Forum:Article feedback

Quite a while ago, the RuneScape Wiki and soon the OSRS Wiki added an "article feedback" button to their pages. Clicking the button allows readers to leave anonymous feedback that can be reviewed on the talk page (a list of all open feedback is also available on a centralized page).

According to RSW editors' experience with it over that last year, it seems like that the feedbacks there is generally useful in terms of indicating pages that need improvement, providing a "to-do list" for interested editors, and encouraging corrections and rewrites.

Here's the general flow:

• User clicks the button
• User submits feedback, prompted to join Discord/Zulip?
• Meanwhile the feedback is posted to the talk page anonymously via a bot and a message is sent to Discord/Zulip channel. This will also show up on a project page using DPL so using Discord/Zulip isn't required.
• Editor discovers the feedback via the central project page/Discord/Zulip
• Autoconfirmed user can mark feedback as resolved
• Feedbacks are assigned a UUID that can be traced back to an IP address so users can be blocked by admin from submitting feedback

A few issues to consider:

• I get that some people might think that this is not useful due to talk page being a thing. Although DiscussionTools has drastically eased the learning curve of talk pages, from our own experience and the experience of RSWs there still are significant blockers that prevent readers from leaving feedback this way. Article feedback removes them by making feedback truly anonymous and making feedback more accessible.
• A potential issue is that the original version of article feedback (still used on RSW) allow the reader to leave a star rating. Since then, OSRS has actually had this feature removed because they don't find it useful enough. I personally think that it doesn't matter that much and can be safely left out.
• Cook has also raised a concern that the feedback messages can sometimes flood the channel and might slightly discourage normal conversation. This is aggravated by the fact that our audience is younger than RSW, and the number of useful feedback might be smaller. The question for us to consider is whether to make a new channel for the article feedback feed. I personally think we can leave them in the #wiki channel for a while and if it doesn't work we can always move them out later.

Relevant discussion from the RSWs:

• wgmeta:rsw:Forum:Article Feedback v2
• wgmeta:osrsw:Forum:Implementing article feedback on OSW
• wgmeta:osrsw:Forum:Addressing article feedback feedback

GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 10:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Support -- 👁 Image
Delycache ^{(Talk | Contributions)} 11:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Cautious support I think wikis in general lose a lot by making it so leaving feedback requires a lot of steps for an "average Internet user" who no longer is a tech geek. My main concern is abuse. I believe that MCW receives a lot more abuse than RSW wikis and this feature only adds more surface by having another vector for write access to multiple places like Discord and wiki page. I don't think the proposed UUID measure is good enough of anti-abuse measure considering the scale of what I've seen on MCW there should be at least a bit more advanced text filter built-in. I also believe that sending those messages into #wiki is not a great idea and should start in separate channel, #wiki is saturated with various discussions as it is and this might add up to reason why people stop using that channel (even though I believe it's a mistake to do so). Frisk (talk) 11:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I've run this by Cook and it is possible to do an AF check if desired. GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 12:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

That would be most ideal IMO as it would benefit from existing measures implemented both by local administration as well as CATS team. If feedback first went through AFs, then my concern about abuse is resolved. Frisk (talk) 12:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Suggestion — I’d prefer something completely separate from our Discord servers or even the Zulip workspace, maybe designed specifically for this proposal’s purpose. — BabylonAS 12:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Can you elaborate? GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 12:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Instead of sending feedback messages to Discord or Zulip, they would be saved, accessed, and read in a separate medium. Maybe a wiki extension could be used. BabylonAS 14:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Well it will also be available on a project page via DPL. Does this solve your concern? GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 14:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Using this extension?--Arina (she/her) 12:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

No, it's a custom setup that doesn't really involve any extensions. GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 12:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh ok.--Arina (she/her) 12:33, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

We'll need an abuse filter for this btw.--Arina (she/her) 12:33, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

This sounds good, but I won't support this if it's to be used on discord. Not everyone can or wants to use discord, and I don't think limiting a feature to discord users is fair. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  14:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Feedback appears on the talk page and a dedicated project page. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
19:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

If this is to be available on-wiki, then I 👁 Image
 soft support this. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  23:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Support I'm also concerned about abuse, especially for people sending bug reports or game suggestions. However, I think we can try it first and then decide whether to keep it depending on the effect in the future. -- Leo768 (talk) 14:37, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Soft support, the feature sounds really great in theory but I still find myself worried about it, perhaps irrationally. I mainly don’t know how we’ll implement it onto Discord, though we can use a separate channel for now. We probably need to rethink Active Discussions on Discord anyway. I’d like to see how this goes, it could be great. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
19:18, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Soft support, this is something we can test for a while and then simply remove if we see it's not useful or leads to spam etc. My biggest concerns at the moment are that it could be exploited by users to artificially push a certain opinion in discussions, and as an excuse to ignore consensus when doing large scale edits.--Capopanzo (talk | contribs) 19:29, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

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 Oppose. In short, I don't think it really adds anything, and it will probably create more problems than solutions. I originally thought "feedback" would be general ideas on how to improve an article, but that's not quite how it's used on the RuneScape wikis. Over there, "feedback" is basically people creating a talk page topic with no title, and with no option to reply. Some of the feedback is just a short comment that almost sounds like an instant message. We already have enough vandalism, non-constructive, or joke comments left on talk pages, this feature will probably be abused often. I think a better option would be to have a shortcut button on the article page that would take you to the talk page and start a new topic. Also, a small grumble about MCW:Article feedback saying that this was implemented with "consensus". This forum topic about adding a new feature to the wiki was created 6 days ago. Most of the conversation about this topic happened on that same day (14 out of 18 comments if I counted correctly). I wasn't able to spend much time on the wiki on that particular day and had no idea this forum topic even existed until today when I saw the "Article feedback up" topic being added in Recent changes. Partially my fault for not checking for new forum topics. But maybe in the future, give significant forum topics a full week at least, and if most of the conversation only happens over the course of 24 hours, just add a message asking for more comments so it's more visible. Rampage455 (talk) 22:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I think that feedback being abused is a very valid concern but we shouldn't really make too many assumptions here. The RuneScape Wikis' experience does show that the majority of feedback is constructive. Some safeguards such as AbuseFilter are in place as well. The general sentiment here seems to be that we are willing to try this out, so I think we can start a 30-day trial period. We soft launch it, i.e. no social media posts, no announcements, and use a gradual rollout, starting with one third of logged out page views to limit possible impact. If feedback becomes problematic, we can always install additional moderation, like requiring admin moderation before posting to talk pages or Discord/Zulip, or quietly remove it. GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 05:28, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Article feedback is now up.--Arina (she/her) 15:46, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Though this feature is quite buggy rn - for example, you can share feedback for the main page.--Arina (she/her) 15:53, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Where can one view article feedback? -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  14:44, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Article feedback is now actually up GIM Dianliang233 (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Umm, what? I can't see any "share feedback" option anywhere. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  00:49, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

What are you using to view the wiki at the moment? I can see it on desktop. I was able to briefly see the feedback button on the desktop version of pages on mobile, but oddly it has disappeared. Rampage455 (talk) 01:09, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

That's the problem. It's not on mobile! -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  01:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

It's in the process of being implemented and tested. It will likely be added to mobile as well in due time. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 01:17, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Might I ask where this is being tested? -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  02:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

On all pages of the wiki, but only on Desktop view right now. | violine1101 ^(talk) 14:36, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I see. I did notice a test feedback in the RD feed on my page. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  14:38, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I could see it before if I disabled wiki's stylesheet. Why is it always signed by "FeedbackBot"? Arina (she/her) 15:03, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

The purpose of feedback is for readers to be able to give feedback without a wiki account and without exposing their IP publicly, both of which are barriers which prevent some readers from expressing their feedback. Exposing your IP publicly is something that many users are weary of due to denial of service attacks, and creating a wiki account is often too many steps to be seen as worth it for someone who just has a quick comment. Feedback bot posts on the readers behalf. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 15:11, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Public IPs now aren't permanent how they used to be 20-25 years ago. If there's actually someone DDOSing your public IP (personally I've never heard of cases like that) then just reload your router. Arina (she/her) 15:15, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

To add onto this, most readers don't know how wikis and talk pages work, so giving them a simple button to post their feedback makes it much easier for them to directly give feedback on an article they're currently reading. Currently there's a text in the feedback window saying "Feedback will be posted anonymously." - if we were to publish their IP addresses we'd need to add more fine print along the lines of "Your IP address will be publicly visible" which will scare people off, including those who don't necessarily know what an IP address actually is. | violine1101 ^(talk) 16:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Should the talk page template have "UTC" rather than "GMT"? It'd be consistent with timestamps. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  14:33, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Would there there a way to block users from using the feedback feature without Discord? — BabylonAS 15:06, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I have the same question. Since Chinese wiki community may have trouble accessing Discord, whould it be possible to provide an API similar to CDN purge tools so that admins can use the gadget to block users? -- Leo768 (talk) 14:13, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

@Dianliang233 could you look into what it would take to implement something like this? | violine1101 ^(talk) 16:47, 27 March 2025 (UTC)