Talk:Talk pages project/2021

This page is for discussing the Talk pages project. The software interface on this page is Structured Discussions ("Flow"), which is not part of the Talk pages project.

Editing news 2021 #1

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Reply tool

The Reply tool is available at most Wikipedias.

• The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
• It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.

Research notes:

• As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
• We have preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[1]
• The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[2] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
• A large A/B test will start soon.[3] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. You can still turn it on or off for your own account in Special:Preferences.

New discussion tool

The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[4] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.

Next: Notifications

During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at notifications-talk.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

18:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Change Structured Discussions to DiscussionTools on mediawiki.org

Hello! I think it's worth thinking about a way to turn off old discussions, what do you think? :) Iniquity (talk) 17:12, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Ideally would be a consensus. And I agree! Patrik L. (talk) 17:15, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's premature and we shouldn't rush the team whilst they're still analysing how well it works. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

It just seems to me that the best way to test an extension is to use it on the original engine site :) Iniquity (talk) 17:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Conversation tool problem (beta)

I edit mostly on the Hebrew Wikipedia

New issue from the last few days:

Instead of displaying next to each title [edit source code] as usual, the title is displayed twice in a row (e.g .: Noa LeviNoa Levy)

The issue was resolved when I removed the "Talk Tool" beta option ידידיה צ' צבאן (talk) 09:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@ידידיה צ' צבאן the title of a section appearing twice sounds like it would be confusing and distracting to see...we appreciate you making us aware of this.

Two resulting questions for you:

1) Are you able to share a screenshot of what you are seeing?

2) Are you able to share a link to the page(s) where you experienced this issue? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you,

I just tried again and everything is fine, but yesterday the problem was on various pages in the Hebrew Wikipedia. At least on those: he:ויקיפדיה:מיזמי ויקיפדיה/ח"כים פוטנציאליים/ארכיון, he:שמחה רוטמן ידידיה צ' צבאן (talk) 19:30, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I just tried again and everything is fine

We're glad to hear this – thank you for letting us know as much, @ידידיה צ' צבאן.

If you encounter this issue again, we would value knowing what steps we could take to reproduce this issue. The kind of information that will be helpful are things like:

• A screenshot of the issue you are seeing and the link to the page(s) you experienced the issue on
• A list of steps we could take to reproduce the issue PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:29, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Reported again in Talk:Talk pages project/2021#h-Double_Headline_(Conversation_tool_beta)-2021-02-12T21:40:00.000Z with some examples, I filed T274709. Matma Rex (talk) 18:45, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Double Headline (Conversation tool beta)

Somehow, I can see that there is a double Headline because of this beta feature, that means that instead of seeing "Uses", I see "UsesUses". For your attention. Euro know (talk) 21:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Can you share a link to a page where this is happening? Matma Rex (talk) 23:32, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Until now, it happened in 1 Wikipedia page and 3 talk pages (happened in here, here, here and here). Euro know (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, I see the issue as well. I filed T274709 with some more details – the bug affects pages with the quote mark " in the title. I can see why it's happening and we should be able to fix it on Monday. Matma Rex (talk) 18:44, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

(Actually, today is a US holiday – Washington's Birthday – so we're not deploying any software changes except for emergencies, and I don't think this is severe enough considering that the reply tool is still a beta feature. It should be fixed tomorrow.) Matma Rex (talk) 15:23, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Rientro

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T265750

On Italian Wikipedia we have a specific convention called rientro. It happens when you write a reply or an update message which isn't indented, like the first message, because of its length or its importance. To alert the others, you use the the template {{rientro}} at the beginning of the message. How can I use this tool to handle that situation? Ferdi2005 16:23, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Right now, you can't do this perfectly. This is planned for the future, and it is waiting on some other adjustments.

As a workaround, if you reply to the first comment, it will usually place your new comment at the end of the thread (if the whole thread is correctly formatted) with only one : indentation. You can add the {{rientro}} template in the wikitext source mode (but not in the visual mode, because of another problem). Alternatively, you can use your normal wikitext editor, which works just like it always has. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Wrong depth of indentation

You might like to know that when I just did this edit, discussion tool failed to include the correct number of colons for indenting my answer. Aschmidt (talk) 17:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

This occurred because the first comment in that section has an invalid signature (it doesn't link to the user page), causing it not to be detected, and thus causing the indentation of the other comment to be detected incorrectly. Matma Rex (talk) 15:56, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for explaining – albeit that it is allowed to have such a signature, at least on dewiki. But now we know what needs to be improved in the tool. Aschmidt (talk) 16:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

As a result of the New requirements for user signatures, that style of signature will (eventually, maybe next year) be disallowed by the software. You won't be required to have a link specifically to the User: page, but every user will need to have one (direct) link to the account. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I see. So, you'll probably not fix this problem because it does not need to be addressed any more. Aschmidt (talk) 06:12, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Interferes with or lacks watchlist expiry feature

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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Turns out that the Reply tool currently lacks the watchlist expiry feature. When I use the Reply tool, the watchlist star changes. Or I must say that I have to either permanently watch or un-watch a page. I recently disabled the tool, so I must await the problem to be fixed. George Ho (talk) 22:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

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

Unwanted nowiki tags

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T279574

Hi. I'm not sure if you've heard this already, but the new tool keeps adding <nowiki> tags when I try to use templates or diffs in a comment. I'm going to go back to Enterprisey's Reply-link tool until this issue is fixed. Clayoquot (talk) 23:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

You probably have to switch from Visual mode to Source mode. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 08:33, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Templates are disabled in the visual mode because @Lofhi discovered that multi-line templates (such as an infobox) make a mess. You can paste the wikitext code for a template into the visual mode, and it will interpret that as wikitext, but just typing it out will be escaped. This is handy if I want to tell you to type {{thank you}} but not when I actually want to say Thank you.

Templates will be re-enabled for the visual mode after the technical RFC about how wikitext handles multi-line comments is resolved. In the meantime, as Matěj Suchánek says, you can type templates in the wikitext source mode. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:56, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

But why was inserting multi-line templates a problem? It seems to me that the fact that DiscussionTools inserts : too liberally is what was the main issue in that task, not the fact that you could insert templates via visual mode. Ideally, DiscussionTool should leverage Parsoid (since it uses it) or some other programming magic to stop inserting sequences of : in parameters and closing brackets, since that was what breaking the code in the first place.

For example, this (adapted from one of their place) is perfectly functioning wikitext right now, without multi-line comments:

::::::::::Weird test:
::::::::::{{Graphique polygonal
| pas_grille_principale = 10
| nb_abscisses = 10
| y_max = 11
| S01V01 = 2200
| lb_x1 = 1
| nb_series = 1
}}
:::::::::[[Category:Page utilisant une frise chronologique]] [[Utilisateur:Lofhi|Lo<i>fhi</i>]] ([[Discussion Utilisateur:Lofhi|me contacter]]) 26 mai 2020 à 18:31 (CEST)

Seems wrong that the chosen route for this was ‘disable multi-line template insertion’ instead of ‘fix how DiscussionTools handles multi-line template invocations’. There are perfectly reasonable use cases where one would want to use wikitext like that, IMO. stjn^[ru] 22:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I eventually found the Source mode and it works well. It would be nice if the editor could detect that you're probably trying to add a template or external link, and ask you if you want to switch to Source mode. Clayoquot (talk) 05:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

You can add external links in the visual mode.

I'll file a request for a note about switching to Source mode. That's a good idea. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Ideally, there would be a way to tag templates as having output that is line-break-safe &/or block-element-safe. This might be useful in other contexts, not just ReplyTool. (Note, this is distinct from Stjn's example above where the template input in source mode is multi-line.) Pelagic (talk) 09:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T230683

Getting templates is stalled on making a change (addinig extra syntax) to wikitext, which is blocked on officially starting the technical RFC process. It might be easier just to get that over with than to identify the safe templates. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Option to remove sig at end?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T279578

I've been trying this beta feature for a while now on the English Wikipedia, and I like it. There's one feature that I hope can be reworked. Currently, posting a comment will insert the user's signature at the very end, which is useful for those of us who forget. That being said, there are times where having the signature at the very end isn't wanted, such as using a {{Reftalk }} template at the very end. Could this be overridden by inserting four tildes in the comment and have the signature render there and not at the end?

ETA: I also notice that there are some issues with certain templates that has their transclusion break with indenting, like reftalk. Perhaps an option to remove indents could be considered? Tenryuu (talk) 19:44, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Problem in mobile T280433

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T280433

FYI: DiscussionTools makes talk page sections uncollapsible on mobile has been reported in phab:T280433.Xaosflux (talk) 09:28, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

To add, sections in project space have become uncollapsible too. Large pages like

en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

are very difficult to navigate in mobile view because of this. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

On the theory that people who encountered this unfortunate bug may be interested in the mobile site:

The Reply tool may become available for editors using the mobile site some time during July. (No promises.) It looks and works approximately the same as the desktop version, except that when you're typing, the box is full-width, so it will look like it's going to reply without any indentation, but it will be in the correct (horizontal) place when you post the comment. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit summaries include wikitext markup in new section heading links

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T275178

When using the new discussion feature to create a new section that includes wikitext markup (e.g. links and italics) in the section heading, the resulting edit summary incorrectly includes the markup in the link to the new section.

For example, in en:Special:Diff/1019015313, I created a new section titled Test (italicized), but the resulting edit summary includes a broken section link to ''Test'', with the apostrophes included. This bug also affects links in the new section heading. It does not affect the reply feature.

Here are the results of several tests:

Results of new section tests

Diff	New section name	Edit summary section link
en:Special:Diff/1019015313	Test	''Test''
en:Special:Diff/1019017088	Test	[[Test]]
en:Special:Diff/1019015131	Test	[[Test]]
en:Special:Diff/1019015223	Another test	Another ''[[test]]''
en:Special:Diff/1019019296	Link	[[Piped link|link]]
en:Special:Diff/1019016491	Another link	Another [[piped link|link]]

On a general note, I am very impressed with the user experience of the new features from the talk pages project. Keep up the excellent work! Newslinger (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

This bug is still open, but I don't remember noticing the problem recently. (I haven't been looking.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Where in Translatewiki?

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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Hi,

There is no information in the textboxes such as "Help with the translations", or at least not so easy to find for contributors. Where can I find the strings to translate the new features already implemented into Catalan? Thank you! Xavier Dengra (talk) 10:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Xavier Dengra Hi, it is easy. See this video. Is it clear? Patrik L. (talk) 10:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey, that's good! Thank you very much @Patrik L.! Sometimes it was not easy for me to track open translations and that will definitely help. Best! Xavier Dengra (talk) 12:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Xavier Dengra try this link please. Thanks. Dyolf77 (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you @Dyolf77 (WMF), much appreciated! Xavier Dengra (talk) 12:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

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

Time to remove from Beta

I think that this is a great tool. It is now so much easier to discuss things on Wikipedia. I kept forgetting to add a signature but when I activated this tool yesterday, talk pages became so easy! I think that it should be now removed from the beta features and be put in the normal experience. StarshipSLS (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad that you like it. The numbers from the research project were amazing. I agree with you that the Reply tool is ready to "graduate". However, right now, there's a technical situation with the Parser cache that needs to be solved before the devs will agree to make it more generally available. Even when it's stable, they may want to move slowly after that. I don't know if the English Wikipedia will be high on their list. They might want to do some of the smaller wikis first. (Or, it might go the other way around. This problem is about duplication between users and non-users, so they might decide that it's best to switch the biggest wikis over first. We'll have to wait until they've sorted things out.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Ok. Can you please let me know when the issue is fixed? Will the issue affect my responses to talk pages? StarshipSLS (talk) 23:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

If you put Talk pages project/Replying on your watchlist, I think you'll get a notification every tine someone starts a new thread on its talk page, which means you should see any big announcements from Peter (the product manager). But it might be obvious, since the [reply] button will just start showing up everywhere.  :-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Tool inserting nowikis into previous sections in visual mode

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T284023

@Whatamidoing (WMF) I just had the tool insert a random <nowiki> onto a talk page, in a section far above the one I was replying to, which messed up the formatting of the whole page. The diff is at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Titles&diff=prev&oldid=1026131360, but for some reason, while the <nowiki> shows up in the source of the page and you can see its effect in the preview, the diff doesn't display that line as being changed. Ahecht (talk) 15:51, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Duplicate signature bug

When I tried to use DiscussionTools with ==Discussion at [[]]== [[File:Symbol watching blue lashes high contrast.svg|25px|link=|alt=]] You are invited to join the discussion at [[]]. [[User:Flow cleanup bot|Flow cleanup bot]] ([[User talk:Flow cleanup bot|talk]]) 18:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC), it signed for me twice. Could this be fixed? It also didn't provide an edit summary because the header is included in the template; resolving that would be good as well. Sdkb ^talk 21:55, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, my question exactly, I also use some templates like this which contain a signature inside - and this gadget signs them again.

I looked and couldn't find the 'don't sign this post' checkbox, which would be a simple workaround (since having the tool figure out which tempaltes should not be signed might be impossible?). Piotrus (talk) 06:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

This is not currently possible. There is no way for the software to know what the template contains.

I wonder if it would make sense to standardize all templates on the same/non-signing behavior. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

"not currently possible"? I really have to doubt that—surely it's possible for the reply tool to detect four tildes? (Doesn't it already do that if you try to sign manually at the end?) This is an issue that absolutely has to be solved before this tool can go out of beta. Regarding standardization, the nice thing for {{Please see}} is that it's subst-only, so we could change its behavior if we wanted without messing up the past instances. But that's not true for all templates that have this problem. Sdkb ^talk 19:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

When you type ==Discussion at [[]]==

 You are invited to join the discussion at [[]]. Flow cleanup bot (talk) 18:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC) into the box, there are no tildes. The Reply tool can detect tildes in its box. It cannot detect tildes that are added after the message leaves its box.

You might be interested in reading about the pre-save transforms system. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The work around I can think of is a checkbox (turned on by default) with 'sign this post' (or alternatively a checkbox not to sign). I.e. a one click way to make sure we don't leave double sig, if making the soft detect double sigs in templates is too hard for now. Piotrus (talk) 05:34, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't work on my talk page...

Which, granted, is pretty customized. The error I get is "The "reply" link cannot be used to reply to this comment. To reply, please use the full page editor by clicking "Edit source"." Now, interestingly, the user script at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enterprisey/reply-link still works (most of the time) on my page, so it seems more robust that your tool here. Might be worth checking why that is.

Oh yeah, my talk page is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Piotrus Piotrus (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe because it is in table. wargo (talk) 20:53, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Weirdly, when I copy your /talkheader page directly into a test page, it works fine. I'm not sure what the problem is. Feel free to poke around in my sandbox's talk page if you want to try to debug it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Could be a problem with some particular post. I copied everything else and replicated the problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Whatamidoing_(WMF)/sandbox

Now I guess we need to delete posts one by one and see when this error stops triggering. This could help identify the broken code. Piotrus (talk) 04:56, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I tried a couple of things, and didn't find the pattern. The header by itself works, the commments by themselves work, but together, it doesn't. It might be a "combination" rather than a simple thing. Please do post here if you figure it out. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

I did a bunch of 'remove x' and see what happens. What I ended up with was removing the transclusion (see here and here) and it fixed the problem. The weird thing is that no code was removed except the transclusion itself. I don't think it was the struck out old code, as removing it from the transcluded page didn't help. But it the transculsion to {{User:Piotrus/Top}} which is still present does work. Any ideas what's going on? Piotrus (talk) 06:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

No. Honestly, I think this is beyond our level, and we'd have to ask someone on the Parsing team. Well – maybe @Izno could figure it out? He's got a lot of experience with sorting out Special:LintErrors and this is probably related. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:33, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Looks like this is sorted now, I see Piotrus has recently made an edit with Reply. Izno (talk) 00:57, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

@Izno Yes, but that required me to remove transclusion of subpage. Not sure if this actually matters (as in - does it include load time for my talk page), but we are still puzzled why it didn't work in the first place. It should, the fact that it did not means there is some bug somewhere, related to transcluding subpages/parsin. We did what we could - identified what causes the error. Now, the code needs to be fixed to prevent others form having to deal with the same problem, no? Piotrus (talk) 04:26, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, so, the general-est rule with how our parsers work is that all content be well-formed i.e. all the HTML and wikitables have matching closing wikitext/HTML. If you don't close things, you get bad behavior. On talk pages, there is a known pattern where someone who wants a full page border/background will leave an element open with the appropriate stylings, like a wikitable or a <div>. This is often put into a transcluded header as you did. The case where something is unclosed but is transcluded cannot be handled by the Reply system generally; it knows there is something wrong with the page it is on but not what because the what is hidden by the transclusion. However, there is a specific workaround where the system allows the user to put that unclosed element directly into the talk page's wikitext, wherein the system will say "hey, this is unclosed, let me just ignore it". In this revision, you made it obvious to the system what that element was: You have a wikitable starting with {| width="100%". Accordingly, Reply started working. Izno (talk) 00:37, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Izno I see, but why is the system able deal with this error when it is on that page, but not when it is on a subpage? Shouldn't the error on a subpage be either invisible, or if it is visible, treated the same way? It's like the system is getting information from the subpage that there is the error, but not what it is, and refuses to work without further information, treating the error as critical by default? Piotrus (talk) 03:10, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Note that that's how I understand it. I don't think you'll get any work on it. There are a couple devs who can probably explain why if you really want to know. Izno (talk) 14:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Izno Low priority? I'd have thought it would be a more common problem but if it's not, that's ok. But could you file in a properly formatted bug report? I don't know how to do so, but it does seem like something that in theory, one day, should be fixed, no? Piotrus (talk) 14:46, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Low priority, high effort, clear and trivial work around, and providing the workaround has already been actively worked as part of this project. (It's documented at Help:DiscussionTools.)

I'm not going to file a report for this one, sorry. @Matma Rex may be interested in filing one or knowing if there is one to hand, or even if it would be technically feasible to resolve at all. (Developers should provide a link from their personal account to their developer account. ;) Izno (talk) 02:04, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

> (Developers should provide a link from their personal account to their developer account. ;)

Or maybe not, if the personal account is more likely to reach the dev. ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:32, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

(Devs should specify which is more likely to reach the dev as the dev? ;) Izno (talk) 22:02, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Feel free to file a bug, I couldn't find an existing one (although I feel like I've discussed the same problem on Phabricator somewhere…).

It's definitely a real issue, and in theory, one day, it should be fixed. But making it work would require changes in Parsoid, basically the same thing that would be required to have visual editing of template parameters in VisualEditor (currently, everything in the template dialog is edited as wikitext), which have a task for them: T71870 but it hasn't been touched since 2015. Matma Rex (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@Matma Rex "Feel free to file a bug". Could you be so kind and to file it? As I said, I don't know how. Piotrus (talk) 02:13, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Sure, I filed T287040. Matma Rex (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

When there is an edit conflict, the tool seems to find a way to publish anyways, which is nice. However, it does not include the {{Edit conflict }} tag, which can be important (as otherwise in some cases it can look like you're ignoring the person above you). Could the tool be changed to start adding it when needed? Sdkb ^talk 22:50, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

That template only exists on about 15 of the 321 Wikipedias.

The Editing team has been talking about displaying a message to let editors know that there has been an edit conflict. Then editors could decide whether they wanted to take any action based on that information. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

A message could be another approach if it's deemed more desirable. But I wouldn't let the current lack of a template in some languages be an impediment—it's a trivially simple template to create. Sdkb ^talk 18:44, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It would mean translating the template, documentation and all other stuff for 306 Wikipedias (and maybe some more projects), and enforcing the introduction of a template in their way of operating. Wikipedia's are independent, so this would at least require a good introduction and discussion. RonnieV (talk) 14:35, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Editing news 2021 #2

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.

The key results were:

• Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
• The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.

These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.

Looking ahead

The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.

The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.

You can turn on "Discussion tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

14:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Make the mention a user button add Template:Reply template in English Wikipedia

Currently in the English Wikipedia, the mention a user button outputs as @[[User:Example|Example]]. Imo, I feel it would be better to outputs as {{ping|Example}} or {{reply|Example}} or {{replyto|Example}} which automatically add or subsitute the @ symbol and also reduce the additional display syntax such as the wikilink to the username. Or maybe, such options could be added to the preferences as optional feature. Paper9oll 15:55, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

This would be a site specific configuration since there is no warranty that any template is existing, under which name, even whether spelling of latin letters is welcome in a project not using latin scripting and most users cannot read p, i, n, g.

The current solution is independent of site infrastructure and fool-proof. PerfektesChaos (talk) 18:42, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah I see, didn't think that far. Guess that isn't any option to be explored. Paper9oll 14:42, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Opting out of the Autosignature

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T283631

Currently on en.wikivoyage, if you want to place a barncompass (similar to Wikipedia's barnstars), it'll autosign the signature, after the template. You'd then have to remove the signature after on another edit. It is the only reason why I don't use it on Wikivoyage, and I would like to know how you can get rid of this feature. Thanks! SHB2000 (talk) 09:09, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I prefer --Flow cleanup bot (talk) 18:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

this new tool is great, but i like to sign with two dashes and it doesnt allow that, so i have to insert the dashes by myself. RoyZuo (talk) 18:51, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

You could edit your signature in your preferences to include the dashes. See Help:Signatures#Customized signatures. the wub "?!" 19:13, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

no. otherwise when i sign with --~~~~ they would become four dashes. RoyZuo (talk) 19:14, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

But why would you do that? If you have the dashes built in your signature, simply don’t type them ever.

Also, it doesnt allow that isn’t true: the tool does allow signing with dashes, it just doesn’t insert them automatically. (Neither does the old editor.) Tacsipacsi (talk) 20:43, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

no. i always press the button that inserts two dashes and never types. i dont just use the new tool. on many occasions i am still using source code editor. the new tool doesnt allow the normal signature button. the question should be, why would the new tool not be consistent with the current source code editor? RoyZuo (talk) 05:54, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

You may also have the prefix changed for all users on the wiki by changing the local MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix page. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 08:57, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

The Reply tool will let you sign -- Rzuo (by default), but only at a few wikis (using non-Latin scripts) would you be able to add the double hyphen without an intervening space. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion tools per page?

As I understand it, Structured discussions can currently be enabled per page. Discussion tools, in contrast, is implemented as an opt-in view for each user. Is there any way to make Discussion tools effective per page instead of per user? Dan Shick (WMDE) (talk) 12:48, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

If the user has not enabled the beta feature, then there's no way to make them see the new tools.

If you don't see the tools despite enabling the beta feature, you probably can add the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word to the page. In MediaWiki it adds the "Add topic" tab next to the "Edit" tab, and we use it as a hint that the page is a discussion page and should have the tools.

Also, each wiki can be configured so that the tools are opt-out instead of a beta feature. You could get that done if you want everyone to see the tools. Matma Rex (talk) 13:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

If you are sending people to a particular page, then you could change the link they're using, e.g., to https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier?dtenable=1 Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I have indeed done just that, thank you! I discovered that query string solution buried in a Phabricator ticket. Dan Shick (WMDE) (talk) 07:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Archiving: a few observations and possible solutions

We all know how talk pages need to be moved to a subpage after getting too long, and sometimes OT comments/sections need to be copypasted in different talk pages, and how this break links and follows.

This happens because talk pages work like content pages but they really have different purposes: discussions are based on people's interest i.e. recent activity and number of contributions, not quality, exhaustiveness and such; and contributions are additions to the current version, showed in chronological order, not the constantly changing result of multiple additions, subtractions and modifications to already existing items.

It's very hard to make talk page work by following paradigms of something with such different purposes. So, which paradigm works better for discussions about different topics that are meant to last forever?

The only one I know is the good old forum paradigm: each topic gets its own page, and even single comments are considered their own item with their own ID, so they can be shuffled around easily without breaking links.

How can this translate to regular MediaWiki editable pages? Not well, I guess, but we could get closer to a forum-like structure without sacrificing the classic MediaWiki experience by:

• Treating any new comment (not reply) as a new section, so instead of "add topic" and such it should be "add comment". Basically what the NDT is already doing but without suggesting sections are intended to change topic.
• Not having to title sections. They could be automatically titled with a progressive number which is dynamically based on the current position of the comment in relations to other comments (such as an item in a numbered list).
• Section titles should also be much less evident and intrusive, maybe by showing the number on the left side of the comment instead of on top.
• Whatever method that is currently used to identify followed sections, should be used to identify single sections in order to being able move them to a different page. It would be optimal if that leaved an automatic message "this comment was moved to page X" with a link, or something like that.
• When a new comment makes the page reach a fixed limit in comments (or other statistics), the page is automatically moved to a subpage, while the comment itself stays in the parent page.
• An automatic list of subpages is created on top of talk pages, basically like vanilla breadcrumbs links, except they should also show the closest supbages and the last one.
• It would be really, really helpful to have a special version of RecentChanges that focused on what's important for discussions and doesn't show other things: user who added the last comment/reply (not any edit in general), time, an excerpt of the comment/reply, and a link to the comment and to the talk page where it's found. Users could include this simplified RC in any page where they want to keep track of discussions only. I know it's already doable with vanilla RCs but it's a little messy with all those additional infos. Wedhro (talk) 06:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Also, I noticed how users tend to ignore replies in the middle of the page and would rather focus on the comment on the bottom. It's probably more intuitive to consider the lowest comment as the most recent one i.e. always following a chronological order of replies.

The method used in forums is to have the reply always be on the bottom of the page as if it was a new comment, but providing a link to the comment it's replying to, or maybe even an excerpt of that comment if one chooses to quote-reply. I've seen this used on forums for years and it always felt more intuitive and organic. Wedhro (talk) 06:38, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

> Whatever method that is currently used to identify followed sections, should be used to identify single sections in order to being able move them to a different page.

This is already done in the Talk pages project/Notifications feature (which will arrive at most Wikipedias tomorrow, in the Beta Feature). You are subscribing to the first comment, so if the first comment is moved to another page, your subscription follows the comment. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:18, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Option to disable this for new section?

Is there any option to disable the dynamic replay section on user talk pages? There is a problem with pre-feeling replay section with text. Nux (talk) 20:18, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

As a user, you can disable it in Preferences → Editing → Discussion pages → Enable quick topic adding.

As a tool developer, you can add the URL parameter &dtenable=0 when your tool is opening a new section form which it is about to prefill, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Matma_Rex&action=edit&section=new&dtenable=0. Matma Rex (talk) 21:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

The time out time is too short

The time out time is too short that makes the extension thinks the reuqest could not be done, but actually the request done. Thats makes the user may click the "Submit" button multipla times and spam the talk page (Example in Chinese Wikipedia Teahouse, in the "《Minetest》條目應否也介紹預設遊戲？" section). Wiki emoji | 😷🅔🅜🅞🅙🅘🅦🅘🅚🅘😷 _{Keep Healthy～} 08:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

hi @Emojiwiki – we're glad you came here to report this. Can you please read this Phabricator task and tell me if it describes the same issue you experienced? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Frequent errors when saving

I frequently get the error "The server did not respond within the expected time." even though every time it happens, my reply had been saved.

The first couple of times it happened, I tried again only to find that I had replied twice because my first attempt at saving hadn't in fact failed. Since then, I've started checking the edit history to make sure. Then when I load the page again, it restores my "unsaved" reply and I have to manually cancel it.

It seems like there is an issue somewhere with how it works. I would expect a timeout to mean the save failed. There shouldn't be a big enough gap between successfully saving and the page receiving a response that it regularly manages to do one but not the other. Nikki (talk) 07:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

You shouldn't be getting this error frequently. I wouldn't expect anyone to see this more than once a week on average. (When I get it, I have the same experience: it has usually saved. Also, it seems to run in clusters: two or three times in one week, but not again for weeks.)

Do you use the visual editor for your normal editing? Do you ever see a similar error there? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:22, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Automatic Appending Signature on Talk pages

I'm using DiscussionTools which is the new replacement of Structured Discussion. The tool mostly works when signatures are involved. Is it possible to have New Topic and New Page creation under the Talk namespace to automatically add signatures if one is not provided? 70.109.137.70 (talk) 23:50, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Also want to make sure a new Discussion page also includes the signature.

index.php?title=Talk:TestPage&action=edit&redlink=1

When a Talk paage does not exist for a page, it shows up as a 'new article' post. 70.109.137.70 (talk) 23:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The New Discussion Tool (which works on not-yet-created talk pages as well on Wikimedia wikis since a few weeks) automatically adds signatures. This extension is still under development, so it may be that NDT is not yet available or enabled by default in the version you use. Automatically adding signatures in the traditional full-page editor is not possible, as not all edits are comments, and for example signing a WikiProject banner wouldn’t be a good idea. Tacsipacsi (talk) 08:31, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Auto subscription

T263819: Implement Automatic Topic Subscriptions

When creating a new topic, the user who created that topic should be automatically subscribed to that topic. This should be enabled/disabled from Preferences. --Paloi Sciurala (talk｜contribs) 16:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I think that the Editing team agrees with you. They are working on this.

Do you think that editors who reply to the topic (not creating the topic, but commenting in a topic created by someone else) should also be auto-subscribed to it? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes. I think that this option should be enabled/disabled from Preferences, too. --Paloi Sciurala (talk｜contribs) 17:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that sounds like a good idea. Ffffrr (talk) 18:29, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

As @Whatamidoing (WMF) mentioned above, it's timely for you all to be sharing this feedback as the team is actively working on adding the functionality you are describing.

Follow up questions for you both: @NGC 54, can you share what inspired you to suggest that automatically becoming subscribed be added? And @Ffffrr, can you shared what inspired you to agree with the suggestion @NGC 54 made? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I posted this topic. 2 comments were posted, but I did not received any notifications. --Paloi Sciurala (talk｜contribs) 22:57, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I see. So maybe this is pretty straightforward...

You started a new topic for discussion and wanted to be notified when people responded to it and you think it reasonable for the software to assume that you each time you start a new discussion you will want to be notified when someone responds.

Does the above seem accurate to you?

Also: do you think it would be reasonable for the software to assume you would want to be notified every time someone posts a comment in a discussion you also commented it, but did not start? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Does the above seem accurate to you?

Yes.

Also: do you think it would be reasonable for the software to assume you would want to be notified every time someone posts a comment in a discussion you also commented it, but did not start?

I showed an interest to that discussion, so likely yes, but I think that not all users would like to be notified for every comment from every discussion they participated to. --Paloi Sciurala (talk｜contribs) 11:48, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I saw a notification about this topic, and it seemed consistent to how Wikipedia and other Wiki projects work. Ffffrr (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I see, okay! Thank you for sharing this context. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Where can I find a whole list of subscriptions?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T273342

I regularly clear my watchlist. I wish I could do the same to topic subscriptions. I could not find an interface to do that. Is there a page that lists all topics I have subscribed to? MilkyDefer 17:32, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Not yet, but I hope there will be within a week or two (it will be called Special:TopicSubscriptions). In the meantime, you can track the development at phab:T273342 or try out it at a demo wiki (you can either register a new account, or log in as the existing user Alice with password patchdemo1). If you have any thoughts about the new special page, make sure to share them so that the developers can take them into account in the final version! Tacsipacsi (talk) 20:09, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

One of the open questions is: What do you want on that page? Do you want a "delete everything" button? A way to figure out what's old and what's new? Sort by page name or namespace? By how recently you (or someone) commented? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Before your question, I just wanted to have it on my Special:Watchlist and Special:EditWatchlist. However, after reading through that phabricator ticket I found the additional functionalities very appealing. Chinese Wikipedia has a bot that maintains a "topic list" on each of the Village Pump's subpages, which is well received. I think having a Special page like that should be handy. MilkyDefer 17:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia has a bot that maintains a "topic list" on each of the Village Pump's subpages, which is well received

@MilkyDefer the bot you are referring to above sounds interesting...are you able to share a link to it? I'm curious to learn more about what functionality it offers people. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@PPelberg (WMF): it is User:Cewbot, operated by User:Kanashimi. It maintains a topic list in a separate subpage, which is then transcluded into the main page.

• The user page of cewbot in zhwiki: w:zh:User:Cewbot
• The source code of this function: GitHub
• Example: w:zh:Wikipedia:互助客栈/消息/topic list (updated regularly by cewbot) lists current discussions happening on w:zh:Wikipedia:互助客栈/消息. The former is also transcluded into the latter.
• More examples: commons:Commons:Bots/Work requests, w:ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/ログ/今週 MilkyDefer 03:38, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

More examples: commons:Commons:Bots/Work requests, w:ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/ログ/今週

Oh, these examples are wonderful, @MilkyDefer! I'm grateful that you thought to mention this bot because it is precisely the kind of tool that I think could help inform how Special:TopicSubscriptions could evolve.

A couple of resulting questions for you...

Do you actively use any of the "topic lists" Cewbot generates? And if you do, can you share what you find useful about these lists? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:55, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

@PPelberg (WMF): Yes, I particularly like the way that topic list tells me when the last edit is. By using different colors, I can understand when a comment is added more quickly than reading the raw timestamp. Also, the link directly to the discussion is also useful.

The "topic list" has some other functional information on some pages. For example, on w:zh:WP:GAC, where people vote to decide whether an article could be a good article, the topic list has the live voting status listed, which is also useful. But for general discussions, the direct link and colored background is what I find most useful.

I would like to suggest that Special:TopicSubscriptions could add the background color feature. Also, if there is a topic that has new comments but I haven't visited, that entry could be marked in bold. The last-edit-time could link to that particular comment, is also preferred. MilkyDefer 03:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing this additional context, @MilkyDefer. Responses to some of what you shared below...

I particularly like the way that topic list tells me when the last edit is.

But for general discussions, the direct link and colored background is what I find most useful.

...topic that has new comments but I haven't visited, that entry could be marked in bold. The last-edit-time could link to that particular comment, is also preferred.

The three bits of functionality you named above was precisely the kind of information I was seeking. I've added these ideas to this new ticket in Phabricator: T295208: Make it easier to identify discussions with comments you have not read.

The "topic list" has some other functional information on some pages. For example, on w:zh:WP:GAC, where people vote to decide whether an article could be a good article, the topic list has the live voting status listed, which is also useful.

Can you share what you find useful about a community page like w:zh:WP:GAC containing a list of the discussions/votes going on within it? Asked another way: what does this table/list help you to do? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Subscription button not appearing

Here's an example. I just enabled the addon and the [reply] buttons are coming up, but [subscribe] is notably missing. Any thoughts why? Anarchyte (talk) 13:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Topic subscriptions are not available on English Wikipedia yet (unless you know this one weird trick). We're hoping to make it a part of the beta feature there soon, you can see our plans in task T290498 and the related tasks. Matma Rex (talk) 14:40, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Is there a way to change the default reply text through personal css/js/etc pages or is "Reply" the only option? Anarchyte (talk) 15:56, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not customizable. (I wonder why you wish to do that, though?) Matma Rex (talk) 17:54, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I usually use "re" rather than "Reply" when I'm responding. Just habits. Anarchyte (talk) 07:30, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Pinging users having different signature names

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T266401

Is there a feature to ping users who have different username and signature? Example [[User:ABC|XYZ]] (not real user). When I try to reply them using discussion tool, their username was showing up not their their signature name. So I've to edit in source code to ping them. Eevee01 (talk) 17:27, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

If you switch to source mode and back to visual mode, the ping link is no longer special, so you can edit the link text in visual mode as well. (I’m not sure if it’s to be considered a bug or a feature, but that’s how it works.) Or you can use the normal link feature instead of the ping feature. By the way, as far as I know, the ping feature is intentionally hard to work around, to prevent users from accidentally changing only the link text and keeping the old link target if they decide to ping someone else. Tacsipacsi (talk) 18:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Eevee01 (talk) 09:05, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

The "reply" link cannot be used to reply to this comment.

Straight question: I get the aforementioned message every time I try to edit this user talk page. What is happening? Klein Muçi (talk) 17:14, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Apparently there were linter problems on the page header. No special reason. Can the message be a tiny bit more informative? By what was being said, all this time I've suspected that the user had somehow opted out of the tool being used at its userpage, not that something else was preventing it. Klein Muçi (talk) 18:28, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

There is more detailed documentation here: Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment?#The "reply" link cannot be used to reply to this comment. The message is somewhat vague, because the tool doesn't really understand the problem – it just exits when the page does something weird with templates, to avoid damaging pages. (And also, we don't want to overwhelm users with long technical explanations.)

By the way, there is a separate (and more detailed) message when you can't reply because of a lint error: Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment?#Comments on this page can't be replied to because of an error in the wikitext Matma Rex (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: This is what I found about not being able to use the reply helper. When you weren’t able to use it for replying to me, were you posting to my Talk page, or there in the article Talk page? Either way, given how I’ve never tried to customize anything, I think it’s just being mean. ~ Strebe (talk) 19:17, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Article talk page. I can probably understand meanness more than I can lint errors. :) Doug Weller (talk) 19:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Strebe, @Doug Weller, can you post the link of the page you weren't able to use the reply tool? MAYBE I can provide a bit of help. Klein Muçi (talk) 23:07, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christopher_Columbus#:~:text=In%20the%20sciences,sources.%20Strebe%20(talk) Doug Weller (talk) 09:54, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi, I can’t post the link; I’m told: “<abusefilter-warning-linkspam>”. The article is the Talk page for Christopher Columbus on the English Wikipedia. Thanks. ~ Strebe (talk) 05:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Doug Weller, @Strebe, that's strange. Article talk pages usually are very standard so they RARELY have lint errors. And if you had a problem like that, the reply tool wouldn't be able to be used at all at that page, not in just one specific comment. I'm not sure what may be causing that specific comment to not have the link beside it. Maybe @Matma Rex, will be interested in this case. Klein Muçi (talk) 11:32, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I tried replicating the described situation as much as I could in my user talk page (https://sq.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P%C3%ABrdoruesi_diskutim:Klein_Mu%C3%A7i&oldid=2379762#Test) but the tool works on all cases. :/ Klein Muçi (talk) 11:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

There’s no lint error in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Christopher_Columbus&oldid=1063069432&dtenable=1#c-Doug_Weller-2021-12-30T10:20:00.000Z-Doug_Weller-2021-12-29T09:59:00.000Z – that comment is simply not recognized as such. If you open the above, you see (with light blue background) what the reply tool thinks to be one comment. See Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment?#No date and time. (By the way, Klein Muçi, not all lint errors affect the whole page. For example, Help:DiscussionTools/Why can't I reply to this comment?#Wrapper templates also is a result of a lint error, yet comments before and after the closed discussion can be replied to.) Tacsipacsi (talk) 10:42, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, so, to put it shortly, the answer is that that comment is missing date and time. Interesting. That's also the reason why I couldn't replicate the error in my page because there was a date and time there. (Thanks for the linter errors info.)

@Strebe, @Doug Weller, I guess that solves it. :) Klein Muçi (talk) 10:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi,Sort of. I have no idea why it would not have dated my comment.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Strebe (talk) 07:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Strebe, did you use the tool for adding that comment? Or was it added with the source code editor? Klein Muçi (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I used standard wiki markup with 4-tilde signature. Normally that adds the date. Strebe (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Strebe, maybe it was a human error then. Or not. The important thing is that now I assume we can say that the whole situation was outside the tool's fault. Klein Muçi (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Three tildes (an easy typo, when you meant to have four) will produce the user links without the date stamp. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

DT hijacks create new page process

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T293962

T297990: Clarify of "Enable quick topic adding" setting

Is there anyway to use discussion tools, but not have it hijack the process of creating new talk pages? When the url has ?redlink=1, the user trying to create a new page now has to go through extra steps to create the page using the standard editor. Xaosflux (talk) 11:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: good question.

You can restore the process for creating new talk pages I think you are referring to by disabling the New Discussion Tool.

To disable the New Discussion Tool, please do the following:

1. Visit Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing
2. Scroll to the section titled Discussion pages
3. "Uncheck" the checkbox next to the setting named Enable quick topic adding
4. ✅ Visit a talk page that has not yet been created and notice the experience you are likely used to has been restored

Note: the instructions above assume you have your interface language set to English. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

That works but I don't want to disable the new way of starting a section - I like it, particularly the easy way to ping people. That's fine. Please uncouple that new page prompt from this checkbox - add another checkbox to allow bypassing it. And preferably link it to the prompt itself, it needs a simple 'don't show it again' checkbox, problem solved. Piotrus (talk) 08:46, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes thank you, we got that far. the discussiontools-preference-newtopictool-help message could possible be improved. It suggests that it will just add a feature, not replace a feature. (possibly something like: "This will show you an inline form for adding new topics; replacing the standard editor when creating new talk pages or adding new sections.") Xaosflux (talk) 17:10, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I see – thank you for clarifying this, @Xaosflux.

Note: we'll work to improve the language/"helper text" that appears beneath the "Enable quick topic adding" setting to make it more clear the impact it will have in T297990. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Please allow easy opt-out, this adds an extra click to my new page patrols for adding asessments. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#How_can_I_get_rid_of_this_%22Start_a_discussion_about_Pidlashuks%22_prompt? Piotrus (talk) 08:40, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Update:

The Editing team is talking about an on-screen notice to tell people that there's a new thing, and go here to turn it off. This isn't available yet (it's still in the design phase), but it could be available in a few weeks. They're calling this idea the "hint".

I'm curious whether you two think that a one-time hint will be enough. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I think that sounds like an OK idea, but doesn't preclude improving the preference label to make it clear that turning one thing on turns off something else. Xaosflux (talk) 01:53, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Getting back to this: Which preference label are you finding unclear? The one in Beta Features (multiple tools in one tickbox) or the one in the Editing section (one tickbox = one tool)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): If the Beta features "Discussion tools" is enabled, then in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing a new option appears "Enable quick topic adding". While this does say what it says it will do, it doesn't say that it is taking over the normal newpage workflow. See suggestion for label improvement as we have localized on enwiki: here Xaosflux (talk) 22:29, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Would you mind tweaking that? Any of these would be grammatically correct:

• This will show you an inline form for adding new topics, replacing the standard editor when creating new talk pages or adding new sections.
• This will show you an inline form for adding new topics; it replaces the standard editor when creating new talk pages or adding new sections.
• This will show you an inline form for adding new topics instead of the standard editor when creating new talk pages or adding new sections. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure (did #2) of course that is only localized on the English Wikipedia - it would need to be updated upstream to make that useful for other projects. Xaosflux (talk) 10:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank beside reply link

T259865: Add support for voting-style discussions T249893: Add "Thanks" to talk page comments

Can a "thank this user" button be added beside the reply one? I think it would be beneficial. Personally I use that feature a lot to let the other user I'm talking with know that I've read its final message but I have nothing to add anymore, similar to the "Like" button in social media. Klein Muçi (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Given the aforementioned Phab task, maybe exploring other possibilities beside "thank you" could be a good thing. As explained there, "thanking" is currently used as a symbol to mean different things in different contexts but that's only because of the current technical limitations (we only have that option available). If we are to actually allow for a more dynamical way of interaction through "react buttons", we can have different ones for different contexts, for example, just to give some food for thought: seen (for acknowledging someone's final comment, this may need fine-tuning not to be considered rude), agree/disagree, support/oppose, etc. Adding a counter on top of that maybe could make voting discussions easier, compressing one line comments while leaving more room for argumentative ones.

@Tacsipacsi, @PPelberg (WMF) - Mentioned because of expressed interest in the subject in similar past discussions. Klein Muçi (talk) 23:38, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Indeed this would make the most basic interaction much more usefull and language neutral (no need to know the language and have support for specific script to pass on the information). Zblace (talk) 03:19, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

The team has been talking about this. It would be convenient for me, so I hope they can build it.

You can't put the thank link directly in the wikitext, but it could be added when the page is displayed (just like the "edit" and "reply" buttons are added when the page is displayed). It might not work on comments that were edited later, but it should be possible for most comments.

I also want to invite you to watch Talk pages project/Usability. If you add useful information/extra buttons, then the appearance changes. This always leads to someone complaining about "clutter". The goal is to make it more usable, but not to have so much clutter that it's hard to read the discussions. Your advice on how to reach the correct balance will be appreciated. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF), yes I understand that. Facebook has all its react buttons hidden until you hover over the like button, mostly for that purpose. I had in mind something like that when I suggested those ideas above. Not the hover part per se but I certainly wasn't expecting many buttons to be showing up in a row.

Whatever choice we go with though, personally I'd really wish for an easier, automatic voting infrastructure, be that for individual comments or for elections like RFAs (even though that's not part of talk pages per se). Beside the reasons said above it would also make counting votes easier overall I believe, making the process mostly (if not all) automatic without utilizing other tools whatsoever.

As for "When looking at a talk page, what do you think would make it easier for you to know what conversations are worth reading?", my first thoughts were on marking bot or mass messages somehow. They often are "less worthy" of reading compared to other manual messages. But to be honest I'm not sure how much I believe those words myself. I'll keep watching that page for future changes. Klein Muçi (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

+1 YES bot and mass messages need to be marked as such in an distinctive way both visually and semantically (in code) ! Zblace (talk) 04:05, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Reply tool does not allow edit summaries

I think this is a big mistake. Edit summaries are IMHO still part of communication and can be very useful. Doug Weller (talk) 12:09, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It does allow them. Edit summaries are less useful on talk pages, though, so the summary field is hidden in the Advanced drawer in order not to distract inexperienced users. (You can change the summary even in the new discussion tool, which is not possible in the classic editor.) Tacsipacsi (talk) 12:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks.I believe it should be the default, at least on enwiki we encourage people to use edit summaries, and in requests for Administration Admins have had their lack of edit summaries mentioned. And I can see no reason at all why Talk pages project/Replying#What it is doesn't mention this. Sure, it's in [[Talk pages project/Feature summary]] but I'd prefer not to have to click to another page to find out what it does, although I'm happy for the screen shots to be on another page. I see I have to sign for myself on this page. Doug Weller (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with this - I don't see the point of putting in an edit summary on a talk page edit; if it conveys any actual information, that means that people trying to follow the conversation on a talk page now need to read the page history as well - more work for everyone. If potential admins on Wikipedia get points deducted for not writing talk page edit summaries, that seems like a problem on Wikipedia. Yaron Koren (talk) 16:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

For people using watchlists to keep track of articles and talk pages, edit summaries are extremely useful. And of course we want to encourage their use elsewhere, and this doesn't help. So far as I can see, you haven't edited much and your edits are on projects associated with the encyclopedia, so you don't seem to have much experience, oe none, on something like en.wiki. So you'll have little or no experience of watchlists. I don't mean to be rude, but I'd prefer to here from people with a lot of experience editing on their own language wikipedia. They are more likely to know what will be useful. Doug Weller (talk) 17:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

On watchlists edit summaries can tell you whether you need to read the whole comment or not (e,g, is it a strand of discussion you are following? is someone replying to you?, just correcting a typo, etc), in page histories they can help you find the particular comment you are looking for. This is especially true when talk pages are being used for complex discussions, where article content is being drafted or other things other than just simple discussion. So they should always be available to enter and never hidden. For example for this comment I would (if I could) summarise it as "agree with Doug", which is much easier for someone to parse in histories and watchlists than the first however many characters of my comment, which will probably leave someone reading it little wiser about my comment. Thryduulf (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Aargh- I’ve just looked at the so-called edit summaries of edits to this very page. Incomprehensible! Nick Moyes (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It's worse. If I start a new topic on an editor's talk page to give them a Discretionary sanctions alert, it just publishes it without the warning that I should be checking various places to make sure they don't already have one. Doug Weller (talk) 13:55, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

As I remarked on enwiki (don't want to split the conversation), edit summaries on discussion pages are not generally used (edit: usefully) on enwiki, so I don't see the need for a change in this area. (The discretionary sanctions thing is unrelated and at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T298263 for any onlookers; I see Doug Weller has already commented.) Enterprisey (talk) 04:03, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

"edit summaries on discussion pages are not generally used on enwiki," eh!? Edit summaries are almost always used on every page on enwiki and have been for well over a decade. Thryduulf (talk) 10:16, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I spoke imprecisely: edit summaries on discussion pages are not usually used to convey anything interesting on enwiki besides the single words "reply" or "comment", and most of the remainder is people saying their bolded !vote in a discussion ("sup", "opp"). Enterprisey (talk) 11:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

It's good to encourage their use. I certainly use them when I want to make sure that a point I am making is seen in the history of the discussion page. Doug Weller (talk) 11:08, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

even "reply" and "comment" can be useful, summaries like "reply to ..." and "comment re ..." even more so when you are browsing the page history or see it in your watchlist. Thryduulf (talk) 00:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I quite like 'reply' as the default edit summary on any talk page. It makes my life easy. But there are innumerable times when I need to do much, much more, including pinging another editor, or explaining why I'm making the reply I'm making in just a couple of key words. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:33, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

As I proposed on IRC, when the reply includes a ping, automatically making the edit summary "reply to ..." (or "reply (pinged ...)", to be 100% accurate), sounds like it would be a positive move. Nick, for your use cases, I would certainly expect them to provide an option to always show the edit summary box, as I did with reply-link. Enterprisey (talk) 02:11, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Once you open the "Advanced" drawer, it stays open until you close it. It's a sticky pref that will follow you from page to page (but not, I think, from wiki to wiki) forever. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I didn't know that; I'll give it a try. Thank you, WAID. Nick Moyes (talk) 01:17, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

One of the most important uses of reply on a discussion page is when that's a user talk page and you are commenting on policy/guidelines violations and vandalism - it gives a clear trail in the talk page history. I think it should be the default, not "Advanced'. Doug Weller (talk) 11:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

When you reply, it indents to the right. Does this continue ad nauseam? Doug Weller (talk) 15:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

A way to control the indent has definitely been identified as a missing feature of the reply link. Thryduulf (talk) 19:04, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Glad to hear that. Doug Weller (talk) 19:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

We’ll that caught me by surprise, I assumed I was logged in as I’m logged in elsewhere. But why the hell does my IP still show up when I edit it? Doug Weller (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I think edit summaries are also very important, at least on enwiki, at noticeboards. Doug Weller (talk) 08:34, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I never put manual edit summaries for talk pages unless archiving or doing something outside a section (like putting a map-requested template), and I never read them when participating in a conversation. Looking through talk page histories, it seems that's how most editors operate. The auto-generated edit summaries just track which section is being commented on, and that's useful when archiving or tracking down unsigned comments. But beyond knowing the topic of conversation, I don't see the point. If it's important to know what the editor did in that edit, it's easy to read the diff. Otherwise, the implied action is "I commented on the topic of this section".

That said, I'm not sure it's worth hiding the edit summary box, when it's not that tall, and can be easily ignored. At the vary least, instead of "Advanced", maybe the text hiding it should say "Show edit summary/watchlist options" so editors new and old would be able to find those things more easily. Beland (talk) 19:36, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I use them quite a bit on user talk pages, especially with problematic editors. I think that helps other editors who have the user on their watch list. I agree there is no advantage to hiding the edit summary box - I see only disadvantage. Doug Weller (talk) 09:07, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Gadget: Linking to specific comments

Hi y'all – the Editing Team has noticed and experienced how helpful it can be to link to specific talk page comments.

With this in mind, the team wrote an experimental gadget that enables you to link to specific talk page comments in one click.

Trying the gadget

1. Visit your common.js (to enable on one wiki) or global.js page (to enable on all wikis)
2. Insert the following snippet on a new line:

   mw.loader.load( 'https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:ESanders_(WMF)/commentlinks.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );
   

   and publish.
3. Visit a wikitext talk page (e.g. Talk:Talk pages project/Usability)
4. Notice the following appears after each comment's signature: [ link ]
5. Click a [ link ]
6. Notice the link to that comment has been automatically copied to your device's clipboard
7. ✅ That's it! PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:25, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Notes

1. As with all gadgets, this software is experimental and is known to break in some cases. E.g. if and when a comment is moved to a different page, the link will no longer function.
2. This gadget is made possible by the parsing algorithm the Editing Team engineers (@Esanders (WMF), @DChan (WMF), @DLynch (WMF), and @Matma Rex) designed and implemented to make it possible for software to understand talk pages' structure. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

If you end up trying the gadget and have feedback to share about it, we would value you sharing that feedback with us here. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! A couple of thoughts:

• It uses whatever URL I’m currently visiting instead of the canonical one. E.g. if I click a [link] link on https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability&diff=prev&oldid=4980264, I get https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability&diff=prev&oldid=4980264#c-Tacsipacsi-2021-12-24T14:46:00.000Z-Klein_Mu%C3%A7i-2021-12-24T13:44:00.000Z instead of the expected https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability#c-Tacsipacsi-2021-12-24T14:46:00.000Z-Klein_Mu%C3%A7i-2021-12-24T13:44:00.000Z.
• I’d like something like [ reply | link ] better than the current [ reply ] [ link ].
• When I click a [ reply ] link, it becomes invisible but its placeholder is still there, so there’s unexpected blank space before the [ link ] link. Tacsipacsi (talk) 01:26, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback.

1. Good spot, fixed here
2. Yeah - that section was designed to expand like the [ edit | edit source ] links but as this is a gadget it was easier just to clone it.
3. The reply link keeps its width to avoid a reflow of the page and a potential vertical jump. You're right that this looks odds when there are extra tools so that would need to be considered if this was made into a proper feature. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 16:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

returning to old interface in case needed

T299266: Introduce a way to return to the legacy new section experience on a one-off basis

Hi! I am missing the option to return to the old interface in case needed. I give you an example: on a new article talk pages we need to place different types of templates (like wikiproject templates, living persion bio etc.). When I use the beta tool, it automatically places my signature after the templates. So there should be some kind of option to either turn the signature off manually for a post or to switch back to old interface for that one occassion. I am trying the gadget on huwiki. Xia (talk) 11:05, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

hi @Xia – we've filed an issue to capture the behavior you would like to see implemented. Can you please read T299266 and comment whether you think anything should be changed or added to the ticket to better reflect the feedback you've shared above?

Note: we have not yet prioritized work on T299266, tho we would like to make sure we accurately capture the issues people report. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

In case of a new talk page, it’s easy to work around: just click the create (or create source) tab; the new discussion tool overrides red links like https://hu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vita:Stazione_di_Caltignaga&action=edit&redlink=1, but it doesn’t override links with no &redlink=1 at the end. Tacsipacsi (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

thanks! Xia (talk) 23:37, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

If the page already exists, then there should be a tab at the top that says "Edit source", which works exactly like it always has. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 5 January 2022 (UTC)