I wonder what extensions are recommended atm if you need comments or a forum.
On Structured Discussions I read that the project ended in November 2023 and everyone is advised to archive their discussion (what the?). Is there a follow-up? On the other hand this very support desk uses exactly this?
What should I use if I start a wiki nowaydays and want future-proof comments under article pages instead of talk pages?
Structured discussion is dead, I wouldn't use it. I'd argue it is impossible to maintain for 3rd parties, with a lot of exceptions and interventions that differ from how we do things in MW.
Everything Wikimedia will eventually switch to using DiscussionTools.
I have a much better feeling about discussion tools than flow. Its already been fairly well recieved by the community, where flow was controversial right out of the gate. I think it has staying power (just my 2 cents, i dont have access to a crystal ball any more than anybody else)
@Subfader: Out of general curiosity, exactly what is the problem with Comments? As the maintainer and primary developer of it since 2011, I'd be curious to know. :) Its User Interface is pretty stable and definitely not using the latest fancy design things, but it gets the job done. (I'll admit, though, that OOUI did end up lasting for several years longer than it did, but that, too, is being phased out and I'm sure that the successor will also be sunset in favor of a newer, shinier gadget, give it some time. Not using these sort of frameworks comes with the unexpected benefit of your code working regardless, if you can tolerate a somewhat "dated" looking UI.)
For the record: the initial version was written circa 2006 (!) and as it (like other social tools originating from ArmchairGM which enable new content types, like Extension:FanBoxes, Extension:LinkFilter, Extension:Video, ...) predates MediaWiki's ContentHandler system by many years, it does things in a way which isn't ideal, yet it's surprisingly functional and shockingly robust (in my biased opinion), because even major core changes aren't likely to disrupt this little extension which does things in its own way.
Some people argue that "no recent code commits" (or something similar) equals to a dead project. I largely disagree; while it may mean that the end-user should exercise a bit of caution and carefully test things etc., not all MediaWiki developers are huge fans of "move fast and break stuff", which, alas, seems to be all too common these days. Sure, it bumps up a repository's commit count a lot, but what for, and at what cost?
Now, as for Comments' actual architectural shortcomings...while the comments are associated with a(n existing wiki) page, they are indeed in other ways separate, they are not regular wiki page content or anything. So implementing a history interface (phab:T156736) or the ability to undelete previously deleted comments (phab:T127595) is very tricky, to say the least, and I for one would be very surprised (but in a positive way!) to see those implemented before Comments turns 20 years old in 2026.
Sorry, not old as outdated code but interface-wise. From the screenshots it looks like forum discussions from early 2000s.
Do you know of sites that use it which you could link or mail me?
In over 15 years I went from ArticleComments to some forum extension I forget and then Flow. Each time I was forced to throw away all old comments and posts. Not funny when you try to run a community. This timed I prefer some more LTS.
