Research:Notifications user survey

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T127257

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T128937

Created

23:21, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Contact

Jonathan Morgan

Wikimedia Foundation

Collaborators

Pau Giner

Wikimedia Foundation

Duration: 2016-February – 2016-May

This project's code is open-source

Open source
via PAWS notebook

Research:Projects

This page documents a completed research project.

The goal of this survey is to understand how active Wikimedians use the Notifications feature, in order to inform the development (by the Collaboration team) of new Notifications features. In particular, the survey will focus on understanding the volume of notifications active users receive, how well the existing feature set serves their needs, and which types of notifications users consider to be most important to read and/or follow-up on.

Methods[edit]

The survey will be developed in English and distributed on English-language wikis first. It will be distributed via a banner in the Notifications pane (Phabricator ticket). The goal is to receive responses from at least 1000 editors from the first round. Subsequent rounds will be distributed in at least one additional language in order to avoid relying solely on English-speakers.

Timeline[edit]

February 2016: draft and refine the survey with the Collaboration team, identify forums and list where the survey will be advertised, translate the survey (TBD)
March 2016: open the survey on English wikis. Translate to additional language and distribute.
April 2016: open the survey on French wikis.
May 2016: analyze and report results.

Policy, Ethics and Human Subjects Research[edit]

The survey will not elicit any personally identifiable information from respondents. Privacy statement & data use guidelines are available on FoundationWiki.

Results[edit]

We received a total of 158 responses to the survey.

Quantified results are from this Jupyter notebook.

Part I. Summary statistics & demographics[edit]

How many completed surveys do we have per language?

There were 122 responses in English
There were 36 responses in French

Q2. How active are the survey respondents?

109 made more than 100 edits per month
36 made more 10-100 edits per month
8 made 2-10 edits per month
5 made 0-1 edits per month

Q3. Q3. In the past three months, which of the following Wikimedia projects have you edited while logged in to your account?

155 have edited Wikipedia in the past 3 months
98 have edited Wikimedia Commons in the past 3 months
58 have edited Wikidata in the past 3 months
42 have edited Meta-Wiki in the past 3 months
27 have edited MediaWiki in the past 3 months
26 have edited Wiktionary in the past 3 months
15 have edited Wikisource in the past 3 months
8 have edited Wikiquote in the past 3 months
8 have edited Wikibooks in the past 3 months
6 have edited Wikivoyage in the past 3 months
4 have edited Wikinews in the past 3 months
3 have edited Wikiversity in the past 3 months
2 have edited Wikispecies in the past 3 months

Q5. In the past three months, how frequently have you visited at least one Wikimedia project?

120 logged in multiple times per day
14 logged in once per day
1 logged in multiple times per week
12 logged in once per week
3 logged in multiple times per month
2 logged in once a month or less
6 were not sure how frequently they logged in

Q6. In a typical day, how many new (unread) notifications do you usually get on the project you work on most?

84 received 0-1 new notifications
50 received 2-5 new notifications
15 received 5-10 new notifications
9 received more than 10 new notifications

Part II. Standard Notifications[edit]

Q7. Which of the following types of notification have you seen on Wikimedia projects?

146 have seen user talk page message notifications
146 have seen thanked notifications
134 have seen mentioned notifications
121 have seen reverted notifications
92 have seen page linked notifications
66 have seen page reviewed notifications
45 have seen user rights notifications
42 have seen email notifications
4 have seen none of these notifications

Q8. Please rank the following list of notification types in order of how important it is that you read it right away?

44.1% of respondents ranked 'user talk page message' notifications as their first reading priority
32.6% of respondents ranked 'user rights' notifications as their first reading priority
20.9% of respondents ranked 'reverted' notifications as their first reading priority
17.1% of respondents ranked 'mentioned' notifications as their first reading priority
7.5% of respondents ranked 'email' notifications as their first reading priority
7.3% of respondents ranked 'thanked' notifications as their first reading priority
6.7% of respondents ranked 'page reviewed' notifications as their first reading priority
3.5% of respondents ranked 'page linked' notifications as their first reading priority

Q9. Please rank the following notification types in order of how important it is that you act on it right away?

43.1% of respondents ranked 'user talk page message' notifications as their first action priority
37.2% of respondents ranked 'reverted' notifications as their first action priority
14.6% of respondents ranked 'mentioned' notifications as their first action priority
14.0% of respondents ranked 'user rights' notifications as their first action priority
11.1% of respondents ranked 'email' notifications as their first action priority
5.0% of respondents ranked 'page reviewed' notifications as their first action priority
3.6% of respondents ranked 'page linked' notifications as their first action priority
2.3% of respondents ranked 'thanked' notifications as their first action priority

Part III. Flow Notifications[edit]

Q10. Have you used Flow on at least one of the Wikimedia projects you visit regularly?

42 have used Flow
42 have not used Flow because it is not enabled on projects they visit regularly
28 have not used Flow even though it is enabled on one or more projects they visit regularly
46 are not sure whether they have used Flow

27 Enwiki respondents have used Flow
15 Frwiki respondents have used Flow

Q11. Which of the following types of Flow notification have you seen on Wikimedia projects?

33 have seen new comment on topic notifications
27 have seen new topic on talk page notifications
18 have seen mentioned notifications
13 have seen thanked notifications
7 have seen renamed topic notifications
5 have seen none of these notifications
4 have seen edited their post notifications

Q12. Please rank the following notification types in order of how important it is that you read it right away?

66.7% of respondents ranked 'edited their post' notifications as their first reading priority
53.3% of respondents ranked 'mentioned' notifications as their first reading priority
37.5% of respondents ranked 'new comment on topic' notifications as their first reading priority
20.0% of respondents ranked 'renamed topic' notifications as their first reading priority
14.3% of respondents ranked 'new topic on talk page' notifications as their first reading priority
10.0% of respondents ranked 'thanked' notifications as their first reading priority

Q13. Please rank the following list of Flow notifications in order of how important it is that you act on it right away?

66.7% of respondents ranked 'edited their post' notifications as their first action priority
60.0% of respondents ranked 'mentioned' notifications as their first action priority
40.0% of respondents ranked 'new comment on topic' notifications as their first action priority
19.0% of respondents ranked 'new topic on talk page' notifications as their first action priority
10.0% of respondents ranked 'thanked' notifications as their first action priority
0.0% of respondents ranked 'renamed topic' notifications as their first action priority

Q14. To what extent do you agree with the following statement?: "Notifications provides a good overview of relevant activity and help me keep up with what is happening on the Wikimedia projects I visit regularly."

19 strongly agree that Notifications are useful
14 agree that Notifications are useful
0 neither agree nor disagree that Notifications are useful
2 disagree that Notifications are useful
2 strongly disagree that Notifications are useful

Free-text responses[edit]

Q15. Can you think of a time when you needed to go back and find an old notification that you previously read?
no
Too numerous to list. Generally where my name was mentioned on another page.
no
Sure, when you get lots of notifications you may not have time to tend to them. New notifications come in, and you'll need to scroll back to find the ones that still need action.
No.
Yes, when I accidentally marked a notification as read before I had read it. It was someone mentioning my username on a talk page; it was important because it was related to a project I was working on. I found it quickly using Special:Notifications.
Yes, I use multiple devices and sometimes forget to go back and "mark unread" - I can't always act on every notification everytime, so I depend on the notification history.
Sometimes I want to look up a username and I cannot remember their username. Or, I go to a talk page and then I cannot find the comment so I need the notification to use as a breadcrumb to get back to the topic.
I'm sure there are edge cases, but not really.
No, but I probably have needed to in the past.
Occassionally, I go back and look for conversations that I have been mentioned in, to go back an check if the convesation has been resolved. Frequently -- because my watchlist has over 9000 pages in it, I miss conversations unless I am notified. I would love to have the flow feature that allows me to Watch conversations on English.
To improve a new article, with a link to a previously created article. I used the article creation notification in my notifications history to get again the title.

Q16. Is there anything you particularly dislike or find frustrating about the process of reading and acting on Notifications?
I have large numbers of stale notifications that I dont know how to get rid of from projects I only affected tangentially
As I have the site wide beta notifications enabled, there are two issues: / 1: Loading up the notifications is very slow, to the point where it becomes annoying (I guess we're all used to fast interfaces these days) / 2: The interface does not make it clear that I have to explicitly discard a notification from another wiki by clicking the "x" for it to be marked as read on said wiki. If I do not, and then later visit that wiki, I am shown the notifications on that wiki as well. Or at least that's how it appears to work for me.
They're not encouraging and positive enough. And I get a lot of notifications from bots.
I dislike that they don't give a notification when the page is already open.
As soon as I click on the "notifications" tab at the top of the page, all new notifications change colour to the same colour as old notifications, making it difficult to be sure which are new ones and which are ones I've already checked.
Can't mark as unread
The wording of the mentioned you should be cleaned up a little, for example it isn't always a talk page.
Sometimes it is useful to find an old notification - a search option would be helpful
Occasionally overwhelming in volume
No
sometimes I click on notifications and it switches page rather than make thge dropdown box
Mostly no complaints. Maybe "mention" notifications should go under the "Messages" tab? That way I'd have all the discussion-related notifications in one place. These are often the ones I have to go back and find, and may be buried amongst all the thanks and page link notifications I get.
Sometimes the javascript doesn't load properly, so I have to open the page Special:Notifications manually. / / When I get great amount of notifications (i.e., when bots are creating new entries that link to those I created), there's no way to mark of them as read. Sometimes I get more than one thousand in a day.
Not clear what in the box I should press, since everything feels like a link (the hand cursor), but nothing is actually real links (no URL in the browser's status bar thingy). Especially confusing when you have several links in one notification. Am I going to that user's user page? Am I going to a diff? Article history?
Pages reverted even after references are made, or event actually occurred.
Why do I get notifications on my User page for 20 languages where I never do an edit?
Crosswiki notifications are often out of date and redundant. Sometimes I see the same notifications for the same messages on en.wiki and commons.
I find it frustrating when the load time for the notifications list takes so long that I get redirected to Special:Notifications instead. However, I understand that it may be important for user experience. I would love it if load times were somehow reduced.
Flow notifications are problematic - either by sending too many of them, or having them not contain useful information.
Mentions ought to count as "messages" in the split messages/notifications system, since they're almost always a) responses in wikitext threads or b) an implicit summons to a thread.
The talk pages list should be reduced. Only new ones should be shown.
Flow. It's shit.
difficult on mobile
Notifications come up in a window overlaid over the "current" Wikipedia page I was viewing. Issue 1: when I read notifications I sometimes act on them (e.g. perhaps thanking an editor), and it would be helpful if the notifications window was something that could be returned to, so that I could continue reading down through them. I really could be wrong but I think it is hard to go back and forth from the linked pages and the list of notifications. Issue 2: I think that it is impossible to close the notifications window and get back to the current Wikipedia page. I think that if I use the "back" button in my Chrome browser that it takes me to the previous page, and then going forward again comes to the current page still overlaid with the notifications. I could be wrong about how it works, but I think it is not clear how to clear the notifications display off the current page. Again I could be wrong about both issues, but at any rate put me down as a person not mastering how to control the notifications display. I would like to be able to toggle display of notifications onto my current page easily (or go to a notifications window). / / It is somewhat frustrating not to be
I love the notifications
They can never be marked as read..
The fear of a revert and a new edit war.
On "A link was made from ARTICLE1 to ARITCLE2" you can click through to the articles but not to the diff. Often it is obvious to me why ARTICLE1 might be linking to ARTICLE2 but when it isn't obvious what connection might be between them, I'd really like to see exactly where in ARTICLE1 the link was made with a bit of context (as diff gives you) rather than having to search the article.
no
I don't like notifications, that's why they are disallowed
I find the number of page link notifications to be overwhelming. Sometimes I create a much-needed stub or an important article and it gets put in a template and every time that template is transcluded I get a notification. While I can see it being useful, I think that having them bundled may be a better help.
Sometimes getting random notifications from unrelated projects
"X has reverted your edit" is AWFUL, though it took me years to realize that. When that little red thing pops up to say "Nah nah nuh nah nah! You've been reverrrrrrted!" it gives the recipient an adrenaline jolt, initiating the fight-or-flight response. This being cyberspace, flight is impossible (it follows you everywhere) so FIGHT is the only option. I think the editing culture of WP would be much improved, and editors' blood pressures would be collectively lowered, if the default setting (for new accounts) for Preferences > Notifications > Edit Revert were made "unchecked" i.e. No. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Revert_notification_opt-out If you care about an article have it on your watchlist and keep an eye on changes (not just reverts); having a special revert notification seems like something specifically invented to let fragile egos know when to scream, "How DARE you revert ME???" / / Beyond that, the interface for different types of notifications is inconsistent. It's often unclear where in the notif you need to click to go to the change -- sometimes it's "your edit", sometimes it's "View change", sometimes I can't figure it out. For "Article X was linked from Article Y" I don't think I was ever able to figure out where to click (not sure of this -- seldom get that notif).
Having two lists: the notification list and the watch-list. I would suggest somehow integrating the notifications into the watchlist.
the notifications drop down is too small.
Rudeness of certain editors
All is fine, but the WMF surveys are HIGLY ANNOYING. The Wikimedia Foundation schould spend less money in making nonsense surveys. There a hundreds of high priority bug reports and feature requests open on phabricator which needs attention. Please don't was communitys time and moneys by making such surveys, just pull the data from the database if you want.
Having volunteered at [[WP:RM]] some years ago, I have the first edit on a number of articles that I have no specific interest in, and my notfications tend to be swamped by notifications of new links to those pages. It would be useful to be able to 'disown' specific pages that I (technically) created, so that I don't get notified about new links to them, but retain the others that I do still care about.
NA
Not yet, accept the way the are delivered is crap. The whole interface and indeed wikipedia is last century.
N/A
Yes: SLOW to load.
It is frustrating that I can't set the pages that generate a "was linked to" to be the one's I'm actually interested in seeing, rather than just pages I created (which I might not always be interested in).
I have no idea what it means that someone has reviewed a page.
Some types of notifications are not persistent enough; notifications should persist until specifically dismissed, not disappear at the first click
Absolutely. I would like to be able to click on an "open all" button and have each unread notification open in a new tab. I also dislike that if I open a notification on Wikipedia, then go to Meta or such, that there is the same notification waiting for me there, but it implies that it is fresh. I hate that AWB stops working when a notification comes in and I am forced to go read the notification. There is no way to postpone reading the message. AWB shuts down and opens the notification.
Page review notification is REALLY strident.
All types being lumped in together. / Notifications from all projects being lumped in together.
Pinging sometimes does not work.
It's annoying to know I've been reverted. Sometimes I think I would be better off not knowing.
Pages linked to an article I created years ago aren't necessarily very useful.
Frustrating that I can't thank anons.
[[WP:POPUPS]] does not interact with all linked elements of the notification, or Popups does not do quite what I expected. Also, when sending "thanks", it asks if I am good sending a "public" thanks: Where can one see those?
The new notification drop down list is very slow to load. And if I click too early, it takes me to Special:Notifications instead. Granted this could be because other scripts are slow too (like Twinkle) but it would be nice if the notification list was prioritized
I would like to be able to blacklist/whitelist link notifications. Some pages I created I don't care about links made to them, and some pages I didn't create I would like to know about links.
There is no option of keeping the legacy "orange box of doom".
Huge backlog of several year old notifications from projects I hardly ever visit, but this is a transient and will soon go away I hope.
no
On mobile Wikimedia sites, sometimes when you press the notification "bell" button, it loads as a new page with the notifications filling up the whole screen, to get off your notifications then, you have to press the back button which then reloads the previous page. This is compared to what it usually does, which is slides out in an animation type thing, not loading a new page, and you can get rid of this by clicking a cross, this then doesn't reload the page but just closes the notification menu.
Nope. Cross-wiki notifications used to be a problem, but you guys fixed that, thanks!
I can't mark items as 'unread' if I don't have time to deal with them now and want to come back to them.
Often on mobile notifications don't go away even after being viewed.
There is no way to selectively turn off notifications when someone linked to an article I created but don't care for any more (eg. redirects)
Sometimes the drop-down thing loads slowly. / / I find it unnecessary to receive notifications for automated postings by bots like for translations or rfc's.
I wish they would automatically mark themselves as read when the notifications dropdown is opened. An option to manually mark one as unread would also be good.
Nothing.
Sometimes notifications don't show in time, or show lately.
None, I prefer that the red colour signifying new notifications be darkened.
The "link to page" notifications are frustrating for a number of reasons: 1) I have written something like 400+ articles -- some of them very broad, so I get notifications about links on a regular basis. 2) The regular notifications wouldn' be so bad, except I can't see the diff easily to thank the person that made the change and frequently, for some of these more important articles, there are 5 links -- and its almost impossible to tell which ones they are because the "What Links Here" page indexes them by pageid, not when the link was added -- and again there is no data about the diff responsible to the link -- so can't interact with the person involved. 3) knowing where to click for what outcome on the "new link" notification is very confusing -- its not clear if I click on the page I will find the article I created, the article it was linked from, or the diff for the change. 4) This really comes down to me wanting the diff from these notifications so I can make this a socially fruitful interaction, instead of a static one from a distance.
At the current level , I find them generally to be OK. Article talk-sides - which in my oppinion could be less strict about ONLY be deal with improvement suggestions. Questions are [usually] "a marker" that something essential MIGHT be lacking , in the article text. And as long as the discussion is "fruitful" I find it to be of benefit to Wikipedia / There should though be a certain relation between the article and question.
1) Having to specifically check other projects for notifications of discussion (eg Hovercards to which I've been contributing), or edits made in non-English Wikipedia pages/Wikimedia Commons. I've only recently enabled Enhanced Notifications, so am hoping this might make thinks simpler in future. / 2) Not being able to view alerts for edits made to articles on my Watchlist, but having to rely on email notifications. / 3) Not being able to see either the size of the edit change in email Watchlist alerts. Minor ones I might not go and check on, but larger edits I might. Currently, I have no way of knowing what size of edit has been made without visiting the article to check for differences. It might be helpful to have the first 150 characters of the edit shown in the email alert, too.
The interface for showing other-site notifications is a bit clunky.

Q17. Is there anything you particularly like or find rewarding about the process of reading and acting on Notifications?
I think marking notification as unread is good, and crosswiki-notifications are great.
getting notifications without having to refresh my watchlist
The beta notifications that allow me to get an overview of what goes on in a single visit is fantastic!
Yeah, the positive feedback (your paged was linked, thanks, etc.)
It's easier to follow up to something.
It's a quicker and easier way of keeping track of articles than a bulky watchlist
It is certainly very useful to be alerted the moment my user name is mentioned somewhere.
Thanks
It's a good idea. An almost indispensable aid to communication.
quick alters when editing
Being able to mark a notification as unread. This allows me to keep track of what I still need to tend to. That aside the notifications in general have come a long way and I absolutely can't go without them now! :)
Everything about it is great.
Much easier to be involved in relevant discussions, even if you are not on the wiki every day.
Critical messages like reverting an article edit should be notified immediately to allow for quick response.
Increases sense of connectedness to the community.
"Thanks" notifications are categorically soothing.
Yes. The overall design of the notifications system is really great, and I enjoy interacting with it.
It's great to log on when someone has thanked me. It's also exciting (although a little perplexing) to know an article was linked to something I created.
Yes, it provides visibility to things that are not visibile or not visible enough via watchlists.
The "thanks" system is great; I am frequently thanked for my edits and find it helps motivate me to edit.
Ability to respond immediately to reverts, talk page edits and pings
They are very fast.
I appreciate the immediate usefulness (don't have to rely on going through my huge watchlist), as well as getting thanks for edits. it feels validating
It is great to be able to receive and to give Thanks notifications. It has been a surprising positive change in how I experience Wikipedia, that I receive Thanks messages. I appreciate very much that the system allows them, as the flow of Thanks messages counters somewhat the steady drumbeat of negativity--often of bullying--that pervades the English wikipedia.
I love being notified that an edit of mine was reverted or that someone left a comment on my talk page. It's nice to get these notifications immediately.
Getting to see that your page has been linked to other pages.
If someone thanked my edit
I like to receive thanks. I like that "A link was made" allows me to discover new articles that I might be interested in (or wish to add to my watchlist). While I don't necessarily like reverts and I can be apprehensive when I see that I am getting a message or being mentioned (apprehensive because experience tells me you get more brickbats than bouquets so statistically it's an unpleasant situation), I still like to know sooner rather than later so I can get my say in early rather than after "group think" has been established.
i like knowing quickly if things are changed, linked, edited, deleted, etc. It allows me to ameliorate the situation and make my edits better
While not very important, I do find the thanks notices to be nice.
being thanked
Who doesn't like being thanked for edits?
A steady stream of "thanks" is always encouraging!
The notifications are very useful.
i like it exists.
All is fine, but the WMF surveys are HIGLY ANNOYING. The Wikimedia Foundation schould spend less money in making nonsense surveys. There a hundreds of high priority bug reports and feature requests open on phabricator which needs attention. Please don't was communitys time and moneys by making such surveys, just pull the data from the database if you want.
NA
no.
N/A
It's fine. It's useful.
Receiving thanks notifications is awesome!
I really like the thanks, and also the notification emails that tell me someone has left a talk page message.
Thanks; reversions
I like the yellow banner that pops up even if I am at the bottom of the page, whereas the flag icon ones are only seen when the top of the page is in view.
No.
Thanks are always nice. So are incoming links. /
Thanks are always nice!
Mostly smooth and useful.
Thanks are great to receive: usually one takes solace in doing the right thing without really knowing if anyone notices or appreciates. Being able to address reverts helps close a formerly open-loop feedback system.
It's always a gamble. Did a vandal revert me? Someone thank me? I do like the "Thank" feature. It balances out the less pleasant notifications.
It feels good to see notifications about articles I've created being reviewed, or articles I've created being linked to other articles. It means that I'm helping in contributing to the encyclopedia.
Mention in discussions is very useful.
Everyone loves receiving a Thank.
no
The thanks notifications always cheer me up.
The design of the notification menus on both desktop and mobile sites. It looks good!
I like that I can be thanked for edits without a talkpage message, I like that the emails tell me useful information compared to Core's ones, I like that I get notifications of mentions.
It's always nice to see my edits being appreciated when people thank me.
It's less intrusive than the past "You have a new message" orange banner. I also really love the ping functionality, and use it often.
Nothing
Being thanked
Notifications are great! I like it!
I like seeing "thanks" :) I would really like a way to "interact back" with someone who thanked me -- I feel like having some type of reciprical "Person x thanked you, do you want to give them a brief message?" would allow things like saying "your welcome" or "I would love to have your help with x"
Haven't really thought about it
It's good to get feedback - so thanks are nice to see, but not essential. / What is useful and rewarding is seeing that work I've done has been responded too in one way or another, whether it's DYK Alerts, reversions of edits (for whatever reason), a user-page deletion request, or bot-alert highlighting an issue. / I also like the email notifications about edits to pages on my watchlist so I can see how others are interacting with my edits and (hopefully) improving them further.
Kudos to the Echo team!

Q18. Are there things that happen on your primary projects that you do not currently receive notifications about, that you would like to start receiving notifications about?
I want to be able to select articles that I did not create and receive "A link was made from" notifications for them. By chance, I have the first edit on "Critically endangered" and so receive lots of notifications for it. Some of the power users who edit these articles would probably find those notifications a lot more useful than I do.
Cant think of anything offhand, once the stale notifications from other projects have been deleted the system should be good. If it could be expanded to include reader feedback for a list of watched pages on selected projects (not the same as my WP watchlist) it would be really nice, but that is a separate issue.
When a backlog of tasks becomes too large, it would be nice to get a notification. It would also be nice to have notifications around WikiProjects. When people join, when they have discussions. I'd might like those as a separate category (like groups on Facebook ?)
currently, unless I have all the thousands of articles I have edited on my watchlist, it is difficult to find out whether anyone has made new edits to a page I have recently edited other than scanning my contribs list for places where "current" is not prsent. Notifications of edits to articles I have edited in, say, the last month would be extremely useful.
Along with edit revert it would be good to receive a notification if an administrative action of mine was reversed or changed (for example a protection modified or a user unblocked) so that I can check on the reasons for the change and if I need to do anything about it. This could be useful for all editors if it included non-admin actions such as page moves. / It would also be good if you could monitor a particular page and receive a notification if a change is made to it (like the next step up from the watchlist). Likewise, particularly as an admin and checkuser, if I could receive a notification when a user/IP I'm monitoring makes and action so that I don't need to constantly check their contribs.
I think newsletter subscriptions - signpost and project pages being watched - should generate notifications to subscribers or members and it would be nice if users can similarly create lists of users to whom notifications can be broadcast (ie not by individually tagging them each time)
When an AfD I started or commented on has closed.
Additions to the Central Discussions template. / Although I use use my Watchlist regularly, I would like to select various specific page pages that would be notified to me when they are edited, changed, tagged for some form of deletion.
Watchlist
I can't think of good examples... but one thing I would like is to be notified if an image I added to a page was removed. I realize that's probably really hard to implement, and we shouldn't be fighting over whose image is on the page anyway â€“ it's a collaborative project. I just like to keep track of these pages, is all.
A way to mark pages such that I get notifications when other pages link to it, even when I haven't created them.
RfAs and stuff like that.
New version, or version changed while editing.
Not that I know
Notifications from other projects. Some items from my watch list, particularly edits to pages I created in the last 30 days.
"Special" items on my watchlist were changed. I'd love this. For instance, imagine if I just started an Articles for Deletion discussion. If it were important to me, I'd love to get notifications for new votes as they came in.
Articles not on my watchlist being added or removed from categories that are on my watchlist, also CfD nominations in the scope of project of which I am a member
Things like new RFAs (Requests for adminship), or new edits on pages I specifically want to monitor (like a super-watchlist)
Yes, something thigns like newsletters - we don't really need to send copies of them to everyone, suggest updating/changing Special:MassMessage to be able to send MassNotifications as well, then just a link to a newletter could be sent.
I'd like to receive more detailed notifications about certain high-priority pages, but setting an option to get detailed notifications for simply "pages I watch" would be complete overload (huge watchlist). If there was a way to set "priority" items on a watchlist, or a multiple-watchlist feature, then the ability to select extra notifications for only certain kinds of page would be amazing.
If someone make any major edit to my favorite pages, I would like it if a message is sent to me.
--RfAs / --RfC on topics I'm interested in / --updating of Article Alerts for wikiprojects
It would be nice to receive "Likes" on articles I started or contributed to. These would be easier for editors/readers to give than the specific Thanks for a good edit that I made. / It would be useful to be able to receive and give Thanks on a series of edits made by one editor in one page. When a mainspace article is improved or a substantial Talk page comment is given, it is often done in a series of small edits, and Thanking someone for just one arbitrary one out of the series seems odd and is sometimes hard to interpret. E.g. "Was someone thanking me for that tiny change I made?!!?! Oh, maybe they are commenting on the series of edits that started with that. If I could select a series of, say, 10 edits for thanking, it would be helpful if I could be presented a follow-on question whether I wish to thank just the most obviously intended editor (who made the first and/or last of those edits, or the most of the edits in that range, or who added the most characters of text) or if I want to thank also other editors in that range (and let me select/confirm which ones to give the same "main" Thanks or to give a "secondary" Thanks for their contribution(s) in that range).
I would like to be notified than an article of mine was nominated for deletion or was deleted.
N/A
I'd really like a way to know that new articles were being created in a categories that interests me. Sometimes I pick these up from the links they make, but this does not always work. I think this needs to be an option in watchlists to watch a category and then the notifications involved flow from that. I'd like to know if any of the AfD or RfC templates etc were added, again so I can get in early if I want to have an opinion.
No, but this question reads "your your primary projects"
when a substantial edit is made to a page I contributed to
notifications should have categories, and i like to filther them for text, category, sender. as well statistics behind. notification can replace top level banner.
All is fine, but the WMF surveys are HIGLY ANNOYING. The Wikimedia Foundation schould spend less money in making nonsense surveys. There a hundreds of high priority bug reports and feature requests open on phabricator which needs attention. Please don't was communitys time and moneys by making such surveys, just pull the data from the database if you want.
Changes in pages in watchlist
no
N/A
I would like to know when somebody applies for a subscription to the Wikipedia Library. As a coordinator for three databases there, I have to go keep checking three pages, or be sure to notice them on my watchlist, and my watchlist has over 10,000 pages on it. LOL. I guess I would like notification of the action on the Tip-of-the-Day talk page, as I help out over there, and there are really only three of us watching out for that project, so it would keep things flowing if I got notified of action on that project's talk page.
Discussions where I have commented, such as those on Village pump or Beer parlour, do not provide notification when someone answers. There are many such places, and when I leave a comment, I usually never know about any replies.
Replies to comments.
When other people have replied to messages I have sent
Should be able to choose to ultra-watch a page, in which case new changes not only show up on my watchlist, but also give me notifications.
I wish I could somehow set notifications for a certain section on talk pages. Despite direct requests, people often fail to ping in replies. / / Would also be neat to be able to set reminders that popup notifications like "Check replies on X" or "fix error on X"
Perhaps a change in the software is needed: the "user mentions" notification only works if my userpage is linked, but not when no hyperlink is needed. This should be changed so that any mentions (even without hyperlinks) are included in notifications.
Because so many talk pages don't use Flow, I don't receive any notification when someone replies to me on a talk page unless they mention me. So a notification when someone edits a talk page section that I've also edited may be useful.
Probably, but I cant think of any right now.
It would be good to receive notifications about particular kinds of changes - for example changes to particular sections. This might, however, create some power imbalances and fuel prejudices...
no
It would be good if you could get notifications when a section on a talk page you have commented on/edited has had replies, regardless of whether they have pinged you or not, because sometimes people reply to you but forget to ping you. This could be an optional notification though, as sometimes you comment in a section on a talk page which then gets loads of replies and other comments, none of which regard/interest you. Thanks.
I don't think so
Maybe if there was option to enable notifications for edits on a certain page, or edits by particular editor on a certain page or not, or edits by an anonymous editor, etc. I don't often open my watch list anymore but there may be for example a few pages I'd like to regularly be kept updated about.
If someone directly replied to a comment I made.
Nothing
Edits to specific pages
Someone added a message to a talk I partecipated.
I really want to be able to send a) geonotices --- for organizing editing events -- currently you have to either just "trust" that editors will look at their watchlist during a window of time when you are organizing a geographilcally bound event -- or you have to do investigative work to discover if someone is located in a particular geography. With a "geonotice notification" we would be able to alert anyway in a region about topic --without them having to disclose their particular location in a public location like a category -- maintaining their privacy, but giving them a greater opportunity to be involved in the more social sides of our community -- which in turns leads to more productive editing and better empathy with other editors (like reducing harrasment, etc). / / Secondly, I want conditional notifications -- so that if editors hit certain threshholds of participations (say 500 edits), they get some "did you know you have access to The Wikipedia Library", or if they have been around for 6 months: something like "thank you so much for participating, did you know that you can learn more about the Wikipedia community by reading the signpost" or if they make 10 edits: did you know about the teahouse? You can ask questions, etc.etc.
Well, that's difficult to know. But I would like some kind of notification on articles to which I contributed - let's say during the last 3-4 months. And a longer period in articles to which I have contributed > 20 % , and which are "long". And even longer for +50% "long articles" (a "long" article takes atleast 2 A4 pages of pure text , Arial 10) - Approximately something like that, it's not the easiest queston to awnser. But a meta-data-formula with inputs like 1. total text in bytes 2. the contributors part in bytes / 3. time of latest contribution 4. Size (in bytes) of NEW text 5. Size (in bytes) of REMOVED tex. nd all these parameters goest => SWICH into a formula which gives => either "Yes this contributor should be alerted" or "NO this contributer doesn't need to be alerted.
I receive notification emails of changes to articles on my watchlist, but I'm not aware of anyway to see alerts on the web. I would like to have an additional watchlist alert on the browser to tell me when edits have been made. This would be a useful tool to monitor changes without needing email, and a 'clear page' facility to quickly remove those I've checked or wish to ignore. It needn't be so shouty as the bright red message alert colour, but seeing that Watchlist edits have been made whilst I'm on Wikipedia, not on my email, would be really welcome. I can then respond much more effectively.
Based on the questions, I assume there's a new feature that will notify me if someone uses the "email this user" feature. Haven't seen it work so if it does: Good addition and if not, please add it. / / Notification: Your file was used (phab:T77154) / / Notification of deletions, since sometimes admins delete stuff without notifying the creator/uploader.
announcements about project life

References[edit]