On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 01:14:53PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
I do disagree with you there, thinking that ''' is more difficult,
although *only* because more newbies will know <b> to begin with --
they are inherently of pretty much the same complexity
(I see two minor arguments each for relative simplicity).
This is minor, and the difference will probably only lessen with time.
I think the relevant arguments have already been mentioned:
- both are equally easy to learn
- many newcomers already know <b>
- other newcomers are a bit intimidated by HTML tags
- raw text with ''' is slightly easier to read than with <b>
I argue that the HTML tag itself is the best wiki
markup for most of
these. It's just a few situations where we have something better, or where
the HTML is so complicated that we *need* something better. Then I'm with
you; I just wish that this weren't an antiHTML crusade.
That crusade is just me. Please don't let my extreme point of view stop you
from agreeing with more reasonable points of views. :-) Even I could
probably be convinced to use HTML tags for certain mark-up if we cannot find
good Wiki alternatives. However, if there is a good Wiki alternative then we
should use that and that alone. But you probably agree with me there.
Well, Lee has just informed me that <strong> and
<em> are taken care of;
it was only Phase II that rendered ''' and '' suboptimally as
<b> and <i>.
This means that the mark-up has even now again become more complex because a
writer now has to decide between ''' and <b> and know the difference.
If
there had been only one notation we wouldn't even have had this discussion
and/or the developers would have had to consult Wikipedia-l for adding new
mark-up. We are failing in keeping the mark-up simple. That is bad.
-- Jan Hidders
PS. This discussion is probably coming out of everybodies noses by now, so I
suggest we wrap it up, or continue it by e-mail.