On 10 December 2015 at 17:12, Jon Robson jrobson@wikimedia.org wrote:
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]
Hmm. That's an odd bug. I'm pretty sure it didn't used to work if it wasn't in the whitelist at all, not merely partially. Thanks for the bug report, and I see you've filed it as https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T121182. Thank you; I'll see if we can get it fixed PDQ.
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.
Yeah, this is my fault, sorry. Each of them has an update from the dates lists, but I haven't updated them and clearly neither had anyone else. :-)
I've done a commit to update the dates here – https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/258409 – but you're right, I've also been far too lax in letting un- and semi-developed ideas scrape along for too long; sorry.
Will they live here forever - or is it time to talk about beta features?
Beta Features was always for high-ish quality features which we wanted to give our users a taste of ahead of release, reworking, or killing them off. It is not and must not be a graveyard of discarded ambitions. The six month "deadline" was our attempt to make sure it didn't turn into that, but it requires someone (me) to actually do so, and I clearly haven't. :-( I'll get the teams of each overdue feature to respond as to whether we're killing them or improving them.
J.