> I admire the work you've done there. I think it's very impressive.
> However, I also think it's far too complex for a site where the
> accesibility level should be low. The syntax should be *very* simple
> -- markup rather than programming.
The *article* syntax should be very simple. It's already way too
complicated for the type of person who is supposed to be contributing,
with pipe tables, HTML, visual style markup, and so on. Currently,
only those who aren't intimidated by code can contribute to the
encyclopedia, leading to significant systemic bias.
> Do you see the need? I don't. All I see is people wanting to use one
> template in all situations, where they could easily use multiple
> templates.
Using templates, especially templates with complex markup and
conditionals, makes *article markup* simpler and easier to edit.
There are still plenty of people who understand them and can make
changes when necessary.
> How about none of them, and play with templates how they were designed
> to be played with?
How exactly were they designed to be played with? If they were really
only designed for one specific purpose, is there a good reason for not
expanding their breadth? If they can be used as an intermediate step
between editors and developers, and make the wiki markup simpler and
easier to use for regular people, shouldn't it be done? The
developers don't have time to do everything we want, but if other
editors can do it with templates, and it's not hurting the servers,
and it's not hurting anything else, where's the problem?
Obviously it would be better if this functionality was present in the
Mediawiki itself, but until it is, what makes these templates so bad?
They make the encyclopedia better.