Help talk:Paragraph-based Edit Conflict Interface/2022

Feedback and discussion page for the Paragraph-based Edit Conflict Interface.

Update: We completely revised the interface for this feature based on user feedback and user test.

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This makes no sense

I've probably commented here before, but I just got another instance of this and felt compelled to talk about it. Every time I'm dropped into the EC tool, I'm totally befuddled as to how to proceed. I'm a software developer, I'm used to merge conflicts. Every merge conflict tool I've ever used has some way to say, "Keep this version", "Keep that version", "Keep both". I don't see any of that here. I see a box which shows "Conflicting comment", and another box which shows "Your comment", and no indication of how I'm supposed to proceed to select which, or both, I want to keep. I'm going to do what I always do; copy my text, abort the edit, and start again from scratch, pasting in my saved text.

I'll add that edit conflict resolution is something people do rarely. That means they don't remember the details of how the tool worked the last time they used it, so it's got to be totally obvious how things work in order to be effective. The developers who wrote the tool use it all the time, so it's hard to step back and ask themselves, "If I knew nothing about how this worked, would I be able to figure it out?" RoySmith (talk) 14:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree, and have been annoyed by this often. If it isn't going to give me useful instructions, why doesn't it just say, "Your edit has been aborted. You can copy it and try again"? ~ Robert McClenon (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree—I just bull my way through and seem to get random consequences—as if some critical timing issue picks an outcome with no meaningful interaction on my part. (What request initiated this beta offering what were the goals? Neonorange (talk) 01:19, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Totally confusing and useless.

The places where edit conflicts happen most are on very long talk pages that handle a multitude of different threads, such as for example the VP or ANI. But wouldn't expect the WMF devs to understand that, would you?

As per [[User:Rober McClenon|Robert]], why doesn't it just say, "Your edit has been aborted. You can copy it and try again"?

By the time one has figured out what to - and still left wondering - it's quicker and easier to copy your text, quit the page, reload it and paste your comment in the fresh edit mode display. Kudpung (talk) 00:19, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Won't work, page reloads every time the save button is clicked

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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On my local dev wiki, the (just installed) feature is broken : I choose thanks to the radio buttons which version I want to keep, but when I click save, the page reloads and every conflict paragraph is highlighted in red. None of the options I chose are memorized. If I start over and try to save again, the same thing happens. FunkyBeats99 (talk) 08:46, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately that's not enough information. How was the conflict resolution interface triggered? How many rows of radio buttons appeared? Is JavaScript enabled? Does the JavaScript console show some error? It might also be the configuration of your webserver or PHP somehow not accepting array-structured form variables. But this is all speculation. Sorry. Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 11:06, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your swift response.

I trigger myself the conflict resolution thanks to two separate accounts (since it is my dev wiki) on two separate browsers (I tried a bunch, does not seem to be the cause of it).

I run MediaWiki 1.35.6 on a local EasyPHP dev server (Apache 2.4.25 x86 - PHP 7.4.19 x86 - MySQL 5.7.17 x86).

Javascript is enabled and works fine. No particular message in browser console either.

The error happens whether there is more than one paragraph or just one.

It seems that if I choose the newest, not saved yet, revision, the page reloads with a red "alert" background-color on conflicting paragraphs and deletes all choices.

If I choose the already saved revision, the paragraphs that had conflicts just disappear, but the page is still not saved: the interface shows then only the unchanged paragraphs, which is really weird.

I hear you about the PHP version, but every other extension works perfectly, so that would be odd.

Might be linked to my other extension configurations, I'll try on a fresh install and keep you posted. FunkyBeats99 (talk) 14:08, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

That sounds really strange. Sorry, I have no idea. I even went back and tested this older version (it's almost 2 years old by now) and it seems to work fine for me. The error sounds like parts (?) of the POST request are lost. Maybe it's an overly aggressive security or spam protection plugin in Apache or PHP? Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 08:08, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

After several hours of digging deep in the code, I finally figured out was was causing the issue (at least for me). In includes/GlobalFunctions.php.

function wfMerge(
	string $old,
	string $mine,
	string $yours,
	?string &$simplisticMergeAttempt,
	string &$mergeLeftovers = null
): bool {
	global $wgDiff3;
	# This check may also protect against code injection in
	# case of broken installations.
	AtEase::suppressWarnings();
	$haveDiff3 = $wgDiff3 && file_exists( $wgDiff3 );
	AtEase::restoreWarnings();
	if ( !$haveDiff3 ) {
		wfDebug( "diff3 not found" );
		return false;
	}

file_exists ($wgDiff3) always returns false even if the diff3 tool exists and it's path is correctly set. For that matter, it appears that checking if a file exist outside the server directory always fail, so I suspect this is a security feature.

Just commenting out the return false part fixed everything, Tinss (talk) 02:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Attempted edit-conflict resolution lost page history

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When I began copyediting 2020–2021 Slovenian protests, the infobox indicated that the protests continued into 2022. I moved the page to reflect this, edit-conflicting with myself. I've never really understood this interface, must have hit the wrong radio buttons, and somehow lost the previous page history. I didn't think it was possible for the work of other editors to be lost like this. I'm using Windows 10 and the latest version of Firefox. Miniapolis (talk) 02:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Fixed now, thanks to Izno. Miniapolis (talk) 13:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unhelpful on a long thread with many replies on talk page

Two of us were trying to reply at the same time in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Recent_correction_to_Simple_Lists. I had to choose between the other editor's comment and mine. I opted for theirs, and had to copy mine from the right-hand column of the diff display, cancel my edit, go back in and find the right place in the thread again (hoping that no-one else was also replying), and paste it back in again. I don't know what would have happened if they;'d politely opted for my post instead of theirs: some kind of Mexican standoff? In the old system I could at least see what was going on. Not impressed with the new system, as yet. PamD (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello @PamD, thank you for your message, and apologies for taking so long to reply (vacation time).

Our team has looked into this and would need a bit more information to see what happened here. Are this and this the two edits that triggered the conflict?

From what got stored in these two edits, it looks like they should have triggered a special talk page interface that looks like this:

This interface was made specifically for talk pages and it allows you to save both edits, just like you wanted in this case.

The reason it didn't work here might be that the detection for this special case only works when no other edit was made to the page. Was your original edit possibly fixing e.g. a typo somewhere else on the page?

"I don't know what would have happened if they;'d politely opted for my post instead of theirs: some kind of Mexican standoff?"

While a Mexican standoff sounds interesting, that's not what would have happened. In an edit conflict, two people are editing the same page. If the other person saves the page before you do, you run into an edit conflict. To the other person, however, their work is done. They don't see any edit conflict interface.

Another question, when you say "old system", are you talking about this interface?

Greetings,

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 11:38, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

日本語における表示について

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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日本語のWikipediaで編集をしていると、「了承ました。」という表示がありました。この言葉は変えたほうがいいと思います。日本語として成立しません。 ドラみそ (talk) 10:22, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@Omotecho: Shirayuki (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

When I was editing on Japanese Wikipedia, there was a display saying "I understand." I think you should change this word. It doesn't work as Japanese.

These translations are done on translatewiki.net by a community of volunteers. Can you make the edit yourself or contact the community? Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) 11:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

My error, fixed on translatewiki.net. Thanks, @Shirayuki. Omotecho (talk) 14:07, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Like

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I like this. 65.39.10.23 (talk) 18:26, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! We're happy to hear it.

Happy new year from the Technical Wishes team!

Johanna Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 09:16, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.