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Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Archive/Make sure the plain wikimarkup editor remains for use by "advanced" editors

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Make sure the plain wikimarkup editor remains for use by "advanced" editors

NoN Does not propose a technical change

  • Problem: Once every few years well-meaning improvement teams take steps to reduce or remove the ability to edit a Wikipedia article or talk page using nothing but plain text, where wiki markup is fully visible and editable.
  • Who would benefit: Everyone who would feel a WYSIWYG editor would only get in the way; everyone who prefers full control over "user friendly" interfaces
  • Proposed solution: Make sure the plain wikimarkup editor remains for use by editors, and fully supported by the Wikipedia sites. Both for articles and talk pages. I don't mind if I have to go into Preferences and actively flip a switch, just as long as I can make a permanent one-time choice to have the current editor available and default. While I fully understand the benefits in attracting and retaining editors by more "user friendly" editing tools, let us agree that any type of such "friendly" editor also removes control, and makes Wikipedia life much much harder for those already used to "coding" rather than "writing" Wikipedia content (articles and talk pages).
  • More comments:
  • Phabricator tickets:
  • Proposer: CapnZapp (talk) 08:47, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • It feels like to me that the WMF, developers, etc. cripple the wikitext editor in various ways inadvertently, or on purpose. Killing it by degrees. And then refuse to fix the problems they created. For example; removing, changing, restricting what goes in the various editing toolbars over time. Rather than give us wikitext editors more toolbar options, "they" impose whatever the developer consensus of the week decides to offer in the way of choices. So it is gradual destruction of the wikitext editor. I would like to be able to pick what tools I want in my wikitext editing toolbar. All of us are different. Other software allows such choices. Why not Wikimedia? In my Firefox browser I can choose the tools, addons, placement, locations, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:02, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I support @CapnZapp:'s proposal for full control to opt out of the visual editor. Since I first started editing on Wikipedia, I have used plain wikimarkup. I've always wanted to be able to code but got put off trying to learn machine code for the ZX Spectrum, but now I appreciate how it stretched my mind. I never got to grips with the WYSIWYG visual editor, and have since become accustomed to the wiki-language. SpookiePuppy (talk) 01:11, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's my understanding that the plain wikitext editor (or a plain wikitext editor) will never go away, because VisualEditor doesn't support everything that can be done in wikitext, and also editing must be supported for users who don't have JavaScript. So I wouldn't worry about that. As for unwanted changes to the plain wikitext editor, that's not something we (Community Tech) can guarantee and I do not think the wishlist is the right place for this. A proposal in the survey should result in us doing technical work. This sounds more like the wish is that work should not be done (which is easy for our team, but impossible to promise indefinitely on behalf of the Foundation because we can't predict the future). For this reason I'm going to archive this proposal. However if there are problems with the plain wikitext editor that you would like to get fixed, we'll happily accept a proposal for it. Thanks for your understanding and participation, MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 01:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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