Wikiversity:Liquid Threads

You can help develop this proposal, share your thoughts, or discuss its adoption as a Wikiversity policy, guideline, or process. References or links should describe this page as a "proposal".

Discussion July 2011

Each new topic here would be subpage

I propose to make each new topic to be a subpage here. It has been years I was looking foor a technical tools which offer us to see recent changes of each topic. But this seems to me technically very difficult, while having each topic on a subpage offers to "watch" just those youve been editing. This would help to some of us to work faster in here. What do you think? Did you get what I wanted to say?--Juan de Vojníkov 09:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

perhaps editors to this page could consider themselves whether their new topic bore sufficient weight to warrant a separate subpage, and then take responsibility themselves for starting that subpage.Leutha 13:43, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, this is the technical issue. Imagine this page having 30 topics. You reply to 5 of them and you are having this page on wachlist. Everytime someone edit this page, you see a change on your watchlist, but you dont know if someone was editing those you are interested in. If you were able to watch just those you are interested in via your watchlist it would shorten your time here. In the case you are not interested in other 25 topics.--Juan de Vojníkov 14:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Look, it's a great idea. How to make it happen? We have lots of chiefs (people with great ideas) and too few Indians (people to make them happen). What this idea takes is a clerk, someone to take responsibility for organizing the Colloquium. If that person works as a "chief," it will cause conflict, the person must see himself or herself as a servant of the community, and must function in that way. There will be objections to the clerk's actions, we can predict, but if the clerk is working properly, those won't become full-blown conflicts. The clerk should not consider his or her opinions superior to those of *any other user.* However, where disagreements arise, the clerk will submit them to the community. This is like a chairperson in standard deliberative process, the chair makes decisions on behalf of the group, but refers any disagreement, immediately, to the group, and only acts contrary to the view of any member if confirmed by the group.

• I see the clerk as working by taking topics started here and classifying them into specific topics, creating subpages, and linking those subpages from here. A clerk could go back and refactor the archives into these subtopic pages, leaving behind links. It's a big job, to be sure, but it could be done a little at a time, and there could be more than one clerk.

• Wouldn't you like to have a MediaWiki user function, "Watch this page and all subpages, including newly created ones?" -- which could then be overridden by removing a subpage from the watchlist? Does that exist? --Abd 14:23, 17 Ju

Last time in 2008 there wasnt such function. But there is no need of a clerk Abd.--Juan de Vojníkov 14:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It could work if most people are able and willing to use subpages, understand how to use subpages, and understand how to add new topics and maintain the system. Another option is to split the Colloquium up into smaller discussion areas based on broad topics rather than narrow topics. Wikinews and Wikibooks do this. For example there could be Colloquium/Proposals, Colloquium/Resources, and Colloquium/Questions. -- darklama  16:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Add a new topic cant create a subpage?--Juan de Vojníkov 16:45, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

No, "add new topic" can't create a subpage nor ensure the subpage is included from the parent page at the same time. I or somebody else had proposed enabling liquid threads some time ago, which would be easier to maintain than one subpage per topic. -- darklama  16:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

It was you and I would opose liqud threads. They are enabled in mediawiki.org and I see they are not good.--Juan de Vojníkov 07:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

What is being requested is structured discussion, in the absence of widespread knowledge or established agreement on how to do it. That's why a clerk would be needed, someone specifically empowered to create coherent structure that works. It is not going to happen by itself. If the MediaWiki developers create a tool, maybe, but that's just someone else figuring out what would be needed and providing software. We can to it without software, and if we do it well, then maybe the developers will be inspired to make it easier.

Juan, at least at the beginning, new topics would be created by placing a subpage link here, then starting up the discussion on the subpage. If it's done right, users who see this in their watchlist can go to the subpage immediately from the watchlist. A clerk would simply do this for users, according to a coherent scheme. Others could certainly help, but if it's random ad-hoc, each user doing what they think best at each incident, it is very unlikely to be coherent and easy to follow. Wikis work in certain ways and don't work in others....

Can you point to information on liquid threads, Darklama? --Abd 17:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

LiquidThreads. LiquidThreads FAQ which also includes it in action at the bottom of the page. -- darklama  18:40, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Reading that, I recommend that we request liquid threads be enabled on an opt-in basis here, for experimental use. Thanks, Darklama. I'm not sure we should do it with the Colloquium first, until I have some actual experience with it.... --Abd 22:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe I may have suggested doing that before, after it was clear there was some opposition to it, but I think by than interest in discussing it had died. I am certainly open to opt-in and experimentation. It would at least give Wikiversity participants more options. -- darklama  14:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you point to a prior discussion? Implementing it as the default, yes, I'd be opposed myself, but as an opt-in experiment for specific talk pages as we decide? I can see no reason why not. (The preceding unsigned comment was added by Abd (talk • contribs) 18 July 2011.)

Prior proposal. -- darklama  16:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Having had experience of Liquid Threads on Wikieducator and is one of the reasons why I moved the focus of my educational activity from there to here. Having looked at the Wiknews link, I feel that would be a good step forward. But please note, this page starts with "Do you have questions, comments or suggestions about Wikiversity?" It does not present itself as a location for more extensive discussions (like this one!). So perhaps the issue is how can we organise these discussions more effectively? There has of course been some discussion of this at Wikiversity:Policies/How Wikiversity makes policy even though not much has gone on for nearly three years.Leutha 10:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Or Well, why not to try it.--Juan de Vojníkov 20:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion Jan-Feb 2011

Liquid Threads

I propose that we enable Liquid Threads at English Wikiversity to make discussions more manageable. There has been a lot of lengthy discussions of late where liquid threads could of come in handy, and I believe the Colloquium and other discussion areas could benefit from it. -- darklama  19:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Is this basically a discussion forum model similar to those found on sites like W-R and NetKnowledge? —Moulton 20:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

  Yes and no. What I believe to be similar to some forum models is that discussions are split into threads, all discussions and responses are not necessarily shown at once, and discussions can be searched and sorted. Threads can be watched, moved, edited, and they still have a revision history which I believe to be unlike any forum models I know of. -- darklama  21:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

• Never Liquid Threads are atrocious. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose The problem is caused by a single user, Abd. I'm thinking of a more efficient solution. Guido den Broeder 22:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Never Liquid Threads are atrocious. One of the reasons I migrated from Wikieducator.Leutha 23:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
• Limited use only While I generally dislike the LiquidThreads system of talkpages, and I just think it adds a lot of bureaucracy and the potential for movethread vandalism, I find that others actually prefer having it and they think that it makes discussions go smoother. For example, there is already in effect a LiquidThreads system in action on Wiktionary, but it is not enabled by default, however the users there could simply flip a switch with the magic word {{#useliquidthreads:yes}} and it would be enabled on their usertalkpages. We could set up a similar system here, I find that it might help on smaller wikis like this one than maybe Wikipedia or Wiktionary. TeleComNasSprVen 09:09, 10 February 2011 (UTC)