Talk:Talk pages project/Replying/Flow

The team would value any thoughts and/or questions you have about this new tool for Replying to specific comments on talk pages.

A prototype is ready for you all to try of functionality that will alert you, in real-time, when someone posts a new comment in the discussion you are using the Reply Tool within.^[1][2]

Below is the information you will need to:

• Try the prototype
• Share feedback about the prototype

---

1.@Sdkb surfaced the value in improvements to how the Reply Tool can more effectively resolve edit conflicts in Topic:Woomtgg3secx6r2h.

2. In Topic:Wov6fz5lqmm3nl3p, @Valereee and @Tol shared feedback about the approach the mw:Editing Team were planning to implement

Try the Prototype

1. Visit https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/c555f5ca84/wiki/Main_Page
2. Create an account by clicking the Create account link. Note: this is a test wiki so you will not be able to log in using the same username you use on other Wikimedia wikis.
3. Visit an old revision of a talk page (e.g. Talk:Douglas Adams)
4. Click a [ reply ] link within a section that, in subsequent revisions, has had new comments posted to it (e.g. Looking for help from a Python dev to help getting ReFill to build and run)
5. Start typing a comment
6. Wait 10-30 seconds
7. Notice the ⚠️ ___ new comments... alert appears beneath the Reply Tool's text input
8. Click the ⚠️ ___ new comments... alert to reveal the new comments that have been posted
9. Publish the comment you started drafting in "Step 5."
10. ✅ That's it

Share Feedback

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

1. "Start a new topic" on this talk page
2. Name this new topic: "Automatic Edit Conflicts Prototype Feedback: YOUR USERNAME"
3. Write your answers to these questions:
   1. What did you find unexpected about the prototype?
   2. What do you appreciate about the prototype?
   3. What do you wish was different about the prototype?
   4. What concerns you about the prototype?

I don't think this prototype is working any longer.

Is it possible to use Scripts while in Reply mode instead of editmode? I'm referring to gadgets / extensions like this or this They basically read `wgAction` to activate some features, like the ability to insert special signs.

Is this compatible with the new reply interface?

No, not right now. Those scripts would need additionally logic to detect in-page editing. This is theoretically possible though.

When I type my reply, and then press Shift to start a new sentence, my cursor jumps to the beginning of the line.

Testing whether it is still happening here. This sentence was typed immediately after the preceding one. The fault seems to be intermittent as it is not happening now.

Yes. The problem is intermittent. And I can't understand what it depends on.

I have had the same problem for what seems like years. I reported it so long ago I no longer remember where or when, but nothing has happened to improve the situation. It seems to kick in after any change which required cursor position to be moved manually, which is a common thing. It makes the feature unusable for anything that one might want to change or correct before saving.

@Perohanych, The first thing to do is to check for a gadget at the English Wikipedia called "GoogleTrans" and turn that off. If that's not enough (or if you haven't ever used that), then try testing it in safemode.

In the "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion" of Chinese Wikipedia, at least one batch is added each day, with multiple subsection and a signature at the end. Therefore, each subsection is unsigned and the Reply tool is not available. I want to allow a special HTML tag, magic word or template to insert a recognized request element, allowing a reply button under this line.

YFdyh000: I see "reply" links to the right of each signature in that section. This tool is designed for replying to the posts of people, not to subsection headlines. You may, of course, "edit source" or "quick edit", as appropriate.

I'm expecting it to allow showing and replying to a dummy invisible signature, as sometimes need to vote in subsection without signature.

YFdyh000: unsigned votes are not legitimate.

This is misunderstood. I mean, suppose user A initiates a poll with three subsections, then another user should be able to quickly [Reply] to a section, even if there are no comments in that section.

@YFdyh000: Every subsection A creates should have a brief explanation with signature that can then garner replies.

This is a work around, but multiple discussions in Chinese Wikipedia accept replies / votes without first signatures, the user has to manually editing page.

The team has talked about a "voting" mode, but this work will not happen during the next year.

I am a big fan of the reply project, this has been a really nifty addition. But having used it for many months, I am running into a few issues that really bug me.

1. This reply thing remembers a comment if you close out of it. And that is sometimes a good thing. But sometimes, I just wish it would forget that I want to reply! I will often write up a reply, and then decide against sending it. But clicking cancel doesn't discard it. I'll reload the page and it will automatically re-open the last message I was working on. I no longer want to send it. Discussion has moved on. But now, everytime I visit the page, its borked because it immediately tries to load my last draft comment. This is even worse on mobile: if I try to draft a comment on mobile, and then don't send it, that will break the section in question totally. Like, I won't even be able to expand the relevant section anymore. So if y'all could allow me to actually just delete a draft comment, that'd be nifty.
2. Outdenting. Reply link has a problem in very long discussions: it jsut keeps adding a colon. But eventually, that makes text unreadable, especially on mobile. So the solution for that is to like, idk, every 7-10 or so replies reset the colons to zero and use Template:Outdent to show the discussion is still linked. I know Enterprisey's old replylink script did that, so perhaps the code could be imported from it...?
3. Pinging. A feature of Enterprisey's script that I heartily miss in this tool is that it automatically would ping the user you were replying to. Now, I have to manually do it. I know you have the little "plus person" tool, but that doesn't save me much time. I'd rather that it automatically tag the person whose post I am replying to.

Again, appreciate all the work y'all do, and would love if there was time/energy to tackle some of these issues :)

I realize I should clarifying the pinging thing: I just want automatic name insertion, like as in Enterprisey's. I don't want it to ping regardless.

@CaptainEek: 1 can be solved with the "Cancel" button and then confirmation. 3 can be solved by hitting the "@" key, which generally gives the username of the person you are replying to, or a choice of users to pick from. Click the right user. Pinging is the right thing to do now, that's why we have Extension:Echo on many wikis.

See, when I press cancel, it doesn't always work. I'm not sure what's up with that? And thanks for the @ symbol hint! I didn't realize that was a thing. And to further clarify, when I insert the name, I do want it to ping. So yes, that is working as expected.

@CaptainEek: You're welcome!

It ought to add an empty line between them. Otherwise people miss the first signature and attribute authorship to the second.

Specifically the "small" tag. Used when making an off-topic remark or joke. The whole reply can be wrapped in the small tag, but the signature will be added automatically at full size, which is wrong.

@Card Zero: You can sign inside the small tag, and the feature will not add a full size signature.

I'm sure my keyboard works well with my Windows 10 interface, and on editing Wikipedias, however when using this feature on Wikimedia Commons, It looks like I can't type these alphabets and quotations anymore: R/r, O/o, P/p, S/s, L/l, C/c, and equal (=). Also I can't type slash (/) and minus (-) via left part of keyboard, but work for me via right part.

Also, the four "direction" buttons ←↑↓→ can't work for some days.

Hli, @Liuxinyu970226, just curious as I am working on double byte convertible keyboard, a third party/generic hardware:

>:Also I can't type slash (/) and minus (-) via left part of keyboard, but work for me via right part.

Do you refer left to alphabet keys, qwerty or any alignment, while right to ten-key area on your keyboard hardware?

First thought the firmware is not updated, but it is very small possibility... What is your hardware for keyboard manufactured by third party to your Desctop/mobile device? Or the one that came with the computing hardware?

FYI, My setting is un-standard, applying a third party keyboard default Windows to Mac Desktop and sometimes iMac, maybe that divides conditions with your case.

Moreover, this matter looks like occurs on their Deletion requests, but doesn't occur on Village Pump. I'm wondering if there's a gadget made conflict configurations block me from using this test feature properly?

1.Yep; 2. A generic USB cable keyboard, branded as "COLORFUL".

Have you tried safemode to see whether gadgets are interfering?

There is some bug in the "Add topic" functionality, at least in Swedish user talk pages. If there is a automatic message from WMF in the talk page:

• the new subject dialogue, both title and text, starts below the WMF message
• Also the title input frame ends up in more places.
• when publisihing, the topic is placed in the botton and an "Add topic" dialogue is placed under promting to write a new title.

This has been tested on several browsers, see here: w:sv:Wikipedia:Wikipediafrågor.

Please feel free to start a new topic on my talk page, to see what I try to describe and feel fre to experiment there:

w:sv:user talk:LittleGun, and press "Nytt ämne" for "Add topic"

Thanks, I filed T337476 and we'll get it fixed.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T265750

Hello! So recently, I often reply to comments and then it starts to get too deep. When this happens I end up having to go into the source editor and add the outdent template to the start of my reply (possibly with the parameter with the number of colons, depending on how deep it got). Maybe this could be integrated into the reply tool, with a button allowing you to outdent your reply, optionally with the parameter of the number of colons. I don't have a mockup of how I think this would look like (i'm not an artist and never intend on becoming one) so hopefully I'm able to get my point across like this.

Auto-outdent-template seems a reasonably uncontroversion automation. When it gets too deep, the reply tool could automatically insert an outdent template. We'd just need to decide on the wrap threshold.

I always outdent once posts exceed eight indentations deep. Eight indentations, in my experience, is the maximum indentation level where comments are still fairly easy to read on mobile.

+1 for outdent feature too.

In addition to the need for an outdent feature, using the outdent template used at English Wikipedia appears to break the ability to use the "Reply" feature.