Talk:Community Tech/Cross-wiki watchlist
Add topicmultiple watchlists and catwatch
[edit]With the recent activation of catwatch watchlists can become quite crowded. This will be even more the case with a global watchlist. Therefore a user should be able to have more than one watchlist, making it possible to group watched pages by individual criteria (for example watched categories, watched pages on german language wiki projects, watched pages on art, edited pages in the user namespace, ...). --° (Gradzeichen) 08:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
- We were thinking about using filters to help people find what they're looking for in their watchlist, rather than having separate pages. But that is another option... How would people set up a second watchlist, using a search query? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
- My idea is that a user can set up watchlists by assigning a name to a new watchlist. Then the user can set in the preferences on each individuel wiki one of these watchlists as the default watchlist for this wiki. When clicking the star icon on a page to watch this page, this page is added to the default watchlist. Later the user can move or copy the entry to his other watchlists. --° (Gradzeichen) 23:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
- That's an interesting idea. I think it's beyond the scope of what we can do with this particular wishlist item. There were seven watchlist-related proposals in the Wishlist Survey, and the cross-wiki watchlist was the one that got the most support, so we have to focus on this one. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well something has to be implemented to make a global watchlist actually usable in real life (catwatch being important to be considered). This could be the "named watchlists" approach or the filters or something completely different. I prefer the named watchlists idea, but if filters are used, there should be a way to save your filters. Another thing: At the moment you can choose to have all watchlist changes mailed to you on a per wiki base, the named watchlists would provide an easy way to manage this on a per watchlist base (allowing for example to get emails for edits to watched pages, but not for categorizations; or to get emails for wikidata pages, but not Q-entries). --° (Gradzeichen) 05:47, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
- Hmm, that's a good question about saving/naming filters. I put that on the project's notes page to make sure that we think about that, once we start giving more attention to this project. I think the separate mailing list idea is probably outside our scope for this -- a cross-wiki watchlist could keep the current status quo for notifications, and it would still work. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Watchlist survey questions
[edit]The classes of the survey are weird, I suppose most people answering the survey will have more than 1000 pages in the watchlist? In my experience the usage I make of the watchlist varied when/where it went over 5000 or 20000 items. Nemo 07:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
- Besides, a more useful information is how many edits those pages received in the last month (the user can easily verify that by enabling the extended watchlist, setting hte maximum shown edits to 1000 and seeing how many days are shown on the watchlist). For instance I have 4000 pages in my watchlist here on Meta, but many are inactive; I only have 200 pages on my English Wikiquote watchlist, but most of them are active so there are at least 10 updates per day; I have 4000 pages in MediaWiki.org and some days are less busy than the English Wikiquote, while some pages have a lot of updates which however I ignore most of the time (by not clicking the enotifwatchlist link, which means I won't receive another notification unless I explicitly go look for that page in my special:watchlist or elsewhere). Nemo 08:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
The survey has a fundamental problem for me: I use the watchlist in different ways on different wikis. The answers to some of the questions will vary depending on which kind of wiki activity/site we're talking about. Should I submit the survey multiple times, once for every "persona"? --Nemo 07:38, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
- For instance "When there are new items on your watchlist, how likely are you to take the following actions" depends on whether I'm an admin or not on the wiki and on whether I'm patrolling. "For the following reasons, how likely are you to add a page to your watchlist?" is totally different depending on the wiki and I'm not even answering it. Nemo 07:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
What does «If you contribute to or watch pages on Wikipedia, how many languages are you active on?» actually mean? Should I consider only the languages where I regularly check the watchlist? Any language where I edit? Any language where I edit and watchlist pages? Something else? Depending on the exact meaning, my answer might be 0, 1, 2, 10 or 100. Nemo 07:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
- Hi, Nemo. For all of the questions that you've asked here, I think we're looking for the combined totals of all the wikis and personas that you have. You're active on 100 languages, and you have either "more than 1,000" or "too many to estimate" items, depending on how you'd classify it. For the reasons, if you're very likely to follow changes to a page you've contributed to on any of the wikis you're active on, mark very likely. Thanks for participating in the survey, and thinking so carefully about your answers. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Early wireframes, for discussion
[edit]These are wireframes for the cross-wiki watchlist project, #4 on the 2015 Community Wishlist Survey.
Our goal is to build a beta feature that users will enable, replacing their current watchlist with a functional, easy-to-browse cross-wiki watchlist.
These are very early wireframes, shown here in rough form, because we want the community to have the opportunity to participate in this process, as the project develops.
On the project page, there's more information on what's included in these wireframes and what's not.
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opening the diff pane
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opening the filters
What we want to know: How would you use this? Which elements would fit your workflow, and which would get in your way? What are the important missing pieces? Is the information arranged in a way that makes sense?
Feedback on the way that elements look -- color, size, font -- is less important for us right now, because we're still figuring out the structure. It's more important to get feedback on how you'd use it, and what would trip you up. But feel free to tell us what's on your mind; we're interested in hearing what you think. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
- Will that be the most compact available view? a one line per entry format option would nice. And how about a sortable (by project, editor, article, size of diff, time, ...) table view? --° (Gradzeichen) 06:54, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
- While this is a nice new design, many users would not use the feature unless it was provided using a highly compact appearance, similar to the current watchlist. Perhaps both designs (the one proposed here and one very closely modelled on the existing watchlist design) could be offered. Aside from the design, the available features in those wireframes look adequate, although I would strongly desire a "Group by project" option (i.e. have the watchlist entries grouped under a separate subheading for each project, with the currently active project first in the list). This, that and the other (talk) 01:20, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'd rather have a default watchlist related to the project I am currently on (which is likely to be the one on which I am the most active), and the option to have a look at what occurred elsewhere. The filters zone would remain the same. This would lead to a more compact view. Perhaps through a dropdown menu which would only display the wikis on which the watchlist has something to show ? Litlok (talk) 08:58, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'd prefer to see a combined watchlist be as similar as possible to the existing format. In an ideal world the only thing that would be different would be the links, for instance en:Honorific or de:K Freiburger Münster. For example:
21 May 2016
(diff | hist) . . en:Honorific; 10:22 . . (+48) . . Chicbyaccident (talk | contribs)
(diff | hist) . . en:West Stanley Pit disaster; 08:18 . . (-18) . . Hugo999 (talk | contribs) (-Category:1909 disasters; ±Category:1909 in the United Kingdom→Category:1909 disasters in the United Kingdom using HotCat)
(Unterschied | Versionen) . . de:K Freiburger Münster; 22:09 . . (+1) . . GeorgDerReisende (Diskussion | Beiträge) (Klammern korrigiert | Klammerfehler - Helfer gesucht)
- It would be nice to render the "(diff | hist)" and "(talk | contribs)" in the language from which the watchlist is being used, but presumably anyone using different languages will be able to work them out if this is difficult. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:55, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- Much work to do — In my opinion you're on the completely wrong track, sorry. Here's some things to consider:
- People like Watchlists the way they are now! Don't try to re-invent the wheel. Keep the layout/functionality exactly as-is. Only add the possibility to show edits from other Wikis, too. It will keep users happy and save you a lot of unnecessary work at the same time!
- Do not mix edits (at least optionally) from different Wikis. A list that combines edits from all Wikis is doomed to become confusing and unuseful. If you ask me take a look at the epic tool Global user contributions and implement it exactly that way (a setting to control the time interval shown is mandatory though, but that's in both, current watchlists as well as your proposed wireframes).
- Keep the JavaScript crap out (really!). While it's usually meant well, reality is that it's slowing things down, is error prone, makes it far more difficult for volunteers to offer customizations (and if you look at the number of customizations available for Watchlists this is a very important point for the Wikipedia ecosystem), therefore reducing overall productivity. People don't need to see diffs directly in the Watchlist. This is why we have "(diff | hist)" buttons (the latter one is missing from you wireframes)! If you really want to provide such functionality, then do it in a modular way that works on top of the standard Watchlist by optionally replacing those links with features to dynamically load content. --Patrick87 (talk) 11:30, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'm confused by the images above as well. Are they meant as examples of how the watchlist could become very messy and unusable? I suggest to focus on how to let users understand and filter by context (source wiki). Nemo 14:01, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- Hi, Thank you for providing these pictures. My first impression is that the design makes it hard to gather information quickly if you have a watchlist that includes a larger number of articles. For example, my watchlist on German Wikipedia includes about a hundred items a day and I usually inspect only a dozen of the entries in it by opening the diff in a new tab. Please consider the following use case: During my lunch break, I often log on to have a quick overview of what has happened since I last checked my watchlist the night before. At the moment, this requires no scrolling because the current watchlist is very compact, so the new design would not improve things greatly. However, I like the idea of being able to expand the diff without having to open a separate tab. Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 17:43, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
- Here's my 2 cents worth:
- It seems that the wireframes show the following changes:
- Showing watchlist items from multiple projects
- Adding a filter to select which projects are being shown
- Using multi-select filters (checkboxes) for new project filter and existing namespace filter
- Changing layout of the filters
- Allowing diffs and history to be shown directly on the watchlist
- The first two are definitely 'in-scope'; #3 seems a minor helpful expansion which in turn requires #4.
- However, the last one, #5, is a significant departure from the existing watchlist format. It seems nice and I might use it, but I'm very worried about how it would work with my existing watchlist-related preferences, especially "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" and "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist". (Side note: Oh, I do with there were an options to "Expand watchlist to show all changes since my last visit, without being grouped by date"
- Here's some feedback and suggestions:
- Compactness is the most important thing in deciding between display options.
- I concur what is said above about the importance of a very compact view. The wireframe shown makes it look like the most condensed form consumes three lines per change. Yuck.
- The project name should be abbreviated as small as possible to keep things compact.
- Namespace filter would be best broken into two filters. The first, a list of non-talk namespaces, with "all" and "invert selection" options. The second would either be three radio-button style options (Non-talk only/Talk only/Both) or two checkbox-style options (Talk/Non-talk).
- "Invert selection" could be implemented as a button that actually inverted the selection
- "All" could likewise be implemented as a button that actually checked every box
- The idea of jumping directly to diff or history without going to a new page sounds interesting, but I wouldn't want to give up grouping changes by page.
- Seeing the diff/hist buttons in differing languages would not be good.
- I notice that there are a lot of other preferences related to watchlists, so although I may not use them, there are certainly other editors that would have similar concerns about their watchlist preferences.
- It seems that the wireframes show the following changes:
- Thanks for the opportunity to give feedback. YBG (talk) 07:15, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with what a lot of other people have said, I would prefer the link to open the diff in a new browser tab, instead of opening it directly on the watchlist. I'd like the new watchlist to be similar to the current one, only show multiple projects, with the ability to sort by project, and namespace. I like that you've color coded for the different projects. ONUnicorn (talk) 13:48, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Like ONUnicorn, I find the colors helpful and would appreciate the opportunity to sort by project. A namespace sort wouldn't be useful for me, but if you add it as a non-default option, I wouldn't care either way. I almost always open links in new tabs (I use IE, so that means holding down the CTRL key while clicking the link), but occasionally I'll visit a page in the same tab; it would help if you'd display it just like it is currently, with plain links that can do either one. Please don't make it like en:wp notifications, which are prone to some sort of mistakes: even though I hold down CTRL, clicking these links often takes me to the page where the notification was made, instead of opening a new tab. And definitely don't create a new watchlist that's so "big" and space-consuming. Just give us the same content as we're accustomed to seeing: text and blank space, with every character being either part of a link or plain text. If it's formatted like in the pictures, the new watchlist will be nearly useless to me; I don't expect I'll use it if it looks like the pictures. Nyttend (talk) 19:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Re: compactness - I agree with the compactness comments (I like tiny text and I cannot lie), but also agree that options for a less-dense layout will be appreciated by many editors. A more open white-spacey version with more consistent alignment of each aspect is probably great for newcomers (less overwhelming, and easier to discern patterns and hence context), and some long-term editors who struggle with the density of the current watchlist will appreciate it, too.
- I still think the gmail UI options are a great solution, and should be adopted if possible. (I.e. The dropdown menu offering "comfortable/cozy/compact" screenshot, which changes padding and truncation and various other things.) I do grok the difficulties with mw:Just make it a user preference (hence wrote that essay), but I wonder (as a non-dev) if this particular instance would be relatively simple to implement, simply by making the default the normal compact version, and then using CSS to add whitespace and tweak aspects of each element's placement/layout? Quiddity (talk) 22:15, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
One general (and important) clarification: We're aiming to complement the existing watchlist, not replace it. This is a separate tool. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Or, let me rephrase that: It would replace the existing watchlist if you choose to use it, but we're not doing this to force this upon users who don't active it themselves. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification, and thanks for not forcing this on people. But I wouldn't be able to (1) go to Special:Watchlist to see my local watchlist, and (2) go to Special:Otherwatchlist to see the global one? I had assumed that this would be either be a toggleable setting on the watchlist (show just local stuff, or show everything), or it would be an entirely separate page. Nyttend (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- The plan for right now is to make this as a beta feature, and when you enable it, it replaces Special:Watchlist with the new cross-wiki version. Of course, for that to be successful even as a beta features, it needs to be an acceptable replacement, which fits the way that you do your work. This may involve a way of toggling or sorting -- that's come up a lot, and I want to talk to folks here about different possibilities... -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification, and thanks for not forcing this on people. But I wouldn't be able to (1) go to Special:Watchlist to see my local watchlist, and (2) go to Special:Otherwatchlist to see the global one? I had assumed that this would be either be a toggleable setting on the watchlist (show just local stuff, or show everything), or it would be an entirely separate page. Nyttend (talk) 19:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone who's posted their thoughts so far. It's obvious here that folks want a more compact version -- of the ten people who have commented so far, everybody has said we should keep the format as close as possible to the existing watchlist, with five out of ten specifically using the word "compact".
Just thinking aloud about this for a moment: Right now, a lot of watchlist entries are just one line, although they can stretch to two or more, based on the length of the page name, whether it has an edit summary, and whether you have extra tools like block or rollback. We're adding at least one element -- the way to show which wiki the item is from -- and that will add to the character count, pushing what would have been a one-line item to two lines.
Another way that we could keep things compact is to hide some elements behind a click -- that's what we wanted to try out in this wireframe. You could have the most immediately useful elements visible in one compact line, and have the less-immediate elements behind a click. I know that people are saying "change as little as possible!" -- I'm just thinking about how to add the extra element of the wiki name and still keep things compact and on one line. I'd be interested to hear what you think.
Also, there have been two different ideas expressed about how to present items from different wikis in the list:
- All items from all wikis, interlaced in the same list by chronology
- Separate groups by wiki, as used in the Global user contributions tool
People have also mentioned some variations -- showing the current wiki as default, with the option to add in other wikis.
Of the main two choices -- one list vs split up by groups -- I think there are some downsides to separating by wiki. I assume we'd want the current wiki to be on top, and then order the other groups by the project that has the most recent edits. But that's a lot of scrolling to see the others, especially if there's a lot on the current wiki list. Essentially, what you'd get is exactly the watchlist page that you have now, with more watchlists transcluded below.
There's a lot of discussion here about how to sort, filter and organize the watchlist items. That seems like a key part of this idea -- we're adding more information to an already info-heavy page, so you'd want a couple extra tools to help you manage this. What would be the most important ways you'd want to interact with this? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- Question: What about categorizations and wikidata edits? a single edit in wikidata could cause a large number of watchlist entries if you watch the same article in many languages. --° (Gradzeichen) 21:48, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
- "That's a lot of scrolling to see the others": True, but I'd say my watchlist is empty on all but a handful of projects, and the same would apply to all but a very few highly cross-wiki users. Presumably such users would either switch to a purely chronological (not grouped by project) view, or reduce the displayed timespan if the long scrolling bothered them. (And yes, for the record I think both group-by-project and all-items-in-one-chronological-list should be implemented.)
- As for the layout, it would be interesting to experiment with a "mw-datatable" like some of the other special pages. It's certainly compact, and allows instant sortability through the jQuery sortable module (although grouping would have to be implemented separately); whether it would work well for the watchlist, I don't know. I don't think the wireframe designs should be thrown out altogether; I think this is a great opportunity to rethink the design of the watchlist from scratch, for the benefit of less familiar users. But experienced users need a way to view the watchlist in a highly compact layout. This, that and the other (talk) 09:29, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
New wireframe, for discussion
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/New_cross-wiki_watchlist_01.jpg/400px-New_cross-wiki_watchlist_01.jpg)
So -- based on the feedback that everyone's given so far, here's a much more stripped-down concept for the wireframe. Essentially, it's the same as the existing watchlist, with a bubble at the start of each item indicating where the item is from. For the wiki that you're currently on, the bubble is light gray. Colors for the other projects are assigned on the fly, and are consistent for that pageview.
This is just the basic display. We'll also need filters -- i.e. a way to switch between this view and just the local wiki view, or to turn on only some projects.
By the way -- these aren't real fonts or graphics, this is made on a wireframe creator that deliberately makes everything look unfinished.
There have been some other ideas posted above, about different ways of organizing this -- for example, showing all of the IT:WS items, then the ES:WP items, and so on. Let us know what you think about this wireframe, and we can keep playing with some of these concepts. Thanks! -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
- Much, much better! This looks far more usable than you previous suggestion.
- One question that arises when looking at that wireframe: What does the bubble do when clicked? It's the most prominent element on that page, so we should definitely assign it a useful functionality. I don't find it easy right now to think of something that really needs to be there (that isn't already included in current watchlists). Maybe it could be used for filtering per Wiki? Then again this is probably more clearly done via checkboxes or similar at the top...
- One thing that you did not address yet: As I wrote before I'd prefer my Interwiki-Watchlist to be ordered by project, rather than have all changes interleaved. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would prefer the clarity of this approach over the more compact layout of interleaved edits.
- --Patrick87 (talk) 13:15, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, I was thinking about the Global User Contributions tool that you linked to. That page splits log items up per wiki, but I'm not sure how the wikis are ordered on that page. It doesn't seem to be alphabetical, or by time, or by frequency of contributions. Maybe there's a secret to it that I haven't figured out yet. :)
- But if there's an option where the cross-wiki watchlist shows the watchlist items separated by wiki, then I assume it looks more or less like that tool -- separate headings for each project, and you scroll down through them. (Or jump to using a table of contents.) There are two questions to answer for that format -- How many watchlist items appear per wiki, and how do you order the wikis on the page?
- For how many watchlist items -- it could just be the number of items for the amount of time you've set -- 7 days, 30 days, etc. Or it could cut off at a certain arbitrary point -- say, 25 items -- with a link that says "see more" before it gets to the next wiki's items.
- For how you order the wikis -- the one that you're currently on should always be the top of the list. I think it makes sense to list the rest in order of the wiki that has the most recent item, but there are other possibilities.
- By the way -- I'm thinking about the split-by-wiki format as an extra option, with the single interleaved watchlist as the default. Probably. I'm interested in hearing what other people think. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
- I like the new wire frame better. That's more like what I would like to see. I agree with DannyH (WMF) about the single interleaved watchlist as the default. What I would like to see as far as separating by project is some sort of sorting mechanism, where you can sort by column; similar to Microsoft Excel's ability to sort by column. So the default is sorted by most recent edit, but there are headers you can click to sort by project, namespace, alphabetical by article title, alphabetical by editor, etc. ONUnicorn (talk) 16:56, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- By the way -- I'm thinking about the split-by-wiki format as an extra option, with the single interleaved watchlist as the default. Probably. I'm interested in hearing what other people think. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 18:38, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
- Looks less cluttered, which is great. I definitely would like to see some sorting and toggling there. I'm not a fan of a per-wiki view, but if it's opt-in, I'm fine with it. The only *must-have* for me is a dropdown diff without leaving the watchlist, as was proposed in the first wireframe. NMaia (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- I really want to have the dropdown diff as well. Unfortunately, I think that should probably be a project on its own. Those early wireframes combined a lot of changes, and the feedback we got showed that we ought to focus on solving the specific cross-wiki functionality first. But I'm interested in talking about it, if other people also think it's essential. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
- DannyH, just to be clear: If you cut off watchlists at 25 items, I will die, and my ghost will track you down and haunt you for eternity. I just checked my enwiki watchlist, and 25 items doesn't even cover the last three hours. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing: :) Sorry, I didn't mean that the watchlist would automatically cut off; I was just trying to figure out how the split-by-project watchlist could work. It should use the same preference setting for how many changes you want to see.
- Would you want to see the combined cross-wiki watchlist, with items from all the wikis in the same list? If it's split between projects and you've got 250 items in each list, then I think it would be too much scrolling. PS. Please do not haunt me. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- DannyH, for the combined cross-wiki watchlist (all wikis mixed up together), I think that the ideal arrangement is to take my local settings and apply them to the full list of all wikis.
- So if that's 250 items or 7 days (my current enwiki settings), then I'll get 250 items or 7 days, whichever comes first. And when I go to Meta, it will be 250 items or 15 days, and at dewiki, it will be 250 items or 3 days (three days? Whoever thought that three days was a reasonable default for a watchlist?!). Those 250 items/7 days' worth of changes might be 200 from enwiki and 20 from Meta and 10 from htwiki, etc., but you will only need to care about one set of numbers. I think it would be difficult (for you) and confusing (for me) if you checked my prefs at each wiki and applied those numbers (so 7 days of enwiki changes, but it's followed by 8 days' of changes solely from Meta).
- For the split-by-project watchlist, I can see what you mean about a lot of scrolling (for the minority of users who have enormous watchlists). Assuming that "avoid having yet another preference setting" is a goal, then perhaps showing the most recent 25–50 changes, followed by a "click to see the rest from this wiki" button, would be functional. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing: Oh, I hadn't thought about people having different preferences on different wikis; I'm glad you brought it up. Yeah, I think the best thing to do there is just to use the preference for the wiki that you're on.
- A "click to see more" link is a good idea, that's a possibility. For the split-by-project view, we could show the entire list for the wiki that you're on (up to the max in your preferences on that wiki), and then for the other wikis below it, cut them off at some reasonable point with a link for more. I would like to use the preferences that already exist, so that people don't have to worry about having to re-set their preferences, especially if they have a ridiculously low default. (I agree about the three days.) -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- That sounds like a good place to start. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
More wireframes, with filters
[edit]-
Chronological - watchlist with filter options
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Just showing the current wiki
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Filtered to show two selected wikis
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Displaying watchlist by project
Here are some more wireframes, showing possible filter options.
There's two basic designs -- showing the watchlist items chronologically, and sorting by project. In the first group, you can also filter to show all wikis, the wiki you're currently on, or any combination.
What do you think? I'm not sure that the two radio buttons -- Chronological and Split by project -- will make sense to anybody but me. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Looks awesome! Maybe we could add a heading above/next the radio buttons to clarify? "Sort: * Chronological * Split by project"; Also the current watchlist options (hide/namespace/period of time) consume a lot of real estate that I worry won't fit in the allotted space, especially if we add the legend box. But maybe this is an opportunity to improve that part of the UI (I think many will agree the current watchlist is not so user-friendly) =P MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 00:36, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Or actually, I think the way the watchlist options look in the original design will both fit nicely and be intuitive, so sort of a combo of that overall design and this one MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 00:47, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- I think users will be unhappy with the amount of screen real-estate taken up, given all the furor caused when the watchlist was moved to OOUI briefly (ref phab:T99256). I otherwise like the chronological sorting. I'm not sure about the value of sorting by project for myself. --Izno (talk) 11:11, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
- I can live with this. "Sort by project" means "focus on what matters to you right now". It's a good thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Enhanced watchlist
[edit]Any cross-wiki watchlist needs to work with enhanced watchlist. The above wireframes don't seem to account for it. In that regard, I think it would be a neat feature to be able to see linked page changes cross-wiki; e.g. if I'm watching both a page on en and its Wikidata item, or a page on en and a page on fr, it would be neat to see changes to those pages collapsed in the same place. --Izno (talk) 11:04, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/XWL_07_-_Enhanced_and_grouped.jpg/220px-XWL_07_-_Enhanced_and_grouped.jpg)
- Izno: The design for this is basically just adding a bubble with the wiki name to the left of the watchlist items, so I think the combo of "Expanded watchlist to show all changes" and "Group changes by page" should look like this wireframe. ONUnicorn, you also asked about the enhanced watchlist -- does this work, or am I missing something important? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- @DannyH (WMF): That works at the basic level. You might review the "in that regard", which such a wireframe wouldn't account for (but which may be beyond the scope of this effort). --Izno (talk) 10:47, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Izno: Oh, I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to ignore that part of your message, I just got distracted by making the wireframe. That does sound pretty hard, both on a technical and a design level, and definitely won't be part of our first version of the cross-wiki watchlist. But I agree that it's a neat idea, and I'll keep it in mind. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- @DannyH (WMF): I don't think I asked about enhanced watchlist; perhaps that was someone else? I just use the standard watchlist right now. ONUnicorn (talk) 17:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- ONUnicorn -- Oops, I confused one of your comments with the one directly above it. Sorry for the pointless ping. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- @YBG: You asked about how the cross-wiki watchlist would work with the enhanced watchlist preferences -- do you have any thoughts about the wireframe here? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- It generally looks good; as you said, basically adding a bubble with the wiki name. A couple of general comments:
- Because this watchlist will have more -- maybe many, many more -- items, sorting and filtering options are much more critical than in the current watchlist.
- The cleanness and brevity of each line is very important.
- Keep short, fixed (or nearly-fixed) fields at the beginning of the line (project, flags, date, time, diff/hist)
- Keep longer, variable width fields at the end of the line (±size, user, title, edit summary)
- I'd like to continue to agitate for an option that would include all changes back to the last-visited time WITHOUT BEING GROUPED BY DATE.
- That's my thoughts for now. YBG (talk) 07:09, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- The wireframes that I posted above show two additional sort/filter option: filtering out which wikis you're seeing in the list, and whether it's all grouped together or split by wiki. Those would be in addition to the existing filters for namespace, hide minor edits and bots, etc. Are there other ways to sort and filter that you would suggest? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:53, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- @YBG: Since I've only just seen this now, your comment regarding date is (almost) tracked at phab:T10681. --Izno (talk) 19:54, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Izno: Thanks! YBG (talk) 22:47, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
- It generally looks good; as you said, basically adding a bubble with the wiki name. A couple of general comments:
- @YBG: You asked about how the cross-wiki watchlist would work with the enhanced watchlist preferences -- do you have any thoughts about the wireframe here? -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- ONUnicorn -- Oops, I confused one of your comments with the one directly above it. Sorry for the pointless ping. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
- @DannyH (WMF): That works at the basic level. You might review the "in that regard", which such a wireframe wouldn't account for (but which may be beyond the scope of this effort). --Izno (talk) 10:47, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Update Article
[edit]Hi,
You might want to update the first section of the page:
- „We posted early wireframes in mid-May, and we'd love to know what you think. Development work on this project will start in July, after Wikimania.“
Best regards, -- Michael Schönitzer (WMDE) (talk) 23:05, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
- Michael, thank you for pointing that out. I'd forgotten that text was there. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Project filter
[edit]On different projects I have different habit to check watchlist. So it would be useful (and probably easy to implement) possibility to display watchlist only for one family (WP, Wikt, Comm...) or only for one language (en.wp, en.wikt, en.source, ...) JAn Dudík (talk) 06:22, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
- JAn Dudík, thanks for the suggestion. I put that on the project page as an idea we could explore. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Phabricator
[edit]I know this is an giant and unlikely leap, but it would be great if subscribed Phabricator tasks, and Phabricator mentions, could show up on either watchlist or notifications. Alsee (talk) 09:24, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
June 2017 update?
[edit]Hi, is this project still being worked on? Is there a place where I can learn more about the status of this project? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) Let's make Wikipedia green! 16:24, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Is there a status for the project? Regards, Conny (talk) 13:27, 28 March 2019 (UTC).