Talk:Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Multiblocks

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It's great you are here.

Thanks for your interest in discussing or following discussions on the Multiblocks wish. We endeavor to respond to you within 48 hours.

Please note that the Multiblocks project is currently in the phase where we are improving the Special: Block page first, before the release of Multiblocks. We need feedback. Please unblock us, join our user tests, share your observations so we can move forward with building a better block page for you. Thank you all so much. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

January 2025 – Notice for Codex Special:Block Testers

Thank you for following up on the invitation to read more.

As we prepare to fulfill the Multiblocks wish (the #14 wish from the 2023 Community Wishlist), Community Tech has redesigned the Special:Block page using Codex.

• You will be invited to test the refreshed block page on testwiki when we deploy. If you need Administrator rights on testwiki to do this, request it below.

• Alternatively, there is a simpler method to test on your local wiki by adding ?usecodex=1 to the end of the URL to your local blocking page.

Admin rights request

• User
• User

Thank you –– STei (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

February 2025 – Codex Special:Block Design Testers Needed

Hello Admins,

Thank you for following up on the announcement sent to your various noticeboards and Discord.

As CommTech prepares to fulfil the Multiblocks wish, we are redesigning the Special:Block page using Codex. You are invited to test a prototype of the refreshed block page in a moderated user test conducted by CommTech's Principal User Experience Designer Joydeep Sengupta.

The audio and video of the session will be recorded but only for synthesis and transcription purposes and will not be shared anywhere. We will delete all recordings after synthesis is completed.

Sign up below

Please choose an option below and sign up. Also indicate how we should contact you (options are your talk page or user email on wiki. If you prefer another mode, please email stei@wikimedia.org).

• 19 February 2025 9AM – 4PM UTC option
• 20 February 2025 9AM – 4PM UTC option
• 21 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC option
• 24 February 2025 9AM – 3PM UTC option
• 25 February 2025 9AM – 2PM UTC option
• 26 February 2025 9AM – 4PM UTC option
• 27 February 2025 9AM – 3PM UTC option
• 28 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC option

–– STei (WMF) (talk) 10:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Feedback

Thanks for providing the option to test the new interface of Special:Block. Some thoughts:

• When I open Special:Block, I usually want to block a user. The actual block interface should load right away, instead of initially just showing those collapsed sections.
  • I'm assuming that the block interface doesn't load right away because it's not clear which block options are supposed to be modified (or if I want to modify an existing block vs. issue a new one) once multiblocks are enabled?
  • The block interface should therefore at least load right away for accounts with no active block -> in that case it's clear that I just want to issue a new block.
• The "active blocks"-section should not be collapsed per default if there are active blocks. I want to see right away which currently active blocks there are.
  • If I saw it correctly, the section stays uncollapsed once I opened it, that's positive.
• The "edit" and "remove" options for blocks should probably appear as a button, similar to the "add block" and "remove all" buttons, to make it more obvious that this is not just some text in a table row, but important options to modify active blocks.

Johannnes89 (talk) 06:18, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Johannnes89, thank you for testing and for sharing feedback so quickly. The suggestions have been well noted. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Feedback from Quiddity

As an admin who is usually trying to understand the past context of an account (and less frequently doing the account-blocking directly), and as someone who generally uses a laptop with a single screen and tiled windows side-by-side, I'd suggest a few changes:

• Uncollapse the "Block log" permanently. I always want to see this often crucial background info, and the current design is identical for users with and without a block log, except for the tiny number. (Screenshot-1 and screenshot-2) -- Even if it was visually more-obvious (like a colored number, or colored bar), I still wouldn't want to have to manually uncollapse the section in order to see the details.
• Design tweaks for the Block log table (which I appreciate! It's potentially clearer than a single line) - I suggest using visual lines to separate the columns, instead of just white-space. That should make it possible to reduce the quantity of white-space, and thus resolve some of the extensive line-wrapping that is occurring for me in a tiled window, and especially in languages with longer words and strings (Screenshot-3)
• Timestamps - Use 24hour time for the Timestamps, to eliminate the need for "a.m."/"p.m." strings, and to be consistent with the times displayed everywhere else (IIRC?).
  • Perhaps remove the "UTC" string too?
  • Perhaps the "seconds" value could be a smaller font? It's normally irrelevant, and we don't show seconds anywhere else (IIRC?) so is mildly confusing, but I understand it can be relevant in rare circumstances.
  • User-prefs: These timestamps also don't currently seem to be matching my user-preferences (which are normally default/UTC, but I tried changing it to a different local time, and the Block page didn't adjust).
• Links to the userpage/talkpage - Replace these somewhere. Perhaps at the top of the page, with the new location of the "Contributions" link? They are useful for both accessing the pages in order to read or write, and it's useful to be able to see redlinks vs bluelinks for the various contexts that provides (Screenshot-4)
• Expiry - For the "Expires" column, it is useful to have the exact length of an auto-expiring block shown, because some communities/workflows/contexts use a process of incrementing block-lengths for repeat problems (1 day, 2 days, 4 days, etc), and it's easier to read "1 week" than it is to have to mentally calculate the gaps between two timestamps. Perhaps it would be feasible to put both pieces of information in the column? (Screenshot5)
• +1 to all of Johannnes89's comments.

I hope that helps! Quiddity (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@Quiddity thank you :) :) –– STei (WMF) (talk) 08:54, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Feedback about tool page

So I did as shown, and added ?usecodex=1 to the end of the URL. And there was only a single entry box, and was missing all the rest of the options, including partial blocking. Am I missing something? I suppose we could test this using one of the accounts in w:Category:Example and test user accounts. - Jc37 (talk) 00:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Jc37, hello and thank you for checking out the proposed block page. Did you type in the username into this box? Once you type in the username, more options become available. Please check out this screenshot. Here I have typed in a username.

Given that the collapsed nature of this new UI doesn't make it clear what the nexts steps are, would you like to join the user test and give this feedback formally?

The audio and video of the session will be recorded but only for synthesis and transcription purposes and will not be shared anywhere. We will delete all recordings after synthesis is completed.

Available slots are:

• Wednesday 19 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC
• Thursday 20 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC
• Friday 21 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC

If none work, we can work together and find you a better time.

Let me know if you need anything else –– STei (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

@Jc37 more dates are available if you have not sign up for one yet:

24 February 2025 9AM – 3PM UTC option

25 February 2025 9AM – 2PM UTC option

26 February 2025 9AM – 4PM UTC option

27 February 2025 9AM – 3PM UTC option

28 February 2025 8AM – 6PM UTC option –– STei (WMF) (talk) 14:16, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

STei - Thank you very much for the feedback, and the invite. I'm sorry I missed the time frame.

Is there any on-wiki discussion/collaboration going on somewhere else as well, or is it only here? - Jc37 (talk) 09:56, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Piloting

@STei (WMF) following your announcement I've started a discussion on dewiki about testing the new feature, currently with a lot of support. When do you want to deploy to pilot wikis? Johannnes89 (talk) 13:59, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @Johannnes89! STei (WMF) (talk) 12:57, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Deployment likely the end of the month of March 2025 –– STei (WMF) (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2025 (UTC)