Make it easy to privately thank someone for a changeset

1ec5 commented 6 years ago

I am proposing...

A “thank” button on each changeset page that, when I click it, immediately sends the author of that changeset a private message that I thank them for that changeset. The thanks could be displayed in a special way (without all the widgets associated with a full-blown private message), and perhaps there could be a dedicated place to see what you’ve been thanked for. Critically, each thanks would link to a specific changeset.

This idea is inspired by the Thanks extension for MediaWiki, which is deployed on all the Wikimedia wikis, including Wikipedia.

What will this enable that we can't do today?

The thank button would increase the likelihood of mappers receiving positive feedback about their contributions. Changeset comments can be used to send positive feedback, but usually it’s used to point out errors or other problems. The website’s private message feature can also be used to send a kind note, but the extra steps for sending a private message make it less likely for users to receive such messages.

Whom does this benefit?

This feature would primarily benefit new mappers. Receiving feedback of any kind can have a significant impact on a new mapper’s experience, as it shows them that someone is aware of their changes. Positive feedback can allay unnecessary fears that they’ve done something wrong and show that their changes are already having an impact. It can also introduce a small measure of accountability: if they can see that others are watching their edits, they may be less likely to follow up with less thankworthy changes. Besides new mappers, experienced mappers can also benefit to some extent from getting the occasional encouragement from peers.

From my own experience, I rarely use either changeset comments or private messages unless I have a point of correction to bring up. I’m probably not the only person too lazy to write up a proper note of thanks.

Any drawbacks?

I’ll admit this does sound a little cheesy, but not as cheesy as, say, GitHub emoji reactions. Nevertheless, some mappers may not care for thanks and may want to avoid receiving them.

As with any user-to-user communication tool, the thank button can be used to harrass a mapper. The target mapper may feel stalked if someone thanks them for an inordinate number of changesets.

The MediaWiki extension attempts to head off stalking by publicly logging thanks (but without showing the edits associated with each thanks). Administrators can revoke the right of a user to thank others if that right is abused. Users can also opt out of receiving thanks if they find the feature annoying.

Other than in the thanks log, an edit’s diff page doesn’t show who thanked the author of that edit. Similarly, in OSM, a changeset page wouldn’t say who or how many users thanked the changeset author. After all, the idea isn’t for thanksgiving to become a popularity contest – OSM isn’t a social network.

Resources needed to build and maintain?

Without having a deep familiarity with openstreetmap-website, I’d imagine the feature could be implemented entirely within that project.

Anything else you want to add?

The idea of adapting MediaWiki’s thanks feature came out of the Wikipedia/Wikidata birds-of-a-feather session at State of the Map 2018 in Milan.

Any ideas for a project name?

Thanks?

Describe this project in a single emoji:

🤗

/cc @Daniel-Mietchen

grischard commented 6 years ago

In 2017, I'd suggested adding reactions to OSM changesets, to be able to ❤️ someone's changesets, diaries, comments, gps traces, notes and so on, just like you can on GitHub. Unfortunately, nobody 👍'd the idea. For full 🎉, an API should be implemented too.

The work that was done on https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/1576 can probably partially be reused.

HolgerJeromin commented 6 years ago

Stackoverflow has a similar feature and nice way of showing new "thanks“

ADepic commented 6 years ago

I like this idea. It could easily push new mappers to map more. Given this idea's simplicity I think it should be implemented within a month or so.

I think we could take it even further by having a donate button.

The problem with that is the logistics on how you are going to get the money from the donator to the mapper.

dhiegov commented 5 years ago

The problem with that is the logistics on how you are going to get the money from the donator to the mapper.

@ADepic, it could be just a link to a PayPal account or similar service earlier provided by the receiving user itself.

It could be as simple as a recommendation to the user to link to their internet wallet on their profile page (i.e. what's shown on osm.org/user/<username>). This then could lead to a standard at which if someone wants to donate money to someone else, they know where to find it.

Otherwise, I could be a more coded feature as a link to an internet wallet in each changeset (maybe making explicit that you are rewarding the user for this changeset, but I think that's too much). Then, if the user has only one means of receiving donations, it could be a link directly to the donate site; else, it would be a link to (or show right there) a list of donating options or, going back to the profile page simplicity, a link to the user's profile page, where the user would have their donate links listed, but at this point this link would only be useful to inform the donating user that the receiving one has a means of receiving donations, because the latter's profile page can be already accessed by simply clicking the user's username from the changeset view.

Sorry if this was too much text, I got a bunch of ideas and wanted to show them.

1ec5 commented 5 years ago

Donation-related features would be significant enough that we should probably discuss them in a separate issue. The idea here is for a feature that anyone could use almost without thinking about it.

TheAdventurer64 commented 3 years ago

How's progress?

1ec5 commented 2 years ago

In the meantime, I have implemented a wiki user script that allows you to Chide another user for an edit:

Click the “Chide” button on any edit in page history:
Click the “Chide” button to confirm:
Observe that the user has been chided:

To install this feature, add the following code to your user script page:

// [[User:Minh Nguyen/chide.js]]
mw.loader.load("/w/index.php?title=User:Minh_Nguyen/chide.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");

This important feature keeps the wiki and osm.org at feature parity.

osmlab / osm-planning