Hi everyone,
There have been a couple of conversations recently and I am hoping to
combine them into a discussion towards a long term strategy for math on
Wikipedia.
To get things rolling, I've added a few topics below which a strategy could
address.
Perhaps a disclaimer: I manage the MathJax project. Also, I've tried to be
brief but I may have compressed too much.
Peter.
(1) math output
Currently, low resolution PNGs are the default and registered users have an
option for MathJax (except on mobile). MathML3 is the web standard for math
and part of HTML5 and epub3.
Does Wikipedia want to adopt MathML output in the long term?
MathML is still facing a chicken-and-egg problem: little browser support
means little content means little browser support etc. While it's been in
use for over a decade, most MathML is hidden on intranets (technical
documentation) and behind paywalls (publishing). But there's clearly demand
-- e.g. MathJax CDN gets 65 million unique visitors per month.
Wikipedia's long term adoption of MathML would help this crucial web
standard for education and research since browser vendors will see the
content on the open web.
But a web standard is not a value in itself -- luckily MathML has real
advantages.
* accessibility
The few existing math accessibility tools (MathPlayer, ChromeVox, FireVox)
only work with MathML. Modern accessibility features like synchronized
highlighting (for learning disabled readers) is basically impossible with
image rendering.
* rendering quality
Image renderings are not only inaccessible, they lack quality and
flexibility. Reflow, CSS, alignments are the classic problems. Static
images could be improved via SVG but even these would not be accessible or
participate in line breaking. MathML integrates naturally into HTML.
* dynamic content
Math and science are becoming native on the web -- data and markup is not
forced into image renderings anymore, instead dynamic and interactive
content is finally showing up.
These don't fit into the current authoring and rendering solution on
Wikipedia. MathML would be a critical first step towards richer scientific
content.
* editing
Editing math is an obstacle for Wikipedia users. The GSoC project for math
in VE has a lot of potential to lower the barrier. But a live preview is
not very feasible with server side image generation.
(2) math input
wikitext is human readable and serialized so MathML does not seem to fit.
But TeX-syntax is robust and powerful to create any MathML construct. Texvc
has limitations (unicode support, graphical and dynamic content), but the
syntax could be extended to overcome these and to produce dynamic content
(mathapedia is a nice example).
An extended TeX-like syntax might serve as a safe abstraction for tools
like d3.js, processing.js, ensuring that Wikipedia content is not dependent
on specific rendering solutions. The same holds for physical, chemical and
biological markup. Such TeX extensions do make backwards compatibility to
real TeX/LaTeX more difficult.
(3) First steps towards a transition.
Client-side, only Firefox has decent support, so a polyfill like MathJax
would be needed for a while. Performance, especially on mobile, would need
a thorough investigation.
Server side, there are a number of tools for converting TeX to MathML, in
particular the recent work by Martin Schubotz towards integrating LaTeXML
(a fully featured LaTeX to XML converter); there's also BlahTeX and MathJax
via js-runners.
The question regarding new forms of content and wikitext might be important
for both client and server side solutions.
To pull in the entire community, something like bug 48036 (easier MathJax
opt-in) would be great. It would allow people to vote with their feet and
tell us continually if the benefits of MathML are worth the cost.