Jan Hidders wrote for the most part:
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.
Just for clarity, I wasn't arguing that simple HTML like <b> is more difficult than ''', but just reacting to the suggestion of the reverse.
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.
My major disagreement with you in these matters is your desire to find a nonHTML wiki markup for every one of the HTML tags that's reasonable to implement, and your ultimate goal to discontinue HTML support at all. 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.
It's when people start using <DIV> and complex <TABLE>s and <VAR> and <STRONG> when things start becoming harder to understand and edit for the average user. Other than that there are also technical reasons such as the simplicity of the parser and the control that we would have over the HTML that we send to the browsers of the reader.
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>. We're discussing <var> on your user subpage, and people are working on <table>. <div>, even when used on regular web pages, is almost never appropriate, and I could see disallowing it (but maybe someone else knows why we need it). So I think that we're closer to agreement than it appears at first; I don't object to the practical results that you're likely to achieve, only to the fundamental philosophy that underlies your efforts ^_^.
-- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia-l@math.ucr.edu
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.
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