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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