Arun Ganesh <arun.planemad <at> gmail.com> writes:
I thought of studying my watchlist for a moment to understand why it was the way it was, and I noticed the following:
- My watchlist begins half the page down, because of the watchlist
options box, which btw I have never used or peered into. 2. The first link in each item is that of the current article. I have never clicked this because I might as well go through the changes by using (diff) 3. I have never clicked (hist) on the watchlist, I would first see the (diff) and only then browse the history 4. 0 is colored grey making it disappear from the list. But that does not mean the article never changed, it could be +400 -400 words but the net is 0. The edit calculation can be highly misleading. I would rather want to know how many characters were added and how many deletions. Articles which have only additions are low on my priority list to patrol. 5. Before contacting any user or checking his (contribs), I would always see what his edit was. I open the (diff) and (contribs) in new tabs. This could have become integrated because its part of the same task. Same goes for talk and the user page links littered all over my watchlist 6. Knowing whether a user/ip has a talk page or not is important for me to identify a newbie or vandal 7. Reading each edit summary is really slow. Identifying where it begins on a line is tough of all the information that precedes it. 8. I can jump to the specific section directly by clicking the tiny → but not the section name itself. I have never used this link either as i would rather see the (diff) 9. The (diff) gives me the diff with the entire article and image loaded below. In most cases, all the info I need while patrolling is just in the diff. I only need the article if i want to check if tables/images are broken.
With that in mind I made this, which would solve most of my issues: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mw-ux-visual_watchlist.png Let me know if it would work for you as well? I hope to put some more thought on it and improving the idea.
For GSoC, I will be working on making several improvements to the watchlist feature in MediaWiki. You have provided valuable feedback which I've responded to point-by-point below.
- My watchlist begins half the page down, because of the watchlist
options box, which btw I have never used or peered into.
I'd like to make this box collapsable with hide/show link - that should save screen real estate, but would it sacrifice usage?
- The first link in each item is that of the current article. I have
never clicked this because I might as well go through the changes by using (diff)
For me, (diff|hist) are the first links, followed by the article title... unless I've misunderstood what you meant.
- I have never clicked (hist) on the watchlist, I would first see the
(diff) and only then browse the history
As Amir noted, statistics for usage of these buttons would be nice.
- 0 is colored grey making it disappear from the list. But that does
not mean the article never changed, it could be +400 -400 words but the net is 0. The edit calculation can be highly misleading. I would rather want to know how many characters were added and how many deletions. Articles which have only additions are low on my priority list to patrol.
I really like your idea of changing the way changes are displayed on the watchlist. It reminds me of the like/dislike bar on YouTube. Such a bar would be far more useful than a net change number (which many first time users probably don't understand what it's for.)
- Reading each edit summary is really slow. Identifying where it begins
on a line is tough of all the information that precedes it.
After implementing watchlist grouping and a number of other improvements, I was interested in creating a narrow column version of the watchlist recent changes, inserting a line break at a set point in the line (probably before the user name).
- I can jump to the specific section directly by clicking the tiny →
but not the section name itself. I have never used this link either as i would rather see the (diff)
A diff for the section would be useful.
- The (diff) gives me the diff with the entire article and image loaded
below. In most cases, all the info I need while patrolling is just in the diff. I only need the article if i want to check if tables/images are broken.
Maybe we could add a "diff-lite" option that could be turned on by power users?
With that in mind I made this, which would solve most of my issues: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mw-ux-visual_watchlist.png Let me know if it would work for you as well? I hope to put some more thought on it and improving the idea.
Thanks again for your feedback - my GSoC project page is available here and I'd appreciate any feedback you have: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Blackjack48/GSOC_proposal_for_watchlist_i... vements
I will incorporate your suggestions into my project within the next few days.