VE is still in beta on Wikimedia Commons.

I agree that we should change it. Current wording implies two things which are not true:

• That visual editor is in beta – it's not, it's stable software. (It's treated as a Beta Feature on some wikis, like Wikimedia Commons, because it lacks features for editing the content of those wikis – but the preference we're discussing does not appear on those wikis anyway.)
• That this preference is temporary – it is not, we're not going to make it impossible to disable the visual editor for yourself.

I suggest to improve this in two steps, solving the two issues mentioned above separately:

1. Let's get rid of the confusing word "beta" first. Suggestion: "Temporarily disable the VisualEditor while it's being developed". Or even simpler: "Temporarily disable the VisualEditor".
2. If we can agree that the word "temporary" is always wrong, we can change it to "Do not offer the VisualEditor to edit articles".

Note that that message is displayed when using the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ anywhere on any page (and in any namespace, including the main namespace). It then generates a "Start a new section" button linked to "Special:NewSection/(pagename)" that will start the new editor (featuring both the Visual Editor and the Code editor) without leaving the viewed page.

But that editor assumes that it will generate a signed talk, and even in the Code Editor mode, the user signature will be implicitly appended at end of the last non-empty line (after an implicit space, and dated, possibly using the custom signature defined in user preferences if it has been set and is accepted by containing at least an active link to the user page or user talk page, otherwise it will use a default signature scheme).

If we were using the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic keyword in a content space (e.g. a Wikipedia article, or a project pages, help pages, or portal pages) the user signature should not be present there. May be it's a case for having a separate magic keyword __NEWTALKSECTIONLINK__ to be used in such project pages where the user signature is expected, otherwise, there's no way to remove that dummy signature that would need to be removed in a separate edit (using the standard "Edit" tab at top of the page to make a full page edit).

On talk namespaces however both keywords could be equivalent, showing that the user signature will be effectively implicitly added.

The alternative would be a __NEWCONTENTSECTIONLINK__ magic keyword to create an unsigned section. These magic keywords could still use the new "in-page" editor (with its two edit modes) and could be generating the same "Start a new section" button linked to "Special:NewSection", but the rendered link could pass extra parameters, to specify which code will be implicitly prepended (e.g. the section title, or a leading asterisk for lists in votes, not necessarily a new "section" at end of page) or appended (e.g. a space and the four tildes for the dated signature), or specify a different wording for the button (e.g. "Vote")

@Verdy_p I think you posted this on the wrong task?

Proposed simple, translatable text:

Turn off the visual editor

Change 916501 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Rephrase visual editor disable preference label

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/916501

Change 916501 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/VisualEditor@master] Rephrase visual editor disable preference label

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/916501