Wikipedia talk:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1

Question drafting.

Some good questions. The following irresistibly drove me to start answering...

• New and even existing users can be perplexed by the fact that some users -- even admins -- sign their posts with names other than their own actual account name, piping it through a wiki redirect. That wouldn't be bad to change. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Confusing for every new correspondant encountered doing that. On the PC, the signature link hovertext helps, but on handheld devices it is hard. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

• They find themselves intimidated, frustrated and overwhelmed when others make heavy references to WP:...this and that.., instead of actually stating valid arguments on the topic of discussion. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 17:50, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Shortcut jargon is overused. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

• Even at the ever so user-friendly Teahouse we still jump on new users who repeatedly fail to/forget to/don't know how to sign their posts. So why is not signing a post still so easy to do? Even a simple 'yes/no' prompt to add a signature on hitting 'Publish changes' without already having added the four tildes could solve many problems of unsigned posts. I also agree with Wnt that users creating signatures not reflecting their true username can be quite confusing and does not aid communication. There's one example immediately above. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Convert the "Publish changes" on signed pages to "Sign and Publish changes" by default? Awesome idea! I will assume that the functionality will autodetect a trailing four-tilda signature already entered. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

• Edit conflicts on busy talk pages. Andrew D. (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

This causes me anxiety, and causes me to avoid posting on busy pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

framing

I am especially bothered by the framing of this discussion, it is apparently arbitrarily responsive to some concern and reductive to a crude classification of contributors. I will elaborate if anyone is bothered by my objection, or my only contribution being a silent !vote to close. cygnis insignis 12:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: I informally asked for feedback on the Discord channel and received none, so I submitted my original text without significant modification after a few hours. My text mainly reflects the framing of the main consultation page hosted on MediaWiki (which is why it completely omits any mention of Flow and LiquidThreads) and is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of issues concerning project-related communication. Jc86035 (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Appreciate the reply. It is perhaps remiss of me to be unwillingly to visit Discord to background this discussion, I will look at what is available locally; the premises of both sites are quite different and at odds in some foundational concerns [obvi, this is IMO]. cygnis insignis 16:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Happy to help discuss

I'm happy to participate in this global discussion; am fairly active on a number of Talk pages in addition to my main work of content creation and article improvement; but all on the English Wikipedia, as my Spanish and Russian are not sufficiently fluent to even write basically.

That said, it's not exactly clear how someone can use their limited time to be of best use. The associated "Project page" is so busy, not clear where best to start? Or how one might choose one or a few sub-areas to discuss, if time is limited. Help, pointers, "where to start" would all be appreciated. N2e (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi N2e, in the table of contents, there are 5 questions listed under "Suggested questions":

1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?

If any of these questions appeal to you, just type up responses to the questions you want to answer, and then add them to the bottom of the corresponding sections. The closers of the discussion will consider your responses in the final summary. This is probably the most time-efficient way to participate in the discussion.​ — Newslinger talk 18:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Canvassing new users

​I have been notified on my MediaWiki talk page that I should be asking users to clarify the reasons for their opinions and canvassing new users to the discussion. So far, I have not done either of those things. I would appreciate help on how and who to canvass, and whether doing so would be appropriate. Jc86035 (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that the main thing is to get clarity about uses, and to have a reasonably balanced set of responses (e.g., from people of varying experience with the internet, preferred type of contribution, main device, etc.). It generally takes more effort to get responses from new users than from established community members. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:43, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Designing for inclusivity

While it’s become very clear to me that editing articles is Not for everyone, there are so many ways volunteers, especially new ones, could be helping. My work includes universal design of meaningful activities for people of all abilities, ages and cultures.

Any form of contributing to Wikipedia can give someone a sense of meaningful activity, which is a huge benefit to mental well-being, especially for people struggling with depression and/or anxiety!

So here are some design challenges to consider - especially for people with conditions who have time to help but haven’t been invited or accommodated well at all. Ps - rather than guessing how to address these design challenges, we invite people with different abilities to be part of the creative problem solving involved!

new Volunteer Contributor Experience 1: How can talk pages be easy to read and easy to contribute to for someone completely blind using their phone for text-to-speech & speech-to-text reading and writing? Editing any text can be a time consuming challenge when you have visual impairments, so how can someone contribute their suggestions more easily and quickly with voice or voice-to-text submissions that aren’t grammatically correct or properly punctuated?

New Volunteer Contributor Experience 2: How can someone who is deaf-blind participate? How braille input/outputs work requires special considerations, especially when it comes to contributing.

New Volunteer Contibutor Experience 3: How do we include someone who struggles with reading on wiki (me, in this case! I have my own reading disabilities, I’m posting to this to the Talk page about talk pages because the main page is so long right now that it’s incomprehensible and I have no idea whereelse but here to put this note!). Whomever is reading it, feel free to cross post wherever suitable.

We’ve also been working on challenges like: How can people with different developmental disabilities contribute and participate I volunteer activities within the open knowledge movements? What about people who have no time and just want to submit a suggestion? What about making everything easier for kids to read and help with?

I have been seeing the potential of Talk Pages and suggestion boxes for years as a way for people outside of the core editor group to be able to contribute without all the pain and suffering of trying to understand how to edit and then get an edit through the process of being accepted. For example, what if researchers could quickly send an annotated bibliography to a suggestion box that someone else is able to review and add as sources where suitable. We’d be able to meaningfully and quickly contribute AND still finish our research projects without wasting our time arguing about how we didn’t do it right.

So this is a very important conversation I’m very happy to see happening. I’m rarely posting on wiki currently for a bunch of reasons, but want to stay in contact with whomever is taking leading roles on this and including people who do most our work off wiki. Where are there off wiki conversations about this happening? And who’s taking the lead? Please message me on my talk page so I can figure out how our communities can meaningful contribute to the discussion. Thanks! DrMel (talk) 01:49, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Closure

@MattLongCT and Cygnis insignis: Is the closure underway? I haven't edited much in the past week so I haven't been checking on these things. Jc86035 (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Not by me. cygnis insignis 16:47, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jc86035: I was going to try to help, but withdrew because I just didn't have time. However, starting Friday morning (UTC) I have a lot of time, so if they don't make a start I can help out --DannyS712 (talk) 18:55, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

​​@DannyS712: Okay. The summaries are supposed to go to mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Phase 1 communities summaries, and there are some instructions there. Jc86035 (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

DannyS and JC8, you both have a "reply-link" in your edit summaries, but this link brings people to an information page, and doesn't automatically start a reply. Worse, that info page states "A userscript to add a "reply" link after signatures on a discussion page. When you click on the link, a form comes up that lets you type your response without having to go through the edit window first. Posts are auto-indented and auto-signed.", but when I look at the discussion here, your signatures do NOT have such a reply link. This makes the script as it stands (or as it works for you two) useless and confusing. Can you please disable it for the time being? Fram (talk) 14:39, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Fram: The "reply link" is the name of the script, and if you have it installed you see a link to reply. --DannyS712 (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

But the link in the edit summary is there for everyone, IP or not, and seems to me like more distracting than useful. Fram (talk) 15:44, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Fram, the edit summary link advertises the script, which I believe is ok. Perhaps the description at User:Enterprisey/reply-link can be clarified and/or the edit summary changed to "(using reply-link"). But that should be discussed at User talk:Enterprisey/reply-link, not here. —Kusma (t·c) 16:00, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Edit summary changed. Thanks for pointing this out. Enterprisey (talk!) 20:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

The documentation is pretty straightforward; you install the script and get the links. I'm open to more specific ideas for improving it. Enterprisey (talk!) 20:21, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Please see

Please see Wikipedia:Talk pages project if you're interested in testing one of the tools planned as a result of this consultation. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)