Dear all
I'm sharing the text of an email I've received this evening from the Wikimedia Foundation, who have asked me (and other Affiliate leaders) to spread the word amongst our communities about a new skin for the English Wikipedia, which will be deployed next week.
Wishing you all a great weekend.
Lucy
After many years of work, community conversations, and completing the changes specified by the consensus of the Request for Comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deployment_of_Vector_(2022), the *Vector 2022 skin* is finally ready for deployment as the default desktop skin on English Wikipedia. The deployment is scheduled for January 18th, at 15:00 UTC.
Vector 2022 is a skin https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skins developed between 2019 and 2023 by the Wikimedia Foundation Web team https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web with the goal of making the interface more welcoming and usable for readers and maintaining utility for existing editors. It introduces changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deployment_of_Vector_(2022)/More_about_Vector_(2022)#New_features to the navigation and layout of the site, adds persistent elements (such as a sticky header and Table of Contents), and makes changes to the overall styling of the page. Currently, the skin is the default on more than 300 projects of various sizes, accounting for about 1.5 billion page views per month. On English Wikipedia, it is the most popular non-default skin, with more active editors using it than any other non-default skin (Monobook, Timeless, etc).
While these changes will provide a much better experience for Wikipedia readers and contributors (and a cleaner interface will make work easier for community developers and staff working on the website in the future), they’ll also help to remove barriers to the Wikimedia movement. The new Wikipedia desktop marks the start of an ongoing process of user empowerment and improvements across the entire Wikimedia ecosystem, as well as an exciting and meaningful step in furthering Wikimedia’s knowledge as a service and knowledge equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity efforts. An easier-to-navigate Wikipedia will help more users, regardless of their tech literacy or familiarity with the platform, to access and contribute to free knowledge.
You will find more information about the project on the landing page on English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vector_2022. There are instructions on how to turn the skin off as well as information about what will happen on the day of deployment. You can also read more about the Desktop Improvements Project on the project page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements and our FAQ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Frequently_asked_questions.
I've opted in a few months ago. It took a little bit of time to get used to, but once I was in the groove of it, I found that the new skin tied in better with how we do everything else with a browser in the 2020s. --Deryck
On Fri, 13 Jan 2023 at 21:00, Lucy Crompton-Reid < lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Dear all
I'm sharing the text of an email I've received this evening from the Wikimedia Foundation, who have asked me (and other Affiliate leaders) to spread the word amongst our communities about a new skin for the English Wikipedia, which will be deployed next week.
Wishing you all a great weekend.
Lucy
After many years of work, community conversations, and completing the changes specified by the consensus of the Request for Comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deployment_of_Vector_(2022), the *Vector 2022 skin* is finally ready for deployment as the default desktop skin on English Wikipedia. The deployment is scheduled for January 18th, at 15:00 UTC.
Vector 2022 is a skin https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Skins developed between 2019 and 2023 by the Wikimedia Foundation Web team https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web with the goal of making the interface more welcoming and usable for readers and maintaining utility for existing editors. It introduces changes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Deployment_of_Vector_(2022)/More_about_Vector_(2022)#New_features to the navigation and layout of the site, adds persistent elements (such as a sticky header and Table of Contents), and makes changes to the overall styling of the page. Currently, the skin is the default on more than 300 projects of various sizes, accounting for about 1.5 billion page views per month. On English Wikipedia, it is the most popular non-default skin, with more active editors using it than any other non-default skin (Monobook, Timeless, etc).
While these changes will provide a much better experience for Wikipedia readers and contributors (and a cleaner interface will make work easier for community developers and staff working on the website in the future), they’ll also help to remove barriers to the Wikimedia movement. The new Wikipedia desktop marks the start of an ongoing process of user empowerment and improvements across the entire Wikimedia ecosystem, as well as an exciting and meaningful step in furthering Wikimedia’s knowledge as a service and knowledge equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity efforts. An easier-to-navigate Wikipedia will help more users, regardless of their tech literacy or familiarity with the platform, to access and contribute to free knowledge.
You will find more information about the project on the landing page on English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vector_2022. There are instructions on how to turn the skin off as well as information about what will happen on the day of deployment. You can also read more about the Desktop Improvements Project on the project page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements and our FAQ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Frequently_asked_questions.
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid (she/her) Chief Executive _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
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