p.s. anon VE testing via URL params used to work.

(In reply to comment #0)

On English Wikipedia, the VE is now not offered for anons & people who have
not enabled a user pref.

Indeed.

However if the user loads a URL that invokes VE (i.e. includes
?veaction=edit), it would be nice if VE loaded irrespective of user
preferences. If ?veaction=edit in the URL isnt explicit enough to bypass some
checks, ?veaction=edit&debug=true should just do it.

Possibly, but I feel that this conflicts with the expressed will of the community (to prevent anonymous users from being able to use VisualEditor).

That would streamline testing in many browsers, as we wouldnt need to log in
on each browser - which is a bugger because logging into a second browser
causes the first browser to be logged out.(bug 49890)

Understood the use-case (I have the issue too).

(In reply to comment #1)

p.s. anon VE testing via URL params used to work.

Because it was enabled for all anons; when the configuration was changed, this feature was disabled. It is not a regression. Fixing.

(In reply to comment #2)

It is not a regression. Fixing.

Removing the code-update-regression keyword; it sounds like you intended to do that.

Change 97701 had a related patch set uploaded by Jforrester:
Make veaction=edit work regardless of user preference

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/97701

Change 97701 merged by jenkins-bot:
Make veaction=edit work regardless of user preference

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/97701