VisualEditor

VisualEditor (VE) is an online rich-text editor for MediaWiki-wikis that provides a way to edit pages based on the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) principle. It was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with Fandom. In July 2013, it was enabled by default on several of the largest Wikipedia projects. By 2020, VisualEditor was enabled by default on most Wikipedia and Wikivoyage language editions. The Wikimedia Foundation considered it the most challenging feature to date, and The Economist called it Wikipedia's "most significant change" in 2011. According to The Daily Dot, the Wikimedia Foundation's pursuit of wider participation may regret alienating existing editors. In September 2013, English Wikipedia's VisualEditor was changed from opt-out to opt-in, following user complaints, but it was returned to being available by default (for new registered users only) in October 2015 after more development. A 2015 study by the Wikimedia Foundation found that VisualEditor failed to provide the anticipated benefits for new editors. VisualEditor is bundled with every MediaWiki releases since version 1.35, released in September 2020.