Feature summary (what you would like to be able to do and where):

I would like a discussion system to be available where discussions would be stored on individual pages and would be transcluded on their parent talk page.

Use case(s) (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution):

The current process of archiving pages involves cutting a discussion on a talk page and pasting it on an archive page. This has a number of downsides that are explained in the Benefits section.

The archiving system is one of the fundamental problems still not solved as we continue to use the normal discussion system. This proposal aims to fix that.

How it would work:

Wiki administrators would be able to enable the "individual discussion page system" for all the talk pages on their wiki or give users the ability to enable them on specific pages.

1. Users would click "Add topic" on the discussion page. This would open a new discussion creator at the bottom of the page like normal.
2. Users would submit the topic.
3. Mediawiki would create a new page with the topic content at Talk:<page name>/<chosen URL scheme>. Possible schemes: <topic name>-<unique ID>, <topic name>/<unique ID>, or <unique ID>/<topic name>
4. Mediawiki would add the topic to the talk page by adding {{<topic page path>}} to the bottom of the talk page.

Benefits (why should this be implemented?):

• Archived pages would preserve the page history of the discussion in an accessible manner that does not require the user going through the page history of the original talk page.
• < 1/3 the amount of storage would be required to store archived discussions. Currently, archived discussions are technically stored twice in MediaWiki - once on the original talk page history and once on the archive page - and are repeatedly re-stored whenever another discussion on a talk page or archive page is changed. Individual discussion pages would be stored only on their own page forever.
• Easier archival process. Wikis could simply enable this discussion system on their talk pages. Manual archiving, setting up a bot, or adding an extension would not be required to archive pages.
• Easier process for searching in discussions that are archived. When users currently search in archives, the search results only show the title of the archive. Users have to click on a search result and then use their browser find function to get to the discussion section their search term was inside of to. Individual pages would show just one discussion at a time and finding the text you are looking for would be much easier.
• Archived discussions can be restarted without requiring creating a new discussion. An edit to the discussion page will show up on the user's watchlist and they will still be subscribed to the discussion so they will also receive a notification.
• Users would be able to be directed from DiscussionTools reply notifications to replies on discussions that were archived.
• Wikis can switch over their talk pages to this system without requiring any migration.
• Links to discussions would still work, even after a discussion is archived. Currently, if you share a discussion section link (<page name>#<discussion name>), that link will no longer direct you do to discussion if that discussion has been archived.
• Functionality could be built using JavaScript that allows talk pages to have features like infinite-scrolling of past discussions, sorting of discussions and a search tool for past discussions.

Benefits over Structured Discussions
Now you might be thinking, "This sounds a lot like Structured Discussions, why should we do this"? This solution establishes a system that brings together the benefits of having the individual pages of Structured Discussions and the benefits of the flexible free-text page model.

Here are some various features this system would have that Structured Discussions does not:

• Discussions could be moved to different talk pages by moving their transculsion statement.
• Text in archived discussions can be searched for using the normal search
• Discussions can be manually organized on talk pages
• Discussions can handle the chaos of page structures like RFCs.
• AbuseFilter can be used.

What if the page load time is bad because of the number of transclusions or the transclusion limit is reached?

To prevent this concern, T320842 should be implemented.