Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project/Archive 4

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Mobile DiscussionTools Deployment

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T328942

Hi y'all – two questions about mobile talk pages:

1. What – if anything – concerns you about the suite of mobile DiscussionTools being made available for everyone (logged in and out) by default at en.wiki during the week beginning on 6 March 2023?

A screenshot showing what mobile Wikipedia talk pages look like when DiscussionTools are enabled.
What mobile talk pages look like when DiscussionTools are enabled.

2. What other page(s) do you think would be useful for us to pose the question above on? One thought: WP:VPT.

I'm asking the above with the following in mind:

  1. 9 February 2023: the Editing Team learned through an A/B test, that mobile DiscussionTools cause: people to publish more edits, people to be more likely to publish the edits they start, and more unique people to publish ≥ 1 talk page edit. Read the full report.
  2. 15 February 2023: in response to the results of this A/B test, the suite of mobile DiscussionTools became available to everyone (logged in and out) by default at all Wikimedia wikis (except en.wiki).

Please let me know if you'd value any more context as you think through the question I posed above.

In the meantime, you can see and try the mobile DiscussionTools by appending ?dtenable=1 to the URL of any en.wiki talk page. E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Talk_pages_project&dtenable=1.

Note: I'm going to ping some people who have been active on this page over the course of the Talk pages project: @Xaosflux, @Thryduulf, @Doug Weller, @Qwerfjkl, @Sdkb, @Isaacl, @Pelagic, @Enterprisey, @CapnZapp, @Redrose64, @DannyS712, @George Ho, @ProcrastinatingReader, @Blaze Wolf, @Jonesey95, @Nosebagbear, and @Levivich . PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't have any concerns in my brief testing of it just now. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 00:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Noted. Thank you for having a look, @Blaze Wolf. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Bug? There is a "floating" "Add topic" button on the page, but if you try to scroll down to it, it disappears and only reappears when you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. Without dtenable, this is a fixed button at the top of the page. — xaosflux Talk 00:09, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
hi @Xaosflux – the "floating" (that's what we've been calling it too) "Add topic" button not reappearing until you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page does seem like a bug.
Would you be able to share a screen recording of what you're experiencing?
For reference, the "Add topic" button should reappear as soon as you start scrolling "upwards."
You can see how we designed this to function in the "Mockup(s)" section of phab:T316175. And here is how the experience is currently working for me (Browser: Chrome; OS: iOS 16.2): https://youtube.com/shorts/fEkv_qw3Xlk?feature=share. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
@PPelberg (WMF) I can't record right now. It does disappear until you are almost at the bottom of the page, however it does refloat if you scroll back up prior to the bottom. — xaosflux Talk 00:37, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
That does sound like a feature, and one that I've seen in many other mobile apps/web-apps. — DVRTed (Talk) 02:36, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
If not already, you should notify WP:VPT (ask them to join this discussion). — xaosflux Talk 00:11, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Good call;  done. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:44, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
I don’t see any obstacles. Will post back if I stumble on something. Curious about performance on old devices or slow connections; I imagine those kind of issues, if any, would have surfaced on non-en wikis already? I notice it’s working in the mobile overlay without needing to tap "read as wiki page" first! (I’m doing that right now.) Have you settled on what the mobile DT preferences will be like? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 03:36, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
I don’t see any obstacles. Will post back if I stumble on something.
Sounds great and thank you for reviewing the mobile features and following up with what you noticed, @Pelagic.
Curious about performance on old devices or slow connections; I imagine those kind of issues, if any, would have surfaced on non-en wikis already?
I'm glad you asked this. We've made a similar assumption to the one you have above and I'm going to follow up with you here once I've had a chance to talk with the team about the specific safeguards we've put in to make sure mobile DiscussionTools perform well for people using them on older devices and slower connections.
Have you settled on what the mobile DT preferences will be like?
For the time being, we've decided NOT to implement a separate preference that would enable people to configure whether mobile DT are available or not.
Tho, you asking this question leads me to wonder: what – if anything – concerns you about there not being a mobile-specific DiscussionTools preference? PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 01:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
Now that logged-in mobile users can actually navigate from Special:MobileOptions to Special:Preferences, I imagine it should be ok to have the DT prefs apply to both mobile and desktop equally.
Not-logged-in people, as usual, get no choice. And they don't get any forewarning unless you run a great big banner. The saving grace is they are less likely to care about talk page appearance than about Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 17:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
I imagine it should be ok to have the DT prefs apply to both mobile and desktop equally.
@Pelagic, a clarification about the above...
The DT-related preferences only apply desktop. Said another way: there is not currently a way for people to decide whether DT are turned on or off on mobile.
We made this choice with the following thinking in mind:
  • There not being a way for people to specify that the mobile talk page's "Read as wiki page" view being shown by default is consistent with the way mobile talk pages are currently configured.
  • For people who prefer not to use DiscussionTools on mobile talk pages, the new mobile DiscussionTools version of talk pages include two – what we assume to be – convenient/easy ways to for doing so:
    • Tapping the edit pencils that are shown alongside each talk page section. Note: the current mobile talk page experience does not offer section edit links/pencils
    • Tapping the "Read as wiki page" link that appears at the bottom of every talk page
PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm going to follow up with you here once I've had a chance to talk with the team about the specific safeguards we've put in to make sure mobile DiscussionTools perform well for people using them on older devices and slower connections.
hi @Pelagic, a couple of updates about what the Editing Team has done to ensure the mobile Reply and New Topic Tools perform well for people using them on older devices and on slower connections...
  1. To ensure that people do NOT lose the comments and new topics they are in the midst of drafting/attempting to save when network connectivity is interrupted or otherwise slowed, we’ve recently switched to localStorage for all DiscussionTools-related autosaving which is a more robust/resilient approach than the previous sessionStorage approach. This work happened in phab:T218663.
  2. To ensure that the mobile Reply and New Topic Tools load as quickly as possible, we’ve: 1) designed both tools to load dynanically, without having to reload a new page and 2) we’ve invested in a series of performance improvements to mobile VE, which all editing-related DiscussionTools are built atop of.
Please let me know if the above leaves any questions unanswered in your mind. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, was passing through a dead spot when I hit the Reply button above. Crawling diagonal lines, then post submitted fine when signal returned to a few bars (3G not 4G), but the reply links went missing. All right after a page refresh. I wouldn’t class that as a mobile site problem, more of a client-scripting-with-poor-connection one. With the lined background, I wasn’t tempted to refresh too early. Reply tool seemed to cope pretty gracefully with the drop-out overall. 👍 ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 03:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
post submitted fine (…) but the reply links went missing Thanks for catching that, it should be fixed by change 891980. Luckily this only affects the dtenable trick we're using for testing, and will work correctly when the tools are enabled in the usual way, so this isn't a blocker to deployment. Matma Rex talk 22:15, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
Based on what's surfaced in this conversation so far (see "Findings" below), the Editing Team is planning to move forward with offering the suite of mobile DiscussionTools as default-on features for everyone (logged in and out) at en.wiki on 8 March 2023 (Wednesday).
What – if any – questions does this deployment plan bring to mind for you?
Note: we'll be sharing the above on WP:VPT today or on Monday to let me know people know.
Findings
PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Text and link inconsistency

Levels of indentation

screenshot of 20 levels of indentation on an Android tablet

Is it possible to limit the levels of indentation applied by the tool and to have it automatically outdent when a certain level is reached. In this screenshot of this revisison there are 20 levels on indentation applied. Now on my desktop that moves the text to about halfway across the screen but on my tablet with the tools sidebar enabled it is a ridiculous one word wide column which, imo, does not aid the reader in the slightest. Nthep (talk) 13:43, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

They've talked about adding a manual "outdent" button, but I don't think it will be built any time soon. A hard-coded limit is appealing but will always feel wrong in some instances (e.g., you wouldn't want to outdent for a short, final comment at the end of a thread, e.g., "Thanks, everyone"), so they were leaning towards a user-controlled approach. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Site-wide thread subscription?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T334906

At 20:03, 10 April 2023 UTC, the MediaWikia message delivery bot posted Tech News: 2023-15 at the Village Pump (tech). I posted a reply because I was confused about some details, and other editors responded with information so useful, that I decided to subscribe to that thread on that page. (Would have been around 05:24, 11 April 2023 UTC, although I don't remember exactly.) Further posts were exchanged, although I don't think they're relevant here.

At about 16:44, 12 April 2023 Jonesey95 (who has not, as yet, posted in the thread I subscribed to) decided to delete their copy of the Tech News: 2023-15 from their Talk page. At about that time, I received a notification:

Topic "Tech News: 2023-15" was archived or removed from User talk: Jonesey95. You might no longer receive notifications about this topic.

I never subscribed or even edited anything on Jonesey's Talk page. Since then, I have received about 6 more notifications from assorted users' Talk pages as their Tech News articles have been archived. I also got a flurry of 5 notifications as some vandal played in the Tech news section on User talk:InvalidOS. These are not generally pages to which I have subscribed nor have on my watchlist, so I certainly don't expect to be notified when something happens on their pages.

Is a topic subscription (somehow) connected to the entire mass posting? Or (just about as bad) is it based on exact title match? For example, if I subscribe to a thread like "Your revert" or "April 2023", will I get notifications for all edits to all threads wiki-wide with that section heading? This seems to be (at least somewhat) different from the situation described at T290803; should I add my experience there, or start a new phab ticket? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 15:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@JohnFromPinckney Yes, the subscription is connected to the entire mass posting; not based on a title match, but on the author and time of the initial message (in this case, MediaWiki message delivery at 20:03, 10 April 2023). You'd also get a notification if someone commented in any of the discussions copied to different pages.
This is mostly the intended behavior, as it allows (non-mass-posted) discussions to still notify you about new comments after they are archived, moved to a different page, or re-titled. It has the unfortunate behavior with mass-posted messages, but it seems unavoidable in the current system. :/ Matma Rex talk 19:01, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
JohnFromPinckney, I would file a new bug report / feature request. You will not be the only person to experience this undesirable behavior. Just spitballing here, but maybe the system could use a more fine-grained time stamp for tracking subscriptions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:43, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, colleagues. I have opened my first phab ticket, T334906, although I expect the thing to do now is just know not to subscribe to mass-posted topics. :-P — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 06:23, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
There are advantages to the current system, as it preserves subscriptions if a section is moved or duplicated to another talk page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Plan for the last deployment

The Editing team is currently running an A/B test for the group of changes described at mw:Talk pages project/Usability. If you already have the Beta Feature enabled, it's all the information about when the last comment was posted and how many comments are in each section.

Given the prior feedback, etc., I think it's safe to assume that the metrics will be met for the test, so I'm thinking ahead to the deployment. (Obviously, nothing actually happens until my assumption is proven correct, and if my assumption is wrong, then we can scrap all of this thinking.)

The first thing to say is: If you're interested in metrics and such, please see mw:Talk pages project/Usability/Analysis. Peter put a lot of thought into that, so I hope that at least a couple of you will read it and tell him what you think. If you have ideas for improvements, there is still time for some kinds of changes (e.g., additional analysis on existing data).

The second thing to say is: I don't like changing how pages look, and I especially don't like big changes to the appearance. The devs tell me that it's technologically possible to split this up into several small-to-medium-sized changes, and I'm recommending that we do this. This would mean spreading out the changes in three groups, over the space of, say, three weeks (or maybe two months).

Finally, the most important thing to say is: If you don't like it, you can turn it off in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion. And while it's obvious that this needs to be posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), how else would you recommend advertising this fact? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:03, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

At least in my browser, with my settings, the [edit], Subscribe, and Reply links are still three different sizes and two different boldnesses on this very page, and they do not align vertically with each other or with the text around them (Reply and Subscribe are still slightly superscripted). It looks suboptimal. This may be T324807 or T330952. If "move fast and break things" is what you're going for, then full steam ahead, but if it were my project, I would want to fix those cosmetic quirks before even a test deployment. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:40, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
The section [edit] link is not meant to be aligned with the Subscribe button. Buttons are "misaligned" to make room for the button (the white space around it, which is not visible, but we don't really want it to look like Reply just to make it obvious why it doesn't align vertically).
I believe the designer was going to make the Subscribe button bold as a result of your comments. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:27, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
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