Wikipedia talk:Editnotice/Archive 4

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Why is this standard?

This message was moved here from Template talk:Editnotice. --David Göthberg (talk) 06:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It's very annoying to me to show up at a talk page and see a redlink in the corner pushing the bar down. I'd love to know why this was made standard on talk pages. It's a useful template but forcing it up there is not going to make anyone's experience better. ResMar 01:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

End of message moved here.

Hi ResMar. You must be referring to the red "Page notice" link you now see on most User talk pages. You should not see it on other talk pages like this one, since you are not an admin. (If you do, please tell us since then it is a bug.) That redlink is automatically put there by the editnotice system, not by {{editnotice}}. We have put it there to make it easier for users to create page notices for their user page and user talk page. This has been discussed for a long time now, see the latest round of discussions in the section Navbar above.

I can add a CSS class to the code to make it easy for you to hide the red "Page notice" link if you want to. You can already hide all the "Group notice" and "Page notice" links, but then also the blue links disappear. Tell me which you want to hide and I'll update the code and help you with adding the right code to your personal /monobook.css.

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

When I edit a talk page theres a redlink in the upper-right corner that says "Edit notice." Really I don't think sticking redlinks on talk pages is the way to make people recognize it exists, but there should be an option to get rid of that, with <span class="editnotice">Edit notice</span> span.editnotice{ display:none; } (Sorry I'm not very good at CSS) ResMar 13:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That's quite confusing because "edit notice" is not one of the links provided under this system at all. Are you sure it doesn't say "Group notice" or "Page notice"? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there a specific page that shows "Edit notice"? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:03, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Page notice, actually, sorry about that ~_~ ResMar 14:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

You should be seeing this on user talk pages only, not on other talk pages. There is a proposal in the section below to hide these links sometimes. Your input would be welcome. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Editnotices using navbar

Now that there is a direct link to all edit notices, should those that are using {{navbar}} links have those links removed?

Here's a few I could find:

• Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Signatures
• Template:Editnotices/Page/List of Hannah Montana episodes
• Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Cheatsheet
• Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Why was my page deleted?
• Template:Editnotices/Page/National Scout jamboree (Boy Scouts of America)

-- WOSlinker (talk) 22:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I took care of these, since I created them.

• Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia talk:Signatures
• Template:Editnotices/Page/National Scout jamboree (Boy Scouts of America)

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, there's also a load of subpage off Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/NRIS information issues which also need updating. They should probably be made into a group editnotice though.

I've gone an removed the navbar from {{Future episodes editnotice}} myself since it's not protected. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Forgot I left a note there. Stumbled across that category just recently. I agree with the NRHP group notice, else there will be 50+ notices there. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed navbar from the rest of those. Gadget: did you say you have left a note somewhere about those editnotices? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

On the Future episodes editnotice talk page that you already fixed. If I stumble across any more, I will just be bold. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Allow users to create editnotices for all pages in their userspace

Copied from my talk page:

Thanks! I was getting a bit worried there for a minute. I figured that you had gone off for the night or something, and that I'd have to wait 24 hours for a few fairly trivial edits to actually be made... which brings up an issue. Don't you think that creating page edit notices requiring admin assistance is a bit wonkish? I mean, has there really been significant issues (or any issues at all!) with controversial page edit notices? This is my first exposure to using them, and it seems a tad ridiculous to have needed your help here (not that I don't appreciate it, it's just... it seems like "process wonkery", to me).
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 22:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree and I will be bringing up at WT:Editnotice again shortly. It makes no sense at all that you can create the editnotice for your root user page but not for the subpages. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

We briefly discussed opening the system up for user notices, but since there wasn't anybody speaking out for them we kept it as it was. It would of course be trivial to do so, but in my opinion we should rethink the place where user edit notices are stored at the same time. I don't like for example that the User talk editnotices don't have talk pages, and would rather move them into User space; creating structures mirroring those in the Template:Editnotices space would be better as well I think, to keep track of them using Special:PrefixIndex more easily. With redlinks showing only for the user whose space we're in, it wouldn't make using them any harder. Amalthea 09:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

End of content from my talk page.

That sounds possible. We could use a format like User:XYZ/Editnotices/User:XYZ for the root page, and User:XYZ/Editnotices/User:XYZ/subpage for subpages. (Is there a logical way to do it without repeating the username?) I don't like the thought of all the work needed in moving existing editnotices, so we'd have to run with parallel systems for some time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't watch this page, but since I kicked this off I'll at least reply once. I think that changing the system to use predefined subpages within user space is an excellent idea. The user name could be safely assumed in the subpage structure as well, so that there would be no need to repeat the username (changing the examples "User:XYZ/Editnotices/User:XYZ" into just "User:XYZ/Editnotices" [which, incidentally, is how it's currently done AFAIK], and "User:XYZ/Editnotices/User:XYZ/subpage" into "User:XYZ/Editnotices/subpage"). As for moving the existing editnotices... yea, that'd be annoying, but it should only need to be done once.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 19:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

VIR: Regarding your first message above:

If you mean opening up editing of editnotices for any page, like articles: There are several problems with that, so I think they should remain protected. See section Allow more non-admins to edit? above.

If you mean opening up editing of editnotices for user subpages: Yes, I agree that users should be able to edit the editnotices for all pages in their user space. And they should also be able to edit their group notice.

(I currently have no preference on where to place the user space notices, I'll have to think more about that.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts: One option could be to change things so that User:Username/Editnotice was shown on all the users subpages rather than just the users mainpage (and also something similar for the users talk pages) rather than lot of individual pages. The main advantage of this would be that users could easily watchlist their own editnotices (if automatic protection is not provided by the edit filter). And the switch function could be used within the users global editnotice to custimise the results per page if required. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki space

I and Amalthea have been working on methods to add documentation to .css and .js files. As a result I have made it so .css and .js pages in MediaWiki space now show their page notice (if there is one) already when just viewing the script pages. See MediaWiki talk:Clearyourcache#Show editnotice for more on that.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I have now made so when the editnotices are shown directly on the .css and .js pages in MediaWiki space they are fed "notice action = view", so they can choose to display other text when the page is only viewed. That is the same parameter that we will feed editnotices in all namespaces when a non-admin "views the source" of a protected page.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Viewing protected pages

When non-admins and IP-users "view the source" of a protected page, they currently don't see the editnotice of the page. But the editnotice often contains information that is useful even when just viewing the source. For instance if the user is going to discuss the source and ask for it to be changed, then he might need to know what the editnotice says.

So I am planning to make it so the editnotices are loaded also when just "viewing the source" of the pages. Technically I will do this by adding the editnotice loader to the system messages that are shown when non-admins and IP-users view semi and fully protected pages: MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext and perhaps also MediaWiki:Protectedinterface. This is similar to what I did for .css and .js pages in MediaWiki space (see previous section above).

Several of the namespace notices don't make sense when just "viewing the source" of a page. So I think I will add a parameter to the loader, like this {{editnotice load| namespace notice=no }}, so it only displays the group and page notices when only "viewing the source".

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No objections, although I'm not sure how useful that really is. And at least the one on the main page will be incorrect. :) Amalthea 10:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, well, the discussion at the very top will be able to make good use of this. :) Amalthea 10:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you made a bugzilla request so we can get this functionality properly ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

TheDJ: Nah, we should test it here for some time so we know how we want it to function before we ask the devs to add anything to MediaWiki itself. And I don't see the need for a bugzilla request since we can add it so easily with some template code. (Of course, some time in the future the editnotice system should be standardised and added to MediaWiki, so that all Wikimedia projects can use it, but we haven't even agreed on how we should link to the editnotices...)

Amalthea: Yeah, I have been looking around and realised there are cases when it will be pretty strange. So I have come up with some methods so we can override this when we don't want it:

1: I can feed a parameter to the editnotice that tells it if the page source is being "edited" or just "viewed". So when a non-admin "views the source" of the Main Page, the editnotice loader could call the editnotice like this {{Template:Editnotices/Page/Main Page| notice action=view }}. And when the page is edited it can feed "notice action=edit". Then the editnotice can choose to show different text for the two different cases. (This can even make the editnotice behave in a third way when it is just seen on the editnotice's own template page, since then the "notice action" parameter is not defined.)

2: Or we can use separate pages for the "view-notice" and the editnotice. If in "view mode" the editnotice loader can first check for a separate view-notice, and if it doesn't exist the loader falls back to show the normal editnotice. But I think this is less flexible than the above method with a parameter.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, passing in a parameter is good. Not sure how often we're going to bother switching on it, but at least on the main page it's going to be useful. Amalthea 13:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have now updated the loader so it uses method 1 above. It can now be called like this {{editnotice load|notice action=view}} if/when called from MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext and MediaWiki:Protectedinterface. It then doesn't show the namespace notice and it forwards the parameter to the group and page notices it loads. It does not use "notice action=edit", instead the parameter is empty but defined when the editnotices are shown as usual (when actually editing a page).

We should wait with adding the loader to MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext and MediaWiki:Protectedinterface until we have checked the more important notices and updated them to show sane text when only "viewing the source" of a page.

--David Göthberg (talk) 16:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Y Done - I have now added {{editnotice load|notice action=view}} to MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext and MediaWiki:Protectedinterface. Non-admins now see editnotices when just "viewing the source" of protected pages and MediaWiki messages. And I have checked many of the group notices and some of the more important page notices, and updated some of them.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for group messages

It would be nice if a group editnotice could be put on any page, not just a root page. For example I would like an editnotice on Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates and on all its subpages, but I do not particularly want it on Wikipedia:In the news. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. And I can fairly easily add that to the editnotice loader. (The tricky part is if you also want the convenient create link for that...) But there have been some resistance before to add to much functionality to the loader, but I don't understand why people have been resisting it.

Meanwhile, what you can do now is to put some code in the group notice for Wikipedia:In the news that makes it only display the editnotice when on Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates and its subpages. But coding that is a bit tricky.

Let's see what the others who watch this page thinks.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:12, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

For an example where just that is done, see , which uses a helper template to show only on and its subpages. Amalthea 10:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, nice template, thanks. But I think it would be neater if it were incorporated into the main system. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

So what's the simplest way of implementing this. We'd need some kind of recursive check, so that on page Wikipedia:A/B/C/D:

• First check Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:A/B/C. If it doesn't exist then ...
• Next check Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:A/B. If it doesn't exist then ...
• Finally check Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:A

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is a higher level group notice, then I think it should still be shown on lower levels even if the lower levels have subgroup notices. Just like the original MediaWiki editnotices do. And we probably at most only need three levels: Group, subgroup, and subsubgroup. But we would probably already be pretty okay with just group and subgroup notices. Anyway, this is no problem for me to code up and add to the editnotice loader.

And I agree with your suggested placing of the subgroup notices, under "Template:Editnotices/Group/..." just like the current group notices.

So, what do the rest of you guys think about this? Should we add subgroup editnotice loading?

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Editnotice editnotice

And now for some confusing stuff! :))

I have updated the "editnotice editnotice". That is, the group notice that is shown when you edit editnotices: Template:Editnotices/Group/Template:Editnotices. I have made so it tells what kind of editnotice you are editing (page, group or namespace notice) and so it links back to the page that an editnotice belongs to. It now also displays when editing user page notices. And it now detects and warns in many of the cases when people try to create editnotices in the wrong place.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice. Perhaps you could do something similar with Template:editnotice explanation? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Y Done - Oh, good idea! Thanks for pointing that one out. So I have now updated {{editnotice explanation}}.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Added - I just got confused by the talk page of an editnotice, I thought it was the editnotice for a talk page. This is tricky stuff, even for us editnotice experts. So to alleviate such confusion I created the group notice that is displayed when editing the talk page of any editnotice: Template:Editnotices/Group/Template talk:Editnotices. It has pretty much the same content as {{editnotice explanation}}, most importantly it says things like:

You're editing the talk page of the page notice for Somepage.

You're editing the talk page of the group notice for Somepage and all its subpages.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there an editnotice for the editnotice editnotice? Just to be safe... –xeno^talk 01:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Haha! I was just going to say "no". But then I realised that in a sense there is one, since when you edit it itself displays as the group notice saying: "You're editing the group notice for Template:Editnotices and all its subpages.".

I was thinking of perhaps adding {{documentation}} to the templates and notices mentioned above with "See also" links between them, since if we update the code of one of them the others most likely need updating too, but that adds yet some pages. So we should probably just list them here on Wikipedia:Editnotice. This talk page section also pretty much serves this purpose.

And I have just updated MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-editnotice with the same logic, so it tells "This is the group notice for Somepage and all its subpages." and so on. That's the interface message that is shown when non-admins try to edit an editnotice but fail since the notices are protected.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

User page links

As can be seen in the section above, some users find the red "Page notice" links on user pages annoying. And there have been some concerns that making it easy for every user to edit the user page notices would make them prime vandalism targets. But it is just as easy to vandalise the user page, although vandalising the editnotice is a bit more sneaky. Personally I am more worried that users will be very annoyed when someone else edits their user page notices, since I got very annoyed when that happened to me.

As has been suggested several times on this talkpage (see the archives): It would be nice if those notices were only editable by the user himself, and admins. But I do not know if we can set the filters so those notices are protected like that.

But I know how to do some other things, so here are some options:

1. I can make it so the red "Page notice" link is only shown to the user himself (and to admins and accountcreators), while all other users will not see the red link. That would make those notices a little harder to access. The "cost" would be two lines of javascript in MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js to load a small CSS file when the user edits his own userpage.
2. I could also hide the blue link so other users have a harder time to access the notice even if it exists. Same cost as above.
3. I could hide the link entirely for all normal users. That only "costs" a small code change to the editnotice loader, no extra javascript needed. But then the user himself will have a harder time to find and edit his own user page notices.
4. And of course, we have the option to keep the link visible to all users, as it is now.

I prefer option 1 or 2. So, does anyone have any points of view which option we should choose?

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

We certainly could make user editnotices autoprotected, just like the .js/.css subpages are, using the Special:AbuseFilter. See WP:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 47#Autoprotected user space pages for an example of that. Amalthea 10:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

My personal preference, at this point, is 1. Once the editnotice was created, we can hope that the user put it on his watchlist. Amalthea 10:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I also prefer option 1. I would also support protection of userpage editnotices. (The problem with your proposal last May is that it went too far - if you had proposed just protecting editnotices, it would likely have attracted unanimous support.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:50, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree; it wouldn't have been unanimous though, a couple of editors questioned the need for any kind of auto-protection. Amalthea 09:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I just remembered, David, if we'd want to show the editnotice links to only the user, we can use the fancy {{REVISIONUSER}} magic word, which in system messages evaluates to the editor currently editing the page (see , for example). Compare it with the {{ROOTPAGENAME}} to see if the user is editing his own space. Amalthea 09:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, thanks Amalthea. I ran detailed tests, and as you say {{REVISIONUSER}} displays the name of the current user when it is used in system messages. It also does that when non-admins "view the source" of a protected page. So it works in all the cases in the editnotice system.

I had already added the javascript and CSS-file to do this the "old" way, but using {{REVISIONUSER}} will be more efficient. So I will remove that javascript and CSS-file. Note that the unhiding for admins and accountcreators is still done with javascript + CSS.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Y Done - I have now deployed option 1 above. The red Page notice" link is now only shown when a user edits his own user or user talk page (admins and accountcreators also see it). Blue "Page notice" links are still shown to all users.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't get used to having {{REVISIONUSER}} work this way: it's dangerous and will probably be removed at some point (track T21006 for details). But for now I agree that it's the cleanest way to handle this situation. Happy‑melon 13:19, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Having these displayed to every tom, dick, and harry, is just going to lead to 1) "test page" type edit notices, 2) vandalism edit notices, 3) malplaced talk page messages. Really and truly there is a very small subset of people who take the time to create edit notices. They can opt-in to see the navbar. It should be hidden from everyone else. –xeno^talk 15:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Positioning of edit links

I very much appreciate the new edit links for editnotices. However, editnotices are almost always displayed above other notices included by the software; when these notices also use {{fmbox}}, the edit links create an unwanted gap between the boxes. Would it be reasonable to float the edit links into the space immediately below the first heading, opposite the "from Wikipedia..." tagline? This would keep them out of the way and stop them breaking the box stacking. Happy‑melon 23:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems hard to do for several reasons:

1: It would probably break on any page that has coordinates, since they are placed in that corner. We already have a lot of problems with the coordinates, both on some pages that have odd headings and in some skins. Adding more problems seems unwise.

2: When we have a namespace notice it is shown above the group and page notices. And some of the namespace notices are not added by the editnotice loader but by a system message. Then we can not make the links float up to the right corner, unless we insert them by using the coordinates position, which will collide with existing coordinates on a page.

3: We use a lot of "clear:both;" in the editnotice loader because we have had problems with floating content in the editnotices, and with floating content in general. So adding floating links probably will cause new problems.

And remember, only admins see the red links (normal users only see them on user pages, and soon only on their own user page).

If you meant the blue links: If the blue links are not placed next to the editnotice they belong to, it would be unclear which notice they belong to. Also, indicating what kind of notice a notice is can sometimes make things clearer, for instance some group notices don't apply to all subpages in a group.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

1) Coordinates don't render in the edit screen.

2) ^^

3) They'd be fine if they used positioning like the coord templates, I'm sure. I'll take your word against using floats within the editnotice frame.

4) I did mainly mean the blue links. But blue links could be placed within the editnotice box itself, in the bottom-right corner say. That would be clearer than placing them outside anyway, and would solve the stacking issues.

If you need me to move some of the notices around in SVN, I can do that. My main desire is that the links should appear in a position that, in at least the majority of cases, doesn't break the box stacking. What about moving the links to above the box? Which notices appear above the editnotice loader? Happy‑melon 12:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Coordinates are shown when editing the lead or the whole page. It is only when editing sections further down on a page that they are not shown. So your suggestion does collide with the coordinates.

And adding a new kind of position similar to the coordinates would be causing all kinds of problems, just like the coordinates do. Aren't you aware of the amount of problems the current coordinates are causing and the amount of hacks we have had to apply in numerous places to make them work at least in most cases? Still coordinates break in many places and in some skins and in some browsers. The coordinates interfere with so many things...

Part of the point is that the links now indicate which message is a group notice and which is a page notice. But we can't place the links inside the editnotice boxes, since the boxes are not added by the editnotice loader but by the users that create the editnotices.

And we have problems with floats both because content that people put in the editnotices, and because of MediaWiki produced content that comes before and after the editnotice loader.

And we should NOT change the order that MediaWiki displays things above the edit window. Things are displayed in the current order since that is the logical order.

Some of this has already been discussed and explained in the section Navbar above, see also the examples linked to in that section. And there are other explanations and examples in other sections of this page and in the archives of this page. And in other places. (If I remember right the archives of MediaWiki talk:Common.css should have some of it.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I see what you mean: the coordinates are shown when you hit preview if they're in the preview output, as you would expect. And the edit notices are also shown...

Looking at the source code, there is no particular indication that the order has anything to do with logic; there is actually a whole bug just for cleaning up what is one of the worst bits of code in MediaWiki. As best I can tell, the order is as follows:

1. interface editnotice
2. no-such-user warning
3. Custom editintro supplied by &editintro= GET parameter
4. new-article help
5. log extract for deletion/move logs
6. talk page editnotice
7. Per-namespace editnotices, and per-page editnotices where those are still (accidentally) enabled
8. Edit conflict warning
9. warning you get if you try to create a new section and save it with no text
10. force-edit-summary-warning
11. force-edit-summary-warning for new sections
12. Messages generated by hooks such as Capthas, AbuseFilter, etc
13. warning about browsers that mangle unicode
14. warnings related to RevDelete
15. editing-an-old-revision warning
16. warning about the wiki being locked
17. not-logged-in warning
18. JS warning
19. JS/CSS preview notices
20. warning about semi-protection or full-protection or cascading protection or creation protection
21. long page error or warning

I think that's right; obviously some notices are mutually-exclusive, and they are spread over 400 lines of code in four separate functions, so there could be some mistakes. I see absolutely no logic in that order, and a great deal of inconsistency and pointless duplication, which is a consequence of the way the system has been built up over the years. A logical order would have the most general notices (MediaWiki:readonlywarning and then Mediawiki:Talkpagetext) first, followed by namespace-specific notices (all of which could/should be implemented through the per-namespace editnotice system), followed by per-page editnotices and finally warnings about the particular edit the user is trying to make. That would be logical, and would also, at least in half the namespaces, put the editnotices as the topmost box.

Regardless of whether that happens, it seems from that list that editnotices are much more likely to have other boxes below them than above them, so even if the links aren't floated (and I agree with you that they probably shouldn't be), putting them above the editnotice content rather than below makes it much less likely that they will break box stacking. I guess from looking at the surface of the code that that might not be particularly easy. Happy‑melon 23:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The editnotice loader currently loads three main kinds of notices:

1: Namespace notice

2: Group notice

3: Page notice

And soon it might be loading more kinds, such as subgroup notices.

We don't add a link to the namespace notice since it is only rarely edited, and users probably don't have any need to view its source and discuss it on its talk page. And most pages don't have a group notice.

Happy-melon: So you are saying we should add the "Page notice" link above the whole editnotice area? That would mean above the namespace notice. Then this is what most non-admins would see:

Page notice

That would be confusing and ridiculous, since that would make it look like the namespace notice is the page notice. The current layout is much clearer:

Page notice

Remember that this is is only seen when editing the pages. It doesn't have to look pretty, instead it has to be logical and functional.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup, that's what I'm saying. I don't agree that the namespace notice is fundamentally different to the group and page notices (or any other type you might wish to add); it's no less likely to need discussion or editing than a group or page notice. I would add an equivalent edit link for the namespace notice as well, which both eliminates confusion, and makes the message easier to edit. The links could (maybe should regardless) be put in a wrapper ("Editnotices: namespace • group • page") to make it clearer what the links point to (and reduce the importance of where exactly the links are positioned). Happy‑melon 17:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

If we implement the idea somewhere else on this page, you might like to go with "root" rather than "group". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:47, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Happy-melon: There are only one namespace notice per namespace and we have direct links to each of them from this how-to guide. So we don't need a link to the namespace notice, it would just add to the clutter on the edit pages. So I strongly oppose links to the namespace notices.

While finding the page and group notices is much more complicated since there are many of them and there are different naming for them depending on if you are on a user page or not. So for the page and group notices the added clutter is okay.

And we don't need an explanatory link to "Editnotices", since if you click on the current editnotice links you get an explanatory box (actually an editnotice) at the top of the editnotice you are editing, with links to all the stuff you need. And we are going to make that box visible also when normal users are just "viewing the source" of a protected editnotice.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I think a link to WP:Editnotice would be useful. Since editnotices are protected by the title blacklist rather than protected individually, I don't think the editnotice is visible until a user tried to edit the editnotice. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)