----- Original Message -----
From: "Oliver Keyes"
<okeyes(a)wikimedia.org>
(1) relatively tech-savvy and (2) willing to jump
through unnecessary hoops
if you want to contribute, you highlight this; a custom extension is an
awkward way of doing things. and an unnecessary hoop. A custom extension
designed to work with a specific piece of software that is largely not used
by the general population is similarly going to restrict who can
participate, for precisely the same reasons that the existing markup
is a restriction.
Nearly thirty years experience on the net, starting in '83 with Usenet,
leave me entirely unconvinced that the underlying argument here -- that
the extra layer of filtering involved in having to *want* to contribute
enough to dig through the technical obstacles in the way is somehow A
Bad Thing -- is entirely tenable.
The tenor of discourse on the net has trended *steadily* down over those
three decades, IME, and I'm not at all convinced that making it easier to
contribute to WP is in fact the panacea that all the proponents of this
stuff say it is.
Go. :-)
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra(a)baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
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