Last modified: 2007-01-18 04:24:01 UTC

Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

Wikimedia migrated from Bugzilla to Phabricator. Bug reports are handled in Wikimedia Phabricator.
This static website is read-only and for historical purposes. It is not possible to log in and except for displaying bug reports and their history, links might be broken. See T3085, the corresponding Phabricator task for complete and up-to-date bug report information.
Bug 1085 - Display size of changes every line in Special:Recentchanges
Display size of changes every line in Special:Recentchanges
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Special pages (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low enhancement with 8 votes (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
: 3074 5078 7345 (view as bug list)
Depends on: 1723
Blocks: 5547
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2004-12-13 00:22 UTC by Mészáros, András
Modified: 2007-01-18 04:24 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments
Patch to add the number of changed characters in recent changes (3.11 KB, patch)
2006-09-16 06:23 UTC, Leon Weber
Details
Screenshot of recent changes with this path (129.50 KB, image/png)
2006-09-16 06:27 UTC, Leon Weber
Details

Description Mészáros, András 2004-12-13 00:22:32 UTC
Problem: lot of vandal changes delete content.
Solution: The RC-Patrol will easy, if every line include the size of
changes(character).
Example: 
 (diff) (hist) . . (-4540) Nude beach; 23:51:48 . . 68.42.251.192 (Talk)
 (diff) (hist) . . (+128) February 27; 23:51:48 . . 70.240.226.24 (Talk)
(1950s-1999 - stupid mistake (sorry))
Comment 1 Melancholie 2006-02-25 21:30:43 UTC
*** Bug 5078 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 lɛʁi לערי ריינהארט 2006-02-26 20:49:41 UTC
*note*
Sooner or later after this feature will be implemented similar requests can rise
for 'Special:Recentchangeslinked/foo', 'Special:Contributions/bar',
'Special:Watchlist'.
Comment 3 Lee Van Jackson 2006-04-05 21:22:37 UTC
*** Bug 3074 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Lee Van Jackson 2006-04-05 21:23:34 UTC
3074 Is very similar , but asked for a percentage change in the article
Comment 5 bdk 2006-09-16 06:18:57 UTC
*** Bug 7345 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Leon Weber 2006-09-16 06:23:22 UTC
Created attachment 2366 [details]
Patch to add the number of changed characters in recent changes

My comment from bug #7345:
> This patch adds a +/- value to all recent changes lines. It shows how many
> character were changed by the editor.
> 
> That patch works for me, but I can't say if it's nice/safe/whatever, since I
> don't really understand the object orientaded PHP.
> I also have no idea if it can work on the live site since it has to load the
old
> and the new revision texts for every line in rc.
> 
> Leon
Comment 7 Leon Weber 2006-09-16 06:27:19 UTC
Created attachment 2367 [details]
Screenshot of recent changes with this path
Comment 8 Filip Maljkovic [Dungodung] 2006-09-16 11:05:53 UTC
The RC bot already does this. Maybe if it gets incorporated somehow. OTOH,
making a new database row and whatnot would make it easier, if my logics is correct.
Comment 9 Leon Weber 2006-10-04 16:07:00 UTC
Yeah, that would be great:
a column in the recentchanges for that or
save the revision length in the revision table.
Is that reasonable?
Comment 10 Leon Weber 2006-12-09 11:38:30 UTC
Fixed in SVN trunk, r18237.
Comment 11 Omegatron 2006-12-27 21:00:10 UTC
This is a pretty pointless addition.  It clutters up all the diff lists with
numbers that don't provide any real information.  There are much better ways to
indicate the reliability of an edit.  How can we get this removed from the software?

At the very least, it needs to be a preference that each user can turn off. 
Telling people to change their user CSS to hide the numbers is an unacceptable
solution.
Comment 12 Omegatron 2006-12-27 21:04:20 UTC
And why is the number surrounded by dots and whitespace?

. .  (+249) . .

What's the point of making all those watchlist lines longer?
Comment 13 Leon Weber 2006-12-27 21:50:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> This is a pretty pointless addition.  It clutters up all the diff lists with
> numbers that don't provide any real information.
Aha. So this is what Brion always means when he mentions that people "bitch and
whine about minor cosmetic changes". You know, many people like it, some don't.
Which of them should we listen?

Secondly, probably 80% of the bitching and whining party just needs to get used
to it.

> There are much better ways to
> indicate the reliability of an edit.
Tell some.

> How can we get this removed from the software?
By reverting r18237, but as you can imagine, we're not going to.
 
> At the very least, it needs to be a preference that each user can turn off. 
> Telling people to change their user CSS to hide the numbers is an unacceptable
> solution.
As mentioned, most people like it. Get used to it.

I hope this was not too rude.
-- Leon
Comment 14 yash078 2006-12-27 22:04:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> 
> At the very least, it needs to be a preference that each user can turn off. 
> Telling people to change their user CSS to hide the numbers is an unacceptable
> solution.

I think having it as an option is a good idea. --Jak
Comment 15 Rob Church 2006-12-28 02:02:45 UTC
Leon, face it - whatever you do, however useful you try to be, there are some
users out there who just don't like it. This is also Titoxd's first law of
Wikipedia.

It's actually a little tricky to add it as a user preference, and it would be a
messy solution. You can, I believe, hide the numbers altogether, which is an
excellent workaround for those who don't like it, using CSS.

If we *wanted* to add it as a user preference, then we would probably need to go
down the route of introducing a new ChangesList derivative, which deliberately
excluded these digits.
Comment 16 Omegatron 2006-12-30 07:11:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Aha. So this is what Brion always means when he mentions that people "bitch and
> whine about minor cosmetic changes".

YOU SHOULD TRY RESPONDING AT THEM IN ALL CAPS I'VE HEARD THAT HELPS POUND IDEAS
INTO LUSER'S LITTLE HEADS

> You know, many people like it, some don't.
> Which of them should we listen?
> 
> Secondly, probably 80% of the bitching and whining party just needs to get used
> to it.

Maybe features could be finished and brought to the community before going live.
 Like, say, a preference to turn something off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Added_or_removed_characters#To_remove_these_numbers_completely

> Tell some.

The only thing these numbers are useful for is when someone leaves a false edit
summary like "small change" while actually changing thousands of bytes.  But
most vandalism slips right past it.  Changing the word "year" to "poop" goes
completely unnoticed.  Small numbers give a false sense of security, making
diffs less likely to be looked at than if these numbers weren't present.  And it
takes up a lot of space and has been given bold distracting colors for something
minimally useful that only a small number of users like.

Better ideas have been around, and ignored, for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Automatic_edit_summaries#How_to_really_implement_this_feature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%29#A_better_description

> By reverting r18237, but as you can imagine, we're not going to.

Awesome.

> I hope this was not too rude.

It was, as usual when dealing with developers.  I wish WP:CIV and WP:LOVE
applied to the development process, too.

(In reply to comment #15)
> It's actually a little tricky to add it as a user preference, and it would be a
> messy solution. You can, I believe, hide the numbers altogether, which is an
> excellent workaround for those who don't like it, using CSS.

Editing CSS is not a user interface.

> If we *wanted* to add it as a user preference, then we would probably need to go
> down the route of introducing a new ChangesList derivative, which deliberately
> excluded these digits.

Please do.
Comment 17 Rob Church 2006-12-30 09:55:53 UTC
(An extensive response to the above, and all the other unpleasantness, can be
found at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2006-December/040657.html)
Comment 18 Lee Van Jackson 2006-12-30 13:38:47 UTC
I find it very useful, thank you! Have a great 2007 :)
Comment 19 Titoxd 2007-01-02 08:24:17 UTC
I find it very useful as well, as it is a critical part of the anti-vandalism
feeds that the IRC channels used. It's nice that everyone has access to that
data now. Thanks, Leon!
Comment 20 George Chriss 2007-01-10 20:47:40 UTC
Bug 8571 is an enhancement request to this enhancement.  -GChriss
Comment 21 Sage Ross 2007-01-18 04:24:01 UTC
This functionality should be extended to Special:Contributions.

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.


Navigation
Links