Hoi, You misrepresent me when you say that I want the parser as is hidden under a WYSIWYG interface. I want the parser fixed .. I do not want us to use characters like the quote and the pipe. People who are using MediaWiki are not programmers. They do not need to carry the bagage of UNIX. The consequence is that we need to truly lose the connection with what went before.
At Wikimania, parsing was one of the big topics at the hackerdays. People like Ward Cunningham see a challenge that they relish. In my opinion, once we have a parser that can interpret what we have, it should convert it to something that is more sane. This conversion should allow for natural language independent behaviour, it means that anybody should be able to use their language and their keyboard and be able to Wiki.
Where you state that many people on this list are attached to their ability to edit directly, you are completely correct. The question you do not ask is, why should we keep an interface that as it is discriminates against natural languages and is mainly usable for it's more complicated functions to people who are Western and who have a background in computing? Would it not be better to have an environment where more people stand a chance to make these impossibly complicated functions work ?
When we make major changes to the wiki syntax, we will find people who say "my way or the highway". The question is should progress be held hostage to this type of blackmail?
From my perspective, having an environment where people can hack directly in
a text is fine as long as the resulting stuff is pre-parsed for sanity and only then saved into the main content. When there are things that can only be done in this direct type of approach, it is a bug and not a feature.
Thanks, GerardM
PS I know you care, however the way you state things is from my pov not the way we should go.
On 8/14/06, Rob Church robchur@gmail.com wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l