Chemical structure diagrams seems like something there ought to be a
specialized free program to generate. If we standardized on such a
program, the article source should contain whatever input file to
that program was used and we can use its output (in PNG, or EPS
rendered in PNG) in the articles themselves. I don't think HTML is
adequate for the task. We'll need something similar for mathematical
equations as well at some point (though complex HTML with special
characters is a possible alternative there).
You Wrote:
posted to the Wikipedia-l mailing list at:
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>> I was trying to show a triple bond on the
>>
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Acetylene page. How is
>> in normally
>> shown using ascii text to html markup?
>
>There might be something in extended (ISO) character
>set that would work,
>but I'm not terribly familiar with those so far.
>
>A broader question revolves around support for images
>on Wikipedia--many of
>us could probably draw diagrams that would enrich the
>content of pages, like
>the chemistry-related pages, dramatically. We could
>develop them and
>release them under GDFL terms, and it would seem a
>shame to limit their
>availability and redistribution to off-Wiki linking.
>
>I mean, after all, dead-tree encyclopedias and even
>some dictionaries have
>illustrations. It's an interesting challenge, working
>within the confines
>of a primarily-text medium (Lynx is my primary
>browser, after all), but at
>some point, the *pedias should support pictures.0