The team working on the VE needs this feedback and is asking for it. Can we collate it and send it to them?
Whiteghost.ink On 3 July 2013 18:19, Adam Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been curious about it, but hadn't tried it before now. I kind-of wish > I hadn't. I took a basic article and tried to do a couple of things that a > typical new editor would try. > > First, I tried adding a reference to a web page for an unsourced claim. > This is particularly important to me, as I was rewriting my "how to edit > Wikipedia" materials to trim it back to five rules, one of which was to > "reference everything". So, looking at the VE, it isn't obvious to a new > editor which button is for adding a reference. All of them use icons rather > than words, so only a mouseover could help. One proved to be "insert > reference", so I clicked on that. (There is also "References list", but > that is for another job). Clicking it brings up a search box saying "what > do you want to reference". I wanted to reference this article, so that was > a bit odd. Then I thought it might have meant what kind of thing I wanted > to reference, so I added "web page" and pressed return. Nothing happened. > So I added a url and clicked pressed return. Still nothing. I tried > pressing "Insert reference". Nothing. So I clicked on "create new source", > which doesn't make a lot of sense, as the source was already online, and > that let me click on "insert reference". Yay! > > Except that it didn't insert the reference. Instead it brought up a new > editing window that had something called "use this group" below a box > called "reference content" with some basic buttons and my url. One of the > buttons was "transclusion", so I thought it might bring up some referencing > options, but it didn't. Instead it opened a new window that made no sense > at all. It seems I'm expected to both know how to format a reference and do > it myself, with no hints, instructions, or any form of assistance. Anyway, > I got that to work, but there was no warning or hint that it wouldn't > appear due to the lack of a references list at the end. Until. of course, I > saved it, and was presented with a red message saying "Cite error: There > are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a > {{reflist}} template", none of which makes any sense in terms of the VE, > which neither shows ref tags nor reflist templates as options. > > I tried to fix this by clicking on "edit" again, but this came up with a > warning saying that I was editing an old revision of the page. I was > surprised, because I didn't think anyone would have had time to make any > changes, so I checked the history. No, mine was the most recent edit. It > seems that the warning appears if I try to edit twice without physically > clicking on the reload button in my browser. Anyway, after doing that I > fixed it by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on "References > list", which opened a new window with a "use this group" option - something > rarely used on articles that would make no sense to new editors. But > clicking on "Apply changes" made it work. > > For the second job I thought I'd tidy up an existing image that was > incorrectly formatted. My first thought was to add an infobox. That was an > absolutely lost cause - there was no way in the VE that I could see that > would do this, unless it was something to do with the weird "Transclusion" > button the made no sense at all when I clicked on it. So I selected the > image and clicked on "media". This opened a new window showing the photo > and a search box, with the subject's name in it and one photo. So I clicked > on the photo and it made the old one disappear and the new one appear in > the right spot. Except a) it wasn't the picture that was already there, b) > the caption didn't go with it, and the only way to add a caption was to > click on it again once it was there, and c) there was no option to add alt > or descriptive text for people with disabilities. The original picture > didn't even appear as an option, possibly because it had been uploaded to > Wikipedia rather than Commons. > > These weren't hard tasks. But not being able to easily reference is a deal > killer for me. The problem with the "editing an old revision" notice was > serious, especially for a new user, as was the lack of image tags is a > major issue for accessibility. This is a surprise - it would have taken > only a little bit of work with new user focus groups to have worked out > that this wasn't ready to go live. > > So, summary: > > * Most of the options only make sense for experienced editors. But it is > lacking core functions that experienced editors need, so they'll be > sticking with the source option. > * New users are faced with options that make no sense, no assistance (even > though there is a lot of room to add help), and a poor method of adding > references, increasing the likelihood of their work being reverted. > * It is buggy, with that "editing an old version" message very confusing, > and problems showing up after adding an image that I didn't cover. > * Images were added at a non-standard size, without prompts for captions > or a means of adding alt text. > > I honestly don't understand why this is live. > > Adam. > > > On 3 July 2013 15:33, Kerry Raymond <[email protected]> wrote: > >> For those of you who have taken the Visual Editor for a test drive, >> what did you think?**** >> >> ** ** >> >> We have seen Gnangarra’s thoughts already and so I thought I’d share mine. >> **** >> >> ** ** >> >> To start, I should say that I sincerely believe that having a visual >> editor should make editing Wikipedia much more accessible to those folk who >> are used to Microsoft Word etc and not accustomed to seeing markup. I am >> all in favour of this initiative. I have worked for many years using >> WYSIWYG tools like Word (so-so) and FrameMaker (much better) and SeaMonkey >> (beats raw HTML any day), so I don’t come into this discussion with a >> mindset that “markup = good”, quite the opposite. As they say in The >> Matrix, “why send a man to do a machine’s job?”.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> However, in its current state, I don’t think the VisualEditor (VE) >> achieves its goal. There’s a few reasons:**** >> >> ** ** >> >> 1. It doesn’t run on Internet Explorer, which is the out-of-the-box >> browser when you have a Windows PC. The less tech-savvy a person is, the >> more likely I think they are to have a Windows PC with IE. So, the very >> people being targeted with the VE probably can’t use it because they have >> the wrong browser.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> 1. The functionality of the VE seems very limited. Yes, I can type >> text. Yes, I make text bold/italic. Yes, I can make a heading. Yes I can >> make a link if the name of the link will suffice as the text, e.g. [[dog]] >> but not if I want [[dog|puppy]]. Or, at least, I could not work out how to >> do it. Although the toolbar seems to suggest there is a way of working >> with >> images, references and transclusions, I failed to be able to do anything >> at >> all with them. Now, it may be that I am too conditioned by the existing >> editor to be able to think in the new paradigm of the VE; perhaps what >> should be done will be obvious to the less-conditioned newbie editor. >> Although I am a bit uncertain that the newbie will know what >> “transclusion” >> means; indeed I think if they do know what it means, then they would >> already be familiar with markup.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> 1. The VE cannot always be used. If you try to change the content of >> an article with the VE, you will often get green-diagonal-stripes >> appearing >> across the chunk you are trying to edit with a message that the Visual >> Editor cannot edit that sort of material. You have to switch into Edit >> Source (aka the existing markup editor) to work with it. **** >> >> ** ** >> >> I can see that if a newbie comes along (with the right brand of browser) >> and clicks Edit for the first time because they’ve seen a spelling error or >> want to add an extra sentence, then the VE should work for them, unless of >> course they want to do it in a photo caption or inside a table or …. But, >> as it stands, there is no real growth path for them to develop their >> editing skills beyond such very simple changes. They either have to stay >> locked into a world of very limited functionality or they have to click >> Edit Source for the first time and deal with markup for the first time. I >> guess the question that only time will be able to answer is whether the >> transition to the markup editor is made in any way easier by the initial VE >> experience as opposed to the previous situation where you were dropped >> straight into editing markup. However, for even a mildly experienced editor >> (and I certainly don’t rate myself as any kind of expert editor), I cannot >> see what benefit the VE gives you. All of things you can do with the VE >> appear to be just as easily achievable with the toolbar in the existing >> editor – the difference is that you can see the markup produced in the >> existing editor but not in the VE. I cannot see a reason an existing editor >> would shift to the VE; the loss of functionality would frustrate you very >> quickly.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Now it’s a fair thing to say “hey, the VE has just been released – it >> will be further developed and greater functionality will be available >> through it”. This is indeed true, but I can’t see the VE ever developing to >> the point where we can throw away the markup editor. Part of the challenge >> (perhaps “most of the challenge”) of further extending the VE is that >> Wikipedia markup and its templates etc have grown like topsy. There is a >> lot of ad-hoc-ery and not a lot of coherence to many existing features. I >> don’t know if there is any easy answer to providing a “simple visual” tool >> for working with templates and other exotic features. The task of building >> the VE would have been made easier if they could have first removed some >> existing features out of the current editor and then out of the articles >> that used them, but no doubt there would have been howls of outrage if that >> had occurred. If the goal is an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, then I think >> some existing functionality will have to be discarded or revised to achieve >> it.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> How are other people finding the Visual Editor?**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Kerry**** >> >> ** ** >> >> ** ** >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaau-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l > >
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