Talk:Talk pages project/New topic/2020/11

Initial designs feedback: Wladek92

under test

What do you like about the proposed design?

What do you wish was different in the proposal?

Can you compare the designs being proposed here to to the current experience? Can you accomplish your current workflow for adding new discussions with this proposal?

What other improvements do you think would be valuable for us to consider making to the new tool?

Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 19:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Christian. This page uses Flow. You don't need to sign your comments in it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi some thoughts :

- I use signing with tilde because it gives immediate visual timestamp rather than '10 days ago' or '4 hours ago'

- both ways coexist on this current post; what is the more clear ?

- redundant signature are shown : if one way to sign is adopted the other way should be suppressed or made dummy Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚨 (talk) 09:24, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, the current page uses Flow (as @Whatamidoing (WMF) mentioned) but this feedback is useful to hear regardless. JKlein (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Initial design feedback: Awesome Aasim

T267444: Make the affordance(s) for adding a new topic easier to identify and access

• What do you like about the proposed design? - I like how I can switch between visual and source editing with a single click. It makes talk pages easier to reply to, and does not have the same limitations that I would experience with other tools.
• What do you wish was different in the proposal? - Maybe have the new topic always visible at the bottom, like how wikiHow does it.
• Can you compare the designs being proposed here to the current experience? Can you accomplish your current workflow for adding new discussions with this proposal? - I think for me I do not notice much different, except for the fact that now I can do visual editing. I use one of my user scripts very often when making new topics.
• What other improvements do you think would be valuable for us to consider making to the new tool? - that's it. Thanks for the information!  :) Aasim 22:07, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

+1 to what @JKlein (WMF) shared: thank you for taking the time to review the design and share the feedback you have @Awesome Aasim.

So you're aware, the work involved with making the affordance(s) for adding a new topic easier to identify and access will happen in this ticket: phab: T267444.

A question for you in the meantime: can you share a link to the user script you referred to using to make new topics? [i]

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i. ...I use one of my user scripts very often when making new topics. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Awesome_Aasim/newsection.js Aasim 23:33, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you; I've added this to the ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T267444#6610257 PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I am definitely thinking about a sticky button and/or additional new topic button floating somewhere on the page for future iterations.

I'm glad that you are able to complete your current workflow with the proposed design. JKlein (WMF) (talk) 12:35, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@JKlein (WMF) What I mean is that the "New section" form is visible at the bottom of every talk page :) Aasim 20:42, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Awesome Aasim - I actually did a mockup of that idea, but we didn't think it was appropriate for this first release where we were just trying to get the infrastructure in place to move the conversation in context (not in a separate window). The challenge here is of course that it's at the bottom of the page and contributors will have to hunt to find it. This is the general issue that many junior contributors seem to experience with the Talk pages at the moment - orienting themselves to the flow (no pun intended) of the page. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. JKlein (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Initial designs feedback: Thomas Shafee

T267442: Make it more clear the title/subject field should be edited

What do you like about the proposed design?

Clean and simple - consistent with the design principles used in the [reply] tool

What do you wish was different in the proposal?

It might be worth putting a similarly formatted box around the section heading (since being outside the bordered draft box will reduce new users' likelihood to entering it). I appreciate that

Can you compare the designs being proposed here to the current experience? Can you accomplish your current workflow for adding new discussions with this proposal?

This is relatively similar to the plain [add section] link that I use in WP and WV. However the main advantages when combined with the reply link are: visual consistency, auto-signing for new users, easier pinging.

Currently, there's a non-functional when using [add section], where it asks what you want the edit summary to be, but it's autofilled and un-editable, so it'd be worth simply skipping that step.What other improvements do you think would be valuable for us to consider making to the new tool?

Will it note to non-logged-in users that their IP will be public?

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 03:14, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. A few folks have brought up the formatted text input box so I plan on iterating on that part of the interface. JKlein (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

+1, Jess – thank you for taking the time to review the designs and share this feedback, @Evolution and evolvability.

A couple of comments below...

...It might be worth putting a similarly formatted box around the section heading

As @JKlein (WMF) noted above, we will be iterating on the design to make it more clear to people the subject/title field is editable. The ticket where this work will happen is (T267442).

Currently, there's a non-functional when using [add section], where it asks what you want the edit summary to be, but it's autofilled and un-editable, so it'd be worth simply skipping that step.

Good spot. We considered excluding the summary field for the reasons you mentioned. Tho, to keep the consistency between the Reply and New Discussion Tool interface [and for ease of implementation] we've kept it in for now, albeit nested inside the Advanced dropdown and not required. In doing so, we are assuming Junior Contributors will not become confused and/or distracted by it and Senior Contributors will be able to discover this functionality should they need it. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 21:05, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability One note: "In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions." Copied from Tech News. Patrik L. (talk) 10:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Deployment for Czech Wikipedia

@Whatamidoing (WMF) @PPelberg (WMF) Hello, I started a discussion about deployment New discussion tool for Czech Wikipedia here. I hope we will reach a consensus. Patrik L. (talk) 21:10, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I think we reached the consensus. Is there any interim date for deployment? Patrik L. (talk) 12:17, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no firm (useful) date. The software is not ready yet. There is a big US holiday coming up, so maybe a few weeks? (I'm really not sure.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Workplace or Microsoft Teams

At my work we use Workplace and/ or Microsoft Teams to facilitate a dialogue. Is this somehting the Wikimedia community also is working on? So userstories are: the possibility to join a team, see the agenda of a team, etc. Regards Tim Ruijters. Timboliu (talk) 10:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

No, MediaWiki is a wiki, not a chat platform —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:39, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @TheDJ. The vision of Wikimedia is: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment. When I read this vision I can imagine that we also want to facilitate collaboration. Timboliu (talk) 20:18, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

That is a neverending road towards feature creep. It basically means we should built opensource versions of everything just on the off chance that someone wants to use it for that purpose.

i mean if u want to built an extension that does that, go right ahead, but it will probably never be better than MS Teams/Slack and it will likely never run on a wikimedia foundation server and i wouldn’t expect the wikimedia foundation to throw any kind of resourcing in such a direction. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 10:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If you'ree interested in the process of tying MediaWiki logins to a chat-like platform, then @Qgil-WMF got that done for a Discourse server. I've not heard of anyone trying with it Microsoft Teams. You might get more information from one of the third-party MediaWiki groups, such as the MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Whatamidoing (WMF)! I contacted the Mediawiki Stakeholders Group to learn more about their plans to facilitate the Wikimedia community with collaborative functionality. They use Elements for this. It would be great if we could integrate this with the current Mediawiki functionality. But this is probably a strategic decision. And maybe not a direction we would like to go? Regards, Tim Timboliu (talk) 11:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

My beef with Teams, Slack, Mattermost, etc. is that they don’t have topics within a channel to organise the discussion. (Some are adding rudimentary reply or threading.) Plus, whilst the real-time focus adds immediacy, it also means be-there-or-miss-out, which isn’t great when your collaborators are spread across a wide spread of timezones.

So a Teams channel is persistent group chat, a bit like an enhanced IRC channel.

(Skype for Business (Lync) batches IMs and saves them as messages in Outlook. You don’t get topic headings, but you do get a chance that each discussion thread will only range over one or a few subjects.)

Zulip, Discourse, web forums, MW Structured Discussions, MediaWiki talk pages (!), and even (gasp) email all allow some kind of Subject or Topic heading. Pelagic (talk) 02:51, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Feedback summary: version 1.0 designs

Over the past two weeks, people shared ideas¹ for how version 1.0 of the New Discussion Tool designs could be improved to ensure Junior Contributors can confidently and correctly start new conversations...thank you.

This post contains the following:

1. A summary of the feedback/ideas people shared
2. The plans we have for incorporating this feedback
3. What you can expect to see and try next

The above are posted in this thread as separate comments.

If you see anything here that prompts new thoughts or questions, please let us know.

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1. @Ad Huikeshoven, @Atmark-chan, @Awesome Aasim, @Barkeep49, @Dvorapa, @Dyolf77 (WMF), @Evolution and evolvability, @MarcoAurelio, @Matěj Suchánek, and @Patriccck. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:22, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

===I. Feedback summary===

We understood the feedback people had to share about version 1.0 of the New Discussion Tool design as falling into two broad categories:

1. The discoverability of the affordance for adding a new topic
2. The functionality offered within the "drafting" part of tool

On the topic of how easy it is likely to be for Junior Contributors to recognize where and how to start the process for adding a new discussion topic, people noted how the initial design is likely to cause Junior Contributors to remain confused. People cited the lack of changes to the appearance and location of the existing "New section" call to action as a reason for why they think this.

On the topic of drafting/composing new discussion topics using the New Discussion Tool, people said:

• The title/subject field could be changed to make it more clear to people that they ought to edit/enter text into it.
• It would be helpful to have the tools available in the tool's visual mode, extended to its source mode.
• It would be helpful to enhance the tool such that you can adjust the heading level at which topics are posted. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

===II. Plans for incorporating feedback===

Below you will find the feedback noted above, organized by when we plan to address it as well links to the Phabricator tickets where this work will happen when it is prioritized.

Near-term

• You can expect to see changes to how the title/subject field looks to make it more clear that it is editable in the prototype we will have to share in a couple of weeks. More details about the prototype can be found below and details about the design changes can be found in this Phabricator ticket: T267442.

Later in the Talk pages project

• You can expect to see changes intended to make it easier for Junior and Senior Contributors to identify where and how to add a new topic to a talk page, regardless of where they are on said page, as part of the visual enhancements we have planned for how talk pages appear in read mode (more info: T249579). We are gathering ideas for how this might be done in T267444. Thank you @Ad Huikeshoven, @Akoopal, @Awesome Aasim, @Julle, and @Matěj Suchánek for the ideas you have offered thus far.

Not yet certain

We are not yet certain when the improvements below might be implemented.

• Introducing the tools currently available in the tool's visual mode, to its source mode. T257391
• Adding support adding new topics at varying heading levels. T267288 PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

===III. What to expect next===

In the next couple of weeks, we will have a functional prototype of the New Discussion Tool for you all to experiment with.

When it's ready, we will make a post on this talk page that includes a link to the prototype as well as instructions for how to try it.

We expect this post to look like the one we made when we had a prototype ready for the Reply Tool. See: Usability test: Reply Tool Version 1.0 prototype. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 20 November 2020 (UTC)