The tool is referred to inconsistently in various places:
- In preferences -> editing: "Enable quick topic adding"
- In preferences -> beta: "Add new topics using an inline form.
- In the tab add the top of the page "Add topic"
- Internally in the code base DiscussionTools_newtopictool
- On the mw.org feature summary page: "New discussion tool"
- In various other on-wiki community consultations[1][2][3], we have referred to it as the "new discussion tool"
Using "new discussion tool" is problematic:
- It doesn't conflict with the name of the extension: "Discussion Tools" - to someone familiar with the extension it can sound like "The new [extension called] discussion tools" [4]
- Topic is already used in many places in the UI and codebase (see above)
Going forward this confusion is only going to get worse as:
- You subscribe to new discussions using the "topic subscription" feature.
- You will soon be able to restyle discussions using the "topic containers" feature.
Process
| Step | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Announce name change on Talk:Talk pages project/New discussion | ✅ Done |
| 2. | Move Talk:Talk pages project/New discussion to Talk:Talk pages project/New topic | ✅ Done |
| 3. | Update most visible documentation. //See pages listed in ===Documentation in need of updating | ✅ Done |
| 4. | Use New Topic Tool exclusively to refer to the feature going forward | |
| 5. | Update remaining mentions of New Discussion Tool as part of T294592 | |
Documentation in need of updating
The table below is NOT yet populated with all pages that need to be updated.
| Project | Page name | Update status |
|---|---|---|
| mediawiki | Talk pages project/Feature summary | ✅ Done |
| mediawiki | Talk pages project/New discussion | ✅ Done |
| en.wiki | wp:Talk pages project | ✅ Done |
| mediawiki | Deployment status | ✅ Done |
| Superset | Talk Pages Project Dashboard | ✅ Done |
Done
- === Documentation in need of updating is populated with most visible documentation
- Steps 1 through 4 within === Process are " ✅ Done"
- https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?search=%22new+discussion+tool%22&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns100=1&ns102=1&ns104=1&ns106=1
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22new+discussion+tool%22&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go&ns0=1&ns12=1&ns200=1&ns202=1
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_pages_project
- See confusion in this thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Teahouse&oldid=1077189430#Should_we_enable_the_new_discussion_tool_for_everyone?
We should update the mw.org documentation to consistently refer to a "new topic tool" and only use this term going forward.