Structured Discussions (SD - Flow) is used on
a few wikis
. This extension is not maintained.
DiscussionTools
(DT) is the default discussion system on wikis now.
The
Growth team
(SD maintainers) and the
Editing team
(DT maintainers) have started thinking about how to deprecate Structured Discussions (and possibly
LiquidThreads
) and replace them with DiscussionTools.
Structured Discussions is a complex piece of software that generates a lot of maintenance issues. Estimating the work required to adapt Structured Discussions to the
IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation
project revealed a very significant workload. In view of all these challenges, the decision was taken to inform the communities of the future deprecation of Structured Discussions.
The idea is to encourage communities to switch active Structured Discussions tools to the DiscussionTools talk page format. Then, the Structured Discussions pages would be removed from the wikis, at a yet to-be-defined date.
The Wikimedia Foundation is working on changes to how IP editing is handled:
IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation
. Temporary accounts for unregistered editors will be a new type of user account. This requires changing how features we use to contribute to wikis works.
This work concerns all features, and it raises some challenges. The case of Structured Discussions (also known as “SD” or “Flow”) is one of them. This extension is used at a few wikis, that were progressively contacted in November and December 2023. Flow is a complex piece of software that was never quite finished, fits poorly into the MediaWiki architecture, and creates a significant number of technical errors.
The usage of Structured Discussions is low. In August 2023, on average DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day, while Structured Discussions is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.
We considered several options to adapt Structured Discussions, including a full adaptation, or a partial adaptation where Temp accounts can respond but not create new conversations. All of them would take a lot of time and effort for a short-term benefit. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation's long-term plan is to remove Structured Discussions from the wikis, mainly due to the maintenance cost. As a consequence, we prefer to avoid adapting Structured Discussions to Temporary accounts.
We took the opportunity of work around Temporary accounts to question the concerned communities regarding the future of Structured Discussions.
DiscussionTools is the replacement for Structured Discussions. DiscussionTools is the default discussion system at all wikis. It allows anyone to start, reply or subscribe to a conversation. It provides a visual experience for wikitext-based conversations, and it covers
the vast majority of features Structured Discussions offers
.
The goal with this conversation is to respond to the community's questions regarding the archival of Structured Discussions.
The idea is to proceed in two stages:
- discussion pages using SD are archived as subpages. They are replaced by a classic discussion page. In this way, the most active pages will already be ready when we proceed to step 2.
- SD are removed from the wiki. Existing pages (including archived ones) will be converted to a format yet to be defined.
We encourage communities to start the first step.
Questions asked to the communities
[
edit
]
Starting at the end of November 2023, communities where Structured Discussions are still in use are progressively informed of the upcoming deprecation. We ask them the following questions:
- Are the reasons given for archiving structured discussions clear?
- Are the two steps outlined above for archiving and uninstalling structured discussions clear?
- If so, what is a reasonable timeframe for archiving pages for deinstallation? At present, deinstallation is not planned on our side (even if the second quarter of 2024 is mentioned), as we are waiting for the end of these conversations, which take place on multiple wikis.
- In your opinion, what format should pages currently using SDs be converted to when we proceed with the deinstallation of structured discussions?
Communities discussions report
Main characteristics
[
edit
]
Status of each tool, and their integration to the wiki's key features.
Discussion features
[
edit
]
Interaction with talk pages and other comments.
Notifications and interactivity
[
edit
]
|
LiquidThreads
|
Structured Discussions
|
DiscussionTools
|
Convenient Discussions
|
Highlight a set of unread comments
|
N
Not done
|
Done
|
Done
? only when subscribed to a topic and using links from notifications
|
Done
|
Subscribe to be notified about new comments to a topic
|
Done
? via
Watchlist
|
Done
? via Echo
|
Done
? via Echo or itself
|
Be notified when a new topic is started on a talk page
|
Auto-subscription to a topic you created
|
Done
? default
|
Highlight a quoted comment
|
N
Not done
? can link to comments but only as standalone pages
|
Done
|
Done
|
Done
|
Notification of edited comments
|
Partially done
? only on your own comments
|
Done
|
N
Not done
|
N
Not done
|
Maintenance and moderation
[
edit
]
|
LiquidThreads
|
Structured Discussions
|
DiscussionTools
|
Convenient Discussions
|
Direct access to user talkpage, contribs and more
|
Partially done
? if linked in the signature
|
Done
|
Partially done
? if linked in the signature
|
Hide (moderate) a comment
|
Partially done
? no undelete UI
|
Done
|
Partially done
? via
undo/rollback
(requires searching for edit in edit history) or archival templates, not included and requires editing wikitext
|
Done
|
Hide or delete a topic
|
Done
|
Partially done
? same as DiscussionTools
|
Archiving discussions
|
Not needed
|
Not needed
|
N
Not done
? see
T337293
- Requires 3rd party bots for automatic archival
- Requires wikitext editing or 3rd party gadgets for manual archival
|
N
Not done
? Same as DiscussionTools, though moving topics can be used for manual archival.
|
Report an inappropriate comment
|
N
Not done
|
N
Not done
|
In progress
[3]
|
N
Not done
|
In August 2023, on average:
- DiscussionTools is used about 18,780 times per day.
- Flow is used about 250 times per day, mainly at French Wikipedia.
- LiquidThreads is used less than once per day.
- ↑
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332022
- ↑
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
Support for offering permanent links to talk page comments and topics is being worked on. Links to comments already exist but aren't permanent without
Help:PermanentLink
. See
T302011
. While DiscussionTools doesn't have a UI for acquiring links, Convenient Discussions does and can automatically generate PermanentLinks.
- ↑
T339247
? Create entry points for the Incident Report dialog with DiscussionTools