User:SGrabarczuk (WMF)/sandbox


 * To be copied over the page Requests for comment/Deployment of Vector (2022)

Hello everyone – this is an RfC written by the Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation, with help from a number of community members, after several weeks of preparation and discussion at the Village Pump.

TLDR

What blocks the deployment of the new Vector (2022) skin (preview) from becoming the default for desktop users on English Wikipedia?

The skin would be turned on for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy (2010) (the current default for desktop). Logged-in users can switch to any other available skins, including the current version of Vector legacy (2010), Timeless, and Monobook. No changes are expected for users of these skins.

If the commenting community members think there are still significant blockers and that the skin is not ready for deployment at the current time, the Web team requests specific comments on when/what needs to be completed before a subsequent RfC is begun. These comments will be used as the basis of subsequent RfC’s on this topic.

Why are we having this RfC?
The new Vector (2022) skin is focused on making the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users on desktop. The skin has been in development for the past 3 years, and thoroughly tested in collaboration with different audiences and communities on English Wikipedia and other wikis. For more details, see the project page on MediaWiki.org.

Since early July 2022, the English Wikipedia community has been discussing the changes the Vector (2022) skin will need prior to becoming the new default. The community decided on the changes necessary before deployment, which we will address before deploying. Within this conversation, the community also recommended that the next step would be this RfC, which requests feedback on whether the default skin for the desktop users may be switched at this time.

The WMF Web team would like to thank the many community members who have participated in this process and given their feedback and guidance, both within this current conversation, as well as during the three years of development of the skin. To name just about a dozen: Barkeep49, Certes, Enterprisey, Ganesha811, Izno, L235, Pelagic, Sdkb, Terasail, TheDJ, and xaosflux. Thank you!

What are the possible outcomes of this RfC?
If the community determines that the skin…


 * The Vector (2022) skin can be deployed once the tasks below are addressed: After this RfC, the implementation of the change will be contingent on the completion of the tasks listed in the section “Tasks which will be completed before the deployment”, identified through the previous conversation on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).  Once these tasks are completed, the team will set a deployment date, inform the community and the readers, and continue with the deployment process.  Any issues raised after the RfC closing will be triaged and addressed after deployment. Once again, the Web team would like to confirm that all logged-in users can opt-out of this skin at any time.


 * The Vector (2022) skin cannot be deployed until additional work is completed: The Wikimedia Foundation intends to deploy the new skin as the default to English Wikipedia in the future. We (WMF) believe this change will be crucial to making the contents of the project more readable, the projects' interfaces more welcoming to less-technical contributors, and thus, to the overall growth of our new readers and editors.  However, we will not continue with this change without the explicit approval of the English Wikipedia community.  Thus, we would like to request that those who do not find the skin ready at this time include a comment stating what factors are preventing their approval.  We will review these comments, propose further potential changes based on this feedback, and begin a subsequent RfC for discussion.

About
The current skin, Vector legacy, has been in use since 2010. When it was developed, it reflected the needs of the readers and editors of the Wikimedia sites in that year. (See the Wikimedia Usability Initiative wiki for more information.)  Since then, vast new audiences have begun using the Internet and Wikimedia projects. We are not currently meeting their needs. The Vector (2022) skin aims to change the interface in ways which include the needs of all of the current audiences - both those who have been using the projects for a long time, as well as those who have joined more recently, or have yet to join. We encourage you to read our recent blog post on equitable product development to gain more insight into the way we identified the needs and included the voices of our large set of audiences into the product development process.

The skin is focused on making the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It builds upon the existing Vector legacy skin to introduce a series of feature changes that aim to improve problems new and existing readers and editors were having with the old skin. It also draws inspiration from previous user requests, the Community Wishlist Survey results, and existing gadgets and scripts across different projects.

The principles for the design were to make it easier to focus on the content of the page, to make commonly used tools and actions easier to find, use, and understand, and to improve the logic of the navigational hierarchy by bringing similar tools closer together. As a part of the project, the Web team has committed to not making any changes to the content itself and not removing any functionality.

The results of our A/B testing and qualitative testing show that these changes make it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, use page and user tools, and more, without negative effects to pageviews, account creation, or edit rates. The team has been working on the new skin for the past 3 years, ensuring that every change is thoroughly tested and proven to work.

Tasks which will be completed before the deployment

 * 1) [DONE] Table of Contents collapsing and narrow screens behavior - This work is now completed. The table of contents is collapsible, and can be accessed from both the title of the page as well as from the sticky header.
 * Comment from the Web team: Please let us know if you have any concerns around the implementation here or additional requests around the ToC.
 * 1) [To be completed by September 15] Visual refinements - The team is currently wrapping up the core parts of the visual refinements work. Please see the Qualitative Testing section on the project page dedicated to this part of the project for a full list of the changes Web plans on making.
 * Comment from the Web team: We appreciate your feedback on any and all of these.
 * 1) [In Progress] Coordinates - Web is continuing to explore different solutions for coordinate alignment, including potentially adding coordinates directly into the styles of the skin in the future.
 * Comment from the Web team: Do you have any thoughts on this idea? Any immediate concerns? Let us know within the Phabricator ticket

Discussion
The Vector (2022) skin can be deployed



The Vector (2022) skin cannot be deployed until additional work, not mentioned in the section "Tasks which will be completed before the deployment", is completed.

Note: please do not state that the skin is not ready for deployment without adding context on what additional work is necessary