Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I've closed this RFC in response from a plea on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard for a non participant. Below is a summary of the questions and my read on the consensus -- in some cases the individual subsections have more detail. Overall, community participants indicate strong feelings the current Visual Editor implementation isn't good but there is support for the concept as long as it doesn't preclude direct wikisource editing. I was disappointed to see opposition to visual editor on the basis that we should keep it harder for newcomers to edit which, of course, is contrary to a core Foundation principle.

3.1 Question 1: When a new account is created, should the preference be set to disable VE ("opt-in") or to enable VE ("opt-out")?

Opt-in

3.2 Question 2: When an editor is editing anonymously, should VE be presented by default?

No

3.3 Question 2.5: If VE is presented to anonymous users, how visible should it be?

Link should open wikitext editor and provide link to Visual Editor

3.4 Question 3: Should the preference be set to disable VE for all existing accounts, requiring editors that choose to test VE to specifically enable it?

Consensus is editors should make explicit choice to become beta testers, therefore the preference state for existing accounts should be changed

3.5 Question 4: Should the user interface explicitly warn editors that pressing the "edit" button is using beta software?

Yes

3.6 Question 5: Should the VisualEditor support basic wikimarkup shortcuts, such as bold, italics, and Link?

Yes

4.1 1. That visual editor, in its present form, should NOT be made available to unregistered users, and that it should not be made available to anonymous IP users in the future, without a community-wide discussion & vote.

This proposal failed

4.2 2. That visual editor should be shelved completely, and things go back to how they were before.

A majority of editors felt that, in its current state, the Visual Editor should be scrapped, but many editors felt that a well done implementation would benefit Wikipedia.

4.3 3. Visual editor should display two editing panes by default, one WYSIWYG pane and a smaller pane for source code editing.

There's support for a two pane option but not necessarily by default.

4.4 4. The section edit tabs should be removed for the visual editor

No consensus

4.5 5. Visual Editor should always be optional

Yes

4.6 6. "Edit source" after section titles on talk pages should be changed back to "edit"

No consensus

4.7 7. The default action upon clicking a section edit link should be "edit source", not to open VE

No (apparently this option is bad for mobile devices)

4.8 8. Should we add a link in the edit page to switch between wikitext and VE?

No consensus

NE Ent 14:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]