Note that this tool exists which greatly simplifies things: https://tools.wmflabs.org/phabulous/ Further docs (if needed) are linked at the top.
[Edit: I misread/misunderstood - I thought the proposal was merely to improve the pre-filled task link. That's what the tool I linked above is good for.]

Is it possible to create the form but not link it from the "Star" for everyone? Just have a link to point people to?

Yes, via https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/XX/ format (replace XX by the number of the form).

Hi! Thanks for all the feedback! @Quiddity, I used that tool, it's great!

@Aklapper, well, if I have guidance/help I think I could create the form myself. Depends what the best practices are.
Can you elaborate on your last comment. Do you just mean that once the new form is created we could just link to it via that format?

I created a form. Haven't played much with Forms before, so bare with me.
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/62/ is the link that people creating a task should use.
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/transactions/editengine/maniphest.task/view/62/ is the configuration link.
Does that look okay?
We can also add a preamble above all fields, if wanted, to clarify when to use it or to link to more information.
We could also hide more fields if not needed, just tell me which ones.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help/Forms explains how anyone can add that form to their Favorites (star) menu.

Oh cool!
I think, in an effort to direct attention for the requester:

• we could hide the Status, Priority, Assigned To and Story Points fields, because we would take care of that
• is it possible to expand the description field, so the whole content is visible. So then you just scroll the whole page instead of having two scrollable areas (the description field and the page to e.g. see the preview).

And yes, I think the main advantage of a form is to have a preamble above all fields. @mcruzWMF did you have something specific in mind, when you were thinking about creating a form for the requests?

In T223102#5184577, @hdothiduc wrote:

Oh cool!
I think, in an effort to direct attention for the requester:

• we could hide the Status, Priority, Assigned To and Story Points fields, because we would take care of that
• is it possible to expand the description field, so the whole content is visible. So then you just scroll the whole page instead of having two scrollable areas (the description field and the page to e.g. see the preview).

And yes, I think the main advantage of a form is to have a preamble above all fields. @mcruzWMF did you have something specific in mind, when you were thinking about creating a form for the requests?

Yes. The reason I proposed creating a form is that I saw that specific tasks (like reporting a bug, or a security issue) available on the star menu or the "create task" menu were pre-populated with specific section titles thanks to a form. So when a user clicks on "Report a bug", Phab pulls this form and produces a specific task creation view (the task description has certain fields the user has to complete, there is a sort of "edit notice" or preamble to the task, etc).

We need to implement this for design and community comms requests as well. At the time, our colleagues cannot find the pre-filled task in two clicks on Phabricator, like they do with other tasks. At the moment, we have to ask them to re-submit tasks because this template is not visible to them, duplicating the work. The second problem we have is that, when they re-submit, they usually copy paste without proper formatting, which makes reading the task difficult for us.

I estimate that having this template available in the environment where colleagues submit requests will reduce the time we spend editing the task to a third.

In T223102#5184577, @hdothiduc wrote:

• we could hide the Status, Priority, Assigned To and Story Points fields, because we would take care of that

Done.

• is it possible to expand the description field, so the whole content is visible. So then you just scroll the whole page instead of having two scrollable areas (the description field and the page to e.g. see the preview).

It's not possible to influence the default height of the "Description" field per form, sorry.

In T223102#5185432, @mcruzWMF wrote:

We need to implement this for design and community comms requests as well. At the time, our colleagues cannot find the pre-filled task in two clicks on Phabricator, like they do with other tasks.

I am curious how exactly your colleagues try to find how and where to file a task in Phabricator under your project.

• See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help/Forms how anyone can add a form to their Favorites (star) menu by customizing their Favorites menu.
• To maybe communicate expectations a bit more, feel free to edit the project description at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/manage/3982/ to put most important stuff first. Using the project search (which displays the first sentence of the project description), it currently looks like this:

In T223102#5185872, @Aklapper wrote:

In T223102#5185432, @mcruzWMF wrote:

We need to implement this for design and community comms requests as well. At the time, our colleagues cannot find the pre-filled task in two clicks on Phabricator, like they do with other tasks.

I am curious how exactly your colleagues try to find how and where to file a task in Phabricator under your project.

• See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Phabricator/Help/Forms how anyone can add a form to their Favorites (star) menu by customizing their Favorites menu.

This is a good idea, we can ask our colleagues to include the form in the favorites menu, so we don't need to modify the menu for everyone on Phab. Where is the link to the form? I found it :-)

• To maybe communicate expectations a bit more, feel free to edit the project description at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/manage/3982/ to put most important stuff first. Using the project search (which displays the first sentence of the project description), it currently looks like this:

Good point as well. I will see to change the one-liner describing both projects.

@Aklapper:

1. Can we change the name of the form to "CommRel Design Request"?
2. We should also create a form that is just for community comms. It is mostly the same form, but it changes the people who are subscribed to it and the associated projects. This is the link to the pre-filled task. If you have any recommendations regarding these two forms that are very similar, I'd love to hear it.
3. Can Hang and I become form editors, in case we need to make modifications in the future?

Thanks for your support!

In T223102#5199076, @mcruzWMF wrote:

1. Can we change the name of the form to "CommRel Design Request"?

Sure, done!

3. Can Hang and I become form editors, in case we need to make modifications in the future?

After verifying your SUL accounts connected to your Phab accounts via Special:Log (1, 2) as per [Special:CentralAuth](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth) I made you both members of WMF-NDA. I think this might allow you to edit Forms in Phabricator as the "Can Edit" form policy allows members of WMF-NDA to edit.

In T223102#5199089, @Aklapper wrote:

In T223102#5199076, @mcruzWMF wrote:

1. Can we change the name of the form to "CommRel Design Request"?

Sure, done!

Thanks!

3. Can Hang and I become form editors, in case we need to make modifications in the future?

After verifying your SUL accounts connected to your Phab accounts via Special:Log (1, 2) as per [Special:CentralAuth](https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth) I made you both members of WMF-NDA. I think this might allow you to edit Forms in Phabricator as the "Can Edit" form policy allows members of WMF-NDA to edit.

I tried, and still can't edit the form.

Hmm. For which exact URL do you get which exact error message?

In T223102#5199188, @Aklapper wrote:

Hmm. For which exact URL do you get which exact error message?

For URL: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/transactions/editengine/maniphest.task/view/62/
when I click on "Edit Form configuration", I get the message "You do not have permission to edit this object".

See attached image.

I can confirm, I see the same as María.

I think editing forms is limited to admins. That or it's acl*phabricator

Note: I'm an admin (and on their team) and can edit the form in the future as needed.

In T223102#5201629, @Quiddity wrote:

Note: I'm an admin (and on their team) and can edit the form in the future as needed.

Thanks, Quiddity.
I think it is still important for Hang and me to edit this form if that is possible. We should have as much control and autonomy over our means of work as possible.

In T223102#5201311, @mmodell wrote:

I think editing forms is limited to admins. That or it's acl*phabricator

Thanks @mmodell. I thought so too but was not sure given the "Can Edit" form policy and as the UI is confusing as heck to me.

In T223102#5201689, @mcruzWMF wrote:

I think it is still important for Hang and me to edit this form if that is possible.

That would either require making you a Phab admin, or a separate feature request task against Phabricator which requests development of per-form edit policies and includes a use case description.

In T223102#5199076, @mcruzWMF wrote:

2. We should also create a form that is just for community comms. It is mostly the same form, but it changes the people who are subscribed to it and the associated projects. This is the link to the pre-filled task. If you have any recommendations regarding these two forms that are very similar, I'd love to hear it.

I don't think I can offer anything else than setting up another form. :) Same questions as in T223102#5184316 apply. What's the preferred name?

The view policy on the form controls who can use it. I believe that editing forms is controlled globally by the "transactions" application policy.

I've added @mcruzWMF to the #acl*phabricator group. @mcruzWMF can you edit the form now?

In T223102#5203223, @mmodell wrote:

I've added @mcruzWMF to the #acl*phabricator group. @mcruzWMF can you edit the form now?

No, I get the same message as I describe on this message

Seeing https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T224173 you may also make the template explicitly say that it shall include a link to more information?

In T223102#5185432, @mcruzWMF wrote:

At the time, our colleagues cannot find the pre-filled task in two clicks on Phabricator, like they do with other tasks. At the moment, we have to ask them to re-submit tasks because this template is not visible to them, duplicating the work. The second problem we have is that, when they re-submit, they usually copy paste without proper formatting, which makes reading the task difficult for us.

@mcruzWMF: A (slightly evil? maybe even rude?) approach to this could be setting up a Herald rule which checks for the presence of certain strings (which are in the template / form) in the task description of a newly created task under Community comms and outreach.
If the defined string(s) are not present in the task description, the Herald rule would automatically add a comment asking people to use the form / template.

I've been using this concept in Herald rule H297 for the numerous MediaViewer reports that we get about random third party websites that we cannot fix, in order to 'automatically' explain the issue and close those tasks as invalid.
You can see an example at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T215003

In T223102#5207629, @Aklapper wrote:

Seeing https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T224173 you may also make the template explicitly say that it shall include a link to more information?

@Aklapper Good point, I think ideally though, they could explain what their project is about in 3 sentences. I don't want to encourage everyone to just link to their reports or massive documentation. The new questions seem to tease out these 3 high level sentences that already help a lot.

To your idea about the Herald rule: I really like it and actually don't find that rude (that's the German in me) - I think it's direct and efficient!
I would like to have that for CommRel-Design tasks! Do you have a recommendation of which strings to use?

In a conversation with @Qgil it came up, that in the preamble we can inform people about the process for filing a private request, if they feel like their content shouldn't be public.

I'm currently blocked on T223102#5202623 to set up a second form. After that I'd consider this task resolved.
(Another issue is the editing permissions issue for non-Admins.
And another idea introduced is my idea to set up a Phab Herald rule.)

Thank you @Aklapper for the heads up.
For the Phab Herald rule, should I simply create a task in Phabricator?
@mcruzWMF, would you like to be included / to have the rule be set up for Community Comms requests as well?

@Quiddity would it be ok to reach out to you, in case the form needs to be slightly tweaked?

In T223102#5222173, @hdothiduc wrote:

@Quiddity would it be ok to reach out to you, in case the form needs to be slightly tweaked?

of course :)

In T223102#5222173, @hdothiduc wrote:

Thank you @Aklapper for the heads up.
For the Phab Herald rule, should I simply create a task in Phabricator?
@mcruzWMF, would you like to be included / to have the rule be set up for Community Comms requests as well?

Yes, please! Great idea.

@Quiddity would it be ok to reach out to you, in case the form needs to be slightly tweaked?

In T223102#5205712, @mcruzWMF wrote:

In T223102#5203223, @mmodell wrote:

I've added @mcruzWMF to the #acl*phabricator group. @mcruzWMF can you edit the form now?

No, I get the same message as I describe on this message

@Aklapper any news on this? ^^

In T223102#5222173, @hdothiduc wrote:

For the Phab Herald rule, should I simply create a task in Phabricator?

I originally had something like this in mind:

In T223102#5222644, @mcruzWMF wrote:

@Aklapper any news on this? ^^

I currently don't plan to investigate understanding permissions in Phab Forms, sorry. T223102#5222279 offers a workaround.

Community Comms requests form created, based on template linked from https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/3724/ .
I set @mcruzWMF and @hdothiduc as CCed/subscribers by default.

• https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/64/ is the link that people should use.
• https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/transactions/editengine/maniphest.task/view/64/ can be used by admins to edit the form.

Anything else to do here? If not, feel free to

• edit project descriptions (via "Manage" on the project tag page) to make descriptions link to forms instead of templates, and
• inform folks to use the form and link them to how to add the form link(s) to the "Favorites" menu in Phabricator (see T223102#5184316 ).
• set the status of this task as "resolved" via the Add Action... → Change Status dropdown. Thanks!

Update: Yes, more to do here:

In T223102#5210394, @hdothiduc wrote:

in the preamble we can inform people about the process for filing a private request, if they feel like their content shouldn't be public.

What exactly should be written there? Where to find that process?

Hi @Aklapper thank you very much for all of this!
You can actually remove me as a subscriber from the Comms request form (form 64).

I think in the preamble we can say:
.

This form helps to understand the specifics of your request for Community Relations Design.

If you would like to privately request support from the larger Community Relations team use this form.
.

@mcruzWMF is out of office this week, so I would like to wait for her input. Thank you very much for your patience!
For future tweaks I will kindly ask Nick for help :)

In T223102#5235257, @hdothiduc wrote:

You can actually remove me as a subscriber from the Comms request form (form 64).

Done.

I think in the preamble we can say:

This form helps to understand the specifics of your request for Community Relations Design.

Brackets [ ] and underscores ____ indicate where you can add details. Please, don't change the indentation (- or -- at the beginning of a line), so the task description is clearly laid out.

If you would like to privately request support from the larger Community Relations team use this form.

Done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/transactions/editengine/maniphest.task/view/62/ , plus also added "Use the Preview at the bottom."

@mcruzWMF is out of office this week, so I would like to wait for her input. Thank you very much for your patience!

FWIW, I think the checkboxes at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T225036 are confusing, because the selected option then has strikethrough.
I know the instructions explain the intent anyway. Maybe just removing unused options also works.

Thank you so much, Andre!

I think what Erica means is that when you put an "x" in between the brackets, the item of the list will have a strikethrough, which is confusing. And I agree.
However removing all that doesn't apply is more work for the requester. I think we can leave it for now and will adjust as time comes.

Again thank you very much, Andre.
Any adjustments @Quiddity can do for us (Thank you so much in advance, Nick!)