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Simplify automatic re-subscribe logic
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Description

In T284836, we specified that when someone is automatically subscribed to a conversation, and they subsequently unsubscribe from that conversation, that person should remain unsubscribed to that conversation until they manually resubscribe to it.

This task is about revising/simplifying the logic above such that people will become automatically subscribed to conversations they start and/or comment in in all cases except when the the Automatically subscribe to topics setting within Special:Preferences is disabled.

Behavior

  1. Visit Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and verify the Automatically subscribe to topics setting is enabled
  2. Visit a talk page (e.g. https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/2f3d9efbec/wiki/Talk:Main_Page)
  3. Start a new discussion or comment in an existing one
  4. Verify that in doing so, you've become [automatically] subscribed to said discussion
  5. Click the [ unsubscribe ] affordance that appears within the == H2 == of the discussion you just started or commented in
  6. Publish another comment to the same discussion you started or commented in in "Step 3."

Current

  1. ❓Notice you are NOT automatically re-subscribed to the discussion you participated in in "Step 6."

Desired

  1. ✅Notice you are automatically re-subscribed to the discussion you participated in in "Step 6."

References

This sections contains links to feedback wherein people expressed confusion about the behavior T284836 implemented.

Event Timeline

Per the conversation team had during today's standup, we're going to prioritize implementing what this task is describing.

Reasoning
We think people will have an easier time "grasping" Automatic Topic Subscriptions if the logic that determines whether you are automatically subscribed to a discussion was consistent in all scenarios.

In the event that people would value being able to more granularly control when they are and are not automatically subscribed to a discussion, we will consider prioritizing work on T295087.

Will there be any uses left for the "unsubscribed" state in the database? (First of all, I'm trying to figure out whether I should keep track of this state in Convenient-Discussions, if I make CD's behavior the same as planned here. But also one could wonder what will be the point of keeping "unsubscribed" entries in the database after the differences in behavior disappear.)

Change 742529 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/extensions/DiscussionTools@master] Change auto topic subs to re-subscribe you if you unsubscribed

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/742529

Will there be any uses left for the "unsubscribed" state in the database? (First of all, I'm trying to figure out whether I should keep track of this state in Convenient-Discussions, if I make CD's behavior the same as planned here. But also one could wonder what will be the point of keeping "unsubscribed" entries in the database after the differences in behavior disappear.)

Looks like we're still using it to check if we should show an info popup when you're using automatic topic subscriptions for the first time (T262103). The data might be useful for something else in the future (e.g. analyzing how people are using topic subscriptions, or showing you topics you've been previously subscribed to).

Change 742529 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/DiscussionTools@master] Change auto topic subs to re-subscribe you if you unsubscribed

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/742529