Board Thread:New Features/@comment-26339491-20191016152503/@comment-26339491-20191016180837

Andrewds1021 wrote: [...]

[...]
 * So, the conversion is resumed despite a previous (fairly recent) claim that it is halted untill there is better pairity between Discussions and threads?
 * 1) Will the Message Wall and Comment replacements be as disconnected from the wiki content as Discussions?
 * 2) Are there any plans to make Discussions more connected to the actual wiki content?
 * 3) Is one of the issues how each comment is stored as a different page? If not, could wikis be giving the option to just disable the features but leave the content as is; effectively archiving it? This question has some personal motivation behind it as I have been slowly working on a JS script for displaying article comments on wikis where the feature has been disabled. However, if everything is going to be converted for all wikis by mid-January, then there really isn't much point in continuing.
 * 4) When will wikis be presented with the option between wiki-style and Discussions? Or are wikis that want wiki-style going to have to actively contact staff before some automated convert-everything-to-discussions script just happens to get around to processing the wiki?

1. We did halt migrations earlier, and it was partially because some very big and active communities relied too much on things like text formatting and tags for Discussions to work well for them. That's what "feature parity" referred to: Text formatting and tags. Now that both have been added to Discussions, we do consider it a viable replacement for the Forums - for most communities. Some have special use cases that we can't hope to ever fully accommodate, unless we built an exact replica of the Forums, which is not a viable option.

2. The Message Wall and Comments replacements are still in the conception phase, so can't show you any preview yet for what they might look or even tell you how they'll work exactly. We know that Discussions is too disconnected from the wiki (a shortcoming in the way it was developed, not an intentional choice), and so we'll pay attention to not repeating that mistake.

3. Right now, we're focused on preparing for the UCP and figuring out those feature replacements that will absolutely be needed, so further enhancements to Discussions aren't on the immediate agenda. However, we are well aware that that's still an issue that'll eventually need to be addressed.

4. Yes, that's part of the issue. The way Comments (and Message Walls and threaded Forums for that matter) where constructed, they mean a lot of coding headaches behind the scenes. Most users can't see those issues - for them those features work fine. Many admins get a glimpse of the issues when they keep seeing content from those features pop up erroneously in their wiki's maintenance lists and can't get them to disappear. But the real glaring downsides of these features are under the hood, and that's why we really do have to remove that code entirely. It would cost significant developer time to port them over in any remotely usable form, and we can't justify that.

5. You won't be given an explicit choice between DPL forums and Discussions, because it's not an either/or situation. Any wiki, regardless of what other "forum" features are already enabled, can set up DPL forums at any time - right now, or even after the Forums are gone, whatever you choose. If your community has threaded Forums enabled, they will automatically be migrated to Discussions when the time for their retirement comes, so that the content doesn't get lost. You can choose whether you then continue your conversations on Discussions or in a DPL forum.

As for your last question: That is better posted as a comment under the blog announcement!