* Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com [Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:40:46 -0400]:
Templates and refs are by far the worst offenders, for sticking tons of content in the page that doesn't have any obvious relationship to the actual content. Getting rid of them would be a huge step forward. But stuff like '''bold''' and ==headings== are also a real problem.
What's complex in '''bold''' and ==headings== ? Here when we've installed the wiki for local "historical records" at the local Russian university the humanitarians got to understand such things really quickly. The Ms or PhD in History cannot be that much stupid.. To me it looks like you are overstating the complexity of the wikitext. But yes, they are calling technical staff for complex cases, but it happens _rarely_. Historical records are mostly just plain text with links and occasional pictures.
Everything unexpected like that is going to increase the risk that a new user will get worried he doesn't know what he's doing, and give up rather than risk breaking something or put effort into figuring out what to do. If you give *anyone*[1] a WYSIWYG interface, they'll know how it works, because they're used to it from Word and whatnot. That's just not true of wikitext, no matter how simple it is once you *already* understand it.
Maybe, but it would be nice if source wikitext will remain as aliernative. Anyway, you're the head developers, it's upon you. Dmitriy