Talk pages consultation 2019/Tools in use

From mediawiki.org

Right now, different communities use different tools to communicate with each other. Here's a partial list. Please add what your community or group uses! (It's okay to add links, too.)

On-wiki communication tools[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Free-form wikitext-based talk pages Available at all WMF wikis
LiquidThreads English Wikinews, translatewiki (non-WMF)
StructuredDiscussions (Flow)
  • Beta feature on some wikis like French Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia and Wikidata
  • Default talk pages system on MediaWiki.org and the WMF's internal wiki
Edit summaries Available at all WMF wikis
VisualEditor Available at all WMF wikis e.g. an inexperienced editor tries to change an article title and populates en:Category:Pages with disallowed DISPLAYTITLE modifications; an administrator moves the page for them.

On some wikis it is available in project and wikiproject namespace used also for discussions outside of talk namespaces

Convenient Discussions Russian Wikipedia and another Russian Projects
  • A JavaScript shell script over the existing Wikipedia discussion system that allows you to send and edit messages without switching to a separate page.
  • The script only works with Russian d F Y dates for now. So, it works only in Russian Projects.

Social media platforms[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Facebook Arabic Wikipedia, Bangla Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Portuguese, Georgian, Khmer, Macedonian, Polish, Hindi Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia and more. Also the Wikimedia Foundation, dozens of affiliates, and many events, including Wikimania. See m:Facebook pages
Instagram Bangla Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia
Internet forums
Blogs

E-mail[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Wikipedia-l and similar public mailing lists English Wikipedia
Private mailing lists Arbitration Committees, Stewards, Checkusers
Special:EmailUser Available at all WMF wikis, for users who opt-in
Volunteer Response Team's OTRS All WMF wikis, especially Commons (image copyright)

Messaging systems[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Discord (Q47303831) Multiple language-based servers (English, Chinese, French, Russian), typically with channels for commons, wikipedia, and some wikiprojects (i.e. videogames, anime); also non-Wikipedia based servers for en.wiktionary and MediaWiki on Discord, probably many others
Discourse (Q71341460) Wikimedia Developer Support phab:#discourse
The Discuss instance of Wikimedia Space Movement organizers, affiliates, contributors, partners, Wikimedia Foundation Discuss (based on Discourse)
IRC (Q4653983) MediaWiki devs, Stewards, French Wikipedia RC patrollers, Checkusers, Oversighters, English Wikipedia admins, many others
Matrix MediaWiki Stakeholders Group m:Matrix.org
Skype Latvian Wikipedia (mostly text chat)
Slack Wiki Education Foundation, Wikimedia NYC
Telegram Wikimedia General, Wikidata, Persian Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Russian Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia(s), AI developers, GLAM, LGBT, and probably many others.
Twitter Bangla Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia See m:Microblogging handles
WhatsApp Hindi Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia
Zulip

Video conference calls[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Google Hangouts/Meet Hindi Wikipedians
Skype Wikimedia Australia Committee meetings; Annual General Meetings
Blue Jeans
Zoom Wiki Education Foundation
WebEx
Jitsi Meet Wikimédia France, Wikipedia & Education User Group, and tested by WMF generally positive, except for some persistent connectivity issues (as of late 2018)
BigBlueButton (Previously used by Wikimedia Switzerland) previously required Flash for everything, html5 available from 2019

Other[edit]

Tools used Which communities? Notes
Face-to-face meetings German Wikipedia, French Wiktionary, Georgian Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, various affiliates
Blogs or similar pages Bangla Wikiprojects
Telephone hotline German Wikipedia
Personal telephone calls India chapter
Phabricator Devs, some affiliates Task tracking, calendars, blogs
Google Docs Some community organizers Planning editing parties and other events; task tracking