Wikipedia talk:Editnotice

What to do with blank Editnotices?

I looked on this page and in the talk page archive, and I did not see any definitive instructions or consensus on what to do with blank editnotices. I did see one editor in 2010 recommending CSD under G6, but that recommendation is not on Wikipedia:Editnotice.

The reason I ask is that there are about a thousand editnotice pages clogging up Special:UnusedTemplates, which has a limit of 5,000 pages. Many of those editnotices have been blanked, with edit summaries like "no longer applicable". Example: {{Editnotices/Page/Battle of Shivneri Fort}}. Should these pages be deleted, and if so, via what process? Thanks for any insight you can provide. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I notice that even non-blank editnotices show up as "unused". I think they should be excluded from Special:UnusedTemplates, since they're used in an unusual (non-transcluding) way. jlwoodwa (talk) 02:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm working on those. You may notice that the number of Editnotice pages is now under 700 on that report. Using a standard editnotice template or other tweaks can remove them from that report. I was asking about the blank ones only. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Seeing no response here to my initial question, I have nominated eleven blanked editnotices for discussion at TFD. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I suppose it's a big "it depends". WHY is it blank? Is the history of the notice relevant? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:21, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Most of the blank-notice histories I have looked at say something like "removing, no longer relevant", or "expired", or something else indicating that the blankness is appropriate. I haven't seen any blanked notices that were due to apparent bad-faith edits, but out of a few hundred, there might be some. I think my basic question is: if an edit notice is no longer needed due to the result of a consensus discussion, should it be blanked, deleted, or something else? – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Editnotice 2.0 implementation

As previously discussed in WP:VPT#Enhanced editnotice loader, please implement the following changes:

• Template:Editnotice load: replace with {{#invoke:editnotice load|main}}
• Template:Editnotice load/notext: replace with {{editnotice load|notext=yes}}
• Template:Editnotice/notice: update to match testwiki
• MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission: add the following code: {{#invoke:editnotice load|protectionEditnotice}}
• MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext: replace {{#ifexist:...|{{Template:Editnotices/Protection/...}}|...}} with {{#if:{{#invoke:editnotice load|protectionEditnotice}}|{{editnotice load|notice action = protect}}|...}}
• MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected: replace {{#ifexist:...|{{Template:Editnotices/Protection/...}}|...}} with {{#if:{{#invoke:editnotice load|protectionEditnotice}}|{{editnotice load|notice action = protect}}|...}}
• Template:Editnotices/Group/Template:Editnotices: update to match testwiki
• MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-editnotice: update to match testwiki

You may wish to see the versions on test Wikipedia to help with implementation. I'll drop them here so you can view and copy:

• testwiki:Template:Editnotice load
• testwiki:Template:Editnotice load/notext
• testwiki:Template:Editnotice/notice
• testwiki:MediaWiki:Noarticletext-nopermission
• testwiki:MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext
• testwiki:MediaWiki:Cascadeprotected
• testwiki:Template:Editnotices/Group/Template:Editnotices
• testwiki:MediaWiki:Titleblacklist-custom-editnotice

Awesome Aasim 20:04, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't know the background or intricacies of this set of changes, but please do not remove the new magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ from pages where it has been inserted. That magic word prevents edit notices from appearing on the list at Special:UnusedTemplates. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:35, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Also there are multiple page protections that would need to be done first. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Only two really: Module:Editnotice load and Module:Editnotice load/config and maybe Module:Editnotice load/i18n. Most of the internationalization should be done when the module is exported, etc. or on projects like Fandom Dev Wiki (or Wikimedia equivalents). After, it is done. Awesome Aasim 14:11, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

And Module:Editnotice load/config loader. Awesome Aasim 16:36, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Good catch! I thought after letting sit at the village pump for a month someone would discover problems, but apparently not until after I opened that edit request. Awesome Aasim 21:19, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• I have no time to touch this anytime soon, and not sure it is needed - seems to be severely increasing technical debt that will have to be locally supported. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  To be fair, migrating arcane wiki templates to Lua is the opposite of "increasing technical debt". Although the complexity of the request does mean actioning it likely requires setting aside an hour. Nevertheless, should be a net positive. – SD0001 (talk) 04:48, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now: @Awesome Aasim I'm going to close this as {{not done}} for now, especially given that this has been languishing long enough that I'm pretty sure multiple administrators have looked at it and declined to implement these changes. Personally, my pet peeve is that Module:Editnotice load is marked as alpha and does not have any concrete description of its purposes and various flags as well as a set of test cases mirroring IRL use cases.

TLDR: please document and provide test cases for what is going on in Module:Editnotice load and very clearly document the exact administrative actions that need to be taken by admins in order to implement your changes. Sohom (talk) 13:13, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

adding a backlink to edit notices

Please add a self-referential link to edit notices, to help Wikipedians understand which page suddenly pops up on their screen when editing articles, neatly answering all the questions non-technical editors might have: what this page is named, where it is located, that it is a so-called "edit notice" and so on.

What I'm asking for is exemplified here: Wikipedia:Editnotice#Editnotice links. That is, a simple link in the bottom-right hand corner, visible to every editor, that links back to the edit notice itself. Basically a link to the page you're watching right now. Whether the editor can actually edit that edit notice is not important. Being able to find a protected page is still much more informative than being left in the dark about what's happening and why there's this special notice on top of my edit window: at the very least there's a talk page where you can ask questions or request changes, even if the only reply is "visit WP:EDITNOTICE".

Asking for this here was a suggestion from User:Sdkb over at Template talk:Refideas editnotice, presumably to make it a standard for every edit notice. In this case, having an edit notice talking about the {{refideas}} template (which had never happened before) caused me questions (why does this happen when it didn't used to? How can this happen only on pages with refideas??), and having a link directly to the related edit notice would have been very helpful. I managed to find out what was happening (a new entry to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main had been rolled out) but it was not easy and I imagine non-technical readers would find it even less easy. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 12:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Don't we already have a link to the page and group notice on the top of pages when editing them? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:29, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Xaosflux, it only appears for admins and other users with the permission to edit them. Since editnotice protection is less about the sensitivity of the content and more just about current technical limitations, this seems like a good step. Editnotices overall are useful, and we ought to make it easier to find them so that more people use them instead of e.g. just adding a hidden comment in the lead that's easily missed. Sdkb ^talk 13:51, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, we could just not hide the links, if someone wants a change they can easily open an edit request. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:53, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems like the simplest fix. Although it's still not ideal, since someone who doesn't know what an edit notice is won't know that that link corresponds to the box elsewhere in the window. Sdkb ^talk 14:00, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

May need to check the views, for example in mobileweb, the "pagenotice" link does appear on the top of the popup (assuming it is not hidden like in the webui) — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I have made the edit request: Template talk:Editnotices/Namespace/Main#Protected edit request on 7 November 2024. Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 22:17, 7 November 2024 (UTC) {{Help me}}

Turns out the edit request will only be done once the coding for the change has been implemented, so I would like to ask for the following:

Please change the mainspace edit notices (or just {{Refideas editnotice}} to start, that'd be great) to always display the links exemplified here: Wikipedia:Editnotice#Editnotice links. That is, a simple link in the bottom-right hand corner, visible to every editor, that links back to the edit notice itself. Currently administrators (and some other editors) see the link but it is hidden from regular users. I'm sure this extra step (of hiding the link sometimes) was done in good faith ("why show the link to something you can't edit") but it turns out it is super frustrating to suddenly have a page on your screen, and not understand what it is or why it's shown. The link would help you discover the edit notice system, and you could dig deeper from there. In my case, {{refideas}} had been changed to always display an edit notice, but I didn't know that, and it was super confusing to not understand why that page (this page: {{Refideas editnotice}}) was shown for a template I thought I knew how to use. Had there been a link I could click, it would have been MUCH faster to understand what was happening.

What I am asking for is a code expert to showcase the change ("syncing in pages to a sandbox, and making the edits there") so an administrator can then make that change through the page protection. Thanks. CapnZapp (talk) 23:57, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: I'm turning off the {{help}} batsignal. This has been up here for nearly three days without resolution. I'm afraid you will need to take a more focused approach to getting help. You need someone with technical expertise with templates and someone who understands how the editnotice process works. Sometimes there are people at WP:VPT who meet these criteria, but it may be more direct to ask at WT:WikiProject Templates. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:56, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I've spend far too much time on this already, user:jmcgnh. I did receive replies, but it took way too long to explain what I feel needs to be done, too much time was spent on procedure, and in the end nobody with the skills seems to see the obvious flaw in the system. In short, I feel nobody really wanted to bother. I'll just repeat my initial (non-technical) request:

Please add a self-referential link to edit notices, to help Wikipedians understand which page suddenly pops up on their screen when editing articles, neatly answering all the questions non-technical editors might have: what this page is named, where it is located, that it is a so-called "edit notice" and so on.

CapnZapp (talk) 11:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

CapnZapp Tell you what. I will put this task on my list, but no promises about when I'll be able to do it. I have to learn quite a few things first. But it's within the scope of things I should be able to do. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

As a neutral historical note, {{Refideas editnotice}} arose from discussions at VPI (August 2023), VPR (August 2023), CR (September 2023), VPT (November 2023), and Template talk:Refideas editnotice § Feedback (September – November 2023).

Involved, but the point here is just to cement the paper trail. Folly Mox (talk) 13:03, 2 December 2024 (UTC)