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

[MZMcBride]

Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
>Op 2013/08/05 19:35, MZMcBride schreef:
>> Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been
>> thinking lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of
>> insurgencies. I believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on
>> the English Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force.
>> Consequently, this has created an insurgency composed of long-time
>> editors. This isn't meant to be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the
>> streets or planning warfare (yet). However, the anger felt by many in
>> the editing community toward the VisualEditor team is very real and
>> very worrying, as is the seemingly heavy-handed way in which
>> VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few weeks ago, VisualEditor was
>> receiving accolades for the way in which it had been slowly and
>> thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly arbitrary
>> deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The wounds
>> are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal.
>
>I notice you used the phrase "seemingly heavy-handed" above. Do you
>truly believe that this was not *actually* heavy-handed?

Using "seemingly" twice so close together was certainly sloppy writing.
:-)  I'll try to explain where I am currently.

As with many things in life, I think whether the deployment of
VisualEditor was heavy-handed depends on your perspective; mine is still
forming. At <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints>, a
few key issues/developments are discussed.

There was a decision to deploy without an opt-out user preference,
followed by a reversal of this decision and a re-instatement of the user
preference.

There was a decision to deploy with that awful section-edit animation,
followed by its removal.

At no point was the wikitext editor ever made unavailable to editors. And
rhetoric and hyperbole aside, nobody was ever forced to use VisualEditor.

The fact that the software is experimental ("beta") is now much more
prominent throughout the user interface, the user interface now
consistently uses "edit source," and the order of the tabs has been
changed to make wikitext editing more prominent.

With the points above, it's a mixed bag as to whether the deployment of
VisualEditor was heavy-handed.

This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. Erik
and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they make
reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in. However, a very
large number of my colleagues and your colleagues have strongly disagreed
with this decision, which leaves doubt in any reasonable person's mind.

That said, this doubt is tempered by the _enormous_ selection bias we see
in the on-wiki discussion. Namely that (a) the discussion has only been
advertised to logged-in users, and (b) that nearly everyone participating
in the on-wiki discussion is someone who has figured out wikitext. That
is, the people who would most benefit from a visual editor right now are
the silent majority who are unaware of, and in many cases incapable of,
participating in the discussion about whether VisualEditor should be
opt-in or opt-out. And in the on-wiki discussions, we've seen a lot of
comments that are quite simply out-of-touch with the level to which people
are capable of interacting with Wikipedia via wikitext editing alone.

I used "seemingly" to indicate nuance. Any editor could easily look at the
deployment fiasco and claim that it was heavy-handed and be right. But I
think there's also a legitimate case to be made that, whether or not we
agree with the decision, it was considered and backed by reasonable views.

As I said on my talk page, I believe that we need a visual editor and an
active group of people are trying to develop one (however haphazardly).
Rather than simply attack and banish them, I think we should instead focus
on ways to make it better or make it easier to get it out of the way of
those who don't want to use it or can't use it.

MZMcBride