Editing Project:Village pump (proposals) (section)

=== Daß Wölf's comments ===
* Changing skins is unworkable for non-logged-in users since <code>?useskin=</code> switches are reset every time you click on a link. They should be made more permanent, through cookies for instance. You can see this for yourself by logging out and visiting a Wikipedia that uses the new interface, e.g. the [[:fr:|French Wikipedia]]. The option to return to the old skin also isn't shown to unregistered and logged-out users, who are the ones who need it the most (since they're much less likely to know about our [[query string]] tricks). IMO it would be best to follow Reddit's practice (see [https://new.reddit.com][https://www.reddit.com][https://old.reddit.com]) and let users switch between skins in an easy an obvious way with something like https://en.new.wikipedia.org and https://en.old.wikipedia.org. <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 15:56, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
*:I wish this idea would garner some interest. We're one of the most viewed sites on the internet and obviously we'd be alienating many readers, just as we'd be accommodating many. This small step for a $150&nbsp;million organisation would easily avoid moving an (in absolute numbers) large amount of our readers to Wikipedia mirrors. We're really focused on trying to create the perfect skin, when any single design will always drive away somebody. We have to be more flexible here. <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 05:06, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
*::@[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß Wölf]], what is your claim based on?  My understanding of the research around site appearance changes (which is mostly not Wikipedia-specific) is that most frequent users dislike noticeable changes, some complain, and a few weeks later, even the people who complained about it usually can't tell you how the old site differs from the new one.  
*::I also understand that the last time the English Wikipedia's default skin was changed, it had no significant effect on page view traffic to the desktop site.  If you have found any good research showing that changing the site appearance alone (and not, e.g., removing tools people needed – an incompatible gadget delayed my own transition from MonoBook to Vector 2010 by months) drives away an appreciable number of readers, then I'd be very interested in reading it. 
*::P.S.  You might be interested in https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage  This is the real "en.old.wikipedia". [[User:Whatamidoing (WMF)|Whatamidoing (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF)|talk]]) 04:44, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
*:::{{ping|Whatamidoing (WMF)}} If that's true, then why is https://old.reddit.com still so popular (~1/6 of desktop views 3 years since the switch)? [https://old.reddit.net/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/m2615l/what_percentage_of_redditors_still_use_the_old/] <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 20:29, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
*:::I was reading Wikipedia when the main page looked like that.  I miss it.  But then, I still use a frankensteinian emulation of the Standard skin without side column, shoehorned into the now-also-obsolescent-and-soon-to-be-discarded Cologne Blue, so what do users like me matter.  Some day, they'll come for your Monobook, too. —[[User:Cryptic|Cryptic]] 00:08, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
* Regarding the skin itself, I see nothing has been done to make the skin look better on wide screens. How about letting the user set the page width (ideally in a noJS-accessible way) and/or a picture-in-picture sort of preview in the right !ad-banner space for [[WP:NAVPOPS]]? <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 15:56, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
*:@[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß Wölf]] while it only applies to logged-in users, we have an experimental gadget to widen the view you could try. — [[User:Xaosflux|<span style="color:#FF9933; font-weight:bold; font-family:monotype;">xaosflux</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Xaosflux|<span style="color:#009933;">Talk</span>]]</sup> 16:11, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
*: There any several (many?) user scripts to fix the width issue. It really would be better if ''full width'' was just a standard [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering|Skin preference]] — [[User:GhostInTheMachine|GhostInTheMachine]] <sup>[[User talk:GhostInTheMachine|talk to me]]</sup> 16:19, 7 August 2022 (UTC)
*::I agree completely, but it would be even better to have this setting somewhere on the page, perhaps more prominently than the way the "Desktop view"/"Mobile view" link is buried right now. User scripts and [[Special:Preferences]] are well and good, but they do nothing for the vast majority of Wikipedia's users, who do not edit nor have accounts. <span style="font-family:Garamond,Palatino,serif;font-size:115%;background:-webkit-linear-gradient(red,red,red,blue,blue,blue,blue);-webkit-background-clip:text;-webkit-text-fill-color:transparent">[[User:Daß Wölf|Daß]] [[User talk:Daß Wölf|Wölf]]</span> 05:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)