Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/2021/05

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

Fix auto-indent

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T263902

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T250127

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T259865

I had been using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enterprisey/reply-link.js and switched over to try this reply tool but may need to switch back because this automatically indents a reply and doesn't seem to give an option to remove it. In particular, I cannot use this in AFD discussions because they use just a bullet point, while this uses the colon that can't be changed. Enterprisey's program automatically detects whether to indent or bullet and has an option not to do so. Also for AFDs, it would be nice if it could automatically add the comment to the bottom of the page – sometimes the reply to the original post is not where it's supposed to be. This is nice to have the visual editor though. Thanks! Reywas92 (talk) 08:12, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd love to be able to toggle out of the autoindent and at least choose a bullet, too. Neither is bothersome enough for me to stop using the tool (I used Enterprisey's previously too) but those would both be useful additions. Valereee (talk) 11:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Custom Sig causing issues with Beta "Reply" 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.

---

It was brought to my attention that my custom signature (which I've used since 2009) is causing issues for those using the Beta "Reply" feature. I was not aware of this as I'm really old school and don't keep up with the Beta features. I made an effort, using my mobile account, to get my signature to work, but I broke it even more. :( I'm at a loss.

I'm hoping you all could help me out. I've used this signature for 12 years and I would really hate to change it. I also would hate to be causing "technical issues" in people's editing. Any help that you can offer to help find a happy medium would be greatly appreciated. :) - Neutralhomer (talk) 06:21, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I think the following will work:

<small style="white-space:nowrap;border:1px solid #FF7518;padding:1px;">[[User:Neutralhomer|<span style="color:#900;">Neutralhomer</span>]] • [[User talk:Neutralhomer|<span style="color:Black;">Talk</span>]] • {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>time|hide-tz=yes|hide-refresh=yes}} (UTC)</small>

It uses Template:Time to generate the timestamp in the same format as normal signatures. This change also makes your signature compatible with gadgets like Comments in Local Time.

I can edit your signature page if you're having trouble with it, but I assume you'd rather do it yourself. Matma Rex (talk) 09:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Matma Rex: That did indeed work! :) Thank you very much! :D I did notice that the Beta "Reply" feature doesn't work (at least for me) on my own talk page, but does work on all other talk pages. Now that could be due to my custom signature or it could be due to an existing bug. If it is the latter, I wanted to make you aware. :)

Again, thanks for your help on this, I greatly appreciate it! :) - Neutralhomer (talk) 07:00, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I looked and I see the reply links now, and they seem to work (although I didn't try actually commenting). Looks like it might have been fixed by this edit? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Neutralhomer&diff=1023360433&oldid=1023333866&diffmode=source Matma Rex (talk) 12:42, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure why this doesn't cross-wiki alert. I only got an alert when I went to wikitionary by accident. Typically I'm only on en.wiki.

Anyway, yup, Izno (on en.wiki) got everything working correctly as I was having some issues. But, everything is good to go. :) Thanks for your assistance. :) This can be marked as "resolved". :) - Neutralhomer (talk) 13:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

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

Should be easier to ping.

It’s nice how this tool makes it easy to reply in the middle of a buried thread, but that is the sort of reply that may need to ping. ~ 118.210.119.122 (talk) 12:16, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

It is very easy to ping, just write @ and then search for the username you want. StarshipSLS (talk) 15:09, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Pinging might be less popular if Talk pages project/Notifications are turned on by default for everyone, especially if they auto-subscribe people to every conversation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Should be easier to ping a specific person. @ doesn't work in all skins. Martina Nolte (talk) 17:26, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Martina Nolte, please tell me more about this problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:38, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

user:Whatamidoing (WMF): It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't for me.

File:Screenshot20210910@function.png ‎

windows 10, google chrome

Please let me know what else you'd need to check into this. Martina Nolte (talk) 01:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I think you're missing the toolbar. Please go to https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezial:Einstellungen#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion and turn on "Enable editing tools in source mode". (You can also do this in Special:GlobalPreferences.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:03, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The screenshot shows this topic (and not dewiki), which uses StructuredDiscussions, not DiscussionTools (of which the reply tool is part of). StructuredDiscussions allows pinging users in both visual and source modes (using a toolbar button), but the @ keyboard shortcut seems to work only in visual mode. Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi I think you're right. I am editing Wikipedia the good old way in source mode. I can use the mention icon on the toolbar instead. That's fine with me - just saying @ doesn't work for me. --~ Martina Nolte (talk) 04:44, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Actually, on Wikipedia (at least the English and German one), the @ shortcut should work on all talk pages—StructuredDiscussions is enabled only a few Wikimedia wikis, and neither English nor German Wikipedia is among them. Even on wikis with StructuredDiscussions enabled, you can find talk pages with usual wikitext, like Talk:Talk pages project/Usability here. Tacsipacsi (talk) 14:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Just to add that, coming from English Wikipedia, I too really miss the feature from Enterprisey’s Reply-link that automatically generated a ping (which you could delete if inapplicable). That was perhaps the greatest time saver because it’s not always easy to discern someone’s username from their signature—at that point I feel I might ask well skip this feature altogether and make my reply in the source code where I can copy-paste the username. Please do consider emulating that aspect of Enterprisey’s version. (Or making it easier to enable if it’s there somewhere and my desperate searching hasn’t been able to find it…) Innisfree987 (talk) 17:54, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

And just now my {{u|username}} ping failed altogether, and I did have to go into the source code and re-write it. (Apparently nowiki tags were applied without my knowing?) I wish Reply-link would be turned back on until this could be sorted—I really don’t know how I lived without it! Innisfree987 (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

If you're in the visual mode, you can't type templates (partial explanation here). Instead, type the @ symbol (or click the button) and search for the name you want. If you're in the source mode, it shouldn't be giving you any nowiki tags. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) Like I say, on English Wikipedia it’s not always easy to tell from someone’s formatted signature what their username is; it may show up as something completely different (“Matt” in signature; username Stegosaurus90210). Especially in longer threads where Reply-link is most useful, there’s an excellent chance I won’t know. Put differently, what’s the advantage to taking away the feature wherein clicking reply under someone’s comment automatically formats a ping to them to use if you want it? As a user that’s what’s happened. ~ Innisfree987 (talk) 02:56, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

In the current version, if you reply to "Matt", you'll see "Reply to Stegosaurus90210" in the box – until you start typing, anyway. So that might give you a hint in the one case, but it won't help you if you want to ping people from a different comment. In that case, I usually hover over the signature to find out what the actual page name is.

There was a huge discussion at w:en:Wikipedia talk:Signatures/Archive 15 about requiring custom signatures to provide a clear indication of the username. It failed to demonstrate a consensus, but it would have addressed this problem in that community. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) Thanks for pointing out that the immediately preceding commenter’s username is given in gray; that’s close enough to the assistance Reply-link supplied to satisfy me. I edit on mobile so unfortunately hovering for the other names isn’t an option but Reply-link didn’t solve that either. I have a different mobile issue to mention but I’ll make a separate post. Thanks for helping sort this one. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:27, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Peter, should we have a page at Talk pages project/Mobile for the upcoming mobile work? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@LittleGun, is the "automatically generated ping" on your wish list? I wonder if we will want to keep pinging people, once we are used to using Talk pages project/Notifications. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

No, automatically generated ping is not on my wish list. I still think pinging people will be used, but most of my "answers" is not aiming for a person. They are just s general post in a comversaton in chronologicl order. But I am OK with using the @, the "add-user" symbol or just dragging the user name from the conversation above. LittleGun (talk) 03:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)