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Archive 1Archive 2

Suggest shorten 'Revision history statistics' and 'Revision history search' labels to 'Statistics' and 'Search'

'Revision history' is redundant with ‘Revision History’ in the page title and therefore unnecessary. I’ve used that page innumerable times without ever noticing the ‘Statistics’ and ‘Search’ links. I imagine many others overlook those links as well. Publication guidelines argue against unnecessary text/graphics. Seems to warrant a change. Also, suggest invert order to ‘Search’ and ‘Statistics’ given relative conceptual simplicity and frequency of use. Humanengr (talk) 08:56, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Some previous discussion here. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:19, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
I largely agree with User:Sphilbrick's altered proposal but I do think there's some merit in keeping one of the descriptors; I don't know that "Statistics" or "Search" is 100% clear in this context. I can imagine a new user or reader expecting to find page views and the search bar or something. So, I suggest having it look like:
External tools:
How's that seem? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:22, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
@Humanengr: ? — xaosflux Talk 17:14, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
Thx all; good thinking. Will respond further hopefully later today. Humanengr (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Amory, all — Maybe 'Text search' (or 'Search text'?) rather than ‘Revision search’. Both this and the main search above target revisions; 'Text' is to distinguish from that admin/maintenance tag search. So —

External tools:

Thoughts? Humanengr (talk) 01:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I confess I'm a little lost. Some mentioned there were three options. Could they be clearly labeled, (1,2,and 3) so we could comment intelligently?--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:35, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Apologies; will list later today. Humanengr (talk) 20:28, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

The list of options proposed:

Option 1: Change from current: ‘Revision history statistics’ and ‘Revision history Search’ to ‘Statistics’ and ‘Search’ — explained here

External tools:

Option 2: Change from Option 1's 'Page view statistics’ to ‘Page views’— explained here

External tools:

Option 3: Change from Option 2's ’Search’ and ‘History’ to ‘Revision Search’ and ‘History Search’ — explained here

External tools:

Option 4: Change from Option 3's ‘Revision search’ to ‘Text search’ — explained in first part of this comment

External tools:

[The following option resulted from discussion below:]

Option 5: Change from Option 4's ‘Text search’ to ‘Change search’ — explained in this comment below

External tools:

(I withdrew my associated suggestions so we can focus on the above.) Humanengr (talk) 23:35, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

  • These multiple option things are always quite complicated to vote for, but I think that option 4 sounds best to me. I especially think "Page view statistics" should be "Page views" as that link has always confused me. --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Option 4 Option 5 fulfills my main objective — make the text search tool more clearly visible. Also, shortening to 'History search' and 'Page views' helps readability. Good work, all. (Change from 4 to 5 noted in my cmt below) Humanengr (talk) 02:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I favor option 3 — I think "text search" might confuse a novice, this is something more complex — but I'm not exactly about to go to the mattresses over it. 4 would be my second choice. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 03:22, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think "text search" is a good label at all, for what is really a revision searcher, if the word revision is too esoteric perhaps "change search"? For the tool user, this is more about searching past chagnes, then searching "for text". — xaosflux Talk 12:48, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Basically my concern. Although I'll note that there's a potential for confusion as the top of the date and tag selector says "Search for revisions." ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • As I see it, the confusion and the difficulty in selecting helpful terms stems from there being two searches: 1) by tag, 2) for changes (insertions/deletions) to content. If it weren't for the latter being an 'external tool', the two might arguably both be in the upper box. Humanengr (talk) 16:14, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Which leads me to thinking re "Search for revisions" at the top that a more fully descriptive title would be "Search revisions by tag". Yes it's longer, but it lessens the shock for the neophyte when they have to spend time exploring the contents of that upper box only to discover 'search' doesn't search for changes. Maybe not a big deal, but I found that puzzle a distraction from locating the 'search for change' tool. Make sense? Humanengr (talk) 01:29, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
  • @Xaosflux, I’ve come around to your ‘Change search’, and so I added Option 5 for that. I also agree with your suggestion that 'revision' might be a bit esoteric. Humanengr (talk) 10:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I favor option 3, since "Revision search" shows that any revision can be searched, while "Text search" is confusing and looks like it might only apply to the current text. —Eli355 (talk | contribs) 16:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Iiuc, the votes so far (excluding mine) are Tom (LT) for Option 4; Xaosflux for Option 3 or 5 ??; Amory for Option 3 (though noting a potential for confusion as the top search says 'Search for revisions'); Eli355 for Option 3. All options put the links in the same new order; all shorten 3 labels from 3 words to 2. Do I have that right? Humanengr (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
So I don't really care too much what this says, but if I was labeling for the first time I'd probably go with: (current -> change to)
  • Revision history statistics -> Page statistics
  • Revision history search -> Search prior versions
  • Edits by user -> (no change)
  • Number of watchers -> {remove this, already on sidebar}
  • Page view statistics -> Pageviews Analysis
  • Fix dead links -> (no change)
— xaosflux Talk 02:57, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Switch the order of the first two to unbury the search and I’ll go with consensus on the rest. Humanengr (talk) 08:59, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
LGTM ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:38, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history and Help:Edit summary.
External tools:
— xaosflux Talk 11:20, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
LGTM too … thx, Humanengr (talk) 11:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
  • @Humanengr: OK, since my and Amory are 'involved' with this, I've set this for any other admin to implement. Patrolling admin, please replace the entire histlegend div with:
<div id="histlegend"><span style="white-space:nowrap;">For any version listed below, click on its date to view it.</span> <span style="white-space:nowrap;">For more help, see [[Help:Page history|Help:Page history]] and [[Help:Edit summary|Help:Edit summary]].</span><br /><div class="hlist inline">External tools:
* [http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?lang=en&article={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Search prior versions]
* [https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/{{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Page statistics]
* [//tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/usersearch.py?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&server=enwiki Edits by user]
* [//tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews?pages={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&project=en.wikipedia.org Pageviews Analysis]
* [//tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=runbotsingle&pagesearch={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Fix dead links]
</div></div>
Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 11:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Please change Pageviews Analysis to Pageviews analysis. The heading of the target page has both words capitalized, but it's in title case and not seen unless one clicks on the link. It's more important to be consistent with the rest of the links on the line, which are in sentence case and visible regardless of any click. Pinging Xaosflux and MSGJ. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:37, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss:  Done — xaosflux Talk 17:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thanks, I can sleep again. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:42, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss [apologies for the wake-up], Xaosflux: I was about to post that Tom (LT) had earlier suggested shortening to 'Page views'. We lost that in the earlier go-rounds. I tend to favor that as I'm not sure 'analysis' adds much value.
Also, I see now some other tweaks are to switch the order of #2 and #3:
External tools:
That puts the two search-type items next to each other followed by the two statistics items.
But then, and finally, that prompted titles that, imo, gets at the real purpose of #1 and makes the first two more inviting:
External tools:
Thoughts? Humanengr (talk) 18:30, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@Humanengr: there is a lot going on here, the best way to explain to everyone is to (1)Sync the current version to the sandbox, (2) make your changes in the sandbox, (3) Ask people to review the sandbox to promote to the main message. — xaosflux Talk 18:40, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, am splitting off as separate discussion for readability. Humanengr (talk) 22:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Top box: 'Search for revisions' --> 'Show revision history'; exploring other aspects

[This section has been revised to address only issues with the top box. Discussion following #2b is exploratory and remains active — comments welcome; NB: the motivation here is understandability and usability; if that's not a concern, … never mind Humanengr (talk) 23:56, 15 September 2018 (UTC)]

[Item #1 below and related material further down was early work toward what is now covered in the section above.]

1) The “For any version listed below …” line doesn’t apply to ‘External tools’ but rather to the lines below that. It should be moved down closer to ‘Compare selected versions’ where it’s needed. As it stands, that line interferes with visibility of the ‘External tools’ line.

[@Amory effected #2a as indicated further down]

2a) Relabel 'Search for revisions' --> 'Show revision history'. (This will better distinguish between the top box showing a list of many revisions from the 'Search prior versions' that yields a single version.)

2b) Also change 'Tag filter' --> 'By tag filter' so that the text flows 'Show revision history … from date … by tag'.

[My next comment and xaosflux's responses represent early work toward #1; you can skip down to "Amory's comment]

Something like this:

External tools:
For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history and Help:Edit summary.

(cur) = difference from current version, (prev) = difference from preceding version,

 m = minor edit, → = section edit, ← = automatic edit summary

Humanengr (talk) 01:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Humanengr:, I want to make sure we didn't miss anything. I created a sandbox page at MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox. Please edit this just as if you were editing the message directly to your desired change, then reply here when done. — xaosflux Talk 13:26, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Reactivate the request above when done: "answered=yes"-->"answered=no". — xaosflux Talk 13:55, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Generally fine with this as well, editing sandbox first would be good to get it all right. The items in your second request aren't done on this page, though, they are MediaWiki:History-fieldset-title and MediaWiki:Tag-filter. I've edited the former (although perhaps "Isolate revision history" might be better? Maybe too jargony) but I would think the tag filter might be better as "with tags" or "filter by tag" or something. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
@Amory, thx. Before figuring out the verbiage further, can you point me to help for how to use this top search box? I don't see that at Help:Page_history#Search? Humanengr (talk) 03:59, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
You enter a year and month, and when you press show it will load the page history from that date, e.g. if I select August 2018 on my talk page, it shows the regular page history as if I navigated back to 31 August 2018. If I also select a tag filter, it filters the page history for only those revisions with that tag from that month and prior. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:32, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Thx … In my tests, the tags I chose happened to show no results so I thought I might not have followed some protocol. Re 'Isolate revision history', I agree it might be more accurate, but also agree it is jargony; and so favor 'Show'. 'Filter by tag' is good as it starts with a verb and is thereby more active. So I say go ahead with that.
The thing I still find puzzling though is: are there use cases for an and/or filter with multiple tags? And are there reasons not to offer the tag set in a pull-down menu or other selector rather than text edit box? Humanengr (talk) 10:36, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
@Amory, re "From year (and earlier)", how about simplifying that to "Through month <month> year <year>" (inc. reversing the order). Thoughts? Humanengr (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, for one, we can't change the order. "Though year <year> month <month>" doesn't seem clearer to me, though. What's confusing about "From" for you? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:05, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
The whole expression "From year (and earlier)" seems awkward. It's also rather rare. (Google shows it at just a few non-MediaWiki sites.) I'm just trying to stop it before it multiplies. ;) Does 'Backwards from year <year> month <month>' work for you?
Re the YM date order, Date format by country shows only for the {D,M,Y} triples. While I don't see a tabulation for the doublet {M,Y}, iirc most sites offer M-Y for entering credit card info. Otoh, YM is part of ISO 8601 (which I prefer), so that has momentum. Maybe, if I care, I should take the verbiage and date order issues up at MediaWiki.
Finally, re the text edit box, is there any reason why the tags shouldn't be offered in menu or checkbox form? Humanengr 12:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
I read it as "Show revision history from 2018 (and earlier)..." which seems clear to me? I would hesitate to use something like "backwards" because it just shows the history normally, with nothing changed except the starting point. As for the tag text box, I believe that is on the todo list, as is using the new date selectors like on Contributions, as part of the OOUI-ification of MediaWiki. Slowly but surely, they'll get there... ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:31, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Hadn't noticed that Contributions has "From date <selector> To date <selector>". So "Show revision history … From date <selector> To date <selector>" looks good to me. And "To date" could default to current date? That's my last offering. Good to hear re tag text box. Thx, Humanengr 14:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Move 'External tools' up above 'For any version …’ and a bit more tidying up on External tools

Pls see MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox for suggested new design. See this for changes from current to proposed.

To explain: Prior discussion on edits to the 'External tools' line yielded what is now the current version as effected by this edit. (The prior changes were all re-labeling and reordering 'External tools' items except for 'Number of watchers' which was removed as it was already on the sidebar.)

The next suggestion is to move the 'External tools' line up above the 'For any version listed below … line. This makes the ‘External tools’ line more visible and puts the 'For any version …' line closer to where it's needed.

The edits shown here in the sandbox (kindly provided by xaosflux) are to:

  1. Shorten 'Pageviews analysis' to 'Page views' 'Pageviews' in line with Tom (LT)'s suggestion earlier that we had lost. (Updated to comport with Talk:Page view#Requested move 11 September 2018)
  2. Switch the order of 'Page statistics' and 'Edits by user' to bring the two search-type items next to each other and follow that with the two statistics-oriented items.
  3. Relabel 'Search revision history' to 'Find additions/deletions' 'Find addition/deletion' which, imo, better states its real purpose. (Updated per discussion with Mandruss below)
  4. Conform 'Edits by user' to the style of #1 by making that 'Find edits by user'.

That's it. Thoughts? Humanengr (talk) 19:44, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

@Humanengr:
  1. Support per you (and because "pageviews" is not a word).
  2. No objection.
  3. Partial support. I believe en-wiki uses "remove" more often than "delete", at least when referring to article content. And the WikiBlame page uses "removal". I suggest "Find additions/removals".
  4. No objection. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:31, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss, Good catch; and maybe we should go with the singular ‘Find addition/removal’ as WikiBlame finds only one. Humanengr (talk) 07:24, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
@Humanengr: That thought occurred to me, but I couldn't decide so I went with meh. No objection. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:28, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Done Humanengr (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Why all the extra whitespace? MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox takes up more space with the blank newlines. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:09, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Agree — fixed. Humanengr 08:22, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

[Refactored from above to include as part of this edit request]

@Mandruss and Xaosflux: As the author of the tool, I'm not too fond of having the "a" in "analysis" lowercase. This is a proper name. I get you want to be consistent with the other links, so maybe just drop "analysis" altogether? As it stands now, it looks like a typo -- though obviously I am biased. — MusikAnimal talk 01:13, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm just now catching up with the discussion. I see that someone has already suggested ridding of "analysis". I will say I think "pageviews" is one word, not two. See wiktionary:pageview, wikitech:Analytics/AQS/Pageviews, etc. Our own title page view is being disputed at Special:Permalink/859021572#Requested move 11 September 2018, and data suggests one word is more common than two. Not that it really matters, because it doesn't! — MusikAnimal talk 01:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: I'm good with changing Pageviews analysis to Pageviews. Will leave open as a sudo for a day or two to see if anyone objects. — xaosflux Talk 01:22, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: See my comments at Talk:Page view#Requested move 11 September 2018. I would accept that result here, as the considerations and arguments are the same. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:48, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@Mandruss, Xaosflux, and MusikAnimal: Can we fold the Pageviews vs Page views decision into the edit request § below that covers various changes to the External tools line? Maybe move this discussion down there? Humanengr 12:58, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Refactor at will, AFAIC. No notification received from your {{yo}}, btw. No idea why, it looks ok. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
@Humanengr: Ah so. No user page link in your sig. None of your notifications could have worked as long as that's been true. See WP:SIGLINK. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:13, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, "Page views" versus "Pageviews" is trivial, but I don't see a reason to wait on removing "analysis" from the link, if everyone is OK with that. Thanks — MusikAnimal talk 16:11, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Please can someone clarify, which items 1-4 above have consensus? Does the sandbox have the necessary code for this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Request disabled pending clarification on the above — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:04, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

While we're on the subject, I'd like to point out XTools Top Edits as an alternative for "Edits by user". It offers a few more features, and arguably a cleaner interface. See this example. The link would look like [https://xtools.wmflabs.org/topedits/en.wikipedia.org?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Edits by user], where they still need to fill in the username in the form. I again am biased, as I co-authored this tool — MusikAnimal talk 17:37, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 20:46, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Is this good to go?

I incorporated the change from 'Page views' to 'Pageviews' to comport with Talk:Page view#Requested move 11 September 2018.

Iiuc, there are no further outstanding issues. Would someone care to confirm, per Martin's request above, that "items 1-4 above have consensus" (I updated the list to reflect per discussions) and that the MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox has "the necessary code for this"? Thx, Humanengr (talk) 06:26, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Seeing no objection … and as MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox looks good to me, I am resetting the edit request. Thx to all, Humanengr (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikiblame replacement

Wikiblame has been down for quite a while. I suggest we replace 

* [http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?lang=en&article={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Find addition/removal]

with 

{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}||* [//xtools.wmflabs.org/blame/en.wikipedia.org?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Find addition/removal]}}

The biggest drawback of the XTools version obviously is that it only works in main namespace (hence the #if), so we may restore Wikiblame should it come back, whether in addition to or in lieu of the XTools. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Is Wikiblame broken? for more discussion. Nardog (talk) 09:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux Talk 20:30, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Nardog and Xaosflux: WikiBlame is not broken anymore, but it appears to be timing out on pages with many revisions with the new server. Ideally someone would update XTools or create a fork that's hosted elsewhere, but I think it would be ideal if WikiBlame were added back for now. Retro (talk | contribs) 04:58, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
How about 
* [http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php?lang=en&article={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Find addition/removal]{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}||&nbsp;<sup>([//xtools.wmflabs.org/blame/en.wikipedia.org?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Alternate])</sup>}}
(after Template:Anontools)? Nardog (talk) 07:14, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Looks okay to me. I could go both ways about the alternative text being smaller, but I think it visually conveys the meaning that XTools is an alternative, which is probably good. Retro (talk | contribs) 17:39, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 Done — xaosflux Talk 17:51, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Histlegend/sandbox tweak?

What's the feeling on this version instead of the old one? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: your div's are out of balance, the id one should wrap everything presumably so people can hide this if they want as well. — xaosflux Talk 22:14, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: what about now? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:18, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Headbomb: you have 2 'opening' div's now and 3 'closing' div's. — xaosflux Talk 22:23, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Right you are, fixed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:24, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm indifferent to this change, but I'd find it a bit inconsistent if we implemented this but not changed MediaWiki:Linkshere. Centering would probably be hideous, but at least putting "External links:" in bold might make sense.
On a side note, we're currently mixing https:// and // in Histlegend. Perhaps we should stick to the latter. Nardog (talk) 22:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Agree that MediaWiki:Linkshere should be synced with this. Centering however, creates a subtle delimitation for a different type of content, so it's very much an improvement from where I stand. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
I meant centering in Linkshere. I'm fine with centering in Histlegend. Nardog (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Oh, yeah, there that would probably be a bit weird. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:44, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Further tweaked [1]. This is both shorter and clearer, and most closely matches what is presented. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:37, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb and Nardog: want to get both of these on at once, with the newer styling? — xaosflux Talk 10:48, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
I don't think I like the centering of the text in either case; nothing else on page history pages is centered, so I don't see the point of centering that particular aspect. The other changes seem fine.
...But on a second review, the centering seems fine. I'm indifferent to it, so I'd be fine if the change was carried out. Retro (talk | contribs) 17:50, 28 June 2019 (UTC) (edited)

Well I proposed the change so obviously I'm for it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:08, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Change IABot URL

The IABot interface has moved domains. Please change
[https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=runbotsingle&pagesearch={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Fix dead links]
to
[https://iabot.toolforge.org/index.php?page=runbotsingle&pagesearch={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Fix dead links]
Thanks --Nintendofan885T&Cs apply 10:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Izno (talk) 14:09, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
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