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Revert the header donate button back to a normal link
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Description

Background

In https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T419638 we rolled out the new top navbar Donate button design to all wikis, per the result of a positive experiment. Based on recent community feedback in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)?oldid=1353981397#Unbolding_the_donate_button we will undo this change.

User story

As a logged out user on any wikipedia on desktop, the "Donate" link in the top navbar does not stand out compared to the other links.

Design requirements

Add design requirements or link to design files.


Requirements

Acceptance criteria

For anonymous users on desktop, the header donate link...

  • Does not have an icon
  • Is styled like a normal link, same as the other header links

BDD

Given a user is not logged in
When a user is on any page on wikipedia
Then the navbar has regulary styled "Donate" link with no icon
And the Donate link redirects to the donate page (as usual)

Test Steps

  • For the scenario above check
    • logged out desktop users and mobile users
    • check the Dark mode
    • check a bookmarked page
    • check the link redirection
    • Check if logged-in users see the normal navbar

Communication criteria

Add if this needs an announcement or discussion.

Rollback plan

Describe the rollback plan in production for this task if something goes wrong.

This task was created by Version 1.0.0 of the Reader Experience team task template using phabulous.

Event Timeline

Can we clarify what we're actually doing here?

The original work didn't just bold the link and add a heart, it styled the link as a Codex quiet progressive button. You can see the difference a lot if you hover over the donate link (it looks much more button-like in that state)

Will we:

  • Remove the icon and set the text to normal weight? I would not recommend this as we'd be custom-styling a Codex button in a very visible place
  • Change the donate link back to being styled as a link, just like the login and create account links

If it's the latter, I'd recommend we change the task title to something like "Revert donate link styles back to default" or something. Happy to help update that and the task description if it's helpful!

Thank you for pointing this out, Anne. Let's go with your recommendation, and yes, I'd appreciate your help with updating the task description to include the technical requirements of how to make the change. thank you so much!

AnneT renamed this task from Remove bolding and heart icon from top navbar donate button for logged out desktop users to Revert the header donate button back to a normal link.May 7 2026, 7:05 PM
AnneT updated the task description. (Show Details)

Thanks for the clarification, @HFan-WMF! I've updated the task.

Change #1285396 had a related patch set uploaded (by Stoyofuku-wmf; author: Stoyofuku-wmf):

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@master] Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285396

Change #1285398 had a related patch set uploaded (by Stoyofuku-wmf; author: Stoyofuku-wmf):

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Remove heart icon from donate link 💔

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285398

Change #1285396 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@master] Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285396

Change #1285864 had a related patch set uploaded (by Jdlrobson; author: Stoyofuku-wmf):

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@wmf/1.47.0-wmf.1] Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285864

Change #1285864 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@wmf/1.47.0-wmf.1] Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285864

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-05-11T23:38:51Z] <jdlrobson@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1285864|Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling (T425721)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-05-11T23:40:32Z] <jdlrobson@deploy1003> jdlrobson: Backport for [[gerrit:1285864|Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling (T425721)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-05-11T23:45:13Z] <jdlrobson@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1285864|Exclude sitesupport from button/icon treatment, remove manual styling (T425721)]] (duration: 06m 21s)

After backporting, the icon is gone on newly generated pages (after an edit or via ?action=purge)
This issue will address itself over next few weeks (and be fixed everywhere in 2 weeks)

For completeness, unexpectedly we're seeing a black icon on some cached pages. This is because our HTML cache is longer than our CSS cache.

image.png (3,134×698 px, 274 KB)

Checked on enwiki and arwiki - "Donate" is displayed as a normal link, as expected.

Screenshot 2026-05-12 at 4.22.11 PM.png (2,814×276 px, 62 KB)
Screenshot 2026-05-12 at 4.42.10 PM.png (2,778×392 px, 82 KB)

Change #1285398 abandoned by Stoyofuku-wmf:

[mediawiki/extensions/WikimediaMessages@master] Remove heart icon from donate link 💔

Reason:

lemme check with Hsuanwei and/or Sneha before we do this

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1285398