Wikipedia talk:Flow

My feedback

Cool idea, but there is a lot of cosmetic work to do before this would be usable as a talk page replacement. This is my initial feedback, viewing from Firefox 29 on a 5:4 monitor, 1280x1024 with pretty vanilla settings.

1. The text is much too large.

2. The gray-on-gray text in the "header" boxes does not have enough contrast.

3. The text is, really, much too large.

4. There is about twice as much whitespace on the right hand side as there should be.

5. When I mouseover the "compare post revisions" icon in the header box (and comments) for posts that have been edited, it displays mouseover text saying "Last edited by XX (br) Show changes". This text stays displayed indefinitely and blocks the list of commentors below it. Intuitive behavior would be for the mouseover text to disappear as soon as the mouse moved. Also, how will that button be handled for tablets? VQuakr (talk) 17:45, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

@Quiddity (WMF): I would be curious to hear your thoughts on these observations. VQuakr (talk) 01:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@VQuakr: Sorry for the delay, I'm away from home this week. Thanks for the feedback. :)

1 & 3) The text-size is (over)due to be fixed to the same size as article-text.

2) The color-contrast in the header box and in the text-entry placeholders, are indeed an accessibility concern, and will be fixed soon.

4) This aspect is still under extensive internal discussion (because it is objectively easier to read a fixed width column (less eye-movement and line-length to track, on eg. a very widescreen monitor with maximized window), but many editors (including me) are frustrated by it). There are a few possibilities, including: A) Putting a floating Table of Contents in that area, B) including some other type of useful meta-information or functions in that currently-empty space. Possibly some sort of power-user tool(s), so that the interface is uncluttered for newcomers, but dense-with-tools/info for those who want it. Suggestions would be appreciated! C) moving the function-links (reply/edit/thank/view wikitext/timestamp) over there. D) user-preference.

5) The first part is a new bug, thanks for spotting and describing it; filed as bugzilla:66569. For the second part, they're changing the way the "edited content" information gets displayed, to be embedded right within the timestamp area, so that should solve the touch-screen issue for that feature.

Thanks again. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Quiddity (WMF): re item #4 - I was viewing on a quite mundane, low resolution PC with a 5:4 monitor when I noted the excess whitespace. Yes, the problem will be worse at high resolutions or with a widescreen monitor, but I think it is quite telling that it is noticeably too narrow even in a near "best" (non-tablet) case. The solution is to increase the column width to a more reasonable value, not to add meta content in the whitespace. VQuakr (talk) 00:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

6. How about adding a "collapse further" button to each discussion header? Right now, I can only see five collapsed sections at a time. There could be another icon that collapses the header further, reducing the font size and hiding all information except the title, to get the header to take maybe 20% of that vertical dimension. VQuakr (talk) 00:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Redirects

Can someone please clarify the behaviour of redirects with Flow, specifically:

1. What happens when a Flow page is moved?
2. Can an existing Flow page be redirected without moving the Flow board?
3. What will happen in the conversion process to talk pages already redirected (such as User talk:ClueBot III and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions)?

Thank you, BethNaught (talk) 21:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Those are all features that we haven't built yet, but I'll tell you what the current plans are. When you move a page that has an associated Flow board, you'll get the same option on Special:MovePage that you do right now with talk pages -- a checkbox that says "Move associated Flow board".

We're also planning to create the ability to move a discussion thread from one Flow board to another, and possibly to have the same discussion surfaced on multiple Flow boards at once. That's a little bit further down the line.

I'm not sure about your third question -- I'll make sure to include that use case when we work on creating the ability to auto-archive a talk page. Thanks for bringing it up! DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Superimposed text

Looking at the test at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hampshire the time-tagging has the "13 June 2014" and "11 days ago" written on top of each other so that neither is readable. Is this a known bug? Or is the preference, or gadget, or whatever it is that gives the (hours/ days/ whatever) ago not going to be available if/ when Flow arrives? --David Biddulph (talk) 12:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Could be a browser specific issue. When I look at it I see the "days ago" view, and when I hover on that I see the actual time and date of the post - but I never see both together. I'm using Google Chrome - what are you using David? WaggersTALK 09:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

It seem to be OK on IE11 at home, but the problem occurs using IE8 (under Windows 7) at work. - David Biddulph (talk) 11:06, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Up, up and away!

Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page, fully collapsed view (well, it happens in all views, this is just by far the fastest to use), scroll down, wait, scroll further down (if you're lucky, this feature is very unpredictable), until you reach "Caption not showing? This topic was deleted by Fram" Click on the three dots (right side of the gray box) to open this or access the options, and hey presto you are back at the top of the page. This is, well, unexpected. Fram (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Similarly (or not?), in collapsed view, I can open all threads until "size issues", but everything below can't be opened when in collapsed view... Oh, and clicking on "older topics" brings me back to the top as well, in any view.

Probably unrelated, but in the thread "Where does the text at the top of the page come from?", I inserted a navbox, Template:Rebbie Jackson. In Flow, this one now gets 31 "show" options. I'm pretty sure these weren't there when I added this some months ago. I readded the template as a new topic, to see whethre it deteriorates as well (perhaps one "show" per new topic on top of it? Hurrah, we have a topic counter!)

I've understood that the further release of Flow has been postponed to at least 2015. This seems for the best. At least the trial at the two semi-dormant Wikiprojects continues to get some green "ticks" on deadline reports... Fram (talk) 13:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

And sure enough, when I add a new topic above my navbox template one, the "hide" or "show" on that one gets duplicated. Funny and sad at the same time, this one. Far from ready anyway. Fram (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Editing own comments

Is there any particular reason to disallow IP editors from editing their own comments? I could maybe see giving a limited window for doing this in, given the way IPs shift, but completely disabled?

If the entire point of Flow is to attract new editors, and we know that editors start by making those first few edits when they're new (and being surprised that it works), what message are we sending by not allowing them to make corrections in their own comments, making them look less polished in their first interactions with other editors?

Given that, in my experience, a newbie who registers first (and so edits as a redlink) is greeted with even more suspicion and hostility by many of the community than an IP editor, I would generally want to encourage new editors to edit without registering for a little while until they learn the ropes, to improve their initial interactions with other editors. This should involve some interactions on talk pages. 86.129.13.205 (talk) 18:14, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. I think so far the team's been operating on the idea that IP addresses change, and therefore you can't tell whether people are actually editing their own posts. I don't know if the idea of having a limited window for it has come up before. We'll definitely think about it; thanks for posting your thoughts. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for considering it. I've assumed that a limited-editing-window wouldn't be difficult, given that many other commenting and bulletin board systems use it, but I realise that it may be more involved than I assume. 86.129.13.205 (talk) 11:26, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank - bug

The "thank" button does not warn you. Normally you get a "Do you want to thank XYZ for this edit?" Christian75 (talk) 11:39, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, thank you for pointing it out. We've got a new version coming soon and unfortunately we had to drop the Thanks functionality temporarily; we're planning to add it back in later. On the bright side, that means the problem you're describing won't happen anymore, but I admit that's kind of a "throw the baby out with the bathwater" type situation. DannyH (WMF) (talk) 16:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)