Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/2020/10

The team would value any thoughts and/or questions you have about this new tool for Replying to specific comments on talk pages.

Request: Enable keyboard shortcuts

T264913: Show keyboard shortcuts for Reply/Cancel in tooltips

Probably of lower priority - are there any plans to enable w:en:Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts for Reply Tool? s (publish reply) seems useful. ネイ (talk) 05:53, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree. :) Patrik L. (talk) 09:06, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

We might add them, although that might conflict with our plans to allow opening multiple reply widgets at the same time (since with global accesskeys like those, we have no way to control which action is triggered when there is a conflict).

Note also that you can publish a reply by pressing Ctrl+Enter, or cancel by pressing Escape. Maybe we should have those shortcuts displayed in button tooltips or something. Matma Rex (talk) 13:52, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

If we already have a keyboard shortcut, then we don't need another. However, this topic proves the need for the shortcuts to be displayed somewhere. (I noticed Escape = cancel by chance, but not Ctrl-Enter) ネイ (talk) 14:03, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@ネイ + @Tacsipacsi: displaying the keyboard shortcuts that correspond to the Reply Tool's "Cancel" and "Reply" buttons is a good idea.

We'll be implementing this functionality in this task: T264913. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Multiple shortcuts don’t cause any issues by virtue of being multiple—for example, when the focus is on the edit summary field using the traditional full-page editor, one might save the edit both by pressing Enter and with the shortcut key [whatever]+S; VisualEditor’s save dialog recognizes both the traditional [whatever]+S access key and Ctrl+Enter; and so on. If you can differentiate between the Ctrl+Enter presses, what prevents you from doing so with the usual access key? You don’t need to actually use the accesskey attribute; jquery.accessKeyLabel has a nice collection of the modifiers of different browser/platform combinations. (By the way, Structured Discussions, which we’re using right now, displays shortcuts for the Reply and Cancel buttons in tooltips.) Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:40, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

You don’t need to actually use the accesskey attribute; jquery.accessKeyLabel has a nice collection of the modifiers of different browser/platform combinations.

Yeah, I guess you're right about this. It would be more work to implement and test it, but it's possible. Matma Rex (talk) 17:51, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

New Beta Feature at Meta-Wiki and some Wikipedias next week

The Editing team plans to release the Reply tool as a turned-off/opt-in Beta Feature next Wednesday, 14 October at these wikis:

• Requested by the local community:
  • Meta-Wiki
• Language-specific (e.g., long words, less-common fonts, IMEs):
  • Tamil (tawiki), Finnish (fiwiki), Turkish (trwiki),  Burmese (mywiki), Hindi (hiwiki), Punjabi (pawiki), Amharic (amwiki), Lithuanian (ltwiki), Icelandic (iswiki), N'Ko (nqowiki), Santali (satwiki), Mtton (mnwwiki), Nepali (newiki), Bhojpuri (bhwiki), Maithili (maiwiki), Assamese (aswiki), Marathi (mrwiki), Sinhala (siwiki)
• Wikipedias involved in Talk pages consultation 2019:  
  • Polish (plwiki), Thai (thwiki), Spanish (eswiki), Portuguese (ptwiki), Italian (itwiki), Norwegian (nowiki)
• Growth Wikipedias:
  • Basque (euwiki), Ukrainian (ukwiki), Armenian (hywiki), Persian (fawiki), Hebrew (hewiki)

I'm posting messages at these wikis. If any of these are your home wiki, please be on the lookout for the Beta Feature next week, and let everyone know how it works for you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:51, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to seeing this on Wikidata, hopefully soon? <3 Nicereddy (talk) 04:21, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Probably not in this group, unfortunately. It looks like a few people are using it at Wikidata (via user script).[1]

I'm still talking with the Editing team about what happens after this group: The remaining Wikipedias? All the sister projects? Big Wikipedias (English, German, Russian)? The remaining VisualEditor's Phase 7 languages? In general, offering an opt-in Beta Feature is a "small" thing to do (from the viewpoint of the servers), so it might be possible to do everyone except the biggest Wikipedias on the same day. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Whatamidoing (WMF), I hope you are well. Quick question: do you know why there is no deployment plan for the German DE wiki in place? Would love to see it there as well. Many thanks in advance. FNDE (talk) 14:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, FNDE. The German-language Wikipedia by itself has the kind of volume we expect to see from dozens of the small Wikipedias altogether. It could be offered there soon, especially if there is a request, just not all on the same day. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Implementing for a subset of pages on a Wiki?

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I'd be very interested in implementing Extension:DiscussionTools on a set of pages within a wiki.

Specifically, within English Wikiversity, I'd like to implement this for all talk: subpages of:

• Talk:WikiJournal of Medicine/...
• Talk:WikiJournal of Science/...
• Talk:WikiJournal of Humanities/...

Would that be possible, either with a template on the talkpage, or defining which subpages should be included on some mediawiki: space page? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 09:05, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it does work per page when you put __NEWSECTIONLINK__, so if you put it in a "template" page like v:WikiJournal of Medicine/Issues it will be enabled in all pages that transclude it. Geraki (talk) 11:54, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Ah interesting. I've done some testing and checked the magicwords page to understand a bit better.

I've edited my initial query to clarify that it's only the talkpages that'd need. However it looks as though we may just activate the extension for all talkpages in en.wv, which would also work fine. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:33, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

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

Including additional manual [reply] links

For a situation where a user is making multiple points in a comment and expects people to respond to each is it possible to manually insert additional [reply] links?

For example:

Here is my example comment in which I make several points:

• first point is a paragraph long [reply]
• second point is a paragraph long [reply]
• third point is a paragraph long [reply]

In conclusion this was my comment. Signature time etc [reply]

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 09:30, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

You kind of can do this by adding your signature after every bullet point.

Without adding multiple signatures, replying inline causes problems for detecting who is the author of the comments. Let's imagine that in your example, someone added a reply to the first point:

Here is my example comment in which I make several points:

• first point is a paragraph long

  Hello, I disagree! Signature2 time2

• second point is a paragraph long
• third point is a paragraph long

In conclusion this was my comment. Signature time etcTo our software (and also, to some of the people reading it), it will now look as if the Signature2 applied to the reply and to the first half of the original comment; and as if Signature only applied to the second half of the comment. This in turn results in confusing placement of [reply] links, and may also result in incorrect notifications being sent (we're planning to work on notifications next). Matma Rex (talk) 17:32, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. I'm thinking about it from the point of view where commenters are indicated by colouring - either via templates (example), or whatever extension/gadge fr.wp uses.

I notice that on fr.wp, including signatures on multiple lines of bulletpoint creates an artefact where the top bulletpoint reply link creates the reply box in the wrong location.

Code to reproduce:

General text.
*Some statement with a dated signature. ~~~~
*Some statement with a dated signature. ~~~~
*Some statement with a dated signature. ~~~~
Final notes. ~~~~

Is this possible to fix or is it fundamental to how the extension operates? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

About where to reply in that sort of "mixed" comment: they did it one way originally, and people complained, and now they switched it the other way, and other people complain. I think it's a case of whatever they do, it won't be the right answer in some situations. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, see T252702 for more context. The reply tool has no way to know whether that should be treated as an indented comment, or as an un-indented comment that has a list at the end. We decided to treat is as un-indented comment, based on the complaints we got, but there are always some situations where the opposite would be better. I don't think we can do anything to avoid it. Matma Rex (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Ah, yes I now see the ambiguity. Fair enough.

A followup in that case: is there a way to optionally make it appear after an "invisible" signature, e.g. <span style="font-size:0px">~~~~</span>? I think at the moment, the [reply] is bein places inside that span, so is also invisible. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Do people really want that? When I've seen "Hello, I disagree! Signature2 time2" in the middle of discussions, sometimes people complain about not being able to figure out which parts were written by which person. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how generally useful it is in other wikis - and I definitely know what you mean about people replying in the middle of someone else's bulletpoint list, fragmenting the original comment.

However, the context in which it useful is in the peer review pages over in wikiversity where people often like to respond point-by-point e.g.:

• v:Talk:WikiJournal_of_Science/The_TIM_barrel_fold

Whereas other times they prefer to respond as a more traditional block of text below, e.g.:

• v:Talk:WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Comparison_between_the_Lund-Browder_chart_and_the_BurnCase_3D®_for_consistency_in_estimating_total_body_surface_area_burned

And occasionally as a mix for different sections, e.g.:

• v:Talk:WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Epidemiology_of_the_Hepatitis_D_virus

Currently we use {{Review}} and {{Response}} templates to distinguish who's who, but we're keen on make the formatting more automated and interface more intuitive to non-wikimedians. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I've seen point-by-point replies on the English Wikipedia at FAC and GA.

What do you think of the styling that the French Wikipedia uses on their talk pages? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, FA and GA review also often have something similar.

I rather like the fr.wp talkpage formatting, although the exact style seems a little old fashioned. Even if the alternating background colours are omitted, a simple left boarder (maybe that emphasises on hover) is useful for tracking complex conversation threading.

You can see the formatting I've been playing around with here:

• CSS
• example use T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 22:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The hover feature is quite nice. You are a person of many talents. :-)

@PPelberg (WMF), is there anything published about making talk pages more legible? I know it's on the list for upcoming quarters. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

The hover feature is quite nice. You are a person of many talents. :-)

+1 This is neat, @Evolution and evolvability!

@PPelberg (WMF), is there anything published about making talk pages more legible? I know it's on the list for upcoming quarters.

The public documentation around making talk pages more legible exists in Phabricator (see: T249579) for now. We haven't published a project page on MediaWiki.org just yet.

@Evolution and evolvability , I've just added the experimenting you've been doing to the "Improvised solutions" section of T249579's task description. As you think about more ideas or notice others, @Whatamidoing (WMF) and I would value you letting us know. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

wrapping [reply] comments within a template

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Would it be possible to configure the extension to post [reply] comments within a template?

For example in talkpages like this one, all responses within the {{review}} template should themselves use the {{response}} template.

Is there scope to include some preload-like functionality that'd be able to handle this? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 09:57, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that anyone has requested support for the "response" template (or anything similar) yet.

Right now, all templates are a bit awkward, because if you insert, e.g., an infobox, it'll mess up the whole comment. I'm not sure when that will change, but not very soon, because there's a whole technical RFC that needs to happen first. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

No worries. There's a possibility that the situation may be resolvable via thte sort of css formatting discussed at the other thread on this talkpage and VPT . From the WikiJournal point of view, the real ideal situation is that indicating the submitting author, handling editor and peer reviewers on the page's wikidata item (example), some javascript then automatically colours the comments in such a way as to make each of those roles clear. It's beyond my abilities at the to write the js currently, but I'm looking for assistance from more tech-savvy users. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 22:41, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

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

Do up to three indentations

Branches with multiple indentations tend to mess the page code, and the discussion as they tend to become a discussion between two or three users usually far from the original scope of discussion within that section -or even talk page- and sometimes are turning into flame wars.

I believe it will be good if the Reply Tool stops adding over three indentation levels, in the same way that Structured Discussions do (and even Facebook).

Stop indenting at some point will serve as a reminder that the users have probably moved to some other discussion subject and should either turn back to the subject or move that branch to another section/page. Geraki (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is something that should be improved by changing how we display the page, instead of changing what markup is used.

It would be nice if you could "collapse" highly nested replies (like on Reddit; Facebook also does something similar with replies but it's more "clever" / less consistent), or maybe "flatten" the replies so that a long thread of two people only talking to each other could be shown without the indentation. Matma Rex (talk) 17:41, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Ping function

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Although I realise that adding templates within the [reply] tool isn't yet possible (in VE mode), It'd be useful to recreate the functionality of the ping / reply template. Currently when replying there's a nice grey out "Reply to UserXYZ" preloaded text, but it'd be great if there was some button either at the start of the comment to include a ping, or a tickbox by the reply button saying "reply and notify UserXYZ" T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Not at the start of the comment, but you can mention other users—either with a toolbar icon (I haven’t found the exact icon on Commons, but it looks similar to <figure-inline></figure-inline>), or simply by typing @. (Both are only available in visual mode, but in source mode you can use the good old {{Ping }} template.) Tacsipacsi (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

The @ feature in VE is perfect - I'd not come across it as a function previously. Thanks! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 21:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

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

Out of order reply

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T251350

Not sure if this is the correct way to say it, but if a user doesn't reply to the last comment, the reply should be displayed right below the comment replied.

e.g.

First comment

Second comment

Third comment

Fourth comment

Fifth comment

If I reply to the second one, my reply should be right below the third comment, not after the fourth with the indentation of the third comment. So, at the moment the system works like this:

First comment

Second comment

Third comment

Fourth comment

Fifth comment

Reply to second comment

But it should work like this

First comment

Second comment

Third comment

Reply to second comment

Fourth comment

Fifth comment Mannivu · ✉ 10:33, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know this is the expected behaviour:

Comment

Reply to comment

Reply to "Reply to comment"

Reply to 'Reply to "Reply to comment"'

Reply to `Reply to 'Reply to "Reply to comment"'`

Another reply to "Reply to comment"

See also: w:en:Help:Talk pages#Indentation Helder 11:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

On itwiki we use a different system: the reply goes right under the comment the user replies to and he must use the Template:Fuori_crono. No problem on the template (the user can add it while replying), but the order of the comments is important for us. Mannivu · ✉ 12:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

The expected behavior described by Mannivu is also the one used on the Wikipedia in French (for example on Le Bistro talk space). J. N. Squire (talk) 12:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you all tell me what you expect? Imagine that I begin with this discussion:

One

Two

Three

Four

I want to reply to "Two". My comment will be "Five".

Please tell me where you think "Five" should be placed. For example, tell me that it belongs 'at the end, with three colons' or 'between Two and Three, with four colons', or whatever you want. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

On itwiki it should be between Three and Four, with the same amount of colons of Three. So like

One

Two

Three

Five

Four Mannivu · ✉ 17:47, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

i guess you should replace 'five' with 'four' here ;) The222anonim (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

No, Four is a reply to Three, so its position is correct in that position. Mannivu · ✉ 18:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

But now it looks like Four is a reply to Five. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but that's why we have the

It:Template:Fuori crono

in itwiki. Mannivu · ✉ 17:49, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

At itwiki, you want earlier comments ("Four") to look like they are replies to later comments ("Five")? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Imagine that it's not numbers. Imagine that it says:

One. There is a problem here.

Two. I agree.

Three. We should fix the sources. I think we should use Big Newspaper.

Four. I agree with you. That's a good source.

"Five" is now going to say "Five. I think we should use Bad Source."

Question 1: Do you truly want "Four. I agree with you. That's a good source" to be right after the comment suggesting Bad Source? How are you supposed to know what Four was a reply to?

Question 2: Let's imagine that this conversation happened in a slightly different order. Let's imagine that it begins like this:

One. There is a problem here.

Two. I agree.

Three. We should fix the sources. I think we should use Big Newspaper.

Four. I think we should use Bad Source.

You are going to add comment #5. Your comment will say "I agree with you. That's a good source." You want to agree with comment Three, about Big Newspaper. Where does your comment belong? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Question 1: we have the template "Fuori crono" exactly for this case: it warn the user that comment "Five. I think we should use Bad Source" was added after "Four. I agree with you. That's a good source."

Question 2: in this case, #5 should be placed right after #3, so

One. There is a problem here.

Two. I agree.

Three. We should fix the sources. I think we should use Big Newspaper.

Five. I agree with you. That's a good source.

Four. I think we should use Bad Source. Mannivu · ✉ 16:45, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

With this example, I think that a sensible conversation reads like this:

There is a problem here.

I agree.

We should fix the sources. I think we should use Big Newspaper.

I agree with you. That's a good source.

I think we should use Bad Source.

and I don't think that this is a sensible conversation:

There is a problem here.

I agree.

We should fix the sources. I think we should use Big Newspaper.

[out of order] I think we should use Bad Source.

I agree with you. That's a good source. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

In that case, where would someone else reply "Six" to the comment "Three"? Helder 17:50, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

One

Two

Three

Five

Six

Four

EDIT: sorry, I misread your comment Mannivu · ✉ 18:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

This post might be interesting. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

That flow would work if discussions had grey outlines like in this and that thread. But on wikis those lines are not present, so having different answers scattered might be quite confusing. Mannivu · ✉ 17:51, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Have you seen the blue lines that the French Wikipedia uses? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

For the record: a similar CSS is used in many other wikis. Helder 11:26, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I see that frwiki uses yellow boxes to "enclose" replies, but not every language edition uses this tipe of discussion flow. On itwiki we don't have any visual help to follow discussions. Mannivu · ✉ 11:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you think it would be helpful? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

If the Reply tool's behaviour won't be changed, it would be helpful. Or people would simply fix their reply in the wikicode. Mannivu · ✉ 11:57, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

hi @Mannivu – you can expect a response from me this week about how we are thinking about the tool in light of what you are raising here. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you :D Mannivu · ✉ 16:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

hi @Mannivu – we appreciate you continuing to engage here and demonstrate how you think the Reply Tool ought to behave at Italian Wikipedia.

Before talking about how, if at all, the Reply Tool's behavior could be adapted to work in the way you are describing, I'd like to better understand what's contributed to you starting this conversation.

With the above in mind, below are a couple of "Questions" for you. Please let me know if you think anything here could be made more clear.

Questions

1. Can you please share links to a diffs on it.wikipedia where you see people commenting on talk pages in the way you are describing here? [i]
2. Can you please share links to the policies/guidelines at it.wiki that are leading you to say this: ...if a user doesn't reply to the last comment, the reply should be displayed right below the comment replied.? [ii]

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i. I checked a few pages and didn't immediately notice people using this convention.^[1][2][3][4]

ii. Aiuto:Glossario#Fuori_crono : the "out of time" convention and template ({{fc}}), to me, seems to be intended for special cases where people are needing/wanting to interrupt the expected order of comments rather than the way people are expected to comment on talk pages in most cases. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

1. See for example in it:Discussione:Fær_Øer#Tabella riepilogativa or it:Discussioni_categoria:Personaggi_dei_fumetti: there's an "out of time" reply and then the replies to that
2. There's no real guidelines, there's just a common knowledge that if a user needs to reply to a comment that isn't the last comment of the discussion, he should use the "Fuori crono" template. Bear in mind that usually on itwiki we don't indent the comments based on who we are replying to: we just increment the indentation and say "I agree with". Mannivu · ✉ 11:53, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

These links and context about the origins of this convention are helpful – thank you for sharing them, @Mannivu.

In response, I'd like to share three things:

I. How we currently understand this situation (please let me know if you're seeing something that I have not included.)

II. The path forward I think we should try taking in response to this "situation."

III. The resulting question for you.

===I. Situation===

1. At it.wiki, conventions state:
   1. "Each new post should be inserted at the bottom of the current discussion, so that the discussion is automatically organized in chronological order, from the oldest to the most recent." | source
   2. "Sometimes it may happen that you want to insert a comment that does not follow the chronological order of the interventions. This is an accepted possibility on Wikipedia, but avoid abusing it! Too many out-of-time comments make retrospective reading of a discussion page more difficult." | source
2. If we assume the conventions at it.wiki (noted above) are widely understood and observed, we can assume people participating in conversations with the Reply Tool will do so in an expected way. Read: they will know to click the bottom-most reply link and in doing so, their comment will be added beneath it and one level of indentation deeper.
3. In cases where someone is wanting to defy convention, and insert a comment that is "out of order" they are supposed to use the out of order template ({{Fc}}), introduced in 2008 ^[i].
4. For people at it.wiki who: A) are wanting to post an "out of order" reply using the Reply Tool and B) are aware of the "out of order" convention, they can use the ({{Fc}}) template by inserting it in the Reply Tool's source mode. Note: it is not yet clear whether this is intuitive.
5. For people at it.wiki who: A) are wanting to post an "out of order" reply using the Reply Tool and B) are not aware of the "out of order" convention, they may end up commenting in what some people would consider to be "out of order" without taking the recommended steps (e.g. adding {{Fc}}) to do so. Note: it is not yet clear if/when this is happening.

===II. Path forward===

Considering "2)" and "3)", in the near-term, I think we should:

• Keep the Reply Tool's behavior as it is.
• Commit to investigating the extent to which "4)" and "5)" are happening once more people have tried the Reply Tool at it.wikipedia ^[ii].

===III. Question===

Assuming all of the above sounds good to you, when do you think might be good for us to check back in about "4)" and "5)"?

One idea: we could check in on this when one these things happens: A) we are considering offering the Reply Tool by default at it.wiki or B) after 100 different people at it.wiki have used the Reply Tool at least once.

===Note===

I want to recognize, what I understand to be a core part of the concern you are raising here, @Mannivu: new tools, especially communication tools, have the potential to impact the culture of a community. We, the Editing Team, appreciate this and hope that together with you, other volunteers at it.wiki and volunteers other projects, can work together to monitor these potential changes and ensure they sum to newcomers having the know-how and confidence to participate productively in the conversations that make and shape our projects and connect the people who work on them.

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i. https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aiuto:Glossario&type=revision&diff=15945660&oldid=15944215&diffmode=source

ii. Currently, it looks like 20 people at it.wiki have tried the Reply Tool, eight of which have used it to post one comment. See: https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/49478. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:05, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your complete summary. The situation you described are exactly what happens regularly on it.wiki. I think that, since the {{Fc}} use is very rare, having 100 testers won't be a suitable number to understand the expected behaviour of the tool. So, maybe, it's best to wait until it's deployed and see if someone complains. Mannivu · ✉ 08:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

The situation you described are exactly what happens regularly on it.wiki.

Okay, great. I'm glad we now have a shared understanding of the potential issues here!

...I think that, since the Template:Fc use is very rare, having 100 testers won't be a suitable number to understand the expected behaviour of the tool. So, maybe, it's best to wait until it's deployed and see if someone complains.

Great point.

In stating the above, are you defining "deployed" as the Reply Tool being made available as an opt-out preference vs. as an opt-in Beta Feature as it currently is? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the stats of the other tools, probably it would be better wait until it's available as an opt-out preference. Mannivu · ✉ 13:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

...probably it would be better wait until it's available as an opt-out preference.

This sounds like a good approach. Thank you for thinking this through with us, @Mannivu. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Request about inserted signature

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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Using this tool, the user's signature, currently ~~~~, is automatically inserted. But it is better that that is --~~~~, I think. Because the end of comment and the start of signature might not obvious, depending on design of user's signature; so -- is necessary as border between those. Thank you. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 10:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

This can be changed per wiki on "MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix". Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Atmark-chan, adding two minus is a local rule to jawiki, so pls refer to Matěj Suchánek’s input. Cheers, Omotecho (talk) 18:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Matěj Suchánek and Omotecho: Thank you! Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 04:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

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

Request about pinging

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T268588

I think it is better that we can insert ping for the user who will replied.

How do you think:

• User will be able to toggle whether ping will be inserted.
• If user toggle it on, @[[User:(user who will replied)|(user who will replied)]]: will be inserted as ping. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 10:22, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The team has been thinking about a check box (toggle on if you want to ping) for a user, but without needing the name to show in the message content. It would work something like pinging someone in an edit summary now (they get pinged, but the message doesn't say "@You The answer is 42"; it just says "The answer is 42".) Do you think that would meet your goal? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I see. So if do that, user will be able to ping the user who will be replied without a link to the user page, right? I just wanted that users will be able to get a notification when they are replied, so that's enough. Thank you! Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 13:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I just wanted that users will be able to get a notification when they are replied, so that's enough.

hi @Atmark-chan – are you able to share more about what is prompting you to say the above? Are you finding it requires, what you see as, unnecessary effort to remember to insert a ping when Replying to someone? Are you noticing a pattern where people you are responding to are not responding back in a timely fashion? Something else?

Oh, and out of curiosity, what mode of the Reply Tool have you found yourself using most? Source or Visual? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@PPelberg (WMF): Yes, I am noticing a pattern where people I am responding to are not sometimes responding back in a timely fashion, so I want to send a notification more easily.

Also, I have used Source mode most. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 07:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, just now I found a button to mention a user in the Visual mode... I hadn't found it, sorry! But I also want to use it in the Source mode. Can you please do? Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 07:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I am noticing a pattern where people I am responding to are not sometimes responding back in a timely fashion, so I want to send a notification more easily.

Got it. Thank you for sharing this additional context.

Oh, just now I found a button to mention a user in the Visual mode... I hadn't found it, sorry!

There's nothing for you to apologize for :) Pinging is functionality we think should be obvious, regardless of the mode you are using.

Can you please do?

Adding an easier way to create pings is something we plan to the Reply Tool's source mode. The Phabricator ticket where we are thinking about is T257391 (I've added the comments you shared here to the ticket as well). As for timing, I do not yet know when exactly this functionality will be added. With this said, we will let you know when it is.

Pinging aside, how have you found using the Reply Tool to be? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@PPelberg (WMF):

I've added the comments you shared here to the ticket as well

Thank you for that!

how have you found using the Reply Tool to be?

I've requested to introduce Replying Tool to Japanese Wikivoyage, the wiki I'm active best, in T265829. Also even now I often use it with the PHP parameter dtenable=1. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 09:32, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Also even now I often use it with the PHP parameter dtenable=1.

You don’t even need that. If you’re comfortable with using the browser command line, you can issue mw.loader.load('ext.discussionTools.init') in the command line and it will be enabled on the given wiki from the next page load on, provided that it’s not available officially (e.g. as a beta feature). You can add this to your global.js as well, but that slows down each page load a little bit, even if the tool isn’t going to be used (e.g. when viewing an article or editing a page). Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: Only running mw.loader.load('ext.discussionTools.init') in command line loads Discussion Tool any number of times in the wiki. Immediately I've tried that in Japanese Wikivoyage and Meta-Wiki just now.

Oh, As a side note, am I able to turn the loading off? Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 08:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, As a side note, am I able to turn the loading off?

See phab:T265499#6558126. Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:53, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: Doesn't that mean that users have to:

1. blank their commons.js and global.js
2. type mw.cookie.set('discussiontools-tempenable', null); into the console

to turn the loading off? I did that as a test, but the loading seemed not no be turned off. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 12:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Atmark-chan: It should work, although probably not immediately, only once you reload the page after running the command, just like when turning on. Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi: OK, Thank you! Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 05:27, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Atmark-chan, would you please do me a favor? Could you please switch to "visual" mode at the Japanese Wikivoyage, and check that the toolbar is working as you expect, to add links and mention another user? (It's not necessary to post the Reply if you don't want to.) I would be grateful if you could let me know whether it's working as expected, and whether you would recommend any changes to the toolbar (e.g., to remove the italics, which I believe isn't used in Japanese). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Sorry, but I have a thing to do in the real world now... I'll reply you later. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 13:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I'm very sorry that my replying is so late... I was going to return here as soon as I finished the thing to do, but after that I became very busy.

Could you please switch to "visual" mode at the Japanese Wikivoyage, and check that the toolbar is working as you expect, to add links and mention another user?

Sure, I did. It looks working fine. I can begin to enter a mention with entering "@", enter a username, and then finish with Tab ↹, right?

Ideally, It'll be nicer to insert the honorific (e.g., "さん" ("-san") in Japanese) and ":" after the username defaultly, just like "Atmark-chanさん:". I think It'll be good to make a message (e.g., $1さん:) and replace $1 with the username. To reflect all languages' honorific, it will need to ask to each language wiki users "What do you use as the honorific in your language?", but I think it'll be OK to use provisionally $1: (like "Atmark-chan:").

e.g., to remove the italics, which I believe isn't used in Japanese

I think we don't need to remove the italics even in Japanese language wikis because some users sometimes uses the italic style to highlight a bit. Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 05:26, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

I unfortunately have never learned Japanese,. Is the honorific the same for everyone? Is it always a suffix? There's a way to change the "@" symbol, so if it were at the start and the same for everyone, you could change that to "@honorific" (with the username to follow). It is presumably possible, as a technical matter, to make a similar thing for the suffix. I think it would be possible for it to automatically change depending upon gender, but probably not number ("the two Misses Lee") or grammar ("Tell Dr. Ito" vs "Dr. Ito says").

This is such an interesting idea that I'm going to file a Phabricator task for it now. We can add more information later. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):

Is the honorific the same for everyone? Is it always a suffix?

Yes. Japanese honorific "さん" ("-san") can be used for men and women of all ages and people whose sex or age the writer doesn't know. Also, it is always used as a suffix, like "佐藤さん" ("Satō-san") for example.

I think it would be possible for it to automatically change depending upon gender, but probably not number ("the two Misses Lee") or grammar ("Tell Dr. Ito" vs "Dr. Ito says").

In some languages (especially ones are strict to the grammatical cases), it seems the honorific may change depending on the number or grammer; honorifics inflect the attached words' case in the languages like that (e.g. in Esperanto, "D-ro" (means "Dr.") becomes "D-ron" as the accusative singular form when the name is the accusative singular form). Also, though the great majority of speakers of Japanese in wikis use "さん" ("-san"), that's just a typical thing. As far as I know, a few uses "様" ("-sama") as the honorific, other uses no honorific.

So I think it is hoped-for that the prefix and the suffix (includes the honorific) will be inserted as the default and be also editable.

This is such an interesting idea that I'm going to file a Phabricator task for it now. We can add more information later.

Thank you for that! Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 11:23, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanking on the text

T249893: Add "Thanks" to talk page comments

First of all, IT IS AWESOME. Thank you! One idea. Is there a way to put a link to thank the text next to reply? Similar to flow. Right now, If I want to thank someone, I need to go to history and find the text and thank the person (even having a confirmation is okay for, to lazy load the revision id to thank). Many thanks! (pun intended). Ladsgroup (talk) 11:31, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

hi @Ladsgroup – thank you for saying something about this! We agree with you in thinking an easy way to "Thank" someone in-line would be valuable. As for when this might get implemented, I'm not yet sure. Although, if you're curious to know when that date becomes clear, you might subscribe to this Phab task: T249893.

Also, we're glad to hear you're enjoying the tool ^ _ ^ PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 15:51, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This has been discussed before. Sending thanks requires knowing the revision number. The revision number is not (and cannot reliably) be known until after the edit has been saved. I am hoping that the team will find a solution that lets us have quick access to Thanks despite this obstacle. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I think you mess up things here, Whatamidoing (WMF). Yes, the revision ID of a comment cannot be reliably guessed before actually posting it—but one cannot thank themselves anyway. Guessing the revision ID of an already-posted comment is also tricky, though, especially when a comment has been edited afterwards (like your latest non-Flow reply to me ;))—which edit do I want to thank for? I wanted for the first one, but I had to inspect the diff between the two to decide on this. Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

In previous discussions, the main question was whether they could sign a message with something like "Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2020 (UTC) (thank)". Guessing it afterwards works for me, too, although the speed of Who Wrote That? suggests problems on high-traffic pages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Writing a new paragraph in an existing discussion

phab:T249886: Create a new workflow for posting a comment w/o indentation

Hello again. Again this tool is freaking awesome (I'm trying to be professional, otherwise I'd use another word). Even if I want to write one comment in any random wiki, I go to beta features, enable it and then write it. I feel I'm already forgetting how to discuss the old way. One thing, I have seen lots of existing discussion that I want to provide my opinion on and it requires starting a new paragraph in an existing discussion. The case in point I have is when I was asked in my talk page to give my opinion on translation of "Trans women" in Persian and we have a central place to discuss translations. I went there w:fa:Special:PermaLink/30233357#trans woman یا تَرازَن and wanted to add a paragraph saying a translation is better but I didn't want to reply to specific comment. I don't think it would be part of Talk pages project/New discussion but if you think it is. I'm cool with it. I'm more than happy already. Ladsgroup (talk) 00:31, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I've actually thought about this, in my mind this is called "adding a top-level comment" (or alternatively, "replying to a heading", as opposed to replying to a comment).

The main challenge here is the interface. I can't think of a good way to add a button that does this, and which both clearly indicates that the new content will be added at the end, and clearly indicates that this is distinct from replying to the last comment in that section.

(We currently have a similar problem with the links to edit the 0th section of the page, they all fail to display the distinction between editing the 0th section and the whole page.)

This is not part of the work on adding new discussions, buuuut, you can think about adding a new discussion as "adding a new heading" and then "adding a top-level comment". It's much easier to present the interface for these two actions when you're doing them at the same time ;) Matma Rex (talk) 20:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm no UX designer but one idea would be to put it on top of section next to "Edit section" as If I wanted to do it, I'd click on the edit section link. In that case it would be similar to having VE/SE side-by-side. It doesn't address the section 0 problem though. Ladsgroup (talk) 21:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

phab:T265750 is about being able to change the indentation manually. I wonder whether this could be a special case of that. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Mobile interface (on desktop/tablet)

Not top priority, but just a note that this could be useful to implement in the mobile interface as well. I often read medium length talkpages in via en.m.wikipedia.org even on my desktop, since I find that interface cleaner. The [reply] function would be a perfect feature for that if implementable. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:11, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

+1

I agree. Same here. Zblace (talk) 09:16, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

There is already a "Reply" form in every section and "Add discussion" button on top, for registered users in mobile view.

https://i.imgur.com/H37buT0.png

https://i.imgur.com/Z1M76Iw.png Geraki (talk) 09:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

@Geraki To clarify, that's a completely unrelated feature implemented in MobileFrontend, and it works differently (it always adds your reply at the end of the section, with no indentation).

We definitely want to have our reply tool enabled on mobile at some point, and it is definitely possible to do that, but we haven't though about the interface yet (and about how to integrate it with the existing mobile interface for reading discussions, visible in Geraki's screenshot, which works differently than the normal view). Matma Rex (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

TBH I like that impementation more that the Reply tool. As I have expressed (and individually others have expressed the same need), most posts in a discussion/section not need to be indented and just put in the end of the section (not replying to a specific user/post). Geraki (talk) 20:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)