how come there is no "appearance" button on the English wikipedia?
The "appearance" button seen on Dutch wikipedia is able to change the SIZE of the font (text) and the width of the article. This is extremely nice to have, but it's not there on any English article...
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Individual Wikipedias have individual designs and Individual design features.
is there no overhaul to copy ideas from one to another? Or overseer to somewhat keep a consistent theming?
Technically these kinds of things are decided by the Wikimedia Foundation but they'll usually not do things that the editing community of the local wiki doesn't want.
In 2014 the WMF forced a new software feature (Media Viewer) on all wikis and enforced this by "superprotecting" the JavaScript on the German-language Wikipedia so local admins (who at one point even blocked the Deputy Director of the WMF from editing) couldn't disable the new media viewer. The WMF doesn't really want these kinds of constitutional crises to happen again.
weird
I remember when "new" Wikipedia came out with big press I was confused because it had already been in use on the French wiki for months.
My guess is as the biggest wiki, the English wiki is naturally more conservative on the rollout of new features.
other languages are just guinea pigs for the English wiki I gather
I would be very surprised if it wasn't voluntary, as far as I know each Wiki is maintained independently with very little oversight.