Per Diwas:
"https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178976 is with the New wikitext mode, not the WYSIWYG mode. Be sure that beta feature New wikitext mode and Spezial:Einstellungen#mw-prefsection-editing: Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta are checked. You will be have only one edit link Edit, but not Edit source. The Link Edit will start the New wikitext mode. But with a redirect page it will open the target page, not the redirect page."

I can finally reproduce this issue.
Previously also reported at mw.org.

That sounds like it's a separate issue; the original report specifically mentions the visual editor.

I can file a separate task if you really need one...

In T178976#3848586, @Elitre wrote:

I can file a separate task if you really need one...

No, I'll take care of it! My comment before was a drive-by when I didn't have the time to do it. :-)

There was also T156042.

Here's the other task: T183270: When trying to edit a redirect page, the 2017 wikitext editor opens the target (destination) page instead if the user has opted out of visual editor

(Also FWIW I think I understand that the issue was actually not in VE in the first place, but what matters is that we're aware of the issue.)

In T178976#3851080, @Elitre wrote:

(Also FWIW I think I understand that the issue was actually not in VE in the first place, but what matters is that we're aware of the issue.)

Yes, based on the comments of Diwas on dewiki, that seems to be the case. I will merge the extra task I created into this one, and retitle it.

This issue came up again today on the German-language Wikipedia's VE feedback page: Permalink.

Is there any hope that this will be fixed soon? What can we tell our community?

In T178976#4101639, @Cirdan wrote:

This issue came up again today on the German-language Wikipedia's VE feedback page: Permalink.

Is there any hope that this will be fixed soon? What can we tell our community?

This issue needs to be resolved at some point, but I don't have a timeline for when it will be worked on.

In T178976#4101938, @Deskana wrote:

This issue needs to be resolved at some point, but I don't have a timeline for when it will be worked on.

Would it at least be possible to add a warning/notification until then? The VE does not have this issue, it is only the new Wikitext mode, which as far as I understand is built on the same foundation, so to me it seems strange that this is hard to fix.

This issue comes up regularly and sadly, but understandably drives editors away from the new Wikitext editor.

There is some bug in init code, where in this particular configuration (multi-tab mode, VE disabled, NWE enabled), we don't register a click event on the "Edit" tab, so it functions as just a regular link (reloading the page, instead of immediately opening NWE), and a regular link to ?veaction=edit functions incorrectly due to T181110.

The init code is gnarly because of how many different config options and preferences we have, so this would require a lot of care to avoid causing some new issue (e.g. accidentally enabling VE when it's supposed to be disabled). Luckily, T181110 is much more straightforward to fix, and that should remove most of the annoyance caused by this problem (the bug will be just that loading NWE will be slower than it's supposed to).

Change 568150 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; owner: Bartosz Dziewoński):
[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Fix tab initialization if NWE is enabled but VE is disabled

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/568150

I was investigating another initialization bug (T243723) and accidentally discovered the fix for this in the process.

Change 568150 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Fix tab initialization if NWE is enabled but VE is disabled

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/568150

Sorry, I forgot to move this.

QA steps:

• Test on English Wikipedia
• In your preferences, disable VisualEditor (Editing → Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta), then enable new wikitext editor (Beta Features → New wikitext mode)
• Go to any page and click "Edit"

Previously, clicking the "Edit" tab would refresh the whole page, then load the editor. Now, it should load the editor immediately.

@ppelberg will test this task

In T178976#6565748, @JTannerWMF wrote:

@ppelberg will test this task

Working as described in T178976#5905265.