Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Editing/Collaborative editing

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

Collaborative editing

Discussion

This has been investigated before and there have even been some demo's. One of the bigger unsolved problems for this so far are how exactly to do copyright attribution when people collaboratively worked on something at the same time, saved at the same time. Say we both enter a session, we both make some edits, I give permission to publish, then I leave, you change my text and make it something about several illegal acts that I would never morally support. And then you do the final save.. By whom is this text, who can be sued, whose names come up when we bring up that history ? etc etc etc. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you're familiar with Google Docs, it has a edit history (similar to wiki, but based on intervals of time rather than "save" button) viewer where it correctly attributes which person added/deleted text, similar to diff viewers. So only the text that one person touched would be attributed to that person. --JackFromWisconsin (talk) 00:39, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but we have a revision system that uses wikitext, not keystrokes. So unless you want everyone to do away with wikitext as a storage method, you can't really mix those.... Perhaps you could keep a duplicate history of every single keystroke in a separate table or something but... Its not simple. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Our current thinking is similar to the proposal here, that the "host" of the edit session would be the attributed author, and all other "guests" would agree to no-attribute license their contributions to the "host" (e.g. Public Domain). ESanders (WMF) (talk) 15:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is it not possible to connect the edits to both, if both are still online, and to the editors still active, when others have left the session? With a new article in the process of creation this should be unproblematic. And only those in the team that set out to write it should be allowed in (others only after admittance by the active editors or the "admin" of the editing group. Group editing should end when the article is put into the normal dictionary space. — Zapyon (talk) 10:00, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really a large proposal? AIUI CollabPad is pretty close to being deployable. (Not sure how easy it would be for a team other than Editing to make progress on it, though.) --Tgr (talk) 02:11, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
CollabPad is a good idea for the new project, and it can be considered to be alternatives. Thingofme (talk) 16:04, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know this existed until now, thanks for showing me this. I'd love to see it get implemented, and hope this pushes for its development. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 19:10, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- @ESanders (WMF) and KSiebert (WMF): any thoughts about moving this to the Editing category? I only have superficial knowledge of CollabPad, but my impressions is that by building on that, this proposal would fall into the range of what wishes are acceptable for CommTech to work on. --Tgr (talk) 06:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  Moving to Editing seems fine. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 12:46, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  
  Moved and approved! KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It’s only for VE not 2010 source though. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:30, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious how this might work for people who are simultaneously editing, too. Especially for current events, it can be frustrating to try to make small, quick edits to an article so that someone doesn't update the page while you're editing. I don't know how many times I've been doing a large edit, only to try to publish and find that I'm working with a historic version of the page. At that time, I need to figure out what they changed, whether it's worth saving, and how to incorporate my edit. Significa liberdade (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure they mean you can see the cursors of everyone that's editing. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the attribution issue could be solved with a system of "locking a part of the page" and saving regularly independent individual versions. For instance you are participing in an edit-a-thon on a single article: when someone edits a paragraph they own temporarily this paragraph and nobody else can modify it, and when this person moves its cursor outside of this paragraph their edit is saved with only this changed paragraph (or possibly with a timeout of 1 minute of inactivity). It would be a sort of medium-frequency merge (while seeing others’ independent changes), and the locking system would limit the number of small diffs (typically someone else add a letter while you are writing some sentence). The locked paragraphs could be highlighted to warn other editors that they cannot edit (for now) these parts. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:06, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support--Frettie (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support V0lkanic (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support especially for the 2010 source editor Aaron Liu (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support TheAmerikaner (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SeGiba (talk) 20:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Iamawesomeautomatic (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support PureTuber (talk) 21:55, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Pamputt (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support NMaia (talk) 23:25, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Attributing individual keystrokes to each user would rapidly inflate page history archives. In articles on current events, the chaotic environment serves as a useful deterrent to redundant efforts. Under an altered system, it would be difficult to attribute malicious and vandalizing edits by diving into submenus of group edits BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tgr (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per BluePenguin19. This, at least with the implementation suggested above, also ruins the fundamental wiki concept that people are accountable for the edits they make. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 03:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because of accountability reasons mentioned above. If there is an edit war between 2 edit parties, how would sanctions be meted out? Also, I am concerned that large edit parties could intimidate a single user by emphasizing their size. Libcub (talk) 06:18, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --Jim Hokins (talk) 08:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above. Mr. C.C.^{Hey yo!}_{I didn't do it!} 09:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Zapyon (talk) 10:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per reasons stated above. Lion-hearted85 (talk) 12:29, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The attribution would be very difficult for little gain. SunDawn (talk) 12:46, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Crosstor (talk) 13:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Cepice (talk) 14:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support CROIX (talk) 15:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral This is needed, but there are some accountability and revision issues. Thingofme (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Erfil (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unnecessary in my opinion. It would be a complete mess to try and edit with how many other users on the same page at the same time, especially on something like a featured article... Phrogge (talk) 19:32, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thomas Kinz (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support daSupremo 23:10, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Spectrallights (talk) 00:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Goliv04053 (talk) 00:18, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Realtime editing would obviously be a great feature, but this is a big and hairy technical topic that deservers a lot more time than just a single proposal here. Husky (talk) 20:57, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support আফতাবুজ্জামান (talk) 01:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wikimedia projects are already collaborative editing works. I do not see a point to add "real time" to this. Miniwark (talk) 10:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anti Edit conflicts. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gillum (talk) 20:25, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Useful even for mentors. Those edits should be attributet for all users (colaborative edit, 2 users [show their names]) JAn Dudík (talk) 21:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is doubtful I think this is a great feature, but the implication of this feature would be a mess. I don't know how the servers could handle multiple edits simultaneously. Don't get me wrong I believe this feature would boost community efforts, but there is also the attempt to track vandalism, and collaboration could make the efforts to track vandalism more arduous. NPRB (talk) 21:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Zwd626 (talk) 04:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral --cyrfaw (talk) 12:20, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Matma Rex (talk) 22:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aishik Rehman (talk) 07:31, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support GBSCHFRUSONI (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ppt91 (talk) 19:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Fuchs B (talk) 19:57, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Nice idea but I oppose per BluePenguin18 and Pppery. It'd be very difficult to implement. --Ferien (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kiwiz1338 (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose What, editing isn't collaborative enough already? Besides the legal and technical problems ... Daniel Case (talk) 06:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Nice to have feature in an ideal world, but with too many disadvantages: No longer any personal accountability for each contributor, edit wars impossible to resolve and to control, more vandalism, spam robots starting to edit, huge "diff" files in the WP database, page history cluttered by too many entries becoming no longer readable, loss of traceability, ... ruine of Wikipedia (not only physically, but also its fundamental spirit). Shinkolobwe (talk) 12:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Aspiriniks (talk) 18:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The dude named godzilla (talk) 07:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very important (but I am not sure if this might work) Schotterebene (talk) 12:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --Redrobsche (talk) 19:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --DerMaxdorfer (talk) 00:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Aside from the previously discussed copyright issues this possesses, I doubt this is really something that should be worked on. If you have the motivation to set up an 'edit party' with another editor, you can certainly coordinate your edits in a different manner. Is this really necessary? Will it be used? Or will it just remain an unclicked option at the bottom that maybe 20 real people will accidentally hit? WhoAteMyButter (talk) 03:16, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The copyright issue could be solved by shared editing, but seperate saving (so still one version per editor which only contains his/her contribution). For that while editing the unpublished edits would have to be saved temporarily once a second person is involved in order to be able to separate them for the version history. However vandals could just keep deleting/changing what you write when editing is shared and you would only see the published endresult. How would that be avoided without having to save every keystroke to track vandals? Maybe the first person could kick the second out of shared mode? Maybe one has to even be invited by the first editor? Make it a separate right for users/articles? It also could probably only be "published" once everyone has hit that button so noone is in mid-sentence. The time stamp of each editos contribution version is then that individuals publishing time - so the first editor could hit "publish", but it's only saved once the second one hits publish as well, and both separated version wil appear with their respective time stamp. It's still too complicated and I'm not convinced it's worth the effort. Just use the talk pages to coordinate or the In Use template for larger edits. --Lupe (talk) 15:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --He3nry (talk) 18:09, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Good idea in theory, but there are too many issues with this. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 21:08, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I can say that this is an idea that will work wonderfully in a number of collaborative projects within the Hebrew Wikipedia.
However, I highly recommend restricting it to outside the articles namespace (so that it works mostly in the draft, user, etc. namespaces). —מקף⁻ණ (Hyphen) 23:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support ANewPreson (talk) 12:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unnecessary, unlikely to be used much, and there are issues with the idea as listed above. Mike Christie (talk) 13:29, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support כובש המלפפונים (talk) 18:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Chatul (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The attribution issue could be managed with a semi-collaborative editing: editors can only modify a part of the page that nobody is currently modifying, see my comment in the discussion. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:11, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Morten Haan (talk) 18:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wikipedia was called a social network, a collaborative environment, but software limitations don't allow real-time collaborations, which is a shame. There are various examples showing it could work, and various examples of how conflicts could be solved. So why not on Wikipedia? Juandev (talk) 10:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As a general feature on any page, I anticipate that feature will introduce many side and follow up issues, e.g. one user discards made changes thus rendering the 2nd user's changes garbarge because words, images,... are missing that the 2nd user references or relied to be existing. Similar for reverting. In contrast, I'd be happy to support adding mediawiki syntax support (maybe even the visual and code editor) to an existing collaborative editor and let this run inside mediawiki, so if buddies want to collaboratively edit some text like a meeting protoccol or brainstorming results, they do not need to copy & paste existing wiki page source to an existing collaborative editing platform, edit there without any mediawiki syntax support, and copy & paste back – but instead have that editor nicely integrated; but it's still a special section clearly distinct from usual context & editing. --Schoschi (talk) 18:16, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This could be misused in many ways, most notably by vandals destroying your edits as you type – it would be like a game for them. SoupePrimordiale (talk) 07:23, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]