The consensus at English Wikipedia unanimously agreed (discussion link) to make VisualEditor the default choice on mobile web, especially for logged-out editors.

Use case(s) (list the steps that you performed to discover that problem, and describe the actual underlying problem which you want to solve. Do not describe only a solution):

As said in the discussion, VisualEditor was created and is intended especially for newcomers and those unfamiliar with longstanding source editor, especially but not limited to ones using temporary accounts.

Benefits (why should this be implemented?):

No need to explain further, do I? Nonetheless, the WMF–community relations has been notoriously shaky, especially recently. Not trying to imply that this task would improve the relations. Nonetheless, both the community and the WMF have agreed that editing on mobile web should be improved in some way, especially for smartphone users.

Details

Due Date: Tue, Jul 28, 7:00 AM

Related Changes in Gerrit:

	Subject	Author	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki	Esanders	operations/mediawiki-config	master	+0 -1

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Related Objects
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Status	Subtype	Assigned	Task
Open		ppelberg	T221185 Prepare visual editor to be a default mobile editor
Resolved		ppelberg	T351778 [MILESTONE] Offer mobile VE as default for at Edit Check partner + test wikis
Open		None	T349231 Implement custom abort listener while mobile editor is loading
Resolved		Trizek-WMF	T345298 Identify participating wikis for Edit Check (references) A/B test
Resolved		MNeisler	T352129 Verify proposing A/B test wikis will provide sufficient edit volume to draw conclusions from
Open		Trizek-WMF	T352126 Share mobile VE A/B test results and deployments plans with participating wikis
Resolved		DLynch	T352127 [Config] Enable the mobile visual editor by default for the initial set of wikis
Open		MNeisler	T359128 Pre-/Post-analysis of mobile VE as default (partner wikis)
Open		None	T361134 Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' for all other wikis
Open		MNeisler	T432293 [Analysis] Evaluate core editing metrics before and after VE default (mobile, en.wiki)
Resolved	Feature	Esanders	T431858 Make VisualEditor the default editor on enwiki's mobile web, especially for newbies and TAs
Resolved		Sdkb	T432026 Announce the planned deployment of VE as the default editing interface for newcomers (mobile)

Event Timeline

gh87 created this task.Jul 10 2026, 5:27 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJul 10 2026, 5:27 PM

Maintenance_bot added a project: VisualEditor.Jul 10 2026, 5:29 PM

taavi added a project: Wikimedia-Site-requests.Jul 10 2026, 6:46 PM

Sdkb subscribed.Jul 10 2026, 7:06 PM

ppelberg subscribed.Jul 10 2026, 7:57 PM

Esanders mentioned this in T361134: Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' for all other wikis.Jul 10 2026, 8:22 PM

Esanders added a parent task: T361134: Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' for all other wikis.

Change #1309727 had a related patch set uploaded (by Esanders; author: Esanders):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1309727

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Jul 10 2026, 8:25 PM

HouseBlaster subscribed.Jul 10 2026, 9:11 PM

TechnoSquirrel69 subscribed.Jul 10 2026, 10:08 PM

NightWolf1223 subscribed.Jul 11 2026, 10:38 PM

neriah assigned this task to Esanders.Jul 13 2026, 6:52 AM

ppelberg created subtask T432026: Announce the planned deployment of VE as the default editing interface for newcomers (mobile).Jul 13 2026, 4:01 PM

ppelberg mentioned this in T432293: [Analysis] Evaluate core editing metrics before and after VE default (mobile, en.wiki).Jul 15 2026, 8:58 PM

ppelberg added a subtask: T432293: [Analysis] Evaluate core editing metrics before and after VE default (mobile, en.wiki).Jul 16 2026, 8:15 PM

Dreamy_Jazz awarded a token.Fri, Jul 17, 10:04 PM

DLynch subscribed.Tue, Jul 21, 7:36 PM

ppelberg added a project: Editing-team (FY2026-27 Q1 sprint 2).Wed, Jul 22, 5:21 PM

ppelberg moved this task from Incoming to Release Prep on the Editing-team (FY2026-27 Q1 sprint 2) board.

ppelberg triaged this task as High priority.Wed, Jul 22, 9:02 PM

ppelberg updated the task description. (Show Details)

ppelberg set Due Date to Tue, Jul 28, 7:00 AM.

ppelberg moved this task from Release Prep to Code review on the Editing-team (FY2026-27 Q1 sprint 2) board.

ppelberg moved this task from Code review to Ready for Dev on the Editing-team (FY2026-27 Q1 sprint 2) board.

Now that we've finalized the metrics we'd like to track, and confirmed the instrumentation is in place required to do so, we're considering the deployment date finalized for Tuesday, July 28, 2026.

ppelberg mentioned this in T432026: Announce the planned deployment of VE as the default editing interface for newcomers (mobile).Thu, Jul 23, 7:54 PM

Change #1309727 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1309727

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-07-28T13:02:31Z] <esanders@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1309727|Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki (T431858)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-07-28T13:04:41Z] <esanders@deploy1003> esanders: Backport for [[gerrit:1309727|Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki (T431858)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-07-28T13:10:42Z] <esanders@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1309727|Set wgMFFallbackEditor to 'visual' on enwiki (T431858)]] (duration: 08m 11s)

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.Tue, Jul 28, 1:31 PM