Hi everyone, for the past year, the Web team at the Wikimedia Foundation has been working on dark mode. This work is part of the Accessibility for Reading initiative that introduces changes to the Vector 2022 and Minerva skins. It improves readability, and allows everyone, both logged-out and logged-in users, to customize reading-focused settings.
Since early this year, dark mode has been available as a beta feature on both the mobile and the desktop website. We have been collaborating with template editors and other technical contributors to prepare wikis for this feature. This work included fixing templates and ensuring that many pages can appear with dark mode without any accessibility issues. We would like to express immense gratitude to everyone involved in this. Because so much has been done, over the next three weeks, we will be releasing the feature to all Wikipedias!
Deployment configuration and timeline
- Tier 1 and 2 Wikipedias: wikis where the number of issues in dark mode when compared to light mode is not significant. These wikis will receive dark mode for both logged-in and logged-out users. Some small issues might still exist within templates, though. We will be adding ways to report these issues so that we can continue fixing templates together with editors.
- Tier 3 Wikipedias: wikis where the number of issues in dark mode when compared to light mode is significant. These wikis will only receive dark mode for logged-in users. We would like to make dark mode available to all users. However, some wikis still require work from communities to adapt templates. Similar to the group above, these wikis will also receive a link for reporting issues that will help identify remaining issues.
- Week of July 1: mobile website (Minerva skin) on the Tier 1 Wikipedias (including Catalan Wikipedia)
- Week of July 15: desktop website (Vector 2022 skin) on all Wikipedias; mobile website: logged-in and logged-out on the Tier 2 Wikipedias, logged-in only on the Tier 3 Wikipedias
How to turn on dark mode
The feature will appear in the Appearance menu alongside the options for text and width. Depending on compatibility and technical architecture, some pages might not be available in dark mode. For these pages, a notice will appear in the menu providing more information.
How to make dark mode even better!
If you would like to help to make more pages dark-mode friendly, go to our previous message and see the section "What we would like you to do (template editors, interface admins, technical editors)".
Thank you everyone. We're looking forward to your questions, opinions, and comments!