss the unfamiliarity, the non-trivial efforts needed to correct for it, the confusion, the special difficulties for people typing on mobile devices, and the advantages that Flow has in being designed to automatically sign every message.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] "All you really need to know is to add four tildes at end" We so routinely have people who don't know or don't remember to do so that we built a bot for it. That's not trivial and shouldn't need to be done. — Izno, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] New and even existing users can be perplexed by the fact that some users – even admins – sign their posts with names other than their own actual account name, piping it through a wiki redirect. That wouldn't be bad to change. — Wnt, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Like forgetting to sign (which can even be done by bots), these formatting issues can be easily fixed by the more experienced Wikipedians participating in the discussion. When I discuss with newbies on my talk page, the problem seems much less that talk pages are difficult, but that they find it hard to tell me what page they are discussing (but I can usually figure it out from their contributions or deleted contributions) and can't understand our byzantine system of policies, guidelines and practices. — Kusma, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  J'apprécie Flow pour ma part, à cause de la facilité pour notifier les autres et du fait que je ne doive pas signer. — Nattes à chat, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I appreciate Flow for my part, because of the facility to notify others and the fact that I do not have to sign. — Nattes à chat, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je constate qu'en général les novices préfèrrent Flow et ont lus de mal avec le wikicode et la signature, qui est souvent oubliées. — Nattes à chat, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I find that in general novices prefer Flow and have struggled with wikicode and signature, which is often forgotten. — Nattes à chat, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ja] 署名をモバイルからでも楽にできるようになればいいですね — リボンちゃん, Japanese Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It would be nice if the signature could be made easy even from mobile. — リボンちゃん, Japanese Wikipedia

Stability
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎✎

Many established, highly active editors expressed a desire to minimize apparent changes. They did not exclude having some improvements made, but they wanted any new approaches to be fully compatible with what they're already used to. People who favored stability often commented on the flexibility offered by using blank, unstructured pages.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Cela fait treize ans que j'utilise le même mode de discussion. Il me convient tout à fait. J'ai des difficultés à utiliser l'éditeur visuel et le Flow, difficultés dues vraisemblablement à ma grande expérience dans les outils traditionnels. — AntonyB, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I've been using the same method of communication for 13 years. It suits me perfectly. I have difficulties using the visual editor and Flow, difficulties that are probably due to my greater experience in traditional tools. — AntonyB, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Ja rozumiem to tak, że konsultacje mają pomóc usprawnić dyskusje, czyli nowe funkcje, nowe rozwiązania, ale tylko jako dodatek do obecnego rozwiązania. Jestem za czymś takim, ale przeciwko majstrowaniu przy obecnym rozwiązaniu i takiej funkcjonalnosci jaką mamy. Jeśli coś będzie dodane, to jesli to będzie praktyczne bedę korzystał, ale nie godzę się na większe zmiany lub usuwanie obecnych rozwiązań. — Jckowal, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I understand it this way, that the consultations are to help improve the discussions, that is, new functions, new solutions, but only as an addition to the current approach. I am all for something like that, but I am against tampering with the current solution and the functionality that we have. If something is added, then if it is practical, I will use it, but I do not support major changes or the removal of the current solution. — Jckowal, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] Was für uns in diesem Projekt, wo wir den technischen Umgang mit Wiki-Seiten sowieso beherrschen müssen, genial geradlinig und einfach ist. Was mich seit 15 Jahren hauptsächlich behindert, sind gelegentliche Bearbeitungskonflikte. Bitte die derzeitigen Diskussionsseiten nicht durch tiefgreifende, umwälzende neue Diskussions-Tools (wie "Flow") verschlimmbessern, sondern allenfalls kleine, minimalinvasive Tools zur automatischen BK-Auflösung, Einrückung oder Signierung bereitstellen. — Neitram, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] What we have in this project, where we have to master the technical handling of wiki pages anyway, is ingeniously straightforward and simple. What has been hindering me for 15 years is occasional processing conflicts. Please do not exacerbate the current discussion pages with profound, disruptive new discussion tools (such as "Flow"), but at best provide small, minimally invasive tools for automatic BK resolution, indentation, or signing. — Neitram, German Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Right now, the current system works for its intended purposes and generally works well. There are maybe minor fixes here and there that can be made, but in general the system is not in need of a drastic overhaul that would justify the disruption such an overhaul would cause. — TonyBallioni, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ca] És important que sigui el que sigui que s'adopti hi hagi un mínim de continuïtat, no com flow o els dashboards i experiments edu. — Barcelona, Catalan Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It is important that whatever is adopted, there be some minimum amount of continuity, not like Flow or dashboards and education experiments. — Barcelona, Catalan Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Moving text around and fixing it up is one of the features of our discussions that was already flagged as important 8 years ago in the discussions about our discussion systems: Keep talk refactoring possible. (It's still we have to repeat ourselves every couple years.) — Nemo bis, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Aside from the shutting-out of editors from vital processes, I think SD could have its place, but given the concerns that many other editors have (e.g. wanting to view diffs of a whole page), it would likely be more pragmatic to improve the current discussion system until it has a more graphical interface that's as easy to use as SD's. – Jc86035, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  La nouveauté pour la nouveauté, non ! — Jamain, French Wiktionary
 * [fr]  Le nouveau pour le nouveau, je suis d’accord que ça n’a pas grand intérêt mais il faut avoir un point d’entrée facilement accessible pour les non contributeurs. [...] Mais pour m’sieur/m’dame tout le monde, les pages en wikicode ça semble archaïque pour ne pas dire repoussant. — Jpgibert, French Wiktionary

<hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Novelty for the sake of novelty, no! — Jamain, French Wiktionary


 * [en] Change for the sake of change, I agree is not very interesting, but it must have an easily accessible entry point for non-contributors. [...] For the average Joe/Jane, pages in wikicode seem archaic, not to say repulsive. — Jpgibert, French Wiktionary

Archiving
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎

Most of the current archiving systems involve copying and pasting older discussions to another page ("archive") for long-term storage. On the largest wikis, this is usually done by bots on some pages, and by hand on others. In smaller communities, it's usually done by hand on all pages. This breaks page histories (for example, the comment is in, but the page history is left in  )  and links to the original discussion, which still point to the original location.

To reduce some of these problems, some wikis use alternative structures, such as creating a new discussion sub-page for each day/week/month. This usually requires a bot to maintain it, and it makes it hard for people to watch new discussions. Others manually archive central discussions by topic, in the hope that people will be able to find relevant discussions more easily.

The quotations here highlight some of the problems that users have encountered: broken archiving bots, different systems on different pages and different wikis, and finding discussions that previously happened on that page.

This point is related to History and to #Visibility.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Widespread variation in implementation and syntax, bot dependent, intermittently broken, and time consuming for editors to manually implement autoarchiving on talk pages – Tom (LT), Community Wishlist Survey 2019

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Discussions on Wikipedia can be quite hard to track, this is especially true for those that took place at least a little while ago. This problem is partly caused because after a while most discussions are moved to archives, which immediately breaks links to sections. Currently to find the linked section, you'll have to extract the link from the URL and then dig your way through archives with the search function and CTRL+F. Doing this for multiple links is very time consuming and when you look at it again at another occasion you'll have to dive in the archives once again. Simplifying this would be especially useful for non-power users who don't know how to adequately search archives. – Kippenvlees1, Community Wishlist Survey 2019

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je n'utilise pas Flow, alors que cet outil est plus simple pour les nouveaux utilisateurs, en raison de plusieurs problèmes à mon sens rédhibitoires : <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I do not use Flow, while this tool is easier for new users, because of several problems in my opinion unacceptable:
 * sommaire peu ergonomique (on a vite fait de faire défiler la page au lieu de faire défiler le sommaire) ;
 * historiques très confus et peu maniables, avec une logique différente de celle des historiques normaux (ex. : pourquoi le lien « diff » n'est-il pas cliquable lorsque quelqu'un ajoute un nouveau commentaire ? il n'est cliquable que lors d'une modification d'un commentaire déjà publié) ;
 * absence de possibilité d'archivage et de recherche, ce qui rend difficile la recherche d'anciennes discussions. – Jules78120, French Wikipedia


 * poor summary ergonomics (we quickly scroll the page instead of scrolling the summary);
 * very confused and unwieldy histories, with a logic different from that of normal histories (eg why is the link "diff" not clickable when someone adds a new comment? it is only clickable when there is a modification of a comment already published);
 * lack of possibility of archiving and research, which makes it difficult to find old discussions. – Jules78120, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Having each thread be a single entity would allow watchlisting only the topics you care about, moving threads to more appropriate pages, and archiving without losing edit history, or, if archival is done via moving the page to preserve the edit history, without having to split the page at unnatural places (e.g. if organizing archives by year, the first posts of a still active thread near the end of the year will have to be copy-pasted back to the current page, losing history; if organizing archives by number of threads, reactivating a prematurely archived thread would require manual copy-paste and loss of history). – Waldir, Flow/Research/Experienced User Responses

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] Auto-Archivierungen sind häufig willkürlich bzw. fehlerhaft eingestellt. Zum Teil reicht ein unbeantworteter Diskussionsbeitrag und ein Monat Nichtstun, um legitime Anmerkungen zu Artikeln ins Archirvana zu auto-verschieben. In anderen Fällen stehen unbeantwortete Diskussionsbeiträge jahrzehntelang in einer Disk, weil sie so offensichtlicher Unsinn sind, dass niemand darauf antworten kann/mag. Hinzu kommt, dass die Archive extrem unterschiedlich aufgebaut und strukturiert sind. — Enyavar, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Auto-archiving is often arbitrary or incorrectly set. In some, an unanswered post on the talk page plus a month of inactivity is enough to cause auto-archiving of legitimate comments on articles to Archive-Nirvana. In other cases, unanswered contributions to the discussion page are left there for decades because they are such obvious nonsense that no one can/wants to reply. In addition, the archives have extremely different construction and structures. — Enyavar, German Wikipedia

Notifications
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎✎

The Echo Notifications system has become one of the most popular new software features the Wikimedia Foundation has designed, because it helps experienced contributors communicate more smoothly. Some editors have suggested more extensive notifications, such as the ability to get a message on your phone when someone posts a note on your user talk page, a way to triage notifications, a way to know if a message has been read, and a way to invite someone to a conversation.

The sample quotations here describe making it easier to "ping" (notify) a user during a discussion, the difficulty of following discussions, the inability to find out about messages without first visiting a wiki page, having routine notices mixed up with active discussions, not knowing whether your message was read, a clearer way of requesting an answer, and the need to contact and coordinate work by multiple people, such as members of a user group, WikiProject, or other team.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Most sites have notifications when a conversation you've commented in has a new comment, most sites have a built-in mechanism for @-ing people [...] Wikitext has none of these features without bending over backwards. – Nicereddy, Individual feedback on MediaWiki.org

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ar] قبل وجود الإشعارات والإنذارات، لم يكن هناك طريقة لمعرفة من رد عليك في أي صفحة نقاش أو في الميدان إلا من خلال قائمة المراقبة التي نادرًا ما أزورها أيضًا وبالتالي كنت أنسى تمامًا النقاش ولا أعود له ثانية. الموقف تحسن قليلا مع وجود الإشعارات والإنذارات، ولكن ما زلت لا أفهم لماذا هناك قسم للإشعارات وقسم للإنذارات. – Reem Al-Kashif, Arabic Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Before there were notices and warnings, there was no way of knowing who responded to you on any discussion page except through the watch list which I rarely visit too so I completely forgot the discussion and did not go back to it. The situation improved slightly with the presence of notices and warnings, but I still do not understand why there is a section for notifications and a section for alarms. – Reem Al-Kashif, Arabic Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] With Talk pages, all contributors have to be actively looking at a Wikimedia page to see a notification of a new message. That slows down conversations significantly compared to FB [Facebook] and Telegram. – PKM, Wikidata

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Même si ça ne concerne pas explicitement le Wiktionnaire francophone, c’est le problème que l’on a à communiquer pour le TWUG. Le seul moyen que l’on avait pour avertir tout le monde d’une discussion qui concerne le groupe d’utilisateur était d’utiliser un « ping massif » qui a été supprimé depuis. – Pamputt, French Wiktionary <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Although it does not directly concern the French Wiktionary, we have a communication problem for the Tremendous Wiktionary User Group. The only way to notify everyone of a user group discussion was to use a "mass ping", which has since been removed. – Pamputt, French Wiktionary

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Les pages de discussion communautaires souffrent de...Spammées par les notifications: dans le cas de FR, les pages de discussions communautaires sont spammées de notifications de pages à supprimer, fusionner, labels, laissées par des bots ou des utilisateurs, qui s'intercalent dans les discussions. J'ai fait l'expérience au doigt mouillé (mais vous pouvez en refaire une avec des vraies mesures) sur le projet:Histoire de séparer les notifications du reste et j'avais constaté que les débats avaient un regain de participation (depuis, j'ai remarqué que d'autres projets ont copié cette chose-là). Dans l'idéal, les notifications devraient être séparées de la discussion mais présentes sur la même page de discussion, et on devrait pouvoir opt-out les types de notifications qui ne nous intéressent pas. – Yodaspirine, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Talk pages suffer from...being spammed by notifications: In the case of FR, community discussion pages are spammed with notices of pages to delete, to merge, labels, left by bots or users, which are interleaved between the discussions. I just tried a quick experiment (although you can do it again with proper metrics) on WikiProject History, by separating the notices from the normal discussions, and I've noticed that the discussions have been more active (I've since noticed that some other WikiProjects have copied this approach). Ideally, the notices should be separate from the discussion, but present on the same discussion page, and we should be able to opt-out of the types of notices that do not interest us. – Yodaspirine, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je ne sais pas si la personne que j'ai notifiée est seulement allée sur ma réponse (même si elle ne l'a pas lue). – Tortliena, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I do not know if the person I notified even saw my answer (even if she did not read it). – Tortliena, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Il serait utile de pouvoir : Notifier un utilisateur de façon claire qu’une réponse de sa part est attendue : pas juste «X vous a mentionné sur la page Y» comme aujourd’hui, mais «X demande votre avis sur la page Y» [...] Avec, pourquoi pas, des boutons pour répondre directement depuis la notif : oui/non/je m’en fous, par exemple. – Akela NDE, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It would be useful to be able to: Notify a user clearly that an answer from him is expected: not just "X mentioned you on page Y" as we have today, but "X asks for your opinion on page Y". [...] With (why not?) buttons to answer directly from the notification: yes/no/I don't care, for example. – Akela NDE, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [nl] Tegenwoordig staat er een klein cijfertje dat blauw of rood is. Je moet het eerst zien, dan begrijpen dat je daarop kan klikken en dan ook nog eens klikken op het aldaar staande bericht. – RonnieV, Dutch Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Nowadays [when someone leaves a message for you] there is a small number that is blue or red. You must first notice it, then understand that you can click on it, and then also click on the message there. – RonnieV, Dutch Wikipiedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Here are a few features that would improve the use of wiki talk pages:


 * The ability to manage alerts for teams
 * A user friendly view of recent changes
 * Tagging of discussions with SMW properties and/or categories
 * Following a user or tag.

– MarkAHershberger, on behalf of third-party MediaWiki users at EMWCon Spring 2019

Newcomers
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Most of the participants in the on-wiki consultation were highly active, highly experienced editors, leading one of them to comment on the irony of "a discussion about talk pages, on a talk page, advertised on talk pages", since that format would bring in comments from people who are able to use this format. Indeed, comments from new and occasional contributors expressed somewhat different concerns, and experienced editors expressed their concerns about how newer editors were struggling with the current system.

Most newcomers to Wikipedia are already regular users of other websites and/or social media apps. The conversation tools that they have already learned to use are very different from the tools we provide. Our software is perceived as difficult and overly technical to use (even for users with technical experience), obsolete, or counter-intuitive. Current practices, like manual indentation and signing, do not feel like natural behaviors to newcomers.

The quotations here express feelings of exclusion, confusion, and frustration, a desire for a more modern approach (for example, automatic indentation or a quick way to reply without opening the full editing environment), the use of Flow or alternative forum-style discussion systems, and the strangeness of the system compared to user expectations.

Other factors that may block newcomers may be the design of the pages, the lack of replies, the behavior of some experienced users towards newcomers, and their lack of confidence.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je pense qu'en l'état, seuls ceux qui étaient déjà là dans les années 2000 peuvent vraiment participer à ce site, et qu'attirer de nouveaux membres est proche de l'impossible avec de tels outils techniques. – Louis H. G., French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I think that in this state, only those who were already involved in the 2000s can really participate in this site, and that attracting new members is close to impossible with such technical tools. – Louis H. G., French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Witam. Jestem początkujący jeśli chodzi o komunikowanie się z Wikipedystami. Ostatnio chciałem się skontaktować z jednym z nich. Muszę powiedzieć że obecny system jest bardzo nieintuicyjny. Jestem informatykiem a pierwszego posta wysłałem dopiero po 20 minutach grzebania i to tylko dlatego że byłem zdeterminowany, by to zrobić (myślałem już o rezygnacji) i nie mając wcale 100% pewności czy robię to we właściwy sposób. Fajnie by było gdyby system w jakiś sposób przypominał komunikację mailową, przynajmniej w zakresie kontaktów bezpośrednich (aby np. można było widzieć swoje posty i odpowiedzi na nie). – Wiesios, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Hello. I'm a beginner when it comes to communicating with Wikipedians. Recently, I wanted to contact one of them. I must say that the current system is very unintuitive. I am an IT specialist and I sent the first post only after 20 minutes of effort, and it was only because I was determined to do it (I was thinking about giving up) and not 100% sure if I was doing it the right way. It would be nice if the system would somehow remind you of e-mail communication, at least in terms of direct contact (for example, you could see your posts and answers on them). – Wiesios, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [zh] 以站內討論頁溝通是新手尋求協助的首要渠道，但新手可能會對wikitext形式的討論頁感到不熟悉或難以使用，而部分討論頁（如條目討論頁）欠缺社群關注，新手不能迅速得到回應. – 無聊龍, Chinese Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Communicating on the discussion page is the primary channel for novices to seek assistance, but newcomers may find wikitext-style discussion pages unfamiliar or difficult to use, while some discussion pages (such as article discussion pages) lack community attention and novices can't get a prompt response. – 無聊龍, Chinese Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Newcomers are not new to the Internet any more and have seen quite a few other websites and social media before they stumble on wiki talk-pages. Those other website display newer technology and user interfaces than does MediaWiki talk-pages. The main feature of those newer technologies is that after entering the website / logging in, the user can point the cursor directly into a input-field somewhere and start typing, without having to worry about indentation or signing. – Ad Huikeshoven, Main talk pages consultation

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de]  Allgemein ist natürlich die allgemeine Wikipedia-Technik etwas 'technisch' mit all den Kürzeln und Steuerzeichen, das macht den meisten, die ich kenne, Schwierigkeiten - weshalb sie leider gar nicht mitmachen. Das wäre vielleicht mal eine Innovation. Hier z.B. ein Button "Kommentar hinzufügen" und kein Kompletteditor mit Sternchen, Einrückungszeichen und Extra-Signaturenzeichen. — Chnutz, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] In general, of course, the general Wikipedia technique is a bit 'technical' with all the shortcuts and control characters, which makes things difficult for most of the people I know – which is why they unfortunately do not participate. There might be an opportunity here: e.g, a button "Add comment", instead of a full editing environment with asterisks, indentation codes, and extra signatures. — Chnutz, German Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Desde el punto de vista del diseño de interfaz y el paradigma actual de la comunicación digital dominado por las redes sociales, considero que las páginas de discusión no son útiles para los usuarios novatos porque resultan muy ajenas a la manera que se usa hoy en día para comunicarse en Internet. Desde el tener que crear una "Sección nueva", pasando por el tener que responder en otra página de discusión diferente a aquella en donde se inició, hasta tener que "firmar un comentario", la experiencia del usuario resulta intimidante y foránea, lo cual impide que el acto de comunicación se lleve a cabo de manera óptima. Es muy común que los usuarios novatos cometan errores en su uso, e incluso, me atrevo a decir que esto puede ser la causa de que más de alguno de ellos se desanime a colaborar en el proyecto. – Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-wiki consultation <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] From the point of view of the interface design and the current paradigm of digital communication dominated by social networks, I consider talk pages to not be useful for novice users, because they are very alien to the way they are used to communicating on the Internet today. From having to create a "new section", through having to respond on a different discussion page to the one where it was started, until having to "sign a comment", the user experience is intimidating and foreign, which prevents the act of communication from carried out optimally. It is very common for novice users to make mistakes in their use, and I even dare to say that this may be the reason why so many are discouraged from collaborating in the project. – Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-wiki consultation

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Los recién llegados generalmente no dominan el código wiki, y por lo tanto, no son capaces (por ejemplo) de firmar al final de su mensaje (o también no saben como o que deben hacerlo), o cuando deben enlazar páginas, hacer ping a usuarios, en fin, un usuario nuevo no va a tener ni la menor idea de como hacer eso bajo esa interfaz. Estoy de acuerdo en que el formato actual que tienen las páginas de discusión necesita una adaptación y mejora más amigable para este tipo de usuarios, Flow podría haber sido un buen ejemplo, pero lamentablemente es muy limitada e incomoda en su funcionamiento (no permite mayor personalización y se vuelve un poco complicado cuando se tiene que notificar por medio de plantillas), el formato que en mi opinión se acerca más a lo ideal es el que tiene TranslateWiki.NET – AlvaroMolina, Iberocoop multi-wiki consultation <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Newcomers generally do not master the wikitext code, and therefore, they are not able (for example) to sign at the end of their messages (or they also do not know how or what they should do), or when they must link pages, ping users, in short, a new user will not have the slightest idea what to do under that interface. I agree that the current format of the discussion pages needs a more user-friendly adaptation and improvement for this type of user. Flow could have been a good example, but unfortunately it is very limited and inconvenient in its operation (it does not allow for more personalization and it becomes a little complicated when you have to notify by means of templates). The format that in my opinion is closer to the ideal is what TranslateWiki.NET is using [ Extension:LiquidThreads ]. – AlvaroMolina, Iberocoop multi-wiki consultation

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] It's probably worth taking into account that some people can be absolutely abysmal at handling technical things regardless of their other faculties. If they can't get the hang of signatures, it does still form a cultural barrier for them and they're probably more likely to be dissuaded from editing. – Jc86035, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Bonjour, Premièrement, je clique pour participer à ce questionnaire et je tombe sur une page de code, je ne sais pas si je dois écrire entre les < > ou autre donc je vous laisse tout comme ça et j'écris en-dessous. Ce que je constate dans mes pages de spécialité, c'est que personne ne sait utiliser les pages de discussion et que tout le monde les utilise chacun à sa façon : plusieurs paragraphes de thématiques différentes dans une seule intervention;quelqu'un qui y répond en créant carrément une autre rubrique; ou bien quelqu'un qui répond à différents points à l'intérieur même d'une intervention, ce qui rend l'ensemble assez illisible. Les contributeurs expérimentés sont à l'aise avec cet outil, soit, mais ne peuvent pas avoir la certitude qu'ils sont compris par les gens qu'ils veulent aider dans ces conditions – Fanaliceful, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Hello, first, I clicked to participate in this questionnaire and I come across a page of code. I do not know if I have to write between the < > [an HTML comment at the beginning of the consultation page] or something else, so I leave it just like that and I write below. What I see in the pages of my area is that nobody knows how to use the discussion pages and that everyone uses them each in their own way: several paragraphs of different themes in a single intervention, someone who answers them by creating another section altogether; or someone who responds to different points inside an intervention, which makes the whole rather illegible. Experienced contributors are comfortable with this tool, but they can not be certain that they are understood by the people they want to help. – Fanaliceful, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  J'ai fait beaucoup de formations de débutants (étudiants, stagiaires, adultes...), et je confirme que les modalités de discussions sont clairement un frein pour la plupart d'entre eux (ils oublient de plus, rapidement, ce qu'on leur apprend le 1er jour). => être plus simple et surtout plus intuitif, avec pourquoi pas une fenêtre de proposition d'aide s'ouvrant spontanément dans certaines circonstances et/ou pour les débutants. – Lamiot, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I did a lot of training for beginners (students, trainees, adults...), and I confirm that the modalities of discussions are clearly a blocker for most of them (furthermore they forget, quickly, what we teach them the first day). => Need to be simpler and above all more intuitive, why not have a pop-up message offering help in certain circumstances and/or for the beginners? – Lamiot, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je suis débutant et quoique aguerri en html / css et Word Press, je peine à maîtriser le langage jargonnant de Wikipédia que ce soit sur le plan du fonctionnement des outils ou celui du codage. – Designer1959, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I am a new user, and although seasoned in HTML, CSS, and WordPress, I struggle to master the jargon language of Wikipedia both in terms of the using the tools and in that of using wikitext. – Designer1959, French Wikipedia

History
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Editors and other contributors want to be able to see what was written, when, and by whom. Monitoring discussions history should be done the same way as it is for other pages.

Both wikitext talk pages and Flow threads have a problem with page history. On Flow pages, it's easy to see the complete history of a single thread, but you can't see a diff for the entire page. With wikitext pages, you can see a diff for the page, but the history of a specific discussion is spread across the page history, especially if the discussion is copy-pasted to an archive page.

These quotations show experienced contributors' desire to always be able to see pages as they were in the past, to move discussions between pages without losing the history, and to consider some new features, such as the ability to link an edit in the page history to a specific discussion on the talk page.

This problem area is closely related to archiving discussions.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Provide a direct and permanent link to a specific revision of the discussion page (i.e., every single element of the page is exactly as it was at the time of that revision). Ability to accurately and easily reconstruct the progress of complex discussions is required on a regular basis. — Risker, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Personally my hope has always been that eventually it would be possible to move topics between Talk pages (without loss of history) [...] Archiving should be a first class citizen. – TheDJ, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] It would be great to be able to mark a particular edit in a discussion and then have a link to that discussion show up in the history of a page next to the edit. — ChristianKl, Wikidata

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  [Au sujet de Flow] J'y note tout particulièrement les difficultés relatives à l'historique, aux diffs, au suivi, qui sont des outils de transparence et de contrôle essentiels au fonctionnement de Wikipédia. — Grasyop, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] [About Flow] I note particularly the difficulties related to the page history, of diffs, of monitoring, which are tools of transparency and control essential to the functioning of Wikipedia. — Grasyop, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Il est très important de pouvoir garder l'historique des discussions, quelles qu'elles soient, et le rendre facilement accessible. — O. Morand, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It is very important to be able to keep the history of a discussion, whatever it was, and make it easily accessible. — O. Morand, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [zh] 我希望讨论所具有的功能：
 * 每个话题（topic）都能有自己完整的修订历史
 * 每个话题都可以在不同的讨论之间移动，而且不会丢失该话题的修订历史
 * 每个话题都可以被独立的完全删除

无需存档，就象现在的flow那样（或者可以自动存档，但存档不会丢失话题的修订历史）所有的讨论应该便于检索 — 百無一用是書生, Chinese Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I hope that discussion pages will have these features:


 * Each topic has its own complete revision history.
 * Each topic can be moved between different talk pages without losing the revision history for that topic.
 * Each topic can be completely deleted independently.

No need to archive, just like current Flow boards (or it can be automatically archived, but the archive will not lose the revision history of the topic). All discussions should be easy to retrieve. — 百無一用是書生, Chinese Wikipedia

Searching
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Searching could be improved by adding new features that would help to search on current discussions, filter the results, or to handle meta elements around the conversation (e.g., the status of a question). People noted that the normal search tool doesn't, by default, include discussions in search results.

These sample quotations include easily searching for prior discussions, being able to tag discussions by topic, and the need to fix search in Flow.

Being able to search and find previous discussions is somewhat related to History and Archives.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] [¿Qué cosas te gustaría tener en las discusiones, pero no se pueden por limitaciones técnicas?] Alguna manera de hacer una búsqueda de temas para no repetir algo que ya se decidió. – Jaluj, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] [response to: What would you like to be able to do in discussions, but can't due to technical limitations?] Some way to do a search of topics so as not to repeat something that has already been decided. – Jaluj, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  La recherche d'une conversation pourrait être améliorée je pense. Entre les PDD archivées, blanchies... Pas facile avec juste l'historique de retrouver rapidement quelque chose surtout quand on n'a aucune idée de la période. Et c'est encore pire si l'on ne sait même plus sur quelle page elle a eu lieu ! – Floflo, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Searching for a conversation could be improved, I think. Between the archived votes, blanked... It's not easy with just the page history to find something quickly, especially when you have no idea when it happened. And it's even worse if you do not even know which page it was on! – Floflo, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] También sería ideal que las conversaciones se pudieran etiquetar fácilmente por temas sin tener que añadir plantillas. Este etiquetado lo podría hacer cualquiera, y sería más fácil buscar conversaciones sobre el mismo tema en diferentes páginas de discusión. – Tximit, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It would be ideal if conversations could be easily tagged by themes without having to add templates. This labeling could be done by anyone, and it would be easier to search for conversations on the same topic in different discussion pages. – Tximit, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Add a search and ranking system to structured discussions (Flow). Many things could be added and corrected in order to have a better navigation between topics of a discussion page. – Prométhée, Community Wishlist 2019

Visibility
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Even when someone figures out how to post a message on the talk page, it's possible that nobody will notice the message and reply. Established editors, like those participating in subject-area WikiProjects, need to be able to find unanswered new comments from their field of expertise. Not replying to comments or questions from newcomers and occasional editors may discourage them from trying to contribute further.

On unstructured wikitext talk pages, it is difficult to visually see which topics or comments have been added since your last visit (Flow supports this workflow). There is no signal on the article's page that there are new or unanswered questions on the talk page.

The quotations here cover questions going unanswered, the difficulty of noticing activity on an article talk page, the need to reach people with relevant expertise or interests, and newcomers' problems with finding the article talk page.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Due to the small number of regular editors, and the large number of content pages, discussions on most talk pages will not get any response. More experienced editors will know to post on the Scriptorium directly, but this is not obvious to new users. I continue to find old unanswered questions asked by new users on talk pages throughout the site. – Beleg Tâl, English Wikisource

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] 98,5 Prozent der blauen Diskussionsseiten beinhalten Fragen, die seit fünf oder acht Jahren keiner beantwortet hat. Wir haben nämlich viel zuviele Artikel und viel zuwenige aktive Benutzer. – Matthiasb, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] 98.5 percent of the blue-linked talk pages contain questions that no one has answered for five or eight years. We have far too many articles and far too few active users. – Matthiasb, German Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Were the Talk Page Tab to change in some way (colour/boldening/width increase) if there had been a new topic added or non-bot edit made within, say, the last four months, we might actually get readers and editors noticing them. – Nick Moyes, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [no] Det er enkelt å skrive notiser om hva en tenker og mener, men det kan være vanskelig å nå gjennom til personer med riktige kunnskaper. Vi kan pinge navngitte brukere, men vi kan ikke lage tematiske ping. Tematiske ping, spesielt på tvers av prosjekter, vil kunne involvere flere med kunnskaper om det spesifikke temaet. — Jeblad, Norwegian Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It is easy to write notes about what you think and believe, but it can be difficult to reach through to people with the right knowledge. We can ping named users, but we cannot make thematic ping. Thematic ping, especially across projects, may involve more people with knowledge of the specific topic. — Jeblad, Norwegian Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Maybe there could be a bot where WikiProjects select articles relevant to their topic that they want to monitor, and the bot posts an alert to a centralised discussion board for that WikiProject, whenever a new section is added to the talk page of one of the project's monitored articles. – Numbermaniac, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] My point is that if 'capable editors' are not monitoring Talk Pages then firstly 'why?' & secondly do we need another way for readers of articles to flag up errors? Obviously if well intentioned newbies who have a valid point can be ignored when doing the right thing then that could be discouraging. – 86.148.15.250, Mediawiki consultation page

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I often come across questions on a talk page for a little-monitored taxon that have had no response for years, even a decade. Maybe a way to ping a WikiProject (or just the ones listed on the talk page) would be good. – NessieVL, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] Ich habe mal einem Nichtwikipedianer zu einem Artikel gesagt: "Schau mal auf der Diskussionsseite, da steht noch genaueres.". Die Antwort war "Da steht nichts." -- Er war auf 'seiner' Benutzer-Diskussionsseite gelandet. Deshalb meine Bitte: Entfernt den Link zur Benutzer-Diskussion ganz oben auf den Artikelseiten; der findet sich an der üblichen Stelle auch auf der Benutzerseite. Die Überwindung als Neuling, in Wikipedia aktiv zu werden, ist auf Diskussionsseiten niedriger als auf Artikelseiten. Deshalb sollten hier keine unnötigen Hürden aufgebaut werden. – PaulSch, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I once told a non-Wikipedian about an article: "Look at the talk page, there are more details.". The answer was, "There's nothing there." – He had landed on 'his' user talk page. So my request: Remove the link to the user talk page at the top of the article pages. It can be found in the usual place on the user page. To have successful newcomers, it should be easier to become active in Wikipedia's discussion pages than on article pages. Therefore, no unnecessary hurdles should be built here. – PaulSch, German Wikipedia

Visual editor
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Both newcomers and established editors requested a non-wikitext editing model for discussions. Some participants preferred updating the visual editor so that it could process discussions; others preferred using Flow, which offers a visual mode with a small toolbar.

These quotations show editors preferring visual editing because it is easier to learn and easier to use.

This theme is related to #wikitext.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I must say that talk pages are often one of the most inaccessible features of Wikipedia for new editors and that problem has gotten worse since introducing the visual editor feature for editing Wikipedia pages. The reason for that is because the visual editor, which was specifically designed to make editing Wikipedia pages easier and more accessible to edit for newcomers has not been rolled out to talk pages. As a result, newcomers are getting a great experience of editing Wikipedia pages using the visual editor, but then struggle with the wikitext editing code on the talk pages. – Delphine Dallison, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Un problema importante es la imposibilidad de dejar mensajes con el editor visual, que ha facilitado bastante la edición de artículos de Wikipedia, pero todavía no ha sido implementado en páginas de discusión. – Oscar ., Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] An important problem is the inability to leave messages with the visual editor, which has facilitated editing Wikipedia articles, but which has not yet been implemented in talk pages. – Oscar ., Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] One of the things I know from outreach and training is that newcomers take to Visual Editor much more easily (people struggled to remember the syntax back when I was teaching wikitext) and they don't find Talk natural (partly because they can't use VE on it, they can't easily share a screenshot of a problem they are having, etc). – Kerry Raymond, Main talk pages consultation talk

Watchlist
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎✎

Editors supported improvements to the watchlist system, especially a way to watch a single section on a busy wikitext-based talk page. This has been a long-requested feature, and it is popular with both newcomers and established contributors alike.

These quotations support being able to follow a single conversation on a busy page, without having to see the other discussions, or a way for groups to find out about new discussions without all of the members putting every page on their regular watchlists.

This theme is related to #Notifications.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ca] Seguir una pàgina de discussió llarga on només t'interessa algun dels temes no està resolt amb wiki i sí amb Flow. – Vriullop, Catalan Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Following a long discussion page when you are only interested in some of the issues is not solved with wikitext pages but is solved with Flow. – Vriullop, Catalan Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ru] Хотелось бы иметь возможность следить не за всем форумом, а только за некоторыми темами и исключать нек-рые темы форума из списка наблюдения. Типа рядом с кнопкой «править» у заголовка темы была бы кнопка «добавить в СН», если сам форум не в списке наблюдения, или «не следить», если форум в СН. Ещё неплохо бы, если бы в оглавлении форума выделялись бы свободным цветом темы, имеющие относительно свежие (например меньше суток) правки. – Dimaniznik, Russian Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I would like to be able to follow not the whole Forum (Village pump), but only some of the topics and exclude certain forum topics from the watchlist. The button next to the "Edit" button for the topic header would be an "Add to watchlist" button if the forum itself is not on the watch list, or "stop following" if the whole page is already on the watchlist. It would be nice if the topics with relatively fresh (for example, less than a day) edits were highlighted in the table of contents of the forum. – Dimaniznik, Russian Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The only thing I would want to change is to enable watching individual sections. – Jmabel, Wikidata

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] At English Wiktionary, I often contribute to talk pages that have a large number of individual active threads, such as the "Tea Room" or "Requests for Deletion". These threads may develop over a period of days or weeks, or even months. What I need is a way to subscribe to individual threads, so that I receive notifications when new posts are added to threads that I am interested in. Without this facility, it is hopeless trying to track the discussions that one is participating in. – Mihia, Individual feedback on MediaWiki.org

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Lots of little discussions get scattered on article pages and never get more eyes other than the few that have watchlisted those pages - it would be nice if the project tagging system allows any new talk page posts to be alerted to all those who subscribe to the projects to which that article is tagged. – Shyamal, Individual feedback on MediaWiki.org

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Sometimes I wish I could just watch a section or singe discussion on an article's talk page. I may want to follow a specific conversation, but not have all changes to an article and its talk page appearing in my watchlist. – Another Believer, English Wikipedia

Confusion
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎

In addition to software design issues, contributors have to figure out many cultural conventions, such as whether a given discussion is a vote, and how the discussion is structured. For example, just at the English Wikipedia, replies are "correctly" placed in the same section as the previous person's comment in most article talk pages, on either person's user talk page if the discussion started on a user talk page, and in your own section for an Arbitration Committee case. As a result of the software limitations and social complexities, the methods for communicating on wiki can generate confusion to both new users and some long-time users, to the point that some even prefer social media to communicating on wiki. (See the section on social media use below.)

These quotations identify several problems: excess difficulty compared to alternatives, unclear social expectations, understanding the discussion format, seeing other people's comments but no obvious place to add your own, and unfamiliarity for people who are accustomed to current web conventions. <blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [th] ปัญหาจากเครื่องมือน่าจะเป็นเพราะผู้ใช้ใหม่จำเป็นต้องเรียนรู้เทคนิคบางประการด้วยตัวเอง เช่น Markup ย่อหน้า ลายเซ็น ฯลฯ ซึ่งมีการใช้งานยากกว่าการใช้ Social Media ทั่วไป – Geonuch, Thai Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #555555;" /> [en] The problem from the tool seems to be because new users need to learn some techniques on their own, such as markup, paragraphs, signatures, etc., which are more difficult to use than using social media in general. – Geonuch, Thai Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] When somebody comments on my user talk, do I reply on my own page or on theirs? There are pros and cons to both. – Waldir, Flow/Research/Experienced User Responses

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Hay varios problemas que al menos yo veo.


 * El saber diferenciar un hilo o subhilo del otro.
 * Saber donde termina un mensaje y otro.
 * La capacidad de accidentalmente borrar o afectar a mensajes anteriores al momento de escribir o editar.
 * La imposibilidad de poder responder un comentario en un punto intermedio de la discusión sin desarmarla.

— MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #555555;" /> [en] I see at least several problems.


 * Knowing how to differentiate one thread or sub-thread from another.
 * Knowing where one message ends and another starts.
 * The ability to accidentally erase or change previous messages.
 * The impossibility of answering a comment in an intermediate point of the discussion without breaking it. — MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  J'ai déjà pour commencer du mal à comprendre la différence entre "modifier le code", qui semble la seule option pour répondre dans une discussion mais qui donne accès au texte initial de discussion (je ne veux pas modifier les interventions des autres!); et "discuter", qui mènent vers le profil du contributeur et semblent mener vers une discussion hors article... c'est assez nébuleux! – Fanaliceful <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #555555;" /> [en] I already have trouble understanding the difference between "Edit the code", which seems the only option to answer in a talk page but which gives access to the previous discussion text (I do not want to change the edits made by others!); and "" [in the article's page history], which leads to the contributor's user page and seems to promote discussion away from the article's talk page... it's pretty nebulous! – Fanaliceful, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Desde el punto de vista del diseño de interfaz y el paradigma actual de la comunicación digital dominado por las redes sociales, considero que las páginas de discusión no son útiles para los usuarios novatos porque resultan muy ajenas a la manera que se usa hoy en día para comunicarse en Internet. Desde el tener que crear una "Sección nueva", pasando por el tener que responder en otra página de discusión diferente a aquella en donde se inició, hasta tener que "firmar un comentario", la experiencia del usuario resulta intimidante y foránea, lo cual impide que el acto de comunicación se lleve a cabo de manera óptima. — Edgouno <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #555555;" /> [en] From the point of view of interface design and the current paradigm of digital communication, which is dominated by social networks, I think that talk pages are not useful for new users, because talk pages are very alien to what people are used to communicating on the Internet today. From having to create a "New Section", through having to respond on a different discussion page from the one where the conversation started, to having to "sign your comment", the experience for the user is intimidating and foreign, which makes it harder for the act of communication to be carried out in an optimal manner. — Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

Mobile users
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎

At the moment, communication through a mobile device is very difficult. Contributions from the apps and the mobile website are increasing in nearly all languages. Accessibility on mobile devices is needed to make contribution easier for all users, to respond to the particular needs of some users with disabilities, and to increase the number of people who can contribute to discussions. As one user said, it shouldn't be noticeably easier to edit an article than to talk about that edit on the article's talk page.

These quotations include confusion, inaccessibility, the changes needed to make a system work on a mobile device, and the location of the main link to the talk page.

This theme is related to #confusion, #signatures, #indentation and #visibility.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ja] 他の利用者もおっしゃっているようにモバイルでの編集が非常に分かりにくく、しにくい. モバイルでのトークページの編集では署名についての言及が一切ない. — そらたこ, Japanese Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Mobile editing is very confusing and difficult, as others have said. There is no mention of signatures when editing a mobile talk page. — そらたこ, Japanese Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Nonetheless, wikitext is not a perfect system. Beginners need to learn about colons and tildes, and the accessibility of reading - from mobile devices, for the visually impaired, etc. - could/should be much better. — Yaron Koren, Main consultation talk page

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Je rejoins des avis précédents comme quoi le sommaire de Flow est assez écœurant... Mais je comprends que les interfaces modernes doivent être adaptées aux tablettes ; il est nécessaire, afin d’être sûr de toucher le bon endroit quand on tape avec son doigt, que les éléments de l’interface soient gros voire grossiers. — Frigory, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I agree with previous opinions that the summary in Flow is quite disgusting... But I understand that modern interfaces have to be adapted to tablets; it is necessary, in order to be sure to touch the right place when you tap with your finger, that the elements of the interface are big or even huge. — Frigory, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] For mobile users, it would be nice if I could jump to the talk page without scrolling to the bottom of the article, the reverse of what I do on a pc. Sometimes the articles are long! — Student7, Individual feedback on MediaWiki.org

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The current talk page system is extremely inaccessible to mobile users, particularly Wikipedia editors who use the mobile site and apps on a smartphone. — Newslinger, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I've been making a lot of edits from smartphones since just over two years ago and I can honestly say that the setup that works best for me is simply just using the desktop version – Double sharp, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The Wikipedia mobile app seems to deliberately conceal talk pages - a simple "talk page" link at the top of an article in the mobile app, exactly like on the desktop site, would do wonders. Making talk pages accessible on the mobile app, displayed and editable like normal articles, would do a lot to bring them to the attention of new users. — ZX95, English Wikipedia

Wikitext
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎✎

There was an interesting divide among editors about the need to use wikitext in discussions. An insistence that wikitext be the key format was largely found among highly active, long-time editors on Wikipedia. This generally took two forms:


 * 1) that the page itself be unstructured (for example, so that editors could choose to start a new discussion anywhere on the page instead of only at the top or the bottom), and
 * 2) that the canonical representation of the discussions be wikitext (for example, so that different formatting codes could be tested and discussed on the talk page, and then be copied and pasted into an article, where it would produce the same result).

For beginners, contributors to other projects, and among people who primarily make non-wikitext contributions (e.g., using the visual editor, adding information to Wikidata, uploading photos), the necessity for using wikitext in discussions was less obvious.

Among the insights from this theme: Long-time Wikipedia editors assume that newcomers will learn wikitext by editing articles, and that the newcomers will only later attempt to communicate with other editors on wiki. As a result, they assume that newcomers will have already developed some level of skill with wikitext before encountering the talk page, and that it therefore makes more sense for discussions to happen in that recently learned format, rather than using conventions and tools that are widely used across the internet for communication.

These quotations reflect Wikipedians' desire to use unstructured pages, the need for improvements, the importance of being able to talk about and test article formatting in discussions. They also reflect the views of others, who question the need for every contributor to learn wikitext, who want more accessible and user-friendly ways to participate in discussions, and who describe communication problems they have encountered.

This point is related to #visual editing, #workflows, and how discussions are structured (#design, #indentation, #replying).

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The most important feature of the current discussion system is that it is extremely flexible, and the loss of that flexibility would have adverse effects on just about every type of discussion I can think of. – Risker, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ru] Сила нынешней системы обсуждений именно в её гибкости. Любой редактор имеет свои ограничения. — Oleg3280, Russian Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] The strength of the current discussion system is precisely its flexibility. Any editor has its limitations. — Oleg3280, Russian Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] What most people here want is a tool which keeps most of the functionality of wikitext talk pages (dense, flexible, manageable, traceable, searchable, ...) with some improvements (solutions for autosigning, autoindenting, and some combination which allows archiving while maintaining links). We need a lot of what we have and a few extra bits, not the other way around. – Fram, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Chodzi o to, że w wielu sytuacjach na stronach dyskusji pojawiają się albo mogą pojawiać fragmenty żywcem wyjęte z artykułów: na przykład przy dyskutowaniu technicznego sposobu uzyskania jakiegoś efektu, testach szablonu, itp. Ja w swojej dyskusji mam tego mało albo prawie wcale, ale widzę liczne przykłady w kawiarence i domyślam się, że edytorzy techniczni albo przewodnicy początkujących mogą potrzebować takiej możliwości. I tu pytanie: czy to jet ważna kwestia? Bo jeśli tak, to stanowi bardzo istotne wymaganie techniczne w stosunku do każdego systemu dyskusyjnego, który mielibyśmy tu stosować. – Gżdacz, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] The point is that, in many situations, fragments of articles appear or may appear on the discussion page: for example, when discussing the technical method of obtaining some effect, template tests, etc. I have little or nothing of this in my discussion, but I see numerous examples in the Café [Village pump], and I guess that technical editors or people who work with new editors may need this option. And here's the question: is this an important issue? If it is, it is a very important technical requirement for any discussion system that we would apply here. – Gżdacz, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] A fair amount of Wikidata editors (1,145) use Structured Discussions (Flow) on their talk pages. As a result, those users might never actually have to interact with wikitext because of the nature of Wikidata content. I suspect Wikidata has a larger proportion of users who don't know how to use wikitext discussions than most other WMF wikis. – Jc86035, Wikidata

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Talk pages handle all edit requests, from everything to article text (referenced above) to new markup for a mediawiki message, so yes being able to code the request in the same format somehow is critical. – xaosflux, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The killer feature of Talk pages is that they are literally just an article page in a different namespace. That means any and all content from article pages may be copied to, and worked on, on any page with 100% fidelity and 100% compatibility. The most important use case is always the new workflow being created tomorrow. – Alsee, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] While the underlying wikitext of talk pages should remain the same, there should be so many user-friendly interfaces for interacting with it, that most users can ignore the wikitext entirely and not even need to know that it's there. – Oiyarbepsy, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I understand that wikitext is powerful, but holding a discussion in wikitext is unintuitive and difficult. I stopped editing for a few years partially because of how hard it is to communicate with the rest of the community on Wikimedia projects. – Nicereddy, Main talk page consultation

Edit conflicts
Popularity of the theme: ✎✎

An edit conflict happens when two editors try to change the same part of a wikitext page at the same time. Edit conflicts are common in busy discussions in free-form wikitext discussions, and very rare in any type of fully structured discussion. The difficulty of resolving the conflict sometimes causes people to give up without participating.

Some work has been done to reduce edit conflicts in the past. Edit conflicts are resolved at the level of a single "line" of wikitext (not a section), but if two people try to reply to the same comment at the same time, or if someone changes the immediately adjacent line while you are typing a new comment, an edit conflict will still be triggered. Wikimedia Deutschland has produced a tool that allows editors to resolve conflicts through a more visual process. However, in the end, edit conflicts are painful and need to be minimized.

These comments reflect the universal dislike that editors have for edit conflicts.

This theme is related to #wikitext, because edit conflicts are part of the price for using free-form, unstructured discussion pages, and to #newcomers, because newcomers are unlikely to be able to resolve an edit conflict.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages? Edit conflicts on busy talk pages. – Andrew D., English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ru] На мой взгляд, редактор страниц обсуждений должен уметь следующее: Автоматически разрешать конфликты редактирования — Yellow Horror, Russian Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] In my opinion, the discussion page editor should be able to do the following: Automatically resolve edit conflicts. — Yellow Horror, Russian Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Hay varios problemas que al menos yo veo.
 * La capacidad de accidentalmente borrar o afectar a mensajes anteriores al momento de escribir o editar.
 * Los conflictos de edición en páginas activas.

Personalmente considero que esos son los problemas más molestos. — MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I see at least several problems. Personally, I consider these to be the most annoying problems. — MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion
 * The ability to accidentally erase or change messages before the moment of writing or editing the page.
 * Edit conflicts on busy pages.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [de] Was doof ist sind stark frequentierte diskusionen, da die versionen immer wieder verworfen werden wenn jemand anderes schneller war. – Zellmer, German Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] What's stupid are high-traffic discussions, because your edits are always rejected if someone else is faster. – Zellmer, German Wikipedia

Design
Popularity of the theme: ✎

Overall the design of talk pages is outdated, and discussions are structured in a confusing way.

It's generally accepted that when you want different behaviors in different places – for example, writing articles in the mainspace, discussing improvements to them on a talk page, or reporting spam at a noticeboard – then you want the design of those different pages to reflect and encourage their different purposes.

These Wikipedia editors say that the design is visually awkward and outdated, and that it does not help editors collaborate with others effectively.

Design is related to #confusion.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [pl] Obecny sposób komunikacji pomiędzy poszczególnymi użytkownikami (sekcja dyskusja na profilach) uważam za skrajnie nieczytelny i kłopotliwy. Największym problemem jest fakt, że dyskusja prowadzona jest na dwóch stronach równocześnie zamiast na jednej. – Sumek101, Polish Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] The current method of communication between individual users (user talk pages) is considered extremely unreadable and embarrassing. The biggest problem is the fact that the discussion is conducted on both pages simultaneously instead of the whole discussion being on one page. – Sumek101, Polish Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  J'ai longtemps utilisé les Discussions Structurées (Flow) sur ma page de discussion parce-que l'interface est plus ressemblante à celles utilisées par les applications de messagerie. Malheureusement, j'ai trouvé plusieurs problèmes (pas vraiment d'archivage, impossibilité de déplacer les sujets entre les pages sous Flow, etc.) J'ai longtemps réfléchi à abandonner ce système pour revenir au wikicode (et je l'ai finalement fait il y a environ un mois), le principal défaut qui m'a fait changer c'est l'interface trop volumineuse et ne permettant pas d'afficher assez de messages sur un seul écran (les applications de messagerie instantanée affichant les messages en optimisant beaucoup mieux l'espace utilisé). – Niridya, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I have long used the Structured Discussions (Flow) on my talk page because the interface is more similar to those used by email applications. Unfortunately, I found several problems (not really archiving, unable to move topics between pages under Flow, etc.) I have long thought about giving up this system to go back to wikicode (and I finally did about a month ago), the main flaw that made me change is the interface is too large and can not display enough messages on one screen (instant messaging applications displaying messages optimizing much better space used). – Niridya, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Parmi les problèmes les plus évidents : <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] Some of the most obvious problems:
 * La dimension technique de la participation : des codes et des balises, sérieusement ? Aucun système de notification ? des messages laissés sur les pages des utilisateurs et des articles? Voilà qui est plus qu'optimiste pour espérer de la vie. Je ne suis pas qualifié pour parler des défauts d'archivage de Flow, mais pour ce qui est collaborer, cet outil aurait été bienvenu, il y a 10 ans.
 * L'absence de tout système de mise en lien des contributions, de corrections collaboratives, de deadlines. Tout est fait pour isoler chaque contributeur et chaque contribution, et on peut écrire longtemps sans jamais croiser la route d'un seul humain. – Louis HG, French Wikipedia
 * The technical dimension of participation: codes and guidelines, seriously? No notification system? Messages left on user pages and articles? That's more than optimistic to hope for life. I'm not qualified to talk about Flow's lack of archiving, but in terms of collaboration, this tool would have been welcome 10 years ago.
 * The absence of any system for linking contributions, collaborative corrections, deadlines. Everything is done to isolate each contributor and each contribution, and one can write long without ever crossing the road of a single human. – Louis HG, French Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Una interfaz de usuario limpia que utilice métodos, lenguaje e iconos compatibles con las expectativas de comunicación actuales. – Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] A clean user interface that uses methods, language and icons that are compatible with current communication expectations. – Edgouno, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

Metadata
Popularity of the theme: ✎

Some wikis use large templates at the top of article talk pages to display instructions and warnings, quality ratings, WikiProject affiliations and other information about the page. This came up several times in the English Wikipedia discussion.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Almost all articles have a "talk page" that is filled with metadata (quality ratings, wikiproject templates, old afd links) instead of discussion. In a complete redesign of talk pages (something I generally oppose), I would suggest to find a new home for the metadata. – Kusma, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Even if a page is primarily used for discussion, there is almost always a section that should *not* be signed - such as metadata on article talk pages. – Risker, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] I would like to flag up that  is added to all political party articles talk pages and that reform to talk pages must not remove this functionality. – Doktorbuk, English Wikipedia

Vandalism
Popularity of the theme: ✎

Editors at all experience levels worried about vandalism, harassment, and other destructive behaviors. They want tools to deal with vandalism and related unacceptable behaviors. Identifying and addressing blatant vandalism (e.g., having your vote changed from 'support' to 'oppose') costs time, energy, and goodwill.

These quotations mention people deliberately changing other people's contributions, the way Flow rearranges pages, the need for better anti-harassment systems, and the importance of being able to delete or suppress ("oversight") page histories.

This theme is related to #page history and #don't-bite newcomers.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [hi]  मुझे लगता है कि कभी-कभी कुछ ख़ास वार्ता पृष्ठों पर बर्बरता की जाती है, जैसे कि, आईपी एड्रेस से तथ्यों और जानकारी को बदलना। इसे रोकने के लिए, ख़ास वार्ता पृष्ठों पर केवल ऑटोकॉनफ़र्ड उपयोगकर्ताओं को ही संपादन करने की अनुमति हो, तो इसे काफ़ी हद तक सुलझाया जा सकता है – Wikilover90, Hindi Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I think sometimes certain vetting pages are vandalized, such as changing the facts and information from the IP address. To prevent this, only auto-confirmed users should be allowed to edit on these particular talk pages, so it can be resolved to a great extent. – Wikilover90, Hindi Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [ru] Эти функции (особенно редактирование чужих сообщений) рядовому редактору Википедии не нужны. Для заинтересованных в них участников можно сделать свой отдельный визуальный редактор в стиле швейцарского ножа, красивый и многофункциональный, одинаково неудобный во всех мыслимых применениях, немыслимо глючный и тормозящий на топовых конфигурациях. –Yellow Horror, Russian Wikipedia
 * [ru] Нужны непременно: нынешнюю среду поддерживают в том числе и простые участники, выпалывающие спам, скрывающие и удаляющие вредное и неуместное и т. п. Без них всякая дрянь будет висеть намного дольше, вероятно - вечно. – Retired electrician, Russian Wikipedia

<hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] These [advanced] functions (especially editing someone else's messages) are not necessary for the ordinary Wikipedia editor. For those interested in participating, you can make your own separate editor in the style of a Swiss Army knife, beautiful and multifunctional, equally uncomfortable in all conceivable applications, unthinkably buggy and slow on most systems. –Yellow Horror, Russian Wikipedia
 * [en] We need them by all means: the current environment is supported by the simple participants, removing spam, hiding and removing harmful and inappropriate contents, etc. Without them, all sorts of rubbish will remain much longer, probably forever. – Retired electrician, Russian Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] The fact that Flow has no rollback feature was really annoying to me when my talk page was vandalized. Even if you manually delete vandalism it pushes the thread in which the vandalism was deleted to the top of the history of the talk page. If further resources are invested into Flow (which I would support), a proper rollback feature should be implemented. – ChristianKl, Wikidata

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Hay varios problemas que al menos yo veo. La facilidad con la cual los mensajes de una persona pueden ser editados por otra o un vándalo, sin poder saberlo hasta visitar el historial de cambios y encontrar la edición específica. – MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] I see at least several problems. The ease with which the messages of a person can be edited by another or by a vandal, without being able to know it until visiting the history of changes and finding the specific edit. – MarioFinale, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [es] Un botón de denuncia de abusos que proteja la identidad de la denunciante para que esto no represente todavía más acoso. – Liquendatalab, Iberocoop multi-community discussion <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] A button for reporting abuse that protects the identity of the complainant so that reporting it does not produce further harassment. – Liquendatalab, Iberocoop multi-community discussion

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] Deletion (including the the three-part deletion options for user name, content, and edit summary) and suppression must be made available. Having a "hidden" comment by "Jimbo eats dead babies" is not an option. – Arthur Rubin, English Wikipedia

Workflows
Popularity of the theme: ✎

Additional software tools could improve the handling ways of the complicated workflows that are used on larger wikis, such as the creation and maintenance of Articles for Deletion discussions or counting up votes in a Meinungsbilder on the German Wikipedia or in an Arbitration Committee case at the English Wikipedia. Improving communication tools and systems used by the Stewards, the Global sysops, and the Small Wiki Monitoring Team would also fall into this category. This type of improvement was largely requested by highly active editors at the largest Wikipedias.

Given how important these processes are, and how much effort is required to maintain them, it is somewhat surprising that more editors did not suggest improvements to these complex systems.

These quotations show an awareness that complex systems could be greatly simplified through new tools, and the importance of building tools that scale to the needs of highly active editors.

This theme is related to #confusion.

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] There are a number of Byzantine processes that could be greatly improved through automation...page creations, transclusions and placing of templates in multiple places. – dlthewave, English Wikipedia

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [en] High traffic pages and power users: I have some 4000 pages and their talk pages on my watch list on deWP. I need to be able to work with this and to watch high traffic discussion flows. My old example is still valid: “A lively discussion with -say- 400 contributions by -say- 25 different editors in -say- 15 subchapters all stemming from one root posting? Now multiply that by 8 current threads plus 15 older ones. And imagine I have been away over the weekend and now try to catch up. The current system can deal with this situation. And I can, too. Does Flow?” – H-stt, Mediawiki consultation page

<blockquote style="background:white; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;"> [fr]  Il serait utile de pouvoir :  Effectuer plus facilement des sondages, auxquels la réponse serait plus facile qu’aujourd’hui : pas d’obligation d’édition avec multiples chargements de page qui prennent du temps, plutôt des boutons ou. Éventuellement, on pourrait envisager que les contributeurs inscrits puissent voter de façon anonyme, et que l’affichage des résultats soit automatisé («X, Y et Z ont pris part au vote. Résultat : 2 pour, 1 contre.»). – Akela NDE, French Wikipedia <hr style="border: 0;background:none;border-bottom: 1px dashed #ccc;" /> [en] It would be useful if it were:  Easier to conduct polls, which would be easier to respond to than today:  no need to edit with multiple page loads that take time, but instead with buttons to or. Eventually, one could consider having registered contributors vote anonymously, and having the results displayed automatically ("X, Y and Z took part in the vote, resulting in 2 to 1 against."). – Akela NDE, French Wikipedia

Conclusion
Thank you to all of the people who participated in these discussions so far! We hope that this report is a fair summation of the ideas and opinions that were expressed in Phase 1. We're looking forward to continuing the discussion in Phase 2 of the consultation, and hearing your reactions to the proposed product direction. Talk to you soon!