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User rights

From the list of notifications:

• User rights: When your user rights change.

Does this include the "silent" autoconfirmed status? Technically there is no user-right change, but in practice it's still quite a meaningful addition. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so, because like you said, there is no change. Autoconfirmed is a state that applies to you per interaction with the website (influenced by the network block that you edit from for instance). The software can only notify you of an actual change. (Remember that in theory you can be not autoconfirmed, after you have had auto confirmed for instance.) Minutes later.. I checked the code, it only sends mails after the 'UserRights' hook is triggered, and this is only triggered if your user rights are changed with Special:UserRights. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Hrm. It would be really good from an editor retention perspective for this to kick in a notice - "hey, look, you've lasted a few days, well done, you can do more stuff now!". I wonder if it's possible to hack this in in some way? Andrew Gray (talk) 06:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

@MFlaschen (WMF): - this is the discussion I mentioned. Andrew Gray (talk) 05:44, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• Andrew Gray, I think this is a great idea if it isn't already happening. I suggest filing a ticket on bugzilla: as the truly is the fastest way to get it added. (note, if you post the ticket number in a {{Tracked|#####}} template in this section, I'll make sure it is confirmed and gets the right importance level ;}) Technical 13 (talk) 13:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

It was done this afternoon by the most direct method - I found Matthew and asked him ;-). Forgot to add it here, though - T54690. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Bug report: linking to false section

Technical 13 mentioned you on Article wizard talk page in 'Putting the Article Wizard ...'.
51 minutes ago | View changes

Actually he pinged me at Wikipedia talk:Article wizard#Template:AFC submission/tools - so a section deeper...

Regards, mabdul 08:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

It's a bit strange. Take a look at the diff: because of a typo that messed up the section formatting, he did actually ping you in the previous section. I don't think this is likely to happen very often, and I don't see any way for Notifications to solve this problem, but it must be very confusing when it does happen. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah. BTW: would it possible to highlight "mentions" like in that case by using yet another JS? mabdul 06:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, that is one of the drawbacks of JavaScript editbox helpers (not sure which one). I start typing before all the scripts finish loading and when the page finishes loading it moves the cursor to the top of the edit box which causes those problems. mabdul, could you be more specific with your question about Template:Pinggroup? Technical 13 (talk) 17:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• • @T13: actually it doesn't include any "visual" appearance of my username which pinged me, so I searched me too death until I found AFCH devs (and while answering I saw the source code). SO e.g. foo bar (Technical 13—[[User:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]]) is pinging you.. yk... find it. ;) mabdul 20:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I found it no problem... Then again, I click on the "view changes" link so I see the source for the edit first... That being said, I can see where the difficulty would be if the "view changes" link took me to the wrong section... I'll see if I can improve the template to make it easier to search your name out (The whole point of the template is to avoid long lists of names in a ping, but maybe I can have it display your name if you are on the list and the one viewing it. Going to take some lua probably, so I can pull the viewing users name from the toolbar at the the top of the page). Technical 13 (talk) 13:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts of pinging via edit summaries?

Hey all, I don't believe this has ever been explicitly discussed (but I haven't been paying a lot of attention, so maybe it has). Currently, linking to someone's user (talk) page in an edit summary does not trigger a notification. Should it be relatively easy to implement something like that (can the API crawl the edit summary's wikitext as well as the page's?), I would support adding that functionality. Thoughts? Ignatzmice•talk 18:04, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Yup, bugzilla:49446 ("Linking a username in an Edit-Summary should trigger a notification") has been requested. Add yourself to the CC: list, or "vote" for it, to nudge it along. (But don't "comment" on bugs, unless you have specific development-oriented details to add). :) –Quiddity (talk) 18:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

No notification

...for this revert - any idea why? GiantSnowman 16:28, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

See Anomie's comment at the end of Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Archive 4#Edit reverts. –Quiddity (talk) 19:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Interesting indeed. Is this something the techies are working on? GiantSnowman 13:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I've asked a dev to take a look. Hopefully that, and the much-requested feature bugzilla:49446, will get some attention over the next few weeks. :) –Quiddity (talk) 20:43, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I've made bugzilla:53176 to address this problem. –Quiddity (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Templates don't notify?

In this discussion, it is stated that mentioning someone using {{user}}, e.g sphilbrick won't send a notification (all the time), although user:Sphilbrick will.

• Is this correct?
• Can it be fixed (either by tweaking the template, or the notification system?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:02, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Same goes for {{ping}} i.e. @Sphilbrick: - works, but not 100% of the time I believe. GiantSnowman 16:20, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman and Sphilbrick: I believe the templates always work as intended, 100% of the time. All they do is generate standard [[user:...]] links.

The only circumstances in which they "don't work", is if (A) the user is unregistered (IPs don't/can't get any notifications), (B) the user has purposefully deselected the "Mention->Web" option at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo (turned on by default).

For the (B) circumstance, it would be useful to know: (B1) how many editors have currently deselected that option? (B2) why have they deselected it? (B3) Can we fix the problems that led to them deselecting it, and consider removing the option (grey out the option, like "Talk page message->Web" is currently). That would result in making Mention-Notifications a more reliable tool. @Bsitu: Can you help us discover the answer to B1, please? I assume that the devs have access to this detail. Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 20:02, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

As of August 26, 726 unique users toggled off echo-subscriptions-web-mention since the launch on the English Wikipedia. --DarTar (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

DarTar, Thanks. A small number, but non-trivial.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, thank you, and that's a hell of a lot, especially if any/many of those are power-users (versus, newcomers experimenting with their prefs).

Next we need to determine why they turned it off, and if the problems they experienced have been (or could be) fixed. Does anyone have any guesses/answers? Once we have a list of likely reasons, would it be possible for the staff to email those users, asking them for feedback (ie. does the WMF have usernames, or just raw numbers)? If we can't get direct feedback, we could eventually (once the problem/solution set has been investigated) take the idea of changing that pref to "always on" to WP:VPR? Anything else? –Quiddity (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Open in a new tab

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54319

When I get a notification, I usually want to open it in a different tab. So I ⌘ Command+click the link, which ought to work. In fact, it does open the link in a new tab. However, it also opens the link in the current tab, which is not what I want. Is anyone else having this problem? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm also having this (rather annoying) problem with Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_4) AppleWebKit/536.30.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.5 Safari/536.30.1, exactly as you describe it. Theopolisme (talk) 00:22, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Same here (Firefox 23.0, Ubuntu 12.04, Monobook). Right-clicking and selecting 'Open link in new tab' works properly, but that's only available when clicking on an actual link, not on the area that doesn't look like a link and doesn't show the link target on hover, but still acts as a link (that's not a very consistent experience by itself). Ctrl-click shows the wrong behaviour you described, no matter where I click. — HHHIPPO 06:48, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

It looks like it's T54319. I'll add our information to it. The status is "patch to review", so maybe it'll get fixed soon. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Error message for page deletion after revert

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52829

I am very pleased with notifications so far and I look forward to seeing what the future brings. I just want to bring a small bug to your attention. I blanked an article because of copyvio issues (after nominating it for CSD). The reviewing admin reverted my edit before deleting the page. This was my notification:

Andrew³²⁷ 12:59, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I've notified the dev about this issue previously (bugzilla:50829), and they're aware of the problem and working on it. Thanks for the good/detailed feedback though :) –Quiddity (talk) 19:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Cannot send thanks - again

I have reported this problem before and it was fixed in short order. I hope whatever is ailing the system now can also be fixed soon. Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 18:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Addition: I was able to thank another editor on a different page just now, but still cannot thank the one I reported above. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:55, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Is there anything peculiar/distinct about the edit you're trying to Thank for (eg a move-log entry or revdel'd edit, etc), or the user (eg. IPs can't be thanked. i don't know if blocked users have restrictions, etc).

What stage does the Thank process fail at (eg. do you get the confirmation dialog)?

And any other details that might help the devs narrow down where-in-the-code to look for related bugs. (You can email me privately, if you'd prefer to disclose details in confidentiality. I can pass them along to the dev when he's online (we're both on IRC a lot)). –Quiddity (talk) 20:47, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Quiddity. Since I first wrote this report I was able to thank two editors but unable to thank two others. I have no idea what could be the difference. When I cannot thank the editors I do not get the confirmation dialog, after I click the thank button it turns red, but nothing else happens. I have tried to thank the author here: Category talk:Wikipedia adminship, but when that failed I ended up posting a response instead. XOttawahitech (talk) 01:00, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I was able to "Thank" Liz without a problem. (I also solved the question there ;)

It seems Liz's comment was the New page starter at first (and when you initially tried to Thank her), i.e. the only comment on the page - is that a detail that is shared with the other instances you've had errors at?

Lastly, do "Thank" links normally turn "red" for you when they work properly? They turn black, when I use the feature successfully. I don't think they should ever be red... Every detail helps! Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 01:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

No when the "thanks" works I do not get a red link after I click it, and no the other failed "thanks" was in the middle of a long edit history. XOttawahitech (talk) 13:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Y Looks like the problem has been fixed - whatever it was. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Different icons

Could we implement different icons for Talk messages and Mentions? I think that would give a better visual clue on the flyout (and archive) on what just happened. --Ainali (talk) 10:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Notifications received due to mentions in transcluded pages

Bug: False notification

I was told that I was mentioned in this diff, but I was not. I love the notification feature though; great work! Adabow (talk) 23:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Also happened to me with [1] this diff. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:48, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Wait, we both have the same diff! Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I suspect it happened when Dimension10 transcluded Headbomb's entire userpage. I don't have a clue where exactly your names are linked in the chain of transclusion, but it's probably there somewhere. Chris857 (talk) 00:59, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Same thing happened to me, same diff. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:44, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Same bug mentioned at Wikipedia_talk:Notifications/Archive_3#who.2C_me.3F_is_this_a_bug.3F
• Again at Wikipedia_talk:Notifications/Archive_3#Bug_or_feature.3F - which resulted in Bugzilla:48882 ("Add mention notification threshold")
• I think there was 1 more, but I can't find it currently.
• @Kaldari: Would it be possible to prevent notifications, if they are based on an entire page being transcluded? If so, I'll open a bug for it. However, I assume this is technically difficult, and the current threshold will have to suffice. Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 18:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not mentioned

I got this notification: [2] "Jeffro77 mentioned you on Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents talk page in 'User:Maxximiliann'. But I am not mentioned here. Confused. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 05:00, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

@Redtigerxyz: A lot of people have been getting that problem. There's a disclaimer at the top of this talk page that explains it, but I'll paraphrase: Usually, it's because someone has transcluded your name in a template. Double-check the diff for transclusions of pages with your name on it. Hope this helps, Nick1372 (talk) 13:30, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Mentions and lists of users

When a template, for example an invitation template that includes the list of participants to a WikiProject, is posted on a user talk page, then all users featured in that list (and with "Mention" enabled) are mentioned by Echo. I didn't take a look at the code, but is it possible to detect these cases or eventually to add a new <nonotify></nonotify>, <nonotifications></nonotifications>, or <noecho></noecho> tag? Kind regards & happy editing! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 10:04, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Link notification bug on template pages

This may already have been mentioned, but I haven't got the time to trawl through pages of archives to see. When a page is linked from a template; a navbox, for example, I am not notified that the link has been added to the template but I do get a stream of notifications as the update propagates to pages which transclude the template. This seems like fairly odd (and extremely unhelpful) behaviour. --W. D. Graham 07:57, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

False alarm

I have recently had a notification:

Pectore mentioned you on WikiProject Deletion sorting/Hinduism talk page in 'Templates'.

That users' only two edits to the page concerned in the last five months were [3] and [4], neither of which mention me. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

The user transcluded the entire contents of Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_August_15 in that first diff. Anyone whose user page is linked on the transcluded page will get pinged. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense, thank you. Should we perhaps impose a sensible maximum on the number of pings from any one edit, and drop all of them if that number is exceeded? While this case was no doubt unintentional, we could make that variable, with a lower limit for IPs, higher for (auto-)confirmed accounts, admins, etc. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:06, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

We have a limit of 100 via Bugzilla:48882. See also #Bug: False notification above, for a few more details. Possibly we should request that it be lowered, but I'm not sure how other languages/projects use Notifications. I'll ping @Bsitu: in case he has further insights (possibly I should have pinged Bsitu instead of Kaldari, in the 2 threads above?). –Quiddity (talk) 18:05, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• I would rather see it prevent transcluded users linked from getting parsed... So, you can still ping, and it would only be the ones on the immediate page. Technical 13 (talk) 18:38, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

  Wouldn't that break {{ping}} and even {{user}}, which produces "transcluded users"? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• I can think of two ways to fix that. One (probably the better one if it's technically feasible) is to have pings only work through templates if the username was a parameter of the template. The other (more complicated, but probably more likely to be possible) is to add a magic word to templates like {{ping}} and {{user}} for allowing pings to work through them. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:00, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• I've grouped all of the discussions related to this issue under one heading. Jackmcbarn (talk) 13:43, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal - Notifications delivered

It occurs to be that it would be useful if user could check to see which notifications have been delivered (not using "sent" deliberately).

The way I envisage it working: You could click on notifications, then on the bottom, replace "All notifications" and "preferences" with "All notifications received", "All notifications delivered" and "preferences". Click on "All notifications delivered" and you will see all notifications successfully delivered (not necessarily read).

Here's how it could come in useful:

1. You might mention someone in a discussion, but use {{user}} or {{ping}} or link their talk page, and you are not sure that they received the notification.
2. You might mention someone in a discussion, with a wikilink to their name, so you are sure you did it right, but they have notifications turned off. Then you would realize you need to mention them specifically with a different approach.
3. You mean to thank someone for a nice edit, but you are busy or get interrupted, and can't remember if you did. You'll feel silly doing it twice, but if you can check you can see if you did deliver the thanks
4. You use the notification system correctly, but something goes wrong. Checking on occasion might identify situations of a problem with notification system.
5. You do thank someone for a nice edit, but you check delivered notifications, and see that they have notifications turned off, so now you can decide whether to add a note to their talk page or let it go.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:49, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Finding out whether someone has received the notification means finding out whether they're online, which I suspect would be a violation of the privacy policy (or upset many users, even if it turns out to be acceptable under the privacy policy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree. WhatamIdoing can you explain why you think that if if I, for example, mention your name in a post, as I just did, and then have the ability to see if the notification was pushed to you, that I have any information about whether you are online? If I were asking to see if you had read it, I agree, but I explicitly said "delivered (not necessarily read)", as I am not proposing a system that would check for messages read. Did I word it poorly, or am I missing something?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:50, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to see whether they're online. Why would it? Jackmcbarn (talk) 12:23, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

We shouldn't be relying on the notification system; if someone needs to be directed to a discussion then a good ol' talk page post will suffice. GiantSnowman 08:41, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The Foundation just built us a notification system, and I think it has a critical flaw. You don't know for sure that the person was notified. That doesn't sound like a minor issue, it sounds like the whole point. If that exists, it is faster and easier than using a talk page post. There's nothing stopping anyone form still using a talk page post, but it is a lot more work. We have a system that is close to making the process more efficient. I think we should close the gap.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:07, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

How is it "delivered" to me if I have not read the notification (not the linked discussion, but the notification itself)?

How can it be "delivered" to me if I am not online to receive the notification?

I have assumed that "delivered" means "WhatamIdoing clicked the little red number at the top of her screen, and 'Sphilbrick mentioned you' was displayed to her". Did you mean something else? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

A notification being "delivered" means that when or if they click the little number, they'll see it. A good analogy is the post office's delivery confirmation, letting you know whether your letter ended up in their mailbox, but not whether they checked their mail yet. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:43, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

So this would amount to nothing more than "Did Notifications work internally?", rather than "Did the user actually have a chance to see the Notification, e.g., by being present and having a web browser that is capable of using it?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Jackmcbarn nailed it. Exactly analogous to what would happen if you manually added a post to their talk page, and then looked at the talk page to be sure it was there. You would know you delivered it, yet not know when or if they even saw it or read it. To pick up on the USPS analogy, it is like a Receipt for Certified Mail, confrmation that the mail was delivered, but not like Signature Confirmation which requires a confirmation from the user that they had received it. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

When would you actually need this? Are we assuming that the software doesn't work, so that linking a userpage and signing the comment only sometimes works? Or is this just so you don't have to look at the diffs (something that all of us here are capable of doing, but that is not a skill we can expect new users to have)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Because sometimes, things that appear by the diff that they should send a notification, don't. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the need as urgent. (Using the term with trepidation, as I am working on a software project where "not urgent" has taken on the meaning of "never".) My desire for the system is motivated by two observations: some have identified failed notifications. I suspect the incidence is very low, but if I do not know how to check, then low may not be good enough. Second, some non-trivial number of editors have turned off notifications. I'm unaware of how to tell if anyone I might mention is a post has turned off the feature, so without a Notifications Delivered option, I have no way of knowing that the notification system worked, so I cannot rely on it.

I am not a new user, but I don't know what you mean by looking at the diffs. For example, I used Jackmcbarn's name in an edit. Are you saying there is a diff I can look at which tells me a notification was delivered to Jackmcbarn?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

So you'd like a system that lets you find out how individual users have set their preferences? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

No, explained further below--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd like the option for editors to publicly confirm they've seen the notification. Right now I'm using talkback templates for new editors as the visual cues associated with those are much more likely to be noticed by them. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't need to check their preferences. It should assume that they have them enabled and they're looking at them, and show whether they would see it in that case. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

It depends on your practical reason for doing this. If you want to debug the software, then sure: it doesn't matter whether the person has disabled this, unless of course that changes the software's behavior. But if you want to know whether that mention reached the person, e.g., so you don't have to bother with a user-talk message about mentioning the person at ANI, then it definitely would matter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to be able to see if a user has been notified when I attempt to notify them. I don't really care whether a failure is because of a technical glitch, or I did it incorrectly, or their preferences are set to refuse notifications. All I care about is whether they received it, so, if not, I can add a talk page comment. I do understand that some would care about the distinction, if they are trying to debug issues, for example, but my goal is to know whether I successfully sent a notification.

I used the analogy of snail mail earlier. Let me try again with a current century example. Imagine you are designing a new email system, and you failed to add a "sent" folder. That means if you are planning to send emails on various subject to various people, and get part way through your task, you might look for the sent folder to identify those you have completed and those you have not. If there were no such folder, you would consider it an incomplete system. That's what we have.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you're after a 'sent mail' folder. After all, you could go look at the diff in which you mention my name and add your signature, and know that you did, in fact, send the notification, and you can go back to the diff and see whether the blue 'thank' link has turned into a black 'thanked' non-link, and that will tell you that you thanked me.

What you seem to want is something more like a system of 'e-mail receipts': some method of knowing whether the little button turned red for me. That is, you don't want to know just whether you sent the notification; you actually want to know whether that notification/mention actually reached my account. Looking in your e-mail program's sent mail folder doesn't tell you whether your e-mail message got lost en route. It only tells you whether you clicked the 'send' button.

I don't see any method of letting you know that a notification reached me without telling you that I have notifications enabled. I don't see any method of letting you know that (a series of) notifications (consistently) failed to reach me without telling you that I have notifications disabled. Do you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really interested in debating the semantics. I used the analogy of a sent mail folder to illustrate that it would be ludicrous to design a mail system with no sent mail folder, attempting to illustrate that we have a notification system and no easy way to track notifications sent. I think it would be easy to add and useful, even if it isn't a direct counterpart to something existing in snail and email systems. I did learn something, thanks,t o you, I did not know how to tell that I thanked someone, and you pointed out I can. However, that works if I remember who I thanked, or add least where. I just thanked you, and I can look in the article history and see that "thank" is changed to "thanked". However, that requires that I remember where I did the thanking, and approximately when. I thanked someone else yesterday, and I was going to look at it to confirm that I can see the change. However, I don't recall who I thanked, and that is not in my contributions history. If I checked the contributions history of every article I edited yesterday, I can eventually find it, but I hope you will agree that is very cumbersome, and far harder than clicking on my notifications sent, if such a thing existed.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:55, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

We can also check our Special:Log page. See your Special:Log - Thanks log entries. –Quiddity (talk) 22:31, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't say what edit you thanked them for, and it doesn't address the other types of notifications at all. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:33, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

My response didn't really address your last two questions, which I confess I do not understand. Let me see if I can illustrate with what I would like to be able to do. Suppose I wanted to request an Arbcom case, or open an ANI thread in which I needed to name, and notify a dozen editors. Under the present system, I can list them using userlinks template, but them I have to manually send each one a notice. Not hard, but it should be easier. With our new notification system, simply including their name in the userlinks template probably sends a notification. (As an important aside, it appears not to) However, I cannot be sure it was sent, as they might have notifications turned off. If I could click on a Notifications sent link, which would be the Special:Notifications sent counterpart to Special:Notifications, it would tell me instantly that 11 of the 12 notifications were delivered, and one was not, and I could manually address the remaining one.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the easiest way to solve this is to follow my suggestion in the thread above? The only other way would be to manually check every notification sent, against the list of editors who have opted out. Iamnotadeveloper, but the latter sounds quite cumbersome/awkward. I'm still thinking fixing the problems that led to anyone opting out, would be vastly preferable for a plethora of reasons. –Quiddity (talk) 22:31, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

And that takes us back to the privacy policy: Will users be unhappy if you can determine what their prefs settings are?

It also takes us back to the practical technical problem: What if Notifications works perfectly, but I'm using an old web browser that is unable to see what Notifications tries to display for me? What if you thank me, and Notifications works 100%, but my computer is unable to show it to me? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Revert notification

Is it possible to cancel notifications that users were reverted when the reverting user self-reverts? Otherwise this could present serious problems for people who accidentally click rollback or the like (since the self-revert is not clear) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe so, because notifications (including emails) are triggered instantly. Introducing a delay into the system was discussed, but (iirc) is vastly more complicated than this enhancement would warrant. –Quiddity (talk) 00:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

• Fair enough, but what about two notifications? "You were reverted" and "your edits were reinstated"? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

  Not sure. iirc, they're not taking feature-requests at the moment, because most of the devs who were building Notifications have been re-assigned to new projects - the remaining dev(s) are concentrating on bug-fixes, and deployments across other languages/projects, and possibly looking at some of the previously much-requested features if they have additional time.

  If more people think this is a really important feature to have, we could create a bugzilla-feature-request for it, but I'm personally not sure if it would be worth the development time. How many times a day/week, would you (or anyone else reading) find this feature really useful? –Quiddity (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

  Maybe once a week where I am reverted than reinstated. General revert notices (very useful!) at least five times a week (I avoid more controversial areas) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:29, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Bug?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T52829

I currently have a notification that says "USSF Division 2 Professional League was linked from [[:[No page]]]." That's verbatim. Powers ^T 12:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a link to a deleted page. 'tis a Known bug (bugzilla:50829), that I heard they were working on. Hopefully fixed soon. –Quiddity (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Should userlinks template send notification?

While trying to make a point above, I used an example with the {{userlinks}} template. I tested it in my sandbox, and it did not send me a notification. Unless there is some logic overriding the sending of a notification to oneself, it appears not to do a notification. I think it should.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:23, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

There is logic to keep you from notifying yourself; otherwise, you'd get a notification every time you signed something. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense. Can I assume that the userlinks template does notify others? For example Jackmcbarn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) notified you? --SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it did. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:00, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Problems

1. There is an IP farm which has been blocked; I systematically review their edits when they appear, and revert them. Many of their edits are reverting my reversion. However, only about half of the reversions are showing up in the Notification log. (Bug, moderately serious if it applies to all reversions randomly, rather than just multiple reversions by the same editor.)
2. The "Show changes" link works properly, but the IP number links to the user page, not to user talk or to contributions. Personally, I think "contributions" would be better. (Enhancement, just an annoyance, as it only takes one more click)
3. (Possibly related) My notification count only goes down to 1, even after I look at all the revert notifications. This may only occur when I have more than one page of notifications. (Bug, what's below minor?)
4. The "talk page" kludge doesn't provide a link to a diff of the my talk page, only to the full talk page. (Enhancement, minor, as there isn't any good way to get a link to the diff except by going to the talk page history.)

This process is working surprisingly well, but I do have a few concerns. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:46, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

1. Probably bugzilla:53176, but if you can find any additional patterns, or evidence that it is something different, let us know.
2. I've created bugzilla:53564 for this. Thanks.
3. Weird. I'll poke the dev when I see him online. If you can confirm the "only occur when" that might help him.
4. Also, there might be multiple talkpage additions/changes since you'd last seen it, so it wouldn't know which to scroll to. I forget, how did OBOD deal with multiple changes?

HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 21:22, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Ping @Arthur Rubin: Just a quick ping, in case you have any updates, before I nudge the dev. Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 20:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

No. 1: Now, some of the edit sequences with 2-4 reverts produce no Notification hits.

No. 3: "Only when" is probably correct. When there are less than 8 hits (red number), it resets to 0.

No. 4: Previous "you have messages" link went to the "changes since last viewed".

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

No. 3 seems fixed. Today (well, late yesterday), I had a 14-count, and it reset to 0 after hitting (More) enough times. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Page links

Is there a reason that page link notifications don't link to the page I created (and which was linked)? Powers ^T 12:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Is the notification that you're asking about, (1) in the flyout, (2) at Special:Notifications, (3) in an email?

I think there are a few inconsistencies between them, and the only "page linked" notification I can personally check is in the Special:Notifications which does include links to both relevant articles.

And just in case that detail doesn't answer it, what are the article names, so that I can throw them in the bugreport? Ta.

Note that you can't trigger a "page link" notification yourself.–Quiddity (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I checked with an alt-account. Yup, the flyout and Special pages are inconsistent. I assume to prevent overlinking? I'll ask. –Quiddity (talk) 21:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, I was talking about the flyout and hadn't realized there was a difference between the two. Powers ^T 23:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, is there any way to turn off notifications for a particular page? Years ago, I was involved in Articles For Creation and created a bunch of articles I have little actual interest in. Powers ^T 13:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a semi-related bug that I'll update with this request, but first: How many articles roughly (dozens/hundreds/etc) would you be wanting to remove? –Quiddity (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Dozens. I don't think I actually got up into the hundreds range. Powers ^T 23:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I've noted the request at bugzilla:44787, and will update this thread with any responses or clarification requests. –Quiddity (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion RE: Thanks notification

Hi! First off, I'm loving the new notification system, which is saying something, because it usually takes me a while to warm up to software changes (if I do at all). But you guys struck gold with this one. I do have one suggestion about the "thanks" notification. Currently, the link to the diff for which one is being thanked (sorry, couldn't think of any other way to word that at the moment) is in teeny-tiny text. In fact, I didn't actually know it existed until I moseyed on over to Wikipedia:Notifications/Thanks and read it closely. I have two suggestions about how to deal with this. The first is to simply increase the font size of the "view edit" link (and I guess you could do the "x minutes/hours/etc. ago" while you're at it). The second could be to include a link to the diff in the actual body of the notification text. Currently the text reads: "Foo thanked you for your edit on User talk:Uber Sea." Perhaps "your edit" could be bolded and linked to the diff? Even though it's my top choice, I don't know if the section would work with how the software's currently written. Anyways. Thanks for taking the time to look at this. Cheers and happy editing! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 15:11, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Good points. This is another of the items that is inconsistent between the flyout and the full Special:Notifications (which includes the links you suggest). I'm going to try to put together a list of unresolved items like this (hopefully tomorrow or Monday), for the WMF team to re-examine (though I believe they're all busy with an internal conference/"techdays" for most of next week). –Quiddity (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

@Cymru.lass: Good idea! And thanks to Quiddity for making the list to bring up with the notifications team. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

@Quiddity and Steven (WMF): Thanks guys! I also just realized that clicking on a notification in the flyout with my mouse's scroll wheel doesn't work as expected. If I use the scroll wheel click on the body of the notification (i.e., anything that isn't a link), nothing happens. If I use the scroll wheel to click on the linked text ("Foo" in my example above), it opens the page in a new tab and in the tab that I currently have open. They're minor annoyances, but allowing the linked page to be opened in a new tab by scroll wheel-clicking on the notification body and only having the notification open in a new tab when the text is scroll wheel-clicked on would significantly improve usability (at least for me—I'm not entirely sure how many people out there besides me use scroll wheel-clicking as their exclusive method of opening new tabs). Just a suggestion :) Thank you again! Not to sound like a teenage girl, but you guys seriously rock. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 16:43, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a known bug, bugzilla:50949. I thought I'd read another thread about this problem, but I can't find it. and bugzilla:52319. Will note on my list (once made).

I'll pass your compliments along to the devs who actually deserve them ;) –Quiddity (talk) 17:09, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

What does this mean?

I received this odd notification: "[[:[No page]]] was linked from Yesh Gvul. [[Special:WhatLinksHere/[No page]|See all links to this page]]." What does this mean? RolandR (talk) 10:30, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

See above. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

That link does not work. RolandR (talk) 15:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Re: your original question, that's bugzilla:50829, and is being worked on.

Re: the link that TheDJ gave not working, what browser/OS are you using? (because the link should work without a problem). Does this link work for you: #Bug? ? (TheDJ linked to #Bug.3F which should be functionally identical, but stranger things have happened..) –Quiddity (talk) 17:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The original link works now; has it been edited? And, on the substantive question, is there any way to find out what the deleted page was, and why I have been notified of this? RolandR (talk) 21:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The link hasn't been edited. I don't believe there's a way to find out what the page was, but given the speed that would be required, I assume these instances are all CSD'd. –Quiddity (talk) 02:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank feature for mobile users

I noticed that it seems impossible to Thank another user when I'm editing on my phone. When I click "Thank" nothing happens, and clicking it again or clicking and holding seems to disable all links on the page. I'm curious whether these are known issues. The latter one is especially irritating because it requires me to close and then reload the page. (Editing using an iPhone 4.) Rivertorch's Evil Twin (talk) 13:44, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Mobile is meant to have any aspects of Echo (Notifications) yet - but Mobile just uses the standard History pages, hence these would be visible to you. I've noted this problem, in the big list o bugs, below. –Quiddity (talk) 02:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That's helpful. Thanks! Rivertorch (talk) 06:53, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Mobile is just starting to get some notifications: mw:Mobile web projects/status#2013-08-monthly. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Major failure of communication about pinging

To the authors of this page:

I've recently been involved in a series of discussions with a number of editors, principally User:Miss Bono, User:Cullen328, User:Philosopher and User:Technical 13 and a few others, about the feature of the Notifications system known as pinging.

The relevant threads are:

• User talk:JackofOz#Talkback from Miss Bono
• User talk:Miss Bono#Linking usernames when you address them: Please stop (particularly my most recent remarks), and
• User talk:JackofOz#Miss Bono.

Essentially, what it comes down to after the dust settled is that there is no mention of pinging or the template {{ping}} on this page, and those absences have played a major part in what could have become a massive dispute between editors. Can this please be rectified as soon as possible?

And in future, can it not just be assumed that those using a new system know about any closely associated terminology and hence there is no need to actually mention it? Such an assumption would be 100% guaranteed to cause problems.

Thank you. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:05, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• JackofOz, thanks for brining it to my attention as I hadn't realized that the terminology wasn't here. I was actually going to reply to you on Miss Bono's talk page, but here is probably more appropriate. I'll add the terminology and methods of pinging to this page tomorrow unless someone beats me to it tonight. Technical 13 (talk) 22:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Well done. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• @JackofOz: In general, I think the problem is that Notifications is a tool with emergent uses - it wasn't designed specifically for pinging, but people have figured that out & started using it - and the page talks about the mechanisms but not the way people use the feature. Perhaps a "Using Notifications" section targeted at editors discussing some of these behaviours? I'll try and pull one together next week if not before. Andrew Gray (talk) 08:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Andrew. I await it with relish. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Telugu localisation bug

Telugu localisation is completed. But the section heading that is visible, when the message counter tab next to username is clicked shows incorrectly spelled telugu word పరకటనలు rather than ప్రకటనలు. I could not locate the message name for correcting this and also do not know whether it is because of improper handling of the localised unicode string.--Arjunaraoc (talk) 07:13, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it's echo-overlay-title. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. I realized that the string is already updated in Translatewiki.net, but yet to show up on Telugu wikipedia --Arjunaraoc (talk) 04:06, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

New notification "gesichtet" needed for deWP, plWP, ruWP, arWP etc

Hello, it would be really important to have a new notification "gesichtet" (pending change or meta:Flagged Revisions) for German Wikipedia. Really essential. (Probably also for other WPs with this extension: plWP, ruWP, arWP etc.) "Your edit has been sighted by user:X and is now visible" or something like that. On the other hand, "review"?-notifications do not work on german WP. And, please, before deploying to german WP, ask and announce! Thank you! I'm looking forward to it :-) (see also [5]) --Atlasowa (talk) 12:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T54510

Thanks to User:Quiddity, I learned of this related bugzilla request. I read there "abandoned by Matmarex: ... Reason: Somebody who knows at least one of the extensions should implement this. I give up." Currently "Assigned To: Nobody". This request was opened on 2013-08-04 by a polish Wikipedian, long before activation of notifications at plWP on Aug. 20th 2013.

Let me emphasize that this a really important feature. Flagged Revisions means that edits by new editors are not visible live on wiki, only after patrolling they appear. This can take hours or days (or weeks and even months on arWP!), which is frustrating of course. They get notified of a revert, which is also negative feedback. But you could enable notifications for acceptance of their edit (sighted), which would be positive feedback. Please do not activate another negative feedback mechanism on deWP unless you also activate a positive feedback for accepted edits!

@User:Fabrice Florin (WMF) Please compare this list meta:Flagged_Revisions#Flagged Revisions on Wikimedia projects with your mw:Echo/Release Plan 2013. Please do not ignore this issue any longer. Thank you. --Atlasowa (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

@Atlasowa: Bugzilla is confusing in this instance (and in general!). Bartosz Dziewoński (MatmaRex) originally submitted the bug itself. He then submitted one patch written by user:krenair (Change 62193) and his own patch (Change 79775). Then user:Aaron Schulz merged the first patch (Change 62193), and then Bartosz/Matma retracted ("abandoned") his own patch (Change 79775). Therefore, at least one patch has been installed into the FlaggedRevs codebase. Possibly that patch covers the entire request? That patch covers "rejected/reverted" Revision Notifications. The code for Approved Revisions Notifications (change 79775) is abandoned in gerrit as it doesn't account for some important cases. I've added this item to the Big List of Echo Bugs below, and nudged most of the relevant devs. –Quiddity (talk) 17:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Dear Atlasowa, thanks for following up on your request for a 'Flagged Revisions' notification. It's a very reasonable proposal, and you make a good point that it would provide much-needed positive feedback to offset edit reversions. But new feature development for Echo has now ended for this release. We've all been re-assigned to other projects, and our meager development resources are limited to only bug fixes and final deployments. We have added your request on our wish-list for future releases, as Quiddity points out above, but we don't expect any major developments until next year. For now, we invite developers in your community to join forces with MatmaRex to build this Flagged Revisions Notifications, or any other special notifications which you would like to add on the German or Polish Wikipedias (see this Developer guide). Thanks again for your thoughtful recommendation, which I endorse, but sadly cannot act on at this time, due to limited resources. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

@Fabrice Florin (WMF): I am no longer working on that. I was expecting the Foundation's team to follow up. (Also, I didn't get a mention for your comment here because of T50892, which is another major issue that stayed unsolved.) Matma Rex talk 22:37, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Notification of multiple edits

When a person does multiple edits on my talk page on the Dutch Wikipedia (but probably on other projects too), the "view changes" link only shows me the latest edit but not the latest edits while the old notification did give me a link to all changes done since the last time I viewed my talk page. Maybe you could fix that? Thanks. Trijnstel_talk 16:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I've added this issue to the big list of bugs above. Thanks :) –Quiddity (talk) 04:18, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Trijnstel_talk 14:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

One more thing: when I have multiple notifications (multiple edits on my user talk), the number still says "1" notification while there are more. Trijnstel_talk 14:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like an instance of "bundling" - mw:Feature requirements#Bundling - it tries to bundle related notifications together, to prevent a deluge, eg. it should say "Tom Morris and 3 others posted on <your talk page>:" rather than giving you 4 notifications. However, there's a related bug listed above (#8) about how the "view changes" link isn't working ideally yet. –Quiddity (talk) 05:45, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to say that this T56391 seems to have been fixed in today's release ('Diff link in bundled message should show all diffs instead of just the last one'). Please let us know if it works for you :). Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:02, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

display error

Technical 13 mentioned you on Village pump (technical) talk page in "Where is .noticecolor:#F00 ...".
13 hours ago | View changes

The brackets are missing, the thread's name is "Where is .notice{color:#F00} coming from?"

Regards, mabdul 12:00, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

A notification feature; maybe?

Please consider the merits of incorporating notifications through generic stalkwords which the user was able to choose which terms they wanted to stalk, and potentially serve; from a list available within the user preferences; like Admin, Helpme, Steward, Oversight, Checkuser, Bureaucrat, Revdel, and perhaps others forming service pools while examples like Template, Math, Medical, English, Chemistry, Biology, Religion, Politics, Legal, Copyright, MOS, BLP, HTML, and others would form specialized pools of expertise that a user might call in good faith, hoping for a timely and authoritative answer to be given. I believe this has good potential. Based on availability, and means.—John Cline (talk) 13:05, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

• This would require support for a page like Echo-stalkwords. I really like this idea, however, I'm concerned about abuse. How would we prevent trolls from spamming such words just to annoy those that stalk them? Also, I have a feeling that such a ticket requesting this would be resolved as a WONTFIX due to extremely high amount of resources it would require in order to make sure everyone get the notifications for all of the specified stalkwords. If these concerns can be addressed, I'd be happy to put the request up on bugzilla:. Technical 13 (talk) 13:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

You have certainly raised some valid concerns and I look forward to seeing the effects of collaboration in compiling ideas to improve this. To mitigate the disruptive potential of trolls it seems prudent to tie this capability to autoconfirmed which should be as effective as semi-protection is in preventing trolls from damaging Wikipedia content. To mitigate the negative potential an unrestricted accrual of pings could have on a users desire to respond, it would be good if the ping would evaporate, or move to an archive for all requests appropriately marked as done, in keeping with a similar effect as that which occurs when {{Helpme}} is changed to {{Helpme-helped}} I can't address resource allocations as frankly that exceeds my pay grade. I bet we can find a way however.—John Cline (talk) 14:37, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

This goal is probably better suited to WP:Flow than to Echo. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that response, and please accept my apologies for failing to notice your comment until now. I will pursue any continuation of this as a request to WP:Flow. Thanks again!—John Cline (talk) 04:10, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Notifications across wikis

I was helping a Romanian Wiktiorian on a technical issue and found myself having to visit that site and place talkbacks. Can the notification system be tweaked to work across language wikis and sister sites? For example, pinging ta:User:Ganeshk should make notify show up on Tamil Wikipedia. — Ganeshk (talk) 01:42, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

It is on the planning page (mw:Editor Engagement/2013 strategy planning (Features)), but (if I understand it correctly) they can't even start thinking about allocating developer resources until the final parts of Unified Login are complete (m:Single User Login finalisation announcement is still undetermined). –Quiddity (talk) 03:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Quiddity. — Ganeshk (talk) 05:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Notifications: The Final Stretch

Hi folks,

I'm happy to say that we just completed our fourth release of Notifications on another two dozen wiki sites today: Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, Galician, Greek, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian-Nynorsk, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Sorani Kurdish, Thai, Turkish and Welsh Wikipedias.

So we have now successfully released the Echo extension on most of the large Wikipedias (e.g. Chinese, Dutch, French, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish) and dozens more around the world -- with very positive community response, as summed up in this blog post.

Based on this favorable feedback, we now plan to release Notifications on most remaining wiki sites in a single day, on Tuesday, October 22. This includes about 200 Wikipedias we haven't enabled yet, as well as about 500 'sister projects', in all languages (e.g.: Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiquote, Wiktionary). This represents about 700+ sites total, leaving only a few wikis disabled, at their community's request.

If you are active in a community that doesn't have Echo enabled yet, we would be grateful if you could invite volunteers to help with translations and other tasks in this release checklist. If you have any questions or comments about enabling Echo on your site, please leave them on this release discussion page, or contact us directly.

Many thanks to our community liaison Keegan Peterzell and our developer Benny Situ for all their hard work in making these final releases possible. :) Best regards, Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fabrice Florin (WMF), would you please respond to my request at Wikipedia_talk:Notifications#New notification "gesichtet" needed for deWP, plWP, ruWP, arWP etc? This is problem is now months old and i see no development at all. Instead, you have since deployed notifications on more WP language versions with activated flagged revisions. Why does nobody seem to care? Shouldn't the WMF be sensitive to flooding newbies with negative feedback (revert notifications) while holding off positive feedback (notifications of accepted edits that "go live")? This is frustrating. I do love the thanks and ping notifications, and i'm really concerned that notifications will not be enabled on german Wikipedia because WMF doesn't care to get things right before deploying. Frustrated: --Atlasowa (talk) 13:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Dear Atlasowa, thanks for pinging me about your reasonable proposal for a 'Flagged Revisions' notification. I have responded above, as requested. In the meantime, as I told TMg, we encourage the German community to join our worldwide deployment on October 22, which is our best opportunity to deploy the tool on your site this quarter. If we miss that window, we would need to arrange a special German release at the end of the year or early next year, which may be tough to schedule, due to other deadlines. I think a first release of the basic Notifications tool would serve everyone's best interests, even without Flagged Revisions support, because it would motivate local developers to help build the feature you want. Thanks for your understanding, and we hope to deploy Notifications very soon on the German Wikipedia! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Disabling pings when a user is blocked

Is there any merit to disabling a blocked user's ability to ping other users while they are blocked? I was in the peripheral of a discussion admonishing a blocked user from pinging others to accomplish their request by proxy and thought this would almost be a non issue if it did not exist as an ability. It is my opinion that noticing a blocked user's comments because they were on your whatchlist would constitute any subsequent action as appropriate because they could show that they have independent reasons for making the edits whereas this independence erodes after a ping has been activated. Is there any substance to considering this?—John Cline (talk) 04:33, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. If a blocked user abuses the feature after being warned, their talk page access can just be revoked. I also don't see editing by proxy as being a big enough problem to worry about in this case. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:14, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Revert reverts

Hello. Picture the following: you accidentally revert an edit, notice, and then revert yourself. The person whose edit you reverted gets a notification, but when they go to the page, it's as they left it. What happened will become clear a few clicks later, but the immediate impression you get is a confusing one. That happened to Moe Epsilon and me today.

May I suggest that the system is adjusted so that if you revert a revert that you made, the notification sent to the other user is negated (if they haven't yet triggered the bubble from the red numeric indicator. If they have, it's too late). — Scott • talk 22:49, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree something should be done about this, but I think making a notification disappear would add to the confusion, not lessen it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think this should be in the "popular requests" folder. I've asked for the same thing. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  Yup, at Wikipedia_talk:Notifications/Archive_5#Revert_notification. I'll add it to the list above. :) (@Scott Martin see that archived thread, for discussion about emailed-notifications, and introducing delays. Just fyi.) –Quiddity (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Notifications for log entries

It would be nice if we could "thank" people for deletions, un-deletions, and other actions that show up in logs but are not edits per se. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:56, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• This is along the same lines as Bugzilla:50867 if you'd like to follow it. Technical 13 (talk) 23:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

See discussion of a proposal related to this process at...

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 106#The revert notification encourages edit-warring, consider removing or modifying it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: 'talkback' notification

I'd like to have the possibility of easily notifying someone about a response, without linking their user page or editing their talk page, perhaps something like the "thank" button. Any thoughts or ideas about this? Mathonius (talk) 13:07, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The WP:Flow project aims to improve exactly this aspect of discussions. We'll be working on finding out exactly how to implement these types of features via experimentation and feedback, starting very small with just a couple of WikiProjects that volunteer, over the coming months. See that main page for many more details. :) –Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Quiddity! That's great! :) Mathonius (talk) 10:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Question regarding "page links" notification

Does the "page links" notification notify you of when an image you uploaded gets linked to an article? Or is it just for articles created in article space? Thanks, —  dainomite   19:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Not currently, but that's one of the initial Goals of mw:Multimedia. I'm not sure if there's a specific timeline for that feature yet. –Quiddity (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello Dainomite, thanks for your good question. As Quiddity points out, our multimedia team indeed plans to develop a new category of 'media file notifications', which would notify you when 'your file was used in article x'. We aim to start development in December 2013, with a likely release in January 2014. We will post here when that new notification is available. Thanks again, and be well :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 21:14, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks Quiddity and Fabrice Florin (WMF). This raises another question I just thought of. How will it work for users who upload files to commons and the files are linked on various wikipedias. Will the uploader on commons be notified that their new file is used on various wikipedias? Or will it be restricted locally so notifications wont leave the site? By that I mean an uploader on COM won't be notified if their file is linked on say the de wikipedia. Thanks again for the quick responses. Regards, —  dainomite   21:24, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Dainomite, the current plan is that if your file is used anywhere, you will receive a notification from Commons that it was used, most likely using the GlobalUsage extension to trigger the notification. However, you will not receive that notification on English or German Wikipedia, only on Commons, as we are not currently supporting cross-wiki notifications. Hope this helps. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh, I got it. Well, it sounds awesome and I can't wait until it's released. Thank you, —  dainomite   22:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Two clicks instead of one: Why?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58475

The new notifications are terrific but why do we have to press two clicks to find the diff when someone leaves a message in your talk page? It is so easy: Just allow the orange box to redirect to the diff instead of talking you just to the talk page. Please do not make Wikipedia worse, make it better. --FocalPoint (talk) 20:28, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Some editors (especially less experienced ones) prefer seeing the actual messages rather than the wikicode diff. However, there might be a compromise option in taking you to the section most recently edited (but then what do you do with multiple messages/multiple sections?). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As it is, it is totally useless if users edit in previous sections, sections other than the last. How can you tell where is the message in such a case (in an example of 25 sections? You just cannot. You need a diff. Please make Wikipedia better: Keep what works and add new functionalities. Please do not remove useful characteristics. --FocalPoint (talk) 23:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I think Bugzilla:54391 is related to (or completely covers) this. –Quiddity (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it is not covering my request. I am asking that the link in the orange box leads you to a diff, same as it was before, with one click. The other options, can still be there. Why remove a perfectly sensible function? --FocalPoint (talk) 23:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

@FocalPoint: I've made bugzilla:56475 to cover this. (Sorry about the earlier confusion, I thought the other bug getting fixed had shared code with this bug, hence I suggested they were related.) –Quiddity (talk) 17:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Hover action to trigger Flyout

Hey Quiddity, are you aware of bugs that may ask for the flyout to show up when hovering instead than when clicking, for non-mobile versions of the site? :) --Elitre (talk) 14:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

@Elitre: I'm fairly sure there are no bugtickets for that feature-request. I also would oppose it personally, as that would make a giant flyout blink in-and-out almost every time I tried to navigate to my userpage or talkpage - that would get annoying rapidly! However, if you're asking because you, or someone else, dislikes the small size of the Notifications Badge, I can understand/agree with that - I'd suggest that the solution lies in the #Granularity suggestion below, which I'll write a bugzilla ticket for, next. :) –Quiddity (talk) 17:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Ping from edit summary

Would it be possible for a user to be notified if his/her user page, talk page, or contributions were mentioned in an edit summary? And would it be a good idea?

I was thinking I would like to be notified if someone mentioned User:Arthur Rubin/IP list in an edit summary, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble and/or a good idea. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

T51446. Matma Rex talk 16:55, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Users who chose not to receive some notifications

I read something about this in the archives, so my question is: am I right in assuming that, at the moment, the only way to have a list of users who opted-out from some Echo options (and to find out about which of them) is... manually building it (i.e., having such user to explicitly list themselves and their "undesired" options on a page)? --Elitre (talk) 15:14, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

@Elitre: In the thread where we got a specific number, it was due to a developer running a database search for us. (See the 3 links in the "What happens if someone turns off their Mention Notifications?" subsection, above in #Other items, for more details on that particular issue.) I'm not sure what the best or available options and ideas are (both short and long term). Someone should collate and research it all. (I would if I had time). –Quiddity (talk) 20:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

In that case we just have a number, which is not really my concern at this time :) I guess that members of wikiprojects, for example, will simply want to find out if their colleagues are using these features or not and if it makes sense to ping or thank them. So... manual lists it is, IMHO! Thanks, --Elitre (talk) 12:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The revert notification encourages edit-warring, consider removing or modifying it

The discussion below was moved from Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#The_revert_notification_encourages_edit-warring.2C_consider_removing_or_modifying_it. HelenOnline 15:52, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The notification system that has been implemented relatively recently includes a function where users are notified when their edits have been reverted. I believe that this function is counter-productive, as it encourages edit-warring behaviour, and that the community should consider the removal of this feature, or at least modify the manner in which the information is displayed.

Prior to the implementation of this new system, the only way a user found out about their edits being reverted was to browse their personal watchlist. There, they have access to edit history links and can read edit summaries; in fact, the first thing they read is the edit summary, and from there onwards do they actually realise that their edit has been reverted. In other words, the user learns of the revert from the edit summary, which also happens to provide explanations beforehand. Alternatively, they might have been manually notified of the reason for the revert on their talkpage by an actual non-automated human, and invited to participate in a talkpage discussion. This new system, however, brings the user the news of being reverted first, as opposed to the reason for the revert. Since the user receives a notification along the lines of "(USER) has reverted your edits to (PAGE)", the first thing brought to the user's attention is the fact that they have been reverted, and this usually elicits an emotional response, meaning that they may be psychologically discouraged from thinking logically and rationally due to this mechanism.

This might be purely anecdotal, but I have seen a general trend of users react emotionally to reverts in recent days, and appear to no longer properly read edit summaries (which explain reasons for reverts). Often, re-reverts done by outburst may even be made with no proper explanation at all. It's as if the user's mind process now becomes

• "Aww shit, this fucking guy just reverted my edit! I have to revert his revert, I'll show this cunt who's boss",

instead of

• "Upon reading the edit summary, I've realised that he's reverted my edit because of (REASON), and honestly I (AGREE/DISAGREE) with his reasoning, and will proceed to (DO NOTHING/REVERT HIM)",

which should have been the usual thought process before the introduction of the notification system.

Furthermore, prior to the notification system, we would often see long-term editors revert one another due to disagreements, often within reason. This is because editors who spend more time on Wikipedia have a greater understanding of Wikipedia's policies and standard procedures, and generally are here to collaborate constructively, despite having conflicting points of view. However, now we have the case of new users or users who spend little time on the project receiving notifications of being reverted every time they log in to their account. In other words, they might be receiving notifications about reverts from months past, elicit an angry reaction, and then proceed to revert it (even though there might have been a lengthy talk page discussion that the user was unaware of, due to their inactivity). These users may also have more limited understanding of concepts such as WP:EW and WP:DE, and proceed to edit merely to fight a "war" or revert for the sake of reverting, instead of reasoning with others. Non-frequent users may also have forgotten about the edit and log in with the intention of doing something else, only to be reminded of the edit they did 3 months ago.

Due to the above reasoning, I believe that this new mechanism does more harm than benefit. If I am mistaken, I am willing to hear what other people have to say in regards to this. --benlisquare_T•C•E 08:55, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

You're right in your analysis of the emotional reaction provoked by the notification. On the other hand, the new system helps prevent WP:OWN behavior, where a pass-by correction to an article not in your watch list would otherwise be silently reverted by someone preventing all changes to that article.

I think the best bet would be to add the edit summary to the notification; this way you get the old behavior available in the watch list, and the automatic supervision that doesn't require re-checking all your edits some time after making them. Diego (talk) 12:16, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I only have my own reaction to go by but I am always surprised to be notified of reverts. If it was an edit that I was iffy about (eg, I wasn't an expert on the subject), I figure that the reverter knows the subject better. If I'm pretty sure that I was right, I go to the article and see what the problem was.

The two most common reasons I've found are 1) the reverter watches the article pretty intensively and there is no way my edit will stay if they don't approve of it or 2) the reverter objects to the way I worded something (like I wrote, "he jumped to his feet" and they preferred "he rose"). Now, not only is edit warring wrong but, in the case of #1, there is no way my version would ever "win". The other Editor just cares a whole heck of a lot more about this particular article than I do. In the case of #2, well, I'm not going to get into an edit war over the way a phrase is worded. In either case, if it is something I feel strongly about, I'll go to the article talk page but usually when I do so, my question receives no replies or only a reply by the Editor who reverted me. So, reverting a revert will only have bad consequences and I just move on.

I might feel differently if it was an article I had created or had written a large portion of. But this hasn't happened yet.

So, while a revert notice might provoke an emotional reaction, if the Editor takes 15 seconds to look into it, I think they will usually find it's nothing to get worked up about. There are 4+ million articles and getting upset about one edit on one of them is just counter-productive. Unless the reverter is hounding you, it's best to just go on to the next article. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 12:56, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It takes you 15 seconds to look into it, and realise it's nothing to get upset over, because you're presumably a constructive editor who is able to stay rational. There are those who do not have a constructive mindset, and all it takes is a notification, and they'll get worked up to the point where it doesn't even matter what the edit summary says. I'd like to say that in most cases I've seen this happen more often with users with red username links, but then that would be discriminatory against users with red username links. It's WP:BITE-y, but users with sub-500 edits do form a slightly overwhelming over-representation of cases I've seen. --benlisquare_T•C•E 13:54, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I would have to see much more clear evidence to support removal, but I would strongly support making the notification tell us "A reverted your edit to B with the edit summary "content of edit summary".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:06, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't mind it being modified so that it also includes the edit summary. However as it currently stands, it has the potential to trigger bad responses in some cases. Not all cases of course, as Liz has earlier mentioned, since exceptions such as hers do obviously exist, however the potential to trigger bad reactions in some cases is enough to argue towards some kind of a change. I don't have any conclusive evidence, but from anecdotal experiences, it's essentially what I've seen time and time again.

To reinforce my point, which of the following is more likely to stir up an emotional response?

• Your edit on Japanese war crimes has been reverted by Benlisquare. (Show changes) (in bold text, the first time the notification is displayed)
• 21:00, 31 February 2027 Benlisquare (talk | contribs) . . (20,000 bytes) (-250) . . (Undid revision 123456789 by ExampleUser (talk) to last version by SmartGuy: According to the Washington Post reference, it should be 1945, not 1947. Please provide a citation for this date, or explain on the talk page)

Even if the notification was modified to bring the message across a bit better, such a change would significantly improve the purpose of having automatic notifications. --benlisquare_T•C•E 13:25, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Fuhghettaboutit. The notification is useful. For one thing, if I removed vandalism or modified an unhelpful change (in my view) and I am notified there is a revert, it may cause me to leave a talk page message, or go to AIV, ore take other appropriate action (but not, i hope, to edit war). Adding the edit summary would significantly improve the notification. (it would also improve the notification on a talk page change, letting me skip the step of checking the history in many cases) It might well help reduce that emotional tendency to start or continue an edit war, especially if the editor left a good summary. DES ^(talk) 14:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Currently, the notifications put the name ("...has been reverted by AmericanPatriot1994", i.e. "that guy that argued with me last year at the List of Taliban commanders RfC discussion, therefore I hate him") ahead of the reason (i.e. "my edit was reverted because it was unsourced"). I think this is something that also needs to be addressed. I'm hoping that the first thing anyone sees is the edit summary; is there any helpfulness in telling people first-up who made the revert? Focus should be placed on content, and not the contributor. --benlisquare_T•C•E 14:05, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree right back at DESiegel with why this would be useful. It would certainly let "me skip the step of checking the history in many cases". If I saw an edit summary by someone I trust/know is a regular and non-vandal/is some who will act sanely, I may not need to visit to see at all. For example, if I had reverted some vandalism on last, and saw that DESiegel reverted my edit with the edit summary: "revert to earlier, better version", I would see no need to visit. If we lose the name, that same edit summary would not allow me to skip, because it might be by a sneaky vandalism account, or even if I dont know the user, I migght skip, but not if the name bears the hallmarks of a spam account. We learn much by seeing a user's name. On the other hand, I would not necessarily be against making the edit summary appear first, before the username, as you suggest, but I don't think it's very natural. Hmm, how would that work? I suppose it could be Your edit on ARTICLE was reverted with the edit summary: "...", by USERNAME", but I think that format is rather awkward. Anyway, let me run something else by you:

In thinking about why you are seeing more counter-reverts and edit wars, I am now thinking that it's inevitable; of course you are, and your anecdotal experience just has to be correct. However, I don't think it's because people are not forced by process to see the edit summary first, before they can knee-jerk-revert by finding it through their watchlist, or at least that is only a small part of it. The reason is far more likely attributable to the fact that the vast majority of users, prior to Echo's implementation, who saw reverts at all, were experienced users – those who i) knew enough to add pages they edited to their watchlists; ii) knew how to follow their watchlist; iii) were in the habit of following their watchlists; and iv) actually, actively, scanned daily for such reversions. Now every user with an account who has notification of reverts turned on is being passively informed of every single one. So I think the fact they are seeing it through notification and not through their watchlist (where the edit summary would be seen first), is only a small part of the story.

Anyway, I find it massively useful, even if it has unintended baggage.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:10, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• Interesting, and I believe "mostly" correct observation. What I would think would be a proper adjustment to invoke a healthy response is a three part change. First, replace (SHOW CHANGES) with (DISCUSS) (linking to a new section on the talk page). Second, add a sub-line that offers the edit summary. Finally, offer the (SHOW CHANGES) after the edit summary. This encourages discussion over edit-warring reversion. Technical 13 (talk) 23:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• If good editor G reverts bad editor B, maybe telling B will elicit an unconstructive reaction -- maybe. But if B reverts G, then G is advised that something is going on and may be able to move things forward. So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. I prefer information to concealment, so I think the notification is good. Fuhghettaboutit's suggestion to include the edit summary in the notification is a good idea. --Stfg (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I think Technical 13's idea of a discussion link is another good one, though I'm not sure about making it an edit link, rather than a link to the talk page – I think this might confuse many newish editors (though maybe that's okay too). By the way, I'm going to drop a "see discussion related to this page" link at Wikipedia talk:Notifications.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:27, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with OP I was searching for a thread about this as otherwise I would have started one. I agree absolutely the red revert notifications encourage edit warring. From now on I will rather do manual reverts which sometimes causes me to perform incomplete reverts and make even more of a mess. Psychologically when people see red, well they see red. If they care enough they will be watching the page and they will see it anyway, so why antagonize them unnecessarily? HelenOnline 07:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
  • As far as I'm aware, there is a notification even if you do a manual revert, without touching the undo link. --benlisquare_T•C•E 11:55, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't think so. I waited for it to happen again which it did today and I did not get any notification. There also doesn't seem to be a separate notification setting for it which I could have opted out of. HelenOnline 13:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree with OP. Per WP:BEANS, I don't want to go into too much detail, but this has been very helpful in dealing with clones of editors in User:Arthur Rubin/IP list. I sometimes catch him before he rotates his IP, when, before WP:ECHO, that was very rare. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Would a less antagonistic manner of notification (e.g. using a different color than red) change that? HelenOnline 06:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The color doesn't bother me, although there are advantages to the color being significantly different for each type of notification, so one can scan the notifications for different types. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:29, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

See the #Granularity thread above, for some possibilities in that direction. (Comment above, or Vote/CC yourself on the bug, to indicate popular demand for the feature.) –Quiddity (talk) 20:31, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

•  Note: Wikipedia talk:Notifications would a better place for this discussion due to the presence of developers and other parties interested in discussing the implementation details of notifications. If it peters out here it will be automatically archived and vanish without accomplishing anything. May I suggest that someone uproots this section and puts it there, leaving a pointer note here? — Scott • talk 13:59, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect notification about a self-revert

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58574

Hello,

I recently reverted my own edit on the Dutch Wikipedia (see here), but I received a notification ten hours later telling me FakirNL (a fellow Dutch Wikipedian) reverted the edit. The link "Wijzigingen bekijken" ("Show changes" in English) leads to my own revert. I've uploaded a screenshot of the notification. I currently use Windows Vista and Firefox 24. Please let me know if more information is needed.

Also, the word "door" ("by" in English) is missing. It should be "Uw bewerkingen op X zijn teruggedraaid door Y".

Thanks, Mathonius (talk) 13:04, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I did click the [2 bewerkingen terugdraaien] button (rollback-function), performing a zero change edit in the meantime. - FakirNL (talk) 13:10, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the report, I've filed bugzilla:56574. Legoktm (talk) 18:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion: Notification for an established account with no email address

We get regular cries for help at the Help desk and elsewhere from editors who have forgotten their password and have no email address configured. That feels harsh for someone with an established account. So how about a reminder notification after, say, 500 edits if an account still has no email address? -- John of Reading (talk) 07:07, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

If this does happen, it should contain a link to Wikipedia:Committed identity. Some people do not want to let Wikipedia know their email, but this will give them another option. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

bugzilla:56028 I think. Legoktm (talk) 18:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Page link notifications

I really like receiving page link notifications on an article I created, Social network, because so many editors link to it inappropriately (usually referring to Social networking services). However, it's painful to logon and see a notification that one specific article AND a bunch of other unspecified articles have been linked to Social network with no way for me to determine which of several hundred linked articles have been recently linked to Social network. I'm wondering if the notifications could be changed so that each individual article linked has a separate, specific notification? Thanks to all who have worked on the notification project. For the most part, it's been a positive addition to WP! Meclee (talk) 23:37, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Interesting idea.

Fwiw, the keyword the team is using for this feature is "bundling", and you can see details about its current implementation at mw:Echo/Feature_requirements#Bundling

I guess we'd need to get some research into how many Pagelink Notifications the most active-recipients are getting, in order to determine what repercussions unbundling them, would have. @DarTar: do you know if this would be easy or time-consuming to do?

I also wonder if there are other Wikipedia:Notifications#Features that we might consider leaving unbundled. –Quiddity (talk) 00:28, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't have much bandwidth to look into this but I also don't think we need to spend a lot of cycles doing data analysis to answer that question. I believe unbundling pagelink notifications would not produce any damage in terms of frequency to anyone but a fairly small group of "special" editors. This is my reasoning:

• pagelink notifications only target active page creators, not article contributors, so a relatively small proportion of our entire editor base.
• they may become an issue only when articles are linked too rapidly from other pages
• the pace of link accumulation for existing pages is too slow to be of any concern
• the only real concern is for breaking news articles where links may be accumulating rapidly for articles created from scratch.
• it's plausible to assume that we don't have many active page creators who routinely create these types of pages that get massively linked in a very short amount of time.
• the only other exception is bulk page creators (currently the #1 recipient of pagelink notifications is a user from svwiki who mostly does just that, and this user is an outlier). These users should be aware of what happens as a result of bulk page creation, given the nature of their activity, so they will probably mute pagelink notifications anyway.

If this line of reasoning holds, I think we can go ahead and change the defaults for pagelink without seeking further evidence. I'd be obviously happy to be proved wrong on the above assumptions :) DarTar (talk) 01:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks DarTar. Good thoughts.

The reason I'm hesitant, are comments #0 and #6 at bugzilla:44787. (#0 = linked translations. #6 = editors who help out with WP:AfC and are not personally interested in the article-topics, of which they might have created anywhere from dozens up to low-hundreds). Perhaps that ought to be fixed/resolved somehow, first? Your thoughts or alternative suggestions would be welcome. :) –Quiddity (talk) 19:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"Het hoofdje" on the Dutch Wikipedia

On the Dutch Wikipedia (nl.wikipedia), I received a notification about a new message: "X heeft een bericht op uw overlegpagina achtergelaten onder het hoofdje ..." 'Het hoofdje' is very uncommon and looks quite strange. Please consider replacing it with the more usual 'het kopje'. I'd have done it myself, but I don't know where the translations are kept. Thanks, Mathonius (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

@Mathonius: It took a while, but I found the pages at translatewiki. There are 2 sets though:

• nl
• nl-informal

Hope that helps. (I'm totally unfamiliar with translatewiki. I found it quite confusing looking around! I eventually found Echo via the Main Wikimedia extensions listing.) –Quiddity (talk) 08:24, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I've now applied for translator rights there. Mathonius (talk) 09:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Multiple signatures break mention notifications

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58739

I don't think that edit notified me. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Biosthmors and I have confirmed that an edit containing two signatures does not send notifications, at least if the mention is before the first time stamp. I didn't see anything related in Bugzilla, but I'm not especially familiar with Echo's bugs. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'll create a new bug.

Somewhat relatedly, see comments #9, #16, and #20, at bugzilla:53132. Complicated issues. –Quiddity (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

How to thank without taking forever to do so

As I have already mentioned I love notifications, and use them a lot. However, it is taking me more and more time to utilize thank. When I see a comment on a talkpage and decide to thank the author, I do it by clicking the View history link and then tediously searching the particular edit by the particular author. Since wiki is very slow (for me at least) these days, this is becoming a chore rather than a pleasure. Is there a faster way to do it? X~— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottawahitech (talk • contribs) 16:24, 13 November 2013

The only other place the Thank link currently appears, is in the individual diff view, eg. [6].

However, you'll possibly be pleased to hear that Flow is currently putting a Thank link quite prominently in the interface - positive feedback (or suggestions for improvement) about that (over at WT:Flow) would be helpful, as I am expecting a fair amount of debate over exactly how prominent it is, and where it is placed. (Mouseover any of the posts at the Wikipedia:Flow/Interactive prototype to see what I mean). HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 17:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

In the mean time, it's probably easier to post a reply that says "Thanks!" on busy talk pages where digging through the history is too much of a chore. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 21:03, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

how this tool is sometimes being misused

Let me be clear, I like echo. I generally find it to be very handy and superior to the way things were. However, like any tool it is prone to misuse.

I'm talking here about users who use it in a conversation where it seems one party has said all they wish to say, but another user wants to continue arguing the point or whatever, so they keep deliberately linking their username, knowing they will get an echo notification and will have to at least look at the notification at some point or it will be there forever. It has also been used to try and draw users into conversations they were not even involved in and have no interest in, but somebody decides to try and bait them by mentioning their name there, again knowing they will get an echo notification and have to look at it.

These are not hypothetical situations, I have personally been on the receiving end of both of these scenarios, and seen it happen to others numerous times as well. I am not suggesting any new rule or new functionality for echo, but I would like to discuss adding a section to this page that mentions ways echo should not be used to harass other users. I don't think the people who do this see what they are doing as harassment, but it is and I think we should spell that out here. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know, that seems a little WP:CREEPy to me. I think it can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis when it happens. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:01, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm thinking of maybe two sentences or so briefly mentioning this. In the case where I was harassed in this manner it took a great deal of explaining before anyone even seemed to understand why it was harrassment. If we had a brief statement here explaining as much, it would be something that could be pointed to when such a situation arises. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:40, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I just wanted to take a moment to thank all those who worked on Echo. It's a great system; I've never missed the orange bars of yore. Wikipedians, present company included, can be pretty ornery about the changes we don't like, and we don't necessarily take the time to show our appreciation for the good ones. Cheers! --BDD (talk) 00:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Timestamps

When I look at my notifications I see the timestamp as:

• X minutes ago
• X hours ago
• Yesterday
• and only then by date (but no time-of-day)

Is it at all possible to see the time-and-date consistently?

BTW I love this feature and don"t know how I lived without it before it came along. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I see what you mean. I'm not sure what the ideal solution would be, though.

Notes: This is only on the Special:Notifications page, and is documented in the "Sections" subsection of mw:Echo/Feature requirements#All notifications.

Whereas the flyout only/consistently gives the "'time elapsed' indicator", as documented in the "Timestamp" subsection of mw:Echo/Feature requirements#Flyout.

As a tangential note, in Flow we're currently (experimentally) using 'time elapsed' as the default display, but if you hover over that info then it transforms into a specific timestamp. e.g. I'll ask if they share the same code, or background research, or what. –Quiddity (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Kind of related: any thoughts about doing something similar to Stack Overflow (and numerous other sites), where you can hover over the "time elapsed" to see the actual timestamp? For example, <span title="2013-11-11 22:19:50Z" class="relativetime">1 min ago</span> produces "1 min ago". Theopolisme (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've always found the "time elapsed" stuff to be incredibly bothersome and would really, really like to see the actual time of the notification using the "preferred time" that I've indicated in my preferences (and if there are no preferences, then UTC would be standard). I don't care if this is a hover, as long as the actual time is visible. Risker (talk) 06:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Note: There's some confusion at translatewiki:Thread:Support/The_time_phrase_in_Mediawiki_gadget_Echo about timestrings. Just noting here as they're vaguely related. –Quiddity (talk) 01:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Address line in plaintext emails

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58358

In recent days (I'm not sure how far back this goes) I have noticed that the WMF address at the bottom of emails from the notification system read as

• <span lang="en" dir="ltr">Wikimedia Foundation, 149 New Montgomery St., 3rd Fl., San Francisco, CA 94105 (USA).</span>

Is that the way it's supposed to be? Risker (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The <span> tags look like leftovers from the HTML email which were for some reason never removed -- assuming this is a simple fix for the Echo developers. Theopolisme (talk) 03:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Filed a report for this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, TheDJ. Didn't want to file it as a bug until I knew it wasn't supposed to be that way. :) Risker (talk) 17:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Notification failure for user page link

This edit didn't send me a notification. It's a good thing that I still watchlist all talk pages that I post to. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I'm not sure if that is intended to work. I believe it doesn't work detect a 'correction' as a new ping. Reason would be that archiving for instance might also trigger it in that case. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

OK... This edit worked. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect notification text

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T59517

I got a notification

"User:Lexein/Don't say "violate" was reviewed by Codename Lisa

6 hours ago"

But it wasn't reviewed, it was patrolled, per the log. Is this the right place to request that the notification text be changed to "patrolled", for clarity's sake? (As worded, it sent me to WP:Reviewing, and to discover that the user didn't have Reviewer permissions, and almost to WT:Reviewing to complain. Luckily, I asked at IRC.) --Lexein (talk) 11:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Bug submitted. Thanks for the clear explanation :) –Quiddity (talk) 00:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

User mention should be prompted

Thanks for a nice tool that can promote better interaction on wiki. It will be great, if user mentions can be prompted if preceded by @, just like WP:Hotcat gadget does for categories.--Arjunaraoc (talk) 04:55, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Any progress on this? I like this idea, although it may not be worth the potential server load. Nicereddy (talk) 01:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Getting the little number to change without clicking the red box

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T59684

Okay, so...if I have a message on my talk page, and I go to my talk page, the little number in the red box changes, reflecting that I've seen that message. Yet, if I follow the link from an email to the page, even if I am logged in, the number does not change. In fact, I can go to the page multiple times, and that number won't change. Any way that the number could drop down after the user has "attended" the page related to the notification? It's been a busy couple of days for me and my little number's sky high, even though I've read every notification. Risker (talk) 00:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@Risker: Hmm, I've tried to replicate this, but cannot. The four methods I tried were as follows:

First, leave a test msg with alt-account, then with my main account:

1. Click the emailed-link "View message"
2. Click the emailed-link "View changes"
3. Click the onwiki yellow "You have new messages" text.
4. Click the red Notifications badge with "1".

In all cases, the red badge "1" returned to the grey badge "0" state.

Question 1: Please confirm: If you click the red badge, the number does always resets to "0"? (or sometimes? perhaps if less than 9 new notifications?)

If not, is there any method that works for you, to reset the badge to "0"? (ie. visiting Special:Notifications, or something else). That might help any devs to understand the problem better.

Question 2: Which browser/OS are you using?

Question 3: Do you turn off javascript, or cookies, or have any similar extensions/addons that might be interfering?

Question 4: Which skin in Wikipedia are you using? (I tested with both vector and monobook)

Sidenote to devs: The old bug for this is bugzilla:47912, but that's marked resolved, and does indeed work for my basic tests. –Quiddity (talk) 06:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

You're correct in what you said, and my example was wrong. When you replied to me here, I got an email. The number in my red box went up. Now I've come to the page, I've replied, but my red box number has not changed. I want it to change without having to click on the red box. I want the number to change when I go to the applicable page, no matter what type of notification. I want what happens when I visit my talk page to happen for all types of notifications. Risker (talk) 12:36, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah! Ok, and yup, I agree that would be a great and very welcome enhancement. I've written it up as bugzilla:57684. –Quiddity (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Color-coding the dot

Hi guys! I was wondering if you've ever considered color-coding the notification dots. It occurred to me this morning that when I see the red dot, I don't know whether it's because, say, someone linked a page I started somewhere (low priority for me), someone mentioned me somewhere (medium priority), or someone left me a note on my talk page (high priority), so I'm forced to give those types all the same type of viewing priority (because must make the dot go awayyyy!). It would be very cool if there were different color dots for different types of notifications. So maybe a blue dot for "something happened for you to look at" (reverts, linked pages), a red dot for "someone mentioned you somewhere", a yellow dot for "your talk page was edited", and a black dot for "multiple types of things have happened". And since everyone's priorities will inevitably differ, perhaps it would even be possible to let each user color-code their own "type" groups in preferences, the same way the preferences currently let us pick whether we want email/dot notifications for each type of thing. So, any possibility of color-coding happening? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@Fluffernutter: There's a similar idea above at #Granularity - that suggestion would also cover color-blind people, and remove any potential arguments about default colors! ;) I'd heartily recommend giving feedback up there.

(Sidenote: Just FYI, the devs call it the "badge" (and occasionally the "growler" which seems amusing&ambiguous to me, but I suppose is probably a UX industry term), and Scott refers to it as the "bubble" which I also like. I personally endorse engvar variety, but pedants may prefer consistency... >.> ;) . –Quiddity (talk) 21:07, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Granularity

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58476

The notifications bubble is a step in the right direction but still needs to be more granular. At present you just get a number - until you click it, it could be anything. Is that "1" a nice comment? Or someone reverting your edit? It causes a moment of uncertainty. I propose that the type of notifications should be displayed in the bubble, so that you don't need to wonder anything when it suddenly appears as you're editing, and can also instantly determine if it's something urgent that you need to look at.

Here are some examples. Demo note: the icons aren't the exact ones currently used, because I didn't know where to find those. And it's black on gray because the icon set I'm using isn't available in white, so didn't present enough contrast for a demo on red. So imagine that the following is white on red....

You're welcomed and receive a getting started message:

1 1

Your edit was reviewed and your user rights changed:

1 1

2 incoming links, 5 talk page comments, 2 thanks:

2 5 2

Someone reverted your edit and mentioned you:

1 1

I would suggest that in addition to this, if you hover over the bubble, it should present a tooltip stating its contents in words as an alternative to knowing what the icons mean. — Scott • talk 10:39, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I really like this idea. +1.

(fwiw, I found the echo icons and thanks icon on git - and I've now uploaded them to commons, and added them to the documentation page at mw:Echo/Feature requirements#Notification Types). –Quiddity (talk) 01:11, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading the icons! Looking at them, I also think that talk messages and mentions should have different icons - an icon design for mentions based around "@" would be ideal, for obvious reasons. — Scott • talk 11:15, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

@Scott Martin: I got the icons wrong! I uploaded the PNGs instead of the SVGs. I've pinged the designers, and they should be sending me copies of the SVGs by Monday.

That's a good specific suggestion for a Mentions icon replacement. I'll add that to #8 in the feature request list, above. :) (The only problem I can think of, is that {{@}}} doesn't work as someone might guess it would. But that's a minor quirk.) –Quiddity (talk) 16:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• While I like and support the first part of this with the icon, I oppose the hover as hover is bad for touch devices. Also, if this is implemented, I might never expand the fly-out again... xD Technical 13 (talk) 01:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Textual alternatives are essential for graphical indicators. That problem would need to be engineered around. — Scott • talk 10:58, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Personally I think it would take up too much screen space, especially as the icon set grows and grows for different notification types. Anomie⚔ 14:04, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I can't understand why you'd be worried about that. There's a long slab of empty space there (for me, even after I've wedged several custom links in on the right-hand side), and this proposal will hardly make a dent in it. Even then it will only be transient. — Scott • talk 14:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

@Scott Martin: I've created bugzilla:56476 to cover this. As I noted there, and in a thread above, this idea would also be good for accessibility, for people who find the current Notifications Badge/growler too small to easily click on. :) –Quiddity (talk) 17:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Cool - thanks very much. I've added it to the bugs I'm watching. — Scott • talk 13:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

• As stated below in #The_revert_notification_encourages_edit-warring.2C_consider_removing_or_modifying_it, I think it would be a great improvement to use a less hostile colour than red. I have no doubt that the revert notification encourages edit warring as it currently stands. This encourages editors to rather do manual reverts (without the revert notifications as far as I can tell) which are more prone to errors, so not only is there more edit warring but there are also more editing errors. Sorry if I have posted this in the wrong place, I am just a user not a developer and haven't posted in this space before. HelenOnline 07:48, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
• A belated +1 to this suggestion (thanks, Quiddity for the pointer!). I had a similar idea that involved color-coding the notification bubble, but split-out icons are more disability-friendly and self-explanatory. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
• I'm okay with icons as long as I can have an option with them off; call me old-fashioned, but I don't want hearts from anyone on this project, just as I don't want to receive or give "wikilove". I'll just have to remember not to thank people using notifications; in any case, a personal thanks on their userpage is much, much more meaningful. Risker (talk) 23:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

  There are no hearts! (Scott couldn't find the correct icons when he was making the mockup-images above.) The Thanks feature uses a green smiling face now. (Which is debatable/subjective/etc but definitely better than the old heart icon). I'll send you one, for a fresh look; I'd been holding back on a few edits recently anyway, because I wasn't sure if you were a fan or not, or in what way you might interpret. ;) –Quiddity (talk) 03:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Green on red is an accesibility problem for colour-blind individuals (the most common colour-blindness is red/green), who will only see slight differences in the shades of grey. Perhaps a different colour combination? Risker (talk) 19:29, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no red currently associated with the Thanks icon. I'm not sure what you mean? Possibly you're imagining a different hypothetical mockup? (And yup, I'm fairly well-acquainted with color-blindness issues. I recently made a list!) I'll take a swing at a new mockup, to iterate on Scott's black+grey versions above, if I ever find some free-time, and once we get fresh SVG versions of the actual icons (I prodded the designers a few days ago, and hopefully will have them ready by next week). –Quiddity (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion

I would very much like to see Notifications let me know when someone edits my user page that isn't me. Even if it's good-faith, I would like to be able to fix something like a misplaced barnstar. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 18:10, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support this idea even if it would render my current detection system unnecessary (go "edit" my user page and show preview to see what I mean (look at the tab ;))). Technical 13 (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Minor grammar bug

I just had a notification that

[Name] mentioned you on [Name] talk page in "[section title]".

It ought to have read

[Name] mentioned you on [his/her/their] user talk page, in "[section title]".

If it had been on somebody else's talk page, it ought to have read:

[Name] mentioned you on [other name's] user talk page, in "[section title]".

The comma isn't strictly necessary, but I feel it improves the rhythm of the text; however, either way the missing possessive needs to be fixed. — Scott • talk 20:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@Scott Martin: do you happen to know if it was an HTML or a plaintext notification ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

It's probably not really a bug, it simply doesn't care about the fact that it was the user's own talk page, as opposed to another users talk page. So i have filed it as enhancement request in bugzilla:57273. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd really prefer that it be left the way it is, because the ping does not always come from any user's talk page, but could be elsewhere; almost all of my "mentions" are on places other than someone else's talk page, and even then half those mentions are by someone other than the person whose talk page it is. Please don't change it just on the basis of one request. Risker (talk) 07:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You could just split the message into two variants. It wouldn't be terribly hard to do. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I've added that case to my original comment. I think Risker has missed the point. — Scott • talk 12:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The second option ([Name] mentioned you on [name's] user talk page, in "[section title]"., with underlining added to show the key point) could be used for both: "WhatamIdoing mentioned you on WhatamIdoing's user talk page" is grammatically correct and eliminates the need for pronouns. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but why would we need to do that? It makes the message repetitive and awkward. MediaWiki includes pronoun settings precisely to avoid having to make clunky grammatical workarounds... our system messages should be in clear, simple language. — Scott • talk 14:27, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• Including the page name would more clearly indicate the exact page that is involved.
• I believe that singular they is wrong. (Also, it implies a violation of WP:NOSHARE.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I did get it. I just don't agree that it is applicable, because the software doesn't differentiate in its message between user talk pages or any other page where one has been mentioned; it sends the same message. It would look rather silly for it to have [Name] mentioned you on [ARTICLE NAME's] talk page, in "[section title]". Better would be ([Name] mentioned you on the [(Name of Page)] talk page, in "[section title]". Risker (talk) 00:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but you clearly didn't. This discussion has been of notifications relating to user talk pages, not article talk pages. You're arguing against something that nobody has suggested. — Scott • talk 14:23, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think the problem is that I understand that the email message is going to be the same whether it involves a message on a user talk page or any other talk page. I'm not sure you realised that is the case. Thus any change to "improve" the reading of a message about a user talk page will also affect a message about any other talk page. It's a completely different email when you get a message on your own talk page, and doesn't use the sentence construction you note at the top of the thread. Frankly, I see no value in requiring our developers create a completely different email for messages on (other people's) user talk pages. Risker (talk) 18:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The only thing you're contributing to this conversation is confusion resulting from incorrect assumptions. Please stop. — Scott • talk 20:27, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Scott. What I do know is that it's the same email no matter what page one is mentioned on. Here are two that are currently in my inbox: Neljack mentioned you on TigerShark talk page in "Joefromrandb's block". - a user talk page mention, and I agree that the grammar is poor; and Quiddity mentioned you on Notifications talk page in "Getting the little number t..."., which is actually this page, and the grammar isn't any better. I don't think a possessive is really going to fix it. Risker (talk) 02:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion that having a separate string for different namespaces is a problem. If it reads better, then we should consider doing it.

I'd actually like to see the non-user-talk phrase changed to something like "for the talk page of [ARTICLE NAME]", because I think it is easier to understand in some cases. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Merge watchlist into Notifications

Why you don't merge Watchlist into Notifications? When a page on our watchlist changed, notifications inform us.--چالاک (talk) 08:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

A complete merge would make notifications unusable - I have over 400 pages on mine (which is hardly any, compared to some people) - so would never stop receiving notifications. On the other hand, I do quite like the idea of there being an option to set a notification flag on specific items when editing your watchlist, for pages that you're exceptionally interested in watching changes to (perhaps when monitoring an ongoing vandalism situation). That would definitely be useful. — Scott • talk 10:05, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

@Scott Martin: Sounds like you want a watchlist for your watchlist. It wouldn't take long to scan through a watchlist to see what's up with articles that a person is exceptionally interested in. If an editor has a long watchlist, he or she should consider trimming it. --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 10:14, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the patronizing advice there. Rather than telling people how they ought to be using one of our underperforming maintenance tools, why don't you contribute something to bug 5875, regarding being able to create multiple watchlists, which has been open since 2006? — Scott • talk 10:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I sorta like the idea of multiple watchlists I must admit. I just scotched the last one when it got to 10,000 and became too long to load on slow connections...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of reasons why they're a good idea - for example, I'd like to be able to watch every page I've ever created, to both protect against vandalism and also see how my creations fare over time (the history of redirects is often interesting). However, if I were to keep all the trivial stuff like redirects and talk page archives on my watchlist, it would clutter it up too badly. Having multiple watchlists would allow me to file stuff like that away somewhere that I would only need to check occasionally, rather than on the main watchlist that's my primary engagement with the project. And so on. I also think that even having multiple watchlists wouldn't obviate the utility of being able to set special page notifications, either - notifications appear while you're editing, meaning you don't have to go and look at your watchlist at all. — Scott • talk 10:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Multiple watchlists (and cross-wiki watchlists) are a frequently mentioned, and long-wished-for feature. mw:Watchlist wishlist and WP:Cross-wiki watchlists are the most uptodate listings that I know of.

The only enhancement I've heard of, that comes close, is User:UncleDouggie/smart watchlist (note I haven't tried it ever).

Personally, I have... let's see... 8,885 pages on my watchlist as of today (I've been trying to unwatch things, for the last few months, so it's lower than it was). That gives me "176 changes in the last 24 hours". I'd love to have two watchlists (that I could designate/organize however I pleased. I'd go with "high-velocity discussion boards" on one, and everything else on the other. But each editor would surely go with an individual setup). More than two would get confusing, or I'd be more likely to procrastinate checking one of them. –Quiddity (talk) 19:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Scott's description of the advantages of multiple watchlists, and heartily support the notion. Now, looking at the developers amongst us: is there any value in commenting on the bugzilla Scott mentioned? Risker (talk) 23:52, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@Quiddity: The greatest think ever to happen to my watchlists has been User:Writ Keeper's inline diffs. If I had one request for improving watchlists, it would be to make such inline diff functionality available to everyone as a preference, and a way to (optionally) reset the 'checked' flag when I view an inline diff so that I don't have to visit the page again to get emails. As it is, I basically use the combination of inline diffs and watchlist emails for pages I've actually visited to triage my watchists (and I keep different watchlists on two different accounts, with one browser for one account and another for the other... eep!).--ragesoss (talk) 13:48, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The watchlist is one of the most powerful and useful basic tools available by default to all Wikipedia editors. I strongly support having multiple (more than one or two) watchlists available, as a selectable option for more advanced editors. (The default for new editors should be a single watchlist, to reduce confusion). The multiple configurable watch lists are a classic example of letting the computers handle the detail work, and letting the human editors focus on what they do best. This feature would greatly enhance the productivity and enjoyment of Wikipedia editors. Reify-tech (talk) 16:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

@Risker: Re: "is there any value [...]" - Merely commenting with a note of "I support this" on a bug generally won't help push it forward - there's a "(vote)" button that is the recommended way to "+1" a proposed enhancement; I've voted for (or CC'd myself on) bugzilla:5875, bugzilla:4354, bugzilla:15244, bugzilla:33888, bugzilla:32952, bugzilla:42046, bugzilla:6964, bugzilla:9790, bugzilla:41901, bugzilla:2308 and bugzilla:3525. The only way commenting helps (in my experience, as a non-dev), is if you can provide new aspects to consider (ie. implementation details, or potential problems, or technical solutions), or if you can more clearly summarize the bug/featurerequest (and all the comments thus far) in a developer-centric manner. Reading all the past comments on a bug is often very useful (leading to personal insights, or "see also" other bugs). The other main option is to just click "Save changes" without doing anything else, which will add you to the CC: list for the bug. Note: You can set preferences on bugzilla for which actions-by-others will trigger an email to you - very handy for reducing spam.

@Ragesoss: Interesting script, I'm trying it out now. It's not immensely useful on my watchlist because I tend to use WP:Popups a lot there (skimming slowly up the column of (diff| links, each day), but I can foresee it being very useful to me on individual history pages. I'll suggest on the talkpage there, that it might be made into a opt-in Gadget, for wider testing and discovery. –Quiddity (talk) 19:09, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I would really like this as a toggle-able setting. Those of us who would benefit from it could include this in our notifications and editors which have longer watch lists could easily opt-out. This'd be great for a number of reasons, especially discoverability of potential misuse of articles. It would also be potentially beneficial for Talk pages, albeit once Flow is implemented that would hopefully solve most associated issues. Nicereddy (talk) 05:19, 1 December 2013 (UTC)