So I enabled a beta feature today that is part of reading web's
quarterly goals (read more about read more here if interested [1])
When enabled it showed up in desktop beta features (yey) but the
JavaScript module wasn't loading...
Investigating I discovered that BetaFeatures::isEnabled consults a
config variable called wgBetaFeaturesWhitelist
This makes the feature return false if the feature is not in
wgBetaFeaturesWhitelist
Apparently however you make the feature show up in the
GetBetaFeaturePreferences hook - so the whitelist doesn't actually
apply to things we show to users (which I would say would be more
important...) [2]
The whitelist also asks when enabling to check with James Forrester and Greg
and to note a date 6 months after the last major change. According to
these comments all the listed beta features have passed their expiry
dates.
Will they live here forever - or is it time to talk about beta features?
[1]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Read_more
[1]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T121182