Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/New talk pages

LiquidThreads is a next-generation discussion system for MediaWiki, which turns talk pages into a real forum, while maintaining the essential aspects of a wiki that make them so effective. It was originally developed as a Google Summer of Code project by David McCabe, and I've spent the last 4 months preparing it for deployment on Wikimedia sites, under contract from the Foundation.

The most significant feature of the extension—and the one that gives it its name—is the thread-oriented discussion format, shown in screenshot #1. Rather than simply indenting replies, as is currently done on talk pages, LiquidThreads gives editors the ability to "reply" to a particular post in a thread, and automatically places the resulting comment in the correct position within the thread. LiquidThreads support a number of additional features familiar to users of forum software; for example, a button allows one to "quote" another editor's post, and editors may insert a "summary" section for a thread to generate a record of the discussion for future readers.

The implementation of threads on a talk page as conceptual threads—rather than sections—makes a number of additional features possible. The most noticeable of these is the new thread summary listing, which acts as a replacement for the traditional table of contents on discussion pages using the extension. An example thread listing is shown in screenshot #2.

The listing not only provides links to the threads themselves—as the table of contents would—but also includes more forum-like statistics, tracking the editor who started the thread, the number of posts to it, and the time of the most recent modification. The list of threads may be sorted according to the modification time, starting at either earliest or latest; a number of additional sorting methods—notably, a way to sort by thread activity—have already been requested.

With the new listing, LiquidThreads removes the need for manual archiving of old discussions; as threads age and become inactive, they will move out of the first page of the listing (which, by default, is configured to only show the twenty most recent threads), while at the same time remaining easily accessible for future reference.

Underneath the reader-facing form of a single discussion page, individual threads—and even individual posts within threads—are implemented as distinct subpages, allowing more fine-grained control over them. One major feature which relies on this control is the availability of a thread-level watch: users can choose to watchlist individual threads of interest, rather than entire discussion pages. This is expected to be immediately useful on high-traffic pages such as noticeboards, where users may only be interested in a small subset of ongoing discussion.

When a user adds an individual thread to their watchlist, future posts to that thread trigger a "new messages" prompt for the user, leading them to a screen where they are given the opportunity to read and acknowledge the new posts (screenshot #3). Posts can be marked as read on a per-thread level, allowing users to leave threads that require replies "unread"; this causes the system to continue generating a prompt to serve as a reminder to the user.

Further testing of the extension is expected to continue for some time, and the developers are eager to receive feedback on the extension's features.

In this issue

5 October 2009

New talk pages

Sockpuppet scandal

News and notes

In the news

Discussion report

WikiProject report

Features and admins

Arbitration report

Technology report

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• LiquidThreads is a critical feature that I feared had been long abandoned. New users, and drive-by readers who just want to offer a factual correction, are often frustrated by the talk page interface, forgetting to "sign" or placing their new thread in the wrong place, and some are too intimidated by the peculiar syntax to even try. With this feature plain text posts are easy to write with no special syntax, and all the familiar benefits of forums will be available to us. I strongly recommend helping out with the testing and pushing for deployment. Dcoetzee 03:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• It sounds like a good idea. My only concern would be vandalism - would non-admins be able to revert vandalism on talk pages as they can now, or will this be an admin-only function? Apart from this, I like this - it would certainly be good for newbies who (as mentioned) can be put off by the current system. This would be more like the forums etc that most of them would have used elsewhere. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, there are vandalism fighting features built in. :) You can play with LiquidThreads at the sandbox on the strategywiki, or at the liquidthreads lab. - Philippe 15:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Not only newbies are put off by the current "system". Paradoctor (talk) 08:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• The huge difference, to me, will be the ability to watchlist individual threads, not whole pages. Tony (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Why call it LiquidThreads if it is in fact just a simple forum? --88.70.241.133 (talk) 15:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably because it causes threads to act more liquidly - that is, they can be handled in a much more free-form manner than the current system easily allows for. In all actuality, it seems to me that LiquidThreads is in some ways actually more flexible than most forum software, and not just because (as I understand) we should still be able to take full advantage of existing wiki markup while using it. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 17:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because it sounds cooler ;) — Jake Wartenberg 03:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, yes, there is that, too... =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 18:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• I like the idea but I hope it's simple to operate, because as Paradoctor has said above newbies could be put off if the syntax is too complex. --FF3000 · talk 20:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Errrm, I was not complaining about wikicode, I was referring to the fact that organizing discussions is currently an almost entirely manual process, i. e. a drag. Newbies who don't know wikicode are of course doubly burned in this respect. Paradoctor (talk) 21:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• With the system in use at the present time (does it have a name?), my post, to an earlier section on a discussion page, or even in response to a much older comment in the latest section, might not be noticed as much as a comment at the bottom of the latest section. Sometimes, I simply do not have a comment ready as soon as the page shows the comments to which I am later ready to respond. Sometimes, for that reason, I decide to withhold my comments because of a lack of potential prominence for the comments. Does this new system offer any improvements in regard to late responses to much earlier comments? -- Wavelength (talk) 22:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it works in that regards much the same way actual forums do - threads with new replies automatically get moved to the top of the list (stack?). Or are you trying to ask something else? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 17:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did not know that about actual forums, but if everyone becomes accustomed to looking at the top of a discussion page for the latest replies, then maybe there is adequate prominence for a reply posted much later than a comment to which one is replying. You seem to have correctly understood my question. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• I feel that this will be a very big and positive step forward in Wikipedia (as well as the other Wikimedia wikis) especially regarding the more user-friendly nature of the interface. As Wikipedia was gotten more and more popular, it was attracted more and more new people to the site – many who don't even know the basics behind computers let alone wiki syntax – which we as a community (that I mean both editors as well as developers) need to cater to. MuZemike 03:48, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]