Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements

Too narrow (again)
Why waste all that space? I have a nice wide screen so I want to take advantage of it. Those who want to have it narrow can just reduce their window sizes? Overall, not a great look. Not exciting. Quite boring.--Xania (talk) 11:23, 22 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello @Xania, you can read about our goals and motivation for limiting the width. Also, we are working on a solution to use the empty space. Could you take a look at our fourth prototype and write more on what you think about arranging the space as it is presented there? Thank you in advance! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 14:59, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh my dear God, why don't you give an option to unrestrict the width?? It's beyond ridiculous how absolutely tiny is the page content on my monitor horizontally! I have to scroll all the time to read! Don't ruin Wikipedia the same way Fandom was ruined! 90.188.46.13 04:38, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * We have given this option. This can be done with the gadget one of our engineers made. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but maybe we should have an easy plug-in system for ordinary users or, at least, the instructions how to apply it and a place where to find those customisations. By default it is really narrow to read and it feels like a news site rather than an encyclopedia article. Krnl0138 (talk) 09:55, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, the toggle option should be there by default! By the way, that script does not work well currently, so I updated it here. — Arthurfragoso (talk) 13:28, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why you are still pushing on us that bad design choice. It still is time to pull the plug and start to work on a plain page design. You are convincing no one here. Please, please, really, please stop this nonsense. Forcing bad choices on your users because you are the only product on the market is never a good thing.
 * Since it has been forced without asking anyone on the French Wikipedia I had to register just to come back to the normal and good design. That's something, as a simple reader, I should never have had to do in the first place.
 * So one last time, please come back to reason and stop hurting your user base foolishly. DerpFox (talk) 21:33, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello @DerpFox, thanks for your comment. Have you maybe followed the links I've shared in my answer to Xania? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Ditto Tim bates (talk) 16:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The lines in the fourth prototype seem to be slightly wider to me on 1080p display than in the current version of 2022 vector design, but those empty strips on the sides, each of which are almost the size of the old navigation mv-panel, constantly remind about the space wasted.
 * If the only reason of this thinning is the recommended line lengths in symbols and you want to keep it for any price, I would suggest using a dynamic font size, so, for example, starting from some resolution the symbols just grow larger. This might also reduce the eye strain connected to focusing on the small text.
 * Kageneko (talk) 13:51, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I had a browse over the reasons for the change, but I still don't like or agree with the main justification more or less boiling down to "everyone else is doing it so we should too". Even in the linked examples, the page still feels a lot more "full" despite having a dedicated deadspace on the site, due to the way the page has been very carefully designed in a mixture of different kinds of block contents (images, text interactive eliments, etc).
 * Accepted Webpage standards used to be against having blank, unused and waisted deadspace, but at some point in the last 10 years there seems to have been a weird shift to the opposite where deadspace is all the rage, though it's not one I've personally ever liked or agreed with.
 * While I'm sure there are good uses of limiting page width, I'm not sure if Wikipedia, being a site that is mainly made up of text would really benefit from it as it's likely just going to squash pages and increase the amount of vertical scrolling required to navigate. Dave247 (talk) 07:32, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah it's too narrow otherwise. the look is very nice, it's not boring as you tell. Crater bug (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I love the smaller margins. Works really well. Much cleaner. Thank you! 202.53.37.158 08:31, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll buck the trend and note that on my 2560x1440 monitor, I very much appreciate the shorter line widths. Trying to read 12" or wider lines starts to get extremely exhausting, and vector makes it a lot easier to keep reading. I think that was the right move, matches best design practices, and is best for most users. ThatsNoMoon343 (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The reasoning makes sense, and the team working on this would know better than I about their merits. But are there not alternate options that preserve the primary goal (limiting character count per line) while not resulting in a too-narrow page?
 * The text can be enlarged on wider displays/windows. Images could be moved from in-line to the side. The information boxes could be made wider. Other options that I can't think of. I don't know how trivial this is to navigate with the multitude of screen sizes that exist out there.
 * I have to agree with others that the pages feel too narrow, even if the reasoning is perfectly logical. The prototype 4 you link looks "right" if I zoom in by 20% in my browser... Geistbar (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I totally agree! I dislike the vector skin because how small it is. OverAWallOfMetaKnight (talk) 15:55, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I use a 3440x1440 screen (usually with a tiled layout), and this new layout forces all the content to occupy a comically narrow strip, instead of allowing me to choose the width myself. Emptyflask (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, there is simply too much space wasted that could be used for more article space and a button specifically for those who want to edit wikipedia Techny3000 (talk) 02:52, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
 * hard to read I'm glad I stayed the same as before No changes required 240B:11:E7E0:5E00:6005:3399:E6C:2B48 14:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree. I want to decide the readable width for me. In the old skin and most websites, I can do it by adjusting the width of window. I definitely don't want to care about "CORRECT READABLE WIDTH FOR EVERYONE" decided by someone somewhere, even if they are great scholars. Kyoku (talk) 08:32, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed wholeheartedly. By the way, the design is even worse on a low DPI widescreen display, like 1366x768, 1280x800/720, etc. Try it out with Device Rendering options in your browser, usually somewhere in Dev Tools. I just got hit with Vector 2022 after coming here from wikipedia where I've had Vector 2010 enabled for a while and I forgot how bad it was!
 * Wikimedia Foundation, do not forget that people all around the world use your service. People who might have a budget/old device with a low resolution display, or schoolchildren with a Chromebook or something! No default layout should ever create this much dead space and padding in a desktop environment. NONE. Nor should it ever consume nearly 1/3 of screen real estate that can never ever be used by the main content.
 * The floating ToC looks like absolute garbage at 720p. I have WUXGA and 4K devices and it isn't any better there either. I'm not sure who the design is aimed at, other than the designers pushing the modern scourge of padding and white space onto the rest of the Internet. -αβοοδ (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Totally agree. Has anyone ever made a poll among the users to figure out whether they want this narrow thing? WolfRAMM (talk) 18:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

After reviewing the posted defense of the narrowing and the feedback listed here, this feature belongs entirely as an optional setting. It most certainly should not be the website's default. RightQuark (talk) 01:29, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The defence of the narrowing seems to have little real-world bonuses. It may be theoretically good but makes it bad to read because Wikipedia articles can be long Torqueing (talk) 17:10, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I also have a wide screen monitor. I do not like this forced width shrinkage in the Vector 2022 skin. OhanaUnited  Talk page  17:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

In current form without a toggle for width this layout is unacceptable on large monitors. Even my old 14'' monitor. For now I am reverting to avoid having in forced horizontal white-space. phatom87 (talk) 14:32, 20 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Absolutely unacceptable, too narrow, an unjustified waste of space. Loupeter (talk) 10:39, 24 June 2022 (UTC)


 * It sounds like the fixed-max-width (assuming one's window is wide enough, and regardless of how much wider it might be) is a compromise between the needs of two different types of reading activities. I have both habits (skim vs detail-read), and felt especially the concern that the text doesn't obey what *I* do with my window. A reason I might widen my window is exactly because I want wider content. A comprimse necessarily isn't ideal for either one side. A better solution is to make it easy and discoverable how to get the *best* feel for whatever one is trying to do, rather than forcing so many to have a sub-par experience. A third-party gadget isn't discoverable and is surely more fragile than a first-class toggle feature of the skin itself. DMacks (talk) 15:16, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, Skin:Timeless does a much better job at restricting article space to improve readability. This is because the UI is not entirely positioned on the left-hand side of the screen, and the background colour is not blindingly bright. If the intention is to create whitespace, please don't use bright colours. Timeless also has more space for pictures. For the past 20 years, articles have been written with the understanding that 80%+ of the screen will be for content. There are width and upright tags all over the place that, once viewed with this narrow a perspective, become overwhelming.

A skin should not change the fundamental readability of the page. Compare this with this. In Timeless, when the content ends, grey begins. In Vector 2022, it looks like the HTML was corrupted and failed to load because it continues with white for no discernable reason. Vector also artificially makes articles look longer than they are, which may actually dissuade people from reading. For instance, using a 27" 16:9 monitor, on the article for Barack Obama, Vector just about lets me see the entire lead on my screen at once. Timeless allows me to see the whole lead quite easily, as well as part of the ToC. Line length may be a thing, but you must take into account the total amount of text on the screen at once, too. There's no use having the perfect 50 character line if you need 100 of them all bunched up together. Anarchyte (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Quick update and aside: I just learned about wide-vector-2022. This is fantastic. I actually like the ToC being placed where it is when using that gadget. If the plan was to make the wide skin the default, I would be less hesitant. For comparison with the links in my previous message, here is Barack Obama with wide-vector-2022. Anarchyte (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This "wide-vector-2022" version should be the default IMO. Some1 (talk) 02:50, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It's definitely an improvement, but Vector 2010 is still better. I agree with @Anarchyte - Timeless does a better job of restricting article space than Vector 2022 does. When you look at how much of the left third of the screen is blocked off from article content, Vector 2010 restricts it the least, followed by Timeless, and then finally by Vector 2022 consuming nearly an entire 1/3 of the screen. At low DPI, it's hilariously ugly, and arguably makes readability worse, not better. Vector 2022 sure would be nice though, if the ToC was collapsible! -αβοοδ (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * > For the past 20 years, articles have been written with the understanding that 80%+ of the screen will be for content.
 * I'll just note that for the past 10 years that means you've written things that just do not work that way on mobile. :)
 * > A skin should not change the fundamental readability of the page. [..] In Vector 2022, it looks like the HTML was corrupted and failed to load because it continues with white for no discernable reason.
 * This seems like a lot of assumptions to me personally. Do we have wider evidence for this ?
 * > There's no use having the perfect 50 character line if you need 100 of them all bunched up together.
 * Literally every mobile user on the Barack Obama page, the majority of the readers. Screens and screens till you hit the end of the lead... —Th e DJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 20:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll just note that for the past 10 years that means you've written things that just do not work that way on mobile. :)
 * MinervaNeue, when viewed on normal phone screens, ignores width tags. The only difference between writing for desktop screens and mobile screens is file placement.
 * This seems like a lot of assumptions to me personally. Do we have wider evidence for this ?
 * I don't need to provide evidence to state my opinion. The page looks unfinished with the extra whitespace on the right hand side. If you do want more than just my opinion, CNTRL+F for "whitespace" on this page. 12 other posts mention it.
 * Literally every mobile user on the Barack Obama page, the majority of the readers. Screens and screens till you hit the end of the lead...
 * Difference is that my phone is in my hand. I'm not getting overloaded with line after line if the screen is only 15cm long. I can see a whole paragraph on at once and then scroll when necessary. Anarchyte (talk) 13:10, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll just leave my disappointed note as well, purely for adding the length to this discussion (especially we are operating on what seems to be 500 px wide area [apparently it's 1200, so 46% of my current screen]). I tried to convince myselft to new vector at least four times now as I find most of it's designs quite pleasing. But this width thing is riddiculous. Any article starting with an infobox look like a comic strip. So much space is wasted. I'm still using a gadget hiding menu to get MORE WIDTH on the old Vector for example to use new preview mode in code editor. The most I can get from new Vecor is 2 × 740 px (if I close the menu). And then I still have 2 × 475 px of emptyness. Terrible idea. Arvedui89 (talk) 12:20, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I feel the menu section, on the left side of the screen, is too wide. (Leaving the article page too narrow) Thanks!

Full-width sticky header
I'm fine with the text being narrow but the ui and nav bar should be full width. --Thedonquixotic (talk) 00:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)


 * @Thedonquixotic, what do you mean by the ui and nav bar? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:54, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Not sure what is unclear here. I mean the navbar. As in the bar up at the top of the page with use account, search etc. Thedonquixotic (talk) 19:07, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for clarification, @Thedonquixotic. Let's take a look at this image. This will help us make sure what we're talking about. Now, the navbar (aka the header) is aligned to the workspace container, so is wider than the content container, but not as wide as the page container. The same applies to the sticky header. So you believe the header should be as wide as the page container? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Consistent skin across the wikis
New Skin is burdening me when I switching between languages. (and I zoom when I want improve readability rather put blank space) it Should changing all language together if it is well received and appreciated. should not just some language for set a precedent. Mutyoro (talk) 19:27, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Mutyoro, thank you for your comment. First, if you want to have the same skin across all wikis, you can choose one global preferences. Secondly, the way how Vector 2022 becomes the default across more and more wikis - that's a complicated issue. Week after week, we roll out small changes to Vector 2022 that are visible across all wikis. At the same time, it's much easier (both for our team and for the communities) when some communities use this skin as the default earlier, and some get it later. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment, @SGrabarczuk (WMF),
 * Seems like I sent wrong message. what I want is, Change skin after agreed by each wikis.
 * Should not try to archive Bandwagon effect by using Sheeple.
 * Pease be aware "most of people like it because accept it" this is typical comment of crowd manupiration.
 * I thought 8 years ago some of your colleague try to narrowing width, and it was Rejected by users.
 * Talk:Typography refresh/Archive 2
 * do you have any information why try to narrower down even it was rejected before? Mutyoro (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I wonder why the global preferences link here is in Japanese. That is one of the absolute worst languages to post it in, solely due to the signs etc. 178.115.79.85 20:38, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback regarding the new language switcher
Hello, I am a French person using Wikipedia in both French and English. I usually decide the language of the article depending on the topic. If it's related to France, I know the French version is going to be better. If it's a general topic, I usually select English.

However, it's been a few months that the language picker has been moved to the top of the screen when an article is display in French. And I really can't get used to it. Sure, it's easy to discover - but it's more complicated to use. Having to click twice is a regression for anyone switching language frequently. An action that used to require half a second now takes 2 seconds. If you do this about ten times every time you browse Wikipedia, it does become irritating...

I hope this feature is not shipped to other languages, and France gets the sidebar back. If you want to make this feature more discoverable, maybe you could add a shortcut but keep the sidebar. Or display a tooltip once in a while to educate newcomers. But please, keep "heavy users" of language switching in consideration. Thanks
 * I'd state this as 'what used to take me a second (finding the right language) now takes 10': Open language switcher, often don't see the language I want, have to search?  want to see which languages have a version, have to scroll; don't have a quick way to default present all languages by-alpha. Sj (talk) 16:49, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with this as another French person frequently switching languages on Wikipedia and Wiktionary. I should add, in addition to the intrinsic usability of the interface (I do agree it's a slight regression for my usage), the fact that most language editions still use the old interface (and most other sites using mediawiki, and the latter is likely to remain the case for a long time) means you don't actually get the opportunity to unlearn it. So every time I want to switch languages from a French page, I will first scroll down to the old location and waste 1s parsing the sidebar and wondering where the links are. I check out other languages almost every time I read any article and those milliseconds of irritation do add up. Anyway, I strongly think that “don't fix what ain't broke” should apply here! 37.183.2.114 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)


 * +1 to Sj. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 18:58, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Often I use the language switcher not to navigate to the article on different language, but just to look up how that article is titled in a different language. In other words, using Wikipedia's inter-language links as a sort of dictionary. By hovering over the list of languages I can gather multiple titles, see their similarity between languages. With the New Look, language switcher became less accessible, though gathering titles by hovering still works there. Also this new dropdown-based language switcher seems either to require tricky CSS features or JavaScript. Will it make problems for simplistic browsers like w3m? _Vi (talk) 17:48, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I find the language switcher the worst of both worlds of the two variants in the old interface. It can be annoying to scroll through 200+ languages in an idiosyncratic ordering (for example, كوردی [Kurdi in Perso-Arabic script] is filed under S for Sorani), but at least I can see them all and preview the name of the article in various target languages. With the drop-down menu in the old interface, I get the languages grouped geographically, and I can also search for a specific language, with the system recognizing many name variations. The new interface gives me a drop down menu with all 200+ languages in the same idiosyncratic order, with no geographic grouping and no ability to search for a specific language. LincMad (talk) 22:28, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I am primarily an active user on the Japanese Wikipedia (now defaulted to vector2022) and I agree with you completely. Why doesn't this use the blank spaces on the left and right? No need to hide buttons and functions everywhere just to make the page look hollow. As for the other features, there are so many problems with the new Vector. I definitely want the old version to remain. I will continue to use it and not the new one. --Sugarman (talk) 07:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello @Sugarman. The space on the right are blank only temporarily. As you can see on our newest prototype, on the left, there are the sidebar and the table of contents, and on the right, there are some links pulled out of the sidebar.
 * As for "No need to hide [...] just to make the page look hollow" - on our pages, we explain why hide some links and functionalities. We never argue that we want the page to look hollow. We work to make the page look intuitive and welcoming. Entry points to advanced collaboration need to be clear, and not numerous.
 * Unless you are an advanced user already. We realize that advanced users may need to access specific links with one click. We encourage you to describe (some day when you decide to spend some time on it) all the problems you would like to see solved. Perhaps this may be addressed by adding/adjusting gadgets and user scripts. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for all of this feedback. I wanted to share a few different ideas that have come up over the past month or so as we've heard from various editors (including yourselves) about language switching.

1. For people who primarily switch between two languages: once you switch languages we could show a language link next to the language button, leading back to the language you came from. This would be somewhat similar to what happens on Commons and Wikidata when you switch languages. So for example, if you just switched from French Wikipedia to English Wikipedia the page would look like this:

2. For people who are logged-in and frequently switch to many different languages: we could make the language menu pinable to the sidebar, so that 9 (or even more) language links are exposed directly on the page at all times. We are already planning to make the tools menu and the main menu pinable in this way.

3. For people who are logged-out and frequently switch to many different languages: we could experiment with exposing more language links directly on the page. We've started exploring this in this task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T301787. Depending on how many language links we wanted to expose that could look similar to the screenshot above with the link to French (plus one or two additional links), or could be more of a dedicated toolbar for language links: AHollender (WMF) (talk) 16:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, the only way I can see it working for me is 2 ("nine or even more language links are exposed directly on the page at all times") if all of the language links are unrolled down -- just like they are shown now. Option 1 is barely any different from the language picker, and option 3 makes browsing all of the language editions for pictures just as hard as the language picker on its own. Idea no. 2 with all of the languages shown is ideal for my workflow, I would greatly appreciate if you make it an option. Le Loy (talk) 05:09, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Left margin menu pushes down content
I normally use Monobook, but happened to get into the new Vector. Odd experience. The search box was absent and I had to scroll down for the content. I now see that you are supposed to click the magnifying glass to get the search box. OK. But the scrolling?

It seems the new Vector tries to guarantee wide enough space for the content. Perhaps that's what people surfing with maximised windows expect, but if you have a narrower window, is that really optimal? To get the left margin menu to the left of the content, I need a window some 1000 px wide. This "minimum" width gives me lines of about 100 characters, while I've heard reading is easiest at 47–72 or something like that. I like to have several windows open in parallel, and a narrower windows makes them fit better.

Anyway, if one's browser window is narrow, for whatever reason, does the empty space to the right of the margin menu really give the best possible experience? Is the 100 char width something that needs to be guaranteed for those planning layout of individual articles? (This experience is with Firefox 91.7.0esr on Debian.)

–LPfi (talk) 20:07, 17 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello @LPfi, since your comment, we've introduced the new table of contents, the grid system, and we've improved some issues with margins. What do you experience now? Have the issues you described changed?
 * "I had to scroll down for the content." - do you still need to do that? if yes, what do you see that you need to scroll past? It's the sidebar (the left menu) taking the full width, isn't it?
 * Generally, we try to accommodate Vector 2022 for use cases such as yours. However, with screens narrower than ~1000px, we enter the territory of "should V22 be responsive" which is an area of controversies. We've been receiving contradicting voices, and it'd be a good topic for a separate community discussion. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:55, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I hate the new TOC
I was directed here from T273473.

That left-of-the-article TOC is a horrible nightmare. I absolutely hate it. I would seriously avoid any website that forced it upon me. Can't scroll it out of sight, can't collapse it, can't disable it, takes up too much space, I hate it I hate it I hate it. This was the reason I switched back to Vector classic on beta cluster. (and if Vector classic gets it too I'll switch to Monobook, Timeless or just murder it with a userscript) I'm not much of a fan of Vector 2022 (but it's not a lost cause, just needs work), but this TOC pushed me over the edge.

As a personal note: I rarely use the existing TOC. But I can scroll it out of sight so it doesn't bother me. If the TOC went completely missing tomorrow, I wouldn't miss it. Having this big, (to me) useless thing that contrasts with the main content (it's much darker) permanently in my field of vision greatly annoys me. And because of the fixed position, my banner blindness fails to kick in. This results in pure hatred for something that, on the face it, could seem innocuous. Alexis Jazz (talk) 16:25, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I was not "directed" anywhere, I blundered onto here after finally finding information about this new skin. And let me be clear, APART from the ridiculous handling of the TOC, the new skin is great, precisely BECAUSE, before the TOC-debacle, this skin allowed me to get more of the article on the screen, and allowed me to hide the standard list of menu choices that I only need 0.something % of the time.


 * So, please, Please, PLEASE make that TOC hideable! It's perhaps (!) a great default for newbies, but it's a bloody nuisance for us who usually never use the TOC, and if we do, we know where to find it! Autokefal Dialytiker (talk) 21:49, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. 185.53.157.151 08:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Autokefal Dialytiker, right, it's not that easy to get here. We'll put link to the project page on the list of available skins in preferences. The task is documented as T307113. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @Alexis Jazz - thanks for talking to us. It’s good to hear you were using Vector 2022. I hope that you will switch back to it. In terms of the table of contents, you raise good points. A lot has been happening since you wrote your comment, so my answer is longer than it would have been last week.
 * The first version of the design was based on the feedback we got on our previous prototypes from readers and editors (see in-person reader & editor testing and on-wiki community testing).
 * That said, we have not yet made the design final. We are working on different ideas for the visual design of the entire site. We'll make the main content of the page be the primary focus of attention, even when other navigational elements (such as the ToC) are present. If you’re interested in following along with that work, most of it will be tracked on T301780 and in subtasks of that ticket.
 * We are also considering the way the ToC will display at smaller resolutions (T306904, T306660) and looking into some options for collapsing it that could work for wider screens as well.
 * As you can see, people like you who have chosen Vector 2022 individually share a lot of feedback with us now. T307004, T306562 are some examples on things we are or will be working on.
 * In the meantime, we will be A/B testing the ToC on the pilot wikis. Our hypothesis is that the ToC will decrease the amount that people have to scroll to the top of the page to switch to a different section. The design might also vary once we have the results of the test.
 * Since these changes might take a little while to reach the beta cluster, we would also encourage technically-skilled folks to set up a script or gadget to make a temporary solution.
 * And... yeah, subscribe to our newsletter, join our office hours (tomorrow or later) and talk to us more. Thank you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * SGrabarczuk, here's another thought: reverse. It's not a long page, but that TOC is so bloody huge a full HD display isn't enough to read any of the actual page content without scrolling. Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:39, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Right, right. Let's just take a look at pl:Gramatyka języka fińskiego. I mean, this is an edge case, and as such, it's not that critical. From what I know, all TOC sections aren't uncollapsed by default, and you need to make an effort to see the full TOC. Is this your experience, too, @Alexis Jazz? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:45, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 * SGrabarczuk, sorry for being possibly unclear. It was just a thought about the classic inline TOC which is disproportionally huge on Wiktionary, so it's something to think about when designing a new TOC. On the Gramatyka page on plwiki you at least get the intro without scrolling and the page actually is very long, so it's understandable the TOC also gets big. I've taken a look at the CSS (should have done that sooner) and simply disabling "position:sticky" stops the new TOC from being so infuriating. IMHO that should be the default, or at the very least, proper research should be done into this. Not only to determine by majority vote what users prefer (I wouldn't be surprised if sticky wins a binary majority vote) but also how crazy either option can drive users who don't like it. Pleasing a majority is no good if it causes a minority to be greatly aggravated. While I personally can get around it using technical means, that isn't true for most people. I'll also note that the experience on devices that are primarily controlled with a touchscreen may very well be different. With a keyboard, scrolling back up to the TOC is nearly no effort. Just press "home" or hold "page up". With a touchscreen, not so much, so I can see why sticky might have a greater appeal there. Alexis Jazz (talk) 07:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * What TOC? I don't get any such thing. Betaneptune (talk) 17:36, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * 1000px still seems like not enough for hiding the ToC. e.g. 1280 width on a rather large 16:10 projector screen and it is cumbersome and distracting. The floating option to hide it should definitely be implemented (closer to the left edge of the screen, hiding the TOC should make the content padding completely symmetrical left/right!) as that'd actually make Vector 2022 usable. Having it automatically (temporarily) pop out on mouse over would be quite nice, with a click to make it "stick" until clicked again, like a hamburger button you can hover over. For the record, I use Vector 2010 on smaller displays regardless of DPI, as well as high DPI larger screens, and Monobook on everything else. -αβοοδ (talk) 18:05, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * 100% agree. Football Lab (talk) 09:14, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Wanted to mention a quick update on the state of the ToC. The ToC is now collapsible at all widths.  When collapsed, it is available via click next to the title of the page at the top as well as within the sticky header.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist icon
Schierbecker wrote: "The watchlist icon too closely resembles a hamburger menu button. I can see many clicking the button thinking it is a dropdown menu. Some may lose unsaved edits after clicking it."

I completely agree, but not really because it resembles a hamburger button but because it's sandwiched (no pun intended!) between dynamic menus. If there was the dropdown arrow next to the interlangs, alerts and notices buttons just like the personal menu, it would communicate more clearly that the watchlist button is a simple link and not a menu. Nardog (talk) 02:38, 21 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this comment, @Nardog. We'll think how we could improve this. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:55, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Information on the design process that led to the current icon can be found here:
 * https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297979
 * Nardog is already involved in that task. It's probably best to add this feedback there, as not all designers are reviewing this talk page. Jdlrobson (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks @Nardog. the badge on the notifications icons complicate their layout slightly, but perhaps in the future we could have something like this (which assumes we've consolidated notices and alerts into a single button):
 * Single_notification_button_with_dropdown_arrow_indicator_(Vector_2022).png
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be a welcome improvement. Nardog (talk) 21:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF): btw, that screenshot contains a non-free image so I suggest you delete or redact it. Nardog (talk) 21:23, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Nardog oh whoops, just blurred it out. Thanks for the heads up. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 23:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Table of contents below sidebar just doesn't work
On a broader note than the two pieces of feedback above, I have to say that my experience so far with the new table of contents has been really frustrating. As an editor, I use lots of the links in the left sidebar quite frequently, so I don't want to collapse it (and even if I did, the way it persists in whatever state you leave it in means that every time I used it it'd return). But preserving the left sidebar forces the table of contents below it, which is just awful. The number one time I want to use the ToC is when I first navigate to an article, and I either want to jump to a specific section or just to see what sections it has to get an overview. Forcing me to scroll to get to that information is extremely annoying, and if it's kept in the final version, I predict the outcry will be intense. You could resolve this either by retaining the old style ToC alongside the new (which would also solve the sandwiching concerns I've previously raised) or by moving the ToC above the left sidebar. From your previews, I know you've been working on moving some stuff around and introducing pinning, so I hope this will be resolved in future iterations. But the initial version being introduced here is clearly not ready yet. Best, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * For me it seems the table of contents and the sidebar seems to be two different things. On Wikipedia, I collapsed the sidebar and the table of contents still remain. Tenryuu (talk) 03:09, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I want ToC collapsed too. But there is no way to do it. It uses almost 1/3 of my screen and makes reading very difficult.- Nizil Shah (talk) 05:32, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Same here. 14" Screen, collapsed sidebar menu, open only when needed. With the new TOC I cannot collapse the sidebar, it's just a toggle between navbar and TOC. I appreciate the effort and that it's a first attempt, but it definitely should be optional. And yes, I was involved in feedbacks and testing earlier. Regards Elya (talk) 14:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)


 * +1, the TOC should be accessible from the top of the page, and collapsible (vertically; also horiz if it is making the sidebar too wide - many pages have section heads that are quite long). Sj (talk) 17:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @SGrabarczuk (WMF) and @OVasileva (WMF), neither of you have replied here. This is a major concern, and I predict that if it is not addressed, it may single-handedly prevent the community from being willing to accept New Vector. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 17:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Sdkb - thanks for the ping! Currently, we're working on making the ToC collapsible, especially on narrow screens (T306660).  Collapsing it would allow for access further up in the page, but won't completely solve the issue you're describing.  To make using both the sidebar and the table of contents a bit easier, we are planning two things.  For logged-out users, we plan on collapsing the sidebar by default so that the table of contents will be shown further up in the page.  We are also planning on separating the tools related to pages in a separate menu.  This will significantly shorten the space for the sidebar, and create a clear definition between which tool acts on the page as a whole, and which one acts only on the page itself.  In this example, this puts the ToC above the end of the introduction section, which is higher than the previous ToC location (admittedly, this will not be the case for all articles).
 * Prototype_of_table_of_contents_and_tools_menu_for_desktop_Wikipedia.png
 * OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, @OVasileva (WMF)! Moving the tools elsewhere (ideally to a Twinkle-like menu) is something I certainly support and have been trying to set up since the 2020 revamp, and it would help with this. Your screenshot appears to be from a standard resolution display rather than a widescreen display, so I can't tell whether it's going to help enough to ensure that the ToC will always be visible on a normal monitor with neither it nor the main menu collapsed. Getting to a point where that's the case will be essential for getting community consensus.
 * Is there a reason you don't seem to be considering placing the ToC above the main menu? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 23:49, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @Sdkb, firstly I understand your frustration. From the data we've seen the most used links in the main menu are article tools, which as you saw we're going to be moving to the article toolbar (like TW), and also making pin-able on the right sidebar. At that point the main menu will contain many fewer links, and we don't expect many people to keep it pinned open. So the problem of the TOC being pushed down by the pinned main menu should be mostly resolved.
 * Now regarding people who might still want to pin the main menu, and are frustrated with the TOC getting pushed down the page. Unfortunately we don't have great solutions. We've prototyped putting a menu below the TOC and it gets a little complicated because if an article has many sections, and the TOC is expanded, the TOC will be very tall. And since it's fixed in place on the screen it means we'd have to introduce additional scrolling containers in order to ensure that people can always see that there is a menu below it. And then if they want to actually access the menu they would have to expand it and collapse the TOC. So it causes a lot more interactional complexity for the interface and the person using it. Placing the non-fixed main menu above the fixed TOC avoids this complexity. And since we've gotten very positive feedback about the TOC being fixed in place we don't want to change that. Here are a few prototypes we were playing around with which allow you to see the problem I'm describing:
 * - https://di-sidebar-accordion-menus.web.app/Cher (expand the first section)
 * - https://di-tools-left-collapsible.web.app/Cadmium
 * - https://di-tools-left-collapsible-belo.web.app/Cadmium
 * A secondary concern with putting the main menu underneath the TOC is that the hierarchy of information makes less sense. The site header (which the main menu will live within as a dropdown menu, which is optionally pin-able) contains global navigation. The article area contains navigation specific to the article. Placing the main menu below the table of contents breaks this organization.
 * A third concern is that, again based on the data we collected, most people (readers and editors) won't have the main menu pinned open. They will use it as a dropdown menu every so often. But we do want it to be pin-able. So then you'd have a menu in the site header that gets pinned below the table of contents. Not a huge problem, but also not intuitive or super clear.
 * Please let me know if all of that makes sense, and if you have other questions regarding this. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF), what you mention about the expected use mode being to have the left sidebar collapsed makes a bunch of sense. From an editor standpoint, I'm looking forward to seeing the article tools moved to the article toolbar, since at that point I'll likely collapse the left sidebar myself, and after I sit with that for a little bit I'll be able to give you feedback about how well it's working.
 * There may be some editors who don't like having to make one extra click to get to the article tools, but I think you have a really low-hanging fruit way of staving off that complaint, which is to make it so that the "More", "Twinkle", article tools, and user menus open automatically after you hover the cursor over them for a quarter second or so (rather than making you click). Have you considered doing that? Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:39, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "There may be some editors who don't like having to make one extra click to get to the article tools" — right, for sure there will be. These people will be able to pin the article tools to the sidebar, which gives them immediate access to them. We're also looking into making the article tools menu sticky, so that it remains there (like the TOC) as you scroll down the page. We have looked into menus opening on hover vs. click in the past, and think that opening on hover is less expected and sometimes distracting. If you haven't played around with it yet check out: https://di-pinable-language-menu.web.app/Moss — that one actually allows for both the language menu, and the tools menu, to be pinned to the right sidebar. Let us know what you think. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 13:28, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF), I like the tools menu there a lot! Regarding menus opening on hover vs. click, when you previously looked into that, did it include the tiny delay? My (granted, limited) understanding of UX is that the delay means that it won't open when you're just moving the cursor by on the way to somewhere else, reducing the potential for it to open unexpectedly and cause distraction. The difference is small, yes, but I think that the tiny bit of reduced friction from going with open-on-hover rather than open-on-click could really help make it an easier pill to swallow for many editors. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 16:46, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sdkb I agree that adding a slight delay might help the issue of the menu accidentally opening. I guess a new issue would then be: if a menu opens on hover (with a delay), do we also allow it to be opened via a click? If so, what happens if you click it (which means you're also hovering it), and then the click and hover sort of conflict and the menu ends up opening, then closing right after? This is something I've experienced on other websites. And if we disable the click, so the menu can only be opened on hover, might some people complain that waiting for the hover delay is more friction than having to click? I wonder if 80-90% of the effort involved is moving your cursor over to the menu, and then the additional effort of clicking is minimal? Also, once we've further standardized our menus as Codex components, I imagine a gadget that switches the mechanism for opening menus from click to hover would be relatively easy to make. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF), hmm, if that clicking conflict happens, I'd guess it means the delay is far too long. I'm not sure what the best practice length is, but I'd presume there's extensive research on it somewhere and/or it'd be possible to user test. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 21:50, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I will look around for research. When I Google "clicking vs hovering menu" the first few results unambiguously recommend clicking vs. hovering to open a menu:
 * https://www.liquidlight.co.uk/blog/navigation-drop-downs-should-they-be-hover-or-click/#:~:text=The%20natural%20instinct%20is%20to,the%20users%20train%20of%20thought.
 * https://wecreate.digital/blog/menu-clicks-vs-hover/
 * https://uxmovement.com/navigation/why-hover-menus-do-users-more-harm-than-good/
 * https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/05/frustrating-design-patterns-mega-dropdown-hover-menus/
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I really miss being able to see - at a glance - how long the article could be, and the general topic areas in the article itself. Could it be possible that the TOC sits under the header AND then stays in the sidebar as you scroll? Turini2 (talk) 18:14, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Turini2 can you clarify what you mean by:
 * - "see how long the article could be" — what enabled you to do this previously, and what has changed here?
 * - "see general topic areas in the article itself" — what enabled you to do this previously, and what has changed here?
 * - "TOC sits under the header" — which header do you mean?
 * If you are able to add a mockup or annotated screenshot that would be helpful. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF) https://imgur.com/a/dl4TOza I hope this helps. Turini2 (talk) 17:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Turini2 thanks for adding the screenshot. I'm not sure I understand what issues you're experiencing. Can you respond to the questions I wrote in my comment above, to help me understand? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Previously, the TOC located underneath the lead allows you to see the general length (and topics) that the article contains. In the new layout, the TOC is off to the side, and is hidden from view until you scroll down. Furthermore, the nested nature of the new TOC means that it is more of a chapter list, than a useful TOC.
 * With regards to my suggestion - I think it would be nice to have a TOC similar to previous underneath the lead, while also maintaining the position in the sidebar. Turini2 (talk) 17:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Turini2 thank you for clarifying, I understand now. A few notes:
 * If you collapse the main menu the TOC is available at the top of the page (which for many articles is not the case in Legacy Vector, because you have to scroll past a sometimes long lead-section in order to get to it). Soon we will be moving the tools menu to the article toolbar, making it less necessary for people to keep the main menu pinned open. You can see that in a prototype here: https://di-collapsible-menus.web.app/Moss. At that point we think most people will be satisfied with having the main menu collapsed.
 * Re: the sub-sections of the article being nested/collapsed in the TOC — I think there are tradeoffs either way. When they are nested/collapsed you can more easily scan the top level sections of the article, vs. if they are not nested you might have to scroll quite a bit to see the entire TOC (for example en:Paris). We do have a bit of logic in there so that if the TOC sections can be fully expanded while still fitting on a screen of average height, they will be (e.g. en:Plant Stem). @Quiddity (WMF) has written some CSS that automatically expands the sections in the TOC, which you can find here: User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css.
 * We looked into having the TOC both as a sidebar, and inline within the article. Ultimately we decided that it would be confusing to have the same element in two places on the page, especially considering they would be right next to each other at times. We also looked into having the TOC inline, and then once you scroll past it making it available as a floating/fixed element. You can see that prototype here: https://di-toc-supplementary.web.app/Sushi. We tested this and ultimately decided against it because (a) it's more simple for the TOC to always remain in the same location, and (b) if the lead section is long you have to scroll for the TOC rather than it being at the top of the page.
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Instant jumping vs. animated scrolling for table of contents
As you're polishing up the table of contents, one thing it'd be nice to consider is the behavior when you click on a section in it. Currently, it instantly jumps to that section, but I think it'd be better if it instead did a very quick scroll (maybe a quarter of a second). This would help readers to more easily understand what's happening when they click the link, and to get a better intuitive sense of what the article contains by seeing it flash by. Would that be possible? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:37, 30 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Bumping @SGrabarczuk (WMF) and @OVasileva (WMF). &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 17:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @Sdkb, thanks for raising this question. Yes that would be possible and is a very easy change. All it requires is adding this CSS rule to the HTML element: . (If you know how to use the developer tools in your browser you can add this rule yourself and then see how it feels to you). We looked into this in the past and decided that since pages can be very long the animated scrolling transition might be dizzying (especially if you jump between a few different sections somewhat rapidly). However I do see value in it (for the reasons you mentioned), and we did not test the two options with people. I will setup a simple test on usertesting.com and gather some feedback. I've added a GIF below that demonstrates the animated scrolling.
 * Animated_scrolling_when_clicking_table_of_contents_links_in_Vector_2022.gif
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 21:31, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF), wonderful; I'm curious to see the results! &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:21, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Trouble With Zooming In
My vision is poor so I usually zoom to 200% on my browser and it is no problem. With the new skin that same magnification causes the sidebar to take up the top of my screen and I can't see the title of the article and know what page I'm on without scrolling.

Language switcher opt-out
The new language picker is a deal breaker for me as an active editor who is working with a very diverse array of topics on Wikipedia. I write about Māori language, Japanese geisha, Taiwanese literature, Inuit cuisine, Paraguayan instruments, Vietnamese temples, Algerian regions, Berber cuisine, Arabic professions. I write articles that compare dozens of cultures or languages.

I need a way to hover over the list of languages to see the name of the page in a different random language (which can be anything from Korean to Twi). I need to be able to open 50 language editions very quickly to estimate if any of them have good illustrations or any new literature on the topic that I am working on. I often read the same article in 4 languages simply because I can read in a lot of languages and I am wondering which language edition has the best article. The workflow with the new language picker is tremendously stunted.

The main idea of the new interface seems to be making the page width more narrow. With that, there is a lot of free space at the sides, and I would like to propose putting a full list of languages there, as an option. Le Loy (talk) 00:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, the decision taken now does not help advanced editors work in projects, but hinders them. I think we need to make a separate setting for the "always open" list. The problems of this list have still existed since sorting was removed. Iniquity (talk) 15:43, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * --Wdpp (talk) 11:47, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @Le Loy, thanks for your feedback and I'm sorry for your frustration with the language switcher. Can you please see my comment on the other language switcher thread above (link to thread) and reply there with any feedback or thoughts you have? Thanks AHollender (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback regarding Vector (2022) TOC
I've had Vector (2022) enabled for a while, and generally like it. However:


 * I don't feel the new way of handling the TOC and side menu is user friendly. It took me a while to notice I could hide the side menu only to raise the TOC up the page, as I assumed it would also hide the TOC since the two are part of the same sidebar. With the side menu visible, I had to scroll much further down than usual to find the TOC on many articles with short lead sections, which undermined the convenience previously provided by the TOC as a way to skip scrolling and quickly navigate to a desired section.
 * It also doesn't help that the new TOC breaks the functionality of Skip to talk, widely used on talk pages on Wikipedia, but I now understand that the change is intended to make that template unnecessary.
 * The prototype linked by others above deals with some of these issues but is still a bit confusing. It's not clear that clicking "hide" on the TOC should result in a menu appearing by the article title rather than just collapsing it like collapsible lists which use the same "[hide]" links; while this behaviour can be learned, it's not clear why the hidden TOC menu button doesn't persist between the search icon and article title when scrolling down, which is what I expected after seeing it collapse to a button beside the article title.


 * The new sidebar is wider to accommodate the TOC, but much of that space is blank so I'm not sure it needs to be quite so wide, particularly as the added width can cause issues such as galleries by default having less space for images per row. I understand the motivation is to limit the characters of text per line, but doing so by padding the sidebar with empty space seems like an unhelpful way to achieve that. Scyrme (talk) 16:57, 26 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I want to chime in about the "hide" behaviour. I noticed the link for the first time right now, tried clicking it and was a confused when it disappeared altogether. I would have expected the link to change to "show" and the table itself to hide. It took me a while to find the icon in the header. I think that if it should behave this way, it needs to somehow be communicated to the user where the TOC goes. Sebastian Berlin (WMSE) (talk) 10:42, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @Sebastian Berlin (WMSE), thanks for your feedback.
 * For people with smaller screens we want to be able to get the space back when they hide the table of contents. That's why it moves next to the article title, rather than staying in place and taking up space in the sidebar.
 * We will be working on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T311160 soon, which will help people understand where the table of contents has been hidden.
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these comments @Scyrme. I'm curious if your thoughts have changed at all as you've spent more time with Vector 2022? A few notes and updates from our end:
 * Re: "With the side menu visible, I had to scroll much further down than usual to find the TOC on many articles with short lead sections" — as you've seen we're working on addressing this by moving the tools menu to the page toolbar, making it much less necessary to keep the main menu "pinned" open. Here is a more recent prototype: https://di-collapsible-menus.web.app/Moss
 * Re: "Skip to talk" — right, that template is not necessary in Vector 2022
 * Re: "It's not clear that clicking "hide" on the TOC should result in a menu appearing by the article title rather than just collapsing it like collapsible lists which use the same "[hide]" links" — we're aware of this. We're going to see if we can come up with something better than "[hide]".
 * Re: "it's not clear why the hidden TOC menu button doesn't persist between the search icon and article title when scrolling down" — we're almost done with T311103 which adds this functionality
 * Re: "The new sidebar is wider to accommodate the TOC, but much of that space is blank so I'm not sure it needs to be quite so wide" — because some articles have longer section titles than others it's difficult to find the right width for the TOC. For example on en:Cher, if you expand the "Life and career" section, the section titles wrap onto multiple lines. Whereas on other articles there is more than enough space. We're working with the design systems team to fine-tune the spacing here.
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

New feedback

 * Thanks for the response!
 * The new sticky TOC menu button is a great change! It resolves my earlier complaints specific to the TOC and makes navigating long articles much easier. I feel the only major issue in regards to user-friendliness is the use of "[hide]" links, and I'm glad to read that you're investigating alternative solutions. My only new issue is that the TOC doesn't seem to remember that you pinned it to the toolbar when clicking over to a different article. That might be deliberate, as it would save a click if you wanted to go straight to the TOC of the next article, but I'd like an option to keep it pinned until I unpin it.
 * Re: the more recent prototype; I like the narrower toolbar and the revised main menu and TOC. I particularly like that the main menu and TOC both consistently use "hide"/"move to sidebar", making how they function much clearer. I also really like the "Tools" menu. In general the new prototype looks much tidier and is an improvement. I don't know whether the prototype lacking the option to pin the TOC to the toolbar is intentional. If it is, I feel a sticky button beside the title is much more helpful and user friendly than a popout that sticks to the page only if you scroll with the TOC expanded.
 * A minor issue I've noticed on both the prototype you linked and in the current version of Vector (2022) is that the article content appears slightly off-centre, to the left. It seems that the design doesn't take into account the width of the scrollbar on the right side of the page.
 * A different issue I've noticed is that when switching between articles and special pages, the content jumps jarringly to the left as the page's content takes up the full width of the page unless the main menu is unpinned. I understand special pages were deliberately allowed extra width, but it creates an uncomfortable discontinuity when switching between the different areas. Having the sidebar expanded on special pages alleviates this, but it also negates the benefit of allowing special pages extra space. I would suggest only allowing special pages to take up the same width as an article with the sidebar and TOC both hidden; this would ease the transition between different types of pages, and would only narrow the space to about as much as was previously available in the old default theme.
 * I'm looking forward to seeing the next revision of the theme. Scyrme (talk) 20:41, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Scyrme thanks for this helpful reply.
 * Great point about the TOC remaining pinned when switching pages. I've added this as an open UX question to review with the Web team and the Design team next week. I will follow up with you once we've taken some time to consider the tradeoffs.
 * Re: "I don't know whether the prototype lacking the option to pin the TOC to the toolbar is intentional" — can you clarify what you mean here?
 * Re: "It seems that the design doesn't take into account the width of the scrollbar on the right side of the page" — interesting, I hadn't noticed this. I know that the width of the scrollbar varies based on the operating system and browser. We've also started discussing using a customized scrollbar (though it's difficult to ensure consistency across browsers). I've made a note to look into this.
 * Re: switching between article pages and special pages — yup, this is a challenge we've also identified. A longer-term hope is that with some light reformatting most special pages (in particular Log pages) will no longer need to be full-width (and would even be easier to read with the limited width). In terms of "only allowing special pages to take up the same width as an article with the sidebar and TOC both hidden", I'm worried that editors wouldn't be satisfied with this, as it would be only 960px. Currently, in Legacy Vector, if you have a large monitor Special pages can be as wide as your screen is (minus the width of the sidebar). Though perhaps I'm misunderstanding your suggestion. Also, could you add a bit more context regarding a specific workflow here, and how often you end up switching between pages with a limited with, and special pages that don't have a limited width?
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

More TOC concerns
On pages with long headings (f.i. en:Wikipedia:Closure_requests), the new TOC is highly impractical. The headings are difficult to parse, sometimes cutting words in two. A lot of scrolling is also required to get an overview of what discussions to close. Will it be possible to go back to the old TOC on a per-page base? I can imagine a lot of non-article pages will have similar problems (including this one).

Less importantly, I noticed that the default is having only the top heading displayed. In some pages / articles there are very few top-level headings, and this would always require the reader to uncollapse. Can this be made more dynamic? Femke (talk) 18:09, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Would it be possible (probably only on bigger screens) to use the empty white space on the right for tools (for logged-in editors), so that the TOC is less cramped? Solves two problems in one. Femke (talk) 17:00, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your question! That is actually one of the next steps we hope to take for the new skin.  More details are available on the page tools feature page.  In terms of the ToC, we actually estimate the length of the ToC and decide whether to open or close the subsections based on that.  For pages with shorter ToC's, all subsections should be open by default.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:51, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Femke thanks for your comments. We worked with the Editing team to determine whether or not to use the updated, sidebar table of contents on talk pages. You can see that discussion here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T294784. While there are some drawbacks, particularly long section titles wrapping (as you mentioned), there is also a large benefit of consistency between article pages and talk pages. Do you think that truncating the section titles in the table of contents, and making the full title available via a tooltip on hover would help with this situation at all?
 * [[File:Truncated_section_titles_in_table_of_contents,_with_tooltip_on_hover_(Vector_2022).png|thumb|Truncated section titles in table of contents, with tooltip on hover (Vector 2022)]]
 * cc @PPelberg (WMF) @NAyoub (WMF) (from the Editing team) who might have some other thoughts or ideas to add. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I really like the page tools on the right. Invisible for readers (who can be converted to editors by the simple edit button), and by default visible to editors that want it. This also means I can collapse the other links on the left by default (assuming that script writers move their script links).
 * The current TOC I see on this page seems to have a smaller font size than previously, and (4 comments) in grey below. It's an improvement, but I still miss the overview of the numbers.
 * The initial link I mistyped (en:WP:Closure requests) at the moment only has the top-level heading (so it only shows requests for closure, so that seems to be a bug? Or can you only toggle between top-level / all level uncollapsed? On that same page, the end of the heading is often the most interesting, so I'm not sure that having truncated section titles will help much. You'd want a quick overview (similar to en:WP:ANI), to see what discussions you'd like to engage in. Femke (talk) 17:44, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

The new sidebar TOC is confusive, not intuitive, unusable
I strongly oppose the new sidebar TOC. It is extremely confusing, not intuitive, and unusable. The removal of the numbering for paragraphs and their transformation into collapsible lists, will make the articles and discussions unreadable, as their structure will be completely unclear.

The TOC at the top of the article right below the lead text was perfect for giving a clear impression of the article's structure and for exploring its contents.

I think that keeping both the old and the new TOC (if the latter is really necessary) would be a good solution. The new TOC proves useful only in the bottom sections of very long articles. 2001:B07:A2A:1884:D5D:3606:C70C:5366 14:03, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Second that. Another point of note is that the narrow sidebar is a poor match for long section titles. Even in English wikipedia, some headings must be split in two narrow lines, or three. Other languages, that are naturally more verboise than English, are even more affected. Retired electrician (talk) 08:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I just replied to a different topic on this page regarding why we decided not to put the TOC both inline and in the sidebar. I am pasting that reply here:
 * We looked into having the TOC both as a sidebar, and inline within the article. Ultimately we decided that it would be confusing to have the same element in two places on the page, especially considering they would be right next to each other at times. We also looked into having the TOC inline, and then once you scroll past it making it available as a floating/fixed element. You can see that prototype here: https://di-toc-supplementary.web.app/Sushi. We tested this and ultimately decided against it because (a) it's more simple for the TOC to always remain in the same location, and (b) if the lead section is long you have to scroll for the TOC rather than it being at the top of the page.
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

General concerns!
Well I was part of the process for quite some time now. And up until the move of the TOC from inside the content to the sidebar it was okay with me. I had some minor things, I thought I will get used to: the white space (anyone wanting that, can narrow their window), some inconsistencies (compare ), the language switcher, which I fear will leave the impression of reading the same thing in different languages (compare Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Archive3, as a side-note: nothing happened here, at least nothing I recognized).

But today I got this message: Topic:Wsfx4tbwzkgamaek asking for a translation for Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Updates/2022-07_for_the_largest_wikis. Let me cite:


 * "...before discussing the change itself"
 * "...that allows for a way to identify the needs of the community from the new skin."
 * "We would love to see the Vector 2022 skin [...] become the new default across all wikis..."
 * "We will be ready to begin making the change at the end of August (and not in July, as previously announced), when the visual refinements and other deployment blockers are ready."
 * "The goal for that discussion will be to identify breaking issues or opportunities for improvement for the new skin. It will be important for us to reduce the risk of bugs or imperfections that would be particularly troublesome on [insert your language] Wikipedia"

All that reads like: Well, we're just talking, let's see, what needs to be done, that everyone is happy. There are some things that need to be done anyways.

Now let's read those two cites:
 * "...difficult discussions about the launch as the default" (compare Topic:Wsfx4tbwzkgamaek)
 * "...until our improvements are default on all wikis in July 2022." (compare Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements

So isn't this not just a request for bug reports instead of a "discussion"? Is this not more of a fear of "Flak" instead of "needs of the community"? Isn't it happening anyways, instead of you "loving to see it"? What about all the other projects, wikibooks for example ("[insert your language] Wikipedia")? I understand, you do the work, you decide. But:


 * Is it wise to "discuss" while there are still tasks to be done and decisions to be made? (compare Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Visual_Refinements, which by the way doesn't even seem finished, and for example )
 * Is the Date of the end of August (6 weeks) really feasible? Who will translate all the feedback that will come in german?
 * Is it good to leave the impression, that communities will have a choice (compare )?

Some suggestions, if I may:
 * 1) Why not try to slow the process down? Why the haste? One could remove the deadlines and refine everything. Then ask the communities for bug reports.
 * 2) Why not try some marketing "tricks"? I think the discussion about the white space clearly shows that desktop improvements are highly subjective. Why not use for example skin changes? Another Option could be deploying Vector 2022 only for not logged in users and hence prolong/smooth the transition-process creating time for bug reports and discussions. Most of anonymous usage would probably not care for the change, as long as the content is there. On another plus-side it will create "data" on how the menu-usage changes and community-links are perceived. It will probably even create data on how many logged in users switch to the new layout deliberately and or switch back hence providing "hard" success-data.
 * 3) Would it be that bad to really leave the community a choice?
 * 4) If you are relying on volunteers, grant them a little more slack. Bug reports from the community need time: Bugs need to be recognized as bugs, they need to be reported, triaged and handled. Is this possible in 6 weeks? Volunteers might have another life, a job, kids, a week might be pretty short notice. Phabricator-use is not that trivial.
 * 5) Let's talk or try, if the new design might eventually be a problem for recruiting new volunteers. Did anyone think about a possible impact of hiding community-links in collapsed menus? Nobody seems to talk about community-pages or discussion-pages or even other project-scopes. Is the new menu-structure as fitting for these as for wikipedia-articles?

I'm deeply saddened. The new TOC will make my life within wikimedia really hard and I commented about that early on (compare here, bullet 7). I think all the TOC-comments on this page (see above) should raise at least some concern. And last but not least, I'm deeply troubled, that the new language-links will do more harm, than good.

So, ping @OVasileva (WMF) and @SGrabarczuk (WMF), my sincere apology, I don't mean to be rude or mean and I appreciate your work and the work of your colleagues. But I don't want to volunteer for the translation-request, because all of the above mentioned problems.

Regards HirnSpuk (talk) 22:25, 20 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello @HirnSpuk. Thank you for your outstanding involvement, and appreciation for our work. I'm glad to see that. Also, thank you for your sincere, thoughtful, and thorough comment with all the links and quotes. I think I understand what your approach is, I'm happy that you're saying this.
 * Before I answer the questions, I'll admit/confirm that:
 * The ToC work hasn't been finished yet. So haven't the visual refinements. There's a list of issues labelled as "deployment blockers", by which we mean issues we need to solve before making it the default everywhere. I hope this will make you less sad!
 * Bug reports do need time. Phabricator is not that trivial.
 * While indeed focusing on the most typical use cases, like interacting with articles.
 * In some discussions, it has been confusing what exactly is for the individual communities to choose between.
 * Regarding the questions, my answers to the easiest part:
 * We've been working since 2019, most work is behind us and we're headed towards the end. Now, we need to make sure what else the largest communities may need.
 * What about all the other projects - the message I asked if you could translate is dedicated to the largest communities of the top language versions of Wikipedia.
 * This is why in that message, we're initiating a pre-discussion about culture of collaboration. After that, we'll ask for bug reports and other technical requests.
 * We use the name Desktop Improvements because the point is to make changes that are actual measured improvements. Only some of the visual refinements are really subjective. But regarding the feature changes, the idea for each of these is that it should be an improvement compared to Legacy Vector.
 * We're part of Core Experiences and work closely with the teams focusing on newbies and more experienced editors. It's our plan to make entry points for new volunteers prominent, in collaboration with Growth. We hope that Desktop Improvements will be an introduction to even more sophisticated changes addressing very specific use cases.
 * OK, enough now for one comment. Let's keep talking, though. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:30, 21 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @SGrabarczuk (WMF), because you said "let's keep talking", let me react to your latter 5 points.
 * I do not want to diminish in any way the work you (plural) have done since 2019 and I think the plan is good. But I'm convinced, that the timing is not right. "The end of August" I find far to soon if you "need to make sure what else the largest communities may need."
 * I wasn't able to find the "we talk to the «big guys» first"-idea anywhere. The only thing I find is "We would like our improvements to be default on all wikis in August/September 2022." There will probably not be time to talk to the «small guys». And in addition, the text to translate suggest, that there is a choice, and you'd like to "talk". My impression is you want to ask: how can we best ask for bug reports. That might (and probably will) work, but I don't want to be part of exactly this approach.
 * same as first and second.
 * How is the improvement measured? Is there any "hard data" anywhere? Everything needs more clicks hence more time. It "looks" a little better and modern, which I also find necessary and good. But what is actually "improved"?
 * I need more scrolling for the TOC,
 * I will need more work (and creative ideas btw) for rework of community-pages that rely on the "old" version of the TOC at the moment, and even worse, I need to check the visual appearance and usability of pages in even more configurations (to mobile and desktop and VE and source, now I need to add different skins),
 * I need more clicks for almost anything (if menus are hidden, but this is nearly imperative, to get at least some use out of the new ToC),
 * I'm deeply troubled about the "impression" some changes might make (which hence wouldn't be an improvement either and which is by default not measurable)...
 * What about the visually impaired? Is it an improvement for them too, any hard data?
 * Please, feel free to elaborate. I know it would be baloney to change the name in the last 6 weeks of the work. My point is not to do that, but to take a step back, review what's done so far, and if the decision will be made to prolong the process a really long time, then maybe one might think about a change, and if it's only to get less of the "if you do this I'll be done with wiki..."-criticism that's just consuming time for everyone.
 * I'm not addressing technical issues. It's the possible "hiding" of prominent community-links in the sidebar by using elaborate restructuring and collapsing mechanisms. On that the single communities won't have influence as far as I see it at the moment.
 * PS: I appreciate trying to cheer me up ("make you less sad"), but my sadness stems from the uncertainty how this will all work out. In the end the prototype is only a prototype. And how much work in the community must be done afterwards to facilitate the "improvements" is also not clear. The main point being, that I struggle with checking and cross-checking functionalities in different systems. It was okay until the move of the ToC. But as long as there is still work to be done, I can't even think about workarounds for not having the ToC where and how I was used to it.
 * Regards HirnSpuk (talk) 07:34, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @HirnSpuk, thank you for your continued feedback. It's been super helpful. We've rewritten our message to German-language Wikipedia based on your thoughts and the learnings we've gotten through similar conversations on other wikis. We're going to post our next draft for translation this week - let us know what you think of it! We're open to suggestions. Your continued thoughts are much appreciated!
 * In terms of your individual questions:
 * The timing is not right
 * We really do believe that our changes are improvements already! We're eager to bring them to readers and editors. As you have pointed out, we've been building these for three years. We've received feedback from German-language Wikipedians, and many other communities. As you also know, we've performed prototype testing with editors across 30+ languages, and different types of quantitative testing on each feature. Many significant requests have already been discussed.
 * The main reason we want to have this conversation now (while we're putting the finishing touches, like the visual refinements and changes to the table of contents) is that we'd like to see if any of the feedback might change what those finishing touches are. We'd also feel more confident with our plan once we know what the additional work we need to do is, if any.
 * The process we're envisioning is to collect bugs and requests, and triage these into three categories: (1) the ones that must be done before the deployment, (2) the ones that can wait until after the deployment, and (3) the ones that we don't think are a priority. Our goal for the conversation with the communities is to establish what lies in each bucket such that the communities are comfortable with changing the default.
 * We understand if a conversation might take longer on a given community, and do not plan on cutting any discussion short just to reach a deadline. We made a mistake with Japanese Wikipedia and made the change prior to acknowledging a common process. We'd like to avoid that mistake with the other wikis, hence the lengthier discussion with German-language Wikipedia.
 * The "we talk to the «big guys» first"-idea
 * We try to take the approach of equity. We have conversations across the top 25 Wikipedias by size. We've attended a Wikisource Triage meeting and two SWAN meetings. The set of pilot wikis is diverse. We inform the big and small communities about our office hours using different channels, incl. MassMessages, Tech News, Discord, Telegram, Facebook. We're going to have the interpretation support in the top UN languages.
 * How is the improvement measured?
 * Thank you for pointing this out. This very crucial piece was missing. We'll be adding a summary of our findings to our future messages.
 * You'll find the short answer on the English Wikipedia Village Pump page, quite paradoxically brought to everyone's attention using the "hidden" template. For details on any individual feature, go to the “features” section of our documentation, select the feature you are interested in, and review the qualitative and quantitative sections.
 * It's the possible "hiding" of prominent community-links in the sidebar by using elaborate restructuring and collapsing mechanisms. On that the single communities won't have influence as far as I see it at the moment.
 * This is a great question. So far, our interviews with users have shown that newcomers are NOT more likely to begin contributing based on the number (or even presence) of community links. In fact, having so many options at hand made them feel unwelcomed to the interface as they didn't instinctively know where the links would lead, and thus, felt intimidated or lost.
 * We think a better method is to have fewer links that are clearer to understand and pave more intuitive ways. These links are, among others, edit or history. We are working with the Growth and Editing teams to identify how we can increase the understanding of these links for readers and newcomers - both so they will know where the content they are reading is coming from, but also as a means of introducing them to contribution. See also: Core Experiences.
 * What about the visually impaired? Is it an improvement for them too, any hard data?
 * We've been doing accessibility testings with the American Foundation for the Blind. You'll find more information in this task: T310033. Generally though, part of this work goes beyond Desktop Improvements, and is done by our designers who build basic user interface elements for all the teams.
 * Hey, on a side note, have you ever attended our office hours? I (Szymon) don't recall this. You'd have heard answers to some similar questions if you had joined us earlier. Anyway, feel invited.
 * OVasileva (WMF), SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:44, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry but user expereince is kind of awful
Okay. I've given "Vector 2022" a shot for a while and it is just confusing and difficult to use. Too much animation-style issues. Too much whitespace. Difficult discovery of functions. Difficult to obtain a feeling of confidence in mastery. If I would have been keeping a log, I'd have dozens of gripes by now. I don't wish to waste time enumerating specific things because it's besides the point because the entire experience is bad. I can't hack it anymore. I thought I'd get used to it but I'm going back to Vector 2010. Keep things simple. Keep it static. I know many people but a lot of work into this and it was a valid attempt but it just didn't suceed in improving over Vector 2010. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Jason Quinn thank you for trying it out, and I'm sorry to hear that it is no longer working for you. If you end up giving it another chance at some point I highly recommend these CSS adjustments written by @Quiddity (WMF): User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css. They result in a more dense, and I suppose somewhat more static, version of Vector 2022, which might be closer to some of the things you like about Vector 2010. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Sticky header causes TOC to instantly offset on appearing
When scrolling down a page, at the moment the sticky header shows up (smoothly), the TOC offset is incremented to display below the header. However, the TOC offset change is instant, unlike the header. It's just a small visual thing, but I think making the TOC offset to follow the smooth header apparition would make pages look more reactive. Regards, Epok (talk) 18:54, 29 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Epok thank you for this perceptive comment. We recently got a similar report from @Quiddity (WMF) and have created a task to address this, which you can find here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T314330. This issue will be fixed in the next few weeks : ) AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Sticky sidebar overlaps footer
I wonder if anyone have noticed it: when you scroll down until the end of the page (from a desktop) the sticky sidebar overlaps the footer. Because of this, it's impossible to read part of its content and it looks pretty weird. I don't know much about how MediaWiki works, but maybe applying z-index and background-color (or something similar) to the footer could be a possible solution?

Cheers, Anidae (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello @Anidae. Thanks for writing here. Yes, we've noticed the bug and we'll fix it. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:49, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

(merged threads)

I'd first like to say that I love having the table of contents over on the left, it makes so much sense and is really helpful. But one issue is that the text at the bottom (where it says "This page was last edited on ..." and "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.") is cut off by the TOC.

I could imagine two solutions for this: either the bottom text could remain the width it is now and the sticky TOC would stop above it, or the width would be the same as the article and the TOC would just continue. As it is now, it's just really visually irritating. BappleBusiness (talk) 19:07, 29 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @BappleBusiness thanks for reporting this issue, and super glad to hear that you like the new location of the TOC. Does this task appropriately describe the issue you're seeing: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T313060? If not, would it be possible for you to add a comment to it?
 * Thanks! AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is the issue, thank you. BappleBusiness (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

CSS gadget to truly disable max-width limit (on jawiki)
Hi, developers. I am aokomoriuta, a.k.a. jawiki sysop&IFA, and was the Phase III UX Ambassador for the (legacy) vector skin switching.

In this thread, I'd like to notify you (developers) about the gadget NewVector-MaxWidth.css, which is provided on Japanese Wikipedia to solve the max-width problem on Vector2022 and problems on the gadget linked from your FAQ page.



I understand why you think the limitation is reasonable. I won't make a counterargument to limit max-width as the default settings.

However, the limitation is NOT THE BEST FOR ALL USERS, but only most. Some users (including me) want to read Wikipedia and other articles as wide as possible (the browser's window-width).

I know you linked the gadget for such users (en:User:Jdlrobson/vector-max-width-toggle.js) from the FAQ page.

I tried it, but it's not good for me. There are three problems;


 * I need to click the button to switch the width on each page.
 * I can feel a little latency to see the switched page because JavaScript might take some instructions to overwrite the width settings, especially on my light laptop computer.
 * The width is not maximized. It makes the width only about two times. As I wrote above, it is not enough.

To solve the above problems, I have provided a user custom css (ja:プロジェクト:ウィキ技術部/スクリプト開発/trunk/newvector-maxwidth.css) to truly maximized the width on Japanese Wikipedia.

This method is significantly lighter than the gadget you provided, and easy to maintain because it needs only to specify the element's class/id which you limit the max-width. I will continue to maintain and provide Japanese Wikipedia users as long as I don't find an alternative way.

You can link the CSS from your (FAQ) pages, or take over its development and maintenance to provide all Wikimedia sites. I also welcome feedback/request/comments from all developers and users. Please reply in this thread.

I hope this thread and your developments improve user experience successfully.

日本語版の利用者の方へ(For Japanese users)：ガジェットに関する意見・要望・コメントなどはja:Wikipedia‐ノート:ベクター (2022年版)/横幅制限の撤廃でも受け付けていて、日本語ができる人はそちらに書いてもらったほうが応答や解決が早いと思います. aokomoriuta (talk) 06:58, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Design decision against the Wikimedia Movement strategy recommendations
Hello! The Desktop Improvements (sic) project has decided, against the Wikimedia Movement recommendations, to hide by default the links to sister projects to non logged users. The Improve User Experience recommendation textually says:


 * Tools to connect cross-project and cross-language functionalities to provide an enhanced experience of the knowledge contained in the Wikimedia ecosystem for a particular interest, informational need, or inquiry. (bold text is mine).

We can have different views on aesthetics, but hiding the cross-project links instead of making them more prominent is against the recommendations. I have tried to discuss this in Phabricator, but there doesn't seem to be any way to discuss seriously this error. Thanks. Theklan (talk) 20:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Theklan, thank you for your concern and for keeping us on our toes. To clarify: the idea behind the goal that you've quoted is is to build systems and tools (such as structured data) that allow us to incorporate content from sister projects within Wikipedia. As we know from data collection simply linking to sister projects does not work effectively. So I respectfully disagree that we're are going "against the Wikimedia Movement recommendations".
 * Secondly, as we've discussed in the past: with each improvement comes a tradeoff, and sometimes when our principles/goals conflict with one another we are forced to make difficult decisions. So even if we had a movement goal to provide links to sister projects (which we do not), it still might be okay to collapse those links in some cases. We cannot offer people every link at all times — we know from research that this decreases the quality of the overall reading experience. So yes, the links in the sidebar are more difficult to access now. We are already aware of this. But the overall improvement to the reading experience makes this tradeoff worth it. This is the conclusion we have arrived at through data collection and testing. These decisions are not easy to make, and we know that certain people will be upset by them. I am sorry if you disagree with the conclusion we have come to.
 * Thankfully the Structured data team are actively working on various experiments that bring content from sister projects directly into Wikipedia. You can read more about that project here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306341. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "Bring content from sister projects directly into Wikipedia" doesn't seem like a recommendation, because we can also bring content from Wikiquotes to Wikisource, without using Wikipedia. So, sorry, but no. This recommendation is clear: disconnecting cross-project links goes against the recommendation. Theklan (talk) 07:58, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Theklan you can read more about how content from sister projects is being incorporated into Wikipedia here: Structured Data Across Wikimedia/Search Improvements AHollender (WMF) (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a good initative, yes. Is not related to what we are discussing here. What are the steps to make links to sister projects more prominent in the new design? Theklan (talk) 08:04, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * In my understanding that question was already answered above: "simply linking to sister projects does not work effectively". --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 10:35, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * "Simply linking to sister projects does not work effectively" can be a good sentence. Just deleting the links is, surely, less effective than having there. If the links there are not effective, we should have a place to put them on (that was my only point in the Phabricator ticket, but as usual it gets ignored, or the discussion goes to harassment if I have a point). Is there or will there be a place to put the links, or are we going to get rid of them just because they weren't prominent? (I remember that I have been constructive in this discussion, I even presented a mock-up to make my point more clear). Theklan (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Theklan I think collecting data is a good first step, so we can better understand how the previous solution was being used. I am hesitant about adding more menus/links around the content, again because we know from the data that the links in the sidebar weren't being used much, and that they distracted from the reading experience.
 * Would it be possible to explore the usage of these sister project link templates on Basque Wikipedia? I wonder if we can also collect data for clicks to those templates. Also would it be possible to experiment with adding these links to infoboxes on some articles?
 * Screenshot_of_sister_project_links_template_on_Albert_Einstein_article.png
 * Screenshot_of_sister_project_links_template_on_Muhammad_Ali_article.png
 * AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:56, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Links to Commons are added to every infobox at Basque Wikipedia if a Category exists. All those links are at the bottom, and are included by hand. Some big wikis have it automated, and we also have it automated at Basque Wikipedia, because we use Wikidata extensively. Is not the case for 800+ wikis. We could just make things easier, and add the links to cross-wiki projects (as intended in the Movement Strategy) somewhere visible. For example, below the title. That would be a move along the Movement Strategy. Theklan (talk) 19:21, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * which data collection? David Wadie Fisher-Freberg (talk) 13:33, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @David Wadie Fisher-Freberg my apologies — after reviewing the data I realized that those links were not included (to clarify: "wikidata" refers to all sister project links):
 * "'Donate, store and wikidata links currently excluded. Unable to track as they direct to external sites. Need instrumentation.'"
 * The report is here: https://nbviewer.org/github/wikimedia-research/Desktop-behavior-analysis-Aug-2019/blob/master/Desktop_usage_behavior_analysis.ipynb#Sidebar-links
 * So we know, high level, that people were hardly clicking most of the sidebar links (which is why I made the assumption about the sister project links). We are now discussing as a team how we can collect data about these links. I apologies again for providing incorrect information. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:44, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * thank you for your reply. I am deeply concerned with this change, and without more information I doubt that I could buy the "no one's clicking this so we should remove it" argument. Would appreciate if there is a clearer timeline and plan from your side on the planned data collection for the links. Thanks, David Wadie Fisher-Freberg (talk) 12:26, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * At the same time, it would be a wise move to reverse the sidebar hidding, while a solution to the cross-wiki links is found and we gather data about real usage. Theklan (talk) 11:33, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @David Wadie Fisher-Freberg right, so the tricky thing is that we can't have everything on the screen at once. In order to improve the interface there are tradeoffs we have to make. What is more important: having the best reading experience possible, or having links to sister projects immediately available on the screen? What is more important: having immediate and persistent access to the table of contents, or immediate access to links to the sister projects? Collapsing the sidebar allows us to significantly improve the reading experience, and make the table of contents immediately accessible. In our opinion these features are of higher order importance. We want the site to be welcoming to everyone, and ideally be the best place on the internet for reading and learning. I think we can work together to figure out what to do about these links, but it would be helpful if you could acknowledge that the changes we've made are for good reasons. We need to think about the "forest", not just individual "trees" (or we will end up again with a cluttered, confusing interface). AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand the perspective which you came from. I don't agree that removing the links to sister projects would obstruct the aim to have the best reading experience possible. Our Strategic Direction explicitly stated that by 2030, "we will become a platform that serves open knowledge to the world across interfaces and communities". This decision of yours would stand in its way. I agree we can work together to figure out what to do about these links. My suggestion is to keep it where they have been for many years. David Wadie Fisher-Freberg (talk) 04:03, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * There's even a better suggestion: make them more prominent. Just use the tagline, that is the most visible place in all the screen. Theklan (talk) 09:55, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF) Can we at least get confirmation that you will not try to sabotage local language versions that will add these links back in their common css/js files because they think they are important? Perhaps will you even make sure such local changes are easy (in line with the strategy Enable the empowerment of local communities) by providing simple configuration and documentation? Ainali (talk) 13:46, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, @Ainali, the links won't disappear, but will be hidden if you don't click on the menu button. Istead of looking for a better and more prominent place for them, they will be hidden from general public, making our ecosystem poorer. Theklan (talk) 17:15, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understood. I meant "add back" as in make them easily available again. Ainali (talk) 17:37, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Ainali thanks for your question. As I mentioned above, each link in the interface comes with a tradeoff (often to the reading experience). If communities decide that the inclusion of these links directly on the page (i.e. not within a menu) is important to them, we will support them in figuring out a way to make this modification. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 17:48, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, Alex. Is not that is "important to them". Is that is important for the whole movement as stated in our Movement Strategy. I was part of the team who made the recommendation, so trust me: we were talking about this. Theklan (talk) 19:23, 8 August 2022 (UTC)


 * As a courtesy notification, I've also inserted this to the ongoing discussion at English Wikipedia. David Wadie Fisher-Freberg (talk) 04:46, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
 * any follow-up on this? David Wadie Fisher-Freberg (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It seems pretty straightforward to me that it's better for the sister projects if there are fewer but more obvious ways to get into the community, as someone who's involved in the community is far more likely to also find the sister projects. The status quo, where we show links to the sister projects indiscriminately to - statistically speaking - people uninterested in them, comparatively would be less effective. Enterprisey (talk) 19:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Survey
Does this survey will be run on English Wikipedia only? -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 09:25, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @NGC 54 - no, we will be running the survey on approximately 10 languages, depending on where we are able to get translations. We're starting with English Wikipedia while we wait for translations for other language wikis.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Namespaces in the search menu
It seems it is possible to improve the search as follows. For example, only for registered users. Editors often have to search for templates and links to help pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and registered users can probably do this more often than they type the names of articles in the search. To do this, it is convenient to type the name of the page directly in the search field, for example: "template:page name", "wikipedia:page name". It is even more convenient to type this with aliases of the namespaces "t:name" and "wp:name". The inconvenient thing here is that you need to type the ":" character. Someone can switch the layout to English for this, where ":" is easier to type. And someone does not know about keyboard shortcuts on their language layout at all (there are even people who select and copy with the mouse and refuse to copy through ctrl+c/ctrl+v). It seems it would be convenient to have a namespace selection feature right in the drop-down list. For example, if it were possible to switch the search to these namespaces (or add these namespaces to the search output) if the namespace alias was the first "wp name" - this is implemented in browsers when you can first type "site search shortcut" in the address bar. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Sunpriat. First of all, thank you for all your suggestions. I've taken the liberty and separated these into different topics. I think it'll be easier to talk. I needed to create the headings, and I tried to get the ideas reflected well, but if you think the headings could be better, please edit. You're the original author here.
 * Regarding the namespaces in the search menu, I could swear I've seen something like this somewhere. I'll ask my team if we could do anything about it. Perhaps this would be a task for a separate team working just on the search... well, I'll get back to you. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

The header area in the new editor is not active for clicks and text selection
Sometimes when editing pages, it becomes necessary to select the page title and copy it. If you open editing in the 2017 wikitext editor (for example, a random page that you have not opened before or you do not save site data through the browser settings), then the title is gray and it cannot be selected and copied. If you open (also a random page) for editing in the Visual editor, then the title is black and it can be selected and copied. It is necessary that you can always select and copy the title. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Open in reading mode without using scrolling
It is often necessary, when a page is in editing mode, to open a duplicate page in reading mode in a new tab to view or use a wiki link or footnote. Somewhere it was announced that you saw how much less often users began to scroll back to the beginning. To open a duplicate page, you need to scroll up, then down again to the place of editing. Maybe someday you will have ideas on how to open the reading mode without scrolling. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Add a help link to the languages widget
As a registered user, I would like to see languages that are more understandable to me higher in the list, for example, English. For many users, the main question is how to make specific languages higher. About this maybe there is somewhere deep in the help. But it seems it would be more useful to somehow find out that the user can influence the list of favorite languages, or go to this help from the menu itself with a minimum of clicks. And I would also like to know how to get rid of unnecessary suggested languages, which I clicked only once. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Placeholder for the search languages widget
As an editor, I sometimes have to open wikis in languages that are mentioned in the text (for example, as a country) or used in an article (for example, as a word in a lang-x template). I understand in my own language what the language I need is called, but I do not know its original writing, which is shown in the drop-down menu. The first thing I do is spend time scrolling the list up and down in search of something similar. Yes, you can enter a name in the "search", but this is 1) not very often required 2) you need to know about it in advance or remember, or the old experience of the language list prevails without this "search". The problem is that the text "Search for a language" is too standardized and speaks poorly about the possibilities. I would like this placeholder to somehow directly and better than now tell me "how" to find (describes the actions - what should I type) a language if I know its name in my language. In my opinion, as the best example, the text in the placeholder of the field suggesting that we write a description of the edit when publishing the page "Describe what you changed" is much more informative and better suggests what needs to be done. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Languages' names in the language of the interface
For the old location of languages in the sidebar, a user script was made locally ( iwlocalnames iwhints iwcore), which registered users could enable for themselves and see the names of languages in their own language. It seems that this script was quite popular. It may be worth making a switch in the menu for everyone, even for unregistered users, which could change the language names to the interface language of this wiki (or the interface language that is selected in your settings) and back to self-names in one click. Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Offer more pages in the search using the technology of translators
You said that readers prefer to look at one language and somehow "don't know" about other languages, and for this the language selector was placed at the top. If we look at enwiki, where there are 6 million articles, then this is much more than in other language wikis. When you search in yandex, an offer to read an article in enwiki through their translator often appears in its output. For example, if we search for "список портов по грузообороту", the search site will offer us this article "List of busiest ports by cargo tonnage in the following form . We have already used yandex in the Content translation extension. Perhaps for some translation directions it would be possible to suggest in our search to view the page in / through their translator. Or only show results from another language wiki by somehow translating the query (for the search engine itself, in the same way as they do, but by any translator) from the language of the current wiki. (From the point of view of spreading knowledge, this makes sense. It is unclear in what form it could be.) Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

ToC in the diff view
In revision comparison mode, ToC looks like a regular bulleted list without styles https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Botany&diff=1101340041&oldid=1098510198&diffmode=source Sunpriat 21:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, we'll work on it. You can follow our activities on Phabricator. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 12:08, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it's a wrong phabricator task. There are no images with "* 3.5" there. IKhitron (talk) 23:17, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sunpriat, IKhitron, what should be there instead? What would be the expected look of the ToC in the diff view? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:29, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * IMHO, just like now, but removing the black bullets. IKhitron (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * In uniformity with the new way - in the sidebar and the sticky header drop-down list. Sunpriat 17:46, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Feature request
Hey, I love the new Vector styles overall, but the user menu is the one area that slows me down. I tend to use my user contributions page a lot to check recent activity on articles I created or edited recently, because my watchlist is quite large. Other editors might frequently use tools collapsed in the menu like their Sandbox, but not user contributions or a watchlist.

Consequently, I'd love more flexibility when it comes to...
 * 1) how many menu items are shown in the header vs in the collapsed menu. On many monitor sizes there is a lot of wasted whitespace in between the search field and the user menu, and being able to show more items and then have it collapse dynamically as the viewport shifts is basically what the whole point of a more modern header layout is for.
 * 2) the ability to customize which menu options are in the header based on my needs, so for that for instance I could hide notifs (I get very few alerts) but show user contribs.

This kind of customization is similar to how the Slack sidebar can be reordered hierarchically by each user, but with sane defaults in place. This kind of addition would let us keep the same basic principle of a more refined set of menu items with a dropdown for the rest, but let users decide for themselves which tools they need quick access to the most.

Steven Walling (talk) 18:02, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Sidebar overlapping
The main menu sidebar is overlapping (Vector 2022). Unusable. Grimes2 (talk) 14:20, 4 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello @Grimes2, thanks for writing here. Is this about the issue reported in ? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No! https://abload.de/image.php?img=2022-08-0420_03_33-grxcjnf.png Grimes2 (talk) 18:09, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I can't replicate this :/ Let's perhaps add ?safemode=1 to the URL and see if the issue still exists? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No success. https://abload.de/image.php?img=2022-08-0420_35_52-gr10kgs.png Grimes2 (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * My investigation: Opera was set to font size big. Using font size normal solved the problem. Thanks. Grimes2 (talk) 18:59, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * This is https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T313817 Jdlrobson (talk) 22:01, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I also solved this by reverting to the normal font size. Is it possible the new layout could take the font size into account? Ustcgcy (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Sufficiently narrow window just shows some separator lines
I don't know when this started in the past few days, but (using Vector-2022 of course) as of now a narrow window, meaning one snapped to the right side of my 1920x1080 screen or even narrower than that, starts with the entire left-panel list of links, with their horizontal dividers spread across the window, before I even see the page title, right at the bottom of the window. Zooming the browser to 90% brings back a more normal display. This happens on every page I see; it's not dependent on images, or break markers, or the size of the TOC. I hope that's enough information without an image. I can't imagine I'm alone but didn't see any relevant subject line on this page.

Configuration: Edge 103.0.1264.77 or Chrome 103.0.5060.134, Windows 10, scaling 100%. English Wikipedia, any of several namespaces. DavidBrooks (talk) 16:42, 5 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Ditto on my Surface Pro: 2736x1824 at 175% scaling. DavidBrooks (talk) 17:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC) ETA: screenshot of this page . DavidBrooks (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The master bug was closed as "Invalid" (i.e. intentional). If this ugly result of docking to the right (or left) half of an screen with HD aspect ratio is intended, then my workflow becomes untenable and I have to stop using Vector-2022. And any new user who similarly uses that Windows feature will be similarly borked. I'll try to push back. DavidBrooks (talk) 23:45, 7 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Getting off my high horse; the current behavior is "interim". I'll come back to Vector-2022 when the later planned behavior is implemented. DavidBrooks (talk) 14:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Search suggestions and keyboard accessibility in Vector 2022
(Reposted from enwiki's Village Pump)

One of my most common actions is to find a policy or guideline via WP: shortcut. Therefore I use the search box for this. Having recently upgraded to vector-2022, I've also adopted the Alt-Shift-F shortcut to search. I'm using Chrome 103 on Windows 10 Pro. If I happen to search while the mouse pointer is near the search box, "Enter" has the undesirable effect of activating the search suggestion which is indicated by the mouse pointer, rather than sending my query as-is to the search engine. This is an accessibility no-no. I pressed "Enter" to activate my keyboard input, not what's under the caret. If I need to move the mouse to avoid this situation, it defeats the purpose of keyboard entry. As soon as I enter a search term that produces suggestions, the mouse pointer immediately selects whatever's underneath it, and then "Enter" accepts that selection. But I'm not using the mouse.

Example: "Alt-Shift-F" MOS:GENDERID "Enter" took me to WP:MOS and WP:MOSBIO, successively, until I moved the mouse away from underneath the search box. Elizium23 (talk) 07:40, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Contributions now requite two clicks - please allow customization of the top right
I think the skin is the step in the right direciton, but the fact that accessing my contributions requires two clicks is annoying. Ditto for rsome others. I understand the goal is to de-clutter stuff (good) but allow customization, please. Keep the current layout as default but allow users easy customization of what goes into the top right horizontal menu and what is hidden in the top right pull down menu please. Piotrus (talk) 11:56, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

High sidebar
I notice (using Vector 2022 in Simple English) that when the window is narrow (or more often for me, font is big) the sidebar slips to a position above the text and page header, to be alone with huge whitespace. Two things wrong with that:
 * It's too eager. The sidebar by the side would be quite tolerable even if the text width had to be diminished by another third.
 * When the sidebar really doesn't belong on the side, it ought to be off the page entirely. I notice that the sidebar contains links about this particular page, and about Wikipedia in general. When the sidebar vanishes, it ought to be replaced by two links in the header, duplicated in the footer; one for each of these two classes of link. The link for page details ought to show links to various things such as Sister projects, Cite this page, Print this page, Traffic, and other information about this page. The link for Wikipedia ought to show links for Contact, Help, My user page, Sandbox, Watchlist, and other things that are not about this particular page. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:49, 7 August 2022 (UTC)


 * This is in an interim state. Please see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Table_of_contents#I_can't_see_the_table_of_contents_when_the_sidebar_is_open_on_tablet/mobile_device for details on our plans here. Jdlrobson (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah. More particularly, Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Page tools is what I'm getting at in my own clumsy language. How brilliant, to start work on my idea long before I thought of it. I am pleased to see competent minds running ahead of me on this matter. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:25, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Redirect message
The redirect message should be dismissible and should also be shown in sections (e.g. en:Underfur redirects to en:Fur#Down hair, but no message is shown in the Down hair section). -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 11:40, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The search widget
In the search widget, there should be a technical wheel button for changing the settings available (the advanced search and the namespaces) on Special:Search (maybe the button opens a mini-window). I think that the presults should be as follow:
 * Featured article with 1 article
 * The most popular articles yesterday with 3 articles (in the right upper corner a button that links to https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/topviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&date=yesterday&excludes=)
 * Similar/Related pages/articles with 1–3 articles
 * Random article with 1 random article (in the right upper corner a button that replace the shown article)
 * Explore other projects should have buttons that send you to another 4 projects and so on (there are 12 wikis at https://www.wikipedia.org/, so 3 slides with 4 wiki each should be enough) -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 11:58, 10 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Just commenting to say I think it's so great you found the "presults" tasks, and I am happy that you think it's a good idea. Can you add your thoughts to the task to make sure they don't get lost? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Borders and backgrounds
When does Borders and backgrounds will be deployed on the first wikis? -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 16:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @NGC 54 - thanks for your question! We are currently working through our visual refinements and are making individual ones available over the course of thee month of August and early September. However, we will be continuing with the minimalist layout for borders and backgrounds, so not too much change is expected there.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:53, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * After some time using it you get used to the new design, but there's something missing, and I think that is related to borders and backgrounds. With the minimalist look, the TOC is not prominent enought, and it is difficult to even understand what it is. As a proposal, have you thought on making two small improvements?
 * The top (Contents) could be bold, so we can see that it is a menu header. This would make the reading easier, I think.
 * The first entry, is to say "(Top)" could be easier to use if it has an arrow pointing to the top. It may be a little icon, and actually it may even be redundant if you add the little icon to the "Contents" title, instead of creating a new one.
 * What do you think? Theklan (talk) 12:10, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Theklan I've mocked up the two suggestions you've made (to the best of my understanding). Here are my thoughts currently:
 * "Contents" being bold does help the TOC stand out more, however it also conflicts a bit visually with the active section, which is also styled in bold.
 * Adding an arrow to the "Top" link within the TOC adds some clarity, but also conflicts a bit with the other arrows already in the TOC for expanding/collapsing sections.
 * Using the "Contents" heading (with an arrow) as the "back to top" link simplifies the TOC, because there is one less link. However I think it makes the "back to top" functionality less discoverable, and comes with the possible issue of the conflicting arrows mentioned above. This however would be quite easy to test, and I know is a topic of discussion over on the Village Pump.
 * Vector_2022,_TOC_"Contents"_heading_with_arrow.png
 * Vector_2022,_TOC_"Top"_section_link_with_arrow.png
 * What do you think? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 19:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Both looks good. I think that the "Top" is better, because is bold and actually is different from having a section. Let me explain this: one thing I have learnt by being with more than 5.000 students in our Education Program is that they like to start the articles with a " == Start == " section. We always explain them that the articles start directly, without a title for the Lead section. Adding something that seems a section called "Top" (I don't know why is called Start in Basque Wikipedia) could cause more confusion, making them believe that they actually have to create a section called "Top". That's why making it a little bit different would be better in terms of understanding what is happening.
 * You also said that the "current section" is styled in Bold, but is not: the weight doesn't change, only the color. It would be interesting to have the current section bold, by the way.
 * Thanks for the designs! -Theklan (talk) 21:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Just one quick clarification: the active section link in the TOC will soon be styled in bold. See: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T314670. Already live on the beta cluster, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Water. I will think a bit more about your other points and reply soon. Thanks @Theklan. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * That's better. And you have a point, if two are bold, then it could be more difficult to understand why. I still think that "⇈ To top" could be more graphic and easier to discover. (Honestly, I have been a couple of months scrolling up without noticing that I could go up, because the Basque tag is "Introduction" and not "Top"). Theklan (talk) 07:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

New ToC and a new wide sidebar design
It has become more difficult to read the text - the too bright field on the left distracts and prevents you from focusing on the text (in long articles) + the text is inconveniently asymmetrical on the screen (I turned the left sidebar and ToC and the text did not expand or the text column did not become centered - just an empty field on the left remained). I used the "new vector" skin for a long time, but now it has become uncomfortable to edit in it - I switched to the old vector (to somehow continue editing) where there is a gray stripe on the left (not so bright, easier for the eyes) and where the content is more centered on the screen. The skin has become uncomfortable, please confirm the usability of this part of the design on a larger number of subjects for laptops 1377x768. On large screens, you have made a column in the center, so do not worsen the user experience for laptops as well. It looks like there was an ad on the left, but it was hidden by an ad blocker and left an empty space. Also, for example, I reported Topic:Wsniusgsyzq7dp1l earlier that the left margin occupied up to a third of the screen if you enlarged the interface (since then it seems to have changed something and it has become a little narrower), this is definitely a problem of the new design and weak attention to laptops.Sunpriat 09:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Support for Different Chinese Writing System
I saw the language switcher list "Chinese" only. However in Chinese Wikipedia, there are 6 different modes to trans characters and regional words automatically. Hope the new skin won't broke the transforming system, or maybe making all Chinese writing system (zh-cn, zh-tw, zh-hk, zh-sg...etc.) in the list will be better. --Reke (talk) 09:02, 13 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Reke The chinese wikipedia has a separate variants menu which switches between different transliterations of Chinese. That functionality is completely standalone. —Th e DJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 14:32, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Object placing is suddenly out of whack as of today
This is the best skin so far but today the placing of objects started being glitched. There are huge blank gaps in between the top of the page and the article and the icons on the top are out of place. When you scroll down the sidebar goes directly over the text on the actual page. I'd post screenshots but I can't Carolina Heart (talk) 23:30, 18 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Carolina Heart - thank you for your report! We were having some issues last week with bugs and regressions. Are you still seeing these issues and if so, could you tell us which browser and wiki you are seeing them on?  OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:46, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

XTools statistics no longer visible
XTools statistics which are usully just below the article title are no longer visible. Since yesterday. Krayon95 (talk) 06:20, 19 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the report @Krayon95! Could you give some details so that we can reproduce. Which wiki are you testing on and which browser? Xtools statistics are still showing for me on English Wikipedia in Chrome.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * This was covered here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)?&oldid=1106002109#Is_there_an_update_to_Vector-2022_today/yesterday?
 * Apparently this was related to a change in discussion tools. Jdlrobson (talk) 20:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

The "new" version of the Vector skin, or at least a very good lookalike of it, has actually been in use for a few years on certain wikis so...
Please consider changing the name of the skin to either "New Vector" or simply "Vector II/2". It is COMPLETELY MISLEADING to label it as a version from this year when in fact it has been used on certain other wikis, such as French WP, since at least 2019. 46.208.36.113 01:48, 24 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello! You are right, the context of this version being in use since 2020 (summer 2020) may be lost. Strictly speaking, it's now called Vector (2022), and the old version is Vector legacy (2010). At some point, we may drop the dates, thus naming these: Vector and Vector legacy. The ex-default may become the past, and the ex-new may become the default. What do you think? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * FWIW the name is purely a technical artifact which marks when the new Vector was available to 3rd parties who install MediaWiki. Despite being on French since 2020, it's not been supported for 3rd parties until 2022.
 * Any wiki can name this to something the prefer by changing MediaWiki:Skinname-vector-2022. Jdlrobson (talk) 22:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Link color change?
Was there a recent change to the link text colors in the new skin? I don't think previously I was seeing visited links turn purple, and now I do, in addition to the base link blue being lighter. Purple visited links might be recommended for readers, but it's pretty annoying for editors because when we look at a watchlist or our own contributions page... the majority of the list will be purple and the distinction isn't super meaningful. I can alter this in my personal CSS of course, but I thought I'd ask because it seemed new. Steven Walling (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, both clicked and non-clicked links were changed to increase the contrast with the black text to comply with accessibility standards (Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Visual Refinements): the contrast between normal text and links was too small. With links forming such a large fraction of the text on Wikipedia, I think the contrast with the white background is more important. A very small percentage of links is visited / used as a link. The purple in particular fails the WCAG AAA contrast test: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=795CB2&bcolor=FFFFFF. As an editor with large parts of my text being visited links, this is a blocking change. I cannot read my watchlist like this, and struggle in other link-heavy pages. Femke (talk) 18:47, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Femke I definitely hear your frustration. And I appreciate you helping answer @Steven Walling's questions. As it seems you know it was a difficult challenge to find colors dark enough to sufficiently contrast with white, but light enough to sufficiently contrast with black. We ended up choosing a purple that is AAA against black links, but only AA against white backgrounds. I think we should continue to test and monitor this situation. I agree with you that the purple feels a bit light. Do you have any suggestions for a better purple to use? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * According to https://webaim.org/blog/wcag-2-0-and-link-colors/, there seems to be only one option for both the blue and the purple that meets the WGAG AAA contrast requirement (#3344dd, and #804180). Up till now, only the purple has caused me accessibility issues, with my long COVID brain not coping. This purple colour also easily meets the WCAG AA requirements for use on light grey text (infoboxes / quote boxes / current version of tool menu / reply preview and a lot of behind the scenes places). If you only want to meet the WCAG AA requirement for white/light grey backgrounds (other backgrounds are somewhat common too), there is of course more wiggle room. I don't have the energy to figure out how CSS works to test if this is pleasing to the eyes. Femke (talk) 17:26, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Links are often placed on non-white backgrounds, for instance infoboxes. In that case the contrast is 2.04:1, and fails even the WCAG AA standard: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=B7AAD5&bcolor=F8F9FA. This change seems to be replacing a small accessibility issue (not able to distinguish links) with a larger (not able to properly read text). Femke (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Steven Walling thanks for adding your feedback here. It's nice to hear that the visited link distinction is more noticeable to you now, that was part of the intention of the change. However I'm sorry to hear that the visited links on your Watchlist are annoying you. Do you think it would be better if links on the Watchlist page never showed visited styling? Are there some situations in which it's helpful to know that a link on your Watchlist has been visited? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I actually edited my Vector 2022 personal CSS to completely hide the visited links color, since it's easier to just do that globally. Watchlists in particular already have seen/unseen filters which serve a similar purpose, and on my Contributions page... by definition you will have visited a page you have edited so the color distinction is useless. On the other hand, it's inconsistent and therefore maybe confusing to people to have visited link color differences on content pages but not in Special pages? Personally I think it's only useful in articles but I could be wrong there. Steven Walling (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Too minimalist user menu
Hey. I like / got used to most of the changes, but I really don't like the user menu. It is too minimalist and inconvenient. With this skin I'm forced to make additional mouse movements and additionally click to enter the sandbox or other stuff. It's page states its for "increased clarity" and "decreased visual clutter" but I don't see how more icons are cluttery here. It looks good on my test preview. Can we change it, or atleast give option to change that? Sławobóg (talk) 17:59, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Sławobóg thanks so much for your thoughts, and this awesome screenshot. Is that something you did with custom CSS, or is that a mockup of what you would like to see? We have discussed making the user menu configurable so that people can decide which items to pull out of the menu into the site header. One thing to keep in mind is that there are many features we plan to develop in the future (for example "Dark mode"). Part of why we are trying to be minimalist because we know there are other things coming, and we want to leave space for them. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @AHollender (WMF) Hey, I made it up in GIMP. A customizable menu would probably be the best thing, everyone would be happy about that. I understand you might want to add more stuff there (few more icons would still fit) however, it should be remembered that it is more important for editors to have easy and quick access to editing tools. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a blog, and making the editors' job more difficult by removing everything unnecessary for the casual reader is a mistake in my opinion, yet someone who is not logged in will not have most of these buttons. Sławobóg (talk) 20:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Option to fully expand ToC / have it expanded by default
Often when deciding whether to read an article, or what portions of it, I skim the whole table of contents, and it's frequently the first thing I do when opening an article (after skimming the introduction). Please,

0. let me see the ToC on the top of the page

1. either make it expanded by defaut, as it was in the old design, or at least give me as a user the option to have it expanded by default Susy 11 (talk) 19:52, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Susy 11 thanks for taking the time to add your thoughts here. We experimented with an "expand all sub-sections" button: https://di-toc-expand-collapse-all.web.app/Mount_Fuji — is that what you're describing? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, and/but mainly the option to have it on by default. Also, I just noticed the new ToC makes it harder to distinguish different levels (sections, subsections, etc). Indents would be nice as well (or something) Susy 11 (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Do you mean have all of the sub-sections expanded by default? If so, could you please see my comment here where I've addressed this topic: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T310893#8199755. Let me know what you think.
 * Regarding increasing the indentations, it is possible but would also mean that long section title links in the TOC would wrap more. We are trying to find a balance there. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Increase default size of root element
By "default size of root element" I mean the equivalent of browser zoom-in. I suggest using the equivalent of 120% zoom.

On one hand, this would align more closely with the standard recommendation to use a ~16px font size.

On the other hand, it would improve the layout on bigger screens in reducing dead space. Orpheus Lummis (talk) 12:53, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Right side has way too much space
Why is there space on the right side of the screen? The screen is way too compact. Otherwise, it's not bad, just not really my taste. I kind of personally like the screen as how it is, but do wish that there was a dark mode. PoliticallyPassionateGamer (talk) 16:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Infuriatingly narrow
I can not put into words how infuriatingly narrow this new design is. That is a terrible design decision. Looks great otherwise. Mogery (talk) 17:20, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Mogery I am sorry to hear about your frustration. Also glad to hear that you like other aspects of Vector 2022. Have you checked out any of the gadgets and user scripts here: Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Repository? There are several that make Vector 2022 full-width. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:28, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Not good for me...
Pushed the left side items down Volten001 (talk) 20:58, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Volten001 thanks for taking some time to visit our talk page and add your thoughts. Can you expand upon your comment? Do you mean that the table of contents is pushed down by the main menu? If so, have you tried collapsing the main menu? Also, we will soon be moving "Article tools" and "In other projects" to the article toolbar (with the option to be pinned open on the right-hand side, as you mentioned), making it less necessary for people to keep the main menu pinned open. You can see that in a prototype here: https://di-collapsible-menus.web.app/Moss. At that point we think most people will be satisfied with having the main menu collapsed (and therefore the TOC not pushed down). AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Too narrow and unneeded
I would argue that the new design is not needed. What are you trying to achieve?

When the new design is activated, I'm getting moderate space added to the left, moderate space added on top, big spaces on the right.

This reduces the amount of information, and gives an unsatisfying feeling pushing the user to resize the page. Or just leave the website.

If you're trying to make a design for mobiles, this is called a "responsive" design and it shall be completely different from a desktop design. The responsive design shall be handled differently.

The current desktop design is fine going forward.

If you want to provide an extra feature, for a reason unkown, add it as an option for those who want it, since it clearly isn't something the general user needs.

I think that the design is something especially sensitive for users. When something is released, it's pretty much set in stone forever. If you change it, it stops being what the user remembers.

Regards GeorgesDupond (talk) 23:16, 28 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @GeorgesDupond thanks for adding your thoughts. The reduced width of the content is based on readability research which shows people prefer reading text with shorter line lengths. It is more comfortable for their eyes, and leads to better understanding and retention of the information. We've done a writeup on this topic here: Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width.
 * Many people have responding saying: if people want the width of the content to be more narrow they can adjust the size of their screen. While this is possible, the research shows that many people don't think to do this. Instead they struggle to read text that is not properly optimized for reading comfort. Our goal is to have the best possible reading & learning experience possible, and we don't want people to have to make any adjustments when they land on the page.
 * However, for people like yourself who prefer more density and longer line-lengths, there is thankfully some great CSS that has been written by @Quiddity (WMF) to address these preferences: User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css. I think you may like these modifications, and would be curious to hear about your experience.
 * Thanks AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I see, thank you for your explanation. I understand. If the comfort is worth the change then I think the current space size is a decent compromise.
 * Regarding the css, if it requires to add an extension or isn't added as an option in the wiki then I think people will not bother I'm afraid.
 * I don't see much more to say about the new design.
 * Maybe the contents menu added in the left panel can be confusing. After so long using the wiki, I associate the left panel as some meta links related to the wiki as a whole, not something related to the article.
 * I understand that it allows to jump to other sections but I feel there's something currently off. The contents of the article aren't noticeable enough in my view. Maybe it's just a matter of color. Or maybe it comes from the fact that the design of the frame is different (it might miss the numbers in front of each sections, or a more similar design).
 * Regards GeorgesDupond (talk) 19:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

TOC useability
before nitpicking: I like where you're going with this, i think it's largely working.

I do see a usability problem with the TOC: when you click on the "hide" link, the TOC just disappears. You have to struggle for a moment to figure out how to make it reappear. I've seen the solution in the newer prototype, but it feels like a dirty hack: it's unintuitive. there should be a "show" link right where you clicked "hide".

Also, it's not nice to have to search for the hidden table of contents down there beyond the cluttered main menu. It seems like an obvious candidate for that empty space on the right...

While I like the general direction, i'm also looking forward to a solution to that waste of screen space, especially the huge white hole on the right. I'd like a simple one-click solution to basically fill my whole screen with the actual content...

(And - when will this cluttered main menu finally be cleaned out?.. E.g., who has an actual practical everyday use for the "random article" link to justify its presence in that prominent position? :-O) Reseletti (talk) 09:05, 29 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Reseletti thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us, and thank you for the general encouragement.
 * Regarding: "there should be a "show" link right where you clicked "hide"." — if we collapsed the TOC in place, with a label of "Contents [show]" it would take up space in the sidebar (~110px on English Wikipedia...more/less on other Wikipedias, depending on the length of those words). For people on screens less than ~1300px wide, this makes collapsing the TOC much less useful than it would be if we re-captured that space; because they collapse the TOC but get no horizontal space back. We then explored collapsing the TOC in-place, but using an icon instead of a label, which you can see here (the prototype doesn't have much functionality beyond collapsing the TOC into an icon): https://di-toc-collapse-in-place.web.app/Moss. It helps with the discoverability of the collapsed TOC, but at the expense of the general visual balance of the page. Therefore we think collapsing the TOC into an icon next to the article title is our best option.
 * Regarding: "Also, it's not nice to have to search for the hidden table of contents down there beyond the cluttered main menu. It seems like an obvious candidate for that empty space on the right" — we will soon be moving "Article tools" and "In other projects" to the article toolbar (with the option to be pinned open on the right-hand side, as you mentioned), making it less necessary for people to keep the main menu pinned open. You can see that in a prototype here: https://di-collapsible-menus.web.app/Moss. At that point we think most people will be satisfied with having the main menu collapsed. The reason why we don't want to put the entire main menu over on the right side is that it would break the information hierarchy of the site. The main menu contains global navigation, therefore we want it to remain associated with the site header which also contains global navigation. The article area contains navigation specific to the article. Placing the main menu within the article toolbar breaks this organization.
 * Regarding "a solution to that waste of screen space", I recommend taking a look at some of the CSS that @Quiddity (WMF) has written, which results in a much more dense version of Vector 2022. You may find some bits and pieces within it that you like. User:Quiddity/Vector-2022-condensed.css.
 * Please let me know if the above makes sense to you, and thanks again for your involvement. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 18:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Language links on wikidata still not solved
Please see the discussion in Archive 4 section: "Language links on Wikidata are right at the bottom of the page".

There still have not been any comments on this issue, and it is something that bothers me everyday when using wikidata. - Rooiratel (talk) 10:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Rooiratel, could you send a screenshot? Let's try to capture very precisely, step by step, what you experience. Based on that, I'd like to report a bug, so I need answers to these predefined questions. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure here is a screenshot with the Vector2010 skin. You can see the language links on the right. And here is the screenshot with the Vector2022 skin. You can see the language links are at the bottom of the screen. (Pls note I made an error with the second file name and requested it be renamed to "Wikidata lang issue Vector2022.png") - Rooiratel (talk) 14:52, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * it looks like this was solved but regressed again. :(
 * Unfortunately the team building desktop improvements doesn't have much to do with Wikidata (it's not one of the wikis we are focusing on right now) but I've let them know of the issue and hopefully they'll fix it.
 * Jdlrobson (talk) 17:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Jdlrobson. Much appreciated. Is there a bug or something that I can track to follow progress/check the status of this issue? - Rooiratel (talk) 09:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Lol never mind, I just noticed the Phabricator link now. Thanks again. - Rooiratel (talk) 10:07, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Too much scrolling down required
I really dislike having to scroll down just to see the main content on each page. I don't see why the menu on the left side has to take up all the space at the top of the screen, without the main content being displayed beside it. — Cheers, SMUconlaw 13:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello @Sgconlaw. Thank you for writing here. We understand that this is uncomfortable. We're working on a change that hopefully, will make things more user-friendly - one possible option here is to disable sidebar persistent at low resolutions (opening or closing the menu won't set a preference for the next page view). Source. How do you feel about this solution? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 1 September 2022 (UTC)