Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-180.191.95.15-20200908075313/@comment-40517619-20200918235345

I think what changes you see in special pages is mainly a change in core MediaWiki, specifically a shift from a pure HTML design to an OOUI-based design. It's indeed controversial (in part because it may be somewhat harder to work with using JavaScript, and because it doesn't appeal to the more "conventional" of desktop users), but if I recall/understand correctly, it's intended to improve mobile experience (which I'm not sure even applies to Fandom because it handles mobile visitors differently than Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia). I don't think the OOUI design can be disabled in LocalSettings.php or otherwise server-side, though I may be mistaken because there are so many settings I'm not sure anyone can know them all.