Talk:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Built-in feature to report issues with articles

This page is for discussions related to the Community Wishlist/Wishes/Built-in feature to report issues with articles page.   Please remember to: Sign posts using the four tildes (~~~~) Remain civil and polite during discussions. Place new text under old text (start a new post).

Good idea

Thanks for the wish @Wostr. Recently I have actually been patrolling en.wiki talk page messages by new users trying to spot error reports - there are plenty! Most get missed, or at least not acted on promptly. Some are critical (example). A built in feature would be very useful. Already on semi-protected pages in en.wiki IPs/new users can follow a semi-automated process to request changes, so this could build on that.

I commend pl.wiki for their initiative and I hope the WMF can build on that momentum.

I would also like to add this a brilliant form of new user engagement. Commander Keane (talk) 10:30, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Regarding patrolling talk pages, in WikiProject Chemistry in pl.wiki we also have a solution, although just like issues reporting gadget, it is a solution built on existing limited capabilities: all talk pages include a wikiproject template, so you can keep up with all new messages via a special page: [1]. This allows us to respond relatively quickly to new problem reports on the talk pages. However, some readers have no idea that they can report such problems at all, and the lack of a built-in solution does not help in this situation. Wostr (talk) 13:16, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

There was an article feedback tool & related wishes

I think it's this one: Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5. I think it was abandoned for good reasons like many inexperienced users creating nonconstructive feedback that just wastes people's time when they can comment on the talk page anyway and/or low overall usage etc.

However, I think some ways to make concrete issues (in particular) with articles get checked and solved more would be useful. Related wishes that are about that:

• Do not fully archive unsolved issues on Talk pages
• Personalized suggested tasks (including checking/solving open issues posted on article talk pages)

Prototyperspective (talk) 12:30, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! (it is actually broken but I figured it out).

My thoughts on the failed project, of course it is easy in hindsight... Calling the project "article feedback" was a mistake, the communuty doesn't want general feedback on articles. From what I could discover the dialogue said "Help improve this page: Did you find what you were looking for?" in a huge box at the bottom of the article - another mistake, we don't care about the reader's satisfaction and there should be a higher barrier to entry like a toolbox link. Next step was the text entry box with "Sorry about that: Any suggestion for improvement", too general.

This wish asks for a link specifically called "Report an error in the article" in the toolbar, a far cry from the failed project, although some of the same infrastructure could be used for moderation of the error reports.

The cons reported were "feedback is not useful to editors (~12% of posts seem useful)" - I wonder what this figure would be with my suggestions and how it compares to current talk page usefulness rates - and "moderating comments creates more work for editors" ie laziness or simply don't force moderation, it is a volunteer project.

Flow is claimed to be the holy grail to replace article feedback (that failed too). DiscussionTools has helped a lot, and focussing on the talk page wishes linked above is an alternative step forward.

Calling the current Talk button Errors and omissions, which though wordy could be done without much resources is an alternative I like. As I mentioned on another project I recently came across a new account holder who thought the Talk button on w:Spike Lee would get a message to Spike. Not that unreasonable when you think about it. We don't want general talk on the talk pages.

I still support this wish, but it is going to be a hard sell given the Wikimedia Foundation has poisoned the well. Commander Keane (talk) 15:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Very good points and thanks for adding the fixed link to Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5. I think it would make the feedbacks drastically more useful. Nevertheless, I think the conclusion would be the same, just not as severe: if people are able to provide constructive unbiased neutral due feedback then they're likely also able to or did register and can write + would write a talk page post. It's kind of a useful filter, especially consider the scarcity of volunteer contributor time. One thing that is kind of going at the same thing that I think would be useful would be to add a popup (maybe like those Page Previews) on the Talk page link that says sth like "Page to discuss issues and feedback about the article" – that would make it clearer and facilitate people to report issues there without increasing the feedback too much and/or too indiscriminately. Prototyperspective (talk) 15:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)