Last modified: 2014-05-18 22:49:44 UTC
In case something were to happen to a beta feature where beta prefs becomes inaccessible, a url switch "=SAFEMODE" or something that a user could append to the url to force disable all beta features temporarily.
Does it? We have nothing like this for any other user preference and I would hope no code is being deployed that could potentially prevent a user from reaching Special:Preferences.
I tend to agree with comment 1, though I'm curious what others think. A URL parameter also has almost no discoverability.
Possibly "don't run beta-features if debug=true", though that makes debugging hard…
This isn't high priority, we just don't know how far reaching beta features will grow, or how much they'll change the experience, so I wanted to capture that this might be needed at some point.
Yeah, if something causes Special:Preferences to break, it should get reverted or totally turned off on the cluster, not hacked off with a URL param. This seems outright INVALID to me, but I'll let James_F make the call on it.
On reflection, the need to be able to disable a BF is mostly built around the worry that we'll get junk BFs deployed without adequate testing. I think this duplicates the existing systems we have in place for code and product review, and isn't necessary. Ultimately it's the responsibility of the PM of the product getting deployed to make sure this isn't an issue.
