Talk:Community Wishlist/W67

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Thanks!

Thanks @Ebrahim - this is an interesting wish. Could you provide a specific use case or example (screenshots always help) of this wish? What circumstances would someone want to preview a change on a protected page? JWheeler-WMF (talk) 17:18, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

JWheeler-WMF: I think I was trying to adopt one of messages boxes in English Wikipedia with night mode weeks ago or something which wasn't done at the time, I wanted to test effect of changes in CSS values of Module:Message box/ombox.css can have in samples of Template:Ombox/doc or some other pages that had indirect use of the message box. Sure you separate the template call somehow with lots of hassle just to see effect of changes you are going to purpose but that's not what users with edit access, they use the "Show Preview" button and "Preview page with this template" feature as I do in wikis I have the right, and I wish everyone can have access to those buttons regardless of whether they can edit the pages or not. I'll post the screenshots on the bug tracker. Thanks! --Ebrahim^talk 17:52, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

w:User:Jackmcbarn/advancedtemplatesandbox.js addresses some similar issues. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 16:48, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

It always strikes me as odd when "specific use cases" are requested for what most editors view as "general basic functionality". Nonetheless, probably the most common use case would be EN:WP:Edit requests. The typical scenario would be as follows:

1. A page is a victim of significant vandalism, or is suffering unconstructive back-and-forth edit warring between two groups of editors. The page receives some level of edit protection. Protection intended to prevent disruption, but is not intended to prohibit constructive edits.
2. One or more editors have a constructive edit that should be made. The edit may be anything, but certain kinds of edits really need a preview to ensure you're getting it right. This may particularly include changes to infobox parameters, references, adding or changing an image, and most especially significant table changes like adding or removing entire rows or columns of data.
3. The user uses a draft-edit and preview cycle, possibly repeatedly, while crafting the desired edit and getting it to look right and cleaning up any syntax issues.
4. The user then copies the exact desired edit to the talk page, in an Edit Request.
5. Another user, who does have the required editing permissions, then reviews the edit request. If the edit is approved, they apply the edit to the protected page.

There is a specific and deliberate division of labor in the workflows for making an edit request vs reviewing an edit request. The task to review and apply edit requests is minimized, with maximum responsibility placed on the person making the request. The person making the edit request is responsible to ensure their Edit Request is clear, that it is correct, and that it is easy to implement. The person reviewing the edit request should not need to make any guesses or corrections in order to apply the edit. The person reviewing the edit request must be competent to review the request, but they are NOT expected to have any special knowledge of the specific article, nor should they be assumed to have any particular familiarity with the particular markup or templates involved.

This division of labor means the person making the edit request often needs to preview the correctness of their proposed edit before making the request. The current workaround is to open an edit window for a random different page and copy-past this page-source into that window, to test and preview the edit there. However that is a serious crappy workflow. It is especially crappy when there is a tiny but non-zero risk of accidentally clicking "save" and clobbering the content of the random other page. The mere thought of such an accidental save can be oppressively distracting, unpleasant, even stressful. It is possible go to a dedicated sandbox page for the preview, however getting to a dedicated sandbox page takes notably more effort than just grabbing the most convenient random edit window for a preview. Alsee (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this very well articulated and thorough explanation.

I could see how enabling preview on protected pages could help, however I am struck by the notion that finding a dedicated sandbox page could be a viable workaround.

Nonetheless - do we think this is related to the newcomer<>moderator relationship, or is this more of a use case for advanced editors? JWheeler-WMF (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@JWheeler-WMF: It seems to me that @Ebrahim is asking for enabling module and template edit forms ("Preview page with this template" in the request) even if the changes cannot be saved. Articles can be copied to a subpage or a personal sandbox, so I wouldn't say this is needed for them. To answer your question: this is for advanced editors, I believe. pon_or (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@JWheeler-WMF: I second User:Ponor's response, thank you very much User:Ponor. But I understand your side as well, things that needs to be prioritize and technical challenged indeed, I hope you see also that fit, usually privileged users like Wikimedia staff don't see need of such things but for me that have some right on some wiki and not in some else this is a nice thing to have. --Ebrahim^talk 15:47, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Super helpful

This would be super helpful, so much that I wrote a similar proposal myself :D

Just recently I wanted to see how some settings in c:Module:I18n/complex date (protected, only viewing allowed) will affect some examples in c:Template:Complex date/doc. Notice that these are not even from the same file tree, and there's a chain of calls between them. I didn't feel comfortable enough to make an edit request without seeing what effects my changes will have, and it took some ingenuity working with a few sandboxes to achieve this simple task. pon_or (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)