Last modified: 2014-09-29 14:34:18 UTC

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Bug 26022 - On watchlist page "days all" should be reworded to "| up to 90 days".
On watchlist page "days all" should be reworded to "| up to 90 days".
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
Watchlist (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Normal minor (vote)
: 1.25.0 release
Assigned To: Luis Felipe Schenone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedi...
: design, i18n
Depends on:
Blocks: messages
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2010-11-20 04:32 UTC by Nick Levinson
Modified: 2014-09-29 14:34 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

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


Attachments

Description Nick Levinson 2010-11-20 04:32:37 UTC
Watchlists seem to have a 30-day limit, in both Wikipedia and Wikiquote. Therefore, what it says on the watchlist page as "[s]how last 1 | 2 | 6 | 12 hours 1 | 3 | 7 days all" should be amended so "days all" is reworded to "| up to 30 days".

The "all" is misleading. This affects me since I edit a lot on WP and check that watchlist often but hardly edit at all in any other project, so I don't want to check their watchlists very often. We see "all" and no edits and we assume there must not have been any. With a rewording, at least we'll know to check at least monthly.

Even better would be offering a much longer, or infinite, time frame to see changes, but rewording just the watchlist page is probably easier to implement.

The topic at the URL given in this bug report will probably be archived soon.
Comment 1 Robin Pepermans (SPQRobin) 2011-05-17 19:58:48 UTC
The 30-day limit is only for (some?) Wikimedia wikis. On very low-traffic wikis it can go back many months. So therefore it would be best not to include a number of days. Maybe change "all" to "all available changes" or something else that makes it more clear.
Comment 2 Nemo 2011-10-22 10:07:15 UTC
It could be "all ($wgRCMaxAge)" i.e. "all (30 days)" in the example: it's short and always works.
Comment 3 Robin Pepermans (SPQRobin) 2011-10-22 11:54:29 UTC
Yes, but $wgRCMaxAge is set in seconds so I suppose you could end up with "all (98.7 days)" or something.
Comment 4 Nemo 2011-10-22 17:46:48 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> Yes, but $wgRCMaxAge is set in seconds so I suppose you could end up with "all
> (98.7 days)" or something.

Is it impossible to do a division as in r26591?
Comment 5 Bartosz Dziewoński 2012-12-14 19:03:56 UTC
Patch submitted to gerrit by Luis Felipe Schenone as Iffcbc837.
Comment 6 Andre Klapper 2013-07-23 12:14:15 UTC
Discussion in patch review is whether this is an improvement in usability and clarity or not. Further input welcome.
Comment 7 Luis Felipe Schenone 2013-07-23 12:28:26 UTC
To me it is pretty clear that displaying the number of days, rather than "all", is much clearer and thus an usability improvement. What does "all" mean? All the changes in the article? All the changes in the article since the user has been watching? Both interpretations would make perfect sense, and in fact they are the most natural to me. But it means neither: it means all the changes since the max number of days that that particular MediaWiki installation takes into account! And that varies per installation. So showing the actual number of days seems a lot clearer, doesn't it?

And no, I cannot provide any user tests that prove that this way is clearer, as Siebrand asks for, but I think that Nick Levinsons experience, plus the above argument, should suffice.
Comment 8 Bartosz Dziewoński 2013-08-09 17:35:12 UTC
I think the best path forward here would be to just change the wording from "all" to "all available". The actual number of days could follow in parentheses, but I'm not sure about this.
Comment 9 Nemo 2013-08-09 17:44:02 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
> I think the best path forward here would be to just change the wording from
> "all" to "all available". The actual number of days could follow in
> parentheses, but I'm not sure about this.

+1, without parentheses.
I understand the original concern but the simplest solution is the best.

The current patch gives too much detail, and it acknowledges it by rounding the number of days. The upper limit only has a technical meaning, not a practical one: only rarely the user remembers and desires precisely 25 or 30 or 85 days timespans; usually you either want some common "human" timespans or just everything you can get.
Comment 10 Luis Felipe Schenone 2014-05-04 07:47:20 UTC
Notice how Special:RecentChanges allows to filter by 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | 30 days. It doesn't say: 1 | 3 | 7 | 14 | all available. And why would it? It would be confusing! Putting the actual number of days available would be the simplest, most natural, clear and unambiguous solution.
Comment 11 Gerrit Notification Bot 2014-09-26 09:52:16 UTC
Change 38743 abandoned by Luis Felipe Schenone:
(bug 26022) Improved the watchlist UI

Reason:
Master has grown too different from this branch and I don't know how to solve it. Better to start a new change for this bug.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/38743
Comment 12 Luis Felipe Schenone 2014-09-28 03:48:02 UTC
I've started a new patch set at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/163142

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