Page MenuHomePhabricator

Implement interface to enable users to handle favorites in a similar fashion as an ordered watchlist
Closed, DeclinedPublic

Description

Author: dabigpaybackski

Description:
Sir or Madam:

This is my first MediaZilla posting, so please excuse any ignorance on my

part of your protocols for this procedure. I am submitting this because I
couldn't find any record of it on your site.

My proposal relates specifically to the Wikipedia website user experience,

namely a lack of an ability to keep a user-specific record or "card-file" of
favorite Wikipedia articles, arranged in whatever order the user desires.
Currently, this function is served through the relatively cumbersome web-browser
bookmarking interface, which in my opinion, suffers from deficiencies both in
terms of complexity, and also, to the best of my knowledge, the inability to
transfer a specific user's browser preferences from one machine to the next
without a thumbdrive or similar device.

I think the best way of implementing this feature would be to place the

"favorites" tab alongside the "watch" tab. In the initial implementation of
this feature, opening the "favorites" tab reveals the list of favorite articles.
Articles would be added to the "favorites" list by inserting an "add to
favorites" link somewhere on the Wikipedia page for logged-in users.

Thanks and best regards,
Hal


Version: 1.9.x
Severity: enhancement
Whiteboard: aklapper-moreinfo

Details

Reference
bz8378

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Low.Nov 21 2014, 9:32 PM
bzimport set Reference to bz8378.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

robchur wrote:

Perfect report, although I'm still not sure we should duplicate functionality
the browser provides. There's certainly scope for an extension to fulfil this
need, though, and if it looks nice enough, perhaps we'll integrate it.

One *can* argue that it's simple to maintain a list of favourite articles;
create a subpage in your user space, e.g. [[User:Foo/Favourites]] and keep a
list there.

steinninn wrote:

This sounds like a very nice idea. Add to favourites button somewhere would be geat. I'm not fond of using [[User:Foo/Favourites]]. I'd prefer a list, that can be shared.

On first sight, the point about browser favourites makes sense. But thinking about it it's just not the same.

A user is not always on his home PC when he surfs the interweb.

In combination with page counts and watchlist counts such a simple favourites feature could provide some serious stats about article popularity. Not to mention the high demand for a proper rating feature...

Make it more fancy and enable returning lists of user favourites. Like on you user pages you could enter {{Favourites|10}} and a list of the last 10 added favourites would be returned.

So, I don't quite understand why a favourites feature wasn't implented yet while 50% of the code is there already (watchlist) and it would make sense for your WP flagship.

jlemley wrote:

What is the status of this request? I am implementing an internal wiki that will be used remotely through a browser that runs in a Citrix environment. These browsers do not carry user bookmarks between sessions, so a list of favorites within the wiki is vital. Is anyone working on this, either as an extension or as an addition to MediaWiki?

jlemley wrote:

I wrote a favorites extension that may or may not serve this purpose for those looking for such a function:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Favorites

Hal: Does Jeremy's extension fit your needs?

Closing as WORKSFORME as there is an extension (see comment 6) that could be used by the reporter.