Mailing List Archive

There is an extension
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:InlineComments

There's some past discussion of this type of thing here:


- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149667
- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T312760


Kosta

On 8. Dec 2023 at 10:12:08, Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to articles,
> similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>
> However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing an
> extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
> anywhere. Anyone knows?
>
> Thanks!
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>

I don't have a particular opinion on this, except that inline comments that
are publicly visible must be able to be moderated by the community, and
that smaller communities in particular should be able to opt out of this
extension. They sound like a great idea, but we're much more likely to get
comments like "this isn't true" or "this [highly unreliable website]
disagrees", and that just creates problems for readers. We can assume good
faith until the cows come home, but we should also be realistic and realize
that those comments are going to make our articles look more like Twitter
and Facebook; that is, they'll be opportunities for disinformation.

Risker/Anne

On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 at 05:43, Kosta Harlan <kharlan@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> There is an extension
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:InlineComments
>
> There's some past discussion of this type of thing here:
>
>
> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149667
> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T312760
>
>
> Kosta
>
> On 8. Dec 2023 at 10:12:08, Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to articles,
>> similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>>
>> However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing an
>> extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
>> anywhere. Anyone knows?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

I don't think comments on live articles would be useful (as mentioned
above) but there are many cases which it can be a game changer. I can think
of a couple:

- Collaborative drafting: When you want to draft policy, a proposal, a
new article, etc. with one or more fellow Wikimedians
- Using as a replacement for google docs in many private wikis (as both
for Wikimedia and third party corporate installations). We already have
collab-pad
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Real-time_collaboration>
which allows users to turn VE into an etherpad. I would love to see that
get off the ground.
- Reviewing a nomination for good or featured article: For example, take
a look at a recent FAC
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Alpine_ibex/archive1&redirect=no>.
The reviewer highlights a sentence in the discussion page and makes a
comment about it and that's quite...labor intensive. Having a way to allow
commenting which would be only visible to a small group of users would be
quite nice.

It shouldn't be too hard to implement but not super trivial either.
MediaWiki is open source and extendable (via extensions) and I would
appreciate any work on it!

Am Fr., 8. Dez. 2023 um 21:09 Uhr schrieb Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com>:

> I don't have a particular opinion on this, except that inline comments
> that are publicly visible must be able to be moderated by the community,
> and that smaller communities in particular should be able to opt out of
> this extension. They sound like a great idea, but we're much more likely
> to get comments like "this isn't true" or "this [highly unreliable website]
> disagrees", and that just creates problems for readers. We can assume good
> faith until the cows come home, but we should also be realistic and realize
> that those comments are going to make our articles look more like Twitter
> and Facebook; that is, they'll be opportunities for disinformation.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
> On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 at 05:43, Kosta Harlan <kharlan@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> There is an extension
>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:InlineComments
>>
>> There's some past discussion of this type of thing here:
>>
>>
>> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149667
>> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T312760
>>
>>
>> Kosta
>>
>> On 8. Dec 2023 at 10:12:08, Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to articles,
>>> similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>>>
>>> However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing an
>>> extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
>>> anywhere. Anyone knows?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/



--
Amir (he/him)

I once dealt with developing a similar thing, that worked like this:
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/search_video.mp4
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/tools_video.mp4
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/act1_video.mp4
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/act2_video.mp4
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/act3_video.mp4
* https://wikicomment.ut.ee/pics/act4_video.mp4

It is no longer maintained and is therefore broken.

Ivo Kruusamägi

Kontakt Amir Sarabadani (<ladsgroup@gmail.com>) kirjutas kuupäeval L, 9.
detsember 2023 kell 03:46:

> I don't think comments on live articles would be useful (as mentioned
> above) but there are many cases which it can be a game changer. I can think
> of a couple:
>
> - Collaborative drafting: When you want to draft policy, a proposal, a
> new article, etc. with one or more fellow Wikimedians
> - Using as a replacement for google docs in many private wikis (as
> both for Wikimedia and third party corporate installations). We already
> have collab-pad
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Real-time_collaboration>
> which allows users to turn VE into an etherpad. I would love to see that
> get off the ground.
> - Reviewing a nomination for good or featured article: For example,
> take a look at a recent FAC
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Alpine_ibex/archive1&redirect=no>.
> The reviewer highlights a sentence in the discussion page and makes a
> comment about it and that's quite...labor intensive. Having a way to allow
> commenting which would be only visible to a small group of users would be
> quite nice.
>
> It shouldn't be too hard to implement but not super trivial either.
> MediaWiki is open source and extendable (via extensions) and I would
> appreciate any work on it!
>
> Am Fr., 8. Dez. 2023 um 21:09 Uhr schrieb Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com>:
>
>> I don't have a particular opinion on this, except that inline comments
>> that are publicly visible must be able to be moderated by the community,
>> and that smaller communities in particular should be able to opt out of
>> this extension. They sound like a great idea, but we're much more likely
>> to get comments like "this isn't true" or "this [highly unreliable website]
>> disagrees", and that just creates problems for readers. We can assume good
>> faith until the cows come home, but we should also be realistic and realize
>> that those comments are going to make our articles look more like Twitter
>> and Facebook; that is, they'll be opportunities for disinformation.
>>
>> Risker/Anne
>>
>> On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 at 05:43, Kosta Harlan <kharlan@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> There is an extension
>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:InlineComments
>>>
>>> There's some past discussion of this type of thing here:
>>>
>>>
>>> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T149667
>>> - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T312760
>>>
>>>
>>> Kosta
>>>
>>> On 8. Dec 2023 at 10:12:08, Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to
>>>> articles, similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>>>>
>>>> However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing an
>>>> extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
>>>> anywhere. Anyone knows?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>
>
>
> --
> Amir (he/him)
>
> _______________________________________________
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> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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I'm curious if your plans are for a Wikimedia wiki, Felipe?

Since people are pointing out learnings from similar experiments, I
would like to add another one:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5. There are a
lot of subpages with a lot of information.

ArticleFeedback version 5 added a comment box at the end of every
article. It was highly "successful" in so far that people used it a
lot. A lot of the comments said something like "finally I can leave
comments on Wikipedia articles". Like talk pages would not exist.
Something like 95% of the comments added this way are entirely
inactionable (e.g. asking for things that are already in the article),
and the rest of questionable value.

Kind regards
Thiemo
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On 12/8/23 03:12, Felipe Schenone wrote:

> Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to
> articles, similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>
> However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing
> an extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
> anywhere. Anyone knows?

https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2023/Extension_for_creating_and_managing_inline_comments
may be what you heard about?

Subbu.
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Thanks everyone for all the info, pointers and comments!
@Subbu: Indeed that was the one I read about, thanks!
@Thiemo: What I'm thinking of is a *gadget*, so it would be available on
Wikimedia wikis (and any other) but only for users that choose to enable it
(similar to my gadget MiniEdit <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MiniEdit>).

The gadget would allow its users to highlight some text and publish a
comment to the talk page along with the highlighted text and parent
paragraph (for context). Like so:

In ancient times, the use of solar energy was believed to have existed in
> civilizations amidst the Greeks
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece>, Romans
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome> and the Chinese
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_China>, though not for cooking.[3]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker#cite_note-3>

Did it exist or not? The source says it did, so if no objections are
raised, I'll remove this.


Only users with the gadget enabled would be able to see the highlighted
text and comment in the article itself. The rest would only see it in the
talk page.

Because of the way I'm thinking the gadget would work, if the wikitext/HTML
of the parent paragraph changes (for example because the issue got fixed),
then the comment would stop showing in the article to users with the gadget
enabled. This is because the wikitext/HTML of the paragraph itself would
act as the anchor or identifier that would allow the gadget to know where
to insert the comment. This may be sub-optimal in some cases, but it's the
only way I can think of doing it without having the gadget insert things
into the wikitext of the article (which would be a definitive no-no). In
any case, the comments would always be available in the talk page.

To be honest though, some of your comments have made me question if this
could be useful, but I think given the way it would work, and considering
it would be an optional gadget that won't be available to random visitors,
it should be harmless, and time will tell if it ever becomes popular. I'm
working on a crude prototype and will share it shortly. Any insights, ideas
or comments are welcome!

Kind regards,

On Sun, Dec 10, 2023 at 11:28?PM Subramanya Sastry <ssastry@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> On 12/8/23 03:12, Felipe Schenone wrote:
>
> > Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to
> > articles, similar to how Google Docs comments work.
> >
> > However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing
> > an extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
> > anywhere. Anyone knows?
>
>
> https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2023/Extension_for_creating_and_managing_inline_comments
> may be what you heard about?
>
> Subbu.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>

If you just want to annotate a web page without assistance from that page,
and let you share then annotations, that's not a Wikimedia-specific problem
and there are generic tools for it. The popular one is Hypothesis
<https://web.hypothes.is/about/>, I think. There even was an attempt to
build something Wikimedia-specific on top of it (see the task Kosta
linked), but it can be used directly as well.

+1 to Hypothesis and similar tools kind of already doing what you're
thinking of. I would use the energy to contribute to it:
https://github.com/hypothesis/client, and it's possible that you might find
ways to optimize it for wikis via a gadget.

They've probably solved the "parent paragraph updating" problem you
mentioned here. So at the very least you can find inspiration there. But
I imagine the issue of storage and all that is tricky. There was a W3C
working group that the Hypothesis people were part of, I remember we
half-heartedly wanted to join but never did.

On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 7:41?PM Gerg? Tisza <gtisza@gmail.com> wrote:

> If you just want to annotate a web page without assistance from that page,
> and let you share then annotations, that's not a Wikimedia-specific problem
> and there are generic tools for it. The popular one is Hypothesis
> <https://web.hypothes.is/about/>, I think. There even was an attempt to
> build something Wikimedia-specific on top of it (see the task Kosta
> linked), but it can be used directly as well.
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

This is *such* a good idea. Very much the way "Talk" should be implemented
by default, and would be transformative for the sorts of edtind and collab
I do on live as well as draft articles.

Most readers dont know Talk exists; most logged in readers dont take time
to check talk when browsing, new updates to talk make no impact on the page
if you don't look, most talk sections relate.to specific paragraphs and
words, &c :)

===
To some of the concerns:

Comments should be editable / revertable by others, just as Talk is now.

Any edits are a vector for potential spam and misinfo. These would be
edits. Not a new problem, but this should check page protection before
making the hook that's visible to all gadget users. (Maybe if protection
blocked it can still generate the talk of section, with the same templates
link from the talk page to the appropriate article section/snippet, but not
show up on the article view?)

Hypothesis is still pretty all or nothing, can't do the above or sync w
Talk pg.



????????????????

On Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 5:12 AM Felipe Schenone <schenonef@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks everyone for all the info, pointers and comments!
> @Subbu: Indeed that was the one I read about, thanks!
> @Thiemo: What I'm thinking of is a *gadget*, so it would be available on
> Wikimedia wikis (and any other) but only for users that choose to enable it
> (similar to my gadget MiniEdit <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MiniEdit>).
>
> The gadget would allow its users to highlight some text and publish a
> comment to the talk page along with the highlighted text and parent
> paragraph (for context). Like so:
>
> In ancient times, the use of solar energy was believed to have existed in
>> civilizations amidst the Greeks
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece>, Romans
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome> and the Chinese
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_China>, though not for cooking.[3]
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker#cite_note-3>
>
> Did it exist or not? The source says it did, so if no objections are
> raised, I'll remove this.
>
>
> Only users with the gadget enabled would be able to see the highlighted
> text and comment in the article itself. The rest would only see it in the
> talk page.
>
> Because of the way I'm thinking the gadget would work, if the
> wikitext/HTML of the parent paragraph changes (for example because the
> issue got fixed), then the comment would stop showing in the article to
> users with the gadget enabled. This is because the wikitext/HTML of the
> paragraph itself would act as the anchor or identifier that would allow the
> gadget to know where to insert the comment. This may be sub-optimal in some
> cases, but it's the only way I can think of doing it without having the
> gadget insert things into the wikitext of the article (which would be a
> definitive no-no). In any case, the comments would always be available in
> the talk page.
>
> To be honest though, some of your comments have made me question if this
> could be useful, but I think given the way it would work, and considering
> it would be an optional gadget that won't be available to random visitors,
> it should be harmless, and time will tell if it ever becomes popular. I'm
> working on a crude prototype and will share it shortly. Any insights, ideas
> or comments are welcome!
>
> Kind regards,
>
> On Sun, Dec 10, 2023 at 11:28?PM Subramanya Sastry <ssastry@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/8/23 03:12, Felipe Schenone wrote:
>>
>> > Hi! I'm thinking on writing a gadget to add inline comments to
>> > articles, similar to how Google Docs comments work.
>> >
>> > However, I'm sure I recently read somewhere about someone developing
>> > an extension or something with the same goal, but now I can't find it
>> > anywhere. Anyone knows?
>>
>>
>> https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2023/Extension_for_creating_and_managing_inline_comments
>> may be what you heard about?
>>
>> Subbu.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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