1421401 - Implement emoji comment reactions

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Kohei Yoshino]

I'd like to see comment reactions implemented probably as an extension first. It's a handy way to show support for ideas by simply choosing an emoji (thumbs-up, heart, tada, etc.), can be seen these days on various sites including GitHub, Slack, Facebook, Skype. It would be part of the broader UX enhancements, especially for Millennials.

Comment 1

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

I'm wondering how this could be done as a web extension? Store salted hashes of user id, bug id, and reactji?

Comment 2

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

I also want to think about this from a community management standpoint. ni? some of the CM braintrust

Comment 3

[Kohei Yoshino]

I meant a Bugzilla extension, but could be part of a built-in feature.

Comment 4

[Kohei Yoshino]

Attachment: Some reaction examples

Attaching random screenshots fyi.

Comment 5

[Kohei Yoshino]

Also, forgot to say: this is supposed to replace the voting feature which is going away anyway.

Comment 6

[Caitlin Neiman [:caitmuenster]]

I have a couple of thoughts and a question: 

- It's fun to add emoji reactions to Github issues, but because I don't spend a lot of time in the Github interface, I'm never really sure how visible they are because reactions are not included in notifications or email updates. 

- As a community manager, I like using emoji reactions to acknowledge contributions and welcome new members to the community. 

- Sometimes community members report issues from the field, including negative experiences they have had with AMO. Other community members will use emoji reactions. To date, those reactions have not swayed how me or my team handle those issues. 

- In the year that I have been here, I haven't seen the add-ons team solicit feedback/responses using Bugzilla's voting feature or use popular votes to make decisions. I don't expect that to change if the voting feature is replaced by emoji reactions. 

- If emoji reactions were to be implemented in Bugzilla, I would suggest that we restrict the reaction options in a similar manner to Github. 

- If 100 Bugzilla users disagreed with an unpopular decision and added a negative emoji reaction, or if 1 user wrote a comment saying that they disagreed with a decision and expressed negative things about the employee(s) who made that decision and 100 users responded with a heart reaction, how would that impact the experience of interacting with that bug as a community member and as a staff member?

Comment 7

[Kohei Yoshino]

> I would suggest that we restrict the reaction options in a similar manner to Github. 

Agree. Having too much options like Slack will just make things complicated.

Comment 8

[Kohei Yoshino]

> If 100 Bugzilla users disagreed with an unpopular decision and added a negative emoji reaction

People may react negatively, of course, but I think it's better to have 100 thumbs-down reactions than getting a pile of abusive comments like Bug 1406647. Similarly, emoji reactions will probably reduce the number of "I also want this" comments which are usually tagged as advocacy [1].

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/BMO/comment_tagging

Comment 9

[Kohei Yoshino]

Eh, Bug 1406647 wasn't a good example of abusive comments, but you know what I mean.

Comment 10

[Kohei Yoshino]

(Sorry for random comments but) Bugzilla supports emojis sooner or later (Bug 1253535). It's not difficult to imagine that people will leave a comment just with a thumbs-up or -down emoji, but it's a bad idea because a bugmail will be sent out for each comment. Reactions won't generate notifications as Caitlin mentioned, so unnecessary bugmails can be avoided.

Slack actually tackles this notification issue. If you first leave a comment just with an emoji, the app will show a tip that recommends you to use an emoji reaction instead. It's a smart UX design.

Given that, I think comment reactions should be implemented even before emoji comments are supported on Bugzilla.

Comment 11

[Kohei Yoshino]

Comment noise reduction has been cited as the reason why GitHub introduced reactions, so I'm making this a blocker of the bmo-emoji bug. No one wants to get spammed by thousands of bugmails with just a thumbs-up emoji.

https://github.com/blog/2119-add-reactions-to-pull-requests-issues-and-comments

What others are saying:

https://slackhq.com/722-ways-to-say-i-got-your-message-e69a4d7da8e4
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/03/introducing-message-reactions-and-mentions-for-messenger/
https://blogs.skype.com/news/2017/02/16/introducing-new-ways-express-skype/

Comment 12

[Tim Nguyen :ntim]

I think it's great to have emoji reactions, because it would solve the surge of +1/I want this too comments, which kind of pollute the bug itself.

> - If 100 Bugzilla users disagreed with an unpopular decision and added a negative emoji reaction, or if 1 user wrote a comment saying that they disagreed with a decision and expressed negative things about the employee(s) who made that decision and 100 users responded with a heart reaction, how would that impact the experience of interacting with that bug as a community member and as a staff member?

I haven't seen attacks targeted directly to a certain person on Bugzilla, attacks I usually see are attacks targeted to Mozilla generally, but I generally agree on limiting the number of reactions.

Comment 13

[Worcester12345]

Now following, since this bug was abandoned:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=658926

Comment 14

[Kohei Yoshino]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #10)
> Slack actually tackles this notification issue. If you first leave a comment
> just with an emoji, the app will show a tip that recommends you to use an
> emoji reaction instead. It's a smart UX design.

And now GitHub does the same thing: https://blog.github.com/changelog/2018-12-07-suggest-leaving-a-reaction/

They also have some stats and insights: https://blog.github.com/2018-12-07-octoverse-emoji-on-github/

Comment 15

[Kestrel]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] (Bugzilla UX) (FxSiteCompat) from comment #5)

Also, forgot to say: this is supposed to replace the voting feature which is
going away anyway.

Bug votes seem quite different to comment reactions, is it possible to react to the bug itself rather than a comment?

Will existing votes be migrated into emoji reactions?

Bug search results allow a "Votes" column to be added so you can quickly see notable bugs that users care about and rank them, will this be possible with emoji reactions?

Votes can be used to silently subscribe to a bug and receive notifications, will there be some migration to ensure voted bugs still receive notifications?

Votes can be used as a favorites list or wish list, are you going to notify users about the data loss?

Will there be a way to silently subscribe to a bug and see a list of your subscriptions without adding email to CC list (which by default notifies all subscribers)?

Comment 16

[Kohei Yoshino]

(In reply to Kestrel from comment #15)

Bug votes seem quite different to comment reactions, is it possible to react to the bug itself rather than a comment?

No, but reactions to the first comment will be considered as the same meaning as votes to the bug, just like GitHub issues.

Will existing votes be migrated into emoji reactions?

Yes, my plan is to migrate existing votes to 👍 reactions on the first comment.

Bug search results allow a "Votes" column to be added so you can quickly see notable bugs that users care about and rank them, will this be possible with emoji reactions?

Probably yes. GitHub also allows to sort issues by reactions.

Votes can be used to silently subscribe to a bug and receive notifications, will there be some migration to ensure voted bugs still receive notifications?

I know some people are (ab)using votes as CC. Maybe we should migrate them to the regular CC list of the bug.

Votes can be used as a favorites list or wish list, are you going to notify users about the data loss?

Do we have any existing UI for that?

Will there be a way to silently subscribe to a bug and see a list of your subscriptions without adding email to CC list (which by default notifies all subscribers)?

I don’t think that option will be provided, because we’d like to reduce the complexity.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] (Bugzilla UX) (FxSiteCompat) from comment #14)

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] from comment #10)

Slack actually tackles this notification issue. If you first leave a comment
just with an emoji, the app will show a tip that recommends you to use an
emoji reaction instead. It's a smart UX design.

After the fact? or does it proactively suggest they alter the attempt before it posts?

(I just tested in a slack 3.3.8 instance and it didn't provide a tip. Perhaps it's an option?)

And now GitHub does the same thing:
https://blog.github.com/changelog/2018-12-07-suggest-leaving-a-reaction/

They also have some stats and insights:
https://blog.github.com/2018-12-07-octoverse-emoji-on-github/

+1 :)
Ability to quantify emoji is a requirement

Comment 18

[Kohei Yoshino]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #17)

After the fact? or does it proactively suggest they alter the attempt before it posts?

(I just tested in a slack 3.3.8 instance and it didn't provide a tip. Perhaps it's an option?)

I thought it was a proactive suggestion displayed only once.

Comment 19

[Mark Clements]

I agree with Kestrel's point about emoji reactions and votes being somewhat separate and orthogonal - I'm not sure the former really replaces the latter.

It sounds like the proposal for replacement is that there should be some kind of unenforced convention, whereby: "Thumbs up emojis (and only thumbs up emojis) on the bug description (and only on the bug description) will be treated as votes of support for the bug (rather than as a positive reaction to the comment)"

That seems a bit confusing, ambiguous and easily broken.

It might be possible if you block emoji reactions on the description, add a 'vote for this bug' option and, behind the scenes, this adds a thumbs-up emoji reaction, but that seems somewhat over-engineered.

Sounds like emjoi reactions is a feature to be added.

Separately to that 'remove voting' is a different bug, to be discussed once the emoji feature is live and people have a chance to evaluate it. It may develop organically that the reactions render the voting feature redundant, but I would be wary of trying to force this as an alternative to voting, when it clearly isn't (despite initial appearances).

Comment 20

[Kohei Yoshino]

Emoji reactions is a modern and simple way to vote. Many engineers have already evaluated/enjoyed reactions on GitHub, and many non-engineers are also familiar with similar reactions on Facebook, Slack, Skype and whatever, hence the proposal.

The current voting feature doesn’t allow you to downvote (👎) but you will be able to do it with emoji reactions.

Removing and migrating voting depend on this bug, and it probably won’t happen before Bugzilla 6.0.

Comment 21

[Mark Clements]

I guess my point is that this is about community culture and therefore needs community buy-in. It will not go down well if votes are replaced by emoji reactions unless you take the community with you in that decision.

Introducing the change after emoji reactions have gone live would probably help, then it is not presented as an either/or choice, but simply about whether to use this new feature, that people have had a chance to play with, as an alternative mechanism for managing votes.

For down-stream users, the current voting mechanism should remain as an option (probably as a plugin) as there are situations, e.g. in corporate environments, where using emojis for this may not be appropriate. I would also like to see the option to disable emoji reactions via the site config.

Comment 22

[Adam Katz]

(In reply to Kohei Yoshino [:kohei] (Bugzilla UX) (FxSiteCompat) from comment #16)

(In reply to Kestrel from comment #15)

Votes can be used as a favorites list or wish list, are you going to notify users about the data loss?

Do we have any existing UI for that?

Yes: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting/user.html
I definitely use that page to track my favorite bugs/requests.

I also use that page to prune my votes for items that were resolved (and I keep my votes for items that I disagree with how they were closed as well). I'm not sure how that sort of pruning would work with emojis, but in the absence of a formal system, I'd probably manually change the type of emoji, perhaps using 👍 for wish list items I'm tracking and 🙂 for items that have already been implemented ... assuming I could sort by emoji.

Comment 23

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

I'd like us to get away from voting because it implies that design decisions are up for popular vote.

Votes end up having no bearing on actual bug validity, importance, or severity. — Luis Villa

There's no immediate reason to my knowledge to delete the field once emoji reactions are implemented, and the data could be accessed at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting/user.html. That could change if there's a vulnerability found in the associated code.

The broader question is how many active users use the voting system. Is it critical functionality for a bug tracker to have? Can we re-label vote as 'bookmark', don't expose the field and change voting/user.html to bookmarks/user.html?

Comment 24

[Worcester12345]

(In reply to Emma Humphries, Bugmaster ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/her) [:emceeaich] (UTC-8) needinfo? me from comment #23)

I'd like us to get away from voting because it implies that design decisions are up for popular vote.

Wasn't that the original intent, being "open source" and all? Well, at least you are honest and admitting to it.

Comment 25

[Sebastian Zartner [:sebo]]

Bug 69754 was closed in favor of this one, though it looks like there's still discussion around whether emojis should really replace the existing voting system.

David, can you clarify whether it's still planned to replace the voting system?

Sebastian

PS: I remove the needinfos from the others, as several years passed by without answers by them.

Comment 26

[Sebastian Zartner [:sebo]]

@dkl Your answer to the question whether the voting system is going to be replaced by comment reactions is still pending. Could you please provide some info?

Sebastian

Comment 27

[Sebastian Zartner [:sebo]]

David, could you please provide an answer or at least redirect the question to someone that can answer it? Thank you!

Sebastian

Comment 28

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

Just pinging to get a reaction on the the previous (two) comment(s) above.

Comment 29

[:glob ✱]

There are no current plans to remove voting from Bugzilla.

Comment 30

[Albert Scheiner [:alberts]]

I understood that this ticket is about replacing the separate votes page (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting/user.html) with in-comment reactions/emojis, not removing it, e.g. a :thumbs-up: on comment #0 as one-to-one replacement for currently ticked tickets on that page.

Comment 31

[Mark Clements]

(In reply to Albert Scheiner [:alberts] from comment #30)

I understood that this ticket is about replacing the separate votes page (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=voting/user.html) with in-comment reactions/emojis, not removing it, e.g. a :thumbs-up: on comment #0 as one-to-one replacement for currently ticked tickets on that page.

This ticket appears to be about implementing emoji reactions, which are probably a good thing and may not be particularly contentious.

However, in comment #5, Kohei Yoshino wrote:

Also, forgot to say: this is supposed to replace the voting feature which is going away anyway.

This has muddied the waters a bit.

What should happen is that a separate "Remove voting feature (migrate to emojis)" bug should be created to handle that issue, and this ticket should be explicitly focussed on the new emoji feature (with no removal of voting, either expressed or implied). There are various concerns (both conceptual and technical) about using emojis to represent votes, which are discussed above (from comment 15 onwards) so it would be preferable to separate the two issues, implement emoji reactions and then take some time to bed that in before making any decisions about what to do with the voting mechanisms.

Comment 32

[BMO Github Automation]

Attachment: [mozilla-bteam/bmo] Bug 1421401 - Implement emoji comment reactions (#2293)

Comment 33

[Mr. Beedell, Roke Julian Lockhart]

I solely want this so that I can use the thumb up and thumb down emojis. A downvote option alongside the current upvote option instead of general emoji reactions would also fit my use case.

Comment 34

[BMO Github Automation]

Attachment: [mozilla-bteam/bmo] Bug 1421401 - Implement emoji comment reactions (schema only) (#2303)

Comment 35

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

Merged
https://github.com/mozilla-bteam/bmo/commit/0ed206867bd8f5650182b1b7a974bea3081e759d

Comment 36

[Kohei Yoshino]

So the fixes for all those follow-up issues have been deployed today. Thanks y’all for your valuable feedback! I’m so glad the emoji stuff is finally live on BMO 🥰