It might be easier to revamp the skin system if there were fewer skins to port.
- Trevor
On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 6:48 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Tomasz Finc wrote:
On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Jon Robson jdlrobson@gmail.com wrote:
Why is Cologne Blue still in core?
A good time to revist
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Turning_off_outdated_skins
and re-run
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Turning_off_outdated_skins/stats
Tomasz' links are relevant, but it's on the associated talk page that there's a hint of the real reason this happened: Cologne Blue was originally slated for execution, but MatmaRex (an active developer) stepped up and agreed to maintain it.
Stats would be helpful here, though I disagree with the general premise: most of the old skins were fine to kill because they sucked, they weren't used very much, and/or they weren't maintained. However that does _not_ mean that we should only have one or two skins. Instead, the skinning system should just suck a lot less: it should be easier to add or remove a pre-made skin, it should be easier to customize a skin (site-wide), it should be easier to create a new skin, it should be easier for users to change their skin, and any additional skins we ship with MediaWiki should be more attractive and should cleanly support extensions.
In addition to unfairly limiting user choice, site configurability, and site customizability, the current skins system also encourages confusion between Wikipedia and non-Wikimedia wikis. In other words, if it weren't so dreadful to change MediaWiki's skin, there would presumably be reduced user confusion. As it is, almost every MediaWiki wiki looks the same.
MZMcBride
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