Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Editing/Better diff handling of paragraph splits

Random proposal ►◄ Editing The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Better diff handling of paragraph splits

Problem: When an editor adds line breaks to split an existing paragraph, our diff viewer depicts the text as deleted and re-added rather than just repurposed. This makes it difficult to see what text changed between the two paragraphs.
Who would benefit: Editors and readers who view diffs of this fairly common type of edit
Proposed solution: Directly compare the text changes between the "deleted" text and the new paragraphs, similar to how this handled moved paragraphs
More comments: This is a perennial request with continued need. It ranked #13 in 2016, and it appeared in the 2019 wishlist if not elsewhere
Phabricator tickets: task T156439, task T7072
Proposer: czar 02:11, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Support for this! Maybe they could internally do a sentence-by-sentence diff, i.e. put every sentence in a new line before running diff.
The improved diff view of wikEdDiff handles this case well. Certes (talk) 00:38, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. It is useful for all editors, but I think it would also help in-experienced editors become more comfortable with editing. The instant feedback such a function would give would be very nice. Mulstev (talk) 07:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since wikimarkup treats a single line-break as a space, the diff tool should use both sections for the compare. If a line-break is removed two sections would be compared with the resulting single section. If a line break is added the original section would be compared with the resulting 2 sections. I would not suggest displaying every sentence as a new line; adding or removing periods would then have the same effect as adding or removing line-breaks. But it may be beneficial to increase the importance of sentence breaks in the diff. User-duck (talk) 18:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the English Wikipedia, I suggest you try wikEdDiff (it's in the gadgets). In my opinion a much better diff than the standard one in most cases. It does not replace the standard one, it's just in addition on the top. --Ita140188 (talk) 15:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Overlaps with WMDE Technical Wishes/Edit Conflicts.--Snaevar (talk) 14:39, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support User-duck (talk) 18:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sagivrash (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support I admit that's annoying. I believe it is a bug caused by how Mediawiki handles text. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 19:10, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Movses (talk) 19:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alpöhi (talk) 19:16, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support I agree it's a common bug and we should fix it.--EternamenteAprendiz (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dr747 (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --NGC 54 (talk / contribs) 19:45, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kisnaak (talk) 21:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pmau (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gabrasca (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Luis Fernández García (talk) 21:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ponor (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support YFdyh000 (talk) 23:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 01:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support PianistHere (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 02:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:50, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support kennethaw88 • talk 06:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Danbloch (talk) 09:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nurg (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Samwalton9 (talk) 09:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thomas Kinz (talk) 10:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lion-hearted85 (talk) 10:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kpjas (talk) 11:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ulanwp (talk) 12:49, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hb2007 (talk) 14:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mannivu · ✉ 15:04, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support I hate seeing this on the diff pages! BladeRikWr (talk) 22:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nehaoua (talk) 22:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is one of the most annoying things about diffs and makes them quite hard to use at times. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support // Lollipoplollipoplollipop :: talk 05:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support JPxG (talk) 05:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support ··· 🌸 Rachmat04 · ☕ 06:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support ‐‐1997kB (talk) 12:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dexxor (talk) 16:37, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 18:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK ▎enWiki 22:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Geniac (talk) 07:20, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Bilorv (talk) 09:08, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jc86035 (talk) 11:48, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Paucabot (talk) 12:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Strong support. Very good idea. Really, the chages are not so importants as pictured by the diff function. BoldLuis (talk) 15:17, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Bencemac (talk) 16:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Szalax (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support James Martindale (talk) 17:12, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hkoala (talk) 17:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support And sometimes its not only paragraph splitting… Akela NDE (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Theklan (talk) 18:05, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support --IngenieroLoco (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support DGG (talk) 01:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support You'd think getting this right would be considered basic functionality for software based around editing text. But not in the WMF's world. Oh, DrPizza! (talk) 07:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Making diffs easier to use not only increases human productivity, but makes change tracking feasible for more novice editors. -- Beland (talk) 08:20, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~Cybularny ^Speak? 11:21, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 12:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gnom (talk) 15:51, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support tufor (talk) 16:11, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mike Linksvayer (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Emperork 🐋🐰 00:21, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is so infuriating! Thanks for proposing it. Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 02:38, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support TeKaBe (talk) 07:54, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gufosowa (talk) 10:47, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support YTRK (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Izno (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nikkimaria (talk) 17:17, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support 4nn1l2 (talk) 17:21, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- the wub "?!" 18:29, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kaviraf (talk) 20:12, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tgr (talk) 08:34, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support SchmiAlf (talk) 11:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:16, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support β₁₆ - (talk) 16:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support I also have to wonder whether various open-source diff tools could not simply be repurposed. WMF's have always been a bit, eh, under-useful, especially when compared to things like Meld (graphical Linux diff tool). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:44, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support RanuKanu (talk) 09:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 13:04, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support GiFontenelle (talk) 21:06, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support SpringProof (talk) 23:10, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Crissov (talk) 08:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support PG (talk) 08:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Uu70344 (talk) 11:39, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Michael Childs (talk) 01:57, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Shenme (talk) 01:23, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Diffs were always one of the best things in MediaWiki sites, but they can always get better, and this is a good proposal. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mmitchell10 (talk) 20:04, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:31, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Joejose1 (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support, and second the request to look at whether existing open-source diff tools could be used. HLHJ (talk) 18:10, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support 5910 C (talk) 21:52, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Whisperjanes (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support He's the Billy Australia can't afford (talk) 02:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Golmore (talk) 12:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support EEMIV (talk) 14:49, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thibaut (talk) 16:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nadzik (talk) 17:23, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support Schniggendiller (talk) 17:40, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]