Inkipedia:Proposals/Failed/Remove DiscussionTools

This page is an archive.

It contains older discussions that are no longer ongoing. If you wish to discuss one of the topics here, please bring it up on the current discussion page.

DiscussionTools is an extension that attempts to bring VisualEditor's "what you see is what you get" experience to talk pages. It is responsible for the Reply buttons and related features on talk pages.

Relatively recently, the source editor received a live preview button, as well as syntax highlighting, making it very easy to use. Inkipedia's help pages are written for the source editor. Inkipedia's most experienced editors are generally unable to help with VisualEditor issues, and VisualEditor has plenty of issues. DiscussionTools currently has an issue where signatures appear twice for users who sign using the normal method (4 tildes).

There is a separate proposal to remove VisualEditor. Because VisualEditor is a dependency for DiscussionTools, and the idea of removing VisualEditor is very popular, we would ideally also agree to remove DiscussionTools.

In consideration of those facts, I am proposing that the DiscussionTools extension be removed from Inkipedia. If this proposal passes, the removal will be carried out by staff.

Heddy (talk) 14:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Start date: 3 September 2024

End date: 24 September 2024

Support

1. Since the push to source editing is strong, I fully support removing DiscussionTools. ssdrive (Talk・Contributions) 14:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
2. Don't see why this should be kept if we are removing VE as a whole. EmiTalk 15:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
3. I don't like DT as it is a somewhat significant deviation from how most other wikis' talk pages will operate. For ease of use, this should be removed as well. Trig - 00:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
4. I use DiscussionTools' interface quite frequently, the added convenience is trivial at best. With our recent wiki software update the tool has gotten buggier, adding duplicate signatures with the live preview frequently lagging regardless of server speed. Whether or not it would get fixed, the feature doesn't add that much ease of use compared to just using the source editor. As it was brought up in one of the opposition votes: indentation can very easily be added via a : colon at the start of a paragraph; if needed we could add this info to talk page interfaces instructions to lessen related confusion.
   If one of the goals of removing visual editor overall is to minimize its known bugs, an outlier "direct preview" feature on talk pages may lead to new editors asking why the rest of the wiki doesn't also have it. Yoshifan52 (talk) 17:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
5. As I said on the Visual Editing removal proposal, I think that the ease-of-use aspect seems very nice at first, but it might make people much less able to edit on wikis that do not support it, like the Strategywiki, so I support the removal of DiscussionTools. TheYoshiGang (talk | contribs)

Oppose

1. Same reason as for my vote on the VE removal proposal. I personally like having both editing options, visual and code It's moon [Talk!] 00:30, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
2. I think some of the features of DiscussionTools are useful. It makes it easier to reply to a particular message, and the preview is also helpful. It is quicker to not have to click "show preview" to see what the message will look like. It also has a source mode. There is an issue currently with signatures, but it only affects some pages, and will probably be fixed.  GX_64 (talk)  01:20, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
3. DiscussionTools doesn't really have the downsides the rest of VisualEditor does, and streamlines adding to discussion pages. It may not be the most necessary thing in the world but I personally don't see much point in removing it. kris(talk) 05:32, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
4. I could certainly personally deal with the loss of DT, but that doesn't change the fact that it has very few actual issues (unlike VE on the whole), and I find it rather convenient; it seems like plenty of other editors do as well. If we can feasibly remove or at least strongly minimize VE but leave it intact enough to still use DT, I don't see why we shouldn't. Driftin Soul [Talk!] 05:42, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
5. The reply button is a gift from god and it's amazing just how much more convenient and simple it makes reply to things, not having to worry about indents is wonderful for example. Live preview does not add a reply button so it hardly affects the usefulness of discussions tools. However, the reply button is less useful when you consider that proposals like this one are formatted in a way that makes it impossible to use it. Because of that, the removal of discussions tools would not matter as much as it could have, but it's still removing convenience features for benefits that seem extremely minor. Discussions tools does not feel like visual editor at all, it has source and visual modes just like regular editing. On Minecraft Wiki it's only been a couple months since discussions tools was added and I have genuinely never seen a case where someone has added four tildes while using the reply feature, is it really that common here to be an issue, considering Inkipedia has had discussion tools for longer. The proposal reads to me like discussion tools must be removed if visual editor is removed, but I must be wrong about that right? Otherwise this wouldn't be two separate proposals. Harristic (talk) 15:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
6. Certain features of DTs are quite beneficial. I am not quite sure how removing it would make this wiki much better than it already is. 𝚂𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝟷𝟶𝟷 (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
7. Anemoia [Talk!] 22:57, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
8. Cackle (talk) 21:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Neutral

1. DiscussionTools doesn't bother me personally that much (if I think if a correct thing). If it gets removed, using the Talk Pages won't be any different from editing the source code, which isn't a bad thing. And if it stays, I don't care. Milchik (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
2. I personally like DiscussionTools, but it's not like losing it would be a huge loss for me. XarrotD (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
3. I often use DiscussionTools and also like it, but I don't mind losing it. Squidtent ~ (Talk) 15:11, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
4. This removal would barely affect me at all, since I already have most of the extension disabled — so I support removing it as a part of completely pruning the Visual Editor off the website, but I don't feel like I can just go right into the 'Support' section with that , considering that it wouldn't really change much on my end (as opposed to VE frequently making a mess of the source code when people edit wiki pages with it).
    ♥ #6-Frisk   ‍  15:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
5. DiscussionTools has been very useful to me but I wouldn't really mind if it was removed. OrderSquid38 [Talk] 01:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
6. The one thing I like about DiscussionTools is topic subscriptions, but I only use that when I've already replied to the topic in question, so it doesn't affect me that much. I don't mind the outcome here. Cackle (talk) 01:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
7. StarAdamStar (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
8. I'm torn on this one. While I totally get and agree that the new source editor tools such as live preview more or less render DiscussionTools obsolete, I do tend to use it myself and I honestly do think it makes replying to talk threads more intuitive for the layperson. That said, considering the existing issues around this and VisualEditor, I wouldn't lose a whole lot of sleep if it went. GloverMist (talk) 20:23, 8 September 2024 (UTC)