Sorry for the double post, but I realized this would perhaps be a better list to discuss this, as this involves more the MediaWiki software than Wikimedia administration.

Since that WYSIWYG thread is becoming excessively long, and I already wasted three hours trying to read the arguments, and didn't even get halfway through the thread, I'll just post anyway. Forgive me I repeat something already said.

There's two opinions that throw the baby out with the bathwater: one asks for complete WYSIWG editing, and the other one includes no support for that. Both of them have no chance of making it through, so try to pick things out of them that are beneficial and try to combine them.

I have "Show preview on first edit" enabled on my preferences, so I see the current state of a page every time when I click edit. My current approach is to hover down to where the edit box is and attack the blob of text indiscriminately, then click "Show preview" and make sure I didn't destroy anything. Most users do that, so we already have a wikitext->parsed text conversion going. Why don't we have a parsed text->wikitext conversion available too? For example, I could click on the "preview" text, type a sentence or correct a typo, make sure it looks ok, then click an "refresh boxes" button that would update the edit box with the text I added, and if possible, convert it to wikitext, where the current save and preview functions would still be available.

This has several advantages:

* There is a considerably lower barrier to entry

* Making a change on the preview pane will also update the wikitext, which allows users to see what changes they did, and more importantly, the wiki markup that corresponds to those changes, making the learning curve easier

* Seasoned editors do not need to touch the preview text; they can go straight for the markup in the edit box

* It can be disabled in a user's preferences, if it really gets that annoying for the user to have to deal with it

* More complicated edits on the preview pane, such as adding a wikilink, can be done only with button, essentially encouraging editors to learn wiki markup

* Adding unsafe HTML tags can be disabled when preview pane editing, or even better - all XHTML tags need to be added through the current edit box, to discourage their use

* No real changes to data storage, parser tests, etc...

Since it is not a matter of whether it is going to be done (as by what I understand, The Boss said that it should be done *eventually*), wouldn't that be a better approach, instead of forcing all users to have to go under a system they may not like?

Titoxd.