Structured Discussions/Deprecation/pl

Dyskusje strukturyzowane (DS, Flow) jest wycofywanym rozszerzeniem MediaWiki. Użytkownikom zaleca się zaprzestanie korzystania z niego, a społeczności zachęca się do przeniesienia stron dyskusji, które używają DS, na podstrony i zaprzestania ich używania. Jest ono używane na kilku wiki. To rozszerzenie nie jest utrzymywane. DiscussionTools (DT) jest obecnie domyślnym systemem dyskusyjnym na wiki.

Zespół Growth (byli utrzymujący DS) i Editing team (opiekunowie DT) zaczęli zastanawiać się nad tym, jak wycofać dyskusje strukturyzowane (i ewentualnie LiquidThreads), i zastąpić je DiscussionTools.

Dyskusje strukturyzowane to złożone oprogramowanie, które generuje wiele problemów związanych z utrzymaniem. Oszacowanie pracy wymaganej do dostosowania ich do projektu Kont Tymczasowych ujawniło bardzo duży nakład pracy. Biorąc pod uwagę wszystkie te wyzwania, podjęto decyzję o poinformowaniu społeczności o przyszłym wycofaniu DS.

Pomysł polega na zachęceniu społeczności do zmiany aktywnych narzędzi DS na format strony dyskusji DiscussionTools. Następnie strony DS zostaną usunięte z wiki w terminie, który zostanie jeszcze ustalony.

Aktualności

  • - first internal document by Kosta Harlan (Staff software engineer, Growth team) and Benoît Evellin (Community Relations Specialist, attached to the Growth team) on sunsetting SD
  • - first meeting with Growth and Editing about SD deprecation
  • - Comparison table of the two tools.
  • - creation of the project page
  • - Data on usage of Structured Discussions
  • - Community discussions regarding archiving SD boards on wikis.
  • - Communication plan to assist communities archiving their Flow/LQT boards
  • - Communities are progressively informed of Flow/LQT's deprecation and are invited to move their pages using these tools as archived pages. These pages will be set to read-only mode soon after.
  • - Phase 0 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
  • - Phase 1 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
  • - Phase 2 wikis Flow/LQT pages are set to read-only.
  • Next - Convert Flow/LQT contents


Structured Discussions' deprecation

The Wikimedia Foundation is working on changes to how IP editing is handled: Temporary Accounts. Temporary accounts for unregistered editors will be a new type of user account. This requires changing how features we use to contribute to wikis works.

This work concerns all features, and it raises some challenges. The case of Structured Discussions (also known as “SD” or “Flow”) is one of them. This extension is used at a few wikis, that were progressively contacted in November and December 2023. Flow is a complex piece of software that was never quite finished, fits poorly into the MediaWiki architecture, and creates a significant number of technical errors.

The usage of Structured Discussions is low. In August 2023, on average DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day, while Structured Discussions is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.

We considered several options to adapt Structured Discussions, including a full adaptation, or a partial adaptation where Temp accounts can respond but not create new conversations. All of them would take a lot of time and effort for a short-term benefit. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation's long-term plan is to remove Structured Discussions from the wikis, mainly due to the maintenance cost. As a consequence, we prefer to avoid adapting Structured Discussions to Temporary accounts.

We took the opportunity of work around Temporary accounts to question the concerned communities regarding the future of Structured Discussions.

DiscussionTools is the replacement for Structured Discussions. DiscussionTools is the default discussion system at all wikis. It allows anyone to start, reply or subscribe to a conversation. It provides a visual experience for wikitext-based conversations, and it covers the vast majority of features Structured Discussions offers.

The goal with this conversation is to respond to the community's questions regarding the archival of Structured Discussions.

The idea is to proceed in two stages:

  1. discussion pages using SD are archived as subpages. They are replaced by a classic discussion page. In this way, the most active pages will already be ready when we proceed to step 2.
  2. SD are removed from the wiki. Existing pages (including archived ones) will be converted to a format yet to be defined.

We encourage communities to start the first step.

Questions asked to the communities

Starting at the end of November 2023, communities where Structured Discussions are still in use are progressively informed of the upcoming deprecation. We ask them the following questions:

  1. Are the reasons given for archiving structured discussions clear?
  2. Are the two steps outlined above for archiving and uninstalling structured discussions clear?
  3. If so, what is a reasonable timeframe for archiving pages for deinstallation? At present, deinstallation is not planned on our side (even if the second quarter of 2024 is mentioned), as we are waiting for the end of these conversations, which take place on multiple wikis.
  4. In your opinion, what format should pages currently using SDs be converted to when we proceed with the deinstallation of structured discussions?

Communities discussions report

Deprecation timeline

The deprecation will be performed as follows:

  1. Moving all Flow pages that aren't sub-pages as sub-pages[1]
    1. First this move is done by users. This way, users of active Flow boards have the opportunity to move active discussions to a classical new talk page.
    2. At a given date, a script will moves the remaining pages.
  2. Setting these pages in read-only mode.
  3. Converting contents to wikitext.

The two first steps are conducted by the Editing team starting October 2024. Wikis have been grouped by phases.

Phase Wikis Moving all Flow pages as sub-pages Setting Flow pages in read-only mode Converting contents to wikitext
Phase 0 commonswiki, cswiki, enwiki, eowiki, frwiktionary, hewiki, kkwiki, metawiki, pawiki, ruwiki, specieswiki, svwiki, test2wiki, tewiki, nowiki, outreachwiki Script ran on nieokreślony
Phase 1 bswiki, elwiki, euwiki, fawiki, fiwiki, frwikiquote, frwikisource, frwikiversity, frwikivoyage, idwiki, lvwiki, plwiki, ptwiki, urwiki, viwikisource, zhwikisource Script ran on nieokreślony
Phase 2a arwiki, cawiki, frwiki , mediawikiwiki , orwiki, wawiki, wawiktionary, wikidatawiki, zhwiki Script ran on nieokreślony
Phase 2b cawikiquote, fiwikimedia, gomwiki, kabwiki, ptwikibooks, sewikimedia do dodania do dodania nieokreślony

Structured Discussions and DiscussionTools Comparative review

Main characteristics

Status of each tool, and their integration to the wiki's key features.

LiquidThreads Structured Discussions Narzędzia dyskusji Convenient Discussions
Type of tool MediaWiki extension Gadget/Userscript based on DiscussionTools
Release status Unmaintained Maintained (Wikimedia Foundation) Maintained (Volunteers)
Activation Pending removal[2] Deployed on all wikis as the default discussion system.[3] User configurable (including opting-out). User opt-in and configurable
Visual editing Nie Tak Tak Nie
Backwards-compatibility with wikitext Nie Nie Tak Tak
Templates support Tak Tak Częściowo – Tables, templates and parser tags aren't allowed in replies in visual mode Tak
Full history integration with the rest of the wiki Tak Nie Tak Tak
Mobile web support Nie Tak Tak Nie
Mobile app support Nie Nie Tak Nie
Permalink to a given comment Tak Tak Tak – if the signature of the comment is not altered.[4]

Discussion features

Interaction with talk pages and other comments.

LiquidThreads Structured Discussions Narzędzia dyskusji Convenient Discussions
Dedicated workflow for starting a new topic Tak Tak Tak Tak
Topic and contents preload Tak Tak Tak Tak
Indication of new comments when you read a topic Nie Nie Tak Tak
Indication of edited comments when you read a topic Tak Tak Nie Tak
Each conversation has a permalink Tak Tak – Each topic is a different page. Tak – By linking to the topic heading, or by using the first comment's permalink.[4] Tak[4]
Move topics between pages Tak Nie – planned but not implemented Tak – via wikitext editing; title and signature mustn't be altered during the move.[4] Tak
Include discussions on another page and reply to them there Nie Nie – planned, including cross-wiki transclusion , but not implemented Tak – via transclusion
Editing comments Tak Tak Częściowo – via wikitext editing the whole page or section. See T242562 and T245225 for the editing of individual comments. Tak
Thank a comment from within the talk page Częściowo – via Page history Tak Częściowo – via Thanks in Page history.
W trakcie W trakcie – Work on supporting "Thanking" from the DiscussionTools UI is being tracked.		 Tak
Sort topics by recent comment Tak Tak Nie Nie
Sort topics by start date Tak Tak Nie Nie
Summarize a discussion at the top of it Tak Tak Częściowo – by editing opening comment.
Mark a message as read or unread Tak Nie Nie Nie
Show/hide (collapse) subthreads Tak Nie Nie Tak

Notifications and interactivity


LiquidThreads Structured Discussions Narzędzia dyskusji Convenient Discussions
Highlight a set of unread comments Nie Tak Tak – only when subscribed to a topic and using links from notifications Tak
Subscribe to be notified about new comments to a topic Tak – via Watchlist Tak – via Echo Tak – via Echo or itself
Be notified when a new topic is started on a talk page
Auto-subscription to a topic you created Tak – default
Highlight a quoted comment Nie – can link to comments but only as standalone pages Tak Tak Tak
Notification of edited comments Częściowo – only on your own comments Tak Nie Nie

Maintenance and moderation

LiquidThreads Structured Discussions Narzędzia dyskusji Convenient Discussions
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more Częściowo – if linked in the signature Tak Częściowo – if linked in the signature
Hide (moderate) a comment Częściowo – no undelete UI Tak Częściowo – via undo/rollback (requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext Tak
Hide or delete a topic Tak Częściowo – same as DiscussionTools
Archiving discussions Not needed Not needed Nie – see T337293
  • Requires 3rd party bots for automatic archival
  • Requires wikitext editing or 3rd party gadgets for manual archival
 Nie – Same as DiscussionTools, though moving topics can be used for manual archival.
Report an inappropriate comment Nie Nie W trakcie W trakcie[5] Nie

Data on usage

In August 2023, on average:

  • DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day.
  • Flow is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.
  • LiquidThreads is used less than once per day.

Notes and references

  1. ↑ We assume that any sub-page is an archive.
  2. ↑ phab:T332022
  3. ↑ A few wikis have Flow as the default discussion system.
  4. ↑ T339247 – Create entry points for the Incident Report dialog with DiscussionTools