Wikipedia talk:Teahouse

Greetings: This page is for discussing the Teahouse, please direct questions about Wikipedia to the Teahouse Q&A forum. Thank you.

You can also talk in real time chat at #wikipedia-en-help ^connect, and participate in discussions at the host lounge.

Request an account process needs help

Hello everyone, I'm Callanecc, an administrator on account creation interface. Recently, our project has had an increased backlog in getting accounts for new users. Our numbers are currently over 250 people waiting for accounts on the English Wikipedia. If you could even spare a moment to do a few requests a day to help us clear this backlog, that would go a long way to encouraging new editors to participate with an account. If this interests you and you're willing to help, and you match the following description, then please do apply! Ideal users are:

• Identified to the Wikimedia Foundation or are willing and able to identify
• In good standing with no recent blocks or other sanctions
• Understand and are able to apply the username policy
• Have worked with new contributors
• Keep personal information confidential
• Please see the full list of requirements for more information

We have a very friendly team to help you get started, we also have a private IRC channel where you can ask questions or get help with difficult account requests. If you have any questions for us or about the process, feel free to ask at the talkpage. If you can help out, we would greatly appreciate it. For the ACC team, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Callanecc (talk • contribs) 19:32, December 4, 2013 (UTC)

Visual editor

I just realised that many of the answers we have given (certainly that I have given) have assumed that the guest is using the source editor. Explaining these things with the visual editor - I don't have the first idea how I copy an infobox from one article to another, or fix a list so that there are no gaps to upset screen-readers.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 13 August 2014 (UTC).

Talkback script now obsolete?

Since we can now use the {{ping}} function to let people know we've answered their question at the Teahouse, should we deprecate the use of the "talkback" procedure, and instead recommend that people use "ping" instead? Just an idea. --Jayron32 20:18, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jayron32: User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/autoping.js may be more to your liking, then. :) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

pawak

Can this user be reprimanded re his threatening and patronizing language please— Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.248.212 (talk • contribs)

Flow

The people from WMF who are creating WP:Flow are considering to use Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions as one of a handful of pages where Flow may get enabled this month (as described in the roadmap on the Flow page). I thought it would be best if people here were aw<are of that possibility before it is actually definitely decided, and can give their input about whether having a different unfinished talk page format for this page is helpful for users with problems and questions. Fram (talk) 09:06, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The current talkpage system is not confusing and bizarrely counter-intuitive. Flow is. Therefore, flow should be avoided at all costs since this page is newbie-friendly. --Jakob (talk) 11:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

This is not the place to test Flow. IMO, no place is, but definitely not this newbie-friendly page. --AmaryllisGardener ^talk 12:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Fram posted some similar announcements in other places, I think? Not sure when Fram started working on behalf of WMF to post such announcements, but in one of the other places Fram posted such an announcement, someone from WMF popped up clarifying the situation and making clear that it was not as Fram described. Fram, are you informing the relevant people at WMF of everywhere you are posting these announcements? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Any diffs for your rather malinformed statements? I don't work on behalf of the WMF, never pretended I did. I did not post in other places, I posted in one other place, Wikipedia talk:Co-op, where I got a reply from a non-WMF editor; no one from the WMF "popped up" there. Nothing I posted has been shown to be incorrect, what has been said is that the roadmap posted by the WMF is at best a few months off. Can you please take your nonsense somewhere else? Fram (talk) 06:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 September 2014

Kaitybah (talk) 17:54, 3 September 2014 (UTC) Thanks for the warm welcome

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 18:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Flow test page

Hi everyone --

I'm Danny, a Product Manager at WMF, and I'm working on the new discussion system, known as Flow. I've been talking to Heather about the Teahouse for a little while, and there was a conversation about it here in June. I'd like to see if you'd be interested in checking out at the current version of Flow on a test page, and helping us to shape the new system into something that's worth using on Teahouse/Questions.

The goal for the feature is to make wiki discussions more accessible for new users, and more efficient for experienced users. The Teahouse is a really important meeting point for new and experienced people, and there are some features in the system that I think could help both groups.

We've put up a test board on Teahouse/Questions/Flow test, so you can try it out and see how it works. I think the biggest advantage for both new and experienced users is the notifications system, where users can just follow the conversations that they're a part of, and tune out the discussions that they're not interested in. Each individual discussion has its own watch star, and you can choose which conversations you want to subscribe to. When there's a reply, you get a notification in Echo that brings you back to the conversation, with the new messages highlighted.

Now, the feature is still in active development, so there are a lot of pieces that we haven't built yet. For example, we're working on a Table of Contents for the Flow board, and an in-page Search feature. We're also revising some of the elements that currently exist -- for example, right now you can't edit other users' messages. That's not really the wiki style, so we're going to make everything editable -- with a clearer signal when somebody's edited a message, and a link to the history.

So I'm not actually expecting everyone here to say that it's perfect, and we should put it on Questions by the end of the day. :) My goal right now is to find out what you think about the system so far, and what changes you'd want to make. Teahouse hosts know a lot about where new people trip up, and how to make them feel comfortable. What do you think? DannyH (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm in two minds about it, personally. Well, I'm quite strongly against the Teahouse being used as a test page for Flow. Flow needs to be finished before it's deployed to something as newbie-sensitive as the Teahouse; guests need to not be confused by software that's not of production quality.

As for adopting Flow once it is finished, well, again, I'm in two minds about it, but overall, I think I'd be for it. The controversial "top posting" feature that the Teahouse has is not supported at all well by the standard Mediawiki structure, so certainly there's a technical advantage to adopting Flow in that respect. Having an interface that a new user might be more familiar with, rather than the standard Mediawiki editing mode that can be a bit daunting if you don't already know what you're doing, is also a plus. I do have reservations about having the Teahouse be fundamentally unlike editing the rest of Wikipedia, top-posting notwithstanding. Users are going to make mistakes while using Mediawiki for the first time, and perhaps it's better that they make their mistakes at the Teahouse, rather than in an article proper. Still, all in all, I think a finished Flow would be a net positive for the Teahouse. But only once it's done. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Danny, in RL I am a programme manager with several software development projects within the programme so I'm comfortable with MVP and beta releases and the knowledge that there are several iterations before a final product. So in that respect I don't have too much of an issue with the proposal. However I'm not seeing an MVP at the moment. When Flow is still lacking basics like the button that says post to lodge comments then its not something I could currently support being used here. Nthep (talk) 07:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I've fully protected the page (since we don't have the rights to delete it, good going WMF!), since this was implemented without consensus and without even an attempt to get consensus (note my topic about Flow above, which was the first most people here heard about this). The WMF has clearly not learned anything from all their recent fiasco's, and has no plan at all to work together with the editing community. They get wat they want. Fram (talk) 07:36, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, that'll calm things right down. Y'all need to chill about this whole thing; the creation of a Flow test page that isn't linked from anywhere else in the Teahouse, much as I disagree with it, is not the end of the world as we know it. When the WMF replaces the actual question page with Flow, or even if they did anything to actually direct newbies to Flow, then we can get incensed. Until then, I don't think that escalation and brinkmanship is a good idea. Perhaps a nice cup of tea, instead. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:03, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

A cup of tea would be great, thanks. Like you said, Flow isn't ready to replace the Questions page, and I put up the test page so that we can talk about what's most important to the Teahouse hosts. There's a long list of features that we need to build, and changes to make. So I think it would be great to talk about which of the missing pieces are most important for you.

It looks like the test page we put up here has been spiked, but you can check out the current version on Wikimedia.org Talk:Sandbox. What are the most important features that aren't there, or don't work properly? DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a tempest in a teapot (no pun intended). These are clearly limited test pages.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Erik Moeller (WMF), DannyH (WMF) I guess you are right, but in the current situation (and anytime else really) it might be better to leave some days time between an announcement and the actual deployment of something that hasn't been specifically and explicitly (i.e. in a diff you can point to!) asked for beforehand, just to keep spirits calm. --HHill (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Totally. There's no urgency here.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)