2009/1/9 Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu:
In order to solve usability, even for new users, I believe that you must write a new parser from scratch.
I disagree, though the project team may ultimately agree with you. The biggest barriers to entry for new users aren't likely to be obscure edge cases involving apostrophes; they're likely to be ugly blocks of syntax such as references, templates and magic words interspersed with article text. Those issues can be addressed without necessarily rewriting (or speccing out) the whole parser. It does seem that parser/syntax deficiencies become more relevant if we want to employ a two-way WYSIWYG/wiki-text model like the one that's currently being tested on some Wikia sites (e.g. twilightsaga.wikia.com).