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"Report an error" feature

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Hi. During Wikimania 2010, I learnt about a feature installed in Polish an Russian Wikipedias: a link on the left sidebar to report errors. I liked it, so we installed it in Spanish. You can see how it works in this article for example (look at the left sidebar "Notificar un error"). It opens a window where the user can explains the error. Then, the error is sent to a common page es:Wikipedia:Informes de error where wikipedians read and work on them. It would be nice add it in English. The code is here: es:MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js. We are receiving tons of reports per day. This is an amazing tool to involve casual readers (which don't know how to edit a talk page, more, they don't know the about talk pages) in Wikipedia community efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Regards. emijrp (talk) 09:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good idea! It could direct to the WP:Content noticeboard, perhaps? Many readers don't know that Wikipedia can be edited or know about talk pages, so this adds another opportunity for some of those many eyes to make our bugs shallow. How would we turn it on at en.wikipedia? Fences&Windows 17:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like you just Create MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js, copy the whole thing into it (translated into English), put this into MediaWiki:Wikibugs.css, and put the line importScript('MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js'); into common.js. You could try that by copying it into your personal .js to see if it works, and see what wording you'd want in English. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 18:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, also, you can create the messages MediaWiki:Bug in article (with the text "Report an error" or something like that) and MediaWiki:Bug in article-url (with the title "Wikipedia:Content noticeboard" as you suggested). Then, add it to MediaWiki:Sidebar. But first, we need more community opinions. emijrp (talk) 18:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm, I see that they were created in 2005 (and Wikipedia:Report an error was deleted later). Why? emijrp (talk) 18:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, it was deleted when this system was in an very early stage (see talk). Today, it is much better. emijrp (talk) 19:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Open an RfC? This probably needs good support to succeed, as it may flood the content noticeboard. Fences&Windows 22:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What sort of junk/false-positive rate does it get on the other Wikipedias? --Cybercobra (talk) 23:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can say 50%/50%, but the script has filters to avoid empty reports, reports with texts with no spaces, ect. Also, we exclude the "Report an error" link in articles like "MSN", "Hotmail", ect, where many people click to say "MY HOTMAIL DOESN'T WORK, FIX IT PLIZ". I think that it can be tested here, and "invent" ways to reduce the noisy reports. emijrp (talk) 08:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On plwiki it is 70% (reports)/10% (vandalism/spam/my car is not working)/10% (requested article expansion)/10% (confused people, they are redirected to correct place) and around 50% (solved) / 50% (unsolved, moved to talk page).

This seems potentially fruitful and helpful, but I can't help wondering if the link shouldn't just go to the relevant talk page (to keep relevant discussion in one place, plus educate people about talk pages), with the talk page added into a maintenance category so on low-traffic pages people will be able to find it and respond. The "edit request" system of MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext could probably be used as a model. Rd232 talk 09:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We have all the messages in the same page. If a report is hard to reply and solve, it is moved to the article talk page. A lot of reports are about undetected vandalisms, so, flooding talk pages with vandalism reports is not very useful. emijrp (talk) 10:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mm, OK, if it's true that many of the errors turn out to be simple vandalism reports, and if issues better suited to the relevant talk pages are moved there, then this system would be better. Rd232 talk 16:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And many talk pages have no watchers. Seeing how this is working on two other Wikipedias, I can't see that a trial would hurt. Fences&Windows 16:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support This sounds like a great idea, Sadads (talk) 16:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, do we open a RfC? emijrp (talk) 09:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - it sounds great. Kayau Voting IS evil 09:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Seems worth a try. Calliopejen1 (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support trial for maybe a month or two. If it gets flooded by abuse, get rid of it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support opening an RfC on a trial run. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The intentions are very good but I'm really not sure about this idea. One of the stated aims of the Foundation over the coming years is to improve participation in the projects. This means people learning how to edit Wikipedia in the main. This proposal presents the user with a kind of shortcut to get content changed. Shouldn't we be pushing for our visitors to change the content themselves? I think I would much prefer to see such a "report an error" link take the user to a "You can edit!" page and give some very basic details as to how the user can make the change themselves. This proposal would set up a barrier between readers and editors; it encourages the notion that there are "some people, like staff" who edit Wikipedia when we should be encouraging the notion that readers are editors too. So I'm against this. --bodnotbod (talk) 10:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a valid point, and it's good to be aware of it. But being aware of it, we can address it with eg a good editintro, pointing people (before posting) to the possibility of fixing things themselves, especially if it's simple. And of course make it clear if they do post that it's volunteers answering (WP:HELPDESK already does this I think). Good point, but not a blocking bug. Rd232 talk 10:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • We have zillions introduction tutorials and help pages. If a person doesn't want to learn or can't learn to edit, he won't do it. Also, the "Report an error" feature first screen shows some links to Wikipedia:Be bold and it encourages fix them. People can report errors or send pics via e-mail too, are you going to remove e-mail from the Internet? : ) emijrp (talk) 10:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have you poked around in the spanish wikipedia, where it is in place? When you click the button, there is a pop-up explaining how to be bold, etc: "Si has encontrado un error, por favor, intenta arreglarlo tú mismo, la tecnología wiki permite que cualquiera pueda editar artículos. No dudes en hacerlo, una de las reglas de Wikipedia dice «¡sé valiente editando páginas!». Si no puedes o no sabes arreglar el error, entonces infórmanos de él usando este formulario." -> "If you have found an error, please try and fix it yourself: wiki technology makes it so anyone can edit articles. Don't hesitate - one of Wikipedia's rules is "be bold!". If you can't or don't know how to fix the error, then let us know using this form." And then there are three buttons: edit the article yourself, report an error, or cancel. This actually might make people more rather than less likely to fix mistakes themselves. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • That sounds good. I would rather have a text like the above explaining to be bold, and fix it themselves, then a button to take them to the edit page, and even further down a pair of buttons to fill out an error form (which posts it on both a noticeboard and the talkpage? Or posts it on the talkpage, and puts a link on a noticeboard?), and a cancel button. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:41, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • And sometimes problems are caused by arcane templates and mediawiki glitches (there was evil image glitch connected with PC that resulted in blanked images for unloged) Bulwersator (talk) 16:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Bodnotbod -- Personally, I think that the more high quality article we have, the more likely people are to get interested in Wikipedia, and decide to contribute. So in my opinion, anything that provides a "shortcut" to improving the articles is a good thing, and will draw in more editors than forcing people to learn how to edit before they can contribute. Perhaps, to address your concern, we could include a link that says something equivalent to "Want to learn how to fix this sort of problem yourself?" which would take them to the edit page ... Anyhow, I don't see your issue as a very convincing reason to prevent this from being developed. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support directly or via a trial. This is one of those "I can't BELIEVE we haven't thought of this before!" forehead-slapping features that should already have been in WP by now. Zunaid 18:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support With an appropriate intro, this can only increase readership participation. Randomblue (talk) 15:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- Excellent idea, which will enable an enormous number of currently uninvolved readers to contribute. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal has got a wide support. Can anyone be bold and run a one-week test? You can follow the instructions available in the third and fourth messages in this thread. I can help if needed. Thanks. emijrp (talk) 15:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've gone ahead and done most of the work, and left a message at MediaWiki_talk:Common.js#WikiBugs asking for someone to do the final step of putting it live. Rd232 talk 08:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot Rd232. Some details:
Regards. emijrp (talk) 11:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, fixed now - thanks for the proofreading (always better to have someone doublecheck!). Rd232 talk 11:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like it, it's just that...doesn't it take away the point of tutorials, FAQs, etc? --When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 13:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the report is put on the problem article's talk page, the system can automatically add a template Template:Error reported which'll put the talk page in the category Category:Error reported. That way fixers can check the category, it won't flood any boards, it's in the right place from the start, and makes it easier to see an article's history of errors reported by people scared of reading the HowTos. Since fixers would've had to edit the thread on the board anyway to say it's been fixed so that someone else doesn't think they still need to fix it, they'll now just edit the talk page and remove the template or change it to Template:Error fixed. -- Jeandré, 2010-08-28t15:13z

WikiBugs

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Per this discussion at VPR, on adding a "Report an Error" feature to the sidebar, I've

MediaWiki:Bug in article already exists, so the final steps are

  • adding importScript('MediaWiki:Wikibugs.js'); to common.js
  • adding ** bug_in_article-url|bug_in_article to MediaWiki:Sidebar

I'm reluctant to do this myself in case I mess something up or simply am not aware of unwanted consequences. If it seems OK, would someone more experienced do it? Rd232 talk 08:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not make the element always hidden, unless certain conditions are met ? importing a full Wikibugs.css, when there is only 1 line in it, is rather suboptimal. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you can optimise the code, please do! I just translated the existing version. Rd232 talk 13:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What about instead calling importStylesheet('MediaWiki:Wikibugs.css'), we hide the link using document.getElementById('n-bug_in_article').style.display = 'none' ? emijrp (talk) 14:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not my department. TheDJ? Rd232 talk 14:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think adding namespace specific CSS to Common.js and using appendCSS for the exclude list is the simplest here. The biggest problem for me is that we will run trough that for loop on EVERY single page load. And then there is the issue of killing the click event... I'll deploy this on test.wikipedia.org first I think. Seems a bit safer to me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I got some basic issues fixed. I do think we need to rewrite this thing to at least use the API where possible. Shouldn't be too hard. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, can you do that? Perhaps, if the quality of the result is high, we can try add this feature to the rest of Wikipedias. emijrp (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to do it tomorrow. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any updates on this? emijrp (talk) 08:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a version on test.wp that could be deployed here. I have not had the time to convert it all to use the api so far. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While I think the name "wikibugs" is kind of cute, it's very similar to wikibugs-l, the mailing list that accompanies a Wikimedia bug tracker called bugzilla.

It's kind of common for features like this to be referenced directly (in documentation, in talk page conversations, etc.), so I think it's kind of important that it use a less confusing name. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, what other name would you suggest instead? Also, for users this feature is called "Report an Error", wikibugs is only used for the JS, so I think it doesn't really matter. --Bachinchi (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, these features are often discussed internally, so the internal name does matter. I chose "Kvetch." --MZMcBride (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Report an error feature

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A discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 18#WikiBugs was archived before the agreed "Report an error" feature could be implemented. Can this please be revisited and the feature implemented? Fences&Windows 23:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've unarchived it. — Edokter • Talk — 23:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I didn't think of doing that. Fences&Windows 16:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi!

The script was updated recently on Portuguese and Polish Wikipedias, and is now compatibly with ResourceLoader. You may want to re-translate/configure your copy taking one of the following as basis:

Best regards, Helder 15:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not VRT/OTRS

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OTRS isn't likely to be the best place to send this stuff. At one point info-en was linked to {{BLP}} and we were inundated with e-mails reporting all sorts, completely outweighing any benefit because we were unable to handle the backlog. A "report issues" link would probably be even worse; though, possibly, a separate queue would be an option. PeterSymonds (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the idea to centralize some discussion and figure out what the best option would be. BLP issues can probably go to the BLP noticeboard... it just needs to be able to handle the load. Same with copyright violations; there's a noticeboard for those too. This all needs more thought, but I think the underlying idea is important. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WordPress.org

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This is kind of a neat idea from WordPress.org: <http://wordpress.org/extend/kvetch/>. Perhaps this could be made into a MediaWiki extension. Hmmm. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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