Wikipedia:Mobile communication bugs

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It is neither an encyclopedia article nor one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels of consensus and vetting.

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This page in a nutshell: Logged-out editors using the mobile web interface may not receive notifications when another user leaves them a user talk page message. Editors using a mobile app may not receive notifications regardless of whether they are logged in.

More information EditorFeature, Desktop ...

Editor Feature	Desktop		Mobile web		iOS app		Android app
Editor Feature	IP^[a]	User	IP^[a]	User	IP^[a]	User	IP^[a]	User
Tag	N/a		Mobile web edit		iOS app edit		Android app edit
Talk page messages^[b]^[1]	Peach bar of doom.	Miniature orange bar of doom^[c]	Flaky^[2]^[d]	Looks like other alerts^[3]	No^[4]	Sometimes, since June 2022^[5]^[e]	Kinda, but subject to certain weird limitations^[f]^[6]	Looks like other alerts
Other alerts^[b]	N/a	Yes^[g]	N/a	Yes	N/a	Sometimes, since June 2022^[5]^[e]	N/a	Yes^[8]
Custom block messages	Yes		Yes^[9]		Yes, since March 2023^[10]		Flaky^[11]	Yes^[12]
Partial block shown as partial	Yes		Yes		Yes		Yes^[12]
Editnotices^[h]	Yes^[i]		Yes^[13]		Yes^[14]		Yes^[15]
Talk page banners	Yes		Hidden behind tiny button^[16]		Prominently shown, but some messages are mangled		Shown as a regular section^[j]
Custom edit filter messages	Yes		Yes		Yes, since March 2023		Mostly^[k]^[17]
CentralNotices^[l]	Yes		Yes		No		No

[a]
With the introduction of temporary accounts, logged out users are able to receive notifications as if they were logged in users.
[b]
Users with a confirmed email address will get an email by default, but this can be turned off in their preferences.
[c]
Shown in Vector (default), MonoBook, and Modern skins. Looks like other alerts in Timeless and MinerveNeue skins.
[d]
Alert should appear on non-mainspace pages, and any time the user taps "edit". However a caching bug often prevents the alert from showing.
[e]
By default, push notifications are off. Unless turned on, the only indication of a new message is a tiny red dot on the homepage. It will not be seen while browsing or editing articles. On some non-mainspace pages, the Vector-2022 interface is shown, and that includes the standard alerts.
[f]
Requires the IP to save another page before showing it, and looks like a normal alert
[g]
(fixed January 2023) On Minerva skin (on desktop), notifications that are not alerts were not shown when opening the notification area. This means notifications like "thanks", "(pagename) has been reviewed" and "(user) replied in (topic)" were not shown. Mentions and talk page message notifications are alerts, so those were not affected.^[7]
[h]
See also meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Mobile and apps/Mobile editnotices and phab:T201613. The WMF intends to pick this up. For individual wikis, a workaround for mobile web exists.
[i]
When using DiscussionTools, the notices are only shown for new sections. Before 8 July 2022, on the desktop Minerva skin, the notices were not shown since 18 July 2017.
[j]
They are shown as a regular section without subject, and also don't necessarily show up in a fixed location in the section list
[k]
Links in the message open in the browser, and go the language wiki of the users primary language (ie the first language they've set)
This means that as an example that an user whose languages are set as Dutch, English will always have links go to the Dutch Wikipedia, even when the message is displayed on the English Wikipedia
[l]
CentralNotice banners can be configured to display only on some device classes as needed.

Phabricator tickets

[1]
Unregistered users with IPv6 addresses cannot be reached via their user talk page as there are no dedicated user talk pages for /64 ranges (T112325)
[2]
phab:T295910: Yellow talk page message banner appearing inconsistently on edit page
[3]
phab:T240976: Mobile "new messages" notification should be more intrusive by default
[4]
phab:T312196: IP editor talk page notification
[5]
phab:T274404: Support notifications on the iOS app
[6]
phab:T291481: Determine approach for notifications for IP Editors on Android
[7]
phab:T306737 On Minerva desktop, notification icon only opens alerts (never notifications)
[8]
phab:T281413: Show notifications about Talk messages while browsing articles.
[9]
phab:T261944: Show full reason in mobile block message drawer
[10]
phab:T275118: iOS app does not show block messages
[11]
phab:T276149: Android application sometimes falsely claims that a user account is blocked
[12]
phab:T276147: Android application does not show block messages
[13]
Via T316178 and JavaScript gadget. See also mw:Edit Check project
[14]
phab:T201596: iOS app does not display certain edit notices
[15]
phab:T201597: Android app does not display certain edit notices
[16]
phab:T312309: Unify experience for making lead section content available on mobile talk pages
[17]
phab:T276139: Android application does not display custom AbuseFilter messages

Wikipedia:Mobile communication bugs

Notes

Phabricator tickets

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