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. ~~~~
Topic on Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/Flow
It is very easy to ping, just write @ and then search for the username you want.
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.
Agree. Should be easier to ping a specific person. @ doesn't work in all skins.
@Martina Nolte, please tell me more about this problem.
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.
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.)
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 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. --~~~~
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.
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…)
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!
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) 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. ~~~~
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) 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.
Peter, should we have a page at Talk pages project/Mobile for the upcoming mobile work?
@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.
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.