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Is editing Wikipedia easy? Although I'll agree it's a lot easier than pushing to GitHub, it's still way beyond the skills of the average Wikipedia reader. Click

Is editing Wikipedia easy? Although I'll agree it's a lot easier than pushing to GitHub, it's still way beyond the skills of the average Wikipedia reader. Click Edit on any article. It's a mess of opaque syntax, presented in a textbox. Above the textbox are two different warning paragraphs, one because I'm not logged in and another warning against copyright. Any casual user who clicked Edit out of a genuine desire to improve the article would probably just click away. I would say the ease of editing needs to be much better than GitHub or current Wikipedia. A decent, WYSIWYG editor (with a Markdown mode, don't panic) with tools to make adding citations etc. possible for mortal users.

DanBC 9y ago
> Click Edit on any article. It's a mess of opaque syntax, presented in a textbox. They've had visual editing for years: https://imgur.com/a/mnePe https://imgur.com/a/mnePe
- fredley 9y ago
  But that's not what's presented by default. I just tried again and got a popup asking me to switch (not sure why that didn't show up first time around), but the default button for the popup ('Start Editing') takes you to the old interface.
  - sshine 9y ago
    Also, getting the visual editor back once you say no thanks doesn't seem trivial. I had to look up how. My guess is that regular contributors hardly use it, and its purpose is mostly symbolic rather than practical.
    - fredley 9y ago
      How I would love to see the data on how many edits submitted from the WYSIWYG tool are/aren't reverted.
      - tgr_ 9y ago
        Slightly less than with the text editor: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/November_2015_follow-up https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_ef...
  - DanBC 9y ago
    I just tried in a private window, and got this: https://imgur.com/a/isTAw https://imgur.com/a/isTAw I guess this just proves OP's point: Wikipedia has been struggling to introduce visual editing because the current editing userbase rejected it.
sshine 9y ago
Wikipedia has had a visual editor for years. [1] But in both cases of Wikipedia and GitHub, not having to use specialized, stand-alone applications or syntax is only part of the complexity. The two warnings are most certainly meant to discourage casual editors because of the risk of vandalism or subjective contributions. It is ambivalent to first encourage editing and then scare a number of people off afterwards. > the ease of editing needs to be much better I completely agree. And, as the article points out, with a heavy focus on revising the reward mechanism. And, if you ask me, with a focus on ownership. Perhaps categories of articles can be owned by groups/tags in which one can earn access and ownership. Just as when you earn enough points answering questions on StackOverflow with a certain tag, you can become a moderator for that tag. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor
- cabalamat 9y ago
  > Wikipedia has had a visual editor for years. Also, it is not the lack of a visual editor that turned Wikipedia editors away. It was the projects anal notability policies. The number of wikipedia editors peaked in 2007-2008, long before the visual editor existed.

DanBC 9y ago

> Click Edit on any article. It's a mess of opaque syntax, presented in a textbox. They've had visual editing for years: https://imgur.com/a/mnePe https://imgur.com/a/mnePe

fredley 9y ago
But that's not what's presented by default. I just tried again and got a popup asking me to switch (not sure why that didn't show up first time around), but the default button for the popup ('Start Editing') takes you to the old interface.
- sshine 9y ago
  Also, getting the visual editor back once you say no thanks doesn't seem trivial. I had to look up how. My guess is that regular contributors hardly use it, and its purpose is mostly symbolic rather than practical.
  - fredley 9y ago
    How I would love to see the data on how many edits submitted from the WYSIWYG tool are/aren't reverted.
    - tgr_ 9y ago
      Slightly less than with the text editor: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/November_2015_follow-up https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_ef...
- DanBC 9y ago
  I just tried in a private window, and got this: https://imgur.com/a/isTAw https://imgur.com/a/isTAw I guess this just proves OP's point: Wikipedia has been struggling to introduce visual editing because the current editing userbase rejected it.

sshine 9y ago

Wikipedia has had a visual editor for years. [1] But in both cases of Wikipedia and GitHub, not having to use specialized, stand-alone applications or syntax is only part of the complexity. The two warnings are most certainly meant to discourage casual editors because of the risk of vandalism or subjective contributions. It is ambivalent to first encourage editing and then scare a number of people off afterwards. > the ease of editing needs to be much better I completely agree. And, as the article points out, with a heavy focus on revising the reward mechanism. And, if you ask me, with a focus on ownership. Perhaps categories of articles can be owned by groups/tags in which one can earn access and ownership. Just as when you earn enough points answering questions on StackOverflow with a certain tag, you can become a moderator for that tag. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor

cabalamat 9y ago
> Wikipedia has had a visual editor for years. Also, it is not the lack of a visual editor that turned Wikipedia editors away. It was the projects anal notability policies. The number of wikipedia editors peaked in 2007-2008, long before the visual editor existed.