Watching your user page and user talk page by default

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Notifications Update

Steven Walling

18 Jun 2013 18 Jun '13

12:31 a.m.

Hi all, Over the weekend, I was reminded that we don't have accounts watch their user page and user talk page by default. (I was actually surprised to hear this, and had to go create a test account to confirm.) What do people think about this, and maybe changing the default to be the opposite? Especially with Echo, you get notified if someone leaves you a message, so maybe it's not a problem. However, it seems like a strange default to not watch these pages. -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/

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Brandon Harris

18 Jun 18 Jun

12:36 a.m.

This isn't even something to have a conversation about. Not doing this defeats the purpose of half of what we plan to do with new users. On Jun 17, 2013, at 3:31 PM, Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

--- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Oliver Keyes

12:36 a.m.

Basically what Brandon said; it should be the default. On 17 June 2013 23:36, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Hi all, Over the weekend, I was reminded that we don't have accounts watch their

user page and user talk page by default. (I was actually surprised to hear this, and had to go create a test account to confirm.)

What do people think about this, and maybe changing the default to be

the opposite? Especially with Echo, you get notified if someone leaves you a message, so maybe it's not a problem. However, it seems like a strange default to not watch these pages.

-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

--- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

-- Oliver Keyes Community Liaison, Product Development Wikimedia Foundation

Krystle

12:48 a.m.

At wikiHow we have people get a notification e-mail when someone leaves a message on their talk page, only if the message isn't a template, though. This is separate from watchlist notifications (which are off by default). A lot of people reply directly to the e-mail thinking it'll go to the person who sent the message, so if this can't be made to happen, it's good to have someone on the receiving end of those messages to explain to the person that they need to leave their response on the other person's talk page, so that opportunity for interaction isn't lost. Krystle Community Support wikiHow.com On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 3:36 PM, Oliver Keyes <okeyes(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Basically what Brandon said; it should be the default. On 17 June 2013 23:36, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi all, Over the weekend, I was reminded that we don't have accounts watch

their user page and user talk page by default. (I was actually surprised to hear this, and had to go create a test account to confirm.)

What do people think about this, and maybe changing the default to be

the opposite? Especially with Echo, you get notified if someone leaves you a message, so maybe it's not a problem. However, it seems like a strange default to not watch these pages.

-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

-- Oliver Keyes Community Liaison, Product Development Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

Oliver Keyes

12:49 a.m.

That's a good point. Are all the echo notification emails going to /dev/null or do we have any way of looking at if they get a reply via email? On 17 June 2013 23:48, Krystle <krystle(a)wikihow.com> wrote:

...

Basically what Brandon said; it should be the default. On 17 June 2013 23:36, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi all, Over the weekend, I was reminded that we don't have accounts watch

their user page and user talk page by default. (I was actually surprised to hear this, and had to go create a test account to confirm.)

What do people think about this, and maybe changing the default to be

the opposite? Especially with Echo, you get notified if someone leaves you a message, so maybe it's not a problem. However, it seems like a strange default to not watch these pages.

-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

_______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

-- Oliver Keyes Community Liaison, Product Development Wikimedia Foundation

Matthew Flaschen

1:37 a.m.

On 06/17/2013 06:49 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:

...

That's a good point. Are all the echo notification emails going to /dev/null or do we have any way of looking at if they get a reply via email?

Andrew Garrett

1:42 a.m.

...

On 06/17/2013 06:49 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:

That's a good point. Are all the echo notification emails going to /dev/null or do we have any way of looking at if they get a reply via email?

I can't think of a good, scalable way to handle such mistaken replies. It should be clearly marked (this could perhaps improve) that you can't reply by email. If someone replies despite that, they would probably be weirded out to see someone random user or staff member read their email, and is now telling them manually how to do it in the future. Matt Flaschen _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org (mailto:EE@lists.wikimedia.org) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

Krystle

1:55 a.m.

I've never had someone be weirded out that someone replied to their e-mail. Usually they're thankful that someone explained how they should go about replying. They're usually older folks who aren't tech-savvy and are contributing to a wiki for the first time, so they need a little extra help in order to become regular contributors. If you do reply with a canned message, I would recommend a message that breaks it down a bit like: Hi,

...

The response you sent to this e-mail address wasn't received by the person you wanted to send it to. There was a link in the original e-mail with the talk page of the person you wanted to send your reply to. Make sure to click on that, and write your message on that person's talk page so that they see it. If you need help with this, feel free to e-mail [???]

-- Krystle Community Support http://www.wikiHow.com <http://www.wikihow.com/> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Andrew Garrett <agarrett(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

It wouldn't be too tricky. Just have it point to an auto-responder that sends back a message: This email address is not monitored, and your reply has been discarded. If you wished to respond to a notification that you received from this e-mail address, please click on the link in the email that you received, and respond directly on the web. -- Andrew Garrett Software Engineer, Features Wikimedia Foundation On Tuesday, 18 June 2013 at 1:37 AM, Matthew Flaschen wrote: On 06/17/2013 06:49 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote: That's a good point. Are all the echo notification emails going to /dev/null or do we have any way of looking at if they get a reply via email? I can't think of a good, scalable way to handle such mistaken replies. It should be clearly marked (this could perhaps improve) that you can't reply by email. If someone replies despite that, they would probably be weirded out to see someone random user or staff member read their email, and is now telling them manually how to do it in the future. Matt Flaschen _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee _______________________________________________ EE mailing list EE(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/ee

Matthew Flaschen

2:32 a.m.

On 06/17/2013 07:42 PM, Andrew Garrett wrote:

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Yeah, I think an auto-reply would work fine, just not sure about a manual one. Matt Flaschen

Matthew Flaschen

1:34 a.m.

On 06/17/2013 06:31 PM, Steven Walling wrote:

...

Seems like a good idea to me. People do get talk notifications, of course, and generally you shouldn't edit someone else's user page. However, that's exactly why you want to be notified when someone *does* edit your user page. As for the talk page, it doesn't hurt, and it gives them an idea of the point of a watchlist. Matt

Steven Walling

1:35 a.m.

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Matthew Flaschen <mflaschen(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

Thanks for the input everyone. I've filed this as a request at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49719 where we're discussing more implementation details. -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/

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participants (6)

Andrew Garrett
Brandon Harris
Krystle
Matthew Flaschen
Oliver Keyes
Steven Walling