Change 203307 had a related patch set uploaded (by Glaisher):
Add a preference option to disable sandbox link

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/203307

Hmmmm, so when this feature was a site-wide JavaScript gadget, users could opt out. Now that it's become a MediaWiki extension, opt-out isn't as easy.

We really want to avoid user preferences like this. What are other alternatives?

My opinion is that this should be declined. We don't have options to hide the link to watchlist or user talk page, even thought some users surely don't use those.

For what it's worth, that village pump discussion doesn't seem to warrant a user preference.

I lost some passages. Why was this extension turned on in the English Wikipedia? I thought it would only be enabled on wikis where the link was already forced on all users.

Ok, I probably disabled the default gadget so long ago that I forgot about it. The red link is certainly annoying.

In T95669#1197443, @matmarex wrote:

My opinion is that this should be declined. We don't have options to hide the link to watchlist or user talk page, even thought some users surely don't use those.

I agree. However, my only hang-up is that this is technically a regression from a user's perspective. That is, there used to be a user preference allowing opt out and there no longer is. (I also think I had personally opted out of having this silly link.) We should explore all the available options here and decide if any make sense to pursue.

I'm still unable to locate the community request for this extension, but I see T72499 proposes a whole bunch of other unrequested gadget migrations. Given they'll all suffer from the same issue, that gadgets always offer an associated preference and users are used to having one, the matter should probably be addressed more in general.

In T95669#1197443, @matmarex wrote:

My opinion is that this should be declined. We don't have options to hide the link to watchlist or user talk page, even thought some users surely don't use those.

In thinking about this a bit more... you know OS X and other operating systems give you the ability to customize your list of favorites in the sidebar of the Finder or in the whatever pane of Windows Explorer. Web browsers generally have a customizable bookmarks bar and menu. Same with word processors and photo editors. Even Phabricator has this concept in the form of being able to expose, hide, or re-arrange apps (Maniphest, Pholio, Differential) in the sidebar of the main interface.

So I guess the question becomes: why can't I disable the watchlist link or the contributions link or re-arrange these personal bar links using a cute graphical user interface? :-) You could have little checkboxes next to each link to disable/enable and you could even possibly have the ability to customize the label (I personally have this because it's dramatically shorter: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stripped_MediaWiki_interface.png).

(cc: @Jaredzimmerman-WMF)

I'd rather not work to hard on updating the current state of things and spend energy fixing the compact personal bar, @MZMcBride want to log some configuration option bugs against that project? @mattflaschen is picking up the torch and starting to resolve some of the blocker issues to CPB

The compact personal bar seems like a subset of a more general tool for customizing the personal bar. That is, if we're going to have a dedicated interface for re-arranging and customizing the personal bar, an extra checkbox for "collapse the list" wouldn't be so terrible in that context.

Allowing a lot of flexibility in a dedicated interface has some clear advantages, as (again) operating systems and other user interfaces have already shown us. When I'm logged in, I don't need or want my user name at the top of every screen, so I shorten it to "me" (which is similar to Twitter, I believe). I don't really need settings available up there all the time, I don't need the beta link, and I don't need a sandbox link. For other editors/users, these links make a lot of sense. I understand that a dedicated personal bar customization area is a more complex idea, but I think it warrants real consideration as a good long-term strategy.

In thinking more about the compact personal bar recently, I think the extension approach is probably misguided. A more transitory system (that is, basically doing a responsive design) seems like a better option to me. When the window is narrow, collapse into a list to save space; when there's space available, show the full set of links unless the user has opted into a compact bar in his or her user preferences. But this user preference should only exist within the context of a dedicated area for personal bar customization. And if we figure out that lots of people are making the bar compact and prefer it that way, we can re-evaluate the default in the future.

I have a couple questions before I state my thoughts:

• Before this became an extension, how many people had the default on gadget disabled per wiki?
• How many people had it disabled so they could use a custom userscript instead of the gadget (such as http://enwp.org/User:Technical_13/SandBox/Gadget-mySandbox.js) to allow for preferences such as non-standard sandbox page names or custom preloads?
• Will such preferences as non-standard /SandBox page names or preload templates for new sandboxes be allowed with the extension (I'll happily file a separate ticket if so)?

Fairly sure there is no such data, or at least I am not aware of its existence. I think there shouldn't be such preferences (they are per-wiki settings already).

Change 203307 abandoned by Glaisher:
Add a preference option to disable sandbox link

Reason:
Pending discussion; can be restored if we want to do it this way.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/203307

The feature was provided by the gadgets but is missing in the extension.