I discussed this above with collaborative editing. I wonder if there could be something like Google Docs where you can see another editor in the document making changes. If we could see the changes made by each editor, that'd be great! This is especially useful for working with current events and/or doing large edits when someone comes in, makes a small change, and leaves. Significa liberdade (talk) 21:49, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is also like collaborative editing like in Google Docs where we can see other editors making edits together and may be more like social media when we can see other users are typing their edits. Thingofme (talk) 15:56, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Answer to Libcub, this is just a simple alert to let you know that the article is being modified. this alert should not prevent another editor from making changes. Elilopes (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. That's why I said "intimidate or exhaust" not "prevent". I think taking care in the wording of the alert could help ameliorate the issue. Libcub (talk) 03:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems like a good idea to me. It is so annoying when you go hit "publish" and there is an edit conflict! Why not just know about it before you hit that button and save yourself a small amount of grief? :) Moops (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, probably. How would we define "being edited"--clicking the Edit or Edit source button, clicking that and typing something, clicking Edit and then typing something else within some timeframe (15 seconds, a minute, 30 minutes)? Also, I am concerned that this could be abused. A problem editor may keep the page or section in almost permanent "being edited" mode to intimidate or exhaust less experienced editors into not editing that page or section. Libcub (talk) 06:38, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would probably be responsible for that without even realising. Quite often I'd hit edit, make some changes, get distracted by something and move to another tab where I'd start editing something new without finishing and publishing the original edit. Mesidast (talk) 10:15, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's only happened once (luckily) since I work on less popular pages but it's so frustrating of you lose an edit because someone fixed a spelling mistake. I do think it needs limits though based on the oppose below. Potentially a certain number of (unreverted?) edits to gain access? Maybe it could be investigated if the same person is editing after a certain amount of time and someone else wants access through a popup. And if someone is found to be abusing it (should be obvious from the edit logs), there should be a ban system in place. Obviously it's impossible to get around all the issues, but I do think some variation of this would be very valuable. OddBiologist (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Although I think it would be more annoying to wait until the other user it's done, and the solution should be more complex than a solid message (more like a warning that informs of a part of the article to the user before he edits). De un millón (talk) 23:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Might be misused to block articles and then complain if they're edited ("didn't you see I was editing?") or the waiting person might complain if one takes too long and just the knowledge that someone might be waiting could be a little stressful, also some could intentionally cause conflicting edits (how to prove?). Otherwise useful, but I'm not convinced it would lead to less annoyances, probably just different ones. In Google Docs style shared editing I also wonder how that would work if the other person is a vandal. How would you be able to report someone for something that's not published? So unpublished editing would have to be stored at least temporarily as soon as more than one person is involved. There should also be some kind of parallel chat then to coordinate and shared editing should also only be available to users with an account to avoid vandalism problems. --Lupe (talk) 11:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, merging manually conflicting edits is hell. Contributors are here to disseminate free knowledge, not fix technical issues. Juandev (talk) 10:44, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support IMHO easier to solve _and_ more useful than real time collaborative editing: In collaborative editing, you cannot anticipate what the other is going to do next, i.e. whether both changes are semantically inconsistent / conflicting – and most of the times in most of the MediaWiki-installations I do use, I can easily wait for the other user to finish his/her work and then start on a solid base. Schoschi (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Throast (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Oppose, probably. How would we define "being edited"--clicking the Edit or Edit source button, clicking that and typing something, clicking Edit and then typing something else within some timeframe (15 seconds, a minute, 30 minutes)? Also, I am concerned that this could be abused. A problem editor may keep the page or section in almost permanent "being edited" mode to intimidate or exhaust less experienced editors into not editing that page or section. Libcub (talk) 06:38, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
23:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
