Per-section talk page/talk page section
Closed, DeclinedPublic
Actions

Assigned To

None

Authored By

	• bzimport
	Aug 7 2006, 10:30 PM

Description

Author: dave

Description:
I sometimes find inaccuracies in articles but am often not sure about the proper
fact - I just know that the statement in question is not entirely correct. I do
not want to 'revise' the sentence/s with possibly another inaccuracy but rather
would like to put some sort of comment to the section, to let others see my
concern and to eventually lead to a correct and/or clarified section.

Let me explain my proposal further by outlining two oppositional modes of operation:

In MediaWiki software anyone can edit the whole article or leave his thoughts in
the 'discussion' page on every article, but there is no strong correlation to
the part objected.

The other side is, for example, the Documentation/Manual at php.net. Basically
it is moderated but readers can leave their ideas at the end of every page. Over
time, these comments may be included in the official documentation by the
moderators.

Something in between would be a comment-style system for every single section -
like the edit link, maybe titled 'discussion' like the global per-page
discussion link.

Inside this per-section discussion page it could work like well-known board
software pieces. There is the post of the thread starter as well as answers,
displayed, for example, as a tree structure. When a conclusion is reached and a
satisfying formulation was found, the whole thread can be dismissed or moved to
some sort of archive.

If a board-like implementation is not suitable right now, maybe a free-form
style of editing, like in the current global per-page discussion link is expedient.

However it looks like, there should be a number indicating the activity of this
comments-sections next to the discussion link.

I think this whole enhancement could attract the casual reader to look at the
comments and maybe induce him/her to add their own thoughts. All in all it may
promote participation.

Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference: bz6942

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 21 2014, 9:18 PM

• bzimport added a project: MediaWiki-General.

• bzimport set Reference to bz6942.

• bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

• bzimport created this task.Aug 7 2006, 10:30 PM

ayg wrote:

I don't see how the logistics of this would work. What happens if the section's
name is changed? What if it's split or merged? What interaction, if any, would
this have with the main talk page? I can't see how this would work over time;
the entire setup we have has sections as impermanent, with no real identity of
their own, and any attempt to change that will cause serious difficulties.

(Removing the word "comment" from summary to avoid confusion with .)

dave wrote:

Yes, this idea is based upon the need for some sort of ID for every section. I
realize that this would be a very big change, as it affects the inner workings
of the mediawiki engine. So it's probably a candidate for a development branch
inclusion.

As for your other questions: if the fundamentally section ID would be provided,
many of your concerns are answered. If every item on your list of actions is the
result of the discussion going on in the section's talk page, then the specific
thread resulting in the change would be dismissed. As for all other non-resolved
threads they would need to be moved, merged or put into the main talk page, if
they do not apply for a specific section any more.

The main talk page would not be any different than before, except the absence of
the now outsourced per-section discussions.

Efforts are being focussed on Flow, a replacement for talk pages, rather than on talk pages themselves.

Per-section talk page/talk page sectionClosed, DeclinedPublicActions

Description

Details

Event Timeline

Per-section talk page/talk page section
Closed, DeclinedPublic
Actions