On 10/02/12 00:47, vitalif(a)yourcmc.ru wrote:
Hi again!
Okay. I've read all the answers and want to make a small summary for
myself (IMHO):
1) The MOST important: I think Wikipedia's markup complexity problems
are not the problems of Wikitext idea. I think WP should concentrate on
improving WP-specific markup (tons of various infoboxes and etc), maybe
move some templates to extensions, instead of changing the wikitext
totally or even worse - hiding it from the user.
Indeed, that's an important piece. We don't our new Visual Editor users
scared due to being yelled for some change the editor did for them.
2) I still beg MW developers to not throw the wikitext
idea away! (maybe
if it will prove being useless for ALL (100%) users one day - but I'm
sure this day won't come). Visual editor itself won't harm anything, I
will support it. But I'll say my users: if you want to make small
changes, here is the visual editor. If you want to write something big,
here is the plaintext.
If big changes can only be done with plaintext, there's something wrong
in your Visual Editor.
Also note, doing little plaintext changes expose the users to the
syntax, so they would be slowly getting more familiar with it.
3) I see there are usability talks. Improving
usability is good, but
targetting at people who don't want to be "technically proficient"
(emphasis: DON'T WANT TO BE, not just "ARE NOT") and just want to press
a magic button and "that's all" is not good. There are topics like
"internal vs external links, users tend to find one and ignore other" -
that's ridiculous, that's NOT the usability problem. I.e. I think we
shouldn't think of "usability initiatives" as of 100% correct ideas.
The Visual Editor is the candy with which you try to engage them.