Enable Entity Reference in new installations

[olafgrabienski]

Description of the need

Entity Reference was added to Backdrop with version 1.23, but it's not enabled by default. It should be easier to find and use this module.

Proposed solution

Like all other field modules of Backdrop core, Entity Reference should be enabled in new installations.

Draft of feature description for Press Release (1 paragraph at most)

Backdrop now not only includes Entity Reference but enables it out of the box ;-)

[olafgrabienski]

Entity Reference is the only field module in a vanilla Backdrop installation that is not enabled.

[yorkshire-pudding]

I support this.

[klonos]

I support this too. It helps the discoverability of the feature, and if we are to convert taxonomy to entity reference this will need to happen any way as part of that.

[stpaultim]

I like this idea and support it but am curious if anyone has any specific concerns about this?

[kiamlaluno]

Is there any contributed module that could conflict with the Entity Reference module?

[klonos]

Adding the milestone for the next bug fix release, so that we don't miss this.

[jenlampton]

In short: I'm against enabling term reference. :)

Entity Reference is the only field module in a vanilla Backdrop installation that is not enabled.

I was under the understanding that this was because it is the only field module that isn't necessary for all sites. There are a handful of core modules that aren't enabled, because they aren't always/often needed. I don't think we actually have a threshold for this, but perhaps we should :)

As it is now, I suspect perhaps only 10% of backdrop sites use references. I would prefer to see that number be over 50% before the module is enabled by default.

It's the more complicated sites that will probably need references, and those people are more capable of enabling a module. For the simpler sites that probably won't need references, those people are less capable of disabling the module.

For other field modules like date, email, link, the only change to your site would be an additional field. For Entity reference, you also get a new views display type (similar to block and page) which complicates the views interface. You will also end up with a Term reference field type, as well as an Entity Reference field type, which you can use for Terms, which will be very confusing to new users. Both of these changes would go against our principle of simplicity.

If we were to wait until Entity Reference replaces Term Reference, however, not only do we remove the confusion of having two types of term references, but Reference the number of sites using Entity Reference would jump above 80%, because the Post node type has Terms in the standard profile.

edit: from today's dev meeting, we came up with the idea to track the enabled status of this module (and all other core modules that are disabled, total: 8) using telementry. We think we can get this small feature into telemetry in 1.25.x, so that we could slate this issue for 1.26.0 if data warrants.

[quicksketch]

Discussed today in the weekly dev meeting. Of those present we're not all on the same page. This would be an excellent candidate for tracking in Telemetry to help us get an idea of actual site usage.

[klonos]

I'll start working on #5185, so that we can get that in with the next patch release.