Help talk:Notifications/Thanks

Introduction and Welcome

 * Please note - this message was written in 2013. It is pinned for historical context. Thank you.

The 'Thanks notification' offers a new way to give positive feedback on Wikipedia. This experimental feature lets editors send a private 'Thank you' notification to users who make useful edits -- by clicking a small 'thank' link on their history or diff page.

The purpose of this notification is to give quick positive feedback to recognize productive contributions -- and it should be particularly helpful for encouraging new users during their first critical steps on Wikipedia. This small feature is now being tested on MediaWiki.org and we aim to release it on the English Wikipedia at the end of this week -- or the following week. We have intentionally kept it as simple as possible, so we can all evaluate it and improve it together, based on user feedback.

We welcome your feedback and look forward to a healthy discussion on this talk page, once you have had a chance to try it out. If you would like to test it in advance, you can do so on MediaWiki.org right now, as outlined on this testing page. And any user who does not want to be thanked will be able to disable this notifications in their preferences. To learn more about this feature, check out this Thanks overview page -- and our first specifications. We'll post an update here with more info once this feature is live. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Phone browser lacks "Thank" link
The other day I wanted to thank someone, but Thank links don't seem to appear on my phone. Checked on more than one browser. (Android 9, with Firefox and with Chrome.) TooManyFingers (talk) 19:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * That is right. This was previously asked and answered here: Help talk:Notifications/Thanks/Archive 2. CapnZapp (talk) 20:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It is available on the diff page, e.g. Special:MobileDiff/1075895077. Nardog (talk) 07:03, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I should probably add that, at least as far as I am aware, Wikipedia still considers its mobile UI an extension; you could even call it an afterthought. That is, the mobile experience is not integrated into the help pages much if at all - everything related to the mobile UI is listed on the specific help pages for mobile, and only there.

In other words, the reason this page does not bring up issues related to or specific to mobile browsing is because desktop browsing is still the entrenched default, at least if you judge by Wikipedia help (which this page is part of).

Not saying that's an excellent answer - I am not defending anything here. Just saying that this is what I believe to be the answer, and now you know it too. CapnZapp (talk) 07:57, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Public thanks question is confusing
Although it is explained and cleared in the Help:Notifications/Thanks, I had for a long time just clicked away thinking that by confirming it would then send some message to the user talk page and "spamming" or bring me to their talk page, and polluting it. There are probably other editors that may also be hesitant to use this Thank function because of this. Anyway, just my 2 cents. —Arthurfragoso (talk) 00:43, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your feedback. Could I ask you what you actually think is wrong here - as far as I can read you you're saying "For a long time I thought this, but then I read a section on our help page, and now I understand." But I'm likely wrong, which is why your further input would be appreciated. Thanks, CapnZapp (talk) 07:51, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * When I mouseover the Thank button it says: "Send a thank you notification to this user", So I then click on this and I get: "Publicly send thanks? Thank | Cancel". It then made me think: "oh, there is a way to privately send to the notification bar and also a way to send it publicly? How can I send only the (private) notification? Is it a two step process? Was my Thank already sent and if I click on cancel will it be canceled altogether? Oh, I don't want to do it publicly, I will just ignore it (not clicking in neither "Thank" or "Cancel") and try when I see a big edit very deserving of a public thanks to see how this works."
 * So, to fix this, I would suggest to just change the confirmation question to: "Do you confirm to send a thanks? Thank | Cancel"
 * But then if this have to be specified that it is public, as a privacy awareness of the action, (If someone is paranoid of someone tracking their thanks), I don't think it is much necessary, and I can't think of a way to not over complicate this, but maybe a link to this page somewhere could help, like: "Do you confirm to send a thanks? Thank | Cancel - Help/How dos this work?" —Arthurfragoso (talk) 22:49, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Please see above, and the two tdiscussions that its first post links to. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion: do not allow thanking of people who have disallowed thanks
Currently, it's possible to disallow thanks, which means that you don't see them, but does not in any way prevent other users from sending them. (It's rather like an e-mail blacklist which deletes incoming mail without notifying the sender.) I think it would be better if it were impossible to send thanks to users who have disabled thanking. The thanks "button" would not appear for edits by those users. You would not be able to thank them, regardless of whether they'd see it or not.

Rationale: Suppose that Alice (A) has disabled thanks, but Bob (B) wants to thank her. If B thanks A, that notification will never be seen, and B may possibly (over time, and many thankings) feel snubbed or ignored. On the face of it, that's B's problem: but the issue is that B thinks he is interacting, while A is totally oblivious and unable to know this. It would be better if B simply knew "I cannot thank A", and did not get misled about what A thinks or knows about B.

More pragmatically, it would also save some small amounts of editors' time, since it's particularly stupid if people are firing off thanks into an unreadable void, when they could be editing instead (or perhaps writing meaningful talk-page messages).

Equinox ◑ 05:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Even more pragmatically: your rationale is reasonable, but the likelihood the WMF programmers will ever make this change is what I would estimate as "slim to none", based on limited resources alone. However, there's another issue that makes it, I think, even less likely: do you know how privacy controls (various ignore or block functions) are instituted on various discussion forums? To crudely summarize (this can be nitpicked, but I'm trying to make a point): The fact that B feels snubbed is given much less importance than honoring A's choice. To the point where allowing B to think he's interacting is desirable, if it means B doesn't realize A is ignoring him so he doesn't think to attempt contacting A in other ways.  To state this clearly: the drive to protect people from online harassment has meant that what programmers used to do without a second thought - have their programs clearly inform users when actions does not have the expected result - is entirely out of fashion nowadays. Nowadays, shadowbanning is a thing. Honoring A's choices is deemed more important than giving B perfect service, even if B is genuinely caused confusion. Not signaling A's choice (to disallow thanks) is prioritized over telling B they're wasting their time.  I do need to clarify (addressing everyone in the room, not talking to Equinox specifically): Thanks is never meant to require a response. Do not expect to ever be "rewarded" for using Thanks. If you cannot bring yourself to use the offered functionality purely out of the good of your heart, consider not using Thanks at all. Thanks for listening :)  Now back to my reply - let me close off by saying that I am not equating Wiki's Thank function with the privacy controls of social media, and I am not suggesting anyone has done anything wrong, or that they try to change Thanks to allow harassment. I am merely drawing a comparison in order to explain why, despite characterizing Equinox' idea as reasonable, I think leaving the system as-is is considered to have enough value, that even if WMF had limitless programming resources, they might still not act upon this suggestion.  Best regards, CapnZapp (talk) 07:26, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I can add to CapnZapp's reply. I have not disallowed thanks from others, and I am often thanked by B and others. But, I am not obliged to use the Special:Notifications feature to see who has thanked me; if I do, I can straight away use the "Mark all as read" feature to unburden me from seeing who they came from; if I look at the user name, I am not obliged to follow the link to see what I was thanked for. I certainly don't send back thanks-for-the-thanks messages, that way lies ping-pong. None of my actions or inactions are publically recorded, although the entries data tables do have non-public flags to show whether the notification is "read", thus whether it is to be counted at the page top or not. So if B thanks me, B has no way of knowing if I have read it or not, so B has no way of knowing whether to feel snubbed or not. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:01, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * When you say I have not disallowed thanks from others I'm sure you realize what you meant to say was "I have not disabled being notified when others thank me", User:Redrose64. (Normally a useless nitpick; less so given the subject matter of this particular discussion) Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 14:50, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I made a couple of relatively small tweaks to the page in conjunction with my reply. Feedback welcomed. CapnZapp (talk) 14:48, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Allow Thanks to Anonymous users
I was going to use the Anonymous user who edited after my first recent edit here as example. Luckily, first, I realized the user's edit had been a removal not an addition. (Didn't pay enough attention to the colors' code.) I cross-checked, then, the claim in the Edit summary that the removal was of a duplication and found that what remained didn't include a nice extra piece of info in the bullet point that was removed, hence my most recent edit of the Muses in popular culture article. Now I can still use this first-edit Anonymous user as an example. I'd like to thank the user for finding and removing the partial duplication. (If I'm extra-dedicated I'd also do a custom recruitment pitch TO the user (maybe drawing attention to the flaw in the user's edit, maybe not).) In any event Anonymous users are potential named or pseudo-nymed users and a Thanks is cheap and appropriate for Anon's too (in any event) I feel. Swliv (talk) 17:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You are correct in that you cannot thank anonymous IP edits. Enabling this is not likely. Do check out the available alternatives. I would especially recommend you to consider using the Thanks template, specifically intended as a substitute for the built-in "Thank" feature for use with unregistered editors. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 19:24, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Having to confirm giving Thanks is annoying
I have been editing Wikipedia since 2006. I give Thanks fairly often. For such a simple device as Thanks, it did not occur to me to look for documentation.

I just looked for and found the documentation after giving several consecutive Thanks and then being annoyed at having to acknowledge that I meant it each time. I have been annoyed for the same thing many times before, but I was never sufficiently motivated do do something about it. Now I see that the Thanks is only infinitesimally public, there is even less reason for warning the Thank-er that the Thanks will be public. I would not mind if you showed only the Thank-er a link or button to undo the Thanks.

Thanks for considering this suggestion. —Finell 02:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If you read the documentation you will have read the following:
 * The confirmation message was added because the "thank" link is next to the "undo" link, and initially several editors accidentally thanked vandals for edits they intended to undo.
 * You cannot "un-thank" a thanks once confirmed.
 * In other words, I think the confirmation step is here to stay. CapnZapp (talk) 09:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The confirmation step has been in place for just over eleven years, and was requested by several people. For more on this, see the archives of this page. I don't recall anybody asking for it to be removed. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for replying. Would it be possible to solve these problems by other means? For example:
 * Could the distance between the Thank hyperlink and the Undo [edit] hyperlink be enlarged? Perhaps it could be placed on a different line than the (save)(edit) hyperlinks.
 * Could the Thank-er be empowered to cancel the Thank-er's own Thanks?
 * —Finell 05:50, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I suggest that you review the archived discussions that I mentioned, particularly for your second request. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 08:27, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The short answer is that this is not something Wikipedians can change. It requires WMF coders, and they are highly likely to say "we have decided to prioritize elsewhere". The threshold for change is thus much higher than for things we Wikipedians can change ourselves. But you're welcome to start a process: step 1. Demonstrate you have read the archives thoroughly. 2. Convince the community this is necessary and good, and that what appears to have worked well for over a decade is in reality highly disruptive (since without consensus and priority WMF is bound to ignore you) 3. Start a Fabricator account and then log a ticket (examples are in the archives, which you by now will have read carefully). 4. Wait for their decision (again, highly likely to be a rejection phrased gently as "not right now"). CapnZapp (talk) 11:17, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * For "Fabricator", read . You almost certainly have an account there already; you just need to link it to your Wikimedia login. See Phabricator/Help for help. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 19:38, 1 July 2024 (UTC)