Oh yes. Take away the tools those ungrateful high-volume editors have used for the production of the already mentioned high-volume contents. Really, really great idea. Has there anyone ever thought if there could be some kind of good reason why high-volume editors' preferences are the way they are?
Topic on Talk:Contributors/Projects/Removal of the 2006 wikitext editor
For the records, the quote continues with ", and the 2003 wikitext editor will load more quickly and take up less space on their screens than the alternatives."
Which is everything that matters. Who cares if editing efficiently is possible with the 2003 version, if only it loads faster.
I am sure that the "data" will not bear out the claim that only a "tiny part" of active users are using this editor. In some hours, a respectable number of high-volume users on German wikipedia uttered great dismay ("me, too") and the number is growing by the hour. I don't care about "less space" but about usability.
Great idea, let's piss off the high-volume authors without warning them beforehand. Who needs them anyway? It's their own fault that they use such an old editor.
Seriously: How are we ever going to gain new authors if you anger the existing ones?
Well, putting it back into use was added to the community wish list 2019 [https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019/Bots_and_gadgets/mw.toolbar_zur%C3%BCck]
Based on comments at Meta, it appears that editors at the German Wikipedia are asking for CharInsert, not the 2006WTE.
Yeah, in part. But both were removed, why? Beside being used by high-volume editors, for new users it raises the hurdle to use wikitext, which is much faster in writing than VE.
Both were not removed. Only the 2006WTE (the blue-gray buttons at the top of the editing window) was removed.
It appears that CharInsert disappeared because the German Wikipedia had a bug in its local gadget. I hear that a dewiki admin has fixed your local gadget.
It is better since that edit but not good. The previous special characters list was much, much better. It permitted to look for special characters in languages that use the Latin alphabet, for one thing. No, the only thing that really compensated for the change to the worse was this tool. It should be a standard preference.
They were simultaneously removed by the fallback to the 2003 editor, as far as I understand. This is extremely annoying. You don't seem to understand that a lot of us are simply interested in a simple-to-use standard tool that permits us to contribute content. We had this tool, suddenly it doesn't work any more. There is no adequate replacement. Now we have to look for a replacement that does nothing else but to bring back the functionalities we lost due to your actions. This can't be right.
I would be extremely annoyed if CharInsert disappeared, too. But these are still the facts:
- The problem is not the removal of the blue-gray toolbar from the top.
- The problem is not the use of the 2003 wikitext editor.
- The problem is dewiki's broken gadget.
Would you like to see proof that CharInsert still works, even without the 2006 wikitext editor? The 2006 wikitext editor was removed at this wiki a week ago. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and turn off the "Enhanced toolbar" (and the "New wikitext mode" in Beta Features, if you have it enabled). That will set your editing environment to the 2003 wikitext editor. Then click on this link: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Whatamidoing_(WMF)/Sandbox?action=submit to open a page in the 2003 wikitext editor. Scroll down past the edit summary, and see the CharInsert tool. Notice that it has a very extensive list of special characters.
The only (relevant) difference between this wiki and the German Wikipedia is that the German Wikipedia has a broken gadget that's screwing up the CharInsert/EditTools tools, and this wiki does not.
You are right that it works on this wiki. However, it worked on de.wp as well. It stopped working exactly at the moment the old toolbar was removed. Maybe there is a broken gadget on de.wp but it did work exactly as long as the old toolbar was on. So it seems there is a connection. Maybe the code was written so that it drew on the toolbar code (I don't know how to express it correctly, I am not a techie), and as soon as the toolbar was switched off, the gadget stopped to work. It is obvious that these two things are related.
The gadget might draw on the old toobar code; it is old enough that it would not be surprising. The interface admins at the German Wikipedia can fix the gadget (or remove it, and use the default instead).
I disagree with your point 1. There were also complaints about the missing blue-gray toolbar: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fragen_zur_Wikipedia#Bearbeitungswerkzeuge_fehlen
This page documents a replacement script. If anyone wants those blue-gray buttons back, then they should install the script. It can be used by individuals by adding it to common.js (for use at dewiki alone) or at global.js on Meta (for use everywhere). It can be used by whole communities if one of your interface admins would install it as a gadget on dewiki.
It should be active by default, as it used to be. Not by commons.js or global.js. Also for IP-editors.
The 2006 wikitext editor should not be active "by default", as "the default" has been the 2010 wikitext editor for at least seven years, and you will have hundreds or thousands, rather than dozens, of editors complaining if you force them back to older and less capable technology. IP editors have not been able to use the 2006 wikitext editor for years.
If you don't want to install this volunteer-maintained user script as a personal user script, then you must convince one of the interface admins at your wiki to install it as a gadget. It is not that difficult to do, but it can only be done by your local interface admins.
Many at de:wp are missing the functionality of de:MediaWiki:Onlyifediting.js which depended on the toolbar which is now gone. This tool was quite popular as it allowed the selection of special character sets by language.
Ok, it didn't use to be default, but imho it should. And i would wish that WMF only changes a running system, if it isn't broken by the change. The assumption that it is rarely used is, at least for de.wp, incorrect.