In the task pane (example @T100451), the history of the task is presented chronologically, with the oldest events at the top. As an activity feed, this pattern should be reversed: that way, the most recent activity around the task (which is usually most relevant) is above the fold. Think "watchlist", not "talkpage".
Description
Description
| Status | Subtype | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolved | Qgil | T553 Engineering Community team goals for October 2014 | |||
| Resolved | Qgil | T174 Launch Wikimedia Phabricator Day 1 | |||
| Resolved | Qgil | T175 Nominate a team in charge of deploying and maintaining Wikimedia Phabricator code | |||
| Resolved | • RobLa-WMF | T17 Allocate resources for the migration and maintenance | |||
| Resolved | Qgil | T19 Define which features existing in our current tools are really missing in Phabricator | |||
| Resolved | Qgil | T15 Migrate Bugzilla to Phabricator | |||
| Resolved | Aklapper | T22 Identify features Bugzilla users would miss in Phabricator | |||
| Declined | None | T100534 Add option to display task history in reverse-chronological order |
Event Timeline
Comment Actions
When you visit tasks that you have read already, only the new / last sections are displayed. The rest is behind a bar that you need to expand manually. This system works: new readers should go through the history before posting, old readers only see the new content.
Declined?
Comment Actions
I'm unable to replicate the functionality you describe, @Qgil. I just went to this task @T9148, which I have visited before, but not within the last week or so. I see the whole history, with the newest stuff--which happened since I was there last--waaaay at the bottom. What am I missing?
Comment Actions
Just give it some time? I just visited this task after visiting it yesterday and, as you can see in the screenshot below, I'm only seeing the recent actions.
Comment Actions
I've definitely seen that bar before, but I'm not seeing it in any of the tasks I'm spot-checking now. I'll keep an eye out--perhaps there's a browser compatibility issue here? Or, a user account setting?
Comment Actions
Do you usually browser tasks logged in or logged out? Needless to say, it only works when you're logged in.
Comment Actions
Cannot find an upstream request about this hence wondering if this is request is "popular enough".
(And I'm personally afraid that this makes it easier to ignore previous comments and to repeat content already brought up, one pattern that I didn't like about Bugzilla).
Should be discussed with upstream and whether there are convincing reasons to make upstream maintain such an additional option in the codebase.
Comment Actions
I don't recall other feedback about this, and don't currently plan to make changes here.
The behavior of the "fold older transactions" bar referenced above was updated and made more clear some time after the comments above. Generally, the rule is that transactions prior to your most recent action are hidden by default, and the text on the bar should now be clear about this.
It is very unlikely that we would solve this problem with an option or by reversing the conversation order. The idea of a "Mark Read" action to force current history to fold on later viewings has come up occasionally in the past, but I don't recall seeing feedback about it since the last round of changes to make the folding behavior more clear landed.