This task involves the work with introducing the data structure and storage necessary for tracking talk page comments independently of the pages on which they: A) were originally published and B) are currently posted.
=== Use Cases
1. Permalinks for comments
2. Permalinks for topics
3. Creating an embeddable list of discussions that contains metadata about said discussions (e.g. number of comments, number of distinct participants, usernames of people who have commented)
=== Background
Currently, the comment parser [i] creates a structured version of talk pages that enables machines to look at a talk page and see all of the comments, discussions, authors, timestamps, and relationships between them.
This structure is helpful for creating discussion tools/experiences that assume the underlying content will only ever exist on the page to which it was originally published.
However, there is a category of tools/experiences that //must// assume the content to which they are related/impacting will move.
This task involves the work with "unlocking" this second category of use cases by enabling the software to "look" at a comment or discussion and know the page(s) on which said comment or discussion exists.
|Category | Description | Use cases
|---|---|---
|**1.**|Assumes content will only exist on the page to which it was originally published|Reply Tool, New Discussion Tool
|**2.**|Assumes content may be moved from the page to which it was originally published| Topic Permalinks (T273341), Comment Permalinks (T275729), Thanking (T249893), Analytics (T284200)
=== References
- [T273341/Talk page comment permalinking](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RD-VzSkdXdsEM0u5MX4M8B9jO7HRKx4LlOhqn3AShdY/edit#)
- [Permanent data structure for tracking comments](https://docs.google.com/document/d/13RsdaaOPIp9QzhQCSpxsVI8cI8CubGL_zBg1GPRPGIQ/edit)
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i. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DiscussionTools/How_it_works#Parsing_algorithm