[Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Nathan]

On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 7:07 PM, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> I realize this was brought up a couple of weeks ago and I apologize for the
> late response on this, but it was just recently brought to my attention
> that the VE opt-out was intended to be only temporary.
>
> Firstly: Currently, as per the overwhelming consensus on en.wikipedia at
> least, VE needs to be opt-in, not opt-out. It's not even stable or usable
> to the beta stage, but it might be ready for some early user tests. Even
> beta testing, however, should only be opt-in. Opt-out should only occur
> once the product is feature-complete and has no (yes, zero) known major
> flaws or incomplete features. That means it should be capable of making
> -any- edit to -any- page, and in the manner that its user would want it to,
> including parsing, not no-wiki'ing, of wikimarkup, as the community has
> clearly stated.
>
> That aside, it's now come to my attention that the "opt-out" is meant to
> last only until the project is out of "beta". There are some problems with
> this.
>
> First, your (and by "your", I specifically mean the project managers)
> judgment on project readiness is obviously way off. VE isn't even -in-
> beta. It's not feature-complete, it's not ready, and it's got massive
> numbers of known bugs. It could be barely described as ready for alpha. Yet
> it's being treated as release-ready, such as being released as the default
> for most users. That calls into serious question the judgment of the
> project managers on this project. I, and many others, do not trust you to
> properly determine when this project should be released, as you've already
> made a hugely premature release of software that wasn't even near ready.
>
> Secondly, even if VE worked perfectly, some editors will never be
> interested in using it. An opt-out clarifies that the development team
> recognizes a significant group of those editors exists, and will ensure
> their wishes are respected. Some editors will just want raw-text editing,
> some will be running bots or scripts that depend on it, some just won't
> want to change, some will be doing tasks VE has been explicitly noted not
> to support. All must be respected, and raw editing must remain supported,
> not be squashed by yet another heavy-handed gesture from the same team
> that's already made far too many of those. I don't want to hear, in a year
> or two "It works great! Source editing is deprecated and we'll be removing
> it soon!". And believe me, many of us, me included, expect just that,
> absent a firm commitment.
>
> Thirdly, a confirmation that VE will always include opt-out will clearly
> notify editors not interested in using it that it will always remain
> optional, and that source editing will remain supported. Currently, given
> the "ram it through" approach by WMF and its technical staff, such trust is
> severely eroded. A clear statement that "You may always opt out of VE"
> would go a long way toward rebuilding it, while "You may only opt out while
> we say you can" further erodes that already damaged trust.
>
> Please make a clear statement that VE will always have an officially
> supported opt-out for editors who would like to use it, not only during
> "beta".
>
> Regards,
>
> Todd Allen

This went into my spam-folder, along with other posts to
Wikimedia-related lists lately.

One quick comment on the content of Todd's e-mail - making VE opt-out
is not synonymous with preserving the option to edit in raw text. If I
understand correctly, the "Edit source" button (which is not the opt
out) is going to remain. That means any editor, independent of VE
status, retains the option to edit in the traditional manner.

~Nathan