Talk:Flow/Converting talk pages

Various approaches
(BG: Flow). There are four ways to convert talk pages to Flow: (Tracked at T76682 and T78253). I would like to know what we would like to have. Gryllida 23:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) Do not convert. Lose content.
 * 2) Shove old content to a non-Flow archive. (This one, coming from the Flow Team (now Collaboration Team))
 * 3) Move each old talk page discussion page (a page, and an archive) as a single Flow topic which does inherit its history. Then manually — semi-automatically to a large extent — split it into topics and properly indented messages, so that it's eventually converted to the Flow format.
 * This means Flow should be able to:
 * Move a thread to another page
 * Move a comment to another thread (in the same page/in another page)
 * Split a thread in two.
 * Merge two threads.
 * Split posts
 * Indent and outdent posts
 * Re-sign posts for another person
 * Split one thread in two threads (and give a new topic the new one)
 * Support nested threads (2 threads inside of one with relevant subheadings)
 * Edit timestamps on other Flow posts (i.e. I split it into two, but I would like to set the new post timestamp to the real old ts, not to now)
 * 1) Do it fully automatically. Parse signatures, indent with ":" and "*", etc.
 * I'm personally leaning toward #3, because #1 is unacceptable, #4 is unrealistic (people already tried it before), and #3 isn't too much work — these refactoring featuers are needed for processing a moderately bug RFC anyway. #2 has the disadvantage that old conversations do not start "Flowing". Gryllida 23:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't #3 mess up the edit history? What happens when non-talk content appears in a talk namespace, such as w:WP:AFC submissions? I think that #3 would cause too many problems and that #2 is the only acceptable option. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Stefan2: No. Each new post would say "I was split from XXX" in its first history entry, where XXX is a link to the original post which inherits the history from the original classic talk page. Leaving the history one more click away is fairly common, when archiving, for example. Gryllida 00:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * What happens to WPTalk:AFC/*? This is a question for #2, #3, and #4. We would have to find a way to blacklist that. This problem isn't unique to #3. ;-) Gryllida 00:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't the most useful way to deal with the imposition of Flow be to move the old talk page to a non-Flow namespace and conduct discussions there from then on, thus keeping discussions away from Flow? --Pi zero (talk) 01:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that #1 is unacceptable and #4 is unrealistic, and also unnecessary. Somewhere between #2 and #3 would work for me.  What I mean by that is that there is no immediate need to convert a talk page until someone wants to add content to the page.  It is at that point that a conversion is necessary, or at least desirable.  If the simple solution is that old content is a single Flow topic that could be split on demand with guided editing or formatting hints, then important conversations could be converted, and the thousands of others that are merely historical don't need to be converted.  Don't shove them anywhere.  Let them sit until content is added or someone comes through and converts them.  -- Dave Braunschweig (talk) 01:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)