Related-ish task: T309067

Thanks for merging the task, @Esanders! I thought I'd seen something about this before, so glad to know it's being actively considered. I'll unsubscribe from here to avoid a notification blizzard, but feel free to reach out here/on-wiki if you'd like feedback about the feature as you develop it.

In T302011#8081515, @Sdkb wrote:

Thanks for merging the task, @Esanders! I thought I'd seen something about this before, so glad to know it's being actively considered. I'll unsubscribe from here to avoid a notification blizzard, but feel free to reach out here/on-wiki if you'd like feedback about the feature as you develop it.

@Sdkb you might value trying out the gadget @Esanders wrote. It's a work-in-progress implementation for linking to specific talk page comments in one click.

Installation instructions can be found here: https://w.wiki/5TFE

Note: if you end up trying out the gadget and see ways in which it could be improved, I'd value you letting us know as much :) .

Thanks, @ppelberg! Trying it out, I like it. The main areas for improvement are things around the edges.

Visually, it'd be nicer if it were separated by a pipe from the reply button, e.g. [ reply | link ] rather than [ reply ] [ link ]. I'd prefer the chain icon to text, but that's likely at least somewhat reflective of the fact I'm a power user.

The link it copies is the URL rather than the wikilink, which makes it more useful for some circumstances than others.

The most significant issue is that it doesn't appear that the links will persist once discussions are archived. I'd love to see Discussion Tools take on and improve @SD0001's find archive section gadget.

T302011#8960167

Meta: going forward, we'll use T321233 as the source of truth for the cases/contexts we'll make permanent links available within.

User experience

Below are the details about the overall permalink user experience the Editing Team discussed/converged on offline during the team's 27 September meeting.

Assuming we do not uncover information that causes us to reconsider the deployment plan as currently described, the next steps are to:

• 1. Design the user experience for when it is ambiguous what page permalink should lead you to.
  • This will happen in T304579.
• 2. Propose the sequence in which we'll make topic and comment permanent links available at each wiki
  • This will get documented in the === Deployment Phases section of this task's description.
• 3. Express a clear opinion about whether we will or will not offer permalinks as a user option
  • For now, this question lives within this task's ===Open questions section.
• 4. How – if at all – will the introduction of permalinks be related to T319146: [Release Ticket] Offer Usability Improvements as default-on feature at all projects (desktop)?
  • For now, this question lives within this task's ===Open questions section.

Details

1. Interface: make it possible to generate a permalink to a specific comment by clicking/tapping on the timestamp that appears within a person's signature. Implementation will happen in T273341 and T275729.
   • We recognize this approach may make it difficult for some people to discover this capability exists, as @Lectrician1 noted in T275729#8735571. Longer-term, we'll be introducing an explicit affordance that we think will address this issue. You can see the proposed design in T338534.
2. Link format: permalinks will be generated using hash fragments [i]
   • See rationale in T302012#9212789.
3. Clipboard contents: one tapped/clicked, the full URL of the permanent link will be copied to the person's clipboard
   • This decision is reflected in the requirements of T273341 and T275729.
4. Redirect experience: in the cases where the comment you are trying to navigate to no longer exists on the page from which the link to it was generated, people will see a dialog that:
   • Informs them that this is happening
   • Presents them with call(s) to action to navigate to the page the comment they're seeking has been moved to
   • Note: this user experience will be defined in detail in T304579.

i. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#c-Firefangledfeathers-20230926023200-Schwede66-20230926022900

I don't like the format. It uses a user nick that it shouldn't use. What can later violate the "right to erasure" in the European Union.

The right to erasure is observed by changing the username at Special:GlobalRenameRequest. It will change the username in any database.

How will the renaming of usurped nicknames be handled?

If I archive the HTML export (an archived HTML page is required), the nick will remain there.

I mean, it is not necessary to have a nickname in the name. To live without it. And it would probably shorten the HTML target tag (text after #).