Quoting Arvind Narayanan arvindn@meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in:
Second, even those feel semantic markup is important (and I offer myself as an example) aren't going to be bothered to write <math>x</math> instead of ''x''. The primary goal of wikipedia is parsability by humans rather than computers, and the former application is currently so predominant over the latter that I'm not willing to inconvenience myself for the sake of semantic markup.
But that's the point: <math>x</math> is parsable by humans. It means x is a variable, and is instantly understandable. Saying "x is typeset in italics" is a typography detail that means nothing abstractly to humans (except perhaps humans overly familiar with the details of typesetting math textbooks). It also makes Wikipedia basically a web encyclopedia, or else an ugly-looking print encyclopedia.
]-Mark
---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.