Pushed to Gerrit (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/26033/) & prototype

"Note that we currently track which filter you used last for any given article,
and show you that filter the next time you visit that page (using a cookie, I
believe)."

I just doublechecked & this is not entirely correct. The cookie is only used to preserve one's user interface (e.g. when you've changed your filter, then go feedback permalink, than return - it will re-use the filter using what's saved in a cookie). Once a person has moved on to another page, it overwrites that cookie (because the cookie would grow too large)

So basically, every new page a person starts looking at, he used to be greeted with the default "all comments" filter, and will now be presented the "most relevant" filter

Personal opinion: wouldn't it make sense to display the "all comments" filter to anonymous users instead? They could pre-filter the most recent feedback by marking it as helpful/unhelpful. This would surface helpful feedback even more to editors. And anonymous users don't really have much benefit from the "most relevant" filter anyway, they're no so much the people who should act upon it, do something with it.

Thanks, Matthias!

I appreciate your clarifications and recommendations.

How hard would it be to show the last filter you just used on any feedback page? (instead of resorting back to 'most relevant' on every article feedback page)

That is what we had in mind when we filed this Bugzilla ticket, and it would be consistent with what we do on Page Curation, where we remember your last filter and sort order and display it that way until we change the settings again.

We are not asking for that different settings be stored for each article (which would max out the cookie pretty fast, as you point out). But it would allow users who prefer a particular setting to use it across a wide range of feedback pages, to suit their review style. This would make for a better user experience, because users could customize it as they see fit.

You are correct in pointing out that showing 'All comments' to readers would cause them to monitor gthe feedback more, but I also fear that it would expose them to some pretty bad comments, which could cause an adverse reaction that would make them less likely to sign up or edit. The idea is to surface the best feedback so they have a good impression about Wikipedia, rather than show the worst comments and scare them away from participating.

Hence the need to show 'Most Relevant' as the first default, before people start playing with other filters (including readers, not just editors).

One other thing that would help with this change would be to display a message when a given filter is empty for a particular page, so that people understand why the feedback page is empty. Something like:

"There are no feedback posts for the filter you selected. Would you like to select the <Most Relevant> or <All comments> filter instead?"

(these links would cause the corresponding filter to be shown instead)

Thanks!

"How hard would it be to show the last filter you just used on any feedback
page? (instead of resorting back to 'most relevant' on every article feedback
page)"

Just pushed to Gerrit (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/26483/) & prototype.

"One other thing that would help with this change would be to display a message
when a given filter is empty for a particular page, so that people understand
why the feedback page is empty. Something like:"

Will get to that later, that's a bit more work.

There seem to be several issues related to our feature request to show your last selected filter each time you view a new feedback page.

As reported in Bug 40938, if you log out with the oversight request filter and log back in, the system appears confused and gives the error message: "No feedback has been posted yet." This could be related to the new feature .

As discussed above, when you go to a page which has no posts for your selected filter, showing an empty list, there should be a message explaining "There is no feedback for the filter you selected.", right below the filter dropdown menu. Otherwise, it is a bit confusing to go to a feedback page and see nothing, which could happen often if you selected an obscure filter.

Another related issue is that if you click on 'feedback' for any post on the Central feedback page, you see that particular feedback post highlighted in blue on its article page, but that can look pretty weird if it doesn't belong in the proper filter category, as shown in the last screenshot below. (It says the filter is 'oversight requested', but the highlighted item that appears doesn't belong in that category, which is weird.) One possible solution to this last issue would be to never attempt to show a highlighted blue post if it doesn't belong in the selected filter.

Another possible solution to all of the last three issues above would be to no longer attempt to show your last selected filter when you load a new feedback page, but to always show the 'Most relevant' default. This is not ideal for power users, who may want to keep the same settings across pages. But it is simpler to understand for regular users, who may be confused by all these strange filtered pages.

Showing all feedback pages with the default 'Most relevant' filter may be the most practical solution for now, given the issues above. Perhaps we could experiment with this simpler setting for a week or so, to see if editors like it. If they don't, this would give us more time to make the last selected filter function work properly.

Let us know what you think is a practical solution for now.