But I think that in many cases the most natural wiki syntax
will simply be to copy directly the syntax of the HTML tag.
This will primarily be when the tag is reasonable to use
and has no security issues but will be used rarely.
If it's used often, then it's time to look for something simpler.
This is exactly what we're doing now on SourceForge for <table>
and on Jan's page for <var>, <sup> and <sub>; that's good.
But lack of < and > isn't inherently simpler;
any idea needs to be judged on its own merits.
And we shouldn't stop supporting a markup method that appears on our pages
(except when we're no longer supporting the HTML that it rendered as).
>As comfortable as all of us are with HTML, /we/ aren't the kind of
>people we want editing articles (except maybe those on computer
>subjects). We want Bridge players writing about Bridge, and cat
>breeders writing about cats, and campers writing about camping--the
>kind of people who have never even heard of HTML are the kind of
>people we want most to attract and make use of. We computer nerds
>are used to dealing with special syntaxes; it is we who should adapt
>to them, not the other way around.
I've argued that <b> is marginally better than '''
because more newbies (including some bridge players) will already know it.
Without that, I see minor arguments for both, but think that they're even.
(OTOH, I admit that '' is better than <em> when you ignore that
more people already know it, since <em> is hard to guess the meaning of.)
But I still don't see why it's wrong to have both,
written up on [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page]] for the uninitiated.
(And I wouldn't breathe a word of HTML on that page, BTW --
the origin of the markup used is of no relevance to the end user.)
-- Toby Bartels
<toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu>