Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022

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The following is a Requests for Comment (RfC) discussion on whether Vector legacy should be restored as the default skin on the desktop English Wikipedia site.

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Vector 2010 (legacy)

Vector 2022

Background

On January 18, 2023, at 15:17 UTC, the Wikimedia Foundation Web team deployed Vector 2022 as the new default skin for all users on the desktop English Wikipedia site, after implementing a set of changes specified by the editors who closed this RfC. This replaced Vector legacy, which has been the default since 2010. Since Vector 2022's deployment, there has been backlash from both users who expressed concerns with the new UI, with complaints at Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022 and mw:Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements. Many editors were also unaware of this change until the launch, and/or did not participate in the previous RfC. This raised questions as to whether there was consensus to deploy Vector 2022, though the Web Team did engage in a multi-year-long process to research, design, collect feedback, and iterate on the redesign.

Please note that registered users can change their skin by going to the Appearance tab in Special:Preferences. Anonymous users do not have the ability to change their skin. For a list of frequently asked questions, please see Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022/FAQ and mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Frequently asked questions.

RfC: Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

It's important to preface this close by reminding all participants that Wikipedia is not a democracy and that we follow a policy of consensus. This means that the closers should take into account more than just the amount of yeas and nays, but also the strength of the argument put forward by each editor. The same argument will often be repeated by multiple editors, as to show they agree with each other, and in cases like that !votes may be counted to help assert which side raised the most compelling points.

While most experienced editors are already familiar with what makes for a strong argument, this RfC saw a large influx of new editors, most of whom are readers who wanted to make their voices heard. Many of these readers are not familiar with Wikipedia's policy of consensus. The strongest arguments are those based on our policies and guidelines, while the weakest are those based on subjective opinion, and here is where we should start our discussion. This request for comment came soon after the change of the default skin, and many !votes were based on personal opinions about how Vector 2022 was better or worse than Vector 2010. While these are usually considered weaker arguments, they were not entirely discarded but were not given as much weight as other points.

There was an extensive discussion of the surveys and research presented by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) to support the proposed changes. While some participants believe the surveys organized by the WMF were skewed positively toward the new skin (such as by removing answers containing foul language), others saw the surveys as a reason to support the deployment of the skin. Those in favor of maintaining Vector 2022 also commented on the fact that the skin has been active on a number of smaller Wikipedias with varying degrees of acceptance.

As some participants noted, it's likely that very few of those commenting in this RfC have any experience with UI design and, as such, the opinions presented here are only that, opinions. The only concrete facts we have are the studies presented by some, which, for the most part, agreed with the changes brought by the new Vector.

Another point of contention was the fact that, while it is trivial for registered users to change back to the old skin if they dislike the changes, unregistered users do not enjoy that option. Many of those supporting the rollback were sympathetic editors who saw this as problematic. The only refutation offered to this was that the new skin was shown to be, according to the aforementioned studies and surveys, an improvement for readers, especially due to the reduced text width.

One of the most common points raised by those supporting the rollback to Vector 2010 was related to all the problems, bugs, and other issues that showed up when the new skin was deployed. Some of these problems were known since the previous RfC, which happened late last year, with the closing statement making it clear that the deployment of Vector 2022 depended on some of these problems being fixed beforehand. Many participants saw this as a failure by the WMF to follow our procedures.

Throughout the discussion, users posted links to Phabricator tickets showing that many of the problems being complained about were being worked on. During the time the RfC remained open, WMF employees also posted several replies, which included a list of concerns they had addressed and would be addressing in the future. Not only did these fixes mean the WMF eventually managed to comply with the conditions of the previous RfC's close, but it also raised the question of how strong each of the !votes focused exclusively on these issues were.

That is not to say that those opposing the rollback presented solely strong arguments. Besides the "I like it" style !votes, there were also fait accompli (or sunk cost fallacy) arguments, meaning that, since the change has already happened, there is no point in going back. Some also argued that choices like this are outside the community’s hands, per WP:CONEXCEPT.

At first glance, we have a clear numerical advantage for those supporting the rollback to the old skin, but many of these !votes were based exclusively on specific issues with Vector 2022, such as fixed text width, the large amount of whitespace, and the overuse of icons, as well as some accessibility issues. Others commented on bugs they encountered while using the skin. The WMF has fixed several of these issues–for example, the fixed width toggle not persisting–and more changes are likely to come.

Taking into account all that has been discussed above, we see no consensus to rollback the default skin on the English Wikipedia to Vector 2010. While those in support of rolling back had a numerical majority, their arguments were relatively weak and the WMF's changes to Vector 2022 since its deployment has addressed the concerns of many. Since we see the changes made by the WMF as compliance with the previous RfC, this means the previous close stands.

With regards to the second question presented in this RfC, arguments presented by both sides were very similar to the first question, in that some like the new limited width and others do not. Some of those supporting an unlimited width noted that many articles contain galleries, tables, etc., and were negatively affected by the new width. There was a lot of discussion on whether scientific papers reached any form of consensus on the best width, with both sides presenting studies with opposing views on the issue. The large amount of whitespace was one of the main concerns of those who supported the rollback of Vector 2022. Since the arguments are equal in strength, there is rough consensus to make unlimited width the default.

As we well know, consensus can change, and one of the suggestions made during this discussion was to open a new RfC in six months' time, after readers and editors have had time to adjust to the new skin. Editors interested should try and work alongside the WMF to acquire statistics, such as additional surveys, that could be used as the basis for the new RfC. This would also allow for more focused questions to be asked to participants, such as how to present the table of contents, one of the more contentious changes to the design, or if the default width should remain as is or be changed back to fixed-width.

Signed,
Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 01:46, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
— Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 01:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin? ~ HAL333 20:32, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This RfC was moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on January 21, 2023, with this edit. This page's discussions were moved to the /Discussion subpage on February 14, 2023, with this edit. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:18, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back to contents

Support rolling back to Vector 2010

Support as nom The WMF unilaterally forced the 2022 vector skin upon the community, despite a community wide discussion that found there was no consensus for such a change. The ONUS was on the WMF to convince the community and they failed. And the argument that we editors are but a small portion of Wikipedia users is dead on arrival: IP editors and readers are unable to use anything besides the 2022 skin. The WMF had decided that they have no choice, and no voice in this affair. The 2022 skin itself is inferior to its 2010 predecessor. It's indulgent, made by people with at most a modicum of editing experience, and poorly made, with excessive white space and spawning sandwiching and myriad other issues. Let's return to what worked. Let's return to what billions of readers of Wikipedia have been completely content with for over a decade. In brief, If it ain't broke, don't fix it. ~ HAL333 20:32, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So Wikipedia should never change, for all time? 331dot (talk) 20:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I commend your straw man. ~ HAL333 20:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you answer the question? Because that is what you are saying. That no change should ever be implemented because it doesn't please everyone- which is impossible. 331dot (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is not what he is saying. There is a significant difference between not pleasing everyone and displeasing a large part of your community. Your argument is empty. I logged in for the first time in ages just to revert this unnecessary change that no significant majority wanted. IronRook (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing on Wikipedia is determined by a majority vote, but by a consensus along with a weighing of arguments. I can't think of any potential change that wouldn't displease many people- that's a recipe for changing nothing. 331dot (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An such consensus to apply vector 2022 as default did not exist in any way. The community does not clearly support this. T v x1 01:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC to deploy had neither of those. No consensus, and as the closing editors noted, the weight of arguments went against the issue of fixed-width, ie. making editors and readers use limited width instead of allowing them to use full width if they prefer. If all the concerns outlined above are satisfactorily addressed[...], the editors wrote. The WMF has not done this. Instead they added a button readers would need to push on every single page, every single time the readers follow a link or come in from Google or navigate to our site. This is comically inadequate, and it's hard for me to understand why readers would actually do so, instead of being frustrated into giving up and unhappily accepting what they find an inferior viewing experience. As 24.251.3.86 said on mediawiki, it's "far too burdensome to be useful or practical, and as such, basically may as well not exist for all the good it does." --Kiz o r 01:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
readers would need to push on every single page, every single time the readers follow a link or come in from Google or navigate to our site This is false. The toggle stays, at least for me. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not for me. Going from 2023 Antiguan general election to Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla to Felipe Pérez Roque to Communist Party of Cuba in an incognito window, I have to toggle full width each time. --Kiz o r 02:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
incognito is probably the issue, I assume this is implemented with cookies. I'm not sure whether or not this is a problem for the ethos goals though I'm more inclined towards "this is a problem". Aaron Liu (talk) 02:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC) The actual problem is that it doesn't save preferences for those who are logged-out. omg this is so simple why didn't i realize earlier Aaron Liu (talk) 02:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It does not persist for me, and I have cookies enabled. I use Brave btw. Regardless, it is unsurprising to be behaving differently on different systems, something the developers would have to investigate. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 02:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeremy Jeremus@Kizor I just realized the factor was whether or not you're signed in. This is obviously a massive problem that probably won't get fixed (save for defaulting to max width) by WMF because of the § Why are there no preferences for anonymous users? section in the faq. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reader here (I do not log in, and can't, for various reasons), I'm not enjoying the new design. I had to click that "max width" button 10 times already today. I would prefer the absolute minimum amount of whitespace, I don't get what the point of the padding is, I want to use my whole monitor to read articles. 74.199.75.192 (talk) 04:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is factually wrong or at least, ideally. Transcleanupgal (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both links are to essays, which may be considered as advice, but by no means are they policies or guidelines. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Change should require at minimum a majority, ideally a consensus. There is neither here. There is nothing but WMF's abuse of power by forcing this unwelcome change on the user-base, and absolutely refusing to address our grievances about it. Clear as day that WMF are a problem. 2600:1700:1471:2550:6002:A2:F43C:2665 (talk) 22:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So you see the world so black and white. If people don't agree with you, then label them as change adverse. That is sad.

I'm not saying that they should never change, but I fail to see how this is a step in the positive direction.

The whole point of wikipedia is to easily convey information to anyone that enters the site. I fail to see how putting such a large white space around the data while making the date about 5/8 its original size on a PC is a positive direction. Now everytime I go to wikipedia, which is very often, I have an extra step. Now I need to zoom in on the page so that I can read it easily. Unfortunatly this has some undesireable side effects.

If the whole point is to make it work better on phones, don't penalize PC users. Make your software smarter so that it detects which platform it is on and renders the page appropriatly. 134.243.253.241 (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@HAL333, despite a community wide discussion that found there was no consensus for such a change. The ONUS was on the WMF to convince the community and they failed. - from the closure of the community wide RfC: we see community support to roll out the change (though it should be noted that is preceded by [i]f all the concerns outlined above are satisfactorily addressed then).— Qwerfjkl talk 20:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl: That's a pretty important if there, isn't it? Makes it a conditional consensus, with the condition being (paraphrased) "concerns in relation to the width, non-intuitive icons and the language selector need to be resolved in a satisfactory manner prior to roll-out".

Considering that the width, the non-intuitive icons/buttons and, to a lesser degree, the language selector behaviour are the three major returning themes of the many, many complaints across the various relevant noticeboards and talk pages, they clearly have not, in fact, been resolved in a satisfactory manner.

Ergo the condition has not been fulfilled and therefore there is no community consensus for this specific roll-out of Vector 2022. AddWittyNameHere 21:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AddWittyNameHere, the main issues noted in the closure were the width and the ToC. There were improvements to these (improvements that I don't have the time to find).
This is hardly, in any case, a damning closure against V22, nor the WMF forcing it on editors. It may not be perfect, but it's hardly worth another huge RfC that is hardly going to be constructive. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl: You are right, I forgot to add the ToC as another major concern (which happens to also be another recurrent subject of complaints. Such a coincidence). Both the non-intuitive buttons and the language selector behaviour were also explicitly mentioned in the close though. And sure, I don't doubt there have been improvements. That does not make the issues satisfactorily resolved, at this point in time.

I fully agree it's not a damning closure against V22 or eventual roll-out. It's a "most of the base concept works, but this, this and this needs to be fixed before it's ready to go live as default setting".

Some complaints, especially from the daily en.wiki editors? Yeah, that's a given with any large change, and doesn't prove much of anything. But when large amounts of IPs and new accounts (read: Wikipedia's readers, rather than editors) go out of their way to find some page where they can register their dissatisfaction, and this dissatisfaction almost always is about the very issues that were highlighted as "fix these first, deploy after", that's a pretty clear clue that things were not, in spite of however many improvements may have been made, fixed in a satisfactory manner.

Whether an RfC is, or is not, a good idea at this point is a second matter. I can see both good reasons for and against it, and which side wins out largely depends on whether or not the WMF can be expected to actually satisfactorily fix these issues now that the skin has been deployed; and on whether or not there is any chance of such fixes happening anytime soon. (Personally, I suspect "yes and soon" for issues that lean towards the 'it's a bug' side of things, but am not quite so sure when it comes to the rest of the issues, especially because communication from WMF employees so far does not seem to actually acknowledge that certain things are issues in the first place.) AddWittyNameHere 22:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AddWittyNameHere, I'm not entirely sure V22 was perfect when rolled out (in fact: it wasn't), but now that it's here, I guess we're stuck with it. Let's just hope that the bugs are resolved and we have a fully-functioning skin (not that V22 isn't functional, and I've never encountered any bugs, but others have).
Ironically, the main complaint I have is that V22 is too wide. I've somehow enabled something that widens V22, but I prefer it narrow, and I catch glimpses of it when pages initially load. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:10, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, regarding the large number of complaints, that is probably inevitable, no matter what we do. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Qwerfjkl, I think I can concur with a good portion of that at least from a practical perspective, and the parts I don't quite agree with probably aren't worth further arguing about here, so let's just agree to partially disagree?

Re:your width issue, check your preferences, tab "Appearance". Is the box before "Enable limited width mode" checked? If not, check that to re-enable limited width. AddWittyNameHere 23:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AddWittyNameHere, I agree. And no luck, I have limited width mode enabled. — Qwerfjkl talk 18:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's the expand button. It doesn't seem to be around any more. — Qwerfjkl talk 13:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FAIT - just because it's been done does not inherently mean it cannot (or should not) be undone. WalnutBun (talk) 01:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That closure does not accurately reflect community consensus. More people opposed than supported the proposal. There was no clear support at all, but rather strong division. A closure review is warrented here. T v x1 01:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's hideous, it makes me register just to revert it. It doesn't read well and it lacks the navigation features. It's also bad enough to stop me donating to the foundation.

2A02:A450:F52:1:E9B8:23B6:ADAA:FDD2 (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I also made an account just to get rid of it. Tarkalak (talk) 07:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At least temporarily go back Get feedback from outside of the ivory tower. Fix any clearly identified shortcomings. Then maybe try again. North8000 (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
North8000 Community input was solicited and not just from an ivory tower, and there was an RFC that led to the deployment. Disagree with its conclusions if you wish, but it was done. 331dot (talk) 21:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to on the specifics. E.G. whether or not to bury and hide very heavily used choices, separating out the question of having all of that blank space etc. North8000 (talk) 21:17, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@331dot It's not like I care since my skin is set to Vector 2010 still, but RfCs that close with 154 supports and 165 opposes should not be considered a success. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 21:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
LilianaUwU Nothing on Wikipedia is done by a majority vote, but by consensus and a weighing of arguments. 331dot (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And weighing the arguments you still do not get a consensus in favor in any way. T v x1 01:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion and to disagree with how the arguments were weighed. But they were. 331dot (talk) 01:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The arguments were weighed by "we're going to do this anyway regardless of the consensus." So I guess at least in that regard, you're correct. The arguments were weighed, they were just irrelevant. LeperColony (talk) 01:49, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about RfAs, there the majority counts. The vote counters failed in the close of the RfC on the launch of Vector 2022 (even though leaving enough room for an optional RfC before the launch) and the width issue isn't clearly visible either as there are numerous editors questioning about it. I haven't found it either, not that I care though. I actually like the Vector 2022 more and more but I can also use it if it is optionally enabled. Anyway, there is now a new RfC and we'll see the outcome. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In AfDs majority also often counts. If there is no clear consensus, there is no consensus. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 14:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was done and then disregarded. The consensus was opposed to the changes. Nice try. LeperColony (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support with an asterisk - a solution that I believe would be of the most benefit would be a button on the sidebar to toggle Vector 2022 and Vector 2010, with the starting position being Vector 2022. I've found that Vector 2022 makes WP annoying to navigate on desktop in non-editing capacities, but I recognize that people do enjoy it. However, the freedom of choice for non-users is absolutely nonexistent, and should be rectified. Very weak support. I dislike the change, but with the point made by Terasail and the fact IPs are unable to choose skins, I can only give a weak support. This is a no-win situation, seemingly. Lucksash (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Non users have the same choices users have. According to the information about the skin, there are privacy issues that prevent allowing IPs to choose a skin. Not everything in life can be a choice. 331dot (talk) 22:56, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake - should have done some reading on the nitty gritty coding. Lucksash (talk) 23:10, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by privacy issues? I was on the Discord call today and was given to understand that the issue was related to caching - i.e., the site served to logged-out users has to be the same for everyone so that it can be cached. There's no mention of privacy on either the main Wikipedia page or the WikiMedia page.

(I note that it should be possible to have a persistent setting for at least the amount of whitespace (which seems like the main objection) implemented purely client-side, without significant effects on performance or privacy.) Bakkot (talk) 01:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

there are privacy issues that prevent allowing IPs to choose a skin
But surely this is fixed by allowing IPs to default to Vector 2010 by choice? By cookie? In essence, opting in to be de-anonymized only insofar as which skin you use. The only argument against this that I've heard is that it uses more server juice. And I find that argument extremely weak. How much server juice will be used by more clicks, more accounts, and more protests from anons who hate this and accounts who default to the old skin? — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 18:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Shibbolethink, it's explained further below, but this require caching each page in both V22 and V10, which would be very expensive. It can't be stored as a cookie or similar to avoid a flash of unstyled content. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I think about it, what's preventing the site from reading cookies first before serving pages?(Note that I"m only talking about max width mode here) Aaron Liu (talk) 22:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To save even more cash, we could stop employing ~~telephone sanitizers~~ web designers. Card Zero (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support – The new style is aesthetically bad and has far too much white space (in what appears to be an attempt to mobile-ify the desktop view); there was no proper consensus for rolling it out; and the old version was not broken and did not need replacing. CuriousCabbage (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So nothing should be changed on Wikipedia ever, for all time? 331dot (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I say this with as much respect as I can - but do you realize how ridiculous that response is? I'll let you look through Template:Fallacies to see where your comment falls. To help: Just because I may not like a particular new commercial for some product, doesn't mean they should stop making commercials or new products. But hey, to continue to follow your line of thought, maybe we should never have webpages; or computers; or electricity; or technology. All because some edit to some website that you like and someone else didn't was merely suggested to be reversed. - jc37 23:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find it interesting that people won't answer the question but are criticizing me for asking it. It's not a fallacy because that's what you are implying with "if it aint broke". Something doesn’t have to be broken for it to be changed. I have seen far more comments that Wikipedia looks like it was designed in the 1990s than comments it should stay the same. I am undecided on the skin, but I'm trying it out. There is no change that will please everyone. 331dot (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not what I was implying at all. But to respond to someone else saying that they didn't think the style needed wholesale replacement with "So nothing should be changed on Wikipedia ever, for all time?" is very much ridiculous to the extreme. I don't believe anyone is saying that. This change is really a package of changes, and in this case, the package would appear to have issues. If I'm served a gourmet meal, but the bread has mold on it, it doesn't mean that I never want another gourmet meal. - jc37 23:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you are saying changes should be made piecemeal, fair enough- but there is still the issue that no change will please everyone, and doing it piecemeal just draws out the process without making it better. Better to rip it off like a bandaid. The frustration I have here is those saying this was done without community input by dictators in an ivory tower- which is demonstratably false. Disagree with it all one wants, propose all the changes you want, propose ideas for better commuication, that's all great. But seeing the people who worked on this be attacked and insulted and cursed or told "they don't know as much as me with 30 years of experience" for doing their task is sad to see. I just want to see people be civil and have understanding. 331dot (talk) 23:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Changes shouldn’t be made just for the sake of it either. Your reasoning is utterly fallacious.T v x1 01:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They haven't changed it for the sake of changing it. There are reasons, if you'd care to read about them. Feel free to disagree, but this was not done without a reason. 331dot (talk) 01:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Every improvement implies a change. But not every change implies an improvement. Have in mind. 37.134.90.176 (talk) 08:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've been following 331dot's comments, and they're so consistently fallacious that I can only assume that they're an actively malicious vandal. "There was an RfC" Yes, that nobody saw. If you're going to make a sitewide change, post a link to it on EVERY page for a month. 2601:645:0:41C0:D1A0:EB6A:A0C7:18BD (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2601:645:0:41C0:D1A0:EB6A:A0C7:18BD, please assume good faith. — Qwerfjkl talk 20:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can't assume good faith when his reductio ad absurdum questions are posed in bad faith from the start. 73.119.237.50 (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what I said. But there is nothing wrong or incompatible or broken or outdated or aesthetically displeasing about the previous skin, and all this new skin changes is (i) to add more white space which makes pages harder to read; and (ii) to make the tools menu collapsible and thus more inaccessible and difficult to use. It may well be that in five, ten years time a restyle is needed to keep the pages looking fresh, or to incorporate some new technology or technical capability which becomes available. But Wikipedia at the moment still looks clean and is still easily usable. This specific re-skin only worsens things which were not broken. CuriousCabbage (talk) 00:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

any chance you can stop repeating the same nonsense non-arguments? 82.9.90.69 (talk) 01:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Correct. Nothing should be changed on Wikipedia ever. Safari on macOS (talk) 19:25, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly my experience. It's so much wasted space on desktop, which is primarily how I use Wikipedia, and it is much more difficult to read. It seems to definitely privilege mobile devices at the expense of desktop devices. The new look does have an ancillary effect, which is I signed up for a Wikipedia account because that's the only way I could find to return to a more pleasing, easier-to-read version of Wikipedia. I will definitely spend less time on Wikipedia because it's just more difficult to read now. Shoutandecho (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Support I think this change was poorly made. I'm not against change, just not this one, it should still be worked on and a lot of things corrected. I'm French, I'm suffering this bad design for 2 (?) years now. Of all the thing I resent the WMF for is the total ignorance of negative comments, and a focus on the opinion of a carefully selected few editors. Up until V2022 landed in the French Wikipedia, I was a simple reader like any others, and I think the focus on editors is disheartening, us reader should have a voice in that too, in my point of view this has been decided behind closed doors. DerpFox (talk) 22:36, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is no content to read without editors. The process was an open process with years of comment and studies. 331dot (talk) 22:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes? and? Does it make the editors more important than the readers? No, it doesn't. And now if you could please stop trying to silence any dissenting voice from official WMF official version of things, it would be nice, thank you. DerpFox (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am not silencing anyone and I take offense at the suggestion. I am responding to comments in a civil manner as part of a discussion. I won't be silenced either. 331dot (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@DerpFox, did you notice that one can now get from the bottom of this discussion to the top of the discussion within a one click at the left sideboard by hitting the button (top)? That the sections of an article are now displayed in the sideboard to the left or in the bullets beside the article title without separating the lead from the body? For me those things weigh in much more. There are other features as well that seem good to excellent. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 09:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for now. Major technical issues like mousewheel support and permanent IP settings should have been addressed prior to rollout, the "mystery meat" icons are untenable, and the language buttons are a tremendous step backwards. These issues need to be fixed behind the scenes, not live post-rollout, and this was clearly communicated to WMF in the previous RFC. VQuakr (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support until the issues are worked out, especially the squished content. This was very predictable and very preventable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. To say that the new skin is horrible is a very polite understatement, you know. Why on Earth they've even started designing this? — Mike Novikoff 00:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you haven't already, please see WP:VECTOR2022 for more information. 331dot (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really interesting. The question was just rhetoric. I'm sure there's a lot of links and even shortcuts to justify the horror, but it's still one. A horror. That I've turned off ASAP. Thanks that we have a link to do so, at least. — Mike Novikoff 04:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You know, I've just been robbed of Twinkle (for I can't support ES6), so I'm already laying back and thinking of England. Now you want me to try a DP? BTW, it seems to be too much of 331dot around, please stop bludgeoning. — Mike Novikoff 05:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support so long as it remains impossible for logged out users to revert persistently, which if I gather correctly seems to be the case for technical reasons. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 00:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the interest of consensus, I will pose my argument more clearly. I hope this cuts through the naysaying and unconvincing opinion-flinging and gets us closer to an end to this discussion: 1) The opinion of all readers is important, not just active people with accounts, and certainly not just the devs or their donors. Not everyone who uses Wikipedia can read logged in, and active people can change their settings anyway. This doesn't necessarily mean a global poll is the best way to find out what's best, but I wouldn't be opposed to one, so long as the interpretation of the results and methodology is pre-agreed. 2) Consensus was not reached and the people who called it made a big mistake thinking there wouldn't be greater backlash. Because of this, there is no legitimate reason to say Vector 2022 being default is justified as fait accompli. The only reason it would remain this way with no attempt to reach consensus properly is because powerful people can get away with it. 3) As far as I can tell this would not be a very technically difficult thing to reverse, and the devs apparently testing on users with no way to opt out other than just not use the website is very annoying. I see no reason why this could not be done at least until consensus is reached for real, except that the people with the keys are irrationally attached to Vector 2022 or they have business interests keeping them from doing so, neither of which are in the service of this website's purpose. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 18:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support – Vector 2022 is an eyesore and much more difficult to navigate than Vector legacy. The skin also breaks many pages whose layout was not optimized for Vector 2022. The Web team failed to clearly communicate the change to all active users ahead of time, resulting in the flood of complaints at WT:VECTOR2022 in the past two days. The fact that many editors were unaware of this change until the launch, and/or did not participate in the previous RfC, raises questions as to whether there was consensus to deploy Vector 2022 as the Web team suggests. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Shinanoki (talk) 01:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: I am not as active an editor as I was for a while, but I'm still known as 'the guy who edits Wikipedia' in a lot of places I hang out. The past day has been seeing just a massive tidal wave of opposition from a broad spectrum of readers acrosss...everyone I know, frankly. Absolute eruptions into "this is awful" well beyond what you get from most website layout changes. Readers who prefer desktop dislike the aesthetic of the mobile site (there's a reason you get those bots designed to remove m. from mobile links, given it's apparently beyond our capacities to do it on purpose), and they loathe a new skin that intends to copy the aesthetic of the mobile site. Opt-out stats poorly measure reader opinions on skins, because readers don't have accounts and can't be reasonably expected to make them for every context they read Wikipedia. I have not anywhere across thousands of readers from various walks of life heard a single positive word about the new skin, not even as pushback. I also retain all the many complaints I've personally had about this skin for the past two years; the language icons are terrible, the lack of genuine options in the sidebar are terrible, the image formatting is shot, the amount of whitespace is distracting, the community does not actually support the change, etc. (Every not-community-based one of these I've seen repeated vocally and angrily over the past day.)
If Wikipedia was a more typical website, it would be fairly trivial to solve the skin issue; we could simply add a dropdown menu for all readers to select their preferred skin. The problem is that Wikipedia cannot under its current ideological/philosophical framework do this, as the compromise would require cookie tracking to allow it to persist between sessions. This results in people who complain to info@ getting told to 'just make an account', which is not a scalable solution (and ignores the fact readers tend to be reading Wikipedia on things other than their home computers, where they still want to see their preferred layout). My ha-ha-only-serious solution is "automatically generate an account for each IP address". If this seems untenable to you, fair enough -- these changes being controversial and hard to individually reverse is precisely why it's bad to force them on literally billions of people! Vaticidalprophet 01:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have surveyed thousands of readers? I'd be interested in seeing the results of that. 331dot (talk) 01:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how it should work. That should happen before not demanded after pushing it out... - jc37 01:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Foundation did do surveys and testing. 331dot (talk) 01:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Repository/Sentiment Survey Aaron Liu (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is interesting to see how polarized the Overall Satisfaction responses were, yet the Introduction section was written back in September anticipating Vector 2022 becoming default inevitably and irreversibly. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 01:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Their survey only polled 152 people, and of those only 24% told them "the new skin is easier to use than the old one". Not only is that nowhere near a representative sample, but they went ahead with this with just a 24% positive response? WalnutBun (talk) 01:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What makes you think this discussion will be more representative? It's usually people that are dissatisfied with something that speak the loudest about it, more than people who don't have an issue. 331dot (talk) 01:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You keep saying things like this, but when the complaint is "The process used to generate this action was bad," a response of "The next process may also be bad" is quite unconvincing. The right way to do this is with broad surveys of all types of users, not 152 people (apparently mostly editors?). 72.49.221.183 (talk) 04:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that this RfC should be announced on the Main Page, and on Wikipedia:News, to solicit opinions from as wide an array of users as possible. As it concerns a radical redesign of the entire site, I am of the belief that the original RfC should have been advertised the same way. Everyone should have had the opportunity to weigh in - and I would argue that relying on people to seek it out on a page they may not know even exists is not conducive to generating a true community consensus, especially on matters that truly affect every user of the site. WalnutBun (talk) 20:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't even say the Main Page would be helpful; I visit Wikipedia pretty much every day and never look at the Main Page. Put it on one of those banner notices - I regularly see complaints about requests for donations, so people must be paying attention to those HerrWaus (talk) 12:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This percentage is very large compared to the amount of people who voted that the original skin was easier. The plurality here voted neutral which is why this percentage is so small Aaron Liu (talk) 04:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In cases such as this, when considering a radical redesign of an entire website used by hundreds of thousands each day, a neutral response to a survey should be taken as preference for the current design - not as a go-ahead to change things. At minimum, a plurality should have been required. WalnutBun (talk) 20:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that immediately sticks out to me here is that responses with "foul language" were removed. Strong negative responses often use foul language; I am curious how many of the dropped comments were actually irrelevant and how many were "this design is fucking terrible".

OVasileva (WMF), is the raw data from this available? ℰmi1y_⧼T·C⧽ 08:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch, I missed that. Something else to point out is that they clumped the neutral and positive responses together. There's no valid reason for doing that other than manipulation of the reader's perception - it makes it seem as if more people agreed with the change than truly did. A truly neutral article would have more clearly separated the three categories of responses.

Furthermore, rereading the article shows that they also removed "responses which did not answer all of the questions within the survey". How much feedback was discarded simply for not having filled out the entire form? WalnutBun (talk) 20:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This A/B survey is an example of a biased conclusion and a misleading intrepretation of the results for their goal.

After initially discarding most (398/550 = 72%) of the responses the breakdown of the remaining (valid) results was as follows:
60 responses reported the old experience as easier to use.

49 responses reported that they find both skins equally easy to use.

37 responses reported the new experience as easier to use.

Note that adding these three responses gives a greater number of total responses (146) than the amount actually reported (142), which does not give me confidence in the overall accuracy of the report.

Despite the valid responses preferring the old experience by a ratio of 1.6 to 1 (60:37), the interpretation provided was that "The majority of respondents reported that the new experience is easier to use or that the new and old experience are equally easy to use". While this is true, as 86/142 is indeed a majority, it could have equally been stated that "The majority of respondents reported that the old experience is easier to use or that the new and old experience are equally easy to use". These figures would then be 109/142, a much more convincing figure.

Given the wording of the interpretation chosen in the report, the authors appear to have misled the reader with their conclusion that the new (V22) experience was preferred over the legacy skin. Loopy30 (talk) 05:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As a reader who has been using this site for over a decade, what survey? I have never once seen any mention of a survey. It's all well and good claiming that there was a public survey but it may as well have been inside a filing cabinet behind a locked door with a sign reading "beware of leopard". As mentioned above, the survey polled 152 people which by wikipedia's own page is 0.00014% of registered users and who knows how many unregistered ones. I had to create an account just to revert this pointless change. DutriusTwo (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DutriusTwo, nice Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference. — Qwerfjkl talk 19:15, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you're saying over here. Before what? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support there was not actually consensus for rolling this out in the first place and the new skin is clearly worse than the old one. Since developers are unwilling to allow logged-out users to choose between the two skins, we should go back to the skin that people prefer and are used to. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a matter of willingness, there are privacy issues with doing so; that information would have to be stored somewhere. 331dot (talk) 01:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is absolutely no privacy issue with using a client-side cookie for a setting like that. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022#Do not force the creation of a user account which is where I read that claim. 331dot (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you check the thread you link to, you will find that the WMF representative admits that they don't have the technical background to know whether this is the case and are simply repeating information they've read elsewhere. They even admitted that before you posted this. To be clear, there doesn't need to be a trade-off between user privacy and having this feature. 89.102.98.143 (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002#Cookies. Currently Wikipedia is maybe the only major website left that doesn't have to display a giant "do you consent to cookies?" pop-up to visitors from the EU. This would change that. – Joe (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your claim is untrue. There is no requirement to show banners for theme-setting cookies. Most of the banners you see are on sites unwilling to stop tracking their users. Moreover, there are 6 cookies currently served to logged-out visitors, including one that appears to contain a geolocation and a bunch of others with timestamps. Clearly a cookie for tracking a skin or dark theme preference is no more privacy eroding that those already in use. 89.102.98.143 (talk) 19:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, it has nothing to do with privacy. See mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Frequently asked questions §§ Why is the opt-out link not available for logged-out users? and Why are there no preferences for anonymous users?. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I concur, this new skin primarily affects logged-out frequent readers and the least disruptive option should be default for those not logged in. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 01:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support at least temporarily, based primarily on the "public's" reaction. I do personally prefer 2010 but personal preference isn't the point. The existence of a well advertised RFC in the past does not preclude responding to negative feedback now. With that said, I hope to see the WMF/whoever to respond quickly with either changes to the skin based on feedback or a reversion while they tweak it. SpinningCeres 01:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. My biggest issue with this rollout is how it wasn't publicized at all - or, at the very least, not well. I use Wikipedia almost daily (both while logged-in and logged-out) and I can honestly say that I saw no sign of this change even being considered before it suddenly rolled out, and I'm not alone: Wikipedia_talk:Vector_2022 is full of people (and at least one wiki administrator) that were also blindsided by this change. WalnutBun (talk) 01:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support in the strongest possible way. This action is one of the worst I have seen by the WMF. A RFC was held to gauge support and was ignored completetely. The changed was forced through unilaterally and if the WMF has any remote respect for their community they roll that back asap.T v x1 01:51, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC WASN'T ignored completely, in fact the problem was the community closers misguidedly decided that if the changes proposed by the opposing side were made then the rollout can be done without any new rfc. The foundation simply acted on this misguided closing that they trusted because it wasn't from the foundation. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then a closure review is warranted.T v x1 02:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm newer to Wikipedia than you, is there some specialized closure review? Otherwise doesn't this rfc suffice as a closure review? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
RfC closure reviews are usually conducted at WP:AN, but this RfC will do. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:51, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing wrong with WMF in this case, the RFC was closed too fast, which make this misunderstanding. Lemonaka (talk) 02:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure the WMF are in the wrong. The closure clearly stated a follow-up RFC was warranted, WMF just ignored that and unilaterally forced the change. T v x1 02:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That was exactly what the closure said against, to quote and in our view no further RfC would be required Aaron Liu (talk) 02:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, even there is a consensus to change back, I believe WMF will not take that. If they really said
in our view no further RfC would be required
, then everything is useless.@Aaron Liu Lemonaka (talk) 02:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Lemonaka Again that was not from WMF, that was from two esteemed editors unrelated to WMF that closed the thing. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

rollback to old version I know that nothing wrong from WMF, but previous RFC is clearly no consensus.
BTW, I believe if this case is getting hotter and hotter, Arbcom should be noticed. Lemonaka (talk) 01:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As a casual user who's used wikipedia for over a decade myself, I've found the new UI to be aggressively frustrating. I feel like I've been forced to create an account for a website I never had to before to use regularly just to be able to revert the changes. If somehow this rollout could be performed without necessitating account creation to roll-back then It could've gone over a lot smoother with the entire community. As it stands, with no ability to revert without logging in, I find these changes as hostile towards casual users, which appears to be contrary to the entire point of the rollout of changes in the first place...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:600:9681:ffa0:7002:7aac:8a4b:b978 (talk) 01:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support until there's an easy way to revert to the old interface without having to create an account. For example, Reddit still maintains old.reddit.com (the old interface which is imo better) alongside the (re-designed) reddit.com -FASTILY 02:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The easiest way is to use a redirector extension such as fastforward and redirect every /wiki link to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Page_title_with_underscores&useskin=vector and redirect every /w link to a link with the &useskin=vector suffix. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How disconnected and out of touch do you have to be to think that that's the "easiest" way? You're just another one (Personal attack removed) up in his ivory tower who thinks he knows best and that all the people who dislike the change are just backwards idiots who "don't like change." 198.21.192.40 (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible support - mystery meat navigation, breaking things that don't need to be broken, taking control of text width away from the user, pointless whitespace, reduced information density motivated by dubious statistics in a typical runaway example of Goodhart's Law in which measures gradually gain perceived importance until the design is being made in service of the metrics instead of the metrics in service of the design... this redesign has no good features and many bad features. As an autodidact, independent research and amateur historian who views dozens of pages on here per day, and thus something of a power user despite the fact I don't edit the encyclopedia, if I didn't have the technical savvy to create an account to avoid this awful redesign I would have already started looking elsewhere for information as much as possible. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 02:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support until non-logged-in editors can opt out. Any website that I have to create an account just to read is dead to me. Accounts are for interaction. I don't want to remember another fricking password. Now I happen to have an account here. I happen to interact here. This isn't about me, or most people who can find this page. It's about the person who just wants to read about French history or the Higgs boson, and just got this foisted on them, and is going give up on us forever as just another crappy unusable website. Give. Readers. A. Choice. This isn't impossible. If it's non-trivial then revert the change temporarily. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most people will be viewing on a phone and so won't see the new skin anyway. If readers cared so strongly about the skin as you suggest, they'd make an account to change it. Garuda3 (talk) 19:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most people don't get much further than Google when it comes to reading wikipedia. its all about perspective. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Core issues I have with the change are the massive whitespace which serves no purpose and is an overly harsh color for high contrast monitors, the lack of persistence of core settings unlike other wikis with the limited width feature, the poor visibility of the expand button due to it's thin design and it's placement within the otherwise unutilized whitespace where it blends in, and the expanded view having less body visible than the 2010 version. Since there are warnings on the top, I had to find the original discussion on vector 22 on reddit of all places from there I found the solution was to make an account(had one, never really used), or to use third party scripts.Deadoon (talk) 03:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Deadoon, just sharing an update that we're almost done with the work that makes the full-width toggle persistent for logged-out folks (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T321498). Regarding the whitespace, a certain amount of whitespace surrounding text has been proven to help readability, but beyond that the additional whitespace isn't really meant to serve a purpose in and of itself. Rather it's the side-effect of following the WCAG criterion and best research on line-length. I recognize it's bothersome to a lot of people; I think because they feel that the space is wasted, or they simply don't like how differently the page now looks. However, I think it's a bad idea to fill the space just because people don't like how it looks. I think we need to remain focused on utility, and perhaps try to be more constructive about coming up with ideas for stuff to put there that would increase utility. Curious if that makes sense? Cheers, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 02:20, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AHollender (WMF) Rather than fill it to appease, why not fill it to provide functionality or as part of formatting? Like moving infoboxes, images and captions over to the sides, and make expanded captions possible. Rather than simply restrict the reading area, expand the capabilities.

One major issue I have with the whitespace is that it is simply unbroken and excessively bright, dark empty areas or areas with things that break up that brightness is far more appealing and less harsh on the eyes when used on higher brightness and contrast displays. This compounded with the placement of the expand button being in the least visible part of the white space makes it blend in and can be quite hard to see. I actually had to look up details on this change because the ones that were directed to me by the normal articles were useless. That is how I ended up on here(through about 4 redirects and disjointed discussions) from the reddit. Deadoon (talk) 12:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Deadoon thanks for your response. In short: yes, I agree we should be looking into those kinds of changes/options, and Vector 2022 opens up the possibility to do so. We've now implemented CSS grid, and have way more flexibility to think about the layout of the page, and how we format content. We strongly believe that by limiting the line-length we've already significantly improved the reading experience for most readers (i.e. Vector 2022 is a big step in the right direction already). Will we continue to iterate, to make the experience even better? Yes, 100%. How long should we have waited before introducing Vector 2022 to English Wikipedia? This is a very difficult, and contentious topic. But my main point to communicate there is: we didn't make this decision carelessly. If you look through the project documentation, our deep collaborations with various communities, etc. I think you will find that to be true : ) AHollender (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Its actually made it much worse for me. ScrewV22 (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Viewing Wikipedia while logged out is painful because while an article used to take up 80% of my screen now it takes up about 50% or so. What a waste of screen real estate. RPI2026F1 (talk) 03:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support I am unable to find any of the cited papers that support the claims about whitespace being good in the FAQ for the redesign (Lin 2004 or the Wichita State lab study whose DOI number goes no where). I made an account after almost 18 years of daily use because I was displeased with the whitespace. I would be moved to change my opinion if someone could actually show the empirical studies that support having whitespace for the sake of reading comprehension without sacrificing reading speed. I can get that this is a design principle that many sites have occupied, but I do not see why Wikipedia must join in on such a trend. What is sleek today is aged tomorrow. Vector 2010 seems to me to be a timeless design. Guidethebored (talk) 03:25, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I believe when I saw the WMF folks cite the sources they were saying the sources said that it slowed down reading speed in exchange for reading comprehension. I recall the WMF folks said they saw this as an acceptable tradeoff. Cost-free tradeoffs are very rare. I strongly disagree with them on this one. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 04:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Below, someone linked me to the two articles: Wichita State and a different article about line length.

I feel inclined now to change my Condition to Fully Support. The Wichita State study does not apply to Wikipedia; it compares no margins or margins. Wikipedia already had a margin which of course assisted in readability. The other article suggests no correlation between line length and adult reading comprehension. Its Full, Medium, and Narrow paragraphs were variably rated by the metrics of perceived ease of scrolling, concentration, and presentation, with no clear winner at all there. I personally would need to see more to be convinced. Guidethebored (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I found Lin 2004 here. I'm not sure if it's accessible to everyone, but the tested text was in Chinese (Taiwan) and done on 24 participants aged 62-80 recruited from those taking an introductory computer class from a social welfare institute. Eniteris (talk) 12:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Guidethebored, @Eniteris - thank you for your questions around the research. We have collected a number of research studies that we referred to as well as other general information on limited width such as the WCAG accessibility guidelines on width on the feature page of the project. There, you can also learn a little bit more about our rationale behind making the change. Hope this is helpful! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 17:41, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. A total step backwards in terms of readability. A majority in the last RfC were opposed to it and only 24 percent of those polled thought the new skin was easier to use. Tkbrett (✉) 04:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – I just can't get around the fact that the October/November RfC ended with 154 support and 165 oppose and they went forward anyway. I realize 'not a vote', but I read those comments and I don't see how the closers came to those conclusions. And when I read that closure Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deployment of Vector (2022)#Discussion I thought it at least meant some things would be fixed before roll out. Well, none of the issues I mentioned in that RfC were fixed. DB1729^talk 05:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @DB1729 thanks for being involved in both the previous RfC and this one. I'm sorry that the personal tools menu is causing you frustration. Out of curiosity, which tool in that menu do you use most often, and how many times per visit/session would you say you use it?

Regarding the previous RfC: I think the closers of the last RfC identified that the main cause for opposition was the limited line-length (which you mentioned was your "big no-go"). In response to that we built a toggle/setting so that people can switch to a full-width layout if they prefer. In another few days this toggle will be persistent for logged-out people as well (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T321498). We hope that satisfies the community members' concerns there. After the RfC we spoke to the folks at Fandom who faced a similar opposition during their recent redesign, which resulted in them building a toggle. They shared data with us, showing that 0.1% of people use the toggle to make the content full-width (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T319449#8379920). We also reached out to Mary Dyson, the leading researcher on readability for on-screen text, who assured us that limited line-length leads to a better reading experience all around. Given that information, combined with the WCAG criterion, and ample research, we feel quite confident that the default experience should be limited-width. AHollender (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AHollender (WMF): I'm sorry that the personal tools menu is causing you frustration. Out of curiosity, which tool in that menu do you use most often, and how many times per visit/session would you say you use it? I've never bothered to track how many times I click on each link, but I assume you mean from the drop-down menu. That would easily be my 'Contributions' link. I actually have a shortcut in my browser, I use it so often. Beyond me why anyone would want it to be hidden in a dropdown. I mentioned the watchlist in that previous RfC. Why use a symbol instead just calling it a 'Watchlist'? BTW, "Frustration"? I currently choose not to use V22, so it's not causing me any frustration. How are you doing? I suppose I am "frustrated" and opposed in general to the notion that replacing perfectly descriptive text with vague and ambiguous symbols is somehow an improvement. Are the symbols designed for illiterates or mind readers? I think the closers of the last RfC identified that the main cause for opposition was the limited line-length (which you mentioned was your "big no-go"). Like I said in the previous RfC, right after "no-go", the problem is the reduced width breaking the layout of tables and images, evident on countless articles including in the article the WMF chose to present to us as an example for that RfC. How tables are positioned on the page in relation each other has nothing to do with "reading experience". Implementing a skin that misplaces countless images and tables is sloppy and careless. When I raised this concern on another thread, the response was this,[1] implying the idea is for us (regular editors) to fix the problems the new skin has created. (I have no interest in doing that, fwiw) DB1729^talk 15:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DB1729, I think these tables may have already appeared broken on the mobile version of the website. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:45, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that's what was said. So then it's ok to break them on the desktop too? DB1729^talk 16:47, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@DB1729, no, they should be fixed on both. Just because editors can't see a broken table doesn't mean it should be ignored. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well then I guess they had better get rid entirely of the wide-text skins I continue to use if they want me to care about such things. DB1729^talk 17:20, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support on desktop, the whole thing now looks like a cheap mobile site. Very difficult to navigate and unrewarding UX. Juno (talk) 05:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. Frequently used tools (even by the casual, no account user) are now hidden in dropdowns and menus. This not only wastes time by requiring that the user open the menu and then scroll to his selection, but makes it less likely that such features will be discovered at all. It would be one thing if the saved space were used efficiently, but instead we get trendy white space. At the very least, input should be sought from casual and non account users with page banners seeking feedback. Kilometers to Verona (talk) 05:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Employing this mobile version for everyone is just a scam for desktop readers to create accounts. Алхимик Темногорск (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Алхимик Темногорск. Thank you for your feedback. Just to clarify, the Vector 2022 skin is not used on the mobile website. The mobile website uses the Minerva skin, which you can also explore in your preferences. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 17:46, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @User:OVasileva. Vector 2022 skin is not used on the mobile websit, BUT Vector 2022 is a mobile skin itself, and it is used for a destop users, that is wrong, and that is what we are talkin about. 83.30.229.13 (talk) 16:54, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
83.30.229.13, it's not a mobile skin. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. Thank you for opening this RFC, which has saved me the trouble either of finding a query I posed a couple of years ago after this change was imposed on some non-English WPs or of raising a new one. I have immediately reverted to Vector2010. I detest Vector2022 for two main reasons. (1) It makes switching between languages difficult and tedious. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. I want the list displayed alphabetically on the page, not in some sort of thematic drop-down menu; so that I can immediately see whether or not there is an equivalent. This isn't an issue of simply switching between favoured languages, but of multilingual searching, which I do more than most or possibly anyone; see my UserPage. (2) I want a properly usable ToC on long pages such as WP:ANI, not a difficult-to-navigate floating list.
I only noticed the change because I bought a new PC three days ago, and my preference was not carried over onto it. Thank you again; you have saved me a lot of frustration.
I am by no means against change, but am strongly in favour of easy-to-find options; and this isn't one. Narky Blert (talk) 06:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Narky Blert, thanks for sharing your opinions on Vector 2022. Two quick notes:
- We're exploring various options with the language switcher, one of which is making the language menu pin-able. You can see a prototype of that here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prototype_of_pinning_the_language_menu_to_the_sidebar.gif. Another option might be a setting to allow for alphabetical sorting. The research we did was quite clear regarding newcomers being able to find the language switcher much more easily with it in the new location. We're confident we can find a solution that serves everyone adequately!
- We've gotten similar feedback about the TOC on specific admin pages, one of which is WP:ANI. We will be working on this task soon, which should improve the situation: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T317818
Curious to hear any thoughts you might have on the above. Cheers, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The primary audience of Wikipedia is unregistered or logged-out users, who are the ones unable to change the appearance of the website. I logged in today for the sole purpose of reverting this visual change, and there is likely a spike in logged-in users since this change was implemented. Reddit has their "old.reddit.com" domain that allows logged-out users to use the older appearance, and I see no reason why Wikipedia cannot use a similar method aside from complete dissociation of the website from its community. The ability for the majority of users of Wikipedia to be able to revert the appearance should have been a bare minimum for the implementation of Vector 2022 as the default. This should not be the default appearance until Wikipedia can give unregistered site viewers a simple method of reverting the visual changes that does not constitute logging in or creating an account. GalacticRuler456 (talk) 06:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support There was never a consensus for Vector 2022 anyway. Vector 2022 looks god awful for readers and has worse usability for editors (frequently used links now hidden in dropdown menus). And WMF will tell us that sudden spike in new registrations (because really a lot of people hate the redesign and there is no different option to change it back) would be a success of the new skin, lol. --Icodense (talk) 06:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support At lease please put the expanded, inline, contents section back. For example: https://imgur.com/a/TULEHvp. --LDF092 (talk) 06:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm a random user who was sufficiently annoyed at a previous poorly implemented feature change to make an account to complain, and here I am again to yet another ill considered design choice. The design is a mistake. Clearly it is the mobile version of the site erroneously being shown to web users. Why else have tiny text in a narrow strip and vast areas of empty space on either side? Either create a proper web version of the site or revert it back. Ikaruseijin (talk) 07:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Ikaruseijin - just to clarify, the Vector 2022 skin is not used on the mobile website. The mobile website uses the Minerva skin as the default. If you're interested in learning more about the decision to limit the width of the text on desktop, the team has published their research and documentation on this project page. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@OVasileva (WMF) Except that it was clearly designed for mobile purposes given the text takes up 1/3 of the page, with wide areas of white space on either side... Why else all the dead space and constrained text except to fit on an iPad/tablet or smartphone? The only alternative explanation is that it was poorly designed, not properly tested and vetted, and should not have been used. Ikaruseijin (talk) 02:37, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Ikaruseijin Please read mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Frequently asked questions § Why is the width of the content limited? Aaron Liu (talk) 14:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have read it already. Utter nonsense. I find the older layout with its wide text to be much easier to use and read than this narrow view. The narrow view is cramped and I find it a chore to get through. I have to switch lines again and again in rapid succession and I lose my place vertically in the paragraph and have to re-read to find it again. It actively disrupts my reading and so it takes me longer to understand the content. Web users have been trained for years to read text this way and suddenly you decide to switch standards because of some vague nonsense that does not jive with the experience of... anyone I know who uses the internet to learn about things. So I reiterate: the new layout is poorly designed, not properly tested and vetted, and should not have been used

To add emphasis to my position I posted on social media a screen shot of the current Wikipedia main page appearance and I received NO positive comments and everyone who did comment thought it was a terrible design and difficult to read.

I am an average person, not an editor on Wikipedia. I opened an account specifically to lodge complaints since Wikipedia has NO other means to receive bug reports or complaints about features and Wikipedia has a habit of introducing ill considered features and pats itself on the back for making things difficult for people. This is me going out of my way and inconveniencing myself as well as wasting my time... If I am here complaining you can be sure thousands of others who couldn't be arsed to go to the trouble I have feel the same way. That should tell you something. But you're not listening. Ikaruseijin (talk) 10:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It actively disrupts my reading and so it takes me longer to understand the content. Well you're among the minority of people then. I'm not saying that your opinion cannot be weighed I'm just saying that they decided to cater to most people.

{tq|I received NO positive comments}} There will always tend to be more negative comments about anything. If one is content they don't comment anything. If one thinks the thing is really really really good then they'll comment. If one think that it's bad they will comment. Wikipedia has NO other means to receive bug reports You might be interested in our phabricator. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On a side note, a skin designed for mobile doesn't have to enforce a limit on the width of the main text flow, because the device does so by itself. More indicative of mobile-friendly designs are pages composed of modular blocks whose relative positions don't play a role in their function, so they can be easily rearranged to fit within the available space. Vector 2022 isn't a lot different than the original Vector in this respect. I agree the greater reliance on icons is influenced in part by mobile designs. isaacl (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad you know about these things because I don't. All I can do is relate how the design feels. That is what I was expressing. It feels like it was designed for mobile; poorly designed and improperly formatted for the desktop web experience. Which is what the new layout is: Poorly designed and improperly formatted. Ikaruseijin (talk) 10:42, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I was just responding to your question "Why else all the dead space and constrained text except to fit on an iPad/tablet or smartphone?" In fact, since smaller screens have less room for content, whitespace is usually reduced on these devices, so if a given design didn't consider larger screens at all, the content would fill the whole space. I appreciate you dislike aspects of the design and that's fine to discuss on their own, without worrying about whether or not the whitespace is related to a mobile-friendly design. isaacl (talk) 22:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, @Isaacl. I've been wondering about this for a while. Why do so many people think V22 looks like mobile? Your point about no big margins on mobile matches my thinking. Is it the icons? (Apologies for posting to an old thread, I've been taking a break from WP "inside baseball".) ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 08:48, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Icons, it's thinner, and its simpler-looking. Those are the likely three that cause people to think this is a mobile-oriented redesign. Cessaune [talk] 10:11, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think people are eliding their comments a bit in their reaction to influences from mobile design. As I mentioned, the use of icons is in part influenced by mobile designs (internationalization is another influence). Collapsible menus have always been around on desktop-focused web sites since Javascript support (and later, additional CSS features) was added to browsers, but due to limited screen space, mobile designs typically either have moved lengthy menus to the bottom of the page or made them accessible through a collapsible menu. Simpler-looking interfaces were of course not invented for mobile (Google being the obvious example), but at an instinctual level, less stuff on the screen might be equated with how pages appear on mobile, even if the reasons are different (design choice versus screen size limitation). isaacl (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think there should be a discussion if this design is even better than Minerva. This is such a mobile focused design (even if that wasn't what they meant to do) that I think Minerva is actually a better desktop design than vector 2022. 2601:246:CD80:8210:148C:E4F4:B7FF:B83F (talk) 19:13, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's more than just icons and simplicity, although those certainly contribute to the mobile feel. Mobile-first designs typically add more vertical scrolling to make up for the reduced horizontal content area, as well as use mobile-first semantics like hiding everything behind icons (because you don't want to waste screen real estate with words on a small phone screen). Also, extremely width-limited sites are usually indicative of a web developer creating a site for a narrow screen without understanding how to implement responsive design properly. Basically, just imagine a site that looks fine on a phone but rendered on a much wider desktop monitor with no code changes. It'll look like a phone layout in the middle of the screen with massive amounts of whitespace on either side. And that's exactly what Vector2022 looks like on high-res displays. Trynn (talk) 22:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as I mentioned, collapsible content and iconography are characteristic of mobile designs. But a site that looks fine on a phone that wasn't designed to accommodate larger displays won't have massive whitespace, because whitespace is reduced for phone-oriented designs in order to maximize the amount of content shown. Web pages aren't like the old iOS phone apps that were simply scaled up to fit onto on iPad screen. I understand and appreciate why some dislike the whitespace with Vector 2022, and we certainly should discuss this. We needn't worry, though, that the motivation was to make the page fit onto a phone display. isaacl (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Web pages aren't like the old iOS phone apps that were simply scaled up to fit onto on iPad screen But that's exactly the point. Properly responsively designed pages shouldn't look like old iOS phone apps scaled to fit on a larger display, but Vector 2022 does look like that. That's a major part of the criticism that it looks like it was designed for a phone. Trynn (talk) 22:23, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The irony is that pages improperly designed only for phone displays have the opposite issue: excessively wide content areas. isaacl (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support unless Question 2 is adopted Taking on one of the primary concerns of the original RFC as an opt in toggle is ridiculous. 'You can turn the horrific amounts of whitespace off!' should never be the response to feedback. They should be gone by default. Make a toggle that says "Research supported way to read!!!!" that reintroduces them. Parabolist (talk) 07:25, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support: I spent a couple of hours trying without success to revert to something I could navigate easily (e.g. Watchlist on the page rather through an opaque drop-down menu). But you have to understand more than I did to do so, e.g. knowing what CSS, Monobook and original Vector meant. Some of the new features are in fact welcome (for example, putting contents in the sidebar rather than below the lead), but overall, the new design is vexing, frustrating and hard to navigate. If technically possible (in an easier and less-confusing way) let editors choose what's useful or preferable for them. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Shakescene While it isn't clear at first glance, the watchlist is already at the top, it's represented by a button with three lines and a star to the left or the user dropdown. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is one of my gripes about the new version: why use icons when words will work much better. Why add some of the clear links at the top of the page into a dropdown box (I use the Sandbox a lot and I now have to go through two clicks when one used to do. If I want to go to my watchlist, I have to look at the unclear icons and try and decipher them. - SchroCat (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly, I often use "Contributions" to continue working on articles I recently edited, and Vector 2022 places that two clicks away instead of the 2010's skin one click. ~ HAL333 22:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Same for me. Æo (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's incredibly isn't it. In the chase for mobile clicks they've forgot that humans on this site use English words, not emoticons. Macktheknifeau (talk) 12:16, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I'm a user who uses Wikipedia several times a day for professional, personal, and casual purposes. I usually stay logged out, as I have no reason to log in unless I would want to participate on a talk page or edit a protected page, which is a rare occasion. I have two major things to say about this. FIRSTLY: the first time I heard about this new skin was today, when it happened, but apparently discussion has been going on about this for months? This discussion obviously excluded the vast swaths (likely the vast majority?) of users like me - people who use Wikipedia constantly but don't ever log in and keep up with the community. This, to me, is evidence that whatever conversations were had were failures - how can daily users to this site have been unaware that this was in the works for months if the conversations had were adequate? SECONDLY: Why is this layout leaning so hard into a mobile-oriented layout? Doesn't the mobile site already exist for people who wanted this layout? My first reaction to this update was to assume I had wandered on the mobile site by accident. If an article has a lot of pictures (like most articles about topics that are even sort of noteworthy), you can barely read a full sentence that isn't split in half by a line break. The last few minor things I have to say: 1) At least the custom-preference option gives me a reason to stay logged in now. 2) I will not, in the future, be donating to the WMF whenever they ask if decisions like this are going to be made with no meaningful (once again, I'm on this site every day and had no clue about this) notice or feedback beforehand. 3) Even Monospace is a better skin than this new one. To conclude, please just revert the default skin back to Vector 2010. People who actually wanted this new one can change their own preferences to reflect it. Teddybearearth (talk) 07:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Regardless of the merits of the skin itself, this was forced through with an extremely shaky interpretation of consensus, and should be reverted until there is actual consensus. ℰmi1y_⧼T·C⧽ 08:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for all the support reasons given above, because opposes and badgering like "the devs know better" are not convincing (certainly considering the track record of the WMF devs), and because the new design is a poorer, unintuitive experience, with issues like rarely used options prominently displayed (in text mode even, not as an icon) hile much more common tools are hidden behind obscure icons; all the issues with the "language" dropdown (too many to enumerate here); and the basi, extremely poor design choice to have an extra band of menu items between the article title and the body of the article, creating a "top menu - underlined title - underlined second menu - text" order which makes absolutely no sense. Fram (talk) 09:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I think moving the second menu below the article title makes sense. It's the article container. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:51, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's mixing contents and menus in an unnecessary and distracting way (I have just switched back to Vector22 to check my reply, and it is even worse than I remembered, with a menu on top, one on the same line ("languages"), and one below the title! I also again checked the "languages" dropdown, and oh boy, what a total mess (test on Prix-lès-Mézières). "Worldwide", I get Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Then a subsection "America", where I get the same languages, plus things like "Veneto" (in America?). Then a subsection "Europe", which suddenly goes in two colums, with a gap in the left side column for no discernible reason. In the section "Africa", French is missing. And so on... testing on Barack Obama: the "Worldwide" subheader means that instead of a neutral, alphabetical order, you now get an order decided on by some developer (I know, they know better, we should shut up) which means that very small constructed languages come near the top (in the "Worldwide" section), while major languages like Japanese are near the bottom. On articlees with few languages, like Miguel Escalona (Chilean footballer), you get a shortened search in the languages, with the text "search for a". Yep, clearly tested, works as expected. Fram (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see how it's distracting, it's alright for me. I don't get the shortened "search for a" bug and I like to idea of it but WTF is this sorting? Aaron Liu (talk) 13:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good for you if 4 instead of 2 places to find menu items isn't distracting, nor the "underline the title, then underline the menu below it as well", nor the "hey, we have text menu items, and icon menu items, but we didn't have a text + icon yet, let's use that for "languages"!" anomaly. The infallible developers seem to have mistaken the old "tab" design of the "article / talk / ..." menu line for aun underlined one, and when putting it below the title, have somewhat recreated that look which no longer has any meaning here, and only distracts (the old menu had "article" and "read" in white as active "tabs", and things like "talk" and "edit" in gray as inactive tabs: the new vector tries to achieves this by bolder underlining vs. less bold underlining, which just looks amateuristic. The more I use it, the more I see small issues indicating that this product isn't finished at all; e.g. in the old design, if I open Twinkle (the "TW" drop down) and then "More" (the "Move" dropdown), these stand next to each other: in the new layout, the Twinkle one partially obscures the Move one. Another issue: in preview, you get no TOC??? That's seriously annoying. Fram (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The way the change was approved in the first place looks dubious to me. This was a big enough change to justify posting to everyone's talk page asking for an opinion. But it was hidden away on some noticeboard, frequented by some, but not enough to justify the change. Even then, there were many in opposition, with a suspicious concensus. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it is a community project and the community was not sufficiently consulted on the change- simply because most people weren't aware. JohnmgKing (talk) 09:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. I did not create this account to change Wikipedia's skin back to the good one from this horrid pseudo-mobile "New Reddit" one - if you'd make me do that, you clearly don't want me here, so I'm not even going to bother - I created this account to let you know that this entire debacle demonstrates that you have great contempt for your users, laundered through hokey pseudo-science of the worst sort, and if you're really going to force this nonsense on everyone, ruining what remains of the good that people have created through this institution - something legendary in the whole history of humanity, like a modern day Library of Alexandria, as a particularly shining subset of the internet as a whole - then you are all deep, deep in an unrecoverable stage of collapse. I dearly hope you reconsider. Make me feel like a curious young researcher gathering information on all the most fascinating topics in the world, not like a bored dying man with dementia in a nursing home reading insultingly ugly large print magazines about nothing. Good night. Your Design Is Bad (talk) 09:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moved this comment up from the Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Vector 2022 Post-Deployment Update from WMF Team section. --Kiz o r 10:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support reversion. The many responses I see, from editors and readers, range from "What happened?" to "Please revert" to the unprintable. I see very little praise for the change. Many developers have obviously worked long and hard on Vector 2022, and I thank them for producing an alternative skin which some people will prefer. However, it is very far from being the popular choice and should not be the default. Certes (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The new layout is a complete joke. Extremely bad, utterly useless. If you do not bring back the old layout, wikipedia is going down for sure. I will stop contributing and using wikipedia from now onwards if the old layout is not brought back.130.88.16.130 (talk) 10:42, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support in the strongest possible way. I do not like a bit of the new skin. I do think vast majority of users and editors feel the same as I. I edit both with and without login. How do I permanently go back to the old skin without login? I am simply unable and uncomfortable to edit in the new skin.Sunlitsky (talk) 10:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Not even sure if my IP status allows me to comment, but the new requirement for needing JavaScript to view the Table of Contents is bad. For safety and security I don't have JavaScript enabled on any site, so I can't currently see any ToC, nor can I widen the view with the box icon. Thus diminishing the utility of Wikipedia. Plus having useful links hidden behind unnamed icons that require extra clicks just to see what is there is annoying and time wasting. 113.211.110.53 (talk) 11:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. It is terrible practice to require JavaScript. There are numerous problems with JavaScript, not least of which is security. Plenty of people globally disable JavaScript because it's dangerous. There is no good reason for requiring it on Wikipedia. 2600:1700:1471:2550:6002:A2:F43C:2665 (talk) 22:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The new version has too many problems, especially with regards to inflexibly-wasted screen space. Cosmetic and usability changes are fine, but this one is measurably less useful in many ways than the existing skin. --Jayron 32 12:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. I reverted to Vector 2010 immediately. The old Vector provides for much easier work regarding languages (without having to open a menu to see whether a language version is available), has much less whitespace, and is supported by the developed tools. In addition, I find the mixing of various grays on the same page (sidebar vs the article) a poor design choice. Vector 2022 can remain available to opt in, but it is definitely less usable and less aesthetic than the legacy skin. The only thing that I like about the new skin is the availability of the TOC when scrolling. It is sad that the Foundation has unilaterally imposed its decision on the community without a proper consensus but has not supported it where it really matters (for example regarding tech for Commons). If there is a demise of Wikipedia, it will stem from the ever-increasing gap between the Foundation and the community. --TadejM ^{my talk} 12:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would in particular highlight the lack of a static TOC as the key element breaking visually the layout for pages. For example, the header of sl:Wikipedija:Pod lipo (Slovene version of the Village pump) seems very fine with Vector2010, but with Vector2022 it has enormous empty space. In addition, the ToC ID-s used by both headers differ, so the Template:Skip to bottom does not work with both versions and an anchor has to be inserted manually. Very appalling. Many users keep using Vector2010 and it is extremely difficult to design the layout solidly for both skins. --TadejM ^{my talk} 05:35, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support As I said in the previous RfC on the matter, Vector 2022 has far too much whitespace and no clear reason for it, particularly when viewing the skin on a large desktop monitor. The toggle to enlarge the page to fill the width of the screen is entirely too small and virtually impossible to notice until you are told that it's there (I know because I tested this, and spent several minutes looking for it). Hiding the languages menu behind an English language dropdown is also of little help to users. In general, there is too much hidden behind icons that, while they may be plainly conspicuous on a mobile display, need to be hunted down on a normal wide display computer screen. Vector 2022, in my humble opinion, should be recalled (at least for desktop users), at least until the Foundation figures out a way to make it possible for unregistered users to select their preferences and have those preferences persist across sessions. The majority of unregisted users do not want to create accounts simply to change how Wikipedia looks; if they wanted an account, they wouldn't be unregistered users. If we want new people to create accounts, it should be done via improving Wikipedia (in all the many ways we might do that), not by telling people to register in order to fix what they perceive as a failure to improve Wikipedia. Pinging @HumanBodyPiloter5. silvia (BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 12:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The new design is worse just because of the major waste of screen space. Endianer (talk) 12:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support on behalf of all the people who don't edit here who have expressed their loathing of it. XOR'easter (talk) 13:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also hearing from people that font rendering now changes in the middle of scrolling. This whole "update" is strange and under-tested. XOR'easter (talk) 01:29, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. What a waist of space on the screen. If you want to change to a different language only 10 out of 100 are shown. For the other languages you have to scroll inside a tiny mini window. --Boehm (talk) 13:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: After switching languages a few time it will recommend you the languages you like and there is a search bar. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, nothing will be recommended, because I usually clear cookies after closing the browser. And by the way, I do not have a prefferd language. I just want to select myself. Everything was fine before the change. --Boehm (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: There has been a strong negative backlash against Vector 2022 from both registered and unregistered users (e.g. here and here). The new interface has many problems: the width, the lateral TOC, the general impression that it is designed for mobile, amongst many others. Ultimately, the community does not seem to like and approve the new interface.--Æo (talk) 14:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Further strengthening of my support: The more I experiment with V2022, the more I think that V2010 is far better. Even the elimination of the azure lines that in V2010 clearly traced the boundaries between the article/encyclopedia and the user tools/menus is a step backwards into utter confusion; please restore an appropriate functional differentiation between the parts of the Wikipedian "organism".--Æo (talk) 16:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: This shouldn't have been pushed out as the default skin for unregistered readers without the accessibility issues being properly addressed. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Hey man im josh - if you have a moment, could you specify which accessibility issues you are referring to? This will help us triage specific concerns. Thank you! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 18:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - Every single response I've seen to this change from unregistered non-editors has been overwhelmingly negative, which throws any of the suggestions that this was a change for the sake of readers and that the editors participating in the discussion were a biased sample out of the window. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For everything, comments will be biased towards negative, since if a reader looks and thinks there is no problem or there’s an improvement they won’t bother leaving a comment unless it’s exceptionally good. There were also reader surveys that indicated more readers liked the new skin. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
support – I find the new version interesting but ultimately inferior. – zmbro _{(talk) (cont)} 14:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Or at least make an .old.wikipedia handle with the old skin (it is not perfect either, but much better than this mobile device oriented, hard to read, wasteful, eyeburning white design for a desktop users), this push of new skin onto users looks realy forced and not needed. IJustCreatedAccountBecauseOfThis1diocy (talk) 14:02, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As said in the FAQ this is very hard for the resources. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support while question #2 not being addressed. As an IP reader and editor, aside create an account or programming tweaks, the only way I've found to use the old good UI is to append «?useskin=vector» to every requested URL. 37.134.90.176 (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support the old 2010 skin as the default. At minimum there needs to be a way to one-click revert (session lasting) to the 2010 skin, and this needs to be available to all users. Not just logged in users. Most users never log in. Wikipedia is dramatically degraded on desktop browsers currently. This really does need to be fixed. 2600:1700:1471:2550:4102:7C99:2804:8FC3 (talk) 15:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The new skin, Vector2022, inferior to Vector2010. The new version may be better for readers, but it is awful for those of us who edit regularly. My tools which were previously visible above the page content are buried now in drop down menus with silly icons that don't make sense to me, I am wasting time looking for things that are now in illogical places. The left hand side bar is definitely NOT an improvement, it's just bad design, and those tools have also disappeared, replaced in some instances with the TOC. The TOC should remain in the article content. I tried it out several times before the offical roll out, and have been testing it since it became the default, and I am convinced that the new skin is NOT an improvement. Vector2010 was not broken, so why "fix" it? Please restore Vector 2010 as the default skin, and call Vector 2022 something else. Netherzone (talk) 15:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I guess... but nothing stopped WMF from deploying the skin regardless of the previous RfC. So I don't expect anything else than this one being chucked away with the usual "resistance to change" argument. At this point I oppose the misguided design goals more than anything else. — HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 16:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, WMF deployed it according to the misguided closing consensus of the rfc, not against it Aaron Liu (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say anything about deploying according to or against RfC. I specifically said "regardless of .. RfC". — HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 17:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am confused, doesn’t regardless of… mean they ignored it? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:06, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support in principle, even though it will never happen. The real solution is to create extensions for Scalar that will restore the core fratures of Vector.small jars tc 16:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Tastes do differ, I personally dislike the new layout although believe there are many who accept it. But the way the changes are enforced is plainly insulting. For a long-time editor like me this has been immensely frustrating and I imagine how it feels for unregistered users. The changes must be rolled back. The communication did not happen. The visible and clear notification (not a banner) must be placed in the header, on the main page, everywhere, with an explanation: what is going to happen and what to do. The toggle to switch on or off must be accessible for every user. No dark patterns. A simple form must be proposed to all users: Do you prefer this one or that one. No bad-faith interpretation of metrics. The way it was done it is humiliating. — 2dk (talk) 16:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - WMF has fundamentally failed to to bring the community on board with this change. The skin has many well discussed issues: limiting width of content area is absolute nonsense, hiding tools and buttons behind additional clicks makes the experience worse, hiding optout in preferences and then claiming that the optout rate is not high is deceptive, the TOC is worse than before, there are notable bugs, to name just a few. This is all compounded by the fact that logged-out users are not left with any means of using the old skin, and that the width button is non-persistent for logged in users.
Further to this, WMF has show that it has no interest in consensus building or engaging with the community, as is very evident by the fact that when they had an RFC go against them, they ignored it, and decided that no further RFC is necessary since it obviously would not result in the correct answer.
This design is the very definition of form over function. The rollout could have been done much better, by progressively rolling the theme to more and more users and carefully listening to the feedback and monitoring the optout rates. Given that this is a product by paid designers working full time for years, it shouldn't have resulted in such poor reception. WMF should revert this change and try again later when their design is approved of by the community. Melmann 16:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - It has been said that this skin is better for readers, however the needs of readers depend on the device and its screen. It is obvious that the skin is something of a port of the mobile interface to a desktop one, an unfortunate but increasingly common trend in today's user-facing interfaces. This is a disservice to desktop users. The driver is not usability, rational design or aesthetics but unified software development, an efficiency (cost-cutting) prerogative. The underlying thinking is that most users read most output on mobile/small/haptic-optimized screens, and they are not going to be bothered much by the change to desktop interfaces. This may not be the case with Wikipedia articles which may be longer and more complex with added media that can be visually and logically better accessed with a larger screen, so that one gets the full impact of the article rather than constantly scrolling (apparent) fragments. This new mobile-to-desktop trend is also ill-suited to interactive sites with anything more than very simple user input. For highly interactive, user-input-intensive functions such as writing prose, adding media, logically arranging an article etc. it is supremely unsuitable. Not all change is good, or even neutral, and one person's progress may be another person's regression. 208.253.152.74 (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The new skin was not designed with mobile in mind, see the FAQ Aaron Liu (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. But this RfC is an example of my previous comment. Anyone who can follow this discussion on a 6-inch screen with the same comfort and comprehension as in a 26-inch screen is a better person than I am. 208.253.152.74 (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's a blatant lie, and they know it. This entire new skin was designed with two things in mind: ad space and mobile users. 198.21.192.40 (talk) 23:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hard disagree. There is zero chance this skin was designed for ad space. If the WMF ran third-party ads on Wikipedia, then the WP:FRAM controversy would look like a drop in the bucket. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 06:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, never say never. The re-landscaping of screen real estate certainly allows the future option for adding all kinds of extraneous material, including ads. Like every bureaucracy, WMF keeps finding new things to do, subtly, incrementally (and sometimes unilaterally) expanding its scope beyond what has been originally put forth. Language is an ally: the more slogan-like it is, the more obfuscating, vague, and therefore expandable its meaning is. 172.254.255.250 (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't see any reason for WMF to add ads. On one hand it violates a frick ton of policies, guidelines and ethics, on the other hand they are already financially sustainable. Plus since most Wikipedia frequenters (at least editors) have adblockers that would cut the WMF a lot of money. Even if they still use donation drives after putting up ads there would be a ton less people donating because ads are already upthere. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible support - What actual advantages does this skin provide that cannot be implemented in a hybrid of Vector 2010? Color blind friendly purple clicked links? TOC on the left sidebar? Images in search? These things are absolutely possible to put into Vector 2010 (and I have the first two via plugins already). A restricted reading width could be a toggled option in such a hybrid. I'm not interested in throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but I see zero reason to keep Vector 2022 as default to maintain these marginal improvements for our end reader at the expense of many extremely plausible downsides. I would also echo Red-tailed Hawk's A/B testing proposal as actual evidence rather than the supposition that has been provided to us. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 17:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't hate Vector 2022, though I do like it less than 2010. I do, though, think it's borderline unacceptable that you have to log in to change between styles. I think that, for as big a change as this is, broader and firmer support should've been built up before WMF pushed the change. I think that trying to enact the change on the basis of very shaky results solicited from ~300 active editors is bordering on the negligent- readers have as much of a stake in Wikipedia's usability as do editors- maybe more, as they're likely to be less experienced at using and navigating the site- and that's a tiny fraction of editors, anyway. For myself, I saw or heard nothing of the coming change that I can recall, and I use Wikipedia every day, and I see multiple comments above to the same effect. I guess that getting a good indication of reader preferences might be hard, but Vector 2022 should not be mandatory or default without a clear mandate from Wikipedia users as a whole. Yspaddadenpenkawr (talk) 18:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support While not against a redesign in general, the crazy amount of white space is distracting every-time it loads I think I'm on the mobile version. chiffre01 (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The previous RFC did not establish community consensus to change the default style. Yet another example of the WMF pretending to care about volunteer concerns, but ultimately doing what they had intended from the start regardless. MrsSnoozyTurtle 21:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have had an account for going on 15 years, rarely edit anymore but I was so abhorred by the design change I had to make my voice heard, please change it back. --Flappychappy (talk) 21:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I appreciate the people who did their best and put in effort into doing what they felt would improve reading and editing for everyone on Wikipedia, but it is clear that the design was not truly approved of beforehand by the majority of users. This coupled with the issues that have arrisen makes me feel that going back to the 2010 version as standard is for the best.★Trekker (talk) 21:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support My main concern is for text width, but more broadly it seems based on what I have read so far is that a consensus does not appear to have been reached prior to implementation, which ought to be done first. Nl4real (talk) 22:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. I never even heard of the new skin before it suddenly showed up with the horrible whitespace and janky layout. A change this huge, and this controversial, should have had an actual consensus before being forced on all readers. --HappyWith (talk) 22:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: At least as long as logged-out users have to use this as the default layout, I am against it. Requiring the creation of an account just to use the arguably better skin is no different than what Fandom/Wikia does. I have no problem with it being an option, just not the default. gangplank galleon (talk) 23:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've thought over this for awhile now, and I land in the Support column for a variety of reasons. First, in my view the original RFC didn't have a consensus to implement Vector 2022 and the closing statement of the RFC has always kinda baffled me, but that's neither here nor there at this point. Second, I love the width toggle, but the fact that it doesn't persist should've been fixed before the rollout took place. Third, I really feel like the Page Tools and customizable user menu should've been in the skin before the rollout took place too. I think that would've at least calmed down the whitespace complaints somewhat. Also won't belabor the point since it's apparently going to be easier to develop one with Vector 2022, but having a dark mode would've helped this complaint too. Fourth, I will take the WMF's word that Vector 2022 wasn't designed for mobile, but it does have some of the hallmarks of moble web design (text in the middle, hamburger button, etc). I know it's only two people, but here's two of my friends reactions to seeing Vector 2022 for the first time (warning: language): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/499649691714060299/1066137406576787506/image.png. I don't know how the developers of Vector 2022 could make it look less mobile-y, but there you go. Fifth, the mystery meat navigation issue that was brought up in the original RFC and again here hasn't been fixed. Finally, I feel like Vector 2022 is still not ready for primetime. It feels like a version 0.7 or 0.8 in that it's getting there, but is not fully ready. These are my thoughts anyway. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 23:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support on returning to Vector 2010. I think that my main gripe is the TOC. I understand that there's configuration option however the default view is pretty bad and I think increases the number of clicks to get to the information I want. For example on a page with a lot of sub categories, I often find it useful to scan the ENTIRE list to jump directly to the section I'm interested in. Now, again unless customizes, things are collapsed by default AND formatted in a way that makes it difficult to read long titles. So if I'm not logged in, or for any of the HUGE amount of ip only users and editors, it's now multiple clicks to get to relevant information. In the past this was literally the one click to open the page, and the one click on the section desired. Now we're up to potentially 4/5 clicks after getting to the page for what just last week was a single click action.
I'm also going to put in here similar text from my post on the Talk page on Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements:
Now that this change has launched why not put this up to ALL users? Put a banner on the top of articles similar to the donation banner and see how desktop users actually respond. If the attitude of "we know change is scary, you'll get used to it, we've done research!" shown in this condescending article must be forced I'm sure a developer would love to make sure that banner shows up only on devices that have had the new layout for "long enough". You could even randomize that, see what a user thinks on day 3 vs day 15.
If the Wikimedia foundation actually cares about user feedback I don't see why this can't be done. I think it's fairly obvious that a tiny fraction of Wikipedia users actually create an account and basing this change on what has amounted to ~170 users feedback is disingenuous. Show us you care, show us you want to see your research actually validated, it might be, but it's also ok to get it wrong too. I understand the value in continually looking forward and not settling where we are, but if you're going to use "research" as your backing, see if the hypothesis is correct. Zdwagz (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is the opinion of a brand new user. Its their first edit. Its great not to have to scroll all the way up of a long article or talk page but just be able to scroll quickly through the sections in the sidebar. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So a new user (who, for all you know, has been an IP user for years) shouldn't have any say in the matter? Curious. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 02:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Often, users who show up specifically to champion some particular cause have their opinions given less weight. In this case, though, they definitely shouldn't, since this is an issue of design preferences that everyone who reads this website has a reasonable stake in. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 05:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And here I thought that an opinion was considered according to its own validity. Not according to official or unofficial club membership, or conspiracy theories and biases regarding the presumed intentions of the signature. That signature is as good as the latest comment preceding it. 172.254.255.250 (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah sorry for the late reply, you didn't ping me. As for me, if you want to collaborate on wikipedia seriously, you should create an account. Now to revert to Vector 10 for IPs or newly created accounts who's votes include terms that can be understood in a negative way..., no way. Those votes will just not weigh against the votes of accounts with several years counting. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes first edit but if you see actually looked, the account was created in 2013. I'm a reader, which is a perfectly valid use of Wikipedia. Everyone isn't here to edit and editors shouldn't get special sway on how readers see things. Zdwagz (talk) 13:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@73.8.230.57; @Compassionate727: Paradise Chronicle's message referred to the fact that Zdwagz's comment was originally posted on top of the RfC when it was located at the Village pump; the comment was later moved into the appropriate subsection and afterwards the entire RfC was relocated to its (this) separate page. Æo (talk) 14:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can only agree with Zdwagz about the problems of the new lateral ToC: it has completely lost its functionality of giving a complete overview of the article, of allowing the reader/editor to move forthwith to the section/subsection of interest, of creating a distinction between the article's lead and the article's body. These problems have been raised by many users, both registered and unregistered. Let me abridge: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, amongst other discussions, including my commentary and proposal of alternatives in the previous RfC. Æo (talk) 15:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For me it becomes an issue when the ToC is extensive in length and depth. For brief ToC's, the side table is more than acceptable. Perhaps there could be a "__ FORCE_INLINE_TOC __" option for such articles? Praemonitus (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the old ToC was useful especially in long articles and talk pages, while short articles and stubs without a certain number of subsections didn't have it. As pointed out by StarTrekker here, the new ToC "makes every article look like a stub". Æo (talk) 15:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Æo, would you strike my name from the list above, or mark it in some way to show I don't agree with your conclusion? I don't want to be cited in support of your position; I think the new skin is an improvement over all and the ToC issue is a minor point that doesn't change my view. I see at least one other editor cited in your list who has opposed this RfC, below, so you might make your caveat more general than just naming me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: Yes, I removed your name. Apologies. It was intended as a list of commentators to the various discussions about the problems of the ToC.--Æo (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No problem; it clearly wasn't intentionally misleading. I do think you should still hedge your comment a bit more since a negative comment about the ToC doesn't imply support for reverting to Vector 2010, but our exchange here is probably enough to point that out. Thanks for the edit. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are many comments about the ToC at mw:Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements too; a particularly thoughtful one, in my opinion, is Bring back the TOC (21:35, 20 January). Æo (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
YES Definitely return to the vector skin! 2601:644:401:39D0:79D9:58C3:3B6D:651E (talk) 00:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: While there are some things I like about the new update, the negatives of it outweigh the positives. So much so that I've come out of my three-month hiatus just to talk to y'all. My main issue with this update has to be the empty white area that takes up a good portion of the screen. It's ugly and wastes too much space. It looked way better when the area was actually used for the words and images. Now you have to scroll more due to the text being so narrow rather than being able to see the big picture. Another thing I hate has to be that everything is now in a drop-down menu instead of being laid out like before. And no, this isn't a case of I hate change, or I will get used to it.
However, I do love that the table of contents now follows you instead of having to scroll up to change your spot in an article. Also, I asked some of my friends to see if they noticed any change (because I was curious), and one of the three said they did. So I guess it is a subtle change. Wowzers122 (talk) 01:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I will stop using Wikipedia and exclusivly use other sources if I am unable to see the old format. The new format is THAT bad. 2603:3023:180:4800:38B1:9CEB:5048:5F2C (talk) 01:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I have been a regular, casual user of Wikipedia nearly since the site launched and have neither had nor wanted an account until this UI rollout forced me to create one to revert back to a more usable layout. The Wikipedia Privacy Policy starts off by saying "Because we believe that you shouldn’t have to provide personal information to participate in the free knowledge movement"^[1], yet I feel as if I was forced to provide a username and password in order to continue participating in using the site. This increases my Internet footprint and its associated risks and I am not happy about that. In addition, the discussions I've read from WMF have seemed quite dismissive of criticism regarding the new UI and its rollout, and IP users do not seem to be considered a part of the "community" in any of these discussions. Furthermore, the stated metrics that WMF is looking at to gauge success of the new skin do not actually measure KPIs related to satisfaction with the new skin among non-logged-in users. As long as a user has to be logged in to change the UI to a usable layout, this new skin should be rolled back. Trynn (talk) 01:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Given the large number of bugs and other issues being raised at the Village Pump, this was far premature, especially since the WMF's record for supporting the tools and interfaces they push out suggests that most of these issues will probably never be fixed. Eventually, we need to do a large survey of the reader base to determine which is actually better, but for now, the lack of one is not a good reason to oppose reversion (or support it, for that matter), since without knowing what readers we think, we kind of have to let editors control this decision. That said, the large number of IPs and SPAs commenting here suggest the change is deeply controversial at best, especially given the immense hurdle readers would have needed to jump to find this. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It seems that a majority of users here would rather have the old layout be the default, and I agree. Personally, I am specifically not happy with the amount of whitespace in the new layout. ―NK1406 01:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible support, far too much white space on the left and many formerly easy to find links are several clicks away. 1.136.110.165 (talk) 02:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC).[reply]
Heavy Support Too much white space. Irritates the eyes. The fact that IP users still can't change visual preferences is also an insult to those with visual impairments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.8.230.57 (talk • contribs) 02:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. It violates MOS:ACCESSIBILITY. ~ HAL333 02:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support on behalf of unregistered users and readers. The older version of Vector itself in my opinion is inferior in most respects and I have never used it (the appearance of mysterious symbols and lots of white space serves as a useful signal that I've been logged out), so I wasn't able to respond very usefully to the "what do you think of these projected skin changes?" questions the WMF asked me over the past year or two. But I'm hearing from people who do use Vector that the new version requires significant juggling of column width and other settings to be made usable, that things jump around and icons change form in different screens and needed adjustments don't hold in preview mode, and that the list of other-language links appears sorted by some high-handed assumptions about which one should want to see, which is just insulting. Those who use Vector have made clear that the new version is a dog's dinner. Unregistered users have no choice, although someone has already rushed out an app to modify the URLs, which should indicate the reception by actual unregistered readers and editors. Give them back what worked relatively well for them. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:59, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Yngvadottir: For those of who are curious and out of the loop, what app are you referring to? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 03:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse my technical ignorance, extension. For Chrome. (Link via the unnameable site.) Yngvadottir (talk) 07:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG SUPPORT (Redacted). 78.28.44.127 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a "perfectly reasonable" vote that got "censored", it's an open-and-shut UAA ban. Also, just looking at the video title, your "immortal clip" is in poor taste. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You know what's in poor taste? Ninja-deploying an awful layout change that ruins the experience of millions of users without consensus. And the comment was reasonable; they could've--and should've--just redacted the username. 78.28.44.127 (talk) 03:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Pythoncoder: To be honest, I don't know what the normal protocol for such usernames is. But in this case, I think it would have been better to just redact the username. (To be clear, I don't think Donald Albury's revert was unreasonable. I just would have handled the comment differently. The IP's assumption of bad faith is worse, but there probably isn't a point trying to lecture him about it.) —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 05:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On reflection, I agree, redacting the username without reverting the post would have been better, but I got called away from WP immediately after that for a couple of hours, and didn't see any great need to to try to fix that later. Donald Albury 15:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The whitespace problem needs to fixed before Vector 2022 is deployed. One of the pros listed of the spec page is 'Less scrolling'. This couldn't be further from the truth. My 1920 x 1080 is now almost 50% whitespace, meaning there is less text forcing me scroll almost twice as much to read the same amount of text. Gehyra Australis (talk) 03:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the white/wasted-space issue and increased scrolling required to read text. It is even worse for those using 4:3 aspect-ratio monitors or large font-sizes for accessibility. Hopefully people don't get carpal tunnel syndrome from the excessive mouse scrolling. 98.149.164.167 (talk) 09:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support But what does it matter? Machinations like this are WMF's bread and butter and it doesn't seem like they care what any volunteer editors think. Az x2 04:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Despite the claim in the faq that "we do not have plans to merge the desktop and mobile experiences", somebody from the WMF said "While building the skin, we also considered bringing it closer in visual design to the mobile site, so that people reading on mobile can still recognize Wikipedia in its desktop form as well. We also aimed to reduce code for skins overall so that it's easier in the future to build features and adapt them across both desktop and mobile skins." (diff) So while it would probably be histrionic of me to call the claim in the faq a lie, it happens to be the opposite of the truth. This skin is part of extinguishing the desktop idiom. Unwittingly, perhaps, it's part of a cultural trend, beneficial to commercial interests centered around phones and advertising, promotion, tracking, de-powering users and making them passive, and discouraging reading. It's a reaction to the demands of those already steeped in this culture. Many responses around the web have been along the lines of "it looks like the mobile site". Card Zero (talk) 04:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for now Tried using the new Vector for a few days and it's just an irritating experience. For example, there's an issue with text becoming randomly bold while scrolling. It may be a Chromium bug (that's what I heard) but I've never experienced it with the old Vector. The actual root cause is somewhat irrelevant, as it impacts the experience either way. Text also seems lighter and harder to read. Overall it feels like additional polish and time is needed before it goes mainstream. GoPats (talk) 04:49, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Was never broken, should never have been fixed. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The new skin is an eyesore and many regular Wikipedia users had no idea this was happening. A poor consultation process. ~Darth Stabro^{Talk/Contribs} 05:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, especially if most users disagree. Toa Nidhiki05 05:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support While I understand the motivations behind the update, none of the new features are things I asked for nor what I want. The new layout really irritates my eyes from the excess whitespace and the excessive scrolling I'm now forced to do because of the new width. Additionally, the fact that the settings are no longer immediately available on the left is an annoyance. Overall, the new layout is a detriment to my ability to navigate this website.WikEdits5 (talk) 05:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. Enormous amounts of white space serve no useful purpose. This is widely known as "Fisher-Price UI design", which is trendy, but usefulness is more important than trendiness. Also, please stop calling the new UI an "improvement". It's not. -- HLachman (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I like the table of contents on the side, being able to change from an to full-width by clicking on the icon on the bottom right, being able to collapse the side bar, and an uncluttered top bar. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 05:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but I still think enormous amounts of white space serve no useful purpose. -- HLachman (talk) 06:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreeeee! The last available username (talk) 04:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The contents section is an entire screen downward now, off to the side, and sub-sections are hidden, whereas before you could see them immediately. This new format is regressive. At the very least, the contents need to be back in the body of the page, either after the article summary, like before, or ahead of it.LkeYHOBSTorItEwA (talk) 05:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, as strongly as possible. Wikipedia has become practically unnavigable, and at least my eyes get strained from the new layout. Having to dart back and forth every second or two because of how short the lines are when there's tons of eye-burning blank space all around them is just incomprehensible. Reading Wikipedia pages is now genuinely unpleasant and feels harmful to my already bad sight, compared to being comfortable in the past.
To make it even clearer how bad this is, when I saw the new design (on some pages but not others), at first I was 100% convinced that Wikipedia was having some issues and hoping they'd be fixed. I mean, this new design really seems broken in every way, at least from a reader's perspective (which I count as since I barely edit at all). Literally how I found out that it's not just broken is because of a discussion with other readers about Wikipedia being broken, decided to google to see if anything had been written about it, and... well, you know. VHGW (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, looks like I replied to the wrong section because even editing pages doesn't work like it used to. I can't even figure out how to move my comment to the right place... VHGW (talk) 06:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment moved by moi. ~ HAL333 06:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as an IP user this is making my life a misery. Setting aside how unfinished the sidebar looks, and the fact useful links like recent changes, contents, recent events and things like user contributions (or "what has my address changed to today") are now hidden behind an extra click, the absolute killer is the stupid waste of screen real estate. Widescreen monitors have been fairly standard for many, many, years now and with the new layout almost half of my screen is whitespace. It is absolutely ridiculous that the only way to override it is either to click the button on every single page I visit or create an account. This is not acceptable to me and I would sooner stop contributing to the project and browse via a fork/mirror than do the latter. 2A02:C7F:2CE3:4700:1081:876B:679F:8E58 (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
People are creating accounts just to avoid this skin... ansh.666 09:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And this is a bad thing? Daniel Case (talk) 02:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Yes, it is. These users are not going to contribute to Wikipedia in any way, they just want to look up information and we are forcing them to spend time on setting up an account. Just so they can avoid the Vector 2022 layout, which is confusing for many (remember that a lot of people who are inexperienced with computers read Wikipedia daily). To pretend that it is not bad thing or that it is even a good thing is rather absurd... Walter Klosse (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We've always had users like that, though, who created an account for one reason not really related to editing, and then stayed. But I'd like you to hold this thought and come back in eight years or so, when you'll probably see at least a few userpages with something like "I created an account in 2023 so I could change from the Vector skin to the old look, but then I started editing, and ..." What makes people stay cannot be predicted from what makes them come.

I also like this "spend time" creating an account. It takes about as much time to set up an account as it did when I did it back in 2005, which is to say less than a minute at the outside. How many other websites that were popular then and now can you also say that about?

Aside from which, I think this is a very dismissive attitude to have towards new editors that is rather lacking in good faith. Daniel Case (talk) 05:56, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case: sorry it's been a couple months, but I think this still deserves a small response: just because something bad unintentionally caused something else that some people may see as a good thing does not mean the original thing is good. I also don't think simply having an account makes people more likely to edit - it's not like they couldn't have done that before. ansh.666 17:16, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The strongest support possible. This change is outrageous! Very short lines and tons of blank space on both right and left. It's sad that after 18+ YEARS OF CONTRIBUTING, I feel inclined to quit the project rather than putting up with this nonsense. Ghirla^-трёп- 09:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support vector 2022 is a huge blow to the community. It is blatantly evident that most users(especially the IPs whose contributions are indispensible) are going to stop editing from here onwards if rollback is not carried out asap; in any case, vector 2022 already created so much damages that are irreparable.149.36.19.74 (talk) 09:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support on grounds that this is a badly-handled change with insufficient notification. (FWIW - I thought my browser was having problems loading the page at first). The individual wikipedias make their own decisions on content and that includes display. GraemeLeggett (talk)
Support. While I think Vector2022 has the opportunity to be superior to Vector legacy without too much additional work, I think there are three disservices to our readers that need to be worked out before. (1) overall brightness. So much white causes eye strain. Either a default fixed-width (I'm against), or a design like this would reduce that. (2) link colours. Talked about this to exhaustion. The visited and unvisited links look the same for those with colour blindness and a significant minority struggles with how light the colours are (phab:T213778). A further iteration, with help of experts, is needed to resolve this. (3) Symmetry: even a small asymmetry can lead to pain for those with neck problems.
As a power user, there are reasons I've switched back to Legacy too, even though I think our readers should be prioritized in the discussion to deploy. For instance, I don't want contributions to be hidden behind two clicks. Some background pages are difficult to navigate without the ability to enable a numbered TOC (like WP:GAR). There are quite a few things broken still (like {{TOC limit}} phab:T317818. While these shouldn't be blocks for deployment, I would like to get more guarentees that they will be worked on. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support – The new style is horrible with too much white space, there was no consensus for it. Peter Damian (talk) 11:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. My first reaction was that my browser was acting up (I use Wikipedia daily and I wasn't aware of the change). To those who say "So you think that Wikipedia should never change?", this is my reply: if I have to go north and I notice that I've been driving south for one hour, the only logical reaction is to hit the brakes and do a U-turn. If I keep the course I'll reach my destination only eventually, after circling the globe. The main design choices of the new interface are all pointing south (mystery meat, mobile-friendly line width, less immediate switch to other languages and so on). Rizzardi (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - per all of the above. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - per all of the above. --Blockhaj (talk) 13:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support I've heard claims that this these changes were being openly discussed, but as a long time reader they may as well have been discussed in a basement behind a locked door behind a sign reading "beware of leopard". Literally the first I was aware of changes to the UI was when I opened up a page and suddenly less than half my screen is being used. Why? I've heard claims that it's "more readable" but it really isn't. Seriously, just why? I'm absolutely horrified and appalled by the trend of websites forcing major visual overhauls on their users simply for the sake of looking "sleek, modern and trendy", ESPECIALLY when it looks worse in every way. A desktop site should not look like a mobile app for crying out loud. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.10.96.162 (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest support - See the textbook case of Last.fm which to this day has not recovered from the embarrassing forced rollout of it's new UI design in 2008. They knew it was unpopular, they did it anyway, the userbase left. This rollout has looked eerily similar so far. - "Ghost of Dan Gurney" ^{(work / talk)} 16:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC) Eh. Last.fm didn't have a rollback option, so this comment is out of line based on that alone. - "Ghost of Dan Gurney" ^{(work / talk)} 14:33, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Last.fm actually saw an increase in usage after the redesign according to Comscore [2]. the wub "?!" 17:42, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On a site where passive engagement (listening to audio) doesn't require a UX, total minutes is in no way an indication of UX success. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest Support - As someone who is an extensive user of wikipedia (multiple hours per day), but is only a reader and not an editor, I've found Vector 2022 extremely jaring to use. It feels significantly thinner, it wastes a massive amount of horizontal screen real estate, the excessive whitespace is visually offputting to the reading experience, and having to manually toggle the table of contents side bar and the limited content width button for every single article I open when not logged in is extremly frustrating. Additonally, only finding out about the redesign after it had been implimented with seemingly no effort to consult or poll readers/noneditors seems extremly problematic. Wikipedia should probably be optimized for the vast majority of those who use it, and as a reader Vector 22 is simply a downgrade from Vector Legacy. IanKBania (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support per all of the above. Delphin64 (talk) 17:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the default width issue as well as other bizarre UI changes. Cards84664 17:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. At this point, I got only one thing to say, RIP Wikipedia. You had a good run. 148.252.35.10 (talk) 19:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's just a design change, how does that deathify Wikipedia? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Ever since the Vector 2022 rollout helpers on IRC have been receiving a tonne of complaints about it, of varying levels of vitriol, to the point we had to include a new bang command pointing to WT:VECTOR2022 (and, more recently, this Request for Comment). The complaints have mainly been about the large amount of whitespace (with at least one legitimately wondering if advertizements were going to start showing up), how squished everything is, and how everything is hidden under a new dropdown menu. This, plus the requirement to register an account to change it (which isn't an option in jurisdictions prone to human rights abuses or which has lese majeste or equivalent laws) is why I have to support the skin being reverted at this time. (Disclosure: I use, and have always used, MonoBook and I was not switched over to Vector '22; I thus have no personal experience using the skin.) —Jéské Couriano (No further replies will be forthcoming.) 21:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I supported V2022 in the original RFC and my view on that has not changed, but I do not think this change is representative of consensus. ^Clyde!_Franklin! 21:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest support Waste of space. More button clicks to perform the same actions.Lots of mobile influence in desktop(it is bad and should be separated). So revert it back. Wikipedia had the most efficient and slick design. Don't fix it if it ain't broken
Support The enormous margins and massive amounts of wasted space just look awful, especially once you start getting to 2k or 4k resolutions, and the moving table of contents, while a nice idea, is super poorly implemented in its current state. This design seems like it was made by a group of people exclusively running on 720p monitors who never thought to check how it looked at any other screen size. KirbychuHRD2 (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I remember when Monobook was the default skin, and Vector 2010 was an improvement. This is not. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 21:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hadn't seen the change until I saw people on another website I frequent complaining about the new look. How the RfC on its introduction was closed as consensus in favour when there were more opposers than supporters is beyond me... Number 5 7 22:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Number 57, because the closers didn't simply count !votes? — Qwerfjkl talk 22:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Or rather because they just ignored the opposers? T v x1 22:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:VINE very explicitly states that majority vote should at least be requirement for UI changes; such as this and the text width issue (in which the latter no vote was taken). The closers should have simply counted the votes, and then check if the support arguments had any merit. Transcleanupgal (talk) 18:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An essay. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
so? Transcleanupgal (talk) 21:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Essays are neither policies nor guidelines, and are written as advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors, as stated in {{essay}}. It's something to consider, but by no means is it mandated. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
yes, i know, it's just that @Qwerfjkl replied to me not only stating a list as policy, but getting the criteria for something to be on that list wrong and is being a massive hypocrite. Transcleanupgal (talk) 00:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal, I wasn't suggesting that WP:200 was a policy, rather that large numbers of editors rarely participate in discussions. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
don't game the system. that's not what you did, period. Transcleanupgal (talk) 20:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal, please AGF. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Old is seriously better! Editorkamran (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm here for information density. The users who didn't like the line length could always shrink the window. This is universal and easily achieved; the corresponding method does not exist in reverse for the new design. I've had to install GreaseMonkey and find a script to modify the URL--I'm embarrassed to say this took me a couple hours. Additionally, I will never be in favor of icons rather than text links on websites. They're less accessible to the vast majority of users.
Furthermore, given how awkward the handling of this has been, I'd support a vote of no-confidence for the decision-makers involved in the rollout. I found it to be a deeply unpleasant surprise, and difficult to find information on. They've forfeited any future donations from me until the people involved are fired. 2601:645:0:41C0:D1A0:EB6A:A0C7:18BD (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment moved. ~ HAL333 00:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support the decision to change was done compleatly behind the average wikiipedia reader, the only way you could have found that discussion was if you actively searched for it or were part of the implementation, in other words; the original discussion should be Moot per WP:POLSILENCE Transcleanupgal (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal, WP:200. There were enough editors. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
wp:200 states that there needs to be 200 support votes, note 200 total votes, not only did neither the support nor oppose get nearly enough votes, the oppose actually got more votes. so yes, it would be Moot. Transcleanupgal (talk) 18:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I think there is case to be made for a fresh UI and design. However, currently we have a hodge-podge of screens. Have detailed out some of my notes here [[3]]. Need these to be fixed at the minimum before the roll-out. Ktin (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I made an account for the sole reason of changing my skin back. I have not spoken to anyone who supports this change. I have overheard complaints in real life about the new skin. The idea that a small subset of the most active users, who did not reach a clear consensus in favor of this change, can be used to justify this change is absurd. Reading back through the previous RFCs, the design team did not meaningfully take community feedback into account, particularly as it regards fixed-width content. This change should be reverted and changes should be made to the RFC process to ensure this can't happen again. Fwint (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest support New UI is annoying, & seems to assume everyone's on a smartphone. There are a lot of assumptions, in fact; the process seems to have been largely internal, with a lot of confusion as to why more average Wikipedia users didn't join the RFC. Most users don't even make accounts, & their thoughts seem to have been totally ignored. A bad redesign can kill a site, & a stubborn desire to fiddle with stylesheets is not a good reason to risk the whole enterprise. Why not simply deploy this new UI as a "fixed-width mode" or something? See if people adopt it that way. Anything other than a sudden forced change, which users of every site universally hate. It is always a negative user experience, & it has been negative for all the no-account users I've spoken to. In summary, the change needs to account for casual users before it's finalized, & needs to be rolled out in a more thoughtful, consensus-minded way. WizWorldLIVE (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I created an account and am fumbling through page edits just to express my strong dislike of the new layout. It is way, way too narrow. Most desktop users view the site on widescreen monitors. There is way too much unused space. Keep the mobile version of the site on mobile devices. Let me use utilize my wide screen on Desktop. I'm seeing lots of arguments from people saying it's easy to just change back to Vector 2010 from the appearance menu, but the vast majority of users aren't logged in and can't do that without registering an account. I'm certainly not going to be bothered to log into my account every time i need to use Wikipedia on another computer. SteveBlanka (talk) 18:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest support The new UI is terrible. I've been using it for a week and I hate it. Low information density, stupid "mobile-like" design, and huge swaths of useless empty space, forcing users to scroll even for short articles. Fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.244.10 (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, mainly because IPs don't have the luxury of going back to legacy Vector. I gave Vector 2022 my best shot for about a week, and was happy to return to the old skin; I can't help wondering if the WMF is thinking of trading the mobile site (which has issues, notably WP:TCHY) for Vector 2022. This is reminiscent of WP:VE#Limitations. Miniapolis 02:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Per all of the above, and with concerns about the WMF deploying skins with insufficient consensus. I do not see a consensus to deploy in the last RFC, and the way this one is trending, I do not see a consensus to deploy in this one. A proper consensus should be obtained for something this controversial. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Today's changes to vector-2022 have messed up the style of my user scripts that I fixed the other day. They have also added padding to each menu item, which doesn't look great in my opinion. They have also deleted padding between menus, which also doesn't look great in my opinion. It's a bit frustrating that the English Wikipedia has turned into a vector-2022 sandbox. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions for the closer: 1) Try to avoid hypothesizing what consensus will be in the future, and focus on what consensus is now. I feel that this mistake was made in the close of the first Vector 2022 RFC. 2) Even if there is policy prohibiting the wikis from making coding and technical decisions, it is still acceptable to find consensus to ask the WMF to roll back Vector 2022. Thanks in advance for closing this. Good luck. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the biggest issue in my mind was the lack of consensus (or even a plurality) before implementing. And also a lack of communication about it. Personally I saw no banner advising of the implementation time. When it was implemented, I was editing in realtime, and there was no banner indicating that it had changed (yes, there was one later on). The RFC noted that certain improvements needed to be made before implementation. I'm confused why the "Background" section above says that these WERE implemented, as that's not the impression I got. Either in terms of width, or the language improvements. What was promised needs to be done. I also feel that those who actually did the change, without consensus, should have their permissions on the English Wikipedia restricted. Nfitz (talk) 03:48, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The answer to this question is obvious. And that answer is yes. The new skin is clearly not designed for what would be considered the primary use case: a desktop computer using a landscape monitor. Having to login to switch skins through preferences is annoying. Deadgye (talk) 04:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Just for starters the whitespace is an abomination and makes reading and navigating the website objectively worse on a desktop. I read through the RFC and some of various supporting talk pages and it was interesting to me to see that, although the WMF people generally made a big show of this being a change to the desktop site only and having nothing to do with the mobile site, Card Zero's !vote above pointed out the WMF comment "While building the skin, we also considered bringing it closer in visual design to the mobile site, so that people reading on mobile can still recognize Wikipedia in its desktop form as well. We also aimed to reduce code for skins overall so that it's easier in the future to build features and adapt them across both desktop and mobile skins". What is good for the mobile reader is often not what is good for the dektop reader and trying to make them similar is a recipe for disaster. Surely the WMF gets enough money each year through their relentless advertising that they can develop skins that suit mobile and desktop separately rather than needing to homogonise them. For whatever it's worth I did support the change from monobook to vector at the time so I don't think I am some luddite who just hates change. 2403:5802:19ED:0:21C1:6CBF:2E59:864 (talk) 05:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The new design is truly abysmal and dysfunctional for a modern website's UI. I'm not opposed to new default displays, but it must reflect buy-in from the community. Both on a substantive and procedural basis, the new design should be rolled-back. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I hope I did this right as I've only been a logged out user until now. When talking about the "Wikipedia community", there seems to be a sole focus on editors. Part of the Wikipedia community also includes logged out users, aka the largest share of Wikipedia. There was no notice to logged out users who were happy with the old design or any real attempt to reach out to logged out users about input for this upcoming change (banners, etc.); Wikipedia gets billions of pageviews a month and the if there were real problems with the layout from a reader's point of view they would have organically come about already. Instead, I woke up to a new design that looks plain bad; I honestly thought I was on mobile for ~10 minutes until I googled the problem and learned it was in fact a redesign. --Newresdesignisdumb420! (talk) 06:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - new skin is totally unworkable in viewing mode. Don't know what it would be like in editing mode as I got out as quickly as possible, but based of viewing mode it would be a nightmare. Mjroots (talk) 07:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I do not understand the modern trend of adding white space to webpages, and this design is particularly egregious in that regard. Adopting a new design is fine, I am not married to the 2010 layout, but this one appears disliked by editors and readers alike. Undo. wxtrackercody (talk · contributions) 07:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'm just a user, not an editor, but I'll tell you guys what I told the wikimedia volunteer email: this new site redesign is terrible. Particularly egregious is the bit where it assumes my desktop computer with a full-width monitor is a mobile phone, as though we're moving back in time to a previous and worse era of web design. table of contents on the left I could get used to, but having to click a button to tell your website I would like it to use more than a third of the screen in 2023 is just frankly embarrassing. 2601:645:8200:FF50:0:0:0:EC5F (talk) 08:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This new design is a downgrade. It's baffling this has been set to default and unchangeably forced to logged-out users. Ew. — DVRTed (Talk)
Support This is horrible. At a minimum allow logged out users to opt out. 111.220.98.160 (talk) 09:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC).[reply]
Support I don't much care for all the wasted space left and right when rendered on my computer monitor. There is a way to override when logged out (i.e append ?useskin=vector to the url) but this doesn't propagate when clicking links. Should be easily be fixable IMO, so please do that. 90.231.239.98 (talk) 10:20, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've read this site almost daily for at least 15 years. I've learned so much from it since, especially from the 'random article' link, and still was - until Wednesday. I remember the old default skin, Monobook, which I always thought had a quirky but tasteful photo of a crumpled white bedsheet as a background, and it changing to the Vector 2010 with a light gray margin that I thought was somewhat generic but still unique and appealing. I didn't care about that change because it was the only real change I noticed and it didn't affect my experience. Despite what many have said in the many parallel ongoing conversations on this site about it looking outdated or being obsolete, I thought it was far and away the best-designed major site on the internet - an example in function over frills and timelessness over trend-following, compared to websites that seem to get overhauled every couple of years that replace self-evident links with weird hieroglyphic buttons, require more and more scrolling, and make more and more space for ads. I'd argue the design kept up with the times, especially compared to Craigslist, which looks very firmly rooted in 2002. As an IP user, I had absolutely no clue this new default skin was planned, and thought my browser was buggy when I first saw it, particularly because pages were being updated to the new skin one-by-one, and I was coming across 'normal' and 'buggy' ones at random. Then I discovered it was a feature, not a bug. I've already said why I liked the previous default skin(s), and this redesign hit like a gut punch. I have to describe the new skin (Vector 2022) as sterile, like an operating room - it's not comfortable to look at, the 'random article' button is hidden behind a hieroglyphic, it takes much more scrolling to read an article, and some articles just look like the layout was wrecked by the skin. It also seems like the black text is somehow brighter and harder to read. I found myself going from being on Wikipedia for hours at a time to a minute at a time until I found a browser extention that would add "?useskin=vector" to every URL every time I clicked a WP link. I have to say that all of this discussion - especially from all the people whose arguments against this request boil down to 'suck it up and get over it' - really puts me off coming back. Why should I patronize a website whose maintainers are themselves patronizing to their readers? It's not exactly welcoming, which is what I would think an online encyclopedia that encourages its readers to become its writers would want to be. --67.6.158.84 (talk) 10:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is completely irrelevant to the substance of what you wrote, but the background image is a book, not a bedsheet — hence the name "MonoBook". —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Reading articles on a laptop logged-out (i.e. in the normal way) is more difficult – my eyes are distracted by the fact that the text doesn’t start until almost one-third of the way across the page. And it’s weird that there is no visible tab to use to log in. The new skin should be an option – readers and IP editors should be asked if they want to opt-in. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:17, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Unfortunately any perceived improvements do not matter a jot when the basic reading/editing experience is fundamentally compromised by what feels like 30-year old design methodology focussing exclusively on small, low-res displays (and simply accepting the resultant mass of dead space on larger, higher resolution displays), that should have long since been consigned to history. This lunacy should not have been inflicted on everyone by default with arrogant and almost total disregard for any and all negative feedback. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: the new version looks awful. If the previous version is not broken, why change it, and especially for this? The 2022 version is not an improvement at all, it is a downgrade. I know bad, pseudo-clean website designs are a trend, but that does not mean I have to accept it. Veverve (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, and I don't use "strong" lightly. The number of IPs and new accounts indicating their displeasure above (and that's just those who managed to find this RfC) indicate how poorly Vector 2022 works for casual readers. Compacted text, large swaths of whitespace, more difficult navigation - this is not an improvement. Many of the opposes below seem to fall into the "it's time for a change" category, but change for the sake of change alone is rarely a good thing. This is not an e-commerce or social media site; it's an encyclopedia. Readers come here for the article content, not for what some might call cutting-edge web design. For editors it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of the fact that these articles are written for Wikipedia readers, not other editors. Maximizing usability for readers is paramount, so the default skin for someone not logged in should not be Vector 2022. --Sable232 (talk) 15:19, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What about those who actually like Vector 2022? To my knowledge if you dislike something enough you will eventually find somewhere to express your displeasure. But for readers who either don't care or like the new design, how are we supposed to know exactly how many of them there are? 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:25, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@0xDeadbeef: I think that they are well represented in the "oppose" category and by the small minority of appreciative comments left on pages like this one. Let me highlight an excerpt from Stable232's comment: "Many of the opposes below seem to fall into the "it's time for a change" category, but change for the sake of change alone is rarely a good thing. This is not an e-commerce or social media site; it's an encyclopedia. Readers come here for the article content, not for what some might call cutting-edge web design." Applause! The same as I think: there seems to be more attention on the "user's experience" than on the contents of the encyclopedia, while a great number of articles are in a wretched state. Æo (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was merely pointing out the fact that people who hate the new design and desperately want the old design back will have enough motivation to find this page and others. Wikipedia editors are <0.01% of our readership, so even if a majority of readers actually like the new design, we would not know because people who like the new design would not care about this enough to find this page to express support. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's why there have been some thoughts about publicising this page to casual IP readers (#Publicizing this RfC). Many of them have actually found this RfC or other talk pages and have expressed their views, and most of them have been negative. Regarding the segment of readers who "do not care" whether the interface is V2010 or V2022, I think that their view (which, given that they "do not care", is not an "opinion", i.e. a choice, between "options") is ostensibly irrelevant, and they probably do not even care whether Wikipedia exists or not. Æo (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. This mobilification of desktop sites is a plague on the Web. I'm not very active here any more (much more of a reader than a contributor these days) and as a reader this change is awful. Ignatz mice•talk 15:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Extremely strong support this is the Wikipedia equivalent of New Coke and is an unnecessary inconvenience to logged-out users and readers. Dronebogus (talk) 17:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The old skin was fine, the new one is just... weird. —scs (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The whole point of responsive layout is that the user determines the width of the screen, not the developers. The other alterations seem unneccesary and unhelpful.John Talbut (talk) 17:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Partly because the search field is not immediately usable. --Bensin (talk) 17:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support The new skin is harder to use than the old one. It makes the text harder to read, for example, and generates wasted space on the sides of the page. Maybe we can make a better skin someday, but the 2022 one is actually worse than what it's replacing and shouldn't be used. Yellow Diamond Δ Direct Line to the Diamonds 17:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is too much whitespace and it is harder to navigate with Vector 2022. Kay2370 (talk) 19:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support There's too much whitespace, and it's actually harder to read now. I do not like how the Foundation imposed it upon the community. kulupu ko, many and one (talk) 20:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support For all the reasons already stated, especially white space, missing menu, and inconvenience of having to hit several buttons just to login. Unless we're anticipating a return to 13" square monitors there is absolutely no need for this. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The new skin is a nightmare both aesthetically and from a usability point of view - it is driving serious contributors as well as readers away from the project. Forcing it on all users by default is rude and shows ignorance and incompetence. Whoever is responsible for this decision at the WMF should be removed from power - donation money should be spent on running the servers, fixing bugs and implementing actually needed core functionality the community has asked for for decades, not on things not needed like the Visual Editor or this new skin. The old Vector skin should be made the default again not only in the English Wikipedia but also in all other Wikipedias unless the users have explicitly opted in to the new skin (having a preferences setting to opt out is not enough). --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No need to make an ad hominem response directed at the person who introduced the skin itself. (And not to get too off-topic, but Visual Editor makes editing less daunting for new users, and more editors is something the project desperately needs). DecafPotato (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: This change was completely unnecessary, and the new layout is distracting and harder to read, especially because of the large amount of white space. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:15, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: It looks like the majority of respondants to the original RFC were not in favor of the new skin as-is, but it seems that the closing statement assumed that their concerns would be addressed. They were not. But ignoring the old RFC and looking at it fresh, there are still a lot of complaints that, unless they can be addressed instantly, should be grounds for a roll-back. The biggest concerns I'd like to point out are that the graphical buttons are not as obvious as they could be. (And they're not really saving space, because the whitespace where the old links would be is still unused.) And the dificulties with full-width mode. I realize that research has shown that narrow lines can be better for long-form reading, but It's my understanding that research has also shown that people don't read Wikipedia like that. They glance around quickly for the fact they're looking for. (I know I usually do.) The toggle for full-width is kind of hidden in my judgement, not really obvious iconography wise, and has a frustrating, seemingly broken behavior for non-logged in users. (I realize that fixing that last would require extra effort that can only be done by the Foundation's programmers, but ... ok, so what?) ApLundell (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: The change is not an improvement, and despite what was stated the research did not show the limited width is better. I have read the papers linked at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Limiting_content_width but they are twenty years old and do not consider modern wide-screen high-definiton monitors. 80.43.159.95 (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC) 22:00 January 2023 UTC[reply]
Extremely strong support The old style Wikipedia was much easier to use and to edit. I am not sure what was wrong with it, and wish to say "If it's not broken, don't fix it." YTKJ (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, "extremely strong support" tends to be functionally equal to just "support". DecafPotato (talk) 23:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe read that article of TechCrunch and you'll notice the changes a bit better. Its really much more efficient for editors. Then here the developers have also their say on their aims. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That article would be relevant if the site actually looked like the screenshots the article includes. It does not. On my screen, it looks like this: https://postimg.cc/3ddyCXDj, which is significantly different than the old layout. I'm starting to wonder if those who claim the new layout is not that different are only using lower-res displays and haven't actually seen the problem. I measured the whitespace on my monitor earlier today. There's a solid 9 inches of whitespace to the left of the content, another 8.5 inches of whitespace on the right, and measly 6 inches of actual content in the middle. The content quite literally takes up less than a third of my browser window. That's on a 27" 3840x2160 monitor using 100% OS-level scaling and 100% browser scaling. It's not much better at 125% OS-level scaling. People have also brought up comparisons to other sites using similar design elements, but I checked a lot of the ones mentioned by others, and even those other sites have their UI elements stretch out to fill the entire window even if article content does not. In that regard, Vector 2022 doesn't even follow the design examples of the sites other people are referencing. Trynn (talk) 01:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to Wikipedia Trynn! I believe you have an individual preference. Your username, bell and notifications are above the white space, while my username, bell and notifications are all above the text and the whitespace begins at the Watchlist. Just ask for help at the talk page. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support On a wide desktop monitor the amount of whitespace is baffling and the exact opposite of what I'd expect a website to do with available "real estate". Cpl Syx ^[talk] 23:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support: I specifically made an account again for this, having lost my old login somewhere along switching emails, because this is the worst design 'improvement' I've seen in quite a few years. It is unpleasant to be unable to see where the sidebar ends and the page starts, and the overwhelming whiteness of the design made pages more difficult to read. It's very much a mobile-centric design on a website I only ever use on desktop, and I'm pretty sure there's already a mobile version. Heavily indented sections, like this page for example, are a nightmare to parse without a clear border like the old design. The non-persistence of having to click on a button to open the menu on the side with every single page change if not logged in is frustrating too. No longer having an easy overview of languages on the left (without having to click on it, again) is a negative too. I personally also hate the move table of contents, specifically how it remains in sight while you scroll, though I can see why some would like it. SiderealMask (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support: The only way I've found to disable this new UI is a Chrome extension (to add "useskin=vector" to all pages) and that is frankly ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.26.93 (talk) 23:04, January 22, 2023 (UTC)
Strong Support. The community rejected this before, and the idea that it's being foisted upon us anyway is outrageous. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 04:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for a multitude of reasons. I rarely edit these days and as such rarely log in, but this new skin is so terrible that I have to log into to even do so much as to browse the site effectively.
1) Whitespace-heavy skin designs work for mobile users because it can be difficult to click on the correct links when there are too many in close proximity. But for desktop users the added whitespace just creates unnecessary scrolling.
2) The new design clashes visually with established templates, the standard editing interface, and the like: any change to the default skin should consider not just what the new skin looks like in a vacuum, but also how it meshes with the current content of the website. And that was clearly not considered at all in the design of this skin.
3) When hiding the table of contents there appears to be no way to get it back short of refreshing the page, at least that I can find. This is a horrible design choice for what should be obvious reasons, and the fact that the skin was rolled out this way speaks volumes about how it wasn't ready for deployment.
4) When I use the search box, then move my mouse cursor, and then type something in, I get unexpected behavior: instead of searching for exactly what I typed in, I instead search for the page in the search results that my mouse cursor happened to be hovering over. This is clearly not what the majority of people typing a term in the search box would expect or intend to do, and again the fact that the skin was rolled out with this "feature" speaks to its unsuitability for use.
I could talk about other issues as well, but most of what I would say has already been addressed above. Suffice to say, this skin clearly needs more work before becoming the default. That's not to say that there aren't positive aspects to the new skin: the more prominent search bar is a welcome change, as are the page previews that occur during a search. But the issues presented above are too great to make up for these small improvements. ST11 (t • c) 04:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Holy crap, you're right about hiding the contents. How did I not realize this until now... and why did the WMF think this was acceptable to deploy onto a top-20 website? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hang on, I figured it out... it's the !!! button that shows up next to the article title. But once again, the skin relies on hieroglyphics to communicate important features, when text would've made much more sense. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, I think it's a fairly common icon with a fairly common use. I would prefer if it gave a tooltip when you hover over it, though. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 04:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support due to the following problems with Vector 2022 that the WMF has showed no signs of interest in fixing:
- Excessive whitespace at the top — The "Log In" button is hidden behind a … button, which makes things more inconvenient than they were before for no clear reason. I mean, look at the official screenshot — there's plenty of space to make the login button be one click away.
- Excessive whitespace in the contents sidebar. Like, they could easily cut the CSS margins on the contents by half and it would result in less unnecessary scrolling.
- The hamburger menu. You can't say with a straight face that this is a desktop-first redesign then proceed to hide content behind a ≡ button by default. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, one more thing: I've tried to read pages in the new skin a couple times and it bugged me that there's no way to expand all the options in the contents at once. So now I think we should just put the table of contents where it was before.

If that and the first two things in my original comment got fixed, I might move to neutral. The hamburger menu is probably just a Me Problem and I'm willing to compromise on that.

Also if this RfC gets an incorrect close or the WMF otherwise defies the consensus here, we should at least come to a community consensus on a new name for this skin, because as others have said, it's a more substantial change from Vector than MonoBook->Vector was. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 05:44, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per pythoncoder. starship .paint (exalt) 06:41, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: As an avid reader and occasional editor and author with many interests, I don't like that many important links are hidden by the new skin, in particular the login field. What once was a single-click process, needs two clicks and a pull now. It's a small thing, but it is inconvenient nevertheless. I also don't like the extent of the white space, and most importantly (as missing information is often found in other versions), I miss the one-click language links. Hence I find that the previous default skin was much better, but Monobook is still superior to that since all operational controls are on the same side of the screen. But I also see that the new skin may have some advantages for users of mobile devices, restricted as they are in screen size. Then again, as a desktop user I find these characteristics detrimental, and I'd rather have all operation controls visible from the start. Hence I propose a compromise: Let the browser detect the operating system. If it is a mobile one, tell it to display the new skin (or another that is geared towards mini-screens). If it is a desktop one, use something like Monobook, or another of the classic skins, with all bells and whistles on. Don't just cater for one side. --Schlosser67 (talk) 07:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's already a mobile skin and its already automatically shown on mobile operating systems. Vector 2022 was designed for desktops. – Joe (talk) 08:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Was it really meant for desktops? It does not look the part. And here I thought the developers wanted to help users with small screens, which I could have understood. That would mean that the new skin is not good for anything. Pity about the work people have wasted on it, their time would have been better spent on content than on appearance. Hence, upgrade to strong support. --Schlosser67 (talk) 11:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: the new Vector skin has some good points but the iconographic "mystery meat navigation" at the top suffers from some serious usability deficiencies that make it harder to use and discriminate against users with certain disabilities. These issues are easily rectified but the interface development don't seem to be interested in taking user feedback into account. Cnbrb (talk) 10:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: I do not think this move adheres to the RfC close. Whitespace width is still an issue with menus and any page with tables/images; others have raised that IPs can't keep their preference [in fact, I just tested it and I can't find the toggle at all as an IP]; sticky header and menu behavior is confusing and buggy [on a non-16:9 desktop window the sidebar jolts the entire article down instead of sideways, on my tablet talk pages are unreadable thanks to buggy table of contents menus]). These and similar issues were raised in the RfC which was closed with a huge "if" regarding the resolution of these issues, and while I see some improvements in the article body width, it's a huge stretch to say that the community's concerns were all satisfactorily handled, as this entire page should explain. While I do not think Vector legacy is perfect and I would welcome a solid update, this particular update, by consensus of the last RfC, is not it. Blue Edits (talk) 11:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: This skin is garbage, it's got more blank white space than a ream of fresh copy paper. It sucks ass. Get rid of it, the people who introduced it and the people who designed this monstrosity. It's extremely clear to me that the the full impact of this change was hidden from the wider community in order to force it through regardless of many of the concerns listed above that were advised before. The change wasn't even close to a clear consensus, but it was forced through on the community, the backlash is massive. It's quite clear that it should be immediately reverted. Macktheknifeau (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as per all the above. For those who say it is a resistance to change, it is not, but is a resistance to idiocracy.Clntkee (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: A few days ago, I went to look up something on Wikipedia, only to find that its design had, shall we say, uglified. I don't know who complained about the old design, which had nothing wrong with it, but they are definitely in a very small minority. I'm glad to see that many agree with me, and I ask that Wikipedia go back to the old design. 98.20.129.84 (talk) 12:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As pointed out by some people above, this design has an aesthetically bad look — too much white space, which can be perceived as trying to unify mobile and desktop designs. Secondly, as per all the above, WMF completely ignored community consensus and immediately implemented the change (which kind of feels like a throwback to WP:FRAM). Therefore I support a rollback to the old design. Summer ^talk 12:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I rarely see an instance where a big websites changes a classic design and it goes down well with the community. It usually feels like trying to fix what's not broken, and something no one asked for. Changing everyone's UI (rather than just giving them an extra option) is rather presumptuous. Please let this be a lesson for future redesigns to consult the community first, or to just add it to the existing list of skins without changing the default. — Czello 15:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The legacy Vector looks simpler and more elegant, the Vector 2022 looks clunkier. I do like the table of contents to "follow" the reading, but the simpler and wider legacy Vector is better for me. The fact that IP editors can't change that is another problem. A quick fix to this matter is to allow changes to all users - with account or without account. Another important point is that this change is forced on us, and I would never support such changes, no matter how "benevolent" it might be. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 15:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support and in strong terms at that. The redesign attempts to fix what isn't broken. The whitespace and the squeezing of text are just two reasons out of many. For example, I formatted my userpage for the 2010 skin, and because the text has been pushed into the middle the layout has suffered as a result. That to me is enough of a reason. I also think removing section numbering is a huge error, and pushing it into the side and making it so you cannot see all of it at once makes it measurably worse. The only positive thing I could say about it is widening the searchbar along the top. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The single worst site-wide change I've seen during my 17 years here. The amount of white space this creates is beyond ridiculous. And most of the other changes are clearly retrograde also. mgiganteus1 (talk) 18:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Not sure if I'm doing this correctly, as I made an account to restore my ability to use the old wikipedia style so I'm new to this whole thing. SanJacintoPeak (talk) 18:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, per above. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support rolling back to 2010, for as long as IPs are unable to change skins without signing up and because of the badgering as Fram has pointed out. Decreasing the page width so that skimming eyes on widescreen monitors don't have to travel too far is about the only noticable improvement over the old skin, but that can be easily retrofitted for v2010. Everything else, including the hamburger hell UI, is tedious for desktop browsing and not well supported by older web browsers (one of the major benefits of Wikipedia over other JS/complex-CSS-heavy sites: you could still comfortably read articles on "obsolete" hardware without much lag or broken rendering). DigitalIceAge (talk) 19:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I immediately reverted to Vector 2010 because I hated the new skin so much. I don't like guessing at what a symbol means and I like being able to click on plaintext that says Contributions and Watchlist. Abzeronow (talk) 19:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support As mostly a reader and not an editor I was pretty surprised (not in a good way) by the new look. I was looking into wether there was a CSS error on my end but noticed it as deliberate. Even after a period of trying to have the new look grow on me I just don't understand the reasoning for the change. A simple shrink expand button for Vector 2010 would have been much better. Without an easy way for logged out users to opt out I would like to see this change rolled back on all wikis. Or leave the decision to the admins of every language. Real Joe Cool (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible Support 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) 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 ...which are far from unfamiliar, by now) The new design makes the desktop and mobile designs closer ...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 (talk) 21:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I browse Wikipedia on both desktop and mobile, but I only use desktop to contribute, because it is impossible to do serious editing on the mobile version; I use the mobile version only for superficial and quick reading and information-search. Æo (talk) 21:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...and mobile is clearly worse, for superficial and quick reading and information-search, as well, other than specifically on a smartphone. (due to the many and severe limitations, of smartphones) 155.4.221.27 (talk) 14:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support (edit conflict) As someone who prefers Vector 2022, the backlash is very clear and features that many editors & readers are concerned with should be addressed and fixed as necessary (e.g. random white spaces) before rolling out V22 again. Making the skin optional is also another option. --Harobouri • 🎢 • 🏗️ (he/him) 21:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support for all the reasons stated above. The amount of blank space it's just ridiculous to me. Tintero21 (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per many above. While updating the look of many websites is now popular and WMF acted in good faith, setting Vector 2022 as default skin is likely a mistake. The default skin should be the one most familiar and habitual, with Vector 2022 being optional. Brandmeister^talk 23:36, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: this existential change has not been communicated globally, and the en-WP affects each and all language versions and projects (commons etc). Was there even a banner to notify people this was coming up? I can only imagine the issue was pinned in the basement admin bathroom's talk page, just Guide-to-the-Galaxy-style. Well, I have been actively avoiding the fr-WP and the pt-WP for years already, because they had this skin activated for everyone and I had no clue on how to switch it back. Clicking on a fr-interwiki link meant I had to spend extra time to find my way back to the other languages. I don't care at all about all the other horrible design choices of the new design (like rendering half my screen totally empty, and using giant fonts, making featured articles or lists unreadable) ... no, I can tweak that. But what I desperately Need: Interwiki Links, and to have them readily accessible at first glance. These *#ß%É designers HID THEM! Behind a button! You have to endlessly navigate because they are not even sorted by language code anymore but by popularity or whatever!
Seriously, the sidebar interwiki-links are the most important feature of a multi-language global encyclopedia, and like it or not, the en-WP is the hub connecting all languages. Or... it was. Now, users are actively discouraged of finding information in other languages, thanks to badly designed menus. I know what I'm talking: the French and Portuguese wikis have moved the interwiki-button around several times, and I essentially stopped checking there for info. This has become a SHELL GAME. If accessible interwiki links don't get re-introduced, then goodbye multi-language encyclopaedia. --Enyavar (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Following on the December 2022 banners, yet another disconnect between editors and WMF, with readers caught in the crossfire. While I personally like the skin, the WMF pushed ahead even with significant improvements yet to arrive. Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 03:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is a Windows 8-level miscalculation. While this skin does make the desktop and mobile versions more similar, 155.4 raises good points about whether that's something we should want in the first place. What works on a smartphone screen or tablet is not necessarily what will work best on a PC. The new layout is not just an eyesore, it hampers desktop functionality.LM2000 (talk) 04:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very Passionate Support. Not to suggest that someone was supposed to inform me of this, but I feel like I really missed the boat in opposing this format ever being rolled out. It's a nightmare to navigate and looks like something out of the 90s. I think the biggest issue here though is the fact that non-member readers (who I'd have to imagine make the vast majority of this site's readers) were woefully underconsidered, especially given they more or less have no choice to use this new format (and even if they make accounts may not be aware of the appearance setting or what it means). I appreciate those who are working to improve this site, but we need to have the whole format sent back to the drawing board. DarkSide830 (talk) 07:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support I had been using Vector 2022 since last year. The immediate first look for me was that it compressed a large quantity of text, especially for users with smaller monitors and resolutions. This unnecessary compression leaves issues for editing, especially in tables and lists due to how these tables present differently. With this implementation, many tables are now shown in an awkward manner, where text is compressed and elongated. The intention of this design is not at fault, but the lack of consideration of how it impacts different users (on the technical side) is what that makes this change controversial. gavre (al. PenangLion) (talk) 07:55, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yet another desktop redesign trying to make it look like a mobile version even though a mobile version already exists. Vector 2022 is confusing, buggy, and has way too much wasted space. Greyhound 84 (talk) 08:06, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support rollback. This vector looks unready. I think it was a mistake to make it default while in experimental phase. More thoughts on improving first, before deployment. Sarri.greek (talk) 08:09, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support rollback because the redesign fails at making Wikipedia easier to use than the previous skin. In addition, this RfC needs to be shared more widely because I'd wager most editors still haven't seen that they can comment on this. Perhaps WMF should do an editor poll or vote instead of a RfC most people won't see.--SouthernNights (talk) 13:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as the new version is completely unfriendly and makes usability difficult. Vector 2010 was a natural, simple successor to Monobook. This one wasn't to Vector 2010. Bedivere (talk) 14:30, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think the foundation have their approach entirely backward. They've made the change and are waiting to see how many people hate it enough to revert back to the previous skin; this is an incredibly low bar for classing the change as a 'good idea.' I propose that they revert the default to the previous design, advertise the new skin, and measure what proportion of people like it enough to change to the 'new' skin voluntarily JeffUK 13:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@JeffUK: Notice that this Question #2 is specifically about the width problem. Was your vote/comment intended for the general RfC (above) about the restoration of Vector 2010 as the default interface? Æo (talk) 14:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ack, it was. I blame the new layout! Thanks. JeffUK 15:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment moved to the correct subsection.--Æo (talk) 15:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @JeffUK, thanks for taking the time to join this discussion. I hope it isn't inappropriate of me, as a staff member, to try and clarify one point here. We've been developing the skin with the help of many volunteers over the past 3 years, and have had several large Wikipedias (French, Hebrew, Persian, and others) as pilot partners. The opt-out rates we've seen on those pilot wikis have been extremely low. So, in many ways, we did exactly what you're recommending. Only once we were confident in the skin (due to acceptance among pilot wikis, and data) did we bring it to English. However, of course, the gradual developments on the pilot wikis was a big difference to the switchover we did on English. I wonder if we had introduced parts of the skin gradually, if that would have been easier on editors (as it seems to have been on the other wikis). Cheers, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The new skin is a bug. It's a mobile layout moved mindlessly to the desktop. Vector 2022 does not use the space offered by large screens, hides interface elements and extends the time to access them by requiring additional clicks and mouse movements. The functional blocks of the page are not distinguished in any way, merging with each other. The new table of contents is collapsed by default, making it difficult to keep track of the content, and its width does not allow for comfortable placement of long titles. If someone wants to use the mobile view, they can always do so. If someone does not want to, he should not be forced to do so by authoritative decisions.The new skin is an example of all the evils of current design fashion. It puts a "modern", "clean" mobile-like look above usability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freja Draco (talk • contribs) 15:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~ weak support with an asterisk: I appreciate some of the changes, ~~but overall I feel it is worse~~. Especially please bring back the original Table of Contents (TOC) design (placed below the lead section). Having an additional copy of the TOC that is constantly visible on the left side of the page is fine as an extra feature, but not replacement of the long-standing design. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 15:46, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Al83tito: I agree that the ToC is one of the foremost problems (see #Bring back the TOC), together with the limited width and the hidden toolbar, and I also agree that some other changes are good, especially the the new colour palette and the new horizontal Wikipedia/other WMF project logo. Æo (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support definitely. But also improve the old and the new skin. Steue (talk) 15:59, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support If any skin should be picked as a new default, it should be Timeless. V22 doesn't feel very thought out or even production-ready. MaterialWorks _(talk) 16:56, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. If any other skin is picked, it should be Timeless. Unfortunately, we'll probably never get any consensus for that. ‍ ‍ Helloheart ‍ ‍ 03:14, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I've been happily using Vector 2022 for several months and assumed that a finished version had been developed and rolled out. Apparently I was wrong: as of today a number of new, ugly and/or broken features have been introduced. Clearly an approach of "roll out first, finish the design later" has been chosen, rather than one that would indicate a modicum of professionalism or respect for readers or editors. This isn't sustainable and it harms the work we're trying to do. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:19, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Arms & Hearts, thanks for giving Vector 2022 a chance, and I'm sorry to hear that we've let you down recently. We're working hard to fix bugs, and make improvements to the skin. If you could elaborate on which features broke for you, and how they affected your workflows, that would be much appreciated. Thanks, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, AHollender, for the belated reply. The issues I recall experiencing on 24 January included extraneous whitespace at the tops of articles and icons appearing behind text in the right sidebar (the RSS icon, now apparently gone, and possibly also the "add interlanguage links" pencil). These seem to have been rectified but the two-sidebar version still looks to me like a work in progress and, for editing purposes, is much clunkier than both Vector 2010 and the earlier Vector 2022. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't have been changed, to begin with it. PS - Why are editors putting 'Support/Oppose' etc, in their posts? The survey already has 'support/oppose' sub-sections. GoodDay (talk) 17:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps to make their thoughts clearer, or because it's common practice, or because the posts here were not initially split between supports and opposes. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 17:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Excessive amounts of blank space, bad readability, and other features pointed out above. Avilich (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support — The new design is just plain bad. I have seen many bad designs of websites but this is the first one that made me think there was something wrong with my browser. I don't oppose all change as a kneejerk thing and would be happy to see other options explored, but Vector 2020 is bad. Stratpod (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
that’s vector 2022 Dronebogus (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. I get formatting errors on most pages (text lower down is bolded) and the new font colors are more difficult to see. I'm surprised actually that they meet the minimum contrast ratio specified by Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. DrKay (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have actually been getting similar glitches even after I switched back to Vector 2010. Something global must have changed that is incompatible with the old skin, and it makes me concerned that 2010 may become difficult to technically support in the future. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 20:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rolling back to Vector 2010 is actually a bad idea, because obviously the only reasonable thing to do is roll back to Monobook, but since that isn't going to happen, back to Vector 2010 is the lesser evil. JBW (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another thought. I see that many comments object to imposing a mobile-like interface on desktop users, but seem to take it for granted that the mobile interface is fine for mobile users. Not so. For reading on a mobile device, the best thing to do by a long way is to select "Desktop", and avoid the well-intentioned but misconceived "mobile" interface. If you do that, Vector2010 is perfectly usable, and Mononbook absolutely fine. For editing on a mobile device, the same applies, except for "the best thing to do" substitute "the only reasonable thing to do". The mobile interface is appallingly badly designed for mobile devices, quite apart from the fact that it's even worse on a computer screen. JBW (talk) 20:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@JBW, perhaps V10 works well on your mobile device, but it was even worse than the mobile interface (MobileFrontend) for me. The sidebar covered half the screen. That's the main reason I've been using V22 for around a year. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:24, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl: Well, actually I do almost all my editing on Monobook, and use Vector only occasionally, when I am editing from an alternative account for which I haven't bothered to change the settings, so perhaps the best I can say is that it's usable for occasional use like that. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I had more experience of it. JBW (talk) 22:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support So, I'm not an editor. I'm a reader. And I don't read Wikipedia for the articles. I read it for the discussions and I have been reading it for the discussions since the 2007.
- The method by which Vector 22 was shoved down the throat of the community makes it evident that WMF does not understand how to work with a grassroots, volunteer-driven project such as Wikipedia. The way to have gone about it was to run a contest for a new design created by members of the community, submitting Vector 2022 as one viable option out of say, five. This would have made the community at least feel enfranchised and shown that WMF is willing to trust the volunteers who create and maintain enwp to understand how the project should be presented visually to the public. Instead, WMF bestowed it upon the community as an edict from on high, granting to the community only small adjustments rather than the ability to say "no, thanks, we're fine without this inaccurate depiction of our work."
- The new design makes what should be a reliable and trustworthy archive of knowledge look like an inflated bimbo with too much makeup. It's unnecessary and undermines the respectability of the entire enterprise. Wikipedia's look should be a little stodgy. It should be dense. Vector 22 would belong just fine on Fandom but it does not belong on enwp.
- A site does not add a ton of whitespace to their UI if they are not intending to fill that whitespace with ads. I am 100% expecting that WMF will cram their cash cow full of banner ads within the next 12 months. That is how low the level of trust has sunk, and I fully expect WMF is unaware of the extreme level of resentment and mistrust since they're all a bunch of corporate MBAs with no understanding of why an editor or reader buys into the Wikipedia mission and concept.
- On my phone in desktop mode (the only viable mode) my options are either a) let a page take 30 seconds to load before the JS loads so I can hide the sidebar and get more than 4 columns of text on the screen, or b) disable JS entirely, which means I cannot hide the sidebar at all. There has to be a CSS-only method of hiding the sidebar, and until that is implemented at the very least the design should be rolled back. I use Firefox for Android. I can't install addons that let me force-redirect. I'm never going to register since I'm just a reader. Let me set my skin of choice so I can actually read. 108.250.219.137 (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey 108.250.219.137, thanks for taking the time to join the discussion and share your thoughts. I think you bring up some interesting questions, which I'd like to respond to.
- Vector 2022 is largely inspired by community-developed features (such as the collapsible sidebar on Korean Wikipedia, the sticky header on Hebrew Wikipedia, Wikipedia.rehash, etc.), as well as Timeless, and Winter (the skin-that-almost-was). We aimed to take the best ideas that have been developed on local Wikis, work in some additional feature development (such as the new table of contents), and bring it all together into a cohesive interface. We've been actively working with over volunteers for the past 3 years. We've been grateful to have collaborated with over 2,000 volunteers so far on the development of Vector 2022. Seeing how caught off guard so many people are, I obviously feel like we let a huge number of people down on the communications front. I know it's probably hard to believe, but we tried pretty hard — multiple posts in the Village Pump, running banners, outreach on Discord, etc. — to include everyone in the process. I am sorry we didn't do better in this regard.
- I understand where you're coming from regarding wanting the interface to be "stodgy" and "dense". I grew up with Vector and am very accustomed to it. To a certain degree it probably even defined my sense of what a reliable source of information should look like. However with Vector 2022 we're thinking about people all over the world, of all ages, who have a wide variety of different aesthetic associations. Things that look credible to us, look dated and untrustworthy to others.
- As the lead designer on the project I can definitively say the only reason there is so much whitespace is because we limited the line-length of the text to comply with WCAG standards, and existing research. There is no plan to put ads of any kind on Wikipedia. Also to note, we don't see white/empty space as a problem in and of itself.
- Since our team also works on the mobile website, I'm curious to better understand why as a reader you find desktop mode on mobile preferable? If you're willing to elaborate that would be awesome.
I hope that information is helpful, and look forward to continuing the conversation. Cheers, AHollender (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@AHollender (WMF): IP 108's comment about using the phone in desktop mode resonated with me, because that is what I do too. On the phone, one of the first things I do is to scroll to the bottom-most line (which is hard when pages are long) and seek out the "Desktop" link. I browse by Categories and I find them only when the UI is switched to desktop mode. I then scroll again to the bottom of the page and zoom in the Categories box, to continue. I don't know if there is a simpler way of getting to the categories in mobile mode, and maybe I have been using it the wrong way all the time. I'm never logged-in on the mobile though. Jay 💬 12:57, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just chime in as well that I regularly use mobile in desktop mode. I wonder if there are usage statistics on how often that happens vs. people using desktop in mobile mode. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jay, you can see categories in mobile, but it requires an account. It's under advanced mibile options (I think). — Qwerfjkl talk 00:12, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is odd. What has categories got to do with being logged in? I certainly don't want to log in for browsing some content on the mobile. On the desktop, I'm logged in 100% of the time though. Jay 💬 09:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another good example of a breaking change that should have not gotten out of review. The notion that site features are only for logged in users is community hostile. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:53, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jay, sorry, I got confused. Disregard that last comment.
@TheMissingMuse, again, what is the breaking change you're referring to? — Qwerfjkl talk 19:07, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: My support is primarily based on the accessibility issues being unresolved. This should have been a point of focus when implementing a new redesign. Hey man im josh (talk)
Support: There was insufficient discussion; a coupon of hundred divisively split editors is not a sufficient community discussion for something that affects thousands of editors, especially when it invalidates their editorial choices made over the past decade. Because the placement of the TOC and having all its levels visible has effects on image placement, infobox placement, and decisions about the outline of the article's headers and subheaders. Not having all subheaders available by default makes the TOC far less useful, no matter what anyone claims, because one cannot see at a glance what topics are covered. oknazevad (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support +1 for accessibility!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:8202:fbc0:312e:f28:84b5:626 (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 21:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Doesn't seem to be ready. Nigej (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - I find myself clicking twice to go to many pages where I only had to click once previously. That alone makes navigating on the skin less productive, and more annoying. Not to mention the weird look and spacing. Gizza (talk • voy) 00:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Support The pet projects of some insider clique shouldn't override general consensus. If Vector2020 is so great, make it an option people can enable, and let us retain the older version that actually used the screen space of a desktop monitor. Forcing readers to make an extra click to access the menu? Just why? LeperColony (talk) 01:47, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Been around for years, mostly edit Gnomishly, but occasionally create an article when I see the opportunity/have the time. Tend to stay out of RFCs and voting etc because I don't consider myself experienced enough to get involved. Had no idea this change was forthcoming, tried it, thought it looked hideous. Now I see there was no consensus?! Nah, change it back. Muchclag (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support the new skin is not an improvement. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 02:25, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I heard of the previous RFC. The first thing I did when it changed was to discovered where the skins were in preferences and roll back the change. I am glad I am not an IP user. BeckyAnne (talk) 02:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support The new theme is mobile styling for desktop, and as such is a bad UX by definition. I've been editing on wikipedia for 15 years, much of it logged out. Now I need to be logged in to even *use* the site. I do think improvements could be made to the previous style, but it is a practical style that serves the public well. There was no need to create such a radical redesign. I thought that the ToC had been *eliminated* until I finally changed the theme for my logged in usage. I saw that the redesign broke the sw.wikipedia as well. Has anyone done a broader survey of which other locales have been broken? TheMissingMuse (talk) 03:50, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG SUPPORT this is a hard fail. Accept defeat and revert. Thanks. LeperColony (talk) 04:07, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support new skin is not ready, and as many have pointed out, there are a lot of issues that make it less usable than the previous one. Also, the rollout was clearly done without support from the community --Ita140188 (talk) 08:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
STRONG SUPPORT Rollback to Vector 2010 skin, immediately. It is clean, text-based, no web gimmicks, and fully functional. This is key to the excellent cross-platform compatibilty of Wikipedia. The new skin's pop-ups, its vague, ambiguous, subjective icons (in place of explicit words), and other gimmickry, strip Wikipedia of its essential clarity, simplicity, reliability and convenience. For those infatuated with "new" for the sake of "new", offer an additional menu item (or, if need be, an icon), which allows selection of the newer (or an older) skin. But the new skin should NOT be forced on all users by default. The arrogance of such a contemptuous attitude is indefensible, and a blatant repudiation of WP:Consensus. ~ Penlite (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. While the ability to select Vector 2010 as my default display preference rendered the implementation of the new Vector 2022 to merely a one-time annoyance to me, I was not prepared for the number of (non-editor) Wikipedia users who have approached me at school to ask me how they too could restore their display layout as well. This led to many questions as to why the change was made on English Wikipedia (despite an RfC with no consensus to support), the difference between the WMF and en:wp, and why IP users needed to make an account just to "fix the display problem". It is not just editors, but general readers that are not happy with this change. Loopy30 (talk) 13:04, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I need more time to evaluate Vector 2022, for now, I will edit on it to see how it works vs the legacy version. My general suggestion is to have all the tools except for the tools actually needed for editing to the left, while the tools for editing text should stay where they were, on the top, and the users should have freedom to adjust the width (from default LaTeX style to full-screen) and the skin they way they want. It would also make some sense to have at least some shades of gray and possibly colours to highlight the editing/ToC/tools/special links areas (where did these disappear?) from the text itself. So, there is much room for improvement but it's not awful and I don't think the changes should be hard to implement
My main issue is with the forcing it on unlogged users, not advertising the discussion itself, deciding the discussion against the established rules for assessing consensus and not actually implementing feedback before unrolling the design. This shoving down the throat is unacceptable. There is a reason Wikipedia, for most things, relies on consensus to implement changes. This may lead to objectively suboptimal results but at least we know what we choose and bear full responsibility for it. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I agree with many of the above that the new skin is not ready for implementation. I don't think that the layout and many of the design choices (menus hidden behind buttons, poor use of whitespace, etc) are conducive to reading and editing, despite perhaps being more elegant design. Function should be more important than style. I also don't appreciate the rollout without more consultation. I'm also unhappy with the lack of options made available for logged out editors, besides tech-y hacks there are no real options. Ultimately, this needs a lot more work and a lot more community guidance before it's ready to be forced upon us. Bestagon ⬡ 15:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support — I felt that the over emphasis of the table of contents, as a sticky menu of the page, is a waste of space and a visual annoyance, especially on tablets – where screen sizes may not be that big, but often uses a desktop sized viewport, making it exceptionally crowded. In my opinion, a more "welcoming" default interface, should be the one that fits small screens on desktop viewport sizes better, not the other way round. Another thing is, the all-round reduction in colour contrasts in the overall interface, makes it harder to focus. All in all, I am not against rethinking of how the default Wiki experience should be, but Vector 2022 feels like a regression, unfortunately. Vincentneo (talk) 15:35, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I do not like Vector 2022 for a myriad of reasons. There is too much unused space, and it looks bland as a result. I personally find it more difficult to read Wikipedia in Vector 2022 than Vector 2010. L'Mainerque (talk • contribs) 17:19, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The new design is difficult to read. I have had to log into my Wikipedia on every possible device I have, so that I can actually read articles. I have also had to tell friends and family how to make an account and revert the changes, just because they complained that they had difficulty reading with the new design. NorseNorman (talk) 17:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, not that I expect it to change anything. The development has been a mess and it has created a lot of mess for everyone and anyone who's written and/or maintains a MediaWiki skin, like myself. The development process and rollout was flawed from the get-go and it was obvious to anyone who's been around a bit longer than a year or two that this thing would be deployed, no matter what; yet at the same time the WMF adamantly opposes to certain requests of the similar style that originate from within the community, because they didn't think of it.
Additionally, the fixed ToC is distracting, as is the excessive whitespace and the narrowing of the content area is just one of the most bizarre design decisions I've come across in a while.
In its defense, one can say that at least Vector 2022 tries to be responsive...but this was also already partially implemented by community members long before the so-called "Desktop Improvements"; the WMF had no interest in it at the time so the feature was hidden behind an off-by-default configuration variable, which they could later on axe saying that "nobody was using it".
The "vote" that took place on the English Wikipedia...I think there might be a more descriptive word to describe a process where the outcome is already known prior to the voting taking place. But what would I know, it's not like I've been around and contributing to the MediaWiki software since 2008 with a strong focus on skins and skinning. --Jack Phoenix _(Contact) 20:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. New skin sucks. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:06, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support rollback to Vector 2010. Structure – such as the table of contents – makes sense at the top, where there is space to show sections and subsections. Unstructured knowledge is not knowledge. IP Editors need to have the convenience in easy finding of tools and should not have to guess, for example, that the three-horizontal-lines ("hamburger") icon needs to be clicked on to get extra tools. Non-logged editors should not be given the impression that Wikipedia is Tik-tok. The review of knowledge should be transparent and the structure and tools should be displayed, not hidden by default. Moreover, WMF should not have imposed this decision against community consensus. Boud (talk) 21:12, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. The fact that so many single issue accounts (including myself) are being made specifically to avoid this "feature" should say more than anything I can put here. SingleIssueMotor 21:53, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. (Full disclosure: I'm a long-gone user who dusted the cobwebs off the old account to vote on this.) The mobile version of Wikipedia should, in terms of functionality, be as close to a 1:1 match of the desktop version as possible. It can be that close but it's been years and it's still miles away. It's clear that this redesign is an effort to solve that problem not by doing what needs to be done on the mobile version but by making the desktop version more mobile-friendly. Predictably, and hilariously, the result is a skin that makes the desktop version less functional. If all the work put into creating Vector 2022 had instead been done improving the mobile experience, none of this would have been necessary. The mobile version remains far from its potential and all (or almost all) redesign resources on Wikipedia ought to be directed there. CityOfSilver 22:24, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For all I know the mobile version is still mineurva. v22 has also been designed specifically for desktop with feedback conducted for all desktop users so I've always struggled to see the opinion that the skin was designed for mobile. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, Vector 2022 does have some of the hallmarks of mobile web design. Squishing everything in the middle, using icons only instead of text sometimes, and hiding frequently used links that have been mentioned here ad nauseum in menus so that it looks "cleaner" instead of being easily accessible. Two of my friends that are tech-savvy instantly identified this as mobile first web design, and they're not the only ones in my friend circles that have said this. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 23:41, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed-width has been across the desktop web (at least news sites) for years and hiding stuff in dropdowns with icons are just simple decluttering. I agree that the logged out hiding is too much but how is this all mobile oriented? Aaron Liu (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What complaint did this sort of "decluttering" address and if it was really a problem, why did it take 12 years to solve? And for that matter, why does V22 work (arguably/slightly) better in a mobile browser than the actual mobile version of this site? CityOfSilver 02:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
why did it take 12 years to solve Winter, I guess. work...better in mobile than actual mobile On a phone, I don't think that's true. On table, well, ignoring the obvious editor improvements (since this is separate from the skin and people had been using the desktop skin on mobile to edit for years), the only improvements I see that can be seen as designed for mobile is just the iconifying, which I don't have much of a gripe with on desktop either. In fact with the pagetools rollout there are content flashes and crashes on way too small screens including tablets which might actually make v10 or mineurva more desirable on mobile. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:33, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hiding elements in dropdown menus makes sense on a mobile devices with a small screen. Doing the same on a PC with a large screen doesn't make sense, it only wastes available space, makes accessing interface elements more difficult ant increases the time it takes. That's why Vector2022 is a typical example of mobile design. Freja Draco (talk) 13:23, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. The new design really sucks and I was forced to create an account just to revert back to Vector 2010. Scourge of Arceus (talk) 06:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vector 2010 isn't perfect, but it's better than the new skin. Sooo much white space, ugh. -- Ned Scott 07:28, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vector 2022 causes styles in Vector 2010 to not be portayed correctly squishing content in tables creating an uneven not clean look. The TOC on the side is unnessecery and distracting, plus when hidden you have to hunt for the button to find it again. Articles with an infobox now look out of proportion to the text in the article. Overall it is not a helpful look for users to use especially new people unfamiliar with the icons. Paulpat99 (talk) 09:25, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support There are quite some problems with Vector22, tho I believe they are fixable (with a lot of effort). What isn't fixable is the way this discussion is handled, specifically the way opposing voices are brushed off, criticism is ignored, or dismissed, or even declared invalid, or worse (I have seen suggestions that this change is beyond criticism, that WMF has decided, and we have to take it). I think it is very important for the Wikipedia community for this change to be rolled back, and a thorough review into how this failed so badly (not as a design, that is a different thing to be discussed, but as an exercise in interacting with the community) is started. This is not primarily an issue about design, this is an issue about WP:CON and WP:COMMUNITY and WP:RETENTION. --Lommes (talk) 10:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support because this has been an enormous waste of community resource. See WP:OWB#19. The Web team could have heeded the advice of the closers of the previous RfC and not fed the perception that WMF stands in the way of the community, yet it chose to shoot itself in the foot. This is a loss for both. Nardog (talk) 10:36, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support As an IP address user of Wikipedia, when this change was rolled out I honestly thought it was a bug. It seemed like I was being accidentally served a mobile version of the site, and I only found out that it was intentional when I Googled how to fix it. I think that many IP address users will have poor impressions of Wikipedia, thinking that this new design is a bug rather than a feature. 173.219.167.170 (talk) 11:04, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I’ve given it the week I was asked to give. While the new skin may be better for people who want to read an article right through its far worse for looking for things within an article simply due to there being less on screen. The new table of contents also manages to be worse for this. Being crushed along the left side it doesn’t cope well with longer section headings and has to put them on multiple lines. It also tends to trail off the end of the page if there are large numbers of section headings. It also sacrifices the white-space which allowed the article lead to be obviously split off from the rest of the article. It also tend to be actively misleading since it will highlight the second to last or even third from last section when scrolled down to the end. Collapsing the sub sections is also a mistake because again it makes things hard to find (consider the collapse of types and usage on Traction_engine). The tools section is also bad since at 1080p you are left with the choice of crushing text even narrower or hiding things behind a drop-down (so much for the fixed width arguments). Also being inconsistent being logged in and logged out creates communication issues. Requiring an extra click to find contributions is also a poor design choice as is replacing the word “watchlist” with a symbol people have to guess at. Wikipedia is a word based project. We can use them. Creating a design with massive amounts of unused space and then not using it seems an odd design choice. Making the logo smaller is going to create further problems with are visual identity with people mistaking non Wikimedia mediawiki installs for wikipedia.©Geni (talk) 22:21, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Super-Duper Strongest Support This layout is one of the most atrocious layouts I have ever seen in my life. It makes the encyclopedia look amateurish, and I would sooner gouge out my eyes than try to stumble my way around this for another second. Whoever made this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law Anon0098 (talk) 01:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. If I go to someone's userpage, the links on the left (such as to their contributions, their block log, etc) are gone. I have to be logged in for them to be there. I don't want to have to jump through these hoops to see if someone has edited recently. Speaking of logging in, the top right corner has "Create Account", but I have to click to open a menu before I can click "Log In". Why is that hidden behind an extra click? It's like the redesign was done exclusively for the people who happen to show up to read. Trying to get stuff done is more difficult. It's just like Microsoft turning Windows into some kind of Fisher-Price design at the expense of the power users. Also, while I'm listing things, stop wasting my screen real estate with all that whitespace. Useight (talk) 02:20, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would classify this as a breaking change. I'm not even sure how this made it into the skin. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:53, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Useight, the create account button is (apparently) used more frequently than the login button.
@TheMissingMuse, what is the breaking change? — Qwerfjkl talk 00:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
breaking change: "the links on the left (such as to their contributions, their block log, etc) are gone" TheMissingMuse (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. V22 actively makes Wikipedia more annoying to use. Even with the width fixed, hiding everything useful from the top menu behind incomprehensible buttons, requiring additional clicks, is such an annoyance that I can't ever see myself using this skin voluntarily. The skin obviously sacrifices utility for aesthetics and it's extremely frustrating for anyone trying to actually edit. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There are some useful ideas in the new skin, like the floating ToC (though I'd tweak the design). But overall I dislike, and it's less comfortable. As was mentioned in various comments, there should at least be a persistent (cookie) way to choose skin when not logged in. The FAQ mentions this being a problem for cache-generation reasons, but I don't get the logic. Shouldn't a skin be the same HTML, just different linked CSS and maybe JS? ¤ ehudshapira 14:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It should, but modern web designers don't understand what was CSS developed for. Freja Draco (talk) 12:38, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to different CSS or Javascript files requires a change to the HTML source returned by the server. For non-logged in users, HTML versions of Wikipedia pages are cached so they can be rapidly sent with very little logic processing required. It is of course possible to cache different versions of Wikipedia pages and add some logic to decide which version to return; it just will have a resulting cost for Wikipedia's infrastructure in order to maintain its current performance, handling thousands of views per second. isaacl (talk) 18:14, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A bit of static JS code could check a cookie, then dynamically replace the pointed-to CSS.

By the way, I do wonder if the caching they mention is of the complete final HTML, or only almost-final segments that are then joined together. For example, maybe logged-in users viewing articles have different top-of-pages, at least because of the username. (Or maybe that's not cached because it's just a small percentage of page views.) ¤ ehudshapira 22:06, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that's a second approach that has been discussed and I mentioned elsewhere on this page. This avoids requiring more cache, with the drawback that the page will be rendered one way at first, and then shift to a different appearance (or it will pause during loading, but that's generally not done anymore as this has a significant effect on both actual and perceived responsiveness). Judging by the discussion in the open Phabricator ticket, a Javascript approach is indeed what is being explored at present.
It is not true. JS can be executed before HTML DOM is loaded, it can read url parameter trigger and create dynamic link to css sheet in document head section before document body is loaded and rendered. This is simply the laziness of the "masters" of Wikipedia. 83.30.229.13 (talk) 18:39, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as I said, another possibility is for the page to pause during loading. This causes the downloading of all associated resources (images, other Javascript files, stylesheets, and so forth) to pause as well, and thus it affects actual and perceived responsiveness. As a result, this isn't a preferred approach. isaacl (talk) 22:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Really? Do you find opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat?useskin=vector longer than: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat ? Now it is enough to put the "useskin" parameter in the domain name so that it is propagated to all internal links and the problem is over.
Well, that's a different approach than executing Javascript before the HTML DOM has completed loading. (I'm guessing the request is not cached but sent to a MediaWiki server for rendering, thus taking more resources to serve, but I'm not sure.) Using a new subdomain or adding a parameter to every link changes the HTML throughout, and thus would require more caching infrastructure in order to maintain performance. isaacl (talk) 17:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From what I understand, the caching for non-logged in users is the final HTML, so serving the page is essentially as simple as serving a static HTML page. That way it is extremely fast for the vast majority of Wikipedia server requests to read pages. isaacl (talk) 22:26, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For logged-in users, there is no caching at the HTML level and the request has to be passed to a server running the MediaWiki software to be resolved. There are other levels of caching from a MediaWiki standpoint, as you may have noticed if you've edited a page that was transcluded by another, but the other page didn't update until it was refreshed (either by a manual purge or after the cached version expired). isaacl (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: The new Vector 2022 default skin is a huge degradation in terms of readability, usability and perceptibility of content. Why do we have widescreen displays today when the content is centered and squeezed in the middle? Texts get longer, you have to scroll more, fewer images can be displayed in articles, which becomes a problem especially in galleries, and with multiple columns like on the main page, the line length becomes too short for good readability. Navigation on the left side is now cluttered with far too much line spacing, the icons on the top right are unintuitive, and the dropdown menus make for more complicated, poorer usability. When changing languages, you now not only have to open a dropdown menu, but also scroll using a scroll bar, and then search for the correct language in two columns. Overall, a massive degradation of the skin that contradicts basic findings of web usability and readability. Rio65trio (talk) 17:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support I will finally create an account (despite reading wikipedia since it started) to set preferences, but you can be damn sure I'm going to cancel my monthly donation unless there's an option to address the width issue for people who are not logged in. I can adapt to a new aesthetic over time but I'm on a desktop computer with a 24" monitor at 1920x1080, not some phone with a 6" screen. Why can't each platform gets what looks best for that platform? I absolutely hate the two or three inch white margins on the sides of most websites. If I wanted to look at blank white space I'd open a new word document and just sit there. It also just doesn't make sense to have a drop down menu when there's empty space to put it in instead. A drop-down menu is really best suited for when you want to cover something up temporarily. Otherwise, just have the menu sitting there. It's not cleaner, it's just less functional. The ToC is simply not necessary for me; I don't ever use it. At the very least, give users the damn CHOICE instead of forcing things down our throats like you're Apple or Tesla.75.60.111.177 (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The new skin is confusing and hard to use. The moved ToC is especially bad, but it's far from the only thing. This isn't me being a stick-in-the-mud; I'm a former web publisher. This was a poorly-trailed change, with clear negative outcomes for the regular user base. We already have too high a floor for entry, and this will make it worse. GenevieveDEon (talk) 20:08, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's not about 'nothing should change' as the opposers would have it. It';s that this change is garbage. Don't understand why the opposers think it's a step forward. The numerous defects have already been highlighted: whitespace, text width etc. It's all been said before. The "you can switch to old look" argument is irrelevant. In what way is it a defence to a sub-optimal product that you can revert to the previous better version if you want to????? Sheesh. Ultimate techie-with-head-up-their-ass answer. DeCausa (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – As I wrote on MediaWiki, the problem with the "over-optimization for mobile" seen in Vector 2022 is that it sacrifices content for design. Wikipedia's core focus, unlike so many other websites, is on the content. It's the reason that it has become the go to on the web for information. The new skin undermines that reputation. Narrow screen width is associated with the type of endless scrolling seen on social media and social media is associated with artificiality, unreliability and disinformation. In summarizing press coverage of Wikipedia over the past 20 years, an article from MIT noted that Wikipedia "is now lauded as the 'last bastion of shared reality' online". As one user above put it well: "Wikipedia's look should be a little stodgy."
If you're looking for a more specific criticism, one thing I did not notice until recently is that internal and external links are the same color in Vector 2022. This is a mistake. One of the most common problems in recent years is the inclusion of external links in the body of the article. There's good reason that policy prohibits them. External links are too promotional. However, if both are the same color, then combating this is significantly more difficult. It also again undermines Wikipedia's legitimacy because by making the two visually equivalent it confers a sense of reputability on the external website. If that is unwarranted then Wikipedia is hurt as well. —Noha307 (talk) 04:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Noha307, I'm fairly sure the links have always looked the same. How do you expect them to look? — Qwerfjkl talk 10:16, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, they definitely lightened internal link colors in V22. The WMF cited something about accessibility, but the original comment makes it clear that whatever minimal gain we get there is offset by the increased difficulty in distinguishing from external links. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 18:39, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can see that things were changed on Help:Link color. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 19:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As noted above, there is definitely a difference. While I don't agree with sacrificing everything on the altar of accessibility, if it is a concern and the existing situation is unacceptable, why couldn't there there be different colors for each that are both accessible?

According to phab:T213778, there might actually be a very slight difference in color, but if there is it is almost imperceptible. I see @AHollender (WMF): was involved in implementing this change. Could you explain a bit more about the decision? –Noha307 (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The phab job is about visited links and non visited links, there is no difference between Wikipedia links’ and external links’ colors Aaron Liu (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake, thanks for the correction. –Noha307 (talk) 21:27, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This redesign is bad more reasons listed eloquently above. Veilure (talk) 05:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I don't doubt that individual aspects of the new skin do what they are intended to do in relation to improvement (though on a subjective note, I don't think that means the overall redesign has to be this ugly). People have mentioned the white space and the floating ToC as negatives, and I agree. The most important change for me, however, as a multilingual user is that the new language menu is nigh-on unusable; it overcomplicates switching, de-emphasises international versions of pages, and from its placement almost suggests they are translations of the content rather than pages on separate wikis (compare it to websites based in multilingual countries).
It is good to see that the WMF are making changes (though even those are dubious - I don't think the answer to excessive white space on the right of the screen is to clutter it with the Tools menu!), but I think the entire design is incompetent, a clear retrograde step from legacy Vector, and needs a complete overhaul before being used as a default. Thank goodness for the ability to switch back, even though I've had to create an account to do so. Nimbue (talk) 09:07, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
248. Strong Support Why is it every time we get a winning hand the WMF insists on shuffling it? Can't we all just let it alone? Or do I need to to permently log in for all time to stop seeing the artrocious crimes against the project made manfiest by people who clearly have no Fucking idea what they are doing? (posting this anonomously, I can not figure out how to log in, sorry.) 173.172.215.80 (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Striking, I finally got help to log in, and everyone gets only 1 !vote on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 15:29, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support The mystery meat icons (how is this a UI improvement? why do users have to search through menus to find anything?).
The apparent lack of testing or even planning, wiki representatives telling us that "oh we're working on that" or "that feature is coming soon".
Why was this released when it wasn't even finished?
Roll it back, wait until it's actually *done* before pushing it out, and give non-logged users a way to use the old skin without pithy workarounds or a dismissive "just create an account" much like m.wikipedia feeds us the mobile version give us a "good.wikipedia" or something to give users a simple way to use the better skin.159.196.149.163 (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support using the wasted space in the right column. —RCraig09 (talk) 07:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have been trying it out for a week. The creators of this skin must have not thought of people viewing browser screens in windows these days. Trying to read Wikipedia in a window is now quite a bad experience.
There are also weird bugs to be ironed out – (which are apparently not bugs at all?) – like the ToC being narrower than the main menu (as it currently stands, it seems to be changed all the time) plus empty space underneath the ToC.
It just seems this wasn't tested sufficiently, despite apparently having been in the works for years. My issue is not with the thought of a redesign for Wikipedia, but that this redesign is a poor subsitution for what we had. —Jetro (talk) 12:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I'm just another reader that has found their way through the somewhat baroque "community" portion of Wikipedia. Why? Because for days now I've been thinking "something must be seriously broken, wikipedia pages only load half-way and display all out of whack". It's hard to believe this is *intentional*... The fact that it seems the WMF acted unilaterally is just icing on the cake, but it's not like I haven't seen "consensus" decide similar BS elsewhere before, too. OK, enough ranting, I just hope it's clear that unregistered readers like me digging their way through all the red tape (did I mention baroque?) means the new design is *seriously* broken...92.76.198.146 (talk) 14:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly hope that no smarty-pants decides to discard IP contributions to this RFC. Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 13:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support.

In addition to all of the other reasons listed above, the coders are now breaking the URLs.

Instead of pages appearing as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_name#Section_name,
they're appearing as https://en.wikipedia.org/w/cruft.php?title=Page_name&morecruft_oldversion#Section_name, separating the page and section names that actual users need to have together to create direct links to article sections.

Kindly raze these changes to the ground, salt the earth, and then rehire a team of developers who have actually edited pages before instead of only knowing how to handle generic code borrowed from github. — LlywelynII 15:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@LlywelynII, please don't insult the developers.
How does this URL appear? I haven't got it. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't really call those insults...Tim O'Doherty (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would call only knowing how to handle generic code borrowed from github an insult. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can take it any way you like. Here, it's not a pejorative, though. It's simply an accurate description of what has occurred. Anyone with further skill wouldn't've made this mistake. — LlywelynII 00:33, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Everybody can make any mistake. There's a reason the stonks exist. Generic code from github doesn't cruft php requests. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This is actually an issue with the wikiwand extension that would appear regardless of which skin you use. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:12, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiwandisn't involved and regardless wouldn't need to misplace the info if this change hadn't occured. I have a good guess why you might've the description above so inaccurately and personally. xD — LlywelynII 00:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@LlywelynII, it was mentioned in the WT:V22 thread that this is not related to V22 at all. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:19, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming this is the discussion you're referencing, it does seem fully resolved if people act on Certres's discovery. At the same time, of course it's related to this change. If it hadn't happened, that cruft wouldn't be in the URL at all, regardless of other users' extensions. — LlywelynII 12:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How would other users adding links from a completely separate browser extension be related to v22? If it hadn't happened, yes change your default skin to v10 and click on that link, you still see all that cruft in the link. It's not related to v22, it just happened that you stumbled on one of these cruft links near the end of January. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have to agree with Aaron; I haven't had the misfortune of running across this phenomenon, and I've been using this skin for over half a year now. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:04, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support a rollback. I am sad to say I don't think this will change anything, but I voice my concerns anyway. The new layout has language links and content lists hidden in places where it is in no way intuitive to look for them, it has too much white space on the sides making the text cramped in the middle, which makes information tables harder to read. It has been said that the change would make it easier to read the encyclopedia on mobile devices, but I cannot see that it is when I try it. The change was made without any clear consensus for it. People who are not logged in are forced to use it, because for some reason, you are not able to opt-out of it unless you log in, and many people have no wish to log in just for the sake of a 2-minute-checking of some facts in the encyclopedia. I think Wikipedia will lose users, both voluntary editors and occational fact seekers, because of this new 'skin'. Ove Raul (talk) 23:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support due to previously mentioned whitespace/icon/menu issues. Lack of non-editor input into this skin's deployment is also a problem. --NuclearOverhauserEffect (talk) 02:07, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I've been using Vector 2022 for some time, with the hope that its issues would get ironed out far before it was deployed. Unfortunately, this was not the case; in fact, the recent change that moved most of the left sidebar to either a right sidebar or a menu has forced me back to old Vector. I find two main problems with Vector 2022: there's too much whitespace, and things are often buried behind dropdowns. (I find these annoyances to be all too common in 'modern' UIs. Maybe it's just me.) While I appreciate Vector 2022's usability improvements (side TOC, sticky header), I find that the fondness for empty space and dropdowns makes Vector 2022 overall harder to use. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 06:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support My biggest problems with the Vector 22 include: having to click a menu to login, unintuitive icons without description replacing descriptive standalone text, insufficient consensus and notice gained by English WP, and that IP users who live in countries where creating an account is not possible must simply live with the change. I have read the previous RFP, read the reasoning and details the WMF provided, am aware that there was a Watchlist notice for the previous RFC, and I've read many of the comments in each section of this RFC, but I don't understand why the English WP decided to make this a default without much wider and longer consensus. I am rarely logged-in when browsing WP because I frequently browse WP in Incognito Chrome sessions (for a variety of reasons, namely history management), so I don't frequently check my watchlist (and even when I'm logged in to make edits, I simply don't visit it often), but with every new WP browsing session I have, I am smacked in the face with the large "Please donate" banner and have to click the "I've already donated button" (because I have and continue to do every month). Why wasn't the original RFC broadcasted wider when I received such large banners on every other page even after I donate monthly? Like @DB1729 stated, I understand that RFCs are not votes, but having read that RFC, I didn't see consensus, and certainly not strong consensus in favor of making it the new default skin.

Lastly, I noticed some comments implying that most younger people (Zoomers, the generation of which I am a member, and the like) want simple UIs akin to TikTok and that changing the UI this direction would attract younger users, and I want to note that this is false. I am by no means a typical member of my generation-- I've been reading Wikipedia since I was 10 years old and editing it since I was 15, and at no point in my life has being an editor been seen as cool to those around me (with possibly two or three people being exceptions) despite knowing many people (I was a member of my student government and ran a couple clubs in high school and I'm now the president of two of my rather large university clubs (one of which has over 250 people in our Discord server and 50ish active members). A UI change will not make my TikTok-using peers (actually, fewer than half the people I know use TikTok; whenever we view content made there, it's either on YouTube or Reddit) more interested in participating in Wikipedia. The new skin has some benefits, may increase readership, and I appreciate that its creation was driven by three years of research, but it was a mistake to make it the default with such ambiguous consensus, especially before fixing the problems that were a condition of the original RFC's result. Thank you, KnowledgeablePersona (talk) 09:25, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - Strong support from me, don't think I really need to go into detail when Hal's first comment above pretty much described my thoughts. Tweedle (talk) 10:08, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - some of us still use desktops & laptops because cellular phones were not designed for editing an encyclopedia - they work best for making phone calls & taking pictures. Atsme 💬 📧 10:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rollback Although Vector 2022 may be seen as "more clean" I absolutely do not enjoy the general increase in clicks required to access the links I use on a regular basis. The old Vector looks good, and offers most important links at a single click's access without being intrusive. It's an effective use of the screen margins. I really can't see the appeal of this obsession with oversimplifying UI. I like the thought of the ability to collapse the sidebar (though not by default and I would personally never use it) but I am certainly not impressed by Vector 2022. I could get used to the new locations of tools/links (at least the ones that were still accessible, If I recall I seemed to have trouble using Twinkle) but the extra clicks needed to access just went over the line for me. GabberFlasted (talk) 13:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The way this should've been done was: RfC, go back and fix problems, new RfC, repeat as necessary until you actually have consensus, implement. Instead it was just:RfC, fix problems, implement. This is going to make for an interesting media release, and some interesting outside commentary. Suggest that Slate should start to work on new headline, might I recommend something like: "Actually, people did notice" [Rollback 1 edit] Reverted edits by WMF to last version by Community. Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 14:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The interface needs to be treated more like content in its own right. Changes should get consensus before being made. It is not just a matter of "a few people didnt like it", it is a case of "the WMF should've actually got consensus for this controversial change". The WMF should not be exempt from the requirement to get consensus for controversial changes. To quote a common edit summary when reverting controversial edits with no prior consensus: "Please get consensus before making this change". Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 05:43, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support It took me three days to figure out how to log in to the site. The white space is an eyesore. The layout is not user-friendly in any way, shape or form. Who thought this was a good idea? Oh wait, no one - thats why there was no consensus for the change in the first place. Take a lesson from MILHIST's first Coordinator Emeritus: "The status quo is generally a stable position, if nothing else; maintaining it for a while longer is unlikely to be as controversial as changing it." TomStar81 (Talk) 15:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I can respect the arguments to making it look better on mobile, and if the change was only applied to the mobile site I wouldn't have an issue. Vector 2022 actively makes the UX worse on PC by adding all that whitespace, it is such an eyesore. I wasn't thrilled about Vector 2010 when that was introduced, but I could live with that and it did look nice. Vector 2022 made me actually log in for the first time in a year and return to active editing, just so that I could restore my beloved Monobook. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update I've gone back and taken a look at the original RFC. I've conducted, moderated and closed plenty of discussions and RFCs during my time here as an admin, including a number of particularly controversial ones such as WP:BLPRFC2 with nearly 2000 edits made to it. I consider myself a pretty good judge of consensus. For the RFC that approved Vector 2022, I don't see it based on the strength of the arguments. This isn't purely a numbers game, although the !votes are something to be considered. It seems like a pretty clear no consensus in its current form. The opposers raised serious concerns about readability and a number of key features, which the closers either ignore entirely or fail to adequately address. The closing statement also openly acknowledges that they don't know whether the other concerns raised would be blockers, but decided that once the fixed-width issue was resolved (it wasn't) then a second RFC to follow up on those concerns wouldn't be necessary. This doesn't seem like the right way to close an RFC, especially one with as far-reaching consequences as this. If closers can't be sure if the other issues are important enough to need discussion, that's a clear sign that they do need discussion in the form of a no consensus close and another RFC. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support My concerns in the previous RFC were not addressed, and are still getting hand-waved away below. Remove the fixed-width monstrosity and move the TOC back into the content of the articles so readers can actually use Wikipedia. ~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 18:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Absolutely not user-friendly in any way, and I don't appreciate the increase in clicks to access important links. The entire design is clunky and puts both readers and editors at a disadvantage. The text has also been enlarged, and that combined with the new colour choices makes the whole website an eyesore. I feel like I'm accessing Wikipedia Mobile from a PC. --Roundish ⋆t c) 23:04, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support rolling back to Vector 2010. The response to critiques seems to be either "you'll get used to it," gaslighting anyone who says that it looks like it was designed for mobile, or ignoring the critique entirely. I fail to see how a consensus was formed after reading through the last RFC. I think even making the old mobile design forced on desktop would be an improvement over this mobile-esque design. While most news sites seem to regurgitate the press release that the change was minor, if you read the comments on those stories they are overwhelming both disagreeing that it was a minor visual change and negative towards the change itself. As other sites have made similar redesigns I have stopped reading them except for when they are linked on an aggregator site. In order to fix this redesign I think that you have to remove the floating ToC and put it back in the article, remove the excess white space, return the borders, remove the fixed with aspects, and change the language selection process. After completing all of those changes the design is so different as to need its own review process. 71.194.60.172 (talk) 23:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Fixed vote to make sure it was numbered correctly and counted. Yoshi24517 ^Chat _Online 01:44, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. My main peeve is that the pages do not sort out well on 3:4 ratio monitors such as mine, looking too lopsided. I constantly feel like I'm in the feature-deprived mobile version (gasp). I thought Wikipedia was simplistic enough, but now it looks like the page is broken and the CSS isn't loading in. The Wikipedia sitemap is treated like an "accessory" off to the side on the Main Page, behind a settings-icon-looking three lines (what is that even supposed to represent?) I agree with others that this update may be good for readers, but it sets editors at a disadvantage. In addition, this new skin is becoming a big headache for me after many buttons were shuffled around. I like to read articles in foreign languages for practice and for fun, so I have account presences on dozens of other Wikipedias. Now I have to go through every single one, find a button which was moved somewhere else (in a different language no less), search through the settings, and change the skin back. I say this is an aesthetic and functional blunder on all points. Signbear999 (talk) 03:06, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Signbear999 The CSS should be able to load, what CSS are you trying to load exactly?

The three lines icon is the notorious Hamburger button.

You can set your global preferences across all foundation wikis. There is a giant button in the settings menu that looks like this:

Global preferences: Set your global preferences Aaron Liu (talk) 13:47, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks for telling me about that Global Preferences button. Exactly what I needed.

Also, when I referred to the CSS, I meant that the Vector skin seemed incomplete, as if the site wasn't loaded correctly. Sorry that was a bit confusing. Signbear999 (talk) 22:23, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I found this RFC while looking for help to write a CSS override related to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#c-PrimeHunter-20230131054800-Stuartyeates-20230131035800 where I raised an issue which sure looked like a bug to me, but was told it was a considered design decision. Just seems insane and deeply non-obvious design decision. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:35, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support – I don't believe I have anything unique to add. I have been critical of the Vector 2022 skin throughout its development and my concerns have never been addressed. This is a desktop interface, not a mobile one, and it should have been designed with desktop users in mind. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 07:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support First thing I did when this amateurish-looking change wet in was set myself back to the older, professional-looking one. Some designer or designers at the WMF need to rethink their career choices. ValarianB (talk) 13:58, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It was unwise to push this out when the community was very much clearly against it in its present form. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support You received so much feedback but didn't listen to it, instead we were told that we don't understand what is good for us. Plumbum208 (talk) 18:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wikipedia should remain simple and easy to use. Vector 2010 has that pragmatic, minimalistic essence of the Internet era before the mass wave of useless updates and redesigns seen in the recent years. The new Vector is over-engineered mess, detached from the real necessities and interests of the common users. I see it as indication of decline in rationality, creativity and even common sense. 212.5.158.213 (talk) 19:13, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Following its official, full-scale deployment, I gave it a fair shake and came away unimpressed. As a very longtime editor and user of Wikipedia, I firmly believe that the new skin is worse than the 2010 one for desktop users. While I can't speak for how good it is on mobile, if something is a downgrade in ANY way, it shouldn't be used, period. I don't believe the 2010 skin should be used forever, but the WMF designers should continue to work until such time as a superior skin in all aspects can be created, or not change it at all. -- ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 23:51, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I haven't edited Wikipedia in over 10 years and made an account so that I wouldn't have to use the new skin. I am glad that I can set the skin back with an account but I don't see why it was changed in the first place. Being willing to change is good but only if the change is good. Vector2022isbad (talk) 01:12, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Please please revert to the wonderful perfect old classic design which respects the readers using their full screen! It is absolute nonsense, arrogant and annoying, if the web-designers now decide over all Wikipedia users heads, that they must waste almost half width of their monitors (that I personally have bought to use its full extent!), and that as standard without logging in, they may not use the size of their screen. The original concept of HTML is great, because it allows to automatically adapt to fit the users' individual viewports and font size settings - as was and did the perfect old design! As for data sparsity and my data protection, I generally do not want to log in, if I do not necessarily have to transmit my personal data to a page or server for a good reason. This should absolutely not be neccessary just to be able to use my screen width for reading some Wikipedia page. It is absolutely no option to manually add some "?useskin=vector" to each URL and then reload the page. Please dispose of this horrible arrogant hardware- and energy-wasting "new" design! Thank you! 77.185.18.32 (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Please allow me to use my 21:9 screen. I fret to even think of how this looks on 32:9. If you want "modern", you have to follow or create some fluid design which adapts to the user device. Don't make it look like I wrongly landed on a cell phone page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mixonomicon (talk • contribs) 10:20, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support At least, until the majority of community complaints are resolved, Vector 2010 should stay the default skin for IPs and newly registered users (already registered users have an option to switch to Vector 2010). Vector 2022 rollout should involve one or more beta tests where users (including registered and IPs) are invited to try out the new skin on opt-in basis via a discardable banner that is displayed on top of the Wikipedia pages. The users should have an easy way to opt-out if they didn't like the new interface, and a prominent way to report their feedback. After the beta tests the skin may be enabled by default, but a way to persistently opt-out to stay on Vector 2010 must still be available for all users, including IPs. No, I do not consider bookmarklets and hacking the URLs as an adequate implementation of such an opt-out mechanism. My personal main problem with the new skin is the narrow content mode that is enabled by default and not persistently disabled for IPs. The content on some pages is unreadable in this mode and simply inconvenient to read on all pages, as it doesn't fit as much content on the same screen and requires more scrolling. Narrow content mode must be disabled by default, and the option to enable/disable should be persistent for all users, including IPs. 2A02:2168:84D9:2200:CF72:6FE7:ABBA:3DC6 (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2A02:2168:84D9:2200:CF72:6FE7:ABBA:3DC6, see #Persistence for fixed width for all users coming this week. — Qwerfjkl talk 19:31, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support until they fix the Table of Contents. I saw the "new look" banner announcing the new skin in mid-January. I tried it out, read some discussions about it, and my impression was that it needed some work. But I kept using it to form a more informed opinion. It took me by surprise when enwiki made it the default so soon afterward. After using it for this long, I feel confident saying one thing about the design: The new Table of Contents is a regression. It makes navigating articles a chore. For one thing, its absence from the article body makes it less useful. It's out of the way and no longer helps the lead section flow into the meat of the article. Its usability is inferior as well. Having to click on the little arrow next to each top-level section to expand its subsections remains an annoyance, and so does needing to scroll down on it to see all of the sections in a long TOC. It doesn't belong in the sidebar, and the need for it to limit its vertical space as a result of being there results in poor usability. --Frogging101 (talk) 22:08, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reading more comments here, maybe the sidebar TOC is a good complement to the inline TOC, so that article navigation can be accessed while reading without scrolling up. It could coexist with the inline TOC, it just can't replace it. Frogging101 (talk) 22:51, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very Strong Support:
Table of Contents
- I love the new TOC. However, the floating table of contents takes up way too much width. In addition, when hiding it, it sinks into a vague-looking hamburger button. When testing this a while back, I didn't know where to find the TOC after pressing the [hide] button, and I'm reasonably sure the same can be said for anyone not briefed in the new interface.
Right Toolbar
- One of the worst additions. It doesn't even display unless you are near the top of the article, leaving a sea of white across the entire right side. Hiding it is an option, but I regularly use it and would rather have it displayed.
Floating Top Bar? (idk what to call it)
- Interesting addition. ~~I wish the search bar was included.~~ I'm an idiot it's right there, please shame me. Overall, it's fine, though I prefer text instead of the icons (but that's really not an issue).
White Space
- GET RID OF IT NOW. There is no reason to have white space everywhere. It is a waste of perfectly viable display. If you are using a big screen, I sob, as the issue becomes even worse. Take a look at this:
  Vector legacy (current default), logged-out
  Vector 2022, logged-out
Do you see how much underutilized space there is in V2022 when compared to V2010? Like, just look at how much space the floating TOC takes up. About double the size of the old sidebar, keeping in mind that the old sidebar included *a lot* more than the current toolbar does. Y'all don't even wanna see it on a bigger screen.
Vector 2022, logged-in, 4K display

(I legitimately thought having a bigger screen would make the white space less noticeable. It gets worse, not better.)
What it lacks in comparison to V2010
- Lines - clear lines that break up sections evenly.
- Static TOC - again, I like the new TOC, but the static TOC is a classic feature of Wikipedia. At least a toggle in Preferences.
What it adds in comparison to V2010

Floating TOC/Header - could be a massively useful improvement if they optimized them more.

It's sleek - hate the layout or love it, the design itself gets rid of most of that 2010's-esque skeuomorphism and unnecessary gradientage; accordingly, arguments against the new design are few.

The main issue is not one of layout, though, but of the processes that WMF employs.

In the earlier phases of development, I responded to a survey about Vector 2022, largely saying the same things I said above. I'm pretty sure this [4] was that survey. I'm a fairly new editor, and have not been here for any major design changes such as this one. Reading the above link made me realize something:

WMF doesn't care about Wikipedia editors.

~~I don't understand why.~~ Scratch that. I know why. They're a multimillion dollar company. They can do whatever they want:

They claim that, due to unfinished responses and vandalism in the form of foul language, that around 75% of the responses were invalid (keep in mind we don't know which responses).

Let me repeat this again, for y'all who weren't listening:

WMF disregarded 75% of the responses on their own survey, then declined to show us which ones were disregarded.

RED FLAG.

This is the shadiness that ruins relationships, WMF. Full transparency isn't that hard. Come on.

To summarize:

I have lived through quite a few nasty UI/UX changes that I disliked (Logic 9 --> Logic Pro X really irked me, so did UE3 --> UE4) and they hampered my creativity. Overall, however, those design changes were for the best, and it could not be argued that the old one was in any way better once you got to know the new interface.

I cannot argue for or against this change as it pertains to the average Wikipedia user. It's... fine, with pros and cons that balance themselves out, generally speaking. I can only speak for myself, an editor here, and I really dislike this change.

However, WMF has made it clear that they don't want my vote as an editor; at the very least, they value it less.

I appreciate this influx of editors and readers, new and old, that have responded to this RfC. Normally, something like this would be described as canvassing (and personally I think WMF tried to engage in canvassing with this email --> [5]) but this seems to be a unique case. Please stay and become editors. We need y'all.

And with that, all the best, Cessaune [talk] 00:21, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nice write-up. While I don't really agree with how the points were weighed and the conclusion, your points were really good and I agree with most of them. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just here to point out that search does exist in the sticky header; it just requires a click on the on the left side. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:50, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I'm an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Cessaune [talk] 03:39, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

great summary of the support argument WikEdits5 (talk) 09:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The current form of Vector2022 is significantly less user-friendly than Vector2010, and has many issues as detailed above. I also support arguments that the status quo is Vector2010; the requirements of deployment from the previous RfC have not been met, with the page width toggle not being fit for purpose - I am unable to find it when logged out, on top of the other issues raised with it - and the other issues listed have not been addressed either. BilledMammal (talk) 07:32, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Specific reasons include hiding the login button behind a mystery meat button, hiding buttons in general behind mystery meat buttons, the removal of the TOC causing MOS:SANDWICH issues, the sidebar TOC being unsuited for pages with significant nesting, particularly discussion pages - this last aspect is very concerning, as we don't want to make it harder for new editors to join in discussions and contribute. BilledMammal (talk) 07:49, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An upcoming update is going to move Log in out of . —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 13:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad to see some improvements are being made, although far more are needed before Vector 2022 is a viable option. To add to the issues with the list above, the sidebar TOC is generally unsuitable for longer articles. With Vector 2010 if I want to get an idea of the contents of the page it was easy to browse the TOC. With Vector 2022, in addition to nested elements being collapsed, items in the page of contents are often hidden in the scroll down, both becuase it is narrower than the former TOC and because it cuts off halfway down the page. BilledMammal (talk) 10:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For me the TOC scrolls automatically, I heard there’s some sort of scrolling bug on chrome, this might be it Aaron Liu (talk) 12:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It does scroll down automatically, but when I want to review the topics on the page I want to be able to see the entire TOC, not just a small portion of it.

Having reviewed the WMF's most recent comment, I still support rolling back to Vector2010; while the WMF may be able to bring Vector2022 up to a point where it is superior to Vector2010 we are a long way from that point and Vector2022 should only be deployed when there is an immediate and explicit consensus to do so. I note that I also don't believe that the requirements for deployment made in the previous discussion for deployment were met, and so believe the status quo is Vector2010. BilledMammal (talk) 23:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Considering WP:CONEXCEPT; I don't believe that it is relevant to this discussion. It doesn't say we can't form a consensus, it only says that such a consensus would not bind the WMF. This has precedent; other discussions (Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Approval of Enforcement Guidelines without first approving a Code of Conduct, Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 196#RfC on the banners for the December 2022 fundraising campaign are two recent ones) have come to a consensus on questions that are subject to CONEXCEPT. It would also set a dangerous precedent if this proposal is rejected on the grounds of CONEXCEPT; it would suggest that we cannot challenge decisions that are subject to CONEXCEPT through the consensus process, because the result will always be a consensus against regardless of how strong the support is. BilledMammal (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support for numerous reason. Among others: Too much whitespace, confusing TOC, functionality distributed all over the place, tools below the title, even more mystery meat navigation than before. This redesign is a massive step back in usability and readability, it should be rolled back. --Millbart (talk) 14:31, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's not just the too much white space (which I hate and which I now have from all places where I can't be loged in), its also that on average it is no improvement. And a change that big should be an improvement. Its not a fashion show.--Fano (talk) 15:12, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Benjamin (talk) 21:02, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Benjamin, remember this is not a vote but a WP:!vote, which means you have to give reasoning and not just an affirmation of support. Cessaune [talk] 21:54, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All my reasons have already been said by others. Benjamin (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Pick someone who says something you agree with and say 'Support per [user]'. Cessaune [talk] 22:17, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Cessaune 🙄 Benjamin (talk) 22:22, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Haha :) that works Cessaune [talk] 01:02, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - I see almost none of the issues I raised in the last RfC I took part in have been addressed -- in fact, it seems the new skin has barely been changed at all -- so I'm not going to repeat myself. I can see one change in that the background is now fully white, which looks more consistent/professional than the old new Vector and also harder on the eyes than either prior version. Another is the full width toggle which I've had to point out to several people at my workplace, as they couldn't find it on their own. It doesn't help that it's among the the last items to load, and the pages don't load very fast to start with. I could suggest that they create an account and set the skin they like, and even hope that they'll start contributing, but I'm a little uncomfortable with that logic. Besides, one of my main attractions when starting to edit Wikipedia was going down the rabbit hole of Special:WhatLinksHere and Special:Random. Why/how do we expect to attract new editors if we're hiding more and more of the editing process from them. P.S. I hope that the permanently checked checkbox saying "Enable limited width mode for improved reading experience" under the original Vector's preferences is not a sign of things to come. I also don't understand why my intentionally set preference for Vector Legacy was cleared. Daß Wölf 23:14, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Coming back to this a month later, we have a little more data now. For example, we can see that 22% of editors that have made 5 or more edits since deployment have opted out -- less than 40%, but how often do you edit your cookie settings when visiting some random new website? We now know that one of the chief arguments in favour of the switch is a survey that attracted a couple times fewer respondents than this support subheading here. The WMF noticed a spike in account creation to revert to Vector 2010, but decided (in retrospect? February 1) that the readers could've only shown their appreciation for Vector 2010 by creating fewer accounts than usual.

OK, I'm being needlessly snarky here. The devs have now clearly started addressing some the several long-standing issues that had been raised for the past three years at the mw:Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements archives, as well as at the previous RfC. WMF employees are commenting, and even responding to criticism, some of which has been incredibly rude and unWP:CIVIL. They're dealing with a community and process that's surely as unfamiliar to them as theirs is to us. They need to be commended for all this. Nevertheless, it's clear that at this pace it will take a while until the new Vector is as usable as the old one, and I'm worried that things will stall again if we keep Vector 2022 as is and move the discussion about it out of the spotlight, hence I'm reaffirming my strong support. Daß Wölf 12:49, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Full disclosure - I'm a former long-time-retired editor who scrambled his password, and I made this username only to continue viewing Wikipedia in Vector Legacy with no intentions of ever editing with it. However, per the ANI disclosure that WMF has had its' thumb on the scale, so to speak, I have decided to cast a !vote. I never edited with mobile and I don't read with mobile, and the excessive whitespace and floting TOC are an annoyance. Fgsfds mah boi (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support 2010. Wow, just saw this. Maybe I was right in calling 2022 Wikipedia's New Coke. Maybe 2022 can go back to the drawing board for just a few nudges and then come back with everything solved, improved, and playable by a ten-year old (I use Monobook, a quality nice-looking easy to navigate skin which was Wikipedia's default when the non-avian dinosaurs roamed). Randy Kryn (talk) 16:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
when the non-avian dinosaurs roamed Good one! Aaron Liu (talk) 16:53, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support from an avid reader's perspective
Readability: I understand there's a study (something like in 2007 for tablets, but still) and I agree there is some improvement in reading/comprehension for shorter-length lines. By those standards, the new line length, even with an infobox on the side, is too long and it does feel long if I'm focusing on readability. However, as others have said, Wikipedia is not a book to read start-to-finish, but rather a source of information, where one likes to benefit from the sheer amount of it. I regularly skim through articles to find the parts/paragraphs I'm interested in, and full width is much more conducing to that. If there were a proposal/layout that in some way does both (more readable line length, and full width to not scroll needlessly), I'd try that. Until then, the new skin is a downgrade for me.
Whitespace: As stated by others before, the new all-white approach doesn't do a good job of separating the contexts, like the article from the sidebars. If we're taking examples from elsewhere and best-practices, the main content should have a different background and/or border. Even if the ToC relates to the article, it needs visual separation because it's not part of the content per-se, the headings within the content are.
Alignment: In itself, the idea of centering the contents within the viewport is no issue. But the sideways shift of the contents that happens when hiding/showing the ToC or the main menu, that is distracting and makes me lose track of what line I was reading. Also, the white gap between the main menu and the contents is disproportionately large, especially when comparing to the white gap between the (expanded) main menu and the light gray page background. So while this gap should bring a bit of context separation, it is too wide, and with everything being white, has the exact opposite result. Additionally, there is a visual eyesore in the main menu being misaligned with the Wikipedia logo; yes, that's a small thing but surely it should have been brought up in 3 years of development...
Mystery icons: If this redesign is supposed to be for desktops, then there should be text links for additional/hidden (as in not visible by default because it is rarely used) functionality, first and foremost. If the default and only option is a button, that's mobile-first. You can have icon+text on wide screens (seriously, who hovers over an icon on a huge screen to hopefully find out what it does?), which degrades gracefully on low-res into just a button icon - with the additional advantage that seeing the icon next to the text (rather than just text degrading into icon) clarifies what the icon will do. Assumptions on what an icon (like hamburger or three dots, which are arguably interchangeable) will do are counter-productive, because every single website will use them differently. On top of that, "paired" icons should make sense when taken together - this is where the hamburger and << are just mismatched. Some (rather important, I would say) functionality is just needlessly hidden off: ToC button, other languages, log in. Finally (and again making my point on the assumptions), the width control is (1) waaay outside of any page context, hidden in an unused corner, (2) masquerading as a fullscreen icon (sorry, I have F11 and browser controls for that) and (3) confusing in its (ugh) hover-text - which says "toggle limited content width". Sorry, do you mean *more* limited?
ToC: First of all, this is like one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia to me. I wouldn't mind having a pinned "Show/Hide table of contents" on the sidebar, at all times. The current state, however, makes it difficult to get the ToC back. I have mixed feelings about the ToC being left out of the actual contents; it was very helpful between the introduction and the actual contents/headings. On one hand, I find it strange to go straight from the introduction to the contents, without any pause. On the other hand I also like not having to scroll that much to get to the contents (when there's a large ToC). A potential compromise that I can think of would be to have some sort of demarcation - whether by a higher whitespace (ref. whitespace as useful separation), or a high-level ToC (e.g. first-level headings only), or something like "Show table of contents" which adds an old-style ToC back inside the main page (of course, paired up with an adjustment on the sidebar to prevent two ToCs showing side- by-side).
The biggest drawback of the new sidebar ToC, in my book, is the focus/bolding of what section it *thinks* I am on. If I'm scrolling through, 95% of the time it's going to tell me I'm on the previous section, because I probably still have even 2 pixels of its spacing in the viewport. A lot of times, I have two full sections visible in the viewport; I either get the *previous* one highlighted, or at best the first one, even if I could/might be fully reading the second section, with a third section title at the bottom of my screen. I completely understand there's no catch-all fix for this, but the sidebar ToC could highlight those sections which are partially/fully visible - for example, the partially-visible sections could use semibold weight and a light gray background color; the fully-visible sections could be bold and medium gray background color; the *first* section for which the *heading* is visible on-page could have a dark gray background color.
Finally, with the addition of ToC on the left side, it is easier to browse articles side-by-side, in a different browser window, and jump to this section of this article and that section of that article. What feels missing though, is a page title at the top of the ToC - whether when browsing through multiple articles, or a single article in full-screen. As it is, the sidebar ToC headings are a bigger font than the title of the browser page, and if the actual browser tab is not the first/second, it's not that easy to figure out precisely which article's ToC I'm looking at.
Floating/fixed top bar: I've seen that mentioned, but I'm not seeing that in Chrome or Edge. Sounds like an interesting and possibly useful feature, but I've yet to see it on any page.
My conclusions: The communication on this whole endeavour could have been better, to say the least. I've seen the changes some time ago on French Wikipedia, I was very disappointed but I thought it was a local thing; I have not seen any sort of banner/information on English Wikipedia with almost daily browsing. The whole skin/theme feels like a beta version, unfinished, almost lacking feature-parity (due to the amount of mystery buttons and extra clicks), and detrimental on the ease-of-use. To the promoters and people directly involved: I get it you're invested, but this has stirred everyone up not because of just one thing, like the width or the ToC... it's all of it! "Fixing" (or rather, as has happened, promising to fix) one thing won't magically make it better and achieve consensus (ahem). Nothing is perfect (!), but this is *so far removed* from perfect that the insistence is baffling. 89.136.170.51 (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
> there's no catch-all fix for this, but the sidebar ToC could highlight those sections which are partially/fully visible

Now that's an interesting idea! Analogous to scroll bars where the drag-handle sizes to show the extent, or a thumbnails bar that outlines the current viewport. ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 20:21, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Many of the other people in this talk page have undoubtedly said what I am going to say, but the new skin just looks visually unappealing. Wikipedia as a website is known for its 2010 skin, there are no issues I am aware of with the readability of the old skin. Just let sleeping dogs lie for once. Rabawar (talk) 22:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Even with a Wikipedia account, I still need to log in to Wikipedia every time I use it on a different device/browser now if I don't want the new Vector. The responses here, from the survey, and from the previous RFC in 2022 suggest that there is anything but consensus for changing the default skin, so why is it being forced upon visitors to the site by the WMF as default? The opinion of alleged UI experts should not take priority over people who use the site, all the time. It is unreasonable to expect that visitors will need to create an account an log in, on each new device or each time they are logged out, to avoid a skin that the community had no consensus was better. As for my personal opinion on Vector 2022, I do not like clicking through layers of menus to get to features that were readily available around the main page before including to simply log in. I do not like that half of my monitor is unused - why would someone use a wide monitor if they wanted half of it to be blank? All of the white and the lack of grays is a strain on my eyes. Overall it seems like a mobile site that is curiously intended only for desktop users. It is a fallacy to oppose the principle of taking a step back because it has already been done, as it is to assume that all changes are progress. Trolley8 (talk) 03:23, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have hated the redesign for a while and I have been wondering there was a vote to remove it. Finally found it. If it were up to me, I think we should rollback to the standard skin too. The last available username (talk) 04:15, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@The last available username, remember, this is not a vote, but a !vote, which means you have to give reasoning stronger than simply hating the redesign (what specifically about it you hate, for example). The RfC will be judged on the merits of the !votes, and you don't want your !vote to go to waste. Cessaune [talk] 04:31, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just how are people supposed to justify their tastes and opinions? This is an inherently subjective matter. Again, I feel like this whole process is rigged from the start to protect WMF from having their egos bruised by having to make a reversal.

People don't like the new look. They don't have to justify why they don't like it. If they WMF was actually interested in fixing things we could have a constructive talk about what exactly to fix, but as long as they aren't seriously listening that's not really possible, is it? What are people supposed to say? 2600:1700:1471:2550:21B6:FBB3:C22B:B099 (talk) 06:41, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2600:1700:1471:2550:21B6:FBB3:C22B:B099, they're not. If you just don't like it, then you can change back. If there's a reason that others should not (be forced to) use V22, then that's a valid justification. — Qwerfjkl talk 10:11, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By your logic why should V10 users be forced to change to V22? If we are judging by what will make the most people happy that pretty clearly seems to be reverting to V10. And yet we see nothing happening in that regards. This whole RfC process is garbage. It's just an excuse for the WMF to continue to do whatever they want via dictatorial fiat while they pretend to care what the users think. There is no consensus here, but there is a majority and they say to change in back to V10. That is as objective an analysis as we can get here, I think. 2600:1700:1471:2550:4C5D:1710:CE18:6176 (talk) 20:50, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC process is definitely very useful, but no conclusion an RfC comes to has any binding effect on WMF (see WP:CONEXEMPT). Secondly, yes, you have to justify why you don't like V22. Being adverse to change is normal, especially when it comes to UI/UX changes, and WMF isn't going to change something this big because a few editors, or even a lot of editors, simply didn't like it. A potential closer might disregard your opinion because you voted and didn't !vote. If you care so strongly, !vote.

Also, I argee with your analysis. This is precisely why we have to !vote and not simply vote, because it makes it harder for WMF to come up with a faulty conclusion. Cessaune [talk] 23:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF don't seem very interested in listening to what sure looks like the majority. They keep doing everything possible to protect their egos of having to backtrack on this redesign they foolishly made a big deal about like it was some great good. It's absolutely exasperating, but that's where things seem to stand. They are making a few token changes, but mostly are in full "this is fine" mode.

This just shows again why if you don't have something locally you don't actually have it at all. Anything remote can be taken away at any time. We really need to work on local machine Wikipedia, I guess. 2600:1700:1471:2550:21B6:FBB3:C22B:B099 (talk) 06:29, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this appears to be the case. Internally this has to have become a mess. For a professional organization with a global scope, this roll-out has been quite unprofessional. It's important to understand that this isn't the fault of the engineers or designers at this point. Someone in middle management has likely staked their reputation on this skin, over-investing in something that should have gone through much more usability testing and validation before being rolled out globally. The documents we have seen so far, including the survey report and the canvassing, indicate that we are well into the CYA phase of the project. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with 2600:1700:1471:2550:21B6:FBB3:C22B:B099. The last available username (talk) 06:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support For all of the reasons mentioned in previous supporting statements but especially the excessive whitespace. I have been a reader of Wikipedia for many years and I created an account just to post my support for the rollback and set my skin preference for my home computer. I frequently use other computers not belonging to me where I will not log into this account and I feel it isn't right to force a specific content size as the default for non-logged in users. As many previous comments have stated, if readers believe the presented theories on the relationship between line length and reading comprehension, they can simply resize their browser windows to their preferred line length as I'm sure they do with any other dynamic content. Forcing content to a specific size seems to be contrary to the whole concept of windowed applications running on a desktop computer and it isn't fair to place the burden of escaping the size limit on those who choose not to log into an account. Also, there's just too much white. I don't mean whitespace but lack of shades or coloring in the interface. I know this is venturing into the territory of personal preference but it feels like the articles just melt into the navigation/table of contents and background. The gray backgrounds of the navigation and ToC in the Vector2010 and MonoBook themes differentiate these sections from the article content and provide a visual cue for the portions of the page used to operate the site versus the portions that present the content. The gray border also creates a kind of "flow" as you travel down the page and is reminiscent of viewing the left page in an encyclopedia against the lining of its hard cover. Vector 2022 makes the text feel like its just floating in mid-air. Wikipedia has always been minimalist which I can appreciate but there is a point when minimalism goes too far. VectoringForInfinteSpace (talk) 08:58, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support For people with hand/arm disabilities, the inefficient use of screen real estate creates the need for a lot more clicks, a lot more scrolling just to read an article. As a contributor with such disabilities, it makes it harder and slower for me to contribute. I did comment on this issue during its development, but it seemed nobody listened. I have no objection to its being an option, but not the default. Kerry (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support For people with hand/arm disabilities, the inefficient use of screen real estate creates the need for a lot more clicks, a lot more scrolling just to read an article. As a contributor with such disabilities, it makes it harder and slower for me to contribute. I did comment on this issue during its development, but it seemed nobody listened. I have no objection to its being an option, but not the default. Kerry (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2023 (UTC) Striking through as this is a duplicate answer Cessaune [talk] 04:42, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A design that makes it hard for people with disabilities to navigate is objectively worse - - მარია ზაქარიაძე (Leave me a message!) 15:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: As the Vector 2010 skin has been the default for the majority of Wikipedia's existence, plus it's the style that most Wikipedia editors have gotten used to (myself included), completely revamping the look just doesn't make sense. If this new skin stays in place, all of Wikipedia's community, both editors and readers, must change the way they interact with the site. Reading is harder for both groups with excessive whitespace not fully using the whole page to its advantage, as excessive margins naturally attract more attention than blocks of text (as everyone has complained about). Navigating is harder with reorganised and reshuffled side links. While the new article ToC remains one of only a few good changes, I cannot support keeping it as the default in its current state, especially if IP editors have no convenient way to permanently switch back to the old look that we've all been used to for a decade. Liamyangll (talk to me!) 07:45, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Strong Strong Support:The new design is harder to navigate, especially for people with disabilities since you have to click multiple times to get to where you want. With the 2010 Vector, it’s all right there. No confusing drop down menus. The new design just looks low quality overall. — Preceding unsigned comment added by მარია ზაქარიაძე (talk • contribs) 09:11, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
harder to navigate, especially for people with disabilities I disagree. Besides tab navigation which got better, the buttons are a lot larger than text and are easier to click on. That outweighs needing to click multiple times. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"the buttons are a lot larger than text" - Text placed directly on the page can be easly accessed by text search, text in drop down menu doesn't. You can see all text placed directly on the page, text hidden in drop down men (for example language list) requires scrolling inside the menu. Two click instead one click. To sum up, lengthening and hindering access. Freja Draco (talk) 13:45, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That being said, I get the point that it needs more scrolling. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not just more scrolling, but more clicks/muose movements to get anywhere. Someone with motor disabilities likely has their screen magnified, rendering the 'clicking multiple times' argument dead. Cessaune [talk] 17:31, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm no expert on motor disabilities and apologies for moving the goalposts, but if a person can click once can't they click twice for less common functions? Something tells me there's something more but please tell me what that something is. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:02, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are accessibility options like automatic clicks and the like. If I had, for the sake of example, MS (multiple sclerosis), clicking more might be easier than finessing that mouse if the buttons are bigger. Other diseases might make the reverse easier. If I was trying to make something as accessible as possible, I would simply make the words bigger. Same amount of clicks, same amout of mouse movements, less chance for misclicking. Hiding it in a easy-to-click button both introduces and solves problems. And if your hands are super bad, you may use the keyboard to navigate. Or you might have a neurological disease (maybe a rare form of visual agnosia, maybe? Autism? ADD?) that makes pattern recognition hard, but you can read and understand words fine (or the reverse, though I don't think you would be on Wikipedia if that were the case). Or maybe you have lots of pain in your fingers, rendering it harder to click more. Or maybe you have Cotard's syndrome, and you think that your hands are fully gangrenous, which might introduce phantom pains and make your fingers hurt the more you click, or maybe you have... There are so many potential accessiblity issues to take into account that I'm now wavering on my previous answer. I guess it would make the most sense to keep what is familiar, given that the icons aren't really better or worse, but may create confusion? I don't know. Cessaune [talk] 01:48, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support.
- White space on the right side. Why is it there? "Create account" and the three dots hiding the login move to the edge of the white space on a wide screen, why not the rest of the page?
- Table of contents, part 1. Used to give an overview of the contents of the article, and it had a "hide" button for the people who complained that it created too much white space. The contents section in the side bar is useless. Cuts off after 41 lines, i.e., forces readers to scroll in longer articles with several levels of subsections after clicking to make them visible. Why can’t you make it wider (why is there all that white space on the right side) and as long as necessary to eliminate the need for clicking and scrolling? About the only positive thing about it is that the lines now wrap, but if that’s possible now why couldn’t you make that work in the original ToC?
- Table of contents, part 2. Used to separate the lead from the body of the article. Now there’s just some text above the first section heading. (Welcome to Wikitannica?). If Vector22 stays, the text should be shortened to a couple of sentences establishing the subject, and the summary eliminated altogether.
- Table of contents, part 3. "Hide" buttons should hide only the content of the section, not the heading. There should also be a "show" button to make the contents visible again.
- Log in. There’s plenty of space at the top. Don’t make me do an extra click to get to the log in. Also, it would be logical to show the info for logged out editors (pages, talk, and contributions) to people creating an account, not to those who already have one.
- Languages. Seems like busywork to put them top right when you could have left them where they were and added a hide/show button or a drop-down menu.
- Menu. We’re not the New York Times. A "Menu" section heading with a hide/show button or a drop-down menu would be easier to understand. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – the goal of making paragraphs of text less obscenely wide is an admirable one, but the solution of cramming all of the content including figures into a narrow column is not the right design. The web designers should go back to the drawing board on this one. My recommendation would be to add CSS rules to limit the width of text paragraphs, while letting floating images go into the right-side margin on larger displays, and letting larger elements such as tables, image galleries, columns of footnotes, etc. be wider than paragraphs. This approach has been working very well for me in my personal stylesheet for years. –jacobolus (t) 23:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Disclaimer: I wasn’t a fan of the previous redesign either, and stuck with Monobook. I add the following CSS to limit the width of text lines:
```
p { max-width: 45em; }
li, dd { max-width: 43em; }
blockquote p { max-width: 37em; }
form p, form li { max-width: none; }
```
This isn’t perfect and with hours / days of effort I am sure it could be improved. But it works well for me. YMMV. –jacobolus (t) 00:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Vector 2022 adds a bunch of difficulty to navigation. The width issues make articles with a lot of tables (ex: episode tables) display text in an awkward fashion (much more compressed). Also, there are random accessibility issues popping up (ex: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Awards and accessibility under Vector 2022 which flags how Vector 2022 is impacting link colors) so Vector 2022 shouldn't be the default until these accessibility issues are addressed. Ideally, there should be an option for not signed in users to be able to switch skins. Sariel Xilo (talk) 05:27, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: although I use MonoBook when I'm logged in (out of personal preference of its look, rather than anything wrong with Vector 2010), Vector 2022 is unpleasant to use when I'm logged-out or not on my own machine. The main issues are: 1) the border are massive wastes of screen real-estate and lead to more frequent scrolling when reading articles, 2) the lack of enclosure between the different parts of the interface (article text area, background, etc) is bad design and me second-guess where the edge of the article text is, 3) the design is just bland: white, white, white. It makes my eyes glaze over after a while, in a way Vector 2010 or MonoBook don't. I've heard a lot of similar laments from account-less readers in person. --Inops (talk) 14:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Since this new format came out I have had trouble reading up on articles here. I dislike this layout. It is not intuitive for reading, as others above have noted. Please change it back. 71.41.15.218 (talk) 18:25, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support and fire the people who pushed it through. (OK, that's a bit harsh) –Fredddie ™ 01:28, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Fredddie: Please consider that this is a WP:!VOTE; the merit of the comment is what really matters. You are invited to point out specifically what you don't like of the new interface, so that those who will close the RfC will consider it. Æo (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like any of it. –Fredddie ™ 01:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What specifically do you hate the most? Cessaune [talk] 01:54, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The new Vector has poor layout and does not make the most use of space. The Vector 2010 skin has worked well for years and I didn’t see any good reason why it needed to be changed. Dough4872 02:02, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I honestly tried to give Vector2022 a chance. It sucks. It wastes a lot of screen space and the frequently used commands are burried. As for the opposing argument, I can't beleve the argument we should give priority to the people who have high end high resolution displays. Someone with a high end monitor can always shrink the window size. Someone who has a low resolution monitor cannot scale up. IMHO it's more important to be friendly with low end hardware, not the high end. Is wikipedia for the poor or the rich? Dave (talk) 02:57, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support: roll back, unless the unlimited width is made a default and the link colors are returned to the 2010 scheme. I'm not going into further details on the latter issue because colleagues User:Femke and User:Noha307 already described that problem very well above. I hope it's possible to find a compromise when external links (both visited and unvisited) are discernible from (visited and unvisited) wikilinks, and the color scheme meets the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at the same time (but if not, sorry W3C, the external link issue is more important). I also don't like the new top menu, but it's not relevant for non-registered users, so not a big deal. ToC leaves something to be desired, but it's at least usable unlike the limited-width regime. Ain92 (talk) 11:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like conditional support, not weak support, unless you're doing a conditional weak support. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Aaron Liu, you have made more than 200 edits to this page by now, and a lot of them are rather unnecessary. This page is already very long, please consider not posting unless there really is something new or important to say (i.e. not like the above comment). Fram (talk) 13:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Fram, there's not much point in arguing over which adjectives users put before "support" when there are 300+ support votes here. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:25, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I tried to keep in mind that brains don't normally like UI changes in general so I waited a bit before weighing in, however, even after waiting I think that Vector 2022 was a step backwards. I think it's harder to navigate and negatively impacts readability. Flalf^Talk 18:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The old view is much better for desktop. Happy Editing--IAm Chaos 21:49, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't get why they need a new skin all of a sudden. The new skin has a lot more blank space and requires a lot more scrolling, and is harder to use imo. No offense to whoever designed the skin, but I think most people are still used to the old vector. Weeklyd3 (talk) 00:39, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
After thinking about it, I think asking readers (who do not have an account and thus cannot change their skin) what they think of vector 2022 would be nice, since the vast majority of site visitors come not to edit but to read articles. Weeklyd3 (talk) 00:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I already reverted this for myself, but it's quite jarring to see the new narrow style when I am not logged in. Change is not always good, and I have long been opposed to this stylistic choice that most website seem to be adapting. Quite frankly if I lose the ability to keep the 2010 version, I'll stop contributing completely. Kaiser matias (talk) 00:59, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The 2010 skin is so much better than the 2022 vector skin. The issues I have are that it messes up templates and view due to the very narrow width. Noah^Talk 05:16, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I tried the new look for a couple weeks, and I dusted this account off solely to share my thoughts. I think it is admirable for the WMF to try to modernize the look of Wikipedia, but the design and execution feels slipshod.
- The design feels flat and too suited for mobile rather than desktop viewing, as many have already complained about. The ToC sidebar is an interesting addition, but as some pages lack a ToC, the margins of body text thus differ and create a jarring viewing experience. I prefer a persistent sidebar, either as it was or perhaps with the ToC existing as a tab in that space that can be toggled on or off by default.
- I use a high-resolution display and must keep my web-browser zoomed-in to a small degree (usually 110%) to make pages comfortable to view. Zooming to this degree in Wikipedia hides the toggle-width button, filling the page with white and stretching text from end to end, unless the ToC is otherwise present. Incidentally, being logged-in unrolls the editor tools menu to the right, counter to the ToC or menu sidebar. Though this still creates whitespace, the body of the article is restricted to a more comfortable reading space. Considering I am primarily a reader and use Wikipedia on many devices, any option that requires logging in to enforce a design, whether to make Vector 2022's layout more palatable or to revert wholly to Vector 2010, is not optimal.
- Some have noted the rollout of Vector 2022 on other language Wikipedias, so this update creates (some) inter-Wikipedia design consistency, though no other English-language WMF projects besides MediaWiki use the new skin. As I prefer Vector 2010, I think the skin should be rolled back to maintain consistency with the other English-language WMF projects. If inter-Wikipedia consistency is the goal, then should not all sites be held to a common design standard, including their infoboxes and templates?
- I could get used to a new design but this isn't it. Maybe Vector 2010 with a sticky header? Personally, I'm a fan of the "2010s-esque skeuomorphism and unnecessary gradientage," as nicely described by Cessaune; even returning those elements to Vector 2022 would be a small win for me. Additionally, I feel like those design elements are endearingly kitschy, driving home the fact that you are indeed browsing an encyclopedia. Byzarru (talk) 08:20, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that the skeuomorphism is bad, it's just dated. WMF isn't going to budge on trivials like those. Cessaune [talk] 00:14, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That grey gradientage is the only thing of V10 that I don't care if they remove. Æo (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean to imply you said it was bad! I just thought what you said was poetic :) Byzarru (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support the new skin is ugly. Don't fix what ain't broken. Wikipedia has always had a minimalist design and loads quickly, I don't see the point in changing for the point of change. There appears to be lots of wasted space with the new skin, see the screenshots above. I don't see the new skin as an improvement. Oaktree b (talk) 15:48, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support - I don't like the new skin, no wikipedians like it, no non-wikipedians like it, and quite frankly it should never have been changed. The original design was iconic, instantly recognizable and widely understood by everyone. We need to change it back ASAP. --- Tbf69 userpage • usertalk 19:47, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There was never, as far as I can tell, a consensus to change to the new skin in the first place. Nor have there ever been convincing arguments to do so; aesthetically the new skin is hideous (and while this is subjective, visuals are a main part of the purpose of a skin, so it is part of what we are being asked to evaluate.) In terms of functionality, the foundations own survey showed that new editors had an easier time with the older skin. It is true that a great deal of work was wasted on the new skin, but that sort of sunk cost thinking is a terrible way to make major decisions like this (and is part of the reason why it's better to put them before the community; clearly the people who decided to waste resources developing the new skin had massive incentives to make it so their work was not "wasted." Hence why they eg. misreprented their own polling and generally did everything they could to force it through.) But from the perspective of anyone without a vested interest in the new skin's success, it is clear that the previous one was superior in every measurable way. EDIT: Just to clarify, in case the WMF makes some attempt to massage the votes to try and salveage this: I want Vector 2022 entirely gone as the default skin and for no version of it, or any skin in any way derived from or inspired by it, to ever be the default skin, ever again, under any circumstances. I do not want any further money, time, or effort to be spent on improving it or refining it; it is unsalveageable and its core problems fundimentially poison it at the root. The underlying problem here is not just Vector 2022 but the "double down" mindset that leads the WMF to continuously pour good time and money after bad because nobody wants to be responsible for a failure. But it is precisely because of that mindset that it's important to accept community feedback, recognize that Vector 2022 was a mistake, and drop it so resources can be reallocated to more promising areas. --Aquillion (talk) 09:46, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the statement that it is unsalveageable and its core problems fundimentially poison it at the root, but you never actually listed what you thought were its core problems. Can you elaborate on this? I'm intrigued. Also, there is literally zero chance that a refined version of V2022 isn't deployed within eighteen months if they revert back to V2010. It'll probably be deployed by 2024. Cessaune [talk] 13:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Every non-Wikipedian I've talked to about it greatly dislikes the new design, and I agree - while I don't see it myself in daily use (I use Monobook) it does unpleasantly resemble a mobile website and feels like change for no other reason than change. I'm all for change, but not this one - there's really nothing gained, and there was no clear consensus from the community for it, unmet conditional supports aside. -- a lad insane (channel two) 09:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support if this had been the version back in 2005, I would probably never have become a Wikipedia editor. When I am logged in it is ok (I changed my preferences so that I have the "old" version), when I am logged out it is horrible. What I miss most in the new version: no link to an article's common- or wikidata pages, no "What links here" link; those are links which I use all the time. Instead you have lots of white space(!), Huldra (talk) 20:59, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Huldra All the links you stated are still there, they're just on the right side of the article content, or under the "tools" dropdown if you hid the thing. I do agree that the implementation of pagetools was bad. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:23, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, User:Aaron Liu; I cannot see it, (not when I'm logged out); there is nothing on the right side of the article content. I cannot even see a "tools" dropdown, Huldra (talk) 23:31, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, @Huldra, pagetools isn't deployed for logged out users yet. However in that case the full sidebar will show up when you click on the controversial hamburger button (three horizontal lines, ) Aaron Liu (talk) 00:18, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support A new skin may be needed, or a nice option, but 2022 breaks articles and is much less user intuitive, even if it looks slightly more modern. Glman99 (talk) 16:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support per some arguments above by User:Cessaune. I, personally, don't like the new TOC at all. Also see my previous comment about statistics as they were presented. --Stux (talk) 22:37, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest EVER possible Support Vector 2010 is the best skin. Vector 2022 makes Wikipedia unrecognizable. -SonicIn2022 (talk, sandbox)
I'm really sorry, but this thing is just broken. Not only are all relevant features and links hidden behind obscure icons. I can't make anything stay open no matter what I do. Certain interactions like repeatedly clicking the "random article" link are just painful now. What's the point? Why hide everything? Is the plan to make Wikipedia read-only for people without an account? That's seriously the impression I get from this downgrade. 62.27.194.209 (talk) 12:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I have been editing on my phone for 3 years and 2022 feels like a slap in the face to someone who is used to the mobile interface for so long
this had a consistency issue and I like the old desktop interface as it makes sense for editing on a computer and browsing articles
I WOULD NOT EVEN WANT TO USE IT ON MY PHONE Pondekuda46 (talk) 16:25, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I’ve been using the redesign a good bit since I tend to use Wikipedia logged out. There is two things about the redesign. The first is the search, which seems to just be the same as the mobile app’s, but with a search results page which should fix the problems I have with that, though I haven’t used it enough to be sure. The 2nd is the ToC on the side, which I have gotten the occasional use out of. But that’s where the good will ends. Even the ToC is very flawed, subsections aren’t shown at first as they were before, which takes away from usability, and if you dare hide it you’ll be sent back to the top of the page, without an inline ToC to help you get back. And the new ToC comes at a cost, Current Events, Community Portal, Random Article, Wikidata Item, etc are all hidden in a menu at the top of the page, as are languages. The languages being moved is particularly egregious, as I have no way to know if an article is featured in another language, which is a loss of information (if a minor one) from vector 2010, which should be avoided. And as many who are better at articulating their thoughts than I have noted, the circumstances of the previous RfC seem kinda sketchy, which is really the most important part to me. MRN2electricboogaloo (talk) 18:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Kerry. I prefer to minimize clicking and scrolling, and like to see the menus as before. White space on both sides seems wasteful on other sites and I would prefer that users who aren't logged in don't have that experience. No hostility intended to anyone; I wish we could avoid conflict. -- econterms (talk) 03:04, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support per Tarkalak The new skin is hideous. It looks like a mobile app. The menus are hidden, it is harder to change language and it wastes half of my screen with white space. It is harder to read and navigate. The fact that you cannot get rid of it without creating ana account is the worst part. I literally had to create an account to use wikipedia. Why is this forced as a default at all? Tarkalak (talk) 07:42, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because the wikimedia foundation believes that this is what people want, and the foundation cares very little about how it impacts the rest of us. If you look throughout the history of the Wikipedia foundation you’ll discover that virtually every major decision they’ve made concerning Wikipedia has been met with massive pushback - and on one occasion, a civil cyberwar over the deployment. The foundation doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, and doesn’t take it back. Ever. Ultimately, this rfa is more about prosecuting User:ProcrastinatingReader and User:ScottishFinnishRadish for there piss poor closure of the original rfa which in no way shape or form condoned the rollout of this monstrosity whatsoever than is it about putting the original skin back in circulation. 2600:1011:B14C:3627:708D:5000:8B2:7071 (talk) 13:28, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1. Tarkalak you don't need to say "per myself" if the opinion is from you lol

2. IP, please read User talk:ProcrastinatingReader § Review of your closure. It is considered by the closers that the conditions outlined in the close for an RfC-free deployment have not been met. And please, Wikipedia is not about "prosecuting", CIVILITY is one of the five pillars and no-HARASSMENT is one of the WP:POLICIES. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, an RfA is a Wikipedia:Request for Adminship. The abbreviation you were looking for is RfC (Wikipedia:Request for Comment). Aaron Liu (talk) 13:39, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

foundation doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, and doesn’t take it back Ever heard of Wikipedia:Superprotect? Aaron Liu (talk) 17:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - in the previous RFC, I raised concerns about WP:ACCESSIBILITY [6], principles of universal design [7], research presented by developers in support of the new skin [8], the impact of the removal of the TOC from the top of articles and what was described in the discussion as "major community worktime issues that come from needing to redesign very large numbers of articles to match this layout better" [9], the lack of information about WCAG compliance for each feature of the new skin [10], more concerns about the TOC, WCAG, and the limited information from developers about research relied upon [11], and "the issue of whether sufficient credible, valid, and transparent research (both in studies, which we have been asked to review and have since extensively questioned, as well as user-testing, which has also been questioned) exists to support the new skin as well as making it the default does not seem to have been addressed", WCAG and the TOC, with an overall suggestion to make the new skin an option but not the default [12]. The discussion here does not appear to have addressed these concerns, and it appears that further substantial concerns have been raised about having this new skin as a default that unregistered users cannot change. I think it seems easy to say 'if you don't like it, don't use it', but given the substantial change in the appearance of articles, anyone who creates content cannot necessarily ignore the impact - the basic structure of articles no longer function as they have to present information (e.g. the lead, the TOC, images, tables), and the overall appearance of the new skin is glaringly bright (which may account for some of the repellant effect), and ultimately, the challenge presented by these new features (how does encyclopedic information get presented in a format that is designed to not be encyclopedic?) seems unacceptable to impose as a default. Beccaynr (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support due to unregistered editors not having the ability to go back to the old skin. We should have a different url for the old skin like old.wikipedia.org similar to old reddit that allows us to use the site in the old skin. 2409:408C:8E8B:F446:0:0:43C8:1313 (talk) 08:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. - Thelaftwardbard (talk) 15:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Thelaftwardbard please note that this is an RfC discussion and WP:not a vote. You have to give a reason. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:07, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Just the way other language versions of an entry are now hidden behind a drop-down menu is enough to undo this change. It is a bad user experience. However, I also support the return to Vector 2010 on procedural grounds. Ds77 (talk) 22:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. - I understand the impulse to change the skin. I see the value in some of the ideas here - a scroll-along table of contents is a good idea, for instance, even if this one requires more clicks to accomplish anything and hides most of the sections by default. Unfortunately, Vector 2022 simply isn't close to production-ready, and as it is, it makes reading Wikipedia less pleasant and less practical. Some of the problems can be fixed; I note the work going into fixing the accessibility nightmare that is disorganized and dividerless stark high-contrast design, for instance (please, please learn from all the accessibility crises Discord has caused every time it tried to 'fix' light mode in the name of accessibility; these things are hard, and common accessibility standards and best practices interact with common design trends to create accessibility-damaging results). Link colours can be changed back to differentiate in-wiki and out-of-wiki links, supporting readers again. The change of content width between page-reading and technical pages, the disappearing right sidebar when viewing history/editing/checking contributions/etc., can be dealt with. Other problems are deeper - hiding the former left sidebar material (including the very useful 'what links here' button) away under an awkward and out-of-the-way sandwich menu button actively makes the wiki harder to navigate for 'advanced', but is hard to solve when using the left sidebar space for the table of contents. This system needs rethinking, not just to help editors, but to help Wikipedia readers. 2607:F2C0:EAC2:1940:240C:A969:9EBA:9833 (talk) 04:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, discord tried to fix light mode? Tell me more! Aaron Liu (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The big move was in 2019 - after jokingly getting rid of light mode for April Fools Day and being hit with a backlash from people who needed it, they decided to take the mode seriously at last, recognizing its necessity for accessibility. They decided to look into why so few people were using light mode, and learned that non-users wanted light mode to have a light sidebar and higher text-background contrast. The result was a light mode that was brighter and starker, with harsher text against an overwhelming white background, and that did less to differentiate between sections of the interface - better for some of the people who had been avoiding light mode, and an accessibility disaster for many who had been using it. After extensive angry feedback, a dark sidebar option was eventually added again. 24.246.2.244 (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Yes oh yes - it would be great if the community finally told the WMF devs to stop trying to make Wikipedia into something it is not. Please note; I was only just now made aware this RfC even exists, by coincidence. This needs to be broadcast to every registered editor on Wikipedia, otherwise it will likely just be dismissed as a minority opinion. CapnZapp (talk) 06:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support is the only option for me. The WMF shouldn't have fixed a few issues and then assume the could proceed with the rollout. That might be acceptable for MINOR changes where the raised issues are very clearly defined and demonstrably fixed, but this was far too complicated for that. After fixing issues, another RFC/vote was in order to establish consensus to roll out Vector-2022. If the original RFC would have had overwhelming support that may not have been needed, but it was roughly 50/50. Whenever I visit Wikipedia on a device/browser on which I'm not logged in it bugs me now. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:02, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The vector interface seems less visually appealing (new logo), less useful (new table of contents), and overly modern (total removal of useful lines). User1042💬✒️ 21:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User1042: I have moved your !vote to the bottom of the support section as it should be according to chronological order. Note that both the old skin and the new skin are called vector, the former "Vector legacy (2010)" and the latter "Vector (2022)". Cheers! Aaron Liu (talk) 21:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a very unfortunate choice of name. It's almost as if the WMF wanted to present us with a fait accompli, with the new skin usurping the incumbent's name, and the existing skin condemned as "legacy". Certes (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's because the change didn't move as much things as other skins (Standard->Monobook, Monobook->Vector), it preserves the layout while changing buttons into icons and a collapsible menu, changing the link color, applying a width, sticky header, and changing the background colors. These changes aren't nearly as large as other skins and is more of a visual refresh. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:11, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think that the differences between Vector 2010 and Vector 2022 are more extensive and impacting than those between Monobook and Vector 2010. Æo (talk) 13:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I've tried. I've been using it and it's just clunky. The old interface just gets things done better. It uses space better. It's most efficient. It feels more understandable. As a group we need to learn that change for the sake of change often isn't a good thing. Jason Quinn (talk) 04:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The previous version is better, specially in the use of the space and readability. Alexcalamaro (talk) 10:51, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The new default skin makes navigation more difficult and it harder to read on various screens. Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 19:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rollback - I've already commented on this page several times, but to "officially" add to the poll - the changes to navigation in particular really need to be reverted. Like moving the TOC, hiding the side banner, moving the tools menus, hiding links in drop downs, etc. See also my comments here. - jc37 19:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support unless IP users can change the skin back. It's the IP users who are being the most affected by this, since the rest of us can just log into our accounts and change the preferences. Also, there was no consensus to deploy the skin (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deployment of Vector (2022)) and all of the white space is really bugging me. ‍ ‍ Helloheart ‍ ‍ 04:21, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - Not only does this new skin embody Flat design (which is not only aesthetically unpleasing to many but has also been psychologically proven to be less usable than other obviously skeumorphic designs), it also attempts to be mobile-friendly, despite there already being a mobile skin for Wikipedia which works perfectly well. Tux9001 (talk) 13:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support - Hideous. Nearly impossible to navigate! Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 15:42, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. First, the last RfC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deployment of Vector (2022) should clearly have been closed as "no consensus to deploy." Second, the new skin is overreliant on cryptic abstract symbols. This style is particularly unfriendly for the IPs and new users. The 2010 vector was much better. Nsk92 (talk) 18:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. Wikipedia is hard enough to learn without needing to figure out all of the weird little symbols and remember them. Accessing fundamental pages such as the watchlist should be as easy and intuitive as possible, and the lines with a star is only recognizable to those who are already familiar with it. Roundish ⋆t c) 14:46, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support While I have an account I frequently use Wikipedia at work where I don't want to/can't sign in so I've resorted to a bookmarklet/manually typing ?useskin=vector on every page because it's worth my time to do so. My main complaints are the sheer amount of whitespace, languages being harder to access, and the sidebar being hidden away. I think the ToC in the sidebar is maybe a good thing, but I'd prefer the regular sidebar. Until IP users have an option to save useskin (even just reading it from a cookie in addition to the GET variable) or a major redesign I do not think it should be the default. 170.112.1.251 (talk) 20:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note that you can move the sidebar to the sidebar by clicking on the upper left Hamburger button Aaron Liu (talk) 01:40, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not sticky for IP users, have fun clicking it every time you load a new page. (The above IP user is me) Pk11 (talk) 10:26, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support I only found out about this change when my browsers logged me out today, but I've been living with Vector 2022 for a while as I also read and edit w:fr where it has been default for some time now. I've never acclimated to it there, and somehow w:en's implementation feels even more half-baked. marsdeat^Talk 01:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support roll back the default for everyone, including logged-out users. Vector 2022 makes navigation much harder, and Vector 2010 was better. Vector 2022 should remain a non-default user-selectable option. GretLomborg (talk) 23:41, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong support The new set-up made Wikipedia almost unusable, and I switched back as soon as I could. Multiple other people who don't edit here find the set-up difficult/annoying to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kew Gardens 613 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I prefer a properly sized and visible TOC below the article lede. Fischer47392 (talk) 11:51, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SupportVector 22 makes Wikipedia a living hell with its excessive whitespace, sticky header, and consensus-less implementation. The Emaciator (talk) 17:17, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I was absolutely appalled to see that the largest concern of all was completely disregarded in the implementation. It was quite clear in the consensus that a clear and accessible fixed-width toggle should be made available for all. That a fix was not implemented should be more than reason enough to roll this change back.
I also have some accessibility concerns that help to support the idea that the change was wholly unnecessary. For example, the FAQ states that they moved the translation links to the top of the page because from the readers' perspective, the sidebar is not a place for useful links. Most readers focus on the content area. This explanation makes perfect sense when you consider that editors can see translation links in the header. But only them. For the average reader, the tippy-top of the page is also not a home for useful links. Mebigrouxboy (talk) 05:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support; the new layout is not an improvement. Mixing in-page navigation with site navigation is confusing; they should be separate. The "hamburger" menu icon is effectively mystery meat navigation to anyone other than a web developer. The "hamburger" is hidden when images are turned off. I'm not opposed the change but this could have been so much better if the devs had actually listened to the community. But at least they've now un-hid the log-in link. Baffle☿gab 02:34, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Baffle gab1978: Hello, I was wondering if you could expand on the hamburger menu interaction with images? Is that documented somewhere? Thanks, CMD (talk) 15:09, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think they mean if you have a WP:NOSEE option that hides all images enabled, the icons will disappear. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:30, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I find Vector 2022 to be substantially more difficult to navigate. I have finally decided to comment following statements from SDeckelmann-WMF that a rollback should only be done (if at all) for logged in editors. To me, this communicates a distressing disregard for IP editors / readers who can't opt out of the WMF-dictated change. As an occasional IP editor who gave up using an account in frustration at the WMF and WP "leadership", I am outraged by (but not surprised about) the disdain directed at the WP community in general and its most disrespected members (the IP community). I accept that may not be the WMFs intention, or SDeckelmann's intention, but it is the effect from my perspective. The success of Wikipedia arises from its mission and the countless hours of work from its volunteers. The WMF is meant to serve the needs of the community, not to act as if the success and achievements of Wikipedia are the results of its own work. I seriously doubt that the message here will be respected, sadly... but you have annoyed me enough to formally register my view. Undo the change, return to Vector 2010 as default for everyone, and make sure future developments are opt-in. 172.195.96.244 (talk) 11:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm not against change, but I do expect changes that go live to be improvements. I suppose this option is a compromise most can live with, but in truth I'd prefer that we rollback to Monobook by default - for those newer editors who haven't yet tried it, your preferences still let you upgrade to Monobook. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:32, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On what rational basis is there any reason to believe that Monobook, a skin that's almost 20 years old, is demonstrably better as the default for the majority of readers and editors? Your comment is verging on being a parody of the inability of Wikipedia editors to accept any change, no matter how carefully implemented. Vector 2022 underwent years of rigorous, iterative testing where piece by piece, they've proven that it improves the efficiency of navigating the site for most people. It continues to constantly be updated including in response to comments in this very RFC. Steven Walling • talk 20:31, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Vector 2010 > Monobook > Vector 2022 --- 212.5.158.191 (talk) 01:29, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This kind of offhand comment just proves the point that most of the Support comments here are based on I just don't like it, which is not even remotely a representation of how we should make a decision about the default interface for >41,000 active editors and 800 million monthly visitors. Steven Walling • talk 17:44, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of Support arguments boil down to I hate it, while Oppose arguments generally boil down to I like it or it's fine. That's the nature of such a large-scale RfC, especially one dealing with visual stuff. Cessaune [talk] 18:09, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I left the English Wikipedia in 2015, but I am still active at the Dutch and German Wikipedias. I can't say I'm looking forward to the introduction of Vector 2022 there. Vector 2022 leaves a large portion of my wide screen unused. The languages menu is messy and common buttons like "Contributions", "What links here" and "User Contributions" are in places that are hard to find. I haven't even been able to find out where the "User Contributions" have gone. Sijtze Reurich (talk) 08:44, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both User Contribs and What links here are under the tools menu. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - absolutely atrocious interface and frustrating to use, who wants to see a scroll bar in the center-left part of the screen, cutting into the article space??. At the very least, give us all (including IPs) an easy way to go back. When will people learn, don't fix what ain't broken.— Crumpled Fire • contribs • 17:44, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Google’s been making waves for not changing anything for over 30 years and they hold the #1 spot on most visited web pages. Take a page from their playbook and ‘’’leave it alone’’’. Seriously. Stop changing shit when it don’t need changing. 2600:1011:B14C:3627:F17A:E283:1AFF:2596 (talk) 02:22, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but Google changed a lot in the past 25 years (since its inception). Have a look at this snapshot from 2010. While the background for Google never changed (Wikipedia changed from pure white -> monobook -> gray with gradient transition from white -> pure white), the rest of the changes to Google since 2010 are about the same as the changes between v10 and v22. Aaron Liu (talk) 04:47, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see the word google, a search box, and two buttons for getting results, just like it is today. Anything beyond that is irrelevant, because the background changes I don’t see are none of my business. The interface hasn’t changed, that’s why I love it: I don’t need a doctorate from MIT to navigate the site, it’s intuitive, something Wikipedia’s front page is not. 2600:1011:B14C:3627:F17A:E283:1AFF:2596 (talk) 04:52, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The interface pretty much changed as much as Google. “Everything else” is pretty relevant, and even if they aren’t, the core part of Wikipedia, searching for articles, didn’t change either, it’s still a search box at the top. (Also note that [13] exists)

Google changes
Flat design
Flattened logo

Material design buttons and other elements

Removal of links
Even more top links put into a drop-down, including settings

Moved some to a separate panel at the bottom of the page

I’m feeling lucky functionality changed from “jump to first result” to “Random Google hijinks”

Wikipedia changes
Flat design
Wikimedia design buttons and other elements

Plain icons (only relevant to editors) replaced major text buttons

More focus on articles
Removal of links
Even more top links put into a drop-down, including settings

Moved some to a separate panel to the right of the page (only for logged in users)

Collapsible sidebar

Aaron Liu (talk) 12:41, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a fair description. I'm counting 19 links and buttons (1 to a promotional feature) on google.com in 2010 and 17 in 2023. It might seem that there are a lot fewer links because three of them were replaced by icons, and many were moved to a new panel. Vector 2022 placed more than two thirds of the links behind an icon that's easily overlooked by unfamiliar readers who don't expect mobile icons on a PC. P.S. It doesn't help that most of the drop-down icons on Wikipedia now appear to be lazy loaded; this is something that absolutely needs to be changed. Daß Wölf 12:35, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fair. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:17, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support a rollback; the design of Vector 2022 emphasizes the wrong things. In addition to the unused space, V22 seems to further "wast" space by emphasizing translation a lot more; from personal experience, I never really use the translation features on a regular basis. If anything, though, we should update all designs to more prominently feature the ability to change the look. With two quick clicks, we can get Vector 22, Vector '10, Monobook, even Minerva. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 19:13, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@InvadingInvader, I believe this is to show the readers the existence of the article in other languages, rather than to emphasise translation. — Qwerfjkl talk 12:34, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The main innovation of this skin seems to be hiding things. It hides the sidebar menu behind a dumb hamburger icon to make space for the table of contents, even on pages that don’t have a table of contents, and then it hides parts of the table of contents behind disclosure triangles, because the sidebar doesn’t actually have enough space for a Wikipedia-style table of contents. It should be self-evident that hiding features doesn’t make them easier to use. Microsoft learned this lesson with Office’s interface—they moved features that used to be in drop-down menus, where they were hard to find, into a ribbon, where they were easily visible. Vector 2022 is a step in the wrong direction. 98.97.8.244 (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not arguing against you here, just curious: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the ribbon hidden by default? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:48, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I’m aware, the ribbon interface has always been open by default. 98.97.8.244 (talk) 00:53, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The other option is cumbersome and unwelcoming. Ann Teak (talk) 22:08, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support The new skin is known to be unreadable and technically sub-par. The UI/UX experts know that responsive design is best, which means the new skin is unworkable. Let's leave the design to the experts, please, and not burden the website with what fashionistas think is trendy.—chbarts (talk) 18:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, too many issues, too little compatibility with other skins (ToCs are too different), doesn't seem to be designed for anything but mainspace. —Kusma (talk) 15:14, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There is clearly not an en.wp consensus to default to Vector 2022 on en.wp. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back to contents

Oppose rolling back to Vector 2010

Oppose as too soon but also as I find the new skin a substantial improvement over the legacy skin. I don't think the ivory tower comment above is representative of the rollout process. I endorse 331dot's comment as well. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 21:09, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Although there are some tweaks I would like to see (better line/color use for separation of the UI sections and less whitespace between the TOC and the article) reverting the whole thing is not a solution. If that is our first instinct, there will never be progress. Besides, the proven benefits of shorter lines and the convenience of the sticky TOC are categorically better for most readers out there. Toadspike (talk) 21:47, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Any decision about this, now or in the future, should be based on a rigorous reader survey, not an insider straw poll. The pool of people who will fathomably even see this page is a tiny fraction of the number of people who this would affect. Contrary to some claims here and elsewhere, this wasn't some bombshell dropped out of nowhere with no community input; it seems like I've seen several attempts to draw my attention to various feedback processes. Those of us who will actually see this are also the ones who can most easily just change it in our preferences. PS: WP:ONUS, part of our policy on verifying claims in our encyclopedia articles, has nothing to do with this. Live with it a while, provide feedback about any issues or areas that can be improved, and lobby for a good reader survey about it in, say, 6 months (if one isn't planned already). PS: Monobook4everzzz — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:50, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been trying out Monobook just to see what all the fuss was about, but I really don't think I can live without the sidebar ToC anymore. V22 4 lyfe!! Shells-shells (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I tried Monobook for a few weeks, years before this whole mess, and the thing I couldn't get past was each Twinkle feature (CSD, PROD, Tag...) having its own tab. It got messy very fast, especially on mobile. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but the issue is that this should have been done before the rollout - not after. WalnutBun (talk) 01:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Repository/Sentiment Survey Aaron Liu (talk) 01:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with every word of this. (except the post scriptum). Also, an RFC on a somewhat obscure page like this one, can't possibly override consensus formed on a highly-prominent page, which was advertised in a prominent watchlist notice. DFlhb (talk) 09:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF held a user survey. Users preferred Vector 2010. BilledMammal (talk) 19:47, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with several of your points, I end up using multiple computers on a daily basis, which means that even if I have changed it in my preferences, I will still be presented with the vector 2022 skin. As a reader, I was caught very unaware, and did not understand why wikipedia rendered differently on different devices (some were logged in, some were not).

A reader poll would have been a much better idea, and would have caused less pushback Pbeagan1 (talk) 05:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - As I supported the original RfC to add V22, I clearly don't want legacy back as the default. But beyond that, this is a waste of everyones time because the switch has been flipped, the press release has been sent and no RfC anywhere with less than 100% support will get this switch unflipped. A dark mode is more likley to be released tomorrow than this becoming a reality... Terasail ^[✉️] 21:56, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) - And here I thought Fait accompli was frowned upon on Wikipedia. - jc37 22:04, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Realistically this change was coming if the original RfC had 0% support. It just happens I like the change, but some people just need to accept some changes sometimes. I was watching clips from BBC Archive and people had similar "outrage" over indoor smoking bans and seatbelt enforcement (People don't like change even if it is good for them). This change isn't a deep issue at the end of the day but you would think that the world is ending if you were reading VPT and some other threads.. Terasail ^[✉️] 22:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Realistically this change was coming if the original RfC had 0% support." - and therein lies a major problem. You tell me, anytime the WMF has pushed something through without actual community consensus and buy-in - how has that turned out?

That aside, I agree with you - I expect this to be fait accompli, and we're all just going to be like Kermit the frog waving our arms helplessly in the air. But sitting quiet and saying nothing would be wrong. - jc37 22:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comparing the pushback to the theme change to resistance to seat belts and indoor smoking strikes me as an example of bad faith. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheMissingMuse, how exactly? — Qwerfjkl talk 20:17, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl, you cannot compare design aesthetics with public health laws. One is a matter of preference, and the other is a matter of life and death. This is more akin to Coke vs. New Coke. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:54, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheMissingMuse, Yes, it's not a perfect compariosn, but it's good enough. The point is that it's for the readers' good. — Qwerfjkl talk 18:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, painting those who disagree with you as being in the same court as those who disapprove of public safety laws is a bald faced, bad faith caricature. Your assertion that the new skin "is for the readers' good" is not supported by any objective facts. TheMissingMuse (talk) 19:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheMissingMuse, the whitespace follows WCAG guidelines, which is intended to help readers. Similarly for the rest of the new features. — Qwerfjkl talk 19:57, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A plain html file without any CSS follows accessibility guidelines by default, and a static site with very little styling struggles to break them. As far as I can see, v2022 takes us further away from that ideal. The more styling you force upon the user, the less possible client-side customisation for access or comfort becomes. Web accessibility would hardly be a problem without web designers. small jars tc 20:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SmallJarsWithGreenLabels, but there are many readers that don't now how to use client-side accesibilty. The content should be accessible straight away and not require additional styling by the reader. — Qwerfjkl talk 20:07, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone knows how to resize their browser window, though, right? small jars tc 20:11, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...and, of course, everyone should be more familiar with their own OS's client-side accessibility options than, for example, the very broken width control from the v22 devs. small jars tc 20:28, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what world you're living in when you think everyone knows how to resize windows. Neither my uncle or mum significantly use/d Wikipedia but I am certain neither of them really know/knew how to, or would consider, resizing their browser window. Nil Einne (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Resizing windows has been a part of the desktop paradigm for nearly 40 years. Just because inexperienced users aren't aware of that capability doesn't mean design should cater to that lack of knowledge. Furthermore, inexperienced users are unlikely to be using high-end enthusiast/prosumer/professional displays that exacerbate the whitespace problem. Vector 2022 is definitely more usable at 1080p (or lower) resolutions and on tablet devices, which is what the majority of inexperienced users are going to be using. Trynn (talk) 23:35, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We should be building Wikipedia for everyone, not the majority, considering a small minority of users do the majority of work on Wikipedia, and use Wikipedia significantly more than the majority of users. Cessaune [talk] 21:57, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, this situation is starting to look like a man, a boy, and a donkey. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Out of the people who use Wikipedia and would be bothered to change the width, those who don't know how to resize a freaking window are a very small minority. They can be treated like air friction. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No evidence has been provided for that claim. From my experience working with people who's knowledge of computers is limited, I find it unlikely. I fully expect there are a very large number of people who use Wikipedia but either don't know how to, or would never think of, resizing windows. As I said below the whole point of this thread is that we should indeed cater for the large majority of inexperienced readers who are indeed not using "high-end enthusiast/prosumer/professional displays" first. Frankly I would encourage the WMF to ignore the views of anyone who thinks we should cater to people using "high-end enthusiast/prosumer/professional displays" first as something incredibly harmful to Wikipedia. As I said below, I fully support giving readers (and editors) the option to turn off the fixed width the only question here is whether we should keep the default because it's better for the average reader. Nil Einne (talk) 02:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you want evidence, look up some of the research and stats that have been done on computer literacy and standard UX design practices. From a quick Google search I found several references to an OECD study in the last decade that indicated about 2/3rds of adults know how to use computers at least at a basic level. And out of the 1/3rd who don't, most of those don't know how to use a computer at all. I don't think WMF should really be designing the UI for people who don't even know how to get to Wikipedia. The majority of desktop users absolutely know how to resize a window.

As for the rest of your hyperbole, nobody is suggesting catering only to people with high-end displays. However, the excessive whitespace problem is really only a problem for people with high-end displays. Note: when I say 'whitespace' here, I'm specifically referring to the 'dead' space outside of the styled content frame, which is actually rendered in grey. At 1080p (which is the most commonly used desktop display resolution right now), there really isn't a difference between Vector2010 and Vector2022 in terms of that dead-space. It's only at higher resolutions that Vector2022 shows dead space where Vector2010 does not. Furthermore, using proper responsive design techniques, it's relatively straightforward to make a web page display with the expected maximum line-length in a 1080p window and also fill up a wider window for those who use one. This is not an either/or thing here, and it boggles the mind as to why WMF didn't do that here. Inexperienced users already get a decent experience with either skin, but high-end users get a drastically reduced experience using Vector2022. It's possible to accommodate both sets of users with minimal effort. Trynn (talk) 08:22, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Proper responsive design techniques" require an excessive amount of javascript, something which greatly increases the cost of accessibility. To service it's mission Wikipedia should render cleanly for everyone without any javascript. TheMissingMuse (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On a side note, responsive web design can be done with pure CSS, as the ability to have different style rules based on the size of the viewport has been supported for many years now by all major browsers. isaacl (talk) 03:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As @Isaacl mentioned, using CSS media queries to do responsive design based on viewport width has been standard practice for many years now. Trynn (talk) 06:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl, it doesn't matter if a guideline is intended to help readers. What matters is whether or not you have actually helped readers. Based on the poor design decisions I've seen in Vector 2022, my guess is that it is a net negative with respect to helping readers on desktop platforms. Now, that's only a guess so I would love to see any data that suggests that the changes in the overall experiences has improved things for readers overall. TheMissingMuse (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nil Einne, if we can't expect people to know one of the most basic and consistent features in OS GUIs since they were invented, how can we expect them to know how to use a site-specific text width toggle or a bunch of different mystery meat hieroglyphic menus? If anything, this assertion that users take decades to learn basic controls is an argument to avoid inventing web interfaces which are not self-explanatory. Nemo 07:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nemo bis: Precisely, that's why we should focus on getting the interface right for the average reader without needing to do jack shit. That was the point being made by the editor who started this subthread when another editor claimed, with zero evidence, that most readers knew how to and would adjust the window width if the text width was too long which ignores the reality of how the vast majority of people use computers along with their knowledge of and consideration to what is better for them. We should provide options for advanced readers, as well as editors but recognise that the vast majority by far of readers are not going to use them nor are they going to use OS accessibility features or whatever people want to talk about even if they would find them better. Note that in my opposition, I have supported making the ability for full width pages to be a selectable default option for all readers without needing an account while keeping the default of limited fixed width for the average reader based on the evidence it's better. Notably while I have no evidence, I suspect based on my experience that the number of readers who would know how to and would think of adjusting their window size but could not figure out how to use a button to remove the fixed width when it's something they find a lot better, is actually relatively small in the grand scheme of things given the nature of tech experience and knowledge. (Note also that adjusting window size also means you either have to re-adjust or use multiple windows when browsing different pages which may use limited width text but use the additional space for other useful things.) Note I've largely ignored editors here. The reality is, even with the visual editor, editing Wikipedia is still way too complicated and for various reasons is always likely to remain that way such that the vast majority of readers have zero chance of being able to do it in any way successfuly. This doesn't mean we should try to make it easier for them, we should, but we should do so based on actual research etc, not based on what random people say not even people with experience. Not you, not me, not anyone. And of course it also means we should also recognise that the focus of Wikipedia's (and nearly all WMF wikis) UIs should always be on these large number of readers who are never going to consider editing first, not on anything else. We shouldn't make Wikipedia hard for editors because of it, but if something significantly improves the experience for these large number of readers it probably should be implemented even if it comes at a small cost to those small number of readers who will edit. (If it comes at a larger cost it gets more complicated.) Way to often I've seen editors seem to forget this e.g. those who suggest we should get rid of the very popular Wikipedia app or the mobile site based on the fact they as editors find it useless. Nil Einne (talk) 02:46, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just to further make the point at a very basic level, here's the thinking that likely needs to go in to adjusting the window size. The reader needs to realise, hey I'm actually finding this page more difficult to read then the large number of other websites including news websites which have limited the text width OR (far less likely someone will know this) I prefer short text width. If we're lucky they will now think so what can I do? In rare cases the person would automatically know how to adjust window size and think of adjusting the window size. More likely the person would first need to think a great deal before they even realise maybe I can adjust the window so it isn't so long. They may have seen people do it before, doesn't mean it's something they'll remember or think about since it's simply not something they ever do. I mean realistically, we probably have a reasonable number of readers who aren't reading maximised not because it's what they prefer but simply because their window somehow ended up like that and they either don't know how or never considered maximising it again. Then then need to figure out they can drag the window to reduce the width which includes being able to click in the right place, hold the mouse button etc. If you think I'm being too harsh let's consider this. How many times have you seen a viral photo or video from a smart phone in portrait mode when it would clearly be a lot better in landscape and there was clearly enough time to simply turn the phone to landscape? Nil Einne (talk) 03:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, these are valid points and in fact the fixed width is the least of my concerns, even though I think it should be handled by the browser (for example by avoiding to open in a window at extremely high widths by default, or reminding people about the option to resize the window). A much worse problem are the unknown unknowns: there are some features which users will not even imagine might exist, let alone hunt down in the interface or the settings. The most important are the interlanguage and interproject links, but also navigational features like "What links here", not to mention the links to community pages to learn how to contribute. For these, the user will never have any sorts of internal hints, not even "I have a headache and I have no idea why". Yet we don't have any data on what the impact was, except perhaps some stale information about interlanguage links. Nemo 06:58, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@TheMissingMuse, so it's subjectibe either way. "Your assertation ... is not backed up by any objective facts." — Qwerfjkl talk 22:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Don't get me wrong, if there is data provided a few months from now that the new skin is worse (Unlikley considering these results would have probably appeared from other wikis with it as the default for ~2 years) then I think the change should be made back to legacy vector but the day after the change just isn't the time. Terasail ^[✉️] 22:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which wikis was this the default for the last two years? TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheMissingMuse you can get a timeline of its deployment in other wikis here - mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements#Deployment plan and timeline. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 17:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link! As a fluent speaker of French, I tried to find where they were discussing the theme, but the main discussion link points to: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements which is in en wiki. Will let you know if I can find where the feedback lives in fr wiki. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:50, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a link to some feedback in fr: w:fr:Discussion Projet:Amélioration de l'interface par la WMF#Vector 2022 : des changements majeurs de mise en page avec le Sommaire fixe. Specific quotes include: "Un tel changement brutal me semble, à mon humble avis, très maladroit" and "Je suis d'accord pour dire que cette smartphonisation du web imposée aux utilisateurs PC est insupportable", which roughly translates to: "this brutal change seems to me IMHO, very poorly done" and "I am good with saying that this smartphone-ization of the web imposes an unsupportable UX". That's not to say that there wasn't other feedback, but stark feedback was coming in through. Was anyone monitoring Vector 2022 discussion in other language wikis? TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:02, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't know the page existed. I always thought the talk were only done in English. Only finding that after 2 years kinda hurt. DerpFox (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new design is fine, you'll get used to it. People complain about every website redesign no matter how well thought out it is. – Anne drew 22:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why does that make me think of lie back and think of England? - jc37 22:52, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jc37 That's because 50% of the oppose arguments are this verbatim! Tweedle (talk) 17:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The sticky TOC is very useful and my eyes have started adjusting in a good way. Nirzardp (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose not based on the merits of this discussion but for the fact that there is nothing to suggest this discussion will be more representative than any other. People should express their concerns and suggestions on the Vector 2022 talk page. 331dot (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome to your opinion, of course. But buried on some page away from the VP at this point is unlikely to get response from the WMF, in my opinion. YMMV, of course. - jc37 23:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly sure that WMF accounts have been posting at the talk page of WP:VECTOR2022; I haven't seen one here. 331dot (talk) 00:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No change because we've already talked about it once before? So nothing should be changed on Wikipedia ever, for all time? AsmodeanUnderscore (talk) 10:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No change should be unnecessarily forced upon all WIkipedia users without:
A trial demonstration period notifying all editors of the proposed changes, and allowing them to sample the new skin without it being the default.

A period for editors to comment -- since they'll be affected the most by the range of changes.

A trial demonstration period notifying all users of the proposed changes, and allowing them to sample the new skin without it being the default.

A period for community comment -- not only of Wikipedia insiders, but the general public, as well (Editors generally have much higher tech skills with Wikipedia than the general user (reader) base, and therefore are not a fully representative sample of users. What may be easy for editors may be challenging and alienating for ordinary visitors.

A sober period of reflection by the decision-makers at Wikipedia. And, no, WP:Consensus on a matter such as this appears to be a semantic illusion. Somebody (or somebodies) in the hierarchy does the actual deciding -- prevailing sentiment, or actual consensus, notwithstanding. Ideally, the decision-makers should be people not personally attached to the proposed change(s).

Decision on specific changes, or retention of all status quo, or push to implement all proposed changes, per the decision-makers, who should be transparently identified as such.
It's the Age of Transparency, people.

~ Penlite (talk) 12:55, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I oppose undoing the improvements that the new skin brought. On behalf of users sans accounts, a reversion shouldn't take place without seeing analysis of all anonymous users versus those who've edited to voice objection to the change. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 01:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose: WMF has been responsive and painstakingly taking feedback on the designs and using data-driven arguments/research for what would benefit our readers. Thoughtful feedback by editors have been incorporated, for example the option to include/exclude margin space. Ultimately experienced editors always have the option to opt out/switch vector skins, but it is our main users, the readers who are not actively in these discussions whom we must have in sight. For what the vector skin does, it is barely a change and I would encourage WMF to be even more aggressive and bold in future. The fact mobile editing/navigation/talk page headers is still broken for so many users bothers me far more than this petty quibble about CSS. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 01:02, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Feedback from people involved in the process is going to be massively skewed in favour of the technocrats who wanted to shovel this down our throats. It is clear that the wider community that never even knew this was happening do not want it.Macktheknifeau (talk) 12:12, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I really don't think this is something editors should decide; leave it to developers and more importantly ask the readers. And it is truly, IMO, too late now. Besides: I'll keep using old Vector, but is this change so horrible? J947 † ^edits 01:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If they have the power to roll it out, then they have the power to un-roll it out, at least technically. The only reason they couldn't is because it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 01:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes. But imagine the shitstorm which would arise if the change was reverted. If it's truly a massive problem, then wait a month or two and then – fill the dreaded whitespace with a reader poll on whether to keep the change or not. J947 † ^edits 01:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How would that cause a shitstorm? If anything, waiting a few months to roll it back would cause a shitstorm - reverting the change now is the right move, not waiting and giving people the time to get somewhat used to the change before ripping it out from under them. WalnutBun (talk) 01:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I have seen many comments similar to what Donald Trump said, "I know more than the generals do"- people who think they know better than the developers. 331dot (talk) 01:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The real problem here is developpers who think they know better than their community members what these members want and just refuse to listen to their complaints! T v x1 01:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is demonstratably false. 331dot (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The developers may know more about the technical details of the implementation, but they certainly don't know more about the summation of individual preferences and aims than the collective whole. This is analogous to the classic problem of centrally planned economies. Pure appeals to authority can only go so far. Sure, perhaps the dev team has a whole bunch of data about how decreased information density has xyz benefit and abc tradeoffs, and they also believe the benefits outweigh the costs (one-sided tradeoffs are extremely rare). But, if we disagree on the respective importance of those benefits and costs, then all the statistics in the world have no authority. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 06:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose: The new skin IS better, even though there is excess whitespace. Polls from both editors and readers have shown that less prefer the old one. I also fail to see the argument against limiting the text width and the new ToC. Additionally, though this did not contribute to my !vote, this RfC was way too preemptive. It was started less than a day after deployment, which means that a lot of people could simply need to be accustomed. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I had some issues with the new skin, and they have been fixed. I like being able to know what the readers are seeing. Tired of the wingers and the knockers. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The "Enable limited width mode" should be disabled as the default for all readers, logged in or not. I think that'll get rid of most of the complaints about the new skin. Some1 (talk) 01:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is my primary issue with the skin itself, but it won't fix the lack of communication that preceded the rollout. WMF claims they put up banners for almost a year before the change - I never saw anything of the sort, and I know I'm not alone - check Wikipedia_talk:Vector_2022. WalnutBun (talk) 01:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. Andre🚐 04:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The people who know enough to vote here know how to change their skin. The design team has a lot of incentives to get things right for unregistered accounts and so even if it's not there yet - and I suspect it's not - they'll get there. I wanted to like this change, I found it broke some things I can't live without, I've gone back but that doesn't mean I should impose my preference on a much larger set of people. And I say all this despite the fact that I think the WMF team has made it clear, despite statements to the contrary, that our feedback doesn't matter. Bad form on them for sure. But that's not a reason to rever the change either. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please clarify? I've read your comments a couple times now, and they seem to say: "The WMF did this badly on several fronts and this change is causing me issues personally, but that's ok, let the change stand simply because it's already done, and they aren't listening to us anyway."

What am I missing? - jc37 03:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jc37 my personal preference shouldn't get to dictate something that works for large numbers of people. The fact that I dislike how the WMF team has acted doesn't change my belief, based on general design research and clear data on Wikipedia, that they're ultimately right that this change benefits readers. The people weighing in here, including me, overhwelmingly have the needs of an editor. These are different needs but nearly all regular editors have registered accounts to which they can switch to a different skin and so the default shouldn't matter to us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's a fine, reader-friendly, long overdue change. Enterprisey (talk!) 02:42, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I find it a much welcome improvement over the old skin. Lightoil (talk) 03:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the best path forward is to keep the Vector 2022 skin in place as the default skin and work on improving it. The design team owns the default site appearance and thus can set the guiding principles it wishes to follow. The community can continue to give feedback on the metrics that should be gathered through user testing (to supplement the user testing that has already been done) to evaluate the efficacy of the default skin. isaacl (talk) 03:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It is a fine skin with some important improvements. --Enos733 (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Wikipedia has been due for a refresh in its design for a while now, as standards in web design have shifted since 2010. In order for me to support a reversal, I would like to see compelling evidence that the new design is truly detrimental to readers, rather than just procedural arguments (e.g. WMF should have started a new RfC first) or personal preference (e.g. preferring the old design simply because you're more used to it). Two independent media commentators have written that the redesign is "barely noticeable" and "doesn't rock the boat", see [14][15]. Sure, it would have been ideal for the WMF to start a second RfC and get affirmative backing from this community before turning it on, but I do not believe the new skin is so severely bad that we need to roll it back, rather than fix it forward (i.e. fixing issues with the new skin in place). Mz7 (talk) 03:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't catch the irory behind the cited comentators? 37.134.90.176 (talk) 13:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is none, unless you show me how the heck this is ironic. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Not necessary. Just configure a different skin in your preferences. I was using Monobook for a long time and I still might go back to it, tho I'm giving Vector 22 a try right now. Andre🚐 03:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To use preferences, one must make an account and use it wherever you might read wikipedia from. If people are making "single purpose" accounts to fix this and complain about it, that should be an indicator of a bad design. Otherwise you are stuck having to use third party scripts, addons or otherwise, as have been suggested in other discussions. The bookmarklet and url modification methods are stopgaps at best, and are among the worst "solutions" provided for ip users. Deadoon (talk) 04:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I have chosen to return to the legacy Vector skin until a few of my personal efficiency bugbears have been sorted but I recognize that the new skin has substantial improvements. People have howled at website redesigns with objective improvements since the dawn of the internet. Change is scary, but it's also life. Axem Titanium (talk) 04:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - not sure what everyone else is reading, but when I Google "new Wikipedia layout" and read literally anything written about this today, the universal opinion appears to be that it is a barely noticeable but welcome change. I reverted back to the old one, but it seems clear to me the general public likes this. If anything, they think it's not enough of an update. Levivich (talk) 05:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This recalls to me the idiom: "eat shit, four billion flies cannot be wrong"... Sorry, I can't resist... 37.134.90.176 (talk) 14:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Wikipedia was long overdue a design update. People were complaining when we switched from monobook to vector, the cycle is repeating now. This is just a knee-jerk reaction against any change, give it some time and people will get used to it. Personally I will continue using legacy vector until it is broken to the point of being unusable, but the way active editors like me use Wikipedia is very different from that of an average reader. I think this change is an improvement for readers, something which people in real life has agreed with me. There is room for improving vector-2022 of course, but rolling it back is not useful. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 06:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose (aka No, Just No) - (TLDR: Vector is old/broken, the newer skin looks better and is more usable to casual users, and the team behind it is responsive, just saying I don't like it isn't the way to go) I think the community here has a very strong false assumption that everyone likes seeing Wikipedia the way wikipedia editors (i.e. mostly power users) like to see it. As primarily a Wikipedia reader, this skin is a much better than normal Vector since it has a familiar layout similar to the myriads of technical blog sites, tech news websites, documentation etc. It allows you to consume content without actually having to turn ones head on a widescreen display. Additionally, the ability to choose ones layout even as a IP basically gives you the ability to customize the style you want for reading even without having to log in.
Also, from a purely technical standpoint, rejecting this skin will be a big blow to our ability to modernize our interface with newer technologies and providing a better experiences by eliminating technical debt. If you personally don't like please shift to a different skin/old Vector, don't block what is arguably better both for users and the technical growth for the project.
Additionally, based on my personal experiences, the team rolling out this change has been extremely receptive to feedback and has helped immensely in integrating older tools and has made extensive changes to accomodate the same (c.f Wikisource ProofreadPage integration). I think we made a concerted effort of reporting bugs and issues (via phabricator/vpt etc) instead of doing whatever this is, we would be able to reach a equilibrium much faster. -- 07:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
(note that I am involved in the technical side of the project and have interacted with engineers as well as written multiple patches for ProofreadPage and associated Wikisource related technical issues) -- Sohom Datta (talk) 07:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - what's done is done. It would be a better use of our time to try to improve Vector 2022 with bug reports and suggestions. The dev team have made it clear they're not going to just abandon this new skin, and they've also already responded to various concerns, such as through the addition of a width button. Anarchyte (talk) 08:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A width button that may as well not be there for all the good it does, since if you're not logged in, you have to toggle it for every single page you read every single time you open the site. That's not a solution, it's a way to frustrate people into giving up viewing Wikipedia the way they want to view it. --Kiz o r 09:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose possible – See Wikipedia:Vector for déjà vu. Changes will invariably break things, and if we don't want to break things we might as well don't try anything new in the first place. If you hate this new skin, you can switch to the old skin. Here are a few more reasons why:
1. The developers do listen to feedback and is really responsive, they've learned from WP:VisualEditor deployments and has made a concrete plan on how to redesign the skin
2. The new skin reduces friction for readers to digest information
3. It's ergonomic for editing Wikipedia once you've gotten used to it
A lot of the support comments are made by people who are behind the technology adoption life cycle and may need more time to adjust to the changes. I, myself, used to dislike Vector 2022, but I've gotten used to it since then and like the changes. CactiStaccingCrane 08:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence to support my claims:
- Slate – Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.
- Engadget - Wikipedia's first desktop design update in a decade doesn't rock the boat (updated)
CactiStaccingCrane 08:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am a professional software engineer. Don't presume anything about others that you don't know. I am very familiar with technology. I also think the trend in the past decade of reducing information density at the expense of everything else is terrible. Clearly, many agree with me.

And no, contrary to your comment on my page, I will not stop voicing my opinion on the redesign. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 09:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is not deja vu. I don't see a negative reaction on the talk page for the previous Vector, only constructive criticism. Nobody said "I hate it" or "return it to the old version", at least not on that page. Card Zero (talk) 08:13, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See here for the deja vu Chris 08:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is pointless grumbling. The English Wikipedia community has the final say on the content of the English Wikipedia. It doesn't have the final say on the software it runs on. Nobody likes design by committee and design by community is even worse. The WMF web team have been extraordinarily patient in soliciting and acting on our feedback up until now, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt and let them do their job. – Joe (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It does, and since WMF didn't dismiss swwwiki's appeal to revert the change(WMF said they'll "discuss it") this is clearly possible. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tha that WMF (rightly) asked us what we think about a change does not mean that they're ceding the decision on it to us. I don't think there's much harm in the RfC (except hammering the wedge between enwiki and the WMF even further in) but I guarantee you it won't get Vector 2022 scrapped. – Joe (talk) 13:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is suggesting that Vector 2022 be scrapped, and suggesting that we are is arguing in bad faith. We are requesting that the default UI be reverted back to Vector legacy, and that people be given the option to continue using Vector 2022 if they so desire. WalnutBun (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is what I meant by scrapped. – Joe (talk) 05:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose possible. This RFC is balderdash. The idea of "voting" on redesigns is as nonsensical as voting on Duchamp's Fountain. UI design is based on objective principles, not on what a loud minority thinks. Objective feedback can only be obtained through revealed preferences, i.e. by measuring opt-outs. This pushback is caused by resistance to change, not by any objective attributes of the new design. Logged-in users also have no basis to complain on behalf of hypothetical logged-out users; just switch it in your preferences. And no matter the outcome, this can't possibly override the close of the previous, far more prominent RFC. DFlhb (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If logged out users cant opt out, how do you measure if they've opted out? RFCs are the loud minority you complain about, the overwhelming majority of readers are casual logged-out users that would only consider making an account to revert back to the old skin, if at all.

Forcing casual readers to make an account just to have a usable visually attractive skin is frankly the worst UX design decision I've ever seen. BadUX (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Many of us *are* logged-out users that only created accounts in the past couple days specifically to change back to a more sensible UI design. So yes, we can actually speak for logged-out users since we are them, and we're pissed off. Trynn (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trynn, rather, you're a very small subgroup of readers. There around 5-20 accounts posting here that were created for just that purpose, but millions see Wikipedia. — Qwerfjkl talk 20:40, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious where your information is coming from. Has there been data published showing the number of new accounts created in the past 3 days and switching default profiles? I haven't seen that. I'll agree that there are only a few of us who are upset enough to create accounts and also start participating in this RfC discussion (although there have also been quite a number of comments from IP users). Trynn (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trynn: Here's some data. The number of daily account creations increased by 3.5k between Jan 17th and Jan 19th. It's reasonable to assume that this is roughly the number of readers who dislike the new skin enough to create an account to disable it. This is a very small subset (0.005%) of the 70 million people who visit Wikipedia each day. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That may be so - but how many of those who don't create accounts know that switching skins is an option to account holders, or that you don't have to be an editor to create an account? How many are using Wikipedia from locations where account creation is blocked for one reason or another? There are tons of valid reasons that someone who prefers Vector legacy over Vector 2022 wouldn't or couldn't make an account, only some of which can be accounted for using more data. WalnutBun (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the link. Looking at the graphs though, I think phrasing it as "account creations increased by 3.5k" seems disingenuous, as is comparing it to the total number of readers. You could also phrase it as "daily account creations more than doubled since the UI change" and also be correct, and that interpretation of the data indicates the UI rollout was a significant problem. Clearly this is data that should be looked at and considered carefully, and also published more broadly. Trynn (talk) 21:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sojourner in the earth: What would be even more informative would be the data from the switch to Vector in 2010 for comparison, but I have no idea where this could be found. small jars tc 21:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SmallJarsWithGreenLabels: I think Vector 2010 was rolled out on 13 May; here are the stats on new account creations for that month. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's safe to assume that the overwhelming majority of readers simply don't know that creating an account lets you choose to use the old skin. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 21:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@IWantTheOldInterfaceBack, is it? Why? — Qwerfjkl talk 21:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because there is no indication that logged in user can change their skin built into the logged-out interface. Honestly, it's surprising that this number of accountless users figured this out, and it's indicative of many more who haven’t small jars tc 22:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SmallJarsWithGreenLabels, or maybe it's common practice for websites to require an account to change the appearance? — Qwerfjkl talk 22:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, it's not common practice for websites to allow users to change their skin at all (Reddit is the only one that comes to mind). There is no reason for the average reader to assume that Wikipedia is any different. small jars tc 22:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Reddit is the only one that comes to mind for me as well. Reddit also has entire subreddits that are coded only to support old.reddit because their mods dislike new.reddit, which is unusual in itself. I cannot think of any other examples of websites where creating an account allows you to change the interface so drastically. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 22:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Qwerfjkl What world are you living in that this is common practice? Most websites I'm aware of either don't allow the user to change the appearance at all, or allow anyone to do it without requiring an account. The only two I'm aware of are Wikipedia and reddit, and reddit requires users to pay for the privilege of changing their site-wide skin. Wikipedia is, as far as I'm aware, unique in allowing free accounts to drastically change the appearance of the website as part of the website's functionality (as opposed to requiring a browser extension), and as far as I can tell this stems solely from the desire not to show a cookie consent banner. Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the page content and JavaScript don't need to change much (if at all) between different skins for logged-out users, so the claim of "caching" is just straight up wrong - and in any case, the server would know what version of the page to send based on the user's cookies which are sent with the initial request. WalnutBun (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WalnutBun, see this comment and the one posted right after it. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl that's just linking to the edit that brought the RfC to this page and out of Village Pump. WalnutBun (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@WalnutBun, oops. The comment is near the top of the oppose section; try Ctrl+f "Varnish". — Qwerfjkl talk 07:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl I'm aware of that comment - but that still doesn't add up. Are they saying that every single user that uses a non-default site skin triggers a fetch from disk? If that's the case, there has to be a better way to do it. WalnutBun (talk) 21:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
~~@WalnutBun, perhaps, but that's unrelated.~~ — Qwerfjkl talk 17:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

old.reddit.com is free. 103.62.153.129 (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And to the ones who are answering Trynn, they seem to have a special preference approved as their skin looks like this with a lot of white screen, (not like I have it) which they said in an argument here. Maybe someone here can help them out, I just answered them and noticed that they probably have some preference approved.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

UI redesigns may be based on object principles; however, this mostly logged-out user and regular donor bases their level of support on purely subjective things like the subject of this RFC. I'm not the only one. We do, in fact, vote with our pocket books. 129.52.129.65 (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:CANCER. You can be sure that almost none of the participants in this RFC care about the effect the skin will have on donations to the WMF. Ultimately, their concern for reader's experience is either altruistic, or a result of the attachment they have to their own contributions, of which those readers are the audience. small jars tc 10:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your comment ("This pushback is caused by resistance to change, not by any objective attributes of the new design"), no, that's false. It's objectively true that there's a lot more white space in the new design. It's objectively true that the white space serves no useful purpose. And, since there's no clear evidence that lack of white space was ever a significant complaint, it's objectively true that the added white space solves no particular problem, while also serving no useful purpose. -- HLachman (talk) 11:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's objectively true that the white space serves no useful purpose.
The WMF stated it was done to reduce eye fatigue by eliminating unnecessary saccades and giving space to be used for the eyes' resting spots, so this claim is contentious. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If "this claim is contentious" means "there's an enormous number of people who don't want the white space, and the arguments in favor of white space are rather contrived", then yes, it's contentious. Note that the claims about "resting spots" are true only when assuming that the user never thought of using someplace off of the screen as a resting place (which is what people have normally done for ages). Notice also that newspapers and magazines have not converted to a format where all content is down the center of the page with large blank areas on left and right. It's not because they haven't figured out the "better way", it's because they know it's not particularly useful to do that (except maybe for people who don't know they can rest their eyes by looking off-page). -- HLachman (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What I took umbrage with was using the phrase objectively true. Newspapers and magazines have other things to think about like material costs, which Wikipedia thankfully doesn't have to worry about for the time being. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:06, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, that's what I was objecting to, the use of that kind of phrasing (specifically "not by any objective attributes of the new design"). But I don't take umbrage, I just pointed out how the assertion was inaccurate. As for material costs, believe me, if newspapers and magainzes were to identify a more appealing layout, they'd adopt it. Anyway, the magazine thing was a tangent, my main points stand. -- HLachman (talk) 18:40, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The objective criteria I was thinking of include reader comfort, accessibility, eye strain, visibility/retrievability (the permanent table of contents), and a focus on essentials (the content/TOC, as opposed to the old sidebar). And "objectively" (i.e. according to studies), narrow text width does increase readability; that's why all newspaper and magazine systematically use column layouts, even when a single article takes up a whole page. DFlhb (talk) 21:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have read the available studies that have been cited and they don't support the current design. It looks like someone was told about these studies but never actually read anything but the conclusions, ignoring the conditions that resulted in those conclusions. The current design is in conflict with the sources of good design principles that have been provided 71.194.60.172 (talk) 05:20, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose possible This is a terrible idea. Revert to a technically backwards skin? Really? I switched to Vector 2022 some time ago and have never regretted it. I'm a long time editor with 249564 edits so I have a lot of experience with different skins, and this is by far the best one I've had. Maybe there are some things that can still be improved, eg people complain about a width issue (which I don't have), but the developers have been responsive and I'm sure will continue to be. And this RfC should have at least waited a few weeks for obvious reasons - a lot of people are uncomfortable with change but ever a little while see it as ok or good. Doug Weller talk 09:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No-one is going to delete the new skin. You will be free to keep using it. But the millions of people who are impacted by it's terrible design will get the benefit of reverting the default. Macktheknifeau (talk) 07:05, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose possible Supporting a revert is what keeps us humanity from evolving and making progress. Coldbolt (talk) 10:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This change wasn’t progression in any way.T v x1 14:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How not? Pioneering the change to mustache, adopting newer design guidelines, floating a bar and toc for easy navigation, images in search… Aaron Liu (talk) 14:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What is "mustache"? Is that a codename for a project, or a typo? Card Zero (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently it's a popular programming-language-agnostic coding language for templates, and since 2020, MediaWiki has supported using it to implement custom skins. See our article at Mustache (template system) as well as this relevant page on MediaWiki.org. I wasn't aware of this either and had to look it up. 70.172.194.25 (talk) 08:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not all software change is progress. Reverting it's redesign could have saved Quora from decline, but it's management refused to listen to the wishes of it's volunteer community.–small jars tc 17:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - Everyone hates change at first, but i, for one, quite like the new design; it’s just a few sensible updates to bring Wikipedia into its third decade and account for ever-widening screens. (I do agree with some that it would be nice to give IP users a way to toggle the theme!) MarijnFlorence (talk) 11:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How does it "account for ever widening screens" by cramming everything into the middle, exactly? Sounds like its doing the exact opposite. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, making everything fit in ever-widening screens could be called accounting for wide screens. Personally, it works, but I feel there is a lot of wasted space. Cessaune [talk] 02:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@TheDJ, remember, this is not a vote, but a !vote, which means you have to give reasoning for why you are fine with the change. Cessaune [talk] 02:05, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I voted against rollout, but am now fairly neutral on the redesign as my main single complaint (the limited width) was addressed. I think the majority of end users will, once they find the toggle, choose unlimited width (hence my contribution below), but I think Vector 2022 is an improvement. I am opposing for now so we can collect more information. JackWilfred (talk) 12:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. If you want to revert, set your preferences. Cabayi (talk) 13:48, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As many said, no preferences for non-logged users. Must every reader or editor have an account here, against their own desires? 37.134.90.176 (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently so. Probably to inflate their account totals. "Look how much people have accounts!" 73.8.230.57 (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. But this highlights issues with the rollout, and why ~50/50 rfc's make for fragile consensus at best. – SJ + 14:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rollout issues continue; I wish this skin update were recognized as more of a breaking change for some reading and editing and layout-design worklows. Logged-out readers have a rough time: they can't keep the main menu open, they see no indication they could customize skin by logging in, the sticky header doesn't appear. The width toggle persists, but is small + unlabelled and no one knows it's there. Metrics & analysis leave something to be desired, making it hard to understand the effect of changes beyond personal anecdotes. – SJ + 14:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Inhumanly strong oppose. Every change is going to be met with discomfort at first. But as with all UX/UI changes, we eventually adapt.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 14:06, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - My views align with those expressed above by Shushugah. In this case, the new design aligns with internet accessibility principles and modern design guidelines which I think sit above crowd wisdom. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 14:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Modern design guidelines have their place, but should not be held as a golden standard above the will of users. WalnutBun (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose: So the proposal is to force Vector 2010 upon all users because "WMF is forcing Vector 2022 upon all users" (just like they forced Vector 2010 and all other skins before that). I say: unless you can measurably prove that V2010 was so much better switch back to old Vector for yourself and get over it. Imagine cars, sky scrapers, ships and airplanes were designed by popular vote... Ponor (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this situation is comparable to designing a car or an airplane. It's more akin to deciding what is built in your neighborhood, e.g. whether to build a community garden or a parking space. Which is usually decided by some sort of democratic(ish) approach between actual people living in the neighborhood. Not how to build it, that's the job of engineers. RoadTrain (talk) 16:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it’s more like whether to use sprawling parking or compact parking with multiple floors Aaron Liu (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From day one it was Jimbo or WMF or whoever deciding what our "cars" would/should look like. And they left us with some choices: if you like Lada, you choose Lada, if you like Mazda better, you choose Mazda, and if you want to stick with your old Ford, they give you the option to stay with Ford, it's all here Special:Preferences. If we're about to impose the look on other users, are we any different than WMF? What do we base our decision on, the votes of a few loud ones on this page? Ponor (talk) 17:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WaltCip above. I don't care for the new skin either. But lots of time has gone into hearing and implementing community feedback. Let's give this six months and see how many of us get used to it. Ajpolino (talk) 15:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The issue with waiting is that the argument of "but people have had X amount of time to get used to it" crops up. Whether the change is reverted or not, the decision should be made soon. WalnutBun (talk) 21:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WalnutBun, can you explain this? I'm not sure I understand. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl if we were to wait, say, three months to hold an RfC over whether or not to revert to Vector legacy as the default skin, then people would (correctly) make the argument that "well, people have had three months to get used to this being the default! If we change it back now, we'd be pulling the rug out from under them!". Regardless of whether or not we revert to Vector legacy, we need to make the change soon, to avoid causing two separate events of disruption to the norm. WalnutBun (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WalnutBun, I suppose so, but that sounds like a weak argument not to wait. They'll be plenty of disruption is this is rolled back, and even more if it's then rolled out again. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

After reading the subsequent comments and looking into the process a bit further, I just wanted to loop back to reaffirm my opposition to this proposal. The skin is well thought out, its development was completely in the public eye (I think I tried out a beta version almost a year ago?), and its implementation as default was subject to much discussion. The continuing buy-in from the WMF on further improvements to the new skin is a most welcome plus. I'm saddened that many editors don't like the new skin (some evidently strongly so), but I hope those who can make an account pick a skin to their liking, and for the rest I hope they find they grow accustomed to it, as we slowly do with many interface changes. Ajpolino (talk) 04:07, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I believe we should focus on resolving potential problems with Vector 2022 instead of arguing which skin should be the default, because the latter mostly depends on personal preference. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 16:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If it has enough problems with it that we need to focus on resolving them, then it shouldn't have been made the default skin in the first place. You iron out the large bugs before deployment, not after. WalnutBun (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't agree with this sentence more. Y Y Y Y Y. Cessaune [talk] 02:02, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I've been using Vector (2022) on the Mediawiki project since it was changed to default there and made no attempt to change it back to Vector (2010), and have just switched to it on our private wiki but left the system-wide default alone. I want to use it on Wikipedia too, but I cannot just yet. I switched it back to Vector (2010) and use a browser bookmark for the enwiki login using the old skin. Easy-peasy! There are many things I LIKE about the new skin and I can appreciate all the work and long hours that went into its development. I see room (literally) for improvement, and I know that this will come in due time. Although I understand the passion, I DON'T LIKE some of the behaviour towards others. Perhaps they feel it's needed just to be heard. I also noticed that some who participated in the RfC feel like they too were ignored. There may be a need to look at that more closely. Finally, for IP users, giving them a “switch to old look” hyperlink might be worth considering. — WILDSTAR^TALK 16:54, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am !voting Oppose: if the limited width is changed to opt-in, per Question 2 below, everything else in this beta skin can be tweaked and worked on. I have been able to use custom CSS to make my Vector 2022 interface look better; some of that can get incorporated into the skin, and some can become shared scripts and CSS for power users. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Vector 2022 is not perfect, but I think its flaws have been blown significantly out of proportion. Switching back and forth is more likely to cause confusion among casual readers than any benefit it might deliver. RunningTiger123 (talk) 17:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose – I do actually think the fixed width is a significant improvement in reading experience on wide monitors at least, and something worth exploring further. It's the other things about the new skin that I don't like, namely the "simplification" of the UI due to the lack of visual contrast between the article body, TOC, header and everything else. –Sonicwave ^talk 18:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for two main reasons:
- This has been in the works for quite some time and has been successfully in use in other wikis; given that, had I voted in the previous discussion, I would have said "yes, go ahead and make the changes for the sake of the common reader, even if I will keep using legacy Vector". If anything, I'm more bugged that logged out users will see two different skins depending on which wiki they're on, though by all indication, this won't be a problem in the long term.
- There are some things that I like better about Vector 2022 - the search bar showing images and short descriptions, the left-hand sidebar being collapsible, and the sticky header and table of contents. The look and feel is something I'll have to get used to, as are the new link colors (which I know were altered with color-blindness in mind); this is a given. It just goes to show that WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT are both opposing forces grounded in subjectivity.
I can tell there was a lot of thought put into this new design, and while some aspects are understandably controversial, I am at least happy improvements have been made; I remember the logo placement/spacing being awkward in older versions, but that is happily no longer a problem. I doubt the WMF would reverse this regardless of this RfC's outcome, and I imagine the complaints will die down after some time, but people have voiced their concerns, and if this goes through, that's just the way it is. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 18:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
About Vector 2022 being "successfully in use in other wikis", there have been witnesses from the French Wikipedia (the first on which it was implemented) and the Swedish Wikipedia testifying that it caused strong grassroots opposition from the respective communities, which were largely ignored. Æo (talk) 19:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting... noted, but I don't intend to change my vote. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 04:01, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There are some things I like about the new UI, some things I don't, but everyone should give it some time to get more used to it. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the new layout is better than previously, and will improve when changes already underway (esp. around page width) have been addressed. I agree with others about change being scary - lots of the above comments reminds me of the hullabaloo about the Facebook redesign back in the day! Turini2 (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No it isn’t even remotely. It’s far worse in every possible way. T v x1 22:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per wasted time r. Schierbecker (talk) 23:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per my original comments which were curiously moved to the bottom of this discussion when it was refactored to place only supports at the top. — Wug·a·po·des 23:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose—I have a confession to make: I have never liked Vector 2010. Ever. I thought the hue of pale white it used was drab, depressing, and off-putting. When Vector was set as the default skin for Wikipedia, I immediately set my preferences to "Monobook" (the default pre-2010) and never looked back. I tried out a few other skins in the past, but I found that Monobook remained my favorite, and so it stayed. I'm not inherently averse to change if it involves genuine improvements; by that same token, I'm also not swayed by arguments in favor of new designs or systems that essentially boil down to, "change is a part of life, get used to it." Change isn't always a good thing, especially not if it leaves us worse off than before. With that in mind, I decided to check out the new design myself, using an incognito window on my Chromebook.
My opinion? Vector 22 is an improvement from 2010. I like that the table of contents section has been moved to the left panel when browsing a page—makes it so that you can navigate between subsections much more easily. I also like how hovering your mouse over a link doesn't just show the name of the page, but a pop-up window with the first few sentences of text accompanied by the infobox image (assuming there is one). Do I think the new design is perfect? Definitely not—there are certainly some improvements to be made that I would deem necessary. For instance, when you click the "hide" button to remove the table of contents from the screen, the "unhide" option (i.e. the jot notes icon beside the article's title) isn't immediately obvious, which I think is problematic. I'd also support making the side panel a different color so as to distinguish it from the page's text. But on the whole, I like Vector 2022, and I'm even thinking about switching from Monobook to the new design.
In short, I feel that Vector 2022 is more user-friendly, more inviting, and an all-around step up from what came before it. It's not without some shortcomings, but as a default skin for readers, it's probably the best we've got. I say we keep it. Kurtis ^(talk) 23:47, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kurtis: just FYI, the pop-up window with the lead sentence and lead image has also been part of legacy Vector for a few years now. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As Apaugasma pointed out, a pop-up window with the first few sentences of text accompanied by the infobox image (assuming there is one) is actually from a different feature which users can toggle at Preferences → Appearance → Reading preferences = Enable page previews. I believe it is enabled for unregistered users by default. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads-up—will strike that part shortly. Kurtis ^(talk) 00:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Ok...at first I hated it. To be honest, though, I would've hated ANY interface change for the next year, 10 years, 100 years... Vector 2010 is old. We've needed something new for a while. And of course, we'll adapt. DecrepitlyOnward (talk) 00:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I don't think the issues are big enough to warrant reversion of this, even if the community here could do such a thing. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 00:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - what is done is done. I am just as disappointed in how the skin was rolled out as everyone else who saw the switch to Vector 2022. Feedback for the future: Rather than completely revamping the site, what would be better are incremental changes. Also I think of Vector 2022 as reinventing the wheel; Timeless is a much more polished skin that has responsive support, a decent-sized font, and good use of space on the left and right. As a community, we have bigger fish to fry in terms of managing content. I hated Vector 2010 because of its lack of responsive design and its lack of features. From this point forward, I think WMF's design team should focus its resources on continuously expanding the ability of the new Vector skin, so they are fit for the modern web. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 01:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just because something has been done, does not inherently mean it cannot - or should not - be undone. WalnutBun (talk) 21:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that is a good argument. It is in the scope of the Wikimedia Foundation to manage the technical aspects of the site as office actions, of course usually with but not necessarily always with consultation from the community, and it is in the scope of the community to manage the content that is present on the site, to suggest new features, and to give feedback on office actions. They did this when they originally deployed Vector back in 2009/2010, and they are doing it again while deploying Vector 2022. WMF generally does not manage content. Sure if something immediately breaks the site it will be rolled back for the sanity of Wikipedia, but I don't think this immediately breaks the site in a similar way that a security bug or logic bomb might. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 00:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Opposse Its long overdue for a change. The bugs will get ironed out. Don't like it? Do what I'm doing and use Vector 2010. I don't see our readers up in arms, and that's the real metric for reversion. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:40, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, the new skin is an improvement compared to the old skin and should be kept as default. Lightoil (talk) 02:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This skin has been default in my home wiki for years now and while it takes a bit of adjusting to, I realized I actually spend more time reading articles, it's result of years of research and UX rigor (that is also depend on years of research). Ladsgroup^overleg 04:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not that this matters to me much, I still use Monobook just because I know where everything is. But I'm aware my own UI preferences are non-standard compared to best practices and the site should, until a user tells them otherwise via skin preferences, reflect those best practices. --(loopback) ping/whereis 09:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, because there is always room for improvement. I say this as someone who changed their preferences to Vector Legacy 2010 the moment they saw the 2022 rollout. Instead of reverting the entire redesign to get things like full content width and non-contracted menus back, the new skin could be updated so that the hamburger menu button stays when you scroll down, there's even currently a Phabricator request to make the content width switch stay instead of always going back to default when going to new pages, for logged-out users. Quick note: I always feel some oppression when a new significant software redesign comes out and I drool over how much I miss the old one blah blah blah, but I never realise the great merits of the new design until a few weeks pass by, and after that I really start liking it over the old design. Vector 2022 is almost certainly not an exception of this. (end of note) I will very likely be changing back to the Vector 2022 skin soon after some improvements such as the ones I've mentioned are made (I'm that kind of person who likes to skip a v2.0 major software release and rather wait for v2.1 before updating), apparently the content width setting already "sticks" for users logged into accounts now. There are already things I really like about the Vector 2022 skin, such as the significantly better search function, now in the centre (bigger text, with thumbnails in search results), and the table of contents always shown on the left. On Vector 2010 you don't have that, and just get a sidebar with empty space instead when you scroll down a page, which is objectively worse for navigation and also poorer use of screen width. It would be a shame to get rid of all these great things, all because of a few flaws that can be fixed / worked on in the new design. AP 499D25 (talk) 09:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, a lot of complaints in the support section about users personally not liking it. If you don't like it, change your skin. The new skin has been developed with regard to online best practices and brings Wikipedia (kicking and screaming, apparently) into the 2020s. If you want to live in the past... well, you can guess what I suggest. This, that and the other (talk) 09:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And a lot of the complaints in the oppose section are from users personally liking it. Strawman argument. And there was nothing obsolete with original Vector. No change was needed at all. T v x1 14:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new skin is really not bad. It has a few teething problems, sure, but nothing that can't be fixed. The push-back from the community is just the usual thing that happens in any community when the status quo changes. It'll all quieten down in a week or two. — Jumbo T (talk) 11:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary. It really is ridiculously bad. And the push-back is not the usual thing , but a logical reaction to a unilaterally enforced very poor change. T v x1 14:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this is just my opinion, and you should stop spamming yours as a reply to every oppose vote? Go outside. — Jumbo T (talk) 14:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ILIKEIT, WP:IDONTLIKEIT. — Qwerfjkl talk 19:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this is relevant. This is a request for comment, not a deletion discussion; there are no binding outcomes of consensus or lack thereof here. — Jumbo T (talk) 20:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jumbo T, my point is that your arguments (you and Tvx1) are not reasons, they're opinions. — Qwerfjkl talk 20:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl: and my point is that this is not a problem, since this is a request for comment, not a request for a decision backed up by watertight reasoning (as is required at AfD etc.). Cheers — Jumbo T (talk) 21:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jumbo T, requests for comment still require !votes to have reasons. That you (don't) like the skin is not a reason it should (not) be used.
Thanks for the ping.— Qwerfjkl talk 21:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl: almost all the votes in this mess of an RFC are opinions. That aside, I may not have made it clear, but there was some semblance of a reason in my original comment: any change of this sort and scale will create push-back from a part of the community, no matter how good/bad/confusing the change is. In my opinion (god forbid I invoke my opinion), it's best to wait a while, let tempers cool, and then assess community consensus. Personally, I'm glad a change like this has been made; we wouldn't get anywhere without bold changes. But enough of this, it's getting tiring. — Jumbo T (talk) 21:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jumbo T, that's why these RfC s are impossible to close, and no consensus is probably going to be the result.
Personally, I like the skin, I've been using for at least a year. But that doesn't mean others need to use it. I think it'd be fine for them if they did.
Sorry if I've been too persistent; this RfC is exhausting. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With a continuous 2 to 1 ratio in favor of rollback, it will actually be difficult to close it with anything other than a consensus to roll back. T v x1 19:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a vote, though; the arguments still have to be weighed. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 19:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I replied to 5 out of 70+. Characterizing that as replying to every oppose is ridiculous. T v x1 22:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
cmon man. If you want it in other words, I think people here call it bludgeoning — Jumbo T (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Tvx1, it's not replying to every oppose. It is, however, bludgeoning. Please stop. — Qwerfjkl talk 23:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please actually read that essay. My volume of comments here isn't specially high at all. And I'm not even remotely disagreeing with every viewpoint presented here. I only reacted to roughly 7% percent of them. Please also note that essay clearly states that falsly accusing someone of bludgeoning is considered uncivil. It's not something you can go and throw around when you are confronted with a couple of comments that you consider a nuisance to try and silence the person writing them. T v x1 00:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This question is outside of the scope of what the community controls. See WP:CONEXCEPT. Users who prefer V2010 can freely switch to it in preferences. I personally prefer Isarra's Timeless based on Jorm's Winter proposal and I see V2022 as a step in that direction. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:05, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No. The vast majority of our users, readers, cannot switch freely at all. T v x1 14:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tvx1, you mean people who aren't logged in? Because readers can have an account. — Qwerfjkl talk 22:05, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I mean people who only read Wikipedia and thus don't have an account and don't login. And that is by far the largest group of our users. T v x1 22:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

With the updated tools bar, I find the new use of space to be worthwhile -- In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 08:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This question is outside of the scope of what the community controls. See WP:CONEXCEPT. Rejecting this proposal on the grounds that it would violate WP:CONEXCEPT without the WMF claiming that CONEXCEPT applies is premature. If the WMF does make that claim then we can discuss this proposal on that basis, determining whether they are correct and if so whether an IAR exception applies, but until then we should proceed on the basis that it is subject to consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 14:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – the new skin is just fine and a clear improvement. -- lomrjyo ^talk 13:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No it’s not in any way. More and more technical flaws keep being reported and it didn’t improve anything. Why are you making claims that are blatantly untrue. T v x1 14:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Go read any newspaper, book printed for written text, (like a schoolbook or an encyclopedia). Limited width is the standard for most written text. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I also don't like the new skin, so I solved the problem on my own by clicking on the bolded "return to the old look" link plainly visible in the sidebar. Now my personal preference isn't a sitewide problem. You can do it too: click here, then select "Vector legacy (2010)". Problem solved. If you're an IP user and want to save preferences, create an account to save them to, just like how it works on every other website on the internet. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
some people can't create accounts. you should know this as an administrator. Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal: who can't create an account? There are some connections that are technically restricted from creating an account, but there is a process for that. If there's something else preventing people generally from creating accounts, that's something we should address. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per ThadeusOfNazereth, Rhododendrites, and This, that and the other. The skin is fine, the process was fine, and your preferences are available. Gamaliel (talk) 15:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not for IP users. IP users have no option to go back to V2010 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Vector 2022 isn't perfect, but neither is Vector 2010. Rolling back now would be reactionary and short-sighted. Give everyone time to get used to the new skin, and a few months for the WMF team to make improvements and changes in response to feedback. In 3-6 months, if there is still strong opposition, an RfC might be useful to gauge the level of that opposition. The other thing to remember is that an RfC generally only surveys editors, and then only those with strong opinions. The opinion of readers, who make up 99% of Wikipedia's users, goes unrecorded. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you're just proving that this was a bad idea, seeing as the majority of users (both registered and IP) essentially had no say in the change. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new skin seems a definite improvement to me, and editors (e.g. everyone who dislikes it) can opt to revert to 2010 if they wish. Making 2010 the default again seems a backward step. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new skin comes with improvements to a lot of UX and I think it is overall better for newcomers and for reading Wikipedia. Our reading stats are going down, various reason, but one of them might be bad experience on thin screens. We should take more time make articles work on thin screens and one way is to use Wikipedia in a thinner view. Individual users not ready for the change can always go back to the previous skin. I see no problem here to have both ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nux (talk) 16:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Degrading the experience on wide screens is not a good solution to improving the experience on thin screens. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 16:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@IWantTheOldInterfaceBack Interesting choice of a name ;-). I hope you know you can just switch in preferences (which is quicker then changing a name or creating a puppet or whatever). Nux (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As has been pointed out countlessly, switching is not a durable option for uregistered readers. Not a solution. T v x1 20:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Articles already worked perfectly fine on thin screens, and this update makes them use less than half the screen on wide screens. DutriusTwo (talk) 16:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, tables, mulit-columns with static number of columns, non-gallery galleries etc are a problem. Mobile skin does some hacks to make it kind of fit onto a phone. But those are hacks. This should be resolved and readable on a PC too (thin-view PC). And then it will be more readable. Besides there is a switch to full-width mode on the bottom right (for those articles that really need space). Nux (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But this RFC is primarily about the skin that will be presented to IP users - 99% of our readerbase, and mostly not the ones making changes to articles. Account users can choose their skin so this is not of much relevance to them. IP users are overwhelmingly here to read, not edit. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 17:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes and I think new skin is mostly better for reading. IP readers are also editors. Some of them edit and add tables that are to wide to be readable on all screens. So it is good that they will also see this limitation of width and design to that.

And also, as said before, IP users can switch to full-width mode with one click (bottom, right button on each article page). Nux (talk) 17:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IP users cannot just switch to full-width mode with one click. That button does not appear at all for some users, when it does appear it's so far away from the rest of the content/UI as to make it hard to notice it exists, its iconography gives no indication as to what it does, and it does not persist across page views. Trynn (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And that even ignore the vast amount of IP's who have stated since the change that they desire to be able to change to the previous default skin without having to create an account, no just switch to the full-width mode. T v x1 22:26, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Trynn The button should be available for all wide screens (the ones which would benefit from the wider view). If it is not you can file a bug on the Phabricator. AFAIK that feature was made specifically after consulting en.wiki community. On one of many meetings with the team I remember Olga said that the icon is meant resemble full-screen icon. Which is kind of what it does. Nux (talk) 23:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What "full-screen" icon is being referred to here? That button looks nothing like any full-screen window widget in Windows, macOS, or any Linux desktop theme I've ever seen before. Is this mobile UI design language that is being applied to desktop users (which is what it seems to be, and is one of the things being complained about)?

What is so difficult about developing this new skin to be responsive to window width, like any other well-designed website out there? Instead there's some button that is located off in the boonies (if it appears at all) using a design language not used in the desktop paradigm, that logged-out users are forced to click on for every page view. Why is this considered an acceptable design decision? Trynn (talk) 23:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trynn: it's this one. Something similar is used universally by video players on the web to toggle full screen, which makes it the most intuitive one to use here. I agree that logged-out users should not be forced to click on this for every page view. The team behind the Vector 2022 screen say they are working on making it persistent across pages (like it is for logged-in users). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Apaugasma I can't see that, where is it? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 10:37, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also can't see it and never could and if I want to change it I just go to preferences and activate it there. But I sort of like the limited with screen and believe probably 2 columns (you know like in the Bible or any encyclopedia) will be an option to the reader in the future. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Weller and Paradise Chronicle: the toggle should be at the bottom right of the screen. Apparently though, the toggle only appears if your screen is at least 1600 pixels wide (see the documentation here).

This is properly a feature, but it has also been characterized by some as a bug (see Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022#Toggle box disappears - bug?), because even on big monitors increasing the font size may result in your screen becoming smaller than 1600 pixels.

If you have a big monitor, try hitting ctrl - a few times to see if the toggle appears (you can restore font size after that by hitting ctrl 0 or increase it again by hitting ctrl +). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw that in the thread below OVasileva (WMF) announced that they are working on "lowering the width at which the toggle to make pages wider appears from 1600px to 1400px. This will allow the toggle to show on smaller screens. This change will be available this week.". ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:05, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - unless there is some evidence that our readership (i.e. the people who can't change back to Vector 2010 if they want) don't like it. See you all in 10 years when the community is opposed to Vector 2033 and everyone wants it to go back to Vector 2022. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just look at the many readers who have already complained on the various venues and have even made an account just to be able to switch back, for the evidence you are requesting. T v x1 20:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I looked. It's less than 50 out of like a billion. More readers (and editors) than that have given positive reviews in the WMF's surveys. Levivich (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And the WMF's surveys filtered out any responses containing "foul language", which presumably skewed overwhelmingly negative. These surveys must be presumed unreliable until we are given further information on the responses removed for foul language. The entire process appears to have been fundamentally untrustworthy, with the desire to push a redesign through appearing to be the main motive rather than first seeing what people think and then deciding on a course of action. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then you didn't look very far obviously. There are 100+ in this RFC alone already. Over the many venues on Wikipedia and MediaWiki there are already thousands. T v x1 22:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have no view on the methodology of WMF's surveys, as I have not looked at them closely, but I do want to point out that there's a bit of selection bias just looking at complaints on "the various venues". The majority of readers who enjoy or at least don't mind the new skin probably don't care enough to post praise for it on internal forums, whereas if a small subset of the readers dislike it enough to complain, then that's all we're going to see. Mz7 (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - The WMF put a lot of work into this and shared the results. Lets give the improvements a try and assume good faith. Me, after some hesitation also switched to Vector 2022 and am rather pleased with it. Also, anyone can return to the Vector 2010 if they wish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paradise Chronicle (talk • contribs) 18:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, IP users have NO option to change back to V2010. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is called registration ;). Creating an account on wiki takes less effort then writing the sentence above. It's the most friction-less registration I know of. You don't even need an e-mail. Just a nick-name and a password. Nux (talk) 12:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
except that some people can't, or don't want to register. Transcleanupgal (talk) 18:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And some of us are quite upset at having been forced to create an account just to switch to a more usable UI. And as I mentioned somewhere above, forcing someone to create an account also violates Wikipedia's stated privacy policy. Trynn (talk) 20:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - THe new skin is perfectly lovely and corresponds with long-tested knowledge about text layout, as well as contemporary user interface design principles. Separately, I have process concerns with re-hashing lengthy design consultations with an immediate RfC.--Carwil (talk) 19:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose—this RfC is pointless. As mentioned above, the Wikipedia community is in control of content, and the developers are in charge of the software. The new skin comports to tenants of good UI design and offers an objective improvement over what we had. Those who are upset about it can change their preferences to use a different skin. They can offer constructive suggestions on how to improve the skin through the additions of options. Reverting the change will not get us progress. Imzadi 1979 → 20:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - it's fine, we'll all get used to it and in a month this RFC will seem about as dated as one asking to roll back to Monobook. Which you can still use. And some do. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think it's fine and I know I'll get used to it. As long as other editors retain preferences to choose their preferred skin, I don't see an issue. Einebillion (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose; admittedly it takes a while to get used to it, but also: other skins are still available for those who are unable to adapt —MisterSynergy (talk) 23:54, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my 2022 RfC comments, including where I, ahem, encourage the WMF to implement this even if the en.wiki community disapprove. The old skin is embarrassing and backwards. The new one is better. We are not professional UI designers. See this comment by Joe Roe in the 2022 RfC also. — Bilorv (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most people here don't seem to have read mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width, which explains why the width has been limited. Without understanding the research and the reasoning, the complaints of disliking it on first sight are not at all compelling.
There is also a lot of unscientific discussion around sampling. First, the view that "if I didn't take part in the WMF survey then it couldn't be representative". A census is clearly not possible or desirable here, so sampling is the correct method to use. The appropriate sample size does not have to be very large for there to be a high degree of confidence that a census would not yield a drastically different result. On the other hand, selection bias is a genuine issue. And it is an issue much, much more significant in this RfC than in any of the processes by which the WMF has used feedback up to this point. — Bilorv (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sampling isn't the correct method. How you think it is is beyond baffling.

And no, the new design isn't better. Its worse. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:11, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for such insightful comments. Sure gives me confidence that this discussion is anything but a waste of time. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 04:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that we are not all professional UI designers (although probably some of our members probably are in real life), but we are the people that actually have to use these UI's. Our opinion how practical we actual find it to use is therefore invaluable. And the truckload of flaws in the new skin that people have been complaining about seriously questions the professionality of the WMF people as well. T v x1 00:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I've been using the new Vector skin for a couple of months, now, and do like it. I think it is a mistake to reject the new skin without trying it for a few days. It did take me a few days to adjust to the differences (I formerly used Monobook), but it feels quite natural to me now, and I don't understand what the complaints are about. - Donald Albury 01:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Too much unused space. Everything being crammed into the middle. The fact that those with visual impairments weren't polled at all. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Visual impairments aren't the only accessibility issue either. The mystery-meat buttons and unnecessary dropdown menus don't help either. I like that in Vector 2010 there's nothing hidden behind a dropdown. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 01:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@IWantTheOldInterfaceBack, what do you mean visual impairments. The colour change of the links changed to help visually impaired people. Did anything get worse? — Qwerfjkl talk 07:48, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
when was the color change- even, when was color mentioned at all. Transcleanupgal (talk) 20:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose At first I didn't like Vector 22, but I gave it a chance, and can see that it's improvement. Reducing the width for readability is a good move. I think rather than having a kneejerk reaction to the new skin we should give it a chance. Also I don't think it's fair to say that the WMF hasn't been communicative or given editors enough warning about this change. There's been an rfc, they've repeatedly posted notices on various noticeboard, there's been watchlist notices, and a sitenotice. Bar obnoxious flashing red banners, I'm not really sure what else they could have done. --Chris 02:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely none of the communications you mentioned were shown to users without accounts. As one of those users, I was completely blindsided by this change earlier this week and thought it must've been a bug. It wasn't until I started searching how to report said bug that I found discussions about the UI change and the fact that I had to create an account to switch back to something else. If you want to know what else WMF could have done to be more communicative, it's to actually communicate to the vast majority of users (readers without accounts) that this was coming so they could solicit feedback. Trynn (talk) 02:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this page was "shown" to users without accounts as well. WMF has already gotten a lot of feedback with other wikis and also enwiki editors enabling it, rolling it out on English Wikipedia is just one of the last steps. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 09:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — I really hoped we were done with this, but here we are: new year, new drama. So is this vote or !vote? If it is vote who has the right to vote, has everyone been invited to vote, is it gonna be 50%+1, is it gonna be 2/3? Few months back I said "people tend to be against new things, and those who are against tend to make effort having their voice heard". Still true. All this worry and care about logged off users... c'mon... almost seventy percent of all users are mobile users and their screens are narrower than anything in vector 20022, if you cared for them you would design for them and would not ask why your 1357px-wide-tables all of a sudden don't fit. There are millions of logged out users who most likely don't really care about any of this. Were it that bad, there would be thousands of them at the gate... with torches. PhilipPirrip (talk) 02:25, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand these complaints about width limit at all. How do you people read 1.5 ft long lines, do you turn your head? Try sending a letter to your boss or teacher in landscape, with no margins (such a waste!!) and I'm sure they won't be pleased. I don't have my Word documents edge to edge because I need to have the whole line in my vision field. That's what I want from Wikipedia as well and I vote against going backwards ~ 2604:CA00:179:4BB:0:0:64:6F46 (talk)
Strong Oppose I'm staggered by people saying there was nothing wrong with the old design. Have you just become blind to how old-fashioned Wikimedia sites look? How, nearly quarter of the way through the 21st century, we're using a late-90s design for our sites? I've studied perceptual psychology and I do web design professionally, so I know well that more than about 70 characters wide makes it more effortful to read because it's harder to saccade back to the start of the line. This whole RFC is a objectionable because it's a case of feelings over facts; the usability of a web site should be evaluated with usability research, not a gerrymandered discussion in which long-time users are over-represented. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)\[reply]
Oppose rollback. It is unreasonable to not expect the default to change. It is unreasonable to not to expect continuing development of the default in situ. The new default is easy to read and edit with, imo. (And any suggestion that editors are not readers of Wikipedia, is just not reality -- editors are readers first and foremost). The consultation before the rollout was long, productive, and advertised, and the default can be bypassed by users invested in older skins. (Also, it's established practice that, us, whenever we have been using IPs or registered, we have had to work with or around the default for the entire life of the project (and certainly not voting on it), so dealing with the default is also to be expected.) Finally, per consensus policy, default configuration is not an appropriate subject for a consensus call. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If you don't like it, you can switch back to old UI in seconds. If new technologies never took hold and we always wanted to do things the same way, I'd still be using PAD to connect to Monochrome BBS on an IBM PS/2 with a VT100 terminal emulator. (And somebody will be along in a minute to call me a young whippersnapper for never having programmed Fortran on punched cards). Incidentally, I opposed the rollout of the skin because of real estate concerns, but accepted consensus didn't go my way. Sometimes, that happens. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 14:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Ritchie333: I have programmed Fortran on punched cards. Definitely doable, just don't drop the deck in a puddle like I once did. Programmers appreciate whitespace, so the real estate concerns haven't bothered me with V22. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:58, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unregistered readers can’t switch back! T v x1 02:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose -- I already got used to it over at fr.wp. Now I don't have to remember the difference between the two skins going back and forth between the two. For those who don't like the white space on a wide screen and don't want to change parameters in settings, there's always ctrl-+ (FF) which eliminates the white space (and collapses the sidebar). The TOC never being more than one click away is IMO really useful. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:30, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Please please please, listen to the UX specialists that really know more than most of us editors about this. Years of research and design work went into this. If changes are necessary, let's make incremental changes going forward, and not roll back this massive project. --Gnom (talk) 20:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, to my mind, the ideal scenario is a revert to V2010 while the WMF polishes the large number of smaller issues being reported and then deploys it again in perhaps a year. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

user has COI as they were associated with the WMF, this has nothing to do directly with the validity of the argument, It just needs to be disclosed. Transcleanupgal (talk) 20:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Experts can generate all the data in the world but that data is not in itself sufficient to rewire individuals' subjective preferences. If experts calculate that doing XYZ will improve metric ABC by 15%, but 90% of users dislike XYZ regardless and prefer the old design, then the old design should be maintained.

I think a lot of this RFC has been people talking past each other about data and preference. All the data in the world will not make me (and many others, as apparent from this RFC) subjectively prefer fixed width to widescreen. I've seen a lot of citing of research data (and much of it questionably relevant), but very little cogent reasoning for why that in itself justifies forcing a redesign on people that a clear majority appear to dislike.

The metrics are made for man - man is not made for the metrics. This sort of objective UX research should be seen as a way to come up with new styles of design to explore, but if everyone hates the design that comes from said research, then that should be the end of that. Always beware of Goodhart's law. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 20:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why should the opinion of UX specialists by allmighty and the people that actually have to use the interface actually be ignored?? T v x1 02:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I've been using this skin since it was announced to the community last year as being in testing. In fact, I initially didn't like it because, due to a bug, narrow screens were hiding the button for the drop down menu entirely, which meant I had no way to see a list of headers for an article or talk page. When I reported it, the bug was fixed promptly, and I've been using the skin ever since. Frankly, the energy spent here demanding it be rolled back entirely would be better spent reporting specific fixes to help alleviate the problems people are running into. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:19, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
to most of us, the problem was the discussion process and the change as a whole, not necessarily the design of the new interface, and also, even one of those smaller issues would most likely require duplicating the entirety of all the wikiproject- and would not be solved whether the rollout gets reverted or not Transcleanupgal (talk) 20:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion process has been ongoing for at least half a year. I don't know why it's a problem now. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you are absolutely WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion, knock it off. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose For the most part I've found Vector 2022 to be an improvement over Vector 2010. There's a few annoyances that impact me as an editor, versus as a reader. While I love the floating ToC and its reduction in required scrolling for page navigation, I find it annoying that I still have to scroll to the top of the page to access the toolbox. Ideally the toolbox should appear in or just before the floating ToC. It would also be nice if the icon panel, whether the floating one that appears when you scroll down the page, or the one at the top of the page was configurable in some way, as I would like to have specific icons appear there that are not in the default list but are in the dropdown.
As for the width question, I've been using a CSS override for the skin since testing it in November 2022. I disagree with the comments made by the developers with regards to the research on optimal content width. As our own article on the research states, the research on electronic text line length has not reached a consensus on whether there is an number of characters per line for electronic text. And, speaking with my former webdev hat on, while I recognise that content caching presents challenges for customisation for editors who are not logged in with regards to supporting multiple skins, because the width limit is being enforced by CSS there is no real technical limitation for why the width limit cannot be exposed as a user configurable parameter and stored in and read from a persistent cookiee or a DOM local store during the page load/rendering process. This sort of cookie or use of local storage is arguably "strictly necessary for the delivery of service", and so would generally be except from the EU privacy directive. And the foundation's cookie statement already lists multiple examples where such preferences are stored in either cookies or local storage. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:58, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't matter, there was problems with the procedure, you literally went to my talk page to dispute this, and then you post this without even mentioning it. Transcleanupgal (talk) 22:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That there may have been a procedural issue with the closure of the last RfC, which is as you say disputed, is somewhat irrelevant to establishing this consensus. We are in the situation we are in, and potentially changing the closure of the November RfC will not alter that. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
this discussion IS the challenging of the closure of the November RfC. Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No it's not. One RfC cannot alter the closure of another, for that you want to follow the guidance at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. Outside of an explicit closure challenge at the appropriate noticeboard, the consensus of an RfC stands until another one takes its place, however the old closure is not altered simply because a new consensus has formed. Consensus can change over time.

The question of this RfC is directly above and reads Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin? As such the scope of the consensus that forms around this one will be as a result of the rollout of Vector 2022 a few days ago. Either a consensus will be found to keep V22 as the skin, or a consensus will be found to return to V10 as the skin, or unlikely no-consensus will be found. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sideswipe9th is correct, whilst this RfC is challenging the actions that have followed on from the previous RfC, it is not challenging the closure directly. Gusfriend (talk) 06:36, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: the new skin is better for reading. If you want the old one back, change it in your preferences. Philbert2.71828 22:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
what about IP editors? Transcleanupgal (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IP editors should get a default that is easier to use for reading, i.e. the new skin. I suspect that most drive-by readers don't care much either way, so we should just present them with a good default. Logged-in power users can tweak their preferences to their hearts' content. Philbert2.71828 23:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the new skin being eisier to use is entirely you opinion, this isn't a vote of confidence. Transcleanupgal (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And it not being easier to use is entirely your opinion? The vast majority of all the votes on this page are based entirely on opinion, and yet you're only bludgeoning the votes you disagree with. 2600:1700:87D3:3460:B1B7:BEB0:D510:9DA (talk) 00:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: The skin is much better for readers, as shown by the research collected by the desktop improvements team. From the table of contents, to the ability to hide the gross sidebar, to easier language switching, to the ever-controversial limited width of articles (which is now optional!), Vector 2022 is best for readers - and the data doesn't lie. If you, as an editor, want the old skin, there is literally nothing stopping you from going back to it yourself. Also, the fact that this RfC was so close to the previous one is really not appropriate. BappleBusiness^[talk] 22:31, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
compleatly invalid as you are not a reader, how is it being the 2nd most used skin something that makes it's case? Transcleanupgal (talk) 22:37, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please assume good faith instead of declaring opinions you don't like to be "invalid." 2600:1700:87D3:3460:B1B7:BEB0:D510:9DA (talk) 22:50, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
nobody listed on this page is a reader, the statement could be technically true and still be invalid. Transcleanupgal (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All Wikipedia editors are also by definition Wikipedia readers. How else do we proof read the contributions made on articles by ourselves and others? Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Accurate proof reading is much easier when logged-out readers see the same skin that most editors have chosen. Certes (talk) 21:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on what you're proofing. If it's the layout, then yeah I'd agree that being on the same skin makes that much easier and will have more consistent results. But if you're just proof reading the text for spelling, grammar, and factual errors, then it won't really matter what skin the reader is using. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't look at the research. See the research about readability, the table of contents and sticky header, the language button, and the collapsible sidebar. BappleBusiness^[talk] 22:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The amount of research and effort that has gone into this change has been significant and it should be given a chance to bed down. Rather than reverting I would prefer ongoing effort at making the skin even betterer. Things like offering editors the choice of icons or text for some menus, dealing with some of the existing Phab issues, etc. Even spending some time on editor tools or getting notifcations working in the mobile app. Let's move forward. Gusfriend (talk) 22:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Adding the additional comment that I am very glad that I am not going to be the one closing this but, with so many comments on both sides, it could be argued that there is not yet sufficient consensus to return to the Vector2010 skin. Gusfriend (talk) 06:40, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How on earth can you say that?? There is a persistent 2 to 1 ratio in favor of rollback. T v x1 02:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The numbers in the !vote are currently 191 v. 125 v. 11 (there was a formatting issue which was causing the oppose numbering to restart) which is less than 2:1. There is majority support but that is not the same as consensus. Gusfriend (talk) 08:50, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose: Backlash is inevitable with any UI/UX change, and I find it instructive to compare the response here to the response to Vector 2010 and see just how similar they are. Personally, I find this update necessarily forward-looking and a big improvement with regards to readability. For those who oppose the fixed-width, they can easily change it (and WMF have said they're working on making this toggle persistent). Years of effort have been poured into this update with community consultation along the way. If the consensus is that things need to be changed, then make those changes instead of undoing everything. 2600:1700:87D3:3460:B1B7:BEB0:D510:9DA (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – As someone who has been using Vector 2022 for months now, I really appreciate the more clean look, better sidebar, and limited width. This limited width has also been proven to improve accessbility, and the more accessible option shouldn't be hidden behind a preferences menu and a sign-up screen. DecafPotato (talk) 23:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you agree that V2010 shouldn't be limited to registered users only? ScrewV22 (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@ScrewV22, where are you getting that from? — Qwerfjkl talk 17:14, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Although I will continue to use legacy, I think 2022 is cleaner and more modern then the clunky and overwhelming for a new editor legacy version. We still have editors that use Monobook, yeah? I'm sure there's some historical precedent of Monobook lovers opposing the switch to Vector as the default, I'm just too lazy to go looking. This is good for new editors, IMO. casualdejekyll 01:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now. If it were abysmally bad I could see the merit in rolling it back so soon after making it the default, but the complaints I have about it are minor annoyances at worst, such as Sandbox and Contributions being an additional click away. And a number of things the WMF considers improvements (such as the anchored table of contents), I also consider improvements. I’m willing to give them some time to iron out the known bugs and give the rest of us some time to get accustomed to the new look and feel. 28bytes (talk) 01:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the consensus from the original discussion was that IFF those problems were solved that they could be implemented if their not , then this fall under "abysmally bad" Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose a rollback. It's an improvement over the previous vector. I'm surprised that the sticking point for so many is the line width. There' extensive research showing that shorter linewidth aids readability, which is why essentially every news website and academic journal limits maximum linewidth. There are certainly improvable elements. There will need to be accommodations for wide tables and long section titles where necessary. I'd love to see more use of the right hand panel - ideally holding references similar to journal layouts like PNAS (example). However, if the scenario was switched and we'd been used to the vecto'22 style and vector'10 was being proposed, I can't imagine as many people viewing it as a net improvement over '22. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 01:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Oyez, oyez, oyez. Oh holiest communion: another RfC about white space. Goodie. I have come forth to express my thoughts on this, err, predicament(?) I'm just gonna come out and say it, the WCAG Success Criterion on line-length must be the backbone of this whole debate (https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/visual-presentation.html). No if, ands, or buts about it. Those guidelines are the closest thing to a bible the internet has. If we don’t believe in WCAG we are completely adrift, lost at sea, like the ancient mariner. So that’s that, clear as day, simple as sauce. Though, if it please the court, may I add:
- None of us have yet to provide a SINGLE piece of research that shows unlimited line-length are the best for reading (but there are plenty showing that limited line-lengths work well)
- I literally can’t find a single Popular text-based content/information website that doesn’t have limited content width. Not A Single One. .com, .org, .gov,. .net, .info, nada.
- and well, the Fact that Fandom has a full-width toggle, and it is used by a whopping 0.1% of people (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T319449#8379920). Zero-Point-One-Percent — are all of us just choosing to ignore that? We are the zero-point-one-percent, and we must stand up to the oppressive 99.9%. Huzzah!
So the WMF make the line-length shorter as they manifestly should, so people can read the articles that WE spend all of our time working on. And the side effect is a bunch of white space for people with big screens. Oh. My. Goodness. Whitespace? You mean like actual space, that is white? NooooooooooOOoooooo. It can’t be. Oh wait…actually…I can’t find a single bit of information on WCAG, or any other design documentation guide AnYwHeRe, saying that white space is bad. Please, somebody, show me Just One design guidebook, rulebook, textbook, whatever, that says: you must fill all the space of the interface (cool rhyme, btw) or else you will be a Complete FAILURE. Where is that written? Is there an underground bible of design that only the zero-point-one-percenters know about? It’s like we are saying that electric cars are too quiet. The silence is deafening. We can’t hear ourselves think over the insane quietness that the car produces. Huh? Apologies, I’m a little adrenalized at this point ~~ exhaleeeee 🧘 ~~ Have we actually devolved from a group of people who esteem research and facts, to a bunch of conspiracy theorists who surmise that every-single-website, every single designer and developer, every single book printed, in the history of this little planet of ours have ALL gotten it COMPLETELY wrong? And the (poor, poor) People at WMF creating this skin are both sheep who just follow “trends”, and at the same time are Complete Tyrants (or Pirates) who don’t listen to feedback?
You are cross, clearly. I kind of understand why, and I have some sympathies. But uh, my friends, the best critique we can come up with is: there hath been too much white space painted upon this veranda, and it looks like a wolf in a mobile telephone’s clothing? And now we want to burn the entire thing to the ground to prove that we have control over the sheeple? Well shoot, where I come from we call that boneheaded. If someone can show me research saying that line-length should be unlimited, or a credible design guide that says white space is bad, or find a popular text-based website that don't have a limited width, I will gladly eat my proceeding paragraphs of word pudding :)
WCAG 4 LIFE <3 <3 <3 <3 2600:1700:9FFC:34B0:3178:F130:73A8:2D06 (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fell in love with your comment. Thank you. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 21:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Use White Spacing (WCAG) does not appear to match how the Vector 2022 skin uses white space. And the Vector 2022 TOC sidebar does not appear to conform to this recommendation: Make it Easy to Find the Most Important Tasks and Features (WCAG), or this Use a Clear and Understandable Page Structure (WCAG), and the use of icons only (instead of also including words) seems contrary to this: Make the Site Hierarchy Easy to Understand and Navigate (WCAG) and Use Clear Visible Labels (WCAG). Beccaynr (talk) 00:30, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – The English Wikipedia should not be using an entirely different skin than the rest of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia wikis. This is a decision that should be made globally, not on a wiki-by-wiki basis. Additionally, the new skin, implemented following an RfC, is a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, even if it still requires some tweaking. Graham (talk) 02:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I concur, Is there a way that this discussion could be trans-wiki? Transcleanupgal (talk) 02:23, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal: Yes, this discussion could be had at Meta-Wiki, where issues that affect multiple Wikimedia wikis are discussed. Graham (talk) 02:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC has already been moved once, and I don't really see a good reason why drama on enwiki should spread to other wikis when it has already been successfully deployed to 300 other WMF wikis already. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:36, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "dramatic improvement", please note that enormous amounts of white space serve no useful purpose. -- HLachman (talk) 05:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The white space is one of the improvements to which I am referring. Graham (talk) 06:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it's aesthetically appealing to some minority of users, but that doesn't change the fact that enormous amounts of white space serve no useful purpose. -- HLachman (talk) 11:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Its purpose is discussed at mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Frequently asked questions, among other places. Graham (talk) 02:00, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At your link, the arguments in favor of white space are rather contrived. The white space is, for the most part, both useless and annoying (as confirmed by an enormous number of people). For more comments on that ("resting spots", etc.), see my reply in comment #28. -- HLachman (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You mean against the consensus of an RFC… T v x1 02:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't mean that. Graham (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do not like the design that removing the ToC just below the lead section: the infobox stretches into the main body and pushed right-side images to the next section. But I hope an a-month-of-period to try. --Lopullinen 08:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Lopullinen: see #Bring back the TOC. Æo (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is an improvement. Aircorn (talk) 09:36, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I think the new skin has a more modern look and feel than the old one and the switch had to be made sooner or later. Any remaining bugs and shortcomings can be resolved "in situ" while the new skin is live. Let's rather focus on specific issues or tweaks than reject the whole thing. Let's look forward not backwards. EMsmile (talk) 10:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It it ain't broke, don't fix it. and it wasn't broken. Progress is not always good. 149.20.252.132 (talk) 14:36, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There is no need to flip-flop or turn back the clock here. If you don't like the new skin, turn it off. Any credible argument about what readers think should be based on data, and I've not seen that, except for the one WMF did and led to the change. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:41, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IP USERS, CAN'T DO that Transcleanupgal (talk) 12:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IP users couldn't pick a skin before this change either. Ckoerner (talk) 15:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You have been asked repeatedly to stop bludgeoning this discussion, and yet here you are again (with all caps this time). The points you are making have been made elsewhere — you do not need to continue to antagonize the people you disagree with. I'll note that none of the opposers have been bludgeoning the supporters the way you and several other of the supporters have been... 2600:1700:87D3:3460:8552:14FA:1343:4303 (talk) 21:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IP users can install an extension to fix this Broken Segue 20:49, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (This is the same thing I said back in September.) Delete Vector 2010 and never look back. No opt-in skin will ever get as many eyeballs on it to identify and address issues as a new default. It's a 1.0. it's been very thoughtfully designed with readers in mind for over three years. If we implement now, a year from now (maybe even less than for big bugbears) most issues will be resolved. For folks still on the fence, don't just try it for a few days. Settle in and really get to know what it's like. Ckoerner (talk)] 15:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Rhododendrites and everyone else. dwadieff ✉ 15:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. (NB: I work for WMF. I did not work on Vector 2022. WMF did not ask me or any other WMF employees to respond to this RfC. I am adding my opinion as a volunteer editor.) I find the sticky Table of Contents very useful. Friends that I have asked (four people who are readers/not editors of Wikipedia) also commented how they find the sticky ToC helpful. I personally do not mind the extra white space. I prefer text heavy sites to have a limited text width to help with eye tracking. This is what many text heavy websites do on their article pages (e.g. cbc.ca, bbc.com.) These sites don't have extra white space because they are filled with adverts, related article links, etc, but I prefer fewer distractions when reading an encyclopedia. KindRowboat (talk) 15:28, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 15:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - The technical justifications for the change that I've seen make sense to me, and the opposition to the changes seem to be primarily rooted in some assertion that "most people don't like it"; notwithstanding that opposition is louder than contentment, I see nothing concrete to indicate that the general outside impression is more negative overall. Furthermore, and this is more of a personal viewpoint, the opinions of longtime users and editors are less pertinent than new and transient users when it comes to the content and layout of the site, that's why registered users are given a "go back" option - this isn't about them. Tpdwkouaa (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As others have said, we shouldn't really care what editors think is best. What matters much more is what works for readers. Unfortunately it's very difficult to actually know what readers prefer. I don't give that much weight to the WMF's research but I give even less weight to editors convinced it's worse for readers for reasons XYZ (e.g. complaints by people who say they never edit here, complaints on other sites, talks with their friends). There are good reasons why these have limited utility especially when making a major change to a UI people are used to. Ultimately since I can't know what's best for readers, I fall back to giving trust as limited as it may be to the WMF's research especially when combined with the fact a lot of what they've done is similar to what other websites are doing. I know a lot of people hate stuff other websites are doing and I don't always either e.g. I much prefer classic Reddit. Maybe all these other websites are really wrong too. OTOH, even more than the WMF, many of these websites ultimately want eyeballs because it's how they make money some way or the other. So there's a lot of money involved and a lot of effort to be sure they're right about what works for the average reader so I definitely consider their research etc matters a lot more than the opinions of random Wikipedians. And while some of them e.g. Reddit are dissimilar enough to Wikipedia that what works for them may have little bearing to us. But there are also a lot of news websites etc who's work and how people interact with them are similar enough that I expect there's a good chance what works for them will carry over in what works for us. Nil Einne (talk) 18:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have you completely failed just how many readers have already complained??? And how many readers that have create account just to revert the previous skin?? Also, you make the false assumption that plagued the process of this deployment that editors and readers are completely separate concepts. That is just not true. I myself am an editor, but I actually read Wikipedia much more than I edit it. In fact, nearly of accounts complaing, whom you reduce to editors, have been complaining about the reduced readability.T v x1 19:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as a Monobook user. I wasn't happy with the change to Vector in 2010, and I'm still very grateful that I can retain Monobook for browsing and editing. There was a hullabaloo when Vector was introduced; it died down and Vector became beloved. I'm confident that the same will happen with Vector 22, save for stick in the muds like myself. schetm (talk) 18:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my comments on this page. — Qwerfjkl talk 18:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, weak oppose. After having read a large number of support !votes, I sympathise with their reasoning (when it is more than IDONTLIKEIT). There are valid concerns, but they are lost in a sea of complaints and asking questions that have been answered many times on this page. I will try and list the objects that I find valid when I have more time. — Qwerfjkl talk 00:28, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Editors will prefer what they are used to and are resistant to change. That doesn't mean the look of the wiki should stand still in time unless we want Wikipedia to look more and more dated to the reader. Garuda3 (talk) 19:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the rollback — Saying that the design is a significant improvement is an understatement. The legibility and frankly, the approachability of the content is far superior to the earlier designs. From what I can read in the comments, the main issues seem to be the white space and the hamburger menu icon. Both of these complaints are valid and areas that can be iterated on the design with community collaboration. The entire product team worked diligently and openly (blogging, sharing designs, giving talks, holding space for feedback) throughout the development process. It would be disheartening to make a drastic decision for the design, rather than recognizing what is functional about it and collaboratively working to make it better. Iamjessklein (talk) 21:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the rollback — I believe the new design is a significant improvement and step in the right direction, for all the reasons mentioned here. We (humans) resist change, and it is difficult. However, it seems to me that WMF team was extremely patient and considerate in the redesign, proving in other countries that the new design is worth implementing. Levaplevaplevap (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC) — Levaplevaplevap (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Levaplevaplevap (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose the rollback — all for design improvements! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.208.217.207 (talk • contribs) 22:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 47.208.217.207 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose the rollback — The new design is much easier to read. 45.48.30.140 (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 45.48.30.140 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose the rollback — Change is always jarring and rough. That said, the new design has some functional improvements that I would hate to lose, specifically, the TOC. I would rather see some improvement on the new TOC implementation to reduce the amount of whitespace than to lose it altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.83.241.92 (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 174.83.241.92 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose Whilst the sudden change on 18th January came as quite a surprise for me -and presumably many others who had not been following all the upcoming developments - I fully support the developments WMF has introduced. It's alright us editors expressing a view about our likes and dislikes - and, let's face it, few people ever seem to relish change. But we need to remember the majority of Wikipedia users are actually readers, not editors, and the interface needs to work for them in terms of content accessibility as much, if not far more, than it does for us. A lot of work and research has gone in to making that experience better, and on the whole I believe it is. We editors can, if we're registered, simply switch back to our preferred old ways of doing things. There are millions more casual visitors who will benefit from better page design and layout with Vector 2022. There has evidently not been some enormous 'cliff edge' drop off of visits since 18th January (see here), and we should be prepared to give this time to bed in, whilst identifying any outstanding wrinkles, and awaiting the statistical data from WMF to demonstrate success or failure over the coming months. As an owner of a very small iPhone who prefers to work in 'Desktop View' on it, I now find it much easier to select the right menu options than in old Vector. The icons really help. My one related gripe is that it's still as hard to find the link to switch between Mobile View and Desktop View (and vice versa) as it ever was, and this was a bit of a missed opportunity. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The new design is more usable and responsive to different screen sizes. This makes it more useful to the public, which is extremely important. The old design was good, but this one is better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4041:500F:DE00:4D0A:68D6:46BF:398C (talk) 23:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 2600:4041:500F:DE00:4D0A:68D6:46BF:398C (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose Everyone hates UI changes when they are first introduced to them. After people adjust to them they become fine with it. Give it some time, people, you'll be fine. Endwise (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — I have been wishing Wikipedia would make some readability improvements for YEARS, instead of just favoring familiarity. I'm glad that the new skin keeps the spirit of the old design while adding welcome clarity, and I'm sure additional iterations can work out any issues on particular content situations. 69.202.234.45 (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 69.202.234.45 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
OpposeThe new design is cleaner, clearer and overall SO much better! Like technology design needs to innovate and evolve over time to be useful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.162.110.235 (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 104.162.110.235 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose As is often the case with design changes, there will be a novelty period where some will laude it for the novelty and some will despise it for the same. After the novelty period, both will fade, and what will be left is usability. Daneah (talk) 01:46, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Daneah (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Strong oppose I can't believe we are even having this RFC. In addition to reiterating the other !votes that while it's not perfect (no new skin could be), it is in general an improvement that could be further improved, and likely will be, I just have to point out that this is totally the wrong time to have this. Of course right after you make a change, no matter how much you tried to get all the stakeholders involved in discussing it, there will be people who either didn't know about the change till it was made or believed that it would not be are angry about it* and want to go right back, often casting aspersions on the process.
While, yes, support for going back is running higher here, the margin is far too narrow to suggest that the community is of the carefully considered opinion that a mistake has been made. If we really want a discussion like this to be seen as reflective of genuine community consensus, the right thing for those who have started this RFC to do would be to withdraw it immediately, and promise to hold it a year from now. Daniel Case (talk) 03:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
*"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a bad move"
Oppose I think we should give the new design a chance and see if Wikipedia can reach a broader readership. Disclaimer: I'm a former employee that was involved with the project. Niedzielski (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The new design is simpler and easier to read. —Will M. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.126.143 (talk) 03:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 97.94.126.143 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose, there are bugs, but there are always bugs. It has the potential to be better. I find it easier to read once I get used to the changes. (I have poor vision). I like the sticky ToC and will like the sticky toolbar once it is working properly. If logged in you can use whatever skin you loke. If not logged in... well that is your choice. The research suggests the new format will be better for readers. How many of them have complained? 0.001%? More? Fewer? Has anyone measured Reader opinion? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 13:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, there has been no attempt to measure overall reader opinion, which is one of the many criticisms of this whole thing. According to the Vector 2022 page there was quantitative testing done and some evaluation of beta testers, but I have not seen any mention of soliciting qualitative feedback from logged-out users like is common practice on other large web sites. This RfC is the closest thing. Trynn (talk) 18:47, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose, Having the outline available at all times is invaluable and iterating on this design to please all parties should be the only considered way forward. As others have said, making snap judgements to reverse new developments will keep Wikipedia stagnant as there will always be someone to veto any change. Carlinmack (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — Vector 2022 vastly improves the site's layout and typographic design. In addition it follows contemporary best practices for making key UI elements available as you scroll down the page. — James M. DowlandFan (talk) 13:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that DowlandFan (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — Vector 2022 is definitely an improvement from a navigation standpoint as it utilizes the breadcrumb approach, allowing you to jump in and out of your search train at any point seamlessly.– JD M Babymodel89 (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Babymodel89 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — [Vector 2022 reduces visual noise and follows conventions that improve information comprehension and retention. This is a long overdue update for Wikipedia.] 66.108.33.153 (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 66.108.33.153 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — The new design, while not perfect, is a substantial improvement for legibility across multiple device sizes and browsers. Strongly oppose rolling back. Reefdog (talk) 17:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - Change will always create controversy, but it also provides opportunity for meaningful improvement for a *new and wider set of stakeholders than those who were involved in the establishment of the previous status quo*. I understand that this design was created with community feedback, iteration, and with an intent to continue to improve and update based on additional feedback. Wikipedia needs to continue to evolve in order to stay relevant for a new generation of knowledge seekers. That isn't going to happen without updates like this one. Please keep this and please continue to make progress! slifty (talk) 17:34, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — I build websites for a living and I think rolling back should only be considered in extreme circumstances, like the site won't load. I read through some of the complaints and it was hard to identify anything that couldn't be better addressed by iterating further on the current Vector 2022 skin. I like the shorter line measure (how wide a single line of text goes before it breaks), I think it improves readability of the article text. Dan Phiffer (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Dan Phiffer (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — I work on a large (top 10) website for a living and and can say that the new design is much more legible and fits best practices for readability and ease of use. I find the new design much easier to read. Change is hard, and of course it will be daunting when a thing we all know and love changes because we're so used to it. That comfort and familiarty is shaken up. But I think with time people will come to appreciate the improvements of the new design and we should listen to how to improve it without rollingback 2600:1700:9770:E000:6C01:C24F:833D:BD78 (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 2600:1700:9770:E000:6C01:C24F:833D:BD78 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — The new design is a lot more readable, and forward thinking. I'm sure it will continue to improve in the future, but for now this is already a major step forward for people who care about readability. 47.157.79.115 (talk) 18:28, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 47.157.79.115 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — I am just a random everyday user of Wikipedia. The new design is a breath of fresh air. I spend so many hours of my life on this website, the least it can do is have a comfortable line length. That alone makes the reading experience significantly better. But there are also loads of other improvements (sticky sidebar? Love it!). Please don't revert! Samanpwbb (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Samanpwbb (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose - I am in favor of the the new design because it is more usable and accessible. 198.115.84.241 (talk) 18:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 198.115.84.241 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose - It is much more readable with this design. Neohypatia (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Neohypatia (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — It is clean, easy to follow what's on the page 67.1.30.180 (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 67.1.30.180 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose - As other opposers have said, what issues exist in the new design are nothing that can't be fixed with continued iteration. Couldn't agree more. A bit too much whitespace for me right now, but I adore the nav sidebar, and I'm confident the right balance will be struck. 141.156.130.5 (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 141.156.130.5 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose - I'm not the biggest fan of the new redesign, but it seems way too soon to roll it back, especially since there were particular reasons of accessibility behind its implementation. 19:09, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.31.229.50 (talk) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 23.31.229.50 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)
Oppose - The usability of the new skin improves substantially, and brings Wikipedia's design up to contemporary standards. Empirically, it is easier to use; it adheres to accepted display guidelines, which helps improve accessibility; and user adoption indicates that the new skin is well-received by regular users. I oppose rolling back the change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.26.222.171 (talk) 19:40, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 108.26.222.171 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — I frequently hate redesigns, but Wikipedia's is a huge step forward in usefulness and convenience. Ocdtrekkie (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Ocdtrekkie (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — Much more usability and taking steps in the right direction. As a designer I think it's more useful to build on this UI with new feedback rather than rollback to the past. 168.91.204.164 (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 168.91.204.164 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — It is a real shame that the typical Wikipedia visitor will not be represented in this vote due to the immense complexity of casting one. The result is that subtle, meticulously-researched, evidence-backed design improvements clearly made in service of casual readers are being challenged by a small group of insiders, likely editors. These are the few folks on Earth who probably even noticed a change at all because the exceedingly spare improvements that have been made are catering to the casual reader who is likely to miss them. Why? Because a) casual readers don't spend a significant portion of their waking life on Wikipedia and b) with this new design, casual readers are far more likely to see what they came here to find in the first place: the content. By neatly tucking away the main navigation, moving contents to a sidebar, demoting the presence of editor tools, emphasizing language options, and giving over nearly all of the page to the content, this design puts the focus on the reader experience and not the editing process. In a world where most everyone is "doing their research" with their thumbs, the real obvious improvement is how well this new design works on mobile where the experience is night and day. Anyone suggesting a rollback to the 2010 era is doing so for purely personal aesthetics and without any deference to a modern reader. If there are any concerns with this new design, critics should learn why certain choices were made. If there are (evidence-backed) improvements to be made to this new design, critics should suggest them and move forward rather than set Wikipedia back a decade and thereby endanger it's relevance (and ultimately existence). I sincerely hope that this vote is purely a performative exercise intended to allow incredibly important contributors a chance to vent their frustrations but will ultimately have no consequence on design decisions. Editors and wonks are essential to Wikipedia's success, but ultimately Wikipedia exists for the benefit of the casual readers. Rfriedman81 (talk) 20:02, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I didn't like the new skin when it was first proposed (too much white space), but I've gotten used to it. It is much better for reading longer and more complex articles. I've also found, somewhat to my surprise, that the graphics-heavy articles I mostly work on usually look better, although sometimes I've had to make layout changes. Curiocurio (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — The dynamic table-of-contents and fixed line length contribute to the usability for me significantly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.33.128.14 (talk) 20:42, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 155.33.128.14 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
The new design is beautiful maybe slightly unpolished. I'm only here because a guy from work tweeted there was an uprising, so to speak. Like with any product, the unsatisfied users are more likely to comment, and review pages always show strong bias in that direction. It's like asking folks at G-party's convention what they think of D-party's president, if ya know what I mean. And the guy hasn't even started yet2604:CA00:178:8218:0:0:66:DFA2 (talk) 21:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC) from phone, regular editor otherwise — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 2604:CA00:178:8218:0:0:66:DFA2 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
@2604:CA00:178:8218:0:0:66:DFA2: Do you mind providing a link to this tweet? Thanks. @2604:CA00:178:8218:0:0:66:DFA2: IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 21:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You'd be justified in suggesting there is response bias going on here, but I daresay the opposite probably happened in the original discussion. It stands to reason that most readers and very possibly most editors were unaware of the vector change or where to raise concerns about it. This would be particularly problematic for non-editors. Really we lack a decisive way to measure consensus on this issue. DarkSide830 (talk) 22:52, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do mind because it's from a friend and I respect his privacy. Are you with the FBI? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:CA00:178:8218:0:0:66:DFA2 (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — The new design has been pretty easy to adapt to and particularly prefer the icon-based headers and the cohesion between different platforms. I do agree that there is a lot of white space that could be better designed. There's far more to gain from improving V2022 instead of rolling back entirely. EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 21:04, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — I love having the TOC available at all times. There will be iterations but rolling the design back is silly and a waste of good work. Let Wikipedia move forward. Sabriel~enwiki (talk) 21:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as the new default theme seems more readable and usable, and follows the work of designers who are attempting to implement usability best practices (white space, fixed width reading, accessible navigation). But I also oppose using an RfC to address this kind of design preference question after testing and deployment. This is not intended or claimed to be a representative vote. It was quite challenging for me to even find the RfC even once I heard that one was taking place. I would prefer for the community to give feedback on the design principles and process (which I understand was done, including through surveys and RfCs) and then developers to implement the design and run tests and gather feedback on it, rather than rolling back any UI change which any group dislikes. I especially appreciate the options to choose a theme, and the addition of options even on the default theme for those who especially dislike fixed width layouts. Npdoty (talk) 21:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Nothing would ever change or improve if we left every collective design decision up to a crowd consensus. Many of the arguments here supporting a rollback amount to "I don't like it." No given examples of what makes the design inferior, or proof of what works, just cries that it's "poorly made" and that their workflow has been interrupted. Not to mention the repeated claims that a narrower text column is suboptimal, which has been patently untrue for the entire history of publishing. Instead of rolling back these progressive changes, everyone should adapt and perhaps work on improving the look and feel of Vector 2022. Rolling back to the old style is not recommended. There should be an option to revert the theme from preferences, but for the people who don't like having to log in for that, I say deal with it. Down10 ^TACO 22:13, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose rolling back - Usually logged-out user dusting off a very old account here. Here's my chain of reasoning: Were the problems in Vector that gave rise to the redesign real? Yes. Is it a good faith attempt to address those problems? Yes. Are the claimed problems in V2022 so bad and impossible to mitigate that they far outweigh the problems V2022 was intended to solve? No. On that basis, any problems with V2022 should be solved by progressive in-situ improvements, not by relitigating the decision to implement it. Polonius (talk) 22:15, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new skin doesn't seem to be a significant disimprovement to me (I very recently switched to it from monobook, mostly because I think it's a good idea to stay in touch with the way readers see articles). But more to the point, in the ways that it's different from the old skins, the differences tend to bring it closer to the mobile appearance. When bringing things closer to mobile gets in the way of the user experience, that's bad, but when it can be done in a way that is less problematic in that respect, I think it's a good thing. I don't think these changes are overall worse (some things are worse, some better) and to the extent that they are they can be tweaked later. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — I like the new skin a lot. I find it much easier to navigate and to consume. 170.149.100.107 (talk) 23:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 170.149.100.107 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — I think the new interface design should be rolled out for a longer period of time before a rollback is considered. Furthermore, I like the parity with the iOS UX. Overall, my experience using the new design is that is far quicker finding the information I am searching. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.64.77.163 (talk • contribs) 23:36, 24 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 170.64.77.163 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Strong Oppose - The new layout is significantly better for reading than the old, and reflects modern design principles. It's been over 10 years since such a major change, so it's not surprising that people are against it. -Cliff Gilley (talk) 12:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - Found this link via Mashable article and was surprised to see this RFC. Consensus (whatever that means) seems impossible here and this RFC seems like a flawed democracy to me if it's meant to represent the average person - I'm lucky I stumbled across it and even that I almost didn't contribute given the lack of civility and various instances of WP:BLUDGEON going on here by certain users here. It took me a while to get used to the change but I like it. It's cleaner and easier to read and I love the floating table of contents. For those that are complaining about having to register an account to change the skin - the fact you can even do this is a gift.. do you think any other website would even consider keeping an old skin around as an option..? 64.21.209.118 (talk) 00:16, 25 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 64.21.209.118 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
No-one has ever said Vector 2022 needs to be deleted. It just needs to be reverted as an automatic default forced onto everyone that requires an opt-out to get back to the good functional skin that WMF replaced without consensus. Forcing people to sign up to fix the site is not a "gift". As for "would any other website keep old skins", Reddit does exactly that with old.reddit (and again, no-one is asking for deletion of Vector 2022, so you could opt-in to using that if you felt like it). Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you want to use Reddit as an example, we'd need to make an en.old.wikipedia.org and keep the old skin on there instead EmeraldRange (talk/contribs) 14:08, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that's more of a technical issue with Reddit than an example to follow where Wikipedia could revert the decision to make Vector 2022 the default, and still leave it around for opt-in usage. Macktheknifeau (talk) 09:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — important to continuously improve Wikipedia and look forward to the continued iterations based on more feedback — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:2f70:ed50:cc6f:e67:289b:1968 — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 2600:1700:2f70:ed50:cc6f:e67:289b:1968 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)
Oppose go forward, not backward. Issues with menus and text width are being fixed. Uwappa (talk) 08:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Frankly, I hated Vector 2022 when I first tried it last year, but it's grown on me as I've gotten used to it. There are still features I'm still getting used to, and there are definitely elements of the skin that I think are inferior to Vector 2010, but overall I do find reading articles easier with this skin versus Vector 2010. And yes, there are bugs, but there's always going to be bugs when something new rolls out. No UI is ever going to be perfect, and no UI is ever going to make everyone happy. (I do agree that it would be nice if skins or other preferences would be accessible to nonregistered users.) Aoi (青い) (talk) 08:40, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose: ^^ I agree with the above — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.180.195.189 (talk) 10:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 87.180.195.189 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Comment moved to correct location. Was previously placed below Shushugah's !vote. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:37, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It is important to improve the interface. I believe with continuous iterative improvements it will only get better, more usable, and accessible. Dchlr23 (talk) 11:49, 25 January 2023 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Dchlr23 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
Oppose — Change is good. We learn new things, we adapt, we make improvements. The new interface is more intuitive and accessible. We can't take our significance for granted and should not be afraid to keep changing for the better. Incabell (talk) 12:22, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new layout is excellent for readability, and barely affects basic editing. It seems to be a sensible new default for a general audience. If you really miss Vector legacy that much, it's trivially easy to switch back, IP users notwithstanding. WindTempos ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:34, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — It's more organized and more legible. It's no surprise that people balk at changes to products they have been using for a long time, and even invent their rationale afterwards. I can recall people losing it over aesthetic changes to Instagram and Twitter that had a marginal impact on the experience, especially when compared to how they have decided to surface content and such. Keep the design and keep moving forward! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.39.36.118 (talk) 14:46, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's an improvement for reading; if you don't find it an improvement for editing, you can turn it off again. The Land (talk) 15:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per my comments in the previous RfC supporting deployment of Vector 2022. Net positive for the general reader. Editors always have the choice of going back to classic vector if they don't like it. The skin is responsive which makes it usable on mobile, a big win over Vector-2010. Sticky TOC is another improvement. Being deployed as default on English Wikipedia would hopefully mean improvements such as native support for dark mode would be considered in the future, which are impractical to support for Vector 2010 due to its less modern codebase. – SD0001 (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then why is the general reader complaining that Wikipedia is much more difficult to read and is massive amount of them creating accounts just to change back to the old skin??? Furthermore you are yet another person who makes the false assumption that editors only edit and never read. Editors are complaining about readability just as much and only editors being able to chance back is insufficient.T v x1 20:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tvx1, there are multiple IP users !voting against and for the change. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:48, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The new design is handsome and more legible. The sticky TOC is very helpful. Surprised there's pushback. You don't need to be Robert Bringhurst to see that it's an improvement. Gwezerek (talk) 18:56, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think the pages are a lot easier to read. So for not logged in users that's a big benefit. Everybody here who doesn't like it, can easily change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.204.234.90 (talk) 20:31, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – the fixed width feature of the Vector 2022 skin is very useful for creating a uniform reading experience. With a fixed width, all editors are now aware what Wikipedia's readers are going to see by default. One of the problems with the previous user interfaces was that editors were editing the layout with regards only to how they saw the content on their screens. The contributor did not take into consideration how the reader experience would be on different size screens or mobile devices. There were some editors who did not even take the layout out of the article in to consideration. Part of this lack of consideration for the layout is the minimal guidelines and policies concerning layout and the reader's visual experience. Organized versus disorganized layout is what determines professional publishing versus amateur self-publishing. --Guest2625 (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose for the same reason I supported Vector 2022 in the previous RfC. It's a massive improvement in usability and it's extremely well-known that pretty much all redesigns frustrate users in the short term, even when they improve the experience in the longer term. The team has responded to the feedback about the width by adding a preference for registered users and a temporary toggle for unregistered users (which they're working on making persistent). FYI, I work for the Wikimedia Foundation. I have not worked on this redesign. No one has requested or suggested that I participate in this discussion.—Neil Shah-Quinn (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose simply because if you don't like it, you can switch back to the old version (as I have). I get that unregistered editors can't do this, but then there are plenty of other things IPs don't have the ability to do. All the more reason to create an account. Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:21, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I created my account solely so I could use monobook. I still use it to this day. The old Vector is clearly outdated. If you don't like it, switch back like I did. Scorpions13256 (talk) 00:34, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The improved skin was created with feedback loops and input from the community. It's a clear usability and readability improvement (as user tests has shown). chiborg (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This change is positive and desirable. My only complaint is that it does not go far enough in modernizing the interface. I oppose going back to 2010 not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of the people who can't vote here -- the people who have not yet decided to join our community and will only do so once Wikipedia looks as if designers might have worked on it sometime during this millennium. Those who wish to stay in the past can simply change their preferred skin in preferences. Datn (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The improved skin has to stay. Had some issues with initial pre-releases but the new interface has got better and better. Nonetheless, i don't understand why users are not yet(?) allowed to set their own default font sizes, text colors, text width, ... in their user preferences (not a tech guy :) (see Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Reading#Customization_of_text)--Afernand74 (talk) 12:12, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose, while logged out as an IP am I a regular user/editor. The new skin is broadly fine, and changes little except for UI consistency across platforms and added more modern-feeling flexibility. People hate change, and will complain loudly when a website's interface is changed (especially if unexpectedly) no matter what the updated design looks like. But this is a functional upgrade and people will get used to it - once they do the benefits will outweigh the brief run of complaints. 193.37.240.168 (talk) 13:46, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose C'mon guys. This is some petty shit right here. Let the new interface breathe and improve. It is still my opinion that casual readers and new editors will benefit from the change, and the data and community at large seem to agree. Support !votes, do what you've been telling supporters of the previous RfC all along: If you don't like it, switch back. Throast ^{{{ping}} me!} (talk | contribs) 16:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a vote. It's supposed to be a discussion leading to some sort of community consensus, but since that seems impossible it is instead a big joke. Upon reading the previous comments then it should be obvious a lot of the problems with Vector 2022 are not just "I don't like it". I will not repeat them here. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Jeremy Jeremus !vote specifically means not-vote. See WP:!VOTE Aaron Liu (talk) 19:47, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The new skin matches the mobile view that's been around for the same time as Vector, which loses the strange disconnect in appearance between the two. The new table of contents is pretty cool for making navigation around an article faster, and the visual design of popups and the media viewer, the second feature I like and the first I really like, is now consistent with the rest of the page. I happen to think that whitespace is an okay idea in webpages, and anyway an unconstrained page width (withstanding that it's a maximum width, not a constant margin) is lesser suited to certain kinds of displays, for example it looks silly on ultrawide displays. Perhaps it needs a persistent toggle for page width, but that's the only thing I can really think of. 5.151.100.105 (talk) 19:42, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will highlight this Oppose as it clearly identifies the problem that caused me to vote Support - the desktop site is now styled for mobile presentations. This leads to a worse UX for desktop users. The notion that desktop views and mobile vies should match is a poor assumption especially for an endeavor as impactful as Wikipedia. TheMissingMuse (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
opposeNew one is easier to use and better for focusing on contributing and taking in content. I know the design team at Wikimedia Foundation worked with community for years to make the changes work for contributors, and it works well for me. As a dyslexic person, it helps me focus on what I am doing to have more space on the page, and I like the tools and links I am used to using being easy to access but not in my visual field all the time. Another thing... I think it is restricting many people from participating in this discussion because we have to contribute our thoughts via interaction that is from 30 years ago and is not accessible to many people. Why isn't it possible to use the visual editor here like in articles? Using visual editor opens up access and a voice to many more people. Alas. I hope this Wikipedia can become more open to a wider breadth of voices on matters like this.Snapdragon66 (talk) 20:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why isn't it possible to use the visual editor here like in articles? Using visual editor opens up access and a voice to many more people.
Don't remember where I saw it, but there are technical limitations with the visual editor in certain namespaces, especially when people are signing. You should enable the Reply tool if you haven't; it's very similar to the visual editor. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:12, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Previous RFC wasn't no consensus for such a change, many, if not most, of the opposing views supported the change if some usability changes were done, and they are being rolled out (the right bar was rolled out just this week). Betseg (talk) 05:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the implementation addressed most community concerns, such as the variable width issue. Sandstein 09:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Reverting to a theme that is over a decade old is not a solution to anything. The old design was dated. If the new theme were actively harmful to the reading public then that would be a different matter, but there's no actual evidence that this is the case (and plenty of evidence to the contrary). Mackensen (talk) 17:59, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding your comment on "harmful": (a) Someone in the "support" section said "feels harmful to my already bad sight", so that's a matter of perspective. (b) If "harm" were the standard, then both old and new are equal, as there's no objective assessment of either being more or less harmful than the other. (c) "Harm" isn't the question, it's which UI is better. See "support" section for reasons why many consider the previous one better. You haven't refuted any of their reasons. -- HLachman (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I love the persistent nav on the left hand side. That is often a big gripe both on desktop and mobile where I need to scroll or read through a long TOC before getting to the content. Now I can skip around easier. I also think the controlled line length is needed for accessibility and readability purposes. The old design was reminiscent of craigslist era of web design. It is purely functional but wikipedia needs to evolve as accessibility standard and accessibility consumption changes. It's for the ALL of the people not just the loudest voices here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.45.80.89 (talk) 18:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I like the new modern feel. I just find it easier to use and navigate. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 04:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Hated Vector2022 when I saw it first, so many carefully formatted articles are now a mess (i.e. List of Grand Slam men's singles champions),..... but, this width (and structure) is the future and is more aligned with ipads/book-widths etc. Given it is therefore a question of when and not if, we should make the change and move on. 78.18.228.191 (talk) 11:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So you like the fact that some pages, in your own words, now are 'a mess'? Apart from that, I don't see how this new structure would be the future. I have had absolutely no problem using Wikipedia on my ipad with the old vector while the new one is as bad as on my laptop screen. Ove Raul (talk) 23:25, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Give that Vector2010 is an "out-of-date format", in terms of market standards of layouts/width, are going to face re-formatting these articles in the future regardless. 78.18.228.191 (talk) 09:20, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
'Out of date'? So this whole thing is just a matter of fashion?! That's weird. The old vector is much better in its functionallity. If the layout/width are going towards a more cramped look, I cannot see any advantages in this and cannot see why this would be somehow inevitable. Ove Raul (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Vector2022 is a major step forward in readability. Legacy vector is still there if you want it. TildizenOne (talk) 16:28, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, it isn't, on both your statements. Vector 2022 is not more readable, and the old one is not there 'if you want it', because you have to lon in and opt out of the new skin to get the old skin back. Your comment is actually rude to everyone who are not logged in. Ove Raul (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — A few quick points. When receiving feedback, users who are unhappy with product changes are typically much more likely to provide feedback, meaning that I think the people satisfied with the changes are potentially underrepresented. I see a lot of folks unhappy with constrained text-width (which results in more white space). Studies have shown that limiting text width is much easier to read and easier to parse than just letting text run free. This is about accessibility and making information easily consumable by the most people. This seems to be the backbone of the new version, and its a good, necessary change. If a compromise is to be had, keep this change. If people really don't like the nav on the left, maybe turn it off by default... but that doesn't make much sense since there's space there to be used, there's a reason almost all text-heavy resources have adopted a similar design - it's usable and effective! Vector 2022 is better, I suspect there is just a lot of emotional and historic attachment to the old designs. Show both designs to people who have never used Wikipedia before and I'd bet they'd overwhelmingly prefer the newer version. 24.90.6.143 (talk) 17:07, 28 January 2023 (UTC)RichardSaunders5000[reply]
Oppose (Apologies for the long comment. Disclaimer: In addition to being a long-time editor, I work for the Wikimedia Foundation. I have not been involved directly in designing/developing the new skin, although have been in a few conversations with the team around scheduling. No one at WMF suggested that I comment here.) I've been using the skin on Commons for several months, and on English Wikipedia since the start of the year. Changing after living with something for over 12 years is always going to provoke some reaction. However I do believe Vector 2022 is a positive development for readers, and editors too, especially with the addition of the Page tools menu. To address a few of the non-IDONTLIKEIT arguments:
"It was designed for mobile"
- Wikipedia has a separate mobile site for smartphones with its own skin. That setup of separate sites hasn't changed, and for a host of reasons isn't likely to change any time soon.
- What is true is that there is better sizing of buttons for touchscreens, but this isn't "mobile" specific: many laptops now have touch as an option, and since iOS 13 iPads load the "desktop" site by default.
Line length/whitespace
- The research on readability improvements is comprehensive and compelling
- The WCAG 2.1 guidance on line length. For those not aware, the WCAG is not some randomer's guidance. It's published by the web's main standards organisation, and has legal force in a number of countries where government websites are required to conform with it.
- Practice: nearly every major text-heavy website you can find limits line length. Use a "reader" mode in your browser or extension to improve readbility? This is one of the things they will do.
- Data from Fandom indicates they see little use of their full-width toggle (less than 1%). I expect we will see similar results here too.
- "I just resize the browser window to get my preferred line length!" Two problems with this: most people aren't aware of the readability improvements from shorter lines, so won't even think to do this. And secondly, even as a confirmed wikiaddict, I don't only use my browser for Wikipedia. Should I be constantly resizing my window as I go from site to site?
- Generally not here, but I have noticed some FUD on social media that the space at the sides is going to be used for adverts. Besides the longstanding commitment to Wikimedia sites having no ads, there are also plentiful examples of other sites with whitespace and no ads
"Mystery meat" icons
- I think this is being overstated. Going left to right on the header: Hamburger menu is very well understood by now. Alerts and notices are kind of mysterious, but they are exactly the same in Legacy Vector (I would really like to see them merged, but that's another skin-agnostic topic). Watchlist is admittedly a bit mysterious, but I'll note that the term "Watchlist" is probably quite meaningless to a new user as well. (Also Watchlist was originally only in the Vector 2022 user menu with a description, I think it was a community request to have the icon in the header directly.)
- Personally I like the addition of icons, as I sometimes find myself doing small edits on other sites where I don't speak the language well. So the icons can provide a nice familiar landmark.
I also think there are some improvements which have been broadly overlooked in the discussion, such as search now including images and descriptions making it easier for readers to find the correct page (shout out to the great work of WikiProject Short descriptions - you should enable the gadget and join us, it's fun!) There are also underlying technical improvements to the skin, which will make it easier to develop new features in future.

Nothing is perfect, and there are some things that I would like to see change in the skin. Notably there should be a more obvious "Log in" link, and the TOC could be refined for example in terms of what levels it shows. I also wouldn't mind some more visual distinction between parts of the page (as in phab:T259240) However none of this is even remotely worth a full rollback, which would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

-- the wub "?!" 22:46, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There have been quotes from the developers brought up elsewhere in this discussion indicating that one of the design guidelines was to bring the desktop design closer to mobile design standards. So, yes, "It was designed for mobile" (even though there already is a mobile-specific site). Regarding line length and Fandom, was there any data supplied about user discoverability of that toggle? I've regularly used one particular Fandom wiki for over a decade and literally had no idea that a full-width toggle even existed until I read your comment. Discoverability of any full-width toggle is a serious problem, which I pointed out in one of my comments elsewhere in this discussion.

I also want to respond to the whole "designers/research has shown limited line-length is better" thing that is being brought up again and again by opponents of a roll-back. One of the big appeals (to me, anyway) of using a desktop instead of something like a phone or tablet is the fact that the desktop paradigm conforms to individual preference. If I want limited line length, I have a way to do that. If I want to have a dozen browser windows tiled on my screen, I can do that. If I want to have a Wikipedia article open in a narrow window so that I can have a spreadsheet and a notepad open next to it, I can do that (and I frequently do). Flexibility is the entire point of using a desktop. The argument that we need limited line-length because "research shows it's better" runs completely counter to that flexibility. I get a definite sense of "we know better than you, so just deal with it" from this roll-out and from many of the oppose comments. I, for one, thought that Wikipedia's mission and policies were supposed to be against that sort of thing. Trynn (talk) 23:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Trynn, There have been quotes from the developers brought up elsewhere in this discussion indicating that one of the design guidelines was to bring the desktop design closer to mobile design standards.^{[citation needed]} where?
Perhaps you can link to an essay/guideline/policy against it? — Qwerfjkl talk 10:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A desktop design should be a desktop design, not a mobile design. If I wanted a mobile design, I'd browse Wikipedia on my phone. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 12:23, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should I be constantly resizing my window as I go from site to site? – Of course not (and nor should you have to create an account or download an extension on every site for the same control) but if you actually believe that a particular line width is the best for your reading experience, why on earth would you need to? It seems to me that any need to contantly adjust when going from site to site can only be the result of overbearing web design, which v22 is a clear example of.

Most people aren't aware of the readability improvements from shorter lines ...so I guess it's your duty as a web developer to take their ability to read in a certain way away from them, for their own good, of course? I find this attitude very worrying.

Data from Fandom indicates they see little use of their full-width toggle (less than 1%). I expect we will see similar results here too. I read ~~Wikia~~ Fandom fairly often. I have long disliked it's design and am happy to learn there's a way to undo the max width. I must have missed it all this time because it uses the same mystery meat icon as v22 does.

The WCAG states that a mechanism [must be] available to achieve the following: [...] Width is no more than 80 characters or glyphs (40 if CJK). It seems to me that this requirement is automatically fulfilled by the native mechanism (window resizing) unless the site has styling that obstructs this method. In any case, it is possible to provide a non-native mechanism for this within v10 without forcing it on users by default. small jars tc 17:34, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"but this isn't mobile" - Is. This design wastes a lot of screen space and hides options in TINY drop-down menus, forcing extra clicks and extenging time to complete tasks. Such a solution does make sense only on mobile with small screens.
Whoever you are (please sign your comments), how would wasting whitespace make sense on small screens where space is critical?Aaron Liu (talk) 23:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Vector2022 is a big improvement in readability of articles, and the changes in the past couple weeks (namely that it's sticky for hiding away toolbars in editing mode but having them present in reading mode) have removed any large issues I had. There are still improvements that could be made around colors and magic icons, but on the whole it's a major improvement. --Pres N 01:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I'll admit: I recoiled when the change was first introduced. That having been said, I have slowly warmed up to V22. I quite enjoy having the ability of starting a search without having to scroll back up the page. There are a couple of rough edges (I have noticed the ToC won't stay in the top bar like I want it to and the default limited width is atrocious) but I highly doubt that V10 came out the gate in the state it is in now. Communication around this change could have been clearer. I believe that perhaps we could implement a preferences menu for logged-out users to choose cosmetic and other trivial settings. —Alpaca the Wizard (talk) (contribs) 02:40, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I have been using V22 for a couple of months, after knowing that WMF intended to push for V22 to be set as the default skin for everyone, to see how it will affect the reading and writing experience. The initial phase was one of a typical revoltion of the changes, but after getting used to the massive amount of changes, I can understand why the changes are warranted... andecedotally. That being said, it is obvious that the development for the skin is not dead upon release. There are bugs that were previously undiscovered, but now have been discovered, and squashed. There are features to be improved, re-instate, or released. And all these have been ongoing before and after the release. I see V22 as an improvement for reader's experience, neutral for editor's, but as an advanced user, I will get by and adapt to the changes as necessary. – robertsky (talk) 17:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How can you have used V22 'for a couple of months' when it is less than a month old? Ove Raul (talk) 23:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Ove Raul: It's been around for quite some time. I've used it for roughly more than half a year. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ove Raul going by the creation of my personal vector-2022.css , I have been using it since at least from June 2022 onwards. This skin isn't new on enwiki, and was enabled on here, among many other possible reasons, to facilitate multiple discussions on whether to deploy Vector 2022 as the default skin. – robertsky (talk) 06:55, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
oppose rolling back instead improve the new skin Broken Segue 20:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose rolling back. Deploying big software changes in a diverse environment (different setups, user scripts, etc) always comes with some friction, but the way to go is fixing the remaining issues, learning for the next iteration, and move on. If someone cannot stand the new skin, the good news is that Wikipedia is one of the last few major websites that officially provides the ability to switch skins. MarioGom (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Look, I don't like this change. I don't like the way this change was communicated, or executed. At this point, you can't put the horse back in the barn. Further unwelcome screwing with people's settings / preferences is just going to draw more ire. At this point, those that want the new skin have it. Those that don't - we've rolled it back. All I want is for WMF to do a better job at communicating next time. SQL ^{Query Me!} 23:56, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Everything can be reversed. Look at Microsoft, which released Windows 8 with Modern UI, believing that they could convince desktop owners to work in an environment optimized for mobile devices. Then for several years they convinced everyone that "this is modernity, changes are inevitable, and that we whine because we can't get used to it". And then ... they released Windows 10, withdrawing most of the "improvements" ow Win8. Freja Draco (talk) 09:37, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Windows 10 also uses Modern UI. The Windows 8 elements such as the fullscreen start menu are still there just in tablet mode. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"just in tablet mode" Yes, in tablet monde it may make sense, but non on a PC, so they stopped enforcing destkotp users to use it too. And now MS no longer uses "Modern UI" but "Fluent design" which has abandoned many concepts of the previous interface. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freja Draco (talk • contribs) 14:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, strongest possible if it matters. Allow me to recapitulate: (a) Registered users can opt out of using 2022, and if they are anything like the Earthlings of Other Wikipedias, some 13 per cent will and 87 per cent will not. So registered users are good. (b) It looks like Unregistered users are about to get their permanent full-width toggle, and if they are not too different from fandom users, 0.1 per cent will actually use the toggle and 99.9 per cent will not. We could have waited for our own usage data as this is a work in progress, so I dare say that the new request for comments was a bit hurried. The new skin was needed because our devices and how we access Wikipedia have changed, and the new skin seems to be a good base for further improvements. I will be disappointed if the decision is reversed, in which case I'm hoping someone will, in a month or two, start a new request to bring back Vector 2022. 50.239.155.90 (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
a Registered users can opt in using 2022. 7 percent don't go back to previous skin And do any of them know that it's even possible? For years I didn't know that I could go back to monobook, I wrote my own local CSS styles to bring the look of vector 2010 to monobook, so I could do something quite technically advanced, and at the same time I never found out that it can be changed in skin preferences. The new skin was needed because our devices and how we access Wikipedia have changed But for new, mobile users we have a mobile version of Wikipedia. And users of desttops still use desktos and access Wikipedia on desktops. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Freja Draco (talk • contribs) 14:38, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay. I do believe it's been said multiple times that the link to opt out is in the side bar. It's also in user preferences. Now you're telling me it was easier for you to find and edit your css than to find your user prefs? Hard to buy that one. As for who should opt in: you do not in 2023 advertise your 2011 product model, do you? 50.239.155.90 (talk) 20:29, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it's been said multiple times here that non-logged users and IP editors do not have any chance to opt-out (no that option in the side bar at all; please try to logout by yourself), but to tweak the URL by appending «?useskin=vector» to it. 37.134.90.176 (talk) 07:52, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, strongest possible— People hate change. This was very classic at Twitter. Anytime we changed anything, there would be an outpour of negative feedback. This would mostly dissipate after the initial launch, when the novelty of something new ended and people just began to use it as it was meant to be used. My advice would be to stick with it, trust instincts and data. Neigh sayers are usually the vocal minority, and will adapt. On the menu, I think one thing that isn't great about this is how disassociated that side menu is from the content. In the previous design, contents was directly related to the article, and the side was for link unrelated to the article. Some simple visual design shifts could help make them feel like one unit.Ruccis (talk) 16:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree completely with your view that "People hate change [...] Anytime we changed anything, there would be an outpour of negative feedback. This would mostly dissipate after the initial launch [...] Neigh sayers are usually the vocal minority, and will adapt"; this is quite stereotypical (and I see it has been repeated in many opposing comments) and disrespectful of critical views, which in many cases are very thoughtful considerations. I agree on "how disassociated that side menu is from the content"; please see #Bring back the TOC. Æo (talk) 17:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think they dislike the entire sidebar TOC, they appear to only dislike the contrast between it and the rest of the sidebar Aaron Liu (talk) 17:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Often people who like a specific change improperly expand their argument as being pro-change in general. So user's Ruccis comment is not surprizing. The constant reiteration of the design as "new" is a bit grating though. It is conceivable that some people do not see Vector 2022 as new at all. One may just see it as different. 172.254.255.250 (talk) 21:12, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: it was weird to begin with, but I've mostly got used to it after a couple of days and I'll probably have no problem with it in a couple of weeks or so, which is what has happened with other website design changes, including Twitter and Facebook, but also Wikipedia itself when it changed from Monobook. Change is a necessary way of going forward; could you still imagine if we had Standard in 2023? Sceptre (talk) 23:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: the most important improvement is the width restriction. As screens get wider, readability of articles gets worse and worse (after all, people reading articles is Wikipedia's primary mission). The amount of eye movement needed is very tiring. I've been following the new skin for months and have admired its steady improvement. I wish the proposal to slightly darken the side margins had won out, though: again, this would help the readability of the main text. Some of the opposition (for sure, not all) comes from the inevitable shock of anything new; please give it a chance. David Brooks (talk) 14:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very strong oppose: Per above, there are improvements with the new skin. However, those issues can just be quickly addressed, but I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and I feel like the right way moving forward is to address those issues, but going back to a previous version just because of problems that do not critically affect the skin as a whole just does not feel like the right way moving forward. Personally I've been using it for more than 6 months now, and I got used to it very quickly and there is nothing too inconvenient to me. User3749 (talk) 15:39, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: My first instinct was that I didn't like this. But I stopped and asked myself whether maybe it was just unfamiliarity. I use two computers, so I left one logged in (this one) and switched it back to the 2010 skin, and one logged out to use the IP view of the 2022 skin. Once I figured out where things were, I started to like the new one. Switching to the computer with 2010 skin, I started to get annoyed that I had to keep scrolling all the way up to get to the TOC. There's also the fact that the 2022 skin has a Top link in the left-column TOC - and that saves me lots of scrolling generally. I really like the left-column TOC. Yes, there are teething problems... but babies and bathwater and all that. Overall, I think the new skin is better for general reading (and that represents the vast majority of Wikipedia users, not the vocal few), and I'm starting to prefer it for WP-space stuff too. I think the devs did a good job on this one. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:10, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed the change on the French Wikipedia a while ago and I thought: oh, this feels nice. It may take a few days to adjust, as with many other re-designs, but I'd never go back. I use my school-provided laptop at work, so I'm mostly logged out. I sometimes also use a desktop computer at home and a tablet for commuting. I kept switching to a slightly less functional mobile site because the old desktop skin was a nightmare to use on the tablet. However, with the new skin (Vector 22), I can use all desktop capabilities on my tablet, and the overall experience is great because there is no longer any confusion about where things are when I am logged out or logged in, whether I am on my tablet, laptop or desktop.SoupePrimordiale (talk) 18:07, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per PresN and others. Almost all of my issues with this skin have been fixed in some way or given a toggle, and the new tools are a big boon to have. I will never not need having a sticky TOC in my life. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 02:23, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I do see Vector 2022 as progress and necessary progress. I agree, make fixes to it, I want an inline ToC under the intro back specifically, but reverting to 2010 as the default is a very bad idea that I think will hamper the long term outlook of the site that has been talking about its issues attracting younger editors for over a decade now. Anyway, desktop browsing is slowly becoming a niche market.-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 03:17, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Since logged in editors like myself can switch back to 2010, I do not think a rollback is necessary. Reader experience should be the number one consideration, and there have already been studies, surveys, etc. supporting this change from that perspective. It might not please everyone, but I think it makes sense. I prefer editing in 2010, but even when I am not logged in, the new skin seems easy to get used to. Many have already said it, but the main point in its favor for readers is the sticky TOC. The line length is subjective I guess? But there is good empirical evidence showing it makes reading easier. Once readers adjust to the new format, it will likely be seen as a step forward. Some have decried it as an attempt to make it mobile friendly. I read this critique before even trying the new skin and really expected something much worse than it ended up being. I was relieved to see that buttons are still desktop size, and very little is changed just to make it appear slicker or more uniform just for the sake of aesthetics.--MattMauler (talk) 04:13, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Nothing is unfixable and the new skin should be kept, though I would like to have the old TOC back and the new TOC only appear when I scroll further down. I don't know if that is possible but it's not a deal breaker for me. I do like the line length limit, which should be even less than the one currently set; nevertheless,many pictures and info boxes help keep the length below 150 ch/l and make reading a lot more enjoyable. I'd like to see more constructivism on the opposite side. The owner of this house has always been the one to choose the colors of the walls, and I bet many were unsatisfied with the skin they now want back. Can't think of any change that would get 100% approval, but I'm sure this is something we can use to build a better site for all. 2604:CA00:17B:422:0:0:62:20DD (talk) 05:22, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Recently, I discovered the Citizen skin, which is available on encyc.org. Vector 2022 could take some cues from it: there are fewer horizontal lines, its design is responsive as well, its TOC is expanded and always visible, it has a customizable page width, font size and dark theme toggle. The pages do not shift left or right depending on whether or not the sidebar is collapsed. Vector 2022 is my favorite Wikipedia skin by far, therefore I oppose the rollback, but it still needs some work Aprovar (talk) 14:59, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I think citizen looks way too simplified and casual. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Aaron Liu I'm only saying that Citizen has some cool features, and because the site is using our Vector by default, those features should - I'm guessing - be possible on Wikipedia as well. Not saying the whole look and feel should be copied. Aprovar (talk) 01:37, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. My primary issue was the non-stickiness of the width toggle, but stickiness has been implemented, plus the toggle becomes available at lower browser widths. I now dub the new skin "good enough". 199.208.172.35 (talk) 23:36, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I'm only a reader since I don't have time to edit. I'm here because my husband told me about the "insurrection". He's a regular Wikipedian, football dpt, but he's not affected as he uses some dinosaur-era skin. I commented the other day how the new skin had some lovely features – the smart table of contents, the persistent top bar, and the narrower text column makes many pages look less like a scrapbook and more like encyclopedia. DESIGN MATTERS! It'd be bad to lose the new features and I thought I should leave my comment, even though I wouldn't have known where had he not told me... I apologize if I'm not supposed to vote. Thank you, keep the good work 209.212.20.5 (talk) 18:53, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: These are WP:!VOTEs. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:36, 3 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are fine, you've laid out reasons and didn't just voice approval. Cessaune [talk] 00:12, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Vector 2022 is massively better for readers as the new default, and the WMF spent months working with the community to continually update the skin to respond to feedback, which I believe they'll keep doing. If anyone doesn't personally like it, then they can choose a different skin, but this is clearly better as a modern design focused on bringing the encyclopedic content to the forefront. Steven Walling • talk 22:23, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Massively better? In what way (this is a serious question)? Cessaune [talk] 02:07, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The original RFC has a section with a summary and links to the results from the extensive testing done on the new skin vs the old skin. We know objectively that it makes articles easier to navigate for readers, which are the primary audience of a default skin since most of them aren't logged in. This makes sense, considering that things like a sticky header and TOC are basic, common sense modern web design. Steven Walling • talk 17:59, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but what about WP:ACCESSIBILITY, for example? We can't assume that everyone who has a disability is logged in. I don't like the primary audience argument. We should be considering all groups evenly IMO, given that editors, daily readers, people with disabilities etc. are a non-insignificant minority. Cessaune [talk] 18:12, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't consider a sticky header an improvement. I know it became popular, but it is horrible. It wastes your screen space all the time with something that is rarely needed. Sites without it, where you just scroll to the top are way better. But it is new, so everyone has to have it these days. Tarkalak (talk) 08:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How is searching to other articles, editing articles, going to the talk page, viewing history and going to your user pages and preferences rarely needed? Aaron Liu (talk) 13:48, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know that it objectively makes articles easier to navigate for users; in earlier discussions I explored issue with their methodology, and the WMF has deceptively presented results of their analysis to make the best case for Vector2022, most significantly regarding a user experience survey where they claimed The majority of respondents reported that the new experience is easier to use or that the new and old experience are equally easy to use. The statement was true, but incredibly misleading; 60 users found Vector 2010 easier to use, 49 found Vector 2010 and Vector 2022 equally easy to use, and just 37 found Vector 2022 easier to use. BilledMammal (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That's shady. That's really bad. Cessaune [talk] 18:23, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Surveys are not what I was referring to as objective analysis, in fact they're the exact opposite. Surveys and RFCs like this ask people their subjective opinions and feelings. The objective results are things like how randomized tests showed that among readers, section navigation increased by 50% with the new TOC and searches increased by 30%. In short, there are huge increases in the efficiency and speed at which people are able to find information on Wikipedia, which is our primary goal with a default skin. Steven Walling • talk 19:01, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Surveys are not objective, but how the WMF presented the results of the survey shows that we cannot trust the WMF to present objective analysis in a neutral manner, or to not omit objective analysis that supports Vector 2010 over Vector 2022. BilledMammal (talk) 19:46, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"navigation increased by 50% with the new TOC" But does that mean Wikipedia is getting more useful? If the new skin displays 1/2 or 1/3 of what was visible with the old skin on the screen, then it is logical that users will use the navigation tools more often. And it is logical that navigating the articles becomes more laborious for them. Freja Draco (talk) 15:25, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The survey was talking about jumping between sections (Including scrolling between them in v10), not just scrolling length. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:35, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you joking? It is massively worst. If anyone likes it they can switch to it on the settings, but the old one should be default. I made an account to switch back. Tarkalak (talk) 08:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Like many, I was quite surprised and somewhat annoyed when this was rolled out in January. While obviously assuming good faith in the WMF, I don't think the process was handled that well - the watchlist notice about the RFC was only up for a week before being removed for some reason, and then the final result was odd given a numerical majority against changing, with sound rationales. At the very least the discussion should have resulted in no consensus, and maybe even consensus against. But that's water under the bridge now; the new look has been out for a month already, I've been using it since the roll out, and to be honest I've grown used to it in that time. Reading in a narrower box actually does seem easier, and now that the white space at left and right is being utilised for useful thing, it's quite alright (I'd appreciated a few more editor buttons on the right bar though, such as "Contributions" and "Sandbox"). My only request really is to please bring a modified version of Vector 2022 to the mobile space, its loading a whole page and having all the editor buttons available make it so much better than the terrible mobile interface currently in use, which I never use. (I really don't think it's helpful for editors to use a completely different skin from our readers, that just means we're not optimizing our output for their experience). — Amakuru (talk) 18:49, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm genuinely curious what you mean when you say "now that the white space at left and right is being utilised for useful thing, it's quite alright". Do you not see the massive amount of dead whitespace on the left and right now? I just checked the Vector2022 preview again, and it still fills at least a third of my screen with blank space on either side. What utilization has supposedly been done? Trynn (talk) 06:30, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the "WMF" would never get perfect consensus anyway. I like the changes and plenty of people don't mind. --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 14:34, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I've been using V22 for a while and have no substantial issues with it. I think we should trust the research that has been done showing that the changes are positive overall. For full disclosure I work at the WMF but have not been involved in this project and was not asked to vote. Sam Walton (talk) 10:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - although not perfect, I believe V22 is still a substantial improvement on the previous skin. — The Anome (talk) 11:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – if you don't like the new layout, just don't use it. – Teratix ₵ 10:19, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's true for registered users, but IP users can only change layouts by installing a third-party browser extensions, or adding text to the URL each time they load a page. Daß Wölf 11:41, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...or get an account. — Qwerfjkl talk 15:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you are an IP user, getting an account makes you, well, not an IP user, so your logic isn't sound. Secondly, not everyone has access to an account everywhere they are (workplaces, schools, libraries sometimes ban people from creating/using accounts, it's happened to me). Third, most can use whatever skin they want. That's not the issue. The issue is that WMF is making choices that many think are not net positive but net negative changes, and WMF is making those decisions while disregarding th eopinions of their editors. Regardless of your opinion on the issue, you have to agree that WMF isn't being straightforward or reasonable at all given the previous RfC (WP:CONEXEMPT, I know, but we're asking something pretty reasonable). Cessaune [talk] 17:00, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cessaune, yes, I agree that the rollout has been poorly handled. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I personally dislike the new skin, and I dislike the Wikimedia Foundation. However, I note its similarity to Wikiwand. For years I have been seeing people recommend Wikiwand because of the "better design" than Wikipedia. In my opinion it is really disastrous that people using the content on this site are getting it through a clone website with unknown changes + tracking + advertisements. We can't go back to the old skin if that was part of the problem. NotBartEhrman (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:35, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The skin should be designed with the best interests of the readers in mind, not what the editors think should happen. If the sentiment of the readers is genuinely that this is a bad change, only then should the change be rolled back. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:21, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Besides my earlier comment on CONEXCEPT, this is the better skin, especially after the adjustments the WMF has been making. 3 of my 4 comments from the deployment RFC remain pertinent; see support 147 therein. Izno (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This entire "backlash" is extremely predictable. There is always a passionate resistance to UI changes. Having a RfC to decide UI changes seems like a poor way to improving the site readability. I adopted the new look months before the official change and it's a visual improvement. Change like this is never going to be 100% popular and this seems like a pure case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. This change has been made. Please move on to something that's a more productive use of time. Nemov (talk) 22:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Per Nemov above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:51, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It takes some getting used to, but it is an improvement. I also believe this skin makes Wikipedia more attractive to more people. Dajasj (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as it is an improvement that more improvements can be built upon, as it follows readability and accessibility guidelines, as it simply looks better, focusing on the text rather than having tons of useless wikigeek links on the side, as it is default skin on many, many other wikipediae, as majority of users chose to stick with the newest version, despite the loud few claiming it's bad and they wouldn't, as request for comment polling is inherently biased, as some would always be dissatisfied with whatever comes out from the foundation's kitchen and when their old sine qua nons are satisfied, they'll add a few more, et cetera, et cetera 12.51.135.28 (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
focusing on the text rather than having tons of useless wikigeek links on the side – Would we have that text in the first place without "wikigeeks"? The tools for improving Wikipedia should be exposed to every reader. Your comment only serves to demonstrate that v22 promotes a wikiconsumerist attitude and discourages boldness. small jars tc 15:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - as an editor I'm still regularly annoyed by the fact that my tools aren't where I expect them to be (I've found moving tools to the right sidebar helps), but as a reader the difference for me is night and day. If it were up to me the display would be two columns and a serif font (I've always found Arial an extremely difficult font to read, since l, h, b and d are so hard to distinguish) but the new skin makes a world of difference. Guettarda (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, echoing comments from Rhododendrites, Steven Walling, Nemov and 12.51.135.28 above. The Foundation literally pays people to be subject-area experts in user-interface design, accessibility and so on; with a few exceptions, most editors are not subject-matter experts. We would do well to remember that our own experiences are not universal — also, especially for those of us who have been here for almost all of the 20+ years of the English Wikipedia, change is hard and finding something familiar become something unfamiliar is always uncomfortable. I'm sure there are changes that the Foundation staff could make that might address some users' concerns (providing a toggle or prefs setting to remove the width constraint for users who prefer fullscreen content, for example) and it's really good to see the WMF Product & Tech teams engaging in this discussion to improve the experience without losing the benefits brought by the new skin. If we do have to roll back to Vector 2010, I would strongly prefer that this be for logged-in users only, perhaps running banners for logged-out users to let them know how to create an account if they would prefer a different skin, if the community feels it important that logged-out users have the option to use the older skin. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 19:43, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(PS: An aside for Guettarda: I use my User CSS to change the default font to Source Sans Pro, which you can import from Google Fonts. I do a lot more in my User CSS, so there's lot of extra stuff there too, but I'd be happy to walk you through it, if CSS isn't something you know how to do.)
Oppose - change is hard, but sometimes necessary. Renata•3 21:18, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose As a college student, I have spent the past few months asking dozens of my peers outside the community for their thoughts on the redesign of such a major online source. These students, who have largely grown up using the encyclopedia's articles, overwhelmingly indicate an approval of the modern appearance of the new Vector skin. If Wikipedia suddenly reverted to Vector 2010, it would showcase internal dysfunction. Even if I personally favor the current default page width, that seems far more reasonable to discusss in terms of honing the site's design, rather than flip-flopping. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 02:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A very reluctant Oppose. I personally hate the new skin, and switched back to Vector 2010 literally the first chance I got. But I cannot deny that Vector 2010 is... well, very 2010. Wikipedia should evolve with the times, content wise but also in terms of UI and looks. And so I'd rather have the unfortunate instance of a questionable rollout being kept as is, than the alternative. Plus, I disagree with @HAL333:'s central premise that the initial discussion had no consensus, when it clearly closed in favour of Vector 2022, but with reservations. I also disagree with their assertion that editors ~~are~~ aren't a small fraction of Wikipedia userbase, that assertion seems patently false. Lastly, this might be one of the few places I'd claim to be actually out of the English Wikipedia community's purview here. The readerbase of Wikipedia is far larger than the editor-base, and a skin primarily focused on readability being pushed out as an opt-out seems to be possibly even out of the community's scope. Perhaps with a different person starting the RFC with stronger arguments, I'd be more swayed, but as it stands from my cursory readings and understanding of this issue, I'm growing more and more opposed as I keep reading. Soni (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"But I cannot deny that Vector 2010 is... well, very 2010. Wikipedia should evolve with the times, content wise but also in terms of UI and looks." I personally find the mobile-esque V22 to be more awkward and clumsy than V10, which in turn is wieldy and sleek. Evolution is not always in the right direction, and may sometimes turn out to be an involution. Æo (talk) 14:49, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the best oppose arguments I've read yet, and I've read almost all of them. Good write-up, even though I support rollback. Cessaune [talk] 15:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I will take several perspectives on this matter:
1) I believe, for the most part, that the old Vector Skin (2010) is best suited for editing. What I mean is that, and if I remember correctly, I have always felt that this skin in Wikipedia looked quite unwelcoming to my eyes, insofar as needing to read humongous lines that immediately made my mind, and my eyes, tired. Most people do not enjoy reading a line that is the width of your screen (especially the elderly!), and in today's world, these screens are massive, which means that there are massive lines to keep up with. From the perspective of the brain, this is quite tiresome, especially when things that we read today are generally, in physical form, limited to a book size, or in other instances, inside objects that could be relatively large but at a distance from us that is significant (i.e. a blackboard in a University of school setting, or an advert somewhere in the road). Meaning, we are used to having snippets of information presented at us, and in a reasonable way that can be digested; the Wikipedia legacy skin is really maybe one of the only generalized examples in the world, where we (most readers, that is) were forced to read something that was relatively unnatural to the general way of consuming text (which, could also be good if you think of it as an example that brings forth something different - but how good and natural is that differential for something that is an encyclopedic source of content, that is sometimes very important in the lives of those that use it; shouldn't it flow with the rest the variables in our lives?). Now, this has consequences: your mind treats the experience differently, because it is not the same experience as usual, and if the skin layout is also somewhat unnatural (which, honestly, it is - it is quite square, linear, and feels like a program, rather than something smooth and welcoming, and relatable in the outside world), then your mind is also inputting the information being read alongside these visual and intuitive cues that can either be consciously worked with (for some, or many of us), or just left in the subconscious within the reading experience. Note that it could also be positive to have this very male, linear experience, where what you read is what you need to read sort of experience, and it gets ingested that way. Personally, I do not like it as much overall, because it is usually a lot to take in. Some people prefer that; for me, I like the new skin as a general experience because it is more respectful to my eyes, and I can take in less and focus more on what is immediately in front, and I can relate it to a book experience and bring all of that joy in as well, usually. The Legacy Vector is so different from my own general reading experience that I have to turn on a a bit of a different reading behavior mechanism. And this can be exhausting at times, actually. So that is why I prefer the new Vector Skin 2022, from a psychological point of view.

2) From a perspective of change: Change is good, it lets your mind rest and move onto something new, while taking some of the old with you. The new skin doesn't have to be The Skin for the next 35 years, we can possibly make amends and bring new changes (like remove a bit some of the white space, and find more of a middle ground - I find that idea fascinating). But the importance of turning the page on something as big as Wikipedia is actually needed right now. People want change, people want space, people need space. We're moving in a direction where we are not focusing so much on everything being tight together and feel forcefull, but more relaxed, and respectful of one's senses. I think this new Vector skin is that. I really enjoy reading with it, it's a much smoother experience, and brings forth some feminine qualities that were really absent from the previous Skin. I don't have a source for this in front of me, however the more your peripheral vision is unaffected by visual stimuli, the more your focal vision is able to focus. In the reading experience, one moves and reads through the lines, and tracks past visual cues with incoming expected cues, as with any visual experience. It is logical, imo, that if we have less on the periphery, then we will be able to focus more on the immediate front text, so to speak (though, the converse could be true, if I have plenty of text in a line, I might be able to anchor my reading more within that line; but, again, it depends on how much we can handle and how used to these long lines we are). Again, change, is really, really important. And something as important as Wikipedia making a change like this also stimulates other changes in other industries and general collective aspects of life as a whole - there is a greater sense of "things are moving on here, let's also be part of this." Stagnancy is usually the primary contributor of decay, and having change of this magnitude is refreshing, welcoming, and permits the mind to breathe fresh air. I totally support keeping this Vector 2022 skin as our default skin.

3) Also, worth mentioning, that this skin unites us with the greater global Wikipedia, which is great and permits flow between languages of a common article if a reader desires.

Note: I do think we can reduce the whitespacing some, at least, while still maintaining this white space that is a focus of the new skin; I think it is great. Thank you to everyone that was involved in producing it, and working it, and everyone involved in this discussion (for support and oppose, and neutral and alterante ); whichever the outcome, we will have both skins as preferences we can choose from. Our real next effort is how to more effectively incorporate readers as editors, I think. Maybe this skin will help, that would be an interesting metric to observe. Best regards. Radlrb (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2023 (UTC), last updated 12:13, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

N.b. The commentary to Radlrb's vote had reached an excessive length and was therefore moved to the discussions' subpage: /Discussion#Commentary to Radlrb's oppose !vote.--Æo (talk) 18:28, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support V22. It seems significantly more maintainable, sane in design and customizable. This would also be easier to make into a dark skin. Please adopt Zebra styling change and make it the main skin! MathAfrique (talk) 16:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back to contents

Neutral

Neutral. As a (younger and more tech-savvy?) user who's been using the skin for more than half a year, I've gotten used to it at this point. The whitespace margin issues that are plaguing many others I've solved for myself by enlarging text for the domain, and the only real gripe that I have at this point is not having a persistent hidden table of contents across pages, which is being tracked on Phabricator. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Enlarging text size was the solution I also implemented. Personally I've always been a fan of the skin. Moxy- 02:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's a checkbox in the prefs that really fixes it. Andre🚐 04:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was made aware of it a while back, though at a much later date than my own fix. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. As much as I don't like the new skin, it's not like I can't change back to Vector 2010 (and I did just that). However, I'll echo other people who say that if single-purpose accounts are created for the sole purpose of changing back to an older skin, then the design might be to reconsider. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 05:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean SPAs that don't edit? That's the only metric I think would be worth considering - I noticed what looked like a couple SPAs that seemed like they were just made to vote/badger in this discussion, something I can't imagine as being representative of average readers. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 02:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're seeing a new breed of zero-purpose accounts (ZPA?) such as Redesign is utterly awful and IJustCreatedAccountBecauseOfThis1diocy‎ which were set up to comment on the new design and/or to allow use of Special:Preferences. Technically they're not here to build an encyclopedia but, as they have legitimate reasons for being here and do no harm, I hope we can invoke IAR on that one. Some of them may even go on to become valued regular editors, though possibly under a different username. Certes (talk) 16:34, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In my own case, I'm here to read articles. Vector2022 actively gets in the way of that. DutriusTwo (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I created this account specifically so I could view Wikipedia in Vector 2010. I may go on to do some occasional editing afterward now that my interest has been piqued. I plan on either creating a new account or changing my username if possible once these discussions are over. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 16:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that changes that completely disregard the majority of people who come here (simply to read, instead of read and edit) is a bad choice no matter how you look at it. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:40, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Count me as one of those. I made an account solely to save my preference to get rid of the fixed-width thing. I didn't even have time to explore the other changes, I was just closing wikipedia because it looked like a mobile site. I made an account because my experience as a reader took a big step backwards. Newuiawful (talk) 02:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The average reader who did not use to edit Wikipedia until this day, found themself so horrified by the new skin that they had to create an account after all just to be able to switch skins and make a statement with their usernames, to lobby against the changes made. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:59, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ThadeusOfNazereth Yes, that's what I meant. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 23:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I changed to Vector2022 few days ago and it is somewhat mixed experience. There are things I like (table of contents on the left), things I don't like (watchlist etc. buried behind icons) and things I don't care (whitespace - I prefer smaller paragraph width anyway). That is on 2560x1440 display with 150 % UI scaling. My other devices use lower screen resolution (1366x768 on notebook and 1280x1024 on Pegasos 2) and my intention is to thoroughly test Vector2022 with these computers during weekend. Pavlor (talk) 06:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I tested Vector2022 with my other computers and results are - yet again - mixed.

1) The Good: Using new skin on notebook (1366x768, 110 % text size in Firefox) is definitely a better experience than older Vector (tested the same pages side by side with useskin). Using new table of contents really helps (no need to return to the top), especially with longer articles. Paragraph width is shorter than in older Vector, but that a plus for someone, who has problems to read a wider text. Only issue is with the selection of language versions - I would prefer a simple ABC list, not sorting by region.

2) The Not So Good: Another device I used for my test is nearly 20 years old Pegasos 2 with Odyssey webbrowser based on an older Webkit engine. Original Vector works well with this setup, which is sadly not the case with Vector2022. Some of the new features aren't displayed at all (floating search menu, table of contents), or don't work as intended (language version selection). Basic viewing and editing is OK. Sure, 99.99 % of Wikipedia editors/readers use state of the art devices, so this issue is probably not that important.

Conclusion: Vector 2022 works well with screens of various size and offers many nice features with few minor issues. It is obviously intended for newer webbrowsers, so it will be really hard choice for me, wich skin to select as default. Pavlor (talk) 13:36, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Conflicted/Neutral I don't know how I feel about this in all honesty. On the one hand, I got used to Vector 2022 after a bit and didn't really mind it. However on the other hand there appears to be major backlash to this change (yes it might take a bit for people to get used to it but we don't know that) and a general opposition from the community. So I'm not entirely sure. Wikipedia is supposed to be sort of community based, however if the community doesn't like it then should we ignore them because statistics say the new skin is better or should we listen to them? I might add to this !vote later on as I compose my thoughts more on this matter, but for now this is how I feel. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral — I agree with users arguing that changes to user interfaces are most often badly received yet absolutely necessary, and I do think that some of the changes are improvements and that asking for further upgrades to Vector 2022 is the way to go.
However, I also believe that limiting the line width and thus text density would be detrimental for an encyclopedia (as opposed to others text types in which limited line width is commonly used, to which the research cited seems to be confined), because it makes 'looking up things' much harder (and 'looking up' benefits from being able to see more text and structural elements at once; more on that in my !vote on Question 2 below).
If unlimited line width would be the default for unregistered users (about whom anything !voted for or against in this RfC should be) in Vector 2022, I would strongly oppose rolling back to legacy Vector. However, if the limited line width must be a part of Vector 2022's default configuration, I think unregistered readers would be better served by legacy Vector, however outdated it may be. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral: Sooner or later, the change had to be coming, it has been over a decade now. However, I would like the devs to be responsive to the community concerns. Many do not like the wasted spaces on the right. Why can't we give every user the ability to extend content. Devs say it's for improved readability, but it so happens that every person is different from every other person. Why not allow people to make changes as they see fit, in the year 2023, when literally every site is so much customisable? zhwiki used to provide js that collapsed the sidebar on vector legacy, providing more content area for those who chose it. Why not hardcode this into software, this time for the right side? And similar small steps that eventually help gain community confidence in this skin. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 16:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, as a mobile user, I don't really have much of a dog in the fight - but seeing so many unregistered users commenting about this gives me pause. I can't say I've read much about the reasons for the skin change, but the fact we don't have any way to allow the general reader to change the skin is pretty crazy. I have been telling people to have an account to fix this if it's a problem for them, but I'm not sure that's a great solution. It's also not really a great look for IPs who think we are trying to get them to all create accounts for a long time, now will have even more ammo. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral I don't like the new skin. But I don't see any scenario where this would be undone. I think a better course of action would be to work on improving, not removing, the new skin. I'd personally like to see moving the page tools to the right, making limited width off by default and adding an option that allows preferences, talk page, contribs and the other buttons to be where they were before and not hidden. If this isn't going to be done, then maybe I'd find myself amongst the supporters, but the Vector 2022 team has already stated that improvement is on the way. I just wish it had been done before it impacted the millions of people who read this site. With that said, I wouldn't be fully against removal, which is why I'm here in neutral. echidnaLives - talk - edits 05:27, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. I am still testing the skin, WMF suggested a week, at least a week they shall get. I want to like the change, find some of the arguments for interesting, and expect any UI change to have a backlash. That said, there are some very odd features pushed out with the skin. The width of the left column changes when you click "hide" on the ToC, shifting the entire screen. An update whose most obvious feature is creating a consistent width, not actually creating a consistent width, is something I haven't seen explained. (Clicking hide on the top of the ToC also makes the entire thing vanish, you can't unhide it without scrolling all the way to the top and finding the very unobvious icon.) The removal of the link to your talkpage from the default links at the top is a change that seems particularly against the community ethos here. The new image preview in search is janky, and the log-in button was hidden. There are other minor UI things I have personal issues with, and that's probably not a problem for any UI change, but these ones mentioned stand out as being generally applicable. Many of these don't seem fundamental to the skin, so they didn't need to be lumped in to something that was bound to generate opposition already. The deployment was further quite odd in being explicitly incomplete. The tools are supposed to be in the right whitespace, but this was not done due to technical issues. It seems a major change, to have what looks now like empty space actually hold something. It is odd the deployment was not delayed alongside this, given previous RfCs raising whitespace quite prominently. CMD (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Turns out the issue with hiding the login was raised in at least 2021, which does not fill me with optimism it will be fixed at any speed. This issue is particularly notable as if you're logged out, you won't have skin or UI hacks which might solve other issues. CMD (talk) 13:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have switched back. A shame, there are advantages to the new skin. That said, it is bizarre that the skin aimed at having the limited width is the one without a consistent left-side space. Vector10 will always start a page in the same place. En.wiki should not have to implement its own code hacks to make a log-in button visible, and the lack of a log-in button shouldn't take years to fix. A couple of issues have been fixed, credit to the team, (and great credit for the email outreach notification below which felt honest and straightforward,) but other issues seem to have engendered no action. CMD (talk) 06:31, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure: My one gripe at present is that I no longer see a TOC in the sandbox while I prepare an article, nor do I see the floating TOC icon that I gather is the new Vector 2022 style. I'm also (as usual) unable to suss out information in Wikipedia on this issue, and in particular how I might fix this. For context: I'm a relatively new account, and have only recently begun doing any editing/writing in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johsebb (talk • contribs) 17:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment moved from #Support. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Although I agree with this change, there are some problems and it's hard to get used to the change (although viwiki has rolled the change one year ago). The lack of number in the TOC section are my concerns, however as we cannot see the number of talk page sections easily. Thingofme (talk) 15:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral As much as I'd prefer to use the old skin, I do see the advantages of having a newer more responsive skin, and some of the changes are good, but it also brings unwelcome changes. Unfortunately, simply rolling back would ultimately be a stopgap measure and this issue would crop up again in the near future; clearly, someone wants to change something because they feel it is lacking. Moreover I think it's most important to fix the issues with the new skin, than anything else. Some basic improvements to the interface would be helpful - whitespace is good, sure, but too much is detrimental. Right now, the whitespace is bigger than the actual articles, on your average 16:9 monitor. It's even worse on ultrawide. And with the left sidebar being wider too, tables (especially wide ones) look horrifically off-kilter. A lot of people are citing studies about how limiting line width improves readability, but none of this addresses issues such as excessive scrolling, if the readability of a given line width is dependent on font size or screen size, etc., not to mention non-text issues like image placement and other layout issues. Xander T. (talk) 06:54, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A policy heavy neutral So, we're trying to adjudge this for readers - whether I like it for me is irrelevant. Normally, a rollout like this would be a CONEXCEPT case. But they created an RfC and thus submitted it to community authority for that aspect. That's not perpetual, so to me, we can only "legally" undo the change if we believe they've failed to comply with the close conditions. There is the toggle, but I can't believe anyone who is viewing dozens of articles is clicking it every time. The messiness continues, as it's questionable if the "dedicated discussions for the potential blockers" that couldn't be fixed were had. There was obviously a huge VPT discussion, but were the three specific aspects called out and covered? Less clear. By all means run a wave of surveys after 2 weeks to see how opinions change after the shock factor, but why the team chose not to run an immediate survey to compare that against I don't understand. Additionally, it is affecting editors, with log-in button buried. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:20, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nosebagbear, see phab:T321498. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:51, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl anything in particular on it? - I'm aware of the general issues with making perpetual logged-out aspects, re caching, flashes and so on. I've also attended multiple calls with the team, including discussions of the specific issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nosebagbear ...and this comment, that the toggle should be persistent soon. — Qwerfjkl talk 17:40, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. I see one advantage: This gets people to sign in! And if you're signed in, you will likely engage with the project more. So this may be for Wikipedia what a "freemium" model is for some commercial sites: "Yes, you can use our services for free, but sign on and we'll give you such a better user experience". On the other hand, a change where there is no obvious "right" or "wrong" way of doing it should always aim to give people a choice and properly hear them. In the months leading up to this, I, as a casual user, never once saw an announcement or an invitation to participate in the discussion. There are very prominent places to announce such wide-ranging changes, but they only seem to be used for donation drives... BinUnterwegs (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also thought this was a plausible compromise, if not an advantage. But I realized yesterday that this is not in fact true: almost noone will sign in, because they don't know that they have the option to change it. If you're logged out, you don't see the "Switch to old look" message because you no longer have any sidebar links at all. – SJ + 06:50, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SJ, good point. Do you know whether there are any statistics from the experience on the French Wikipedia etc. on whether the share of users deciding to sign-in went up (among those who were already registered)? Nemo 17:12, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. This kind of backlash is pretty typical any time any kind of major sweeping change (UI/UX or otherwise) happens. In some cases (see: facebook redesign, gmail redesign, chrome redesign, tumblr dark blue, youtube removal of annotations, youtube removal of dislikes etc.) the changes are kept and most people eventually get used to it and forget about it (albeit reluctantly in some cases). In other cases (e.g. new/old reddit) most people get used to the new design but a sizable number of people still stick with an option to stay with the old design. In other cases (e.g. New Coke) the backlash is so severe the change is quickly reverted.
Skin preference pretty subjective. I know that people usually have a knee-jerk response to change, so I'm giving this new skin an honest chance. Personally, I don't feel too strongly one way or another. In the new design, I like that the search bar is more prominent. I like that the TOC follows you so that it's easier to navigate around the article. I can get behind the restricted width for readability. The more recent changes make the tool sidebars (which I rarely use) feel less cluttered. I don't like that the TOC is collapsed by default (esp. on pages like WP:ITN/C). I don't like that the heading numbers from the TOC are gone, this makes it more difficult to distinguish a deeply nested heading structure. The "On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title" just feels out of place.

I don't know what the best approach here would be. It's important to note that feedback on this new design may be skewed toward the negative side, as people who don't really mind it and just move on with their day would have no incentive to seek out these feedback threads. On the other hand, it's also important to remember that people who are actively involved in the meta side of wikipedia and RFC discussions aren't necessarily representative of wikipedia users (many of whom do not have an account) as a whole. It's also possible a large number of users also don't like the change but are not vocal about it. You really do not want to run off the trust thermocline. (Is there really no way to provide these users a way to set their skin preferences without logging in? Is a doubling of load to Wikipedia cache servers really that much of an impact? Is the saving in costs worth the risk of damage to user trust?) Regardless of what happens, I would be interested to see statistics on how many users opted back to the old design, how many new accounts were created specifically to comment on the design change, etc. Ahiijny (talk) 20:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral, I don't have any confidence that WMF will rollback even this RFC get a consensus according to their email.--Lemonaka (talk) 15:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether WMF will act or not we should form a consensus. I also don’t see how the canvassing means they’re not gonna respect consensus. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Aaron Liu I still respect your work and effort, but I'm tired of this topic, too tired for all. Kinda of disappointment. Lemonaka (talk) 16:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It’s alright. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:12, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm always trying to defend WMF against all accusations, I have said again and again Not their fault at all, but this email is just some kinds of betrayal. Lemonaka (talk) 16:13, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hopeful that they will. We're seeing conflicting messages from different parts of the WMF behemoth, but let's assume good faith. If they disappoint us, it's up to each of us to decide whether to continue contributing. Certes (talk) 16:21, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral towards the rollback itself, but I desperately hope that the Foundation takes in what I consider the correct, pro-social lessons from this furore:
1. Communicate clearly and in advance. An unappealing, awkward default skin is hardly the end of the world, but it was definitely an unpleasant surprise. Whatever announcements were made, I missed; either because there genuinely weren't any, or because I assumed from the name that Vector 2022 would be superficially similar to the original Vector skin. MonoBook has more in common with the original Vector than Vector 2022 does; something this radically different should have a distinct name.
2. When the closing editors say "if the above concerns are addressed, go ahead", that means you should address those concerns before, not after, rollout.
3. This is kind of tangential, but I don't understand why the Flash of unstyled content is so dreaded that skin-selection via cookie for IP users is dismissed.
An actual problem with Vector 2022 itself I just noticed in trying it out both logged in and anonymously: it behaves distinctly differently depending on whether you're logged in or not, in ways that have no reason to depend on that. That's... well, it seems crazy, frankly. It's effectively two similar but distinct skins. Why you do this? (Side note: I am not a brand new account, but anyone who checks my contributions will see that I haven't done much, and haven't done anything in a long time. I came down as "Neutral" because I am not a representative sample, and the default skin really doesn't matter if IP users can select a skin, but at a personal level I was confused and upset enough to lodge a complaint, which for me is a fairly high threshold.) --Proginoskes (talk) 01:56, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. Doesn't affect me, I'm still using Monobook. Stifle (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Why are we deciding this? Shouldn't it be the readers that are determining the default skin? Look, I understand you've been editing on this skin for over a decade or whatever. I prefer it too. But this change is more important for the readers than us. The editors all have accounts and know how to press 2 buttons to toggle the skin back. Think of this from the perspective of the 12 year old reading about economic theory they don't understand for their school project. They can't read links with font size less than 18. The fact is Wikipedia is stuck in the past in many aspects, and Vector 2010 is a big example of it. The WMF won't listen to us anyway. They don't see our concerns as a problem. This situation has many parallels to old.reddit.com--As time passes, it will become more and more clear as more and more people join the project and almost all of them keep the new Vector skin, that it isn't actually bad, and the old one is simply what you're used to, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's change, humans hate it, it's how we work. But don't ruin it for everyone else because you think HTML5 sites that UNIX software is on look better. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 13:00, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While editor bias is indeed a problem, readers are also allowed to !vote here.

I don't think it's a parallel to old reddit, new reddit is actually way less functionable than old reddit. As time passed, it became more and more clear that using old reddit was "hip" and redditors with quite a bit of experience use old reddit. It also uses way less JS than new reddit while v22 only has like 3 or 4 more spots with JS. Plus, new reddit was a complete redesign while V22 was more of a reskin/recolor with added functionality. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:29, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that readers can !vote here--and a few have--but it should go without saying that almost all of them are unaware of this page's existence. You make a good point about old Reddit though. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC has a lot of reader participation, actually — I can't remember the last time I've seen this many IPs and new users participating in a discussion like this. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 18:48, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
your "a lot" is only comparatively. we all know how much people read WP without an account every day. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong neutral Not sure whether to put this as an alternate proposal, but why can't we just add a special skin preference for unregistered users? They can use mobile view if they know where to look for it, so why don't we add an 'old view' button as well? This seems to me a much more moderate proposal than changing anything further for everyone. It would also help if these buttons (mobile view and suggested old view button) were at the top of the page or in a sidebar, a bit like language links... WT79 ^{(speak to | editing analysis | edit list)} 20:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral While there are obvious benefits to the change overall, there are some backward steps to which the WMF are being blind, deaf and totally inflexible. I can't oppose a rollback if the WMF won't bother listening to users. - SchroCat (talk) 10:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral When I discovered the shift to Vector 2022, I quickly switched back to the older default skin so I don't have much experience with the new one, nor a strong opinion. (I'll just note that at the time I started writing this there were 343 votes in support of the rollback & 222 against -- which shows me that there is a strong division here. This won't be an easy RfC to find a consensus about.) But the reason I'm adding my comment is that the last time there was a change in the skin, we were told that the old skins would no longer be supported. We had to migrate, too bad, fuck off & die if you don't like progress. I'm hoping that the Foundation does not repeat this indifference to what we volunteers -- the people who create the Internet resources that pay their salaries -- & discontinue supporting the old skins, especially as a lot of users don't want to use the new skin. -- llywrch (talk) 03:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Llywrch, It has already been confirmed by a WMF account that V10 will still be supported. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:29, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
strongest possible I DON'T CARE and why don't you go plant potatoes? Really? As there ever been a UI change a "community" liked? I haven't seen one in 30 years using the 'net... It is always "the worst thing ever". Alas... it is not. It is slightly better here, slightly worse there. Go! Edit! Read! It is fine. Really. The world ain't exploding tomorrow. I hope... - Nabla (talk) 18:12, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant neutral. On the one hand, the new skin seems to be a bland, characterless “flat design” that would have been trendy 10 years ago, but which I think everyone got tired of by 5 years ago. The developers requested feedback last year, and I provided some, but it has gone unacknowledged. We have now gone live with a skin that has very poor separation between the user-editable content area and the Mediawiki navigation/structure areas. So that’s the one hand.
On the other hand, I don’t think a rollback is realistic. The new skin does have some technical improvements which would be a shame to lose, and I think reverting to the previous skin would be perceived as a chaotic flip-flop that would ultimately bring the project into disrepute. I would like to see some evidence that the devs are working through the massive backlog of feedback and figuring out how to fix-forward, because there are some very legitimate grievances here. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Question #2: If Vector 2022 is kept as default, should unlimited text width be the default?

Back to contents

Support alternate proposal

Support, although I prefer option 1: reverting to the old design. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 04:25, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This seems by far the most complained about feature and switching it would make it more similar to how it was before. Jeremy Jeremus (talk) 05:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It seems to be one of the chief complaints about the new skin. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Limited text width looks horrendous in wider screens and distracts from the reading experience. It should be opt-in, not opt-out. Carpimaps (talk) 06:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1. I seen the new prototypes and it looks much better. Oppose Carpimaps (talk) 15:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~ HAL333 06:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, as the excess of white space is the main concern with V22. —El Millo (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, though I would be upset if the other problems with Vector 2022 go unaddressed, particularly the difficulty in navigation and the all-white design. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support main complaint of the readers, though I'd prefer finding a solution for the newly created navigation issues as well. --Icodense (talk) 07:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Very strongly support — I designed and composed many tables, over many years, to the then-existing page-width. Some of them still look OK, but others (see List of pre-World Series baseball champions and Demographics of South Africa) are impossible to read completely without endless left-to-right scrolling or shrinking the page to 75% of normal. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:16, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Unbelievable that this wasn't the default to begin with. It's practically unusable without it. Parabolist (talk) 07:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Clearly the new design has to be reverted but the most egregious design flaw is displaying everything in a thin strip down the middle of the page. The text should... by default... fill the majority of the page. Fixed width blocks of text is so 1990's when screens were only 80 characters wide. Ikaruseijin (talk) 07:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support This new design clearly must be default-reverted, but if it isn't, the massive whitespace drowning out every article is by far the biggest design flaw in this new one. It's hard enough to read the thin strip of text as it is; if the article has pictures (as most articles about notable topics do), it's nearly impossible to coherently follow the flow of the text.
Support I've just spend 15 minutes to use an account I've almost never used to try to understand why this limited width is enforced. On a 16:10, 32 inch screen, wikipedia is two mini columns barely readable embedded in a white page. The full screen button is a joke, as soon as you change from a page to a new one, it resets to the limited width. Only after login in and setting my preferences to full width, it becomes usable. You cannot seriously think that all wikipedia users will create an account and login in right? You may have another kind of problems if we would all do so. For the rest about vector 2, I am not well enough into editing to complain. But clearly, the designers knew the problem of the limited width and of the folded left menu, otherwise they would not have added a button to unfold the menu and another one to extend the width. The major bug is that the status of these buttons are not cached and are reset at each clicks. Please, fixed that urgently. It is pretty clear that most of the complains are only due to this, mine included. What an oversight!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eatdirt (talk • contribs)
Agree. I think this is a good compromise, especially for such a drastic change. I think there should be a button that allows the user to enable "reading mode", which removes the clutters and present content in a fixed width. CactiStaccingCrane 08:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most browsers have that built in these days. Nobody has to bother reimplementing it. ℰmi1y_⧼T·C⧽ 08:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
...and the ability to reduce window width has been built in since the dawn of graphical operating systems.–small jars tc 17:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support I switched my vote in the original RFC from oppose to neutral because it sounded like the width thing was going to be solved. It sounds like it was solved poorly. ℰmi1y_⧼T·C⧽ 08:42, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Limited-width text is good, but this should be limited to text. Instead, the new skin limits the width of everything, putting infoboxes, images, tables and other non-text items into the same narrow strip of content, with white all around. Either we redesign the website to put non-text items on the empty sides, or limited-width doesn't make any sense. By the way, I would support a real redesign which would move infoboxes, images etc. on the sides and limit the text width. --Ita140188 (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The whitespace problem is a distraction. Narrow content space is fine on vertical-oriented phones, where the phone doesn't have whitespace on the sides. In a horizontally oriented monitor, it's fundamentally a waste of resources to leave so much of the screen unusable. By leaving the width to float to the maximum width of the device, it conforms naturally to the user's own setup in a way that is most useful. If users wish to increase their own whitespace for their own preferences, let them... The default should be to fit each device best, not force a one-size-fits-all design onto a multitude of devices for which it is not well suited. It's also my only real complaint about the new Vector skin. I actually like many of the design and functionality choices, and would return to using it if the screen width problem was fixed.--Jayron 32 12:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Would solve a few of the primary issues I have with the design. The whitespace replaced with functional content, and the toggle between no longer being extremely isolated giving it some semblance of contrast. Even with the black on white design, text alone is more than enough to break up the blinding nature of the background and make it less painful to look at on high contrast displays, compared to the extremely pale gray of the standard whitespace. Although it would be less able to utilize the space provided, considering the toggle takes up it's own unique margin, and itself doesn't compress when expanded.Deadoon (talk) 12:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. The excessive white space is literally the only problem I have with the new skin. Endianer (talk) 12:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, at least temporarily Though I personally dislike the new aesthetic, and agree with the sentiment of not fixing what isn't broken, I recognise that part of why I may feel that way is likely influenced by me just being used to Vector 2010. But there are some aspects of the redesign that really bug me outside of the aesthetic and the big white space. For example: why is create account always visible on logged out screens but log in is hidden behind a menu? My issues with this redesign include the aesthetic, but also the functional. I don't think it works the way it is.Xx78900 (talk) 12:38, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is the basis of almost all complaints I've seen from end users about Vector 2022, and the reason I opposed it in the initial RfC. We sort of accepted that we as editors weren't the intended audience for the limited width and that this was something that would work for end users, but that does not appear to be the case. JackWilfred (talk) 12:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Definitely. The excess white space is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) problems with the new design. The toggle button isn't consistent, and casual readers shouldn't have to be forced to create an account just to disable the option in the Preferences. Limited width should be opt-in, not opt-out IMO. Some1 (talk) 12:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support.--Æo (talk) 14:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Too much white space, too hard to navigate, the previous 2010 design was simpler, more manageable on a wider variety of displays, rather than this newer version which looks like a poor mobile-display conversion. Also, so many people have written about it in the Teahouse, unsurprisingly, but only actual users with accounts can opt-out, that's clearly a bad idea. My first instinct upon seeing the new design was to turn it off. ButterCashier (talk) 14:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as an IP reader and editor, while no better solution found and implemented. 37.134.90.176 (talk) 15:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, because the line width shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how I (and, I believe, many others) use Wikipedia. I am usually an early adopter of new interfaces. The sidebar TOC here is an improvement, in my opinion (even though it's still buggy). The width is not. I'm a lawyer in my day job, and lawyers (especially appellate lawyers) are heavily invested in making their briefs easier to read and understand. (Have you ever been on #AppellateTwitter? It's a trip.) I am intimately familiar with white space. My briefs use low-density fonts, are left-aligned rather than fully justified, don't use blockquotes or ALLCAPS headings or unnecessary defined terms or acronyms, and so on. These have been daily considerations for me in my professional life. What I've come to realize over the last few days, though, is that I don't read Wikipedia in the same way or for the same purpose that I read a legal brief or judicial opinion (or a novel). I almost exclusively *scan* Wikipedia. High information density is very important to me here; it's a feature, not a bug. I want the maximum possible amount of information on my screen when I am doing the kind of reading I am doing on Wikipedia. I want to be able to see the nearby headings for context (which, again, is a mark in favor of the sidebar TOC). The width works against all of that *for the type of reading I come to Wikipedia to do*. Here's a simile that may help illustrate the issue. Reading is like eating. There are lots of different reasons I eat. Sometimes I eat to fill my belly; sometimes I eat to fuel myself for a hike or river paddle; sometimes I eat for pleasure. I eat differently in all those situations (respectively: more high-calorie-density and protein-rich foods to fuel a hike; mainly low-calorie-density, high-fiber foods like vegetables for everyday living; sugary sweets and confections for pleasure). I read for different reasons too, and *why* I'm reading matters to *what* and *how* I'm reading. The change in width is like forcing me to eat celery when I need to be carbo loading. So while I absolutely understand "giving the reader a break" and "slowing down the firehose of information" from most documents, I'm understanding now that it just doesn't make sense for this site. Jeffreynye (talk) 15:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear! I come here specifically FOR the "firehose of information". If I want a break, I close the browser. I really don't appreciate having these self-appointed efficiency experts hobble the reading experience because they believe they know what I'm looking for better than I do myself. It's analogous to the information problem of top-down economies in a different form. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 15:42, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The white space problem is significantly disruptive to my editing experience. Netherzone (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support My biggest gripe with the new skin, and why I'm using the legacy version. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I went to dig up my old account for this, because I do not approve of this change. Of the changes, I don't particularly mind the decision to add the ToC to the side, but the huge amount of whitespace is horrible for my experience reading articles, and makes it feel like I'm using a mobile website. If that was changed, I think the new Vector would be a much more acceptable design. SkyAmp6 (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would fix one of the bigguest problems with it. The other being hiding and burying some of the most heavily used menu items. North8000 (talk) 16:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support–Constriction is not a feature.small jars tc 16:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Establishing unlimited text width as the default would resolve what is, in my opinion, the primary problem with the moment-to-moment user experience of Vector 2022. See also Jeffreynye's thorough and eloquent explanation of why unlimited text width is particularly suitable for the Wikipedia environment, as opposed to that of other text-focused websites. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is the single biggest gripe with the new skin, and it is something that the majority of editors wanted at the RfC that was held on whether or not to move to new vector. If this cannot be achived upstream in the skin itself due to a lack of willingness by the WMF, we can simply use common.css to keep this fixed for everyone until switching the default in the code (something that is technically trivial to do, by the way) is implemented. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Anonymous readers do not have a way to set a preference for wide-screen viewing, and the limited width was by far the primary objection in the rollout RFC (read through the oppose votes, and you'll see that 90+% of those who cited a specific problem state that the width is a problem). The previous RFC would have sailed through as "support" if the width problems had been resolved, and the limited width continues to be the primary objection among post-rollout commenters. All of the incompatibility with tools and scripts for us power users can be resolved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is the #1 reason why Vector 2022 is bad. Restricting width like this uses so little screen space at the expense of any customizability in width to the user. If anything, it should be default expanded width and then a toggle button for restricted width. I see no quality evidence that this improves readability beyond the cherry-picking provided by WMF. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 17:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Even after pressing the button, it's still too narrow for my taste. There's nearly an inch of white space to the left of the text and about half an inch to the right. Just give us widescreen, get rid of the button, and let the small minority of users that want a restrictive narrow column find it in the settings. Fix these issues and I'd accept Vector 2022 as the default. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, per Jeffreynye's comment above. There are some things I personally don't like about V22, some things I do like, and also some things I just love. But I'm not !voting based on that, nor should anyone: since any registered user can revert to legacy vector, this RfC should be about unregistered users' experience only. But this involves more: registered users should also switch to whatever skin unregistered users have every time they are working on the lay-out of articles, and the width that unregistered users will get to see is in fact of fundamental importance for all our future lay-out decisions.
Now while I appreciate the research cited by the web team showing that limited line width is beneficial for reading comprehension, I am not entirely convinced that this research can simply be generalized to every type of application. Contrary to the websites which are often cited as examples of big players who use limited width, we are an encyclopedia. The type of information we offer is fundamentally different from what is usually offered on the web. I believe that it may be the case that encyclopedic content heavily benefits from text density, because people who are looking for a specific piece of information will want to scan a lot of text at once, and because all readers will have a strong need to orient themselves within the structure of the text (which is benefited by seeing as much as possible of the section headings and other structural elements, as well as of the info in other parts of the text).
This is not based on any research, but on my long-term (+10 years) and heavy use of Wikipedia for research purposes. Still, I think that contrary to the non-specific research on the benefits of limited line width, my experience may be generalized: people do primarily use Wikipedia to do research, whether it be scholarly research like me or just 'looking things up'. It is my belief that the limited width will be detrimental to that 'looking up'. At the very least, I would like to see research that is specific to Wikipedia or encyclopedic text in general before moving to the limited width lay-out. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:35, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment—What about allowing readers (logged-in or otherwise) the option of toggling wide text on and off? --Kurtis ^(talk) 00:05, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They can (by clicking the 'full screen' button at the bottom to the right), though it doesn't persist across pages. This persistence is something the web team has said they are willing to work on. However, when editing we need to base our lay-out on one of the two views, and the large majority of unregistered readers will see the default view most of the time. Customization options are always only used by a minority. This makes determining what the default view should be a crucial decision.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, graphs tend to be too small. Sometimes, you can hardly read what is written on the axis. There is not enough space to have graphs, which are large enough. One can click on the graph to view it without problems. So, now we have too small graphs combined with wasted space. That does not make any sense. --Boehm (talk) 00:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, everything else was fine, it was just the width that causes all sorts of table layout issues (such as with WP:RJL). --Rs chen 7754 01:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then why on earth do you oppose???? T v x1 14:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support "but", You don't use an encyclopedia the same way as a social media, a news, or a novel. As long as there is no better way found, and thoroughly test, to display the content of an encyclopedia, thing should stay as they are. A good web design should be adapted to the content and the usage, not the other way around. There is always room for improvement and innovation, not to be a trend follower. DerpFox (talk) 01:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest Support possible My biggest gripe with the new skin is the limited text so making it unlimited would be a great improvement. Wowzers122 (talk) 01:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wasted monitor space makes it a lot more work to read something. Also showing far less of the article at once makes it very difficult to take a fast overall look. This problem is compounded when editing / reviewing in editing mode where the presence of long references makes even less of the article even worse when editing because This aspect of the change is so huge that they should have requested feedback on it separately. If they asked for that specific feedback, they would have received feedback relevant to reading and editing an electronic encyclopedia and even more specifically reading and editing Wikipedia instead of going by self-interpreting other less applicable studies. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 05:11, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I find that this makes me scroll more because there is less information on the screen at a time, and it is a major contributor to the excess whitespace, which irritates my eyes.WikEdits5 (talk) 05:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the majority of people here Toa Nidhiki05 05:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is my main gripe with the new layout, and it blatently disregards responsive design principles. On my 4k monitor, content takes up less than half of overall window. The amount of whitespace shown on either side is excessive and incredibly distracting. In contrast, viewing the new UI on my iPad is actually not that bad; but that's because the content and UI elements fill the majority of the smaller screen size of an iPad. Many of us prefer browsing on a desktop explicitly because we can get more content on the screen at one time. Whitespace is not necessarily bad, but it needs to be used with intent and purpose. The excessive whitespace of the new UI when rendered on high res displays does not fulfill any useful purpose. Trynn (talk) 08:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support only if reverting back to the old design is vetoed by the powers that be. Ghirla^-трёп- 09:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest support possible The FAQ that tries to explain the reasoning behind this points to research done almost two decades ago. The main article used to justify the shorter lines (by Peter orton, PhD) explicitly says "Isn’t reading text on a low resolution computer monitor difficult enough?" Well, maybe in 2007 this was true or relevant, but technology has moved on. The scientific articles also acknowledges that this is a polarizing issue - people who like short lines actively hate longer lines, and vice versa. Arbitrarily forcing one choice as the default was bound to create backlash. Rizzardi (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as the best option conditional on a bad choice of action. Mindlessly following trends of web design is absurd. Waving about studies that don't pertain to the specific needs of an electronic encyclopedia doesn't make the trend-following any more mindful, either. XOR'easter (talk) 17:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Easily the worst aspect of this skin. Cards84664 17:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Most of the complaints we get on the IRC side are about the whitespace and squished text. This would address those concerns directly. —Jéské Couriano (No further replies will be forthcoming.) 21:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Justi yaya 03:00, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally feel that the difference on my screens are not that significant when TOC is pinned in terms of reading experience and line width, just creates a bit more empty space. Although this matters a significant bit more with the TOC collapsed, given the minimal difference between TOC collapsed and uncollapsed (in line width), turning this on by default probably creates more options for the reader to easily choose from. Additionally given the amount of complaints to most people this would most likely be positive. Regardless switching to/back from infinite line width is quite easy anyways Justi yaya 13:56, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The answer to this question is also obvious. Artificially creating dead space on your website for a desktop skin is backwards design. If I wanted less width then I would decease the width of my browser. Deadgye (talk) 04:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support The whitespace is not good, and while I find myself in neutral concerning rolling back the deployment, I strongly support this. As others have said, this is bad design. echidnaLives - talk - edits 05:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: As others have mentioned, this is the main problem with the new layout. Changing this alone might solve most of the issues with the layout. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support; yet still... based on what nux said but flipped on it's head, if WP:NOTDEMOCRACY would be used in an opposing vote. If that doesn't apply, then the outcome would most likely be support, and I don't think it applies here per the essay WP:VINE. However, we shouldn't need to have votes backed up with reasoning, this should be a count of who likes it, and who doesn't. Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this is a consensus discussion, and that consensus is determined based on the relative strengths and qualities of the arguments presented, !votes that amount to "I like it" or "I don't like it" will ultimately be weighed as being of low quality. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

_{could you at least read Wikipedia:VINE before objecting,} Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've read both the VINE and PNSD essays. VINE does not apply here, because policy states that this is not a vote. This, like all RfCs, is a consensus discussion.Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
no other RFC has that note that it is nor, if wp:VINE doesn't apply her then it applies nowhere; so it applies here via wp:IAR, as is essentially how all essays apply.Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:31, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
According to the transclusion count, the {{not a vote}} template has been used in at least 7621 discussions. Some of these are RfCs, some are deletion discussions. You can find a list of all of the uses of that template, both for live and archived discussions here. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
the one other instance I could find with an rfc and not a vote together was one other one and it was not a simple yes or no vote, also you responded to the wrong comment Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why you could only find a single RfC, as there are at least 29 non-archive transclusions of that template on the first page alone, and there are at least 150 pages of results. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:22, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I checked explicitly in the category of rfc's and then searched for articles within the category with the template, only 3 showed up, my methodology could be wrong.Transcleanupgal (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ah yep. it was bad methodology, only three wikipedia RfC have that template, including this one, so there is still no prescient, but it is reasonable that it still applied to previous RfC and that it was just never needed on that fact alone. Transcleanupgal (talk) 02:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. While RfCs do get added to Category:Wikipedia requests for comment, they are only in that category as long as the RfC has an active {{Rfc}} header. Legobot automatically removes that header from RfCs after thirty days, however regardless of that removal, RfCs continue until either the discussion tapers off or someone formally closes it.

As such, there will be a significant number of RfCs, including currently active ones that do not have a {{Rfc}} header due to being open longer than 30 days, that will not be in Category:Wikipedia requests for comment. Additionally, from looking at the source of the {{not a vote}} template, it does not appear to add any maintenance categories whenever it is added to a page. If you wish to see all uses of the template, you either need to parse through the transclusion count which I linked before, or you can try a hastemplate: search. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You provided no arguments so your vote is empty. You might want to scroll to top and read the frames in one of the top sections #RfC: Should Wikipedia return to Vector 2010 as the default skin? Nux (talk) 01:16, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've provided an argument that I don't care that I haven't provided an argument it doesn't matter also that only applies to the first discussion and has no precedent even there. Transcleanupgal (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't get why there's all the white space there. "Optimal line length for reading" means jack shit if it's 1. dead space, one of the biggest crimes of UX and 2. looks pretty dang ugly. Use all the space you're given. I already don't like the blank space on the side of Legacy underneath the sidebar, to be honest. casualdejekyll 01:20, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to read UX.stack: What is the best number of paragraph width for readability?. Or look at how W3C WCAG and many other have constrained their width. Note how very popular Medium.com have quite thin articles and a sidebar (much like Wikipedia with Vector'22). Nux (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Use available width. Speed up reading with narrow text columns. Uwappa (talk) 10:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. Let's use whatever space we have got. Users may have different browsers, may use different window sizes and font sizes, hence a fixed text width does not fit all and may even get in the way. --Schlosser67 (talk) 11:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a fixed max-width, not a fixed width. V'22 is actually more responsive then V'10. Nux (talk) 12:24, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's better, but I'd still let the users (or rather, each user individually on his or her screen) decide how it should look like. Anyway, when logged in, I don't use any of the Vector skins. Maybe that's why I find the new one particularly unsuitable. --Schlosser67 (talk) 06:10, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Insofar as this would make it closer to the 2010 default skin; however, I'd still prefer Vector 2010 to a modification of Vector 2022. But, if 2022 stays the default, this should definitely be implemented as a compromise. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support If reverting is impossible, this is a fairer middle ground. Noonan2 (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Narrowing the pages also messes with tables and images placement done with a wider page in mind. The default width should not have such excessive whitespace, though if there is no TOC it should not take up the full width either so that all pages are consistent. the lack of the gray background and dividing line makes it even worse. Absolutely ridiculous to put the toolbar on the right side now, narrowing the page even further. Moreover, the expand button only shows up "In a wide browser window". Well, I think my laptop is wide enough to want a wider text, but this doesn't even appear for me to use! Reywas92^Talk 18:45, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: while a limited-width display can be helpful in some situations (like if someone is editing from a phone), it doesn't make any sense to me to enforce it as the default for everyone. As soon as I saw it, I edited my user stylesheet to get rid of it. It makes the site very difficult to read, and I say this as someone with a very large and fancy monitor: one can only imagine what a pain it is for people with lower-resolution displays. As for whether the survey is biased towards editors, well, this is certainly a factor, but I don't think it invalidates the outcome. The only reason that Wikipedia has any articles on it is because people decide to sign up and edit, so making this experience a hassle seems like a very bad idea. jp×g 02:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support My main issue with the new interface is limited text width being forced on us. I do a lot of browsing in private mode for various reasons and having Wikipedia default to narrow text which fills up only 1/3rd of my full-screen window is a pain. What about longer articles? Sure it's easier to access the ToC now, but some sections within the ToC themselves are really, really long. For example, this page stands out as a prime example. Basically, it feels like some proper testing and polish could fix the issues the new skin has. Xander T. (talk) 06:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support There are other issues with Vector 2022, but at least this would be a step in the right direction. If I wanted skinny text then I would size my browser window accordingly. -- Ned Scott 07:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support but returning to the old skin would be better. My reasons for supporting this: the redesign, including the limited width, is part of a trend to make websites look more like phone apps which is culturally wrong for Wikipedia (and right for commercial sites only in so far as there's anything right about commercial sites), and is happening simply because we employed web devs and they had to produce some work to justify their pay. The supposition that it's easier to read in a narrow format isn't valid, because Wikipedia is not a novel, and long lines are (probably) better for skim-reading in order to find details for reference. And if anybody wants to read it in a narrow format on desktop, they can do this by narrowing their window. If these users want narrow-format text *and* to keep their window fullscreen on a large monitor, this fullscreen habit (along with the demand for "responsive web apps") is again part of mobile phone culture and they shouldn't get what they want, which is to chip away at the desktop idiom and replace everything with the mobile idiom, with its manipulation of users and its walled gardens, inimical to the Stallman-like free internet culture that Wikipedia was born out of. And, by the way, testing for popularity is biased if somebody decides behind the scenes *what* will be tested for popularity, much like holding repeated referenda to get a "yes" answer. Did the community want a Desktop Improvements Initiative in the first place? Card Zero (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support: For the very simple reason that people who prefer to read shorter line lengths can, if the default design uses unlimited length, always narrow their browser window or switch to their browser's reading mode. The other direction does not work: people who prefer longer line lengths can't easily and consistently make them longer in the current situation. BinUnterwegs (talk) 19:21, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support The squeezing of the content in the middle is certainly the most significant problem with the new skin, as it worsens readability and perception of the page, as well as limits layout options. But it is not the only problem, the new navigations on the left and right with the dropdown menus, unintuitive icons and huge line spacing massively worsen the usability, so I prefer option 1: reverting to the old design. Rio65trio (talk) 18:19, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Created this account primarily to deal with the width issue; I'll learn to live with the rest, despite my resistance to superfluous change. I cannot stand how "mobile" my desktop view looks on most of the internet, and here is no different. I have a widescreen monitor (24" at 1920x1080) so having all content squeezed into the middle with all this wasted white space on the sides is worse for my readability, not better. Give all users control, not just those with accounts. Vector2022WidthSucks (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest Possible Support, obviously. The narrow width is atrocious, and there is no possible reason for it.--155.4.221.27 (talk) 23:11, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the narrow width looks like shit. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 04:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support white-space is redundant. starship .paint (exalt) 07:50, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - while I oppose a rollback, in talking to off-wiki friends, they all think the limited width sucks. schetm (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, this is far and away the thing the most people have complained to me about since the change. Those, by the way, are your "readers"—people who know me and that I edit Wikipedia. They don't, or maybe have at most corrected a typo here or there. They, like me, do not have large monitors to show large amounts of whitespace; they have them to fit a lot on the screen. I've really got no dog in the fight; I'll keep using Monobook regardless. But unless they want to create an account just to read, well, they don't have that option. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, I like the new layout as a default but also think it currently has too much whitespace. Widening the text more sounds like a great idea. --Egon Willighagen (talk) 05:42, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tol (talk | contribs) @ 06:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as this seemed to be the biggest issue readers had. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:18, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Narrow content mode makes some content plain unreadable. When not unreadable, it makes reading more difficult as it doesn't fit as much content on the same screen and requires more scrolling. 2A02:2168:84D9:2200:CF72:6FE7:ABBA:3DC6 (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support; even if Vector2010 is restored, the default version of Vector2022 should be full width. Redundant white space removes the advantages of reading on laptops and desktops with minimal counterbalancing benefit. BilledMammal (talk) 07:34, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per BilledMammal above me, with a very strong preference for retaining original Vector as default. At this point I can't AGF any more that problems will get fixed eventually. Daß Wölf 23:31, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. If Vector '22 remains the default theme, the content should take up a good portion of the screen width by default, like the original Vector. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 03:31, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unsure on one hand this is the biggest complaint and the button doesn't persist, on the other hand this is the entire point of including this as the default and as a fact it is better looking. I'm not sure what to say on this. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:34, 20 January 2023 (UTC) Until the content flash issue for pagetools issue is addressed, I will be conditional supporting this.Aaron Liu (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2023 (UTC) Actually, oppose. We do need a consistent width across Wikipedia. Many articles are edited with vastly different with in mind causing chaos for different screen sizes. Internal consistency would solve this issue. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:44, 31 January 2023 (UTC) I have changed my !VOTE on this quite a few times, but this time around hopefully it can stay as conditional support only for logged-out users. I saw new arguments about scripting. Max width on by default is definintly more intrusive than off, and logged-out users with JavaScript disabled won't be able to switch that. As the toggle will be persistent, users can easily enable limited width. However logged-in users have a toggle in Preferences so they don't need a default change. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:22, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems to me that there's very little merit in the narrow screen. It would make sense if articles were just text with section headers, but very few articles are like that, they've got images, tables, lists, etc where the wider screen works better. Nigej (talk) 17:37, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support If we have to keep V2022, then yes, make full width the default. –Fredddie ™ 01:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - white space is a main concern of many, including me. Likely, WMF is going to introduce an interface redesign, that separates the content with lines and colors, which will make it seem like the white space is gone, and will also please most readers. Cessaune [talk] 02:11, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I dislike the extra blank space of this skin, and the full-width option makes it a bit better. Strobilomyces (talk) 21:18, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I can't think of any situation where the width is being limited that the user couldn't manually narrow the window if they wanted that. I get that limiting column width improves readability, but that is only a result for sentence-by-sentence reading from top to bottom for the first time, not for skimming, editing, or referring to for cross-checking or other research uses. Δπ (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I took the advice of some other commenters, and tried to get used to the new layout. After using vector 2022 for a while, I have come to like certain things. The top nav does look nicer, and the page looks cleaner. However, it is harder to skim for information. Limited line length is a good idea for articles that are meant to be read start to finish, but that is not how I use wikipedia. Wikipedia is more of a transactional resource - I generally am looking for keywords, and rely on the formatting of the page to guide me to the things that are most important. By limiting the line length, we are limiting the number of keywords on the page, and there are fewer section headers for me to skim. It slows me down, and sometimes I miss what I am looking for. I recognize that there is still a table of contents, but I think it is lacking in 2 ways. First, it cannot show images, and I used to use images to help me see where to skim to. Second, it no longer provides a clear separation from the page overview and the rest of the page content. I used to read the entirety of the overview, then click on the TOC item that I was most interested in hearing more about. I think that by taking out the limited width, it will help to mitigate some of these issues, because I'll have less far to skim for images and keywords. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbeagan1 (talk • contribs) 05:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support This revision would address my main concern. Like others above, I am often skimming the text and outline fast, and I want to minimize clicking and scrolling or any other task or distraction. -- econterms (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support is a persistent toggle for vector 2010 skin possible? 103.62.153.143 (talk) 06:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Makes it significantly easier to read texts on wide screens/monitors. Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 19:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support, the limitation of the width on Vector 2022 looks bad. Those white spaces should better be used. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 15:00, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
support. yes please. i don't want to toggle this off on every single wiki. lettherebedarklight 晚安 04:10, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support and let readers and IP editors choose their preferred skin. The white space looks terrible and the interface needs improvement. However, I do like that in the search bar, the dropdown menu shows small images and short descriptions. Edward-Woodrow (talk) 19:12, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support as second choice after reverting entirely (proposal 1). If some particular readers want a narrower viewport, they can do that themselves. Meanwhile, websites that will not expand to fill the available window width are intensely frustrating, especially with "rich" content like we provide (images on both sides of text, tables, infoboxes, etc., etc.). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:51, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back to contents

Oppose alternate proposal

Oppose, ILIKEIT and it's better for reading according to the research mentioned in the RfC. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ILIKEIT very much describes the pro-2022 crowd, and on the topic of that "research": Lies, damned lies, and statistics. HAL333 07:21, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@HAL333, and IDONTLIKEIT describes the anti-V22 crowd. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Touché. HAL333 14:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can prove anything with statistics except the truth. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which means the "research" in the RfC is nothing but useless fluff. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Qwerfjkl what the hell are you talking about? Transcleanupgal (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Transcleanupgal, this is a quote, not my opinion. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
there was nothing there implying it was a quote. Transcleanupgal (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A quote it is, nonetheless. I was offering an explanation, not a criticism. — Qwerfjkl talk 19:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Studies differ and a brief search finds two relevant studies. An early study found that longer line lengths were preferable, although they only tested up to 80 characters, and a more recent study found that when consuming content through vertical scrolling wider pages resulted in more efficient reading. BilledMammal (talk) 14:34, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - There's a button to make it fullscreen if you want (even for IP's) and the width actually makes sense on a widescreen. -- Sohom Datta (talk) 08:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, that button doesn't work for IPs. I just logged out and tested it out. You have to re-click it every single time you load a new page. And it seems that the dev team has no interest in fixing this, even though all it would require is a cookie and a few lines of JavaScript. Furthermore, the button is an instance of mystery meat navigation, and it is small and hidden in a very inconvenient location all the way at the footer of the page, below the bottom of the article. On a wide screen monitor, like on any other monitor, if you want narrower text you can resize your window. The redesign hides that ability for all but patient (have to re-select on every new page load) and competent (find mystery meat button hiding in weird corner) IP users. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 08:06, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. The button looks like the symbol they used on YouTube for maximizing a video, not widening a text box. Also it doesn't show up if you're using a narrower window like 4:3. My first thoughts when I saw the button were "The heck is this, why would I want to use Wikipedia in full screen mode where I can't switch tabs as easily for research, because it hides my tabs bar?". That is, it looks like what the F11 button does in most browsers. Xander T. (talk) 06:36, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I think that an icon with a double-headed horizontal arrow (like ) would be more intuitive. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 07:09, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@IWantTheOldInterfaceBack Is there a phabricator task for the bug that your describing here ? Sohom Datta (talk) 08:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what phabricator is. I created this account yesterday to get the old look back. And from what I can tell this is perceived as a "feature", not a bug, since it is allegedly impossible to store a simple cookie and ten lines of javascript for IP users due to "caching issues" or something. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 08:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@IWantTheOldInterfaceBack, a WMF account just posted that this will become fixed i.e. you won't have to reclick the button. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:20, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Right, sorry about that, but phabricator is where you report to developers if you have a issue with the Wikipedia interface (link to bug reporting teplate). Once it's on Phabricator, engineers can follow up and solve the issue at hand (much like issues of Github etc).

Also, whatever you mentioned about "caching issues" is unfortunately probably a fairly valid explanation, since the solution using ten lines of Javascript is going cause a FOUC (flash of unstyled content) where the layout changes after it has been rendered (leading people to believe that the site is slow/sluggish etc). To do this properly, you need some kind of server-side mechanism to figure out which layout the user wants before each and every page is rendered, which imo is slightly difficult when your having to do for one of the world's most popular sites.

( Sohom Datta (talk) 08:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For context, currently we just have one version of a page which are cached in Varnish servers which is then served to everyone (with the cache being refreshed periodically), which is a lot less server intensive. -- Sohom Datta (talk) 08:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to second what @IWantTheOldInterfaceBack is saying here. That button is small and (more importantly) nowhere near any other elements on the screen. On a 4k monitor, it's literally inches away from any other content or UI widgets with nothing but whitespace in between. Also, since the intent of the line-length limit is to reduce eye movement, that also hinders discoverability of that button. When I first experienced the new UI (and like many others, thought it was bug that was displaying a mobile site), I had no idea that button even existed until I started reading comments in the various talk pages that mentioned it. If "but there's a button" is going to be used an excuse then that button also has to be extremely obvious, which it currently isn't. Trynn (talk) 08:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately all it needs for those cookies and strings of javascripts is just a couple of dozens of millions of dollars of Wikipedia serverspace. Another argument thus to get rid of Vector 2022 as quickly as possible. T v x1 14:19, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As a wide screen user I would say the width actually makes no sense on a widescreen. As any other widescreen user, anyone, who wants to keep less info on the screen can use multi-window layout or narrow their window. There is no reason to force users. This is wikipedian, not facebook. 193.239.57.118 (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Fixed-width layout is a pretty common way of formatting articles on the Internet these days. For example, almost all common news websites use it to format their articles, e.g. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. Think about how much whitespace there is looking at a Google search result page on a large monitor—theoretically Google could fill up the entire page with text, but the fixed-width layout centralizes things and makes it more readable. A similar concept is applicable to Wikipedia. I'm sure it looks a bit wonky for us editors who have been using the old style for decades, but in reality, the fixed-width layout is not the unambiguously detrimental feature that others are making it out to be. Mz7 (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Crowd-sourcing encyclopaedia articles is a fantastic idea. Crowd-sourcing web design... not so much. Leave it to the professionals. – Joe (talk) 09:25, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The same professionals who shown themselves to be hopeless amateurs over the last few days?? T v x1 14:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No personal insults, please. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This critique was re. ~~skills~~ conceptual skills (not the programming skills), not the person, so I consider it acceptable. I've seen much harder words on this page and the other.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well then your judgment is very very very foolish and inept (see, I'm critiquing your judgment SKILLS rather than YOU so it's clearly above board.)

In seriousness: broadly insulting a professional's skills is the same as insulting the professional person. It also adds no value to the conversation. But, hey, I'm just an IP address so don't mind me 173.49.243.134 (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Steue.— Qwerfjkl talk 07:10, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, very much, Qwerfjkl for your ping.

To the IP:
Some one writing under IP address deserves as much respect as a logged in one.
So, I think: you shouldn't belittle your value or the value of your contribution.
I've seen some of the professionally competentests contributions from IPs.

Thank you, IP,
your reply made me think about it again; and I think:
I dont even consider the technical/programming skills to be criticised, but rather the concept of what to change and how (the concept comes before the programming).
So I've made my original contrib more precise.

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 08:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Regarless of vocal pushback, limited content width has been widely upheld as a fundamentally good design principle across the entire field of UI design for more than a decade. It's great for accessibility among other reasons. Practically every website has a width limit. Apple.com does. NYTimes.com does. WashingtonPost.com does. Google.com does! Only UI designers are qualified to objectively evaluate the merits of this; the rest of us are just expressing resistance to change. I used to hate the limited width too, but now I like it.
The idea that the limited width breaks tables, or that these tables now require scrolling, is also simply false. The tables are not affected by the limited width, and will take up the whole width of the user's web browser.

As is, I don't believe this question could lead to a binding consensus; ~~this needs to be based on surveys of non-logged in users, which the WMF should go out of its way to conduct, in order to reassure detractors.~~ edit: Nope, I'm satisfied with the surveys which were already conducted. DFlhb (talk) 10:00, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Only UI designers are qualified to objectively evaluate the merits of this Only artists can critique art, only game developers can critique games, movie directors can critique movies, writers can critique books, and so on. The general user who has to experience that has no say at all? Apple is only limited width for a section, google uses full width at 1080p when you search(and their email is always full width), nyt and wapo uses much more as well. Wikipedia is the most constricted version of any I have encountered, and has no mechanisms for using that extra space either, even fandom will fill the voids at the edges with wiki-art and ads. At ratios higher than 16:9 1080p, it becomes a tiny island in a sea of blindingly bright whitespace, with a practically invisible toggle that doesn't even work when logged out nestled in the corner of all that whitespace. Deadoon (talk) 11:45, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to what you say, every page I list rigidly limits page width for contents (not other page elements). And yes, non-designers can claim to speak objectively ("this is worse!"), but what they always mean is simply "I don't like it". Interface design is objective, and has nothing to do with personal tastes, yet the entirety of the opposition to the redesign rests on personal taste and preference. DFlhb (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The enjoyment of the design is subjective, claiming objectivity in matters of opinion and subjective matters is the most disingenuous thing you can do. In your opinion the design should only be evaluated by people with a some nebulous qualifications and everyone else should be thrown in the trash and ignored because apparently the general public doesn't matter. Great "opinion" you have there. I guess third part developers will love all the new traffic they get to their addons, scripts, and other tutorials on how fix this problem, afterall that is what is leading many people here, a near doubling of user accounts created, looking for solutions to a problem that didn't exist a few days ago.

Deadoon (talk) 15:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. Users can limit the width at the browser level if they are some weirdo who doesn't want their widescreen monitor to actually output widescreen content. There is zero justification for this enforced low-information default. It's terrible design. My desktop is not a phone. Stop treating it like one 2600:1700:1471:2550:4102:7C99:2804:8FC3 (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, WMF's response to that argument in the FAQ is Most users don't resize their browser windows or use browser plugins to improve the design of the websites they view. Wikis should be good-looking immediately, in their basic form. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A claim that is utterly false. T v x1 14:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In most cases, limited content width is used, not to improve reader experience, but to fill the periphery with commercials. I fear that with Wikipedia—one of the last bastions of uncommercialized space on the web—adopting this format, they will soon follow suit and cram it with ads. ~ HAL333 16:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@HAL333, I think one result of Wikipedia:Fundraising/2022 banners was that there won't be ads in the foreseeable future. — Qwerfjkl talk 21:50, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good. That's comforting. ~ HAL333 22:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is a reasonable fear. Hopefully it won't come to pass. DFlhb (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It actually isn't all that accessible for many people, me included. 73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison to NYT is awful. The NYT has full-size images that fully break the text. We have thumbnail images on the left or right side of the text (as well as infoboxes, tables, etc) which do not work as well with narrow paragraphs. Our articles are not the same as newspaper articles. Reywas92^Talk 18:51, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose — It’s easily the best part of the new design, and just good design sense. MarijnFlorence (talk) 11:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. First of all I don't think this RfC can or should be binding since this change overwhelmingly affects non-editors who will not participate here. That being said there's a lot of evidence that limiting the line length improves readability. If you prefer full width, there's a button to toggle that. My only complaint is that the full-width preference doesn't persist between pages and on reload for IP users. Surely that preference should be stored in a cookie or something. – Anne drew 14:41, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm echoing my comments in question one above. I've seen a lot of references to the evidence that limited line length improves readability, but I can't actually find any of the papers being cited in the documentation for the new design (Lin 2004 and a Wichita State lab study were both cited by outbound links). Do you happen to have that evidence or can point me toward it? Guidethebored (talk) 15:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reading Online text 2004 Wichita State Aaron Liu (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much! Guidethebored (talk) 15:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Anne drew Andrew and Drew - we're working showing the toggle at lower widths right now (expected to roll out next width) and investigating what progress we can make on persistence, see our update below for more info. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 16:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, the update was rolled out while manifestly incomplete? In the hope that the possibility of progressing towards fixing it could one day be investigated? XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you prefer full width, there's a button to toggle that.
Why not have a toggle for restricted width? — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 17:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most of Wikipedia's viewers are non-editors.

Sounds like the elite few trying to make decisions for the common masses.

73.8.230.57 (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

73.8.230.57, who is this in response to?

@Anne drew Andrew and Drew said that this RfC is not binding because there are few readers here. — Qwerfjkl talk 07:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, line length has been limited for centuries. Data&science based decisions, anyone? Ponor (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Fixed width is actually the main part of the new skin that I prefer over the old one (and the sole reason I started using it before its official deployment). IMO this would just make it a worse version of the old skin, with the lack of visual borders between the content, TOC, header, and everything else; just a sea of white. I do agree that the non-persistence of the width toggle is annoying. –Sonicwave ^talk 18:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose based on research and rationales behind the change in the first place. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:07, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose... but to be honest I never liked the unlimited width, it's unique to wikipedia in, like, a bad way DecrepitlyOnward (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I'm using Vector legacy on a laptop and I feel like anything wider than my current configuration would make pages hard to read.
pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And that's admittedly subjective, but so are most of the judgements from support voters.

—pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 06:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You probably toggled the wide view by hitting the 'full screen' button at the bottom right. The default view is objectively less wide, by design.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This change went live in my home wiki years ago and at first I didn't like it (although I like basically everything else about the new vector) but after a while I realized that not just I like it, I spend more time reading articles and I enjoy reading much more. The concept of smaller width is not new. Look at academic papers. People have data to back this up. Here is my slightly unpopular opinion: This should have been deployed with max-width set to 2000px at first and then every week, we'd reduce 100px from it until we reach the value we want. That way, the new change is not shocking to users and it let them get used to it slowly (ebay did this when changing their background color long time ago) but it's too late for it now.
[user:Ladsgroup|Ladsgroup]]^overleg 04:29, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Screens have different amounts of pixels per inch. So, going by pixels would result in different effects, depending on the screen's pixels per inch; not a good idea.
Why not let people themselves decide what they are happy with?

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 18:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Joe Roe. I am also having a hard time understanding what would be implemented exactly per the phrasing of the question. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 05:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The design works for what its designed for, if any users prefer the other style the option exists for them to set that for themselves. But the default should adhere to UX research and best practices. --(loopback) ping/whereis 09:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think limited width is good in general for readability. Getting the look more consistent across devices will make it easier to make articles look okay and to consistently avoid WP:sandwiching. However, the current design is not pleasing to the eye: I think a better design on the sides will make the whitespace less grating (for instance design 8 of the visual refinements. Having both a grey and then a white border does not look good. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The data is clear that limited width is best for readers. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As many others have hashed out, lines that are too long are hard to read. I have mixed feelings about the new theme, and limited width is the only change I support without reservation. The Quirky Kitty (talk) 14:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per best design practices. Gamaliel (talk) 15:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Established industry design practice.--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:18, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just because many others do it doesn't mean we have to. Part of the reason many websites limit width is so they have dedicated space for ads. Wikipedia does not have ads and hopefully never will. IWantTheOldInterfaceBack (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not part of the reason other websites use limited width. Even websites that have no ads use limited width. And because many other s do it does mean we should do it, that's how web design works.

Editors should appreciate that web design isn't about aesthetics. It's not about making the website look good. A web design is a user interface -- it's a tool used to allow human beings to operate computers. Like any tool, the optimum design is determined by testing, not by opinions. Professional Design 101 says that nobody ever makes a design decision based on what they personally like or don't like. All design decisions are made by testing, data, results, objective facts. And decades of this testing has determined that optimum line width is about 50-85 characters, which is why every publisher in the known world uses fixed widths, e.g. column display on widescreen, or whitespace gutters, or a combination. And this has been the case, again, for like almost 100 years now, I think. Open any book and behold the wide margins. Count how many characters per line if you want. Levivich (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich: I think this may be a hyperbolic representation of how things really are. Yes, optimal design should be based on testing, but not everything has been tested. Moreover, that what has been tested may be more ambiguous than you represent it.

I'm not at all an expert here, but isn't it the case that traditional printed encyclopedias used a larger page format than, say, novels or monographs, precisely to allow for greater text density? Yes, this text was spread in columns, which does not work well in a web interface, but it did have greater density, right? I believe that some of the research cited by the web team says that while limiting text width increases reading comprehension, it decreases reading speed. It's worse for quickly scanning a text for information, to 'look up things', because that benefits from being able to see more text and structural elements (paragraphs, line breaks, infoboxes, images, etc.) at once.

This seems to be the trade-off, it's not a one-way street. It may well be that reading comprehension is more important for the average Wikipedia reader than the speed of scanning the text and finding a specific bit of information, but I wouldn't be too sure about that. I think more specific research into the usage of encyclopedic text types is needed before we make this important shift. Then again, I'm very far from being an expert on this matter, and I would be happy to be shown wrong here.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

open any kind of book... read a newspaper...a magazine...the opposes of Vector 2010 don't have arguments for it. It was in front of our eyes all the time. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Industry design practice has been damaging software usability for at least a decade. The industry is out of touch with people that actually use their software. I've been using computers since DOS 2.0, and as far as I'm concerned, peak interface clarity and usability happened around Win2k, and has been downhill ever since.

As an example off the top of my head, Microsoft's move to the Ribbon in products like Microsoft Office was proven to be 50% slower for older users, and 17% slower for TEENAGERS.

If we keep listening to the "industry," we're going to have exclusively voice-activated toilets, and if that doesn't cause you existential horror, there's something wrong with you.

2601:645:0:41C0:D1A0:EB6A:A0C7:18BD (talk) 22:32, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)"Established industry design practice" Unlimited width is also an established design practice. Appeals to authority based on misinformation are just not helpful. TheMissingMuse (talk) 19:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - widespread, universal, long-time, established industry design practice, supported by decades of scientific research and testing. Levivich (talk) 16:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Fixed width presentation is decidedly NOT a universal, long-time, established industry design practice for software text presentation. Not only are there countless counter examples, there a numerous use cases on wikipedia itself where that design choice degrades the user experience. Most notably tables, infoboxes, and locale specific text presentations. TheMissingMuse (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per multiple reasons given above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because, and I don't think WMF really got into this, but right now editors are creating content for multiple platforms. A huge portion of the reader base is coming here on a smartphone. Then there's a substantial portion on tablets, many in portrait orientation. Another giant chunk on laptops. Another chunk on desktops with laptop-esque screens. Another chunk on desktops with ultra-wide screens. Another chunk on desktop with square or portrait screens. A big part of the problem with the narrow reading area for me, is when I go to an article with non-prose content, especially tables, that were clearly crafted in a wider display area. I think that means though, that Vector 2022 is highlighting a previously existing problem. Editors are most likely to edit on a wider screen than our average reader. In that sense, the places where a narrow display area really squishes the article are actually highlighting a problem that does need to be resolved. Overall, I'm not a fan of Vector 2022 but I don't think trying to roll back the skin bit by bit is a solution. What I believe would be even worse is some kind of midpoint Frankenstein between the two skins. The WMF have some kind of plan for the blank space on the right side of the screen that they are still working on. I would much rather them focus on getting that to testing.Rjjiii (talk) 22:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Opposeread a book, a newspaper or a magazine, the text width is narrower than our desktop since centuries. Maybe I am a bit old fashioned, but maybe thats the new modern. Back to the future...to renaissance humanism Paradise Chronicle (talk) 02:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This appears to be the main advantage 2022 has over 2010. Axem Titanium (talk) 02:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose per Paradise Chronicle above. The limited text width is an improvement. There is a reason why many major producers of written content online (like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, Semafor, Politico, and The Verge to name just a few) operate in limited columns.
ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 04:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
People don't use Wikipedia the way they use news websites. This decision should be made for Wikipedia usage. Narrow widths may make sense for shortform articles in online news publications, but to apply this standard to an encyclopedia soley because to fall in line with non-encyclopedias would not be a reasonable move.

WikEdits5 (talk) 06:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a false premise but fine, let's look at other encyclopedias. Oxford Research Encyclopedias, which comprises dozens of different encyclopedias (including Grove Music Online) uses a single, limited column. A random sample of five Springer encyclopedias I have access to showed that their entries are all organized in single, limited columns. The print versions of those five are also arranged in columns. Encyclopedia.com and Encyclopædia Britannica are laid out in (you guessed it) single, limited columns. Expanding the comparison to beyond just encyclopedias shows the same things - World Bank print publications are typically laid out in columns, as are many journals published by University of Chicago Press and many journals published by Taylor & Francis.

ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 21:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I agree with those above who say that web design decisions shouldn't be left to the opinions of amateurs. "Wikipedia equates the opinions on randoms on the internet with peer-reviewed knowledge" is usually a misconception that trainers like myself have to dispel, but discussions like this give the criticism some bit. What study have the supporters done of the human visual system? How are they making saccades across hundreds of characters when 65-70 characters is a well-recognised optimum? Wikimedia sites are made for human beings; if you swear your visual system works differently from the standard human one, fine: we respect that diversity! Log in and set a full-width skin, but let the default design presented to the world reflect actual research. MartinPoulter (talk) 13:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: as I said above ctrl-+ makes the white space a moot point. The benefits of the persistent TOC and the space-saving language button outweigh any negatives. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 17:34, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Please please please, listen to the UX experts that have put years of research and design work into this. Thank you! --Gnom (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User has COI for having connections to the WMF Transcleanupgal (talk) 20:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a nonsensical statement. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Text gets hard to read if it runs interminably wide. Limited text width has been good design for ages. Philbert2.71828 22:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose: We already developed a compromise to have it be toggleable. The data shows that this is a good change for readability. Just because WP:YOUDONTLIKEIT doesn't mean that you force your fear of change upon everyone. BappleBusiness^[talk] 22:57, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – There is already an option to have unlimited screen width on Vector 2022 to satisfy those who wish to use it, but unlimited width is annoying for widescreen monitors and users with certain disabilities. DecafPotato (talk) 23:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose – there is quite a lot of reasearch around optimal line lenght for reading. On top of that I would like to point out especially that it is not even possible to pass WCAG AAA without having a restricted width (WCAG says 80 characters is a maximum width) (correction: 80 characters limit is less solid then I thought, but thaere is a recomendation for 80 characters; "Lines should not exceed 80 characters or glyphs" [16]). I do hope that WP:NOTDEMOCRACY will prevail and that actual scientific research will be taken seriously. There is also a Reading Mode in Firefox with width constraint (and AFAIK there is something similar in Chrome too), but those are not interactive, so do not replace a proper layout for Wikipedia.
Nux (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not quite right with respect to WCAG. As stated in WCAG2.1 Technique C20 and Technique G204, the standard does not require developers to limit the maximum line width to 80 characters or less. The standard requires that websites are responsive to window sizing, such that if a user narrows their browser window, the website responds in such a manner that it does not interfere with text reflow and present horizontal scrollbars. The proper accessibility standard is to allow for the reader to decide on how many characters per line are presented based on how wide or narrow their browser window is.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Actually they do "For people with some reading or vision disabilities, long lines of text can become a significant barrier. They have trouble keeping their place and following the flow of text. Having a narrow block of text makes it easier for them to continue on to the next line in a block. Lines should not exceed 80 characters or glyphs (40 if ), where glyphs are the element of writing in the writing system for the text. Studies have shown that Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) characters are approximately twice as wide as non-CJK characters when both types of characters are displayed with characteristics that achieve the same readability, so the maximum line width for CJK characters is half that of non-CJK characters." Understanding SC 1.4.8 (WCAG)

Nux (talk) 01:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're linking to an older version of that text, the current version is here. I would also link to the relevant section of the current draft of WCAG3, however it does not yet have a recommendation on character limits per lines.

While the 2.1 guidance does state no more than 80 characters, the two techniques for actually implementing the guidance; C20 and G204 which I linked previously, both state that text should be responsive based on the user's browser width, and not interfere with text reflow as a user scales up or down their browser window. The purpose of the WCAG is to provide disabled readers with choices to meet their individual needs, instead of assuming that all readers have the same minimum needs. In practice this means that ideally there should be no prescribed minimum or maximum number of characters per line, as the website user can adjust their browser window size based on their reading device(s) and individual needs.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WCAG2.1 states exactly the same and WCAG 3.0 is clearly not released yet so I cannot comment on that. But that's beside the point. The recommendation are quite clear. And coincidently people with good eyesight also prefer smaller width to be able to read fast. For to wide text you have to move your head, not just your eyes. There are links provided by WMF too if you care to expand your knowledge. There have been studies around optimal width of text and found it is about 60-70 characters with max reaching 80 Readability: The Optimal Line Length, Baymard Institute, NANAVATI, A. A. et al, Optimal Line Length in Reading—a Literature Review. Visible Language, s. l., v. 39, n. 2, p. 121–145, 2005 (and more in the links provided by WMF). There are some variations with font size, margin width etc, but width should be below 80 for comfortable and fast reading.

Nux (talk) 01:43, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If your argument is that the new UI should be used because it limits content width to a max of 80 characters, then your understanding is wrong. Character limits vary based on desktop resolution size. At the resolution and scaling I use (3840x2160 @125%), the new Vector UI already blows way past that maximum character limit by showing about 140-150 characters per line. And that's with the content only using a third of my screen real estate. If you want a max line limit of 80 characters, you'd be asking for the whitespace problem to be even worse by restricting the content width to about half what was implemented for Vector 2022. Vector 2022 doesn't even follow the guidelines it's supposedly relying upon.

Trynn (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Technically the limit is 60em (see `mw-content-container` class). Yes, 60em is above 80 characters, but it is still a start. Also note that due to having infoboxes and images actual text column is smaller and about 100 characters. Yes, that is too big for WCAG AAA and I hope we can someday make a step to smaller width. Maybe with two column layout.

Nux (talk) 02:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I have read the research, I also have read the research linked at Line length#Electronic text, as well as other more recently published papers, and from that I know that there is no scientific consensus on the optimal line length when reading on a computer screen. Some research shows readers prefer a short line length of around 30 characters, and other research shows they prefer line lengths in excess of 100 characters. Current research shows there is no difference in comprehension between readers who prefer shorter or longer line lengths.

As for WCAG, again please look at the techniques for implementing the guidance, which I linked to in my first reply. The implementation notes for the guidance states that the guidance does not require a maximum line length of 80 characters, and that line length should be responsive based on the size of the browser window. This allows for websites to cater to readers whose ideal line length is both low and high, as it allows the reader to specify which line length they prefer.

Actually, now that I'm testing this more fully, Vector 2022 is actually in violation of this guideline's no minimum line length requirement, because it causes horizontal scrolling at around 70-73 characters per line, and will now allow the browser window to go any smaller than that. In this screenshot, the line length is at 80 characters per line. In this screenshot, the window will not scale any smaller horizontally, and the text width is 72 characters per line. The implementation notes for Technique G204 states that websites should not interfere with the reflow of text if the window is narrowed, and unfortunately Vector 2022 is preventing the reflow of text below that amount.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:16, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, can you point me to that "more recently published papers" that did large studies and shown that unlimited width is OK? I have access to the Wikipedia Library so anything you find there is fine for me to read. Note that I'm specifically interest in fast or comfortable reading of text not scanning for words. Different things. Also note that for those that prefer bigger width for reading there is an option in preferences. Anons can either register (takes about 1-2 minutes) or install Stylus.
Nux (talk) 02:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically with regards to unlimited width studies, I'm not aware of any. With only one exception that I can recall, which had counts of 347 and 240 CPL on some graphs but not elsewhere in the result, all studies I've read have maxed out at around 120-130 CPL. That said, and not citing anything that's already been cited at Line length:
This 2015 paper found that the preferred line length varied with age, with younger readers preferring longer lines (90 and 120 CPL about even), older and people with low vision preferring shorter lines (30 and 60 CPL about even), and with most participants preferring 90 CPL.

This 2012 study found that the participants preferred line lengths of between 60 and 90 CPL, but were fastest at reading 120 CPL. I'm wary of the conclusions on comprehension from this study though, as other studies have found line lengths in excess of 100 CPL to not affect comprehension (cited on Line length article).

This 2021 article (non-peer reviewed, but written by Dr Mary Dyson, one of the more prolific authors and experts in this area), points out some of the inconsistencies in findings on screen based line length research, and makes commentary on some interesting research on saccades published in 2019 and 2020 that conflicted with older research. It concludes with a suggestion that designers should challenge the conventional wisdom with regards to upper and lower line lengths and typesetting.
Unfortunately there hasn't been a review or meta-analysis paper that I'm aware of in this area since the mid 2000s, so I think we're a bit overdue for one. Overall though, the takeaway from this should not be that shorter lines are better than longer lines, or vice versa. Despite some research recommendations and common wisdom of 70-80 CPL as a maximum, there is evidence that some readers benefit and prefer lines as short as 40 CPL, with others preferring lines at least as large as 130 CPL. Therefore the takeaway should be that there is no research consensus on whether there should be an upper or lower limit. Speaking anecdotally, I'm most comfortable reading text between 200 and 300 CPL, dependent on font size, and I currently have Vector 2022 set up to allow that.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th thank you for that. Interesting research for tablets and with age-groups. The groups seems quite small (~20 participants per group), especially that it was a questionnaire... But the preference difference seems significant, which I find interesting.

However, taking into account the studies you cited, it is clear from them that by default the lines should still be limited and at best not larger than 120 cpl. Coincidently 60em that is set by WMF is actually about 120 characters. Not sure if they did that fully intentional ;), but it seems they made a good choice to set 120 characters limit.

So the default option set on new Vector is correct. It's good that there is an option to change width limitation, but there should be a width constraint by default.
Nux (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like we're talking in circles here!

With regards to CPL preference differences, there are also some older studies that show a similar preference distribution by age. The article by Dr Dyson cites, in the "Further doubt" section, a 1978 paper by Hartley et al., of children aged 11-13, who apparently preferred longer lines. Unfortunately this paper isn't available digitally as far as I can tell, so I've not been able to read it. There's also four papers cited in the "Line length on screen" section, some of which are cited on our Line length article, showing an inconsistent preference towards longer lines than recommended by conventional wisdom.
The groups seems quite small (~20 participants per group), especially that it was a questionnaire Most studies sadly, regardless of field, tend to have small groups. It's often expensive to get funding for larger groups, which puts them out of reach of many researchers. The major exception that I'm aware of is clinical trials in medicine, which can have group sizes in the low to mid hundreds.
With regards to characters to em units, there's no exact mapping from em to CPL, as the rendered size of 1em is relative with regards to the font-size being applied to the element, but it is not relative with regards to font-family. By default (ie, no font-size override set) 1em is the equivalent of 16 pixels on the user's device, regardless of what font-family they are using.
If you're targeting modern browsers, I believe you're better off specifying a ch value for max-width or min-width. That unit is always relative in size to the 0 glyph of the font-family that is being used to render the output on a user's device. Theoretically there's no technical reason why the WMF couldn't expose a setting to both logged in and logged out editors that would directly and accurately allow them to set an exact number of CPL, by giving them direct control of the ch value which is applied to the relevant max-width properties. The only real "gotcha" to watch out for with ch values is that some fonts like Helvetica or Georgia do not have fixed-width characters, so you will on occasion get uneven line justification. But again, the font-family could be exposed as a setting to the user, which gets applied at rendering time. Exposing either or both of these settings will not affect page caching, because CSS interpretation and rendering is always done on the user's device. If the WMF have considered this as an option though, and ruled it out, I would be interested to know why, as I've not seen it discussed on either of these two RfCs.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th "I feel like we're talking in circles here!" Are we? I was sure we arrived at the conclusion. You haven't found any good sources that would say unlimited width is good. Sources say that 120 cpl is good. New Vector default is very close to that. All is good, right?

People that want to stay anonymous can use Stylus. You seem to be a programmer. Stylus supports variables. You can write a style that is configurable with whatever cpl the user wants. Even with no authentication.

Nux (talk) 20:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we're talking in circles. We're interpreting the same evidence and reaching different conclusions based on it. My position is still that unlimited width is ideal, as there are users who prefer very long line lengths far in excess of 120 CPL. The research on whether there is an ideal CPL value, or a maximum CPL value for screen reading has not yet reached a consensus for either question.

Stylus is an option, one that I use daily to enforce dark-mode on websites that do not have native dark-mode support, but it is not without its own accessibility challenges. In order to take advantage of it, you either need to know how to write your own custom CSS rules and be comfortable with updating it whenever any regular maintenance or tweaks happen behind the scenes, or you're reliant on some other user of the website both making, maintaining, and releasing a style sheet that meets your needs.

The better option as I see it would be exposing two CSS properties in a settings widget (the ch value for max-width, and font-family value), similar in style to the patch being trialled by Jdlrobson in phab:T91201, that gives the user (whether logged in or out) direct control over the maximum number of characters per line. This would be instead of or supplementary to the straight on/off toggle for limited content width. This allows non-technical users to easily set an exact line length dependent on their needs, in a unit that is relative to the font being used to render the content.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think smart defaults means providing defaults that most of the people want. If you cannot agree on that then yes, further discussion is pointless.

As for Stylus -- there is a form for user options. There is just one thing to change and you are done.

Nux (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Smart defaults do not preclude ease of configuration and customisation.

There is just one thing to change and you are done. Ok, pretend for a moment you've never made a website before, maybe even never programmed anything before. How do you know there's a property to change that will fix the problem you are having? How do you know what that property is? How do you know what value to set that property to? Assuming you can figure out that there is a max-width property you can set, how do you make sure that you're only overriding it for the main content area, and not any of the other defined areas on the site like the TOC sidebar or header? How do you know that HTML tags have optional class or ID parameters? How do you know how to limit your max-width override to the specific subset of classes and IDs that only affect the primary content area?

Stylus is a good option, if you're a user with a technical background, and know how to write and modify HTML and CSS rules. But very few people actually have the technical background to do that. Most people don't have the requisite skills or background to do that however, and will very quickly give up in frustration if you say to them "Get this browser extension, and fix it yourself" and/or "Read the manual, here's a link".

Also I feel it's important to point out that the rather nifty looking form in the screenshot that is at the top of that documentation linked requires foreknowledge of both Stylus' preprocessor directives to create the form, and of StackOverflow's class names, ID names, and HTML attribute nesting to determine which those preprocessor directives will be applied to which element. It is not a one-click solution to make a similar form for Wikipedia. And while yes you can copy and paste that into a fresh Stylus install on your local machine, and hopefully have it work if they haven't redesigned the site since it was written, it will likely not work on other websites, which will almost certainly have different HTML attribute nesting and property names.

Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for reading mode. The research on narrower linewidth and readability is so extensive. An argument could be made for fullwidth in source editing templates where nested templates and functions where less line wrapping can sometimes make code easier to parse. Although IP editors can't change to vector'10. But this change has brought the interface up to standards that became the norm a decade ago, it's really not pushing anything desperately new. I've commented above on further improvements (like my person preference for emphasising references by placing them on the right rather than the bottom e.g. PNAS's layout), but wider content width would be a distinct downgrade for the average reader. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I was sceptical of the research around line length that was used as a rationale for the change, and it did take me a couple months to get used to the new skin (as I was accustomed to the older one), but I found that articles are much more readable with the short line length. Graham (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I prefer limited text width (though the width should be discussed), as it may help editors to set page layout for most of readers. A page has a good effect in 1280px width screen, but may seems ugly in 2048px. (Or vice versa, a wide table suit for 2048px is horrible for 1280px.)--Lopullinen 08:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Mostly for the same reason I opposed above. These decisions shouldn't be based on the personal design preferences of a small fraction of the audience that can easily just change the display in their personal wiki preferences. I guess this is fine as a petition to let the WMF know what that part of the audience thinks, but I'd caution those under the impression that an on-wiki poll like this will somehow be binding. As an aside, this is a proposal that doesn't even define what it's asking about. Is "unlimited text width" a subjective description based on "there's too much whitespace"? Is it a technical term? Does it refer to a specific CSS property? What are the implications for making the change? How does it interact with the other elements of design? Update: A clearer way to word this is "oppose" to the extent that this is trying to force a change; "neutral" as a way of providing feedback (anecdotally, people I've talked to mostly like the change, but I haven't talked to many people, and I personally don't have a strong opinion). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:28, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"These decisions shouldn't be based on the personal design preferences of a small fraction..." describes the shift to V22 as the default pretty well. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:51, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Something that was developed, repeatedly tested, with multiple stages of surveys/feedback, over three years is not "based on personal design preferences", regardless of whether you like the result or think they should've weighed editors' opinions more heavily. But you also left off part of the sentence, which is where I think you and I disagree most: you think that Wikipedians should be prioritized over readers when it comes to reader experience; I think readers should be prioritized over Wikipedians. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:12, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I absolutely think that readers should be prioritised over Wikipedians, or at least taken just as seriously as editors in discussions. However, the surveys and feedback were not open to everybody (I hadn't heard about them until V22 started to become big news in the community). The fact that we have IPs coming over here to discuss, IPs that are just average readers, shows that they too have a voice. This RfC provides a much more diverse and probably more comprehensive (if not more accessible) feedback to V22. We have over 300 participants, this has just as much weight as any pre-V22 survey, with discussion from both experts and normal readers. The IPs cannot change anything because they don't have preferences, which is why it's a positive thing to have their voices heard here. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Per my comments regarding text width in question #1. (NB: I work for WMF. I did not work on Vector 2022. I was not asked to post here by WMF. This is my opinion as a volunteer editor.) KindRowboat (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose my opinions here are basically the same as in why I support keeping Vactor 2022. I'd note that despite a lot of people claiming this is some sort of mobile centric focus, I definitely recall reading about such issues in the early days where widescreen monitors were starting to get more popular, before the iPhone existed. However I would strongly encourage the WMF to find a way they can allow unregistered editors to have a saved default preference regardless of the need for cookies and double caching. Nil Einne (talk) 18:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my comment in the main RfC, per the research underpinning the advantages of fixed-width over unlimited-width, per the WCAG guidelines and per the specific research and testing that the WMF has done with Vector 2022. — Bilorv (talk) 22:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the shorter line length is the main improvement over the old design, so no. This whole discussion got me to tweak the Vector 2022 design a little bit, here is my custom CSS, with larger text and system fonts. But keep the limited text width! Dan Phiffer (talk) 20:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As the research says, fixed width is better for readability. – SD0001 (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose assuming we are speaking of desktops, fixed width does improve the readability (there's a reason almost all of news sources have fixed width on their websites), but the user should have an intuitive option to make it wider, even if logged out. All of the functional buttons and links should be sticked at the left side (though also all should disappear if the user chooses so). What I definitely oppose is the current way of choosing (or rather, not choosing it): changing the blank space is not obvious or requires HTML/CSS/JS knowledge, users have to dig in preferences instead of having this on-screen and this option is not available for IPs. But once an easy toggle is done, this isn't that much of an issue.
Also, look up [17], [18] and [19]. Notice that the second one is way better readable than the first one, and the third one probably even more so. Also, even text files are wrapped to about 1/3 on screen size (on my computer). Still, to each their own, and if they want wide lines - the reader's wish should be WMF's command. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:09, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think casual readers will have a much harder time changing their user preferences to their benefit than experienced editors, so the burden to scavenge through settings and toggle the limited page width should not be on them. Among the changes made by Vector 2022, this is one of the most important in my opinion. Readability has improved greatly, and it's not even close. Throast ^{{{ping}} me!} (talk | contribs) 17:07, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Readability have gone worst with the huge white space being added. The language is more hidden and getting rid of the new skin requires creating an account. Why is this an Oppose? You are listing the problems with the new skin. Tarkalak (talk) 07:52, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It's much easier to read with a limited width, and this is supported by research. Betseg (talk) 05:05, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as per my comment in the main RfC. the wub "?!" 22:47, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose beyond WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT, there is actually something that can be said about improving readability of Wikipedia articles. As many editors and the WMF have pointed out, there is significant research that shows the effects of a forced-limited width. Vector 2010 made sense when it was deployed originally in 2009 because the screen sizes were lower resolution, a mix between 680 by 480 and 1280 by 720 screens, and the effect of the smaller screens (and larger fonts and scaling) means that Vector 2010 kind of already had a reasonable width that provides the correct information density. That doesn't work anymore; the information density when reading on Vector 2010 is way too low, making skimming difficult for reading comprehension. You also need to consider that some people have ultrawide monitors and utilize tools to tell their computer to treat two monitors like one big one, for these users Vector 2010 does not make much sense. At the end of the day, it is not about what people like, but about what is best for their understanding. A skin needs to work in all screen sizes, in all screen configurations, in all orientations, and Vector 2010 has demonstrated that it can't. Just zoom all the way out and maximize your window to see how ridiculous full width looks on an extremely ultrawide monitor. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 05:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any sources for these claims? I sincerely doubt there was any significant proportion of 640×480 screens in any developed country in 2009. Even in many developing countries like mine, CRT screens were well on the way out. If our article Display resolution is accurate, 640×480 was phased out on Windows in 2001, and 4K monitors were already being released in 2010-12. Daß Wölf 23:28, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The point I was trying to make was Vector 2010 worked well for its time, but it no longer works now. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 17:01, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That is just not true. T v x1 01:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Limited-width text is fairly standard for a reason. This is what many are already used to from most newspapers, online encyclopedias, etc. Those who think otherwise can customize this. MarioGom (talk) 08:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose strongly. For me, the most important improvement in V-2022 is the width restriction. As screens get wider, readability of articles gets worse and worse (after all, people reading articles is Wikipedia's primary mission). The amount of eye movement needed is very tiring. David Brooks (talk) 14:23, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You know, you can just resize your browser’s window or your screen’s resolution. T v x1 01:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my comment at the RfC above. Basically we should trust the research that limited width is better for readers. I appreciate the work done by the developers to make evidence-based improvements (and to track various measures of their efficacy). Ajpolino (talk) 16:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No we shouldn’t because the research was utterly flawed. T v x1 01:40, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The width restriction is what finally gives Wikipedia the polished appearance of high-quality publications. I read a lot, and the new page layout is definitely more comfortable for my eyes. SoupePrimordiale (talk) 18:23, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
'Oppose very much because it would go against the core principles of the new skin design. Or good design in general.50.239.155.90 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:41, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Luckily I saw this one, never thought there could be more than one request to vote or !vote or !vote-but-yeah per page. Anyway, per my comment above and everything that others have said, the skin comes as a whole. They've added a permanent width switch, all data suggest 5-6 inch long lines are much more readable than 12-15-infinitely long lines, etc. etc. 2604:CA00:17B:422:0:0:62:20DD (talk) 05:45, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Limited width seems right to me personally and is also reported as better in papers cited by User:Sideswipe9th further below. \ Aprovar (talk) 18:39, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I mean limited width is basically the biggest reason why this change was initiated, and why the tests done by the WMF have shown it to be a valuable new skin. Like many, I found it odd at first, but now I'm well used to it and I agree it improves readability. On the rare occasions when I need more width, the toggle button is right where I need it. In fact, I'd even propose the flipside of this - if the WMF do decide to go back to V2010, I hope they might make limited width be the default there and add a similar toggle button. We edit for the readers not our ourselves. — Amakuru (talk) 16:11, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Unlimited-width text is harder for most humans to read, which is why the change to limit it was made in the first place. For those who would prefer unlimited width mode, an option is already provided that supports that, but the harder-to-read mode should most definitely not be the default. 28bytes (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per others. Izno (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, takes some getting used to, but is worth it. The fact that research backs it is even more important tho. Dajasj (talk) 11:26, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - this is the most valuable part of Vector 22. Guettarda (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for research-backed reasons stated above, given that a full-screen button is already present on a page's main view and Wikipedia retains the preference, even for readers who are not logged in. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 02:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Let's go with the research rather than our own opinions, as we do for all other decisions on wikipedia. Galobtter (pingó mió) 01:19, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Now that the persistent wide-load control is working (even for readers), I'm not concerned with this. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:57, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Back to contents

Comments

Sub-rfc void - ~~Considering the low participation I expect this sub-rfc to get,~~ I don't see how any consensus here should or could affect the site-wide skin features. While I see how the community can vote on if the skin becomes the default or not, I remain unconvinced that the community should or could vote on specific features like this, especially (IIRC) the option to toggle the particular feature is possible. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 14:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also notice that this sub-RfC seems to be creating confusion in some users, who are voting here thinking that it is the main RfC. Æo (talk) 14:43, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: could vote -> could vote in a way that is binding. And if it is not, as that is the de facto state of the large rfc, there is no reason for this to 'double up' a previous, wider consensus. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 14:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not logged in, the toggle must be pressed on every single page, every single time you come here. For the vast majority who read Wikipedia without registering an account, it may as well not be there for all the good it does. --Kiz o r 15:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Kizor, I understand, but how does that affect the relationship between this RfC and the previous one? — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 16:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a WP:CENT-listed request for Comment. This question is neutral and brief, and I see no reason why the RfC is anything other than valid. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ixtal: Please don't poison the well by declaring the RFC "low participation" when it's only a few hours old. I will note that at my count, in less than a day, we've had over 50 comments. Don't know if the rates are going to decrease or not over the next few days, but even accounting for gradual slowdowns in participation, we're still likely to hit WP:200 or WP:300 levels in a week or so; that's pretty much the definition of a "High participation" RFC. I mean, vote how you want to vote, but don't tell everyone who hasn't voted yet "Don't bother, your vote doesn't matter". That's rude and uncalled for. Let people make up their own minds what they think, and don't try to nullify their opinions before they even give them. --Jayron 32 19:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Jayron32, I had not noticed that the RFC was this recent and will cross out the text about low participation. Thanks for pointing that out. Nonetheless, I still do not see how this subrfc would be binding and disagree that me stating that nullifies others' opinions. Additionally, I do not see voicing that opinion as being 'rude'. In my eyes, this question 2 should not have been asked until question 1 is closed, especially as the WMF is still tweaking the implementation of Vector2022. My doubts as to the standing us as editors have to make design decisions on specific features like text width still remains and if you are of the mind that not only question 2 is a valid rfc but that a consensus here would require the WMF to alter Vector2022's defaults I would really appreciate if you could expand on that in a reply. I greatly respect your thoughts on wiki matters and would like to better understand why and where we disagree :). Hope you enjoy the weekend. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 12:42, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral + Comment – the empty space issue doesn't actually seem that dramatic on my 16:9 1440p display with 125% upscale (so 2048×1152 effective resolution). Looking at the feedback by others on here, the issue seems more pronounced on higher resolutions like those of 2560px width. Perhaps a way to improve on that aspect is to introduce another level of content width limitation for those higher resolutions - i.e. have a default level 1 shorter width (like, 1800px) for medium resolutions like 16:9 1080p, and then a default level 2 content width (like, 2200px) for high resolutions. It's good that the colour light grey has been chosen for the empty space on the sides, rather than plain white that a lot of websites seem to use. AP 499D25 (talk) 10:06, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Irrelevant - this is a survey of editors, and those users sufficiently familiar with Wikipedia to comment on its internal workings (indeed competent to find this discussion in the first place). This sort of decision needs to be based on feedback from readers, i.e. through a formal survey, not a straw poll. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:49, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. Many of the contributors here actually are readers who regoistered in order to participate. T v x1 01:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I literally registered so I can get rid of this horrible change. Tarkalak (talk) 07:45, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tarkalak, but not all readers share your opinion. — Qwerfjkl talk 16:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not all readers share any single opinion. Tarkalak (talk) 21:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. — Qwerfjkl talk 12:11, 12 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dead simple choice for the devs. In a single-digit number of keystrokes, silence 80–85% of complainants, pretend to have acknowledged user input, and be ready to get back to work on whatever else it is nobody asked for or wanted. What's not to love? 172.58.30.177 (talk) 04:28, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Next step: remove the old skin as an option. Tarkalak (talk) 07:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Monobook 5lyfe! Sent from a mobile device in a van on top of a hill where I have signal. Who has a desktop monitor in this economy?
{I would like to sort the comments,
would you please use one of above sections?
Steue (talk) 16:47, 24 January 2023 (UTC) }[reply]
Done. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion

Moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rollback of Vector 2022/Discussion

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References

^ "Privacy policy". Wikimedia Foundation. 25 June 2021.

[1] "Privacy policy". Wikimedia Foundation. 25 June 2021.

[1]