The Vector 2022 skin as the default in two weeks?[編輯]
The slides for our presentation at Wikimania 2022
Hello. I'm writing on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team. In two weeks, we would like to make the Vector 2022 skin the default on this wiki.
We have been working on it for the past three years. So far, it has been the default on more than 30 wikis, including sister projects, all accounting for more than 1 billion pageviews per month. On average 87% of active logged-in users of those wikis use Vector 2022.
It would become the default for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy. Logged-in users can at any time switch to any other skins. No changes are expected for users of these skins.
[Why is a change necessary] The current default skin meets the needs of the readers and editors as these were 13 years ago. Since then, new users have begun using Wikimedia projects. The old Vector doesn't meet their needs.
[Objective] The objective for the new skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It draws inspiration from previous requests, the Community Wishlist Surveys, and gadgets and scripts. The work helped our code follow the standards and improve all other skins. We reduced PHP code in Wikimedia deployed skins by 75%. The project has also focused on making it easier to support gadgets and use APIs.
[Changes and test results] The skin introduces a series of changes that improve readability and usability. The new skin does not remove any functionality currently available on the Vector skin.
The sticky header makes it easier to find tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%.
The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jumped to different sections of the page 50% more than with the old table of contents. It also looks a bit different on talk pages.
The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the wikis we tested on.
The skin does not negatively affect pageviews, edit rates, or account creation. There is evidence of increases in pageviews and account creation across partner communities.
[Try it out] Try out the new skin by going to the appearance tab in your preferences and selecting Vector 2022 from the list of skins.
How can editors change and customize this skin?[編輯]
It's possible to configure and personalize our changes. We support volunteers who create new gadgets and user scripts. Check out our repository for a list of currently available customizations, or add your own.
If no large concerns are raised, we plan on deploying in the week of October 3, 2022. If your community would like to request more time to discuss the changes, hit the button and write to us. We can adjust the calendar.
@Deryck Chan, @Rainpong, thank you for the comments, your interest in and support for the project! We have found out that there was a bug impacting wikis in Chinese scripts. This is why we have decided to stop the deployment. I'll let you know when we're ready. Best regards, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (傾偈) 2022年11月9號 (三) 04:58 (UTC)[回覆]
佢舊年11月嘅講法係"there was a bug impacting wikis in Chinese scripts"，可能搞掂個bug就所有Chinese scripts版本一齊做，唔會出現原本預期粵維比中維行先嘅情況。--Ivanlam88 (傾偈) 2023年1月23號 (一) 02:00 (UTC)[回覆]
我跟住個例子睇，喺我度淨係見到 ｢英文｣（喺我度冇 ｢中文｣），撳入去會出翻譯畫面。我喺 ｢喜好設定｣ 搵到一個叫 ｢Access to start a translation, from the contributions page, the language list, and new page creations.｣ 嘅選項，預設係開着。我都唔贊同咁嘅做法。 Al12si (傾偈) 2023年2月18號 (六) 06:48 (UTC)[回覆]
原來係噉。可能大家對「enable」個定義有落差啦。喺我眼中Content translation已經enable咗畀人用好耐，想用嘅可以自己開嚟用，但佢近期嘅動作係「所有粵維註冊用戶預設開啟」（default enable for all yue wiki registered users），我又唔覺佢舊年6月個通知有提及過會用呢種方式推行。（講明先：我自己未試用過Content translation，一路以為佢只係方便人由其他語言翻譯去粵維，冇諗過會同時叫人由粵維翻譯去其他語言。）--Alfakwan (傾偈) 2023年2月18號 (六) 07:38 (UTC)[回覆]
多謝解釋。我做個簡單小結先：舊年6月WMF曾經通知粵文維基「Enabling Content and Section translation tool in Cantonese Wikipedia」，但未獲粵文維基社群關注，直到今個禮拜四晚WMF安排為全體粵文維基戶口預設開啟「Content and Section translation tool」，而「Content and Section translation tool」入面包含喺文章左側語言清單入面增加「gray link(s) panel」功能，鼓勵用戶翻譯去其他語言（具體語言按照用戶本身瀏覽習慣而定，例如我只係見到中文、Al12si兄只係見到英文、Alfakwan兄就同時見到中英文），而因為「鼓勵用戶翻譯去其他語言」呢個功能可能會為粵文維基帶嚟潛在負面影響嘅疑慮，引發今次嘅討論。
我又有兩條問題 —— 一條民意調查同一條技術問題：
大家認為「gray link(s) panel」功能應唔應該喺粵文維基預設開啟？
如果粵文維基社群主流意見認為唔應該預設開啟「gray link(s) panel」功能：
如果技術上有得獨立閂「gray link(s) panel」，可唔可以安排粵文維基預設閂呢個功能，有需要嘅用戶可以自己去開？（唔影響「Content and Section translation tool」其他功能）
如果技術上冇得獨立閂「gray link(s) panel」（綑綁「Content and Section translation tool」），可唔可以安排粵文維基撤回預設開啟成個「Content and Section translation tool」，有需要嘅用戶可以自己去開？
A reply to "Why did you add a function to encourage people to translate to the Chinese wiki?"[編輯]
Hello Cantonese Wikipedians,
I am Uzoma Ozurumba, a Community Relations Specialist supporting the Language team.
I apologise for our permanently enabling Content and Section Translation to your Wikipedia which surprised you. We announced our plans to permanently enable these tools in your Wikipedia last year, and there was no objection from your community. A minor blocker delayed the enablement until now that the tool is enabled.
From your conversation here, I can see you are worried about this enablement in your Wikipedia. I want to explain that Content translation already exists as a beta feature in your Wikipedia, but now it can be discovered by more contributors. However, users not interested in the translation tool can disable it from their preferences.
The Section translation tool is an improvement of the Content translation that allows translators to easily translate with their mobile device one section at a time.
Once again, I apologise for this oversight, and I would like to get your feedback and questions about the tool and the enablements.
This is Cantonese wiki, as the name implies, we're writing in Cantonese, not English. I don't care what your reason is, if you want to communicate with us, you should solve your language problem and write Cantonese, at least let people know what you mean, instead of posting a bunch of English words, okay? Especially in the case of the "Content translation tool", you posted English, people could not understand it, no response, and you took it as an agreement! Please don't be barbaric! (the English sentences are translated by DeepL)
Yesterday the Wikimedia Foundation noted that in the interests of the security of our users, the Graph extension was disabled. This means that pages that were formerly displaying graphs will now display a small blank area. To help readers understand this situation, communities can now define a brief message that can be displayed to readers in place of each graph until this is resolved. That message can be defined on each wiki at MediaWiki:Graph-disabled. Wikimedia Foundation staff are looking at options available and expected timelines. For updates, follow the public Phabricator task for this issue: T334940
We have recently become unable to access the WorldCat API which provided the ability to generate citations using ISBN numbers. The Wikimedia Foundation's Editing team is investigating several options to restore the functionality, but will need to disable ISBN citation generation for now.
This affects citations made with the VisualEditor Automatic tab, and the use of the citoid API in gadgets and user scripts, such as the autofill button on refToolbar. Please note that all the other automatic ways of generating citations, including via URL or DOI, are still available.
You can keep updated on the situation via Phabricator, or by reading the next issues of m:Tech News. If you know of any users or groups who rely heavily on this feature (for instance, someone who has an upcoming editathon), I'd appreciate it if you shared this update with them.
之前ContentTranslation明明話「所有粵維註冊用戶預設開啟」（default enable for all yue wiki registered users），乜原來流動版仲靜雞雞將ContentTranslation開放埋畀未註冊（未登入）用戶，有冇離譜啲呀？不過而家LanguageConverter已經停用，暫時見唔到莫名奇妙嘅「Missing in 不轉換」，我都費事追究。--Hkzense (傾偈) 2023年7月23號(日) 13:19 (UTC)[回覆]
We are glad to announce the new members and advisors of the Elections Committee. The Elections Committee assists with the design and implementation of the process to select Community- and Affiliate-Selected trustees for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. After an open nomination process, the strongest candidates spoke with the Board and four candidates were asked to join the Elections Committee. Four other candidates were asked to participate as advisors.
Thank you to all the community members who submitted their names for consideration. We look forward to working with the Elections Committee in the near future.
On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees,
The Vector 2022 skin as the default in two weeks[編輯]
The slides for our presentation at Wikimania 2022
Hello. I'm writing on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team. In two weeks, we would like to make the Vector 2022 skin the default on this wiki.
If you prefer keeping the current skin, select "Vector legacy (2010)" in global preferences and save the change.
We have been working on it for the past three years. So far, it has been the default on more than 300 wikis, including most Wikipedias and some sister projects. This accounts for more than 4 billions pageviews per month.
It would become the default for all logged-out users, and also all logged-in users who currently use Vector legacy. Logged-in users can at any time switch to any other skins. No changes are expected for users of these skins.
[Why is a change necessary] The current default skin meets the needs of the readers and editors as these were 13 years ago. Since then, new users have begun using Wikimedia projects. The old Vector doesn't meet their needs.
[Objective] The objective for the new skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. It draws inspiration from previous requests, the Community Wishlist Surveys, and gadgets and scripts. The work helped our code follow the standards and improve all other skins. We reduced PHP code in Wikimedia deployed skins by 75%. The project has also focused on making it easier to support gadgets and use APIs.
[Changes and test results] The skin introduces a series of changes that improve readability and usability. The new skin does not remove any functionality currently available on the Vector skin.
The sticky header makes it easier to find tools that editors use often. It decreases scrolling to the top of the page by 16%.
The new table of contents makes it easier to navigate to different sections. Readers and editors jumped to different sections of the page 50% more than with the old table of contents. It also looks a bit different on talk pages.
The new search bar is easier to find and makes it easier to find the correct search result from the list. This increased the amount of searches started by 30% on the wikis we tested on.
The skin does not negatively affect pageviews, edit rates, or account creation. There is evidence of increases in pageviews and account creation across partner communities.
[Try it out] Try out the new skin by going to the appearance tab in your preferences and selecting Vector 2022 from the list of skins.
How can editors change and customize this skin?[編輯]
It's possible to configure and personalize our changes. We support volunteers who create new gadgets and user scripts. Check out our repository for a list of currently available customizations, or add your own.
If no large concerns are raised, we plan on deploying on August 9, 2023. If you'd like ask our team anything, if you have questions, concerns, or additional thoughts, please ping me here or write on the talk page of the project. We will gladly answer! Also, see our FAQ. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (傾偈) 2023年7月26號 (三) 23:46 (UTC)[回覆]
Deploying the Phonos in-line audio player to your Wiki[編輯]
你好!
Apologies if this message is not in your language, 請幫手去譯做你嘅語言 to your language.
With the inline audio player, you can add text-to-speech audio snippets to wiki pages by simply using a tag:
<phonos file="audio file" label="Listen"/>
The above tag will show the text next to a speaker icon, and clicking on it will play the audio instantly without taking you to another page. A common example where you can use this feature is in adding pronunciation to words as illustrated on the English Wiktionary below.
The inline audio player will be available in your wiki in 2 weeks time; in the meantime, we would like you to read about the features and give us feedback or ask questions about it in this talk page.
Thank you!
UOzurumba (WMF), on behalf of the Foundation's Language team
@SGrabarczuk (WMF)： Simon, can you please look into this? It seems that the 加語言 (add language) button on the top right of a new page in Vector 2022 doesn't work. 翹仔 (傾偈) 2023年9月16號 (六) 21:23 (UTC)[回覆]
Hey @Deryck Chan. Thanks for pinging me. When I click "Add languages", there's a link "Edit interlanguage links" which goes to Wikidata. What's the issue exactly, @Jason6698 and @Yaukasin? What I've described is not visible for you, or are you expecting something different?
Sorry for asking such basic questions, perhaps you have described this already, but I think that the machine translation doesn't give a precise answer.
@Jason6698, I agree that it's a pain. I've managed to find out that this task: T329570 documents this need. Some information is also in T282026 and T310259#8610478. As it turns out, it's not just about the skin, but more about Wikidata. I will contact people who may know the details better. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (傾偈) 2023年9月29號 (五) 16:55 (UTC)[回覆]
The Enforcement Guidelines require a Building Committee form to draft a charter that outlines procedures and details for a global committee to be called the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Over the past few months, the U4C Building Committee worked together as a group to discuss and draft the U4C charter. The U4C Building Committee welcomes feedback about the draft charter now through 22 September 2023. After that date, the U4C Building Committee will revise the charter as needed and a community vote will open shortly afterward.
In 2024, editors who have not registered an account will automatically begin using temporary accounts. These editors are sometimes called "IP editors" because the IP address is displayed in the page history.
Hi everyone! The Affiliations Committee (AffCom), Ombuds commission (OC), and the Case Review Committee (CRC) are looking for new members. These volunteer groups provide important structural and oversight support for the community and movement. People are encouraged to nominate themselves or encourage others they feel would contribute to these groups to apply. There is more information about the roles of the groups, the skills needed, and the opportunity to apply on the Meta-wiki page.
A new feature is coming to your wiki soon: Reference Previews are popups for references. Such popups have existed on wikis as local gadgets for many years. Now there is a central solution, available on all wikis, and consistent with the PagePreviews feature.
Reference Previews will be visible to everyone, including readers. If you don’t want to see them, you can opt out. If you are using the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews unless you disable the gadget.
Reference Previews have been a beta feature on many wikis since 2019, and a default feature on some since 2021. Deployment is planned for November 22.
(New) Feature on Kartographer: Adding geopoints via QID[編輯]
Since September 2022, it is possible to create geopoints using a QID. Many wiki contributors have asked for this feature, but it is not being used much. Therefore, we would like to remind you about it. More information can be found on the project page. If you have any comments, please let us know on the talk page. – Best regards, the team of Technical Wishes at Wikimedia Deutschland
Reusing references: Can we look over your shoulder?[編輯]
Apologies for writing in English.
The Technical Wishes team at Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make reusing references easier. For our research, we are looking for wiki contributors willing to show us how they are interacting with references.
The format will be a 1-hour video call, where you would share your screen. More information here.
Interviews can be conducted in English, German or Dutch.
Please note that we probably won’t be able to have sessions with everyone who is interested. Our UX researcher will try to create a good balance of wiki contributors, e.g. in terms of wiki experience, tech experience, editing preferences, gender, disability and more. If you’re a fit, she will reach out to you to schedule an appointment.
Do you use Wikidata in Wikimedia sibling projects? Tell us about your experiences[編輯]
Note: Apologies for cross-posting and sending in English.
Hello, the Wikidata for Wikimedia Projects team at Wikimedia Deutschland would like to hear about your experiences using Wikidata in the sibling projects. If you are interested in sharing your opinion and insights, please consider signing up for an interview with us in this Registration form. Currently, we are only able to conduct interviews in English.
The front page of the form has more details about what the conversation will be like, including how we would compensate you for your time.
For more information, visit our project issue page where you can also share your experiences in written form, without an interview. We look forward to speaking with you, Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
You are humbly invited to organize the Feminism and Folklore 2024 writing competition from February 1, 2023, to March 31, 2023 on your local Wikipedia. This year, Feminism and Folklore will focus on feminism, women's issues, and gender-focused topics for the project, with a Wiki Loves Folklore gender gap focus and a folk culture theme on Wikipedia.
You can help Wikipedia's coverage of folklore from your area by writing or improving articles about things like folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, women and queer folklore figures, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales, and more. Users can help create new articles, expand or translate from a generated list of suggested articles.
Organisers are requested to work on the following action items to sign up their communities for the project:
Create a page for the contest on the local wiki.
Set up a campaign on CampWiz tool.
Create the local list and mention the timeline and local and international prizes.
This year, the Wiki Loves Folklore Tech Team has introduced two new tools to enhance support for the campaign. These tools include the Article List Generator by Topic and CampWiz. The Article List Generator by Topic enables users to identify articles on the English Wikipedia that are not present in their native language Wikipedia. Users can customize their selection criteria, and the tool will present a table showcasing the missing articles along with suggested titles. Additionally, users have the option to download the list in both CSV and wikitable formats. Notably, the CampWiz tool will be employed for the project for the first time, empowering users to effectively host the project with a jury. Both tools are now available for use in the campaign. Click here to access these tools
Learn more about the contest and prizes on our project page. Feel free to contact us on our meta talk page or by email us if you need any assistance.
Dear Wiki Community,
You are humbly invited to participate in the Wiki Loves Folklore 2024 an international photography contest organized on Wikimedia Commons to document folklore and intangible cultural heritage from different regions, including, folk creative activities and many more. It is held every year from the 1st till the 31st of March.
You can help in enriching the folklore documentation on Commons from your region by taking photos, audios, videos, and submitting them in this commons contest.
You can also organize a local contest in your country and support us in translating the project pages to help us spread the word in your native language.
Feel free to contact us on our project Talk page if you need any assistance.
Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.
A new feature for previewing references on your wiki[編輯]
Apologies for writing in English. If you can translate this message, that would be much appreciated.
Hi. As announced some weeks ago [1] [2], Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team introduced Reference Previews to many wikis, including this one. This feature shows popups for references in the article text.
While this new feature is already usable on your wiki, most people here are not seeing it yet because your wiki has set a gadget as the default for previewing references. We plan to remove the default flag from the gadget on your wiki soon. This means:
The new default for reference popups on your wiki will be Reference Previews.
However, if you want to keep using the gadget, you can still enable it in your personal settings.
The benefit of having Reference Previews as the default is that the user experience will be consistent across wikis and with the Page Previews feature, and that the software will be easier to maintain overall.
Read the charter, go vote and share this note with others in your community. I can confidently say the U4C Building Committee looks forward to your participation.
Thank you everyone for following the progress of the Universal Code of Conduct. I am writing to you today to announce the outcome of the ratification vote on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter. 1746 contributors voted in this ratification vote with 1249 voters supporting the Charter and 420 voters not. The ratification vote process allowed for voters to provide comments about the Charter.
A report of voting statistics and a summary of voter comments will be published on Meta-wiki in the coming weeks.
Please look forward to hearing about the next steps soon.
Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month 2024: We are back![編輯]
請幫手去譯做你嘅語言
Hello, dear Wikipedians!
Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with the MFA of Ukraine and Ukrainian Institute, has launched the forth edition of writing challenge "Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month", which lasts from 1st until 31st March 2024. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design and cultural phenomena of Ukraine that are now part of world heritage. We accept contribution in every language! The most active contesters will receive prizes.
We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia in your language! Also, we plan to set up a banner to notify users of the possibility to participate in such a challenge! ValentynNefedov (WMUA) (talk)
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members are invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Per the charter, there are 16 seats on the U4C: eight community-at-large seats and eight regional seats to ensure the U4C represents the diversity of the movement.
Read more and submit your application on Meta-wiki.
This year, the term of 4 (four) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Board Governance Committee created a Board Selection Working Group from Trustees who cannot be candidates in the 2024 community- and affiliate-selected trustee selection process composed of Dariusz Jemielniak, Nataliia Tymkiv, Esra'a Al Shafei, Kathy Collins, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov [3]. The group is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2024 trustee selection process, and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].
Here are the key planned dates:
May 2024: Call for candidates and call for questions
June 2024: Affiliates vote to shortlist 12 candidates (no shortlisting if 15 or less candidates apply) [5]
June-August 2024: Campaign period
End of August / beginning of September 2024: Two-week community voting period
October–November 2024: Background check of selected candidates
Board's Meeting in December 2024: New trustees seated
Learn more about the 2024 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page, and make your plan.
Election Volunteers
Another way to be involved with the 2024 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page.
Best regards,
Dariusz Jemielniak (Governance Committee Chair, Board Selection Working Group)
[5] Even though the ideal number is 12 candidates for 4 open seats, the shortlisting process will be triggered if there are more than 15 candidates because the 1-3 candidates that are removed might feel ostracized and it would be a lot of work for affiliates to carry out the shortlisting process to only eliminate 1-3 candidates from the candidate list.
I am writing to you to let you know the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open now through May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Sign up for the language community meeting on May 31st, 16:00 UTC[編輯]
Hello all,
The next language community meeting is scheduled in a few weeks - May 31st at 16:00 UTC. If you're interested, you can sign up on this wiki page.
This is a participant-driven meeting, where we share language-specific updates related to various projects, collectively discuss technical issues related to language wikis, and work together to find possible solutions. For example, in the last meeting, the topics included the machine translation service (MinT) and the languages and models it currently supports, localization efforts from the Kiwix team, and technical challenges with numerical sorting in files used on Bengali Wikisource.
Do you have any ideas for topics to share technical updates related to your project? Any problems that you would like to bring for discussion during the meeting? Do you need interpretation support from English to another language? Please reach out to me at ssethi(__AT__)wikimedia.org and add agenda items to the document here.
You can find the details on this page, as well as the ways to give your feedback from today until the end of the day on June 23, 2024, anywhere on Earth.
You can also share information about this with the interested project communities you work with or support, and you can also help us translate the procedure into more languages, so people can join the discussions in their own language.
Hi everyone! We are the Wikimedia Foundation Web team.
We work on making it easier to read Wikimedia projects as part of the objective "Reading and media experience" of the current year’s annual plan. To achieve this goal, we have introduced the "Accessibility for Reading" beta feature. It adds a menu which works on the Vector 2022 skin and allows logged-in users to choose different font sizes and color schemes based on individual needs.
The menu introduces a new Standard font setting. It slightly increases the size and height of the font. It was selected based on multiple sources. You will find more information on this in the section "About the new Standard font setting".
What will change
We are now ready to make the new Appearance menu available for logged-out and logged-in users.
At the same time, we will also make the Standard option the new default for logged-out users only.
If no breaking technical issues are found, we plan on making this change within the next two weeks.
Later, this menu will also include the option to select dark mode, which for the time being will remain a beta feature. For more information, check out our project page.
About the menu
The new menu will allow logged-in and logged-out users to set preferences for:
Text size and line height (available now as a beta feature): Users will be able to choose between the Small (current default), Standard (recommended for better accessibility), and Large options. Selecting an option will change both the font size and line height of the text.
Dark mode (available now as a beta feature): Users will be able to choose to see the site in night mode on a permanent basis, or select an "automatic" setting which will set day or night mode based on the device or browser preferences.
Content width (previously available as a toggle button): We have moved the content width toggle from an icon at the bottom of the page to a labeled radio button in the new menu. It will work exactly the same as the toggle. The previous toggle button will no longer be available.
This menu has been tested as a beta feature by logged-in users across wikis as well as in user testing with readers. Based on the findings of these tests, we changed the menu to improve discoverability and ease of use, and to accommodate gadget compatibility.
The menu will appear to the right of the page, immediately under the Tools menu if that has been pinned. Unlike the Tools menu, the Appearance menu is pinned by default, but can be unpinned. Once unpinned, it collapses under an icon at the top of the page.
About the new Standard font setting
The "Small" option is the current default. We will be changing this default to "Standard" for logged-out users, while keeping "Small" as the default for logged-in users. The "Standard" and "Large" options were built and tested based on the following:
Academic studies and recommendations for the best average font size for the majority of readers. These recommendations stated that our current size is too small for the majority of people to read comfortably. This means that on average, people read more slowly, strain their eyes while reading, or have difficulty clearly seeing the text. Increasing the font size by default improves these issues for all users, including users who might not have sufficient time to spend adjusting a setting via the appearance menu or browser. Information density is also important, which is why we wanted to increase font size without sacrificing information density. We have achieved this by changing not only font size, but also line height and paragraph spacing.
Designs submitted by more than 630 Wikipedians from across 13 wikis of different languages, scripts, and sizes. The majority (~450) of these users opted for a font size that was larger than the default. "Standard" represents the average of the most popular cluster of responses (15-20 pixels). "Large" represents the need for an even larger option, as represented by the cluster of sizes between 21-26 pixels. You can read more on how we included volunteers in the process and landed on these options.
Beta feature usage showed that the majority of users who interact with the feature at least once opt for a font size that is larger than the current default.
Our works so far and next steps
Logged-in users will remain with the "small" setting for the time being as their default, but can change to any other setting at any time. In a few months, we will study how many logged-in users switch to standard and start a conversation on whether it makes sense for logged-in users to make the switch as well. From the early data from the beta feature, 55% of sessions who interacted with the feature chose to use a setting that was standard or larger.
If you'd like to help, we have a few simple requests for you:
Try out the new menu. Is anything confusing? Do you understand all the labels and how the menu works?
Try out the small, standard, and large sizes, the color schemes, and the width toggle. Reach out to us if you notice any bugs, or have questions or concerns.
Vector legacy (current default)
Vector 2022
Vector legacy (current default)
Vector 2022
