If anyone is still running outreach editathons to try and recruit new editors, you might want to consider using visual editor. I spoke to some of the WMF people at Wikimania and apparently the issue of it running very very slowly on old kit has recently been largely addressed. I've pointed out in the past that as long as that bug was a "won't fix" you couldn't promote Visual Editor at outreach editathons because even if all the laptops look pretty new, there could well be someone present using a borrowed laptop and intending to use an old PC at home. Since we really can't start an editathon asking the attendees if they all use new computers at home, and then reverting to the classic editor if someone says their machine was bought in 2010 I and several others have been ignoring the Visual Editor for the last couple of years.
I have just run a quick test on this myself using a friend's old PC and V/E does now work, though it is still a little slower than the classic editor.
Regards
Jonathan / WereSpielChequers
On 30 July 2015 at 12:57, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone is still running outreach editathons to try and recruit new editors, you might want to consider using visual editor.
I've considered it; and decided not to.
For one thing, when a new user sees a diff, either via a link on a talk page, an article's history, a user's contributions, or their own watchlist they are exposed to Wikicode, and so need a basic understanding of how it works.
I would start with the VE and introduce diffs and wikitext at the end of the class as advanced stuff. Understanding a wikitext diff is much easier than editing wikitext
Joe
On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 14:10 Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 30 July 2015 at 12:57, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone is still running outreach editathons to try and recruit new
editors, you might want to consider using visual editor.
I've considered it; and decided not to.
For one thing, when a new user sees a diff, either via a link on a talk page, an article's history, a user's contributions, or their own watchlist they are exposed to Wikicode, and so need a basic understanding of how it works.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit "edit source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor - pity it's not a good character editor.
On 09/08/15 01:03, Richard Farmbrough wrote:
I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit "edit source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor
- pity it's not a good character editor.
WIMPS or WYSIWYG?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_%28computing%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG
My religion is Emacs, so most of the time I would rather be in that exalted state.
My concern is that WYSIWYG can be poor on semantics. The idea that the look is more important the structure leads to the use BOLD rather that a section header says <h2>random words</h2>. Is the Wiki markup language that difficult? Is there good support in the visual editor for all constructs?
Having said that I must around to trying out the new visual editor.
:-)
Gordo
I have now used the visual editor for more than a hundred edits since the speed up. I agree that the classic editor is generally faster and I suspect that will be especially true for anyone editing large articles as V/E's still lacks section editing.
I like the way V/E supports infobox editing, one of the things I sometimes do is add images to articles and with the classic editor you usually have the pain of having to check the template documentation to find out what the parameters are for image and caption (sadly and for no obvious reason these parameters are unlikely to be "image" and "caption"). V/E is actually quite intuitive here in allowing you to run through the unused parameters of the infobox.
Table editing is more nuanced, on the one hand there are handy looking options that come up inviting you to delete or add columns or rows and I'm sure at some point I will find an opportunity to use them. But editing the contents of a cell in a table is challenging, not a task I would suggest to a newbie and far less intuitive than using the classic editor.
Adding images from commons is really quite impressive in V/E, I haven't yet been in the situation of having to work out which Newcastle V/E is prompting me with and it would be good to know whether V/E is using wiki data links, keywords, geocodes or some combination. But however it does it the images it has prompted me with so far have been pretty good.
Not sure between Joe and Andy's positions re showing diffs. I have had very little to do with the education program, but I appreciate for educators knowing how to look at the contributions of a student is important. I think that V/E would be a better entry point for technophobes whilst clearly the classic editor is better for the technoscenti. How you recruit one or other group for an editathon without stereotyping is an interesting conundrum. If you have access to a large mailing list of people who might be interested then you could do two sorts of sessions, one emphasising that this was Wikipedia editing for anyone, especially people who tried it in the past and found it technically arcane. Another promising a session led by a "power user" showing how to be an effective editor on Wikipedia perhaps billed as "this session is suitable for anyone with any programming experience, however rusty or archaic".
Alternatively if you have a good ratio of experienced editors to newbies you can guard people and show them the editor most suitable for them.
Regards
Jonathan
On 9 Aug 2015, at 01:03, Richard Farmbrough richard@farmbrough.co.uk wrote:
I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit "edit source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor - pity it's not a good character editor.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Are we taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments this year? No mention of the UK here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Partici...
best wsihes Edward
On 10 August 2015 at 16:43, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I have now used the visual editor for more than a hundred edits since the speed up. I agree that the classic editor is generally faster and I suspect that will be especially true for anyone editing large articles as V/E's still lacks section editing.
I like the way V/E supports infobox editing, one of the things I sometimes do is add images to articles and with the classic editor you usually have the pain of having to check the template documentation to find out what the parameters are for image and caption (sadly and for no obvious reason these parameters are unlikely to be "image" and "caption"). V/E is actually quite intuitive here in allowing you to run through the unused parameters of the infobox.
Table editing is more nuanced, on the one hand there are handy looking options that come up inviting you to delete or add columns or rows and I'm sure at some point I will find an opportunity to use them. But editing the contents of a cell in a table is challenging, not a task I would suggest to a newbie and far less intuitive than using the classic editor.
Adding images from commons is really quite impressive in V/E, I haven't yet been in the situation of having to work out which Newcastle V/E is prompting me with and it would be good to know whether V/E is using wiki data links, keywords, geocodes or some combination. But however it does it the images it has prompted me with so far have been pretty good.
Not sure between Joe and Andy's positions re showing diffs. I have had very little to do with the education program, but I appreciate for educators knowing how to look at the contributions of a student is important. I think that V/E would be a better entry point for technophobes whilst clearly the classic editor is better for the technoscenti. How you recruit one or other group for an editathon without stereotyping is an interesting conundrum. If you have access to a large mailing list of people who might be interested then you could do two sorts of sessions, one emphasising that this was Wikipedia editing for anyone, especially people who tried it in the past and found it technically arcane. Another promising a session led by a "power user" showing how to be an effective editor on Wikipedia perhaps billed as "this session is suitable for anyone with any programming experience, however rusty or archaic".
Alternatively if you have a good ratio of experienced editors to newbies you can guard people and show them the editor most suitable for them.
Regards
Jonathan
On 9 Aug 2015, at 01:03, Richard Farmbrough richard@farmbrough.co.uk
wrote:
I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit "edit
source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor - pity it's not a good character editor.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
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Hello Edward, everyone,
If there's a volunteer willing to take the lead on Monuments then we can offer a little logistical support. However, the volunteers that delivered it last year said it was an enormous amount of work and don't have the time. If you would like to lead on it then we can help, although time is very short at this point.
Thanks and regards,
Stevie
On 12 August 2015 at 10:35, Ed Hand edwardxx@gmail.com wrote:
Are we taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments this year? No mention of the UK here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Partici...
best wsihes Edward
On 10 August 2015 at 16:43, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com
wrote:
I have now used the visual editor for more than a hundred edits since the speed up. I agree that the classic editor is generally faster and I suspect that will be especially true for anyone editing large articles as V/E's still lacks section editing.
I like the way V/E supports infobox editing, one of the things I sometimes do is add images to articles and with the classic editor you usually have the pain of having to check the template documentation to find out what the parameters are for image and caption (sadly and for no obvious reason these parameters are unlikely to be "image" and "caption"). V/E is actually quite intuitive here in allowing you to run through the unused parameters of the infobox.
Table editing is more nuanced, on the one hand there are handy looking options that come up inviting you to delete or add columns or rows and I'm sure at some point I will find an opportunity to use them. But editing the contents of a cell in a table is challenging, not a task I would suggest to a newbie and far less intuitive than using the classic editor.
Adding images from commons is really quite impressive in V/E, I haven't yet been in the situation of having to work out which Newcastle V/E is prompting me with and it would be good to know whether V/E is using wiki data links, keywords, geocodes or some combination. But however it does it the images it has prompted me with so far have been pretty good.
Not sure between Joe and Andy's positions re showing diffs. I have had very little to do with the education program, but I appreciate for educators knowing how to look at the contributions of a student is important. I think that V/E would be a better entry point for technophobes whilst clearly the classic editor is better for the technoscenti. How you recruit one or other group for an editathon without stereotyping is an interesting conundrum. If you have access to a large mailing list of people who might be interested then you could do two sorts of sessions, one emphasising that this was Wikipedia editing for anyone, especially people who tried it in the past and found it technically arcane. Another promising a session led by a "power user" showing how to be an effective editor on Wikipedia perhaps billed as "this session is suitable for anyone with any programming experience, however rusty or archaic".
Alternatively if you have a good ratio of experienced editors to newbies you can guard people and show them the editor most suitable for them.
Regards
Jonathan
On 9 Aug 2015, at 01:03, Richard Farmbrough richard@farmbrough.co.uk
wrote:
I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit
"edit source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor - pity it's not a good character editor.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
There will be no UK contest as far as I know. I've stepped down as volunteer WLM organiser this year and no-one else has expressed an interest in taking over. My own view is that with the fairly comprehensive listed building coverage we already have in the UK, we would do better now to concentrate not on raw numbers but on improving photographic quality and on filling in specific gaps. WLM is an excellent project but in the UK at least tends to attract large numbers of images of the same major landmarks (often in London) and is not an ideal way to source high-quality images of lesser-known and regional monuments.
I've had some initial discussions about a possible new approach whereby images are requested by Wikipedia editors and are fulfilled by a panel of volunteer photographers across the country. Still early stages in planning, and a lot of work will be needed to get sufficient high quality photographers, probably reaching out to photographic society members rather than restricting the talent pool to Wikimedians.
Michael
Ed Hand wrote:
Are we taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments this year? No mention of the UK here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Partici...
best wsihes Edward
Getting the data in place and on Wikidata was a massive job, but all of that is still in place. If we don't update the dataset, or declare The Community (TM) to be in charge of updating the data on Wikidata, we can still use the tools from 2014.
"Official" tool: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wlmuk/ (that one has upload links for the campaign)
Experimental Wikidata-based tool: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wlmuk/index_wd.html
On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 11:14 AM Michael Maggs Michael@maggs.name wrote:
There will be no UK contest as far as I know. I've stepped down as volunteer WLM organiser this year and no-one else has expressed an interest in taking over. My own view is that with the fairly comprehensive listed building coverage we already have in the UK, we would do better now to concentrate not on raw numbers but on improving photographic quality and on filling in specific gaps. WLM is an excellent project but in the UK at least tends to attract large numbers of images of the same major landmarks (often in London) and is not an ideal way to source high-quality images of lesser-known and regional monuments.
I've had some initial discussions about a possible new approach whereby images are requested by Wikipedia editors and are fulfilled by a panel of volunteer photographers across the country. Still early stages in planning, and a lot of work will be needed to get sufficient high quality photographers, probably reaching out to photographic society members rather than restricting the talent pool to Wikimedians.
Michael
Ed Hand wrote:
Are we taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments this year? No mention of the UK here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Partici...
best wsihes Edward
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org