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Explore: how can Reply tool be enabled on pages consisting solely of transcluded conversations
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Description

How might the Reply tool be enabled on non-talk namespace discussion pages that should not have new discussions started on them? E.g. on pages that consist entirely of discussions transcluded from other pages.


Context

As @Lofhi points out here [1], there are some pages [2] that have the following characteristics:

  • Conversations happen on the page
  • Conversations that happen on the page are transcluded from other pages
  • The page does not exist in a talk namespace

People would like for the Reply tool to be accessible on pages with the above characteristics.

Potential issue

Trouble is, the initial approach we've taken to enabling the Reply tool on non-talk namespace pages (T245890) means the "Add topic" button will also be introduced. This could be problematic because newcomers [or others] could be led to starting new conversations on these pages which would defy convention.[3]

This task is about thinking through how T245890 could be augmented to lower the likelihood the "Potential issue" could happen.

Done

  • Develop an approach for how Reply tools can be enabled on discussion pages outside the talk namespaces without introducing the "Add topic" tab.

  1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_Projet%3AOutils_de_discussion&type=revision&diff=169686943&oldid=169686346
  2. E.g. French Wikipedia's Le Bistro.
  3. https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro&diff=prev&oldid=169736389

Event Timeline

The page does not exist in a talk namespace. It

Note that in this particular example, the page would be considered a talk namespace if we included signature namespaces, per T249036. It may be that once that issue is resolved, there are barely any edge cases left, and so creating a new magic word might not be necessary.

Update to task description
Adding a link to a diff wherein someone was led to start a new discussion on French Wikipedia's Le Bistro, thereby defying community conventions.

Thank you, @Lofhi for alerting us of the above: https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discussion_Projet%3AOutils_de_discussion&type=revision&diff=169745141&oldid=169705790

Develop an approach for how Reply tools can be enabled on discussion pages outside the talk namespaces without introducing the "Add topic" tab.

We think it would be worthwhile to test enabling DiscussionTools in namespaces where the signature button [i] is enabled. This way, Reply links could be visible without needing the "New section" to be available as well.

We would value you sharing your input about the above approach by commenting on this task: T249036.


i. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgExtraSignatureNamespaces

Per T249036#6077576, we are going to experiment with enabling the Reply tool in namespaces that have the $wgExtraSignaturesNamespaces turned on.

We think this will resolve the issue this task raised by make it so "Reply" links can be enabled on pages without needing the "New section" tab to be available as well.

matmarex subscribed.

Per T249036#6077576, we are going to experiment with enabling the Reply tool in namespaces that have the $wgExtraSignaturesNamespaces turned on.

We think this will resolve the issue this task raised by make it so "Reply" links can be enabled on pages without needing the "New section" tab to be available as well.

This appears to work well in practice.