Tarquin wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
The question isn't how easy "'''" is to learn. The question is how easy "<b>" is to learn. The answer to that is, it's pretty darned easy; therefore, since people will try it, it should be allowed. If having two ways to write the same thing is bad, then honestly "'''" should go before "<b>" does.
(Note the "if"; I think that "'''" is great -- easier to type. In fact, it should actually be rendered as <strong>, which is even harder to type but is almost always more correct.)
Or <em> maybe?
''' = <strong>, '' = <em>.
Many people comne to wikipedia completely ignorant of HTML. Many people on the net don't even know what HMTL is -- really! Some of them are my friends! Many people *with websites* use Dreamweaver or some such and have no idea what <b> means.
I don't see the relevance of that. It's not like they know what ''' means either before they arrive. Surely *more* people will know <b> than ''' before coming here, and most of these people won't be ace programmers either.
I think the most important point is that wiki must be easily readable in both raw & rendered formats. The eye skims over ''' very easily, whereas <b> and </b> arrest the flow.
This I think *is* relevant. Since I don't believe that we need only one method for every purpose, I would keep both <b> and ''' but still prefer ''' (barring making a distinction between them as suggested below).
I would hesitate before [removing support for] <b> and <i> in wiki markup, but I change those to the equivalent ' whenever I see them, and I don't think they should be encouraged.
I do the same changes myself, except in very special cases where <b> is actually more appropriate than <strong>. Then one day when I convince y'all to render ''' as <strong> instead of <b>, then everything will be perfect! I'm not about to get upset if you change by <b> to ''', however, and could be convinced to follow your lead exactly if you work at it; I'll only get upset if you mess with <var>, as explained in another post (not yet made, or look on Jan's page).
-- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia-l@math.ucr.edu