Talk:VisualEditor

Why is this still a stub article?

Why is this still a stub article? By the guidelines at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub I would not consider this article as a stub. - Bevo (talk) 18:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a stub to me, and I'm the only editor so far. Which criterion are you looking at? e.g. there's 250 words (arguably about that) or 1500 main (definitely not yet). We have only two refs, and no feedback or much else yet including technical details. I personally would keep as stub as long as possible to encourage others to edit. Widefox; talk 18:17, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

There are other tags to be used to encourage extended content after an article no longer carries a "stub" tag. Read the guidelines at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub for the details. I'm certainly OK personally to leave this as a stub, but there are guidelines I was following when I did the edit, including my terse edit comment I included in the edit. For now, it is your article, and I respect that. - Bevo (talk) 23:29, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Curious which guideline? I personally would stub five sentences (counting quote as one), as less than the ten in WP:stub (or 250 / 500 / 1500 words). I'm more than happy to de-stub if there's consensus. The other issue I had with it was removing the only category. Widefox; talk 11:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub, "A stub is an article containing only one or a few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, and that is capable of expansion.". We can certainly interpret "a few" in different ways. What I look for is structure, as well as size of the content when I consider de-stubbing an article. Perhaps I'm imposing my own interpretation by doing that. - Bevo (talk) 13:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as a somewhat subjective decision, repeatedly quoting an overview of WP:STUB at me doesn't advance this - and yes I'm well aware of it thanks. I covered some size rules of thumb above against STUB, but this issue is better covered in the essay User:Grutness/Croughton-London rule of stubs. Widefox; talk 10:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to User:Grutness/Croughton-London rule of stubs. Maybe someone will write a "bot" to create a list of articles that may be ready to lose their stub status. - Bevo (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I've re-rated as Start now. Widefox; talk 19:37, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Reception

Are there any RS yet, and other internal reactions such as Wikipedia:Most smartest Wikimedia decisions ? Widefox; talk 12:20, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

added Reg, and there's [1] (and may or may not be some in [2]Widefox; talk 14:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

What does "default" mean?

The article states that VE is now the default editor. In what sense? At the top of regular articles, both "edit source" and VE are equally prominent and neither one starts with-out being clicked; on Talk pages, there is no VE option. (On a personal note, I just ignored VE long after the date that the article said it was the default editor, not having any real idea what it was and sort of intimidated by the "beta." After all, "edit source" was working okeh for me: why go mess around in some-thing with a name that -- while understandable after using it -- is kind of scary?)Kdammers (talk) 03:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Is this still around?

I just noticed this morning that the "Edit Beta" tab has disappeared, it was still available yesterday. Has this experiment been discontinued? --Khajidha (talk) 10:07, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Khajidha, see paragraph added here and Daily Dot article. The feature is now "opt-in" only, after the community overrode the Wikimedia Foundation. Further discussion at the Village Pump. Andreas JN466 23:23, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. While I find VE really, really slow it has the advantage of letting me edit typos without digging through lots of code. For simple things like that, I like having the option of VE. --Khajidha (talk) 12:26, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Browser support

Assuming that VisualEditor follows the W3C standards, why isn't Opera supported? I thought Opera was adhering rather strictly to the W3C standards. --Sigmundg (talk) 09:01, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

It is now supported, I updated the page. In general Opera should act like Chrome nowadays as its based on it. Widefox; talk 10:32, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

terrychay.com

@Widefox: Tychay's server at http://terrychay.com/article/response-to-questions-concerning-the-visualeditor.shtml appears to be down; is it working for you? If not, can we remove the link until the server is back up? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

thanks, feel free to change any of my edits John, cheers Done Widefox; talk 09:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

As it's back up, I've put it back in. Widefox; talk 00:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

What happened to the Visual Editor?

It still exists, but now it is opt-in instead of opt-out. For more details, see the "Reception" section.

Rant about reverted edit (you can skip this part) :

I supposed I should apologize for originally (clumsily) adding the above info on an "article space" page. I was hoping that, if someone had the question,

"What happened to the Visual Editor?"

that they would be able to find the answer without already knowing where to look; because it was frustrating for me, when I first tried to search for the answer. I later realized -- (after someone reverted my recent edit) -- that the "solution" (the title and first 2 sentences of this section) works just as well, if it exists on a "Talk:"-space page. It answers the question, and links to further details if anyone is interested, and it can be found via the search that seemed obvious to me, by someone who does not already know where to look. As long as someone can search for the answer, and find it, I will be happy. I just hope to save some time for some curious editors and readers who -- (like I was) -- might be curious about what happened, recently -- when suddenly all of those erstwhile "edit source" prompts, have receded (except or course, for those who "opted in" for the Visual Editor; but they are getting what they asked for, which is less likely to give rise to some nagging curiosity about what just happened, recently.) Those erstwhile "edit source" prompts, were (for me at least), ubiquitous for a while; but -- (for now, at least) -- for me, they are "History". --Mike Schwartz (talk) 06:58, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

No problem, I had the same experience when it wasn't available by default. It is up to WMF / WP to cater for this. So while WP:NOTHOWTO says we shouldn't provide that sort of help, maybe we should include the current status more prominently which I tried quickly and gave up. If you see Talk:MediaWiki (Proposed merge with VisualEditor) there's discussion about merging into MW. My view is that would provide less information, and readers would have to click two links to get to the project space. More views welcome. Widefox; talk 12:46, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

WYSIWYG

Hi User:Widefox,

I removed the erroneous claim that VisualEditor is a WYSIWYG product because it isn't. It uses that technique in many basic instances (like regular paragraphs of running text), but not in others. For example, VisualEditor adds "slugs" (blank lines or empty bullet points) so that it's possible to add material at the top of a page or section. You can trivially verify this: enable VisualEditor (if you haven't already) and open this page in VisualEditor. You'll find that VisualEditor shows blank lines above and between the hatnotes. This isn't a display bug: this is an intentional departure from the WYSIWYG model. What you see is not what you get when the page is saved.

I realize that this claim has been spread through a number of sources, but AFAICT, they're either making it up on their own or copying the claim out of this article. It's not an accurate statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing, OK, as you know we base articles on secondary sources, the majority view uses "WYSIWYG" (or simply states "visual editor"), and this is backed by primaries "WYSIWYG-like" VisualEditor:Welcome, "goal of WYSIWYG" VisualEditor developers 28:50, the only minority view I've seen (so far) saying otherwise is you (a primary). We certainly can't ignore the majority view by removing "WYSIWYG", and if we did it would also leave us with an internal inconsistency issue - online rich-text editor is described as WYSIWYG. If I've understood the magnitude of departures from WYSIWYG, WP:MOSBEGIN "overly specific" means it shouldn't go in the lead. We can (and from what you're saying, should) incorporate refinement on the description as WYSIWYG. How about adding these departures from WYSIWYG, say in the body? That doesn't invalidate that it is (predominantly) WYSIWYG, satisfies WP:WEIGHT, and most importantly improves the (current) lack of technical details in the article.

As for accuracy, isn't the article consistent with VisualEditor:Welcome? If you could provide a source that would help, and if there's any inaccuracies in the RSes e.g. The Next Web h-online why not take that up with them? - both of which predate this article. Widefox; talk 14:05, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

"(Sort of) WYSIWYG-like" and "(really, truly) "WYSIWYG" are not the same thing. The Mediawiki welcome page only says "WYSIWYG-like".

We are not required to perpetuate errors merely because they exist in some reliable sources. We are permitted to use WP:Editorial discretion to omit inaccuracies, especially when the omission is a trivial detail.

You may also want to look at WP:PRIMARYNEWS: pretty much everything you've cited here is a primary source. News stories like this contain none of the hallmarks of secondary sources (mainly in-depth analysis). I haven't seen any secondary sources for VisualEditor myself, and I'm honestly not convinced that this particular software is notable under the GNG (by itself; MediaWiki software and extensions as a whole are, and information about individual pieces should be included there).

As for the alleged inconsistency with online rich-text editor: failing to repeat an unsourced claim from another article is not the same thing as creating a direct inconsistency. NB that I'm not suggesting that we say "VisualEditor is definitely not a WYSIWYG editor". I'm only recommending that we omit the claim that it really is, on the grounds that it really isn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

VE's difference from WYSIWYG may be obvious to you, but unless stated not obvious to me, or other editors who've put VE as an example in WYSIWYG (and per summary style in MediaWiki), hatnote of WYSIWYG_editor, Extension:VisualEditor category "WYSIWYG extensions". I appreciate your effort trying to correct any inaccuracy. I share your concern that we don't want to have an inaccuracy, one that you clearly believe in. Apart from "slugs", what's VE's difference? I just tried VE again and it looks WYSIWYG to me. Parking the semantic discussion of WYSIWYG for a second, how does VE differ from the description at WYSIWYG? "very similar" "closely corresponding" - by definition loose not absolutely visually identical "In general WYSIWYG implies the ability to directly manipulate the layout of a document without having to type or remember names of layout commands.". In what way doesn't that fit?

WYSIWYG: My understanding of WYSIWYG is that "WYSIWYG-like" would still be WYSIWYG (a broad term), and due to the realities WYSIWYG implementations there being debate about if perfect WYSIWYG (or really, truly WYSIWYG) exists. WYSIMOLWYG WYSIAWYG in the article already covers this.

Sure, WP:Editorial discretion would mean I would ignore "visual editor", and use "WYSIWYG" unless otherwise informed - based on my WP:OR: looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, as the correct type of editor (rather than an assessment of the level of conformity to an ideal WYSIWYG).

As for notability, you may want to see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/VisualEditor and discuss here Talk:MediaWiki#Proposed_merge_with_VisualEditor

Please feel free to correct me or the article, or widen this per RfC etc. I don't consider this a trivial detail, as it is a classification of the type of what the article is about (a parent topic). A source saying the design goal, or implementation isn't WYSIWYG for instance (I appreciate that's proving the negative), or some reasoning would help move this forward. Widefox; talk 21:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Done WhatamIdoing I attempted to clarify, and took out the the lead. If I've understood correctly, it is a HTML front-end JS editor that is WYSIWYG (using the browser built-in mode), but it's fed by Parsoid differences for various reasons. Is there a source? maybe WYSIWYG is from a printing era too, so not as relevant. I asked a couple of projects for help. Widefox; talk 14:31, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Calling it "WYSIWYG-like" is good enough for now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:59, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

A compromise. I personally consider "WYSIWYG-like" an understatement  It looks like WYSIWYG to me, and because quoted doesn't allow linking, so doubly less clear. Alternates may be better ("non-strict WYSIWYG" is also horrid). Anyhow we're splitting hairs - WYSIWYG covers WYSIMOLWYG. FWIW, WYSIWYG is implied by one of the two secondaries I added. Given the lack of sources, this compromise should be fine to stay per WP:WEIGHT. Widefox; talk 14:04, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

OR

VisualEditor does not support the broad range of functionality that the classic editor provides using wiki markup, and due to widespread user discontent it has been largely unused since shortly after its rollout

Red, I think you should re-think your recent changes. They are not supported by the cited source, and it's a very English-only POV. For example, it looks like pt.wp used VisualEditor for about 20% of all edits in the last month.[3] I recommend finding some recent reliable sources if you want to talk about this, rather than relying entirely on your personal experience. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

That link isn't going to be useful as a source, since its contents change every day.

Also, I'm not sure that use by 20% of all edits is accurately described as "largely unused" (nor is that claim present in the source). For example, if someone said that 20% of edits were performed by bots, would you say that bots are largely unused? I wouldn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

How does "mostly" sound to you? "There are a bunch of monkeys in the zoo, mostly females"--would you be surprised to find 20% males? Red Slash 04:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Red, If you want to count the number of "monkeys in the zoo" rather than actions, then it's incorrect. Looking at that same link, slightly more unique editors use VisualEditor each day than use the wikitext editor: an average of 753 users of VisualEditor each day, compared to an average of 735 users of wikitext each day. This counts one person using VisualEditor a single time as being equivalent to one person using the wikitext editor to make ten edits, so it's not my favorite measure, but in the "how many monkeys in the zoo" model that you propose, it's split pretty evenly.

Basically, though, I think you need to remove anything about this until you find a proper secondary source that describes the level of use. A good secondary source would do the analytical work for you, and ideally would say whether this level of adoption was higher, lower, or about the same as average for this kind of software. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I've removed the misleading statement until a reliable secondary source can be found. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor vs. mediawiki-visualeditor

This article currently says that VisualEditor is a MediaWiki extension. This is factually inaccurate since technically VisualEditor is an html visual editor and is not bound to MediaWiki. This is clearly defined on the mediawiki.org page. VE is in two parts: VisualEditor itself is just an editor and mw-ext-VisualEditor is the implemented version of VE in MediaWiki. This distinction can also be demonstrated by the fact that there are two different repositories. VisualEditor's repository can be found here and the extension can be found here. The extension actually pulls in VE's repository in /lib/ve. I understand that this is a common misunderstanding (one that I also made myself when I first saw it) but should be reflected in the article. Thanks, -24^Talk 00:53, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

That is correct. VE was always designed to work as a standalone HTML-based editor, although the repositories were only split about a year or so ago, so it's understandable that the article is wrong. Please do correct that. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 10:39, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Good. There's a difference between wrong and outdated/ambiguous scope. mw:VisualEditor states many things, including VE is a "project". Broadening the scope of this article to the project would be best, and listing all aspects of it, including the extension (which is tied to certain versions of MW), splitting up the extension from the "core" editor. Widefox; talk 11:32, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Negative24, I did a rough fix, encourage you to fix. I've added back the "free HTML editor" cat which was incorrectly removed. There used to be much confusion about the details - see the AfD where the nom (User:John Vandenberg) understood (possibly correctly at the time) it's not a standalone. Widefox; talk 12:28, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Has VisualEditor been used other than as part of a MediaWiki installation? And is there an independent source for that? If not, the fact it is split into multiple repositories and one repository *could* be used for some other purpose does not have any bearing on what VisualEditor actually *is* from an encyclopedic perspective. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:31, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Microsoft Edge (Spartan)

The article has a list of supported browsers. Does Microsoft Edge also support VisualEditor? If so, it should be added to the list. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 14:40, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

MS doesn't even support Edge yet as it's not released. Removing the comment. Widefox; talk 11:11, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Early timeline

User:Ed g2s sources [4] and the dead link you're complaining about it [5]. What we can agree on is if it's not correct we should remove it, and if there's no other source maybe it isn't. I don't know. Removing sourced content just because the source has a dead link (on its page) seems drastic. Regards Widefox; talk 12:50, 29 May 2015 (UTC)