Contributors/Projects/Editing performance 2

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Contact: Dan Garry

In order to better understand the performance of the 2017 wikitext editor relative to the 2010 wikitext editor, the Editing team has collected performance metrics for these editing environments. Definition of the metrics, explanations of how the data was collected, and an analysis of the data to recommend a course of action, is documented in Contributors/Projects/Editing performance. This page documents improvements that were made to the 2017 wikitext editor to reduce the amount of time it takes for it to become interactive.

Definitions

"Time to interactive" and "time to fully loaded", the two metrics used here, are defined in Contributors/Projects/Editing performance#Definitions.

Methods

The data collection methods are defined in Contributors/Projects/Editing performance#Methods. The same data collection method is used here.

The time to interactive was mostly improved by implementing T184614, which shows a temporary plain wikitext editor to the user while the rest of the toolbar code is still loading.

Results

No two real-world edits are exactly identical, and a single average provides very little information. To compare performance, the data set has been sorted by speed. This allows us to compare the faster (or slower) edits in each editing environment against the faster (or slower) edits in the other editing environments. Results are given below for particular percentiles. The number given at the 50th percentile (median) means that 50% of the edits using that editing environment were faster than the number given, and 50% were slower. Similarly, the number given at the 90th percentile means that 90% of edits in that editing environment were faster than this, and 10% were slower.

Data table

Performance data by percentile (after performance improvements)

Time (seconds) to interactive	1st	5th	10th	20th	25th	50th (median)	75th	80th	90th	95th	99th
Visual editor	0.613	0.817	0.972	1.225	1.356	2.156	3.747	4.403	7.014	10.853	39.080
2017 wikitext	0.202	0.264	0.310	0.393	0.431	0.642	1.026	1.232	1.868	2.748	8.570
2010 wikitext	0.616	0.798	0.915	1.102	1.188	1.694	2.721	3.159	5.215	11.295	117.292
Time (seconds) to fully loaded	1st	5th	10th	20th	25th	50th (median)	75th	80th	90th	95th	99th
Visual editor	0.614	0.818	0.973	1.226	1.358	2.159	3.750	4.405	7.013	10.831	39.048
2017 wikitext	0.430	0.604	0.726	0.917	1.012	1.603	3.003	3.522	5.486	8.879	39.167
2010 wikitext	0.717	0.924	1.054	1.264	1.362	1.933	3.102	3.597	5.875	12.087	118.806

Caveats

Assignment between conditions in this observational experiment is not completely random. Most users of the 2017 wikitext editor have made a deliberate choice to use that editing environment. We expect that users who experienced significant performance problems, within their personal computing environment, would normally stop using the 2017 wikitext editor. Similarly, we expect people who perceived the 2017 wikitext editor to be the faster option, within their personal computing environment, would normally be less likely to return to the 2010 wikitext editor.