Old discussions: June 2013 to May 2014, June 2014 to May 2015, June 2015 to May 2016, June 2016 to May 2017, June 2017 to May 2018

Thank you for your (archived) suggestion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 165#if login doubtful or fails, send email at that moment, not later. With that in mind, I've now proposed it. I assume you're free to comment. Nick Levinson (talk) 23:30, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

tagged "Watch" on your page nor on the "Deletion log" page, yet they appeare in my Watchlist. Further, I cannot delete them from same. What is going on here??? Shir-El too 10:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have the redirect User talk:WhatamIdoing (WMF) on your watchlist? Try this link. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, not until you asked. There is still something weird going on with 'Deletion log' only now it's supposedly linked to something on User talk:DuncanHill. Is somebody playing hob with the programing? Shir-El too 18:05, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You might take your question to WP:VPT. Perhaps you have a broken gadget or user script. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC):[reply]

I am asking you because something tells me that the current link button (with popup) in the editing toolbar was started along with the Visual Editor. So for consistency it was also used in the wikitext editor toolbar. You know what they say about consistency?

After being involved in this thread:

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Separate buttons for single and double bracket links in the editing toolbar

I realized that I must have long ago enabled the old toolbar in Wikipedia preferences. Because the use of the old link buttons is so much faster for me than the link button with popup on the new toolbar. See the thread for the full explanation.

The first 4 buttons in the old toolbars are the ones people use all the time:

- there are various versions of the old toolbar. But the first 4 buttons are the same:

• Bold. Italics. Internal link [[double brackets]]. External link [single brackets].

Shoutwiki does not have the Visual Editor at all. See the old toolbar in use. Click the edit button on this sandbox page for a wiki on Shoutwiki: http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Sandbox

Current editors may have no clue that single-click link buttons are much faster. Why would they?

I suggest you initiate some discussion in the rarified air at WMF, and in the developer caves, about putting those single-click link buttons in the Advanced menu for now (in the current default wikitext editor). That way editors have access to them. I can leave the advanced menu open.

I enabled the 2017 wikitext editor today (beta feature in preferences). It is a disaster concerning speed. All 4 of the most common commands are 2-click. Bold and italics is buried in a menu. So I have to click on the menu, and then bold or italic. This doubles the total number of clicks I do in a day, a week, a year.

I don't even see a signature button. I looked in a lot of menus. I had to add it manually. I also don't see a preview button. It is buried too. Everything I use the most is buried and takes at least 2 clicks.

A customizable quick-launch toolbar holding around 5 commands would solve my speed problems. Kind of like the quick-launch taskbar in Windows. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:46, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to the question you asked: November 6, 2018.

I understand that this changes your workflow, which sucks.

As I understand it, the 2006 experience was:

1. Select word.
2. Click internal link.
3. Brackets 'typed' for you. Done!

Well, "done", if your only goal was to link that word to an article (or redirect) with that exact title. You're kind of screwed if you need the label to differ from the link, because there's no way to tell the editing toolbar that you want to have [[Link|Example]] in the article. You have to know how to do that (and many editors don't, especially new ones).

So when they wrote the 2010 toolbar (after getting a lot of complaints about this problem), the experience became:

1. Select word.
2. Click the link button.
3. Change the label (if you want), and then press Return (or take your hands off the keyboard again to go click the button with your mouse).
4. Everything done for you. Done!

So for most of your work, this adds one extra key press (or one extra click), but people can figure out how to make the label different from the link target. It's a tradeoff, but it's the tradeoff that this community asked for back in the day. The key difference, therefore, isn't really "one button vs two"; it's "dumb" button (only adds brackets, and can't even figure out which set of brackets to add) vs "smart" button (formats the whole thing for you, including figuring out whether you're making an internal or external link).

I'm guessing from your comments that you're either not a very fast typist, or that you're not working from a US/English keyboard. Because for me, I never use the buttons for common functions at all. I can type the square brackets in less than half the time that is needed for a mouse-and-toolbar approach. It's the same in the visual editor: Why would I click on anything, when I could just use the Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Keyboard shortcuts? ⌘ Command+b works for bold on my Mac just about everywhere, including in the visual editor (and its 2017 wikitext mode, which is what you enabled). I don't think that's unusual among high-volume editors.

As for customization, the 2010 wikitext editor is customizable (as are pretty much all of the major editing tools, actually). mw:Extension:WikiEditor/Toolbar customization#Add a button to an existing toolbar group has an example of a button called "smile" that would type :) for you. Presumably it could be made to type square brackets instead of an emoji. Custom buttons can be placed in whichever group (e.g., "Advanced") you wanted. I don't know if you can remove the buttons that you don't want, but if you wanted to add one (or five), then you could do that.

(In VisualEditor's 2017 wikitext mode, the signature button is almost at the end of the Insert menu. But again, at this wiki, almost all the experienced editors normally type it. I've asked about that one in particular in the past. It varies by language [because the keyboards used for some languages don't have that button], but at the English Wikipedia, relatively few experienced editors use the button.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:15, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2017 wikitext editor has some good points. But speed (for me) is not one of them.

I am a middle of the road typist. But I don't add bold, italics, or links as I type. I don't often know what I want to be bold, italics, or linked as I type.

So I come back and add them. So the text is already there, and I am just "decorating" it. :)

I go back and type in the labels and URLs for the links that need them. Then I pop on the brackets with one click of the toolbar button.

The 2010 link button with popup box just slows me down. Much faster to come back and type/paste in the label or URL directly into the wikitext window versus type/paste in the label or URL into the popup box.

I don't remember ever using the 2010 editor (or more likely I forgot, since I may have tried it long ago, and didn't like it) until Nov. 6, 2018 when the 2006 toolbar disappeared and there was no toolbar. I decorated my text by keyboard for a couple days, and gave up due to how slow it was.

Then I looked in preferences, village pump, etc. to find out what was going on.

I started editing on Wikipedia in October 2005. And Wikia in Feb 2007. Shoutwiki around 2013 on a regular basis.

Many experienced editors on Wikia, Shoutwiki, etc. use the wikitext editor with the 2006 (or similar) toolbar. The source editing on both of them does not have the 2010 editor toolbar. It does not exist as a source editing preference on either site. You can see the Shoutwiki wikitext toolbar by clicking the edit button in the sandbox linked below.

http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Sandbox

http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing

Wikia buries the source editor for anonymous editors in a menu (the 3-line menu). Click the edit button, and then the 3-line button, to see "source editor" in the dropdown menu. No toolbar at all for source editing by anonymous editors.

https://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Sandbox

But Wikia gives registered editors the option to add the source editing toolbar:

https://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing

Registered editors also have the option in preferences to make source editing the default editing when the edit button is clicked. That is what I and many others have done. In that case "visual editor" is in the dropdown menu next to the edit button. Log in to see that. Set your preferences.

I guess it comes down to whether you are a mouse person or a keyboard person. I am both. I like FPS games using my keyboard and mouse. :)

I can't imagine using my keyboard (arrow keys) to navigate back to the middle of a paragraph to add a link. The mouse is much faster. So I move mouse, select text, add link brackets. THEN, if necessary, I type in a link label or URL. Why would I want to type it into a box? Makes no sense for experienced editors. And from what you tell me, you don't use that popup link box either. You type. The link box is training wheels for new editors.

The simple solution is a short strip of one-click buttons at the beginning or end of the toolbar. Another preference to remove the beginner link button would be nice, but not essential. It just takes up space. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:34, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I just love this kind of conversation. :-)

The 2017WTE's speed is good enough for me. I type in it just like I did in any of the others. My one relevant complaint about the visual editor is that I can type faster than it can open the boxes. At some point (as a volunteer), I've used them all. The 2006WTE was default when I started editing, but I don't think I used its buttons much. They just didn't do much. WP:WikEd was painfully slow, so I gave up on that one pretty quickly. Switching to the 2010WTE – well, that was when Vector rolled out, and one of the scripts I used broke, so I switched back and forth to MonoBook several times. I'd guess that it took me a couple of weeks to get used to the new toolbar. It could do a lot more, but first you had to find things. It's citation button never worked reliably for me. I'm much happier with the visual editor's citoid tool. (I often use the mouse to click that button, although I know the keyboard shortcut. The shortcut was added much later, and I think I never got out of the habit.)

Our writing approach is the opposite. I almost always know where I want the links to be; in fact, I sometimes write a sentence more for the purpose of adding the link than for just having the sentence. I'm definitely a keyboard person, so even if I need to add a link later, I normally use keyboard navigation (⌘ Command+→ to skip to the end of the line, ⌥ Option+→ to skip to the end of the word, etc.), and it's pretty quick at reaching the words that I missed. I was more dedicated to that when I used a mouse, but even though the trackpad on my laptop is right next to my thumbs, I still don't use it much on wiki.

Have you tried the CSS code for shortening your editing window, to make the one-click buttons that are underneath the editing box easier to reach? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent). The 2010 editing toolbar moves off the screen. Going back and forth from the top to the bottom of the window is not a viable solution for frequently used markup buttons. It's not just a problem with the window size. The menus at the bottom do not stay open. Stray mouse clicks while scrolling from top to bottom remove previous selections. It's just all-around unwieldy.

The 2017 editing toolbar though solves all those problems because it is always visible at the top of the editing window. So the editing window takes up the full screen and beyond.

(unindent). I renamed the toolbars by year so they are easier to find and share:

• 2006:
• 2010:
• 2017:

As concerns my desire for one-click markup buttons, the toolbars get progressively worse. So, in effect, wikitext editing as many people know it is disappearing, and becoming slow like the visual editor. Editors are making billions of unnecessary extra clicks over the years. That lessens the number of edits that could have been made in the same time period.

I currently like the visual editor only for tables. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2017WTE. Keep its top toolbar. Add Commons edit tools on bottom toolbar

I started a subheading because I think this solves all my problems a lot more simply, and nothing new has to be created.

The 2017 wikitext editor (2017WTE) makes using a bottom toolbar much more feasible. The editing window fills the whole screen. There is only one scroll bar.

The 2017WTE top toolbar is fixed in place. Scrolling does not move it. 2017 top toolbar:

• 

An edit tools bottom toolbar could be fixed in place too:

• 

All of those edit tools buttons are single-click (no popup instructions). Just like the old 2006 wikitext top toolbar.

A single-click preview button could be added to it. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:22, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What would you think about having the "EditTools" (or, more precisely, its contents) at the top of the 2017WTE window, right under the toolbar? phab:T154113 lets int-admins stick arbitrary wikitext into the "Often used" (first) section of the special character inserter. It takes up a bit of vertical space (equivalent to seven lines of text on my screen), but you can leave it open, so it's one click per article to open the menu, and then just a matter of re-training your muscle memory to look for that button at the top of the screen instead of at the bottom. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to avoid clicking menus at all, or taking up a lot of the editing window. 7 lines is too much to leave open all the time.

I definitely want to leave open the edit tools all the time. Actually, it is the first line of the edit tools that I want visible onscreen all the time. So maybe if the special character dropdown could be set to show only one line by default, or by preference.

I don't want to have to open the edit tools dropdown every time I open an editing window. I want it opened by default somehow.

I forgot something in my previous message. I want separate bold and italic buttons as in the 2010 wikitext editor.

And I would like to combine the best aspects of these 2 edit tools menus:

I prefer [] and [[]] from the first toolbar.

I want <code><nowiki> from the 2nd toolbar. I used it here, but had to retrieve it from the Commons editing window.

And I want a signature button with 2 dashes in front. --~~~~ --Timeshifter (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Show preview. Show changes. One-click buttons needed in 2017 editor

What I miss most in the 2017 wikitext editor (WTE) are the separate one-click buttons for Show preview, Show changes, and Publish. They are in the 2010 wikitext editor:

• 

I use "show preview" more than any other command in the wikitext editor. The lack of one-click access to a preview in the 2017 WTE slows me down more than anything else in the 2017 WTE.

In contrast the 2010 WTE has all 3 buttons, the wikitext editing window, and a preview. All on one page. So I can scan back and forth between the preview and wikitext. To see errors more easily. 2010 WTE is what I am using now to post this message.

I can type in some wikitext, hit preview, and see if it works for me right away. Over and over and over. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:43, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2017 WTE might have a "show preview" button that opens up the preview in a different tab.

Wikia, in their "classic editor", opens up the preview as an overlay. When not logged in to Wikia go to a sandbox page and click on "classic editor" from the menu next to the edit button.

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central:Sandbox

https://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Sandbox

That overlay could be a tab within the same page. That way one could click back and forth between the wikitext editor and the preview. Versus scrolling up and down as in the 2006 and 2010 editors.

That scrolling would be difficult in the 2017 editor since the toolbars are fixed. So tabs would be better. It would be fast too. Everything would be one click. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:20, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's some talk about adding a second preview button (maybe in a menu), but I've found that it's worth learning the keyboard shortcut for preview. They're the same ones that work in the 2010 wikitext editor. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The 2017 WTE has the preview button in a kind of menu now. The popup box from clicking the publish button. I am not a keyboard shortcut type of person. And most people aren't. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:14, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

2017 WTE. It comes down to adding a one-click button strip

How to install 2006 toolbar via preferences: Wikipedia:Legacy toolbar.

Now that the 2006 toolbar is back as a gadget on English Wikipedia I see that all of my above problems would be solved by putting a one-click button strip on the top or bottom of the 2017 edit window. It would have to stay visible all the time. Not in a menu.

The Show preview, Show changes, and Publish buttons would need to be on that strip too. Or they could be in the sidebar. Visible all the time that the 2017 editing window is open.

The sidebar might also be the place to put the publishing verbiage: "By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." It could be in a menu.

That publishing info and related buttons (preview, show changes, publish) would take over the visible sidebar anytime the 2017 editing window is open. So the sidebar would also be one-click buttons visible all the time. -- Timeshifter (talk) 22:14, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to add any button you want to the 2017WTE's toolbar. mw:VisualEditor/Gadgets/Add a tool has the directions. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what it does, or how it does it. And as an individual solution, it is not what I am trying to do.

My main motivation in all these discussions is maintaining, and possibly increasing, the total number of monthly edits on English Wikipedia. That requires enabling tools at a mass level.

I know from long experience that a "hot button" toolbar (one click to add wikitext directly to the editing window) helps many people do more edits in the wikitext editors. Not all people, but many people.

I did not realize that people had been deprived of such a toolbar for so many years. Unless they started editing a long time ago, and knew how to enable the 2006 toolbar in gadget preferences.

Enabling the hot button toolbar should be in the editing section of preferences. Many more people would then use it, versus accidentally finding it in gadgets preferences. It should be enabled by default. Once people use it many more would keep it enabled.

Every language of Wikipedia would have easy access to their particular hot button toolbar. MediaWiki would not provide the toolbar. Mediawiki would just provide the checkbox in the editing section of preferences. That would make the job of core Mediawiki developers much easier.

The hot button toolbar should be at the very top of the editing window. Above the standard toolbar that has menus. That way the 2 toolbars do not interfere with each other. Menus would not push down the hot button toolbar. Both toolbars should be visible at all times.

The hot button toolbar would disappear of course in the visual editor. -- Timeshifter (talk) 03:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is total number of edits the best metric?

The Wikimedia Foundation tracked the number of active editors as a key metric for years. I believe that the Editing team still reports those (annually? quarterly?), but the organization's focus has changed. The number of active editors dropped when the bots started reverting vandalism. There were editors who made a lot of edits, but their edits weren't really contributing to the sum of human knowledge. They were just pressing buttons that (as it turned out) a bot could push almost as well (and much faster). So there were fewer editors (and over time, fewer edits, as near-instant reversion seemed to discourage vandals), but I don't think anyone would say that this actually indicated a problem. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) The info and chart below has been on my user page for years. In case you want to find it quick.

Here is a good summary chart below. It says the maximum number of active editors (5 or more article edits in the last month) peaked at around 53,000 in March 2007.

See also: commons:Category:English Wikipedia active editor statistics for more stats and charts. I wonder if there are timeline graphs of the number of editors making 1, 2, 3, and 4, edits per month.

Then we can do the math of the cumulative edits per month by each group. It may turn out the editors who are most important are the ones doing only a few edits per month. That is another reason that any slowness of editing with the Visual Editor and the wikitext editor needs to be addressed.

The bot effects on the total number of edits and the total number of active editors would show up fairly rapidly. After that stabilizes then we are once again able to use the number of active editors, and the total number of monthly edits, as a good tool to measure whether Wikipedia is being improved at the same rate, or is losing steam, or is accelerating.

So every improvement in efficiency of clicks increases the amount of time available for meaningful improvements of Wikipedia. It adds up when it involves millions of clicks per day. So the bots help a lot in freeing up the time of editors.

I like this timeline chart of the number of monthly edits over the life of Wikipedia:

• https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/all-projects/contributing/edits/normal%7Cbar%7CAll%7C~total

Over a million edits per day. That means millions of clicks per day. Since a single edit involves multiple mouse clicks.

I had not seen that chart before. It is encouraging. Overall the number of edits has been increasing. There have been some large dips though at times. I bet the bots were responsible for some of those dips. They eliminated the work of many good editors. So the number of edits went down as they discouraged poor edits and vandalism. But the good editors soon came back to do other things.

Wikidata bots increased the number of edits too. The date is circled on the chart. -- Timeshifter (talk) 08:02, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I doubt that anyone would say that editors like us are not important, but edits from less experienced, good-faith people might be more valuable on average. For one thing, they tend to add content; for another, they tend to trigger edits by people like us. When a newbie adds something, a neglected page might turn up in the watchlist of an experienced editor for the first time in a long while, and some experienced editors try to build on those edits, rather than just tagging, reverting, and warning.

But again: is the number of actions the right metric? Is it better to make 10 small edits instead of one large one? I've forgotten the exact numbers, but WP:AWB users make something like a quarter-million edits per month. That would be about for 5% of all edits. Almost none of those actually add content. If you get "more edits" by doubling the number of AWB edits, would you call that success? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent). I don't know what WP:AWB does. Even after I skimmed the page. But like bots, anything that speeds up somebody's editing frees up their time to do more editing. Some people do a larger percentage of large edits versus small edits.

But yes, the total number of edits really matters. It is an easy metric. I know of none better. This chart can be broken down in various ways:

• https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/all-projects/contributing/edits/normal%7Cbar%7CAll%7C~total
• It is linked on this page:
• https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/all-projects

The chart can be broken down into edits by bots versus edits by users. And content and non-content edits. And English Wikipedia only. See options in sidebar. The default is all languages of all Wikimedia projects. -- Timeshifter (talk) 14:39, 12 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

AWB is a script that does automated and semi-automated edits to pages, such as fixing the simplest typos or moving ref tags before or after the punctuation (after the punctuation here, before the punctuation at wikis where that's the preferred style). The most common way to run it is to make a separate edit for every visible fix. This maximizes the number of edits, but the amount of content remains the same.

Your chosen metric says that using five AWB edits to make five tiny edits is better than using one edit to make the same five changes. Are you sure about that?

(I realize it's the only metric you know of. But that doesn't mean that the metric measures anything that matters.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:30, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of this thread from the very beginning, which you still don't seem to grasp, is that every click saved, and every increase in efficiency, means that more gets done in less time by the editors.

You seem to be implying that your way of editing is somehow better than other ways. You seem to be saying that a person who does smaller edits is not editing as well as someone who does larger edits.

No, that is just diversity in editing styles. That diversity has always existed.

So that means (in my opinion) that when there is an increase in the total amount of edits in a month then that means Wikipedia is being improved at a faster rate. The ratio of live editors who prefer smaller to larger edits may remain the same much of the time.

I could go into vast detail as to when and why I do smaller and larger edits, but it is not relevant to my point about the net result. It is simple statistics.

I have repeated several times that bots that free up the time of editors who were doing the same thing improves the content of Wikipedia too. By freeing up editor time to do those content tasks. You do not acknowledge this. It is annoying. It is typical of many WMF staff, and the groupthink that exists at times. -- Timeshifter (talk) 01:07, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But it doesn't work that way – not in the real world. Freeing up my time doesn't mean that I'll use it for expanding articles. People who do "backstage" work like gnoming or patrolling or policy writing would not suddenly morph into article creators if their self-assigned area of work was done. They might use the extra leisure time to play video games instead.

As for the rest, people who use the visual editor tend to make larger edits. Your metric says that their edits are systematically worth less than people who use any of the wikitext editors, or people who do little more than tag articles with Twinkle. The ratio has changed (especially outside of the English Wikipedia). Your metric also assumes that stopping edit wars makes things worse, and that using Twinkle to add a dozen tags to every page makes it better. It's not the worst metric, but it is subject to all kinds of confounding factors. It's probably sound for short-term measurements, but over the span of years, it's pretty weak.

Instead of assuming that more edits = more improvement, have you considered metrics like the size of Wikipedia (assumes that bigger = better), or actual quality measures, such as citation density and 1.0-type assessments (which can be largely automated now)? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 05:06, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent). The more metrics the better. I agree that I was/am making some assumptions. But they are based on long observation ever since I began editing Wikipedia in 2005. I created many of the first Wikipedia/Wikimedia statistics categories on the Commons. Many others have now filled them in with stuff in many languages.

So to avoid assumptions I looked in the last couple days for some hard separation between edits by people versus bots. Because I think we can agree that most content editing is done by people. Some content editing a bot can do is to fill in some references (usually with human oversight). Also, bots can translate articles from other languages so they can be put on English Wikipedia. The bots make many mistakes in doing both.

But that "content" editing by bots is a small number of edits when compared to the real content editing done by live editors. Live editors still have to find the references that bots may clean up. And live editors have to fix the translation errors, and check the references used on translated pages.

So, I uploaded this timeline chart below, and I find it to be a strong metric of the increase in the quality and size of content on Wikipedia.

And just as importantly, the status of the live editors as a whole as to whether they are able to maintain this huge Wikipedia pool of verified knowledge. If the number of edits goes down, then that means there is less oversight of the ever-increasing number of Wikipedia articles. Watchlists are what keep Wikipedia from going to hell from neglect, vandalism, and old info.

So anything we can do to make editing more efficient in the Visual Editor, and in the Wikitext editor, makes a difference. -- Timeshifter (talk) 13:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you believe that faster is better?

What if "fast" means I do my thing and move on, but "almost fast" means that I have a minute to look around and see a second change that I want to make? What if "fast" is distracting, but "fast enough" makes me feel relaxed and happy while I'm editing?

What if "efficient" means that I make a thousand trivial edits, but "moderate" means that I notice problems beyond a typo?

Software design can nudge people towards certain activities. If you had to choose between a system that efficiently fixed a typo, or a "slower" system that encouraged brilliant prose, which would you choose? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Now I understand why the developers and the WMF could make such a clueless decision as to make the Visual Editor launch a whole page rather than just a section. Because somehow making people wait up to half a minute for the Visual Editor to load an article will somehow help people create brilliant prose.

Or the creative prose inspired by making people dig through menus to do simple things in the 2010 and 2017 wikitext editors. I guess I am going to be meditating on great prose while looking at menus instead of doing more editing of the prose.

Or that while I am watching a Visual Editor page load I will map out all my text, links, and bolding. And then remember this bit of prose and formatting. No, that is not how it works. The whole point of a WYSIWYG editor is to see what you are creating while you are creating it.

So let's slow people down some more. That is what the 2017 WTE does compared to the 2010 and 2006 wikitext editors. Each iteration buries more simple one-click tasks in menus.

Hey, why not let the wikitext editor only open whole articles instead of sections?

I have many user subpages I use for editing different tables. When the Visual Editor included more table editing functions I started using it to edit some aspects of table editing. It is far more efficient at some aspects of table editing. I have updated Help:Table with what I have learned.

According to your logic I should go back to using my older, slower, methods of editing tables. In order to create great table prose. I reject your premise that quality output comes by doing things more slowly. -- Timeshifter (talk) 10:19, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a strawman there at the end, and several false assumptions on your part to boot elsewhere. Not being able to edit a section in VE is a technical hurdle and there is work being done to enable that. There is also work being done to make VE more efficient. Some of your premises should be rejected out of hand; why WAID has entertained them is beyond me. For example, The more metrics the better is simple garbage. Selecting and analyzing the correct metrics is a profession all by itself and starts getting into questions of what happens when you attempt to optimize one thing--does it cause expense at the others? --Izno (talk) 15:31, 20 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for msging. Being an active contributor I must give you feed back shortly. Pinakpani (talk) 05:03, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:06, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When you look up Heather Thomson former Real Housewives star, designer, inventor, consultant- Her image comes up with someone else’s BIO. - A New Zealand runners Bio shows up but the image is of Heather Thomson From housewives??? How can we get the image changed??????? Please help!! Memfit@gmail.com HeatherThomson (talk) 11:43, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:HeatherThomson, I believe that the instructions you are looking for are located at Wikipedia:Contact us/Article subjects. As your account has been blocked for a possible impersonation attempt, the e-mail option might be the most feasible for you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:25, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]