On 26/01/06, Uwe Brauer <oub(a)mat.ucm.es> wrote:
Could anybody comment on that, especially on the issue
whether a
administrator has the right to impose the use of certain formating
constructs.
Well, when running a collaborative, and therefore community-oriented
website, which features of the software are used and how is down to
the power structures in that community. Wikimedia projects tend to aim
for a fairly democratic power structure, based on approximate
consensus - so formatting rules can be (and are) "imposed" on a
minority if a substantial majority agrees to do so. They can't - in
those particular communities - be imposed by any one particular user
*against* the grain of a consensus. If you're running your own wiki,
obviously you can choose whatever power structures you want.
As for technical issues to do with converting it, that's completely up
to who writes the converter, what the desired input and output is,
etc. If a community decided (either by consensus or by top-down
decision) to use <blockquote>, I'm sure somebody would come along to
"teach" any tool that community wanted to use to "understand"
<blockquote> appropriately. Using it *without* consensus, though,
would leave it as an "edge case" that may well not be supported as
well as people might like.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]