WYSIWYG Editing Now Available with Wikipedia VisualEditor

Wikipedia has always been an odd entity. The website built its reputation as the encyclopedia that anyone could edit, but its confusing and complicated formatting system, called Wiki Markup, ensured that only technically savvy users with plenty of patience could participate. Citing this complexity, the Wikimedia Foundation this week launched a new WYSIWYG (“What You See is What You Get”) editing interface called VisualEditor.

Initially available as a beta, the new Wikipedia VisualEditor will allow novice users to create and edit entries with simple controls that are familiar to the user of any modern word processing application. This includes buttons for text formatting, justifications, and lists, a drop-down menu for creating article titles and headings, and a graphical interface for creating references and inserting images. For anyone who has attempted to edit a Wikipedia article using Wiki Markup, the new interface is clearly easier to understand and use.

Wikipedia’s veteran users should have no fear; Wikimedia promises to leave Wiki Media markup intact for the foreseeable future. But for those who want to check out an easier way to edit the world’s largest collaborative encyclopedia, the new VisualEditor can be accessed via registered users’ Preferences. There’s also an FAQ and user guide to get things rolling.