Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-03-25/Technology report

Visual editor
"We're aiming for the Visual Editor to become the 'default' editor - that is, when you click the 'edit' button, you get the Visual Editor."

If the Wikipedia visual editor is as slow and buggy as the visual editor at Wikia, then there may be a serious drop in the number of edits from anonymous editors. I suggest leaving the wikitext editor (source editor used now) as the default editor. One would access the visual editor by clicking "Visual Editor". This would be the safe, conservative path of implementation.

I stopped using the Visual Editor on Wikia years ago, as have most regular Wikia editors I have communicated with. I even had to disable it in preferences because it severely slowed down my editing since I could not put the wikitext editor on top by default. I had to click on the wikitext editor tab (source editing) for almost every single edit. I had to do that because the visual editor was, and is, so buggy and slow.

Please be sure that we can choose which editor is on top in preferences. People will also need an option to disable it altogether because its loading in the background may slow things down too.

I am in the process of leaving Wikia and forking most of my wiki to a pure MediaWiki wiki farm. I am amazed at how much more work I am getting done. Wikia's many changes in many areas caused so many slowdowns in ease and speed of use. I had forgotten how fast a pure MediaWiki site is for mass editing. Please do not make the same mistake on Wikipedia. Right now Wikipedia editing is very fast. Let's keep it that way, by implementing visual editor as a background option, not as an abrupt in-your-face default option. Be ready to disable it and work on it further if the number of edits goes down. The purpose of the visual editor is to increase the number of edits, not lessen the number. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Since the number of active editors on English Wikipedia (and one assumes anonymous editors too) is declining it is important that editing be made easier and faster, not buggy and slower. So that the total number of edits goes up in spite of the declining number of editors. For the same reason content disputes need to be fairly resolved more efficiently. We need all this because of the increasing number of articles. See: User:Timeshifter/More articles and less editors. Here is a good summary chart below. It says the maximum number (ever) of active editors (5 or more edits in the last month) was 51,370 in March 2007. See also: commons:Category:English Wikipedia active editor statistics for more stats and charts. I do not know if there is a way to track the number of monthly anonymous editors.
 * [[File:Active editors on English Wikipedia over time.png]]
 * The total number of edits each month over time on English Wikipedia is tracked on this page: Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - English. See the "Database" header, and then the "edits" column. 3.9 million edits in Feb. 2013. That column goes back monthly to Jan. 2001 when Wikipedia started. The chart to the right is a summary chart cropped from Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - Edits per month. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:40, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * "The Visual Editor is currently deployed to the English Wikipedia as an opt-in test for all users to be able to edit all articles and user pages" A brief explanation, or a link to one, of how to opt-in would be useful. --Dweller (talk) 12:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone could add a link to here: Special:Preferences. At the end of that tab for editing preferences is a checkbox labeled "Enable VisualEditor". --Timeshifter (talk) 12:17, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Even if the Visual Editor became the default, I'm sure they would let you opt-out in preferences, lest James Forrester find hordes of angry Wikipedians on his doorstep. Revolution1221 (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * However tempting an angry horde might be, I/we have no plans to remove the ability to edit wikitext from anyone. :-) Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata
Would like to see more info on the Wikidata phase 2 launch. This is a pretty big deal, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 23:06, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I added a link to the blog post. Kaldari (talk) 23:19, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Maybe you could feature Wikidata Phase II in a future edition of the Signpost.--Aschmidt (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I would be interested how Wikidata and VisualEditor will work together. --78.34.0.160 (talk) 06:30, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Typo

 * You have a small typo there: i10n/l18n should be l10n/i18n. -- Orionist  ★  talk  02:19, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed, thanks. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 03:53, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Now it says i19n though. --Catrope (talk) 22:14, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Bah. Fixed, because clearly you couldn't. ;-P Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 06:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Sign languages
You must mean "sign languages", in plural, because there are many. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * By the way, a Wikipedia in sign language would be much more interesting if it was filmed or animated, not written. That's a much tougher task, for sure! --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)