This task involves the work of extending the work we did in T274216, to create a way of explicitly tagging talk page comments.
=== Requirements
**Meta**
- Anytime a "qualifying edit" is saved to a talk page assign a hidden `Comment` revision tag.
- The hidden `Comment` revision tag should be applied to all "qualifying edits" regardless of the editing interface someone used to save said edit.
**Qualifying edit**
//Insert comment parser definition.//
=== Use cases
Explicitly tagging edits as comments will enable us to answer questions like the below which will help us all better understand how Discussion Tools are impacting the way people use talk pages.
- "Of all the comments people posted in a specified period, what percentage of comments did people use the Reply Tool to publish?"
- "How does the Reply Tool impact the average number of comments Junior and Senior Contributors" post on a talk page each month?"
- "On average, how long does a discussion last (first to last timestamp)."
- "On average, how many comments does a particular section have?"
-- //This could relate to T274215.//
- "On average, how much time elapses between a conversation starting and another person commenting?"
-- //This could relate to T274215.//
=== Open questions
- [ ] How should "Qualifying edits" be defined? //@Mneisler needs to know this so she can know definitely what edits are and are not included in this definition//
- [ ] How can the software tag/categorize edits as comments and new sections in real-time (read: as they happen)?
- [ ] How might this tagging happen in a way that doesn't slow down the save process?
- [ ] How/where do these tags get stored (e.g. [Special tags](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Tags))? //We'd need to talk with the performance team to see they're okay with this amount of data being stored.//
- [ ] Is it possible to apply tags to historical edits?
=== Done
- [ ] All "Open questions" are answered