Beta Features/Minerva

Believe it or not, the mobile site is actually a skin that has been designed mobile first. This breaks the skin out of that sandbox and allows readers or developers to apply it to desktop by either opting into it by default or applying useskin=minerva

The goal of this beta feature is to give more attention to the mobile skin and use it as a vehicle for accelerating change in mobile and desktop by getting it in front of the faces of more users who may not use a mobile device. It may also be useful to users who have slower internet connections or want a more basic cleaner interface.

How to use
Once enabled you have two options
 * 1) Add   to the URL query string as you navigate, e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki&useskin=minerva
 * 2) Opt in via the preferences appearance tab:

Goals

 * Highlight issues that the Minerva skin has for desktop users.
 * Identify features which do not behave as expected and features that are missing.
 * Explore how users can get to missing features.
 * Understand what features are most sorely missed.
 * Although people with slower devices to use the mobile experience for the desktop experience.

Implementation
This beta feature is currently part of the MobileFrontend extension.