Confusion between notifications in MW generally and Extension:Notifications, aka Echo

[Continued from the old thread now this page has switched back to being a wikitext talk page.]

What is left for us to do here to ensure people aren't confused?

Note that the MediaWiki group is working to evaluate the core-like parts of Notifications and move them into MediaWiki itself this year, so the situation will change further in the near future.

Ping @Yaron Koren and @Quiddity (WMF) who were active in the previous thread. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I think it would be helpful to specify when the extension was renamed, i.e. if it was just recently, or years ago. Yaron Koren (talk) 19:06, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

timeliness of notifications

I have been subscribed to a topic on a talkpage at the English Wikiquote. I created this topic about a month ago, and today I received a notification about Someonex replying to my post for the first time. So far so good., but....

After I replied I noticed that:

• Someonex had replied to my post on Dec 29 and not 11 hours ago as my notification says
• I also noticed that I was no longer subscribed the topic

I wonder if anyone here can explain/speculate what happened and how can I improve my own experience using the su scribe button, or failing this where should this question be posted.

Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:03, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The first thing that the first point seems to be about a timezone issue; precisely at what time and date did you receive the notification? The second point is that you are no longer subscribed; have you misclicked the "unsubscribe" button? ToadetteEdit (talk) 19:27, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for replying @ToadetteEdit. I could never figure out, and still can't, why my notifications say x hours/days/years ago and not on what timestamp the notification was created. And no I did not misclick "unsubscribe" as a matter of fact there have been more postings on

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Requested_entries#links_to_the_outside_world?

since I posted here.

Such as:

• I received another notification about a reply, but this time it came under the Notices section and not under Alerts
• placeholder while I check

Any idea why? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 15:43, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

My first edit today has been to the English Wikiquote. My contribution history gives this time stamp: 15:04, 2 January 2025. My alerts showed blank before I made that edit, so I assumed all was well in this part of wiki-land. However during my activity here I had to collect information on ENWQ to support my previous post above, This is when I saw my alerts lite up with 2 new notices. Turns out they are both from the same person who posted em to my usertalkpage, but only one of them I have ben able to read so far. When I click on the other alert it lets me nowhere.

I hope I Kammaking sense? Ottawahitech (talk) 16:12, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Do I get unsubscribed when clicking a new subscribe?

Earlier today I started a new section on a talkpage and then subscribed to it. After I did that I scrolled through the long talkpage and noticed that it was the only subscription I had left even though I could swear I have been following other threads before. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Do I get unsubscribed when clicking a new subscribe? Generally, you don't.

You can see all subscriptions on Special:TopicSubscriptions. Note that subscriptions can be "invalidated" by changing the section title or its timestamp. This can be revealed by verifying each active subscription. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 08:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

@Matěj Suchánek: Nice to see someone is answering questions here! AND thank you for the useful information. I just checked Special:TopicSubscriptions and must say, as someone who just drops in when I have burning question, I did not realize how many topics (threads) I was subscribed to on this wiki.

Keep up the good work! Ottawahitech (talk) 15:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Is anyone home?

I just posted a long comment to this help page talk. I was able to correct some typos in a second edit to the page, so never thought to save my long comment. However when I tried to Subscribe to this thread I discovered that the system has eaten it. What gives? Ottawahitech (talk) 17:11, 14 January 2025 (UTC) it is there now. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:14, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

A double entry in my Special:TopicSubscriptions (a wierd situation)

I have a double entry in my Topic-Subscriptions-table for the English Wikiquote. This is what it looks like:

• links to the outside world?
• links to the outside world?

You will notice that both links point to the same question, but one ended up in the page wikiquote:Wikiquote_talk:Reference_desk and the other in wikiquote:Wikiquote:Requested_entries. The double-question ended up getting answered by two different ENWQ admins.

Here is the real weird part: This question was meant to be posted to: wikiquote:Wikiquote:Reference_desk Ottawahitech (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

I just discovered I also have a one double entry in my Topic-Subscriptions-table for the English wikibooks Ottawahitech (talk) 17:01, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

This concerns Help:DiscussionTools rather the notification system. It's explained in Help:DiscussionTools#Notes:

Notifications are based on the first comment and its timestamp.

Both sections have the exactly same signature – posted by the same user (you) at the same (to the minute) time.

However, there is a useful consequence:

Subscriptions will remain intact even when conversations are moved to other pages or the section heading changes.

--Matěj Suchánek (talk) 09:21, 29 January 2025 (UTC)