On 14/08/06, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
As I explained before, the current wikisyntax is broken. It discriminates against those users who have keyboards where the keys, "we" who use a "US-keyboard" take for granted, are missing. There is no strategy and we are unwilling to consider how to remove the use of the codes to indicate italic script. The double quote is used in the Neapolitan language. Suggesting that our current functionality is great is demonstratively wrong. Your suggestion does not allow these things to be fixed because people will be up in arms when we suggest that these things need fixing. Like you many will suggest that they will vote with their feet.
I am aware that there are current parser problems. I am aware that these will need fixing in the medium term.
You continue to propose that the magical WYSIWYG interface will hide the markup, allowing us to do all sorts of interesting things behind the scenes. That's true, but it should not be the means we use to work around the problem. The problem needs to be fixed, not rebranded and swept under the proverbial carpet.
Step one should be to define the parser behaviour in a wonderful little document which allows us to then develop parsers left, right and centre as desired. This is an involved process which will require discussion with a huge user base and consultation and interaction between various numbers of people. Most of the current parser behaviour can be preserved; the broken and the undefined behaviours can be discarded. I know of developers who have expressed support for backwards-incompatible changes where undefined behaviour exists.
You continue to mischaracterise me as being someone who does not wish to see a WYSIWYG interface; who does not care about the current parser problems and who doesn't want to support fixing them. This couldn't be much further from the truth; I would be delighted if we had a WYSIWYG interface, that worked, for our new, uncertain and anonymous users. I agree it would reduce instances of people panicking and not bothering to correct errors due to fears of "messing it up".
The point I have made and continue to make is straightforward, and I am experiencing difficulties understanding where you are failing to do so. I have stated, and I think this viewpoint is supported by several people on this list who have commented on the issue, that I am of the opinion that removing our ability to edit the underlying markup of a page removes our ability to perform more complex editing operations, and will discourage users who are experienced in the use of wiki markup from continuing to contribute.
You bat back with unrelated analogies and straw men arguments. As a result, I don't think I want to continue participating in this discussion. I'm sick of people claiming I don't care.
Rob Church