As everybody knows, talk pages are not much user-friendly. Except the "New topic" link, there is no help for new users to help them suggest/propose something to wiki. This creates situation, where newbies either use Discord or just give up. Additionally, if they make an edit, it's just bare bones text as there is no visual editor in talk namespaces and of course, we have to solve issue of people not signing their comments.
This is why I would propose adding extension DiscussionTools. It includes a new "New topic" utility, replying, ability to use VE in new topic and in replying, subscribing to topics, autosigning and adding general information about the discussion (last comment, number of comments, number of participants in discussion) under the header.
In future versions, it will receive an ability to edit through 2017 wikitext editor and also permanent links to every comment.
If this proposal goes through, the extension should be enabled after MediaWiki upgrade --TreeIsLife (talk) 10:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
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Support As proposer --TreeIsLife (talk) 10:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
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Support โ ๐ Image
Delycache (Talk | Contributions) 22:02, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
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Support - Improving accessibility to on-wiki discussion is great. - Harristic / Talk ๐ Image
22:22, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Support with hesitation โ I don't know how anyone is going to find the time or resources to do a project this big, but I support going through the effort and making it happen. This would definitely bring many benefits for a long future. --Simanelix (T|C) 23:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- It's just a matter of seeing if Weird Gloop will install the extension, it's not a big project or something like that. - Harristic / Talk ๐ Image
09:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I've never used DiscussionTools, so I'm approaching this one with caution. But it the benefits outweigh the downsides... I only hope some weird old stuff on Talk pages won't break the extension. โ BabylonAS 07:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
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Support. It can reduce patrollers' work if the format is unified.--๐ Image
Wilf233zhMCW๏ผ่ฎบยทๅ๏ผ 04:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
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Support โ assuming this is what Wikipedia has been using, it seems to work well enough (at least the "reply" button, I don't think I've experienced its other features). โSonicwave talk 23:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
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Comment. Seems like a good addition. I've also ported over the Comments in local time extension, commonly used on talk pages, over that allows user's local times to be rendered within the end's user screen only. It's not possible to load it from Wikipedia directly, although it does work when loaded locally. I'm a bit wary if DiscussionTools may break this extension or not. Delvin4519 (talk) 23:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
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Implemented this has been enabled on the English dev wiki. It will be added to production as part of the 1.41 upgrade. This topic will remain open until the upgrade goes live. --GIM Dianliang233 T C 00:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
