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Wikipedia launches new simple VisualEditor for contributors

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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Wikipedia has launched a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that makes contributing to the site easier for everyone. The old article editor, wiki markup, is difficult for newcomers. The simpler VisualEditor will mean contributors can focus on their articles, without being wiki markup experts.

The new VisualEditor has been available as an alpha test for a few months on Wikipedia in English, and now all registered users can use it. The classic editor is still available, and according to the site, there are still some functions in wiki markup that are not available in the VisualEditor. Experienced Wikipedia editors will therefore still be able to work as normal, but the foundation is trying to convince as many people as possible to use VisualEditor by default, so any bugs or problems can be ironed out as soon as possible. There are no plans to to remove the wiki markup editing ability.

Wikipedia launches new simple VisualEditor for contributors

Not all browsers support VisualEditor yet – current versions of Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are supported, but Internet Explorer is not. Wikipedia is asking for as much feedback from users as possible, to make VisualEditor as good as possible.

[Source: Wikimedia Foundation]

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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