Community Wishlist Survey 2017/Editing/Advanced diff algorithm and wikitext delimiter pseudosectioning for reducing edit conflicts

Random proposal ►◄ Editing

Advanced diff algorithm and wikitext delimiter pseudosectioning for reducing edit conflicts

Problem: Edit conflicts remain a source of frustration for experienced and new editors alike, especially on articles where interest is high and editing is rapid.

Who would benefit: Editors of heavily edited articles.

Proposed solution: Employ a more sophisticated diff algorithm which is less likely to signal an edit conflict when two edits can be automatically merged.

More comments: Creating pseudo-sections from the beginning and ending of wikitext delimiters such as template transclusion braces is very likely to help with the existing algorithm designed to avoid edit conflicts across sections.

Phabricator tickets:

Proposer: James Salsman (talk) 16:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Translations: none yet

Discussion

@James Salsman: Just to clarify, you're suggesting improving the algorithm for automatically merging edits (and avoiding manual merging), not allowing more granular editing of articles, right? In other words, your "pseudosections" are just a parsing strategy, not a user interface change. right? Kaldari (talk) 19:18, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The edit submission diff algorithm merges changes to different sections (which don't change the number of sections) to avoid edit conflicts when multiple people edit the same page simultaneously. It's a great feature and has plenty of room for improvement in terms of avoiding edit conflicts when people edit the same section simultaneously. One of the ways to accomplish the general case is to use parsing features as input to the diff algorithm, but it's not strictly necessary to do it that way. It's not a UI change, just a more pleasant UX under the same UI. James Salsman (talk) 08:56, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support —viciarg⁴¹⁴ 08:18, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tgr (talk) 08:19, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jenks24 (talk) 09:13, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dvorapa (talk) 09:18, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support β₁₆ - (talk) 10:36, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:06, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support YFdyh000 (talk) 14:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Arkanosis ^✉ 14:34, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support TMg 16:16, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Husky (talk) 16:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 18:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thomas Obermair 4 (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 04:57, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Donald Trung (Talk 🤳🏻) (My global lock 🔒) (My global unlock 🔓) 09:59, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Simon Villeneuve 14:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Support Paucabot (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support 4nn1l2 (talk) 19:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ermahgerd9 (talk) 20:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Venca24 (talk) 20:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tisfoon (talk) 20:33, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Keith D (talk) 21:16, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Syrenka V (talk) 21:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rhinopias (talk) 21:35, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nihlus 05:12, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sunfyre (talk) 13:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 16:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vachovec1 (talk) 17:47, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dromedar61 (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nabla (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Superchilum^{(talk to me!)} 16:32, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~Cybularny ^Speak? 12:19, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ented (talk) 12:51, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 14:25, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 14:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
SupportNoyster (talk) 19:25, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tacsipacsi (talk) 19:45, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support WikiMasterGhibif (talk) 23:28, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Joshualouie711 (talk) 02:12, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support A+ effort and thought into this proposal, the diff viewer quality is blocking me from participation in reviewing edits at Russian Wikipedia, it gets lost when newlines are added very easily Gryllida 00:40, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hell yes. Our diff handling is approximately a 1995 level of sophistication. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Definitely. Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:05, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Halibutt (talk) 14:55, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yeza (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yup Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:16, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lofhi (talk) 18:05, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ca2james (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Cool Klaas `Z4␟` V: 22:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ahm masum (talk) 09:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Matěj Suchánek (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support AWhiteC (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thouny (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support HLHJ (talk) 06:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Julia\^talk 10:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support François Robere (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Luchesar • T/C 13:39, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support — NickK (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]