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Topic on Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/Flow

V2 Feedback: Kaartic

6
Summary by PPelberg (WMF)

phab:T255738: Make it clear in the visual mode comments will be automatically signed

phab:T255560: Make reply links more discoverable

phab:T255737: Username suggestion list lowercases text input

phab:T252083: Treat links to user pages differently than normal wikilinks

phab: T254208: Revise position and behavior of Reply tool's text input

phab:T248594: Refine design of ConfirmEdit captcha workflow in DiscussionTools

phab:T255740: Template swallows other parts of comment


Kaartic (talkcontribs)

Version 2.0 testing feedback

TASK #4: What are your initial impressions of the tool? What stands out to you? Do you find something particularly eye-catching? Confusing?

The in-line editing window looks great! I really like and the seamless switch between the text and the visual editor.

The positioning and styling of the "Reply" links look a little odd, though. It would be nice if it could be a little more distinguished from the actual text possibly by italicizing it or something like that.

TASK #5: Could you figure out how to write and style a comment in the tool's visual mode do so? What did you think of this experience?

Yeah, that works nicely. The expected shortcuts work for styling. I love that Ctrl+K is mapped to adding links!

TASK #6: Could you figure out how to ping someone who has commented in the section you are replying in? What did you think of this experience?

Yeah, it's easy to do that. I type '@' and it shows a list of people who have already commented there. Nice.

TASK #7: Could you figure out how to ping someone who has not commented in the section you are replying in? What did you think of this experience?

Yeah, this is easy to do too. I just type @followed by the username of the person who hasn't yet commented there and hit enter. It even seems to be showing suggestions as and when I type. Nice.

I noticed one issue. In some cases it seems to automatically lower-casing the first character of the username. For example, I was trying to ping the 'Acct creation test 030' user. I typed in 'Acct creation test 03' the suggestions went away. Then I just continued typing the last character ('0') and hit space. I was shown 'acct creation test 030' (note the lower-case 'a') as a suggestion. I hit enter. The suggestion was used and the first character of the username got lower-cased. Not sure why the suggestion shows a username where the first character is lower-cased.

TASK #8: Could you figure out how to delete the ping you created in Task #7? What did you think of this experience?

I just hit backspace until the username was deleted. So, it's nice and works fine.


TASK #9: Could you figure out how to see the comment you were writing in the visual mode, in the source mode before posting the comment to the talk page? What – if any – part the wikitext looked different from how you expected?

Yeah, switching to the "Source" tab revealed the wiki-text. The wikitext looked like what I expected in most cases. For the ping, I thought the ping template might be used but the user page was linked. I think it makes sense to link to the user page.

TASK #10: Could you figure out how to post the comment you had written in Tasks #1 - #9 to the talk page?

Yeah. Ctrl+Enter works! Cool.

TASK #11: Does the diff you created by posting a comment look as you expected? What – if anything – were you surprised to see?

Yes. It looks good. I forgot to add the signature to the comment possibly due to my infrequency of replying in talk pages. It's nice to see the signature automatically added. Also, it's great to see that it respects custom signatures.

It might be nice to show a hint somewhere that the message would be auto-signed.

OVERALL: If there are other comments or questions you would like to make the team aware of, please write them here. A few things:

  1. It would be nice to visually distinguish the editor so that it is easily identifiable amongst the content while scrolling through the page. When drafting a reply, I happened to scroll the page to see other content but lost track of the location of the editor. It took me some time to find this. Given that the positioning of the editor could vary unlike the editors in other places, I guess it would be nice to visually distinguish this in a better way so that it could easily be identified.
  2. When I try to post a reply after a few minutes, I got a request to complete CAPTCHA. The comment got posted after I completed the CAPTCHA but it's not clear why the CAPTCHA was necessary. It would be nice if the reason is mentioned somewhere.

Apart from these, I noticed a issue when using the '{{quote}}' template. Consider the following wikitext which has been entered in the "Source" editor:

Lorem
Ipsum
{{quote|Quoted text}}
More text

Now, each time I switch to the 'Visual' editor and then back to 'Source', I see that each line of text before the quote template gets prefixed with ':'. So, the text looks like this after the first switch:

:Lorem
:Ipsum
:{{quote|Quoted text}}
More text

It looks like this after the second switch:

::Lorem
::Ipsum
::{{quote|Quoted text}}
More text

That doesn't look right, does it?

Kaartic (talkcontribs)

Curious. I now consistently see the following error when I try to reply to any comment in that page:

The "Reply" link cannot be used to reply to this comment. To reply, please use the full page editor by clicking "Edit source".

It doesn't say why. Not sure what's going on.

PPelberg (WMF) (talkcontribs)

This feedback is helpful - we appreciate the effort you've put into trying the tool and sharing these thoughts with us, @Kaartic. Some comments in response to what you shared below...

Follow up questions

It might be nice to show a hint somewhere that the message would be auto-signed.

Can you imagine how you might react if you had included ~~~~ in the comment you were writing and after posting, noticed that it had been auto-signed this making ~~~~ unnecessary?

In the meantime, I've added this feedback to the ticket where we are tracking this issue: phab:T255738.

Comments

The in-line editing window looks great! I really like and the seamless switch between the text and the visual editor.

We're glad to hear this!


The positioning and styling of the "Reply" links look a little odd, though. It would be nice if it could be a little more distinguished from the actual text possibly by italicizing it or something like that.

Well put. This is proving to be a common issue. We plan to address this as part of our larger effort to make the actions, activity and content within talk pages easier to idenitfy and understand.

In the meantime, I've added the feedback you shared to the ticket where we will think specifically about the discoverability of the "Reply" links: phab:T255560.


I noticed one issue. In some cases it seems to automatically lower-casing the first character of the username.

Good observation. I've added the comments you shared to the ticket where we will be investigating this: phab:T255737.


I think it makes sense to link to the user page.

This is good to hear. If you're curious, here is how we arrived at the current approach and the enhancements we have planned for it: phab:T252083.


It would be nice to visually distinguish the editor so that it is easily identifiable amongst the content while scrolling through the page. When drafting a reply, I happened to scroll the page to see other content but lost track of the location of the editor. It took me some time to find this. Given that the positioning of the editor could vary unlike the editors in other places, I guess it would be nice to visually distinguish this in a better way so that it could easily be identified.

Well put. I've added this feedback to the ticket where we will be exploring how to address this issue: phab: T254208#6233879.


When I try to post a reply after a few minutes, I got a request to complete CAPTCHA. The comment got posted after I completed the CAPTCHA but it's not clear why the CAPTCHA was necessary. It would be nice if the reason is mentioned somewhere.

Agreed. The tool should explain what prompted the CAPTCHA to be shown. I've posted this to the ticket where we have been discussing CAPTCHA: phab:T248594#6233882.


...Apart from these, I noticed a issue when using the '{{quote}} template. Consider the following wikitext which has been entered in the "Source" editor...

Thank you for bringing this example to our attention. In investigating the switching issue you raised (filed as: phab:T255742), I seem to have stumbled upon another issue:phab:T255740 (Template swallows other parts of comment).

Kaartic (talkcontribs)

Can you imagine how you might react if you had included ~~~~ in the comment you were writing and after posting, noticed that it had been auto-signed this making ~~~~

I would realize that it's not necessary to sign the replies done using this interface anymore and would stop doing so. I would also remove the unnecessary signature in that post.

Though I personally don't find it confusing. I could imagine how this exceptional auto-signing behaviour might be confusing to some. But in "Source" mode, the preview of the reply does a good job of communicating that the reply would be auto-signed. In "Visual" mode this still needs to be communicated.

I also wonder if this auto-signing might be found as a "weird"/"unnecessary" behaviour by people who have been interacting a lot in talk pages. I'm not an experienced editor myself to say that. Anyways, if the experienced editors were to use this, I anticipate them asking for a preference to turn this auto-signing off ;-)

Thanks for the detailed responses, by the way. Totally love them :-)

PPelberg (WMF) (talkcontribs)

I would realize that it's not necessary to sign the replies done using this interface anymore and would stop doing so. I would also remove the unnecessary signature in that post.

Understood. This is helpful to know.

in "Source" mode, the preview of the reply does a good job of communicating that the reply would be auto-signed. In "Visual" mode this still needs to be communicated.

I suspect this issue, and the initial approach to resolving it, will be the kinds of things that become more clear once more people use the tool.

Considering many experienced contributors trying the tool for the first time will land in the tool's source mode, I wonder if the presence of the preview will "teach" them the tool will automatically sign the comments they post, as you alluded to.

The thing I wonder about: will this group of people assume the tool will continue auto-signing posts if they post the comment they are writing in the tool's visual mode.

I also wonder if this auto-signing might be found as a "weird"/"unnecessary" behaviour by people who have been interacting a lot in talk pages.

We'll have to see...

Thanks for the detailed responses, by the way. Totally love them :-)

You bet and thank you for saying as much – that's nice to hear ^ _ ^

Kaartic (talkcontribs)

We'll have to see...

Yeah. In the mean time, I think I figured out a reason why they might find it "weird". So far, the source editor had the "what you write is what gets published" phenomenon. As a matter of fact, even I really love the fact that I have control over what gets published. The automatic signing of messages kind of goes against this. So, this could come up as a reason why people might not like this. Just wanted to share this. :)

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