We'll be doing a blog post and other (on-wiki) messages, but I wanted people on this list to hear earlier that we're close to having a new look for account creation and login in MediaWiki core. The first launch of this will be on an opt-in basis for testing by editors on their home wiki, and we're shooting for at least login to be ready by the next MediaWiki release on Monday. 

Right now, you can test a version of both on our Labs instance, http://piramido.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page, by applying the URL parameter &useNew=1 to either account creation or login. Please let me know if you have any questions or encounter a bug. One key item to note is that localization is likely complete yet. 

For background: this redesign is a product of testing by the Editor Engagement Experiments team of the account creation form over several months.[1][2] Our latest design is based on those A/B test results and subsequent internationalization needs. We're also applying the same design principles to the login page, in order to make them look and feel consistent. There's more detail in our specification on mediawiki.org.[3]

Thanks!

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