Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something that is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on English Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set up a framework which the community can use to decide which of several paths we would like to take.
This is not my personal RfC, I just happen to think that with recent discussions trending positively about VE's improvement over the past several months and with the comments in this list about its possible value to acquiring new editors, I'm willing to put in some time to draft a framework for a discussion on-wiki. I am providing this note to let the community know that someone (me) is drafting a framework for on-wiki discussion. If someone else wants to start an RfC before I get around to starting one, that's completely ok.
Cheers,
Pine
On 3 June 2014 03:02, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something that is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on English Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set up a framework which the community can use to decide which of several paths we would like to take.
This is not my personal RfC, I just happen to think that with recent discussions trending positively about VE's improvement over the past several months and with the comments in this list about its possible value to acquiring new editors, I'm willing to put in some time to draft a framework for a discussion on-wiki. I am providing this note to let the community know that someone (me) is drafting a framework for on-wiki discussion. If someone else wants to start an RfC before I get around to starting one, that's completely ok.
Cheers,
Pine
Without denigrating your considerable contributions to the project, Pine, I'd suggest that anyone setting up an RFC on this issue should have more recent experience with the product than you have, and I'd also suggest that an RFC is premature until there is an indication from the WMF that *they* feel the product might be ready for broader access. I don't think that a fair discussion can be had when it is happening without, for example, a clear understanding of what issues existed before and whether or not they have been resolved. I hope you will reconsider - or perhaps actually test the product for a couple of weeks before proceeding, so that the RFC can be based on factual information rather than "well, some people think it should be enabled". There have always been some people who thought it should be enabled. There have always been some people who think it is a waste of engineering time and energy. But factual information about the current status of the tool, complete with intelligent assessment of its features, is what is really needed for the community to make a considered decision.
Risker/Anne
On 3 June 2014 09:05, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 03:02, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something that is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on English Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set up a framework which the community can use to decide which of several paths we would like to take.
This is not my personal RfC, I just happen to think that with recent discussions trending positively about VE's improvement over the past several months and with the comments in this list about its possible value to acquiring new editors, I'm willing to put in some time to draft a framework for a discussion on-wiki. I am providing this note to let the community know that someone (me) is drafting a framework for on-wiki discussion. If someone else wants to start an RfC before I get around to starting one, that's completely ok.
Cheers,
Pine
Without denigrating your considerable contributions to the project, Pine, I'd suggest that anyone setting up an RFC on this issue should have more recent experience with the product than you have, and I'd also suggest that an RFC is premature until there is an indication from the WMF that *they* feel the product might be ready for broader access. I don't think that a fair discussion can be had when it is happening without, for example, a clear understanding of what issues existed before and whether or not they have been resolved. I hope you will reconsider - or perhaps actually test the product for a couple of weeks before proceeding, so that the RFC can be based on factual information rather than "well, some people think it should be enabled". There have always been some people who thought it should be enabled. There have always been some people who think it is a waste of engineering time and energy. But factual information about the current status of the tool, complete with intelligent assessment of its features, is what is really needed for the community to make a considered decision.
Risker/Anne
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an RFC, we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions. This is what I would suggest.
- Create a "sample article" that includes an infobox, an image or two, some references, a template or two, and at least three editable sections. Editors will be asked to copy/paste this page into a personal sandbox to carry out the experiment, so that their individual results can be observed through the page history, and problems can be more easily identified. - Identify about 15-20 *basic* editing tasks that an inexperienced editor would be likely to try. Some that come to mind: - Remove a word - Add a word - change spelling of a word - add a link to another article - remove a link to another article - move a sentence within a section - move a sentence across sections - add a [new] reference (multiple tests for website, newspaper, book references) - edit an existing reference - re-use an existing reference - edit existing information in the infobox - add a reference to the infobox - add a new parameter to the infobox - add an image - remove an image - add an image description - modify an image description - add a commonly used template (such as {{fact}}) - remove a template - add several symbols and accented characters that are not available on their standard keyboard (e.g., Euro and GBP symbols for US keyboards, accented characters commonly used in German or French) - Ask the "testers" to complete a chart outlining their results for each of the editing tasks being tested, and any comments they have about each of these editing features.
If we can persuade even 25 people to work through these basic tasks, and the results are aggregated well, the community will have some useful data on which to base next-steps decisions. It will also provide the VisualEditor team with comparatively unbiased information about their progress. The key emphasis in the experiment is that it should focus on straightforward, elementary editing activities rather than complex tasks, and the purpose is to see whether or not these features work in an expected way or not.
Thoughts?
Risker/Anne
Sounds like your suggestion would be a perfect contribution to some kind of community discussion to try and decide a framework to decide if or when we might want to re-deploy visual editor, much like Pine was suggesting in the first place :-)
*Edward Saperia* Chief Coordinator Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org
On 3 June 2014 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 09:05, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 03:02, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something that is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on
English
Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set up a framework which the community can use to decide which of several
paths we
would like to take.
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an RFC, we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions. This is what I would suggest.
- Create a "sample article" that includes an infobox, an image or two,
some references, a template or two, and at least three editable sections. Editors will be asked to copy/paste this page into a personal sandbox to carry out the experiment, so that their individual results can be observed through the page history, and problems can be more easily identified.
- Identify about 15-20 *basic* editing tasks that an inexperienced
editor would be likely to try. Some that come to mind: - Remove a word - Add a word - change spelling of a word - add a link to another article - remove a link to another article - move a sentence within a section - move a sentence across sections - add a [new] reference (multiple tests for website, newspaper, book references) - edit an existing reference - re-use an existing reference - edit existing information in the infobox - add a reference to the infobox - add a new parameter to the infobox - add an image - remove an image - add an image description - modify an image description - add a commonly used template (such as {{fact}}) - remove a template - add several symbols and accented characters that are not available on their standard keyboard (e.g., Euro and GBP symbols for US keyboards, accented characters commonly used in German or French)
- Ask the "testers" to complete a chart outlining their results for each
of the editing tasks being tested, and any comments they have about each of these editing features.
If we can persuade even 25 people to work through these basic tasks, and the results are aggregated well, the community will have some useful data on which to base next-steps decisions. It will also provide the VisualEditor team with comparatively unbiased information about their progress. The key emphasis in the experiment is that it should focus on straightforward, elementary editing activities rather than complex tasks, and the purpose is to see whether or not these features work in an expected way or not.
Thoughts?
Risker/Anne
Thanks Ed. The point I am trying to make is that the community can't make a good decision on this unless they understand the VisualEditor product as it exists today. I think pretty much everyone agrees it wasn't ready for default editing on 1 July 2013, but absent recent data most people would naturally base their opinions on their personal experiences from that very early period.
Risker/Anne
On 3 June 2014 12:15, Edward Saperia ed@wikimanialondon.org wrote:
Sounds like your suggestion would be a perfect contribution to some kind of community discussion to try and decide a framework to decide if or when we might want to re-deploy visual editor, much like Pine was suggesting in the first place :-)
*Edward Saperia* Chief Coordinator Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org
On 3 June 2014 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 09:05, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 03:02, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Because VE has repeatedly been mentioned in this list as something
that
is improving and may help us with acquisition of editors and their knowledge, I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on
English
Wikipedia.
I am not proposing any specific outcome in the RfC. My goal is to set
up
a framework which the community can use to decide which of several
paths we
would like to take.
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an
RFC,
we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions.
This
is what I would suggest.
- Create a "sample article" that includes an infobox, an image or two,
some references, a template or two, and at least three editable sections. Editors will be asked to copy/paste this page into a personal sandbox
to
carry out the experiment, so that their individual results can be observed through the page history, and problems can be more easily identified.
- Identify about 15-20 *basic* editing tasks that an inexperienced
editor would be likely to try. Some that come to mind: - Remove a word - Add a word - change spelling of a word - add a link to another article - remove a link to another article - move a sentence within a section - move a sentence across sections - add a [new] reference (multiple tests for website, newspaper,
book
references) - edit an existing reference - re-use an existing reference - edit existing information in the infobox - add a reference to the infobox - add a new parameter to the infobox - add an image - remove an image - add an image description - modify an image description - add a commonly used template (such as {{fact}}) - remove a template - add several symbols and accented characters that are notavailable
on their standard keyboard (e.g., Euro and GBP symbols for USkeyboards, accented characters commonly used in German or French)
- Ask the "testers" to complete a chart outlining their results for
each
of the editing tasks being tested, and any comments they have about each of these editing features.
If we can persuade even 25 people to work through these basic tasks, and the results are aggregated well, the community will have some useful data on which to base next-steps decisions. It will also provide the VisualEditor team with comparatively unbiased information about their progress. The key emphasis in the experiment is that it should focus on straightforward, elementary editing activities rather than complex tasks, and the purpose is to see whether or not these features work in an
expected
way or not.
Thoughts?
Risker/Anne
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On 3 June 2014 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an RFC, we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions. This is what I would suggest.
[snip a possible user test scenario]
+1. Some sort of user testing like this would be fantastic.
We might even be able to set it up so the Internet will do it for us, which will save WMF paying testers ... could do some serious A/B work too. There must be frameworks for this sort of thing ...
VE team (cc James): so. How do you think this thing is now, getting to a year later? Performance? Robustness? Stability of code?
- d.
On 3 June 2014 12:25, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an
RFC,
we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions.
This
is what I would suggest.
[snip a possible user test scenario]
+1. Some sort of user testing like this would be fantastic.
We might even be able to set it up so the Internet will do it for us, which will save WMF paying testers ... could do some serious A/B work too. There must be frameworks for this sort of thing ...
VE team (cc James): so. How do you think this thing is now, getting to a year later? Performance? Robustness? Stability of code?
David, one of the most important features of this proposed test is that people who *know* what the results ought to look like are carrying out the testing. It is probably a good idea to have parallel testing with new or inexperienced users, but at the end of the day, it's experienced Wikipedians who are going to make the decision whether or not to open up availability of VisualEditor to an expanded user group, and they are the ones who have to believe that it is fit for purpose, at least for basic editing skills required by new users. I suspect that most Wikipedians will give much more regard to the documented experiences of editors whose reputations they know as compared to those who are brand new - and I include myself in that group. I've seen ringers sent in too often in different kinds of user tests (not necessarily Wikimedia-specific) to fully assume good faith.
Risker/Anne
Hey Risker, Pine, David, all,
On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 12:25, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 June 2014 16:37, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Okay, further to what I've said above....I think that before having an
RFC,
we should seek community assistance to carry out a small-scale study so that there is some evidence on which people can base their decisions.
This
is what I would suggest.
[snip a possible user test scenario]
+1. Some sort of user testing like this would be fantastic.
We might even be able to set it up so the Internet will do it for us, which will save WMF paying testers ... could do some serious A/B work too. There must be frameworks for this sort of thing ...
VE team (cc James): so. How do you think this thing is now, getting to a year later? Performance? Robustness? Stability of code?
David, one of the most important features of this proposed test is that people who *know* what the results ought to look like are carrying out the testing. It is probably a good idea to have parallel testing with new or inexperienced users, but at the end of the day, it's experienced Wikipedians who are going to make the decision whether or not to open up availability of VisualEditor to an expanded user group, and they are the ones who have to believe that it is fit for purpose, at least for basic editing skills required by new users. I suspect that most Wikipedians will give much more regard to the documented experiences of editors whose reputations they know as compared to those who are brand new - and I include myself in that group. I've seen ringers sent in too often in different kinds of user tests (not necessarily Wikimedia-specific) to fully assume good faith.
Risker/Anne
If anyone would like to have a look at what usability testing is being done for simple tasks, it's over on mediawiki[1]. Compare notes, use the talk page, feel free to discuss what's going on there.
What is clear to me is that the community needs to spend some time discussing about how they would like to have the discussion. There have been various proposals on this mailing list and on-wiki about how to reintroduce VisualEditor for the new user, all of which have been quite interesting and diverse in approach. It's vital that a path going forward can be agreed upon by all of us, and community leadership and community lead discussion is key to this. The events of last year make this a delicate discussion to have; and I think a good place to start would be slow, deliberate brainstorming on-wiki. There were hundreds of participants in the last RfC and it's important that we take the time to think it though together rather than having competing formats, if you will
Another thing that would be very useful would be better promotion from within the community to use Beta Features[2]. Conversations about developing features are what make products better :)
1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Design/User_testing 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeature...
On 3 June 2014 08:02, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
I have started to draft an RfC about re-enabling VE on English Wikipedia
URL?
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org