Talk:Structured Discussions/2014/05

The Core Features team has enabled Flow on this talk page.

• Please conduct testing at Talk:Sandbox, retaining this page for discussions and suggestions.
• If you find bugs, report in Bugzilla if you can, and here if you can't.

Previous feedback is on Talk:Flow Portal/Archive2 (using old Liquid Threads), and on our labs server.

Confirmation message when navigating away from unfinished comment

I was writing a comment on a talk page featuring Flow when I accidentally clicked on my compact personal toolbar and ended up navigating to my user page. I think it would be good to have a confirmation popup asking the user if they want to leave the page without saving their comment, since it always sucks to lose something you've written but haven't saved. GeorgeBarnick (talk) 04:46, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

GeorgeBarnick: That's tracked at bugzilla:58402. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I just noticed, but I think that Flow comments and replies don't count in my "Total number of edits" as displayed in Special:Preferences. Is this intentional or a bug? GeorgeBarnick (talk) 04:48, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

GeorgeBarnick: That one is bugzilla:61887. Thanks for the pointers though! 'tis good to have feedback and interest. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

i18n

Anyone can provide me a translatewiki page for "This topic was closed by <user>"? If not, it should be able to translate. — Revi 13:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Hym411: Top item at https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Translate/ext-flow?language=ko&filter=!translated&action=translate and Thanks! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

No way to undo header vandalism

There is no obvious way to undo header vandalism, such as what happened recently to Talk:Beta Features/Hovercards. The only way I could figure out is to copy the text from the diff into the header edit box and then edit it to get just the before text, which is very inconvienent. Jay8g (talk) 17:01, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Yes, it seems to me those who can edit something should be permitted to Undo. Should Flow treat header specially? Topic title editing?

Also, the RecentChanges feed could have a [Rollback] link for those with the user right. SPage (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

S Page (WMF): I suppose this applies equally to anything publicly editable (header, thread title, thread summary...) Jay8g (talk) 01:12, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Links in headers

Links in headers are currently not parsed as such. While I see the reason for not parsing most markup (templates, references, images, etc), links seem harmless and useful. (This was prompted by this WikiProject Hampshire thread.) Jay8g (talk) 01:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: I've made a card to track this issue. Thanks for the reminder. They need to either find an appropriate limited-parser to re-use, or create a new one. (Both of which are complicated, hence on the backburner for now).

Do you think anything other than A)wikilinks and perhaps B)italics, are crucial to have? I agree that references and images (and bolding) are either not needed or not practical.

Math (LaTeX) is already disallowed in headers (per MoS), so that's fine to exclude. (Phew!)

I'm not certain about templates, and would appreciate more input...

In the main bugzilla ticket, w:WP:RFPP was pointed out as a page that uses templates in headers - though this leads to a really confusing/ugly ToC, and I'd suggest that this is the sort of instance that the eventual Workflows are intended to improve/simplify/fix. Can you think of any other representative locations where templates are used directly within headers? Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): It seems that most, if not all, templates in headers/titles could be better located in the topic summary (not a very good name (too similar to "edit summary"), maybe topic header would be better since "title" is used for what were called "headers" in wikitext discussions...) box. Jay8g (talk) 03:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: The dev team likes this idea. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Reply buttons on moderated/closed topics

There are still reply buttons on posts in moderated/closed topics, which lead to seemingly working reply boxes, which give you errors when you try to reply because the topic is moderated/closed and you can't reply to moderated/closed topics. This seems to be unintentional and an oversight. Jay8g (talk) 03:46, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Thanks, I've filed this as bugzilla:64984. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: We're (probably) going to remove the Reply and Edit links from a Closed topic (which we're going to rename "Locked" for clarity). Tracked in Trello SPage (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Infinite scroll is seriously annoying

I'm a casual user, and accustomed to pages that don't dynamically expand themselves. I figure I'm at the bottom of a page, but then it force-feeds me. I'll say now that DuckDuckGo uses the same algorithm, but gives the user an opt-out. Youse need an opt-out at the top of each Flow-enabled page.

Where page content exceeds page size, it is better to permit the use of refills as used by most search engines, or chapters as used by How Stuff Works.

With Flow, the major turn-off is the ever-decreasing size of the scroll-button, coupled with the absence of the Light At The End Of The Tunnel. 203.161.102.82 (talk) 22:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

203.161.102.82: Thanks for the feedback. (I'm going to change the topic title, to something a bit clearer :)

I've listed a few of the more in-depth discussions about Infinite scroll, at Flow/Prior discussion-thread-roundup#Search and infinite scroll. As (the 2nd link to) Flow/FAQ#Components_of_the_discussion_system notes, the infinite scroll is an experimental feature.

We do already have a paginated system (seen by users who have javascript disabled), so there are possibilities... Personally, I really like preferences/options, but there are reasonable concerns about our current abundance of software-preferences (and the cost of maintaining them all, as well as the good ones getting lost amongst the less-utilized ones), so feedback is helpful. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): Seeing as I have seen nobody in the discussions in favor of infinite scrolling, and that some discussion pages will get insanely long if infinitely scrolled (imagine w:en:WP:ANI if it had been like this its whole existence), a page-based system seems logical. Jay8g (talk) 03:50, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: The thing is, none ever reads page 642 of a page-based system either. Before figuring out what the best way forward is I would like to see search implemented such that you find what you want the same way you would in gmail, by typing a few words from the title/content/authors/etc. Ebernhardson (talk) 17:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ebernhardson: That is a valid point, but is not exactly rebutting my point. My point was less about people getting to the end of the page and more about the size of a page where several hundred archives worth of comments are combined. Jay8g (talk) 19:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): Thank you for listening :) I don't think we need a preference here, I for one would never be able to access it as I don't care to login. However, a simple {Flow|NoFlow} switch in the left margin could (ROFL) easily be implemented?

@Ebernhardson: You are right. Most people stop before they reach page 4, it seems only 1% get to page 7. I agree with the search facility, I thought Wikipedia (in the generic sense) has a fairly good one.

Another thought is perma-links on each post, but this could possibly consume a lot of database space, I'm not entirely sure of the technology.

I do like the input tools on the RH margin of this input box. Maybe the {Flow|NoFlow} could have a similar widget? OTOH, KISS! 203.161.102.82 (talk) 07:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity: If there isn't going to be a configuration setup, then the design should be paginated. Among other things, infinite scroll makes the footer impossible to reach, and there are important things down there - such as the license, and the disclaimers. The infinite scroll may have problematic legal implications because of this. (And I hope you won't use my comment as justification to place the footer in a floating div - those are even more annoying than infinite scrolling!, specially in mobile).

Ebernhardson: people *do* read old pages from paginated repositories if pages are grouped in coherent chunks; this is exactly how Archives of talk pages are accessed, and it's also in the archive.org's Wayback Machine that I have suggested should be used as inspiration for this design. The point of pagination is to allow random access to any old page so that it can be searched by relative position. Flow would only allow for sequential access or parameter-based search (by keyword or date), which is not enough to support all access flows. Diego Moya (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

203.161.102.82: Re: preferences: For anonymous users, I believe there's a possibility of using cookies. I'm not sure though, and that's still not perfect as many users who don't login also don't retain/allow cookies.

Re: Search, there's ongoing work (backend, design) between the Flow devs and the Search devs, to integrate with the new CirrusSearch system.

Re: permalinks for each post: Flow already has those! Click the "..." icons to access the permalinks (and other items). There are some tentative plans to enhance that feature, so that we can copy them along with the thread title to our clipboards more handily, but there are various backend changes that need to be investigated/resolved, first.

Diego Moya: Good point about the important info in the page-footer. I'll ask Design if there are plans already, for fixing or relocating this somehow. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: I am also not a fan of infinite scroll. Between page load times with that much data and an inability to see where I am in a discussion and how much else there is, and difficulty in finding the same place again, it's a pain to deal with.

A search box would be better than nothing, but I'd like that in addition to pagination and not instead. Ditto a ToC. Fhocutt (talk) 09:18, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Summary box when starting a topic

When starting a new topic, it seems like a summary box should be there. While in standard discussions (such as this one) it would not be that useful, in some workflows (deletion discussions, for example) it could be highly useful. Jay8g (talk) 19:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: This sounds one of the use cases for having a workflow descriptor language. The idea being that different workflows can have different set ups and functionalities as needed (and as defined by the local community). Jorm (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Unnecessarily escaping symbols in topic titles/header

In topic titles, some symbols are unnecessarily escaped-- for example " going to &quot;. Observed here and here.

In the page header, some symbols are escaped when you edit the header. It saves normally the first time, but further edits break it. Observed here, tested here. Jay8g (talk) 22:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: tracked at bugzilla:65143. Thanks. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

&lt;flow-something&gt; in hstory pages

In history pages, such as this one, for edits to the header, <flow-something> shows up in the section with the diffs, etc. Clicking on this gives you a different URL (like this), but nothing seems to show up differently. This seems like a bug. Jay8g (talk) 00:04, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Tracked at bugzilla:65102. The URL itself is a link to the "header workflow", hence it just displays the page normally. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Flow and Media Viewer

Now that Media Viewer is going default most places, Flow now actually should work with Media Viewer. This has been mentioned before, but that was when Media viewer was an opt-in beta feature and was therefore supporting it was considered unnecessary. Jay8g (talk) 03:57, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Thanks again. I've updated bugzilla:60014. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Errors when posting with certain special characters in title

"&" in the topic title gives "The error message received was: Exception Caught: htmlParseEntityRef: no name" and refuse to post.

"<" or "<>" in the topic title (but not ">", "</>" or "<[anything]>", which post) give "The error message received was: Exception Caught: htmlParseStartTag: invalid element name" and refuse to post. Jay8g (talk) 17:08, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Huge thanks for the details. Much appreciated. Logged as bugzilla:65570. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Table of content

It really needs a table of content. Sorry if it has been posted a few posts back, but I cant see it (unless I scroll down and down and down) Christian75 (talk) 08:20, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Christian75: A Table of Contents is coming soon, in the Front-end overhaul. It will initially appear in the white-space to the right, but that may change in the future, as we all experiment with the update.

Thanks for the feedback - more suggestions would be appreciated. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Needs some refinement

I think Flow has possibilities but it doesn't seem to be ready for mass deployment yet.

Things I don't like:

• it doesn't warn you that you will lose your text when clicking a link, and if you come back, the title is preserved, but not the comment (it happened to me right now, this is the second time I type this comment)
• Ugly huge headers, too huge, they could be reduced 50% (size when the topic is hidden) and they would still be too big
• It doesn't take the whole page width
• No table of content
• I hate infinite scrolling
• Only 3 sub-comments allowed, I expect at least a thread depth of at least 7
• I find the text box "Comment on..." superfluous, taking too much space when there is already a link "Reply" Vanished user e175adb86e72bb96a1706f7ab31b9df8 (talk) 14:27, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Micru: Thanks for the detailed feedback! Notes, in order:

• This is bugzilla:58402 - sorry you had to deal with it :(
• There's a front-end overhaul coming soon, based on the last few months of feedback, and with the benefit of a new dedicated front-end developer. Many aesthetic changes will be included in that, and it will start another round of feedback and iterations.
• This aspect is still under extensive internal discussion (because it is objectively easier to read a fixed width column (less eye-movement and line-length to track, on eg. a widescreen monitor with maximized window), but many editors (including me) are frustrated by it). There are a few possibilities, incl. A) Putting a floating Table of Contents in that area, which is one experimental feature of the upcoming front-end overhaul. B) including some other type of useful information in that currently-empty space. Possibly some sort of power-user tool, so the interface is uncluttered for newcomers, but dense-with-tools for those who want it? Suggestions would be appreciated! or C) a user-preference.
• ToC: See above for one option. But some form of ToC is definitely needed/coming.
• Infinite scrolling is currently being re-examined. It does seem to be more troublesome than pagination, in many ways. (See also this thread below.) More news, when I hear it.
• Threading levels are also being re-examined, with all options on the table. There's definitely going to be a "quote another person's comment" feature (like bugzilla, gmail, forums, etc), which might mean that a flat plain-chronological layout could be used. I'm currently looking around for examples of long discussions where threading is/was crucial (and where "split topic" wouldn't be a good alternative/option). Please send me examples, if you find anything pertinent.
• The comment box at the bottom of each topic is indeed quite confusing, and gets used regularly when the respondent should instead have clicked "Reply". I believe alternatives are being considered - will check.

HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): btw with regard to width: what about making the width 'draggable' and save the value to localStorage ? (I've been thinking about adding that to wikieditor). —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:53, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

TheDJ: I'll ping User:SG (WMF) and User:MGalloway (WMF) for their input. (Shahyar and May: See the bullet-point above that begins, "This aspect is still under extensive internal discussion ..." for what I've said on the issue) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Spam

As you can easily see, this page has been hit with a massive spam attack. Are there any anti-spam measures that Flow still doesn't have?

(Also, I tried to find somewhere on MediaWiki where I could request blacklisting of the commonly-spammed websites, but couldn't find anywhere. Is there anything along those lines here?) Jay8g (talk) 17:30, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what kinds of anti-spam measures Flow does or does not have, but you can request blacklisting at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist most conveniently. GeorgeBarnick (talk) 01:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

GeorgeBarnick: That's the problem: MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist doesn't exist here. That's the first place I checked. Jay8g (talk) 02:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: You'll have to create it. ;-) GeorgeBarnick (talk) 10:17, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

GeorgeBarnick: But then no one would notice it... luckily, with a bit more digging, I found Project:Current issues and will try posting there. Jay8g (talk) 17:08, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

GeorgeBarnick and Jay8g: We're waiting for Extension:ConfirmEdit integration (captchas for external link additions by non-autoconfirmed accounts). The currently existing methods are detailed at Extension:Flow/Spam. I'll delete the remaining threads, and add some more domains to the Spam-blacklist. Thanks for your help with this, here and at Talk:Beta_Features/Hovercards. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Number of displayed topics and moderation

When topics are moderated to a level that a user can't see them, they still count for the displayed topics. Therefore, when many recent topics are deleted, non-admins have to click "Older topics" many times to see anything. I noticed this on Talk:Beta Features/Hovercards, where many topics have been deleted due to a massive spam attack. Jay8g (talk) 00:12, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Those topics should load by themselves, without clicking on anything. (They do in Firefox and Chrome testing, at least). It takes about 3 seconds to load up each new batch of 10 topics. The lack of "Loading More" indicator, makes it hard to see that something is happening in the background though.

[Pause, test, addendum:] Ah, there's also a variance depending on whether the "Older topics" link is above or below the fold. I've updated bugzilla:58935 with details.

However, the team wants to re-examine the way deleted topics are dealt with and displayed, and also the pros/cons of infinite scrolling, so this will be a good example for that. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:23, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Bugzilla bug numbers as meta-data on a thread

I want a way to add {{Tracked }} or its equivalent to a prominent (top?) place on a Flow thread, without having to edit someone else's comment.

This is not a pretty solution. I want Flow to do better than LiquidThreads. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:24, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Whatamidoing (WMF): You could use the summary box, like I tested here. (Unfortunately, it doesn't display quite right.) Jay8g (talk) 13:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)