Help talk:Notifications/Thanks/Archive 1

Does anyone ever actually THINK before implementing stuff like this?
There should be a way to simply tic a box in preferences that disables this...or even better, a box to opt-IN. I'm not a programmer, so talk of importing lines into some js file are a little confusing, and I suspect that it would be for many other non-technical people as well.

Make this easier to get rid of please, and stop turning the project into Facebook. Tarc (talk) 12:41, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Er. There is a way to simply tick a box in preferences that disables this. See the section of the thanks page you were referring to re importing lines into some JS file. Our goal is not to turn Wikipedia into facebook, and for reference, we did actually think before implementing this. If you want to discuss your concerns in more detail, I'm happy to talk it through with you here, or set up a skype/google hangout call. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Could you be a little more precise? I have long had the "experimental" box un-ticked, and at the moment I still see the "thanks" links. Tarc (talk) 14:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, this may be the source of the problem; the experimental box is "exclude me from feature experiments", so you have to have it ticked to be excluded (which seems somewhat backwards, but.) Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, confusingly worded, but now that works fine. I'd thank your post, but I already turned it off. (irony) :) Tarc (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

JavaScript-only?
Do we need more JS-only features that are confusing to users with JS disabled? It's confusing to those with JS enabled too, but that's a different story... πr2 (t • c) 03:37, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It is both silly and confusing to show a link that does nothing when JS is disabled. It isn't a big deal that it's a JS-only feature (it's hardly a core function), but it's plain sloppy to show a broken link to users who don't use JS.
 * I wouldn't have thought this to be too difficult to do without JS: The link target would go to somewhere like /w/index.php?title=Special:Thanks&oldid=REVISION&token=TOKEN, which would show a message like Your thanks have been sent to USERNAME.. It's a little clunkier than it is with JavaScript since it takes you away from the history page, but that's something I expect for not using JS. – PartTimeGnome (talk&#160;&#124; contribs) 22:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Should a bug be filed? πr2 (t • c) 23:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ – PartTimeGnome (talk&#160;&#124; contribs) 00:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is this not counted?
The project page says that thanks "are not publicly visible or counted up on the history page, diffs, or your contribution history." Could I ask that someone explain the rationale for deciding in favor of making this not publicly visible? Thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   18:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I would guess that it's to prevent gamification and the explicit forming of cliques. Also to prevent people citing "the number of thanks I received for this edit" in discussions.
 * As for not adding it to our contributions history, that would lead to WP:editcountitis problems. (Ie. in RFA, if someone has made 1,000 "thank" edits (months from now), does that count towards their votecount?)
 * Ie. This seems to be intended (in its current iteration) as an utterly informal method of expressing gratitude or agreement with an edit. If someone wanted to express that gratitude or agreement in a formal/recorded/"for-the-record" manner, they would give a barnstar, or reply to the comment, or post a comment on the user's talkpage, or etc. (Just my guesses). –Quiddity (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note that sent thanks are logged - what they mean is that we don't keep a tally of thanks received for each editor, or revision. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Er, thanks received for each editor, just not publicly per revision. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO   20:46, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Huh, that's just weird :/. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Quiddity is correct, based on my conversations with Fabrice and others around the office about this feature. We want this to be a genuine person to person thank you, not an endorsement or a tool for "voting up" edits. They're logged like Oliver notes, but AFAIK, this is primarily so that the community can track down potential over-use or abuse of the feature (e.g. is the current rate limit enough?). Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I just made the horribly-coded User:PiRSquared17/thanks.js, so that Special:BlankPage/thanks//Rschen7754 tells you who has thanked User:Rschen7754, and Special:BlankPage/thanks/Rschen7754 tells you about the people he has thanked. Special:BlankPage/thanks tells you stats about the last 500 thanks. I know it could be improved, it's just a proof-of-concept. πr2 (t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 02:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Using that JS, Special:BlankPage/thanks/Rschen7754/Vogone tells you how many times he has thanked User:Vogone, etc. <b style="color:#f90;font-family:Arial">πr2</b> (<i style="color:#0f3;font-family:Arial">t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 02:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course, it is not much different from using Special:Log/thanks. Except it gives you numbers, "count". <b style="color:#f90;font-family:Arial">πr2</b> (<i style="color:#0f3;font-family:Arial">t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 02:56, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh no, our thanking shenanigans are over! :O --Rschen7754 02:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks in notifications
From what I understand, flow of talk and information on Wikipedia is supposed to be public, rather than private. When I found out about this new feature, I thought it was a good idea, because I presumed that it would leave a small automatic message on the person's talk page, and then notify them (especially since it says "thanked" rather than "thanks"). I would be in favour of this. However, sending only a private message of thanks is not a notification, but an actual message. This would seem to be a change in the way Wikipedia normally functions. Has there been a consensus about this? If so, can you direct me to the discussion?&mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 13:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a notification that the person appreciated your contribution. I would note that thanks sent are logged, as are thanks received, so the information is available in cases of abuse, and for the sake of transparency. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That helps. Why does it say "thanked", as if the thanking was posted somewhere already?  In my opinion it is better if the positive feedback appears on the talk page being edited or the talk page of the article being edited. Then everyone can see the prevailing opinion/consensus.  Because this notification is easier than actually writing a message, a person could leave a message on a talk page, have one person add a message of disagreement, and 50 people could send these notices to the second person, and none to the first, and the first person would have no idea that consensus had gone against him or her. Soon other types of these messages which are not notifications will be added and communication on the Wikipedia will no longer be open.  It makes me very uncomfortable, as if people are talking behind my back.  Again I ask, please direct me to the consensus discussion that I missed about adding this feature.  &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 15:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There wasn't a consensus discussion, Anne. Interface changes are developed by the WMF and then forced upon us. They tend to pay some attention to what we say, but they feel no obligation whatsoever to get our consent or approval.&mdash;Kww(talk) 15:30, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Anne, the intention is not for this feature to act as a consensus-deciding or representing piece of software, or as a way of denoting how supported a particular position is. It's not got that role, and I can't imagine a world in which it's used for that. It's simply a way of saying "hey, I liked that edit" easily. Maybe it was a copyedit that was particularly helpful, or the addition of some DAB-links, or something similarly small and useful. The vast majority of edits are not controversial, and any edit substantial enough to be controversial is unlikely to be engaged with using this feature anyway. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:26, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Anne's point is still quite valid, Okeyes. If I'm chastising an editor for a bad edit and that editor has received 100 "thank you"s for the very edit that I'm chastising him over, that's valuable information. It will provide valuable context for future discussion. It should be readily visible, not information that should require a search through a log. Bear in mind that we all have contexts for our discussions: since I am one of the few administrators that actually watches over the Disney Channel articles, I wind up in a lot of discussions with young children. Knowing that a nine-year-old is rejecting my warnings because he is being encouraged by a squad of seven-year-olds is important.&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Seven year olds who can handle diff links and history pages? I don't deny that this is a valid use case, I'm just arguing that it's an edge case. You could make the same argument that we should surface patrol actions in contributions to avoid people discussing negative elements of articles that have been 'reviewed' and thus declared okay. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Kww and Anne, I think the idea of keeping the thanks just between the giver and receiver is to avoid this feature supplanting normal decision making/consensus discussions (if they were displayed on a talk page, we'd have sort of an "up-vote" scenario for edits, something not good in contentious situations where discussion is key). Kww, in your scenario, I'd say the seven-year-old editors who are thanking your problem editor are irrelevant to any consensus process; they're going to have go to "on record" for their opinions to have any weight in a dispute. I'm not saying there isn't potential for abuse with this feature, there probably is some.  The Interior  (Talk) 17:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * They aren't really irrelevant. In terms of editor retention, trying to deal firmly but effectively with the children that edit here is actually pretty important. If they feel that they are being dealt with arbitrarily, they turn into vandals quite rapidly. Seven is the low edge, but I'm quite willing to bet that the majority of editors that I deal with on a daily basis are under 15. I know for a fact that most of the ones I rely on in terms of being able to deal with problem situations because of their maturity are still in high school.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Kww, just a clarification - didn't mean that the young editors were irrelevant (i agree that working diligently with them is important for the future of the project), just that their thanking our problem editor wouldn't strengthen his/her position in a dispute. The Interior  (Talk) 18:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The Interior is right on this; we're trying to avoid precisely this situation. I'd point out there's also nothing we can do about emails, either. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The best way to avoid the situation is to not implement the feature.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Er. Strictly-speaking, yes, but the feature has a lot of positive benefits and fills a purpose (said benefits are going to be scientifically tested, so we will have data). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * All of this should have been covered in the consensus discussion leading up to the addition of this new feature. Can someone please point me to this discussion (3rd time asking - does it not exist?) Recently when I wanted to make a change to the Afc script I had to go through an Rfc, wait a month for comments, and then request closure.  Don't the technical guys have to do the same thing, or are they free to just treat Wikipedia as a plaything?  I'm sorry if I sound negative, but just because Kww used children as an example is not a fair reason to dismiss his point.  I'm sure the page about a soap opera star that I was reviewing this morning wouldn't be any different.  &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 18:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why would there be any need for a consensus? A new feature was developed and enabled.  No one has to use it.  If it causes trouble, it can be switched off.  The only way to know if it will work is to try it and see how it goes.
 * Just about every wiki feature has attracted a group of naysayers—discussion about the then-pending rollback facility springs to mind. Amazingly, Wikipedia hasn't shriveled in a heap of dust like the most vocal opponents predicted.  —EncMstr (talk) 18:20, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Anne, to quote the second reply you got to your question the first time you asked it, "There wasn't a consensus discussion". Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * And, no, the developers who maintain the site do not have to obey consensus when making technical changes. Again, this isn't a feature that can really be used as a substitute for consensus in discussions, and I can't imagine it being used for that. If you ever see someone citing the 'thanks' log as evidence their decision was a good one (and getting away with it!) let me know. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This is just a reminder that we are not the owners of Wikipedia, Anne: WMF is. They don't have to ask us what we think, nor do they have to listen when we voluntarily tell them. When we explain why what they have done will make our tasks more difficult, they don't have to care.&mdash;Kww(talk) 19:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Kww, I do care. I'm not the owner of Wikipedia either, professionally or personally, and as someone who contributes quite a bit personally, this impacts me as much as it impacts you, iff it happens. We can't be building or killing features based on implausible use cases; it's totally inefficient and if we take the attitude of "something bad might maybe happen, kill it" we'd frankly take down MediaWiki as a whole. If and when it happens, let me know and I will kick people into gear on trying to work out a solution. But it seems highly improbable. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I guess I missed the reply to my question. I had an edit conflict and had to repost further down the page and forgot to look back.  However, in reply to "you can just turn it off", I am not concerned about my own use of it, but the effect of others' use on me.  But now I am disillusioned, because after working hard for months to learn Wikipedia's procedures it seems that they are a sham and only apply to certain people and I am one of them. I feel tricked.  I thought that I was becoming a part of a community of equals.  It's especially irksome to see my own project, which was supposed to help the functioning of the Afc, ignored for this back-patting.  I have said more than enough now.  &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 19:43, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * What project? What back-patting? If we've got a software project we're ignoring, by all means tell us about it. The community is a community of equals. The Foundation exists, to some degree, outside of the community. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Not meant at a personal level, just as a true statement: you don't have to care. You don't even have to listen. It's a WMF site, and WMF can do with it what it wants.
 * Your definition of plausible is quite different from mine: editors will grasp at any pretext of support when arguing with someone that objects to an edit they have made. The idea that these "thank you" things won't be taken as positive reinforcement for bad edits can only be based on the notion that they aren't effective positive reinforcement, which makes them pointless. I certainly hope that you aren't maintaining that people won't be thanked for bad edits ... any experience with our ethnic conflict pages, pseudoscience pages, or fiction pages would render that notion a non-starter.&mdash;Kww(talk) 21:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I think there's a couple of people here and elsewhere who need to realize the difference between listen and obey. If the WMF is not doing exactly as one editor (or even a majority of the editors who speak up) demands, that doesn't mean they're not listening, or they're not taking these arguments into account, or they don't care about us. It just means there are other considerations they also take into account. I'm not saying I always agree with their decisions, or that they do the best possible job in explaining them, but the claim that they don't listen or care is a conclusion that's not supported by the evidence at hand. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  21:42, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

"the information is available in cases of abuse, and for the sake of transparency" Available to whom? How? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Logged&mdash;Kww(talk) 22:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * On a purely technical note, that log is incomplete: one has to hope that the "thanks" are not being given for abusive edits, because you cannot see what edit was the target of the thanks. That's a major hole, as I would certainly want to have a serious discussion with any editor that was thanking other editors for vandalism or personal attacks.&mdash;Kww(talk) 22:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's precisely the opposite. This section is about the possibility of people gaming the system by using it as a way of indicating consensus. By not listing the pertinent edit, it totally invalidates any attempt to do so. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe this will become Wikipedia's version of karma or 'likes'. <b style="color:#f90;font-family:Arial">πr2</b> (<i style="color:#0f3;font-family:Arial">t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 22:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * and That's presumably exactly the reason that we do NOT have the edit associated with the "thanks" given either publicly on-wiki, or in logs. To prevent negative gamification. I.e. So that "thanks" doesn't get all the baggage of reddit's karma/upvotes and google's +1s and facebook's likes and etc. –Quiddity (talk) 22:50, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Why don't we try the "wait and see" approach on all this. The Thank feature is brand new. We don't know how it will be used; we don't know how it will be abused. We don't know if seven-year-olds will use it to gang up on other editors. WMF's intentions seem good enough -- they want to improve the karma around here and promote a more positive and encouraging atmosphere for editors and especially new editors (I think), which WP desperately needs more of. The feature is not perfect, and it will need to be tweaked, reworked or perhaps even junked as time goes on. But right now, the feature just hasn't existed for long enough to know what needs to be fixed and what doesn't. In the meantime, let's not let perfection be the enemy of progress. Brycehughes (talk) 22:43, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Please give a specific time frame so I'll know how long I have to wait bring this up again. Also please say how I can tell when I am talking to an employee of the foundation and when to another volunteer editor.  I have tried to be a conscientious member of the community, contributing in a positive way and working with others toward consensus, but I see this backchannel as the first small step away from the openness I depend on to give me confidence to contribute.  Maybe lots of people are agreeing with Brycehughes right now and thanking him privately instead of posting here.  Shall I check the log every few minutes to see? And will this be evident to those reading the discussion at a later date?  This uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach can't be progress or good "karma". &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * An editor speaking with the authority of the WMF will have "(WMF)" in the signature.&mdash;Kww(talk) 13:57, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 14:45, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * My attitude to it would be; bring it up again when there is evidence of this happening. Until then it's an edge case. And I would say that we have had (for many years now) the ability to email people through Wikipedia, the ability to obliterate edits made from the pages they were made on so that no editor can see what's happening....this is the Nth nail ;p. There is no such thing as absolute transparency. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Anne Delong, you might like to read WP:CONEXCEPT. That's the English Wikipedia's official policy on the point:  the editorial community controls the encyclopedic content, and the developer community controls the software.  This is supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship, but it's not a matter of "where's the consensus discussion" or "who gave them permission".  They're supposed to do their task, even when we have people predictably screaming because somebody just changed something on the website.  It's a "tried-and-true axiom of the Web: People always hate when their favorite site is suddenly completely different. A lot of them threaten to quit....I've got news for you: You'll get over it soon enou0gh."  Change is hard, and the more time you spend at a given website, the more painful any small change will be for you.  Give yourself some time to get used to it.  In a couple of months, you'll probably find that this change doesn't matter.  (And read up on WP:VisualEditor now, because there are massive changes coming to the English Wikipedia this summer.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the pointer to WP:CONEXCEPT. It's amazing that I could work in this environment long enough to make 10,000 edits without understanding my limited position. Despite the above patronizing comments, I won't have any trouble with a new editor. I've been dealing with editors all my life; the first one I used was a punch card machine (not very forgiving - no undo function). I guess I knew I was wasting my time. Once X number of hours have been put into a project it will be defended at all costs.  Now, just one more thing.  How can I tell which changes come from WMF and which from other editors, so I will know when to bite my tongue? &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 01:46, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In terms of edits to article content, the "WMF" in the signature or a reference to an OTRS ticket in the edit summary. When it's the arrangement of things on your screen or new things popping up on it, those are generally WMF software changes. Simple changes to text on your screen are usually just a local administrator: while you can't undo them directly, they are subject to consensus. Let me know if you see something that confuses you and I'll try to help you sort it out.&mdash;Kww(talk) 14:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Anne, I once believed it was simple enough, but after the watchlist debacle last year, I've changed my mind. I really don't know how you would always be able to tell who was responsible for a given change.  I don't even know how to convince everyone that community-driven changes are actually community-driven, because despite incontrovertible evidence, some of them still seem to believe that even community-initiated, CENT-listed RFCs are just tools of the dev(il)s.
 * In theory, "styling" is handled locally, but "features" are not; I just don't know that this is always true, or how you would find out which category a borderline feature might fall into without asking or without reading every page in the Wikipedia: namespace. It's unfortunately complicated.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree, Anne, "Once X number of hours have been put into a project it will be defended at all costs." This doesn't just cover software changes. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

(undo | thank)
The current position of the button is very badly chosen in my opinion. It is too easy to click the "thank" button when one actually wants to "undo" an edit (or also the other way round). Especially since there seems to be no way to take back the thanks currently? --Patrick87 (talk) 02:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Adding a "confirm thank" prompt would probably be the easiest solution.--Turtleey (talk) 03:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree. I accidentally thanked a vandal. Brycehughes (talk) 05:24, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ,, Out of interest, why did you click the link you think ? Was it muscle memory, expectation that no longer matched, or 'jumping' content or something ? —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 11:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fortunately I didn't click the wrong link accidentally for now (I didn't dare to try the link at all because I assume there is no possibility to undo the "thank"), but it's somehow strange to find the "undo" link (which is used to revert vandalism most of the time) besides the "thank" link (which should be used for very good contributions). Dealing with vandalism and thanking authors are two different workflows, that don't have anything in common (at least not for me), therefore it's confusing to have both buttons directly next to each other. Maybe I'll get used to it, but that was my first impression (and I thought we were supposed to give feedback based on our first impressions on the new function? That's at least what new editor will see.). --Patrick87 (talk) 11:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the helpful feedback :). I'd argue they're part of the same workflow; a good/bad evaluation of content. Bad, undo. Good, thank. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:42, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree, but given that they are part of the same workflow, one would naturally expect similar behavior. Undo is at least a two click process. Brycehughes (talk) 17:00, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason why these are different workflows for me: "thank" doesn't change any article content at all, it's just a social feature; "undo"s main purpose is to change article content while it is not a social feature (although the author gets notified in the meantime. Therefore the functions are totally different for me. --Patrick87 (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, so no one has actually experienced this problem yet ? The report is about the potential risk to click the wrong link ? —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 21:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Editors are describing misclicks due to its position in the discussion here. Position aside, the additional problem is that there is no confirmation and no way to retract a thanks (like you can with undo), thus as people try or test the feature for the first time, many will expect to be able to confirm or at least retract, which they won't be able to do after they try it, and then we may have a lot of extraneous and misplaced love floating around the place. Brycehughes (talk) 22:10, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I had assumed there would be a confirmation. So I picked a random edit and clicked Thanks. Oops. Brycehughes (talk) 16:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think we can all agree that the 'history/rc' like pages are messy and have been for quite a while (this was known even when undo was introduced some 5 years ago). —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 21:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

For anyone interested, there's an open bug here regarding the Thanks workflow: 47658. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:54, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the placement isn't terrible (to me) if there's a way to undo it. A confirmation would also be nice. I just thanked an editor I reverted. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I experienced the problem once yesterday: "thanked" an edit that I was intending to undo with an explanation. In my case it was apparently because the page had not fully rendered and the content "jumped" a bit just as I was aiming for the "undo". I agree that we should have a confirmation page or at least a way to reverse. --Arxiloxos (talk) 19:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd agree that there should be a way to confirm the thanks in order to prevent mistakes. AutomaticStrikeout ?  02:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Add my name to the list of people who would like to have a way to undo a "thank" (or, better still, the "thank" feature removed outright but I doubt that's going to happen; I prefer going to someone's talk page than lazily pressing a button); I accidentally "thanked" someone I was reverting/undoing after automatically clicking where the "undo" feature used to be. The "thank" I gave is meaningless because I reverted the edit I was supposedly expressing gratitude for. Acalamari 09:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that there should be a a way to undo or confirm the thanks. Hopefully this is implemented as one of the first updates to this new feature. -   t  u coxn \<sup style="font-family:serif">talk 22:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure you want to thank for this edit?
I've enjoyed thanking people since this feature has been available, but I'd like to point out a way it could be better. After pressing the "thank" button, it says "Are you sure you want to thank for this edit?" and the options are "OK" and "cancel". Neither of those answers answer the question. "Yes" and "no" would make more sense. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 00:48, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I was actually just about to bring this up then saw that you had beaten me to it. "Yes" and "Cancel" may also work.  ~ XapApp(Talk·Contribs) 09:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Watchlists and namespaces
Thanks, I've tried to fix/clarify both those points in the project page. Reword as needed. –Quiddity (talk) 01:21, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Watchlists: This is Not going to be displayed on watchlist pages (just history pages, and diff pages), correct? (At least initially). If true, that probably warrants an explicit mention on the project page. (To prevent people worrying/complaining about "more links/cruft in my watchlist"). Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's not on watchlists (or other feeds, like RecentChanges) for now. Just diff and history. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't it be on watchlists though? I mean that is where most experienced editors interact with the history pages, and not having it there interferes with effective communication and interaction with new users, Sadads (talk) 23:09, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Namespace: Will it be in all namespace's history pages, or just article-namespace history pages? (the docs currently state the latter). Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell on MediaWiki.org (check out a talk page like Talk:API, or your user talk), it will be on all namespaces. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Quiddity! Sounds like namespaces is something we should discuss. I think it's potentially useful to have it in places like the talk namespace, but I think we should see if it has a good signal:noise ratio in practise. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 07:13, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 2 quick notes on namespace: The main example image (currently used twice on the same page) uses the "user talk" namespace. We might want to change that, if the ideal use-case is for article edits.
 * Relatedly, I rambled a little about how I appreciate the feature's potential, and used talk-namespace edits as my example.
 * So, yeah - some potential good uses, and some potential restrictions to consider if it gets misused. But definitely better than anonymous upvotes! –Quiddity (talk) 07:55, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Makes sense! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 09:31, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd really like to have this available from the watchlist too. That's where I see new edits crop up, and I'd like to thank the editor there and then. For people who complain about cruft on their watchlist you can always just make it easy to opt out. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes! <3 groupuscule (talk) 01:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * How can you thank someone for an edit when you haven't seen it? I don't see any point in putting it on watchlists. – anemone projectors – 14:28, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You can see changes from watchlist if you have turned on the awesome gadget that shows changes when you hover over "diff". groupuscule (talk) 16:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Choosable icon?
I see a lot of emotion about the pink heart icon: not rage, not directed at other discussants, but people who see it as a "love" symbol that is much more serious than the simple "thanks" we're trying to convey here. And these people's reactions should not be waved aside.

Would it be practicable to allow a user to choose an icon for this purpose, to be displayed to them as user without affecting anyone else's view? ISTM (though IANAL) that this would avoid many of the issues that I've seen raised here:
 * the " ♥ = love" issue
 * the needs of colorblind users (, first bullet, User:Fabrice Florin (WMF) and User:Quiddity)
 * the variable risks of confusion when different users may have different sets of symbols on their pages (same place, Quiddity).

The simplest way to do this would be to provide a closed set of icons that a user could choose from. There would of course still have to be a default, possibly the pink heart; but the option and the link for it should be prominent, at least until the user uses it or indicates "I'm OK with the default".

--Thnidu (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The icon was changed shortly before. It's now some type of smiley. Actually some very strange type of smiley, though . Actually I liked the old icon set (despite the heart icon, which was controversial) like shown in File:Notifications-Flyout-Screenshot-Closeup-04-30-2013.png much more than the strange "speech ballon" icons used now, but the heart problem should be solved after all. --Patrick87 (talk) 22:40, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Thnidu. Sadly, giving users the option to choose their thanks icon is not a practical solution from our standpoint, as it introduces more usability issues than it solves. As Patrick87 points out, we have now replaced the heart icon for Thanks with a new icon that combines the smiley face proposed by some community members with our talk 'cartoon bubble' icon, as shown in the thumbnail to the right. We hope that these new icons will resolve the controversy over the use of a pink heart icon, which was making some users uncomfortable. Our design and product teams are comfortable with this solution, and we hope you will too. These new icons will deploy on the English Wikipedia on Thursday, July 25th. Thanks to everyone who helped us reach this reasonable and practical solution! Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Just after adding the above I saw a pink heart icon (ca-wikilove) in the header of a user talk page to thank the user. Should that have been changed as well? (HTML below) --Thnidu (talk) 15:27, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Fabrice. I think the new icon is just fine. It combines iconic symbols for talk and I'm pleased, and it doesn't have the unwanted connotations of love like the heart graphic (or any others AFAICT). I hope most other users will agree.

<li id="ca-wikilove" class="icon"> <a title="Post a message for this user showing your appreciation" href="#"> … </a> </li>
 * That other heart icon is unrelated to the Thanks Notification. It's part of the WP:Wikilove extension. –Quiddity (talk) 18:54, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for the info. --Thnidu (talk) 11:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Must we list every Thank under "View logs"?
I like this feature and I use it. But I find it annoying that every time someone receives a "thank" notice, it gets listed under their logs. When I click on "view logs" for a person (specifically "view logs for this page" on the revision history of their userpage), I am looking for stuff about them that matters - things like blocks and userrights. Now the first thing I see is a long string of "so-and-so thanked so-and-so". This must be satisfying for the developers - it means people are using this function - but to us users it is clutter, unnecessary trivia that gets in the way of what we wanted to see. Would it be possible to make "view thanks log" an optional button instead of including them all in the general log by default? Thanks (no joke intended). --MelanieN (talk) 13:41, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I think there are two potential solutions:
 * We add the "Thanks" feature to the list of elements that are not included by default. (It says at the top of [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=MelanieN Special:Log], "This is a combined display of all logs except the patrol and review logs:")
 * (both to solve this, and potentially other elements that can overwhelm the log of individuals) is something like the "Invert selection" checkbox that appears in the Special:Contributions pages. Then we could set it to "Thanks" + "Invert", to see everything except "Thanks" entries.
 * I'm not sure what repercussions the first would have, nor how complicated the second would be to code.
 * Any devs have advice? –Quiddity (talk) 18:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that it was put in to the logs in order to help the community monitor the feature just after launch, particularly since it was a somewhat experimental idea. If people looking at logs often find it annoying/noisy, I'm sure a request to remove it from logs would be considered. (Ping Oliver and Fabrice) <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   18:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Such a request seems reasonable to me, although I'm not currently actively involved in Echo. I'll poke Fabrice in meatspace when he's back from lunch. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi MelanieN, thanks for pointing out this issue. I have pinged Kaldari, my partner in crime for this thanks feature, to see what he thinks about removing thanks as a 'default' element for log display, from a developer's perspective. From a product perspective, I would be open to this idea, as long as it doesn't impact the community's ability to audit potential abuse of this feature. Though I am not aware of any abuse now, the log is the only method that would allow us to track such behavior. It's also helpful to be able to contact users of this feature, for research purposes. Note that Thanks is holding steady now, with a couple hundred notifications sent every day, or about 2% of total notification volume on the English Wikipedia. So this steady usage -- and the generally positive feedback we've heard so far -- suggest that this experimental feature is helpful to most users, and we are therefore inclined to keep it as a permanent feature, if this trend continues. Thanks as well to Okeyes (WMF) and Steven Walling (WMF) for pinging me about this post -- I find this Mention notification feature very helpful as well, and also view it as a 'keeper'. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey MelanieN! Originally the thanks feature didn't have any logging, but several people in the en.wiki community asked for it to be added. The developers (me) have never supported logging thanks and would be happy to get rid of it. If you can drum up some support for removing the logging feature (perhaps on the Village Pump), I would definitely be open to axing it. Cheers! Kaldari (talk) 02:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Kaldari and Fabrice. (Yes, Fabrice, I like the Mention notification too.) I'm not asking you to stop logging it when someone sends a Thanks; I can see how that could be useful in a lot of ways. I'm just asking that Thanks be removed from the default display of an individual user's logs, and made optional to view. Is that possible? (Would it really have to go to Village Pump, or can you just do it? After all, you never asked the community about putting it in; why the need to ask before taking it out?) --MelanieN (talk) 05:45, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification MelanieN. I think what you are asking for is a change in the functionality of the Special:Log page, not a change in the functionality of the Thanks notification. By default, the logs are set to display "All public logs". Since thank actions are publicly logged, they are considered part of this group. If you have any ideas for making the log interface more flexible, I would suggest proposing them on Bugzilla or the technical village pump. Such a change would probably not be handled by the Notifications development team, however. Kaldari (talk) 06:17, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Per Quiddity above, the default is "This is a combined display of all logs except the patrol and review logs:" so clearly there is a way to change the default not to display some of the logs. This isn't exactly a bug, so you think I should take it to Village Pump? --MelanieN (talk) 14:51, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I have listed the question at Village pump (technical). Thanks for everyone's input. --MelanieN (talk) 00:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Okeyes! An update on this request: I posted it at Village Pump, where it was seconded by three other people (there's a mixed metaphor), but they said it needed to go to Bugzilla. Someone filled out a Bugzilla ticket (I would have had no clue how to do that); it is here, item # 52118. It was assigned to Alex Monk, whose only comment to date has been "Not core", whatever that means. I gather that one of your roles at WMF is community liaison, as in helping the editors understand the tech people and vice versa; can you give me any clue where this request stands? Approved, disapproved, put on indefinite hold, in process, not yet looked at, etc.? Thanks much. --MelanieN (talk) 23:59, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "Will be worked on"; not core just means that it's for a plugin (Echo) rather than part of MediaWiki's default code. Alex Monk is (if I'm wrong, I may be about to offend him!) User:Krenair; hopefully this will ping him and he can provide more details :). If not, I'll follow it up later. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi MelanieN, yes, I assigned that ticket to myself when I uploaded a patch for it. The "Not core" comment was about the choice of Product (a field in Bugzilla) set by the reporter - Echo and Thanks are MediaWiki Extensions, not MediaWiki itself. The patch's status is awaiting review by another person capable of approving code (in this case that's likely going to be a Foundation Staff developer who is working on Echo/Thanks). -- Krenair (talk &bull; contribs) 01:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update. --MelanieN (talk) 02:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

How to turn off this feature
Okay, the current way to get rid of the "thank" links is to tick "Exclude me from feature experiments" in preferences. However, I'm guessing this won't always be a feature experiment... Will there be another option to disable this once it is non-experimental? – PartTimeGnome (talk&#160;&#124; contribs) 20:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Good question! Fabrice? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi PartTimeGnome, thanks for your question. I'm afraid we have not yet determined a solution for this turning off the Thanks link when it is no longer experimental. We'd like to first see how this feature is being used, then determine the best option with your help. Perhaps it could be tied with the Notifications preferences, so if you tell us you don't want to be thanked, we can assume that you don't want to thank people either? Suggestions welcome, but take your time ... :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It makes sense to me to disable sending thanks if receiving is off; I see no use for send-only. However, it is reasonable to want to know if someone thanks you while not wanting to send thanks yourself (i.e. receive-only).
 * I currently fall in the latter category&#160;– I want to see thanks sent to me, but the "thank" link for sending my own is useless clutter (see below). If bug 49161 is fixed, this would no longer be an issue&#160;– the link would either work or be hidden from me, depending on the chosen solution. – PartTimeGnome (talk&#160;&#124; contribs) 21:25, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 55497 shows Thanks is no longer turned off by "Exclude me from feature experiments". Notifications/Thanks needs an update. At Village pump (technical)/Archive_119 I posted a partial solution which removes the link but leaves behind parantheses or a pipe, adding this to Special:MyPage/common.css:

.mw-thanks-thank-link {display: none;}
 * PrimeHunter (talk) 22:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Whether to have a preference to hide 'thank'
Hey everyone,

So earlier this week, we noticed that we messed up, and we removed the preference to hide the 'thank' button without proper preparation and notice. Once again, apologies for having to make people bring this up on the Village Pump.

The current state is that the preference which provided opt-out for the feature is shared with many others, and is being slowly deprecated as part of code cleanup work. It was originally created so users could opt out of Vector experiments, back in 2009. In the future, features will either have their own unique opt-out preferences (like Notifications do), or they will be opt-in via a beta (like VisualEditor).

In other words, if we want to have a preference for hiding 'thank' we'll need to build a new one. Since Thanks is no longer really experimental – it's been here for several months – this is a good time to examine whether we really need this preference. Kww and others pointed this out to me on the Village Pump.

After reading the few comments about this on the Village Pump, we've decided for now not to create a new preference to hide the 'thank' link. It was genuinely an accident that this preference was removed, but here's our thinking on the matter:


 * It's been several days since this happened, but there have been very few comments on the matter. Mostly it seems like people didn't notice the change or care?
 * 9,616 English Wikipedians have used Thanks since it was launched. Almost all of the people who have heavily used Thanks are very experienced editors (we looked at people who have sent thanks 30+ times), so it seems pretty popular among both new and expert Wikipedians.
 * A little over 700 accounts have the opt-out preference enabled and have edited at least once since the Thanks feature was enabled. That means the number of people who have used the opt-out preference is equal to about 7% of the people who have sent Thanks.

To put it more plainly, the number of active editors who chose to hide the 'thank' button is very small compared to the number of active editors who use the feature. Every preference we add creates additional complexity in our Preferences interface, and should be considered really useful for a significant number of all Wikipedians. If you personally don't like a feature, you can still use personal CSS and JS to hide it.

If you don't want receive Thanks notifications, you can also still turn it off in your notifications preferences. While we don't want anyone to get notifications that might annoy them, it seems to us that it causes little annoyance to most people to have the thanks button visible, just like it's not a big deal to see an undo button. The choice to use thanks or not is still, of course, completely yours.

Many, er... thanks, and have a good weekend. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:29, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Steven Walling (WMF). I agree with your thoughtful observations on this topic. Removing Thanks from its 'experimental status' seems to be the right decision, based on the mounting evidence that this tool is useful. Besides the new findings cited above, I will add that since we deployed this tool on the English Wikipedia in May 2013, about 39,000 thanks notifications have been triggered, which represents about 2% of total notifications sent during that period. This pattern seems quite steady now, and you can track this notification on this metrics dashboard, under 'notifications by category'. So far, community response to this feature has generally been favorable: users who have commented about this tool seem to appreciate this quick way to show appreciation for productive edits, which encourages better collaborations on Wikipedia (learn more in this recent report). Overall, it appears that we are on the right track with this feature, and I look forward to seeing it evolve and add more value for our users over time. To be continued ... :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hide thank from History?
Multiple people have said that 'thank' is more annoying and less useful on History pages. I filed to track this request. What do people think? <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   01:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Given the Thanks feature's apparent usefulness, it seems counter-productive to remove it from article history, where this positive feedback tool complements the negative 'undo' function effectively. Our research so far shows that the Thanks tool appears useful for both new and experienced users (see post above), which suggests that we continue to keep it where it is.


 * In fact, some users recommend that we add Thanks in more locations (e.g. Watchlist, Contributions or Recent Changes), which is an idea that also seems worth considering. See also on this topic. What do you think? Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It really only seems useful on a diff page. There's no way to tell what an edit did from the history page: one has to view the diff listing to see that the edit is one worthy of gratitude before pressing the button. That means that placing it in these other locations is either useless or error-prone.&mdash;Kww(talk) 01:09, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There are at least 2 ways to know which-diff-is-which on an history page:
 * 1. If it's a talkpage, and I've just read that Alice has made a good comment at 04:44, then I can easily find that on a history page.
 * 2. Navigation popups. (disclaimer: I use popups)
 * I'm in favour of retaining it in History pages (that's where I primarily use it) and on diff pages. I'd weakly support adding it elsewhere, but...
 * I'm still in favour of altering its visual appearance. Either reducing the size, or changing the color, of the text. See Example above at . HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 03:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Your pop-up example doesn't convince me: why should tools be optimized for people that use gadgets? The talk page one is valid, but I would argue that time-stamp memorizers are a small portion of the pool of editors. Normal flow is click change in history, verify that it's the one you mean, then click back to go the history again, then hit the thank button. Putting it on the page with the diff would optimize that flow and unclutter the history.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the proposed User:Equazcion/DynaThank idea too (See screenshot there, and WP:VPT thread). –Quiddity (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Update: hey guys. Per the comments from community members and Fabrice on the bug, I've closed it. I did a quick bit of analysis this morning, and it turns out we know the following sources for thanks notifications on the Web:


 * 12,867 came from diffs
 * 30,088 came from history
 * 477 came from diffs on the mobile site

It looks to me that history is actually the most popular page for thanking people, so removing it from there would not be helping people who use this feature. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   20:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for this interesting analysis, User:Steven (WMF)!
 * Do you have comparable numbers for "undo"-actions (reverts) from the diff or the history page? I'm wondering at the small percentage of actions from the diff: If an editor thanks or reverts, he has to see the contribution, which would be in the diff - do users go (back?) to the history for clicking?
 * IMHO, the "thank"-link should be much more visible in the diff (this is the third time I'm writing this :-), because that's were you see the edit that you're thanking for. In the screenshot you can see how big buttons are used in diffs with flagged revisions, for comparison. --Atlasowa (talk) 10:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanking bots
This feature is really nice. But I'd like to thank some of the bots too because I really appreciate their help with pointing out disambiguation problems and mangled references. Their developers need thanks too :) but the option of thanking the bot is not available (for me anyway, am I missing something in preferences?). Would you-all consider adding this? Novickas (talk) 14:20, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That's what the wikilove button is for! Or a simple talkpage message. :) (I would guess that since some bot-owners don't log into the separate accounts (as they're run via the api), hence they'd never see a thank-notification, hence it is disabled for accounts with the bot-flag.) –Quiddity (talk) 06:51, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation - Novickas (talk) 13:39, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * See also 48892. Legoktm (talk) 17:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

How do I un-thank?
I was unaware this feature was being implemented, and this morning I just "thanked" two edits I was intending to "undo" by accident, since the buttons are now right next to each other. How do I retract these "thanks"? Chubbles (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You can't. Thanks are irreversible. This is discussed in the (undo | thank) section above. – PartTimeGnome (talk&#160;&#124; contribs) 20:01, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow, really? And where do I go to complain about that? I can't be the only person who's very uncomfortable with a function that has no checkstep and no possibility of undoing. I accidentally click on things all the time, but at least I can fix a screwup for everything else. Chubbles (talk) 07:58, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Same place as always, bugzilla. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 11:34, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Chubbles, this is something we're actively discussing and looking for ways to resolve, as you can see from the discussion two sections above this one. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:52, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Just tested this. I expected some kind of confirmation or explanation. <b style="color:#f90;font-family:Arial">πr2</b> (<i style="color:#0f3;font-family:Arial">t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 18:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I thanked three times, when I was only going to undo edit... And now the user [maybe] thinks that he's contributors were good, or then he thinks that wtf I'm doing... --Stryn (talk) 19:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I too have thanked about three people that I was meaning to undo. I've turned off the feature but agree with what Stryn says - three people now probably think either I'm an idiot or they made correct edits. – anemone projectors – 13:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We're working on this problem now; update in a sec :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Unreversible one-click actions are seriously bad user-interface design, particularly with the spread of sensitive touch-screens, but I don't think "Un-thank" is the answer, and I'm not sure how it could work - how long would the option stay open, would the Thank message be removed from the notification tab or followed by a withdrawal message, and what if the recipient has noticed it before it is withdrawn? Much better have an "Are you sure?" check with a second click. JohnCD (talk) 21:41, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Correction, unreversible *harmful* one-click actions are bad UI design. If this was a button called 'ban-hammer' then your argument would be correct.  But it is a button for spreading wikiLove.  What is the worst case scenario here?  You click thank, instead of undo.  The person -- or in some cases spambot -- that you "thank" does not care.  Later, you or somebody else clicks the revert-button, and sooner or later, your or somebody else clicks the ban-hammer button.  Does this hurt *your* reputation?  No, the thank-button is not counted.  Does this hurt the person-or-bot you thanked?  No of course not.  Does this hurt wikipedia?  No.  There is the argument that maybe-some-good-faith-beginner-will-see-the-thanks-message-and-get-confused.  News flash: WP:NOCLUE.  If they are a beginner, they are *guaranteed* to be confused about something, because wikipedia is  so damn confusing.  Instead of trying to *unthank* a good-faith beginner, since you are planning to ninja-revert them in your very next click, just re-interpret post-facto the retroactive meaning of your thanks.  Instead of assuming it means "thanks for your fully-MOS-compliant impeccably-grammatical edit which I would not dare revert" you can instead assume that what you sent was "thanks for your good-faith effort and thanks for trying keep your chin up wikipedia is complicated so apologies but I will now be reverting you".  Strongly oppose the ability to unthank.  If anybody is so dead-set on retracting an accidental click of the thank-button, I invite them to personally visit the talkpage of the human they are unthanking, and explain in detail their rationale, keeping pillar four firmly in mind at all times, of course.  Hint: bet there is never a case where that happens, in practice.  HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Returning an acknowledgement?
Is there a quick way to acknowledge a 'Thank', without having to start a thread on the thanking editor's talk page (which somewhat negates the whole thrust of this feature being a quick and simple way of thanking)? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 11:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There isn't anything like that, but I know what you mean. I think it was left out to avoid interface-clutter, and to avoid feature-bloat, and to avoid making anyone feel obliged to return every single thank you (as if it were an "acknowledgement" button) which I know I'd fall prey to! Instead, I think of it as a pay-it-forward type system. It's spreading good karma outwards, rather than just bouncing it back. :) –Quiddity (talk) 06:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That's how I have been viewing it, and haven't responded to anybody sending a 'Thank'. However I've still felt a little guilty, wondering if other editors have expected a response and saw the lack of one as rudeness. And then I looked at the project page and read "You are encouraged to respond to the person who thanked you — to leave a message or ask a question, for example." Hence my question here. Maybe that line should be changed, if people generally don't expect a response? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:52, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh! Yes, I agree that should be changed or removed. I've had a go, but if you can improve the wording go for it. –Quiddity (talk) 04:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Related idea... what if you could get a reply notification that your thanks was received? It would be not difficult at all to send you a notification like "Your thank you to User was received." when someone sees your thanks. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   22:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * A related idea was suggested at Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Archive 5, regarding the difficulty in knowing whether a "Mention" had been sent (a) successfully and (b) to someone who hadn't opted-out of the Mentions-Notifications feature altogether - the difficulty (if I understand 's comment correctly) is that it would potentially be a privacy problem, if we could track when someone was reading the site, or how they had their preferences configured (eg, an instant "message received" would indicate that the user had email-notifications enabled). I'm not sure how much of a problem that would be, or whether the benefits (particularly for Mentions) would outweigh the drawbacks. –Quiddity (talk) 01:53, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This all seems rather unnecessary. Your thanks was received? Your ping was received? I think we should just use the feature and assume that it worked. In the case of a thanks, it's not vital to know that the person looked at it; if the thank-you note was THAT important to you, you should have put it on their talk page; this is for a casual offhand "thanks". In the case of a ping, if you were expecting the person to show up and say something, and they didn't, you could follow up, but most of the time your ping is acknowledged by the person actually showing up at the discussion. I don't think any acknowledgement of receipt of these features is needed. Just MHO. --MelanieN (talk) 18:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm with MelanieN. If an editor feels obligated to say "you are welcome" then they should simply find some edit the sender-of-the-thanks made, and thank them back.  This is entirely optional.  As a side benefit, people that are worried about thanking each other in endless loops, will henceforth be stuck in a trap of their own making!  This will cut down on discussions about how to say "you are welcome" (and even worse... discussions about how to 'unthank' somebody).
 * The implementation of the thank-button-feature is supposed to help make it easier to spread wikiLove. That is a good thing.  Helpful for the encyclopedia anyone can edit.  That said, adding auto-reverse-notifications-that-your-thanks-notification-was-received-by-the-recipient-foo, ability to unthank-aka-unfriend, dedicated you-are-welcome button, ... why, that sounds quite like facebook.  WP:NOTHERE applies, methinks.  Draw the line in the sand, and do not turn mediawiki into microsoft exchange server, or wikipedia into myspace.  HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 13:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

How does one go about hiding thanks AND the pipe before it?
I've played around with my css to remove thanks, but the pipe preceding it is still there, and I have a feeling with my rudimentary knowledge, I would remove all pipes on the page if I attempted to add something to hide that in my css. What, if anything, can I add to remove that pipe? - Purplewowies (talk) 00:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you just trying to turn the feature off?  What is the motivation which prompted your CSS question? p.s. Try stackoverflow rather than wikipedia talkpages for faster response... or we have the computers section of WP:RD... plus sometimes folks at WP:TEAHOUSE can field techie-questions.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 13:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I searched all through preferences and couldn't find a way to turn it off, and I read the things on this page and couldn't find anything, so I fed its message name into my CSS with a display none on it, which left extraneous pipes and parentheses around it. 'Course, I have been missing tons of stuff right in front of my face in prefs and everywhere lately... which may be an indication I'm focusing on too much stuff... - Purplewowies (talk) 06:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm having the problem mentioned here: Wikipedia_talk:Notifications/Thanks because the feature is no longer experimental. I'm using the same workaround as there. Honestly, I posted here because it was the most specific, but my next route would be WP:HD or more likely, WP:VPT, where help desk folks will usually direct you for things like this. I would have gone into something like IRC or the like to ask, but it wasn't an emergency and didn't need fast response, and plus, my computer usually refuses to load those things nowadays, particularly in this browser specifically. - Purplewowies (talk) 07:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello, talkpage stalkers... Purplewowies is having trouble turning off this feature, now that it is live. Is there still a way to turn it off?  Or is it now un-turn-off-able, officially?  If so, I'm happy to help them debug their CSS to handle the wiley vertical-pipe-glyph.  But obviously, that is wasted effort if there is still a way to simply turn off the 'thanks' links from a setting somewheres. For obvious reasons, I don't have such a setting myself. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought someone had figured out the magic of removing the pipe, but I can't find the thread. You might find that User:Equazcion/DynaThank would suit your needs (before/after screenshot and details are there) - it removes the clutter, but retains the option of using the feature. There is no official way to turn off the links, so CSS is the only other option (Essentially it was in Beta-mode, and now isn't any longer). Thanks for the nudge 74.192.84.101 :) –Quiddity (talk) 00:40, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Maybe User:Technical 13/Scripts/NoThanks.js is what you are looking for? That should be the stable version, I had more features and improvements, but haven't had the time to implement them yet.  As it stands, it just removes the links (and pipes) IIRC. Technical 13 (talk) 00:45, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all. I've put DynaThank on my js page, and I think it suits my needs quite nicely for the time being (NoThanks looks nice/promising, but I like what DynaThank is doing at present :P). - Purplewowies (talk) 02:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Add thanks link to more locations
It would be great if we could get the "thank user" link from our watchlist, or the user's contribs. (Also maybe on a diff view screen). Going and finding the correct entry in the page history can sometimes be cumbersome, especially if you are already sitting on a link to the edit from some other view. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:46, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I just thanked you from the diff, so it works. The (thank) button is very small though, I'm not surprised that you missed it. It should be more prominent there (as i already wrote months ago). --Atlasowa (talk) 13:09, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI, this is being tracked in . I agree that more locations, especially contribs and watchlist, would be nice. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   01:14, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I support investigating this proposal further, as our research so far suggests that the Thanks tool appears useful for both new and experienced users, which supports the idea that we make it available in more locations (see latest findings here). To that end, I recommend we consider design solutions that might provide this valuable tool in ways that minimize clutter on these pages. These pages could use some design love anyway, and we may be able to improve them in the process. :) Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * @User:Gaijin42, User:Steven (WMF), User:Fabrice Florin (WMF): please count me as +1 for this idea; I was going to start a new thread about it but I'll just comment here. I'd dearly love to see the thank button enabled on watchlist, contributions, as well as (as an opt-in/opt-out tool?) added to every talk page signature. I often ask questions and people provide helpful answer to them, it's a bit cumbersome to track them in in history to thank them. One (two) click way to do so would be a great improvement compared to current ways (search on history, or reply with echo or on their talk page). --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Bulk activity download?
Is there a way to download thank activity en masse? I'm interested in using it in some ongoing research and I like to bother WMF as little as possible. Andrew327 10:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * How about…?
 * http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20131104/enwiki-20131104-pages-logging.xml.gz
 * mw:API:Logevents
 * Keφr 17:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Andrew327 06:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Public counters and displays
How about displaying information (on pages that allow thanking) that a given edit has been thanked for previously? It could note how many times, with an expandable list of by whom and when. Some people could also enjoy enabling a thanks tracker gadget of some sorts, so they could display a list of thanks they received on their userpage, just like they do with barnstars and such. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hello again Prokonsul, your request is specifically discussed above. Here is the the money-quote, for the sake of convenience.

We want this to be a genuine person to person thank you, not an endorsement or a tool for "voting up" edits. They're logged like Oliver notes, but AFAIK, this is primarily so that the community can track down potential over-use or abuse of the feature (e.g. is the current rate limit enough?). Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * In other words, this is not intended to be Yet Another Hat Collecting Exercise that is even easier to abuse than barnstars... nor is it supposed to be a vote-system which substitutes for seeking consensus on the talkpage... and although it is logged, it is intended to be a relatively silent tip-of-the-hat from one person to another. It's like waving your hand out the window, to the person who just let you turn into the throroughfare.  You don't have time to send them a personal note.  You likely don't even know them.  But you appreciated their kind gesture, and in return, waved your thanks.
 * They appreciated your thanks, but it's not like they're gonna take a picture with their cellphone of you waving, and then post that imagefile on their userpage, to prove what an awesome driver they are. Right?  If you are trying to get to your seat in the opera theater or the sports arena, and you have to squeeze by the other already-seated folks along the way, you just whisper thanks as you pass, or maybe just smile.  Nobody personally remembers that, later on... in detail.  But it *does* indubitably improve the general level of WP:NICE in the opera community and/or the football community, or whatever.
 * Hopefully the analogy is clear now. We already have talkpage-messages, if you want to thank somebody the old-fashioned way.  (And for bohts and anons that is still the *only* way to do so.)  We already have barnstars, if you want to thank somebody with a kitten dressed as a ninja hurling barnstar-shaped shurikens just for the fun of it, or because you are considering running for arbcom next year, or whatever.  What we were lacking was a low-investment low-fidelity easy-come-easy-go mechanism for waving from the window, or smiling as we squeeze past, or the wiki-metaphorical-equivalent thereof.
 * TLDR.... There is no built-in way to display thank-counts, neither in the page-history of articles, nor on the user-pages of editors. This behavior is by design, because this is not about collecting gratitude in a tub.  Hope this helps clarify.  &mdash; 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Blocked users
Are blocked users able to thank people? -- John Reaves 01:34, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Nope (confirmed by dev). –Quiddity (talk) 22:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for deletions
Have there been discussions to expand the functionality to allow thanks for deletions? When I've requested a page be deleted, it would be nice to send a notification to thank the admin who deleted it. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * +1, I came here wanting to ask the exact same thing! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think 58485 and 50867 cover this. (Note: There aren't any staff devs assigned to creating new features for Thanks at the moment, so it will appear at volunteer-speed if/when that feature is created.) HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 04:56, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Rank diffs according to thanks?
I think it would be quite interesting to be able to rank which diffs had recieved most 'thanks' over a certain time period. I understand it is not very easily done with the database structure used today but I hope this could be improved. It could really bring forward some nice stories. --Ainali (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it's actually impossible based on what's currently logged. As you can see in Special:Logs/thanks, the database knows who thanked who and when. It does not record the oldid or page_id.. This is partially by design. We enabled this logging of thanks to make sure the community had a window into thanking actions early on, but otherwise we don't want thanks to become a public aggregate metric that is used like a public "up vote" or +1 for edits. Rather, we want it to be a genuine, person-to-person message of gratitude. There have actually been some calls to turn off public logging of thanks, because it is not very actionable and can increase the noise factor of the logs. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:58, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * ... and those calls to stop the "thanks" notifications from cluttering up our public logs resulted in this Bugzilla ticket, which I guess is somewhere in process or discussion. --MelanieN (talk) 03:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there's a patch awaiting review. I poked at it and we'll see if we can get some movement on it sooner rather than later. <span style="font-family:Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   23:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The database seem to know this, since the message includes to the thanked user includes a link to the diff. Perhaps you need to do some clever joins on tables, but I would be surprised if it would be impossible to retrieve the information. --Ainali (talk) 19:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for protected edits
It seems like editors are unable to thank someone for an edit that was later protected. After a cursory review, I can't find why this option is not available. Thanks (in advance)! -   t  u coxn \<sup style="font-family:serif">talk 21:31, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi. There was a similar comment at mw:Extension talk:Thanks, but we need more details, or steps to replicate. For example, I'm able to 'thank' for edits to Main page, which is fully protected (I'm not an admin). Which page/diffs specifically, are you unable to 'thank' for? Thanks! –Quiddity (talk) 21:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It looks like I wanted to thank User:Kevin Gorman for this page, User:Kevin Gorman/Wiki-PR Work, and couldn't thank him for any edit he made there because the page is protected. I'm an experienced editor and my account has the reviewer flag but it doesn't look like that matters. I can't edit the page either. -   t  u coxn \<sup style="font-family:serif">talk 22:22, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Weird! I can click the 'thank' links in both the history page and at individual diffs (except for the first 2 diffs, which were revisiondeleted).
 * Is it just those first 2 edits that you mean? If so, that's 54100 (Only allow Thanks for public revisions).
 * If it's all the edits, then: Do the 'thank' links appear properly, but simply not function? Or do they not appear at all? –Quiddity (talk) 22:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Huh, weird that you could thank me for that Quiddity. I had my girlfriend try on her account with a very similar permission set and she was unable to do the same thing. Per my reply on mw.org, I'll try to get a bugzilla with reproducible steps up tomorrow. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I was testing, per above (which we edit-conflicted on). I just have "reviewer" and "rollback" flags, but that shouldn't matter. –Quiddity (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Testing on her account, the thank links appeared, but just didn't function. I'll reconfirm later today when she gets off work. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:08, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The "thanks" weren't showing up at all on the history page but it seems to be working for me now. Thanks for the page, Kevin! -   t  u coxn \<sup style="font-family:serif">talk 03:42, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If it helps any, I was able to thank all but the first two on that page which had no thank links because they were revdel. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 03:58, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Can the Thanks notification link to the edit you're being thanked for


Thanks is the only component in the notifications that doesn't link to the edit that is the focus of the message. Instead, it links to the userpage of the editor that is thanking you. While this is certainly a good link to have, I would like to also have a link to the edit that I am being thanked over. Occasionally I will thank someone for one specific edit in a chain of edits that they made to a single page, and I want people to see exactly which edit I am thanking them for. This would also be useful when thanking someone for an edit to a noticeboard page, as in that case it's not clear which thread someone is being thanked for an edit in.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  20:38, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The diff is linked on Special:Notifications, but I agree it would be nice to have the same in the flyout. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  20:47, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I did code-review on a patch that does just this yesterday afternoon. MatmaRex then +2'd it and it's in the repository, waiting on deployment.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's already there; it's the "View edit", visible in that screenshot just to the right of "3 hours ago". -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh wow. I've opened notifications at least 50 times (30 or so times for Thanks messages) and never noticed that.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  06:30, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's easily missed, see also de:Hilfe Diskussion:Echo/Danke and de:Hilfe Diskussion:Echo But for a revert (negative feedback) you get a big fat diff-link. But no edit comment to explain the revert? It's like an open invitation to edit-war. --Atlasowa (talk) 17:03, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I feel that I should point out that the link colour is a shade of grey, specifically #6D6D6D and so is exactly the same as the plain text colour used within the nominations box; and so it is not obvious that "View edit" is a link. In other parts of Wikipedia, links are blue - of various shades depending upon whether they are internal or external, unvisited or visited. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:47, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking at Special:Notifications i now see in 1 thank notification 2 (!) blue links to the same diff ("your edit" and "view changes" - btw why "changes"? it's 1 diff for 1 edit). --Atlasowa (talk) 17:11, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Can you please, please also care about Bug 52510 - Echo should provide notifications about your revision being approved or rejected on wikis with FlaggedRevs enabled? There is a fix waiting for approval since November 2013. The bugreport is from August 2013 and all WP with FlaggedRevs could have sent hundreds of positive feedback notifications per day to newbies, for months! In the meantime, we're automatically sending hundreds of negative revert notifications to them. WMF knows perfectly how bad this is, but obviouly WMF doesn't really care. Editor retention, my ass. --Atlasowa (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2014 (UTC)


 * And one more thing: If you are male and you mention another user on a talk page, this user gets a "mention"-notification. If you are a female user and mention another user, nothing happens, no notification. Too bad if you're a woman/Benutzerin: you will be ignored. Talk about gender gap. This issue is known since at least December 3. --Atlasowa (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Remove thanks?
IS there any way to remove thanks? A admin would? If a person wanted. SamuelDay1 (talk) 12:54, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * See Notifications/Thanks? --Atlasowa (talk) 16:50, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No.. I gave "thanks" to a wrong person, and realized later. Such thanks can be removed? If not by self, through admin? That was the question. SamuelDay1 (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No, there is no way to "undo" sending a thanks at this time. There has been a lot of discussion about adding such a feature, and I believe there is some development planned for it.  Even if/when it does become possible, it will only be a short window of opportunity where you will get to undo the action yourself.  — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 20:48, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I really hope there was some solution, so thank could disappear. But thanks for informing. SamuelDay1 18:09, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Good feature
Not wild about the little pink heart on the notification - I'd much prefer a miniature "original barnstar" image - but all in all, this is probably the best little new feature since unified accounts. Hope it stays around. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 21:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's been updated! I like the replacement design and color. –Quiddity (talk) 18:50, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. This feature is a really nice, simple idea to allow people to occasionally remind other editors of why they put in so much of their spare time. I absolutely think that Wikipedia is a magnificent (though hugely imperfect) resource and that editing it for the better is extremely worthwhile, but it can become easy to forget that sometimes after so many hours of anonymous, unrecognised effort. Just one thank you every month or so is enough to help keep me motivated to do what I know's worth doing :D BreakfastJr (talk) 12:22, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Erratic thanks links
I see the "thanks" links on the history for this page, but I don't see them on, say, the Tamale history page. A lot of information on how to fix this seems to be out of date.

I do use the Monobook skin, so I can easily tell if I'm logged in. But if it's appearing on some pages, surely it isn't Vector only. — trlkly 22:29, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks links don't appear in normal history pages for: Anons, Bots, or Your own edits. Hence the first 'thank' link you'd see at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tamale&action=history would be for MrBill3. –Quiddity (talk) 02:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I see. I didn't expect it to be disabled for anons. I'd like to be able to thank the ones that do good work, which might even encourage them to register. Also, thanks for pinging me!— trlkly 17:06, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
 * There is a bug-ticket (61022) for extending Thank to work for anons, but it would either require Echo/Notifications for anons (they don't get Echo at all, currently. However, that's being looked at via 56828), or changing the way Thank links work for anon users (perhaps just starting a new usertalkpage thread? but that would be drastically different from the current Thank). There was also this wikitech-l thread in May about the technical and privacy issues. TL;DR - it is being thought about, and at least 1 developer is poking at the issue. HTH. :) –Quiddity (talk) 01:38, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Blacklisting/ignoring
Any news on the progress of implementing an "ignore thanks from" feature? It's absolutely necessary. I'm starting to receive occasional sarcastic "thanks" from someone who has my talk page on their watchlist and it's a pain in the arse. —  Scott  •  talk  19:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * ...and pages to. I get a dozen thanks per day for my edits on the main page. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 20:17, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see anybody [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=thanks&page=User%3AScott thanking you] more than once in a day. I also don't see you being thanked more than once a day by different users since 21 April. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:07, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course you don't, because I didn't say that. —  Scott  •  talk  21:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Who invented this feature?
I like this feature very much. Who first had the idea of it? --Ephraim33 (talk) 13:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't know about who had the idea, but its creator seems to be User:Kaldari, so we can thank him in the meantime and he'll let us know if there's someone else who should get credit for this :) Elitre (WMF) (talk) 10:50, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and mobile view
I've just found this page, so it seems a useful place to repeat a couple of points I've raised elsewhere about Thanks and mobiles.

Pam D  08:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) The "thank" button is large, bottom right, and there is no confirmation stage: you half-drop your phone and grab it, or your scrolling finger droops because you're tired, and you've thanked the random person whose edit you were looking at. No way out of it. There's a Bugzilla bug about this,, but it's been dismissed by one commentator as "not a big issue". I think it's a huge issue. There's also no way to opt out of Thanks, on mobile.
 * 2) If I click on an editor's name, in mobile, I am shown a strange little profile page: it shows me what page they last edited and when; what image they last uploaded and when; who most recently Thanked them; and then some more useful stuff like when they joined, how many edits and uploads they've done, and  links to their user page and talk page. I thought Thanking was supposed to be a private matter (not absolutely confidential as there are public logs, but not splashed around). To have it included on the profile page for a person seems out of keeping with the philosophy of the Thanks notifications.
 * For 1) I've filed 69636 to cover this, and I see Maryana is discussing it in the thread at VisualEditor/Feedback
 * For 2) That's a Mobilefrontend thing, so best discussed primarily with them. That section of the profile page did previously include the exact page that the Thank occurred on (56818) so at least that's fixed! I would guess that it's mostly a placeholder, until they have time to get some better metadata in there. E.g. I'd love to see a small version of the pie chart or the monthly graphs, from supercount, used there. But again, you'll have to ask them (probably at mw:Extension talk:MobileFrontend)
 * HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
 * HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Easier way to thank
I think the THANK system works fine for article space, where most pages don't have tons of activity. However, talk pages, help pages, and the ref desk often get dozens of edits within a few hours, and thanking someone for a post that is a few days old is rather tedious. I just did this recently, and it took me about 5 minutes to scroll through the history and check diffs to thank the right post! Is there any way that a thank option could be added to signatures, or some other way to make it easier to thank editors in high activity contexts? Perhaps I'm missing some useful trick to get from a specific post to the appropriate diff/thank option. Thanks for any suggestions, SemanticMantis (talk) 16:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Eventually (some time in the future...) mw:Flow will sort of fix that, in that it features a Thanks link right below each post. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Inline confirmation
I'm not wild about the inline confirmation. I liked the modal dialog better. But I can live with the inline one, only there's one thing that's really irritating: The confirmation question doesn't "stick" to the parentheses. This means that when you thank someone in diff mode, you see this:

Revision as of 00:00, 01 September 2014 (edit) (undo) (           Send thanks for this edit? Yes No) Username (talk | contribs)

It would be better if the entire word, including punctuation, wrapped like this:

Revision as of 00:00, 01 September 2014 (edit) (undo) (Send thanks for this edit? Yes No) Username (talk | contribs)

I know this is a minor nitpick, but it annoys me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * It might be worth noting that AFAICS this only happens if a sidebar is open in the browser; no issues otherwise. --Elitre (talk) 14:38, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is strange. But the whole change to the thank-confirmation-feature is strange. The point of the confirmation step was to save people from embarrassing missclicks on thanks in a link-crowded page (page history with "undo" "rollback" etc.) - and now the thank-confirmation opens up/reveals into this same crowded space!? Why is that? How is that better for usability? Why was a change needed? This doesn't seem to be a community request but just some superfluous design fiddling. What Wikipedians actually asked for was to make the mobile-thanks-feature consistent with the desktop-thanks-feature by giving it the same confirmation step. Because there is a huge green thanks-button on mobile that people push accidentally, and, just as on desktop, the thank-notification cannot be reverted/taken back, in contrast to most other activities on Wikipedia. But that bugzilla request for mobile thanks is just ignored. --Atlasowa (talk) 07:21, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * For reference:
 * - sensible request for stats on "lost" thanks, unanswered.
 * - Thank notification on mobile doesn't ask for confirmation: accident-prone
 * de:Wikipedia:Verbesserungsvorschläge/Archiv/2014/Mai --Atlasowa (talk) 07:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I too am a bit confuddled from this change: I have found myself almost missing the good will I mean to communicate. What about a user-option that allows users to turn on/off the "Thanks" confirmation with a default on option? Right now we are doing something which is designed for a very limited number of people who are misclicking, instead of experienced users who, during the vast majority of time, are not.Sadads (talk) 15:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.png|15px]] Support a preference, even defaulted to on for "thanks confirmation" would be much welcome--if anyone has any handy user scripts for this could even be a gadget... — xaosflux  Talk 18:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support preference setting with default for "on" so that confirmation can be turned off.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support preference setting with default for "on" so that confirmation can be turned off.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Now even more confirmation
Today the confirmation sends a user to another page to super-confirm the thanks. Where is the documentation on this change? Why is thanking being treated as something which requires more confirmation than any other contribution to Wikipedia? I would like a way to do one-click thanking.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  14:49, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't send me to another page at all. Clicking "(thank)" triggers some javascript which squirts in some extra text "(Send thanks for this edit? Yes No)"; clicking "Yes" alters it again, to "(thanked)". -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Re: Thanks: Getting a "1-click Thank" along with a "Thank-undo" feature is the eventual goal (69636, currently asking for a time-limited window wherein we can cancel a Thank, probably 30 seconds). The Confirmation-step is just a temporary measure, until a developer has time to do that; It's necessary because "Thank" appears directly next to (undo|rollback) and accidentally Thanking someone that we meant to Revert is very aggravating/embarrassing.
 * Re: the New confirmation style: That was implemented in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/92315 and it should be an improvement because it puts the confirmation step closer to the actual link (versus the confirmation dialog-box/modal which appeared in the center of the window). Editors who are using no-JS previously got sent to another page and still do. I assume that you do use JavaScript as you hadn't encountered that before, therefor I guess that you possibly clicked "Thank" before the javascript had finished loading (which will also take us JS-users to the no-JS confirmation page).
 * If you want to completely disable the confirmation-step (or rather, automagically click "Yes" as soon as it appears), add this to your common.js:


 * Hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up, Bluerasberry, and thank you for telling us you're working on it, Quiddity! I don't want to 'mess' with my script, though. I had already raised the point on the corresponding German Wikipedia page. We should really find a way all out feedback and all your information is gathered in a more central location... Thank you again, --Gnom (talk) 13:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I also do not want to manipulate my script but would be satisfied with an expected delivery date on whatever the long-term solution is. I am happy to wait for a solution, but I would be less comfortable if I thought no one was addressing the problem and there was no expected time for resolution. I also do not mind delays in addressing the issue, but please continue to communicate what is happening and when projects are scheduled to be done. Thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  14:59, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome
I just got thanked using this tool for the first time today, and I found myself wanting to say "you're welcome" to the user who thanked me. But it seemed a bit too much to actually go to their talk page and leave them a message thanking them for the thanks they gave me. Could there be a feature like a "you're welcome" button? I thought of "thank this user back" and "show appreciation", but I'm sure someone else can come up with something more snappy. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Only if, on receiving "you're welcome", I can hit a "that's OK, no problem" button... Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Or we could just cut out the middleman and get the developers to code up an Infinite Loop of Thanks. ;) Seriously, though, I think something to let people know that you got the thanks and that you appreciate it might not be such a bad idea. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:11, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, come on! This is the price you pay with an impersonal "Thank" feature, that is triggered by pushing a button somewhere on a history page. There's no point to be able to answer back. That's exactly why I don't really like the feature at all (but I don't want to start a huge discussion about this now, just mention my reasons): On the one hand, when you really want to thank a user for an exceptional contribution, it stays impersonal and cold, no comparison to leaving a personal comment or even a barnstar on the users talk page. On the other hand it can lead to people flooding Wikipedia with thanks for even average contributions, making a "thank" worth even less. It's (sorry for the example, but it just matches perfectly) like "Likes" on facebook: A single like counts nothing, it's the comment with the most likes that counts, and this concept simply doesn't work for Wikipedia (at least I don't want Wikipedia to become a place where this concept works). --Patrick87 (talk) 13:54, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I would say that any "Thanks" that is expecting a reply would be on the talk page. The advantage of sending it this way is that it is a ping, and no discussion is necessary.  It is simply a tip of the hat, not a discussion needing a reply.  Dennis Brown / 2¢ / © / @ 18:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The correct solution, for people that want to say "you are welcome", is as follows. Originator:  User#1 clicks thanks.  Recipient:  optionally, user#2 clicks thanks (i.e. "thank you for thanking me").  Goto ten.  Please do not implement the "you are welcome" button... we already *have* that button, but it is labelled with the same text as the 'thank' button... ummm, for technical reasons, yeah, that's the ticket.  74.192.84.101 (talk) 11:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * +1 above. Need to be able to "thank a thank" with no recursive limit.~Technophant (talk) 16:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Why don't I see "thanks" links?
I just received my first thanks. While I was pleased to get it, I was also mildly dismayed that I had not seen a way to send them. This page seems to imply that they should appear if I have my "Preferences | Appearance | Exclude me from feature experiments" unchecked (which is true). I have looked at several editor's editing history and recent changes. Should I see it?

Perhaps some other setting or gadget is interfering with it?

Here is a sample from Recent changes: 17:48:44 Gag Factor‎ (diff | hist). . (-4)‎ . . Gene93k (talk | contribs | block) (unlinked Gwen Summers (deleted at AfD)) [rollback]

Here is a sample from Steven's editing history: (del/undel) 2013-06-03T13:22:13 (diff | hist). . (+29)‎ . . m Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Thanks ‎ (→‎Why is this not counted?)

Maybe I need to enable something else? —EncMstr (talk) 00:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Try it on history pages (action=history), [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Notifications/Thanks&action=history convenient example] - next to undo. <b style="color:#f90;font-family:Arial">πr2</b> (<i style="color:#0f3;font-family:Arial">t</i> • <i style="color:#03f;font-family:Arial">c</i>) 04:16, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah ha! It is there:

(cur | prev) 2013-06-03T21:17:35‎ PiRSquared17 (talk | contribs | block)‎. . (22,361 bytes) (+15)‎. . (→‎Why don't I see "thanks" links?: clar.) (rollback: 2 edits | undo | thank) (cur | prev) 2013-06-03T21:16:53‎ PiRSquared17 (talk | contribs | block)‎. . (22,346 bytes) (+436)‎. . (→‎Why don't I see "thanks" links?: +) (undo | thank)
 * Thanks! :-)  —EncMstr (talk) 07:10, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I can see the "thanks" links on some revision history pages but not on others. Any ideas why? Wormcast (talk) 16:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks on other types of actions
Any thought of adding this functionality to RevDel and/or oversight actions? Especially when those are handled quickly and quietly, I sometimes would like a way to extend some appreciate to the admin handling the action without drawing attention that a talk page post might garner.  Ravensfire  (talk) 19:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oversight is supposed to be confidential. The Oversight team typically send out two emails: one to say that they've received your request, the other (which might be several hours later) to say that they've acted on your req, or explaining why they won't be. You could answer that second mail if you really feel the need to thank them. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Understandable - thanks for the response.  Ravensfire  (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks log
I know that some of you are interested in the question of whether and how much to log related to Thanks. There is a discussion specifically about whether to hide the log at the German Wikipedia (only) at T90483 that some of you might want to read. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank yourself?
Let's discuss whether it should be possible to thank yourself(!) I believe the option should be available, followed by the prompt "Are you sure you wish to thank yourself?" Enabling users this option would show that it works, and then they might be more inclined to try it on others.– Gilliam (talk) 05:56, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Undo / Thank confusion?
I receive a surprising number of "thank" notifications from people for reverting their vandalistic or otherwise undesirable edits. Could be they have all had an attack of conscience and want to say thanks for correcting their misdeeds; but I think it's more likely that many actually meant to undo my reversion. Of course it's good when it's me that gets the thanks :-) but not so good if vandals are getting thanked by editors who meant to undo the vandalism.

This is quite a plausible mistake, because in the revision history page "undo" and "thank" are sharing a bracket, separated only by a thin partition, as (Undo | Thank) It might help somewhat if there were two separate brackets, something like (Undo) &bull; (Thank) Do others agree and could this change be implemented? Noyster  (talk),  11:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If vandals are indeed misclicking on that—and confirming to send—then leave it as it is. It is diverting stupid "criminals" from restoring their misdeeds.  Maybe "undo" should be made smaller to make it even harder to click on?  —EncMstr (talk) 18:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is because of their proximity that the "(Send thanks for this edit? Yes No)" option was added, see above. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replies. Honest, upright citizens may make this mistake, as well as vandals; and there are probably more good-faith uses of Undo than vandals returning to counter-revert.  Yes there is a confirmation stage, but anyone clicking vaguely within a bracket is all too likely to go on to click Yes without looking at what they are saying Yes to. It seems that the Thanks process is going to be revamped sometime, and when this happens I would rather see a clearly-distinguished Thanks button than an extra confirmation stage Noyster   (talk),  16:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I receive lots of "thanks" from vandals as well. Not sure if it's genuine or not, but it doesn't really bother me, it's only a notification. I quite like the function in itself, any idea how the process may be revamped? Orphan Wiki  15:43, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There was a case a few days ago when a newly-registered account with (I think) zero actual edits was thanking other people's edits by the hundred. They were indef blocked within an hour or two, for being disruptive - vandalism wouldn't have stuck, because no page damage had occurred. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:31, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is possible it's genuine. I've thanked people for explaining why they've reverted on of my changes (e.g. if I've added an inappropriate see also or disambiguation) T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 04:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Plays nice with others...."
I've had some incredibly belittling and insulting comments directed my way in recent months and would let it get to me at times. Then I thought to myself; "self, perhaps it really isn't you that has an editing problem, perhaps it is in the personality makeup of the person who directing discouraging remarks your way, perhaps they mightest be the problem..."

So recently I've been checking up on how often another editor who I perceive to be quite 'grim' has been thanked for their edits...just as I suspected. Crabby, critical editors do not get thanked. I am more easily able to ignore criticism from a disruptive, critical editor once I know their 'work' is not widely regarded. I recently found one editor with over 60,000 edits with not even one thank you. Fortunately, I don't think they know it - or wouldn't they think something isn't right?
 * <span style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva;background:#E6E6FA;border:solid 1px;border-radius:7px;box-shadow:darkgray 0px 3px 3px;"> Bfpage &#124;leave a message 23:34, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Public?
The confirmation message now says "(Send public thanks for this edit? Yes No)" How "public", and why? Has the message or method of delivery changed? The aim, according to the project page, is to send "simple, personal messages of gratitude, rather than a public endorsement of edits". This new text contradicts that. Andrew Dalby 10:03, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * From the introduction of this feature, it's been possible to see [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=thanks&user=Redrose64 who has been thanked] by a given user, and [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=thanks&page=User%3ARedrose64 who has thanked] a given user. But I know of no way to find out what the thank was actually for. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:37, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The message is from MediaWiki:Thanks-confirmation2. It has not been customized at the English Wikipedia so we get the MediaWiki default. See T90486. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you to both (publicly!) for your help. OK, I guessed that it must be some convoluted spin-off from that German debate. This change of wording would probably discourage some people from using the feature. I use it mostly on the Latin Vicipaedia: we also get the MediaWiki default message (in English) so I think it's time for us to change it, and I know someone who can :) Andrew Dalby 13:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that public was added to four messages in . PrimeHunter (talk) 13:34, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So, the top line on this page "lets editors send a private 'Thank you' notification" is totally incorrect, as these are not "private" at all? - Arjayay (talk) 18:24, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd say they are private really, and the person who changed the text did it to make a not-very-useful debating point. There is no record of who sent thanks to whom, or what edit they were thanking them for.
 * But, you know, that's just me :) Andrew Dalby 19:53, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a record of who sent thanks to whom - see my post of 10:37, 23 March 2015. You are correct about there being no record of what edit they were thanking them for. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:00, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In addition to the user-specific logs, all thanks are shown at Special:Log/thanks when no parameters are given. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:11, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that's quite true, I understated the case. Still, the new text seems to me to need changing. Practically everything done on Wikipedia is public. This feature is less public than nearly all others, so to call it, in particular, "public" is misleading. The message itself will only be seen by the recipient, and, apart from that, only those who search through logs would ever know that any such message had been sent. That is not what the phrase "public thanks" means: "public thanks" would be more like a ceremony in which everybody's thanks are expressed to a public benefactor. If the text suggest that a public ceremony is in question, people who would have used this feature will now click on "No" rather than "Yes". Or am I wrong? Andrew Dalby 12:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there a discussion (on English Wikipedia) that supports not including the page/diff in the thanks log? I don't see any downside to including it and there's at least one benefit - it's something that can be reviewed at RFA time to get a sampling of edits that others thought were praiseworthy. --B (talk) 14:30, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You are so right about that! As much dirt as they bring up at those reviews it would be nice to have a little positive information to help in the review of someone who wants to be an administrator. In the past few months I've been changing my ideas of administrators and remain quite certain that I never want to be one. I've been even checking into the "thanking history" of some of the more irascible characters that pose as administrators to find they often are rarely thanked. Perhaps not getting thanked should be a requirement of the administrator application process!LOL! I'm just kidding! please don't block me....


 * <span style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva;background:#E6E6FA;border:solid 1px;border-radius:7px;box-shadow:darkgray 0px 3px 3px;"> Bfpage &#124;leave a message 18:38, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Page moves
Is there a way to thank page moves? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 14:25, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * , that would fall under the ticket I linked to the right —  14:50, 14 May 2015 (UTC) --->

This help page must be fixed!
If you click a "thank" link, you get a message saying, "Send public thanks for this edit? Yes  No". This page needs to explain why the word "public" is there, and exactly what the effect of clicking yes or no is. I see discussion of this issue above, but I'm not fully confident that I understand it. If I understood it I would make the fix myself. (As I understand it, clicking yes means that a thank-you message is added to the editor's notifications, and is not actually publicly visible in any direct way; clicking no cancels the operation so that no thanks of any sort are sent. Is that correct?) Looie496 (talk) 14:43, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

These are standard searches anyone can use, just by substituting the user-name. My complaint, two sections above, is that the top of this page still says "lets editors send a private 'Thank you' notification" - which is demonstrably untrue, although the comment using the thank button does say "public". - Arjayay (talk) 15:42, 23 May 2015 (UTC) I also know that despite receiving 953 thanks, you have only sent 61, so although the specific detail may be "private", the actual statistics are not. I reiterate that describing this as "lets editors send a private 'Thank you' notification to users who make useful edits" as stated at the top of this page, is misleading/disingenuous. Furthermore (although I admit I can't find the reference at the moment) I understand these figures are being used in some RFA's as a measure of how editors interact with other editors. - Arjayay (talk) 20:59, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that is not correct. This shows that you have only thanked one person, twice, whereas this shows you have received 38 thank messages.
 * We know who thanked you, and we also know who you thanked. What we do not know is what any one thanks was for, and in this sense, it's private. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:48, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * IMHO, that is a very strange interpretation of "private" - Arjayay (talk) 17:29, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * OK then, can you tell me what I was being thanked for [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=thanks&user=Rjccumbria&page=User%3ARedrose64 a few minutes ago]? Only myself and know. That's what I mean by "it's private". -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * But it is totally public - I, and anyone else, can see that thanked you - that is not private; the detail may be hidden, but the action is public.
 * So I received 953 thanks (I don't dispute it) but you don't know why I was thanked 953 times. Some people scatter thanks around like chickenfeed. I don't - I prefer a thanks to actually mean something, which is why I "only" sent 61. If you like, you could read it as meaning that for every 61 good edits made by other people, I have made 953 good edits myself. This is obviously incorrect: I mention it merely to demonstrate that reliance upon statistics is a fallacy. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:33, 23 May 2015 (UTC)


 * This argument is beside the point. The help page needs to accurately describe what the button does and how to use it.  Whether it ought to do that is a separate issue, which should be handled elsewhere.   I've added an explanation to the "What the feature is" section.  If I got any part of it wrong, please fix it. Looie496 (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Symmetry
The ability to thank another is symmetric: A can thank B if and only if B can thank A. The users that cannot thank or be thanked by other users are IP users and bots. You cannot thank your own edits. You cannot thank edits that are not shown in contribs due to T36873 or T2323 (which, like IP edits, do not have "contribs" inside the parentheses). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:36, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks on other wikis
Thanks should be available for other wikis, not just Wikipedia. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 02:40, 10 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It's already on all the wikis I tested. What makes you think it's only Wikipedia? PrimeHunter (talk) 11:09, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe GeoffreyT2000 is looking at the introduction to Notifications/Thanks, which mentions only the English Wikipedia, possibly implying that it isn't available on others. It is, I agree, but I haven't changed the wording because I don't know whether it's available on all others or only some. I expect someone else knows? Andrew Dalby 11:23, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, that introduction is two years old. I have tested thanks is on all Wikimedia projects (I haven't tested each language of each project). PrimeHunter (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

A few comments and suggestions
After reading the What the feature is section, and after using the feature, I have a few comments and suggestions:


 * 1) Why is it necessary to have two different confirmation messages before sending the thanks? Anything that asks me to confirm twice is a source of annoyment. Furthermore, it is confusing: the word "public" in the second message seems to imply that after the first confirmation already private thanks were send, and now the question is about public thanks. If the second confirmation is needed to make sure the sender is aware that his thanks will be logged in a publicly accessible log, then the second question could be rephrased to something like "Please confirm you're aware that thanks message are logged and that the logs are publicly accessible".
 * 2) Where precisely can these log be found? I think that should also be explained in the section.
 * 3) Is it possible to annul thank messages? If not, I think this should be an option. Debresser (talk) 10:16, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * 1 - I only see one confirmation message; that is, when I click "thank", I get "Send public thanks for this edit?" and two Yes/No links; if I click "Yes", the thanks is sent without further action. 2 - at the very top of your contributions, there are some links - one of them is logs - click that, and in the first drop-down menu, select "Thanks log" and click . 3 - no, it's not. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:32, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It might be useful to read the section above titled, "This help page must be fixed!". Looie496 (talk) 12:48, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the replies. Strange, I now also receive only 1 question, while till now I got 2. I do think that an explanation where to find the log should be in the documentation. Debresser (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * To q. 3: I've found that an admin can select the thanks log entry, and carry out either or both of: Delete action and target; Delete editor's username/IP address. Assume that the thanks log entry is as follows:
 * 17:15, 8 July 2015 Redrose64a (talk | contribs) thanked Redrose64 (talk | contribs)
 * Carrying out "Delete action and target" alters this to:
 * 17:15, 8 July 2015 Redrose64a (talk | contribs) (log details removed)
 * whereas carrying out "Delete editor's username/IP address" alters this to:
 * 17:15, 8 July 2015 (Username or IP removed) thanked Redrose64 (talk | contribs)
 * and of course if both are done, we get:
 * 17:15, 8 July 2015 (Username or IP removed) (log details removed)
 * However, whichever of these is done, if Redrose64 (the recipient) visits Special:Notifications, they will always see something like "Redrose64a thanked you for your edit on [pagename]" so although it's possible to prevent other people from knowing that Redrose64 was thanked by Redrose64a, it's not possible to prevent Redrose64 from seeing that Thanks notification.
 * In summary: although the log entry can be pretty much wiped out, the notification itself can't. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:36, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh look, another thread to highlight the fact that the problem in clarity lies not with this help page, but with the notification system itself! Here we have space aplenty to wax poetic about what exactly goes on behind the scenes when you click the "thank" button—but when you click the actual button, you are greeted with a message which is quite simply wrong when one interprets it at face value.

The description "personal messages of gratitude, rather than a public endorsement of edits" is perfectly fine and accurate enough, but it clashes directly with "Send public thanks for this edit?". We can't expect every user to be able to immediately understand that this does not mean that thanks will be made public for the edit, but instead that "public thanks" (=opaque wiki-cant) will be registered in some log on the basis of the edit—particularly given the fact that the terminology used does not contain any markers to suggest that one is supposed to be interpreting these words in a register peculiar to this website.

"But Lothar!" you say, "That's why we have this page, to initiate clever outsiders into our little cryptolect!" Frankly, if you need nearly 6,000 bytes to demystify a 6-word sentence and still end up confusing people, maybe the solution isn't to piddle around with weaving new paragraphs of explanation or to hope that every confused editor will find their way here, but rather to get the function to spit out a message that is broadly comprehensible. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 06:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

See what the thank was for
It would be nice if the log displayed what a thank was for. &mdash; Sebastian 21:41, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's omitted deliberately. See T51087: "Specify which edit was thanked in Special:Log/thanks, both for private and public records' sake". It was closed as declined. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:59, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree that adding the edit makes eminent sense, and that leaving it out makes it impossible to stimulate an editor for a good edit by showing him what is a good edit. Debresser (talk) 01:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * To be clear, the editor receiving thanks does indeed get to see the edit for which thanks was given, the general public does not. Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:19, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , can you point to a thread where it was decided not to publically link the action that thanks was being given for? -- Red rose64 (talk) 08:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Redrose64, the Phabricator link PrimeHunter provided should answer that. From the replies by kaldari and Ryan, it appears the decision was made by the developers. In reply to MZMcBride's request "it'll be helpful to have a record of the design decision", none such record is provided. So there may not have been any documented discussion that led to this decision. &mdash; Sebastian 16:15, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * T51087 is an after-the-event "can we alter this" request, it is not (and does not link back to) the original "we will not be doing this" specification. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

As I'm going through T51087, I am collecting the pro and con arguments at Notifications/Thanks/Arguments; please, everybody, feel free to add to that list or correct it. &mdash; Sebastian 16:15, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Funny, just while I was writing the above, I received thanks (from Wikiisawesome) for this edit, which was the first in a series. That made me realize that this is another level of complexity, which may be seen as an argument against including links. &mdash; Sebastian 16:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I am an editor who objected strongly to the appearance of the "Thank" feature, because the thanks don't show up on the talk pages as other types of communication do. I prefer communicate thanks to editors publicly. I also hate to see the creeping in of social media.  Today I was involved in a discussion  about appropriate "thanking", and an opinion was expressed that receiving large numbers of "thanks" would improve status and help a user to be considered for more user rights, etc.  So, of course, those who give out lots of thanks are helping their friends, and those who don't participate in the game are rude. (That's me.)  Is this really the case?  I couldn't think of a suitably neutral reply.  I'm not sure if adding the reason for the thanking to the logs would be an improvement; in any case I'd prefer to see the logs not generally available, and only used perhaps in sockpuppet investigations and such; then at least editors would not feel social pressure to "thank" others or waste time trying to gather as many thanks as possible - after all, this isn't YouTube.&mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 02:10, 10 November 2015 (UTC)