Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Notifications, Watchlists and Talk Pages/Kiwik template - Ping projects/limited workflow

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Kiwik template - Ping projects/limited workflow

  • Problem:  
    • Editors get overloaded with communication as all messages/watchlist are addressed to individuals, when some messages would be better directed towards another article talk or a project
    • Many workflows involve manualy updating a second page. kiwik would be the first step towards a simple workflow
    • wiki is great for discussing an issue, but not necessarily great at providing a synopsis, or linking multiple conversations.
    • Userboxes can not be used to ask for expertise due to concerns abut spam
  • Proposed solution: Creating a two-way communication between any two pages (e.g. article talk <-> project talk)
    1. On the New York City Subway page, say you add a template like {{kiwik|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains|help on XYZ}} to a discussion topic T
    2. A bot will notify related WikiProjects, such as WikiProject Trains and WikiProject New York City, with a kiwik pointing in the opposite direction like {{kiwik|Talk:New York City Subway|help on XYZ|Topic T}}
    3. Optional: Synch changes, handle deletions and archives, and handle fixing link rot on talk archives
    4. Optional: white list for projects to allow them to opt.
  • Who would benefit:  
    • Editors - Alternate to long watchlists, and spreading of workload
    • Projects that are inactive. Maybe a hashtag feed would give them a purpose, as people could help in their area of interest.
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: Wakelamp (talk) 13:01, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I realised that using the word hashtags has confused thing. :-( Please see reword below) Wakelamp (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Wakelamp: Thank you for your proposal but can you please carify your request a little more? Is this regarding hashtags on Wikiprojects, watching pages, edit pages, etc.? We also want to point you to an external tool to use- https://hashtags.wmcloud.org/, that may be able to help you needs. This will allow you to find edits with hastags in the edit summary. GMikesell-WMF (talk) 22:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is this rewording better?
  • Suggested rename - kiwik tags - auto create links between any two talk pages (e.g article and project). (kiwik is a palindromes - so two way communication.  :-))

Scope - This proposal is to do with talk pages (main, wikipedia, meta, etc, user, project, essays, guidelines etc)

Problem - There is no low friction/low spam way to ask for help from a group, or to get subject matter expertise, or to consolidate links to do with the same problem

Communication issues-

  • Some pings/processes ask individuals to solve problem/be informed, that should rather than adding to a group queue. For instance, watchlists are individual, so multiple interested parties may do the same review.
  • No easy timely process to escalate poor behaviour. A normal forum self-moderates because there are multiple watchers enforcing group norms, or reporting major issues.
  • Wikipedia discussions on low volume articles, or user talk are effectively private chat rooms.
  • Not enough interlinking to encourage resilience and retention - There are few permanent communication hubs (village pump, admin related, NPP, and a few active projects). Using kiwik links to creating a feed on projects might encourage more activity on projects
  • No easy way to ask for subject matter expertise.
  • Consolidation of discussions – the wiki process encourages exploration of ideas, but there is no easy way to consolidate/summarise suggestions or link ideas to problems,
  • No easy way to ask for help from a project, and few incentives for projects to exist.

Wish-

  • A new kiwik tag. It would create a low friction way to create cross links between project talk pages which could be watched. Some user boxes could be set up as projects, to allow for technical expertise to be requested.
  • Ideally a project could decide to use statuses (open, closed, reviewed),
  • watching a project page would be visible and would replace the project membership list

Use case-

  1. On Origin talk – Add a comment tag {kiwik |link to destination talk page|priority}
  2. Bot goes to destination talk page
    • looks for an existing topic non-archived topic with origin page and section heading
    • otherwise creates create a link and copy comment
  3. Adds Calculate # of comments, # of reverts, # of editors is updated. Priority
The ping command doesn't seem to be working for me in your format - I get red linked Wakelamp (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Wakelamp Ah, I think I may finally grasp what you're saying. You basically want a way to ping a community of editors. Let's say you're at w:Talk:New York City Subway. You want expertise from those who know about New York City. You write your comment, and add something like {{kiwik|Talk:New York City Subway|high}} and a bot would post the comment with its priority at w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City. Does that sound about right? My issue here is the editor still needs to know about the kiwik template, so the system may not have but so much success, especially for new users.
Unfortunately we are running out of time. Voting starts Friday, so please respond as soon as you can. Thanks and regards, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:41, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly right. I have updated the proposal section and solution sections using your example. It is best that kiwik is not easily visible initially - because its usage will depend on early adopters and projects deciding to use it, how hackable it is and its slow incorporation into processes. Think MVP rather than creating a good UX or automation. My observation is that the Wikipedia changes that seem to cause the least issues are in line with Open Source/ASD culture - either small in scope and deep in detail (think emacs), or broadly applicable with few constraints and optional and hackable (linux 3 or 4 letter programs piped together - a cool name like YACC helps ). The biggest concern will be cross posting to create spam, but even usenet allowed limited cross posting.

Unless there are any objections, in a few hours I am going to delete the sections that I have struck through, change the wording to kiwik from kiwik in everyones comments and rename the proposal. Wakelamp (talk)

@Wakelamp: I've rewritten your proposal to match my understanding of your wish. Let me know if it looks good, and if so I will go ahead and approve it. But we need to hear back soon. Voting starts tomorrow! Thanks, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:46, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Musikanimal: Excellent - Thank-you for your help. I have renamed the proposal as well Wakelamp (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

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