On 02/07/12 17:33, Pavel Tkachenko wrote:
Giant mails follow, no panic.
2012/2/6 Gabriel Wicke <wicke(a)wikidev.net>et>:
The enriched HTML DOM we are
building (and actually most token stream processing including template
expansion) is not tied to any specific syntax or user interface.
It is tied to
HTML and it's the same. Even if all of current wikitext
features can be represented by HTML (which I doubt) there's no
guarantee that this will be true in furutre. This view has probably
led to current messy markup.
When I'm saying that HTML can't represent even current wikitext
features I imply that we're not talking about microformats and other
XHTML tricks. And if we're talking about plain HTML then why not use a
completely new format for storing DOM? Or at least clean XML without
any standard namespaces that in theory should ease rendering of DOM
into HTML (?). It will be parser-specific and won't suffer from future
changes of linked namespaces, will be simple to test, etc.
On Future/Parser development diagram HTML DOM is built right after the
stream has been parsed into a tree... in other words HTML5 is used to
represent wiki. With tricks.
But I'm already venturing into an offtopic discussion here.
But in any case, we first have to implement a
solid tokenizer for the
current syntax and recreate at least a part of the higher-level
functionality (template expansion etc) based on a syntax-independent
representation.
I agree on this one.
2012/2/6 Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Pavel, you're clearly both an intelligent
and
a technical man - but not all intelligence is of the same,
technically-minded type, and it's not always backed up by pertinent and
complex knowledge.
I'm flattered with your words, thanks, Oliver.
However, this does not explain why at first Wikipedians had no
troubles editing (and even creating) articles and now they are
gradually loosing this skill. Is this a result of general degradation?
Not necessarily. It doesn't mean that lose ability to edit, but it can
mean that the subset people which know how to edit no longer have
available the topics they can write about.
(this is just a reformulation of your below argument)
There are two subsets:
* People able to edit.
* People which can add knowledge.
At the beginning, the interesection was huge even if ability to edit was
low, just because there was a lot of knowledge missing. So as the
knowledge increases (eg. linearly) "people" appear to be more and more
stupid for editing.
I would hate to think this way and believe it's
more what Yury has
already said above - the project is just getting mature and,
naturally, subjects for new articles that are left require more than a
general knowledge while edits for existing articles are either
complete, require some special knowledge as well or are plain
unmotivated enough - new page patrol, "article babysitting", etc. are
all "dirty" work and by definition are not that interesting as adding
a new article section, prooflink or even correcting a simple typo.
(...)
The complexity
of our existing markup language is a barrier, but not as
much as the presence of any markup language whatsoever as a default.
Now this is
something specific to argue about. I must admit that your
speech has given me something to think about; perhaps you're right and
the fact that initial editors of Wikipedia have come from that "first
wave" of the Internet users - with this in mind it's understandable
why their number is wearing out.
The usability studies that you have referred to speak with one accord
that WYSIWYG is a must. I admit it sounds appropriate in that context.
Still, another link suggests that even non-technical people were able
to edit and (uh!) format text as bold and italic given a bit of help.
And then it notes that even before doing any edits - or seeing an
editor's window, be it text or visual - people were confronted with
dozens of guideline links and warnings.
Which problem is more important? How you're going to present users
with warnings in an inline visual editor? Or is it easier to just put
"I've read and understood the rules" fobber-off and consider the
matter settled?
Ability to edit and knowledge of rules are probably orthogonal. And
users have a inmense rule-blindness. They won't want to read pages and
pages of rules or tutorials. They just want things done (eg. change a
birth date)
I think most people act the same way. What was the last time you read
the VCR manual?
And we should take that into account, too, not making Rules/Tutorials
that look like EULAs.
Nonetheless, such thing would be hard to do.
More things to ponder about before my peaceful sleep,
huh.
p.s: I wonder why people who can actually give answers are quite often
not in the mailing lists.
2012/2/6 Amgine <amgine(a)wikimedians.ca>ca>:
As I understand it, for the foreseeable future
there will be a raw wiki
syntax interface available. I hope contributors can be reassured on this
point.
Combined with:
2012/2/6 Trevor Parscal <tparscal(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Make significant changes to what Wikitext is and
can do
The problem with this is that if present "raw wiki syntax" will
be
kept it will ensure that edits continue downfall.
I disagree. Its existence in the backend shouldn't influcence it.
The concern I
see being expressed, fundamentally, is "I have developed
skills, practices, and efficiencies with current Wiki syntax. Is your
new parser going to destroy my investments in learning? am I going to
have to start over with this new system?"
I think it's close in words but
not in the meaning. What will you
choose: cope with an old dusty car of your grandfather with annual
repairs, dyeing, cleaning or find a free day, go to a nearby shop,
choose a top-notch car with nano-tech-driven automatic repair, dyeing,
cleaner that will serve you for the foreseeable future?
How many programmers (given the opportunity) choose to maintain old
spaghetti code over refactoring it to something they'll have pleasure
working with?
Quite few, as you probably know. It's the same with common folk who'll
stick to old printer, scanner and copier than a new all-in-one device.
But it's not right and everyone knows that it's better when they break
this trend.
Your proposing is like adopting a new, highly improved C² programming
language and throwing all C code (which would be incompatible with the
new one).
You are not proposing to create a new C² language, but also to stop all
support for C.
2012/2/7 Jay Ashworth <jra(a)baylink.com>om>:
Correct, and it isn't merely investments in
learning; there are likely
investments in wrap-around-the-outside coding which assume access to markup
as well. Not All Mediawikiae Are Wikipedia.
I hope this was not a case for
keeping old markup running. Most of the
time it's better to provide backward compatibility module running on
top of the new system than to fix and repair the old system trying to
pursue mythical goal of supporting old versions.
Look at C++ STL and what it has become since '89. Look at Microsoft
Windows and if its performance on an 4xi7 core has scaled along with
Windows 95 on an 80356.
2012/2/7 Mihaly Heder <hedermisi(a)gmail.com>om>:
the millions of pages we already have is not easy
to convert in the
absence of a formalized wiki grammar
Indeed, but this can be solved by bringing
together all pieces of
modern wikitext under one roof and building a new strict grammar apart
from that. Then a converter can be written that will seamlessly
transform old syntax into new and warn user when this is not possible.
So you say "Oh, no problem. I will make this wonderful C2C² converter
that will seamlessly produce equivalent C² code from the original C one,
so you don't need to rewrite things from scratch. It will be
automatically taken care of."
Yes. Until that inline assembly that worked in C code makes a random
memory overwrite in the kernel. And that other function, which got a
compatible by luck of sizeof(int) == sizeof(void*), now in C² makes the
application die horribily... and so on.
From what I
know this is the direction WMF is going.
and some of them are already
afraid that this skill will be obsolete because of the new editor,
like the thread starter
This is the second time this argument appears in this
thread but I
don't understand it. Will you be afraid to "lose" your old coat that
has worn our in a bin?
If people is concerned about it, that's a reason to be concerned even if
it wasn't rational.
I think the reasoning can be explaines as it's better the devil you know...