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I have a huge problem with this - no edit summaries[edit]

I think that editors should be able to leave edit summaries when replying. The tool prevents me from doing this. Doug Weller talk 12:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you click "advanced" below the edit box you will see a place to enter an edit summary. Whether it should be hidden by default is a different matter. Thryduulf (talk) 13:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm told it's not automatically available in order not to distract new users. IMHO we should want them to see it and get the idea they should be using it. Doug Weller talk 14:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. Edit summaries should not be seen as a distraction, but as an integral part of leaving a comment. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See my discussion here.[1]. Are people with no experience with watchlists or even the actual Wikipedia encyclopedias making decisions about this? Doug Weller talk 17:05, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't previously aware of this practice. I don't think edit summaries are relevant to leaving a comment. What should be written besides "reply"? Update: I read the linked discussion at mw:Talk:Talk pages project and am not convinced that we need to encourage such edit summaries. It also doesn't seem to be a widespread community practice, although there is a subset of editors doing it (from a random survey of discussion pages). If I need to figure out what a comment on my watchlist is, I use User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/inlineDiffDocs to expand the diff inline.

On the other hand: EDITSUMCITE does seem to mention talk pages (which surprised me), and I can see how watchlists and contribs lists would be more useful. Overall, though, I don't think the convenience is worth it. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:28, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. There's just a small set of users who use edit summaries for talk page comments, so the field should not be made visible by default. Maybe there could be an opt-in feature that makes it visible by default, as in reply-link and CD. – SD0001 (talk) 06:57, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand where you are getting this "small set of users" nonsense from? Nearly every editor here uses an edit summary on nearly every page - just look at the page history of any page - even Enterprisey is using edit summaries! Thryduulf (talk) 10:18, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(Replied there.) Enterprisey (talk!) 11:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true for most users while adding new talk page comments (which is the only thing reply tool supports). In any case, I don't think an edit summary like this is helpful. – SD0001 (talk) 12:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They are very useful when you want to be sure that a point you are making in the discussion is recorded somehow in the history. This can be particularly useful when discussing issues involving sanction areas, NPOV/RS etc areas, vandalism and more. Sure, I often use just C for comment if I don't think it merits a description in the edit summary. And of course there's watchlists, where edit summaries on discussion pages can be very useful. Doug Weller talk 11:11, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As a thread gets longer, the tool keeps indenting until it's all squeeze to the right -I haven't yet seen what happens if people continue, does it have a version of "od"? Doug Weller talk 15:41, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's no "outdent" built-in (it's been requested, but not designed or built yet). However, if you reply to an earlier comment, it will align your comment with the one you're replying to, so you can work around this limitation. (This depends upon the discussion complying with WP:LISTGAP, so sometimes it won't.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On the open question of whether custom edit summaries should be encouraged more, I think it's always useful to see what experienced editors have actually been doing. Here's a sample of the latest behavior in the article Talk: namespace only:

Origin
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used; also, unsigned]
what do do with plural
incoherent and wp:NOTAFORUM
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
other cases
: The Wright Flyer is listed in the examples...
[no edit summary used]
+reply
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
cmt
Reply [used Reply tool']
[no edit summary used]
replies and advice
[no edit summary used]
This one no longer is.
Mimicking others in reverts
[no edit summary used]
RM
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
[no edit summary used]
Reply [used Reply tool]
update
leading doctors though
[no edit summary used]
more comments
[no edit summary used]
any further issues?
Eugène: Piliuona → Kruonis → Ziezmariai → Strosiunai → Mijaugonys? → Rykantai → Trakai
copying IP reply from my talk page and replying
[no edit summary used]
more comments
urgh.
::I googled "Sisak children concentration camp" and this page was the first hit. ~~~~
[no edit summary used]
no.
Reply [used Reply tool]

I eliminated any edit that created a new section using &action=edit&section=new, because the 2010 wikitext editor doesn't permit custom edit summaries in that case (the Reply tool's counterpart, the New Discssion tool, does), and all of the edits that used scripts (e.g., Twinkle, AFCH, various WikiProject rating scripts), and edits that didn't involve a comment. I attempted to include only those edits that could have been made with the Reply tool, but it was a manual process, so I probably misclassified a few. All of these edits were made by editors with >500 edits (WP:EXTCONFIRMED).

As you can see, about half of the edits didn't use any edit summary at all, or used only general edit summaries, like "cmt" or "more comments". Based on the ::formatting, two of them seem to have copied and pasted their comment into the edit summary.

Overall, the existing behavior does not seem to me to be very strong evidence that experienced editors consider custom edit summaries to be a critical component of participating in a discussion on a talk page.

For comparison, I did a separate search, looking specifically at edits made with the Reply tool. This search showed 100% edit summaries (because it defaults to "Reply"), of which almost 7% were custom edit summaries. It looked like a handful of editors use the custom edit summary option regularly, and others occasionally. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The edit summary option setting is sticky. If you click the "Advanced" link then it reveals the edit summary. Once you've done this, future replies will show the edit summary by default.

My view is that the interface should not use the word "Advanced" for this. This suggests that there's a bundle of advanced options whereas it just seems to conceal the edit summary. The option should be more clearly labelled as Edit summary (hide) or Edit summary (show).

Most of the time, a default edit summary of "reply to <user>" will be fine. The evidence presented by Whatamidoing (WMF) shows that this default would be superior to current manual summaries as they are usually blank.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:54, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The word "advanced" is confusing. It makes much more sense for the label to clearly state what it does. I'd also prefer it if the word "reply" wasn't there when I click it - what's the point? Doug Weller talk 10:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"More options"? Enterprisey (talk!) 11:02, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Enterprisey: sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Doug Weller talk 11:25, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was suggesting "More options" as a label for that part, assuming the developers will someday want to put more stuff in there than just the edit summary. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:56, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think if there aren't more options, that would be confusing. Doug Weller talk 08:57, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think that "Reply" is a very reasonable default edit summary for a reply on a talk page. I would only need to alter that if I needed to somehow belabour or highlight a point, ping someone silently, or make my particular post stand out in View History. In all other situations - especially for new users - it is what it says on the tin: a Reply. I do, however, think Edit summary (hide)/(show) is an excellent proposal. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:46, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply is fine for a default if you don't want to add your own. But if there is any way to not have it show when you click on whatever it will say when we want to actually make an edit summary, it would be nice. Doug Weller talk 12:03, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind it autofilling with reply, but I would like this to default appear for all. We want to try to inculate leaving an edit summary into new editors as quickly as possible, and having it hidden as an "advanced option" (which it's not) is counter to that. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion tools hiding error messages?[edit]

I came across Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Disappearing chunks of talkpage text where some editors using Discussion Tools (including me) do not see an error message about an unmatched <ref> tag when viewing Special:Permalink/1071912592. Perhaps there is some kind of race condition? isaacl (talk) 21:33, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Isaacl: are you getting this with only reply tool enabled, or only if all of the DT experiments are enabled? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:58, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For me, I didn't realize the errors only appear on talk pages if you enable them by adding a CSS rule to your personal style file (as described in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 195 § Disappearing chunks of talkpage text). However the last post in that thread refers to phab:T301845 being opened to fix the problem in general. isaacl (talk) 15:49, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Isaacl: ok thanks - don't see that as a "reply tool rollout" blocker, yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:18, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it can affect discussions on Wikipedia namespace pages? References aren't used often there, but it does happen. Given that a fix has been merged and I think is currently awaiting or undergoing quality assurance testing (I'm not sure how to read the Phabricator task status), personally I suggest waiting until the fix is released. isaacl (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This patch is up for QA review. My guess is that it's likely to be fixed on wiki by next WP:THURSDAY. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:13, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gamma Testers[edit]

Watchlist notice opened for final gamma test. As this has been advertised we are assuming no blocking tasks unless new issues are reported here or at phab. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: Apologies if this isn't an appropriate question here but, why is it called the "Gamma test" instead of "beta test"? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:02, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Blaze Wolf: I suspect because since it's been an opt-in functionality for some time, that was the alpha test. This is more like a brief third tranche just short of global opt-out Nosebagbear (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because the beta test already completed - but we pushed back that we wanted more testing, so have gone for a third test wave - all of the functional requirements are expected to be met already from the beta test, this is really a last chance to raise blocking bugs before deployment. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:35, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Blaze Wolf Once it's been fully rolled out and everyone's got it, we're going to call it Omicron!

Nick Moyes (talk) 15:02, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

*Ba dum tss* ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:10, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a function that I would like to be in the reply tool that hasn't been added yet. That is that the reply tool doesn't see any stylization after you add your signature and thinks that you didn't add your signature if you add anything, resulting in a double signature, one with the styling and one without. For example, if I were to make my comment small, if I add </small> after my signature to make my entire comment small, it thinks I didn't add my signature and inserts it again. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Blaze Wolf: I've opened phab:T302257 on this. I don't think it should be considered a blocking bug, but should be looked in to. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How do you sign up for the Gamma Test? I'm interested. J390 (talk) 01:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@J390: Preferences -> Beta Features -> Select the one called "Discussion Tools" -> Save. This includes more than just the reply tool from what I've been told but you don't have to use the other features. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 01:36, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Talk_pages_project#Opting_in — xaosflux ^Talk 10:20, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply tool[edit]

It used to work on my user talk page. Now it doesn't. Did I mess something up? The [reply] buttons are there but clicking them does nothing. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:15, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not just you. I'm having the same issue on your talk page (possibly just your talk page specifically since I'm using the reply tool to reply to you here). ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:25, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me — xaosflux ^Talk 00:18, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The reply tool currently fails on pages that contain video or audio embeds (such as your talk page in this section) if you have the "New video player" beta feature enabled. This is a known issue and it should be fixed soon: T301427. Matma Rex talk 00:31, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know. Thanks Matma Rex! And thanks to Blaze Wolf and Xaosflux as well. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Matma Rex: thanks for the note, FYI: It also fails for me if trying to reply to that section, even without that beta player. And once it fails, it fails for the rest of the page until a reload. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:08, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

phab:T302296 opened for the non-beta version of this failing. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply tool configuration[edit]

Hello, it would be very useful if we were able to change some parts of the reply tool such as the pinging function. For example, I find it useful to have a dropdown, however I prefer using {{re}} instead of @[[User:<user>]]. Additionally, would it be possible to add a preload to the reply tool like Enterprisey's reply tool? Thank you! ―sportzpikachu _{my talkcontribs} 01:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where would you want this "preload" to come from? Also note: the "reply function" doesn't work at all in "source" mode, which could be nice. These do seem more like "feature requests" though, so shouldn't block roll outs. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:14, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux, if you get this ping, then the "Mention a user" button and keyboard shortcut works in source mode. (Do you have the toolbar turned off?) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Whatamidoing (WMF) - ahh ok, I had to also opt-in to Enable editing tools in source mode in preferences; thanks! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:42, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sportzpikachu the @USER<user> option is much more sustainable, local templates can come and go. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Toggle having a signature in reply tool[edit]

As of now, the reply tool automatically adds a signature to posts, but this can cause issues when using subst templates that add a signature already. An example is Template:RMassist. Maybe there could be a way to toggle it on and off? ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is similar to the one below, personally I think the best solution is to "not autosign" if signature code is present in the text already. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:21, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

see phab:T268558 (my last comment following the merge) for what I think is the bigger issue. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another approach would be to standardize the templates on never auto-signing. Then editors wouldn't have to look up which template has which behavior each time. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you are suggesting we make a blacklist of autosign templates, per project, that sounds computationally expensive. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Partial signatures[edit]

Hello,

I occasionally use three-tilde signatures (name-only), when the full signature would be either duplicative or obtrusive for the usecase.

However, it seems that if you do a three tilde signature, the reply tool will still try to add the full signature. I'll demonstrate below this. It would be best if the auto-sign disabled if any form of signature generated by tildes was used. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:14, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate signature example Nosebagbear (talk) Nosebagbear (talk) 11:14, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

see phab:T268558 (my last comment following the merge) for what I think is the bigger issue. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To do this, the tool would have to be able to reliably differentiate between adding a link to your username for some other reason ("Just go to WhatamIdoing and scroll down about halfway to read about that and which") and a partial signature, which is difficult. When you don't want a quick, simple, standard, pre-indented auto-signing tool, then just use the [edit source] button instead of the [reply] button. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Whatamidoing (WMF) wouldn't something like "if the input text has the ~~~, ~~~~, or ~~~~~ magic words in it, don't autosign"? The tool seems to be fine knowing if these are present, as the live preview output shows them. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:24, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That would work, as would a simple checkbox saying "don't auto-sign this comment". If you want to create a link to your userpage, just write [[user:Thryduulf|]], yes it's a few keystrokes more, but it doesn't confuse software. Thryduulf (talk) 00:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps some "suppress autosign" button would be more than enough? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:50, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer the magic word detection/removal, as well as a suppress autosign, given the choice. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:52, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's been about a year since I asked about this, but I believe that the explanation for why that isn't as simple or reliable as it seems like it should be involved the words "pre-save transformation". It might be possible, but it might not be proportionate effort for the small benefit. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:44, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A "DO NOT Auto sign" button (perhaps in Advanced) shouldn't have that problem. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:50, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

True. On the other hand, at what point does cramming in all the features we want tip this away from "simple, lightweight tool for quick replies (use the [edit] button if you want to do something complicated)" into a tool that can do anything but which is no longer simple, lightweight, or quick? There's always room for me to put one more cow on the commons, but if we all do that... Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure the good balancing point, personally think I'd rather have "sig is already there, don't add it" then more UI elements to turn it off. As far as the tipping point- we are about to put (on some pages) hundreds or more links to this tool on pages. Putting the sig in "for you" is already new functionality being added (vs just clicking edit), so looking at the sig specific components seems worthwhile. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:51, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

hi @Nosebagbear – are you able to share a link to a comment where a ... full signature would be either duplicative or obtrusive for the usecase. ?

...I ask the above in an effort to form a clearer image in my mind for the kind of scenario that, I assume, prompted you to raise this issue here and @Thryduulf to raise a similar issue in phab:T278357... PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't recall any specific situations off the top of my head, my experience over the years is that they are rare but they do exist. Searching project space for sign with three tildes finds mainly lists of participants in WikiProjects/attendees at meetups/events and similar.

Wikipedia:Third opinion/Instructions explicitly instructs to use five tildes, WP:TALK#REVISE notes "Best practice is to add a new timestamp, e.g., ; edited ~~~~~, using five tildes, after the original timestamp at the end of your post.", although in practice most editors who note a correction/amendment to their comment do so with four tildes.

As I noted in phab:T278357 though by far the most common uses of three and five tildes are typos for four (as at Special:Diff/1072386554). The cases when tildes other than four are intentionally desired are rare enough that needing to explicitly request the software not auto-add your signature (which will be of benefit in other scenarios too) is no burden. Thryduulf (talk) 22:41, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ps: I just now recall that, several years ago, there was some reason (possibly humour) why I wanted my signature to display as something other than "Thryduulf" and so typed [[user:Thryduulf|foo]] ~~~~~. An even hazier recollection is of wanting something (no idea what) to display between by username and signature, resulting in ~~~ foo ~~~~~. If there have been five instances of my doing this since I got here in December 2004 I would be surprised. Thryduulf (talk) 22:41, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer-me has been dubious about the advice in WP:TALK#REVISE, which is rarely followed and sometimes annoying. But even if you wanted to follow it, you can't make that kind of edit in the [reply] tool anyway. Ditto for adding your username to a list of participants/attendees.

Five tildes are sometimes wanted for starting RFCs (to have an RFC question without the posting individual's name), but that usually involves starting a ==New section==, which you can't do with the [reply] button. Five tildes are also used in MassMessage, which again doesn't involve the [reply] button. Usually, if someone adds a comment to an existing section with five tildes, it's a typo. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf the links you shared above were precisely the examples I was seeking...thank you for locating them and sharing them here.

Combining the limited experience/knowledge I have of Wikipedia:Third_opinion/Instructions with the context @Whatamidoing (WMF) shared about Wikipedia:TALK#REVISE is leading me to think these are workflows you, and others, do NOT encounter frequently.

As such, I do not think we should consider adding support for partial signatures within the Reply Tool to warrant blocking the opt-out deployment scheduled for 7 March.

On the topic of signature typos, I imagine those will be most common amongst experienced volunteers who I assume will be confident using the source editor to make corrections of this sort.

Please let me know if anything in what I shared above prompts new thoughts/questions. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@PPelberg (WMF) While I think dealing with phab:T278357 before the opt-out deployment would be desirable I can't in good faith describe it as essential (I would rank phab:T278355 the same way). The phab tickets don't give me any sense of how much effort would be required to fix them, though. A button or checkbox or something to disable auto-signing for a given post is something that can, imo, wait 1 or 2 releases but shouldn't be something we're still waiting for three or four years from now. Thryduulf (talk) 07:09, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having now read phab:T302550 (where I have also commented) I think you've misunderstood the intent of phab:T278357 - it is not about intentional uses of three and five tildes but graceful handling of unintentional ones, which are very significantly more common (they are almost impossible to search for, but I encounter them probably 1-2 times a month on average and I read only a tiny fraction of the discussions) Thryduulf (talk) 07:20, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the tool displays a note if you type ~~~~. Do you want it to display a note for ~~~ and ~~~~~ as well (e.g., "You probably have a typo there. Did you really mean to add a partial signature?")? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The note is more annoying than useful in visual mode tbh. Adding one wouldn't harm, but just silently fixing it would much better. Note that it doesn't display a note in source mode at all - the only change is that the signature in the preview area changes from grey to black. In source mode (which is what I almost always use) three and five tildes do display the output you'll get, but I don't always look at that - if I'm not doing anything complicated with markup I have no need to. Thryduulf (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflicts[edit]

This will probably get a response of "that's a feature, not a bug", but something I've noticed is that the tool resolves edit conflicts. That's great with high-traffic noticeboards and when the reply that causes the edit conflict is not germane to your conversation, but what's happened with me is that a user makes a comment, I start replying to it, and during that time they alter it or add a supplementary comment, rendering my reply moot. Is there a way of showing the latest revision of the page when edits have happened inbetween the time you loaded it and the time you're about to publish? Example: message, supplement, my reply, not knowing it was moot, response alerting me to the change. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is being worked on at T250295. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Sdrqaz (talk) 22:13, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I particularly hope people will count the (raw) number of times that this happens to them, and that knowing about other replies would have resulted in a significant change to their comment. I'd love to be able to say with some confidence that this happens to highly active editors "once a week" or "once a month" or whatever. Right now, I can only say that some people have encountered it and mentioned it to me once (ever), and that I personally encounter this problem about once a month (out of hundreds of comments posted each month). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity, I think the talk pages project has done a great deal of good, especially for our newer editors (I can't count the number of times I've seen errors with indenting and lack of signatures). Resolution of edit conflicts in this manner isn't ideal, but it's still better than not resolving them at all. Sdrqaz (talk) 11:08, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but while the phab task would be the ideal solution, if it can detect something at all, then perhaps adding {{ec}} at the front (even when the edit conflict isn't ultimately relevant) would be a huge (further) mitigation. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:21, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is would be nice if it handles this like CD does, i.e. notifying the user if the page has changed while they were typing, and allowing them to reload the page. ― Qwerfjkl talk 16:39, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On a busy page like ANI, I don't think I'd appreciate being notified every time the whole page changed. At most, I think I'd like to be notified if new comments were added in the same section (preferably just to the same comment that I was replying to). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a very obtrusive notification:

The notification is the +1 on the left.

― Qwerfjkl talk 21:59, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with regard to (sub)-section - I hadn't thought that awareness of changes to the full page was even being considered. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that it would be easier to detect whole-page changes, but the devs are looking at better solutions.

WP:ANI averages one edit every 7 minutes, which is a lot of opportunity for whole-page notifications, especially if it takes you more than a couple of minutes to read what's already been written in that section. I'd probably have a 50% chance of seeing that notification before I even started typing a comment. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a rough answer to your question on frequency, WAID, on my en-wiki side, I've had this come up 5 times in about 15/16 days. In two of those it's had some relevance to my answer, the other three had no relevance

I am fairly active on AN, TH, HD, ANI, and so imagine I have a higher than average rate of edit conflicts in talk posts Nosebagbear (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Review of Outstanding Reply Tool Issues[edit]

Hi y'all – two things:

Thank you @Blaze Wolf, @Nick Moyes, @Nosebagbear, @Sdrqaz, @Qwerfjkl,@Thryduulf, @Usedtobecool, @Xaosflux, and @Zxcvbnm for coming here to report the issues you've noticed in the Reply Tool.
Earlier today the Editing Team completed a review of, what we understand to be, the main issues you, and other volunteers at en.wiki, have experienced with the Reply Tool. We did this review to determine which – if any – of these issue we think ought to block the Reply Tool deployment scheduled for 7 March. I've posted the results of this review at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). If the results we came to prompt any questions, please let me know.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:52, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm attempting to view it but the page keeps loading in a very basic text version. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 01:57, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See phab:T302550 perhaps. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:58, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing. All of phab is loading in a basic text version. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 02:00, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you are blocking javascript. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:29, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Preload[edit]

@PPelberg (WMF) and Whatamidoing (WMF): Once deployed I'd like to see if we can get our edit request forms to start using this. Open eg [2] in incognito, the "Submit an edit request" link going via the Reply Tool (for new sections) would be neat. Any idea if this is technically possible, and if so what the best technical implementation may be? (we often have issues with people messing up the {{subst:trim}} part for example, so I wonder if we could give instructions in an 'editnotice' or have it prefill the {{edit extended-protected}} template 'behind the scenes' for example). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader We experimented with this in T269310. It is technically possible (and you can even find old demos on that task – please beware, it's an outdated version of the tool), but we found that many existing forms with preload either use complicated templates that don't work well in our visual mode, or they don't expect a signature to be added. It can be done, but at the time, it did not seem like the best place to put our effort.

That said… in my personal opinion, with my Wikipedian hat on: I don't think the problem with the edit request form is that it uses an old interface. The problem is that it has so many edit notices, you literally can't see the space where you're supposed to write when you open the page (see screenshot on the side, for posterity). Swapping the edit field for the shiny new tool would not improve anyone's experience if it would have all the same redundant boxes at the top. Matma Rex talk 00:29, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've open a discussion at Template_talk:Edit_semi-protected#Way_to_long - that should be wider. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:44, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe what we really need is a purpose-built method of requesting an edit. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One step ahead of you :) phab:T300454 Enterprisey (talk!) 00:33, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Template[edit]

So as you can see I'm using the tool here, right? Now, let's say I want to have the citation needed template. {{Citation needed}} ... but it's nowiki-ed. There's a disclaimer saying "You are using the visual editor - wikitext does not work here. To switch to source editing at any time without losing your changes, click on the switch button." Problem is, when I switch to the source... say there's a template with several parameters. What are the short names for those parameters? It'll be a hassle for me to google the template documentation and switch back and forth. The current visualeditor, when I type the template code, it automatically leads me to a box with all the parameters. I'd suggest having that feature. Gerald WL 14:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Gerald Waldo Luis. This is blocked on an expansion of MediaWiki's wikitext code. Basically, to make templates "safe" (also tables and some other things), you'd have to wrap the whole comment in a new wikitext code. This could easily be done automatically by DiscussionTools, but it would look different in the diffs. It would also solve several other problems (see https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=4731762#Motivation, especially the broken list in the middle of the table). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply link in Archives[edit]

Currently reply links show up in archived discussion pages too, where they won't be of any use. Archive page templates like {{aan}} use the magicword __NOEDITSECTION__ to suppress section edit links. It would be nice if reply links can be suppressed this way as well. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 13:13, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ this is being worked on in phab:T249293, feel free to contribute there. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:01, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ are you able to share a link to the archived discussion page(s) where you noticed reply links appearing where they shouldn't be?

Reason being: I'd like to add links to these pages to the ticket that @Xaosflux mentioned above (T249293). PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@PPelberg (WMF) you can see an example at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project/Archive 1 — xaosflux ^Talk 00:11, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful – thank you, @Xaosflux. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Related: is it possible to suppress reply links in pages that are not intended for active discussions? For example, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies and similar pages where the content is bot-copied from the real discussion pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:12, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 not currently, if the solution is a magicword, then that could be applied on any page. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat related: I noticed the reply links show up when viewing past revisions of a talk page and when reviewing talk page diffs. What happens if someone uses it on an old revision or below an old diff? I suppose it's fine unless there are any sort of undesirable consequences, in which case I would recommend suppressing them there as well. DB1729 (talk) 05:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If the comment you're replying to is still on the page, it will automatically resolve the ensuing "edit conflict". If it's not (e.g., due to archiving), you'll get an error message. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That's cool, but on further thought, when viewing an old version of any page, the edit source links for sections disappear. There have been a handful of occasions when viewing an old diff, I would notice something that needs correcting and look for the edit link for the section. Seeing it not there, I would realize I nearly edited an old version and back out. It might be worth considering to similarly disable the reply links to offer that same clue. Just a suggestion. DB1729 (talk) 06:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agree on that. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:20, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@DB1729 @Redrose64 There is a nice improvement to the reply tool's behavior on old revisions coming this week (powered by the same code that provides the edit conflict warning I promised here): when you start replying on an old revision, and there are new comments in the same section in future revisions, you'll get a warning about it and a prompt to display them. I hope that will resolve this concern. Matma Rex talk 12:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply button on archives[edit]

I was browsing some Noticeboard archives and noticed the Reply button was very much present. I haven’t quite checked User talk archives, and I’m not sure what can actually be done about it, but I imagine should anyone jump in on those archived threads they’ll just be reverted.--CreecregofLife (talk) 07:23, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia_talk:Talk_pages_project#Reply_link_in_Archives above. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:30, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Page width squeezes when using Tool to create new post[edit]

Whenever I create a new post by using this Tool, the page width temporarily changes or squeezes. When I refresh the page, the width goes back to normal. George Ho (talk) 19:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What skin are you using? Are you using the normal webui? What is your screen resolution width? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:39, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New Vector (2022) on desktop; 1366 x 768 landscape. I bet using this tool to reply can also result the same... unless I stand corrected. George Ho (talk) 19:44, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This happens to me as well, and also affects CD (also Evil Vector). ― Qwerfjkl talk 20:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl, are you also using "New Vector"? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The issue started when New Vector became a separate skin. ― Qwerfjkl talk 07:05, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can you try legacy vector, just want to see if 'new vector' is the only differentiator. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:36, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed, only affects New Vector. ― Qwerfjkl talk 17:01, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hope the issue doesn't occur in other skins besides New Vector. (this is a test post, actually, while using Monobook.) George Ho (talk) 02:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would one of you mind checking this on another wiki, e.g., French Wikipedia, which has had Vector 2022 turned by default for months? Nobody there has reported this problem. I wonder if there's something specific about this wiki's set up that causes this, rather than a problem affecting everyone. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem seems to have disappeared for now. I'll notify you if it reoccurs. ― Qwerfjkl talk 07:41, 5 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@George Ho, @Qwerfjkl, if it comes back, please re-test in mw:safemode. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Whatamidoing (WMF): The page width squeeze extends to Wikimedia Commons just on New Vector. I'm using safemode as you suggested for this reply. If the width squeezes here also, then this would be a problem. George Ho (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As I thought, the width squeeze still persists, even on safemode. George Ho (talk) 03:03, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't reproduce the problem. Can you upload screenshots demonstrating it? Matma Rex talk 13:38, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here they are: File:Width squeeze A Reply Tool New Vector.png and File:Width squeeze B Reply Tool New Vector.png. George Ho (talk) 22:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@George Ho Thank you. This, however, leaves me very confused, because your screenshots look like neither the new Vector nor the old Vector. Here's what I see when using these skins: old Vector new Vector. Your screenshots have the pure white background like new Vector, but they also have the light-blue lines like old Vector. I'm wondering if you're using something to change how Wikipedia looks that could be conflicting with the reply tool somehow. Matma Rex talk 23:21, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that. I was using the bottom of the page. I'll provide more screenshots using the top of the page right away. George Ho (talk) 23:37, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another screenshot for clarity: File:Width squeeze top of page New Vector 2022.png. George Ho (talk) 23:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@George Ho Thanks. Can you clarify if this happens only after posting your reply, or after simply opening the reply tool?

If it's only after posting, I might have some ideas for what could be happening (it looks kind of like we're loading the new page content using the wrong skin and creating an weird hybrid), although no idea yet why it's happening. Matma Rex talk 02:26, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

After posting either a reply or a new thread. Doesn't squeeze after simply opening the tool. George Ho (talk) 02:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When this happened to me, it looked exactly like the third screenshot, with the tabs at the top mangled. ― Qwerfjkl talk 07:07, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New discussion tool enabled at Teahouse[edit]

Hi! Just dropping a courtesy note that we've decided to activate the new discussion tool for all visitors to the Teahouse. Thanks to the WMF folks for your work on this! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Add edit button as well as a reply button?[edit]

For the most part I'm liking the new reply tool. From an accessibility perspective, it's certainly a lot easier to use than hitting the edit button on a section or subsection, and then trying to find the specific comment you want to reply to inside the entire unformatted text representation of that section. However editing a comment you've made still requires that. Would it be possible to add an edit button, so that you can use the new reply tool to edit a comment you've already made? Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:42, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, only CD can do this. ― Qwerfjkl talk 16:50, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I was unaware of that script, I've added it now.

Addendum Is there a way to get CD to always show the reply and edit buttons beside a comment, instead of them appearing when I mouse over the comment? I can't seem to find an obvious setting for that. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:02, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's been a while since I installed the script, but does reformatting the comments do anything (it's one of the settings on the Talk page tab)? I get links to reply, edit, and thank (on others) on all comments. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:25, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it moves the signature to the top of the comment, as well as some other things. ― Qwerfjkl talk 17:29, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Been using it for a few hours now. While it has some nice features, unfortunately more of it annoys me than the good. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:17, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to endorse an edit button, because right now, answering edit requests requires traditional source editing to mark them answered and actually replying at once CreecregofLife (talk) 02:14, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CreecregofLife: Have you tried User:Jackmcbarn/editProtectedHelper yet? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No I haven’t. I haven’t explored the user-created add-ons. I’m still not sure who gets the right to use what, like, which tools are walled off to higher-ups and what have you. Twinkle feels like one of those, it has those vibes CreecregofLife (talk) 06:26, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Marked unsigned comments[edit]

I noticed that the on-page reply feature hasn’t extended to comments that are marked unsigned. Like, I get why they don’t appear for comments that are plainly unsigned, but for what the unsigned template does, it should probably adopt that quality too--CreecregofLife (talk) 16:52, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, there's no way for the software to tell the difference between a line that should have been signed ("Can someone help me?") and a line that is intentionally unsigned ("This section is for listing sources that we should use. Don't sign anything in this section, so that the bot won't archive it"). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t mean intentionally unsigned, see I was dealing with an IP user on their talkpage and they wouldn’t sign their comments (presumably due to inexperience), so I’d keep having to go to the source to reply (and also put the unsigned template on their comments). By the time I could explicitly tell them to sign their comments, they stopped replying. CreecregofLife (talk) 18:54, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How would you expect the software to identify an intentionally unsigned piece of text on a talk page? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not. I’m hoping that this feature could be extended to the unsigned template. Is that unreasonable? CreecregofLife (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note the reply tool is part of the MediaWiki software and so applies to all MediaWiki installations, whereas templates are specific to what has been created by editors of a specific MediaWiki deployment. (Almost) anything can be handled in software, of course, given enough development time but it means the design and rollout is more complicated, with more potential interactions with other future features, thus affecting their development time and rollout. isaacl (talk) 00:04, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe CreecregofLife may be talking about comments that have been marked with {{unsigned}} or a similar template. Which I would suspect would be painful but feasible. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How easy or difficult it will be will depend on exactly how the reply determines what is and isn't a signature. Depending what that is, it might be possible (and if it is, probably easier) to modify the unsigned template to output something the reply tool sees as a signature. Thryduulf (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It needs a link to any user page (User:, User_talk:, Special:Contributions) plus a valid timestamp. A blank copy of Template:Unsigned, which produces this: — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) isn't going to work. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If it's not working on a filled out/correct unsigned template, then it'd be helpful to have links/diffs. I thought that the [reply] tool worked with most of the unsigned templates at this wiki. Most wikis had to make a few changes to unsigned templates, but I thought that was done here more than a year ago. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well the {{unsigned2}} has just worked when I tested it at user talk:Thryduulf/sandbox. Thryduulf (talk) 18:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a diff that shows all the unsigneds on my motivating example getting substed, and you can see what I mean from there CreecregofLife (talk) 16:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are no timestamps in those signatures. You have to have a user plus a timestamp. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Easier linking to comments?[edit]

One thing that I've already encountered multiple times is wanting to link to someone else's comment using the new URL structure you've introduced. Editors presently tend to use diffs, but your structure is nicer, since it shows readable prose rather than markup and allows one to see subsequent comments. It's quite tedious, though, since it requires carefully copying the username and timestamps in UTC time. Would it be possible to introduce something like a link icon that would appear when you hover over a comment, and that when clicked would copy the link to it so you can paste it elsewhere? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What new URL structure? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Talk_pages_project#c-Redrose64-2022-03-24T22%3A25%3A00.000Z-Sdkb-2022-03-24T22%3A08%3A00.000Z {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a new URL structure, it's the long-established form for an external link (as opposed to a wikilink) to a talk page with the addition of a fragment. The fragment is merely the value of an id= attribute somewhere in that talk page. So, you should be able to use your browser's "Inspect element" feature to identify an id= at the start of the relevant post. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This would be extremely convenient and I support the idea. One reason they may not want to do this just yet is that the precise format for the IDs isn't 100% settled. (No idea if this is actually the case, just speculating.) Enterprisey (talk!) 04:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb @Enterprisey: Have you tried meta:User:ESanders (WMF)/commentlinks.js? ― Qwerfjkl talk 15:05, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't, but that sounds very cool! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:32, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, rumor holds that we might get actual permalinks. The kind that won't be broken by archiving. Fingers crossed... Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Finding discussions[edit]

Not sure the best place to get in touch with the relevant editing team (ping @Whatamidoing (WMF) and PPelberg (WMF):, but a regular issue seems to be duplicated sections being created for issues already being discussed. Example at Talk:Bucha massacre (permalink) where we have the same issue being discussed in lots of different sections (e.g. many sections effectively about the same concern with the 'Reactions' section, ditto with Russia's involvement in the issue, etc). I imagine part of the issue is that many editors independently see the issue, the talk page is unmaintained and has too many sections so they can't be bothered to read through and find if the issue is already being discussed, so they create a new section. It makes discussion more split and harder to reach a consensus on issues, or figure out which of the many sections you should reply to.

I don't have a solution, but maybe a way to highlight 'key/highly active' ongoing discussions could be one way. Another way could be improved refactoring tools for volunteers to more easily merge sections together. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader, thanks for this. The designer's been thinking about this problem. Take an unofficial peek at this demo to see a starting point. There are several small-to-medium problems that they'd like to address. Some of these are about finding out which discussions need attention/are active now. Others are not so obviously related to this (e.g., look at WT:V's history for all the new editors posting article content on the talk page).

As for the specific page in question (which I haven't looked at), one way to manage exceptionally large discussions with several "themes" is to have the regular talk page work more like a signpost than a talk page. Imagine that people reaching that page see something like this, instead of the normal talk page:

I want to talk about the Reactions section

I want to talk about Russia's involvement

I want to talk about anything else

and that clicking the relevant button takes you to a separate page (or a specific section) where that subject is discussed. In my experience, so long as you direct people to a page where they believe their concerns are being taken into consideration (e.g., you have to respond to the comments on all pages; also, no fair sending one group to a page called /Bad ideas or /Null), it seems to work. In this instance, you could even EC-protect the regular talk page to discourage "accidental" posts on the wrong page.. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That demo is interesting. Colour coding the "last comment" value would be useful, pure date-based comparisons mean somewhat little to me, to be honest, but colour-coding (based on activity within past day / past week) may be more useful.

I feel like signposting/protecting main talk page is unconventional enough such that it'd be difficult to get consensus to try this on a talk page where it's actually required (there would be a lot of active editors on it, and this would be a big enough change to their workflow s.t. I doubt many people would want to try it). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader – I'm glad you stopped by to share the issue you've been encountering/observing.

+1 to what @Whatamidoing (WMF) mentioned above: the issue you are describing fits right into the set of challenges we are in the middle of trying to address.

I also agree with you in thinking that the length of Talk:Bucha_massacre, combined with the lack of an easy way to review all that's been/is being discussed on the page [i], could help to explain why you have been seeing people starting new discussions about a topic that is already being discussed.

It's with the above in mind that I wonder: would you be open to trying updated version of the prototype [ii] @Whatamidoing (WMF) referenced above that includes a new table of contents? I'm thinking the new table of contents might help with the "there not being an easy way to review all that's been/is being discussed on the page" part of the problem.

And while I don't think the prototype I've shared a link to above will solve this issue outright, I am curious to learn whether you think it is a step in the right direction.

---

i. has too many sections so they can't be bothered to read through and find if the issue is already being discussed...

ii. I've added the contents of the Talk:Bucha massacre to the prototype to make evaluating it through the frame of the issue you came here to share a bit easier. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:43, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You can see this in old Vector at https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/916be355b2/wiki/Talk:Bucha_Massacre?useskin=vector&tableofcontents=1%7Cthis The Editing team is still discussing whether any of these changes should be visible in MonoBook. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unexpected heading behavior[edit]

I've encountered some unexpected behavior with headings. This situation is that I'm giving out a bunch of identical {{subst:FAR notice}} messages, and after the first one, I only wanted to have to copy and paste one thing, rather than the header and body separately. So I went into the source code and copied the full section, including the header, and then pasted it into the body on the next user talk page. This worked, but I noticed that it caused me to leave a message without an edit summary [3], which isn't ideal for communication and harms my edit summary usage stats. So for the next talk page, I clicked on the advanced button and entered a summary ("FAR notice") manually. This time, though, without any sort of preview, it added my summary as the header, creating a duplicate header I had to remove [4]. There are a few different paths you could take to resolve this issue, but you should do something so that this unexpected behavior isn't occurring. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a bug. Thanks for reporting it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:33, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply tool ... no option to indent with asterisks instead of colons?[edit]

In the reply tool, is there no way to indent with an asterisk instead of a colon? Long story short ... [this edit was obviously unintentional, but it caused the intention to be one level too many. If there is no option, there should be one. Steel1943 (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, seems #Reply Tool appears to use wrong list type after bulleted comments references this issue. Steel1943 (talk) 23:49, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's complicated. On the one hand, most people at most wikis prefer : for discussions. A few, most notably including a sizable number of editors at the Russian-language Wikipedia, prefer * as the main formatting code. So the default is : and it's possible to change that default wiki-wide (but not user-by-user).
But even if you prefer : for most discussions, you might:
- want to add a voting-style comment (e.g., your diff)
- want to reply to an item in a bulleted or numbered list (e.g., to ask someone a question about their !vote).
When you want to add a voting-style comment, then you need to change the formatting code, but you also (and more importantly) need to change the indentation. Changing the indentation is the step that would have prevented the :* problem in your diff. This will require work, and possibly a way to "code" the page (e.g., by adding a template) to say "Dear DiscussionTools, please note that this is RFC and the normal behavior here is a bulleted list, not a threaded discussion". The Editing team talked about this last year (see phab:T259865), but I don't know if it will get done. A smaller but possibly just as useful idea is to give editors more control over outdenting (see phab:T265750).

For the second case, if the first item is * and I want to reply to that, then some editors prefer to use ** and others prefer *:. The reply tool originally matched (** or :: but not *:) but someone said they liked it better the other way, so it now uses : always. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:30, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reply tool inserts comment between warning and shared IP notice[edit]

As seen in this diff, when the unregistered user replied to my warning, their comment was placed between the warning proper and the shared IP address note supplied by Twinkle.

Is this intended behavior? Something still being worked on? I didn't see anything about it here. Or is it Thursday? I haven't noticed if it was doing this before today or not. --DB1729 (talk) 14:53, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I feel like that should be how it’s done. Let it behave like a footnote especially as the conversation goes on and doesn’t address it directly CreecregofLife (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. That point had occurred to me as well. It just looked odd. I guess because I'm not used to seeing it like that. --DB1729 (talk) 15:07, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it’s a little weird when multiple of that same note are in the same section. I’m not saying it should be programmed to recognize it, but it should be okay to just let the bottom-most instance encompass it all CreecregofLife (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If comments are always placed at the bottom of a section, they'll be placed at the bottom of the section even when the bottom-most matter is or {{reflist-talk}}. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:51, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback: New talk page designs[edit]

Mockups are ready for the changes designed to make it easier for people to understand and use talk pages on desktop and mobile. We would value hearing what you all think.

Below is the information you will need to review the designs and share feedback about them.

Proposed design for mobile wikitext talk pages.
An annotated mockup showing the proposed design for mobile wikitext talk pages (landing page view).
An annotated mockup showing the proposed design for mobile wikitext talk pages (individual discussion view).
Proposed design for desktop wikitext talk pages.
An annotated mockup showing the proposed design for desktop wikitext talk pages.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing the designs

The mockups in the gallery above show how wikitext talk pages, on desktop and mobile, are likely to appear to people who have the Usability Improvement setting enabled.

Sharing feedback

Once you have reviewed the designs and you are ready to share what you think of them, please add a new topic to this talk page by doing the following:

Click the "Add topic" button at the top of this page
Name this new topic: "Design Feedback: YOUR USERNAME"
Write your answers to these questions:
1. What concerns do these designs bring to your mind?
2. What questions do these designs bring to your mind?
3. What do you wish was different about the designs?
4. ✅ That's it!

The Editing Team is eager to hear what you think. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a mockup of the desktop that shows multiple sections and more comments at once? Perhaps a scrolled down version of that one? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:55, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@PPelberg (WMF) Are there any plans for how to handle level 3+ sections on talk pages? A discussion having many level-3 sections is often a key indicator it's a major one, so I'd like the ability to see them easily preserved. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:22, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

New Topic Tool for everyone[edit]

...or maybe not everyone. phab:T306481#7904753 suggests that the mw:New Topic tool is good for newer editors, but once you've made a few thousand edits, it's not as important, and people may not be interested in changing to the new system. OTOH, there's a built-in opt-out button, and remembering to sign your comment with ~~~~ when you start a new ==section== but not when you [reply] could be an unnecessary amount of mental effort. I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts about this. We should probably deploy this to newcomers, but should we skip the old hands, or do everyone (with the expectation that many will opt out)? There is no urgency and no pre-determined "correct" answer about this. I would just like to hear what you think would be best. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you can provide a capsule summary of the feature, or point to somewhere on the linked metawiki page that describes it? (I couldn't find it in a very quick skim through some of the page; I imagine with more searching I'd be able to find something.) isaacl (talk) 03:40, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Whatamidoing (WMF) If there's an easy option to opt out, I don't foresee much chance of a big uproar if it were enabled for everyone by default. The main things that, as an experienced editor, I wish the new topic tool handled better were templates that either include a heading automatically or sign for you automatically.

At this point, I'd like to see the tool deployed by default at en-WP, as it's holding up us being able to finally remove the "please remember to sign with ~~~~" instruction in a bunch of newcomer-focused messages, and it'll be nicer to have a longer post-deployment period in which you're able to make changes from feedback. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]