Decided

Per the Editing Team's offline discussion on 14 May 2025, to start, the Learn more link included in the Peacock Check card/hint will link to the local language equivalent of WP:NPOV.

In parallel, we're going to investigate the feasibility of tracking clicks on these links from within Peacock Check and the time they spend on said page. This investigation will happen in T394464.

We'll also consider offering people more interactive guidance if/when we come to learn linking to WP:NPOV doesn't offer people the support/know-how they need in T393875.

Next step

• @ppelberg to propose copy for card in light of offline discussion (May 21, 2025)

In T390248#10860617, @ppelberg wrote:

Next step

• @ppelberg to propose copy for card in light of offline discussion (May 21, 2025)

I've updated the task description to include the revised copy.

cc @dchan

This edit appears to include language that people might consider subjective.

Can we tweak this wording, to show the suggestion is based on other users reverting things in the past? e.g.:

This text appears to include language that other users often remove for being subjective.

I'd like the message to communicate clearly that:

1. This is an inference based on other users' past judgments, and
2. Wikipedia does not institutionally endorse those judgments.

In T390248#10896770, @dchan wrote:

This edit appears to include language that people might consider subjective.

Can we tweak this wording, to show the suggestion is based on other users reverting things in the past? e.g.:

This text appears to include language that other users often remove for being subjective.

I'd like the message to communicate clearly that:

1. This is an inference based on other users' past judgments, and
2. Wikipedia does not institutionally endorse those judgments.

@dchan: incorporating the two key messages you described above sounds great.

After talking with @nayoub and converging on the importance that newcomers acting in good faith experience this message as supportive, we're going to move forward initially with a version that reads:

Other editors often revise this kind of wording to have a more balanced tone.

With @nayoub updating the mockups we'll move forward with implementing and us having converged on the copy in T390248#10902154, this is now ready for engineering to implement.

We normally don't link to an enwiki page by default, preferring to have a generic link (for e.g. third party wikis) since having a wiki with the language set to english doesn't actually imply that you're on enwiki. Is there something on mediawiki.org we could link it to instead?

Also, what should happen if someone clicks the "Ok, understood" button?

Change #1149663 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: Divec):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] WIP: Tone check

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1149663

In T390248#10914338, @DLynch wrote:

We normally don't link to an enwiki page by default, preferring to have a generic link (for e.g. third party wikis) since having a wiki with the language set to english doesn't actually imply that you're on enwiki. Is there something on mediawiki.org we could link it to instead?

@DLynch good spot and for sure. The requirement asks that we link, "...to the local equivalent of en:WP:NPOV."

To what extent is the above feasible?

hi @DLynch, this is the expected behavior from the pre-save moment when the user interacts with Tone Check:

1. tap revise from within pre-save
2. arrive into mid edit with text you added, and tone check was activated in response to, highlighted in gray with cursor placed in document
3. Edit Check card appears ("instructional" version in Mid-Edit via Pre-Save)
   • if someone taps "ok, understood" without changing the text in anyway and proceeds back to pre-save, tone check is shown again
   • if someone taps "ok, understood" and does change the text in anyway and proceeds back to pre-save, tone check is shown again IF revised text is still flagged as promotional
   • if someone doesn't taps "ok, understood" and does change the text in ways that aren't flagged as promotional as they leave the editing area, the card disappears

To what extent is the above feasible?

We're in a slightly peculiar situation because this is a policy-enforcement tool, and mediawiki.org is mostly there for describing technical functionality. So, there's two approaches that seem plausible:

1. Go to the project-page for tone check: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_check/Tone_Check
2. Go to the NPOV page on metawiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Neutral_point_of_view

if someone taps "ok, understood"

@nayoub does this imply that "ok, understood" should immediately take a user back into pre-save?

In T390248#10914578, @ppelberg wrote:

In T390248#10914338, @DLynch wrote:

We normally don't link to an enwiki page by default, preferring to have a generic link (for e.g. third party wikis) since having a wiki with the language set to english doesn't actually imply that you're on enwiki. Is there something on mediawiki.org we could link it to instead?

@DLynch good spot and for sure. The requirement asks that we link, "...to the local equivalent of en:WP:NPOV."

To what extent is the above feasible?

Randomly stumbled across this task — forgive me if this wouldn't be feasible/has already been considered, but would fetching the local wiki's page that's connected to https://wikidata.org/wiki/Q4656487 be a possible option here?

Change #1149663 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Tone check

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1149663

In T390248#10915716, @A_smart_kitten wrote:

In T390248#10914578, @ppelberg wrote:

In T390248#10914338, @DLynch wrote:

We normally don't link to an enwiki page by default, preferring to have a generic link (for e.g. third party wikis) since having a wiki with the language set to english doesn't actually imply that you're on enwiki. Is there something on mediawiki.org we could link it to instead?

@DLynch good spot and for sure. The requirement asks that we link, "...to the local equivalent of en:WP:NPOV."

To what extent is the above feasible?

Randomly stumbled across this task — forgive me if this wouldn't be feasible/has already been considered, but would fetching the local wiki's page that's connected to https://wikidata.org/wiki/Q4656487 be a possible option here?

Great question, @A_smart_kitten...@DLynch?

And hey, I'm grateful you commented this suggestion – thank you!

Update

I've updated the copy in the task description to align with what @SSalgaonkar-WMF, @dchan, and I discussed offline.

These changes are in service of making it clear to the people who will be encountering Tone Check to know where/what this feedback message is coming from.

In T390248#10915716, @A_smart_kitten wrote:

Randomly stumbled across this task — forgive me if this wouldn't be feasible/has already been considered, but would fetching the local wiki's page that's connected to https://wikidata.org/wiki/Q4656487 be a possible option here?

I'm not sure of the exact details, but I'm sure it'd be technically possible. Sort of a pain, with a bit of a circuitous route to pass it through to where the message is used client-side -- either diving into the hooks for bundling the messages or passing it through some config.

However, it wouldn't absolve us of needing to come up with a default link, since I don't think we can count on even 100% of wikimedia wikis having that set, and we certainly can't count on third-party users of mediawiki+VisualEditor having it.

In T390248#10920661, @ppelberg wrote:

Update

I've updated the copy in the task description to align with what @SSalgaonkar-WMF, @dchan, and I discussed offline.

These changes are in service of making it clear to the people who will be encountering Tone Check to know where/what this feedback message is coming from.

I've updated the copy in the task description to remove the Learn more links as per that discussion. (The BERT model is trained on what users across multiple Wikipedias have commonly revised for unbalanced tone. Therefore it is not a direct evaluation against enwiki:WP:NPOV nor any other language edition's neutrality policy rules).

Change #1159606 had a related patch set uploaded (by Divec; author: Divec):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Change wording for Tone Check

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1159606

The "BERT model" link going to the metawiki project page for tone check seems like a decent-enough default for that link, and the patch lets projects override it if they'd prefer. 👍🏻

Per discussion, we're reinstating the Learn More links, but pointing to metawiki:NPOV .

In T390248#10925108, @dchan wrote:

Per discussion, we're reinstating the Learn More links, but pointing to metawiki:NPOV .

Fair enough — to be honest, it didn't occur to me earlier (when leaving my previous comment) that projects would presumably be able to customise this link onwiki, by overriding the system message that contains it. Maybe it'd be worth flagging that possibility to communities in any relevant communications (so that they have the opportunity to target the link at their local NPOV page should they wish to)? But I'll leave that decision to the people in charge of such communications!

presumably be able to customise this link onwiki, by overriding the system message that contains it.

Yeah, there'll be two links as part of this -- editcheck-tone-descriptionlink and editcheck-tone-footerlink -- both of which will be customizable by the wiki if they want to give a more-specific or localized take on things. (Though they may just want to leave the link going to our version, since what the model is checking isn't going to be precisely aligned with their own wiki's NPOV policy...)

Current state of the patch after some updates I just made:

@A_smart_kitten made the good point that the default links could go through Special:MyLanguage for an extra layer of utility.

Change #1159606 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Change wording for Tone Check

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1159606

Per offline discussion, we're going to consider this task tightly scoped to updating the existing card copy in the Mid-Edit and Pre-Save moments.

And we'll use the newly-created TICKET to address the Pre-Save via Mid-Edit copy and the new card state it requires us to introduce.

Change #1164297 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: DLynch):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Editcheck: remove ? from editcheck-tone-title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1164297

Per offline discussion, I've updated the requirements to include the ? within the Tone Check card title so it reads Revise tone?

We'll revisit this decision in T397966.

Change #1164297 abandoned by Esanders:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Editcheck: remove ? from editcheck-tone-title

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1164297

Change #1164537 had a related patch set uploaded (by DLynch; author: DLynch):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Edit check: change the widget footer color from disabled to subtle

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1164537

Change #1164537 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Edit check: change the widget footer color from disabled to subtle

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1164537

In a follow-up (because of https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor/+/1164978/3) we're going to make it so that when a check loses focus during a survey its state is reset. (This is sometimes inevitable when we lose track of a check after a major change to the document.)

Card/hint copy

One small thing: Are we using sentence case or title case for the card title? Sentence case is the standard in most other places on-wiki, I think, and using that we'd have "Revise tone?" rather than "Revise Tone?" I could also see title case being fine, but we'd just want to have a reason for using it here and make sure it's consistent with other card titles.

El T390248#11122242, @Sdkb escribió:

One small thing: Are we using sentence case or title case for the card title? Sentence case is the standard in most other places on-wiki, I think, and using that we'd have "Revise tone?" rather than "Revise Tone?" I could also see title case being fine, but we'd just want to have a reason for using it here and make sure it's consistent with other card titles.

Good catch. We are not using capital letters for other Edit Checks such as the Paste Check, so we should probably unify to non-capital letters (Pasted content, Revise tone?).