Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 214

Dark mode for logged-in users on desktop coming this week!
Hey, this is a continuation of the topic "Dark mode for logged-out users coming soon", specifically about desktop (the Vector 2022 skin).

In that previous message, we announced that dark mode on desktop would be rolled out in one step, for both logged-in and logged-out users, in the week of July 15 (that is, next week). However, we'd be more comfortable to enable it for logged-in users first. Articles here on English Wikipedia look very good in dark mode, and again, thanks to everyone who is contributing to it!

We are going to enable dark mode on desktop just for logged-in users this week. If everything goes well (it has been going very well so far!) we will enable it on desktop for logged-out users next week as we previously announced. It's gonna be exciting :D Thanks! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "We are going to"? I thought it was enabled for logged-in users already? Nardog (talk) 06:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It was only Logged in users with the beta option enabled before. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 07:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh. Does it mean "Accessibility for Reading" will no longer be a beta feature, or just the dark mode? Nardog (talk) 07:38, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, exactly. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:05, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, what? That was not a polar question. Nardog (talk) 11:10, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry, I wanted to give a quick answer and misread :D Dark mode will no longer be a beta feature. Font size control will continue to be a beta feature. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Correction: The font size control is already available by default. The beta feature will disappear from the list because after this rollout, all options will be available for everyone. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * What happens to people (like me) who don't use Vector? Will dark mode still be available in MonoBook? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigel Ish (talk • contribs) 19:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Dark mode is supported only in Minerva and Vector 2022. Izno (talk) 21:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * So the existing dark mode (that does work in MonoBook) will stop working. Wonderful.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * If by "existing dark mode that does work in Monobook" you mean the gadget? No, that will continue to function. Izno (talk) 21:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Eww, this one caught me by surprise... The contrast doesn't seem quite right at the moment. I don't think "dark mode" should be black, it should be off black for the best ease on the eyes. Hopefully the WMF will get these things right in due course. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It's flicking black/white off-and-on for me. Page loads in dark & then seconds later turns white. The next page loads in white & seconds later flicks to black. Plus the diffs aren't visible in black. Instant migraine for me. Safari 16.6. Victoria (tk) 21:49, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Same. On my end, it was enabled by default and I had to go into preferences to enable the toggle just to turn it off in the interface.  Now it flickers every time the page loads. Viriditas (talk) 22:10, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I turned off the toggle in preferences, emptied my cached, restarted the machine. Still happening. Now the white pages render with the dark colors before turning completely black after about 5 seconds. I took screen shots. It seems to take 3 to 5 seconds to flick from white to black & then back again. Victoria (tk) 22:37, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, one wonders if this is causing seizures. "For 3% of people with epilepsy, exposure to flashing lights at certain intensities or to certain visual patterns can trigger seizures." Viriditas (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This is true which is exactly why I'm unable to upload the screenshots. This is very very bad. Victoria (tk) 22:53, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Makes me wonder why nobody else is reporting it or is the least bit concerned. I've got a brand new computer as well. Viriditas (talk) 22:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I switched to Vector legacy in preferences as a workaround. Viriditas (talk) 23:00, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hey there! I've added this to our FAQ. If you are seeing a flick from white to black, you have enabled the gadget AND have attempted to try out the new feature (possibly via preferences when it was in beta or via the new preference that now appears in the preferences page).
 * The number of people using the gadget is quite low compared to the number of viewers so I am not concerned that this is impacting a large amount of people. Jon (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, please re-read my message. I disabled the gadget, doublechecked that it's gone, emptied my cache, restarted my machine. It's still happening. I will have to log out to override this. If you would like to see screen shots taken with the gadget disabled I'm happy to send them on, but you'll have to contact me. Victoria (tk) 23:21, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That's what I initially thought, but the gadgets were all unchecked when it went live. Now, I get dark mode by default unless I check the preferences. I'm in Vector legacy to avoid all of it, because I can't fix it. Viriditas (talk) 23:05, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Note, the dark-mode-toggle-pagestyles gadget is hidden on user preferences so it is possible you still have that enabled (it doesn't show up in preferences)
 * A few questions which will help us get to the bottom of this:
 * In legacy Vector are you seeing the dark mode gadget toggle in the top right?
 * If you enable Vector 2022, do you see the message "You're using a dark mode gadget". If yes, what happens when you click it and the page reloads?
 * Jon (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In legacy Vector are you seeing the dark mode gadget toggle in the top right?
 * No.
 * If you enable Vector 2022, do you see the message "You're using a dark mode gadget".
 * No, unless I'm missing it. How do I fix dark-mode-toggle-pagestyles, if that is the problem? Viriditas (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Okay, I found it. There are two toggles for dark mode in preferences >> gadgets. One under "appearance" and then another one all the way under "utility". Both have to be turned off. Mine was still turned on under utility. The flickering only stops when they are both turned off. To find the control for dark/light mode now, one has to go to preferences >> appearance >> color. Color?? Seriously? In the meantime,, I sent an email with screenshots, but it's now irrelevant. Victoria (tk) 23:54, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's in "gadgets", and doesn't work for me. I have both off, and I'm still in dark mode.  If I switch them on, and then turn off dark mode, I get the flickering.  If I switch them off, I'm in permanent dark mode. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, Victoria is right, that worked. I had to change appearance > color to "light".  Problem solved. Viriditas (talk) 00:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm really not a fan of this new default setting. Has this even been tested by a broad group of people including casual users (not just people heavily involved in Wikipedia?
 * The "dark mode" is ironically way too bright because this is a text-heavy site. So, what you get now is a mass of white text, not a dark page. It almost seems *more* white. The drastic differences between the colors make it difficult to skim. (I don't mind it so much when I'm reading closely, but skimming is important, too.)
 * Also - this is a little pet peeve, but important for research. The color of already-clicked links doesn't change in info boxes (sorry I don't know the exact term but in a bio page, it would be the box on the top right with basic info like DOB, city, parents, etc.). This isn't a browser issue because it works in Vector legacy. Jim0101 (talk) 04:17, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Jim0101 "new default setting" The default will remain light mode, the only thing changing is that you get an OPTION to set dark mode... —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * K well it switched to dark mode without me choosing that option. So that's naturally why I assumed it was the default setting when it did in fact default to that for me. Jim0101 (talk) 12:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hey @Jim0101 - apologies for this! We had switched some users whose devices were requesting dark mode automatically to follow the device preference (this is what the "automatic" toggle in the menu does). After hearing the reports here, we've not switched this back.  Currently, the only way to see dark mode would be to explicitly opt-in. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:18, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I am using a script which highlights different type of pages in different colors (sorry do not remember the name), this gives me as default blue on black, and this is not readable. I generally like the dark background, but here I had to switch back (using the appearance tab in the preferences). I can not switch off the script because I work a lot with category deletion, and categories need to be tagged.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * User:Anomie/linkclassifier? Nardog (talk) 06:25, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think so. Ymblanter (talk) 06:31, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, re contrast and readability I concur. I used it for a bit last night and my eyes were hurting by the end with some of the text impossible to read. Per Ymblanter above, I think this needs to go out to a proper group of test readers and full feedback taken on board before we roll it out as a default. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 08:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The linkclassifier script's colors are easy to customize if you know CSS. The default User:Anomie/linkclassifier.css isn't even required to be used. If someone wants to suggest a full set of colors for dark mode, that could be useful to incorporate in the default. Anomie⚔ 11:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Has anyone raised an issue with new notifications background going from white to dark background upon read? The text is unreadable. – robertsky (talk) 06:37, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your report @Robertsky! I'm wondering if you could give a bit more detail on where you're seeing this? Are you talking about notifications on the Special:Notifications page? Or within the menu in the top right?  If possible, a screenshot would be really helpful as well so we can identify where the issues is.  Thanks again. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:25, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that If you open "Notices" and then have new messages "from other wikis", that block in your notices shows a baby blue highlight color for 2 to 3 seconds or something, which is not yet dark mode compatible. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @OVasileva (WMF) as what @TheDJ described. Apologies for the delay, but here's a screen recording Screen recording of notifications in dark mode 20240712.webm – robertsky (talk) 15:52, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The same also happens to the Thanks notifications. – robertsky (talk) 07:34, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * going to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ADiff&veaction=editsource, the codes are rendered with white background and a light coloured text. – robertsky (talk) 09:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the details @Robertsky and @TheDJ! We're now tracking this in in this ticket. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 08:32, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Does dark mode give you the Willys 77
Thanks for giving Wikipedia a dark mode option! The settings page says Experimental version, high likelihood of experiencing issues--am i being helpful if i say i think i've found one?

Do we have (or should we have) a central thread where all of the discussions about the launch of dark mode should be in one place?

i've visited maybe a half dozen pages where dark mode seems to work, but the Willys 77 page still won't turn to the dark side, even after i:
 * reload the page,
 * close and reopen the tab,
 * open a new tab and type the URL into the address bar,
 * create a new link to that page (as in this post) and use that to open the page,
 * change settings back and forth a few times,
 * or retry the methods listed here, but in a different order.

Additionally, Help desk is mostly dark. i'm not sure if it's the same issue mentioned here, but this part: Welcome... (Am I in the right place?)... For other types of questions... Do not provide your email... New editors may prefer the Teahouse... [Ask a question] show/hide Wikipedia help pages this part stays white.

Wishing everyone safe, happy, productive editing.

--173.67.42.107 (talk) 22:23, 10 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Willys 77 turned black. --173.67.42.107 (talk) 23:13, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello, thank you for reaching out here! I'm glad to see that the article turned black. It always takes a few days for new changes to be propagated across all pages because of caching. When we started running banners inviting logged-out users to switch to dark mode, the cache of just a few percent of the articles wasn't refreshed.
 * When it comes to the Help desk, I'm sure English Wikipedians will soon fix it. It is challenging, though. There are so many pages formatted with the assumption that the only mode is light, and there's a lot of special formatting on non-article pages. But reports like yours help technical editors prioritize their work.
 * Thanks again, for pointing at these issues, for your patience (so many steps to solve the problem of the persisting light mode), and kind words! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I have fixed all of the dark mode Linter issues at Help desk except for the ones caused by Collapse top, which is fully protected. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

New dark mode is less readable
The default foreground color for text is way too bright/white and more than a few page elements on certain pages are as bright as light mode. Overall, it does not seem like an improvement on the old beta dark mode. I'd simply disable it and stick with the old beta dark mode for now, but if I do that, there's a white flash at the start of every page load and page refresh, which defeats the purpose of using a dark mode.

Here's several screenshots to show before vs. after.

Also, is there documentation somewhere describing the changes to the CSS? stopped working. Thanks. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 07:40, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Not having used the beta, the new version looks superior. A wp:village shrine should be erected to mark the occasion of implementation.
 * Though, the contrast issue may be a thing. Fiddling around with my monitor-settings, it feels like the default could be reduced quite significantly without other issues. JackTheSecond (talk) 09:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It's not just about what looks good, it's about reducing eyestrain and improving legibility. The new white text is simply far too bright at #EAECF0 rather than the previous text color in the beta, which was #DFDEDD. If you refer to Material Design's recommendations for dark theme, you'll see they recommend 87% opacity on #FFFFFF for "high emphasis" text (their term for the main text), which equates to #DEDEDE, essentially the same as the beta. The new experimental dark mode seems to overlook decades of user design research. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 21:17, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Dark mode turned on for me yesterday evening, and I found it very difficult to read, especially the watchlist page, where I had great difficulty seeing which changed pages I had already looked at. I managed to turn dark mode off, except that each page loads in dark mode, and I have to wait several seconds until it switches to light mode. At least dark mode is not popping up this morning. Donald Albury 12:07, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * WRT to documentation, See Recommendations_for_night_mode_compatibility_on_Wikimedia_wikis. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:14, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

templates that automatically change text colors from default settings?
i tried to make this clear, then i accidentally erased part of it and had to rewrite it. i hope it's (still) clear (again).

In dark mode, some sections of the Manual of Style have dark text that's nearly invisible on the dark background. i can just barely read it when i zoom in, but i can read it, so it's not exactly the same color... but it's much too easy not to see it at all if you don't know to look for it. It's darker than gray or dark grey text, but the blackground is slightly darker (and apparently black black text is even darker than that). Some of the red and green text can be hard to read on the dark background, too; they might actually use dark red and dark green instead of red and green. These non-default colors seem to be products of templates; i am not very "fluent" in the use of templates. (For instance, in the examples transcribed below, are "Correct" and "Incorrect" two different templates, one green and one red? Are "Correct", "Accepted", "Acceptable", "Better", and "Clear" all versions of the same green template?)

Examples:
 * from MOS:;
 * from MOS:HYPHEN
 * (sub-era, not subera)


 * from MOS:HASH
 * An exception is issue numbers of comic books, which unlike for other periodicals are conventionally given in general text in the form #1, unless a volume is also given, in which case write volume two, number seven or Vol. 2, No. 7. Another exception are periodical publications carrying both, issue and number designations (typically one being a year-relative and the other an absolute value); they should be given in the form 2 #143 in citations, or be spelt out as Iss. 2, No. 143 in text. When using the abbreviations, write, , , or , at first occurrence.

aside: Would He and Sammy Davis Jr. made several films together. be better ?
 * from MOS:CONSECUTIVE
 * Honorable mention for dark mode (light text on dark background) including phrases of dark text on light background, as seen in MOS:AFFIXDASH (EDIT: i just realized this particular issue must be with the ‹template Cat is being considered for merging› bit, not the Manual of Style itself):
 * The form of category names follows the corresponding main articles, e.g.,.
 * However, the principle is not extended when compounding other words in category names, e.g., and  both use hyphens.

Honorable mention also for viewing a Difference between revisions, where the revised portion of the article appears in light text on a dark background, but the editor's name/IP address appear with select stats as dark text (well, blue links, mostly) on a light background. For example, the diff for the most recent edit to this page shows mostly in dark mode, but shows
 * Lowercase sigmabot III
 * BOTS, TEMPLATE EDITORS
 * 2,189,332
 * EDITS

on a light background... and i didn't realize until i did that copy-paste that EDITS is there in text almost as light as the background.

Thanks to the people working on this.

aside: For my own amusement and future reference, i have been using my talk page (Learn more about this page) to test what names of colors work with this Wikipedia code (and which do not). Maybe that could help someone see which colors work best for light mode, dark mode, or both?

--173.67.42.107 (talk) 19:26, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I have fixed all of the Linter dark mode issues at Manual of Style, so it may display better now. However, the green text generated by xt appears to be #006400, which, when placed on the #202122 "black" background of dark mode, results in a contrast ratio of 2.16:1, a failing score. The red text generated by !xt appears to be #8B0000, which, when placed on the same black background, results in a contrast ratio of 1.61:1, another failing score. I'm not sure what to do about that. Either someone needs to find a green that works with both, or a style sheet could be created to deliver different greens and reds in light and dark mode, or something else. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:21, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jonesey.
 * If i'm going to keep reporting these issues, maybe i should learn how to fix them myself, but i don't even know what questions to ask or if i'd understand the answers. For example, what's Linter?
 * --173.67.42.107 (talk) 09:19, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 173.67.42.107, see Linter. — Qwerfjkl  talk  09:38, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * ...Huh. From MOS:HASH again:
 * they should be given in the form 2 #143 in citations, or be spelt out as Iss. 2, No. 143 in text. When using the abbreviations, write, , , or , at first occurrence.
 * "2 #143" and "Iss. 2, No. 143" seem to be dark green in both light mode and dark mode, but "Vol.", "Iss.", "No.", and "Nos." are dark green in dark mode and black in light mode? --173.67.42.107 (talk) 09:37, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

dark text on light background in dark mode
Seems many cells in episode tables (Template:Episode_table) have this problem, as seen on these pages: i'm still figuring out how Wikipedia tables work and Web colorss go right over my head, but i think Template:Episode_table lets you override some default colors, which still leaves the problem of picking colors that suit both light mode and dark mode, or altering the template so it switches colors when the user toggles between light mode and dark mode. --173.67.42.107 (talk) 09:19, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F_(American_TV_series)_season_13
 * Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F_(American_TV_series)_season_16
 * Nashville_season_5
 * The_Orville_season_2
 * I do not see any errors on those pages in dark mode. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I brought up this issue at Episode list with this discussion. Have not gotten any response there so maybe you can chime in. The IP is correct that the cell backgrounds are not adjusting properly in dark mode. Taking Nashville season 5 as an example, the "No. overall" column is rendering as I would expect in dark mode, while all the others are not. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Timeline for dark mode rollout
Re: Is "next week" on WP:THURSDAY? Could you please give dates for these? There are at least three relevant places on mediawiki.org: —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading: Currently, we are aiming for the following dates for deployment: ...
 * Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading: Pilot release 	March–May 2024 // Release for all users 	Not defined
 * Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Frequently asked questions – funnily enough, it's called "timeline", but has zero dates.


 * @Andrybak - good catch! We meant the Week of July 15th as stated in the first sentence - should have probably used the date again later in the message too. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Watchlist bug
I started a section recently at WP:BLPN. Now BLPN is not showing up in results for my watchlist. I used my “find” button to confirm this. The only mention of WP:BLPN on my watchlist results is its talk page on July 13:

diffhist mb Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard‎ 16:37 −2,321‎   ‎Lowercase sigmabot III talk contribs‎ (Archiving 1 discussion(s) to Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive 5) (bot) thank

&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:37, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It’s showing up again now, thanks.&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Now the bug is back. If the bug goes away again and stays away for at least a day, then I will report back here.&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This page is for discussing changes to the noticeboard. If you are having a technical problem please list on noticeboard itself. — xaosflux  Talk 19:11, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * And please don't misuse . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * How do you think I misused it User:Redrose64?&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, you're not quoting an extract from a piece of text, it's more of a sample output from a computer program, for which the  tags are more properly intended. But if you want to draw attention to one particular edit, why not simply post the diff link for the edit concerned? Also, those big blue quotemarks are very much out of place. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC)