Extension:CommentStreams

Introduction
CommentStreams is a commenting system for wikis. Users can post comments below the content on a wiki page. The comments are displayed with the user's username, linked to their user page if it exists, the creation and last modification dates of the comment, and an optional user avatar. Comments can be edited and deleted only by the comment author. Comments are added in streams which include a title and a head comment that can be replied to by other comments.

CommentStreams does not depend upon any other extensions, but it provides several additional features if Semantic MediaWiki is installed: optional, user-configurable properties to set an avatar and display name for a user as well as special properties that can be queried on each comment to provide the comment title, a link to the page to which the comment refers, and a link to the head comment if the comment is a reply.

CommentStreams stores comments on pages in the CommentStreams namespace. These pages are given a randomly-generated string of characters as the name. Users cannot edit or delete these pages directly. A database table stores the comment title and ids of the page to which the comment refers and the page containing the head comment if the comment is a reply.

Semantic MediaWiki support
If Semantic MediaWiki is installed, CommentStreams defines the following properties on each comment page, which can be used to query for comments:

CommentStreams namespace
You can use the MediaWiki search box to search for comments. In the search result page, the page that the comment appears on, rather than the comment page in the CommentStreams namespace, appears in the search results. While it is possible to visit comment pages directly in the CommentStreams namespace, for example if they are listed in Special:RecentChanges, this is not encouraged. Editing, deleting, and moving comment pages by visiting them in the CommentStreams namespace is disabled. Instead editing and deleting comments is done from the content page on which the comment appears.

Disabling comments on a page
CommentStreams also offers a tag function,, which disables CommentStreams on a page even if it is in a namespace in which comments are enabled.

Initially collapsed CommentStreams
CommentStreams also offers a tag function, , which makes comments appear initially in a collapsed state (only the comment header with the comment title, author, dates, and buttons showing) on a page. This tag function has no effect if comments are disabled on the page.

Known issues

 * If CommentStreams is used on a page which uses HeaderTabs, and a comment is posted which transcludes another page using HeaderTabs, the JavaScript on the page breaks.
 * Workaround: Don't transclude pages with HeaderTabs onto pages with HeaderTabs.