Wikipedia:VisualEditor/RFC

RFC: VisualEditor launch issues

VisualEditor is a clever idea for the Wikimedia, but the software is buggy, slow, and not likely to be fixed anytime soon.

As such, it would seem that we, as a community, should discuss how to move forwards. Now, according to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/FAQ, we do not have the right to force them to turn VisualEditor off, but I think that they would be insane, should the community show strong reaction against it, to not at least take the concerns on board.

So, below, are several points to vote on. Please Support or Oppose each point. Feel free to add new points at the bottom. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

As a point of order, the instructions at WP:RFC include: "Include a brief, neutral statement of the issue in the talk page section...." Do you think that "the software is buggy, slow, and not likely to be fixed anytime soon" is neutral? In fact, I daresay not only is it not neutral, it's blatantly untrue - bug fixes are pushing out almost every day. I understand your frustration, but proceeding with this RFC, launched under this condition, will not end well for anyone. There is no way that a process which is poisoned by a lack of the fundamental desire for neutrality and fair dealing will result in a neutral, fair outcome. Through your language on this RFC, you have contaminated it and prevented it from doing the good that it could have done. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 02:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

May I point out that "slow" is listed as known problems on Wikipedia:VisualEditor#About_the_VisualEditor; VisualEditor changing markup has its own tag, which is still catching edits, such as [1], and if you really believe all the bugs are going to be sorted out soon, why didn't you beta it with a set of volunteers, sort out the bugs, then launch it? It frankly seems you're trying to preemptively make excuses to ignore user feedback. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Why didn't we beta it with a set of volunteers, sort the bugs, and then launch it? Adam, we had a 6 month test that included hundreds of volunteers. We sorted the bugs that we knew about. I note that you didn't make any edits using VE during that period - fair enough, nobody's required to - but please don't suggest that we didn't listen to input then or now. (In fact, it appears that you STILL haven't made any edits using VisualEditor?) Our engineering team has squashed 155 bugs since the beginning of the A/B test. That sounds pretty feedback receptive to me. I'm not making excuses, because absolutely we wish things had run differently, but c'mon... Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I was one of those volunteers back in May, but I gave up testing after my bug reports were being auto archived without comment. We are not in this mess because the volunteers failed to spot bugs that subsequently came up in the rollout. We are here because someone decided to stick to a schedule rather than first sort the bugs that were reported in user testing. If it was true that fault lay with us testers for not finding problems then the community would be responding very differently. If the bugs that came up when I was just typo fixing had been fixed then I would have gone on to test VE with more complex edits like adding a reference or an image. But when I saw at least four of my bug reports going into the archive without comment there didn't seem much point testing it further - I was shocked and disappointed that this was deployed despite not sorting the bugs that they knew about if they were paying attention to the feedback from the testing. ϢereSpielChequers 06:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Talk about leading question... -- KTC (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

1. VisualEditor is a good idea in theory

Having a working VisualEditor will greatly improve Wikipedia's usability. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. ϢereSpielChequers 23:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Diannaa (talk) 23:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
4. doktorb _words^deeds 23:52, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Thryduulf (talk) 23:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Patrick87 (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
8. Carrite (talk) 00:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
10. Kumioko (talk) 00:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. Mega dittoes.  ;-) TCO (talk) 01:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
12. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
13. MER-C 01:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
14. --Jayron32 01:41, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
15. - MrX 02:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
16. - Robert McClenon (talk) 02:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
17. - Anything providing a path for Wiki newbies to become functional long-term editors that will help break up too many overbearing existing editing cabals is defined as double-plus good in principle. Scarletsmith (talk) 06:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
18. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
19. GiantSnowman 08:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
20. I've always dreamed about a transparent editor for MediaWiki. Even though I probably wouldn't use it myself it's clear it would lower the barrier to participation for less technically minded folks. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
21. Of vast importance. - David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
22. May as well state the obvious here. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
23. Bidgee (talk) 13:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
24. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 14:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
25. We are just used to the arcane code interface that we have now. It's a good thing to have when doing complex things. It's terrible for a lot of simple tasks. Simple tasks should be easy and hard tasks should be possible. VE gives us an opportunity to work toward that ideal. Gigs (talk) 14:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
26. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
27.  Sandstein  14:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
28. Strong Support per Gigs. Double sharp (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
29. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
30. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
31. I don't know about "greatly", but it seems like it could help some new people get into editing. Everyking (talk) 22:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. It will make it more usable for some users. Wiki markup is pretty simple, so I don't think anything at the markup level can "greatly" improve usability.—Kww(talk) 01:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose as expensive extravagance: It would be great, when VE is debugged during the next 3 years, for editing "vertical Chinese" but the world has shifted to linear text, where Chinese hanzi (kanji) characters can be mixed horizontally with Latin-alphabet words (see: zh:AAA). However, the danger of edit-conflict in VE, to lose all the tedious keystrokes is too great a psychological scar for new users. Meanwhile, WP is maintained by a core group of 9,000 power-users who rewrite articles, because "crowd sourcing" of text is called a blog. Instead of burning resources on VE for 3 years, we need auto-merging of wp:Edit_conflict insertions such as multiple replies stacked in LIFO order (last-in, first-out), where a 2nd insertion at the same line number would be above any new "===Section===" inserted by a prior editor. We need quick revisions which read-lock the page, so that 2 quick edits do not overwrite each other. We need to expand the wikitext-editor screen to list other recent revisions being stored (by other users) while someone edit-previews the same page. We need web-links "[http:__]" to not auto-append "/" after the URL. We need templates to set parameters, {{#set:x|45}} to store values which could make templates run 10x-40x times faster. We need to raise the wp:Expansion depth limit from 41/40 to 50 or 80 levels of nested template if-elses. The fact that those important changes have not happened after 10 years(!), shows that wp:Bugzilla discussions are ineffective at sorting priorities, and we need a major organizational change, such as a wp:PROPS#User Council to emphasize important software changes, not extravagance which helps rare users point-and-click one time. Focus on the 9,000 power users, not forcing buggy software on the 100,000 60,000 who scribble in one edit per month. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:39/16:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   That's actually not true. Power users make around 40 percent of contributions. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   See note below: "Beware myth of WP written by passing strangers who never returned". Power users (8%) make 87% of edits. -Wikid77 16:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   It's been years since I looked at this, but my recollection is that very active contributors are responsible for a substantially larger fraction of article space content (measured in character counts) than would be suggested even by the fraction of article space edits they create. Dragons flight (talk) 14:46, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

---

• Beware myth of WP written by passing strangers who never returned: It has been a pervasive, misleading myth that Wikipedia was somehow written by passing strangers who added massive content and never returned to edit again. Some can be attributed to people who often change usernames or use rotating dynamic IP addresses. However, such myths of strangers writing polished articles are alluring, such as saying, "Einstein flunked out of math class" (not true), when the reality is that Einstein quit secondary school to enter college, directly, but at first failed the entrance exam, until tutored, to pass the re-test. Then Einstein worked with major leaders in theoretical physics, when developing the Special Theory of Relativity. As for WP editing, many articles have been created, in coordinated sets, by wp:WikiProjects, such as 12,500 articles from the Catholic Encyclopedia or 22,272 articles from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, and over 210,000 articles (5% of WP pages) have been created by just 10 users (see "50 recently active wikipedians" in stats-EN). The overall monthly editor-activity statistics follow the typical patterns for a large population of users, such as the 80/20 Rule, but more like 90/10 (meaning 90% of edits are made by 10% of users), where statistics for May 2013 (stats-EN) confirm 8% of users (9,491) made ~87% of edits (2.8 million of 3.2M), which includes Bot edits (because strangers are not running Bots). Likewise, the top 17% made 93% of edits. Then, consider how the 87% of edits, by power users, also include clever edits to run templates and match style guidelines, which most strangers would be unlikely to do. Hence, note the power users make ~87% of edits and most of the rewrites to match format guidelines and template features. The idea of a WP written mainly by one-edit users is just a misleading myth, which ignores the real difficulties of writing sourced, formatted text. The power users are the ones who would most use better software, in 87% of all edits each month. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

  "Contribution" and "edit" are not the same. In my volunteer capacity, I've made thousands of edits in articles that didn't contribute a single character. Undoing someone else's good-faith contribution is "an edit", but it does not result in articles getting written. Ditto for formatting fixes, minor edits, spelling changes, adding categories, spam removal, creating redirects, and all of the other things that wikignomes and other high-volume editors do. For example, your most recent mainspace contribution was yesterday, and, as seems fairly typical for your edits, it is "an edit" but it did not create any new content. I suggest that you start reading here with some of the research done by Aaron Swartz. It might help you understand the difference between "writing an article" and "making edits". Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

  Indeed. @Wikid77:, aaronsw's numbers are old, but they have the virtue of actually being numbers, rather than conjecture from first principles. It would be interesting to see his numbers run again for 2013, then we would have something new on the matter of considerable importance - David Gerard (talk) 21:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

  No, Aaron's numbers are wrong (or at least they stopped being true). By the time I did similar analysis around 2009 or 2010, the balance of characters contributed to articles was definitely in favor of the highly active contributors rather than drive-by editors. My recollection is that around 20% of retained content was created by drive-bys (anons and users who edited briefly and disappeared), around 30% came from infrequent contributors (i.e. users with a slow pattern of edits over an extended time), and about 50% of article content had been contributed by highly active editors (i.e. users contributing many edits per month for many months). I don't think any of these groups should be highly favored over the others, but the volume of content added by the highly active editors was definitely larger than by the drive-by group. Depending on how one draws the lines and how one describes the infrequent but persistent contributors, I suppose one might choose to describe the patterns somewhat differently, but if the thesis is that Wikipedia's article content comes primarily from users that edit only in passing, then I believe that is simply false. Dragons flight (talk) 21:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I've never been a fan of wisiwig editors, they never have the full power needed. Does any profesional actually use them for HTML/CSS? Why would we expect wikitext to be different?--Salix (talk): 00:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. To me, there's a lot to be said about a "technological barrier" to editing. If a good visual-type editor can be created, I don't oppose selected editors having access to it and that access be monitored (mabye after a certain number of edits, or an application process like WP:ADMIN). But to make it available to everyone can lead to a lot more problems than it can solve.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Per Salix. Also, if you want to contribute something badly enough, you will learn how to do it. Consider people who we want to deter by making it harder for them to make their edits (e.g. by (semi-)protection, non-instant granting of autoconfirm, etc.) Are they not vandals? And why do those deterrents work? Because most of them lose interest when it isn't super-easy to do something. Most people who don't lose interest genuinely want to contribute productively, with only a few WoWs. Double sharp (talk) 15:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. I think in theory it is a good idea. The first time it loaded for me I was impressed at how easy and intuitive it seemed. (I haven't used it much so I dunno about bugs.) But good golly, it's awfully slow! It's so slow that I'd rather stick with regular editing at the moment. I couldn't really figure out where the best place to put this comment was so I added it here. AgnosticAphid talk 18:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

2. Buggy software should not become the default until it reaches a certain level of development.

Rushing forwards with a launch when critical bugs are still unfixed is not acceptable. Not undoing changes when severe bugs, such as the VisualEditor mangling the text of pages with <nowiki> tags, malformed links, and the like, are discovered is unacceptable. If this passes, the WMF is censured, and will be asked never to launch new features in this manner again. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. If you're going to cram a shitty add-on down our throats, make sure the shitty add-on works at the least. Don't phone it in. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
4. I agree that there were too many large bugs and missing features at the roll out, I'm not sure I support the tone of this question and I certainly don't support Jeremey's tone. Thryduulf (talk) 00:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Patrick87 (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Carrite (talk) 00:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Kumioko (talk) 00:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
8. I agree that this should have been deployed first on test wiki, test, and then, when ready, bring here. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. It's too buggy to turn amateur editors loose with.—Kww(talk) 01:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
10. Pointless, though, because this is a recurring problem (remember Echo?). MER-C 01:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. Yeah, usually you opt in to betas, and don't just have buggy software shoved into your face. This almost feels like how Microsoft thought forcing a touch-oriented UI on everyone was a good idea. Or Gnome 3. ViperSnake151  Talk  01:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
12. Developers were allowed to dictate development. They mean well, but there was no defined test role. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
13. Rollout to IP editors must halt immediately; if experienced Wiki Editors are having problems, do we really need to give non-experienced and/or non-registered Wiki editors opportunities to stumble over yet more bugs, create yet more bad Wiki content, etc.? Scarletsmith (talk) 06:43, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
14. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
15. GiantSnowman 08:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
16. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 10:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
17. I can't even understand why anyone would oppose this, and I've read the comments of people who say "oppose"--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
18. David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
19. Bidgee (talk) 13:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
20. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 14:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
21. Obviously. Reaper Eternal (talk) 14:53, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
22. Minus all the anger and censuring part, but this software should not have been turned on as default in this state.  Sandstein  14:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
23. Support I can tolerate some minor bugs, but major bugs mangling basic things like these (which can be inserted from the source editor toolbar!!) just about pushes it over the line for me. Also, it is not even able to do harder tasks like math or table markup. Imagine how the new editors will be confused when they see them and can't figure out how it works, simply because it doesn't in VE. Still: agree completely with MER-C. Double sharp (talk) 15:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

    Er. The nowiki bug is nothing to do with not letting a user insert nowiki tags. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

    What nowiki bug? There are officially no corruptions happening, so it must not be a bug - it's just the users not being clever enough to use the VE - David Gerard (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

24. Needless to say. Everyking (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I think a lot of the sturm and drang (e.g. people wanting to turn off the tab itself for themselves!) is overdone complaining about a change, like people who get upset when a forum changes background color. The issue of "high number of bad edits" is a bigger concern, but I haven't encountered a single one personally, so it must not be that ubiquitous. (Sometimes people are a little sophistic...like those who complaint about fixing image sizes because of those who have a default...this was tracked down and like 300 people out of several million readers actually had a set preference.) Also, to be honest, the thing has been talked about for years and never gotten anywhere. Plus the Community is very over conservative and insular (and doesn't think of current non-editors). So throwing it over the fence and fixing later is a legitimate approach. Sorry, but "ship it". TCO (talk) 01:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. I strongly object to the statement being made here. While it had many bugs of various degrees of severity, VE did not have "severe bugs" that "mangled the text of pages" at the time when it was enabled for logged-in users. I also object to "censuring" the WMF's wonderful development team in such a way. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose based on the wording of this. I support the principle broadly, but I think this goes way too far in demonizing people who are working hard. --Jayron32 01:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. The principle stated in the heading of this section makes sense, but there are degrees of bugginess, which I think may be somewhat exaggerated here. One of the best way to identify bugs and useability issues is to roll software out to a large user base. - MrX 02:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. The statement is so vaguely worded as to be meaningless (or alternately, to be interpreted to mean pretty much anything you want). What counts as "buggy"? What counts as "a certain level of development"? There are bugs—including "severe" ones—in pretty much all complex, production-quality software. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

What does "the default" mean? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

It's now part of everyone's editing of Wikipedia, and cannot be completely turned off in any way. This was neither opt-in, and even providing information on a user-created method to opt out was actively discouraged by the WMF team behind it, e.g. statements such as "I feel it would totally undermine the software proper to fire everyone at an instant switch to permanently disable the VE". It's buggy code, it's going to remain buggy code for some time, and to insist that thousands (or is it millions?) of users have to have it active is ridiculous. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

So Javascript is "part of everyone's editing of Wikipedia, and cannot be completely turned off", so do you consider that "the default"? It also frequently has critical bugs open. Shall we remove Javascript? Or is it only software that feels like a change to you that should be bug-free before normal users get automatic access to it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I think what's meant here is software the developers have control over, thus not Javascript. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Your point? Does it cause edits which were meant to be constructive to get malformed? The last time I checked, JS didn't do that. The aim of VE is to encourage new editors to edit. So, if their edits get messed up by the critical bugs, then isn't this a serious problem (currently-and-will-be-for-some-time buggy VE shooting itself?)? No matter what the proportion of messed-up edits is, the fact that this can happen at all for a released-to-everyone-and-impossible-to-turn-off-properly tool is worrying. Double sharp (talk) 15:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

3. VisualEditor should have a way to be turned off fully, easily, and without continuing to leech resources

At the moment, the VisualEditor can be hidden by way of a gadget found in user preferences, but in a location most users will not look, and code for the VisualEditor will continue to be loaded, as it cannot be disabled. According to WP:VisualEditor/FAQ, this is by design, in an attempt to force users to use it, despite the editing section of User Preferences being fairly well-hidden already. The code to allow it to be disabled exists; it was active in the Editing preferences up until the launch. If this motion passes, the Wikimedia Foundation is requested to restore this code immediately. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Diannaa (talk) 23:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
4. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:36, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
5. doktorb _words^deeds 23:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Regardless of how many resources something consumes, disabling something should disable it not hide it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
8. Patrick87 (talk) 00:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. Carrite (talk) 00:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
10. As much as I like having this option, it still is a bit buggy, so for now this should be an option. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. The current method is a workaround only and still launches all the code in the background, wasting resources and increasing loading times. We need a proper off switch, not a hack. Kumioko (talk) 00:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
12. Yes a obvious off switch is essential. I'm also concerned about IP's who won't be able to use the gadget, won't know what the difference between Edit and Edit Source is and won't be able to do many editing tasks like mathematics.--Salix (talk): 00:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
13. Indeed. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
14. Beyond this, it should be disabled in this manner until it works, available only to editors that are committed to repairing any damage that it causes.—Kww(talk) 01:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
15. Not sure why this was not provided, really. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
16. MER-C 01:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
17. Choice is always a good thing. I also endorse Salix' comment.- MrX 02:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
18. Yeah --Vigyani_talk^{ਯੋਗਦਾਨ} 05:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
19. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
20. GiantSnowman 08:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
21. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 10:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
22. Support hiding the "off switch" is a bad idea and has been very frustrating to me. I've noticed that frustration to others as well.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
23. It has been made unnecessarily difficult and obscure to disable it, they keep breaking the off switch and saying "not in scope" when called on it, and it appears deliberate to try to make it as default as possible even for people who really seriously don't want it. This is profoundly obnoxious, however good the claimed intentions - David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
24. Bidgee (talk) 13:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
25. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 14:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
26. Is this seriously in doubt?  Sandstein  14:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
27. Yes, please. I'm not interested in yet more javascript conflicts. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
28. If someone wants something disabled, then disable it for real, not just hide it in the corner and block it from view, let it carry on running and pretend it was disabled. @TCO: The big deal is that even for people who don't want it, it does not get turned off, just hidden, and see David Gerard's comment. This, to me, is a big problem. (Oh, and orange-bar whining? That was also very useful because it was very visible. Was that text not very easy to notice? That's how the OBOD worked: it jumps out at you. Does the little red number jump out at you? It does not.) Double sharp (talk) 15:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
29. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 15:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
30. Indeed. Wasting resources and increasing loading times. Did you also consider those who already have internet speed problem when you making this, that's not fair. If someone wants something disabled, then disable it. We need a proper off switch, Obvious off switch is essential. Not sure why this was not provided, really. So low speed internet now I really cant even edit my user page, very frustrating KhabarNegar ^Talk 16:39, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
31. The most user-friendly interface is that one which will be friendly to the most hardware/bandwidth-compromised user. There is still a world majority of population who are just getting into internet through their primitive dial-up/GPRS connections and cheap terminals. If Wikipedia is anything for the massive good and common prosperity of world, this should be the priority. So, keep that fundamental editor option always and give any experience luxuries to those who can afford. ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 19:43, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
32. Absolutely. It's just ridiculous that you can't properly and easily disable it. Everyking (talk) 22:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Silly, for the reasons as above. You have a little tab on your screen, so freaking what! This is like orange bar whining or edit button on side of page moving whining. You still have very easy access to the way you edited before.TCO (talk) 01:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose, because no one ever has to use it or install any gadget or flip any preference switch to avoid using it. Just click the "edit source" link which is available on every single page. I would support changing the phrasing of the edit links (for example, making the "edit" link read "Visual Editor" and making the "edit source" link read merely "edit", but that's not what this is proposing). --Jayron32 01:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. It can be turned off or ignored. VE has problems, but this is not the problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:17, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

For those who like numbers, VisualEditor is responsible for about 4 KiB of what your computer receives when you load (click on/read/view) an article or userpage. That's about 2% of the page (or less: the estimated percentage is pre-Universal Language Selector). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I both support this and at the same time agree completely with WhatamIdoing. For those who haven't looked recently, WP sends you reams of JS lately on every page load, most of which is of questionable value. Gigs (talk) 14:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a need to turn it off if the (edit|edit source) options were permanently visible, but activating the edit source on mouseover remains annoying. That said I don't see why it should not be easily disabled by those who don't like it. I don't need it, and mostly don't use it, and if I turn it off it will be because I don't like the flickering edit source links. Then I won't use it at all. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

4. The manner of the launch was unduly aggressive

The sections on WP:VisualEditor/FAQ entitled "Can the editors here order the developers to turn this off?" and "Why does no standard user preference to disable VisualEditor exist?", as well as similar behaviour elsewhere, are little more than attempts to bully the community into accepting the VisualEditor, whether they want to or not. This goes against a basic foundation of Wikipedia, as laid out in the Five pillars: Civility. The launch should have attempted to be responsive to the attitudes of the Wikipedia community. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. See also WP:Flagged revisions. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Patrick87 (talk) 00:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Kumioko (talk) 00:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. It appears rollout is governed by by a roadmap specifying when things must happen. There is little option to say, wait a moment we are just not ready yet to move out of alpha yet. Concerns of users are nothing compared to the roadmap.--Salix (talk): 00:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Support, because the deployment was driven by the developers, and not by interaction between developers and testers.
8. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. Support I don't think it was aggressive in a hostile nature, but it was definitely aggressive in a "hurried" or "rushed" nature.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
10. Way too aggressive, and I'm a big fan of the VE project in general - David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. Insulam Simia (^talk/_contribs) 14:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
12. A little ... I think that paragraph was worded poorly. Developers of any software are obligated to work with the stakeholders to get a product that works. I can understand the desire to avoid "editor consensus" which has become a tarpit where things go to die from endless filibustering. At the same time, paragraphs like the one cited, along with a lack of prompt, real communication (as in, "hey, that is indeed a lot of major bugs you've found, we are delaying the deployment schedule right away"), did lead to a widespread perception of arrogance or aggressiveness. All that said, I can definitely understand where the development team is coming from. So, mostly a PR problem rather than an actual problem. Users needed to be assured that things weren't recklessly plowing forward and there was nothing that could be done about it. Gigs (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
13. Support per Salix. (@TCO: the discussions are actually productive. One of the main problems we have with these roll-outs is that the WMF seems to first not seek our viewpoints and then try to ignore them. Discussing the issues would no doubt lead to us having a more positive view and such RFCs not happening, because we would be able to work together for a better compromise solution.) Double sharp (talk) 15:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
14. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 15:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
15. I feel, this was unprecedentedly hurried in such a way as to cause shock and awe. Typically, people hate changes. But they would certainly start appreciating changes for the better if they were brought gently and patiently.ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 19:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
16. Everyking (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. High-handed or insensitive I could agree with, "aggressive" I don't. Thryduulf (talk) 00:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. "Irresponsible" is the adjective I would choose. Once it became apparent that it was corrupting articles, it needed to be disabled until those bugs were fixed.—Kww(talk) 01:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. This is their ONE AVENUE to improve the site and in the end the encyclopedia. They control the codey stuff. They can't really fix admins/arbs/editors and all the rest of that drama (to include the content itself). Also, Facebook or other sites have gone through many more changes over the last several years. Wiki is stuck in the dark ages. WMF should change, meddle, experiment. Just apologize afterwards...but God NO! don't ask the Communitai for permission.TCO (talk) 01:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. I don't find it agressive at all. I have been aware of the Visual Editor deployment schedule since long ago. Maybe because I talk too much to the WMF guys or whatever, but "aggressive" is not a correct word to define what happened. I'd prefer "inappropriate" in some sorts, but not "aggresive". — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Agree with the others. Besides, most of those FAQ entries were written by community members, not by WMF staffers. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose. Getting 100% buy-in prior to launch is not reasonable. The community has needed a WYSIWYG editor for years, and once one exists, it should not take years of bureaucracy and RFCs to get it installed. --Jayron32 01:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Not really. Somewhat aggressive, perhaps, but I don't view that as a negative. - MrX 02:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
8. At best naive and at worst incompetent - but not aggressive. GiantSnowman 08:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. Everyone here was given years of notice that Visual Editor was coming, and invited to participate in discussions, development, and testing. Conspicuous notices were posted on various Wikimedia websites, and there was extensive coverage in the press, blogs, and social media. When the system went live WMF representatives responded to questions and complaints swiftly and courteously. (Given the vitriol that has been poured upon them, I am amazed they were able to stay so calm!) There was absolutely nothing "aggressive" about the process. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   "Everyone" -- not true. My first notice was when I logged in to make an edit and there it was.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:09, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   Yes, we did not notify IPs of a release to registered users - it seemed extraneous, and like it would complicate things. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   The other issue with notification is that we have been constantly told about vaporware editing features i.e. LiquidThreads, that never materialize into a deployment. People stop paying attention to announcements in about "great new features" when so far basically none of them have made it to deployment. Gigs (talk) 14:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   I was certainly never aware of VE until the past few months. GiantSnowman 14:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   Gigs, can you think of examples other than LQT? GiantSnowman; to be fair, when we're talking several months of notice I'd still say that's pretty good going. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   Maybe he means Flagged revisions which works fine on DE wiki, we just need to get consensus here before we can implement it on EN. Can't blame the devs for that not happening here. ϢereSpielChequers 19:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

10. Premature would be more diplomatic than saying aggressive. It would have been better to wait until Beta testing was no longer finding bugs, and maybe even drop a note to past testers "thanks for all the testing - we plan to go live in two weeks, but please just do a few more test edits to make sure all the previously reported bugs have been resolved." OK in an ideal world we'd then be implementing this live in one of the smaller wikis first before going live in our busiest wiki, but hopefully that's the sort of thing that will come with "professionalisation". ϢereSpielChequers 19:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. I knew it was coming for months. When it arrived I was startled slightly for a few seconds because I had forgotten the planned date. No big deal. I can understand that lots of people ignore the messages and notification and were surprised in a big way, but it is hard to see what more was available to shout in their ears without going to the extreme of personal email to everyone who has e-mail activated. How does one speak to the hard of listening? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

As the volunteer editor who originally wrote "Can the editors here order the developers to turn this off?", I'd like to say that I thought this question was very responsive to the noisy minority of editors who believe that they ought to have veto power over "their" website's software. "Responsive" does not mean "agree with whatever someone else says" or even "be unfailingly polite to people who feel entitled to be extremely rude to you". And if you look at the number of people who have asked that question in one form or another, I think that its presence in the FAQ is well justified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't. I also doubt the section is really correct. The WMF tends to listen to the community, so long as it's not in an annoyed burst of anger over change in general. --Yair rand (talk) 06:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, as I posted above, I think that paragraph was poorly written, and contributed to the perception that this was just a freight train and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It may have seemed like the correct thing to write at the time, but it's really not a good idea to make users feel helpless about software they are being forced to use. Gigs (talk) 14:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is being "forced to use it". If you don't want to use VisualEditor, you can reliably avoid using it by clicking on the other button. If you have trouble remembering to click on the other button, then you can even cover up the VisualEditor button in your prefs.

We need to get away from this myth that unwilling people are being "forced" to use VisualEditor. Clicks on [Edit source] are not being redirected to VisualEditor against the user's wishes. The devs are not grabbing your mouse and forcing it on to the VisualEditor link. Nobody is being forced to use VisualEditor. The most you can claim is that you are "forced" to permit other users to make their own choices about which editing environment to use. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Novice editors are being presented with a button that says "edit" when that button leads them to a tool with an unacceptable incidence of bugs. It may not be "force", but "attractive nuisance" might apply. Right now, VE is an editor that needs to have its output checked very carefully. It shouldn't be positioned as the normal editor for a population of editors that is incapable of making those checks.—Kww(talk) 21:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

This claim is being repeated by many WMF staff, and it's disingenuous in the extreme - the VE and its trappings steer people to use it in every way they can, and you keep breaking the "off" switch and saying "not in scope" when called on having done so. That you do this to people who really seriously don't want to be using it is deeply obnoxious behaviour, however good the intentions behind it - David Gerard (talk) 21:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

5. This survey should have been begun by the VisualEditor team

To not launch a wide-scale survey on the VisualEditor experience shortly after its launch, and before the scheduled rollout to other Wikipedias, shows a lack of interest in the views of users that should be censured. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:04, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Perhaps not a full-blown RFC, but certainly something in greater detail than what was actually carried out. GiantSnowman 08:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Support maybe not this particular survey, but surveys have long been a tool for gaining user feedback and improving systems. To ignore them is really exposing a lack of professional experience and measures.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. Everyking (talk) 22:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. It shouldn't have been necessary at all if users opinion was correctly accounted for. Patrick87 (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. If by "do this particular RFC", hell no. If by "think about usability and patterns and the objective-design-code trade-offs", yeah probably. For instance, I urged them to really understand what and HOW things are bad now. And got brushed of with a "we know it is bad" remark. I think case studies and something a little more ethnography or even industrial engineering based (looking at what goes on) would have given them insights. There was a little bit of "we want to code". I think for instance, this approach would have allowed them to do something a little simpler and quicker wrt table/template/ref callouts (i.e. just display the wikicode itself when someone goes to edit rather than trying to WYSIWYG parallel the functionality.)TCO (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. Mostly agree with TCO here. I'm not sure what a "survey" is supposed to be, but per Oliver below, surveys are not generally a very useful form of feedback. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Deployment was too aggressive because the developers wanted a large community of users. A small one was in order. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. You can't really fix software with surveys. It's sounds like a nice idea, but it really lacks any practical value. - MrX 15:07, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• We're talking about a survey now. Personally, I don't think a survey is a very good way of measuring things. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
• There isn't a section for comments about the position generally, so I'll ask; why do you not think the bugs and slowness are likely to be fixed within a reasonable timeframe? (I say that as the team deploys a set of new patches). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
  • A week is a long time in a very active website, and if the bugs were that easy to fix, there is no way that VE should have been launched unpatched. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:25, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Sure, but by that standard we'd never be able to launch any software. Wikipedia will always be active; software will always, to some degree, be flawed. Actually we're doing deployments pretty much daily. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
      • Few of those actively damage the source of pages on the site, but remain in place. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
        • The same is true of the VE; we've got, off the top of my head, 10 bugs that do that: or did. Three fixes were deployed ~5 minutes ago. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
          • I'm going to have to echo Oliver here in that if we didn't ram it though, a lot of these bugs wouldn't have been spotted. The fact that so many people were able to edit with it and experience the interface is a great thing for developers from the standpoint of bug fixing, even if many people did not like it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
          • (ec)Too little too late? Look, I worked on releasing software for a number of years. But this was simply not ready for prime time. I would have fired anyone who proposed releasing this in the business world as pure incompetence. Beta testing is fine, but this would fail most everyone's beta! Why did the testing not reveal bugs? Simply put the software was too buggy to use. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:59, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
            • Because there are a vast number of permutations of user actions. We had a lot of beta testing - starting in December 2012, the VE was opt-in here. At one point we had 1,000 users using it. But that doesn't account for every possible use case in a highly editable environment. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
              • Your right, we did have a long beta test, at the end of which several editors including me told you and the WMF that the product wasn;t ready for launch. We already knew there were problems and they were actively being discovered. So the innocent school boy act is disingenuous. No one was surprised this blew up in the WMF's face. We told them it was going to happen and we were ignored. Kumioko (talk) 00:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
                • Actually, that's an interesting question. Oliver, are WMF people actually surprised at the negative reaction? I'd like to note that I've been hugely advocating the VE project for years now and I'm seriously dismayed by way too much of what's happening. (And if you ask "what in particular are you dismayed at?" then I'm not really sure what to say.) - David Gerard (talk) 15:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
                  • Not massively; frankly if we thought it would be easy we wouldn't have eight people doing it. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but personally I've found myself (a) pretty impressed by the community and (b) hoping that we do a lot more to fix the issues. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

                    There is a variety of viewpoints within the WMF, but from what I've overheard, most of the WMF regular staff seem to believe that the overall reaction from the English Wikipedia is less negative than they had expected when they contemplated this project. A major, highly visible change like this immediately results in a huge number of complaints, no matter how perfect it is (and this isn't!), simply because it's a big change and big changes are always disruptive to people who are used to the old system. Therefore, the fact that there have been a lot of complaints during the first eleven days is normal and expected. It was even expected that a handful of editors would publicly refuse to use it, and yet still spend hours and hours complaining about it, rather than writing articles or whatever it was that they normally did (which, looking at a few names, I guess isn't usually writing articles anyway).
                    I may be wrong, but I think that if there are still this many complaints in two or three months, then they'll be extremely concerned. But right now, it's easy to understand how disruptive this huge change is for experienced editors, and one of the predictable, wonderful things about this community is that when experienced editors encounter even a small disruption, they make sure that you know about it. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:30, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• If they thought they would get USEFUL feedback from a survey they would probably have started one, if they had the time. Feedback is pouring in on the feedback page, some of it useful (from a developer's point of view) and a lot of it noise. So what's new? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:00, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

6. Wikimedia should disable this software by default

Enabling buggy software for the editors least able to recognize that they are dealing with a software bug or that they have corrupted an article is irresponsible. The English Wikipedia community does not have the bandwidth, inclination, or responsibility to check every edit made by the Visual Editor and repair it. Until the Visual Editor is far more stable and the majority of identified bugs have been corrected, it should be disabled except for editors that are consciously intending to test it.

Support

1. —Kww(talk) 01:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. For now, its too buggy, missing too many feature to be more than at a test state. I've been building a state of play document at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Known problems which makes it clear how incomplete it is. Revert back to an opt-in, fix the bugs, implement the features, and then when it works to a better level resume the roadmap.--Salix (talk): 01:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
3. New users are deleting references due to VE, when trying to insert some new text.--Vigyani_talk^{ਯੋਗਦਾਨ} 05:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. Support PantherLeapord (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. Support Suppose you're in the Indianapolis 500. You're on lap #15 and everybody is whizzing past you. And you take a good look at your car and realize you're in a Yugo. How many more laps do you take before you pull into the pit and get into the proper car? The Visual Editor, as it stands now, is the wrong editor. It should be rolled back immediately. It is embarrassing to Wikipedia and highly disruptive to the process of editing articles.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. What's done is done. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Onwards and upwards! You haven't presented the case for the volume of bad edits and I'm not experiencing it in my edits around the 'pedia. Also, a fair case needs to also show the positive effects (whatever they are, show the trade off, be two-sided). Also, your statement of action is a little disconnected from the smaller text below which is "platitudey". But that's a nit, man. Don't get mad and please keep fixing my pictures and sounds please.  ;-) (I can't produce good content on my own...hmmm...maybe there is a tiny thing to the idea of Wiki collaboration). TCO (talk) 01:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

   Filter 550 monitors only one class of common problem with VE: its inability to cope with editors that directly insert wikimarkup in visual mode. That volume of problems alone would justify my opinion.—Kww(talk) 01:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

3. Oppose: As noted above, no user has to use it at all, and only has to move their mouse a few millimeters to the right before clicking to avoid using it forever. No one is being forced to use it, despite the false impression given by the tone of many of these questions, and while it has faults and problems, none of these questions does any good in resolving these faults, but seems to merely be a means for some community members to vent about not being personally consulted at every step along the way for their singular approval before roll-out. I wouldn't mind seeing many improvements to the Visual Editor, but there's no way this questionnaire is a useful medium to achieve those needed changes. --Jayron32 01:50, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
4. VE being 'on' by default is not a real issue, but being unable to turn it completely off easily is. GiantSnowman 08:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
5. No, but it does need a proper, supported off switch - David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
6. What David Gerard said. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose for the moment, but I agree it really needs an obvious off switch. It took me a while to find it and I'm fairly experienced. Dougweller (talk) 14:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
8. I think the sorftware, even in it's current state, is a net positive, especially for new editors. I'm confident that the developers will take our feedback to heart and continue making improvements. - MrX 15:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
9. No, leave it default for new editors who won't know about "gadgets". Just don't turn it on until it works. Reaper Eternal (talk) 15:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose per David Gerard and Reaper Eternal. I would not advocate such an extreme choice – I feel that if someone wants to use it, let's not stop them. But by the same token, if someone doesn't want to use it, we should not stop them either, and that is not what is happening: they are practically being stopped. Double sharp (talk) 15:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
11. The strategy has achieved much of its intended objective - to get feedback on unknown bugs. Lots of bugs, lots of feedback, some even useful. If you don't like it just don't use it. I find it almost entirely ignorable. It wouldn't bother me at all except for the flashing edit links. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

1. I read over the opposes, and it's clear to me that people are reading something that I didn't write. I didn't say to blow this up. I said to make it so that it was only available to people that consciously know that they are testing it. An editor that has never edited before and doesn't know how to check that his edit was successful shouldn't be presented with an "edit" button that leads to buggy software. This needs to be software that experienced editors consciously turn on if they want to, not software that you have to learn how to avoid. I don't see how this is an "extreme choice" at all.—Kww(talk) 16:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

7. VisualEditor, as currently deployed, is a useful feature

Support

1. Ypnypn (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Oppose

1. No, not as currently deployed. It definately has the potential to be. But not yet. Right now its more trouble than its worth. Kumioko (talk) 20:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose as currently deployed, Visual Editor has multiple bugs that are preventing quality edits that are disruptive to Wikipedia. If you want to use it in your sandbox, go right ahead but it should not be used to edit articles in mainspace. Further, it is disruptive to the process of editing as there was no pre-deployment training and what notification steps that were taken were woefully inadequate. This is preventing good quality edits from taking place and requires follow-up with articles that have been editied with VE to make sure that layouts are good, tables are proper, templates are in place, etc. Any of the bugs that have been found to still be open in VE require an additional "cleansing edit" to fix it. So experienced editors are having to follow VE editors to fix the trail left behind instead of working on improving the article itself.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• At this present moment, it is both slightly useful (I find copyedits on a complex article easier with it) and has some serious problems - David Gerard (talk) 21:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Great work

• Great work MediaWiki/Wikipedia team on the new editor. This will allow Wikipedia to remain relevant in the current 'state of the web' where editing experiences like this are expected. I was very impressed to see the implementation of the Reference editor and 'Transclusion' editor. Features like those would have been easy to set aside for a Version 2.0, but a more comprehensive release really may start a positive trend. No doubt technical issues like browser compatibility or differences of opinion on exact layout will arise and be resolved as part of the development as they have always been. Please keep up the great work!Cander0000 (talk) 08:52, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Given the scope of the problem (and just how horribly messed-up wikitext really is), it is actually very good, and easier for quick copyedits on complicated articles. And I know how damn hard everyone involved is working on it - David Gerard (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment about this RfC

This RfC was designed with many weasel words, false choices, and questionable assumptions. This needs to be redone in a proper way to claim any sort of true consensus. -- Ypnypn (talk) 19:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• Disagree I don't believe it comes across that way. I suppose it could be re-written to have a better effect, but there is no harm in it now. But unlike the Visual Editor, this RFC can be improved as we go along just like any article or essay. If you have better wording, mention them. I believe this RFC was brought forward in good faith.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• So add a section more to your liking - David Gerard (talk) 19:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

So I have. -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think Ypnypn has a point, it looks seriously biased to me, (not necessarily in bad faith though) but I think it is in any case a storm in a teacup, so to mix my metaphors, I will not fan the flames. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:14, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
• Must say I didn't like the language used, which has detracted from its intended purpose.--Salix (talk): 21:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)