Template recall and discovery (Community Wishlist/FA4) - Meta-Wiki
Jump to content
In progress
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
Community Wishlist
Translate this page
Other languages:
norsk bokmål
polski
português
português do Brasil
русский
עברית
العربية
中文
한국어
View all focus areas.
Description
Via the template dialog, it is hard for contributors find and insert templates.
We've bucketed this work into "template discovery", helping newcomers learn how to use templates and find a template, and "template recall," helping experienced editors find and insert templates they've successfully used.
At this stage, we are focused on template recall first, and template discovery second.
Since 2013,
experienced volunteers have asked for a more intuitive template selector
, exposing popular or most-used templates on the templates dialog.
This ties into
our PES 1.3.2 OKR
: By building an improved template discovery, we will have addressed 3+ wishes that constitute a “Focus area,” and will have a Proof of Concept to share with the Foundation for annual planning.
Today’s User experience:
When an editor clicks on “templates” from either Wikitext or Visual Editor, the template selector is empty. This design is not very helpful for newcomers who seek to add a template, or for experienced editors who must type in a template name.
One volunteer said:
As a beginner, one may spend half an hour finding the appropriate template – and if it doesn’t have an easy-to-remember name (what is easy-to-remember is subjective, so it may not be possible to find a name that’s easy to remember for everyone), one needs to spend this half hour the second, third and fifteenth time as well. [favoriting templates] doesn't solve the problem of the first half-hour search, but it does solve the ones of the subsequent ones
Scope and investigations
edit
Because we want to ship iteratively, we are limiting the scope of this focus area. For example, we will not consider global templates and instead opt for incremental improvements to the template selection experience.
There are over 600k templates on English Wikipedia, and many wikis have over 30k templates. Helping someone find the right template is a challenge.
We think the following recall or discovery tactics might be useful and actionable, and are under consideration:
Suggest templates that are most popular/transcluded in your wiki (ideally namespace)
Show templates you’ve recently used
Allow users to “favorite” or bookmark templates
Highlight templates with descriptions and good documentation
Improve search
We think the following methods of template recall or discovery could be fraught with challenges and are less actionable in the early stages.
Filter templates by categories. There are over 33k template categories on EN wiki, and 120+ categories of “Element isotopes.” Even for the experienced editor, it’s cumbersome to search.
Popular templates across wikis. Not every wiki has the same instantiation of “Infobox,” or “Sfn.” It will be hard to scale.
Allow editors of a local wiki to recommend templates. While this aligns to wiki principles, given the breadth of templates and template categories, it would be cumbersome to build a "template recommendation configuration" experience that scales to all wikis. At this stage, we are seeking lower-effort initiatives.
Community engagement
edit
Since this focus area was created off the 2023 wishlist and was identified before our 2024 rollout, the wishes have already been voted for, and so we are aware the issues raised are important to the community. You can vote for the focus area and also leave feedback to help give an indication if we are moving in the right direction.
We are currently in the design phase of this work, and will share updates on this page. Feedback is certainly requested and welcomed!
Design explorations
edit
Following screen mockups show how templates can be favourited and retrieved as per user's requirement. These are initial explorations and we would welcome any feedback.
1. Favourite templates
2. Favouriting a template from search result
3. Recently searched templates
4. Recently used templates and the articles where they have been used
Design update 19 March 2025
edit
Further to our last design update, the team has now narrowed down the scope of the initial features of template recall and discovery. Templates can be added to the favorite list directly from the search result or from the insert dialog box. When a template is removed from the favorites list, an undo action will be available from the confirmation message in case it was an accidental removal. Furthermore, Add to favorite action will be available from the parameter.
Following are some screen mockups with the latest updates in design:
1. Empty favorites list
2. Search and favorite templates
3. List of favorite templates
4. Remove template from the favorite list
5. Add to favorite from template information window
Note that UI copy/localization is not final and there maybe more changes before release.
As always, any feedback is welcome.
Design update 17 June 2025
edit
There have been early design explorations around a category-based search for templates. Currently, the search is limited and can search for keywords 5 subcategories deep. By specifying and selecting a relevant category, the search will be able to surface more results.
Please feel free to share your feedback about the designs through a
4-question MediaWiki survey
Following are some screen mockups with the latest design explorations:
1. Opening the list of categories
2. Opening a subcategory
3. Subcategory selected
4. List of templates within selected subcategory
Other details
Created: 21:02, 4 September 2024
Wishes in this focus area
Below is a list of wishes that have informed this focus area. More wishes may be added to this table over time. Voting for the focus area is not a guarantee that each wish will be explicitly delivered; rather, the wishes are suggestive of the problem at large. Once a focus area is adopted, the respective team will work alongside communities to prioritize and deliver on the most impactful solutions.
Teams and affiliates
Owners
Community Tech
Community members
Elilopes
TheDJ
Steven Sun
Omar.idma
Adam Cuerden
Voting
This focus area currently has
41 supporters
. Voting for this focus area is open until it is completed.
Supporters of this area
Support
Templates are one of the most challenging areas for our editors to access and edit. Support all improvements here, and even as an advanced editor I frequently have to search documentation, or even the name of a template
Shushugah
talk
) 12:16, 10 September 2024
Support
Elilopes
talk
) 16:08, 10 September 2024
Support
Femke
talk
) 18:31, 11 September 2024
Support
HouseBlaster
talk
) 21:31, 13 September 2024
Support
Renamed user 5cb535d47ac833448f09633576bf74ba
talk
) 09:53, 14 September 2024
Support
I think allowing communities to de
fine a list of most useful templates would be better than automatically generating a list of most-used templates.
Escargot bleu
talk
) 10:46, 14 September 2024
Support
Sjoerddebruin
talk
) 16:21, 14 September 2024
Support
Mir Novov
talk
) 07:51, 15 September 2024
Support
Plutus
talk
) 09:41, 15 September 2024
Support
Rexogamer
talk
) 13:16, 15 September 2024
Support
from
Tech/News/2024/38
ToBeFree
talk
) 00:08, 17 September 2024
Support
Nux
talk
) 00:16, 17 September 2024
Support
Goombiis
talk
) 09:49, 17 September 2024
Support
Nclm
talk
) 09:49, 17 September 2024
Support
أيوب
talk
) 18:43, 17 September 2024
Support
DonBarredora
talk
) 16:48, 20 September 2024
Support
2NumForIce
talk
) 07:26, 21 September 2024
Support
Fabius Lector
talk
) 09:38, 24 September 2024
Support
FifthFive
talk
) 13:00, 24 September 2024
Support
Swatjester
talk
) 00:57, 26 September 2024
Support
Hakimi97
talk
) 12:22, 26 September 2024
Support
Samoasambia
talk
) 12:20, 1 October 2024
Support
This is an excellent idea!
PhotographerTom
talk
) 15:46, 9 October 2024
Support
Chinmayee Mishra
talk
) 15:12, 31 October 2024
Support
Andikan Efiok Eduok
talk
) 15:16, 31 October 2024
Support
This is a massive problem on Wiktionary, which is a very template-heavy project. What's worse, Wiktionary doesn't use VisualEditor and is still reliant on the 2010 wikitext editor as the default for newcomers. The learning curve is ... not gentle.
This, that and the other
talk
) 11:35, 9 January 2025
Support
James3141592
talk
) 19:21, 27 January 2025
Support
Rots61
talk
) 23:42, 30 January 2025
Support
Have edited long enough to know the templates I need, mostly, but it would be nice to be able to access "citation needed" (which is probably the most commonly used template) more quickly
Mrfoogles
talk
) 20:02, 7 February 2025
Support
Paloi Sciurala
talk
) 01:57, 3 March 2025
Support
PexEric
talk
) 08:51, 21 March 2025
Support
While not an actual "pain point," it would certainly be a quality of life enhancement to reduce the amount of time I spend scratching my head and thinking, "Gee, I know there's a template exactly for this, now if only I could remember its name…"
RogueScholar
talk
) 21:50, 7 May 2025
Support
Mohammed Qays
talk
) 22:48, 14 May 2025
Support
I think that this is going to be really useful
Abo Yemen
talk
) 14:17, 25 May 2025
Support
Runolist
talk
) 13:23, 26 June 2025
Support
Tiloudeux
talk
) 14:27, 26 June 2025
Support
RiadS99
talk
) 17:57, 2 July 2025
Support
Support
De-Invincible
talk
) 06:19, 15 July 2025
Support
Rasputin 93
talk
) 23:06, 23 July 2025
Support
If the display includes popularity stats, please ensure there is an option to turn them off
GhostInTheMachine
talk
) 07:02, 29 July 2025
Support
Red Sneak
talk
) 14:03, 18 February 2026
Retrieved from "
Category
Community Wishlist/Focus areas
Template recall and discovery
(Community Wishlist/FA4)
Add topic