[If $wgRelatedArticlesShowInFooter is falsy, then RA won't show in the footer.](https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-extensions-RelatedArticles/blob/master/includes/FooterHooks.php#L122)

We want to run an A/B test on a wiki project's desktop site to see if the engagement rate is higher when the audience includes anonymous readers.

I suggest that we create a task for exactly this when we want to do it, otherwise we run the risk of creating tasks enumerating the myriad things our software doesn't do /cc @ovasileva

^ The above being said, thanks for taking the time to highlight this.

I wrote the task as I found it confusing during the code review process. I would have preferred for us to fix it at the time it was highlighted as now I worry this will never get fixed, which is a shame that we've built something that is not easy for 3rd parties to use. I see this as technical debt that we've acquired for ourselves.

Hopefully, we will be forced to tackle this when disabling on beta on various projects. When that happens the extension will only show cards at the bottom of the Minerva skin at which point we might question why it's in its own extension at all.

Change 326238 had a related patch set uploaded (by Phuedx):
Do not disable footer feature when BetaFeatures is not installed

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/326238

Change 326238 merged by jenkins-bot:
Do not disable footer feature when BetaFeatures is not installed

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/326238

@Jdlrobson: With my answer to T146436#2673202 and rERAR3cf6d638f7bb: Do not disable footer feature when BetaFeatures is not installed having been merged – thanks again @Tgr! – I think that this task can be resolved.

@phuedx nope.
It's still not possible to enable RelatedPages on desktop if you have the BetaFeatures extension installed.

return !class_exists( 'BetaFeatures' ) || BetaFeatures::isFeatureEnabled( $user, 'read-more' );

If BetaFeatures is not installed this evaluates as
!false ||

If BetaFeatures is not installed this will evaluate as:
!true || <true or false>

I've updated the acceptance criteria and https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RelatedArticles#Configuration to explain better.

Change 335864 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson):
Allow more control for skins should show Related pages as beta feature

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/335864

^ and there's an attempt to try and clean this up.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/335864 makes implementation of T146436 easier.

Both the current config variables and those proposed in rERARfdb9cac2e409: Allow more control for skins should show Related pages as beta feature suffer from the same issue: they couple whether or not the feature should be enabled with when it can be shown. AFAICT the feature is enabled by default unless the Beta Features extension is installed, in which case it's enabled if the user has enabled it via the Special:Preferences page.

Strawman Config Variables

• wgRelatedArticlesFooterBetaFeature – whether the footer feature is enabled as a beta feature. If this is true and the Beta Features extension isn't installed, then an exception should be thrown.

FooterHooks::isFeatureEnabled now becomes something like:

private static function isFeatureEnabled( User $user ) {
  $config = self::getConfig();
  $isBetaFeature = $config->get( 'RelatedArticlesFooterBetaFeature' );

  if ( !$isBetaFeature ) {
    return true; // Enabled by default.
  }

  self::assertBetaFeaturesExtensionInstalled(); // Or whatever...

  return BetaFeatures::isFeatureEnabled( $user, 'read-more' );
}

This isn't the cleanest it could be IMO but refactoring FooterHooks is out of scope for this task.

• wgRelatedArticlesFooterSkinWhitelist – skins that are allowed to display the footer feature.

FooterHooks::shouldShowFeature now becomes something like:

private static function isFeatureAllowed( Skin $skin ) {
  $config = self::getConfig();
  
  return in_array( $skin->getName(), $config->get( 'RelatedArticlesFooterSkinWhitelist' ) );
}

private static function shouldShowFeature( User $user, Skin $skin ) {
  if ( !self::isFeatureEnabled( $user ) || !self::isFeatureAllowed( $skin ) ) {
    return false;
  }

  // ...
}

I've moved this to Needs Analysis to reflect that we need to talk about how we're intending on deploying the footer feature on desktop and mobile before we start making changes to how it's configured /cc @ovasileva

Clearly not triaged but future :)

Change 335864 abandoned by Jdlrobson:
Allow more control for skins should show Related pages as beta feature

Reason:
Pending discussion on task.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/335864

Change 344723 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson):
[mediawiki/extensions/RelatedArticles@master] Remove Related Articles form desktop beta features

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/344723

Change 344723 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/RelatedArticles@master] Remove Related Articles from desktop beta features

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/344723