Brion,
I've been confused by the "edit conflict" screen so many times that I seriously think the page should be redesigned. Other contributors also have frequently commented on talk pages that they lost what they just typed, due to edit conflicts.
I'd like to have the columnwise, side by side "revision of" display show up at the top of the page, where I can't possible miss it!!
Below that, I'm not sure what needs to come next, but: * we need to make it VERY EASY for users to recover from the edit conflict * users should NEVER feel they have to lose what they just typed
I'm not looking for a quick fix on this, but I bet dozens of users have the same issue kq and I have.
Ed Poor
On Fri, 2002-11-22 at 15:09, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Brion,
I've been confused by the "edit conflict" screen so many times that I seriously think the page should be redesigned. Other contributors also have frequently commented on talk pages that they lost what they just typed, due to edit conflicts.
Agreed, it's hideous and evil.
I'd like to have the columnwise, side by side "revision of" display show up at the top of the page, where I can't possible miss it!!
As with the preview, it's to easy to miss if you don't know it's there. I like the symmetry of putting it in the middle, but putting it at the top is probably better for usability.
Below that, I'm not sure what needs to come next, but:
- we need to make it VERY EASY for users to recover from the edit conflict
Occasionally during 'extreme editing' conditions, such as on a very contentious talk page where one of the other contributors revises their edits every three seconds, I find I have to go through several conflict cycles just to get a chunk of text inserted that doesn't itself touch parts of the text that the other people are editing. I only have to cut-n-paste and click "save", but it gets tedious.
It should be possible for the software to attempt to merge edits together, then ask for confirmation on what it can do and fixes for what it can't -- in the best case, you would just have to click 'confirm'; in the worst case, manual editing like now. (If 'patch' can do this on source code, we should be able to do it on text.) Someone more familiar with this kind of text processing should mess with it rather than me...
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Friday 22 November 2002 18:09, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Brion,
I've been confused by the "edit conflict" screen so many times that I seriously think the page should be redesigned. Other contributors also have frequently commented on talk pages that they lost what they just typed, due to edit conflicts.
I'd like to have the columnwise, side by side "revision of" display show up at the top of the page, where I can't possible miss it!!
Below that, I'm not sure what needs to come next, but:
- we need to make it VERY EASY for users to recover from the edit conflict
- users should NEVER feel they have to lose what they just typed
I'm not looking for a quick fix on this, but I bet dozens of users have the same issue kq and I have.
It is particularly annoying when I add some mispeelings, making scattered edits to the page, and someone else does the same thing.
How about this solution to the problem: Given a text A, Jeeg edits it to B and Talen edits it to C. Apply Talen's edits to B, getting D1, and Jeeg's edits to C, getting D2. If D1=D2, set D to D1 and display it. If D1<>D2, set D to some string that includes both, with markup to indicate where conflicts occur.
phma
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
I've been confused by the "edit conflict" screen so many times that I seriously think the page should be redesigned.
Speaking of redesigns, I really like the "diff" pages of the phase III software (both word diff and two columns), but I think the diff selector (History page) could use some ideas from the newest UseMod software. This software hasn't been released, but is apparently in use for Meatball Wiki.
To see what I mean, go to some page and click "View other revisions", e.g. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=history&id=BeOS
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
I've been confused by the "edit conflict" screen so many times that I seriously think the page should be redesigned.
Speaking of redesigns, I really like the "diff" pages of the phase III software (both word diff and two columns),
yes, this is great! (we copied the idea for Unreal Wiki! :-)
but I think the diff selector (History page) could use some ideas from the newest UseMod software. This software hasn't been released, but is apparently in use for Meatball Wiki.
To see what I mean, go to some page and click "View other revisions", e.g. http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=history&id=BeOS
Meatball's inter-revision diff feature is available as a patch for UseMod here:
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiPatches/TaviStyleHistory
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org