Issue: Simplify the Edit page

Yes, the editing layout could be improved. For the main icon image, I have previously made a related suggestion to place it into the Additional Options section, and introduce functionality that collapses that section by default: https://www.vaultwiki.org/issues/5073/. I also suggested the "Treat this page as a..." setting move there. At least on my site, the content being added is most commonly suited for a standard wiki page, where ticking category, book or template isn't appropriate.

The Additional Options section already exists, but to the best of my knowledge it is only used to show the "Automatically parse links in text" setting. And this is no longer shown for articles created as of a few VaultWiki versions ago where this setting defaults

In the mean time I have added the following CSS to the vw_additional.css Xenforo template which visually hides the main icon image setting (but it still loads so it is accessible to anyone who knows how to navigate to and find it with the browser inspector/developer tools F12):

Watched Wiki Content Options cannot be removed because it would create a CAN-SPAM violation. It had to be added because of CAN-SPAM rules when your other feature request was completed: https://www.vaultwiki.org/issues/1893/
It is also interesting that your current request (to remove the option) is in direct conflict to your previous request (to have the option).

Users must have the option to opt out of being automatically subscribed at each occurrence of being automatically subscribed. Then, once the user has seen that form, especially if they allowed automatic subscription already, then they will expect that form to remain there, if they want to unsubscribe during their next edit; not doing so could be perceived as a CAN-SPAM violation, which although you might be able to fight any charge successfully, would still give your users cause to report your site and give you headaches.

Your other suggestion to move the Icon field has been suggested elsewhere (link provided by ACL above), so I am marking this as a Duplicate.

I can understand why you think its in conflict with my 2010 suggestion (when Xenforo 1.0 was not out yet) or why you think it would create a CAN-SPAM violation, but this is not the case. An email notification can exist without having email preferences on the edit page.

The presence of subscription function on the edit page stems from the archaic approach introduced by vbulletin 2 many years / decades ago.
This approach is not needed and can be much improved. There are already Alert preferences in the xenforo account. All that is needed is a setting in the XenForo Messaging Preferences to receive emails for Watched wiki content. And something similar for vb.

If the member has set their preferences to automatically receive email notifications for subscribed wiki content then there is no CAN-SPAM act violation. Else Facebook would be the worlds largest offender. When you post on Facebook there is no agreement to receive email notifications for replies to your post. Similar for forum threads: when someone replies to your thread you will receive an email notification if you have not deactivated this in your account preferences. This is where the preferences belong and where members expect it.

This is how it should work for Vaultwiki. There is no need to use the outdated approach vbulletin had.

We have never and will never receive any charge for this approach. Not only because CAN-SPAM act is not applicable in Europe etc, but also because its not a violation of this act. (As you might remember I have studied anti-spam laws extensively and written articles on the matter. Based upon my analysis of it I designed bounce software for vbulletin and ]my suggestions & continuous complaints on vbulletin about CANSPAM compliance and later [URL="https://xenforo.com/community/threads/bounced-email-management.50803/"suggestions[/URL] for XF lead to bounce functionality getting implemented into the core.)

The problem with this approach is that most forums already exist and have members before VaultWiki is installed and there is no opt-in to VaultWiki emails during registration (even if there was, it would not help users who registered before installation). Thus, many users' wiki preferences are NULL. In such cases, the board default is assumed as the user preference, with the board default usually being "Always Subscribe". Thus, when a user edits a wiki page and is automatically subscribed, it would be possible for the user to be subscribed via their edit without ever knowing that this might happen and without ever opting in to that list -- unless the opt-in is provided on the edit page, which is the current behavior. This satisfies the CAN-SPAM requirement.

Otherwise, it would be necessary to force all user logins to a "New notification preferences have been added; please verify your selections" page immediately after installing VaultWiki. I believe this is the approach Facebook uses, as I think I have had this happen to me there. I know it has happened to me at banking websites. However, I would be wary to use Facebook as a model for many things. They tend to get sued and have paid fines in the past for various infractions.

In XenForo's default design, it does not even present an opt-in to automatic email notifications of watched content on the registration page. It does not explicitly notify the user that this will happen, nor does it ever suggest during the registration/confirmation process that the user should check out their notification preferences on X page. There is an admin setting to prevent this from occurring, but engagement is dramatically reduced as a result. However, like VaultWiki does for edits, XenForo shows the Watched Content options when replying to any thread, satisfying CAN-SPAM (although the option only appears under More Options). Thus VaultWiki's implementation is consistent with the XenForo implementation.

As a side note, I do not consider Quick Reply safe for deployment in the United States if automatic watching is enabled in Options > User Registration. All sites to whom CAN-SPAM would apply should have the email and watch-related User Registration options disabled (bad for engagement, but legal).

The only thing we might be able to do about the setting is maybe make it take up less vertical space, by collapsing the options by default (still showing the auto-subscribe state while collapsed).

Can you please add a css class or setting so we can hide it? CAN-SPAM doesn't apply to us and the presence of this function deters members from editing wiki articles.

We can add a setting asking if the web site is in a jurisdiction which requires Opt-In for new email subscriptions (I see that Europe requires implied Opt-In only, based on existing relationship -- like having a forum account, and Opt-Out in the email only). However, it would require changes in a number of places so I don't expect it will make it into this month's release.

I know you don't like to do half'work, but it would already be useful to just be able to turn it off for edit page. Please consider to add this to the next release and then complete it in a more advanced manner at a later time.

You can modify the template vw_editor_page and remove the $subscribeoption portion. To maintain auto-subscribe, you would have to add a hidden input field which sets 'fromquickedit' = 1:
This would obviously be wrong whenever we re-implement quick-edit, but for now it's a trigger to generate a subscription even though there are missing form fields. You would revert the change when we add the CAN-SPAM Compliance toggle.

Im not quite following you. Should I remove:
{xen:raw $subscribeoption}

and replace with:
<input type="hidden" name="fromquickedit" value="1">

Yes, that should work.