Talk:Talk pages project/Usability

Feedback: Hgzh

Tested on a desktop device. Doing the tasks itself was easy. Unexpected were the design changes and to be honest I don't like them. I see no point in styling the headings differently than in other pages, especially when in preview mode it's still the old styles. The margins between the comments are too big, in combination with the line height in a reply with more than one visible line it's difficult to see what is a new comment and which line exists because of wrapping one comment. the reply link with icon and bold type is too prominent in my opinion. Imagine having a colourful or image signature, there will be too much distraction from the comment by 'services'. I like the indicator of the latest comment on page below the page title, but the by-section information of number of comments and people in discussion is of little use in my opinion. What am I going to do with this information? It could be somewhat additional, but in current view it's too prominent. The by-section indicator of last comment date is more useful, but I also don't need this as the first thing I want to know when I look at a discussion. Maybe move it to the right, make it small and remove the icon, that would be enough for me. Regards, hgzh 06:36, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T309666

hi @Hgzh – thank you for taking the time to try out the prototype and articulate what thoughts they brought to mind for you.

A couple of questions in response below...

1. ...the design changes and to be honest I don't like them.

Are you able to say a bit more here? E.g. can you imagine the design changes preventing you from being able to do something as effortlessly as you're used to doing?

For context: you will be able to opt-out of these design changes.

2. I see no point in styling the headings differently than in other pages...

For context: the decision to style talk page headings differently than headings that appear in content namespaces is a response to newcomers mistaking talk page sections as corresponding/relating to the sections in the articles to which the talk page is adjoined. More context here: New user tests.

3. Imagine having a colourful or image signature, there will be too much distraction from the comment by 'services'...

Would it be accurate for me to understand the above as you expressing concern that the way the "Reply" buttons are currently designed leads you to worry that they will visually overwhelm/distract people from the comment to which they are adjoined?

4. ...the by-section information of number of comments and people in discussion is of little use in my opinion. What am I going to do with this information?

I appreciate you were likely asking this question rhetorically. Although, in case you are curious in the rationale...

This metadata is intended to do two things:

A) Make it easier for people who are new to intuitively recognize talk pages as being filled with discussions as opposed to being filled with sections of an article

B) Make it easier for people who are experienced to more quickly get a sense for the "size" and "shape" of the discussion.

Related to "B)" @Klein Muçi surfaced the idea of making it possible for people to use the "number of people" information to reveal the people who have published a comment in a particular discussion (T309752.

If you can imagine yourself using that information, I'd value knowing how...

5. It could be somewhat additional, but in current view it's too prominent...

We hear you and agree that some additional work is needed to make the information that appears beneath each section title to be less distracting / easier to parse. This work will happen in phab:T309666

6. The by-section indicator of last comment date is more useful, but I also don't need this as the first thing I want to know when I look at a discussion

It's helpful to know you see some value in seeing the date the last comment was posted within each section.

We're considering an idea about enabling people to click on the last comment date and be shown the last comment the indicator is referring to...can you imagine that being of use to you? More context in phab:T309751. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi @PPelberg (WMF), thank you for your reply. I'll try to make things a bit more clear:

• ad 1: I don't like them was a hint in which direction my feedback generally would point. My main concern was the following: The margins between the comments are too big, in combination with the line height in a reply with more than one visible line it's difficult to see what is a new comment and which line exists because of wrapping one comment. That is the point that would make reading talk pages harder for me. I hope you understand what I mean with that, expressing things in english on point is still sometimes hard for me.
• ad 2: Thanks for giving the context, I understand the rationale and the different styling isn't something I'm hardly opposed to. However, it still looks a bit unformed to me, but that's maybe a thing of habituation. Preview (source editing) should use the same styling then for consistency.
• ad 3: yes, that's my concern. I like the simple reply link in current styling; icon, bold text and different color are a bit too much for me. I understand that you want to make reply link more visible and that currently it's maybe not prominent enough for everyone, but it (and also signatures) shouldn't take the attention from the actual thing that matters, the comment itself.
• ad 4: I see, thanks. I still think the use of the information itself is little in comparison to the prominency of the visual presentation, also for me as an experienced editor (size and shape is in my opinion already visualized by the amount and structure of text), even though I can see some small use cases so if it's styled a little less highlighted it would be okay for me. I like the additional idea Klein Muçi brought up and that would make this block more useful.
• ad 5: Thanks for rethink styling.
• ad 6: Jumping to the last comment would be helpful.

Another question came up while writing this reply: how do you identify a page as a talk/discussion page? There are also some pages in project namespace that contain discussions and on the other hand talk namespace pages that should not contain reply links anymore (archives). I guess there should be a switch like __DISCUSSION__/__NODISCUSSION__/__NOREPLYLINK__ and a page property. Regards, hgzh 06:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

After having used the new appearance for some weeks, I want to revise my opinion about it. It's actually quite useful having the topic containers and together with the headline style they help recognising a new section on a long page. So thank you on working on this. Regards, hgzh 16:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for giving it a try, and double thanks for coming back here to share the updated information. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@Hgzh! I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get back to the additional context you shared in June. See responses form me below.

Although before that +1 to what @Whatamidoing (WMF) expressed above: I'm grateful that you invested the time and effort to experiment with these new features and to come back here to share the experiences you had with them 🙏🏼😊

Now, a couple of responses to the additional feedback you shared in June...

ad 2: Preview (source editing) should use the same styling then for consistency.

Are you still experiencing this issue? For context: this issue should have been resolved in mid-August by way of phab:T309423.

ad 3:...but it (and also signatures) shouldn't take the attention from the actual thing that matters, the comment itself.

Well put and we agree with you in thinking that people being able to notice the Reply button should not come at the expense of overwhelming the content of peoples' comments themselves.

In the coming weeks, we plan to make the new Reply button styling available as a beta feature at more wikis via phab:T320683. I think this next deployment will help us get a sense for whether the issue you described is occurring.

ad 6: Jumping to the last comment would be helpful.

Are you wanting to be able to "jump to the last comment" within a given section? The last comment posted on the entire page? Something else? I ask this, because we are planning to introduce the two "last comment" features I described. In fact, you should be able to try them both on this page by clicking the links that appear after the various "Latest comment:" text snippets that appear throughout this page.

Another question came up while writing this reply: how do you identify a page as a talk/discussion page?

For right now, the visual changes we are introducing will be limited to pages within the User talk: and Article talk: namespaces. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi PPelberg (WMF), thanks for your additional reply. Preview styling is fine now. The styling of the reply link like it is on this page is okay for me, although I liked the [ reply ] version a bit more. I saw the jump links and I like them, thanks. To the last point: I still think it would be useful to have this styling on all pages where discussions take place, so all talk namespaces and some specific pages in project namespace (village pump etc.) Regards, hgzh 18:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Preview styling is fine now.

Excellent. Thank you for letting me know, @Hgzh.

The styling of the reply link like it is on this page is okay for me, although I liked the [ reply ] version a bit more.

Understood and I appreciate you letting us know. If the styling of the new Reply button proves to be disruptive, I'd value knowing.

I saw the jump links and I like them, thanks.

Wonderful!

To the last point: I still think it would be useful to have this styling on all pages where discussions take place, so all talk namespaces and some specific pages in project namespace (village pump etc.)

Understood and it's helpful to know this. I've added what you shared here to the ticket where we are tracking work on making this styling available on all discussion pages. See T304750#8387884. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Feedback: Greg at Higher Math Help

It seems like a good idea to improve the visibility of the "Add topic" functionality. I actually found this page because I was looking for a way to make it more visible for new users. Thanks for working on this!

Here's my use case. I want to invite educators to discuss a course plan that I've started on Wikiversity. They have a lot of expertise to share, but many of them have probably never edited a wiki. Asking them to interpret the navigation tabs ("Resource," "Discuss," "Read," "Edit source," "Add topic," etc.) seems like too much to ask; many may not even notice that the navigation tabs are there.

Also, in the legacy skin, which is the default on the talk page I'm working with, the functionality of the "Add topic" tab is inconsistent with that of the other tabs. All the other tabs open an entirely new page rather than a new section, which may create confusion (maybe "Add topic" will be interpreted as adding a new page).

A button closer to where the new section will be added seems more intuitive. That's my initial impression, at least. Including a button at the bottom of the other sections, as in the legacy mockup you shared, might be ideal, although there's one possible problem that I noticed: positioning it directly below a comment might cause some confusion between "Add topic" and "Reply." Maybe there could be some kind of separator?

For now, I've created a working "Add topic" button at the top of the talk page I'm working on. It's a temporary fix, but I think it solves my immediate issue. Now I can direct new users to "Click the 'Add topic' button to start a new conversation," and that's really all they need to know, since the DiscussionTools interface takes care of the rest.

As others have mentioned, having an "Add topic" button at both the top and bottom of the page could be helpful (or even a sticky button), but the possible confusion between "Add topic" and "Reply" at the bottom may need to be sorted out.

Thanks again! -- Greg at Higher Math Help (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Greg at Higher Math Help, on some pages, volunteers have put some text around a top-of-page button, to explain its use even further ("To start a new discussion thread on this page, click on this button:"). You could consider that as an option. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Done! Thanks for the suggestion. Greg at Higher Math Help (talk) 00:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Incomprehensible recent addition

@PPelberg (WMF): Please review what you added in this edit to the linked section. I simply don’t understand what you wanted to say – half-finished sentences, suddenly first-person singular instead of first-person plural (is it a quote? from where/whom?)… —Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:37, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Good spot; thank you for saying something. Hopefully this edit clarifies things. Tho, please let me know if that's not the case. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Old [reply] button

@Whatamidoing (WMF): You wrote that the old, bracketed [reply] button will be removed everywhere. Does this mean that it will be unavailable, or just that it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements? —Tacsipacsi (talk) 01:54, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

You wrote that the old, bracketed [reply] button will be removed everywhere. Does this mean that it will be unavailable, or just that it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements?

The latter thing you described – "it will be non-default but kept for people opting out of the usability improvements" – is accurate. Do you think this edit makes this clear, @Tacsipacsi? Also: good spot; thank you for saying something. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Feedback: Proposed Revisions to "Add topic" button

There is a prototype ready that we would value feedback on:

The proposed revisions to the "Add topic" button in the Vector (2022) skin.

https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/e22ef06cf7/wiki/Talk:DiscussionTools

The prototype introduces two changes for people using the Vector (2022) skin:

1. The "Add topic" button appears in a more prominent location on the page (above the existing page toolbar that contains actions links like "Page," "Discussion," "Read," "Edit," "Edit source," etc.)
2. The "Add topic" button is styled differently

Feedback prompts

• What – if anything – concerns you about this proposed change?
• What – if any – ambiguity might we be able to address that would make it easier for you to evaluate this change?

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Add a config to configure this extension on any page

According to this discussion, I think a configuration should be added to the tool. This is because Wikimedia forums are held in the project namespace, and forums are therefore deprived of these benefits. খাত্তাব হাসান (talk) 09:47, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It’s actually already implemented: usability improvements work on all non-talk pages that have __NEWSECTIONLINK__. However, according to phab:T331635, this mode is currently only enabled on Hungarian and German Wikipedias. I think if you request enabling it as described at m:Requesting wiki configuration changes, the developers will be happy to fulfill your request. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Tacsipacsi Thanks a lot! খাত্তাব হাসান (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: fix talk page archiving so links don't break when a topic is moved

I'm not sure if this is being addressed in the scope of work, but with the enhancements I hope addressing how talk pages handle the lifecycle is being taken into account. Currently archiving is bot or manually curated, but in the process the sections move and old url links break. Talk pages should be designed to be an archive from the start with a URL structure that allows for a permalink ie no url change for links to a topic. Which means probably moving away from just anchor links to an ID structure that would handle each topic individually https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability#Moving_page_to_Talk_pages_project/Legibility to possibly https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Talk_pages_project/Usability/T2#Moving_page_to_Talk_pages_project/Legibility which inserts an incremental ID and the associated topic to any moved topic to a new page would maintain its direct link or something that would allow reconstructing links to anchor linked topics that are moved due to page size. Wolfgang8741 (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

We have been actually working on this!, although we looked at the problem from a different angle.

We felt that changing the discussion system as you describe would likely not be accepted by the entire community, and could result in a big failure like the deployment of Flow back in the day. (Although it is possible to do even today, if you convince people who would use those discussions that it's a good idea – as an example, Portuguese Wikipedia's village pump page is set up that way, where each topic is on a separate page like this one: [1].)

Instead, we're trying to track the topics as they're moved to the archive, and we introduced a special page that functions as a permanent link to a topic (or a single comment). For example, Special:GoToComment/c-Wolfgang8741-20230810123700-Proposal:_fix_talk_page_archiving_so_links_don't_break_when_a_topic_is_moved is a permanent link to this thread. Right now it links back to this page, but when it gets archived, it will redirect to the archive. As another example, Special:GoToComment/c-Whatamidoing_(WMF)-2021-02-05T20:13:00.000Z-Test_page is a link to the first thread on this page – I had just set up archiving here, so it should get archived today and then you'll find that the link goes to the archive.

We're still in the process of deploying this feature to all wikis (you can follow the progress at T315510), and deciding how to make it accessible in the interface (at this moment, it's just a "secret" special page). Matma Rex (talk) 19:47, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

For some high-traffic pages, I have wished occasionally for something less extreme than the single discussion/separate page approach used at ptwiki, like w:en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents to be split at least by year. That page presently has more than 1.3 million revisions, and gets ~60K edits per year. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Localising Topic Containers - CLDR ticket created

@Matma Rex, @Tacsipacsi, @Whatamidoing (WMF):

It emerged in our discussion at [[2]] that Topic Containers take data from CLDR, and since there is a mismatch between the language codes for Konkani in MediaWiki and CLDR, the localised text for Konkani is not appearing in Topic Containers. I have created a ticket to correct this in CLDR. I would be grateful if the Wikimedia community could support this ticket in any way. The Discoverer (talk) 08:12, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@The Discoverer Hi, thank you for doing that! I don't know how to support it, but I think @Amire80 knows more about the CLDR project, so perhaps he can help. From my side as a developer, I can offer adding local overrides for the CLDR data in MediaWiki, so that we can fix the localisation without waiting for them: I've done that before for the Sorani Kurdish language in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/cldr/+/880547, and I could prepare a similar patch for Konkani if you point me to where to find the localisation data. Matma Rex (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I somehow never became much of a CLDR expert. @Raymond, @Nemo bis, and @Nikerabbit understand it much better than I do. Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 18:13, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Matma Rex , @Amire80 Please add me as reviewer for a CLDR patch. Raymond (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator: T347626 The Discoverer (talk) 19:32, 28 September 2023 (UTC)