This task is about creating a way for page "maintainers" to opt-in to having the New Discussion Tool enabled for new topic/section workflows that use preloads.

Reason for doing this: to avoid scenarios where the New Discussion Tool inadvertently guides people who are new to add content to talk pages in ways that would be disruptive to others.

Requirements

• People who maintain discussion pages (call them "page maintainers") that use preloads to populate the existing section=new form have the ability to decide what new discussion experience (read: the New Discussion Tool or the existing section=new form) people see, by default, when interacting with an affordance that invokes said "preload."
• "Page maintainers" who opt-into the New Discussion Tool should be able to customize the "preloaded" content that appears in the tool's Title and/or Description fields. This preloaded content should coexist with whatever preloaded content is used to populate the existing/parallel section=new form.
• The New Discussion Tool preoload page should be capable of being empty and it should be empty by default.
• This new preload URL parameter should respect peoples' preferences.
  • Meaning: if a "page maintainer" opts-in to having the New Discussion Tool available on "Page A" and someone who has not opted-in to using the New Discussion Tool attempts to start a new topic on "Page A," said "someone" should see the existing section=new experience.

Approaches

Not an exhaustive list...

• 1. Introduce a new parameter
  • This new parameter would indicate whether a version of the page's section=new preload has been created that is compatible with the New Discussion Tool. Where "compatible" [i] could mean:
    • Instructions are included within the editintro parameter instead of wikitext comments (<!--...-->)
    • If you have a signature in the preloaded text, ensure it's at the end so that the tool doesn't insert another one
    • Avoid {{subst:…}} syntax
    • Remove redundant instructions, like advising people to sign the new topic they create.

Open questions

• 1. On pages that have opted-in to using the New Discussion Tool for preloads, what input mode should people see when opening the tool in its "preloaded" state by default?
  • The input mode people see by default in this scenario will depend on the preference each individual person has set. Or, in cases where someone has not yet set a preference, the input mode will be determined by the wiki's defaults. This behavior was implemented in: T250523.
  • Note: to deliver on the above, it will be important for "page maintainers" to ensure the preloads they create uphold the conditions outlined in the ===Approaches section.
• 2. On pages that have opted-in to using the New Discussion Tool for preloads, is it possible for the maintainers of these pages to specify which of the New Discussion Tool's text input modes – source or visual – people using the tool on these pages will see by default? If yes, how might these people go about specifying this preference?
  • This question is moot considering the input mode people see – source or visual – will be determined by: A) a person's individual preference or B) the preference a wikis has set. See: question "#1".
• 3. For people who manage pages considering enabling the New Discussion Tool for preloads, what might be a good way to communicate the way they ought to format the page's preloaded content such that it "cooperates" with the New Discussion Tool's visual mode. /
  • To start, we will initiate conversations with the people who have asked about preloads on mediawiki.org. These conversations will help us learn: 1) What information "page maintainers" think they will need to offer the kind of support for preloads this ticket is describing and 2) What might be effective ways for sharing this information with the broader population of "page maintainers" across projects.
  • More context in: T269310#6699739.

Done

• All ===Open questions are answered
• An ===Approach is selected
• The selected ===Approach is implemented

i. See more in T269310#6699739.