Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Miscellaneous/Input Forms

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Random proposal ►◄ Miscellaneous  The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Input Forms

  • Problem: Currently, many Wikipedia processes require users to fill out information. This range from edit requests to edit filter reports to all sorts of nominations. The current solution is usually using preload templates, asking users to fill in details as template parameters. This can be very confusing to users unfamiliar with the template syntax, especially newcomers. “What does <!-- —>mean? Where do I fill in the page title?” some users may try to figure out how the seemingly baffling template syntax works, but most would probably give up, frustrated.
  • Who would benefit: Newcomers who have little understanding of template syntax and experienced users who could address the newcomers' issue more easily
  • Proposed solution: I could think of 2 ways to solve this. First way is an overhaul of the InputBox extension, allowing the creation of forms with multiple text fields and, if possible, even other controls (switches, checkboxes, etc.) The second way may be a gadget that displays an intuitive input form to users, in which the form is constructed by reading, for example, a JSON containing the form structure.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: H78c67c (talk) 07:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion

  • Seconded. Keepcalmandchill (talk) 11:05, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I think the Page Forms extension was written for this. Maybe it only needs some work to be available on Wikimedia wikis as well? --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    @Matěj Suchánek: from what I can tell, not exactly. The Page Forms extension is for creating or editing pages with structural data, including those inside templates, which is already partially achieved with VisualEditor and TemplateData. What I am proposing is almost like InputBox, but with support for multiple form inputs, not just one. Please correct me regarding the Page Forms part if I am wrong. H78c67c (talk) 06:50, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    You are maybe right. Sorry, but I am not that much familiar with Page Forms. In fact, I recalled a comment from this my task (which would benefit from this proposal, right?) but that comment mentions a tool called "FormWizard". --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 11:10, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    mw:Extension:FormWizard is almost exactly what I’m looking for! I wonder what needs to be done to install it on WMF wikis. H78c67c (talk) 15:39, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I am almost finished with WSForm (although I have been saying that for a long time), but I guess that is what you are looking for. Not much use now, as its not released yet. Just thought I'd mention it, here's a small intro to WSForm.

Voting

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