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Accidental temporary transclusions can result in notification confusion
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Description

As explained at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Newyorkbrad&oldid=561300984#Question_for_TPWs, it goes something like this:

  • editor mistakenly adds {{WP:FOO}} to a talk page;
  • {{WP:FOO}} gets expanded and suddenly a bunch of users get notifications about a mention wherever {{WP:FOO}} was added;
  • editor fixes syntax ({{WP:FOO}}), transclusion goes away, notifications linger causing confusion

Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Newyorkbrad&oldid=561300984#Question_for_TPWs
See Also:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48882

Details

Reference
bz50082

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.Nov 22 2014, 1:56 AM
bzimport added a project: Notifications.
bzimport set Reference to bz50082.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

Not really sure if there is much that can be done, you can't take back a notification once it's been sent...

You could suppress notifications if the transcluded page is over a certain number of bytes, or contains more than a certain number of usernames. (I think that last one might be done already?) Getting the cut-off point right would be hard, though.

I for one would prefer transclusion not to cause notifications at all, but suspect that someone may well come up with a valid explanation of why that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

(In reply to Scott Martin from comment #4)

I for one would prefer transclusion not to cause notifications at all, but
suspect that someone may well come up with a valid explanation of why that
would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If we did that, things like {{ping}} would stop working.

See, I knew there would be a good reason. :)

There's just something about how it currently works that doesn't sit well with me - it's either ping everyone or don't substitute at all.

The mention notification threshold was reduced from 300 to 100 in bug 48882. Could we simply lower the limit even further, to something like 10/20/30? (Limits of 10 and 20 were suggested in 48882).

The limit was lowered from 100 to 20, in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/159804/

A few of the devs are discussing overhauling the Echo Mention system to not require a signature, but no decisions/directions yet, afaik.

Nope. My mistake. That fix was Flow-specific. I've filed https://trello.com/c/cRjNZzdF/ to do the same in Echo. Sorry :/

Change 159800 had a related patch set uploaded by EBernhardson:
Limit Echo mentions to 20 users

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/159800

All patches mentioned in this report were merged - is there more work left to do here (if yes: please reset the bug report status to NEW or ASSIGNED), or can you close this ticket as RESOLVED FIXED?

Quiddity claimed this task.

I've added an explanation to https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Echo_%28Notifications%29/Feature_requirements&diff=1311371&oldid=1270074

  • Only 20 users can be mentioned at once. Any more than that, and the entire group is ignored as a probable mistake. (per [[phab:T52082]])

Closing this ticket, as there doesn't seem to be a better way of resolving the underlying issue, until Echo gets overhauled.