Block notice/CSS change

[Bbb23sucks]

I was reading some boring discussion on Wikipedoa, when I noticed that the block notice looked weird - it had a weird icon and tons of unnecessary whitespace. So I looked into it, and sure enough, it was more "design improvement" garbage from the WMF.

This began all the way back in 2021 when the WMF introduced the Codex framework into MediaWiki. No one really cared until late last year, when the WMF started an initiative to add CSS based icons to certain notices, but still almost no one other than developers knew about it. But then as part of the "iconization" process, a request for a block notice icon was submitted to Phabricator in January. As usual with WMF development, almost nothing happened for months. Eventually however, a patch was submitted on June 16.

When it was rolled out on June 29th, a discussion about it was posted to VP/T by Oshwah. As usual with Wikipedians, they HATE it and have already created CSS modifications to remove it. Ironically WMF developer TheresNoTime disabled it too. Funny how they force their rollouts on users, but can't be bothered to use it themselves.

As the WMF continues to roll these icon changes out, I expect to see squabbles like this. Probably not on a "Vector 22 level" (which was ironically neither created nor rolled out in 2022), but I do expect to see some smaller discussions and possibly a request to a CSS-based override on the discussion page for common.css or the i-admin or VP/T noticeboards.

[Boink Boink]

My immediate reaction was meh. I then noted with some mild amusement that I now automatically assume any unexpected changes in how Wikipedia looks or works must be due to them, rather than anything my end.

I actually quite like the yellow. It's very soothing. Is it too much to hope this was a deliberate choice on the part of the WMF to rid Wikipedia of its reputation for hostility?

[Bbb23sucks]

My immediate reaction was meh. I then noted with some mild amusement that I now automatically assume any unexpected changes in how Wikipedia looks or works must be due to them, rather than anything my end.

I actually quite like the yellow. It's very soothing. Is it too much to hope this was a deliberate choice on the part of the WMF to rid Wikipedia of its reputation for hostility?

I'm actually fine with the yellow, it was already used on some other WMF wikis anyway. What bothers me is the obnoxious amount of whitespace that the WMF feels the need to be inserted into everything.

[Bbb23sucks]

UPDATE: After Oshwah's whining, interface administrator and ArbCom member Izno changed it back to red via common.css. Just like I predicted.

[Bbb23sucks]

This appears to have caused a bug too. The "View full log" option no longer works properly for IPs: example.

[Bbb23sucks]

My immediate reaction was meh. I then noted with some mild amusement that I now automatically assume any unexpected changes in how Wikipedia looks or works must be due to them, rather than anything my end.

I actually quite like the yellow. It's very soothing. Is it too much to hope this was a deliberate choice on the part of the WMF to rid Wikipedia of its reputation for hostility?

You know, you might have a point. The SockBlock template is yellow by default, but for some reason, it has the option to set a custom color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bbb23exposed4

Admin Ingenuity specifically override the yellow when blocking this sock. Maybe it gives them a stronger power fantasy.