Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Reducing interface complexity
Project goals
The goals of this project are to identify software changes that can reduce the complexity of Wikipedia's interface, and to advocate for such changes on behalf of inexperienced and future editors.
Why this project is needed
- Inexperienced editors typically aren't aware of what is possible with Wikipedia, or where to discuss changes, or already-existing discussions
- Potential editors - including those who may have started to edit a page, become discouraged, and left, are totally unrepresented at Wikipedia
- Experienced editors often don't realize the amount of implicit knowledge that they've learned about Wikipedia, and thus underestimate how difficult it can be for others to learn how Wikipedia works
Software changes of interest to the project
Changes requiring developer involvement
- A "what you see is what you get" edit box, so that editors don't have to learn wikimarkup
- Status:
- A "Table" namespace, so (a) tables aren't in the main edit box, and (b) a WYSIWYG interface can be used for creating tables
- Status:
- Cite.php and notes improvements:
- Status: there are actually three separate initiatives underway, each with substantial progress; whether each is aware of the other, and the three can be integrated, is unknown:
- Magnus Manske's stunningly impressive rewrite of the user interface
- A "details" parameter for the "ref" tag that would eliminate the need for the hybrid Harvard-style footnotes (a "Notes" section and a "References" section)
- A parallel notes.php system or a parameterized "ref" tag that would eliminate the need for using templates for "notes"
- Status: there are actually three separate initiatives underway, each with substantial progress; whether each is aware of the other, and the three can be integrated, is unknown:
- Improving the diff engine. (Actual diffs where the engine has screwed up would be appreciated, here.)
- Status:
- Getting rid of wikilinked dates:
- Status - Bug 4582 discusses this at great length. User:Omegatron/Date formatting provides a simple solution. If it is too hard to implement, than an inelegant solution like <date> tags is preferred.
Changes that can be made by admins
- Changing the "+" tab to something easier for novices and visitors to understand
- Status: Fixed! (19 April 2008) - see Discussion on Village Pump and change to MediaWiki
- Changing the large box, viewable in the English Wikipedia when in edit mode, which is titled "Wiki markup", to a smaller box with selectable symbols, as is done in the Italian Wikipedia, the French Wikipedia, and presumably a number of other language Wikipedias. See, for example, fr:MediaWiki:Edittools
- Status: Discussed in mid-March 2008 at #MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Modification in the style of fr.wikipedia.org.
- Next steps:
- It would be easier to implement this if editors were given a choice in "my preferences" to switch back to the current box; even better if editors could specify, in "my preferences", the starting set of characters, with the default of "Wiki" (as in the French version) and the current set being available via "Classic" or "Large set" or something similar. Is this doable?
- Discuss at WP:VPPR.
- Add a box, on article pages, for readers to point out errors without learning wikimarkup or even having to be aware of talk/discussion pages
- Status: Example implementation with box that leads to custom "new talk page section" screen at User:Omegatron/Sandbox. Discussion at WP:VPPR#Reducing barriers to entry
Other changes
- Automated citations: a "one-click" browser option that automatically creates a citation for pasting into a Wikipedia article
- Status: Parts of such a browser extension already exist: WPCITE grabs a limited amount of information; anything found searching Google Scholar can automatically generate a cite with one click; User:DumZiBoT is a bot that makes a "best guess" for a page title, given a naked URL enclosed by "ref" tags.
- Comments: Content providers, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, would benefit from standard (universal) meta-tags for article title, author, date, etc., because this would make it easier for Wikipedia to send readers to their pages. Wikipedia obviously would benefit from such standardization.