While trying to workaround T160914, it seemed it was not direct and 100% obvious how to disable a certain Special page from the code. Having a "kill-switch" would allow people non familiar with the code "first incident responders" to quickly deploy a configuration option to disable specific functionality that can be done without huge code refactorings. I am specially thinking of 2: special pages- that can contain complex functionality, and api calls.
Those would only be enabled in an emergency for the reliability of the site.
As the scope of this ticket is very large, it is reduced in the following way:
- Agree, if that is true, to document that requirement on mediawiki.org guidelines as enforced for new code functionality "any new functionality has to have an easy kill switch"
- Set up a similar way to do if for every functionality (similar option name, same http return code, helper functions to do that, etc.)
- If it exists already, publicize it in on operations documentation so ops are aware of those switches without looking at the entire code
- See if it is feasible to implement for special pages and api calls, and delineate a plan- without necessarily executing it