This task is about implementing an approach for how – if at all – topic subscriptions (T263820) should appear and function on your user talk page.

Approach

This section describes the behavior we would like to implement.

The topic subscrip

Testing instructions

1. On a wiki where the Topic Subscription beta feature is available (T274188), visit your own user talk page
2. Verify the topic subscription affordance is NOT visible/present.

Objectives

The Approach we take needs to, at a minimum, NOT detract from any of the following objectives:

1. Junior Contributors recognize talk pages as places to communicate with other people
2. Junior Contributors are confident how and when they will be notified when someone is talking to them
3. Junior Contributors understand their user talk pages as a place where other volunteers may contact them about things they have done and/or said.
4. Junior and Senior Contributors understand topic subscriptions as a way to be notified about new activity in a conversation they have explicitly expressed an interest in

Potential approaches

If there are other approaches that you think should be considered, please comment as much on this task

✅ Approach #1: do not show topic subscription affordances

• This is the approach we are moving forward with. More details in T276996#6909778.

Approach #2: show topic subscription affordances and prevent people from interacting with them

Approach #3: show topic subscription affordances and enable people to interact with them

Considerations

Assumptions

1. Introducing topic subscriptions (T263820) on your user talk page will have a marginal impact on peoples' likelihood of: A) knowing when when someone is saying something in a conversation that is relevant to them and B) receiving timely and relevant responses to the things they say on Wikipedia talk pages.
   • The above is built atop the fact that people are already receiving notifications when someone else edits *your* user talk page. [i]
2. Discussion-specific affordances, like the button/link for subscribing to a topic, will help Junior Contributors recognize their user talk page as a place to talk with other editors. See: T249579.

Risks

1. People could notice, and become confused, by the fact that notifications about edits made to your user talk page could look and behave differently than notifications about new comments posted in topics you are subscribed to that are *not* on your user talk page.
   • Example: clicking on a notification triggered by a topic subscription may end up taking you to the precise comment you are being notified about and that comment may be highlighted in some way where as clicking on a notification triggered by the existing system would take you to the section in which the new comment was posted without treated the comment you are being notified about in any kind of way.
2. If Junior Contributors see their own user talk page as looking different from other talk pages they encounter on the wiki, they could have a more difficult time understanding the relationship between the two "styles" of talk pages and subsequently, be less likely to apply what they learn interacting/using one style of talk page to interacting/using the other style of talk page.
3. Making the decision this ticket is asking for without having first formed an opinion about the ways user talks pages (of which "yours" is one) could look and function differently from talk pages in other contexts and namespaces, we could cause Junior Contributors to become further confused about how they ought to understand and use talk pages.
4. Junior Contributors may not know how/if to expect to be notified when someone says something to them on their user talk page.

Done

• Potential approaches are defined and explored
• A given Approach is decided upon
  • See: T276996#6909778.
• The Approach is implemented

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i. T259572#6615268