$890,000 for Wikipedia
By glazou on Thursday 4 December 2008, 09:52 - General - Permalink
So Wikipedia got almost nine hundred thousand dollars to "to make it easier to use". Let me praise the Stanton Foundation for this great decision. My hopes are the following ones:
- hide entirely the ugly wiki syntax behind wysiwyg editable areas. The "contenteditable" attribute is now implemented in most browsers and there is no real reason why we still have to learn/use wiki syntax. Wiki syntax is one of the reasons why I don't author/edit a lot of documents in wikipedia or wikis in general. There are tons of cross-browser wysiwyg editing layers available out there.
- it should even be possible to edit the document in a structured way, with visibility of the section headings only on one hand, and the whole content on the other. Just play with CSS.
- make a list of wikipedia-specific "tags" bound to UI elements to insert predefined sections like TOC, warning mentions and so on.
Comments
Yep, we really need wysiwyg DocBook editing for wikis
Hmm, "hide the ugly syntax entirely"... I'm sorry but I don't buy it. To me, Wiki syntax is what makes wikis attractive. I can see two reasons for this:
- wiki syntax is much richer than what a WYSIWYG editor can render. How would you render something like Wikipedia's {{Unit|200|m}} in a WYSIWYG editor? Note that the list of Wikipedia-specific tags is almost endless, and constantly evolving...
- wiki syntax is simple to use, simple to read, especially for hypertext documents. Editing a document in WYSIWYG always involves using the mouse a lot, or remembering intricate keyboard shortcuts. How can it be simpler than plain-English or plain-French wiki templates? E.g. would you find it better to type "Ctrl-Shift-U, 200, m" instead of {{Unit|200|m}}? What about later edits?
I have tried some wiki software with WYSIWYG capabilities: each time, my reaction was "where's the wiki syntax? what's the whole point of this 'wiki' thing without the nice syntax?". I guess it is the same reason why I prefer LaTeX over Word, Dotclear over Wordpress, etc.
Some users would surely like to use WYSIWYG editors. It's okay for me as long as it does not mess up the content, and it's surely okay for basic editing. However, I would fervently oppose the removal of the wiki syntax for all users. I am a regular contributor to the French Wikipedia and I like it a lot, but I fear having a WYSIWYG-only editor would be a sufficient reason for me to drop out of the project...
I agree with ChrisJ.
For example, the switch from the MediaWiki syntax to a WYSIWYG editor is what killed all will to contribute to MDC for lots of people. I don't event think about wiki templates. Just try to modify a link in the new Deki-based version, and compare to what it would have been with a wiki syntax. The loss of productivity is abysmal.
Wikipdia lack of rich text editor (WYSIWYG) is the major problem.
The current wiki text syntax is hard for beginners.
The point is that WYSIWYG editor to Mediawiki (the software that run Wikipeada) is available as open source and can easily adapted.
For example look at this web site: http://www.wiki-site.com/ that allow any one to open free wiki base on Wikipedia software with optional WYSIWYG editor.
Mostar
IMHO, the wiki syntax is quite opposite to the wiki software goals: enable most of people to interact through wikis. As I don't want wiki syntax to be learnt at schools, I hope a WYSIWYG editor will be available, into the medium-term future, within wikis.