Background

Vector 2022 has been the default skin on Wikimedia wikis for over 2 years for all projects except Russian. The time has come to remove the "opt out" button. Of course, people can still opt out via preferences, but anyone wishing to opt out has had more than enough time to do so. Some projects are already hiding this via site CSS.

For Russian Wikipedia, we will use a gadget to manage the migration when that happens.

This is becoming pressing as we roll out IP masking as this feature was not built with that in mind (T398703: Temporary Accounts see option to "Switch to old look" which doesn't do anything)

User story

As a user who has only ever used Vector 2022 I don't want to be actively encouraged to use a lesser supported skin.

Requirements

• We communicate the change to communities
• The switch to old look button and associated code is removed.
• Messages are removed

BDD

Feature: Remove “Switch to old look” link from Vector 2022

Scenario: Vector 2022 no longer displays the opt-out link
  Given I open English or Russian Wikipedia using Vector 2022
  When the page loads
  Then the “Switch to old look” link is not visible in the footer, sidebar, or menus
  And the page layout remains unchanged

Test Steps

Test Case 1: Verify link removal on enwiki and ruwiki

1. Open English Wikipedia and Russian Wikipedia using Vector 2022.
2. Inspect the footer, sidebar, and menus on both wikis.
3. AC1: The “Switch to old look” link is not visible anywhere on either site.
4. AC2: The message key MediaWiki:Vector-opt-out is no longer displayed or active.
5. AC3: Page layout and footer structure remain unchanged on both wikis.

QA Results - Prod

Design

Before:
{F65961534}
After:
{F65961538}

Acceptance criteria

• Add acceptance criteria

Communication criteria - does this need an announcement or discussion?

• Before the change we'll communicate to communities that this is happening - please give @EBlackorby-WMF a week of lead time before the change goes live

Rollback plan

• What is the rollback plan in production for this task if something goes wrong?

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