Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Archive8

Impact and goals
Second try, reposted from Vector 2022 Post-Deployment Update from WMF team:

Thank you for this update. It's depressing that it takes a pitchfork mob on the English Wikipedia for the Wikimedia Foundation to answer an obvious question which previously went unanswered for a year: what are you trying to achieve here? How will we know that a certain version of the skin helps with the goals?

Unfortunately, this collection of cherry-picked statistics cannot tell us much, because we still have no idea what the strategy is behind this entire exercise. I could comment on the individual statistics but it would be pointless. I do notice there's nothing about onboarding new users, making editing more effective or "cross-project and cross-language functionalities" (recommended by WMF's own supposed strategy).

Because interfaces are a trade-off, changing things for the sake of improving some metric will inevitably worsen some other metric, so I can only assume that overall strategic goals are affected negatively by the changes.

Separately I also posted a comment on the strategy, which evidently failed to provide useful guidance for this project. Nemo 10:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't like it.
For me, the old skin was fine. I was used to it, I knew where things were. No problem.

The new skin seems pointlessly different. Different isn't always bad, but in this case, there seemed to be way too much exra whitespace, meaning that the information density is lower.

I apologize to the people who I'm sure worked hard on it, but I did not follow the suggestion to "try it for at least one week prior to deciding whether to switch". I switched back to the previous Vector as soon as someone gave me the link. (Thanks, ). It was an easy decision.

This is unfounded speculation, but I suspect there's a certain amount of Politician's logic involved here. There was a (doubtless well-intentioned) goal to "make the interface more welcoming and usable", and there was money available to do the work... but once you've got a mandate and some money, you're not going to just tinker around the edges, you've pretty much got to do something big and bold and different, which means it's bound to be disruptive. —scs (talk) 17:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Tools menu and language switcher feedback
I will use https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:NGC_54?vectorpagetools=1&uselang=en and https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C8%9Ba?vectorpagetools=1&uselang=en as examples.


 * The tools in the "More" sections should be above tools in the "Tools" section.
 * The sister projects are missing.
 * I like the idea of adding the "Add interlanguage links" in the language switcher (T310259). The "Wikidata item" link could be moved there, too. Or maybe it cold be moved in the "In other projects" section.
 * "Upload file" and "Special pages" are not page-specific but are bundled with page-specific tools.
 * "Printable version" and "Download as PDF" are missing.
 * "User contributions", "Logs", "Block user", "Email this user", "Mute preferences" and "Change user groups" are user-specific, but they are bundled with page-specific tools.
 * T317898: The "move to sidebar" option should also be shown to unlogged users. This menu contains links interesting to readers, like "Cite this page", "Download as PDF", "Printable version", "Permanent link", "Page information" and the links to other projects.
 * There is no link to the page logs (https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Jurnal&page=Fran%C8%9Ba). This is not Vector 2022-specific, but Vector 2022 could fix this.

I propose the following order for pages that are not in the user space (like https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C8%9Ba?vectorpagetools=1&uselang=en):
 * Actions
 * Move
 * Delete
 * Protect
 * General
 * Page logs
 * What links here
 * Related changes
 * Page information
 * Print, share, link
 * Permanent link
 * Cite this page
 * Download as PDF
 * Printable version
 * In other projects
 * (The list of pages)
 * Others
 * Special pages
 * Upload file

I propose the following order for pages that are in the user space (like https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilizator:NGC_54?vectorpagetools=1&uselang=en or https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discu%C8%9Bie_Utilizator:NGC_54?vectorpagetools=1&uselang=en):
 * Actions
 * Move
 * Delete
 * Protect
 * General
 * Page logs
 * What links here
 * Related changes
 * Page information
 * User
 * "User contributions"
 * "User logs"
 * "Block user"
 * "Email this user"
 * "Mute preferences"
 * "User groups"
 * Print, share, link
 * Permanent link
 * Cite this page
 * Download as PDF
 * Printable version
 * In other projects
 * (The list of pages)
 * Others
 * Special pages
 * Upload file

P.S. Please fix the T322978 bug. The task was created on 13 November, and now is 14 December. It is annoying to meet it daily :(

P.P.S. See ro:Special:Contribs/79.115.125.90 and ro:Wikipedia:Cafenea (permalink) for some feedback regarding the limited width and the new TOC (by an anonymous reader). -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 17:15, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @NGC 54 thanks for this comment, it's very helpful. Regarding the missing items, those bugs will be fixed soon. Regarding the grouping and ordering of items in the menu, we've discussed enabling control of the page tools menu in a way similar to the main menu (which uses MediaWiki:Sidebar), which would allow individual wikis to customize the grouping and ordering. For now we are going to maintain the ordering and grouping that exists in Legacy Vector, but generally speaking we agree with you that there could be some improvements. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And I would also like a link to Special:CentralAuth. I often use this feature, and I would like quick access to it. -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 13:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Old style TOC in Vector-2022 Skin
Is there a possibility to set up old style TOC in Vector-2022 Skin at my Mediawiki website v.1.39.0? Fokebox (talk) 11:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)


 * This problem has been raised multiple times both here and on en.wiki. Many users have expressed their preference for the old style TOC. However, this has been completely ignored by the developers, both here and on en.wiki. Moreover, in the general request for comment on en.wiki a majority of users expressed themselves AGAINST the implementation of Vector 2022; it has been completely ignored, and the result has even been sold as an endorsement. 37.161.248.115 05:42, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Basically I do like Vector 2022 except TOC style. I like how it is done in MW 1.38.x - there is a refreshed Vector skin, but with old TOC style. And I have couple wiki websites and just because of this fact I don't have desire to update to 1.39 ... if so I will have to change skin (Timeless as an example). Fokebox (talk) 07:38, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree, the new horrible TOC and the white spaces and width are the main problems of Vector 2022. But the complaints have been ignored by the developers. 37.161.248.115 09:34, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Very strange position ... I don't think it takes a lot of efforts for developers two make TOC view optional (old / new TOC style at vector-2022) for users and for those who has wiki websites!!! Fokebox (talk) 10:43, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I 1000% agree. I had to go back to the 2010 version of the skin just so I could navigate the page. This change is complete trash. This should have had a toggle to go back immediately. 24.42.211.97 22:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey @Fokebox and other folks in this discussion: I just want to acknowledge that the requests for the old style of the table of contents have not been ignored. We've read and responded to all of these comments, and we've written extensive documentation as to why we think the current implementation is a better approach. I understand it is frustrating: you want a certain change made, you think your idea is better than what is currently implemented, and you think we are ignoring you. However in this case your opinion represents a very small minority. It's not that we're ignoring you, instead it's that we've gotten more positive feedback than negative feedback, plus the extensive consideration of the 12+ designers at the WMF, so we've concluded to stick with the current implementation. Thankfully MediaWiki software is configurable, so you still have options. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 15:55, 5 January 2023 (UTC)


 * "We've gotten more positive feedback than negative feedback". Where? On en.wiki a majority of users (165 vs 154) voted AGAINST Vector 2022, and many doubted the source and reliability of the data you presented in support on your choices. 37.161.68.229 15:59, 6 January 2023 (UTC)


 * That would be this round of community feedback: Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Third prototype testing/Feedback


 * Positive: 110, neutral: 38, negative: 23


 * You can read more here if you are interested: Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Table of contents AHollender (WMF) (talk) 03:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, your summary of the RfC is misleading in this context. Around 70% of the people who opposed Vector 2022 specifically opposed the limited width (which is now optional). Maybe 3 or 4 people objected to the table of contents. Every day, here and on Phabricator, we engage in fact-based conversations about the layout and various configurations/tradeoffs with community members, and are grateful for the engagement and feedback. If your goal is to make a case that the skin is poorly designed, and the WMF is not responsive to community feedback, I am confident you will not find evidence to support that. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 03:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
 * How is the limited width optional? I'm sincerely asking as someone who has tried for the last half hour to get rid of it (without having to make yet another account on another website). It's either bugged or unintuitive... 92.234.239.124 01:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)


 * My Personal concern as a Mediawiki website owner. I do like new Vector style except the placement of TOC. And I do know that my website visitors also will be against of that. So that all I ask to make an option - to have new style TOC and have the old style TOC. Fokebox (talk) 09:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I haven't tried the instructions, but this FAQ entry is entitled "How to restore the old table of contents". Jonesey95 (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I tried by adding the script to my 2022 Vector javascript, but I saw no change in behaviour. I did not get the old TOC back. Jay (talk) 04:59, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * As I said, I haven't tried it. It looks like that text was added by, who is usually pretty good at communicating on talk pages. Jonesey95 (talk) 06:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hah, thanks :D So @Jay if it's not working now, then I'll try it out and ask my colleagues, developers at the team, to update the code. It will take a few days, though. In advance, I'd like to thank you for your patience! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

VPN Users Handicapped
As someone who reads wikipedia and its sister projects with a VPN and without an account, I have no way to revert back to the old legacy layout. The new layout is absolutely terrible especially since I am a desktop user with a wide monitor. I have no plans to ever use the 2022 vector layout as it just looks like the mobile layout which I also hate. Can you make it so that you can change the skin for your IP, so even if you don't have cookies enabled you can still have preferences? 172.58.174.193 18:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello. Maybe this little trick can help you: simply add «?useskin=vector» to every requested URL. It works for non-logged users. 37.134.90.176 09:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

New UI clearly not liked by the majority of people
Seeing how the UI was made default very recent and seeing how many people are talking about it looking bad and/or having multiple mistakes makes it very clear that the majority of people don't like this new UI, so I think that the new UI shouldn't be default on desktop. The old UI was much easier to navigate with and clearly more liked by the majority of people. I personally think that the old UI is also much better than the new one. 90.145.57.18 09:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree and I had to make an account to change back to the old one. Vector2022makesmesad (talk) 09:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 10/10 name 90.145.57.18 10:46, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I think we can say that editors who don't like it are more vociferously opposed than those who do like it. I've not seen good quantitative info that the majority of readers prefer the old interface. But, similarly, the fact that the majority of beta testers and pilot wikis were broadly in favour may stem from self-selection in those groups. T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The insolence to think you know better than me what my preferred reading arrangements are
I'm actually mad at you guys. Your stupid hamburger menus and your stupid wasted space. THERE'S PLENTY OF ROOM FOR EVERYTHING. Stop hiding stuff behind stupid button presses. DON'T FORCE A MAXIMUM WIDTH ARE YOU STUPID? Skoinksx (talk) 10:54, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * If you prefer the old look, you can switch back to it by changing the skin under user icon→"Preferences"→"Appearance" to "Vector legacy (2010)" —Kri 13:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you for the explanation. Hi Please read this Sockpuppetry, in particular the section Creating an illusion of support. About Vector 2022 you can find more information here and here, for example how to customize the content width. Please don't attack us, I understand you are frustrated but it is not very useful for us or for you. Please consider not using the capital letters too, on the internet it is considered like shouting. I'm hearing you and you are free to choose your preferred skin locally or globally. Hope those links should help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Patafisik (WMF)  (User talk:Patafisik (WMF)  • Special:Contributions/Patafisik (WMF) )  16:01, 19 January 2023‎
 * Hey, you "forgot" to sign your post. It is considered good etiquette to sign your comments with ~ . Please explain why you are accusing this user in particular of sockpuppetry - there is really no need of using sockpuppets to post complaints about the new UX because many users are posting about it anyway. Freedomlinux (talk) 16:35, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I accused nobody. If this person is not concerning by sockpuppetry can just ignore my message. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Seriously? By telling them "using alt accounts is wrong" you are accusing them of socking. Why else did you bring it up? And could you "just ignore" their personal attack? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Alternative accounts? Do you think I'm the only person in the world that thinks your changes are idiotic? You think I'm the only person who thinks you didn't even read your own research? You REALLY think that?
 * And I AM SHOUTING because you're stupid and you need to be shouted at because you've forgotten yourselves. The absolutely gall to think that you know better than your users what their subjective opinions are BOGGLES THE MIND. You morons didn't even read your own UX research and that is plainly evident when you read the articles you use to explain it. They said "blank space is not wasted space" and "use blocks of blank space to separate logical blocks of information". You plonkers took it to mean that there must ONLY be blank space. How? What twisted mind led you to that conclusion?
 * Please tell me, exactly where in your research did someone come across the thesis: "the users will appreciate having to click multiple times to drill down into useless menus" OR "it's a good idea to hide information behind multiple disparate menus, located in every corner of the screen". You say you've been working on this redesign for years. In all those years, did not at least ONE of you say "oh you know what would be a good idea if we're limiting max text width?", and brace yourselves here, because I may just blow your little minds: PUTTING TWO COLUMNS OF TEXT PER PAGE. LIKE WORD? You know Word? You know WORDPAD? Fucking Wordpad understands stacking two pages side by side to fill the screen and Wikipedia doesn't.
 * The fucking gall. I wish I could take my donations back. Not because of the changes but because you've obviously grown to love the smell of your own farts to the point where you prefer them to air. Skoinksx (talk) 05:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Patafisik (WMF) Why are you bringing up of sockpuppetry for seemingly no reason when replying to people who are against the new design? You've done it multiple times on this page. I don't think it's helpful because it could end up making people assume that some of the posts that like the new redesign are actually sockpuppets, especially considering how few there are. WikEdits5 (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * He's not attacking you, he's attacking your ridiculous new layout that makes the site hard to use and makes everything unreadable. You should at least have the sense to take the current mass criticism and learn from it instead of accusing users of personal attacks. Freja Draco (talk) 22:15, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * did say ARE YOU STUPID?, so did use a personal attack. I agree with the rest though. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Upcoming Page Tools sidebar: font size and line spacing too large
This is a comment about the upcoming Page Tools sidebar, which is visible by going to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe?vectorpagetools=1

At least in my browser, the font size and line height used in this Page Tools sidebar, as is true with the font size used in the Table of Contents and Main Menu when they are pinned to the left sidebar, are all much too large. My browser tools "inspector" feature tells me that the font size in all three of these sidebar menus is the same as the font size in the main body of the article. In Vector 2010, the sidebar text is considerably smaller, with narrower line heights, allowing much better information density and the ability to scan for the desired option easily without having to scroll.

I have had to use custom CSS to restore the left sidebar and sidebar TOC to a reasonable (i.e. smaller) size and line spacing in Vector 2022, and I will have to do that with the page tools if the size stays the way it is.

I can post screen shots here or to a phab ticket if I am the only one experiencing this suboptimal UI. Pinging, who suggested that I post comments here. Jonesey95 (talk) 01:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I see the same: standard body-text font size, and uniform line-spacing similar to a bulleted list in the body, make both right and left margins rather hard to read or to distinguish from body text. Sj (talk) 04:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If the font size in those sidebars were reduced to the Vector 2010 size, the sidebars could be made much narrower while showing the same number of characters per line. This would make more space available for the page content, which is highly desirable (especially with two sidebars instead of one). Jonesey95 (talk) 05:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Oops,, it appears that the sidebar was deployed with these problems in place. Here's hoping for a quick fix (or temporary revert). Jonesey95 (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Lack of visual contrast between areas of the page
I missed the original discussions, so hopefully there's still some room for feedback here. The reduced content width is actually one of the main things I like about the new skin as someone using a wide monitor, and the main reason I started adopting it a few months ago.

My main complaint is the lack of visual contrast between different areas of the page. Only the sidebar has a visual background and border separating it from the rest of the page, as well as infoboxes and templates within the article itself. Everything else is a sea of white: the article body is narrower than the white content area, increasing the appearance of unused space to the right and leaving no defined border around the content. There is no obvious separation of the header at the top of the page, reducing the apparent personality of the site.

There are also no borders between the TOC and the article section unless the TOC is long enough to show a scrollbar, which makes its appearance inconsistent. The TOC is also harder to identify because the "Contents" header is now in normal font and less emphasized than the current highlighted section of the page, as opposed to the old skin which has "Contents" in bold, and is hidden once the contents are long enough.

There are a number of unintuitive elements in the UI as well, namely the toggles to show or hide the sidebar and TOC. The positions of the header elements (search bar, talk, edit, history, and language dropdown) shift around when scrolling down enough for the logged-in floating header to show. The search icon position in particular is unintuitive, being moved to where the logo normally is.

These issues are magnified when toggling full width or having a narrower screen. There's no background change at all and the entire page only has the single white background, and the icons and links in the header are pushed even further to the sides.

Would it good idea to move either the sidebar or TOC to the right side of the page? This stops them from fighting for the same space on the left and partially resolves the issue of the right side being completely unused. - Sonicwave ( talk &#124; c )  19:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * This lack of visual contrast is what's bothering me too, I think it makes my eyes strain more than before. I also was frozen for a moment when I clicked [hide] on the TOC for the first time and it just disappeared into the void. I actually had to reload the page and click it several times to find out how to enable it back. Sometimes I encounter very unintuitive UI on the Internet but I was surprised to see it here, on one of the most visited sites in the world. RoadTrain (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your detailed feedback @Sonicwave32. We were working with the American Foundation for the Blind to improve accessibility of Vector 2022 but some changes are still in progress, look at T318373 and T310033 for further information. The Article tools will be soon moved to the right side of the page (you can see a prototype here). Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm also sharing this complaint. What i described was it was all borderless with no defined space. It gives it a "floaty" look.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestions to fill right-side whitespace
First, thanks to the new redesign, it's fantastic.

Second: could you try out a few prototypes that would fill the white-space on the right side? That might address the criticism by some people, and it would still limit the width of the contents. Here are the ideas:


 * Don't include impose a content width limit on infoboxes and right-aligned thumbnails. If the page gets wider, the images & infobox can move beside the contents, so it gets more space to breathe.


 * Bring up references on the right, instead of scrolling the user to the bottom of the page. It would look like this (though it could be made cleaner & more usable than that).
 * The 2nd point would be especially nice if it could prevent the 2-steps necessary to read shortened footnotes (Sfn). Currently, click on a footnote, and you get scrolled down to, say, "Hawkins (2020), p. 4". Click on that, and you go to the reference, but there's no button to go back to the contents from that second reference (that button is only on the footnote). Usability could definitely be improved there. This would bring strong encyclopedic benefits, since it would help people follow the references more conveniently.

Note: I'm not suggesting that my two ideas would necessarily be better than the current version, which is basically perfect as-is. They're just things that I'd like to see tried out; maybe they'd be better. DFlhb (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your constructive feedback @DFlhb. I will pass your suggestions to the team. Indeed, whitespace at the right will be soon occupied by the Article tools. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Congrats to the Vector 22
I am not sure if this is the correct venue where to place this, but I am getting more and more fond of Vector 2022. I just noticed that the script is bigger when searching special characters like Ω. Other features are good, too. For now, the one thing I am bit worried is if the reader will also know, the TOC is hidden behind the three bullets. The solution is great for the editors, though. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your feedback @Paradise Chronicle. Regarding the TOC, you can learn more about our user testing research here. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is wasting donation money on pushing some JS framework nobody cares about.
While you could be doing something useful with the money, you decided to invest a lot of time and money on creating a problem that now requires a lot of fixes because nobody likes it or just features don't work/are missing.

I believe it's an insult to Wikipedia readers to do such move. You wasted the money on creating a "postmodern low-quality Wikipedia" just because some JS framework marketing campaign washed your brains.

Change it back. Use the money properly, adding value instead of breaking what didn't need to be fixed. Microph123 (talk) 12:57, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * This response makes little sense. You might not like the design, but the entire implementation is standard CSS and HTML and the only thing that requires JS is to move the ToC while you turn your view from wide to narrow or the other way around. If anything, this is probably the least amount of JS an interface like this could be built with. I get that some people don't like the new design, but this technical argument brought forward here definitely does not apply. —Th e DJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Deployment roadmap on Chinese wikis
Hello, there is currently a local discussion about postponing the deployment on Chinese Wikipedia. In the discussion, some editor have shared concerns about the issue of Chinese Language Converter not working in Vector-2022 (T306862). Although Vector-2022 has already been deployed on most wikis, when will it be deployed on Chinese wikis? Will Vector-2022 be deployed on Chinese wikis after the issue of the Language Converter is fixed? Thank you. cc SCP-2000 (talk) 16:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @SCP-2000 According to the ticket the issue is marked as a blocker and it seems last friday there was a new patch started to work on a fix for it. —Th e DJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello @SCP-2000! Thanks for letting us know about that discussion. Right now, we are focused on the feedback coming from English Wikipedia where Vector 2022 became the default last week. We don't have any specific deadline set up for discussing with the communities of the Chinese-script wikis. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Font and Scrollbars — Bad Choice!
Font. The new skin turns every page into a section of the Great Text Wall, it's basically unreadable. Wikipedia is supposed to be read. A standard Wiki page has a great deal of text with a few illustrations. That's why Wiki's most important GUI feature, IMHO, is readability.

The basic readability requirements for websites are very simple. It's color (standard choices: white on black, black on white, and brown on sepia) and font. Font should be easy to read, that's all, nothing fancy, nothing "pretty", no personal preferences, nothing special. It should not be "stretched out" vertically or horizontally. There should be clear separation between paragraphs, a suitable interval between words and between lines, and even larger space before headers. Check any novel from a reputable publisher in any book store, see the width-height proportions, space between letters and words, and the paragraph formatting. Choose similar sans serif font and use the same formatting. That's all. Isn't it easy?

Scrollbars. I have 3.5" (9 cm) empty space between the content and the article (27" monitor), and 3 scrollbars to use (additional vertical scrollbar for the content). That's really ridiculous. Back in the 90s, all web designers raved about "liquid" design and scorned frames. 30 years later — yay! we've got our scrollbars back! I can still kind of understand 4-6 scrollbars in Google Sheets, but here?

In short.

The first time I opened Wikipedia with its new skin, I was greeted with a message like "We did some improvements". Was that a joke?

Spljushka (talk) 22:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Just to put this out there.. The font of the content and it's spacing didn't change, as far as I can tell using the web inspector...... —Th e DJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Much harder to read, lowers accessibility
I have problems reading text on screen if it is not black text on a light background, but of course having the entire page bright white is also not brilliant for eyestrain.

The previous style was great for me because parts of the page were a darker grey colour which evened out the eyestrain and I never had a problem reading wikipedia pages, but now everything is bright white and makes it very hard for me to read the page.

I don't see how the new design is intended to actually help accessibility for people like myself. RCTJ1991 (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello @RCTJ1991, thank you for your feedback, I will pass it to the team. We were working with the American Foundation for the Blind to improve accessibility of Vector 2022 but some changes are still in progress, look at T318373 and T310033 for further information. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Success metric tracking
Hi, is there a place we can follow along with the initiative's success metric tracking? czar 05:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

menu design
Designing menu's is a tough puzzle. What helps:
 * 1) mutually exclusive options should be excluding each other in one menu. For example:
 * 2) *article/talk/history/wikidata item/page information
 * 3) *Chinese/English/French/Italian
 * 4) *read/edit/print/add-to-watchlist/download to PDF
 * This rule ensures that a user needs to look only in one menu to see mutually exclusive choices. This is hard to get right. It is tempting to move low frequency options to a separate menu.
 * 1) Options that can be combined should be in separate menu's, but close together. For example:
 * 2) *article English read
 * 3) *article English edit
 * 4) *article English add-to-wachtlist
 * 5) *article Italian print
 * 6) *talkpage French edit

An object - action approach 'article English read' deviates from spoken English 'read English article' and that is OK. It's UI design, not spoken language design. An object - action approach will make it easy to show the available actions for a chosen object. For example Uwappa (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * article English: read, edit or print
 * article Afrikaans: create, translate from English, translate from French
 * history English: read, print

New font size + linespacing for sidebars is very confusing.
Please revert to the original styling of the sidebar, for the l.h. sidebar and for the new r.h.s. presentation of tools.

The current setup is more linespace than the body text, rather than less; and the same font-size as body text. That's hard to read. The lack of different style for the sidebar section-headers makes it hard to find where you are. The extra linespacing also makes it hard to see all options at once... Written up as Sj (talk) 22:31, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Long article blurry
Vector 2022: Long articles (for example Johann Sebastian Bach) show blurry (a little bit bold) fonts after scrolling to references. Mouse hover corrects artifacts to normal font. Grimes2 (talk) 21:11, 25 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @Grimes2, thank you for the report. Can you verify if your problem is the same of this task? Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 12:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, same problem, here on English Wikipedia (logged in, Vector 2022), Opera 93.0.4585.37, Win 11. Grimes2 (talk) 12:42, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * TOC is the problem. How can I switch off buggy TOC in Vector 2022? Grimes2 (talk) 13:41, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Unusable. Changed to Vector legacy (2010) Grimes2 (talk) 09:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Please visit this page with instructions.--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Doesn't work. Still at Vector 2010. Grimes2 (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems to be fixed today. --Grimes2 (talk) 22:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Watchlist icon duplication request
At the English Wikipedia, when I have scrolled down the page, the stand-alone "go to watchlist" (GTW) icon disappears, and is to be found under the silhouette icon. Observing my own behavior, I'm scrolled-down far more often than I'm at the top, and so I've quickly become accustomed to clicking 'silhouette → GTW icon'. However, this frequency is training me to—by default—reach for the silhouette to find my GTW icon, and that isn't the case when I'm atop a page. Does that make sense? Placement of the GTW icon is inconsistent and dependent on editors' location on a page, and I find myself wasting time due to the skin training me to expect the icon in one place, but only some of the time.

Can we either (a) stick with one implementation or the other all the time, or (b) put the GTW icon in both places all the time to accommodate all editors? Thanks for listening, Fourthords (talk) 22:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like it's already in the page (as it seems that the skin hide/shows based on screen width) so you could hide the one outside the dropdown and show the one in the dropdown, as I'm planning on doing. TerraCodes (talk) 09:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi thank you for your comment, it is an interesting suggestion. Let me give you more context: the sticky header is showing in a single bar some links that originally are distributed in 3 different menus/bars at the top of the page, so there is not the place for all, considering also narrow screens, and a choice was needed. At the beginning of the project, the watchlist button was inside the User menu, and it was at the same place at the top of the page and in the sticky header. There was consistency. Actual situation is a trade off: early adopters wikis strongly supported for a watchlist icon outside the User menu, there was a discussion about simplicity vs. intensive use reasons. Do you know that you can also use a shortcut to open your watchlist?--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 17:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * So you're saying that, when scrolled-down, there isn't room for the GTW icon in the floating horizontal bar, and that's why it's tucked inside the silhouette? That behavior changes when atop the article because feedback early-adopters wanted a stand-alone GTW icon?  If I'm understanding correctly, that inconsistency is frustrating and doesn't preclude including (duplicating) the GTW icon inside the silhouette menu when atop any given page.  Does that make sense?  Fourthords (talk) 13:59, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Why, Wikipedia, why?
If I wanted to use the mobile version, I would use the mobile version. But I want to use the desktop version on a desktop computer, so why are you forcing me to look at a mobile-like layout? The mobile-like layout is NOT optimized for use on a PC. Freja Draco (talk) 22:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello @Freja Draco. These changes are created specifically for desktop interfaces. You can learn more in our FAQs and at the Desktop Improvements project page. Thank you. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That's not true. You do not listen to the voice of users at all and do not address the allegations. You just keep repeating your corporate talk about how "great" your ideas are. It's sad. 83.30.229.13 16:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Changelog?
I notice many big (realtively speaking) changes happening to Vector 2022 on English Wikipedia today.

I went to check this thread but it only lists updates up until December.

From what I see, 'Tools' now appear in the right column (was empty), and the main menu has increased font size and spacing, and also the empty margin between the menu and main content seems to have been lessened. The menu has a hide option on top and the "back" button (which was actually a menu button) on the top left has been removed.

Where can we see a list of changes like this that are currently being done? Many of the complains that have been made are being invalidated by changes like this happening.—Jetro (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Jetro, for exemple you can follow Desktop Improvements on Phabricator. Please look at this presentation and at this page for more details about the Desktop Improvements in general. About updates, you should be interested also in this update on the Village pump (technical) of January, 20th. The team is still receiving a lot of feedback and improving Vector 2022 according to some community requests. An update in the dedicated sub-page will be published in few weeks as usual. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 11:30, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Hot Take: I love the Redesign. But...
Okay, I love the redesign. I've been an early adopter since I heard about it, and seeing it actually put into mainspace is glorious. The latest update (the one that moved the "additional tools" box to the right hand) really gave me a little rush of giddy excitement. Sad to see people don't quite like it, but then again, that might be the doomscrolling I've been witnessing.

However, I have some icks about it.

I feel as though that the ToC navbox should be contrasted with the background, possibly using #f6f6f6 or similar. It should also have a border, colored #d8dbdf or similar. Also, the ToC tab (for small screens) should be circular, similar to the hide bar on en:Chinese Wikipedia with a hint of Material Design's "hamburger menu".

Either way, great job on the work going on! I really wish people could have a more open mind about the new layout. Explodicator7331 (talk) 00:03, 24 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Explodicator7331 thank you for your feedback. About colors, the Web Team has tested a prototype and collected (and still collecting) feedback to improve the visual design. A very specific request about colors might be better suited to a customization, perhaps? What do you think about this possibility? Please read our FAQ, in particular this section. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 11:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'll try editing the CSS/JS for my skin, and see if I prefer it over the main settings. If I actually think it could come into fruition as a feature, I'll see my inquiry as a serious proposal, as opposed to a silly suggestion. Explodicator7331 (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Section [edit] button disappears
Seemingly at random, the [edit] -this-section button does not appear when page is opened (like, disappears between sessions). Recently from en:User:DePiep/current; while at the same time in mainspace articles it is present (=OK). Purge did not solve it, but sometimes it reappears (by unknown action), later in a session. DePiep (talk) 09:05, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @DePiep: thank you for making us aware of this issue. I too am NOT seeing [edit] links appearing after the H2 level section headings on User:DePiep/current...are you able to share links to pages where you are experiencing this issue [i]?
 * i. To be doubly certain we're on the same page, I understand the issue you're experiencing as follows: at random (seemingly),  links are NOT appearing next to H2 level section headings (read:  ). PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, as you describe. "No [edit] button in h2 header line, in certain pages/situations". I add A: my "it reappears" remark may be incorrect (no proof of truly being time-related). Add B: same bad behaviour in lower headers (h3, h4). add C: hypothesis: cold be caused by actualy page content (templates?).
 * Yes, as you describe. "No [edit] button in h2 header line, in certain pages/situations". I add A: my "it reappears" remark may be incorrect (no proof of truly being time-related). Add B: same bad behaviour in lower headers (h3, h4). add C: hypothesis: cold be caused by actualy page content (templates?).


 * Pages that do show this behaviour:
 * en:User:DePiep/current/test-2023
 * Pages that do not show this behaviour (that is: show & behave as expected wrt this):
 * en:User:DePiep/chembox/test-2023
 * note: linter errors on the faulty page (&lt;i&gt; unbalanced). I will have to remove them first.
 * I'm sorry for delaying this reply. I hope to be able do some more tests shortly (like, test by page content).
 * -DePiep (talk) 07:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Both test-pages now  without  linter messages.
 * To be clear:
 * en:User:DePiep/chembox/test-2023 is OK, shows [edit] links per sectionheader as expected. h2, h3 levels.
 * en:User:DePiep/chembox/test-2023 is buggy: hides [edit] links (expected in section headers).
 * Important note: this same report is valid when working in Vector 2010 (old skin). In other words: bug appears the same. DePiep (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @PPelberg (WMF) @DePiep searching in en:User:DePiep/current/test-2023 with CTRL+F, the number of  is not the same number of  . See Section edit links disappear following an unclosed {{. 37.103.49.5 17:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Translations link
I cannot find any feedback or question page and I hope I can get information from here, and that the pinging is OK. In the  drop down list "Translations" is shown for me, taking me to the translation tool. That is all good and it might be some setting I have activated. But on the, when scrolled down, the "Translations" choice is not available. It had led to some confusions when it has been missing.SGrabarczuk (WMF) Is that a feature or a bug? LittleGun (talk) 13:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @LittleGun, thank you for your feedback. Please look at this comment for more information about this change. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Patafisik (WMF): OK, thanks for linking my comment to the phabricator task. LittleGun (talk) 12:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @LittleGun I'm not sure you are reading the correct line. What is your account on Phabricator? Are you reading the comment by the Principal Software Engineer, Language Engineering team writing Dec 12 2022, 11:59 AM "I just removed these menus from sticky header for now. Will revisit later(or even remove them permanently as persistant entry point for translations is ready)"? CC Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 13:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Patafisik (WMF): I do not have any account on phabricator, and I hardly ever understand the threads the few times I have read any.
 * In this case I understood the topic was the same as mine, that the work was paused by "santosh" ("removed for now"), and that you added the comment:
 * "Hi @santhosh, just FYI here a user is confused by this change."
 * And "here" was link to this thread.
 * So I thanked you for linking my feedback in the Phabricator thread. LittleGun (talk) 13:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

The Redesign Does Not Work for Wikipedia
Hello,

Like many people, I recently pulled up a Wikipedia page and immediately felt something was off. The new redesign is definitely a big departure from Old Wikipedia, and I've been trying to figure out whether my and many other people's distaste for it was due to an aversion to change or an actual design issue with the new look. While I can appreciate the intent behind the redesign, to improve readability and comprehension by shortening line length, I believe this mission fundamentally misunderstands how people use Wikipedia. People don't go on Wikipedia and sit down and read the full article on a topic, like they would on the New York Times (an example used by admins to support this design) they quickly skim an article for information relevant to the purpose they came on Wikipedia for. Therefore, the primary motivation behind the design of a Wiki page should be on making it as easy as possible to find relevant information, i.e. skim the page. The old design did this extremely well, the page's width being filled with text, and the new design fails spectacularly, requiring way more scrolling and fitting less information on the page at once. There are other issues with the new design, but those have been brought up already. Wikipedia's design should fit Wikipedia, not follow the example of other sites with completely different purposes and use cases. BringBackOldWiki (talk) 00:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello @BringBackOldWiki. Thank you for your feedback, you can personalize your experience and use the full width. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 16:15, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Open RfC
For those weighing in here on the theme, you may want to weigh in on the open "Request for Comments" linked to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rollback_of_Vector_2022#RfC:_Should_Wikipedia_return_to_Vector_2010_as_the_default_skin? 192.184.150.142 03:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Jan 23 update from Web team
Hi all,

if you haven't still read it please look at the latest update from the Web Team here.--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Please revert to old skin on swwiki
Hi we discussed the changes during our admin conference for Swahili Wikipedia. We request you to kindly revert to the old skin for our wikipedia. We see that we would have to rewrite our help pages considerably and presently do not have the capacity. We tried to communicate this to user:SGrabarczuk (WMF) but he did not react so far. Kipala (talk) 07:50, 30 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey @Kipala, thanks for reaching out. We apologize for this inconvenience. Because it might be helpful to us as the developers of the skin: can you help us better understand why you would have to rewrite your help pages considerably? Is it because the main menu is now different? AHollender (WMF) (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * For clarity, we're talking to that community in a few different places; currently, I think, mainly via email. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi AHollender, you are right. Our help pages (like basically all I have looked at) refer to the menue and positions of items on the screen. See e.G. here https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faili:Menyu_Wikipedia_Chanzo.jpg . For a small wikipedia with very few users who have ever worked on the help pages it means either a huge workload for which we presently have nobody - or having misleading help pages which definitely is not a good idea.. Kipala (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2022 (UTC)


 * We just had a vote on swahili wikipedia. See https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Jumuiya#Muonekano_mpya_wa_kurasa_zetu_-_kura! We had 13 participants (which is an excellent participation) and the vote was 13-0 for returning to the previous surface as default, until we are in a position to redo our help pages. So are you the right people here to effect this? Or do we have to talk to someone else? Kind regards Kipala (talk) 17:30, 11 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Dear people we notified SGrabarczuk (WMF) by Email on 10.11.2022 that we had done the vote in the swwiki community, we notified you here and until now nobody gave us a reply. Are you too busy or just impolite? Or are we too small and unimportant? Kind regards Kipala (talk) 12:35, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello @Kipala. I'm sorry that you were waiting so long. I needed some time to consult with the members of our team.
 * Again, we understand and respect your care for help pages.
 * According to my knowledge, most of the discussion took place in a closed channel, accessible mainly or exclusively for admins of your wiki. We've only been able to talk to your group via proxy. We would much rather be able to communicate directly with the community to figure out how we can help. I believe we might set up a meeting in addition to an on-wiki discussion. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear ones, I find this behaviour not acceptable. We did not discuss in some closed channel but we had an open debate and vote in our community. Openly: https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Jumuiya#Muonekano_mpya_wa_kurasa_zetu_-_kura! You were free to contribute. You guys do not dare to act like this vis a vis a large wikipedia like dewiki, Why do you think you can do this towards a small african language version??
 * So when do we see the revert, please?? Kipala (talk) 07:16, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
 * My apologies @Kipala, I was of the impression that the topic on wiki with all these votes was a direct consequence of a discussion previously taking place in a closed group. We'll talk to you on your wiki, then. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Kipala Do you have a list of help pages that would need to be updated? The file you mentioned shows only the 2010 wikitext editor, which is not changing. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:18, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Our help page are in the respective category. So would you guys kindly respect the open and inclusive decision of the community and asap revert the change you decided to do without obtaining consent? Kipala (talk) 11:36, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Kipala - apologies that this is taking so long to resolve! Our concern with any type of revert here would be that we are in the process of switching the majority of Wikipedias to the new skin and the new experience.  Having some wikis stay on the old skin by default would add effort to the development team, and potentially confuse users on the wiki because of the switch.  Would it be possible for us to assist in some way to get the help pages ready and updated in a more prompt manner instead?  We'd also like to mention that we plan on making other various improvements to desktop in the future as well that are smaller and could affect existing documentation.  Our advice here would be to write any documentation or help pages without referring to a specific layout or interface.  Our software evolves and improves over time and it would be great to see documentation that is flexible enough to allow for this.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 20:24, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear, the confusion is in place because you changed the skin without asking for approval from us. If you would kindly take a bit of time and look thru our help pages you will see that help pages must refer to the way items are arranged on the screen. if you do not write Swahili I do not see how you will help us. As you know German wikipedia took a vote to keep the "old" skin as default. And of course, because that is a large an influential community, you have not done anything without their approval. (I guess in enwiki the situation is similar). So if you can live with dewiki for the time being, I do not see any argument why you cannot live with swwiki and old skin default as well. So kindly just tell me what hinders you from reverting? (Except the fact that you do not like it and we are a small and unimportant wikipedia?) And kindly tell me since when community decisions can be just ignored? Kipala (talk) 22:24, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @Kipala -  Our sincere apologies for the delay in response here.  Our intention is not to ignore the consensus of the Swahili community.  We do believe the merits of the new skin for readers of Swahili and want to ensure that we are giving them the best possible experience.  We have discussed internally and have prepared a few options for moving forward.  We've written up these options for next steps and plan on sharing them with the Swahili community on the Swahili Wikipedia Village Pump as well as scheduling a meeting with the community where we can make a plan on moving forward together.  How does this sound?  Thank you and apologies again for the delayed response. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Since n't responding to this reply, understandably, I think the plan can move forward for now. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Kipala and all! Just a quick update - we're currently translating our message for the Swahili Village pump into Swahili and hope to have it posted there by the end of the week.   OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:10, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Don't you think that here, as in many other discussions related to Vector 2022, you interpret everything (even someone's silence) in a way that fits your own expectations? 83.30.229.13 19:14, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No, why would you think that? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "Our intention is not to ignore the consensus of the Swahili community." But we will ignore he consensus of the Swahili community. Well... 83.30.229.13 19:11, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi ! Habari? Olga: how about just reverting the default and helping sw:wp update their help pages? The concern about having them change in lockstep seems thoughtful and probably what we should all be doing before making skin changes that change common workflows :) perhaps Swahili WP is just more keenly aware of the need for and use of those docs. Future skin updates you mention would hopefully not have so many changes at once.  Warmly, Sj (talk) 03:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @Kipala Although I don't speak Swahili, I would like to assist with updating the help page screenshots (as I did for some on the English Wikipedia). Could you point me to where they are? You mentioned above https://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faili:Menyu_Wikipedia_Chanzo.jpg but that is a feature which has not changed with Vector 2022.
 * As far as I can tell sw:Wikipedia:Mwongozo and its other tabs are the main help pages on Swahili Wikipedia, but using Google Translate that says "The guide has provided information specifically for those using the MonoBook page format. Since September 2010 the shape of the pages as seen by non-logged users is Vector. The guide has not yet been rewritten." and they have MonoBook screenshots. Surely those can't be what you're suddenly so concerned about? the wub "?!"  00:03, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Jambo ! hongera! n-a-Kipala-penda, nakupenda. (kigiriki el.wiktionary, Central) Sarri.greek (talk) 04:11, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

List articles with photographs are broken
Noticed this mostly on List of Manchester United F.C. players. The photos are on top of the table with the list below, instead of the photographs beside the table. It's odd, because on other articles, the photos can be beside the list. I'm trying to figure out how to fix it on this article. MAINEiac4434 (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, it works when I toggle the wider layout, but it should also work the default layout as well.MAINEiac4434 (talk) 18:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That is a very wide table. If you want those photos to appear alongside the table for all readers, you may need to wrap the larger table in a second table, where the existing table is in one cell of the only row and the photos are in a second cell. This may not be a good idea, however. Jonesey95 (talk) 05:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Why the wasted space?
Why the hell is 2/3 of the screen on desktop used blank unused space? It looks ugly and it makes reading articles in the cramped space frustreating. I implore the wikimedia team to reconsider these design changes as they are terrible 37.247.3.52 12:22, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback. In this section of our FAQ there is an explanation of why Vector 2022 has the limited content by default. You can personalize your experience (log-out users can increase the width of the page by selecting the toggle in the bottom right corner of the screen). Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What toggle? I've yet to find it. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 13:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * It's in the bottom right corner of the web page (i.e., of the web browser), not in the bottom right corner of the middle third of the web page that the contents are limited to. —Kri 13:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Nope, still can't find it, all I get bottom right is the Wikimedia and Mediawiki buttons. I'm using Safari (MacOS edition) if that makes a difference Murgatroyd49 (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That toggle would be fine if it actually persisted, but having to toggle it on every single page, every single time you click a link or come to a new page from a search engine or whatever is far too burdensome to be useful or practical, and as such, basically may as well not exist for all the good it does. In all the years I've been using Wikipedia, I've never had to actually log into my account just to have an acceptable viewing experience, and I'm not willing to continually log in everywhere now just to overcome a bad design choice. Hopefully there will be a browser extension available soon that fixes this error automatically because the FAQ makes it clear this is the direction Wikipedia is intent on taking, users be damned. 24.251.3.86 14:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear. It's difficult for me to understand why making readers push a toggle on every single page on every single visit would be an acceptable alternative. Or an alternative at all. --Kizor (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If it is really desired to have this be the default, at least allow users to override the default to their preference WITHOUT creating an account. It is extremely easy to do this with cookies.
 * Personally this new layout makes me want to disable max-width altogether as this one css 'feature' makes reading incredibly difficult. Reukiodo (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Do these design principles hold for a website like Wikipedia? If I read an article on Nature, I am reading large blocks of text which, yes, I prefer to view in a smaller paragraph. But in this case, the whole article is a continuous, sequential narrative which requires sequential reading of paragraphs and strong retention of information. However Wikipedia articles are usually not read sequentially and (in my own case, at least) when someone opens a Wikipedia page they generally scroll down to the heading that they want rather than reading sequentially from the start. Having the wide layout, with more information on the screen at once, allows this by providing more points of orientation. It's why I find navigation on mobile Wikipedia so frustrating - I want to scroll up and down to the relevant section, but the restrictions of the mobile screen make it so difficult to orient myself since wherever I scroll all I see is an identical block of text (I'm not sure that can be fixed on a small phone screen, mind you).
 * You may say 'just use the table of contents', but with a wide layout and a scroll wheel, I can navigate an entire Wikipedia article without even moving my mouse. With the narrow layout and less points of orientation, I'm more inclined to a.) move my mouse to the table of contents and navigate that (without being able to see at a glance what each section contains) or b.) take my eyes off the article to look at the table of contents and scroll with the scroll wheel (also annoying since I can't actually see the contents of the article while I do so!) There is also c.) look at the article and scroll with the wheel, but since less information is on the screen at the time this is just less effective than before. LifeOnTheTurtlestack (talk) 21:39, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Wholeheartedly agree with this. I've used Wikipedia for 20 years now and finally bothered to make an account just so I can actually use my whole monitor. Designing for mobile is understandable considering the market share, but punishing desktop users makes absolutely zero sense, more so when it's entirely possible to adapt body size to screen size. LamerGamer44 (talk) 15:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the toggle button. I am unable to log into wiki at work and this button will be getting heavy use. Its a clean and simple design solution for something that is unnecessary but regrettably will probably stay. 2406:3400:21E:2A50:28A6:361F:3B24:1E10 00:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

New update not allowing me to permanently revert back to old skin
I am not a fan of the new update - It has slowed down my ability to edit pages and aesthetically I find the text too large, the white space too much, and the tools to edit or access other aspects of a page more cumbersome than before. I have repeatedly tried to change back to the old skin via preferences and every time I save my preferences it momentarily goes back to the old skin but when I click on a page or load another wikipedia tab it reverts back to the updated skin. Has anyone else had this problem? Does anyone know how I can keep the old skin permanently? CarCai (talk) 20:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Update: after changing to the old skin once again, it seems to have kept. I'm not sure why it was not working before but it seems to be fixed now. I also wanted to add some clarification to my above "cumbersome" comment, since it takes more precedent than my aesthetic preferences. When the new skin was implemented the change of the Cite feature and the Link feature to a full screen page rather than the previous pop up when editing articles made it take longer to edit pages. However, upon checking this feature again it seems that it has been changed back to a pop up version. --CarCai (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Second Update: I have changed to using the 2022 Vector skin to try it out more thoroughly. After a few days, the aesthetic of it was growing on me. I think there were only 2 thing I personally kept noticing during my use. One was how much I had to scroll with the new skin. I understand this may be more desirable for some but it was a little clunky compared to the old version. I saw that someone had found a way to disable the max width, which helped some. Secondly, I wish there was an option to customize which icons appear in the top right corner or be able to see all of the icons at once. I think the drop down menu looks cleaner but for me it is not the most practical set up. CarCai (talk) 06:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

More feedback (ToC, logging-out, Settings menu and user menu)
I just want to underline some things.

I want to underline 2 issues with the new ToC:
 * ToC issues
 * 1) See this image: https://ibb.co/DwTZH8r. Why does the ToC is so short? If the ToC would be longer, then the reader would have to scroll the ToC less often.
 * 2) See this video: https://vimeo.com/791479775. 1. When your mouse cursor hovers over the ToC box and 2. you scroll trough the ToC 3. while the ToC scrollbar is at the lower end, the reader should not be able to scroll the content of the page. It happened to me to want to choose the last section, but I was unable because when I wanted to click that section, the content of the page moved and the ToC turned back to the upper (first) sections. This is annoying.

Previously, the issue described here occurred only when clicking the log-out link from the sticky header. Now, it also occurs when clicking the log-out link outside the sticky header (from the user menu that is not part of the sticky header).
 * Log-out process

I like the idea of providing the settings menu from https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/10b47eaaa5/wiki/Space?useskin=vector-2022 and I would like to see it deployed on Wikimedia wikis. However, I think that due to its placement (the lower right corner), most readers would miss it, even if they would like to change one or more of those settings. If this would be deployed, these settings should also include the ability to disable/enable the Page Previews (and the Reference Previews for wikis which have them), and could also include the ability to disable/enable the dark mode when and if the dark mode will ever be built and deployed (and if there would not be any better location for the dark mode toggle, of course). -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 18:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC) -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 13:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Settings menu (Site preferences)
 * User menu
 * 1) I have previously reported this, but it is still unfixed. 1. Make sure that you are not logged-in on Commons. 2. Click "Uploaded menu" from the user menu. 3. You arrive on Commons at Special:ListFiles/Some IP, not at Special:ListFiles/Your user name.
 * 2) Sometimes, you can click some links from the sticky header user menu even when hidden. See this video: https://vimeo.com/793346408.
 * P.S. For me, it is often hard to tell apart sections from subsections. T307316 would be a solution. -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 13:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

How to change the logo to a temporary one?
To change the logo image,wordmark and tagline, which CSS file should be changes ? Global.css ? Lotusccong (talk) 06:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)


 * https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Vector/Customizing_the_logo_for_special_events is probably the most up to date reference. Hope that helps! Jdlrobson (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Scrap the 2022 skin
This new skin has no perks at all. Just put it to rest quietly, noone will miss it. 37.247.31.205 00:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I agree. --Ensahequ (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree too. Scrap this weird skin or move it to the mobile version of Wikipedia. No one will miss it. Nothing in Vector 2022 is better or attractive at all. Nothing. I'm shocked how some people say they like it, what is to like in this weird layout made for phones? 94.26.15.134 02:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Separate scrolling for the TOC bar is not helpful
Hopefully these criticisms are constructive. I'm not here just to harangue you guys or send abuse.

It's much harder to find things in the TOC than it used to be for the following reasons:

1. The TOC sidebar doesn't appear at all on some pages until you scroll down. If I'm looking for something specific, I can't even see where to look for it until I scroll.

2. Long TOCs (like the one on this page!) are difficult to use because you have to scroll through it to see it all. It's not possible to see the whole thing at once.

3. If you briefly navigate away from the TOC, e.g., to scroll on the main reading area (IDK what to call this, apologies), the TOC resets, making you lose your place again, so that you have to scroll through it all, again.

4. Because the TOC is narrow, long headings are hard to read, making it still harder to use. This is ironic because readability is a key reason that's been given for the re-design: yes, very long lines can be hard to read, but so can very short ones!

5. The contents aren't numbered so it's difficult to know where you are. This makes it especially annoying that the table insists on resetting itself!

I don't like having to log in separately on every sister project, just so that I can make the page not broken. And I say 'broken' because, when I saw the new design, I genuinely didn't realise it was a new design at all: I thought something had gone wrong with my browser settings. It didn't occur to me that it could be a deliberate choice to make Wikipedia look as it now does. I may be in the minority but I do think the designers should reflect on that. I think even if I were aware the change was coming (which even as a daily Wikipedia user, I wasn't), I wouldn't have realised this was it. (This is strictly a separate issue, but I'm raising it here because I don't want to create yet another heading which will be impossible to find in the TOC sidebar!)

Finally, there's a note at the top of this page asking me to 'link a username' if I want to notify a member of staff (which I do, because I'm genuinely trying to be constructive and help the project), but I don't know how to do this. This is, ironically, a very good example of the failures of communication around this whole redesign. Do I type @OVasileva? Do I type User:SGrabarczuk_(WMF)? I can see what other people have done but I have no idea if this did successfully notify the staff members in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FrankSanPod (User talk:FrankSanPod • Special:Contributions/FrankSanPod) 11:35, January 27, 2023 (UTC)


 * I aggree, FrankSanPod. I come from el.wiktionary and Contents are very important for us to see immediately, full and numbered. You can change your preferences for all wikiprojects here
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:GlobalPreferences#mw-prefsection-rendering
 * Remember to scroll down the page to click Save
 * Also, we sign at Discussions with  at the end. Thank you for your comments!  Sarri.greek (talk) 02:20, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Re: How the new Wikipedia design focused on accessibility
(Reposted from How the new Wikipedia design focused on accessibility.)

It's very significant that accessibility testing was performed, thanks for stressing this. "Overall, the results were positive, and we saw noticeable improvements comparing the original experience with the new." Can you clarify where this finding comes from?

T263834 doesn’t mention anything of the sort. T323634 doesn’t mention any question about the overall accessibility improvements; it mentions 4 specific points on which feedback was sought, of which 2 received positive feedback. No positive assessment is mentioned for the remaining 2 points, which are arguably the most impactful changes in the new skin: the table of contents and the language selection.

Not quite a ringing endorsement. Nemo 18:46, 27 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I see the report is at Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Repository/Accessibility testing. It confirms what above: mixed ratings for TOC and language selection. Nemo 11:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion for "in other projects"
I think the in other projects menu would be better located beside the "Add languages" button as these serve broadly the same purpose - finding content on the same topic on other projects. Garuda3 (talk) 21:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

addPortletLink
Hey! Function  loses    class in Vector 2022. Am I doing something wrong - ru:Участник:Iniquity/related-js-css-links.js? Iniquity (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Iniquity, sorry for the delay, we are receiving a lot of feedback and it's hard to answer to all in a short time. I reported your message to the team, I hope this should help. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Patafisik, thanks! :) Iniquity (talk) 11:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * We'll look at this as part of https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T327369 (a few other issues are being reported). Jdlrobson (talk) 16:24, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Jdlrobson, thanks :) Iniquity (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistent edit page width
Vector-2022 has max-width limits for large screens. But on edit pages, unlike read pages, max-width limit is disabled and page width is stretched. Why edit pages are exempted from max-width limits? Moreover, when I preview or view diff when editing, max-width limit is enabled still even on edit page yet. I think page width should be consistent. Gustmd7410 (talk) 15:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Gustmd7410, thank you for reporting this issue, it was pointed out few days ago and a task is already open on Phabricator. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 08:23, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for information. But the task already open only points that preview page ignores disabling limited width setting. I meant that edit page without preview ignores enabling limited width setting. I think my problem and the task already open are similar but different problem. The existing task is trying to fix by removing max-width of preview section even though the page's max-width was disabled and it doesn't fix my problem. "vector-feature-limited-width-disabled" class of body element should be removed on edit page when limited width setting was enabled. Gustmd7410 (talk) 09:12, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for information. But the task already open only points that preview page ignores disabling limited width setting. I meant that edit page without preview ignores enabling limited width setting. I think my problem and the task already open are similar but different problem. The existing task is trying to fix by removing max-width of preview section even though the page's max-width was disabled and it doesn't fix my problem. "vector-feature-limited-width-disabled" class of body element should be removed on edit page when limited width setting was enabled. Gustmd7410 (talk) 09:12, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Tables
Hi! I've previously mentioned that I'm actually quite fond of the new look, but if I had to have one complaint, I'd say something needs to be done about tables. From my experience these past few days since the change, most articles with wikitables have seen those tables become really squished, which is just plain unpleasant to look at (Example). I'm not sure how Wikipedia handles tables, but perhaps adjusting them to simply display at a smaller size would be helpful. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 18:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Krisgabwoosh, thank you for your feedback. This issue is concerning more skins then Vector 2022 and there is not a easy solution, discussion is still going on. Please look at this task on Phabricator about it, especially this comment. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 08:35, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion for alternative look for Vector 2022
Vector 2010's grey sidebars (#f6f6f6) and single-pixel blue border (#a7d7f9) have been a significant part of Wikipedia's look and identity since V2010's rollout and it would be a shame to lose this, especially to a layout where there's a lot of whitespace between the sidebars and the article content itself. I understand this is so the article can appear centered, but I think it would achieve this better if the table of contents were put in the sidebar instead. I've made a quick mockup to demonstrate.

For the record, I personally have no problem with the limited-width approach that V2022 adds, but a necessary consequence of that is a lot of whitespace that could be put to use in anchoring the article and drawing the eye to it - which it would do much better if the grey colour didn't end halfway through. With current V2022, the articles look disconnected and floaty. AsmodeanUnderscore (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Just want to chime in and say I'd personally love this!! A lot of the jarring feeling comes from the sheer amount of whitespace, and you're right, it feels quite unanchored at the moment. An edit like this may fix a lot of people's initial hesitation to adopt Vector 22. A slight problem would be in just sticking the TOC in the sidebar, which may cause a bit of user confusion, but overall I think bringing back the grey sidebars would help a lot in grounding this redesign in some familiarity. Enuui (talk) 06:34, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * https://di-visual-design-borders-bgs.web.app/Zebra#top (9) outside article background (solid)) looks better. -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 11:59, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * (9) but with the borders staying blue would be the best iteration of this i think AsmodeanUnderscore (talk) 14:43, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The blue borders are not bad, either. -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 14:50, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Contents missed out while printing
While printing a document, that is in Vector 2022 layout Contents list is missed out on the Print...It should be fixed. KCCian24 (talk) 08:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I, again, second that! TOC is needed in Print, especially for wikibooks it's important. Regards, HirnSpuk (talk) 14:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi thank you for your feedback; About printing or not the TOC you can read previous discussion and tasks here, here and here. I was discussing about this this morning at the Teahouse too.
 * Hi thank you for your feedback and for adding your comment on Phabricator. Actually the Web Team is especially focusing on discussions with the community of the English Wikipedia, but I agree with you, it will be useful to consider different needs of projects other than Wikipedia, like Wikibooks ones, so please remind us in few weeks if we forget it (but I hope not).--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 16:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Patafisik (WMF), what exactly would you like to be reminded of? Fun Fact: If the toc is "hidden" it is printed. How about just "triggering" the old-style toc via the magic word "toc"? I can understand, that's normally not necessary to have the printout, right-setup and limit option for wikipedia-articles. But except for wikibooks as my "home-wiki" I also think about community, talk and help pages. Regards HirnSpuk (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @HirnSpuk Remember us about this issue for Wikibooks when the Team will be less busy with the English Wikipedia, but before the deployment on other projects to allow them to fix it if needed.
 * What do you means with "If the toc is 'hidden' it is printed"? That the preview is not showing the same layout that is printed? Can you detail me steps to reproduce, browser are you using, the link you are using to print, with an example of page, please? If it is a bug I can open a ticket on Phabricator, or you can do it too. Thank you Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 10:27, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Patafisik (WMF), thanks, I'll try to remember! Regarding the 'bug'(?): there's a little link in the toc to "hide" it at the Top-Heading. Then it's printed, though with a poor layout. If it's in the side-bar, it's not. Tested in Windows/Edge and Linux/Firefox. Although I wouldn't give it a high priority from your pov, because you are focusing on Wikipedia and V22 and I suppose nobody would ever notice in Wikipedia. I just did, because in my impression it's a thing with (at least german) Wikibooks. One could even think about this as a feature, to "choose" if the toc is printed or not. Regards, HirnSpuk (talk) 07:10, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
 * New TOC is taking too much space in the print; And a messege saying "printable version is no longer available" is displayed in English Wikipedia... It should be fixed. KCCian24 (talk) 09:09, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Jan 31 update from Web team
Hi all,

if you haven't still read it, please look at the latest update from Web team: the persistence for fixed width for all users is coming this week.--Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 12:29, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Why are you ignoring the majority of Wikipedia users who DON'T WANT THE NEW LAYOUT? Why are you bandaiding these features when in the big picture, a big majority don't want this layout-change *AT ALL*! Not ONCE have you acknowledged the critizism from users regarding shoe-horning a design far from finished! Fixed width is only one of many complaints, why aren't you honouring the majority of voters who DON'T WANT THE VECTOR 2022 DESIGN AT ALL!! The default layout for everyone logged-in or not, should be Vector 2010.. Vector 2022 should be OPT-IN with a big banner. You guys are professionals at skewing results in your favour, if you'd actually made a vote for EVERY WIKIPEDIA USER, LOGGED IN OR NOT, you'd get humiliated in the results.. what a sham! Holundiman (talk) 13:25, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Please, add classic style
Could you please, please, add somewhere (visible) 'Classic style' or something? For logged or not logged people? Some of us wish to stay with the classic style. I cannot find it when I am not logged. Thank you for all your efforts, but we need Classic everywhere, in all wikimedia projects. Please? Please? Sarri.greek (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Sarri.greek: Have you checked Special:GlobalPreferences (select Vector instead of Vector 2022)? -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 23:46, 9 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you @NGC 54, I clicked some buttons there. But is this for unlogged people? I would like a visible button somewhere 'Classic' (not hidden in a menu). I presume that if I go to History, at previous versions, I can see the normal style. Sarri.greek (talk) 00:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sarri.greek: No, it is not for unlogged people. -- NGC 54  ( talk |  contribs ) 00:06, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Boooooo. 👎👎 172.58.174.193 18:44, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And that, my friends, is the problem. I don't want to be logged in on my work computer but the new layout is SO LOATHLY (Yet Another Change Is a Downgrade But Try Telling the UX Wags That -- Gmail, my bank [all of them actually], imdb, reddit, digg and now, heaven help us all, wikipedia -- it's all at "Gnome3" levels of hateration, folks) that I'll probably make a fake-me login there just. for. this. one. reason. That can't have been your intention. I have a number of friends and relatives who are creating users just so they can have Their Wikipedia Back, with no intention of EVER being editors or authors.
 * Yes, this is a must-have feature for non-logged-in people. How strongly must we put it in order to succeed in bringing about this change. There's a tribe of UX mavens who need to be reminded that Change Is A Downgrade for your existing users, even the ones who don't log in.
 * cheers...ank Ansak (talk) 23:08, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello @Sarri.greek. This is unfortunately not possible, the same way it's not possible for logged-out users to use Monobook instead of Vector legacy. You can read more in our FAQ (Why is the opt-out link not available for logged-out users?). SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:43, 13 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you @SGrabarczuk (WMF). Thankfully, all wiktionaries are in classic style except the French, which we avoid. For wikipedias, we may try to find equivalent projects. Sarri.greek (talk) 10:23, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @SGrabarczuk (WMF), why not add a permanent global little banner line with
 * For Classic Style, log in and click Classic2010 here
 * Sarri.greek (talk) 11:51, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
 *  this 
 * i lurk every day becuase i dont have to put up with tracking bullshit this is a spit in the face  to longtime users that dont  simply want another stupid platform to login to 2601:644:9180:31B0:C177:B313:1C8D:2C7F 04:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That's such a bullshit non-answer. Tons of sites have figured this out without any issue. It's 100% within the capability of the servers. 24.242.64.48 16:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree, it shouldn't be that difficult to add a simple drop-down list with a selection of CSS styles and save a cookie with the choice. 2A02:A312:C539:8D80:78DE:760D:452F:23E2 20:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree 100%, if Reddit can do it, and if switching to Monobook (objectively the best design) is even still possible for signed in accounts, that means that the layouts merely manipulate what data is available, not build every page from the ground up... so therefore could easily be deployed and used as people saw fit. You don't want that because people would be switching back to Monobook and your designs would be discredited as being an advancement (which they aren't) IF they can't, then I want the old Vector 2010 back since the new design is absolutely laughable. there's literally twice as much white space than text. (I have a big monitor) Ikaruseijin (talk) 00:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Another annoyed Wikipedia user here; corporate policy at work is 'no personal accounts on corporate computers'. Any suggestions for reverting to a usable Wikipedia skin? 192.157.110.190 02:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I am afraid this might drive people to find information elsewhere. I was already considering alternative sources for quick knowledge on organic chemistry, but luckily read that you could create an account and change the style back. I find the white-spaces and compact text-boxes with short lines an eyesore and very difficult to skim through, unfortunately. Mftp96 (talk) 19:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello,, friend 192.157.110.190, take a look at the end of next section. I want there, and it is fun. Sarri.greek (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Let the public decide
My opinion is this. The phsyiognomy of wikiprojects: style-structure-content is known to the public as its fundamental characteristic. If a radical change were to be introduced, it should first be monitored as a choice of the public. If the two thirds of the public show preference to a new style in a span of e.g. 5 years, then, and only then, it could be introduced as default. The technical aspect, especially for mobile phones, is a spearate issue. Sarri.greek (talk) 16:42, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree. People react much more positively if they get a choice like "Hey we have an exciting new Theme you might like better: click here to try and tell us what you think."
 * Instead of just changing the look of what is basically public utilities by now to a version that should have had more testing. This was handled poorly, IMHO.
 * --Real Joe Cool (talk) 00:20, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. If the developers think it's just going to be something like the introduction of Windows Vista—no, it is not. There is not a single thing that is preferable about this new version when compared to the old version. A timespan of 5 years is not exaggerated at all. I could even argue that it should be a decade instead, and instead of 2/3 it should be 3/4 in favour. Vector 2022 is just a bunch of random pointless modifications to the old UI, an ego booster for Wikipedia's design team. I don't even know how this ever got out of the think tank. 172.58.174.193 18:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I had to dig up and use my long abandoned login just to get away from this new heinous design on all my browsers. This should be a choice at the top of the page at the very least. Yes, it should be possible for unlogged visitors via cookies. Fredirc (talk) 21:09, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I had to create a user on wikimedia just to revert to the old design. The new design is terrible for desktop. I am not browsing on a phone so it should not look like I am. 50.53.69.99 21:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I for one have made my contribution in the fight against this abominable UI on [this page](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements). These annoying, constantly moving, constantly taking space table of contents and the bar at the top, eating my screen space, will unirinically make me stop reading Wikipedia. Yes, my mental health is more important. And if I were an editor, I would lose all inspiration to keep editing if logged out users would see it this ugly and irritating.--Adûnâi (talk) 01:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Well,, I will not exaggerate. The new style is elegant. Which, I presume, is why the French wikipedia and wiktionary have been using it for some time: très chic. It is a) habit and b) the lack of Contents, Languages, that hinders me from using it. Is consistency between wikiprojects a problem? Then, small changes could have been introduced bit by bit over the years. Of style, of practical issues. This 2023 change was too abrupt. I cannot see why so many wikipedias voted for it (Have the voted? or were they told?). No unlogged reader has the time to go to some preferences and start ticking things... For wikiprojects that vote yes, to make the new vector default, please add a visible link 'switch to clasicc look' Thank you all. Sarri.greek (talk) 03:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Elegant? How so? The new design is clunky, awkward, hides tools and options, makes the dealing with the ToC a chore, switching languages more cumbersome... (the original full list of languages, on the left, was best. Why Wikipedia ever strayed from that, I will never understand ...and any claim, that the new design frees up space, can be countered by not only the point that the space the side-bar takes up, has never been a problem, but also with the fact that there still is a sidebar. It's just empty ...which is weird and unsettling)
 * It takes more time and effort, to do anything or get any information. Ones ability to get an overview of things, or to navigate, is clearly diminished. Functionality, practicality and efficiency is severely hampered. Not because it is an unfamiliar set-up, but because it is an inherently, objectively, and significantly, less functional/practical/efficient design. (and this is true of most "upgraded"/"updated"/"modern" website designs, from about the 2010's onward)
 * The new design makes the desktop design, closer to the mobile design ...but I have yet to see, any reasonable argument (or any argument whatsoever), for why that would be a good thing. Why one should make the desktop version, be closer to a design that has to be severely limited, by the severely limited abilities of mobiles (most notably, their minimal and extremely clumsy and imprecise touchscreens)--155.4.221.27 08:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Of course, -155.4.221.27 functionality is terrible. Which is why this new Vector=default must be reversed. Currently we avoid all wikiprojects using it. Thank you.  Sarri.greek (talk) 08:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've "voted" by cancelling my donation. The new UI is awful and I don't want to support its development in any shape or form. iliaarpad 10:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Same. Cannot believe there is no way to change for unlogged users. 2001:4898:80E8:2:FE3F:D790:8002:69A9 22:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The French Wikipedia didn't choose the new design. We were forced into it as a testing ground. And no matter what we said, it stayed. DerpFox (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I too am one of those who sole made an account to change back to the old layout and start complaining about the change. Looks BAD on desktop. And my most used feature, changing languagebetween those I'm familiar with, is hidden behind extra clicks now. Khyprus (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * i made an account after like a decade of constant reading and occasional editing just to avoid the new layout. its hideous. way too much whitespace. hoping it gets fully reverted soon. 66.189.54.146 03:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Couldn't agree more. I made an account specifically to switch back to the old layout.
 * I would be surprised to learn that anyone in the design team is over 40. This screams "mobile generation" to me. It's like someone was hired to improve the layout and the best they could come up with to justify their job was to turn every user into a mobile user.
 * I have a wide screen monitor for a reason. Let me use it. Shittylayout (talk) 04:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Highly agree that desktop layout is much better than phone layout, and ditto re not donating any more. 2user2

Is there a way, for unlogged people, to copypaste texts of wikipedias in a different .htm thing, -sorry, I know nothing about computers-, so that we will have a permanent viewing medium? Something like a 'style-converter' outside wikipedia? Could a programmer make a webpage with such a thing? Preferences are for editors with a username, not for readers. E.g. I have Edge, and cannot see Contents. Languages are somehwere on top. Also, I like to see the Classic style (that is why it is called 'classic', one does not change it) I have saved lots of lemmata from earlier stages of wikipedia because they are more concise, and they look fine. Sarri.greek (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * There are websites that provide a different frontend to Wikipedia, like Wikiwand. Just note that they are usually ad-supported products. Longbyte1 (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you ! Very good: I can see Contents there. They miss languages, like en el fr etc or αγγ ελλ γαλλ .. I like the 3 strata, a very wise approach of an encyclopaedia: basic (what is encyclic general knowledge), medium (a bit more for one interested) and expert (all details there)! This is a solution to the "curse of red shoes": lemmata that grow larger and larger; very difficult to read. Thank you indeed. Very good for older people like me. I don't install things, too scared to click changes! Thanks. Sarri.greek (talk) 04:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello. Maybe this little trick can help you: simply add «?useskin=vector» to every requested URL. It works for non-logged users. 37.134.90.176 08:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you dear 37.134.90.176. I have a username, so I fixed Preferences and can read here too, in the widths and styles I choose. It is you we are worried about Sarri.greek (talk) 18:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The trick 37.134.90.176 mentioned, works for non-logged-in IP users/readers. It is annoying to manually add that "?useskin=vector" to the end of every Wikipedia-URL, however ...but it's nice that one can at least do that. 155.4.221.27 03:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I just used it to try out monobook, as well, to see what that is ...and man, that took me back. I'd say that "classic" vector was a slight improvement, in looks (mainly the changed font size), but no real change in functionality. The new vector, however... 155.4.221.27 03:08, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a life-saver, thanks you! Here is the Google Chrome extension which does the same (analogous to the old.reddit redirect).--Adûnâi (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

purge-by-clock: slowness effects
About the purge-clock in my user-dropdown menu (top-right on desktop). When I open a page, in the Usermenu (top right), circa position #6, a  clock  appears as menu option (showing UTC time), to Purge the page. All fine.

Now when I click that menu option directly after opening that page (purge the page as first action), the clock is not added completely: '' when clicking the clock, it activates menu option "Log out". That is: the menu option previously in that position (before the clock was added in between). This situation exists some 1 or 2 seconds.

This is a nuisance (logout-screen appears unexpectedly; though very strange unexpected so logout by mistake is not often.). But also, the logout screen looks similar to other screens (like, "purge" manually alternate GET\POST screen), and so logout may easily happen.

TL;DR: The Purge Clock in Usermenu installs slowly, thereby connecting to a  different  menu item -- namely the menu item "Logout". (for 1 or 2 seconds after page opening). DePiep (talk) 18:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @DePiep, thank you for reporting this, can you verify if this subject has already been addressed, and if your can found an answer, in replies in this talk page? Thank you, Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Moot by now: the clock-to-purge is repositioned to outside of the menu (now in top usermenu bar).
 * In the new situation, the issue does _not_ appear.
 * (FWIW, aftertalk: in the problematic situation and _after_ the request by Patafisik (WMF) was posted here, I experienced the old (bad) behaviour. The clock appeared, and for circa 3 seconds - the clock counts itself ;-) - clicking meant opening the Logout screen (the unexpected behaviour).
 * At this moment, with the repositioned clock, some seconds of time delay is still present but *no* wrong page is opened.)
 * This report may be Closed as Moot/Resolved. DePiep (talk) 21:12, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Language-switcher pushing translations
I've been using the new layout for quite a while and haven't had any big issues with it, until now. I was quite surprised to see that the language-switcher now suggests that the user/reader can create a translation if the article doesn't yet exist in a specific language. Has there been discussion about this feature, and if so, where could I find it?

The Content translation tool (CX) is not a universally loved tool, and I think it's quite problematic that it is suggested to pretty much anyone who clicks the language-switcher in any wiki that has Vector 2022 on it. "You can translate it in minutes!", it claims. There are often quality issues with CX articles, and the worst problem is that inexperienced users are not told that their CX creations might not be well-received by the community. kyykaarme (talk) 13:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you @Kyykaarme for your feedback, you are pointing out some interesting issues. As specified in the Content translation project, section Purpose of the tool, the tool should properly communicate the purpose of translations in Wikimedia context and help the user to avoid bad quality translations. I reported your comment to the Wikimedia Language engineering, if you prefer you can leave a feedback also here. For more information about the Language switching as part of the Desktop Improvements project look at here, for providing an entry points to translation see this task and this one. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 12:42, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Patafisik (WMF) Thank you for the comment and the links! I might look into it more later. kyykaarme (talk) 20:39, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Could we default to (or at least allow) default collapsing of level 3+ headers in TOCs?
Currently, when a level 2 header in the TOC is expanded, all the sub-headers are shown, no matter their level, and the only visual indication of header level is then a small indent, about the width of a character. This is strange and unhelpful behavior for navigation, especially on pages with several header levels, like long disambiguation pages (e.g., expand "Arts and entertainment" on Star (disambiguation)). When I expand an L2, I would expect to see only the L3's, which I could then expand as needed (and same for L4's etc.) to find what I'm looking for (like in the Windows Registry).

I think this should be the default behavior (anyone else?), but if it can't be, can we at least get a magic word to set that behavior on a page-by-page basis? Or failing that, could we get some vertical lines to emphasize the level of indentation? Swpb (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that this behavior is contrary to how TOC UIs have always worked. They should open one level at a time, with a key-press option to allow opening of all levels (on Mac OS, this has always been the Option key). As for the visual distinction between levels, I have found that the best way to get that is to restore numbering. See for the feature request and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jonesey95/common.css for implementation. Jonesey95 (talk) 19:34, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Swpb thanks for this feedback. Firstly I want to acknowledge that the new TOC is probably the most complex feature within Vector 2022, and I anticipate that we (community & WMF together) will continue to iterate on it for the foreseeable future. We've been hearing a lot of feedback, and it seems like some additional configurability, magic words, or other such things might be valuable (such as T317818, and more high-level things likeT318186). You can see the current collection of tasks here: T325064
 * Regarding your point: should we show all of the sub-sections (h3, h4, h5, etc.) when expanding an h2, or only show the next-level down (e.g. h3)?
 * I think this is probably an 80/20 thing — 80% of the time (or maybe even more) it makes sense to expand all sub-sections at once (because if there are sections beyond h3s, there will not be many of them, so if we have expandable headings at each level it will require a lot of extra clicking), and 20% of the time (or maybe even less) it makes sense to have collapsable arrows/parent sections for each level.
 * In general, headings below h2s don't seem to be used in a very consistent way across articles. There is not always a clear difference between an h3, an h4, and an h5. Often times it seems to be an editorial/stylistic choice. However h2s do seem to be significantly different than other headings (both in terms of how they are used, and how they are styled). Therefore I think there's an argument to be made that we can draw a line between h2 and h3/h4/h5/etc., and say that h2s are special, and therefore can be treated differently (with this unique "parent" quality, with an expandable arrow), in the table of contents.
 * In specific cases, like disambiguation pages which you bring up, the use of headings might be a bit more systematic/formalized. I agree that in these cases it might make more sense to have a magic-word or something similar to allow that configurability.
 * A few years ago we collected data regarding the frequency of h2s, h3s, h4s, etc. I'm not exactly sure how this data might be helpful in making decisions here, but it seems relevant. Link to data: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18691#5027417
 * Thanks, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In response to this, I think it makes more senses if L1 hearers were expanded by default (or at least with an option for this to be the case). I argue that a main use-case of this site is for rapid reference checking of something (e.g., "what's the formula for the conditional distribution of a multivariate normal distribution again?"). With the current setup of only L1 headers being shown as collapsed, a user landing on the multivariate normal distribution wiki would not see as an option and would instead have to seek through the L1 headers until they stumble on the "conditional distribution" subheader (or hope they get lucky using the right words with cntrl+F).  However, if L2 headers were visible by default they could easily see that the conditional distributions section falls under the "Properties" heading (rather than the falling under the similar "Statistical Inference" heading).
 * I agree that we need to find a balance between information density and not being overwhelming (like the massive fully-expanded Vector 2010 TOC could sometimes be), but, looking at the stats you provided above, it seems that it makes sense for the L2 headers to at least be exposed considering they are available for 93% of articles. Further, this stat shows Vector 2022, in its current form, will slow down the majority of "quick reference use-cases" searches by not having quick navigation. Seankski (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In response to this, I think it makes more senses if L1 hearers were expanded by default (or at least with an option for this to be the case). I argue that a main use-case of this site is for rapid reference checking of something (e.g., "what's the formula for the conditional distribution of a multivariate normal distribution again?"). With the current setup of only L1 headers being shown as collapsed, a user landing on the multivariate normal distribution wiki would not see as an option and would instead have to seek through the L1 headers until they stumble on the "conditional distribution" subheader (or hope they get lucky using the right words with cntrl+F).  However, if L2 headers were visible by default they could easily see that the conditional distributions section falls under the "Properties" heading (rather than the falling under the similar "Statistical Inference" heading).
 * I agree that we need to find a balance between information density and not being overwhelming (like the massive fully-expanded Vector 2010 TOC could sometimes be), but, looking at the stats you provided above, it seems that it makes sense for the L2 headers to at least be exposed considering they are available for 93% of articles. Further, this stat shows Vector 2022, in its current form, will slow down the majority of "quick reference use-cases" searches by not having quick navigation. Seankski (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In response to this, I think it makes more senses if L1 hearers were expanded by default (or at least with an option for this to be the case). I argue that a main use-case of this site is for rapid reference checking of something (e.g., "what's the formula for the conditional distribution of a multivariate normal distribution again?"). With the current setup of only L1 headers being shown as collapsed, a user landing on the multivariate normal distribution wiki would not see as an option and would instead have to seek through the L1 headers until they stumble on the "conditional distribution" subheader (or hope they get lucky using the right words with cntrl+F).  However, if L2 headers were visible by default they could easily see that the conditional distributions section falls under the "Properties" heading (rather than the falling under the similar "Statistical Inference" heading).
 * I agree that we need to find a balance between information density and not being overwhelming (like the massive fully-expanded Vector 2010 TOC could sometimes be), but, looking at the stats you provided above, it seems that it makes sense for the L2 headers to at least be exposed considering they are available for 93% of articles. Further, this stat shows Vector 2022, in its current form, will slow down the majority of "quick reference use-cases" searches by not having quick navigation. Seankski (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * In response to this, I think it makes more senses if L1 hearers were expanded by default (or at least with an option for this to be the case). I argue that a main use-case of this site is for rapid reference checking of something (e.g., "what's the formula for the conditional distribution of a multivariate normal distribution again?"). With the current setup of only L1 headers being shown as collapsed, a user landing on the multivariate normal distribution wiki would not see as an option and would instead have to seek through the L1 headers until they stumble on the "conditional distribution" subheader (or hope they get lucky using the right words with cntrl+F).  However, if L2 headers were visible by default they could easily see that the conditional distributions section falls under the "Properties" heading (rather than the falling under the similar "Statistical Inference" heading).
 * I agree that we need to find a balance between information density and not being overwhelming (like the massive fully-expanded Vector 2010 TOC could sometimes be), but, looking at the stats you provided above, it seems that it makes sense for the L2 headers to at least be exposed considering they are available for 93% of articles. Further, this stat shows Vector 2022, in its current form, will slow down the majority of "quick reference use-cases" searches by not having quick navigation. Seankski (talk) 18:33, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistent width (I have default settings enabled = limited width mode enabled)
I personally think the design is overall nice, simple and modern. And I think will attract more users to use Wikipedia due to the more modern design, and therefore, consistent design with other websites and operating systems. As I wouldn't be surprised if some people avoided using Wikipedia because it looked "too old". And I think this overall design combats that stigma and gets more people to use it (or use it again), which is an undeniably positive thing for the website and Wikipedia as a whole.

But I can't help and just find the width to be inconsistent within the new skin/theme. When I look at a page, the width is just a bit too thin for my liking (and apparently others as well as I've read on this page - especially for the editing page - also where is the view changes button?). But when I then go to my contributions page, the width all of a sudden is back to (basically) full width. I do use an overall large computer with a large screen, so maybe that's the reason. But I would've hoped, and are hoping, that this new theme (which I must say again, I do like the design of), is tested upon on all screen sizes (from the smallest of computer-tables to the largest of desktop screens).

Lastly, I do think there should be a short-cut button to the most used of features such as the contributions button and perhaps preferences as well. Or even better, according to the data which Wikipedia has, create shortcut buttons for the top 3 most clicked/used button. As before, I did think the top right of the theme was overly crowded and messy (with shortcuts I've never even clicked), and now I think its too simple to the point in where clicking the profile button to access my most used button (contributions) is a bit of an annoyance.

In short, I think the overall more modern and simplistic design great and I hope attracts more users back to the site of Wikipedia. But the simplicity in regards with the usability of the site should be brought back a touch. Perhaps a middle-ground of the old default theme (in regards with usability), but the simplistic design of the new default theme, would be a fantastic middle-ground and satisfy majority of users (which I assume is the goal at the end of the day).

Apart from that, I really do appreciate the fact that there is a discussion page to this new theme. It really shows how open you guys are to constructive criticism and shows how much you want to satisfy the majority of users. 81.227.94.216 08:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * This is actually happening to me on iPad too. The new UI is good for touchscreens (obviously) but sometimes the page layout is so zoomed in that you need to scroll for ages through large text, and sometimes it’s normal again. But the Safari page zoom settings have no effect, and there’s no place I can find to fix it on the website.
 * Really disappointing design and rollout 125.253.36.248 16:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Contrast and spacing
Coming from en Wikipedia here. I kind of like the change with the table of contents so I'm interested in using this new look. However, I find it hard to read the content when it isn't separated from everything else. The old layout put everything outside the article content in a grey (or blue) background – is there any way of doing this in the new layout?

Also, I feel the left sidebar takes up much more space than it needs to. Is it possible to adjust its width to be similar to what we had before.

Thanks. –CheChe (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi thank you for your feedback. About the background color, discussions are going on and you can follow two tasks on Phabricator: T259240 and T328111. For more information about Visual Refinements, please look at this page and this one. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 10:09, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Disabling Limited Width Mode leads to horizontal scrolling
Hi, I've disabled Limited Width Mode and I've hidden each of the sidebars to permit full-width text display from this English Wikipedia talk page, and it's still got a horizontal scroll bar for about 10% of the overflow text to the right. w:Talk:Byzantine Empire

This is uncommon; not all talk pages overflow like this, so I suspect it is due to some object on the page forcing a width beyond my web browser's ability to display.

Windows 10 Professional with all updates; Google Chrome Version 109.0.5414.75 (Official Build) (64-bit), 1920x1080 full-screen resolution, maximized browser window. Elizium23 (talk) 22:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Elizium23, thank you for your feedback, this task was closed recently about a similar issue. Are you still experimenting this problem? For debugging javascript gadgets, can you verify if this is still happening adding   at the end of the URL? Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:58, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Patafisik (WMF), thanks for the reply and the reference! No, I have not experienced this basically since I reported it, and even on the page I linked, the problem has gone away, so I'd say that this was precisely the fix we needed. Cheers! Elizium23 (talk) 12:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Link color
I don't hate the new layout; I've known it was coming for a long while now, and while it is rather jarring, I think I'll eventually get used to it if forced to do so – I prefer the older layout, though, out of strong familiarity.

I do have one very concrete qualm, though: of reading Wikipedia with the old skin (and the one before Vector, also) very strongly conditioned me for two things: inside-wiki links are a darker blue, this one, #0645ad, to be exact, and external links are a lighter color, #36b. External links are also followed by a small squared-arrow icon, but for me the strongest identifier has been the color: dark, high-contrast for wikilinks that I'm probably interested in, and light, faded-out blue for external ones that I can skip over with my eyes. The new skin makes all links the same color as external links, and it's tripping me up. The slight color differentiation was an excellent usability feature, and I just don't see why that needed to be given up along with everything else.

(Visited links used to be #0b0080, while they're now #795cb2 – I don't hate this cange as much, visited links were always a bit hard to see (although that's kind of the point, since they've already been read), but it's still a bit weird having them be so light in color, with so much less contrast between text and background.) All the best, Oatco (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Oatco, thank you for your feedback. The new external link icon was deployed to follow the Wikimedia DSG's icon guidelines (T261391), link colors to fit the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. More information about the choice of colors here on the prototype testing page, here with the answer of AHollande (WMF), and here on frwiki for a suggestion of customization, hope this should help. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:50, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I can't change the theme
Hello,

I have a wierd issue, whenever I change the theme, the theme I've choose last for 1 second and then goes back to the old one.

Did anyone knows how to fix that ? 91.206.189.246 10:42, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, thank you for your feedback, can you give us more details? Can you describe your configuration (browser, OS, etc.) and how you change the theme, and what happens, step by step? Please look at this task on Phabricator about the persistent settings and check if your problem should be described and resolved by this task. Patafisik (WMF) (talk) 09:32, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, I have find the problem, it was due to a chrome extension ! (odern for Wikipedia
 * MaitreGuigz (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 * MaitreGuigz (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

The new design is a nightmare! Please revert to classic design
The new design is a horrible mess for a multitude of reasons well explained by many users above and elswhere:
 * unused whitespace over half the screen width wasting resources, hardware, energy, money and sympathy of the readers
 * diffuse page layout, no guidelines or orientation lines for reading, very bad page overview and orientation
 * buttons, menus and interaction elements erratically scattered all over the page/screen
 * more clicks neccessary for accessing menus and other features (as for restoring page usability)
 * ... and much more!

Trying to circumvent some of the problems caused by this horrible design and broken defaults by adding even more complexity to this mess by just somewhere adding a few more buttons as for for skin selection, textwidth, or else does not help at all!


 * For just reading a page as Wikipedia without neccessity for interaction I do not want to log in for privacy and further reasons - and this should not be neccessary!
 * I deeply hate the new habit on Wikipedia of forcing "page previews" to popup everywhere, where my pointer happens to accidently touch one of the countless links on a wikipedia page, thus completely blocking my view to the page and making it impossible to read. For preventing these horrible popups as a non-loged-in user I *have* to disallow scripts on Wikipedia (fine with me - I generally like to disallow scripts if they are not needed for good reason; it also makes the pages faster)
 * with scripting disallowed I do not get any of your fancy added extra-buttons scattered over the page as for full-width, etc. for partly restoring the usability of the page for me.

All the above was not any problem with any of the previous designs!!!

Please refrain from unilaterally forcing this horrible new design on Millions of Wikipedia-users which are very happy with the excellent, fully funktional and beautiful classic design and just love Wikipedia with its well-kown characteristic wonderful face. 77.12.135.231 07:48, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Icons should be labeled
Icons, like the ones at the top, or the persistent ones when scrolling, can be vague and confusing, whereas text is instantly understandable. For example, the "notices" icon at the top could be interpreted as 10 different things. Why not label it to make things easier? 73.162.34.195 21:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, thanks for asking this question. During our user study, we did not note any icons which were missing labels that were confusing. Users taking part in tests were able to identify the meaning of the icons quickly and correctly. We may revisit this if we have more comments pointing at specific icons, just like you've pointed at the "notices" icon. So, thank you for being specific about this! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Challenges: TOCs + magic words; protected templates breaking; sidebars

 * TOC


 * Magic words like NOTOC / FORCETOC are no longer being respected.
 * Some pages expect an expanded TOC by default as an important part of the page presentation. There should be a [new] magicword for this, at least
 * After hiding the sidebar TOC it is impossible to find and restore again. Why not use the familiar [show]/[hide] style used everywhere else?
 * Long TOC lines, and long vertical TOCs, involve line wrapping and scrolling, but it's hard to see a distinction b/t the TOC and the content (no background color difference, almost no font size difference)
 * When scrolling down a long page, the flickering of the TOC as it automatically scrolls too, and as different sections get auto-highlighted, is disorienting for me. Others have described vertigo.  Something that does not draw attention would be better.


 * Major templates (which have their own mechanism for breaking up long lines)


 * now breaks on many pages. I'm not sure why.   That's a traditional way of making better use of screen width with multiple narrow columns.
 * References-section multicol still works, but are now constrained to the narrower body div. They should be able to use the full screen width instead.

It's one thing to leave the long tail of templates out of scope, but less so for core templates used everywhere. And in these examples, a functional way of using the entire available screen to show a lot of useful information with short line widths has been degraded. Reference display is universal enough -- and a large enough % of all page scrolling, especially on high-traffic pages -- to be worth treating with care.


 * Sidebars generally

These feel like they're getting the short edge of the page. The placement of the various buttons at the top (for collapsing part of the sidebar, for collapsing the TOC) seem less coordinated than the rest of the topnav; the padding between the right edge of the l.h.s. and the left edge of the main content seems large, even by the standard of the new design. The "switch to old look" and "look elsewhere for languages" notes in the l. sidebar seem hasty, somehow. The current draft of tools in the r.h.sidebar suggests further changing font and linespacing. I don't have more specific comments, just... please treat these parts of the skin with love. ~ Sj (talk) 05:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * On my screen, the fundamental cause of the above column-related problems is the width allocated to the non-sidebar page content. Div col and reflist columns on en.WP are 30em wide by default. In my browser window, I have about 86em (950px) of page content space to work with because the wide left sidebar and TOC are still taking up too much horizontal space. And this is after I used my common.css file to reclaim a bunch of space on the left and right sides. In Vector legacy, I have 94em (1038px) for the content because the sidebar is appropriately narrow.
 * See the comment above about the font size in the left sidebar and the (coming soon) right sidebar. If the font size in those sidebars were reduced to the Vector 2010 size, the sidebars could be made narrower while showing the same number of characters per line. This would make more space available for the page content, possibly allowing enough space for 30em to be a meaningful column width. Jonesey95 (talk) 05:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * About the magic words: I mentioned that last year in T273473, will try to follow up on it! XanonymusX (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * About the magic words: I mentioned that last year in T273473, will try to follow up on it! XanonymusX (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * And, please consider wiktionaries which are dictionaries, not encyclopaedias. And also please consider small wiktionaries, who do not have volunteer progammers to make nice adjustments for us. See my asking for help from TOC programmers at enWP Not to mention 'interwiki languages' We rely on the mother-language-wiktionary, and heavily on en.wikt for ProtoIndoEuropean etymologies, etc. They must be immediately available (of course, we can write links with their addresses at the See also section: an extra task). Thank you for this post, from el.wiktionary, ( Central )Sarri.greek (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Better insight about the "Feedback summary" section
I don't know why but my question was archived two times without having been answered so I'm posting it again.

It was archived with these and.

Moved from Topic:X8tm9pidprwslpdt

Hi, since the new page tools are going to be implemented in the next weeks into the Vector 2022 skin I was wondering if it would be possible to have a better insight of the data roughly presented in the "Feedback summary" section in the Prototype testing with editors paragraph.

IMO a presentation of the data with percentages and numbers like it was done in this paragraph would be clearer and more transparent than words like "the majority", "split pretty evenly" and "many people".

Thanks in advance for your disponibility and your work.

Please ping me when you'll answer to my question. WikiLuke (talk) 12:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hey @WikiLuke! I'm really sorry this happened to you. I've shared your suggestion with my team mates. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

wardrobe is a poor metaphor, wiki is a workbench
Clothes you use once a day, but when you work all the time, you need everything to be easily accessible. Look at what the workbench looks like:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Work_area_of_a_jeweller.jpg

The "argument" about consistency with the mobile version is completely pointless. Desktop and mobile are completely different environments that work differently, and mobile is much more limited. Trimming the desktop version to the limitations of mobile systems is counterproductive. Freja Draco (talk) 14:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Freja Draco! Thanks for your comment and for the link to the file. You're right, we might use a different metaphor. In addition to the wardrobe, in presentations we've been giving at events, we've been using a metaphor of a library vs. an airplane cockpit. I suppose a workbench would work just as well. Anyway, the point we tried to make is that there are users who need many tools because they work on wiki, and a different audience needs to focus on content because they simply want to learn. And since the goals of the project are to improve the latter without harming the former, there are some tradeoffs to be made.
 * Regarding the consistency with mobile, we didn't want to trim the desktop version to the limitations of mobile. There are other similarities we need to bear in mind. For example, the styling of links, icons, etc. When people interact with the same website on mobile and on desktop, they should understand that this is the same website. I'm not sure if this is the best thing I may be pointing at; I've asked the team mates to give better examples. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:57, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Why is the main menu hidden by default?
This is not covered in the FAQ.

Why is the main menu hidden from the main page non-registered users? What is the reasoning for that? Jetro (talk) 02:08, 1 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Jetro, thanks for reading our documentation and asking us here!
 * This is explained in detail on the page about the collapsible sidebar feature. Essentially, readers mostly don't use the sidebar, and if they're able to collapse it, they mostly choose to do that, and they rarely un-collapse it. From the technical perspective, the state of the un-collapsed sidebar is a preference, and logged-out users don't have preferences, so the un-collapsed state isn't saved anywhere for them.
 * Regarding the risk of some important things being missed if users don't see those links - as part of the Core Experiences group, we're working on exposing the community side of the wikis. Growth is working on visible points of entry to contributing, and after Vector 2022, we'll try to make further changes to the interface to, metaphorically, "open the kitchen" of Wikipedia. For example, we're thinking about a text "recently edited by X" instead of the enigmatic "View history". But the future project is not something we're discussing in detail since our work on the Desktop Improvements isn't done yet.
 * I hope this answers your question! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Full width toggle is great!
I liked everything about Vector 2022, even the table of contents, now that it's always there maybe I might use it for once lol. Now both wiki languages I use (French and English) look more consistent now.

I just discovered the Full-width toggle and it's a super convenient feature. I retract all my previous complaints about the design. I don't think this was part of the original release, but if it was I don't think I noticed. Nor did I know you could revert back to the old skin— I had been using a janky browser extension to modify the CSS sadly.

Hopefully most users' grievances will so easily resolved by the FAQ page... probably not but it did for me!

Symphoricarpos albus (talk) 17:50, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hey @Symphoricarpos albus. Thank you for your kind comment. Indeed, this wasn't part of the original design. We built it last year. Thanks again! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Purge-by-clock disappears
In old and new vector, I can purge a page by clicking the clock, somewhere top-right. OK. In Vec2022, the clock is in the usermenu (top-right, dropdown). (1) It now is invisible by default (sort of undoes its usefulness, a read-only-but-often). (2) the clock disappears from that menu when page is scrolled down. E.g., when I am down somewhere in section #4 on a /testcases page, I can unfold the usermenu all right, but the clock is not there and so I cannot purge the page. Have to go to top of page for this.

I'd expect (1) the clock be more often in view (possiby in top-of-page only, agree), and (2) the clock/purgebutton to be in the dropdown menu for purging when scrolled down (sticky-in-the-menu?). BTW for me, the purge could be a distinct menu item just as well. DePiep (talk) 15:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for reporting this. There are a few different issues, I don't have all the answers yet, so I'll get back to you when I know more.
 * A quick direct to your last thought is that there are other gadgets adding the purge as menu items, for example MoreMenu. Another one is mentioned here: w:Wikipedia:Purge. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I posted a feature request at the talk page for the clock gadget. Jonesey95 (talk) 01:46, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I have seen this. With Vector 2022 the purge clock appears and disappears at random; it’s often not there (as in not even as a menu item), but sometimes it’s there.
 * One reason I don’t use Vector 2022 (there are other reasons...). Al12si (talk) 01:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't see any clock in the dropdown usermenu at all, how does one switch it on? I wish we could have more control over the usermenu and what displays without dropdown TBH. Ain92 (talk) 10:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * re User:Ain92 In my preferences (at enwiki), I have chosen "Vector 2022), then in "Gadgets" I choose option Add a "Purge" option to the top of the page, which purges the page's cache". DePiep (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC) -DePiep (talk) 18:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Why fix what wasn't broken?
As many others have said in the threads here, I made an account after all these years of using wikipedia simply to complain about the new layout and view the old one. Vector 2022 looks atrocious. Gives me a headache just looking at it. The old layout was in use for a decade for a reason: it worked. It was simple, clean, functional, and easy on the eyes. The new one looks like garbage. Please reevaluate forcing this garbage on people. 2600:8800:22C:E00:D5A2:9E15:C7CE:BAFC 05:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello! Thank you for sharing your viewpoint. I understand that you may have other needs and this interface may not be the best for you. I'd like to encourage you to read our documentation pages, such as the FAQ, to explore how many different tests we have performed and what were our findings (for whom the previous interface didn't work and why). That said, we will continue working on the skin, and we hope to make more improvements, some of which you may like. For instance, this may include the dark mode. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

radical idea
hi.

latest announcement ("Desktop improvements. A new change is coming!") says:

".... This change also addresses the concern for the location of the table of contents. Previously, some editors using an earlier version of Vector 2022 told us that because the table of contents appeared below the sidebar, it was placed too much down below the page. After this change, the sidebar will be shorter...."

here's a radical idea: how about bringing back the ability to _fold_ the different sidebar sections?

we had this in original vector for a long while, but at some point (around 2014?) this was removed, and i've been missing it ever since. never understood the rationale behind this removal - it was good UX, and we actually have it now for the new TOC, when there are "subsections". why not for the menus too?, קיפודנחש (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey קיפודנחש. Thank you for your suggestion. We have noted that this is a possibility (T318168) but right now, it seems that we don't consider this as a priority. I've copy-pasted your comment into a comment on Phabricator - perhaps this would initiate a discussion. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Preference toggle for article preview fade in animation/fade in rate adjustment
Hi, I really like the visual and accessibility improvements incorporated with the new Vector 2022 theme, however I've noticed that hovering over a link to preview an article feels sluggish and unresponsive in comparison to the legacy Vector theme. In relation to accessibility, animations triggered by motion such as moving a cursor over a link to display may be problematic for people with motion sensitivities. Perhaps a more immediate or subtle fade in effect could alleviate both of these issues? Better yet, an option to turn off all animations on the website entirely would in my opinion be a positive step forward. 2001:BB6:7A0C:5A58:7C32:BD56:5D3C:17AD 18:12, 4 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your feedback. At the user Preferences, in the Appearance tab, is it possible to disable the page previews. Zapipedia (WMF) (talk) 10:21, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

New sidebar terrible, not tested properly
I don’t usually use Vector 2022 so I didn’t notice this until a couple of days ago when I happened to land on the English Wikipedia, but the new sidebar is terrible; and it was not tested properly.

On portrait monitors (very common in editorial circles) the content area is now so narrow that on a 1080p monitor, the first screenful of en:Xhosa language has measures that are only about 25 characters wide. The measure is so narrow it feels like reading a newspaper.

On portrait monitors, Vector 2022 was already borderline unusable for some languages; with this new sidebar it’s unusable even for English. I’d suggest developers dedicate a monitor to portrait orientation to make sure their designs still work when hardware screen width is only 1080px.

More generally, I’d suggest developers not use the latest and greatest hardware; normal users don’t have super-wide screens. Al12si (talk) 00:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)