On 22 July 2013 18:35, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 22 July 2013 11:45, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
Putting all of the issues aside, I'd like to know what the reason is for hiding the preference. Let's assume for a second that VE does not hinder users at all, that it's JS footprint is nonexistent, and that the interface changes aren't that bothersome (which, to an extend, are true). Even with all that, what reason is there to purposely deprive users of the choice to completely hide VE if they're sure they have no intention of using it?
Adding a preference to disable VisualEditor in normal user preferences (rather than making it as easy as possible for gadgets to disable if people so chose) would be a lie.
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Creating such a preference is a lie, and a lie I cannot endorse.
… and yet, here I am endorsing this. :-)
Because I understand the level of concern that this matter is causing, I am changing my mind on this. For the duration of VisualEditor's "beta" period, there will be an opt-out user preference. This will be deployed tomorrow morning, San Francisco time. Once VisualEditor is out of 'beta', this preference will be removed.
As others have explained better than I, we think that users will be ill-served by this opt-out, and I hope that as few users as possible will choose this way to degrade their experience and deprive the community of their input. Instead of endlessly arguing the point about this, I'd rather my team and I spending our time working to make our sites better.
J.