The Gather extension was disabled on english wikipedia per community request. We are keen to hear from users about their experience of the collections feature, what worked and what didn't, to help inform future iterations of this feature.

What is the infrastructure surrounding wikipedia collections, and why is it being discontinued?

I loved the Wikipedia collections tool when I first found it.

But that was on my tablet, and I never could figure out how to access them from a desktop environment. Perhaps it was implemented in desktop, but I never looked again or found it.

Perhaps keep this alive? What is the data involved? This is all CC licensed so content could still be hosted from another open source project? What would be involved in transferring the data or maintaining this feature from an external project?

Depending on the scope..would be interested in helping to keep this alive..

PS there could be value in keeping track of which folder names map to what sets of articles... Thejmazz (talk) 05:02, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Thejmazz.

It is being disabled on english wikipedia because of an Rfc raised by some community members because of concerns about the software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Disable_Gather_on_enwiki

The data is stored on the wiki database, and it is not being deleted, so in the future if the extension is enabled again the data would be there.

The project is Gather (extension), a mediawiki extension. There are links and info about it's development on those pages, you are welcome to have a look and contribute (phabricator board).

Cheers and thanks for chiming in. JHernandez (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, JHernandez.

I noticed the message of collection being discontinued today. It said the deadline was March 1st, but I filled the form anyway. Not surprisingly, I haven't received anything. Is there no way for me to access the lists I created anymore? :'( Mulief 19:13, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I received the link to my collections. I can see them now. Thank you. Mulief 12:04, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

It was a fantastic and novel idea. Before it was announced, I was working on my own JavaScript version of "custom watchlists". Then WMF came along and made a much more kick-ass version of it. Then they took it away! It's true the watchlist aspect was far short of complete but it seemed very promising. I hope this project will one day be revived. Many thanks to the Gather team for their efforts, and sorry it didn't work out :( — MusikAnimal ^talk 22:45, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal there is talk of reviving this as a Google Summer of Code project in some form. If this happened it would need someone in the community to help mentor it and find a suitable wiki willing to try out the idea and help test it. It seems enwiki is probably not the best testing ground. The extension remains on Hebrew Wiki and Wikivoyage but usage is low there. Any interest/ideas in helping with that? Jdlrobson (talk) 01:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I am certainly open to testing it out! I'm primarily an enwiki user, and that's where I'd want to use it, but given hopes of a return I'm happy to work on other wikis for the time being. Would en.wikivoyage.org be included? I am somewhat active there. The appeal for me again is being able to manage custom watchlists, to sort of separate out things I'm interesting in editing and follow changes to those pages. Having it all in one feed is cumbersome, and filtering by mainspace is only really helpful if you're active outside the mainspace. We have a lot of stubborn old-timers across WMF projects that shun any sort of UI changes, but I'm willing to bet if they took the time to get comfortable with a working "custom watchlist" product like Gather, their jaws will drop! — MusikAnimal ^talk 05:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

We need bookmarking

Definitely needed to keep living!

Wikipedia is heavily lacking personalizations tools. This was a rare one, and now we lose it. Sinisa.rudan (talk) 11:51, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment @Sinisa.rudan, I personally agree with you. It is lost for now on english wikipedia. It is enabled on another couple of wikis, wikivoyage for example.

It needs work too for it to be ready to be useful for all users though. Thanks for showing your support and chiming in. JHernandez (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Bookmarking is important

I definitely think bookmarking in Wikipedia should not only be kept but further improved. Customisation by topics should be allowed, something like a traditional folder hierarchy or normal browser bookmarks organisation. Hard to understand Collections feature cancellation. OneFingerSnap (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment @OneFingerSnap.

If you want to learn more about the cancellation, there is more information and comments on the RFC.

The feature needs more work to be considered useful and it has rough edges to improve, but it doesn't have the proper support at the moment. Thanks for stating your opinion! JHernandez (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi - posting this on behalf of @Leatherbrenn darby, who accidentally posted into the talkpage description. Thanks for your feedback, Leatherbrenn darby!

-----

Wikipedia collection was a great feature and the idea could be extented as creating one archieve where the links of libraries/collections are available and the anonymous person could visit any of the libraries/collections that is arranged by any registered user. And in that way any person could select any library, and search topics within them and read about it. Nowdays, people search wikipedia about the info they want but this feature will allow them to use wikipedia a great time killing tool just like social networks because then people would have lots of collection before them with beautiful cover pictures and they will chose which collection to dig in accordingly.

I feel sad that collection feature is gone but i had thought someday, it would make wikipedia a very interesting place to hang up for netizens. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

love and peace * 90.193.133.193 (talk) 21:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I like that FC 00:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Killing "Collections" - Why?

Killing "Collections" - Why?

In a very short time, the Beta Collections feature became my go-to tool for planning and organizing research on topics of both personal and professional interest. Given that I have been unable to even find a gadget for viewing my search histories on Wikipedia (DUH!, you guys), this is extremely disappointing. I guarantee that usage of Wikipedia would increase exponentially if this feature became permanent for all users - mine sure did!

PS: Browsing public collections was also fun, thought provoking, and informative, but they should be searchable by keyword or topic, not just viewable in order of most recently created. Anduril.Xavier (talk) 17:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Was it more useful as a feature for keeping a list of pages for your own use, or sharing a link to your list was a more usable? Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I had only discovered this beta feature in the last few weeks, and was happily saving pages for my own future reading and review, as that's all I have time for right now, but I'm sure that I would have created public collections for use by colleagues and other interested users in the future. Really surprised this type of function hasn't been a basic feature on your site from almost the beginning, unless affording data storage was the main factor. As popular as Wiki already is, I'm convinced it could be an even bigger part of our everyday lives. Anduril.Xavier (talk) 18:21, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Anduril, have you tried using your watchlist - you can click a button at the top of any article to add them to your private watchlist. As for creating lists and publicly sharing them, if they have encyclopaedic purpose we have lots of lists on wikipedia. WereSpielChequers (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

please bring back 'collection' feature 103.224.147.100 (talk) 08:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Downloading old collections

An individual wrote to Wikimedia:

https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom;TicketID=9036557

noting that they filled out a survey, which apparently promised a list of articles, but have heard nothing. What advice can be given?~ Sphilbrick (talk) 14:57, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up @Sphilbrick! We wanted to wait a little longer to ensure we had heard from all respondents before moving forward, but will do so shortly. I have to check with our eng team on specifics, but will get back with more details. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I responded to the person who asked Sphilbrick (talk) 13:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Barnstar

How u post one of that to Wikipedia. FC 00:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Just put one of these on the talkpage.

[[file:Original_Barnstar_Hires.png|thumb|This is a barnstar as an example, it's not for this feature, and not for the useless Flow.]]

It's better on normal talkpages, not this fake-forum Flow crap. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:15, 14 January 2017 (UTC)