[WikiEN-l] MediaWiki is getting a new programming language

[Sheldon Rampton]

Charles Matthews wrote:

> I'm not yet convinced that the absence of WYSIWYG is a barrier to WP
> doing anything specific, and I don't believe that the usability  
> studies
> I have seen prove that it is. But then I tend to believe that the  
> issue
> with expository problems lies in the underestimation of expository  
> writing.


The question is whether WYSIWYG would make editing Wikipedia articles  
easier for most users. I think the answer to that question is fairly  
self-evident.

Twenty years ago there were similar debates about WYSIWYG with regard  
to word processors, just as there were debates about whether command- 
line DOS was better or worse than the GUI that Apple introduced with  
Macintosh computers. Some people back then argued that word processors  
like WordPerfect were better than WYSIWYG because you could go into  
edit mode and "see" the markup codes -- [b] for bold, [i] for italic,  
etc. Similarly, people argued that command-line DOS was better than  
dragging-and-clicking windows in a GUI because you could "see" the  
commands and their parameters. In the end, WYSIWYG and the GUI won.  
Most people don't WANT to see [b] for bold. They just want to be able  
to make the text bold. As a result, some once-dominant word processors  
died off, and Microsoft was forced to adapt by replacing DOS with  
Windows.

Wikipedia has enough earned reputation that path dependency will keep  
it on top of the heap for the foreseeable future, even without WYSIWYG  
editing, but sooner or later someone will develop a better alternative  
-- either within Wikipedia, or outside it.

-------------------------------------------

SHELDON RAMPTON
Research director, Center for Media & Democracy
Center for Media & Democracy
520 University Avenue, Suite 227
Madison, WI 53703
phone: 608-260-9713

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