Wikipedia's New VisualEditor Is the Best Update in Years and You Can Make It Better

Wikipedia has rolled out the new VisualEditor to all users. Editors of the English Wikipedia will get the new tool by default instead of the markup-heavy editor that has served the site for many years.

That tool is still available and power editors will still prefer it, but the visual editor should eventually become the main way new content is added or edited on the site.

For that to happen though, Wikipedia needs your help. Considering that the entire site was built by volunteers, including the new editor, it seems fitting.

"The next few weeks are going to be busy, as we iron out issues and work together to adapt to the new interface, updating help pages and templates, and welcoming new editors. We hope that you’ll join us in our efforts to make this transition as painless as possible," Philippe Beaudette, director of Community Advocacy, and James Forrester, product manager for VisualEditor and Parsoid wrote.

Existing editors can test run the new tool and see what they like and what they don't. They can provide feedback on the features they'd like to be included, what doesn't work, what needs more polish and so on.

While the new tool is significantly easier to use than the old editor, new contributors still need all the help they can get. If you can help with the documentation for the new editor, Wikipedia would be very grateful.

The site is also asking for help with templates. The new editor actually works with templates, but it needs proper metadata for this. This information is already available in most cases, it just needs to be formatted properly for the new editor.

Another way you could help is by translating the new tools. The VisualEditor is available for the English Wikipedia, but the site boasts support for dozens of languages.