Quoting Arvind Narayanan <arvindn(a)meenakshi.cs.iitm.ernet.in>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
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