Talk:Community Wishlist

This page is for discussions related to the Community Wishlist page.   Please remember to: Sign posts using the four tildes (~~~~) Remain civil and polite during discussions. Place new text under old text (start a new post).

Interface improvement suggestions

When submitting a wish at Community Wishlist/Intake I didn't see a link back to Community Wishlist at the top, so I couldn't open the page Community Wishlist (with instructions) in a new tab to know how to write a good wish.

Also, Community Wishlist/Wishes says Users are welcomed to propose their own wishes at any time and also can show support of other wishes submitted by the community. How can we show support? It isn't clear, please explain it or link somewhere. We can't vote on wishes anymore, so I don't know how to support a wish I like. Commander Keane (talk) 06:29, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a good callout. We'll look into adding more instructions on how to write a good wish in the form. Do you prefer it as a link, or more instructive language in the form itself?

Re: Supporting a wish, there are many ways to support a wish, via Talk pages or by subscribing to wish updates. Once wishes are in focus areas, you'll be able to vote! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 21:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@JWheeler-WMF: Just a link would be fine by me.

Re: supporting a wish, please spell that out if they are the only, limited, avenues. I can see it as a great source of frustration otherwise. Commander Keane (talk) 21:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@JWheeler-WMF: how are wishes getting translated? Is there a translation team or something, I couldn't work out where to read the English version of some of the LOTE wishes. Commander Keane (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Commander Keane we have in our roadmap a plan to integrate with machine translations for ease of use and readability. For now, we are marking wishes for translation, and then following the proper translation processes. I hope these LOTE wishes will be translated in a matter of days. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Community_Wishlist/Intake in zh

MediaWiki:Gadget-WishlistIntake/messages/zh only applies to zh interface (uselang=zh) but not zh-xx interface (uselang=zh-tw), which most zh editors use.

Is there a way to fix this? Thanks. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 07:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, there are no proper language fallbacks – yet! We hope to move to message bundles soon, which I believe should provide us the fallback functionality. Even if it doesn't, we will find a workaround. I've filed phab:T370230 to track this effort. Thanks, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Broken translations on intake form

I don't see any translations in the intake form. This page -> Community Wishlist/Intake. On neither Community Wishlist/Intake/sv, Community Wishlist/Intake/zh, or Community Wishlist/Intake/uk. Community Wishlist/Intake/cs doesn't seem to exist despite there being translations on MediaWiki:Gadget-WishlistIntake/messages. Or is this controlled somewhere else? I thought that's we were encouraged to translate those messages in the first place. Sabelöga (talk) 20:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sabelöga! Apologies for the confusion. The Community Wishlist goes off of your interface language. Special:MyLanguage/Community Wishlist will redirect you to the correct language based on your preferences. Simply viewing i.e. Community Wishlist/Intake/uk isn't enough to see Ukrainian translations (except for the display title); you need to have the interface language set too – either by changing your preferences or passing in ?uselang=uk as with https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist/Intake/uk?uselang=uk. In addition, there are known issues with the lack of language fallbacks as pointed out above.

Swedish had a small error in the translations that broke the parsing. I've fixed that and it should be displaying properly now. Thanks for pointing this problem to us!

Hope this helps and let us know if you have any other questions or concerns. Warm regards, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:46, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF) Ah, so it was in my end.  Thanks! I have added my first wish.

Oh, and an other thing. The result part the form is still in English. Could that also be translated? Sabelöga (talk) 23:01, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@Sabelöga Could you clarify what you mean by the result part? All interface messages should be grouped together in the Community Wishlist interface aggregate group. I see from Community Wishlist/Translation that Swedish is at 100%, but it's possible we missed something. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 23:24, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF) When I press the button to submit my wish, I get to this page basically: Community Wishlist/Wishes/Visa innehållsförteckningen när man redigerar i VisualEditor med Vector 2022. But when I pressed the button from the form, the part below the line "Visa innehållsförteckningen när man redigerar i VisualEditor med Vector 2022", was completely in English. Sabelöga (talk) 23:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I think there's a real bug here, which is that the page renders in English from the time it is created to the time Community Tech bot notices it and sets the page language. That should be fixable at the cost of making the template more complicated, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 00:37, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, I understand now. What Pppery is correct. All pages created on Meta are by default English, so we have the bot set the page language for you shortly after a wish is created. That little bit of delay means you will briefly see English labels. I'll give this some thought. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF), Hi, there is a error on Community_Wishlist/bn#Recent_wishes and on Community_Wishlist/fa#Recent_wishes. আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 18:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

@আফতাবুজ্জামান: It looks like @Cookai1205 has fixed it, the issue was that localized numerals were being passed to {{DateT}}. It should be working correctly now in all languages. SWilson (WMF) (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Not usable on mobile (Android)

I tried using it on mobile but I cannot edit the description. I am also getting JavaScript errors on page load (something to do with includes) which may be related.

In addition to this the form is too big for my mobile phone and adds horizontal scroll.

I took a screen recording that I can share tomorrow. Jdlrobson (talk) 05:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Jdlrobson - this is a known limitation right now. The description field doesn't load on mobile, and it's something we intend to disable until fixing. Thanks! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Make the editing mode sticky

It's frustrating to have to switch to the source mode every time I visit the intake page. Nardog (talk) 05:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Fixed MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The edit/discuss button in translated wishes

Should the translated version of wishes (such as Allow uploading AVIF files to Wikimedia sites/zh) allowed to be edit/discuss separately? If not, should the "Edit wish"/"Discuss this wish" button direct to the original wish? Thanks. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 07:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Cookai1205 - we encourage all discussions to go on a single talk page (of the original wish). We have plans to integrate with machine translations to support everyone viewing wishes and discussions in divergent languages. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! So, the button in translations does link to the wrong page.

I suggest in Template:Community Wishlist/Wish:

• {{fullurl:{{PAGENAME}}... -> {{fullurl:{{#if:{{#translation:}}|{{#titleparts:{{PAGENAME}}|-1}}|{{PAGENAME}}}}...
• {{fullurl:{{TALKPAGENAME}}... -> {{fullurl:{{#if:{{#translation:}}|{{#titleparts:{{TALKPAGENAME}}|-1}}|{{TALKPAGENAME}}}}...
• returnto={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}... -> returnto={{#if:{{#translation:}}|{{#titleparts:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}|-1}}|{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}}}...

So they can direct to the correct page. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 17:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a fix similar to what you're suggesting is in the works. There are some changes to the gadget as well, so it is undergoing code review. See the merge request if you'd like to know more. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF) and Cookai1205: That MR works well; I just merged it. Once you're on the talk page though, should we also be changing the Page link to go to the localized page (i.e. it'd have to check for the existence of the current lang's subpage and then change the target)? Otherwise, it seems you'd have to go from the translated page, to the talk page, then to the English page, then back to the translated page. SWilson (WMF) (talk) 01:29, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Something that should probably be fixed in Extension:Translate, but yes, the "Content page" link target should be prefixed with Special:MyLanguage. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Eh, I started write a MR for this, but noticed there are tons of places with links that should have Special:MyLanguage. I.e. if you're on action=history of a wish page we have the same problem, or even other translatable pages for that matter such as Community Wishlist. I think users are probably used to this and fortunately the <languages/> bar is right there at the top, so maybe it's okay. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Another small problem related to i18n in Template:Community Wishlist/Wish. Currently, the colon in the "Other details" section is based on the user interface language, rather than the content language. It should based on the content language. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 18:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@Cookai1205: Where are you seeing this? All colons are being added with the {{colon}} template, which is as you say given the interface language, e.g. <translate> Created</translate>{{colon|{{int:lang}}}} — but it's done this way consistently for all fields like this, so it doesn't look like these ones are different in any anyway. Why we're passing the interface language I'm not sure, as these pages are translated so we should be able to use the page content language (i.e. pass nothing to {{colon}}). SWilson (WMF) (talk) 08:13, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I don't fully understand the question, but I'll try give out my thoughts.

I understand the colon is generated by {{colon}}. the colon is part of the content of the page, so it should follow the content language, not the user's interface language. So, I think it should simply be {{colon}} not {{colon|{{int:lang}}}}. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 07:59, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Fixed with Special:Diff/27192724. I see now for example Community Wishlist/Wishes/Wiktionary mobile app/ja shows ： instead of :, so it appears to be going off of the page language now. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Another problem, the code for adding Category:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Translatable only works when the base lang is en. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 15:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

This is true, and we could instead go off of the baselang parameter, but it is not always correct (it's the interface language, not necessarily the language of the content the wish author is writing in). However, LOTE wishes are usually quickly translated, so the /en subpage will become present soon enough, I think. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Anglocentric example

Heya! I was wondering if there was another example that could be used when translating? "Draft articles" is a system that isn't used on the language projects I'm translating to/for. It's really no biggie, but I fear that the communities from those projects may not completely get the weight of the example. EdoAug (talk) 21:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Draft: namespace should be implemented per community consensus as many wikis don't even need such system due to very little influx of articles. A09|(pogovor) 11:53, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@EdoAug Which wish are you referring to? I don't see any currently that talk about the "Draft" namespace. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF): The example given in the "How to write a good wish" section of the page this talk page is connected to, not an actual wish. EdoAug (talk) 22:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That example is not referring to the "Draft" namespace. It means the actual word wikt:draft, as in "an early version of a written work". We should probably find a different word to use, as that is confusing for those who are used to the Draft namespace. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Splitting WishlistManager gadget

Does MediaWiki:Gadget-WishlistManager.js really need to be loaded on all pages? Given phab:T340705, it seems like that could be cleaned up a bit.

It looks like this does sets of two things:

• Things only relevant to WMF staff. That should be split to a non-default gadget which they then enable.
• Things only relevant on views of wish pages themselves. That should be split to template gadget that only runs on Category:Community Wishlist/Wishes and Category:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Translatable.

This would mean not having to load 1,000 lines of JavaScript on every page view unrelated to the Community Wishlist. Thanks. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 01:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@Pppery Unfortunately wgCategories (and mw:Extension:Gadget's knowledge of categories) isn't available on anything except action=view requests, when we need the gadget to run elsewhere, too. That's the main issue. It might actually be a bug with Core or something, as at least for action=edit and action=info the categories are already listed – so I presume not setting categories isn't in the name of performance.

I had pondered about making an "entrypoint" gadget that selectively loads the other gadgets that are needed. We can still do that, but I should mention all of this is temporary anyway, as we have plans to eventually migrate to a proper MediaWiki extension. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 03:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

"Discussion" link goes to section=new even if the talk page exists

I don't know if this is a bug or intended, but it's quite annoying and can lead to the same topic raised multiple times. Also, as long as DiscussionTools' quick topic adding is enabled (which it is for new users), the new topic creation appears for red links, so I question the utility of the manipulation of the "Discussion" link in the first place. Nardog (talk) 06:31, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

See #The edit/discuss button in translated wishes above for the reasoning for this manipulation. We're now linking to just the root talk page without any additional parameters, so the experience should be better. It's still not perfect, though; Take Community Wishlist/Wishes/新規利用者が最初の記事を作成しやすくなるようにしてほしい/en for example. The "Discussion" link now correctly points to root talk page, but you'll notice the link is red despite that page existing! So a further improvement might be to do an existence check, and apply action=edit&redlink=1 accordingly. Ideally though, we would be able to tell mw:Extension:Translate that we want consolidated discussion on these pages, and it would fix all the links for us, but alas no such functionality currently exists. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

In that case, adding redlink=1 no matter sounds like a good middle ground actually, since it would automatically redirect to the page if it exists (e.g.) and you wouldn't need to check the existence so it's faster. Nardog (talk) 19:25, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the advantage there, if any? We're currently linking to the page without any parameters, which in my testing appears to be the same behaviour as action=edit&redlink=1 when DiscussionTools is enabled (which we'll largely assume is true for Wishlist participants). The link itself is also the wrong color. I don't see a way to fix that without an existence check. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realize section=new shows the whole talk page when quick topic adding is on. My problem is that you don't get see the talk page even if it exists upon clicking "Discussion", unless you have quick topic adding on. Adding redlink=1 does redirect you to the page if it exists. Nardog (talk) 20:13, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, couldn't a bot create redirects to the main talk page whenever a translation or the talk is created? That way you wouldn't need to check the existence and you can rely on whether the link is red. Nardog (talk) 00:27, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Clarification of the process

Thanks for all the work getting this up and running, but I'm pretty confused by the process here.

• What does "generally uneditable" mean for open wishes, as it doesn't seem to be a technical limitation (the edit window appears the same)?
• How does a wish move from Submitted to Open? If it's after WMF review, should this status be called something like "Reviewed" since "Open" implies open for editing?
• Will voting be for individual wishes within a focus area or just the focus area as a whole?
• Will focus areas need a certain threshhold of votes to be worked on, or will they have to "beat" other focus areas in the voting?
  • If the latter, how many focus areas will be competing for attention at once?
• Will all wishes be assigned a focus area, or will wishes that don't fit into a neat box (or wishes where there aren't two or more wishes in the same "area") be discarded?
• Community Wishlist/Wishes encourages editors to "subscribe" to wishes that align to their interests, but are the number of subscriptions tracked and taken into account when prioritizing wishes?
  • And for that matter, will subscribing to a wish itself do anything since it only notifies when new sections are created? Will a new section be added to the wish page when it changes status?

-- Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:02, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Ahecht these are great questions. For one, our wish statuses are still something we're monitoring and tinkering with.

- Users are still able to edit Open wishes, however since they are marked for translation, edits would subsequently need to be re-translated.

- Wishes move from submitted to open by being a complete and well-considered idea or problem. Some wishes have remained "submitted" because we are still seeking clarification from the proposer.

- Voting is on the focus area as a whole

- No, focus areas will not need a voting threshold, however focus areas with more votes will certainly capture attention. In part, this is because focus areas pertaining to sibling projects (for example, Wikivoyage) will likely generate fewer votes than Wikipedia. We believe that the Foundation, affiliates, and developers will organically navigate towards the most compelling focus areas.

- Not all wishes will be assigned a focus area. Wishes that don't fit into a neat box will remain open, in case additional wishes come around and then warrant a new focus area bing created.

- As of now, we aren't tracking the # of subscribers per wish when prioritizing wishes. This is something to consider moving forward. We are evaluating further methods to keep tabs on a wish as it is updated and/or progresses to a Focus area. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 16:28, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

JWheeler-WMF Thanks for the clarifications! -- Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:11, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome! JWheeler-WMF (talk) 19:19, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Exploring Community Wishlist - 19th DCW Conversation Hour

Hello pagewatchers, we are exploring the Community Wishlist in our 19th DCW Conversation Hour, with our guest speaker @Runab WMF, who serves as Senior Director of Product - Languages and Content Growth, at the Wikimedia Foundation. The hour is scheduled at 15:00 UTC (20:30 Indian Standard Time). I look forward to seeing many of you in the conversation. Should you have any queries, please let me know. _signed, Aafi (DCW) ^(talk) 16:34, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Banner

Just why?! — putnik 14:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Putnik, can you help me understand better what the issue is? White on Dark Mode? Problematic translations? Wrong target wiki? On standby. Thank you. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@STei (WMF), the translation is bad as usual. But here I'm talking about a big white block that ruins the idea of the dark mode. — putnik 19:57, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see where there is a rule that everything in dark mode should be pitch black... Also dark mode is just a couple of weeks old, most editors (including banner makers) will not know how to use it yet. I suggest some patience, or offering to help them out if you know how. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Commons needs

we have a bunch of things written down at c:Commons:Requests_for_comment/Technical_needs_survey which are perennial feature requests. RZuo (talk) 10:42, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Translation tool for wishes

Hiya! I am aware that only "Open" wishes may be translated using the translation tool, however, I noticed that some of "my" wishes have incomplete setups, one for over a week. Is this intentional? As I have been encouraged to submit wishes in my native language, I would like to be able to translate these into the more internationally legible English. 😅

Examples of affected open submissions

• Community Wishlist/Wishes/Standardiserte datoer i referanser for innholdsoversettelse
• Community Wishlist/Wishes/Bedre system for å legge til og oversette undertekster

EdoAug (talk) 21:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

@EdoAug: I've marked these for translation now. Sorry about the delay! I think we can blame it on Wikimania (and people travelling to it). :-) Thanks for submitting in your own language, and also translating! SWilson (WMF) (talk) 04:15, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

@SWilson (WMF): Thank you! EdoAug (talk) 19:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Suggestions to improve focus areas

There are very few votes so far on the focus areas: the engagement is much less than in previous years. I've got some thoughts on how to improve this if we stick to the new system.

• Fewer items per focus area. I've not voted yet as I agree with only one or two problem statements per focus area. Making them have this many wishes makes it unlikely you agree with a majority.
• Less fluff. Please remove the Foundation objectives. They are vague and do not add anything. It takes ages to know what a focus area is about. Be more concrete in the focus area description.
• Make wish titles wishes rather than wordy and vague problem statements.
• Highlight relevant items in the list of wishes. The old system made clear if the wish related to readers, citations. Now we have less relevant information like the last time a wish was edited. Less is more.
• Ask submitters to make their wish concise.
• Add a lead to the wish. When you click on a wish in mobile, you have to manually open sections to see what the wish is about.
• An a more radical suggestion: let's go back to voting on wishes, with focus areas defined after the fact. Say there are 8 ideas about watchlist improvements, 4 that are popular, 4 with only a handful of supporters, the focus area could consist only of the 4 popular ideas. Voting on individual wishes also increases community engagement. Normally, we see way more people give feedback on wishes, including saying that gadgets already exist and resolving the wish that way.

Femke (talk) 08:08, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Femke, thank you for your suggestions. Regarding the popularity of the Focus Areas, here is how it is.

We launched the Wishlist approximately three weeks ago, starting with two weeks dedicated to wish intake. This period focused on informing the community about the reopening of the Wishlist, accepting new submissions, resolving any initial bugs, and preparing content for translation.

In previous years, by this time, we would have initiated the voting phase through Central Notice, inviting the entire community to participate. This approach traditionally generated a significant number of votes. However, in this new edition, we have taken a different path. Instead of immediately opening voting, we are concentrating on onboarding the community and explaining the concept of Focus Areas. These Focus Areas are intended to enable the community participate in annual planning on Product and Tech matters.

Currently, our team is actively engaged at Wikimania, promoting Focus Areas and the reopening of the Wishlist as well. We held a session attended by over 40 community members to help create Focus Areas and gather feedback. Additionally, we have set up a table at the conference to engage with attendees further on 3 conference days.

After Wikimania, we will extend a broader invitation to the community to participate in voting (in the absence of any bugs with the voting system). Until then, our primary focus remains on helping people understand the changes and the new structure of the Wishlist process.

Per our schedule it is a bit early to discuss the amount of Focus Area engagement. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 09:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

You're right may be early to think about more radical changes. This is the time, however, to make the process accessible. The high level of abstraction and verbosity make it difficult for people like me (with an energy-limiting disability) to participate, and make the process more difficult for beginners.

The German wishlist focus areas are much clearer. From the overview of wishes it's immediately clear what is considered in each focus area. The focus areas have a concise and concrete title. The overview page contains example wishes. On mobile, the line lenght meets accessibility criteria, as there is only one wish horizontally. (Here, the line lenght is too small with two wishes horizontally). They do not contain overly ambitious and broad non-SMART success criteria.

The content of the focus areas themselves can also be improved. Take the first focus area. This could be renamed as "Watchlist improvements". The first paragraph of the background section is what I look for, a clear problem statement. The second paragraph is very broad and does not relate directly to the wishes. The Foundation objectives again distract from the focus area as overly broad. Femke (talk) 10:16, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Exasperating questions

It's exasperating to be asked to explain something no Wikimedian needs explained. Some of the wishes are copy-pasted from last year so clearly your team members understood what they were about. Can you maybe ask them first? And more important, become a volunteer and learn the ropes? Nardog (talk) 16:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Could you perhaps rephrase this more kindly? And link to an example perhaps, so that others can follow? Femke (talk) 16:25, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry I came out harsh, the questions caught me at a not-so-good time.

I don't claim to have phrased all my wishes perfectly clearly and I'm sure there's always room for improvement, but some of Jack's questions were kinds that make you go, If you don't understand that, what do you understand about MediaWiki/WMF wikis at all?

For instance, this has been on Bugzilla then Phabricator since the aughts. Watchlist and RecentChanges are like the home pages for most Wikimedians, your main feeds if you will. Every Wikimedian knows they don't have pagination. Even if you didn't, one would think visiting the Phab tasks and reading the descriptions would have clarified what the wish was asking for.

I think it would be much less discouraging if questions weren't directed directly at the wish authors, but more along the lines of "Help me understand" and soliciting input from anyone (including CommTech employees, who are amazing volunteers and engineers).

It also appears the case that recommending wishes to be written "problem-led" and getting rid of the proposed solution field is making it harder to understand them. Now the wish has got a note essentially stating the solution. Nardog (talk) 03:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Another possible improvement: a field for links to the same or similar wishes in past surveys. Nardog (talk) 04:19, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Femke, thank you for reaching out to Nardog. @Nardog, thank you for clarifying things.

I will forward the feedback about the restrictive nature of "problem led" submissions. The issue with that bit is we have had some wishes that have been very specific with how they should be fulfilled. Any departure from the steps prescribed, would make the proposer very unhappy, although there could be multiple ways of looking at the problem.

In the mean time, if you have any more wishes, just do your best to at least highlight the problem (to help us find a befitting focus area). You can then go ahead to add any other info that per your expertise can help.

Thank you both, and please keep helping us vet and discuss wishes whenever you have time. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the risks of wishes being solved the "wrong" way is higher when wishes are "problem-led" and therefore likely less clear. Historically, I don't remember people being unhappy when the wishes are solved in another way, as CommTech has always had good communications about what is and what isn't feasible and people understood that.

The cool thing about the wishlist is that the non-technical community can help co-create solutions to problems. One of the aims of the new wishlist system is to get more engagement from the community in solving issues. An easy way to do this is let us keep thinking about solutions, rather than just posing problems.

As the wishes are unsorted and often don't have clear titles, I find it difficult to help vet. The categories such as feature request / bug, etc, are not that important for me as an editor. I would like to know if they are about reading experience, adminning, citations etc. Femke (talk) 18:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, bring back categories! It's tiresome to sort out what piques your interest from a long list. Nardog (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Then emphasize that the proposed solution is optional and may not be adopted. And perhaps allow others to add/workshop their versions as well. When you submit a wish omitting what you want as you were told, and then asked to clarify what you want, and then the wish is slapped with a note saying what it's actually asking for, it feels not only counterproductive but as silly and goofy as a Rube Goldberg machine. Nardog (talk) 23:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Impossible to edit a wish marked for translation

You can't edit a wish using the gadget if the wish title is longer than 100 characters including <translate>...</translate>. Nardog (talk) 09:42, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nardog, well noted, problem has been raised with the team. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Ideas for improving the layout of Community Wishlist/Focus areas

• Consider not using tiles. Tiles require the reader's eyes to zig-zag around the page in what I find to be an unintuitive way.
• Consider transcluding the list of wishes directly under each focus area, instead of requiring a click. The transcluded wishes should ideally be very concise. Probably a bulleted list of just the wish titles. If space is an issue, maybe only transclude 3 wishes per focus area. Examples help turn each focus area from nebulous to concrete.

Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:02, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

😀 Those overlap with two of my suggestions above (removing tiles at least for mobile, adding adding example wishes like the WMDE wishlist). Still waiting on a response there from @STei (WMF) :). Femke (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

@Femke. @Novem Linguae the WMDE wishlist also uses tiles for focus areas. Are you asking for a list?

Are you suggesting transcluding a few templates into the tile itself? JWheeler-WMF (talk) 14:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Are you asking for a list? Yes. Wiki pages typically have a linear flow. Are you suggesting transcluding a few templates into the tile itself? Yes. Well, transcluding a few wishes rather than templates. No biggie if you choose not to go in this direction, but these are my small suggestions. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh. Could also do one column of wide tiles to solve the zigzag issue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:11, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't mind the tiles themselves too much. The German tiles do work much better on mobile, as only one tile is displayed horizontally, rather than two. So would love for that to be equally accessible here. Femke (talk) 16:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Bizarre process

On the face of it, voting for a focus area at this stage makes no sense, as there is no deadline or indication that there won't be more of them. A vote for a candidate is a vote against the others in the same race. But we do not yet know what they will be. So are you just going to be biased toward areas that were created early? Even if you measured the votes in proportion to the time during which the voting was open for each area, it wouldn't be reliable because the wishlist has already been advertised so the number of people who see an area per day (or whatever) is going to be different for each of them, not to mention some who voted for an area might prefer another that hadn't been created yet when they voted. Overall the whole process seems incredibly half-baked and I do not see how it could help prioritization in a remotely fair or objective way. Nardog (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Nardog - I wanted to clarify a few things. The CommTech team is not the only team responsible for adopting and working on focus areas. We anticipate through 2025-26 annual planning that multiple focus areas will be adopted by teams across the foundation, and volunteer developers can also rally together and adopt a focus area. A vote for one focus area is not a vote against another, but rather a signal of demand. You can vote on any focus area you like, there's no limit to voting.

As far as "votes over time" go, this is a concern, one that we are going to monitor. Number of votes is one mechanism for focus area adoption; for example, we'd expect to see more votes on a focus area regarding citations than for Wikisource, namely because more people interact with Wikipedia and citations at large.

Over the next couple weeks - and over time - we will release even more focus areas for discussion, measuring signals, etc.

While the process is more nuanced than previous years, it is built off a model from WMDE that has seen success. This new process moves away from a popularity contest for individual ideas, and for some that might be seen as less objective or fair.

Thanks for your continued participation and engagement. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 14:45, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

We should be able to choose what we want, not the least bad group. Each focus group has at least one idea that produces little to no benefit and costs a large amount of developer time.

@JWheeler-WMF: It should be clear by now that the whole "focus areas" idea needs to be dropped ASAP. It was just a bad idea. If it is not clear to you why "focus areas" are bad idea then please let me know, I can list many reasons and I'd be happy to explain them in detail. If you are unable to change course, but you already understand that this is a bad idea then please let everyone know so that we don't have to keep telling you why it is a bad idea. Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 16:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that is some important context, but... There aren't an infinite number of teams, or an infinite number of personnel in them. So there can only be so many focus areas to be worked on. If some focus areas aren't going to be picked over—or before—others, what even is the point of them? Is assigning a wish a focus area already a stamp of approval that it's going to be worked on? It doesn't look like it and I sure hope not. So please don't tell us focus areas aren't competing with one another when they clearly are.

I've been thinking about why I felt like voting for wishes in the past years and I don't feel like voting for focus areas now, and I think it all comes down to the lack of transparency. If a vote is just a "signal of demand", there is little reason or motive or incentive to cast one because it's extremely opaque what that means, entails, or does. It feels no different from the situation that has existed on Phabricator, where, if you don't have the skill, resource, and social capital to make a wish a reality, all you can do is pray and wait for (or harass) someone else to do it for you. The arbitrary nature of it makes it feel hopeless, unjust almost. The CWS bridged that gap. You could at least see what difference a vote made. It's empowering when you can foresee a tangible outcome. Now I don't feel empowered to vote on focus areas, and I have the same sense of helplessness I've had on Phabricator.

It's like we've moved from a direct democracy to a representative democracy. You never find a candidate whose policies you endorse 100% in an election, so you have to be really strategic and to research and compromise if you want to see your vote make even a tiny dent in the outcome. So getting rid of voting on individual wishes has made it far less engaging and more onerous. Even in a representative democracy, you can usually at least try to influence policies by engaging in party politics or calling your constituency's representative. I don't know how I can influence the allocation of focus areas. It feels like you've taken power away from us.

I don't know if the new system is a bad idea, I haven't seen it play out. But it has certainly been much more complicated and inaccessible and less engaging or exciting. Nardog (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

@Nardog: At this point I do not think that JWheeler-WMF does not understand the downsides of the Focus Areas system. But plans have been made and it is too late to turn back. So if we put more and more effort into explaining why it is a bad idea it is only discouraging and not helpful. I've been in the position before where I had to toe the company line while knowing full well that the criticism was justified. The problem was that there was no way back. The company I worked in at the time had a toxic work culture.

When JWheeler-WMF writes: We anticipate through 2025-26 annual planning that multiple focus areas will be adopted by teams across the foundation I interpret that to mean that this is a long term thing and a WMF-wide decision that JWheeler-WMF did not make and is unable to change.

At least, that is my attempt at reading between the lines.

The extremely careful wording and the fact that criticism of ideas is repeatedly interpreted as an attack, and not as valuable feedback, is a sign that they can't just say: "oh yeah my boss is an idiot lol". I can, but I am self-employed. Polygnotus (talk) 02:25, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't know if it's a bad idea. It might be, and it might instead turn out to be a net positive with more wishes I want fulfilled fulfilled. I was just explaining why it feels pointless to participate in the voting right now. Nardog (talk) 03:03, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I understand. It certainly is a bad idea. Focusing on some quick wins and some technical debt while maximizing scale (amount of people affected) and depth (how much they benefit) would be a good idea. Polygnotus (talk) 03:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

You've made your point clear, you can stop bludgeoning now. Nardog (talk) 03:13, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Friendly fire is a bad strategy. I am just trying to help, and this is a new conversation topic. Polygnotus (talk) 03:15, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

!Voting system is inferior to normal wikicode

The !voting system is inferior to normal wikicode, I can't even edit my !vote (made a typo). It should be scrapped because it offers no advantages over normal !voting in wikicode and it has many downsides.

Editing a vote appears to be impossible (changing your mind after a discussion/further research should be encouraged, not discouraged)

I haven't tested it but it is likely that it is also open to abuse btw (e.g. deliberately inserting malformed code to hide any votes under yours). Polygnotus (talk) 17:02, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Community Wishlist/Focus areas/Repetitive tasks/Votes --Johannnes89 (talk) 17:53, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Johannnes89: Thank you! Point still stands tho. Do you know how to add an edit link to each of these !voting areas? Polygnotus (talk) 18:00, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Editing of votes via the gadget is something we wanted to implement, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. We'll try to prioritize this. It should perhaps also be paired with a "Remove my vote" button, or something. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF): But since that isn't implemented yet, can you stick a [edit] link in there? @JWheeler-WMF: is not opposed to [edit] links, hence the WMF tag in the username. Polygnotus (talk) 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Having a discussion BEFORE !voting would lead to more informed choices

!voting is a last resort.

First we need to have a discussion where people can list the pros and cons of each idea.

We would make more informed choices after a good discussion.

In future iterations of this thing, !voting should commence AFTER a discussion.

I had to boldly add discussion sections myself... This is a very bad look because it shows a fundamental lack of understanding (or interest in) wiki-culture. Polygnotus (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding discussion sections to "Focus areas"

@MusikAnimal (WMF): reverted my addition of discussion sections with the editsummaries: "please ask first" and "please consult first; this is might be breaking automation" and "please discuss first at Talk:Community Wishlist".

The (unofficial) motto is: "Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it.".

And it is incredibly unlikely, basically impossible, that this will negatively affect "automation" in any way. As a software engineer MusikAnimal is aware of that.

So while I do not want to start an editwar the editsummaries do not make sense and it could be interpreted as an attempt to hide negative feedback, which is an impression you surely want to avoid giving, even unintentionally. Polygnotus (talk) 20:12, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

We have a bot that listens for changes to focus areas and this might confuse it. I didn't take the time to confirm. The changes may also conflict with our current machine translation efforts (also unconfirmed). Unexpected changes to otherwise "structured" wikitext pages causing problems is something common to all prior Wishlists as well. It is a caveat of our template/module/bot-driven system. You're not wrong for being bold, things are just fragile and I don't want anything to break :) We also don't want lengthy discussion to distract from the content, for the same reasons the Talk namespace exists. Technical bits aside, transcluding the discussion is a product decision too and thus would need approval from @JWheeler-WMF. Thanks for your understanding, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal (WMF): !Voting patterns are (and should be!) influenced by arguments for and against. !Voting without a discussion leads to inferior results. "Hiding" the discussion on a different page will drastically reduce the amount of people who see it and engage with it. You are a hardcore Wikipedia user so I am telling you nothing new.

This is why there are no decisions on Wikipedia that are decided by simple !votecounting without a discussion.

As a software engineer you know that it would require truly terrible coding for a bot or machine translation thingy to get confused by the addition of a section.

Lengthy discussions do not distract from the content, they are the meat and potatoes of any !vote. A lot of things on those pages are actually unimportant and could be removed, but not the discussion section.

@JWheeler-WMF: can i has "approval"?

The WMF desperately needs feedback, both positive or negative (what to do and what not to do). Goodwill from volunteers is not a resource anyone can afford to waste.

If this is a community wishlist the wishes of the community should be front and center. So let them express their points of view.

Polygnotus (talk) 20:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Polygnotus - thanks for all the discussion today. I'm responding here to a number of the points you've raised on various topics.

We've instituted focus areas, based on WMDE's successful rollout, as a response to the challenges and feedback regarding previous wishlists. Specifically, the Community Tech team cannot respond to enough individual wishes, and the movement needs to chart a new way. We need more involvement from teams across the foundation, and involvement from community.

Focus areas summarize a problem articulated through wishes. Volunteers may vote on focus areas and discuss them - either through their vote, or on the talk page. When a team prioritizes a focus area, they are prioritizing the problem to solve, validated by communities. It's possible the team may fix each wish, but it is more likely that the wishes will inform this work, and that not every wish will be solved 1:1. And, teams may also adopt individual wishes, put them on their backlog, and prioritize accordingly.

I understand your desire to foster more conversation by exposing discussions on an article page; we made a deliberate choice to help people engage with focus areas without being too bogged down. It's possible we adjust this moving forward, and we'll keep listening.

We're in the early days of the new wishlist, I am new to wiki-culture, and I'm still learning. Our wishlist is new, we're still feeling out what's missing and what needs to change, and we are listening. For example, we realize there's a need to signal interest in individual wishes. As we continue to solicit feedback, I'd encourage folks to act with respect, and provide feedback in a constructive manner. JWheeler-WMF (talk) 21:43, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@JWheeler-WMF: Community Tech team cannot respond to enough individual wishes, and the movement needs to chart a new way Agreed. The WMF should be a software company, and its main focus should be developing and improving software. Most of its budget should be used for that goal. That means the budget for your team should increase drastically.

it is more likely that the wishes will inform this work, and that not every wish will be solved 1:1. It is completely impossible that every wish will be fulfilled 1:1. They are wishes and magic is not real. You cannot read minds. No one expects them to be fulfilled 1:1.

If we have 2 wishes and one receives 51% of the votes and the other 49% of the votes, and they are in 2 different focus areas, then the "focus areas" are not helpful.

I am new to wiki-culture, and I'm still learning. Welcome! We are all still learning. The reason that I am here is to learn. One of the best decisions ever made on Wikipedia is that !votecount is not the deciding factor when decisions have to be made. For example, in the Article for Deletion discussions you'll find that admins are explicitly instructed to value good reasoning and policy based arguments more than simple "per nom" ("I agree with the person who nominated the article") votes. The downside is that a lot of bytes are wasted having pointless discussions. The upside is that the community managed to write 6 million articles, sometimes about very controversial topics, without bashing eachothers head in.

I understand your desire to foster more conversation by exposing discussions on an article page; we made a deliberate choice to help people engage with focus areas without being too bogged down That is a mistake. Allowing people to make an informed decision and weighing the pros and cons does not bog them down. The community wishlist can be a very valuable tool, but community participation is required, and that must include discussion.

provide feedback in a constructive manner Sadly, negative feedback is, for some, hard to hear. Any beginning is difficult, so people might end up in a situation where a lot of the feedback they get tells them not to do something, or to drastically change course. In that case, the worst thing one can do is to shut down and stop listening. I offered to help you avoid harsh criticism because I am very good at listing the downsides of any plan. As a consultant I often have to tell people why their ideas won't work. I also offered to ask a handful of very smart and experienced people what they would like as a wish. The current wishes are, on average, not great and the hope is that, by inviting very smart and experienced people the standard can be elevated.

I highly recommend writing an article. Even a stub. It is a great way to learn and experience Wikipedia. Polygnotus (talk) 22:12, 29 August 2024 (UTC)