Talk:Structured Discussions/2014/06

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.

Pinning topics

After a few contributions to the talk page on Hovercards, I've noticed that "dancing pop-ups" tend to be brought up by far the most frequently, and always answered as being something that has a patch released soon.

This got me wondering; is there any function in Flow to pin topics? Since it is a frequently-addressed issue, it would make sense for it to be featured for a while. And if not already present, although I know it somewhat runs counter to the point of Flow, I feel that a restricted implementation of pinned topics would help with frequently-addressed issues like this. With potentially a collapsed sizing (maybe around the height of hidden topics), and a restriction on number and/or duration that it can be pinned, I think it could be a useful addition.

Feel free to let me know if I'm reinventing the wheel, though. Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 09:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Sasuke Sarutobi: Thanks! The idea of "pinned" or "sticky" topics has been briefly mentioned before, but the team hasn't started researching that feature yet. Your point of "restriction on duration" is an interesting one - some other requested/potential features involve time-based resolutions or reminders, so that could be a possibility, although it would add a lot more complexity to both the code and the interface.

In regards to "frequently raised issues" getting duplicated, there are 3 other partial solutions:

• Being able to "sort topics by most recent activity" is being developed at the moment, with a great brainstorm of other sorting-methods suggested at en:User:Hhhippo/Flow (please suggest more, on the talkpage there).
• Merging (and splitting) topics - this is on the Flow/Release planning list for "future features". It's definitely needed. No ETA at the moment though.
• A Table of Contents is definitely coming in some form. The designers are still looking at possibilities. They're considering a floating ToC in the currently-empty whitespace at right, possibly with fancy meta-data built-in; well as the normal/default ToC design.

HTH. Keep the ideas coming! Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Where's the table of contents?

My thought: "this iteration of Flow has no table of contents? IT SUCKS". Sorry to be so frank, but whoever removed this should be trouted. Now, if I am misremembering things and FLOW never had ToC, then I hope you add this (but I'd think I'd have noticed this major feature missing before). Also, I am not seeing a sign button, so that's another fail. How can you even test it without such basing functionality? Wasn't this being developed for years? And that's the current release? If I didn't know better, I'd think open source development is a fail. Since I know, I'll say that the history of FLOW seems to be at the very least an exception that proves that rule. Ok, that's enough ranting, I know you guys are trying your best. I like most other things I am seeing, the design looks "sleak", but it's missing basic functionality I'd expect. Cheers, ~ Piotrus (talk) 08:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Piotrus: signing is automatic and Flow never had a ToC, but one is under development. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 11:52, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to see that. ProgramCeltic (talk) 14:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

How do I unsubscribe a thread?

How do I unsubscribe a thread? Christian75 (talk) 21:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Christian75: They're working on brainstorming that feature, right now. :)

Ongoing work can be seen in Trello at subscribe-to-individual-threads. It's going to be one of the more complicated features to get "right" for everyone, so they'll be asking for additional community input on it, soon. I'll ping you when it ramps up further (and request input via the upcoming Newsletter). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Why isnt this topic (current) in my list "contributions"? Christian75 (talk) 21:18, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Christian75: It is in your Special:Contributions/Christian75. I'm guessing you mean why isn't it in the Navpopups listing? (please confirm, or clarify) That's a known-bug. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): Yes, special:Contributions - (I just wrote the name from the top of the page). Normally I check replies to my comments (and other commits) by checking contributions. I do not (normally) use the watchlist - too much spam on that list (on enwiki). Christian75 (talk) 22:47, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): Maybe I wasnt clear enough. In Special:Contributions/Christian75 you can see all my contributions, but you can alse see if any of my post are the current article (its marked with (current)). But not for flow talk pages, its never show any (current). Christian75 Christian75 (talk) 21:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Christian75: Oh! I see what you mean now. Sorry for the confusion. I do use that method too, sometimes. I'll file a bug, later tonight. Thanks. (Edit: Late but eventual: Bugzilla:67325.) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Related: how do I subscribe to a thread (without participating in it)? This is a rhetorical question, as I see that's being addressed in the trello card mentioned by Quiddity. I'm just adding it here for reference. Waldyrious (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

How do I see and copy the wikitext of another person's comment?

Okay, I guess it's still being worked on for this: link. Atethnekos (talk) 21:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Threading

The threading right now only goes to 4 levels. What number will be allowed in the finished product? 23.91.150.8 (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We're still figuring that out as we go. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

BTW plz make it configurable per-wiki and per-namespace. Gryllida 10:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Hover shadow draws after hover border

When hovering over a post, the shadow effect below it draws a fraction of a second after the borders around the other sides are drawn. It's distracting and annoying.

I'm using latest Chrome on Windows. — Scott • talk 20:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about that! That'll be fixed in our next release -- we're actually changing the way we handle that hover shadow, and it'll look cleaner. That should be out either next week, or the week after. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

First time user (of Flow)

It's taken me about a week to find that this greyed out Start new topic thing actually does something. I'm sure I clicked it earlier and got nowhere. Idiotic. It looks (in Firefox 20) like it's an option that's not activated for the current user rather than the way in to edit. I presume the even paler box below threads is to add to them. Why is this pale grey used? With a thin lined sans font, it will make reading difficult for those with vision problems. The contents of this box is straining my eyes, and I have good vision apart from being long-sighted. If this is Flow, no thanks. Give me a proper talk page where things are readable if not fashionable for fashion's sake. ~ Peridon (talk) 14:04, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Peridon: The frond-end redesign, which is supposed to go live sometime in the next few weeks, has a much more visible new topic box. Jay8g (talk) 01:47, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

BTW (referring to another thread) - what the hell does 'unsubscribing a thread' mean? Peridon (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Peridon: They're adding a feature to let us watchlist (subscribe) to a single thread (topic). The details are still being discussed and brainstormed. Now would be a great time to dream out-loud, as to how you envisage it might work. (Either by describing the different options we might have, or by pointing to other web-platforms that you've found to handle this feature particularly well). Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Contents table

Very obviously there is no contents listing here. Is there one planned for the version to come? Or will one have to scroll through everything? Peridon (talk) 17:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Peridon: it is being worked on for the next iteration i've been told. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 22:00, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

TheDJ and Peridon: They will definitely create some form of Table of Contents - it's absolutely probably necessary in some form - but it might take longer than the "next few weeks" they were previously estimating, and possibly not in the format previously shown in mockups. Apologies for the confusion. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF): I don't know that I agree that a table of contents is "Absolutely necessary". I don't know that anyone can truly say that yet.

When rebuilding from zero, it is best to remove all things and then slowly re-add missing parts based on obvious need.

For example, we don't have a solid, functional search or filter system yet. It could be that the search is all that is required, which would then relegate a table of contents into some sort of vestigial thing that requires support ever after.

I would prefer to avoid cruft-inclusion scenarios until absolutely required. Jorm (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Jorm (WMF): Ah, true. Absolutes are filled with uncertainty! I've struck and appended, to my comment above. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:59, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Readability

I find the current Flow layout extremely busy and difficult to read. The first time I opened a page with Flow, I was dumbfounded, because it wasn't apparent to me what the topic name, comment text, commenter, etc. were.

What is wrong with the layout that is used in discussions nowadays, with content first and metadata in the background? I think that the comment text should be the most pronounced element, with the author having a slight highlight and all the rest being muted, if I may put it so. Matěj Grabovský (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Special:Flow by default

It seems that permalinks and other Flow links should use Special:Flow URLs (or some other internal-linkable URL) by default to enable easy internal linking to Flow pages. Currently, these links are somewhat hidden, while creating internal links to Flow topics/posts easily seems like necessary functionality. Jay8g (talk) 01:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

How to edit my previous IP messages ?

Hi, I never could find a way to correct or to add something to a post, after editing it by mistake with IP identification. I can see the pencil icon to change a topic title, Reply • Thank, or the link to access history. That's all. No "Edit". This a is big loss compared to the usual way of talking on Wikipedia. Salix (talk) 09:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Salix: This WT:Flow thread is relevant. IPs currently can't edit their own posts, which I feel should be changed, but it sounds like you are discussing editing your IP comments when logged in, and they can't be connected by the program. Jay8g (talk) 15:47, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: Exactly. As IP or User, one should be able to correct his own text afterwards. Salix (talk) 20:53, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Salix: Editing others' comments is a bit controversial at the moment. I feel that it could work with specific things:

• A message is shown to the editing user, saying something like "You are editing another user's comment. This is typically discouraged", perhaps with a link to an appropriate policy, to discourage people from doing this in most circumstances.
• There is a clear message on the edited comment: Edited [time] by [user]. (I feel this should be done already, especially since admins already can edit others' comments.)
• Users get a notification when one of their comments is edited by another user. (Again, maybe should already be done.)
• There is a clear way to undo the change. (This is already desperately needed for editable things, such as the header and thread titles.)

I'm not sure about whether IPs should be allowed to edit others' comments. I'm leaning no right now, basically making comments semi-protected against vandalism, but there is merit to the idea of allowing everyone to edit comments, like in the current system.

Perhaps a user preference could help matters by allowing users to opt out of (or perhaps opt in to) allowing others to edit their comments.

The EnWP guideline shows the circumstances in which editing others' comments is useful, but I feel Flow may be reducing those. Jay8g (talk) 17:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Jay8g: I am NOT asking to be alowed to edit other users' comments. Only to be able to edit MY comments made as IP. If it is not possible, the only usefull message to show in big red letters would be "You are logged as IP for the present, you will not be allowed to correct your message after editing it. Even if you are logged in ! ". Salix (talk) 21:17, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Salix: Yeah, I am pretty sure it would not be possible to make sure it is actually your IP edit. (There is an IP warning, though, at least in the front end redesign version.) Jay8g (talk) 22:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup, there's a large IP warning in the update that comes out tomorrow. (Note: beta.wmflabs.org is generally the most "live" version of the dev's work, now that the frontend rewrite has been merged to the 'master' code branch.)

See also the new topic at Violation of the free editing Wiki principle (which I'll cross-link to here.) (I'm looking forward to [future feature] being able to refactor topics, to merge and split ;)

Overall, the settings are currently experimental (as noted in Flow/FAQ#Components of the discussion system and in Flow/FAQ#Will we be able to edit other people.27s posts.3F), and this feedback is much appreciated. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 2 July 2014 (UTC)