VisualEditor/Portal/Why/sco

The nummers
The abuin graph chairts the retention rate fer new eediters ower time, n the nummer o fawk that we hae acteevelie eeditin. Aes ye can see, it's na luikin guid. Wikipædia is in the middle o ae crisees regardin eediter nummers. We're drivin awaa ower monie newcomers, n we'r losin the lifebluid o onie collaborateeve waurk: the contreebuters.

What this means is that we simplie dinna hae the fawk tae dae the wairk that we need tae dae. Backlogs gae up n up, wi fewer people tae haundle the moontain o tasks at Special:NewPages, or the maintenance o biographies o livin fawk (BLPs).

Featured n Guid airticle promotions plateau aes aen ootcome o na haein enooch people tae na yinlie write the airticles, bit tae luikower n maintain thaim. Awbodie haes ae tale o aen aurie that thay wairk in whaur thaur's jist na enooch people tae get the job dun.

The raisons why
We'v gat ae proablem, n thaur's monie raisons why. Some people awaa cause thay dinna want tae contreebute producteevelie, n this is fine. Ithers awaa cause thay fynd the communitie ower hostile, or cause thay canna wairk oot whaur tae fynd heelp.

Bit ultimatelie, ae lot o people lea cause eeditin is jist ower complex. Back in 2001, whan Wikipædia wis foonded, ae lot o muckle steids expected uisers tae write in maurkup o vareeis forms, n we were yin o thaim. Writin maurkup wis ae commyn skill in people that wairkt oan the wab, whather that wis BBCode, wikimaurkup or even straicht HTML.

The problem is that it's now 2015, and we are, if not the only major site still using markup, definitely the only one using markup of this complexity.

Muivin awaa fae the maurkup
In 2015, people don't expect to have to learn markup to write something on a website. They're surprised when they come here and do, and most are not enthused by the experience. (We received some confirmation of that in a user test we conducted prior to the launch of VE.)

Monie new uisers dinna stairt bi ettlin tae dea muckle chynges; thay stairt bi ettlin tae dae smaa chaynges, n yet hae tae lairn the maurkup oniehou, jist tae be able tae read the eeditin panel. Thay get inteemidatit, n than thay lea, aes oor uiser tests demonstrate.

This need fer ae better waa tae eedit is sommit that the communitie haes recognised again n again, as early as 2004. We'r biggin the VeesualEediter in response; cause people hae speired fer it, n mair importantlie cause people need it.

The Wikimaurkup is awreadie inteemidatin til newcomers, n the level o inteemidation will yinlie increase aes ither wabsteids muiv forewaird. We'r biggin it cause gif we dinna, than that graph is gaun tae luik ae lot worse in five year.

We'r na expectin awbodie tae uise it (the soorce eediter will still be aroond), n we'r na expectin awbodie tae be convinced. Bit we'r determined tae dae ae guid job n determined tae demonstrate the impact that this saffware can hae.