Topic on Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/Flow

T300216: Improve accuracy of discussion change detection

T300215: Improve experience for locating changes to a discussion

T300502: Be able to refresh content on a talk page without reloading the page or losing your reply

   1    What did you find unexpected about the prototype?

The need for a full page reload was unexpected.

   2    What do you appreciate about the prototype?

The notification bar looks good - not too intrusive - and can be clicked on easily.

   3    What do you wish was different about the prototype?

I hoped that it would indicate in some way what the changes actually were, for example with a coloured background. In very long, active discussions, it can be almost impossible to pick out which comments are new – and that's the exactly the scenario in which a warning will most often be triggered. With this prototype, I feel that in long sections I'll still have to find the changes manually by opening up a separate browser tab and looking at the page history while keeping the existing tab open so I don't lose my text

   4    What concerns you about the prototype?

The original motivation (Topic:Woomtgg3secx6r2h) was the concern was that changes can result in an embarrassing/socially difficult situation; but this prototype seems cover new comments only, and doesn't address the major concern that the specific post to which I am about to reply has been changed by its editor while I am typing. It's far more important to warn of changes to the comment being replied to than to warn of a new comment added perhaps several screens away from my current position within a long discussion section.

This could easily be addressed by providing two warnings, as appropriate: "The comment you are replying to has been changed" as well as "A new reply has been added".

hi @MichaelMaggs – we appreciate the thorough feedback you shared! A couple of comments and questions in response below...

The need for a full page reload was unexpected.

Noted. Would it be accurate for us to think you expected the discussion to be updated seamlessly, without the page reloading? If so, we are working to implement this in T300502.

I hoped that it would indicate in some way what the changes actually were, for example with a coloured background.

We agree it ought to be easier for people to locate what exactly has changed about a discussion. The work to improve this experience will happen in T300215.

By the way, thank you for taking the time to articulate the scenario that prompted you to share this feedback. This level of specificity helps me more clearly understand the impact of not addressing the issue you are raising!

...this prototype seems cover new comments only, and doesn't address the major concern that the specific post to which I am about to reply has been changed by its editor while I am typing. It's far more important to warn of changes to the comment being replied to than to warn of a new comment added perhaps several screens away from my current position within a long discussion section.

A couple of thoughts:

1. It is accurate to think the prototype will only show an alert when new comment(s) are added.
2. With "1." said, we are planning to improve the "change detection" so that the Reply Tool will also alert you when content within the discussion was edited. The work to implement this will happen in T300216.^[1]

Related to the above: can you think of any scenarios where you would value being notified about a comment being edited that is NOT the comment you were replying to?

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i. If you are curious to know why we decided to only show people alerts about new comments to start, T250295#7654982 contains the thinking that went into this decision.

Hi, @PPelberg (WMF) thanks for the response here. You asked

can you think of any scenarios where you would value being notified about a comment being edited that is NOT the comment you were replying to?

Occasionally that might be helpful, for example in something like an RFC where the editor who started the section changes some text we are supposed to be discussing. It's of interest, but normally of lesser importance.

I don't know exactly what the devs understand by the term "edit conflict", but to my mind a change to the comment I'm actually replying to (or the deletion of that comment) feels like a real "edit conflict", as does the creation of new reply to the same comment by somebody else. Other more distant edits within the section feel to me more like "things it would be useful to know about".

In an ideal world, I'd like to be notified in some way that makes a clear distinction between (1) changes/additions/deletions/new reply to the specific comment I'm replying to, and (2) all other changes/additions/deletions within the section. I will always want to view the first, and only sometimes the second.

Obviously, when you get round to displaying the changes in some way, eg by colour-coding, it would make sense to mark up everything, including deletions.

In case you're curious, I understand that an "edit conflict", from the technical side, is a change to the line of wikitext where you are typing, plus the line immediately above or immediately below the one where you are typing. A "line" is roughly what you think of as a paragraph when you're looking at the wikitext.

If you are using the wikitext editors, and you are the second person to reply in a discussion, you will not see an edit conflict if the original post is changed while you are typing your reply.

I've also had this problem; while I was writing a reply, comments were added to the discussion, and when I saved my reply I got no notification and did not notice (actually, I don't remember reading the comment which the indent level says I was replying to). This produced the impression that I was rudely ignoring the last two posts and railroading the discussion. I felt the need to post an apology ("Sorry, I somehow did not see Aoidh's or rsjaffee's comments from just prior before posting, but did not get an edit conflict; my comment was more suitable for an earlier point in the discussion, and I didn't mean to come off as ignoring you!"; full discussion quoted.

I can manually check for new posts or changes, but that is easier for a computer to do. I hope this won't keep happening, as it would increase the time cost and/or social cost of this tool.