What is the problem statement here? I know these things are different, but what problems does that cause?

In T236608#5611623, @Jdlrobson wrote:

What is the problem statement here? I know these things are different, but what problems does that cause?

I mean a red link indicates that the page doesn't exist. In current MinervaTalkAtTop tab, non-existent pages are not colorized. How one is supposed to see if an associated page doesn't exist without visiting the page first? If we colorize the links in the tab, it would save us the trouble to going to the associated page.

If the tabs were not red links (and didn't throw you into the editor) would they still be problematic?

I've always been unsure about throwing people into the editor unless they explicitly ask to edit.

In T236608#5619755, @Jdlrobson wrote:

If the tabs were not red links (and didn't throw you into the editor) would they still be problematic?

I've always been unsure about throwing people into the editor unless they explicitly ask to edit.

No, not really. They are not problematic but it's kinda annoying to get automatically directed to the editor. I just want something to detect non-existent talk pages.

So it sounds like the red link acts as an indicator to tell you 1) if there are any topics and 2) let you engage in the talk page.

Yes. It also helps to detect orphaned talk pages (where the associated main page doesn't exist).

Per T54165 conversation

Agree that it's confusing and undesirable that you can't tell if the page exists or not. It adds to the confusion of newcomers, or if we want to show the link to everyone, but it also makes it more difficult to navigate even if you've been around for a long time and know Wikipedia well.

(To add to the discussion above, it is problematic that you can't tell and then you're thrown directly into the editor if you're not used to Wikipedia so you don't get what's going on, but currently that's mainly just a problem on Swedish Wikipedia, which has requested testing having the talk page tab to be visible to everyone, even though there are still things to work out.)

Well all I know is if on desktop, redlinks now looked the same as non-redlinks, there would be an uproar.

Sure, but this is not desktop. The mobile site only added talk recently (2 years ago as part of the Advanced Mobile Contributions project). Previously the feature wasn't available. This is a confusing experience, but this work hasn't been prioritized. More strategic work is being focused on right now which may address this in future - particularly with how we build menus in skins consistently.

Locally adding to the Minerva skin css is an option:

.minerva__tab.new,
.minerva__tab.new:visited {
	color: #dd3333;
}

Change 731293 had a related patch set uploaded (by Inductiveload; author: Inductiveload):

[mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue@master] Make missing links in tabs red like all other skins

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/731293

Change 731293 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/MinervaNeue@master] Make missing links in tabs red like all other skins

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/731293

Looks as expected to me: https://en.m.wikisource.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Index:Wind_in_the_Willows_(1913).djvu

for articles that exist this looks good:

when the article does not yet exist, I'm not sure if both tabs should be red. what do people think (cc @RHo)? the first tab (Article) is in its selected state, so maybe the black would make more sense? in Vector the Article tab is black even when the article does not exist.

Vector for reference:

current patch	alternative

In T236608#7448973, @alexhollender wrote:

for articles that exist this looks good:

when the article does not yet exist, I'm not sure if both tabs should be red. what do people think (cc @RHo)? the first tab (Article) is in its selected state, so maybe the black would make more sense? in Vector the Article tab is black even when the article does not exist.

Vector for reference:

current patch	alternative

hi @alexhollender - fwiw I tried this on enwiki at first and did get redlinks on both article and discussion – then realised after checking a couple more wikis that on legacy Vector it is both red links:

enwiki	cswiki	on frwiki New Vector	on frwiki switched to Legacy Vector

Given this, and since the ticket is about adding making the content page a red link to more clearly signal when it doesn't exist, it probably makes sense to have article as red link as well. And as an aside, Minerva should probably have a more overt way to signal how to create the new page here. I know it is to tap the edit pencil icon, but it would be better if it matched the Vector action copy to "Create" rather than "Edit", and potentially the icon might be changed to something else that better conveys "create new":

Current Minerva with edit label showing as "edit"

Potential update to icon and label

Change 734353 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson; author: Jdlrobson):

[mediawiki/core@master] Selected links should not be red.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/734353

Change 734353 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Selected links should not be red.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/734353

Test Result - Beta

Status: ✅ PASS
Environment: beta
OS: macOS Big Sur
Browser: Chrome
Device: MBP
Emulated Device: NA

Test Artifact(s):

QA Steps

✅ AC1: Selected tab should not be red. See T236608#7454856